123: Fundamentalist Benjamin Shaffer Defends Polygamy

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Chapter Index

0:00 Intro
5:40 Mormon Fundamentalists experience
9:35 Benjamin‘s background
29:45 Exploring other sects of Mormonism
40:15 Benjamin meeting general authorities
46:20 Thoughts on SLC Temple renovations
48:35 Changes to temple ordinances
57:15 Church break-off groups
1:00:30 Fundamentalist temples
1:11:00 Kirkland Temple
1:18:15 Joseph Smith’s polygamy
1:20:25 Is the history settled?
1:21:20 Is polygamy of God?
1:31:10 Polygamy scholars
1:32:50 Post-manifesto polygamy
1:35:15 Joseph F. Smith – defending polygamy, protecting the church
1:40:30 Lying for the Lord
1:42:05 Covenants
1:47:15 Martyrs for polygamy?
1:50:50 Women in Utah
1:52:15 Violence and polygamy
1:56:48 What does the evidence say?

Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural theological and historical case for plural marriage. And actually all of those will come up in this conversation. I am very happy to be able to bring you this conversation that I had with Benjamin Schaefer, who is uh apostle 70 or a 70 apostle in Christ church, which is a fundamentalist sect of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was such a privilege to be able to talk to him. I’m so glad that he agreed to come on and have this conversation. I hope that you will all get a lot out of it because I, I believe I did. Um I’ll give you a little bit of background. It’s a couple of weekends ago, I had the privilege of going to Don and Jasmine Bradley’s lovely wedding reception. And there I met some very interesting people that I hadn’t necessarily anticipated meeting. And one of them was Benjamin Schafer who came up and spoke to me and um which I appreciated we had a very interesting exchange and I reached out to him a little while later and asked if he would willing to come on the podcast. And I’m, I was just delighted that he agreed. I really wanted to be able to, I, I really do want to be able to engage with people on every side of this issue including, and maybe even, especially people who are living plural marriage and who believe in those doctrines that I believe that Brigham taught, um especially in Utah. So, um I hope that this conversation will be interesting to you. I really appreciated that Benjamin was willing to come and that we had what felt to me and I hope felt to him like an even exchange and a um you know, it wasn’t any kind of, there was no combativeness or contention, just sharing ideas and pushing back a bit on each other. And I really appreciated that I hope that that same example could be followed in the comments of not attacking people, but just discussing the ideas. Um I, I really am anxious to hear people’s thoughts on this conversation because I thought it was valuable and I hope that it will lead to many more. So, thank you so much for joining us as we take, take this deep dive into the murky waters of current fundamentalist Mormonism. Welcome to 100 and 32 problems. This is an episode that kind of fell into my lap that I’m actually really excited for. So I am here with Benjamin Schafer who is Benjamin you’ll have to help me with your introduction in just a minute. But I believe an apostle in Christchurch, which is a, a fundamentalist sect of Mormonism. Did I explain that? All right. Did you explain that?

[02:37] Benjamin Schaffer: All right. I’m a 70 apostle. Uh We do use the apostle for both the 12 and the 70. Um But uh because we’re all supposed to go out there and, and be witnesses of Christ, right? Um But uh but yeah, I’m not, I’m not in the 12 or anything like that.

[02:52] Michelle: Ok. Ok. I gave him a little too high of status. Thank you for your humility. And um actually, so Benjamin and I, I was at a wedding last week and Benjamin came up and introduced himself and I hadn’t realized that there when, when I walked into this wedding. Um, there were many fundamentalists and I, um it was, it was interesting and a little unsettling because I hadn’t expected that. And I used to, it’s, it’s actually been kind of sad for me because I used to have um more friends that were fundamentalists before I became enemy number one, which I understand, but it is sad to me. But Benjamin came up and himself and asked if you could take a selfie and I was feeling a little like I’ve been kind of under attack lately. So I was, I was a little standoffish, I’m afraid but um just because I didn’t know what to expect and I wasn’t quite prepared for it. And

[03:42] Benjamin Schaffer: I was like, oh, I’ve got to get my brother and my friends. I got to tell him, hey, guess what? I met Michelle Stone.

[03:49] Michelle: Right. And so, um, but, but I, he did come up and ask me, um, some interesting questions and I was, we were able to have a bit of a conversation. Not much because there were a lot of people around. But so I reached out to Benjamin and I was like, hey, I’ll do you better than a selfie. How about we have an actual conversation on the podcast? Because I, while we are theologically very different and I totally understand that. And I, you know, I understand that I am hitting at things that are incredibly sacred to you and, you know, and people who think like you, so I understand it. But at the same time, I really do believe that we don’t have to have divisions that we can still have charity and understanding and love for one another. Because I really believe my feeling is when the Lord says, if you are not one, you are not mine, it doesn’t mean we all have to agree because that’s impossible. It just means that we see each other as Children of God who are learning things in a different order than we are. Maybe hopefully all well intended. That’s, that’s, that’s what I was hoping to do. And, and I think Benjamin asked me some questions that I thought were genuine, but that I was surprised he, he had to ask, he didn’t know very much about me and I didn’t know very much about him. So I thought it’d be good if we could kind of let people see us, kind of get to know, to get to know him each other, share our journeys and then maybe engage in some questions that people might want to have with one another. So, does that sound all right, Benjamin? Is that

[05:13] Benjamin Schaffer: great? And I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a couple of questions too because

[05:16] Michelle: there’s no, I was hoping you would,

[05:17] Benjamin Schaffer: I haven’t seen every single episode of 132 problems, but I’ve, I’ve seen some of it of course. And um gee I had a lot of questions about why uh what’s the, what’s the rationale behind some things besides, I mean, of course, you give a lot of explanation but it raised additional questions for me. Uh And so that’s good. And you know, when I do my missionary work, it isn’t about baptizing or converting everyone in the world. Uh A whole lot of this dialogue is really about just seeing each other as people. Uh Mormon fundamentalists, uh Mormons in general, but Mormon fundamentalists in particular have a long history of persecution. We uh we’re very shy people usually very, very nervous about uh having any public exposure because we’re afraid everyone’s gonna grab their torches and pitchforks and come and try to burn our house down or tear our families apart or throw someone in jail or, um, or something like that. Now, um, plural marriage is not actually illegal anymore. Um, but it’s not a criminal act anymore. Uh, but we still get very nervous that people are gonna be very upset at us and things like that. Um, and so, yeah,

[06:18] Michelle: I understand because I take, I take an immense amount of hate from in the space I’m in, you know, from every quarter. So I understand.

[06:26] Benjamin Schaffer: Oh, I thought this is fun. You said that you described yourself as like public enemy number one for polygamy. And I thought it was funny because you guys have the same, the enemy of my enemy is my friend sometimes. And I thought it was interesting that before your uh show really II, I would say it was Brian Hales that was viewed as public enemy number one generally. Um because Brian Hales is this apologist for the church and he’s always trying to be like, oh, well, you know, we shouldn’t have polygamy and here’s why we shouldn’t have polygamy and here’s why all the fundamentalists are wrong and here’s why all the history is my way and, and that justifies the church. And we always, I mean, basically, OK, I had a, I had a lot of good civil dialogue with Brian Hales over the years. OK, I’ve written a lot of long strings of emails with him. Uh I, he’s not a bad person but, yeah, I kind of viewed him as the major spokesperson in anti polygamy before your show. And it’s funny that from your perspective, you’re like, oh, Brian Hales and, and the, and the Just Smith Polygamy volumes and th that history and all that, that’s public enemy number one to you guys. And I was like, oh, wow. Are we like the opposite ends of the political spectrum with a common, a common opponent? Uh I thought that was rather interesting.

[07:40] Michelle: It’s fascinating because I’ve actually come to view it a little bit differently because I see Brian Hales interacting in spaces where there are fundamentalists. And now now that I guess I am on the scene and people who agree with me are on the scene, it is actually seems to me to kind of have United Brian Hall and the fundamentalists because

[08:01] Benjamin Schaffer: we were the total opposite ends before. But now it’s a little bit like, oh, I mean, at least he admits that there was,

[08:10] Michelle: yeah, like the fundamentalists, I’ve seen love Brian Hall now because I’ve become, yeah. And then that’s what, that’s what’s so interesting to me is that like, like on one side, I, I was thinking about this in a debate, for example, on one side, there would be me and I would have like a member of the restoration branches that broke off of the community of Christ on one side and maybe like, um, someone who has left the church to um pursue the book of Mormon, like someone that has left in the direction of Denver Snuffer or something like that, you know, like, like I’m, I’m an active member of the church and that, that would be my team. But then on the other side, there would be a fundamentalist, a traditional member of the LDS church, right? And like the most Joseph Smith hating anti Mormon all on the same side as we discuss the question of Joseph Smith’s polygamy because all of those groups use exactly the same sources. You know what? Not in my opinion, not because they’re the only or even the best sources. They’re just the ones that tell that side of the story that makes the most sense to that group. So it is polygamy makes strange bedfellows like

[09:13] Benjamin Schaffer: really? It does. So. So, you know, now I’m all like, go Brian Hales sometimes never in his camp before the whole polygamy denial thing came out. So

[09:25] Michelle: OK, that’s f that. I’m glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you about that. That’s interesting. I’m glad to know that you guys are cheering Brian Hales on. See, that’s what I’ve been saying, people. Yes. So Benjamin, would you mind giving us just a brief rundown of kind of your history, your journey? Did you start out LDS? Were you like, like, let us know kind of where you’ve come from. And then, and then the second question, I’ll just give you a whole big thing and you can just wax eloquent about it. If, if you want to like 10 minutes, then that, that would be great. Yeah. Laugh. And um the next and then I would like you to kind of explain where your church christ church fit fits into the water fundamentalist movement because I know more the F LDS, the A UB, the Kingstons, you know, I kind of know those bigger categories. And so the Centennial Park broke off of the F LDS. You know, I have the basic outline, but Christchurch, it seems to be more and more break offs that I’m not up on. So if you wouldn’t mind giving us those two rundowns, that would be really helpful.

[10:23] Benjamin Schaffer: OK. Super. OK. So first of all, I was raised mainstream LDS. I was raised by a temple attending tithing, paying fully active parents, um went to uh primary all the way through uh served a mission, got married in the temple. Uh did checked all the boxes. Uh I was very, very passionate about the gospel ever since they like know your religion series. They used to do where they get somebody from BYU or uh something like that to go out to different stakes and give talks. And uh even just as a young man, I was very, very passionate about, about the, the gospel. Uh and and, you know, that made our family a little different, but I didn’t realize that yet. Um, because like, you know, when we, when kids are out there playing cowboys and Indians, we were playing like knee fights and Lamanites and we were playing like, um, we were like, looking for our sear stones instead of just seashells. You know what I mean? We were like, we’re all gonna be prophets someday. We’re gonna, you know, um my, my parents, my parents actually um would talk to us about um the sear stones in family, meaning they talked to us about um why uh about the manifestations of the Kirtland Temple. They talked to us about polygamy. They, I mean, my, I remember my parents and my mother and father bearing their testimonies to me about um the divine principle of celestial plural marriage when I was a kid in family evening. And I thought this was the same experience that all mainstream Mormons were having. Um And so when I encounter people who didn’t even know that like Mary was one of the wives of God. Um I was like, dude, did you pay attention in primary or what do you know what I mean? Like on my mission when um so I was one of those, you know, II I recognize that that was weird now, but at the time that was normal enough to me. But it also made me very passionate about studying history, studying doctrine. Studying the fullness of the gospel, studying everything I could about, about, um, about, about Mormonism. I, I even read the entire four Standard works before my mission. Um, I, I’ll admit there were a couple of portions of Ezekiel and things like that, that I was like, I have no idea what’s going on here but I did try to read everything. Um, and then I went on my mission and found out some people hadn’t even read the book of Mormon Watts, you know, and I was like, what? Uh so I, I was really into that stuff. So after my mission after getting married, um in college, I studied um with the CE S program and became a seminary teacher. Um And so I worked for CS for a little while. Uh Not a long time, I didn’t get the permanent gig. Uh That’s, that’s a big deal. I’m afraid I was up against an ESP like, so there’s like a cohort where there was one, there was one full time job. OK. And me and like three other guys, one of them whom was an s one whose father was a seminary institute teacher, whose grandfather was a seminary institute teacher and basically founded the entire CE S program, basically created it was his grandfather. Um The three of us were like, oh, yeah, you’re gonna be temporary seminary teachers. Then we’re gonna pick one of you for the full time job. And yet for some reason I have the hubris to think I still might get picked. Um, and didn’t quite make it. Um, and don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that this, this other guy who did get the job. I’m not saying he wasn’t an excellent teacher. He was, but I was looking back, I’m like, no, you, it was never gonna happen. That was, that was a foregone conclusion. Uh,

[13:54] Michelle: that’s what started all of the problems they should have, they should have hired you as a seminary teacher.

[13:58] Benjamin Schaffer: And I taught, I taught for a year there and I taught early morning seminary later anyway, because I was trained. Um and I became a temple worker. I was a temple worker in Saint George Man, Thai and Taipei Taiwan. I lived in Taiwan for a while. Um which was fun. Uh So I was a temple worker in a few temples. I was a seminary teacher. I was fully invested. But then something interesting happened, they changed um One of the temple ordinances, the, the wash anointing went from literally actually washing and to um being like uh well, you’re not going to be washed and anointed, but we will give you this symbolic washing a as follows. The,

[14:39] Michelle: so you’re talking about the changes that were in my memory like somewhat,

[14:42] Benjamin Schaffer: it

[14:42] Michelle: was

[14:43] Benjamin Schaffer: like 2003 to 2005 when that changed

[14:45] Michelle: like 20 years ago or something.

[14:48] Benjamin Schaffer: I was like 24 years old. Um So

[14:50] Michelle: I want to clarify for any non Mormons. The literal washing annoying team wasn’t like nudity and a bath. There was a shield and touches of water but not,

[15:00] Benjamin Schaffer: yeah, I mean, there used to be a bathtub thing. Um, that was,

[15:05] Michelle: that was a lot,

[15:07] Benjamin Schaffer: you know, they come dust off the trail and they just do the whole thing in the bathhouse that made people uncomfortable, um, with. So then they were like a poncho. Um,

[15:18] Michelle: yeah. So you were, you were never exposed. But I know that, like, one of my sisters in particular was thrilled with that change because she had been so uncomfortable with it the whole time. And so it’s interesting how different people react to, you know, because the, the Washington anointing never actually bothered me. I’m into like, energy work and touch work. And so I was kind of like, oh, that lost something, you know, it,

[15:39] Benjamin Schaffer: it

[15:40] Michelle: definitely

[15:41] Benjamin Schaffer: lost something. It lost something major. Now, did it make people uncomfortable sometimes? Well, yeah. But if you’re not ready to have a deep, profound ritual experience, you shouldn’t be entering into major ritual experiences. Right. And, and, and I think that

[15:57] Michelle: unfortunately

[15:59] Benjamin Schaffer: has really, really not prepared people properly for that.

[16:03] Michelle: Yes, I was going to say when you don’t know what is, what is in store and you’re not able to buy in by choice and, and when there are no options because some people, like my sister is extremely private extremely, um, you know, I can see, like, like that would have probably traumatized. She’s quite a bit older than I am. So, anyway, so it’s just interesting, the different experiences people have. So, yes, continue, I didn’t mean to

[16:25] Benjamin Schaffer: well, and deep mystical, um, ceremonial experiences where you, where you have to deconstruct your identity and all kinds of things that, you know, maybe that really isn’t for everybody and it’s certainly not for anybody who isn’t prepared to have that experience. And so the idea that that the LDS church has turned the temple into this, like uh this uh factory process of like assembly line, everyone has to do this and we’re gonna shove everyone right through this. Um Is one of the reasons why, yeah, that, that the, the, the current LDS approach to the temple is totally incompatible with what I would consider to be a full or valid temple experience. Um It makes no sense at all to just say, guess what? Everybody, we’re gonna throw the mysteries at you. No, there’s a reason why the my these mystical experiences are supposed to be for people who are entering an initiative experience and actually prepared for that. Um I, I refer to this to some of the psychologists like if you’re not ready to like read Carl Jung and talk about like the death of the ego and all that stuff. If you haven’t like gotten into this, you shouldn’t be entering into ritual experiences that are meant to evoke those, experience, those mental and spiritual um states. So,

[17:38] Michelle: OK. OK. So I think, OK, I think I can, like, I can get on board with what you’re saying in terms of instead of it being like you are 18. So now you’re going on a mission or now you’re getting married. So therefore this is the step you go through and it’s like the necessary requirement because you’re going on a mission because you’re getting married rather than separating it from life events and just having it be I feel the yearning and the prompting that I want to take this next step. And so I’m, I’m choosing in completely free of any other circumstance. Is that kind of what you’re saying?

[18:10] Benjamin Schaffer: Yeah. And, and this is the really big danger of turning things like the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ into a checklist is that you think that everyone has to go through a process, everyone becomes just a cog in a factory shoved through something. Um You can’t force that kind of thing that Jesus before his ministry had the 40 day fast in the wilderness and he faced the devil and he overcame, you know, he was tempted and he can you just tell somebody, you know what we’re going to make you not eat for 40 days. We’re not gonna explain why we’re just gonna say you don’t get to for 40 days and then we’re gonna throw the devil at you and we’re gonna tempt you with stuff and then if you don’t do it exactly the way Jesus did, we’re gonna say you’re a failure. Like how is that beneficial to anybody? Uh You know. Uh, so going on a mission, right? Going on a mission should mean that you’re called. Well, a call now means that you get a letter in the mail and someone told you you’re old enough now. So fill out this paperwork and go to a doctor and get a bunch of vaccines and, and, and do all this, all these requirements and then we’re gonna send you a letter and that’s your call. I thought a call meant that you felt deep in your soul, a movement of the Holy Spirit upon you that fundamentally changed who you are and what you think you want in life until you were ready to sacrifice all things for the greater excellency of Jesus Christ. Put it all on the altar, experience this mighty change of heart and then go forth to share with others the experience you’ve had. No, we just like, oh no, the call is now just a piece of paper and the mighty experience or change of heart is we’re gonna shove you through a bunch of ceremonies that you don’t understand or even want or I’m completely aren’t prepared for. And then we’re going to put you out on a mission which is literally a geographic boundary area where you’re supposed to do mission stuff, which is basically just another checklist of memorize these things, say this stuff to people. Um If I’m not saying that people aren’t experiencing by a change of heart sometimes, but when they are, I’m saying that’s like incidental to the program, the program itself is not actually facilitating the purpose of religion, which should be actual experience of God.

[20:09] Michelle: So putting the cart behind the, behind the horse in a way like I mean before the horse, it’s kind of like you can experience a mighty change of heart through these experiences. But you’re saying, ideally, the mighty change of heart comes first and then you are called by the Lord. And then you go to the missionary work, seek not to preach the word until you first have obtained the word, right?

[20:28] Benjamin Schaffer: Instead of just telling a kid, oh, you’re 18 time to do all this stuff and you just shove them through as though um that’s gonna fix them or do something for them. This is one of the reasons why you know, it used to be um pre I don’t know, 1990 or so. II I don’t remember exactly when those statistics shifted, but it shifted somewhere in there. Um And people usually blame the internet the rise of the internet for this, but there’s there became a shift that if you served a mission, you are more likely to stay faithful and active and tithing, paying your whole life. It to, if you serve a mission, you’re actually more likely to aposto, um, at a certain point. And, and now, and I think what it is is that we’re shoving people through a program instead of letting them say as a man, as a mature man. I have made this decision for myself for my life. The these 18 year olds are not feeling like a man who has gone away from their parents and decided for themselves what their life will be and what their life will be is that they’re going to lay it on the altar and serve a mission for God because they feel moved to do so. No, you’re basically taking Children shoving them through a bunch of adult experiences that even a lot of adults, most adults never fully understand. And then assuming that they’re somehow gonna have this mystical change, this mystical experience in their life and go forth with that.

[21:45] Michelle: Ok. Ok. This is so, so many questions. So, yeah, and I hear you and I, I,

[21:52] Benjamin Schaffer: I, I know

[21:52] Michelle: we have to come back to it. So I wanna, I wanna get back to it. But I, um, I do have to push back just a little bit just because my son, you know, I only know up, up close and personal, my own son’s experiences. And, um, and it is, it is a more gentle type of mission because there’s a president and a system and a and, and an apartment and a companion, you know, but I do know that my sons absolutely chosen. They weren’t shoved through any kind of a system. And then I watched the profound growth that they all experienced. And I, my, my third son is on my fifth child, but my third son is on his mission right now. So I, I did just wanna, I know that people might be like that’s so true.

[22:32] Benjamin Schaffer: Don’t get me wrong. I, I had some great mission experiences too on my mission. I served in Kirtland, Ohio, which is pretty cool. So

[22:39] Michelle: let’s get back to your, I want to have you.

[22:42] Benjamin Schaffer: And they were like, this is the barn with where Fanny Alger was. Do you know what I mean? Like this is one of the things we’re talking about and Lachlan Mackay became friends with me then and I’ve met him many, many times since. Um And, uh you know,

[22:57] Michelle: is a member of the, not the community of Christ anymore, but he’s a apostle is the community of Christ. OK. That’s right. OK.

[23:06] Benjamin Schaffer: And he’s a descendant of Joseph Smith. Um You know, and all that. And so, uh you know, this is really important family history. Uh So, yeah, it’s been fun to just kind of be like, oh, what about this? And what about that? You know? OK. So

[23:22] Michelle: keep going. So you served a mission, you went through the, the um in the seminary training program. And so you were in Utah, I guess you were raised in Utah. And then,

[23:32] Benjamin Schaffer: yeah. Ok. And so, um, II, I was raised all over the west. We moved a bit. Uh, but, uh, I served a mission in Ohio. I got married. I became a temple worker. I was in Taipei Taiwan. Um, they changed the Washington anointings. This was massive for me because again, I was like, no, you’re robbing the entire um sacred nature of something when you don’t do it. Um Let me give you something. That is exactly the same thing. And this isn’t just an analogy. This is like the exact same thing is when the uh when the Catholic church said, you know what full immersion is probably necessary, we’re gonna immerse you symbolically by placing you beneath the water and pouring it over you. And then you’ve been symbolically immersed as follows. And so I was like, this is I’ve been, I was just, I was out of my mission, you know, only a few years before that, right? Um Before all that, that those changes happened. And, and in the third discussion, we talked about the great apostasy and people say, well, give me an example, what, what changed? Uh I was in the Bible belt basically in Ohio, right? That’s the top of the Bible belt. And there was a lot of people being like, but nothing changed. Uh Christianity has always been the same since the time of Jesus. So there’s never been an apostasy. What do you mean that? And this is one of the go to examples when we were having a discussion, I’d be like, well, yeah, but the, the symbolic purity, the beauty, the experience of a mature adult going forth into the waters of baptism, laying their life down and being literally immersed in the water and coming forth out of the water. You, you can’t just change that into. We’re gonna Sprinkle a baby with water on their forehead and call that the same ordinance. It is not the same thing. Um And then we were doing the exact same thing in the LDS church. We were taking what was originally an hours, many hours long, literal symbolic experience where you have to be stripped of all things. You have to lose everything. You have to be washed and anointed and prepared and, and you lose everything. And then you have to go through this experience where you play a role in all of these experiences where you approach God through, through all of these rituals where you have to create the earth and you have to forget everything and you have to learn a new what it means to be, to follow God and to approach God. And we’ve turned it into a symbolic thing that we do separate and then we go in and we just watch a movie. You know, I was like, this is not the same experience at all. And I realized, oh my gosh, this is exactly the same thing. I said, this is what apostasy is my whole mission. I was telling everybody this is what apostasy is. And then I was watching the church that I was deeply, deeply invested in doing literally exactly the same things that I had been preaching were the definition of apostasy and former dispensations in former times. How is it not exactly the same thing now? And I thought, oh my gosh, I think the church is following the exact same pattern and almost the exact same timeline as happened after Christ and the apostles were gone. Uh Exactly the same thing in exactly the same timeline as happened in every other apostasy. This is what Isaiah was complaining about in his time. He was saying you’re changing the ordinances, you’re breaking the everlasting covenant. And I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s the same thing again. So that I

[27:09] Michelle: OK. Did you have this full depth of understanding at that time when you were a young man? And it was changed or has this kind of grown as you? Because you said you told me you have become a master. I assume you weren’t a master mason at that point that you went to like, like,

[27:24] Benjamin Schaffer: yeah, that’s a separate thing, right? Than a church. OK. OK. Masonry is not a church. Church is not masonry. Masonry does not have dogmas or doctrines. Masonry uh is a fraternity. Uh But yes, I’m also involved in that stuff. Uh You know, I was always interested in symbolism. I was always interested in experiences rituals, things like that. I mean, uh even as a young man, totally, totally committed to the LDS church, but I still had family members that were um cousins that weren’t LDS. And I remember going to like a midnight mass. My mother converted from Catholicism into Mormonism, for example. And, and so, um for, for uh for, for Christmas, I’d gone to mass a few times and seen different rituals. And I was also interested, always saying, why did they do that different? Why did they do this this way? Um So I’ve always been interested in that kind of thing in general, right? Because I wanted to deeply understand um the world and deeply understand my own experience. You know, it also helped uh my uh my patriarchal blessing. Uh When I was a teenager, I got a patriarchal blessing in the LDS church. And it said you, it will be important for you to study the religions and philosophies of men so that you can converse fluently with those whom the Lord will call you to teach. OK. And so I always felt like no, it’s actually my duty. It’s in my patriarchal blessing. I need to understand this stuff. Um so that I can explain it in a way that is meaningful to people because people come from a lot of different perspectives, a lot of different backgrounds, this way, I can see all those perspectives and backgrounds and, and communicate with people. So anyways, um uh my, my fuller understanding, of course, it grows over time. But the, the passage from Isaiah that I quoted to you, I definitely thought about at the time. Um if you change the ordinances, you have broken the everlasting covenant, right? It says the Earth itself is defiled under the cabinet though, for they have changed the ordinance, broken the law. Uh uh uh What is it transgressed? The law changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. And um you know, and this is, this is the problem, right? The Lord makes covenants with his people. We end up breaking those covenants when we break our covenants, I believe that we um we cut ourselves off from that communion with the Lord. The whole point of a covenant is to have some kind of a relationship with God. Uh That’s what a covenant means, right? Is to have a relationship, we break it from our end. The Lord doesn’t break his covenant, we break ours. And so I was like, oh my gosh, if the church isn’t doing this, what am I going to do? And wouldn’t, you know it? I became familiar with various branches of Mormonism. So let’s get into that question. Um I, I have a brother. Uh I have, I have a, I have a relation for almost every occasion. OK, I’ve got a brother who’s in the community of Christ. Um and I have uh I have family members who’ve left for fundamentalism, people who’ve left for uh anti fundamentalism, right? Like the community of Christ, uh people who are Catholic, uh all kinds of things were just inactive.

[30:19] Michelle: So, is this among your siblings or, or the? OK. So you were raised in this very um very devout, very scripture central way which I mean, I mean, centric scripture centric way, which I was going to share some of my stories because that’s really how I raised my Children as well to a large extent. And um anyway, and so then you, so, so it sounds like maybe there had been discussions going on with your family and did it, did it start for many of you with the same change in the Washington anointings or were some of them already had, had changed religions because of other things? Have they already got to fund? Like

[31:01] Benjamin Schaffer: there was a lot of, there were a lot of different things um that, that got us thinking but, but really, I think the main problem was all that reading and thinking right to different conclusions at different times. But what was happening was we were always deeply debating everything in, in, in church history, in the scriptures, in anything someone would say, hey, there’s some apparent contradiction in scripture and we’d be like, what? Well, we got to talk about this we’d all debate it and that was, that was normal enough and it was, felt safe enough when we were just all members of the LDS church when it started fracturing, we, some of us started going, wait a second. No, the church isn’t. Right. That’s when we all started to panic a little bit. I mean, I feel bad for my poor mother. She’s kind of decided her view is I’m sticking with the church no matter what I remember asking my mom, like, you know, we’ve all gone different ways. What do you think? And she’s like, I think I’m sticking with the church and I was like, well, I get that. But like, why are you sticking with the church? And she’s like, no, there doesn’t have to be a, why I’m sitting with the church no matter what I said, wait a second. Are you telling me that if like, Russell and Nelson got up and said there is no God. Our, our job now as members of the church is to destroy all religion, we’re gonna be violent. We’re gonna be horrible. We’re gonna, we’re gonna destroy faith. We’re gonna, I

[32:13] Michelle: think she has the assumption that that won’t happen.

[32:15] Benjamin Schaffer: Well, she, she says, well, first of all, I don’t think it’s gonna go that far, but I made up my mind. I’m with him. I just care. I will not question this ever. I do. I think,

[32:29] Michelle: I

[32:30] Benjamin Schaffer: think this is where this is where, this is where I ended up and this is where I’m staying. I don’t want to debate it. I’ll go anywhere.

[32:39] Michelle: Yeah. I, I do understand that. I think there are people that are like, I just want to, I just want to feel safe and comfortable and not have to question every single assumption and, and, and face what that might mean for my life. I get that

[32:52] Benjamin Schaffer: and I have to face the fact that that’s, it’s a rare person that wants to put it all out there. It’s a rare person that wants to question everything and, and we all, we have to face it. All of our family, friends and family member, we all have friends and family members who would have followed whatever because they’re not going to change. They would have said the code of Hammurabi is the greatest law ever given to man. If they lived at that time, they would be, um they would be great patriots in World War Two with the greatest generation of Americans, they would have been loyal Nazis. If they lived in Germany, they would be loyal whatevers if that was they were given, you know, and most of the time it’s a reasonable shortcut for our brains to take, which is, you know, if I stick with the general consensus about what everyone’s telling me what science is telling me what he is telling me. I’m probably good. Let’s just stick with the pack. That’s a normal thing for most, I think

[33:46] Michelle: I do want to touch on and then I want you to get back to your story. I wanted to touch on how you talked about. It was all the reading and discussing that. Um Kind of got you in trouble, got your family in trouble. In terms of

[33:56] Benjamin Schaffer: my dad, my dad got excommunicated and they were like, we would encourage you to repent and go back to your scriptures. And I was like, excuse me, excuse me, my dad should go back to his scriptures. That is the problem. Not the

[34:10] Michelle: I have said to people so many times like, like, like people, you know, in the LDS, um the people who are more just kind of standard LDS don’t question. Don’t like the system accuse me of leading people out of the LDS church, which I think is ridiculous. But the thing that’s interesting to me is I’m like, the things that are leading the people out of the church are all of the like, like the gospel topics, essay, rough stone rolling fair Mormon, you know, all of the, the history as we write it. And then also, so if they want to get rid of all anti Mormon literature, like for me, the problem was the book of Mormon. And then the one commandment that Jesus gives the people in the book of Mormon is study Isaiah. And so you start studying Isaiah and when you seriously study Isaiah and then it goes right into Jeremiah, I believe. Right? And it’s, those are not like institutional church friendly scriptures, right?

[35:03] Benjamin Schaffer: These prophets were radicals, they were not institutionalists, they were not like, oh yeah, the institution, they were like question everything. And here’s these radical revelations and

[35:14] Michelle: these are the problems with institutions that are inevitable. It’s like baked into the cake, right? And so I believe that is the, the pattern throughout life that, you know, Jesus came and bucked the system, right? Leigh came and buck to the system. It’s, it’s kind of um God sent Samuel the Lamanites or a bit or I mean, throughout the history, it’s an institution ossifies and becomes. So I guess what I’m trying to say is I totally understand that it was like if I don’t want to keep having problems, I need to start stop studying the scriptures because that’s what caused my problems, you know, like that’s what caused me to not have the LDS church be as good of a fit as it was previously. And that’s exactly how I raised my Children. I can I tell just because it made me remember a couple of stories when you’re talking about your kids. Like, I mean, when you’re talking about you guys as kids looking for um sear stones instead of seashells. So just a couple of thoughts that came to my mind is so um one of my little boys when he was probably three or four. It was his turn to say the family prayer. And my husband, my little boys constantly had whatever sword they needed to have, whether they were David or, or, or nei usually nei and like a little um leather band tied around their head. This was like the standard, this is how they lived, right? And so it’s my um little little guy turn to say the prayer and my husband took away his sword and took off his and, and he just was devastated and would not, could not pray because his sword got taken away, you know. And um so I, I being the man, the the peace speaker, I was like, OK, um Lincoln look, I know you’re, you’re pretending to be Nephi and Nephi would pray when it was his turn to pray. So here I’ll give you your sword and you can hold it. But it’s your turn to say the prayer, you know. So he, his eyes lit up and he, he started to pray. He started to pray and he said, oh God, please lead us across to the promised land and help my brothers to help me build the ship. Like our family prayer that night was saying the family prayer. It was the funniest. And we have all kinds of like one of my kids came up and said, oh mom, your shirt is choice above all of their shirts. Like this was the, the vernacular that they used, you know, it was like, like, anyway,

[37:22] Benjamin Schaffer: what is your native language? And, and people said, well, nobody talks like that in the book of Mormon. And I was like, I do, I did, I mean, uh my brain thinks in the book of Mormon English. And then I translated it into modern American. Like, that’s my,

[37:34] Michelle: I have dinner table conversations about jeroboam and RM and the Latin North word that no, I hear my kids having these conversations. And so, yeah, so I, I, I think it’s really interesting that the more in some ways, the more converted you are and the more sincere you are sometimes the harder it gets to just kind of stay in the boat,

[37:54] Benjamin Schaffer: right? The higher the expectations, the easier it is to be disappointed. Um I was raised so faithful that I thought, I mean, I really thought that Jesus Christ himself was in sitting in the Salt Lake Temple with the first presidency in form of the 12 regularly. And that when they had some question about the wording of the church handbook, of instructions, they were handing it to Jesus and he’s taking his red pen and going actually, we should word it like this and, oh, well, where should Benjamin Schafer go on his mission? Oh, no, no, no, don’t send him there. I want him to go here and like, OK, I mean, I practically thought that on an institutional level and here’s the problem this is a big problem of mixing the gospel, the eternal truths of God with institutional loyalty to a bureaucracy is that I was given this expectation that Jesus Christ himself in the body was participating in the bureaucracy. This is the impression that a lot of people are given in the church. You know what I mean? It’s like, oh, well, the prophet he ta he knows the Lord, he talks to the Lord. He doesn’t do anything but the Lord approves of it or tells him to do it. And then the hero worship of that, the idolatry, in my opinion of just assuming that, oh, well, every single thing that the prophet says, he is saying as a prophet, every single thing that they say or do or anything like, you know what I mean? It gets to the point where it’s like kiss the ring kind of attitude. Now, I recognize that I’m using those analogies that we don’t do in Mormonism and people say well, but yeah, but we don’t kiss his ring. Yeah, but we don’t um canonize everything that he said. We don’t call him infallible. The problem is, is that like Catholics officially believe the Pope is infallible, officially say that the Pope is infallible, but they don’t treat him like he’s infallible. They question the debate. We say that the prophet is infallible, but we treat him as though he is infallible. I mean, especially like, like, you know, exact obedience. We were always talking about exact obedience and this sort of thing. And it’s like, oh my gosh, we treat them as though they’re infallible. And so having expectations that high makes it really, really easy to be disappointed when you find that that is not the case. And at this point in my life, I started hanging out with a bunch of general authorities. Um, you know, Gordon M Hinckley came to my meeting house because he was dedicating it because we lived in Taiwan. And that’s, you know, sometimes in certain foreign areas, when you’re like the center of the church in that area, we went to church in what I called um Temple Square of Taipei City. Um Right is where we went to church. It was next, there’s the temple and the church building, it’s all kind of together. The mission home is right there. So the mission presidents, um seventies uh and as well as any visiting General authority, you’re just gonna come and visit the Ame English speaking ward in Taiwan. Right. So I and the meeting dozens of these guys and my expectation is they understand the gospel, not only in a book, learning level better than me, but also probably in a mystical symbolic level better than me and also probably in a direct experiences with God better than me. I think that they’re gonna know all this stuff. And so, you know, my family, we have, what do we do? We have all these debates about scriptural things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so what do I end up doing? I met Russell and Nelson the same way. Um who’s, who’s president now? He wasn’t, he wasn’t at the time. And I end up wanting to say, hey, what do you think about the controversy of this or that? And they weren’t just not willing to take a position. It was that they did not know about it at all over and over and over again. Any deep question I had about the gospel, about history, about doctrine about anything. These guys weren’t just carefully neutral, they were woefully ignorant, completely ignorant. And I was like, how can you not know about this? This is important stuff. What do you think it means? You, you told us we had to go to the temple for example. And I wanted to talk about um how, how ordinances fit into the scheme of exultation. And they’re like, oh, do ordinances have to do with exultation? I never really thought about that. And I’m like, how could you not have thought about that? You’re the temple president or you’re our 70 apostle here or you are one of the 12? How did you not? You’ve n not thought about this. Like, uh one of Holland generally had thought about things. He talked to me a couple of times in Kirtland and in um Taipei, um he’d thought about things but he was very cautious, but a lot of them didn’t even know. And were they offended? Yes, Russell M Nelson was deeply offended. Just angry. He was like, how dare you question our authority? We were placed over you by God. And I was like, I’m not questioning your authority. I wanted to know what you thought about something. That’s a deep question. That’s, that’s, that’s troubling to me. That’s, that’s interesting to me. I thought we could have a good gospel discussion. I’m not questioning your authority and he’s like the only type of person who would ask a question of an apostle of the Lord like me is someone who doesn’t trust that I was placed by God in authority over you and you should accept what we tell you without question. And you know, and I was just like

[43:09] Michelle: hope was that OK? So I know, I know you’re exaggerating a bit.

[43:13] Benjamin Schaffer: I’m exaggerating a bit, but she was not happy. OK? That I would dare to ask him a question and his answer was how dare you ask me questions more or less? OK.

[43:23] Michelle: I have, I haven’t, I haven’t um interacted with um general authorities, but I have with um I guess like BYU scholars, retired professors or scripts and the experience I’ve sometimes had because I’m similar to you where I, I love the scriptures and I spent decades just devouring them all the time. And um and so I would have these questions because they’re filled with questions. Right? And so there was one time that, that I was speaking, I, I would, I would associate with older, um, like old men who had spent their lives studying the scriptures is, you know, and then they would tell me to go talk to someone else or go talk. So, so I went and spoke one time too. I believe his name was Hyrum Andres and he was retired. U OK. And maybe I shouldn’t say his name because, but, but so, so another, another older friend who was a mutual friend who I discussed scriptures with quite a bit, said you need to go talk to Hyrum Andres about this because he, he, you know, didn’t, didn’t, he just said, maybe he’ll have a good insight about this. So he called him, I sent me over there and it really was sort of who do you think you are? It’s kind of, it was like, no, this is who I am. I’m this and you do not have, you do not have the right to ask that question because have you read everything I’ve ever written? Have you? And I’m like, you haven’t written on this? And do you know what I mean? It was very much like, oh, I can’t just sincerely engage on the scriptural question. I have to set myself up as above you and say, who do you think you are to ask that question? So, is that kind of the sense it was, or was it, um, was really nice.

[45:00] Benjamin Schaffer: But I should, I should also, um, I should also cut the guy a break a little bit and back up and say, you know what, he was in Taiwan. He was probably jet lagged. He was probably been pestered by plenty of other people with plenty of other things. Um, you know, it, it seemed like a more informal situation where conversation was, was possible but maybe he was just cranky. I mean, people get cranky. Maybe it was just one of those situations where it was like, look, we’re in charge. You’re not, maybe he just had, maybe he had a confrontational person a little bit before me. I don’t know. Do you know what I mean? On these conversations, this sort of thing happens and I don’t think that anybody should judge anyone permanently based on that. I’m sure I have been cranky and condescending to people before I do. I try not to be, but I’m sure I’ve done it and well, actually shoot and I can think of a couple of instances where I totally did that. I had to apologize. Um Like, um so it happens, right? It happens. And so I don’t want to blame him and say that it’s the worst thing ever just because I had one bad experience.

[46:00] Michelle: But I will also validate though that there definitely is just like with Hyrum man and like this sense of who are you to ask me a question. Like that’s not, that’s not how we do things here and, and we’ll, we’ll give you what you need to know and you don’t need to think beyond that. So, yeah, so I can, I can see the

[46:17] Benjamin Schaffer: sort of thing does happen, you know what I mean? And just the fact that he’s the president of the church right now makes that a little bit tricky. And I also have some very, very hard feelings now which may color that about him. Like, demolishing the Salt Lake Temple. I mean, what I mean? I personally it’s like, look, no matter what you believe, no matter what religion you’re part of destroying a world heritage site is a crime against humanity. All of humanity is poor for what he has done being a temple. Destroy. It is not appropriate for anyone to do anything like that to any religious site of any faith. And it’s just like, so let me ask you people saying, oh, you know, it’s totally fine, you know, because he’s the president of church. I’m like, why is it because he’s the president of the church? If ISIS had done that, if Osama Bin Laden had done that, we’d all be like, how dare they. But now because he’s the president of church, it doesn’t matter, you know, it’s like, oh my gosh.

[47:09] Michelle: Yeah, let me again. Just push back a little bit because what if, as, as from, from my research it looks like to me, he learned that the temple was not structurally sound because the foundation was poor and it needed. Like my understanding is they’re actually trying to keep it standing and going to extreme expense to not let it be destroyed. And so it’s a massive renovation, not a destruction. I, you know, like, like that’s a different. And so so I, so I really have

[47:40] Benjamin Schaffer: seismic upgrades that occurs at a on the foundation that occurs in the walls. You don’t have to drive a bulldozer through the ordinance rooms in order to,

[47:52] Michelle: you don’t have to get the, you do not

[47:54] Benjamin Schaffer: have to take all of our ancient pioneers, art and throw it away without even cataloging it. The final, the final pictures of like the ordinance rooms in the Salt Lake Temple were taken by construction workers on their cell phones before they were told to break it all down.

[48:10] Michelle: Really? Ok. So

[48:12] Benjamin Schaffer: no, we’re talking about a real destruction here and, and I think it’s an absolute blasphemy and, and again, I think it’s a crime against heritage and I think he did it because he wants to change these ordinances here. I was in Taiwan. They just taken out this Washington anointing how do you have the center place, the middle of your faith, be a temple and a Tabernacle in the church office building. How do you have at the core of the church? A building covered in symbology built with symbology that you deny that you changed you. How do you do that? How do you welcome people into this temple at the very center of it all and say, oh, we don’t do that anymore. We wanna do this other thing now.

[48:55] Michelle: So, ok, so I have to, I, I want to

[48:59] Benjamin Schaffer: do ordinances that they don’t even perform anymore.

[49:01] Michelle: OK. So um so I’m, I’m hearing you and I do want to keep going with your story. But one thing I thought, I think it’s really interesting when different people because the ordinances have again, recently been changed. And

[49:15] Benjamin Schaffer: I think this is one of the most shocking things. I’ve talked to some people from the church office building about this. Um One of the reasons why it’s not a movie anymore, why you don’t see their mouths move is because there’s actually a program to make changes every February or March to roll them out every year. It’s an ongoing, it’s an on. So they’re not just, oh, something happens and we might make a change this year. No, they’re making changes every year until they feel that they’ve gotten it right. So, until they do that, they’re not gonna make a regular, um, a full long form video where you can see their mouths move, uh, because they might want to change the lines.

[49:54] Michelle: Sure. Yeah. Sure. Ok. That’s interesting. I have, yeah. And I’m sure there are lots of thoughts of thought processes to it. But even even the movie thing is interesting because all of a sudden it’s when you make a movie, you have to build in all of the meeting, meaning you have to make so many decisions, even actors make decisions. Whereas when it’s just an old couple, it’s obviously clearly symbolic, right? So it’s easy to misinterpret even making a movie. So it’s challenging. But the thing that I wanted to, that I wanted to ask you because I think it is interesting when people have a real sort of concern about something being changed in the temple because I think that this um teaching from Isaiah is ancient and the temple has never, even the LDS temple has never been static. It has changed and changed and changed and changed from the beginning. It wasn’t even written down until the end of Brigham Young’s life, right? And so, and, and then whatever was happening in Nauvoo, which wasn’t finished during Joseph Smith’s lifetime or really ever, you know, and then whatever was happening in ST George, like it wasn’t static. I like I wanted to, there are some questions I want to ask. But for example, Brigham Young instituted, what was it an hour long lecture at the Vale that was all about Adam God theory, right? And,

[51:11] Benjamin Schaffer: but it’s fair.

[51:12] Michelle: But I mean, that’s one that’s just one of so many, you know, and there used to be the oaths of vengeance and then we’ve had like like there have been many, many changes. And so to me, these more recent changes aren’t earth shattering and aren’t a big deal because it’s like, I’m like, it’s happened from the beginning, especially if we compare the ancient temples, Solomon’s temple to Herod’s temple. Those were very different Herod’s temple to the restoration temples like to the Kirtland temple, completely different. The Kirtland temple to later Utah temple is completely different. So that’s why for me, it’s like, oh, this is, this is an ongoing pattern that we the the ordinances that God gave us are much deeper, much more profound and we’ve all lost. We’ve all changed them.

[51:55] Benjamin Schaffer: I do think that there is a lot of change that does occur over time. Um because I believe a true temple is a house of learning. And so there’s gonna be a lot of different instructions. So things like the contents of a lecture. Um I think they’re gonna change a lot, a lot of different times. In fact, I would describe some of jesus’ uh lectures, uh jesus’ sermons in the New Testament as being lectures at the veil. Uh He even gave some of them in the temple for example. Um And I, and so there, there are temple texts, people call them in the Bible things that it’s like, ah this is alluding to a priestly tradition. This is one of the things that’s um really big in um textual criticism. They talk about how they think that the Bible is a conglomeration of different traditions and different documents. So there’s the Je the, the J document, which is the, the Jehovah tradition, the tradition, things like that. Right? Well, there’s also the p document, the priestly tradition. And uh there’s this belief that for example, the rabbinical um the Pharisees essentially at the time of Jesus, that they were following the Deuteronomy tradition, the de document and that they were trying to have a certain kind of certain kinds of literalism about the law. And that Jesus having gone to Egypt and experienced the Egyptian mysteries and maybe even Jewish Egyptian temples in Egypt was actually um forming a part of this priestly tradition. And that’s one of the reasons why they emphasized in Jesus genealogies, for example, in Luke and Mark that he came from a priestly bloodline as so he was a Levite, he was a Judah. He was all of these things. Why did they want that to be the case? They’re trying to point out he is the restoration. He is not just your average Jew who happens to live somewhere in Galilee. He is a priestly tradition. And that’s why um in the New Testament, they focus on Jesus is our great high priest. Why talk about him as a priest? Because it wants to say, look, we split from Judaism not over Jesus. When Jesus came, that wasn’t the break off between us and the Jews. The break off was further back. The break off happened before the Maccabean revolt, before the destruction of the, before the profanation of the temple. We’re part of the priestly tradition that, that has all of these, these mysteries. And that’s why um uh Christianity had this gnostic traditions and these mystical traditions um earlier on was this was, was based on this idea. And so, yes, I do think there are changes over time, but here’s what I don’t think changes over time. Every human being has to make the same sacrifice. The lectures on faith, which in my church we still believe are cheni scripture. Um lectures on faith. Lecture six famously says that religion which does not require the sacrifice of all things, never had the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary for life and salvation. Everyone has to bring an offering to the altar, everyone has to make a certain sacrifice. In other words, everyone has to enter the same covenant relationship with God that Adam Enoch, Noah Moses Abraham, did you have to enter the Abrahamic covenant? And so even though methods of instruction or explanations can change over time, I do believe that the covenants remain the same throughout all eternity. And that is why I think that it is not inappropriate for us to say, as I believe at least that the temple is to help us the the the the understand mysteries that were had from the foundations before the foundations of the earth um temple ceremonies may have some different modes of instruction. If somebody went through a temple covenant relationship experience where they sacrificed all earthly things and they came into the presence of God. And during that, their lecture at the veil was slightly different than Brigham’s lecture. I would not consider that an invalid temple ordinances. OK. Uh So there’s certain things that we do, word for word, like uh things that are flexible.

[56:02] Michelle: OK. So, so what era of temple did you follow for your temple? Is it like circa 1890 circa 1977 77?

[56:16] Benjamin Schaffer: With, with influence from 1923? So there are, there are, let me give you a really, well, I know this can get long, but I’m given the very brief and that is OK. Um 18 thirties, there’s something starting for sure. And there’s Hebrew words and there’s covenants and there’s talk about God and the school of prophets and Washington morning, stuff like that up to 18 forties. Then you get into stuff where there’s more like ritualized, something going on. Uh The corm of the anointed is a book I recommend to everyone. Um that uh Dere Anderson uh is the compiler on uh lots of interesting temple history there about what was going on in Nauvoo. Uh None of that gets written down that becomes the Strang Eye Temple, the Alpheus Cutler’s temple, Lyman White’s Temple, Brigham Young’s Temples. It isn’t until 1877 that it gets written down. Um Ours

[57:06] Michelle: is the temple. Do you have access to it? Because we don’t have access to the 1877 version, do we? Or at least the temple at the lecture at the Vale.

[57:16] Benjamin Schaffer: This is an interesting point um about break offs maybe to answer that, which is who broke off of whom I didn’t really understand this at first. And I’ll go back and tell my story about how I realized this, but I realized everybody in the restoration thinks that they’re the original branch. Everybody thinks, oh, well, we know, uh you know what I mean, we’re the one true, you know, and it turns out that we do have a uh and so what do I claim? I claim that we have an unbroken chain of people who did it with people who did it with people who did it with all the way back to Joseph Smith. And we think that ours is accurate because of that. But

[57:53] Michelle: yes, is the one true.

[57:55] Benjamin Schaffer: We’re, we’re Brighams. And so, yes, we think Brigham knew what he was talking about when he put together the 1877. And um we do know uh uh some of that um because we have our own traditions. So if the mainstream church says we don’t have that, well, it’s because they broke off from us,

[58:13] Michelle: but they might say you can’t have that. That’s sometimes, and I would

[58:17] Benjamin Schaffer: say you’ve been doing it from the beginning. So, uh what are you gonna do about it? We’re just, we’re just

[58:23] Michelle: continuing, we’re

[58:24] Benjamin Schaffer: just, we’re just observing our religion and continuing on as we always have. So I, I don’t care if you’re upset about that when you broke off from us, we’re just doing what we’re doing. Um So, but anyway, so 1923 is also still common history and 1923 the big difference between 1877 and 1923 is 1877 is an outline. It is not a full script. Um It says things like the preacher will teach sectarianism to help the um help the um participants understand that what they were taught in religion in their former faiths was an incomplete understanding of the gospel is basically what it’s paraphrasing. Um It doesn’t say these are the lines that the preacher will say, right? 1923 they get lines, it standardizes. Um We generally 1923 but 1923 was in oo in most respects, comported with 1877 except that they cut down the lecture at the veil to be much shorter. And in 1923 they took out the oath of vengeance. Well, we still have the oath of vengeance and we still have uh the uh actually a more full like a longer lecture at the Vale than Brigham Young used. Um But we, we include most of Brigham Young stuff. They, they shortened that in 1923 and got rid of the oath of vengeance. We still have those. But beyond that, we actually use the lines they added in 1923 generally.

[59:50] Michelle: Ok. So this, I’m so curious about this. So Heber J Grant was the church president in 1923 fundamentalists generally do not grant.

[1:00:01] Benjamin Schaffer: He’s the first one that we would say was a president of the church, a bureaucracy and institution, the kind of institution that Jeremiah and Isaiah would not have approved of, for example, and that the gospel and the priesthood were separate from, not entirely separate from the church at that time, but that he certainly was not leading the church spiritually only bureaucrats.

[1:00:22] Michelle: Yeah, that’s what like fundamentalists in general are like Hebrew J Grant is when it was over, there was no more that was there

[1:00:28] Benjamin Schaffer: in the sand was Hebrew J

[1:00:29] Michelle: Grant? Yeah. Right. And so it’s interesting that, that, that was when the temple was written that you do. And, and so, you know, it’s all, it’s all just interesting how it comes together.

[1:00:40] Benjamin Schaffer: Well, but again, I would say that those parts that were outlines in the 1877 version and got strict lines in 1923. I would say those things can change. There can be some evolution in our understanding. That was just one take on how to present the concept. But what is important is the concept is the covenant. That’s what

[1:01:03] Michelle: OK. So if someone So how does your temple recommend process work? If someone was like, I want to experience an original Utah temple experience. Can someone

[1:01:15] Benjamin Schaffer: you’re invited? Even you, you’re all invited? Absolutely.

[1:01:18] Michelle: Even me, even like sm car gets to go. Ok.

[1:01:22] Benjamin Schaffer: I mean, it might be a really uncomfortable experience for you, but you are more than welcome to come. And

[1:01:28] Michelle: so you don’t have a temple recommend

[1:01:30] Benjamin Schaffer: we

[1:01:30] Michelle: do,

[1:01:30] Benjamin Schaffer: we do. Um And of course, this is one of the other things too is we believe in like rebaptized. So yeah, part of it is you would be rebaptized. There would be a lot of things that you go through. Um But we do um we do want everyone to, who wants to, to have the opportunity to do that. We don’t ask you to renounce your membership in some other church. That’s not our business either.

[1:01:52] Michelle: I think if you’re

[1:01:55] Benjamin Schaffer: in Nevada now. Uh of course, if the, if the strength of the church members committee watches your blog uh watches this video, they may get upset about this. So please just leave the guy alone. But technically, some of our temple workers including our temple president in Nevada who recently did a great interview on gospel tangents. Um They have an interview, they sit in the Baptistry and do an interview. There is still a member of record as far as I understand. I don’t think he’s ever been excommunicated or anything

[1:02:23] Michelle: so people could OK, do you do the full bathtub washing or do you do the shield?

[1:02:29] Benjamin Schaffer: We do shield. We do use more water and more gestures and things like that than probably you were familiar with in, say, I don’t know, the nineties when you went through, uh, it’s more complete than that. Um, it’s more like the 19 seventies and before. Um, but, uh, so no, we don’t need a basin. There. Isn’t that much water? Ok.

[1:02:52] Michelle: Ok. So that’s good. That’s good for people to know

[1:02:56] Benjamin Schaffer: even Wilfred Woodruff as president of the Saint George Temple actually wrote in the Saint George Temple um book that he said, I’ve instructed them that if they use so much water that it must be wiped away or so much oil that it must be cleansed before they can proceed that it diminishes from the sacredness of it. And if we understood the sacredness of the anointing, we would not want to wipe it off so easily. Uh So in other words, even in Wilfred Woodruff’s time, who knew Joseph Smith personally? Um He was saying we’re not like a whole bucket of oil on somebody’s head where they’re gonna have to shower after this just before they can even get dressed or even get ready for anything. Um Was not the case. So I, I think we’re doing it about the way Wilfred Woodruff was

[1:03:43] Michelle: ok. That’s ok. That’s fascinating. So, so I do want to just kind of briefly get from where these temple changes were made. Did you get into the journal of discourses? What did you and you had, you had siblings who already were fundamentalists? We were hearing, yeah, finish us out with

[1:04:00] Benjamin Schaffer: my story. I was, I was worried about the loss of these things. And I asked the temple president, well, why are we doing this? And he said, well, some people found it uncomfortable for more people will be willing to do it now. And I was like, well, sure. But do we want to do this just to make it dumb it down because people aren’t prepared? Maybe we should just be preparing people better, you know. Um and he’s like, well, we shouldn’t question the brethren and stuff like that. And I, and, and there was also talk of a lawsuit that somebody had uh filed a lawsuit against the church and they were trying to get that settled. Um And they decided that they want to avoid this kind of thing in the future where someone said, oh yeah, they made me go to the temple and they made me get naked and then someone touched me, you know, and they made it sound really creepy and I mean, I don’t know if their experience was creepy um or if they were just trying to make it sound creepy but, you know, they try to make it sound horrible and scary. And so the church was like, how do we just, how do we just nip this in the bud and get rid of. This was the, was the reasoning and it was all bureaucratic and it was all legal. And I was like, where’s the revelation? Where’s the meaning in this? And I, I said, well, it’s not just this. What about the oath of vengeance? What about the law of adoption? What about the second endowments and second anointings? What about all this stuff? And he’s like, well, we don’t do any of that anymore basically. And he’s like, and I don’t even have it. I’ve never done any of that. So the temple president, I was like, well, if you don’t, haven’t received it, how can you give it? He’s like, we don’t, you know, it’s not, uh you

[1:05:27] Michelle: can’t have already been, you’d already been reading the journal of discourses and uh you know, like, so, OK, so you were kind of a converted polygamist in, in like, like as Brigham said, they have to be a polygamist, at least in your faith, right? You are. Right.

[1:05:44] Benjamin Schaffer: Yeah, of course. I was too, of course, I was a polygamist in my faith. I was a member of the church. That’s, I mean, I, I’m sorry, but in order to get a t recommend, they asked me if I sustained the prophets, Sears and revels. And I said yes. And what that meant to me was, of course, I accept all of those statements, including plural marriage. That’s a requirement like, you’re not faithful if you don’t believe in what the prophets teach and that’s what they teach.

[1:06:07] Michelle: But President Kingly, he would have been, let’s see, what year was this? That you kind of

[1:06:12] Benjamin Schaffer: president h was all like, oh, I don’t know that we teach it. And I’m like, well, of course you don’t because he also

[1:06:16] Michelle: said he condemns it, he condemns it completely because it’s not doctrinal. And so, so, so anyway, so I think I’m in very good standing to say it’s not doctrinal, you know, like because he said, he said it as the president of the church. So I’m, I’m not far afi from what you know. But anyway, ok, so you, so it was, it wasn’t a hard sell for you to say, OK, I see the problems in the church. So I’m gonna live it out more fully, which for you meant a fundamentalist approach.

[1:06:46] Benjamin Schaffer: Mostly it meant the temples. And here’s the problem is that I talked to some fundamentalists and they were all like, oh, we don’t have temples, we don’t do temples, we do polygamy. And this is actually the dangerous nature of break off in a lot of cases. The reason why people break off is the only reason why the church continues to exist. They get a pet doctrine, they get a favorite thing and then they break off because of it and then they, that becomes their whole stick and they don’t really get it all anymore. They don’t do the whole thing. They bang on one key and they’re like, this is our thing.

[1:07:19] Michelle: But that’s see, that’s my sense of early Utah polygamist Mormonism because Brigham didn’t build a temple until he, he died. Right? The first temple finished was Saint George. In what, what was it in 1877? The same year he died. And so so throughout those Utah years, throughout all of Brigham Young’s reign is not the right word but his um

[1:07:44] Benjamin Schaffer: ma kingdom, you

[1:07:46] Michelle: know.

[1:07:47] Benjamin Schaffer: Yeah,

[1:07:47] Michelle: but, but well, it was, you know, it was the kingdom and, and, but, but throughout his um um oh, I can’t think of the word I’m looking for, but he was the president. It um it was, there wasn’t a temple, it was and polygamy when you read through the discourses, they were not teaching temple, they were teaching polygamy, right? And Brigham’s other doctrines. And so I can see, I’m sympathetic with fundamentalists that go that direction because that is in keeping with, with what Brigham established.

[1:08:15] Benjamin Schaffer: I disagree with you. There, there was so much temple stuff going on. The, I mean, merchants flat between like Junction and Beaver is like this little place where people would meet over the top of the mountain and do temple ordinances and weddings up there. Uh They have the

[1:08:30] Michelle: endowment house and they had, but you know what I mean?

[1:08:32] Benjamin Schaffer: Not just they did endowments on Enzy Peak, they did endowments in Spring City at the, what they called, the Spring end up calling the Spring City Tabernacle, which is still there. It’s a little stone building that was office or something, you know, and, and all kinds of places. So, I mean, the difference was that they didn’t think they needed a special building to do it. They

[1:08:53] Michelle: did, they just didn’t finish it. They, they knew like freedom was very much wanting to build a temple. He just, I think, I think that there were foundational problems. So he built ST George and says, we could leave it as a legacy, I think. But anyway, I guess I’m just saying, I’m sympathetic with fundamentalists saying, no, the gospel is about polygamy because that really does seem to be in keeping with those Utah years throughout Brigham Young’s ministry. So, ok. So anyway, but I, I just

[1:09:19] Benjamin Schaffer: temples were the thing for me,

[1:09:21] Michelle: for sure. Yes, sure.

[1:09:22] Benjamin Schaffer: I was like, I want to find temples.

[1:09:24] Michelle: Well, Joseph taught temples for sure. It was part of the restoration. For sure.

[1:09:28] Benjamin Schaffer: I reached out to the community of Christ. I was like, I’m really upset that we don’t have Washington’s anointings. Do you have Washington’s Anointings? And they’re like, no, and I reached out to Mormon fundamentals. I said, do you guys have, I’m worried about

[1:09:38] Michelle: this. Christ doesn’t have Washington anointings because that was very much the thirties. That was very much Kirtland and I thought that they, ok, that’s interesting. So, ok,

[1:09:47] Benjamin Schaffer: they don’t even do, they don’t do baptism for the dead. They don’t even believe that

[1:09:51] Michelle: Nauvoo that business for the dead or is a later navoo innovation. And I know they don’t keep to the navoo doctrines, but the early Kirtland one. So that’s interesting that they don’t even do Washington. No. Ok.

[1:10:02] Benjamin Schaffer: Now, I mean, this is an aside but since we’re on it, um I went through the Kirtland temple with Lachlan many times like I said, and at one point we did a temple walk. He called it where there were stations that we could go through progressively as we go through symbolic understandings essentially. And different scriptures presented each different place so that we could have this, this experience um going through uh like as though we were approaching God and by the time we were done with it, I was like, I’ve been through the endowment in the community of Christ and he’s like, we don’t do endowments. And I was like, what was that? What was that? And it was beautiful, it was really beautiful experience. I loved it. But he’s like, oh yeah, but we don’t believe it’s required for exultation. And I was like, I think a lot of people don’t understand in dominance anyway. But what did you do? You gave us a beautiful scriptural symbolic journey as we experience not only our history and the history of our people, but the history of Godliness as we approach the divine. That’s an endowment. I was like, straight up, that’s an endowment man. And he’s like, well, we don’t use that term, you know, we’re not gonna use that term. But anyways, um at the time

[1:11:17] Michelle: I always wanted to do that too. Ok.

[1:11:19] Benjamin Schaffer: It was, it was beautiful. Um One of the things that really breaks my heart is that the LDS church bought it and I just don’t know, don’t know that I’m gonna feel so welcome there as I used to. It used to be that I could go there and whether it was Seth Brian or, or LA mckay or somebody else, I could just be like, hey, I’m home and they’re like, hey Benjamin, welcome home to the beginning of the restoration. All the whole family, all the branches of the restoration are welcome here. This is part of our heritage, our combined heritage. And I’m afraid that with uh that, that’s not gonna be the attitude the mainstream L A church is gonna take that this is part of our combined heritage. I’m afraid they’re gonna be like, this is ours, not yours. Get out. You know, that’s what I’m afraid it’s gonna happen.

[1:11:57] Michelle: And it’s like a lot of us are praying for that, that, that we keep it an open respectful space.

[1:12:03] Benjamin Schaffer: Of course, open respectful space is what I would like to see. Uh And I’m, and I’m grateful that it, it’s now in the church history department. That’s in charge instead of the missionary department. So maybe they’ll take a different approach. We’ll have to see how that all plays out. Um But basically I’m gonna go there on pins and needles a little bit to see what happens next time I show up. Um But ok, so

[1:12:23] Michelle: I’ve had several conversations with John Hajek about it as well because he’s really hoping that they don’t restore it, which in when Mormons do restoration, it’s really renovation. Right? And so he just wants to preserve it, not restore it. Which because like when you said this is Fanny Alter’s Bar. No, that’s a modern recreation of the barn, right? It’s not like, like,

[1:12:45] Benjamin Schaffer: yeah, and like the NK store in um and the John Johnson Inn in Kirtland are perfect examples of this. The church bulldozed the John Johnson in. Nobody cared. And then they tried to rebuild it, but they made it into like a visitor center museum on the outside. It looks similar. It’s near the same spot. And like this, there’s no kind of historical respect here. They tore that there’s a, there’s a staircase on the side of the No Kin store that went up into the school of the prophets room. They tore it down Joseph Smith and those with him built that staircase so that you wouldn’t have to go through Emma’s kitchen or store room or some random place that you didn’t belong to go to. And from the school of prophets. They built it there so that you could stand at the door and raise your hands and give the salutation with, on this little porch so that you could enter the, they tore it down because they were like, oh, but we, we don’t want people to enter separate entrances. Like Joe Smith would have wanted naturally for the practicality of using that room as a schoolhouse. We wanted, we wanted a place where you could walk in the front door of the store and then loop through all of the dwelling areas, storing storage areas, store. Yeah, we wanted to have a flow. So we’re going to tear down the staircase that separated it. And instead we’re gonna put a staircase right through the middle. We’re gonna tear out walls, we’re gonna tear out part of the revelation room. We’re gonna tear out part of the store room to put in a staircase that didn’t belong there so that you can IKEA your way through this instead of having separate sacred spaces.

[1:14:26] Michelle: You know, it does kind of, it is interesting. It’s just different priorities because there’s kind of a, a desire to teach our narrative and to make it very um well, we want more people coming. So it’s a missionary tool to teach our narrative rather than a historical, you know, it wasn’t true. It was, it was used in a um utilitarian way for, for what our purposes are now rather than respected as its own as its own state. So I hope, I mean, its own thing and I hope that I hope the current temple is different. So, build, build next to it. Like here are the actual buildings and, and over the next block over or the next town over we’re gonna build the like Disney version of church history sites, which is kind of what we have, but leave the originals alone.

[1:15:12] Benjamin Schaffer: Well, well, here’s the problem and here’s a problem that you and I both face all the time, even though we come to different conclusions about it. The Disneyland version is not, no one will respect it unless they tear down the original. Nobody. Uh And so look, I, you and I have a very different idea about what historical revisionism is when it comes to Joseph Smith’s life. But if you want to make an empty suit that you can fill up with whatever you want and say that’s Joseph Smith. We have the original because we have made Joseph Smith into our image so that he does what we want. He says what we want, he parrots our talking points. Then what do you have to do? You have to obscure the true, the, the actual truth, you have to obscure what the real history was. Now, you and I disagree heavily on what the real history was. But I think uh which makes me accuse you of making the Disneyland version probably makes you accuse me of making the Disneyland version. But it, but that’s why the church could never do that because they have their own Disneyland version. And so long as the original exists at all, people are gonna ask some really uncomfortable questions to them, but they don’t want to have to. And that’s, that’s where I think we were at with the Salt Lake Temple and why it’s been demolished, the whole interior has been demolished because you can’t go in there and say, oh yeah, the endowment is this thing that we are doing a new way in 2024 or 2025 or maybe even by 2027 it will be almost unrecognizable anybody who’s going through the temple today. Um You can’t do that. And then have people say, well, why this, why is that symbol here? Why were we going through a room that looks like that? Why did, why was there a room that looks all garden, you know, like uh and, and, and nature ish, you know, and then they be like, well, we used to have this thing where you used to pretend to be Adam and Eve, you know, and you used to go and do this stuff and then it’s like, yeah, that they don’t want to keep answering those questions, they have to destroy it. And, and honestly, um if I may be so bold, this goes back to I think something very scriptural, very book of M from the book of Mormon. He says, I’ll give you the way to judge that, which promotes faith, that, which promotes life, that, which uh you know, leads to liberty. Those things are of God. And if it is captivity and death by the captivity and power of the devil, if it denies life, if it destroys life, if it, those things are, you may know the perfect knowledge that they’re not of God, they’re of the devil. And I’m sorry. But this is one of the reasons why I judge these things so harshly because it tends to death, it does not tend to life, it tends to destruction. And if it tends to destruction, I don’t believe it’s of God, it should bring forth more life, more love, more family, more truth. And I don’t think you get to more truth by tearing down the monuments of your ancestors. I don’t think you get to more truth by um by denying these things.

[1:17:58] Michelle: Ok. That’s so interesting. See, I see, I think because, because a core part of that also is if it leads to Christ, if it leads to believe in Christ and to have faith in Christ is kind of the center of all that as well as the other things you listed. And so that’s part of why I think that seeing the original um things like you’re talking about is essential because of the questions it raises. And for me that’s in the journey with the Joseph Smith papers. That’s why I think the Joseph Smith paper are so crucial because that, that’s why I’ve just so, you know, I, I was well and we should, we should, we should kind of move on with the conversation. But I was, I was a polygamist at heart my whole, my whole life until I started really studying the scriptures. And I was like, oh, Joseph was wrong about polygamy. It wasn’t of God. That was my first transition again. I got in trouble through reading the scriptures. That’s what got me in trouble and it

[1:18:52] Benjamin Schaffer: wasn’t, was falling. But you don’t want your first, your first thought was, oh, this means Joseph was fallen. He was a fallen prophet. He was wrong.

[1:19:02] Michelle: No, I didn’t think that actually that’s not what I,

[1:19:05] Benjamin Schaffer: that’s what you were saying.

[1:19:07] Michelle: No, where I, where I was on it was, I knew, I knew that Joseph wasn’t doing the same thing that Brigham was doing. It was, it was clearly different. You know, Joseph didn’t have Children and I mean, but, but I thought he got involved in it. Ok. Ok. I thought he got involved in it. So I thought he lost his spiritual protection and that’s why he was unable to be killed. Based on some conversations I would have had to have with some other profit. You’re saying? No, it wasn’t a fallen prophet. It was just, oh, he, he, he, he, he got tangled up in this, which, which is to God and he was allowed to be killed and the people, you know, got what they wanted. Like I wasn’t, it wasn’t a faith crisis for me at all. And so, and so actually what was hard, it was hard for me because I, I in my teaching in home school communities and in my, you know, I was friends with several pom and, um, and we agreed on so many things. So it was hard for me to come out and say polygamy was never a God. I burned a lot of bridges there which was painful for me, you know, and then it wasn’t until I’d been studying it for a long time deep in the Joseph Smith papers while I was like, holy cow, Joseph didn’t do this. Holy cow. He was fighting it. It’s true. Oh my gosh. And then that was really hard to come out and say that because I knew I would lose all credibility with all of the people that are so certain that the history settled. So anyway, just to let you know,

[1:20:27] Benjamin Schaffer: and I’m sorry, this is kind of where my reluctance comes from being on one third of your problems because I’m like, no, the history is settled. There’s literally entire libraries of books and the Justin Papers project which I think make it ex excessively undeniable that this did occur. I mean, uh you can have any viewpoint you want about what it means you can believe that it means Joseph was a false prophet or just was a true prophet or that Justice Smith was bad or that Joseph Smith was good or anything you want. You can even believe. I, I think consistently that polygamy is not of God never was. But what you can’t do is you can’t change the facts of what actually happened. And as far as I can tell that is so well settled that yeah, for me, it’s like debating flat earth or whether or not birds are real.

[1:21:12] Michelle: I heard all these. So here’s what I propose. Let’s schedule the second time if we want to, where we can have the discussion about, about, we, we can, we can have a great discussion on um the history of polygamy whether it’s I, I think there are two parts to the discussion because that’s how my journey went. Is it a God? And was Joseph the

[1:21:30] Benjamin Schaffer: original

[1:21:31] Michelle: questions?

[1:21:32] Benjamin Schaffer: Those two questions are so important because it’s like, ok, as a polygamist, I’m like, OK, first of all, it is definitely of God. It’s, it’s the most holy principle. This is a very sacred thing. Therefore, trying to say that Joseph, out of all the other prophets that I believe had polygamy and all the scriptures that I think fit into this context. Uh It’s almost pointless because even if you convinced me that Joseph, if you convinced me that Joseph Smith was never a polygamist, be like, oh, wow. Well, I guess, I guess he was a fallen prophet then. Either that or I should throw away the whole Bible. I mean, I see polygamy a lot of places that maybe you don’t, that, I’m sure you don’t because II I, and I’m like, it’s right in there. So can we stop the scriptures? Like, um, there, there’s a lot to separate, there, there’s a lot to separate there and really a lot of it comes down to those first assumptions. Um being as that I am a minister of 70 you know, in a church that believes in and practices plural marriage. I’m like, I’m, this is really important stuff and I, I can recognize lots of problems. I can recognize that there are contradictions. I can recognize that there have been that there have been abuses and mistakes and problems and, and all kinds of things in, in our history. But I have to reconcile that into saying yes, but that doesn’t mean the gospel is not true. That doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t the Christ. And to me, that’s all part of that, right? Um

[1:22:53] Michelle: So that’s how it stacks for you. OK. So polygamy is in the, in the foundation of Jesus being the Christ for you.

[1:23:00] Benjamin Schaffer: Sure. I mean, Jesus was a polygamist as far as I can tell from a lot of records, including the Bible, uh seems to indicate heavily to me that that was the case. Um And so Yeah, it’s part of the whole world view, right? Like when I pray and I talk to God is God a polygamist. Well, yeah, and, and, and here’s one of the, here’s one of the big things that’s coming up this week with the, with Pentecost. Um This is the time of Pentecost this week. Uh Is that, uh we have this analogy over and over again, especially in the New Testament that um, Christ of the bride groom and we are the bride, right? That, that Christ and his church is the example of the idealized marriage. That marriage is like the symbol of co our covenant relationship with God. Well, thank goodness, God’s a polygamist. I want to go to heaven and I bet you do too. And if he was a monogamous, he’d be like everyone but Jesus get out. I’m a monogamist. I don’t allow anyone else in my kingdom because I don’t have enough love for any more than 11 person. It’s like no.

[1:23:59] Michelle: Well, let me ask you a question. The bride is the church, right? How many true churches are there?

[1:24:06] Benjamin Schaffer: Well, we are the church. And so I would say all of mankind is the number you should be roughly going for. It’s like 100 billion. Hopefully.

[1:24:14] Michelle: No, I’m saying that that the bride isn’t each individual person. The bride is the church.

[1:24:20] Benjamin Schaffer: Well, that sounds very much like you’re more in favor of the institutional bureaucracy then because I don’t see the bride as a single,

[1:24:27] Michelle: I define church differently. Those who are, those who are Christs are part of the church. And there’s one church, right? We are told often that there is one church which I think makes us have to redefine what church means. But Jesus Christ as the, as the groom has, has uses the covenant symbol of a husband and wife, right? Groom and bride, but the bride is the church and there is one church that is a pretty common doctrine.

[1:24:55] Benjamin Schaffer: So you’d make that kind of monogamous. And my point is is that you’re, you’re doing that because you’re starting from the assumption that polygamy is a bad thing. And I’m starting from the assumption that my whole community is polygamous. Of course, it’s a good thing. This is our family, these are our loved ones, right? We don’t think that our love, as

[1:25:10] Michelle: I said, I did start with the assumption that polygamy, it’s a good thing. It shook me massively. And

[1:25:17] Benjamin Schaffer: those and, and I’m just, I’m just saying that I’m not going to convince you this moment. But I am saying that our assumptions do change the way that we read these things change the way we view them when I see the fact that God makes his covenant with all of Israel. When God, when um the church is the right of Christ, I see massive polygamy here like that is like the whole point is like this is the ultimate polygamous marriage. Jesus is Jesus and literally 10 wives for the bridegroom is literally like laid out with numbers of brides and literally that five of them married him and five of them weren’t worthy to marry him. It’s like this is there’s so much

[1:25:58] Michelle: political. Let me ask then, is it 10 5 or is it, or is it seven? Because Isaiah for what? It’s seven? Right? So we have some number of problems going on. If we’re going to

[1:26:11] Benjamin Schaffer: make that a contradiction, I’m just going for the plural versus singular here. I’m just saying if God uses polygamy as an example of righteousness all over the place, I just don’t see how it’s a problem if people actually believe him. Um But that’s because I’m coming from the assumption of polygamy and you’re coming from an assumption of monogamy or at least now you are um maybe you haven’t always right and, and that it, it does, it colors the way you read something. Uh This is something that I was saying to you at the wedding. Uh when we met uh that, that is such a big deal like what is the default matters? It makes a huge difference in the way people approach these things. A lot of people will say, oh, I’m, I’m not, I don’t want polygamy because I don’t want to share my husband instead of coming from the perspective of I uh I which I come from which is like, which is more of a, well, I certainly hope that someone that I will be able to be part of this family. I don’t imagine myself being the first. I imagine myself being the second or the third. I, right. The, the assumptions that you go into it are, are, oh, I don’t want to let more people into this family is a monogamous assumption. A polygamous assumption is more like, I hope that my family will accept me and love me. And so monogamy looks really hateful from a polygamist point of view. Usually because it’s like, wait, you’re telling me that no one’s gonna love me. You’re telling me that I’ll be thrown out of my own family. You’re telling me I’ll be,

[1:27:35] Michelle: I know what you’re saying. There’s just those just don’t resonate with me. Those aren’t my like I agree with you because

[1:27:40] Benjamin Schaffer: you come from a different default. That’s the default I come from someone says, oh yeah, I believe in monogamy. And I’m like, oh, that’s so sad. Did you get thrown out of your family? Did you get divorced? You know, in fact, there’s a polygamist making this joke to me yesterday, which I thought was really great. Uh He was excommunicated from the church and he is an active practicing polygamist. And someone said, wait, are you in, are you in the mainstream church or? And he’s like the problem is, is that the church just loves divorce more than I do and they really want to see more divorces and I don’t have enough divorces to be in good standing with them. And he goes, wait, are you telling me you’re a polygamist? He’s like, yes. Um, because he’s like, because the church doesn’t, at least the church handbook of instructions right now puts no limit on the number of wives I can have so long as I divorced all but one of them then I’m allowed to be in a good state of the church, but I’m not willing to throw away any family members. II, I love them. I don’t want to get rid of them. And so I’m just not divorced enough or, or death, they love death in the church. The church just doesn’t think that enough of my wives have died. That’s the problem. They wanna kill one of my wives or one of my wives until there’s only one left. Then I could be in good saint of the church because they love death more than they love my family. And it’s just like, ouch, what a perspective and that, and I recognize monogamous don’t come from that perspective. They assume that the default is monogamy and that polygamy is this exception that could happen to them. There would be this horrible fate instead of thinking like no, that’s the default. That’s what we already have. What are you gonna do to destroy our family is all that I see. And I don’t want my family. I love my family

[1:29:12] Michelle: and, and, and I, well, well, don’t you have one wife?

[1:29:16] Benjamin Schaffer: I do have one wife.

[1:29:17] Michelle: Ok. So, um, I mean, I should say but one wife you have but one wife at this point, right? I have but one wife. Ok. I just, I needed to clarify for bride. Hell’s sake. And others again, I’m wondering, I’m wondering which direction to go because it would be fascinating to have the polygamy monogamy discussion. But let’s stick with these other topics now and then we can see if we time after or we could, or we could schedule the second time. I just, I’m like, I don’t know if I want to get into the, um, I think it’s a great discussion to have that much

[1:29:45] Benjamin Schaffer: time as part of marriage. If you believe that that now and later in past and future have some relevancy on what marriage is then. I guess I’m a polygamist because I’m divorced and remarried. So I have two wives, just one of them in the past and one of them in the present. But I don’t think that that matters in a Mormon viewpoint.

[1:30:05] Michelle: So you think your wife that didn’t want to be married to you anymore? I assume, I mean, I, or that you didn’t want to be married to anymore? Is your wife eternally?

[1:30:13] Benjamin Schaffer: Well, it already happened. You can’t just erase that the past. We have four daughters together. I mean, it’s real. It, it’s a thing. I don’t think the past, present and future really exists for God or for marriage. I am married to her in the past. That’s a place where I exist, where she exists, where our Children exist and to deny that marriage would be to deny reality. It’s, it’s a thing. It happened. It, it, if all things are one eternal now, it’s happening now.

[1:30:46] Michelle: Ok. So, um that’s a very slippery answer because I think we can agree that we are dwelling in time right now, right?

[1:30:55] Benjamin Schaffer: I think we’re in the midst of eternity. It’s just a matter of limited perspective. The ego mind wants to latch on to these things in order to separate us from the ultimate reality. But the ultimate reality I think is real.

[1:31:08] Michelle: OK? All right. So I won’t press that. So let’s go here for a minute. I, I am curious about a couple of things I just wanted to ask because some of the um points, the doctrinal points you’ve brought up already. Um I encountered them in Ogden Kraut. He’s from my familiarity. He’s one of the main polygamy scholars, right? And, and then, and then as I studied, I realized that almost everything of Ogden Kraut said are practically everything I like. There aren’t that many exceptions are actually from Orson Pratt. So he was the original polygamy scholar. So I wanted to know if there’s someone that you recognize now, that’s like the cutting edge polygamy scholar who is respected and looked to as,

[1:31:49] Benjamin Schaffer: yeah, Don, Bradley.

[1:31:51] Michelle: Ok,

[1:31:53] Benjamin Schaffer: like Don Bradley is probably, has touched more of the original documents than any other person living.

[1:32:01] Michelle: Ok.

[1:32:02] Benjamin Schaffer: And, uh, he did a lot of that work for Brian Hales. So a whole lot of that was turned and, and, um, Don Bradley is doing some great work for the church history department right now is my understanding. So, um, but yeah, I would, I would, I, I point to Don Bradley is probably, uh, if you could just sit and you have sat down and talked with him. Um, I, I think, yeah, he knows more about the actual historical proof and the real documents and all of that than anyone living.

[1:32:31] Michelle: Ok. So there isn’t another sort of polygamy, apologist, theologian that’s writing right now in the, in the kind of in the vein of Orson Pratt and Ogden Kraut, you look to Ogden Kraut’s works as the I do

[1:32:42] Benjamin Schaffer: like Ogden Kraut. Um D Michael Quinn was also really cool. I’m really sad that we lost him. Uh, he’s died. Uh And I’m really, really sad that he died before he published some of the stuff he was working on. And I’m hoping that some of the other people who know him, some of these other scholars can actually get some of the stuff published because one of the things, for example, that D Michael Quinn was working on and I talked to him about personally before he died was he wrote um it was a bombshell for the for the church was post Manifesto polygamy 1890 to 1904. Well, he that, that was a bombshell in the world because people are saying, wait a second, there was Post Manifesto polygamy. I thought that um it just instantly, I know I know your story, right? Um And there’s post second manifesto polygamy because polygamy did not end until the third Manifesto. The third Manifesto 1933. I think it is. That’s

[1:33:37] Michelle: no 20

[1:33:38] Benjamin Schaffer: three was um a lot of interesting stuff, but the third manifesto was 1933 and they, they denied the existence of the 1886 revelation. They denied the existence of all the Post Manifesto plural marriages. That’s when they actually started excommunicating, say a woman who enters a plural marriage, she would actually be excommunicated. You could lose your really lose your membership. That didn’t really happen until the 19 thirties. Before that you could just be a member of the church in good standing and be a polygamist uh just fine. Uh So long as you weren’t too vocal or too public and then they would do a public excommunication for you if you’re a general authority or, or like uh or John Woolley, for example, who’s big name in Mormon fundamentalism. He was performing plural marriages in the Salt Lake Temple for decades. And they were like, what are you doing? And he’s like, I’m just doing what I was told, you know? And then, but they had to make a public, um, uh, case for him because it was all over the soli tribune that the temple ceilings are going on in the so, like temple every day that are plural marriages, you know? And they’re like, how is this allowed? And, uh, Francis Lyman especially wanted to make sure that the church didn’t get in a lot of trouble, uh, because it could have gotten in a lot of trouble.

[1:34:45] Michelle: Ok. That’s interesting. My understanding is different of the post post manifesto polygamy is that it actually was rather really quite few and far between. And I didn’t like, like it wasn’t, it wasn’t generally happening in the Salt Lake Temple unless it was just one rogue sealer doing it. But it wasn’t with the, so, so just like,

[1:35:06] Benjamin Schaffer: not with the approval of the church as an institution for sure. Honestly, it wasn’t really with the direct approval of the church, um, for a long time before that even just, and that’s, and so this is one of the things de Michael Quinn actually said to me, he said, you don’t, you can’t understand Joseph F Smith if you don’t understand that he was animated by two fundamental principles, neither of which he was willing to compromise at all at any time. One, he was going to do anything in his power to keep plural marriage and the practice of plural marriage alive. And two, he was going to do anything he could to defend the church no matter what, including lie, including change policies, including excommunicate, polygamous anything. And so he was privately telling people you should go get plural married and go talk to so and so and stuff like that to make it happen. And he was

[1:35:52] Michelle: my great grandfather to Mexico. That was

[1:35:54] Benjamin Schaffer: at the same time, he was publicly saying there is no plural marriage in this church. He is not allowed. I will excommunicate you if you do this. You know.

[1:36:03] Michelle: So how do you think about that when we know that Joseph’s own scripture says the liar shall be thrust down to hell and lying is, you know, like, like how, how does that this, this whole lying for the kingdom, you know, lying for the Lord, whatever we want term we want to use. How do you think about that?

[1:36:17] Benjamin Schaffer: I think it’s a very, very good and moral thing to do to lie whenever you’re lying to protect people from violence. There’s, there’s a very big difference between lying because you want to deceive someone or harm because you want to create harm because you want to create fraud. It’s a very, very different thing when you are lying to protect the innocent from the violent. Um And that’s exactly what I believe Joseph F Smith was doing. There were some very, very violent men not only putting people in cages, but raping and murdering and he was doing whatever he could to protect the innocent while at the same time trying to live his faith. And I think that is a very appropriate thing to do, a righteous thing to do.

[1:36:56] Michelle: So, I’m ok. So, so you are for lying when it feels necessary. Um, because I don’t

[1:37:04] Benjamin Schaffer: think, and it’s specifically for these types of purposes. If, if, if the Nazis come to your house and say, are there Jews in your attic? You say

[1:37:11] Michelle: no, I don’t, I don’t think that’s a good comparison though because when

[1:37:15] Benjamin Schaffer: the government with men with guns coming to imprison and murder people under the auspice of the law, how is that any different than a Nazi? That is literally exactly what was happening to our people for decades.

[1:37:29] Michelle: We didn’t have concentration camps where we were killing people by the like like in Mormonism in Utah.

[1:37:36] Benjamin Schaffer: OK. So, so what you’re saying is the difference is that maybe there’s a matter of scale. The fact that not very many people died in prison means that it wasn’t a concentration camp. So it wasn’t necessarily that their goal was genocide through murder. Their goal was genocide by taking away our families. It’s still, I think

[1:37:51] Michelle: they were trying to, I think the goal was to protect women and Children because there were also, well, we can move on, we can move on from this because you know, I don’t want to get caught up in too many disagreements. And, um, I think, I think they’re worth having but, but our whole time could be gone on. But

[1:38:07] Benjamin Schaffer: you’re saying that you don’t necessarily view these marshals as villains when they were, I mean, they chased the Children through the snow. They shot people.

[1:38:17] Michelle: Well, yeah, maybe it’d be good to talk. I’m talking about, for example, the anti polygamy standard and the women in Utah who got involved, Jenny Anderson Frey and the other non Mormon Utah women who saw a lot of the suffering because it’s easy to only see the um, the, oh, what’s the word? I’m looking for the atrocities on one side or the offenses on one side, right? There were like, like Terry Owens showed up on, on, on one of these women porch after the horrors that she had experienced, right? And there was blood atonement happening and there was all kinds of things on the LDS side. And so, so I don’t necessarily see it as, um, I, I see it as Joseph F Smith believed, believed that polygamy had to like the, the fundamentalist doctrine that was explained to me by my A UB friends, which made perfect sense to me in the mindset I was, was in, was that all things had been restored for the last time to never be taken from the earth polygamy was part of that. Joseph F. Smith knew it had to stay on the earth So he asked people to be separate from the church for a time to preserve this doctrine and one day they would come back together. I think Joseph F Smith was being very like he felt like polygamy has to remain on the earth. The church is going, we’re going to lose our properties, we’re going to lose our, you know, we’re, we’re going to have a harder time as a church. So I’m going to do whatever I need to do to keep polygamy and to keep the church as a whole. But I don’t see it as

[1:39:49] Benjamin Schaffer: he thought that the church and the polygamists would all just get back together. There are still people primarily in the A UB that I’ve heard teach this, that still believe that mainstream all these church and the polygamists are all just going to reconcile. It’s all going to be fine.

[1:40:00] Michelle: The A U doc. Yeah.

[1:40:03] Benjamin Schaffer: Um And so I’ve heard, I’ve heard plenty of the members there say that and I, I think that’s naive. I mean, that’s, that, that’s not how it happened with Joseph Smith. The, the Pope didn’t say, ah, a new prophet is here. Let’s make him the head of the Catholic church. Uh You know, uh I don’t think that once you split off and start doing your own thing that you’re going to just miraculously all come back together.

[1:40:27] Michelle: Ok. So, but I know you can’t speak for every fundamentalist but, but I would ask in general, would you say that for fundamentalists lying to protect polygamy is completely moral, is, is like totally fine to do that.

[1:40:41] Benjamin Schaffer: And, and, and, and, and again, I think lying is the wrong word for this. Protecting your Children is appropriate by most means necessary. Almost any means necessary. These are our families and they’re being targeted by violent people. Of course, you, you don’t want to just go out there and just put everybody right in front of, of these persecutions. You don’t just want to throw to the wolves, right? So yeah, absolutely appropriate. I mean, look at Joseph Smith, of course, you don’t believe he was a martyr to the principle of polygamy as I do, but they literally did kill him if he was lying. And so when I believe Joseph Smith was not telling everybody the whole story, it’s like, you know, even the partial story that he did tell got him killed. This is not some imaginary threat. This is not some, oh, it’s no big deal. He can tell everyone everything they killed him. They literally did kill him for what he preached. Same with Jesus Christ. He didn’t tell everyone everything he told a lot of parables because if he told everybody everything, they might have killed him even sooner. And you can’t tell me that they, that if he didn’t lie to them or if he didn’t tell them parables rather than telling them the whole transparent truth that they wouldn’t have killed him, they did kill him.

[1:41:53] Michelle: So was Jesus killed because he was a polygamist.

[1:41:56] Benjamin Schaffer: Um I believe that was certainly part of it. Um

[1:42:00] Michelle: And so let’s remove and

[1:42:02] Benjamin Schaffer: end all, be all of the whole gospel. I think we both agree on that. I think this is one small principle, even though I’m in a church that is famous for being polygamous, polygamy isn’t like the central tenet of the gospel polygamy is this little detail. It’s you know that the

[1:42:17] Michelle: highest holiest principle you just had said that like

[1:42:20] Benjamin Schaffer: that is a high and holy principle. But it’s because it’s part of a much higher and holier principle. It’s one incidental to the law of having a covenant relationship. One of the ways it

[1:42:31] Michelle: was what got Joseph killed, Joseph was a martyr for the sake of polygamy.

[1:42:35] Benjamin Schaffer: I do believe so. Yes, but he was also a martyr for the sake of Jesus because he was a martyr for the covenants that we make with God. Our relationship to God. And these, these doctrines are something that the devil cannot have because on the earth, if he can help it, because the devil is fine with us being religious. He just does not want us to enter into that covenant relationship with God whereby we enter his actual presence. Because so long as he can keep us out, if we can just be like, oh, I’ve got the, I’ve got the philosophies of men mingle the scripture. I’m just fine. I just want someone to preach to me uh so to speak. So long as we’re at that level, the devil is fine. He’s happy. What he doesn’t want us to do is enter that covenant and that covenant um ends up being some of polygamous in nature, for example, because I believe he can make that covenant with you. He can also make that covenant with me. It’s not monogamous in the sense that he can only make that covenant with one person. He can make the covenant with each of us so that we enter into his presence. And so that becomes one of the

[1:43:29] Michelle: ways like, like to make it to make the covenant with each of us. It’s not a sexual covenant because then if he covenanted with men, then homosexuality is the highest holiest principle of the Gospel. And if he covenanted, right? So I think

[1:43:42] Benjamin Schaffer: there’s always, people always get really, really uptight when it comes to sex, you know, and when it,

[1:43:49] Michelle: I think that comparing the covenant that God makes to each of us individually, to polygamy or to marriage, like, like as I had already said, jesus’ symbol symbol of, of the bridegroom and the bride applies to Christ and the church not to Christ and each individual person,

[1:44:09] Benjamin Schaffer: right? More as an institution as a, as a corporation, as a concept of

[1:44:14] Michelle: no, as, as the people who are Christ’s church, which which is the name of your church. But the people who are one because they all have given their hearts to Jesus Christ and born again, come, come unto Christ and are unified in the name of Christ. That’s the church of Jesus Christ. I, I

[1:44:33] Benjamin Schaffer: we should all be one in the sense that, I mean, that’s the whole point of consecration. We live the law of consecration of our church too. We don’t get as much heat for that. People were much more worried about polygamy mostly because of sex. Um But like, yeah, we should all be one, our whole family should be one

[1:44:48] Michelle: when Jesus says, if you are not one, you are not mine. That’s a very monogamous language, right? That’s what I mean,

[1:44:57] Benjamin Schaffer: the thing I’ve ever heard.

[1:45:00] Michelle: OK. All right. So

[1:45:01] Benjamin Schaffer: we’re all going to be one with Jesus as Jesus is one with the father. Oh my gosh, that’s so polygamous. We’re all gonna be one.

[1:45:08] Michelle: He’s not saying he’s when he says if you are not one, you’re not mine. He’s not saying and you are an individual one with me and you, which he’s saying if you’re not all one with each other because I have one bride, I have one bride. That’s the,

[1:45:23] Benjamin Schaffer: and this goes back to something that you said at the wedding I thought was interesting. This is a family affair. The big question. That is the difference between you and me. But I do think one thing we agree on is this is a family affair. Why does God care about it, care about us at all? Why is God even involved? Why did God send Jesus Christ? Why do we even have a church? Because it’s a family thing? We’re the Children of God. God wants us all to be one family. He wants us back to live with him as a family. The difference is, is that we view it differently as to what a family looks like. What is a family, right? And I’ve got this broad concept of Mormon polygamous clans being connected to the law of adoption and, and all these different kingdoms and that’s how it all connects to God. And I’m not exactly sure what your model is, but I’m sure it includes monogamy um at some point and then, you know, but, but we do agree it’s a family affair, right?

[1:46:15] Michelle: Um I would have to understand what you mean by that a little better. But, but I do think that the purpose of this is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I think that our covenants with one another, teach us how to be in covenant with God and with, you know, love God, love your fellow man. That’s what the gospel is about. And then like giving our hearts and our lives, laying everything, you know, becoming one with Jesus Christ, receiving his image in our countenance to me, that’s what, that’s what we’re aiming for. But let me ask you this question because you did talk about how um what, what was your wording? I can’t remember. But basically they killed Joseph because of polygamy. So, you know, they want to kill the polygamist. And so, well, so let me ask you this because

[1:46:58] Benjamin Schaffer: the gospel and I believe polygamy is, is incidentally part of the practice of people who follow Christ. OK.

[1:47:06] Michelle: OK. So, but if we remove definitely Jesus, because there’s, I mean, I don’t think that we would have universal consensus that Jesus was a polygamist.

[1:47:13] Benjamin Schaffer: A lot of people think he was like a celibate.

[1:47:16] Michelle: And then, and then, and then if we remove Joseph Smith as well, since, since there’s controversy between us. So then we can look to the known polygamous where there’s no controversy, which is Brigham Young John Taylor, right? So, so my question is, it’s interesting, like was Brigham hunted and because of polygamy was like, like you keep saying there’s all this violence aimed at polygamists, I guess the most recent example we can look at is Warren Jeffs. And for me, the, the concern about Warren Jeffs isn’t the violence against the violence. He was, yeah, that’s what I mean, it was the violence that he was exerting on others. And that’s my, that’s the challenge that I have come up with as I looked into polygamy because Brigham Young, there was some, there was some,

[1:48:03] Benjamin Schaffer: let me put out some stuff here. Ok. So Brigham Young. Yes, I agree. I’m not gonna get everyone to love Brigham Young. Um, it was the wild west, literally. Um, and he was this, uh, the leader and even a governor and all kinds of things like that at the time. There was a lot of weird stuff that happened. Ok. I’m not gonna,

[1:48:19] Michelle: wasn’t really the wild west. It was his community. He had complete control. The wild west was because no one had a thought, right? He, he rained it pretty, he controlled it and made it the way he wanted it to be. But ok,

[1:48:31] Benjamin Schaffer: he certainly tried. Uh you know, but

[1:48:35] Michelle: um violence wasn’t happening because Brigham didn’t have enough control. Should we say that it wasn’t the wild West? It was Brigham’s kingdom. But ok,

[1:48:44] Benjamin Schaffer: there was a lot of violence I think that he had nothing to do with, but I’m not saying we’re gonna make you like him. But when you ask, is there danger? Um, a lot, this cannot be proven, but there’s a lot of evidence that shows that Brigham Young was murdered, he was poisoned. He had

[1:49:00] Michelle: all of his own households, not by anti polygamists by one of his wives. The people who proposed that a lot of people

[1:49:07] Benjamin Schaffer: was one of his wives who I believe was an anti polygamist. That’s why she did it. She was unhappy with the polygamy situation and she became the agent for other people who want to get rid of him, including I believe people in government. John Taylor comes next. John Taylor died of exposure and pneumonia on the run from the marshals and he was shot in Kirtland that I mean in Carthage. So here’s the thing that uh ok, I know that people want to make John Taylor the vegetarian pacifist a murderer. But John Taylor I believe was shot with Joseph. His blood was mingled with the martyrs once and then he was marred a second time by the marshals in Utah. So yes, I believe he was absolutely a martyr. I believe he was the twice martyred prophet.

[1:49:54] Michelle: I want just clarify. There is a difference between being on the run as a fugitive because you are breaking the law and being run

[1:50:01] Benjamin Schaffer: on the fugitive because they hate your religion and want to destroy your people.

[1:50:06] Michelle: Oh, ok. Well, or, and, and we, we’re always in danger to put motiv make it sound like he’s committed some crime. Well, let me, let me ask you this because, because so, so the twin relics of barbarism was the um the Republican rallying cry, right? Polygamy and slavery. So the people who were the slaveholders could say they just hate our culture, they hate our society. They’re the, they’re inflicting violence upon us without acknowledging why it was being opposed and why they were prosecuting a war. Right.

[1:50:37] Benjamin Schaffer: Right. And I guess you’re saying that you thought that they were prosecuting this war against the saints because they had good reason to. And I’m saying, I think it was a genocidal impulse.

[1:50:45] Michelle: OK. So that’s a difference in motive because we can look at what happened after polygamy was like, like we can look at the women who were living in Utah and how they were trying to help if you’ve read through the anti polygamy standard. I really recommend that to people, especially the originals that were printed in the newspaper.

[1:51:01] Benjamin Schaffer: I read the Women of Utah and Assembly and a bunch of other pro polygamy things done entirely by women leadership in Utah. They even had a vote on whether or not they wanted to have plural marriage in Utah. And it came with plural marriage overwhelmingly. And some people said, oh, well, these dumb women were probably forced to do it or deluded or something. And I’m like, no, these were like the forefront of the women’s rights movement at the time and they chose what they want for their own

[1:51:26] Michelle: is very useful to read that in the context of also reading the journal of discourses and the complete teachings of big and others to see what the um teaching was that the because polygamist women in the F LDS, right? That I think you would probably not, they would also vote to support what was happening and they would also all lie and say there are no underage brides, there’s no rape happening. And these are all our Children and all of that was lies. That was all lies. Right. They, they, like the society was victimized. I’m not trying to, yeah,

[1:52:00] Benjamin Schaffer: the fl is a very repressive, has been, become a very repressive cult. And that’s one of the reasons why they’ve shrunk so much. They had like almost 10,000 members before Warren Jeffs took charge and there’s like 1000 believers left or something or a few 100 devastated.

[1:52:16] Michelle: I agree. But the point I’m trying to make is I think it’s, I think it’s dangerous to or, or when I say dangerous, like not accurate to say it was a genocidal impulse to come after polygamy and it was a genocidal impulse to go after slavery. I think we should look more fairly at what the reason

[1:52:32] Benjamin Schaffer: you said you said I have to leave Jesus aside as a martyr. I just so Smith is aside as a murder, not as

[1:52:40] Michelle: a

[1:52:42] Benjamin Schaffer: polygamist of murder for the cause of polygamy. Ok. But I believe Brigham Young was a murder for polygamy. I believe John Taylor is a murder for polygamy. Wilfred Woodruff. Actually, this is another one of them that you can’t prove I can’t prove. But it’s interesting. He went out to the Bohemian Grove and never came back. He died out there. I think he was murdered. OK. So now I’m not saying that I believe, did he go there? One president of the church was a martyr for polygamy. I believe the first four presidents of the church were all martyred for polygamy. And then you’ve got my own more recent history. Um, ruin. Allred was a murder for polygamy and he was murdered in solid,

[1:53:19] Michelle: who was he killed by other polygamists? I think polygamy breeds violence, but in the opposite direction that you do because polygamy it’s too. But it’s like, I think polygamy breeds violence but it’s the polygamist often. And I’m not saying all polygamists, I don’t think you’re gonna Yeah. Although as soon as I realized how many polygamists throughout the wedding, I did get a little bit nervous because I don’t know how many, no, I don’t know how many polygamists still believe in blood atonement because

[1:53:45] Benjamin Schaffer: I danced with two women at the same time on the dance floor at the wedding. The

[1:53:50] Michelle: Barons followed their nose in these doctrines that Brigham taught through polygamy to blood atonement, which is what they started to carry out. So there is, there is a danger there. So let me,

[1:54:02] Benjamin Schaffer: let

[1:54:02] Michelle: me,

[1:54:03] Benjamin Schaffer: it does depend on how you look at it where it comes from. Um You could, you could let the buck stop only at the trigger person, the person who did the shooting. Um Chenoweth. Um uh Marion Chenoweth, I wanna say was the one who shot ruin all already. But most people will say no, no, she’s not acting alone. Obviously, it’s her husband, Ivo Lebaron that she’s following and most people say I le Baron isn’t acting alone. He got the idea from blood atonement, like you’re saying. Well, here’s the thing too. Oh, no, it’s Rena, I think it’s Rena. Rena Chenoweth. Anyway, RNA, um, Chenoweth, who was the one who shot ruin All Red actually was acquitted by an all LDS jury of the murder. Uh, after they deliberated for, I think it was 12 minutes in the jury room and, um, to say that that wasn’t arranged would be shocking to my sensibilities. And then she immediately went out and she’s written a book about the murder and why she did it. And in there, she said that the mainstream Elias church paid her $400,000 to do it. And that Ville wanted the money. So do I think that it was the polygamist that shot ruin? Not really. It was, yes, it was the polygamist wife of a polygamist who shot him. But if you want to follow up, follow the money, I think it was the mainstream LDS church leadership. It was the monogamous that shot ruin, Allred.

[1:55:26] Michelle: Why was there such a long list of people to be killed? And why has it continued on so long? Is the LDS Church paying to have all of those people killed?

[1:55:34] Benjamin Schaffer: No, they simply found people willing to commit murder, who committed some murders for profit, some murders, for personal vendettas, some murders for a lot of other things and use them as the hatchet. They use them as the blunt instrument to do their will because they knew that they could pay them off and they knew that they’d be willing to do it. But I don’t, I don’t actually think that that ends with blood atonement. I think the reason they killed, um, ruin Allred is because he was vocal and he was public and he was political and he was fighting for his family and they had to get rid of an example like that in the heart of Salt Lake City. So there’s some, there’s some on one hand and some on another. But I don’t think that it’s look, history is messy as heck. And I don’t think that you can just say that one side is always the bad guys and I don’t think that’s always true of the LDS church, either. The Ville Le Baron was a psycho, but that doesn’t make him not a useful psycho sometimes,

[1:56:28] Michelle: right? I think that’s part of what it’s concerning to me is that there are psychos in the world and the doctrines that Brigham espoused and taught are dangerous in the hands of psychos. Right.

[1:56:39] Benjamin Schaffer: Well,

[1:56:39] Michelle: and

[1:56:40] Benjamin Schaffer: I think that’s true. That can be true of twisting anything. I mean, especially political ideologies, but religion also, all religions can do that.

[1:56:47] Michelle: Ok. So I have so many directions I want to go, let me ask you this and then, um and then it was interesting because there are so many places. Let me go here first. When we met at the wedding. The question you wanted to ask me, I believe was like our, our polygamy deniers sincere, like there’s no way you can sincerely believe what you believe. You. I

[1:57:04] Benjamin Schaffer: don’t think the polygamous, like the history is different than what every historian has said or are you just have such a strong ideological dogma agenda that you’re willing to deny the facts? Do you really believe that those are different facts, alternative facts? What

[1:57:23] Michelle: that question? I see exactly in reverse. I think that for example, Brian Hall has such a desperate need that I catch him in lie after lie after lie. And I absolutely have come to this through. Well, I’m gonna start revealing more things that are just not true. And, and so the more I looked into the evidence, the more convinced I have become through pure solid evidence, I’m completely sincere, but I don’t think you knew that I have 13 Children and that I um like, like I knew that

[1:57:57] Benjamin Schaffer: but yeah,

[1:57:58] Michelle: ok. But before when we met at the wedding, I don’t think you had known that. I think you were really surprised to know that I’m kind of not in every way, Satan as, as I’m um

[1:58:08] Benjamin Schaffer: as I, as it was beginning to sound, you know, like, well, and the other thing too that I didn’t really get into that I want to ask now about and you can answer this when you talk about why you sincerely come to these, uh these conclusions is my other really big question was, did Denver Snuffer or Phil Davis or someone else or both put you up to this? Because I was concerned that the whole polygamy denial was specifically to give Phil Davis or Denver Snuffer one of these other cultists power in a movement that I believe is strongly supported. And I, and I believe that Denver Snuffer, that’s a dark man. He’s not a nice guy. I’ve met him on multiple occasions. I don’t believe he’s, I don’t believe he’s genuine. I believe he’s selfish and dangerous. And Phil Davis, I’ve met him on many occasions. He is dangerous. He is vicious that man has some serious darkness in him. And my concern is, is that I, I see that Joe Smith never live whole movement as essentially being propped up by these cultists. And I thought, ok, thank you. What’s your connection to all of this? Because that’s, that was my accusation and my real concern.

[1:59:14] Michelle: Ok. We had to break this conversation in half and I know you’re some of you are just going to be on the edge of your seats and angry that I’m leaving you with a cliffhanger. So I have to apologize for that. But at the same time, I thought it was just a delightful place to end and hopefully you’ll be excited to come back next week to find out if I have indeed been put up to this by Denver Snuffer or, um, oh, I can’t remember the other guy’s name, the doctrine of Christ, um Guy, uh Phil Davis or Phil Davis, right? If one of them put me up to this. But I do so appreciate again, I appreciate Benjamin Shafer coming and asking these questions so we can really get to know each other better and understand that we’re both just well meaning people trying our best to do what’s right and, and, and who disagree along the way. I really believe that that’s what this is all about. So huge. Shout out to Benjamin. Thank you so much and thank you all for joining us and I’ll see you next week for the rest of the conversation.