S5E31 Crosses and Purgatory

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast: Season 5, Episode 31 - "Crosses and Purgatory"

Release Date: July 24, 2025
Host: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat
Guest: Dr. Richard Leduc

In this engaging and insightful episode of Standard of Truth, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc delve into the nuanced topics of Catholic beliefs, specifically focusing on purgatory, and explore the historical and theological distinctions between Catholicism and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). The episode is structured around listener emails, which serve as catalysts for deep discussions on doctrine, church practices, and interfaith understanding.

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1. Listener Emails and Initial Discussions

a. Seminary Budget Concerns
Email from Valerie:
Valerie raises concerns about the limited seminary budget, highlighting the restrictions on using funds solely for supplies and prohibiting expenditures on food. She emphasizes the practical need for food to engage students effectively.

• Quote:
  “I think 97% of the budget is food. That's. It's. The. It is the best way to go.”
  (03:11)

b. Questions on Purgatory and Universalism
Email from David:
David inquires about LDS perspectives on purgatory and universalism, referencing Brigham Young's views and seeking clarity on how LDS beliefs compare to Catholic doctrines.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Purgatory vs. Spirit World:
    Dr. Dirkmaat explains that while Catholics believe purgatory is a transitional state for souls destined for heaven, LDS theology teaches that all spirits go to the spirit world, with the opportunity for salvation based on their earthly lives.

  • Universalism:
    The conversation touches on Brigham Young's statement dismissing universalism, clarifying that LDS belief does not align with the idea that everyone will be saved, but rather distinguishes between those destined for various kingdoms of glory.

• Notable Quote:
  “In Catholic theology, they have two different kinds of sins... So how do I enter into the kingdom of heaven clean?”
  (14:43)

c. Preparing for a Catholic Exchange Student
Email from Jen:
Jen seeks advice on how to prepare a culturally Catholic Spanish exchange student for participation in LDS church activities, aiming to bridge understanding between the two faith traditions.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Explaining LDS Doctrine:
    Strategies for highlighting similarities, such as the emphasis on sacraments and ordinances, while also addressing differences like the absence of crosses in LDS worship spaces.

  • Church Imagery:
    The hosts discuss the significance of a gymnasium within LDS meetinghouses and the absence of ornate decorations typical in Catholic churches, explaining the historical and doctrinal reasons behind these choices.

• Notable Quote:
  “The most stark thing that's gonna just smack her in the face... is that there's no crucifix in here.”
  (33:47)

d. Inquiry About Crosses in LDS Buildings
Email from Lindsay:
Lindsay questions why LDS buildings do not display crosses, expressing curiosity about the theological and historical reasoning behind this practice.

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Focus on Resurrection Over Crucifixion:
    Dr. Dirkmaat elaborates on the LDS emphasis on Christ's resurrection rather than His crucifixion as a central symbol of faith.

  • Historical Context of Protestant Iconoclasm:
    The conversation traces the Protestant Reformation's rejection of religious imagery, explaining how this influenced LDS practices to maintain simplicity in worship spaces.

• Notable Quote:
  “We don't display the cross on our buildings or in our chapels or in our classrooms or similar places.”
  (44:29)

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2. In-Depth Theological Discussions

a. Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory vs. LDS Spirit World
Dr. Dirkmaat provides a comprehensive comparison between Catholic purgatory and the LDS concept of the spirit world. He explains that purgatory serves as a purging process for souls destined for heaven, cleansing them of venial sins through divine grace and prayerful acts by the living. In contrast, the LDS spirit world is a universal intermediate state where all spirits reside post-mortem, with the opportunity for redemption and progression based on their earthly actions and acceptance of Christ's atonement.

• Quote:
  “Catholics believe in an immediate judgment... Purgatory is where you're going to have these... venial sins purged out of you so that you can be prepared for the final judgment and to go into heaven clean.”
  (21:35)

b. The Role of Symbols in Worship: Crosses and Iconography
The hosts explore the historical roots of Protestant opposition to religious symbols, particularly the cross, as seen during the Reformation. They discuss how early Protestants viewed the use of crosses in churches as idolatrous, aligning with the second commandment's prohibition against graven images. This historical stance influenced the LDS Church's decision to forgo crosses in their meetinghouses, focusing instead on symbols that reflect their doctrinal emphasis.

• Quote:
  “The reason why this is such a frustrating one... is that historically we never started with a cross.”
  (49:33)

c. Evolution of Protestant Practices and LDS Response
The conversation highlights how Protestant denominations initially rejected the use of crosses and ornate imagery but gradually adopted them in response to Catholic immigration and cultural shifts. Dr. Dirkmaat contrasts this with the LDS Church’s steadfast adherence to its original practices, maintaining simplicity in worship spaces as a reflection of their doctrinal beliefs.

• Quote:
  “The difference is we never changed and they did.”
  (75:31)

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3. Historical Insights on Protestant Iconoclasm

Dr. Dirkmaat delves into the historical context of the Protestant Reformation, explaining how figures like Martin Luther and John Calvin influenced the rejection of religious imagery. He elucidates the theological motivations behind iconoclasm and how it shaped the architectural and symbolic aspects of Protestant churches. The discussion also covers the gradual acceptance of crosses in Protestant denominations due to external cultural pressures and internal transformations.

• Quote:
  “John Calvin and the reformers that that will spawn after him, people like John Knox and John Wesley, they will see the cross as a symbol of Catholic idolatry.”
  (49:33)

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4. LDS Official Position on the Cross

The episode references the official LDS stance on the use of the cross, emphasizing that while the crucifixion is a foundational doctrine, the church chooses to symbolize Christ's resurrection in their official imagery. This decision aligns with their focus on the living, resurrected Christ who continues to guide the church through modern revelation.

• Quote from LDS.org:
  “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not display the cross on its buildings or in its chapels or in its classrooms or similar places... The official symbol for the Church is an image of the resurrected, living Christ who guides his church today through revelation to his prophet.”
  (73:00)

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5. Conclusions and Insights

Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc conclude by highlighting the importance of understanding historical and doctrinal contexts when addressing interfaith questions. They emphasize that the LDS Church’s practices, such as the absence of crosses in worship spaces, are deeply rooted in their theological beliefs and historical responses to broader Christian traditions. The episode encourages listeners to appreciate the unique aspects of LDS doctrine while fostering respectful dialogue with other faith communities.

• Final Quote:
  “It's one of the most fascinating aspects of the history of our church and the history of Protestantism in America... culture changed the definition of what constitutes being a real Christian.”
  (75:28)

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6. Closing Remarks

The hosts express gratitude to their listeners for their thoughtful questions and engagement, reinforcing the podcast's mission to deepen understanding of LDS history and doctrine. They invite listeners to continue sharing their inquiries and experiences, ensuring ongoing dialogue and exploration of faith-related topics.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Narrator]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith expertise and humor.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Hello, Garrett. Thanks for having me back. We have an exciting episode today. We're going to be talking about the Catholic Church and some of their beliefs as we talk about our Catholic brothers and sisters answering some Littner questions today.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I feel like we had to kind of pivot away from Hulk Smash, Garrett. I feel embarrassed every time we put out an episode, and I'm like, hey, stop attacking the apostles. I mean, not embarrassed. I mean, obviously I want to stand up for what is true. And at the same time, I have a very difficult time moderating, apparently. Which is why you had to institute your score.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We had to implement the dander meter. Originally, it was on a scale of 1 to 10. We didn't feel that was precise enough, so then we put it on a scale of one to a million, with the first score there coming in at about 900 1000. Your dander was, was, was, was way up. Way, way up.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, we. We've got some real dander issues, not to be confused with dandruff issues, which can also. We also.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, we also have those, but it's a separate. It's a separate issue.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Separate issue. And we just need to get some. Sell some blue, I was going to say.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so don't say sell some blue, because this podcast is sponsored by Head and Shoulders. Head and Shoulders. Are you flaking from your scalp? Head and Shoulders. So, Garrett, we can. We can jump right into the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. This. This first email comes to us from Valerie. She says, hello, doctors. I'll raise your budgetless bishop's candy cost and raise you the cost of being a seminary teacher. The 50. I assume the $50 that we are given for, for the year can only be used on supplies for our class. And it specifically calls out that we cannot use it for food. But as any good seminary teacher knows, food is how you get them to come to seminary, and candy is how you get them talking, which is very true. We have youth conference. It's going to be coming up next week, And I think 97% of the budget is food. That's. It's. The. It is the best way to go.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

To keep them happy with food or just to blow it all on food for yourself?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Both, but mostly to keep them happy with food. If they're hungry, then there's no chance of them feeling the spirit and getting anything out of the. But if they're full and they're happy, then you have a shot. After six years of teaching seminary, I feel like I've consecrated much of my time and family finances that could have been used to visit Palmyra. But we have been able to afford the premium subscription. I've now been called. Yeah, very nice. I've now been called to service in young women's. And having a budget is glorious. After years of begging and pleading, one of my kids is willing to begin listening to the podcast. It took being set apart as a missionary, having breaks from home MTC and wanting to listen to something while driving around in the car, but now he's willing to. He's been called to serve in the Pennsylvania Raleigh, North Carolina mission. If you please, give him access. Thank you for all you do. Having a missionary has made me appreciate you even more. And, you know, Sunrise, Sunset, Valerie, as my son has returned from his mission, my son Rigdon, home from Peru. It's nice to have him. We. We love having our entire family all together. As none of my children are now on missions and so none of them are listening to the podcast. But it's nice, Valerie, that. That your son is. Is doing that so well.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I noticed Valerie took the, you know, compassionate parent approach. She didn't lock them in the back of a squad car and, and force them to listen. That's, you know, she, she allowed her son to come to, to come to her and say, you know what? There's the home MTC is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Please let me listen to something else. Oh, I've got something for you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so you know, our good friend and my bishop Brady, his son Ben just started home MTC this week. And I tried telling him, you know, I try to tell every missionary, look, the home MTC isn't the MTC and the MTC isn't the mission because they're not used to, like, sitting in class for 12 hours. Like, it's a draining. It's an absolute draining process.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, and imagine, imagine getting to the MTC only to have someone else become the district leader and get the key.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Just. Yeah, imagine that. And also, no one is speaking English. And you're like, what? Where am I? What's happening?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We had our. A good friend of the show email or text us after hearing our discussion about the MTC district leader. And he said Jarrett had a confession, and that was that he was, at least briefly the holder of the key as the MTC district leader. But then I got a tooth knocked out playing basketball at the mtc, which sounds just about right for those of you who played basketball at the mtc. And so he had to give the key to someone else because he had to go to, you know, emergency, like, dental surgery and whatnot. And, you know, that. That, you know, it should call to your mind, Jarrett, the same thing that, you know, Roman conquerors had a slave behind them, whispering as they rode through the streets, all glorious, fleeting. And you had that key. You had that key for a brief moment, but that glory was fleeting. And now it came crashing back to earth.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's like. It's like the scene from Six Days in August with Sidney Rigdon. We actually received several texts. Our friend Brian also sent us a text of a key. He was also the MTC district leader. It's very exciting that all of our friends were. So.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I feel like at this point, a lot of our friends are just flexing about how righteous they were because they were the MTC district leader.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Also, there's no way to check. So, you know, it's entirely. You know what, Garrett, I'm going to text you and tell you, although, you know full well I don't have the leadership ability to be a. An MTC district leader. I never had it. I never will.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, no, I was. I wasn't even considered. They took one look at me and said, that is someone who's going to lead both the male and people astray. And we can't give him this. We can't give him this trust. I mean, thank you so much, Valerie, for this email. And the reason why we have premium content is because we had people that were trying to donate to the podcast to keep us on the air because it costs a considerable amount to put this out and we don't have a big time backer. And so we said, well, we don't want them to just donate and give them nothing. So we said, well, let's create, you know, some American history podcasts this year. We're doing Doctrine and Covenants. We will go back to American history at some point. Not soon enough for the coach, but at some point we will. And. But with missionaries, we just give them the whole library for free. Because Richard has set up essentially dozens of Google Drives. And. And if we have the missionaries missionary email, he can give them access to that and they can listen that way if their mission president permits it through a Google Drive. So that's what. When people are saying, can you give my son access? That's what we're talking about is that anyone who's a missionary, they just get it all for free. And so that's how they get access.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

They just send us their missionary email and we grant them access. We have like 37, because you're only allowed 600 accounts or email sharing per Google Drive. And so I think we had to upgrade to 40 trillion terabytes to be able to. For all of the folders. And the folders are all named inside jokes only, really, that make me laugh. I noticed that Garrett, I set an alarm the other day, and the music that I set was an inside joke really for myself. And that's when my wife said, boy, you've got to got a real problem. That's when she finally realized.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But. So it only took this many years.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

24 years. So this next email comes to us from David. David, who I. Who I know. And his daughter is. I mean, one of the greatest violin players since, you know, Jenny Oakes Baker. She's. She's incredible.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

She's. She's incredible. Dear venerable Dr. D. And the other guy. Well, okay. All right. Thanks, David. I can't. I can't believe Garrett was in our building and I missed it. You can't accuse Brady of being dumb. He knows how to take advantage of a gift that falls into his lap. Had I been there, I certainly would have awkwardly approached Garrett and stammered something like, you're my biggest fan. I mean, right now I'm. I'm. I'm picturing Buddy from Incredibles. But I digress. Richard teased yesterday that he announced that our first email comes from David. I realized if I want my email to be read on air, I need to come up with a better question. So I posed my first question a month ago. I went back and started listening to the Joseph Smith and the Restoration series from the beginning. And after suffering through 22 episodes of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jacobus Arminius, it was nice to finally get to Joseph Smith and his legs. It is 22 episodes in. I believe that that's not an exaggeration.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Is he not. Is. He's not kidding about the 22 episodes.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I legitimately believe that it was at near the end of the season two before we actually got to Joseph Smith. Does we spend an entire.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Not matter. Does constant matter?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We spent an entire episode talking about the. The. The strong arm Lucy Mack's brother in law had or father in law as he's chucking.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh yeah. Winging age of reason at people like, why don't you read this and not believe in God? Yeah, it's true. We did. We did spend a little bit of time on that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But doesn't that help you better understand Lucy Mack's faith?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I thought I understood the first vision, but not until I understood that Lucy Mack got hit in the face with a book from an in law that I really understood the first vision.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Then you knew. Here's Thomas Paine telling you you shouldn't believe in anything.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I feel bad for all the litters who had to wait through that in the way. Through that in real time. Especially all the missionaries who got released before ever hearing the name Joseph Smith. You know, it's funny is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You better read that again because I don't think anyone could understand.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's a very funny sentence. I feel bad for all the littners who had to wait through that in real time, especially all the missionaries who got released before ever hearing the name Joseph Smith. If, if they, if they joined the Google Drive right at the beginning, they will have gone a full two years and never heard the name Joseph Smith. That is very funny.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now only for that podcast, obviously for all of the other podcasts you know on the drive. Yes, we mentioned it constantly.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We occasionally we get to him. Yeah, I do feel like I have a better grasp of the origin of Christian religions now. There you go. And maybe some answers to my original question. My son has been seeking answers about the nature of God in the. In the eternities. DNC76 is the obvious place to look, though. He decided to listen to some guy on the Internet who's leaning him toward trinitarian. Insert eye roll emoji here. Garrett did a great job as a guest on that other podcast. What. What other podcast is that, Garrett? I'm not aware of any other church podcast.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Obviously the Follow him podcast.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh my gosh.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We talk about doctrine, covenant, section 76, which is a much better podcast than ours.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, infinitely better by Hank Smith and John, by the way. Much better. Much, much better. That's not sarcastic. It's actually much, much better.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, no.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

By the way, near the end, the host asked an interesting question. Why are we as Latter Day Saints afraid to teach there is no hell and that everyone will be saved? I would love to hear Garrett Elaborate on that question. It also begs the question, are Mormons universalists? You recently read a quote, by the way, Garrett, from Brigham Young, where he kind of teased that. That. That exact thing. And one more somewhat related question. Do Mormons believe in purgatory? What is the difference between the doctrines of purgatory and Spirit prison? I know Garrett currently has his dander up from Jill's question about Brigham Young. So these questions should be a layup for him after that. Keep up the good work. Regards, David.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, so obviously when Brigham said it, you know, in the quote that I shared, he said, you know, I don't want you to think that I've become a universalist because there was a universalist church in his time. And that Universalist Church taught that everyone was going to be saved, right? And so Brigham's like, well, look, I'm not a member of the Universalist Church, but there is a truth in the doctrine that everyone outside of Sons of Perdition are going to be eventually saved in a kingdom of God. Now, as it relates to purgatory, this is the Catholic doctrine that people who are already destined for heaven. So a good way of thinking about purgatory is let's say I go in and I confess all my sins. So, first of all, I'm a good Catholic, right? I've been baptized. I've received confirmation. I've done all of the seven sacraments. I'm a good Catholic person, okay? But of course, even a good Catholic person is going to sin, right? So I go in to my priest and I confess to him, and he gives me absolution and gives me what my penance is supposed to be. And so I leave my confession feeling, you know what? I'm on top of the world. You can hear the song in the background. I'm on top of the world. And as I'm walking out of the parish, I see Bill. You know, Bill the adulterer? I see him, Yeah. I see him walking across the street on his way in to confess. And instead of thinking to myself, ah, Bill. I'm so glad he's finally decided to go confess his sins. As I'm walking across the street and giving him the stink eye, I'm thinking to myself, bill, I hate that guy. What a sinner. If there's anyone who doesn't deserve to be forgiven, it's Bill. And right as I have that thought, I get hit by a bus and I'm killed. Now, now, I'm not getting hit by a bus because I said that. Although, you know, if you Believe in. In determinism, that, you know, God's controlling everything, that maybe he's like, oh, gonna have a thought. Here comes a bus. Well, we have a problem, right? Because the Lord says that no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of heaven. Well, but I'm unclean, right, Because I just committed a sin in the way I thought about Bill, you know, and it's pretty mean. And. But I died, so I would otherwise be going to heaven. So in Catholic theology, they have two different kinds of sins. They have sins that are called venial sins, and they have sins that are, you know, deadly sins. And these venial sins are sins that are not regarding. They aren't considered as depriving the soul of divine grace. Okay, so these are these sins that, you know, I had a horrible thought about this person. Whereas, like, a mortal sin is one that would leave me in hell if I didn't repent for it. Right. So a venial sin is there, but a mortal sin is something like, you know, like adultery or something like that. Well, so even. Even a venial sin is still a sin, though. So how do I. How can I enter into the kingdom of heaven clean? And that's why after you die, you are. Catholics believe in an immediate judgment. So in that sense, they're kind of similar to Protestants. But that immediate judgment is going to send you either to purgatory or to hell. And if you go to purgatory, it's there that you're going to have these essentially these venial or these more minor sins purged out of you. And it might take a long time. I mean, some people are in purgatory for a thousand years that you go there and you have these venial sins purged out of you so that you can be prepared for the final judgment and to go into heaven clean. So in that sense, in the sense that it is a place where spirits go before going to their kingdom in heaven, the doctrine is similar in that regard. The difference is Catholics only believe people that are eventually going to heaven go to purgatory. So if you're someone who is not eventually going to heaven, you don't go to purgatory, you go to hell. And again, most people would be going there. Catholics will use scriptures to try to justify the doctrine of purgatory. In fact, one of the scriptures they use to justify most is in the Apocrypha, which is part of the Catholic Bible. It was part of the Protestant Bible up until the 1800s. And that's one of the reasons why it gets cut out. The books of the Apocrypha are taken out of the King James Bible. They're taken out of the King James Bible because some of the scriptures in the Apocrypha were used to justify work for the dead in purgatory. But they'll use other things to demonstrate it. They'll say, you know, when Jesus is talking In Matthew chapter 12, he talks about, you know, how a sinner will not be forgiven either in this age or in the world to come. Well, why would you even have to say that someone could be forgiven in the world to come? If you can't be forgiven in the world to come, then why are you referencing that? Just say he won't ever be forgiven and stop. Right? Why would we even suggest that there's forgiveness in the world to come if in fact there is no forgiveness in the world to come? You see what I'm. See what you. Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I am picking up what you're putting down. That makes a lot of sense.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so the. The argument for that, Catholics will make, you know, and they'll. They will. Much to the anger and chagrin of Protestants, they will even quote Paul. Now, if there's anyone who thinks that Paul is saying, you know, a Protestant will lose their mind because they love Paul, and Catholics will actually use First Corinthians 3:15 as a means of talking about someone being purged from their sins. So in this letter from Paul. Let me read a little bit more. So it's a little bit in context. Verse 9 begins, for we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry. Ye are God's building. So again, he's obviously talking to believers here. He's not talking in his letter to the Corinthians, he's not like, hey, you Roman pagans, why don't you, like, try to believe in stuff? No, he's writing to people who already have accepted Jesus, people that he's taught when he was in Corinth. According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. Thereupon for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold and silver and precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire and the Fire shall try every man's work, what sort it is. And if any man's work abide which he hath built, thereupon, he shall receive reward. And if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire. Now, the very fact that it's referencing works is already going to cause every Baptist listening to scramble to try to hit the mute button before I mention the word works again, even though I'm literally just reading First Corinthians, chapter 3 3. But Catholics will take that as okay. So if someone isn't fully right with God, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss. So this is a believer. This is someone who's a member of the church. But they built upon their foundation of Jesus some works that were not right. So if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved. Yet so as by fire. So wait a minute. He's going to suffer, but he's still going to be saved. And they take this as justification for the idea of purgatory, that you're going to suffer for your evil works, but if you've done all the other things you're supposed to do, all the other sacraments, well, then you will be saved yet so as by fire. And so this idea of purging these sins and, you know, it's a doctrine that drives the Protestant Reformation because one of the things that Catholics believe, again, because of Scriptures in the Apocrypha, mostly, they believe that you can lessen someone else's time in purgatory. So, you know, Bill, you know. Well, my evil thoughts about Bill should be a thousand years in purgatory, having my evil thoughts about other people purged away, so that when I enter the kingdom of heaven, I'm actually like Jesus, instead of just, you know, in the presence of Jesus, but also someone who hates other people who are trying to repent, you know. And so the idea behind it is that I can pray in Catholicism. I can pray, I can hold a Mass, I can give alms, I can do things to try to lessen the time of some of my deceased relatives in purgatory.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's one of my favorite. It's one of my absolute favorite Catholic doctrines, by the way. It's a beautiful. It's coming from a very beautiful place. And when I talk with Catholics, I often lead with that as one of my favorite doctrines that Catholics believe. It's as close as I've found that's kind of this work for the dead piece that allows to just the idea that things can be done here to affect things there. It's a beautiful. It's coming from a beautiful place, I believe.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Now, Martin Luther didn't think so.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Don't say.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The reason why he didn't think so is he saw, you know, people purchasing indulgences, which is, you know, giving donations to the church in order to lessen someone's time in purgatory as an affront to the grace of Christ by saying that someone's essentially saved by works. And so Protestants just universally reject the idea of purgatory. It's one of the key elements of Protestant theology that there is no such thing as purgatory. There is no ability to lessen someone's time that immediately when you die, you immediately go to heaven or you go to hell. So one thing that's really key to understand, you know, David, with your question, is that the only people who go to purgatory in Catholic theology are people who are eventually going to go to heaven. Now, you can have all kinds of arguments with Catholic theologians of the liberal sort or of the conservative sort about who that is, you know, whether or not someone who was never baptized could still be a candidate for purgatory. But in the end, only someone who is already going to end up in heaven goes to purgatory. So that means, at least for most Catholic theologians throughout history, although, like I said, there's some very liberal Catholic theologians today who will say things like, we know that hell exists, but we don't have to know that anyone goes there. Right. You know, kind of pushing this kind of universalist doctrine, but at least for all of Catholic history, the people who go to purgatory, people who are eventually going to go to heaven. So you can't actually get someone out of hell because you do works for them, or you pray for them, or you light a candle for them or go on a pilgrimage for them. You can only lessen their time in purgatory before they eventually go to heaven. And so that's the key difference between that and the spirit world. So for us, I mean, for Catholics, again, traditional. And you can find all kinds of people that are arguing something different, but traditional Catholic theology, still, most people are not going to go to heaven because you have to believe in Jesus. Most people don't believe in Jesus. They certainly aren't going to, you know, be baptized a Catholic or confirmed a Catholic and confess like they're supposed to as a Catholic and all those other things and so most people aren't going to go to heaven. So most people don't go to purgatory. Most people go to hell. For Latter Day Saints, everybody goes to the spirit world world. And while in the spirit world you will suffer for the sins that you did not repent for, there's going to be an emptying of the spirit world. And eventually everyone outside of the sons of perdition is going to be resurrected and ultimately go to a kingdom of heaven. And so there is a distinct difference. Now, of course, what we believe in the celestial kingdom is far beyond what a Catholic believes heaven is like anyway. For a Catholic, heaven is much more like what we might consider the terrestrial kingdom to be, although that's a bad analogy because they don't line up. And so there is a key, distinct difference. A Catholic believes that purgatory is a place where good people go to prepare to go to heaven, that they were always going to go to. Latter Day Saints believe the spirit world is where everyone goes. And everyone in that spirit world has an opportunity to go to the celestial kingdom, depending on how they reacted to the light and knowledge they did have in this life. And so that is, it's a pretty key difference in the scope. The scope of Latter Day Saint spirit prison or spirit world is everyone is going to heaven eventually, and not just everyone's going to heaven eventually. Everyone has an opportunity to go to the celestial kingdom depending on how they live their life.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That is a very good. No, that's a very good, very good explanation of the, of the differences. Well done.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Shall we move on to the next.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, staying. Staying in Catholicism. This next email comes to us from Jen. And the subject is Catholic exchange student. And she says, Dear Dr. Dirkmaat. And then parenthetically doctor with a question mark. Laduke, that's. That's hurtful, Jen. So here I am, another littner that was led to your podcast from the Follow him podcast. I tried listening to a season five episode first and quickly learned that with over half of the podcast episodes being banter, I had no hope of understanding anything without going back to season one for context. That's on purpose, Jen. That's to get the. The listening numbers way up. Nothing makes sense. We're talking about things that you believe at your core, but nothing we're saying makes sense because you didn't listen to season two, episode seven. Now to my question. We are hosting an exchange student from Aspania, as my son would say, this coming school year. She is culturally Catholic, but not devout. We've hosted a student before, and that student loved coming to church with us, but he also came from a culture and family that was fairly non religious. I'm not sure if our Spanish student will want to attend church or not, but how do I prepare her for her first church meeting if she does want to come? I know a little bit about Catholicism, but I want to help her make some sense of our religion in the simplest way possible. Hopefully by being able to explain our religion using terminology a Catholic would understand. Any advice would be appreciated. Well, Garrett, you perfectly set the table with the previous question that David asked. And it just leads. It's almost like there was a planning meeting and we just lead seamlessly into Jen's question about the Espana exchange student.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I imagine that nobody listening will come away going, you know what? I'll bet they planned this because they listened to the rest of it. Like, clearly, whatever planning meeting they have doesn't actually take place. So this is, I mean, a good question. So Richard kind of hit on this on our last one is that if you're looking for similarities in doctrine, I mean, it is much easier to help a Catholic understand what we believe fundamentally because they believe some of the same fundamental things. So, I mean, I think you're going to have to, I mean, you're going to have to explain the apostasy and that, you know, might be a little bit tough if she's really trying to learn. If you're trying to explain where our church comes from, you explain that. Well, we believe that after the apostles died, that that apostolic authority was no more on the earth, that there were good people, there were good Christians who tried to follow what, what Christ taught, but they no longer had the authority, the apostles, and that God called Joseph Smith and gave him the apostolic authority, to be honest, I mean, depending on how devout she is or how often she goes. And when you say someone is culturally Catholic but not Devout, you're describing 99% of all Catholics in Europe where, where, you know, we're going to church sometimes. And by that I mean not really. I mean, France is a. France is a, supposedly a Catholic nation. And I think it's somewhere around like 8% of the country goes to church on a monthly basis. So I mean, that's not super high if you're looking at your percentages. So the, the most stark thing that's gonna just smack her in the face if she's never been to a Protestant church. And this kind of goes along with our later discussion that we're going to have after this, you know, how about that for a. A tease. We're eventually gonna have another conversation that might even be better than this. But you won't find out about it if you. If you don't keep listening. The thing that's going to be the most stark to her when she goes inside one of our church buildings is that there's a gym in there, and that's part of our worship area. So Catholicism and Catholic churches are highly ornate. Even churches that are in poor areas have statuaries, have, you know, if they can afford it, stained glass, they have paintings. And a crucifix will be there in the chapel with an image of Jesus on the cross. And so it's an important thing to help her understand if she hasn't ever been to a Protestant church, not that we're Protestants, and that is that Protestants. The whole Protestant Reformation eliminated these kinds of imageries and statues and crosses from their worship services. So someone who's gone to church at a Catholic church and then comes to one of our churches, the first thought that's going to come to their mind is, hey, there's no crucifix in here. There's no ornate altar. There's no images of the apostles or Jesus. It's just pews and a place to speak. And that will be stark to her, especially if she's culturally Catholic. And that's part of. One of the things that you can explain is that early church leaders, like many American reformers, wanted to keep the churches very Spartan on the inside so that you could focus on the doctrine of Christ and not have your ideas or your sensibilities drawn to, say, an image rather than that. As far as, you know, helping her understand our doctrine, I mean, helping her understand, you know, that there's a restoration, but that there are some things that are very similar. Catholics believe that salvation is a mixture of grace and works. And again, you'll find all kinds of the Latter Day Saints be like, no, it's only grace for us. Yes, obviously. But also, we're also saying that grace is applied to you through some essential works, some essential ordinances, like baptism. So you can help her understand that. You can help her understand our ecclesiology in the sense that our bishop is not a professionally trained preacher. He's just an average guy. And you can tell me, oh, our bishop's actually, you know, he's an insurance salesman, but for five years he's been called to lead our church. And our talks that we give are not given by our bishop. We don't have any paid clergy, just individual Members of our congregation are asked to speak on topics and that will help her understand your worship service. Obviously, she will feel something similar to when she sees the passing of the sacrament. And it's important to help them understand that even though we don't call it that, you know, we, the short name of it, we call it the Sacrament. But of course, for Catholics they have seven sacraments. But, but this is the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is what it's really called. And you know that anyone can take it. So, you know, she might wonder, can I, Can I take the sacrament if I'm not a Latter Day Saint? Anyone can take it. It's to remember Jesus. I doubt if she's a high school student that she's going to have a long, drawn out conversation with you about transubstantiation. My guess is no, but I think that will seem somewhat similar to her. You know, the idea that we pray, we sing hymns and we bless the bread. I mean, pointing out to her that the priests up on the altar, up at the table are blessing the bread because to her only a Catholic priest can bless the host for the Mass, which is the, you know, the wafer that's going to be given. And you say, yeah, our priests, even though they look like young men, they are blessing the bread and then the water to be distributed. So I think there's a lot of similarities you can build on, but, you know, the most important is going to be trying to help her understand that Latter Day Saints believe that Christians are good people, that they've done wonderful things throughout the world, including Catholics. We aren't like other Protestants who are constantly talking about how much they hate Catholics, but that the authority from God which was given to the apostles by Jesus was taken from the earth when all the apostles were killed and that that was restored by, by Joseph Smith.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I think that's, I think that's great. I think you can also reference in, in 1976, there was a couple of theologians that released something, Donald Clark Osmond and Olive Marie Osmond. And a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll, I think, also sums up what Garrett was saying in terms of where we are in comparison to the Catholic Church.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, we're a little bit country and we're a little bit rock and roll. Well, speaking of which, that brings us to our last email that I kind of tease, but also it's kind of the main point of what I want to discuss.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, Garrett, now we do, we do have a, we do have an intro into this okay, thanks to the subjectivity of fair use laws, we have a little bit of intro to cue us up here.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway. Why there's not four of them, heaven only knows, I guess. It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you. It's what you leave behind you when you go. Wow. Amazing. Okay, well, so this comes from Lindsay. In the subject line, she wrote something clever and witty. So instead of actually writing something clever and witty, she thought, I'll put that there and that will be clever and witty, and then they'll read my email. And it seemed to have worked. Hello, doctors. I've never written into a podcast or anything, so this feels foreign to me. Well, you ought to try hosting one anyway. I've been enjoying your podcast. As I clean my house, I've been finding random places to clean, like under the treadmill so I can keep listening and ignoring my other responsibilities. That's what we expect from you, Lindsay. Thank you. We need you to have the most spotless house because you're just cleaning. I've been binge listening and cleaning to catch up on all your stuff. I had an interaction the other day with my massage therapist. She's not a member, but did marry into a member family, so she knows a bit. But from what I understand, her husband isn't active and they occasionally go to church with her in laws, and it always happens to be on fast Sunday, which creates a lot of questions, I'm sure. Boy. Yeah. You know, you got to get those in laws to invite them to church on a Sunday that's not Fast Sunday. Just so. Just so she knows that where Brother Miller took his RV last weekend is not the only part of what we believe. I mean, it's. It's a massive part of it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's a part. It's not. It's not all that we believe, but it is the main part of what we believe.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's. It's where I took my RV on an RV trip. What? It was like going to the choir band concert, and then also Jesus in the atonement. But that. I mean, it's down the list of where it is. She asked me why we don't have crosses, and I told her the standard answer I was given as a child. We don't celebrate Christ's death, but his resurrection. I'm not satisfied with my answer and was wondering if you had a better one. I know. We believe so much in the atonement of and sacrifice of Christ. But not wearing or displaying crosses just isn't how we show that. I know you don't get to all the emails, but I'm giving you a month before I see her next to reply. Well, so, you know, we are responding quite quickly to this.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, we're killing it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You could schedule a massage, you know, on Friday. I mean, we're. We're getting it right there. Thank you for helping to strengthen my testimony and understanding of the gospel. P.S. if I tell you I'm a seminary teacher in rural Montana, would that help? And that is what took you over the finish line? Yeah. The fact that you like the podcast. No, it didn't do nothing for us. But the fact that you're a seminary teacher in rural Montana, you know, you are crossing the Sweetwater river every day that you do that. And so because of that, we'll answer. But this is a question that I wanted to spend some time on, and it's a little akin to our other questions that we have. But the reason why I wanted to spend some time on it is this is a perfect example of not just us as Latter Day Saints not knowing our religious history, because that, I mean, it shouldn't be surprising that a Baptist, you know, doesn't know Latter Day Saint history. I mean, they're still giving you the, you guys think Jesus and Satan are brothers, right? That kind of thing. Right. But it is stunning how little Protestants know about their own history, because the reason why Latter Day Saints don't have a tradition of either putting crosses on their churches or wearing crosses is something that has to do with when the church was founded. And I think Latter Day Saints don't fully appreciate just how unique we are because the rest of the Christian world moved. So first and foremost, this is the important thing to understand. After the Reformation took place, there was a huge movement because Catholics, you know, prayed to Mary because they had all kinds of icons and they venerated relics. Right. So here's a piece of the true cross, and if you go to it and you pray at the foot of the true cross, it'll lessen your time in purgatory or it will help your kids, you know, because of this Catholic mysticism that was attached to items and icons in the early days of the Reformation, there were entire groups of new Protestants who went on iconoclasmic, you know, riots, essentially, for lack of a better term, they would go through the existing churches, and they were all Catholic at that point because it was Catholic churches. And they would destroy images of priests and they would destroy crosses and crucifixes. The difference between a cross and a crucifix is a crucifix has Jesus on it. It's an image of Jesus on the cross, whereas a cross is just, you know, a cross. And now Martin Luther himself was opposed to that kind of iconoclasm. And so Lutherans, they still maintained having a cross in their churches, but still people weren't wearing cross. The idea of wearing a cross necklace, that is like super late Protestantism, that people aren't wearing crosses as jewelry. People aren't in any time of regular way until the 20th century.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I think an enormous shock to Pete. This would be an enormous shock because now that's. I mean, if you. If you are buying a My Pillow or you're seeing a My Pillow commercial, the guy. The guy's wearing 37 crosses in the commercial. Like, it's. It's the most. It's the most. I mean, that's how you show your Christian. It's the exact opposite.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Incredible. Yeah. And so for Martin Luther, he is troubled by the veneration of what he's going to see as idols. Right? So the idea that you, you know, you. You go to a place where you believe, you know, the bones of St. James are laid, and that that somehow gives you greater access to God. Luther's not happy with that idea, but he also appreciates the power that symbols have in teaching the message. Right. Because again, almost everyone you're teaching is illiterate. They're not just scripturally illiterate. They don't have the ability to read because there's no education system. So images become pretty important. It's part of the reason why there are such imagery in Catholic churches in Europe, because I may not be able to read about the story of Adam and Eve because I don't have the ability to read, but I have the ability to look at images. And so when I look at stained glass and it shows a snake tempting a woman and then in the next pain, her eating an apple. Well, I've just learned about the fall of Adam and Eve, even though I can't actually read about the fall of Adam and Eve, but this is going to come as a great shock to you. John Calvin and the Calvinists, they took the Reformation much farther. Now, we've had a conversation on this podcast a little bit, but primarily on our sister podcast on discussions about both Joseph Smith and the Restoration and search these commandments about Anabaptists. Who were these radical Protestants? Well, they. One of the first Things they do is they say, absolutely, you can't have any graven images in your churches. And guess what the cross is. It's a graven image. Do you find people going up to crosses and praying as if their prayers have more authority because they're next to a cross? This is what an early radical Protestant would say. And if you do, then that is an idol, because they're thinking that something or some work gets them closer to Jesus. So John Calvin and the reformers that that will spawn after him, people like John Knox and John Wesley, they will see the cross as a symbol of Catholic idolatry. Protestants in the early days constantly accused Catholics of being idol worshipers because they're praying to an image of the Virgin Mary. Because they're praying to the saints. Right, because they believe you can pray to the saints and the saints will help them. You know, I'm going to pray to St. Anthony and St. Anthony's going to help me find my lost car keys because he's the patron saint of missing things. So they see all of these images as violating the second great commandment. Well, and so almost all churches in America in Joseph Smith's time, nearly all of them are Calvinist or English based. Well, because the Church of England or the Episcopalian church and the Methodist Church, which breaks off of the Church of England, because both of them see the cross as a symbol of Catholicism and idol worship. They don't have any crosses in their churches. Now, I know right now you're saying, no, I've seen an Episcopalian church and they've got crosses all over the place. Yeah, they do now. They just didn't when Joseph Smith was receiving his revelations. So there would never have been a question for Joseph when he's founding the church about whether or not you erect a giant cross outside of the meeting house. Because no Protestant erects a giant cross outside of the meeting house in the 1830s and 1840s outside of Lutherans. And there's almost no Lutherans in America in Joseph Smith's time. Right? So, yes, there's several thousand Lutherans, but they're such a small number. There's a reason why Joseph doesn't list them off as part of the people that he went to go, you know, check out their churches before he had the first vision. Lutheran. There are thousands and thousands of Lutherans in America now. But that's because of the later German and then even later Scandinavian immigration to the country. So most of the Lutheran influence you get into the country today actually comes from the Scandinavian immigration. Of the country, which is in the 1880s and the 1890s. And they're bringing all their Lutheranism with them, and of course, they're bringing the symbol of the cross with them as well. But there are very few Lutherans in America in 1830. And so one of the crazy parts about this is that the person who's likely to say that you're not really a Christian because you don't have a cross on your church could very easily be a Baptist. Where if you read any Baptist theologian from 1800, he would say the cross is a Catholic papist symbol of idolatry that violates the second commandment. And any true Christian wouldn't have a cross on their church and wouldn't have a. Wouldn't be wearing across. What's really interesting when you read some of these early arguments is some of the early arguments surrounding it sound kind of similar to the things that, you know, that you shared. Let me just, you know, share some of them as a. As a demonstration of this feeling. So in 1855, the Anglican Church or the Episcopalian church, one of the leaders of it, publishes a book about the laws and usages of, you know, ornaments in a church. So in an Episcopalian church, there's an entire section. So this is 1855. This is 25 years after the church is founded. We've been, you know, you even have people say, well, why didn't they put a cross on the temples? Sure, we eventually have an angel Moroni, but what do we have on the Kirtland Temple? We have a weather vane. Well, guess what? Methodists teach in the 1850s is the right kind of thing to put on the top of a church. That. That a spire is better for religious character than a cross, and that a ball and a weather vane is the usual and appropriate finish to the top of a Protestant spire. So Protestants in the 1830s, 40s and 50s and 60s, they saw the cross as a Catholic idol, and they didn't put them on their churches and they didn't wear them around their necks. So when our church became a church, the culture was, if you put a cross on your church, you are saying that you are Catholic or that you worship idols. Well, what happens then? I mean, I guess maybe I should read. Let me. Let me read a little bit of John Wesley, you know, the founder of Methodism. Founder of Methodism, John Wesley. He's a, you know, he's. He's not someone that someone would casually say, you know, is a pro Catholic. He's. He's Quite. He's quite angry at the idea of Catholic, of Catholic ideas. And this is part of one of his books in response to the Catholic Catechism. The Church of Rome, without any authority from Scripture, makes a distinction in worship. They grant sovereign worship to any besides God is idolatry, but that were not the host of the very body and blood of Christ, it would be no less than idolatry to give that honor to the host. So he's talking about the blessing of the sacrament. We understand then how to call that worship that they give to the cross. We call it idolatry. For whatever the host is, the cross is just a representation and not the person to be worshiped. The second commandment teaches us, thou shalt not make any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them. Which are the two words to be considered. One pestle, which we rightly translate graven image. And it properly signifies anything carved and cut out of wood or stone. And so it is 40 times rendered in the Greek translation, graven thing, so that an idol and an image are forbidden. The next word, the munah, which doth properly signify a similitude or likeness, and is also translated. And thus it was understood by the Fathers. Justin Martyr, when he recites this loss with one of the early Christian fathers, said, God forbade every image and every similitude. Christians abhorred the veneration of all images. Indeed, the command is so express against this practice that there has been a kind of self condemnation in the church of Rome. And they commonly either altogether leave out this commandment or they render it imperfect by halves, simply saying, thou shalt not make unto thee an idol. So he's pretty clear that he sees a cross in the church as being a graven image and an idol. Another example of this, a Christian theologian, a Baptist, who will later become a Millerite Baptist. He will write an entire treatise on this called the History of the Cross. His name's Henry Ward Dana. Now, Henry Ward Dana, if you know, for all of my Seventh Day Adventist listeners, sorry, Henry Dana Ward. I switched his name up in the middle there. Sorry, everyone. Henry Dana Ward. They will know that Henry Dana Ward is one of the founders of the Seventh Day Adventist movement. So originally he's a Baptist, then becomes a follower of William Miller, who's a Baptist. And he writes a book in the 1870s and it's called the History of the Cross. It's pagan origin and idolatrous adoption and worship of the Image, how do you really feel about this? You know Henry. So he is going to preface his book by saying, in the churches of America, a flood tide of ritualism now threatens to overwhelm the gospel, such as in the 4th century deluged the primitive churches with relics, martyrs, monkish legends, lying wonders, pagan customs, and the invention of the cross. Excited by the mysterious movement, the rising generation are fired to see, to fall in and form a part of the brave show. Dressed in colors or white robes, with banners and standard bearers for admiration of the beholders, the sign and image of the cross is now, as of old, in the forefront of the pagan assault upon the simplicity of the faith of God in Christ. And so look, what he's going to go on to argue is that the early reformers saw the cross as part of this mysticism, as part of the separation that was made by the Catholic Church from people to directly worshiping God. And that he's upset because in the 1870s he sees the cross and other things flooding into these otherwise Protestant churches. So what starts to happen is you have a huge Catholic immigration into America with the Irish potato famine in the late 1840s. Now that's primarily localized to the Northeast. But then in the 1850s and 1860s, you get a huge German Catholic migration that comes in and Protestants start to feel that they all have to answer the same question that Lindsay has to answer from her massage therapist. And that is a Catholic, you know, a Catholic German gets off the boat and the Presbyterian there is trying to convince them to come to their church. And the German says, well, I don't even know if you're a Christian, why don't you have a cross on your church? And so there's been good studies on this that demonstrate throughout the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, Protestant churches slowly, slowly start introducing crosses onto their churches as a means of trying to kind of draw in these Catholic immigrants. And you know, it's so funny because early Protestants, some early Protestants were opposed to any type of instrument being in the church. It was grounds of excommunication for you to play the fiddle, for instance. And now what do you see in a non denominational Protestant church, a live band, the fear of people like Henry Dana Ward. I'm going to say his name wrong again, but Henry Dana Ward is that the razzle dazzle of the pomp and circumstance that other churches had, that the Catholic Church had, is being used to try to bring people into our Protestant churches. But the entire point of a Protestant church is that there is Literally nothing between you and Christ, that your worship should be only you and Jesus and not you thinking about Jesus hanging on a cross in this imagery. Because then you're thinking about the imagery and you're not thinking about Jesus. And so the, the, the reason why this is such a frustrating one. I mean, this doesn't get Garrett's dander up frustrating, but the reason why it's so frustrating is every Christian, outside of a Catholic and a Lutheran, who ever asks you as a Latter Day Saint why you don't have a cross on your temples, or why you don't have a cross on your church, or why you don't wear cross jewelry. Every single one of them, barring the Catholics and Lutherans, they come from a faith tradition that used to see someone having a cross on their church as saying that they were Papists and that they were Catholics. What happened is as the culture changed because of immigration into the United States, Protestants changed their position. And frankly, I think you can see Protestant churches are continuing to change their position. In the 1800s, you could readily be excommunicated from a Protestant church, Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, Baptist Church, for committing adultery in today's Protestant churches. There's not even a conversation about it. And again, obviously there's some exceptions, but I'm talking about generalities. The aspect of Protestantism that in some ways sows the seeds of its own destruction is that once you've thoroughly convinced everyone that there is literally nothing but you and your own personal relationship with Jesus, there are no ordinances and the church is a essentially meaningless. I mean, you didn't, you never went to church because it saved you, because you're only saved by faith. There's, there's no ordinance there that saves you. You go to church because you want to learn more about the Bible because you love Jesus. But it turns out because you love Jesus is not a better motivator than going, you know, backpacking on the weekends. And so they sowed the seeds of their own destruction by saying that the church was not essential, it's just what you should do. And you see that with the collapse of Protestant denominations everywhere, and even conservative Protestant denominations, The fact that 500,000 Southern Baptists left the Southern Baptist Convention last year alone is crazy. Half a million members departed. What used to be a growing church in America is now a shrinking church in America. And to stem the tide of people leaving, what do you find? You find many Protestant churches doubling down on the. We've got to find a way to razzle dazzle, to get people in here. We've got to have the best bands and the best parties and we've got to have a pastor that doesn't ever condemn anything as sin except not loving everyone exactly the same. And in their rush to try to do that, what do they find? Their churches are not stemming the loss of membership. The loss of membership is increasing. So what denominations don't use the cross? Well, the denominations that came out of this time period of the Second Great Awakening but didn't shift their doctrine over time. So Seventh Day Adventists don't put a giant cross on their church because they saw the cross as an idol. Jehovah's Witnesses, which also, you know, eventually come out of the Millerite movement. Don't use the cross. Now for a casual Christian, they'll say, ah, that proves you're not a Christian. But there was a time in the 1830s and 1840s when every single Protestant you ever met in America agreed with you that it was wrong to use the cross as a symbol of your Christianity. Maybe I should lastly leave with what's on, you know, lds.org under the topics and questions page about the cross, because people ask questions. So look, the church has an official position on it, but I think it's important to understand that historically we never started with a cross and in fact no one around us had a cross. But the rest of the Protestant world moved to conform to wider society and now it's become such a thing that they forgot. That they've forgotten and they look at us and they say, you're obviously not a real Christian because you have a cross. Even though they're, they're great, great grandfather would have been horrified to see a cross on his church. This is from churchofjesuschrist.org the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is part of his atoning sacrifice. It is a foundational doctrine in Heavenly Father's plan of salvation through his suffering In Gethsemane, crucifixion on the cross and subsequent resurrection, Christ overcame sin and death, allowing all the opportunity to come unto him and receive salvation and exaltation. The symbol the cross is used in many Christian churches as a sincere expression of faith in Jesus Christ. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints remember with reverence the Savior's suffering. Both in Gethsemane and at Calvary. We believe that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to the Scripture, the Bible, Book of Mormon doctrine and Covenants and Pearl, Great Price all emphasize the saving significance of Christ's death on the cross. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not display the cross on its buildings or in its chapels or in its classrooms or similar places. However, its teachings are focused on the doctrine of Christ's miraculous atonement that happened in Gethsemane and on the cross. Like many other Christian faiths, the Church emphasizes the living, resurrected Christ. This is why the official symbol for the Church is an image of the resurrected, living Christ who guides his church today through revelation to his prophet. The symbol also serves as a reminder that we can each have hope in a glorious resurrection because of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As is also true of other Christians, the way we live our lives is the primary way we demonstrate our love for the Savior and his work. And you know what's fascinating? When you read Christian theologians, I know we're out of time, so I can't read them, but when you read Christian theologians from the 19th century talking about it, they will literally make this exact argument. They will say, why are we celebrating the image of his death instead of his resurrection? Why do I think that if I have a gold encrusted cross on my church or around my neck, that that shows me more of a Christian than how I treat my neighbor? And so it's one of the most fascinating aspects of the history of our church and the history of Protestantism in America is that in the 1830s, if you had a cross on your church, you were not a real Christian. And in 2025, if you don't have a cross on your church, well, you must not be a real Christian. And the same Christian, the same faith tradition, are the same people saying that you aren't a real Christian because you don't have a cross. The difference is we never changed and they did. That's the great difference is that everything you ever want to know about the.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Cross, Richard, it is actually really fascinating.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Look, obviously a Christian who wears that cross and the woman who asked you the question, she doesn't know the history of the Christian cross as a symbol, of course. And you know, for all I know, she might be Catholic, so maybe she's always thought of as a symbol, but they see it as a mark of their devotion. And so we should absolutely respect that and see that as someone saying this is them saying they're dedicated to Christ. At the same time, I don't think that we have to feel like we aren't real Christians because we haven't changed what we believe as our symbolism regarding to the cross over the past 150 years. And they have these other radical Protestant groups like the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witness. They don't have crosses because they never had crosses because they saw it as an idol symbol. Now, that doesn't mean that when we see it outside of a Methodist church, I mean, think of that. We read John Wesley saying the cross is an idol symbol. And the symbol for the United Methodist Church today is literally a cross and flame.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, it's a burning. Yeah, yeah. That's inflamed. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That cross and flame adopted in 1968, not. Not going all the way back to John Wesley, who saw crosses as wrong. Same thing with the Episcopalian or Anglican church in the 1840s and 50s. You do not have a cross anywhere around you. You. And today it's a symbol of that. You know, we're a real Christian. And so basically, culture changed the definition of what constitutes being a real Christian. And many of these Christian churches changed their beliefs on this topic in order to fit more into what the world considered to be a Christian. And it is one of the more fascinating things that a faith devoted to. To destroying all imagery that could be in place of Jesus now holds it up as a proof of whether or not you're a Christian by whether or not you've adopted the imagery that their great grandfathers said was. Was idolatry. So, thank you so much for joining us. And I don't know that you want to give the entire history of the cross to your massage therapist, but you know what, you got an hour. I mean, I don't know how much time you're paying for, but hopefully everyone appreciated that. And thank you so much for listening.

[Narrator]

Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.