Peter Bleakley, a life-long Latter-day Saint from across the pond, is actively engaged in calling out current church leadership on their gaslighting, distortions, and dissembling. In this interview, Peter is equal parts brilliance and bravura! RFM finds out what makes Peter tick, why the current state of Mormonism infuriates him so much, and what Peter thinks is the only hope left for the LDS Church to continue as a viable Christian institution into the 21st Century. It’s the Christians versus the Pharisees! And so far, the Pharisees seem to be winning hands down!
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He is in the second stage of of ex Mormon bargaining. He should just leave and not let them have the satisfaction of excommunication. He should just start his own reformed lds like snuffer
I agree. It’s a fool’s errand to think a grassroots effort can get the Brethren to reform and abandon their claim to (essentially infallible) priesthood authority. It is better to leave.
I don’t know what grassroots changes Peter thinks church leadership thinks happened in the past. Maybe primary, maybe young men/young women, maybe the church welfare program.
But none of those grassroots changes uprooted the Brethren and their authority. The modern LDS church is nothing if not the idolatrous worship of priesthood authority. It cannot be reformed. It cannot be redeemed.
Maybe across the pond, Peter and his cohorts, in the 1970’s and 1980’s, had multiple ways to determine *whether* the church leaders were teaching truth.
But here in the US, for all practical purposes, we had multiple ways only to determine *that* the church leaders were teaching truth.
In other words, in the US, while *in theory* church leaders could teach falsehoods and church members had multiple ways to determine *whether* the church leaders were teaching truth (and, yes, we in the US discussed that in theory), it was NEVER a real-world possibility that church leaders would teach falsehoods.
In other words, anyone who ever claimed to receive revelation contrary to church leaders (even in the 1970’s and 1980’s) would be universally smacked down. I don’t see how Peter thinks the church somehow changed on this because it was never a practical option to oppose church leaders or to claim church leaders were astray. Remember the guy who opposed the priesthood ban in general conference and was exed, despite the ban being lifted a couple months later? That was the 1970’s.
We in the US were raised with the quote attributed to Heber J. Grant saying folks should obey church leaders even if they are wrong and they’ll be blessed (but added church leaders will never be wrong, so don’t worry). Also, I think there is a quote where Oaks said something like he didn’t question whether someone got a revelation that opposed church doctrine, but he questioned the source of the revelation.
Maybe in England, it was a free for all, but it was never the case in the US.
I enjoyed the discussion and Peter was very charming and articulate. But in the end, I agree with Ryan. How different was the LDS church in the UK from the US version during the 70’s/80’s?
Sydney Rigdon had a greater role in church organization than is currently recognized.
He is the force behind a first presidency.
If the 12 with help from 70’go two and two without purse or script to set up stakes where all operations occur… there is no need for a presidency.
72 year retirement was already defined by the Lord for his disciples in new world.
Disciples rather than apostles…..is closer to scripture. No seniority.
Each stake also has twelve seats filled by 4 demographics that select all of the rest of the 1920 positions. (480×4)
Peter’s analogizing the LDS church demanding absolute obedience to “Satan’s plan” does not work for me.
It was Jesus’s plan (not Satan’s) to “prove them herewith, to see if **they will do all things whatsoever** the Lord their God shall command them”. (See Abraham 3:25) (emphasis added)
“all things whatsoever” sure sounds a lot like an absolute, right?
Jesus’s plan was always about doing all the things, i.e., absolute obedience, and with a Savior to mop up the mistakes when people obeyed his principles of repentance.
If there was learning to be done, it was learning to obey all things, not some vague “learning from mistakes”.
I see no difference between Jesus’s plan and the mainstream understanding in the modern LDS church in which church leaders are equated with the Lord and there is a repentance component.
Typical lds misunderstanding/confusion on doctrine with no understanding of grace in the plan.
Thanks for the interesting and thoughtful comments chaps. Practising common consent as originally constituted in no way requires leaders to sacrifice their priesthood, just their autocracy and unrighteous dominion. I agree that persuading apostles to give up absolute power is a big ask, but when it becomes clear that membership is plummeting on their watch people at grassroots level are going to be much less in awe of them and more open to change.
They church has made really epic changes in response to external and grassroots pressure, most significantly abandoning polygamy and then eventually abandoning institutional racism which had both been taught by generations of prophets as sacrosanct principles and eternal truths, so there are plenty of previous precedents for radical change in our church.
Recently smaller victories have been won to push the church to be more honest about its history, to change the rhetoric around women and priesthood, to change the actual temple Endowment including one of its most significant covenants in response to feminist criticism and pushback, to significantly soften its rhetoric towards LGBTQ people (the new handbook has radically improved the treatment of transgender Church members fit example), and Sam Young’s “Protect LDS Children” campaign forced them to normalise ending one-to-one interviews with minors by priesthood leaders rooting around in every nook and cranny of those kids’ sexual experiences and thoughts and allow another adult to be in the room, and tell them to stop asking intrusive questions about sexuality.
So there is actually a long and accelerating track record of progressive reforms in response to campaigns and lobbying inside and outside the church. They usually excommunicate those movements’ leaders of course, then make the change anyway.
Peter, as noted above, I really enjoyed your discussion.
I very much applaud your efforts. However, I am pessimistic about the ability of the current leadership to make significant changes in the timeframe needed to reverse the decline in the church’s appeal and relevance to the youth. Unfortunately, when you pick your leader on the basis of “the guy who has been around the longest is in charge” you end up with very conservative leadership. (Maybe the first thing that has to be done is impose age limits on apostles/prophets and make them become emeritus at a certain point. That would have a huge impact on its own.)
I have close friends whose “clan” is very well connected to a couple of the current junior apostles. As a result, they were able to have an in person discussion with an apostle. (Let’s put aside for later the discussion of nepotism/access in the church . . .) In any event, these friends are faithful saints but very modern and open. They were concerned because, like you, they are watching their children and other young people leave the church one by one. They pleaded with this apostle to do more to make the church more open and modern and more attractive to today’s youth. They told him “if you guys don’t do anything then the church will become stagnant with perhaps a base in Utah/Idaho/Arizona but very little real impact outside of that.” The apostle seemed to understand their concerns but said “there’s nothing I can do.” I got the impression that there’s nobody with less power than a junior apostle.
But Godspeed with your efforts, please prove us pessimists wrong!
Thank you for heading up Sam Young’s “Protect LDS Children” campaign in the UK. That has to be the biggest, grassroots success in recent memory. Please don’t forget, Sister Missionaries are no longer required to submit to private, behind closed doors interviews by Mission Presidents. You should take credit for that too before you are excommunicated.
Not sure about using the expression “tits up”. Have you cleared that with your circle of feminists? They are somewhat rigid in their outlook on life and suffer a humor deficit.
“It was Jesus’s plan (not Satan’s) to “prove them herewith, to see if **they will do all things whatsoever** the Lord their God shall command them”. (See Abraham 3:25) (emphasis added) “all things whatsoever” sure sounds a lot like an absolute, right? Jesus’s plan was always about doing all the things, i.e., absolute obedience, and with a Savior to mop up the mistakes when people obeyed his principles of repentance. If there was learning to be done, it was learning to obey all things, not some vague “learning from mistakes”.”
Obeying everything that God actually commands is not the same thing as obeying every whim that an LDS apostle or prophet decides to announce as God’s mind and will. There isn’t a free for all anywhere in the Church and I totally get your points about how, particularly in the Utah heartlands, there is no possibility allowed for the prophet being wrong about anything in many LDS congregations. However, several prophets and apostles have also taught caveats to that involving getting your own spiritual witness before believing what a prophet says for example, Brigham Young told the members not to just believe everything their leaders say without question, some have taught that anything a prophet says must be compatible with scripture and even Dallin Oaks the most authoritarian Apostle of all has along with two other apostles who he quoted taught in General Conference recently that we should only trust something Apostles are saying is true if it is taught and supported by all of them, not just one or two.
Joseph Smith said the fundamental principle of Mormonism was to teach people ‘correct principles’ and then ‘let them govern themselves’ which is very different to obeying leaders unconditionally, so I do not think you have characterised the Mormon idea of Jesus’ plan of salvation correctly, but it is a spot in description of Mormon Pharisaism which has unfortunately infiltrated the Church alongside it’s more libertarian ideals.
“Obeying everything that God actually commands is not the same thing as obeying every whim that an LDS apostle or prophet decides to announce as God’s mind and will.”
Of course. But I was discussing the type of plan that were articulated in the Book of Abraham (Jesus’s versus Satan’s) because you asserted in the podcast that the LDS church implemented Satan’s plan.
You omitted my conclusion in your response above: “I see no difference between Jesus’s plan and the mainstream understanding in the modern LDS church ***in which church leaders are equated with the Lord*** and there is a repentance component.” (emphasis added)
Just like Jesus’s plan in the Book of Abraham, the church leaders have an absolute standard with the ability to choose and a repentance component.
Satan’s plan in the Book of Abraham omitted the ability to choose and omitted a repentance component.
Thus, contrary to your assertion in the podcast, church leaders are NOT implementing Satan’s plan, even if one does not equate church leaders with Jesus, because church leaders have an absolute paradigm with a choice-based repentance component.
I fully accept that church leaders have been all over the map in church history. But if you are talking about Satan’s plan or Jesus’s plan as articulated which are found in the Book of Abraham, I stand by conclusion that the LDS church leaders have a Jesus style, not a Satan style.
I am curious about your thoughts regarding “prove them herewith, to see if **they will do all things whatsoever** the Lord their God shall command them”. (See Abraham 3:25) and rather or not, or perhaps which and which not, commandments are for all people and if there are individual commandments that are not for all people? So if I live my life obeying all things that God commands me to do, am I ok? Or I suppose the modern Church would say that one command god gives to all people is that they must obey the current prophet plus any individual command…or does god o give individual commands? Frankly I ma unsure what the church’s position is regarding individual commands because it seems that more recently they are saying that God does not do that although in early m Mormonism there was lots of individual commandments. see the D&C which is mostly comprised of individual commands/revelations.
Quack koo ell who ? there are a lot of us who have put practically everything we have into this church and it’s narrative. We have been taught that honesty and goodness were one and the same . I would like every one who has done anything to forward the cause of this grand organization, to stop and think for a moment of just how chaotic Nauvoo was when Joseph ran things. Look at how difficult the life of a typical ll d s woman has been since Joseph introduced the new and everlasting covenant .is this really how you want to spend eternity? I spent 18 wonderful months in the England Coventry mission. I loved teaching I put everything into it as did a lot of my companions and fellow missionaries. But I often wondered as David b haight would come and absolutely excoriate us for our lackluster inability to bring huge numbers into the gospel that it was because we weren’t righteous enough. We just couldn’t call down the powers of heaven because we were the problem. Many of us came back home got married in the temple raised our families in the church paid incredible amounts of tithing and went to high council meetings and what continues to be the stick? you just aren’t doing enough ..if you were just a bit more righteous. Well again do we really think that Salt Lake City in the 1860s or Nauvoo Illinois in the 1840s is a glimpse of the celestial kingdom ? Was William law really that bad of an individual ? Do you really believe that David Bedenar is any more Christ like than David b Haight ? The celestial kingdom is going to be one really cool place maybe just a bit cooler than the hell that many of us are going through as we look to leadership and all we find is insensitivity and blame for the lords inability to bless us because of our lack of righteousness. Well it’s getting saturated . The pain that comes with recognizing just exactly who Brigham Young was is telling ,when you look closely at Russell Nelson. Is it possible that they just aren’t righteous enough? I mean come on the shoe is on they stepped up to the plate the lord has to use the righteous tools prepared from the foundations of the earth right? The problem is as missionaries we had the illusion of truth on our side and man did some of us really use it and in the name of righteousness and superhuman hard work we brought many into the gospel of Jesus Christ. Or did we ? Just how much misinformation were we given ? How many times do we need to take the blame for the racism the polygamy the hatred the guilt is overwhelming. Well I’m just an old farmer now my life is getting further in the rear view mirror all the time . I’m not worthy to criticize the lords anointed. But I will stand with the Lords annoyed the church needs to become able and vibrant it needs to spend its resources on the children of God it needs to recognize that greatness is not in how much it’s gained in this life but how much it has returned. And we as saints need to send quack who and his rhetoric to the place where it belongs. He just isn’t worthy of going the hearts and minds of the children of God . As for my brothers across the pond I miss you guys I would do it all again just for the chance to get the door slammed in my face my roof to fall on my head the rain to cause depression and yes for a chance th shake the hand of one of the brethren. Not !! I would just like to go visit and be grateful that one of my relatives joined the church and got me away from that cold wet miserable island . I still miss it though. Just like I miss the church back when it was true .
Thank you so much for sharing those experiences and perspectives. They are very similar to my own in many ways. My first zone conference on my mission in the Florida Tallahassee Mission was spent being excoriated and bullied by Jeffrey Holland in exactly the same way as you describe David B Haight doing! They were all at it, the bastards! Bullying and shaming naive young missionaries who were already making an epic sacrifice of two years of their lives for the Church and belittling them and telling them they were a waste of space and not good enough. Just an inexcusable abuse that erases any kind of authority or credibility they might claim as witnesses of Christ. They’re in very deep doodoo on judgment day if they haven’t repented.
The funny thing is is that I returned to England in 2004 we got permission from our local bishop for my eldest son to baptize my youngest son in a pond in Birmingham it was a great experience for our family but wow did we catch flack from president coffee at the mission home for having a sacred experience with our family now it’s forbidden to have a baptism even if you are a high priest just like it’s forbidden to be a Mormon well I still think fondly on our children’s lakeside baptisms and I have been rather liberal in my use of the priesthood faith is a glorious thing when religion has little to do with it . My greetings go out to the apologists get in line get some real experience and come back and tell us just who is on the lords side we have a say we have contributed we are the result of all this combined experience and it’s fitting that the prophet would deny us our identity and our rights as fellow priesthood holders to grant our families the blessings promised in the temple if we can’t do it here just how in hell is it going to be done in the eternity’s. The Sanhedrin runneth things . And it took a 12 year old to straighten the bone heads out! Well my soap box is collapsing but just like a lot of r f m s listeners this mushroom is fed up with the crap give us back what is ours our identity our goodness as caring loving decent human beings give us the all that is prayed for each year at gen conf mostly let us as parents love our children for who they are and grant us The transparency that we have earned in this new unveiling that is the modern internet. Maybe it is the further light and knowledge that has always been promised.
Christians vs. Pharisees sounds like a great title for a new podcast under the Mormon discussions umbrella organization.
I’m guessing many would appreciate the unique perspective Peter brings.
Fan-freaking-tastic!!!
I loved this discussion. You could have kept going and I would have kept listening.
Can’t wait to go see Peter on facebook and look up his podcasts.
Hi Peter!
Thank you (and RFM, of course) for that fantastic interview. You make so many excellent points, and do so with directness and and eloquence.
I share the (admittedly pessimistic) perspective of prior commenters that it is highly unlikely that the church will dramatically change. A few reasons:
1. As you pointed out, the top leadership has been vetted for loyalty, and for the very quality of ‘not rocking the boat’. With 15 top leaders that all have that mindset, how likely are they to reach unanimity for major change? The current structure the church guarantees that changes are glacially slow.
2. The absurdly huge $100 billion+ ‘rainy day’ fund will only embolden them, convincing them they are able to weather any storm (without needing to change)
3. As more questioning and doubting members leave in frustration, the membership that remains are self-selected to be the kind of unquestioningly obedient membership the brethren want. That the doubters leave will be a testimony builder to the remaining members (and the leadership) that the second coming is near and that the wicked take the truth to be hard.
Again, I admire your ideas and willingness to fight for them. I’ve listened to part of your first facebook post and plan to finish them soon. Best wishes!
Peter: Your website is…what? peterbleakley, peterbleakley.com, peterbleakley.org, peterbleakley.uk all yield nothing. Adding “pharisees” only brings me back to Gina’s and RFM’s interviews. (Both of which are excellent interviews. Thanks you!)
RFM: Quite often you reference interesting materials. It would be a wonderful service if you would include links to those references in the show notes.
I don’t have a website. Go to my home Peter Bleakley Facebook page and they are there as public posts. They are going to be presented in other ways online soon and someone has already put them into YouTube. Eventually I will create a YouTube channel for them to keep them organised in one place.
I don’t have a website. Go to my home Peter Bleakley Facebook page and they are there as public posts. They are going to be presented in other ways online soon and someone has already put them into YouTube. Eventually I will create a YouTube channel for them to keep them organised in one place.
Charming interview, Peter (and RFM)! So many good discussion points made!
I, like you, have seen many people in the trenches tirelessly working to push Mormonism forward. Unfortunately, as a very active member, I drank in the mantra that “the Church is perfect, but it is the people who are not”. It took fully leaving to see that really the opposite is what is true – it is many of the members who are close to perfection, especially those at the grassroots level trying to make a difference, and it is the Church, led by the Q15, that lags behind in Christlike behavior.
I learned of the depth of deception the Church perpetuated in my life eight years ago through the simple act of wanting to do a good job teaching church history to the older kids in Primary. After the anger and feelings of betrayal subsided some, I decided to become a catalyst for change – at least in my local ward/stake.
I kept attending for some years with the idea that I could help broaden people’s views. Maybe I could be a safe person for an LGBTQ youth or could advocate for that group during lessons. Perhaps I could help people better understand church history and accept and nuance it in some way. After a few years of this, I was simply exhausted. I came to the realization that the Church does not want things to change – at least in the shadow of the Salt Lake Temple, not far from where I reside.
Maybe you will have better luck in your area trying to initiate change if that is the approach you decide to take. I still view it as a worthy one and have to think it might have a different level of success depending on the overall strength of the institutional church in a given area. As you pointed out, there have been some wonderful changes that came from grassroots efforts in the LDS Church. Looking back, I do not regret doing what I did to try getting the Church to become more honest and accepting.
If it doesn’t quite work out as you would like, however, know that leaving entirely can be a fulfilling choice. I count myself lucky that I and my entire family are out of Mormonism – my wife and I are coming up on 3 ½ years since resigning. My daughters and their families are out too and we couldn’t be closer as an extended family. It brings me peace of mind that my grandchildren will be able to make decisions driven by their own consciences. At the same time, I still have many Mormon friends and neighbors I love dearly. So, relationships like that can survive too, if all want them to.
Good luck moving forward!
Jim,
As I read your comment, I could envision you in olden knight garb, with your sword unsheathed and doing battle with the fire-breathing dragon. You must be an honest and good-hearted man to cause such a vivid picture in the mind of a total stranger.
Thank you for your valiant efforts. You did not fail. As with Abraham and Issac, you put forth the effort, and that is all that was required.
Bravo!
I really enjoyed this interview. In fact—I cannot tell a lie–I listened to it twice from beginning to end. Thank you Peter. Thank you RFM. I lived in London as a child in 1960’s and went to Hyde Park Ward. There was a wonderful science museum across the street and I would often skip out on church and spend my time at the science museum.
I spent decades idealistically believing that as a progressive, liberal mormon that I could somehow morph and bend the phariseutical messages coming from SLC to be more palatable and appropriate for the 21st century. Tsk, tsk–this was a futile exercise and I finally fully liberated my mind, time, talents and money twelve years ago when I left the church.
Peter please come back and do more interviews! Carry on my friend.
It is easy to appreciate the way Peter analyzes Elder Oaks’ rhetoric. Let us remember, when considering the content of Pres. Oaks lectures, sermons and proclamations, that Pres. Oaks didn’t serve a mission, but he forcefully and authoritatively reminds all young men they are commanded to do what he would not do.
Avoiding a mission gave him 2 years to get ahead, after all missions are an expensive sacrifice, but there were many priesthood men his age, that in spite of the hardships of the era he grew up in, did sacrifice and serve 2 year missions, and full active duty military service where many died in Korea. If they did not serve missions before the war survivors came home and still served missions. Upon returning some went to college or got married, and went to church every week, and had children.
After ditching his mission responsibility, Pres. Oaks spent his college years working at a radio station on Sunday, and not going to church, which put him further ahead of the valiant and faithful men his age that kept the Sabbath as the prophets counseled. Pres. Oaks, with all his demands for obedience to his b personal ideals, seems to be a “do as I say, not as I did” model of a Pharisaical leader.
Where would Pres. Oaks be if he had not gotten ahead by ditching his mission and working Sundays for years. Elsewhere for sure. Instead of following the call of the prophet to serve a mission and attend church, he satisfied his personal interests over the counsel of the prophet. Maybe he has just swept this part of his life under the rug. Decades later, now resting on his laurels and the Mormon renown achieved by these choices, he now requires strict obedience to his evolving philosophy. He says this with the claim of receiving a burning in his bosom, which is that unbelievably sweet felling of confirmation bias that tells men like him that what ever they do, no matter the harm it causes the least of their brethren, it is approved of God.
Pres. Oaks, now more than ever , with the very real possibility that he is only one breath away from becoming the President of the Church, feels more entitled than ever to criticize life choices he felt were right for him as a younger man. He attempts to spiritually coerce members of the Church that do not clone their lives to fit his new found philosophy regarding exaltation that makes no allowance for agency and individuality.
Now,(as Pres. Nelson says when he is about to say something profound) let’s consider the many authoritative statements Pres. Oaks has written and spoken from the pulpit about the imperative to marry young and the importance of not delaying having children. ( by contraception or abstinence). Not as a criticism but merely an observation of his second marriage. He married a much younger, lovely woman that could have had children. Same thing with Pres. Nelson and Wendy Nelson. Hollywood stars have children at the age these two women married their apostles at all the time. However for the Oaks and Nelsons, this is an inconvenient time in their lives to be bringing even one more valiant spirit into the world, into a home of privilege such as theirs. Can anyone imaging these women nursing a cuddly always hungry infant on the stand during conference? Ironically, just as it is for many young people today, children at certain times of life are inconvenient, yet Lorenzo Snow fathered a child at 82, so what was stopping these apostles except desire and convenience. No doubt missionary service and attending church for a young Dallin Oaks, was also too inconvenient at the time and would not allow him to achieve his dreams for a better life.
Not withstanding his own youthful recalcitrance and indifference to the prophets of his youth, Pres. Oaks now has the gall to constantly lecture the entire world on and on about obedience to the philosophy and theology of the Proclamation he penned. By contrast, He and his charming wife, who I am not criticizing in the least, but admire for following her heart in a career of her choice. They have not fully lived according to this proclamation. Prior to marrying Elder Oaks, Kristen McCain exercised her independence, and never followed Oaks philosophy of exaltation through motherhood, instead she chose the path of education and career over marriage and children that many young people are choosing today. However, if and when members do depart from Pres. Oaks’ personal philosophy, he is completely unable or unwilling to keep his personal opinions to himself.
Oblivious to his own past choices, and those of his wife, Pres. Oaks is constantly guilt tripping young adults, threatening them with dire consequences, if they dont live up to standards he once eschewed, yet now believes, and has not always lived in his life. He was the prototypical Cafeteria Mormon if there ever was one.
If Pres. Oaks legal amicus brief that morphed into the Family Proclamation were worthy of canonization, it would have to be amended, or undergo a “modification” as the apostles like to say, to include an acknowledgement of the intersex spectrum of gender. This is a real dilemma for the Church, regardless of what the apostles think. For reference, there is a culture in the western Dominican Republic that has such a limited genetic pool that intersex children are quite common. These children, both male and female, and created in some part of God’s own possibly parthenogenic image, often change gender and sexual preference from female to male sometime after puberty. This is a proven biological fact, not to be confused with a theology that authoritatively claims that only male or female gender and orientation, and nothing else, is an essential divine characteristic. If that were the case, how and why did God create so many intersex children, in his own image? Contrary to the Church’s legalistic lexicon, people born intersex do not have to chose a sexual orientation or assigned gender. their parents do not have to have a doctor surgically mutilate their God given bodies. These children of God can, through God’s grace, have it their own way and surely God is happy with them making the best of a natural born life that few understand. The church has no neat little carefully worded paragraph in the Proclamation for the biological uniqueness, changes and challenges of sexual preference or marriage these people experience. Instead of showing love to these children of God, the Proclamation treats people with intersex traits as they do not exist at all.
This is the nonsensical doctrine that comes from men that only read, quote and reiterate what they and their Apostolic or GA friends have written. If they could be bothered to take a current class in anatomy and biology, or simply study and read the scientific literature on the biological discoveries regarding DNA and brain chemistry in this century, they would not sound so ignorant of a spectrum of God’s children that he surely loves as much as the leaders of the Church, and likely has even more compassion and mercy towards.
How is it that President/Dr. Russell M. Nelson can be so aloof, unaware and oblivious to the intersex spectrum of gender and the biology of human behavior? What right do he and Dallin Oaks have, as men completely ignorant of modern biological reality, to define gender as only male or female, with no middle spectrum, or to define sexual orientation so narrowly as to exclude a spectrum of God’s children that exceeds the total population of the church in new births every year. Children born with intersex traits constitute about 1.7 % of the births every year, about the same percentage as being born with red hair.
It is time to scrap or seriously modify the Family Proclamation, and let some recently educated smart people that have a fundamental knowledge of the divine nature of human biology write the important factual stuff, and then maybe throw in a bit of old school, long debunked theology from Joseph Fielding Smith, Boyd K. Packer and Bruce R. McKonkie et al, for comic relief to show the world Mormons still have a sense of humor and can laugh at the nonsense we used to claim was unchanging doctrine received by prophets by direct revelation from God.
MR Snevets
You’ve got to have Peter on your show as a regular guest to cohost a general conference analysis, face to face breakdown or BYU devotional review.
Peter would be a powerhouse in the exmo/mo podcast space. I’d donate to a podcast he hosted for sure! Bring him into the Mormon discussions family of podcasts please!
◄ Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
The God that I worship is the same yesterday today and forever and has been God forever.
Sorry about the “Mormon” god. He has been god for less than 2000 years and keeps getting it all wrong so He keeps having to change his mind when he keeps getting it wrong. You have to forgive a new god who doesn’t have much experience being god for screwing up things regularly.
Peter…I left a comment for you on the comments in the DNA episode by mistake. Dont know how to move it, but its there for you.
God Bless:)
I listened to this entire broadcast and loved so much of what was said and so much of what is accurate but I am still left with several questions first the narrator needs to learn some facts before he speaks. He is s as innacurate of those he accused. Of course if we used the words lies instead of simple in accuracy we would be accused of bigotry. Lorenzo teaching of the profphetd book Lorenzo Snow is actually almost the skinniest not the fattest of them all and the revelation to Lorenzo Snow had nothing to do with the infallibility of the first presidency I believe the revelation he is referring to is to Wilford Woodruff or John Taylor when they shorten the time between the death and the next X presidency being sustained and when brother B says that thank you peasants of Kenya for supporting middle class BYU I will guarantee you that no money from Kenya ever gets to BYU I’m sure Farmor is spent on Kenya and taken from Kenya so those kind of minor prejudicial details are much less careful he said that they should be if one is going to be so critical. Now as to of the general comments brother b. seems to come up with a criticism of absolutely every decision rather than focus on a few it’s hard for me to believe that everything is so bad in the church today I mean we’ve had Lee and Joseph Fielding Smith and MacConkey and Benson etc. etc. and he seems most focused on Oaks and Nelson as if they are the worst of all I am the other hand think we are making great progress when my father joined the church in the 60s he was a lifetime member of the NAACP and was often equated with communist for being so involved with civil rights today Nelson wants to be their best friend I don’t think that’s a bad thing when Newsweek when Newsweek published the most generous in money and in time of every state involved in service Utah right number one in both when the LA Times recently published a front page article on homelessness ranking Los Angeles and New York very low the best city the best big city in the country was Salt Lake City I don’t think that’s because it is the most secular city in the country soooo while I understand the dangers of Phariseeism and authoritarianism I am hard-pressed to think that Oaks and Nelson are the worst offenders yes I prefer the style of Hinckley and monson and hugh b brown and david McKay. But it was had much worse in the past and I think we are making forward progress even though we have miles and miles to go I am interested in what one or two or 10 changes he seems to mention 100 so I don’t think he could ever be satisfied A question that was never asked by the narrator of course but if five or 10 changes could be made what difference would they make would common consent really object to such brilliant man as Nelson and Oaks? I’ve asked classes of seminary students if they want to their mothers or fathers in their interviews with the bishop which my sister strongly encourages like brother b. But everyone said we don’t want our mothers there we only want to talk to our bishops alone so sometimes we get caught up in these fads I’m glad the option is available of course but I don’t think many really want to take advantage of it so again what drastic changes could be made I think the money is a big one I think more temperate claims to authority is a big one and I think abuse of power has happened throughout my life on the local and senior level but again brother B is rather contradictory in his claims that yes we wanna profit it will get an angel and just dictated doctor and rather than discuss it with hopefully inspired brother in and yet at the same time those are some of our worst doctrines when Brigham Young etc. etc. simply pontificated on a revelation I think their safety and councils but they can be over bureaucratic and the biggest problem with the church youth I see and I have always see since half my group left the church being raised in the 50s and 60s is simply boredom I turn on the BYU Idaho devotional assembly and this supposedly brilliant PhD professor of something is talking like a dry piece of cardboard and we don’t seem to address that at all the doctrine is fascinating it’s delivery is tedious beyond belief which saddens me greatly when people should be excited about the book of Mormon anyway I could go on and on there are many contradictions and what was said and many great things I hold a critical eye to the To those who speak out both officially and on programs such as this and of course I wish everyone would be accurate and tell the truth both on this broadcast and in church headquarters!! Sorry for the misspells. My mic isn’t very accurate!
Especially enjoyed this episode. One of my RFM favorites!
This was incredible. Thank you both so much.