In this episode we experience and discuss the very best and very worst of Brad Wilcox - a fantastic General Conference talk that would have transformed by experience as a youth but came 3 decades too late, and his nosedive into weak apologetics, sexism and racism in his infamous Alpine Tri-Stake Youth Broadcast. 

We also have some serious thoughts and fun with superstar Mormon historian Patrick Mason's startling suggestion that he and his academic peers should really be the ones running the Church and deciding its theology while the General Authorities concentrate on using their lawyer and Business Management skills to do the admin.  And I have to admit that this is basically what has been going on for years already.

In this episode we finish analysing what Brad Wilcox said in his online fireside Sunderland, England Stake hosted before launching into his Alpine Tri-Stake Disaster, and the rehabilitation that made everything worse, in the following episodes.  I also do my best to keep up with developments in the shocking exposure by Associated Press reporter Michael Rezendes, whose 'Spotlight' investigative journalism opened the can of worms of abuse coverups in the Catholic Church, as he takes a flamethrower to the same systems of cover-up and failing to protect children it knows are being harmed going on the the LDS Church.  The long overdue day of reconning has finally come.  We also hear from 3 brilliant podcasters I admire sharing powerful insights and wisdom, and we discover that the Church is still up to the same old tricks reediting film of General Authorities speaking that it inflicted on Elder Ronald Poelman in actual 1984.  It's a bumper edition as the Mormon Civil War rages on - so much to keep up with!  

In this episode we spend some time dipping into the Covid Lockdown online fireside Sunderland, England Stake hosted with my favourite kosher LDS apologist, historian Patrick Mason, as a contrast to the approach of Brad Wilcox and other General Authorities and apologists like him.  Patrick talked a lot of sense, addressing directly the trust-threatening issues that drive people out of the LDS Church, and he only told one massive lie.  In the world of kosher LDS apologists, this is absolutely as good as it gets!  We also hear directly from the FBI about what they think of the particular vulnerability naively trusting Mormons have to the rampant affinity fraud in their communities, and the LDS Church in the UK that 5 generations of my family have given sweat, blood and tears to build up reaches a genuinely historic landmark of accelerating decline in precisely the place President Nelson has chosen for a new temple.

BRADGATE!! WHAT THE CHURCH MUST LEARN FROM THE FALL AND ATTEMPTED REHABILITATION OF BRAD WILCOX 

EPISODE 10B - BRADGATE!! WHO IS BRAD WILCOX?  AND WHAT DID HE TEACH THE TEENAGERS OF THE BRITISH ISLES?

As we celebrate the first Platinum Jubilee of a reigning monarch in our entire history this week this is the first of two episodes exploring what Brad Wilcox, Elementary School Teacher, BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture (with no relevant qualifications whatsoever), internet sensation and Counsellor on the Young Men General Presidency taught the youth of the Sunderland, England Stake, and an international audience of others tuning in to this Covid lockdown online fireside.

What does it reveal about the state of ideological and numerical collapse in the LDS Church today, and how the leaders are trying to persuade the kids not to leave? 

We also take a Jubilee Bonus canter through the 7 lies Susan Bednar's Husband told in 20 minutes during the first appearance by an LDS General Authority before the National Press Club in 22 years on 26 May 2022 among other treats, including my attempt to read the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales in Middle English! 

No foxes were shouted at in the making of this episode.

BRADGATE!! WHAT THE CHURCH MUST LEARN FROM THE FALL AND ATTEMPTED REHABILITATION OF BRAD WILCOX 

EPISODE 10A - THE STATE OF THE DISUNION

There is so much to chew on as we process what Brad Wilcox, Elementary School Teacher, BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture (with no relevant qualifications whatsoever), internet sensation and Counsellor on the Young Men General Presidency has been teaching the youth of the Church, as revealed when his Alpine, Utah Tri-Stake Fireside on 6 February 2022 went viral. 

It laid wide open for all to see and hear the concerns about racism, sexism and anti-education
thought-stopping mind control that this podcast and many others have been discussing, and are driving huge numbers of once faithful members out of the Church. The amateur fundamentalist authoritarians perpetuating McConkie Mormonism ignorance have almost completed a take-over of LDS Church leadership and they are now relentlessly trying to drag the Church back to the future.  Specifically they are dismantling hard-won concessions to
modernity and truth like the Gospel Topics Essay on Race and the Priesthood, and original foundational principles like teaching people correct principles and trusting them to govern themselves. I have several information and analysis-packed episodes edited and ready to go to try and do this all justice as the Mormon Civil War becomes even more intense and astonishing. 

This episode updates you on the First Presidency's response to my letter appealing my excommunication, the adventures of the Britvengers, and takes stock of where we are now with significant developments for good and bad in the recent April 2022 General Conference. 

The following BRADGATE!! episodes explore what Brad Wilcox taught the youth in the UK during Covid lockdown in 2020, the Alpine debacle, the attempt to rescue his reputation with an apology and then a double act with his black Presidency-colleague Ahmad S Corbitt, the ongoing history and developments of the LDS Church's institutional and doctrinal racist
segregation, and what Church members can actually do to hold the leaders doing all this to us accountable. We have always had the mechanism and the authority to replace them with people who know what they are doing... and what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, because that shouldn't be too much to ask if they really are going to be His Apostles!

Here is my presentation at the awesome recent Sunstone UK conference in Birmingham. 

- Find out the current state of play at the Battle’s Front!

- 25 brilliant ideas in Mormonism that are worth fighting to defend and restore!

- How exactly we could make the reconstruction happen in time before defeat becomes inevitable?

It was a great event with lots of fun and games with the Britvengers and inspiring presentations and talks by everyone from lovely English emeritus Community of Christ Apostle Andrew Bolton, recently excommunicated LDS sex and relationships counsellor Natasha Helfer, Community of Christ First Presidency member Stassi Cramm and my always thoughtful and wise emeritus Maidstone Stake President David Eton.  Sunstone is a great opportunity to meet and learn from people all over the Mormon family and spectrum from orthodox Latter-day Saints to wild rebels. 

It was wonderful to finally spend time in person with my podcasting Britvenger collaborators Nemo the Mormon, Alana Wilson Bryce and Jane Christie the Scottish '21st Century Saints' and the hilarious new kid once-bishop Priesthood Dispatches, who had us in stitches.  Thankyou Julian and Laura Heath for running Sunstone UK now and doing a fantastic job of it. 

The desire to have LDS Mormonism globally and in he UK deal with its dysfunctions and be much more healthy is becoming an organised movement.  It is really encouraging to see so many others stepping up to hold our leaders accountable and contributing their unique perspectives and talents to the cause.  Please consider joining it in whatever way works for you if you care about Mormonism's health and survival in our country as time to turn it around is quickly running out. 

My amazing wife Lynn took a big step at our ward conference on Sunday and bossed it like Boudicca standing up twice to calmly but firmly vote opposed to the current First Presidency and the 12 Apostles who are not holding them accountable for their ongoing lying, control freakery, leader-worship and stealing (the Ensign Peak slush fund has grown rapidly to $140 BILLION now and still not a penny of it has been spent on helping a single person or saving the shrinking Church.  At current rates of growth it will be $1 Trillion in 30 years).  Freedom Fairy is spreading her wings and the world had better watch out!  

If you could write a letter to the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that they were obliged to actually read instead of just forwarding it to your Stake President to deal with without reading it as they usually do, what would YOU want to put in it?  This is a vanishingly rare, once in a lifetime opportunity for a faithful Latter-day Saint.  The high price of this privilege is excommunication, so it needs to be worth it to pay that much! 

I was giddy with excitement when my Stake President formally invited me to write to the First Presidency if I wished to appeal against his decision to excommunicate me.  There is so much I want them to know about our real experiences, and the havoc they are wreaking upon my family and the Church in my country.   Whoever it is that does wind up reading it, I determined that they will be taken on a mind expanding journey!  And if Presidents Nelson, Oaks or Eyring do actually read it, you can rest assured that they HAVE been told.  They have been told precisely what they are getting wrong that is crashing the Church’s active membership and credibility with the next generation. They have been told what they could do to save the Church.  They have been invited to retire or radically reform.  And they have been invited to answer the 3 simple questions my CES Director Stake President has repeatedly refused or been unable to answer, and excommunicated me for publicly asking.  In a gripping sequel to Jeremy Runnells’ ‘Letter to a CES Director’, MY letter to a CES Director is now a ‘Letter to the First Presidency.’  ...I’ve become a bit competitive since being cast into Outer Darkness as a dangerous apostate!

Pop your popcorn, slurp on a caffeinated soda and enjoy the ride intrepid listeners!

Apostle Jeffrey Holland ruffled a lot of feathers in a speech at BYU last week in which he bullied the faculty that they should turn metaphorical muskets against LGBTQ students, their allies, and critics of the Church, and prioritise being propagandists over credible academics even if it means the university losing accreditation for its courses, or they will be defunded by their First Presidency owners.  As well as all those people, he also threw under the bus BYU Valedictorian Matt Easton who a couple of years ago gave a groundbreaking and delightful speech approved by his BYU Dean in which he announced he is a proud gay son of God.  

This has given me the opportunity to trace the history of some of the LDS General Authorities' homophobia and pronouncements that they will never compromise, usually just before compromising; to recall my personal experience witnessing Elder Holland bullying the young people serving in my mission; to explain my theory about the impact of the Autism spectrum on the direction the Church leaders have taken towards unsympathetic control freakery in recent decades while celebrating my own family attributes of Aspergers and how it and other aspects of human diversity like LGBTQ sexualities and gender identities can be gifts to humanity and the Church rather than threats, and lots of other goodies and insights as I rev up to Episode 8B reading you the letter I just sent to the First Presidency appealing my recent excommunication for apostasy for the things I have been saying in this podcast. 

I'm so excited I even sing you a song! 

- PIED PIPER PACKER AND THE DODO 

- MANSPLAINING MANIFEST DESTINY ON THE SPECTRUM 

- DARING HOAX AND THE MUSKET MADNESS

- INVALIDATING THE VALEDICTORIANS

- IT’S TIME TO SPEAK IN A TIME OF WAR

There will be a few more 'Episode 6 - The Thought Police minisodes', but it's time to deliver the long-promised Episode 7, which will probably have 2 minisodes.  Here I explore what I think are the doctrinal and organisational strengths of Mormonism that could still save it from its current freefall into oblivion, and even enable it to become a major world religion as predicted by sociologists in the 1980's if we put THESE things front and centre in our teaching and outreach to the world in the 21st century.  This minisode focuses on 10 of the BIG IDEAS - the fundamental philosophies that are unique and powerful in Mormonism and offer ways to connect with modern, fully educated and informed people, and EVERY culture and religion on earth, and how we could arrive at the seemingly impossible but essential and urgent full integration of LGBTQ people.  

Minisode 7B will look at the headliner and urgent matters of other 21st century social developments and how Mormonism should have been, and still could be, a pioneering champion of feminism and anti-racism as well as grass roots democracy in decision making  and lots of other awesome stuff.  

1 – AWE AT THE NATURE OF OUR EXISTENCE.  

2 – THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM BUILDS A BRIDGE TO MODERN ASTROPHYSICS.  

3 – SCIENCE HAS NOW MADE PLAUSIBLE EVERY KEY COMPONENT OF A RELIGIOUS REALITY.  

4 –A ROBUST ANSWER TO THE AGE OLD PHILOSOPHICAL POBLEM OF EVIL                       

5 - OUR SCRIPTURES ABOUT METAPHYSICS INTENTIONALLY CROSS THE BOUNDARY INTO PHYSICS – TRUE SCIENCE REALLY IS TRUE RELIGION IN THE BOOK OF MORMON

6 – The BOOK OF MORMON IN ALMA 32 TEACHES US TO USE THE ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC METHOD TO GROW A RELIGIOUS TESTIMONY

7 – MORMONISM HAS A COSMOLOGY AND PURPOSE FOR OUR EXISTENCE THAT HAS FAR MORE IN COMMON WITH THE EASTERN RELIGIONS THAN MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY DOES    

8 - IN THE TEMPLE WE GO FULLY ANIMIST AND CATHOLIC. 

9 – MORMONISM’S FEEMASONRY CONNECTIONS ARE A GOOD THING! 

10 - MORMONISM EMBRACES THE REAL TIMELINE OF THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION.

- MY INVITATION TO AN APOSTASY TRIAL  
- THE WOMEN AT IT AS WELL
- THE SHAME GAME       
- MRS B TRIES TO BE A PHARISEE 
- REASONED PROGRAMMING      
- THE C WORD
- PETER THE PERSECUTED CULTIST       
- MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER AND HOW IT WAS MEANT TO BE FROM HUGH B 

My part on the Mormon Civil War is heating up as I have been invited to a trial for Apostasy, but this provides a great opportunity to carry on exploring the wonderful Christian version of Mormonism I am fighting for.  It's time to hear about my journey from LDS apologist to Loyal Opposition, and focus on the women on each side of the war.  Meet the family as my Great Grandmother Jeannie joins a religion that used to terrify her and discovers a wonderful potential global faith that fearlessly adores education, debate, and freedom to think for yourself in which true science is true religion, as powerfully taught by First Presidency member Hugh B Brown, and superstar British Apostle James Talmage who clinched her conversion.  And meet Mrs Bleakley who tried hard for many years to make the Pharisee Mormon religion work as a single mother... and is still trying to recover from that brutal experience.  It's a bumper edition, so remember you can crank up the playback speed if you you need to get a wiggle on!