121: Whitney, Jeremy, & Michelle Take On Brian Hales’ “Transparency” – Part One

Please consider supporting this podcast:

Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 100 32 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. I am so excited to introduce this new series of episodes that you will see coming up periodically. I hope I’ll be able to fit a lot in in the upcoming weeks because I think that this is an important topic to begin to tackle what we are specifically tackling is Brian Hale’s narrative about Joseph this polygamy that seems to be the predominant narrative in the church and the church resources. That seems to be what we are sort of required to believe as members of the church that I think should be exposed. So that’s what we are going to be doing and I’m really excited about it. I want to again as always, thank everybody who is coming along with us, who is tuning into these episodes, sharing this podcast. I think it is actually an incredibly important topic. The more I study it, the more important I realize it is I also want to thank those who have donated and I want to request if it is something you could do, please consider donating. So thank you so much for joining us as we take this deep dive into the just filthy dirty waters of this terrible polygamy narrative. I am so excited to be here for this long awaited episode of 100 32 problems. I am here with two guests who for my audience need absolutely no introduction, Whitney Horning and Jeremy Hoop, wealth of knowledge um that I’ve, I’ve heard people say before, it’s the dream team when, when you guys get together, when we, when we I have you two on. So this is really fun and I have to say scheduling three busy people is extremely difficult. So I thrilled that we are finally being able to do our. First of hopefully. Well, I, I want to do this as a continuing series of the topic that we are going to address today. And I’m hoping that Whitney and Jeremy will be able to join in as often as possible. But first of all, Whitney and Jeremy, thank you so much for being here and welcome back to 100 32 problems.

[02:08] Whitney Horning: Good to be here.

[02:11] Michelle: And we have, I I in particular have had a long standing concern that I know Whitney and Jeremy share. And it is that Brian Hales is elevated in the church as sort of the authoritative voice on polygamy on all things, Joseph’s polygamy and just kind of early church polygamy in general. And I find that to be very concerning and very troubling. So we’ve of course, been talking about it quite a bit, Jeremy and Whitney and I, and some others as well. And, and we, I, we’ve just decided we need to just do what we can to show the narrative that is being told and I guess, then show the evidence and why we think other narratives are infinitely better. Um So let me, we’re, we’re getting used to the zoom and with three of us. So it’s, it’s gonna be great. So I went ahead. The, the first episode that we are doing this first episode is responding to the doctrine and covenant central um discussion panel that Brian Hills was on. So I’m going to go ahead and add just a couple of slides to the stage for anyone. Also, I don’t think any of my audience needs introduction into who Brian Hales is. But here is a slide that he included in his slide show that he brought to my channel. He did call himself an alternate voice and he um has his three part series on Joseph Smith’s polygamy. I think he’s written seven books. He’s a retired anesthesiologist, not a trained historian, but he has put an immense amount of time and effort and resources into gathering sources about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. And so this is who he is. And for anyone who doesn’t already know he um is deeply instrumental in setting the church’s narrative. He was very involved in the gospel topics, essays on polygamy, I think in particular the Nuvo polygamy essay. Anyway, he has a ton of influence. And um I think his narrative is remarkably destructive to faith and that’s why I think we’re going to be discussing it. So we’ll have more to say about that. But let me just introduce the um the source that we are using for our conversation today. This is Doctrine and Covenant Central, which is also an interesting story behind them. They um I I most of the people working there are church employees. So it’s easy to assume that this has funding from the church and is connected. And so they did in Doctor Scripture Central and Doctrine. Covenant Central did a six part series on Joseph Smith’s plural marriage. And I want to bring attention to the picture that they chose. Do you guys see that I had never seen this picture before. So I zoomed in and found it’s Anthony sweat. I don’t know if it’s sweet or sweat, but he’s one of the scripture Central guys and he also is a church employee. He I I looked all of these guys up. He did his undergraduate in art and then went on to do graduate work in um education something and is also a, a religious professor and an artist who paints scenes of early church history. So do you guys want to fill us in about what this is this painting? What story it’s telling?

[05:28] Jeremy Hoop: This would be probably July 12th, 1843. Um except, or

[05:36] Michelle: a day or two later, a day or two later because I think it’s Joseph and there’s

[05:39] Jeremy Hoop: possibly, you know, because we don’t know when it was burned. Supposedly, we don’t, we don’t know the day. So after it was initially presented to Emma by Hiram and she was very upset as Clayton writes. Um, then some time after that, showing it to a bunch of people, we don’t know who, but passing it around kind of extensively actually, actually a lot because two

[06:08] Michelle: days, they only had

[06:09] Jeremy Hoop: two days. I know. Well, uh, except for people who had it for several days and except for, except for groups of people to whom it was read and except for, except for, except for then afterwards, Joseph goes and then somehow Emma’s pissed off and burns it. So, or Joseph burns it or Emma, but who knows who burns it, but it gets burned right? For the audience watching for the people rolling their eyes going well, that’s what happened. These are the tales that were told and the incongruent tales that were told decades after Jose was dead. There was nothing at the time even remotely close to this. Um, and, uh, so, so please be aware that what you’re looking at is a depiction of, um, of tall tales that were told many years after Joseph’s in the grave.

[06:55] Michelle: And I just find it amazing Emma’s demeanor and face and Joseph sitting cowed by this overbearing angry wife in front of the fireplace holding the precious revelation II, I find this picture to be shocking. And so yes, Jeremy, thank you for filling it in. I do, I do just wanna Brigham Young. The first time I believe this story was told was Brigham Young in this special 1852 August 28 1852 conference. The quote is the original copy of this revelation was up. So Brian Hill sometimes says it wasn’t burned. I just want to focus on this picture a little bit. William Clayton was the man who wrote it from the mouth of the prophet. In the meantime, it was bishop. It was in Bishop Whitney’s possession. He wished the privilege to copy it with brother Joseph. Granted sister Emma burned the original. So according to Brigham Young over the over the pulpit, Emma burned it. So I think it maybe should be in Emma in Joseph’s hand or Emma should be holding her hand out for Joseph to give it to her. Maybe that’d be a little bit more appropriate in this picture. The reason why I mentioned this is because that the people who did not know of the revelation, suppose or who did know of the revelation, suppose it was not now in existence. So he’s having to explain why he has this revelation magically out of his desk, right? And then, and then what Jeremy was referencing that um William Clayton’s 1874 affidavits, this is 22 years after that, he said two or three days after the revelation was written, Joseph related to me and several others that Emma had teased and urgently entreated him for the privilege of destroying. He became so weary of her teasing and to get rid of her annoyance, he told her that she might destroy it and she had done so, but he had consented to her wish in this matter, to pacify her realizing that he knew the revelation perfectly and could rewrite at any time if necessary. So I think those two sources are, what, what were the inspiration for this lovely picture which I just find to be so surprising. And so this is what they chose for this podcast, which tells us a bit of what we need to know about it, I think. And so these are the two hosts of this. It’s Scott Word Worth. Oh, go ahead. Yes, Whitney. Sorry.

[09:00] Whitney Horning: Can I just make a comment on that picture? Yes, you’re ok. Um So Emma very much looks to be, you know, the overbearing harpy, as you mentioned, Joseph cowering. But immediately it brings to mind that this tale of this about Emma, you know, taking it from Joseph thrown in the fire. Emma herself denied that she ever did that. She said that was a tail made out of whole cloth. And what that meant was that was a term back in that day to describe a tailor who is dishonest. He would take a lower quality cloth to make clothing. And then it was, it was a term meaning somebody was dishonest. So she’s saying that it was a lie, this tail that she burned it. But it also brings to mind, um, you know, part of the restoration, one of the great stories is Martin Harris, um pleading with Joseph three times to take the um manuscript of the book of Mormon. And Joseph finally relents even though God tells him no, he pester God three times. God finally says yes, under these conditions, Martin Harris agrees. He takes the manuscript. He does not obey the conditions. The manuscript is lost. And Joseph actually is reprimanded by God and loses the ability to translate for a season. So now we flash forward 14 years, 15 years. And we’re saying that Joseph never learned his lesson not to give in to other people to take away the precious revelations of God.

[10:36] Michelle: That is so insightful Whitney. That’s, that’s a great

[10:40] Jeremy Hoop: insight. The answer would be, but there was a copy made. And so Joseph knew there was a copy made so that he, he was OK with letting her burn it because she didn’t know I made a copy. That’s, that’s the answer as though that’s OK if that were true as though it’s OK to just placate your, your psychotic uh hysterical wife who, who is in a rage against the commandments of God because you’ve already made a copy and not only you make a copy, but, but apparently also Willard Richards made a copy, which is something we need to talk about. Something at length at some point, Brian Hales just kind of skips over that notion when he talks about Willard Richards made a copy. So when Brigham Young is talking about this in 1852 by the way, who would have been more likely to give him a copy of the Revelation Whitney Whitney or his cousin and best buddy and co uh co polygamy uh Willard Richards. So Brian, I would like to know, I I I’m actually impressed that you mentioned that copy when you but you, but you always skip over it. You, you, you run down as though you’re being as though you’re being as you’d like to call it transparent, but you’re not transparent about what that means. The implications of the Willard Richards copy for all those out there who are watching this. That includes you John Delyn and you RFM and you Lindsay Hansen Park and you Todd Compton and you Dan Vogel. Everybody who’s watching that. I want you to explain the Willard Richards copy and how that validates Brigham Young’s story because what we’re talking about is whether or not these stories as they pertain to this picture, OK. This depiction that, that people will then they’ll look at this and they’ll think, oh my goodness, poor Emma or oh my goodness, poor Joseph or? Oh my goodness, my goodness, they’re all crazy. Whatever they come, you know, conclusion they come to, we’re dealing with stories that we’re told that have no anchor during the time in which they’re saying they happened. There is no anchor for them. The only anchor for them is that Joseph denied this, like publicly denied it and it was published in the newspapers. So, so we, so as we go through these things, we need to be really clear. And one of the biggest beefs I have with people like Brian Hales and Dan Vogel and anybody else is that they don’t tell you where they’re getting the story from and they don’t tell you that that this is a later reminiscences, not explicitly clear. It’s later reminiscence. We actually don’t have any corroboration for it during Joseph’s lifetime. They just gloss over that and state it as though is ipso facto, it’s done. It’s, it’s, it’s a fait a complete and we should just accept it. So let’s be very clear at what we’re looking at.

[13:25] Michelle: Yes. Yes. And I, I’m glad you went into that because actually the provenance of section 132 is another topic that we are going to do a um uh a Brian Hills panel on because it’s something else that he talks about a lot. So, um but today, but, but we, we had to, we, we have so much to say on these topics that we just had to choose a couple of topics to go with, with each episode. So I did want thank you for letting me focus on that a little bit. And then yeah, let me just go forward to, um, oh, sorry Whitney. In addition to what you were saying about, he never learned his lesson to not give into nagging teasing voices. Also, we know early from I believe Oliver Cowdrey that if Joseph was at all at odds with Emma, he couldn’t receive the word of God, right? He had to go out and apologize and be one with her. So all of a sudden that lesson also gets thrown out and doesn’t matter anymore. God did care about unity and marriage and then all of a sudden never mind your wife or I’m gonna kill you with my I, I’m sending my sword wielding angel to murder you if you don’t betray your wife, which is the story that we’re going to do another episode on that too because that is I think Brian’s favorite story. It’s what he always reverts to anytime. There’s something troubling in Joseph’s behavior. Well, it was God’s fault. God, what God sent a sword widing angel, what was Joseph supposed to do? So,

[14:37] Jeremy Hoop: and by the way, there’s one more piece to this that we’ll have to go into more later. And that is the entire reason for this entire story. It was because Hiram came to Joseph saying I need to convince Emma of the truth of this principle. Unfortunately, for those telling, repeating this stories, they don’t mention, they don’t mention in the same breath that Emma had already. Supposedly, according to them, married four women, given them, put her hands in their hands and gave them to Joseph. That would be the Partridge sisters and the Lawrence sisters at least a month before this may, maybe two months before this, she had already participated. Not only that, but according to Emily Partridge taught them the principles. How in the name of Sam Hill, does she not know about the revelation if she’s able to teach it? So let’s let’s clarify all of this uh this, this, this, this truth that we’re telling. And let’s be honest about the contradictions. All you know what all I’m asking for Mr Transparencies is transparency.

[15:39] Michelle: Yes. Yes. Yes. So another point is that Emma, so Hiram reported, according to William Clayton, Hiram came back and said, I’ve never had a worse talking to in all my life. And we have Emma who according to the stories is trying to murder Joseph literally and is like I like the the people that promote polygamy say she had had a nervous breakdown. She was psychotic, she was like they literally say these things about her. So she is massively traumatized. Right? Hiram comes to her in the middle of the day interrupts everything she’s doing with everyone around to read this to her. There’s no witness of that. The house would have been completely full. But in addition, the baby that she was pregnant with at the time of Joseph and Hiram’s death, she herself chose to name Hiram, Joseph. Joseph gave her a blessing, telling her to name the baby. Hi David. And she chose the middle name Hiram. How does that happen with this psychotic woman who anyway, there are so many problems with this tale. So yes, thank you for letting us go into that picture. That wasn’t part of what we planned to talk about, but I thought it was, it was

[16:44] Jeremy Hoop: a good entree into the subject

[16:46] Michelle: for yes. And again, so this is these are the two hosts and the fact that that’s the picture that they chose for their six hearts on polygamy kind of tells us most, most of what we need to know. Scott Woodward is Byuo. I, he teaches religion at BYU Idaho and Casey Griffiths teaches at BYU. So um these are two BYU professors doing and, and as are most of the people, Anthony Sweatt and the others at Scripture Central. So it’s easy to imagine that this isn’t purely an independent undertaking, right? And so um in the episode that we are only responding to a few points in episode number six, which was their grand finale when they had um Brian Hall with them. And that’s the one we’re responding to. So let me just also really quickly, I just want to give people an idea of this series, I will say so. Um when the series first came out, it was posted just on doctor, Doctor and Covenant Central. I had people reach out to me that was like, can you please help these people? You know, and I listened to part of it and just was like, I, I’m just not, no, I’m not there, you know, I’m not gonna take the time. But then when it got posted on youtube several months ago, that is when I took the time and I listened to the full six episodes. And I will honestly say, I, I like, I remember driving home from dropping my kids off and like literally having to pull over because I couldn’t stop crying and screaming at the things that they say in this series. The entire thing is based purely on Brian Hale’s narrative and they put him on such a pedestal throughout this series and the things that they say, I find to be offensive to every fiber of my soul. I just, I could not abide it. So we are only so anyone who wants to dive in and listen to all of this, I think you get a lot more out of the sixth episode. If you’ve listened to all the rest, I will say one thing that um brought me some hope was reading through some of the comments, especially on, on, on the youtube post. I was like, ok, there are people who can hear this for what it is? Thank heaven. And um you know, so it’ll be interesting to see where this goes. I I know that Brian Hills has started turning off comments on things that he posts because I think people are on to him, which makes me happy. So I mean, I don’t want to say any of it makes me happy, but I’m glad that people are waking up to what is happening more and more people which should be able to talk about in this episode. So that’s what we are addressing. And we’ve just chosen a couple of um snippets that we’re going to talk to. But I want to know, do either of you have anything to contribute? I’ve kind of done a lot of the talking about the impact of Brian Hills, the influence that he has, like who, who do you want to go first, Jeremy and then Whitney,

[19:35] Jeremy Hoop: um it’s, it is undeniable that Brian has, he has apparently set the entire narrative for the church as you’re mentioning. And um that’s quite an achievement and that’s nothing to be downplayed. Uh His, his and Don Bradley’s really Don Bradley’s research and his characterization of the research, his, his putting it into a narrative, compiling the documents in, in a format that people can access is a, is a remarkable achievement. I think Brian should be applauded for that work. And frankly, it’s made my work a lot easier. It’s made all of our work a lot easier. Um Because, because we have a uh a single place, the Mormon polygamy documents.org was, is basically, it’s not everything that exists, but there’s a lot of it there. So we all owe an incredible debt of gratitude to you, Brian if you’re watching this. Um Despite the fact that we disagree with you for um for what you’ve done the challenge here, I don’t know. II I would assume my assumption is he’s a, he is a sincere believer. Um as am I as a sincere believer in the restoration? Um But he believes that this issue is absolutely the fact in his mind that Joseph was a polygamist is absolutely essential to the church today, to preserving faith. So he defends that as a true apologist would and he did, he does it as an apologist more than as an academic or an historian. And he, and he does it. Um I think as you’ll see, as we go through this, he does it frankly using the types of motives and tactics. He accuses others of doing. I hope not to do that and I hope to be called out if I do it because I don’t wanna use logical fallacies. Um because it’s not helpful, it doesn’t get us anywhere. But Brian does this repeatedly and we’ll point those things out when we see them. But the fact that he has established the church’s narrative and then defends it as, as its chief, um, as its chief lieutenant, you know, on the front lines in the way that he does with the types of claims that he makes and the, uh, frankly, um, the disparaging nature in which he, he, he attacks people who disagree with him. He does it in a, in a hushed tone but he does it with very sharp words and that’s ok. Um, but let’s be clear on what he’s doing. The fact that he’s done that requires, I think a thoughtful response. And so Brian, this is a thoughtful response to you. And I hope hopefully we can actually have a real engagement instead of here’s the summation of my thought. Go read my books. Yes, because I’ve got it all in my books. You give a, you give a tiny little hint of what you want to say, but then you say go read my books. Now, let’s actually let’s break down the arguments piece by piece. If you want to have a rational discussion about section 132 or about burning the revelation or about the angel with the drawn sword or whatever you want to talk about, we can do that and then we can lay the, we can lay the matter out for the people so they can then sort through this as Lindsay Hansen Park calls it this messy situation, right? Because the problem is what you guys don’t do and I’m pointing at you, but all of you do not do is you’re not clear on where you’re getting your, um, making your conclusions. That’s what we hope to do is make it clear. We have a conclusion. I think the three of us share mostly probably, I don’t know, 90% 95% of our conclusions are s, are similar. We might differ on some few small things, but we have a general, um, conclusion that we’ve come to But we base that based on evidence, we’ll show you that evidence. But you guys merely just say this is what happened and get over it because all the historians agree.

[23:15] Michelle: Yes. Mhm. Ok. Thank you, Jeremy Whitney. Do you have anything you wanna add? Yeah,

[23:22] Whitney Horning: I do. I don’t know if we were going to get to this later. Um But one of the things that, that Brian often um throws out at us is that we, our narrative destroys faith. Um It’s probably been about 20 years since I met the first person whose faith was completely and utterly shattered when they found out Joseph did polygamy and it didn’t just shatter their faith in Joseph Smith and the church, it shattered and destroyed their faith in God. And that’s not the only person I have met since then. Scores of people I have heard even more people um who have expressed that um Red Stone rolling did that to a lot of the people I know. And then Brian Hales comes on the scene and we have the gospel topics, essays which are written anonymously so that there’s plausible deniability on who has destroyed people’s faith. But those are the LDS church’s official essays on their official website that has utterly destroyed and shattered people’s faith and that it’s their faith in the restoration and in God. So here we are today. I know Michelle and I um both started off with the intention to restore people’s faith in God by shattering the narrative that God sanctions and commands polygamy. And then a by-product of that was that we both on our own came to believe that Joseph Smith actually um had nothing to do with it and was actually fighting against it. And Jeremy also is of that um belief and has been helping with that everywhere he can to um spread that news. So my question would be to Brian, whose faith are we destroying and what are we destroying their faith in? Um a few years ago, my mother sat me down um and lamented that I used to have the strongest testimony. And I said, well, mom, I still do. My testimony is in our savior Jesus Christ and in his gospel. And she said, we used to have a strong testimony in the church. And I said, well, I have come to learn that the church and the gospel in many ways are two separate things, but I still have a strong faith in the restoration in the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and in more importantly, in God, um my mother suddenly passed away four days after that conversation, but I think that’s what Brian’s referring to. I think that he is bothered that our narrative tends to shake people up in the succession and, and we don’t really want to get into that today. But for me, I think the irony here is Rich that Scott and what in some of these clips we’re gonna see. And Brian, they are so bothered that we are taking the responsibility of polygamy and taking it off of Joseph’s shoulders and placing it squarely and firmly onto Brigham’s where I believe they belong. And I think, why does it, why is it ok for people, these apologists polygamy, apologists, why are they ok with it being Joseph Smith’s idea? But as soon as you ship that to Brigham Young, they cry foul and it’s very upsetting to them. And I think, well, you, you still believe in the succession, you believe Brigham Young is a correct successor to Joseph, you believe Brigham was a prophet and that he had all the keys necessary to continue forth the kingdom of God. Why does that bother you that the founding prophet didn’t do it? But the success or prophet did? I just find that a really interesting and curious phenomenon. But I would just say that for me, the Brian Hales narrative, he really does speak for the church the, the church historians. Um, he’s very involved in the Joseph Smith Papers project. He’s very involved in Saints. He’s been very involved in the gospel topics, essays, um, in a lot of ways, I think they’re allowing him and maybe in a shameful way to take all the heat and all the blame and to be kind of the front person. Um, and they’re kind of all, maybe kind of hiding behind him and letting him be the face of the, the pro polygamy apologist. But um I guess I just think to myself, they have no idea. They have no idea the damage they are doing. And it’s because of their narrative and their narrative just when, if you can divorce yourself from being an apologist, it’s an icky disturbing narrative and Joseph then was a liar because no matter how much you try to pretzel or do your circular reasoning that Joseph wasn’t, was lying for the Lord or he wasn’t talking about spiritual wifey, yada, yada yada. He was doing a high and holy Celestial ordinance. And so therefore he say to the people, I’m not doing it when Wink. Wink. He really was. I mean, there’s just that, that’s a liar and that’s a hypocrite and it’s just plain and simple. And so if that’s who Joseph was, then rightfully so it’s upsetting people and it is shattering their faith and it’s upsetting to me that then it shatters their faith in God. And so I say, Brian Scott, all you pro polygamy apologists need to do some seriously deep looking into a mirror and analyzing that your message is harming people.

[29:19] Jeremy Hoop: I said, um, I said a while ago in a talk that it’s far more consistent to take John Dylan’s position than Brian Hall’s position. It’s far more consistent because if, what Brian says about Joseph Smith and, and Brian tries to use carefully worded denials and he didn’t really lie. I I’m more troubled about Hiram but I, but, but Joseph didn’t lie. Um I’m putting together a presentation on this, that, that will, that will. I I’m curious, Brian as to what you will say when you see the 14 years that he fought against this and, and, and the, the oh more than a decade of intense opposition to it vocally in the courts in excommunications in private conversations in his journal entries. So, so it’s more consistent to do what John Dely does, except the problem is it has massive real world implications. John Delyn had a had a young woman on his podcast the other day just basically parroting the church essay talking points which are, you know, come from Brian Hales and he literally destroyed this girl’s faith in, in, in the course of about an hour in real time and it is devastating to watch and I can watch it. Unfortunately, John Delyn seems to take some glee in it or see some satisfaction in it. And I find that really sad because he is parroting things that are provably not true, provably not true. And so because of the work that Brian Hales has done, it gives Lindsay answer, John Thelin on RFM, the, the, the ability to say, see Joseph’s a con man. And the, and the, the effect of that is what happened with my wife just two nights ago with her, one of her best friends who says, I’m taking my names off off the records of the church and why it started with polygamy. Now, here’s what she said. She said, well, that’s not the only issue. I mean, it’s the first vision accounts, it’s the book of Mormon. So those of you watching this who have trouble with the other things. Book of Abraham first vision accounts, name your issue book of Mormon translation, anachronisms, yada, yada yada. If you don’t start with the premise in your mind that Joseph is a liar. Ok. The moment you realize Joseph uh seduced a 14 year old and then, and then a couple of 16 year olds, what the moment you start with that, then when you approach, which I believe are highly understandable and easily explainable things like the first vision accounts, then you, you are approaching it from this lens of Joseph lied to his wife and the church. So therefore, I can see this through a different lens and that, that’s the issue that this presents. And I have met so many, we’ve all met so many people for whom this is a massive issue. And what happens is for whatever reason, this is so potent that once they get into their head, they’re not only do their minds close, their hearts close and they will not, they will not talk to you about it. They won’t, they won’t even, so many people don’t want to visit this. Why? Because they finally settled the issue in their minds and they found peace with it and they’ve moved on and they will not reconsider these things any longer. And that’s the effect of this.

[32:35] Michelle: You know, that that’s a painful experience to go through to have your faith shattered like that and you don’t want to revisit it, right?

[32:41] Jeremy Hoop: As you can tell we’re passionate about this because we see this all the time, this destruction, this decimation of faith

[32:50] Michelle: and I’m constantly inviting. I will say it again like I’m, I’m, I’m just hoping that John Delyn, for example, will engage with this topic because I think that to have credibility because John, I think you could do so much good on this topic. And then if you engage in it, you can feel free to disagree with me. But just like Jeremy saying, let’s get into the evidences. Let’s let’s hear what we have to say. Otherwise, it’s hard to see that you’re not just what you decry just being an apologist because that narrative is useful to you just like, it’s useful to the church. I find it fascinating and I’ve been a couple of things I’ve said in conversations recently to different people. If I engaged in a debate on this topic, I would be on one side or we would be on one side and on the other side, sitting at the same table relying on exactly the same sources would be the worst. Anti Joseph Smith, anti Mormons and the most devoted members of the church that right, Brian Hall would be sitting at the same table with John Dely using exactly the same sources, right? I shouldn’t say the worst anti Mormons. But you know what I mean, the people that are the most prominent in both of those rely. So it’s fascinating that the um anti Mormons that hate the church and hate Joseph Smith find complete credibility in all of the Utah history that was done decades later. That was all completely true. And the people who love Joseph Smith find complete credibility in the most traitorous um apostates, whatever we want to call. I don’t know what to call them. The John Bennett and the William laws and the um Joseph Jacksons, they use them as authoritative. So they both rely this Bizarro world where, right, where to me, when, when you see it through this lens, finally, everything lines up. So I do. And I, another thing I said to a church leader recently who was just um sort of lamenting how effective the CE S letter is and how someone can go from a lifetime of activity to like in a day or two believing in nothing. And, and kind of kind of putting that at my kind of comparing me to that a little bit, which I found appalling, you know, and I finally, I finally said, do you know the reason the CE S letter is so effective? It’s because it tells the exact same story that the church tells about what our founding prophet did. It’s exactly the same. The only difference is that in our version, Joe said Joseph was forced to betray Emma because God threat to send an angel with a sword to kill him if he didn’t. So we lay the blame at God, right? In their version, Joseph betrayed Emma and said, God sent an angel with a sword and which one is more believable, right? Like that is why it’s so effective and that’s what people have to awaken to that are telling us that we’re just, it, it is exactly tens of thousands of people have left over this narrative. So I just want to share a couple of things. First of all, um it is a little bit uncomfortable to go to, to do a series. I, I’m, I’m after addressed personally to a person, right? It would be better to just focus on the narrative. But as both of you pointed out, I think Brian Hills really has established himself as the keeper of the narrative, right? He is the defender of the polygamy narrative and he promotes it so widely and the tactics that he used make it so I don’t know any other way other than to go, not after him personally. I hope we don’t make any personal attacks but go directly at what he says as an individual representative of this narrative, as the keeper of the narrative. This is not intended to be personal. On the other hand, the way that Brian engages is I find despicable because not only does he use so much ad hominem, he attempts to use the church to silence his enemies. He is actively engaged in trying to get people excommunicated who threatened his narrative. And I find that to be despicable and it kind of gloats and rejoice that like I said on my, on my channel when I, when he came on my channel and was talking about Denver and Snuffer and said, well, he’s gone. So like, OK, check got him out of there. Now, I can focus on, you know, whoever he wants to get out out of the church. Next. What I wonder what active faithful members of the church there could be that Brian’s gunning for? Hm, we can all wonder about that, right? But it’s actively happening right now. And I find that to be despicable, pretty much unforgivable. Could you be more pharisee than wanting to get someone publicly disciplined so that you can claim victory that you never won because you never engaged honestly in any of the discussion. But you can because of UN, right, just a minute and because you’re better connected, you can try to get someone silenced. And, um, and then you can claim that you were right all along. And I find that to be absolutely despicable. I hope our church does not choose to go that direction. And then the one other thing that I did, you did one of you want to say, I was just,

[37:32] Whitney Horning: I was just going to agree to that. I had some people that I know that live out east and they threw a conference, they put on a conference a couple of years ago um because they’re very much in a Christian community Bible belt. So they invited me and Vern to come out and speak. And their main goal was they wanted the Christian community to know Joseph and D Plym me. And so they’d invited me out to speak to that. And about a week after I spoke, um that man received an email from Brian Hales, um telling him that I’m a liar and that I cannot be believed or trusted. And then citing this man to go read all of Brian’s own works on the subject. And that man and his wife were just excommunicated for um having me come speak and for teaching others that Joseph didn’t do polygamy just about um just before April conference,

[38:31] Michelle: I, I just find this shocking and appalling and I want everyone to know how Brian engages and how he uses his connections and his power. I, I cannot think of something worse like any, the, the, the stress and impact these things bring into people’s lives and he’s doing it to protect his narrative. Brian. I, I, and I know he, whatever stage of faith he’s in the Fowler stage of faith makes it impossible for him to hear what we’re saying. I think, I think he’s just all about, you know, like justifying what he’s doing and can’t see how he is exactly in line with the worst of the Pharisees and you and that, that power. Let’s have the conversation, let’s have the conversation. Let’s not use these deplorable tactics, Jeremy. You want to say something that I just had

[39:18] Jeremy Hoop: my back in, in one of his videos on I think it’s Saints unscripted. He, at the very end of the video, he basically says we just have to agree to, to kind of walk away and not talk to these people.

[39:27] Michelle: I have, I have a clip in here too and that’s what he means

[39:30] Jeremy Hoop: and that’s what is so, so Brian, you’re, you, you have not, I don’t, I don’t want to assign any motive to you. I don’t know your heart. I, I just will assume that you sincerely believe these things and you’re fighting for what you believe is right? But that’s not the way to engage, what, what you are, what you do in essence is you say these people are not worth even talking to because they’re, they’re basically insane and that’s frankly what everybody does and I get it, I get it whenever you go up against the consensus, you know, uh against the accepted narrative. Um And Galileo found this out. You, you, you, you have, you know, you have, you have problems because people don’t want to even consider something new. And I understand that, but we are not making um a shallow case. If anyone who’s actually who’s actually been involved in anything that Michelle’s done that Whitney’s done that. I’ve done that, Ralph Fathering Ham’s done that, that Gwendolyn Wynne’s done. We are making a detailed deconstruction of this narrative and you can just wish it away all you want, but we’re not gonna stop because we have a conviction of this based on about a decade of intense research that has brought us to a sound understanding of the source material that has allowed us to form a model based on that like Don Bradley likes to say, and we, I believe our model is superior. Now, it’s up to the audience to decide if they agree with us. We believe we, we, we’re confident enough in it that we, that if we’re given the chance to lay this out to people, we’ll get a sizable number of the audience. Not because as, as other people say, you’re gullible, but because we respect you as the audience that you’re intelligent enough that if you’re shown what’s actually available and it’s explained the who, what, when, where and why. If every source is explained clearly to you, you can make an informed decision. They treat you frankly with contempt and I have an issue with that.

[41:26] Michelle: Yes, I agree. And so we’re gonna get into it. I just wanted to say one more thing that I just, I just have, this has been good for me to learn as I’ve been engaging more with, um, respected historians in the LDS historical community. It’s been fascinating to me and I’m not saying this to try to embarrass Brian or to try to, you know, it’s a distinction that historians I think don’t recognize how it’s important to make because so what I want to say is I think it’s easy for us on our end to lump all of the historians in together because Brian Hills is held up as the example of historians. He’s paraded. He’s the one that goes on all of the podcast. He’s the one that writes the books. He’s the one when I have sent queries before into the church. I’ve received an email. That’s if I ask anything about Joseph’s polygamy, I, I get an email back telling me to read Brian Hills and Todd Compton, which I found appalling that I was like the church history library’s actual statement on Joseph’s polygamy. And so I think that while, while those of us who are not in the historical community in like rubbing shoulders at the conferences, and you know, it’s easy for us to see all historians through the same lens, just like it’s easy for them to see all of us through the same lens. So the other point that I want to say to the historians though is you’re not doing your job, you’re letting Brian Hills and his narrative carry the day. And so you can’t blame us for not having any respect for the historians like, and, and, and I, and I have to say, as far as I’m, I’m not, I’m kind of separating the church employed historians who wrote Saints for example, which is, I’m sorry, it’s an embarrassment, it destroys faith and it’s terrible from what I’ve looked at. I, I shouldn’t say the whole thing. I don’t know if the whole thing is terrible. What I have looked at on this topic is terrible. My

[43:13] Jeremy Hoop: polygamy narrative is, is, is atrocious.

[43:15] Michelle: It’s, it’s terrible. And, and in on the Joseph Smith papers, the polygamy narrative there is terrible. We’ll continue to do episodes on that. So I guess I’m just saying, historians, you have to help the people know that you deserve more credibility and, and part of the way you could do that is by looking into this more honestly, more credibly because a lot of the other historical work I’ve looked into on the polygamy narrative is also pretty terrible. We all need to raise that. That’s how you guys should be seeing us, all of the historians should be seeing us as sort of like the opportunity for all of us to raise the game. We all have to step it up and do better on this topic, right? So, ok, so should we move on? Is there anything else we need to say?

[43:54] Jeremy Hoop: That’s quite an introduction.

[43:56] Michelle: It was a big introduction. Yeah, but it’s, this is I’m I’m going to be doing a lot on Brian Hills in the co in going forward. So I wanted people to really understand why. So let’s go ahead and get to the first clips. We, as I said, we only chose a couple of like, I think two topics really to go into. So I think this first one is, oh, I should have played this in our discussion. This is just a demonstration of how Brian Hills is viewed by the church education department at least. And sort of all of the people that are that are talking at all, any church representative who is talking about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. This is how they approach it.

[44:36] Scott (Church History Matters): Brian, some people might call you a polygamy genius, which is probably true. But we know that underneath that is just a whole lot of hard work and careful thought. And so thank you for being willing to come on the podcast and respond to some of our listeners questions

[44:50] Brian Hales: that is extremely generous and surely an overstatement.

[44:55] Michelle: So that that should have gone in our first discussion. So that was just the best summation of I could, that I could find of what happened throughout those six episodes, how, how Brian Hills was discussed. So that’s why we need to address, address Brian Hills, right? Because he is set up in this way. I appreciate him understating it. But I do notice that he always has the pictures of all of the work that he’s done. And you know, he kind of like anyway, it’s, it’s, it’s quite a thing. So now the two topics I think we chose and you guys can remind me, I need to get to my notes. We are going to talk about Brian Hall and Scott Woodward because he’s the only one there today. And we are going to um, first look at how they address us. These are, this is basically the extent of the arguments that they make toward us is what we’re going to go to now. And either of you feel free to tell me to pause this at any time because these are some extensive clips that we’re going to have a lot to say about. So I just want to point out again, we as the people on our side in general are digging outsources showing evidence, making a case and on the other side, this is how we are being responded to

[46:05] Scott (Church History Matters): and let’s begin with polygamy denying that

[46:08] Michelle: sounds

[46:08] Scott (Church History Matters): great. Uh Brian I’ve noticed there’s a startling number of church members who are denying that Joseph Smith even practiced plural marriage at all. They say Brigham Young was the real source and that he later disingenuously depended on Joseph Smith to give it more legitimacy and this trend seems to be growing and not shrinking. So one listener asked it this way, what do you think about the theory that Joseph Smith wasn’t a polygamist? I saw a youtube clip. This questioner says of a female church historian can’t remember her name. Share the theory that the affidavits of the women who testified that Joseph practiced polygamy had a clear motive to help the church win the Temple lot case. So there you go. There seems to be a lot of people that have that kind of,

[46:54] Jeremy Hoop: can you stop it right there. So this is, this is a look, logical fallacy after logical fallacy, bring out one issue that first of all, we’ve never addressed because because really when, when they’re talking about the, the, the primary polygamy deniers Michelle, you would be, you would be the chief cook and bottle washer because you’re the most prominent right now and Whitney you’d be next. And because of your book and I’m somewhere down below. Uh But there’s, but there’s a small group of us who are very vocal about this small group of us. So really, you’re talking about us? OK.

[47:26] Michelle: And, and I just wanted to ask, I, I tend to be she who cannot, shall not be named, right? Brian is willing to say Whitney’s name, although he sometimes calls her Karen as he does in this video. But um but I can’t be named. So I was gonna Whitney, I, I wanted to take bets everyone in the audience. I want you to chime in, in the comments. Is it whose name couldn’t be remembered? Right? Who’s the wom female historian? Who we don’t remember her name? Because why would we remember her name? But she said this crazy thing. Is it Whitney or me or do you think it’s someone else? Because I think it’s either Whitney or me. What do you think Whitney? Which one of us? Is it?

[48:02] Whitney Horning: Well, I would actually love it if it was an actual church historian. But if it’s one of us, then we actually are now church historians so that

[48:11] Michelle: I, I, they did say church historian, but then they said that the, the temple was motivated. So I know it’s not someone employed by the church. Sorry, Jeremy, back to you. I just had to address that hilarious little bit because

[48:22] Jeremy Hoop: I think if Lindsay Hans a park and call herself an historian, I think we can call ourselves historians too, I suppose. And, and Brian Brian wants to be called an historian. He rightfully usually qualifies that with amateur historian. I think we’re all, I just, I’m just a researcher and whatever that means. And so, uh the problem with this is he brings up an issue that we, we, we never address because it’s, it’s not true. They didn’t pull out the affidavits in order to bolster the Temple lot cases in 1869 1892 it’s like John Delyn says in their affidavits, they, they said in very deed, they were his wives, it doesn’t say in very deed in the affidavits. Let’s be clear, precise about our language and what we’re saying. And please let’s not engage in straw men tactics to divert. You give an example that, that, that, that’s absolutely ludicrous that we don’t ever even bring up. So, so the first thing I would say to Brian and to your host and anyone engaging in this, can we just be focused and clear and not throw all of the detritus into the conversation?

[49:24] Michelle: You know what? I wonder if he’s not even doing that on purpose intentionally because Scott Woodward and, and case the impression I get is that they are just getting into Brian Hales, they’re not getting into the original sources. So I don’t know that it’s even clear in their minds, which is which right? And so I think it’s interesting that it’s like it’s a big hairy body of work to gain, um you know, to, to gain any um um mastery over to be able to talk about it intelligently and I don’t know that he’s gained that. I mean, I think he’s just relied on Brian.

[49:57] Jeremy Hoop: It is really difficult to, to, to, to, to understand the scope of this. And so I don’t blame the host, but, but before you, before you go on air and say something like that, you ought to be clear on what you’re saying, John De and anybody who comments on this fact, people just play so fast and loose with, with this stuff. And we’re, we’re asking like Brian actually for transparency and clarity on, on these subjects and, and to not engage in, in the silliness that we’re hearing and I think going to hear in the rest of this clip.

[50:32] Michelle: Yeah, I think that’s the huge difference. Like you read Whitney’s book and she has the actual quotes and, and people get on me for sometimes how long my episodes are. But I’m it, it required I want people to gain mastery over the subject matter, not just rely on a narrative anymore. That’s how we get in trouble.

[50:48] Jeremy Hoop: You cannot this subject in two hours. I’m sorry. I wish we could. I really wish we could but you cannot to refute all the nonsense that they’ve put forward. Sorry. But there’s a lot of nonsense and also the things the, the the the arguments that they put forward that have merit. We have to go through this meticulously piece by piece

[51:06] Michelle: So, ok, let’s go on with this lovely and painful

[51:09] Scott (Church History Matters): clip. Have that kind of question and given the mounds and mounds of data that you and others have found that soundly refute this idea. It’s just bananas to me that a growing number of people are getting on board with this. So, what’s your response to this polygamy denial phenomenon going on among some church members today?

[51:30] Brian Hales: Well, I think it’s a combination of two or three things and I agree with you that it’s growing, which is counterintuitive to me, it’s

[51:38] Scott (Church History Matters): wild.

[51:39] Michelle: I love that they have to acknowledge that it’s growing despite themselves while they hate to acknowledge that. But so far, what do we have bananas? Um bizarre. Like, like that’s been the level of, right? Like any, anything more,

[51:55] Whitney Horning: well, they call it a phenomenon which, you know, that itself means we’re kind of like odd and crazy and, and will be over soon. You know, he has to come and go, right.

[52:08] Michelle: He likes the word trend, that word has been said elsewhere. So I wanted

[52:12] Whitney Horning: to ask, I would like to ask for bell bottoms. I would like to ask Scott and Brian, why is there, why is our narrative bananas? But their narrative that Joseph lied to his wife, um married women behind Emma’s back. Um And then that he was continually publicly using carefully worded denials to tell the people, oh, I’m not doing. And uh the man behind the curtain I’m not doing it. You know, there’s nothing to see here. Why is our narrative more bananas than that narrative?

[52:50] Jeremy Hoop: They have one, they got one answer for that and that’s William Clayton for anybody who wants to get more information on that. And I would include Dan Vogel in this go and watch Michelle’s episodes that we did together on William Clayton. Um They have one piece of information that make, that gives them what they believe is the absolute clarity and certainty to be able to stay, take these things

[53:14] Michelle: that hasn’t ever been released and such a huge deal. They’re saying that we are bananas to question something that’s never been released, ever

[53:22] Jeremy Hoop: been released. As Dan Vogel said, the proof’s on you to prove it’s not contemporaneous. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? It’s the claimant’s claimant’s responsibility. The claimant must prove that it’s contemporaneous.

[53:39] Michelle: But even in addition, I think we did a pretty good job of showing massive evidence to believe that it’s not contemporary. So, OK, let’s continue on.

[53:50] Brian Hales: And so you’ve got to jump past that present is idea to even entertain the notion that something other than libido is driving this process. And so as members have,

[54:00] Michelle: let me pause that I I should have introduced this a little bit better. So he gives his couple of reasons for saying that polygamy is hard, right? And um and he’s, he’s going to give them all and one of them is that it’s libido driven and he calls that a present idea. So I’ll play a little bit more of this clip, but he likes to use the words, presents and reductionist. He likes to accuse us of present and reductionism. So for those who, those are words that are used, right? And things that we need to be careful of. So let, let me quickly define like present is applying modern day morality to the past. So for example, if we say that Thomas Jefferson was a horrible man because he didn’t free his slaves even though he massively opposed slavery and right or George Washington, we are using present or if we say they were horrible because America was horrible because women didn’t have the right to vote. We’re not really recognizing the difference in time periods, right? So let me ask you in Joseph’s Day, what was it viewed as not libido driven? If a man wanted to sleep? All of like, like how I help me someone? How is this a presence?

[55:05] Jeremy Hoop: Brigham young uh was, was dragged into court by um Henry um Cobb. He, well, it’s not him, his, his wife, his second plural wife was dragged into court on the grounds of adultery. He was practicing um spiritual wifey at the time. Uh And I’m sorry, Brian, but he called it that he called it that spiritual wifey at the time and he was found or Augusta was found to have committed adultery with Brigham young. That’s the sentiment that the entire world had at the time that taking more wife than one was basically tantamount to adultery. You do

[55:46] Whitney Horning: well, and like you said, they could be taken to court and they could be jailed for it. Do we do that today?

[55:53] Jeremy Hoop: Two years, two years in prison.

[55:56] Whitney Horning: Yeah. And I know plenty of people in, in my life, family, friends who’ve committed adultery, not one of them has been arrested or sent or, you know, taken to trial. So to me, this is so laughable that it’s like Brian saying that they were morally loose back then. And so the round was OK. And so now today we’re all like puritanism and we’re all, you know, so laced up and tight that nobody ever does anything outside the bounds. The Lord has said of marriage, right? It’s laughing at that. I’m like, come on.

[56:34] Michelle: Yeah. It, it is as completely opposite of the truth. It’s not just like that he gets it wrong. It’s like, say we’re applying modern day morality to Joseph Smith’s Day to see his. Um, I, I mean, I’m just exactly what you said like, oh, you’re right. We have a much more sexually puritanical culture now than there was in Joseph’s Day. Everyone in Joseph’s Day was completely fine with the idea of him sleeping around. He wasn’t, it was never part of the reason that they say he was killed, right? Like, like as if they were fine with it back then. And it’s only our modern day morality that makes us see this as possibly libido driven.

[57:10] Jeremy Hoop: It’s ridiculous. Emma and Joseph in, in March of 1844 released the, the voice of innocence in defense of Hiram. And, and they, they, it’s just this massive diatribe against un virtuous activity that uh with within which they, they lump polygamy. And then, and then Hiram on April 8th, 1844 says God has not commanded any man to have more than one wife. Wait, what that would include, by the way, Abraham and Jacob, ok. Todd has not commanded any man to have more. And then he goes on for an hour and a half talking about the evil of uh of having more than one wife and Brian Hall, by the way, doesn’t like that speech very much. Um So, so they didn’t

[57:51] Michelle: had it removed. He had it removed again. Brigham Young removed it from the original Joseph Smith history and Brian Hales had it removed from the more recent Joseph Smith papers.

[58:01] Jeremy Hoop: Was it was it him that did that?

[58:03] Michelle: Well, let me, let me, let me when I was down talking to the church history library and asking about it. I I have reason to believe that he was involved. I’m not, but I shouldn’t have said that it was recently removed. And Brian Hills was the one lying to me repeatedly about the reasons I got him in three different versions of why it was removed and he kept adjusting as I would call him out on one. I’m not impressed. I think it’s massively dishonest. And, yeah, the year before that, a little less than a year before that, um, Hyrum gave his speech saying if an angel in heaven comes and tells you that you will be sure to see his cloven hoof. Right. Like his cloven foot. This is anyway. Yeah.

[58:40] Jeremy Hoop: And we’re gonna see at the end of this, as we’re going to see at the end of this, we’re going to see one of the two of the main reasons why Brigham Young actually thinks polygamy is a, a AAA nifty idea and it has to do with Libido.

[58:54] Michelle: Ok, let’s keep going because we’ve got so much to get to

[58:56] Brian Hales: veto is driving this process. And so as members have to confront all of these ideas, an easy out could be to say, well, no, it was Brigham, it wasn’t Joseph and they reduce it to very simple terms. Like who do you believe Emma or Brigham? Or

[59:11] Michelle: I’m gonna pause it there again because again, that same question, why is it better if it was Brigham than if it was Joseph? And, and this and this idea that we just, that’s always for both the anti Mormons and the Brian Hills, we can’t handle the cognitive dissonance of, you know, we just can’t handle it. So we have to come up with a fan fantasy instead of maybe we’re looking at the evidence. Go ahead

[59:31] Whitney Horning: Whitney. Well, and, and he, he minimizes us even further with his statement right there because he, he says, you know, that we’re the reductionist. Well, our argument is actually that it’s Joseph Emma and Hiram telling the truth versus Brigham Young and he right there reduced it down to, is it Brigham or Emma? He very subtly make sure not to say that Joseph and Hyrum are against it in that statement, like he’s reduced us down to that. We only believe Emma like he completely minimizes the, the hours and hours and hours and years of work we have done and the numerous people who were choosing to believe.

[1:00:16] Michelle: Yes, I, you know what I took, you’re exactly right because Emma is the one that he sees as bad. We didn’t, we’re not getting into the Emma dialogue here, but we will in the future. Yes. Oh, yes, we will get into that as well. So he sees Emma as bad as I, I just want to again, draw our attention to this picture because now this is the picture that shows as they have this podcast and we see angry Emma and Joseph is completely obscured and I was like, isn’t that appropriate? That is basically we want to ignore everything that Joseph ever said or did and obscure him and represent Emma in this way. And so I think you’re exactly right. Whitney. Isn’t that amazing that he puts it as Emma versus Brigham and, and leaves Joseph completely out of it. That’s amazing. Joseph and Hyrum. Ok, I’ll continue on

[1:01:04] Brian Hales: if Joseph did it. He was a liar. And of course, those are not accurate statements. They’re, we call them reductionist statements. They would try to do something that’s complex into a very sound bite thing, which works for today’s audiences a lot of times. But when you get into it, it can’t be reduced to that. It is a complex process.

[1:01:25] Michelle: And again, I’m fine with there being complexity. I think we are all very, very aware of the amount of complexity. But when you are trying to take something as simple, a simple truth and deny the truth a great way to do that is say it’s way more complex, right? Like for example, our tax code, why is it so complex? So they can fit a lot of massive corruption in there? Sometimes endless complexity is not the solution when something really is simple, like let’s read what Joseph actually said, yes,

[1:01:58] Jeremy Hoop: it’s the Ockham’s razor principle. You know, sometimes the truth is the straightest distance between two points. The simplest explanation and the simplest explanation comes down to understanding because one of the biggest problems people don’t have under uh that they don’t understand that I didn’t even understand until recently was what happened during his lifetime. It is unbelievable. You can get a beginning of that by reading the prices, books. But it’s even beyond what they wrote. And so for him to say, you know, I’ve cataloged the 23 times that Joseph, you know, that he, he issued statements that could be sort of categorized as carefully worded denials, but they’re not lies. It’s just flatly not true. Just the one instance of, uh, of the, uh, the revelation on marriage. Ok. That was, that was published five times, five times, five times. And Joseph Joseph himself published it in 1842 himself twice and it was published with his knowledge total five times. And so you don’t publish the statement on marriage five times without being fully aware of it. And the Joseph Smith papers tries, tries to explain it away as though he didn’t even write it. And, and he had, had really had no idea because it was really all Oliver cry. I break that down and it’s, and it’s complete nonsense.

[1:03:18] Whitney Horning: Well, in the story that it was Oliver carry comes from Brigham Young who you know people saying to him, wait, what happened to the statement on marriage? And for those of you who might be listening to this for the very first time, the statement or law on marriage was monogamy. And it was put in the 1835 doctrine and covenants and published numerous times in newspapers and included again in the 1844 edition and not removed until the 1876 edition was created.

[1:03:46] Michelle: It’s actually the 1880 edition I had to switch it around. It was assigned in 1870.

[1:03:51] Whitney Horning: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna, I was gonna say that because you know, you’re good. I was gonna get to that but um that’s when 132 was put in. So they swap out the same law on marriage which the Lord gave as the law to the church that no man should have more than one wife. Um And they swap it out for 132. So

[1:04:10] Jeremy Hoop: and it’s just, that’s the only thing I want to bring up because that’s, that’s only one of a multitude of things where, where Joseph is blatantly in fierce opposition to this very publicly and private and in his journals and Brian cannot sorry, Brian, please come and engage with us in a public forum and let’s go through just your paper on the 23 denials. And let’s see if let’s see if the audience will agree with you or if they’ll agree with uh Joseph overwhelmingly fighting it during his lifetime,

[1:04:39] Michelle: right? And do you know why the section, the statement on marriage? I thought you when I was surprised that it had been published, I for I was mistranslated in my brain, my sleep deprived brain. I thought you were talking about the revelation on eternal marriage that Joseph had. I was like that was published. But yes, the statement on marriage is the section C I as Brian calls it section 101 in the 1835 doctrine. And the reason it’s so, and then when I, and one of the reasons, but I would say the main reason is so centrally centrally um impactful and profoundly important is because it was they canonized scriptures officially accepted by universal common consent, which

[1:05:15] Jeremy Hoop: is very formal.

[1:05:20] Michelle: Yes. And, and it was reprinted, I mean, this was so when people say to us, you, you’re you’re opposing our canonized scriptures, hello, that was the Canonized Scriptures throughout all of Joseph’s life and throughout all of Brigham Young’s life, we need to acknowledge that it’s a big deal.

[1:05:37] Jeremy Hoop: Keep in mind when, when they canonized it, they, they didn’t read all of the new revelations, they read that statement, they read it to the congregation and then when they announced it in the messenger and advocate, they published the whole statement. They didn’t publish all the revelations, but they published that statement. We felt it’s so important to emphasize this new thing that we’re clarifying. We already practice it. But we just want to make sure because people are saying that we have a community of wives and so we don’t do this. So Brian, please, can you please at least acknowledge that fact?

[1:06:12] Michelle: Yes. And let me just let me just add this so that we can cut out some of the um detractors. Joseph was not there at that initial meeting when they, when they universally accepted it for the 1830 when they had the, they had every single quorum, every single group vote on it. And Joseph was traveling at the time. However, he was the one assigned to oversee the full compilation of the doctrine and covenants. And Joseph was not a shrinking violet who was just ignore things if they weren’t what he believed was commanding. So, and then as you said, he went on to publish it multiple times and to rein include it in the 1844. So I want people to stop saying Joseph wasn’t there at that meeting as if that means something or stop saying, well, Joseph didn’t write it as if you have a clue who wrote it. And as if that, like we have so much evidence to show Joseph’s universal, strong support of the

[1:07:06] Jeremy Hoop: preface of the Doctrine and covenants of 1835 saying we the undersigned, well, we, we will stand to account before God for every principle advanced in this volume. And that included that statement on marriage. And you know, please Joseph Smith papers, please please remove from your historical introductions, the nonsense you put in there that Joseph didn’t know about this because he published it under his direction in the Times and Seasons in 1842 twice,

[1:07:33] Michelle: right? And the release this, he did as well under his like with his approval and was also published. So, OK, let’s continue on. Should we keep going.

[1:07:42] Brian Hales: So this is just how these rumors can get out there and they destroy faith, even though the person doesn’t realize it at the time. And they,

[1:07:50] Michelle: that’s again, us spreading these rumors, destroying faith. We, we’re the rumormonger, right?

[1:07:55] Jeremy Hoop: And yet they, they traffic in all the trafficking is rumors because all the entire, the entirety of their argument. Look, we’re not talking about stuff that they can pin to things that happened in 1843. There’s no, there’s no record of it in 1843. It’s entirely based on what somebody said later, which can I think be correctly called a rumor?

[1:08:17] Michelle: Well, and also John Bennett. John Bennett is their contemporaneous source. Their main one, right? Do we like like, oh, he wasn’t a rumor monger at all? OK.

[1:08:27] Brian Hales: To get the facts correct for themselves. So the data is conclusive. I don’t know of anybody, any trained historian who believes Joseph didn’t introduce and practice

[1:08:38] Jeremy Hoop: to authority.

[1:08:39] Michelle: The universal appeal to authority, which is the main, like the ad hominem and the appeal to authority. Are there two defenses against?

[1:08:46] Brian Hales: But there are lots of untrained. Uh I call them propagandists or apps. These are just people who want to grab on to a little bit of history here and a little bit of history there, Scott, when you understand this

[1:08:58] Jeremy Hoop: cherry picking.

[1:08:59] Michelle: Ok. So yeah, we, we are the cherry pickers. I, I just, I’m dying because I’ve been looking into Brian’s work more and more and more and I it, it’s hard to not be able to lay it all out here and show he is. It’s just, I’m sorry, it’s just like Brigham Young accusing us of exactly what he’s doing it to a shocking degree. And then he turns the time intentionally over to Scott. So now we get to know what Scott says about it and it sounds like it was preplanned because Brian’s like Scott, you understand this as if it was preplanned, that Scott was going to go off and say

[1:09:30] Scott (Church History Matters): this kind of shoddy approach of cherry picking sources that agree with your preconceived narrative, right? Or what you want the narrative to be rather than looking at all the documents and letting them tell the story or at least form the crux of the narrative that we sort of flesh the story out of. I mean, we all come at history with bias, right? I mean, we can’t deny that, but disciplined historical work means looking at all the documents rather than only those that conform with the story that we want to tell and to ignore those documents that conflict with our narrative or worse challenge their legitimacy as part of a cover up or a conspiracy. That’s not just a bad historical approach, right? Like that feels downright dishonest.

[1:10:15] Michelle: OK. Go ahead. You go ahead. Then I’ll,

[1:10:19] Jeremy Hoop: I wonder, I wonder uh dear host if you’ve looked at all the documents did you look at all the documents? Because I, I can’t, I can’t say with 100% certainty that I’ve looked at 100% of all the documents. I know that Brian hasn’t looked at 100% of all the documents, but I think we’re in the 99 point something percentile. I’ve looked at the documents. I know Whitney’s looked at the documents and I know Michelle’s looked at the documents. we’ve looked at the documents and many,

[1:10:45] Michelle: many, many, many, many documents that are not included on Brian Hill’s website. They don’t tell them if he wants to,

[1:10:51] Jeremy Hoop: they either know of them or they don’t know of them, which would be surprising. But if they don’t know of them, they certainly don’t address them. So Mr Host, I would, I would respectfully disagree strongly with your assertion that we haven’t looked at all the documents. The challenge is that we disagree with the interpretation of the document,

[1:11:12] Michelle: but what he says right there, I think is worth drawing attention to as well that not, not bringing forth all of the documents, only focusing on the ones that tell your version of history is downright dishonest. So right there, he acknowledged it like we are OK to call them dishonest now by his own word because that is exactly exactly what they do. They do not address the things we want to address. In fact, they remove them from the Joseph Smith papers and from the church history. And like, right. And so, yes, I Brian Hill call him. He never included the all three versions of the October 5th, 1843 journal entry on his website. He’s, that’s another thing we’ll address is his incredibly, just tortured, ridiculous explanation of why it’s still ok. But anyway, like I again, Scott Woodward, engage with us, show us what we’re missing, bring the sources that we’re ignoring, show them, don’t just accuse us of it, show them exactly what we’re ignoring, which is exactly what we’re going to go ahead and do with that.

[1:12:12] Whitney Horning: When I was listening to this, I thought it’s not just the volume of documents. Like that’s what they like to try to claim, you know, that we’ve cherry picked that we only find a few, you know, and they’re, and they’re making, they’re stating that to make people think that we’ve looked at like a couple as opposed to thousands, but it’s not just the volume of documents, it’s also the content of the documents, the dating of the documents though that word provenance, which means the place of origin or earliest known history of the document that we use to evaluate the authenticity or the quality. All of those things is what each of us do. We, I mean, I can’t speak for anyone else. I know you two. and I work with you enough to know that we thoroughly vet documents and typically something that maybe somebody else would spend maybe 10 minutes looking at it takes us down a rabbit hole that five hours later we have discovered so much more information. And so me personally, uh this is, they don’t know me, they don’t know Michelle, they don’t know Jeremy. They don’t know the level of work and dedication that we take to research. And they also don’t acknowledge or give any credit to the fact that we all used to be apologists, just like them. We all knew all the documents that they claim we disregard, we also had seen. And it was exactly like Jeremy stated. We eventually decided what if, what if Joseph was telling the truth? Let’s just explore that idea and see what happens and

[1:14:01] Michelle: it actually was a little different, right? Yeah. Yeah. But it was very much, I for me, it was, I was almost forced into it because I didn’t want to lose the credibility of, do you know what I like? I like, I didn’t want to step into the conspiracy crowd until it was undeniable to me when I saw a thing after thing after thing and anything that people use to say this proves like this, this source, you can’t get over dissolved. And I was like, like you, the the evidence I say from my experience, the evidence is overwhelming. It is overwhelming when you look at it honestly.

[1:14:36] Jeremy Hoop: Absolutely. And for me, the process took, I don’t know, 2 to 3 years of a transition between Joseph did this and Joseph didn’t do it. And that was because of looking at the documents. I look, you can, you can assign motive to me or to Whitney or to, to Michelle or to rob fathering him all you want. But the reality is I’m just telling you from my standpoint, I started out believing he was, I ended up believing that he didn’t. II I thought, well, maybe he did something, maybe it wasn’t. Exactly because, because it’s like a bushman’s idea. I know, I know that bushman bushman thinks that Joseph did something very different. I have him on tape saying this in a private conversation, by the way, he, uh, he, he believes he did something very different than Brigham Young. Ok. There’s, there’s a number of people who believe that and, and I used to kind of be in that camp, but I actually came to the, to the belief based on the documents that he didn’t do it. Uh, and I’m still, I remain 100% open to him doing it. But the problem is the historians have to bring forth something like what look, why did it take Whitney? I mean, I love you Whitney. But why did it take Whitney to discover

[1:15:41] Michelle: free? We’re not being paid. None of us is being paid.

[1:15:44] Jeremy Hoop: Why did it take Whitney to discover Heer Kimball’s journal that he had that someone after he wrote it down, scratched out that he went to bed with a woman in England after washing her feet, a AAA verifiably religious ceremony connected with sex. Ok. If that was Jose’s journal, all of you would be crying. There’s the evidence it’s done. It’s over. And frankly, I would have to just give up if you have that evidence, which you don’t. If you have that, you try to twist the Sarah and Whitney letter into something that, that, that, that insinuates Joseph wants to bet a basically a 16 year old girl and have her parents facilitate the transaction when you can’t stand

[1:16:18] Michelle: right there in a one bedroom, in a one room, right? And the letter

[1:16:22] Whitney Horning: doesn’t even have her name. Let’s just put that out there. People go actually find the entire letter and read the entire letter in its entirety and then do the hours of work to figure out what was actually going on at that time. And what that letter actually was saying was about,

[1:16:41] Michelle: right? And that’s what we are,

[1:16:43] Jeremy Hoop: what we are

[1:16:45] Michelle: doing that he

[1:16:45] Jeremy Hoop: would give blessings to the family, right?

[1:16:48] Michelle: And just like Brian gathered all of those sources and deserves to be lauded for that. That’s what all of us are doing. We are doing these hours and hours and hours of research. So we can explain things in context and show, you know, go dig up what sources are relevant and what needs to be shown so that people can be so much better informed. So again, don’t just, it’s so ridiculous that he accuses us of um like like doubt, like what did it, what was it about the pro the provenance? You know, like he like that we don’t get into the sources when they still haven’t released the William Clayton journals. I I cannot overstate what a huge deal that is that we are all ridiculous to say, hey, we some questions about those. You are not allowed to have questions about those sources that you’ve never been allowed to see because they’ve never been released. OK? But just

[1:17:35] Whitney Horning: trust us, we know it’s in there, we haven’t seen them either, but we know like just trust it.

[1:17:41] Jeremy Hoop: There’s something for the, the, there’s something for the audience to understand about the craft of history that if they don’t already know it’s very different than being a neurosurgeon. OK. Being a neurosurgeon requires dedicated scientific hardcore um training, schooling, training and an internship before you’re ever even allowed to, to cut somebody’s head open. OK. Um With being a, his an historian, what that, what it really requires frankly is uh the ability to think the ability to, to like a sleuth to kind of put pieces together and to have a real understanding of human nature, the better understanding of human nature and, and, and an honest understanding of human nature of philosophy of, of general history of, of how communities and societies work. It’s a really kind of a broad perspective that really is required to be a good historian. But the problem is, uh, there’s the bar to entry to be a historian just means you got to go to school and then you can, anybody can be a historian. It’s why you get the, the, the 1619 project that comes out this just nonsense that, that, that spewed that like Joe, that George Washington was a homosexual because he shared a bed with a man once. And so this kind of stuff gets, gets put out there because of the the individual um fallibilities of human beings, bringing their fallibilities into the work. So the American historical Association tells us how historians ought to operate. And that’s basically on doing what Whitney said, being really fair with the documents uh understanding the full scope of them and, and not, not just cherry picking and not and not biasing your source based on your opinion, but actually taking the totality of the evidence and then forming a conclusion and realizing you could be wrong.

[1:19:21] Michelle: But this is exactly why the discourse is so important, right? The scientific method is the method, but part of that method is the argumentation, another scientist coming at it and showing you why they disagree and then hammering it out. That’s how we get closer to the truth. That is exactly what absolutely needs to be happening in history. And that is how I can’t like, you always learn more when you engage with someone who disagrees with you, right? And so that why what we are doing is so incredibly important and such a gift and why it is indefensible, inexcusable for Brian Hall to be silencing people who disagree with him that right there reveals everything that people should need to know about this narrative, how weak it is, how dishonest it is that it needs to decide and if it were true, right? What is it? Truth doesn’t need to be protected. It’s a lion, let it loose and it can defend it, right? Like truth gets stronger and stronger as it as it is. I know that’s what’s happened to me. I have loved engaging with the very best apologists of polygamy because when they bring their ideas and I investigate them, I learn a lot more how wrong polygamy is, right. It it. So when you engage honestly, you either find, you find the weaknesses in your, in your arguments and your narrative and you find the strength and you get better and better and better at knowing what the truth is and defending it. That is Brian Hill should, if he were truly interested in the truth, he should be very, very excited about what we’re doing and excited to engage with it. All historians should. And so that’s the invitation. And you know, John Delin, like the Anti Mormons as well. Are you apologist or do you want truth? That’s the question and, and how you engage in this time will tell us what we need to know about that because it is massively dishonest to try to. What was it that Lindsay Hanson Park said we need to stop it from getting any oxygen. There’s obviously something you’re afraid of. And if you’re too afraid to engage with it, honestly, that tells us that, you know, that there is something here to be afraid of and that you are afraid of it because you are tied up into the, to the narrative you have, which means you’re apologists, not actual truth seekers.

[1:21:26] Jeremy Hoop: Sounds like what happens with the CIA.

[1:21:29] Michelle: Yeah, that’s, oh, no, here we go. I think we have one more clip on this topic. So

[1:21:35] Brian Hales: where I address the specific claims of these people, but they’re not persuaded, you know,

[1:21:40] Michelle: oh, this is where he said he started to say he is addressing the specific claims of these people, but they’re not persuaded. Imagine that have any of you seen him address the specific claims. Let’s see, the October 5th journal entry. We’ll save that for another day. That’s one example I can think of. You’re right, Brian, we’re not persuaded. You’re not dealing

[1:21:59] Jeremy Hoop: with

[1:21:59] Michelle: that.

[1:21:59] Jeremy Hoop: No, we’re not persuaded because you’re arguing.

[1:22:02] Michelle: It’s, it’s embarrassingly bad. Most of it you do not engage with and you do not engage specifically. You are dishonest with where you’re getting your sources from. You’re dishonest with your claims, you try to hide it you’re not engaging with us, you’re trying to get us excommunicated.

[1:22:16] Brian Hales: OK, persuaded, you know, they just hold on to these ideas that are clearly, I think in error, they’re entitled to their opinion. But it gets to a point where we just have to say, well, that’s how you want to believe it. Go ahead. But the data and the science, everything is not supporting this.

[1:22:32] Scott (Church History Matters): It kind of feels a little bit like COVID deniers to me, you know, there’s people that are like dying from COVID and there’s still people that would say, I think this is a hoax. I think this is not real. And you ask well, but like, what about the science? What about the data? What about all the people

[1:22:49] Michelle: um raise your hand if you said COVID isn’t real, right? I mean, what does this have to do with anything other than a slur a pure, a ho that is so obnoxious?

[1:22:57] Jeremy Hoop: We don’t believe in the moon landing. Apparently we don’t believe in COVID.

[1:23:01] Whitney Horning: Well, here, I’d like to just say, I mean, Brian and Scott, like, would you like to like talk with me about that because I actually was hospitalized with COVID. I was sick for five weeks. I lost, I couldn’t walk anymore. I lost so much weight that I couldn’t even stand. So I mean, I’ve never denied it because I almost died from it. So, you know, do you want to back that up and say like some of you deny COVID, but some of you almost died from it. Like, you know, I’ve

[1:23:30] Jeremy Hoop: never been so sick in my life when I had COVID for 10 days.

[1:23:34] Michelle: It was bad. Should we acknowledge that? Um All that they are doing is trying to smear this is a pure ad hom and I cannot even figure out why they chose to go here because what a controversial topic it is anyway, because it’s so convoluted and difficult, right? But this is where they went. So

[1:23:52] Jeremy Hoop: that’s a perfect topic for us. It’s a perfect topic because it’s a perfect analogy. They want to distract on an issue that’s not relevant. And instead of honing in on the issues that are like, for example, did it come from the lab? Like for example, was the vaccine like blah, blah, blah, blah blah, which is, which is, which is the typical narrative of the people who are trying to hide obscure and then accuse. And that’s

[1:24:15] Michelle: what us by saying that the only they’re straw manning that side to say they, the only argument against the COVID narrative is that it didn’t exist that there’s no such thing as code of it. It’s a complete strawman again that they’re trying to apply, appeal to apply to us. Yeah.

[1:24:30] Whitney Horning: 100% just a way to completely try to get people to think we’re silly and uneducated and

[1:24:39] Michelle: unsafe and dangerous

[1:24:40] Whitney Horning: and dangerous. Right. Yeah, I mean, it’s

[1:24:45] Michelle: so I’ll just say we’re not persuaded, we’re not persuaded. Let’s keep going.

[1:24:49] Scott (Church History Matters): People that are, like, actually dying. Well, they say you can’t really trust them because they’re part of the system. Even with mountains of evidence. There’s, it’s bizarre. It’s this human tendency that, that some of us have to just care more about. I don’t know, how should we say this to care more about the comfort of our conclusion than the discomfort of the data. I don’t know. I’ve seen some eerie comparisons with Covid Deniers and Joseph Smith polygamy Deniers.

[1:25:17] Brian Hales: Well, I I was going to use that example because I think it does hold. But my experience is that what you do is that they become set in an idea and if you bring in more evidence, more science, more historical documentation, they just dismiss that as further evidence of a conspiracy against what they’ve already accepted. It’s a no win situation. It’s just a time for people to, you know, part and not talk about it anymore because nothing is going to change that including dozens and dozens of affidavits and recollections and a revelation that was penned and is well documented with a very strong provenance. I’m talking about section 132. None of that is going to be persuasive because they’ve already made up their minds and, and any new data will just be seen as part of the conspiracy. So,

[1:26:08] Jeremy Hoop: so we’re gonna take our ball and go home,

[1:26:11] Michelle: right. Again, he says, the only thing to do is part ways and have them not talk anymore. We need to just silence them and excommunicate them and they’re not convinced by this evidence I bring and the only reason it couldn’t possibly be that my evidence is complete bollocks. It’s that they’re just too set in their ways to consider how right I am and how blind they are.

[1:26:36] Jeremy Hoop: And the science, by the way, that’s been brought to bear recently is the DNA testing, which didn’t go well, he’s

[1:26:42] Michelle: here. He’s talking about polygamy. I don’t even want to get into the other topic. This was about polygamy. I talking about the polygamy Deniers. Yeah,

[1:26:48] Jeremy Hoop: I’m saying the, the only science brought to has come on this, on our side. I don’t even know what you’re, the more science. That’s what science comes into a forensic analysis of documents. Right.

[1:27:04] Whitney Horning: Exactly.

[1:27:04] Michelle: You’re exactly right. I’m sorry, I misunderstood II, I got taken down recently. So I’m a little bit nervous to get into that topic. Ok.

[1:27:12] Whitney Horning: I would just, the first thing I thought when I heard this is I thought, well, right back at you.

[1:27:18] Michelle: Yeah, exactly.

[1:27:19] Whitney Horning: Not comforted by your, you’re set in your ways. You,

[1:27:30] Michelle: we actually are bringing all of this evidence and all of this document, all of these documents that are new that they haven’t been discussing and they’re just not persuaded, maybe they’re just too comfortable in their conclusions to consider what the documents actually say so like it is, it is appalling. So I just wanted, that’s the last of our clips on the polygamy denier response because I think it’s important to look at how they engage and then are shocked that we’re not convinced. Well, if they don’t have unrighteous Dominion, they don’t have anything. Oh,

[1:28:05] Whitney Horning: sorry, go ahead

[1:28:06] Jeremy Hoop: with the audience. Just, just be aware. Just, just listen to every time any of these commentators, host historians, especially Brian, they, they use demeaning language in order to distract. That’s the purpose to distract and not engage. Ok. It’s a dishonest, logical fallacy. It’s an ad hominem attack that, that, that puts the, the, the defendant or the, the person they’re engaging with on their heels and, and, and, and it’s, the tactic is to say, I’m not going to engage with you. That’s the idea.

[1:28:38] Michelle: Yeah. And to make the listener feel too embarrassed and afraid to consider what they’re saying because then they’ll be mocked and they’ll be demeans. They’ll be in that.

[1:28:46] Whitney Horning: Yeah. Yes. Exactly. And, and they give zero, um, acknowledgment to what it has cost all of us like we’ve had, I mean, we had these long held traditions. It was extremely difficult. We had sleepless nights and we had anxious days and I’m not just saying a few sleepless nights and a few anxious days, I’m talking years of that. The cognitive dissonance we went through was real. I literally felt like I was wrestling with God and grappling with my traditional narrative for years. So to think that I’m just like, so easily just went, oh, it’s Brigham’s OK. Just throw it on Brigham. Oh, yeah. You know, everything is tied up in a tidy little bow because I just chose to believe Joseph. I mean, it just doesn’t give any, um, credibility to what we’ve gone through and to what a lot of your listeners in particular Michelle are going through have gone through. Like, this is really difficult for people. People don’t want to give up their long held traditions. Traditions are comforting, you know, that it, it keeps us part of the club, so to speak. And so when they speak like this, it does exactly what you said, Michelle, it makes people feel like if they have questions, if they’re questioning, oh, I better not because I’ll be made fun of, I’ll be minimized. I’ll be called, um, an idiot and stupid and, you know, uh, a conspiracy theorist. Right. I mean, exactly what have any of us gotten out of what we’ve done? What have any of us

[1:30:20] Michelle: got? And that’s worth everything we had the truth and it’s what does it cost

[1:30:25] Whitney Horning: us? It has cost us

[1:30:28] Jeremy Hoop: so much

[1:30:30] Whitney Horning: sacrifice,

[1:30:32] Michelle: you know what, that’s part of what I like about what we’re doing because I know that for me, like I want to be there so people don’t have to do it alone like we do. And they don’t have to find the answers. Like it’s so much better when someone has gone down the path and it’s like, look, here’s the next step. Look, the path is laid out like more and more people are going down the path. So we’re not like we were kind of bushwhacking, right. Like, like bushwhacking through the forest trying to not fall off the edge of the mountain. But now we’re trying to pave the path for others coming, coming along so that it’s not nearly so difficult. So people don’t need to be afraid. And that’s,

[1:31:09] Whitney Horning: and I think all three of us didn’t really have people like I lost, I lost all of my friends on

[1:31:21] Michelle: most

[1:31:21] Whitney Horning: of my,

[1:31:21] Michelle: all of my family. I lost most of my family. I,

[1:31:27] Whitney Horning: I mean, my parents died suddenly after my dad telling me I can repent and then we got mother telling me what happened to you. You’re the one child we thought we could count on, you know, to make it to the special kingdom and, and then she died suddenly. So I think we’ve all sacrificed and suffered tremendously. But what we have gained exactly is the truth. We have gained ultimately a peace deep within ourselves that we understand the nature of God. You know, we never had before that, that is something we can trust in. And I think ultimately, as we shed false traditions, our burdens become lighter, you know, we can turn that over to the Lord. And we can, you know, I, I’m 100% with you Michelle. I’ve been saying this since I wrote my book. We need to put polygamy right into the dung pile where blood atonement and blacks and the priesthood belong. And thank God, the church has done that with those. But come on, let’s, let’s get Brigham’s last pile of gun scooped out of the barn and thrown onto the heap.

[1:32:40] Michelle: Yeah. Exactly. Yes. And I think I just don’t want people to feel like, I guess that’s the thing too. I, I think that all of us would agree that while our faith has changed to some extent, because I think that it’s easy to have a church centered faith, which I would argue forever is the Sandy Foundation talked about in second E 528 and other places which was always meant to be shaken apart when you are willing to engage honestly with these topics. That sound is shaken away and it can be difficult and painful less. So when there’s someone there to walk along with you and kind of lead you the way and, and provide some of the answers that we had to find on our own. You know, but we are told that we want our faith founded on the rock of Jesus Christ. And I think all of us would agree that this, this process is a wonderful one to go through to go from a sandy foundation to a foundation on the rock that is in describable, more profound, more connected to God, more like we are so much. I, I don’t know, I am so much more able to be directed by the Lord with this understanding of who the Lord is. Right. I’m I’m so much more connected. It’s been profoundly important. I always have had a lot of faith. This has changed my faith and I would say purely positive ways.

[1:33:58] Whitney Horning: Yeah, I would agree with me too.

[1:34:01] Michelle: This conversation was so intense and so much fun. Huge. Thank you to Jeremy and Whitney and I hate to interrupt it right here, but I did need to spread this out into two episodes trying to keep them a little bit shorter and um balance my time a little bit better. So part two will be coming out next week where we, where we will continue on the topic that we are discussing. But I hope that people are really thinking about this. I hope you will share it with people who are really stuck in the church narrative and thinking that we, we have all of the answers and we have to believe all of the answers that were given because I, I think we need to help wake people up in order to protect faith in order to prevent faith from being destroyed by these awful dishonest narratives that we’re hearing. So thank you for joining us and I’ll see you next week for part two.