The Miracle of Forgiveness

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with the miraculous Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am doing absolutely fabulous. How are you, Jim? You know what?

I'm doing great. I understand you're heading off to Mexico. We were— you're heading to a place we went a couple of years ago. So you're living an exciting life. Life is good. This is part of your miraculous existence.

Yes, this is a really important holiday for me and my family. And we're excited. Never been to Cancún, Mexico. Can't wait. Excited.

Well, that's very cool. So I called you miraculous for a reason, because that segues into a discussion of a book that has miracle in the title. But I think the book is anything but miraculous. We decided that it might be a good idea to talk a little bit about a book that has had oversized influence on the church as a whole for decades. It's a book called The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball. And this book, it would be hard to overstate what kind of an impact this book has had. For a while, it was part of the missionary library. You know, do you remember the missionary? Like, we, we could read Jesus the Christ, I think the Articles of Faith, and a few others. Was Miracle— I know, uh, LeGrand Richards' book A Marvelous Work and a Wonder was part of it. I don't remember Miracle of Forgiveness being part of it. Do you?

I do. So in the MTC in London, when, as a young missionary, we were instructed by the temple and the mission president to take the following books on our missions to Scotland. The standard works, obviously, Articles of Faith, James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, James E. Talmage, uh, Marvelous Work and a Wonder, LeGrand Richards, I think. Yep.

Yep.

And the other book that we were strongly encouraged to take, last but not least, Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball.

Lovely. Lovely. I, I don't remember having it on my mission. I do remember at some point on my mission, it might have been while you were still there, or it might have been after you went home. But an edict came down from President Banks that missionaries were no longer allowed to read The Miracle of Forgiveness, because if you read The Miracle of Forgiveness, you feel anything but forgiven. The Miracle of Forgiveness is— forgiveness comes up in the last two chapters I've got the whole book here on PDF, and there are about 20 chapters, and the last 3 chapters are titled The Church Will Forgive, God Will Forgive, and The Miracle of Forgiveness. The rest of the chapters are all about sin and different ways to sin. So if you will indulge me here, on page 25 of the book The Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball— I'm not making this up— Spencer W. Kimball lists every sin you can commit. And I just think it would be help— I'm going to read this. There's 145 words, you know, and to put that in perspective, the proclamation on the family is about 250 words. So, I mean, this is so, so According to Spencer W. Kimball, uh, the, the following are the sins that you can commit: murder, adultery, theft, cursing, unholiness in masters, disobedience in servants, unfaithfulness, improvidence, hatred of God, disobedience to husbands— nothing about wives— lack of natural affection, high-mindedness, flattery, lustfulness, infidelity, indiscretion, backbiting, whispering, lack of truth, striking, brawling, quarrelsomeness, unthankfulness, inhospitality, deceitfulness, irreverence, boasting, arrogance, pride, double-tongued talk, profanity, slander, corruptness, thievery, embezzlement, despoiling, covenant breaking, incontinence— incontinence is a sin?— filthiness, ignobleness, filthy communications, impurity, foolishness, slothfulness, impatience, lack of understanding, unmercifulness, idolatry, blasphemy, denial of the Holy Ghost, Sabbath breaking, envy, jealousy, malice, maligning, vengefulness, implacability, bitterness, clamor, spite, defiling, reviling, evil speaking, provoking, greediness for filthy lucre, disobedience to parents, anger, hate, covetousness, bearing false witness, inventing evil things. That's a funny one. Inventing evil things. Flesh sickness, heresy, presumptuousness, abomination, insatiable appetite, instability, ignorance, self-will, speaking evil of dignitaries. I don't know what that means. Becoming a stumbling block, and in our modern language, masturbation, petting, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and every sex perversion, every hidden and secret sin, and all unholy and impure practices. If your sin was not listed in there, there is a sin is missed. Which one?

And I just did it. Ha ha ha.

Loud laughter. Loud laughter.

Where is that?

Uh, I think you could find something in there that might cover that.

I don't know. Spencer Kimball, if you can hear this, hear my laughter.

You know, I mean, we can look at this now and we can chuckle and we can laugh. I mean, it's, that's absolutely ridiculous, but we talked in our last podcast with Beth Magnetic about scrupulosity. And there is no greater catalyst for scrupulosity that has ever been published by the church than The Miracle of Forgiveness. As I was preparing for this podcast, I went and looked at everybody's reactions to The Miracle of Forgiveness, and everybody, no matter who you are, if you read this book, you will feel worse about yourself You will be convicted of some kind of— you will find yourself in the plethora of sins that Spencer W. Kimball lists. And it's only— you go through all of this, and it's only when you get to the end that he even brings up the possibility of forgiveness, because he tries to make sure that you feel just as absolutely awful as you possibly can. And, uh, there are so many things in this book that the church no longer teaches. And I, I was sort of working on that and trying to figure out what they were. One is that he— the idea, for instance, that the passage in Alma where it talks about, "Know ye not, my son, that this is the most abominable of all sins except for the shedding of innocent blood?" It's the Miracle of Forgiveness that codified that into policy. It says explicitly that sexual sin is next to murder in seriousness. And we no longer teach that nearly as explicitly, but I guess we teach that— I mean, that's worthy of debate and discussion to determine how much of that we still teach. But the way he talks about masturbation, he insists that masturbation, uh, leads to homosexuality, uh, that if you masturbate, it leads to mutual masturbation and then to, as Spencer W. Kimball describes it, total homosexuality. So it's partial, I guess, if you're masturbating on your own, but if somebody else is there with you, then that's just the next logical extension. And I just think, what planet are you on?

And I'm shaking my head.

I mean, you're shaking. I mean, it's just nuts. And probably the most damaging stuff that's in The Miracle of Forgiveness is its references to homosexuality, because it describes homosexuality in ways that we no longer teach. And it's very important to recognize that we've changed. We don't do this anymore. And yet every time the church changes, the church doesn't, um, the church doesn't acknowledge that it's changed. And in fact, The Miracle of Forgiveness has quietly gone out of print, just as Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie has quietly gone out of print. And the church just pretends it was never hap— was never there, didn't happen. But I mean, how do you— here's the passage about masturbation. Okay. While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance. On the sentence before that is, our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice. And we've discussed that at length. That's no longer the policy. Okay, what is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation practiced with another person of the same sex, and thence into total homosexuality. And it's interesting, the other thing that's changed in the church that goes directly against the miracle of forgiveness is that we no longer teach that a homosexual orientation is sinful, that to be attracted to someone of the same sex is not sinful. And in fact, we've gone out of our way to point out that, oh, uh, homosexual feelings are not sinful, but homosexual actions are. And that's sort of where we've drawn this line And there are problems with that, but we won't necessarily get into that right now. But here in The Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball defines homosexuality. He says this perversion is defined as, quote— and he puts this in quotes, so I'm quoting him quoting— quote, "Sexual desire for those of the same sex or sexual relations between individuals of the same sex, whether men or women. So right there, it's there in black and white that Spencer W. Kimball— it wasn't just acting on it, it was sexual desire in and of itself is sinful. And it goes on, and it has— I think it's led to a number of suicides. In terms of how it describes homosexuality. It has that terrible phrase about, okay, after consideration of the evil aspects, the ugliness and prevalence of the evil of homosexuality, the glorious thing to remember is that it is curable and forgivable. The Lord has promised that all sins could be forgiven except certain ones enumerated, and this evil was not among those named. Thus, it is forgivable if totally abandoned, and if the repentance is sincere and absolute, certainly it can be overcome. For there are numerous happy people who were once involved in its clutches and have since completely transformed their lives. Therefore— and here's the sentence that just drives me nuts— therefore, to those who say that this practice or any other evil is incurable, I respond, how can you say the door cannot be opened until your knuckles are bloody, till your head is bruised, till your muscles are sore? It can be done. And we don't teach that anymore. We don't believe that anymore. We, I think of how many people have pounded their hands against that door until their knuckles are bloody, till their head is bruised, till their muscles are sore. And the door does not open. And their sexual desire, which Elder Kimball, because he was a, um, he was not a president of the church when he wrote this, but Elder Kimball said the desire in and of itself is wicked. And people have pounded on the door to get rid of that desire. I mean, I've talked to people, there are people in the Tabernacle Choir, uh, who have desperately tried to change their sexual orientation and have not been able to do it. And I think that every believing Latter-day Saint who finds themselves confronting desires they do not want has pounded on that door as hard as they can, and it never opens. You do not change someone's sexual orientation by being more righteous, by praying. And we— that's what we teach now. That's not what we taught them. So there's a whole lot more here, but that's kind of the opening rant, opening introduction. Uh, when did— have you read this book? When did you read this book?

Yes, I read this in the MTC in, uh, early '80s, sorry, early '87, before traveling to Scotland. And as I say, it was one of the main books that we were encouraged to read. Um, going back to what you were saying in the introduction as you read that, and I've got it in front of me, all those words, all those sins, which he, it's, it's the most extensive list of sins I've ever come across. Some of them are very strange, like, um, filthy communications. I mean, what's that? Another one is, uh, another one I find quite funny, I guess not funny to Spencer Kimball, is the fleshliness. Fleshliness. Yes, fleshliness. Yeah, there's some regular ones in there and there's some very strange ones. It certainly has missed loud laughter. He's probably missed a few of this, but that's loud laughter. I, you know, he missed. But when I read this for the first time, I felt completely full of sin, inadequate. It gave me a feeling of there's no way I can make it back. It's absolutely so many things wrong with me. I thought I was a pretty, uh, committed, devoted, obedient, uh, individual before the mission. I served a mini mission to prepare for my mission, by the way, for 6 weeks and baptized somebody. I lived as a missionary for 6 weeks before I came out on a mission. I think, I think I mentioned that before. So, you know, missionaries don't do that. They don't serve a mini-mission. And I'm not saying I'm, uh, you know, holy now, nothing like that. But I thought I was ready and I thought I was, uh, doing most things right. I read that book and I felt completely inadequate. Number 2, when I got to Scotland and served in the Dumfries, um, area, I served with a missionary who was just, he was extraordinary. Um, and I won't mention his name out of respect, but he came to me, Jim, after he'd had a nervous breakdown. The, uh, the mission president never told, never told me this missionary had a nervous breakdown before he came to me. He'd worked himself to death. He worked all the hours, he worked the P-days, and I learned afterwards that he was driven entirely from trying to live with exactness through the standard works, and in particular, a book that we're talking about right now called The Miracle of Forgiveness. This missionary was trying to live and be so obedient that he could remove all the sins that you went through earlier and live with exactness. So much so that he had a mental and physical breakdown. He was in hospital for a month, uh, before he came to me and I was with him and he was in an absolute mess. And he insisted every morning that we read The Miracle of Forgiveness. This is a book I read in the MTC. It made me feel uncomfortable. I felt completely inadequate. And by the way, all those sins that you've just read, you are describing the human experience, all that. That is the whole nature of humans. That's what humans do. We've either got all of those, very few people probably got all of those, but we've got many of those. And then when you are taught as a missionary and as a member to live with exactness, be obedient, to be ye therefore perfect, et cetera, et cetera, the pressure is absolutely intense. This book was published in 1969, and again, it discusses these issues of repentance extensively. And it came from actually Spencer Kimball's vast experience. I did a lot of research on his experience meeting with members and listening and responding to members' confessions across a whole range of sins. While he was a leader and certainly while he was an apostle. And he gathered all that knowledge and information together, and then that helped him write the, um, you know, The Miracle of, uh, Forgiveness. Um, the book is intense. Uh, it, uh, it's, it's, uh, dangerous. I believe it's led to, uh, suicides, depression. Again, some of the quotes— it's very important that I think we I bring some of the quotes to the, uh, surface here. Uh, one of them is in, uh, page 196 of the book. He says here, it is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle. I'll repeat that. It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle. Now, I had someone come to me a leader, when I was leader in the church, who brought that to me. And they were bringing that to me in the context of this individual had experienced sexual abuse. They'd been sexually assaulted, and they felt— they, they, having read this and heard some other, uh, read some other material, they questioned whether they fought this, uh, attacker off as much as they should have, or did they fight enough because they had lost their virtue? And virtue in the church often is usually associated with sexual virtue. Perhaps not always, but many times it is, or a lot of the times it is. In this context of this meeting I had with this individual, they were speaking about being sexually assaulted and they didn't know if they'd fought this, tried to fight this person enough and carried some shame because they questioned whether they struggled enough, Jim, to fight this aggressor off them, someone who was sexually assaulting them. And then when they read this, they actually considered suicide because they'd lost the virtue. And the Book of Mormon talks about that. We've talked about this earlier on a podcast. And it's clear, not just from this scripture, But from the other material that Spencer Kimball had access to prior, and certainly what reminded since on some quotes like Elder Romney in the Ensign in 1981 said this, when you are released and returned, we shall be glad to meet you and welcome you back into the farmer's circle. But remember this, my son, we would rather you come to this station and take your body off the train in a casket than to have you come home unclean. Having lost your virtue. Some other quotes which, along the same spirit of the miracle of forgiveness, it goes on to say here that he says, there is no true Latinist saint who would not rather bury a son or a daughter than to have him or her lose his or her chastity, realizing that chastity is of more value than anything else in the world. E.B.J. Grant. And another one here. President David O. McKay, which Spencer Kimball quotes in The Miracle of Forgiveness, if I may do this. Your virtue is worth more than your life. Please, young folk, preserve your virtue even if you lose your lives. So The Miracle of Forgiveness is replete with references to living with perfection, exactness, and forgiving and forgetting whatever transgression is committed against you, essentially being absolutely perfect and free from sin. Just going back to the story with the missionary that I served with, by the way, one morning, about 2 weeks into serving my mission with this individual, I, in the Dumfries flat, there's a another level above the sleeping area. It's where the shower and, uh, this sort of storage upstairs in this flat apartment in Dumfries. I went upstairs and I, and I heard, cuz I could hear a, a sound, a com— some noise or commotion, some wailing actually. I describe it as wailing. And I, I wondering what was happening with my companion, went upstairs and as I looked through the crack of the door, this missionary and this is the first time you've heard this, was lying prostrate on the floor, uh, pleading, begging God, weeping, very emotional. Um, definitely audible. You could hear them down from downstairs. And he was begging for his life to be forgiven. He was laying prostrate as a missionary. And I'd only been out, uh, a short period of time. And I, uh, left. I came back downstairs and never spoke to this missionary about this experience. Shared it with very few people. I won't mention his name. He was a wonderful missionary. He taught with great power when he was, uh, himself and had— was together. He was an incredibly effective teacher. He really was. And one of the finest mishras, um, I served with when he was, uh, together, when he was balanced. But there were moments, uh, and having lived with him, I saw it where he was completely broken. This concept, this philosophy, this teaching that you have to be perfect, you have to live with exactness, and if you don't, then you are not worthy and you will not inherit the kingdom of God. He wanted to make this ultimate sacrifice to live with complete exactness. He even said to me, after you fast, don't— as I was doing when I fasted, after I'd fasted, all I could think about was food. I like food. I was fasting. He made us fast once a week. After the fast, I was hungry and I just wanted to eat. And he said, 'Nope, you wait.' You pause and you drink some water and you wait an hour or two even after you fasted. And I'm like, why would he do that? He just, I just wanna eat cuz I've, I've not eaten for 24 hours. He said, he said, oh, Lewis, you control the body. You control, you master your body. And he taught me that, you know, he taught me that, um, you know, that you can and should control your, um, natural inclinations to do something. But it actually went on some things, it went quite extreme with him. And he used to read that book every morning. And I believe a lot of his issues, having lived with him for a few weeks, was attributed to that book. And it's extremely dangerous, is the book. You know, we made a few, you know, flipping comments earlier, but it is a very dangerous book. Because people feel inadequate. They feel they can't go on because they can't forgive someone, for example, 'cause he says forgive and forget. You've gotta completely forgive the person, and it's very difficult to do that. And so it's a book that was very destructive. It talks about, for example, the statement, as a man thinketh, so is he, could equally be rendered as a man thinketh, so does he. If one thinks it long enough, he's likely to do it. So if you have any thoughts, any negative thoughts, you become that. Like you talked about masturbation, you become gay. The other thing he talks about in The Miracle of Forgiveness is that, and this is in the scriptures, by the way, it's tied to the scriptures, that if you seek forgiveness, you repent, you seek forgiveness, you get forgiven or you feel forgiven, but if you go sin again, those previous sins are restored to you. Right. That never made sense to me. So if you've forgiven, if you've repented and forgiven, God, that's it, that's done. You're forgiven. The sins are remembered no more. The slate is clean. But the teaching in the scriptures and Spencer W. Kimball is that if you commit another sin, whoa and be tied, all those sins come back. So the pressure to live, uh, to that extent makes someone broken. So this missionary— we talk about church broke, and I never understood what that mean— meant until I served with that missionary who was my— well, I won't tell you what number companion he was. He had a big heart. He was an extraordinary man. I love him. I've, I've— I don't know where he is. He never kept church. I don't even know if he's active, but the church— that book and the church broke him. He was church broke. And, um, if the church would have said do this, he'd have done it. It was blind obedience. So the book is— has now become for me a book of, um, I think it's destructive. I think it— I'm not surprised the church doesn't want you to read it anymore. I'm not surprised it's taken off the shelves. I'm not surprised it never references it, you know, anymore, because it's, it's so, it's been condemned frequently over and over again for being so destructive and destroying, you know, you know, from professional counselors who advised people that I know, stay away from that book. So it's, it's an awful book. It really is. And I You know, if you have it, don't read it, burn it.

All right. I just want it on record that you were the one who said that, not me. I don't— anyway, a couple of things about it that have jumped out at me as I was preparing this. One being that, and I mentioned earlier, the huge lopsided amount of time spent talking about sin and the small amount of time talking about forgiveness. One of the things that this book emphasizes is that repentance should be difficult and painful and long. Here's a quote: There is no royal road to repentance, no privileged path to forgiveness. Every man must follow the same course. It is a long road spiked with thorns and briars and pitfalls and problems. And I, I, I even remember thinking this when I first read this book. I can't remember, actually. I'm not sure if I've ever sat down and read the whole thing all the way through. I did not read it on my mission. Since my mission, I was in a bishopric, actually, where the bishop would assign this book to people who were in serious sin. And he'd say, please read the Miracle of Forgiveness and come back and talk to me. And I have since discovered that that was not a unique experience, that there were a number of bishops that this was sort of their go-to, that if you came to them with any kind of serious sexual sin, because who are we kidding, that's pretty much the only reason why people would go to their bishop for the kind of thing that the bishop would give them the Miracle of Forgiveness for. Uh, but this was sort of the panacea the bishops would hand out— the miracle of forgiveness. This is how you— this is how you repent. And it was always a long, painful process. You know, we've talked about people who had to wait a full year to go on their missions after they masturbated, or people— any kind of sexual sin, the church would always sort of attach this arbitrary timeline to it, that you're not really forgiven until you've waited a year. It's usually a year. I don't know why it's a year, but if you used to be that if you got married outside the temple, you couldn't get married inside the temple for a year after your civil ceremony. That's changed. The church is changing. The church has changed since the miracle of forgiveness. I, I, I, I mean, one of the reasons I don't want people to burn this book is that I want this book to stand as a testament to how much the church has changed. I want people to be able to point to something in this book and say, "We don't believe that anymore." And there are so many places where we do that. But I can remember reading passages in The Miracle of Forgiveness and thinking back to the Book of Mormon. You know, Alma the Younger talks about his suffering. He was wracked with it. I've got the verses here from Alma 36. He was wracked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and wracked with all my sins. And so he's talking about how miserable he is. But then he says, okay, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people. Concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart, "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death." And now behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains No more. The forgiveness was instant. It happened at the very moment he called out to Jesus. And the next verse: And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did behold! Yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain. And when you describe the experience of your mission companion, that was not his experience. How many times did he cry out to the Lord for forgiveness? And how it led him to laying prostrate on the ground because he could not reconcile this because he had— the miracle of forgiveness model is you have to suffer for a very long time, go through the pitfalls, go through the thorns, go through the problems, And here you have Alma the Younger, the instant he cries out to the Lord, the forgiveness is instant. And I, for my whole life, have had a hard time reconciling that because the Church model now, it's not as bad as it was in the miracle of forgiveness days, but it's not this. It's not— I mean, if you go into your bishop and you confess a sin, uh, there's going to be a lengthy process. I don't know if it's necessarily going to be a year, I don't know if that same time frame exists, but we now, we speak, we talk about grace in a way we never used to with the miracle of forgiveness. We don't talk about grace enough for my liking, but you're seeing sort of the backlash to this, a quiet backlash that is bubbling up in conference talks. Maybe not in all conference talks, but you certainly hear it when Dieter Uchtdorf talks or when Patrick Kieran talks, that there is this other strain to an understanding of repentance, an understanding of forgiveness, an understanding of the atonement that just flies in the face of this book that tells you essentially you have to be perfect. He talks about that. He talks about perfection. I mean, why list 145 words of sins if you're not supposed to overcome every single stinking one of those? I mean, the toxic perfectionism we've talked about on this podcast, the scrupulosity that my son struggled with on his mission and that we've talked about on this podcast. I remember telling my son that when I came home from my mission, I broke my Rolling Stones records. Because I listened to that talk by Gene R. Cook about Mick Jagger sitting next to him on an airplane. And my son said to me, oh, I didn't know you had scrupulosity too. And I did. And this whole environment, this whole idea, this whole you are never enough, you are never good enough, you are never forgiven. It just flies in the face, not just of of common sense, but it flies in the face of the scriptural teachings, including the scriptures of the Restoration. The Book of Mormon could not be more clear about Alma the Younger receiving forgiveness on the spot, the moment he cried out unto the Lord. And we just don't do this. We don't embrace this. I think we think that there's some kind of, uh, I mean To me, it's just a hazing ritual that we put people through, that there's, there's some kind of value in that, when in fact it's a total misunderstanding of what sin is. Because we're told over and over and over again, in particularly in the New Testament, Paul talks about this, that it doesn't matter if you murder somebody, or if you can peaches on Sunday, both of those sins will keep you out of the presence of God. We are utterly helpless without the intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ, without his atonement, without him stepping in our path. And it doesn't matter how big or how small or what the gradation is, or what's the sin next to murder, or what's the third sin and the fourth sin. There's no value in ranking sins. There is eternal value in having those sins forgiven by the Lord that, that we profess to serve. And so part, part of the thing also about the miracle of forgiveness is that this was written when he was an apostle, and certainly a great deal of it was reiterated when he became president of the church.. But I have also read Edward Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball's son's account of how he finally arrived at the 1978 priesthood revelation. And I have to think that Spencer Kimball learned an awful lot about, about his relationship with the Lord through his service as president of the Church. As the prophet of God, who is striving with the Lord to lift this terrible priesthood ban and become more inclusive as a church. And so I have to remind myself when I read the Spencer W. Kimball, A Miracle of Forgiveness, that this is also the Spencer W. Kimball who finally fulfilled the Book of Mormon promise of a God who denies none who come unto him, black and white, bond and free, all are alike unto God. It was Spencer Kimball who was able to do that. And so I have to give Spencer Kimball grace for the miracle of forgiveness, which even at the end of his life, he said that he thought he had gone too far. I'll try to find the exact quote here, but Spencer Kimball recognized that this probably was far harsher than he ought to have been. So that's my rant. And I'm happy to kick it back to your rant. Yeah. But at some point, at some point, we can't end this podcast without talking about Bigfoot. Bigfoot has to come into this.

I'm glad you mentioned Bigfoot because I've got it in front of me right here. And I do want to talk about Bigfoot because when I'm reading that Miracle of Forgiveness light, it's going along with the same, the same pattern, the same repentance, forgiveness, and sins.

And then all of a sudden, boom.

This thing about Bigfoot and Cain, just like, where the hell did that come from? But I don't want to talk about that. I just want to respond to what you're saying. I think you're being very gracious, actually, towards The Miracle of Forgiveness in some respects. I said earlier that I think we should burn it and never read it again. You said you didn't say that, and that's correct. I said it, you didn't. And the reason is that You know, like on this other podcast, and we discussed this right at the very beginning, we come into this podcast, you and I, with very different experiences, different perspectives. We converged on a mission together. I came from a completely different route, path, route, path, completely. You came into it completely different to mine. Our backgrounds couldn't be any different. It's like chalk and cheese, right? Your perspective is different. Our experience informs our perspective. I'm coming at this from a perspective also as a leader. Now, you served in the bishopric, and I don't know how— to what extent you saw or experienced the impact of that book on people's lives. And you probably did. I certainly did. And I had that book along with Mormon Doctrine, Bruce R. McConkie. They were two of the books that people had a real problem with and they would bring the— I had a problem with it. Do you remember I was born out of wedlock and I brought the Mormon Doctrine book and quoted Bruce R. McConkie that anyone born out of wedlock was not worthy to be a god and only worthy to be an angel and serve other gods. And I wasn't happy about that because I wanted to be a god. I'm kind of tongue-in-cheek, I'm laughing there, but I'm like, no, no, I'm doing this because I want to be like, I want to get to the top. And I can't now because I was born out of wedlock. So the Mormon doctrine was a problem for me on a number of different issues. And the miracle of forgiveness was a problem for me. But many people, or some of the people rather, that came to me as a bishop who had a problem with the book, and it affected their perspective on life. The book's face significant criticism and it's very harsh. I've just made some notes here, a bit of a synopsis. It's very harsh in its tone and emphasis on severity, which you talked about, articulated really well. Very strong fear-inducing language I wrote down there to describe the consequence of sin. This can create a sense of overwhelming guilt and anxiety. And I saw that, Jim, in people's lives as they came and referenced the Miracle of Forgiveness, that they just couldn't quite cut it. You know, they couldn't quite make it. And those who are struggling with feelings of remorse and people who are depressed already, clinically depressed, where they would read the book. And as our last guest talked about, Beth Magnetik, where people with emotional psychological conditions, aspects of Mormonism amplify that, make the problem worse. And this book reinforced those old dogmas and those teachings, which made people feel even worse. It emphasizes a lot of pains of hell and meticulous, often agonizing process of repentance that you talked about. Psychologically, it's damaging to somebody who's prone to anxiety or depression. And we can relate to that. We can certainly relate to that with people in our lives who suffer from depression. It promotes a climate of fear or can promote a climate of fear. If you look at the book, it's more fear than hope, in my opinion. Lots of outdated policies and interpretations. And you, we say, do I want to kind of swing back to this? I said burn it, don't read it. You said no, no, no, we need to keep this evidence that we don't believe this. I'll give you this concession. Fine, keep the book, don't burn it, but get on the pulpit and talk about it and say, hey guys, we've moved beyond this. Don't put it, don't silence it. Don't, don't kind of hide it and not talk about it. Oh, we don't talk about that anymore. And let's not talk about it because it's a problem. It's like everything else in the church. It is a problem. 'Oh, maybe it'll go away. We'll kind of sweep it under the carpet. Let's not talk about it. If we talk about it, people will think about it and they might leave the church.' The church would never counsel anyone to leave the church if it's in the interest of their mental health. The book has a relationship with mental health. And so if, fine, if they're going to keep the book, at least have the balls to stand up at the pulpit and say, 'Look, this book is not part of our recommended reading material. We moved on beyond that. Our knowledge about psychology, depression, counseling, which we didn't know about then, we now know, has informed us. We talk in the temple about receiving greater light and truth, knowledge. And so 40 years ago, 1969 when this was written, so 50 years ago, right? And the world's moved on. We're much smarter now in this area. So let's say, look, this was written back then. A lot of it I don't agree with. It's weighty. It doesn't help. Don't read it. You know, give us the, you know, a little bit of benefit, if you like, for acknowledging it, acknowledging the mistakes and the problems. And it was written at that particular time. But naturally focus on this new, better material that's written with all this new knowledge and all this light. Why not have the courage to do that instead of not talking about it? Because I know people who've still got this book on their bookshelves and they still read it. You talked about masturbation, you know, being a serious sin. That's changed, obviously. You know, descriptions of sexual behaviors, you know, confusion of church doctrine and guidance about How a leader interprets the book. So a bishop will read it or a state president will read it or somebody, and depending on that mindset, the individual, they can even either take it strictly literally and teach from it as some people have, or they can say, look, it is quite strict. It's Spencer Kimball's strict, very strict, very narrow thinking, if you like. I mean, they probably wouldn't say that, Very prescriptive is the word I would use about the book, very specific and very prescriptive. And a good leader would say, look, don't take it literally. Don't take it as serious or as strict as you should or you are doing. But the church, the senior leadership would never do that. I've only seen that with someone like me and other leaders like me who've seen this book for what it is and actually encouraged the member who's reading it to give it, you know, proper balanced perspective, right? You know, it says here that the book can also lead to discouraging victims from seeking help, creating a culture of silence around sexual assault. It can also cause victims to believe they're responsible for the crimes they've committed against them. There's some comments on, you know, LGBTQ in there as well. You've talked a bit about that, right? And so a lot of it is down to the interpretation. So when you write a book like that, a prophet, remember, this is a prophet we're talking about, not some regular apostle or some standard general authority. This is a prophet of the Lord who was alive when there was a major historical change in 1978, when Kimball was the The prophet of the Lord who restored, if you like, the priesthood to the Blacks and the temples to the Blacks, temple blessing to the Blacks, a very significant figure in church history. And so my closing comments on this is to whoever's listening, the church leaders if they're listening, is to don't be silent on something like this again. Speak Up. People still have issues with this book. It's still on people's shelves. People still read it. It still is part of the culture of the church. We talk about why do, why do we've had people on the podcast who've got this antiquated, archaic thinking, you know, like, you know, the blacks didn't want the priesthood and they weren't worthy of having the priesthood, etc. There's still people like that in the church, Jim, today. We've had them on the podcast, right? They're still alive and well and have not changed the thinking. And these books, unless we address them and talk about them as a leader and say, look, we've moved on from that, we don't think like that anymore, we don't feel like that, you'll always have an element of the church who think like outdated, antiquated dinosaurs that think. It's very, very destructive. Because they're perpetuating that doctrine, that teaching. So fine, keep the book, keep the book as evidence of, you know, how far we've gone, but at least give it a modern interpretation. Please, if whoever's leaders listening out there, just, you know, take this, take an opportunity to talk about it and remind people that they are good enough. What did you say? You, you, we did that podcast. It was your podcast. It was, it was your idea. It was a genius idea. I loved it. And I think it was titled You Are Enough.

Right.

And you know what, you know, I said to my mystery companion during the Companionmentary, and I said, you're good enough. I used to build him up because he feels so low and 'Only works. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.' I said, 'Hang on a minute. Look what we just did. We had a great day. We taught 3 discussions. We only had 3 books of Mormon thrown at us out of 4. Okay. We only had like 10 Dar Slammers instead of the normal day, right?' I said, 'Be half full, not be half empty.' But he wouldn't take it from me, right? We are good enough. We've got So much goodness, and we should be focusing on that. You know, Christ motivated. The spirit of Christ is not in that book, I don't believe. The spirit of Christ is, look, you're good enough, you're doing all these great things, you're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this great. Yeah, there's these other areas that you have to work on. There's some areas for improvement, but you're going to do it. Do you know why? Because you've just kind of kicked it out the park on this stuff. And you can do that stuff. Will you reach perfection in this life? You won't, and no one will. And only I can. In fact, Christ is, not me, you know, Ian, but if I'm Christ speaking, right? Only Christ could say that. But I believe the gospel of Christ is affirmative, is positive, is focused and accentuates the positive. And that is in complete contrast, in my personal opinion, having read the book at least 3 times and going on my perspective in the church as a leader, as a bishop, and people coming to me who've read this book who feel they're worthless, they're useless, life is hopeless, they will never make it. And so what's the point? And I've even had people who have contemplated suicide because they're not good enough. And my message is, you know, if you are feeling depressed, you're prone to psychological depression and anxiety, do not read this book. I beg you, don't read it.

Throw it away.

Do whatever you want with it. Go read a different book. Go read something uplifting. And there are many, many uplifting books, Jim, in the church. You know, you're a bit of a scholar more than I. There are numerous books which focus on the positive and focus on we are God's good enough. Miracle of Forgiveness is not one of them.

I would agree with that. I would agree with that. And I'm heartened by the fact that Spencer W. Kimball's family would agree with that. I found an article from the Salt Lake Tribune that was published right after The Miracle of Forgiveness was taken off the shelves., and it quotes Edward Kimball's biography of his father. It says the book's tone, tougher than Spencer's in-person counseling, reflected his belief that people rationalize sin too quickly and consider repentance easy. That goes into my whole thing that I ranted about earlier. Indeed, writes the Sun, Miracle was a book, quote, more on sin and repentance than on forgiveness, end quote. Kimball, quote, "Later seemed to wish he had adopted a gentler tone," end quote. In 1977, the Mormon leader said to Lyle Ward, his neighbor, "Sometimes I think I might have been a little too strong about some of the things I wrote in that book." And his grandson is at the end. Jordan Kimball says, "I would want him to be remembered for his love, compassion, and encouragement." Miracle grew out of his experience, experience of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, and in its time it didn't seem out of place, but it was used beyond its due date. Even the church has moved on. And that's what you're saying, and, and I, I want to echo that. Uh, I think there's so much in the church that could be that could be fixed, that could be improved, that could be uplifting if we were to confront our mistakes head-on. Because even if you burn this book, it doesn't go away. We now live in the age of the internet. Books don't disappear if the paper is gone. This book, we know it existed, we know it exists, and we need to confront it head-on. And we would be such— in such a stronger position when we're counseling with people who are leaving the church over this kind of overreaction that was prevalent in the '40s, '50s, and '60s that's reflected in this book. Um, they're leaving because they don't want that kind of church. We would be in a much stronger position to be able to tell them we're not that kind of a church anymore. Because here's what we used to teach and we now disavow it. We don't believe that anymore. I mean, we— the disavowals are so far removed from what it is that's being disavowed. I mean, we've said we disavow, for instance, all of the theories put forth about the priesthood ban. Well, they were put forth by Brigham Young and presidents of the church. I mean, it's They act like this happened in some kind of disconnected ethereal vacuum where there's a direct link to people. It's, you know, M. Russell Ballard saying, I don't know where people got the idea that you're supposed to challenge people to be baptized on the first discussion. Well, I got it. I know where I got it. I got it from the mission materials that were provided to me by the church. That's where I got it. There's no way on earth I would have challenged anyone to a baptism in the first discussion if I wasn't explicitly told to do so. I mean, over and over and over and over again, we change for the better, but we refuse to acknowledge the past. We refuse to acknowledge the mistake that we made. And miracle of forgiveness, everybody can now acknowledge that it was a mistake. And so I'm going to close. I'm going to use Bigfoot as a closing. Because the reason we keep talking about Bigfoot, for those of you who don't understand, for whatever reason, and I don't know what point he was trying to make, but for whatever reason, Spencer W. Kimball cites a folklore story of David W. Patton riding in the woods and up next to him comes the 7-foot-tall Wookiee, essentially this just massive hairy Says his skin was very black and he had his whole body was covered in hair. He wasn't wearing any clothes. So he really is Chewbacca. That's who we're talking about. Uh, but yeah, it's Chewbacca. In fact, I remember rewatching a, uh, an interview with Mark Hamill who played Luke Skywalker, who said that when they screened Star Wars for the executives, like, can't they put some kind of, you know, apron or something around Chewbacca. And he's like, their biggest problem was the Wookiee had no pants. But apparently Cain had no pants when he came up to talk to David W. Patton and said that he was cursed to roam the earth and that he could never die. And he prays for death, but he's— and anyway, people looked at that and said, well, that, that's Bigfoot. That's where all the legends of Bigfoot come from is that Cain is wandering around. And that was, big folklore through all of this, which is ridiculous. But at one point, I was having a discussion with a guy in my ward, and we were talking about this, and we were all laughing, or both of us were. It's like, yeah, this is funny. And then this guy in my ward said, I'm so grateful that President Kimball wasn't yet the president of the Church when he wrote that. I'm like, well, why? And he said, because then if he were, we would have to believe it. And I laughed at that, and he didn't, and he thought I was faithless for laughing at that. And I said, we wouldn't— I don't disbelieve it because Spencer W. Kimball was only an apostle when he wrote it. I don't believe it because it's not true. And as President Eyring likes to remind us over and over again in this Church, you don't have to believe anything that isn't true. And, you know, so it's this whole idea that if he had written this when he was President of the Church, that would have been sort of an infallible statement written by the finger of God on tablets on Mount Sinai. And that whole mindset, that whole idea that we can't allow Spencer Kimball the grace to be wrong, that we can't look and say, you know what, at the end of his life, President Kimball recognized that he had gone too far with this book, that this book was just probably too harsh. And, you know, he All of us, uh, I, I hope none of us are judged by where we are in the middle of our journeys. I hope we're all judged by not even where we are at the end of our journeys, at least when we're talking about mortality. I hope we are judged by the direction we are going in. And there are plenty of statements by church leaders that talk about that, that emphasize that, that it's not where you are, it's where are you going, what direction are you headed in. And that's what the Lord is concerned about. He's concerned about the desires of our hearts, of our intents. He's not sitting up there with Spencer Kimball's checklist of 145 sins and trying to see if you're guilty of fleshliness, but you're not guilty of, what is it, something about filthy lucre. Anyway, I mean, but, but, but The church is so much healthier for having moved on beyond miracle of forgiveness. It would be healthier still if they would announce and acknowledge that they have done that, because as you point out, there are plenty of people that cling to it, that in the absence of an explicit disavowal are still willing to go forward and say this represents the mind and the will of the Lord., and it absolutely does not. And we recognize as a church it does not. It is not faithless to say, I believe what the church teaches now, because I can't believe both at the same time. I can't believe that homosexuality is a curable perversion. I mean, he uses the word pervert, pervert so many times in that book. That's the thing that jumped out at me a number of times when I read it, because that's not a word that people use in normal conversation. But we, you know, I can't believe that homosexuality is curable if you just pound on the door hard enough and also believe that it's not curable and that you shouldn't expect to have your sexual desires change in this lifetime. I can't believe both at the same time. I have to choose which one of those two things I'm going to believe. And And I choose to believe the thing the church teaches now. So if anybody's gonna push back and say, "Well, this is faithless for you guys to beat up on the miracle of forgiveness," I'm saying, "Do you believe what the church teaches now?" Because it flies in the face of so much of what the miracle of forgiveness taught. You have to choose one or the other, and I choose a church that is rooted in continuing revelation, that is rooted in greater light and knowledge, and in the idea that we progress not just as individuals, but as a collective, as an institution. The church makes progress. The church goes forward, and the church has gone forward, and we need to recognize that. And we also need to recognize where we've come from. Otherwise, that forward motion will be lost on far too many people. So that's my final word on the subject. Do you have any rebuttal?

Uh, not rebuttal, just some final— I concur with what you're saying. Uh, just a quick final thoughts. The only true living church upon the face of the earth, and I make frequent reference to that because I kind of put a lot of weight on that, prophets, mind of God, know more than anyone, see things like no one else can do, see, feel things like no one else could feel. Why doesn't the church with all of its wisdom, further light and knowledge, understand and accept that the advice from almost every professional currently living on the planet, psychologists, counselors, that the only way to resolve problems of this nature, you know, depression, anxiety, scrupulosity, trying to live perfection, trying to forgive someone who's committed an awful sin or crime against you. And the only way to understand real meaningful, purposeful growth and change and transformation is to talk about it, to talk about this stuff. When you go for counseling, They, the goal, one of the goals is to talk about it, to open up. That in itself is a challenge. And why can't the church on this issue and many other issues have that wisdom, knowledge, intelligence to talk about this stuff with confidence and to say, hey, made a mistake, we got it wrong, we had a different perspective. We've improved, we've changed. Look at this. I would have so much respect for them. I really would. My comment earlier about burning the Miracle of Gifts is not intended to disrespect anyone of the church. It is, of course, you can't destroy the book. The book's out there. It's the internet. I get that. It was partially symbolic as well. And as I said, you know, it can't disappear, but let's talk about it. In talking about it, we heal, we strengthen, our understanding grows. We have a different perspective and we have more of a Christ-like perspective. That's the first thing. Two more comments real quick. By the way, this might surprise you and surprise the people. Spencer Kimball, believe it or not, is one of my favorite prophets. Aside from these issues, you know, the priesthood and the blacks, He did the right thing. I don't know the background of that, how it happened. I think he made the right choice. Aside from the miracle forgiveness problems that I've got, and I've seen that adversely impact people's lives, when I heard him speak, he was one of the most kindest, loving prophets ever. Not just prophets, men, people, individuals. He spoke with love, and I felt a spirit from that, and I want to put that on the record. And the, the, the, I'm glad you mentioned Bigfoot there, but the third thing, um, that I want to say, you said, and I'm not trying to misquote you here, that Elder Ballard said he doesn't know where you got, it's not related to the birth of Jesus, but I can't let it go here. I think you said that Elder Ballard said he doesn't know where it came from to, uh, what was it? To, to challenge him for baptism.

Right.

I'll tell you, I'll tell you where it came from. You heard it here. It came from him. You know why I know that? Because in July 1987, and I was in the room, he instructed the missionaries, this is before you came out, it's in the Edinburgh Chapel, that to go onto Princess Street in Edinburgh. And by the way, I remember, and I remember I've got, I've got the tape. He said that he was a missionary in the British Isles 39 years ago. He said that in July 1987, do the maths, right? And he said, if you go on to Princess Street and GQ, you know, he's talking about getting on a box when he was a missionary on Princess Street. He said, if you go there and you start teaching people, he said, you can, uh, challenge people on GQ and on the first discussion. So where did it come from? It came from him. And I know it's nothing to do with the miracle of forgiveness, kind of, but I want to mention that because I was there and I testify to you that he said that. Okay. And I just want to say in closing, I'm so grateful we're talking about this book. And I'm grateful that we are focusing and accentuating the positive in people. And I will remind our listeners that a few weeks ago, the idea that Jim Bennett had Jim Bennett, the unofficial prophet of the church. I'm kind of joking that, but the person with wonderful insight, in my opinion, had the idea to talk about individuals being good enough. And whoever's out there listening, you are easily good enough. Build on the success, focus on the positive.

Look at what you've done.

Look what you've achieved, all extraordinary things that you've achieved and yet to achieve. You're not perfect. You're going to make mistakes. You won't be condemned forever. You said earlier, Jim Bennett reminded us a few weeks ago, we are saved by grace after all we can do. Remember that? We do all we can. We do the best we can. We be the best we can. Whatever the lack, a worldwide part would be the best. And in the end, I believe Christ makes up the difference. For those reasons, you know, focusing on the positive, I'm so— to be able to see it in contrast, I'm really grateful that we had this conversation and to remind people that absolutely they are good enough and they can make it and you can be as much and more that you could ever achieve and nothing can stop you, especially if you've got people around that love you and support you, you can achieve great things and Christ teaches this and that's the message here that you're good enough, you're absolutely freaking awesome actually. And you've achieved so much and you're not perfect and that's okay. It's okay not to be perfect. Look at, look at Jim Bennett.

We're not perfect, right? Uh, my only quick rebuttal to your rebuttal, which I endorse wholeheartedly, um, is that phrase, and we've talked about this when we talked about being good enough, that phrase, it is by grace after all we can do. Is very often cited as, okay, we do 90% and then Jesus does the extra 10. He just sort of pushes us over the hump. There has been a great deal of research about that phrase. There was a wonderful paper by Dr. Dan— Daniel O. McClellan about that phrase. That is a 19th century phrase. That is the equivalent of saying, "At the end of the day," like how we use that phrase today. We'll say things like, "Well, at the end of the day, all that matters is grace," right? "Well, after all we can do, what matters is grace." That what that verse essentially— the phrase "after all we can do" actually meant at the time the Book of Mormon was published, essentially, "despite all we can do." that it's not just Jesus giving us that extra little bump. It's that Jesus is the one who saves us, that we are completely and totally lost. I mean, if you, if you want to talk in terms of percentages, I would say what we do is way less than 1%, and that Jesus's infinite atonement is what saves us. And this is the trouble we get into because President Uchtdorf, or when he was President Uchtdorf, talked about this, is that our good works are not done in order to satisfy a checklist. Our good works demonstrate our faith in Christ. And it is our faith in Christ that activates Christ's grace and forgiveness and salvation is a free gift. That Christ gives us. So you are absolutely good enough because Christ thinks you are good enough, good enough that he's willing to save you no matter where you are, as long as you have faith in him and you're demonstrating that faith through the efforts that you put forward to try to live a Christlike life. So that's my rebuttal to your rebuttal. Uh, barring any rebuttal to my rebuttal to your rebuttal, we should wind this up. I think this has been a great discussion. But I just— we don't say this enough to all of you listening, but we so much appreciate you out there. I, you know, I didn't tell the story, but somebody— well, I'll tell you that later. We're just so grateful for all of you, for everybody who's listening. You are enough. You're Freaking awesome. We're grateful that you're listening to Inside Out, and we hope you'll join us again for next week's episode of Inside Out. And thank you, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.