The Incompatibility of Agency and Infallibility

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I'm here straight through with Ian Wilkes.

Yeah, yeah, Ian Wilkes here. Good morning. How are you, Jim Bennett?

I'm doing just great. How are you?

I'm doing really well, thank you. A little bit groggy. That's the word. Is that a British word? Yeah, a little bit groggy. A little bit groggy. But yeah, I've got a deeper voice today. I could sing baritone in the Tabernacle Choir today, but only Only today.

Oh, that's lovely. Well, you know, my wife and I are addicted to The Great British Bake Off.

Okay.

And last night somebody said they were dead chuffed.

Oh, I like that.

And Laurel had no idea what that meant.

And we're used to the— well, we use all the British words here in Canada and they don't, they don't understand. I think last week I used the word chuffed to bits.

Chuffed to bits.

They have no idea what I was talking about. We speak in code here in Canada.

Well, that is lovely. Well, I'm trying to think of a way to segue into our topic, but we had talked about the idea of talking about agency and infallibility and the relationship between the two. And I, as I was doing this, I ended up revisiting a talk by Elder Packer from 1993 that has garnered an awful lot of attention. He gave two talks back then that people still continue to talk about today. And this again is in '93, which was sort of the height of his powers. President Benson was ill, and so he wasn't really taking a direct supervisory role. Elder Packer was the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, and this is the time when the September Six ended up being excommunicated, and that's been attributed largely to Elder Packer's influence. One of the talks was one where he identified the three threats to the Church being the gay and lesbian movement, feminism, and so-called intellectuals and scholars. That talk is not really publicly available anymore. It was given to a very select audience. But the talk that I'm going to kick off the discussion with is called The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect. And actually, this predates the '90s. I stand corrected that the later talks were in the '90s, but this one is actually 1981. And so he gave sort of a roadmap of where he was going with regard to his ideas towards the intellect and all those sorts of things. And the money quote from this talk, it's in the CES letter, and I ended up writing about it in my reply, is where he says, some things that are true are not very useful. And goes on to berate historians for telling the truth at a time when people aren't ready to hear the truth, or they never will be ready to hear the truth. And this, this has, I think, justifiably taken a lot of heat. But it was interesting for me to read through the actual talk because I had never done that. I had only focused on that one section. And in this talk, he talks about working with a guy who's trying to get his doctoral dissertation, and he's writing a paper, is writing his dissertation about bishops and the role of bishops. And he wants to talk about the inspiration of bishops and how they are inspired. And his academic overlords tell him, no, that's not an appropriate academic subject. And Elder Packer just goes off on that, how terrible that is, and how, you know, how it's not possible to talk about the church unless you talk about how the fact that everybody is inspired. And here's— but this is the section that I thought was really interesting. He starts talking about historians Well, I'll just read it here. He says, some historians write and speak as though the only ones to read or listen are mature, experienced historians. They write and speak to a very narrow audience. Unfortunately, many of the things they tell one another are not uplifting, go far beyond the audience they may have intended, and destroy faith. What that historian did with the reputation of the president of the church was not worth doing. He seemed determined to convince everyone that the prophet was a man. We knew that already. All of the prophets and all of the apostles have been men. It would have been much more worthwhile for him to have convinced us that the man was a prophet, a fact quite as true as the fact that he was a man. And I've thought about this statement here. And I can see where he's going. And I think that to some degree there is value in it because it is essential. I think, you know, it's, it's the whole adage of if a dog bites a man, it's not news. But if man bites dog, it is news. It's something different. And the fact that a man was a prophet is in fact something different. But the way he proposes doing that is not to describe in detail what a prophet is and what a prophet does, because I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion over that in the church even today. Uh, when we say somebody is a prophet, what do we mean? Well, we mean essentially that he's the president of the church, that he holds a specific ecclesiastical office. Is that what a prophet is? A prophet is solely somebody who holds this office, because that's not the way it was in the Old Testament or in the New Testament or in, in the Book of Mormon or any of those other kinds of things. But regardless, he's focusing on the fact that in order to be able to accept somebody as a prophet, we need to overlook portions of their humanity. We need to overlook and not talk about and not discuss and not disseminate information that would call into question the man's perfection as a prophet. And this sort of mindset has carried on through the church and has survived past Elder Packer, and in fact, I think is perpetuated by the current leadership of the church. And we are— we're not allowed Essentially, to even consider any kind of weaknesses, any kind of mistakes that a president of the church makes or an apostle makes, you know, this is all sort of wrapped up in the idea of evil speaking of the Lord's anointed. And it's bizarre to me that anybody would think telling the truth is evil speaking. And it's so frustrating. I've talked about this many times in this podcast. But it's so frustrating that we continue to think that we have a choice. In 1981, when Elder Packer gave this talk, it's long before the internet. It's back when there was no way to sort of dig through, uh, the details of church history and find things about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young that might be disturbing without having some kind of academic background. But today, some, some people, their first exposure to Joseph Smith is the discovery that he was a polygamist who was married to teenage girls. They'll find that on the internet with their first Google search. And this kind of an approach— he goes on later to say the only qualifications you need to be a historian are, do you have a testimony of the First Vision and do you have a testimony of the Book of Mormon? And do you have a testimony of all of these things? And you shouldn't even begin to consider anything else about Joseph Smith's life until you made that determination that he really did see God and Jesus in that grove in 1820. But the problem in 2023 is if the first exposure you have to Joseph Smith is the idea that he's a polygamist married to teenage girls, You're not going to get to the point where you're even willing to consider the possibility that a man like that could have had a vision in 1820 that justified everything that happened afterwards. And so we've done such a huge, I think, disservice with this approach because he's essentially arguing for, um, not necessarily lying outright, although I think that he'd prefer lying outright to telling truths that, in his words, destroy faith. But he's, he's advocating covering up information. He's advocating not telling the whole truth because he thinks that's the only way to build faith. And I think we are now reaping the whirlwind. As we now— because that— these are the seeds we have sown over the generations, that we're not going to talk about the more difficult parts of church history or the more problematic elements of church leaders. We're not going to discuss them. We're not even going to acknowledge them. And now we don't have a choice. Everybody knows them. The internet has exposed the church to the world. And everybody has access to this information at their fingertips in a second of Googling. And we know— don't have the tools to deal with it because our expectations of what a prophet is have been defined by this cover-up and now can't survive the truth, can't survive the reality. And I believe the only way to have a sustainable faith that can endure is to be able to embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly, everything about church history and defining what it means to be a prophet and recognize that prophets are capable of error and capable of making mistakes. And if we don't do that, we are setting up faith crisis for members who are walking around with these sort of fragile testimonies built on an incomplete set of facts. And the minute a fact comes in that isn't in alignment with the carefully curated picture that the church has been trying to paint, those fragile testimonies shatter like glass. And, and we're setting that up as a church by not being willing to embrace the idea of fallibility, of, of the fact that prophets are capable of error, have made error, and can make errors today. And that's, that's simply the reality. You've talked quite a few times about President Uchtdorf's talk about how church leaders have simply made mistakes. But I think most members hear those kinds of things, uh, the way you did. You talked about, well, maybe he's talking about lower-level General Authorities. I think members sort of incorporate the idea of what I call a limited fallibility model. President of the Church can forget your birthday. President of the Church can give you bad driving directions or, you know, anything like that. But when he stands at the pulpit, he has his agency removed from him and speaks pure truth and cannot lie and cannot make a mistake, cannot do anything wrong when he is acting in the capacity of his office, which sets up that stupid dichotomy Well, was he speaking as a prophet or was he speaking as a man? Well, he's always speaking as a man. Even Elder Packer acknowledges that in this talk. Every prophet was a man. We knew that already. But at no point does the Lord come in and extract the agency of that prophet as he speaks. And so It's essential that we incorporate that reality into our faith. Otherwise, our faith is not going to be able to endure when it encounters pieces of church history that are unpleasant or awful. You know, I think any time I bump into anything Brigham Young had to say on the subject of race, it's just— it makes my my, my skin crawl. It's so awful and so terrible. And he was so flagrantly wrong that if we are not allowed to say that and we're not allowed to acknowledge that, then there's no way we can stay in the church. Because if we have to say, well, everything Brigham Young said was from the Lord, well, when he said that interracial couples need to be killed on the spot, Uh, I— if I have to choose between killing interracial couples or not killing interracial couples and leaving the church, killing interracial couples and staying in the church, uh, I don't really have a choice. I'm not a fan of murder. I don't think the Lord is either. Brigham Young made a huge egregious error with that statement, and we can go through and we can list a whole bunch of them, but For me, it comes down to— there is a positive principle here rather than a negative one. The negative principle is that prophets are not infallible, but the positive principle is that the Lord will never interfere with our individual agency. That agency is so sacrosanct that at no point Will the Lord step in and stop us from doing something wrong if we're determined to do it? There will be moments where he perhaps will warn us or try to inspire us or nudge us in the right direction. But all too often, at least in my own experience, if I want to do something and I'm dead set on doing it, I'm going to go ahead and do it. And the positive principle of agency is that that's the whole purpose for why we came to this earth. We came to this earth for the express purpose of making mistakes, for the express purpose of blundering ahead and doing things wrong and learning from that. That's the reason why an atonement and a Savior was necessary and essential. It's because the only way for us to become like God is to learn from our mistakes and learn from our experience. And so that, I mean, that is central to the plan. And so if we could embrace that positive principle and embrace the idea of agency and not necessarily condemn church leaders who have made mistakes, but rather recognize that those mistakes are part of the process. They're part of the way that we are instructed and that we learn and grow. I think that can create a sustainable faith. I don't think that there is any other route to that kind of faith. So that's my opening rant. But does that resonate with you, or do you have a different take on this?

It does resonate with me. In fact, that is one of the best opening rants on this subject I've ever heard. It really is. The context, the background, the specificity, the, the references, the, um, history of this that you've gone, uh, you described and articulated very clearly, in my view, very eloquently, is absolutely excellent. Um, My mind works like a mind map. That's how my brain operates. I think I would be quite good on the correlation committee. I see connections and I see disconnections across doctrine and policy. It like, it's like a matrix. It opens up and I see those connections when I'm reading material. And I'm, I'm thinking about these statements by these leaders that Elder Uchtdorf speak of, I think Elder Uchtdorf was speaking about people like Brigham Young and Joseph Smith and others. And that talk that you reference at the beginning with all the paka, I think that was delivered in 1981. Yeah, pre-internet, the Brigham Young pre-internet. And I've read that talk a couple of times.. And as I've read that, I've had the same concerns and issues that you had. And then I ask a question, and it's an important question we should all ask, is why is this message being delivered now? So to the answer, you know, why did Elder Packer say what he said and why have subsequent prophets and apostles continued in the same vein, including but not limited to President Nelson, who is very much of the same ilk, I think, of Elder Packer in many, many ways. And remember, Elder Packer, for many years of his life, sort of his latter days, in the last 10, 15 years, I believe, had an extraordinary grip on the church. Him and Elder Packer had this, this whole, this grip on policies and and, you know, holding, you know, people to account and a very, very firm grip and unbending, unyielding position on certain topics like same-sex attraction and LGBT and, and positions on historians and intellects, etc., etc. And so if we ask ourselves why did Elder Packer and other subsequent prophets have this position, is because they knew in more detail, or as much detail as we know now, perhaps we know more than they do now because of the internet. But back then, when this was delivered in 1981, I believe they had access and was fully aware of many issues with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young that hadn't come out back then in 1981. And, and over the next few years after that, prior to the internet coming out, I mean, these issues were researched increasingly over time, and they did start to come out in various publications and different articles and different references, but nowhere near like it was revealed through the power of the internet. I don't believe Elder Packer was prophetic enough to see the emergence of the internet, which has changed everything, but he knew many of the issues. And I think his concern, if I ask myself why, I believe it's— I think it was done in good faith. To your point, where you see some value, I think he was trying to genuinely protect— I think there's a portion of it where he is trying to protect members from a very difficult, complex, dark history and behaviors and actions of Joseph Smith that you referenced, and Brigham Young. Those certain specific attitudes, behaviors, actions of those individuals the elder Uldorf is speaking about, are very disturbing, very alarming, very concerning. And the elder Packer was aware of this, and he knew that that could and probably would have an impact on people's faith. He was concerned about that. And instead of couching it back then in, in, I think, in better ways, in better terms, you know, these people are human, they make mistakes, that they mess up, they are in fact fallible, they're not infallible, Had he taken that approach back then in '81, I think it's a missed opportunity, Jim. Had they start to couch it back then and in the correlation committee start to frame it in material, training material, lesson material, talks, congresses, state conference, that, you know, these not like an Elder Uchtdorf type talk that was delivered in 2013. Wouldn't it have been quite prophetic to have delivered that, say, in 1985? Or in 1990, yeah, you know, just prior to the internet, I think good prophecy would've positioned the church and the leaders to, to be, to, to see that the problem associated with covering things up and actually beyond that victimizing people who do good research and who seek facts because they want to know the history, historians who, non-church historians who research the church. There's lots of people who are not members, never been members, no plans to join, and they have researched the church. I'm thinking of that author. I've got the book titled Crucifixion of the Church. I'm trying to remember the author.

It's— Gerald Bloom?

I think so. I've got it on my shelf here. It's a fantastic book and it was— I should know the name. It's been a while since I've read it. And so there are people who've researched the church who are not members of the church who've done great research and they've no axe to grind with the church, but they've discovered extremely difficult problems and issues with this very dark underbelly, complex history of the church. And it is complex. It's, you know, polygamy is still the biggest, one of the biggest issues that the church has and it's 2023. How does it shake that off? And then when you get into the details of the polygamy and the lives of those, those women that experienced it, at least some of the lines, it was very traumatic for these individuals. And it's very disturbing. And Elder Packer doesn't want that to come out because he thinks that will affect people's faith. And I understand that, I get that. And so there was an opportunity, a junction, if you like, in the past to take it different approach. And they made a mistake. They made a mistake. When we were set apart as a stake presidency with Elder Oaks and received some training, this was back in, I think, 2009, I think 2010. And our stake was involved in an initiative called— I think it was called Accelerating the Faith or Advancing the Faith. It was an initiative how to advance and accelerate the work. And it was the Mormon moment. And we've talked about this on our previous podcast. It was the time when Mitt Romney, I think, was running for the presidency, and they described, or it was described to us as a Mormon moment. And back then in '09, '10, when all these things, some of these things rather, started to come out on the internet, and in subsequent years, and I think that period between 2010 and 2013 was interesting 'cause a lot of stuff came out on the internet. And then we had the Elder Uchtdorf talks. Elder Uchtdorf talks, by the way, is very interesting timing in my opinion. But a lot of that information came out on the internet. You know, this Mormon moment, this where we had the training, the leaders would say a light now is shining on the church in a way that has never shined on the church before. We are under the spotlight and now is the opportunity to show all of our credentials, all of our, um, insights, our faith, our strengths, our, um, propheticness, our qualities, and our divinity of the church, that we have living prophet on the earth and that we are the only true, uh, church on the face of the earth. And this is our moment, our time. We're in the spotlight. I, I look back in hindsight and I'm no prophet, But someone surely could have seen issues by, you know, what could be discovered, what would be discovered by shining a spotlight. When you shine a spotlight under something, everyone looks and they look, look for faults. They look— some people look not for faults, but they find faults. And then all of that, at that Mormon moment, there's a huge interest in the church. This is what we were told.. And of course, where do people go? They go to the internet and they find out issues and a lot of stuff was coming up and it affected people and it harmed people's faith that people left and Elder Uchtdorf delivered this talk. So I think the intent of Elder Packer was to protect people's faith. I believe that. I think he was well aware of the issues and didn't want them to come to light. It was a big mistake. I think if they tackled this on, this issue early on and framed it way back in the '80s, there'd be— the church would be very much more positioned more effectively, I think, now in terms of dealing with this. But they didn't. They covered it up, they misdirected, they lied, they denied, they published things and taken them down. It looks bad. It looks really bad. Whoever's advising the church on strategy should be fired. You know, we're bigging the truth in the church and the truth will prevail. We've heard that. And I mean, why don't they follow this, their own prophetic statements? Truth will prevail and it will, you know, wherever the facts are and the truth behind the facts, it will, at some point it will come to the surface. And so I think that is, You know, that's why it was done, but it was a mistake. And so, and then the relationship with agency, instead of being more open, more transparent, more collaborative, more, you know, reconciliation with the truth, you know, across the world, we, and in Canada right now, there's the, what they call the Truth and Reconciliation Movement initiative.. And it's dealing with, uh, the, the very dark historical issues with First Nations, Indigenous communities in, in Canada. It's a very troubling history, frankly. And there's a national committee, and I think they've got it in the US, uh, States, they've got it in Australia, and they call it— and in South Africa with apartheid— they call it the Truth and Reconciliation. And it's understanding the facts, historical facts, and dealing with them and having an open transparent, adult, mature, albeit painful and difficult conversations about the historical issues and the problems with, um, the Indigenous communities in these countries. And I work with First Nation communities and they tell me that perhaps for the first time they're able to express their feelings and share the history and talk about these issues in a way they haven't done before. I think there's a long way to go, but that's the approach that was taken, and they felt that in the past that these issues were covered up, they weren't dealt with, and only now, 2023, are we now discussing those issues, historical issues, um, in a more adult, in a more mature way. And so I think the church, if it had followed a, a, um, a charter probably titled Truth and Reconciliation, similar, in a similar fashion, and similarly, uh, similar, for similar reasons, it would be in a different position now, or a better position. Probably not a perfect position. You can't, you can never undo the past, right? It's happened. What's happened, polygamy has happened, and Brigham Young has done his damage, right? So you can't undo that. But by being truthful and open, honest, and reconciling with that, and, and understanding that relationship with agency, that yes, he can research this stuff. There are difficult facts that we have to deal with. Yes, you can talk about them at church. Yes, you can ask questions because we want to get this out. You know, truth and reconciliation is about openness and transparency and accountability. Let's get the issues on the table. Let's talk about them. But instead, the church has victimized people, Jim Bennett. They've— people like me, you know, I'm a victim of the church in terms of being shut down and, and, and being instructed and actually warned not to ask, uh, questions, even on, uh, questions about the essays which the church wrote, wasn't even allowed to ask questions about those. So instead of being open, it's gone closed and it's victimized and threatened and warned and excommunicated and gone after people for exposing, uh, what historically was coined as anti-Mormon material, which is now, some of that is actually in the essays. So I can see why Elder, to bring this rowdy up point at the beginning, I can see why Elder Packer was doing what he was doing. I, you know, I think it was for good reasons, good intent. I think the intent was good, but it was a seismic problem and mistake to go Essentially the wrong path. And then that ties to, um, you know, if you follow the Prophet, we will not lead you astray. You know, it's like overturning the policy on, um, on, uh, children be baptized, you know, with, within, you know, gay families. And the reversal of policies, you know, they've made a big mistake there, historical mistake, and they've reversed that. They'll which is good. And so it's just surprising that the church, with all of his experience and problems of making mistakes, historical mistakes, they seem intent to make just to batten down the hatches and just to become embedded, entrenched in the same old dogma and old doctrine. So that, I think that's unfortunate and I just don't know when the church is gonna like lay everything on the table and say, let's have a conversation with us. Let's have our own version of truth and reconciliation. I, I, I, you know, if that happened, it's not gonna happen with President Nelson, but wouldn't it be extraordinary, Jim, if the next prophet took a very different line, a very different approach and said, look, there's been, you know, built on Elder Uchtdorf's talk, there's been lots of issues. Let's talk about them. And you still have— look, you still have the agency to ask questions and deal with it, and we'll respond positively, and we won't— they won't use this language— but they won't victimize people for asking questions. Would it be extraordinary, uh, if, if one of the leaders could actually take that position? Yes, I think some people would probably leave the church, but I think a lot of people would pause before they leave and think, well, This is our truth and reconciliation moment. This is a time where the church is changing, improving. Perhaps I need to stay. I'm seeing, you know, people like me, opportunities for change and improvement. And that's what our podcast is about. You know, where can the church, you know, the strengths and weaknesses, where could it improve? I don't know if that's going to happen. I wish it did. And I hope the days of Elder Packer, Elder Oaks, are limited in terms of their grip on the policies and the dogma. And I don't know which leader in the church right now is going to usher in this truth and reconciliation, but I remain hopeful.

Well, when President Oaks's influence is essentially just beginning, if we assume that he will outlive President Nelson, he is to be the next president of the Church. And we know that President Nelson held on to pet issues that were important to him all throughout his time as an apostle, most notably his obsession with the full name of the Church and his antipathy toward the word Mormon. You know, he gave a talk in 1990 that was virtually identical to the talk he gave in 2018 when he became president of the church about the name of the church, and he was slapped down hard publicly by Gordon B. Hinckley, and yet he never gave that up. I mean, that was an essential part of what he believed, and he wanted the church to adopt that, and he waited until, in the words of his wife Wendy, he was unleashed. And President Oaks is going to be unleashed in the coming, uh, years. I don't know what the time frame is going to be, uh, and I, I don't know that President Oaks is going to outlive President Nelson. President Nelson is, at the age of 99, extraordinarily healthy, and who knows? But the reality is that, uh, You know, each of these men— and every prophet is a man, as we've been told— each of these men comes to the office, comes to their responsibility with their own personality and their own priorities. And President Oaks has made it clear that his top priority seems to be making sure that LGBTQ people are not given greater inclusion in the church. He keeps coming back again and again and again and again to that message, which is in some ways encouraging because the church apparently isn't listening. The church— we talked about that in a previous podcast as well. But the point is, from my perspective, uh, this doesn't have to be an epiphany by a single church leader. Uh, what this has to be, I think, is a collective acknowledgment of what the church is, what church leaders are, what a prophet is. And we could start in primary framing this as agency versus infallibility in a way that frames it positively, that we should come to expect the reality of, of fallible leaders. And that should begin at the very beginning. You know, I can remember I, I had a beloved primary teacher. Her name was Kay Hanson, and she is still a very good friend of my mother's today. But her job when I was a targeteer, which was one of the names they had for primary people, we've lost all of that. But anyway, when I was a targeteer, the The lesson plan was every week we were going to discuss a different president of the church. And every week we would get this hagiography of these perfect men that came down from Mount Olympus and blessed us with their majesty as they presided over the church. And I grew up colored by that kind of understanding of what a president of the church was. And I've talked about the fact that when I finally came to accept that David O. McKay, my ancestor, was not in fact a Greek god from Mount Olympus. It was a huge faith-promoting revelation to me. It did not destroy my faith. It promoted my faith. Because when you set up unrealistic expectations and it's impossible to meet them, that eventually destroys faith. And if you set up, hey, David O. McKay, he had a rough time on his mission and he had a rough time here and he didn't really quite understand civil rights the way that we do now and this, that, and the other. But by goodness, look at all the great things he did despite his weaknesses. I think that's a much more compelling story. I think the fact that the church survived all of the weaknesses of Joseph Smith and the early brethren and the fact that they were excommunicating each other right and left as they had these disagreements. And it was sloppy and messy and difficult. And yet somehow the hand of the Lord sustained the church through all of that, through all of Brigham Young's mistakes, through all of the problems. We were able to cross the plains and survive as a church and continue to thrive. I mean, that's a much more compelling story. Than the false story of magic, that these leaders are just magic people. And isn't it great? And they never did anything wrong and everything's been perfect all the way around. And oh wait, you've discovered something that wasn't perfect. Well, you're the problem. They're not the problem. You're the problem. You're just obviously not as good as these guys. You know, I'm— he calls to mind Mitt Romney, a book about Mitt Romney written by McKay Coppins, who I am acquainted with. He's a very good guy. He's a Latter-day Saint reporter. And he wrote a book called Romney: A Reckoning. And, and it's essentially a biography of Mitt Romney that's very pro-Mitt Romney. And yet at the same time addresses all of the difficulties that Mitt Romney has had and all the missteps that he's made. Which are plentiful. But it talks at one point about Mitt Romney as a missionary in France, and the visiting apostle to his mission was Bruce R. McConkie. And Bruce R. McConkie started talking about how you can't have— make sure you don't teach the gospel to the Negroes. The gospel is not to go forward to the Negroes. And Mitt Romney in this was thinking about— this was problematic to him. And finally, at one point says, well, aren't we all equal? And Bruce R. McConkie's response was, young man, do you think you're equal to Jesus Christ? Young man, do you think you're equal to Joseph Smith? And I think I'm equal to Joseph Smith, at least in terms of how the Lord loves me and appreciates me. I think I can have all of the same blessings that Joseph Smith is going to have in the next life. I think teaching the fact that we are all equal in the sight of God is a much more positive message. This is the thing that's so frustrating to me, is that it's not just coming clean and fessing up to all of the mistakes that we have made. It's embracing the positive message of how much agency the Lord has given us, how much, you know, we are here to make mistakes. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to screw up, and you have a Savior whose grace is going to save you. That is such a more powerful message that I think encourages more righteousness than the other message. Because if the message is, well, gosh, these guys are perfect, what the hell is wrong with you? Then I'm going to give up. I'm done. Well, okay, I'm clearly not perfect. I'm clearly not these majestic men that lead this church. So what's the point? I might as well just pack it all up and leave. And that's what people continue to do. This message of toxic perfectionism destroys lives. I mean, Elder Packer says it's truth that destroys faith. No, it's false expectations that destroy faith. And setting people up for false expectations is what erodes faith at every level for every person. So it's just so frustrating to me because I have had to go through the long dark night of the soul. As I've confronted all of these things, and I have found that there is a way through. There is a way to get to the other side, recognize the weaknesses of our leaders, uh, and still have faith in their divine calling and their divine mission and in the church's divine mission. And that's where everybody needs to go. And instead, we steer them away from that. We're terrified of that. We don't want them to know these things, and yet they're going to find them out anyway. We don't have the power to keep it from them. And so it's— it's— to me, it's not just we need to come clean. It's we're missing a huge, huge opportunity to build a sustainable, long-term faith that will allow people to, to stay in a church where they expect their leaders are going to make mistakes and they take personal responsibility for their own spiritual journeys and are therefore more faithful and have a stronger faith as a result. It just seems so crystal clear to me. I don't understand why, why the church as a whole is unwilling to see it. Am I just, am I just nuts?

No, not at all. I, I share those views with this important caveat, a distinction that I want to highlight. Listen to you very intently, and I, I, I, I think you're right, but I want to make this distinction. When you learned about your, your granddad— we're talking about your granddad, President David O. McKay, great-grandfather— sorry, great-great-grandfather, direct relative of your family— when you learned about his imperfections, that you found that inspiring, which is, which is understandable. The distinction, however, is between certain infallibilities, like with your great-grandfather, you know, and the challenges that he experienced in his life, like on his mission, and some of the doubts, and I'm sure he read a lot more about his imperfections, uh, than, you know, his challenges, struggles on his mission, which some of us are familiar with, uh, that we, we become aware of in certain books and materials. But the distinction, Jim, is also between, um, those natural human, um, common infallibilities that we all have as people, none of us are perfect, versus, and let's be frank here, the deliberate actions of people like Brigham Young that knew, I believe, were doing awful things deliberately. It's one thing to make, you know, to be human and to make a mistake and to be infallible and have all these natural imperfections. It's quite another to, to know this and to deliberately harm or hurt people and perpetuate things or do things that are actually going to affect people's safety, health. And, and I believe there are, there is elements of Joseph Smith's personality and Brigham Young and to Elder Uchtdorf's point in his talk in 2013 where they made mistakes. I believe some of these were done knowingly, deliberately, and for various reasons. So the question is, have leaders of the church or any of us, is anyone, is the human nature capable of making mistakes and doing so knowingly and deliberately to, for one's own gain? Yes, absolutely. We see that in history all the time across every culture, every historical stage in human nature, the evolution of human nature. That's part of human nature. And church leaders, people like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young did things, I believe, knowingly, deliberately, wrongfully, and at times maliciously. You know, look at Joe Smith destroying the printing press. There were certain accusations that I believe he knew were true. Maybe not all of them, and we haven't got time to go into that right now, but there are certain statements, allegations, accusations that he heard about that were being leveled against him personally at that time. That had some basis of truth that were about to be printed in the, in the printing press in Palmyra. And he destroyed the press. He ordered the destruction of the press, the printing press. And that I think was what ushered in his downfall. I think it was a major factor in his downfall. This was the age of print and democracy, and that was a, that was just a red line that was crossed. And so have prophets and apostles in the past behaved and acted beyond, you know, that, that natural human, you know, fallibility that we've all got. So I'm trying to draw the distinction between— and I don't know if I'm doing a good job— between, you know, what you said earlier. You said earlier that you are as good as Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, that you're equal in value and you're not less than them. I would argue you're actually a better man, frankly, than Joseph Smith in many aspects, or in certain aspects. And same with Brigham Young. I hope you're not the same as them. You're not. Well, I'd have to say, oh, I know you're not. You're a better man, a most better man, I think, and I know, than Brigham Young and Joseph Smith in certain aspects of their life. I think there's, there's other qualities that they had for sure, uh, extraordinary qualities that Joseph Smith had and Brigham Young had, which are of great value. And, and, and even in those areas, they, they made mistakes. I'm not— so I think that's important distinction between the qualities of even people like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young that they had in abundance in certain areas, and the other side to them, which I believe was quite dark, malicious, you know, bad intent. I don't think Josué set out to do that, but I think he deliberately did things to try to position and protect himself and acted aggressively. Was he acting as a prophet or a man? I mean, who knows? But it's an important distinction, I think, to make. You are not talking about those things. You are talking about, you know, humans just being natural and we make mistakes and we, we're imperfect. And, and in that context, in the context that you mean, uh, the church would do well to take that approach and to use this as an opportunity to say, look, you know, we've made mistakes, we're human, we still make mistakes, we're not perfect. But the problem they've got is that they've been saying, you know, follow the prophet, you, you won't, uh, go wrong. There's a talk here by, uh, Elder, uh, goes back a bit actually, and probably out of time here, but William Oswald. This talk was delivered, there's no date on this, but it's on the church website. There's no date, don't know why, but it's Obedience is the First Law of Heaven. And he talks about, uh, he quotes, uh, Elder, uh, Packer. He says it, he says it, by following the rules, said Elder Packer, You'll never make a serious mistake either while you are on your mission or thereafter without being warned. You'll never take the wrong road. You'll never go around the wrong bend or make a wrong decision. And so the church has, uh, continues to say, look, if you follow the prophet, you won't go astray. That is false. It simply is untrue and it's been shown to be untrue and false. And I believe the church, you know my position, I think the church has extraordinary leaders. A lot of the time they're inspired. They don't have exclusivity of inspiration. I think we all have that. To your point, I think you are entitled to the same inspiration as your great-grandfather, President McKay. You're a good man. I think I'm a good man. I think good people get good inspiration. But a lot of those people in the church, absolutely, the church has extraordinary people in leadership that have inspiration, but they make mistakes. They're human and they don't have any exclusivity, I believe, in terms of level of prophecy or divinity. I just no longer believe they've got that. I used to believe that, that they were the only mouthpiece on the earth. What they said was gospel and, and that they were either perfect or close to being perfect. You know, like some of the leaders who've got their calling election made sure through the second anointing where seemingly they can't make any more mistakes, that their calling election is assured, uh, forever, no matter what happens. I, I just don't understand that. I don't fully understand what that means if they make a mistake. But in the context that you are talking about, about, you know, just genuine natural imperfections of leaders, which they have, I think there's an opportunity for the church to address that and to have, as I said at the beginning earlier, a couch, in other words, if they want, but some kind of truth and reconciliation, um, um, moment, if you like. But you also said earlier, and you're probably right, unfortunately, that with Elder Oaks and perhaps some other leaders, that won't happen for, for some time. I see hope with Elder Holland and perhaps some of the others, Elder But I think we're, we, we, we bedded down for another 10 years at least, I think, until some of these people is no longer with us. So I, I still hope for that opportunity, that diff— that change in direction, have more inclusive, transparent, open, and yes, let's talk about some of the ugly truths that exist in our, yeah. Difficult history, disturbing history.

Well, I appreciate all of that. I don't think I'm limiting my acceptance of prophetic fallibility to sort of the general kinds of foibles that humans have. I'm trying to remember Joseph Smith's phrase when he talks about Nobody needs to think me guilty of any malignant sins. The disposition to commit such was never in my character. You know, I'm not trying to limit it to those. I'm trying to say that, you know, the Old Testament is filled with prophetic figures who do terrible things deliberately. I'm thinking of David, who, who essentially, you know, through the power differential rapes Bathsheba and takes her as a wife, as a plural wife, and kills her husband.

Yep.

Oh, I mean, that's a terrible thing. And David wrote the Psalms. You know, David is, is a prophet. No, David is a prophetic figure who is anointed by God and has all this kind of thing and is set up with all these wonderful things and, and ends up doing terrible things. You know, the Old Testament, you can go through and find all kinds of examples. Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel, he does all kinds of nasty stuff. He steals the birthright from his brother and lies to his father and puts on hair so his father will think that it's, you know, and if you read like the Old Testament study manuals, They go through all these gyrations to explain why, well, that's not really what's happening here. What's really happening is that these guys are essentially perfect and we're just sort of misunderstanding stuff. But, but I think, you know, even President Banks gave a talk about the printing press at one point. I stumbled on this when I was doing my CES letter reply. And he talked about the fact that it was a terrible thing for Joseph Smith to have destroyed it, and that it probably is what led to his death. I don't think there's really any question that it's what led to his death. It set those events in motion that resulted in his death. You know, but we sort of couch that as sort of a misstep. But I, you know, when I say mistakes, I'm not limiting it to good faith errors. I'm saying we do things that are wrong. We sin. Prophets sin just like the rest of us, and they can make horrific mistakes that are deliberate and that are entirely their responsibility. You know, but what I'm trying to say is that We need to frame our faith in a way that incorporates that, that we don't expect the ability to sin to disappear when people have high ecclesiastical office. So I'm trying very hard to agree with you.

You know, you've qualified it, so thank you for that. And I think this is the right way to go for the church. And it's afraid that if it does that, it will lose members, I believe. But instead of seeing the way you see it and the way I see it, that is a positive thing. Let's, let's talk about it. Let's get it in the open. Let's, let's understand it. Let's address it. And let's say, you know, let's take this position that we are not perfect. We're doing our best. I mean, I think that's great. I mean, how many stories have you read or accounts of people's lives where They struggled through faith and trial and error and gone through extraordinary sacrifice experiences to figure out, solve a problem or to find their way in life. And they've got very humble beginnings and have extraordinary inspirational stories and they came through it because they learned from their mistakes and they're better people for it. I think that's fantastic. I'm inspired by people like that, by those kind of accounts. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could have those conversations and say, look, I did something, I made a mistake, I read something and misunderstood it, or I thought this and did this and I was wrong, I made a mistake, I'm just human. People like that or that approach, that response, that attitude, I find that that melts my heart, that I find that inspiring. I draw closer to people like that. I draw away. It's like that scripture, you know, our hearts are far, are, you know, removed from the Lord, our lips. What's that? Your memory's not good on this. What's that scripture about?

They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Absolutely. And I think of that scripture, your memory's great on that. Scripture. And I think about, you know, the lip service that they give at conference, you know, all these extraordinary leaders that are seemingly perfect and can do no wrong and, you know, follow the prophet. I just think it's, I think it's a real loss to be human. Wouldn't it be fantastic to go out and say, look, we've made mistakes, okay, we're wrong, we apologize. We don't do apologies at Cornerstone Elder Oaks. I don't think that's going to happen. Anytime soon, but just say we made a mistake, we were wrong, and, you know, be patient with us. Thank you for your love and your kindness. I think, yeah, you might get people that might leave, might think, wow, holy crap, they're not perfect. And they said that, and I think they're perfect, and they've made mistakes. And they said, well, if you follow the prophet, like this talk just said here, quoting Elder Packer, you follow the prophet, you won't go wrong. And now they're saying you follow the prophet and you might go wrong. You know, I, I, I think you're going to get people that would react like that, but I think for the most part, I think people would, you know, that, that, that goodness that exists, I think, in most people in and out the church, I think they would warm to that. And I think that would be a sea change, a, a catalyst actually for greater things, uh, that the church, um, uh, is known for and could do even more greater things if it only took that took that approach. I, I— surely this is not the only conversation, um, that has been had on this subject. I'm sure there are others. And surely, tell me that this conversation that we're having right now has been discussed in some ways, in some forms, within the higher echelons of the church, that they've talked about this. Don't tell me, please, that they haven't even considered this change in position or changing approach or look at the possibilities. But if we 'You know, if we try this approach, a more honest approach, we'll get a better result.' I don't believe that conversation's not happened or not been had. I think it has. I'll be blown away if it hasn't. Somebody at the Brussels level hasn't even said, 'Hey, look, we're doing it wrong. Let's try a different approach.' You know, if that's never happened, I'll be astonished. I think it has happened. And And because of those, um, the grip that certain people have on that group, uh, has taken, continued to take the church in this very, um, close-minded, uh, direction. But anyway, our theme on our podcast is that, you know, we, we hope for, we, we look for improvements with the church and we hope for improvements and we hope for change and positive improvements. And that's a big part of, uh, you know, why we talk about the We'll let that be the last word.

So thank you all for listening, and we hope to see you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.