Survey Says: The Sequel!

Welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with Ian Wilkes, my partner in crime. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am doing fantastic, Jim. How are you?

You know, I'm also doing fantastic. Uh, so we're both doing fantastic because I think we have a fantastic episode here.

I'm excited about this episode. I look forward to our episodes. Each one is just, I just, I'm enjoying them. I hope our listeners are. And, uh, this one today is going to be fascinating, I think.

Well, this one is kind of a follow-up to previous episodes that we've done. We did 3 episodes on a church survey that was released, and we went through and answered each of the questions. And we discovered there was a new survey. Now, the church clearly puts out surveys on a regular basis on a wide variety of topics. And most of them are done under the radar because people who receive the survey, they're very targeted to certain audiences and certain people are invited to do them. I've been invited several times to do surveys, uh, some before we had begun this podcast, and I wish I had kept the screenshots of them because once you do them, they sort of lock up and disappear. You can't go back and revisit them, and they're not available anywhere publicly. But somebody posted screenshots of a survey that I thought was really interesting. I sent the link to you, and you've looked through it as well. But I thought it was fascinating because anybody who thinks that the brethren don't know what the problems are and don't know what the pain points are that are driving people out of the church. I think anybody who thinks that is extraordinarily naive because they do such extensive research and they have so many resources to be able to gather that information that I think they know things that we couldn't possibly even imagine, some questions we don't even think to ask. I think they've been asking them. The Church has a wealth of knowledge about what the reaction to certain things the Church is doing or not doing is among members and among non-members. I mean, the amount of data that they have access to is just staggering. And this survey seems to be focusing on why people go to church. And it reminded me of a column. I went and dug it up. This is a column written by Jana Reese. Are you familiar with Jana Reese?

I've heard the name.

Yeah, Jana Reese is a columnist for the Religion News Service. She is a member of the church. She's very much a nuanced member of the church. A lot of the very conservative, desnat types really despise her. Which is maybe one of the reasons why I like her so much. I've met her on a couple of occasions, and she wrote a column, and the title— she has a regular column called Flunking Sainthood, which I think is a very clever title. And the headline of the column is, "Which church is true isn't the right question anymore." And in the middle of it, She says, we are still behaving as though which church is true is the question most people are asking. Our missionaries tell the story of Joseph Smith's first vision in which he asked that question, and the Lord clarified that none of the existing churches were true. Missionaries today affirm that this was because priesthood authority had disappeared from the earth, uh, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true religion because it still has that priesthood authority. Fair enough, that's church doctrine, but it no longer speaks to the questions young adults in this culture, at least, are actually asking. Which church is true is a question that's predicated on certain cultural assumptions. For starters, it assumes a situation of Christian pluralism, but not interfaith pluralism. In the 1820s, when Joseph Smith was a teenager, nearly everyone he knew was at least nominally Christian. The only confusion was about which kind of Christianity was optimal— Congregationalist or Catholic, Methodist or Baptist. If Baptist, the free will folks or the foot washers. Our culture still has a proliferation of Christian choices, but they've been joined by world religions that were not part of a daily life in America in the 1820s. Today, Islam is growing faster in this country than Christianity. Buddhism, while still a small minority of the population, is also on the rise from both immigration and conversion. And the fastest growing religion in the country is not having a religion. That last point is important. More Americans, especially young adults, are opting out of religion altogether. As one of them said to me recently, why do I even need religion? Like at all? And that's the question I think that is driving this survey here, because these are all questions about why you need a church, why you need religion, and they're trying to gauge just how many people would be asking Jana Reese's question about why do I even need religion at all. So I think we should approach this the same way we approached the previous survey. Uh, there are fewer questions here, so I think we can knock this all out in one episode. We're not gonna have to break this up into multiples, but I very much want to hear your answers to these questions, and I am very excited to provide my answers to these questions. So the way this is formatted as well, like the previous survey, uh, you're, you're given a statement. And it says, please indicate how much you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. Select one response for each statement. And you're asked if you strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, or strongly agree. So those are the 5 options that just give the gradations of how much agreement you have with the statement that is offered. So, I'm going to dive in here, Ian, and I'm going to provide the statement, and I want to hear what your answer is and maybe have you expand on what the answer is. So, the first statement is, "I go to church because of tradition." Now, I guess that's a hard one to ask of you because you don't go to church at the moment. Is that so? So how would you respond to that in terms of strongly disagree to strongly agree?

Yeah, I would agree. You know, I'm a convert to the church, but being in the church, you know, well, I was in the church, what, 35, 37 years. It becomes traditional. You know, you get up on a Sunday morning, you know, your meetings, et cetera. It was like a routine thing, right? The church is very regimental.

It's very routine.

And that is very process-driven. You do certain things in certain ways, a ritual. The temple's a ritual. Everything's a ritual. And after time, even a short space of time, it becomes routine. It then becomes tradition, and then it transforms into culture. And by the way, I wanna add this to this question, which ties to what your introduction, some of the points in your introduction. The church is way more sophisticated. Than what we give it credit for in regards to knowing and understanding the issues out there. I think we, you know, we're way beyond that. The church is incredibly intelligent, looks at these responses to these questions, looks at each issues that they hear on podcasts. You know, I know they've got people that listening and screening in podcasts and people's online comments, activity. They will screen that. They will gather all that information, not just from these surveys, Jim Bennett, but many, many other sources over many, many years, and they will have AI and they'll have other people and professionals, non-members and other people, legal people, et cetera, who will be poring over this information and they'll be strategizing and coming up with how these issues are impacting the church now and what's the long-term impact on the church as well. They'll have the risk management organization involved and they will have an intimate understanding and have internal reviews and questions and surveys within their own leadership. For example, I've been part of surveys where bishops or stake presidents have just been required or requested to be involved in, or other general authorities that I'm aware of have been asked certain questions. So the church is way more sophisticated than what we give it credit for and is intimately involved in understanding all kinds of issues and has got systems and tools now for collating it all and understanding it all. And I think this is a question that deeply, uh, is, is of real interest to the church and deeply affects the church. You know, why do people go to church? It knows that, you know, if it can keep people doing the things that it wants it to do, you know, keep going to church, keep doing these things, the church relies entirely on the goodwill and good faith and volunteerism of members. It couldn't function without 98% of the organizations run by, or 90% run by people who are not paid through good service of people. And why are people going to church is traditional thing. And so if it can maintain that tradition and then speak about tradition, the importance of tradition in the scriptures, it talks about the dangers, I think the Book of Mormon, of following unrighteous traditions. I think in the Book of Mormon, Alma talks about the wickedness of following the fathers of tradition. Do you remember that?

Yeah, sure.

I think the church is more sophisticated where it can build on that. So it gets this, asks this question, gets some feedback. People say, yeah, we're going because it's traditional. Well, that's a good thing in some ways. The church can build on that and split that message to say, hey, these are great, these are important traditions, protect them, honor them, keep going forward. So I think that's the psychology behind the question. But my answer to that question, and I won't give as long an answer to every other question, of course, I'll just give you that one response, longer response to that first question. But my answer is yes, I, you know, I agree. I went because it became a tradition and I'm a convert to the church.

Um, yeah, I'm trying to think where I would put this in terms of my strength of agreement, because I don't think I go to church solely out of tradition. I like to think I go to church because I believe it's spiritually valuable to worship with the saints. That there is strength in that kind of communal relationship. I think that's one of the great— I think that is one of— I think at the very top of the benefits of being a church member is the strength of community, which makes me very concerned that we have done so much to erode that sense of community that was so strong when I was growing up. You know, I'm not a convert to the church. I was raised in the church. And for most of my growing up years, the church was my world. The church was my universe. And pretty much every aspect of my life was tied to it. And the members of the church were my people. And that's still the case today to some degree. But so much of what was important in those early years of my formative years of my life was that sense of community and, and the things that the church did that really had nothing to do with doctrine, that had nothing to do with teachings or study. It had to do with just being involved in activity, you know, whether it was us putting on road shows, you know, our ward put on a production of The Music Man that my parents directed that included every stinking member of the ward on stage, and we performed it for the rest of the stake. There's nothing in church doctrine or teachings that has anything to do with that other than the power of building the community. So I, I think that, that, that sense of community is probably the primary reason why I have gone to church for a great deal of my life. And so, but certainly tradition is kind of wrapped into that. So I would answer this, I go to church because of tradition. I would somewhat agree. Because certainly tradition is part of that. And I don't think that's— there's anything wrong with traditions. You know, the Book of Mormon does decry traditions of their fathers which are not correct, but it doesn't decry tradition for tradition's sake. Correct traditions are to be preserved and are to be honored. And there are so many traditions in my life that have been passed down to me, whether they're family traditions, whether they're church traditions, whether they're cultural traditions from, you know, the political world, you know, from being a United States citizen. There's certainly— there's an American culture. I think you are very right to tie tradition to culture because I think they're inextricably woven together. So I certainly— I go to church somewhat for tradition. I think part of the psychology behind this question too, though, is they're trying to see if people only go to church for tradition, that there are people that just go to church because it's what they've always done, not because they believe in any of it. So I think this question is a blunt instrument— or blunt is the wrong word. It, it, this isn't, I don't think this is a very effective question at eliciting the kind of reaction they're looking for. Uh, would, would you agree with that?

No, I think for a reason I said earlier, I think, I think the traditional, as I mentioned earlier, people go, there's a routine, there's a regiment to it. It is a cultural component and it becomes traditional. And I think a lot of people go, I, I'm not saying I went just because it was traditional. I went for the other reasons that you mentioned as well. I think tradition's an important piece because it deals with routine and the stuff that you become familiar with. So I think it's a really, really good question, actually, a really important question. The church is trying to find out to what extent are people going because it's traditional for them to go and how important is that for them. I think it's multi-layered, this, multi-faceted. Again, I start The psychology behind it, right?

No, I agree with that, but I don't think an answer to that question is going to give them the multifaceted information that they're looking for. Because when I answer that question, I somewhat agree. They, they don't have access to all of my reasoning as to how I arrived at that answer.

But they can quantify it numerically. That's what I'm saying. So if you say, I somewhat agree. Like me, you know, I, I, I, uh, uh, agree, uh, strongly agree, actually, uh, you can count how many of those strongly agrees, you can quantify it numerically, and you can batch it. If you have a little graph, you could see where most people are answering the question in this graph, you know, in the top right corner, people gonna somewhat agree or strongly agree depending what the results are. And you can see, yeah, tradition's important to people, They're so, you know, there's about 80% are in the top right corner of the graph. They strongly or somewhat agree it's important to them. That informs their strategy, informs their talks, their lesson material, what they're going to talk about at conference. So I, I think this, uh, these, um, uh, it looks phenomenological, I think, in terms of the questions, but there are positivistic or tangible ways of quantifying this information numerically to show them where those patterns are in a graph visually. And I think that's what they're doing.

All right.

All right.

Well, so we have some somewhat disagreement here. So that's good.

Yes. Yes. We don't have many, but this is good. This is why we're here, right? So, okay.

All right. Let's move on to the next question. Do you want to read that next one?

Sure. Yeah. Here it says, faithful members should strictly follow the Prophet's counsel. And it goes from strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree or disagree, somewhat agree, strongly agree. Again, the question is, or the statement is, faithful members should strictly follow the prophet's counsel. What's your response to that?

Oh yeah.

Should I go first? Yeah, go ahead.

Uh, So again, this becomes difficult because there are words where I would want to get a more fleshed-out definition. Uh, the two words that I've got here, uh, that I really want to dig into are the words faithful in terms of faithful members What does it mean to be a faithful member? I mean, if they had phrased this question, members should follow the prophet's counsel. And oh, it's really interesting there because counsel's misspelled. They spell counsel C-O-U-N-C-I-L.

They do.

And what they mean is advice, which would be C-O-U-N-S-E-L.

Correct. Wrong type of counsel.

Yeah. So, um, so now I'm wondering if this is actually legitimate because I, I can't imagine the church sending something out, out with a misspelling like that.

Well, just on that, by the way, I've, I've read BBC, ITV, other major news channel articles often, and I am surprised how many misspellings is in their editing. Really, honestly, it, it The people make mistakes. This is legit. And I think they just misspelled it.

All right. Well, so, so if, if the question were members should follow the prophet's counsel, I would have absolutely no problem saying strongly agree. I absolutely believe we should be following the prophet's counsel. Now, when you add the modifier strictly, there, all of a sudden I go, okay, well, what do you mean by strictly? Because when I follow the prophet's counsel, I am internalizing that counsel in a way that is unique to me. Well, one of the biggest criticisms I get, particularly over my CES Letter reply, for instance, is that Jim Bennett isn't defending Mormonism, Jim Bennett is defending Jim Bennett Mormonism. That there is a version of Mormonism that is unique to me, and that's what I'm talking about. It's not the real Mormonism. And I always say, I agree with you. Where I disagree with you is in the idea that there is such a thing as a Mormonism that is not unique to each person who practices it. Everybody has their own version of how they live their religion and how they live their faith. And so, if I'm following the prophet's counsel in a way that I feel inspired to do, and in a way where I am interpreting that counsel in a way that might be different from how you or anyone else would interpret that counsel, a lot of people in the church would point to that and say, Well, you're not strictly following the counsel, because I think the word strictly is trying to say that there's really only one way to follow the prophet's counsel, and that if you're interpreting this in some kind of way personal to yourself, that that isn't really a strict adherence. This is the same kind of thinking like when we were missionaries. And we were supposed to live rules with exactness. I think it's the same kind of thing, that there's this kind of strictness, exactness. There's an expectation there that I don't fully understand because I think the, the most inspired counsel, for instance, that we've received from the pulpit in the last few years has come from President Nelson's multiple now, because he reiterated this in this last conference, but his multiple calls to be a peacemaker. And I feel that that really resonated with me. And I have felt this conviction that, okay, in my online discussions, even in my personal discussions, Being a peacemaker is essential, and I'm going to follow that counsel. And in my mind, I'm strictly following that counsel. And yet there are many people online. I made the mistake in the last couple of days. This is a little bit of a tangent, but when I saw somebody had sent me a Reddit link and I saw a reference to myself on Reddit, and I went and searched all my mentions, all the times in the last few years where people have mentioned me in different subreddits. And I responded to some posts that were like 2 or 3 years old. People were like, what? Where are you coming from? You know, but, but one of the, one of the criticisms, what was interesting is the people who were nicer to me were people actually outside the church. Not all of them. I got into a fight with a guy who had left the church who says I'm deluded and I'm a terrible guy. And somebody just today has said I'm just like an anti-vaxxer. And I was like, what is that? I didn't get that at all. Uh, I am not an anti-vaxxer, but apparently because I don't criticize the church enough that I'm just like an anti-vaxxer that is helping people die. And I'm like, that's a really terrible comparison and I have no idea what you're talking about. Anyway, but, but the criticism I get from members of the church is that I'm not nice enough to the Desnats, that I'm not a peacemaker when I push back against people who I think are not peacemakers. And, and so they point to me and say, You're not, you're not, you're not a peacemaker. You're not strictly following the prophet's counsel. You know, the whole Nemo the Mormon incident, which I think has finally died down, so I probably shouldn't be mentioning it again. But the accusation that was leveled against me by the anonymous account on Twitter that was linked to the member of the choir who provided the picture They said, you know, you're a hateful person because I've said so many terrible things about Donald Trump. And that was the thing. I'm not a peacemaker because I'm inviting anti-Mormons to infiltrate the choir, which never made any sense to me. I mean, how are we— were we trying to take the choir over? Were we going to overthrow Mack Wilberg? And I mean, it's just But the accusation was, Jim Bennett, you are a divisive, terrible person. You're not a peacemaker. And so in my mind, I'm following the prophet's counsel. But there are plenty of people out there who are willing to point to me and say, you are not following the prophet's counsel at all, let alone strictly following. So that modifier becomes very problematic. And then the modifier faithful members, because I think all members should follow the prophet's counsel. And slapping a modifier like faithful on there is, I think, somewhat divisive. And like, okay, well, what constitutes a faithful member? And how, how does that mean members without temple recommends? Don't qualify as faithful members? Does that mean members who don't go to church more than once a month?

Or—

I mean, there are all kinds of ways where you can sort of draw that line and say, well, here's a faithful member, here's a member who is not faithful. And so those two modifiers, I think, really skew the question, at least for me. Because then I would go from strongly agree, where I would strongly agree that members should follow the prophet's counsel, to somewhat agree that faithful members should strictly follow the prophet's counsel. Because I would not agree with that statement if somebody is defining what is faithful and what is strict adherence to the prophet's counsel in a way that I would not define faithfulness or strict adherence. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense. I've said before, the people behind these questions are very smart. These questions are carefully designed. They carefully put together each word. Very smart. Secondly, the psychology, uh, behind these statements or questions. This is a statement and you're asked to, uh, agree with it or not. Those words put in that order are deliberate. And strategic and actually quite significant and interesting because it looks at people's reaction. You know, to what extent are they truly committed to the prophet, you know, in terms of living with, like you said, living with exactness. As missionaries, we lived with exactness. On being a bishop and a stake president, there were times in my life where I lived with exactness. And if you'd have asked me, you know, back then, I would probably say somewhere between somewhat agree or strongly disagree in regards to faithful members should strictly follow the prophet's counsel. We also have some, an understanding of what we mean by faithful. And again, from leadership callings and other callings, we have specifics, full tithe payer, serving in the church, um, temple recommend all that, attending the temple on a regular basis. Leadership qualities, you know, that comes into it as well. There's a whole conversation around that. And so there is an understanding, albeit a generic understanding, of what we mean by faithful members. If you ask people in the church, what is a faithful member? They will give those answers and probably a few others as well. If you ask the leaders, they'll probably give you something similar, right? So in the minds of the members, that's what they're thinking. Um, you know, that you have to be living a certain way to a certain standard, certain level to be determined as a faithful member. But it's loaded because if you are a faithful member, you know, one of the questions in the temple recommend questions is do you sustain the prophet as the prophet seer revelator of the church? Can't remember the name of the the actual question, um, right now, but you should be able to remember them word for word. But if you answer that question, you get a recommend, then technically you follow the prophet, even on things like COVID. If he tells you to do something on COVID, you agree, you should really be strictly following him. I think the churches want you to know to what extent people are willing to commit to the prophet. Do they question him? Are they somewhat kind of lukewarm on some stuff? And they've deliberately put that faithful word in there to kind of, uh, get a raw reaction. So I think it's a very intelligent statement. I think it's quantifiable. For reasons I explained earlier, they're trying to find out, you know, how far can, are people willing to go in terms of following the prophet exactly? And they probably have. They probably, they've got short memories in regards to the reaction that they experienced, that they saw when COVID was here, when they were giving, you know, the prophet said, you know, take the, um, you, you must take the vaccine, you must follow the, uh, professional advice, and you had a, a bit of a reaction from, from some people. So again, this is an important area for them. They're concerned about this and they're concerned about the, the, uh, on, you know, to what extent, members willing to go to strictly adhere to the prophet's counsel. Even though they misspelled it, I think it's, um, a very strategic question. Anyway, back to you.

Well, no, I think, I think it, I think this next question is, is, uh, very clear, and I think the answers to it are very helpful. Would be very helpful to the church. The question is, I need religion to be connected to God. And that goes back to the Jan Rees thing, is that the fastest growing religion in the country is no religion. Is people, they call it the rise of the nones, N-O-N-E-S. You know, people are asked in the census, what religion are you? They say none of the above. So the rise of the nuns suggests there are a number of people who say they don't need religion to be connected to God. And I think the church is very concerned by how many in the rising generation would, would agree with this statement, because that seems to be where so much of the youth is going. That there are estimates that somewhere between 70 and 80% of children of record leave the church when they turn 18 years old, that we're not retaining our, our youth the way we used to in times past. I've seen statistics that say somewhere around 50% of returned missionaries, uh, are no longer active in the church within 3 years of their mission. So more and more and more of the rising generation are turning their backs not just on our church, but on religion in general. Uh, you know, our numbers— those numbers are really discouraging. They're a lot better than sort of mainline Protestant churches, which have just seen a massive implosion —of people just leaving in droves. I think they've seen something like a 90% drop in membership over the past 50 years. So, so our church has done quite a bit to sort of defy the trend, at least to some degree, but we can't defy it entirely. And so there, I think there are a lot of people that have decided that religion is not an essential component to how they connect to God. So I'm trying to think of how I would answer this question, because again, maybe I'm thinking too hard or I'm overthinking it, because when I'm asked that question, do you need religion to be connected to God? I would respond by saying, what do you mean by religion? Because I think I would strongly agree that you need religion to be connected to God if you're defining religion as sort of some kind of belief system about God. I, I don't think you can connect to God unless you believe— first of all, you believe there is a God, and you also have some sort of sense of who God is and what it is you're trying to connect with. And that sense of who God is and what you're trying to connect with, I think, can only be defined as religion. Now, again, this is, this is different from saying Do you need a church to be connected to God? Because in the scenario I've just described, you could have over 7 billion religions because every single person would have their own idea of who God is and their own way to connect to them and their own idea of how to worship them. And so, so I think that that it's self-explanatory that you need that to connect to God. But I think what this question is trying to ask is, do you need an organized religion, a church, some kind of institution to be connected to God? So again, I think maybe we may disagree as to whether or not— how well thought out these questions are. I think you're probably right and I'm wrong in that there's a strategy here that I may not understand, but on its face I look at that and go, uh, I think they're— what they want to know is, do people think they need a church to be connected to God? And I would somewhat disagree with the idea that you need a, an institutional church to connect to God. I don't know that I'd strongly disagree, because I think an institutional church can facilitate and help that connection to God, and in, in many ways, and in my life, it has. Having the church as an institution has, I think, greatly enhanced my own connection to God. But I cannot deny the reality that there are people outside of the church, outside of my church, in other institutions who have found a divine connection, and that there are also people without any institutional support who have found a way to create divine connection. So I would somewhat disagree with this only because, only because I think that the institution really is helpful in facilitating that connection. But in that somewhat disagree, I'm interpreting this question, I think, not on its face value, that, that I think a religion and an institutional church are two different things. So how would you answer this question?

Yeah, interesting to hear your perspective of this. We've said all along that your background and perspective is very different to mine. We've talked about that quite a bit. And that informs your, you know, your experience in the church. You talked earlier about Jim Bennett's version of Mormonism is unique to Jim Bennett. And I think that's a very profound thing to say. And we, we look at this, we, uh, very differently, you and I, some of these questions so far, at least in the other questions that we've gone through in the other surveys. Um, and I'll touch upon that in a second, but my answer to that question is I need religion to be connected to God, strongly disagree. Where I'm at right now, I do not need a church, which I don't think the church, the, the, the, uh, uh, church's meaning on this one, by the way, I think it means exactly what it's saying, which is religion. I'll touch upon that in a moment, but I don't need a church or religion to be spiritual. I get my spirituality from these podcasts, the feedback we get back from the podcasts, knowledge that trying to help someone in some way at some point. Over an issue. That's really important to me personally. Nature. I get a lot of spirituality from nature. I get it from my family. I feel their spirits, my loved ones, my friends, you. There are people in my life who are very dear to me. I get a lot of spirituality. I'm quite philosophical. I, I've got a telescope. I like, I look at the stars and the sun and the moon and not the sun. No, I'm not the sun. Um, too bright. But, um, uh, you know, the Jupiter, Saturn, actually seeing these planets in their real, um, form through a powerful telescope, and it just absolutely blows me away. It just, it's just, I find it incredibly profound and spiritual and emotional. You know, when I can see the rings of Saturn, it just blows me away that these, um,, these planets exist. I think it's just extraordinary. And I get a lot, I get my spirituality from, uh, those sources. If we look at religion, um, you know, what does that mean? It's a, to me it's a system of beliefs. It's a belief system of based on certain principles, standards, values, practices. You know, these are sacred spiritual, uh, topics. Involves worship and moral code, rituals, regime and routine, traditions, culture. It relates to a worship of a supernatural being or a deity. That's, to me, that's religion. There are different religions. There are different philosophies that people subscribe to. You know, they are in their own rights, probably some form form of a religion. But in regards to the question, I don't think the church meant church. I think it meant exactly what it said. I think it said religion, and it is concerned about what you said earlier about whether people like see religion as important or not, or what is their religion. We live in a very different time now, you and I, Jim Bennett, from serving missions. We've got technology, this podcast. I mean, my goodness, who would have thought we'd be doing this 30 years ago? You know, where we've got these different platforms, different mediums where we can share experiences, listen to each other, and, and have our own spiritual experiences through different ways than going to church or even being part of an organized religion or a man-made religion. Um, and just one other comment here. I, uh, convinced that they use this data to do what is called in business and engineering, for example, they do something called predictive engineering design modeling. So there are AI and other very powerful tools that can easily get this information on this survey and do predictive modeling on what the church is going to look like 10 years from now. So they'll— the church will have a long-term planning team. They'll have technology, they'll have all kinds of professionals. They'll use this data from the survey, like religion, that people not interested in religion. He talked about the non-religious people. They'll be mapping and doing predictive modeling and seeing how those models run through those systems to determine what the church will look like or could look like in the future and what impact these, um, behaviors are likely to have in the church, uh, organization, uh, its services, its, um, volunteerism, its finances, and it will be developing countermeasures and counter-tractiveness to deal with it. And you said The church is kind of trying to offset the attitudes that people have towards religion by doing, you know, other things cleverly. I still believe, and we've said this a few times, one of the secrets to the church's longevity and success, and I really, this would have a, this would bring me back to church. I could be back to church in some way is if the church used all of its massive financial and other significant resources to get involved in local projects, get involved in the homeless, open the building up, get involved in helping communities across a range of issues, get more involved. Don't just be a building where people show up and learn something, go to meeting and take sacrament, and then go home and attend a few more meetings to talk about meetings. Actually get involved with the missionary services, well, all the 120,000 missionaries that the church has got and the significant resources, get involved in local communities, local projects on a project level basis, on a charitable level basis, on a personal basis. I honestly believe if the church did that, and if they're listening, you should do this, you smart, you should do this. Use those resources to get involved on a very personal level. I think that would, make a big difference going forward because people, you know, religion is, is an experience, right? If you're going somewhere and you're part of an experience, you know, when you served last time in the community, like we have Helping Hands program here and we have the, food drive, for example, when you're involved at a very personal level other than just going to a meeting for the sake of the meeting, that's a very different experience, a very different religious experience, different spiritual experience. That's where I think people connect. I think that's where the church can and should, uh, focus on to retain its membership and actually build its membership going forward. So yeah, that's, uh, so my answer to that is strongly disagree. I don't need religion to be happy or to be spiritual. All right.

Do you wanna read the next one?

Sure. Next question. The church has the answers to life's questions. That's the statement. And again, same answers. Strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree or disagree, somewhat agree, strongly agree. Mine is strongly disagree. The church does not have the answers to life's questions. It's got some answers. I mean, I've learned a lot from the church. I've learned a ton from the church on so many different topics, and I owe the church a lot for knowledge and education. But I also know that the church has screwed up, messed up, got so many things wrong. It's man-made, it's human, it gets some things right, it can be great at times, it can be a complete screw-up and an embarrassment. I can be quite ashamed at times. It doesn't have all the answers to the questions, uh, by any means. Um, I think it did present itself as having the answers to all of life's questions or the key questions. It, it, it doesn't. And so I strongly disagree. I've learned things that the church couldn't or wouldn't teach me since I've left the church. What's your— how would you answer this question?

Well, again, I guess I'm overthinking it because the answer you've just given is not a strongly disagree answer because you says it has some of the answers, and but you're saying it doesn't have all the answers, but The question doesn't ask, does it have all the answers? It is, does it have the answers to life's questions? And it certainly has answers to some of the most imperative questions, at least, at least to me. Um, I, I find in the church, one of the things that I find so compelling about the church's theology is the idea that we lived before we came to this earth. And to me, that informs a greater answer to what is, I think, the biggest question, which is, if there is a God, why is there so much suffering and so much misery in the world? The question of theodicy. And we've discussed that at length on this podcast. But I think, at least in terms of Christian churches, that our church has better answers to that question. Because we, we, we frame mortality as being part of an eternal journey. And we understand that the suffering and the mistakes and all of those things are done to give us experience. And that what happened before this life informs what happens in this life, and what happens in this life informs what will happen throughout an eternal progression. Not just the sort of static heaven and hell. So what I'm saying is, uh, for me, I have found the answers to many of life's questions that have been provided in the church to be wholly satisfying and wholly inspiring and uplifting. But again, I would only go so far as to say I somewhat agree with this because I think there are oodles of questions about life that the church doesn't answer and really can't answer, because some of the questions that are most important to me are also unique to me. Like, the questions I'm now asking about my life aren't questions about, like, where do I go after I die, uh, or, um, why is there so much suffering? I mean, I, I've sort of wrestled with those questions all my life, The questions that are pressing to me are, what should I do with my time? What should my professional goals be? How do I better, you know, really, what should I do with my time? The church doesn't provide that answer. The church says things like you should be anxiously engaged in a good cause. Well, one of the biggest problems I've had throughout my life is I never figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I got through, you know, at one point I was going to be a world famous actor and, uh, I no longer have any interest in pursuing that at all, but that was really important to me in my twenties and maybe even in my thirties. And now I'm in my fifties. And at one point I thought, well, I really need to run for office. And I've run for office unsuccessfully, and I have now reached a point where I don't think that's where my life should go. So, I mean, this podcast to some degree is an answer to some of the most pressing of my life's questions. You know, what should I be doing? What is up? What is of most worth in terms of how I spend the rest of my life? And this podcast is an answer to that question. I think this is one of the most important things that I do. I find the Tabernacle Choir to be sort of an answer to that question, but it's not really a question. It's not really the kind of answer that the church is talking about in this survey. They're just trying to say, well, does the church answer all the sweeping questions of the universe? And I think it does a better job of answering those questions than any other church or philosophy that I've found, but it certainly doesn't answer all of them, and it certainly doesn't answer the personal questions. And I don't know that it can answer those questions because institutionally that's really not its responsibility. I have to ask those questions for my life, and I have to find those answers. Now, the church does help provide, um, a spiritual setting where I can connect with the God who I am trying to get those answers from. But that's not the same thing as the church providing the answers. So I would answer this somewhat agree, and that's why I arrived at that conclusion.

Right. When you speak, I learn a lot. Okay. Often, often when you speak many, many times when you speak. And so, um, as I listen to you and I understand it a bit, you know, having a conversation around the question, you know, more context, I would revise my response to somewhat disagree, but I wanna throw this into the mix. This is a really important, um, component. I think I feel, Jim, I feel deceived by the church. The church that I believed in and devoted and committed to my entire life, I believe, has misled me, misled me, lied to me, betrayed me, lacks elements of, you know, lacks integrity in certain areas, and has actually deceived me. And so my answer is giving in that context, context, there's certain things that I was taught, that I believed completely. And now I've learned that the church has not been truthful about some of those truth claims. Okay. So I've had to, um, grow up, mature, take it on the chin. It's been very difficult, emotionally painful. And I've had to, you know, figure this out, a lot of it myself. And the answers to certain questions, you know, plan of salvation, basic doctrine, historical, some of the most important profound questions like the Godhead and really, really serious questions, which I thought I had answers to. I am now in a position or situation where I just don't know. The church has said this, done this, you know, Book of Mormon translation, is it, um, gold plates? Is it stone? I mean, I could cover so many different topics, principles, teachings, which, you know, the First Vision, for example, like, it, a lot of it is just so gray now. And it's, I used to be so definite is the word, absolutely so sure of myself that yeah, I know, I know the answers to life's questions. And I went through quite cocky. I don't think arrogant in my attitude, but internally quite, hey, I've got the answers. You're not a member? Well, I can help you. I've got the answers. I was internally probably quite arrogant and prideful thinking, yeah, I know it. I've got the answers down to a T. Now fast forward. I'm not, I'm not definite anymore. There's so much gray area for me. And so many of some of the basic questions about life, I just don't have the answers to anymore. There's certain things I do know, you know, about hap— you know, to experience happiness and peace, serve others, help others. I know that. Family, friends, loved ones, you know, those who need help. That's the universal principle. Forgiveness, kindness, service. You know, I don't need religion or a church to tell me tell me those things. I already knew those things. I just didn't know that I knew them. So, uh, I, I'd revise my question to, uh, somewhat disagree. I think the church does have some answers, but, um, for me, it, it, um, it, it, it, it needs to ask itself questions. I don't think it has answered its own questions about what it wants to be or trying to be or trying to become, and, and how does it deal with, um, its own lack of authenticity. So Here's a question I think the church should ask as well, so, is it itself? Next question, do you want me to take it? Sure, please. I support everything taught by the Prophet and Apostles. Well, let's break it down again. Each word is put together deliberately, I believe. He says here, I support everything taught by the Prophet and the Apostles. Well, if you analyze it and you overthink it, like, I guess we're doing to some extent, you know, is the prophet speaking as a prophet or is he speaking as a man, right? I mean, how do you know? You know, why don't we have a talk telling us how to know when the prophet's speaking as a man or when as a prophet? Let's have a talk about that. That'd be interesting. But, um, everything taught by the prophet, does that mean at general conference? Does that mean in a private conversation or a small meeting? Um, my, uh, My response to that is, uh, disagree or somewhat disagree. Do I support everything taught by the Prophet? Well, back then I will probably somewhat disagree, slightly. Sorry, uh, yeah, somewhat disagree. Now, you know, either strongly or somewhat disagree. What's, uh, what's your response?

Okay, I may surprise you here. Because my response is I strongly disagree. Okay, strongly disagree. And I think it's very easy to strongly disagree with this. Even the most faithful member of the church should strongly disagree with this, because I think even the president of the church should strongly disagree with this. And the reason is that it is not possible to support everything taught by the Prophet and the Apostles, because the Prophet and the Apostles over time have taught many contradictory things. Do you support the Adam-God theory? I don't. I don't think anybody should. But that was taught by the Prophet. Do you support the racism that Brigham Young taught? Absolutely not. I don't. Now, if this question were, I support— it might be easier to come to agreement if this was, I support everything taught by the living prophet and living apostles right now. But even then, it becomes problematic because there are still contradictions even among the Twelve now. You can you can find, I think, the most obvious contradiction. I guess this isn't applying to living prophets because it's the Gordon B. Hinckleys involved. But President Nelson in 1990, when he was Elder Nelson and relatively junior Elder Nelson, he was brought into the Quorum of the Twelve 5 years earlier in 1985. And so President Nelson, as a junior member of the Quorum of the Twelve, gave a talk about the correct name of the Church and insisted we should never call ourselves Mormons, insisted that nicknames like that were offensive to God. And much of that talk in 1990 was almost word for word verbatim to the talk that he gave in 2018 about the correct name of the Church. Meaning that he held on to that, that idea and to that principle throughout all of the intervening years and through the time where 6 months later, Gordon B. Hinckley, as a member of the First Presidency and really functioning as sort of the president of the church because the other members of the First Presidency were incapacitated, But Gordon B. Hinckley gave a talk directly repudiating Elder Nelson's talk 6 months previous. He did so in the nicest possible way. He did so by beginning by praising Elder Nelson and praising the talk, but then insisting that there's nothing wrong with the nickname Mormon, that Mormon means more good, that we can never really get rid of that nickname, but we can make it shine with added luster. And insisting that it was not offensive to God, that it was wonderful, we should embrace it, that other prophets have embraced it. So here you had a very clear diametrical difference of opinion between a prophet and an apostle. And if you want to now say, well, President Hinckley's dead, so you don't have that contradiction, Well, what should I have done in 1991? Because I was there in 1991. I was there in 1990. I heard both of those talks at the time they were given. If you had to ask me that question in 1991, "I support everything taught by the prophet and the apostles," there's no way I could give "I agree with that" without either dissing Elder Nelson or dissing President Hinckley. Because they taught two very different things. And I mean, within— and they were both still alive at the same time. And clearly Elder Nelson still disagreed with President Hinckley, as evidenced by his 2018 resurgence of the talk that was repudiated 30, 40 years earlier. So So there isn't— this is the thing that drives me up a wall, and is this idea that prophets and apostles, it's not even that they're not perfect, it's the idea that they 100% agree with each other. You know, all of the behind-the-scenes stories I get and the stories I hear in family lore Norkeber J. Grant was called as an apostle in his 20s and was astonished at how much heated discussion there was in meetings behind the scenes. We interviewed Hans Mattson, and he said the Quorum of the Twelve is a minefield because all of these guys have very strong opinions and they don't always agree. Now there is tremendous pressure on apostles and the First Presidency to have this veneer of unanimity in everything they do. And so, so, but even then the cracks, a lot of stuff shows through the cracks. You can see this between like the kind of Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Kieran giving these sort of universalist talks.. And then these other talks that talk about how exclusive God is and how you, you know, the sad heaven talks as we call them sometimes. So there is not unanimous agreement among prophets and apostles even today. So it is not possible to support everything they teach. I think it's possible to support much of what they teach or even most of what they teach. And if that were this question, I'd have no problem saying I strongly agree. But I strongly disagree with the idea that there is a univocal, completely 100% consistent teaching among prophets and apostles. And if you take this back in history, There are so many teachings that we have now moved away from and disavowed that it would be faithless to support what was taught by prophets and apostles. It would be faithless to say, um, I support killing interracial couples on the spot. It put— I mean, it'd be abhorrent to go back to those teachings and support them. So I strongly disagree here and I don't have any problem strongly disagreeing. So, okay. All right. Excellent response.

Do you want to take the next question?

Sure. I like being part of a religion. So again, I think, I think they're, they're saying religion and church are synonymous. So I would strongly agree. I like being a member of the church. I don't think that's difficult. This is just talking about personal preference. Yeah, I like being part of a religion. I can agree with that. I can strongly agree with that. How about you? No, no.

The question— you made an interesting point earlier which I disagreed. I said that I don't think the church meant church when it used the word religion. I wanna change that and, and now believe the church does mean church when it uses the word religion. Uh, so based on this similar question here, so yeah, I don't want to be part of a religion in terms of be part of an, of a church. When Christ was on the earth, yeah, he went into buildings, all kinds of buildings. Synagogues, halls, you know, public buildings, people's homes, but he taught in the fields, he taught in the open, he taught in the streets, he taught in people's homes. I don't think you need a physical structure to be religious or to be spiritual. There's a distinction between religion, religious, being religious and being spiritual. I think I'm more spiritual I'm not religious. I don't think I'm religious. I'm more spiritual. But I like being part of religion. No, it's just not for me anymore. I don't, I don't, I just don't. Not only do I not get anything from going to church, I remember going to church, Jim Bennett, often, and it would be so dull, so boring. You know, and I'm on the stand and I'm hearing these boring talks. I'm thinking I've got to kind of like liven things up a little bit, 'cause I'm like, people are falling asleep. You know, it gets so routine, so regimental, so same old, same old. It just, and, and people bear the testimonies and they were so depressed and so down and so, oh, you know, I mean, I'm going through issues and real problems. I, I, um, don't wanna be insensitive here, but it was quite depressing and, um, it was quite routine and I got, I got really bored a lot of the time. And the lessons, I think a lot of it is down to who's teaching and who's speaking. And I, I, I just find the whole thing. And then some of the hymns are quite solemn and I, I just wish sometimes that I'd loved, I went to one of those evangelical, um, meetings once where you've got this amazing, um, like US Deep South singing experience, right? You know, there's some drums, guitar there. We go to a church, uh, every Christmas actually. We watch like a Christmas pantomime worship thing. There's a spiritual— excuse me— a spiritual component. There's a worship component. There's a serious message element, but a lot of it's fun. There's music, there's drums, electric guitar. I just loved it. I got a lot of spirituality from that. I think the church is quite, um, staid. Is that the right word?

That, that's a word that works.

Yeah, it's quite boring. It's quite stifling. It's, it's just very fixed and contained. Uh, so it, it just doesn't work for me and it didn't work for me. If I look back, oh my goodness, there's so many times I just wanted to get out of that lesson. I just wanted to leave church and just get get out into nature. So yeah, it doesn't work for me anymore. All right.

You wanna do the next things?

Sure. Okay. The church is my main connection to God. Well, you know where I am. Strongly disagree. I told you where my connections are, so I've nothing to add.

Over to you. Uh, again, I'm overthinking it. Um, My main connection to God is my connection to God. I think the church has helped facilitate that. I don't think the church is that connection. I think there's an important— I think it's important to make that distinction. It goes back to Elder Kevin Hamilton at one point said, when you say I don't like what the church is doing, you should substitute I don't like what the Savior is doing., instead. And so you realize that when you criticize the church or when you disagree with the church, you're disagreeing with Jesus. And I, I found that very problematic, and I find that problematic now when you sort of equate the church with God. And I think that this connection sort of does that because I the church— my connection to God is personal, is private. The church doesn't mediate it. The church does not stand at the center of it. But the church, I think, has helped facilitate it. So I wouldn't say I strongly disagree, but I would say I somewhat disagree. Right. All right. So the next one, because we're running a little long here, but I want to get through all of these. And there are, what, two, there are just two more. So the next one, there are things about the church that I want to see changed. Is that hard at all? I strongly agree. Of course there are things in the church that I want to see changed. Is there anybody that would disagree with that?

Probably. We've met some of those. Uh, even on the podcast.

Yeah, yeah, I guess so.

We met people who think the church shouldn't change. You've actually go back to some of the crazy positions that it's held in the past, right?

But if it want— if it's going to go back, then it's going to change because it has to change to go back.

Well, I, I guess, I guess, I guess it does change it.

I just don't see how there's any intellectually honest way to answer that other than strongly agree.

I'm with you. 100%. Easy.

So, uh, so read the last one.

I go to church because I don't want to disappoint people I care about. Well, I, I did that for a while. In fact, when we had the bishop over and told him where I was, and I'm going through this, this is the time where I'm going through the, uh, dark night of the soul. This is a year of, oh boy, questions and, you know, what am I doing? And, and, and just a real, um, emotional time, upheaval and truth, faith crisis, whatever you wanna call it. I said to the bishop, I said, look, if my family want me to go to church, I will go to church through commitment to my family. I will be silent. I won't question things, and I will wrestle and struggle with it inside and know that I will be, but I will be silent, and I'll do that so I don't disappoint my family or my friends and people who have looked to me as an example. I'm not setting myself up as a saint, obviously. I'm the least saint. I'm sure in many ways. However, there are people that look to me, Jim Bennett, as an example. People on the mission, people I've served when I was, uh, some in different callings who have been shocked, disappointed, angry, and astonished that I've left the church. And some of these people have sadly disconnected with me, and it's broken my that. It's devastated me. These are people who I cherish and love, who I've helped or they helped me in some way. We have a deep spiritual connection and my leaving the church has, um, sadly has broken the relationship and they've decided that they want nothing to do with me and I've walked away and stepped out of my life and that has broken my heart and devastated me. I still struggle with that. So I go to church because I don't want to disappoint people. Well, I did. I was willing to do that. But my family said, no, Dad, we can't let you put you through that. And your integrity is far more important than anything like that. And so my family were just amazing. They came through with integrity and said, Dad, and some of my friends have said, Ian, though you, even though you don't go, we don't think less of you. My, my, when they'd find, when they, when they learned, when my friends learned I stopped going, I was so afraid of losing them, you know, personally. I would say, I hope you don't think less of me because I was afraid that they would think less of me, that I'm something, I'm just this bad person now, this awful, terrible person. I've done something awful. I've sinned or I'm lazy or just don't, or I'm an apostate or something. I think I am technically, according to the church, I'm an apostate technically. I've even been described as an enemy of the church, which is interesting. So yeah, I, I can, you know, the church's hold on people is very powerful, Jim Bennett, you know, with family, friends, tradition, culture. So I go to church because I don't want to disappoint people that care about, well, I, I have done. Yeah. So I, I, uh, my answer to that right now is obviously, um, it, it changes over the years, right? I think my answer to that would change over the years. What's your response to it?

Well, my answer to that has changed over the years too. Because I think there, if I was being honest with myself, there was a time when I would at least somewhat agree and probably strongly agree. Um, probably when I was younger, I think, you know, before my mission, I wrestled with whether or not I was going to go on a mission. Um, and a lot of that, a And a lot of that was, okay, well, how would I break it to my parents that I don't want to go on a mission? Because they'd almost see that as me saying, I don't, I'm essentially leaving the church. And I think particularly through my teenage years, um, a lot of it was, I don't want to disappoint my parents. I don't want to disappoint my family. And so I'm going to church, even when I'm not enthusiastic about it, even when I'm bored with it. I wouldn't say that was entirely the reason I went to church, but I'd say it was a good chunk of it for a lot of my youth. Now, I, I'm trying, I, I, but, but where I am now, I, you know, my father has been dead for almost 9 years. So, I mean, maybe he'd be disappointed in me on the other side of the veil. My relationship with my mother is such that I don't really worry that I would damage my relationship with her if I were to stop going to church, per se. The point being, I've reached a point where I'm old enough that I just don't care anymore. The idea that I'm going to go to church just to satisfy somebody else is just really exhausting to me. It's like, who am I trying to convince? Who am I trying to impress? Uh, there just isn't anybody that I feel I need to prove myself to anymore. I think when you're younger and there are authority figures, I mean, on my mission, a lot of what I did on my mission was I didn't want to disappoint President Banks. It was like, well, I can't be a lousy missionary because what's President Banks going to think of me? I mean, the church is very hierarchical. And very much sets up authority figures. And you don't want to disappoint these authority figures. And the older I get, the less I care. And so many of these authority figures now are people who are younger than I am with less experience than I have. And it's like, well, what, what do I have to prove to them? It's not that I dislike them or, or I don't respect them. It's just, I, if they're disappointed in me, then they're disappointed in me. What do I care? So anyway, so my answer is I absolutely, um, I absolutely strongly disagree with that. I, there's no element anymore of my going to church that I'm doing to please anybody else. There isn't anybody else I need to impress. I mean, maybe if my wife were like, uh, demanding that I go to church, I mean, that's a whole other thing and I'm not going to get into any of that, but that is not the dynamic of my marriage. Uh, that's not the dynamic of my relationship with my children. Uh, it's, I'd go to church because that's where I feel like the Lord wants me to be. And maybe I'm. Afraid of disappointing the Lord, but that's about it. There isn't anybody on earth that I feel like I need to impress or satisfy as to how devoted I am or how often I go to church. So strongly disagree there. So that is the end of the survey. So we got through that in an hour and 17 minutes, which I think is a whole lot better than we did when we had to break this into 3 parts. So we've gotten more, we're better at this than we were before. So yeah, you're getting better by the minute. That's exactly right.

Do you have any parting thoughts as we, as we, no, I, other, nothing to add other than, uh, that, uh, when you, we ask the questions and everybody will be who's taking the survey will be having the same conversations. I just know it. They'll be kind of saying, well, how do you interpret the question? Do they mean this? Do they mean that? And they'll be overthinking it and overanalyzing it. And so that's the challenge that the church has got when it makes things a little, you know, a little bit, um, you know, complicated on some of the questions, you know, what do they mean by that? Right. So, and then how do they quantify that? Because that's when it gets really complicated when people are over, you know, under or overinterpreting it or getting some different understanding. But I think the church's intent here is to, I think we're going to see more surveys. I think the church is, um, wanting to really know what people think quite frequently. And again, it's putting that information into an AI system with all the input from the leaders, their different teams, and it's running some predictive modeling. If it's not, it should. To see what the church is going to look like. You know, if it follows this path, what will the church look like in the future? If there's a trend in this area, how is that going to impact the church? The church will have all this mapped out, Jim. Graphs, numbers, um, predictive modeling, and they'll have strategies and countermeasures of dealing with it all. The church is not going anywhere. It's going to be for a long time. But I do repeat, I want to repeat what I said earlier, that if the church invests its time and resources into getting involved in local projects, uh, with other organizations on a very personal level, I think it could reinvent itself and transform itself.

But team, all right, well, we have provided all of the answers. Well, so the question was, does the church have all the answers? The answer is no, but we do.

So I would like us to do our own survey, the Inside Out Podcast survey, and says, I listen to Inside Out because I don't want to disappoint people I care about.

That's right. I'm sure that most people, that's the main reason they listen. It is. Yeah. Well, thank you all for listening though, whether you're disappointing anyone or not, you certainly aren't disappointing us. We are so grateful. That so many of you are spending this time with us and going through these kinds of questions with us. And we hope we have been helpful. You certainly have been helpful to us, and we look very much forward to visiting with you again in our next episode of Inside Out. So thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.

All right. All right.

That was one more I thought that was great. One of the questions that we could change for Insider is—