Dead and in Hell Part 6

Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise, and humor.

Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I am joined by my friend, Dr. Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back. Very excited off the win by BYU over the TCU Horned Frogs. And we're off, like, oh, who's the, hiyaa, off to Cincinnati.

Gerrit Right. No, oh my gosh. You want to just head them up and move them out, is what you're saying.

Richard No, no, I was thinking of the Democratic politician that lost in Iowa.

Gerrit Yeah, Howard Dean.

Richard Howard Dean, hiyaa. Now we're-

Gerrit Yeah, he's like, we're gonna go to Iowa, we're gonna, hiyaa.

Richard Yeah, we're gonna go to Cincinnati, and then we're gonna actually come back home.

Gerrit Yeah, well, you know who said hiyaa was BYU's basketball team, unfortunately.

Richard That was a bummer. It was fun. I actually went to the game.

Gerrit I went to Boston to the game?

Richard Different game. I went to the TCU game.

Gerrit Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Richard Yeah, I brought a coworker from New York. She was in town. Now, you might be surprised. She's from Israel, lives in New York, went to school at Harvard. Not a lot of football, college football that she is aware of. I don't know that there's anything more American than college football.

Gerrit So I invited her out to the TCU game and she decided a great way to introduce her in to what America is, is let's go watch a college football game.

Richard 100%. So my wife and I took her and her boyfriend and we went to the BYU TCU game. I bought so many cougar tails and in stadium food. It was, she had a blast. It was awesome. First of all, the in-game experience at the BYU is awesome. I mean, it's a really good time was had by all. Now, Gerrit, as you know, it's vital for me to beat traffic. There's few things that are one for me.

Gerrit Did you leave at half time?

Richard I left in the third quarter. You did? I left halfway through the third quarter.

Gerrit Well, what about the, this is someone from your work. You just leave them there?

Richard No. So this is the best part. They had a really early flight in the morning back to her boyfriend lives in DC. She actually works for some folks there in DC and she lives in New York. And so they had a very early flight in the morning. And so they're like, we're so sorry, but like we have to leave.

Gerrit Oh, so they were like, is there any way?

Richard We're so sorry.

Gerrit And then you acted like, oh my gosh. You don't understand that for like for Mormons, this is like really important to us. We're like, okay. Is that how you did it? It was pretty much, dude, I sold it so hard.

Intro So, I was like, oh.

Gerrit What was your level of excitement when they turned to you and said, hey, we really need to leave?

Richard I looked at my beautiful and wonderful wife and I had a, what I could only suppose was a Grinch smile that was on my face.

Gerrit Yeah, you're like, you know, I have to stop Christmas from coming, but how?

Richard It went up around and it curled around and around and around. And I was like, oh, well, if you guys got to go, oh.

Gerrit Oh, shoot. I guess we'll have to drive home in less than an hour out of the parking lot. Wow. This is, what are you guys doing?

Richard Gerrit, I mean, I live in Malad for heaven's sakes. It's a bit of a hall, you know? And so anyway, so they left and I said, I immediately turned to Becky. I said, okay, all right, we can go. She said, they're not even down the stairs?

Gerrit Yeah. That's great. So you, you stayed there, you didn't walk them out because you wanted them to think you were staying for the rest of the game.

Richard Oh my gosh. Yeah. No, I don't want, I don't want them to know how, Gerrit, I like a warm glass of milk around 830 and I want to get to bed. That's all I've ever wanted.

Gerrit It's just, you're popping melatonin all day long.

Richard But Gerrit, we do have quite a few fun and exciting things to discuss here. Yes. We hope that everyone had an awesome polygamy lesson. Oh yeah, no. Polygamy lesson last week. We hope it was good times had by all.

Gerrit We've already gotten some reports from some folks. We had one listener write in to tell us that the person who teaches early morning seminary where they are at informed everyone that they were going to be teaching all of the kids that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy and that it was all made up by Brigham Young later.

Richard Yes, there was a text exchange of that between you and your lovely wife, me and mine, and and you're the dandometer.

Gerrit There was some dander there.

Richard You were, Becky and I got our faces burnt off from the from the text.

Gerrit You were so frustrating to me to to not only reject what the church is teaching, but to take it upon yourself that you somehow know what is right. But you know who doesn't? You know, the prophet in the Quorum of the Twelve. Now, obviously, the church receives revelation over time. Things change over time. Understandings change over time. No one knows that understandings change over time more than historians do. Our entire lives are built on the fact that we'll spend our entire lives researching and writing about something. And 20 years after I'm dead, someone's gonna read it and be like, this is a piece of garbage. Like, what was he, did he even try? How come he didn't know about this? It's like some letter trove that was found like 10 years after I was dead. And they're like, this is ridiculous. He didn't even look at stuff. And you know, that's why if you want to be arrogant and also have no money, I recommend becoming a historian because it works out great.

Gerrit You're gonna feel like you're smarter than the people who came before you. You don't have a whole lot of friends. And but you know what you will do because those tickets are precious to you. You'll stay till the end of the game. You'll stay till the end because you're not getting another ticket.

Richard Yeah. If you go into business, you'll be like, you know what? I want to go home and go to bed. It's fine. I'll make more money.

Gerrit So that if there's any missionaries listening or thinking, what should I do when I get home? Well, if you're thinking, I can't wait to become a historian. I mean, maybe Elder Abel could probably get away with it.

Richard Oh, Elder Abel's going home here.

Gerrit But it's very frustrating that people will come up with their internet ideas and then they'll try to teach them at church. Now, I'm not someone who says, like, if you say one word that's not in the manual, it's teaching false doctrine. No, because you can go find other conference talks and other publications of the church that support what's in the manual. Right? So that's kind of like that's the real line of demarcator. If the manual talks about the fact that some Latter-day Saints practiced plural marriage in the early church because God commanded it and then God ended the practice in the early 20th century, if you want to go and pull up the church's Gospel Topics essays on plural marriage and share those as a part of it. I see that as a valid way of teaching as long as that's not your whole lesson.

Gerrit What's not a valid way of teaching is saying, well, the church wants me to teach that God commanded Joseph Smith to teach and practice plural marriage. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to say that's a lie. The church is wrong. The church has always been wrong. Joseph Smith never taught it. Joseph Smith never practiced it. I'll go cite to all of my publications that I have, which are zero, because no one's been published with any degree that's saying that. And it's a frustrating thing because, you know, look, in the church, you're allowed to think whatever you want. You just are. You're allowed to believe and think whatever you want. Right up until you try to teach it to other people. That's when it becomes a problem. You can have a con in your mind. You can think, I really believe that President Oaks is going to raise that, that, that liquor ban. He is going to, he is going to make it so that I can have a glass of Sherry at the end of the day.

Gerrit And because I think it's so much, I'm buying bottles of Sherry. I'm finding other places where other early Latter-day Saints drank. And I just really, really, really believe. The moment I start as a teacher of the church, teaching that that is a thing. Well, that's actually false doctrine. Even if, even if I really at my heart believe that the church is going to change its policy on the Word of Wisdom. I don't, but let's say that I did. Even if at my heart, I believed it until a prophet teaches it. And it's not my place to teach it. And this is the road to apostasy. I don't care how wonderfully and ridiculously faithful your friend thinks they are as they tell you that the church is wrong about plural marriage.

Gerrit That mentality that the prophets are wrong, that the apostles are wrong, that Brigham Young lied about polygamy and so did John Taylor and so did Wilfred Woodruff and so did Lorenzo Snow and so did all of them. And all the women who practice polygamy, they also all lied about it. And it's just lies on top of lies on top of lies on top. That mentality is going to eventually lead you out of the church because you've already decided that you will take nothing as your evidence. Academically, you won't take what every single PhD historian on the topic will say about it. You're going to take your own opinion. Spiritually, you won't take the church even updating its Gospel Topics as their questions. Where they say specifically, the question is, did Joseph Smith or Brigham Young begin the practice of polygamy? And it says specifically, Joseph Smith taught it.

Gerrit And people dismiss that and they say things like, well, that's what the church historians say. As if a bunch of church historians are running around with the IP address of the church, just changing web pages like it's some kind of Wikipedia. That's not how this works, folks. When things are written, they go through a pretty rigorous, a pretty rigorous review process. When things are written about polygamy, like every person who works for the church will read it before it's on the website. To think that there's just some kind of rogue element. I mean, because you hear people say the same thing about the translation of the Book of Mormon. The only reason it says Joseph Smith used a seer stone is that, you know, they snuck it in on him. You know, they were like, hey, President Nelson, what's that over there? And then they hurried and, you know, posted it online and President Nelson didn't know. He just didn't know. He's crazy. So anyway, you can already tell, Dandas up a little bit. Probably wrong thing. Should we go right into Kristy's corner?

Richard Well, we should. Although I will say, my, you know, my dandermeter, my dandometer, however a person was to pronounce it, the exmo on the Twitters and the Instagrams and the Facebooks, it was, the force was strong with them last week and it was incredibly, it was sanctimonious and it was condescending and it was ignorant as to get out. It was very frustrating. It was a fun week and capped off with a nice BYU win over TCU. I believe it was, I don't know, I left the game. I don't know what happened.

Gerrit Yeah, for all you know, TCU came back and won the game by two.

Richard Yeah, so Gerrit, yeah, let's jump straight in, I believe Doctrine and Covenants, section 133.

Intro When you wanna look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you wanna seem wise and not a fool, it's Kristy's Corner.

Gerrit Okay, I'm gonna be brief because we got a lot to cover and I already spent too much time ranting about Doctrine and Covenants, section 132. Really, I didn't rant about that. I was ranting about teaching false doctrine in church. That was mainly that. Yes. Here's a helpful hint. If what you're about to teach is that one of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants shouldn't be in the scriptures, that's how you know you're teaching false doctrine. It's actually a pretty simple litmus test. You say, am I about to teach that this section isn't really scripture? And if the answer is yes, don't do it. That's how you know.

Richard So Alma 52, I should just accept it and be okay with it?

Gerrit Yeah, I think so. Okay. And the impulse that you have to just cut out all of numbers because you don't want to read it, you have to read it.

Richard Deuteronomy, numbers, oh, gosh.

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard Well, we're getting into it next year, Gerrit.

Gerrit How many begats? How many begats? There's a lot of begats. So I think one of the best ways to study doctrine covenant section 133, because it is late. I mean, it is super late in the Doctrine and Covenants. I mean, we're almost at the end, not of us recording it for the premium side. Speaking of which, we've hit critical mass on missionary requests. We'll get like four or five missionary requests while we are recording this right now. In fact, we just got one after we started recording. So we love it, love all the missionaries. And again, the premium content is available to missionaries for free. They just need to send an email in letting us know their missionary email, and then we can send that to them. But it's an important, the best way to study this would actually be to read Doctrine and Covenants, Section 1.

Gerrit And then after you finish reading Section 1, immediately read Section 133. Because that is how the original Doctrine and Covenants had them. You'll notice 133, that's pretty late in the book. You know, what's going on? Why was the book, why was the Doctrine and Covenants reorganized chronologically except for Section 133? Why is it just sitting there? You know, it says November on it. I mean, I know Orson Pratt, you know, maybe he's struggling with counting. He's not actually, he's brilliant. So why is it out of place? Well, it's because it was always meant to be the last thing that you read in the Doctrine and Covenants. It was actually called the appendix to the book in its first printing. And so you read Doctrine and Covenants Section 1, what does it say?

Gerrit Hey, you need to read these scriptures because the prophecies and promises in them are all going to come to pass. This book is a book of actual revelations from your Lord Jesus. That's what Doctrine and Covenants Section 1 says. It tells you that this book and the revelations in it are sacred and that Jesus is coming soon. What does Doctrine and Covenants Section 133 say? Section 1 would have been received just before Section 133. What does Section 133 do? It ends off by reminding people what this is that you just read. Harken, O ye people of my church, saith the Lord your God, and hear the word of the Lord concerning you. The Lord who shall suddenly come to his temple, the Lord who shall come down upon the world with a curse and a judgment, that yea, upon all nations that forget God, and upon the ungodly among you.

Gerrit Wherefore prepare ye, prepare ye, O my people. Sanctify yourselves. Gather ye together, O ye people of my church, upon the land of Zion, all ye that have not been commanded to tarry. Call in your solemn assembly, speak often one to another, and let every man call upon the name of the Lord. So, you almost get this as the conclusion. This is almost the so what of the Doctrine and Covenants. Okay, I just read all of these revelations, all of these powerful new doctrines, all of these witnesses that Jesus has a church and this is his church. What do I do now? Well, you follow what's in those revelations. You cleanse yourself, you come together, and you wait for the day of the Lord to come. Now remember, this is being written in 1831.

Gerrit So, they're barely in Missouri. They certainly aren't in Salt Lake. But what does Doctrine and Covenants section 133 say? Let them therefore, who are among the Gentiles, flee undesigned, and let them who be of Judah flee into Jerusalem under the mountains of the Lord's house. So, it's this idea of getting out of Babel under the mountain of the Lord's house. And then everyone who gets it are told to prepare. And there's a lot of the same repetition of other Second Coming verses all throughout the Doctrine and Covenants and throughout Revelation and Zechariah and Malachi. This idea that the so what is that because Jesus is coming. This gospel shall be preached unto every nation and kindred and tongue and people, and the servants of God shall go forth saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory for the hour of his judgment has come.

Gerrit That is essentially the watchword, the so what of the Doctrine and Covenants. You now have all of these doctrines taught by Christ. You now have all of this understanding, all of these things that have been restored. Now you need to endure to the end watching for the Savior to come. Because that's, that's what we're all looking for. You know, Malachi is prominent in verse 64 of D&C 133 as well. Again, before Elijah has come, it's this idea that before the great and terrible day of the Lord. I think maybe it'd be good to just drop to the very bottom of it. Verse 71, Behold, and lo, there are none to deliver you for ye obeyed not. It's talking about the people who don't watch and wait.

Gerrit For ye obeyed not my voice when I called you out of the heavens. You believe not my servants when they were sent unto you, you receive them not. Wherefore, they sealed up the testimony and bound up the law and you were delivered over unto darkness. So it kind of ends with this fairly listen. If you're not going to listen, then you're going to be in darkness. So I recommend everybody read section one and then immediately read section 133, a little bit more reading. But you know what, pretty easy call out Kristy's corner to just start reading from section one and people will be like, well, why are you doing that? Because I'm trying to combine both the informed and inspired preface to the Book of Commandments and its appendix. But don't say it like that.

Richard Yeah, you're getting a call immediately from the stake executive secretary to call you straight in.

Gerrit Yeah, we have got a couple of people who said that, you know, they may have overplayed their hand and they went from being in a Sunday school presidency to being in nursery. So it worked the other way around for them.

Richard They're like, look, with those kinds of comments, we need you around kids that can't speak.

Gerrit Yeah. I mean, you know, Richard, he was, what were you, a primary teacher for like two days?

Richard There is, I was a substitute. I will say one of the things that we should make a regular piece on this, on the podcast is things overheard in primary because it's hilarious. And so we're sitting there, the former bishop and I are subbing in this primary class and it's a riot. And the, we've got this kid and he, he's a, he's a, he's a convert to the church, but he's just nine and he walks to church by himself. He's a great kid.

Gerrit Oh my goodness.

Richard He's a great kid. He's a great kid. And he always volunteers to say the prayer because he loves, loves to pray. And he's like, it's like, you know, all of the, all of the things, you know, when, when Jesus says to be his little child, they literally want you to be this kid. That's what he's talking about. Anyway. So he gives the prayer and he's like, and please bless my family that they'll be safe and have a fun time at Lagoon.

Gerrit First of all, we want his family to be safe. Of course. And we want them to go.

Richard Yeah.

Gerrit Look, yeah. Yeah, it's great. Anyway, you got to get in there.

Richard Brady and I were rolling. It was absolutely.

Gerrit So they didn't take him?

Richard No, because they, they offered. He said, I'm going to church.

Gerrit Okay. Well, mark him because that'll be our next apostle.

Richard Seriously. He might be the, yeah, the presiding bishop. We have a new, we need a new one now.

Gerrit Yeah. Next thing you know, presiding bishop. He's nine. No, I mean, it's just like, we were really investing heavily in Legos. I feel like we got it. I feel like we got to dial back. How much of the budget's going to Legos?

Richard It was great. What a great kid. Anyway, I would say if you do have funny primary stories of things that could say the darndest things, primary edition. Oh gosh, dude. It's just serving in primary is a riot. It's just so much fun. Anyway.

Gerrit All right. Well, on to our mailbag.

Richard On to our mailbag, an actual non-sponsored segment of the podcast brought to you by Gerrit's checking account.

Gerrit Wow. So have you seen that many zeros before a number?

Richard Dearest brethren, I am a long time litner of the standard. This is the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag of the standard truth podcast. I was introduced to you guys by my mother during the podcast infancy and have been, and have had many chuckles while listening or actually writes in litening, which is funny. I have also had my testimony strengthened and learned a lot about and gained appreciation for early saints. I do not have a question, but wanted to thank you and request that access to your Google Drive of knowledge be bestowed upon my missionary son, Elder so-and-so. I keep up the hard work and hilarity. Best, I believe it's Megan. I pray that it's Megan. I want it to be Megan.

Gerrit Are you worried that it's like some Norwegian?

Richard Yeah, my concern is, look, I'm sensitive to slaughtering of names and if it's not Megan, I want you to know Megan or Maugan or Moogan.

Gerrit Bro, you know the G is rolled like it's Dutch.

Richard There's a little bit of jumbling and a non-traditional spelling of Megan, but thank you so much for the kind email and I desperately hope we did not slaughter your name.

Gerrit I'm sure we did.

Richard This next email is going to drive Gerrit to commit many crimes.

Gerrit Why is the dandermeter always just so close to the surface? I've got to get some therapy.

Richard You do. You need to talk to your buddy Andy. You need to get this under control. We want to have you around. You're going to have a heart attack.

Gerrit I feel like I'm dancing with like, you know, high blood pressure just because like, they said what? He said, what now?

Richard So the email comes from a sister missionary that named Jess. Dear doctors, Dirkmaat and LeDuc, I'm soon to be a missionary in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Philippines mission and would love to use this opportunity to cheapskate my way through life to get free access to the premium podcast. Jess gives us then her email. My ward is already paying for my mission, so I might as well take everything else I can get.

Gerrit Unlike your ward paying for your mission, which has value, this is like getting junk mail that you never asked for, but okay.

Richard Well, Jess, we're gonna get through many Federalist papers next year, so get excited about that, Jess.

Gerrit We aren't even thinking about the Federalist papers.

Richard Well, it's coming next year, Gerrit.

Gerrit I feel like we're gonna have to go back and just restart the whole thing. Just start the revolution all over again.

Richard Go back to the Great Inversion.

Gerrit Oh, man. I can talk about the Great Inversion. See, I was trying to do everything in one episode before, but now I could talk about the Great Inversion for 18 episodes. Episode 17 of the Great Inversion, and I'm not talking about Utah in the winter. No.

Richard What's funny is the name of this episode is Dead and in Hell Part 5, and we might not get to it.

Gerrit Well, I'm not entirely sure how angry I'm about to be, so.

Richard I am. I've been my best friend for some time. You're about to get very angry. Seriously, I feel incredibly blessed. As I am not giving birth at the moment, I figure you won't read my email on any of your episodes. This is absolutely unacceptable, and you guys suck. When I read that, I laughed out loud. I thought that was very funny. She did put a JK, but if she didn't, it would be even funnier for Westworth.

Gerrit Then we would have read it to spite her, to prove that she was a false prophetess.

Richard My enemies call me a false prophet.

Gerrit That's funny. My great-great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Harriman Hale, he was a missionary companion with Wilford Woodruff, and they went on a mission to the Fox Islands. And it was at a time of some growing apostasy in Kirtland that they left. And so a bunch of people apparently mocked my grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, and said that you're not gonna baptize anybody. This is a pointless mission. And look, it's not easy to get from the Cleveland, Ohio area to the Fox Islands of Maine. It's not easy to get to the Fox Islands of Maine now. I can't imagine that it's like ridiculously easier to get there from Ohio. So it's a really long, really expensive mission. And it's pretty funny because when they finally make their first convert on the island, Wilford Woodruff deliberately has my great-great-grandfather baptize him. And he says, so that we could prove all of the people back in Kirtland who said that false prophets is what he says in his journal.

Richard So one of the keys to serving a mission and baptizing a lot of people is serving a mission with Wilford Woodruff.

Gerrit It does help. It helps to either be Heber C. Kimball or Wilford Woodruff's missionary companion.

Richard They're like, we're having so much success.

Gerrit Yeah. All the missionaries that are in England right now are like, you got to be good. There's a missionary right now listening to us in Maine who's like, I can't even give people to give me directions to the Shaw's marketplace, let alone to listen to the gospel.

Richard Yeah. It's one of my favorite lines from my Spain serving son, is when he and Rigdon were talking about Peru and Rigdon talked about the 15 member referrals they got, and they're just so busy. Andrew's like, we got a member referral six months ago, we still talk about. Anyway, about four, that's great. About four or five years ago, probably 17 by the time you read this, my dad, actually we did receive this email in 2021.

Gerrit So yeah, she's been home from her mission, she's married with two kids.

Richard My dad, so probably 17 by the time you read this, my dad vocally left the church and decided not to leave it alone. Like it still comes up 99% of the conversation even years later. It was the last straw in my parents' marriage and so at last, I haven't had to hear so much about the blood atonement or how our theology increases our risk of becoming murderers. Still at a 14-year-old unable to do the kind of extensive research my dad could, there was always a sense of anxiety around church history. Discovering your podcast last year was really nice because Gerrit is an actual historian who actually cites his evidence, but he doesn't make it seem intimidating. The humor makes everything so much less scary and I love the testimonies that you guys have. Also because podcasts help me sleep. She's gonna love the Federalist Papers episode.

Gerrit Jess, when you get ahold of that premium content, you're gonna want to go right to anything that has to do with General Howe. Those are Richard's favorites. They are.

Richard There's like four episodes on it. Yours has been super useful for getting enough winks every night, as long as there's a new one. I refuse to relisten unless I fall asleep halfway through. My question, and this is kind of a heartbreaking question. My question is, how can we coexist and keep relationships with people like my dad, who can't seem to leave the church alone for more than 20 minutes, still struggling with Pittsburgh, Tagalog Jess?

Gerrit That's funny. So that's the joke is she's going to the Philippines, but she's in the Pittsburgh mission.

Richard She's in the Pittsburgh Philippines mission, yes.

Gerrit Yeah, yeah. Boy, I don't know if this makes me mad or sad.

Richard It both.

Gerrit Yeah, I mean, first of all, Jess, thank you so much for having the courage to go on a mission, despite those certain. We've got, we, we, we hear from a lot of missionaries. We literally get hundreds of missionary emails a week and not all of them have two supportive parents. We've received emails from missionaries who've had both parents apostatize while they were on their mission. Yeah. And that's really difficult. And, and look, I am not a counselor, nor do I hold any keys whatsoever of any, in any ecclesiastical way. So nothing I can say is either academically sound on this point or ecclesiastically, you know, endorsed by the church. But those situations are very difficult because it's somebody that you love, who you've made it very clear that the church matters to you.

Gerrit But they, under the auspices of saying that they care about you, probably telling you, well, I just don't want you to believe in all this stuff. That's false. Okay. So yeah, Marty, the dander, dang it. I want it to be sad. And what is going on? It's just, it's just, I don't know what it does. Yeah.

Richard You should have taken a, you should have taken a Percocet, not Percocet.

Gerrit On the Standard of Truth Podcast, we not only don't endorse illicit gambling, we not don't endorse illicit drugs.

Richard Wrong drug. What's the drug for acid reflux? Although Percocet probably helps with acid reflux.

Gerrit Like a Pepcid?

Richard No, I can't think of the, what's the stupid thing? I'm kicking myself. I take one every day. How did I? Anyway, you should have taken one to keep things out.

Gerrit So you take a Percocet every day. That's what we just got out of the conversation.

Richard Every day, to help with my, just to help with my acid reflux.

Gerrit Yeah, just to help with my acid reflux. Just for the reflux. So, I understand how difficult that is. I've been in situations like that myself with people very close to me who didn't have the ability to not make light of my religion or tell me what they had learned about it. And you know, in fairness, it wasn't my father. So I can't tell you I know exactly what it's like. I don't know. And I don't know your family situation. But this is what I would do if it were me. And that means it's probably bad advice. But this is what I would do. I think I would take some time before I left, you know, go to lunch, dinner with my dad. And I would say, Dad, I really need to talk to you about something.

Gerrit This is very important. And just say, listen, I know that you hate the church. I know that you think that it's false. And I know that you think you've got all kinds of reasons why you believe it. I know that you feel hurt by it. And I know that you feel like I'm making a mistake by going on a mission. I know all of those things. But I believe and I need you to support me in what I believe. And if you feel like you can't do that, then I guess we'll just have to have a superficial relationship. Because it hurts me and it makes me think bad things about you that at least seems like you're constantly trying to tear down what I believe in.

Gerrit I mean, frankly, that would be the calm version. And if it were me and it was like one of my brothers or something, I would probably say to them, listen, here's where we're at. I love you and I want to spend time with you. I don't want to hear another negative thing about my faith coming out of your mouth ever again. If you want to have a relationship with me, then we'll have a relationship where you don't bad mouth what I believe in. And, you know, look, people who love you, often presented with that will, you know, is it awkward? They'll often make a change. Now, someone might say, well, yeah, but you know, if they're just trying to share it, look, if someone says, stop doing this, then people should respect them. And, you know, you can tell them, look, once a year, I'll invite you to come to church with me and I'll give you 10 minutes to tell me all the things that you think are wrong with it.

Gerrit And we'll do that once a year. We'll have an annual airing of grievances. We'll be like the Festivus. And you can tell me what you think, but I can't have a relationship with you, a loving relationship where I feel like you're attacking me every day. I can't, I mean, what do you think is going to happen? That I'm going to be married and have four kids? And that every time you come to see the grandkids, I'm going to let you start spouting off on view of the Hebrews to them? I mean, is that, is that what you think the end game of this is? So, I mean, I know it's delicate, only you know your dad. Don't take my advice. It may not be good, but I think that you're in an okay place to set boundaries with people that you love, especially if it's a constant barrage of things. To say, listen, if you want to be in my life, you have to stop this behavior.

Gerrit And they might be upset by that, but at least you set a boundary.

Richard So, the church published an article, Pepcid AC, by the way, is the thing I was thinking of.

Gerrit I said Pepcid.

Richard Did you? I thought you said Pepto-Bismol type of thing.

Gerrit No, I said Pepcid.

Richard Okay, we'll check the transcript.

Gerrit Even when I'm right, Richard pretends I'm wrong.

Richard That's why I am. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. But, so, we're obviously the wrong kind of doctors to say that you should take Percocet for your heartburn.

Gerrit Please, nobody do anything.

Richard The Church published an article on verbal and emotional abuse last year in the October Liahona. And we can have a link in the description to that. One of the things, so that is written by people that are actual, actually do know what they're talking about and creating and setting boundaries in these particular areas. Again, there's a lot of great quotes, a lot of things that can be very helpful. It is a heartbreaking circumstance that a person that is supposed to love you the most, and they might even claim to Gerrit's point that because they love you, that's why they're doing all of the things that they're doing. But the way they're going about it is a way that is very difficult. So anyway, so Gerrit, we can link that article and it's awesome.

Gerrit I mean, look, I got to tell you there are people that I've said this before, but I know several men who no longer have testimonies. For whatever reason, I'm sure they could give me all kinds of 720s off a half pipe to let me know all the things that they learned that I just didn't know. But I respect them because they still go to church with their families. They still lovingly send their kids on missions rather than trying to keep them from going on missions. All of the data that exists says that people who have a strong belief in God are more healthy and more happy and more well-adjusted. So let's say that you decide the church isn't true and that you become an atheist and you don't even know if there's God anymore.

Gerrit Well, then just rely on what the studies show. And that is, your kid's going to be better off believing that there's a God than not. Statistically speaking. And frankly, if you don't believe in God, that's all you have to go on is statistics. Because you don't have anything anymore. There is no higher power. I don't know exactly where everyone's at, but I respect the heck out of men and women who don't believe but are willing to support those who do. In fact, Joseph Smith said something right before he died in the Council of 50 Minutes, where he talked about how when he's used every means in his power to convert someone, to bring someone to the gospel, and they still remain in their darkness, as long as he's a friend to me, as long as he's capable of being a friend, he would ever as much be my friend as though he had embraced the gospel. And so look, we can have relationships with people that are atheists, with people that are antagonists in some level, people who really strongly believe in their Catholicism or their Protestantism.

Gerrit Some of the best people in the world are people that don't believe what we believe. But there's a difference between someone not believing what we believe and someone who incessantly attacks what we believe, because it makes it so that we're never safe around them. And so, first of all, Jess, thank you so much for being willing to serve a mission. I hope that at some point you realize we did answer your question. We just didn't answer it very well. But, you know, and you never know, maybe someday your dad will change his mind. I have seen people come back to the church, who, if you asked me 20 years ago, I would say him, no, he doesn't even have the ability to post online about where he went to eat without attacking the church in his post. Hey, I went in and out, but too bad I was so close to that Mormon church.

Gerrit I mean, legitimately, that's how much venom this person had. Life happens. 20 years later, he got re-baptized. And so know that your Heavenly Father loves him as well as he loves you and that perhaps a way will be prepared at some point in the future. Sorry, that's not the best answer. Why would anyone ask us for good answers? I don't know anything.

Richard It's almost like she doesn't listen to the podcast. I mean, we just gave her the access, so you know.

Gerrit Yeah, that's true. Yeah, if she'd listened to more of it, although she says she's going to sleep with it all the time.

Richard Yeah.

Gerrit As long as she could score some Percocet, she'll be okay. Epsod AC. Wow. Okay.

Richard So, yeah, so Garry, where are we?

Gerrit Well, here's where we're at. When last we left you, we were talking about the finer points of the creation of Utah territory and the fact that there were federal officials that were coming out. Now, some of these federal officials did not make it very quickly out. And while Brigham Young was made the governor of Utah territory, and one of the associate justices of the territory, Zerubbabel Snow.

Richard Oh, that's great. That's a great name.

Gerrit Yeah, Zerubbabel. He was a member, but he was, I mean, I don't want, I mean, they didn't have terms like active and inactive, but he was, I mean, he was still living in Ohio. Let me put it that way. So he was a member of the church, but he had never gathered to Missouri. He hadn't gathered to Illinois. And it seemed like he wasn't super active at the time that his call happens. But you know what? To his credit, he became active real quick. When he came to Utah, he became a great associate justice and helped protect the saints. Well, they called, you know, Millard Fillmore is going to, he's going to present names for the justices of the Supreme Court from all different kinds of political stripes, but primarily just to try to get rid of some of these office seekers and to make people happy. You know, when you've got a powerful constituent who, you know, gave a bunch of money to your campaign, and he's like, you got to give my son a job.

Gerrit You got to give my son a job. Well, a lot of times it's like, well, where can I give your son a job? He's 27. He has no experience. He's terrible at everything he does. I know we'll send him to Utah territory. And that, there was a great study that was done at the turn of the century at just how poor many of the territorial officials were, not just in Utah territory, in all of the territories of the United States, because the reason why they had a territorial appointment was never because they were amazing at what they did. The territories was where you sent people that you needed to be rid of, that were too powerful for you to just diss them. You need somebody there, but if they were really good at what they did, they'd be in your cabinet, right? So why are they not in your cabinet? Because they've got some other issues.

Gerrit Well, it takes a while for the other officers of appointed by the federal government to make their way to Utah Territory. Now, Brigham Young doesn't take him any longer. He's already operating as governor of Utah Territory on day one. He's like, oh, and I'm already here. Things are great. But you have to wait for the other people to arrive. Now, the Saints embraced the fact that they were becoming a territory. There was a little bit of trepidation because what happens now that the federal government's back on board, our last experiences with the federal government were not good, but they generally embraced it. And when the chief justice, his name is Lemuel Brandebury, when he arrives, he's greeted with flowers and fruits and cakes. When the secretary of the territory, which was a really big deal back then, now no one even knows who their secretary of state is. Like, the only time you ever know who your secretary of state is is when someone's challenging an election.

Gerrit Like when there's a dimpled Chad, then you find out who your secretary of state is, but that's basically it, you know. But it was a big deal for territories because they were the direct financial liaison to the federal government. But, you know, a couple of them reach there and they get there and look on the 4th of July in 1851. So late 1850 is when Utah becomes a territory. But it's not until the summer and fall of the next year that those appointed people are actually gonna make their way to Utah territory. And for the 4th of July, they have a big old celebration. Everything's great and grand. But in Utah territory, they don't just in 1851, they don't just celebrate the 4th of July. Like Richard, they've got a flag of the kingdom that they're putting outside on the 24th of July.

Gerrit And this is where things start to go poorly. And why? Well, these federal officials show up and by all accounts, I mean, look, even by their own accounts, they are treated very, very, very, very well. Well, except for the Broughton Harris's wife. Broughton Harris, he's the youngest of all the officials. He's made the secretary of the territory because his dad's a big influential politician. And he's newly married, you know, young, young guy, young marriage. And they're invited to, when they get there, Heber C. Kimball invites them to come to dinner at his house. And they come and they are treating Broughton Harris and Mrs. Harris as, you know, as honored state guests. I mean, they're treating them very, very, very well. So it wasn't how they were treated.

Gerrit It's by whom they were treated. Because what happened is that he shows up in the territory and his wife is Sarah Harris, takes Sarah to this party. And she is suddenly confronted by the fact that she meets Mrs. Kimball. And then she meets another Mrs. Kimball. And then she meets another Mrs. Kimball. And she loses her mind. She's so upset and tells her husband that she never wants to go to any state affair ever again, any other parties, if in fact, because the Mormons are practicing polygamy, which they are.

Gerrit And the Kimballs were just trying to be kind, but you can't be kind when someone thinks that the fact that you're practicing polygamy means that you're evil. So that's of the things that you can take away from this podcast is that, you know what? It's hard to convince people that you're a good person when you're practicing polygamy. That's a takeaway. So Harris is from the very beginning going to have a pretty antagonistic relationship, but it's really this 24th of July celebration that is going to really cause problems. So here's an account of it. So look, it's 24th of July. This is in the Deseret News, Salt Lake City. The Nauvoo Brass Band, they still call themselves the Nauvoo Brass Band. If you ever go to Nauvoo and you get to see the Brass Band, they've been reconstituted in Utah territory. Well, yeah, in Utah territory before that, even in Justin Deseret. And they are, you know, this is the description, right?

Gerrit There was firing of three rounds of cannon and the swelling tones of the Nauvoo Brass Band moving in the majesty through our streets in their mammoth carriage, serenading the citizens with its soul-cheering airs. The morning shone forth with its usual loveliness and splendor. So, it's just going to talk about all the decorations, how people are just, you know, all decked out. The temple ground northeast of the Bowery on a Liberty Pole pointing heavenward was spread above us by the gentle zephyrs, the stars and stripes and state arms of the large Deseret flag. And banners were hoisted by all the different companies preparing themselves for the parade. So now look, I've always said parades are a problem. I don't like parades. I've told my wife I don't like parades. I hate parades. See, parades can get you in trouble. We got Joseph in trouble in 1841 because he had such an amazing parade that it made anti-Mormons go like, boy, he's got a lot of people he could call on and follow him.

Gerrit And so they started to become more antagonistic.

Richard You don't like a good old fashioned North Korean military parade?

Gerrit I despise parades. I don't know how to say it. I mean, look, is it that people are putting their chairs out three days in advance? Yes.

Richard Well, you go down Main Street in Provo right now, there's chairs for the 4th of July right now.

Gerrit They're trying to get ready for Stadium of Fire. It's November. Well, so, this big, you know, this big pomp and circumstance, there's, you know, there's a just a huge account of this parade. 24 young girls dressed in white and pig scars with a banner and a motto that says virtue dwells in Zion. 24 young men with black coats and white pants and a red sash wearing a banner with the inscription, Lion of the Lord. 24 young ladies dressed in white with wreaths of roses on their heads, blue scars bearing a banner, Hail to our Chieftain, the Stars and Stripes of the United States, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, John Smith, the Patriarch, Dr. John M. Bernhisel, Mr. Harris, Secretary of the Territory, Judge Brandebury, and Judge Zerubbabel Snow, and Mr. Rose, sub-Indian agent, 24 bishops dressed in uniform, each bearing a flag with some appropriate device.

Gerrit So, they're being welcomed to this. They're all part of this. And then they're going to, the audience is called to order and they start with a prayer. So already, maybe not the same as every other parade. You think that it's weird, you start a BYU football game with prayer? Well, this goes all the way back. You're starting this with a prayer. And they sing a hymn, O come, come today, which is a Presbyterian hymn, telling Jesus to come. And then Daniel H. Wells is going to get up and he's going to give the oration. Now the oration is lengthy. I mean, it is not short. If I read it all, we'd be dead in hell part 75.

Richard I did. I did misspeak. I said, this is dead in hell part five. It's actually dead in hell part six.

Gerrit Yeah, we're going for eight or nine. We've broken it up with other things.

Richard Yeah, sure.

Gerrit But why are they celebrating 24th of July? Why are they even there? You can't tell the story of the pioneers coming to Utah. And this is only four years after they got there, by the way. And for most people in the territory, much less than four years, because most don't make it in 1847. They're coming in 48 and 49 and 50. So some of these people have just finished getting there this very same year. This is all, why are they, why are they there? And he begins to give an account of the history. He talks about them being murdered out of Missouri. He talks about the mob of Illinois murdered in cold blood, the Prophet Joseph and Patriarch Hyrum Smith while confined in jail under a guarantee of safety and a pledge from the governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford. In the fall of 1845, after permitting the mob to go on burning the houses of the saints for 10 days without raising a hand to defend themselves, the church ventured to interpose the strong arm of power and the mob were dispersed.

Gerrit And in consequence thereof, the church was compelled in order to save themselves from impending destruction to treat for their safety by flight into the wilderness. I gotta tell you, it's pretty crazy to read the correspondence between the leaders in Illinois and the leaders of the church. By October of 1845, essentially the Peace Commission people of Illinois who don't want any more bloodshed and by that they mean they don't want any more mobbers to murder Mormons and burn down their houses. Because the Latter-day Saints haven't retaliated yet, but what if they do? They gather together and part of the people that are part of this Peace Commission are people like Stephen A. Douglas, who's an Illinois judge at the time. He'll later become the most powerful Democrat in Congress and run against Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election.

Gerrit But John Harden, who's one of the leaders of the Illinois state militia, they are all part of the sending this letter to them basically saying that if you don't leave, like, because we talked to you guys and you said that you were planning to leave because that's what your prophet said. It is confidently expected by us and by the whole community that you will remove from the state with your whole church in the manner in which you've agreed in your statement to us. Should you not do so, we are satisfied. However much we may deprecate violence and bloodshed that violent measures will be resorted to to compel your removal which will result in disastrous consequences to yourselves and your opponents and that the end will be your expulsion from the state.

Gerrit We think that steps should be made by you to make it apparent that you are actually preparing to remove in the spring by carrying out in good faith your proposition to remove as submitted to us. We think you should and will be permitted to depart peaceably next spring for your destination west of the Rocky Mountains. Now, of course, that's not true at all because they leave in February. Why? Because they believe that they are going to be violently killed and that an army is coming to march on them. So any saint in Illinois who leaves knows that they aren't just deciding, hey, you know what, I'd love to live, you know, in the middle of a desert, 1500 miles away from civilization next to a lake made of salt on the other side of gigantic mountains. After I've walked through Wyoming, let's do it. They're not doing it because they just decided it was time for a change of scenery.

Gerrit And the Battle of Nauvoo, the violent attack of the Latter-day Saints that were still in Nauvoo, demonstrated just how deadly things would have been had they stayed. And you have people who have their husband and father killed, many people wounded. Oh, because the Mormons didn't leave fast enough from land that they own in the United States. So why do I take a little bit of time to say that? Every single person standing there in the Salt Lake Valley is well aware the level of violence that was used against the Latter-day Saints. Some of them buried people in a well in Hans Mill. Many of them buried children along the pathways of Iowa and Nebraska and Wyoming. They have paid very, very dearly for the fact that they are in Salt Lake.

Gerrit And this is not a hypothetical to them. They don't have to have someone come give a nice trek fireside to try to remind them of how important it was that they made it there. They all lived it. They all still have the scars of it. They all are still mourning people they lost because of it. And as Wells continues his address, he says, the same spring while we were in this toilsome march, the government of the United States required a battalion of 500 men to leave their families in this precarious situation without money, without provisions or friend or other than God whom they serve. To perform a campaign of over 2,000 miles on foot across trackless deserts and burning plains to fight the battles of their country, even that country which had afforded them no protection from the ruthless ruffians who had plundered them from their property and robbed them of their rights, waylaid them from their peaceful habitations and murdered them while under the safeguards of their pledge of faith.

Gerrit That country that could have the barbarity under such peculiar circumstances to make a requirement could have no other object in view than to finish by utter extermination the work which they had so ruthlessly begun. The battalion marched, the residue of the camp and poverty, sickness and death remained in hovels, sheds and wagons on the banks of the Missouri. Now, this is one of the things that's really going to upset the federal officials who are there. What do you mean you were forced to do? Now, we've already talked about this because we've talked about the calling of the Mormon battalion. So you want to go back and listen to those episodes, or you probably don't, or maybe you're jesting, you need some sleep, go back and listen to them. It is a big deal and Polk is doing it duplicitously. He is saying in his journal, he is telling people like Thomas Kane, I have no faith in the Mormons at all.

Gerrit I'm only calling them into the army to keep them from rebelling against the country. Well, that's the definition of arbitrarily calling these men into the army. It's not a theory. It's not sitting back and going, you know, I don't even know if Polk needed those men. Polk says Polk didn't need those men. And then even sends a secret order to his leader, to the leader of the Mormon Battalion, telling them make sure they don't make up any more than a third of your command, so that you have the other two-thirds to put them down if you have to. So, the calling of the Mormon Battalion left a lot of bitterness, not only because it happened at a terrible time, but also in the aftermath of doing that, what did Polk do? He had promised them they could stay on the Indian lands? Nope, they got ordered off the Indian lands. He had promised that he would, you know, they at least assumed that he would help them set up a territorial or state government in Utah once it became part of the United States, and Polk said absolutely not.

Gerrit He would put his own people in power, that if he did create it, he wouldn't create it the way the Mormons wanted. So, they were not fans of James Polk by the time they'd made it to Salt Lake. It was clear that they weren't sure what the duplicity was, the duplicitousness was, but they knew there was some and they were right. It just took historians a while to read his journal. So, they then talk about how they got here in 1847. You know, that they made it. But as Wells continues, so much for history. What a history to have transpired in the land of liberty and enlightened freedom. Celebrated for its intelligence, its benevolent institutions, general diffusion of knowledge and just and equitable administration of justice. Among all anniversaries that we might be celebrated, that the memory dwells upon with peculiar feelings of interest, of recollections dire, deep fraught with every emotion, to which the human heart is susceptible.

Gerrit This, the 24th day of July, the anniversary of the arrival of pioneers in this valley has been selected as the dawning of a brighter day and as an era of history in the history of this people upon which turned the axis of their destiny. I mean, obviously, it's a beautiful oration. And, you know, they're going to make multiple references to the fact that people murdered Joseph and Hyrum Smith, that they were driven and they left people buried along the way. We're out of time. So we'll try to get to more of this next time. You know, we'll just, we'll stop doing Kristy's Corner. We'll stop reading emails. We'll stop having a podcast, which is what I really want anyway. So that that would solve things very quickly.

Richard Well, so I mean, it's it's section 135 of the Doctrine and Covenants is next week. So I mean, this is a perfect dovetail into what you've, you know, it is that we will be talking about it.

Gerrit But this, this is an emotional thing. I mean, I know that people love to celebrate the 24th of July, but they don't usually celebrate it with emotion. To them, it's kind of a commemoration day. Of all of the violence they've endured, all of the moves that they've made, all of the people that they've lost all along the way. And, and that is, is, is a really difficult thing for them to get past. And it's funny, like, oh, this should just be fine with it. This isn't 50 years later, it's four years later. And for many of them, it's, it's a lot less than four years. It is, my son died on the plains. Why was I on the plains? Because you guys wouldn't stop people from killing us. That's why I was on the plains.

Gerrit And that is a pretty, it's a, it's a pretty hard thing to just move beyond. So we will talk next time more about this and what causes the great fight that will, will lead to this discussion. So thank you so much for joining us and hopefully everyone has a very happy week and a fun conversation about Doctrine and Covenants, Section 133 and Sunday School. Well, in Priesthood and Relief Society, I guess.

Richard Yes, correct.

Gerrit Thank you so much.

Richard Yes, correct.

Gerrit Thank you so much.

Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.

Dead and in Hell Part 6

Chapters

Transcript

Quote board

Source shelf

Gospel Topics Essays on plural marriage

D&C 1

D&C 133:1-6

D&C 133:12-13

D&C 133:37-38

D&C 133:71-72

Wilford Woodruff's journal, Fox Islands mission

Liahona, October (last year), article on verbal and emotional abuse

Council of Fifty minutes, Joseph Smith on friendship with those who reject the gospel

Deseret News, account of the July 24, 1851 celebration in Salt Lake City

Daniel H. Wells, Pioneer Day oration, July 24, 1851

Illinois peace commissioners (including Stephen A. Douglas and John J. Hardin) to Church leaders, October 1845

Daniel H. Wells, Pioneer Day oration, on the Mormon Battalion

James K. Polk's diary

Daniel H. Wells, Pioneer Day oration, closing

Episode quiz

When did Richard leave the BYU-TCU game?

Fun with Numbers

From 1831 to 1860

Percentages said on air

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Claim check

Take it to class

Banter bin

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

In General Conference

Go deeper

Dead and in Hell Part 6

Leaving early

Gospel Topics Essays on plural marriage

D&C 1

D&C 133:1-6

D&C 133:12-13

D&C 133:37-38

D&C 133:71-72

Wilford Woodruff's journal, Fox Islands mission

Liahona, October (last year), article on verbal and emotional abuse

Council of Fifty minutes, Joseph Smith on friendship with those who reject the gospel

Deseret News, account of the July 24, 1851 celebration in Salt Lake City

Daniel H. Wells, Pioneer Day oration, July 24, 1851

Illinois peace commissioners (including Stephen A. Douglas and John J. Hardin) to Church leaders, October 1845

Daniel H. Wells, Pioneer Day oration, on the Mormon Battalion

James K. Polk's diary

Daniel H. Wells, Pioneer Day oration, closing

When did Richard leave the BYU-TCU game?

From 1831 to 1860

Percentages said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words