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Episode 333: Mormon Doctrine and Apologetics In Social Media with Aaron Shafovaloff Part One
00:42:53
There is a growing trend in social media of Latter-day Saint (Mormon) apologists defending their ...
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- [00:00]
Aaron Shafawaloff
You're listening to Apologetics Profile.
- [00:04]
Mike
Remember, to survive spiritually, you will need
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Aaron Shafawaloff
the constant influence of the Holy Ghost.
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Mike
An abundance of speculation and false information
- [00:16]
Aaron Shafawaloff
in podcasts and on social media surround us.
- [00:21]
Mike
Some may protest or question the truth of church doctrine without knowing or even understanding the fullness of that doctrine. Don't be persuaded by false or inaccurate information. Discuss your concerns with faithful, well informed
- [00:41]
Aaron Shafawaloff
friends and always take those concerns to the Lord. We've been losing this battle online for like 20 years and a vast majority of, vast majority of us have abdicated the Internet to our critics. And so it's an uphill battle. And the name of our church, if you search it on social media, is dominated by critical content. And for some of you, it doesn't matter. To me, it didn't matter because I wasn't online. But you know who is online? Everybody else. Your kids and your grandkids, our sons and daughters. They're online and that's what they're seeing when they search for us. And we gotta take our name back.
- [01:37]
Jasmine Rapley
This is not the first Mormon moment we've had in media, but this is possibly the most important one. Secret Lives Mormon Wives has single handedly drawn more media attention to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints than maybe anything else in the last, like 20 years. Spikes in Google trends for the term Mormon coincide pretty consistently with the release of new seasons of Secret Lives. This, combined with many other shows and news stories in recent years, contribute to the increased interest around the church. But will this spotlight ultimately help or hurt this underdog religion? Online perception absolutely affects the vitality of an institution or a message. The Church of Jesus Christ is already one of the wealthiest churches in the world. So will Montauk and other shows catapult this church into also becoming of the most influential religions in the world? Or will it catalyze a decline in membership like we've never seen? I've honestly seen commentators propose both, but I think this is going to be something else entirely. And Mom Talk has revealed the biggest challenge the Church is going to be confronting in the coming years.
- [02:58]
Mike
The clips you just heard are from Latter Day Saints who are acknowledging the very real challenges to their faith that exist in virtually every corner of the Internet today. Ex Mormon content can be found all over social media, in podcasts, on YouTube, Facebook, X Instagram, and TikTok. The first clip at the beginning of the broadcast was from a devotional speech at Brigham Young University given February 10th of this year by the current president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ. Of Latter Day Saints. Dallin H. Oaks, President Oaks remarks about podcasts and social media reveal that the LDS Church leaders are indeed aware of the difficulties posed by the plethora of ex Mormon and and other LDS critics in social media today. The second clip featured Christian Williams of a grassroots LDS movement he and his colleague Travis Lish founded over a year ago called the Holy Rebellion. Christian gave his remarks at a conference in Lehigh, Utah on February 7th of this year, a conference I had the privilege of attending in person. Lish and Williams began the Holy Rebellion in order to counter their critics and defend their faith in an intelligent and peaceful way. The last clip you heard was from a YouTube video by a Latter Day Saint content creator named Jasmine Rapley discussing the explosion of online interest in Mormonism due largely in part to the wildly successful Hulu series the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Rapley mentions the term Mom Talk. Not T a l K but T o k as in TikTok. Mom talk is a popular TikTok trend of Mormon moms in Utah who regularly post video vignettes of themselves and their families. Mom Talk began in earnest in January of 2022. Social media interest in Mormonism is a growing and evolving phenomenon, and as Jasmin noted, no one is entirely sure where it will end up. But one thing is clear. There exists a passionate younger generation of Latter Day Saints willing and eager to defend their faith in social media. How might we as evangelical Christians best respond? I found out about the Holy Rebellion conference in January of this year and immediately arranged to make the trip from Texas to Utah to attend in person. My goal was to learn about this growing trend, to listen to these passionate, rising social media content creators, and to have a few meaningful conversations and hopefully make a new friend or two. I attended the conference with a professional acquaintance of mine in Utah who also happens to be our featured guest this week and next on the profile, someone who has been ministering to Latter Day Saints in Utah for some two decades. Erin Shafalwalov after the conference was over, both Aaron and I agreed that attending this conference in person was an excellent reminder of the very real human component to the Latter Day Saint faith. Oftentimes, critics of Mormonism can easily get caught up in the arguments and lose sight of the fact that Latter Day Saints are people just like us, people who are seeking answers to difficult questions about their faith and practice, people who are wearied by mocking and ridicule and insults online, and people who do not want to surrender their most cherished and sacred beliefs about God. There were hundreds of Latter Day Saints in a attendance at this conference in Lehigh. I was surprised to see moms and dads, even grandmas and grandpas, as well as children of all ages. I had the delightful opportunity to have a wide ranging theological discussion with a young man about to enter the Missionary Training Center. For two weeks, he told me his assigned mission was Houston, Texas, of all places. So we exchanged contacts and I hope we will continue conversing in the coming year. I also had the distinct privilege to briefly introduce myself to both Christian Williams and Jasmine Rapley. I was treated with the utmost kindness by everyone there, even though I was candid about not being a Latter Day Saint myself. The conference was an excellent reminder to me personally about the fundamental necessity of gentleness and reverence in conveying the truth of the Gospel to anyone, especially when there are major points of disagreement between me and my conversation partners. And without a doubt, major points of disagreements do still exist between Mormons and evangelical Christians. But I found myself in agreement with my Latter Day Saint friends at the conference that peacemaking is an essential component to constructive dialogue between our two camps. But as Mattie Packer, one of the speakers at the conference, noted during her talk, peacemaking does not mean ignoring or glossing over those differences. True peacemaking, she said, seeks truth, disrupts and challenges us, and is never easy.
- [08:18]
Aaron Shafawaloff
Peacekeeping avoids conflict. Peacemaking disrupts it. Peacekeeping provides comfort. Peacemaking challenges it. Peacekeeping is passive. Peacemaking is active. Peacekeeping seeks not to offend. Peacemaking seeks truth. Peacekeeping submits to surrender, but peacemaking defies the defeat. Peacekeeping is easy, but peacemaking is hard.
- [08:54]
Mike
The folks who turned out for this conference seemed sincerely eager to take up the mantle of peacemakers and to face the challenges posed to their faith by critics. It was clear to me while I sat and listened to the speakers that day that online mockery, insults and belittling Latter Day Saints is not only ineffective, they are primarily why this conference was organized in the first place. I thought to myself that afternoon that I simply need to do better myself. If we as Christians are to make positive headway in our dialogues with Mormons, we are going to have to go beyond anonymous online criticism of their doctrines and beliefs. We must reexamine ourselves, our motives, and how we come across to Latter Day Saints. Do we genuinely love these people, or are we merely trying to win arguments? During many of my trips to Utah, I am often well aware of the fact that while my head might be full of facts about Mormonism, full of reasons why I don't think Mormonism is true, my Heart often seems like it's far behind in being filled with Christ's love for the Latter Day Saint people. And part of that recognition includes my own sinfulness. Being aware of my own sin tends to soften me a little bit, and it should help me to be gentle and reverential in the defense of the hope that is in me. And such was the case for Aaron Shafawaloff on his first time ever reaching out to Latter Day Saints in Utah. He was on a bus in Utah on his way to do some evangelism with Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City when he started reading through Psalm 51. Now, Aaron and I do get into some of the challenges facing Latter Day Saints today, but hopefully our conversation will remind you of the necessity of humility, gentleness, and respect when engaging your LDS friends and neighbors. Here is Aaron Shafa Wallaf.
- [10:52]
Aaron Shafawaloff
So I was on the bus on my way down from Ogden to Salt Lake City, and I had been reading books on how to witness to Mormons, how to think about their theology and respond biblically. And I remember on the bus ride reading Psalm 51. And Psalm 51 has a special place in my heart because that's the psalm that God used to give me language for praying in a better way. What I had read in Romans 4, have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great. According to your great compassion. Blot out my transgression, goes on to say, cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. The context of this is David having committed murder and having slept with Bathsheba. He even goes on to say, cleanse me of blood guilt, oh God. So I'm reading this not for, not for apologetics or polemics or, you know, evangelism. I'm reading this for me. And on the bus ride, I just, I go through it again, and it, it goes deeper and deeper into my heart yet again. So I get off the bus and I go to trying to remember the gate that we were at. I think it was the west gate of Temple Square. And I the first conversation I ever remember having was with a man, an LDS man, who I talked to about King David. And I asked him, was King David forgiven? Did he get what he asked for? And he responded by saying that the Psalm, while beautiful and while a good model for the rest of us, is not something that David got, that David did not get what he asked for. And that was my first conversation. And in one part, it was significant because it showed me that all the prep while Helpful flew out. I mean, what I forgot to say is, in the midst of that conversation, I forgot everything I ever read. You know, you get into it and your lizard brain kicks in.
- [13:04]
Mike
You're like, whoa. I had been preparing for this for a long time, and now it just. Whoosh, it's just all out the window.
- [13:08]
Aaron Shafawaloff
But Psalm 51 was on my heart. I could do that. So we did that. And I. Beyond that, I began to fall in love sharing the gospel with the LDS people and ended up moving back out here and minus winter. Have tried on every Thursday to be either at Tyndall Square or downtown Provo to do evangelism to the LDS people.
- [13:31]
Mike
And so you've been doing this now for how long?
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Aaron Shafawaloff
Since 2000? Six or seven?
- [13:36]
Mike
Okay, so almost two decades of witnessing to Latter Day Saints in their own communities. What do you find, Aaron, today, especially in the last 20 years? You're right on the cusp of this. The difference between, say, younger Latter Day Saints and an older generation of Latter Day Saints, like the gentleman that you spoke with, maybe people that are octogenarians, or that generation of Bruce McConkey and B.H. roberts and Spencer W. Kimball and versus the younger generation now. What is Mormonism like on the streets of Utah today?
- [14:17]
Aaron Shafawaloff
I think that though in principle, Latter Day Saints have long affirmed that their prophets are fallible and subject to error, even when they preach from General Conference. Even though, in principle they will concede to that as a defense mechanism, they really haven't aggressively postured with that. And in the past, though they affirmed fallibility of their prophets in principle, they still, I think, had an inerrancy impulse. They still had a strong. They had a stronger impulse that prophets were at least reliable and should be trusted. And so from that impulse, they argued against criticism. For example, did Brigham Young teach that Adam was God? Traditionally, they've tried to make better sense of that so that they don't have to say Brigham was wrong. But now today they're saying, oh, yeah, he was wrong. And even one of their leading philosophers now says that Brigham Young was a theological disaster. So they're just, they're more willing to appeal to the fallibility of their leaders. But that comes along with a lower view of Scripture as well. They're. They're much less committed to what Scripture says. I. I don't understand the era we're in. But one observation that I have is that a lot of young, young people know, maybe I would, I would have said podcasts 10 years ago, but today I'm saying YouTube channels and those have an extraordinary influence, perhaps even beyond their own leaders, beyond the publications of their own prophets and apostles.
- [16:07]
Mike
The term or title of prophet in Latter Day Saint theology is a radical diminution and degradation of the biblical concept of a prophet. First, a brief definition of a biblical prophet is in order. The definition I'll be citing comes from Old Testament professor at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Jason S. Dirushi. In his 2017 book how to Apply and Understand the Old Testament, A prophet is a covenantal ambassador of the heavenly court whom God commissioned to preach for God to the people and to pray for the people of God. Yahweh's prophets were enforcers and ambassadors of the various covenants that God had made with those on earth. They also predicted the coming new Covenant, which would fulfill in different ways all previous divine human covenants. This information can be found on pages 511 and 59, respectively. The infallible magisterial calling and office of a prophet in the Old Testament is ultimately fulfilled in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is the consummate prophet, priest and king. See Matthew 21:11, Deuteronomy 18:11, Acts 3:22, Luke 24:19 and John 16:4, for example. And at the conclusion of the 24th chapter of Luke, Jesus himself says, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. In other words, no one is greater than Jesus, and no one will come after Jesus and add any additional books to the Bible or or new revelations not already given through the prophets and later the first apostles. By stark contrast, LDS prophets can be in error. Their teachings may be just their own opinions. The words they speak might not finally be emanating directly from God. They could be mistaken. Thus, LDS prophets are adding additional words, additional commandments and additional covenants to the finished work of Jesus Christ. According to Deuteronomy 18:20, however, such a prophet is not a prophet at all. The penalty in Old Testament times for speaking false or presumptuous prophecies was death. But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. End quote.
- [18:50]
Aaron Shafawaloff
There's rapid evolution through social media right now, and a platform where people can make their voice immediately heard. It's not hard for a young Latter Day Saint right now who has an interest in theology, history, Scripture to get an audience. Young Latter Day Saints are thirsty for people who will doggedly fight for and defend and explain their faith and punch back even.
- [19:19]
Mike
Yeah.
- [19:20]
Aaron Shafawaloff
I think that the feeling is that critics, especially evangelicals, have been punching really hard, especially since the 80s in a public way. And you know, 20 years ago, many of us, the experience that we typically had is that Latter Day Saints are a very sweet and conflict avoidant people even. They're very sensitive people. They don't enjoy the Chicago, New York leaning. Sort of like more rhetorical aggression or pointedness.
- [19:54]
Mike
Right.
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Aaron Shafawaloff
Utah's not like that.
- [19:57]
Mike
They're not like Philadelphia Eagles fans or something like that.
- [20:01]
Aaron Shafawaloff
No, not at all. And, and there's something sweet about that. I love, I love Utah. I love that. I love my, my neighbors and my friends. And they're very kind people.
- [20:09]
Mike
And the missionaries. Every young missionary that I've ever talked to has always been super kind and sweet and. But we were just talking before Mike's went on. And the opposite side of that is that you have zealous LDS apologists, maybe 20s, 30s, but there's a little bit more punch. You said it a minute ago. In their defense, kind of like I've seen my older generations of my families get punched by evangelical Protestants and now we're kind of the YouTube social media debutantes. We're going to punch back a little bit. They're still nice. We're not saying that they're super, super antagonistic, but yet there is that a kind of aggression that is somewhat unique to lds.
- [20:52]
Aaron Shafawaloff
I wouldn't typify the LDS people as adopting.
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Mike
Absolutely not.
- [20:55]
Aaron Shafawaloff
Right. But I would typify the young people who be at least the subset of young people who become apologetically interested. That's a very important qualification because my sample is probably very skewed. But the young people who are apologetically interested are really drawn to rhetorically aggressive, contentious people. And I, and I mean, like, this is very strange to me, but some of the most prominent and most influential figures in LDS apologetics right now, having influence in LDS missionaries in training, will even drop curse words in their, in their.
- [21:38]
Mike
Really? Oh yeah, I haven't run across that yet.
- [21:40]
Aaron Shafawaloff
They will aggressively go after people that they think are, are going after the LDS church.
- [21:49]
Mike
Wow.
- [21:50]
Aaron Shafawaloff
And so it's not that the LDS people are adopting that behavior, but it's becoming condoned and tolerated at an alarming rate. That for us is very strange because it doesn't typify the LDS people. I would never want to typify the LDS people by that. But It's a strange situation where the LDS Church itself, in terms of its leadership, they're relatively silent when it comes to doctrine and theology and apologetics and history. They don't really have much to offer. And it's created a vacuum. That vacuum, for a season was filled in by BYU professors, influencers, and popularizers like Stephen E. Robinson or Robert Millet. There was a, there was a set of authors that were getting more traction 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And that looks like it's, it's flipped ahead away from that to social media influencers. But these social media influencers don't necessarily operate at the same caliber. And they're, they're not. I mean, they're, It's. So there's a couple interesting patterns right now. One is they're adopting higher criticism.
- [23:06]
Mike
Yes.
- [23:07]
Aaron Shafawaloff
And the documentary hypothesis, jpd. They're, they're, they're adopting very cynical views.
- [23:15]
Mike
Let me interject there to your point, because I've seen this firsthand in the videos that, that I've been watching in preparation for our talk. They're going after the Bible in no other way than I can say attacking it like atheists.
- [23:30]
Aaron Shafawaloff
I would even say viciously. So Jacob Hansen, one of the most prominent voices right now, has gone for weeks on Twitter attacking the ethics of the Old Testament. So the typical flashpoints between atheists and Christians are starting to look like the typical flashpoints of evangelicals and LDS apologists.
- [23:54]
Mike
Now that's phenomenal.
- [23:56]
Aaron Shafawaloff
Many of the same. You could come to Utah, for example, and really just not study Mormonism in theory. You could just study general apologetics and pretend like everyone's an atheist. And you probably, of course, sharing the gospel, letting that be front and center, and then just letting your general apologetics serve you well when it, when it needs to be used, because a lot of that has had, has extraordinary overlap. Right now, Jacob Hansen was just going after the conquest narrative where the Hebrew people were told to wipe out the Canaanites. And it's this strange sort of assumption that it has me wondering if he even holds to the Passover narrative or the Abraham narrative of almost sacrificing Isaac, his son. You know, very difficult passages that I personally don't think were meant to emotionally comprehend. I think they are flashpoints. They do force the issue of submitting to the inerrancy of Scripture and trusting the goodness of God in the arc of redemptive history. The zooming out and seeing what God's up to makes it a lot easier. But zooming in sometimes you're like, whoa, what is going on here? And there's a kind of patience that inerrancy requires. By that, I mean, you need to slow down and read more, listen more and see of what God's up to to make an analysis there.
- [25:23]
Mike
Speaking of Abraham in the Old Testament. But to your point, before I go on to another subject, Hanson's going after the conquest narrative. This is an old atheist technique. They've been doing this for forever.
- [25:38]
Aaron Shafawaloff
It's also not something that Latter Day Saints have historically questioned. Yeah, it is very new. I, I'm sure there's some sort of precedent that's tucked away in history that can be an exception to this, but we have not heard this sort of prominent objection from Latter Day Saints up until very recently.
- [25:58]
Mike
Aaron, do you think it's your opinion? Obviously, I know we can't really finally establish if this is the case or not, but it seems like this whole attack on the Bible from these up and coming social media apologists is to establish, I'm thinking the prophetic utterances of Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Price and Doctrine and Covenants. If we can kind of like make the Bible look like a broken tiled wall that needs to have gap filler, new tile replaced, we need to somehow justify Joseph. Well, if the Bible is not so much trustworthy or there's missing parts, or we need to make the Bible look incomplete, piecemeal, like Legos on the floor, and then we can bring Joseph in. That seems to be what I would guess would be the motive for why you would want to tear down the Bible at all.
- [26:48]
Aaron Shafawaloff
Yeah, it gets pretty dark. So I'll give you one example. In the Old Testament, the narrative of the exile is owing in part due to the condoning of the worship of Asherah, which was a female fertility goddess that, you know, they were. You had figurines that the pagans had that the Jews. You know, one of the objections is, well, there's, it's all over archaeology. The Jewish people had figurines of Asherah and the Christians sadly nod and say, yeah, that's right, that's the point. That's why there was an exile. But Latter Day Saint apologists, at least up until recently, maybe like Kevin Barney and Daniel Peterson, have argued that Asherah is sort of an echo of Heavenly Mother and that, that the, that the corruptors of the Old Testament were, were obscuring the positive portrayal of Heavenly Mother and that that got twisted. And so now the Bible as we have it is this sort of, is this twisted narrative that no longer honors Heavenly Mother as she should be honored. Also they're adopting this narrative that the, there really wasn't an embedded metaphysical monotheism, an ultimate most high monotheism. The notion is that, and they're really adopting this from secular higher critics. The notion is that the monotheism of Isaiah is evolutionary and ultimately there's no required interpretive conclusion that God is ontologically unique from anybody else. He's just a big one of us. That's really, he's not, he's not actually categorically unique. So they're going after the God of scripture, they're going after the redemptive ark. In terms of the fundamental events, we're talking creation, flood, Babel, Passover, Abrahamic covenant, exile, Exodus. So there's different parts of the conquest narrative, the Josiah's reforms, almost every single one of those Latter Day Saint apologists are either rejecting or dealing blows to in terms of their fundamentally questioning important parts of the narrative. Then you get to the New Testament and then we have Mormon apologists now arguing that the historical and overall argument, the compelling nature of, of the gold plates is more compelling than the resurrection of Jesus. That's a new thing. Now is that the rest?
- [29:28]
Mike
I've heard that, I've heard that and I've heard it couched this way. Basically we have more witnesses to the gold plates than we do for the resurrection of Jesus. But my simple, very simple pushback on that is that even if you take the three most central witnesses, Rob Bowman's book, Jesus's resurrection and Joseph's visions, all of the witnesses to the plates, I'll give them as many witnesses as they want. Take them all and let's just say that it all. They all saw something, they all saw an angel, they all heard confirmational voices. Let's just say all that's true. The problem is Aaron, that all of those revelations, all of those appearances were arranged through and by Joseph Smith hand selecting people that he knew, his relationships or his friends or acquaintances. He picked the time, he picked the place, he brought the men and anybody else. He arranged every one of these visions. So I don't care how, how many witnesses you want to compile, they've all. It would be like the equivalent of the Apostle Paul arranging every post resurrection appearance of Jesus to everybody else. If all the resurrection appearances are going through the Apostle Paul at this time, at this place, then I'm going to suspect that this is something that the Apostle Paul has created.
- [30:43]
Aaron Shafawaloff
And there's also grief over the three witnesses. I think were also some of them were taken back by how the story itself evolved in ways they didn't expect, where Smith was telling the story in ways that they didn't quite see the same way, and addressed all the Again,
- [30:56]
Mike
there's that evolutionary theme of developing a story after it's happened. A Brief Background on the Witnesses to the Gold Plates these gold plates are allegedly the primary source of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith claimed they contained the history of certain Israelites who left Israel sometime in the early 6th century BC and came to the Americas. The existence of the gold plates was supposedly revealed to 17 year old Joseph Smith in 1823 by a deceased man turned angel named Moroni. Smith claimed he eventually dug up the plates from a hill near his home in Manchester, New York in 1827. Now, for much of the time that Smith had these plates in his possession, no one else but Smith was able to examine the plates in any great detail. But LDS Church history states that as many as 17 witnesses actually did see the plates. There are three main Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. These three witnesses were said to have seen the plates through some type of spiritual vision that included the visitation of an angelic being. Eight other witnesses included three members of Joseph Smith's immediate family and five members of the Whitmer family. These witnesses claimed they physically saw or handled the plates in some way, usually when the plates were covered or in a box or a sack. Martin Harris is the only one of the 11 witnesses who was not part of the Smith or Whitmer families. There are testimonies of six to eight additional witnesses, but five of those witnesses are also members of Smith's immediate family. In short, Joseph Smith is primarily responsible for hand selecting the witnesses from his own friends and family, as well as arranging the times and places where the angel and the plates would be revealed.
- [32:48]
Aaron Shafawaloff
Yeah, so I think your point is that we or that LDS apologists want to make the Bible so pitiful that you need a rescuer, and that rescuer is a modern day prophet. Now that's a principle, that's an argument. But in practice these guys don't really even have a high view of their modern prophets. So you said that BYU professors were putting disclaimer notices in the preface, for example, or the title page. I forget the where, but in the introductory material. That's very common. But I would say that Latter Day Saint apologists assume the same sort of disclaimer even now for general conference talks and manuals and institutional outlets that the implicit qualification, the plausible Deniability layer is applied to all of that, even applied to the temple ceremony.
- [33:42]
Mike
In one of my trips to Utah last fall, I visited a Deseret Bookstore in St. George. Deseret is the bookstore chain owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I happened upon a book series on display in the front of the store called the let's Talk about series. I bought one of the titles, let's Talk About Becoming Like God, written by a professor at Brigham Young University, Daniel Belknap. On the copyright page, Belknap notes this work is not an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church of Brigham Young University or of Deseret Book Company. End quote. Now, both BYU and Deseret Book Company are owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is highly unlikely that Daniel's book would have been published by Deseret if the Church did not approve of it. Yet the short statement is but one example of the plausible deniability aspect of the LDS Church's teachings and practices. Here is another example from a popular Latter Day Saint YouTube channel called Ward Radio.
- [34:59]
Aaron Shafawaloff
The following is an episode of Ward Radio and does not represent the thoughts or the opinions of khts, its owners,
- [35:05]
Mike
or any of its affiliates, nor does it represent the official opinion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
- [35:10]
Aaron Shafawaloff
With that said, sit back, relax and enjoy the program. Can you feel it? Because the temple ceremony isn't necessarily finally official because sometimes that Latter Day Saint prophets have taught Brigham had Adam Gob taught the temple ceremony. There's certain elements of the temple ceremony that were discontinued as of 1990.
- [35:32]
Mike
And I know Brigham in the Journal of Discourse. I think it's Journal of Discourse. I could be getting these wrong Journal of Discourse one of them anyway. Paraphrasing. But he said anything I say to the Church you can just consider to be as good as Scripture.
- [35:45]
Aaron Shafawaloff
Yeah. And there was a big showdown between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young. There's a book called Conflict in the Quorum and it talks about how some of the other apostles who were defending Brigham against Orson Pratt accused Orson Pratt of turning Brigham into someone who just drivels who can't be trusted as a prophet. Like if you think if you think Brigham Young is wrong about Adam God. If you think Brigham Young is wrong about all the gods continuing to learn and grow in power, then you're not really adopting his you're not really committed to his identity as a prophet. So they really held to a higher view of prophets. And Orsinthe his response was, well, what he's teaching doesn't comport with our scriptures and essentially our, even our, most, even our highest prophet can be abysmally, disastrously wrong. But I do remember that some of, some of them were sent up to Canada to sell the copyright for the Book of Mormon. And Smith's response, his explanation for the failure of his prophecy, yeah, they didn't
- [36:47]
Mike
sell the book copyrights.
- [36:49]
Aaron Shafawaloff
And, and his explanation for that was that some prophecies are of the devil, some are of the flesh or of man, and some are of God. So I mean, all, you know, this plausible deniability, fallibility theme is being pushed. It's more pervasively, it's spreading. And so the big idea is, well, we need modern day prophets to account for fallibility. But modern day prophets are also very, very fallible.
- [37:17]
Mike
So when Dallin H. Oaks, new president, speaks at General Conference this year, first time he'll be able to speak at a general conference, it's taking over from Russell M. Nelson, who passed away in September. When he's up there in General Conference speaking, Dallin could be speaking as a man, as a man from his flesh or from the devil. And when he passes away, the next president could declare that anything that Dallin said publicly, it was just Dallin's opinion.
- [37:42]
Aaron Shafawaloff
I'm fascinated by Jesus himself, who I think fascination is a terrible understatement. But Jesus himself says to the disciples after his resurrection, oh, you have been slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. And of Samuel in the Old Testament, it says, the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground. And then when you read Psalm 19, it talks about the law of the Lord is pure. There's like three or four statements that David makes in Psalm 19 about the purity and the goodness and the cleanness, cleanness of the Word of God. And then if you really spend some time with Psalm 119, it's David going through the Hebrew Alphabet and unfolding his love for the purity of God's testimonies, his law, his Word. Nobody talks about LDS prophets like David and Jesus talk about the word of God, Jesus himself, even about talking about his own word.
- [38:51]
Mike
Jesus says,
- [38:54]
Aaron Shafawaloff
my word is full of the spirit and of life. He says that in John 6. And he says in the upper room discourse, you are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. Or when he prays, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. Or John 5, Jesus says, Whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me, he has eternal life. Or the rest of the New Testament describes the kingdom or the growth of the Church in terms of the word spreading or the word being received. Or Paul celebrates of the Thessalonians, when I preach to you, you didn't receive. You didn't receive. I thank God that you received my words not as the words of man, but as the word of God.
- [39:37]
Mike
This plausible deniability exists primarily because the Church has conceded that its president prophets are not infallible and that the Church's doctrines and practices have changed and evolved over time. As Aaron shared with me, this doctrinal and practical evolution even includes sacred temple ceremonies and teachings of past Church president prophets. The second president prophet of the Church, Brigham Young, for example, authoritatively taught that Adam was actually God in the flesh, a doctrine the Church no longer teaches. But how could a prophet speaking on God's behalf allegedly teach false doctrine? If the Adam God doctrine was indeed God breathed doctrine as Young thought it was, why does the Church no longer teach it? In 1990, the church removed the symbolic slitting of one's throat from its temple ceremonies. This sign was likely borrowed from Masonic Temple rituals and exhorted members not to reveal the secrets of the LDS temple endowment ceremony. So even the temple ceremony itself is subject to change.
- [40:43]
Aaron Shafawaloff
And then Paul teaches Timothy, all Scripture is God breathed and profitable for training in rebuke and righteousness. Well, the modern LDS attitude towards Scripture and their own prophets is that it's not all profitable for training and reproof and righteousness. Jesus says in Matthew 7, watch out for false prophets. You'll know them by their fruits. But I think we often miss out the next verses. Jesus says, if I could paraphrase, I really should memorize this. Jesus says, you don't go to where the thorns and thistles are to get the figs and the grapes. He distinguishes the figs and the grapes with the thorn bushes or thistles and thorns. And the warning here is that if you are adopting or testifying to or bearing witness of someone you think is a true prophet, but you're otherwise treating them like a thorny orchard or. And I just, I have memories of my grandmother's house where, you know, it's beautiful lake and the field on the way to the lake, but on the left, if you went back into the bushes as a young boy, if you, if you got too far into that thicket, you would get cut up. And, and so you might get some berries back there. But, you know, you just knew that. You just knew that that was not a. A place you could go play and. Or find comfort and rest. I don't think Latter Day Saints think of some of their own prophets as a grassy meadow or still waters or green pastures or a fruitful orchard. They treat their own profits today like thorn bushes and thistles. You've been listening to Apologetics Profile, a podcast ministry of Watchmen Fellowship Incorporated.
- [42:42]
Mike
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