The Word of Wisdom - with Greg Prince

Happy New Year! This episode was recorded before Christmas, but it's being released on the same day that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland passed away. He was a good and kind man who blessed the lives of countless people, and while this was not unexpected, it is still heartbreaking, and we just wanted to take a moment at the outset to offer our condolences to the Holland family. Our thoughts are with you and we are offering prayers on your behalf.

Hello and welcome back to Inside Out. I am Ian Wilkes and I'm joined by the greatest singer ever to sing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Welcome, Jim Bennett.

Uh, well, thank you, except I have never sung in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Are you not singing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir now?

I sing in the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. I'm being very pedantic. I know. I know. It makes me sad that I've never sung in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, because I don't know that that name is coming back, but that's a whole other story altogether.

Uh, from where I'm seeing, I think it is. I think it's coming back and seeing people, uh, use the word Mormon. Uh, in fact, some of them never stopped.

Jim, if we can't abbreviate it MOTABS anymore, what's the new abbreviation?

The new abbreviation actually is TABCATS, which is kind of clever. Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, TABCATS. So interesting.

I think you learned something, right? Well, we, as our listeners could probably tell, we had that very distinct voice in the background that many of you will recognize, and, and Jim, uh, By way of introduction, you and I both know we've had the privilege and honor of listening and learning from one of the greatest minds and thinkers of modern Mormonism, the acclaimed author and scholar Greg Prince. And that voice in the background there was indeed Greg Prince. Welcome back to Inside Out, Greg.

Why, thank you. I've gone a long way since our last one. I went to Salt Lake and back and lived to tell the story.

Oh, and it was a delight to see you. It was very fun to have you come to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.

It was a great concert. I'm amazed that you're still upright after, what, 4 performances in 4 days, including the Sunday morning broadcast?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, we got through it and we had our actual last broadcast. Usually when the Christmas concert is over, the Tab Choir is over for the year. But there was one more Sunday after that before Christmas. And so we did one more Tab Choir broadcast and now we're done until January 4th. So I'm thinking of growing a beard. I think that's a good plan.

Well, that, that will keep you warm for sure. So, Greg, it's a real honor and a privilege to have you back. We're so grateful for your time and your insights and your wisdom. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I will say this as I've been thinking about you and, and, um, and your insights and your knowledge and your wisdom. I was thinking that if the church was to ever make a key strategic hire, you would have to be on the list, uh, if not at the top of the list. And the reason why I say that is I've worked, as you know, I think I've shared this with you both.

Both before.

I've worked in very senior technical executive roles in some of the world's largest global engineering environmental consulting enterprises, you know, billion-dollar enterprises and had that privilege of being in those very senior roles. And the term that they use for strategic hire carries great significance. And so I looked it up. And so strategic hires are very, very important to the enterprise. They do at least 4 things. And I think you fit the bill here. And this is my way of introducing you into this next part of the roadmap, because for our listeners, benefit of our listeners, we've been having some fantastic, extraordinary conversations with Greg about his roadmap document, a roadmap for improving Mormonism. And we're about maybe 3/4 of the way through that. It's been an extraordinary journey of listening and learning and and understanding the insights of Greg Prince, who's I think done what, 15, 16 episodes now. But key attributes of a strategic hire, they're very transformative individuals and they produce and implement extraordinary measures to improve the organization. They do at least these 4 things I've got here. One is pivoting the business model. So they take the business model, they improve it, and get the buy-in, and they do that through leadership and example. They scale operations and they deliver the products and the services successfully, find ways and means to adding value to the product and services. They unlock the high value that can exist often in these organizations, and they also lead cultural transformation. Greg, I think you meet all of that and additional criteria, and I think the church would do well to consider you in a leadership role or capacity as a transformational leader. As we get into the next part of our conversation, as we continue to review the roadmap, we're at the section which is titled The Word of Wisdom. And I have a different outlook now under The Word of Wisdom than I used to have. When I was growing up, in my youth, before I joined the church at the age of 16, we used to drink, as we all did, coffee and tea. It was kind of a no big deal. We drank Coca-Cola. That wasn't a big issue at all. You know, drink it, just no big deal at all. Growing up, everybody drank soft drinks, but tea and coffee was a regular thing in our household before I joined the church. At the age of 16, the missionaries found me, tracked me up, and then at some point in the discussion, Jim Bennett, on the mission discussions, when did the Word of Wisdom come in? Was it the third discussion?

Third discussion, was it?

I can't remember.

Was it third or fourth?

But at some point, the missionaries introduced me to the Word of Wisdom. Now, in my neighborhood, people drank alcohol too much, frankly, and they drank tea and coffee. So when the missionaries mentioned this to me, I wasn't I was 16, I wasn't drinking alcohol, nothing like that. But I liked my coffee and it was kind of a big deal to ask me not to drink coffee. But because I was, I think I was just so ready for joining the church and so bought into it, I was prepared to do whatever it took to join the church. So I was very obedient when it came to making that commitment. And of course, that was a question when the missionaries taught me and they interviewed me for the baptism, you know, was I honoring the Word of Wisdom? And in your roadmap for improving Mormonism, Greg, you mentioned here the problem, and you talk about when you were growing up, you say here, when I was growing up, I frequently heard in the church meetings how the Word of Wisdom was proof of Joseph Smith's prophetic calling with statements like it was one 100 years ahead of its time. And then you say when you began to dig deeper, you saw a different story. Uh, what did, do you, what did you see, Greg? What was the, your research and what did you see differently as you were researching?

Uh, as I've mentioned in prior episodes of this, my mentor and lifelong friend, at least for 48 years until his death. Was Lester Bush. He had an enormous effect on me, including really being my guide into writing Mormon history. Uh, he was a physician. He was director of the Office of Medical Affairs of the Central Intelligence Agency, but he also was a medical historian, and he had had dug fairly deeply into the Word of Wisdom before I met him. So I was really sitting at the feet of a man who knew a whole lot more about it, and that's when my consciousness started to be raised about the Word of Wisdom. Spoiler alert is that somewhere along the way he said, you know, If the Lord had wanted to save people's lives with the Word of Wisdom, why didn't he just say, "Boil your water"? Because none of what's in the Word of Wisdom really had any discernible effect on life expectancy until near the turn of the 20th century, and that's when the cigarette-making machine was invented. That allowed people to smoke 1 or 2 or 3 packs a day, whereas prior to that they had rolled their own and that was self-limiting as to how much you could smoke. So prior to that, um, you tended not to live long enough to get into trouble from tobacco or even for long-term alcoholic disease like cirrhosis. Because it was more likely that infectious diseases would take you out and you just wouldn't live that long. So, uh, that was cutting to the bottom line on it from where Lester stood. And you only need to think about that a few seconds and say, yeah, that would've saved a lot of lives because that's what people, particularly children, were dying of. It wasn't so much in the winter that they were dying. It was in the summer because that's when the water would get polluted and they would drink infected water and usually die of GI diseases. So that really started to pique my interest in looking deeper into the Word of Wisdom. As I was building my library that eventually I gave to the University of Virginia for their Mormon Studies Center, I have eventually accumulated about 7 linear feet of temperance publications that predated the Word of Wisdom. Word of Wisdom is dated February 27th, 1833.

That's right. I've got the section here open. That's right.

Yep.

Um, in 1826, the American Temperance Society was founded. It was founded because there was an epidemic of drunkenness that was driven by the increased consumption of distilled spirits, not beer and wine. And the per capita consumption had tripled over a period of about 30 years. So it really was becoming a national security issue. Drunkenness was so widespread. Uh, and so the American Temperance Society had in its crosshairs primarily distilled liquor, but it broadened its scope. Uh, and the central driving issue of it was moderation in all things. So you didn't want to take into your body something that would take you out of that zone of moderation. Now, one example of something that could take you out of that in their mind was red meat. Because that made you strong and fortified. And, uh, unless it was winter or time of famine, maybe that made you too strong and fortified and took you out of that zone of moderation. Uh, you didn't want to drink distilled spirits for the obvious reason that that caused drunkenness and that took you out of the zone of moderation. You didn't want to take hot drinks, not because of what they contained, but the temperature at which you consumed them, because the heat took you out of the zone of moderation. See where this is going? Now, at the time, uh, the only two common hot drinks happened to be tea and coffee, but the, the temperance movement didn't even know about caffeine at that point. They were targeting the temperature, not the content. And later on, these things got enforced by one of Jim Bennett's great-grandfathers, Heber J. Grant, who took the Word of Wisdom from what it literally started out to be, which was advice not by way of commandment, and turned it into a de facto commandment. If you want to go to the temple you are going to have to obey the Word of Wisdom. Am I quoting that okay, Jim? You're the source.

No, that's absolutely right. I mean, prior to that, I remember seeing— I'm trying to pull it up here— but there are photos of the upper rooms of the Salt Lake Temple that have tobacco spittoons in them. You know, when Brigham Young, uh, when people crossed the plains, Brigham Young gave them a list of staples that they had to bring, and that included a certain amount of coffee. I mean, the Word of Wisdom was not enforced as a commandment until Heber J. Grant.

Yes.

Now, drunkenness was always condemned.

Correct.

Even at the time of Joseph Smith. But drinking in moderation, not so. Up to the turn of the 20th century, when there was always at least one Scandinavian General Authority to represent that demographic, the brethren look sideways if they drank their Danish beer, saying, "We can't take that away from them. It's mother's milk to them." So all that changed in the 19— I'm thinking '30s, Jim. Does that sound—

I think it is the '30s, yeah.

When President Grant decided that no, this was going to be to the Latter-day Saints akin to what the kosher laws are to Jews. You can make an argument that, well, the kosher laws make good sense from a health standpoint. Not so much anymore, maybe centuries ago. But what it really is, is that if you have a kosher kitchen, it signifies that you are a devout Jew to a level that you don't get if you're not having a kosher kitchen. The same thing for Latter-day Saints. If you are observing the Word of Wisdom, That is at least an inward sign that your orthodoxy is probably better than the next guy's who's going out and heaven forbid having a Diet Coke on the side.

Right. You, you, you've answered my question in part. My question was going to be, what was the intent, the driver, the objective behind, uh, changing it from a advisory to a commandment. And I think you've said it was to test the obedience of the saints, to see if they would prove themselves and if it would become strictly obedient to the church's policies. Is that—

That's my reading of it, Jim. Is that in accordance with your thinking on it?

Well, it is.

Insights.

The, the thing that, that I think is so striking about where we are now with the Word of Wisdom is that our enforcement of the Word of Wisdom bears little to no resemblance at all to the text of Doctrine and Covenants section 89, which is the revelation that instituted the Word of Wisdom, not by commandment or constraint, which we've thrown that out. And yes, it talks about tobacco, uh, as something that we shouldn't be consuming ourselves. It should be a, an herb for sick cattle used with all judgment and skill. I don't know the last time anybody used tobacco for sick cattle. Uh, it talks about strong drinks, but then goes on to talk about mild drinks, uh, with a definition of beer. Uh, which, you know, beer was the mild drink that is described in Section 89. And in fact, my great-grandfather Heber J. Grant was prescribed a beer by his physician because he was so dangerously underweight, and beer was considered the way to, to, to fix that. And he drank a beer every night of his life, even at the end of his life, and even I think after he had made the Word of Wisdom mandatory to enter the temple. So, but then you go on to the positive prescriptions that you find in Section 89, and we ignore those entirely. We're not supposed to eat a lot of meat. It's pleasing that it not be used except in times of famine. There used to be a big debate over what they called the vegetarian comma. Because in the Revelation it says, it's pleasing to me that they not be used, comma, only in times of famine. And there was an argument to be made that that comma is an error and that it's the Lord saying, it's pleasing to me that it's not to be used only in times of famine, or, you know, eat as much meat as you want. But that runs counter to, to the rest of the Revelation. But so, so now when you talk about the Word of Wisdom, Uh, I actually have a friend who went in and went into his bishop and said, I'm not living the Word of Wisdom because I eat an awful lot of meat. I don't pay any attention to grains. Uh, you know, I don't do any of these things that this revelation outlines. And the bishop laughed at him and said, we don't care about that. The Word of Wisdom means, do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you drink coffee or tea? Do you, or, and do you abuse drugs? Because the Word of Wisdom doesn't say anything about marijuana. It doesn't say anything about, you know, I mean, there are a lot of people. We had my friend Stephen Hunter on here who, when he was a bishop, was experimenting with psychedelics. And the Word of Wisdom doesn't say anything about psychedelics. You know, so we have, we have attached the name. The word of wisdom to what is essentially a shibboleth, a loyalty oath. I mean, we, we now recognize, for instance, there's a whole lot of research that black coffee is quite good for you, uh, and that, you know, tea and coffee, the, the, the kinds of reasons why it would have been prohibited in the 19th century just don't really apply anymore. And, uh, but doesn't matter. It's, it's just a way that we set ourselves apart. It's a way essentially that we prove our obedience. And, and we sound sillier and sillier and sillier when we try to sort of lean into the idea that this is some kind of miraculous health code because, because we don't really We don't treat it that way. And I remember Hyrum Smith, not Joseph Smith's brother, but the guy who worked with my father, Franklin Covey. He was the one who said to me, you can tell the faithfulness of a Mormon by the temperature of their caffeine. You know, it's not that Mormons don't drink caffeine. You know, when I was, when I was in a bishopric, there was a running bet as to not whether or not I would fall asleep on the stand, but if I would do it before or after the bottom of the hour. And when that happened, I decided, okay, I'm going to drink a Monster Energy drink before every sacrament meeting. And that fixed it. I didn't fall asleep on the stand, but I was drinking more caffeine than I would be drinking if I just had a stiff You know, coffee right before sacrament meeting. So, so I, I mean, I just look at all of this and look at the Word of Wisdom and, and just look at what inertia has done to it because we really do need to revisit it. What was the intent of it? What is the value in it? Has the, that value expired? Isn't there something more valuable about the idea of it not being by commandment or constraint? I mean, Greg, is that— do you think that would be a good idea?

I, I think that there are two things that I'd like to focus on. Number one is, was this ahead of its time, which was the narrative I was raised with? And then the second is, if we were to draw a new Word of Wisdom today, day, what would it look like? Now, the first of those I mentioned, the Seven Linear Feet of Temperance documents. There is not one thing in the Word of Wisdom, major or minor, that was not out there in the public before February 27th, 1833. It was the common knowledge in the streets. It wasn't just in the medical literature. So the idea that Joseph Smith was a century ahead of his time, not only does that not hold water, he wasn't even a week ahead of his time. He was catching up to what the popular press had already disseminated. Period. Now, since the temperance movement was moving in a beneficial direction, there's a lot of good that can be said about what's in the original Word of Wisdom, because it mirrored what was already out there. In the public square. But it's not a proof if you need external proofs of Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet. What it shows is that, as in many other aspects of his ministry, he took in what was around him. He was a product of his own time and place. I don't know if you want to discuss that part in any more depth, before we move on to what would a new Word of Wisdom look like. So tell me.

Yeah, I think we should go in that direction, Craig, to look at what a new Word of Wisdom would look like, because my thoughts are, you know, at the beginning of our conversation here, we talked about the importance and value of strategic hires, right? And making strategic changes. I see the roadmap for improving Mormonism as a highly strategic, document, which the brethren, if they haven't already read it, they should. I see this, another prime example in the document is the Word of Wisdom section, which is an opportunity to make a strategic change. I think of how many people, and Jim, well, we can all relate to this, being former missionaries. There were so many people on my mission that seemed to be okay with the message of the church, the gospel. But when it came to the word of wisdom, for many, that was a problem. In Scotland, Jim Bennett, that was a problem, right? The word of wisdom. In Scotland, well, like anywhere around the world, many of the places in the world, they like to drink. And some of the Scots like to drink, as you know, and they like the tea and the coffee. I grew up with tea and coffee. I can relate to that. And so I think there's an opportunity here to change this. You know, reading, going through, listening to what Jim was saying and following Jim's quoting the Section 89 here of the Doctrine and Covenants, just following that, to me, Greg, it seems antiquated, out of date, in need of a complete makeover. And what a strategic opportunity presents to remove tea and coffee. I get the alcohol because I have seen the damage alcohol can have on people's lives, sadly. Tea and coffee is a whole different kettle of fish in my view. I've not seen anyone go off the rails drinking too much tea or too much coffee. I think it's in need of a big overall, overall, a complete update, a completely redesign. And what an opportunity to allow people to come into the church and allow them to drink tea and coffee. I don't see a problem with that. And I think that would actually help retain people as well. I don't see a problem with, you know, with removing that. So I think this whole thing needs to change. I think it's antiquated. I can see why they want to do this out of obedience. The other point I want to add to this, there is an endless list of high-demand requirements that the church expects from its members. It's a high-demand religion and it expects significant commitment across a whole range of different policies and different doctrines to test the obedience of its members. You don't need another prescriptive method of testing that obedience in the Word of Wisdom. You've got enough, for goodness' sake, everywhere else, temple, and there's so many opportunities to show your and demonstrate your allegiance and commitment and loyalty. I think this needs to be completely changed. I think people would come into the church. I think more people would come into the church, more people would probably stay in the church. And the drink, I get the issue around moderation, because one person's moderation is another person's extremity. I get that. That's the issue there. But if you allowed people to drink wine, for example, okay, because you've been quite prescriptive here, very specific. The Section 89 is very specific on grains and barley, right? Why can't you update it and say, hey, you can have a beer, you can have, but in moderation, you can have a wine in moderation because the Catholic Church, they drink wine. They take wine in the sacrament. You know, we don't, we take, you know, our sacrament is water and bread. But in the Catholic Church, you could take wine. But why not change this whole thing, get rid of tea and coffee, allow people to drink wine, allow people to have a beer, have a big paragraph on moderation, absolutely, you know, not go so hard on the spirits, and then more people will join the church. I'm sure they would. And more people will probably stay in the church. And I think that probably speaks to your last point about your idea about going, looking at what a new Word of Wisdom doctrine and policy could look like. Very keen to get your thoughts, Greg, and you as well, Jim, on this.

Ian, you're an engineer, so let me try to phrase it this way, that we describe the end goal that we want, and then we reverse engineer that to figure out how do we get there. I think the end goal is driven by the scripture, and I can't quote where it's from, but that your, your body is the tabernacle of your spirit. And preserving the health of the body is really something that is in one's best interest, both physically and spiritually. I get that. I think that is the goal. How do we get there? Uh, the best information that I'm seeing recently is that alcohol in any quantity is contraindicated. For a while we were hearing that red wine had a beneficial effect. There's now pretty good research to say whatever the beneficial effect is, it tends to be outweighed by the detrimental effect. Of alcohol because alcohol is a fairly potent toxin and it has a cumulative effect. So I think that you take both distilled spirits and wine and beer and say that's, that doesn't fit into the equation of where we want to take this thing. As far as tea and coffee. You've already talked about the beneficial effects of coffee. You have similar effects with black tea and to a certain extent with green tea. It's not just the antioxidants, but the antioxidants in coffee and tea appear to be major beneficial factors. And the effect Tends to be much broader than we once thought. It, it's not just a single effect or a single organ system that is benefited there. If you look at vegetables, the caveat is it says in their season, there really is no such thing as a season anymore because of world transport. You can get fresh vegetation any month of the year, even if you're living in Alaska. Because it's shipped from someplace that's in season. If you look at the grains, you have to put an asterisk there. I don't know that there was such a thing as— excuse me— as gluten intolerance in the 19th century. It may be a modern phenomenon, but it's a big one now, and a lot of people simply cannot tolerate wheat or rye in their diet because those contain that substance. Oats do not. So you have to be more selective if you're talking about which grains are beneficial. Wheat for most people is beneficial, but leave that asterisk in the new Word of Wisdom to say it may be contraindicated. I think What's not in Section 89 is probably more important in today's world than what is in it. And that is, there was no such thing in 1833 as a prescription drug. The Food and Drug Administration was decades away from being brought into existence. So abusing prescription drugs wasn't even a possibility then. It's a huge possibility now. And there have been reports over the year that I think are credible that talk about the consumption of antidepressants in the state of Utah as being extraordinarily high. Uh, certainly the opioids can be used, uh, in quantities that are life-threatening, in addition to life-altering and altering in a bad way. The consumption of sugar in Utah is above the national average. Uh, sugar becomes the opioid to a lot of people out there because they decide they don't want to do what other people do to get that fulfillment in their diet. But obesity is a major problem. Nationally, but it also, I think, is even more of a problem within the state of Utah. So you put all those together and say, are we obeying the spirit of keeping our tabernacles to be fit containers for our spirits? And the answer is probably not. But the probably not may not have that much to do with disobeying what's in the Word of Wisdom. These are modern times now, uh, and we have illicit drugs that really didn't exist in any form or quantity in the 1830s that would have been disruptive.

With those additional specific items you've mentioned, you just made the most compelling case for updating this revelation. I get, you know, the alcohol. I agree with you 100%. No alcohol. I think that's a good move. Allow people to drink tea and coffee. Update it to, you know, the church claims to have, claims that the heavens are open and that revelation continues to flow to the prophet on key issues. Surely now with all that's going on, including the specific things that you mentioned, and I'll add one more thing if I may, Greg, The advice I've got personally in my life and what I hear, you know, in, in terms of researching general health is to, and this is fairly consistent across the board based on my research, is to avoid at all cost processed food. Processed food is bad. You know, sugars, processed food, the, the addictive ingredients in food. Sugars and other things, et cetera, is very, very bad. Surely now is the time, the opportunity to show that the heavens are open, revelation continues, and for the church to say, here we have a new revised word of wisdom policy that takes into account all the things that you've said, some of the things I've said, and the things that, you know, Jim Bennett spoke about earlier. Surely that would be a strategic move as well as showing the world and the members that God is still speaking to his prophet by way of updating and yes, changing revelation to meet the modern demands of the world. Would you agree?

Yes, and I should have brought in not just processed foods in, but the ultra-processed foods seem to be the ones that are the biggest culprits.

They are the ones. You're correct. Ultra-processed food is bad for you for sure. Yeah.

I, I go into orbit when I think about what RFK Jr. is doing to vaccines because I spent 50 years of my life in a career in biomedical research that focused on vaccines.

Right.

That said, he is making sense on other things such as the safety of what we eat and the danger of ultra-processing. Processed foods. I don't think that has been focused on enough in the past. So give him credit for that. At the same time that I think he is putting the population in serious danger of some really nasty infectious diseases by what he's doing with vaccine policy. Right.

Well, I, I don't ever want to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. credit for anything, but That's beside the point. As we sit here and talk about this, the thing that frustrates me a little bit is that we're saying, okay, let's update the revelation and let's say, okay, this is good and this is bad and this is the other. When I was growing up, you know, Greg, as you talk about, I was told how ahead of his time Joseph Smith was. But the other thing that I was told was that this was, in fact, a revelation. I was a little disturbed as a Primary kid when I was told the reason we got the revelation is that Emma was sick and tired of cleaning out tobacco stains from the floor of the School of the Prophets. And I thought, well, that's very convenient. And I remember my Primary teacher saying, well, that's how it works. If you have a question, You know, revelation comes when you have a question and you ask a question and God answers. Uh, so what we're doing now here is going, okay, well, here is a really good answer that God ought to give us, but we're sort of rejecting the whole idea, uh, of the, the fact that this could ever have been a revelation in the first place. I mean, I'm not upset that that's what we're doing, but I'm just saying Okay, if we're going to rewrite the Word of Wisdom, I would much rather say, look, we haven't gotten a new revelation, um, and from what we understand, the original revelation was not by commandment or constraint. I think we should go back to that, not have this be a temple recommend requirement. And, you know, if we want to give counsel to our members about things that will be good for their health. I suppose that's fine, but the thing that frustrates— and my frustration is not with either of you, I want to make that clear. My frustration is with the church at large, which is really sort of fuzzy on the idea of, is this council genuinely revelation? I mean, we talk about how important it is to have living prophets because they guide us with what we need to hear today. And yet we don't get any kind of clear direction in the way Joseph Smith did, where he said, I've just gotten this message from God, and here it is in God's voice, in first person, as if I am God. Hearken and hear, O ye nations of the earth. We don't ever get anything like that. So we get these sort of you know, tepid kinds of things in General Conference that everybody sort of parses and tries to find some kind of heavy significance to some very anodyne words usually. And do stick their necks out— oh, I'm sorry, but when they do stick their necks out like they did on public health with COVID they get huge blowback from the conservative members of the church And that makes them gun-shy. So go ahead, Greg. Yes.

Yeah, uh, in my mind, there is no functional difference between using the word revelation and using the word inspiration. And I think you would see over our history that the two are interchangeable and that most of the modern church presidents have shied away from talking about their own teachings as revelation. If anything, they'll say that these are inspired. You can try to parse the difference. I think it's a distinction without a difference. So if you look at the Word of Wisdom as inspired, yeah, it was inspired in the sense that Joseph Smith took the best of what common wisdom was at that time, put it into one document and said, here, this would be good for you. Now, I have a good friend who has spent about 50 years of his life, uh, as an antiquarian book dealer, looking at, in particular, publications or unpublished documents that predate the death of Joseph Smith and looking for parallels to Mormonism. He was the one who made me aware that February 26, 1833 was a National Day of Temperance celebration. There being a chapter of the American Temperance Society in the town of Kirtland, Ohio, So if you think about that and then think about the timing of the Word of Wisdom one day after that National Day of Temperance celebration, I think it puts it in a little bit different context and certainly a more defensible context as to what was really going on.

I'm going to say something that might surprise you. I've for some time now since resigning from the church, argued that the church has become, or became for me at least, too prescriptive, too involved, too regulating in members' lives, and needs to focus more on the gospel principles and the gospel of Jesus Christ and not specific policies and specific measures and, and, um, mechanisms and the operations necessarily and not get too involved in the members' lives and too detailed where it goes contrary to that scripture where, you know, it's not good that man is commanded in all things, where the church has perhaps gone way too far and regulates every aspect of the member's life. I've argued that the church has gone too far. I see the Word of Wisdom as being like that at times. However, I have a different perspective, I think, on the Word of Wisdom in that sense, in that I think the church, and this might run contrary to what Jim was saying, if I understand what Jim was saying earlier, I do think the church has a moral obligation and responsibility to teach and promote good health practices. I think they were right to come out and take a position on COVID. I know there was a reaction against that. So what? Who cares? The church came out and did the right thing. I applaud them for that. Okay. And so they did the right thing. I think the church does have a moral obligation to teach and educate members in respect to good health practices. I think it has the right and obligation to make sure that no one is coming to church drunk. I mean, for goodness' sake, you don't want people coming in through the door on a Sunday morning with a hangover or drunk or coming in to a calling with children or youth or any calling for that matter who are drunk. We don't want that. You need to have, you need to regulate that part of members' lives. I would add to what Jim Bennett's saying, maybe modify it slightly, that make the rules around drinking alcohol very strict and tie that to the Temple Recommend, a serious commitment obligation, a rule, a law, a commandment. Absolutely, because I think that's the alcohol in my mind is a very different situation than non-alcoholic things. But the rest, you know, the coffee and the tea, uh, you know, et cetera. And does that extend to cannabis? I mean, this is a fascinating conversation. I don't know if it would extend to cannabis. I think driving under the influence of drugs can impair your ability to drive. And by the way, in the workplace, you know, in engineering, in construction, et cetera, there are strict contracts and laws and regulations about coming to work drunk or coming to the work on, on, uh, on drugs. And you have to take random drugs tests, as you know, on site. People will show up and they will do a random drug test to see if you are impaired or not. You're not allowed to operate machinery under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It's very serious. And by the way, these are enshrined in law here in Canada and BC. As they are in the UK, as they are in the US. So I think the church does have a legal and a moral obligation to lay down the law and apply strict rules and measures and penalties, like you would in the workplace, for anyone who is under the influence of drink or drugs, et cetera, et cetera, in respect to protecting its members and ensuring that there's a safe environment the church. When it comes to tea and coffee, I agree with that part of Jim Bennett that, you know, don't exclude that from the Section 89. I think Jim Bennett might be right that you might not need to replace it, maybe reinterpret it somewhat and take that bit out, make that a kind of advisory, you know, hey, if you want to drink tea and coffee, that's up to you. You can drink tea and coffee, still go to the temple, that's okay. But when it comes to alcohol, that's a different situation entirely. So, and then this would show that the church is in touch with reality. You know, the temple endowment talks, and the scriptures talk about, we are, you know, we change our mind based on further light and truth. We pray, we ask a question to what Jim Bennett was saying, more light and knowledge and truth comes. We've got this, all this science on food and drink now that we didn't have back in Joseph Smith's time. Uh, you know, just light years ahead intellectually, all the engineering of the food, all the environmental stuff on the food, et cetera. So I think split it. Certain things could be an advisory, some stuff could be strict, and it would show that revelation continues. The church is in touch with reality. It's listening and it's addressing the modern demands of the, um, of the members.

Uh, Ian, in the States, the government pays a lot of attention to what they call leading economic indicators that tell, that forecast what the state of the economy is and is likely to be in the near future. I think we might be seeing something similar coming down the road. In the context of temples, because we have built or have promised to build a lot of temples. And some people are questioning, how are you going to populate those temples, both with workers and with temple patrons? And if we see that those temples are grossly underutilized, there might be some rethinking. And one of the leading economic indicators might be, okay, what's going to happen to the temple recommend questions, including the Word of Wisdom?

Right, right.

We've gone only in one direction over the years. Going back to the Nauvoo Temple, what you needed to receive your endowments was attestation that you had paid your tithing. Period. When the Logan Temple was approaching completion, 1884, there was an article written by the First Presidency in one of the church magazines that talked about using the temple recommend as a means to enforce righteousness. Which was a moment of remarkable candor. I think referring back to what we talked about just a few minutes ago, what you have seen over the years is that the requirements for a temple recommend have gotten more and more numerous and strict as time has gone on. Is there going to be a point where that process starts to be reversed, where you would look on that as one of the economic indicators saying, hmm, got too far out over our skis. We need to democratize temple worship so that more people can qualify for it because we're not filling our temples. But that supposition on my part is just something I throw out there for for your consideration, something to munch on.

I think that's incredibly insightful and very smart. And I thought I saw halfway through where you were going with that. This is why you need a seat at the table. This makes absolute sense. I know I go on about it, but it just makes so much sense. Jim Bennett, you've spoken about that as well. You've got all these temples being built, right? You and I both know from people that we know, you guys are still active, but I know people in the UK, in Europe, and on my side of the family, my wife's side, they're all active, right? Bishops and senior callings, et cetera. And I asked them about the temple. And apart from a Saturday and maybe a little bit of Friday, the temples are in the UK and parts of Europe and parts of Canada are empty or half full. Of many of them virtually empty. So make it easy for people to go to the temple. I don't think they'll change the question about the tithing because that's a major economic indicator, isn't it, about someone's commitment. But also there's so much riding on someone paying the tithing. It's a financial thing, isn't it? You know, follow the money kind of thing. But yeah, that would be a strategic move for them to listen to Gregg's advice, make those changes, and therefore the temples would be populated more. They'd be able to go to the temple. A lot easier. I mean, that's a no-brainer. That's one of many things that they could do.

If you look at another aspect of temple work, you can see where a similar phenomenon comes into play, and that is, okay, when we got started with temple work, you only did it for yourself or for ancestors that you could identify, but you were only doing baptisms for the dead. And then we got into this crazy thing about the law of adoption, that people were being adopted to each other because you couldn't be adopted to an ancestor if they hadn't been baptized in the church, all this stuff. That finally gets settled in about 1894, but And then well into the 20th century, the question keeps being raised, so for whom do we do vicarious ordinances in the temple? Joseph Fielding Smith was the most vocal opponent of doing them for anybody other than your own ancestry. He said, absolutely not. And then later they softened that a bit and said, well, you need to get special permission of the temple president to do the work for anybody who is not a direct ancestor. But then, as they got more temples, they started to run out of names. And so those rules started to get relaxed and got to the point where with our name extraction program, we opened the floodgates wide and said, we're going to save the whole world. So we don't even need to establish relationships. We'll just get the names and we'll do the temple work. But you can see where this is going. If you look at that whole stretch of time, even things that appeared to be set in stone with very unbending statements by church leaders at the highest level, wait a while and those things are subject to change.

That's nice.

And I think the same thing is likely to happen with the Word of Wisdom.

Yeah.

When I listen to you, and I want to get Jim Bennett's thoughts on this as well, when I listen to every conversation that we've had, I come back to one thing as I listen intently to what you're saying, Greg. If we, it's like every other conversation, in my opinion, that we've had with you, if we strip those, the tapestry of those conversations right down to its bare minimum. We see a big red thread running through the tapestry of probably every conversation that we had, which is why do we do the things in the church? Why do we do those things? What's the whole point and reason for doing them? Here we're talking about specific measures, techniques, methodologies, very prescriptive approaches to measuring people's commitment. In my master's degree, the dissertation I did, it was on soft system methodology of engineering and environmental sciences. And there's two primary laws of thinking. One is positivistic and the other one is phenomenological. Positivistic measures the real world. You know, we have quantifiable numerical system to measure hard stuff, physical stuff that you can touch, the tangible stuff, the, you know, the things that you can touch. And the phenomenological, which took me a long time to pronounce, by the way, or a few days at least, was how do you measure and quantify numerically measure the non-physical stuff, you know, feelings, emotions, and how do you measure other aspects, non-physical things that you can measure? And that's what I spent some of my time doing my dissertation on. The church seems to have got lost, in my opinion, They've gone. Jim Bennett, when you were in your mission, do you remember all those boxes you had to tick on a— was it, was it what night? Was it Sunday night? There was the phone-ins on Sunday night to the zone leaders.

You know, you used to call me, or I called you, I can't remember.

And, um, we used to tick all these boxes. And did you get up on time? And did you do your 6:30 prayer? And did you have your companion inventory and your personal study? And, and, and these boxes, and it was right prescriptive. And then 9:30, did you get out on time? And did you I've only half an hour for lunch. And then every Sunday you had to tick all these things and they were sent in and you had to do your weekly letters and reports, et cetera, et cetera. So, uh, and as a bishop and a stake presidency, there's endless forms that you have to tick. There's all these temple recommend questions and it's just, by the way, there's a huge component of a bishop's calling and a stake presidency, which is very administrative. There's so many forms and documents you've got to fill in. And I'm told it's even worse. So the church, I think, has gone— it's got lost. It's gone too far down that prescriptive model of measuring, of trying to get those indicators. And how do you measure those indicators? And what indicators of people's obedience and commitment? And it's lost focus, it seems to be, on the gospel of Christ, that we do things because we love each other, because we serve, we're driven because— not because we have to tick a box on a Sunday night, to the zone leader or the bishop or whatever, but we do it because we love and we care for people and we're driven because we actually care about that soul. And that's surely the greatest cause. That's the thing that should be the biggest motivator, not ticking the boxes and measuring all these things and let's test their obedience on this or test their obedience on that. To me, that's the big thread is the thing that motivates us to love each other and to love God, to go out and do those things because we care. And we don't have to be measured because we're driven through our love for Heavenly Father's children. Do you think the church has gone way too far down that measuring things numerically to test people's obedience? And if you think it's gone too far, what would you change? What would you, what point would you bring it back to? Or was there a point that in the church's life that it was a balance between, yeah, you got to measure some stuff, I get that, you know, like finances and stuff like that, but leave the rest to the members because they know what they're doing. We could trust them. They're good people. They'll do the right thing. We don't have to measure that kind of stuff. Does that, does that make sense? Yeah.

If you go back to the '60s and '70s, maybe even earlier, you'll see that the church's obsession with numbers was, if you can believe it, way worse then than it is now.

Oh, interesting, right?

In the General Conference report in April, they always have a statistical report. It used to be several pages long, and it went into great detail, such as how many endowments for the dead were performed this year? How many endowments for the living? On and on. How many hours spent in welfare projects? Those kinds of things. So on the one hand, we have backed off from some of the boxes we used to be checking, but on the other hand, I, I think we still get obsessed with metrics that I don't think are very relevant. I have done a lot of thinking for a lot of years about the so what question about religion in general. Why have it? And my reductionist thinking really comes down to two statements. One is that I think that religion should give you guidance and assistance in getting through what Rabbi Kushner calls the this frightening cosmos, to give you meaning and values and a community in which you can lean on others for guidance and support to help you get through life. The here and now says nothing of the then and there of afterlife. It's just a very practical thing. I think the church generally does a pretty good job on that, but a lot of refinement could be done., and I think a lot of things that get in the way could be stripped away. The other is, how does the church help members to reach out and touch the face of God? That's the way more difficult one, and you can only approximate it. You never get there. I think you see it most clearly if you look at the history of temple worship of the endowment, what that has always tried to do, but it keeps morphing in the way that it tries to do it because it's an elusive goal. Now, that's a lot of reductionist thinking on my part, but I'll stand by that, that those two things, number one, it's helping you navigate the here and now, and number two, it's trying to assist in your reaching out and touching the face of God. If there's a third one, I'm open to hearing it. Hmm.

Well, I, I mean, I, I am, I, I think as Ian has pointed out, uh, that your strategic thinking on this, Greg, is really invaluable. And, and I think all of that needs to be taken into account. In terms of how we approach as a church the future, how we deal with the Word of Wisdom specifically. Uh, from my perspective, the older I get and the more time I spend in the church, the less time I am willing to do things, or am, that don't matter, that are irrelevant. And there, I think COVID was sort of the watershed for this in that they shut down the church and said, hold church at home. And so many members went, well, wait a minute, I'm having the sacrament meeting. I'm having the sacrament with my family and we're bonding as a family and all of these meetings and all of these other obligations. Have gone by the wayside, and I don't miss them at all. And I think the church— there, a guy in my stake presidency said, we need to get people back to church because they're preferring the way it is now. And I think there was a lot of that. It was, oh my goodness, people are now seeing how much of the church is just busywork, is just sort of, okay, we're doing this because we've always done this. Or we're doing this because we want to make people feel like they're participating in a significant way, when the reality is that there is so much that we do as a church that really does not matter. And there's so much, Ian, as you point out, that we don't emphasize as we emphasize the checkboxes. You know, did you get up at a certain time? We don't have any checkboxes as to Were you kind to your neighbor? I mean, those are things that are not measurable in ways that are helpful to the church. So, so with all of this, what I'm trying to say is more and more the word of wisdom looks like busywork to me, at least the way that we've got it and the way that we're teaching it. We don't have any kind of compelling logic, scientific evidence that this is a Amazing idea. Yes, we've all talked about how, you know, drunkenness and excess with regard to alcohol. And I mean, the world, I think, caught up with us on smoking. I mean, the amount of public pressure to end cigarette smoking has been enormous. And in the United States, at least, it's fairly rare I mean, people have turned to vaping and vaping's got its own problems, but I can't remember the last time I was in public and I saw somebody just sitting there smoking a cigarette on the street corner. And growing up, that was ubiquitous. So, so I, I am all for the church, Ian, as you talk about counseling us on things that are valuable with regard to our health. In regard to our temporal welfare, but I don't really want to just do things just for the sake of doing things. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, my way of putting it is there's too much stick and not enough carrot. Yes. That we should be able to frame all of this in a way that it becomes compelling to people. Not that we flagellate them into doing it. If it's something that's as anywhere near as important as we claim it is, and I think it is, the fault is ours that, to borrow from one of our earlier conversations, we have lapsed into Christ-centered boredom. And that the only way that we try to motivate people is using the stick because we have not figured out how to make it interesting.

Yeah. I think you summed it up really well, both of you. If there was one, we are a few days away from the Christmas of 2025. I hope you're both in the spirit of Christmas. If you're not, I hope that you do get into the spirit of Christmas. I'm trying.

Well, at least after Christmas though, Ian. Just overworking.

Yes, but we're recording just before Christmas. And so there's a, you know, we're trying to, at our end here, and I'm sure your end as well, trying to get into the spirit of Christmas. So we've been talking about how do we do that? How do we feel the true spirit of Christmas? We're not in the church anymore, but we go out and we help the homeless. And we do it because we want to care. We want to love. If I had one wish amongst many wishes, of course, I would wish that either of you would be, would be my bishop or my stake president right now, because I think you would have a transformational effect in my life. I mean that, and I say that on a personal level. But as we think about Christmas, and I know this program is going out after Christmas, I'm reminded of, um, a, uh, the story of Scrooge, who you're both familiar with, right? Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. And one of the most profound, um, quotes there, I think, from that book, amongst many, is kindness should have been my currency. And so, you know, we should be like this all the time, of course. We should be motivated to be, uh, you know, kind all the time, and, uh, more so over Christmas with, with trying to identify and reach out to souls who are vulnerable and disadvantaged and excluded and to lift those feeble hands and the downtrodden to show love and kindness. Just, you know, that should be our currency. And how do you measure something like that? Well, and our metric is kindness and love. And that's where I think the church has got lost. I think Greg is right. I think there's too much stick and not enough carrot. You know, think back to a time, very recent, I'm sure, in your lives. I know it's certainly fairly recent in my life where you've performed an act of kindness or love towards someone, family member, friend. You know, how does it make you feel? Well, it feels extraordinary, doesn't it, to be able to help somebody? And that's the motivator. That's the message of Christ, is to go out and to serve and to love and to uplift and to build and to make some, help someone feel better. Help someone feel good, help someone feel peace, some semblance of peace in this crazy, crazy world in which we live. That's the measure of who we are as humans. That's how we are measured. I don't know if you can quantify it numerically, but that's the currency, that's the metric. And I think the church, again, is a— we talk about strategic decisions and changes. I think it would be strategic and also revolutionary and certainly a call it a revelation, inspiration. I think it's kind of right there, you know, just on the wall is kind of obvious. If you look, it's there. Sometimes we can't see the wood because of the trees is to go back to a time of serving through simple means and ways. And helping members have a— President Banks coined it really well, Jim. Do you remember when he came in? He said, I'll try to quote him, we'd had this very prescriptive mission president, Greg, sergeant major president, Joel Dunn. That was a difficult time for me. I just couldn't— anyway, I just found him non-inspirational. President Banks replaced President Dunn, and what a breath of fresh air he was. And he said, Jim, I remember that we've got too hung up on being prescriptive on the rules. He said, you need to follow the spirit more. And he said, I remember I was in a small village in Culross in Dunfermline when the message came out, is pray. I was with Elder Jacobs and we prayed. And he said, seek those small moments of inspiration. Pray, feel the spirit. And he said, try to aim every week to have a, quote, generous sprinkling of spiritual experiences, end quote. That was Banks's message instead of ticking all these different forms off. And so we thought that was wonderful, and we followed that and we lived that, and that changed my entire mission, Jim. It for me. I can't speak for you, but it certainly did mine. It was more focused on the spirit and not the letter, more focused on doing and serving and getting the measure of life through serving and not having to report. You have to tick all the different things. And I think the church has got lost. I think it's lost its way. And I think it needs to revisit those fundamental principles and go back to the gospel of Jesus Christ and not all the, you know, focus on the, on the operations. Uh, and that's a long way of saying, uh, pretty much, uh, um, stick and not enough carrot. But there, there was stories behind my, uh, and experiences behind my, behind my comments.

Yeah, I'd like to slip in here a story about a man who I felt was one of the wisest stake presidents I had known. I had moved from the area by the time he became stake president. That's Jim Bennett's uncle, Howard Anderson. One of Howard's real problem children was my grandfather, who was a very cantankerous, combative guy, uh, and bishops dreaded if he would ever want a temple recommend because the interview would turn out to be something of a brawl. When he went to Howard to have his recommend co-signed, Howard took the recommend book, turned it around, slid it over and said, Leland, read these to yourself and then tell me if I should sign your recommend. That's doing it the right way.

That is doing it the right way.

Howard. And I've said this many times before, but Howard would always begin every Temple Recommend interview with the following statement, and he had memorized it. I mean, it sounded like he was reading something, but he had written this and had memorized it. He said, I want you to know that these questions are more about self-reflection on your part than they are about judgment on my part. And I have internalized that ever since because So many people talk about, well, can I go into a temple recommend interview and can I say I'm a full tithe payer if I pay on my gross or if I pay on my net or if I pay, you know, they sit here and they wrestle about what is the right answer. And I had, I would have conversations with Howard about things like that. And he says, the right answer is your answer.

Yeah.

I mean, you, you're making that decision for yourself. You are evaluating yourself when you go in and ask for a temple recommend. Uh, and Howard's like, I can't stand it when they sit there and, and they quiz me. Well, is this okay? Well, is that okay? And I always try to turn it back around on them and say, well, what do you think?

But that's totally relevant into what you're talking about here. Howard got it right.

Yes.

Yeah.

I miss him every day. He was, he was really quite like a second father to me. I lived with him while I went to the University of Southern California. Howard and Madine were just, I, I would say they were all the benefits of living with your parents with none of the drawbacks. You know, they weren't like worried about if I was out late at night or they weren't, but, uh, when I needed somebody wise to turn to, I was in a house where I could go up and sit and talk to my aunt and uncle about, uh, whatever was on my mind. And he was just absolutely a wonderful, wonderful human being.

Yeah.

The bad news was you went to USC. The good news is you were living with Howard Medin.

There you go. I, well, Howard Medin lived a stone's throw from UCLA, so it didn't make any sense at all.

You see, there's an example of someone that you guys haven't forgotten about. He had a profound impact on your life. He was wise. He was kind. St. Paul. He had the spirit of Christ and you remember him, right? And you too are like Howard. I wish I had more Howards in my life, especially when I was going through my crisis of faith at the time. I just didn't have, there weren't those kind of people in my life. Suddenly people were measuring me on my being able to follow a very strict line of thinking and not ask questions. It was completely not the experience that I'd hoped for. But anyway, we're at the end of our conversation, gentlemen. We've focused mostly entirely on the Word of Wisdom. We've got at least 4 or 5 other key themes to discuss and explore in Greg Prince's Roadmap for Improved Mormonism. Excited in the hope that we'll continue, Greg, to have those conversations with you. The next one is we versus they, if we're following the order of the document. Gentlemen, I have found this conversation incredibly uplifting, very informative. I learn probably more than anyone from these conversations. And of course, we're very grateful to you, Greg, for taking time out of your schedule to come on and provide your experience, your insights, and your wisdom. So, you know, thank you so much. And a few final thoughts from you, Jim Bennett, and then from you, Gregg M. Ross, and then we'll close the conversation.

No, I just enjoyed this. I'm grateful we have more roadmap because any excuse to lure Gregg back onto the podcast is just wonderful for me. So Merry Christmas to both of you. Very much appreciate both of you and hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Merry Christmas to you. And with what you're saying, it gives me incentive to start slipping some side streets into the roadmap so you can keep the conversation going.

Absolutely.

Yes. Well, we've actually had conversations about some other topics which could maybe find their way into the roadmap.

Who knows?

We'll see. We'll see what happens. It's an honor to know you both. I'll from my family to your family's, love to you both. I hope that you have the best Christmas and that you feel the same spirit that we feel here on this conversation, the spirit of Christ in your lives and your families, and that you have the most wonderful Christmas. And of course, our thoughts go out to those who are in need at this time. And no doubt, because we're driven by the spirit of Christ, we will act upon that and we will do something this Christmas time to help those who are most in need. I want to thank our listeners for staying with us. I hope you get as much from this conversation as we do. We learned so much and there's such a wonderful spirit here. To all the listeners, have a wonderful Christmas. We extend our love and appreciation to you all. And again, on behalf of all of everybody inside out, I want to thank you, Jim Bennett, for the time and your energy and your insights. And of course, our resident Greg Prince. Thank you again, Greg, for being with us.