The Problems with Mormon Personal Revelation w/ LDS Discussions Ep. 39

Introduction and Series Overview

John Dehlin 0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. It is April 13, 2023 and we are here for another episode in our amazing and important LDS discussion series where we examine Mormon Church truth claims. If my numbering's right, we're on episode number 39 of this series. It's going to be dealing with the topic of personal revelation and patriarchal blessings. It's a really important topic and just to remind all of you that this series is best consumed in sequence. So there's at least 38 episodes previous to this one. You can find them on Spotify under the LDS Discussions podcast label. You can find them on Apple podcasts, you can find them on the Mormon Stories podcast playlist option under LDS Discussions. But what we're trying to do here with our good friend Mike and today with our good friend Nemo is, is to as objectively as possible, as neutrally as possible. And of course that's difficult to examine the Mormon Church's truth claims and to help people who are looking to just figure out what's true for them so that they can make informed life decisions. Just provide them with evidence and with information and with questions that can facilitate it. It's an extremely successful series. Check us out on all the platforms and of course it's integrated into the Mormon Stories podcast feed as well. But joining us for today's discussion is the amazing Mike from LDS discussions dot com. Hey, Mike.

Mike 1:33 Hey everybody. How's it going?

John Dehlin 1:35 It's great to have you, Mike.

Mike 1:37 Good to be back.

John Dehlin 1:38 And of course we have the amazing Nemo from the Nemo, the Mormon YouTube channel. Hi Nemo.

Nemo 1:44 Hey everyone.

John Dehlin 1:45 It's great to have you.

Nemo 1:46 Great to be here.

John Dehlin 1:48 All right, well, I guess let's go ahead and launch in, Mike. This is a part five in a five part series series just on Revelations. And we've talked about Joseph Smith's backdated prophecies, problematic Joseph Smith revelations, failed revelations, and then Revelations after Joseph Smith. And I have to say the Revelations after Joseph Smith episode may be one of those most popular LDS discussions episodes of all time. What do you think that's about, Mike?

Mike 2:14 I don't know. I was actually surprised too because I think it's, you know, it's important because we're looking at the really for one of the first times in the series of going to the modern church. And I think that's part of it is just, you know, now it's something that impacts us. Today we talk about Russell M. Nelson or D jokes or the Mark Hoffman stuff, which I know didn't happen yesterday, but it's, it's modern time. But yeah, I'm surprised. But at the same time it makes sense because all of the foundation we've been putting onto these earlier episodes, the first, you know, 30 something is about Joseph Smith. It's about the early truth claims in the Book of Mormon. And now we're able to kind of take a step back and go, okay, now what does the modern church kind of portray these to be? Because that's important too, because obviously, as we've talked about, a lot of the ways that these historical issues are kind of presented today by the Mormon Church is much different than even 10 years ago. So yeah, I'm not entirely sure why it's one of the more popular ones, but it definitely was surprising.

Epistemology and the Stakes of Personal Revelation

John Dehlin 3:11 Yeah, it's kind of where the rubber meets the road. And I'll just say today the word that I would want to introduce for today is epistemology. And Nemo may be able to define this word better than me, but it's, it's basically around how you know things in this world. Some people like to take an empirical, evidence, science based approach. Some people rely on feelings and emotion more. Some people try and combine the two. But what, you know, today, if we're talking about rubber meeting the road, what's really important is, is the discussion of how Mormons come to believe and, or know things and whether that's a reliable way of understanding information. And then we're going to be talking about patriarchal blessings as well. Nemo, is there anything you want to add to kind of an introduction for today's topic?

Nemo 3:59 I think why, I think one of the reasons why this will probably be quite a popular episode as well is a lot of people find it easy to ignore church history. They find it very easy to say to themselves, well, that's in the past. I'm just focused on what the church does now. So it's also important to address how the church is behaving now, how it's behaved within the lifetimes of a lot of people listening, and also now how it affects the individual, I. E. The way we've talked about how God communicates with the leaders in these people's church, in our church. And now we're looking at how God communicates directly with the individuals within his church. And that's going to hit people personally in a way that some of the other things won't necessarily.

John Dehlin 4:35 Brilliant.

Mike 4:35 Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And I think this episode in particular is really going to do that because now we've talked about, like, how did Joseph Smith claim revelation? What were his, what might have been his motivations? What were the problematic revelations? What were the ones that failed? And then you go, okay, well, what did Brigham Young prophesy? What did Russell M. Nelson say was, you know, an impression that was a revelation. But now it's like, okay, what do we do with the revelations we are claimed to have had through personal revelation and patriarchal blessings? And so this episode in particular, I think every person watching this who was a member of the church or is a member of the church today will be able to relate to parts of this. And I think that's why it's so important to do an episode on this because it does impact every member today.

John Dehlin 5:18 All right, well, let's just dive right in. The essay that we're going to be reviewing can be found at LDS discussions.compersonal-revelation But Mike, let's go ahead and jump into the first slide.

Mike 5:32 Yeah. So this is our fifth episode in kind of this miniseries. And what we're trying to look at in this episode is not as much about the leaders, but about our own ability to receive personal revelation from God. And for me as a convert, I remember like specifically being told, and I've heard this also from Jim Bennett and his interviews with you and Bill Real, which is that members are entitled to and can receive that same capability for personal revelations than all of the leaders can do. And that is something you still see when you read talks from leaders. They'll say that every member of the church has that same ability to get personal revelation that they do. And so for this episode, and this is a little bit of a splitting hairs kind of thing, but I want to focus on personal revelation and not as much on spiritual witnesses, because that's going to be its own episode. And I realize that might not sound like a huge difference, but for me, personal revelation is this idea of getting answers, of getting God's words as opposed to just a feeling. And so we'll talk a little bit about that as we go. But that's. So if you're watching this and you're going, why aren't you talking about, like testimonies? And that's because we're going to have a whole separate episode on that. And the second half of this episode is going to be about patriarchal blessings, which I think is one of the most important things to look at when we talk about modern day. I don't know how to phrase this, but modern day parts of the church that impact lives of the members because it does give you this revelation from God that is premised on the idea that we remain loyal and faithful to the church and its leaders. And so just as we talked about with these earlier foundational events, if patriarchal blessings do not hold up throughout time, then to use those as a way to keep members very loyal and obedient to the church, to get these promised blessings is a problematic kind of aspect of the church today.

John Dehlin 7:22 Okay, and, and I, I. So I hear your, you're, you're trying to tease out a difference between personal revelation and what spiritual experiences. Is that what you said?

Mike 7:32 Yeah, just because I know, like when I was doing this, I kept thinking like, well, that's pretty similar to spiritual witnesses, but they're, they're different even though they're kind of like a lot of overlap. And so we're going to have an entire episode on, okay, spiritual witnesses and testimonies and so on this one, I'm gonna try to stay more focused on just kind of revelation.

John Dehlin 7:49 So just so I understand, tell me if this is right today we should think about, you know, God communicating things to us, whether it's to prophets or to members. Can God communicate things to us? And that's different from this idea of a witness or a Holy Ghost or a spirit or emotions confirming something to be true. Is that, is that the way to think about it today is about to what extent can God communicate specific things to humans through this process of personal revelation? Is that right, Mike?

Mike 8:25 I think so. I mean, we're, like I said, we'll have some overlap in this episode for sure. It's hard to kind of completely separate them. But yeah, it's more like if you pray is the more. Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints true and you get a warm feeling. We're not really going to cover that.

John Dehlin 8:39 That's not. Okay, got it.

Mike 8:40 Yeah. If you're praying. Oh, go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo 8:42 It's the difference between like direct and specific guidance versus affirmation. I feel like. Yes, maybe the way to define.

Mike 8:48 Yeah, that's exactly it.

John Dehlin 8:50 Okay, brilliant. All right, so let's go to what is personal revelation? Let's define our terms.

Nemo 8:55 Yeah.

Mike 8:55 And this is one that's kind of interesting because we talked about this with a few things within kind of Mormonism in the past. And so if you go on, on Google and you just Google personal revelation, almost all the entries are about the Mormon church or from Mormon church sources because this is a fairly unique idea. In Mormonism. And then if you search personal revelation on the church's website, you're going to find just a whole, whole ton of talks that discuss personal revelation and how members can receive and cultivate it for themselves. And, you know, one of the things that's kind of interesting, and we've noticed this with other issues, is that the definition of what personal revelation actually is, it varies from talk to talk and from leader to leader. But the general idea is that as members of the church, we can receive direct instructions from God if we pray sincerely and with a real desire to know God's will. And this is obviously most commonly illustrated by Moroni's promise in the Book of Mormon. I don't know, Nemo. Do you want to read that or do we not need to read that? Yeah.

John Dehlin 9:53 Yeah.

Nemo 9:53 Behold, I would exhort you that when you shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that you should read them, that you would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men from the creation of Adam, even down until the time that ye shall receive these things and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true. And if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things.

Mike 10:34 Okay, so we already have some overlap here between spiritual witness and personal revelation. But the point is, at least for me, as a convert, I was always told, if you really have a sincere heart and you're really putting in the work to study these things, if you ask God a question, you will get an answer that's not just a feeling you can actually answer, like, what am I supposed to do about something? And you'll get an answer in your head to say that still small. That with a small. Still small voice, will give you that answer of, like, you should do XYZ to fix that problem or whatever the case might be. And so it really just shows that in the church, you're told, if you really pray and you really want to know the answer, God will give you that answer in time.

John Dehlin 11:13 Got it. And just as maybe just to kind of really set this up, you know, we've talked about this previously, kind of the whole value proposition, the missionary proposition, if the Mormon missionaries show up at your door, if you were a Mormon missionary, this would be very familiar to you. The whole idea is that the way that all of Christianity has gotten it wrong up until 1830 is that they, they kind of teach that God used to talk to men through prophets and that God used to be more active in the lives of humans. But at some point Jesus died, was resurrected, the Bible somehow got put together and from that point further kind of revelation has ceased. And I think, tell me if I'm right. Nemo and Mike, kind of like one of the core messages of Mormonism is no, starting with 1830, starting with Joseph Smith, God, 1820, really, when God and Jesus, or first God and then later God and Jesus appeared to Joseph Smith. God started talking to humans again after the great apostasy and it started with Joseph Smith. And of course Joseph Smith became the first quote, prophet of the modern, you know, of the modern dispensation of the fullness of times. But also it's better than that because not only will God speak to prophets in the Mormon Church, but God can speak to members. And all you gotta do is pray and fast and be righteous. And God might tell you to turn left or right at the stop sign. God might tell you whether or not to get married, whether or not, whether or not to have kids, how many kids to have. God will tell you which university to go to or not to go to. I probably already said who to marry. Like whether to serve a mission. Like God will tell you things and

How the Church Frames Personal Revelation

Nemo 13:05 the answer to serving a mission is always yes, John, it's always yes. They've told us you don't have a choice, right?

John Dehlin 13:11 Well, we're going to get to that. But, but that's, that is that, am I right? Is that one of the core value propositions of Mormonism? Nemo?

Nemo 13:17 Yeah, I'd say that's the reason they start out with the first vision. The idea that God came and spoke to PA 14 year old farm boy Joseph Smith. And if you've been watching the last 38 episodes, you'll realize it's a lot more complicated than that. But that is the simple message is that God will speak to anyone because he'll speak to this dirt poor farm boy of just 14 years old. So he would speak to you as well. But then the rest of the missionary discussions is about managing expectations as to why he won't appear to you in a fiery pillar above your head, you know, above the brightness of the sun, because that's what he did for Joseph. But no, we then have to explain that it's through the whisperings of the spirit, etc. Etc.

John Dehlin 13:54 Yeah, yep. And, but, but it starts out very hopeful. It's like God's talking to Joe, God talked to Joseph, God's talking to Russell and Nelson the prophet now. But more importantly, God can talk to you. And it's particularly important if you're an 8 year old Mormon kid getting baptized or a teen or adult convert to Mormonism. It's like, hey, don't take our word for it, just pray about it, read the Book of Mormon, think about it, ponder on these things, pray about it, and then God will communicate to you something as important as should I get baptized or not in the Mormon Church, that's kind of a yes or no answer. And so God can reveal things to you. And not just that, God can reveal the mysteries of things unto you. So if you want to know, where do the twelve tribes of Israel go? When is the second coming coming? You know, again, what, what are some very specific decisions in your life that you should make? God's there and, and, and, and that sort of thing. Mike, anything you want to add before we then start to talk about how this gets changed?

Mike 14:58 No, I mean, that's like I, I remember very vividly when I was taking the missionary discussions, that kind of mindset of this is the only church that can get direct revelation from God and can, you know, basically see the problems that are gonna come ahead and to warn you and to be able to give you insight about the problems of say, 2023 as opposed to, say, you know, the 1800s. So that is the value proposition, which is we can get answers from God that are very specific about things happening today, which obviously, as we've talked about in the previous four episodes on Revelation, is not actually how it, how it works, or at least how it even, you know, wants to, to be seen as working in the church today when you talk about something even like Heavenly Mother. So it is definitely a change, as Nemo said, from that first discussion of we can get these amazing visions, these amazing revelations too today, which is you're just not, you know, you're not allowing these little whispers to come through the way they're supposed to.

John Dehlin 15:50 Okay, yeah.

Speaker D 15:53 All right.

John Dehlin 15:54 And so obviously, before we start talking about why the church would even need to water it down, because that's the next slide, I can already just kind of start the discussion of why the church would even want to water this down because obviously, number one, there's going to be people who receive, who think they're talking to God, who are praying to God, who are sincere, but Number one, God can tell them to do things that the church might not agree with, or God can start telling people to do things that might be harmful to other people. Right now, in the United States, there's this trial where Chad Dabel and Lori Vallow are both being tried in an Idaho court for not only killing their spouse spouses, but in Chad's case, you know, and Lori's case. Well, no, in Lori's case, their. Their children or their siblings end up dead as well. And of course, there's been, you know, with the Lafferty brothers, there's been people who believed in Mormonism who then felt like they were called to be prophets or to produce their own scripture. And you can see how if everybody is left to their devices to start receiving revelation for themselves or for the church or for other people, things can go really sideways. And so is there anything else, Mike, you want to say to start setting up why there would even be a need for the church to now go and water down this teaching?

Mike 17:21 Yeah, and actually, the. The perfect example to me is we covered this in our second episode on Revelation, which was Joseph Smith's kind of problematic revelations, which is Hyrum Page is going to claim to get revelation from God through a peep slash seer stone in a hat, doing the exact same thing Joseph Smith did. And he produces 16 pages of Revelation, I believe. And the witnesses to the Book of Mormon believe this is from God. And Joseph Smith hears and he's like, oh, no, no, no, this is from the devil. They destroyed the stone. And it just shows right off the bat that the moment Joseph Smith allows other people in the church to be able to claim to do the exact same thing Joseph is doing, even with a peep stone shearstone in a hat from God, reading the words off the rock the exact same way Joseph and me is like, oh, no, that can't be real. And from an outsider perspective, like, yeah, because Joseph Smith realizes that someone else is doing the exact same, you know, game he's doing. But that was the moment where Joseph Smith had to come up with another revelation to say, only I may speak for God. And so you see that right then and there that Joseph Smith immediately realizes, I cannot allow other people to have this authority to claim revelation from God, because the moment you do that, Joseph's authority gets watered down. And in today's case, if someone can say, I received a revelation by Heavenly Mother, well, Russell Nelson is sitting up at the top and he's like, I haven't been able to say a word about her. And now I got all these other people in the church who are claiming to speak for God. I got to shut that crap down. Because the moment they see that I can't do it, but they claim to be able to do it, the entire structure of authority just starts to crumble.

John Dehlin 18:49 Okay, okay, Nemo, do you want to, do you want to add something to that?

Nemo 18:52 Well, yeah, I think one of the ways that Joseph Smith mitigated that was by having a revelation about everything, including how much people could buy into the Nauvoo house. Whereas you now have a much less broad landscape of revelations being had by people. And so you have to have people like Dale G. Remland coming out and saying, stay in your lane, people, you know. Yeah, sure. The prophet hasn't given any significant revelations at all. Yes. The most significant thing he's done is tell us that the word Mormon is bad. But just wait. You can't go trying to work out all the pertinent issues yourself because they have this kind of safe pair of hands concept. Within Mormonism, the prophet is seen as a safe pair of hands to handle God's will. And if members were allowed to do it themselves, willy nilly, then things like the lefty brothers happen.

John Dehlin 19:36 Yeah. So you want, so you want. The church wants its authority to be obeyed. It wants you to believe and think only what it approves in terms of beliefs and theology and thoughts and doctrine. And then it wants you doing whatever it wants you doing. It doesn't want you doing anything that it doesn't approve of. And it base, most, most importantly, wants you doing things that build up and strengthen the church. So it's, it's about your authority. It's, it's about protecting the church's authority. Members believing and thinking what the church wants them to believe and think and then doing what the church wants them to do. And so personal, anytime personal revelation conflicts with the authority of the church, gets people to believe things that the church doesn't want or gets them acting ways that isn't in the church's self interest. Is it fair to say that's going to be a problem, Mike?

Mike 20:32 Yeah, and we'll have, we've got, we got some video on that. So yeah, that's an issue.

John Dehlin 20:36 Okay, so let's go to the next slide.

Nemo 20:37 Yeah.

Mike 20:38 And so we talked about this when we looked at the previous episodes on Revelation about how when Joseph Smith was prophet, he would get revelations on literally anything. I mean, Zelf, the White Lamanite is a claimed revelation where they see this set of bones. And Joseph Smith's like, oh, this is self, the White Lamanite. He was known, I think, all through the Rockies or whatever, and he had anything. And so Joseph Smith was a big believer in being able to get revelation from God. And so this is from Joseph Smith's own history. He says the best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer and obtain divine teaching. And so Joseph Smith is making clear that, you know, researching books will not give you answers, but God will give them to you through prayer and through personal revelation. And if that doesn't make it clear what Joseph Smith thought, here's another quote. This is from June 27, 1839. And he says, God hath not revealed anything to Joseph but what he will make known unto the 12. And even the least saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them. For the day must come when no man need to say to his neighbor, know ye the Lord, for all shall know him who remain from the least to the greatest. And so Joseph Smith is saying in this sermon, I believe it's a sermon that every person from the most, you know, let's just say a woman who has no authority in the church, she should be able to get revelation. Just as, you know, a priesthood holding 12 year old or an 11 year old. I know I sound facetious there, but they're saying the least member of the church, the one who has the least amount of authority, a woman, can get as much revelation as Russell Nelson can. And so there's, there's really no splitting hairs here. And, and so Joseph Smith is making clear you should be able to get all these answers for yourself. You shouldn't need me to tell you all of this.

John Dehlin 22:16 I'm. I'm automatically disturbed by that quote that don't look for wisdom in books. The best ways to go to God in prayer. If that were true, we wouldn't need science, we wouldn't need history, we wouldn't need education. We would just be born as babies and then just start channeling God's wisdom and there's no need for learning or education at all. Nima, anything you want to add?

Nemo 22:36 Isn't there a part of Doctrine and Covenants that say, seek ye after the best books?

John Dehlin 22:39 Yeah, yeah, it's kind of. It's contradictory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nemo 22:42 Which is it?

John Dehlin 22:43 Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Okay, Mike, let's go to the next. Let's go to the next slide. Oh, you're muted, Mike.

Church Leaders Narrowing Revelation Over Time

Mike 22:52 So now we're going to start to see how this begins shrinking down quickly. And so this is from 1982. And Elder Boyd K. Packard says, these delicate, refined spiritual con communications are not seen with our eyes, nor heard with our ears. And even though it is described as a voice, it is a voice that one feels more than one hears. And so here in 1982, Elder Packer is saying that we don't receive the words from God in the way that Joseph Smith claimed to receive them, but we receive feelings that guide our thoughts. And this is much different than how the church used to claim that revelation occurs. And it does fit much more with a spiritual confirmation than it does with personal revelation. And this is the reason that prophets don't record revelations in the voice of God anymore, because they know full well that they are not receiving divine text in the way that Joseph Smith used to claim to be able to receive them, whether he was reading it off of a rock and a hat or being able to kind of riff it off the top of his head like he did with DNC132. And to me, it feels like in the most unintentional of ways, Elder Packer is completely undercutting Joseph Smith's credibility by stating that revelation simply does not work the way that Joseph Smith said it did when he was recording and claiming so many very specific revelations.

Nemo 24:05 I mean, there's an opposite way to look at that in he's undermining his own authority, basically saying that, yeah, Joseph Smith got him this way, but we can't. And then you have to ask yourself the question, okay, why can't they receive them in the very direct, specific way that Joseph Smith received them? So you could almost look at it as him undermining his own authority.

Mike 24:22 Yeah.

John Dehlin 24:23 And it seems like what he's trying to do here is there's a lot of people, like, I relate. I relate to what I'm about to say. Like, I'm a high schooler. I'm going to seminary. I'm a Mormon kid. I hear all these fantastic stories about Joseph Smith and Lorenzo Snow and Wilford Woodruff and Spencer B. Kimball and Revelation and Moses and Abraham. It's like, oh, God speaks to everyone. He'll speak to me about my life. So I'll sit there and I'll read the Book of Mormon and follow Moroni's promise and then wait for an answer. And because I, like, I'm not easily social, maybe I'm not as easily socially manipulated, or I, like, maybe have a scrupulous conscience as A as a 16 year old, I kneel down and pray and I'm worthy. And I'm like, no, I'm waiting for an answer, God, and it doesn't come. And I'm wanting something literal. I'm not thinking some little feeling. I'm like, God, give me wisdom, I'm here, appear to me, talk to me, and then it doesn't happen. And so what I imagine, tell me if you can think of other scenarios. But Boyd K. Packer's trying to say, oh, if you are worthy and if you try to pray and if you try to get answers and you don't get any answers, maybe your expectations are too high for the answers. Maybe all you're supposed to be getting is a feeling, not actual words or language or anything that's too much like a voice or too specific. So he's lowering the bar so that people don't either think they're broken or, or so that people don't think that God's not doing his part or that the church has it wrong. Does that sound right, Mike?

Mike 26:01 Yeah, I mean it does. Like my, the example that comes to my head is I graduated college after 911 and after 911 there was a recession that hit the country and so I'm looking for a job and I can't find a job because all of the interviews I'm getting. I remember going to this one interview and I got a second interview. I was so excited. I get there and, and the HR person, the first thing she says is you're up against two other finalists who have way more experience than you. And I'm like, oh, I'm screwed. And so you go home and you're praying, you know, and you're saying, what do I need to do? Where should I be looking? What should I be aiming for? I'm hoping to get some guidance. Like maybe you should look at a certain company or maybe you should look at a certain website that has maybe openings or something and you get nothing. And so what Elder Packer here is saying is you shouldn't be expecting an answer from God. You should be expecting feelings. But then like there's no feeling there's that is going to give you guidance outside of just sometimes you get that kind of feeling. Like that feeling like you can do it, like I've got the strength to do it. Well, that's fine, but that's not the same thing. And it's certainly not what Joseph Smith taught we were able to get. And so it's a little similar to what you were saying. John. But it's just sometimes you pray. And at the time I was really frustrated with not being able to find a decent job out of college with a degree. But you don't get an answer. And so then you start to think, well, what am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong to not get that answer? And that is where you lead to a lot of members in the church feeling like they're not worthy. And that leads to all sorts of problems as well.

Nemo 27:23 It's the genius of an omnipotent being who is perfectly good. Because if he is perfectly good and he has not responded to your request, he clearly can't be the one at fault. He's blameless. He's faultless. So it always has to be the individual's fault that things didn't work. And the job of the church is to offer reasonable explanations as to why the thing that they said would work, didn't. And you can't blame God. So you've got to come up with reasons why the person may not have done enough or been sincere enough or been worthy enough or whatever. It's always got to be the person's fault. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 28:03 It's almost like the last thing a member can arrive at is that the church is wrong. But if, but, but, but, but. So if the church can't be wrong, then maybe, maybe you're misunderstanding or over expecting what God can give. But then, you know, last case of all is blame yourself. If we have to blame someone, you have to blame yourself. So either you weren't worthy or your expectations were too high. Is that, is that, does that sound right? Nemo's nodding, Mike.

Mike 28:36 Yeah, it is. I mean, we hear all the time Jim Bennett, who I, I really, I really do like listening to, because he is obviously a member, but he is willing to at least be more open about some of these things. I, I think when he was with you and also when he was with Bill Real a few years ago, he kept saying that, like, sometimes we have too high of expectations of profits. And to me I go, no, because they make specific claims. But that is usually the go to when things fail. Because all of a sudden they're like, why did you expect this much out of profits? It's like, well, because they claim to have this power, but yeah, that's where you have to go, because you can't. The only option is to throw past profits under the bus, which they do, or the members, because the moment they admit that they don't have what they claim to have, then that it's over. So.

Speaker D 29:19 Yeah.

Mike 29:19 Oh, go ahead.

Nemo 29:20 I'm sorry. People. People don't get expectations out of nowhere. Yep. So if someone's expectations aren't being met and you're going to call those expectations unreasonable, you then have to get to the bottom of why they have those expectations. Expectations in the first place. Yeah, right.

Mike 29:33 Yeah. And to be fair, Jim Bennett will say those expectations do come from the culture of the church. So it's not like he's saying that you're being unreasonable. He's just saying that. And this is a common apologetic, which is just to say that needs to change, the culture needs to change of thinking that prophets really have this direct telephone to God, but at the same time, that's how they present themselves. So you can't, you can't separate it. That's the whole is, as John said, that's the value proposition of Mormonism. And so you can't then say, well, you're maybe thinking it's a little cooler than it is because then at that point you've got a whole slew of other issues to deal with.

John Dehlin 30:05 Got it. All right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Why don't you go and set this up for us, Mike?

Oaks and Ballard on Youth Questions About Revelation

Mike 30:12 Yeah. So we're going to have a couple of clips from this app. It's a 2017 face to face with the youth. And so there's elders Oaks and Ballard are being asked pre screened questions. They know exactly what's coming. And this question is, how can one get a confirmation from God? Because this girl feels like she's been unable to receive answers from God about the question she has. And so they're going to give a pretty bland answer. So we'll listen to that and then we can kind of give a little bit of a response.

John Dehlin 30:39 Okay, so just so I understand, these are youth who are probably coming with a question to these prophet seers and revelators, disciples of Jesus. Man, I'm praying and I'm not getting the answer. And this is their best attempt to kind of manage their expectations.

Mike 30:54 Yeah, and, and just.

Nemo 30:55 Yeah.

Mike 30:55 And of course, remember these are pre screen questions so they have the answers completely planned out. So when they give these answers, it's not like they're off the cuff and they're just having a hard time. This is something that they were expecting and ready for.

Nemo 31:04 Okay.

John Dehlin 31:05 All right, so this is number two in command of the Mormon Church down H. Oaks. And if I'm not wrong, Russell Ballard would be third in command. Currently in the seniority, third in seniority. After Nelson, After Nelson and Oaks. Okay, let's go ahead and play the clip.

Mike 31:26 How do I truly come to know and believe for myself the things that I have been taught? I pray for answers and a confirmation of the Spirit, but my answers don't seem to come well.

Speaker D 31:38 The first thing we say in response to that question is that revelation or inspiration is a process. And the Lord teaches us it comes line upon line, precept upon precept. He also tells us, and this is from the 88th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, that it will come in his own time, in his own way, and according to his own will. So we patiently wait upon the Lord and don't get uptight because we haven't had our prayer answered the first time or the first year that we have asked.

Speaker E 32:16 I think I'd like to add to that that sometimes it's hard for us to listen. I think we're very quick to be engaged, and maybe even at this time in the history of the world, it's possible for young, single adults and I guess everyone to be captured by clutter. And when I say clutter, I'm talking about all the technology that is available, all the things that can take your mind away from those quiet moments when you get the promptings that you're seeking as you go through life. This is not an unusual thing that you're concerned about. I think everybody has gone through that. Certainly I have still do. But I find times when I'm concerned about something that I have to find a quiet. A quiet place where I can just be still and know that I am God. And then in those quiet moments, you don't hear voices and you're not going to have a vision. That's very unusual. But really, the things you feel within your heart or the way Heavenly Father ultimately answers prayers, what your feelings are is the process of conversion. And conversion for all of us is an ongoing process. Until the day comes we finally go from this world to the next one.

Speaker D 33:52 Well said.

John Dehlin 33:54 Thank you.

Mike 33:55 Our next question deals with sharing the gospel. So. Okay, you can cut it.

John Dehlin 33:59 Okay. So is it okay if I give a reaction? Mike and Nemo, and then you guys. So I'm going to try. Nemo, you're. You're a tiny bit more salty than me today. So I'm going to take more of the believer, good faith, faithful point of view, and then you can deconstruct it. Is that okay, Nemo?

Nemo 34:17 Sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin 34:18 Okay. So. So if I. If I try and do a good faith interpretation of what Ballard is saying there, and. And Mike, I don't know if that clip went longer than you planned on it, and if that. If that means we don't watch some of the other slides.

Mike 34:31 No, that was. That was fine.

John Dehlin 34:33 Okay. That was the clip. So. So if we just assume that Ballard is sincere and that Oaks is sincere, what they're saying is, is that revelation exists, but it takes time. Sometimes it takes. Sometimes God's not ready to give you the information, that sometimes you have to be patient and you sometimes have to wait. And then he's saying that, you know, to. To really get that revelation, you have to quiet your soul and you have to kind of really tune into the Holy Ghost, you know, and if you do, if you can declutter your life from all the abstractions and obstacles and problems and really tune into the Holy Ghost, then you'll feel these subtle feelings. But don't expect to see visions or to hear voices. It's going to be feelings of the heart, and that's how you're going to get a revelation. And if I'm going to just take my best faith interpretation, in some ways, this is almost like secular Buddhism. Consistent, because it's. A secular Buddhist would say there is no Holy Ghost, there is no God necessarily, but there is this inner voice of wisdom. And if you meditate and if you're mindful and you get quiet enough and you get still enough, you can listen to your inner voice and get wisdom. And sometimes it takes time to learn that process. So if I'm taking a good faith interpretation, there's a level at which I'm saying, what is wrong with what he's saying? That almost seems consistent with what Noah Rachetta would recommend as a secular Buddhist. So, Nemo, let me give you a chance to either validate that and. Or tear it apart.

Nemo 36:17 I mean, there is some validity to that. I think the question comes as to when you admit, from a secular Buddhist perspective that's your inner voice, then you know what it is you're dealing with, and you know that it will arrive because it is there. And it's just about achieving the right set of circumstances with which to unlock it. When it comes to the whole Holy Spirit paradigm, that's something different. It has a different name. It's not that. It's not that inner voice. So it's something you're trying to kind of invite, and it's something that you're believing is external to yourself. And so therefore, it's something that you're denying. If it isn't Appearing, if that makes sense. So I think my thoughts on what he said would be, what number of things? Or is there a finite number of circumstances or obstacles, which, if you get rid of all of them, then reliably and regularly that voice will come, because that inner voice will come reliably and regularly. If you are meditating regularly, and if you are, you know, being patient and just letting it happen, it will reliably appear. The Holy Ghost doesn't seem to. There seems to be an infinite number of reasons why it won't turn up. There isn't a set of things that if you can eliminate those problems from your life, then the Holy Ghost will reliably be there. And I think that's the difference. And the problem with what they were. They were saying in a sort of roundabout way.

John Dehlin 37:46 Okay, Mike, I. I know you've got a slide next. Do you want to jump to the slide and give your. Your critique?

Mike 37:52 Yeah, let's jump to that one.

John Dehlin 37:53 Okay. All right, let's do that.

Mike 37:55 So the. The quote that I really wanted to focus on from the clip was near the end, where Elder Ballard says, and then in those quiet moments, you don't hear voices. You're not going to have a vision. That's very unusual. But really, the things you feel within your heart are the way Heavenly Father ultimately answers prayers. And what your feelings are is the process of conversion. And so what he's telling all of these young members is that feelings are the entirety of personal revelation. And it's just. We've shown this already in these episodes, but it's just a horrible way to discern truth. And the problem is the equation always is going to work in the church's favor to encourage confirmation bias to kick in, because we're going to have these members feel that God is confirming to them that the church is true, when in reality, it's ultimately just these kids wanting to experience that warmth that they've been raised their whole life to feel. And, you know, when we try to limit this to personal revelation. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

John Dehlin 38:47 Oh, go ahead. Keep going.

Mike 38:48 Oh, no, I was just saying the moment that you start to, like, limit personal revelation to just feelings, it's much easier for the church to define what those feelings are. So they can now define the outcome of your feelings. And we're going to get into that more in the spiritual witness episode as well. But it's like if you ask members to put in the research about the church, about what they've learned, and then tell them to actually try to get that same Feeling you're not going to get it. And that really is where Nemo said, where it's like, how do you have the, the recipe to get the Holy Ghost to give you answers? Because what they're giving you is the recipe to get you to confirm, you know, to convert to the church or to stay within the church.

John Dehlin 39:26 Yeah, yeah. And Mike, the way that, the way that I was trying to think about this in a contrary way, and I'm just going to restate, I think what both of you have tried to say or have said very eloquently. It's that, it's that, you know. Well, Mike, you said something that I would push back a little bit on. You said that. I don't know, I don't want to misquote you, but that feelings are a horrible way to discern truth or, or to, to make decisions. What was it exactly you said about.

Mike 39:55 I was just saying that your, your feelings are a horrible way to discern truth from fiction. We've seen that over and over again.

John Dehlin 40:01 Yeah. And I think, I think that's true. On the other hand, people make decisions based on feelings all the time. And, and in some ways that's not only healthy. We're. We're kind of biologically wired to make decisions based on feelings. And we have no choice but to kind of try and put language to our feelings. And so it is complicated because nobody's an automaton. Nobody is able to get perfect information to be able to perfectly logically make all decisions. So we're not against emotion based decision making. Is that right, Nemo?

Nemo 40:35 And Mike, I'm certainly not. If you read the work of Jonathan Haidt. I'm always praising Jonathan Haidt on this channel, but his book the Righteous Mind is an excellent way of exploring how we're actually, we make decisions based on deep feelings and then we're very good at justifying them to the outside world with language. And we, we're far less rational than we like to think we are when it comes to these things.

John Dehlin 40:55 Yeah. So on the one hand, like the elephant and the rider are. The elephants are emotions. And that kind of controls much of what we do. And then we put language, we use language to kind of justify the conclusion we arrived at emotionally. That's all true. On the other hand, we have a cerebral frontal cortex. We have that executive decision making part of our brain, the logical, rational part of our brain that helps us use information and evidence and logic to kind of guide those decisions. And so that's, you know, we've Already seen the slide previously where they're saying, don't trust people outside the church, don't trust science, don't trust evidence. The pure way is to go directly to God. And Mike, what I think I just heard you say is that obviously if a, if a young Indian teenager is raised as a Hindu, he's going to be the content or the substance of his, quote, revelations or promptings is going to be shaped by what his parents taught him as a kid, what he learned at church as a kid. Same with the Jews, same with the secular kids, same with the Muslim. So much of that programming that you have from birth for, for people raised in a certain religion is going to then end up shaping what you call revelation. But it could just as easily be wanting to please mommy, wanting to please Daddy, wanting to please the bishop, wanting to please the community, not wanting to disappoint your siblings or your grandparents. And in that way, it's kind of confirmation bias. Does that sound right, Mike?

Mike 42:33 Yeah. And I'm not even saying that emotions are a bad way to make decisions. I'm saying they're a bad way to discern truth from fiction. So, yeah, you know, for example, we were talking about dogs earlier, before we started recording, and we got our second dog, and we knew it was a really dumb idea to get a second dog, but we saw a picture of a dog that was really cute, and I said, we got to get that dog. And so you get the dog. And then, as Nemo said, you justify doing it later. And that decision ended up being great because the, we love dogs. But if someone came to me and said, hey, I'm going to give you this, this, this medical question, and you're going to tell me if I'm telling you the truth or not, and I pray about it, whatever feeling I get is going to be as unreliable as anything else because I haven't done the, the evidence to back it up. So I'm not saying it's a bad way to make decisions because we all make decisions based on emotion and happiness and sadness and all that. I'm just saying you can't discern truth through it.

John Dehlin 43:25 Yeah. And it's good. Oh, go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo 43:27 I was going to say I'm going to stop myself from going too deep into stoicism here. And what is a good and bad choice? I did want to ask you a question as a psychologist, John, about something that Ballard said, which was he. He quoted from Doctrine and Covenants, be still and know that I'm God, which I believe is A reference to Isaiah. It was interesting that Ballard didn't change that. I wonder how Freudian that was. Does he view himself as God?

John Dehlin 43:58 Well, I mean, we. I. I want to try and ascribe to them the best motives, but they do view themselves as mouthpieces, like literal prophet seers and revelators, the mouthpieces of God on the earth. And not just like. Just like all other church leaders. They see themselves as the 15 mouthpieces of God and Jesus on the earth. Absolutely. Yeah.

Nemo 44:20 Yeah. So I just wonder how much of that came across. Sorry, that was just a.

John Dehlin 44:24 No, that's Good point. Yeah. Yeah. So. So there's a confirmation bias problem inherent in not being able to really know when we have a feeling, whether it's conditioned, taught, learned, or whether it's actually genuinely either of us or of the Holy Ghost or we can have the complexity of an evil spirit that's counterfeiting feelings. Like, that's just problematic. And I think the next slide, Mike, is you highlighting that maybe even Oaks acknowledges this problem with confirmation bias. Is that fair?

Mike 44:59 Yeah. And so this is, you know, one of the things I heard all the time. And it's not, you know, it's a pretty common teaching within the church is that if you have good feelings about the church, that those are the feelings of God confirming the truthfulness of the Church to us. If we have negative feelings. You know, for an example, if you read the overviews on my website and you discover the Church isn't true and you start to get negative feelings, the Church will tell you that's the adversary trying to lead you away. And so with personal revelation, we see that exact same equation being taught by the Church, which is definitely seen in Elder Ballard's answer. We just watched where he talks about how, in the end, it's just the feelings in your heart. So in the same event, there's another question, which is how can I differentiate between the Holy Ghost and my own thoughts and feelings? And I think this is an important one, not just for personal revelation, but for spiritual witnesses as well. And Dallin Oaks is even going to admit that confirmation bias plays a big role.

Distinguishing the Spirit from Personal Feelings

John Dehlin 45:49 Yeah, and there's no good answer. I could already tell you there's no good answer to this question, but let's hear it.

Mike 45:54 Okay, so her question was, how can I differentiate between the Holy Ghost and my own thoughts and feelings?

Speaker D 46:02 This is a question we wrestle with all of our life. It's well to remember that the Scriptures teach us that inspiration comes in the still, small voice. It doesn't come in the urgent impulses of doing what we want to do and reaching out in bias for a confirmation to our personal opinion. I have found it helpful to use that test of bias when I'm trying to sort out the difference between a desire to be confirmed in what I want to do already and and what the Lord may want me to do. And if I get an impression to do something I don't want to do, I think that's a lot more authentic than to get or to report an impression that I've been confirmed in what I wanted to do anyway. Wow.

John Dehlin 47:00 Okay, Mike, what do you want to say about that?

Mike 47:04 Well, if you guys want to go first, you can. I have a slide that kind of goes over my thoughts on it.

John Dehlin 47:07 But let's have you start then Nemo and I can give our reactions after.

Mike 47:10 Yes, if you could load up the next slide. It really is. To me, it just shows that there's like this Catch 22 on his comments here because he's telling us that if we receive a confirmation that contradicts our previously held beliefs, that it's more likely to be an authentic revelation from God. So, in other words, if you're watching the series and you begin to feel that, yeah, this evidence is pretty overwhelming that the Church is not what it claims to be, getting a feeling of confirmation that the Church isn't true is actually more reliable because it's not just confirming the biases that were created throughout your life in the church. And on the flip side, it's also a problematic approach towards Moroni's promise, because if you're stating that personal revelation that confirms what we want to be true is not nearly as powerful. He's telling every member of the Church who wants the Book of Mormon to be true, which would be almost every member growing up, that their personal confirmation and revelation of truth is likely influenced by the fact that they wanted it to be true in the first place. And so it's, you know, in a real world example, you know, my kid, when he was a little bit younger and he would ask if Santa was real, I would always ask, well, what do you think? And he would always reply with some form of, I believe he's real. And the reality is that he was raised to think that Santa Claus was real. And so when he was confronted by others in his class about the reality of Santa, which happened way earlier than we were, you know, hoping for, he would fall back to those happy and, you know, comforting feelings he had about Santa, which then confirmed the truthfulness of Santa to himself. So in other words, my kid wanted Santa to be real. So Santa was real, even in spite of his ability. Once he started to realize, the story didn't add up. And so Oaks here is really, I think, putting Moroni's promise in a bit of a bind, because he's basically saying, yeah, if you get a quick feeling, it's probably just what you wanted anyways. And I. I don't. I know that's not what he meant, but that's kind of what happens when you start to take that. That line of thought.

John Dehlin 48:49 Okay, Nemo, let's hear your reaction. And then I have one.

Nemo 48:52 It's one of the most honest things I think he's ever said. Honest. I think fair play to him. I think that was genuine. I think that was sincere. I think he was trying to give good advice. But like you said, it creates a logic trap. The healthy way to deal with this, I think, would be to actually have a theological teaching of you as a divine son or daughter of God. Have within you the light of Christ, get rid of the Holy Ghost for a moment. You have within you the light of Christ. And when through our church, through attending the temple, say, or being in the celestial room, or doing things that our church is. Does that encourages you to take time to meditate, to ponder, to pray, to have reflective moments that then that inner voice will come up and it will help guide you. But the problem is that creates far too much independence for a church that wants to control its members. So they have to teach that it's an external force, the Holy Ghost, that will guide them. It's not their own intuition. Because like you said, all of a sudden your own intuition can start coming up and throwing spanners in the works for you. Being a member of the church that will keep paying your money and doing what they need you to do. So I. I think there's. There's a healthy way spiritually to look at this. Absolutely. There's a healthy way to deal with this problem. But that means the church would have to relinquish control over the members, which they don't want to do.

John Dehlin 50:05 Yeah, My. I love that Nemo and Mike. My. My two senses is. I'm just trying to process this real time. You know, the church has this teaching that, quote, the natural man is an enemy to God, which means that we've got this carnal and this ties into the atonement, that we're all fallen, that we're all carnal and devilish, that we're all sinners. It's very Calvinistic. And that if we left to our devices, we're evil, wicked, nasty, pernicious creatures. And I don't love that view of human nature. I don't think that's necessarily true. I do think we are in some sense part of the animal kingdom. And so we've got instincts and instincts for survival and for just living that are real. But, but there is this idea that over time we as humans have tried to become more civilized and, and as our front cerebral frontal cortexes have developed, we've tried to become more sophisticated and advanced. And instead of just taking food when we see it or just copulating with whatever, you know, thing appears in front of us or killing someone who makes us mad through civilization, we've tried to elevate ourselves and have higher laws that help us, you know, extend our lives and have more peace and a higher quality of life. And so in that sense, you know, I can think of the marshmallow experiment where they, where they've shown, you know, in labs that a kid who's willing to not eat one marshmallow now if he'll be rewarded with the second marshmallow after waiting, there's this, there's this natural human virtue in being able to forego immediate pleasure. Kind of epicurean, you know, self satisfaction. Yeah. Self gratification, being willing to forego that for something higher or better later. And so on the one hand, I can see that the church starts from that place. It's like, listen, you're going to have bad things you want to do. Steal, lie, cheat, murder, rape, have sex, masturbate, all sorts of awful things. Not going to church, not reading the scriptures, not praying, swearing, like you do, all those things, being gay, whatever it is, those things are bad. You're going to have desires to do those things. And if you'll just hold off and trust us, then you can live a higher life, which is being honest, being kind, being service oriented, being a part of a community, living the gospel, getting married in the right way, saving sex until the right time, not breaking the laws, and you'll have higher love later. And so in that sense, if we want to give a good faith interpretation to Oaks, he's saying, you know, if this, if your carnal desires, if, if you're being told to do whatever you just immediately want to do, that's bad. But if you, but if you listen to the, the spirit and it's telling you to do the opposite of what your core base nature is telling you to do, that's a good sign. In other words, if it's telling you to live a higher law, that's a good thing. So that's the good faith interpretation of what I think is being said there, Oaks. If I were to give an argument against that, it's that that becomes a lot of power as soon as the church becomes the arbiter of what is moral behavior. And I know we're going to talk about this in the very next slide. Where it becomes problematic is when is when the church then gets to tell you everything. The church is always the one who gets to decide what the higher living is, because all of a sudden it can start telling you how to spend your time, how to spend your money, how to spend your life, who to marry, who not to marry, when to marry. And it can just. There's an extreme, on the other hand, where the church is literally just taking over your life. And that's where the high demand religion or cult thing starts to really emerge. And it's just where the church ends up inserting itself along that spectrum that becomes whether that sort of determines whether it's a humane, positive thing for the individual or a hyper controlling, damaging cult. Does that make, does that make sense? Nemo and. Or Mike?

Nemo 54:25 Yeah, it makes sense. I think that that's where I would go with that, is if Oaks had caveated and said, you know, it's not revelation from God if it just encourages you to do whatever you want to do. Whatever you want to do. If you caveat to that by being, yes, your carnal desires, or you're the natural man, but like you said. Yeah. Then. Then the problem becomes, well, who's telling you the things that you should want and that are okay? And yeah, that's the church.

John Dehlin 54:50 Yeah.

Mike 54:50 Yeah.

Which Personal Revelations the Church Considers Valid

John Dehlin 54:51 All right, so, Mike, I think that takes us to the next slide, is how the church defines which personal revelations are valid.

Speaker D 54:56 Yep.

Mike 54:57 So the next slide, and this one's interesting because you had mentioned this earlier, but, you know, this is when the church is going to tell you basically, if you come up with an idea that goes against what we want you to do, it's not from us. It's the exact same thing as Joseph Smith did to Hiram Page. When Hiram Page had those revelations, he said, oh, you got those through the same method as me. Well, that's funny because the devil did it for you, but God did it for me. And, and it really creates this ultimate heads we win, tails you lose scenario when it comes to your emotional responses. And so Dallin Oaks here is going to make explicitly clear that personal Revelations are only valid if they confirm what the leaders of the church, which Oaks just happens to be a part of, are teaching members. And so this answer is not only designed to privilege the leaders of the church, but as you're going to see, it's pretty awful to tell a child that their parents are the ones getting incorrect revelations. So this clip is, I think, one a lot of people have heard, but it's an important one.

John Dehlin 55:46 Okay, let's roll it.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 55:48 Sure. And building on that, if we get an impression contrary to the Scriptures, to the commandments of God, to the teachings of his leaders, then we know that it can't be coming from. From the Holy Ghost.

Video Clip 1 56:05 The.

Video Clip 1 56:05 The Gospel is consistent throughout. I had an experience once with some members who sought my counsel in this circumstance. They said, our parents have told us that they've gotten a revelation that they don't need to pay tithing and they don't need to attend church anymore. What do you think of that? And I said, well, I don't question your parents revelation, but they got it from the wrong source. Embodied in that is the An Elaboration of the Principal Elder.

Mike 56:42 Okay, they could stop here.

Nemo 56:45 Okay.

John Dehlin 56:45 Yeah, so. So Mike, I'm guessing, Mike, you've got, you've got a slide next where you're going to tell why you don't like that.

Mike 56:54 Yeah, I mean, this is the problem with, with trying to say that if you get a revelation that contradicts the church, you get it from the wrong source. So just like, let's take a step back here and just kind of look at what Oaks means. So if you received a personal revelation up until 1978, that the priesthood and temple ban on members with black skin was wrong, that personal revelation was from the adversary. If you believe during that very small window when God changed his mind between November 2015 and April 2019, that the church's policy of exclusion towards the children of LGBT members or that labeling those in same sex marriage was apostasy, if you thought that was wrong, then that revelation was from the adversary. If you believe the science that DNA shows that Native Americans came from Asia, not Jerusalem, a key truth claim in the Book of Mormon, then that personal revelation and studying it out in your mind through books is from the adversary. And you know, if you believe the Kinderhook plates were hooks up until night until the 1980s, just 40 years ago, your personal revelation was from the adversary because the leaders still believed that they were authentic until 19 till 1982. I believe. If you believe that Adam was not our God, During Brigham Young's time as prophet, your personal revelation was from the adversary and even contradicted the lecture at the Veil in the temple. And so it's just to show that this, this answer, it has nothing to do with getting it right. It's about obedience. Because the church has changed. You know, when he says the gospel is inconsistent, it has not. The church has changed major, major parts of their. Of their regulations. They've even changed the Book of Mormon itself. They've changed on the Godhead. And to say that if you received a personal revelation that contradicted those, that it's from the wrong source. And I, I just, you know, it really creates a lot of problems, especially if you believe that God is consistent and didn't just have an arbitrary priesthood ban until 1970, 78. So it's the same thing as the Last Word. If you go down and take his statement and go a step or two further, it just shows how problematic it is. And this is why the church constantly twists themselves into pretzels when they're trying to answer these questions about difficult topics.

John Dehlin 58:47 All right, Nemo, what do you want to add?

Nemo 58:50 I want to look at what he said at the beginning when he talked about the teachings of his leaders talking about God. Now, it's a funny old thing about the English language, but I just want to explore this very quickly. Is that the leaders belonging to him or the people that lead God, which one of those do we believe in in this church? Because it actually seems like we believe in these men speak for God, and they actually lead God's wills and God's wants, and they seem to be in charge of that. So it's interesting the way he phrases that. Not, you know, that contradicts the leaders that he has selected for his children. It's just his leaders. So the people that lead him or the people that lead his children belonging to him, which is it?

John Dehlin 59:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'll just add. I'll just add. Maybe I'll just echo what you said, Mike. And that's just that it's. First of all, he talks about, you know, you can't. You can't receive a revelation that's contrary to the scriptures. But the scriptures are super problematic. You know, the Book of Mormon begins with. With Nephi receiving a revelation to kill Laban. So three chapters into the Book of Mormon. Am I right? There's already murder that the Holy Ghost, you know, approved of through divine revelation. And, you know, we've got the book under the banner of heaven and the Lafferty brothers, It's just one, along with Lori, you know, a modern example, very timely this month, of Lori Valo and Chad dabell receiving revelations to kill their children or their spouses. You know, the scriptures condone slavery. The scriptures condone murder. They condone, you know, stoning of a woman if she handles her menstrual period wrong. Like so. So, and the scriptures are contradictory. They conflict each other. So the scriptures are not a reliable source for behavioral decisions. And then you've got the Old Testament versus the New Testament versus the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and you've got all, you know, polygamy is, is not really mentioned religiously, but then it's forbidden, as we've talked about in previous LDS discussions episodes until then. DNC132. But then now the modern prophet is taking it back. Like, like the scriptures are a mess. And then modern day prophets, as you already highlighted, Mike, modern day prophets are just as much as a mess because they're contradicting each other all the time. And so. But what he wants to say is follow the brethren, meaning the modern leaders of the Mormon Church and not just in the past 50 to 100 years. He's going to say the ones that are currently living, those are the ones that you should be paying attention to. But again, like you said, Mike, if you did that 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, then you're believing doctrine that has since been disproven by subsequent prophets. So it's just a mess. But then he uses, he violates the rule of the BITE model. You know, BITE stands for behavioral control. This is what cults do. They control your behavior by controlling information to control your thoughts, and they manipulate you with emotions. And he has to throw satanic influence in there at the end. Why? Why is it not possible that God could say don't pay tithing. Maybe God could say don't pay tithing because you need to feed a starving kid or you need to pay some medical bills. Why couldn't God say don't go to church because you need to stay home because of some miracle that I'm gonna, you know, be bestowing upon you that you won't get in church, but you'll get it if I'm staying home. So why in the world couldn't God say don't go to church or don't pay your tithing as two examples? Certainly if he could tell Nephi to kill, chop off the head of Laban. If God can tell Nephi to chop off the head of Laban or Joseph Smith to marry a 14 year old. Certainly God could tell a member to not pay tithing or to stay home from church for whatever higher reasons God wants. But instead of just allowing full latitude to God the supreme power and the supreme power in the universe, Dallin H. Oaks is going to say if God tells you to do anything that we the modern church leaders don't approve of, then it must be Satan. And that's ending it with highly manipulative, emotionally charged language that says if you do anything other than what we modern church Mormon leaders are telling you to do, you're under the influence of Satan. And that is clear emotional manipulation.

Nemo 1:03:39 They lead God, like I was saying, like that there's that view that they, they are in charge of what God gets to say to you and doesn't get to say to you under their, their purview. And it's it. You could take the Nephi language and, and use it to, to make that example you just made. John. It's better that one man should perish than an entire nation dwindle in unbelief. It is better that one person stay home from church than the entire congregation get the flu.

John Dehlin 1:04:03 Right?

Nemo 1:04:03 Why can't God say that to you? It seems, it seems flippant. But again, why couldn't God say actually no, you should probably stay home because you're a little bit infectious and we don't want, you know, it would be kind to everyone else that you stay home. But no, the brethren say you must go to church.

Mike 1:04:17 So yeah, it's, you know, throughout these episodes, there have been a number of things I've probably said over and over again. One thing though, if you're going to take away one thing is when the leaders of the Mormon church say God, when they say what God wants, just replace God with the leaders of the Mormon Church. Because every time they say what God wants, what they really are telling you is this is what we want you to do. And this is a good example. And I would also note just for maybe a little bit of levity here, this face to face was in 2017 after the church had already amassed tens of billions of dollars in the U. S. Stock market. So maybe God did tell this, these parents, hey, this whistleblower report hasn't come out yet, but you really don't need to pay your tithing. They've got billions and billions and billions in stocks. They're fine. Because at that point we didn't know that the church was hiding all this money in shell companies. So I'm actually thinking the parents might have gotten a real revelation on this one.

Nemo 1:05:07 And your method there is Brother Hamilton approved or Elder Hamilton approved? Because Elder Hamilton also taught us that we should replace the Church with Jesus Christ. Exactly. We can equate those things.

Mike 1:05:19 Yeah, he's right. That is absolutely. Like I said, there's a number of things I've said over and over in these episodes to try to drive these points home. But whenever the church says this is what God wants for you, instead of saying God wants for you to do this, say the leaders of the church want you to do this, because that is ultimately one and the same in the way it's taught.

Speaker E 1:05:38 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:05:38 And. And it. Tell me if I'm got my dates wrong, but if this presentation was given in 2017, it would have been between the time that in November 2015, where the church implemented the exclusion policy that, that basically, you know, forbid children from being members in good standing if they had same sex married parents. And. And the condemned same sex marriage as apostasy that required children of same sex married couples to condemn their parents explicitly at age 18 if they wanted to even get baptized into the church. That horrific, horrible doctrine and policy that led to a complete mass resignation amongst LGBT affirming members and a massive revolt amongst non homophobic progressive members of the church. And after Nelson had doubled down and called that exclusion policy revelation. Right. This talk about personal revelation would have come between that and the very obvious and conspicuous reversal that the Church made. What was it four years later, where they reversed the November 2015 exclusion policy, obviously in response to the outrage of the members that you could argue was based on legitimate personal revelation, where in their communications with God they concluded that God like Jesus, that God is no respecter of persons, that God would never suffer the children not to come unto him, that God wouldn't support such a bigoted policy. And they're basically denying any of that personal revelation that would have happened between the exclusion policy and its reversal. Is that right?

Mike 1:07:27 Yeah, that's right in the window.

Nemo 1:07:29 Hubris. There's tons of hubris in that idea that we will always get it right, so we don't need to worry about your concerns. And yet the. The idea of common consent exists within the church. So if a member has, you know, is, feels, receives revelation about something to do with someone else, that should disqualify them for calling, I. E. They shouldn't be allowed to work with children, then surely that contradicts what the current leaders of the church are teaching because they're putting that person forward for that position. So what are you meant to do then? Because the question would be, why didn't God tell those leads to the church? Where was their discernment? But, you know, maybe they weren't listening. The idea this is where prophets have to be infallible, because otherwise why would they act as though there's no need for the safety net of personal revelation of others?

John Dehlin 1:08:19 Yeah, yeah, it's basically systematically teaching you to ignore your conscience, ignore your inner voice, and ignore science, ignore books, ignore learning, ignore social justice movements all around you, including the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the LGBT rights movement, science in general.

Speaker E 1:08:41 And.

John Dehlin 1:08:42 And just listen to what the current octogenarians and nonagenarians leading the church are saying is right. Mike, should we go to the next slide? Just kind of summarize the point that I think you're making.

Mike 1:08:56 Okay, so this, you know, like I said, this is. This is how personal revelation is taught in the church. And it's. If you have revelation that confirms that the leaders speak for God, it's going to be applauded and nurtured in the church because it elevates the authority of the men above us. If you study these issues, but you come to the conclusion that the church is not true, you are told that the adversary has gotten a hold of you and that those thoughts are not from God. Even worse, if you talk about what you've learned publicly, you will be disciplined by the Church for doing so. And on the other hand, if you've never actually read, never actually researched any of the church's truth claims and just accept those teachings uncritically, which is the definition of an indoctrination, and you get a warm feeling that it's true, then it's God giving you that personal revelation. That's true. And so, like I said, it's the ultimate heads I win, tails you lose scenario where the church is using your own feelings against you to stack the deck in their favor. And it's not only used to define your experience, but to define the experiences of others who do speak out publicly about what they've discovered. And ultimately, it weaponizes personal revelation against you because it now defines what your thoughts are in the moment. You tell someone that if they have a thought that's not a happy thought, that it's from Satan. It really just. I mean, not only is it stupid illogically to say that, because if you watch, you know, if I watch a news story tonight about a kid being kidnapped or something, I'm gonna feel not happy. That's not Satan making me unhappy, it's me going, that's a horrible story. But when they weaponize it against you in matters of spirituality, I think it just really is, you know, it's a, it's a form of like spiritual extortion where they take your emotions and then they use it against you to keep you in this system. And I think that's just a really horrible thing to do. And we see it in this event is with the youth. And so they're teaching this to the youth. And all of the kids are laughing as Dallin Oaks is talking about how he tells this little kid that his parents are getting revelation from Satan. Which I find horrific as well.

John Dehlin 1:10:45 Yeah. And I think the church, it's a little bit even worse than what we're describing because in addition to everything you just said, Mike, what we know from the past 200 plus years of Mormonism is if any member speaks up and voices their conscience and says I disagree, something as benign as I disagree, I see it differently. And even more offensively, you've got it wrong. And even more unacceptable is, hey everybody, they've got it wrong. The church has it wrong on this. The church has it wrong on polygamy. The church has it wrong Jon Joseph marrying 14 year olds. The church has it wrong on the civil rights, you know, being against the civil rights movement, on Martin Luther King being smeared as a communist. The church has it wrong on the ERA as they tried to fight and as they, as they successfully defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. The church has it wrong on conversion therapy of gay people over time. You know, even the church has it wrong in excommunicating dissenters, whatever it is. If anybody within the Mormon Church speaks out publicly to tell the church they've got it wrong or to warn the members that the church has it wrong, the church will silence them, they'll censure them, they'll disfellowship them, and if they don't shut up, they'll excommunicate them. And, and for those who don't know, I'm an example of, of someone who the church ultimately excommunicated because I, I spoke up and said the church got it wrong.

Nemo 1:12:13 You're saying I'm not trying hard enough, John Nemo yet.

John Dehlin 1:12:17 I think you're trying super hard, Nemo.

Nemo 1:12:19 I, I'm, I'm just speaking out, but long may it continue.

John Dehlin 1:12:24 But, but I guess, I guess to add the e, you know, they're controlling your behavior as part of the bite model, but they're manipulating members through emotional manipulation of fear that if you ever, you know, the worst thing you could ever do in Mormonism is get up at the pulpit and say the bishop's got it wrong or the prophets got it wrong, or the scriptures have it wrong, you're pretty much toast. Am I wrong, Mike? Have you ever seen anybody get up on the pulpit and say that the church leaders have got it wrong?

Mike 1:12:55 Well, it doesn't end well. I mean, usually the mic gets cut or, you know, obviously you're told not to come back. So I mean, yeah, it's not going to end well if you do it. So I mean, for sure the, you know, you. I always laugh because I've had incidences since I started doing the deep dive, which if you flipped it and made it a faith promoting story, as opposed to kind of like something that was almost like a really insanely rare coincidence that happened to me. If you flip that to say that brought me back to church, it would be probably a story told, possibly a general conference, but because it actually is something that brought me closer together with someone who had also left the church. It's reviewed as from Satan. And that's really what it comes down to is if it promotes the church, it's from God. If it goes against the church, it's from Satan. And it's just, you know, like you said, I could go up and give a talk on a Sunday about the problems with the book abraham and stay 100 factual without giving any personal opinion and I'd be run out of, run out of the, run off the podium because obviously they don't want members knowing it. It's just it that's where it gets problematic is when you try to silence people for speaking out about things that are our basic knowledge.

Speaker E 1:14:00 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:14:01 And I'll just add, you know, I think we've made the point we can move to the patriarchal blessings. But I'll just add for those of you who care about Jesus and care about Christ, I'll even offer a Christ based alternative to follow the brethren, follow the modern Mormon church leaders above all else, including your conscience and whatever you think or feel or science, it's what Christ said, which was the kingdom of God is within. And what I think it's fair and reasonable to interpret that to mean is Christ was saying you should be developing your own inner voice and your own inner wisdom. And the, the peak or the culmination of maturity, of enlightenment, of spirituality is learning to listen to that inner voice, which I would argue is harmonizing evidence, science, Information and your emotions and your instinct. In the mental health profession, wisdom is defined as harmonizing emotion and information and logic. You don't want to just make decisions purely emotionally. That's mental illness. But it's also mental illness to shut off all your feelings and just make decisions based on thoughts or information. That's also a personality disorder.

Nemo 1:15:21 That's just Britishness, John. Turning off your emotions is just Britishness

John Dehlin 1:15:27 or Britishness. It's either a mental illness, a personality disorder, you know, some. Some sort of personality disorder, or Britishness. I think that's brilliant. Thank you, Nemo. No, that's brilliant. You. What you want to do ultimately is harmonize.

Nemo 1:15:42 Yes.

John Dehlin 1:15:42 Information and logic with emotion and make. Make those decisions. All right, Mike. Oh, go ahead.

Nemo 1:15:47 I just kind of ask him to that real quick because I think it's really important to. Jesus was not a conformist. What Dallin H. Oaks is presenting here is conformity is God given. Because God wants your personal revelation to conform to what he's already told his prophets or in scripture or so on. But Jesus wasn't a conformist. That is not the sort of thing that Jesus would have taught. He absolutely would have taught, like you said, John, that it's about nurturing the kingdom of God within yourself, about nurturing that. That the processes by which you take everything in and come to good decisions as an autonomous individual. Because Christ came to fulfill the law and do away with the pharisaical attitudes that we see a lot of in the church now, ironically.

John Dehlin 1:16:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the day. I'll just say the danger of just following the Brethren is, you know, we can see it with like the Boy Scouts of America class action lawsuit that tens of thousands of Mormon boys have been sexually abused with COVID ups. That's not to mention all the girls and the young women and young men that have been sexually abused by the Mormon Church. You know, based on cover ups, all the LGBT youth who got depression and anxiety who tried conversion therapy and then in many cases died by suicide by following the Brethren. Literally by following the Brethren. Not to mention all the racism that the Church has encouraged, not to mention all the sexual predation that came about and coercion that came about during the polygamy era between, let's just say 1840 and 1890 or 20, 1910, however you want to calculate it, there's been immeasurable, immeasurable harm caused to Mormons who have just blindly followed and Mountain Meadows Massacre who have just followed the Brethren.

Nemo 1:17:43 The moral compass of the current leaders is evident in that they say, well, we don't have to give over information in Arizona because legally we have clergypedent privilege. So we're gonna lean into that and say, well, the law says so sorry kids. So when it comes to protecting children from child sexual abuse, they're like, oh, well, the law says we don't have to report it, so we won't. But when the law says they should have reported 13F filings as one company, they're like, don't fancy it. So they're happy to not listen to the rules when it comes to making themselves money, but they will listen to the rules when it helps them cover up child sexual abuse.

Speaker D 1:18:22 Yeah.

Nemo 1:18:22 Is that the moral compass that you want to lean on and get rid of your own by saying, well, I'll just listen to them?

Speaker E 1:18:29 Yeah.

Mike 1:18:29 I mean, yeah. I'll add one more point before we jump over here just because I know this isn't necessarily personal revelation, but we've talked about this in our Priest Race in the Priesthood episode about Lowry Nelson who writes a series of letters to the First Presidency because he is seeing the problems that the Mormon Church's stance against members with black skin is having. And so the First Presidency sends him a letter and it says, from the days of the prophet Joseph, even until now, it has been the doctrine of the Church never questioned by any of the church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel. Furthermore, your ideas as we understand them appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and white races and a concept which heretofore has been most repugnant to most normal minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now. God's rule for Israel, his chosen people has been an agnogamous and how can I never say, right. Anyways, modern Israel has been similarly directed. We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators as it manifests itself in this area, towards the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks. But it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to church doctrine. And so this is what they tell him when he's telling them that their, their doctrine on, on those with black skin sucks. And then I just want to add this because this is really to what we were talking about the last few minutes. This is a letter from the First Presidency and the secretary adds in the COVID letter. I should, I should like to add on my own account however, that when a member of the Church sets himself up against doctrines preached by the prophet Joseph Smith and by those who have succeeded him in the high office, which he held. He is moving into a very dangerous position for himself personally. So I mean, that's just to show that when you have personal revelations that go against the church, the church is not only going to silence you, but they're going to try to do everything they can to keep you afraid to speak out. And I think that those that that letter shows, because 30 years later, the church is going to apparently have the same revelations that Lowry Nelson was having 30 years prior.

John Dehlin 1:20:24 Yeah. And we're going to include a link in the show notes to the story of Lowery Nelson. There should be a dedicated Mormon Stories episode just to tell that story. One of the most courageous, inspiring and heartbreaking stories I think in modern Mormonism.

Mike 1:20:38 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:20:39 And I think that's. That's really crucial. So. Yeah, so I think we've made a really good case for the problems with personal revelation. And I'm just going to summarize again. We had Stephen Hassan, the world expert in cults here who has studied, you know, the Moonies and, and Scientologists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Forget his application to Mormonism. Just try to understand what the world's foremost leader in, in understanding cults has taught us, which is that if any organization is overly controlling your behavior, trying to limit the information that you consume, which in this case would be telling you, don't look to science, don't look to books, don't look to external authority, certainly don't look to yourself, look to the leaders of the church as the guide. They're controlling the information that you take in. And the reason why they want to control the information you take in is because they want to control your thoughts. They want you having the right thoughts and not having the wrong thoughts. The right thoughts are respect the authority of the brethren in the church, believe what they tell you, and then most importantly, the behavior. Again, do what we want you to do. And the final part of the bite model after the thought control is emotions, which we're going to use emotional manipulation, whether it's fear of Satan or promises of some huge big afterlife. You'll be with your family someday in heaven and you'll be a God, either with a carrot or a stick. That's heavy emotional manipulation to get you to do what they want to do. That's what unhealthy organizations do. What healthy organizations do is what I would say is what Christ seemed to be teaching. Christ didn't Say, follow the octogenarians and the nonagenarians in the 21st century. That's how you'll know God's will. Christ literally said, the kingdom of God is within, which means look inside yourself and, and develop that wisdom and strength to know what's right for you. That's my summary. And Mike and Nemo, what I'm going to do is call an audible here and recommend that we, and we can come back and record the next one immediately. But I think this should be its own episode because I think it's important enough. And then I think we should have an episode just dedicated to patriarchal blessings. So let's, if that's okay, Mike and Nemo, what do you guys want to say in conclusion as we end this segment on personal revelations? Nemo, I'll give you the next. I'll give you the next shot. And then Mike will have you give your final thoughts on personal revelation?

Conformity, Control, and Parallels to High-Control Groups

Nemo 1:23:20 Yeah, sure. I think it's incredibly problematic that the church ever got away with teaching people that you in your natural state, unaltered, are an enemy to God. And unless you do what we say, you are at odds with deity. I think that's, that's problematic because, yes, we should always be seeking to improve ourselves. I think improvement, self improvement is good. But I think that teaching someone that they are somehow unworthy of love from deity because of who they are, they are an enemy to him. Just be in their natural unaltered state is, is problematic and is a recipe for then controlling that person and helping them, selling them the cure to that antithesis or that antipathy towards God.

John Dehlin 1:24:06 Amen. Mike.

Nemo 1:24:07 What?

John Dehlin 1:24:07 What? And I'm just gonna add, Nemo. It's giving two power to human, too much power to humans. Yeah, humans are flawed. Humans are. I think I agree with, you know, humans. What?

Speaker E 1:24:18 What?

John Dehlin 1:24:18 I agree with Jared Tolkien. To make it British, you give someone the ring of power, they're likely to become corrupt and abuse it. And giving these octogenarians and nonagenarians who lead the current modern Mormon Church the power to tell you what they think is God and Jesus's will for you, that's too much power. It's too easily susceptible to abuse, and it's too easily something that will override your own wisdom as to what's best for you, whether it's, I don't want to have kids, I don't want to get married, I don't want to go on a mission, I don't want to be a Mormon, I don't want to be straight I, you know, whatever it is, I don't want to give my money in this way. I want to give my money in another way. There are all sorts of decisions that a human needs to be able to make based on their circumstance, their situation, their DNA, their conditioning, their situation that should never be fully relinquished to a leader who claims to speak for the creator of the universe. That's just. That's just setting yourself up for abuse.

Nemo 1:25:22 Can I push back real quick on the phrasing of I don't want? Because many people will push back on you going, john, well, you got to do things you don't want sometimes? I don't think it's about that. I think what you're saying is that what is right for people, what is right for me, maybe not having children, what is right based on all my circumstances, based on the fact that, you know, I may be carrying some recessive genetic disorder that I could pass on to a child, that I don't want to do that. There's all sorts of things. It's not about. I don't want to do this. Because that almost puts across the image of a petulant child stamping their feet, saying, I don't wanna. I think what you're actually saying, John, is it's more about what is right for people. And people you keep mentioning that they're Octo and nonagenarians. I think that's really important because they're several generations removed from some of the young members of the church. They're so far removed from the world that so many of us live in, that if we are accepting that they're not really getting advice from God, then how in the world are they meant to be able to give us sound advice for the world we live in? Sorry, I just wanted to add that I love it.

John Dehlin 1:26:22 I love it. Nemo. That's great. Mike, what are your closing thoughts on personal revelation within Mormonism?

Final Thoughts and Patriarchal Blessings

Mike 1:26:27 Yeah, I think for me, because we're doing this kind of mini series, it really shows that we talk about our own personal revelation, but we could see the results of the personal revelation of the leaders of the church. A good example is Joseph Smith being fooled on the Kinderhook plates. All the leaders that were fooled with the Mark Hoffman forgeries. We could talk about local bishops who were, by the power of discernment, called to be a bishop, and then later now being charged with abuse claims. And so for me, when I look at people who keep getting it wrong and then they're telling me I'm getting it wrong, I kind of look at that and I go, who are you to tell me my personal revelation is wrong? When you can't figure out what is your own mind will versus what is God's. And so I think that the moment that we have a church that demands so much of us, they demand where we spend our money, what underwear we wear, who you know, and it's to a certain degree how we get married. I just think that they have to get it right. And the moment that you start claiming to have a power and then when that power has a chance to be assessed, it comes in wrong, then you lose all of that authority. And so the way the church has kind of adapted to that is to basically tell you, well, you're just, you're too impatient. You are hearing it from the wrong source. And I feel like one of the things we've shown throughout this series is that the leaders of this church have no more ability to discern God or the future or anything than anyone else does. And once you get to that point, it's a lot easier to go, I'm going to trust myself and I'm not going to allow you to define my emotions for me. And I really think that's why personal revelation can be a great thing, because it does allow us to get, you know, we talked about earlier with meditation, it allows us to get a chance to really think about these things for ourselves, to get down to what we want to do. But it does not, it should never be something that is altered by a power that claims to have authority from God when they can't get it right themselves.

John Dehlin 1:28:15 I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And they've gotten it wrong so, so many times in, in very, not, you know, not just trivial ways, not just fraudulent ways, but in ways that have, you know, led to systemic child abuse within the church, systemic misogyny within the church, systemic homo homo, systemic racism within the church, and systemic homo negativity and or homophobia within the church that's led to, in the most extreme case, a suicide epidemic in the past 10 years within Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Mormonism. So the stakes are really high, not to mention controlling how people, when they get married, how they get married, how many kids they have, what education to pursue, how much money and time they give to an organization. The stakes are so incredibly high. This becomes one of the most pernicious teachings of the modern Mormon Church. All right, well, this is great, Mike. I, I think, I think to close out our part six of our Mormon Modern Day Revelation series, we're going to Talk about patriarchal blessings next. Is that right?

Mike 1:29:29 Yeah. And I think that one is just, to me, patriarchal blessings are more important than personal revelation because it's something that the church is going to give to you, and they are also going to give it to you under the premise that it's a road map for your life. And I think we're going to look at that and see both how the church teaches it and also how kind of how they began in the church, and also look at some examples of where they claim things in the name of God that clearly did not happen. And then to look at that and say, what can we learn from that in 2023?

John Dehlin 1:29:57 Excellent. All right, well, that's perfect, Mike. Nemo, anything you want to add? Just about your. Your wonderful channel. How's Nemo the Mormon going?

Nemo 1:30:07 Nemo the Mom's going really, really well. I'm really happy with it. Anyway, I'm doing my best to get shorts out and get videos out weekly, and I'm just. I'm loving being full time. It's great. It gives me a chance to really get things how I want them.

John Dehlin 1:30:21 Yeah. So please subscribe to Mormon Stories podcast on the YouTube channel, follow us and subscribe to us on all the socials, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera. But also please subscribe to Nima the Mormon. And in addition to donating to Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories foundation to keep this series alive, to pay Mike for his work, and to keep things going, please also take the time to become a supporter, a monthly donor to Nemo the Mormon. How do they do that?

Nemo 1:30:52 Nemo donor, box forward slash, Nemo the Mormon.

John Dehlin 1:30:56 Donutbox.com NemotheMormon Hyphenated or just no, all one word. All right. All right, Mike, you're brilliant. Thanks so much for all you do to educate us, you know, in the church.

Mike 1:31:10 Thanks, everyone, for watching. And, you know, like we said before, all of this stuff is coming from people that have done all of this hard work before me. Whether it's, you know, Dan Vogel, Brent Metcalf, I'm gonna forget so many people. John Hamer. I'm sorry, I'm gonna drop a lot of people. But point is, all of these people have done so much really cool work. And so I'm glad to be able to present it in a way that I think has resonated with some people and help them as they've been trying to figure it out like I was. So I'm just glad to be able to. To present it in that way, and hopefully it helps for a lot of people out there.

John Dehlin 1:31:39 All right. And again, you can you can watch or listen to this entire LDS discussion series on Spotify as its own podcast, on on Apple Podcast as its own podcast, or it's integrated into the Mormon Stories podcast feed on all the platforms. And there's a playlist on YouTube where you can watch the entire LDS discussion series in sequence. Or share it. Please do share it. Thanks for your donations. Thanks for your support. Share this with anyone you want. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast and on LDS discussions. And check out LDSDiscussions.com for all of these essays. Take care, everybody. We'll see you soon.

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