Matt Harris told me that only 30% of his research went into his book "2nd Class Saints" due to space restrictions. What was left out? We'll find out and also get a preview of his upcoming biography of Hugh B Brown. Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/fQBhV5kMdZ4

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

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What Was Left Out?

GT  00:30  I think I've only asked you 1/20 of what I wanted to ask. I need to let you go, but the last question that I want to hit you on, I remember we had a conversation one time, and you said that when you write a book, you only put in about 30% of your research. Usually it's because of page limitations and that sort of a thing. Can you share a story or two of the 70% that's not in this book?

Matt  01:07  Yeah.

GT  01:09  I mean, I guess the Brown stuff, that's for your new book. But what are some things that due to space restrictions you just couldn't get in?

Matt  01:21  Well, just a quick thought, the Brown stuff is in there, his activism and speaking to the press and getting Monroe Fleming ordained or trying to get him ordained, that's all in there in great detail. But the later stuff in the 1970s...

GT  01:34  Daddy, the recording, I don't think that was in there.

Matt  01:38  No, no, no. That will be in my Brown biography. And in full disclosure, I found some of this stuff after, later.

GT  01:53  A book is never finished. Right?

Matt  01:58  Oh, my goodness. Well, there are other details that I'll include about Brown and the ban, in particular, because it's so pivotal to his story, as is polygamy, weirdly enough. And also, the other story I'll just start with a teaser, is that Brown was told that he would be an apostle at the age of 15, if he lived righteous enough. He wasn't called in the Quorum of the Twelve until he was 78 years of age.

GT  02:19 Wow.

Matt  02:20 That is a problem, especially if you've been told...

GT  02:24. We could have gotten rid of the ban sooner. Right? If he was only 20...

Matt  02:29. The teaser I'll give you is it wasn't the ban that kept him out. It was something else. He was accused of doing something he did not do.

GT  02:36  Did Newell Bringhurst share that story, or maybe you did. Was it with alcohol?

Matt  02:43  Newell wouldn't have known this. Well, Newell knows it only for me. This is all new stuff that nobody knows about. And I've shared it with a few people.

GT  02:47  Was it with the alcohol commission or something?

Matt  02:52  Yeah. Some other time, I'll tell you more about the details of that. It's a fascinating thing. He was accused of taking bribes that he didn't take. But perception can be reality.

GT  03:02. It doesn't matter when it's politics.

Matt  03:04  That's right.

GT  03:04. Accusation is good enough.

Matt  03:05  That's right, and especially when people's income is at stake. So there's a lot of things I didn't talk about in this book. I couldn't because of space constraints, but some of it was--I'll give you a couple of examples. One deals with the activism. I talk a lot about the Church Education System and the BYU religion faculty and CES/Institute people, those who teach the young men and women of the Church, college age. I was shocked at the level of pushback from people who are paid to teach religion to the college-aged kids, how much they opposed the ban.

GT  03:51 Oh wow.

Matt  03:52 And you definitely get that in this book. You see it. I mean, I name some names, just the more high profile people like Lowell Bennion. But because of the length of the book, and they wanted to keep the price down, the press and all of that, I had to cut out a lot of details on that.

GT  04:10. Can we get a sequel?

Matt  04:14. And so I name names.