151: Repenting of Polygamy – A Conversation with Steve Baer

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Steve’s podcast, “Latter-day Strength“

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[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. I am thankful that Steve Baer reached out to me and was willing to share his personal journey and history with the troubling and complicated and problematic doctrine of polygamy in our church. So I am thankful for this conversation that he was willing to have with me. I hope that you find it useful and inspiring and insightful and helpful as we all navigate this topic together. Thanks for joining us. I am so happy to be here with Steve Bear, who has prepared a presentation for us that I think is so important to come into this conversation. Steve, I wanna thank you for reaching out to me and for putting this work together because I think that hearing the individual stories is important to keep doing and, and. Hearing men’s voices, how men are impacted by polygamy is also a really important part of what we need to consider. It’s, it’s obvious how it affects women. It’s sometimes less obvious how it affects men. So Steve, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for doing this and can you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself?

[01:20] Steve Baer: Yeah, so, um, I’m a lifelong member of the church, grew up in California, um, I’ve been living here in Utah for the last 8 or 10 years. Recently, I started a podcast. It’s called Latter Day Strength. Um, married, have 7 kids, um, a professional, do all the things, and, but I love the gospel, and, um, this topic has, has been a part of my life for a long time, and so we’re gonna delve in. We’re gonna dive into it.

[01:49] Michelle: That’s great. So do you want me to go ahead and just dive right in right now? Yeah, let’s just, let’s just jump. OK, so I think, yeah, Steve’s gonna tell us kind of his journey through polygamy, or just, I guess, I guess it’s not just through polygamy, but your entire process of Dealing with this subject of art in our gospel.

[02:08] Steve Baer: Right, right, um, and as I start, I just want it to be a couple of things I want to make sure that the audience is clear about. One, this isn’t meant to be a logical or intellectual expose about why or why we shouldn’t believe in, you know, certain things or why we, you know, Um, to present evidence that certain things are, are a false narrative or certain things are true. I, that’s not my purpose. Um, what’s interesting about our testimonies, um, within the gospel is that they are frequently based on anecdotal experiences, you know, a little moment here, a little light there, a little experience with another person there, um, serving the church, just all these things, they come together and they form this beautiful mosaic of, of why we believed. And um and sometimes I think what gets lost in this discussion about plural marriage is that those of us who have gone through a, a, a process of analyzing this information and obtaining a testimony, essentially, of why this is not a godly principle, um, we, we experience things that are similar to how members of the church experience their testimony in general. A little moment here, a little flash there, a little bit of light there. And so, in essence, I, I mean, the, the message to the active members of the church out there who believe that this is a true principle, it’s like, you know, this is my anecdotal experience of how I have wrestled with this. And you have your own anecdotal experiences about how you wrestle with things and why you believe certain things. So let’s all just be in agreement that that’s how we, how we deal with, you know, truth claims. Um. And then for those who are, uh, you know, who are in a kind of against the church in in various ways and who watch this, this podcast. Um, you know, everybody has reasons for why they, they psychologically believe or buy into certain narratives and certain ideas. And so this is just my journey and my experiences, and I’m not meant, I don’t mean to project them onto any of you. Um, it’s just an opportunity for us to, to learn together. So, um, I wanna start by just saying that Jesus Christ is the reason for this presentation. Um, I experienced a mighty change of heart. Um, I’ve had a remission of sins, and like Alma the Younger, I, I had my moment of saying, oh Jesus, thou son of God, have mercy on me, whom in the gall of bitterness and am circled about by the everlasting chains of death. And behold when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more. I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh what joy, and what marvelous light did I behold, yeah, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding was my pain. So, that is the reason for this conversation. We are talking about Christ. Um, with these three primary objectives, that one is to allow my story to illuminate the what I really consider the abomination of polygamy. Uh, 2, to provide hope to latter-day saints that you do not need to abandon your faith in any way or your membership in the church or your commitment to your wards or stakes because of this issue. Like, let’s, let’s stay faithful in the way that God wants us to stay faithful. And then also, those of us who do not believe polygamy is of God are not apostates. Even though I wore this outfit to church one day, you know, we, you know, we might be, uh, a little, a little different, uh, version of, of Latter-day Saint, but yeah, we’re not apostates. Well,

[05:54] Michelle: and you know, yeah, there is such a wide variety, but I, I love this I love this because this is something I’ve been working on a lot too lately. So this is a well-timed. Presentation that this argument of no this does not mean we need to leave the church and this does not mean we should be kicked out of the church we are um like like that is that is would be a travesty if that happened, you know, to everyone who believes this way and everyone who’s coming to believe this way and everyone who is going to come to believe this way because this is going to grow. People just don’t understand yet how much evidence there is for this perspective that polygamy is not of God.

[06:28] Steve Baer: I 100% agree with you. It’s something that institutionally they’re, they’re gonna have to grapple with within the next 5 to 10 years, 10 years if they’re slow, 5 years if they’re quick. Or

[06:39] Michelle: yeah, even, even quicker. Yeah, certainly. Let’s not, let’s not, I, I say this all the time, like President Odorf tells us, doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith, right? Like, would we tell an entire population, if you disagree with the church on its handling of the pandemic, then you have to leave. You have to be kicked out. You can’t be Mormon. Do you disagree with the handling of race issues in the past. You can’t be, I mean, it’s, it’s just really unfortunate that this is a perspective that even has to be addressed, but it absolutely does. So thank you for addressing it.

[07:07] Steve Baer: Right. And actually, I’m, I’m gonna insert this right here. I, I, um, I’m a big fan of Jordan Peterson. Um, I was, I was listening to your, uh, your last episode recently where you’re talking about his, uh, his view of, uh, I think the Garden of Eden. And but one of the One of my big, uh, one of the things that he, he talks about is how there’s this tendency for people to want to tear down um what has been when it doesn’t agree with their, their, their ideas and And he’s like, do you realize when you tear down what has been like chaos is, is what remains in the wake. And I can say that I went through my own form of chaos, but fortunately it is because of messages like from Jordan Peterson that I was like, no, I can’t tear down what was already built up because there’s this new insider information that I’m now taking into account.

[08:00] Michelle: So I like that. And at the same time we don’t, I like it, we don’t necessarily need to tear it down, but it is OK to say this part of it needs to be readdressed, right? We also don’t need to view it and and put it up on a pedestal and say it can never be addressed, it can never be critically thought about. So yes, that, that middle ground is what’s required of us. OK.

[08:21] Steve Baer: Yeah, totally. Um, so I’m gonna give you a little bit of backstory about my polygamous ancestry. Um, this is a man, wow, I’m like emotional, but this is a man named John Thomas, and Um, I think the reason I’m feeling a little emotional is because, well, who knows why, but my dad was a huge, um, like he was, he felt really connected to this particular ancestor. And he, um, he translated his, um, or not translated, he transcribed his, uh, missionary journal and then provided it at a, at a, um, Thomas family reunion, and, you know, this is like 30 years ago. Um, and you’ll see in a couple of moments I’ll mention that both of my parents have passed away. So, uh, if I ever bring up my mom or my dad, it’s because I’m just, I love them so much that I miss him. Um, but when I was in 5th grade, so this is like the early 90s. Um, we had an assignment to bring in a family heirloom to talk about with our, uh, with our schoolmates. And I made the bold move to say, I’m gonna bring in the, the transcribed journal of my great great grandfather, John Thomas, who was a polygamist. He had 3 wives, and if I wouldn’t even be alive if it hadn’t been for the fact that my great great grandfather had been a polygamist. And um and so, I mean, my earliest recollections of, of knowing about this concept go all the way back to, you know, 1011 years old, um while my dad was, you know, researching and, and working on his uh life history. Um, but what’s, I want to tell his story because this is, this is fascinating. Um, so John was, uh, a, a Welsh um convert, and his wife had died in childbirth in 1869, and he was left a father of five young children. Um, and he immigrated to the United States from Wales. He actually left his youngest daughter, the one that was born when his wife died from in childbirth. Um, but then he immigrated to Utah with his four other children, uh, and then he marries a gal named Mary, uh, so Mary Thomas. Um, they didn’t end up having any children together, but she helped him raise the children from the first marriage. And then in 1884, he was asked to practice the principal, as they called it, the principal, and so he married his third wife and second living, a gal named Karen Christine Jensen. And so she’s my great great grandmother. Um, she was 19 when she married John. John was 47. Um, she was, uh, and then the second wife was 46, so I mean, can you just, I mean, sorry, presentism, but, you know, imagine your 19 year old daughter marrying into a relationship where, where you are in your 40s with your spouse who’s also in their 40s, and it’s like, hey, you’re now part of this thing. It’s You know, it’s interesting. Um, yeah, so they had 9 children together, though, um, and 8 of them were living. Um, they were married for 30 years. Um, the second wife, Mary, she died halfway through that 30-year marriage, um, and then, uh, and then John died when, when Karen was, uh, was 49. But She raised a very tight knit family. Like these, these, and they’re mostly daughters. These daughters loved each other, they loved their family, you know, they have umpteen number of of of posterity and um and, you know, they continued the family reunions all the way up into the early 2000s when the original, you know, the original children had all passed away. But it was just a very, very, very tight knit family. Um, and she created that. Karen created that. But one of the sad fruits of polygamy is when I go into Family Search and I try to find information about the second wife, Mary, like this is her, like that is her family search profile of her gravestone, and then two compilations of of family history that hardly mention her. Um, you know, she’s part of the family for 30 years, but there’s no pictures of her in Family Search, no positive memories of her specifically, no children of her own, and then one of the one, the one little thing I found was one child called her an unsympathetic stepmother. And um and so it’s like, oh, I I can’t wait to have a conversation with. With all these people and say, how was it to be in this situation where you have this 3rd wife who has this wonderful posterity, and the 2nd wife who helped raise the first kids. But is, you know, doesn’t have much to be spoken of, um, and that’s, that’s kind of heartbreaking for me to think about. Um, so, in, in general, I have these 4 polygamous ancestors, and, um, I actually want to highlight this first one, Orme. Uh, I’m, I’m from Ormes and his first wife, uh, but two of my ancestors had come from a 2nd or a 3rd. Um, but look at this picture. Wow. This, uh, he’s pictured here, so, so Ormis Ephraim Bates was the brother-in-law of Orson and Parley Pratt. A brother to Sarah Bates Pratt, uh, who has an interesting history, and I need to do an episode on her cause that’s riddled with scandal. Uh, you know, John C. Bennett stuff and accusations, and, and then she became vociferously against polygamy in the 1890s, uh, or earlier than that, I should say.

[14:03] Michelle: She’s still one of the main reasons we accused Joseph Smith of abortions. Yeah. Yeah,

[14:07] Steve Baer: right. So anyway, I’m, I’m, I’m from her brother’s line. Um, but pictured in in here is his 7th wife, a gal named Sarah Hymus. She’s 21, he’s 47. Uh, and then when Orme, I mean, just the, the, the body language in this picture, like, I’m tilted away from this girl and she’s just this, I don’t know, I, I almost look at like frightened. 21 year old, I’m totally, you know, interpreting here. Like, somebody’s gonna accuse me of presentism, whatever, I don’t care. But that, that body language of him being tilted away from her like that, and he’s this old man compared to her. Anyway, when, when he died, she remarried and became the third wife of another person. So, I mean, these are some of the stories that we have in our ancestry, some of the things that we can celebrate and say, wow, I come from this great family. Others that were like, oh, you know, this is a little icky. Um, and we don’t need to gloss over the icky, and we don’t need to say, hey, I wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for polygamy. So therefore it must be a true principle. That’s just not how, how it works. Um, but anyway, when I was, my, my backstory, I grew up in, in Northern California, um, hotbed of, of liberal Bay Area California, um, always had this really firm faith in the gospel, um. And, you know, when, when I was 1011 years old, I started this temple hobby. And, um, I started collecting all the postcards at the time, cause at that time, there were only 40-something temples. And so it was really easy to just collect the pictures and put them on my wall, and, uh, my, my grandfather was the recorder for the Oakland Temple for many years. And um and the Oakland Temple is is interesting in that it has this little spire at the top that um is see-through. It’s um it’s kind of grid, it has this grid design to it. And um and so I have this memory of, of asking my grandpa, will you take me to the top of the temple? Um, someday, you know, and I’m, you know, not even old enough to do baptisms for the dead. Um, But the temple provided a lot of hope for me because it was just within a few years that my father passed away, so he died when I was 12. Um, my, my father taught me the gospel. But my mother taught me how to live the gospel. And my my temple hobby, it started before he passed away. And my mom, as she prayed over me as a teen, cause she always said that that his death affected me the most. Um, but she always said it’s like, oh, it was Steven’s temple hobby that saved him. I was so devoted. To the idea that my family was eternal and that just because my father had died didn’t mean he was gone. So, um, But you know, as I was a child, I’d lay in bed and um I would cry. You know, we pray Um, and the only thing that I can help everybody visualize is, uh, the movie Avengers Endgame has all those portals opening up, you know, Doctor Strange opening up the portals and everything. And literally what I prayed for is I was like, can you just open up a portal and allow me to have a conversation with my dad. Um, and those didn’t happen immediately, but, but by the time I was 14, uh, I had a dream about him that was very, very helpful, and it kicked off a series of moments where I knew that I was communicating with him, um, that he was there, that he was parenting me. That, um, you know, when I was 18 and almost making an irreversible mistake that he uh that he or other angels or the Lord himself was intervening in my life to help guide me and direct me on a, on a path of of righteousness. And so then Um, that just kicked off this amazing series of temple and heavenly experiences. Um, when I received my endowment, I know for some people, it’s, it’s not, I, I guess I had an atypical experience because it was beautiful. Going through the mail for the first time and into the celestial room, I felt escorted by my, my dad, by angelic grandparents, um, by another ancestor who I feel very close to because I’m his namesake. Um And then, you know, I get my mission call. I served in in Caracas, Venezuela, and uh I had a, I had a moment where I, I felt the arms of embrace of the Lord around me. For many years, I, I actually wondered if it was my dad, but I actually have been taught lately that, no, it was actually the Lord, uh, who literally hugged me in the, in the empty seat and gave me that it’s OK, you can keep, you can keep going, you, you know, the homesickness went away. Um, later my dad visited me in the MTC, and then, uh, when I got home from my mission, um, my grandpa was still a sealer in the Oakland Temple. And I go to do some ceiling sessions with him. And I said, hey, Grandpa, you remember, remember when I asked you if you could take me to the top of the temple? He’s like, yeah, I remember that. like, could you, could I go up there somehow? And he tracks down the temple engineer, main the head maintenance guy. He said, my grandson has always wanted to go to the top of the temple. Can you take him up there? And so, um, so I had this chance to climb to the spot that’s above the celestial room and I could like look down into the celestial room. And then the Oakland, the Oakland Temple has this big, you know, this, this, um, tower, and it’s, it’s hollow. It just has stairs around it. So I go up the stairs and then I go to that little triangle thing and then there’s a, there’s a post with a ladder where all the lights are affixed to it so it shines. Uh, when, um, when it’s being photographed at night, uh, or when it’s, you know, at night. And so, and I, I climbed up that ladder to the highest spot. And um and that experience has been kind of a sim a symbol for me. Like, we get to go to the temple, but we also get to go. Beyond and above and move higher. Because, you know, there are lots of folks who are temple recommend holding individuals who go to who go to the temple regularly. Um, but the, but there’s a level of, you know, church of the first born type experiences that we can have with the Lord, if we’re willing to repent and be humble and and be obedient to what he asks us to do.

[21:19] Michelle: Actuate the things that are presented in the temple, yes, have them,

[21:24] Steve Baer: yeah, temple being a symbol. Anyway, so countless, countless experiences and I’ll just mention the last one or one of these which is On my wedding day, um, I had prayed that my dad would be there, and, um, and as we were in the temple, getting prepared to go up to the ceiling room, um, I felt him come next to me, put his arm around me to let me know that he was there. And, um, and then, you know, one of my family members who was with me was a second witness. So anyway, the, the temple, eternal families, it’s just, it’s part of who I am and I have too many experiences with the temple to be able to say, let’s discard this in some fashion. I just, I just can’t. OK. So, um, I, I, I believe that the gospel gives everything meaning. Um, this is a picture of me next to my dad’s casket at his burial, and then 6 of my 7 kids, if this is a few years ago, you know, smiling around his gravestone. At the place of my biggest tragedy. Like there’s so much healing and so much truth and beauty in what we do in the church as it pertains to families, to temples, and to eternal families. So I’m just saying I’m a witness of that. But There’s always a big butt in there. Um, yeah, in 2007, I had this belief crisis, um, because I, I, I, I, I decided it’s not a faith crisis. Faith crisis is when you’re, you’re questioning your, your faith in the Lord. Belief crisis is when you’re, you’re questioning other, other things about your, um, Uh, your beliefs. Um, so anyway, as, as a kid I’d studied church history, you know, avid reader of the work in the glory series, you know, those came out once a year during while I was in high school. And so I, I loved them. I felt like they were, um, testimony building and enriching, uh, novelizations of church history. Um, I, I took both church history classes at BYU. I’ve always, like, known a lot about church history. But it didn’t hit me that Joseph Smith might have been a polygamist until I had watched this PBS documentary that was released in 2007. It was called The Mormons. It started talking about his polyandrous ceilings. And I was just like, wait, what is this? And it filled my heart with so much confusion and darkness. Um, I, you know, and I recall how I’m at that time, I made a poor decision because I didn’t feel like I had the spirit with me to guide me because I was just questioning everything. Um, but when I put it on the shelf, I was like, you know, I’m just gonna put this here, it’s fine. I can set it aside. I’m OK. And that’s when the light started to kind of come back into my life. Um, but I, I believe that the standard narrative destroys faith.

[24:38] Michelle: Mhm, I agree with you.

[24:41] Steve Baer: Yeah, um, I mean, even lately, hearing people bear their testimony of Joseph Smith in church with this little asterisk, even though he wasn’t perfect, I I believe he was a prophet of God. Um, and then it have, you have people who are like, how could someone like this be a prophet or no one shares these elements of troubling, you know, church history with me. Um, and then, and then there’s like less focus on the prophetic fruits of, of all of these men, especially the fruits of, of his mission, and more like, no, we’ve got authority. Like, authority was established here and it continues here and we’re good. We’re good. Um, So, I, I, I, I just, I feel like for anybody who has the desire to really intellectualize and and dive into these topics. Um, there’s not a lot of hope in the standard narrative, in my opinion. Because it, it really destroyed my own, I mean, not destroyed, but it, it took an ax to what I thought was a very strong testimony.

[25:49] Michelle: Well, yeah, I think that we can see the fruits of it, right? How many tens of thousands of people has this been the catalyst that led to them leaving the church? I would say this is like, I mean, there are other issues, but this is the primary issue in things like the CES letter and, you know, and, and everything. And as I’ve Talk to people. We’re out of place now because I have, anyway, I have engaged with people trying to say, why do you think this view of Joseph is like, not destructive of faith, but, but, but saying Joseph didn’t do this is destructive of faith because that necessarily means that Brigham Young did it, right? And so why, and it’s, it’s the, the answer I have consistently gotten from people who are informed and who think about this is, well, we’ve already adjusted to this view of Joseph. Smith. It, it’s already like, it’s already done its damage. And so now we just accept it and go forward. And I’m like, you can’t say that it’s damage is contained, because how many people is it preventing still, it still continues to lead more and more people out of the church. The, the only reason it hasn’t done more damage is because, because people are ignorant of it. Now that we see it coming forward to our primary children, they’re trying to teach it to children, how much more damage is it going to do for people being brought up in the church and People being brought to, not not the church, the restoration, right? Like that’s, it’s, it’s really, really a big problem that we need to just acknowledge that our polygamist past is a difficulty for our, for, for the restoration. It just is. And we need to figure out not only, well, we’ve adjusted to this, like, let’s get to the truth of it and just deal with it honestly and and understand that people’s faith is not faith unless it’s. Things that are true, right? Faith is hope for things which are not seen which are true, and if we don’t have a true understanding of Joseph Smith, we don’t have a true understanding of the gospel.

[27:39] Steve Baer: I agree 100%. And I mean, I’ve had I’ve had people, you know, in discussion say, well, think of all the good that polygamy did. I mean, think of all those hundreds of thousands of, of ancestors, now, I probably hundreds, from just my, my great grandfather, who, that occurred because he took a 3, you know, a 3rd wife. I was like, I don’t think it offsets the damage done to families who who left or who never considered. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of this icky polygamy topic like, oh, gross. No, if it, if it has that, I’m not even gonna investigate it.

[28:16] Michelle: It’s true, and it still does that. And the idea that those children couldn’t have been born, the idea that like, you know what I mean, that, that like we could say, I, I haven’t done my episode on this yet, and I can’t say this word on YouTube, but, um, the R word, right? Like forcing a woman can bring children here. Yay, then it must be good, right? That’s not, that is not a good argument. It’s not about, oh, there were a lot of Babies born. No, it’s, it’s much better to say, what does God stain? What sustain, what does God establish, right? And then we can look at the broad spectrum of fruits of polygamy, and they’re not good. So, so I’m glad that God can continue to work through any means, and that we, we and God are good at making lemonade out of lemons. But polygamy is a big old lemon.

[29:01] Steve Baer: I, yes. Um, one other anecdotal story, there was a family that I grew up with in my hometown. And, um, I tried to share the gospel with them when I got home from my mission, and they’re like, yeah, actually, we’re descendants of, of a, of somebody who left the church, um, in the 1850s. He fled from Brigham Young. And you did an interview a few months ago with a gal, uh, who was talking about she’s the RLDS lady who Cheryl,

[29:28] Michelle: yes, they’re great.

[29:31] Steve Baer: She mentioned their grandfather who was basically run out of town. Yeah. And I’m like this wonderful family, they had 6 kids, they were just super, super sweet people, but they were run out of town by this doctrine. Mhm. Anyway,

[29:49] Michelle: don’t we hope that goes back to your first slide about not, like, don’t we hope that that the church doesn’t continue to run people out of town or run people out of the church, like these good families and good members who are saying, no, this isn’t true. I, I, I made a mistake when I said we can’t have a true understanding of the gospel if we don’t know who Joseph Smith is. What it really is, is we can’t have a true understanding of the gospel if we don’t understand who God is, the nature of God. And that’s really where it comes down in the most important way. So anyway, continue.

[30:16] Steve Baer: 100% agree. So, um, I now I’m gonna start the vulnerable part of my presentation, um, which is that the, the, the, the spirit of polygamy entered my heart and wounded my marriage, um, and, you know, in, you know, about 10 years ago. Um, and so, as I share this information, I want you to all please, uh, I mean, we don’t talk about past transgressions a lot in our, in our religion, it’s frowned upon. Um, and, uh, you know, these are things that no longer afflict me, um, but it literally felt like a demon in my life. Um, and it, you know, it started, you know, in 2013 where there was just a young widow person and I would have these passing thoughts, and I’m not gonna to articulate what those thoughts are because that’s not necessary and um. And um and frankly, it’s, you know, all those scriptures that talk about how our our our thoughts will condemn us. Um, those are true, those are real. And I just want to raise a little bit of a warning voice, which is, if you’re struggling with porn, with um with immoral thoughts, with fantasies that are not faithful to your spouse. I invite you to repent of believing in polygamy, um, because that’s what happened to me, and I’ll just briefly go through it. Um, so there was a person that uh was a mutual friend between my wife and me. And um and I, I started to entertain thoughts like, well, what if, and I kind of like this other person, and what would it be like and how would that work? And, you know, a little bit of flirting and and this the feelings, well they seem mutual and I like spending time with both of these ladies and um. And those, those thoughts kind of remained with me for, you know, a few months. Um, until it kind of came to a head, and I had a moment where I, I, you know, came clean to my wife. I’m like, this is something that I’ve been, been thinking. And um It was very difficult for my, for my wife to go through that. Um, and, and in this time, I’m not gonna go into all the details. It’s kind of it’s a very interesting story, but it doesn’t need to be shared here. Um, but I, it was like I had these two things that were that were fighting in my, in my heart. One was my demons and one was like my true desires. The true desire being thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart and shall cleave unto her and none else. And then the demon, you know, encouraging me, but this, I say unto you, whosoeverlusteth upon a woman or uh looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery in his heart. And um and so they were, they were fighting and um but I found that the Lord rescued me from that situation. He, like Joseph of Egypt, um, I literally felt like I was transplanted away from that situation and placed into a a a spot where I could be safe. Um, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t leave a mark, um. Can I go back and I

[33:41] Michelle: can I pause on that for a second? I have a question. I want to know because I think that this is not an uncommon story, right? It’s very common to, um, to have an attraction outside of your marriage, and my question is how for you did polygamy, the idea of polygamy either justify or explain or fuel that.

[34:06] Steve Baer: Um,

[34:07] Michelle: so play at all.

[34:08] Steve Baer: Oh, well, it was 100% into play, and, and the fact of the matter is some people might look at this and say, oh well, you were just, you were just on, on your way towards having an affair. And I’m, and, and I would say, well, my, I know what I was thinking at that time, and, and what I was thinking was not a or it was an and uh. And the funny thing about this is there was somebody in my in my family who, upon marrying his first wife inscribed into her ring to my first wife. Oh, And then, uh, this person had actually um proposed a uh a a a second, uh, you know, polygamous relationship, uh, when he started to have feelings for another gal. Um, the first wife divorced him at that time, she married that, uh, or he married that other, that other person. Um, and so I, I, I, you know, grew up hearing about that circumstance, and I think there is some, some prideful judgment about it. And so it was terribly ironic that I found myself in a spot where I was doing the same thing at the thought level. It hadn’t the thought and feeling level. I hadn’t yet gone to the actions or, you know, um, doing anything physical. But just because it’s in your thoughts or feelings and not in your actions doesn’t mean it’s not real and is very clear about what our, you know, that we will be judged for our thoughts.

[35:46] Michelle: Yeah, I have heard, I guess the reason I’m asking this, I have heard, um, I’ve I’ve heard some men justify pornography. With polygamy and say no, this is how men are. If we were able to live polygamy, we wouldn’t need porn or, you know, just kind of say this is and and they can’t see that, well, no porn is, is a form of polygamy, what you are doing, right? And then also I’ve, I’ve heard um Men think, oh well, like I’m attracted to that woman, maybe she’ll be mine in the next life because we’re not living it right now, right? So it’s kind of a future idea of polygamy and then others that like, like I said, they can either justify attractions and say, well, we’re supposed to be polygamists, so it’s not bad that I. I mean, I mean, it’s not our feelings aren’t bad, but, but we can choose whether to feed them, nurture them, focus on them, or to try to repent of them, right? And so, um, and, and alter them. So and then I and then I have heard other men like because of the idea of polygamy, yeah, they, they kind of feed that even more and think, oh well, maybe that is a true doctrine. Maybe that is something we’re supposed to be, right? So I think it does it. So interesting where our hearts are supposed to be knit together in love with our spouse and we carry around. I, you know, I call it a pet our pet abomination that we keep in our back pocket that even though it’s not right now, it could be, you know, people are, there are fundamentalists cross the ID all the time to members of the church, right? And then we keep it in as a future possibility oh and Zion or and so so it is. It is important to hear these stories and how it plays in to men, to just give these ready-made rationalizations, justifications, incentives, rather than helping men in that difficult, um, like it’s difficult work to keep a marriage together, right? Monogamy is difficult work, but so worthwhile. So that’s, that’s why I wanted to touch on that part of it.

[37:37] Steve Baer: Well, amen to everything that you just said. Yes, it’s true, at least for me, and I, I can’t project, um. How other, how other men, uh, navigate this. I’m I’m only sharing this story to those who do to know that, hey, you know, you’ve probably felt something that I felt, and, um, and there’s escape from that. And so I, I want to share these verses from Jacob too because I love, I love. You know, how, I mean, everybody points to Jacob 2:30. I’m like, you know, it’s this like total aberration, that interpretation of Jacob 2:30 within the context of this entire chapter. Like, so let’s just stop. Um, but the, the, the cycle is pride, leading to seeking riches, leading to the abominations or the grosser crimes. And I can say that at that time I had a prideful heart and I was in that process of, you know, I was seeking riches. Um, And how, you know, the Lord says, uh, I’ve seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands. And then verse 35 actually came to pass in my life. Um, the sobbings of their hearts. Ascend up to God against you. It’s me. Because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against me. Many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds. In the aftermath, in the immediate aftermath of this, um, fantasy slash flirtation with this abominable principle. My wife was pierced with a deep wound. My 6th child had just been born during this time. She didn’t stop bleeding after his birth. And so she went into a doctor and the doctor, they, they did the uh the uh the the scans and everything, and they found that she had a mass in her uterus. So then the doctor went uh to remove the mass, and when he did so, it tore a hole in her uterus. Like hey and you know, there’s a little bit of medical malpractice um in there that um that was resolved um in a, in a good way, but um. She had to have emergency surgery. Um, to sew up that, that spot and then when we had our 7th child, um, 18 months later, uh, she had to have that done via C-section to avoid a uterine rupture. And so when I learned about all of these, these things and then looking back and recontextualizing my past, I was like, I wounded the cradle of creation for our family. And you know, cue all the people that say, oh, that’s just a coincidence. Sure, fine, yeah, OK, it’s just a coincidence that that she was literally in Utah because we are in the process of moving. She was in Utah. I was still in the other place that I was living. Wrapping up my job and And by myself. And when she had this emergency surgery, I fled. And I went to Utah to be with her, and then we had fully moved away about 1 week or about 2 weeks later. It’s all happening during that time. So yeah, sure. OK, it’s a coincidence that she had a

[41:13] Michelle: you know what the connection and I have spoken to midwives who, um, I, um. And when I had my 13th, the, the, it, it was just such a messy situation and, and I, you know, it was in the middle of the shutdowns and I wouldn’t, it was just a mess and I just was like, I’ll just, I’ll just have her alone, and the midwife was like, We won’t let you do that because she knew the state I was in that I would just keep bleeding cause I just was gonna, I was just gonna go with her. I was surrendering the white flag, you know. And it is, there is a body mind connection, and especially in those vulnerable times, because for your wife, and I’m gonna project myself a little bit onto her, but, you know, like, As you have, this is what’s so painful about polygamy so often, as you give your body to your family in the most visceral way, right? And the wear and tear on your body and the pregnancy and the, um, insecurity that inevitably shows up because as young girls, we, we are attractive, you know, we Attract a husband. And then, as we’re pregnant with our 6th child, am I still attractive? Is it really, um, challenging thing to navigate? And if you add to that, that, am I still attractive as now my husband is marrying a 19 year old or a 17-year-old or even a 22-year-old, right? Or even just another woman. That already and having just given birth and the vulnerability and the hormonal onslaught, where it’s not only aging, it’s aging and, you know, giving birth to this many children. And it is um so amazing to me that the scriptures until we get 132, the scriptures always the commandment to Cleveton and else is given to men, right? And then when we when we really tap into the vulnerability of women in those in well throughout our lives but in those times and giving. Our, our lives to our husbands and to our family, giving our bodies to them, to then face discard when, um, when we are so powerless and so having to adjust to the new reality of our lives and the new reality of our bodies. It is, it is unbelievably painful. So I don’t, and this is not to embed, you know, this is not To give you a guilt trip at all. Like I’m sure you understand this. You, you know, but, but I love, I actually love that you connect to that and kind of own. I think that’s probably healing to your wife, for you to bear that with her, because it’s excruciatingly painful. I remember one day I was in the temple early in the morning and I had, I had given, I had my 5th. And that was in the temple. And one of the temple workers came up to me and kind of talked to me and then, and then ended up, it ended up that he, it turned out that he had approached me because his son, you know, he was, he was helping date, um, set his son up with potential needs, you know, his son who was home and like, and he, and he had thought, maybe I, and I was like, I think you were sent here just to make me feel good about myself. But here I am, the mother of 5. And you thought I was maybe a potential date for your single son, you know. So it was, it was obviously younger. So I mean, I, we are really vulnerable. We need, I, I think, I don’t want to speak for all women, but for myself, as we go through this process, we need to be, um, confirmed in the fact that we are still lovable, that we are still attractive, that we are still worthy of love, and polygamy does the exact opposite.

[44:40] Steve Baer: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, um, my wife and I were both in our 40s, you know, she’s going through perimenopause and, um, and yeah, I mean, paramenopause changes uh a marriage quite a bit, and the, the change in hormones and all those things. Um, I just can’t imagine what it would be like to for for one of these polygamist wives to feel completely discarded during that time. It’s like, OK, I’ve been used up.

[45:09] Michelle: I have no more value. I have no more value is what I mean, unbelievably painful. And that’s the problem too is that women don’t necessarily learn that until it’s too late. You know, when you’re the 17 year old that’s desirable, you’re not thinking about what will my life be when I’m 48, right? That, that, that isn’t and you might just, you might see the women that you’re, that you are discarding and think, oh, well, my husband loves me more than them without being able to, you know, like it’s just, it’s just a really diabolical system. So, OK.

[45:38] Steve Baer: So as we keep um Keep going with this story. I mean, I just want to cue the apologist who’s like, Well, you just, what you did just wasn’t authorized.

[45:49] Michelle: Oh please, please. The women’s hearts are not, this is what makes me so angry is this idea. I, when I had a conversation with a polygamist man on the podcast and I asked him about Jacob 231 through 35, and he did not know what those scriptures said. He had, he could quote 30 verbatim. But he’d never even connected it to 31 through 35. The idea that, um, Brigham Young’s wives were fine. Their hearts weren’t pierced with deep wounds, or the idea that God is like, oh no, it’s OK with me that their hearts are pierced with deep wounds, because I’m authorizing it. It is like, like, just, I, I just, I’m at this point where I’m like, No. Let’s get that out of here. But like, we are not going to allow ourselves to be that stupid and that heartless. That’s just, that is why it’s an abomination, because we keep explaining it away with these abominable explanations. I’m sorry, I get intense, but, ah, it makes me angry when we have to keep dealing with these arguments, uh, that are so destructive and damaging.

[46:51] Steve Baer: Yeah, um, so I mean, just to continue this, this, this story, I mean, um, Uh, one of the, when, when we, when, when we moved to Utah, um, we actually went on a, on a church history trip. Um, uh, it was kind of part of the things that we were doing at the time. And, um, and so we stopped at all these, these church history sites, but there was this moment where we’re driving through the plains of Kansas or Nebraska, and, um, my kids were, we were listening to a mix of music, and there’s a song called Demons. Uh, by Imagine Dragons, and that song came on and, uh, as I’m listening to it, the, uh, it’s where my demons hide, it’s where my demons hide. So just listen to the song. And I was like, oh my gosh, I, I that, you know, Christians, we don’t talk, we don’t use this word in in Latter-day Saint is, um, but the idea of being convicted of your sins, and Christians use that word a lot. Um, and, but in that moment I felt fully convicted of what I had done. Um, but, On top of, uh, on top of that moment, we, we visited all these church history sites. We went to the sacred grove and then we went, uh, we were in Carthage and, um, and then I got to play the Spirit of God on the piano in the Kirtland Temple, um, for, you know, we were doing a tour and this tour guide was like, hey, who can play the piano and who can play the Spirit of God? Well I can play the piano. So I’m playing the Spirit of God in the upper room of the Kirtland Temple. And I’m just like, oh, the gospel is so true. I mean they, they, I, I told people that of all the places I’ve been, Carthage and um and the sacred grove were just so unbelievably special to me. I know that these, these, this is like legitimate things happened. Um, but anyway, I, I wasn’t planning on talking about that, but I, you know, we get home from this, this trip and then the next 7 years unfold, and I felt cursed. I literally felt like I had cursed my family. Um, there were, there were moments where the Lord blessed us beyond belief, um, just during this time. And so I felt sinful. I felt like I was still struggling, but the, the blessings were still there. Um, but I, I also still felt afflicted with the periodic immoral thought, you know, just things coming into my mind and then and then lingering longer than they ought to and It’s like, oh my gosh, this is so frustrating and, you know, I did a little bit of some therapy on that, but, you know, uh I, I have this, this, this uh book the the Dark side of the Light Chasers about how um I, I Did these exercises to say, OK, well, how has this dark side of me blessed my life in some way? You know, um, there’s this concept called find the pony, where it’s like, OK, you know, this awful thing happened or or the the story goes that, you know, grandfather brings his grandson into a barn and all and the the the the pony is not there, but a bunch of poop is. And the kid gets all excited because he sees the poop. And so he’s like, well, I see the poop, there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere. And so it’s the same concept with this dark side of of who we are, like in, in like, well, what’s what’s, you know, what’s the, the light side of it? And those things I helped and they helped my wife, um. But there was just still, um, there was just still things that were, I, I still felt afflicted. Um, and then, now, I mean, we’re, we’re like 2021. I’m on a second road trip, and I’m back in Navvo in Carthage. And um Go inside, do the whole tour thing, and come out, and I go up to these statues, and I ask one of the people that is with me to take a picture of me standing next to Joseph and Hiram. And I, you know, my hand, you can see in the picture is holding on to the Book of Mormon, that’s being, that’s in the hand of Joseph. And I just wanted to exclaim the phrase, I stand with Joseph and Hiram. And it was interesting that this, this experience came as like a second witness of the first time I had been to Carthage, where I had just felt so much truth and light and joy there. And then I just, you know, I mean, you know, and of course, the, the, the skeptics will be like, oh, well, you just got emotionally, you know, hyped up by whatever the presentation was at the, at the jail. OK, fine. Yeah, sure, you can think that. But two times in this, in this space. Um, where it’s just been a, a dramatic, beautiful spiritual experience. But then that kicks off the next, the next phase. Which is um watching a YouTube video with Whitney Horning. And and being shared by somebody that I know, um, that I’ve known for many years, saying Joseph Smith wasn’t a polygamist. And I’m like, huh? OK, and I start diving into this, and I’m and I’m listening to this interview, and I’m like, OK, so I’m gonna I’m I’m gonna go by Joseph Smith revealed and The backstory to to to this moment is that I had gone to some random like, um, you know, faith crisis meeting um that people were having here in Utah a few years before. And at that meeting, I, I met Brian Hailes, um, you know, just hi, hello, and then he was giving out free copies of, of his book. Um, and he handed it to me, and I took it, and I was actually thinking like, oh, I, I think I wanna really dive back into this topic again. I want to understand why, you know, I just want to understand why. Um, and I felt so repulsed by it. I’m like looking at it and like. Nope, I cannot. And I shoved it up into a dark corner of my closet. So I can’t, I can’t do this right now, shove that away. So then I’m reading Joseph Smith revealed, and I’m like, oh my gosh, could this be that he’s not guilty. And um in in this quote, in this book, um, Whitney has this little quote that she talks about adulterating. Oh Um, and my wife and I have used essential oils for years and years, and we love them, um, and, uh, And so there was this, so the, the definition in the 1828 dictionary to adulterate, to render something poor in quality by adding another substance, typically an inferior one. So anybody who has kind of done some, some study on essential oils, knows that, you know, to adulterate an essential oil is to fill it with synthetics and fillers and toxins and then say, hey, this is a real essential oil, um, even though it has all this other stuff in it. Mhm. And um And so how do you, how do you adulterate a marriage? You fill it with porn, with fantasies, with other people, swinging, affairs, polygamy. And so I screamed, I I was reading it on a Kindle and I screenshotted that, and I sent it to Jenny. And I said, I don’t think polygamy is a true principle. Because You know, of that adulteration concept. So then I’m, I’m, I finished the book and I bring Brian’s book down from my closet and I’m holding. Whitney’s book and and I’m literally praying and I’m saying, OK, Lord, with which of all the narratives am I to believe?

[54:48] Michelle: I love this story.

[54:49] Steve Baer: OK. I believe Whitney. It was like, You know, Totally filled my heart and my, my soul with light and hope. And then Lord. I am sorry I ever believed polygamy was a true principle. And now I understand. The the teachings within the Book of Mormon about a mighty change of heart and a remission of sins, and even a baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. You know, so Mosiah 5:2, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us, and we know of their surety and truth because of the spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us or in our hearts that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. Or Alma 5:26, I say unto you, my brother, if you experienced a mighty change of heart, if you felt to sing that this is the song of redeeming love, can you feel so now? And then, uh, Mosiah 27, he said, I have repented of my sins and have been redeemed of the Lord. I am born of the spirit. And the Lord said unto me, marvel not that all mankind, yeah, men and women, all nations, kindred tongues, and people must be born again. Born of God changed from their carnal and fallen state to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God becoming his sons and daughters. And so what’s fascinating about the mighty change of heart. Or about like retain, how do you retain a remission of your sins? It’s taught in Mosiah 4. There’s two key things. One is to be humble, and the second is to impart of your substance to the poor. And fascinating that that juxtaposes Jacob 2. Yes,

[56:49] Michelle: that’s right,

[56:51] Steve Baer: leading to seeking riches, leading to the abominations.

[56:55] Michelle: Wow, I love that.

[56:57] Steve Baer: So, um, So, there is so much pride in the principle of polygamy. Immense pride. Pride from the first wife, pride from the husband, pride from the children of the first wife. I mean, my, my wife has an ancestor who was a polygamist, and I was reading through his journal that had been published and And um and there was this story about how the polygamist ancestor had gone to Salt Lake and had come home with a second wife. Um, from Mexico, I believe, or from Arizona. And the second wife reporting that she When her husband left, she’s like, I know, I, he’s gonna come home with a second wife. Um, and then, and then the family stories is that the second wife was the more beloved. Um, but all of the ancestors of the first wife are the ones were the first wife ancestors. Wow, pride. All right, so.

[58:01] Michelle: Well, and I also have to another place that that pride shows up, we want to go back to that last slide. Also, when, when engaging with polygamists, it’s the mindset itself is so prideful because what you often will hear are statements like, um, well, you don’t need to worry about it. It’s only for the very most righteous. This idea that we are the, like, as polygamists, we are the most righteous. We are the most chosen. We are the elite of God. If that is so, you know, and then the men saying, Well, well, I am, I am such a good man. Of course, I should have this many wives, because there are lesser men that shouldn’t have a wife, right? I mean,

[58:38] Steve Baer: all these, all these wonderful women who have not had the chance to be married and they need to be taken care of.

[58:44] Michelle: Me, I need to be the one to do it. It’s, it is so sickeningly prideful. It’s, it’s the ultimate, the emperor has no clothes. Right? They don’t need to know what the scriptures say, and they don’t need to argue with what the scriptures say, because only a Korra whore would point out what the scriptures say that it’s not true because they are the righteous ones. It is, it is an impenetrable pride for many of them. And I really do think it is, I, I love your story. And I find, I, I’m glad you’re sharing it. I think you know this, that there is some universality to it. Like many, many people. My husband had the same experience of. of repenting forever having believed in polygamy and having that just opened the heavens in remarkably profound ways, right? I think that there are deep truths here like the Lord knows what he’s doing. And the fact that the Book of Mormon preaches so much against polygamy, and yet here we are keeping a hold of it and, and then, you know, thinking that, oh, just going through a little path is, is all we need to do, right? We like not. Not being aware that there is more connection to God, that the temple is trying to teach us to seek. It’s, it’s, it’s all there for us, but it is so adulterated, it can be challenging to find. I also just have to say, I’m so thankful that you told this story. I just, Whitney, thank you for writing your book and thank you for everything you did. Don’t we all feel that way, right? Like she, I just, I adore Whitney and I love hearing how she impacted your life. That is a beautiful story.

[1:00:07] Steve Baer: Yeah, and um, Uh, you know, we can, we can talk more in maybe in a second conversation about, cause you, you know, you have the great experience and then you have to deal with the implications of it all. Um, but, you know, Whitney was so supportive. I’m like I was like I message her on Facebook, like, I read your book, but, but if this, then what? And all this and, you know, and she’s just like, you know, these are things that you’re just gonna have to grapple with and and um yeah, it’s troubling, but, you know, the Lord gives answers and, you know, she’s just very uplifting and not didn’t want to destroy my faith. But what she, what she helped elicit was a, was repentance on my part and that restored my, my faith. It allowed me to now feel like I was entering into the, into the Lord’s presence again. And so I, I mean, I, I, I have this prayer and I, I repent of of ever believing in it and I’m just like, and I felt changed. I felt I um. Maybe it was a baptism of fire in the Holy Ghost, but I felt redeemed, and I’ve never felt like this in my life. Like I felt the truthfulness of things, but I never felt like, you’re clean, you’re free.

[1:01:19] Michelle: Your blood being changed literally like it is a Yeah, it is spiritual, but it is a physical, there is a physical change to us.

[1:01:28] Steve Baer: Yes. Yeah,

[1:01:30] Michelle: I love that.

[1:01:31] Steve Baer: So, um, you know, like Joseph walking out of the grove, I mean, I found this connection, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m kind of going up to my wife and I’m hugging her and she’s like, what? And my wife inquired what the matter was. I replied, never mind, all is well. I am well enough off. I then said to my wife, I have learned for myself that polygamy is not true.

[1:01:54] Michelle: Oh wow, OK, love it.

[1:01:58] Steve Baer: So, How do I know it’s not true? I mean, like we go through, like, now, now I’m gonna, now, now I’m gonna take this beautiful experience. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take the lens of the scriptures and put it over the top of it and say, OK, right, is, is your experience true, Steve? You know, you felt something, that’s awesome. Is your experience true? OK, well, it passes the Matthew 7 test by their fruits, you shall know them. This is, this born good fruit, um. You know, it’s, it’s caused me to want to be closer to my savior, and then also closer to and more, more faithful, um, more loving to my wife. It passes the Moon 7 test. It invites to do good. And, and when, and when Veroni 7 talks about doing good, um, you might as well insert the word godly. Like good not is not a word that isn’t that is the middle spectrum between awful and amazing, you know, it’s not, it doesn’t mean average. In the scriptures, good means godly. So it invites you to be godly. It persuades you to believe in Christ and not deny him. It passes the AMA 32 test. It enlarged my soul, it enlightened my mind. It began to be delicious to me. Um, it was light, it was discernible. Like it was easy for me to understand what was happening. It passes the Doctrine Covenants 8 test, I will tell you in your heart and in your mind. It passes the Moroni 10. Like having a since your heart, real intent and faith in Christ, and you can know the truth of all things. I mean, I, I, I love the historians who are doing the work to say, I want, I need to prove it. I need to, there needs to be historical proof, logical proof, but our scriptures and our missionaries encourage people to pray that, to know the truth of all things. So if you’re praying to know the truth of this concept, And it is a true spirit who is communicating to you, and it’s not a demon like I had. Then you will feel light, you will feel enlarged, you will feel your soul expand.

[1:04:07] Michelle: And I, I, uh, an important clarification there because there are these deceptive spirits that make people feel the truth of polygamy in this so expansive way. The difference is the pride. That false spirit elevates you, gives you delusions of grandeur, makes it feel, you feel like it’s about you. It’s, it’s, um, self-aggrandizing where this experience is debating, it’s humbling. It brings you it’s not even. And that it’s, it’s, it’s like so expansive in a uniting way. You have a love for all of your fellow men and for God, where you recognize your nothingness combined with the, the, the, the importance of you, right? Like it is, it is a completely different thing than being like, like anything that makes you feel, 00, I’m gonna feel special. I’m gonna feel important. Be beware that that is likely to be a false spirit, right?

[1:05:02] Steve Baer: That is, that is one of the best articulations of how to know a false spirit from a from a true one. I love that so much. So, um, Now what? And like, like a new investigator who had just had this spiritual witness confirming the truth of the gospel, I now wanted to understand all the the aspects of this topic. And this is again where pride actually sent me back a second time. Um, and I see this, this pride show up within people who are sympathetic to this idea that monogamy affirmers, we become a little bit proud of the oh we know the truth, and we’re not deceived and we didn’t get, you know, we didn’t get the job and um and, you know, and anyway.

[1:05:54] Michelle: Well, you know, I think the adversary is so brilliant and so clever. And, you know, it’s to put it in those terms, it doesn’t like, it just comes in everywhere where we are. It’s, it’s easy to think, 00, I have that growth. I leveled up. Now I’m different than everybody else. And I’m, and superior without recognizing, oh my gosh, in many ways, we’re more vulnerable, right? And I think we, I think that we all go through all of these phases, but we have to keep Like re-seeking the humility, you know, like, like doing the work of seeing the value of like because I’ve gone through this, I think we all do, right? Of, of, and anyway, I’ll let you continue, but yes, we are not done because we gained new, um, a new way of thinking. We gained new insight. It’s so easy to bring all of our old ways of being to our new insight and just put the pride there, right? It’s very easy to do that.

[1:06:43] Steve Baer: And I mean, so what what I ended up doing. As I started to pretty much listen to any podcast that talked about this concept in a faithful way, um, I, you know, because I’d already gone down the path of, of looking at, you know, Yeah, yeah, polygamy is wrong, and Joseph was, was guilty of it. I already, I already researched them many years before. Um Uh, you know, I came across your, your podcast around episodes 40 to 50 or so. Um, and so for all those, I, I actually wanted to, to share this story in part to let people know, hey, like Michelle had nothing to do with this. This is, this is my own, my own jour journey, uh, with the Lord, uh, after having a little bit of it, some information from Whitney, but I also wanted to connect with like-minded people, um, but I found a lot of competing ideas on social media. So, um, I I never felt any desire to look into, um, Phil Davis or the, and I joined that Doctrine of Christ Facebook group for a couple months and I was like, yeah, this isn’t, this isn’t right for me. Um, I’ve enjoyed Hemlock nuts for a long time, but I had to hide and block these some of these hypercritical people who really latch on to this concept that that it’s not true and you gotta pretty much throw out everything post Joseph Smith. Um, and so I ultimately left that group. Um, I’ve never felt any desire to affiliate with the groups led by Denver, um, and, you know, and I’ve unfriended or blocked a lot of people, um, or yeah, unfollowed really but I’ve done, people who are just hypercritical of the church because of this topic, um. Because those things were just afflicting me with, with the pride coming back in and saying, oh well, I’m, I must be right because I have the interpret the correct interpretation of of these events. Um, and I think this is where we get into this, this problem as a church. Where we have, I mean, Bruce Armicony essentially canonized this into the the scriptures when he wrote the introduction to the Book of Mormon. Which is, well, if the Book of Mormon is true, then you know that Joseph Smith is a is a prophet, and you know that Jesus is the Christ and that the church is true, and then that the successor today is also a true prophet and then everything the church has ever done is sparkly clean and flawless, like domino, domino, domino. But then, um, if you could bring up the next, oh yeah, but then. We have the same problem, and, and some of your critics will argue that you’re tipping over dominoes in a different way. Well, if polygamy is not a God, then anyone who taught it was not a prophet, which means there’s a problem with authority and keys, which means the church can’t be true or went off the rails after Joseph, which means I need to abandon it or anything that doesn’t square with this newfound belief. And I am just here to say that that line of thinking. That line of thinking got me into another dark place. Like the redemptive experience that I had, um, I, I almost was like, well, let’s put that on the shelf, while I now use my brain to understand this and gather information from all these people and also ignore in large degree what the Lord wants me to do with it. It’s like, OK, Lord, I know polygamy is not true. Therefore, I’m gonna, I’m gonna hyperfocus on this topic and go off on my own direction, trying to understand it. It’s fascinating what we do with some of our spiritual experiences and um and and we don’t, we don’t remember that the first principle of the gospel is in fact not faith, to disagree with Joseph. The first principle of the gospel is actually humility. When you read Alma 32 and he talks about faith, there are two components of faith. One that you’re humble. And 2, that you have a desire to believe, and then you start to have faith. So I, I have now, I’m now teaching my kids that despite all of the, the things that we, we know about, you know, building Zion or being this wonderful church, sorry, the first principle of the gospel is humility.

[1:11:12] Michelle: Hmm, that’s great.

[1:11:14] Steve Baer: And if we are not being humble, and other people would say, hey, broken heart contract spirit, right? But if we’re not humble about this, then we’re gonna, we’re gonna fall prey to the ultimate. Master of pride, who is who is the deceiver.

[1:11:32] Michelle: Yeah, it’ll take us into other directions that we then have to recover from, right? It’s a continual repentance process. I do have to, I do have to, again, kind of go back to that first slide about. Being um well I guess I, I always, I always have to grieve for people who have not benefited from the kind of leadership that I have who are humble um leaders, right? There are many people who have been. Unwittingly kicked out of the church because there has, there has not been believed to be room. And I, and I, um, so I want to hold space for everybody going, um, everybody doing their best to follow God in the direction that they are called to go. And I think that many humble people can be called in different directions, right? I don’t want to say my answers must be everybody’s answers. I, I, I just I appreciate it when people who do go different directions don’t say my answers don’t say that their answers have to be everybody’s answers, right? I think that’s what we’re talking about is just allowing people to do their best to to to follow where God would lead them in their path without throwing darts and arrows at one another and then also just I, I have met a lot of people in. Various different um up to my microphone various different I I don’t even know what to call them. I don’t think that they’re really groups I don’t think they’re religions just whatever what communities I guess I could say who didn’t desire to to leave the church, right? And so and I don’t think that whether we stay or leave the church is is the measure either. I, I. I’ve said this so many times, you know, I do want people to stay in the church because I think it benefits the church and I think it benefits the people I think it’s beneficial for our families for our communities, you know, I think the church while it can be such a challenge is so wonderful in so many ways and so so that is my inclination and my desire but I never wanna put that on other people and then while I say. That I also have to acknowledge sort of the survival guilt, survivor guilt of knowing how many people have wanted to stay and, and, uh, have not been given that opportunity. And I grieve over that. I hope we can do much, much better going forward.

[1:13:48] Steve Baer: No, I’m, I’m glad you brought that up. One of, one of my associates who, you know, believes similarly, he was telling me, he’s like, yeah, they, my, my state president brought me in and excommunicated me. And if it was up to me, I’d still be a member of the church. Um, and You know, so I get it, um, and I also want to agree with you and give space to, you know, some people might be called to rock the boat. And sometimes in rocking the boat that, you know, the, the collateral damage might be their membership. And so, um, I, I wanna to give space to one person in particular who I won’t, I won’t name my name. But, you know, this person is, is rocks the boat in many, many ways in, in a topic similar, you know, loosely affiliated with this. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I think this person feels like they’re doing the right thing. And, um, you know what, maybe the Lord is inspiring that person to do those things. So.

[1:14:46] Michelle: We’re all just doing our best, yeah. So, OK.

[1:14:49] Steve Baer: Um, and yeah, sorry to be all vague right there,

[1:14:51] Michelle: but no, that’s OK.

[1:14:53] Steve Baer: But ultimately this is what it comes down to for me, which is truly the ALMA 32 test, which is to plant the seed. I, I planted the seed that polygamy is not of God. Um, I didn’t know what to do with it, other than to repent and to be humble and come under Christ. And what has, what has grown is a tree of life, a, a desire for me to love the Lord more, to be more faithful to him, to be more a better father, better um better husband. Um, it has brought forth all of the good fruits, um, that Alma talks about in his discourse about faith. I also planted the seed of the implications. The implications of I’ve been deceived or this is somehow wrong, uh, incorrect, that our leaders are are X, Y, and Z. I planted that seed and it didn’t grow. It didn’t enlarge my mind. It didn’t expand my soul. It didn’t enlighten my mind. It didn’t enlarge my my heart. Um, it wasn’t light, it wasn’t discernible. It was actually a lot of darkness. And I would try to like, OK, well, how can I figure out what’s actually happening? And, and it was the message over and over again, like, you’re not going to figure it out. I know, I don’t need to reveal that part to you. I gave you a remission of your sins. Be humble. So. Um, I, you know, I live in an and universe. And so, as I kind of wrap up this, this, uh, discussion, you know, my and universe is that Jesus Christ is, is the Son of God and the savior of the world, and that the mighty change of heart and the remission of sins is a beautiful, redemptive gift through that infinite atonement. Um, as a side note, I think within the church, sometimes we think about the atonement as this, you know, the enabling power of the atonement to support us through our trials and our difficult things. Um, but when you experience the atonement as a redemptive, you are clean. You are changed. Because of Christ, um, it, it, it’s, it’s different. Um, and now I’m like, OK, I can do both things. I can be strengthened through the enabling power of the atonement, and I can continue to be clean. And when you’ve had a remission of sins, and, and the invitation to retain it is to be humble and to impart of your substance, then I’m like, OK, all right, I know what I need to do to stay holy. Um. And you feel free to jump in at any time if you want to,

[1:17:31] Michelle: well, I’m, I’m loving what you’re saying because I know there is some debate going around, you know, about how we need to engage with the church, right? I know that some of the people that are coming after my membership and just being in my opinion, awful, you know, um, from my perspective, they, they feel like, um, they want to say this is what church membership must look like and there’s no. Individual, um, experience in it. I, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s kind of like, you have to believe everything we have, we say you have to believe in the way we say you have to believe it. And that’s not even well defined because it’s like, well, at what time period? Right? Like the church has changed on many things and we keep, like, like, like, and let’s talk about these things that like everybody, if we actually have the conversations would recognize nuance is required, right? Like nuance is required. Either you believe Brigham Young was right on everything he taught, and the church is wrong now, or you believe the church is right now, and Brigham Young was wrong on some of the things he taught, or you’re just ignorant of the things that Brigham Young taught. You know, there are, there are many different, and, and that’s, it’s not just Brigham Young, it’s, it’s throughout time. And so that’s one of the things that I think is really helpful is to recognize what I felt like the Lord empowered me to understand is that, um. The church was a blessing to me, not a straitjacket to me. Right? Being able to, and not that I, not just, just being able to find God in the church and, and partake of that portion of the church, while being able to let the rest of it kind of water off a deck’s back. I mean, there are times that it really hits deep when I hear falsehoods or when I experience, um, Um, unrighteous dominion or different, you know, like, like, but in general, the Lord can give, at least for me, I’ve been sometimes just given this blessing of like, oh, don’t listen to that right now, or, oh, it’s OK, just water out of the deck’s back or give yourself permission to not listen to things, to not partake of everything in the church if it doesn’t serve us well. So being able to, I, I’m guess I’m being careful with my language because I know people will jump on it. But really, being able to stay in the church on our own. Terms. And that doesn’t mean on our own terms with God. Like, my whole life is submission to God. It’s what does God want me to do? What does God want me to hear? But knowing that with my own terms with the church, right? Like, if I could go back and talk to myself as a young mom with 6 kids, pregnant and having miscarriages, you know, and I would say, it’s OK to not say yes to all 4 of those huge callings that are hurting your health, making you not able to, you know what I mean? It’s OK. To not accept a calling to or it’s OK to not go to that meeting or that activity or it’s OK to not agree with what is being said right there and and to not have to feel this existential threat of like oh no what’s wrong or I have to fight back, right? Because it feels, you know, to just kind of be able to go oh I disagree.

[1:20:31] Steve Baer: Well, I, I’m just, just to add something, I, I think an exercise that might be helpful, and I mean it, it, it could go against some instruction that’s been received, but um, I don’t say amen to every prayer that is said at church, and I don’t say I don’t say amen to every talk that is given. I say amen when I’m like, yes, that is something that I fully endorse, 1000%. I’m gonna, and I’ll and I’ll give a loud amen. You know, had this young kid in our ward get up and talk about how, you know, he’s kind of struggling, and doesn’t really know what his testimony is, but he’s just gonna keep on trying and just keep on moving forward. And when he said, amen, I was like, amen. Yeah, way to go to just stand in front of an audience of 250 people and say, Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m a teen and I’m, I’m having a hard time, but I’m still. Yeah, more of that.

[1:21:25] Michelle: And that’s what’s so important is recognizing the value of the church. Like that’s, I guess one of the things I had wanted to say is like when when we’re in this pride place, one of the Lord, one of the ways the Lord has helped me in the past when, you know, there are personalities that are really hard for us in our. words in our families, right? And having the Lord just give me new eyes to see that person in a new light and to see what value they bring and what they do offer that maybe I hadn’t been aware of or hadn’t been paying attention to or hadn’t prioritized. It wasn’t in my perception, right? And, and I think that that’s something that is so I think that is is an instantiation of charity that is one form of charity to have the Lord show us something we hadn’t uh uh that person in a way we hadn’t perceived before. And so I think that we are seeking charity for people, but that’s why I’ve also started to say I have charity for the church, being able to see the church in a new light, to see the value it brings to See what it does for people who maybe aren’t like us, right? And also what it does for us. I, I think that this is part of the path is having the humility and charity to not be so hypercritical of the church. It’s so easy to be critical. What? What is it, Pollyanna? If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it, right? That is certainly true of the church. And I do, that’s not to say, I mean, obviously, I do. I think we, um, if we are called to, if we feel inspired to, we should speak about things. I don’t think in a way that I, I’m not one to go to sacrament meeting and say, this is wrong and this is wrong. I, I don’t think that’s helpful. But it’s not a way of ignoring problems, but it’s a way for valuing the, the good that is there so that we’re not cutting off the branch that we’re sitting on without recognizing what we’re doing. Yeah. I don’t think the church, I don’t think the world is a better place without the church in it, as I guess what I’m saying. Right.

[1:23:16] Steve Baer: And I was talking to a friend, uh, about this recently, you know, not about this topic in general, but, you know, he’s like with, he’s like, I wouldn’t be 1/10 of the person that I am without the church. And I, and, and just going to the very beginning of, of this conversation, all of those sacred experiences that I had as a child that got me through the very difficult death of my father. I mean, that I had the right community around me. I had the right beliefs around me. I had the right kind of faith to get through it. And that doesn’t mean that my faith has to stay at that same spot my entire life, and I have to live as a perpetual 12 year old in, in, you know, overcoming his obstacle of, of parental death. But I can still look back on all of these wonderful fruits that have come in my life. I mean, I would, my, my, my children, my wife, all of this, being able to go to BYU, being able to serve a mission. It it all is a derivative of being a part of this wonderful, wonderful organization, um, and this wonderful movement. Um, and what’s, what’s interesting for all of us is we are always gonna be entering into times where the movement is changing and things are shifting and, and we get to shift with it, but what’s the best antidote to deception throughout all of this is its humility. It’s to say, Lord, I’m gonna do what you want me to do. And um and so if I, if I skip ahead on to, uh, well, yeah, let me skip ahead. To this spot here. Like, let’s not knock people off of their perch, um. You know, I think I have, I have recognized that despite checking a lot of boxes and doing a lot of good things within the church, I still needed redemption. I needed the Lord to save me, to rescue me. And, um, and I, and in the process of doing that, I realized, oh, wow, there’s, there’s a long way to go before I can feel like I am a celestial individual, that I am part of the church of the first born. There is, there is way more that can be done to feel like, OK, I’ve made it. And so that’s,

[1:25:33] Michelle: we don’t make it, right? It’s always a like it’s not even a perch, it’s a, what is it? They always say it’s a spectrum, right? We’re all on the spectrum going up and down, back and forth learning. Yeah, and

[1:25:43] Steve Baer: we have these celestial moments and these, these, these times when we are fully aligned with God’s will, and then we’re like, and we go back the other way and we’re doing our own thing and stuck in our own stuff. But the main thing of point of this slide is just to like, let’s not knock people off of their perch and push them down. To a place of disbelief. A lack of faith, rejecting all of it, rejecting the Lord. Because we have this passion project that is to talk about church history and, and to, to know about some of the troubling elements and some of the other things, you know, and some of this stuff that’s not fully fleshed out because there’s not a a official consensus about what happened, or the consensus is being challenged. Um, so I’m, I’m, I’m of the of the place, like if you are struggling with your, your feelings towards the church as a, as an institution. Then put all of your focus into your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, within the confines of the gospel as you understand it. Be humble, be repentant, have faith, have hope for great and marvelous like the, the, the Book of Mormon lays out all of these wonderful things that we can hope for, all these miracles that we can hope for. And um and the, the phrase that is used a lot in the Book of Mormon is great and marvelous things. So when we have hope for these great and marvelous things, you know, that causes us to feel more charity, and I think I look at charity as the two great commandments, loving the Lord. And loving our fellow man. And then when we really love the Lord, and he says, this is what I want you to do. Then he gives us the power to do it. And uh uh I mean, just one example of, of that, which is kind of off topic, but since you’ve talked about this before on your, on your podcast, um, when, so I, I’m not, I’m not discussing too much about my struggle with the implications, and we can, we can talk about that another day if you want. But um When I was in that space of struggling, I was like, OK, Lord, I need, I need blessings in my life, so what can I do to feel blessings from you? Like, how can I, um, how can I Make my life better by doing something that you want me to do. And the specific direction that he gave me was, how about giving up sugar? And I said OK. And I thought about it for like 2 or 3 days, and then, OK, I’m gonna give up sugar. And there’s this, there’s this verse in Mosiah chapter 2, and I think it’s verse 22 or 24. Um, where King Benjamin says all he asks is that you keep his commandments, which, and if you do, he doth immediately bless you. And so one of my philosophies, uh, is that when you think about the phrase, keep the commandments, you insert a word there, which is keep the personal commandments. Oh yeah. Individual commandments. What does the Lord want you to do? And when you keep those, he will immediately bless you. But if you think that the commandments is, I gotta do all these expectations, or all these things that are part of the culture of, of being a member of the church, um, that’s when there’s a little bit less. I think a little bit less power. Yeah.

[1:29:13] Michelle: Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve said. I’ve said this about the temple, but I’ll also say it about the church is I am never opposing the temple or opposing the church. I get so frustrated when people, um, like, uh, anyway, there’s, there’s just more stuff happening all the time, these, these false, um, versions of me that go around everywhere that they, you know, try to, people try to use. But my, my Stance is I, I advocate for allowing the Lord to mediate our relationship with the temple rather than thinking our the temple mediates our relationship with the Lord. And I’ll say the same thing about the church. I guess that’s what I’m saying, allowing the Lord to mediate our relationship with the church rather than thinking the church mediates our relationship with the Lord because what we do in. I think in Mormonism in particular maybe is work, work, work, serve, serve, serve, do, do, do, do, do, thinking someday I’ll feel worthy enough. Someday I’ll feel like I’ve done enough, right? And, and that’s a, that’s a, um, really just destructive path. I love our, our culture of service and not, I mean, I, I am one who loves to serve and loves to, to do things. that, you know, but what I am not in love with is feeling obligated to or feeling like I have to in order to be righteous. This is my, I’m gonna work my way to heaven, right? That that is destructive to us. And so that’s, I love what you’re saying. And it’s the same thing I’m saying too, is like, Lord, what would you have me do? What would you have me do with this opportunity or this assignment? And often, We can do so many things above and beyond what we’re assigned to do when we do it that way, right? Or just like, like when, this is my experience. I know I’ve spoken to this before, so forgive me if, if people have heard it. But when the Lord gives me an assignment, I’m, it still might be really hard, but I’m empowered and I’m fulfilled, and I go to bed that night just like, oh, that was a good day, and, you know. Whereas when I am piling the assignments on top of myself. Because of the expectations that I feel like are surrounding me or the expectations that others put on me that I’m trying to, you know, then I am depleted and I cry myself to sleep at night and feel like I’m never gonna be able to get it all done. I’m never gonna be good enough. I’m always gonna fail, right? And or even if I did accomplish everything, I might feel exhausted and somewhat resentful, and I can’t face doing it again tomorrow, right? These are the, the, this is like, I will. And, and maybe this is, maybe this is also a dangerous admission. I’m just, we’re just both being vulnerableable here, right? But after so many years of truly on Saturday night, just crying at the thought of what I had to do the next morning, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s hard to communicate the exhaustion of multiple pregnancies. And just, just the horror of like something about Sunday morning brings out my full awareness of all of my weaknesses. Like, Uh, you know, so and so can’t find his shoes, and we just found his shoes, and now he can’t find them again. Or, you know, like looking for shoes, looking for socks, looking for the missing tie, or the, you know, just having to get my kids to church on Sunday. Is so and so’s talk ready? Is my lesson ready? Is it was, it was overwhelming and so difficult. And that was Just one part of it, that’s not getting my kids ready for Trek and girls camp, and get and and making sure everyone’s at all of their things, you know? So, so I still to this day, I will pray if I have a Saturday night like that or if on Sunday morning, I’m really, um, not feeling great, I will pray and be like, Lord, do you want me to go to church today? Is that in my highest good? And I would say 99 out of 100 times I have the answer yes, but it changes how I go about it, right? Rather than feeling like, and, and if I could have gone back and helped my younger self, you know, I was doing it alone. I didn’t, I like Like I was the one getting the kids. It wasn’t a, it wasn’t a two-man job. My husband wasn’t in there in the trenches with me on Sunday mornings. And so I guess, I guess that’s what it is is it’s like, God, what do you want me to do rather God does not want us to be miserable, right? And I’m not saying that I should have not gone to church all of those years, not that at all. But maybe if I had had a different expectation of, of myself and been like, Oh, where are your sneakers if you can’t find your shoes, right? I just put less pressure on myself. It might have been really different for me.

[1:33:36] Steve Baer: Yeah, well, uh, I love, I love all those, those thoughts, cause I mean, you’re communicating a slightly different experience um with the church than I’ve ever had. I’ve actually, you know, I’ve never felt burdened, um, on a Sunday morning about the thought of going to church, but, um, I have felt burdened by Watching or agreeing to things that I know I’m like, this just doesn’t seem like that that doesn’t resonate with me as true or that seems like an old cultural tradition, or that’s a generational thing, you know, that’s they’re teaching that because that’s just how they were raised. I mean, and, and I guess as I’ve, uh, if I were, you know, I’m just gonna give this accelerated version of the, of the rest of the story. But after, after discovering what I did and then having this, this mighty change of heart, um, I, uh I, I became consumed a little bit by this topic. I, I just, I really, I really wanted to understand all, all things related to it. Um, and, but it got to the point where it became a distraction to, um, to, to my own personal mission. And, um, and as a result, I felt like the Lord had to humble me again and saying you’re not getting it yet. In this new way, yes, I’ve redeemed you from this sin, but you’re still not fully redeemed, and, and you still have things that you get to work on. And um And so choosing to go on that journey with him and say, OK, what else? So like sugar was was a thing, OK, I’ll give up sugar, and he like totally immediately blessed me. It was amazing, um, but you know, he, he, he humbled me. And sometimes I, I buy into this concept that we live our lives sometimes in a karmic loop, where it’s like, OK, you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and now you’re back down here again, and you’re gonna go and repeat that cycle until you learn the lesson. And I felt like he threw me back into the, to the cycle and say, OK, now you’re gonna learn this new lesson, and you’re gonna feel like your life is repeating itself, because you still haven’t learned the key concept. And I’m still trying to figure out what the key concept is, other than humility. It’s got to do, it’s got to do with humility. It’s got to be willing to say, OK, well, what do you want me to do? But before he threw me back into that loop, I allowed my my temple recommend to get revoked because I told my bishops just exactly how I felt about certain things. And I, I, I didn’t have a temple recommend for about 9 months. Um, and I felt very justified in not having a recommend. And um And I have to be careful about how we tell the story because I don’t have full permission. But, um, let me just put it like this. My parents got involved again. And they communicated a message to somebody that I love. And then that person communicated it to me. And the truthfulness of that message was so deeply embedded into my soul. That I had a second mighty change of heart, and I, and within 48 hours of having that conversation with that person who communicated the message from my angelic parents. I was back talking to the bishop and saying, bishop, I want to get my temple recommend back. And since I’ve had my recommend back, um, And, uh, and again, I have to be super vague, and I’m sorry that I’m being vague, cause there, there’s a lot of power in these stories too. But my first time in the temple, my wife had a, we went on my anniversary, on our anniversary, and my wife had a very beautiful experience that we’ve had to, that we’ve had the chance to digest and dissect, and it’s like, wow, this is really cool. Um, and basically the message that I get from my wife and my kids like, Dad, you have so much more light in you again. So, yes, I don’t think that Joseph was a polygamist. I don’t think that polygamy is true. I think that that, that leaves a lot of questions about early Utah history. It leaves questions about how we teach this principle today and I’m not in church. But the Book of Mormons still is the best manual to come under Christ, because it teaches us how to be humble. And if we use that, I really strongly believe that we can, like you said, Michelle, let the Lord be the mediator between us and our and uh the religion that we are so devoted to in different ways, whether it’s devoted faithfully or devoted angrily. We let the Lord mediate that that relationship and, um, and humbly do what he asks us to do on our own individual journeys.

[1:38:42] Michelle: Uh, I love that so much. That’s OK. I hope that people can, um, have space in their hearts to hear this experience, you know, like, like, I understand that everyone is, we are all on our unique paths, but in many ways, your experience. tells with mine. You know, like I, I have, um, one of my central, like things I’m incredibly aware of is I never want to weaken faith. I never want to destroy faith. And I know that I get accused of that all the time, but it’s by people who don’t watch and don’t engage with what I’m doing, or only hate watch. They only watch it to find things to, to get mad about. But, um, I do, I agree with you so much that I think that, um, Uh, this is one of the things that I want to kind of throw in there as you’re talking about the implications because for me I do delve into the implications. I, you know, I, I, I do, but what I see is that people often say, oh, the church can’t do anything about this or I can’t like, like, like the the this is the foundation of the church. I’m like, no, it absolutely is not. The foundation of the church is so much deeper. And if we have had leaders with wonky ideas, I can say, or really, um, you know, abominable ideas, that has, that has made our history more, um, difficult and more murky and more challenging, but it doesn’t change the foundation. The foundation is absolutely there, right? The foundation of the core principles of the gospel, the, the, um, first principles and ordinances of the gospel are alive and well. The Book of Mormon is alive and well, and it’s still there for us to read it and to see these challenging problems. Wait, what do I do with the Book of Mormon compared to Section 132? Like, like that is there for us to grapple with. It’s not like the church is just one thing, right? The church isn’t only our polygamist history. The church is so much more and so much deeper. And as, as I’ve talked about so many times, we’ve already thrown many, we’ve thrown all the rest of Brigham’s doctrines. On the dung heap, right? We still have some structural things that are maybe challenging for us, but the truth is the foundation of the church, the core of the church is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is, um, the Book of Mormon. And the, like, I mean, are you telling me Mormon history is more difficult than Christian history or the, or Jewish history? Or like, like, is there any value in the Bible? The Bible’s way messier than Mormon. History, right? We have huge problems to grapple with in the Bible. And anyone honest who reads the Bible should be having difficult things to deal with, particularly in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, right? And so this, this, um, struggle to discern wheat from tears, to discern baby from bathwater is part of the gift the Lord has given us in in all days and in all times throughout history, but definitely in our day and age where we have so much access to information. And so the idea that the church can’t exist, giving up polygamy, I think is, I, I just do not agree with that at all. And the fact that our testimonies can’t exist, giving up polygamy. I, like you, have had my testimony strengthened and amplified. I have seen the the Lord use me in ways that feel invigorating and profound to me and I’m very thankful for, right? I think that that is the journey for all of us. And so I do want to say like, I really hope that the church, I hope that our local leaders, while there are other voices going around telling local leaders what they should do, My hope is that our local leaders can see the value that so many members bring to the church that they wouldn’t want to lose us, that they wouldn’t want to kick us out or or want us to leave. I’ve I’ve been trying to get a message to um leaders in the church if it’s possible to say can we please start sharing this message that you’re sharing right now that this is not this is not. Meet, like, like the, this research that’s being done, these scriptural, um, truths that we are finding do not need to threaten your membership and belonging to this church or your testimony in the church, right? They can dovetail beautifully. So I, I went off a little bit on what you’re saying, but I just agree with it so strongly. So anyway, go ahead. I’ll give you the last word. I, I know you wrapped up beautifully, and then I jumped on it.

[1:42:56] Steve Baer: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s fine. I just want to reiterate um that the answer to all of our problems lies in humility and repentance. Um, it, it lies in humility, faith in the Lord, and repentance, and then that leads to wonderful other other fruits. And, um,

[1:43:14] Michelle: and, and I just have to throw in with that. I’m sorry, and truth. Truth is a necessary element with that, but we can approach truth and seek truth with humility and constant ongoing repentance, right? It’s not that truth doesn’t matter, it absolutely does. It’s how we approach it and then And how we wear it. How do we wear the truth that

[1:43:32] Steve Baer: we have found it and how we share it? I mean, you know, the mysteries of God are given unto, unto men, and then we’re supposed to impart of them in ways that he dictates. Like, I’ve, I’ve held this message in for, you know, for, um, I don’t know, 6 to 9 months or so, but it wasn’t until I, until I had my temple recommend renewed. You know, re-established that I felt like the Lord had fully mediated my relationship with the church. And then that’s when I reached out to Michelle and said, I’m ready to share this message. And I have a feeling that if I had tried to force the issue and say, no, I need to get this message out, you know, 4 or 5 months ago, it wouldn’t have this beautiful resolution of You know, of humility will be the answer to this problem. And it’s not humility to the arm of flesh. It’s not humility to other people and their opinions, humility to the Lord. And, um, and yeah, that sometimes means that we disentangle things and, um, you know, there are certain frameworks that I’ve developed about how I, I’ve, I’ve had to wrestle with, with all these concepts, but As far as the, the church is concerned, you know, we have a very strong-minded, um, leadership, and they’ve issued things, statements before that, say, hey, we, you know, we don’t apologize. The church is not gonna apologize. And that’s, that’s one of the people that said that is saying it as a, as a corporate attorney, basically for a large multinational, multi-billion dollar organization. And yeah, in, in the legal world, we never apologize. We never said, I, we never say I’m sorry because that opens us up to receiving lawsuits and all sorts of demands and all sorts of things like that. And so it can look like this very proud statement, and maybe it still is, but we as people, we as members can say, well, I don’t, you know, whether the church ever repents or apologizes for teaching that this was a true principle. I can. Yes, I can’t it. And you know what, if, you know, if 3 million faithful members of the church are like, yeah, sorry, we no longer buy it. We’ve, we’ve repented of this abomination. The 4 generation curse has lifted. You know, I’m, I’m a Gen X millennial right there on the edge. The 4th generation, like, and I, and I actually, when this, this all happened when I was outlining my ancestry, and I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m at, my dad was at generation 3. So of course he didn’t have it lifted. I’m at generation 4 or 5. It’s lifting. The curse is lifting. So. I think, you know, we all can, can be a part of lifting the curse and not waiting for, uh, for the institution to say, hey guys, you got to repent of this. Well, let’s just, let’s, let’s just repent of it. Let’s be humble and allow the fruits of that to make waves across.

[1:46:28] Michelle: That’s, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly what um what I am saying as well. So Steve, thank you so much for bringing this message, for sharing so vulnerably this story and Um, I do hope this is another good one that maybe people can send to their leaders if they feel so inclined to help, help people understand what it is we are doing, what we are trying to accomplish. We are not, we are not enemies of the church. Those of us, I mean, I can’t speak for everybody in any group, right? But those of us who are proclaiming that marriage as God established it is the eternal. Little truth of God, right? And that Joseph Smith, our founding prophet, and Emma Smith had a solid monogamous relationship where they were faithful to one another and faithful to God. I, it is hard for me to see how that message is destructive to our church. I, I really think that what we are trying to do is strengthen faith in God and in the principles of the restoration. So. Thank you, Steve. I, I do hope we will get to talk again.

[1:47:36] Steve Baer: Great, I look forward to it.

[1:47:38] Michelle: Thank you to Steve for taking the time and being willing to do that preparation and to share so vulnerably these, these difficult things that we, that polygamy causes us to have to deal with. I really hope you found this conversation to be as valuable as I did. I’m looking forward to talking to Steve again. I’ll see you next time.