Church Backtracks on Deceptive Change to Book of Mormon Introduction
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About this episode
The LDS Church has quietly but significantly updated the Book of Mormon Introduction, shifting away from explicit historical claims and emphasizing a more spiritual interpretation. In this episode, we dive deep into these changes, analyzing what they reveal about the Church’s evolving stance on the book’s historicity. Could this be a response to long-standing criticisms about the lack of archaeological and genetic evidence? Or is it part of a broader effort to make the Book of Mormon more accessible to a global audience?
We begin by reviewing past introductions, including the 1981 version, which explicitly described the Native Americans as Lamanites—an assertion that has been challenged by DNA research. Scholar Simon Southerton’s work on this topic led to his excommunication, highlighting the tension between scientific findings and traditional LDS beliefs. With the new Book of Mormon Introduction, the Church subtly revises this claim, leaving room for apologetic interpretations while distancing itself from the idea that the Book of Mormon is a literal history.
The discussion also touches on reactions from Mormon apologetics, ex-Mormon influencers, and Church leadership. Elder Bednar has stated that the Book of Mormon is “not a book of history,” further supporting the idea that the Church is moving away from a strict historical narrative. We also examine how the Church has handled similar doctrinal shifts in the past and how these changes affect both believing members and those questioning their faith.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this shift is how quickly the new Book of Mormon Introduction was released—and then retracted—on the Book of Mormon app. The LDS Living article announcing the change was also taken down, leading many to speculate that the Church is testing the waters before fully committing to this revised framing. Is this an effort to slowly transition members away from a literalist interpretation without causing a crisis of faith?
Throughout this episode, we explore the broader implications of this change, including its impact on Mormon theology, missionary efforts, and the Church’s credibility. If the Book of Mormon is no longer presented as literal history, what does that mean for core LDS doctrines? Can the Church maintain its claims to divine authenticity while acknowledging that the book may not be a historical record?
We also discuss how ex-Mormon influencers and podcasts may be accelerating these shifts. With social media amplifying discussions about Church history and doctrine, is the institution being forced to respond in ways it never has before?
Join us as we break down this major development, analyze its significance, and speculate on what it could mean for the future of Mormonism. Whether you’re an active member, a questioning believer, or an ex-Mormon, this episode offers crucial insights into the LDS Church’s evolving relationship with its foundational scripture.
Originally published on mormonstories.org.
Transcript
Machine-generated and lightly edited. Click any timestamp to jump the audio to that moment. The audio is authoritative; please check it before quoting.
Welcome and Episode Introduction
John Dehlin Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions edition. LDS Discussions is back after a long hiatus thanks to the epic 20 part series with Matt Harris on his amazing book. Oh my gosh, my brain. Just what's that? Thank you, Julie. Second class Saints. Black Mormons in the struggle for Racial equality. We took an LDS discussions hiatus because that series was so epic. If you haven't checked it out, please do. Anyway, that series is done. And now we're back with the amazing LDS discussion series where we dig into Mormon Church truth claims from a neutral, as a neutral and as objective as a position as we can and help you decide for yourself what is true and not true about Mormon Church truth claims. Today we have an exciting new news story that just broke over the weekend. It's changed. It's like making history and then rewriting history as we make new history. Right now, I think the current title is Mormon Church Rewrites Scripture's Introductions. Or at least that's how it started. And now what does it evolve to, guys? What's the new headline? What's the latest thumbnail?
Julia Like the Church backpedals or something like that?
Nemo Or Church turns Introduction into Explanatory Note in App without Telling Anybody and Makes News Outlets Pull Articles for Fun. That's what I'd call it.
John Dehlin Oh my gosh, I'm so glad we're here with Nemo, with Gerardo, and with Julia. And just let's jump right to the story as it was a few days ago. And we're gonna play Julia's amazing video from analyzing Mormonism, her TikTok. Because Julia, this video's got how many views?
Julia Almost 50,000. And it was published on December 5th.
John Dehlin Yeah. So this will just give you guys a sense for what the story was about as it evolved.
Julia If you've been following along in Mormonism, you'll know that the Church recently updated the introduction to the Book of Mormon. You'll find the new introduction in the Book of Mormon app produced by the Church. After reading it, I have a lot of questions about what is and isn't mentioned. Angel Moroni is mentioned, but not by name. Joseph Smith is not mentioned. Nephites and Lamanites are also not mentioned. And in general, there is no mention of Native Americans. The gold plates are not mentioned, and any form of translation is not mentioned. The Bible is also not mentioned. And neither are the three innate witnesses. Jerusalem, the Tower of Babel, the Jaredites. None of these are mentioned. And nowhere does it say that the Book of Mormon is the most Correct. Of any book on earth. Overall, the promises contained for those who feel that the Book of Mormon is true are far less impressive than the old ones. The new one says simply that God will reveal the truth of the Book of Mormon in his own way and in his own time. And it says simply, may you find God on these pages. As far as what is mentioned, Jesus is mentioned four times. God is mentioned seven times. Heavenly Father is mentioned four times. And the words you and your appear 21 times when it did not appear at all in the old introduction. So to those who are active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and even to those who aren't, what's happening here? Is the Church trying to make the Book of Mormon more palatable for those who aren't members? And is this new introduction really honest and transparent?
John Dehlin Yeah. So that's a. That's a great. That's a great introduction, Julia. We'll be covering this more. I put together a slide of, like, three questions that kind of echo Julia's. Is the Mormon Church trying to, again, rewrite history regarding the Book of Mormon's origins? And we're going to be kind of covering the history around that in today's episode, providing context. A second question is, is the Mormon Church trying to deceive members and or investigators by hiding information? At least you know, early on, as someone's investigating the church investigating the Book of Mormon, are they trying to deceive members and investigators by hiding information about Book of Mormon origins? And finally, is the Mormon Church. This is the fun one. Is the Mormon Church. Is Mormon Church decision making heavily influenced by ex Mormon YouTubers and podcasters? So those are some of the questions. We've got a live audience today. We're live streaming, of course. We have Nemo from Nemo, the Mormon YouTube channel here. Hey, Nemo.
Nemo Hey.
John Dehlin What is that? What are you showing?
Nemo What is that?
John Dehlin Is that your. Like, is that your spirit animal? Basically,
Julia it's their sacrament.
Nemo It's my sacrament.
John Dehlin Yeah.
Nemo The body of Christ in a lovely shortbread and jam biscuit.
John Dehlin We have Gerardo. Hey, Gerardo, thanks for joining us. And always Julia from Mormon Stories and also from analyzing Mormonism.
Julia Yep.
John Dehlin All right, we're back in the saddle. We wish Mike were with us. Mike isn't with us, but we're carrying on in the spirit of Mike. Dude, Nemo, you should have next to, like, Dan the Taper. Dan the Taper. You should have something that represents Mike. Just kind of. That pays homage, like a bag of Cheetos or doritos or literally like Doritos. You should have a bag of Doritos.
Nemo We'll work it out. Okay.
John Dehlin Just to pay homage to Mike. Anyway, Mike is right now in retirement, but we love Mike. LDS Discussions. For those who don't know, the LDS Discussions series is a series inspired by Mike. Go to ldsdiscussions.com It's a website where Mike, as a convert to the church in a mixed faith marriage, discovered difficult things about the church that he was never told, did this amazing website where he broke down Mormon Church truth claims, and then we did a 55 episode series with Mike meticulously exploring Mormon Church truth claims. And that's what the LDS discussion series is. You can consume it individually and separately as a Spotify podcast called LDS Discussions, as an Apple Podcast podcast, or as a playlist on Mormon Stories Podcast. It's best consumed sequentially. But I would say it's one of the most important things Mormon Stories podcast has ever done is the LDS discussion series. Like literally last night I was at a party and a guy was like weeping with tears in his eyes, thanking me, thanking us, thanking everyone for what the LDS discussion series did for him and his life. So it's actually a very meaningful series. Check it out. It's best consumed in sequence. And now we've got episode. What were you saying, Julia? Is this 55 or 59? 59. So we're up to 59. Okay, so that's what we're doing today. Thanks for the intro. And I'll just. Also, I want to give a shout out because this story in particular, as far as we know, was broken at least first by our own Bishop, Nathan Hinckley. You know, we've interviewed Nathan on Mormon Stories podcast. He was a bishop up until recently, and he broke the story on the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook group, you know, about five days ago, where he basically says the Book of Mormon introduction has been changed again. So he published that post on the Mormon Stories podcast group. I think that's where Julia saw it. And then of course, our bestie, Rebecca Biblioteca followed that up with some comparisons of the new 2024 Book of Mormon introduction, comparing it to the 1981 version. So, as always, we love to give credit where credit's due. Shout out to Nathan Hinkley. Shout out to re Rebecca Biblioteca. And it was from there that Julia got the inspiration to do her video, which we've already showed you. Any other things we want to say by means of introduction before we. We kind of take people back to the history.
Background on the Book of Mormon Introduction Change
Nemo Nemo, you first. Okay. Right. I was just gonna say that on the same day on the 5th of December. Oh, that's Harado. On the same day on the 5th of December was when I scrapped the video that I had planned that I'd sat working on all week and went, ah, well, this is a story. So then started scrambling to change my Sunday video. So the video that went out on Sunday that everyone saw was done in a time frame of a few days.
John Dehlin Okay.
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, yeah.
Nemo Everyone was rushing to cover this story. So I was standing on the shoulders of Julia and others.
John Dehlin And Nathan. And Rebecca.
Nemo And Nathan. Rebecca.
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin And also part of this story is that the. That the church apparently has changed, possibly backtracked all of this stuff we're talking about in, you know, in between the time we scheduled this episode, like, on Saturday morning and today. Now It's Monday morning, December 9th. It looks like the church might be backtracking possibly in response to all this activity. So we're here to break all this down. Gerardo, is there anything you or Julia want to say before we jump into the history?
Gerardo Sumano Gerardo, I don't have anything.
John Dehlin Okay. Julia, anything else you want to say?
Julia I think we're going to cover it all, so.
John Dehlin Okay, well, let's just dive right in then. Let's go all the way back to 1981. 1981. Who wants to. Who wants to. To start in 1981. Who wants to give us the history?
Julia I'll do this one. So, like Nemo. So I always thought the introduction was written by Bruce Armaconkie, but I don't think that's the case. He was certainly on the committee. So in the Ensign. In an Ensign article published in 1981, it says, according to the. According, it says the introduction. This old introduction now came from the Scriptures Publication Committee of the Quorum of the Twelve, which included Elder Thomas S. Monson, who was the chairman, Elder Boyd K. Packer and Elder Bruce Armaconki, with brother W. James Mortimer serving as executive secretary. So it was. It wasn't just Bruce Armaconki. It was a conglomeration or was a group of men. And then I. I will say that in Second Class Saints, we talk about how Bruce Armaconki was heavily part of this and, like, trying. Like, you could see his racism in. In the text itself and in the headings and things like that. And they've since moved a lot of those. So, like, that's just background. But yeah. So it was a committee of people that wrote this in 1981.
John Dehlin And my understanding is that, you know, for those of us who are old enough to remember the 60s and the 70s, the church had different versions of its scriptures. And if I'm remembering right, 81 was around the time where the church came out with the triple combination, where they did like, a whole years or decades of, like, let's. Let's really do the scriptures, right? Let's get good introductions, good chapter headings. Let's get them all together in, like, a triple or a quad. And I remember as a boy, as a Mormon Boy, around 81, 82, getting this new set of scriptures that the church had been working on for a long time, which was gonna represent, like, the best scriptures that the Mormon Church ever put out for its members. Is that. Does that sound right, everybody?
Julia If you go back to the slide article.
Nemo Yeah, we'll walk you through all that.
John Dehlin Okay.
Julia If you go back to the slide, it says the title of that article is, the Church publishes a new Triple Combination. So. So, yeah, John, you're right on the money.
John Dehlin Okay, so that's just. I'm just going by memory here.
Julia Okay, that's great.
Nemo This is what the Book of Mormon looked like. For those listening, I've Got up in 1970s edition of the Book of Mormon with a little more own eye on the front. And it didn't used to have an introduction. It had the origin of the Book of Mormon, an explanatory kind of thing there that then went on to the testimony of the three witnesses and the eight witnesses.
John Dehlin And maybe Gerardo or Juliet can find it. But there was also, like, a version of the Book of Mormon that was, like, sky blue, and it had clouds and Moroni tooting the horn. There was another version that was like gold with, like, fake hieroglyphics on the COVID Like, we should. Julia, literally, we should put together a little slide showing the way the Book of Mormon has been represented on its cover over time.
Julia Yeah, for sure.
John Dehlin Because it's been, you know, it's evolved over time. Okay, so where do we go next, Julia?
The Old vs. New Introduction Text Compared
Julia Okay, so the next slide is the old introduction.
John Dehlin Okay.
Julia And is that. And should we go over that to compare the new one?
John Dehlin So this was the 1981 introduction to the Book of Mormon.
Julia Yes.
John Dehlin Yeah. Let's read whatever we think is relevant.
Nemo This one that we're looking at at the moment, just for clarity, is the 2006 update.
Julia Oh, yeah. I guess that's. That's a good thing to point out.
John Dehlin Okay.
Julia Because changes were made, and we will talk about that.
John Dehlin Okay. So the old the old, old introduction. Like which one? Which one
Gerardo Sumano we have the entire old, old might be with the changes.
John Dehlin Is that this one?
Nemo That's the beginning of the old old one. And that's got. That's the original. So then if you read after that from the other one, it'll be no different.
John Dehlin Okay.
Julia Yeah, because there's just two changes made.
John Dehlin What should we read next? And let's read it slow enough so that people can get the chaos at the. Is this where we go next?
Gerardo Sumano Julia learned this by heart and recited on your missions because I. I did
Julia not have to recite it.
John Dehlin No, I did.
Julia Did you? Did you have to har.
Nemo Yeah, yeah.
Julia Do you want to read it eyes closed?
Nemo Harado.
Gerardo Sumano I mean, I learned it in Spanish.
Nemo I served.
Julia Oh, right, right.
John Dehlin Okay. So should we read this? Is this the first thing to read or what?
Nemo Yeah, I'll read the second.
Julia Because this is reflecting of the 1981.
John Dehlin Yeah, okay, go ahead. Nemo.
Nemo This is the brand new introduction from 1981. The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting Gospel. The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Their words, written on gold plates, were quoted and abridged by a prophet historian named Mormon. The record gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 BC and afterwards separated into two nations known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.
John Dehlin Okay, so obviously the most important part is the part that ends up getting changed. Because those last few words, it's basically affirmatively asserting they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians. Meaning Nephi and Lehi and Laman and Lemuel are the ancestors of all the American Indians. Right. That's what the 1981 Book of Mormon was asserting. Is that the big. Is that the important part about this introduction?
Gerardo Sumano Well, also the first paragraph was changed as well.
Nemo Yeah, the phrase as does the Bible was removed.
John Dehlin Say it slowly and clearly for our listeners. So someone explain that.
Julia Well, we have a slide on it too. Okay, so as does the Bible was taken out. Okay, do we want to jump to that slide? Because this isn't the full introduction. This is Just the first couple paragraphs. Do we want to read the whole old one or.
John Dehlin You pick. You go.
Julia I don't know. Because it's, like, still there. I don't know if it's worth reading all of it.
Nemo Let's go through the changes. I'd say let's do it.
Julia Just do it. Okay. So do you want to pick up where. On slide 7, where it shows them all. Do you want to pick them up? Pick up where Gerardo left off. Nemo.
Nemo Yeah, that's good. So essentially what we're saying is, in 2004, they got rid of the phrase, as does the Bible, from the opening of the introduction. Basically, that was getting rid of the idea that the Bible contains the fullness of the everlasting Gospel. They were like, actually, no, it doesn't. And then in 2006, and this is the change most people think of, after thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians. And that was changed to they were among the ancestors of the American Indians. And I'll let Gerardo and John talk about the significance of that change.
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, I did want to comment on the first change, because I remember on my mission being always a little bit confused about the Book of Mormon having the fullness of the everlasting Gospel and literally not containing anything that we were teaching as missionaries. Not containing.
Julia But you're saying the Book of Mormon, though, not the Bible.
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, sorry.
Julia So neither of them contain the fullness.
Gerardo Sumano I mean, actually, I. When I was on my mission, I loved the Bible. I love the New Testament. And it was really interesting to me that we were using the New Testament to talk about, you know, the three degrees of heaven. We were using the New Testament to talk about baptisms for the death. And it's like, well, doesn't the Bible have all these things that the Book of Mormon doesn't have? And why are we saying that the Book of Mormon is the one that has the fullness of the everlasting Gospel? We're having to use the Bible to prove that our doctrines are biblical.
Julia That's a really good point.
Gerardo Sumano But then we can't use the Book of Mormon because it's not there. That's just something I wanted to point out.
Julia So the change isn't even accurate because it says, and it contains the fullness of the Gospel. So it doesn't really, though.
Gerardo Sumano And the response then was like, well, it's because the everlasting Gospel is faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost. And that's in the Book of Mormon, but.
Julia Right. Well, it's in the Bible, too. I don't. Like. I don't know. Yeah, right. It's four things. Yeah. I don't. Yeah.
John Dehlin And so. And then the other part that I actually lived y'.
Nemo All.
John Dehlin How. Where were Y' all in 2002? Gerardo, how old were you in 2002?
Gerardo Sumano Seven.
John Dehlin Julia, how old were you in 2002, I was 12. Nemo?
Nemo I was five.
John Dehlin Okay, okay, so I was much older. Anyway, so I'm.
Nemo How old? John, how old?
John Dehlin I've told you all.
Gerardo Sumano Tell us. You have to say this.
Nemo How old were you?
John Dehlin Oh, I was born in 69. So someone do the math. 31? Like 32, 33, something like that. Yeah. Okay, so people know that I lost my faith around 2001. 2002. Right. I say that a million times. I say that almost every episode. So why. So what happened was I was. You know, I was called as a seminary teacher in 2001. And so I started studying church history in depth. And during this time, history is getting made. And one of the things that I very much remember is this guy named Thomas Murphy. So here's an article that I pulled up from this says December of 2002. This was after I was reading Fawn Brody. This was after I was starting to read books on church history. And it basically says anthropologist Thomas Murphy set out to test a key principle of the Mormon faith with the latest technology. He wondered, would DNA analysis show, as taught by the Book of Mormon, that many American Indians are descended from ancient Israelites? His finding, Negative. The result, Excommunication. In other words, this, you know, DNA DNA research starts emerging. DNA technology started emerging. And so this. This guy who's also in Washington. So I'm in Seattle. Thomas Murphy's also in Washington. We've interviewed him on Mormon stories. Basically, he just like, let's apply DNA analysis to figure out whether Native Americans, in fact, descend from Layman and Lemuel from Israel. And he finds out no. So what does the church do? They threaten him with excommunication. But then he calls the media. So they call off the excommunication. That's followed up by a book by someone else who we've had on Mormon stories. His name is Dr. Simon Southerton. He comes out with a book in 2004 from Signature Books called Losing a Lost Tribe, where Bishop Simon Southerton notifies the world that, oh, oh, you know, Native Americans are, in fact, not descendants of Israelis. And so the Book of Mormon has a problem. And that is what led to. And here's the article in the Deseret News debate renewed with the change in the Book of Mormon introduction. That's probably not the right first, you know, first discussion of it. We probably don't have our timeline quite perfect. But the point is, these changes to the Book of Mormon introduction that we've now called out, they're not just coincidental. They're literally in response to the work of Thomas Murphy and to the work of Simon Southerton. And the church is like, oh, we have a problem. We need to hurry and change the introduction to the Book of Mormon.
Julia Well, and that goes.
John Dehlin Go ahead.
Church Decision Making and Outside Influence
Julia And that goes to your question about is the Mormon Church decision making heavily influenced by ex Mormon podcasters or just ex Mormons in general or scholars? Or scholars, Your scholars? Yeah, that's.
John Dehlin Yeah, it is.
Nemo Because I think. I think the position of the church, the church's default position is we didn't know particularly right from the time of Joseph Smith, we didn't know who the mound builders were. We didn't know who the Native Americans really were. And as we learn more, I'm sure it will back up our view of what the world is and what we're discovering, particularly as later science comes along, is that's not true at all. But even with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which was contemporary to Joseph Smith's lifetime, and with that making its way to America eventually with the problems that causes for the Book of Abraham, we see time and time again that as people discover more about the world and as we learn more about the world we live in, it becomes a bigger problem for the Book of Mormon. It doesn't actually affirm it, but the position of Church apologists is very often we'll wait for the archaeology to prove the book, but the problem is they have to change where that archaeology is then going to have to appear like they'll stick it in Central and South America instead, because the hill, Cumorah is a clean hill, for example. So this is a problem time and time again, I guess, is that the Church has to constantly pivot and react to new discoveries in the world of science and scholarship and study.
John Dehlin But also it doesn't, like, ever do it in a very honest way. It doesn't just come out and say, whoa, there's been DNA, you know, research that challenges these core narratives that we've been teaching people for 200 years. So we're changing the introduction. We'll let you all know why. We want to be as accurate as possible. What do they do? How do they approach these types of things? Everyone.
Julia They gaslight us.
John Dehlin By what?
Julia By. Oh, it's always been this way. I don't know. Or they change it without telling us.
John Dehlin Yeah. They suddenly make the change, but they don't really announce it in a big way. Yeah. And they don't ever give a reason why. Right. And they punish the persons who were responsible for helping to make the change. Right. What were you gonna say, Gerardo? What were you gonna say?
Gerardo Sumano I went on my mission in 2013 and I was. My scripture still had the old introduction. So even though the change was made maybe in some scriptures or started to be made in some. In 2006, even, you know, seven years later, when. When I bought my scriptures to go on my mission and I still have them.
Julia Did you buy same with mine? I went and bought a new one on my mission to reflect the new changes.
Gerardo Sumano I'm sorry. No, not a quad. So Spanish versions didn't have a quad until pretty.
Nemo They had a triple.
Gerardo Sumano We had a triple.
Nemo Triple.
John Dehlin Triple.
Nemo Because I think some of this was changes to double day. The publishing house, I think we're publishing. So it's specific to their publication of the Book of Mormons.
Julia I think that was 2000. Was that 2000?
Gerardo Sumano Even the book of Mormons that we were like handing out to people, they had the old.
Julia Oh. Oh, yeah.
Nemo That's my point. So unless you're getting one printed by Doubleday that wasn't necessarily coming across in the print editions, and I just want to make a prophetic pronouncement here, this will be the only place you will see any sort of detailed coverage of this little incident. Right. Because the church isn't going to come out and speak on this. They're not going to speak on, as we'll get to later, why it's jumped around places in the app and why it disappeared and why LDS living aren't going to say why that article went down. No one's actually going to talk about it. They're just going to stop and not say anything. To your point, John.
John Dehlin Yeah, we'll see. I mean, Mormonism Live or Mormon ish will probably cover it. Right.
Nemo But I'm talking about the ex Mormon space or the post Mormon space is the only place you're going to see coverage of it.
John Dehlin For sure.
Nemo That's what I meant.
John Dehlin Well, okay, so back. Back to the slides. We've got a slide from Fair, Gerardo or Julia. Do y' all want to talk about, you know, the role of apologetics historically and how they tried to explain away. Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano So fair, Fair Latter Day, Fair Mormon, Fair Latter Day Saints. You know, it used to be fair Mormon.
John Dehlin Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano They are an apologetic independence, supposedly independent arm of the church. And I said supposedly because we have been able to trace money going directly from the church to fair Mormon in, you know, in their public disclosures 990s. So anyway, so their whole purpose, you know, is come up with apologetic responses or faithful responses to hard questions about the church. And I, I thought this was pretty interesting, this article that they have on their. Which is asking the question, why did the church modify the introduction of the Book of Mormon from principles ancestors to among the ancestors? And it seems to give a pretty honest answer. And it says the church made the change in the wording to remove the assumption which inserted into the Book of Mormon introduction in the 1920s and not part of the original text, that all the inhabitants of the Americas were exclusive descendants of Lehigh. I think they got the wrong. The date wrong because they did this introduction was in the 80s. That. Is that right?
Julia So right.
Gerardo Sumano The years wrong there. But. But yeah, just basically saying, you know, that the change was made the assumption to make the introduction compatible with current DNA evidence and acknowledges the fact that Lehigh's group likely intermingle with the native inhabitants of the Americans.
Julia And then, and then going back to our episodes that we did earlier about the. Yeah, about the kind of blackness. Because like Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, the prophet and the mouthpiece for God, said that all the Native Americans were Lamanites and Pacific Islanders.
John Dehlin Right. Like it was North, South, Central America, Pacific Islanders. They're all Lamanites. And the church that Joseph Smith knew that. All the early founders of the church knew that. And that's what prophets and revelators for 200 years taught everyone. Right.
Nemo Can we put that slide back up for a second? Because I think there is something. There's a couple of important things there that need speaking about. First, I take exception to the word assumption because that's essentially blaming the reader or blaming the members of the church that were. You guys assumed wrong. So that's your fault. Your problem, which is a tactic apologists use all the time. It's like, well, you were just understanding it wrong, so. Oh, I'm sorry, you were.
John Dehlin Or they could be saying. Or they could be saying the bureaucrats at church headquarters made assumptions as if they weren't influenced by two centuries of
Gerardo Sumano prophet seers and revelators or being prophets and revelators themselves.
John Dehlin Right.
Nemo Yeah. This had been the generally held belief from the time that the church was restored. Well, who was around at the time the church was restored? Joseph Smith, the man who codified more revelations from God than any other Mormon prophet since they all got written down in dnc throughout dnc. So if that belief was held from the time of Joseph, why do Fair get to say it's some sort of erroneous belief that's crept in? The whole point of the restoration of the Church is that it's undoing all these problems that have crept into Christianity. So then how can there be a problem that's crept in from the moment it was restored?
John Dehlin Because the restoration needs a restoration. That's why we have Deborah Stuffer to restore the restoration. Right.
Julia Oh my gosh.
Nemo No sense to be like, oh yeah. From the time of the founding of this restorationist movement, an error had crept in. Well then it wasn't really good restoration, was it?
John Dehlin Yeah, sorry, that's a good point. Yeah. So, yeah. So is there anything we want to say about this Desert News article other than what we've already said? This is.
Media Coverage of the Introduction Change
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, just. Just that the church itself, a year later, would cover the story. And it was actually an interesting article. I didn't include article there, but they do mention Thomas Murphy and Simon Ston as kind of steering the pod about the DNA evidence. And then they quote mostly and it sounds like they interview John Sorenson who's kind of giving his apologetic spin as to why the Book of Mormon introduction was, was changed. But, but it was interesting that, you know, they're acknowledging that it is regarding the DNA debate and I, and I'm
John Dehlin going to be ham fisted about this and just, you know, Simon Southerton, Bishop Simon Southerton was excommunicated for making the church aware about this problem. He was literally excommunicated. The church excommunicates the people that tell the truth and educate the church membership as they correct the lies or the harm. The church tells that. I can't think of a more condemning aspect to a church culture than that. And Thomas Murphy was threatened with excommunication. And the only reason he wasn't excommunicated was because he threatened to involve the media. And I think the church considered this issue. You know, the Book of Mormon is considered what the, the keystone of our religion. I think that's what it's called. In other words, if that stone falls, the entire religion collapses. And I literally think the church avoided excommunicating Thomas Murphy to avoid bringing too much visibility to this problem. I don't know.
Nemo But one more point.
John Dehlin Yeah, sorry.
Nemo On that fair Mormon slide again, if you just chuck that up real quick, there is a real smoking gun there that fair Mormon admit to and I think shouldn't be overlooked. Yeah, go ahead. And it's a question that I just want to leave people hanging in the air. It says this change. So the 2006 change, the introduction, makes the Book of Mormon introduction compatible with current DNA evidence. Why was it not compatible before? Why have you had to change that in order for it to be compatible when that introduction was written by a committee of prophets, seers and revelators? Just sit with that question, people. That's. That's all you need to sit with. Yeah, why was it not compatible?
John Dehlin And I'll actually add one more. And this is why the eldest discussion series is so important. Go back and start from the beginning, because what this little change to among. Right, so let me go back. You know, let me go back and just show it really quickly. The change from they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians to they are among the ancestors is, is an attempt to shrink the bullseye because, because it was, it was unambiguous for two centuries, starting with Joseph Smith, that it was just simple. All Native Americans are descendants of either, you know, Lehi, Laman, Lemuel, Nephi, or the tribes that came before. Who is that? I. I'm rusty.
Julia The Jaredites.
John Dehlin The Jaredites, right. It was either descendants of Jaredites, which, which of course is tainted by the fact that the Tower of Babel never happened. Right.
Nemo And the Jaredites were all wiped out.
John Dehlin Yeah, right. The Jaredites or the, the, the, the Nephites, basically. And Lamanites. So, so when you, when the church changes, it's basically put into a corner where it has to shrink the target. And so it's. What you see the church doing is moving from Joseph Smith's narrative, which was tip of North America, to tip of South America, all Lamanites to. Well, actually, the Book of Mormon probably happened in this teeny tiny little area, probably in Guatemala, maybe a little bit in Mexico, but it was just all the Book of Mormon because also the geography never lined up to begin with. So they, so they have to make a teeny tiny area. And you know, the Lamanites and Nephites, they all happen in this little place in Central America. And then somehow there's two Kamoras, there's a Hill Cumorah in Central America where, you know, the plates were buried, but somehow they got teleported to this other, you know, Hill Cumorah up in Palm
Nemo Rap says he Just walked. He just walked for ages with the 50 pound. With the 50 pound place. He just. Well, if Joseph can run three miles home with him, you know, Moroni can schlep him up to a hill. But this is a couple of months.
John Dehlin But like, this is a big deal, right? Am I wrong? Like, this change alone was a really big deal, right, that the church kind of just got away with anyway.
Gerardo Sumano Well, it also changes. It changes the Book of Mormon from, you know, possible being able to prove it to now indistinguishable from a fraud.
John Dehlin Oh, you know,
Gerardo Sumano how can you ever prove that this is true?
John Dehlin And the reason why we're going back to this history is because like the Mormon Stories audience, 70% of the Mormon Stories audience turns over every three years. Like in three years, 70% of our audience is brand new to these questions. And so we're going to just. Everyone needs to be reminded every three years that as to what our whole history is. Am I wrong?
Julia That's good.
John Dehlin No, it's absolutely true. Okay, so now that you have all that context, let's actually bring up the story. Who wants to take us to the current story? Nemo?
The Book of Mormon App and Updated Introduction
Nemo Okay, do that a little bit. Okay, so I. And this is a late addition. So what people need to know is that the past three or four days has just been constant new things coming up when it comes to this story. So this is a very much alive and developing story at the moment. But the BYU newspaper, the Daily Universe, talked about this in October. They covered this. And if you go to the next slide, John. So October 11, 2024, if you go to the next slide, they make it clear that the app involved an update to the introduction. So the update modified.
John Dehlin Let's read it.
Nemo Let's read it in the app.
Julia Wait, wait. Before, before we get started. Do you mind if I say so? The. The app. So this is. This is different. I have a slide on it later. But this is very different than the Gospel Library app.
Nemo Yep.
Julia And so the, the Book of Mormon app is specifically for Mormon. Excuse me, specifically for missionaries to give to investigators. So it's very much for the world consumption. The world to. To figure out what, what we're all about. So the. So this is happening not in the Gospel Library app, but in this. In this one.
John Dehlin That's very important. So the Book of Mormon app is an. Is. It's like the equivalent to the Book of Mormons that missionaries used to hand out or the members used to hand out. It's basically read the Book of Mormon. Here's your first introduction to Mormonism. Get the Book of Mormon app and study it to know if it's true.
Gerardo Sumano Right, so it's like, who wrote that article? John who?
John Dehlin Panaceriac. No, no, who?
Gerardo Sumano Our friend Easton from CES Letters.
Nemo Oh, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano What?
Nemo Written by Easton Hotz.
Julia Oh my goodness. That's funny.
John Dehlin Oh, wow. That's crazy.
Nemo Okay, which is. His first name's so Mormon that his last name is a technique the church uses to make people want to buy their stuff. So, like, really Mormon name.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo Anyway. Okay, I'll read that next time.
John Dehlin I'm talking about the Book of Mormon app. Pointed at investigators for the church.
Julia Right.
John Dehlin Okay. Go ahead and Nemo. Let's just read it. Can you read it?
Nemo Yeah, I'll read it.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo So the Church of Jesus Christ Last Day Saints recently updated the Book of Mormon app, which is this very specific app, making its introductory material more user friendly, which that's not what that's about.
Gerardo Sumano Easier to click on user friendly. It's really hard to find out how to start reading the Book of Mormon.
Nemo Yeah, the updates modified the Book of Mormon's introduction in the app and added context to the witness statements and the testimony of Joseph Smith. But we're focused on the Book of Mormon introduction here.
John Dehlin Wait, did it add context or did it take away context? That's right.
Nemo I don't know. I haven't looked at it.
Gerardo Sumano Keep going, keep going.
Nemo Yeah, he said. First published in 1981 with subsequent minor updates in 2003 and 2006. The rewritten introduction was reduced from 561 words to 235 words for the app. So we're removing words.
John Dehlin We're removing words.
Nemo This new introduction is so much shorter and more precise.
John Dehlin Interesting.
Nemo Then they. They speak to John Hilton iii, a BYU professor of ancient scriptures. He said he loves the new inviting and modern language and believes it's more reader friendly. Next slide, please.
John Dehlin It's all about reader friendly. Yeah, adding context by taking out 50% of the words. This is great. This is like George Orwell.
Julia This is like 1984.
John Dehlin This. Yeah, this is like. Yeah, we were always. Yeah, we were always at war with East Asia or whatever.
Nemo Right. Okay, I don't think we need this slide, actually. Let's just move on from that. So basically.
John Dehlin Yeah, all right.
Nemo Yeah, there's nothing important that. So this one is. Is interesting. So it's not necessarily new stuff that wasn't there before. It's better versions of the same stuff. What do you mean?
Julia Wait, wait, where are you reading?
Nemo Right at the Top of this slide. I was not Hilton about it.
Gerardo Sumano It's on the article.
Nemo Yeah, in the article.
John Dehlin I have to put my glasses on. It's not necessarily new stuff that wasn't there before. It's better versions of the same stuff.
Julia Oh my gosh.
John Dehlin I mean, they thought through. They have to spin this, right? This is spin, right?
Nemo Yeah, so. So what you see here though is that's the app. You see it on the right and pay attention. There's a section called what is the Book of Mormon? You'll see it's a little square down at the bottom. Just, just hold onto that. We'll come back to that later. But hold on to that. That already exists in the app as of October 11th. Right? That is there. It's populated. It's got stuff in it. Okay. Okay, next slide. We don't need any more.
John Dehlin This is good. Sorry. All right, let's go to the next slide. Okay, so what is this here?
Nemo They are now showing what the new introduction is. Right. They've got it out in text on the right. And they've talked to Barbara Morgan Gardner professional church history, saying that they're excited for those who aren't members of the church and for international church members. That's a quote there. But you can see here they've got a screenshot of it as the introduction. Okay, so it's very clear as of October, this was the new introduction to the Book of Mormon in the Book of Mormon apps specifically.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo That's what we need to really hammer home here.
John Dehlin So this shows that the change got made.
Nemo Got made.
John Dehlin And this shows what the change was as of October.
Nemo Yeah.
Julia Right.
John Dehlin Okay, so this was, this was, this was a done deal.
Nemo Done deal.
Julia Right.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo All right then LDS Living reported on it.
John Dehlin Okay, what's LDS Living? Who wants to tell our audience what lds?
Julia Well, I don't know if I know specifically because I don't think it's owned by the church, but.
Gerardo Sumano But it is only indirectly by the church.
Julia Indirectly by the church. Okay, so they, whatever the church wants them to publish, they publish.
Gerardo Sumano I should say not indirectly. It is owned by the church.
Julia It is owned by the church, but
Gerardo Sumano through their for profit arm.
Julia Okay.
Gerardo Sumano That's their management.
Julia Okay, so it is owned by the church. Okay, So I don't know why, I
Nemo don't know how else you'd describe it.
Julia Okay. Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano So I think it is owned from. By the Church just as much as the church owns Desert News and Desert Book.
Julia Oh, then yes.
John Dehlin Or ksl. Or ksl, Right.
Nemo No.
Gerardo Sumano Well, yeah, I believe KSL is a little bit more removed, but it could be wrong.
Julia Okay. So I don't know why the daily is a daily universe. Nemo. I don't know why that one didn't get as much traction as this one. But LDS living, probably because everyone has.
John Dehlin That's just for students of byu. So LDS living in your inbox.
Julia Okay. Yeah. So this one. This one was published on December 3.
John Dehlin Is this what kicked off?
Julia Like, this is what kicked off.
John Dehlin Maybe Nathan and Rebecca Hinckley.
Julia Rebecca Biblioteka.
John Dehlin Yeah, Nathan's in the comments. We'll ask Nathan and if he wants to share where he first learned about it. But anyway, keep going, Julie.
Julia Yeah, yeah. So they published this and then we can go through it. I took some screenshots of it if you want to.
John Dehlin Okay. So the headline says.
Julia The headline says, have you seen this new introduction to the Book of Mormon? And so, like, they are presenting it as the new introduction of the Book of Mormon. They do specify.
John Dehlin That's crazy that it's gone now. We're December 9th, it's gone. But six days ago. It's like, we want the whole world to know about this. Right.
Nemo And it had been there since October.
John Dehlin Yes.
Nemo LDs were like, oh, this thing that happened back in October. Come look at this.
Julia Right. They do point out and that you've got the. There's a picture of the person holding their. With the Book of Mormon app. So they are saying that it is in the app, which, again, is just for missionaries to give to investigators. It is not reflected in Gospel Library. People got mad at me for not including that in my video. But, like, anyway, so this is what the world is seeing as the Book Mormon. And they're introducing it as the new introduction. So, like, so I took a few screenshots. So if we go. Yeah. So why an updated introduction?
John Dehlin Read it slow. Read it slow.
Julia The church first published an introduction to the Book of Mormon in 1981, releasing minor updates in 2004 and 2006. So Easton got his dates wrong because it was 2004, not three. This basic explanation shared background information for modern readers and was not featured in the original plates. Of course, the revised version of the Book of Mormon app is 169 words shorter than the introduction that many members today are familiar with. So they're even comparing the two. They're not saying this one. They're like. It's like replacing the other one in my. That's what I was reading. It features more conversational phrases directed toward the reader, aligning closely with language and teaching principles from Preach My Gospel. It is very much, very much the same wording or similar wording to preach by gospel, whereas the old one is not at all. Preach My Gospel is very like you, centered. It's like you're talking to the investigator. And that's very much what the new one is reflecting. The old one doesn't have the word you or your in it at all. So, yeah, so 169 is there. Comparing the two to me, it's like, oh, we're replacing the old one with this new one, even though it's just so far in that one app. Then there's another if you go to the next slide really quick.
John Dehlin I just want to share. Daisy Mae, thanks for the super chat. She writes LDS living is a division of Deseret book.
Julia Perfect.
John Dehlin So that's good to know. Okay. Yeah, let's go to the next slide. Thanks, Daisy Mae.
Apologist and Scholar Responses to the Change
Julia So they're quoting John Hilton III again. Because I think they quoted him in the October. Right?
Nemo Yeah, they did. Yeah.
John Dehlin Yep.
Julia Okay. So, professor so John Hilton iii, professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU Brigham Young University, believes this updated introduction will help more readers understand the purpose of the Book of Mormon and feel drawn to its message. He said the whole point of reading the scriptures is to connect us to Jesus Christ. The reality is that for some people, the language of the Book of Mormon is going to be really hard to understand. I really believe that as we help people understand what the Book of Mormon is about, that just makes people more likely to want to read the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin This is crazy. Okay, can I just point out a couple things here? Number one, what is John Hilton iii,
Julia a professor of ancient Scripture?
John Dehlin Is the Book of Mormon ancient scripture? Like, is that ironic that the whole question here is, is the Book of Mormon even ancient Scripture? All evidence points to no. And so BYU has a professor of ancient scripture hawking the Book of Mormon is ancient scripture when we all know it's actually modern fan fiction, most likely. So that's ironic. Right? But then the whole point is to connect us to Jesus. Yeah, but what they're really saying is don't pay attention to the history. Right. This is an exercise in obscuring and deep sixing as much historical information as we can so you won't get caught up in actually trying to think of it as ancient scripture. Just think about your relationship to Jesus. Don't worry about, like, the dates and the names and the details and the history, because that's just going to cause you problems. Am I wrong?
Julia That's right. Yeah, and just I think LDS discussions has done episodes on the Book of Mormon not being ancient text. I like to refer to, like, David BACAVOI and Dan McClellan because, like, they talk about how certain parts of the Book of Mormon are not historical at all. Anyway, just those are some things to, like, look at.
Nemo If you, if you question Nathan Hinckley's in the chat, I've started his comment. He's letting us know how he found out about it.
John Dehlin Oh, yeah, I'm going to share that in just a second. The only other thing just about this quote is I really believe that as we help people understand what the Book of Mormon is about, that it just makes people more likely to want to read it. What they're really doing is trying to hide more about what the Book of Mormon is about to make people want to read it.
Nemo Yeah, because are they putting their foot forward saying the Book of Mormon is about two groups of people whose skin color was altered so that they would be recognizable from one another and to create hatred between the two groups and they would eventually flip flop, flip flop, flip flop until one group dies. Yeah, because that's what the Book of Mormon is about.
John Dehlin So. So what that last sentence really should say is I really believe that as we obscure and hide what the Book of Mormon is really about, that more people will likely be. Want to. Will want to read it.
Nemo Isn't that a deeply racist worldview explaining the habitation of the American continent?
John Dehlin Okay, really quickly, Nathan, thanks for chiming in. Nathan says the missionaries shared it with a friend who texted me about it. They said that it was updated about a month ago.
Julia So that's missionaries. That's a good. Yeah, the missionaries are very aware because that's what they're sharing investigators.
John Dehlin And I just want to be clear. In business, you know, the best way to understand the Mormon Church is as a business. And what do we know about marketing? Right, you got a funnel. You want to funnel people in. And so you want the top of the funnel to be as broad and as easily acceptable as possible. And then as you get them hooked, you get them connected with missionaries, you get them going to church, you get them indoctrinated and loving the community, then you give them more information. But you want the top of the funnel to be as generic and as God and Jesus friendly as possible and not obstructed by Joseph Smith and his polygamy and the weird translation stuff. And so isn't that. Am I wrong? Is that what's going on?
Nemo Well, just Joseph Smith at all because he doesn't get a mention in the new introduction at all. He's just removed from it entirely.
Julia The angel gets a mention.
John Dehlin John Hilton shouldn't be a professor of ancient scripture. He should be a professor of marketing. Am I wrong?
Nemo Well, yeah, not really.
John Dehlin I mean, it's really a professor of marketing. Anyway, let's keep going. Okay.
Julia Yeah. So I just made this slide just to make it really clear, because people push back on me. They're like, no, no, it's not. And so it is reflecting. Well, no, it's not anymore, but it was reflected in the Book of Mormon app, not in the gospel library, and not in the printed text of what you find in the Book of Mormon. I just want to make that very clear.
John Dehlin And you could literally just, like, have a. Have this, like, vertical and have it be a funnel. Right?
Julia Like, this is what the world sees.
John Dehlin This is what it's top of the funnel. Let's not mention Joseph Smith. Let's, you know, let's leave out lots of details because they'll just get tripped up. They'll just get tripped up. Right, okay. All right. Sorry.
Nemo Yeah.
Julia So again, we're just beating a dead horse. Like, the app is used specifically for missionaries, for investigators.
John Dehlin Okay. All right, all right. So we got a little bit of history here, right? Because is it okay if I talk about this?
Nemo Yes, we.
John Dehlin Okay, so we have to give a little bit more context for those of you who missed about 10 years ago or 20 or 30. So once upon a time, there was a man named Daniel Peterson. It was so funny. I was asking Julia today, like, Julia's, Julie's, like, one of the leaders in the. In 2024, in, like, helping educate Mormons about the history the churches hid from them. And I asked Julia, do you know who Daniel Peterson is? And Julia, what was your answer?
Julia I don't know. Like, I understood a little bit as
John Dehlin you talked more, you're like, wait, who? Like, isn't it amazing that in, like, literally just 10 years, the church's arch apologist can recede into almost complete obscurity, such that one of the leaders in challenging the Mormon Church's truth claims in Julia doesn't even quite know who the dude is? Isn't that amazing?
Julia Yeah, that's amazing.
John Dehlin All right, before we talk about Daniel Peace, we'll thank Aaron Himes for the super chat. She writes, grateful for Nathan Hinckley, Rebecca Biblioteca, and all of you for keeping nuanced members informed of important information that she won't get from church leaders. Sounds like Erin is an active member of the Church, and she's thanking us for teaching her the stuff the Church doesn't. The Church is hiding from her, basically. All right, so just a quick history. Once upon a time, there was this hack of a scholar named Daniel Peterson who professed to be a scholar of, I don't know, ancient studies or whatever. He started with farms, the foundation for Ancient Research in Mormonism, which then got converted to the Maxwell Institute. And his role as chief apologist for the Church was to make up pseudo scholarship to try and make the Church look credible when it wasn't and when it had no standing as a credible, you know, as the Book of Mormon had no credibility as an ancient document. And the best example of Daniel Peterson's schlocky scholarship is what? Nemo, the Mormon Tapias.
Nemo That's.
John Dehlin All right, you got a point, you got a point, you got a point. What is that? Nemo?
Nemo That is a horse or a tapir? Depends.
John Dehlin And what's the context?
Nemo Well, as in, horses did not exist in the time of the Book of Mormon events. They'd already gone extinct in North America by that time, and they wouldn't be brought back again until Columbus turned up. So they aren't there. But the Book of Mormon text mentions horses, so what could they possibly be? That odd toad ungulate behind me, Tapias the size of a small pony. And you've. There's a video that I've done videos on, like, reacting to and. And discussing where Dan Peterson gets all high and mighty and people that just don't understand anthropology don't realize it's actually a tapia. And he's. He's so smarmy about it, but he's just presenting this idea that these things pull chariots, these small pony like creatures. So I went and did a video recently where I went to a zoo. I got in the enclosure with a tapir and was like, this nonsense has to end. We just have to stop this. This stupid idea. And I spoke to the keeper and I was like, could you get one to pull a chariot? Could you ride one? Would it go to war for you? And he was like, no, they're scared by the wind, John. The tapia that I was with the wind blew through the branches and it ran off. They are so unbelievably skittish and just not domesticatable, particularly in any way.
John Dehlin One of the favorite things I've ever seen on the Mormon Internet, I think Jeremy Runnels.
Julia Oh, my God.
John Dehlin I think Jeremy Runnels put this together. Back in the day. But it's sort of. It's an animated GIF where Native Americans are like going to battle, being pulled on chariots by tapers. Right? I'm pretty sure Jeremy Reynolds helped create. Have y' all seen this gif before?
Julia That is so funny.
John Dehlin Isn't that amazing, Julie? You can put that in the show notes.
Nemo I should totally put that in.
John Dehlin Anyway, this is just giving people an example, just one example of the absolutely lame apologetics that Daniel Peterson shepherded for several decades, right? And then one of my proudest moments on Mormon stories is when I worked with others, including some in the Maxwell Institute to get Daniel Peterson removed in 2012 from the Maxwell Institute. And that's one of the proudest achievements of my 20 years at Mormon Stories podcast. And that's a story for another time. But long story short is Daniel Peterson and Lewis Midgley and Bill Hamblin and all these hack pseudo scholar John Sorensen, all these fake scholar, lame apologists finally were demoted by the Mormon Church. They mostly relied on ad hominem and on excommunicating people like Brett Metcalf and Simon Zutherton and Thomas Murphy. And what happened was the church got a new leader for the Maxwell Institute after Daniel Peterson was dethroned. And the new leader of the Maxwell Institute eventually was a really nice bloke, as Nemo would say. His name was Spencer Fluman. And so Spencer Fluman was this young and up and coming Mormon historian who was. Was a good historian, but he was also faithful. But he was also not into pseudoscience, not into lame ass explanations, and he was not into ad hominem. Like we all celebrated the promotion of Spencer Fluman to replace the hack, lame, uncredible, unethical ad hominist, you know, relying Daniel Peterson and. And by the way, as a side note, Daniel Peter Spencer Fluman was viewed as sort of like the spiritual son of Jeffrey R. Holland. So it was Jeffrey R. Holland who helped put Spencer Fluman as the head of. Of the Maxwell Institute. And it's known for those who know Spencer that, that Jeffrey Holland considered Spencer Fluman to be like the spiritual son of Jeffrey R. Holland. So that's a bunch of history to then take us to 2018, where this really nice, thoughtful, courageous couple named Brooke Bonham Miller and Josh Miller came to me when I was at my old studios, my old Mormon story Studios, back in 2018, and they wanted to tell me a story. And basically the story they told me was that Josh lost his faith, Brooke was freaking out about it. And for some reason they had a contact with Spencer Fluman. So they go to the Maxwell Institute in 2018 and they talked to Spencer Fluman about all their questions and doubts about the Church and specifically about Book of Mormon historicity and about Book of Abraham historicity, etc. And they record the conversation with Spencer Fluman and then they share that recording with me. And so I'm like, whoa, what types of explanations are. Is Spencer Fluman giving to people behind the scenes if it's not lame ass pseudoscience, hack non scholarly apologetics? And so what I, what I thought I'd do is I would pull just a couple minute clip from this interview because it's a foreshadowing of what the Church is actually doing now, kind of six years later. Should we roll that clip? Is that okay?
Julia Yes.
John Dehlin All right, here we go. On the one hand, we're excommunicating Graham Palmer for trying to come up with a theory of how Joseph was using his eclecticism to create the Book of Mormon. And yet Spencer Fluman is now telling us all that Joseph is heavily influenced by whatever sources around him and he's heading the Maxwell Institute. So, like, which is it? Are you excommunicated for that or are you now honored and supported and paid for saying things like that? It sends a real mixed message that the Church has to account for either. Stop excommunicating Fawn Brody and Grant Palmer and Michael Quinn and John Delane and Jeremy Runnels. Right. Don't excommunicate us all, but then have a leader of the Maxwell Institute that's basically saying all the, all the exact same things, but just in private. Right?
Julia Yeah, but.
Gerardo Sumano Right.
John Dehlin And I think they're the same issues, same questions, same explanations. You know, I think he found, he's found a place that makes him comfortable
Julia with all of this.
John Dehlin And there's lots of things that he gets into, like. We'll get there.
Julia Okay. Okay, we can. Hold on that.
John Dehlin What were you going to talk about? Which, which thing? Oh, I was just going to say how he, after studying all the, all of the contents from Brigham Young Journal Discourse. Okay, we'll get there. We'll get all that. We're going to go more into that.
Julia I like how he says inspired eclecticism.
John Dehlin Inspired eclecticism, yes.
Julia Thank you. I like how he says that because that kind of just defines it all, really. I mean, pulls from here, pulls from here, pulls from here, and voila, we got a finished product.
John Dehlin And I was really struck. He calls the Book of Mormon Joseph's grandest revelation. And to call it a revelation, it's what we're doing with the Book of Abraham, right? It's not. We have all been told. Joseph himself said, I'm a translator. I translate. I use the artifacts to translate. There's an old language, and we're translating to a new language. He's calling it a translation. We're all taught it's a translation. We all believe it's a translation. Now we're changing the narrative to call it a revelation. So now the Book of Mormon is not a translation, it's a revelation. Okay, so that was the narrative. For me, that may be old news to you guys. For me, that was big, big news at the time.
Nemo I mean, I think what we need to be spending more time on really, is one, how great John's jumper and shirt game were in that video. It was just excellent. And also a moment to applaud the increase in production quality that Mormont Stories has undergone over the years. You guys don't know you were even born.
John Dehlin So really quickly, just to kind of like, whatever happened to Spencer Fluman, like, it's kind of a tragic story. I asked Chat GPT to tell me what happened to Spencer Fluman. And this is what Chad GPT said, based on the formal line. Spencer Fluman stepped down as the executive director of BYU's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship in May of 2023 after serving from 2016. His decision was voluntary and attributed to personal and professional factors, including his desire to continue contributing to the university in other capacities. Fluman expressed gratitude for his tenure, which included efforts to expand the institute's scholarly influence. Blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, that's, you know, chatgpt sometimes, you know, conveys the opposite of truth, because my understanding is Dan Peterson and his hacks and his cronies never stopped nipping at the heels of Spencer Fluman to the point where they just continually undermined him, challenged him, and worked against him, to the point where Jeffrey Holland himself ended up throwing his own spiritual son under the bus. You know, basically pushed out Spencer Fluman. And that golden era of what was called pastoral Mormon apologetics or neo apologetics was completely mothballed. And Spencer Fluman was basically unceremoniously thrown under the bus by his spiritual father, Jeffrey R. Holland, and Nemo, ironically,
Nemo he came running into my arms, John.
John Dehlin So again, here's a photo of. We should have a big red X or a picture of Geoffrey Holland throwing his spiritual son under the bus, but here's a picture of Nemo and Spencer Fluman. What the fetch are you doing with Spencer Fluman?
Nemo Well, Spencer came to Oxford, which is where I go to church. We get all sorts of academics rocking through the ward and a lot of Americans. But Spencer Pflumer, I turned up one week, he'd arrived in the port and he was teaching Sunday school. So I thought, well, this is going to be fun. And a great time was had by all with Spencer Pflumer as my Sunday school teacher on that day. That was a bit of a wild ride. But, yeah, no, we got along. We would chat. I'd go to the sort of open theology sessions he'd do at Pembroke College, along with the Anglican minister who's basically part of our ward at this point. Yeah, Spencer's a good guy. I like Spencer as a person. Really like him.
John Dehlin He's great. He's so loved. He's honest, he's smart, he's kind. And honestly, he was too honest, because once word got out about what he was telling people, then all the classic apologists were like, you got to get rid of this guy. The church is going to be doomed. If we're actually honest, right? If we're actually honest with people and tell the truth and try and then come up with new justifications for how the Book of Mormon can still be inspired but not actually be an ancient record, well, that won't be good. And so, you know, the honest people get thrown out in this church. And so it's actually a tragic, sad story. And it's just so Mormon. Just like when Ezra Chap Benson was becoming inconvenient with his John Bircher sort of teachings in the 60s. What happens? He gets exiled to Europe. Right? He's literally sent to Europe by the Quorum, by the First Presidency, because he's an embarrassment in the United States. And I wouldn't say Spencer Footman was an embarrassment, but it's like if he's. If he's sticking around, people are going to ask questions. Why were you removed? Why? Why were you booted? Booted out by Jeffrey Holland. And so it's like, get him to Europe, right? Let's get him out of the mix. And I know he had to had some health issues that were also involved, but it's so Mormon to sort of get rid of the inconvenient person and. And put him somewhere else for a number of years so that people don't ask questions.
Nemo Yeah, set him. Hang out with me instead.
John Dehlin All right, so we're laughing, but this is serious, sad stuff. So, anyway, shout out to Spencer Fluman. You did good work. You deserve to be treated better. You didn't deserve to be thrown under the bus by Jeffrey R. Holland.
Nemo Yep.
John Dehlin Rant over. So now we're back to Julia's video, right?
Julia Yep. December 5th.
John Dehlin Okay. And so go ahead, take up the story from here.
Julia Yeah, I just wanted to, like. So I say. I say this list in the video, but I'll just go over it again.
John Dehlin Okay. Yeah. So let's slow down. Yeah.
Julia So what is. So there's a lot of things that are not mentioned in the new introduction like we've been talking about. So, like, Moroni's name, it does mention the angel, but it doesn't mention him by name. It doesn't mention Joseph Smith. It doesn't mention the three or eight witnesses. It doesn't even mention gold plates. It doesn't mention Nephites, Lamanites, Jaredites, or Native Americans of any kind. It doesn't mention Jerusalem or the Tower of Babel. It doesn't mention the Urim and Thummim or the seer stones in a hat, which they knew. The old one doesn't. It didn't. Anyway, it doesn't even mention the Bible. It doesn't say that the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on earth. Like, it's. It's so the person. So Hilton. Or the third. Yeah, like, he's saying. Oh, this is like, way clearer. Like, no, it's not. You're taking out all the history, historical context, all of it. So this is.
John Dehlin And by the way, Julia, did you. Did you make this list? Julia, did you compare this list? Yeah. Okay, so yes or no, LDS discussions, panelists, have we done episodes on LDS discussions about the problems with Moroni? Yes or no?
Julia Yep.
John Dehlin How about the problems of Joseph Smith?
Nemo Yep.
Julia Yep.
John Dehlin How about. Do we have episodes on the three and the eight Witnesses in LDS discussions? Have we done episodes on the Golden Plates?
Nemo Yes.
John Dehlin Specifically, have we done episodes on Nephites and Lamanites? And have we done episodes on the Jaredites and the problems with the Jaredites? Have we done episodes on the mound builder myth and the Native Americans? Have we literally done episodes on the Tower of Babel? How about. Did we talk about the translation and the Seer Stone and the Urim and Thummim? Have we talked about problems with the Holy Bible as they appear in the Book of Mormon?
Julia Yes.
John Dehlin Like, is this like, 100% batting average with what LDS discussions has been sharing with the world very successfully for the past couple years? I mean, I'm not saying that they're doing this in response to LDS discussions. And there's many, many scholars that Mike built upon, including Mormon think. Including Jeremy Runnells, including Brett Metcalf and Simon Southerton and Dan David and David Bachavoy. And there's, you know, Sunstone and Dialogue and Mormon History Association. Like, we all stand on the shoulders of the Tanners. Oh, yes. ANDREW tanner, Utah Lighthouse MINISTRY but like, this is this beautiful culmination of all of these people's efforts into the church. This is like we've caught them in the act of responding to the obvious problems with the Mormon. With, with. With Book of Mormon historicity that the Internet has successfully brought shine a light upon and that we've caught them in the act of retreating and obscuring the narrative in response to the evidence. Am I wrong? No, I mean, are we being. Are we being narcissistic? Well, by making a connection, we've caught them.
Nemo We've caught them in the act of doing this for now, but then it'll all change again in a few slides. John.
Julia Yes.
John Dehlin Okay. All right. So anyway, thanks for making that list, Julia. That's a really good list.
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin What's next?
Julia So I just wanted to point out that. So at the very. So this used to be the case, and I took screenshots of it. So if you go to the very. Like, on the contents page, if you go to the very bottom, it says appendix, and then it shows you the testimony of Joseph Smith, the witnesses, the overview of the Book of Mormon, which it talks about the Nephites and Lamanites. And so they put it all in the back. They put it all at the very back. Like, just like it's still there, but it's at the very back. So. So I don't know what. Where investigators are going to ever. Like, I guess when they're finished reading the Book of Mormon, they'll get to that point. But yeah, it's just at the very back. So those things were there, but they're at the very back.
John Dehlin Yeah, it's basically hiding the football, right?
Nemo Yeah, they buried the lead.
John Dehlin Yeah, they buried the lead. Right.
Julia Yes.
John Dehlin So that you'll get sucked in by other things but not distracted by the. By the problem.
Julia Not distracted by Joseph Smith or the
John Dehlin Slates or the Urban Thummim or Native Americans or the Tower of Babel or. Yeah, all these things that have been proven false. Okay. All right. So what's this? This is the actual new introduction now?
Reading and Reacting to the New Introduction
Julia This is the actual new introduction. I do think we should read it.
John Dehlin Can we read it Slowly and sarcastically.
Julia You should read it, John.
Nemo You do it then, John.
John Dehlin Okay. This is the new introduction, everyone, to the Book of Mormon. Are you ready?
Gerardo Sumano Let's do it.
John Dehlin God is your heavenly Father. He loves you and there's so much he wants to teach you. He wants you to understand the purpose of your life. He wants to guide you back to his presence. Part of his plan for doing all this was to make this book available to you. Since the beginning of time, God has spoken to his children all over the world. Often they have recorded their experiences and and God's messages to inspire future generations to choose good instead of evil and come to know their Father in heaven. Some of these records are lost to time, others may be found. One such record was buried at a hillside in around AD 400 on the north American continent. Its location was revealed by an angel in 1823. It was translated into modern language by the gift and power of God. That record is the Book of Mormon. It's called the Book of Mormon because an ancient prophet named Mormon compiled centuries of writings from other prophets into one book. It is subtitled Another Testament of Jesus Christ because it bears powerful witness that Jesus Christ is the son of God who came to earth to suffer and die for the sins of the world, including yours. He wants to heal you of your sins, make you whole again, and prepare for eternal life with your heavenly Father. There it is.
Nemo One more words about this. No, no, no. We can't go to the next slide just yet.
Julia Oh, not yet.
Nemo We need to discuss what's just happened.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo I think we've all been transported to a delin home like family home evening circa 2003. Yeah, that was interesting. John, were you ever a primary teacher?
John Dehlin Yes.
Nemo Did you ever speak like that to primary children?
John Dehlin I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. I'm sure. Ok.
Nemo Sorry.
Julia It's not done yet though.
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin Oh, we're not done. Okay.
Julia No, we're not done. So one more slide.
John Dehlin Okay. Second slide. In this book you will learn of faithful, courageous people who received light and knowledge from heaven. They believed in God. They had faith in Jesus Christ even centuries before he was born. They made great sacrifices for their faith. They also made mistakes, but they obtained redemption from their sins. And they risked their lives to share the true doctrine of of Jesus Christ with others and then preserve his teachings for future generations. Including you. Read the Book of Mormon with an open heart and mind. Sorry, open mind and heart as you pray to your Father in heaven and diligently seek him within the pages of The Book of Mormon. He will reveal the truth to you. In his time and in his way, he directed the creation and preservation of this record to fulfill his holy purpose. And you are an important part of that purpose. May you find God in these pages and discover his messages to you. Are we.
Nemo We seeing the comments where people are saying you sound like Thomas S. Monson? John, can you wiggle your ears? Can we. Can we see that?
John Dehlin I'll try.
Gerardo Sumano There you go.
John Dehlin Did I wiggle my ears? All right, so honestly, my diction aside, what do you all think of this new introduction? What are your. Just cold reactions to it?
Julia There's nothing there. There's nothing there.
John Dehlin Yeah. So let's go back to what's missing again.
Julia Well, also. Also the hill Cumor is kind of missing. They don't say it by name.
Nemo Right. So, yeah. A hillside in around AD 400. Does it even somewhere on the North American continent.
Julia It doesn't say New York.
Nemo Don't know where. It's just somewhere.
Julia Just somewhere. A hillside around North America continent. We don't even know where.
John Dehlin And did we cover Hill Cumorah in LDS discussions? Did we talk about the Hill Cumorah?
Julia Yes. So I should have added that to the list. The Hill Cumorah is not even talked about.
Nemo So you have to update the list. Yeah, I've said reaction to some stuff that's been said earlier, that this is them leaving a door open. Right. For so much apologetics. It was buried in a hillside, not necessarily the one that Joseph got it from, because the angel revealed its location not where the hillside was, but where the plates were.
Julia Oh, that's a good point.
Nemo Do you know what I mean? There's so much space.
Julia They're like leaving it open. Oh, that's so true.
Nemo In one place. And then God took them and put them in another place. And Joseph was shown where to go to get those. Not necessarily the same hill.
Julia Are they catering to the. The. Sorry, this is off topic. Are they catering to the, like, the. The Mesoamerica and.
Nemo Yeah.
Julia And the. Oh, my gosh. Rod Meldrum heartland model. Heartland Wild. Thank you.
Nemo It's whatever you want it to be. They're making it so bland. It's like a choose your own adventure thing where it's just like. Well, you. You work it out yourself, whatever you want. It's. It's no longer about Joseph did this. This is a book about these people. It's like, nah, this is just a book about. It doesn't even say who the book's about anymore. Other than like just these people made
Julia mistakes, they followed God, you know, they repented. Also, this is random, generic people.
Nemo I, I said, I said in my video on Sunday that, like it talks about how they had faith in Jesus Christ even centuries before he was born. Like, that's a really thing. Weird thing to front up with this. Like they're sort of Methodist Christians that existed hundreds of years before Christ was born. That's always been a weird thing about the Book of Mormon. And they're now fronting that and they're going, here you go. Right. Yeah.
Julia It's very anachronistic to. Yeah.
Nemo Not that they look forward to the coming of a Messiah because that was a common theme amongst Jews and people that existed before Christ. They were looking for a messiah to come, wasn't that. It's that they had faith in Jesus Christ specifically someone who wasn't recognized as the Messiah contemporarily in his own time by the people that he turned up with in Jerusalem. They're going, no, no, these people had faith in Jesus Christ centuries before he was born. How. How were their Christians pre Christ?
Julia Right.
Gerardo Sumano Well, and that's God reveal the name of Jesus to either Nephi or Lehi or something like that.
Nemo Yeah. And he also revealed when he was going to turn up, but then they forgot when he was going to turn up later in the book. Joseph writing the beginning after he wrote the end.
Julia Yeah. Wait, I also, if you go back to the, to the very end of the introduction, one thing that I noticed. So as a missionary, we really emphasize the beginning or. Excuse me, the very end of the introduction to our investigators, where it's like they, their promises are really strong. Like if you read the Moroni's promise. Right. Yeah. If you read the Book of Mormon, you will find out that it's true. And that means that the Jesus is the Christ, this church is true, and that Joseph Smith was the prophet of God. So those are really strong promises that we were giving to our investigators. Whereas here, now these promises are really watered down. He was like, read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and like the. God's going to give you the answer in his own time and way, like, whatever that means. And also may you find God on these pages. Like, what does that mean? That's not, that's like a really totally different. Like they're getting rid of all the promises and from, from my reading of it.
Nemo Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it like it had Moroni's promise in the old introduction and that's just gone. There's none of that here, where it's like, read with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, and you will know the truth of these things. God might turn up in these pages.
Julia Right. It reminds me of some of the changes made. I can't quote them exactly, but I've made videos on the changes made for the Preach by Gospel where they have changed that and they've taken those out where, like, oh, we don't know when you'll find out if the Book of Mormon is true. Like, we don't know. So, like, their takeaway, they're lowering the promises.
Nemo That used to be a thing you had to know before you would then get baptized and join the church.
Julia Right, right.
Nemo And is it a case that people aren't having that spiritual experience anymore? They're not able to manufacture or engender or encourage that spiritual experience in people that they know the Book of Mormon is true, then they get baptized. So they're saying, right, well, you'll know at some point. So just join the church while you're finding out.
Julia Yeah. And, like, may you find God. Like, not will you. Like, you will find God. I don't know.
Nemo Yeah.
Julia Yeah. It's crazy to me.
John Dehlin Gerardo, what's your cold reaction to this whole introduction?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, I think that was one of the parts that was the most interesting to me, the removing Moroni's promise from the introduction and just making it more broad as, like, the answer is gonna come in. You know, it could come in any way. You know, if your grandma got sick, there was a hospital at the time the missionaries came and gave you the Book of Mormon. Oh, that's the answer that the Book of Mormon was true or like, you don't even. Like, I think the Moji just said. Just said, like, you don't even need to have an answer or distinguish the answer for you to get baptized because, you know, he may come in in his own way. So as soon as you. You think you're finding God in the pages of the Book of Mormon because he mentions the name of Jesus X amount of times, then that should be enough for you to be baptized. That.
Julia Right.
Gerardo Sumano That's really, really interesting. And I think it really tackles with a problem that I had as a missionary, and I knew missionaries on my mission had. Which was. It is not. It was not very common for people to actually receive clear answers when they were praying to see if the Book of Mormon was true.
John Dehlin You know, my faith crisis started when Moroni's promise didn't come true for me.
Gerardo Sumano Right.
John Dehlin And I wanted It. I was faithful. I was righteous.
Julia At what age?
John Dehlin I was 16. Probably I was 16. I read the book cover to cover. I was seminary president. I was all in. And I'm like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to get my witness. And I knelt down and I prayed and I didn't get a witness. And so then I got back in bed and then I was sad and then I got knelt down again and prayed and I didn't get a witness. And I never got a witness. And. And I just, I just kept acting as if it were true.
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin But God literally never gave me the witness that I had been taught to believe I would receive.
Julia Yeah. And that's what they're. That's the new narrative now where it's like, oh, God's going to answer you eventually, John. Like, it's doesn't have to be now.
Gerardo Sumano Anyway, I also, I, this is not a problem that they've been trying to tackle for a while. You know, Elder Christofferson, I think, gave a talk in General Conference a few years back where he talked about his experience going and praying about the Book of Mormon and then didn't getting. He didn't get an answer. But then later a thought came on his mind of like, oh, you've always known it's true. So that was your answer because you've always known it's true. That's what you've always been taught and you know, really watering down what it could be or what the answer should be. And that's what it seems that they're doing here as well.
John Dehlin And people are making jokes in the comment like Trevan on is saying, c John, you were never a true believer. And I mean, yeah, maybe, but like I was again. I, I didn't masturbate before I was married. I didn't have sex. I didn't. I still haven't tried alcohol. I'm 55. Like, I was seminary president. I read the book cover to cover. Like, what, what else could I have done? Like, I was going to the temple. Like, like. And I'm not alone. I mean, Mormon stories were now 2000 episodes in. And so many people had similar experiences where they never really got the witness that that moroni promised that they were led to believe that there would be a burning in the bosom, that, that they would have a witness that it was true. And so instead they, they re shifted their context to, well, I always knew it was true or a testimony is gained by bearing it, so they're manipulated into just lying and telling the world they believe. And then you get positive affirmation from everybody that you bore such a strong witness, such that you start believing your own lies in effect. Right. And that's like psychology manipulation 101.
Julia Yeah.
Nemo So what you could have done, John, is you could have tried to find God in the pages of the book and you could have waited for God's own time and his own way to reveal the truth to you.
John Dehlin I'm still waiting.
Nemo The problem was Moroni's promise.
John Dehlin I'm still waiting. Here, let me be theatrical. Heavenly Father, I am still ready for the witness. Please let me know the book is true. Because if it's true, I've got some repenting to do, right?
Julia Yes you do.
Nemo Yes you do.
Gerardo Sumano Not so many. Maybe just coffee.
Nemo John. Remember, one cup of coffee can keep enough to keep you out of the social kingdom. John.
Gerardo Sumano Oh, and bad words.
Julia Yeah, bad words.
John Dehlin Swearing. Yeah. So another thing that I think worth mentioning that's going on here with Russell M. Nelson's ascent into the, the, you know, the, the presidency of the church, One of his first actions was to condemn the use of the word Mormon, to condemn the identity as Mormons and to call a self identification as Mormons to be a victory for Satan. But also to grow the logo of, you know, a rebranding of Mormonism where Jesus is made larger in the logo. And we've shifted away from our roots as a Joseph Smith based church and we've shifted to a more mainstream vanilla evangelical Protestant Christian church where we're de emphasizing our peculiarities and our history. And if you listen to missionaries now, it's like, I love my Lord and Savior Jesus. And Jesus has, you know, they talk like my Baptist friends did in 1986.
Historical Claims and the Book of Mormon
Nemo Yeah, they're five minutes away from saying by grace, I've already been saved.
John Dehlin Yeah, it's like I love my Lord and Savior. That was never the way Mormons missionaries talk 30 or 40 years ago. Am I wrong?
Julia No. Even the temple is like that. Like they're like Jesus is almost a character you could take out. But now they're like putting his picture up everywhere in the slides and like they're just making it very Jesus centered.
Nemo But ironically, this new introduction to the Book of Mormon as it was at this point in the story that the only non deity that is named in that entire introduction is Mormon. He still gets a shout out by name. He's the only non deity mentioned. But they can't avoid it.
John Dehlin They can't avoid him because his name's on the book.
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin You know what I mean?
Julia Yeah. They have to say his name, so.
John Dehlin They have to say his name.
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin But even Moroni, who was made fun of in the Book of Mormon musical. Right. They got rid of his name too, right?
Julia Yeah, yeah, that's true. Wait, wait. That should be on the list because he's in. That should be on the list. Moroni.
Nemo Yeah. And. And so the introduction talks about Moroni as a.
Julia You're right.
Nemo A glorified resurrected being. Right. That's what they talk about him as in the old introduction. Now he's just an angel.
John Dehlin Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano Angel.
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin Anything else? Anything else we want to say about. About this?
Julia Well, so to segue into my next. Into the next slides, to me, the removal of all these historical things or seemingly historical, like the Nephites, the Lamanites, the Native Americans.
John Dehlin Historical things.
Julia Seemingly, seemingly historical. So this. This makes me think of maybe they're trying to pull away from the Book of Mormon being historical at all. And so that's why I gather these next quotes is to show that I think that that's what's happening, is that they're trying to rebrand or to remove themselves from that and to say that it's just a revelation rather than historical in any sense.
John Dehlin Yeah.
Julia So that's where those next slides are.
John Dehlin And just so people know, the church is never gonna come out and say the Book of Mormon is not historical. What they're gonna do is what they've been doing the past five to 10 years, which is the point of the book is it's not a history book. It's not a history textbook. The purpose of the book is to bring you closer to Christ, but not to get muddled down in the history. Right?
Nemo Yeah. I mean, that's what Bednar said at the last conference, and he's been saying it for a little while now.
John Dehlin Okay, so. Okay, so should we play? Okay, so go ahead, Julia.
Julia Yeah. So in Russell m. Nelson in 2016, he said, and this is an address to new mission presidents. So these are the mission. These are the men who are teaching these missionaries who teach these investigators. He said there are some things the Book of Mormon is not. President Nelson said it is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages. It is not a definitive work on ancient American agriculture or politics. It is not a record of all former inhabitants of the Western hemisphere, but only of particular groups of people.
John Dehlin That is, like, one of the most stunning things I've ever read as somebody who's 55 years old.
Nemo It's also Such a lie.
John Dehlin Why? Why Nemo?
Nemo Well, because the Book of Mormon lists out its coinage, politics. It lists out the animals. It lists out political feuds, judges. It lists out who, kings, structures of government.
John Dehlin Right.
Nemo Yes. Yeah.
Julia All.
Nemo It literally does all that I believe.
John Dehlin Generals, legions. Like, it's. Right.
Nemo Certain plates. Certain plates were for matters of spiritual importance. Other plates were for matters of cultural importance of the lifestyles of these people. It absolutely has made the claim since its inception to be a definitive work on ancient American agricultural politics.
John Dehlin So this is. This is Nelson, like, he's inoculating. He's inoculating the new mission presidents. He's lowering the bar. He's basically saying, don't expect too much from the Book of Mormon. It's not a textbook. It's just to get you closer to Christ.
Gerardo Sumano Who said that it was a textbook? I don't think anyone ever, any critic or member of the church has ever claimed that the Book of Mormon is a textbook of history.
John Dehlin It's like a straw man. Right. It's like a metaphorical straw man that he's putting up there to then knock down. Right.
Nemo Can I just throw. Vocalize his comment on screen real quick?
John Dehlin Yeah.
Nemo It says, and in the 50 and first year. That makes my argument for me right there.
Julia Right. And then he's also. Also the sentence where it says it is not a record of all former inhabitants, that it was that way in 1981, but then they changed it in 2006 because, like. Oh, it's not. It's not all of them.
Nemo Because Jeffrey R. Holland. I don't have the quote, but Jeffrey R. Holland has come out and essentially said that the land of North America was kept separate and away from any other nation, that when they got there, they were the first people to get there. They were alone. They were the only people there. I can find that quote for you.
Julia Well, the text, the Book of Mormon text reflects that idea.
Nemo Exactly. Yeah.
John Dehlin And I think we should really just put a fine point on this. Why is Russell M. Nelson making this point in 2016 and not in 2006 and not in 1996 and not in, you know, 1981 or 75? Right. Why is he saying this in 2016? What happened in the 10 to 12 years leading up to 2016? Again, we stand on the shoulder of giants, but we've got. We've got bh you know, we've covered this on Mormon stories. Right. We've got BH Roberts in the. In the secret Mormon meetings of 19, what, 22, telling the. All the general authorities that the Book of Mormon might not be historical. Go ahead, Nemo.
Nemo I found the quote from Jeffrey R. Holland, if you want it.
John Dehlin Okay. You're interrupting my rant, though.
Nemo No, you carry on with your rant. I'm just letting you know I've got it.
John Dehlin Okay. Okay. You jump in when you think it's necessary, but we've got BH Roberts putting all church leaders on notice as early as 1922 that the book of Mormon is not historical. And then he gets released and hidden. And then. And then we've got Fawn Brody in 1945 telling everyone through no Man Knows My History that it's not historical. And then we've got the Tanners emerging in the 60s. Right. And then we've got Sunstone emerging in the 70s, and dialogue and the Journal of Mormon History. And then we've got the September six and Brett Metcalfe in the 80s and 90s. But none of that has the Internet, So it's known in these really small groups of people, but not known churchwide. It's not until 2004, 2005, when the blogs come out. Well, Signature Books does its amazing books in the late 90s and early 2000s, Grant Palmer, Simon Southerton, Thomas Murphy, DNA evidence. And then all of a sudden, the Internet picks up on all the work of all those giants with blogs and then podcasts and starts pulverizing Mormon consciousness with facts about Book of Mormon historicity, which culminates in the 2013, 2014, the Swedish Rescue Mormon stories, My Excommunication. Then Jeremy Runnels, the CES letter, his excommunication again, Mormon Think. And all the other people that contributed. That all happens in 2013 and 2014 and 2015. The gospel topics essays. We forced them to come out with them by 2013, 2014. Can anybody deny that these are the reasons why Nelson's giving this quote in 2016 and not in 2006 or 1996 or 1981.
Nemo Right, yeah. That's why. And this is still 12 years after Simon Sotherton publishes his book. That makes it very clear that they are not the inhabitants. They're not the predominant ancestors, the primary descendants, or however it's phrased. I think this is a good time to bring it in, actually, because you talk about the Gospel Topics essays. Yeah, the Gospel Topics essays on DNA and the Book of Mormon says the Book of Mormon itself, however, does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied. In fact, cultural and demographic clues in its text hint at the presence of other groups. Right, we won't get into that for a moment, but you know who was claiming that they were the only inhabitants, that they were the predominant or exclusive habitants of the land they occupied? Jeffrey r. Holland. In 1976, he said in the Ensign, here's his quote. Holy Scripture records that after the waters had receded from off the face of this land, it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord. Wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof. That's ether. 13 2. Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune to guarantee such sanctity. The very surface of the earth was rent in response to God's decree. The great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart without habitation. It waited for the fulfillment of God's special purpose. So Holland clearly thinks that they were the only people to go there and therefore they are the only people that inhabited that land that then could have produced the laymanites, etc. Etc. And, and so on and so on. So who do we believe now? Because Holland was saying that in the 70s, but now the church, in response to DNA, has had to change it, which means that you've then got the prophet of the Church now. But he wasn't the prophet. The church then saying to mission presidents, oh yeah, no, guys, don't believe it. They weren't the only ones there. Yeah, that's what we were.
John Dehlin DNA and the Internet. I think the Internet is a crucial dynamic.
Julia Yeah, for sure.
John Dehlin Yeah.
Nemo Yeah, sorry, that was a little sidetracked there.
John Dehlin No, it's super important. This is really important to show you know, what's. What's going on and to match it up with the timeline. And if that weren't enough, we've got another quote from Nelson in 2021. Who wants to go ahead, Julie?
Church Leaders Downplay Historical Accuracy
Julia I can just read it because it's. It's a. I have to explain a little bit. So. So, as shown on the Church news website during a devotional given on October 17th of 2021, President Nelson said that the Book of Mormon is not a textbook. President Nelson said that the Book of Mormon is not a textbook. Any formal history textbook would give equivalent attention to all its component generations. The Book of Mormon does not do that. Instead, it further clarifies many Bible teachings while revealing new concepts and refuting many falsehoods. Including the notion that revelation ended with the Bible and that one can be saved by grace alone. But if you skip to the next slide, according to several sources, including an exmoron Reddit post, a post on LDS Freedom Forum, and a post on New Order Mormon, the church news website may have been edited. I don't know this for sure, but this is my hunch.
Gerardo Sumano I. I think I. I actually saw because I was involved in. I was watching this when this happened.
Julia Okay.
Gerardo Sumano I do remember it having changed.
Julia Oh, that's. Oh, that's. I'm glad we have a first.
Nemo Gerardo confirmed.
Julia Great. Okay. So the. According to the above sources, and then Gerardo, who was. Who had heard it, that it originally said President Nelson clarified that the Book of Mormon is not a history textbook. So rather than textbook, it's history textbook instead. It further defines many Bible teachings while revealing new concepts and then finishes the quote. So I just thought it was really interesting that they're. They took out that part. They took out the history part. And like, it just really. It just looks like he was admitting that it's not. It's not really historical. And then they removed that part. I don't know. I just thought it was really interesting.
Nemo Either way, to John's point, it's a straw man because no one's coming out and going to Mormons. A history textbook. No one's saying that.
Julia Right.
Nemo So he's almost, you know, fighting an argument that isn't there because it's a weak argument to fight. It's a textbook case of when you would use a straw man argument. You're like, okay, I need to push back on a criticism of the Book of Mormon, but I need to find a weak one that I can easily push back on. That then seems to bolster up the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Not a textbook.
John Dehlin It was never a textbook. Why would you expect it to be a textbook? It's not a textbook.
Nemo No one said it was. You know, what was a textbook? The late War of 1812. But you know, we're talking about that.
John Dehlin Yeah, this is great. Okay, so if Nelson weren't enough, future Mormon prophet David A. Bednar. Right?
Julia Yeah. So, David Abner. So in a devotional given just five days after President Nelson's address to the new mission presidents, Elder Bednar made this statement. The Book of Mormon is not a book of history. The Book of Mormon is a book about the future. It describes episodes in the lives of people thousands of years ago. But the writers of the record, and especially the compilers of the record were inspired by the Lord to include these things that we would need for the world in which we live today. So I feel like that one was more specific where he's like, it is not a book of history, but it itself says it is a book of history. Like, like in the fifth year, whatever. Whatever was quoted. Like, all these things, they're very, very specifically a book of history. That's the whole reason. And then he's. We're moving away from that. Like this one was. This one's more clearer than the two Nelson quotes. But.
Nemo And then he says it again in 2024. We get into that one.
Julia Oh, I don't know that I included that one.
Nemo He said it in October, General Conference. He said essentially the same thing that he said there. I put it in my video. But yeah.
Julia And the most recent general Conference, is that what you're saying?
Nemo Most recent general conference, he got up there and said, the Book of Mormon is not primarily a history book. Rather, I should add, looks to the future.
Julia Oh, gosh, I should have added that one.
John Dehlin So he says it again and it's just so textbook. Like, in a way, people like Spencer Fluman are treated like Simon Sotherton. Because I'm sure Spencer Fluman spent a lot of time laying the groundwork, talking to, you know, employees of church headquarters and even lower level general authorities. Like, hey, listen, this Internet thing is a problem. Book of Mormon historicity's on the ropes. I have an idea. We can start calling it a revelation and we can start saying it was never a textbook. Like, I'm sure that Spencer Fluman helped lay the groundwork such that Nelson and Bednar and others would eventually adopt this marketing spin. Right? But what do they have to do to him for helping them correct their course? What is the church leader's pattern? For anyone that actually corrects them and helps them get things more accurate, you have to punish them first. So they've got to kick Spencer Fluman out of the Maxwell Institute, make him irrelevant, so that then they can adopt his recommendations and start misleading people through deceptive language. Am I wrong?
Nemo No, that's exactly what they do. They did. The best example is they did it to Bishop. Bishop, Right.
John Dehlin Who's that?
Nemo They kicked him out. I don't know. If that's not the right name, what's the right name? Protect children.
John Dehlin Oh, Sam Young.
Nemo Sam Young. Sorry, I'm thinking of someone else.
John Dehlin Yeah. Sam Young.
Nemo Sam Young.
John Dehlin Sam Young helps awaken them to the punishing of. To the abuse of children. Excommunicate him and Then adopt his recommendations, Right?
Nemo Yes, that's the one.
John Dehlin Kate Kelly and ordained women help elevate the concern about the women being inferior in the church. They. They punish, ordain women in Kate Kelly and then adopt some of the recommendations. Right.
Nemo Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin It's kind of gross.
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin That they keep doing that. All right, so what's next, Julia?
Julia Oh, I think I already talked about this. Yeah. This is just comparing the promises in the old and new introduction. It's just wild to me.
John Dehlin So this is lowering what? Lowering the expectations.
Julia Lowering the promises. Lowering the expectations. He will reveal the truth eventually. And may you find God in these pages. It's not like will. You will. Whereas the previous one is you will learn all of these things. We promise. So it's just taking away Moroni's promise, which is like the biggest part of the Book of Mormon, because if you don't have that, you can't find out the book is true. And so like, so again, you kind of said to me, this is. Saying this is indistinguishable from fraud. Like you don't know. You won't know the events. The answer may come eventually. You may find God. It's just removing that. Like, this could just be all fake and we.
Nemo You won't know. Like affinity fraud.
Julia Right.
Nemo Trust me.
Julia Right.
Nemo Your results will, you know, results may vary.
Gerardo Sumano We talk about. The book, talks a lot about Jesus, so you gotta trust it.
Julia Right.
John Dehlin I wonder if there are modern examples, you know, how like people do word study analysis of General Conference talks over time. I wonder if the. If the referencing the Book of Mormon as the keystone of the religion. I wonder if the frequency of that phrase being used in General Conference has declined in recent years.
Nemo Oh, probably because it's a catchphrase. Just like Covenant Path and higher and holier ways and all these sorts of things. Right. Those are the ones that are in vogue at the moment. Yeah. Book of Mormons, the keystone of our religion is probably like an 80s one, maybe, or a 90s one.
John Dehlin And then I also wonder, Nemo, you probably tracked this. Is Joseph Smith's name being mentioned less and less in more recent general conferences?
Nemo He's certainly being quoted less and less. Yeah. Okay.
John Dehlin And Jesus is probably having a comeback in Mormonism or.
Julia Or.
Nemo Yeah, well, they talk, they say his name a lot, but they don't quote him. They quote Russell M. Nelson more. Okay, so genuinely quote Russell M. Nelson more.
Julia So Joseph or show his face.
John Dehlin Joseph's got a red down arrow.
Nemo Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin Russell M. Nelson has a. A green up arrow. And Jesus is kind of like a lateral.
Nemo He's stable. Yeah.
John Dehlin Stable. Okay.
Nemo All right.
John Dehlin Okay. So have we kind of made the point of what happened up until December 7th?
Julia Yeah, I think so.
Nemo That it all went crazy.
John Dehlin So up until two days ago. Up until two days ago, the app, the Book of Mormon app, had this new introduction. It had been up for a couple months recently. LDS Living had talked about it, and it was the new change. Is that correct?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah.
John Dehlin And then I get a text from Nemo. What happened? No, actually, then I'll just show the slide.
Nemo Took the slides up.
John Dehlin Yeah. So, like, I see Julia's TikTok, that's got 50,000 views. And what do I say, Julia?
Julia You're like, let's make an episode about this.
John Dehlin Yeah. Yeah. Because I was like, this seems like a really big deal. Right?
Julia Right.
John Dehlin So I'm like, gerardo, make a thumbnail.
Julia Gerardo's like, so we're, like, getting all
John Dehlin the slides at that point.
Nemo I'm already slaving away to get my video out. Like. And Gerardo's like, we're doing a video.
John Dehlin Gerardo's like, it's the weekend. I'm busy. Like, I can't just make a thumbnail in the middle of a Saturday, right. Saturday morning. So it takes a little bit of time. But what happens? Gerardo and Julia.
Julia Yeah, it all changes.
Gerardo Sumano That was the original.
Julia Yeah, that was the original one. And we had scheduled it. We scheduled this episode that you're watching now. We just scheduled it December 7th. It went live. Or this is Saturday, right?
John Dehlin Saturday morning, 10:43am Gerardo's Finally. Finally able to get a thumbnail up. He schedules the episode. I'm the worst boss Ever. And we title it Church Rewrites Scriptures Introduction. Thinking that we'll come in Monday morning and be able to point everybody to the app and point everybody to the LDS Living website, and we'll be able to have a discussion about the new changes, Right.
Nemo And end the episode here. Right? This is where the episode would have ended.
John Dehlin This is where the episode should have ended. But no, what happens? Julia and Nemo and Gerardo.
Nemo Yeah. Do you want me to run through it, Julia?
Julia Yeah, sure.
Nemo Okay. Right. So next slide, please, John.
John Dehlin Okay.
Julia Okay.
Nemo Then I find this out, right? So I break this bit of news that LDS Living's article, because I was editing away on a Sunday, right? Because I'd turned around my production timetable and I'd binned off the video that I was gonna be doing. John sends the message in Slack. I'm like, oh, well, great. I'm already working on a video of this. So I'll be able to come in Monday knowing what's going on. I'll have all my talking points, and then I'm going to get a few more screenshots. So I go to the LDS Living article, and it's gone. Right. So it's disappeared at some point.
John Dehlin The memory hole.
Nemo Down the memory hole at some point between Mormon stories announcing that they're going to be doing an episode about this and Julia's.
John Dehlin And Julia's video and, you know.
Julia Yeah, yeah.
Nemo Well, you got 24 hours.
John Dehlin And also Rebecca. Rebecca Bibliotheca is posting the comparisons all over Facebook. Right. Nathan Hinckley's discussion. I'm sure there's moles in the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook community that are seeing the discussions about this. Right, Right. So we don't know. You know, we don't know.
Nemo I called Julia. I was like, check this out. Make sure it's not just me. And no, it's not just me. This page is no longer available. Same URL. We've checked. They've got the same URL. It's just gone. Which we'd already got the screenshots. That's no drama.
John Dehlin Thank you, Julia. Thank you, Julia.
Julia Thank goodness for screenshots.
Nemo And it is on Internet Archive, so it's still there.
Julia Right. So the link has it. Right.
Nemo Next slide, please, John.
John Dehlin Well, were you going to say something, Julia?
Julia I'll just put those in the show notes so that you can see that.
John Dehlin Okay. All right, so next slide.
New Introduction Quietly Removed from App
Nemo So that's my video that then goes out later that day. So 1pm Mountain Time on the screen
Julia a few hours after it's gone. Yeah.
Nemo So, you know, I'm asking the question, is the church still looking at this as a historical book anymore? Is it still true?
John Dehlin So they know Nemo's. Nemo. Mormon Stories is coming after him. Nemo's coming after him. Right?
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo So I put this video out.
John Dehlin Your video did come out.
Nemo My video goes out.
John Dehlin Okay, so y' all could check that out, too, because Nemo always does great work.
Nemo It's out. And then December 8, 2024, at some point in the afternoon, about 20 minutes after my video goes out, you can no longer find the introduction in the Book of Mormon app in the introduction section of the text. So it's not just the old introductions back.
John Dehlin So it can't just be an LDS living glitch. No, it's not just a coincidence they're removing it from the actual app. Is that right?
Nemo Yes, because now it's gone from the app
Gerardo Sumano to imply there's software developers who are working on a Sunday.
Nemo Oh,
Julia That's really funny.
Nemo Someone's breaking the Sabbath. But then. Next slide please, John.
John Dehlin Okay, next slide.
Nemo Yeah, so here it is. It disappeared. So now you click on the Book of Mormon app, you go to introduction and the introduction is just the old one. It's the 2006 version of the 1981 one penned by McConkey's group.
John Dehlin So there had to have been some like, oh shit, the ex Mormon YouTube is coming unglued. We're going to get screwed here. We got to get down LDS Living and take this off the app. But isn't that like. I mean it's possible that it's also. Ok, let's just be honest. It's also possible that all of these changes had nothing to do with any of us. Right? In theory, sure.
Julia In theory.
Gerardo Sumano How? The thing has been up for a couple months already and then you're right.
Julia And then like all this. I don't believe it. I think it was. I think it was. I think their influence possible though.
John Dehlin It's possible. Just a coincidence like, okay, here's one example that maybe LDS Living's article caused other people in the church to notice the problem and that independent of any of our activity, they kicked the ball off of saying this is going to be a problem.
Nemo But then how did the student newspaper of the Lord's Own University have it up for two months and no one from the church did anything about it?
John Dehlin I mean, maybe less people inside the church read the Daily Universe than LDS Living. I don't know.
Nemo Surely the church is monitoring what comes out of the student newspaper of its own university that it heavily controls to the point you can't wear shorts on campus. Right. If swearing in the locker room of a football game goes against the honor code of that university, surely they're monitoring what's being said in the newspaper.
John Dehlin No, I mean, I just don't want to be narcissistic or like, you know what I mean, like over emphasize our importance. But it's fun to at least insert that possibility.
Nemo And on a serious note, the church will not give us the narrative of actually what happened here so we get to say what we think happened. Yeah, they're not going to come out and explain any of this.
John Dehlin Yeah, if they won't shape the narrative factually, then we'll just present some facts and let people draw their own conclusions.
Nemo We will teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves. Right. So yeah, can we have the next slide, please?
John Dehlin John and I haven't confirmed this, so it's literally gone from the app.
Nemo Well.
Julia Well, no.
Nemo Next slide.
John Dehlin Okay, so what is this again?
Nemo So this is. It's disappeared from the introduction section of the app. Of the app. Yeah.
Julia Wait, but hang on.
Nemo But hang on.
John Dehlin But they had to have updated the app, right? They updated the app.
Nemo Well, yes, but not through. Like, you had to update it through the App Store. Just the content. It was.
John Dehlin Oh, okay. So it wasn't fully removed.
Nemo It wasn't fully removed because it now exists in the what is the Book of Mormon section.
John Dehlin Okay, that's what you showed us at the beginning. Right.
Nemo That's the old introduction right there that you can see in those two slides.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo Right, That's. That's what that is. Now, the reason we've got this last slide is because the what is the Book of Mormon section, like I said earlier on in this show, remember that it exists. That is a screenshot that you're seeing here from the October 11 article from the Daily Universe, which means the what is the Book of Mormon section existed in that app while the introduction was replaced. Which means the question is, what was in the what is the Book of Mormon section that's now been turfed out to be replaced with the new introduction that was put there when the old introduction was put back?
Julia I mean, there's a chance they could have both been the same.
Nemo They could have. But then how was that unnoticed for two months?
Julia True. And they did call it. They announced it in October as the new introduction.
Nemo Yes, exactly.
Julia I don't. Yeah, so it doesn't. I don't know.
Nemo So if anyone knows what was in that. Yeah, so something else was removed, and it's that. It's what was in the. What is the Book of Mormon section? That was. Let us know.
Julia Yeah, this is just a. We don't need to talk about this one because Nemo already did that. Yeah.
Was the Change Deliberate Deception
John Dehlin So, I mean, so, I mean, what this comes back to. And I'm just going to ask for a poll right now of our viewers and listeners. I want you guys to put in the comments. Maybe we'll do a YouTube poll. We should do that. We should create in our YouTube community a poll and let people select which ones they think are true or none. So is so Nemo. Nemo, Julia and Gerardo. I'll let you all opine. I'll be. I'll be. I'll play host and you guys play panelists.
Gerardo Sumano What's the question?
John Dehlin First question is the Mormon Church trying again to rewrite history. Regarding the Book of Origins. That's question one. Nemo, what's your answer there?
Nemo I don't think so.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo I think they're trying to leave the door open for a less historical reading of the book in future, but I don't think at the moment they're trying to rewrite history necessarily.
John Dehlin Okay, Julia, I think I'd agree with
Julia that, because I don't know that they won't ever admit that. It's not that it's. They're trying to do that, but I think they're, like you said, the funnel. They're trying to make it more palatable for people who aren't Mormon, but also
John Dehlin to kind of hide some of the inconvenient.
Julia Let's not bring up Joseph Smith right away. Let's not bring up the Urim and Thummim. We'll bring those up later. But they still believe them.
John Dehlin Okay, Gerardo, first question.
Gerardo Sumano I mean, I think it depends on what. What you mean by history, but if. If we're trying to change the narrative as far as, like, what the Book of Mormon is and isn't, you know, it seems clear based on the quotes that we showed from Nelson Bednar and others. The Book of the. The. They're trying to de. Emphasize the historicity of the Book of Mormon. So in the end. And that's what also the new introduction seems to be doing. So in that sense, I think I would agree with the question.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin And viewers and listeners, you guys can all vote if you just have a one line comment like, no. Yes.
Gerardo Sumano There's a poll already on the comments. 87% of people.
John Dehlin Oh, really?
Nemo Yes.
John Dehlin I don't see the poll. Why can't I see. How do you see the poll?
Gerardo Sumano I think you have to go to YouTube directly.
Julia Is there a way to share that on the screen?
Gerardo Sumano Streamyard won't show it.
Julia Oh, wait. So go say the stats again, Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano 82% so far have said yes. 83.
Julia They are. They are rewriting history.
Nemo Yeah.
Julia Okay.
John Dehlin Who put the poll up? Who put the poll.
Gerardo Sumano I pull it up. I put it up.
Julia I gotta go look at it.
Gerardo Sumano 111 votes.
Nemo 80.
Gerardo Sumano 80.
Julia Oh, I see it. I see it. Yep.
John Dehlin So if I show this screen right now, is that. Is that gonna mess up the. Is that gonna put us in a world?
Julia Oh, yeah, there you go.
John Dehlin A wormhole of like.
Julia Like the. Like this. The. The mirrors in the temple.
Gerardo Sumano Just pause it.
John Dehlin So there it is.
Julia 84.
Nemo It streams.
Gerardo Sumano I put it. I pull it up. I Put it.
Nemo I put it right now.
Gerardo Sumano 111 votes.
John Dehlin Video.
Gerardo Sumano Because there's a 80. Yeah, there we go.
John Dehlin Okay. So we're at 84. It's at 84 versus 16. Okay. So that's. That's the viewers and the listeners opining. Let's go to the next. Let's go ahead and go to the next question. Is the Mormon Church trying to deceive members and. Or investigators by hiding inconvenient information about Book of Mormon origins? Nemo. Actually, Julie, you go first. You're nodding.
Julia I absolutely think they're trying to hide and deceive. Like, I. They're not being honest. This is the whole focus of the Book of Mormon. It's for the Native Americans. That's the whole point. It was written, it was. It was about. It's Joseph Smith, the whole translation process. All of that's been removed. I think that they are trying to deceive. They're trying to make it more, like you said, the top of the funnel so they can get in. Get people to read it, get people to commit. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that.
John Dehlin Gerardo, do you want to go next? Are you busy? Do you want Ema to go next?
Gerardo Sumano I can go next. I. I would say they're trying to be misleading. Yes. Misleading about what the Book of Mormon really is, how it started. They don't want people to be looking at that or paying attention to that Jesus. Let's just concentrate about how many times Jesus mentioned. That's what's important, because no one really can fight against Jesus. And if that's the foundation of your testimony of the Book of Mormon, then, you know, who cares about whether it's factually true? If he teaches some good things about Jesus, that's. That's fine.
John Dehlin All right, Nemo, you get the last word on this question.
Nemo Yeah, I. I think they are, but I think it's also nothing new, you know, I mean, this is. This is the church. The way the church has operated since its beginning is keeping information from people. Some things are secret, some things are too sacred.
Julia This feels, like, really heavy, though, because this is. This is the first introduction that investigators have. Right?
Nemo Yeah. But I think it's. Given the way that It's. I'm not 100 convinced that the church is backpedaling here. I'm still holding space for the idea that this has all gone wrong somehow for them and they've made a mistake because you said they got $250 billion, Julia, before we came on the show.
Julia Yes, but.
Nemo But wealth is no indicator of competence. And the church is a massive example of that. Just more broadly. Right. All the money in the world. But it doesn't mean they're particularly competent when it comes to certain things.
Julia Because I think that's an interesting talking point. Is this all just a mistake? Did someone just put it in the wrong place?
Nemo Yeah, possibly, yeah.
Julia Because I don't think so.
John Dehlin They could.
Julia I don't think they did. And especially if they introduced it as the introduction. This is the new introduction and this is the new introduction. And then like, oh, shit. Oh, sorry.
Nemo I held that position, Julia, like, wholesale until I saw the Daily Universe article and then I was like, so it went unnoticed for two months because if it had been that LDS Living put an article out about this new introduction to the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin Can I just notice.
Nemo Talking. Sorry, I'll just finish that thought off real quick. So essentially, yeah, if it just been LDS Living puts an article out about what was going on with this new introduction, and then the church goes, oh, hang on, that was put in the wrong place by the developers. Let's move it. It was meant to be the. What is the Book of Mormon section. LDS Living, please take that article down, because that's not actually what's happening here. There is no new introduction. Then that is plausible and sort of fine. But there's the fact that the Daily Universe article had it being called the new introduction for two months.
Julia You're saying. What was your final conclusion on that?
Nemo That was my final conclusion on that. And now the Daily Universe article has thrown that into some sort of. Yeah, grayness.
Julia Okay, so you're leaving room for. You're leaving room for. This is a mistake.
Nemo Yep.
Julia Okay. I still don't. I still don't agree because, like, the church owns both of those things and they are very particular on what goes in and out or what.
John Dehlin Although the church can be historically incompetent, administratively and bureaucratically, I don't know.
Nemo They excommunicated me for a start. So there's some top tier incompetence right there.
John Dehlin Okay, really quickly, looks like it's 95 to 5%. People are saying that the church is trying to deceive. I really want the 5% to text right now, either in YouTube or Facebook. Why you don't think this is deception? So I want to hear from the 5%. I also don't y' all love this recursive Mormon temple effect, mirror effect in the visual. Like, I almost feel like I'm going to collapse down a wormhole.
Nemo It's the closest Any of us apostates are getting to eternity anymore. So I think we should embrace it. You know, Wait.
Julia I will say, though, so in the, in the, in the, in the section where the, this new introduction is now, where it's like, what is the Book of Mormon about? Or something like, this still isn't honest. Like, even if it was just published there, I still feel like that's not honest. And so, yeah, I would like to know those 5%. Like, what are your thoughts on this? Like, why do you disagree? Because, like, even if it was just that one section that published this, it's not, it's not being transparent.
John Dehlin What if somebody were to say, look, it's just marketing. It's a business. Everyone does it. You know, every, every five or ten years, McDonald's changes its jingle. Burger King emphasizes chicken sandwiches instead of McNuggets. Like, businesses change marketing approaches, get new things that they emphasize. They emphasize new things. They deemphasize others. There's nothing here. These are not the droids you're looking for. You're just making. Like, with the swearing thing in the BYU athletes, you. It must be a slow news day. Although I will say we have 1400 people joining the live stream right now. Please subscribe and like this episode. Please donate to Mormon stories mormonstories.org Please share and like this with everyone. You can, by the way. But what about the argument that this is a slow news day and we're nitpicking something silly and unimportant?
Nemo I have. I have thoughts.
John Dehlin I want to hear it.
Nemo The church does not want. No one that wants to support the church wants to be inviting comparisons between McDonald's and the church. Because McDonald's is famously a real estate enterprise masquerading as a burger chain. And similarly, the church is a real estate exercise masquerading as a church. So they don't want to invite that upon themselves would be my first point. The second point is that McDonald's does not claim to be a restoration of the Lord's one true hamburger. And similarly, like the church makes claims, that means that it shouldn't be constantly updating. In fact, the fact that Jeffrey R. Holland ever sat down and said, the world goes here and then we go here and then we go here, right? No, that's not right. That's not how the church should be working. From the viewpoint of its claims of being a restoration of the truth, Right? From a pragmatic position of an institution that's trying to remain relevant within a changing world, then absolutely, yes, they should be doing that, and they should be doing it quicker and better and to avoid doing harm to its members and all sorts of other things. But ultimately based on the claims of a church that claims to be a restoration of the true Church of Christ, then they shouldn't be updating their branding in this way constantly. Because this isn't just branding. This is about the public facing claims they are making about the origin of their sacred book of scripture. This is. This is not, oh, we've got rid of Moroni, and Now we've got 12 Oddson's Christus. That's a change in branding. Even though Nelson said it's not rebranding, which is a really weird thing for him to get high and mighty about. Like, yes, it is just rebranding. You've changed your logo. Just accept it. But this is more than branding. This is what the church is choosing to. At least it was until it moved. It was what the church was choosing to put forward to its investigators. And that's the mask they chose to wear to the public. And that's dishonest. Final, final, final point. There is. Is it a slow news day? Yeah. But is it still really entertaining to talk about?
John Dehlin Yes, I. I actually think this is really important to talk about.
Julia I do, too.
John Dehlin Go ahead, Julia. Why? Why?
Julia Well, I was just gonna say, like, I served as a missionary. I served in Salt Lake. And like, this is. We talked about the book, the introduction, all the time. Like, we. We read it to our investigators. It was really, really important. And so for them to do that, to change that so that these missionaries are reading these to these investigators, they're like, everything's being watered down. Everything's. You're not being honest. You're not being transparent. I feel like it's a big deal because people who are just now hearing about the church for the first time, they're not getting the right or the straight answer about what the church is. So I feel like it's a big deal. I don't know what else to say.
John Dehlin Now, Gerardo, you're the only actual Lamanite among us. What do you think?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, I think it's important. It's important to talk about, for sure. I agree with Julia and Nemo.
John Dehlin Well, what if. What if it's just. Well, they're going to find out about Moroni and Joseph Smith and the Urim and Thummim as they read on and get more discussions. And as they read saints or whatever. Like, it's not like they're changing history. They're just, you Know, they're just keeping it you more universal at the beginning. What's wrong with that?
Gerardo Sumano I mean, isn't that kind of how Scientologists do it?
John Dehlin Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. You start out with like self improvement stuff and then you find out about the thetans and the, you know, zenu. Zenu. Once you pay more money, get more invested and that's, you know. A book that I'll never stop recommending is Recovering Agency by Luna Lindsay. You know, Corbin.
Julia Oh yeah.
John Dehlin Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind control. A classic cult technique is to have levels of information and you only learn the deepest, most complicated aspects of the church or its doctrine or theology or history. Once you're already so far in, they've got their hooks into you and you and you can't get out. So I, you know, I'm answering my own question there. Do you all agree with that?
Nemo Yeah, I think, I think the introduction reflects, it does reflect a change to attitudes. So when, in the 80s when you were writing an introduction, you were able to make bold religious claims because you were working in still what was a fairly religious environment. You know, people would more easily accept bold claims about Jesus Christ, about discovering the truthfulness of him at this. It speaks in bold religious language. This new introduction, or now whatever you want to call it, this new body of text is far softer because I think it reflects a more secular world that it's trying to say, oh, you know, well, if you are looking for meaning, if you're looking for purpose in your life, this is all about you, you, you. Because it actually reflects a culture that's become more self centered over the years. You know, the, the new introduction is all about what Christ can do for you, whereas the old one was all about what Christ expected of you in order for you to get salvation that he was the gatekeeper of. Right. It's like our church is the gatekeeper of salvation. Here's what you've got to do to get that and join us. Whereas it's now it's like, well, here's what we can offer you to fill whatever void there may be in your life. I think it just speaks to the culture that it's, that it's kind of written for.
Final Thoughts on Church Transparency and Decline
John Dehlin Yeah, all right, let's, let's do a poll on the final question is.
Gerardo Sumano Oh, we got 278 responses on the other one. 95%. Yes, yes.
John Dehlin Okay.
Julia Still 95. Okay.
John Dehlin And please everybody like this episode and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Our YouTube subscriber growth has dramatically slowed in the past year. And I don't know why that is, but. But if you guys will subscribe on YouTube or on Spotify or on Facebook, it just helps with our growth. So please subscribe, like and donate. All right, last question. Gerardo's going to put this up for those of you following us on YouTube. I'll ask you first on this one. Nemo is Mormon Church.
Nemo I'll ask Parrado first. Okay, he goes first.
John Dehlin I'll do it slow because he may be typing. Is Mormon Church decision making.
Nemo Can we have the old voice back, please?
John Dehlin John is Mormon Church decision making heavily influenced by ex Mormon podcasters. This is the most self serving narcissistic question of all. So of course we ask her our
Julia if you have evidence. I don't know if it's narcissistic.
Nemo I say yes.
John Dehlin What, you think that we are the reason? Like Nemo, Julia, Nathan Hinckley, Rebecca, Biblioteca Mormon Stories. You think we're the reason why the church has took down the LDS Living article and changed the app?
Gerardo Sumano Yes.
John Dehlin Like if we. If, if Julia hadn't have done the TikTok video again, if, if, if, if Nathan hadn't have mentioned this on Mormon Stories podcast community. If Rebecca hadn't have posted all over Facebook the comparison side by side. If Julia hadn't made her TikTok video with 50,000 views. If we hadn't have scheduled that we were about to bitch slap them with this episode. And if Nemo hadn't have done his video, you literally think we. It would have been like four days ago, five days ago. Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, I think the introduction would have
John Dehlin remained and the app is the same and the LDS Living article is still up.
Gerardo Sumano Yeah.
John Dehlin Really? Yeah, Julia, I agree.
Julia And I'm really glad that anyone posted the Is it Daily Universe from October and then all the. Then, then a month later or whatever. December 5th, it was all posted. December 3rd, it was all posted again. And then all this stuff happened. Nathan, Hinckley, Rebecca, the Blue Tech, me, Mormon Stories. And then they just changed it. The timing just, just fits so well whether the church is influenced by ex Mormon podcasters.
Nemo And that's where I think it does hold space still for the idea that it was a mistake, in that they realized their mistake because they were monitoring the exwarm community and saw us all pick up on it.
Julia But the answer is still yes.
Nemo Yeah, the answer is still yes. Exactly. My point is the answer is yes, regardless whether it was a mistake or whether they were like, oh crap, these guys are absolutely taking us to town. Over this. Maybe we need to abort. Regardless, it's because I think they saw the reaction just broadly online. They saw it get Internet chatter, they saw it and, and the insight chatter wasn't positive. It wasn't like, oh look, this is a great, lovely new article because I didn't see any faithful members coming out and talking about it positively, particularly. And normally that is what you see when there's a thing like this that's posted now, this living or something like that. You see the positive members coming out. Like with Heaven's Helpline, when that came out, when Murray's reporting from New Zealand came out, that podcast, all the members rushed the comments to defend it. The church put things out to try and push back on it and whatever. Whenever these things kind of come out, the members are normally on board, but there was just no active members talking about this, which meant that this group controlled the narrative and the church were like, well that's not good. So I guess we better pull it. That's my thinking.
John Dehlin So just for Devil's Advocated for fun, I'll bring back up the survey and what the survey, the survey's not giving us. The survey is basically calling us narcissists because the survey is saying 78% of our viewers think that the church is heavily influenced by US and 22%, almost a full quarter, are saying that we're narcissistic, self important piles of dung.
Julia I don't know if that's what they're saying, Jackie.
Nemo They're just saying, no, no, I like, I like John's characterization. I think that's accurate. That's how I feel about myself most days.
John Dehlin No, but let's think about this. So like what we're potentially inferring is that there's like some, you know, that there's basically people constantly monitoring the ex Mormon community.
Julia Okay, we know that that's true.
John Dehlin I think we know that's true. But then like they're texting each other on a Friday or a night or Saturday morning, it's like, shit, Nathan said something and now Rebecca. Oh shit. Julia did the TikTok. Oh no. Morbid Stories is now about to cover it. Oh, Nemo, we've gotta fix this problem. Let's call the LDS living people. LDS living people, take that shit down. We're about to get just totally bitch slapped. Oh no. You know, hey, gospel topic, you know, missionary app people, Book of Mormon app people. Get that shit down before like Monday in the Mormon stories thing and Nemo's about to drop his video like does that. That doesn't sound realistic.
Nemo But then don't take it down. Move it to another part of the app so that we can try and convince people like Nemo, who's just too lovely and trusting, that, oh, this is all just a big mistake, you know, I mean, if it was nefarious, it'd be a clever play for them to just move it elsewhere in the app because then they're not acting like they're ashamed of it or they've had to delete it or that they don't stand by it. It can just be played off as well. This is in the wrong place. But they won't play it off at all. They just won't talk about it. I mean, this will never be spoken about.
John Dehlin But it's kind of a Keystone Cops reaction because, like, like, don't they know we screenshot stuff? And, and did they, didn't they think about this two months ago before they ever published the stuff to begin with? Like, what do they know?
Gerardo Sumano We don't. We know they don't think of stuff.
John Dehlin No, but if they're watching us, if they've been watching us for years, which we, we are assuming that they do, eventually they're going to know how we think and how we're going to react to a change. Right. Isn't this kind of predictable? Wasn't this whole thing avoidable and pretty predictable?
Julia Well, look at all the other changes that the church has made too. I mean, like Second Class Saints with Matt Harris. Like, he talks about how, like ex Mormons or people, all scholars, they influenced the changes in the church and like, they could have predicted some of those things, like, but they didn't. I don't know. I just. I don't know.
Nemo Well, I think they are always playing a game of sort of calculating what impact or how we will react to how we will respond. Right. I know that personally that that is a calculation that's made when they do certain things. But the question is then, if they did this, having thought it through, why, when they got the reaction that I assumed they would have expected, did they go, oh, yeah, they may have got a point. We should take this down.
Julia Right. Why did they remove it?
Nemo Because it's not like the church to bow in this kind of way to pressure. Normally they would come up with a different way of doing it or they leave it for a while or whatever because, like, they don't want to be seen as. They don't. They don't want us to be able to even make the claim that, that Third question suggests, which is that we are in some way in control of what they do at all.
John Dehlin Yeah.
Nemo Because now they're busting.
John Dehlin Like, it's very possible they put it all back up and act like they didn't respond to us. Right. They've done that before, too. Right.
Julia Well, we have the evidence that they did. That there is a response or that they did take them down, but they
John Dehlin could just say, oh, there was an. There was a caching problem on their web servers. You know what I mean, Gerardo. Bring sanity to all this, Gerardo. And you tell us what you think actually happened. Take us through your timeline of what you think happened. Yeah, I think you work. You work at it. You manage websites, you do graphic design, right?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it would be super hard to get, you know, the person at, like, if this is something they were kind of doing as a pilot, which I think doing it just on the Book of Mormon app suggests it was just a pilot and trying to see what the reaction was. And then maybe. I think you're right. Maybe they got. They got. Must have gotten some interesting feedback from members when the LDS Living article came out. And then added to that, the. You know, that we announced we were gonna do the episode. I think it was. It just takes a call, you know, to the. Whoever is the head of the Book of Mormon app to just make the change. And it was literally just a text change, you know, remove what was there and copy back the other. The old introduction wouldn't take very long and. And then calling the LDS Living people, telling them to remove.
Julia But it is true, Nema, that the. The. Sorry, the Daily Universe. Is that article still up on the Daily Universe?
John Dehlin Okay, yeah, that'd be interesting. That'd be interesting if they take that down.
Nemo Yeah, well, you heard it here first.
Gerardo Sumano Sometimes a little bit more independent than.
Nemo Yeah, it's still the student, like, newspaper of the church's own university that's like. Like properly micromanaged by the brethren.
Julia Yeah, he holds the. Per. Nelson holds the purse strings. Yeah, right. As quoted by Holland.
John Dehlin All right, so really quickly, a couple comments. I'll share you. If you guys find any comments you want to share, go ahead. JMT rights. Don't get spooked, John. But I love the cussing, so there's a call for more John de Lint cussing. Alyssa Galleon says, hit the light bucket button, folks. I love that JC says, john, stop using the word narcissist. Regarding podcasters, Julia's most accurate here. What does they mean, Julia that you're most.
Julia I don't know specifically. Like, whenever you. When you did ask the question, though, you're like, they're all telling us that we're narcissists and piles of dung. I don't think that's what they were saying. They're just saying that they disagreed with us.
John Dehlin Okay.
Nemo Okay.
John Dehlin Wingman says, I can tell John would be hilarious and entertaining to hang out with off stream.
Nemo I've hung out with him. Off stream can confirm that's not the case.
John Dehlin That's not true. Right?
Julia Right.
John Dehlin Gerardo? I'm as boring as a wet sock, Right? Right.
Gerardo Sumano Nope.
John Dehlin Unless we're karaoke. Vocalipse says, well, I'd suggest not screaming a future topic, but dropping it all in one day. No teasers. So do we screw up by, like, Gerardo, we always have this battle of, do we pre advertise episodes? Did we? Well, actually, it's good because if we caused this fumble, part of the way we caused it was by pre announcing our episode. Right.
Nemo While I was editing mine. Thank you very much. I go back in and record something else to say. Oh, by the way, at the time of editing this, they got rid of the eldest living article. The world's falling apart.
John Dehlin Nemo's like, I should never have told John and Gerardo and Julia that the LDS living article was taken down.
Julia Right?
John Dehlin Maybe Nemo just won't share with us what he learns anymore. Beck writes, thanks, Gerardo. Julia, this is a super chat. Thanks, Beck. She writes, thanks, Gerardo, John, Julia, Nemo and the Mormon Stories podcast team. Keep up the good work. I think this is a great episode.
Julia I like this.
John Dehlin I'm proud of it.
Nemo I've had fun.
John Dehlin Oh, here's one. I don't know if one of you guys banned David Cook, but David Cook was in the chats writing things like, I know the church is on track. I know that the church answers all my questions. Never been hard to find out answers to anything. Wow, he must be 18 years old. All you have to do is ask,
Nemo David, are you in my ward? Because that sounds like my ward, but my ward's very rare. Like, well, I say my ward. I don't have a ward anymore. This is my first one since being excommunicated, guys. That's why I've been so spicy. It's been nice to see David in the chat, though. I mean, for me, like, seeing an active member coming in and holding their own and standing up and saying, no, I believe this. I believe that. Because even if we think he's wrong, about saying all you have to do is ask. Etc. I think the broader point of this episode is the church is no longer standing up and saying, no, we believe this. If you ask, you will get this answer. This is what the Book of Mormon is. It was, you know, 600 B.C. it was the Jaredites. It was all these things. This is the church going, oh, let's make it more milk toast and make it more palatable for people. And I think David's actually showing example of what the church was like and. And what it's now failing to be is actually standing up and know. No, we believe these things. This is actually what we believe. And a fair play to him.
John Dehlin Maybe the most important comment at all to respond to. She became visible writes John, you're bringing back your depression beard. I love you, facial hair. This is not my depression beard. This is my victory beard. There's a difference. The last beard.
Nemo What is the difference, John?
John Dehlin The last beard. Victory. The difference is victory. The last beard was my depression beard. This is my victory beard. I'm not going to say anything else about that. Is that smart, Gerardo, to not say anything else about that? Do you approve that decision, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah.
John Dehlin All right. Okay. All right, all right. Closing comments. Let's go around the horn. Gerardo, you go first. Any closing comments you have to today's episode? Closing comments.
Gerardo Sumano Just that this has been really fun and interesting to explore. I think the seeing how the Church is going to keep either changing or, you know, rewriting the way they see and interact with the Book of Mormon is going to be really interesting. I think we're right on point as far as, like, the Book of Mormon is. Sorry, the. The Church is going to try to part ways from all the strange, weird history stuff and the emphasize it and emphasize Jesus. That seems to be the pattern and yeah, will be really interesting what happens in the future. Also, something I was thinking this morning is the rapid growth of the Church in Africa. I was reading an article from the Dust. I can't remember who it is, Desert News or the Church News, but basically what they're saying is that the Church was considered, you know, like this weird cult in Africa. And it's been in recent years when they started being more embraced by Africa's population. And I think he has a lot to do with this. The emphasizing of the history and Lamanites and Nephites and Book of Mormon and, and. And Joseph Smith and then just talking about Jesus and putting Jesus's picture in the logo and then just passing off as any other Christian nomination, which has, you know, I contributed to the church's growth in. In. In Africa, I think a couple years ago, there was an article in the church's news talking about how the. The top 10 countries where the church is growing right now, they're all African countries. So we. We know that some of these countries are very heavily Christian. A lot of Christian denominations have had a lot of success in those countries. So it's not. It's not surprising that that's kind of what the church is trying to mimic.
John Dehlin All right, Nemo. Thank you, Gerardo. Nemo, what do you think?
Nemo Yeah, off the back of what Gerardo just said, I think it's interesting. We're seeing the church shifting and becoming more like hill songy and evangelical. I mean, you've seen some of these concerts now that, like, the church is putting on for people, and you see, like, senior missionary couples waving their arms in the air, dancing, and it's. It's trippy. Like, that's. That's a position that was actively rejected by the church when I was growing up. But they're changing, I think, to become more palatable to the places where they're seeing growth, you know, place they're not seeing growth. Scotland. The 2023 figures are in at the moment because the church has to report its official numbers to the UK government. So Scotland shrunk by 7% membership, and that's total membership. That's not actually who's active, who's not. You know, there's. There's ward closures incoming in Scotland very soon. There have been some already. Like, the church is shrinking in Europe. It's shrinking in Britain particularly. So I think Harada is right that they're trying to be more palatable to the place where they are still growing.
John Dehlin The church is shrinking in Salt Lake City. Right, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin Gerardo, you were. You were polling. You found out recently, what about Kearns, which is a Salt Lake City suburb. What'd you find out, Gerardo? Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano Yesterday, three. Three stakes were closed in in Kerns.
John Dehlin This is like Oz shutting. You know what I mean?
Nemo Like, to borrow, explain it to me like, I'm British. John, what's Kearns?
John Dehlin It's a. It's a suburb of Salt Lake City. So, like the. The church is shrinking in Salt Lake City.
Nemo Right, right, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano 3. 3 state. 5 stakes were consolidated into 5 in
Nemo past weeks into 2. Sorry, 5 into 2. Yes.
Gerardo Sumano 5 into 2.
John Dehlin Yes.
Gerardo Sumano And in past weeks, members were getting text messages from their sec word clerks telling them effective, immediate, you know, the Text would read something like, effective immediately, you're all released from your callings. Oh, word is no longer no more. And next Sunday you need to show up to this new. Oh my God, this new word at this time.
John Dehlin And dang.
Gerardo Sumano And nobody, you know, like, they.
Nemo There was.
Gerardo Sumano Sometimes there wouldn't even be word conference or anything to reorganize the word. They were just being told, okay, this is people from Currents. Okay, this is the new word you need to show up at. And then this last Sunday was when, you know, all the members from the stake five stakes show up to this special state conference and they're told, well, now there's no more five stakes. In turns, there's only going to be two. And this is actually interesting because it was just the Taylorsville temple, which is the temple that would all these stakes would be assigned to, which is probably arguably one of the most beautiful temples that have been built in the Salt Lake County. And you know, it was. Must have cost so much money. It's right of i15. Just the details of that temple are incredible. The all the stakes are assigned to that temple. So dang, things that are being closed are of one of the most recent temples that has been dedicated in. In the area.
Nemo Well, similarly, Scotland's shrunk by 7%. They've just had a temple.
Julia Yeah, exactly. I was just about to say that
Nemo they closed the Limerick district in Ireland and they turned it all into one stake, Dublin stake, and now they're getting a temple, Birmingham got a temple, and then they closed Litchfield stake, which is right next to Birmingham state, to make Birmingham stake bigger, to try and make the temple serviceable. Like everywhere a state closes, that's where a temple's going to end up, it seems.
John Dehlin And it's so ironic if you. If you watch the documentary going clear on Scientology, it ends basically saying the science. The Church of Scientology is shrinking in membership. It's dying in membership, but it's wealthier than ever. And it's just become a real estate holding company with a lot of empty buildings. And that's almost foreshadowing for what's happening to the Mormon Church in 2024.
Gerardo Sumano If you want to learn about other people's experiences in the Salt Lake area, you can go to the Facebook Mormon series. Facebook. There was a post made yesterday about it. And then there's a bunch of people commenting about their stakes or their family stakes in the Salt Lake area that have either closed or words that have been merged in the last year or so.
John Dehlin Julie could. Julie can put a link to that in the comments. There's also there's a subreddit on ex Mormon Reddit called Mormon Shrivel and people are always posting there the latest, you know, closed ward or stake or mission in the church. We're talking about the church shrinking with giddiness and glee. I don't actually, if you talk to me when I'm not on a caffeinated rampage, I don't get glee from the church dying. But I do think it's important context for this whole discussion. Why is that? You know, we really didn't put a fine point on this. Why is the church changing its introduction to its public facing Book of Mormon? Because its truth claims are under increased scrutiny. Things that are googleable that cause serious problems challenging the Book of Mormon's veracity, including Tower of Babel, Moroni Urim and Thummim Joseph Smith Palmyra, etc. Cumorah. And so the church is desperately trying to stop the hemorrhaging of people leaving the church or not being any. Having any interest in joining the church. So they're playing with the Book of Mormon introduction to see if they can slow the hemorrhaging and or the death of its missionary efforts in the developed world. Am I wrong?
Gerardo Sumano You're correct.
Nemo You are. I'd say pretty much correct. I don't like to say 100 correct, John, because I don't want to inflate your ego because you're British. I don't want to later regret the endorsement.
John Dehlin I love it. Okay, Julia, did we give you a chance to give your final thoughts?
Julia No. I don't know that I have a whole lot more to add. I will just say like I. This question has been in my head and I don't know if it's valid but like if, if this. It was. If this was on purpose and it wasn't. They weren't. It wasn't removed for, for the ex Mormon podcasters. It wasn't our. It wasn't us that helped them remove it. But if it was on purpose because of the daily universe and the living or LDS living. This is all they meant to do. All of this. Why did they remove it? Like this was like, like you guys said, they're like in Africa, they weren't growing and now they are growing because they're trying to be more Christian seeming or like more mainstream Christian. That's what the, that's what this new introduction is. It's very like, it's, it's well formatted to be. To be mainstream Christian. It's it's easier to take in. Like, it's easier to understand it. Like, gets rid of all the history that's kind of messy. The stuff that's Googleable. Like why do they take it out if it wasn't for us? Like, why, why remove it? Like these, like it is. It is a 250 billion dollar or plus organization. They own these two things. They own the Book of Mormon app, like all these things. Why remove it? And it doesn't make sense to me except that they, they were embarrassed, I guess, that they, they didn't like how it was being shined on. They didn't like how. I don't know. I just wonder like why, if not this, if not us, or if not the ex Mormon community, why did they remove that?
John Dehlin And will the LDS Living article go back up as a response to this episode? Will the BYU Daily Universe article be taken down? Will these changes be completely mothballed? Will the people that were behind them get in trouble and lose their jobs, you know, like to be. To be seen? Or will we find out that we had nothing to do with any of this? And like I said before, we're just ambitious narcissists basically taking credit for things that we have nothing to do with.
Nemo As of this moment, the LDS Living article is down, but the BYU article is still up.
John Dehlin Still up. All right, well, that's fun. I'm glad that we get these moments snapshotted for history, right? Really quickly, a couple more comments. Culture hall is in the chats. Culture, you do great work. I just donated to Cultural hall recently because he does such good work. So shout out to Kolch and the Cultural Hall. Jeff Kunt says Dan McClelland hasn't been excommunicated. There must be some type of growing acceptance of non literalism. So that's just speculation.
Nemo No, that's not.
Gerardo Sumano He doesn't really talk about Mormonism, though.
John Dehlin Yeah, he doesn't. It's probably worth mentioning that Julia Diazevedo Hanks recently posted on Instagram that she's experiencing increased pressure and harassment from her bishop and stake president. Those are my words, not hers. And that she's having to defend her membership. And so that's another sign of the brethren losing their minds, that they're trying to find a scapegoat for the hemorrhaging that they're experiencing. Can I just go on the record and say to excommunicate Julie Hanks, it seems like that would be far more devastating than excommunicating me or Jeremy Runnels or Natasha Helfer or Sam Young. Do you guys think that that would be possibly way more devastating or Nemo, that. That would. That that would be even way more devastating than previous excommunications. What do you guys think? Think?
Julia I think so. I think a lot of. I think even a lot of active members know her name. Like, I think they know who she is. What were you gonna say, Harta?
Gerardo Sumano Yeah. Most of her followings are members of the.
Julia Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nemo I mean, you know, I. I'm. I had some popularity within believing members of the church, you know, but then there's. There is a comment here that I'll throw on screen real quick from song called Millennium, saying, nemo, please get a job. Your extended family would love for you to actually work. So, you know, there's. There is some discontent in my extended family about what I currently do for a living. And not everyone's happy about it, but I think Julie Hanks is well loved and liked by a lot of active members because her message is. Is the message that the church really should be giving to its. You know, to its members, particularly its female members, and they're not. So they're getting it from Julia Hanks instead. The only reason the church have any reason to be jealous or angry or frustrated that. That people like her or are listening to her is because they're not providing that. Yeah, she wouldn't need to exist and do what she does if the church would just treat people better as an institution.
John Dehlin Yeah. Well, if she's getting excommunicated, it's because she.
Nemo She's actually in the comments.
John Dehlin True. Oh, if she's getting excommunicated, it's because she's saying true things that the church will soon adopt, but they have to excommunicate her before they adopt her recommendations. Right. Just like so many other people. Isn't that the way it works?
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin Wait, is she in the comments?
Julia Yeah, she's here.
John Dehlin What'd she say? Show her comments.
Julia She says, hi, I'm all ears.
John Dehlin Oh, we love you.
Julia My ears are ringing.
John Dehlin We love you, Julie. We hope the church leaves you alone. Nemo, I don't know if you can agree, but excommunication is not fun, and it sucks. And it's easy to under. Appreciate how hard it's going to be. Is that true?
Nemo Yeah. I had a lot of bravado going in, and I. I think I thought I was prepared, but it doesn't stop it hurting. It doesn't stop it being really difficult. Doesn't stop it being traumatic. So I Wouldn't wish it on anyone. And I, you know, I. I was never gunning for it. I never wanted it to happen, but I thought I was ready for the fact that it probably would. And it still hurt and sucked. So, you know, don't do that to her, please.
John Dehlin And I was talking to people over the weekend that are like, I want them to excommunicate Julie because it'll hurt the church. And I just. I don't know. I do think it will hurt the church.
Nemo Yeah, but don't put Julie through that.
Julia Yeah, don't put Julie through that.
John Dehlin I think it hurts Julie, but it's the church self inflicting a wound, right? Like, why would the church want to hurt itself? Like, just stop excommunicating your truth tellers. Leave them alone, and then you won't accelerate your demise.
Nemo I mean, there's a conversation to be had about what the church views as helping itself and what the church views as a positive escalation of its goals versus what we would see it as. So, for example, what we see is lots of people leaving and resigning and being upset. The church sees people leaving and resigning all the time over so many different issues. They don't necessarily perhaps connect the dots that excommunicate and Julie will remove it, or they view it as more important to retain their control than to keep the members that would leave if they excommunicated duly, for example. Right. So it's about them balancing that cost. So for them, they don't see themselves as kicking themselves in the nuts or however you want to view it. They're not inflicting harm on themselves because ultimately they're upholding the integrity of their institution by keeping their control, by getting rid of the people at Julie who threaten that.
John Dehlin Well, I'm just. I'm in a large screen myself and say it. Yes, Mormon Church, you will rue the day you excommunicated Julie Hanks. You will deeply regret it. I warn you now, back off Julie Hanks. Leave her alone, because you will regret that day. You will lose people, likely in far more numbers than you ever saw with Sam Young, Natasha Nemo, Jeremy Runnels, or myself. You heard it here first on Mormon stories. Yeah, but most importantly, just stop punishing your truth tellers and your healers. Right? Just stop it. You're only hurting yourself and the people that are courageously doing what's right.
Nemo And I think that the Mormon, which I think is Nathan Hinckley, he said it was, says, if they kick Julie out, I'm leaving. And I think That's a sentiment shared
John Dehlin by tens or hundreds of thousands of people will, will leave the church over that. So. And by the way, it. Every time someone. It's like when, when you know a gay person, right, and you're Mormon and then you become sympathetic to LGBT people, then there's this ripple effect of all the people that know the LGBT person and loves them who leave. Well, guess what, Mormon church, It's the same with people who apostatize. The more people who apostatize, the more people who apostatize. It is a domino effect. It's a ripple effect. So when you, when you cause 10, tens of thousands of people to leave by kicking out Julie, you're going to cause even more people to leave. And at that point, the Book of Mormon is going to become a pamphlet, right? You'll have to take out so much of the Book of Mormon, it won't even be a book anymore because you know that's what you're going to be doing to yourself.
Gerardo Sumano Yeah.
Nemo Yeah. There we are.
John Dehlin All right.
Nemo Much love, Julie. Stick it to him.
John Dehlin We love you, Julie. Thanks so much for the support. I hope they leave you alone. Okay, just really quickly, just a couple comments. Thanks to Susie Catherine. She sent us a super chat. Thanks. Thanks for the super chat. Also, Joshua, Alexander says, so which Christian church is the true one? Now? Gerardo, what's the answer? Which Christian church is true? Nemo.
Gerardo Sumano Which I haven't. Find it out.
John Dehlin Nemo, which Christian church is true? Give him an answer, Joshua.
Nemo I know the Mormon church isn't claiming to be it anymore. Maybe it's Community of Christ. Okay, shout out community of Christ. Maybe it's you guys.
John Dehlin Julia, what's the true church?
Julia I don't know. I don't like when people ask that question because I'm just focused on the church of Jesus Christ that are destined. I don't like that question.
John Dehlin Ride the guy says, if I've learned anything about the church in my years of being in it, they are never shy about moving the goalposts and acting like they never did. That's wise. Thank you. Ride the guy for that. Let's see a couple other comments. Sandroo says the new introduction doesn't mention Joseph Smith. The church is trying to pretend he wasn't the founder, at least when people first joined the church. I like that comment. Thank you for the super chat. Apostate Joe Smith says, I give C9s to feed your tapers.
Julia Love that Book of Mormon currency.
John Dehlin I love that Ray Allen says, when do you think the church will update the title for the Book of Abraham
Julia from the hand of Abraham.
Nemo They can.
Julia They're stuck.
Gerardo Sumano Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith made that one.
Nemo So I don't know.
Julia Well, but doesn't that one say by the hand of Abraham? Isn't that one literally on written by
Nemo the hand of Abraham upon papyrus?
Julia Yeah, I don't think Joseph. Well, I mean, whatever. Yeah.
John Dehlin Well, again, as we've discussed, you know, I think apologies.
Gerardo Sumano You know what's interesting, it kind of mimics the title page from the Book of Mormon. And the Book of Mormon's title page is supposed to be a translation of the. Of an actual plate.
John Dehlin I mean, I think we've covered before that arch apologist Harold Givens has recommended to the church that they take the Book of Abraham out of its scriptures.
Julia The whole thing.
John Dehlin It's. The whole thing. Because it's such a. Yeah. Wow.
Julia I mean, I. I don't disagree, but that's really interesting.
John Dehlin Alyssa wants to know. Alyssa wants to know if this is my victory of Satan beard. Victory for Satan beard. That would make it my Mormon beard. And no, it's not my Mormon beard. It's definitely not a Mormon beard. All right, thanks everyone for joining us today. Julia, Gerardo, Nemo, y' all worked over the weekend to make this episode happen. Can we all give Nemo and Julia and Gerardo a round of applause for your support? Charge me overtime. I'll pay you guys overtime for your weekend hours. Y' all are awesome, Nemo. Thanks for joining us, everybody. Please donate to Nemo the Mormon and subscribe to his YouTube channel. Subscribe to Analyzing Mormonism. Donate to her as well, or we'll just try to pay her well as she works for us.
Closing Remarks and LDS Discussions Series
Nemo Otherwise I might have to do what my family want and get a real job.
John Dehlin Gerardo, how do people donate to you?
Gerardo Sumano Donate to Mormon stories. Mormon Stories pays me for my time.
John Dehlin All right. Also, just a reminder to everyone that the LDS discussion series we're 59 episodes in now at LDS discussions. It starts from the very beginning of the church. It goes in order analyzing its truth claims as honestly, as dispassionately and as objectively as evidence based as we can. It will change your life if you. If you watch it. As of yesterday last night, somebody with tears in their eyes thanked me and, you know, essentially thanked all of you and Mike in absentia for what LDS Discussions has done to their lives. It's one of the things I'm most proud about in my 20 years doing Mormon stories. Check it out. You can find it on LDS on Spotify as its own standalone podcast. LDS discussions on Apple Podcasts. You can also find a YouTube playlist for LDS discussions and it's also integrated into the Mormon Stories YouTube stream. Also, huge thanks to Mike, who's retired. You can check out ldsdiscussions.com for the text based version of his gift to us. We won't tell you what he's doing now, but he's doing cool work now. Anything else before we end Nemo?
Nemo No, just watch this space. I haven't received, haven't yet received a response for my appeal to my excommunication. So I appealed it to the First Presidency. So we'll see what they come back and say. But watch this space for that. We'll find out and get your tickets to thrive St. George, everyone, because I'm going to be coming to America. That's exciting.
John Dehlin Nemo's coming to St. George. Thrive. I'll be there.
Nemo And me and John have talked about.
John Dehlin Oh, we should bring Julio. We should bring you to St. George Thrive.
Julia Yeah, when is that?
John Dehlin Let's get ahead of that. It's like early March. Like the first weekend in March.
Julia Oh, for sure.
Nemo Last weekend of February, early March. So me and John floated the idea of doing like an evening with John de Lin and Nemo. So let us know in the comments if that's something you would like. Pay to come and see if you want a karaoke.
John Dehlin Gerardo, why the fetch do you never come to Thrive? What do you have against Thrive? Why are you a Thrive bigot? Gerardo, you're a Thrive bigot.
Gerardo Sumano I don't have anything against Thrive. We'll come to the next one.
John Dehlin So we'll promise y' all if y' all support, if y' all donate to Nemo the Mormon analyzing Mormonism, Mormon stories and sign up for Thrive Will karaoke. Julia, Gerardo, Nemo and John will karaoke with you@Thrive St. George. Is that a fair promise? Have you ever karaoke, Julia?
Julia No, and I don't think anyone wants to hear that.
John Dehlin That's not true. That's not true. Anyway, go to thrivebeyondreligion.com we get no monetary compensation for Thrive. Thrive, it's an independent nonprofit that is not a profit thing. But sign up for Thrive. Julia, you can put those in the Julia, you can put those in the show notes or in the registration.
Julia Yeah.
John Dehlin Anyway, thanks for joining us today, Gerardo. Any final words?
Gerardo Sumano No, that's all Julia.
Julia No, we're good.
John Dehlin No. Okay, everyone, thanks for joining us. I'm going to go ahead and just really quickly put a Link to thrive St. George right now in the comments so y' all can register. It sells out really quickly, so I'm sure it'll be sold out relatively, if it's not already. Thanks, everybody.
Nemo We should do a separate event afterwards, John. We should. We should.
John Dehlin Yeah. And of course we're gonna have Nemo here to Salt Lake City.
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin And we're gonna schedule some sort of Meet Nemo Q A with Nemo. Hug Nemo, Give Nemo money. Like support Nemo. You don't want hugs, Nemo? Is that anti British or hugs?
Nemo We'll have a discussion about personal space later, John.
John Dehlin All right. Look forward to Nemo coming to Salt Lake in a week near you. All right.
Nemo Yeah.
John Dehlin Thanks, everybody. Take care. Be good to each other, be kind to each other. Check out LDS discussions and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Thanks, guys. Take care.
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