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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 52 · 55:43

Are "Mormons" Christian? Part 3

Gerrit has spent years getting photos of the Parowan city sign from Richard, all because one author called Parowan a "mythical Nephite warrior."

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at standardoftruth.com. The transcript below follows the episode minute by minute.
The question ·
Or are there tools or ways of thinking I need to learn to adopt to shortcut my trust and accept things I'm told at face value?
Aaron (listener)

Recorded on the road over the holidays, this season finale opens with Aaron's email: the podcast has made him doubt every History Channel documentary, so how should he decide what to trust? Gerrit explains that history is always more complicated than a short summary, Richard brings up the "Gell-Mann amnesia" effect, and Gerrit shares red flags like big claims and small errors, including a book that called Parowan a mythical Nephite warrior. Then the hosts return to whether Latter-day Saints are Christian. Gerrit says the real difference is the premortal life and the King Follett teaching that we are the same kind of being as God, and closes with Jesus himself being called a blasphemer by the learned of his day.

Who comes upJesus ChristJoseph SmithMichael CrichtonGeorge S. PattonPope Urban II
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Recorded on the road

Gerrit warns the audio is rough because they were traveling, and the content is still just as bad.

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Transcript

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Gerrit Hi, just a little bit of a disclaimer on this episode and the next episode. We were traveling at the time that we recorded these, so we didn't have our high-tech studio with all of the very expensive equipment and sound deadening devices that can help make us sound better than we are. So if you will just please excuse these next two podcasts, this one and the next one, they're going to have not the best audio quality. I'm pretty sure though that the content is still gonna be just as bad.
Richard Actually, the content is pretty good. I think you'll especially like, well, you'll like this part two as well as part three of the, I don't know what we've decided to name these, Constantine something. I don't know why Mormons aren't Christians. Anyway, it sounds like we recorded it in a subway tunnel.
Gerrit Which is very similar to where we were. We was either not record them or, you would miss a couple of episodes because we were traveling.
Richard So we do apologize, but hope you have a happy holidays and look forward to season three beginning in January.
Gerrit Yes.
Other Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day and Happy Feast of Stevens, whether you're on the Western or Eastern side of things.
Gerrit I think we covered all of our listeners by mentioning Feast of Stevens at all.
Richard Absolutely, and I hope that your New Year's plans are full of all kinds of wonderful and fun times. We finished kind of discussing a little bit of kind of the nature of Jesus and kind of the two part of it. We wanted to talk a little bit today kind of about the continued kind of theological issues that arise from the discussion of the nature of Jesus and then our nature. But before we did, we wanted to read an email that we received the subject, I can't trust anyone anymore. Which is really, that's the main point.
Gerrit That's what we're aiming for.
Richard That's right. This comes to us from Aaron. I have dozens of podcasts that I listen to and yours is one of my favorites. It's both a blessing and a curse. You've taught me to think more critically about historical claims. So I often find myself saying, that's not proof, or that would be nice, but it's not conclusive. I love history. By the way, so Gerrit is my dearest friend and he has ruined every movie I've ever watched with any historical or anything.
Gerrit As long as it's like a sci-fi thing that isn't making any reference.
Richard I didn't say you've ruined every movie. Sense and Sensibility, though, was ruined for me.
Gerrit Well, I mean, frankly, just the portrayal of the classic was the issue, I mean.
Richard But yeah, no, so I remember in college, we'd watch a movie and we went to go see, it wasn't Gettysburg, it was-
Gerrit God's in General? God's in General. Oh, it was such a terrible movie. Oh my gosh, wow. If anyone listening thinks that's an amazing movie.
Richard You're wrong. I was enjoying it until I was told that I shouldn't.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard And so anyway, so Aaron, you're paid. So anyway, so that's not proof, or it'd be nice, but that's not conclusive. I love history, but now I have become skeptical about everything I hear. And by the way, that actually is kind of the point, is that when you hear some claim that you're not immediately like, oh wow, because that's where there's a lot of danger in those things. I can't watch the History Channel documentary without questioning every statement or wondering if the historian they have on has a real training in the subject that they are talking about. I'm finding myself doubting, doubtful on every documentary I see. Is this good? Should I be doubtful of things like that as how they can actually distill so much history down to an hour? Or are there tools or ways of thinking I need to learn to adopt to shortcut my trust and accept things I'm told at face value? Thank you again for the amazing podcast. I will say before Gerrit answers that, and the answer is no, but before Gerrit answers that, like I mentioned a couple episodes ago that I was listening to this almost 20-hour lecture series on the history of the Catholic Church.
Richard And it's fairly long, but there's so much that can be said just speaking of who are we talking about? Well, it could be literally anybody. You could talk about one person and do 20 hours.
Gerrit Right, you could do an entire lecture series on Pope Urban.
Richard So anyway, so I was like, oh, this is interesting. He's like, well, did they talk about this and this and this? And I said, no. It's a good question, Gerrit, your thoughts.
Gerrit Well, so I don't know that we want to rename the podcast I Can't Trust Anything Anymore, but you know what? That, you know, if we're looking for something that's not crinkling leaves for our premium content.
Richard For the premium content, you can't trust anything anymore, except for this, give us money.
Gerrit You know what? You can't even trust us. I mean, I've made this discussion. I mean, I've expressed this before. And so let me express it again, that there is a great trap to the study of history. First of all, you're not gonna get any money. The first trap is once you're in it, you're like, wait a minute, am I, what do you mean they only pay $30,000 a year? I could get more working, you know, as a crossing guard. But the trap in studying it is there are so many nuances to every single event that happens. And when you think about it, of course there are, right? I mean, you know, we just did those podcasts on the More Italian. We didn't break down the actual march. We did more of the call of it. And so part of the reason why it took us so long to do so many is we aren't very good at delivering content. But second of all, and only slightly less well-known, is that there's so many moving parts.
Gerrit So you can say something that is simple and it's just not accurate. Or you can say something that's complicated and then it's hard for people to understand. So look, it's kind of like, you know, you ask an astrophysicist how black holes are formed, okay? He can say it's a collapsed star that's so dense that light can't escape it. Now that's a very simple, straightforward explanation. It also is not how he would describe it in a paper that he would be trying to publish to the academic community. Why? Well, because there's so many other things, and there are investigations on the side of investigations on the side of investigations. And so when you're dealing with history, whenever someone is distilling it down to a podcast like this or to a biography or to a documentary, those are very easily accessible mediums.
Gerrit It makes it easy for us to understand and have a general idea. I think the important thing is realizing the limits of it. Someone who created a film documentary, for instance, an hour documentary on General Patent, they went through thousands of hours of transcripts, film, interviews, and they cut it down to an hour. Now, why do you think they cut the other thousand hours out? Was it because it was false? No, it was because I'm trying to create an easy to understand, easy to follow story. So when you do that, when you cut out material in order to make it flow more smoothly, that's what I mean by the great trap. The trap of studying, writing about, talking about history is, the more simple you make the explanation so that people can understand it, the less accurate that explanation is.
Gerrit And that's essential. I mean, if you had a, I don't know if you have like, there was a Pythagorean theorem of history writing, it would be that, that in order to make it so that someone can understand, you have to leave out all kinds of stuff, right? So, in Richard's lecture series he was listening to, the guy didn't stop every 10 seconds and say, and so with the development of the Nestorian controversy. Now, the first article you need to know on Nestorianism, and this is gonna start going off and down the tangent, telling you what each author of every single thing has argued. Now, that would be incredibly accurate, but also incomprehensible, and no one would listen to it, but it would be accurate. Instead, what does he say? You know, authors have different opinions on this, but, right? When he says authors have different opinions on it, what he means is there is legitimately thousands and thousands of pages written about this with different competing arguments, and I don't have time to go into all of them.
Gerrit Documentaries especially tend to be, because so much of it is visual, right? Especially if you're doing a video documentary, they tend to be less accurate because they have a very constrained timeframe they're trying to fit in. Biographies, less so because you can make a biography as long as you want. The only problem is, you know, you get about 300 pages and nobody's reading it, right? Maybe they will, but probably not. But I think having a healthy skepticism, I think one of the things that you learn as you gain a field of study, Richard's doing this in his PhD field right now, the more you learn about a specific thing, the less confident you are that you know everything about that thing or things related to it.
Richard So in my particular field of study in business and within that specifically in marketing and within that specifically, this idea of implied referral, whatever, when you're looking at an impact of a particular variable, you say, I mean, statistically, you've got kind of this variable that I'm looking at and how much is that impacting what's happening here. And then you have a lot of randomness, a lot of error, a lot of noise. And so we want to assign in history and with everything, we want it to be really digestible and say, okay, this is the reason why this thing is happening. When in reality, specifically from business, and I talk a lot about things that I have no knowledge about, but in this one I have a little bit, but it's this idea that why did this thing have this impact? Well, really you're looking at, okay, this has a statistically significant impact on about 13% of the total pie.
Richard And that is something that has value from a business perspective. Because again, it's not simple and it's not easy, and there's a lot of reasons why things are happening and why things happen. But ultimately, that is the thing. And one of the things when you get to some blog where somebody is antagonistic toward the church, you should be skeptical of that. You should be thoughtful in thinking, boy, this really seems a real simple way to say why everything is terrible. I think there's a little more nuance to this.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, honestly, with anything, you don't have to be a cynic who's just walking around saying, everyone's a liar. But you should at the very least realize that even people who think they know what they're talking about often don't. I mean, it sounds kind of high brow to say like, well, someone should have PhD credentials to be talking about something. And yet at the same time, what does that at least mean? It at least means I get a base level of understanding and training and reading about sources. Now I might still be wrong, but I've at least gone through years of study about how to properly use sources. Your average TikTok has not had that training, right? So it's not a guarantee that you're going to get things that are accurate. We all make mistakes all the time. I say things accidentally all the time because I'm thinking of one thing and I say the other.
Gerrit I mean, that happens all the time. But whenever someone is trying to distill a very complex issue, and religion is very complex, whenever they are trying to distill a very complex issue down to a meme on Instagram, it's not accurate, period. It might have some parts of it that are accurate, but it is not holistically accurate because in order to make the meme, they had to leave a lot of things out.
Richard So to kind of give an example of this, this is something that you see all the time, right? So if you are a fan of sports, like I'm a big fan of sports, sometimes things in sports will make their way into mainstream news media. And so they'll be talking about a particular news story and they'll have news people talking about sports. So something that I'm very familiar with, BYU football as an example, and somebody, you know, this might not be something on the national level, but something in the national level, some football story, whatever. And you hear somebody at the national level talking about football or talking about your team or talking about this thing that you love. I think Michael Crichton called it the Gelman amnesia. This idea that...
Gerrit What a name drop.
Richard Well, Michael Crichton is just an author.
Gerrit No, I just feel like you're trying to big time everybody on the podcast now.
Richard Gelman amnesia.
Gerrit Well, you got close to the PhD and you're like, I'm not even waiting for it.
Richard I haven't even defended.
Gerrit That doesn't matter. And we all know that every person we've ever met in our life who's the most arrogant person we've ever met is ABD.
Richard So, it's this idea that, so you see it because you know way more than this person knows about this topic. And then they're talking about it. And you're like, oh, they didn't say that right. They don't know what they're talking about. This is really kind of odd that they would come across as whatever. The idea of this Gelman Amnesia is just this term that Michael Crichton uses to say, so you hear them talk about a thing you know more about and you realize how off they are about it. But then they go to the next topic, and all of a sudden now you're accepting the things that they were saying about the thing, knowing full well that they just talked about something that you know they don't know anymore about.
Gerrit We've covered several, for instance, one of the books we covered, that was one of the points I was trying to make. Look, we don't have time to go chapter and verse for every single claim that's made in this book, but we looked at three of them, and they are plagiarized, made up, false and wrong. So I don't know what the fourth one is, but I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say, probably not terribly accurate either. And so when you're saying, what are some tools? Because you did ask for us not to just dump all over.
Richard And then for the last 10 minutes, we've just dumped all over.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like, well, you mentioned some implied referral thing and he to stop listening anyway. We're sorry we lost you as a listener. We're sorry that you can no longer listen. But in general, just in general, when you watch a documentary, when you listen to a podcast, including this podcast, look, I am not, I'm asking you to not believe me. This seems like a bad selling point. Is it the wrong time to bring up? The Standard of Truth podcast, Don't Trust a Thing We Say, brought to you by Brownsmoos Toothpaste, or whatever we were in the middle of. Jersey Mike's. All right, so always have a healthy level of skepticism, especially be skeptical when it is someone who is deliberately attempting to make a superlative claim about the thing that you're discussing.
Gerrit So when someone is trying to, for shock value's sake, say, you know, General Patton never once even read the Bible that he carried around. Well, you can even, no, I'm not saying that's a real claim. Richard looked at me like, how dare you?
Richard How dare you?
Gerrit How dare you say that about George C. No, General Patton, not the person that played it.
Richard No, that's what I meant.
Gerrit Scott, who's also a very good Scrooge.
Richard Oh, it's my favorite.
Gerrit Coming off of that.
Richard I mean, this is, coming out after Christmas, the George C. Scott Christmas Carol, late 80s, is absolutely terrifying, but it's wonderful.
Gerrit Anyway, the reality is, if someone is making a superlative claim, a big claim like that, almost always, there is some kind of nuance surrounding it. And sometimes that nuance doesn't really matter, but sometimes it really does. In either case, when they're making the superlative claim, they're not telling you about the nuance, right? This happens all the time, benignly, right? I will say, and I have said on this podcast, as I demonstrate this through our own lives, I will say things like, the Latter-day Saints left Nauvoo in early 1846. Now, I don't stop off and say, actually, the first company began traveling to cross the Miller, I don't do that. Although, it seems like Richard would prefer that.
Richard That's what you sound like in my ear, actually.
Gerrit All Richard ever hears when I talk is, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr. Anyway, the reality is, there are some Latter-day Saints who stay behind. So, that wasn't the point of the topic when I was talking, but if I were to take me saying, the Latter-day Saints began leaving Nauvoo in February, and you were to take that and say, no, I know that there wasn't one Latter-day Saint left in Nauvoo after February of 1840, right? It wouldn't be accurate. The problem with the digital age we live in is people want to get bits and pieces of information and make all of it superlative. All of it. All of it is the most, all of it is the worst. Why? Because that's what gets clicks and that's what gets people to think that you're an expert on it. When we've dealt with some of these antagonistic memes and themes. We need to grab back. Memes and thing.
Richard Themes.
Gerrit No, no.
Richard Memes and things.
Gerrit You know what? I don't even want memes anymore. You've ruined it for everybody. When someone presents you with these antagonistic things, they are trying to do it pithy. It's short. It all fits in the right size font on the page. It makes a gigantic claim. And at the same time, is horribly, not only inaccurate in its actual statement, but inaccurate because it knows what you're going to take as implication from it. If you recall, we talked about the meme where someone puts up, just remember, the so-called revelation to Joseph Smith about polygamy, D&C 132, wasn't included in the Doctrine and Covenants till 1876. Just remember that, right? So, the person who creates that meme, and I assume that's how they talked about it.
Richard That's very breathy.
Gerrit Very breathy. Very breathy and always like, I've always wanted to be the movie person. Yeah, I wanted to do the, I want it in a world, right? I wanted to be that guy. And this is my one shot. We created this entire podcast hoping that a Hollywood producer would be listening.
Richard They're not.
Gerrit Oh, shoot. Anyway, the implication, so someone reads that, they don't know how the Doctrine and Covenants is put together. The implication is, oh, Joseph Smith never even actually had a revelation on polygamy. That was invented later. Why do you think it took until 1876 to get into the Doctrine and Covenants, right? That's, the person who's creating that meme is either A, horrifically idiotic, doesn't even know the process whereby revelations got into the Doctrine and Covenants. So you gotta give that, sometimes people are just stupid. They don't know anything that they're talking about, and yet they still talk. So very surprising. But you might meet someone in your life who is more than willing to have an opinion on something that they literally know nothing about. You may not know anyone like that. I've met a couple, one of them sitting next to me. Just kidding. Just kidding. Oh, luckily your mom doesn't listen.
Gerrit But my mom does, and she's gonna chastise me for that. How dare you say that to Richard? Anyway, they might not know, but if they don't know, they probably shouldn't be creating the meme. But if they do know, then that means they are deliberately manipulating you. They know that the next edition of the Doctrine and Covenants that came out after the 1844 edition is the 1876 edition. So when someone says they didn't even put it in the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876, what they mean is they didn't even put it in the Doctrine and Covenants until the next time they published it, right? But that doesn't really carry the same weight, does it? Nor do they tell you. And by the way, there are literally dozens and dozens of revelations that we quote from and revere in the Doctrine and Covenants today that weren't added to the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876.
Gerrit Are you claiming that D&C 121 isn't really from God because it wasn't added until 1876? Are you claiming that D&C 122 and 123? What about D&C 120? All of these various revelations for D&C 137. Did Joseph Smith not really see a vision of the Celestial Kingdom with Alvin in it because it wasn't put into the Doctrine and Covenants until 1981? No, of course, the meme or the statement isn't actually attempting to educate you. Attempting to educate someone in a five-word little post, that's not how education happens. And in fact, if someone thinks that's how education happens, that's already a problem, right? And so always be a little bit skeptical. And you know what? It is a healthy thing to say, well, how does he know that? Because then that means if you really care to find out, you can go look up the sources and see, oh, oh, he says that the Holy Roman Empire did this because of so-and-so's argument about this, right?
Gerrit But that doesn't mean you have to think that everyone's lying to you. But I'll tell you what, I have had the experience where there was an outstanding book that was written about damnation and hell in America. And the author, a great author, she was just a brilliant scholar, outstanding writing. It was great, great book. But she did a chapter on what Mormon theology of hell was. And it was straight terrible. It was as if she had never had a conversation with an actual active Latter-day Saint in her life when she went to write what it is that Latter-day Saints believe. She misinterpreted multiple early Latter-day Saint documents including D&C 76, and then misinterpreted other people's misinterpretations of them. It didn't mean that she wasn't an amazing educated scholar. She still is, I'm sure more brilliant, that's not hard to be more brilliant than me, more brilliant than Richard once he gets his PhD.
Gerrit My mom's really gonna, she's gonna be angry.
Richard It was Christmas just a couple of days ago.
Gerrit Renee, I need you to be kind. Anyway, but it did make me then question the other aspects of her book. So that's another thing that, now I'm not saying that those other aspects weren't right, but what I'm saying is, I was buying hook, line and sinker everything that she had to say because she had such a great argument for these various other Calvinist Christian traditions. But she was so wrong when she got to what Latter-day Saints believed at the time, that I didn't hold that against her in saying like, well, she's obviously a terrible person. But I did say to myself, boy, if she can be that wrong about what it is that we believed at the time, I maybe need to be a little more hesitant about the other claim she's making as well. So that's another thing that you can do. I mean, if you're wondering whether or not this documentary or biography is terribly accurate, and you find that there's some things that are woefully inaccurate, that should be a red flag to you.
Gerrit It should be a red flag that says, you know what? I'm gonna take everything with a grain of salt from here on out.
Richard What was the example that you give on the great Nephite warrior or Lamanite warrior?
Gerrit When I first got to graduate school, one of my professors who informed me the very first day that he hated Mormons and knew that I was a Mormon because I was from Idaho, and just wanted to let me know that in front of the class. I hate Mormons, just so you know, I hate them. And I said, I'm sorry. I literally did, I said, I'm sorry. And what are you supposed to say? I mean, I'm sorry you hate me without having met me. Look, if you just get to know me, you would hate me.
Richard And you'd have a reasoning.
Gerrit I don't ask for much. I just ask that you get to know me before hating me.
Richard I hate you based on the content of your character.
Gerrit I want you to hate me for who I am. And not what I believe. They assigned multiple antagonistic books to the entire class to read about Latter-day Saint religion. And one of them was a book on the Mount Meadows Massacre written by Sally Denton. Now, there are lots of reasons why Sally Denton should not be taken as an authority over what happened in 19th century territorial Utah. First of all, she doesn't have a degree in history, right? She was a journalist. Now, that doesn't mean everything she says is gonna be wrong, but it does mean she personally actually doesn't have the ability or the training to vet the validity of sources, right? She doesn't. Now, it doesn't mean she can be wonderfully intelligent. This is not a question of intelligence here, right? Sometimes people think that you're saying, oh, you're just saying you're smarter than, no.
Gerrit I have a training in history. Richard has a training in business. Whenever we're talking about things that aren't those things, however wonderfully informed we might think we are, we are amateurs at it. Even if we do know a lot of stuff about it, we're amateurs. We might know a lot about the buffet line. We might know tons about it. We might know far too much about it, but that doesn't make us the cook who made the food, right? And so the way she opens her book, I don't know how exactly, I could go look it up, but then I don't know if you'll find her book. But in the opening pages, she says something to the effect of, it all happened outside of a small Utah town named Parawan, named for a mythical and bloodthirsty Nephite warrior, right?
Gerrit It's very much setting the stage. Beautiful writing, right? It was something that drew you in immediately, like, oh my goodness. The problem is, of course, Parawan is a Ute Indian name that means crooked stream, which she could have gone to like, I don't know, the town of Parowan's website, which first of all, Parawan has a website, just so everyone's aware. Do we have any listeners in Parawan?
Richard No.
Gerrit Are you just saying that demographically? There's no possible way.
Richard You could almost say any city and I will say no.
Gerrit Do we have any listeners in Salt Lake City? No. Do we have any listeners in Provo?
Richard Maybe.
Gerrit Okay. But only because we've played this back several times.
Richard In Provo.
Gerrit In Provo. It sounded great, but she had made the conflation of thinking that, I'm guessing, Pahoran in the Book of Mormon is who she was thinking of.
Richard He's the bloodthirsty guy?
Gerrit I don't know. But either way, that he was a mythical Nephite warrior, right, or whatever.
Richard I love the story of Pahoran, by the way.
Gerrit Well, that's a story for another podcast.
Richard Hey, just don't be mad. We're fine.
Gerrit But at any rate, she started off this book, and, you know, I presented that to this other professor, just in my book review of it. You know, literally on the first page, it shows you how deep her examination went. She could have literally talked to any Mormon, any act of Mormon, you could have said to them, is Pahoran the name of a Nephite warrior? And they would say no, and they would hand you a Book of Mormon, and you could look it up in the index, and you'd see that Pahoran wasn't the name of a Nephite warrior. Now that might seem like you're being just a little nitpicky about it. But the problem is, I didn't tell Sally Denton to write a book. She chose to write a book and set herself up as an authority on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. No one forced her to do that. This wasn't some kind of East German Stasi thing where they said you will write a book, whether you like it or not, and this is the topic.
Gerrit She chose to do it. So once you choose to do it, and you set yourself up as the authority on that topic, you don't get to not just be wrong, but ridiculously wrong about a way you're trying to negatively stage what happened, which is exactly the case.
Richard And by the way, every time I drive through Parowan, on my way down south, I stop and I take a picture and I send it to Gerrit.
Gerrit I've done that for decades. And then sends it to me saying, mythical Nephite warrior. So, I mean, this has been a long answer to say, you know, I think skepticism is healthy. Look, I believe you have faith. Faith in Jesus is something that comes from the Holy Spirit. Faith in following the prophet is something that comes from the Holy Spirit. I don't have skepticism when President Nelson tells me to do something. Well, he doesn't ever tell me to do anything, but whenever he tells the church to do something, and I'm part of it, right? But if someone is going to make a claim about the past, that doesn't mean it's not true. It very well might be. But I do need to be responsible before I just simply take something as being true just because someone said it. I often use the example when I'm talking about antagonistic statements about the church. You can pull up some people who say things like, oh yes, Martin Harris told me that he never saw the plates.
Gerrit That is a source. It's a source that actually exists. Does that mean that that is the explanation of whether or not Martin Harris said that he ever saw the plates or not? Of course not. Because there are dozens of other sources. And often time when people are making superlative claims, they conveniently or through ignorance leave out the other sources that would draw away from their claim. They just do. Because the claim they are trying to make is essentially a political slash religious one. They are not trying to make a claim about history. They are just selling it that way. So that's why when someone talks to you about Helen Mar Kimball and polygamy, they don't ever point you to the book she wrote defending polygamy. Why would they do that? She wrote the book. It's well known. Everyone knows we have it. Why don't they tell you that she did?
Gerrit Because that's not the point of the meme. The point of the meme is to cause you to doubt your faith, not to give you actual information. And so, yeah, healthy skepticism I think is very important. Always be hesitant to completely embrace something, especially just because you heard it on a podcast, like this podcast, or because you saw it in a documentary, or even if you only read it in one... I mean, for me, look, if I read something that I'm like, oh my goodness, is that the reason why ZCMI did this, you know, back in the 19th century? No, not in the 20s. No, no, no, 19th century. Well, then, I'll do a couple things. I'll go see if other authors have made the same argument. And then I will go examine the footnotes to see why it is the author is making that argument. Okay, you're saying that it happened because of this. And I go look at the footnote. Okay, I see why you say this because the letter says this, but the letter doesn't actually say the second part of what you say.
Gerrit Where's that coming from? And sometimes you'll find it's not coming from anywhere, right? Nobody is perfect in this wild scheme of trying to talk about what happened in the past. But a healthy skepticism is always required when you're talking about events in the past. You need to know that to know exactly what happened in the past requires all kinds of intensive efforts to get to original sources. Now that is separate from faith. You don't have to know those things to believe, because belief comes from the Holy Spirit. That's very different.
Richard That's right. One thing is we want to make a quick public service announcement as we transition to the actual topic of the 36 Minutes In.
Gerrit I think that's about right. What we'd like to do is to start spending most of our time talking about either sports betting or responding to emails, and then in the last five minutes, a pithy meme. No, just a meme. That's my plan because no one can check it.
Richard Well, you mentioned the Parowan website. I don't know when you... So the podcasts drop at midnight, so I don't know when you get them. I assume everyone that listens is waiting up until midnight.
Gerrit I know that Tammy is.
Richard So that they can download it immediately and listen to it. And if that's the case...
Gerrit I assume Rachel's mom is.
Richard Parowan Pickleball Thursday is at 9 a.m. on the 29th of December today. And it starts at 9, so make sure that you're registered. And you get down to the fairgrounds and play some Pickleball.
Gerrit Wow, very good.
Richard There you go. That's it from the...
Gerrit That transitions to our topic?
Richard It's a perfect transition. So what is the impact of the nature of man and the nature of Jesus as it relates to then theologies that come? That was the topic that we discussed that Pickleball transitions over to.
Gerrit Right, because for many people, Pickleball is a religion. Yes. And so let's talk about the nature of God. So I think there are multiple implications. We've talked about this in the previous podcast, about the Mormons not being Christians. It really is fundamental to who we are. I mean, when Joseph is teaching that we are a different type of being than Christians think we are. I said this before. Not that I care any weight, but you'll hear me say it multiple times. The doctrine of the premortal life is probably the most essential belief that we have. Obviously, Jesus being our Savior is the most important. I'm going to get a bunch of emails like, I get it, we're all Christians here, okay. So I believe Jesus saves me. The question is, why is it other Christians don't think we're Christians? And they clearly know that I think Jesus saves me and still don't think I'm a Christian. So that's why the conversation is going beyond that.
Gerrit It's because in the understanding of the premortal life, it changes all of the natures that we're talking about. It changes God's relationship to us. He is no longer our Creator, but He is our Father. Jesus' relationship to us. He is no longer our Creator, right? We are no longer just the wood that Jesus used to build a table. We are, though far below Him in glory, the same type of being that He is. Why does that matter? It matters because our understanding of a premortal life helps us deal with the realities of this mortality.
Gerrit Because the great fundamental question that no Christian can really answer very well is why is any of this happening at all? Why is this world so terrible? Why is there so much sin? Why is there so much suffering? We can come up with all kinds of pithy little means to explain why. But they all ring pretty hollow. Because if God is perfect and God is all-powerful, then God could have done whatever God wanted to do. So why did God do this? Why did God do that everybody suffer? What Joseph is going to teach in the King Follett Sermon and other places is that our souls are eternal. That there is no creation about it is what Joseph says. The reason why, though horrific to your friend, the idea that you could become like God, it's horrific to them because the very nature of God is that no one can be like him.
Gerrit The very nature of God is he is the only being that has always existed. The only thing that God can't do is make you always have existed because that's what God is. God can give you all the power in the world, but he can't make you always have existed. And Joseph Smith refutes that very fundamental idea. And in the King Follett Sermon, which we'll cover at some point...
Richard I hope that we do.
Other Probably not.
Richard We get a lot of pressure from a friend of ours.
Gerrit Well, probably not. But in the King Follett Sermon, Joseph Smith explains that it's the first principle of God to know how it is that God becomes God. That very idea that there was a process whereby God came to be God. That's not just high Mormon theology that people spout off like Mike Huckabee when they're trying to hurt Mitt Romney's chances at an election. It sounds like I'm talking about deep doctrine, but Joseph is saying these are the first principles of the Gospel. Why? It matters that you know that God became God because that is who you all are. All of you are the same type of being that God is. God as a being has always existed.
Gerrit You as a being have always existed. Now, obviously God is leaps and bounds ahead of all of us, but that you are the same type of being, which means because you are the same type of being, dare I borrow from the creed, you are of the same essence, right? That means you have the potential to become like God. Like your Heavenly Father. Now, of course, on the other side, and your Heavenly Mother, which is even more blasphemy, that's another blasphemy down another road, right? When our Christian friends say that we aren't Christians, it's usually not done out of terrible malice. Sometimes it is. But what they're trying to say is the Jesus that you worship is different than the Jesus that I worship. And as one of those tweets read, maybe. We certainly call ourselves Christians, we take upon ourselves the name of Christ, but the Christian world has taken, they've drawn a line in the sand where they have said, we can differ over these doctrines, whether or not the Lord's Supper actually becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus.
Gerrit We can differ over that, but still call each other Christians, right? We can differ over whether or not you have to have any saving work to be saved, or whether it's all grace and still be Christians. But they've drawn the line in the sand at those early Christian councils. If you don't accept the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead, if you claim that God and Jesus are separate beings, and further if you claim that all of us are the same types of beings that God and Jesus are, well, that to them is heresy. So when they say you believe in a different Jesus, you believe in one that you have the ability of actually being equal with. It's one thing for Jesus to give all kinds of crowns to throw at his feet to you in heaven, but you're claiming that you can actually become like him.
Gerrit And not just like him because you don't have any sin, but actually become like him. That is what Joseph is teaching in the King Paul sermon. It seems like it's deep doctrine, like I said, but really it's fundamental. It's who you are. You are not someone who was created 25 years ago, 35 years ago, 75 years ago. I don't know the demographics of our listeners, all of them. 900 years ago, I don't know. Maybe John the Apostle was listening, but I doubt it. You are someone who has always existed and then made a choice to come to this earth. That is entirely different than what the Christian world believes. The Christian world believes that God created you out of nothing however many years ago you were conceived. We are saying that we existed with God before that.
Gerrit Because we are children of God, the same type of creature, or not creature, being that God is. And that therefore we have the potential of becoming like him. On the other side of that, we talked about this when we talked about D&C 76, and that is we believe that God is going to provide a way for every single person to be saved. And not just saved from hellfire, but that God is going to create an equal opportunity, however that works in the next life, for every single person who has ever lived to be exalted. Every single person. It's not a happenstance of where you were born, or who your parents are. That every single person has an actual opportunity to become like God.
Richard And this, that's why there's such an importance to understanding who it is that we are. If we're just simply a creation, it's not nearly as big of a deal that somebody is born without the knowledge, and somebody is born with it. But if we're all literally children of God, it becomes something that is far more difficult to swallow, the unfairness of it all if they aren't given that.
Gerrit Yeah, and for us, right, it's God's work and His glory that He brings to pass the immortality and eternal life of mankind. God's glory is in the exulting of His children. And we are not saying that we're His children because He created us the way He created a rock or a hammer. We are saying that we are the same types of being that God is. That we made a choice to come to this earth so that we could become like He is. I don't have a road map for how that works, how we go from being the horrible sinful person I am to becoming anything like God. But there is a very distinct difference. The reason why we don't believe in an eternal hell fire where even the horrible sinners are going to rot for eternity upon eternity, but that eventually everyone will be, they will be punished long enough that they will be resurrected and they will go to a kingdom of glory, in the celestial kingdom at the very least, is because we believe that we are eternal beings who made a choice to come to this earth.
Gerrit So because we kept our first estate, because we chose Jesus in the first place, the eventual end of everyone, with very few exceptions, is to be in some level of heaven. But it's still not just a happenstance there. God made provision for everyone to have an opportunity to actually become like him. Even if you didn't hear about it in this life. Even if your parents were atheists, even if you were born into terrible socioeconomic conditions, somehow, through work for the dead, and through our eternal progression in the next life, God has made it possible that no one is going to simply be shut out of his presence, because you were born at the wrong time, born in the wrong place, born with the wrong father, born with the wrong education. The equality of both salvation and exaltation that Joseph Smith reveals is the only thing you could expect from a father who isn't dealing with creations, but dealing with children.
Gerrit And I think that is one of the takeaways that we have from this. It's one of the reasons why, yeah, your friend might say, you aren't a real Christian. And maybe what you say back is, I understand we believe different things about the nature of Christ, but I'm still certain the only way I'm saved is through the blood of Jesus Christ. So that's maybe a way of talking about it in a non-confrontational way. Now they will assert, no, no, what you believe is so far afield, you are no longer a Christian. And frankly, as a Latter-day Saint, the invention of Twitter is not the first time that someone said we weren't real Christians. In fact, it's happened since Joseph Smith first said he had a vision. It happened since Joseph first said an angel appeared to him. It happened since Joseph first said he brought plates home. People saying that is not what I consider Christianity. But we're in good company because that's exactly what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Gerrit The great learned religionists of the day, the people who had read the Torah over and over and over, those who were desperately waiting for the coming of the Messiah, are also the same people who weren't just wrong about Jesus. They were so wrong that they said Jesus was either Satan or was occupied by an evil spirit. So, it's tough. In a media-driven world, in a world where people are making snap judgments and attacking people right and left, it's tough to be on the side where you're just not ever going to be truly popular. You just aren't. But you have really good company, because neither was the Savior. And it didn't matter that what he taught was true. He was called a blasphemer. It didn't matter that what he taught was correct and kind. He was called a heretic.
Gerrit He was called a blasphemer. And eventually, he's going to be killed for it. So, thank you so much for joining us on this topic.
Richard And for joining us for season two of the Standard of Truth podcast. And you'll be able to join us next year.
Gerrit It's possible we get canceled in the next two days.
Richard Likely.
Gerrit Or three days?
Richard But if we're not, this is the 29th. But if not, we look forward to you joining us for season three, the Standard of Truth podcast, where we talk about similar topics and look to answer questions that you didn't know that you had.
Gerrit And maybe, maybe some rustling of leaves.
Richard Crinkling of leaves.
Gerrit Crinkling leaves.
Richard You can go to standardoftruth.com and all the details for all of the fun, new, premium stuff is going to be there for the website. We're excited about that. We hope that you really like that.
Gerrit Yeah, we hopefully, those of you who are able, are able to subscribe, and that would help support the podcast. And if not, we'll still have the free content, which...
Richard You get what you pay for.
Gerrit You've always been getting what you've been paying for. So far, you've been getting what you've been paying for. You've been getting what you've been paying for. But some of you have said...
Richard Season three, getting less of what you're paying for.
Gerrit Yeah, season three, continuing to get what you're paying for. But for those of you who are interested, please go to our website, standardoftruth.com, and consider subscribing to the premium content, which will cover some other topics, as well as the things that we cover on the free podcast. We would really appreciate it, and we really just appreciate all of you, and all the many kind thoughts and statements, all the wonderful emails and kind responses we've received from people. We certainly don't deserve it, but we are grateful for it.
Other Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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I'm pretty sure though that the content is still gonna be just as bad.

GerritBanter

You're wrong. I was enjoying it until I was told that I shouldn't.

RichardBanter

The trap of studying, writing about, talking about history is, the more simple you make the explanation so that people can understand it, the less accurate that explanation is.

GerritInsight

The more you learn about a specific thing, the less confident you are that you know everything about that thing or things related to it.

GerritInsight

And we all know that every person we've ever met in our life who's the most arrogant person we've ever met is ABD.

GerritBanter

I don't ask for much. I just ask that you get to know me before hating me.

GerritBanter

You could almost say any city and I will say no.

RichardBanter

The point of the meme is to cause you to doubt your faith, not to give you actual information.

GerritInsight

You are someone who has always existed and then made a choice to come to this earth.

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I understand we believe different things about the nature of Christ, but I'm still certain the only way I'm saved is through the blood of Jesus Christ.

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More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
D&C 132 wasn't added to the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876, so it must have been invented after Joseph's death.
If a historian or documentary gets something wrong, everything they say is false.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

The simpler an explanation of history, the more it leaves out. Healthy skepticism doesn't mean thinking everyone is lying.

Be most careful with superlative claims and memes. Ask what sources they leave out, and check the footnotes when it matters.

Faith in Jesus and in following the prophet comes from the Holy Spirit, not from winning historical arguments.

Because of the premortal life, God is our Father and not just our Creator, and he has made a way for every one of his children to become like him.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Recorded in a subway tunnelThe traveling disclaimer: bad audio, same bad content (0:00, 0:35).
Feast of StephenRichard covers all listeners, Western and Eastern (1:49).
Gerrit ruins moviesSense and Sensibility and Gods and Generals (2:50, 3:46).
Doctor inflationRichard name-drops Michael Crichton because he's ABD, and every arrogant person is ABD (15:58, 16:12).
Fake sponsors"Don't Trust a Thing We Say," brought to you by not-brown toothpaste and Jersey Mike's (17:46).
In a worldGerrit always wanted to be the movie trailer guy (22:28).
Renee is listeningGerrit's mom will chastise him for teasing Richard (23:53, 27:20).
Mythical Nephite warriorRichard texts Gerrit a photo every time he passes through Parowan (33:55).
Do we have listeners in...?Not Parowan, not Salt Lake, maybe Provo (31:45).
Crinkling leavesThe premium site tour idea won't die (54:03).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 132Come to the Lord in His Holy HouseElder Gerrit W. GongElder Gong lays out three doctrinal foundations for temple worship: eternal families, moral agency, and the Holy Spirit of Promise, which makes honored covenants binding.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 121Jesus Christ Is the Great Deliverer!Elder Kevin J. HathawayElder Hathaway testifies that Jesus Christ is the great deliverer and that the question for the faithful is not whether He will deliver, but how and when.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 121The Hour of Your Mission Is ComeBishop Sean DouglasBishop Douglas thanks missionaries of every age and urges the rising generation to place full-time missionary service high on their list.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Michael Crichton's "Gell-Mann amnesia" idea and how it applies to news, documentaries and Church history (15:03).
The King Follett Sermon and Joseph Smith's teaching on the eternal nature of our spirits (42:52).
Which revelations entered the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876 and 1981, and why (24:54).
Helen Mar Kimball's own writings defending plural marriage (35:07).
SOT Litner · S2E52.