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LISTEN TO MICHELLE’S INTERVIEW ON JIM BENNETT’S PODCAST!
“Was Joseph Smith Really a Polygamist? A Conversation with Michelle Brady Stone”
Inside Out with Jim Bennett and Ian Wilks
A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter, by Jim Bennett
Transcript
[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. This episode requires a bit of an introduction. I have been working so hard on the response videos I’ve been doing to the contemporaneous evidence that has been presented, and my next episode will be coming out next week on that. In the meantime, I thought it would be useful to share this conversation. I, um, was really excited to have this conversation with Jim Bennett. I was told by various people that we should have a conversation. So I was excited to do that. I Did not expect the conversation to take some of the turns it did. I was not planning on a conversation that touched on political issues, and I was worried that maybe I wouldn’t be able to use this. But, um, many of you know Karen, my editor, and she, I, she watched it, and she said she actually loved the conversation because what it represented was two people who view the world very differently from just a huge ideological divide coming together and doing their Us to respectfully engage in conversation. And we kind of thought, here we are right after the election, that’s, you know, created some strong feelings. And going into the holidays where we will be, um, visiting with people possibly who see the world differently than we do as we are gathering with family. And we thought maybe it would be a good idea to let us all kind of get a preview of how these conversations can be had. I think that, um, while I didn’t expect the the conversation to go this direction and I’m expecting that some of you might feel some tension rising from various perspectives when you hear things say that you don’t agree with, whichever side you tend to lean more toward, Jim or me. Um, I’m hoping that it will be worth it and that you will enjoy the conversation and being able to, I think that maybe it’s good for us to get more comfortable with those, um, feelings. That’s what I was going to say. Hopefully, we can all start going, I can, I can handle this. I can handle having my worldview challenged and engaging with someone who has a completely Different worldview. So that’s what I am hoping for. I do want to say from the beginning that the day after this conversation, um, I went on Jim’s, um, podcast, and actually he and Ian and I had a fantastic conversation that I should be able to link to. So look for that in the description. Um, so you can listen to that one if you want to talk, if you want something that’s a little bit more of a feel good conversation that focuses more on polygamy than this one was able to do. But with all of that being said, I think this was a valuable. Conversation. I am happy to say that I consider Jim a friend. I’m really glad that we connected. We are looking forward to future conversations. So the, the moral of the story is hang in there, don’t write people off and don’t give up because it is important that we learn to have these difficult conversations and that we learn to have relationships even when there are very big differences in perspectives. With all of that being said, thank you for joining me, and here’s the episode. Welcome to this conversation. I am excited to be here with Jim Bennett, who I am meeting for the first time along with many of you, I guess those of you who don’t already know Jim, but I had some listeners reach out to me and tell me, you, you need to call Jim Bennett. So I went ahead and And reached out to him and was, I’m really glad I did. We were able to put something together and I’m really excited, Jim, to let you kind of share your story and then discuss some of the things that we sort of have in common and see the same ways and, and see what we can navigate there. So, welcome to the program. Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?
[03:35] Jim Bennett: Uh, sure. Uh, and I’m very glad that you did reach out and it’s very nice to meet you and to have this conversation. Um, I am a lifelong member of the church. I, uh, Live in Sandy, Utah. I am married with 5 children. I, uh, I’m a member of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. I joined in 2019, and then after about eight months, the choir shut down for COVID for 18 months. So, even though I’ve been in the choir for 5 years, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. Uh, but that’s currently how I’m participating in the church. I You know, I’ve checked all the boxes. I served a mission to Scotland way back when. And, uh, same as my father. My father also served as, I, I met a bishop who was baptized by my father when this bishop was 8 years old. Oh wow. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I’ve been a believing act of latter-day saint my entire life. I sort of came into prominence. In this sort of space, I mean, people want to talk to me on podcasts now because I wrote a lengthy reply to the CES letter. And I think we’ll probably discuss some of that here today, but uh that’s kind of what I’ve been best known for, but then I’ve also, it’s, it’s been interesting because after I wrote my reply to the CES letter, I, um, I started going on podcast to talk about it and and the one of the first ones was somebody said, I’d really like to see you go toe to toe with Bill Reel.
[05:12] Michelle: Oh, OK, OK. And,
[05:14] Jim Bennett: um, and I didn’t know who Bill Reel was. And I said, I’m not going toe to toe with anybody, but I am happy to talk to anybody. And so I, we actually recorded about 14 hours of conversations, and I’m amazed at how many people came and said, I, I’ve listened to the whole thing, and I thought, what kind of glutton for punishment are you? I haven’t listened to the whole thing.
[05:37] Michelle: Do you know what, people are so interested in these topics. I think that’s great that, you know, I’ll bet that that’s a fantastic conversation. I Yeah, I guess I’ve unintentionally gone toe to toe with Bill Reel. I didn’t really want to have a debate with him. I just wanted a conversation, but it kind of turned more into a debate. Uh, I don’t know. But, um, but I, I, I’ll bet you had better conversations with, with, with him than I did, I hope. Well,
[05:59] Jim Bennett: I, I was actually kind of frustrated at the end of it because he went around and, and said, look, I won my debate with Jim Bennett. Yeah. And I was like, this wasn’t a debate and you’ve made it harder for people to have this kind of a conversation. But what was interesting, that was sort of a turning point because suddenly, you know, I’ve, I’ve gotten a whole lot of emails and messages and just kind, kind comments from people saying, your CES letter reply has really helped me and helped me stay in the church. But after Bill Reel, I started to get messages from people who have left the church. And the messages weren’t, the messages said things along the lines of, you didn’t persuade me to come back to church. You didn’t persuade me the church is still true, but you helped me appreciate and understand my family and friends who are still in. And, and, and that sort of has introduced me into a really interesting space. We talked about this offline. You referred to this as sort of the borderlands of the church, you know, there are so many people who have left. Uh, but still are connected, whether they want to be or not. And often it’s because they, they have family who are still in. Very often it’s a mixed faith marriage where a spouse is still in. And so you have people that are in this kind of space that the church doesn’t really recognize. The church, I, I, I have not heard anything from church leaders talking about how to navigate a mixed faith marriage. Uh, there are, there are sort of passing references to continue to love your children if they leave. But people on in those borderlands, um, don’t really, we, we, as a, as, as, as people on the inside, as active members of the church, we really don’t fully understand or, or have the kinds of tools necessary to reach out to them, to stay connected to them. Right. And since that Bill real conversation, I then went and had another 14 hours of conversations with John Belin. Oh, wow, OK. And I had a number of conversations. I’ve had conversations with Radio Free Mormon and other people outside the church, but I’ve also gone on Ward Radio, and, you know, I’m, I’m willing to talk to anybody. Um, but, uh, but where I, I sort of find myself now. Is that uh people outside the church, particularly people in those borderlands, or the people that seem to respond to what I’m saying a whole lot more positively than a lot of the people inside the church. I have been harassed and, and uh just, you know, there, there was an account on Twitter. They got mad about something I had posted, and they said, Um, call the Tabernacle Choir and tell them to get rid of their apostate and the phone number for the choir, and I was like, and, and so I called that phone number because I know the person who’s gonna answer that phone. Uh, this is a person that was, uh, she, she was a member of the choir and you’re not allowed to be sing in the choir and work for the choir at the same time. So, She, she’s taken a hiatus from singing in the choir so that she can work for the choir. And I called her and I said, has anybody called you and told you that Jim Bennett needs to be kicked out of the choir? And she said, no. Why would they do that? And I said, Well, here’s this Twitter account that’s doing this. And she looked at it and she said, oh my goodness, this is the most Awful thing I’ve ever seen. Would you mind if I brought this to the attention of church security? Oh wow. And I said, no, no, please do. And within 2 hours that account was suspended. And so I don’t know who at church security has ends with Elon Musk’s.
[09:58] Michelle: Well, in, in one way that’s like encouraging in another way it’s terrifying.
[10:04] Jim Bennett: It’s a little bit yeah it’s a little bit of both.
[10:06] Michelle: I think it’s mostly terrifying to me because, oh, OK, all right.
[10:11] Jim Bennett: Well, the thing is, you know, I found. Um, so, so there, there is a contingent of members of the church, particularly online and in social media that I find really terrifying because their goal is a smaller church.
[10:29] Michelle: Yes. In, in fact, when you talked about them posting, I think we have some, um, some trolls in common, shall I say? And, you know, the, the, um, these efforts to punish people for thought crime, for, for bad belief is, and to get, like, there are actual efforts. Um, I, I, I haven’t made this public cause I didn’t want to. I recently um had had a new state president called and the word that I was getting a new state president got out someone in my state or adjacent to my state and gave out the information and that poor, poor brand new state president, one of the first things he had to deal with, was being inundated with calls for discipline and, you know, I just, I find it to be. I, I just find it to be absolutely appalling. After all of the efforts that we put into missionary work, to sending our kids out to bring them to the gospel, if, if you have a disagreement, then we want you gone. If you dare speak about some something that you disagree on. I, I find it to be just so in complete opposition to what we ideally would be about as disciples of Christ and as members of the Church of Jesus Christ and people who believe in the gospel. So I have a couple of questions I wanna ask you. You brought up so many things, so I want to go clear back to the beginning. I want to ask about the Tabernacle Choir. So does that count as your church calling? Isn’t like, are you giving a calling in addition, or is that pretty much your calling while you’re in it?
[11:57] Jim Bennett: That is, that is my calling. I have been called and set apart as a musical missionary is the title. Yeah, and, and, uh, they’re not allowed to give me. I, I’m not sure what the term is. I, I keep thinking it’s something along the lines of calling of significance. For instance, I have been called, I am a seminary substitute teacher. And, but I’m not allowed to be called into something that requires a significant contribution of time outside of the choir.
[12:29] Michelle: OK, that’s good to know. And then I do want to know like, what made you think I want to join the choir? Have you been trying? Have you tried before? Was it a, like, I have more time now or and you’ve always said I wanted to kind of know your story.
[12:42] Jim Bennett: Well, you know, music has always been a big part of my life. I was a theater major, uh, at the University of Southern California growing up.
[12:50] Michelle: OK, I majored in musical theater at BYU, Music Dance Theater, so we’ve got that
[12:54] Jim Bennett: in common. I probably know a lot of, so Tim Threfall yeah, yeah, I, I because I was the artistic director at Tua for,
[13:04] Michelle: you probably know a lot of them.
[13:05] Jim Bennett: So that whole circle. I think I, I, I’m, and that was 20 years ago,
[13:12] Michelle: so I don’t know if Becky Wright Phillips is still there. Gail Lockwood was there when I was there,
[13:17] Jim Bennett: yeah, I know.
[13:18] Michelle: Yeah. So anyway,
[13:21] Jim Bennett: so yeah, I, I was going to be a world famous actor, but uh I, I, um, ended up getting into, into, um, arts management. I ran a theater in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for 5 years and then I was at Tuacon for about 5 years and And uh uh I Uh, have just always, music has been a, a huge part of my life and um. I, I was dabbling a little bit in, um, auditioning for theater again. And you know, I, I was writing a column, I was writing an arts column for the Deseret News, and I thought it would be fun to audition for a show, uh, as part of a column. I had no idea that they would cast me, but they did, much to my wife’s chagrin, because I didn’t tell her I was auditioning. That’s a Long, messy story. But that was about 10 years ago. And, and I was really kind of enjoying that and dabbling. I was up at Pioneer Theater Company, and I did several shows up there. And when my, my kids, I’ve got 5 kids and my youngest was about ready to, um, Well, I guess they were still in high school, but 4 of 4 out of 5 of my kids had had left home. And, and my wife said to me, you know, we, and there was a guy in the choir that was in our ward. I mean, it’s not like it was a lifelong ambition for me, but this guy was talking about it and I went, you know, that sounds like that would be kind of fun. And he says, well, if you want to audition, you better do it soon because the rules are you can stay in the choir for 20 years or until you turn 60. Right? And, uh, I am now 56 years old. OK. You can’t audition for the choir after the age of 55. OK, so I was 50 at the time when I auditioned, but, but my wife said to me, you know, the kids are gone. Um, you know, you could probably do this. We could probably, because one of the difficulties of doing theater and doing all this sort of stuff on the side, it just takes an awful lot of time. And when you’ve got kids at home and you’re shuttling them to soccer games and everything else.
[15:34] Michelle: It’s hard to get to your own rehearsals
[15:36] Jim Bennett: and it’s hard to devote that kind of time to the choir, but the, the time seemed to be right, and I went, OK, well, I think this would be fun. And so I, I looked up how to do it, and the first thing you had to do in, in 2019 was send in a, a CD which was already antiquated technology back then. You know, I tried to burn a CD and I didn’t have a CD player. Um, and so I played it. My daughter had a CD changer in her car. And so I played my audition after I burned it. I wanted to listen to it. And I went, OK, this, this is OK. And I listened to it, and, um, then a few days, I sent it in, and then a few days later, my daughter called me and said, Hey, dad, I was listening to your audition in the car. You sounded great. I’m sure you’re gonna get in. And I went, Well, wait a minute, if you listen to my CD in the car, you? What did I send them? And it turns out what I sent them was my daughter’s mix CD, and the first song on it was Kiss by Prince. So I’m imagining Mac Wilber and Ryan Murphy cranking up the CD player and let’s see what Jim Bennett sounds like. And then, you don’t have to be rich to be my girl, you know, so, uh, the choir was very, was very gracious, was very kind. They called. They said, We think you sent us the wrong scene. And I said, yes, I have, and I’m very sorry. And they said, well, you could just send us an audio file, and now that’s what we need.
[17:03] Michelle: Why didn’t they just do that from the first in the first place.
[17:07] Jim Bennett: That would have been a little while to catch up with technology, but, but it’s a three-step process. I sent in that that audition and then you take a written exam that’s supposed to, that’s really what I’ve heard is that that’s the big hurdle that weeds out a lot of the.
[17:24] Michelle: Is it music theory? Is that what they’re going,
[17:27] Jim Bennett: but it’s, it’s, it’s actually a lot of oral training, A U R A L training. You know, they’ll, they’ll play you a musical phrase and then they’ll play a second musical phrase that’s nearly identical and say which note changed? You know, it’s, it’s that kind of thing. And, uh, and I was able to get through that and then, then the third thing is the live audition. In front of Mack Wilber, in front of Ryan Murphy. And that was absolutely terrifying. They, in that, they just sort of hand you a piece of music and say, sing this. And there’s no, no accompaniment, no anything, and so I was like, oh OK. And I remember doing it and having Mac Wilber just say, No, that’s not it. And, and I just thought, rod, I’m doomed. And I came out of the, I came out of the, uh, audition and I was looking for some kind of sympathy. And the, the gatekeeper, the woman that was just outside the door, I said, boy, I really think I screwed up in there. And she looked at me and she said, Well, it is very hard. Well, thanks. That makes me feel a whole lot better. But I don’t know if they were just short on men that year or whatever it was. Oh,
[18:42] Michelle: I bet you were great. Matt Wilbers. I sing, I sang in one of Mac Wur’s choirs at BYU before he went to the, um, to the Tabernacle, and he’s, he’s, he’s fabulous. Yeah, I was happy to see him. Yeah. So, OK, thanks for filling us in with all of And now I want to ask you about the CES letter. What made you decide to take that on and, and tell us a little bit about the process of writing your response and the time you put into it, how long it is, where people can find it. Just give us all of the lowdown on that process and that
[19:16] Jim Bennett: product. Um, I, uh. So, uh, when I was 18 years old. Uh, I was a freshman at the University of Southern California, and I was in the dormitories with an evangelical Christian as a roommate. And we had long, messy theological discussions that seemed kind of ridiculous to me now, but, uh, they got very heated on occasion. And at one point, I went to the USC library and I checked out a copy of the God Makers.
[19:43] Michelle: Oh, OK.
[19:45] Jim Bennett: Which, uh, was, was, you know, the big anti-Mormon book at the time. It was, it was a book and a movie. I’ve seen,
[19:52] Michelle: OK, I thought it was a movie. It was a little before my time. I, you know, I just remember it, but I mean, I remember hearing about it, but I didn’t know anything
[19:58] Jim Bennett: about it. Yeah, it it it’s known and you can still find clips of it, particularly that animated clip about God having endless celestial sex and
[20:09] Michelle: Knocking on Mary’s door and looking,
[20:11] Jim Bennett: yeah, I mean that’s, that’s still online, but, but this was the book which went into more detail. And that was sort of my version of the CES letter. I read that and it just shook me to my core. And I thought, what am I gonna do? How do I stay? And, and that’s the thing that people don’t realize is that people who read the CES letter, people who, who find out things about church history that they find disconcerting. Their first instinct is not, oh, OK, great, now I can leave, and now I can go sin. It was, jeez, how do I stay? How do I stay knowing all these things? And I had the benefit of having a father who was, uh, knowledgeable about these things and also patient and kind enough to sort of walk through them with me. And I also at the time was living in, um, In the house of my uncle Howard Anderson, who was the president of the Los Angeles steak at the time, and he was the same way. He was like, oh, OK, well, you have a concern about this and let’s, let’s talk about this. And, um, I went home for Christmas. And um, The elders quorum gave out copies, and I, I now wonder if maybe my father had cued them to do this, but they gave out copies of a book called The Truth About the Godmakers. That essentially went line by line through the Godmaker’s book and said, well, here’s Here’s a different perspective. And the thing that was so helpful about that was not, oh, OK, here are all the answers. It was, well, gee, somebody intelligent with integrity was able to look at these issues, and they were able to stay. This is how they did it. And maybe it, it, and it gave me, it sort of put a break on my panic. It gave me enough time to say, OK, well, maybe I can, I, I don’t have to leave right now, you know. Maybe I can work through these. And, and, and so that was, that was, uh, really instrumental in my staying. And so, uh, that, that’s all precursor to, to, so there were family members. Who had left because of the CES letter. OK, and, and I started seeing all of the chatter about the CES letter online and I thought, jeez, this must must be the most devastating indictment of the church that’s ever been written. And I felt like I had no choice but to read it. I mean, I, I, one of the things I really feel strongly about is that I don’t feel that the church has any choice. But to confront all of these things head on because our approach as a church has been to sort of bury our heads in the sand and tell everybody just don’t look at it, don’t pay attention to it. And that just doesn’t work anymore.
[23:19] Michelle: No, there’s too much, there’s too much information. And actually, like, I’ve come to see the, um, opposition in most things as a gift to us, right? Like, like, like, that’s what marriage is supposed to be, right? That’s, it’s a man and a woman in order to exert the perfect amount of equal opposition to one another, to help us be our best and to, um, in both, in both directions, of the assistance and the, um, friction, right? And I, and I really think that that the critics of, um, most things, the critics of the church or I feel like I’m a critic of the historical narrative in some areas, right? They, that we, we need to take those voices very seriously because they’re gifts to us. Just like as a parent, you sometimes learn your hardest kid is your greatest gift, right? And, and that’s, that’s, anyway, I, I completely agree with you. There’s so much for us to learn to delve into and realize, oh, I’m We’re wrong on this. We need to rethink this, or, oh, we’re really solid on this, and this is important. I, I, I just think it’s important to dig in for a multitude of reasons, not only to preserve faith, but also to come to greater truth. Because the fact is, our critics have points to make, right? There are, there are things that have been incorrect, for sure, and, and still are. So anyway, I’ll, I’ll let you continue. But yes, I completely agree with you on that.
[24:39] Jim Bennett: No, I, I appreciate that. I think that’s exactly right. So, when I read the CES letter, I got Godmaker’s flashbacks.
[24:47] Michelle: Yeah,
[24:48] Jim Bennett: sure. Because, uh, and there’s nothing in the CES letter, uh, there’s nothing in there that’s particularly new. Uh, all of these arguments have been around for a very long time.
[25:00] Michelle: That’s important for people to hear. I think I kind of had it in my brain that some of these things that we’re grappling with now are new, but you’re right. Like, there, there really isn’t much new. It, like, it was all written at the very beginning by the detractors, by the Joseph Jackson’s and the Doctor Wis in the very beginning of the church, right? So, OK, that’s, that’s a good thing to recognize.
[25:20] Jim Bennett: Yeah. And, and, and I, and so, uh, at that point, I, um, Uh, we were in the age of bloggers. It doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore, but back then, I, I had been maintaining a blog for about 10 years. And then my blog was, was things, it was, it was things about the church, but it was also political, it was also pop culture. It was just whatever came into my mind. I just felt like I, I wanted an outlet to write all this stuff down. And as I read the CES letter, I would come to sections and say, oh, I wrote something about that on my blog. Oh, I, I, oh, I’ve talked about this before. And so what I started doing, I didn’t really set out to, uh, line by line, the CES letter, but what I started doing was cutting and pasting pieces of my blog. Into responses to the CES letter, and, and then I, I, I reached a point where I thought, well, I’ve got to go all the way with this, in for a penny, in for a pound. And I also felt like I was sort of paying forward. What the truth about the Godmakers, that that had been so helpful to me, and I didn’t see anything out there that was approaching the CES letter in the same way. So, I went through the CES letter line by line, and, and responded to it, because one of the things that Jeremy Reynolds kept saying was, nobody’s ever responded to this. You know, I’ve written this and nobody’s ever responded to it. And one of the challenges of responding to it, at least in the kind of detail that is necessary to really respond to every single one of his concerns, is that it’s the CES letter is 80 pages long,
[27:04] Michelle: right, and ever changing,
[27:07] Jim Bennett: right?
[27:07] Michelle: It’s
[27:07] Jim Bennett: really long
[27:08] Michelle: and it’s never settled.
[27:11] Jim Bennett: Right, so I, I wrote a version of a reply in 2016. And then I rewrote it and I’d say about at least half of it was all new material in 2018. I haven’t revisited revisited it since then. Uh, I don’t know that I will. I, I don’t know how much Jeremy has changed it since then. Um, but he, he, you know, he has a section on his web page where he debunks the debunkers. OK, and forever he didn’t debunk me. He just let, you know, he would say nobody’s ever responded to my, to my CES letter, and then people would say to him, Well, Jim Bennett has. And I, I watched a friend of mine say that on his Facebook page and see him get banned in real time. Wow, banned.
[27:59] Michelle: Isn’t that interesting? It’s so interesting to me how hard it is to not become what you decry, right? Like, like, here they are decrying, um, the hiding and the falsehood and the not honest engagement. And it’s really hard for them not to, like, not to just do the same thing. A lot of these, um, these big podcasters, like, the only reason that they have not had me on their. Shows, which they absolutely should, is because they don’t want to, well, in one of their words, they don’t want to give any oxygen to the perspective that I feel I have very solid evidence to argue. And so it’s really interesting to see them doing exactly the same thing. And that’s, that’s just another example of it. They, they say they just want honesty and transparency and integrity, but then they get to see when they’re, when the shoe’s on the other foot, they don’t really do it that well themselves. Well.
[28:52] Jim Bennett: Yeah, well, it’s because my relationship with Jeremy Reynolds, it has, has been an interesting sort of, I mean, when I first wrote the CES letter reply, I, I had never met him. I didn’t know anything about him, uh, and I was just trying to respond to the arguments. I wasn’t really engaging him. And after, um, I did my Bill Reel. Conversations. I got an email from him saying, oh, Jim, you made an absolute fool of yourself, and you’ve given me all the rope I need to hang you. And we exchanged these sort of nasty emails. And then I finally said, look, this is one of the first things I said was, look, you realize we’re the only ones reading this, right? I mean, you’re not posting this anywhere, so you, you can tone it down a little bit, and we can actually just talk and rap without the, I mean, he would send little gifts and little, you know, it’s like
[29:48] Michelle: you’re not performing for anybody right now.
[29:50] Jim Bennett: We’re not performing for anybody. This is, and then finally I said, look, wouldn’t this be more fun over burgers? I’m buying. Oh,
[29:57] Michelle: that’s nice.
[29:58] Jim Bennett: And we went to lunch, and I, I think I made a friend. I thought he was a really delightful guy and with without all of the bluster and everything else, it was, that was one of the first times I realized, OK, we haven’t been doing this right. We haven’t been engaging, you know, demonizing Jeremy Reynolds, demonizing the critics of the church. It doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t build anybody’s faith, and It doesn’t work. And so, so, he later, he said, I’m gonna now do a debunking of you. And, uh, but I’m gonna give you whatever you write, I’ll put that on my site too. And, uh, and I started to read his debunking, and then I started, OK, well, I’ll do a line by line on his debunking of my debunking of his debunking. It’s
[30:49] Michelle: debunking inception. It’s never gonna end. It felt
[30:52] Jim Bennett: like well, it felt like I was reading the fine print on a mortgage loan. It was just, this is so reductive. This is so, I just So what I wrote was this sort of broad response. Uh, to, to just, because basically, the theme of his debunking of my debunking is that Jim Bennett is not talking about chapel Mormonism or real Mormonism.
[31:24] Michelle: He’s talking about
[31:24] Jim Bennett: Jim Bennett he and he had this little logo, Jim Bennett Mormonism with a little trademark in the in the corner of it. And, and my, my broad response was, you’re absolutely right. This is Jim Bennett Mormonism, uh, where you are wrong is in thinking that there is some kind of Chapel Mormonism, pure Mormonism, real Mormonism that exists independent of every individual’s interpretation of it. Every single member of the church lives their own version of the. Every single one of us.
[32:01] Michelle: That’s exactly right. And we’re all allowed to adjust when, just like he constantly adjust the CES letter, wouldn’t we hope that our people are adjusting their ideas.
[32:10] Jim Bennett: Well, sure. I, I, I mean, it’s Uh, my reply, the reason I think my reply has been helpful, and it was interesting because a few years back I was invited to Book of Mormon Central, which is now Scripture Central. They invited me to lunch, and they, they met with me and they said, we’ve just come out of a meeting with the secretary of the Quorum of the 12. And they have shared with us the statistics. Of how many people the CES letter has driven out of the church. And we, they have done extensive research to determine. And they said, and and the number is huge, and they said they would share the numbers with me, they never have. So I should probably go back and see if I can get those numbers, but they said um they they’ve done extensive research to determine what mitigates the damage. And they said the only thing that works is Jim Bennett’s CES letter reply. And, and I was like, wow, yeah, that’s great. And uh they said, so we’re gonna advertise this. They, they didn’t sort of an advertising campaign for my reply. And I said, oh, well, do I see any of that money? No, you don’t. OK, well, thanks. And uh but um Uh, I remember talking to John Dehlin actually, offline, uh, while we were doing our conversations, and I shared that story with him, and I said, I don’t really understand. Um, couple of things. One, why the church doesn’t. Make their own, do their own. And second, why my reply is sort of in any way effective, and he said, well, Jim, the the answer to that question. Is that you are saying things that the church can’t say, I mean, the the church wants to say, but doesn’t feel like it can. Basically, that the church has been wrong in certain cases. I mean, the church is willing to admit that that, uh, you know, as, as President Odorf said back in the day. There have been cases when leaders have simply made mistakes, and we acknowledge that mistakes have happened and mistakes are possible, but we’re not willing to acknowledge any of the actual mistakes with any specificity and say, well, this was a mistake and we shouldn’t have done this. And in my reply. Uh, I do that several times. And, and, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve actually written a book that I don’t know how I’m gonna get published, but it’s called Fallibility A Love Story. And it’s the idea
[34:45] Michelle: that just in case it froze up. It’s called what?
[34:49] Jim Bennett: Fallibility, A Love Story.
[34:52] Michelle: OK, OK, I love
[34:54] Jim Bennett: it. And, and the idea is that fallibility among individuals, but also even among church leaders. is is not a bug in the plan. It’s the feature of the plan. The reason we are here. Uh, we should expect mistakes, uh, as we learn and we grow and we strive to become more Christ-like, and we should expect them institutionally as well as individually. And, and we should not be shaken by the fact that sometimes we’ve gotten it wrong.
[35:28] Michelle: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think the challenge we have is this, um. This way we still feel we need to pose as infallible, right? And it’s really a challenge because I know we have, um, I mean, even with, even with the gospel topics essays, the church seemed to be in this like really tough zone of we want to speak to the problems, but we don’t want to introduce more people to the problems, so how do we. How do we do this right? And so I think that’s why it is such a gift to the church that you’re doing this that um so that they can um kind of offload that offload that responsibility and have the deniability if you’ve got something wrong that’s OK with the, you know, that doesn’t look bad for the church it’s just you independent they can cut you loose if they need to, you know what I mean but but and so I think, I think there is something to that but I think it’s unfortunate because it’s kind of this um if we didn’t. Have this sort of overbelief or this fairy tale view of leaders, then we wouldn’t, that, that really is the sandy foundation. And then people tremble lest they shall fall, right? And the, and the foundation crumbles because it’s a sandy foundation. And I do think it would behoove us to work on getting to more rock solid truth and not having these ideas of, you know, follow the prophet, the prophet can never lead us astray. It’s just I’ve thought for decades is a spiritually dangerous idea, because it just isn’t sound and it doesn’t establish a good foundation. And so I think, like, I’m really, um, I, I’m just, I, I, it’s interesting to hear that story because it is, I am a bit, um, wishing that we wouldn’t do that. I wish that we wouldn’t try to get our people to believe things that are going to doom so many of them to complete faith crisis where I don’t think, I don’t. I, I need to speak carefully but for the most part I, I just, I don’t think it generally improves people’s lives to leave the church that hasn’t been what I’ve seen. I’m and I’m not gonna speak universally there are always unique cases, you know, but, but I think the church tends to be a blessing in our lives as individuals, as families, as communities, right? And, and I definitely don’t think that people’s lives tend to be better when they cease to believe in God and. And this seems to be often that, you know, we don’t know where people’s trajectory will will go and where it will end, but I just think it would be so much better if we didn’t set people up to encounter the kind of faith crisis that they often have with the comparison between what they’ve been taught in the church and what the CES letter says when the truth really is kind of in the middle, right?
[38:06] Jim Bennett: Well, no, I, I think that’s exactly right. And I think, well, it’s, it’s not even one of the things that I’ve also discovered in this, in this whole space is that it’s not even that Um, the church teaches things or it’s not even the mistakes themselves. Right. It’s, it’s the, the fact that the church hasn’t trusted its members to be able to, to
[38:32] Michelle: uh the cover up is always worse than the mistake.
[38:35] Jim Bennett: is the crime. The, the, the, um, the term faith crisis. is in common parlance and I now sort of lean into the idea that it’s more of a trust crisis because for instance, I mean Jeremy Reynolds in in the CES letter obsesses over the rock and the hat. The fact that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon not by looking at the plates with the Urim and Thummim, but by putting a rock in a hat and looking into the hat. And, and it obsesses over that. And to me, I, it doesn’t make any difference at all. I, I don’t know which one is weirder or which one. But, but as I’ve talked to people like Jeremy and others who are upset about the rock in the hat, It isn’t the rock in the hat that upsets them. It’s the why didn’t they tell us this? Why did they keep this from us? And, and so. and the approach the church often takes when people do this, when people, when people discover things like the rock and the hat, or the people, you know, when I was a missionary, the only way you could learn that Joseph Smith was a polygamist or that Um, and I know you don’t believe Joseph Smith is a polygamist, but I did, uh, but, uh, but the only way you could learn about just any of Adam, the Adam God theory, for instance, or, or, or any of the any of the sort of doctrinal or
[40:11] Michelle: historical anti-Mormon lies, right?
[40:13] Jim Bennett: The anti-Mormon lies that we now acknowledge as being true in our Gospel topics essays. Um, the only way you could learn them was some weird pamphlet that was dropped on your front door by a by a pastor. And it was really sort of easy to dismiss it. And now, uh, you learn it with uh a few clicks in a Google search and it’s the first stuff that comes up and you know. When when somebody goes to a leader and says, boy, I’ve just discovered this about the Kinderhook plates. I’m really concerned. I don’t really understand why Joseph Smith would translate plates that were forgeries. And, and how do I stay? And the response they get they get is you shouldn’t have been looking at that. Yeah, part of the
[41:03] Michelle: reasons, read your scriptures, read your
[41:06] Jim Bennett: scriptures, you know, Elder Corbridge gave a talk, uh, where he talked about you, you can’t ask the secondary questions until you answer the primary questions. The primary questions are, was Joseph Smith a prophet and was, and I think, well, jeez, if I find out that Joseph Smith, uh, is carrying on with his housemaid. Uh, under behind Emma’s back, uh, I’m gonna have a hard time. It’s uh trying to answer the primary question in the way you want me to answer it. Yes, consider the possibility that Joseph Smith could be a prophet if, if I can’t resolve what you’re dismissing as a secondary question. And I think one of the reasons why leaders do that, frankly, is that I think if you walked into 90%, maybe even higher, a bishop’s office and in the church and brought up the Kinderhook plates. They would stare at you and have no idea what you’re talking about. And so I think that response is, is very often a fear response. It’s a, it’s a, because the bishop is all of a sudden going, oh, I don’t know what that is, am I supposed to know what that is and what am I gonna do about that? And, and, you know, so, so it’s just this kind of, you shouldn’t be looking at that. You should be praying, you should be reading scriptures, you shouldn’t be. And, and so what happens then when you get that response, when you have a sort of faith crisis, and you bring it to authority, and the authority responds with um Dismissively dismissively in some way, um, then the faith crisis escalates into a trust. Then, then it’s, oh, I can’t trust you. I can’t trust these people. And, and so then the sort of shame and guilt, uh, that are the tools of here, stay in the boat. You know, whatever you do, and, and, you know, you’re, you’re gonna lose everything. Your, your life’s gonna go off the rails. You’re gonna be, it, it’s like, well, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you. You wouldn’t trust me to give me the, the straight dope about the church. You wouldn’t trust me, uh, when I came uh with concerns. So why should I trust you? And, and so that. You know, a lot of people, particularly in the rising generation that are leaving the church, are not going through. The kind of faith crisis that I struggled with when I was 18, or that people my age now who discover these things are struggling with when they leave, they’re just shrugging the church off. They’re just, you know, the church, this, this doesn’t work for me and I don’t trust these guys and these guys don’t know what they’re talking about, and they walk away, uh, without. You know, without any consequence.
[43:54] Michelle: And do you know what, it’s interesting because I, I, I’m trying to think which is preferable, and I don’t know because how you were talking about there really is all of this fear and shame and blame that are kind of Unfortunately, sometimes the tools to keep people in, in the wrong ways. And then those morph when people finally leave, that has all of that, um, negative emotion morphs often into anger. And I think that’s how we can understand the anger of people that feel so betrayed. It wasn’t. They were lied to, they were betrayed. They want their money back, you know? And then on top of it, now they’re facing social rejection from their family and their community. Like, it’s an extremely painful, painful process. And no wonder it results in anger for people, hopefully not permanent, you know, but it’s, it’s very difficult. But in, in some ways, that’s more connected than sort of the apathy you’re describing for others who were just like, Yeah, no, no thanks. So it’s really, I mean, I don’t, it’s interesting. I don’t know which is, you know, like, like how do we work with either one? That’s And should we care? Should we care if people stay in the church, right? If it’s not for them? Should it matter, I guess it’s.
[45:08] Jim Bennett: Uh, well, I think we should care. I mean, if, if we really believe this is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, uh, we should care when people leave it behind, but I also believe that we should continue to care about people even if they do leave it behind. Because, because, uh, one of the other things that I talked about, and you know, we, we’ve, you and I, and I don’t know if we want to mention names, but you and I have both had run-ins with uh. Somebody who very much wants a smaller church and wants to see the church purged. And uh people like that, uh, traffic in what I call the Kohore template. You know, if you read the scriptures. Uh, and you read, OK, how the prophets and how the examples that we have in the scriptures deal with people who leave. People who leave are always Kra whores. They’re always secret anti-Christs, you know, Korahre was a guy who secretly, the devil had appeared to him and told him to start fighting against Christ, but he always knew the church was true, but he fought against Christ anyway. Mhm.
[46:19] Michelle: How many times have I literally been called Kora whore? It’s, it’s become like my my nickname at this point. People use it so often. It’s shocking.
[46:28] Jim Bennett: That’s the only template that these people have to deal with the idea that somebody could have a legitimate crisis of conscience.
[46:37] Michelle: I should, I, I need to clarify that I’m in the church solidly. I’m extremely active and I’m still called Korohor, but you’re right, anyone who leaves is called Cohn, yeah,
[46:48] Jim Bennett: and, and, and, but the thing is, um. We, we, these kinds of people that label everybody a cora whore cannot allow for the possibility that someone could have a legitimate crisis of conscience and say the church, uh, I, I, I feel I need to leave the church because you know, it’s, oh no, no, no, no, you’re leaving the church because you, you wanted to sin. Because you’re wicked, because you’ve been deceived by the devil, and there’s absolutely, you know, it’s, it’s, we have to attach this Kra whore template to them and label them, even when this is somebody you, you’ve known your entire life, it could be, it could be your spouse.
[47:35] Michelle: Sometimes your parents, a lot of people’s parents are leaving. Older, older people are leaving and trying to struggle because they have kids on missions or married kids that, yeah, and I, I think it does such a disservice in so many ways. It misses the opportunity like I said, that the people who are different from us present an opportunity to us, definitely, right? That’s the opportunity Jesus was presenting to his entire community and you have the opportunity you can either accept that opportunity or fight against it, right? But it also misses the entire point. I, I say this often that. I think that the Lord cares so much less about what we believe than about how we engage with and treat people who believe differently than we do, right? I think, I think it’s good to um believe truth and be seeking truth and be enga but you know we all have to define what truth is we all have to come to learn it and what do we do in the meantime with people who disagree with us and when we have our family members and we let. Oh, it’s just when we let the church become something that interrupts family relationships or that strains family relationships, I’m just convinced that is the opposite of anything that God would want his church to create and to produce, right? Like, like, and that’s why I love your conversation about the borderlands, cause that’s what I do feel like is so important, is holding. Hands with people from all the different spaces trying to bridge these divides and, and, um, create an ability to have conversations and, and I just find it sad that so often it is the people in the church planting the flag that are one, the ones saying no, you can’t do that. You can’t be there having conversations. You can’t, right? I, I just. It seems, and then, and then it makes everyone else able to point to them and say, yeah, that’s what you guys are. I don’t want any part of it. You know, all the people that have left. And then even for me, often when I engage with those kind of people, I’m like, Are these my people? Do I really want to be with these people? Ew. Like, this doesn’t feel good. OK, well, for some reason, my internet completely just pooped out and I had nothing and um Jim has been so patient with me. I ended up finally I’m at my local library where I have horrible fluorescent lighting above me and and no good camera or microphone, so hopefully this will work for the rest of our conversation, but Thank you so much for being so patient. That was quite an ordeal, but I really have enjoyed what we’ve been talking about so far.
[50:13] Jim Bennett: Yeah, well, no problem on my end. I, uh, I, I work from home and so I didn’t, I wasn’t going anywhere, so happy to continue the conversation. I’m not exactly sure where we left off.
[50:24] Michelle: I know we probably it was probably something so exciting that people wanted to hear, but we’ll just start again. This is what I think is an interesting space. So, the space that I’m in, there are, I think um many of my listeners are no longer in the church, but we generally leave or or people that um tend to share my perspective. Tend to leave in the direction of the Book of Mormon rather than away from the Book of Mormon, right? Toward Joseph Smith rather than away from Joseph Smith, whereas the people that read the CES letter tend to think Joseph was a fraud, it’s all a fake, and I think people that are more in my space tend to think the restoration was true and the church has gone astray. And so, so it’s a different, um, it’s anyway I was just thinking about it after what we’ve talked about so far it’s a slightly different or I guess a very different dynamic that um that people struggle with and I guess this is an area that I mean this is a uh it sounds like you have quite a bit of experience and connection and familiarity with people who are affected by the CES letter but maybe less with people who. tend to view that Joseph Smith got things right and other leaders got things right. That’s not exactly my perspective, but it’s one that seems to be growing and so I just am curious if you have um encountered that much.
[51:47] Jim Bennett: Not uh, not, not a lot. So I, I, I, is this sort of kind of the Denver snuffer? Well, I think,
[51:57] Michelle: I think maybe he’s like the best known biggest name, scariest apostate, you know, but and so so I don’t think that it’s um it’s interesting because I can’t even get my um head wrapped around the different perspectives there are in the different um I I don’t even know if we would call them groups you know I think that there are a lot of people that just um like what different people say maybe there are some groups but um. But you know, I know that I’ve read um uh have you read any of Denver Snuffer’s books because I’m not OK I read two of his books and really appreciated them and um but but my understanding is I actually had him on the podcast a while ago and my impression is that he actually wouldn’t have left the church if he hadn’t been kicked out so I don’t know that he intended to um start a movement. I still don’t know if he wants a movement, but yeah, so I would say Denver snuffer and then. But, but there seem to be like, um, I don’t even know what the genesis of it is if it starts kind of with Abraham Gilotti and studying Isaiah and you, you know, I, um, it’s interesting, but, but so I just was curious if yeah I I guess it’s kind of a. Somewhat similar but somewhat different discussion. On this side of it.
[53:14] Jim Bennett: Right. Uh, no, I mean that that is in an area where I have spent a lot of time. Uh, I, um, I, I, it, it’s just large, largely new to me. I mean, it’s It’s um You know, in in what I have seen in the people that I have interacted with. Um, what would lead you to sort of that direction seems to be a very different dynamic from the people who just decide to leave the church altogether. Uh, I mean, the, the, I mean, the people that I end up dealing with are people who think Uh, you know, the church, it’s not that the church needs to be more churchy, and that’s not really even, I think, a very good description of what you’re talking about, but it, it, it’s, it’s, I’m disillusioned with everything about the church. It’s not that I want the church. To double down on certain things that I find important, which I think is where, where the folks you’re talking about seem to be.
[54:26] Michelle: Do you know what I have this is what I think it actually comes down to and this might be an interesting place to take this discussion. I think that. What the CES letter does and um and, and many of the other things is hits at Joseph Smith and the restoration, right? Joseph Smith was a fraud, he was a womanizer, he was unfaithful, he was a con man, right? That’s kind of the. The the uh mode of the CES letter and and and it’s interesting to me that in many ways um the church narrative currently agrees with the CES letter what like when I was um I had um one of my meetings with my past state president and he he was just kind of talking about how hard it is how the CES letter can just take someone away he’s like in the morning they’re faithful active members of the church and that night they’re they’re done, you know. And, and my response was, um, you know, I just find some frustration because I’m like, this is the problem. The CES letter says the same thing as the church. Only like for example, about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. The CES letter says, Joseph Smith told Emma that an angel with the sword threatened him if he didn’t sleep with the babysitter, right? And the church said and, and, and, and the CES letter says Joseph Smith said that because he was lying, right? But the church says Joseph Smith said the exact same thing, but it was true. God actually did send an angel with a sword. I’m, I’m making a terrible straw man to say the angel with the babysitter, but you get what I’m saying, right? Like in a lot of ways it tells the same story and so. That’s one thing I find interesting is that I um so what I was going to specify kind going in circles. I’ll get there really quickly but so the CES letter hits on the restoration and Joseph Smith and I think what many of us find or what I have found, I, I did this, you know, this wasn’t my intention. I didn’t set out to um to learn these things or discover this, but what the evidence looks like to me is that actually Joseph Smith. Was a pretty decent guy and Emma Smith was, I, I, I, I, I don’t want to understate, I think Joseph and Emma were amazing people. The more I look at their lives, I am astonished by who they were and I’m amazed by their goodness and integrity and just their positive character traits combined with their sacrifice and sacrifice and their inspiration. And it looks like to me later leaders introduced some things that I don’t think Joseph ever was part of and I don’t think Joseph and Emma and Hiram were on board with and some and the later leaders introduced things like polygamy and Adam God and the racist um ban, the temple ban or the priesthood ban and blood atonement and you know and we can um and so that’s what I find interesting is it’s kind of like. Different steps in the game where you think that maybe um the the problems arise. Does that, does that make sense? that way of explaining it? I guess people in my camp have had a Brigham Young crisis, not a Joseph Smith crisis.
[57:30] Jim Bennett: Right. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I don’t. Uh, if you want me to to. To engage on that and engage on the idea that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. Or or any of that. I, I, I don’t know that I am equipped to do that. I, I, I mean, I, I, I mean, I, I, because, because I, I, I disagree with you. I don’t think you should go out of the church for disagreeing with me. You know, I, I think there is space in the church for you to, to hold this kind of. This kind of belief. I, I, I think the, the idea that Joseph was a really good guy, and Emma was a really good person, and they were just really amazing. And then it all goes to hell with Brigham Young and everybody else they’re on. Uh, I think that is sort of a different manifestation of the Infallibility problem. I, I mean, I think just about every. Um, just about every problem in the church right now. boils down to the false doctrine of prophetic infallibility. And, and people lose trust in their leaders, this trust crisis we talked about earlier, uh, because they’re taught their leaders are essentially infallible, and then they inevitably discover that they’re not. And in the way you’re framing Joseph Smith. Uh, it feels to me, and again, I’m probably straw manning here, it feels to me. That we’re, we’re trying to sort of construct and on a pedestal and pedestals and an infallibility for Joseph that falls down a chasm once Brigham takes over.
[59:22] Michelle: Right, and I know that’s a very, um very common perspective. I will say that, and I think that there are people who, who just view it that way. I can say that um. I I think that when people engage more with um the arguments and evidence and this isn’t necessarily the conversation that I think that we need to have you know but I think that I would um I I guess what I would say is I understand why it appears that way and I would very strongly argue that it’s not that way because um. I, you know, I, I mean my listeners know my history, but I believed thoroughly in polygamy. I was raised to believe in polygamy and then when I learned polygamy was like not ever OK, we’re not ever of God, never commanded and always an abomination. Then I already navigated, hey, Joseph Smith did this. I had, you know, I, I’ve been through all of the different, I’ve read the CES letter when I was more inclined to agree with a lot much of it, you know, I still think it’s a hit job. Hit piece and, and very, um, skewed in its perspective. I think, you know, I, I, I’m not saying I agree with it, but I, um, I didn’t, for me, it was an interesting process of seeing Joseph Smith be sort of redeemed. Like a lot of my hard feelings. No, do you know what I mean? Or my feelings of like, man, that sucks. You know, a lot of those got kind of where I had to go, oh. I think I saw this wrong so, so I, I understand your perspective, but I do want to say that there are many people in this space that aren’t, um, that aren’t coming to it that way but I think it would be interesting to kind of, um, I, I, it was good to define sort of the problems, right? I, I, and I guess I have two questions that I’d ask you well, and this first one isn’t as much for you it’s just a general question but one thing I’ve tried to, the people that are um. That are coming after me or other people in this space and trying to get our memberships and the church taken away, which is astonishing to me. Do you see a reason that believing that Joseph Smith started polygamy and the Helen Mar Kimball stories, the Fanny Alger stories, whatever stories you want to go to, do you see a reason that those would be less destructive to faith than believing, oh, Brigham Young got some things wrong. Do you know why is it easier to say I, I’m, I’m surprised that members of our church are saying no, you have to believe that polygamy came from Joseph Smith, and if you believe that Brigham Young and his, um, you know, his, I guess I would say conspirators started it, then you are destroying faith and you have to be kicked out of the church. I like I, I genuinely don’t understand why, why it’s better to believe that Joseph Smith did these things.
[1:02:11] Jim Bennett: Um, well, so this is gonna sound like a really tangential answer.
[1:02:17] Michelle: OK, and I’m throwing something at you that you’ve probably never thought about,
[1:02:21] Jim Bennett: but I, but I think I will bring it back. Um, uh, I have spent the last week. Mourning the election results. OK. And just absolutely devastated that uh that we have chosen. As the leader of this country, somebody who has demonstrably. Um, demonstrated unfitness for the office. And, and I don’t want to get into the, into politics necessarily, except to say. That one of the most destructive things that I think Donald Trump has done to this country. I created a circumstance where we now live in separate realities. Uh, if, if you listen to Donald Trump, Donald Trump describes America as the garbage can of the nation where immigrants are coming and taking over five-star hotels, eating cats and dogs, and um, You know, uh, and children are going to school and without their parents’ permission, they come home the next day, a different gender. And, uh, and just, just describing things that are factually demonstrably not true. And, and, and this started when he first came down the escalator and started talking about things like the Muslims that were dancing on buildings right after 9/11. And when confronted with the fact that that did not happen. He refused to back down and refused to say so what I what I’m saying is, um, the thing that frustrates me the most about Trump and Trumpism. is that we now have to look at things that are not true. And sort of say, agree to disagree. Well, you think that uh that America’s a garbage can and people are getting shot, uh as they go to buy a loaf of bread, agree to disagree. No, I’m not gonna agree to disagree. That’s not happening. The things that Donald Trump says are objectively, factually not true, and it becomes more and more difficult to engage with Trumpers. Because we don’t share a common set of facts,
[1:04:41] Michelle: facts are. I know you’re gonna bring this back around. Oh, you go ahead and then, and then I wanted to, well,
[1:04:45] Jim Bennett: no, to bring it back around, I, I mean, to, to say, yeah, I, I would like to believe. Uh, in a church where Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy because I personally find polygamy abhorrent. And I would like to believe in, in, you know, I would like to believe that some of the things that church leaders did didn’t happen. And, but, but when you frame the question of, wouldn’t, wouldn’t you rather believe this? Uh, I don’t feel I have, I don’t feel anybody should have. The um luxury of being able to believe things that are not true. I am convinced the historical record is such that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, and in order to be able to stay in the church, I have to find a way to reconcile that. And now it’s so go ahead, so that’s not the answer.
[1:05:47] Michelle: Yeah, the question I asked wasn’t, wouldn’t you rather believe this? The question I asked was, why, why do you think one would be more destructive to faith than the other? Why, that, that was the question I asked. But maybe, maybe you don’t necessarily think that. But that’s
[1:06:00] Jim Bennett: what I, it probably is. I mean, I, you, you go back to Boyd Ka Packer, who famously said some things that are true are not very useful. And, uh, and if you believe, um, DMichael Quinn, he said other things like Uh, the reason I can’t stand historians is they, they idolize the truth and the truth destroys faith. Well, from my perspective, uh, I don’t think we have any choice. But to accept the truth. I mean, it’d be nice if the truth were something else, and it may very well be that truth destroys faith in circumstances where people can’t reconcile truths that they feel are inconsistent with what their faith is. And so, yeah, then truth is can destroy faith, but from my perspective, uh, I don’t think we have any other alternative but to reckon with the truth as it is.
[1:06:57] Michelle: I, I don’t think truth destroys faith because faith can only be actual legitimate faith if it’s in something that is true, right? And when we are when when things that are not true are being um shown to be not true that shouldn’t we shouldn’t see that as destroying faith we should see that as clarifying truth, right? And so um but I do, I wanna, I wanna ask you something because um because I’m hearing what you are saying and. So you know how we started out this conversation and you talked a lot about how we view people who leave the church right? and when we when we think we are in their brains and we think oh they just wanted to sin and they just this and they just this we do a disservice because we can’t be empathetic with them we can’t really be connected with them because we’re too busy judging them in what in what we think we are and I wanna propose is it possible that. That maybe people who vote for Donald Trump were doing the same thing to them. Because, because as someone who actually voted for Donald Trump, well, voted for RFK and and a lot of the other things I’m that I’m seeing happening in this country, I, I feel really frustrated when I hear people going off on Donald Trump like that and saying that we’re living in two different realities and I have the reality and that’s not the reality when when I’m seeing the opposite. Right, and is it possible to say, OK, people are being fed like like I just think that we are in a time when all of the divisive forces of hell have been unleashed in our society and we are trying to get people to judge one another and to dehumanize one another and see each other try to explain people in terms of what we assume their motives are rather than going OK, is it possible that an and. Intelligent informed person with integrity that is that is a good person could disagree with me on this and if they do could that be because they have different information than I have or they we we are both seeing maybe there are things I’m seeing that they’re not seeing and things they’re seeing that I’m not seeing maybe we’re prioritizing different things in different ways, but is it possible that they’re not just wrong and I’m right.
[1:09:16] Jim Bennett: Uh, well, of course, it’s always possible that I’m wrong. Uh, and it’s always pro I mean that’s, that’s not what I’m talking about. Uh, I, I go back to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous comment that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Nobody is entitled to their own facts.
[1:09:33] Michelle: Yes,
[1:09:35] Jim Bennett: I, I mean, so as you start talking about these things, I am happy to to agree to disagree. About policy, I am not happy to agree to disagree about facts.
[1:09:46] Michelle: I agree with you.
[1:09:48] Jim Bennett: Well, so, so, so I mean, so this is my, so the reason I, I, I, I, um, I find it so frustrating to engage with trumpers. Uh, is not that I disagree with them on policy. It’s that we don’t share a common set of facts. You believe something, I mean, is it possible that your set of facts is correct and mine is not?
[1:10:13] Michelle: Or wait, let me, let me. Is it possible that I don’t believe the set of facts you think I believe, right? Is it possible
[1:10:18] Jim Bennett: I’m not here to judge what set of facts you believe or what set of facts you don’t believe. I can look at Donald Trump and say, when Donald Trump, when you tell me that Haitians are eating cats and dogs, that is factually incorrect. So I am not going to sit here and respect. And, and, and agree to disagree over a matter of fact. happening that is not true. And so for me to say, OK, well, let’s start talking about policies. It’s like, well, well, what policies am I gonna be able to talk about with your fictional scenario that is not happening? And
[1:10:54] Michelle: so, so for me, when I’m hearing these kinds of discourses and I’m seeing, and, and this is interesting to get into politics because especially right after this election and especially with such passionate feelings, but for me, I have been so frustrated by. This focus on so and and I hate to get into politics because I don’t want to alienate anyone, everyone, this is where I am. I just, I’m like, oh, in so many ways what has happened has not been good for our nation. I, I thought that Donald Trump would be out of it clear back in the first race when he said that to Megyn Kelly and I was like, OK, good, let’s be done with him, you know, so I, I would never call myself. But I and I and everyone’s different, you know, I know my mom really appreciates Donald Trump. I don’t, but I do not appreciate the other side. I do not appreciate the fact that it is that it is this focus on criticism of Donald Trump in order to ignore things that I find to be absolutely deplorable on the on the other side and it’s this whole focus of how could anybody vote for him without taking any responsibility or ownership. Of of the alternative and and how we’re so that so it feels like there’s a big arrogance there that’s not recognizing things that are really important to me and that you you know and I don’t like feeling like um the good people voted one way the bad people voted one way I think that we should I think that it’s good if we can. Because I understand that you’re saying this is the set of facts, but I also know that that also like how big that cat and dog statement is to
[1:12:33] Jim Bennett: you. Do you believe, for instance, that Donald Trump lost in 2020?
[1:12:37] Michelle: Oh, see, see, this is where we just, I, this is what I think honestly I think that just about everything was done to make that election look as suspect as possible, and I think it’s very unfortunate. I think that that saying, I think that saying that it is racist to have voter ID is something that I don’t think is genuine
[1:12:57] Jim Bennett: question though. It’s a yes or no question. Did Donald Trump win,
[1:13:00] Michelle: it’s not a yes or no question
[1:13:02] Jim Bennett: it’s a matter of fact. It’s a matter of fact. It’s a matter of record. I mean if we can’t agree on that, then to go on and say how you feel about something that is based on something that we don’t agree on what the basic facts are. Then there’s no way to have
[1:13:19] Michelle: a. OK, let me ask you this. How, what facts do you have? Like if, if we’re gonna look at something as, as divisive and um sort of far from us as the 2020 election, what facts do you have to know for sure exactly how that like are you claiming there’s never any cheating in elections? There’s
[1:13:38] Jim Bennett: never
[1:13:38] Michelle: said
[1:13:39] Jim Bennett: that at all. You’re launching into sort of some whataboutism or to some it’s a basic principle. Did Donald Trump win or did he lose? Um, this was litigated.
[1:13:51] Michelle: Well, let me ask you this. Was there any election fraud in that because you’re you’re giving me this yes or no trap question. Let me turn it back on you. Was there any cheating in that election? Was there any cheating in that?
[1:14:01] Jim Bennett: There was not any verified cheating that would have altered the course of the election, no.
[1:14:06] Michelle: So there was no cheating in the election.
[1:14:08] Jim Bennett: That’s not what I said. I think that’s
[1:14:10] Michelle: what I’m asking you
[1:14:11] Jim Bennett: that’s what you’re forcing me to say. Oh boy, OK.
[1:14:16] Michelle: Well, but see, I think this is really unfortunate to go here because I don’t, no,
[1:14:19] Jim Bennett: it’s not unfortunate to go here because if, if you’re gonna start talking about, um, I, I, I am happy to agree to disagree with you about matters of opinion, and I’m also happy to agree that you should not be kicked out of the church for believing things that I don’t believe, even if I think what you believe is factually incorrect. I think that the church has room for people. Uh, on all over the place in every spectrum. I don’t want to see, uh, a smaller church, and I, I think the church should be able to include people like you who believe that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy and that Brigham Young instituted polygamy. But what I am not willing to agree to disagree with you on is that matters of fact, Um, are subject to negotiation because I mean I mean if you sit here and tell me the sky is green and I tell you the sky is blue, I, I mean there’s no basis for a factual discussion about it, is it possible
[1:15:24] Michelle: that um it’s really this is something I say often it’s really, really easy to know the um what the verdict should be when you’ve only heard the prosecution. And you haven’t yet heard the defense or vice versa, is it possible that there are sources do you do you think that it’s possible that there are sources that you have not been aware of or or um facts about other sources that you have not been aware of? Is that a possibility?
[1:15:50] Jim Bennett: Anything is a possibility. It’s a possibility that aliens came down and, and changed the election results. So
[1:15:57] Michelle: you know,
[1:16:01] Jim Bennett: no, I mean this is, this is what’s so, this is what’s so exhausting, is that, I mean, I, I, I don’t want to spend any time. Uh, debating matters of verifiable fact. Uh, there is, there is, there is. Uh, they’re really, whether you like Donald Trump or not, whether you want, for instance, I, I wanted Kamala Harris to win. She didn’t. I, I, I accept that. I’m frustrated by it. I wish that weren’t the case, but I’m not gonna sit here and spin some weird bizarre story. Uh, that Donald Trump didn’t win this last election fair and square. He did. It’s a fact I don’t like. It’s a fact I wish I could change, but, uh, anybody that comes and says, OK, well, Kamala Harris really won the election. Um, There’s no basis for discussion there. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no way to carry that conversation to a productive place where we’re having some kind of productive exchange of ideas because we do not live in a common reality. Now, could it be that your reality where Donald Trump won is the right one and my reality where I’m imagining Kamala Harris won is the right one? I, I don’t think that that would be the right one. But uh
[1:17:16] Michelle: so what do we do? What do you propose? Because for me, when there is when there is a difference of opinion, the appropriate and best um best um action to take is to engage and present facts and and engage in discourse.
[1:17:34] Jim Bennett: When there is a difference of opinion, it is entirely appropriate to engage. When there is a difference of fact, it’s a waste of everybody’s time.
[1:17:42] Michelle: So how can you know for sure that a fact is a fact if you haven’t challenged it to the most rigorous because because what I hear in you and and I know you, you can get frustrated and shake your head but really think of how many facts have been known for sure until they were disproven. It’s not an uncommon occurrence at all in in human history and even in somewhat recent history, right? This happens relatively regularly and we and we have the. Pride, the arrogance to think that we know for sure and so we won’t look when when somebody comes and says I understand your perspective and I know all of the sources it’s based on and I’m willing to engage on the sources and let’s talk about it. Why, why would you say no that’s not a conversation worth having because I, I mean like like I don’t understand that that is. I, I mean to go to just the stupid Galileo and Copernicus, right? They were arguing against facts. We can’t live in the same universe because our universe is shaped differently in our brains, right, right? But, but what proved to be useful was the mathematical models that showed the truth. There are, I think there are fewer verified facts than we tend to think we are. There are a lot of opinions that look like facts. Or a lot of perspectives, but you know there are lots of things that are some it’s very hard to say for sure about many historical um issues but is 11 as fuzzy as as Joseph Smith’s polygamy I’m actually surprised that people feel so dogmatic and certain about it when generally they’re not even that that familiar with the sources.
[1:19:24] Jim Bennett: Well, with regard to Joseph Smith’s polygamy, um, I would agree with you there because I have not looked at the sources as closely as you have. I’m not engaged on that, um, and, and so I am open to the possibility. It, I mean, uh, uh, what you are saying in broad terms makes sense, of course, uh, I mean, the whole, the whole nature of science is to constantly challenge what we consider to be true, and that’s the way we discover things and new things, the things we thought were true were not true. Um, I mean, the, the reason why I brought up the election is that particularly with regard to Donald Trump. I mean, I’m not going to, I’m, I’m, I’m not trying to disqualify him here, although I do think it’s disqualifying that, you know, he’s a rapist and he’s a felon and he’s a terrible human being. Uh, but what I’m at the Biden laptop and the whole thing. Hunter Biden’s laptop. I don’t, who cares? Hunter Biden will never be president and he’s not president, and
[1:20:29] Michelle: I don’t just a hunter, but OK, anyway, I just, I don’t think that’s, but
[1:20:33] Jim Bennett: see, but here’s the point is that Uh, OK, if you do, if you’re not willing to concede that he lost the election and say that there still must be some other information out there that would prove that that’s not the case. Uh, I mean, I,
[1:20:49] Michelle: let me,
[1:20:50] Jim Bennett: let me, no, I mean, you, the reason why the cats and dogs story is so helpful is that, is that it is very easy to demonstrate that that was not true, that that factually is not happening, did not happen. Uh, everybody on the ground saying that this is not happening, the Republican mayor saying this is, I
[1:21:10] Michelle: guess this is what I, this is what I’m surprised by though is I mean how many, how many different things are there that politicians have said that they that are not true, right? We have so many examples and so the reason I think that it, the reason I think that it matters is because again this hyper focus on this one issue that is not important to me right? like. And that it’s not I mean I didn’t vote for cats and dogs or stories about them. I don’t, I personally I don’t, I know I’ll offend people, but I don’t like Donald Trump at all. I don’t care to listen to him. I don’t, you know, I have the other I, I, I happen to really like Robert Kennedy Junior which probably makes you think I’m crazy in some other ways, but I really like, right? And so, but what I can tell you is I, I bet you I have studied many of these topics like. Like exponentially more than you have, and so that’s what, that’s what gets to be frustrating is to be called someone who’s crazy when I know the facts and I know the sources by somebody who does. I’m I’m I’m happy. I don’t what
[1:22:18] Jim Bennett: I’m saying is we don’t live in the same reality, and maybe your reality is the real reality and my reality is, is not, but, but when you start talking about basic matters of fact and say that they’re up for negotiation. I don’t know how that’s
[1:22:32] Michelle: why I push back. That’s why I push back is because you continually say that there are matters of fact when we say the science is settled, that is an anti-science statement, right? When we say this is fact and what it really is is reliance on experts reliance on everybody says this therefore it must be true therefore I must. Look down on people who say something different and refuse to look at their facts because I can just write them off as crazy because I know better even though I don’t know anything about it other than what everybody else says it’s just groupthink and and reliance on experts reliance on the um this is the the learned wisdom of our day and so therefore. You know, there’s no reason to look into any of these other issues, and that’s what I take issue with because I think that’s how we become, I don’t know, I, I, I don’t understand why that’s beneficial. It’s an interesting perspective that’s very different from mine.
[1:23:28] Jim Bennett: Uh, I, well, I find it, I find it exhausting. I, I, I found, since Donald Trump came down from the escalator, I have found it exhausting. Can
[1:23:37] Michelle: we talk about you choose a different example,
[1:23:40] Jim Bennett: well, but, but see this, I mean this, this is actually, uh, just a major crisis of faith for me. Uh, to be honest, the, the election has been because Uh, I’m now sitting in the pews. Um, with people who I believe voted for fascism. And. Oh,
[1:24:01] Michelle: oh, so, so let me, let me push back because would it be helpful to understand that there are people who view it the exact opposite way, that there are people who think they are voting for freedom genuinely and, and I can explain some of the reasons why because I think
[1:24:17] Jim Bennett: unfortunately that wouldn’t help at all because, because because I am convinced. That that what whether or not you believe you voted for fascism. is largely irrelevant to the fact that you voted for fascism. I, I, because, uh, you know, we, we belong to a church that claims to have a unique access to the gift of the Holy Ghost, that we, we tell every eight year old child that you are being a gift that’s going to help you discern truth from error, help you discern right from wrong, help you discern good from evil, in a way that gives you access to this, that people outside the covenant don’t have. And to be able to say that, and then to say, OK, well, 70% or 2/3, I guess, is I, I, the number went down a little bit this election. But roughly 2/3 of the people who have that gift, uh, did not exercise it in a way where they were able to recognize that what they voted for was fascism. Now, you can tell me, and you can come back to me and say, no, it really wasn’t fascism, and you’re wrong and you’re crazy. And maybe I’m wrong and I’m crazy, and that’s, but, but, but we don’t have a common I mean, it, it, it relitigating reality is something that I find just exhausting beyond measure. It’s not that I’m judging you, it’s not that I’m condemning you to hell. It’s not that I’m kicking you out of the church. It’s that I just really have a hard time over and over and over again trying to establish a baseline of reality upon which we can agree. And I, I, you know, I, I don’t want to sit here and, and spend hours and hours defending whether or not the sky is blue because the sky is blue. And is there, is there a possibility that the sky may be secretly green or that I haven’t looked at it closely enough and haven’t done as much research as you have on what the color of the sky is? Yeah, but you reach a point where, you know what, I’m comfortable believing the sky is blue, and I’m not comfortable revisiting fundamental tenets of reality over and over again because I’m supposed to somehow be inclusive and accepting of people who aren’t willing to ace. OK,
[1:26:40] Michelle: so what about people who say the gospel is true and that is fact, and you can deny it, but you can’t deny fact. You can, I, I’ve heard so many people say you can have your own opinion, but your opinion does not affect the fact of the gospel, so you can leave if you want to, but you are the one leaving. Do you agree with that attitude? Because we just this is what I’m finding so fascinating we just were talking about how much more important it is our relationships and preserving our relationships rather than than what we believe and it’s more important how we view someone that agrees with us rather than we’re on the right side and then all of a sudden we get to these couple of topics and it’s like a whole different energy because I know you say you find it exhausting to um. To deal with facts, but I’ll tell you it is exhausting to be viewed this way and treated this way. It is exhausting to have people say I don’t want to be in church with you because you voted that way or or you have your own set of facts and they’re ridiculous and I don’t, it’s too exhausting to waste time talking about comparing Joseph Smith’s polygamy to the sky is blue. Is is not accurate and comparing a political opinion to the sky is blue is not accurate. It’s more accurate to say let’s compare it to our testimony in the church, right? It’s a complex set of principles and values and yes um data points facts that come into play that people are weighing out. And, and I think it’s a mistake to vilify people who, who weigh that out differently.
[1:28:12] Jim Bennett: I’m not trying to vilify you. I’m saying I don’t see anything productive and engaging with you if we don’t share a common set of facts. I’m not judging you. I’m not condemning you. I’m not
[1:28:22] Michelle: no, no, no, to say I don’t, I don’t see it, um, useful to engage with you is basically saying, I mean, that’s a pretty extreme statement, right? Like saying I’m having a hard time sitting in the pews you see the world this way. And, and I guess what I’m asking is, is it possible that there would be a way to open up and see and, and, and not
[1:28:47] Jim Bennett: dehuman I, I guess I’ll tell you, I know that we’re anybody. I haven’t, I’m not trying to kick them out of the pews. I recognize this is a me problem. This isn’t a them problem. This is a, how do I reconcile the fact that I’m sharing pews with people with whom I don’t share a common set of facts. And, and if you’ll notice, I haven’t left the pews. I’m still going to church. I’m still going to participate. I’m not trying to vilify you. I’m not calling you names.
[1:29:10] Michelle: Well, you don’t have to make it about me.
[1:29:12] Jim Bennett: No, no, but, but I’m not, but, but the, the point is. That, that, um, so there are things in the church, I mean to compare it to the church, to compare it to testimony. Um, There are certain elements of the church that are either true, factually true or not. For instance, Joseph Smith either had a set of gold plates that were a certain dimension and that were a physical object, or he did not. One of those things is true, one of those things is not. Now, uh, there are elements and principles of the gospel that are open to a broader interpretation. What does it mean to love your neighbor, for instance? There are a lot of answers to that question, all of which are true, but may not necessarily be identical, uh, because you, you are dealing in matters of opinion, or matters of interpretation, or matters of things that are not black and white. But there are certain things, you know, either the light is green or the light is red when you’re at a traffic stop. It’s not an agree to disagree situation. You don’t get to speed through the traffic stop in a red light. And say, well, I believed it was green, because the light was red. There are things that are factually verifiably true, and there are elements of the restored gospel that are factually verifiably true. Do you believe did uh a person a personage named Moroni live on the ancient American continent and then later thousands of years later, appear to a young boy. In his bedroom to tell him that there was a record that he had to translate. Did that happen? Did it not happen?
[1:30:58] Michelle: So I think this is where this is where it gets interesting because it’s easy to lump things in. I love the little spot in um I don’t know if you’ve seen the little movie Inside Out. I think that’s what it’s called where they drop the box of puzzle pieces that are facts and opinions and they say these are so hard to. Tell apart they look all the same, right? It’s hard to differentiate fact from opinion and that’s kind of what I feel like
[1:31:23] Jim Bennett: we bump into. It’s it’s not hard to differentiate a red light from a green light,
[1:31:25] Michelle: right? But, but, but so, so if I bring out a historical document, the, the historical the fact of the historical document is the fact, right? The interpretation of it. Is where the challenge comes in and so if somebody brings out a historical document and says I this is evidence for example that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy and then someone else says no because you’re leaving these four documents off the table, you haven’t looked at those and look at this other interpretation of this document that fits it better. That is where the discussion should be had. So, so we do. Have some facts. We have facts in the historical record and those tend to be the documentary history, right? We can find this fact and we can look at this object together and agree that it exists and agree on several things about it, but it does not tell the complete story. A historical document is not a red lighter. Green light and even a red light or a green light isn’t necessarily like if there’s someone that’s not part of a if an alien came and didn’t know what red and green meant right they wouldn’t interpret it according appropriately we have to bring to these the facts our understanding and a much broader perspective and then engage over what like I’m I’m engaging I’m working right now to um respond to several of the um. The historic items that people are putting forward to say this is evidence of Joseph Smith’s polygamy, right? Because, and, and, and it’s really surprising how bad their arguments actually are. This is what always happens. I’ll just tell you, Jim, and I know like this this is very common. People are so certain that Joseph Smith was a polygamist just this is my topic, right? They absolutely know it. And then when we get into talking about that I I don’t actually know the sources even the historians people think the case for Joseph Smith’s polygamy is infinitely stronger than it actually is and it’s because we’ve been given this handed down wisdom, right? You said when you were on your mission you couldn’t even get evidence to say that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. And then all of a sudden in the 80s, DM Michael Quinn starts doing his work, we start getting other things that RLDS changes their perspective and, and, and all of a sudden, we, we come to now where it is settled factual history. That that Joseph Smith was a polygamist and no one even needs to ask the question. So when we have people saying this actually never was settled, the evidence isn’t strong, and people can’t defend that, um, like people can’t use documentation to defend the paradigm. That Joseph Smith was a polygamist because it’s just been accepted as reality and people haven’t thought that they needed to dig into it so the historians that actually start looking into it are very surprised to see how weak the evidence for it actually is the documentary evidence of this and and so that’s so I understand what you’re saying like like and we can look at all of the different things that we disagree on. But there are things I, I think what’s exhausting is people who just say, this is fact, this is fact, this is fact, but have no idea what their idea that it’s fact is based on. Have have very little idea of the actual documentary evidence and the history and what we should be discussing.
[1:34:39] Jim Bennett: Oh, and that’s fine. I mean, I, I, I, I, well, no, I told you from the outset. That this is not um an area of study or research in which I am particularly fluent. I, you know,
[1:34:53] Michelle: this is what I would prefer. This is what would be so delightful if someone was like, oh wow, I actually am not that um up on all of those sources. That’s really interesting. I’ll be curious to hear why you have that perspective rather than I don’t know much about these sources, but I know for a fact that you’re wrong.
[1:35:10] Jim Bennett: No, well, Um, I think, uh, and again, you’ve, you’ve tried to sort of poison the well with regard to experts in terms of all we do is, is trust experts. Uh, but, uh, my, my position on this is based on my, my confidence in my chosen experts, uh, in, in Richard Bushman, in DMichael Quinn, in, um, you know, I, I, I respected historians who have looked at this, uh, I think at least with as much rigor as you have, if not more. Uh, and I have read their work and am confident in their conclusions. Uh, is it possible that they are wrong and that I am wrong? Yes, of course it is. But I, I, I, you know, one of, one, so I have an MBA from, from Brigham Young University, and I remember being taught in a finance class how to calculate the NPV of an asset. And, and, uh, the teacher said there are several ways to do that, and you know what that means, don’t you? And I said no, I don’t know what that means, says it means that none of them are any good. If one of them were entirely reliable and something that where we could get exactly the answer we wanted. Uh, then we have to have another one, right? So, so when, so when there are those kinds of differences and when there’s those kinds of challenges, I, I recognize that there are, um, there’s the possibility that, uh, you know, that one person’s interpretation is wrong and another person’s interpretation is not wrong. Uh, but the other thing I learned in MBA school. Is an idea. I, I think I can sum up the entire NBA experience in three words, and those three words are markets are efficient. And the idea that, uh, anybody that comes to you and says that they know the market better than the market itself, you know, I can, I can, I can beat the market average. I can beat the Dow industrial, uh, A, because I am smarter than the market. Uh, uh, invariably they are wrong. Uh, the, the market is, is efficient in terms of how it manages and processes information, and if you think that you know better than the market and can meet a market need better than the market is doing it, uh, you are very likely wrong because the conglomeration of information that comes together in the entirety of market. Uh, is efficient at filtering out the kind of special wisdom that the market gurus seem to have. And I’m sort of applying that principle with regard to, uh, this, the, the question of Joseph Smith’s polygamy has been, is one that has been litigated since, since the time of Joseph Smith was alive. I mean, since, since the days of the Nu expositor trying to expose his polygamy. Uh, this is a question that has been litigated and relitigated by historians, and an entire church sort of sprung up around the idea that he was not a polygamist, uh, which is now the community of Christ, which now accepts institutionally that yes in fact he was. So, so I, I’m so, so the weight of historical consensus, the weight of historical evidence, uh, that has been litigated and relitigated and relitigated for centuries now, or at least for over a century now, uh, has come down on the side that, yes, in fact, he was a polygamist. Now, is it possible that all of that is wrong and you are right? Yes, it is possible. It does not strike me as being likely. And it also does not strike me as being disqualifying to you to be an anticipating member of the church, and it does not qualify you as being a bad person or being, I mean, I, I’m not trying to judge you, uh, as a human being. I’m not trying to judge your faith. I’m not trying to in any way vilify you or criticize you even as a human being. It’s saying, Uh, I am not, I am unlikely to be persuaded. I mean, for, for, and then when you come back and say, well, I’ve done a whole lot more research than you have, Jim. I, I’m sure you have. I think Richard Bushman and Leonard Arrington and D. Michael Quinn and whatever
[1:39:48] Michelle: I understand, but let me, let me
[1:39:50] Jim Bennett: a lot of more research than you have.
[1:39:54] Michelle: So, so you do realize like, like Bushman and Quinn and Arrington, they have footnotes, right? They have sources we now have access to the exact same sources that they have access to and we actually have um have more knowledge available to us than they had when they were writing their books, right? And because because many things have happened since then. And so this is kind of it’s interesting to have it be like OK consensus consensus is king and so I have a couple of responses you are correct that markets are efficient. My husband is a MBA from BYU as well and he loves to say that as well, but part of the reason in my perspective markets are efficient is because they’re always they’re always adversarial um. Motives right? and so everybody is keeping each other that’s why markets are efficient because of the um everybody going back and forth right so nobody has the upper hand and if if some if that’s if we get a monopoly markets aren’t as efficient I guess I would say but so so so I think that’s what we’re trying to say in this um. In in this realm as well. So if we say look in the 1980s and the 1990s they built great cars and I trust the experts that built those cars and we don’t need anything more. That’s kind of what what I’m hearing because that work was done 1020, 30 years ago, much of it that where we get our consensus and we are not acknowledging how. Much more access we have the Joseph Smith papers has been a game changer. All of us are able to see all of the not only all of the footnotes that those um great historians used in their, um, books, but we’re also able to see all of the stuff that they didn’t include that wasn’t part of the discussion that that really should be part of the discussion, right? So it is possible to move knowledge forward and not just be stuck rest on our laurels of those experts said it and we’re done. And I understand that um you know we we have a lot of respect for PhDs and you know all of that but I think where our respect should be is on the sources look we can read we can look at every single source we don’t have to just read the narrative that they give us we also can look at their method, their historical methodology and see how they’ve been taught and trained to handle sources and see if we agree with that. We don’t we, we do. Have access not to special knowledge but to investigation and to be in to independent thought and we don’t have to be stuck on the reliance on experts and and so I I think anyway that’s that’s part of what I find frustrating is just this idea that this conversation shouldn’t be had because I already know everything I need to know because those guys already said it.
[1:42:40] Jim Bennett: No, it’s not that this conversation shouldn’t be had, it’s that I find it exhausting to converse with anybody. With whom we do not share a common set of facts that um that’s where my first with with regard to Joseph Smith, I mean, I’m happy to have this conversation and initially I had told you that I don’t know that I have anything to offer this conversation because I have not done the extensive research that you have, and I’m happy to listen to you try to convince me that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. I don’t know that that’s gonna be particularly productive. Uh, because, first of all, uh, uh, I, I mean, well, let me back up a little bit. I believe Very firmly, very strongly. That uh William Shakespeare was a pseudonym. That the man who was credited with writing the works of William Shakespeare, uh, is a man who was a butcher’s apprentice and later a grain merchant in Stratford upon Avon, and he never wrote anything in his life. And that after he died, uh, with the first folio published in 1623. Uh, he was attributed these works after he was dead, and after the man who wrote the works was dead, because the man who wrote the works, Edward Devere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Uh, for whatever reason, this was not something that noblemen were allowed to do and that he was not allowed to do publicly. And I think there are a number of, um, that I, I mean, I, I could discuss this with you all day long, uh, and because I believe that the, the experts or the people, the so I, I believe the experts are wrong. uh, and, and I believe I have information, and, and, and I think the consensus is sort of shifting in my direction. But, but for me to sit here and, and talk to you about it. Uh, or to talk to your listeners or viewers about it, everybody’s eyes are gonna glaze over because this isn’t really an issue, uh, in which that they’ve invested any kind of interest or time. And anytime I try to get on a soapbox about this, most people go, I just don’t care. Now, I care more about whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist than you likely care about the identity of William Shakespeare. But
[1:45:10] Michelle: I think there’s I think there’s a big problem with the analogy. I like the analogy. I’m interested in that they made an interesting movie about that theory and I think it is an interesting.
[1:45:20] Jim Bennett: I hated that movie but I
[1:45:22] Michelle: didn’t love it either, but I think it is an interesting theory. But here’s the difference. I’m not saying to you we don’t share a common set of facts and if you believe that we don’t share facts and I find it exhausting and so you can believe that. I don’t believe you should be kicked out of the. Shakespeare Society and but but but but I know that I’m right and consensus is right and you right because I would like I said, if you said that I’d like that’s really interesting.
[1:45:47] Jim Bennett: My dogmatism on common set of facts has been focused on Trump. I mean the fact that I can’t get you to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Is where
[1:45:57] Michelle: I
[1:45:59] Jim Bennett: think we don’t share a common set of facts because I mean that that is I think as well established
[1:46:06] Michelle: historical
[1:46:06] Jim Bennett: reality as just about anything else that has ever happened in the clarify this.
[1:46:11] Michelle: Trump lost the 2020 election. We’ve just watched, right? I like, like I don’t know what what it would mean to say he didn’t lose the 2020 election. Asking the question of asking the question of were there problems with that election is a different is a different question. I don’t like that voter confidence is hurt by what we saw in that election. I think it is a challenge to believe that Joe Biden got more votes than any president in history. And way more than Kamala got and right I think that there are some issues that should be looked in there into into in regard to American elections currently. I think we’re not we’re not in good status we can agree with that
[1:46:52] Jim Bennett: that we then then I’m willing to have that discussion with you. you can concede the basic underlying fact. So, so I feel
[1:47:01] Michelle: we had Joe Biden as our president for the last 4 years. Yes, Trump lost the election. That’s not. Like, like, anyway, but I, but I, but I, but I, what I’m uncomfortable with often when people like Brian Hailes his favorite thing to do is to compare me to a flat earther, right? And so that’s what I find frustrating is it’s saying um instead of just having the discussion about this topic is what can I compare it to to make it seem ridiculous, right? And so, and
[1:47:32] Jim Bennett: so I compared it to was something that I find very meaningful and important to me. For instance, uh, what I, uh, I mean, it’s not what I believe about Shakespeare is considered ridiculous and absurd, and so I can, I think, identify with how you feel because you, you’re advancing a theory that is, is often dismissed as ridiculous and absurd. Uh, what I am trying to say is, uh, if, if you’re going to try to convince me your theory is true, um, I that that’s I, I’m not the
[1:48:10] Michelle: you’re not interested in that conversation, right? I understand that this would be my request. I did, I do think that the Shakespeare, um, analogy is a good one. I just think it’s important to recognize that. I, as someone who haven’t, I haven’t spent time looking into that. I’m not telling you, that’s ridiculous, and you can believe that, but you’re just like a flat earther or you, you know, you’re someone that won’t admit,
[1:48:36] Jim Bennett: and I’ve never even said that it’s illegitimate that I mean I’m I’m open to the possibility that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist, but it seems very unlikely to me for the reasons that I’ve enunciated. And, and, and if, if you want to spend the time focused on whether on essentially debating whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist, I don’t see that as a productive discussion.
[1:49:02] Michelle: OK, so, um, let me, so I am just curious, um, can you just like nutshell if it’s possible? I’m, I’m just, and then we can move off from this topic and and probably wrap up, but what do you find to be the most compelling. Pieces of evidence about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, like, what would you say? I believe it because of this.
[1:49:26] Jim Bennett: Uh, I, I, I can’t, I can’t think of anything. I, I, I believe it because I think the weight of historical evidence, the preponderance of evidence, uh, leans in that direction. I mean, you, you, before you use the analogy about saying, well, OK, we used to build cars in the 80s and the cars we build now are much better than the cars we built in the 80s because we know more. Uh, and, uh, to some degree that analogy works, but where it breaks down is that there is a core black and white. Uh, element at the base of this argument, and that is either Joseph Smith married women other than Emma, or he didn’t. And no amount of time passages changes that fundamental reality. Either that happened or it didn’t, and, you know, our, our evaluation of his historical documents may improve or become more sophisticated, or heaven forbid, uh, or there could be more, uh, historical documents that have yet to come to light. That seems to become increasingly less likely the further distance you get from a historical event. Uh, uh, you know, and we have the Joseph Smith papers now, although anyway, uh, at its base, at its base, either you are right or you are wrong. Either you are correct that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist or you are incorrect, and he was. And no amount of sophistication of historical research will change the underlying fact, the black and white fact of whether or not Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. Now, we may not have the resources to conclusively be able to determine that, and that’s one of the most frustrating things about polygamy is that, is that the, the records are so scant. Uh, for reasons that are, I think are obvious, and that nobody who was practicing polygamy wanted to be discovered practicing polygamy. And so I think that, but, but, but the, the, at its base there is a right or wrong answer to this question.
[1:51:45] Michelle: Well, the historians will tell you that’s not actually how history works very often, right? The best we can do is look through our lens to try to get to look at the sources and see what interpretations we can find from them. And you know
[1:52:00] Jim Bennett: how you interpret the reality is fine and well, historian historians can’t conclusively prove many, many things that that have happened in history, uh, but they happened or they didn’t.
[1:52:15] Michelle: But, but our ability to know them is the question, right? Well, that’s
[1:52:19] Jim Bennett: true. I’m conceding that I’m saying we, we may not know. Uh, conclusively what happened, and I know that’s how history works. I know that history just sort of sorts through the scraps of civilization and tries to make sense of them, and that it’s very, very difficult, uh, to pin down historical fact when, when there isn’t sufficient evidence to do so.
[1:52:44] Michelle: Yes, and I, and I hope you would agree that. The more pieces of evidence we bring to the discussion, the better, right? That if, if, if, if we can say look, this has all been ignored or this has not been focused on enough or these are some of this this is like the reason you think that all of these people were Joseph Smith’s wives was is because of this this is the weight of the evidence. How good is this evidence actually compared to this other body of evidence that’s been ignored that says Joseph Smith wasn’t a polygamist and so that’s what that’s the only thing I’m. I’m hoping to, um, what I’m hoping to move the dial is to say this conversation needs to be had, and it’s not. Um, based on people who can’t accept reality and it’s not based on motivated thinking or motivated reasoning, and it’s not based on faith and putting someone on a pedestal and wishful thinking, it’s not based on any of those things. It is based on hard-nosed serious investigation of the historical um body the the of the historical documents, right? That is what it actually is we are looking at the documentary evidence and trying to make the most sense of it. To do our best to to see what happened and see if our version of it is accurate and more and more work is being done all the time. I will tell you historian after historian who actually will look into this is surprised by by the fact that what they thought was a sound body of evidence is not and and so I know that we love to say that this has been debated forever it’s settled it it hasn’t at all in fact the one time it was tried in a court of law. This actually was tried in a court of law. The question of whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist. What was the question of who was the actual, um, proper inheritance of the, of, you know, whose church is actually Joseph Smith’s church, right? But that judge actually found in favor of the people saying that Joseph was not a polygamist. This was tried in a court of law while the wives were alive to testify. And, and most people haven’t even read through that testimony to see for themselves why the judge determined it that way and yet we claim that this has been tried and settled, but in the opposite in the with the opposite verdict and so I find that interesting. OK. But anyway, well, I’m kind of sad that the conversation went this direction. I was hoping we were um going to talk about some other things. So anyway, I hope it wasn’t too frustrating. We’ll see what,
[1:55:06] Jim Bennett: what, and I, and I hope you don’t come away from this thinking Jim Bennett thinks I’m an idiot and that that thinks I should be kicked out of the church, uh, because I don’t think that.
[1:55:15] Michelle: No, no, I appreciate that. I do come away from it thinking, oh, Jim Bennett’s pretty closed minded. That’s how I, you know, and maybe, and maybe, and I, and maybe I’m too open minded because I’m willing to consider a broad range of things and look into them, but um that’s the only thing I hope that I, I, I generally wish that we could um. That we could look at at one another and think they probably have really good reasons for thinking what they think and believing what they believe.
[1:55:43] Jim Bennett: I think you probably have excellent reasons for believing what you believe. I, I mean, I, I, I, I haven’t, I haven’t tried to claim otherwise. I don’t think otherwise. I mean to say I’m closed-minded or open-minded, um, I, I, I think that’s framing the discussion in a different way from From how I think it’s productive.
[1:56:05] Michelle: Oh, tell me, because I would love a better framing. Well,
[1:56:07] Jim Bennett: sure, well, I mean, it’s, it’s the framing of Uh I, uh, well, I, I don’t know, I, I think. I’m I’m backtracking if I try to do that. uh, well, because, uh, you know, the, the framing of Uh, I, I’m happy to argue about opinions. I’m not interested in arguing about facts. Now, and, and factually, uh, either Joseph Smith was a polygamist or he was not. Uh, for my faith, for it’s not that I’ve closed myself off to the idea that Joseph Smith may not have been a polygamist. I think it’s very unlikely, and, and, and I, if, if pressed, I can. Try to offer the reasons why, and they may sound silly because I, again, I’m not a scholar. I haven’t studied this extensively. Uh, but it’s not that I closed off to the idea. It’s that my faith is, is not determined, uh, by whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist, and that I have incorporated my, uh, my acceptance of Joseph Smith’s polygamy into How I view the church and how I view my faith. And so, whether or not he is a polygamist, uh, isn’t going to, doesn’t matter in the sense that He doesn’t have to be one or the other for me to be able to continue to believe. So, I can have an academic discussion with you about it, but from, it seems to me that it is not an academic discussion to you, that, that to you, your faith is contingent to some degree, on, on Joseph Smith not being a polygamist. That if Joseph Smith were a polygamist, uh, that would affect your faith. In some way, and maybe I’m wrong on that.
[1:58:08] Michelle: You are wrong. I already told you it didn’t affect my faith when I did believe that, but I, I do have a question that, um, and, and I, I’m guessing I might know the answer. What is your opinion on section 132? Do you believe that that is revelation from God that should be canonized?
[1:58:28] Jim Bennett: Um, I believe section 132. Uh, has some of the most beautiful and the most contemptuous doctrine in the entirety of the church. The whole idea of deification, uh, that we are the children of God who can become like God, when, when our, when our primary children sing the song, I am a child of God. They are essentially referencing section 132, because that doctrine is enunciated in the in the early verses of that revelation. Um, more clearly and with more force and and specificity than anywhere else in scripture. And then you get to um the talk about virgins and taking more wives. Uh, and that Emma’s gonna be destroyed if, uh, if she stands in the way, and you get something that I think is Uh uh unspeakably ugly. And awful, and, and, and, and so, uh, so my answer to that question is, I think that the things that are of God in that section are revelation, and the things that are contemptuous and evil in that revelation are not. And I think that goes to the matter of how profits work, and this whole idea of fallibility we talked about before the, the lights went out. Um, uh, but the, the, the, you know, a lot of people will say, for instance, OK, were they speaking as a prophet or were they speaking as a man? And that’s a distinction I reject, because every time a prophet speaks, he is always speaking as a man, even when he is speaking as a prophet. That that the whole nature of mortality is such that you can never remove the human element. From, uh, from revelation, that anytime there is communication from the divine, and that communication is clothed in language, something will always be lost. In, in that sort of translation. I mean, it’s a translation essentially. Communication with God comes as a flow of pure intelligence. It doesn’t come as a teletype. The, the, the doctrine and covenants, uh, the words are not the revelation. The words are an attempt to clothe the revelation in language. And I believe Joseph Smith received a revelation about sealing the entire human family together in a beautiful and wonderful way. And that revelation is clothed in language in doctrine and Covenant section 132, alongside what I believe to be Joseph’s, uh, not necessarily misinterpretation. Uh, but the human elements of Joseph Smith coming to bear in there, that Joseph Smith felt that the best way to do that was through this kind of, I, I’ve always found it interesting, for instance, that, uh, ceilings to parents. Uh, and, and temple ceilings that aren’t a marriage ceiling did not happen in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, that that was not something that Joseph Smith envisioned. And so getting this pure intelligence that we all need to be sealed together as a family, and Joseph Smith took that and thought, well, then we, we’ve got, everybody needs to get married. There needs to be this, this polygamist. I mean, that, that’s how I sort of wrestle with polygamy is that I think There is a, there is a core beautiful doctrine there that, uh, that to some degree went awry. OK. So, so, so when you ask me, is, is, is section 132, and see, see, this gets back to the whole black and white, uh, it, it, I mean, if you’re gonna make me say a black and white answer to it, uh, you’re gonna make me presuppose that revelation, I do not believe. That the words in section 132 were handed to Joseph Smith in the same way somebody would hand a document to somebody else and say, this is something I have written. But I don’t believe that any scripture functions that way.
[2:02:57] Michelle: So, and I, I have several things I would push back on. I mean, first of all, Joseph did institute adoptions, right, and ceilings aren’t best understood through Joseph’s own words as marriages, but I mean that was a part of it. But, but when he talked
[2:03:11] Jim Bennett: about ceiling, there weren’t, there weren’t any ceilings of parent to child until after Joseph Smith’s death. OK,
[2:03:18] Michelle: well, I guess I’d have to understand what you mean because adoptions very much was something that that the later leaders were trying to understand what Joseph was doing with that. Which, which would be a parent child stealing, but I think you just, oh, anyway. I, I, that, that’s something we could talk about because I just, I just have been looking at the Navo Temple records and that was after Joseph’s death, but it was in the Navo Temple and um they were selling stealing children to parents, not just through adopt, not just the adoption doctrine after Joseph’s death, yes, but do you have in mind any other revelation from Joseph Smith that needs that same set of caveats that you just applied to Section 132? Because I
[2:04:00] Jim Bennett: think every revelation of Joseph,
[2:04:02] Michelle: I mean, what, what other sections of the doctrine covenants do you feel like that is atrocious, that is horrible.
[2:04:10] Jim Bennett: Oh, that’s the caveat.
[2:04:13] Michelle: Oh no, I’m just, I’m just wondering because that’s, I guess, I guess, and, and kind of the question I’m wondering is like, so, so just so you know we are in complete agreement on section 132. That is exactly what I think the historical record shows is that Joseph revealed some glorious doctrine that was added. That’s, that’s how it looks to me.
[2:04:35] Jim Bennett: So the first part of the section was written by Joseph and the second part was not
[2:04:38] Michelle: verse one. I don’t think, I think verse one is horrible, but we have a lot of testimony that Joseph did receive a revelation on eternal marriage. And opposed polygamy and he taught publicly eternal marriage just as he said he did and then um I think later on we got the polygamist parts added to it because you know you know we didn’t get Section 132 until 1852 well into Utah when Brigham pulled it out of his desk and said that that’s where he had had it that entire time and nobody knew about it. I don’t know if you know the history. Of Section 132 or that we had the original statement on marriage and the doctrine and Covenants, all of the doctrine and covenants that were both both versions of the doctrine and Covenants that were published during Joseph Smith’s lifetime had a very anti-polygamy um section on marriage in them. It was actually in our scriptures until the year before Brigham Man died when he removed when that that section was removed in 132 was added. And so most people don’t know that 132 wasn’t added to the doctrine of Covenants until 1876 and it was more broadly published and distributed in 1880. And so, so that’s why I guess I’m asking because the church went through that many years actually all of the polygamist years they didn’t have Section 132 in the scriptures. So it’s kind of been interesting to me to consider what I would think would be the ideal scenario to see happen with Section 132. Should we have canonized threats of destruction to women who won’t go along with the law of Sarah or whatever we might have it be? Should we have canonized this doctrine of virgins being given and treated as commodities that are used as rewards and punishments for men with no thoughts of their own? Is that, is that of God and should that be part of our canonized scriptures in in your opinion?
[2:06:24] Jim Bennett: Um, again, uh, it comes back to what I consider the nature of scripture to be. Uh, I don’t think removing the historical record is productive. I think, um, um, uh, one of the things that is so beautiful about our church and about our faith, and something that we, um, we run away from is that, uh, We are a church built on the idea of continuing revelation. Uh, and we are built, and yet, we run away from that because we insist that things that are canonized are somehow infallible and can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change. And I, it’s always bizarre to me that a church built on continuing revelation is also a church that is so rigid to insist that nothing can change. And much has changed, and yet when it does change, It also comes with this sort of caveat of, well, this was never really revelation to begin with. Uh, you know, this was never doc I mean the word doctrine. It’s such a tricky word. It’s not, it’s a largely a useless word because, because the way it is used is nothing can change and doctrine can’t change, unchangeable doctrine. And then it changes.
[2:07:48] Michelle: And then it was just a practice,
[2:07:50] Jim Bennett: and then retroactively, we, we changed what it was. And to me that is a fruitless exercise, not just on section 132. I mean, there are sections of the of the Book of Mormon. That are absolutely atrocious, particularly 2 Nephi chapter 5 verse 21, that talks about the the skin of darkness and blackness. Uh, which continues to follow us and has, has, you know, we’re not willing to say somebody made a mistake there. I mean, I think, I, I think, I think Nephi made the mistake. I think Nephi, I don’t think that was necessarily a Joseph Smith mistake. I think Nephi made the mistake in terms of trying to otherize the Lamanites and build community among the Nephites as they were in this new world and trying to survive.
[2:08:38] Michelle: So just I’ll recommend to you, Marvin Perkins. I think he’s done the best work on that of anybody I know, and I actually love his work. He’s brought forward some brilliant things on it. Have you looked into his work?
[2:08:49] Jim Bennett: I have not. I’m a big fan of Paul Reeves’ work on that.
[2:08:53] Michelle: Well, I like Paul Reeves too, but just specifically on the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament idioms, because it talks about a skin of blackness in Job and so I, I like his work on that.
[2:09:04] Jim Bennett: Yeah, I, to me that’s just trying to retroactively pretend that didn’t happen.
[2:09:10] Michelle: 00, I see it very differently. OK.
[2:09:12] Jim Bennett: I don’t, I don’t see any history of the church where that verse did not mean exactly. What it said it meant, uh, the, the idea that that now all of a sudden, oh, we just never noticed that this was just some kind of idiomatic expression and had nothing to do with actual skin color.
[2:09:31] Michelle: I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. Well,
[2:09:33] Jim Bennett: I, I don’t know his work and I can’t comment down his work, but, but from a broader perspective, I think the healthier and more productive way to deal. With errors in our doctrine and errors in our history, is to seek further light and knowledge and accept and recognize the error, but not necessarily expunge the idea that it never happened. The idea of pretending that section 132 doesn’t say what it says or wasn’t ever really revelation and to try and just to sort of excise it from the record.
[2:10:07] Michelle: That’s not my, that’s not my, yeah, OK, just and, and we can, we can let it go, but that’s not my perspective at all that we should excise it from the record or try to hide our history. I, I, I struggle that we have these things that um like the Book of Mormon very clearly calls abomination and we have them. Um, you know, we just have this section of scripture that’s that that that makes so many claims that run counter to all of our other scriptures, so I think it’s unfortunate that we have it as canonized scripture because even though, um, I I appreciate your um view on scripture and I share it to a large degree like we talked about the Bible that it’s descriptive not proscriptive right? it’s not telling us what we should do it’s helping us to see. Consequences of various actions and we have different ways of viewing it but yeah I do think that um it it’s interesting how you talk about um changing the historical record because the pre-1876 doctrine and covenants was incredibly different than the post 1876 doctrine and covenants. It contained the lectures on faith and it contained the statement on marriage and you know, and then it had a lot of things added to it. So I think it’s, I think our we do have an open canon. And I appreciate that and I would like to see us personally I would like to see us um you know receive further light and knowledge on this topic and be open to considering whether ideas that are just not of God should be canonized as revelation in our scriptures that’s that’s my perspective on it, but maybe you see it differently.
[2:11:36] Jim Bennett: No, well, I, I, uh. Uh, I don’t think you should stop having this discussion with as many people as want to have it with you. Uh, again, I I, I, I didn’t come here to defend Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Uh, I, I still believe Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Uh, I respect that you don’t and that you have good reasons for not believing that, um, and, and I, I recognize the weakness of, of history and that it’s, it’s often very difficult. To pin down exactly what happened. At its base though, I, I think that that uh either Joseph was a polygamist or he wasn’t. And whether or not we can know that through his through history. Uh, it is to some degree secondary to the fact that That’s, you know, that, that ultimately, is a reality that, that, uh, that may be unknowable, but I think that the preponderance of evidence suggests that he was.
[2:12:47] Michelle: Well, I appreciate you coming to have the conversation. I hope you don’t feel like I made you. I tried, I mean, I don’t think that we did have the debate about whether Joseph was or wasn’t a polygamist because I didn’t bring up a single piece of evidence. I think the question was more um. Is there room for this conversation without people thinking that it’s already settled, you know that that’s more that’s more the conversation I’m I’m trying to have with people that.
[2:13:12] Jim Bennett: Well, well, so, but so in the context of what we’ve been talking about and and where we began. As as we as we sort of conclude where we’re ending. Um, the question as to whether or not a historical question is settled. Is Is ultimately an academic question. Uh, there are very few academic disciplines or ideas where, you know, when people talk about facts and history, they’ll say, Uh, you know, Most historians believe. Uh, but you will always be able to find a contrarian, uh, in, including, you know, you’ll be able to find respected contrarians. And sometimes, not always, and I probably would say not the majority of times, but sometimes those contrarians turn out to be right, and everybody else turns out to be wrong and historical thinking shifts. And, and so that’s entirely appropriate. To be raising those kinds of questions in a kind of historical setting where we began and where I think we’re finishing here is, is it appropriate for latter-day saints to be having uh these kinds of discussions and still be considered a part of the body of, of saints. Uh, do you need to be excised from the body of saints because you have. Um, persistent. Interest in this issue and persistent questions on this issue and do not accept. The church is essentially established position on the issue. And from my perspective, I absolutely think you should be able to continue to do that within the boundaries of the church. I don’t think anything that you are raising here should in any way call into question, um, your, um, your discipleship. Uh, your, your willingness to be able to be numbered among the body of saints. I, I, you know, if, if you were out there advocating adultery, And advocating uh bank robbing or some, you know, then maybe I might revisit that, but from, from my perspective, Uh, you know, and I’m just one guy, but from my perspective, uh, I think that there, you know, I, I, I, I’ve said many times. Um, that where I found the boundaries of the church to be. Uh, is, it’s a twofold proposition. The first part is that the tolerance in the church for a wide variety of opinion. Is much broader than people realize, I think, uh, but the flip side to that is that the tolerance for any criticism of church leaders. OK, is much lower than people realize. Uh, and I think where you’re, you might end up getting into trouble or maybe have gotten into trouble. Is when you name names about church leaders, when you start saying, well, Brigham Young did this wrong, uh, uh, that’s where you’re going to get pushback. You’re not going to get pushback from me because I, I, I, I don’t see how that’s healthy and productive, but I also see that that’s where the boundary is. So I will always be careful and cautious in terms of when I start talking about any frustration I have with the church. Uh, not, not limited to this issue, but limited to any issue. The minute I start saying, well, elder so and so. Uh, is, uh, any degree of if, if I start saying elder so and so wears ugly ties, I’m gonna, I, I, I’m in more danger of getting into trouble than I am if I start expressing a, a heretical doctrinal opinion.
[2:17:18] Michelle: So that’s interesting because um So with your CES letter you mentioned how the church can’t say that anybody ever made a mistake. So the middle ground that you have found is that you can just say that kind of the amorphous they can make mistakes but you can’t point out with any it’s interesting because the the
[2:17:37] Jim Bennett: the longer somebody’s been dead. The so so so the church is now fairly comfortable admitting that Brigham Young was a racist. Uh, and in fact, Paul Reeve was asked to write a book called Let’s Talk About Race in the Priesthood for Deseret Book, and he said, I’m not going to write this if you won’t let me say that the priesthood ban was a mistake. And they let him write it, and it’s a wonderful book, and I commend it to everyone. Uh, but so, so, so the church, that there are We’re taking very small baby steps in this direction. I mean, you read the race in the priesthood, uh, essay. And it comes right up to the line of saying this was a mistake, but it’s not willing to cross over it. Uh, so, so, yeah, I, I mean with my CES letter reply, uh, the, the, the thing is, the thing, the thing is. It it’s also a matter of framing it, because, um, very often, and, and I think what the church is afraid of is that very often when you start going down the road and say, OK, well, Brigham Young was a racist, and he made this terrible mistake. Um, the natural, uh. Next step on that is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Brigham Young was a racist and the B and Brigham Young instituted a mistaken priesthood ban, then he couldn’t possibly have been a prophet and everything noteworthy or positive or inspired or that I thought was inspired, that all has to go out the window too. It becomes an all or nothing proposition, when in fact, every human being. Uh, including every church leader, is a mix of strengths and weaknesses, is a mix of good and evil. Uh, Brigham Young, in my opinion, uh, had exactly the talents and skills the Lord needed to hold the church together after Joseph Smith’s assassination and lead us to Utah and, and, uh, you know, create us as a people. Uh, that, uh, and I am tremendously grateful for him for that and believe him to be a prophet of God for that. And I also believe, as a prophet of God, he was also capable of being a racist and, and of perpetuating um a common Protestant justification for slavery. in the form of the, the idea that black people bear the curse of Cain. I mean, he didn’t invent that. He, he incorporated that from the larger landscape. And uh and we’ve suffered the consequences as a result. But, but, you know, it’s the same with Joseph Smith, it’s the same with every church leader is that I believe God uses all of us to try to build the kingdom and that our weaknesses and our failings, uh, end up becoming stumbling blocks until we can accept the fact. That uh you can make mistakes, even big mistakes, and still be an instrument in the hands of God.
[2:20:50] Michelle: OK, OK, that’s a, yeah, good perspective and we probably need to end. I, I have so many things I want to respond to, but um but I do appreciate you sharing your view. I think I, it’ll be interesting to see how people um respond to this conversation because I think it’s. Yeah, anyway, a lot, a lot to talk and to talk about. I do, I, I will just mention this. I do think the question of profits is a worthy one to explore and to investigate, right? We have big profit, little P profit. What does it mean, right? I, I personally like to differentiate between president of the church, which I. Absolutely sustained. I don’t necessarily think that we understand um profit in the best way to say that those are equated always and only the only prophet is the president of the church and the president of the church is is always a prophet but um so I so I should probably throw that in there but I view it as. It doesn’t um negate what God has done through this restoration, through this people, through this church through this gospel we we get taught a lot in Jacob chapter 5, I think the, you know, the branches and the roots and and all of us need to do that hard work always of discerning truth from error and, and that’s our challenge to try to keep as much baby as possible and get rid of as much bathwater as possible so that our testimonies are. Um, founded on as much rock as possible with as little sand, right? Isn’t that the goal? And so that, so that’s, I think that’s the goal. Yeah, that’s how I view our challenge wherever, wherever the challenge may be because so many people say the same thing. If Joseph Smith did those things, he can’t have been a prophet. I’m throwing it out. If Britney Young did those things, he can’t have been a prophet. I’m throwing it out, and I prefer rather than having my testimony based on a person to say what is it I’m throwing out? What is the core and what is the value here and. And is it possible that I, I don’t know, I really like the scripture no unhallowed hand can stop this work from progressing even if those unhallowed hands sometimes are people in leadership in the church, right? We don’t need to let it separate us from the gospel and from the church that’s anyway, that’s my perspective, but thank you for the conversation and I will look forward to talking again.
[2:23:11] Jim Bennett: Absolutely. Thank you very much for inviting me.
[2:23:15] Michelle: I want to sincerely thank Jim for coming on and for sticking it out. I’m sure that at points in this conversation, he felt at least as frustrated as I did, and maybe more, but I thought it was really valuable. I’m thankful to all of you who stuck it out through our adventure going to the library of the craziness. But again, I think that this hopefully demonstrated the importance of even difficult conversations. I am thankful that we did this and that we were able to have such a fantastic conversation the next day. That link will be in the description box. I hope you enjoyed that episode and I will see you next time.
