Jeff Roundy, Author at Latter-day Saints Q & A

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Stunning Stats on Saints – Evidences

This video goes through a number of different research studies that show just how unique the Saints really are.

So in this Evidences video, I’m going to share a lot of different tables, statistics, some graphs that really illustrate how unique the Latter-day Saints are in very positive ways. So even if you don’t like statistics, I hope you’ll really enjoy this. There will be a lot of numbers you’ll see throughout this, but here, now also, it’s over the last several decades, some of this data. And I really wanted to point something out at the start is … so a lot of these things, if you were to say, “well maybe these numbers have dropped”, well they will have dropped across the board, but the Latter-day Saints, the differential there, the comparison, I think would be bigger. And I use this graph I’m going to start with to illustrate that point. I actually used this in the video I just put out here, on the Answering Critics video, talking about the New Testament.

And if you look here, this is from the Pew Research study. This just came out. In the last 10 years, the percentage of Christians in the United States has dropped from 77% to 65%. So you can look there on the left-hand side, Protestants about a 16% drop, Catholics, about a 17% drop, Latter-day Saints, no drop. In fact growth, growing along with the population, but no drop at all there. So I don’t say that lightly, that the data, probably the differentials, the gaps would be even bigger. Even though all the numbers would be lower, the gaps would be bigger. I hope that makes sense as we go along here. Okay, let’s start out.

One of my favorite ones. I love studying the gospels and this was a fascinating one. So if you look at this slide right here, “On questions about Christianity, including a battery of questions about the Bible…”

Latter-day Saints were on top. 7.9 out of 12 on average. White evangelical Protestants were second on this, which I’m sure is probably quite upsetting as they tend to attack Latter-day Saints over Christianity and the Bible. But I think about the youth getting up for seminary early. If you’re not in the headquarters of the Church where you have released time seminary, you’re getting up at 5, 5:30 in the morning every day to go and study the gospel for an hour. Think about all the studying we do in the Church. That was just a great one to show that. Okay, let’s look at life goals. Take a look at this. Again, Pew study here. Life goals, Latter-day Saints and the general public. Now you’ll see “Mormons” throughout, especially back in these time periods, the use of that term.

So look at the top. Being a good parent, 81%. So most important in life, I want you to compare the top to the bottom, so general public. So being a good parent, 81%. It’s extremely important. One of the most important things in life. And then for the general public, that’s at 50%. Having a successful marriage, 73% versus 34%. Living a very religious life, 55% versus 20%. So those top three are quite interesting.

Let’s go on to this next one here. How involved are Christians in their congregations? So if you ever feel like you’re really involved in your work, this is a great way to show that statistically you rank as the top. On this study from Pew in 2014, religious landscape study, evaluating membership and congregation, frequency of attendance at worship services and then frequency in small-group religious activities. So we were at the top there on the high category. Also look at what it says, they’re the most likely to or one of the tops in believing that the Bible is the word of God, pray daily, say religion is very important in their lives, and read scriptures regularly. That’s kind of a fun study.

Okay. Now this is something from a huge study that was done by Gallup. 676,000 interviews to establish this index. They call it the well-being index there. And what was interesting is the very religious really showed well across the board here versus the nonreligious. So that was really part of what they were trying to illustrate here in the reports that came out about this study. So if you look at them here, the Latter-day Saints for the very religious are right up towards the top with the Jewish, definitely the top for the Christians. Our composite score is not listed here, but we actually tied with the Jews for the top composite score of 69.4.

Look at the non-religious. It is interesting there that the Latter-day Saints have the lowest of … so if you are a Latter-day Saint but you’re not practicing, you have the lowest well-being. So critics would say that’s because of the shaming culture, maybe. Believers might say it’s a pricking of the Holy Ghost that may be happening. So anyway, interesting. And then look at the bottom and I thought it was interesting to point out also that no religion or atheist or agnostics, low well-being scores relative to religious as well. So it’s some fun, interesting stats there. Okay.

Now, how about happiest states? Okay, now I know Utah is not all Latter-day Saints. It’s about 62, 63% today. Idaho is number two at about 26%. But if you were to look at this, so this was a Gallup happiness poll that they did back in 2009. This was a piece that ran in the Desert News. “Move over, Disneyland. Your claim as the happiest place on earth is being challenged by a new Gallup happiness poll that ranks Utah as number one for well-being among the 50 States.” Look at number two was Hawaii. It was hard to believe we beat Hawaii there, but anyway, I thought that was kind of a fun one there.

Okay. And now the Heritage Foundation did this huge study back in the mid-nineties. It’s a great report. It’s a 29-page report. It’s called “Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability.” So if you look at this slide here, these are the things they found. They’ve got lots of studies behind these things, but it’s just a nice composite of all this evidence they found. So first, what things are higher, then the second slide will be what’s lower. So higher levels of marital happiness and stability, stronger parent-child relationships, greater education, higher levels of good work habits, greater longevity and physical health, higher levels of well-being and happiness, higher recovery rates from addiction to alcohol and drugs, higher levels of self-control, self-esteem and coping skills, higher rates of charitable donations and volunteering, higher levels of community cohesion and social support for those in need.

Okay. Now on the lower side: lower divorce rates; lower cohabitation rate; lower rates of out-of-wedlock births lower levels of teen sexual activity; less abuse of alcohol and drugs; lower rates of suicide, depression and suicide ideation; lower levels of many infectious diseases, juvenile crime, violent crime and domestic violence. I love this conclusion here. “No other dimension of life in America — with the exception of stable marriages and families, which in turn are strongly tied to religious practice — does more to promote the wellbeing and soundness of the nation’s civil society than citizens’ religious observance. As George Washington asserted, the success of the Republic depends on the practice of religion by its citizens. These findings from 21st century social science support his observation.”

Okay. What do we have next here? Oh, this was a great piece. This was in religionnews.com. They did a piece that was highlighting a Masters thesis that was done at the University of Pennsylvania by Elisa Hunter in applied psychology. And here was her thesis. Why do Mormons score consistently high in these happiness or well-being studies? We’ve talked about a couple of them here. So this article summed up five of her key points.

So number one: it’s a pro-social orientation. “A lot of research suggests that Mormons are the most pro-social group in America. Active Mormons report that they volunteer an average of 35.5 hours per month, including church callings, but not missions.” I did a whole video on that called volunteerism. “Even if you take out religious volunteering, callings, and other church services, Mormons still volunteer as much as the national average. Also, Mormons donate more than twice as much of their income as the national average of people who give to charity, and more than four times as much as national average overall. Excluding tithing, Mormons still contributed a large amount to charity, $2,000 a year.” I did a whole video on tithing as well.

Number two: focus on family. “Mormonism has a large emphasis on Family Home Evening, family, prayer, family meals, and family rituals. A review of 32 publications suggest that family rituals and routines are associated with childhood health, academic achievement, and improved marital satisfaction. Also, one surprising finding is that a study at Emory University showed that knowledge of family history greatly predicted a child’s psychological health. Researchers found higher self-esteem, lower anxiety, and lower behavior problems in kids that know their family’s stories. This could be because they develop a sense of identity that’s larger than just themselves. They’re embedded in a larger intergenerational context. Knowing that your great-grandma was able to cross the plains after her husband died could give you a greater amount of grit and self-determination.” I know personally it has for me.

Number three: purpose and meaning. “There is a substantial relationship between an individual having purpose and meaning in life and their well-being. Mormon doctrine offers its members an explanation for the purpose of life. The belief that life is a temporary learning experience to help God’s children develop lasting joy may help Mormons have positive emotion, character development, resilience, grit and meaning.” Okay, autonomy and agency. “The motivation that drives behavior has a significant impact on well-being. Behavior that that is self-motivated results in more positive outcomes. Mormon doctrine holds that part of the purpose of life is to exercise agency and learn to choose between good and evil. Mormons are taught that compulsion is not God’s way and Mormon doctrine emphasizes agency, autonomy, and freewill.”

And last, five: the physical health. “There’s a lot of research, of course, on the negative consequences of smoking and drinking. The Word of Wisdom includes a range of healthy behaviors and also supports the general ideal that there’s a deep connection between our bodies and our minds. Positive psychology research shows that the body and mind are so inseparably connected that it’s misleading to regard them as two separate entities. What positive psychology is saying about health is not that different from what Mormons hear in church about their body being a temple. This emphasis on health may explain in part why Mormons have lower risk for cardiovascular disease and live on average 5 to 10 years longer than other people. Periodic fasting actually plays a part too. Even controlling for the facts that Mormons don’t drink or smoke, researchers attribute this lower disease rate to periodic fasting.” That’s all the rave today, right? I actually did a Word of Wisdom video on that too, recent studies on that from a health perspective.

Okay. Now there is a phenomenal study that was done. Just very, very detailed for youth. And I’ve actually got the e-book for it, and it’s called Soul Searching. This was done 2002, 2003. The religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. Really fascinating. I want to show you some great slides from that study.

Now this here, there’s a code for what these letters mean on there. So the US is the national average and then religious traditions, you have CP is conservative Protestant, MP is mainline Protestant. BP is black Protestant, RC is Roman Catholic, J is Jewish, LDS you know who that is, and then non-religious at the end there. So if you look here at this first slide, religious life and families. And I’ll just highlight. So this survey was called the National Survey of Youth and Religion, and, like I said, a whole book on this. So I’m just showing you a couple of key slides.

So this one here, look at this. “Family talks about God, the scriptures, prayer, or other religious or spiritual things together every day.” Look at the Latter-day Saint teen, 50%. Look at everybody else. I mean this just blows everyone away on the statistics here. Look at the one down below. “Teens pray out loud or silently with one or both parents, other than at mealtimes or religious services.” 79%. Again, very high as number one. Okay, next one here. “Currently involved in a religious youth group”, 72%, and you can just see the other numbers across the board there. “Youth group and participation rate”, 75%. This is interesting. “Congregation as a designated youth minister”, that is a volunteer. Look at that. 85%. Most have that as a paid position kind of thing. As you know, we have callings in the church that are not paid and that’s how it runs.

How about this? “Youth group teen is involved with part of a teen’s religious congregation?” 66%. I was so surprised to see that being such a high number relative to others. I thought that’s how it was for everybody. All right. “Frequency of current youth group attendance.” More than once a week. Latter-day Saints, very high. About once a week, still number one, even combined the two together. “Type of youth group involvement: teen is a leader.” Look at that, 36, very, very high compared to anyone else. And then look at “not involved”. The youth group not being involved in that perspective, the lowest by quite a bit.

Okay. A few more. “Importance of religious faith shaping daily life”. If you rate that as extremely important. Latter-day Saints, 43%. just blows away all the other numbers. The next one, “importance of faith shaping major life decisions”. 52%. Look at it, look at all the other numbers. Just amazing differences.

Okay. Let’s go to the next slide. Okay. This is the last one for now, from this book. So in the prior year, did your teen do one of these things?: “Teach a Sunday school class or religious education class”, 42%. Top score for Latter-day Saints by a long shot. “Fasted or denied themselves something as a spiritual discipline”. Number one by a long shot, Latter-day Saints. “Been part of any other scripture study or prayer group”, 50. On top there. “Sang in a religious group”, the black Protestants, 52, barely beat the Latter-day Saints there. “Read a devotional or spiritual book other than the scriptures”. Big, big number one there for Latter-day Saints. “Spoke publicly about our own faith in a religious service”. Look at that. Huge there. That’s probably those giving youth talks. “Tried to participate in a weekly day of rest on the Sabbath”. 67%. Look at that. It’s nearly double most of the others. “Shared own religious faith with someone not of their faith”, 72. Highly above everyone. And then the last one on here to highlight is “frequency of teen praying alone many times a day”. That was the Latter-day Saints on top.

Okay, so then looking at how committed the Latter-day Saint youth are and then the family study, some of the things we mentioned. This was an interesting article. LDS Living published this in June of 2014. So if you look here, it says, “In a recent study from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, which represented about 14,000 American youth, it was discovered that religious youth with intact families are less likely to drink, do drugs, engage in physical intimacy. Additionally, the study pointed out that religious teens also have a higher GPA in high school. A separate study indicates that teens who practice religion will achieve a higher level of marital happiness and stability, develop greater educational aspirations, contribute more generously to their community, live longer and healthier lives, and display higher levels of self-control and self-esteem.”

Okay. Now I’m going to show you a few slides from a book. I had to actually literally take pictures with my phone to show you these here, but just a few slides. They’re interesting specifically in the education area, but this was Shield of Faith. This is actually BYU Religious Study Center in conjunction with Desert Book that published this. Brent Top, Bruce Chadwick and Richard McClendon. The power of religion in the lives of LDS youth and young adults. Lots of internal studies, men versus women, different parts of the world and different things internal. But they do have a decent amount of other aspects where they’re doing some national comparisons and things. And so I took a few that were unique in a few different areas.

So here, education was one I wanted to show you, specifically grades. So first of all, grades in high school. Look at the top line there. Getting A’s in high school. Young men, that are Latter-day Saints, 25%. National sample, 9. Young women, 33 to 14. So about two and a half times the national average there. Okay. How about post high school educational expectations? So this is what you’re expecting to do. Look, I thought it was fascinating. Graduate or professional school, 58% of young men, that’s their expectation is graduate or professional school, versus the national sample of 15.7, so almost four times that. Young women for college, it was almost a double. 36.7 versus 60. Even graduate or professional, Latter-day Saints were higher, 29 to 22 roughly. Okay. Then educational attainment. Now this is returned missionaries, so this is the reality of actual attainment. So college 40% versus the national average at 18. Now these are 35 to 44 year olds, the measurement here, and then graduate school 25% versus 8, so a triple on there.

Okay. Now, then taking that one step further, this last piece here, if you look at it, it’s looking at first of all, employment. 98% employed, 93% US, again based on when this was done a while back, and then the women 57 versus 77 and that’s actually… Again, these are returned missionaries. And so maybe illustrating also some choosing to stay home as mothers there. And then the bottom is family income. So if you look there at the bottom two categories, 50,000 to 75,000, 30% returned missionary, US 24. 75,000 and over is 31 versus 28. And then if you also think about this, the majority of the US statistics today would be two-income families. So if you actually adjust for that, these numbers would actually be quite a bit larger.

And in fact, this is a book, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. And they actually highlight the Latter-day Saints, Cuban immigrants, and the Jews are the three categories, three groups, cultural groups as they call them, that they highlight as being very successful above what they would be expected to be statistically, especially after adjusting for different things. But it is interesting. Superiority and insecurity and impulse control are the three key categories, but they talk about impulse control. The mission is a big example there.

And in fact an interesting article or an online blogger that’s pretty famous in the Church, Greg Trimble, put together this piece back in 2015 with some statistics that were coming out about venture capital funding in Utah that was off the charts, number one that year. So he put this article out. It’s called, “Venture Capitalists Are Proving Just How Valuable A Mormon Mission Really Is.”

And I’ll link to this, but look here, this underlined line, it talks about “They received an education that cannot be bought at Harvard, Stanford or any other top institutions in the country. They learn how to think on their feet. They become masters at resolving concerns. They learn how to respond intelligently and analyze situations thoroughly and naturally.” And it just goes on and on about all the things you learn from a mission. Look at the second bullet point. “Whether they know it or not, venture capitalists are proving just how valuable a Mormon mission really is by backing companies that employ massive amounts of these individuals.” Now listen to the numbers. “Did you realize that venture capitalist firms invested more money in Provo-Orem company startups per deal than any other place in the United States in 2014? San Francisco came in second place and then Salt Lake occupied the third spot for the highest dollar amount per venture capital deal. This means that the cities along the Wasatch front occupy two of the top three spots that investors wanted to invest their money in 2014.”

And then just the other day, literally, this is January 7th, 2020. This was in the Provo Daily Herald. “Study Shows LDS Sister Missionaries Gain Leadership Skills Used in Workplace After Missions. Women who served full-time missions for the Church gain quality developmental tools that provide leadership skills in the workplace and other areas of life, according to a new study released Tuesday. The first-of-its-kind study was released by Susan Madsen, professor of organizational leadership at UVU Woodbury School of Business and founder of the Utah Women and Leadership Project. Madsen said she expected no more than 200 responses to the survey but was inundated with 687 responses, most of which were detailed. From the responses, a list of 38 competency categories were created and ranked by percentage of individual respondents who mentioned each.” Here’s the top five: “Public speaking, conflict management, courage, interpersonal skills, and problem solving. Madsen said there is much more and much deeper information that is yet to be compiled from this project. It will be published later this year.”

And I remember, I’m going to give you a great example. Sharon Eubank. She spoke at the FairMormon Conference several years ago. It was called, “This is a Woman’s Church.” And it was the only time I can remember a standing ovation that just went on for minutes, it seemed like. It was just phenomenal. But at the beginning of her talk, she talked about her mission to Finland. She said she could have never even given this talk if she hadn’t gone on that mission. So anyway, but it was one of the best talks I think I’ve ever heard in my life. And I thought it was stunning that she actually admitted that. She said she was really shy before her mission and she couldn’t have done that.

Okay. Now this was an interesting piece that Vox did. This was just in March of 2019, and they were focusing on why Latter-day Saints’ membership of the Church was not plummeting like we’re seeing in other Christian churches. And so again, looking at some… Everyone keeps asking why. Why this, why that? And trying to point to different things. So here’s what they had to say. So here’s some bullet points. “Today, white evangelical Protestants account for 15% of the adult population, down from nearly a quarter a decade ago.” That’s 40% drop. “By contrast, Mormons have held steady at roughly 2% for the last several years.” “The Southern Baptist Convention, the heart of conservative Protestantism, has sustained 12 straight years of membership losses.” And since ’07 they’ve actually shed 1.2 million members.

“The success of the Mormon church may have to do with their unrelenting focus on the family. 81% of Mormons say being a good parent is one of their central life goals. Nearly 75% have a good marriage as one of their most important priorities in life. There’s no better illustration of this emphasis than family home evening. The Church introduced this officially-sanctioned weekly event in 1915 with the goal of strengthening family ties and engaging children in religious and spiritual activities such as prayer, hymns, reading scripture. Sociologist Vern Bengtson, author of Families and Faith, described family home evening as among the most successful religious programs, fostering intergenerational connections.”

And then the next three bullet points, I’m going to show you the actual data that they took from Pew. So this first one here was “likely to be married”. So if you look there, 66% of Latter-day Saints married versus Christians overall, 52%. The next slide is “a spouse within the faith”, so 82% have spouses that they share the faith with. It’s the highest of any of the Christian denominations. And then children, 3.4 children, so 40 to 59 year olds have 3.4 kids on average versus the average Christian 2.2. The final three points, so those top three bullet points were the slides I just showed you. Then they say, “Recent research has shown that when Americans are raised in households with parents of different religious backgrounds, they have weaker attachment to religion as adults and are more likely to disaffiliate. Divorce has also shown to hamper the transmission of religious values. Because the vast majority of Mormon children are raised in two-parent Mormon households, they are far more likely to receive robust and consistent religious instruction throughout their childhood.”

And the Pew Research 2014 Religious Landscape Survey found that 64% of those raised in a Mormon household still identify as Mormons as adults, better than that of most other Christian denominations. “Among the 350 families he studied, no religious group was more effective in passing on their religious identity and beliefs to their children than Mormons.”

Okay. Then the Church actually put something in the Church news to highlight a big study of teenagers that was done by the University of North Carolina, and this was back in 2005. So again, these numbers maybe have changed since then, but like I said, if you were to compare them to everybody else, I’m sure the gaps would be bigger. But this was a huge study, 45 different states. It looks like about 3,400 different teens there. And if you look at what I’ve underlined there, “Researchers at the University of North Carolina: ‘In general Latter-day Saint youth included in the survey ranked number one when it came to the effect of religion on their lives.’ ‘I’m not saying they’re all perfect,’ said the study’s leader, a sociologist, ‘but when belief and social outcomes are measured, Mormon kids tend to be on top.'” And so you can look at down below the statistics, if you want to pause, you can look at those and they’re similar to some of the others that we’ve looked at and a few I’m going to show you here in a minute as well.

Okay. Now, I wanted to finish by showing a group of slides, about a half dozen from that Soul Searching book that we talked about earlier. And this is fascinating when you look at the data here, I wanted to highlight specifically the devoted youth. So this is 8% of America, but here’s how they categorize this. So look at this. “Attends religious services weekly or more, faith is very or extremely important in everyday life, feels very or extremely close to God, currently involved in a religious youth group, prays a few times a week or more, reads scriptures once or twice a month or more.” So if you have an active Latter-day Saint youth, they are in that category, pretty likely. You’ve seen the statistics that we went through earlier. So with that in mind, now look at these slides, and I want you just to take it in in a couple of different aspects.

So just look at this first slide and then you’ll see as the flow goes here, is if you look at the devoted column, those numbers, the percent that answered that and then you can compare to the US on the left. But I like just looking at the disengaged, the sporadics, and the regulars compared to the devoted there. So if you look at personally cares about the poor, 69% of the Latter-Day… Well, I’m saying Latter-Day Saints, but of the devoted, care about the poor compared to the disengaged, 33%. So if you look at it from that perspective and the trend towards that, it shows the power of religion on some of these things and then also devoted versus the national and to the left. So “personally cares about the elderly” is the next one. Much higher. “Personally cares about equality”. Again, much higher.

The next slide, average number of regularly organized activities, clubs, classes, or organizations they are involved in. 3.1, double that of the disengaged. Has given money, triple that of the disengaged. Volunteer work, double that of the disengaged. Number of times volunteer work per month is double the disengaged.

Next slide, “believes that morals are relative. No definite rights or wrongs”. Only 22% said, yeah, they are relative, compared to disengaged 61%. Interesting. Lied to parents, never, 26%. As you can see how that compares. Cheated on a test, never, 45. Did things they hoped that parents would never find out, never, 24.

Okay. Sexual belief and activity. Look at these top two. Believe in waiting for marriage to have sex, 95%. Disengaged, 24%. Even regulars are 57%, which is the national average. And the second one: believe it’s okay for teens to have sex if they are emotionally ready for sex. 30% US, 3% for the devoted. And by the way, here’s one slide from that Shield of Faith book that we talked about here. This is very specific to Latter-day Saints. Now again, this is dated here, but I’m sure, like I said, the gaps would be probably even larger now between non Latter-day Saints. But young men, ages 15 to 17, 8% had had sexual intercourse, women were 11%, but look at the national averages down there in the forties roughly. And then 18, it was 11% for the men, 19% for the women, but again compared to in the 60s roughly for the national averages. So huge, huge differences there from a moral perspective.

So at the end of this study, the huge study, a whole book on it, like I said, it’s called Soul Searching, this is what the authors said: “Standing back from all these tables and viewing them as a whole, we can draw some large summarizing conclusions. First, ironically, contrary to many youths’ own inability to see or articulate the influence or importance of religion in their lives, religion does in fact appear to be a significant factor that does make a considerable difference in a host of life outcomes. And these observable differences are not scattered and uneven, but emerge regularly across a wide variety of adolescent attitudes, experiences, relationships, behaviors, and beliefs. The consistency across outcomes is truly striking. Moreover, as we have repeatedly noted, the religious differences across the outcomes are consistently statistically significant.” I thought that was a very good way to end the video. I hope you really enjoyed all those statistics. Subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Videos:

Another video on this channel that would be of interest connected to this video: Evidences: Religious Health https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npIbQ…

Books:

The Shield of Faith: The Power of Religion in the Lives of LDS Youth and Young Adults by Bruce Chadwick, Brent Top, and Richard McClendon

Deseret Book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith

Articles / Research Studies:

ARTICLE NOT IN VIDEO BUT HELPFUL AS IT LOOKS AT A NEW NATIONAL STUDY, WHICH SHOWS VARIOUS IMPACTS OF THE PANDEMIC AND HOW THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS STAND OUT IN A NUMBER OF WAYS: https://www.deseret.com/faith/2021/10/26/22737577/latter-day-saints-maintained-social-connection-friends-during-pandemic-poll-aei-mormon

Pew Research Center – In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace: https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/i…

Pew Research Report – Mormons More Likely to Marry and Have More Children Than Other U.S. Religious Groups: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank…

Gregtrimble.com – Blog post: Venture Capitalists Proving Just How Valuable a Mormon Mission Really Is: https://www.gregtrimble.com/venture-c…

Provo Daily Herald Article – Study Shows LDS Sister Missionaries Gain Leadership Skills Used In Workplace After Missions: https://www.heraldextra.com/news/loca…

The Heritage Foundation – Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability: https://www.heritage.org/civil-societ…

Religion News: 5 Reasons Why Mormons are Happier Says Researcher: https://religionnews.com/2015/07/02/5…

Details behind the study: What Positive Psychologists and Mormons Can Learn From Each Other; Elisa V. Hunter, University of Pennsylvania https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=mapp_capstone

LDS Living – Research Shows Religious Teens are More Successful in Life: http://www.ldsliving.com/Research-Sho…

Pew Research Center: 6 Facts about U.S. Mormons https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank…

Gallup – Religious Higher Wellbeing Across Faiths: https://news.gallup.com/poll/152732/r…

Deseret News – Happiest Place? Survey Says,,,Utah https://www.deseret.com/2009/3/12/203…

VOX – Most Churchs are Losing Members Fast – but not the Mormons. Here’s Why. https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/3…

Church News: LDS Teens Stand Out in Survey on Religion: https://www.thechurchnews.com/archive…

Latter-day Saints’ Q&A is a video series not produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but by me, an ordinary member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an independent voice, with a passion for studying Church history and defending the faith. In this series, I provide evidences for the restoration, and address tough questions posed by critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offering faithful answers based on accurate research and historical references which will be posted at the end of each video.

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Defending the Authenticity of Priesthood Restoration

Critics attack accounts of Priesthood restoration through John the Baptist, and Peter, James and John, the apostles, because Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery didn’t officially record them until a number of years after the events. This video shows that while Joseph and Oliver were reticent to publish sacred details early on, multiple publications from other sources, such as newspapers, illustrate that they were discussing it verbally shortly after the events occurred. Other compelling aspects of the Priesthood restoration are shared that should silence any critic trying to discredit Joseph and Oliver’s testimony.

We know with the inception of the Church, the priesthood was restored through John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John, to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. I just did an evidence video, talking about the critical nature of why is restoration was needed. I highly suggest it in conjunction with this video. On this one I want to really rebuff some very weak claims used against this restoration. The claims, or criticisms, are focused more on that the accounts were kept somewhat confidential, the written accounts anyway, for a period of time, and then Joseph also revised some revelations and added some things about the priesthood restoration. I’ll talk about that, as well. But I’m going to start with the smoking gun on this, which is Oliver Cowdery. And this is a tough one for critics. In fact, I almost wonder if the Lord picked Oliver because he knew how his life would play out.

He was excommunicated in 1838. If there was ever a time to get revenge on Joseph, that would have been it. He did not deny any of these events that happened. He was a second witness to the restoration of those keys being resorted, including the temple. The keys in the temple. Elijah, Elias, and Moses, the Kirtland Temple in 1836. That is really a big smoking gun. He came back the very tail end of his life, last 18 months, but two and a half years before he came back to the Church, listen to what he said here in a letter to Phineas Young. He says, “I have been sensitive on this subject, I admit, but I ought to be so. You would be, under the circumstances, had you stood in the presence of John with our departed brother Joseph, to receive the lesser priesthood, and in the presence of Peter to receive the greater, and look down through time and witnessed the effects these two must produce. You would feel what you have never felt.” That was powerful.

In 1838-1839 Joseph Smith wrote his history that we now have in the Pearl of Great Price. I want to show a very key line in that, we have these in verses 74 and 75. He said, about giving details there about the priesthood at that point in time, where we did get a lot of detail, he says, “In the meantime, we were forced to keep secret the circumstances of having received the priesthood and our having been baptized, owing to a spirit of persecution which had already manifested itself in the neighborhood. We had been threatened with being mobbed, from time to time, and this, too, by professors of religion.” Very interesting, very key wording there. And in fact, let me share this from a book, A Reason For Faith, great book. There was a chapter on restoration of the priesthood written by Ronald Barney, who worked in the Church History Department for 33 years. He was an archivist, as well, and associate editor of the Joseph Smith Papers.

This is what he said in this chapter he wrote for that book. He said, “An inquirer may ask if priesthood restoration was of such consequence to the early church, then why didn’t Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery run to the local newspapers after their visitations and publish what had happened to them? There are several explanations for the lack of documentation, only two of which will be given here. The first was given by Joseph himself just after recording his own 1838-1839 account.” He reads what I just read. Forced to keep these secrets there. “Because both men desired to protect their divine experiences from public attention and ridicule, the disclosure of accounts revealing the events of priesthood restoration were initially kept in confidence. During the course of translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph repeated this passage to Oliver. ‘It is given into many to know the mysteries of God. Nevertheless, they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart, only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men.'”

“In other words, those who receive revelation from God are under a strict command to keep it to themselves, and share it only as appropriate. While receiving the revelation known as the Book of Moses, Joseph was twice counseled to be discreet: ‘Show them not unto any except them that believe, and see that thou show them unto no man, until I command you, except to them that believe.’ Clearly, there was a sensibility emphasized here that could not have escaped Joseph, which imposed restraint on sharing the revelations of God before it was appropriate. Joseph tried to teach this precept to church leaders, also helping them to understand that keeping sacred experiences sacred was expected of all to whom the Lord would reveal such things. In November 1835, Joseph taught the newly called Quorum of the Twelve about the anticipated outpouring of spiritual gifts as they prepared for the solemn assembly associated with the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. Joseph recorded, ‘Let us be faithful and silent brethren, and if God gives you a manifestation, keep it to yourself.’ Thus, it is not surprising that Joseph and Oliver kept their sacred experiences to themselves until it was required and appropriate that they explained the essential restoration of the priesthood.”

I thought this was interesting what Richard Bushman put in his book, Rough Stone Rolling. He says, “The late appearances of these accounts raises the possibility of later fabrication. Did Joseph add the stories of angels to embellish his early history and make himself more of a visionary?”, which is what critics would say, and I love this. “If so, he made little of the occurrence. Cowdery was the first to recount the story of John’s appearance, not Joseph himself.” If you’re a fraudulent embellisher, you would make a big deal out of this, which is really the opposite of what Joseph was doing.

Now, here’s another thing. Some say, also, that with Joseph the authority was added later. Well, it is interesting to look at the Book of Mormon and what Joseph would have seen in there. And I will say, that it is interesting that Joseph, from a Protestant background, authority would have been a very different issue to him. From the Protestant perspective, it would not have been a big focus. I talk a lot about that in the Evidences videos that I just did. Look at these verses in the Book of Mormon, Joseph would have experienced these in translating the Book of Mormon. I’m not going to read all these verses, but just glance at them. Alma 4:20, it talks about the high priesthood. Alma 5:3, consecrated high priest, authority. Alma 13, the whole thing is talking about priesthood and holy order, about Melchizedek. Mosiah, talks about the power and authority of God to baptize. We see that again in 3 Nephi, Christ giving authority to baptize. And then again in 3 Nephi 12, baptisms and authority. You see it all over the place there.

Now, here’s another smoking gun. This was in writing. It was in 1829, and this is Oliver Cowdery’s 1829 manuscript called A Commandment From God, or Articles of the Church of Christ. And listen to what it says. “A commandment from God unto Oliver, how he should build up his church and the manner thereof … I command all men everywhere to repent and I speak unto you even as unto Paul mine apostle for ye are called even with that same calling which he was called.” And then he says, “Whosoever repenteth and humbleth before me and desires to be baptized in my name ye shall baptize them. After this manner this is how you should baptize them. Go in the water.” He says, “Take them, and by the name saying ‘having authority, given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you.'” This is pretty powerful. This is an 1829. This is in writing. The case should be closed there, as far as things. Now, there’s not a lot of detail here and there may be some reticence to share a lot of the details that we get later and that may have been on purpose, for the other reasons we just talked about. But that I think is a powerful slide to remember.

Now, it’s interesting to note. I’m going to show you the next four sides are from newspapers in 1830 and 1831. What we have is we have writings, written word, and things, that we don’t have what was being said maybe verbally, and some of the communications and things. It’s hard to say. But, it’s interesting to note what you’ll pick up from what you see in these four newspaper clips. I’m just going to show you some underlying parts here. This is in the newspaper in Ohio, the Painesville Telegraph in November of 1830. In there says, “The name of the person here, who pretends to have a divine mission and to have seen and converse with angels, is Cowdery” Pretty interesting. Okay, Painesville Telegraph, this is same newspaper, I think it’s just a month later, December 7th, “Cowdery claims that he and his associates are the only persons on earth who are qualified to administer in His name. By this authority they proclaim to the world.” Sounds like, while there’s maybe not, again, great details, there is clearly things here with angels and authorities that were happening, Cowdery talking.

The Palmyra Reflector, February 1831. “Jo Smith had now received a commission from God for that purpose … Cowdery and his friends had frequent interviews with angels.” Painesville Telegraph, April of 1831, talking about the Mormon creed. ” … Joseph Smith Jr., who was called of God and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ … Oliver Cowdery, who was also called of God an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church and ordained under his hand.” We do even have in writing great documentary evidence here early on. Now, Joseph Smith’s brief, 1832 history, we do get some words there. First from Joseph in writing. Here he talks about if you look at the underlined thing, ” … thirdly, the reception of the holy priesthood by the ministering of angels to administer the letter of the gospel, the law and commandments as they were given it to him, and the ordinances. Fourthly, a confirmation and reception of the high priesthood after the holy order of the Son of the living God, power and ordinance from on high to preach the gospel in the administration and demonstration of the spirit, the keys of the kingdom of God conferred upon him.” Thought that was very good.

Now, we started to get some details after about five years, started getting some clarity on exactly who and when, and how the priesthood was restored. This is in 1834, published in the Messenger and Advocate. This was Oliver Cowdery, and here he is talking about the experience. “The voice of the Redeemer spake peace to us, while the veil was parted and the angel of God came down clothed with glory, and delivered the anxiously looked for message, and the keys of the gospel of repentance … We received under the angel’s hand the holy priesthood … The assurance that we were in the presence of an angel; the certainty that we heard the voice of Jesus, and the truth unsullied as it flowed from a pure personage dictated by the will of God, is to me, past description.” The next year we actually get a few more details from Oliver, including the name of the angel, John, and where. It was in Harmony, Pennsylvania on the 15th of May, 1829. And they then were instructed to baptize each other, as well, and then ordain each other to the priesthood. He gives him some details there.

Now, this is also the year that Joseph then adds to this revelation that critics will complain about, it’s now Doctrine and Covenants section 27. This is where we learn that we can use water instead of wine in the sacrament. He was going out to procure wine for a sacrament service, and the angel stopped him and warned him of poisoning and said, “It doesn’t matter as long as you do it for the right intent and purpose. Doesn’t matter what you use for the sacrament in that sense.” This is the part of D&C 27, Doctrine and Covenants 27, that was added in 1835. It wasn’t in the first, in 1833 when this came out, it was just the part about Joseph being stopped on there. But then in 1835, this is a key part that was added. “John, I have sent unto you my servants, Joseph Smith Jr., and Oliver Cowdery, to ordain you unto this first priesthood which you have received, that you might be called and ordained even as Aaron … And also with Peter, and James, and John, whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained to you and confirmed you to be apostles and especial witnesses of my name, and bear the keys of your ministry; and of the same things which I revealed unto them; unto who I have committed the keys of my kingdom, and a dispensation of the gospel for the last times; and for the fulness of times.”

Now, Brian Cannon in this book, Opening the Heavens, this is great as far as just getting documentation on a lot of divine manifestations. That’s what the whole book’s about. But he’s got a chapter in there on priesthood restoration, and he talks about this specific addition there, and adds a few things. He says there, “These verses did not appear in the earlier text of the revelation printed in the Book of Commandments in 1833. Joseph Smith recalled in 1839 that all of this section was received as a revelation at one time in August 1830, but the most of the revelation, including these verses about priesthood restoration, were not recorded until September 1830.” Here’s Joseph Smith himself explaining this a little bit, the introduction, you can see this briefly in D&C 27, the intro. It says, “Early in the month of August Newel Knight and his wife paid us a visit at my place in Harmony. Neither his wife nor mine had been as yet confirmed. It was proposed that we should confirm them, and partake together of the sacrament before he and his wife should leave us. In order to prepare for this I set out to procure some wine for the occasion, but had gone only a short distance when I was met by a heavenly messenger and received the following revelation, the first paragraph of which was written at this time, and the remainder in the September following.”

The remainder in the September following was all the things about the priesthood restoration. In the 1833, we just had the piece about the sacrament. And then in 1835, Joseph combined the two together and he felt authorized since he said it was really one revelation that he received in August 1830 anyway, on there. Whether Joseph held back on 1833 revelation, just because of the details maybe… We don’t know if there was a certain period they were supposed to be reticent on communicating in detail some of these things there. It does sound like this may have just simply been a mistake, and was not included in the 1833, it was added in the 1835. We do not have … in fact look at the last little piece here from Brian Cannon. He says, “No manuscript copy of these verses dating from before the publication of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835 has been identified.” We can’t really go back to the very original on there. I just don’t think that’s a big deal in any way, shape, or form.

In fact, if you want to look specifically with regard to revisions that Joseph made in general to the Doctrine and Covenants, let me share this from B.H. Roberts. He said… B.H. Roberts describes how the 1833 Book of Commandments had revisions by the prophet Joseph Smith for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. He says, ” They were revised by the prophet himself in the way of correcting errors made by the scribes and publishers, and some additional clauses were inserted to throw increased light upon the subjects treated in the revelations, and paragraphs added, to make the principles for instructions apply to the officers not in the Church at the time some of the early revelations were given. The addition of verses 65, 66, and 67 in section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants is an example.”

Then I love what Elder Marvin Jensen shared in the July 2009 Ensign. He was the Church historian and general authority at the time. He said this, “The editing and updating of revelation texts in the early years of the Church demonstrate the process of continuing revelation of Joseph Smith. The revelation manuscripts reveal how much men grappled in trying to make certain that the ideas and doctrines Joseph received were transcribed and printed accurately — a process that for the publication of any work risks the introduction of errors. In some instances, when a new revelation changed or updated what had previously been received, the prophet edited the earlier written revelation to reflect the new understanding. Thus as his doctrinal knowledge clarified and expanded, so did the recorded revelations. They were characterized by the changing nature of his understanding of the sacred subject matter. The prophet did not believe that revelations, once recorded, could not be changed by further revelation.” In fact, if you think about it, the responsibilities of the prophet was to do that very thing. It made sense.

Now, back to to a couple more things in Opening the Heavens. David Whitmer, critics will point to this… David Whitmer talked about, “Hey, I didn’t hear about Joseph with the angel for five years, specifically.” I cringe a little bit because if it was in the newspapers at 1830 and 1831, I don’t know about that. But, it may be that he’s splitting hairs on specifics about it. He’s also saying it 50 years after the fact, basically, and with a strong bias towards not seeing authority in the Church, being out of the Church for 50 years. I want to share this with you. Straight from, again, Opening the Heavens. Brian Canon says, “While remaining true to his testimony as a witness of the Book of Mormon, David Whitmer rejected any aspect of the restoration that recognized or promoted central church authority. In 1885, Whitmer stated: ‘In the year 1829, on our way, I conversed freely with them upon his great work that they were bringing about. And Oliver stated to me, in Joseph’s presence, that they had baptized each other seeking by that to fulfill the command. And after our arrival at father’s sometime in June 1829, Joseph ordained Oliver Cowdery, ordained him to be an elder. And Oliver ordained Joseph to be an elder in the church of Christ. And during that year, Joseph both baptized and ordain me an elder.'”

And he says, “‘I never heard that an angel had ordained Joseph and Oliver to the Aaronic priesthood until the year 1834 in Ohio.’ Notwithstanding numerous attestations to the contrary by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer in 1885 maintained, ‘I do not believe that John the Baptist ever ordained Joseph and Oliver as stated and believed by some.’ Earlier, Whitmer had been very impressed, however, by Oliver Cowdery’s testimony regarding the visitation of Peter, James, and John. During an 1861 visit … “, this is even after being out of the Church for quite a while, with David Whitmer. ” … David H. Cannon reported that Whitmer recalled yet another testimony given by Cowdery, regarding the appearance of Peter, James, and John. The thing which impressed me most of all …”, this is the quote, ” …We stood beside the grave of Oliver Cowdery, the other witness who had come back into the Church before his death, and in describing Oliver’s action, when bearing his testimony, said to the people in his room, placing his hand like this upon his head, saying, ‘I know the gospel to be true, and upon this head has Peter, James, and John laid their hands and conferred the Holy Mekchezidek Priesthood.’ The manner in which this tall gray headed man …”, David Whitmer, ” … went through the exhibition of what Oliver had done was prophetic. I shall never forget the impression that the testimony of David Whitmer made upon me.”

That’s interesting, what David Whitmer had to say there doesn’t really jive with some of his later reminiscences in 50 years late. Anyways. Take it for what it is. I think you look at it holistically with everything else, and this is not an issue at all. I think it’s just the whole thing is really a weak criticism in general on this. It’s such a critical nature, I think it’s important to be talking about this topic and doing a video on it. Now, last thing is talking about just about the development of priesthood. The whole concept. In the beginning, especially Joseph coming from a Protestant background. It’s a very different world, so watch, again, the Evidences video. To understand this, authority in the beginning and then they understood maybe two different levels. Then, also the unfolding, the gradual unfolding. Look at a couple of quotes here.

Gregory Prince has a phenomenal book on this, Having Authority: The Origins and Development of Priesthood During the Ministry of Joseph Smith. This is a seminal work on this, a lot of research. He said, “The earliest occurrences of the word priesthood in written Mormon sources outside the Book of Mormon begin in 1831. Moreover, although priesthood authority had been restored prior to that time, the terms Aaronic priesthood and Melchizedek Priesthood were not adopted until 1835.” Again, William McLellin, in his journal entry in 1831, speaks of the high priesthood and the lesser priesthood. Again, even these things we just take for granted now, they were developed over time. Even we view the youth holding the priesthood now as just a basic thing, but that was a very fundamental change that happened in 1908, was the big fundamental change where it became a very big focus for the youth there. I actually will recommend this book, just in 2018, The Power of Godliness, which is a great one from Jonathan Stapley, in addition to Gregory Prince’s books on that. Just on the development and our understanding of priesthood, and then also temple specific priesthood. This is The Development of Temple Doctrine, a phenomenal book too, on just our…

And we have a prophet today who is telling us that the restoration is ongoing. It’s continuing to unfold. It reminds me of this last quote, Elder Packer. He said, “Some suppose that the organization was handed to the Prophet Joseph Smith like a set of plans and specifications for a building, with all the details known at the beginning. But it did not come that way. Rather, it came a piece at a time as the brethren were ready and as they inquired of God.” Hope you enjoyed the video. Watch the Evidences one. It’s a fantastic combination with this one. Subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Books:

Ronald Barney’s chapter in A Reason For Faith, entitled The Restoration of the Priesthood

Brian Cannon’s chapter in Opening the Heavens, entitled Priesthood Restoration

Articles/Websites:

Elder Marlin Jensen’s article in July 2009 Ensign, The Joseph Smith Papers: The Manuscript Revelation Books https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Fairmormon resources on this topic https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Priesthood – Lost & Found: Evidences

This video specifies the details surrounding the loss of Priesthood Authority in the early Christian Church, the erroneous claim that priesthood succeeded from Peter through Bishops rather than Apostles, and how this claim is not scripturally based. Also shown is the erroneous Protestant view, based on a misinterpreted scripture, that the Priesthood is held by all believers and that no direct line of Priesthood succession was needed. Very clear scriptures are shared testifying that this isn’t the case. The viewer should come away with a deeper understanding of why authority mattered, how it was given, why and how it was lost, and why a restoration was needed.

Okay. So in this Evidences video, I want to talk about the restoration of the priesthood as a powerful witness of the latter-day restoration and the critical nature of that in the world of Christianity. But I do want to mention something first. I keep forgetting to do this at the beginning of each video.

I have transcripts for all the videos that I have done and they’re available. I set up a website with the same name of this YouTube channel. It’s called latterdaysaintsqa.com. You can go and under the section called “Read The Blog” are where you find all the transcripts for the videos, organized by the names of the videos. And I’ll put a link below each video. I’ll have to go back and do this on all the videos. But just so you’ll have the links there, so you can go and get the transcripts.

So had a lot of people asking me for that. And so I’ve put it together now. Hopefully, that’ll help you if you want to read after the fact. So I just actually did an answering critics video on the priesthood restoration on just some of the fairly ludicrous critical arguments around this, the historical record. But this specific video I think is very critical for a foundational aspect of the restoration and that’s authority. In fact, let me read this. If you’ve read the book A Marvelous Work and A Wonder from LeGrand Richards, you’ve probably heard this quote before. But he was citing Elder Orson F. Whitney. And it gets to the heart of some of the things that I wanted to talk about.

He says here, “Many years ago, a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I became well-acquainted with him and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science, and philosophy. One day he said to me: ‘You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church.'”

“‘The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong. If you are right, we are wrong and that’s all there is to. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. But if we are wrong, they are wrong with us since they were part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.'”

Very well said. Okay. So the priesthood is the power of God. It was founded in the original Christian church, and a key aspect of it was, and we’ll see some scriptures here in a minute of the critical nature of it in performing ordinances, but particularly, in directing the affairs of the Church. The big picture that the apostles, the keys that they had to preside, that was part of the priesthood that was held by those apostles to organize and appoint new bishops, and to conduct the overall for the Church as a whole. The bishops had small geographical authority. But the apostles were over everything. And they held those priesthood keys for that.

And that’s going to be a key distinction I need to really focus on in a minute. Okay, so let’s look at some critical scriptures about how important it was about having these apostles. 1 Corinthians 12, as it talks about God setting up in the church first apostles. And they says, “Are all apostles?” Question mark. Ephesians 2 says that you’re, “… built upon the foundation of apostles.” All right. And then Ephesians 4 talks about he gave some apostles. And look at how long this is to last. “Until we all come in the unity of the faith.” We’re certainly not there at this point. “And of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man.” We’re far from perfect. So very interesting scriptures.

And then how about this one? This is showing the replacement of Judas. There was this critical nature there was supposed to be 12 apostles. So with Judas’ death, this in Acts 1, you can see on the screen here, 22 through 26. This shows how Matthias was called. How they sought the Spirit to guide them about who to choose. And it was Matthias so, and he was ordained there. So I think that was a powerful example. Okay.

Now for some keywords. Now, Alexander Morrison, this is a fantastic book, Turning From Truth: A New Look at the Great Apostasy. You may remember Alexander Morrison, who was a Seventy for quite a while. A great biblical historian. Wrote a great book on this. But in his book, I wanted to share this from what he mentioned here. “Ignatius of Antioch, martyred probably in Rome in 107 A.D., recognized that bishops, of which he was one, are not apostles.”

This is going to be so important in a minute, you’ll see. “In his epistle to the Trallians he wrote, ‘Let all reverence the deacons as Jesus Christ, and the bishop as the Father; and the presbyters [elders] as the Sanhedrin of God, and college of the apostles. Without these, there is no church.’ Then tellingly he wrote, ‘I will not write any more sharply unto you about this matter, lest being a condemned man, I should seem to prescribe to you as an apostle.’ Ignatius, though a bishop in Antioch, was careful not to overlap the bounds of his authority. He was no apostle and he knew it.”

Love that. Okay, now another very early example. This is Clement of Rome, a bishop of Rome from 88 A.D. to 99 A.D. according to the early Christian writer, Tertullian. “The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus. Therefore, sent forth by God and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments then were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God. Having therefore received their orders, they appointed the first-fruits of their labors having first proved them by the Spirit to be bishops.”

So the apostles were going around and appointing bishops. So that was one of their responsibilities. Bishops could not appoint their successors. Understand that was a critical point because that’s where things started to change and that became the way it happened later. But in the beginning, it was the apostles who had that responsibility and those keys there. And they were to do it by the Spirit. Alright. So they were to seek out, not the other way around.

Clement of Alexandria, one last example here, 150 to 215 A.D, here speaking of John the apostle directing the overall church and appointing bishops in smaller geographical areas. He says, if you look there, “From when after the tyrant’s death, he returned from the isle of Patmos to Ephesus, he went away upon their invitation to the neighboring territories of Gentiles to appoint bishops in some places, in other places to set in order whole churches, elsewhere to choose to the ministry someone of those that were pointed out by the Spirit.”

So once again, there it is. There it is, black and white. It was the apostles’ responsibility to go and find the bishops and appoint them as directed by the Spirit there, not any bishops doing this. Okay. Now, I wanted to focus, like I said, on the apostles versus the bishop because the Catholic claim to authority is actually a succession of the bishops, not the apostles. Okay. And that’s how they’re able to get around the apostolic succession problem. And to point this out, very clearly in my mind, is a beautiful book and I highly recommend is, Catholic and Mormon, a debate between a Latter-day Saint and a Catholic. So it’s Alonzo Gaskill and Stephen Webb, A Theological Conversation. And it’s really fascinating.

But let me share what Alonzo Gaskill shares here. He says, “There is no denying that bishops continued to exist after the death of the apostles. And for Catholics, this resolves the crisis of apostolic succession. But for Joseph and for Mormons, the continuity of the office of the bishop still left a void of religious authority in the Church because the New Testament records bishops existing at the same time that the apostles existed. Latter-day Saints see those two priesthood positions or offices as distinct from each other.”

“Thus, while Roman Catholics would trace their apostolic authority or succession through the bishops of Rome, the Latter-day Saints hold that John was the last of the apostles and that apostolic or universal authority was lost at the end of the first century. Bishops continued to run local congregations and had authority to do so. But the apostles were gone. And Christianity, from a Mormon perspective, was run on a local level until around the time of the pontificate of Pope Leo I, 461 A.D., when a degree of universal authority was reintroduced into the Church by Roman Catholicism. So the view of the Roman Catholicism has traditionally been that apostles and bishops are synonymous, that there has been an unbroken line of bishops since the days of Peter. Each of them held apostolic authority.”

“For Latter-day Saints on the other hand, the view has been that apostles and bishops are two different offices within the Church, and that the apostolic office was lost at the end of the first century leaving bishops to run their individual stewardships, but leaving the Church without a universal head. From the perspective of Latter-day Saints, Leo the Great sought to reintroduce a sense of universal authority into the Church through his pontificate, something not consistently present after the death of the Twelve and prior to the fifth century. In Joseph Smith’s understanding, the various offices of the priesthood, the various vocations with the Church, each hold a different level or type of authority and stewardship.”

“In LDS ecclesiology, the highest level of priesthood authority or power is resident in an apostle. Peter was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven by which he had the power to bind on earth and in heaven. Mormons do not see their bishops or bishops in any denomination as having that level of power. They certainly acknowledged that the apostles of old had it. But in LDS thinking with the death of the last apostle, that power to bind or seal on earth and in heaven was lost. Part of what those keys represented, Latter-day Saints believe, is the ability to receive revelation for the entire Church, the universal Church. Peter had that ability, along with his brethren in the Twelve. The bishops upon the earth at the same time as Peter did not.”

So kind of long. But, oh, that is, I thought that was so great. Okay. Now, I do want to share just a brief bit about this exact same thing from Alexander Morrison, Turning from Truth. Okay. So he says, “The idea of the unique role of bishops as successors to the apostles is the only defense available to churches that must assert a episcopal succession to provide their own validity. Thus, it is claimed that in such churches, bishops perform the functions of the apostles [they do not]; their commission goes back to the apostles [there is no evidence of such]; they succeed each other in the same geographical areas occupied by the original apostles [there is no evidence of such]; and they inherit from the original apostles the transmission of the Holy Ghost which empower them for the performance of their work.”

“Frankly, all of these claims are unverifiable, and do not hold up to even superficial scrutiny. There is no hint of bishops in anything said by Jesus in the Gospels. Claims of an unbroken line of succession from the current pope to Peter, supposedly the first Bishop of Rome, for example, are highly suspect, to say the least.”

“In fact, this supposed chain of episcopal succession does not exist, or at least cannot be proved to exist, before 175 A.D.” Okay, and then he goes on, Morrison goes on to say, “It’s telling that the claim of validity offered by the generation of leaders after the apostles was not, ‘I was ordained by one who had authority from God’, but rather, ‘I knew the apostle so-and-so’. By the third century, it had become politically advantageous for Orthodox Christians to promote the idea of an unbroken line of leaders to an illustrious early founder. Doing so provided a pedigree of orthodoxy.”

And then he concludes this section, “If priesthood authority was lost by the early church, as it assuredly was, and if that lost dealt the infant church a fatal blow, as it did, when did the insult occur? We don’t know precisely, but the fact that the scriptural and historical record goes completely dark for the better part of a century after about 90 to 100 A.D. suggests that the damage was done early on.” Okay. Now, a few more nuggets here from Morrison.

So he mentions this guy, Hegesippus, the second-century Jewish-Christian writer, says that, “Until the time of the Emperor Domitian, 81 to 96 A.D., the church had remained a virgin, pure and uncorrupted, since those who were trying to corrupt the wholesome standard of the saving message, if such there were, lurked somewhere under cover of darkness. But when the sacred band of the apostles had in various ways reached the end of their life and the generation of those privileged to listen with their own ears to the divine wisdom had passed on, then godless error began to take shape, through the deceit of false teachers, who now that none of the apostles was left, threw off the mask and attempted to counter the preaching of the truth by preaching the knowledge falsely so called.”

And there were no apostles running the overall church, right, to set the wrongs right from a doctrinal perspective, a teaching perspective. And then what about behavior? Okay. Now here, Alexander Morrison mentions this from a behavioral perspective is, “Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, a famous ecclesiastical historian whose work has been characterized as exhibiting unprecedented objectivity and penetration, has chronicled the excesses of third-century bishops that seemed incompatible with retention of the gift of the Holy Ghost or of approbation from the Almighty.”

“He wrote: ‘Though several yet continued to exhibit to the world illustrious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue, yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness, puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition, possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved reproach upon the holy religion, of which they were the unworthy professors and ministers.” And again, no apostles to again, right the wrongs and set things. Nobody was running the top of the ship here with battling all these different bishops there.

And then to finish this, this aspect of it, Morrison finishes saying, “I aver that personal apostasy in the early church characterized by contention, disunity, power-grabbing, pride, and all the other sins of mortality, led to a loss of priesthood authority. And that doomed the church insofar as divine approbation is concerned. The Apostle Paul noted that the priesthood foundation of the household of God includes apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. In other words, where the kingdom of God is found, there will be found apostles and prophets. The reverse is also true; a church without apostles and prophets is not, whatever else it may be, the church of Jesus Christ.”

So those keys of direction were so critical in the flow of the authorized use of priesthood power. And then the wickedness and things also led to the fallout of priests in general. So that was part of the apostasy. Now some will say, “But wait. Didn’t Christ tell Peter that the gates of hell will not prevail here?” And so, how could this have happened? How could there really have been an apostasy? And in that scripture it says Christ is asking, “Who do men say that I am?” And then Peter says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

He says, “Blessed art thou Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed unto thee, but thy Father in heaven.” And he says, “Thou art Peter. Upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.” And so that scripture is looked at again, as there couldn’t be an apostasy. But let’s look at this. And I love there was a great article in the November 1986 Ensign from James Carver. And I want to share a couple of thoughts on the word use of Peter and the rock in here, okay.

So he says, “A textual analysis of this passage clearly demonstrates that although the keys of the kingdom were given to Simon Peter, the church was not built upon him. It was built instead upon Christ, the ‘rock’ of revelation. The Greek text, for example, makes it clear that the rock in verse 18 was not Peter. The Greek word used for Peter is petros, a masculine noun meaning a small rock or stone. The Greek word for rock (upon this rock) is petra, a feminine noun meaning bedrock.”

“Thus, the Greek texts reads like this: ‘Thou are Peter (small rock), and upon this rock (bedrock) I will build my church.’ Who is this petra, this large rock-mass? The answer is given explicitly in 1 Corinthians 10:4.” And it says right there, “The spiritual rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. The Greek word for rock in the passage above, as in the verse in Matthew, is petra (bedrock) in this verse. There is no question that Christ is the ‘rock’ the church was to be built upon, rather than Peter.”

“But what is the importance of the relationship between the bedrock and the stone? And what part does revelation play in the relationship? The small rock (Peter) was to become a seer, who would receive revelation from the large rock (Jesus Christ), the Rock of Revelation. He would be the one to hold the keys of the kingdom and represent the Lord upon the earth. Jesus did not say to Peter that there would always be a seer upon the earth to hold the keys of the kingdom, but that the gates of hell would not prevail against this rock (petra) or the Rock of Revelation.”

“‘In this instance’, wrote Elder McConkie, ‘Jesus is telling Peter that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the Rock of Revelation. That is, as long as the saints are living in righteousness, so as to receive revelation from heaven, they will avoid the gates of hell and the church itself will remain pure, undefiled, and secure against every evil. But when, because of iniquity, revelation ceases, then the gates of hell prevail against the people.”

Now, I thought it was important to share just some important words that I thought Alonzo did a great job sharing about the Catholic Church in this book that I mentioned earlier, Catholic and Mormon. And the role the Catholic Church has had. I thought this was really very well said. I just wanted to say it exactly the way Alonzo said it. He said, “The Catholic Church has played a role in God’s plan. During some of the darkest days– between the first century and the Reformation– it was largely the Roman Catholic Church that preserved for us biblical texts, truths about Jesus and His divine mission and ministry, and many of the rights of the ancient church.”

“Consequently, I would not argue, as some unfortunately have, the Catholics are the church of the devil or that the Pope is the anti-Christ. From my perspective, such claims ignore history and evidence a real absence of Christian civility and love. Setting aside the handful of unrighteous rogues who have occupied Peter’s See, or also known as the Pope’s chair, Christianity and the world are decidedly better because many righteous popes have presided over the largest Christian denomination. And much would have been lost had such men not sacrificed and served as the presiding figure for the majority of Christianity.”

“All that the Latter-day Saints are arguing is that some things were lost after the close of the New Testament era, and these things have been restored by God in recent days.” Which is very critical and important. By the way, I’d like to add something. So not only did the Catholic Church preserve the Bible, but diligent, faithful parish clerks from the Catholic Church and all old-world Christian religions painstakingly preserved birth, christening, marriage, and burial records that allow us today to vicariously perform temple ordinances for our deceased ancestors.

I would say they were definitely playing a role in God’s plan. And I do, I love, if you remember President Nelson met with the pope, Pope Francis, when he was there for the dedication of the Rome Temple. And it was very interesting the interaction that they had, and what the prophet said after the meeting. Let me just share this with you. This was in the Deseret News, this quote. This is President Nelson.

He says, “‘The differences in doctrine with the Catholics are real and they’re important,’ President Nelson said afterwards as he stood just outside St. Peter’s Square, ‘but they’re not nearly as important as the things we have in common. Our concern for human suffering, the importance of religious liberty for all of society, and the importance of building bridges and friendship instead of building walls of segregation.’ The two world religious leaders share a belief that faith in God brings morality and stability to society.”

So I thought that was beautiful. Also, it’s important to add just like the Catholics and Orthodox played a role in God’s plan, we also want to acknowledge the critical role the Protestants played in God’s plan. Without the Reformation there would be no Restoration, if you think about it. In fact, there was a great article. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from an article written by President Ballard in January 2020 in the Ensign. The article was entitled, How the Lord Prepared the World for the Restoration.

And you can just pause, if you want to read it on the left hand side. On the right hand side are a few other quotes from a 1999 Ensign article on the same topic. Look at the bottom quote on the right from Elder Peterson. He called the work of the Reformers, “a significant prelude to the great events in which the Prophet Joseph Smith was the primary figure.” Okay. So now, to address the common view from many Protestants that the priesthood really doesn’t matter. The priesthood of all believers, right, if you’ve ever heard that phrase.

It’s not surprising in their cutoff state that they would use that position. But is it scriptural? Let’s take a look at some scriptures here. To start out, so here’s in Mark, Christ ordained 12. In John 15:16, he’s talking about, “I have chosen you and ordained you.” Key one, Hebrews 5:4, “No man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” So, “The Lord’s authorized servant, Moses, learned by revelation that it was God’s will that Aaron serve. Accordingly, Moses called and consecrated him.”

Okay. Now, I love this one. Look at Acts 8. There are a number of lessons we can learn about the priesthood from this that are very important, especially with the Protestant view we just discussed. So think about this. So here it is. “Then Simon himself believed also. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.” So we learn here that priesthood is required for ordinances like baptism. And 14, “Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John.”

So Philip could not give them the Holy Ghost. He could baptize. But they actually had to send Peter and John from Jerusalem. So there were different levels of authority within the priesthood. So then they come and they laid hands on them to verse 17, “Their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.” So there is an ordinance after baptism involving laying on of hands to confer the Holy Ghost done by a priesthood holder.

And then Simon, verse 18, interesting, he sees through the laying on of hands the Holy Ghost has given, he offered them money. Saying, “Give me also this power. On whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.” So not every baptized member holds the priesthood. Remember, Simon was a believer and he was baptized. So most Protestants would say that would qualify him for the priesthood. No. He did not have the priesthood. And he was trying to buy it with money. And then Peter says, “Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.”

You can’t buy the priesthood power with money. There’s lots of applications we could think of that today and in different ways. But okay. So Clement of Rome. This is at the end of the first century. He talked about a distinction between those who were ordained versus the general membership. And he says, “Peculiar services are assigned to the high priest. Proper place is prescribed to the priests. Layman is bound by laws that pertain to layman.”

And he further said, “Neither do we permit the laity to perform any of the offices belonging to the priesthood. For no one taketh this honor to himself, but he that is called of God. For such sacred offices are conferred by the laying on of the hands of the bishop.” This is at the end of the first century A.D. So this is very clear what was happening. Okay, Tad Callister of the Seventy, he did do a great book, The Blueprint of Christ’s Church. And in it, I love one section he had in there where he talked about can sincerity substitute for priesthood power?

And there’s just a couple of paragraphs I pulled out of the book there. So, “Paul asked certain disciples who had been baptized if they had received the Holy Ghost. They responded, ‘We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.’ No doubt surprised by their response, he further inquired, ‘Under what then were you baptized?’ They replied, ‘Unto John’s baptism.’ But Paul knew this could not be correct, for John’ and his disciples always taught that their baptisms would be followed by the Holy Ghost. Recognizing they had been baptized by someone without the proper authority, Paul re-baptized these disciples in the name of the Lord Jesus and then laid hands upon them so they might receive the Holy Ghost. As sincere as these former disciples may have been who baptized in John’s name, Paul knew that sincerity alone was not sufficient. It was no substitute for being called and ordained to the work.”

And if you look down below, “I know and recognize the power of Jesus, which power was also given to Paul.” This is the when they’re casting spirits out. “But where is your power? Your priesthood? No doubt these men were sincere. But that was not enough.” This evil spirit communicating that. So you can read the rest on that side. I thought that was really good from his book. Okay, now, sorry, there’s one more book I’ll recommend, Barry Bickmore. This is fantastic to get into really a lot of meat of stuff, Restoring the Ancient Church:Joseph Smith and Early Christianity.

Lots of great stuff in here. So one little piece I pulled out of there on the two levels of priesthood that we see in the early Christian Church. He said, “While the surviving early Christian documents make no mention of the two priesthoods within the church, it is at least clear that there was a hierarchy of authority, at least roughly corresponding to the distinction made by the Lord to Joseph Smith. That is, certain officers in the church were authorized to perform only the outward ordinances, while others were also able to administer in spiritual things.”

“For example, Philip, who was one of the seven ordained by the apostles to take on the work of caring for the needy in the church, was able to baptize quite a few people in Samaria,” like we just read. But we had to have the apostle sent down to do the Holy Ghost. “Likewise, members of the Aaronic priesthood among the Latter-day Saints performed temporal functions and ordinances, including baptism, but cannot perform the higher ordinances, such as the laying on of hands.”

Okay. And then he also, in Bickmore’s book, he also talked about just today where we see in the Restoration, we’re actually told that it was a bringing forth of all dispensations into one. So he said one caveat is to not compare line item by line item looking for perfection necessarily because there were some differences because of that. Here’s what he said. “This dispensation includes the priesthood and power given in all other dispensations.” And then he shares that D&C 112.

And then also D&C 128, “It’s a welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories. Therefore, since different variations on the basic organization of God’s kingdom have existed during the various dispensations, it should not be expected that the organization of the Restored Church would necessarily correspond exactly to that of the early Church. For example, the offices present in the Church in ancient America after the advent of the Savior are included in the present Church organization, but the Restored Church also includes many additional priesthood offices.”

And like President Nelson tells us, the Restoration continues to unfold. So we see adjustments being made continually forward to the priesthood organizations as things, as the church continues to grow, and expand, and needs develop. Okay, so I did want to share a very critical thing that I loved. FairMormon did a great piece called, Priesthood of All Believers or it was called, Is There a Priesthood of All Believers? I’ll link to it so you can see it. But I picked out a few pieces from this that I thought were very, very helpful there that you can read about.

This first page says, “Many modern Protestants reject the idea of priesthood authority as necessary for the performance of ordinances such as baptism. Instead, they hold to the concept that all true believers in Christ are automatically authorized to baptize and perform other ordinances and that no exceptional authority from God is necessary beyond acceptance of Christ as Savior. This idea was unknown until the time of the Reformation. Having broken away from the Roman Catholic Church, reformers were naturally cutoff from priesthood authority claimed by that and other Christian churches.”

“The Protestant claim to authority came from the Bible alone, not from a chain of authorized ordinations. Still, most Protestant churches continued the practice of ordaining ministers, and the Lutheran Church and the Church of England still have both ordained bishops and priests. This is ironic since Martin Luther himself introduced the concept in his 1520 address. Then two months later in his address, he said, ‘We’re all equally priests, as many of us are baptized.’ John Calvin, who broke away from the Catholic Church to become one of the early Reformers, also taught the concept of a priesthood of believers.”

“So John Wesley, the co-founder of the Methodist Church, 1784, laid hands on Thomas Coke and James Creighton and ordained them deacons. The following day, he ordained them priests, evidently considering Coke’s prior ordinations as priest in the Church of England to be invalid. He then ordained Coke as Bishop for America. Wesley’s brother Charles, shocked by these events, published a rather famous poem that reads, ‘So easily are bishops made by men’s or women’s whim? Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid, but who laid hands on him?'”

Love that. So very good question. Okay. Now, before I go through, there are a couple other pieces from that FairMormon piece I want to share. But I want to interject with a couple of really interesting Reformers though that did struggle with this question of authority tying back to the apostles and really seeing almost no way out without new apostles essentially. And so one of the two, the first one is fascinating with his tie with Joseph Smith and that’s the Reverend John Lathrop.

Okay. So he was the vicar of the Egerton Church in Kent, England. And one of his descendants was Joseph Smith, Prophet Joseph Smith. So, “In 1623, the Reverend Lathrop resigned his position because he questioned the authority of the Anglican church to act in the name of God. As he read the Bible, he recognized that apostolic keys were not on the earth. In 1632, he became the minister of an illegal independent church and was put in prison. His wife died while he was in prison and his orphan children pleaded with the bishop for his release. The bishop agreed to release Lathrop on condition that he leave the country. This he did, and with 32 members of his congregation, he sailed to America.”

And how cool is that? That’s part of the way that Joseph got to the land of religious freedom. So I thought that was really special one to share. And then Roger Williams. I love this, “Seventeenth-century pastor who founded Rhode Island refused to continue as pastor in Providence on the grounds that there was no regularly constituted church on earth, nor any person authorized to administer any church ordinanc;, nor could there be until new apostles were sent by the great Head of the Church, for whose coming he was seeking.”

And if you read the Bible very closely, that’s a great conclusion that you can come to. Alright. Now, continuing on with that piece from FairMormon. Is There a Priesthood of All Believers? So the scripture in 1 Peter 2:9 is the one that most choose. This is what Martin Luther pointed to for how to justify that you don’t need any ordination, you just need to be a believer. It says, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

So, “This was the principle passage cited by Martin Luther in defense of his idea. What he failed to note is that Peter was actually referring to an Old Testament passage in which the Lord told the Israelites through Moses, ‘Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.’ Yet of the Israelites present at the mount of revelation, only the Levites were chosen for priesthood service, while throughout Old Testament history, the office of priest and king were separate.”

“One must also note that from the point-of-view of most modern Christians, none of the Israelites in Moses’ day had acknowledged Christ as Savior. So they did not meet Luther’s criteria in the first place.” Okay, and then if you look at the very bottom, another passage there also again, “This passage clearly refers to the Lord’s words in Exodus, which as we have seen, did not make all Israelites priests and kings.”

Okay. And how I wanted to finish the video though is with a great quote from David O. McKay when he was the prophet. So President McKay talking about the confusion that would come without authority. And it’s the confusion we see in the Christian world today. So look at the last two paragraphs here. He says, “Herein lies one secret of the strength of this great latter-day work. It’s origin consists not in the whims, the desires, or the aspirations of man, but in the order and the will of Christ himself, the Author of our eternal salvation. If one man could assume the right to speak in the name of the Lord, other men would have that same privilege. Many men, all presuming to say, ‘Thus saith the Lord’, yet not seeing eye-to-eye on important elements of God’s kingdom.”

“The inevitable result would be confusion, and sincere men and women would be driven from, not attracted to, Christ’s Church, yet eventually would be made to suffer for not having obeyed the principles of life and salvation. Yet, the real cause of their failure to accept these eternal principles would be the fact that unauthorized men arrogated to themselves the right to officiate in things pertaining to God. Herein lies the explanation of this discordant condition existing among jarring creeds in the so-called Christian world today. Men who have no right to do so are officiating in the name of Christ. The result, of course, is confusion. Whatever else may be said of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the strength of his position in regard to divine authority must be recognized.”

And then 1 Corinthians 14, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints … let all things be done decently and in order”, which is why the priesthood matters, and priesthood keys to direct the work, and why an actual Restoration was needed, not a Reformation. So hope you enjoyed the video. Subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Books:

Turning From Truth: A New Look at the Great Apostasy by Alexander Morrison

Catholic & Mormon by Alonzo Gaskill and Stephen Webb

The Blueprint of Christ’s Church by Tad Callister

Restoring the Ancient Church: Joseph Smith and Early Christianity by Barry Bickmore

Articles/Websites:

Elder Ballard’s article in the January 2020 Ensign, How The Lord Prepared the World for the Restoration https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

FairMormon article on ‘Is There a Priesthood of all Believers’ https://www.fairmormon.org/archive/pu…

James Carver’s article in the November 1986 Ensign, How do Latter-day Saints support the doctrine of Melchizedek Priesthood authority form the Bible? https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 2 Comments

Joseph Smith – Interesting Tidbits: Evidences

Already on this channel are a number of videos involving Joseph Smith, both answering critics and providing evidences of the restoration, this video is a potpourri of a number of additional interesting tidbits, from amazing quotes, stories, and journal entries of those who knew or interacted with him, which all provide further evidence of his key role in the restoration.

So in this video, I’m going to talk about Joseph Smith, some of my favorite quotes from him, firsthand experiences people have had with him from journal entries that we have, just some exciting, lesser-known stories as well. So I’ve done a lot of videos on Joseph Smith for different things, but this one, that’s going to be my focus is really in general about Joseph himself. Also, I wanted to remember to tell people about the website that I set up with the same name as this YouTube channel: latterdaysaintsqa.com. So for Q and A and you can get all the transcripts of the videos there. So I’m trying to get them all over there and so this’ll be there within a few weeks. So just be aware of that. Okay, first of all when we talk about Joseph, I do want to just kind of share, there’s a phenomenal lecture series.

Many have probably listened to it over the years, it’s been around for a few decades,Truman Madsen down at BYU, an eight lecture series. You can get it on YouTube now, I’m going to put it in the links down below on the program here. But I love that. It’s wonderful, but I also love the very realistic Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling. This is one of my favorite books. In fact, my wife was telling me the other day, we were at dinner and she was just saying it’s also one of her very favorite books. It shows really the human side of Joseph and how comforting that is for any member of the Church in a lot of ways. So this is a cultural biography of the founder of the church and it really goes in depth on the culture that Joseph Smith lived in. And I’ve done a number of videos that would be correlated with that there in answering critics videos, if you will, with different topics on Joseph.

This is going to be a bit more on the Truman Madsen side in the sense of really celebrating many amazing things there, but note that if there’s a healthy tension that I think it’s good to be looking at all these things and get a realistic picture of who Joseph was. And I think it’s worth celebrating in a lot of ways, and it’s even more miraculous when you hear the things I’m going to talk about in this video when you understand that Joseph, he was just just a regular person as well, but he was called of God and did amazing things way beyond his capacity. So let’s start out with some of my favorite quotes. I have pulled together about two dozen really quick short sayings, nothing from this that we would have in the canonized scriptures, but if you look here, so I’m just going rip through them.

“One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.” “It is my meditation all the day and more than my meat and drink to know how I shall make the saints of God comprehend the visions that roll like an overflowing surge before my mind.” “I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have of the glories of the kingdoms manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive them.” That was after the great vision of the degrees of glory section 76 that he had with Sydney Rigdon. “I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the saints prepared to receive the things of God, but we frequently see some of them after suffering all they have for the work of God will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions.” “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that was ever written on the subject.”

Okay. And actually on these next couple of slides, I’m just going to read a couple of the quotes here. So on this one, I’m going to read the bottom two, but you can pause it if you want to see the other ones that I’ve selected here. “Never be discouraged. If I were sunk in the lowest pits of Nova Scotia, with the Rocky mountains piled on me, I would hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I would come out on top.” He says, “Although I do wrong, I do not the wrongs I’m charged with doing; the wrongs that I do is through the frailty of human nature, like other men. No man lives without fault.”

Okay on this page, I’ll read the top three. “We don’t ask people to throw away any good that they’ve got, we only ask them to come and get more. What if all the world should embrace this gospel? They would then see eye to eye, and the blessings of God would be poured out upon the people, which is the desire of my whole soul.” “All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it.” Then, “I have made this my rule, when God commands, do it.” Okay this next slide, let’s read the second one and the fourth one. Second one, “The devil flatters us that we are very righteous, while we are feeding on the faults of others. If you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another.” “I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry … Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.”

By the way, I didn’t say this, but one of the things I love about that quote in this book is I feel like I’m a rough stone rolling so I just love that symbolism through our lives. Okay. This next one, I’m just going to read the one in the middle. “One of the absolute marks that apostasy had occurred is the evidence of the contraction of men’s feelings– that they are really praying for each other’s damnation.” The bottom one is the standard of truth that we all kind of almost have memorized, I think many of us, if you served a mission, but no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. “What was the object of gathering the people of God in any age of the world? The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby He could reveal unto His people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach the people the way of salvation; for there are certain ordinances and principles that, when they are taught and practiced, must be done in a place or house built for that purpose.”

“The Church is not fully organized in its proper order, and cannot be, until the temple is completed, where places will be provided for the administration and the ordinances of the priesthood.” “A man filled with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.” And last, “If you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray.” And think about there were seven of the Twelve, and that’s the majority, that were there when there was the showdown between Brigham Young and Sydney Rigdon in the succession crises, and the seven went with Brigham. And so that was a key, he said the key that would never rust, so powerful wisdom.

Okay, so now let’s talk about some other aspects of Joseph Smith’s life. One of them was being in court all the time, legal trials throughout his life. It was just crazy. There was a great essay that was written, it’s on the fairmormon.org website, Legal Trials of the Prophet Joseph: Joseph Smith’s Life in Court by Joseph Bentley. And I pulled four quick bullet points out of that I thought were interesting. He said, “From my years of research and work on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, I have gained a deeper appreciation of Joseph’s achievements, despite intense and unrelenting adversity. Among his other tribulations was the fact that his ministry was shadowed by many persistent legal prosecutions.”

“Anyone who has been through even one lawsuit knows how all consuming it can be. It can demand your time, assets, body, and mind. So far we’ve found over 200 total suits involving Joseph Smith, whether as a defendant, plaintiff, witness or judge. (Yes, as mayor of Nauvoo, he was also a Justice of the Peace and Chief Magistrate of the Nauvoo Municipal Court.) That makes an average of about 14 cases per year. As best we can tell, he endured an average of one lawsuit per month during most of his ministry.”

Brigham Young said that he had to defend himself in 48 criminal cases, including many personally involving Brigham, but that Joseph was never convicted in any of them. We believe that this count of criminal cases against him is quite accurate.” There was one kind of strange conviction, probably doesn’t count but of casting the devil out of Newell Knight in New York,. But anyways, he says, “We’ll focus mainly on some criminal charges that took his liberty, his assets, and ultimately his life. Knowing that not once was he found legally guilty of any charges against him has strengthened my own faith and regard for Joseph Smith, the man and the prophet. This is a unique way to tell the history of the Church through lawsuits and court records.”

“From the time of his first vision, Joseph said he got used to swimming in deep water. This was also true of his experience with the law. The Lord told him at the start of his ministry, ‘Be patient in thine afflictions for thou shalt have many, but endure them, for lo I am with thee, even until the end of thy days.'”

Okay. Now, how about Joseph’s children? This had to have been gut-wrenching. Take a look at this slide. So his first child died on the day Alvin was born. This was right during the time of the lost 116 pages, just a torturous time of Joseph’s life. Then he lost his next two children as well, that were twins there in 1831. Then his next child, they adopted two twins, the Murdock twins, and Joseph Smith Murdock, they lost him due to exposure on the night of the mobbing that happened there down in Hiram, Ohio. I’ll talk about that here in a minute. And then as you go down, he lost two other kids: Don Carlos Smith aged 14 months in 1841 and then a male child that was stillborn in 1842. So 6 deaths out of 11, 4 of his first 5. I mean, that’s very gut-wrenching.

Also, I have wondered at times if Joseph knew some of the things that he was experiencing and the significance of them. I’ve done this with certain other videos. The Messiah Ben Joseph is one of my favorite videos that I did, but all those things that were going on, did Joseph have a clue about his role in some of these things? These had been traditions for thousands of years on some of these things, that Elijah was to appear on the top of a mountain, which was considered a temple, and Moses with him towards the end of the days to help usher in the Messiah Ben David, that would be the Messiah. And then how about September 22, 1827 when Joseph receives the plates, did he know that that was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish high holy day, and they blew the trumpet or the Ram’s horn to signal three things: the future gathering of Israel, the rebuilding of the temple, and the coming of the Messiah, the Messiah Ben David. And he was the restorer prior to that.

So that was the significance of that day. But again, if he did know that stuff, he didn’t talk about it at all, he didn’t say anything. And how about when Elijah came? In the Eternal Marriage video, if you go watch that, there is a piece in there that just blew my mind when I was researching it, and it’s on the Church website, you can actually get it.

The guy John Pratt wrote this article, on this calendar realignment, this Jewish calendar realignment interval that that day matched up the close, it completed a calendar realignment interval back 1800 and something years back to the time of Christ’s death, roughly. And it won’t happen again for 3000 years. And that day was also the second day of Passover and it was considered the first fruits. That’s what it’s called, that second day, and it was Easter Sunday. So think about the symbolism of Elijah and the work for the dead coming on this day. And that the only time where that second day of Passover and Easter fell up together in that entire century, the 19th century, was April 3rd of 1836. Just again, but Joseph says nothing about this. These are things we were looking at and putting this stuff together now saying, whoa, some stunning stuff.

Anyway, just some little tidbits. I wonder sometimes about these fascinating things. Okay, now I did want to do a little bit about some of my favorite pieces from the lecture series that Truman Madsen did. Absolutely fascinating series and I just pulled out a couple of my top half dozen or so there. So if you look on this first page, he says, “Section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants, I leave out any others, though they may too have their place, just select that one, Section 93 is in my considered judgment, and I read a little on the philosophers of the world, superior in content to Plato’s Timaeus; if Plato was the great philosopher of the western world, and that has been said often through many generations, why Alfred Whitehead most recently said that Plato was the only philosopher of the western world and everything else since has been footnotes; if that is true, and I’m not sure if it is, but if it is, I say to you then, Joseph Smith was a profounder man than Plato, but he had the added advantage of the Holy Ghost.” Which he needed since he only had a third grade education, right, or equivalent.

So speaking about Robert B. Thompson, “‘Robert’, Joseph said, ‘you have been so faithful and relentless in this work, you need to relax, go out, have a spree, relax.’ But Thompson was a sober man and said, ‘I can’t do it.’ Joseph said, ‘You must do it, or if you don’t do it, you will die.'” One of the sorrows of Joseph’s life is that Robert B. Thompson had a premature death. He [Joseph] learned to relax and occasionally chided for it, commented any man that has a bow and has it constantly strung tight, will soon loose the spring in his bow. The bow must be unstrung.”

Okay, now a few comparisons. Alexander Donovan, not a latter-day saint, said that Mormon men generally were a cut above others he knew during that period. J.W. Woods, the prophet’s last attorney, not a latter-day saint, observes that you could see the strength of Joseph Smith in his manner and dignity. You could see by his face alone that he was not a bad man. Daniel H Wells, trained in law and justice, after hearing Joseph speak on the spirit world and teaching earthly proxy work as a universal solution for all mankind said, ‘I don’t know what else can be said about that man. His mind is the most just I have ever encountered.’ We have from Brigham Young a comment on how Joseph was different than Hyrum, that Joseph, more than his brother, was susceptible to the continuing impressions and revelations of God. That is, he did not become so rigidly bound to what had been given that he was unsusceptible to what yet had to be given.”

“He was stretched to do thing,s that by his own reckoning, he was not fully equipped to do, at all to do, just in the temporal sense. There’s a promise– D&C 24, it says ‘In temporal labors, thou shalt not have strength, for this is not thy calling’, and yet …”, Truman says, ” … he was commanded to introduce utopian and not just dreams, but actual executions, utopian schemes in economics– the law of consecration; in politics–the council of 50; in social thought– plan for communities and their very city design and blockage, with the temple at the center. He was among other things, a city planner, and educationally– the school of the prophets, the University of Nauvoo, and the instructions that are outlined in sections 88 and 109 involving processes for the expansion of the knowledge and power and skill of his faithful band. How could a man be stretched to that? It’s one thing to be a spiritual advisor and to bring forth inspiration, but to take a band, a melting pot group of converts from all over the world and introduce instantly plans for the temporal welfare … ‘the burden upon me …’, he said once, ‘ … is very great.'” I just love that.

Okay, a couple more to finish up. “John A. Widtsoe estimates that the building of the Kirtland Temple, if you were to use the measuring rod of the widow’s mite, that is if you estimate costs in terms of what the saints actually had, this building, the Kirtland temple, cost more per capita than any religious building in American history. It was, in that sense, an unprecedented sacrifice.” Now, “William Law he had first cried at the prophet’s announcement of the principle of plural marriage and with his arms around his neck plead that he not teach it. For said he, ‘If you won’t, if only you won’t, this will become the greatest christian church of the century, but if you do, the consequences will be terrible.'” Interesting reply. “The prophet in tears replied ‘What you say may be true Brother William, but I have no choice, I must teach it. I have been commanded, and the Lord has told me the keys will be turned against me if I do not.’ How early did he know the plural marriage would be restored? At least as early the 1832, we are now into 1842; he has now introduced it. Over that, William Law became bitter, then ironically was excommunicated for adultery.”

And I will say on this topic, I did a video, a polygamy series, three parts, the beginning, the ending and the afterlife. And the beginning, please watch it because this is something that I think a lot of people even I think faithful members of the Church at times, they struggle with Joseph and polygamy because it hurts our senses, right? And it’s hard to understand, but it was practiced in the Bible. We have to acknowledge that God has commanded it before Joseph.

If you watch the video, you’ll also see testimonies of the witness of women who were asked to practice this. They received their own divine manifestation of the principle, which is, I think, extremely powerful and independent and also Emma. Now Joseph, he wasn’t told how to do it. I’ve often said, “how would you do this?” It went against everything. You saw what William Law just said, when everything in their culture, how would you do it? And he struggled, he said that angel appeared to him the third time with a drawn sword, right, three times. So he obviously demurred on doing this or maybe even the right way. And anyway, so it’s a great video. I attack all the critics points that are made about it there, but we wrestle with it. But I do think that I thought this was interesting, what he said to William Law there.

Now back to this, so Truman’s last piece here about the destruction of the press that led to the martyrdom in a sense. So William Law started up the Nauvoo Expositor with several other apostates and they were going after Joseph and the leaders. So this is interesting. He says, “Some students of law today would argue that they were perfectly within the law of their time, that there was precedence for it, and that the way they did it was indeed legal. But both friends and enemies of the prophet have assumed that that act, whether illegal or not, was the most unwise and inflammatory act of his life and culminated in his death.”

George Laub records that because there was murmuring among the saints when that was done, Joseph called a meeting, inviting them and then said, in effect, ‘The Lord showed me at daylight’, meaning this isn’t just something he conjured up in the dreams of the night, ‘what would happen if that press were not destroyed and that the blood of the saints would be shed, and to prevent that, we did what we did.'” And ironically, Joseph’s own blood was shed because of that, but preserved the saints there in Nauvoo. I’ve got a quote I’m going to share about something there as he left Nauvoo to go to Carthage. It’s sobering with that aspect.

Okay, now I want to finish the video with a bunch of different little quick experiences people had and I pulled together … so this is a book, I’ve got dozens of books on Joseph Smith, but this is one that’s really fascinating in a sense of what it does. They Knew the Prophet: Personal Accounts From Over 100 People Who Knew Joseph Smith. So these are journal entries, diaries of things and interactions with the prophet that really kind of stand out. And then I went through and combed through, tried to get a variety of things, men and women, younger, older, leaders, non-leaders, even a few non-members in there, writing different types of experiences and comments, time periods and lesser known stories. So let’s jump into them.

So first of all, I will say one of the very first videos I did was on the miracles that happened in Joseph’s early life and I just want to mention, one of the most fascinating ones was the assassination attempt on Joseph two months before the First Vision, before anything happened, an assassination to him. So go back and watch that one of those very first videos. But he was a target from the very beginning, even before the First Vision. Satan doesn’t have a veil over his mind there on who Joseph was. So this first one, just quick, I’m just going to read the underlined part. This is from Martha Cox, she talked about this Mrs. Palmer, whose dad hired Joseph and really wanted him because when he was working, these wild boys in the neighborhood, they would really work when Joseph was there. It says, “When Joseph Smith worked with them, the work went steadily forward and he got the full worth of the wages he paid.” So I love that.

Okay, Newel Knight, so this is interesting, very beginning of the Church after some of the first baptisms, confirmation, it says, “A meeting to confirm those who had been baptized … had arrived and our friends had nearly all collected together, when to our great surprise and sorrow, the constable came and arrested Brother Joseph Smith Jr. on a warrant, charging him with being a disorderly person, and of setting the country in an uproar by preaching the Book of Mormon. The constable was determined to save Joseph from them [the mob], as he found him to be a different person to what he had been represented. They had not proceeded far from the house when the wagon in which Joseph and the constable were riding was surrounded by the mob, who seemed only to await some signal for the constable. But to their great discomfiture, he gave the horses the whip and was soon out of their reach.” So interesting little story.

Okay. The tarring and feathering that happened when Joseph was … If you remember Hyrum, just 30 miles below Kirtland or so, he was at the John Johnson farm there and so Luke Johnson tells a story of what had happened in his father’s home. A few little known details, we know about the tarring and feathering, but there were a couple things here that were pretty crazy. So he says, “In the fall of 1831, while Joseph was yet at my father’s place, a mob of 40 or 50 came to his house. A few entered his room in the middle of the night, and Carnot Mason dragged Joseph out of bed by the hair of his head. He was then seized by as many as could get hold of him and taken about 40 rods from the house, stretched on a board and tantalized the most insulting and brutal manner.”

“They tore off the few nightclothes that he had on, for the purpose of emasculating him”, so they were going to castrate him, “and had Dr. Dennison there to perform the operation. But when the doctor saw the prophet stripped and stretched on the plank, his heart failed him, and he refused to operate. The mob then scratched his body all over saying, “D you, this is the way the Holy Ghost falls upon you. In attempting to force open his jaws and pour a vial of some obnoxious drug into his mouth, they broke one of his front teeth. The mob became divided and did not succeed, but poured tar over him and then stuck feathers on him”, that’s the part we typically tell, “then they went to wash up.” It says, “At this place, a vial was dropped, the contents of which ran out and killed the grass.”

So Joseph, had that poison gone down, wouldn’t have made it. And poor Sidney Rigdon, they dragged him and if you know, his head was bouncing on the ground, and many scholars have looked back and saw that as maybe a turning point where Sydney may have really had some brain damage that happened from that. And if you remember he really cracked in Liberty Jail.

Okay. So Jesse Crosby tells of how Joseph dealt with slander. He says, “I went one day to the prophet with a sister. She had a charge to make against one of the brethren for scandal. When her complaint had been heard, the prophet asked her if she was quite sure that what the brother had said of her was utterly untrue? She was quite sure that it was. He then told her to think no more about it, for it could not harm her. If untrue, it could not live, but the truth will survive. Still, she felt that she should have some redress. Then he offered her his method of dealing with such cases for himself. When an enemy had told a scandalous story about him, which had often been done, before he rendered judgment, he paused and let his mind run back to the time and place and setting in the story to see if he had not by some unguarded word or act, laid the block on which the story was built. If he found that he had done so, he said that in his heart, he then forgave his enemy and felt thankful that he had received warning of a weakness that he had not known he possessed.”

Okay, and then this is so tender. This is Daniel Tyler. He talks about during the Kirtland crisis. If you go to the video I did on the Kirtland Safety Society, in the midst of that tremendous apostasy, a third of the church leaders apostatized, an eighth of the Church. It was just a brutal time. His own brother, William, was faltering. And so this was an experience in the midst of this. Daniel Tyler says, “At the time William Smith and others rebelled against the prophet at Kirtland, I attended a meeting where Joseph presided. Entering a little before the meeting opened and gazing upon the man of God, I perceived sadness in his countenance and tears trickling down his cheeks. A few moments later, a hymn was sung and he opened the meeting by prayer. Instead of facing the audience, however, he turned his back and bowed upon his knees facing the wall. This, I suppose, was done to hide his sorrow and tears.”

“I had heard men and women pray … from the most ignorant, both as to letters and intellect, to the most learned and eloquent, but never until then had I heard a man address his Maker as though he was present listening, as a kind father would listen to the sorrows of a dutiful child. Joseph was at that time unlearned, but that prayer, which was to a considerable extent in behalf of those who accused him of having gone astray and fallen into sin, was that the Lord would forgive them and open their eyes that they might see alright. That prayer, I say to my humble mind, partook of the learning and eloquence of heaven. There was no ostentation, no raising of the voice as by enthusiasm, and a plain conversational tone as a man would address a present friend. It appeared to me as though in case the veil were taken away, I could see the Lord standing, facing his humblest of all servants I had ever seen. It was the crowning of all the prayers I ever heard.” I thought that was really kind of cool.

Okay. Short little clip on Joseph, an example of Joseph’s charity. Andrew Workman says, “Several men were sitting on a fence. Joseph came out and spoke to us all. A man came and said that a poor brother who lived out some distance from town had had his house burned down the night before. Nearly all the men said that they felt sorry for the man. Joseph put his hand in his pocket, took out $5 and said, ‘I feel sorry for this brother to the amount of $5. How much do you all feel sorry?'” Okay. William Walker talking to Joseph’s kindness and mercy. He said, “On one occasion when he was the mayor of the city of Nauvoo, it became his duty to fine a Negro for violating the city ordinance with regard to selling liquor. The Negro pleaded for mercy, saying that his object in doing so was to raise money to send for his family. The mayor would not shrink from his duty and he fined him $75, but told him that if he would not be guilty of doing so again, he would make him a present of a horse to assist him, which he accepted.”

Now this is amazing and I’ve talked about lots of miracles and visions and lots of the other videos. Here’s just one, you could include this. In fact, there was one great video I did called How Could They Have All Lied, all these different people that had these miraculous experiences and things, not just Joseph, outside of Joseph, that was the point of the video. One of the early ones I did. But here is Zebedee Coltrin sees this amazing experience of seeing Adam and Eve with Joseph and Oliver. So Joseph, he says, “lay down on the ground on his back and stretched out his arms, and we laid on them. The heavens gradually opened, and we saw a golden throne on a circular foundation, and on the throne sat a man and a woman having white hair and clothed in white garments. Their heads were white as snow, and their faces shone with immortal youth. They were the two most beautiful and perfect specimens of mankind I ever saw. Joseph said, ‘They are our first parents, Adam and Eve.'”

Okay. Here’s the time Joseph rebukes the devil, casts the devil out. Helen Mar Whitney, she said, “We had struggles with evil spirits at Winter Quarters, which were something similar to what the prophet experienced in Far West Missouri. He said the devil contended with him face to face, after he had afflicted his little child, claiming he had the best right to a house which Joseph had purchased, it having been previously occupied by some wicked people. But the prophet rebuked the devil in the name of the Lord and he had to leave the house.”

Okay, now I did a whole video on prophecies, on Joseph’s prophecies. And I did one even specifically on the Civil War because it was such a specific prophecy. It was so amazing. Even a Philadelphia newspaper acknowledges that, do we have a prophet in our midst? And even in that there was a bridge into the world wars as there was this bridge into saying that the wars would move to Germany as a headquarter, you think about World War I and World War II. That’s part of the interesting little aspect of that Civil War video. But here’s a quick one on prophecy, a couple of quick ones there to just add.

So Jane Richards says, “As prophe,t he seemed to understand and was able to foretell the future with a marked degree of accuracy and nearly as much readiness as the original individual could relate to happenings of the past. As seer and revelator, he was fearless and outspoken, yet humble, never considering that he was more than the mouthpiece through whom God spoke. As the leader of his people, he was ever active and progressive, but always modest and considerate of them and their trying circumstances.”

These are two quick prophecies, just little ones here. So Joseph Taylor Sr. says, “In February, 1841, my brother was in jail in the hands of the Missourians, about 200 miles from my home, and my dear widowed mother was very much concerned about his safety. I rode up to them, and the prophet inquired about mother’s welfare. I told him that mother was very sad and downhearted about the safety of her son and she had requested me to come and ask him as a man of God whether my brother would ever return home. He bent his head for a moment as if in prayer or deep reflection. Then, with a beautiful beaming countenance full of smiles, he looked up and told me to go and tell mother that her son would return in safety inside of a week. True to the word of the prophet, he got home in six days after this occurrence. This was a great comfort to mother, for her son had been absent about six months.”

And then another kind of fun one, Mary Westover, small little immediate prophecy fulfilled. “The most striking thing I remember”, she wrote, “was a prophecy Joseph Smith made, which I saw fulfilled immediately. I was at the funeral services of King Follett in the Nauvoo Grove. A heavy thunderstorm arose. The people became frightened and started to go home, but the prophet arose and told the multitude that if they would remain still and pray in their hearts, the storm would not molest them in their services. They did as they were bidden, and the storm divided over the grove. I will remember how it was storming on all sides of the grove, yet it was calm around us as if there was no sign of a storm so nearby. I thought as I sat there that the Lord was speaking through Joseph.” And if you think about the King Follett discourse is the deepest doctrine that Joseph ever taught at that moment. So it was pretty powerful.

Okay now for some, which is what it was like to hear the prophet teach. The first three of these are from prophets. I’ll just read a couple of snippets. Brigham Young, he says, “When I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven figuratively speaking and brought it down to earth, and he took the earth, brought it up and opened up in plainness and simplicity the things of God. The excellency of the glory of the character of Brother Joseph Smith was that he could reduce heavenly things to the understanding of the finite.” He says, “Who can say aught against Joseph Smith? I do not think that a man lives on the earth that knew him any better than I did, and I am bold to say that, Jesus Christ excepted, no better man ever lived or does live upon the earth. I feel like shouting hallelujah all the time when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith the prophet.”

And then John Taylor he talks about Joseph’s intelligence unmatched there and his interactions with people from the spirit world. In fact, Truman Madsen called them a spiritual amphibian, like one foot in the spirit world, one foot out. One time he told Hyrum that he looked the most like Seth than anyone else he’s ever seen. Adam’s son, Seth. And then one time he told a man, he said, “I haven’t seen your father since he’s passed away.” So anyway, just kind of some fun stuff. I didn’t read that slide. You can pause and read if you like.

Lorenzo Snow. So he talks about his experience hearing Joseph as he was investigating the Church. So he said, ” … as he proceeded, he became very strong and powerful and seemed to affect the whole audience with a feeling that he was honest and sincere. It certainly influenced me in this way, and it made impressions upon me that remain until the present day. As I looked upon him and listened, I thought to myself that a man bearing such a wonderful testimony as he did, and having such a countenance as he possessed, could hardly be a false prophet. I heard the prophet discourse upon the grandest of subjects. At times he was filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking as with the voice of an archangel and filled with the power of God. His whole person shown, and his face was lightened until it appeared as the whiteness of the driven snow. Finally, I was convinced of the truth sufficiently to want to be baptized.”

Let’s get a few last couple of quick ones here. Emmeline Wells, listening to Joseph was surreal. “He was beyond my comprehension. The power of God rested upon him to such a degree that on many occasions he seemed transfigured.” You hear that from a number of people, very interesting. Wandle Mace just talks about him opening up the scriptures. That was just crazy. He would just go and it was just stunning to him. And you can pause if you want to read that, but it’s really fascinating. He just said he would be stumbling over something and then Joseph would just open it up and just really make sense after Joseph would teach something.

Parley P. Pratt. So you can read this, kind of a longer quote, but I did like this one right in the middle that he says, “his benevolence unbounded as the ocean, his intelligence universal, and his language abounding in original eloquence peculiar to himself– not polished, not studied, not smoothed and softened by education and refined by art. Oh, how majestic it was.” Okay, Sariah Workman so she talked about it in her as a youth. She says, “What I remember best is that I always felt a divine influence whenever I was in his presence. The Holy Ghost testified to me then, though I was only 12 years of age at the time of his martyrdom, and that testimony has still remained with me, that he is a prophet of the true and living God.”

And then two quick ones of people that lived in the home, for a period. So this was a boarder for nine months, John Bernhisel. He says he had abundant opportunity to contemplate his character and observe his conduct. “I have concluded to give you a few my impressions of him. He is a man of calm judgment, enlarged views, and is eminently distinguished by his love of justice. He is kind and obliging, generous and benevolent, sociable and cheerful, and is possessed of a mind of a contemplative and reflective character. He’s honest, frank, fearless, and independent and as free from dissension as any now found. But it is the gentle charities of domestic life, as the tender and affectionate husband and parent, the warm and sympathizing friend, that the prominent traits of his character are revealed. And his heart is felt to be keenly alive to the kindest and softest emotions of which human nature is susceptible.”

And then Eliza Snow also in the home, taught his family school had ample opportunity to mark his daily walk and conversation as a prophet of God. And she talks about just how he was, very forgiving, and so I’ll let you pause and read that if you want to read what she said, but I thought it was beautiful and powerful there as well. And then one last here about Joseph loved the little children, Louisa Littlefield, she said, “A prominent trait of Joseph Smith’s character, which was perhaps more marked in his early career than was the case after public cares and responsibilities multiplied, was his natural fondness for children. In Kirtland, when wagon loads of grown people came in from the country to meeting, Joseph would make his way to as many of the wagons as he could and cordially shake the hand of each person. Every child and young babe in the company were especially noticed by him and tenderly taken by the hand with his kind words and blessings. He loved innocence and purity, and he seemed to find it in the greatest perfection with the prattling child.”

Okay. Now a couple of interesting experiences I wanted to share of Joseph’s character in very stressful situations. So Zion’s Camp, George A. Smith said, “The prophet Joseph took a full share of the fatigues of the journey, in addition to the care of providing for the camp and presiding over it. He walked most of the time and had a full share of blistered, bloody, and sore feet, which was the natural result of walking 25 to 40 miles a day in the hot season of the year. But during the entire trip, he never uttered a murmur or complained, while most of the men in the camp complained to him of sore toes, blistered feet, long drives, scanty supply of provisions, poor quality of bread, bad corn. Joseph had to bear with us and tutor us like children.”

And then this is not so crazy. John Taylor says this experience in Far West, you may have heard this story, but think of it, I did check my calculator out because I wanted to see what the math was here. He says, “I’m reminded of a circumstance that occurred in Missouri, which shows the kind of feeling that Joseph Smith possessed. At Far West, a mob had come against us, placing themselves in position to give us battle, and there were not more than about 200 of us in this place. He then led us out to the prairie, facing the mob, and place us in position, and the first thing we knew, a flag of truce was seen coming towards us. The person bearing it said that some of their friends were among our people, for their safety they felt anxious.”

“The mob wished these parties to come out, as they were going to destroy every man, woman, and child in that place. Joseph Smith sent word back by this messenger. Said he, ‘Tell your general to withdraw his troops or I will send them to hell.’ I thought that that was a pretty bold stand to take because we only had about 200 people compared to their 3,500, but they thought we were more numerous than we really were. It may be that our numbers were magnified in their eyes, but they took hint and left. So take your calculator out. It was 17 to 1. That’s the math there, crazy.

Okay. Now we know of the rebuking of the guards in Richmond Jail. It’s just so majestic. I know we have the story so well, so I almost didn’t put it in. But it’s just the guards are there, they’re talking about the rape, the murder, the robberies that were happening in Far West and them even participating in it. And then Joseph stands up and you know the sentence, “Silence ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you and command you to be still. I will not live another minute and hear such language, see such talk, or you or I die this instant.” Then it says, “He ceased to speak, he stood erect in terrible majesty, chained and without a weapon, calm, unruffled, and dignified as an angel, he looked upon the quailing guards, whose weapons were lowered or dropped to the ground, whose knees smote together, and who shrinking into a corner or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon and remained quiet until a change of the guards.” And then you know how Parley describes this, Parley P. Pratt, he says but about all the dignity and he says, “Dignity and majesty have I seen but once as it stood in chains at midnight in a dungeon, in an obscure village in Missouri.” I just love that.

Okay, last couple of ones here as we go to the end of his life. So Joseph, it’s interesting, if you go to the prophecies video, it looked like he knew about when his time was going to be up. He had about a five year advance warning there, and it’s interesting, he borrows this book of martyrs. So Edward Stevenson says, “During the prophet’s visit, he came to our house. While looking over our copy of a large English book of martyrs, he expressed sympathy for the Christian martyrs and a hope for their salvation. He asked to borrow the book, promising to return it when he should meet us again in Missouri. On returning it he says, ‘I have, by the aid of the Urim and Thummin’, which could be the seer stone as kind of the synonym for that in these days, ‘seen those martyrs. They were honest, devoted followers of Christ according to the light they possessed. They will be saved.'”

“The prophet also looked over the large Bible and remarked that much of the Apocrypha was true, but it required the spirit of God to select the truth out of those writings. Finally, in speaking of the latter-day work, he said, ‘There are thousands of good people in England and those old countries who are waiting for the fullness of the gospel, and it will not be long before they will flock to Zion, for Ephraim for dwells largely in those parts.'”

And I have the one massive nugget, this is totally off topic, but if you want an amazing book that once you start reading, it’s a page turner, Whence Came They?: Israel, Britain and the Restoration. Absolutely phenomenal, fascinating, lots of legends, traditions, written documents over 4500 years of maybe the Hebrews, Israelites, founding the British area. So anyway, it’s kind of interesting, like I said, a lot of speculation in that, but it’s always interesting, and it certainly fits with just that quote there from Joseph. But also that book of martyrs. You wonder if Joseph … he did say that he would seal his testimony with his blood, so I think he knew he would be a martyr.

Okay. So Benjamin F. Johnson, two quick ones on how Joseph was absolutely exhausted towards the end of his life. Benjamin Johnson says, “With a deep-drawn breath, as a sigh of weariness, he sank down heavily in his chair”, this is Joseph, and said ‘Oh, I am so tired, so tired that I often feel to long for my day of rest. For what has there been in this life but tribulation for me? From a boy, I have been persecuted by my enemies, and now even my friends are beginning to join with them, to hate and persecute me. Why should I not wish for my time of rest?'”

“His words and tone thrilled and shocked me, and like an arrow, pierced my hopes that he would long remain with us. I said as with a heart full of tears, ‘Oh Joseph, what could we as a people do without you, and what would become of the great latter-day work if you should leave us?’ He was touched by my emotions and in reply he said, ‘Benjamin, I would not be far from you, and if on the other side of the veil, I would still be working with you and with a power greatly increased to roll on this kingdom.'”

Okay, and then Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightener quoting Joseph near the end, she said, “I heard Joseph say, ‘I have rolled this kingdom off of my shoulders onto the shoulders of the Twelve and they can carry out the word and build up His kingdom.” Said he, ‘I am tired, I have been mobbed, I have suffered so much. Some of the brethren think they can carry this work out better than I can, far better. I have to seal my testimony to this generation with my blood. I have to do it, for this work will never progress until I’m gone. For the testimony is of no force until the testator is dead. People little know who I am when they talk about me and they never will know until they see me weighted in the balance in the kingdom of God. Then they will know who I am and see me as I am. I dare not tell them, and they do not know me.’ These words were spoken with such power that they penetrated the heart of every soul that believed in him.”

And then Charles Lambert heard Joseph’s last sermon. I thought this was so touching what he said that the person behind him who was not a member. He says, “I was present when the prophet preached his last sermon from a frame building, put up to the square and a place floored over for him to stand on. It was powerful. There was a tall man standing behind me sobbing and crying. When I turned around to look at him, he said he would never fight against the Mormons, no, never. He was a stranger to me.” Fascinating.

And then finally, Dan Jones, this is right before Joseph went off to Carthage. He said, “‘My friends, I love you. I love the city of Nauvoo too well to save my life at your expense. If I go not to them, they will come and act out the horrid Missouri scenes in Nauvoo. I may prevent it. I fear not death. My work is well nigh done. Keep the faith and I will die for Nauvoo.’ With some 30 or 40 others who chose to follow Joseph and Hyrum ascended the hill. When near the sacred spot, the temple, the prophet paused. He looked with admiration first on that, then on the city and remarked, ‘This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens. Little do they know the trials that await them.'”

That was very prophetic. If you think about what then came to the saints over the coming years as they were driven west. So it was not the last prophecy Joseph made, that was in Carthage to Dan Wells, and that was in the prophecies video that I did, so I know that was probably a little long, but boy, what an exciting and thrilling thing to think of Joseph Smith, the prophet, prophet of the restoration. What is our witness? We have a tangible witness of Joseph as the prophet, and it’s the Book of Mormon. Hope you enjoyed the video and watch the Book of Mormon: Match It video as one of the great witnesses on the Book of Mormon. Subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Books:

There are dozens that could be listed… these are just those I referred to in the video:

Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman

They Knew The Prophet, Personal Accounts From Over 100 People Who Knew Joseph Smith by Hyrum and Helen Andrus,

Whence Came They? Israel, Britain, and The Restoration by Vaughn Hansen

Videos:

Truman Madsen Lecture Series on Joseph Smith from BYU SpeechesYouTube channel:

Lecture 1: The First Vision and Its Aftermath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea2v8…

Lecture 2: Joseph’s Personality & Character: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVXkB…

Lecture 3: Joseph Smith and Spiritual Gifts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz5Gz…

Lecture 4: Joseph Smith and Trials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juLZC…

Lecture 5: Joseph Smith & The Kirtland Temple https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPJi…

Lecture 6: Joseph Smith as Teacher, Speaker, and Counselor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzG7t…

Lecture 7: Doctrinal Development & the Nauvoo Era https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcmej…

Lecture 8: The Last Months & Martyrdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9JF…

Websites/Articles:

Fairmormon Article by Joseph Bentley: Legal Trials of the Prophet, Joseph Smith’s Life in Court: https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

Children of Joseph Smith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childre…

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

LGBTQ – Seeking Understanding

In January 2020, the Methodist Church announced they will be splitting in two because of discord over LGBTQ issue;, local congregations will vote on with which church they will affiliate. This video reviews The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ progress in understanding LGBTQ issues , but also many of the challenges we are still trying to navigate. One of the most important takeaways is our need to increase love and outreach to any LGBTQ members, as Elder Ballard said, “We need to listen to and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing. Certainly we must do better than we have done in the past so that all members feel they have a spiritual home…”

Okay. So, on this video, I’m going to talk about LGBTQ issues. I’ve been dreading doing this video in some ways because I know it’s a very polarizing, charged topic, highly opinionated with different views. It’s a very challenging space right now. In fact, just in January 2020, the United Methodist Church said they are going to split over this issue, just a big vote. They’ll have two churches now that are Methodist you can choose from. They’re going to vote on the local level I guess is my understanding, but one will accept same-sex marriage and ordination of clergy that are LGBT, the others will be called traditional Methodist there.

So, you may have also heard just in the news, I just saw this. The evangelist Franklin Graham, all seven of his venues in the UK just canceled him coming because of his views on homosexuality and Islam both, but anyway, it’s a very challenging topic today.

So, I want to go through this. I do want to remind you also I’m trying to do this at the beginning of a few of these videos. I’ve got the transcripts for all the videos now on a website that I set up called latterdaysaintsqa.com and under the Read the Blog section, that’s where you can get the transcript of the video.

So, on this, I want to talk about really the Church’s understanding today and where we’ve come from, really, some why questions, talk about that, how some scriptural foundational issues, how parents can help, how members can help do a better job there, what to do if we’re struggling with the Church’s position on some of these things, talk about same-sex marriage, the recent LGBT policy change and reversal, how this compares to the priesthood ban, and then some closing thoughts.

So, this is going to be, like I said, a heavy topic. So, the Church has come a long way. Also, I will tell you, it’s interesting to think about, a couple of the leaders that I know specifically, we’ve got Elder Christofferson, I don’t know them personally, I’m just saying I know that they have gay family members.

So, Elder Christofferson, you may know his brother Tom, I’m going to reference his book here in a minute, is gay. Then, also Elder Gong, one of the last to be called here of the Twelve, his son is gay. So, I think this is also probably helpful to have these in the leading bodies of the Church, too, as these discussions go on.

So, first of all, I want to share this Gospel Topics Essay on same-sex attraction. If you look here, “The church distinguishes between same-sex attraction and homosexual behavior.” This is a huge distinction we’re really focusing on now. “People who experience same-sex attraction or identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual can make and keep covenants with God and fully and worthily participate in the Church. Identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual or experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin and does not prohibit one from participating in the Church, holding callings, or attending the temple. Sexual purity is an essential part of God’s plan for our happiness. Sexual relations are reserved for a man and a woman who are married and promise complete loyalty to each other. Sexual relations between a man and a woman who are not married or between people of the same sex violate one of our Father in Heaven’s most important laws and get in the way of our eternal progress. We may not know precisely why some people feel attracted to others of the same sex, but for some, it is a complex reality and part of the human experience.”

“The Savior Jesus Christ has a perfect understanding of every challenge we experience here on earth, and we can turn to him for comfort, joy, hope, and direction. No matter what challenges we may face in life, we are all children of God deserving of each other’s kindness and compassion. When we create a supportive environment, we build charity and empathy for each other and benefit from our combined perspectives in faith. The Church provides resources at mormonandgay.churchofjesuschrist.org to help individuals and families live the fullness of the gospel and seek the Spirit while navigating this aspect of mortality.”

Okay. Now, just referencing the Church’s website. If you look at this, it is a great website, lots of resources, some great videos to watch. It says here, “The intensity of same-sex attraction is not a measure of your faithfulness. Many people pray for years and do all they can to be obedient in an effort to reduce same-sex attraction, yet find they are still attracted to the same sex. Same-sex attraction is experienced along a spectrum of intensity and is not the same for everyone. Some are attracted to both genders, and others are attracted exclusively to the same gender. For some, feelings of same-sex attraction, or at least the intensity of those feelings, may diminish over time.

“In any case, a change in attraction should not be expected or demanded as an outcome by parents or leaders. The intensity of your attractions may not be in your control. However, you can choose how to respond. Asking the Lord what you can learn from this experience can focus your faith on an outcome you can control. Turning your life over to God is an important act of faith that brings great blessings now and even greater blessings in the world to come.”

Okay. Now, I want to share with you, there’s a great book I’ll recommend, In Quiet Desperation, Fred and Marilyn Matis and Ty Mansfield. They wrote half the book, each of them did. But the Matis’, their son Stuart committed suicide. It’s a very, very painful tale to understand his story, but I wanted you to hear from his parents describing, finding out that he was gay and then just what his experience was like and struggling with it, but I wanted you to hear from their voice.

Latter-day Saints Q&A:
So, they were interviewed on a FairMormon podcast called FAIR-Cast. I’m going to let you listen to this. I’m going to do it at 1.25 speed. I think it’s about four or five minutes here but I think, I really want you to just take it in. It’s a little tear-jerking and painful, and it helps, I think, with empathy, to hear and listen to these types of things. So, there you go.

FairMormon Interviewer:
Same-gender attractions.

Marilyn Matis:
It was a February. Actually, it was January 29th. One of our daughters came to me on a Friday morning and said, “Mother, what would you do if you found out Stuart was gay?” And I said, “I’d cry.” She asked me why. I said, “It would break my heart to think one of my children broke his temple covenants.” So, I thought, Stuart had just flown in from New York. He was a consultant for Anderson Consulting and flew home every weekend from back east.

Marilyn Matis:
So, I went to his room where he was sitting at his desk and at his computer. I went in to ask him. Then, I thought, “How do you ask your 32-year-old son if he has same-gender feelings?” I’m trying to be polite about it and not offend him. He said, “Mother, what you’re trying to ask me is am I gay,” and I said, “Yes, Stuart.” He said, “Yes, mother. I am.” And it literally was as though lightning went through my entire body and I grabbed ahold of the doorknob because I could feel my legs giving out from underneath me.

Marilyn Matis:
So, for the next two hours, he quietly told me the struggle that he had endured for the last 20 years trying to change, trying to deal with his feelings, in denial that he had those feelings, would not face the fact that they were real. He’d had those feelings. He recognized that when he was just in grammar school, he had feelings of attractions to a boy and didn’t understand, when the boy moved, why he felt so sad.

Marilyn Matis:
But by the time he was 12, he began to realize what those feelings were all about but he thought, “When I receive the priesthood, those feelings will go away. Well, when I receive my patriarchal blessing, then those feelings will go away. When I go to the temple, when I go on my mission, when I do this, when I do that, and it never happened.” He went on a mission and he came home and he struggled with those feelings. He said he would go to school and come home and study. Then, he’d get down on his knees and he would pray all night long. He’d wake up in the morning where he’d fallen asleep sobbing, begging and pleading with Heavenly Father to take the feelings away. He said he’d get up like a zombie and go to school, come back again, go to school, come back again, night after night. He would pray until he fell asleep crying, begging and pleading with Heavenly Father to take the feelings away.

FairMormon Interviewer:
How old was he when he first told you this, then?

Marilyn Matis:
He was just a month before he turned 32 that we actually found out. So, we knew for the last 13 months of his life he had those feelings.

Fred Matis:
We had a number of experiences since we live so close to San Francisco to be involved with the situations where gay people were involved and we always made light of it. After we look back on it, we thought to ourselves how cruel we were and how misunderstanding we were, and how Stuart felt when we made those statements or did those things, not knowing he was just struggling inside to deal with them himself.

Fred Matis:
We never realized that a son of ours … I mean, good criminy! He was a scout. He was very faithful in the Church. He served a mission.

Marilyn Matis:
He had been the Elder’s Quorum President.

Fred Matis:
Yeah and he was a good young man. I mean, this couldn’t happen to him because this happens to the other people. This happens to someone else, but it was our son.

Marilyn Matis:
He went to the temple every Friday. How could he have these feelings?

FairMormon Interviewer:
Right, and he wasn’t acting on those feelings?

Marilyn Matis:
No. Actually, he was a gospel doctrine teacher at the time when we found out. He’d been a gospel doctrine teacher at a BYU ward. He was going to a Stanford ward at the time of his death.

Marilyn Matis:
So, he was always active in church. He was the perfect child. His whole life was spent of trying to be perfect because if I’m perfect, then God will take these feelings away from me. When they wouldn’t go away, then he had to try harder. There were times when he would deny himself certain privileges, of doing things, going to a movie with friends or doing some activity he wanted to do with his friends. He wouldn’t go because he had those feelings and he tried to punish himself because he wanted to be as good as he could possibly be so God would just remove all these feelings because he felt that they were sinful and they were wrong. He just didn’t understand. Actually, he was in denial of having those feelings.

Latter-day Saints Q&A:
Okay, so that was gut wrenching, but I hope that helps with us to yearning to reach out in love as we’ve been told to do.

Just at the October 2019 General Conference Leadership meeting, this is what Dallin H. Oaks said to the leaders of the Church: “While God’s commandments forbid all unchaste behavior and reaffirm the importance of marriage between a man and a woman, the Church and its faithful members should reach out with understanding and respect to individuals who are attracted to those of the same sex or whose sexual orientation or gender identity is inconsistent with their sex at birth. We do not know why same-sex attraction and confusion about sexual identity occur. They are among the challenges that persons can experience in mortality, which is only a tiny fraction of our eternal existence.”

Okay. Now, there’s another interesting book that had recently came out. Is He Nuts?: Why a Gay Man Would Become a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Dennis Schleicher. In fact, a general authority asked him to write this book after hearing his story. It is fascinating, very powerful but I love, I pulled a little piece out towards the end of his book. It made me feel like the Church, we are doing much better in certain things. I love what he said. He said, “I can honestly say that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is by far the safest church I’ve ever attended.” He goes into this in the book a decent amount what he means by that. “It’s imperative for everyone to know that God loves you no matter your race, sexual orientation, financial background or anything else. It was this knowledge that God loves me with a continuing confirmation from the Holy Ghost that brought me into this church. I also believe in my heart, through my own personal revelation, that this church is by far the most accepting of LGBT members based on what I’ve experienced. This may not be the case for past members or people who left the Church.”

“Other churches have also experienced hate crimes because of a lack of understanding and tolerance for people’s differences. That was a different era and times are changing. We are a church of prophecy and revelation. I finally found the emotional security I sought for so many years. That security falls within my faith and belief in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

I love that. There’s an interview that public relations did with Elders Oaks and Elder Wickman back in 2006. It’s a pretty lengthy thing. I will link to it under the description but here, if you’ll look. Just one particular thing I wanted to point out. This question. “One question that might be asked by somebody who is struggling with same-gender attraction is, ‘Is this something I’m stuck with forever? What bearing does this have on eternal life? If I can somehow make it through this life, when I appear on the other side, what will I be like?’ Gratefully, the answer is that same-gender attraction did not exist in the pre-earth life and neither will it exist in the next life. It is a circumstance that, for whatever reason or reasons, seems to apply right now in mortality, in this nanosecond of our eternal existence.”

“The good news for somebody who is struggling with same-gender attraction is this: Number one, it is that I’m not stuck with it forever. It’s just now. Admittedly, for each one of us, it’s hard to look beyond the ‘now’ sometimes, but nonetheless, if you see mortality as now, it’s only during this season. Two, if I can keep myself worthy here, if I can be true to gospel commandments, if I can keep my covenants that I have made, the blessings of exaltation and eternal life that Heavenly Father holds out to all of His children apply to me. Every blessing, including eternal marriage, is and will be mine in due course.”

Elder Oaks said, “Let me just add to that. There is no fullness of joy in the next life without a family unit, including a husband, a wife, and posterity. Further, men are that they might have joy. In the eternal perspective, same-gender activity will only bring sorrow and grief and the loss of eternal opportunities.”

And a couple of other quick quotes Elder Holland on a PBS special called The Mormons back in 2007. He said, “I do know that this will not be a post-mortal condition. It will not be a post-mortal difficulty.”

And then one more on that interview with Elder Oaks and Elder Wickman. Public affairs says, “A little earlier, Elder Oaks, you talked about the same standard of morality for heterosexuals and homosexuals. How would you address someone who said to you, ‘I understand it’s the same standard, but aren’t we asking a little more of someone who has same-gender attraction?’ Obviously, there are heterosexual people who won’t get married, but would you accept that they at least have hope that ‘Tomorrow I could meet the person of my dreams’? There’s always the hope that that could happen at any point in their life. Someone with same-gender attraction wouldn’t necessarily have that hope.”

Elder Wickman said, “There’s really no question that there is an anguish associated with the inability to marry in this life. We feel for someone that has that anguish. I feel for somebody that has that anguish. But it’s not limited to someone who has same-gender attraction. We live in a very self-absorbed age. I guess it’s naturally human to think about my own problems as someone greater than someone else’s. I think, when any one of us begins to think that way, it might be well to look beyond ourselves.”

“Who am I to say that I am more handicapped or suffering more than someone else? I happen to have a handicapped daughter. She’s a beautiful girl. She’ll be 27 next week. Her name is Courtney. Courtney will never marry in this life, yet she looks wistfully upon those who do. She will stand at the window of my office which overlooks the Salt Lake Temple and look at the brides and their new husbands as they’re having their pictures taken. She’s at once captivated by it and saddened because Courtney understands that that will not be her experience here. Courtney didn’t ask for the circumstances into which she was born in this life, any more than somebody with same-gender attraction did. “

“So there’s a lots of kinds of anguish people can have, even associated with just this matter of marriage. What we look forward to in the great promise of the gospel is that whatever our inclinations are here, whatever our shortcomings are, whatever the hindrances to our enjoying a fullness of joy here, we have the Lord’s assurance for every one of us that those in due course will be removed. We just need to remain faithful.”

But I do think it is important to acknowledge with empathy the incredible pain on a daily basis of not having that hope in this life. Then, I’ve heard some talking … boy, it’s gut wrenching to just think …They said, “I want you to think about you as a heterosexual to say that, in the next life, you’re going to be homosexual for eternity.” For some of them, there’s no hope even for the next life to it because, emotionally or mentally, because of their same gender attraction, it’s not a reward for them emotionally, if that makes sense.

So, oh! It’s just gut wrenching, but again it’s listening, it’s understanding, it’s empathy and showing love and saying, “This is one heck of a trial and challenge. It’s an Abrahamic trial.”

Okay. Now, let’s talk a minute about some of the why questions. So, this was a big, big study that was done, the biggest of its kind, a hundred times any other study that had been done in size on trying to find the “gay gene”, as they called it, trying to figure out why people are gay biologically, et cetera.

So, the headline here on pbs.org, this is August 29, 2019. The headline says, “There is no gay gene. There is no straight gene. Sexuality is just complex, study confirms.”

So, the article on PBS says, “There is no single gene responsible for a person being gay or lesbian. That’s the first thing you need to know about the largest genetic investigation of sexuality ever, which was published Thursday in Science. The study of nearly a half a million people closes the door on the debate around the existence of a so-called gay gene. In it’s stead, the report finds that human DNA cannot predict who is gay or heterosexual. Sexuality cannot be pinned down by biology, psychology, or life experiences, this study and others show, because human sexual attraction is decided by all of these factors.”

So, previous studies were small. They talked about this is a hundred times bigger than the previous studies. “Genes play a small and limited role in determining sexuality, explains about 8 to 25% of why people have same-sex relations.”

“Moreover, they talked about sexuality is polygenic, a proclivity towards trying new things. Polygenic traits can be strongly influenced by the environment, meaning there’s no clear winner in this nature versus nurture debate.”

So, I think it is probably wise the Church is saying, “We don’t know,” because we don’t know.

So the American Psychological Association statement. This is interesting. It says, “There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles. Most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.” That’s that key they got part of that, I believe.

Okay. I thought this was really interesting. I wanted to share this from Elder Bruce Hafen speaking at the Evergreen Conference in 2009. This is a group for, it used to be a part of North Star, now as a group for those with same-gender attraction to affiliate together. This is a great group actually that really emphasizes Church standards and those that want that and a support group essentially.

But when he spoke to them in 2009, he said an interesting thing. He says, “An LDS medical doctor who has worked closely with many people who deal with same-gender attraction recently said to me, ‘This is a truly difficult problem, but in its very difficulty is something that allows those who meet the challenge to become amazingly purified and sanctified and thus qualified for special comfort and revelation from the Savior, who knows how to succor all men and women in their infirmities.’ His words prompted a memory of Elder Maxwell’s insight: ‘If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are the most difficult to do.’ The apostle Paul wrote, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ Even same-gender attraction can work for your good if you love God.”

And then the current president of North Star International, which Evergreen’s a part of now, wrote a letter recently to the members. It was called Awake and Arise: A Call to Action. I just want to share just a couple of nuggets from that. I thought it was really good. His name is Bennett Borden.

So, here you go. “So, why was I born gay? If that’s what creates my unique perspectives and abilities, this balance of male and female energies, this thing that makes me me, then I’m okay with that because I know that the Lord has prepared a way of salvation for me. We are also truly agents of transformation in our society, in our families, in our country, in our communities, because when people encounter us, they encounter the very blade of the scythe that separates the wheat from the chaff. Knowing us requires more than it does the average person. My family has been greatly affected by my being gay and have largely loved and supported me. They became better and more Christlike people.”

“Others in my life were not that way. They were rejecting and cold and exclusive and I believe their souls were wounded because of that. I believe that is true of every person that we meet, that we are literally an agent of other people’s purification and sanctification, that either they step up or they step down because they encounter us.”

“Pray and ponder on these questions: Why are you here and why now? Why are you on this planet, in this place, at this time, with your totally unique characteristics, and how can those further the kingdom of God?”

Then, he said later in his letter, he said, “Our dear friend, Tom Christofferson, perhaps best articulates our challenge. ‘We often feel like we are caught between two truths. The truth of the gospel and the truth of us as LGBT LDS people. These sometimes feel like incongruent truths.'”

Then, he goes on to say, “We know, however, that truth cannot conflict. Rather, truth is circumscribed into one great whole. As such, if something does not seem to fit, it means that there must be a piece missing from our understanding. This is why our mission at North Star could be summed up as working to help our brothers and sisters find the understanding that creates an eternal bridge between these two seemingly incompatible truths. It is time for us to grasp this understanding and awake to our essential importance in building the kingdom of God and establishing Zion.”

Okay. Now, one of the co-founders of this North Star International is Ty Mansfield that was the co-author of this book. I loved what he shared in the 2014 conference. He said, “The difficulties we experience in this life are not always for us. There is a broader meta-narrative at play in all of this that ultimately subsumes all of our individual narratives; while many or most of our experiences are certainly for our own spiritual learnings, some or many of our experiences, gifts, strengths, weaknesses, et cetera, may very well be as much or more for the learning of others. Elder Maxwell once said, ‘Sometimes our trials or circumstances are not fully for us. We need to have patience and realize that there is a bigger story at play when God doesn’t change or transform us in the way that we desire. Patience helps us realize the while we may be ready to move on, having had enough of the particular learning experience, our continuing presence is often needed as part of the learning environment of others.'”

That’s pretty powerful. Okay and then just one last piece from his talk. In a separate part of his talk, he says, “Science and sexuality studies will never be sufficient to frame the eternal lenses through which we harness our human energies and guide our life choices. President Brigham Young once lamented, ‘People do not have the full vision before their minds, for if they did, I will tell you plainly and honestly, there’s not a trial that they would be called to pass through that they would not realize and acknowledge to be their greatest blessing.'”

Elder Maxwell in April ’85 conference said, “Just as the capacity to defer gratification is a sign of real maturity, likewise the willingness to wait for deferred explanation is a sign of real faith and of trust spread over time.”

Okay. So, let’s talk about some scriptures. When we talk about homosexuality, again, it’s about behavior. In these verses, I want to show you, I want you to remember that the focus is on the actual behavior and making that differential is very critical here. But I do want to show that it’s very clear that homosexual behavior was considered a sin, for there’s no question in these biblical verses.

So, we look through these real quick. Leviticus, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination,” and then, “If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.”

Well, some say, “Well, those are part of the law of Moses. What about the New Testament?” Well, here’s Romans 1, ” And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly.”

1 Corinthians, “Now, ye know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.”

1 Timothy, “The law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind.”

Okay, now we know about Sodom and Gomorrah. I won’t even talk about the story. You know the story but some will point to Ezekiel 16 and say, “The real sin of Sodom was lack of hospitality and a focus on pride and fullness of bread,” but there’s more to this.

So, this is Ezekiel 16:49. It does say, “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy,” but verse 50 says, “And they were haughty and committed abominations before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.” And remember, this is way before the law of Moses.

Now, to clarify it’s very strong in Jude 1:7 about Sodom and Gomorrah. It says, “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Again remember, it’s about behavior.

Now, some will say, “Hey. What about Christ? Christ didn’t talk about homosexuality.” Well, let me share this. This is from fairmormon.org under the title Did Christ Teach Against Same-Sex Relationships During His Mortal Ministry? Here you’ll see, “The Jewish world in which Jesus lived set a very strict moral standard, especially against the backdrop of the infamous promiscuity of the Greeks and Romans. Sexual relationships were absolutely forbidden outside of marriage. Christ validated these teachings, by teaching against adultery and fornication.” There’s some verses there. “And although he taught against judging the woman taken in adultery, he also confirmed that she should ‘sin no more.’ Adultery and fornication include all sexual relationships outside of marriage. In the Jewish custom, marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman. Jesus confirmed the definition of marriage.”

And there’s where he says, “For this cause shall a man leave a father and mother, and cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” He says, “Jesus defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, there is no way for two men or two women to have sex without fornicating. Jesus did not go through all of the different types of fornication. He simply taught against fornication.” 1 Corinthians.

“It is not surprising that Christ wouldn’t specify same-sex relationships. He didn’t specify other types of fornication, and the concept of homosexuality as a steady sexual orientation didn’t evolve until recently. He taught against fornication, and just because society starts using a word to describe a specific type of fornication, doesn’t mean that type is an exception to the rule.”

And speaking of the word fornication, I went to vocabulary.com. If you pull it up here on the screen, I’ll show you what the definition under that is.

It says, “Fornication is a word for sex, especially sex that takes place outside of marriage. This is an old-fashioned word that you can definitely spot in the bible and other holy books because it refers to sex that is considered wrong because it is not between a man and a wife.”

Then, here I just did a count on the appearance of that word “fornication” in the scriptures. So, you can see 5 times in the Old Testament, 40 in the New Testament, Book of Mormon 5 times, Doctrine and Covenants 5 times on there.

Okay. Now, what to do as a parent and then as members here. First of all, this book. If there’s one book I would recommend, it is this one, 10 times over. That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family. I would highly suggest and I’ll link to this. Deseret Book did an interview with Tom Christofferson and with his bishop and stake president when he came back to the Church. He was out of the Church for several decades with his partner and then came back to the Church and there was this long path and ended up becoming rebaptized. He felt like he couldn’t ethically be a member of the Church and go into this relationship with his partner. So, he asked to be excommunicated in the beginning.

Anyway, but it’s called That We May Be One. It’s very, very powerful, but he talks about his parents, how they treated him and his partner, fascinating, but he’s very careful to say, “This is not one size fits all. Every single family is different and they need to reach for the Spirit,” but I thought Tom is very powerful today for so many people. I thought, pointing back thinking of his parents and that bishop and that stake president and how they treated Tom. It’s such a great read and example I think to understand.

Okay. Now, if you go to the Church website mormonandgay.churchofjesuschrist.org, there’s some great stuff there but I really was impressed by this. In fact, this family used to be in my ward, the Millers, a fantastic family and there’s a fantastic son, a young man, Andy Miller. He’s great, but here’s his mom Tanya. She says this about her experience with Andy coming out and trying to go through the process but she says, “My son Andy identifies as a gay Mormon. It would be convenient if I could write about my experience of being Andy’s mom as though it were a story told with the wisdom of hindsight and the benefit of resolution. However, what follows are really just snapshots taken from an eternal story that is still unfolding. Regardless of the fact that my love for Andy didn’t change after he told me, I still felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me spiritually.” It sounds like the Matis mother, if you remember early in the video.

“I had a lot of questions and a lot of fears. My way of finding the peace and answers I sought was to go to the temple a lot. My experiences in the temple during that time galvanized my faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ. They also solidified my knowledge that Heavenly Father knows each of his children intimately and loves every one of us more deeply than we can comprehend. I often felt isolated and sad. I worried that my pride-based grief over not being able to produce the stereotypical perfect Mormon family interfered with my ability to receive guidance. Satan had a heyday with me. I felt like I was on an emotional and spiritual teeter-totter.”

“I know now that those experiences were vital to being able to find and share the peace that I eventually gained. One of the greatest gifts I received during that season of my life was the ability to live with, for lack of a better term, spiritual ambiguity. I don’t have all the answers to spiritual questions that surround same-sex attraction. I want answers, but I can’t have them now.” I just think that’s wonderful and I’m so grateful they’re sharing these things online. It’s a helpful resource to have.

President Eyring in the April 2019 conference said this. “My promise to you is one that a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once made to me. I said to him that because of choices some in our extended family had made, I doubted that we could be together in the world to come. He said, as well as I can remember, ‘You are worrying about the wrong problem. You just live worthy of the celestial kingdom, and the family arrangements will be more wonderful than you can imagine.'” Okay. That’s beautiful.

Okay and Elder Christofferson, listen to this careful wisdom from someone who’s lived this personally with his brother growing up with this, and it’s another reason to stay strong ourselves. He says, “In reality, the best way to help those we love, the best way to love them is to continue to put the Savior first. If we cast ourselves adrift from the Lord out of sympathy for loved ones who are suffering or distressed, then we lose the means by which we might have helped them. If, however, we remain firmly rooted in faith in Christ, we are in position both to receive and to offer divine help.”

“If (or I should say when) the moment comes that a beloved family member wants desperately to turn to the only true and lasting source of help, he or she will know whom to trust as a guide and a companion.”

Latter-day Saints Q&A:
Alright. Now, as far as members go, so this is something that’s for parents. So, these are members and I definitely need to start with back to the Matis’ because they have just … I’m going to play again at 1.25 speed. It’s just about maybe, I don’t know, three or four minutes of just some great advice. I love the way they word some of this and experiences they had and they helped so many people. Fred actually passed away recently there so they’re not doing these firesides anymore, but listen to some of these here. Then, I’ll pick it up.

FairMormon Interviewer:
Now, both of you have been involved in helping to bear the burdens of those who experienced same-gender feelings. You’ve talked about the firesides that you’ve held. You’ve wrote a book about your experience with Stuart. What are some of the kinds of things that other members of the Church can do to help bear the burdens of those that are struggling with same-gender feelings?

Fred Matis:
Love them, just to love them, really. It’s as simple as that. It’s not any more complicated than that.

Marilyn Matis:
I just think, when the day comes, when members of the Church come to an understanding, and that’s the key to the whole thing is an understanding. Once the members of the Church come to an understanding, the love and acceptance is there. It just isn’t something that has to be talked about or taught. It’s an atmosphere of love and acceptance. It all comes from understanding and I can see it happening. It’s been 11 and a half years since Stuart took his life, and there’s such a change, such a growing change of understanding that is taking place.

Marilyn Matis:
That being said, there still is a long way to go. There’s still people who do not understand it and remain saying unkind things, but for the most part, we can really see the beginning of things happening and the brethren have been so loving and so supportive.

FairMormon Interviewer:
What kind of advice would you give to just the rank-and-file members of the Church? How can they respond when they hear someone speaking negatively about people with same-gender feelings?

Marilyn Matis:
Speak up. If you hear someone saying something that is cruel, to inform them that it’s not learned, it’s not a choice, and to help them. It’s a one-on-one. It’s an individual thing. I have spoken up in Church and Relief Society. I have spoken up when I’ve gone visiting teaching or when home teachers come, our neighbors, our friends or whatever. I am very vocal. Fred is very vocal about showing love.

Fred Matis:
And it’s happening more and more now where people speak up. We had a young sister in a gospel doctrine class where it was brought up. She has a brother who has this challenge. She stood up and said specifically that– that people do not accept them because they think they’re wicked and they’re evil and they’re not. They’re good saints and good members of the Church and should be accepted as such.

Fred Matis:
So, more and more people are beginning to step up and not in a vindictive way or in a challenging way, but to let people know. Our ward is that way because we’re so vocal, but there are other wards, there are other people. It’s happening slowly but surely, and it needs to happen in a more rapid way.

Marilyn Matis:
I don’t think it’s happening as fast as the Savior wants it to happen.

Fred Matis:
As Elder Holland said.

Marilyn Matis:
But it is happening. It is happening and the brethren are helping it happen, but one of the things that what was said to us by a church leader, that you train bishops, you train stake presidents. Then, they’re released and then you have to train again and then they’re released and then you have to train again. Sometimes a bishop or a stake president is new and has not gone to the meetings to learn about this issue. So, maybe he doesn’t understand.

Fred Matis:
If two members of the Church have decided to be compatible and live the lifestyle but they decide to come to Church, that’s a question that you say, “What do you do?” The brethren say, “You accept them as members of the Church.”

FairMormon Interviewer:
Well, you don’t run them out any more than you run somebody out who is smoking.

Fred Matis:
No, no. You don’t agree with you agree with what they’re doing, but you reach out to them and you accept them and embrace them as members of the Church.

FairMormon Interviewer:
Right. Now, they may not qualify for temple, right?

Marilyn Matis:
No, no. They maybe not even qualify for membership in the Church.

Fred Matis:
Or sacrament.

FairMormon Interviewer:
Right, but you want to accept them into-

Marilyn Matis:
But them to church-

FairMormon Interviewer:
… the congregation.

Marilyn Matis:
… because we have known fellows who have left the Church and returned to church. If they were shushed-

Fred Matis:
Because that door was open.

Marilyn Matis:
Because the door was open, because if they were shushed out, they would still be gone, but they have been rebaptized because they felt the need. They left the Church. They were angry. This one fellow left the Church, was angry with the Church, felt the Church had abandoned him.

Marilyn Matis:
Then, after several years, felt this longing and this need in his life to come back to church. He came back and a bishop reached out with love and compassion. He’s been rebaptized. He is now active and he’s a gospel doctrine teacher.

Latter-day Saints Q&A:
And then Dennis, in the Is He Nuts? book, he says, “No matter your religion, faith, background, sexual orientation, or race, I challenge you to choose love. Open your heart and you open your mind. Loving and accepting all is a true Christlike attribute. If you don’t understand someone, ask them. If you have a friend who is dealing with depression and you don’t have the comprehension of that experience, ask them what it’s like to be depressed. If you don’t understand what it’s like to be LGBT, ask a person what it’s like to be that way. By listening instead of lecturing, you can gain knowledge and understanding, which will help you love them more.” I really like that.

And then a couple more quick ones. Eric Huntsman in the BYU devotional August 2018. Ah! I’ll put that as another great resource, top recommendation, but one little quick line. He says, “For not just our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers, but for many people, the choice of love can literally make the difference between life and death.”

Then, listen to Elder Ballard. This is the November 2017 BYU devotional. He said, “I want anyone who’s a member of the Church who is gay or lesbian to know I believe you have a place in the kingdom and I recognize that sometimes it may be difficult for you to see where you fit in the Lord’s Church but you do. We need to listen to and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing. Certainly, we must do better than we have done in the past, so that all members feel they have a spiritual home where their brothers and sisters love them and where they have a place to worship and serve the Lord.” That was pretty powerful.

Then, lastly, I wanted to share on this thing is Elder Holland wrote a great article in the Ensign called Helping Those Who Struggle With Same-Gender Attraction. Here are a few highlights. He talked about Nephi saying God loves all his children. He says, “Some things will have to wait for answers perhaps till the next life.”

Then, he says, “Unfortunately, some people believe they have all the answers now and declare their opinions far and wide. Fortunately, they don’t speak for the Church,” he says, “Although I believe members are eager to extend compassion of those different from themselves, it is human nature that when confronted with the situation we don’t understand, we tend to withdraw. This is particularly true of same-gender attraction. We have so little reliable information about it that those who wanting to help are left feeling a bit unsteady. Admitting my own inadequacy in this regard but wanting to assist, let me offer some suggestions to help those who have loved ones or friends who are attracted to same gender.”

Okay and then just the underlined parts here. He says, “Recognize the courage, recognize the trust in talking with you. It is imperative that these first steps be met with compassion. No one, including the one struggling, should try to shoulder blame. Recognize that marriage is not an all-purpose solution. Same-gender attractions run deep and trying to force a heterosexual relationship is not likely to change them. We are all thrilled when some who struggle with these feelings are able to marry, raise children, and achieve family happiness, but other attempts have resulted in broken hearts and broken homes. Above all, keep your lines of communication open. Pure love, generously expressed, can transform family ties, but love for a family member does not extend to condoning unrighteous behavior.”

Okay. Now, let’s talk about what if you conflict with the Church’s position on some of these things? The best thing, when I thought about this, was I just want to play a quick … I’m going to do this. It’s about a five minute segment or so from the video that I did on sustaining fallible leaders of the Church. I think just there’s a bunch of nuggets here that really applies to this topic specifically. So, let me play that.

Then, the one that’s really stuck with me over the years is this modern-day example from Dallin H. Oaks and President David O. McKay. It serves to illustrate a great point I want to make.

So, decades ago when the US … Now, this was published in the Interpreter journal in 2015. Duane Boyce wrote this. “Decades ago, when the US Supreme Court first ruled against prayer in public schools, President David O. McKay publicly criticized the ruling; he considered it to be leading the country down the road to atheism.”

“Dallin Oaks, on the other hand, who was a law professor at the time, saw a good reason for the court’s decision in the case before it and worried that criticism might be based on incomplete information about the full rationale and intent of the ruling.”

“Brother Oaks began organizing his thoughts on paper, reviewing the court’s reasoning and showing its application to secular influences in the public schools as well as to religious ones.”

“Soon after completing this document, he met President Henry D. Moyle of the First Presidency at a Church function in Chicago. When President Moyle asked him about his work, Brother Oaks gave him a copy of this writing. President Moyle took an interest in it, and upon returning to Salt Lake City, shared it with President McKay.”

“Interestingly, after reading Brother Oaks’ thoughtful treatment, President McKay directed that it be published in the Improvement Era. As Brother Oaks did not give up his right to think, he felt dissonance between his own judgment and the public expression of the prophet. He wondered about the issue and prayerfully brought to bear his own best thinking on the relevant questions.”

“Significantly, however, he did not publish a critical article or give a disapproving speech. Instead, he expressed his feelings respectfully and privately (remember that it was President McKay who directed that it be published), with no motivation other than to help and in the spirit of true discipleship.”

“The outcome of the story is also instructive.” This is interesting. “Some 30 years later, now one of the Twelve himself, Elder Oaks wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal on the subject of school prayer. He said, ‘When the Supreme Court decided the original school prayer case in 1962, I thought the case was correctly decided. What I did not foresee, but what was sensed by people whose vision was far greater than mine, was that this decision was set in motion a chain of legal and public and educational actions that would bring us to the current circumstances in which we must reaffirm and even contend for religious liberty.’ While the Court’s decision was probably the correct one on the matter before it at the time, the way the majority opinion was written set in motion the chain of events that President McKay had originally feared.”

“In recognition of the prophetic nature of President McKay’s warning, Elder Oaks wrote: ‘My worldly wisdom in writing approvingly of the school prayer case on the facts of the decision was just a small footnote in history compared with the vision of a prophet who saw and described the pernicious effects of that decision in the years to come. It was’, he says, ‘a powerful learning experience on the folly of trying to understand prophetic vision in terms of worldly wisdom.'”

This brings me to the thought of we already sustained them, I should say, as seers, seers, and they can see. Remember, they’re watchman on the tower. We are not on the tower. We might be winning a battle, but losing a war that they can see and the bigger picture of that.

So, I think it’s just a very helpful thing to remember this experience. Then, I want to share too that the Spirit can comfort and help us through some of these things.

But I also like some of these examples from Elder Oaks. I’ve had them on the screen in that little box: Politely, privately, respectfully, pure motives, prayerfully, best thinking, patience, and faith. I would say that one of the biggest things is prayer. Pray. Pray for our leaders that they will have the Spirit to guide them and direct them, that they will seek this revelation. This is particularly if you feel in conflict on something. Pray for the body of the saints.

I’m about to show you that the body of the saints matters, too. The Lord can only move as the body of the saints moves, so be aware of that, too, and pray for yourself, that you will have maybe experience like Lorena Larson or that you’ll have the patience to endure, that you’ll sustain in that sense of that suffering and the enduring aspect of it.

Then you’ll have that experience to add with the comfort in the meantime out there and then to be patient. The Church might change, the body of the Church, the leaders, you might change there, but to be patient and be faithful in the meantime there.

So, now about the saints themselves. Listen to what prophet Joseph said. It’s fascinating here. He said, “I tried for a number of years to get the minds of the saints prepared to receive the things of God, but we frequently see some of them, after suffering all they have for the work of God, will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions. They cannot stand the fire at all.”

And listen to what he said about the great vision of the kingdoms of glory described in section 76. “I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have of the glories of the kingdoms manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive them.”

And here’s George Q. Cannon even a more clarifying statement. He says, “There are many things that the leading men of this Church can see and understand that they cannot impart to the people nor ask the people to do. Why? Because they know that the people would not come up to the requirement and that therefore they would be disobedient. Better to give them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, than to give them something that they could not receive and that they would rebel against. That is the manner in which the Lord deals with His children, and it is the manner in which wise men, inspired of the Lord, deal with their fellow men. Speaking as a First Presidency, if we could have our way, there are many changes that we would make; but you know how difficult it is to have people see alike upon many points.”

And the last thing on this is the Samuel principle that President Vincent talked about limiting things. I actually shared this in the priesthood ban video as one of the possible possibilities that could have been involved in that. I will link this on the in-screen.

This is what he said. “If you see some individuals in the Church doing things which disturb you, or you feel the Church is not doing things the way you think they could or should be done, the following principles might be helpful. God has to work through mortals of varying degrees of spiritual progress. Sometimes he temporarily grants to men their unwise requests in order that they might learn from their own sad experiences. Some refer to this as the ‘Samuel principle.’ The children of Israel wanted a king, like all the nations. The prophet Samuel was displeased and prayed to the Lord about it. The Lord responded by saying to Samuel, ‘They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.’ The Lord told Samuel to warn the people of the consequences if they had a king.”

“Samuel gave them the warning, but they still insisted on their king. So God gave them a king and let them suffer. They learned the hard way. God wanted it to be otherwise, but within certain bounds he grants unto men according to their desires.”

Okay, so I hope you found that helpful and saw the insights for this topic specifically with that. I love this. In fact, I shared this at the very end of that video. This was Elder Christofferson. He says, “The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of members, whether the Brethren in voicing their views are moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest.”

I’ll talk about this a little bit in a minute about the policy changes recently. Also, sustaining in all patience and faith, wherefore, this is in D&C 21, “Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shall give heed unto in all his words”, the prophet’s, and he says, “For his word ye shall receive from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” It’s like that story with Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and if not, but if not, and holding out for the patience and faith.

So, here’s a quick story. I’m just going to let you pause the screen if you like to see it from Elder Hafen about this waiting on the Lord that he experienced. That was just beautiful the way that he put this, but it’s a little long. I’ll let you just pause and read it if you’d like to, his experience with that.

Then, the other is that, and I’m going to let you just read these quotes yourself, but basically it’s about if you receive personal revelation and comfort that can come to you, but it’s not for the Church. There’s this order in the Church. You can kind of think of it as revelation stewardship there and that revelation also is very private.

So, here are three prophets talking about this very principle. I think it’s very helpful to see these there, so I’ll let you pause the screen if you’d like to read them. Let me just read the last one at least. “If a man comes among the Latter-day Saints professing to have received a vision or a revelation or a remarkable dream, and the Lord has given him such, he should keep it to himself. The Lord will give His revelations in the proper way to the one who is appointed to receive and dispense the word of God to the members of the Church”, as a whole.

So, alright. Now, as far as the same-sex marriage, let’s look first at some scriptures. If you look at the screen on here I’m just going to read the underlined, the beginning, male and female in Genesis. God created male and female and told him to multiply. It has to be a male and female to do that. Leaves his father and his mother, cleaves unto his wife. So, in the beginning, God married them. That’s how it was set up in the beginning.

Matthew 19, “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

1 Corinthians, “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord.”

And then some scriptures there. The Book of Mormon, Jacob 2 there, D&C 132, “If a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, sealed unto them they go onto exaltation, a continuation of the seeds forever and ever, all power, and angels are subject unto them.”

Then, D&C 131, “Celestial glory there are three heavens. And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this new and everlasting covenant of marriage. If he does not, he cannot have an increase.”

Now, on the Gospel Topics Essay, there’s one on same-sex marriage there. I’m not going to read this whole thing but here are the key nuggets. The central teachings we know the Church’s stance on this. And look at this bullet point number two. “The changes in the civil law do not, indeed cannot, change the moral law that God has established.” And then respect on both sides.

Then, this is interesting. Look at the second to last one. “We affirm that those who avail themselves of the laws or court ruling authorizing same-sex marriage should not be treated disrespectfully. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to love and treat all people with kindness and civility, even when we disagree,” on there.

So, then, if you flip over, now some say, “Well, is the Church going to change? Is the Church is going to change on this?” We talked about praying for ourselves, for the body of the saints and for the leaders to have more light and knowledge. There’s a lot of things probably that will come with policy changes and things over the years that will continue to come up on this, and praying for all of us will be key.

This is interesting on the Mormon and Gay website, it does say, “Central to God’s plan, the doctrine of marriage between a man and woman is an integral teaching in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and will not change. As a doctrinal principle, based on the scriptures, the Church affirms that marriage between a man and a woman is essential to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of his children. Sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife. Any other sexual relations are sinful and undermine the divinely created institution of the family.”

Latter-day Saints Q&A:
Okay. Now, I want to just share a quick thing, an interview that happened with Elder Christofferson, just a brief little bit here. I thought it’d be very helpful for people who didn’t know, again, there’s this kind of almost civil war in the Church on some of these topics. I’m seeing this, too, with Book of Mormon geography. I’m doing a video on evidences of that and there’s a civil war happening on some of the Book of Mormon lands geography concepts. I’ll talk about that in this upcoming video, but I’m sure the devil’s just having a heyday laughing about, “Yeah. This is great. Get them fighting with each other,” but, again, there’s high opinions on same-sex marriage and different topics. I want you to hear Elder Christofferson saying, “It’s okay.”

Interviewer:
I know that in one of the temple recommend interview questions, it asks, “Do you agree with elements that are against the Church?” I guess, I mean, could it be interpreted that if people supported gay marriage, that would be agreeing with something that was against the Church?

Elder Christofferson:
Well, it’s not do you agree with a person’s position or organization’s position, it’s are you supporting organizations that promote opposition or positions in opposition to the Church?

Interviewer:
So, would supporting gay marriage threatens somebody’s membership in the Church if they went out, say on Facebook or Twitter and actively advocated for it?

Elder Christofferson:
No. That’s not an organized effort to attack our effort or attack our functioning as a Church, if you will.

Interviewer:
So, members can hold those beliefs even though they’re different from what you teach at the pulpit?

Elder Christofferson:
Yes, and our approach in all of this, as Joseph Smith said, is persuasion. He said, “You can’t use the priesthood and the authority of the church to dictate. You can’t compel. You can’t coerce. It has to be gentleness, persuasion, love unfeigned, as the words are in the scripture.”

Interviewer:
You said we’ve seen rhetoric from Church leaders change or soften over time. Is it possible, would you say to those members who wonder is it possible, would the Church ever one day accept monogamous same-sex marriage or move further beyond the position that you’re currently at?

Elder Christofferson:
I don’t think so because that’s such a fundamental aspect of what we see is the purpose of life. You know, we talk about the plan of salvation, as we call it, and take into account the premortal existence, this current existence, and what comes hereafter. Marriage between a man and a woman, the family that grows out of that, all of that is so fundamental to what has happened, what needs to happen here, and what comes hereafter, that without it, it falls apart. So, I don’t think we can take away the cornerstone without everything else coming down.

Interviewer:
Now, you say you don’t think. Are you leaving any room at all for …

Elder Christofferson:
No.

Interviewer:
No room.

Latter-day Saints Q&A:
So, I hope you got something out of that. I want make sure it’s clear that the Church is making a very strong stance of this. You can oppose that stance there and still have a temple recommend, but they’re clear about this is a very dangerous thing in the sense of not advocating in a sense of having an organized effort to attack the Church or go against it and protest in a very organized way.

So, I hope that makes sense, but it’s a key thing to understand what the Church’s position is and they’re saying they’re not going to change. So, just to be aware of that, but I do think it’s interesting to see Elder Christofferson’s words to help people understand.

Also, I think about Zion, one heart and one mind, trying to agree and to disagree and to try and love each other and try and work through these things and understand them.

I will tell you there’s this book called Common Ground, Different Opinions: Latter-day Saints and Contemporary Issues. It’s a book of debate between active, faithful members of the Church on these different things.

So, on this topic, I will tell you some of the things here and some others that where this is framed. So, some of the things that they’ll say, “Hey, if it’s not a choice.” We’re saying, “It’s not a choice and they’re willing to commit to a relationship, shouldn’t we allow them to have sexual relations within the bounds of a same-sex marriage?”

The problem is the Law of Chastity. How does that get around the Law of Chastity? All those scriptures that we read? So, it’s a challenge but also the proclamation on the family. Someone point to, a thing that was struck by Boyd K. Packer in his talk, he mentioned in 2010, he called the proclamation on the family rose to the level of a revelation, he said. The next week that was stricken from the written record on there.

So, they’ll point to that and say, “Well, maybe it’s not revelation per se,” but we need to be careful. This is being taught and the brethren are teaching this every conference basically. So, I think we need to be very careful the way that we’re maybe talking about the proclamation on the family.

Okay and then a couple of other things and when you read this, sometimes it’s like, “Whoa! These are things that are hard to …” You’ve never thought of these kind of things, but they’ll talk about we don’t understand what spirit birth is. God organized intelligences and that was spirit birth. We don’t understand, and is that the same as a man and woman on earth the way that we think of sexual relations to create a child? Again, these are people trying to make arguments of different ways to view this. I’m just telling you what some of the arguments are.

The last one is the sealing power that we’ve grown in our understanding of this. If you recall the big change that Wilford Woodruff made on the law of adoption and these dynastic sealing to Church leaders that were happening until 1894. There were 13,000 sealing transfers that were made as he received this revelation. No. It was to go back to your parents and be sealed to your parents. It didn’t matter if they weren’t members of the Church. That was the big problem back then, the way they understood it in the beginning and thought of it. The Lord allowed it to happen and unfold step by step, but he also said there’s a lot we don’t understand and will probably yet will be revealed on these things. So, some hold out thoughts there, too.

So, again, but I think it’s helpful to understand some of these things and maybe where they’re coming from, again, trying to have more civilized discussions about these things and agreeing to disagree maybe, but just to understand.

Now, this on the defense of the family and of traditional marriage, there are a couple things that Kent Brooks said. I’ve got to share this. I thought that, “Wow! This is really fascinating.” This was somebody who was the founder of the sociology department at Harvard.

He conducted a sociological study of major civilizations of the world, their rise and fall. “He concluded that common threads in the declining demise of each one were deviations in the sexual and marital practices of their people.” Very interesting.

So, he goes on to say, “Concerned for the future of our own civilization, he warned if more and more individuals are brought up in the sex-saturated atmosphere that now exists, then without deep internalization of religious, moral, and legal norms of behavior, they will become rudderless boats controlled only by the winds of their environment. He noted that the most decisive factor in the survival and well-being of a society is marriage, and change in marriage behavior, any increase in sexual promiscuity and illicit sexual relations is pregnant with momentous consequences that would drastically affect the lives of millions, deeply disturb the community, and decisively influence the future of society. In the long run, such a society would be increasingly composed of self-centered egoists, incapable of acting altruistically and of being true, good neighbors.”

Now remember who it was that was saying this. This is a Harvard professor, a founder of the sociology department. Elder Maxwell said, “Take away basic moral standards and observe how quickly tolerance changes into permissiveness. Take away regard for the Seventh Commandment, and behold the current celebration of sex, the secular religion with its own liturgy of lusts and supporting music, its theology focus on self, its hereafter is now, its chief ritual sensation, though ironically it finally desensitizes its obsessed adherents who become past feeling.”

Then, a few statistics that he shares in his book. He says, “In a study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2001, it was found that 66% of first marriages for heterosexual couples lasted more than 10 years, while 50% of them remained intact for 20 years or longer. Similar results were found in a study commissioned by the US Census Bureau in 2002. In comparison, the 2003-2004 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census surveyed the lifestyles of 7,682 homosexuals. Of those who reported being in a current relationship, only 15% had been in a relationship for more than 12 years. Only 5% had remained a couple for 20 years.” Remember that was 50% for the heterosexual, 10 times more. So, kind of interesting.

Then, here’s a fidelity comparison he did. He says, “Numerous studies have shown the majority of married husbands and wives remain faithful to their marital vows. For example, a study published in 1997 found that 77% of married men and 88% of married women had remained faithful to their partners. Similarly, in a national survey conducted and published by the University of Chicago, 75% of husbands and 85% of wives reported they had maintained complete fidelity to their spouses. In contrast, studies have shown significant patterns of promiscuity among homosexual partners. One study found that male homosexuals who reported being committed to a steady companion still had an average of eight sexual partners each year. Another study found that 43% of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners in their lifetimes. 28% reported having 1,000 or more sex partners.”

Then, the last thing, “Studies have shown”, parenting studies, “have repeatedly shown the most favorable environment in which to raise children is in a home with both mother and father who love and are committed to each other.” He references six different studies.

David Popenoe wrote, “The burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender differentiated parenting is important for human development, and that the contribution of fathers to child rearing is unique and irreplaceable … the complementarity of male and female parenting styles is striking and of enormous importance to a child’s overall development.”

Then, Elder Oaks, a couple of last quick things here. He says, “Let’s not forget that for thousands of years the institution of marriage has been between a man and a woman. Until quite recently, there has been no such thing as a marriage between persons of the same gender. Suddenly, we are faced with the claim that thousands of years of human experience should be set aside because we should not discriminate in relation to the institution of marriage. When that claim is made, the burden of proving that this step will not undo the wisdom and stability of millennia of experience lies on those who would make the change. Yet the question is asked and the matter is put forward as if those who believe in marriage between a man and woman have the burden of proving that it should not be extended to some other set of conditions.” We may not really know the impact societally for decades and decades, maybe generations, but anyway, interesting.

Okay. Last part of this section was from fairmormon.org. I thought this kind of blew my mind. In fact, it kind of scared me to think of, again, remember the seers that we talked about? The seers. The seers, watchman on the tower. Maybe things that could be coming and that might be … I know some people are critical and very upset with the Church’s vigorous defense of traditional marriage, but listen to this. “While many same-sex marriage supporters do not wish to harm those who follow the law of chastity, many major organizations have actively sought to take away rights from those people who do not live up to the new standard. For example, the Human Rights Campaign has actively opposed anti-discrimination employment rights for gay people who do not have gay sex. It is ironic that while the Church has been actively lobbying to extend employment rights for all LGBT people, the Human Rights Campaign is working and succeeded in taking away those exact same rights from LGBT people who live Church standards. By the Supreme Court’s encoding this new standard into law, people with same-sex attraction who do not live up to the standard can be discriminated against in the private sector.”

“For example,” this is crazy, “Apple recently removed an app from its iTunes collection because the organization who put it up was composed of gay Christians who lived the law of chastity. A spokesperson for Apple explained that having an app for gay people who live the law of chastity violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people. There’s a difference between seeking for the right to live an alternative lifestyle and taking away rights from those who do not choose your lifestyle because you find it offensive.”

This may be the start of many things to come. So, again the seers and maybe there’s a lot more. Just like Elder Oak said, “Hey, I won the battle, but lost the war. I didn’t see maybe what President McKay could see what was going to happen decades later.” We were going to lose all this religious freedom, and this may be some of the things coming.

Okay. Let’s talk about the policy reversal, the LGBT policy recently. So, this, in November 2015, the policy was rolled out and reversed three and a half years later. Some are critical because President Nelson talked about that it was revelation both times. How could this be?

So, let’s talk about this. This came on the back of, as soon as the Supreme Court announced that same-sex marriage was legal in the United States, and they felt like, I think, maybe a statement needed to be made. They considered if somebody was seduced to go into same-sex marriage that they would be considered going against Church policy to the point of it being apostasy essentially. Then, they used the polygamous marriage language for the children to not cause conflict in the family.

So, I’m going to talk about this a little bit as I want to share President Nelson’s words that he gave at a devotional in September 2019 down at BYU. He said, “Though we of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve cannot change the laws of God, we do have the charge to build up the Church and regulate all the affairs of the same in all nations. Thus, we can adjust policy when the Lord directs us to do so. You have recently seen such examples. Because the Restoration is ongoing, policy changes will likely and surely continue. Consider the policy announced in November 2015 relating to the advisability of baptism for the children of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents. Our concern then, and one we discussed at length and prayed about fervently over a long period of time, was to find a way to reduce friction between gay or lesbian parents and their children. Because parents are the primary exemplars for the children, we did not want to put young children in the position of having to choose between beliefs and behavior they learned at home and what they were taught at church. We wanted to facilitate harmony in the home and avoid pitting children and parents against each other.”

“Thus, in 2015, the policy was made to assist children and their parents in the circumstance, namely that children being raised by LGBT parents would not automatically be eligible for baptism at age eight. Exceptions to this policy would require First Presidency approval.”

So, it could still happen but it was to go through the First Presidency, which, again, there’s decisions made at the local level. They’re just saying, “We want it to be harmonized,” and maybe they wanted to also see what this was going to look like as part of additional revelation they may have received. Talk about that in a minute.

Okay. “The First Presidency and Twelve have continued to seek the Lord’s guidance and to plead with Him in behalf of His children who were affected. We knew that this policy created concern and confusion for some and heartache for others that grieved us. Whenever the sons and daughters of God weep, for whatever reason, we weep. So, our supplications to the Lord continued.”

Then, he went and said as these things came in, he says, “Nearly every case where the LGBT parents agreed to teach the children about and be supportive of the covenant of baptism, the requested exception was granted. As a result of our continued supplication, we recently felt directed to adjust the policy such that the baptism may be authorized by bishops without First Presidency approval, if the custodial parents request the baptism and understand that a child will be taught about sacred covenants to be made at baptism.”

Then, he goes on. If you look at the underlined, “Finally, we also clarified that homosexual immorality would be treated in the eyes of the Church in the same manner as heterosexual immorality,” so still, it was a serious sin but not apostasy or the level of apostasy. “Though it may have not have look this way to some, the 2015 and 2019 policy adjustments on this matter were both motivated by love– the love of our Heavenly Father for His children and the love of the Brethren for those whom we serve.”

Then, one last part of that and then I’m going to share a couple thoughts. He said, “Sometimes, we as leaders are criticized for holding firms of the laws of God, defending the Savior’s doctrine, and resisting the social pressures of our day. In doing so, sometimes we are accused of being uncaring as we teach the Father’s requirements for exaltation in the celestial kingdom. But wouldn’t it be far more uncaring for us to not tell the truth, not to teach what God has revealed? It is precisely because we do care deeply about all of God’s children that we proclaim His truth.” And then he said, “Seek earnestly a confirmation from the Spirit that what I have told you is true and is from the Lord.”

So, a couple of quick thoughts on this, is revelation works the same for us individually as it does for the Brethren, the top leadership of the Church. Line upon line, and also to experience. I love the talk, if you remember the story Elder Holland told about the fork in the road and this son and dad feel like they’re supposed to go this one way and they go for a while and it becomes a dead end. The son asks the dad, “Dad, why did we have the feeling to go this way?” The dad said, “Probably so we know that it was definitely not that way. Now we know the other way is the right way.” Revelation can work that way, too, in understanding.

Also, remember the whole body of the Church. Remember those quotes we read before? I can tell you, there was a lot of very active faithful members of the Church that this was very painful, very unsettling, the feeling there. And so, maybe again, the Holy Ghost was moving upon the whole Church like Elder Christofferson said, that in due time it would be made known there as a whole body of the Church. Also, maybe it could be Elder Gong’s in there. His son was gay. Maybe there’s also additional insights and experiences among the Brethren in helping to study it out here. Maybe this also softened the hearts of the leaders, maybe of the members, going through this experience there. So, there’s lots of ways to look at this there.

Okay. Last quick things. The priesthood ban comparison that people will make. “Hey, this is just like the priesthood ban. It’s going to be reversed in time.” I just want to share the way this was put was so well, I think, on the FairMormon blog, Gregory Smith wrote a piece. This is actually a comment that I saw him put in the author’s comment section. I’ll just share it straight up how he said it. I thought it was very well put. He says, “It was always anticipated that the priesthood ban would be lifted at some point, if only in the Millennial years, even by Brigham Young. A few prophets before President Kimball expressed the view that it could change if the Lord commanded.”

I did a video talking about this in depth, but he says, “This is quite different from the same-sex acts prohibition, which many have said emphatically will not and cannot change. I think members who communicate either explicitly or implicitly to gay members that the doctrine will eventually change in fact do an unwittingly-cruel disservice. To say something will come, and then to never have it come, promotes frustration and anger and search for someone or some group to blame because they’re holding back what is supposed to happen.”

“Such a stance also tends to communicate the idea that this isn’t really a big deal. Get married as a same-sex couple. At the worst, you’ll simply be ahead of the curve. Doing that will someday soon, they hope, be endorsed or celebrated by the Church. Thus, if it’s sin at all, it isn’t much of one. That message has obvious downsides if same-sex acts simply cannot be consistent with gospel covenants.”

“Plus, the priesthood ban always stuck out as an aberration, hence the appeal to premortal factors to explain what on its face seemed incredibly unjust. Putting same-sex marriage into the doctrine of the Church, however, would destroy a great deal of how we see the premortal, mortal, and postmortal worlds.”

So, there it is, but again, if you struggle with this it’s the “but if not” kind of thing. Then, to pray. Pray that your own heart will soften or that if there is further light and knowledge that needs to be had by the body of the saints or by the leaders, again, pray. But I think it is important to still say, “Okay, but if not, we will continue faithful here.”

Okay. Tom Christofferson and so the last couple of things. He said, “Where do we go from here?” This was a great essay. I’ll link to it in the Faith Matters website, faithmatters.org under the Big Questions. He wrote a piece, A Place for Our Fellow Saints, Tom Christofferson. He said, “Individuals have not chosen their attractions, but they do choose how they will respond to all of the opportunities and challenges in their lives, including this one. Some will choose to date and marry someone of the same gender, and form families with two moms or two dads. Some will choose to date and marry someone of the opposite gender, and form families with a mom and a dad. Some will choose to remain celibate, and as such, may have time and resources to bless the lives of many families. There are significant costs and benefits to the individual in any choice she or he makes, and choosing one option precludes choosing one of the others, at least for a period of time. Individuals will make their choices guided by their sense of what will be best for their emotional, social and spiritual health, seeking confirmation of the Spirit.”

“How, then, should family members and other loved ones, and fellow saints respond to these individual choices? The answer, of course, is with love. A question I am often asked concerns a point at which acceptance becomes condoning another’s actions. My feeling is that we show the depth and sincerity of our beliefs through our own actions, how we live our lives every day, not in the pronouncements we make on how another person should live their life. Showing empathy and support for another is not a compromise of moral values.”

And then he finishes by saying, “When as parents, leaders or friends, we are entrusted by individuals who feel their best course is to pursue a same-sex relationship, I hope we will encourage them to look at their decision not as ‘either a relationship/or the Church,’ but rather as a time to ponder what is good, better and best. Even when one feels he or she cannot obey all commandments, they can focus on aligning lives and conduct with eternal principles in every way available in the circumstances.”

“For example, committing to a standard of chastity that includes abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward while pursuing or creating a same-sex relationship is a far, far better choice than abandoning all the practices that generations have proven create an atmosphere of trust, confidence, health, and strength in a home. Participation in church services and activities needn’t be an either/or choice. We want all of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, wherever they may be in their lives, to join us in chapels, in service projects, in all the ways we endeavor to be a force for good in the world. Our love for LGBTQ brothers and sisters is not contingent on their choices. We are all imperfectly seeking to become like Jesus. All of us can choose each day to do the best that our circumstances allow, to follow Him, to learn to love what He loves, and to love as He loves.”

Okay. I wanted to finish. This is the last slide. I love this. I think it’s a great one to finish on. Elder Renlund put this on his Facebook page as a post. He says, “We may on occasion find ourselves in uncomfortable situations where we differ in doctrine with our acquaintances, friends, and family members. But the doctrine can never be used to justify treating others with anything less than respect and dignity. We can stand firm in our beliefs and have a loving relationship with those who hold differing opinions. It is never an either-or choice. We love and live our doctrine, and we love those who do not live it. We need not create false dichotomies. The late Elder Marvin J. Ashton shared this insight from an inspired leader: ‘The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people.'”

Sorry this is record-long length, but it is the toughest situation in some ways I think we’re facing today as a Church. So, it probably should be maybe one of the longest. So, hope you got something out of the video. Subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Books:

That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith & Family by Tom Christofferson

In Quiet Desperation by Fred & Marilyn Matis & Ty Mansfield

Is He Nuts?: Why a Gay Man Would Become a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ by Dennis Schleicher

Common Ground, Different Opinions: Latter-day Saints and Contemporary Issues by many authors

Videos:

Faircast interview with Fred & Marilyn Matis (co-authors of In Quiet Desperation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIHyV…

Deseret Book: That We May Be One Roundtable Discussion with Tom Christofferson, along with his past Bishop & Stake President: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkuwY…

Faith Matters Foundation: Interview of Tom Christofferson by Terryl Givens; A Gay Mormon’s Approach to Faith, Family, & Discipleship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPQmR…

Faith Matters Foundation: Discussion on LGBTQ Policy Reversal with Bill Turnbull, Patrick Mason & Tom Christofferson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qMXz…

Ty Mansfield – 2014 North Star International Conference, North Star Mission & The Language of Eternity — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn_87…

Ganel lyn Condie – Keynote address at 2019 North Star International Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qMXz…

North Star International YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/NorthSta…

Elder Christofferson TV interview, from which clip came shared in this video: https://kutv.com/news/local/lds-apostle-explains-church39s-evolution-on-lgbt-issues-says-members39-politics-may-differ-from-doctrine

Latter-day Saints Q&A Video on Sustaining Fallible Prophets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBEh2…

Websites/Articles:

mormonandgay.churchofjesuschrist.org https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/topics/gay/

Church gospel topics essay on same sex attraction: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Church gospel topics essay on same sex marriage: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Fairmormon link to numerous sub-topics: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

Fairmormon link to numerous sub-topics related to the Proclamation on the Family: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

Fairmormon Q&A on Receiving Revelation that Contradicts the Prophet: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Qu…

North Star President Letter to Members – Awake & Arise: A Call to Action: https://static1.squarespace.com/stati…

President Nelson’s address at BYU in Sept 2019: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders…

Elder Holland’s Ensign Article on how to Help those struggling with Same-Sex Attraction: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Fairmormon Essay by Gregory Smith on LBGT Policy Reversal: https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2019/…

PBS Article mentioned in the video on the largest study ever done on science behind the ‘gay gene’: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/…

Faith Matters Foundation article by Tom Christofferson, A Place For Our Fellow Saints: https://faithmatters.org/a-place-for-…

Faith Matters Foundation article with a number of links – What about our LGBT brothers and sisters? https://faithmatters.org/big-question…

Church Public Affairs interview with Elder Oaks and Elder Wickman on same-gender attraction: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist….

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 2 Comments

Old Testament Issues That Unnecessarily Challenge Faith

This video reviews many of the top Bible stories from the Old Testament that are used to ridicule or attack Christianity. The ‘new atheists’ are called ‘new’, because the new approach is to view religion as an enemy that needs to be destroyed. Christianity is one of their big targets, and certain stories from the Old Testament in the Bible are used as one of their biggest weapons. Challenges of faith can arise from these attacks, which don’t need to happen with a greater understanding of the text, including where it came from, when and why it was written, and the assumptions we might be bringing to these stories which might need re-evaluating, without giving up any of the messages or doctrine being taught.

So this video I want to talk about challenges that come from the Bible. And really, it’s addressing the new atheists, if you’ve heard of the new atheists, you’ve heard the best selling books such as The God Delusion from Richard Dawkins, or God is Not Great. And the approach and what makes it different than the old atheists, is they’re looking for converts. They’re aggressively pursuing an aggressive campaign against religion. They think religion’s evil. And their prime target? Christians. And their best tool? The Bible.

So that’s why I thought this would be a good video to do. It’s their best ammunition. They target things in the Bible that can be challenged scientifically, or maybe make God look like a moral monster. In fact, here’s a book, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God, for example, addressing some of these things.

So I want to talk about, in the video, the Creation, Adam and Eve, the flood, the Tower of Babel, the Exodus story, and then Jonah. And at the end I want to talk specifically, finish sharing about some possible ways of really approaching scripture maybe in a way that we haven’t done as much in the past. I’m going to use the six days of Creation as an example, where the Israelites meant a 24 hour day. Now we read that, and the Hebrew word can be interpreted differently, but they you actually, it looks like, were very strategically using in a phraseology of the 24 hour day period, and let’s talk about why. So that’ll be a great way to conclude here as well.

So let’s jump into this. Let’s lead with a quote from Brigham Young, “Do you read the scriptures, my brothers and sisters, as though you were writing them a 1000, 2000, or 5000 years ago? Do you read them as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? If you do not feel thus, it is your privilege to do so, that you may be as familiar with the spirit and meaning of the written word of God as you are with your daily walk and conversation.”

Okay, then he talks about learning line upon line. He says, “We are not capacitated to throw off in one day all our traditions, and our prepossessed feelings and notions, but we have to do it little by little. It is a gradual process, advancing from one step to another. And as we lay off our false traditions and foolish notions, we receive more and more light, and thus we grow in grace. And if we continue to grow we shall be prepared eventually to receive the Son of Man, and that is what we are after.”

We have so much learning and discovery that has taken place, scholarly, that we understand today that wasn’t understood a century ago. We often view the Bible, especially these early books, as the first five books of Moses. They may have been under Moses or traditionally coming from Moses, or authority from Moses in some ways, but it’s not like there was this fax machine to Moses, word for word, and that’s how it went out. And often that’s how it’s been received over the years. That terminology is how we essentially got the Old Testament, specifically the first five books, Genesis being critical.

Authoring the Old Testament, this was the first that was written to a Latter-day Saint audience, by David Bokovoy. A great read there. But just understanding that the Old Testament stories were written, many of these some thousands of years after they occurred, most likely between 6th and 9th century BC, maybe four different accounts. And these were compiled just like Mormon compiled the Book of Mormon, in a sense. We don’t know who these compilers were, but during the Babylonian captivity. And in Babylon, they had a lot of exposure to many of these other traditional stories and things found in Babylon. So there’s just a lot of interesting aspects that can be done from a scholarly thing of why the Israelites may have been wording things the way they were wording them. It’s just very fascinating in our study now that we can do on there.

And it does help also to understand all the confusing parts of the Bible too, like the order of Creation, you read it one way and then you turn the page and the order’s different. There were different sources and when they compiled them together they had great respect for these and a lot of understanding for where they were. Or maybe the animals going onto the ark, two in one account, and then seven of the clean ones in another account there.

So let’s talk about a few more quotes here. Elder Talmage on interpreting Genesis, he said, “The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a textbook of geology, archeology, earth-science, or man-science. Holy scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation.”

Okay. Here’s a quote from John Walton. He’s written just a couple of great books too, The Lost World of Adam and Eve, and The Lost World of the Flood. These are very, very helpful books. He said here, “Respect the text of the Bible by recognizing the sort of text that it is and the nature of the message that it offers. The Bible is not a scientific textbook. We are not compelled to bring the Bible into conformity either with its cultural context or with modern science, but if an interpretation of Genesis, for example, coincides with what seem to be sound scientific conclusions, all the better. Either information from the literature of the ancient world or new insights from scientific investigation may appropriately prompt us to go back to the Bible to reconsider our interpretations. We must always be willing to return to the text and consider it with fresh eyes.”

Now I did do a video on science and religion, Seeing with Both Eyes, and this video is going to really be almost a part two of that in some ways, but I’m going to link that too, at the end screen, to that because I think it’d be a great adjunction to this.

So speaking of that, if we could look at this next slide here. I just want to touch on evolution for a minute. We talked about that a lot in that science and religion video there. The new atheists attack evolution significantly, obviously. It’s a great tool. It can’t be reconciled, they say, with Adam and Eve and the 6,000 year history of people on the earth. And one of the key things is evolution could have been used by God. The Church does not have an official position on it. If you think about it logistically, what’s to stop God from using these natural laws potentially, that we’re learning from the science, and getting to a spot where he was ready to have his first … Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, their first spirit child come into physical body, that they were even part of the physical aspect of helping to create, in a sense, through science?

I mean, there’s ways to reconcile these things, but the important point of this is that the Church does not have a position on evolution. A lot of people don’t, I think, believe that, or they’ve maybe not heard this clearly. In fact, take a look at this. This was in the New Era article, October 2016, no author. It says, “The Church has no official position on the theory of evolution. Though the details of what happened on earth before Adam and Eve, including how their bodies were created, have not been revealed, our teachings regarding man’s origin are clear and come from revelation. We are descendants of Adam and Eve, our first parents, who were created in God’s image. There were no spirit children of Heavenly Father on the earth before Adam and Eve were created.”

Now it’s interesting, this is actually posted on a sign next to a large exhibit at BYU’s Bean Museum on evolution. You can see the picture on the right there of the skeletons, and really the Church making sure it’s clear. And if you watch the video, because there’s a lot on the history of evolution and the Church there and where we’ve come to our current … I’ll give you a couple of quick ones. Here are some.

President Hinckley, “What the church requires is only belief that Adam was the first man of what we would call the human race, scientists can speculate on the rest.” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “The scriptures teach us why man was created, but not how.” The First Presidency statement, the last formal statement, 1925, “Our religion is not hostile to real science. That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy.” The apostle and geologist James Talmage, “We cannot sweep aside all accumulated knowledge in geology, archeology, or any other branch of science, simply because our interpretation of some isolated passages of scripture may seem to be opposed there too.”

Now I love about … In fact I put this in that science and religion video, but D&C 101 tell us that we will not really know this until the Second Coming. So that’s why I love to keep a neutral stance on this and say I’m undecided in a sense, because we’re not going to know, and we’re told that that anyone that says that they know absolutely, you can point to this Doctrine and Covenants, section 101, that we won’t really know and understand until then. But we still are told to study out of the best books. All of these scientific things, we’re still told to learn and study. And science may tell us which way to bet there, but we shouldn’t be dogmatic about it one way or the other, and understand what the Church’s position is, to be neutral.

So now, there was a huge debate back in 1831. Joseph Fielding Smith had given a talk in General Conference stating that there was no death before the Fall and there are no pre-Adamites. B.H. Roberts flipped his lid. These were two apostles that essentially, they had a debate then amongst the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve and presented both of their sides there. Afterwards, the Church basically said that they were going to take a neutral position and say that neither side has necessarily proved it, per se. But this was a powerful statement they sent to all the general authorities.

This in the BYU packet, this is the last words, “Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. Leave geology, biology, archeology and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church. We can see no advantage to be gained by a continuation of the discussion to which reference is here made, but on the contrary, and certain that it would lead to confusion, division and misunderstanding if carried further. Upon one thing we should be able to agree, namely, that Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John Winder, and Anthon Lund, the First Presidency, were right when they said, ‘Adam is the primal parent of our race.'”

Then interestingly, the Church asked James E. Talmage to speak in the next conference and they published this pamphlet, and it included this phrase here. It says, “The oldest rocks thus far identified in land masses, reveal the fossilized remains of once living organisms, plant and animal. These lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation.”

Here’s a February 2016 article, the New Era. Interesting. It’s in the youth, but about dinosaurs. “Did dinosaurs live and die on this earth long before man came along? There have been no revelations on this question, and the scientific evidence says yes. You can learn more about it studying paleontology if you like, even at Church-owned schools. The details of what happened on this planet before Adam and Eve aren’t a huge doctrinal concern of ours. The account of the Creation in the scriptures are not meant to provide a literal, scientific explanation of the specific process, time periods, or events involved.”

And then this is a fascinating quote from Hugh Nibley on Neanderthals. He says here, “Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God’s affection or even a right to exaltation, for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine– a full-time job that admonishes me to remember His words to the overly eager Moses, ‘For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.’ It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins.”

Now some point to 2 Nephi 2, Lehi’s statement there about that there was no death before the Fall, that you can look at it on there, the very top verse. “And all things which were created, must remain in the same state in which they were after they were created. And they must remain forever and have no end.” This next quote there from three scholars in the Church says, “What does the term ‘all things’ refer to? Verse 23 appears to refer to Adam and Eve only, and verse 24 uses the term ‘all things’ twice to refer to concepts. Can we be certain that ‘all things’ in verse 22 means Adam, Eve, all the animals and all the plants? Could the term ‘things’ simply mean conditions? If Adam had not transgressed, his condition of immortality in the garden would have continued indefinitely.”

Then I love this from Robert Clayton. He said, “The meaning must be carefully evaluated. The state in which they were after they were created is not defined anywhere in scripture. And, ‘had no end’ does not necessarily mean eternal life, just a continuation of state. It could mean that the creations were mortal and would have continued mortal forever, with no hope of eternal continuance. The word ‘they’ refers to Adam and Eve throughout the chapter, but the meaning of ‘they’ is grammatically unclear in verse 22. Verse 23 picks right back up where ‘they’ referring to Adam and Eve, suggesting it is Adam and Even in verse 22 that would have remained forever and had no end.” Who knows? Maybe the tree of life could have given them this extension for as long as until they partook of the other tree.

So I will reference an evolutionary biologist. It’s a professor at Utah Valley University, UVU, Heath Ogden. He actually just did a presentation there. I’m going to link to it. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes, with students, and it’s just fascinating. I love the Q&A, it’s almost half of it, just hearing how he reconciles some of these things.

In fact, I’ll just tell you his criteria for Adam and Eve were essentially Homo sapien, which happened 200,000 years ago. But that would have been one ingredient. Two, spirit children of our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. And three, the first to make covenants with God, and then go forward and teach that. So, interesting criteria. He says if you do that, all of a sudden things can really change in the way that you could logistically approach some of these things. Okay, I’ll let him share that with you. He actually did an interview with Terryl Givens in the Faith Matters Foundation, just recently. I’ll link that too, it’s fantastic.

Okay, now about the Garden of Eden, let me share this, and in fact, Jeffrey Bradshaw, talk about a scholar. In fact, I wanted to just show you. The first 11 books of Genesis. Look at the size of this. He and then Dave Larsen did two here. But part one and part two, these are goldmines. These are really recent publications, but look at the thickness of this for 11 chapters of Genesis. That’s pretty amazing. But it’s a lot of great stuff to really get into the meat and the symbolism behind a lot of things. I’ll mention something about that in a minute.

So here, he is actually here quoting frequently asked questions about science in Genesis. I’ll link to this from Interpreter. He says, “While it would be foolish to speak of any final solution to the problem of reconciling science and scripture on specifics relating to the Garden of Eden and the nature of life before the Fall, three groups of general possibilities are briefly considered below.”

Now in the article he goes into great detail on each of these, but I just want to show you what the categories are, “1. Eden located on the earth as a place where special conditions prevailed. 2. Eden situated in a different place or state than the earth as we know it. And 3. Eden as a place whose description includes figurative elements.” Also, remember, Adam and Eve were not created in the Garden of Eden. They were put into the garden after being created, so interesting thoughts there.

Now, Joseph Fielding McConkie says, “What, then, do we conclude of the Eden story? What is figurative or literal? We answer by way of comparison. It, like the temple ceremony, combines a rich blend of both. Our temples are real, the priesthood is real, the covenants we enter into are real, and the blessings we are promised by obedience are real, yet the teaching device may be metaphorical. We are as actors on a stage. We role-play and imagine. We do not actually advance from one world to another in the temple, but rather are taught with figurative representations of what can and will be. In the story of man’s earthly origin, we find a rich blend of figurative and literal that is so typical of the Bible, of the teachings of Christ and of our daily experience. This story might unfold according to the faith and wisdom that we bring to it. Like all scriptural texts, its interpretation becomes a measure of our maturity and our spiritual integrity.”

Now I thought it was really important to share this, a recent quote from Elder Holland regarding the importance of the foundational aspect of Adam and Eve and the Fall. Absolutely foundational. Here it is, April 2015 conference, “In our increasingly secular society, it is as uncommon as it is unfashionable to speak of Adam and Eve or the Garden of Eden or a fortunate fall into mortality. Nevertheless, the simple truth is that we cannot fully comprehend the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ, and we will not adequately appreciate the unique purpose of His birth or His death– in other words, there is no way to truly celebrate Christmas or Easter– without understanding that there was an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all the consequences that fall carried with it.”

“I do not know the details of what happened on this planet before that, but I do know that these two were created under the divine hand of God, that for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was no human death nor future family in that setting, and that through a sequence of choices they transgressed a commandment of God, which required that they leave their garden setting, but which allowed them to have children before facing death. To add further sorrow and complexity to their circumstance, their transgression had spiritual consequences as well, cutting them off from the presence of God forever.”

And so, we have the same there as he mentioned at the end, which Heath Ogden points out. In fact, he says this death also could’ve been really focused on spiritual death. That could’ve been what all this was about and that Adam and Eve were the first to be in the presence of God and to actually have that spiritual death. So again, lots of ways to think of this.

Okay, let’s talk about the flood. This is a favorite of the new atheists. There’s no scientific evidence of this worldwide flood, particularly of the size that it would’ve been. In fact, I’m going to show you a number there. It would have taken all of the water on the earth, four and a half times that, to be statistic to the flood, if it was to be the 26 cubits high or whatever, across the entire globe there.

But let’s talk about it. So Elder Widtsoe on the flood, “We should remember that when inspired writers deal with historical incidents, they relate that which they have seen or that which have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation. For example, the details in the story of the flood are undoubtedly drawn from the experiences of the writer. The writer of Genesis made a faithful report of the facts known to him concerning the flood. In other localities, the depth of the water might have been more or less,” which is interesting. It doesn’t necessarily say on there.

So talking about the universal flood, so this is great, Walter Bradley says, “The terminology used in Genesis 6 through 9 seems to favor a global flood. However, the use of such biblical language in other stories may help us to understand the intention here. In Genesis 41:56, we are told the famine was spread over all the face of the earth. We normally interpret this famine as devastating the lands of the ancient Near East around Egypt and do not assume that American Indians and Australian Aborigines came to buy grain from Joseph. 1 Kings 10:24 states that the whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put into his heart. Surely Inca Indians from South America or Maoris from New Zealand had not heard of Solomon and sought his audience,” even though it made it sound like they did.

Okay, so this is really fascinating. “The Hebrew word ‘eretz’ used in Genesis 7:19, is usually translated ‘earth’ or ‘world’, but does not generally refer to the entire planet.” You can see some of the verses where they differentiate that. Then this is the one that really jumped out at me, “The Hebrew word translated ‘covered’ in Genesis 7:19 is ‘kasah’. It can mean residing upon, running over, or falling upon. Twenty feet of water running over or falling upon the mountains, or hills, is quite different from that amount residing upon them, although either event could destroy human and animal life in its path.” Talk about a difference in the way you can maybe think of that story.

Okay, localized flood. Genesis 8:4. So this is from Bradshaw again, “The ark came to rest on the hills or mountains of Ararat, not specifically Mount Ararat, which is seventeen thousand feet tall. This complex mountain range extends north and east of Mount Ararat down to the foothills skirting the Mesopotamian plain. If the ark had landed near the top of Mount Ararat, it is difficult to imagine how Noah and his family, as well as the animals, would have been able to descend to the base of the mountain, given the considerable difficulty mountain climbers have today in attempting to reach locations where the ark is thought, I believe, incorrectly, to have landed.”

“Genesis 8:5. The water receded until the tenth month when the tops of the mountains, or hills, became visible for the first time. The reference here seems to be what Noah could see, not the entire world.” Important distinction. “The dove returns with an olive leaf. Since olive trees don’t grow at higher elevations, a flood that covered all the mountains would not give this type of evidence of receding. A flood that covered all the mountains on the earth would require 4.5 times the total water resources that exist on planet Earth,” as I mentioned before. Fascinating.

I forgot to put it in here, but there’s also different people that have pointed it out that were before the flood and after the flood there, so the Bible doesn’t seem to point this out clearly, but it is interesting. In fact, one myth, story, says that one of them was hanging onto the outside of the ark. Just trying to make sense of that, why are they still there after the flood with the way that it sounds? Anyway.

Now, I will say this is an interesting thing. If you go to Wikipedia, look at this slide, list of flood myths. To me this is kind of stunning to think about. Just look at the slide here, “Flood myths are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. These accounts depict a flood, sometimes global in scale, usually sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution.” It’s really fascinating to think about. Maybe there was a global flood, not the size, but that’s why it’s important to understand those words there, but there certainly could’ve been water everywhere at different times. But anyway.

So let’s talk about this for a minute, Peter Enns … In fact, if there’s one book I want to recommend so strongly is Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. This is a phenomenal book. He’s not a Latter-day Saint, he’s an Evangelical Christian. But I’ll tell you, this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Absolutely fascinating. I’m going to quote from it in a minute. But he’s also got a great podcast, I think it’s called The Bible For Normal People or something like that. It’s really good.

But he says, “Ancient Israelites, living in a world of already very ancient stories of a catastrophic deluge, likely occurring around 2900 BC, that left ancient peoples scrambling for answers about why the gods would do such a thing, adapted that story to say something of theological significance for them by way of contrast with these other ancient stories.” Now remember when they’re writing this.

“This is not to suggest, however, that the entire earth was actually, geologically, in space and time covered with water, nor does it even suggest that this story gives us a permanent, let alone primary, information about God’s character. But it does suggest that this story had some significant religious value for its writers, and we ought to try to understand what that might be, rather than capturing a story in a misleading slogan that will set our children up for a faith crisis once they get old enough to read the story for themselves, or watch The History Channel and learn about the other ancient flood stories, or NOVA, and learn about geology and the age of the earth.”

Okay, now John Walton says, “Any interpretive solution must take the text seriously, yet be willing to see the text in ways that the original author and audience may have seen it. It likewise needs to take logistical problems seriously. It is a weak interpretation that has to invent all sorts of miracles that the text says nothing about in order to compensate for the logistical problems.”

And then I love this. The Jewish Study Bible says, “The ark symbolizes the tender mercies and protective grace with which God envelops the righteous, even in the harshest circumstances.” And Ben Spackman says one of the best things you can do is get a Jewish Study Bible, it’d be fantastic to help understand these things too, and that what maybe was being meant in the original authors, what they were trying to say.

And then speaking of Ben Spackman, here he said, “My summary position is that the Genesis account is both an adoption of and a reaction against other ancient Near Eastern flood stories, so much as creation in Genesis 1 is both an Israelite adaptation and polemic reaction against other ancient Near Eastern creation accounts. Very briefly, I think there may be a historical kernel, a memory of a flood behind the current text (there are regular river floods both in Mesopotamia and Egypt.) However, as it currently stands in the text, the flood tradition has been pressed into use and expanded (for polemical anti-Mesopotamian purposes maybe) into a universal cosmological flood. It is a reverse creation, undoing Genesis 1 by erasing order and structure, and returning the world to its pre-creation watery, chaotic state. Then the waters recede, and Noah is a new Adam in the new creation.” Lots of symbolism there.

Okay then, you’ve probably heard about people have talked about this being the baptism of the earth. This was a long historical Protestant thought, and many church people, church leaders, adopted this over time. And then we even started talking about it being an ordinance, because that’s what baptism is, but it’s a circular argument.

Here’s what Ben Spackman … He talks about if there was a worldwide flood, it was the earth’s baptism. And if the earth was baptized, the flood would have immersed the entire earth. He says it’s really the causality backwards and it’s a circular argument. But I love this, look in the middle, he says, “But let’s ask a different question. Why does the planet need baptism? Do dogs? Plants? Can it make decisions, or repent? Did someone lay hands on it? What sins had it committed? Is it now a member of the Church? Again, the ideas of the earth’s baptism grew out of the reading of a global historical flood, not revelation, and consequently it’s not a strong argument for a worldwide flood because of that circularity.”

Then I do love … There was an interesting piece put in BYU Religious Studies. Paul Hoskisson and Stephen Smoot talk a lot about the history of that, those speculative thoughts. But then also, they bring up this really fascinating thing about if there was some symbolism here, maybe this is what it was. He says … They go through this about, “Like Jacob, Benjamin was worried about being soiled with others’ sins. Moroni expressed the same sentiment, that the Book of Mormon was written that we may rid our garments of the blood of our brethren. It is possible that the earth, in like manner and in preparation for eventual celestialization, was physically washed and symbolically cleansed, so that it could become free from the blood and sins of the mortals who polluted its surface.” Kind of interesting too. And again, that could be just water running over, not necessarily 20 feet high kind of thing.

All right, let’s go on to the Tower of Babel. So atheists love to say how crazy it is that that was the genesis of all languages across the world, that that’s where the diversification of language started from, which is very provable that that could not have been back to 2242, which is the date often used for the Tower of Babel.

So here are some quotes in here of ways that you can see this, if we take … This is all from Bradshaw, he says, “If we take ‘one language’ of Genesis 11:1 as being Sumerian, Akkadian, or even as a long shot Aramaic, rather than a supposed universal proto-language, some of the puzzling aspects of the biblical account become more intelligible. In addition to the local language of each nation, there existed one language which made communication possible throughout the world or, perhaps more accurately, throughout the land. Strictly speaking, the biblical text does not refer to a plurality of languages, but to the destruction of language as an instrument of communication.”

“Hamilton presents a reasonable view when he writes that it is unlikely that Genesis 11 can contribute much, if anything to the origin of languages. The diversification of language is a slow process, not something catastrophic as Genesis 11 might indicate. The commonly received interpretation of Genesis 11 provides a most incredible and naive explanation of language diversification. If however the narrative refers to the dissolution of a Babylonian lingua franca, or adopted common language in other words, or something like that, the need to see Genesis 11 as a highly imaginative explanation of language diffusion becomes unnecessary.”

And then Brant Gardner has a great quote here, “The confounding of languages is related to the mixing (confounding) of different peoples in creating the great Tower of Babylon. From such a mixing of people who were attempting to build a temple to the heavens, Yahweh removed some of his believers, the Jaredites, for His own purposes.”

And last, “Like the other stories in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the story of the Tower of Babel is woven throughout with temple themes. The Tower can be seen as a sort of anti-temple wherein the Babylonians attempt to make a name for themselves.”

Okay, let’s talk about the Exodus. The new atheists love to point out that there is no solid evidence for the Exodus. And wouldn’t there be? 600,000 people, soldiers if you will, men, and with families it would be two million plus. Why wouldn’t there be any evidence of this? And you may say, “Well, the Egyptians are trying to cover it up because they’re embarrassed.” Well, wouldn’t anybody else love to make fun of the Egyptians because of this and it would be in their documentation. So this is the argument that they point to.

Now, there are some huge problems with numbers, I will tell you, in the Old Testament. Scholars today estimate to be measured in the tens of thousands for the Exodus, not in the millions. If you look in our own Bible Dictionary, there’s an Enrichment Section E, and the title of it is The Problems with Large Numbers in the Old Testament. They talk a lot about transmission issues, errors and things that can happen. In fact, they put an Exodus estimate of 72,000 in that, so it’s kind of interesting.

But I want to share this. This is actually from a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Georgia, Richard Elliot Friedman, called The Exodus Is Not Fiction. So look at this, “The claims that the Exodus never happened are not based on evidence, but largely on its absence. They assert that we’ve combed the Sinai and not found any evidence of the mass of millions of people whom the Bible say were there for 40 years. That assertion is just not true. There have not been many major excavations in the Sinai, and we most certainly have not combed it. Moreover, uncovering objects buried 3,200 years ago is a daunting endeavor. An Israeli colleague laughingly told me that a vehicle that had been lost in the 1973 Yom Kippur War was recently uncovered under 16 meters, that’s 52 feet of sand. Fifty-two feet in 40 years!”

“Still, all of us would admit that two million people, 603,550 males and their families, as the Torah describes, should have left some remnants that we would find. But few of us ever thought this number was historical anyway. Someone calculated long ago that if the number of people were marching, say, eight across, then when the first ones arrived in Sinai, half the people would still be in Egypt.”

“There is no archaeological evidence against the historicity of an exodus if it was a smaller group who left Egypt. Indeed, significantly, the first biblical mention of the Exodus, the Song of Miriam …” That’s the oldest text in the Bible. That’s Exodus 15, “… never mentions how many people were involved in the Exodus, and it never speaks of the whole nation of Israel. It just refers to a people leaving Egypt. It wasn’t until a much later source of the Exodus, the so-called priestly source, some 400 years later, that the number 603,550 was added to the story.” So very interesting.

Ben Spackman says … I always love to get his take … he says, “Without going into deep and long arguments, the likely source of the Exodus text is oral tradition, which preserves the past while also shaping and expanding it. Like Genesis, Exodus is largely written in good Hebrew of the 9th to 6th centuries BC, after the events it depicts. Exodus 15, a poem recounting the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the sea, is actually older and written in archaic Hebrew. My take is that something like the Exodus happened, but probably in much much smaller numbers than depicted, and not as dramatic. This is not because I reject miracles or lack faith, but because of my understanding of the nature of the text, historical context, and close reading.”

Okay now, for one of the most viscous punches that are thrown by the new atheists is framing God as a moral monster, and their favorite is to show the order of genocide against the Canaanites. The Israelites were to go and to destroy every man, woman, and child, and even the animals. They say this is a moral monster, as I said. So this book, I am so glad I bought this book for this one quote I’m going to read to you. It was just gold. I just love it.

So Enns says, “If the Bible is God’s Holy Word, and if we too are to meet God in its pages, why would God allow himself to be cast in the role of a majorly hacked off tribal deity if he wasn’t? He’s God after all. Why does he even work with a script written from a violent and tribal mindset? Why didn’t God stop the story tellers? No, sorry. Listen, I get the whole tribal thing, it’s how you roll, but we’re not going to do it that way. You have no idea how much trouble Richard Dawkins is going to cause with all this. Plus, Jesus is going to dismantle this ‘kill your enemies and take their land’ business. Best to avoid the problem altogether.”

“Instead of working within the system God could have disallowed it. Then the Israelites could have written a wholly different kind of story altogether, a story no one had ever seen before and knock their own socks off. That’s the kind of ancient story telling I would have signed off on, if I were God. But I’m not and I’ve given up trying to get into God’s head and I wish others would too.”

Still, here is something that makes sense to me, a mystery that keeps staring me in the face every time I open my Bible and read it. The Bible from back to front is the story of God told from the limited point of view of real people living at a certain place and time. It’s not like the Israelites were debating whether or not to go ahead and describe God as a mighty warrior. They had no choice. That’s just how it was done. That was their cultural language. And if the writers had somehow been able to step outside of their culture and invent a new way of talking, their story would have made no sense to anyone else.”

“The Bible looks the way it does because God let’s His children tell the story, so to speak. Children see the world from their limited gaze, filtered unconsciously and in an-age appropriate manner. Think of how young boys in the school yard talk about their fathers. There are ways of telling the story of your father that gets the point across, to make sure everyone knows you have the best dad around. I think at least parts of the Bible work something like that.”

“It may be hard, sometimes impossible, to see the history in Israel’s stories, but we do get a good picture of how these ancient Israelites experienced God. These ancient writers had an adequate understanding of God for them in their time, but not for all time. And if we take that to heart, we will actually be in a better position to respect these ancient voices and see what they have to say, rather than whitewashing the details and making up explanations to ease our stress.”

Oh man, I just absolutely love it. I think it’s gold. Now, to hear this from a Latter-day Saint is great too, same kind of theme. This is Michael R. Ash the scholar. I love what he said, “All people see patterns– in things we actually see visually, in things we hear, and in experiences in our environment. We unavoidably and instinctively create arrangements for those patterns to try to explain to ourselves what we are seeing or hearing, or why something happens. In the Old Testament times people often attributed things to God, even if God never claimed to be the author of those events. When we combine this with storytelling embellishments, exaggerations, assumptions, metaphors, symbolism, and artistic freedom, all of which were normal for story-telling of the day, (we have to remember that objective history is a very modern approach to storytelling), we can appreciate that the loving God of the New Testament is the same God of the Old Testament, but that the Old Testament people understood God in the language of their day.”

Okay, now another new favorite of the atheists is to point out Jonah and the whale. It really was a great fish or a sea creature essentially. So they point out that a man cannot live in a fish for three days. So this is a made up story, so the Bible’s made up, kind of thing. Boy, I’ll tell you, there’s many Christian defenders actually that double down on this. I’ve heard many of these on YouTube. They say, “Hey Jesus quoted Jonah, remember? ‘I won’t give you any sign except the sign of Jonah,'” which is a perfect sign, right? The three days of darkness, death and resurrection.” But they say, “So obviously Jonah’s real if Jesus is quoting him. That doesn’t mean necessarily that this wasn’t a parable per se, or a story.”

Now I do like … I want to share this from the First Presidency actually. They said this in response to a question being asked about Jonah. This was written in a history of the Church, that was actually commissioned by the Church. So this BYU professor, Thomas Alexander said, “While they [the First Presidency] thought Jonah was a real person, they said it was possible that the stories told in the Bible was a parable common at the time. The purpose was to teach a lesson, and it is of little significance as to whether Jonah was a real individual or one chosen by the writer of the book to illustrate what is set forth therein. They took a similar position on Job. What is important, Penrose and Ivins insisted, was not whether the books were historically accurate, but whether the doctrines were correct.”

In fact, Ben Spackman often will say, “Well, is the good Samaritan true? Just because it’s not necessarily historical, doesn’t stop us from applying the story and understanding it there.” But the key is understanding … Spackman points this out a lot … the genre, the genre of scripture. This was really set up as a parable, a satirical parable, with a ton of irony in it to make a very clear point.

In fact, look at this last quote here, “The humor and exaggeration in the book of Jonah helped the ancient Jewish audience to perceive their own racist and bigoted attitudes and the ridiculous lengths to which arrogance and prejudice can lead them.” So it’s very interesting.

Okay, now, to finish, some key things I want to talk about. So we’ve talked about combining science with scripture, but also to focus on what the authors were actually really maybe trying to intend with their meaning. And with the advancements in scholarship today, we can do this in a way that has not been done in the past if you think about … That’s what Brigham Young told us to do, right? Read it as you were in their shoes and try and understand it from that perspective. There’s still lots of modern day lessons we can learn from that, but let’s not get confused and try and make up things because we might not maybe be understanding what they were getting at.

And the way I want to demonstrate this perfectly is with the days of Creation being 24-hour days. So let’s look at this from Spackman. This is the best example I’ve seen to illustrate this. He says, “Genesis 1 is arranged very carefully by days, culminating in the seventh day. Even though nothing happens on that day, it’s the most important day of Creation. Genesis 1 has strong parallels with the account of the construction of the temple/tabernacle. Deities rest in temples and only in temples. For God to rest on the seventh day indicated that God’s creation temple was finished, that he had taken up residence there, and therefore life, the universe, and everything, would function as it should.”

“Recall that the Babylonians destroyed Israel’s scared space, defiling the Holy Land and destroying the Jerusalem temple. When this account of Creation was written down, what did it emphasize? It minimized the recent destruction of the temple by emphasizing that the universe itself is God’s temple. They can still keep sacred time, the Sabbath, the seventh day. And that is why I think the priestly authors intended the days in Genesis 1 to be 24-hour days, resting on the seventh day, keeping that sacred time because they couldn’t keep the sacred space. But this innovation of creation in the seven day period was added for very specific intent.”

The Israelites were in Babylon, and the purpose of the account was to counter the Babylonian creation theology and emphasize what the Israelites could do while in a strange land, not provide some context free, scientific revelation about how long material creation took or how it was done. The important thing there is not the creation per se, but the resting on the seventh day.”

“The days of Genesis 1 are literal 24-hour days, but don’t have anything to do with the age of the earth. Indeed Genesis 1 probably isn’t even about physical, material origins. Genesis is not trying to present any kind of natural history of the world, and attempts to turn it into one are far off base. Any argument about interpretation of days as anything other than 24-hour periods must first provide validity of the assumption. Our contemporary scientific preoccupations could hardly have been the preoccupations of ancient Israel.”

“It is quite doubtful that these texts have waited in obscurity through the millennia for their hidden meanings to be revealed by modern science. It is at least a good possibility that the real meaning was understood by the authors themselves. The central issue is whether the biblical materials are being offered as a history of the earth in a sense comparable to the modern meaning of natural history. If they are not, then both the attempts at demonstrating their scientific falsity and the attempts at demonstrating their scientific truth are inappropriate and misleading.”

The argument that the Hebrew word ‘yom’, ‘day’, can mean an indefinite period of time is true, but only in idioms, which we do not find in Genesis 1, where the 24-hour meaning is supported contextually by things such as the morning/evening refrain and the modeling of ceasing all work on the seventh day, which loses all force if day doesn’t actually mean ‘day’ here. So the days of Genesis are literal, but also literary, not actual, historical days.” I thought that was very helpful to demonstrate that point.

Okay, a couple of last quick things. Important clarification I want to share. I thought this was very important, again Ben Spackman here. Go to his website, very helpful. He’s coming out with a book, watch for this, on early Genesis 1. Will be his first book, going deep on a lot of these things. And his background by the way, if you look at his bio, it’s phenomenal, very interesting, complex mix that’s very unique in the Church from a scholarly view point I think, the combination is. So, “After hearing my view that the Old Testament includes non-historical stories, for example, I see Jonah as a satirical parable, not as a historical account, his immediate question was, ‘So, do you think the Book of Mormon isn’t historical?'”

“Many LDS and non-LDS make incorrect and potentially harmful categorical assumptions about both scripture and history. For one, ‘true’ is commonly equated with ‘historical’. Obvious scriptural examples to the contrary such as Jesus’ parables, I think most LDS approach scripture assuming that it is all historical in nature, and the historical narrative is the primary way God speaks to us. The reality is that scripture is not all homogeneous, or all the same kind of thing. Our scriptures are a collection, an anthology, a library.”

“Most libraries contain different kinds of books, divided into general sections, such as fiction and non-fiction. We can further break these down into broader or narrower categories of like: reference books, cook books, history, science, culture, as well as mystery, sci-fi, historical fiction, fantasy, et cetera. If I check out several books and put them together on my bookshelf, they do not lose their individual nature. Each book and section within that book may be a different genre, and each needs to be examined with an eye for differences that help us understand the book’s genre. For example, Leviticus is analogous to the Church Handbook of Instructions in a way, Psalms the Israelite hymnbook. Jonah may well be an Old Testament parable. But just as our home bookshelves contain various kinds of books, non-historical parables can sit on our scriptural shelf, next to the hymnbook and the Church Handbook of Instructions, all bound within one distinct cover.”

“When I share my views on Jonah, I tend to see the assumption manifested by my ward members, that one’s view of the historicity of Jonah, or the Book of Mormon, is primarily a function of liberalism or disbelief. If you disbelieve in one, you disbelieve in them all. There’s an imagined domino effect, that if I allow Jonah to be a satirical parable instead of a documentary history, then obviously I must also reject the historicity of every book of scripture, including the Book of Mormon,” which is just bunk.

And then he says about genre, “If you think about genre markers, how they work in a modern context, no one ever sits you down and explains this is what indicates you’re reading a fairytale, this is what indicates you’re watching a documentary. We learn those by cultural osmosis, just by growing up in a society and being saturated by seeing so many of these. When you open a newspaper, you instinctively understand that a Doonesbury comic about the Iraq War is different than an article about the Iraq War, which is different than an opinion piece about the Iraq War. We are attuned to these different genre markers.”

I’m just doing the underlined parts here. “When it comes to reading the Bible, there are explicit genre markers in there, but none of us is a native Israelite anymore, there aren’t any. Even native Israelis today are not living in a biblical culture from two thousand years ago. Generally, you have to rely on scholars who have tried to immerse themselves in the ancient Near Eastern cultures and read and read and re-read both in the Bible and in the non-biblical literature, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, so on. In reading all of these, these genre markers start coming out. You start being able to say this is a lot like this. Genre isn’t for pigeon-holing things as much as being able to identify like with like.”

Then Elder Widtsoe makes a comment about this, “Our operating assumption with scripture, with rare occasions (like parables), is to simply assume that everything is history, and moreover we kind of assume that everything is modern history.” Those are just really helpful.

Okay my last slide here, I do want to emphasize Jeffrey Bradshaw, these books. Like I said, there’s a bunch of stuff about the temple, temple themes, especially in these early Genesis things. In fact, the three decks of the ark, are the exact height of the tabernacle. Do you think that’s just a coincidence they were both given the exact specifics from God on the dimensions? So there’s all these fascinating temple themes that go on in here.

He says, “In short, I’d suggest that the kind of knowledge that will help us best understand the first chapter of Genesis and the book of Moses is not scientific or historic knowledge, but rather knowledge of ancient and modern temples. Without a firm grasp on the architecture, teachings, and the ordinances of the temple, we will miss the gist of primal history.”

Then he says, “The characters and events of the stories of Adam, Eve, Noah, Enoch, and the Tower of Babel are incorporated in the sacred world of rites and ordinances and must be understood accordingly. Does abandoning the primacy of the historical and scientific world in the interpretation of these scriptures mean that we are left with only fantasy in its place? Not according to Elder Douglas L. Callister who said, ‘When you enter the temple, you leave the world of make-believe.'”

I just thought that was a great way to end the video. That was a lot of stuff to cover in one video. I hope you enjoyed it. Subscribe for more.

Books:

In God’s Image and Likeness, Volumes 1 & 2 by Jeffrey Bradshaw

The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable To Read It by Peter Enns

Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan

Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis – Deuteronomy by David Bokovoy

John Walton – The Lost World of Genesis 1, The Lost World of Adam & Eve, The Lost World of the Flood, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquests

Watch for coming book from Ben Spackman on Genesis 1!

Websites/Articles:

Ben Spackman sites:

https://benspackman.com/

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/benjami…

Jeffrey Bradshaw – Science and Mormonism 1: Cosmos, Earth and Man; FAQ about Science & Genesis http://www.templethemes.net/publicati…

https://interpreterfoundation.org/rep…

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

https://www.deseret.com/2006/3/1/1994…

https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Earth

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…

Podcasts:

LDS Perspectives – Episode #45 Misunderstanding the Bible with Ben Spackman https://ldsperspectives.com/2017/07/1…

LDS Perspectives – Eposide #71 Genesis 1 with Ben Spackman https://ldsperspectives.com/2017/12/2…

LDS Perspectives – Episode #84 Violence in the Bible with George Pierce https://ldsperspectives.com/2018/06/1…

LDS Perspectives – Episode #70 The Documentary Hypothesis with Cory Crawford https://ldsperspectives.com/2017/12/13/documentary-hypothesis/

Videos:

Transcript of Ben Spackman at 2019 Fairmormon Conference presentation: A Paradoxical Preservation of Faith: LDS Creation Accounts and the Composite Nature of Revelation https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

Heath Ogden: Evolution & Faith: Perspectives from an Evolutionary Biologist (who is also currently a Latter-day Saint Bishop) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNk6F…

Heath Ogden interviewed by Terryl Givens at Faith Matters Foundation: Can Our Faith Embrace Evolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw3-k…

Does Evolution Enrich Our Theology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLo6X…

Jeffrey Bradshaw: Science & Genesis, A Personal View (from the Science & Mormonism Conference in 2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2hQG…

Anything from any of the Science & Mormonism Conferences

See also all of the resources listed under this other video from Latter-day Saints’ Q&A –: Science & Religion: Seeing With Both Eyes

Jeff Roundy

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