S2E38 Prosperity Theology Part 1

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast: Season 2, Episode 38 – “Prosperity Theology Part 1”

Host: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat
Guest: Professor Richard Leduc
Release Date: September 22, 2022

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Introduction

In the 38th episode of Season 2 of the "Standard of Truth" podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard Leduc delve into the intricate and often controversial topic of Prosperity Theology. This episode, titled “Prosperity Theology Part 1,” seeks to unravel the theological underpinnings and historical contexts that have shaped the belief that righteousness directly correlates with material wealth, health, and overall prosperity within the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) community.

Listener Engagement and Email Discussion

Timestamp [00:01 - 09:01]:
The episode begins with Dr. Dirkmaat welcoming listeners and introducing Professor Richard Leduc. They discuss their tradition of reading listener emails, emphasizing their focus on positive and uplifting messages. Marlene, one of their listeners, sends in a heartfelt email that becomes the cornerstone of the episode’s discussion.

Notable Quote:

• Marlene [02:16]: “Well, in here, and we found we've actually done focus groups and studies. It's the 12th, 13th listen.”

Marlene’s Inquiry on Prosperity Theology

Marlene’s email raises a critical question about the prevalent belief among some LDS members that personal righteousness and hard work are guaranteed to result in blessings such as wealth and health. She challenges this notion by referencing her own experiences and observations, particularly from her mission in Germany, where despite her faithfulness and diligence, results did not align with the promised prosperity.

Notable Quote:

• Marlene [08:36]: “I know that if we are righteous, we are blessed with money, health, prosperity, etc. So then the reverse must be true. If we are having a hard time and not feeling blessed... then we must be sinful or being punished by God.”

Theological Foundations and Calvinism

Professor Leduc responds by exploring the origins of the belief that all experiences are manifestations of divine will, tracing it back to Calvinist theology. He explains how Calvinism’s emphasis on God's absolute sovereignty lays the groundwork for interpreting all events, including suffering, as either rewards for righteousness or punishments for sin.

Notable Quotes:

• Professor Leduc [11:19]: “If you think you're doing something to quote, unquote, save yourself, you're not. God chose to save you. God does whatever God wants to do.”
• Professor Leduc [25:54]: “It's classic Bill.”

Historical Context: Justification of Slavery

To illustrate the dangers of a rigid interpretation of divine will, Professor Leduc references a 1742 sermon by Reverend James Bate. This sermon blatantly justifies slavery by claiming it as God’s will, arguing that Africans were destined to be servants due to their lineage from Ham and Canaan. Such historical precedents highlight how theology can be manipulated to support immoral practices.

Notable Quote:

• Professor Leduc [26:27]: “For this preacher, it's God's will that Africans be enslaved. And if it wasn't God's will, well, then they wouldn't be enslaved.”

LDS Church History and Suffering

The discussion transitions to LDS Church history, where Leduc and Dirkmaat shed light on instances where early church members endured significant hardships not due to personal sin but as a consequence of external persecutions and internal struggles. For example, Joseph Smith and his family faced relentless persecution, loss of land, and personal tragedies, challenging the simplistic cause-and-effect relationship between righteousness and prosperity.

Notable Quote:

• Professor Leduc [36:16]: “The missionaries' sincere efforts didn't always result in success, questioning the efficacy of the equation 'faithfulness plus hard work equals baptisms.'”

Critique of the Prosperity Gospel

Central to the episode is the critique of the Prosperity Gospel within the LDS community. The hosts argue that the belief system fosters unrealistic expectations and places undue blame on individuals for circumstances beyond their control. They emphasize that attributing all suffering to personal sin disregards broader societal and existential factors.

Notable Quotes:

• Marlene [40:58]: “That if any of those things happen to us once... something was wrong with my faithfulness or hard work.”
• Professor Leduc [48:34]: “If you're a missionary, the way God blesses me is he takes away the agency from that German... forcing him into whatever baptismal font I find there.”

Personal Anecdotes and Real-World Implications

The conversation becomes more personal as Marlene shares her frustrations with teachings that suggest suffering is solely a result of personal failings. She recounts examples from church history, such as the tragic losses endured by early members like Mercy Fielding and the hardships faced by Joseph and Emma Smith, to illustrate that piety does not always shield one from adversity.

Notable Quote:

• Marlene [54:43]: “I just wish Emma was more righteous. I just feel like if she had worked harder then she wouldn't have lost her baby.”

Philosophical and Ethical Considerations

Professor Leduc delves into the philosophical dilemma posed by Calvinist determinism, questioning how an all-powerful and benevolent God can permit suffering, especially when it seems disproportionate or unjust. He challenges the notion that God’s will is the sole determinant of all events, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of divine agency and human suffering.

Notable Quote:

• Professor Leduc [55:26]: “Where's the agency in that? The reality is we think that agency answers every ill but this world is filled with injustices.”

Conclusion and Future Discussions

The episode concludes with a commitment to further explore the roots and repercussions of Prosperity Theology in the LDS community in subsequent episodes. Dirkmaat and Leduc underscore the importance of reassessing theological doctrines to foster a more compassionate and realistic understanding of suffering and divine will.

Notable Quote:

• Professor Leduc [65:50]: “In our next episode, we're going to talk about specifically some of the reasons why this prosperity gospel is sometimes found inside of Latter Day Saints where people really believe that as long as you're righteous you're going to be more wealthy than other people around you.”

Key Takeaways

• Prosperity Theology Critique: The episode provides a thorough examination of Prosperity Theology, highlighting its historical roots in Calvinism and its implications within the LDS community.

• Historical Lessons: By referencing historical instances like Reverend James Bate’s sermon, the hosts illustrate the potential misuse of theology to justify unethical practices.

• Real-Life Implications: Personal anecdotes and church history examples underscore the disconnect between the promise of prosperity and the reality of suffering experienced by members.

• Philosophical Depth: The discussion touches upon profound philosophical questions regarding divine sovereignty, free will, and the existence of evil.

Final Thoughts

"Prosperity Theology Part 1" serves as a compelling critique of a belief system that equates spiritual devotion with material success. Through engaging dialogue and thoughtful analysis, Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor Leduc encourage listeners to reflect on the complexities of faith, suffering, and the true nature of divine blessings.

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For more insights and resources, visit standardoftruth.com.

Transcript

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations, and miracles.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Foreign. Hi. Welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard Leduc.

[Marlene]

Hello, Garrett. In this week's podcast, we received an email from a listener that is going to be able to kind of spark the discussion that we're going to have. But first, I wanted to read. We received lots of emails from our.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Listeners, and again, we have a rule.

[Marlene]

That we only read the ones that are very positive and glowing.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Right. We receive thousands upon thousands of emails.

[Marlene]

Like I've used the example before, that it's the scene From Miracle on 34th.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Street and where the judge put them.

[Marlene]

Here on my desk.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

And then there's no room on this desk.

[Marlene]

That's right. Just bags and bags of letters.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

And like Miracle on 34th street, our listeners are unable to tell whether or not you're Santa Claus.

[Marlene]

That's right. So I wanted to read. We. And I will have. I have to say that some of these emails, the majority of them are just absolutely hilarious. And. And that either either that they're just generally really funny people or that they spend a lot of time. Either way, the emails are of the highest quality.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Very good.

[Marlene]

All right, so here we have. Hello, Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor Leduc. I just wanted to write in and thank you for the amazing job you do on the podcast every week. Oh, shucks.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

That was very nice. Very nice.

[Marlene]

I thoroughly enjoy listening to the episodes and I love the variety of topics you guys to discuss today. I have downloaded and listened to every episode twice, and I'm currently cycling through them for the third time.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Wow. So. So the 12 downloads we get, he's actually doing it twice.

[Marlene]

Yeah, Dave. Dave's bringing it 10.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah, twice. Thank you for upping the numbers.

[Marlene]

Well, in here, and we found we've actually done. Done the focus groups in the studies. It's the 12th, 13th listen.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah, that's what we find that you listen to it one time, you hate it, you listen to it. Second time, you hate it more, third time, you're annoyed. Fourth time, you hate it. Fifth time, you start to soften a little. Sixth time, you go back to hating it seventh time, then you start to come around. That's what I've found this is.

[Marlene]

Yeah, that's what, that's what my wife.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Tells me as well.

[Marlene]

That's what. That's what the science tells us. Let's see. You'll be happy to know that I still find them fascinating and haven't fallen asleep once. In my opinion, they are the perfect blend of well researched historical facts, comedic entertainment and spirit filled testimony. And I don't even mind learning about townships, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the former failed presidential campaign slogans.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Oh, he got.

[Marlene]

Those are our three big ones he's playing. He missed. He missed Japanese rice tariffs. But other than that, he.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah, it's because we've never actually covered that one. But we did cover Rumsey Dumpsey. Rumsey Dumpsey.

[Marlene]

Colonel Johnson shot Tecumseh. That's right.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

That's a lot for.

[Marlene]

As for suggestions for upcoming episodes, I don't really have anything to recommend. Although a few weeks ago a listener wrote in and I think we're about to start a war here, Garrett.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Well, it's going to be between Utah and Missouri.

[Marlene]

That's right. A few weeks ago a listener wrote in and complained about the way that Richard said the word Missouri, claiming that because they, the listener were from Missouri, they know how to pronounce their own name, the state's name. Well, that's interesting to me because every time I turn on ESPN and see the University of Missouri playing anybody, it doesn't seem like they know their state's name. All I see are signs and T shirts everywhere saying Mizzou, which isn't even close to Missouri. In all seriousness, thanks again for the wonderful podcast. Thursdays are now a bright spot in my week and I'm hoping for at least 38 seasons that's when you'll get to polygamy. Right. So we in the last. In. In. In a previous podcast we did say 18 seasons we'll get to polygamy. So 20 seasons ahead of that.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

No, I want to keep now been pushed down to 38. This email was so good. We're pushing Polygamy to season 38.

[Marlene]

That's pretty good.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

On his recommendation.

[Marlene]

So him bringing up my. My pronuncification of Missoura. I mean we're making. They're teasing a little bit on Legacy.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Marlene]

Which is. Which is where we, where we get.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

This happens all these moments.

[Marlene]

And he's referencing an email from Ari, who is. Who is from Missouri, now lives in.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Utah and feared that we were confusing him with rednecks of other unnamed states that he did not want to Be lumped in with.

[Marlene]

That's correct. Well, so. So we. We received an email from Ari this week and it was. It was very, very funny and very well written. And.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

And very long.

[Marlene]

And. And very long.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

I'm not gonna read the whole thing here.

[Marlene]

Well, so. Well, so what we will read is that I responded to that email and said, dear sir.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Why did you just say Ari? What are you.

[Marlene]

Well, you applied for it. I love it.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Are you asking him to disconnect your cable? Why would you say dear?

[Marlene]

I don't know. I don't know. Dear sir, given my obviously limited grasp of the English language, it is not possible for me to properly communicate how much I loved your email below. That was my response to his just hilarious email about how much of an idiot I am for not thinking of.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

A. I like the fact that you take it in stride.

[Marlene]

Oh, it was just. But it's a rule on the show that we only write or we only read the positive words.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah, well, he noted that. He said I have to make this sound positive because otherwise you won't read it. You know what? We're not reading it.

[Marlene]

You didn't make it sound positive enough.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

How about that?

[Marlene]

So anyway, so then in response to my dear sir email, he said, you might love it a little more if you knew that there are exactly two Aries in the same ward that listen to your podcast. When you read the email on that first episode, he came up to me and accused me of being the sender, which I. Which is obviously true. So you may receive literally dozens of emails, but there are literally two of us. He is not as picky as I am, though. So you've won over exactly 50% of your ARI listener base.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

That's good to know. So first of all, I. I'm surprised there's anyone in Missouri named Ari, and then doubly surprised that there's two ARIs of the same ward and that somehow both of them are listening to the podcast. My guess is that maybe Ari just has a split personality.

[Marlene]

Well, so it's. It's great. I mean, like I. Like I've said several times, I mean, half of my family is Jewish, and so like, I've got like 30 cousins named Ari, so it's. It just feels like I'm back home. But so the email that is going to kind of spark the discussion comes to us from a listener named Marlene. And. And it's actually full of all kinds of good stuff. We're going to pull out one particular thing. Dear Professor Leduc and Dr. Dirkmaat. I really appreciate, by the way that she led with me on that. I think that's important.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

I think that we're going to start calling it the Standard of Truth podcast with Professor Richard leduc and sometimes accompanied by statistician Garrett Dirkmar.

[Marlene]

I love that. I think that's good. I think the things that I bring to this, all the research, all of the things that I've done. All right. Dear Professor Leducan and Dr. Garrett, my name is Marlene. I'm a new listener to your podcast. And just in the past few, and just this past weekend, I finished listening to everything. I wanted you to know that I appreciate your work and enjoy listening. Since I have a daughter named Rachel, I appreciate the call out of appreciation in nearly every episode to Rachel's mom. It nice to be noticed.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

It's funny how many people think that they know who the Rachel is. Who's Rachel's mom?

[Marlene]

Well, in this case it's Marlene.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Well, right.

[Marlene]

That's who we were always talking about.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

We're going to start. We'll start saying Marlene occasionally now.

[Marlene]

Just throw it in.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah, just throw that in there. But there's. There's actually quite a few people who are named Rachel and so there's actually quite a few people. They're like, oh, is it so and so's mom? Nope, it's not.

[Marlene]

I have liked all of your discussions about Calvinism. So you're the one. And how early saints have had a hard time with some of the revelations because they didn't fit into accepted prominent view of God or heaven, etc. In listening to your Zion podcast, one thing you didn't say was that the saints were to blame for being persecuted and killed. Not that I think that, but hasn't that been a prominent view in the church? At least I think it has been in my time growing up. I know. I have learned that if we are righteous, we are blessed with money, health, prosperity, etc. So then the reverse must be true. If we are having a hard time and not feeling blessed, don't have money, health, prosperity, etc. Then we must be sinful or being punished by God. Where does that idea come from? Is that a Calvinistic worldview? On my mission in Germany eons ago, I learned that A, B, C, or that faithfulness plus working hard equals baptisms. Since it was Germany, there was not a lot of success. So I figured then that something was wrong with my A or B in the equation. Since then I have been trying to reframe my ideas of what Blessings are and how I know I am worthy of blessings. Anyway, if any of the above makes sense and you'd like to talk about it sometime, I'd eagerly listen. Well, Marlene, so this is something that is both something that Garrett and I are actually both passionate about as it relates to your question. And so Garrett's going to be able to dive into a little bit of kind of where this idea comes from. And then hopefully we'll be able to provide some even modern day, Latter day teachings from apostles and prophets on kind of the counter to that way of thinking.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

I mean, this is a great question in part because we don't always have questions about purported Joseph Smith revelations that are recorded 30 years later. Not always. I would assume that there's at least 98% of our listener base who didn't know that that W.W. phelps letter existed.

[Marlene]

Yes.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

And that's, that's normal. That would be a fine thing to not know that. Now, I'm sure one of the Aries did. Yeah.

[Marlene]

The one that likes us.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah. The other Ari who thinks that you don't know how to talk. Right. Well, he's right about it. Yeah. Well, you know, talk good. But I mean, so it's a great question because it's universal. It's actually the question of every person who believes in any type of higher power, period. And when you ask where the origin of that idea comes from, obviously there are multiple places in the Bible in which the way that cataclysms are framed is because of wickedness. Right. The, the children of Israel are destroyed in the kingdom of Israel. They lost 10 tribes because of their wickedness. The kingdom of Judah eventually falls, both in the Book of Mormon and in the Bible, and is carried away captive into Babylon. Why? Well, because of their wickedness. And so it is certainly a biblical way of looking at suffering to say that sometimes this is called the classical view that suffering is because of a punishment from God. You see this in multiple places in the Old Testament. And part of the issue surrounding that is the world in which the Old Testament is written in, the world of the Old Testament is a world of multiple gods. And it's a world in which the idea of a righteous God, the idea of an all powerful God who is also all good, doesn't actually exist. Right. So Zeus is I guess technically all powerful, but he's also someone who's guilty of multiple sexual assaults and murder. So you don't worship Zeus because Zeus is good. You don't worship Zeus because he's going to prepare for you A wonderful place in the heavens and the afterlife. In fact, in the ancient world, most people view the afterlife as being manifestly worse than this life, certainly in Greek theologies. And so you don't worship Zeus because you're going to go to heaven, because you don't believe in heaven. You don't worship Zeus because Zeus is good and you love Zeus. You actually probably hate Zeus because he's a total jerk. He's everything that every bully on earth is. Only he has the power to carry all of his horrific schemes into into play, put them into practice. You worship Zeus because he's powerful. The worship of gods in the ancient world, as I've said before on some podcasts in the past that we don't index and we don't have a transcript of, so we don't know when it was, but trust me, I'm sure it was. It was amazing. If you, if you just go through it, listen to all of them three or four times, you'll eventually find the one you're looking for. Or we'll get to it in season 37. The point of worshiping gods in the ancient world is so foreign to many Latter Day Saints and other Christians today. The gods were not good. That was the whole explanation for evil in the world. Why did my crops all fail? Because Athena hates me and destroyed all my crops. Why does she hate me? I didn't sacrifice a goat to her the way I should have last October, and she's still holding a grudge. Now, that did not provide a whole lot of closure in the sense of an explanation of how you could fix it, but it certainly provided explanations for why things are the way they are. Why did my son die in that battle against the Parthians? Well, because Mercury was angry with my failure to venerate him and his shrine. So the polytheistic world gods were worshiped not because you loved them and not because you were seeking an afterlife. Gods were worshiped because they were powerful and gods could do things that you couldn't do. If I send my son off to war, I can't keep my son from being killed in the battle. But you know who can? Zeus can. And if Zeus doesn't, even though I offered sacrifice and even though I prayed to Zeus, well, I must not have venerated Zeus enough for him to not have that happen. Or since gods are competing with one another, it's entirely possible that while I sacrificed a calf to Zeus, the opposing, you know, parent on the other side with their son, they sacrificed five entire bullocks to you. Know to BAAL or whoever they're worshiping, right? The, the idea of this is really upended by Christianity. Christianity transforms this not only in the fact that you go from having countless numbers of essentially regional gods who are over different areas, here's the God of Egypt, here's the God of, to a single God, but that single God creates a real problem. If there's only one God and we want to say that that God is also good, and we want to say that that God is also all powerful, well then how now do I explain bad things? Before I had a ready explanation, there were either mischievous other gods who were meddling in the affairs of men, or I myself hadn't properly venerated these mischievous gods and that's why they were harming me. But ultimately I had an explanation for evil. Christians lose the polytheistic explanation for evil because now there's no other gods. And even though we try to shovel a lot of the blame off onto Satan, you know, he makes for a good fall guy. The reality is, as we've talked about before, God created Satan. So the moment you say God's all powerful, then of course God already knew when he created Satan that Satan was going to become a fallen angel, which is what they believe. We of course believe is, you know, spirit children of Father. But no one believes that back then. You know, just FYI on the side, no one believes what we believe when it comes to Adam and Eve. But God knew already when he created him because again, this is how Christian would look at this. God created Satan out of nothing. God created everything out of nothing. Which means an all powerful God already knew that when he was forming the Satan molecules, which sounds like a drink at a biker bar, but when he was forming the Satan molecules, he knew in that moment that Satan was going to fall and terrorize mankind. And so it actually makes the ultimate question of evil far harder to explain. Why does God allow Satan to do so much evil in the world? Why doesn't he restrict him? If we're blaming everything on Satan, can't God stop it? If you say he can't, well, we've got a problem. Because now God's not all powerful. And if you say he can and he just doesn't, well now we've also got a problem. This concept is only mitigated by what you have in Job, right? In Job you have a very righteous man who is absolutely suffering, but it's not because of his evil. Still though, Job is in the classical sense of the understanding of suffering, because who is inflicting the suffering on Job, right? It's, you know, Satan and God have a conversation, at least in the way it's presented in Job. And, you know, an outside force is allowed to inflict these punishments on Job even though he's done nothing wrong. And then of course, his friends help out by saying, I'm pretty sure it's your fault, dude. No, no, we all know it's your fault. Just confess. Say that it's your fault. You even, even his wife, you know, curse God and die is what she says. Which, I mean, that's, that's how I'm usually greeted when I get home from work. But in, in both cases, the suffering comes directly from the, from God. I mean, well, in Job's case, God allows Satan to do those evil things, but still God allowed it. But in Job's case, it wasn't because he was wicked. So the Bible, the Old Testament, does establish the idea that an incredibly righteous person can suffer incredibly. But also often what you have is that the wicked people are slain and the righteous people survive. Now if we leap forward into the future to get kind of closer to Marlene's question, because right now she's like.

[Marlene]

I'm, I don't, I did not ask that question. Yeah, whatever you just talked about.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Well, I was about to start talking about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but we'll, we'll move it back when you get to the Protestant Reformation. One of the, one of the things that's most fundamental to Martin Luther and to John Calvin is the absolute sovereignty of God. Meaning, look, if you think you're doing something to quote, unquote, save yourself, you're not. God chose to save you. God does whatever God wants to do. When the question is asked, you know, well, why doesn't God do X or why doesn't God do Y? The answer is always, it's none of your business. Because God does whatever God wants to do. Are you saying that God willed this earthquake to happen in Portugal and kill everyone? Well, of course, because nothing can happen outside of the will of God. They carried that forward to salvation as well. And again, we talked about Calvinism, but part of the appeal to it is it's logically consistent. What is more likely than an all powerful God who created this world out of nothing and decided exactly how horrible it would be that, that God desperately wants there to be no suffering in this world, but he just can't figure out how to stop the suffering. He's all powerful. He creates universes, but he can't figure out how to get the Knicks a winning team. I mean, right? I mean, he's all powerful, except he just can't do the only thing that he wants to do. Well, that kind of bad logic is just laughable to, to, to the reformers like Luther and, and Calvin. How can you claim that God isn't doing exactly what God wants to do? We've read from Jonathan Edwards before, and with Jonathan Edwards, you know, even as he, as he told people, you better get ready for the barbecue because you're going to go to hell and you deserve to go there. You know, why should I be righteous if God's going to send me to hell tomorrow anyway? Well, because God should have sent you today, right? You could start that endless torment and suffering a lot earlier. So if you are profligately wicked, then you'll be sent to hell even sooner. So the idea was very easily correlated in not only in Europe, but in early colonial America. If God is in charge of everything, and if God only chose to save certain people, then if so and so happens to have a goodly amount of money and his farm is nice and big and full, well, you have to say that that is God's will. How could you not say that it's God's will? God is the only sovereign power in the universe. Remember, Calvinists are arguing that we don't even have free will. That the only will, quote unquote, that you have is how you might sin. But that you're a sinner, that you're unrepentant, that you're unregenerate is outside of the will. You are a sinner who deserves to burn in hell. Period. End of story. If it seemed that you had no money, that all of your business ventures that you attempted to do failed, well, who else could you blame that on? I suppose you could blame it on yourself, in which case the re the reason why your business didn't work out is because you hadn't been worshiping God strongly enough. Or you could blame it on God, in which case you're claiming that God did something God shouldn't have done. So it was a pretty natural thing to say. If Bill's crops all die, well, Bill must have fornicated with somebody. That's the reason why.

[Marlene]

It's classic Bill.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah, well, Bill. We probably have a listener named Bill. We haven't heard from him yet.

[Marlene]

Well, he knows Bill.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

It's time for confession. But anyway, so that, that mentality was very. It was used to justify what seemed to be the horrific things in the world. Let me give you an example that is, it's probably not the most delicate example and by probably.

[Marlene]

No, it's not at all. It's not very aggressive. But, but it actually, it to. It proves the point and goes out to the kind of the logical conclusion that you would come to take into the first place.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Once you determine that everything is the will of God, that everything that happens happens because God wills it to happen, well then things that appear to be horrible in the world you can easily justify by the fact that God must have willed it. Probably one of the most horrific examples of this in American history, I mean also European history, but in American history is the attempt to defend slavery and the subjugation of Africans and their, their horrific treatment on the basis that Europeans believed that they, that. That black men and women were descendants of, of Ham and descendants of Canaan. And all the way back through this, this cursing, they were cursed with a darker skin. And that darker skin was the mark that they should be servants and slaves to everyone. I want to read to you from a published sermon from 1742. So for those of you doing math, this is, you know, more than three decades before the Declaration of Independence. This is at the, the times of the American colonies. And this is what this preacher, his name is James Bate and he's, he's obviously an Anglican ministry. He's giving this sermon in, in England in 1742. And he's actually giving it, as the published version states, as a way of supporting the King's statement on the. The expansion of, of the British Empire. Essentially, how do you justify the expansion of the British empire? So again, 1742, if it is to be asked where is the justice of God in adjudging the whole posterity of Ham to a state of slavery, I ask again, where is God's justice in making some men either rich and wiser than others or in blessing some nations with free government and a gracious prince while others are cursed with lawless tyrants? It must be remembered too that God's justice stands clear of all imputation in this case. So speaking of slavery, first and foremost, one of the things that he wants you to understand is how dare you call slavery in. Just because God is the author of all things. So if God is the author of all things, that means God's also the author of slavery. And if God's the author of slavery, who are you to claim that it's not just? Now that argument is a pretty bad argument in today's day and age, but that as you can say here I'm reading it because it is a notorious truth. Now this is great. A justification for slavery is a notorious truth that Africans live happier lives by far in their state of slavery than at home in liberty. And if their captivity be a means of instructing them in Christianity, they will then have the most ample reason not only to be contended under their burdens, but even to thank God for the advantages they reap from their slavery. Now, the charitable instruction of the miserable creatures is the main design of the collection which I now recommend to your favor. So the argument that's being made is that in fact, slavery is God's will in order to aid these Africans who wouldn't have the instruction of God otherwise. I know that for Latter Day Saints, this is a pretty uncomfortable topic given the fact that in early Latter Day Saint history, Latter Day Saints also accepted this belief. This was a common belief well back into the Middle Ages, let alone in the early colonial American, early early United States history. The belief that blacks in Africa descended from Ham and Canaan is not a Latter Day Saint belief. Right. Latter Day Saints have that belief because of the culture there around them. Then, of course, they try to find ways to structure that in their own revelations in Scripture. And, you know, such teachings have been totally repudiated by the church today and important that we all, we all understand that. But here in 1742, this, you know, rector of. Of this church is giving not only a justification of. Of slavery, but in fact, criticizing those who don't accept slavery as not really accepting God's will. He goes on here to say that God has most miraculously enlarged the borders of Japheth. For he has given all America to the European princes, which is one of the finest parts of the world and five or six times as big as the country allotted to Japheth, which we now call Europe. Tis further said that Japheth or the Europeans shall dwell in the tents of Shem. And accordingly, all nations in Europe have numerous settlements in Asia and for the carrying on of their trade. And then it follows that Canaan and the Africans shall be there. And this is all caps there, their servants also. So that when you see, he who gave us dominion over the beasts of the field has also given the Europeans and Asiatic nations a right to make use of these African slaves. And God has set a mark upon them in the blackness of their complexion, and that we cannot fail of knowing them. The way that Reverend Bate closes this is probably the most disgusting, but also the reason why I'm quoting this Hideous document so wonderfully does everything concurrent to fulfill the will of God. For this preacher, it's God's will that Africans be enslaved. And if it wasn't God's will, well, then they wouldn't be enslaved. It's God's will that European nations dominate and destroy the Native American peoples of north and South America. Because if it wasn't God's will, then it wouldn't happen. You can see the negative underbelly of this Calvinist theology that once you say every single thing is God's will, you find yourself justifying some things that I really hope aren't God's will. But it doesn't really answer our full question of how those things work. Now, this idea is certainly in play in early America. If someone seems to be a failure at everything, it's pretty hard to argue that they are, you know, just being incredibly blessed by God's will. And so there were certainly preachers, and in fact, many critics of early Latter Day Saints preach pointed to how poor the Latter Day Saints were as proof that they weren't good people and clearly didn't have the favor of God. One visitor to Nauvoo, a European socialist, actually made this commentary to Joseph in 1843 that, well, it sure seems like you have a lot of poor people here. And Joseph's response was, well, you know, we used to have a lot of lands and. And they were stolen from us in Missouri. Which is not only true, but also the reality is, as humans, whether we intentionally do it or not, the tendency that we have is to see people in a suffering condition and think they must have done something to deserve this suffering. They must have somehow this must be their fault. Now back to Marlene's question. I mean, I was going to say, I don't know who her mission president was, but she actually told us. But we edited that out. You know, names have been changed to protect the innocent, or in fact, in this case, the guilty. But the, you know, they thought that by teaching the missionaries in your mission that if only you're righteous and if only you work hard, well, then you will absolutely have baptisms. Well, let's put that to the test, shall we? I can think of a missionary who worked really, really, really hard and was super, super righteous, who didn't give up after failing. His name was Abinadi. How many baptisms did he perform?

[Marlene]

I think he performed zero.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Yeah. In fact, even the conversion he gets. That guy baptizes himself, for crying out loud.

[Marlene]

Yeah, well, and then you also have the missionary work of Alma and Amulek, and they did certainly some good. And then also they watched members of.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

The church being burned along with their scriptures. I mean, the problem with the reason why Calvinism was such a powerful ideology is it provided a religious explanation for the will of God in the world. And, you know, the confusion that was wrought by monotheism, claiming that there's only one God, and yet you have this world filled with all kinds of horror. Well, in some ways, that confusion was mitigated because everything that happens is God's will. And so even horrible things happen. Why do they happen? Well, they happen to teach us something. Now, look, Latter Day Saints do believe that mortality is in fact to teach us something, but that's not usually how Christians following this ideology preach it. In America, it's a very common thing to hear this false doctrine. Every single thing that happens happens for a reason. Unless you are saying that the reason is because you chose to come to earth. There's actually a myriad of reasons why we suffer, but ultimately it's because we are here on a fallen earth that we chose to come to.

[Marlene]

And that's essentially one of the main points, right, is that this isn't a creation out of nothing. There is no trick to come here. We might not have known the specifics of the circumstances, but we certainly knew at least the general lay of the land, and we chose to come anyway. And so that therefore, things that happen, some of them through the agency of others, and some of them just because of the frailties of mortality, at the end of the day, there's no trick when we chose to come, right?

[Professor Richard Leduc]

We chose to come to a fallen world. And. And yet, although we aren't Protestants, as I've said before, sometimes we desperately wish that we were. We want to have answers to every question. We want there to be a very easy explanation. And sometimes that explanation is just, oh, it's the will of God. But even those answers as we have, we've traced them in our various podcasts, they fall short even if we say things like, well, yeah, you know, that happened, that horrible event happened, because now I know better how to help other people. Well, that does give us comfort, I guess. But could not God just give me that information without the horrible trial? And I think that really kind of approaches the subject that we, you know, we have to be careful and tiptoe around because we feel so uncomfortable around it. And that is. Is God in the classical sense truly all powerful? Meaning, can he literally do everything that he chooses to do? Could he save us in our Sins right. Now, we've already talked about this with Doctrine, Covenant, Section 93, in which there is at least one thing that is laid out by the Lord that God doesn't have the power to do, and that's to create intelligence. And again, we have that on God's authority because he's the one saying it's. So we have to say probably right. I mean, he's probably right about what he can and can't do. But we live in such a Protestant world, if you live in the United States, that the idea of anything limiting is in and of itself a problem. So there's a couple of things driving what I would say is a pretty false understanding. And Richard said, we're passionate about it. And one of the reasons why we're passionate about it is because of the harm that it causes. If we really believe that as long as we're righteous, as long as I go to the temple, as long as I'm reading my scriptures, as long as I just pray that nothing bad is going to happen to me, that my kids are all going to have strong testimonies, that I won't lose my job, that I will always have the friends I'm looking for, that I won't feel alienated, that I won't have mental illness, that nothing would stop sickness and poor health will ever affect me. If we actually believe that, well, what happens when any of those things happen to us once?

[Marlene]

So this is what Marlene says in the email. Right. I figured then that something was wrong with my faithfulness or hard work. It had to.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

So ultimately, every problem you have devolves to yourself. I have heard this propagated in Sunday school classes myself. I had a Sunday school teacher who was adamant that every person who just didn't have enough money, it's because they weren't following the gospel and working hard enough. Exactly what Marlon. Probably. Maybe it was Marlene's mission president, for all I know. And it actually got to the point where it was uncomfortable going to his class because every single answer to every problem was just agency. Yeah, if you're. Yeah. You know, if someone's not happy, they're just not working hard enough. If someone's not happy, then they, you know, maybe they need to really turn their life to God. Well, that bothered me a great deal, in part because when you study church history, one of the things that you come very well acquainted with is just how many incredible women and men suffer inexplicable horrors. And not only do they suffer them many times, they suffer them specifically because they're trying to follow the commandments of God. We've mentioned some of them. We did a whole episode on Mercy Fielding and her horrible life. Her family has given up everything to follow the gospel. Her husband is essentially serving Joseph Smith as a private secretary, an unpaid private secretary. And. And he dies. And in the aftermath, she practices plural marriage, which I'm sure wasn't easy. And then that plural marriage husband, Hyrum Smith, is murdered, and she has to cross the plains by herself. Are we going to say that? You know what? I just wish Mercy Fielding was more faithful. I mean, I know she, like, helped establish a bunch of the stuff with the Relief Society and raised thousands of dollars to help build temples and did everything she was commanded to do, but obviously she. But she must not. She. You know what? She didn't work very hard. That's the way I look at Mercy Fielding. Why didn't she work? That's the number one issue. I mean, obviously I'm being facetious, but. But it is a cruel and false doctrine that suffering only comes to people who don't work hard and who just aren't righteous enough. And if you meet with enough people like I have, who are going through the throes of agony because of some inexplicable event that has happened in their life, the cruel idea that every single thing that happens is God's will because of your injustice, because of your own suffering, like I said, it's a false doctrine. That's upsetting to me now. Even Job ends up not being the best example for us, because what happens with Job, you know, the writer of the Book of Job, you know, lets us know at the end, hey, don't worry. Job was blessed with, you know, more wives and children, and he was even richer after than he was before. As though children and, you know, and were like commodities that. Well, don't worry. I lost 12 of them, but I got 13. So I feel like I invested pretty well in my, you know, in my children, you know, real estate scheme or whatever. I mean, the reality is even saying, oh, eventually you'll be temporarily blessed. That's not evident. You can take Joseph Smith's life as a very good example of this. We talked about this early on, but just. Just think about this. Joseph Smith is from an incredibly poor family. He finds these plates that his first impulse, even though the angel said, don't try to steal the plates. Don't try to steal the plates. Don't try to steal the plates. Don't try to steal the plates, he opens the box, I'm gonna steal those plates. I mean, I don't know that he says that, but I think he clearly something happens. He's not able to get the plates even after the angel, you know, telling him not to do it.

[Marlene]

Well, he acknowledges.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

No, no. Oh yeah, I'm not. I mean, the only reason I know that Joseph thought about taking the plates to become rich off of them. Joseph said it. So, you know, now the, the, that, what does that demonstrate? I mean, it demonstrates that, that Joseph's financial situation for his family is so dire that even with these angelic injunctions, it's still a thought that he has. Right? But he does, he repents. He makes himself worthy and he finally gets those plates and then he has to try to defend them. He has to hide in multiple places, he's assaulted multiple times. People break into his home, they break into his parents home, they stop him on the street, he's arrested multiple times because people are trying to get those plates. And while he's going through that, while he's going through the struggles of, of learning to translate, he, he moves in down on his, his father in law's farm. And if you remember, Isaac Hail, not a huge fan of Joseph since Joseph ran off and married his daughter against his will. While they're trying to struggle doing that, translating the Book of Mormon is when Emma is going to give birth to their first child and that child dies immediately at birth, are we going to say that it's because, you know, just shoot. I mean, I guess Joseph and Emma were just so wicked. You know, Emma having four, you know, essentially abandoned her possibility of having a well off life because she married Joseph, becoming a hiss and a byword in the community, sacrificing everything. As the primary early scribe of the Book of Mormon. I just wish Emma was more righteous. I just feel like if she had worked harder then she wouldn't have lost her baby. Do you see why I hate the idea so much? I'm not saying that people don't suffer for wicked actions that they do. They do. And you know, when you see it, you're pretty happy about it. All of you have seen things like you're watching on, you know, some kind of Facebook reel and there's a car that tries to, to, to run over a person and actually slams themselves into it like a telephone pole. And the telephone pole crashes down on the car and all you say to yourself is, well, maybe you shouldn't try to run people over you, you know, you murderer, you know, right. And so I think we like to fool ourselves into thinking that the bad things that happen in this world are primarily the result of negative agency, people doing bad things and then therefore God is going to punish them.

[Marlene]

And you're also not saying that God certainly does bless people with riches and success and then that also happens.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

I mean, the riches of the earth are the Lord's to give, right? He makes that very clear. But it's also Jesus who makes very clear that he causes his reign to fall upon the just and the unjust. He doesn't seem to see riches as proof of, of righteousness, right? In fact, when the rich young man, you know, says, you know, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life? And Jesus tells him, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor and come and follow me and thou shalt have treasures in heaven. When that rich young man goes away sorrowful for he had great possessions, Jesus's response is, how hardly shall the rich inherit the kingdom of God, for it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to inherit the kingdom of God. That does not sound like Jesus is saying, you know what, all of the rich people, they're all the ones that are the most righteous. They're the ones that God has blessed the most because of their righteousness. That pronouncement was so troubling that what was the apostles reaction? Who then can be saved, right? Because their worldview was a worldview of. Of course the people that are rich are the ones who are blessed and favored of God because that's what their culture taught them. Their culture was just wrong. When Jesus said it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, that's the reason why in the Middle Ages some, you know, very bored monk who thought that, well, maybe I've got a little bit too much land, I don't want to this to apply to me, you know, came up with the argument that, oh yeah, actually, you know, a camel passing through the eye of a needle, you know, there was in Jerusalem like a really short gate that the camels had to pass through and they had to get down on their knees and they had to crawl through on their knees and they had to take all their burdens off of them to get them through. And it was just so hard. But don't worry, you can do it. But it's just like so hard. There's literally no evidence of that being true at all. I realize it's repeated. It's repeated even in some church things, because historians believe that was the case well into the early 20th century. And then they realized that there was no evidence for it at all and that they traced it back to, you know, to the Middle Ages, where this idea was essentially invented. It was invented. Why? It was invented because they wanted there to still be a connection between God blessing people because they're righteous and they're wealth. Again, I'm not saying that God doesn't bless people. Of course God does. But it is a. It's a pernicious thing to believe that the way God blesses us for the things that we do is with temporal wealth and well being alone. That if I'm a missionary, the way God blesses me is he takes away the agency from that German that I'm trying to teach and forces him into whatever baptismal font I find there, which they probably didn't even build any, because outside of Elder Oakdorf, no one was ever baptized. I went to Wisconsin on my mission, which, you know, they were American. Germany and America. Yeah, they were American Germans. And that's how many people were also baptized. But. But you see the negative effects of that. Marlene is relating them to us. How many times did she say to herself, I just. I just got to pray more? If only I was more righteous, then God would take the agency away from these Germans and force them to be baptized. Remember that. Jesus himself, Jesus the great exemplar, Jesus the son of God. Jesus literally God. Most people don't accept him. Most people don't believe what he's teaching. Most people don't convert and see him as the Messiah. And in fact, he is going to be crucified, utterly despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, that that reality should give us pause if we have become conditioned to think that as long as I do what's right, nothing bad will ever happen to me. And there's Emma and Joseph burying their first child. And wouldn't it be great if we could say, oh, that was the only child they lost? But then Emma gets pregnant again and has twins this time when they first arrive in Kirtland. I've been to the Morley farm in Kirtland, where those twin babies who died immediately after birth are buried somewhere on that farm. And so after that, don't worry, they adopt the Murdoch twins and one of them dies during Joseph's mobbing. But that's got to be the end of their suffering, right? Except later, when their toddler son, don Carlos, in 1841 will also die. I just wish Joseph had been more righteous, though. I just, I don't understand why Joseph didn't just work harder. If only he had prayed more, if only he knew how to really unlock his potentiality, none of those things would have happened to Joseph. This is the reason why I'm too passionate about this, but because when someone makes the claim, if only you do what I tell you to do, you are going to be healthy, wealthy and wise. Don't worry. Oh, if you're suffering, you know what you need? It's obviously you need to go back to God. Now look, some suffering is because you need to turn to God. If you're someone listening who's committed moral transgressions. Bill, clearly Bill, who we've called out now is a foreign. We didn't say an adulterer. He was a fornicator. Yeah, he was a fornicator.

[Marlene]

He wasn't married yet.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

We don't, we don't know Bill yet. But Bill, you know who you are then obviously when you're thinking, I don't know why I can't feel close to God. Well, because you need to repent of your sins. Some of our suffering is self inflicted, but I don't even think it's most of it. In fact, I don't even think it's some of it. I think it's a very small portion of it that is directly related to our sinfulness. Look, is it attributed to my sinfulness that I decided not to go to church on Sunday and I decided to drive to Taco Bell to go, you know, get some tacos because.

[Marlene]

Yeah, of course. What else are you gonna do with Taco Bell?

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Well, yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not driving there to ask them, you know, to help me with some kind of, you know, Pythagorean theorem. I'm going there because I want a bean burrito and I want it now and I get in a car wreck on the way there. You could see how someone might say, well, you know, that was God punishing you? Okay, and maybe it was. Or maybe it was God allowing the natural order of events to take place because was he also punishing the person I ran into? He was punishing them even though they were on their way to church. You see the problem very quickly. I've said this before, but when we talked about the problem, evil. But let me reiterate to kind of talk about the problem of simply ascribing all evil to agency, let's say after this podcast, because it's, you know, it's Been a rough one.

[Marlene]

Yeah, it's been.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

I mean, Richard's been riding me like crazy, just like, you know, nope, you know, this is bad. You're not doing a good job. I look behind me, all I can see is my wife and his wife doing the cuts sign across their neck before they fall asleep, which is always. And so it's been a tough time. So right after we're done, I decide, you know what, I just, I know that there's a word of wisdom, but I just gotta get a drink. And so I head on down to the state liquor store, I get a bottle of Jack Daniels and I drink half of it. And then I decide to drive. Now, I've made a lot of bad decisions. First, the one that triggered it all is that I was trying to do a podcast at all, that Richard was my friend. Second. Right. That's why.

[Marlene]

Yeah, the biggest.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

But even if we were being more serious about it, I, I went and as a, as a Mormon, knowing that alcohol is, is, is against what I've covenanted with God, I went and bought it. That's pretty bad. But it's far worse. Knowing just legally and, and, and you know, lawfully, the fact that I then decided to drive my car, Well, I drive that car and I wrap it around a telephone pole. Well, there's going to be a lot of suffering involved. I am going to suffer physically, obviously because of the damage to me in the crash. I'm going to suffer financially because now of the replacement of the car, my insurance rates are going to skyrocket and there's actually going to be some innocent suffering there. Right. And I'm not talking about the telephone pole, though there maybe is a tree hugger here like that, that, that, that poll died for you. My, my kids are going to suffer not only the, the, the shame of me being sent off to jail, but if you think BYU is very keen on employing by DUI drivers, they're not in the religion department. So I'm going to get fired. We'll probably lose our house. Will, you know, we will have enormous amounts of long term suffering. And while you could argue that it's just for me, how just is it for my kids? Did my 8 year old. Yeah, God, God saying, yeah, you know who we've really got to punish? Annika. This is her fault. Why did she let her dad become a drunk idiot? Right. So already our argument that everything that happens is simply justice for whatever actions we've done, you can already see how quickly it starts to break down. Yet I would Say most Latter Day Saints would still say, well, in a world of agency, you know, that's. You know, you shouldn't have been drinking and driving. I feel bad for you. I feel bad for your daughter, but, you know, welcome to your new job that you ride your bicycle to at that same Taco Bell because you. You've been fired from byu. But now we change the scenario a little bit. And this time, I don't wrap my car around a telephone pole. I wrap my car around someone else's car, and I kill three people in it. Now that family is going to go through unimaginable suffering, suffering that can't be described, suffering that will be with them for the remainder of their life. And they were just on their way to church, right? They didn't do anything wrong. I was 100% culpable for the fact that they died. That's a lot harder for us to take because instead of the kind of in, you know, indirect suffering that my kids have because I'm an idiot, that we've all essentially just. Everyone's come to terms with this, right? Everyone's already. Richard's already come to terms with.

[Marlene]

Absolutely.

[Professor Richard Leduc]

Garrett's an idiot. So obviously his kids are gonna suffer. You know, that's what happens. Now, this is a much more difficult thing because this other family is suffering, this permanent loss on the basis of my choice. Still in All Latter Day Saints. And many Christians who believe in free will would, you know, kind of hang their head a little bit and say, yeah, that really is a tough situation. But if you believe in free agency, then you believe that. That people have the ability to do terrible, terrible things to you. Do you think that family that I hid just wasn't righteous enough? Why didn't they pray more and then God would have sent them a different direction to church? Why didn't they. Why didn't an angel intervene and appear to them and say, hey, don't go this way. Drunken Garrett's headed your way in his car. None of those things happened. So do we attribute the fact that God did not use his all power to intervene to the fact that these people were clearly wicked? I really, really hope we don't do that. Now, I have met some people who do who simply say, you know what? There's probably some sinfulness in their past, that that's the reason why. Those are wretched people. I'll tell you that. I hope that's not anyone listening. But you know what? If you are that person listening, please stop listening. We don't.

[Marlene]

We don't need or you just, just change the thing?

[Professor Richard Leduc]

No, no, you believe. You're going to keep believing it and also stop listening. But part of the reason why this idea that you hear from your testimony meeting pulpit at times that every single thing that happens is God's will. I know that Protestants believe that, but we don't. We believe that we all chose to come to a world that we knew would be fallen and evil and that there would be the pot potential of people using agency to hurt us. We chose that. We didn't have to choose it. A third of father's children didn't choose it. We didn't have to choose it, but we did. So. So why does it make its way so much into what it is that we believe and do? I think first and foremost it's because of our belief that we can control things as humans. What do we want more than anything? We want the ability to mitigate our own suffering. That's why we want money. Why do I want money? So I can eat better food. Why? Because there's better tacos out there than Taco Bell. And if I can get them, I want them right? And so those things. We think we can be more in control in this completely fallen and immoral world. If we just. If I just count the number of steps I take on Sunday, if only I go to the temple three times a week instead of twice a week, then my children won't ever have a testimony issue. If only I. You know, you know, I know that we're not supposed to drink alcohol or smoke or drink coffee or tea. But you know what? I'm going to do one better. I'm not even going to eat anything that casts a shadow. I'm going to do whatever it takes takes to make sure. And then I know no one in my family will ever have any health issues. We do those things thinking or hoping that the, as the. As the brethren referred to it, the vending machine will give us the blessings we want. But we're not polytheistic people living at the turn of. Of two millennia ago. They worshiped gods because they knew if they sacrificed that goat that then Zeus should make their crops grow. But we don't worship those false gods. Instead, we believe we chose to come to a fallen world fully knowing that there would be suffering, that agency would engender some suffering, but there would be lots of suffering. Like the millions of people who die from malaria every year. That doesn't involve agency at all. The people who die from cancer, the people who die from car accidents. That that are from a spontaneous malfunction of the vehicle. Where's the agency in that? The reality is we think that agency answers every ill but this world is filled with injustices. I want to spend more time on this. So in our next episode we're going to talk about specifically some of the reasons why this prosperity gospel is sometimes found inside of Latter Day Saints where people really believe that as long as you're righteous you're going to be more wealthy than other people around you. Oh, as long as you're righteous, none of your kids will ever have a testimony issue. It's not true and we want to talk about the reasons why. So we'll talk about that more next week.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources visit standardoftruth.com until next time.