The Only True and Living Church

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out, which we found out last time is the only true and living podcast with which Ian Wilkes is well pleased. Speaking unto the podcast collectively, and not individually. I, based on what our topic is today, I figured we needed to reuse that intro. I don't you think that's appropriate, Ian? That's a perfect intro because the topic we're going to talk about is the idea of the church being the only true and living church. And recently the church has expanded It's topics and questions essays. We know about the gospel topics essays, which are controversial to some degree. And all these are the essays like Race and the Priesthood and Polygamy in Nauvoo and all those sorts of things. But these are essays under the phrase topics and questions. And within the last week, the church has dropped 5 new essays. Uh, they are Origins of the Book of Abraham. There's a Gospel Topics Essay about that, but this is a new one called Origins of the Book of Abraham. Second one is Multiple Accounts of the First Vision. The third is The Only True and Living Church. The fourth is The Role of Prophets. And the fifth is Transparency About Church History. And I think all five of those would make for very interesting podcast subjects. But Ian, you wanted to talk about the idea of this being the only true and living church for quite some time. Why has that been something that you really wanted to get out there?

We've made lots of references to this, or I have. I know you have. I certainly have across many podcasts. And behind it for me is When I was investigating the church as a young teenager and had these quite profound spiritual experiences with the missionaries teaching the six discussions, and every time I felt something or thought I'd felt something, and I did feel, I know I had a spiritual experience and I'm clear about what that was. And they were, I now seen that those experiences as being spiritual experiences based on the teachings that the missionaries were sharing that were universal principles, you know, love, kindness, service, forgiveness, and life and eternity. So I acknowledge those and grateful to the missionaries who taught me that. But one thing that they were very clear about was that often when I felt those feelings during those discussions. They said, every time you have these spiritual experiences, and they were often, that means God is telling you that what we are teaching is true. And I thought that was quite extraordinary. They then went on to say, I think in one of the discussions, it was the Restoration of the Gospel, Discussion 3. Do you remember the booklets that you and I had? Yeah. Uh, So there were an earlier version of those. And when they talked about Joseph Smith and the First Vision, restoring the gospel, preaching authority, and they taught that this was the only true church upon the face of the earth. And every time that I'd felt something spiritual, that was another message and confirmation from God that not only the fact that what the mission was teaching was correct and true, but that this was the only true church upon the face of the earth and the only way back to salvation, the only way to peace, the only way to happiness, the only way for me on a personal level, Jim Bennett, only way for me to find my own peace, my own purpose, my own meaning, only way for me personally to conquer my lack of confidence issues, self-esteem, self-worth, uh, issues that, that I had at the time. And it was the only path and the only organization that, uh, God had sanctioned with his priesthood authority, and the only way for me to find peace and happiness and meaning in my life. And I absolutely— that just hit me like a bolt out of the blue. So when I, uh, realized that, that had a very profound, uh, impact on my life and became, uh, quickly converted on a very personal spiritual, very deep personal spiritual level that what they were saying was true, that this is the only true church. And all of the churches, again, taught by the missionaries through the story of Joseph Smith, who asked which church to join, and he was told to join none of them, for they were— none of them were true and they were false. I don't think that's in the transcript, but Joseph was told not to join none of them, and he was told to restore this church. And so that really hit me, and for as long as I can remember, that was a central spiritual doctrinal, um, experience of mine in understanding that I was in the only true church and I was, um, worthy enough to be in it. And what a blessing it was that God had chosen me, uh, to be— I was taught I was valiant, God had chosen me, and that if I were obedient and faithful, I could be part of this only true church. And that the church had a unique authority, did a distinctive that no other church had on the earth, had a unique and distinct responsibility to preach the gospel, to redeem the dead, and to perfect the saints. They're the three main, uh, missions, if you like, of the church. So from joining the church at the age of 16 right through to going on a mission, all the way through to being a bishop, serving in the Synod of Prelates, I always taught and believed firmly, um, unwavering, not one ounce of doubt until a few years ago that I actually belonged to the true church. And that came with a lot of responsibility on the church and the church leaders, also responsibility on the church members, including myself, that, uh, first of all, to, to teach that and to uphold that and to be, to honor that. And again, to what I said, to teach that and actually be bold and be, be, and to reaffirm that position of the church to anyone who would Yeah. And so it was just a central thread, if you like, in my personal testimony that everything hinged on. Essentially, it was the fulcrum, the, the hinge that everything hung on. And the thing that supported the hinge, Jim, was the priesthood authority. And if you look at this, these articles in this particular essay, and my— this is what I get from this throughout this entire essay here. And in fact, the main thread running through the entire tapestry of the church, from my perspective at least, is the distinct, unique, and only true priesthood authority that the church professes to have. And that this is the only true church, not only because the teaching doctrines and the policies and the saving ordinance in the temple, et cetera, you know, they are important ancillaries. To the main doctrine that this is Christ's church, only his church. He stands at the head of it. President Nelson is his prophet, his mouthpiece. Christ speaks to him and the apostles physically, personally visits them in person, like you and I are, you know, getting together this weekend. Like a man speaketh to another man. That's really important. That's what I was taught. And that's what I you know, what was believed until recently, well, that the priesthood authority that was handed down, that is mentioned in my priesthood lineage. You know, when you get the priesthood, you get a copy of, I'm sure you did as well, get a copy of where your priesthood came from. And I could trace my priesthood authority right back to Christ. No broken lines. No succession-related issues, which I think that comes up in this essay as well, but that this church is true because of the papal authority, and this is the only true church because of that authority. So, and so when we talk about, we have a podcast where we talk about all kinds of issues, and I've referenced this quite a lot, and rightly so. I think the church has a very important, if you're gonna claim that the, you're the only true church on the earth, think about that for a moment, right? That's, pretty bold. That— it's that saying, isn't it, uh, Spider-Man? With great power comes great responsibility. And to make such a bold claim, uh, carries with it enormous responsibility for, uh, influence and being the prophet of the world, not just the church, right? President Nelson is the prophet of the world. He has a unique position, authority to influence as much as he can, as many organizations and people as he can across the world, across different backgrounds, et cetera, for the good. And I think he tries to do that and he's the only mouthpiece, remember. So the church carries a very, very unique and distinct sacred responsibility because of the extraordinary claim that it's the only true church upon the face of the earth. You know, Section 130 talks about that. It's not been removed. So I, I put Hugh, even though I've left the church and resigned, and I still want to remind our listeners, um, and ourselves that this is such an important claim and it comes with massive responsibility. If you're gonna say something and you're gonna make a claim, you've gotta back it. You've gotta stand by it. And so I've wanted to talk about this. For quite some time. And I've read this essay, and I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you.

Well, you mentioned a couple of things that I think are interesting, because these essays, there are these 5 essays, and one of them's on multiple accounts of the First Vision. And you talked about the idea that he was told they were all wrong. And it's interesting because that That version does not— the version that is canonized in the Pearl of Great Price does not include as explicit language saying that. But it's the Wentworth Letter version, which was— there are 4 versions that are firsthand that Joseph Smith gave. There's one in 1832, there's one in 1835, there's the 1838 version, which is the canonized scripture that we have. And then there was an 1844 version. I'm sorry, I think maybe it was 1842, but this is where he says, they told me all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom. And I was expressly commanded to go not after them, at the same time receiving a promise that the fullness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me. And, you know, so, yeah, you're absolutely right. This is an extraordinarily bold claim. And it's certainly a claim that we pushed as missionaries really as hard as we could. It's a claim that, you know, that I certainly believed in, I think, precisely the same way you did, the idea that Not only is this church the only true church, but all other churches are not just wrong, but profoundly wrong. You read the language in the Book of Mormon about the church of the devil. Bruce R. McConkie specifically identified that as the Roman Catholic Church. But by the time we were missionaries, that had been quietly disavowed. And it was the idea that pretty much every church, every church is apostate, every church is wicked. Ours is the only one that, that has the fullness of the gospel and that is right and true and proper. And all these other churches are just sort of bastardized versions of this. And your statement that the prophet physically meets with Christ is something that I absolutely believed as well, that this is the idea of what a prophet is. A prophet is somebody who speaketh unto the Lord face to face as a man speaketh with his friend, to quote Exodus 33:11, which is talking about Moses doing precisely that. So, you know, all of this comes together And all of this becomes problematic, particularly in 2024. And the church has really— I mean, the church never— I shouldn't say never. The church very seldom specifically disavows anything of significance. The only exception to that I can think of is in the Gospel Topics Essay, where they specifically disavow the idea the, of the curse of Cain and a few other things with regard to how we've, we've dealt with race in the past. Although even then they're not willing to admit that those were mistakes. They just sort of disavow them. They don't disavow that the priesthood ban was somehow of God, which I no longer believe. I absolutely believe that was of human origin. And not of God. But the church has quietly backed down from the idea that all other churches are wicked and evil. And in fact, if you go back even as recently as the 20th century, if you go back to the book by LeGrand Richards, did you ever read A Marvelous Work and a Wonder?

I think that was a book. Yeah, we were as much as we were asked to take the standard works The James E. Talbot collection and A Marvelous Work and a Wonder.

Right. That was all we were allowed to read. And, and that book is filled with all kinds of anti-Catholic bile. I'm just bashing the Catholic Church essentially. It doesn't quite go as far as, as Elder McConkie did in saying it is the great and abominable church mentioned in the Book of Mormon. But it essentially, it spends a whole lot of time bashing all of these other churches and how wicked and terrible they are. And, you know, this was sort of the mindset that we were immersed in 35 years ago as missionaries. It is not the mindset that my sons were immersed in when they were missionaries. We have quietly sort of backed away from this to some degree. That's not to say that we don't teach it. It's to say that we don't teach it, that we don't say the quiet part out loud anymore. And I don't know if that is a step forward or if it's a step back, because I— if we're not willing to stand behind it with the same kind of vigor and intensity that we taught it with, then are we being dishonest? By not doing that. And if we still believe it and we still teach it, it's still on the books, then, then why aren't we being as explicit about it? And as I read this essay, you sort of see that approach in how this, this new essay is written. I've got it pulled up here and you go on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 paragraphs down, 8. It's not until you get to the 8th paragraph that they quote Doctrine and Covenants section 1, verse 30: The only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I the Lord am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually. Prior to that, we get a 1978 statement talking about the great religious leaders of the world such as Muhammad, Confucius, and the Reformers. As well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals. Now, this is a statement from 1978. So this is a statement that precedes our missionary time. I mean, this is something that the church had already started teaching This would not fit well into A Marvelous Work and a Wonder by LeGrand Richards, because even though the statement existed, it was not something that I had ever heard. Was this something you'd ever heard?

No.

I mean, this Gordon B. Hinckley— I did hear this. I remember this. We say in a spirit of love, bring with you all that you have of good and truth which you have received from whatever source. And come and let us see if we may add to it. So this essay tries to begin with a sort of ecumenical approach, try to soften the boldness that you spoke of, the kind of— I mean, it's just an audacious claim to say we are the only true church. And as it goes on, It also goes on to try to soften that as well. It says, do you need to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be saved? And of course, if I had been asked that question in 1988, my answer would have been yes. I mean, unequivocally yes. Although it goes through this and it says, okay, look, everybody is going to obtain salvation through the Atonement. Uh, but then it talks about the highest degree, uh, but it says, um, each person will have an opportunity in this life or in the next to be taught the fullness of the gospel and to accept or reject its ordinances and covenants. Now again, this was a teaching that we embraced back in the day, but this seems to be what we're leaning into now, which is we say, okay, yes, this is the only church that has the priesthood authority. This is the only church that can offer you a fullness of salvation. But rest assured that everybody will get an equal shot, whether this life or the next, to be able to accept it. And, and so therefore, you know, the audaciousness, the audacity, the boldness of the claim that we're making is mitigated by the fact that everybody will get a shot with this. And this is essentially where I personally have landed with regard to this. I call myself a universalist. And I say everybody eventually gets saved, but it's the Latter-day Saints who do the paperwork. You know, we do, we do these ordinances. Why are we doing all of these temple ordinances if we don't believe they're all going to be accepted? We have leaned into temple ordinances so heavily, particularly under Russell M. Nelson's administration. The temple has become so preeminent in Latter-day Saint worship now, I think even eclipsing missionary work. We've seen so much more emphasis on going to the temple, on building temples. Temple work is pretty much everything, and as the church, as growth in the church slows to a crawl, that even turns negative in some parts of the world, we see an emphasis, as you talked about, there's sort of a renewed emphasis. Okay, we're going to focus on the fact that the church is growing on the other side, and it's growing as a result of these temple ordinances. But if we don't believe that these temple ordinances are going to be accepted and embraced, uh, then why is this such a preeminent focus? And I think it's a preeminent focus largely because I don't think that God wants to abandon any of his children. And eventually everybody gets to where they need to be, whether in this life or in the next. I mean, nobody gets to where they need to be in this life, I think. I mean, none of us are living in a celestial sort of environment. We have to wait to the next life to be able to get there. And I think that the Lord has created this in order to be able to give everybody the opportunity to finally return to him. And I'm also one of these who believes that there will be progression within the kingdoms. I just don't believe that anybody who wants to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father will ultimately be denied that opportunity if they truly want it. So So the only way that I can sort of embrace the idea that this is the only true and living church is to be able to accept that everybody gets an equal opportunity to be able to return. And the kinds of things that we do, particularly in the temples, the kinds of ordinances that we think are necessary for that return, are going to be offered to every person who has ever lived with an equal opportunity. The other part of this is, is as I get older and I better understand the implications of this, is I lean very heavily into the living part of that phrase as opposed to the true part, because As that statement from 1978 states, God teaches truth through all kinds of religious leaders, through all kinds of philosophical teachers, through all kind— truth is taught everywhere. You can find truth everywhere. To say that truth only exists in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a ludicrous statement.. And we recognize that now, I think, more fully. I think we recognized it then, but probably more quietly than we do now. But it's, it's impossible to deny. To say that we are the only ones that have truth is a ludicrous statement to make. We recognize, as President Hinckley says, other people have truth. Bring that truth. Let's see if we can add to it. I think that's a much healthier, much product— more productive way to look at this. But the idea that this is a living church, I think, gives a better understanding of how the church works, because living things, all living things, learn and grow as, as they progress, and they do so as they learn and grow from their mistakes. This is a church, as a living church, that is capable of making mistakes. And the model of a church that is flawless and perfect and doesn't need to repent, that doesn't need to do anything differently, is just belied by our almost 200 years of history. We have made some tremendous mistakes. And I think we have learned from them and we have grown from them as all living things do. So my understanding of this phrase, I don't reject it, but I certainly understand it much, much differently, very, very differently from how I understood it when we were young missionaries. Is that, is that the case with you as well, or do you just sort of reject this out of hand?

I, uh, was taught, um, in the MTC and throughout my mission, um, to be bold and forthright and to claim that this was the only true church, basically. I did, um, with full confidence, really believed it. It was a very fixed and firm position. And I also was taught, Jim Bennett, that we had, not only we were the only true church, but we had all the truth in its fullness completely. We had, the word I think about when I look back at where I was religiously back then and kind of church broke is the term. I think I was completely obedient to everything and whatever the prophet said, no matter. I just foolishly, now I look back, I just accepted it because I thought, hey, the prophets, right? And if I don't understand it as I was taught, doesn't matter. Have faith in the prophets. They know, you don't know, and that's okay. And I was all right with that. But I was taught that the, and I did teach that we did have a monopoly on truth and on the priesthood authority. In the article, in the essay, it says that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now does not claim a monopoly on goodness and truth. It goes on to say there are countless people throughout the world who are examples of integrity and goodwill. Of course, And so he talks about, talks about that. And then later on, it talks about, you know, being the only true church. It talks about that the President Nelson has said, we're witnessing a process of restoration. If you think that the church is fully restored, you're seeing the beginning. There is so much more to come. But then if you jump to the church website on restoration, he says here that, you know, after his crucifixion and death of the apostles, the fullness of the gospel was taken from the earth because of widespread apostasy. Through the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Father in Heaven and his Son Jesus Christ, restored the fullness of the gospel. And so that article on the church website titled Restoration of the Church is very clear that the church has been restored. Past tense, it's done. Yet now we're saying that, well, you know, there's much more to come, uh, you haven't seen anything yet, you know, take your vitamins or vitamins, right? And then if you go on again back to the article, it talks about, you know, everybody will return to God. But important word that we haven't mentioned that we should highlight in further down in the, uh, All-Natural Church article here, essay: a glorious vision shows to the prophet Joseph Smith further teaches that virtually all God's children will inherit the kingdom of God after the resurrection. So again, very careful with it. So I guess not everybody is going to experience that. And then if I jump to, uh, the scriptures, if you know, you talked earlier about, um, the Borneo churches. Well, when, when you were speaking, my missionary memory kicked in. I remember quite familiar at the time and still remember some of it, chapter 28 of 2 Nephi, which talks about, for it shall come to pass in that day that the churches which will be built up are not unto the Lord, when one shall say unto the other, behold, I'm the Lord's, and the other shall say, I am the Lord's. And thus shall everyone say that have built up churches not unto the Lord. I remember reading this chapter frequently, or often, rather, And you know, they denied the Holy Ghost in these churches, et cetera. It talks, it kind of rips them to bits quite a bit actually. Talks about the, you know, teach eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow, uh, fear God a little and it will justify any committed sin. You and I, you'll remember that. Talks about the foolish and vain doctrines of other churches, false teachers, false doctrine. The church has become corrupted. Church is lifted up because of the pride and puffed up. You know, the whole chapter talks about, you know, stiff necks and high heads because of pride, wickedness, abominations, and whoredoms, et cetera. The rich, learned, et cetera, et cetera. And then it talks about the abominable church. And again, I understood that to be the Catholic Church. That's what I understood. And I remember that a Catholic investigator come in the church and the priesthood leader— this is in Aberdeen back in '87. Said, you know, welcome to our church and hope that you leave your abominable church behind you. And, you know, we saw quite a bit of that in Scotland where, you know, some members would be very insensitive to someone's religion. This woman just didn't stay. She left. You know, she'd grown up a Catholic. It was important to her. But here she was told that her church was abominable. And I think you still got elements of that even today. You know, in 18, chapter 20, 18, it says, but behold that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, which tumbled to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof. So you've got these references to this abominable church in the scriptures, not removed, still the same. You've got section, you know, 130 is still in the scriptures there, Doctrine and Covenants, not removed. And then my mind goes now to the temple ordinance, the pre-1990 temple ordinance, which you, I think, attended. And the pre-1990, so this is like, for me, this was before I met, this was 1986. So this is a few months before I served the mission, 3 months before I served the mission. I went to take up my endowments and I experienced a, I don't know, 2.5-hour endowment session, almost 3 hours I think it was, or 2 hours 45 minutes, that was just extraordinarily disturbing almost on every level. Not just, you know, the cult aspect of it, you know, the— and I won't go into too much detail here, but in the video if you remember, uh, a priest appeared in the movie, in the video, in the pre-1990 version, right? And he was dressed like a Catholic priest, and he came into, you know, Adam and Eve was there, it's in the, in the video, and, and, um, uh, I think Peter, James, and John was there, and this priest showed up and he was the abominable church and he was teaching these false doctrines. And Peter, James, and John, again, going back quite a bit, maybe it was just Peter, confronted him and he said, you know, have you any money? And, you know, I have enough, et cetera. And basically they were teaching in the video, what I got from the video, I can't remember it word for word, it's a long time ago, that this priest knew he was teaching false things and was taking people's money and misleading people. Taking them down the garden path and basically in league with Lucifer, that he was the church of the devil. I mean, it was extraordinary part of the video. I was— when I saw that back in November 1986, to see that, you know, priest come on there with the full dress, etc., and Satan was next to him and said, here's my— again, I can't remember the exact words, but here's my preacher. Here, listen to his words. He's is the devil's priest who was a Catholic priest. So the devil introduces him and the priest tries to preach then to Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve obviously rejected it and didn't accept it. And you know, this money, filthy lucre, I think was referenced in there or somewhere. I had to get a, it'd be fantastic to get the actual wording there. That was shocking, uh, in that whole context of that temple experience. It wasn't shocking in terms of, uh, me understanding it or accepting it, because that's what the— that's what I was taught, that any of the church other than ours was false. And it, it, you know, many of them are illegal, luciferian. I did hear about McConkie and his, uh, Mormon doctrine there in regards to the Catholic Church being the, uh, you know, the church of the devil. Um, so when I saw it, I, from a doctrinal perspective, I could understand it. But the fact that they put it into, into a movie, a video, um, was just absolutely shocking. I remember thinking, does the Catholics know they've got one of their priests in, in their, in their video? So, you know, the church has hardened on some things, you know, over the years, including transgender, LGBTQ. We see it hardening on some things, right? Uh, but on many of the things like this as well, it's softening, right? If you look at the Temple Endowment, you know, pre-1990, my goodness, especially with the latest changes, uh, you know, taking it down to 50 minutes or 55 minutes and kind of diluting it, making it softer, less cult-like. Depending on, on your experience, it might be more cult-like. I've not been in for a while. But it softened and diluted and tried to recouch itself and reposition itself, maybe choose different words, et cetera. And in many, many ways, the church is kind of softening its position and stance on things. And the claim of being the only true church, again, is another area, another example where the church doesn't say that. I mean, when was the last time in in your mind, Jim Bennett, your memory, that a speaker in conference quoted that, you know, we're the only true church upon the face of the earth, or even said that, or even were bold to come out that we're the only true church. I don't, I think they talk about it in the sense that we're the only church with the priesthood authority, got the sacred ordinances, but they don't actually come out and quote that scripture anymore. As far as I, I've not heard it for quite some time, and I don't, they don't come out and say that we're the only true church upon the face of the earth. But over the years, the church has softened, and rightly so. I think it's, you know, it's in the past, it was very offensive in its bold claim. I think it's a really good thing that it's now watering it down and softening it. But I can't remember the last time a speaker in conference stood up and said, hey, you know, we're the only true church upon the face of the earth, yet we would told to be that bold as full-time missionaries, as you know.

No, you're right. I can't think of— I'm trying to think of when that's happened. And I have to go back. I'm trying to remember a conference talk where I've actually heard that. And I don't know if I even heard that specifically when we were missionaries. I mean, I think the softening, I think the implications of that, the kind of boldness that you're talking about, I think that that's been unsettling to church leaders for a very, very long time. And the fact that we were reading Marvelous Work and a Wonder and other sorts of things on our mission. I think those were sort of lagging indicators of where the church was going, because I think even by the late '80s, the church recognized that that's an off-putting message. Now, I do know that my mission president after you left, Joseph Fielding McConkie, would have us focus on that scripture, Doctrine and Covenants section 130, uh, rather intently, because that scripture was part of the missionary discussions. I think it was the third discussion where we would ask investigators to read that specific scripture. So the fact that this wasn't sort of being pushed to the general membership at the general conference level does not mean it wasn't part of the mission materials, which it very much was. And President McConkie's strategy was he said, look, if you're going to go out and teach the gospel, you can, you can essentially leave your Bibles behind, because what we're doing is we are teaching that modern revelation is the only revelation that really matters. And you should answer every question from modern revelation. He would have us, for instance, when people would say, you know, very often when you would challenge them for baptism, they'd say, well, I've been baptized. And he would have us read the section of the Doctrine and Covenants that talks about how those baptisms are dead works. And I mean, specifically just sort of rails on sectarian baptism and how worthless it is. And that would be something we would read to investigators. We'd have investigators read it. And so he just was like, lean into that kind of boldness, lean into the idea your church is wrong, your church is, is dead and does dead works. We are the true and living church and just sort of pound, pound that into the ground. Now, I think there is actually, if we truly believe that, then we should say so. You know, I think in softening the message, unless you're willing to change the message, then softening the message and soft-pedaling the message doesn't do you any good. And I think to some degree is disingenuous. It's like, look, if we really truly believe that all other churches are just so fundamentally wrong and are churches of the devil and have been built up and not to the Lord, to quote 2 Nephi 28, then we have no business not saying that. And what I think is that, at least from my perspective, We still believe that in a more inclusive way. We are interpreting the language now more inclusively in ways that are more expansive. So the idea that we are the only true and living church means that we are the only ones that have this authority, uh, to be able to ratify the truth that you learn everywhere in the world. And that eventually all of these sorts of ordinances, all of this kind of priesthood authority that we say is necessary, will be made available to you, if not in this life, but in the next. I think, okay, if that's what we're teaching now, and I think that is what we're teaching now, lean into that and expressly say, you know what, we kind of got this wrong. Earlier on. No, I mean, because there's no question in my mind that Joseph Smith, in receiving these revelations and in teaching these revelations, believed in the most audacious, audacious interpretation of those revelations. I don't think there's any question in my mind that Joseph Smith believed that the Catholic Church was the great and abominable church that all other churches are evil and wicked. I mean, you can see that in the teachings of the early leaders of the church. It's all over the place. And it's, it's foolish and foolhardy to try to pretend that isn't what we taught, that isn't where we are, where we were. And now the thing— the biggest problem I have with the church today is this is the false doctrine of prophetic infallibility. The idea that the church has always been right, has always gotten it right, has never made mistakes— that idea infects every other problem that we have in the church. And people leave the church because they go back, they find things we did wrong, they find statements that are abhorrent, particularly by Brigham Young with regard to race, but they find other all kind— they're I mean, you can spend 5 minutes and Google search and find all kinds of statements by early church leaders that we no longer teach and that we no longer believe. And some of them are awful. And, you know, we need to accept that. We need to acknowledge that that false doctrine of prophetic infallibility is, I think, the greatest stumbling block to the church continuing to grow. And so if we now say, okay, being the only true and living church doesn't really mean what we said it meant 35 years ago, then we need to make that clear. That's the only way to be honest. That's the only way to have integrity is to say, okay, we now believe that being the only true and living church means that we have an additional responsibility to provide these ordinances for everybody, and everybody will get them, and virtually everybody, um, is going to eventually be saved. If we are embracing that kind of a universalist interpretation of it, we need to say we were mistaken, we were wrong when we said the Catholic Church was the great and abominable church, and that all other churches are just so fundamentally wrong. And I mean, I, you know, in writing my book, in investigating David O. McKay's response to Bruce R. McConkie, I found myself getting tremendously frustrated because behind the scenes, David O. McKay, you know, they read Mormon Doctrine. Bruce R. McConkie published Mormon Doctrine without any kind of approval from any church leaders above him. He wasn't an apostle at the time. He was an assistant. To the Quorum of the Twelve. He was a— he was a Seventy. You know, he was a fairly low-ranking General Authority. And he produces this book titled Mormon Doctrine as if it's the official— I mean, this is it. This is Mormon doctrine. This is— this is essentially scripture. And David O. McKay was pulling his hair out because there were so many errors in the book. He had other apostles read the book and they came back with something like 1,700 specific doctrinal errors, that there were errors on every page of the book, a very lengthy book. And, and an arch— the archbishop that served at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City went to President McKay's office and tossed the copy of a book on his desk and said, this is what you think of us? I thought we were friends. You know, we don't deserve this kind of treatment. And President McKay's response was, we'll take care of it. Well, okay, they took care of it by quietly getting Elder McConkie to republish a version that had removed many, but not anywhere near enough, of the errors that were in the previous edition, including this idea that the Catholic Church is the great and abominable church. And President McKay said, look, I can't publicly correct Elder McConkie because it would lessen his influence. That's the direct quote that you can find in David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. And he was far more concerned that people would think less of Elder McConkie and think him something less than infallible. Than he was in correcting his very real and damaging errors. And see, and that seems to be the policy that the church continues to pursue here, which is just, you know, we can't ever acknowledge we got it wrong before. We're going to quietly try to get it right now. And please pay attention to what we're saying now. And really just don't bother really going back and looking at the other stuff. The restoration is ongoing. I mean, that's part of this whole restoration is ongoing thing is it's not just that there is more to receive. I mean, I don't think we're looking anytime soon at getting a translation of the sealed portion of the the Book of Mormon or any of the other kind. I don't think we're going to get any kind of new huge revelation so much as that we're going to get quiet corrections for the revelations that we misinterpreted and got wrong in the past. And saying, okay, the Restoration is ongoing is a gentle, soft, and I think squishy way to try to get past the mistakes we've made in the past. And I just think the church would be so much healthier and so much more appealing and have so much more respect and confidence from its members if it were willing to admit that we got it wrong in the past. I, I don't I mean, from what you've said, I think you probably agree with that.

Totally.

Yeah.

And it goes back to some really— what you're saying goes back to some really fundamental core principles and teachings that Christ taught, right? You know, is it John 14:26? You know, the Holy Ghost will testify of truth. And, you know, I'm trying to remember that particular scripture, but the Holy Ghost testifies of truth. Okay, truth based on fact. And the Mishnah taught me it won't— if something's not right, it won't confirm that it is correct if it's not. It won't tell you something, a, something that is false. It won't teach you, or you won't feel that it's correct or true if something is false. That the Holy Ghost only teaches truth based on fact. And you can. And Ian, as an investigator, you know, teaching me as missionaries, you can trust in that. You know, you can't trust people, they'll let you down. You can't trust anyone. The only person— this is what I was taught— you can trust is God and his messenger. His son is Jesus Christ, who is perfect. And the Holy Ghost, third member of the Godhead,, uh, uh, in the form of a spirit and has the power to confirm a truth, um, that is the only source in which you can trust. Just think about that for a moment. So that's what we teach. That's embedded into the very fabric, you know, the very core, you know, the Godhead. It's Gospel 101, the Godhead. God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, right? And they teach absolute truth. And so, you know, when they teach something, you know, the, the church teaches something, if it's in a, you know, in scriptures, in books, in lessons, in, you know, in talks, et cetera, you can trust what they're saying is true because they are God's prophet. They're not, uh, uh, perfect. They don't say that they're perfect, um, but they're not imperfect. But when they speak by the power of the Holy Ghost— and I'll try to quote a scripture that used to quote a lot— the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth the truth unto the children of men, end quote. Okay, so when they speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, that's it. Conversation over. That's it. And so when you go back to the essay here and you talk about, you reference President Nelson saying, you know, we're witnesses in the process. If you think the church has been fully restored, you're seeing just the beginning. There's so much more to come. And then immediately after, and there was a big conversation over this when they were writing this, by the way, I know there was, right? They would now say, well, okay, We said that, you know, we're going through a process still, but some of them will say, well, hang on a minute, you know, this is correlation committee. We've been teaching for, you know, over a century that we are the restored past tense church, that we have the fullness of the gospel and all the truths and ordinances and principles and powers and all of the saving ordinances has been restored fully. Completely. So how do we go to the next paragraph? Well, well, someone, somebody probably said, well, just write, as it says here, the restored gospel found in the Lord's church provides knowledge and truth. So they pivoted from saying, hey, we're still in the process, and now immediately after, they go talk about the word restored. And I want to talk about something here, church, uh, Jim Bennett here, that the church will not want me to say. And it goes back to the an earlier comment, a point I was saying when we first started this conversation, and it's to do with the, uh, the prophetic authority, the authority of God, the priesthood authority, that this church is the only true church upon the face of the earth, primarily, uh, not entirely, but primarily because we're the only church with the priesthood authority of Christ. No other church has the authority, period. No other religion, no other organization anywhere in the world in history to present day as the true authority, the only authority given to us by, you know, by Jesus Christ through an unbroken line of succession and laying on of hands and bestowing that priesthood authority. But we know that there was a gap. We know that Joseph died before his time. Hiram died before his time. We know from the records and the, you know, the book I'm reading right now, The American Crucifixion, and other books that Joseph wasn't supposed to die when he did, and that there was no succession plan. So the evidence shows. And the question is, who laid their hands upon Brigham Young? You know, all these— so Joseph died, Hyrum died. Um, it wasn't supposed to happen. It did happen. It wasn't planned. Uh, there was no planning in terms of succession planning, again, from what I'm reading. Um, there was breakoffs. Other people claim this, claim that. You know, Brigham Young made his claims. Uh, of course majority followed Brigham Bennett. But who laid their hands upon Brigham Bennett? Because if Brigham Bennett did not have the priesthood, if that line was broken, Jim Bennett, if that line was broken, if, and Brigham Bennett didn't have that priesthood bestowed upon him, then he didn't have the authority of God. Because everything in this church goes back to the priesthood authority. In fact, it goes further. The church teaches still that, again, if you look at the, the, the, the gospel essay, I think there's a lot of things you read between the lines. It says here that the restored gospel found in the Lord's church provides knowledge and truth that isn't found anywhere else. Okay, they don't go into detail. It says here, you know, specifics. It says here it offers individual access to the sanctifying power of God through the Holy Ghost and the salvation and exaltation of the family of God through priesthood ordinances. We learn that the Holy Ghost operates through the priesthood authority, as Christ does, as God does, same authority. The Holy Ghost is powered by the same priesthood authority. And we also are taught frequently that the revelation that comes through the prophet and prophets does so uniquely and distinctly because of the priesthood authority. That, that certain unique doctrines, teachings, and principles of revelation is, um, distinct and unique because the church has the priesthood authority and no other organization, church, or faith which claims revelation from God can provide the fullness of the revelation or the details or the accuracy of the, of what's being revealed because they don't have that priesthood authority. Yeah, they might profess this and make claim, and some of it is correct. You know, like the Church cults say that there's good people out there and they do have, um, you know, you quoted earlier, they do have, uh, they're inspired people out there. The Savior allows that, um, God gives revelation to people who are not in the church. You know, he inspires good people of all faiths and beliefs, etc. Um, you know, he quoted Muhammad, Muhammad there from the article. But the church still holds that its revelation is pure because it has the priesthood authority, and the prophet is a keyholder And the key holder's important. The key holder, you know, the prophet, if you look at the, you know, when a prophet dies and President Nelson is, you know, he's 100 years old and is at the very end of his life, at some point he will die and the succession process will essentially bestow those keys onto Dallin H. Oaks, who'll become the prophet. And he'll be the key holder, the only key holder with all the priesthood keys for the entire church. And that's an important point as well, because we teach that. But that wasn't— it wasn't like that. That wasn't in place, that process with Brigham Young. And that the evidence points to that there was a break in that priesthood line. And Brigham Young did not receive that handed-down priesthood authority. And so there was a break, because without that priesthood authority, where is the church's claim on divine authority? Where is its claim on divine revelation without that authority? It all hangs on the church being the only church with God's authority on the earth, in my view. What do you— is that something you share? Do you see it in a similar way? Am I being too absolute? What are your thoughts on priestly authority and the relationship with the Holy True Church?

I don't think this troubles me nearly as much as it sounds like it's troubling you. So what's interesting about the whole succession crisis. I mean, you're right, there wasn't any kind of succession plan. You know, whether Joseph Smith died before his time or died too early, it wasn't supposed to happen. I mean, I don't even know how to interpret that, only because it did happen. And so if God didn't want it to happen, I think there were a number of things God could have done to prevent it from happening. So it's, it's so, so we have, we have created a whole lot of mythology surrounding this. When I was in primary as a kid, I was taught that during the succession crisis, that, you know, Sidney Rigdon addressed the Saints. I don't know if James Strang addressed the Saints, but he was a A lot of the, at least 2 of the 3 witnesses ended up following James Strang. And then Brigham Young addressed the Saints. And I was taught in primary, and I think that the Church would deny that this was ever taught, but I was absolutely taught in primary that as Brigham Young spoke to the body of the Saints, he was transformed and the Saints saw the face of Joseph Smith in Brigham Young, that they, that Brigham Young was essentially transformed into Joseph Smith. And that's how the Saints knew that he was to be the one who was the successor. And it wasn't until I was— how old was I when I finally discovered that that's just folklore? There are absolutely no journals that talk about that. There's absolutely no evidence that that actually happened. But I think there are some people who sort of 40, 50 years after the fact started to say, you know, we were there, we saw Brigham Young, we knew it was Joseph, we knew he was— I mean, I think it's retroactive justification for something. So to say that the line was broken is to, I think, ignore the fact that Brigham Young was the president of the Quorum of the Twelve. So he had priesthood authority to be the president of the Quorum of the Twelve. And we know, at least I know from Truman Madsen, because in the Joseph Smith tapes, Truman Madsen would talk about the fact that 7 out of 12 apostles stood with Brigham Young. I think that number includes Brigham Young himself. But so, so the fact that in the Doctrine and Covenants it talks about the Quorum of the Twelve being a quorum equal in authority to the quorum of the First Presidency, the Doctrine and Covenants also talks about ways that you remove the president of the church if the president of the church is in apostasy. That it's the Quorum of the Twelve and the other quorums that can act on that. I mean, we just completely ignore that, because now we believe the First Presidency is infallible. Again, we don't specifically say that, but we function as if that's true. But the revelations make— the Doctrine and Covenants builds in a number of redundancies and makes it clear that the Quorum of the Twelve is equal in authority to the First Presidency. We don't function that way anymore. We don't— I mean, again, we ignore a lot of this. So I think the bigger problem is that we have sort of created a dictatorship where I think more of a democracy— it's a benevolent dictatorship, certainly, but it's the president of the church has absolute authority to do whatever they want to do. And the revelations, I think— and when Nemo was here, he was talking about that, that that really isn't how it's supposed to be laid out. But regardless, I think it's interesting that Brigham Young did not function as president of the church until, I think, a year or two after we got into the Salt Lake Valley. As we crossed the plains, as the succession took place, Brigham Young led the church across the plains as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, did not reform the First Presidency until long after. So I think some of what you're saying, uh, was very much on Brigham Young's mind. Is that I don't know that Brigham Young believed he had the authority to reform the First Presidency. And so kind of believed that the church was going to function as the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was essentially going to be the leadership of the church, and the president of the Quorum of the Apostles would be the de facto president of the church. And I don't know what changed or when he decided that, yes, he had the authority. So when you ask who laid their hands on his head, The answer is the Quorum of the Twelve laid their hands on his head. And that's actually what happens now. So ever since Brigham Young, in order to avoid a succession crisis, the assumption has always been that the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the senior apostle, is going to become the president of the Church. There is no revelation that specifies that that's to be the case. We are all assuming, and we know that President Nelson is, I mean, he's coming up on his 100th birthday. There's all kinds of indications that he's quite ill and obviously doesn't have a whole lot of time left. And everybody is assuming, and rightly so, that the next president of the Church is going to be Dallin H. Oaks. But there is no revelation that demands that be the case. And, and my assumption as a kid, again, going back to this model of the prophet is a perfect being who speaks to Christ face to face on a regular basis, probably a weekly basis. I just assumed Jesus came to the Thursday meetings. The idea was Jesus could say, hey, it could be anybody. It could be Ian Wilkes. It can be, you know, here, here, here, the next president of the church. I'm going to choose him the same way I chose Joseph Smith as a 14-year-old kid out in a grove of trees. That's not the case. The case now is, okay, we just hand off the presidency of the church to the senior apostle. And I would very much like to see more dynamic evidence of revelation within the Quorum of the Twelve and within the First Presidency, that it's not just— I mean, I've talked to church leaders, I've talked to General Authorities, and said, why isn't this the case? Why is it the case that the President of the Church is just the senior apostle, and we don't go through any kind of a revelatory process to be able to determine who that's going to be? And the answer has been, well, if it weren't that way, then you would see political jockeying among the Twelve. And I find that answer unsatisfying, because if this is a political— if this is the same as how we choose popes, You know, there's all kinds of political jockeying when there's an opening for a new pope, and they go through all kinds of a vote. You know, you watch and you see if the white— black smoke or the white smoke comes out of the Vatican chimney. And, you know, they don't even try to pretend that it's not a political process. And I think this sort of handoff is an attempt to try to maintain the illusion that this is— that this is— there's nothing political about this. This is absolutely by revelation, when essentially it's a tontine. You know, the idea of a tontine, which is that you have a treasure and everybody enters into the tontine. It's the last person alive who gets all the treasure. You know, the only thing you have to do to become president of the church is to outlive all the other apostles. And I mean, this, this is the divine right of kings. You know, the King of England is the King of England because they are the oldest child and they outlived everybody. And we assume that, okay, God wants them to be king because otherwise they'd be dead. And that's how we pick our presidents of the church. We assume, well, Russell Nelson, God wants him to be the president of the church solely because he lived longer than everybody else. And I find that increasingly unsatisfying the older I get. So that's the extent to which I agree with you. I don't agree that the priesthood line was broken with Joseph Smith because I think that the revelations provide redundancies where Brigham Young, I think, had as much, if not more, claim than anybody to be Joseph Smith's successor.

Well, I appreciate that, that response. I'd love to have a bigger, broader conversation about the succession. There's so much more to it than what even we have time to go into right now. Right. And I'd love the opportunity to counter and to respond back based on what I'm reading. And I appreciate your perspective. So maybe we could schedule an opportunity to talk about that at some point. I think it'd be a great conversation, quite a robust one. Going back to the essay here, I think this is a good step from the church, a positive step. It does go in the direction that you talk about, that, you know, we are not perfect, we make mistakes. You know, as the church continues to soften and dilute and modify and bring itself out of obscurity, I guess, into more modern, balanced thinking and not entrenched or fixed and firm on certain, you know, hard doctrine principles that are kind of antiquated and out of date. And I think it's another example of the church going in the right direction. I think eventually there's going to be a talk that, hey, look, we made mistakes. I mean, Elder Uchtdorf talked about that in October 2013. You know, past leaders made mistakes.

Right?

So I think in the next few years, we're going to see more of that. But then they're going to walk that fine line between, you know, as people have said, is he speaking as a prophet or speaking as a man, right? You know, we've had examples of where they've been absolutely firm in the, you know, the, you know, the LGBTQ parents' children November 15th policy, where President Nelson goes into great detail in the revelatory process, the revelation process, right? And they prayed and they spent, you know, poured over it for, you know, a long time and fasted and prayed. And that was what the Lord wanted. And then fast forward, there was a reversal of that. And then the argument is, well, you know, he was speaking as a man, but he wasn't. He was speaking as a prophet because he talked a lot about the revelatory process. He went into quite a bit of awesome detail on that. So yeah, you know, the church is, has got— so, so what I get from this is that the church has, uh, many, many truths and many principles like other organizations. I don't think it has— well, it says it right now— does have a monopoly on truth. I don't think it has— my, my opinion— doesn't have a monopoly on authority. You have a different opinion on that, I, I get that. I'm reading stuff, um, which counters some of the stuff you talked about, the succession plan, etc., which we Hopefully get into at some point. I think the church kind of softening on being the only true church is good. It's more inclusive. We want the church to be more inclusive. And we want people to feel— you mentioned that new universalist— we want people to come into the church who have got different backgrounds, different beliefs. And as President Hinckley said, you know, how can we add to that? I think that's great. How can we work together to kind of, you know, we've got these areas where we agree, this common ground. And that's a very powerful relationship because we can do great things when we can agree. And so I think this is good. So in many ways, the church takes great strides, you know, in going the right direction like this. In other ways, it kind of, you know, steps back., you know, one or two steps and other things. But overall, as we said in the last podcast, this is another example of— I never— not read the other essays yet, but this is another piece of evidence where the church is going generally in the right direction. You know, it's inclusive, softening, it wants to work with people, and, uh, acknowledges the extraordinary people that are out there. And I want to add one more thing, Jim, before we close here, but the people who've been in the church who served in the church. I, I don't think the article is talking about them. It's talking about people who are not in the church or the faith or organizations who are good, you know, good people. But it's important to know and remember that people who have been in the church, who served in the church, who's been a member of the church, who've now left, that they are still good people and you can have a good relationship with them. And these principles of, of, um, you know, goodness and, and people you know, who are out there in the world who have got all these good qualities, that must extend to people who have left the church, uh, and that they're not hopefully part of that virtual world, you know, where, you know, these people who've left, um, there's no hope for them, because that's not— that's, that's, that's really harmful and very dangerous. So I really am grateful that, uh, we've, um, we've had this conversation. The timing of this coming out and then wanting to have this conversation with you has been amazing. So thank you. I've learned a great deal from you as I always do.

Well, I think that makes for a great last word other than to say that I consider you true and living. And I very much appreciate your perspective here.

Are you speaking as a man or as a member of the Momentarily Quiet?

Well, I'm speaking unto you collectively and individually. So anyway, uh, this, I think this has been a great discussion. Uh, thank you all for listening. Uh, and we look forward to seeing you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.