Here is a more than a top 10 list of things I didn't have time to ask Dr Matt Harris about and his amazing book, "2nd Class Saints." I'll also announce the contest winner! Check out our conversation...

https://youtube.com/live/ehbp13IT_sQ

Don’t miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/

Copyright © 2024

Gospel Tangents

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Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.

 

GT  00:00  It says we are live, so I know I'm 15 minutes late. I apologize for that. Of course, my computer doesn't want to connect to the internet, and then it has to do updates, and so I apologize. But welcome to everybody who's here, and if you're watching this later, welcome to you too as well. So go ahead and tell me. We're live streaming currently on YouTube, Facebook and hopefully LinkedIn. So go ahead and add a comment who you are and where you live. Do you see this nice little gold thing I have here? It turns and you can see that those have contest entries. Maybe I should turn it so you guys can see. I got a new cool thing here. I don't know what you call this, but I can spin it around. Anyway, it's in my way right now, so we will be adding that shortly. So, go ahead and tell me who you are and where you're from, and that would be awesome.

GT  01:07  I also want to just say, for the live viewers here, if you have any questions about Matt's amazing book, which is behind me right there, is that the one I'm giving away. Actually, I think this is the one I'm going to give away. I've got mine over here, and I have some notes. Anyway, we'll be giving away this shortly. I'm going to show you my notes here really quickly. I've got two pages of notes. I decided to put together a PowerPoint this time because--oh, and by the way, please let me know if I have good audio or bad audio, because my meter says it's good. But last time, it was my camera, and it was crappy audio. So, if the audio sounds good, let me know. I don't have my monitor, and I was already late, so I didn’t want to hook that up.

GT  02:06  Anyway, this is the stuff I didn't get to talk to Matt about in the interview. Some of that stuff, I do want to mention that we have talked about previously. So finally, I decided I should be a little bit organized and put together a PowerPoint to talk about a few things. I want you guys to know as I pull up my PowerPoint here, I'll share it in just a minute. Hopefully it's not going to be too hard to find. I just set it up on a different computer. But feel free to ask me any questions you might have about the book, any questions you'd like to ask. I will do my best to answer them, because I've talked to Matt a lot about this on camera, off camera.

GT  02:59   I do want to share some of my older episodes with you guys, especially if you're newer listeners, and you weren't here, I think it was six years ago. I can't remember when we first talked. I like to joke. I think it's kind of true, though, that I discovered Matt. At least I was the first podcaster to discover Matt. So, we've been talking about some of this stuff--at the end of the interview, we talked about Monroe Fleming, I remember--and you probably heard me say that when he talked about Monroe Fleming being almost ordained in 1969, my jaw about hit the floor. I think I've got my slide show. It's very short, but it'll kind of keep us on task here. I'm going to share that in just a moment. Please post your comments, questions. I'd love to hear them. I can't see the comments when I'm on the slideshow, but I will try to answer them. So, it ended up, it's kind of a top 10 list, because I had 10 items before I ran out of time. Actually, I had more than 10. But I wanted to share some things from the book that I just thought were amazing. Let me share my screen now.

GT  04:43  Here we go. So, it says that I'm sharing my screen. This is Matt's amazing book. I really think--in fact, I was just talking to a seminary teacher today and told him I was doing a live stream. I don't know if he's going to be watching, but he said this book is going to be talked about for decades. It is. It is a game changer in black history. I think the first book, probably, that was the game changer was Saints, Slaves and Blacks, by Newell Bringhurst, which is somewhere, I think behind me on my shelf. This book is just amazing. So, I have a link here. I've actually created a new playlist called Second Class Saints. The first six or seven episodes are the newest stuff, but then we go to the older stuff. Just to give you an idea of some of the things, these are screenshots.  Some of them are chopped off, as you can see, but I didn't have time to fix them. I was just glad I had this. [One of them is,] Before 1978, LDS policies for biracial families in Brazil and South Africa. I just thought that was amazing. We talk a lot about both countries. When, Where and Why Did the One Drop Rule Originate? I thought that was an amazing episode. I think all of these are amazing. Did President McKay Try to Rescind the Ban in 1955? Kind of, yes. Hugh B. Brown's Attempts to End the Ban in 1962, we go into way more detail than we did in our latest interview. So, that was amazing. How Kimball Persuaded the Apostles to Agree on Lifting the Ban.

GT  06:36  I think these are mostly in chronological order. I might be not giving them to you [chronologically.] Almost Famous: 1969 Black Ordination Nixed by Lee. That was the one where--well, I will say this. I only had one camera back then, and now that I go back and listen to my audio, I was like, wow. My audio is really crappy back then. So, just know that I've upgraded my equipment since these. I've gotten a second camera. I've gotten better audio. So, the audio is not great on these, but the episodes are amazing, absolutely amazing. Some of the other stuff: Did Nixon and Carter Pressure BYU Over Race? The answer is absolutely yes. Did the IRS-- was the threat--they did not threaten them with the IRS, basically. But Carter and Nixon did talk to BYU about race. So, that was a really cool episode. The coolest thing about that episode was Matt-- of course, President Carter is still alive. He's nearing 100 years old, I think. But Matt, in the interview, said, and this was six years ago [that] he had written President Carter a letter and gotten a response back. I just thought that was a super fun interview, living history. This is what Matt does. He's amazing.

GT  08:00  Race and Religious Minorities at BYU. That was a fun episode. Civil Rights Investigations at BYU in 1968. You can see you've got two Democratic presidents and a Republican president all pressuring BYU on civil rights and that. How Brazil Influenced Official Declaration 2, I thought that was amazing. The Sports Protests Against BYU Matt alluded to. We didn't have time to talk about that, but we did some six years ago. Bruce R. McConkie Helped Write the Official Declaration 2. That was pretty, pretty amazing. So, all of these are episodes that--we've been talking about this book for over six years. Other things, Pros and Cons of the Race Essay. Matt and Newell Bringhurst edited a book on the Gospel Topics Essays. A lot of the stuff that they talked about in that book ended up in Second Class Saints, as well. We talked about the Randy Bott episode in the Washington Post. That's, of course, in the book, as well. Matt goes into greater detail about the Accreditation Problems at the BYU Law School. Dallin Oaks was called to be the BYU President, specifically to start a law school. The American Bar Association had big problems with the race policies at BYU. They're starting a new law school, and they might not get accredited.  ow, obviously they're accredited, and they have been for a long time. But that was a big concern when Elder Oaks was President Oaks at BYU. And so that was a really, really interesting episode.

GT  09:51  By the way, that picture was taken by me outside the J. Reuben Clark Law School. That was a super fun episode. We talked about the impact of protests on the apostles. These are the apostles when David O McKay was prophet: Hugh B. Brown, . Eldon Tanner and Alvin Dyer were in the First Presidency. Of course, you can see-- and I've got the--I'm pretty sure this is in ranked order of seniority. You can see Marion G Romney, he was later in the First Presidency, as well. But these were the apostles that were around in 1969 when David O McKay was still living. He died, of course, in January of 1970. But that was a very, very interesting episode. We also talked in more depth about Racism in Mormon scriptures, in the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon. If you haven't, if you didn't get enough of Matt Harris, watch my old episodes. They're amazing, if you ask me.

GT  10:58  I thought we could share. I almost put top 10 things and then I erased it, because I was going to have more than 10. But I ran out of time and only got 10. So these are in page order of the book, and I might even give you a few that I didn't have time to write down. I was shocked as early as page 32, George Albert Smith, the prophet--I can't remember if he was prophet at the time, but he called the ban a custom and not revelation. I believe he was Prophet when he called it a custom, not a revelation. Of course, he was, if I remember, if my memory is right, I think he was president from 1945 to 1951. David on McKay replaced him, if I have those years right. I hope I have them right. Let me know if I didn't. I'd like to correct the record, if I didn't have that right. But Joseph Fielding Smith on page 36 cleared a black man who was one sixth, well, he was 1/64 black, so he's really white. But you know that mattered back then. He told, he counseled the young man to keep this a secret, so that he could marry in the temple. I was just shocked that Joseph Fielding Smith, of all people, would do that.

Hugh B Brown risked literally everything to try to overturn the priesthood/temple ban in the LDS Church. For that he was dismissed from First Presidency. Dr Matt Harris discusses Brown's attempts to end the ban just before Pres McKay's death, which led to him being dropped from the First Presidency. Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/G9C2No5bfVY

Don't miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/

Copyright © 2024

Gospel Tangents

All Rights Reserved

Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.

 

Fired From First Presidency

GT  00:13  I'm trying to remember where to go next. I've got two or three questions here. I want to do them all. Since we're talking about the apostles, I want to dive back in. I know we talked about that in our previous interview, but when I read your book, it sounded like there was new information that you didn't know five years ago. So, let me frame it this way. In 1969, [Michael Quinn] tells a story that there was a vote to rescind the ban, and it was unanimous for all present, but Harold B. Lee wasn't there. I'm trying to remember. So, basically there was a re-vote, and I remember you said that President Kimball went to President Brown and said, basically, "I'm with you, President Brown, but I fear Elder Lee."

Matt  1:13  Yes.

GT  1:14  And I think that was the genesis for the 1969 statement, and it wasn't signed by President McKay, because he died a month later, I think it was.

Matt  1:26  Correct.

GT  1:27  And basically it said, "We don't know why the ban is, but God knows." So, then fast forward to 1978 and then the ban is lifted. I remember the question that I had at the time, and I think, at the time, you didn't know what was Elder Benson's position in 1969 and 1978? Because when I read that in your book, I was floored to hear, especially President Benson, how he changed. So, can you talk about those two important meetings, as well as the 1969 statement that was a result of that?

Matt  2:18  So there's two events going on here. One would be September of 1969 where Hugh Brown, he's a counselor in the First Presidency. When he was called into the First Presidency in 1961, he gave the brethren fits from the get go. He is a liberal Canadian. Those are not my words. Those are words he used. In fact, a couple of years before he died, he gave an oral history with his [grand]son, Ed Firmage, who was a law professor at the University of Utah for his career. Ed passed away a few years ago, and Ed was very close with his grandfather and recognized that his grandfather was a significant leader. So, gratefully, Ed interviewed hours worth of interviews with his grandfather in 1968 and 1969. A little tiny bit of that interview was published by Signature Books in the late 1980s. It's billed as the memoir of Hugh Brown, and the tiny bit of that, it's not a very big book. It’s definitely worth looking at. But only a fraction of those dozens and dozens of hours made it into that book. I have all the hours in the transcripts.  So, I can tell you what made it in and what didn't. But maybe 5% of the interview made it in that book. So ,there's a whole chunk that's not. Brown was very candid in those interviews. He told his [grand]son, Now, keep in mind he's in his eighties when he's giving these interviews, and his mind is still really sharp. And he said to his grandson. His mind is still really sharp. He said to Ed Firmage that I am more a liberal today than I've ever been, and the longer I've lived, the more I believe in the rightness of my Democratic Party. It's a good thing Ezra Taft Benson wasn't in the room. And so that's what he said. He always identified as a liberal. Those are not my words. [In] reading his politics. That's how he identified.

Matt  4:34  And so he posed fits for the brethren on two fronts. One was the ban. He never thought it was compatible with the gospel. He never thought it was doctrine, kind of like David O McKay, and he thought it was just a policy and a practice that began in Missouri that Joseph Smith created to appease Missourians. When the Saints went in, they [the Missourians] were pro-slavery and the Saints were--the rumor was they were abolitionists. They were not.

GT  5:02  That was Taggart's position, right?

Matt  5:05  Well, but Taggart--no, it was Fawn Brodie's position.

GT  5:09  Okay.

Matt  5:10  And Taggart's just repeating Fawn Brodie because she's the first person to create what we call the Missouri thesis, that the ban began under Joseph Smith's tenure, to show the Missouri government that, "Hey, we don't believe in racial equality. Look, we're keeping them out of our ecclesiastical rights." And nobody accepts this thesis today, I might add. It's been thoroughly demolished. As I said a minute ago, the ban didn't even begin with Joseph Smith. But that's what Fawn Brodie said. And Stephen Taggart and others picked up on it, including Hugh Brown. So Hugh Brown believed in the Missouri thesis. That was \ the prevailing thing of the day. So, Hugh Brown had been pushing the Church to lift the ban, and he pushed for racial equality. He wanted the Church to acknowledge the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course, the brethren are pushing back on that. And when he tries to lift the ban in 1969 with the help of David O. McKay's sons, who are also not in approval of the Church's race teachings, they gang up on their father, and there's like three of the boys, and there's Hugh Brown, and they go to the Hotel Utah, this is in September. they convince him to ordain a Black man to the priesthood. He agrees to do it.

GT  6:26  I remember my jaw dropped on the floor when you told me this.

Matt  6:30  Yeah, he agrees to do it.

GT  6:33  And his name was?

Matt  6:34  Monroe Fleming. He had worked at the Hotel Utah for 26 years. I think he worked--he had various jobs. But one of which I think he worked in the restaurant as a waiter, and he often saw General Authorities coming in. He would serve them food. He saw missionaries in those days, I think it was called the LTM.[1]

GT  6:54  Yeah, Language Training Mission.

Matt  6:55  Yeah, before the MTC today, but the LTM in those days, and the LTM was at that space. And so he got to see a lot of missionaries, too, including the late, great Michael Quinn who talks about meeting him there.

GT  7:07  Oh, wow.

Matt  7:08  Yeah. And so the so they targeted Monroe Fleming because they thought he was a loyal Latter-day Saint. What's instructive about this story is, for years, President McKay said, "Yeah, I don't like the ban." This is in private, he would tell people, "I don't like the ban, but it requires a revelation. Even though it's not doctrine, even though it's a policy, it requires a revelation”/consensus. But now what you have...

GT  7:37  So, you're saying revelation equals consensus?

Matt  7:39  Yes, so now what you have is in 1969, September, he's taking a different tact. He's saying, "Okay, I'll ordain him." There's more to the story that I go into great detail that we don't have the time to cover here, but he agrees to ordain him. And when the word gets out from Harold Lee and others that this is what the President's going to do, he's going to ordain him unilaterally, without consensus--that's what I've learned since our last time. There were some people supporting it, and Spencer Kimball knew about it and supported it.

GT  8:16  Yeah, I knew that.

Matt  8:17  But I wish I knew about other people and their voices with this. But I do know that Harold Lee did not support it because he put a stop to it. Absolutely, he put a stop to it. Hugh Brown was crushed. He thought this was holding the Church back. He thought that it wasn't scriptural. He thought that there was no proof that the Prophet Joseph Smith had founded the ban. It wasn't based on revelation. I mean, Brown was a follower of the Bennion report and the conclusions that they drew, and he was also very close friends of Lowell Bennion. So, they put a stop to it. And Brown is depressed. I mean, he's really depressed. And Brown had struggled with depression throughout his life for reasons we can talk about, maybe on a different occasion.

GT  9:05  Because you're writing a new book about it.

Matt  9:07  Because I'm writing a book about Hugh B. Brown. I figured if I wrote about the right wing of the Church in Elder Benson, it's only fair that I write about the left wing of the Church. So this is sort of balancing out the universe. I just hugely admire Hugh B. Brown, as I do Marion Hanks. So Brown is depressed. He's upset. He's an older man. There's a lot of context that we're not really talking about. But the BYU athletic protests are harming the Church. There are athletic teams that are refusing to play BYU because of the Church's racial teachings. There's a federal investigation going on that I'm sure we'll talk about, where the feds are investigating BYU for alleged civil rights violations, and they're threatening to close BYU down. I mean, the stakes are high, so Brown's just sick over all of this. In November, the WAC, the Western Athletic Conference, of which BYU was a part of at the time, they're going to have a vote to kick BYU out because of the racism. They're not recruiting black student athletes or black faculty. And so that's another reason why Brown wants to give black people to priesthood.

Matt  10:28  So the Board of Trustees, which is comprised of the brethren, they decide to allow BYU to recruit a limited number of black student athletes, to get the Feds off their backs and to keep from getting kicked out of the conference. And oh, did I tell you that they were just trying to build a Marriott Center and putting all this money into it, and they were worried they're building this beautiful building that they're not going to have any teams to play in. So, in that context,

Can you imagine being inside the room for 1978 revelation? The journals of Marion D Hanks take us there when the 1978 revelation was announced to the Quorum of 70.

We will also discuss the 1969 statement by the Apostles and most of the First Presidency affirming the ban. Dr Matt Harris takes us behind the scenes to discuss the statement affirms a ban from temple & priesthood for black members and claiming the reasons were known only to God.  Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/MY9DQdG-lA4

Don't miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/

Copyright © 2024

Gospel Tangents

All Rights Reserved

Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.

 

Marion D. Hanks

GT  00:41  So another surprise. I felt like, because of our previous interview, I knew a lot of what you were going to say, but there were still surprises. I was [surprised by] the amount of correspondence that you got with Marion D. Hanks--now he's a former Seventy, former General Authority.[1] He's passed away, and I had heard from Margaret Young and some others that he was very instrumental and very progressive, for lack of a better word with regards to race. But I was shocked at how much correspondence you got from Marion D. Hanks. So could you introduce them and also say, how  you got your hands on so much materia?

Matt  01:36  Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I get asked this a lot, and let me answer the broader question, which is, how I got access to this material. Then I'll tell you some great things about Elder Hanks. So as a historian, I only want to write on things where I can get access to the best records. I always liken it to a Thanksgiving metaphor that the turkey would be the First Presidency meeting minutes, Quorum of the Twelve meeting minutes, letters, diaries, that's the turkey. The trimmings, the Thanksgiving trimmings would be Ensign articles or Improvement Era articles, or maybe something in the Deseret News, or maybe a General Conference sermon or a BYU devotional or a published writing. Those are all important. And I utilize the trimmings in my book a lot. But make no mistake, this book is grounded in the turkey. And so how do I get the turkey? And there's a there's a couple of answers. One is that the Church archivist granted me stuff that I never thought I would be granted. For example, I got access to the Joseph Fielding Smith papers.

GT  02:49  Oh, I didn't know that.

Matt  02:50  Yeah, which is rich, and I've said this before to different people, that it gave me a different perspective on him, that when people read his writings from the mid-20th century, you just see him as some hardliner with race and all of this. But when I was going through his diaries, I saw a person who was funny. I would just start laughing spontaneously in the Church Archives Reading Room. I'm sure the senior missionaries are like, "Who is this guy? What's he doing? He's just laughing." And I'm reading his diaries. I'll give you one example. Every year when I got to, I think, April 1, Joseph Fielding writes in his diary. He wasn't a full diarist. He wouldn't write 10 paragraphs, usually they were maybe two. He wrote them in a little--we would, today, call it a Franklin day planner or something. They didn't have that in those days, but it was something similar. And so he would write a couple of paragraphs. So he wasn't really a rich diarist, but he would say stuff like, "I was at the church building today," or at the office, as he puts it, "and I met with this committee and that committee, and I interviewed these people for missions. Then I got home, so it was a good day," he says paragraph one. Paragraph two. "Then I got home and I did my taxes. Oh, I hate giving my money to the government! Exclamation point." It seems like every year, on April 1, I read the same thing. I’m laughing. I thought this guy is really funny, and he was a prankster. He would tell jokes, and you would never get that side of him publicly.

Matt  04:25  it was the same with his son-in-law, Bruce McConkie. They were very stern over the pulpit. They thought that, I think, God wanted them to be this Old Testament fire breather, you know, call the Saints to repentance, pound your fist on the podium four times, and hold up the Scriptures with your finger pointed. But, Smith was delightful in private. I got to see that side of him, it was great. I saw him as a person. So, I got to see the Joseph Fielding Smith papers. I got to see a whole bunch of other collections that are in this book at the Church archives. I found collections from CES people who, back in the day, would have access to the apostles and to the Church President. That's not the case today. If you work for the Church today and you want to call President Nelson's secretary and say, "Hey, can I come over on Tuesday?" They would say, probably, "No. Talk to your bishop or talk to somebody else. He's busy." But in those days, you could call the president's office and, when's his next available opening? And the Secretary would say, "Oh well, Tuesday at four."  "Okay."  "What's this about?" "Yeah, you know, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote this stupid manual on evolution. I want to talk to him about that."

Matt  05:43  And so, I determined that he was anti-evolution. He was not progressive on evolution, whereas some of the brethren were, just to be clear, I want to put context in that statement, too, for your listeners. Elder Widtsoe, Elder Talmage, among the two trained, Ph.D.-trained apostles. They had PhDs in science.

GT  06:03  Elder Bennion.

Matt  06:04  Elder Bennion did, yeah. So, they didn't share Joseph Fielding Smith's anti-evolution views. He was a very literalist.

GT  06:13  President Nelson, seems to, though.

Matt  06:15  Boy, that's a rabbit hole that I don't want to get into it. Anyway, the institute people would call him up, and that was one in particular in the mid 1950s, when Elder Smith was trying to push his anti-evolution views on the Church. He wanted them, the seminaries and institutes, to talk about his anti-evolution views in this book he had written. He wanted BYU students in the history department to read it. I mean, it was just nuts. The institute people pushed back hard. And David O. McKay, President McKay, would entertain all this, and he would have these people in and with not just the evolution issue, but other issues. So when these CES people died, they would donate their papers, either to BYU or to the U,[2] or Utah State. I'm telling you, when I discovered in those papers what was there, it was rich. Because they would oftentimes talk about the meeting with the President or an apostle, and they would write about in their diaries at length. Or they would have letters that they would write beforehand about the issue, or a follow up letter that the apostle would write. "You know, we talked about X, Y and Z. Did it ever get resolved? And here are my feelings on the subject." So that was a rich way to get their voice, was through these CES papers. And finally, the other sources that I got was--I had to work for it. I had to interview with the children of General Authorities. So when their father died, of course, the papers would fall to the care of the children, and the children would sometimes donate them to the Church archives, in which case they would be restricted. Other times they wouldn't donate them, and they would retain possession of the diaries, or if they did donate, then they would retain copies. So, I can't tell you how many times I've called up the children. I say, children, you know, these are people in their, what, 60s and 70s, but I would call up the children of the General Authorities, or the kids of the General Authorities, and I would say, "My name is Matt Harris. I'm doing a book on blacks in the priesthood, black people in the priesthood. I want to see your father's diaries." I wasn't that jarring, but I had to build relationships of trust. I can talk about President Kimball's diaries that I got access to in a minute. But you asked about Elder Hanks. My late friend, the late, great Curt Bench, who runs a wonderful bookstore at Benchmark Books-- if any of you buy LDS books, go to Benchmark Books.

GT  08:55  Except for they're out of yours.

Matt  08:57  Of my book, they're out. They're out.

GT  09:00  They'll get them soon.

Matt  09:00  They're getting them soon. Yeah, there's going to be a very small delay. In fact, by the time this goes live, the books will be back in print. But anyway, my friend Curt Bench, who passed away a couple of years ago, his son and another friend of mine, Bryan Buchanan, they run the store, and they're wonderful. Buy your LDS books from them. But Curt told me, or introduced me to Rich Hanks, the son of Marion Hanks. And he said, "Matt." I remember I was at the store one day, and Curt was appraising the Marion Hanks diaries, that collection. He wasn't just a bookseller, he was an appraiser. He told me one day, he said, "Matt, you're going to want to see this." I want to just pause the story here for a quick moment. I had found in many archives letters from Elder Hanks. I had always admired him for a lot of reasons, not just because he opposed the ban and had racially progressive views, believed in civil rights so passionately. That was a lot of large part of it. Those would be my values. But I really, really admired him, because when the Saints had written him letters about the race issue, they were struggling with it. Some of the Saints, they would write a handful of General Authorities, and some of the General Authorities, including Hartman Rector Jr, would write them back, these nasty notes: "Fall into line and repent, brother." I'm just thinking, you've got to be kidding me.  This brother just bore his soul. The letter that the brother wrote to the handful of General Authorities was,

Are there things Lester Bush missed? Lester Bush wrote a groundbreaking 1873 article blaming Brigham Young, rather than Joseph Smith, for instituting the priesthood & temple ban. I asked Matt Harris if there was a weakness in the article that didn't address the racial theology behind the ban. He said there was, and found some interesting information in the Adam Bennion minutes that Lester didn't know about. Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/Rt9yJfxHzoc

 

Don't miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/

Copyright © 2024

Gospel Tangents

All Rights Reserved

Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.

 

Lester Bush Weaknesses/Bennion Minutes

GT  0:23  We all have great reverence for Lester Bush and his amazing, groundbreaking article that rewrote the priesthood ban, basically.[1] But I think I heard that one of the weaknesses of that article, which is fantastic, but the weakness is he didn't go into the racial theology. Is that true?

Matt  0:46  Yeah. It is true. One of the omissions of Lester Bush, so for your audience, he's was not trained in history. He was a medical doctor who worked for the government.

GT  1:00  He recently passed away, sadly.

Matt  1:01  He recently passed away, and he was a great person. I always sent my stuff to Lester Bush, and then I think he got, was it Alzheimer's or dementia.

GT  1:11  I think so.

Matt  1:12  Alzheimer's, yeah. And so he was a great critic. And a couple of years ago, I sent one of my articles to him, and he'd always say, "Oh, I love this. Send it back to me, or send me your next piece." And he was just such a fine critic, and always made helpful suggestions. And anyway, I sent one of my articles to him, and I didn't hear from him. I thought, oh, that's odd. He always enjoys reading my stuff. But I didn't know how sick he was and how much it had progressed to that point. So that's what it was. He wasn't reading any more emails. Anyway, a wonderful guy, and he lived in Maryland. When he was in Southeast Asia on government assignment, his brother, who was a BYU student at the time in the late 1960s, he wrote his brother, Lester, a note, a letter, and he said, "Hey, I just came across, or I heard that there are some papers at BYU that deal with the brethren's First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 meeting minutes." The Adam Bennion family had donated them. "You're going to want to see these." The BYU brother knew that Lester had an interest in this topic.

GT  2:19  Adam Bennion was a former apostle, is that right?

Matt  2:22  Adam Bennion was a former apostle whose family defied convention and donated the papers to BYU, rather than the Church Archives, where they're put away, a vault within a vault and throw away the keys or eviscerate the code so nobody can get access. That wouldn't happen today, by the way, they would not donate papers to the brethren today to BYU, at least institutional papers. But they did in those days. I think he died in 1953, so the family, at some point in the 50s, donated the papers. They didn't have the policy in place yet. So this maverick librarian named Chad Flake, I knew him personally. He had sort of disheveled hair. He just did not look like a BYU person. I found him delightful. He was an interesting guy. He was just a free thinking kind of guy and  he allowed Bush's brother--I don't know how Bush's brother learned about the minutes, presumably from Chad Flake, who was the curator of the minutes. But Flake certainly let it be known that we have these minutes. So BYU Bush wrote his brother and said, "Next time you're in town, come see this." So Bush made the arrangements with Chad Flake to see the minutes. Almost immediately, he recognized what those minutes meant, because the minutes were part of a study that apostle Adam Bennion had done in 1954 at President McKay's request to look into the feasibility of lifting the ban. This is in 1954. Your listeners have never heard this before.

GT 3:58  Yeah, I haven't heard this, either.

Matt  4:00  In one of my chapters that go into great detail about this. Anyway, so in 1954 they couldn't figure out who bore African ancestry in South Africa and Brazil. And the brethren were bothered by this. We now know that there's no such thing as a pure race. It's just nonsense. But they didn't know that at the time. They couldn't they knew they were baptizing and conferring priesthood ordination on people of African lineage in these two heavily biracial and mixed blood countries, mixed race countries. President McKay visited South Africa and Brazil. He came back and he said, "We've got to do something about the ban." And so, he convened this committee led by Apostle Bennion and Spencer Kimball, we think, was on the committee. We're not quite sure, because some of the records are nebulous. But Apostle Bennion asked his cousin, Lowell Bennion, with whom he was close, to assist. Whether he was an official member of the committee or just the guy behind the scenes ghost writing everything, I don't know. I wish I knew this.

Matt  5:04  What I do know is, is that Lowell Bennion writes the report with Apostle Bennion's approval. In this report called The Bennion Report, It says that there's no scriptural justification for the ban. It says that the ban is pushing away our best and our brightest students, meaning at the institutes. They can't justify this idea of the one drop rule and anything else, or that it's theologically incompatible with Mormon scripture: that you're judged for your own sins and not for your ancestors transgressions. Well, how can you have this pre-existent theology and you can't repent of something that you may have allegedly done in the pre-existence. Bennion thought it was bad theology. They also said that there was no founding document that tied the ban to Joseph Smith. I mean, I don't know who was on the committee. I wish I did, but I can tell you, I know for a fact who wasn't on the committee, Joseph Fielding Smith.

Matt  6:05  (Both chuckling.) Because Elder Smith had spent his entire life building up this theological scaffolding that the curse and the ban began with Joseph Smith and all of that stuff. And the only logic that they used to imply or to state that the ban began with Joseph Smith was that all of the great founding doctrines of the church started with Joseph Smith, Jr. Therefore the priesthood doctrine must have started with him, too. I mean, that's not really good reasoning, especially if you believe that you know God reveals line upon line, or at, what does President Nelson say today that the restoration is ongoing. It's evolving. Well, somehow Joseph Fielding Smith had everything fixed in time at 1830 to 1844. So, that was just bad theology on so many different levels. So, the Bennion report was, as you can imagine, it was devastating. This is not doctrinal. This is just a policy and a practice.

GT  7:03  And so this is where Lester Bush's punchline came from, it didn't start with Joseph Smith.

Matt  7:10  That's exactly right. It was from the Bennion report. And this is also the context in which President McKay told Sterling McMurrin, his close friend, he said that the ban was a policy and a practice, not a doctrine of the Church. And so that's--some of your listeners may have heard President McKay believe that it was a policy and a practice, not a doctrine. Well, that comes from the Bennion report. Anyway, back to Chad Flake at BYU.

GT 7:38  Because that's right when he was talking to Sterling McMurrin and I think he said that to him.

Matt  7:43  That's the first person he said that to. President McKay had read the Bennion report in, it would have been May of 1954. He read the Bennion Report, and he told Sterling McMurrin, just after the report, "This is not doctrinal. It's a policy and a practice." And McMurrin--actually, it was April he said this to him. I'm sorry. It was late February. I'm getting this wrong, the details wrong. It was February where he read the Bennion report, and then he told McMurrin afterwards, it was a policy and a practice. McMurrin said, "Well, President McKay, General Conference is coming up in a month or so. Can you share that with the Saints?"

Matt  8:22   "Now, Sterling, you know, I can't do that." Why he couldn't do it is because Mormon revelation requires buy in from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Section 107 of the Doctrine & Covenants says it has to be unanimous, the revelations. And so even though President McKay didn't think it was doctrinal, he still thought it would require a revelation to overturn the ban, which means that each member of the Twelve would have to agree to it. Of course, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold Lee, Ezra Taft Bension, Mark Peterson and others were not going to agree to it. And so that was the context in which he told Sterling McMurrin, "I can't share this with the Church next week, because I don't have consensus from the Twelve."

Matt  9:10  Anyway, it's those minutes from that committee in 1954 that get deposited at BYU. And those minutes that Elder Bennion had compiled, they began in 1830 and all the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve minutes that dealt with the race issue, he was permitted access to see from the vaults, and so he compiled them. So, it went from 1830, the minutes, to 1954. That's what got donated to BYU, and that's what Lester Bush saw. So Lester Bush published an article in Dialogue that came out 1973 and that was the big explosion that there is no founding document tying the prophet to the to the revelation, or to the priesthood ban. But he didn't talk about the theology behind it. He left the scriptures out. He talks a little bit about the curse in Genesis in the Bible, but he doesn't talk about how these racialized verses in the Book of Mormon and other scriptures fit into all this.

Is "white and delightsome" a racist scripture? Dr Matt Harris discusses the evolution of the priesthood/temple ban in the 19th century. He discusses black men who held the priesthood, and why Brigham Young removed their possibility of attending the temple. We'll also discuss the controversial passages "white & delightsome" vs "pure & delightsome" in the Book of Mormon. Check out our conversation with Matt Harris...

https://youtu.be/OK5AeAAvrIY

Don't miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/

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GT  0:49  So what I'd like to first do, I remember when we spoke, in fact, this was our first interview, it was about this book.

Matt  0:58  Which hadn't been named yet.

GT  1:01  Yeah, it hadn't been named. But what I'd like to do, because you do, I think in chapter one, you spend a very short chapter on the priesthood ban in the 19th century, and you noted that there were some black men who held the priesthood. Could you just give us a thumbnail of 19th century policies within the Church and blacks?

Matt  1:27  Yes. For years and years and years, the Church narrative was that the ban began with the Prophet Joseph Smith. In 1922, Andrew Jensen, who was the Assistant Church Historian published, I think it was a four volume encyclopedia biography. And just what it is, you just go through alphabetically to different subjects you could look up. And there was one subject in there that came back to bite the Church, and that the subject was Elijah Abel.

GT  1:57  Yes.

Matt  1:58  And so this is the first time that the Saints are reading that there was an early black priesthood holder. Oh, let me tell you, they wrote letters to the First Presidency, to the Quorum of the Twelve. How could there be a ban with Joseph Smith and Elijah Abel. Joseph Fielding Smith said, who was then the Church Historian, Joseph Fielding Smith said that that question has come back to haunt us. I wish he never would have included it. [He wished] Jensen wouldn't have included Elijah Abel in the biography. So, they didn't know how to answer it. How can you say the ban began with the Prophet, the founding Prophet, if a black man's ordained to the priesthood. Joseph Fielding Smith was interesting in his responses. One Latter-day Saint inquisitor, he wrote back, and he said, "There were actually two Elijah Ables in Nauvoo, one was white and one was black.” I mean, there's no evidence for any of this stuff, but he's trying to work out this narrative. And then a little while later, he gave a different answer, and he said that it was a mistake. There's no evidence for that either.

GT  3:07  Right.

Matt  3:08  And I'm not here to pick on Joseph Fielding Smith. I'm just merely telling the story that the brethren are trying to understand this and comprehend it. And J. Reuben Clark of the First Presidency was scheduled to give a general conference talk in October of 1954 and it's the only time I've noticed where the brethren, where at least Clark had acknowledged that there were a few priesthood holders, black priesthood holders. Mostly Elijah Abel was known because of Andrew Jensen. But he acknowledges that there were a few priesthood holders of black African ancestry who held the priesthood. President McKay nixed the talk. "Don't give it."

GT  3:54  Really?

Matt  3:55  Yeah for two reasons. One, I think it was less about the acknowledgement of three black--well, that was part of it. That's not true. Part of it was, we don't want the Church [members] to know that there are three black priesthood holders. The other part was it, a lot of the talk talked about civil rights, which I'm sure we'll get into in a minute. But President McKay didn't want President Clark talking about civil rights and bringing attention to it when the civil rights movement was heating up, because it'll bring attention to the race ban. So the ban--the Church, for years, thought that the ban began with the Prophet Joseph Smith. We now know that at least three or four black men held the priesthood. A couple more probably did, but the evidence is inconclusive.

 

Joseph Ball

Matt  4:42  I think for your listeners, one thing that's really, really interesting is that you can't say that Joseph Smith started the ban and then had black men ordained under his tutelage. He didn't ordain them, personally, but other people did that he knew about. So, you can't really say exception, exception, exception, but he was the originator. It doesn't work that way. So Brigham Young, scholars today and the Church have acknowledged that Brigham Young is the founder of the ban. But what I want your listeners to know is Brigham Young accepted black priesthood holders at first. He knew about Joseph Ball, a black priesthood holder in Boston, also a branch president. I'll say that again. A black man was a branch president in Boston, Massachusetts.

GT  5:30  See, now this makes me--because I know Paul argues--so you're correct. Joseph Ball did hold the priesthood. He had black ancestry. But Paul Reeve argues that he was so light skinned he was listed as white on the census, that people didn't know he was black. Do you agree or disagree with that?

Matt  5:53 I don't know if I disagree with Paul on that. It's hard to know about racial passing is really interesting, and it's likely that he did pass, racially. Elijah Abel was light skinned, too. He was, I hate to say this, these fractions are ridiculous, but he was what they said at the time, 1/8 black.

GT  6:14  Yes, I know he's listed on census records as Mulatto or Quadroon.

Matt  6:19  Yes.

GT  6:20  Quadroon would be one fourth black.

Matt  6:23  Joseph F, Smith, as I recall, says that he's one eighth black. This is what they say in some documents. So, the brethren know that he's got African ancestry. It's less clear about Joseph Ball, and I think that that Paul's speculation could hold up that if he's listed as white on the census, it could mean that he was passing as white, but not necessarily. The real question is, how did the brethren view him? And so Joseph Ball, and there was a guy named William McCary who was a colorful character in history.

GT  6:59  Oh, very. I need you to help me get an interview with Angela Pulley Hudson.

 

Interracial Marriage Leads to Ban

Matt  7:03  Angela Pulley Hudson wrote a nice book about William McCary and his wife.[1] So William McCary has Indigenous ancestry [and] African ancestry.

GT  7:14  He also went by Warner McCary, I believe.

Matt  7:16  He also went by Warner McCary. Anyway, the upshot of the story is this is that Brigham Young was fine with Warner McCary. He was fine with Ball and and some others. And then they started taking polygamous, white wives. That's where it turned south.

GT  7:32  Yeah, Walker Lewis' son did, as well. Walker Lewis is interesting because—I think it was Wilford Woodruff, if I remember, called him a fine African, an elder.

Matt  7:44  Oh, yeah. They recognize that he has black African ancestry, and they even entrusted him with some ecclesiastical responsibilities.

GT  7:53  And he started the NAACP, a precursor.

Matt  7:59  He was involved in civil rights in and around Boston which is the hub of anti or abolitionist activity and folks pushing for racial equality.

GT  8:09  That’s another thing Benson would be upset about.

Matt  8:10  He would have been very upset at that. He did not believe in racial equality. So Brigham Young got word that a couple of these black men were marrying polygamous white wives. And in my opinion, it's not coincidental that just after, not too long after he learns this, he gives this territorial address in 1852 where he announces, for the first time, the ban. And he also, and this is going to be jarring for your listeners to hear, but he also announced that if a black and a white man marry, they should lose their lives. They should die. He's talking about blood atonement.

GT  8:51  I just had a conversation with Barbara Jones Brown, and she says that people don't understand blood atonement. She's talking in relation to Mountain Meadows, because she said you had to ask to be blood atoned, which clearly Warner McCary wouldn't have asked. But yeah. I mean, he did say, "We ought to kill them and their blood out to be spilt."

Matt  9:27  I mean, the idea about this is, of course, that interracial marriage is so grievous because there's a pure white race, and it would be sullied with an interracial relationship, whether it's black or brown or anybody else. But in this case, Brigham Young's racism was so intense, it was directed towards black people. And we can talk about pure lineages and all that stuff in just a minute, but that was the idea that you would sully a pure, a racially pure bloodline with the seed of Cain, as the Church and Protestant groups had called it.

 

White & Delightsome

GT  9:58  Is that how we make them white and delightsome?

Matt  10:04  Well...

GT  10:05  I mean, I say that as a joke, but isn't that why Joseph Smith specifically directed missionaries to go to the Lamanites, was so that they could intermarry with them and make them white and delightsome?

Matt  10:18  Yeah, which is not applied to black people. They were set apart for racism.

GT  10:23  But even Joseph Smith felt that way?

Matt  10:26  For Lamanites, for Native Americans.

GT  10:28  Beah, but he felt like blacks would not become white and delightsome?

Matt  10:32  No. Well, there's a difference here. So let's, let's just pause for a quick moment and talk about what the teaching is, the doctrine is. The teaching was that everybody in the human family was white. There was a raceless human family, and they were all white. Some people sinned, and because they sinned,

Dr Matt Harris from Colorado State University-Pueblo has an amazing book called 2nd Class Saints. It's about the race ban from World War 2 to the present. It's a best seller and sold out in about a month! I think it will win book of the year! We'll discuss his cutting-edge scholarship, how he got access to some amazing diaries and meeting minutes, and the amazing discoveries that help describe the removal of the race ban in June 1978. We'll dive in deep! Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/mk3_jVGW95U

Don't miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/

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GT  00:54  Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I have one of my absolute favorite guests on the show, and it's been way too long. It's been more than three years since he's been on. Could you go ahead and tell us who you are and where you teach?

Matt  01:08  My name is Matt Harris, and I teach at Colorado State University-Pueblo, where I've taught since 2005.  I teach legal history, civil rights history, race and politics, church and state and the American Constitution.

GT  01:25  Oh, wow!

Matt  01:25  All the stuff that I write about usually shows up in some form in my classroom, lectures and teachings. So, it's a lot of fun.

GT  01:37  Well, and you've got a best selling book. I fact, I think it's only been out a month or two.

Matt  01:44  It's been out since July 1st.

GT  01:46  So, less than a month, and it's already sold out.

Matt  01:49  It's already sold out.

GT  01:50  So tell us the name of the book.

Matt  01:52  The book is called Second Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. I'm happy to say it sold out the first print run. But there's a second printing that'll come out probably in a few days. So, the gap is not it's not big.

GT  02:11  I just want to point out that Matt was kind enough to autograph a copy of Second Class Saints, and one of you is going to win this book. It's a fantastic book, I'm sure. Here's the thing. I already think it's going to win the Best Book Award for next year, although you are going to have a run for your money, because Paul Reeve is coming out with his book on the 1852 legislature, a similar topic, so he might give you a run for your money.[1] But this book is incredible.

Matt  02:57  Thank you.

GT  02:58  For those of you, you know, nobody watches on my podcast like I do. We have already talked about a lot of this book from about six years ago, I think it was.

Matt  03:12  Probably.

GT  03:12  And so, we're going to dive into a little bit, because I'm sure in the last six years I've got some new listeners that haven't heard that. But I will say, go check it out. We're going to talk about some of the other stuff in this book that doesn't get as much play. Also, I don't know if I should ask you now. I'll ask you later, but I'll just preview it here. I'm going to ask what you had to put on the cutting room floor?

Matt  03:41  Yeah. I've been asked that. That's a good question.

GT  03:46  Anyway, just for those of you, by the way, you're my first five-time guest.

Matt  03:52  Woo!

GT  03:52  But, it's been three years.

Matt  03:56  Wow, oh my goodness, five times. Where does time go?

 

Pres Benson

GT  04:00  Although one of them technically, we started talking about this book, and we then we got, then I asked a question about Ezra Taft Benson, and then we went for another two hours. So I, actually, split that one up twice. So, you're a big Benson fan. Right?

Matt  04:20  No. I mean, that's not a comment on him, personally, it's a comment on his politics.  I do not think that right wing extremism is good for anybody. Anyway, I have written about Elder Benson, and I've written about how his political views have influenced the Church. And one of the points I frequently noted to people when I've talked about Elder Benson...

GT  04:47  Because you've written two books on him.

Matt  04:48  I've written two books about him. One's called Thunder From the Right. It's a collection of essays that I put together.

GT  04:53  It's a fantastic book.

Matt  04:54  Thanks and BYU professors contributed some essays and hosted other Mormon studies scholars. The other book is called Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right. What I've shared with people is he wasn't just an important religious leader, which he was, but [he was] also a significant political thinker in post-war America. Because he had such ultra-conservative views, he influenced the Church, and we're still feeling his influence today. It's not lost on me that a lot of folks who identify as being ultra-conservative, Elder Benson and  Cleon Skousen are their two favorite people. So, their influence still looms large.

GT  05:38  Very good. And that's another fantastic book, I'll add.

Matt  05:41  Thank you. Yeah, I can't seem to shy away from controversial topics. What is it about me? (Both chuckling)  Right wing extremism and the priesthood ban and race...

 

 

Academic History

GT  05:53  Alright. So before we dive into the book, one thing I want to do is just, since it's been so long, is remind people where you got your bachelor's, master's, Ph.D. and that sort of stuff.

Matt  06:05  Sure. So, I graduated in 1994 from BYU with a bachelor's degree in history and political science, mostly focused on political theory and philosophy. I did a master's degree at BYU. My wife had one year left at BYU, and so rather than go somewhere else for graduate school, I decided to stick around with my master's while she finished  her BA. Then I went to the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse, New York - Syracuse University.

GT  06:38  Oh, I thought it was Neil A Maxwell.

Matt  06:39  Well, I don't know if they would have given me a degree.

GT  06:45  (Chuckling)  They gave you one already.

Matt  06:47  Yeah, two degrees.

GT  06:49  Yeah, that's right.

Matt  06:51  Then I got a second master's degree at Syracuse and my Ph.D. My focus for the first part of my career was in early American history. I've shared this before with folks, but when I was at BYU, I had several people, faculty mentors, who told me, "Don't do Mormon history. It's like quicksand. Once you're in, you'll never get out." They were right. They were absolutely right. And so I don't know if my wife's very happy about that. "You should have listened to your mentors." About 12 or 13 years ago, I made a switch to Mormon history and religious history.

GT  07:35  Of which we are very grateful.

Matt  07:37  Thank you. I really enjoyed early America. I still do. I teach it, and I still publish in the field, but mostly my energies and efforts have turned to Mormon history where—let me say one thing that's, I think, fascinating. Sometimes people ask me why? Why Mormon history? And one, it's my heritage. So there's that. But the other one is, from a practical standpoint, I have a colleague who teaches Roman history, and frequently, she has to go to Rome to get source material.

GT  08:08  There's not worse places to go.

Matt  08:10  No, there's not. But it's really, really difficult, especially during COVID, especially gathering grant funds to go. It's expensive to fly to Rome. For me, I get-- Latter-day Saints will send me stuff by email attachment. I can get my sources right there in my home office, in my pajamas. I live in Colorado, and the archive, most of the most important archives, as you know, Rick, are in Utah at the Church History Library or the Church Archives, University of Utah, BYU Utah State, the Utah Historical Society. And then there's a few other scattered Mormon archives around the country that are important, one at Yale, one at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. So I get access to sources easily. Even with early America, I had to go back east to get into the archives in Philadelphia and New York and other places. So, it's really an embarrassment of riches, especially when people send you things. But when I come to Utah, I'm able to criss-cross these different archives and take my phone out and just start snapping pictures. It's so easy in the digital age.

 

 

Pres McKay, FDR, & Lyndon Johnson

GT  09:24  Let me ask you this, because I remember, I guess it's been two years, one or two years ago, John Whitmer Association was in Texas, and you took off to go to the Lyndon Johnson Library. Was that Mormon related or not?

Matt  09:42  No, not so much. I mean, a tiny bit. It was mostly because I had never been before.   Lyndon Johnson is really interesting for Latter-day Saints. Your listeners may not know this, but we tend to think that the Church has always been conservative. But in the 1960s Utahns supported the Great Society. This is probably the one or two most liberal government programs in the history of this country.

GT  10:11  Yeah. And Lyndon Johnson was the last Democrat Utah voted for.

Matt  10:15  That's correct. And Lyndon Johnson, believe it or not, was a good friend to David O. McKay.

GT  10:21  Oh, I didn't know that.

Matt  10:21  Yes, and that's really hard to hear or understand, rather, because President McKay was a pretty intense conservative. And when--let's see. Let me get this right. In 1952 when Eisenhower won election for the first time in the presidential campaign, David O. McKay wrote a friend, and he said, jokingly, he said, "With Ike's election, we know there really is a God." And I mean, I laughed when I read that, because that just shows you that President McKay wanted a Republican to win office, and just thought, you know, divine favor at work here.

GT  11:02  Well this is after the--it almost felt like two decades of FDR. Right?

Have you ever wanted to visit Historic Kirtland? Come along with Rick Bennett as he visited some of the amazing sites in June 2024. Check it out!

https://youtu.be/6ZUDiRFzP0o

 

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In our latest GT Live, we'll announce the contest winner for Cheryl Bruno's book, "Secret Covenants." I'll also show you some pictures from my recent trip to Ireland. They had some cool churches there along with the Taylor Swift concert! We'll also discuss my reactions to Cheryl's book, "Secret Covenants." I'll share my reactions from the Clair Barrus & Mary Ann Clements interviews & chapters on polygamy, and preview Cheryl and John Dinger's biography on William Marks, an early Church leader. Plus more! Check out our conversation...

https://youtube.com/live/V9Kj6ZEyn2U

Don’t miss our other GT Live meetings!

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Does a skeptic see temple in Book of Mormon?After having listened to Dave Butler discuss temple theology in the Book of Mormon, would a skeptic be convinced? We'll talk about that in our next conversation. Let us know what you think. I will also ask if it matters to Dave if the Book of Mormon is historical. Check out our conversation by signing up to our free newsletter at gospeltangents.com/newsletter and I'll send you the conclusion to our conversation.

https://youtu.be/IlmjMfQZcCw

Don’t miss our other conversations with David: https://gospeltangents.com/people/david-john-butler/

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What's the story of Joseph Kingsbury being a pretend husband? We will also discuss The Happiness Letter is a letter Joseph Smith from to Nancy Rigdon, to get her as a plural wife. It was printed by John C Bennett but continues to be cited by LDS Leaders. Check out our conversation with Clair Barrus who wrote a chapter in Secret Covenants...

https://youtu.be/l1_BFUYet_4

Don’t miss our other conversations with Clair: https://gospeltangents.com/people/clair-barrus/

 

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