Episode 64: Accountability for GC Predictions, Green Tea, The Family Proclamation: A political document?

Matt (00:00.793)
to the latter day lens we're so glad to have you with us. I'm here with Sean and Sam. I'm Matt and we have a big announcement. We don't have, we don't have like good drum sound effects. Well, Sean probably does have good drum sound effects, but we didn't, we didn't prepare them for this. All I have is like my mouth sound effects, which aren't that I can tell by Sean's face. He doesn't want that. So we'll, we'll, we'll not do the drum roll. We'll just say, Oh,

Sam (00:09.978)
Big announcement.

shawn (00:26.53)
Oh, Matt, man, and then in a.

Sam (00:31.13)
Come on, come on. This is not an amateur production, Matt. Come on. What else do you need? What else do you need?

Matt (00:32.377)
That's that's really

shawn (00:36.002)
No Mickey Mouse here. I was gonna say Sam though. Sam I was gonna say though, Matt teased it. No, I really do want your version of the drum roll. So go ahead.

Sam (00:44.858)
I gave it. Oh, you want Matt's version? Gotcha.

Matt (00:45.369)
No no no, Sam's was way better than mine.

shawn (00:48.404)
How about Matt's version?

shawn (00:52.93)
Excellent.

Matt (00:55.865)
Okay, somebody take the buttons away from Sam. He's out of control. Okay, the announcement is that our podcast is changing our name from the Latter Day Lens to Real Mormonism because we think that better reflects.

Sam (00:57.978)
Oh, yeah, that was a lot.

shawn (01:12.418)
hahahaha

Matt (01:13.945)
That better reflects what we're doing on this podcast.

shawn (01:16.258)
Hey, look, and look, and look, there's been much, much debate about it. Some of you kind of were willy nilly about it and others of us kind of went overly serious about it. So it was a fun time debating it. Sam, you didn't really engage in the debate so much. It was really not nice, but in the end.

Matt (01:24.665)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (01:29.305)
Mm -hmm.

Sam (01:29.434)
I'll have time to text like you guys do during the week, but you knew my position all along. I was in favor of it from the beginning. That was the original name of this podcast. If you, for those who remember. So we're finally getting back to our roots. We're making Mormonism great again as a cultural movement, not a church. No, that's, that's not made up.

shawn (01:32.578)
Oh yeah, Matt was your proxy.

You

Now you're just making stuff up and that's okay. But in the end, you know what helped tip me with it? Because we talked about it on a couple episodes ago and how, well, wait a minute, the prophet has been very clear about the word Mormon or Mormonism, that doesn't refer to the church. And of course, Matt and Sam point out, well, we're not the church and so we're not referring to ourselves like that. But kind of what tipped me was I came to maybe a tentative understanding of what...

Matt (01:47.929)
I

Sam (01:54.266)
Oh, do tell.

Sam (01:58.778)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam (02:04.346)
Yeah.

shawn (02:14.882)
the colloquialism Mormonism means. And I think it means the experience of Latter -day Saints. I think that's what it means. And...

Matt (02:17.721)
Yeah.

Sam (02:18.138)
Oh, okay.

Matt (02:22.873)
The experience of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, Shawn. Because we want to follow the prophet on the podcast.

Sam (02:22.906)
I agree.

shawn (02:26.978)
Thank you.

Sam (02:30.138)
Yes.

shawn (02:30.146)
with without any kind of attitude or facetiousism. Yes, we do want to, we do want that.

Matt (02:33.657)
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think what we, I think, I think we had to, well, I think what we did, Sean, is we opened up a dictionary, right? And we're like, here's the word Mormonism. And you're like, Oh, Oh, okay.

Sam (02:36.506)
for how many ever months left he has.

shawn (02:45.858)
No, it didn't, no, what? No, I think what it was was when Matt and I were talking about it, Matt, you said, look, we do a good job talking about political issues, but in the end, and when you said, let's go become real Mormonism, I said, but that doesn't make sense if all we're doing is talking about political issues. And you said, well, we shouldn't just be talking about political issues. We need to have a well -rounded, like what is the experience of a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter -day Saints?

Sam (03:12.986)
That's right. Amen.

shawn (03:14.306)
And politics is part of that, but there's so many other issues like Sam is obsessed right now with the garment stuff. And so that's a, that is an experience. That's the LDS experience.

Matt (03:16.281)
It is.

Sam (03:23.194)
What? What? What? Where did that come from?

Matt (03:23.385)
He's obsessed. Yeah. Listener, we don't have a YouTube channel, but if we did or a TikTok, what you would see is Sam has replaced the space shuttle on his bookshelf behind him with a pair of garments. That's what it looks like. Sam is not obsessed with, Sam is not obsessed with the.

shawn (03:38.402)
What?

Sam (03:38.458)
Oh, no, no, we have to delete the intro to this entire podcast. This is not going to play well. You are you are alienating. You are alienating half of our audience, half of our audience. This is fascinating. It is a topic. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (03:50.585)
Sam is not obsessed with the garment. It's just on the topics that we're gonna talk about. Yeah.

shawn (03:54.114)
topic. That's a good topic. It's a good topic. It is Sam. I'm just

Matt (03:57.497)
So I think the short of it, Sean, is that we won't only talk about politics, although we'll talk about that, we'll just talk about what it means to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, and that's what Mormonism is.

shawn (04:06.818)
which really is not that different from, it's not very different from what we've been doing. It's just that I'm gonna feel a little more free to bring in more religious topics, like I've always wanted, like I always want to. But we're still gonna talk about politics and other experiences that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints have. That's what we're gonna do.

Matt (04:12.793)
Right.

Matt (04:20.153)
Yes, I know.

Matt (04:28.345)
I like it, Sean. Well, so with that out of the way, let's talk about the mailbag. Let's open it up. Mostly what I read in the mailbag this week is listeners who want accountability for all of those failed general conference predictions. And when I think about the ones that fail, it's mostly yours, Sam. Your predictions did not happen. Mine, if you look around you, oh no, no, mine failed. That's true. The second coming didn't happen. I own that.

Sam (04:49.402)
Uh, wait, wait, wait. I, so, so your prediction was world was coming to an end. Second coming would happen. I stood on a roof in Michigan with a bunch of our employees and I told everyone, I actually played the song REM end of the world. It's the end of the world as we know it. We were standing on a roof and I said, you know what? One of my best friends predicted the end and they looked at me like,

Matt (05:01.433)
Hahaha.

Matt (05:06.489)
Hahaha

Matt (05:12.505)
hahahaha

Sam (05:15.962)
because of an eclipse. And I said, there's a lot of context and I don't have time to go into it, but yes. And the wind started to blow and it got dark and toads started croaking and things started crowing. And I was like, it's happening. And then it didn't. So, yep, you failed.

Matt (05:22.393)
and

shawn (05:22.562)
Did you guys?

Matt (05:26.745)
You

shawn (05:31.746)
I woke up the next, so Matt, I woke up the next day after the eclipse and I saw, the first article I saw was there was a giant spike in internet searches. You know what the term was? That was just a huge spike.

Matt (05:31.865)
Yeah.

Matt (05:43.865)
The Latter Day Lens. Real Mormonism.

Sam (05:44.922)
When's the next podcast?

shawn (05:45.762)
No. Why do my eyes hurt so bad? And I laughed at all you people standing on roofs and getting obsessed and crying over, no, say it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, why was this?

Matt (05:49.561)
Oh.

Matt (05:53.177)
Well, if you wear glasses... No, if you wear...

Sam (05:55.29)
No, it was very safe. Actually. It was very safe. It Darwin's rule. Darwin is Darwinian Darwinism Darwinism. Yes. Darwinian it, it, it, it actually, it, it applies here to this. If you looked at the sun and you burned your eyes, your, your gene pool will reduce itself. No, Donald Trump was too busy selling Bibles on that day. Okay. We got to keep, we, we got to keep cadence on this. So Matt, you die. Your, your, your prediction failed. I.

Matt (06:03.001)
Darwinianism?

shawn (06:04.034)
No, it's called Darwinism, I like that.

Matt (06:11.417)
Donald Trump.

shawn (06:14.05)
Or if you did it with your Amazon quality glasses.

Matt (06:24.089)
Yeah, I was wrong. I'm okay with that.

Sam (06:25.146)
I would like, I would like to own that my prediction came true sort of. So my prediction was that because of who was the, the, the relief study presidents. Yep. She gave a talk and she got a lot of criticism for what she said in terms of women and the relief society being a women's organization, giving more power to women than any other religious organization she knew of took a lot of heat. And the comment I made was.

Matt (06:29.913)
Oh, jeez.

Matt (06:34.905)
Sister Dennis, she would, Sister Dennis.

shawn (06:35.074)
Sister Dennis.

She's a counselor.

Matt (06:44.409)
Priesthood Authority.

Sam (06:53.53)
That talk may have been intentional, and it gave her a little bit of a mandate to give a really powerful talk in conference and make a statement that was super important. The only thing I was wrong about is she got the platform. She was the second talk, and the dots never connected, right? So her, her, they did? Okay.

shawn (06:57.826)
Yeah, Sam's right.

shawn (07:09.794)
I thought they did. I thought they did, Sam. Credit to you. Because the talk that she gave was almost identical to the talk she gave in Relief Society minus the one phrase. But...

Matt (07:09.817)
Yeah.

Matt (07:15.961)
No.

Matt (07:19.897)
One phrase.

Sam (07:19.962)
Sometimes, sometimes we hear things we want to hear because we want to be kind of affirmed. Sean, she did not. She, I did. I listened. I read the transcript fully. Yeah. I listened to it.

shawn (07:27.586)
I, you didn't even listen to the society talk. You don't even know what she said. You did not. I don't believe either of you.

Matt (07:32.697)
I listened to both talks. Sean, when in the Relief Society talk did she talk about the temple garment?

shawn (07:39.938)
Well, not specifically, but she talked about covenants. The whole topic was covenants. That the power of God comes from covenants. That was her talk in early society. That was her talk in church.

Matt (07:44.121)
Well, if that's the case, Sean, every single person in General Conference has had the exact same topic for the last like three years.

shawn (07:53.218)
That's okay. Yeah, but that's what her topics were.

Matt (07:55.897)
We lost him. Sean was so passionate.

Sam (07:57.146)
He accidentally deleted himself out of the, uh, out of the show today. But anyway, so my, you know, that one part was true. She had a mandate, she had a platform and you know what, it's not display. It's awesome that they gave her the second spot actually for the second conference in a row, a woman gave a talk. There still wasn't a great ratio of men to women, but you know, maybe it's getting better, but it.

Matt (08:01.401)
hahahaha

Matt (08:19.513)
No, but there's more more male general authorities than female.

Sam (08:23.322)
Correct. Yeah, but it is pretty doggone cool that at least that prediction somewhat, somewhat came true. Now it is interesting though, if you think about it, the topic that we heard a lot of, kind of referencing Sean's earlier comments, we heard Covenants, which has been a theme for a long time, but something I don't think I've ever heard so much talk about at conferences, garments, and you know, that,

Matt (08:49.177)
I've never heard him talk about that.

shawn (08:49.57)
Hehehe.

Sam (08:50.842)
that stake president, or that stake meeting in California we talked about a couple episodes ago, Matt, I have to bring up something I said and then something you said. I said, This is going to come up, and they're going to change Tempor Recommend questions. Matt, what was your response to that?

Matt (09:07.353)
I said there's no way they would do that. Because I really like the paragraph that they already had. I'm like why would they be more specific than what they already have?

Sam (09:09.338)
Because...

Sam (09:16.538)
including about personal revelation. At some point, you go to your, you go to the Spirit as a guide. Okay, so, so,

Matt (09:19.097)
Yeah, yeah.

The instructions before said, let the Holy Ghost, members should seek counsel from the Holy Ghost in like figuring out how to answer personal questions about wearing the garment.

Sam (09:33.402)
So I wake up this morning, today happens to be April 13th, Saturday, and Mormon media, Mormon media referencing a cultural movement, Sean, not the church. Mormon media is ablaze this morning about the Temple recommend questions changing. And Matt, you should review with us what the big changes are, and then you can admit that I was correct and you were wrong.

Matt (09:51.993)
Yeah, I will first say definitely not media from the church because you won't find anything from the church on this, right? They sent a letter to bishops and branch presidents, but Sam sent me a copy of the letter. So here's the changes. So there already was a temple recommend interview question about, do you keep the covenants you made in the temple? They have this question still in there, but it's just shorter. Just do you keep the covenants?

Sam (09:59.162)
No. No.

Matt (10:18.265)
And then they changed the one about the garment. Do you honor your sacred privilege to wear the garment as instructed in the initiatory ordinances? Which before it said endowment, now it says initiatory. And then it has this statement. They've changed the statement a little bit to talk about how the garment is symbolic of the veil or that the veil is symbolic of Jesus Christ and the garment reminds us of the veil of the temple.

Sam (10:41.082)
which we've never heard that before.

Matt (10:43.289)
No, I've never heard that in my life before. That the garment is to remind us of the veil of the temple. Yeah, I've never heard. Yeah. And then it also talks about how you should, and then it's kind of more specific, right? It says the garment is a reminder of your covenants. You should wear the garment day and night throughout your life when it must be removed for activities that cannot reasonably be done while wearing the garment. Seek to restore it as soon as possible.

Sam (10:45.37)
That's fascinating, isn't it?

shawn (10:45.634)
What?

shawn (10:50.146)
Oh, really? Well, no. Really? Oh, okay.

Sam (10:50.202)
There's been allusions to that, but nothing ever as direct as that. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Correct.

Matt (11:13.081)
As you keep your covenants, including the sacred privilege to wear the garment, as instructed in the initiatory ordinances, you will have greater access to the Savior's mercy, protection, strength, and power." So it removes two things that I think are interesting because it used to say, I'll read from the Old Handbook. It used to say that the garment, it says, it should not be removed for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment.

and it should not be modified to accommodate different styles of clothing." They took that part out. And they also took out this part that said, if members have questions about... wait, wait, wait... the part where it says that we should seek revelation, I can't find that... oh, here we go. Endowed members should seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to answer personal questions about wearing the garment. Those are the two things that were taken out.

Sam (12:02.234)
So, so, so before we go to Sean, cause Sean's shaking his head as you're reading that basically to summarize, they're being more directive about the wearing and what they're saying is, is stop seeking the guidance of the Holy ghost, but it's okay to alter to meet current current fashion and style, which is fascinating. Sean, you're shaking your head. What are you shaking your head about there?

Matt (12:12.217)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (12:19.193)
You

shawn (12:24.258)
I just I Don't I don't at all. No, it's fine. I'm fine with whatever you guys want to read into it I just I think we were reading too much too much into it. Like I don't think it's I don't there's there's there's there's a letter of the law in spirit of the law and

Matt (12:25.497)
He hears this differently than you do, Sam. He...

Sam (12:28.186)
You

Matt (12:35.609)
You don't think when they

Sam (12:41.146)
Oh my goodness, Sean, you can't say that. A dude stood up in California state conference and said, the church has a problem with yoga pants and the way people are aren't wearing it. Before conference conference was littered with conversations about this. And then bam, a week after conference, new policy dropped. You have to see that as a trend line. So obviously they're concerned about it. And I think it's fascinating that I'd love to ask the question why.

shawn (12:43.746)
Why?

Sam (13:09.402)
Why the focus on that? Why the focus on that now, given everything else that's going on in the world, given the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel and all the social things. You know, we talk about all the different social issues and some of the true challenges a lot of the members of the church have out in the world, covenants and temple clothes. It's fascinating.

Matt (13:14.489)
Yeah.

shawn (13:20.898)
Ha ha.

Matt (13:34.201)
Sean has an answer for why now. Why now, Sean?

shawn (13:36.226)
Well, because of personal faith and personal covenants are the things that lead us to feeling the Holy Ghost and having a saved status with Christ. Those are the things that change our personal behaviors and our personal lives, right? It's all about these personal covenants. If we're not having faith and we're not repenting, then we're not paying attention to our covenants. And so being reminded of our covenants leads us to the behaviors that Christ told us are necessary for his...

Discipleship that's repentance and faith and so we're not doing it as much

Matt (14:07.353)
I think that in the church there are limited opportunities to have discussions about temple garments. And so I think the messages in state conference were twofold. One, I think that they thought it was important to teach some doctrine that maybe members of the church don't know or don't understand. But two, I think that it was a signal to members of the church that maybe it's okay to have discussions about the garment and wearing of the garment more than what we do right now, because it feels like...

because the garment is worn underneath your outer clothing, it feels like you're having a discussion about underwear, which often is not an appropriate church topic. But I think it is appropriate to talk about how wearing the garment reflects our commitment to follow Jesus Christ and to honoring the covenants we've made in the temple. So I think that some of it could be saying that they're just trying to signal to members of the church. It's okay to have conversations about this and to talk about it and to think about it.

Sam (15:02.01)
Interesting. Sean, do you agree?

shawn (15:03.426)
Hmm.

Matt (15:04.121)
You don't think so, Sean?

shawn (15:06.37)
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, sure. But I've never felt like you can't talk about it. It's not like it's a...

Matt (15:11.129)
I... I...

Sam (15:11.45)
Yeah, I don't think it's taboo to talk.

shawn (15:14.082)
I've never thought it was taboo, yeah, I mean, what I find is...

Matt (15:15.321)
You don't hear people talking about this in Sunday school. Nobody's raising their hand in Sunday school saying, hey, when should I, like if I'm gonna go to the mountains and I know that I'm gonna get super muddy, is it all right if I take my garments off before I do that? We never talk about that in church.

shawn (15:24.322)
I don't think any of these talks were like, hey, start talking about this in Sunday school. I think that they're simply trying to, I think generally, I don't know what, 60, 70 % of the people don't understand what the garments are and therefore they're teaching the doctrine, right?

Matt (15:41.529)
Because we're... Right. Well, we know that general conference talks get used as curriculum in priesthood and relief society classes. So if you have two talks on that topic, you can almost guarantee that there's gonna be lessons on that topic in priesthood and relief society in the next six months, which would be a good thing, right?

shawn (15:58.178)
Sure. Yeah, sure.

Sam (15:58.746)
So.

Matt (16:01.753)
Sam's not sure if that's a good thing. You don't wanna...

Sam (16:03.483)
Well, I just think it's, I just think it's so, so let's go there. Do you wear them as you work out? I don't, I wouldn't. I don't think that's a great idea, but that's a great debate. And if you look at this, uh, it's an activity that can reasonably be done with them on. Like there's no reason not to.

Matt (16:12.633)
Yeah.

Matt (16:18.777)
Mmm. Well.

shawn (16:20.258)
But that's why this is, that's why, hang on, that's why this is such a...

Matt (16:23.833)
That's why people don't talk about it, Sean, and that's why people don't know the answer to that question. Because what makes you uncomfortable about answering that question, Sean?

Sam (16:25.274)
You

shawn (16:28.994)
Hold on, hold on. I'm not uncomfortable answering that question at all. I think it's clear that if I am striving day and night to wear it, of course. Look, I'm a small, compact, fat bodybuilder and I get sweaty a lot. And so it is disrespectful for me to wear it when I work out, but I guarantee you, if you have the opposite of, hang on, Sam, I guarantee.

Sam (16:32.762)
What's your answer?

Matt (16:33.017)
So...

Matt (16:48.345)
Yeah.

Sam (16:53.562)
Does the spirit tell you that or does fashion dictate that? Okay. Okay.

shawn (16:57.666)
Fashion doesn't dictate it, it's just comfort. It's a comfort level. It's a respect level. I don't want to get them all dirty and nasty. But Sam, if you have the opposite opinion, neither one of these decisions is going to keep us out of the presence of God. It does not have an effect on our spiritual death.

Matt (17:01.017)
Right.

Sam (17:04.25)
Okay.

Sam (17:10.106)
Well, they, but they've taken away, they've taken away the spirit and personal inspiration. So there's not a lot of personal.

shawn (17:15.298)
They have not. That's ridiculous. That's not true at all.

Matt (17:18.009)
Well, they did take that language out. They took that language out.

Sam (17:18.266)
It's gone. They took it out. It's out.

shawn (17:21.282)
Well, maybe because one of the singular messages all through scripture and all through all is to pray and get revelation and to feel the Spirit. They don't need to repeat it again. Of course it is. In the religion it is.

Sam (17:29.338)
So it's implied. So they took it out because, because it's already something we know in the air. It's, it's natural.

shawn (17:35.906)
You're reading too much into policy language that changes every five or six or 10 years.

Matt (17:40.761)
So is Sam wrong?

Sam (17:41.658)
No, I don't think I'm reading. I don't think I'm reading too much into it. It's a state conference talk in California that gets out, causes a reaction. It's a repeated theme at general conference, which got a reaction. And then it's a policy adjustment. Like,

shawn (17:55.682)
But in three years, someone else in state conferences are going to record something that someone says and they're going to like, Oh, well, people are talking about this. We better get some clarity and then it's going to change. And then 10 years from now, it's going to change.

Matt (18:04.089)
So Sean, is Sam wrong to read the fact that they took out the language that says you shouldn't alter the garment to fit with fashion and clothing styles? Is Sam wrong to read into that saying, well, that means that you can now. If I wanna roll up my bottoms a whole lot, wear some super short shorts, that must be okay now. Is that wrong?

shawn (18:24.002)
Yeah, I think you're so reading into it so deeply that you're missing the mark. You're looking beyond it. You're going, well, good. Now I get to wear tank tops.

Sam (18:30.554)
Ah, missing the mark. That's actually a good comeback. Wait, can I wear a tank top?

Matt (18:34.489)
Yeah, you can. Yeah, yeah.

Sam (18:37.978)
Can I take my shirt off walking on the beach?

Matt (18:41.625)
Yes, Sam. In fact, I was going to ask you if you please would. In fact, listener, if you see us near Sean's house in California, the three of us walking on the beach, you'll recognize us. There'll be Sean, who's a short fat man and me who's a tall fat man. And then Sam, who's this bronze muscular fella in the middle.

shawn (18:43.202)
Yeah, you can. Yeah.

Sam (19:00.602)
Can, can I play basketball without a shirt on in front of my house?

Matt (19:05.177)
Yes, of course. Sam, you can do anything you want to do.

shawn (19:05.25)
Yes, yes, whether you do or not, don't, has no effect on the covenants you make. Are you trying with your...

Sam (19:08.378)
Okay.

Matt (19:11.737)
Well, I'll tell you this.

Sam (19:12.954)
I did. So I disagree culturally in the state, people watch and look and notice, and there'll be a lot of comparisons. There'll be a lot of noting going on over the coming months because this has been clarified. It's been something that was stated in the past has been re restated today and it'll have a diff. It'll make a difference. It, it, it, and I'm just trying to understand what the intent is behind it. Why now? What is the message?

Matt (19:22.425)
Yeah.

Matt (19:31.705)
Yeah.

I think... I think...

shawn (19:39.202)
Hehehehehe

Matt (19:40.377)
Well, and Sean, I think why we should say Sam's not reading too much into it is because the member of the core of the corner of 70 in California at the state conference, when he talked about garments, he was specifically talking about women and yoga pants, at least from what I've seen from Tik Tok videos. And, and what I hear you saying, Sean is we should look at this direction and look at it as, as it applies to us personally and not use it to judge other people.

But when people announce things and then talk about behavior of other people, then that sort of like sends this signal that, okay, now it's time to judge other people and look at them and how they're behaving, right? So.

Sam (20:18.586)
Nice.

shawn (20:18.978)
That's not what I was saying, but that was beautifully said. You should take credit for that. Yeah, that was good. No?

Sam (20:23.674)
I, I, yeah, I sort of like the old world where it was there and it was sort of left to be something more personal and not, uh, I'm trying to figure out what it's, what it means, what the statement is. Yeah.

Matt (20:23.705)
Okay.

shawn (20:35.106)
I think it is still Sam. Again, like if we read too deeply into like in the end, the whole, yeah, but you got to compare that, but you have to compare that to the more and way more important thing, which is when you did go into the initiatories and you did listen to that language and agree to that covenant, that's what matters most. Right. And you can, you can make your judgment based on that. You agreed to wear it in a certain way then.

Sam (20:40.538)
Sean, we've heard three weeks of this now. You can't make it go away.

Sam (20:55.642)
Yeah. Okay. So the, so the first presidency, the first presidency letter doesn't mean much to you personally.

Matt (20:57.657)
Okay.

shawn (21:05.41)
I don't see much of a change. I don't see a huge change at all. I don't think it's.

Sam (21:07.322)
OK. The Church Handbook of Instructions, the Recommend Questions. The questions in the Recommend don't alter the way you act in the world.

shawn (21:17.858)
No, no, because I didn't make my covenant in that interview, Sam. I made my covenant in the temple.

Sam (21:19.674)
So how that's fascinating. How do you make a decision about how to conduct your own personal affairs? Like, like, okay. But if, but if the first presidency comes out and makes a statement that conflicts gently with what you've like, does that, how does that? Okay.

shawn (21:30.05)
based on the covenants I make.

Matt (21:30.617)
I ask my wife.

shawn (21:40.802)
But it doesn't. Well, give me an example of that, because this doesn't conflict at all.

Sam (21:44.634)
OK. All right.

Matt (21:45.593)
Well, I'll say this, my wife's been away for the last week. And so I've been doing all that movie watching that I shouldn't be watching. And, um, spiritually, I'm not as good a place as I was a week ago. So if it's possible to keep my wife around more often, it helps me to be a better person.

shawn (21:52.61)
Ha ha!

Sam (21:53.338)
ooooh

Oh

shawn (22:02.69)
Uh huh.

Sam (22:02.81)
She brings you back to, you deconstruct a chaos, right?

Matt (22:09.497)
She's like, she's like, we've been hearing the F word a lot in our house lately. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. I'll put some, yeah, faith. We've been hearing that faith word. Sorry, I'll put my headphones on. How about if you just don't listen to that anymore?

shawn (22:09.986)
Would you?

Sam (22:15.61)
Oh no, faith? Yeah.

shawn (22:22.786)
What'd you do man, did you go on a Quentin Tarantino binge or something?

Sam (22:23.258)
Uh...

Matt (22:27.321)
Well, I don't want to say all the movies that I saw, but yeah, there was a lot of bad stuff out there. Turns out there's a lot of really naughty content out there that I had to have on my save list for when my wife's away. I think I need to get rid of that list so that when she's away, all I have is like the view or I don't know, some of these TV shows.

Sam (22:30.426)
You

Sam (22:45.306)
Okay. All right. Should we, should we launch into our first question? Is that all there is in the mailbag map now that we've had our full conversation? I feel like this is almost an entire episode right here and now, and yet we still have three questions to talk through. So no, no, no. So there was a great article in the trip. I go to the trip when I come back home and trying to figure out what on earth am I going to talk about? So here's the tribes title. And I actually, uh, I think this is fascinating for a couple of different reasons.

Matt (22:50.745)
That's it, yeah.

shawn (22:55.202)
Oh, I thought this was your question Sam. No. Okay, good. All right, good.

Matt (22:58.169)
No, no, Sam's first. He's got the thought provoker this week.

Sam (23:15.034)
It talks about the church's growth in Japan, which it says has been flat. And it says, c
But there he was, seated at a full conference table while the powerful chair of another organization's board performed a tea ceremony in his honor. And I don't know much about Japanese culture, but I understand that that's a pretty significant cultural activity with a lot of significance. He looked at the all smiling, expectant faces, then down at the delicate cup, steaming between his fingers to reject the offering, even in the name of religion, he knew would constitute a gross offense.

So he faked it, raising the cup to his lips and pretending to sip before declaring to the gratified crowd that the tea was delicious. This tense anecdote is one of many found in the book, Unique, but Not Different, Latter -day Saints in Japan, a first of its kind research into the beliefs, behaviors and backgrounds of Japanese members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints living in the land of the rising sun. By the way, is Japan still the land of the rising sun? When I hear that, I think of like World War II. Okay.

Matt (24:41.241)
Yes it is. Yeah, it's still there. Are we still the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Sam (24:44.762)
So, and then they go into a bunch. Yeah, well, Rising Sun, that's like, that was a great movie, Spielberg, yeah, about World War II. Anyway, so it talks about the cultural significance of green tea. Green tea is against the word of wisdom. So what do members do as they're looking to connect culturally in that environment and background? And this article uses some data to say, hey, the church, if it wants to grow, may need to rethink the word of wisdom and figure out a way to,

Matt (24:51.545)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam (25:14.362)
to allow members to connect culturally on this one item. So since I called the garment questions two weeks in advance, now I'm going to say, does the church rethink the Word of Wisdom and do some sort of an update to allow for a cultural change, kind of like the priesthood change in the 1970s or 80s when President Kimball made the proclamation? Does that happen? What?

Matt (25:40.089)
I hope they don't because you know what they'll do if they do that? All of those soda places are going to go out of business because they're going to get rid of sugary drinks. They're going to get rid of all of those Brazilian steak houses. They'll go out of business because they'll say eat a little bit of me, not the keep it green until you can't eat any more meat. Yeah, that's what will go away if they decide to allow green tea. Um, I think I'm just going to tell you a funny little story that happened when I was in a religion class at BYU.

shawn (25:45.73)
Hehehehehe

Sam (25:45.882)
I know. I know. I know.

Sam (25:52.506)
Ooh, those are gross. Those are gross. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam (26:08.57)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (26:08.793)
I'm not going to out the professor, but I will say he wrote a book, a Deseret book that everybody quoted for at least 10 years of like, he's the most spiritual guy. So I'm, no, no. So I'm taking, I'm in this guy's religion class thinking he's the spiritual giant. And we get to this part of the new Testament where it talks about it's okay to eat meat that's been sacrificed to idols. Don't worry about that. Cause that's just paganism and just don't offend people. And so then he says,

Sam (26:18.714)
Tim Ballard, who is this? No. Okay. Nevermind.

Matt (26:35.353)
So is it okay if you're at a business meeting and everybody's drinking alcohol for you to just drink alcohol? And we're all like, no. And he's like, wrong. It is okay. That was the message I learned from this spiritual giant at BYU.

Sam (26:43.642)
Oh! Really?

Sam (26:48.57)
What? So what would your answer be, Matt? I mean, I would think that that is pretty clear. In fact, you know, we've, I think as a culture, we've sort of worn it as a badge of honor that we don't do those things. So we stand in those places, say, Hey, this is what separates us. And we find kind of a uniqueness. We find a value in the fact that we abstain, you know, most members of the church would walk back from that meeting and talk about, Hey, I was great because I didn't do that. I, I think I shared with you guys off air.

Matt (27:08.473)
Yeah.

Sam (27:16.121)
last week, a story that I shared with my kids. And I'm like, look, I was on a YouTube show recently called Dealers in Cars Getting Coffee. And the show, like Seinfeld, ends in a coffee shop in Chicago. And this guy owns a winery in Northern California, super cool dude. And he and I are sitting in a coffee shop. And, and I went up and you order and I'm sitting there, you know,

Matt (27:25.689)
Oh!

Sam (27:43.322)
It wasn't a huge decision because it's like, Hey, I'm, you know, I, that it was a decision that had been previously made, but I saw everything that was on the menu. I ordered a big pink lemonade and a big pink glass. And, and as I did it, he turned to his camera guy and he says, I knew it. And he didn't say anything else. He didn't go there. He didn't ask me anything about religion, but I, he sat there with his cup of coffee and I felt ridiculous, honestly, sitting there with my big glass of pink lemonade.

Matt (28:11.353)
Yeah.

Sam (28:11.354)
And unlike the anecdote in this story, I honestly sort of felt like being seen for not drinking coffee was equally as important as not having drank the coffee. Like to me, to me, it might be, but like, does that, does that prevent us from connecting with people in other cultures? So this gentleman, this business leader, valued obeying the word of wisdom more than being seen obeying the word of wisdom, which

shawn (28:11.362)
Hehehehe

shawn (28:20.546)
I like that.

Matt (28:21.657)
So, it's situational though, don't you think?

Sam (28:39.322)
I sort of think may be a higher ethic, right? Like, like, he, he gave the, the motion as if he did, but he still kept his commitment internally to himself. Many of us want to be seen as being, as living that. Like, I would be bothered if I was on this YouTube show and my kids saw me perceiving to drink coffee, right? And that is a bigger deal to me than whether I would have actually drank the coffee or not, right?

Matt (28:42.137)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (29:05.465)
Do you know what's opening up in Rexburg sometime in the next month? Yeah, Starbucks is opening up in Rexburg. Yeah, and there's another coffee shop that opened up a little while ago.

Sam (29:08.474)
Starbucks. Of course it is. Of course it is.

shawn (29:10.754)
Oh wow.

Sam (29:14.778)
guess what's at the gates of BYU? Like I think there's a cultural move towards coffee. Yeah, Starbucks. Absolutely. Yeah.

shawn (29:18.818)
This is breaking news.

Matt (29:20.857)
Starbucks. Yeah.

shawn (29:22.882)
Like I think if you look, if you're both looking for guidance on this, all you need to do, it's real simple. There's a hymn, there's a hymn that clarifies it all. No, no, no, no, no, no, I'll read the lyrics to you. Not at all, listen, listen, you'll recognize this. That's it, Matt, that the children may live long and be beautiful and strong, tea and coffee and tobacco they despise. Drink no liquor and they eat but a very little meat.

Sam (29:27.77)
Okay. Oh, choose the right. Oh, consider the lilies of the field. Oh.

Matt (29:36.121)
HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM HMM

Matt (29:51.609)
But it's not true. None of that is true. Right? No, no, no. I do like the hymn. I think that it's a great hymn. But at the same time, I'm just... So this is what I will say about, will the church change its position on green tea? I think that revelation comes through people asking questions. And I think that as the church becomes a more global church and you get leaders from different areas around the church, because this last general conference we had,

shawn (29:52.867)
Matt, would you sing that song for us? This is that lyric.

shawn (30:01.378)
You do?

Matt (30:20.249)
three new people in the quorum of the 70, just from Africa, as you get more global leadership, you get more people asking the question, like, is it really better that we have tea as part of the word of wisdom questions for baptism and not Dr. Pepper or Diet Coke or something like that? And as, well, and I think as church leaders ask that question, then revelation comes. So I would never be able to predict like what changes might come.

Sam (30:38.138)
Five hour energy or something like that, right? Yeah.

shawn (30:40.418)
Hehehehehe

Matt (30:47.929)
As we all know, my predictions are often wrong.

shawn (30:49.14)
But you also see in Scripture oftentimes where God is saying, look, I'm not going to command you in all things. I'm going to give you guidance and I'm going to help you give you principles that help govern, but sometimes make your tensions.

Sam (30:50.202)
They are terribly wrong. Yeah.

Sam (31:02.074)
Like in the temple recommended questions where they say rely on the spirit to decide how you're going to handle that. What I just finished. I brought in the sledgehammer at the very end. You're just pandering to him because he agreed to change the name of the show. If this is the way it's going from here, I'm out shot. Matt, this is untenable. Thank you. You did. That is true.

shawn (31:06.69)
Heheheheh

Matt (31:08.185)
I'm giving points to Sean because Sean... No, no, Sean said... I know.

shawn (31:11.618)
I didn't even say anything.

shawn (31:20.226)
hahahaha

Matt (31:20.441)
Okay, I'm giving half to Sean, half to Sam, because I had nothing valuable to contribute to that conversation.

shawn (31:27.97)
I think Sam, no, I say Sam, I did like Sam. I think points to Sam, Sam, your point where I agree with you, like in any situation where I can kind of call out my beliefs and cause a conversation. That's a great situation. Let's use tea and coffee to do that. I like that.

Sam (31:38.874)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But does that sub so the fascinating part to me is, and I've been in a lot of social settings and I continually and constantly have this debate. Do some of our differences in cultural beliefs divide us and allow us to not connect with other people because we're perceived as because we won't drink coffee because we won't drink this or that it divides us. Yeah.

shawn (32:00.482)
I think it depends on personality. Sam, you have an incredible, outgoing, likable personality. Everyone likes you. So I think any...

Sam (32:09.85)
So you see me with a pink lemonade and the other dude has a coffee. It's like, I love lemonade. I actually, at the end of the episode, Matt had to, they, they, they rate the coffee. So the dude rated the coffee and I rated the pink lemonade. I had spent 30 minutes talking about how important exercise and working out every day and being healthy is. And then I rated a sugar laden pink lemonade. Like consider the irony that lemonade I had in front of me was probably 10 times worse in terms of health than the cup of coffee.

shawn (32:15.01)
You

shawn (32:20.162)
See? What a great opportunity there.

shawn (32:29.89)
Yeah.

Matt (32:30.233)
Hahaha!

Matt (32:34.329)
Yeah.

Well why not get water Sam? Why not get some water and put... Uhhh...

Sam (32:40.282)
I, you know, I panicked at the last minute. Like I didn't know, I, I, I had no idea what was going to be on the menu. I was super nice with the, the, the little coffee shop owner, you know, culturally in other areas, you know, in the mid, like coffee is a cultural part of someone's day. They wake up to it. They break bread over it. They have deep conversations around it. And you walk into this place, there's a little dog running around. There were 10 people in the shop. Everybody was looking at me and the camera crew in the sky. They're like,

shawn (32:42.594)
Yeah.

Matt (32:46.969)
Uhhh...

Matt (32:56.537)
Yeah.

shawn (33:00.034)
Yeah, but what a great

Matt (33:00.889)
Yeah.

Sam (33:08.634)
Who's this guy in a suit? Like they thought I was a rock star or something. And I ordered a pink lemonade. And then I rated a seven out of 10.

shawn (33:10.562)
Yeah

Matt (33:14.617)
Well, whenever. Whenever I'm out for coffee, my go to beverage is herbal tea because they seemed under there's plenty of just tea drinkers that don't drink coffee. And so if I go for an herbal tea, that seems to culturally work when there's an open bar and I don't do the alcohol. I'm like the most popular guy in the room because I'll give them. Yeah, yeah, like because I'm the designated driver and like people don't care that they're getting plastered and I'm not.

shawn (33:16.002)
Hehehehehe

Sam (33:26.874)
Yeah, yeah.

shawn (33:30.914)
met you.

Sam (33:35.674)
I do a diet coke. Yeah.

Sam (33:42.426)
Right. I'm with you on that.

Matt (33:43.865)
So I've never had a problem with that. I've never sat in the crack house and said, I don't want any of this crack. So that one I'm not as familiar with like what it would be. Yeah. All right, Sean.

Sam (33:49.338)
Yeah.

shawn (33:51.97)
Points to Sam, that was good, Sam. I like your answer. Stand out, stand out. Be a peculiar, weird person and have to answer for it and let everyone know. No, I love it, I love it.

Sam (33:52.762)
Yeah. Yup. All right.

an interesting little sideshow.

Matt (33:57.369)
All right, Sean.

Matt (34:01.657)
Hey, next time just text me, I'll tell you. Herbal tea, Sam, herbal tea.

Sam (34:01.786)
I did. I was.

Sam (34:06.394)
I don't like herbal tea though. That's the problem. It's not, it's disgusting. It's like, it's like drinking. It's like drinking a dandelion. I mean, it's like,

shawn (34:07.33)
Hahaha.

Matt (34:09.177)
Well, nobody does. Well, you like pink lemonade? You love that?

Matt (34:15.449)
This is why I drink postum. I've started drinking postum every morning. I love it so much. It's weird. I can't explain it, Sam.

shawn (34:18.178)
Yes, I love Post -Em. Post -Em is so awesome.

Sam (34:19.642)
Wait, post them? Well, what's the difference between that being seen drinking coffee? So, so with you, it's, it's not as big a deal for you to be seen not drinking coffee. It's just for you to personally not drink it. But you do see that there is a difference, right? Some people want to be seen not violating the word of wisdom. Others truly don't want to violate it.

shawn (34:25.666)
There's no caffeine in it.

Matt (34:31.769)
Yeah, I don't care.

shawn (34:32.738)
Who cares? Yeah, who cares?

Matt (34:34.681)
Yeah, I just

shawn (34:39.17)
Yeah.

Like Pharisees and Sadducees. Oh.

Matt (34:45.881)
Yeah. On this other podcast I do, I interviewed the owner of Postom and I threw out, I pitched to her my idea of the Dutch Brethren, where you have a beverage called the baptismal interview and it's just Postom with a whole bunch of caffeine in it. I was like, what do you think about that? And she is just sort of silent for a second. And I was like, do you think that would be blasphemous? And she's like, yes, yes, that's blasphemous. That's a horrible idea. So.

Sam (34:50.234)
Mmm.

shawn (34:51.01)
love it.

shawn (34:57.378)
Hehehe

shawn (35:10.466)
She doesn't get your humor, Matt. She doesn't get you yet. You gotta be careful with the way you drop jokes. It's a great joke.

Matt (35:15.353)
Dutch brethren will never happen.

Sam (35:17.498)
Well, the, the, the problem is, is the, the, the breweries have already latched onto that. So they have like polygamy Porter as a, as a beer, right? Like there are, there are ironically named Utah craft beers that are incredibly popular in this state. In fact, Utah has a pretty healthy and robust craft beer industry, maybe more so than some States. Right. Right.

Matt (35:25.305)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (35:32.185)
Yeah, that's

Matt (35:37.337)
That's the problem with my idea for Dutch Brethren. That's what it is. Alright Sean, you're up.

shawn (35:41.186)
All right, so I picked this topic because it'll trigger them out a little bit. So I was reading in the NPR had a whistle. Did you read about the NPR whistleblower? There's a guy, this one isn't.

Matt (35:54.201)
Sean, this is not a whistleblower. This guy is a business editor for NPR. Yeah. Well, that's because that's, I just want to be accurate. A whistleblower is somebody who's in a company and says there's something illegal going on and then they follow the whistleblower law so that they can turn their company in for something illegal and not face like political ramifications for it. So this.

shawn (35:59.234)
I knew you were gonna respond that way, that is so funny. That is so funny.

shawn (36:18.146)
New York Times calls him a whistleblower. The MPI, the MPR leadership responded to this as whistleblowing. Hang on, that's not my question though. The question is different. But as I read that, I was like, interesting, right? He was basically saying, look, MPR has become untrusted by people because on the staff, 87 employees, they're all Democrats and none of them are Republican. And that's becoming reflected in the content that gets created. But I was gonna talk about that, but instead there's a...

Matt (36:23.161)
When, when?

Yeah, yeah.

Matt (36:46.233)
You just did talk about that.

shawn (36:48.002)
There's a journalist named Michael Knowles and he belongs to an organization that Matt on principle won't listen to, The Daily Wire. Right, Matt?

Matt (36:57.497)
I've honestly, I've never heard of the daily wire. I have no idea what it is.

shawn (37:01.57)
Ben Shapiro's company.

Sam (37:01.818)
The daily wire or the daily wired? Because I drink enough caffeine to know the daily wired, but not wire. No? All right. Sorry.

shawn (37:07.97)
What the heck?

Matt (37:09.882)
Wait a minute, you lead with NPR has an ideological bias and then go to Ben Shapiro? Okay, all right. Oh, okay. So wait, the Daily Wire is Ben Shapiro's website?

shawn (37:13.346)
Hehehe

Yeah, yeah, because I want you to be triggered. OK, so Michael Knowles is a host for The Daily Wire.

shawn (37:26.274)
It's his company, his media company. Yeah. And Michael Knowles works for him. He's a host and has his own show. Michael Knowles. So he, I mean, he's a fascinating guy, pretty intelligent. So anyway, he posted, he did a talk, he did like a convention or I don't know, he was invited to speak at the University of Utah this past week. And he was interviewed by BYU News.

Matt (37:27.961)
Okay, got it, alright.

Matt (37:32.235)
Okay.

Matt (37:48.185)
I don't believe it, Sean. I don't believe it. Because I know that conservative people aren't allowed on those liberal campuses. So there's no way, no way that this is true, true story.

shawn (37:56.066)
Oh, they were pro to he was protested. Yeah, he was protested for sure. Yeah, he was protested for sure. But so anyway, so BYU news or some BYU thing. He did an interview with them. And in that interview, they talked about church, they talked about his Catholicism, and they talked about the proclamation on the family and then asked and they gave him an inscripted Book of Mormon with his name on it in leather. Anyway, so later on, he went on to Twitter, his account on X, and he posted.

Matt (38:02.169)
Oh, okay.

shawn (38:24.13)
Literally, I copy pasted a screenshot of the proclamation of the family and it got like 600 ,000 views.

Matt (38:31.769)
Well on X, right? So those are probably fake views. They were like Elon Musk's bots just couldn't stop looking at the proclamation.

shawn (38:38.786)
Oh, conspiracy theory, oh, dang. Matt's a conspiracy theorist. All right, so.

Sam (38:40.698)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (38:45.529)
You seriously believe that little number on Twitter, that that's an accurate reflection of people viewing that? Really?

Sam (38:51.93)
I do. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

shawn (38:52.098)
Or do you really want to, Hey, Matt, if you, Hey, I'm, if you're going to bring up this topic, you got to make it your own topic. Cause that's it. That's a whole different topic.

Matt (38:59.001)
Well, you're the one that implied that that was a legitimate number.

shawn (39:06.914)
Yeah. So, okay. Let's, so, so 600 ,000 views. What is it, Matt? What's the real number since you know so much? What is it? How many really good, go ahead, go ahead.

Matt (39:14.649)
Well, so Mr. Beast, when he posted, when Mr. Beast took his stuff and put it on Twitter, he said that 25 % of them are bots. I mean, he had a whole post about it, a whole thread where he went through and kind of figured that stuff out.

shawn (39:19.522)
Well, how did you know that?

Sam (39:26.842)
Actually, if that's what Mr. Beast figured out, I'm going to, as a nod to my son, Nate, I'm going to believe Mr. Beast. So Sean, I'm going to disregard everything you're saying now, but say it anyway, and just we'll marginalize it more as we go.

shawn (39:28.258)
And what was the evidence?

shawn (39:34.05)
Okay, all right. All right, 600 ,000 views. And he said, I'm no expert on LDS theology, but as far as politics goes, I agree with every single political prescription in this document. So my question is simple.

Matt (39:34.457)
Yeah.

Matt (39:40.505)
Yeah.

Matt (39:51.833)
Which, which by the way, Sean, there were zero political prescriptions in the document. So this is another way of saying I don't agree with the document at all.

shawn (40:01.154)
That's not what he was saying. He says he agrees with the principles in the document without saying, I get, he talked about it. He's a diehard Catholic. He was being careful not to endorse the religion. He was trying to say, I agree with everything in this document 100 % without saying that I'm not Catholic.

Matt (40:04.569)
He didn't say that. You just said political prescription.

Matt (40:15.033)
Mm -hmm.

Sam (40:16.538)
So for those that don't know the document, just very briefly, would you summarize what the political prescriptions are in the document?

shawn (40:27.906)
Matt says there are none, so I guess there aren't any.

Matt (40:30.585)
There are none in the proclamation to the world on the family. There are no political prescriptions, none. It says we call upon nations to like promote the family or something like that, but that's about.

Sam (40:36.986)
Well, wait, Sean, just give them to us. Give them to us.

shawn (40:37.25)
Well, that's, eh, go ahead.

shawn (40:43.938)
It's of course, it is a political issue when we're talking about gender. And I mean, that's probably the highest, that's probably the most political issue of our day.

Matt (40:48.409)
Oh whoa, he's calling that political?

Matt (40:53.273)
Oh my. He's saying that the language in the proclamation on the family about gender is political?

shawn (41:00.386)
I'm not saying he gave that clarity, but you're asking what is political in the proclamation of the family. The idea that gender meaning biological sex is male and female is probably the most political topic of our day. Is it not? Is it not Matt? Oh, really? Okay, sorry. It's, it's top 10. It's top 10. How about that?

Matt (41:05.785)
Yes.

Matt (41:14.297)
Okay, I do not think that's true, no. No, I think abortion is number one right now. Abortion and then immigration. So are you talking about transgender issues or just the definition of gender?

shawn (41:30.082)
LGTBQ plus transgender gender in general has been a topic for the last five years and has been a very political, political topic. Yeah.

Matt (41:37.945)
I think same sex marriage kind of ended in 2013 and then yeah.

shawn (41:40.994)
It's still being hotly debated though. It's your topic. It's your topic later on today. You're bringing up that topic.

Matt (41:48.249)
I know, I know, I've never thought of the proclamation to the world as a political document. That's all I'm saying. So that's why I was like, wait a minute, if he's saying he agrees with the politics in that proclamation.

shawn (41:56.898)
Well, if you knew what his political ideas are, family is central to him. He says that structure, the structure of the family of, or the structure of family is the most important political entity as a societal group. So of course he's going to focus on that.

Matt (42:10.649)
Got it. So he's endorsing the traditional view of family. That's okay. Got it. Now I get it. I'm sorry, Sean. I'm Paul. I am. I'm just a political scientist. And so I like these words all have a lot of meaning to me. So I was confused. I was genuinely confused.

shawn (42:18.53)
Are you? Are you sorry? Okay.

Okay. Okay. So my question is this. Why did president Hinckley publish this document in 1995? That's question one. Question two, why don't, why do we think it hasn't been canonized? But that's the question. Why do you, well, give me the first one first. Why did president Hinckley publish this as a kind of official, it's not scriptural, but it's an official proclamation and the whole, the 12 apostles signed it. Why did he do that?

Matt (42:39.705)
Oh, I have an answer to that one.

Matt (42:48.793)
a proclamation.

Matt (42:53.817)
Well, there have been a total of how many proclamations, Sean? I'm on the church's website now. How many proclamations? Six proclamations. And then this is what the church says about the proclamations. Well, because this one's about the proclamation on the restoration of the gospel that President Nelson did in 2020. A proclamation is different from an official declaration, a doctrinal exposition, or statements on policies.

shawn (42:59.778)
Thank you.

shawn (43:12.13)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Matt (43:21.113)
Some of these come from only the first presidency, some just from the quorum of the 12, and some from both the presidency and the quorum. So it's saying here on the church's website that a proclamation is not an official declaration, it's not a doctrinal exposition, and it's not a statement on policy. So, well, it does say that declarations are doctrine.

shawn (43:37.858)
say what it is, it's saying what it's not, but is it saying what it is?

shawn (43:50.178)
Proclamations or declarations?

Matt (43:51.609)
Declarations. So the official declaration one is the 1890 manifesto, which is doctrine. Official declaration two is the revelation on the priesthood, which is canonized doctrine. And then there's other ones. There's the 1847 general epistle from Brigham Young. It gives a number of examples here, but proclamations are not declarations of doctrine. So that's why it hasn't been canonized, because it's not doctrine.

shawn (44:16.258)
that's interesting. That was a roundabout way for you to get to that. Okay, well, well, but I'm also reading in a, in a, in a newsroom, like the proclamation is a declaration and reaffirmation of doctrines and practices. I just read that on the church's website as well.

Matt (44:19.161)
That's what it says.

Matt (44:33.113)
Well why would they have different language on their... this is the same as last week. You go to different pages on the website and they say the exact opposite.

shawn (44:36.578)
Because it's just a website.

Okay, but I'm asking your opinion. Amen. Amen.

Sam (44:40.858)
We need to get ahold of the people that put the website together and ask them to be a little more consistent. I mean, if the church is going to have a website in addition to scripture, they need to at least have some dots connected.

Matt (44:43.001)
You

Matt (44:50.425)
It says here, the proclamation was read at the General Relief Society meeting with the proclamation's purpose to warn and forewarn the world and offering an official church statement on family, marriage, gender roles, and human sexuality. So it's just a statement.

shawn (44:52.194)
You nailed it Sam, I agree.

shawn (45:07.458)
Right, but Matt, hang on, this is, yeah, yeah, but I'm asking both of your opinions, but I'm just gonna, just to clarify, the proclamation on the family on the church's website says, in 95, the presidency in the corner of the 12 issued the family proclamation of the world. This proclamation is a declaration and a reaffirmation of doctrines and practices that prophets have stated repeatedly throughout the history of the church. My question is this to you, why did he do it? Why do you think they did it? In 1995,

Matt (45:27.353)
That's so funny.

Matt (45:33.081)
I answered that, to warn and forewarn. To warn and forewarn the world. That's why. It says to warn and forewarn the world. It didn't say why. To warn and fore... How in the world would I, in 1995, I was a missionary in Ukraine. I have no idea why he did that. Oh.

shawn (45:38.466)
Of what? About what?

shawn (45:44.354)
You're not giving your opinion. You're reading something online and trying to be...

shawn (45:53.218)
Well that's your more honest answer. Sam, what do you think you did it?

Sam (45:56.986)
Well, I'm trying to figure out why Matt's refusing to be baited into it. Like this is already something that's, this is a conversation that's already been had. Like this was a long time ago. So the church needed a way to get into the political, needed to get into the political conversation on same -sex marriage. And this was their answer to it. So that's the, that's the honest answer.

Matt (46:04.505)
Wait.

shawn (46:06.562)
Yeah, I'm interested in both of your opinions on it.

shawn (46:15.522)
Matt, at least Sam has an honest answer. I mean, I'd agree with it, but it's an honest answer. Where's your answer?

Matt (46:19.609)
My honest answer is I have no idea why. So I asked to look at the church and it was to warn and forewarn. To me, in my...

shawn (46:25.026)
Yeah, but we're not, Matt, on our podcast here, there's no, we're not allowed to say, oh, I don't know. You have to have an answer.

Sam (46:29.37)
This all has already been talked about though.

Matt (46:29.625)
But I don't know. In 1995, I remember like this happening in general conference in 1995. And I remember thinking to myself, there is nothing interesting in this proclamation. And then I remember, because it was on the daily wire, Sam.

shawn (46:40.066)
Yeah, everyone replied that way. Everyone did.

Sam (46:42.362)
Sean, why are you asking about this right now?

shawn (46:47.202)
has been posted and 600 ,000 people saw it and are going, oh, what is this?

Sam (46:47.788)
Got it. Okay.

Matt (46:50.649)
Allegedly. Yeah, so we're here to let them know.

shawn (46:54.114)
It's a current event within the LDS experience slash real Mormonism, Sam.

Matt (46:59.033)
And by the way, when I got home from my mission, I was at BYU and Neil L Anderson was in the quorum of the 70 at the time, but he did one of these like CES firesides. And he said in that talk, president Hinckley wishes that the church would put more emphasis and talk more about the proclamation to the world on the family. So that would be like 1997, 1998. They felt like nobody was really paying attention to the document at the time because I think people just didn't care at the time. They're like, whatever.

Sam (47:01.946)
That's fair.

shawn (47:27.298)
Well, it wasn't well partially because the content wasn't relevant in 1995, but the content is definitely relevant in 2024. So, I mean, a lot often people refer to, well, they are prophets, seers and revelators. And they knew that this thing needed to have, they needed to have, give clarity on this for future political situations. It gives clarity on gender.

Sam (47:42.874)
In what way is it relevant to you today?

Matt (47:48.569)
Wanna know a really funny anecdote about this? There's a class that they teach on this to young people. It's required at our college for them to take this class. And they do a pre -test in the class and they ask them doctrines from the Proclamation to the World on the Family and they say, how much do you agree with these various doctrines? And then they take this class where some professor tells them about all of these doctrines and tells them, it helps them, they take exams on what it means and all that stuff.

And then at the end of the semester, they have a post -test and they say, how much do you agree? How much do you agree with all these doc? Yes, they do.

Sam (48:19.45)
Oh, that's interesting. Does their opinions change? Does it move? Does it move their, uh, does it move their view on, on same sex marriage and whatnot? Oh, really?

Matt (48:26.841)
in the opposite direction, in the opposite direction. That's right. When they learn what people of our generation are telling them the document means, young people believe the doctrines less than they do when you just ask them ahead of time. So I think that this proclamation, along with all of the proclamations, they're for people to read and ponder and study and...

Sam (48:41.626)
Guess what? Good for them.

shawn (48:44.386)
Hahaha!

Matt (48:53.881)
to the extent that something's relevant in their life, the Holy Ghost will guide them. But I think that when people take it and turn it into politics or turn it into policy or turn it into this is the way you ought to think about these issues, people reject that a little bit because they say, I don't read that document the same way that you do. And I don't think it means what you think it means. And it kind of moves, it hurts their faith sometimes in the doctrines rather than developing more faith in the doctrine.

shawn (49:18.69)
How would, so how would it, let's say tomorrow they come out and say, hey, we've been instructed of the Lord to make this, to canonize this. Would you say the same response would come from people or would that move completely change that habit that you just described?

Matt (49:34.105)
In order for it to become canonized, what you described isn't a process of canonization, Sean. To canonize it, yeah, it would have to, no, I'm not, it would have to be ratified by the members of the church at general conference.

shawn (49:35.938)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

shawn (49:42.082)
No, if, no, no, no, okay, fine. They go through the process. Now you're straw manning it, straw manning it. Fine, don't, that's a straw man, fine. It gets ratified by the members of the Church of General Conference, it becomes scripture. Now tell me if people's reactions, you claim people's reacting to this, would it happen in the same way? Or do you think people at that point would be like, oh, well, this is doctrine. I'm not gonna question this.

Matt (50:02.457)
It'll be.

Matt (50:08.825)
Sean, I think that when a person reads the Proclamation to the World on the Family, that they can have a faith -building experience as the Lord guides them how to interpret and understand the document. But I think that if you have a class on it where you're telling people how to interpret it, then it can have the opposite effect. That's what I'm saying.

shawn (50:25.474)
Okay, that's fine, but what I'm asking you is part of that happens because it's not scriptural doctrine. It is a proclamation. But if it became scripture, would the effect be differently, right? You can't tell me that some professor would, they teach it one way now, but if it was doctrine and scripture, they would teach it differently. It would be treated much differently.

Matt (50:44.953)
No, they wouldn't. They would teach it exactly the same way as they teach it now. What I'm saying, Sean, is where somebody looks at that and says, that's a political document. When you start to introduce politics into theology, then it turns people away. It doesn't build faith, right? You build faith by teaching pure doctrine. When you take... Yes, they do that in those classes. Yeah. Because how else are you going to spend a whole semester talking about a one -page document?

shawn (50:48.45)
Oh, all right.

shawn (51:01.058)
But the church doesn't do that or BLU doesn't do that. Michael Knowles did that. Oh, they did. You're saying they do that. Oh, you're saying they do that. Gotcha.

Matt (51:12.217)
without going into all kinds of detail of how to apply that in your life. Yeah, so, yeah. Okay, Sam, do I get the points on that one?

shawn (51:16.098)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Sam (51:18.97)
Fascinating.

shawn (51:20.162)
Alright.

Sam (51:22.33)
You know, I'll give you the points if you can actually share that research with me. Seriously, is that published somewhere?

shawn (51:25.858)
HAHAHAHA

Matt (51:26.169)
It's definitely published in internal information, but I think they call it proprietary. They don't like to share that very widely.

Sam (51:33.114)
Hahaha!

shawn (51:37.346)
That's, I think it is called proprietor or it's called hearsay.

Matt (51:41.561)
No, it's not hearsay. Come on. This is not hearsay. Yeah.

Sam (51:42.522)
No, I believe that's, I believe that's real. I think, I think that's fascinating though. I think that's, that's fascinating. That's in fight insightful. And I think what you say is, I think, I think there is something to personal revelation and inspiration that helps guide people in the correct direction and where force and trying to make things too black and white pushes people in the opposite direction. So you get, you get the points for that, Matt, Matt, Matt.

shawn (52:05.058)
But are you saying that, but are you saying, sorry, that's interesting, Sam, I have to follow up.

Sam (52:09.306)
Matt spun it back in a, in a, in a very helpful direction in the way he, he tied a bow on it. Cause you could actually in the wrong hands, that research could actually, uh, uh, tear on any other podcast, that research would be a different topic and it would be a topic in and of itself. But on that note.

shawn (52:15.746)
We're -

shawn (52:26.338)
But you're really, you're, hang on, hang on, you really back in Sam, now I'm really fascinated with what you just said, like super fascinated. You're saying that if doctrine is too black and, if doctrine is too black and white, that's problematic in that people will take polarized stances on it? Like you feel like doctrine is better listed as kind of open -ended?

Sam (52:30.81)
Oh, all right. Oh, I'm like, I'm fascinated.

Sam (52:42.874)
So Sean, I feel like I've learned my entire life that anytime somebody comes in and tries to give you all the reasons that things are the way they are, it pushes you away from truth rather than into truth. That when you get to ask your own questions and you get a research and you get to meditate, you get to pray and develop a relationship on your own, that pulls you into it. And when people explain too much,

shawn (52:59.49)
What?

shawn (53:04.834)
Oh, oh, oh, oh, gotcha.

Sam (53:12.57)
it actually pushes people out of the church, because they end up making up reasons. They end up making up, hey, the reason missionaries can't communicate with their kids while they're on a mission for two years is because they want, they want it, the church actually got, the Lord wants to teach kids to be independent and rely on the Spirit. And connection with family during that two -year period would just tear that apart because they just want to be home until.

shawn (53:24.802)
Hahaha.

Sam (53:40.57)
The rev until it became OK to have weekly phone calls and then it on a dime turn to we can be a part of the experience and it can be enriching.

shawn (53:42.306)
That was your...

shawn (53:48.834)
That was your personal experience how you first preached that almost. Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

Sam (53:52.218)
That's my personal experience on that one thing, but I think that actually relays and translates into all sorts of other meanings in the church. So we have to be careful as members of the church when we think about real Mormonism to not try to tell people too much about how they should be believing, but to rather allow people to come after truth.

shawn (54:00.482)
So you, so you.

shawn (54:11.266)
So you like doctrine to be a little more open -ended and not so specific so that people have the ability to pray and interpret.

Sam (54:17.082)
I don't want Sean standing in front of me and telling me why everything is the way it is. I need to be able to come to that myself.

shawn (54:23.458)
Me neither. No, me neither, but that's not what's happened. But we're talking about a document that the prophet and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles put out there. We're not talking about Shawn standing up and preaching.

Matt (54:24.569)
And by the way...

Sam (54:31.482)
Yeah, but the point, the point, the point, the point Matt's making is that document is there. People can read it. They can understand it and interpret it with their, with the context of their own life experience and where they are and what they need. They can pray about it and think about it. I don't think it is black and white. Pete, Pete, people, people outside the church would look at that document and say, elder Oaks created it as a way to defend the church's tax status. And they'd be super negative about.

Matt (54:31.545)
Yeah, but -

shawn (54:44.002)
Oh, you're saying it's not black and white. Oh, okay. That's what I thought you were saying, that it was black and white. Oh, okay, gotcha.

Matt (54:47.193)
No, it's not black and white.

Sam (55:00.282)
the way it came about and what it means in the world. People who are faithful members would see it as inspired because it defends family and our role as members of a family. And it's up for the individual to interpret that. And I love the research Matt is talking about because Matt's saying, hey, they got a bunch of kids who are brains of mush into a room. And they tried to tell them the meaning of every word in that document.

shawn (55:15.202)
Wicked, that's smart.

Matt (55:23.673)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (55:26.946)
I got it. Okay, perfect. I like your phone. Okay.

Sam (55:27.29)
And those kids pushed back on that and it actually made them less faithful and less believing in the concepts there where if the kids brought their own life experience and read it, they might've found a richness in meaning on their own. Yeah. You're welcome.

shawn (55:38.178)
and prayed and sought the Spirit and yeah. Gotcha. Thanks for the clarity. Thank you. Good. Okay.

Matt (55:42.809)
which is why I'm totally in favor of people talking about the proclamation to the world on the family and having honest discussions about it. And Sean, we've talked about this offline. There's a number of things in there that you and I read the exact same sentence and we think it means something very different than there's a lot of stuff in there that people will tell you this is what it means. And I say, read it closer. That's not what it says. And they'll say, but that's what it means. And I say, this is why people have personal revelation, right? The...

shawn (55:56.962)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam (56:08.538)
But a challenge for us in the church, a lot of times, especially when we live in a highly concentrated geographic area, is we want to lay our own interpretation of the gospel over on everybody else and hold them to account to that explanation. And then if you get into a leadership position, all of a sudden, sometimes you want to double down on that. And that's a danger. And as a parent, that's tough not to do. As a leader, that's tough not to do. But maybe that's part of our challenge in the gospel.

shawn (56:08.61)
Yeah, right.

Matt (56:21.977)
Right.

Sam (56:37.722)
to, in our world today is allowing others to experience the richness of the gospel in their own terms and not try to put my interpretation onto anybody. And for that, I should get all the points, all the points. Yeah, I get them back. I'm getting them back.

shawn (56:47.298)
Well said, I love it.

Matt (56:48.153)
Well, now I feel like I should give Sam the points, but you, you gave them to me, Sam, you gave them to me at first and now you're taking them back. Well, I had, I had two other topics today, but we've run out of time and so we're not going to discuss them this week. Listener, I am so sorry for you that you have to, that we, that we have to end this week with Sam's beautiful exposition, but that's okay. Tune in again next week. We'll talk about those topics next week. We hope you've enjoyed.

shawn (56:50.594)
Yeah, Sam gets the points. Sam points to Sam.

Sam (57:02.49)
I love it.

shawn (57:04.45)
Oh man, these are good topics, man.

Sam (57:11.13)
Mmm.

Matt (57:16.889)
the Real Mormonism podcast. Now listen, your feed might look a little different next week. It might say Real Mormonism, but the logo's gonna be the same for a little while. We're gonna slowly transition you to the new Real Mormonism podcast. So if the name's different, don't let it shock you. Okay, look for us in your, what is this called? It's not a store. What is it where you get a podcast?

Sam (57:37.754)
Apple podcast library. So it's on Apple, Spotify, Google, everywhere the podcast is available. Yes.

Matt (57:41.817)
It's everywhere where you get your podcast.

Look for us anywhere you get your podcasts. Talk to you again next week.