SOT LitnerStandard of Truth listener companion
Chinese and ransom letters
S5E9 · Missionary Madness and Brigham Young's Leadership
0:00 / 1:10:36
14 chapters
← All episodes
Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 9 · 1:10:36

Missionary Madness and Brigham Young's Leadership

In 1860 Orson Pratt pushed back on Brigham Young so hard that the minutes show the other apostles scolding Pratt, not Brigham silencing anyone.

Press play above. The page follows along.
The question ·
I remember reading somewhere that the apostles who served with Brigham Young were afraid of voicing their true feelings or opinions about matters because of how he treated naysayers.
Charlene (listener)

A mailbag full of missionaries, including a whole mission in Tucson that joined the premium drive in one day, and two Elder Whiteheads who claim to be temporarily reassigned from Pittsburgh. A listener confesses that the Almon Babbitt episode showed him he was quietly criticizing President Nelson, and Gerrit explains why following a living prophet matters so much when ordinances and keys are on the line. Then Charlene asks whether apostles were afraid to disagree with Brigham Young. Gerrit uses Wilford Woodruff's journal on Orson Pratt's 1860 dispute to show open debate, and Brigham's own account of how he learned to follow Joseph.

Who comes upBrigham YoungOrson PrattWilford WoodruffJoseph SmithAlmon BabbittRussell M. NelsonJames Allen
Now playing · 0:47

Chinese and ransom letters

Richard answers a missionary in Chinese, and his son mails Gerrit hate mail.

Chapters

Tap a chapter to jump there

Transcript

191 moments · tap a time to play from there
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. We haven't done kind of an email, a Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag episode in some time, and we have 400 million emails that we'll be getting to today.
Gerrit We've had many, many, many, many people email us. We read all of them. We respond to none of them.
Richard I responded in Chinese to one of them.
Gerrit Yeah, we had a sister email in, a sister missionary, and Richard responded to her in Chinese.
Richard I did.
Gerrit Because he's been studying it. I don't know what his Duolingo score is, but it's got to be off the charts. It's got to be just straight off the charts.
Richard Yes. My streak is three days in a row. I think that's a record. Essentially, I responded to her in Mandarin, which is my, actually, it's my native language.
Gerrit You mean Mandarin oranges.
Richard That's right. Well, so I said, essentially, if you had asked this question in Chinese, we actually would have responded to your question about polygamy, but you didn't, so unfortunately.
Gerrit Yeah. You got to know how to get through. You got to know how to get through the censors. So just so everyone's aware, we do read all your emails because we don't have a secretary or clearly a producer or clearly an editor or any talent at all. We can't respond to them really, but thank you so much for sending them, except for the ones where the people tell us how much they hate us, and then I guess, thanks for that.
Richard Those are my favorite, actually. The ones that especially, not the ones that say they hate me, the ones that say they hate Gerrit, those are my favorite.
Gerrit Those are your favorite? Yeah. Why are they all labeled from Richard LeDuc, from Becky LeDuc, from Max LeDuc? This is crazy.
Richard Yeah, Max. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Our 15-year-old's like, Gerrit, I hate you. He cuts out letters out of magazines and mails you a ransom letters. Well, so Gerrit, I will say one of the things, we have well over a thousand missionaries now that are listening to the podcast, and the missionaries are the most fun part of this whole thing. They're hilarious and their testimonies are wonderful, and their stories are incredible. And anyway, it's turned into like my favorite thing that we have. And we do have a couple of updates as it relates to missionaries, if we can get in jumping straight into the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. This email comes to us from Nate, another Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania missionary. We can't even do the search in email anymore because it's every email.
Gerrit Every email references Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We need to start handing out terrible towels.
Richard It's the only true mission. I know you're probably thinking the subject line can't possibly be true, but it turns out my daughter was actually called to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission and begins Home MTC on March 3rd, so next week. I can only assume that if I didn't request access to the Google Drive for her, she would be the only one in the mission with that. It's true, actually, Nate. She would be the only one.
Gerrit There's a lot of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania missionaries.
Richard I'm riding from the southeast side of Tucson, where we're on lookout for Elder Dirk Maas.
Gerrit My son is serving in the Tucson mission and actually just got transferred to South Tucson.
Richard Oh, there you go, Nate.
Gerrit Yeah, Nate, you're about to cross paths.
Richard But as of yet, been unsuccessful in locating him. The chances of us crossing paths is diminished by the fact that we have only had sister missionaries in our ward for quite a while, but we remain vigilant. In all seriousness, thank you for the wonderful podcast. I really enjoy it. And the knowledge, insights, humor and spirit you bring, it has certainly strengthened me. Here's my missionary daughter's email, Nate. And so this allows actually for us to talk about something that was kind of unique. Was it a Thursday or it was a Friday? I don't remember what day it was. It was a dark day. It was the busiest day in podcast history.
Gerrit Yeah. Well, of this podcast anyway.
Richard I think of all podcasts in all history.
Gerrit I'm pretty sure that there are podcasts that people listen to that are more-
Richard Or Follow Him. Okay, yeah. So an average Tuesday is busier.
Gerrit I'm pretty sure two years after they've retired from doing Follow Him, it'll still be busier for them than it is for us on our busiest day. That's what I assume. I agree with you. Yeah. Well, so my son serving in the Tucson mission, his mission president happens to be a listener, and his mission president thought it'd be a great idea for the missionaries in his mission to get access to the Google Drive so that they can all- When people are wondering what we're talking about, look, missionaries don't have the ability to have apps on their phone, so they can't listen on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. Well, they don't have Apple phones, but if they did, they still can't listen on Apple Podcasts. But they are allowed, if their mission president allows, they're allowed to access Google documents or Google Forms, and that's how most of them do their pictures anyway.
Gerrit We've made it so the podcast is accessible, and then we also have premium content that is designed for people who want to help support the podcast, and they can, but we just give it away to missionaries. They have their missionary email, we add it to the drive, they have access, and they listen to it. Well, anyway, this president, I'll leave him anonymous since he probably doesn't want anyone to know. Not that people can't look it up, but.
Richard Church news, just check it out.
Gerrit No, don't look, don't look. He emailed all of his missionaries and let them know, hey, this is available to you if you want to listen. So we received upwards of, I believe it was 110 emails. How many emails was it?
Richard There are over 120 Arizona, Tucson missionaries that have access to the group, that emailed us asking, requesting access.
Gerrit First of all, we learned, first of all, that president, you have an obedient mission. You sent out an email. Within hours of your email being sent, we received probably 70 emails.
Richard Oh yeah, within an hour.
Gerrit It was crushing. Now there were others that were stragglers, and I think you know who they are, President.
Richard We got one today from Tooth on. I gave it to him, but I wasn't happy about it.
Gerrit Yeah, you were like, where were you? Could you not watch with me one hour? But we now have essentially hundreds of missionaries in Arizona, be 150 at least, in Arizona listening. And I have to say, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mission, I believe you've been dethroned.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit And if you want to keep it up, you're going to have to keep it rolling, because the Truth Mission's got you.
Richard Yeah, this is an American pie, you know, bye-bye, Miss American Pie, like, you know, that essentially Buddy Holly crashed and someone stole the crown, and that person is Tucson, Arizona.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, I mean, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mission, we hardly knew thee. I mean, now, now there's still a lot, but this made us think, you know, with March Madness coming up, and, you know, we will have full betting lines out on that when the time comes. Now, we always do that by telling you who's going to win two or three weeks after they win.
Richard And still getting it wrong, by the way.
Gerrit That's the best part. We drop it after, you know, you know who I think is going to go all the way? Virginia, that year that they lost. They lost some first round. Anyway, we're going to do a contest for the month of March. We're going to, the contest, which mission will have the most missionaries request access? Now, I don't know what we would give that, the winning, we'll give them a shout out for sure.
Richard There's lots of things. One of the things that I'm the best at is giving away Gerrit's time. It's one of my biggest talents. And so, look, if a mission president gets on board with that, you've done Zoom firesides perhaps?
Gerrit Yes, in fact, I just got contacted by the Barcelona mission too.
Richard Oh yeah, is that right?
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Richard President Heckman, he's a great guy. So, yeah, so we can, and maybe the missionaries can come up with creative stuff, but so try and get as many missionaries to come in and to listen and let us know what your real mission is. And we'll have kind of a fun contest. We'll track through the month of March.
Gerrit Now we have to say real mission because of these next two missionaries that emailed us.
Richard Yes. Anyway, so this comes from Elder Whitehead. Message, I have listened to your podcast with my dad before my mission, and really need access to the podcast again, please. PS. I am a missionary in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission, temporarily serving in the Bridgetown Barbados mission for 24 months, and am an identical twin. The next very next email we received, Elder Whitehead. Hi, I have listened to your podcast with my dad before my mission and really need access to the podcast again, please. PS. I am a missionary in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission, temporarily serving in the Santos, Brazil mission for 24 months, and an identical twin.
Gerrit This is hilarious. So now we have missionaries claiming that they've been temporarily reassigned for the entire time of their mission from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission to the actual mission that they're in.
Richard Yeah, no, that happened during COVID all the time, right? So why wouldn't that be the case? Anyway, the missionaries are, you guys are just so wonderful. We are so grateful for your service. The interaction with you in the email is a lot of fun. We love you. We love how much you love and are serving the Lord, and hope that it helps you, as Gerrit and I talk about, as the Truman Madsen tapes helped us when we were on our mission.
Gerrit Honestly, it's one of the things that keeps the podcast going, is the fact that we feel like we're trying to help out these young men and women who've dedicated their life, these two years, year and a half, to grow the kingdom of God, and that matters a lot to us. So we want to pay it back, and it's the worst kind of payment, sure. I mean, it's the kind of present that you get from that one aunt who you know is going to give you a book, but on a topic that you don't care about. Like, here's a, oh, an introductory guide to basket. We know, oh, Aunt Jane. Wow.
Richard It's the Christmas story, but bunny pajamas is essentially what this podcast is.
Gerrit You'll shoot your eye out.
Richard But also, by the way, I do need to say a super thank you to all of those that do actually subscribe to the premium. We sincerely appreciate it. It has exceeded our expectations and we are very, very grateful for that. Thank you very, very much.
Gerrit Thank you so much.
Richard All right. The name of this person is Guadalupe Tariffs, which who knew that tariffs would make their way into the news as much as they have?
Gerrit He had us at hello.
Richard He did. Gerrit's favorite Guadalupe, mine favorite tariffs. Not that I love tariffs, I love talking about tariffs, specifically Japanese.
Gerrit You just got very political. Very political and I'm not okay with it. No, no.
Richard Look, I was talking about.
Gerrit Look at all the subscriptions are canceling right now. I was talking.
Richard I just, I taught citizenship in the world using Japanese rice tariffs to teach all the principles of when I was, when I was a merit badge counselor for 32 years.
Gerrit Which is the rare reason why they canceled Boy Scouts. You, you were injecting your communist rhetoric into these boys.
Richard I was a, I was a priest corpsman advisor for seven years. And by the time they came to me, it was go time on getting your eagle or not. So I just took over 32 merit badge. I was a counselor for 32 merit badges so I could completely control the situation. And we've got a lot of people through. So for whatever that's worth, I don't know.
Gerrit I can only assume you were the cooking merit badge.
Richard I was every required merit badge, Gerrit.
Gerrit Very good. You had a very reliable bishop.
Richard Yeah, I did. This is some heavy stuff, Docs. Forgive me for the informal way of mentioning both of your titles. But I felt that for theoretical, or for the theoretical. You know what? When you graduate from Oklahoma State, I guess it is theoretical. Go, pokes. I can't read theoretical. I'm going to cut this out, Gerrit. I'm going to mark it.
Gerrit I'm cutting it out.
Richard It's the theatrical, theatrical effect that works well. First things first, while I did not go on a mission, I feel that if I had, I would have been called to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission.
Gerrit No doubt.
Richard And I'm there now in spirit. So I was wondering if that might qualify myself for the Google drive with all the premium stuff. No, I understand. All kidding aside, I want to thank you for all of this podcast brings me. Sometimes it's the only content, including church, that I get in the week. And it has kept me grounded. In your episode regarding the rebuke and apostasy of Almon Babbitt. Now that's in the classic series that we just began, great rebuke of the Doctrine Covenants.
Gerrit The series that we started and did nothing with. Yeah.
Richard Yes.
Gerrit Although I do think it's part of apostates, apostles and apothecaries.
Richard It's a subgenre of that for sure.
Gerrit People like it when we do apostates, by the way. People love it. They want us to do all apostasy all the time.
Richard Unfortunately, the church is full of it.
Gerrit Yeah. You will never run out. You always have... I mean, eventually you'll be down to like, build the adulterer, but other than that...
Richard Well, he's still... I mean, he's trying to come back. He still keeps trying.
Gerrit Yeah, I guess.
Richard Alvin Babbitt, you mentioned, as you have before in other episodes, how there are people that may claim to be stalwart followers in the church, but in the next breath, criticize President Nelson. For some reason, hearing it again this time made me realize that I'm one of those people. I haven't posted anything on social media or been outspoken at all with my criticism, but in my heart, I have harbored those feelings. I have stayed away from reading anything on Reddit or X because I know that if I am seeking faith, I actually have to go and find the sources that promote it, not tear it down as President Holland has so passionately said before. I need to hold on to the faith as I have. I can honestly say that I know Joseph Smith to be a true prophet of the Restoration. I can say that I would defend his name always. But I recently realized that I can say and do that now because of all that we have learned that all started with the teachings of Joseph Smith since his day.
Richard But if I had lived during his day, when so much of what he taught was new and radical, would I have been stalwart? What a self-awareness there. I don't know, but if I question my prophet today because of things I don't know, I shudder to think about it. I know now that instead of just sitting on my questions, I need to take action and learn for myself through the spirit and incredible sources that President Nelson is a true prophet of God. Anyways, I say all of that to say that this podcast is a saving grace for myself and my kids. Thank you for all the work that you two do to put this heartfelt testimonies to get us through it, because it has inspired me to action, and I thank you both for it. Sincerely, a proud Softie.
Gerrit Softie, a Standard of Truth fan. Is that what that is? A fan of the show?
Richard Yes, yes, yes.
Gerrit Well, Guadalupe Tariff's anonymous. This is actually one of the best emails I think we've ever received. I mean, we've received a lot of great ones. But on this topic in particular, because I talk about following the prophet all of the time, and yet I am well aware that the natural impulse of almost everyone listening is to simply say, oh yeah, it's really bad when those other people do that. And then they go on thinking what they want to think. And the fact that you care about the gospel so much that you are willing to allow the spirit to work on you to say, you know what, it's not good enough that I have, that I harbor, you know, personal criticisms or unsureties about President Nelson. I mean, a great thing to always go back to when you're thinking about it, like you'd said in your email, is if we don't have a current prophet of the church, legitimately none of this matters.
Gerrit Because this isn't a philosophy. This isn't like, you know, you're Six Sigma. This is not, this is not a, a, a, Richard, do you think?
Richard Well, first of all, I love operational improvement and I'm a big Six Sigma fan. So I'm not going to sit here. I'm not going to sit there.
Gerrit You might have seen the video of this. Richard's eyes, they grew wide that, you know, it was, you know how the Grinch's heart grew three times that day? Richard's eyes grew three times that day.
Richard There's a couple of things, Six Sigma, Toyota Kata. There's a couple of things that I get pretty worked up about. Kaizen, like there's a couple of things I'm going to get excited about. Sorry, I apologize. You were bearing your testimony. I apologize to cut you off.
Gerrit The point being that for other Christian religions, primarily Protestant Christian groups, that there is no structure and there is no quote unquote church except for the people that are believers. And part of the reason why that is the case is because you don't actually have to, in Protestantism, have any ordinances at all. You don't need any ordinances because the only thing you need is faith. And people who have faith will go to heaven, and people who don't have faith will go to hell, and there is no equivocation about it. And of course, we go and we get baptized because that's what Jesus told us to do. But that baptism is not salvific is the phrase. It's not saving at all. You can be thief on the cross and just in the last moment say, you know, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom and you're saved.
Gerrit And so for many other Christians, what we believe is what is what matters most, right? So there's a reason why in Christianity people care a great deal about doctrine and having the right beliefs. I mean, the whole idea of heresy comes from the idea of having the wrong belief is what it means. Like, oh, you're believing the wrong things. Well, obviously you'd think that if you were believing the wrong things, you just stop believing them if they're wrong. And so for Christians, that's the reason why they fight over every single point of doctrine as it's related in the Bible. Because the only thing that matters is belief. And it's the reason why, incidentally, that you can have a conversation with a Christian pastor or anyone on X who will say something to the effect of, all you have to believe in Jesus is to be saved.
Gerrit And when you say, well, I very much believe in Jesus, their response is, yeah, but you believe in the Mormon Jesus. So that's not true. Like, wait a minute, you just said I had to believe in Jesus. Yeah, but you have to believe in the Jesus the right way. Right? So, so even in that sense, it's you have to believe in the right thing. But it's always about what you believe. It's not about what you do. Doing has no bearing on your salvation or exaltation, which they don't believe in. But we aren't Protestants. We aren't Protestants, even though the world around us would try to make us believe that we are. We don't believe that what exalts us is solely what we believe. We don't believe that exaltation is one giant participation trophy that as long as you showed up, even 45 minutes late and didn't even get your cake entered in the drawing in time, that you get the same as everyone else.
Gerrit We believe that belief is coupled with actions that are coupled with ordinances. Now you might say, why did you spend any time on that? Because Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and John Taylor Wilford Woodruff, and you can sing the primary song to yourself all the way down the roll. Those men held the keys of the ordinances that are exalting. Nobody is becoming like God without being endowed and being sealed. Well, who holds those keys? Only the prophet of God, the president of the church, in conjunction with the quorum of the 12 apostles. And so one way to deal with your doubt and difficulties as they creep in, when President Nelson takes a position on something that you really feel strongly about another way, or whatever it is, is to remember that without President Nelson holding the keys, none of this matters.
Gerrit If we don't have a prophet that holds the keys of ceiling, then it doesn't matter whether or not you've gone through the motions. This is something that Brigham Young learned or defended very, very early on. And I know I've referenced this before, but I'm going to reference it again. I'll quote from the one in the Journal of Discourses, because it's easier for people to find, even though we all know, you can go back and listen to the podcast in the Journal of Discourses, that there's maybe a few problems there with having it exact. But in this case, we know that Brigham talks about this multiple times. And that is in Nauvoo, there was a conflict in which there were several leading brethren that had decided that Joseph was wrong on parts of doctrine. And the way that they decided that they were going to prove it to them is they all held a big meeting, and they were going to the prophets' face. Joseph's there in this meeting.
Gerrit They started going through all the scriptures, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Bible, and using the scriptures to refute the radical teachings that Joseph Smith was teaching in 1843 is when this took place. This is from October 7th, 1864 conference, Brigham Young. He said, The brethren who have spoken have been disposed to speak concerning the testimony they have within themselves of the truth of this work. It made me think of a circumstance in history of Joseph Smith in which I was an actor relating to a few men in Nauvoo who sought to make it appear that the printed word was all in all and immensely superior to the living testimony of the Holy Ghost and the believer and to the power of the living priesthood. I attended one of their meetings, which was held in Joseph's house and arose to speak and took for my text, Ye Saints of Latter-day Saints.
Gerrit Ye Saints of Latter-day, sorry. I would not give you the ashes of a rye straw for every word that is contained in the Bible, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants so far as their efficacy is concerned to save any man independent of the living priesthood of the Son of God and the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the heart of the believer. Like I said, he tells the story multiple times that if you find yourself quoting scripture to denigrate the prophet, well, then you don't actually understand the restoration. The restoration is God bringing back the keys, the power of saving and exalting ordinances that are vested in people. That's why when you have all these apostate groups spring up and they're like, oh yeah, well, I mean, the church was true right up until this time, but luckily I'm the new person who's true.
Gerrit Well, that's not how God set it up. He didn't set it up so that someone could just one day decide that they've had a vision and that they now have power and authority. And there's a reason why all of these apostate groups immediately turn their faces away from the temple. Every one of them, every one of these these apostate groups will spend time trying to tell their parishioners, their new found apostate fellows that have joined their movement that the temple is not nearly as important as people say it is, that you can't do work for the dead for everyone only for like people that you literally met yourself in your own life, that that temple covenants and temple ordinances are not essential. Why do they do that? They do that because they know in order to have a movement, they have to convince the saints of the latter days that the exalting ordinances that you get in the temple are not essential.
Gerrit They have to get you to go back to the Protestant way of thinking that there is no ultimate authority outside of scripture itself. And so, you know, I like I said, that's one of the best emails we've ever received because it is so thoughtful and introspective would that all of us could stop and say, Lord, is it I? I mean, we're all sinners. We've all got things we've got to fix. And for this brother to believe so passionately about something, but to allow the Holy Spirit to touch his heart and say, you know what? I don't care how much I believe about X. If it's not what President Nelson's teaching, it's time for me to stop believing that way. And that is one of the hardest things anyone will ever do. I hear people all the time saying, oh, well, yeah, I'm a stalwart believer, but here's where President Nelson's wrong.
Gerrit You're not as stalwart as you think you are, because being a stalwart believer means believing in the living oracles. That there is a president of the high priesthood, which is what the president of the church is. President Nelson is not president of the corporation. He's not, oh, look, he's CEO Nelson. And here comes CFO, you know, the bishop. I mean, that's that's not how that works. They are called president because they are president of the high priesthood, meaning literally they have all of the keys that God has given on Earth, including those keys by which our families are sealed, by which our dead are redeemed and by which we make the covenants, whereby we can progress to become like our Heavenly Father. So we might always have doubts and questions. We might always say, I don't know why the church did X or why the church did Y.
Gerrit But if we can do like this brother and say, not knowing isn't the same thing as going on X and saying how wrong the prophet is. Not knowing is not the same thing as saying, actually, I do know. Not knowing is saying, you know what? Like, like saints who have always lived throughout this, throughout eternities, I'm going to take my step across that river from Iowa and into Nebraska. And I have literally no idea where we're going. And it doesn't make any sense why we're going there. And I don't know why God would command this. And it goes against everything my parents say. And it goes against everything that my family says. And my work says in my economic situation, going out west, going to Utah, goes against every rational thing.
Gerrit And I'm going because a prophet said so. And I say it over and over and over and over again. It's the anthem to our podcast. But it always goes back to Lehi and Jerusalem, the beginning of the Book of Mormon. You don't need a prophet to tell you to stay in Jerusalem. Laban and Lemuel, those guys were staying in Jerusalem regardless. There was no going outside the city walls and certainly no going to Laban to ask for plates if you're Laban and Lemuel. The only thing that got them out of Jerusalem was a prophet. The entire point of having a prophet is for them to teach you things that you don't already believe. And that's when our discipleship is really tested. And I love how you compared the fact that, well, if I lived in Joseph's time, I want to believe I'd believe.
Gerrit It's exactly what the Lord said. When he was speaking, you hypocrites, you build up the monuments of the prophets, and it's your forefathers that killed them. You want to talk about how great Jeremiah was? Well, guess what happened to him? It wasn't Babylonians who killed him. You want to talk about how great Isaiah is? It wasn't Assyrians who killed Isaiah. The really difficult aspect of discipleship is believing in the current oracle because the past oracles have a way of being proven right. So when you look back on them, it's like, wow, Joseph was totally right. There was a civil war that started in South Carolina. And you don't know yet that the current oracle is going to be looked back on and seen as right.
Gerrit Think about the proclamation of the family. Think about how non-radical milk toast that seemed when that was given. Now, what does it look like? I mean, how much did it anticipate the questions of our times, long before people even had questions of that nature? So, awesome email. One of the most important things I hope anyone gets out of this podcast is, it is great to believe the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith, but if they do not cause you to make and keep covenants today, unfortunately, it is the greatest of all tragedies, because you know that there's a restoration, because Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. But the only way there's a restoration is if you truly believe it's ongoing, that it's going on now, and will be going on until the Savior Jesus Christ sets his foot back down in glory on this earth and comes to take the helm again of the ship.
Richard Great. Great email. Great response, Gerrit. This last email comes to us from Charlene. Love your podcast. I usually try to be sarcastically witty, but I know you have many genuinely funny people writing in, so I won't even try. I do have a couple of miscellaneous questions.
Gerrit We do have a lot of hilarious people writing, let me just say. I mean, just the level of wit so exceeds ours. Everyone else needs a podcast. Early on in the podcast, we used to tell people, go get your own podcast.
Richard No, we don't want to do, we don't say that anymore because their stuff would be way better.
Gerrit Because we've read what these missionaries have to say, and my great fear is they're going to come home, start their own podcast.
Richard It is actually our largest fear. So this is kind of a Charlene Popery, I guess, if we were playing Jeopardy.
Gerrit It relates to our last email, so I think that's why we're covering both.
Richard It does. I remember reading somewhere that the apostles who served with Brigham Young were afraid of voicing their true feelings or opinions about matters because of how he treated naysayers. I don't read anti-Mormon literature or websites, so maybe it was in one of the Saints volumes. Do you know if this is true? With the way our current prophets and apostles counsel together and disagree until they come to a harmonious conclusion, it was discouraging to hear that it has not always been this way. I know this is my presentism showing through, but I'm curious about your opinion on this, Gerrit. That's the first question.
Gerrit Yeah, and we'll just talk about that briefly. Now, first of all, the only reason why you have any idea what the discussions were like in the Quorum of the Twelve in the 1850s is because we have historical records of the minutes of some of those meetings where we get to see the apostles voice their different concerns and beliefs. And so I would say I believe that when the current Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, when they meet together, that they all voice what they actually believe. It's something that was taught by Joseph Smith in the earliest of councils. Look, the entire point of being here is to say what you actually think. And I would guess that people who have been in ward councils and in bishoprics and Relief Society presidencies, where people in those presidencies felt comfortable enough to where they could actually say what they thought, that it ended up being a much more productive meeting and a much more productive presidency.
Gerrit It doesn't really help if we're all just trying to say, okay, what does he think? Okay, now I'm going to say exactly that. But having studied Brigham Young, I don't know where the assertion comes from. I feel like it's almost the opposite. Brigham Young was not movable when it came to things like doctrine. So when apostles started teaching what he believed to be false doctrine, yeah, he was absolutely immovable on that. I mean, so you have an example of this is Orson Pratt. Now Orson Pratt, one of the most brilliant apostles we've ever had, an amazing man, dedicated his life to the gospel, but he was a big time intellectual. And there were times that he would kind of get out on a limb on experiential doctrine, on experimental doctrine, and he would have to be reigned back in.
Gerrit And one of those times in particular was very, it was very difficult, let me just say. It was in 1860, Orson Pratt had started teaching that we don't worship God, we worship the attributes that God has, right? So we worship God because God has the attribute of goodness. God has the attribute of knowledge. So now that might seem like a small thing to you, but he did it enough that eventually Brigham Young said, hey, don't teach that anymore. And Orson Pratt continued to teach it. And so Brigham Young called a council and said, hey, we need to get this hashed out.
Gerrit Now, when you read from Wilford Woodruff's Journal or you read from the other minutes that we have of what went on in those conversations, it certainly does not come across that no one feels like they can say what they really think. And that Brigham Young is just saying like, have you say one word against me? I'm coming for you. And actually it seems like it's the opposite. Because Orson Pratt, he is a lot of things, but one thing he is certainly is incredibly stubborn. Once he's marked out a position for himself, he won't change it any other way. And so in those discussions, you can tell that it's actually the other apostles who are starting to suggest, hey, if Orson Pratt can't accept this, then maybe he can't be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. And it's actually Brigham that keeps saying, well, no, I want to labor with him more in order to get his mind right.
Gerrit But it is other apostles who are like, you know what, I'm done. He's saying that he's not going to listen to the prophet. Well, that's it. And we all know what happened with other apostles who said they wouldn't listen. So let's read a little bit of this from Wilford Woodrow's Journal, where this discussion is going on. And like I said, it's a list of all the apostles making different arguments, things like that. I mean, here's Wilford Woodrow saying to Orson Pratt, I want to ask you one or two questions. You see that the spirit and doctrines you possess is entirely in opposition to the First Presidency and of the Quorum of the Twelve who are present this evening. And it chills the blood in our veins to hear your words and to feel your spirit. Should not this be an evidence to you that you are wrong? What would become of the Quorum of the Twelve if we all felt as you should do?
Gerrit Well, we should all go to hell in a pile together. You say that you're honest in the course that you're pursuing. I wish to ask you if you was honest when you said that if you had known that President Young worshiped a God without life or attributes, that you would not have written what you did. So in this argument, in this discussion, Orson Pratt, you know, because Brigham Young was like, look, we don't worship the attributes of God. That's not what we do. Orson Pratt apparently flippantly said, well, if I had have known that President Young worshiped a God that didn't have any attributes, I wouldn't have said that. I mean, I don't know what your bishopric meetings are like. I can only assume that's how you talk to your bishop, Richard.
Richard I'm slightly less lippy.
Gerrit But more sarcastic.
Richard Oh, way more sarcastic, but I love him.
Gerrit So, yeah, yeah. Well, so, you know, Wilford Woodward goes on, it was an insult to President Young and to the holy priest of which he holds. Every man in this room has a particle of the spirit of God knows that President Young is a prophet of God and that God sustains him and that he has the Holy Spirit and that his doctrines are true and that he is qualified to lead the people. And he's explained everything very plain this evening that a child can understand it. And yet it is not, it is no evidence to you. Nothing can make an impression upon you. No argument can reach your understanding. Brother Orson, I have seen the day when you was in sorrow. It was when you were cast out of your quorum and out of the church, and that too in consequence of perusing, pursuing the same course that you are this evening. Then you could both see and feel and understand. Then argument could reach you. When you saw your glory and your crown departing from you, I beg of you to reflect and not let your will carry you too far in these things.
Gerrit It would be better for us to not be able to cast up a simple sum in addition and be humble. Basically, it'd be better if you didn't know math at all, and be humble to the Lord rather than to have ever so much knowledge and permit that knowledge to lead us to destruction. So, I mean, he's counseling with him. Of course, what he's talking about is that Orson Pratt in 1842 is caught up in the John C. Bennett imbroglio, which we'll talk about someday, but probably never on the podcast. And, you know, he's in a very difficult position where his wife has kind of followed after John C. Bennett, and he has to choose between his wife and the church. And for a time, he apostatizes. And so what Wilford Woodrow is saying, hey, you remember that you did leave the quorum once before. And do you remember how bad it was? I mean, take a stop and look.
Gerrit Wilford says, I feel at this advanced state of the church, and in the late day with the information you possess, that neither you nor your brethren ought to be troubled with false doctrine. Neither should you cause your brethren to listen to such a scene of things as we have heard tonight or to insult the president of the church as you have done. Although you are unbending in your will tonight, the day is not far distanced when you will be glad to bend to the president of the church and make reconciliation. And really, it kind of just goes through the line. It's primarily other apostles saying, hey, you need to believe. One very interesting comment was given by several people that are there, but probably the most interesting is when President Young does talk, it's a really cool example of having the ability to receive revelation and knowing whether or not you have the ability to teach it.
Gerrit President Young said, I will tell you how I got along with Joseph. I found out that God called Joseph to be a prophet. I did not do it. God did. I then said, I will leave the prophet in the hands of that God who called and ordained him to be a prophet. He is not responsible to me. It's none of my business what he does. It is for me to follow and obey him. I was once ashamed of one thing which I did while I was in Missouri in Zion's Camp. So now he's looking back all the way to the Zion's Camp in 1834. I got a revelation. Now this is before he's an apostle. Brigham Young is not an apostle in 1834. There are no apostles in 1834. 1835, February is when Brigham Young is called to be an apostle when the apostleship is created. I got a revelation that God had accepted our offering. I had the same thing revealed to me twice, and that we should not go in to Jackson County.
Gerrit So they're on their way down there, and they're getting close to Jackson County with this group that may actually end up violently conflicting with the Missourians to get the saints of their land back in Jackson County because they've just been driven off by guns. And Brigham receives a revelation that, you know what, we're not actually going to go all the way to Jackson County. God just wanted us to make the march, but he didn't want us to actually fight. I named this to some of the Brethren a day or two before Joseph got a revelation on the same subject. And I felt ashamed that I had named it first. I knew where we were going. And I now know that when we went to go to Jackson County, we shall go from the west. And I will now tell you all, and you may write it down, that in all my preaching by the Holy Ghost, it is revelation.
Gerrit I told Brother Joseph that he had given us revelation enough to last us 20 years. When the time is out, I can give us good revelation as there is in the Doctrine and Covenants. So, look, they went on and kept going, but here Brigham Young is teaching that principle. Even if you did have something that God gave you, it's not your purview to teach it before the prophet. God has set it up that way. And so while all these others, the other people in this conversation are basically telling Orson, hey man, you need to get in line or you're gonna get kicked out. We're not gonna deal with you acting like this. Brigham is taking a much softer stance. His stance is, hey, even if this is something that you feel like you receive, until I receive it, you can't teach it publicly. Which to me kind of puts to lie the argument that, oh, if only, you know, Brigham listened a lot more.
Gerrit I feel like Brigham Young is the prophet we don't know. We know him in sound bites and TikToks. We know him in Instagram memes and in Facebook reels. And we don't know anything about it. Our detractors dredge up whatever filth they think they can find, take it out of context and throw it on him and say, see, see, he can't really be a prophet. I've studied Brigham Young for decades now. We just published his journals last year with Brigham Young University Press. He is certainly a flawed man. He makes all kinds of mistakes. It is impossible that the church exists the way it does today without Brigham Young. And I'm not saying that as a Latter-day Saint. I am saying that as a scholar, as someone who's been well published on Brigham Young.
Gerrit It is impossible to believe that our church exists and is successful without Brigham Young's leadership. And if you don't believe that, very, very easy to take a look at all of the other offshoot churches that arose at the exact same time. How did they do? How are they doing? It is, it is something that the saints very much under value. And that is the very beliefs that you care about more than anything else. Ceilings, work for the dead, temple work, temple endowments, the very center of what you believe. You have, because of the prophet Brigham Young. Because everyone else threw them out. And Brigham Young said, if Joseph received it, I'm not throwing it out. So look, Brigham Young was an hard man at times when he thought people were denigrating what Joseph taught.
Gerrit Why does he struggle with what Orson Pratt is teaching? Because he knows that that's not what Joseph taught. Joseph didn't teach that we worship the attributes of God. Joseph taught that we worship God and that God has those attributes. I know that seems like a super technical thing. Welcome to 19th century theology, where people have all kinds of arguments about whether the nature of God is homo ousion or homoi ousion, and that that can be the entire point of division among Orthodox and Catholics. The reality is, for Latter-day Saints, there is only one person vested in it. And what's actually remarkable is the loyalty that the people who know Brigham Young best have to Brigham Young.
Gerrit They are the ones supporting him. So when you get people saying, oh, Brigham Young's a tyrant, Brigham Young this, Brigham Young that, you don't see it from the people who know him best. You see it from newspaper reporters that are urging armies on out to Utah to exterminate people. So I think that they functioned in a way that was very similar to Joseph's councils. That when Joseph had councils, everybody spoke up. And there was a time when people spoke up and said, well, we really think this. And Joseph said, you know what, I know you all think that, but that's not what God thinks. So that's not what we're going to do. And we could turn around and say, look at how tyrannical Joseph is that he said that we're going to do that. Or we could say that's actually the nature of having a prophet. The nature of having a prophet is that at some point, the conversation is going to be brought to a close.
Gerrit At some point, there is only one person who is entitled to all the revelation of God. And that's how God set his church up. And so, I think that in the current Quorum of the Twelve, there are many different opinions, life stories, ideas, inspirations, and that when they get together, they do have great discussions about what they think the Lord wants them to do. But they all also look to the First Presidency and to President Nelson to make the final determination of what it is that they should do. Sometimes, it's easy to see, like whether or not we should worship the attributes of God. I'll tell you a time it wasn't easy to see. When the Mormon Battalion was called, when the Saints were fleeing Illinois, Pell Mel, in the middle of winter, having crossed with people dying all across Iowa, in part because they believe there was an American army chasing them, trying to kill them.
Gerrit When Captain Allen rides over the bluff in Mount Pisgah, and women and children run screaming because they think that this is the lead elements of the American cavalry coming to kill them, or as the report they heard from the Secretary of War, that the Mormons needed to be exterminated from off the face of the earth. Now, I don't know whether the Secretary of War actually said that, but I know that the Mormons were told that he said that. And given the fact that a whole bunch of them had just been murdered, that Joseph and Hyrum had just been murdered, and that no one was being brought to justice for anything, it was a pretty easy thing for the Latter-day Saints to believe, hey, I think maybe they might be serious about killing us. They seem to keep doing it, and so probably this is what they do. Well, when Captain Allen rides over the bluff, Wilford Woodruff records very clearly in his journal what he thinks of Captain Allen.
Gerrit Captain Allen is like, you know, I'm here to raise a battalion of men for the war in Mexico. And Wilford Woodruff is like, I think he's a liar. I think he's just a spy. I think he sent here to destroy us. So they go, they send him on to winter quarters, and Allen and the other army officers, they meet with Brigham Young. And nobody wants to sign up. Let me get this straight. I'm in the middle of nowhere because this government allowed me to be pushed off by both state and mobocratic forces from land that I purchased legally. As an American citizen, I'm now in Indian territory, and I'm planning to leave the country entirely because you haven't respected my rights at all, and you want me to leave my family in the middle of nowhere and march 2,000 miles for a flag that just rejected me. You know what? Appreciate the hustle, brah.
Gerrit Hard pass is what I'm pretty sure that a lot of the saints there in winter quarters were saying. And when Brigham Young got this, he felt inspired to tell the saints that they needed to enlist. There would not have been a Mormon battalion if Wilford Woodruff had his way. Now, there are a few people in the history of the church that I love more than Wilford Woodruff. I cannot begin to express my admiration for him and Phoebe. Just, I wish I could, one percent of me could be Wilford Woodruff or Phoebe Woodruff. But in that instance, he was reacting emotionally. He was reacting to very logical things.
Gerrit It was completely illogical to say, yeah, we'll raise troops. And yet now historians look back on it and say, wow, Brigham Young, really, if he hadn't made that choice, it would have been very difficult for the Saints to settle the way that they did. It had been very difficult for them to get as many people across the plains as fast as they did because they took the money from the battalion and used it to help get the poor out and across the plains. So there are certainly times that the Quorum of the Twelve differed with Brigham Young. And I'm sure there are times that members of the Quorum have different ideas than the President of the Quorum or the First Presidency now. But they do all bathe their discussions in the light of what the Lord Jesus Christ wants for his church. And they all accept this important fact. Whatever our feelings on any topic are, the only person who holds the keys to receive revelation for the entire church all the time is President Nelson.
Gerrit And whatever prophet follows him, that's part of being the prophet. You have all those keys given. So, I would say on that first question, I think it's overstated in the sense that it's easy to take anyone from any argument and argue, oh, this person's being unreasonable. But boy, I don't get the sense from any of Brigham Young's quorum meetings that people in the quorum are afraid to speak their mind. They speak their mind right and left and up and down. And Brigham Young has often happened to reign in their speaking of their mind because they're speaking far too much of their mind in relation to other people. And so I think I don't consider that a concern that you know, you said it doesn't trouble you, but hopefully it doesn't trouble other people. I think Brigham Young was a prophet who was the one given the keys to lead the church for the time. And the other apostles, they believe that as well. Now, on the second part of your question, we have to save that to our next episode. It's an important thing, so I do want to talk about it.
Gerrit But we've also run right up against just how long it takes someone in Canada to fall down an icy hill while out jogging, listening to us.
Richard I will say, Mike, that's a great reference. One of my favorite things is that you said, all right, I'm just going to handle this one quickly. I'm just going to knock this one down, handle it quickly, yada, yada, yada.
Gerrit What part of what I did wasn't quick?
Richard No, for a historian, that's the quickest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Gerrit I mean, it is interesting because I don't know if the people listening are aware of this. We don't have a script and we don't have editing and we don't have producers.
Richard Editing exists, we just don't do it.
Gerrit We don't have it. I mean, my kingdom for Lisa and David.
Richard Oh my God.
Gerrit If they were producing and editing us, can you imagine we would then sound like, I don't know, one-eighth of what the Follow Him podcast is instead of one-sixteenth. But because we don't have a script, and I'm kind of just speaking off the cuff and going through sources. And a lot of the times, I don't want to say it's inspiration. I don't want to clap myself on the back about what a wonderful good boy am I. But a lot of times, I don't expect to share a source until I start talking, or as much of a source until I start talking. And that's part of the reason why our tangents are so bad.
Richard Well, but I will say, in this particular case, I feel like, I mean, while the question was like, hey, you know, I heard the Brigham did this, you were able to speak on kind of a larger point. In my experience, by the way, I look at the great leadership of a Joseph Smith or a Brigham Young. My experience around great leaders is to, where they are surrounded by people that have strong wills and strong opinions because you create better everything.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, all of us have had a bishop or a Relief Society president, an elders quorum president, that you respected so much that, I mean, I've had bishops where I have said to myself, I would go on a campout for that man. And I hate-
Richard That is the highest of praise.
Gerrit People don't understand. The level of hatred that I have for camping is, it is legion. It cannot be numbered. It's numbered only to me. I just, I can't stand it. And I went on so many hundreds of campouts when I was a kid. I liked it initially. And I think I hit critical mass sometime when I was around 17. And I just said, you know what? I'm never doing this again. I hate this. And everyone will be, oh, if only you went camping with me, you'd love it. Nope. The only way I could go camping and love it is if I was in an RV. And even then I'd be like, so can I get the game in this? And, and you know, luckily now with Starlink, we can. You know, that's not a product placement, given the fact that of the people who's not sponsoring the podcast, I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is not sponsoring the podcast.
Richard He is not. But I believe I've mentioned on this podcast as well. I've evolved to where I travel a lot for work. And so I'm a bit of a snob on certain types of things. I like the, I like the planes that I fly. I like the, the hotels that I stay in, the rental car. If, if I open my door to my, my hotel or motel and I'm outside, I consider that camping.
Gerrit Yeah. Oh yeah. If you have an exterior door, where are you?
Richard I mean, Ephraim possibly.
Gerrit Although this weekend, Richard and I are taking a little bit of a trip. Yes. And he's having to, he's having to condescend from, from on high, from his lofty heights of, of I only fly Delta first class.
Richard First, I don't pay, you get upgrades. It's the status.
Gerrit But he's still like, like when Richard doesn't get upgraded, he's actually stunned that he doesn't get, for me, I have legitimately been in first class one time in my life and it was during COVID. So they didn't hand anything out. So it was just, it was just, it was like them just walking by. We're not giving you any service. Everyone's got diseased, keep your mask up.
Richard When you take the Diet Dr. Pepper in an actual glass, it's just something special, you know?
Gerrit They give you a real glass?
Richard Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't get that back with the, yeah.
Gerrit Well, so he, because of the schedule of our trip, he has to fly out of the Provo airport.
Richard Oh my gosh.
Gerrit And he's going to have to become familiar with what we call discount carriers.
Richard I sound like some sort of French aristocrat here.
Gerrit Well, your name is LeDuc, the Duke. I mean, come on.
Richard That's true. I mean, I've flown a lot. So you get the status and you just get used to the comforts of that, you know?
Gerrit How in the world does someone with only an acre of land in 1615 Quebec have the audacity to refer to themselves as a duke? I'm the king of the world, too, I guess.
Richard We got kicked out of Lyon, you know? We've got an acre. There's 16 people. We have one acre.
Gerrit Were you guys Huguenots? Do you know? Is that why you were kicked out of Lyon?
Richard Is that Jason and the Huguenots?
Gerrit Not Argonauts.
Richard Oh, not Argonauts. Okay.
Gerrit Huguenots, meaning they are French Calvinists during the Wars of Reformation and they-
Richard I'm pretty sure we were Catholic.
Gerrit Okay. Because a lot of them got kicked out and they went to the New World to get out. Yeah.
Richard I don't know. I just assumed we were Catholic, but we got kicked out for, there's a million reasons to kick a LeDuc out of anything. So yeah, I'm going to get to the bottom of that.
Gerrit Luckily, your dad married into Judaism, and so that lessened the reasons to get kicked out of places. Yeah. No joke.
Richard We're excited for Passover. Passover and Easter line up well this year. It's going to be a 10th Commandments weekend. It's going to be great.
Gerrit It'll be tons of them. We should do a live event surrounding that.
Richard Charlton Heston live watch party?
Gerrit Yeah. A live event where, let my people go. Honestly, it's probably the greatest acting ever. When I think of Moses in my mind, it's legitimately Charlton Heston holding tablets.
Richard I don't think I told you this. We're well out of time. Everyone stopped listening a while ago.
Gerrit They stopped listening. They know this is a post show. Why are we still recording? I don't know, but we're doing it for you people.
Richard Well, so President Oaks in the First Presidency came out last week with his great video and statement on Easter traditions, right? And so as a family, we celebrate Passover. And we don't do the whole thing, but we'll do a satyr light.
Gerrit Do you put some wine out for Elijah?
Richard There's wine. I don't know that there's any left necessarily for Elijah.
Gerrit The cup just has to be full at the beginning of the night, not at the end.
Richard We're not going to leave the door open. We leave a window cracked, just in case. So one thing we're going to try this year is we're going to try to do, instead of a, at least this is what I sold to my family, is that instead of a Passover satyr, which we do not always Easter and Passover lineup, but we're going to do a resurrection satyr. We're going to try to do the fulfillment of the Passover as the dinner. We're going to give it the old college try. I pitched it to the family. I think it could be actually kind of a fun thing as we try to follow President Oaks on that. So we'll see, we'll see how it goes.
Gerrit That's awesome. And hopefully everyone's trying to find a way to make it more meaningful in their families. Cause again, that's something coming from our First Presidency and what they'd like us to do. So thank you so much for joining us. Really do appreciate everybody. I honestly have to say that when I read some of the emails, it is a very great comfort to me. It's easy to sit behind a microphone and, you know, think, well, I don't, look, it's very easy for me to say I don't think anyone could possibly care what it is that I have to say. The very fact that anyone listens at all is stunning to me. And I can only attribute that to Richard and to board missionaries in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or now the Arizona Tucson mission. But in fact, my son got a new companion last thing, Elder Muitalo.
Gerrit And having a great time there, loving being in Tucson. So just want to say thank you to everybody. Thank you to everyone for listening, and thank you for your faith. Thank you for those of you who are struggling, but still coming back to try to make the gospel work. Those of you who are trying to get over sins, those of you who are fighting through the pain and the horrors incident to the deaths of loved ones. Those of you who have questioned your testimony, and those of you who have family members that are in that same place. I know that Jesus Christ loves all of you, and it is my testimony to you that the Lord Jesus will aid you, will give you peace as you continue to seek after Him. And I hope in some way that when we talk about things on the podcast, that the Holy Spirit touches your heart and helps you know that. So thank you so much for joining us.
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.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

Yes. My streak is three days in a row. I think that's a record.

RichardBanter

Every email references Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We need to start handing out terrible towels.

GerritBanter

I mean, it's the kind of present that you get from that one aunt who you know is going to give you a book, but on a topic that you don't care about.

GerritBanter

We don't believe that exaltation is one giant participation trophy that as long as you showed up, even 45 minutes late and didn't even get your cake entered in the drawing in time, that you get the same as everyone else.

GerritBanter

You're not as stalwart as you think you are, because being a stalwart believer means believing in the living oracles.

GerritInsight

The entire point of having a prophet is for them to teach you things that you don't already believe.

GerritInsight

The really difficult aspect of discipleship is believing in the current oracle because the past oracles have a way of being proven right.

GerritInsight

I feel like Brigham Young is the prophet we don't know. We know him in sound bites and TikToks.

GerritInsight

No, for a historian, that's the quickest thing I've ever seen in my life.

RichardBanter

If, if I open my door to my, my hotel or motel and I'm outside, I consider that camping.

RichardBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The apostles were afraid to disagree with Brigham Young.
You can be a stalwart member while saying where the living prophet is wrong.
Brigham Young was a tyrant, according to those who knew him.
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

Latter-day Saints aren't Protestants: exaltation needs ordinances, and only the prophet and apostles hold the keys to them, so following the living prophet matters.

It's easier to honor past prophets than living ones, because the past ones have already been proven right.

Wilford Woodruff's journal of the 1860 Orson Pratt council shows apostles speaking their minds openly, and Brigham as the patient one.

Brigham Young's rule for following Joseph: God called him, so leave him in God's hands. Even a true revelation isn't yours to teach before the prophet does.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag400 million emails: they read all of them and respond to none, except Richard's answer in Chinese (0:47-1:52).
Hate mail from the LeDucsEvery email saying they hate Gerrit is signed Richard, Becky or Max LeDuc, with letters cut from magazines (2:23-2:38).
The only true missionTerrible towels for Pittsburgh, until the Arizona Tucson takeover dethrones it, bye-bye Miss American Pie (3:28, 7:33-8:12).
Missionary MadnessA March contest for the mission with the most requests; Richard offers Gerrit's time as the prize (8:12-9:23).
Temporarily reassigned from PittsburghIdentical twin Elder Whiteheads in Barbados and Brazil (9:48-10:48).
Japanese rice tariffsGuadalupe Tariffs had them at hello, and Richard taught Citizenship in the World with Japanese rice tariffs as counselor for 32 merit badges (12:17-13:24).
Held together with spit and gumRichard says he'll cut out his "theoretical" flub; no script, no producer, and editing exists, they just don't do it (13:30-13:57, 60:26-60:50).
Six Sigma eyesRichard's eyes grow three sizes at Six Sigma, Toyota Kata and kaizen (18:41-18:58).
Gerrit hates campingHe'd only go on a campout for a truly great bishop, and an exterior hotel door means Ephraim (62:01-63:45).
Discount carriersDuke LeDuc, used to Delta upgrades and Diet Dr Pepper in a real glass, must fly out of Provo (63:47-65:05).
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.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The 1860 Orson Pratt council in Wilford Woodruff's journal and the other minutes of those meetings (40:40).
Brigham Young's journals, recently published by BYU Press (49:06).
Captain James Allen's arrival at Mount Pisgah and how the Mormon Battalion's pay helped the poor cross the plains (54:37).
Orson Pratt's 1842 break with the Church during the John C. Bennett affair (43:38).
SOT Litner · S5E9.