Christless Nationalism and then "The New Mormonism"

Well greetings and welcome to the dividing line Boy lots of stuff happening here at the beginning of 2026.

It's almost like 2025 hasn't finished yet That seems to be what's going on So I woke up to discover that the web and Fuentes Get together is 10 parts

Which are all on patreon so you get to pay for it And I'm like I ain't paying a dime for any of this stuff ever

I can assure you of that Eventually it will probably come out since they want clicks and stuff and when when that takes place then

Transcribe feed to grok get summary. I am NOT investing

I don't know how long it is maybe each segments five minutes. I doubt that I Don't know how long the segments are and I just don't care

I had actually just seen a clip from Fuentes right before all this got announced

Where he was dropping f -bombs and talking about? doing that TPUSA and stuff like this and it's just Vile with a capital

V. It just isn't enough to to I Did see a clip this morning about a 10 second clip or something like that where?

Fuentes was saying well, yeah, I mean Government has to legislate some kind of morality.

This is the guy that's talking about how maybe when he turns 30 or something like that, he'll get him a 16 year old wife because and then he

Disgusting stuff just man's just vile on every level and I'm just like yeah, who's gonna define that morality?

That that morality would pretty much Get rid of you pretty quickly So anyways,

I'm sure it is just so I'm not at all well, okay,

I'm a little stunned that I then see a Let me see if I've got here here it is

I then see a tweet an Exposed whatever you call them.

We called them tweets for what 13 years something like that.

And oh It disappeared Huh, I wonder why that would be taken down Well, I couldn't have read it anyways, but I'm gonna

I'm gonna double double -click this here. Yep. It do be gone.

I Better screencap the what was there before? Just so that it doesn't disappear but Joel Webben has a book coming out.

He he's gonna be himself a big author he's gonna be a big author and Evidently he has from what

I'm seeing here It says buy now on Amazon, let's see if Amazon comes up here

Uh, nope just brings up an entire one minute long commercial, okay, cool

Maybe he put the other one up for the fun of it and turn it down. He used off -color language in that one but a new book the hyphenated heresy

Judeo -Christianity Buy now on amazon .com

Amazon .com, huh? I've heard of that place Other than it owning my soul, um the

Hyphenated Heresy Well, we have the hymenean heresy the heresy of orthodoxy when politics becomes heresy the heresy of Jacob Frank, I Do not see that listed yet on Amazon It says buy now on Amazon, huh?

I Wonder why that is I Don't know

Let me see here. Did he did he did he did he did he huh?

I I'm sorry. I've did the covers there the whole nine yards it says buy now on Amazon, but evidently

Let's see what that nope Not pulling up anything at all heretic the cruelty of heresy

Yeah, not seeing this up there at all. So maybe they jumped the gun on that, you know, maybe

Amazon says yeah We're not gonna post new stuff till after this coming weekend when you have to go back to work or something.

I don't know but anyway, it's The hyphenate heresy

Judeo -christianity Joel Webben and Jordan Hall Okay for adults for the adults in the audience

Judeo -christian has been used as a descriptor. It's not a religion. I Don't know if anyone who's ever said there was something called

Judeo -christianity. That is a religion that has creeds or confessions

Anything like that Judeo -christian was a descriptor of the interface between Jewish ethics and morality as primarily based upon the

Tanakh and Christianity which of course quotes from the text of the

Tanakh Over and over again in its own religious documents called the New Testament In other words New Testament quote some the

Old Testament all the time and therefore, you know It's sort of like the insanity the utter insanity.

I thought I muted this thing. I did mute this thing and Oh, you got the link to it.

Yeah. Well still mute this chat. Thank you

Okay, well there it is that's interesting paper back

December 29th 2025 250 pages Yowzers, I Wonder when they started this thing.

So anyways, as I was saying just $20 of your money you can read

Well, I won't say anything more at the moment. Um it's a little bit like you can be you can now be identified as a promoter of the

Talmud if You go, you know There are sections the

Talmud that are primarily based upon the citation

Well, for example, there's a lengthy discussion in the Mishnah which of course ends up being repeated in the

Talmud on The Shema Shema Israel Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh Ahad and So there's a lot of Talmud about monotheism

Over against the polytheism of the religions around Israel and You know just basic stuff

In the world today you can be called a promoter the Talmud if you say

Well, it's right when it says there's only one God you're you'd agree with that, right? No No, I don't agree anything in the

Talmud. So there's more than one God No, there's not more than one God but the Talmud says there's one

God well, but it's wrong What I mean, there's just no reasoning.

There's just nobody home Once once you jump on the crazy crazy bandwagon, it's just like see y 'all later

So the same thing here. Um Judeo -Judeo Christian is a descriptor.

That's how we always used it. I Didn't know anybody thought they were creating a religion Um and how in the world you come up with a 250 page book about a complete non -issue

I Have no idea Now my gut feeling is they're probably go after dispensationalism and all the wild and crazy

Premilled this be stuff about Israel and okay, but It's so obvious they're just This is the new thing.

They're trying to to tap into the new thing. Oh, it's the Jews So we're gonna get people to buy our book because it's the

Jews Okay, all right wonderful fine great that's exciting and I ain't read it

Absolutely zero interest in someone writing a book against a complete non -issue. It has no meaning at all

I've got some more important stuff to be doing. It's funny. These people call themselves. We're Christian And by the way, one of those two authors,

I'll leave it to you to figure out which one of the two Posted something recently. In fact, somebody sent it to me about three or four days ago

About how supposedly all of us that aren't actually involved we actually do debates we actually do actual real books that are researched and have hundreds of footnotes and Have traveled the world doing this kind of stuff that we're all completely silent

About this massive crisis this huge apologetic crisis that is the promotion of the

Talmud I'm just like These guys have to create

Reasons for people to keep clicking because they have no substance So they can't they can't do what we've done on this program,

I mean you can go for now for Coming up on the archives are at about 25 years,

I guess 26 27 20 coming up on 28 years 90s 90s what?

Well, I know that but we don't have all the dividing lines going all the way back then but I thought the actual

Full archives went back like 98 or something like that 98 99 anyways That's a lot of material on a lot of different topics and these guys can't pull that off.

So They get boring after a while, you know, it's just So we've got to have a crisis and there's a crisis of polemics

There's a crisis and apologetics and nobody's talking about this and it's like it's because it's a nothing burger And you're just desperate

Completely desperate and you know, you are you what you so want to be noticed and nobody cares anymore

Yes, sir. You you you did I just I didn't want you to lose track of the Fuentes Issue because we do have someone in the

YouTube channel who before the show started asks if you could explain I don't know why this is hard to understand the difference between you sitting down and dialoguing with the astrakhani and Joel sitting down and dialoguing with Nick Fuentes Could could you perhaps bring some clarity to this?

first thing first thing I would say is I don't want to address because I can't address the nature of the

Entire interaction because it's going to be put out in ten parts and I don't know how long it's going to be first of all

So anybody can go watch the two dialogues that astrakhani and I did number of years ago in Memphis and We'll be doing another couple hour dialogue in A suburb of Dallas on the 29th of January, I guess that's this month, isn't it?

We need to I'm gonna be leaving soon. I Gotta get that into my thinking here.

Anyway, um, I would invite anyone to Compare whatever is going to come out because I would love to hear

Joel Webben Um Correcting Fuentes Because Fuentes has said such stupid idiotic things about the

Bible, Christianity, Protestantism just moronic stuff just just third -grade level duh stuff

You think that's gonna come up in their conversation? Do you think Joel's gonna bring that stuff up? well

Don't know I ain't gonna pay to watch it. So Once it's out there, you know when we do when we did those dialogues

We didn't put on patreon and ask people to pay us to watch it. That's one difference right there

It was recorded and it was put on YouTube and it was made available to everybody and We especially want people outside the

United States to see it and they're the people that were the most excited about they really really were That was it was 100 % positive from outside the

United States inside the United States wholly different issue Um, but it is difficult for me to understand how anyone could even ask the question

I mean, I suppose if you didn't see the dialogues the Yasir Qadhi and see how honest they were and see how we did not sweep any differences under the rug and We spoke with respect toward one another and We did all of that kind of stuff, but we made it very clear in the first dialogue

This is what Yasir Qadhi would want from me. He would want me to say the Shema to submit to Islam He would want me to submit to Islam he would

Want me to submit to the Quran to not believe what I believe any longer about Jesus being more than a prophet and to not commit shirk and to believe in Tauhid and We defined all these things and not and I said what

I would want for him that I would want him to come to Know that Jesus Christ is not merely a prophet, but that he is eternally been

God that he's not the father And I defined what the gospel was and I think

Chris Wisson posted what he had put together I think he put somebody put together a number of years ago when this came up.

He posted a video That Walked through me doing all of that stuff

Not only in that dialogue with Yasir Qadhi, but in all the debates I've done with with Muslims Presenting the gospel and not sweeping anything under the rug and that kind of stuff so then in the second dialogue at the mosque,

I The ground there aren't pews and mosques they're sitting there and He says, you know,

I've just never met any Christian minister That knows as much about Islam and Has listened as carefully to my lessons and then having set me up to his people

He says he starts asking me questions Christians believe that a part of God had to die why he's not arguing.

He's not debating he lets me answer the answer it and then go to the next question and there were great questions and There we are in the mosque and I've I've told the story that afterwards.

I Had the opportunity of talking with a young lady a young Muslim lady came up to a date they had refreshments just like the church had had refreshments the night before and This young lady comes up to me and she says could

I ask you a question now that that's a little unusual Very often Muslim women won't approach a man in that way

But she did she was in a beautiful burqa. Her face was not covered, but the but it was embroidered and it was very very pretty and Here's the question she asked and I would ask this question

I would I would say to a lot of people How would you have responded you're standing there with a big?

Soft gooey chocolate chip cookie in your hand, you know, one of the one of those guys, you know There's just like 350 calories a minimum right there and it's the soft gooey to others.

So I've got one of those in my hand and She says

How do you respond to the influence that Emperor Constantine? Had upon the

Council of Nicaea and its definition of Jesus being homoousius with the father Yeah, that was her question.

She wasn't she didn't read it she just asked the question clearly a university student and a lot of my critics would not be able to answer that question off the top of their head and Probably wouldn't be able to answer that question if they had two hours to prepare but I Because that's what

I do teach church history gave her ten minutes on Testimony of the deity of Christ prior to the

Council of Nicaea what really happened with Constantine how many really bad bad bad Stories there are running around on YouTube about Constantine referred her to my article in the

CRI journal from years ago late 90s as I recall what really happened to the Council of Nicaea and But that was the kind of dialogue that was opened up It was honest forthright

Nobody was trying to do self -promotion. It was meant to open up more and more dialogue with the conviction from my side that When you can talk and present the

Christian faith in that kind of a context with Muslims You can trust the

Holy Spirit to Bless that that's that's what we do. I Do not believe that's what we're going to be seeing in this political discussion of America first and quote -unquote

Christian nationalism, especially since this is Christless Christian nationalism It's Christless Christian nationals.

Remember we've talked about this before These are the guys

That all get together and say no you do not need Regeneration now

Webin once believed that Webin doesn't just keep something in mind ask yourself a question

What did Joel Webin believe five years ago? What did the guys in Ogden believe five years ago?

And where they believe today What did I believe five years ago? And what do I believe today? Who's consistent now?

They're gonna say well, we've learned and we've grown. Okay, the point is They're the ones that left Okay, they're the ones that have gone someplace else not us

We're still teaching and believing the things that we were teaching and believing back then so When I talk about Christless Christianity, I'm talking about The fact that a certain well -known author who has spoken at conferences with Webin and the

Ogden guys Said yesterday on Twitter that his commitment for 2026 is to Sacralism even harder.

Okay, so So Stephen Wolfe Presents a

Christian nationalism That does not require regeneration does not require this Holy Spirit of God to change hearts and minds

So it's Christless Christian nationalism, which means it's just national so America first With nationalism.

Well, that's gonna be the same thing. So they're gonna find plenty in common I would assume

I'm going to assume That Fuentes cleaned up his language a lot.

I Don't know if he was asked to or if he just recognized context he was in He always does dress nicely.

I will give him credit at least knows how to tie a tie But This is not gonna be about the gospel and I I Said on the last program no one seemed to hear it or care.

I said last program. I think it'd be wonderful if Fuentes was

Challenged on his well aberrant

Roman Catholicism, I Know many a good Roman Catholic that's embarrassed by the fact the man claims to be a

Catholic But that he would be challenged on his worldview

Everything the whole nine yards. That would be wonderful I don't think Joel Webb is any longer in the position to really do that very effectively, but that would be great

I'd like to see it happen but I don't think that's what was laid out as the foundation of this and so That was laid out as the foundation

Before my dialogues Yasir Qadhi during the dialogues after the dialogue, we're sweeping nothing under the rug

This isn't a debate but we are laying out what the major issues and differences are and Neither one of us is trying to get followers.

Either one of us is trying to get clicks Either one of us is trying to grow their brand and that's what

Joel weapons doing. It's just obvious Anybody with eyes can see that and so Simple nationalism, it's not

Christian nationalism. It is just basic nationalism Plus America first is pretty much same thing.

And so I don't know exactly what's gonna be accomplished by that But we'll find out I certainly ain't gonna rush to Jump into it unless there's some major reason to do so Um, but The two are completely have completely different purposes

Mine is theological evangelistic Encouraging Christians outside the

United States in their witness to Muslims. That's not what any of this does So that would be the difference between those particular things so, yeah,

I Wonder when this was all recorded. I wonder if they'll mention when that is. I'm I don't know

Okay, uh Real quickly it is amazing to me

It's like 2001 never happened 9 -11 I mean the city of New York has obviously completely changed in Just over 20 years to have elected

Zoran Mamdani Who is just plainly a communist

I mean a social Democrat is a communist without a gun a

Social Democrat is someone who gains power Through corruption and bribery rather than just shooting people, but it's all to the same end.

It's all the same system Uh We'll replace rugged individualism with collectivism collectivism

Killed a hundred and twenty million people last century, but evidently people in this century don't care about the last century

Even when the blood of 120 million people is involved. I guess it's probably because we know that Millions and millions and millions of little babies babies are being killed

Every year now all around the world and hey, we're just sort of used to death now. So Doesn't really matter until it's your turn

Then you'll then you'll think twice about that But my understanding is that he is appointed the defense attorney for some of the al -qaeda terrorists

To a position there in New York City. How how insulting to every single person who died that day how

Absolutely spit in your face. I would simply say to every American who can

Get out let it collapse on top of itself just Don't give that guy and that system any money get out.

I Know some people can't it's gonna collapse one way or the other but the faster it collapses and becomes a

Well, I'd like to think that it would become a watchword that we'd be able to go. Wow. See It never does work

Even the people say it's just never been tried right before you know, I mean isn't doesn't work But now there's just the level of corruption that we see in the

United States right now it where we're finding out that a major portion of our deficit has simply been because there's a bunch of people in our government and in our nation that hate this nation so much they'll open our borders and they will let people steal us wine and They want to happen because they want to bring the nation down and they're called

Democrats and That's what they've been doing for years now. It's plain as a day as a nose on your face and The Somali invasion

Has nothing to do with the color of their skin It has everything to do with worldview has everything to do with morality has everything to do with a complete and utter lack of concern for the law

That's why there are Somali pirates, okay, that's why that's why u .s.

Destroyers Patrol those waters and blow those suckers right out of the water

Because they have no respect for law. It's part of their culture and Unlike what some people believe there are some cultures are better than others

That is true. Some cultures are better than others and what makes them better. That's the issue That's that's the substance of what we should be talking about but anyways, um, oh

Springtime for Fuentes and Joel Webben. I can't even click on that. I'll have to I'll have to look at that later on But yeah, it is for someone old enough to remember air raids and the the

Red Scare and I Was born Shortly after the the

Cuban Missile Crisis. I wonder what percentage of American voters know what the

Cuban Missile Crisis even was 1 % maybe I I'd be surprised it was much more than that That jet those jaywalking segments from years ago

Are probably would even be more depressing now Asking people about the history of the of the nation

But it is astonishing to realize what's happening right in front of us

That we can't remember things that happened only a matter of decades ago and make application today

We thought the internet would make us all smart and it all did was make us all stupid So yeah communism's here

New York City's got it Portland Seattle, they're all right there

Chicago all the major cities Once you have your your electorate in place where you're gonna get elected no matter what you do no matter how often you fail

It's just gonna perpetuate itself and That's we see happening. And I know as soon as I say this, but I thought you were a post -millennial

It's like a post -millennial is does not believe that God's gonna bless a corrupt nation

Post -millennialism does not mean that God blesses nations that have blood dripping off their fingers

Why does anybody think that well cuz everything's always gonna get better. That's not what it means

You've misunderstood. Hello Tired of repeating that one to be honest with you.

Okay. All right now over the What Yeah, okay

The stuff that's going on about the Somalian stuff truly is amazing and I just I just have to sort of sit back and go

How much this is even real? I? don't know I just It's so hard to know these days.

Thanks to AI. I don't know. Okay switching gears completely here Hey, by the way, have we have we checked the mail to see if we've gotten a free copy of Joel and JD's new book hmm

Okay, just check him yeah, I'm sure it'll be signed with love

Sorry No, I didn't I don't don't think so either though we'll have to have it tested for gunpowder residue

Anyway Yeah, I Had the opportunity this past weekend

Well, wait a minute, yeah, it was this past weekend last Saturday We had

Aaron from up in Utah Aaron Shalva fall off. I think it's about as close as I can get so waffle off Um I've known

Aaron for years and years and years knew him when he was youngster really and He's involved with more research ministry up there in the in Utah and I've said a number of times they're doing great work up there and he's one of the cutting -edge guys and He came down and and we had him come over to apology.

I noticed it's a few of us But it was a Saturday morning. So It's not the best timing for that, but anyway

He did a presentation for us on the new Mormonism and I wish it had been recorded.

I don't know why it wasn't It was Fascinating for me

I knew a lot of it, but there was a lot of new stuff, too Because he and our

Apology as church plant up in Salt Lake City. They do a lot of street work a lot of street witnessing

Especially down in Provo around BYU. Now, why would that be important? quick History lesson here to give you an understanding of Why Mormonism is changing so rapidly when it didn't change for a long long time

Part of the reason it didn't change for a long long time is because it's settled in the Intermountain West and sort of built a wall around itself and a lot of the trends and currents of critical theology and cultural change just Sort of went drifting over the

Salt Lake Valley and Utah as a whole and went over to California or back to the other direction and so Mormonism could just sort of hide out there

But then when Mormonism began growing rapidly in the late 1970s especially into the 1980s and I've told people this this statistic before There was a point in time the early 1980s when the average

Southern Baptist Church had 274 members and on an average week 273

Southern Baptists became Mormons. So that was one church wholesale per week

Converting to Mormonism. That's how fast they were growing and You can't stay hidden in Utah when you grow that fast and so We started seeing the results of this in the late 90s

When we first started going out to the Mormon Temple in Mesa and then going out to the Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City for the general conference and first week in April, first week in October Everybody you talked to you knew what they're gonna believe.

Now there were some variations there You know, there was Mormonism was never quite as lockstep as Jehovah's Witnesses.

I But you still had a you knew what you're gonna be discussing That started changing in the late 90s

And that's when Mormonism started to try to mainstream When I first started talking to Mormons, they didn't they didn't claim to be

Christians They wanted to differentiate themselves from the first thing that the missionaries Would talk to you about when they came to your door

Was the first vision. Oh What's the first vision? and In the first vision

Joseph Smith is told that all the churches are corrupt their creeds and abomination that that that them so They wanted to differentiate themselves right from the start

Well, they don't do that anymore that's not their goal anymore and I don't know if they've noticed

But Their growth numbers stink their growth numbers are basically natural

So in other words Mormons have tend to have lots of kids at least they used to Even that's changing so Conversions and natural growth are pretty much just keeping up with how many people will even the back door a lot of people leaving

Mormonism and I Just don't think it's figured out when that started and Evidently the leadership's like we're not going back to the way it used to be

So Yeah, what's the future well, that's just it Once in a while I'd run into a

Mormon that did more reading in Their early

Writings than most Mormons did and so they knew that there were differences of opinion about for example intelligences

Do intelligences exist? What's the nature of intelligences? So yeah, once in a while you'd run into someone and you know, you don't necessarily get into that conversation with every conversation you have but you'd run into folks that would recognize that you know

Orson Pratt was a little bit of a firebrand and so he had some interesting views over here and you know

Brigham Young had a few different views over here and BH Roberts and At least there were still

Mormons reading Talmadge Roberts people like that when I first started dealing with Mormonism you can it's really hard to run to people now

That even know who those guys were or even care. I That would be given to almost every missionary before he went on his mission

Jesus to Christ articles of faith a marvelous work in a wonder by LeGrand Richards and Mormon doctrine by Bruce R.

McConkie so I started dealing with Mormonism during the

McConkie era and Bruce R. McConkie was a forceful personality now for those of you that aren't familiar with Mormonism There are currently well interestingly there are currently 14 you hear about this there are 14

Apostles, there's an almost always 15 you have you have the first presidency then you have the quorum of the 12

So the first presidency is the prophet and his two counselors. They're all apostles That's three then you have the quorum of the 12 3 plus 12 15

They're 14 right now because the head of the quorum the 12 died last week sometime Uh because they're all really old, okay, it's just this is how it works and But normally there are 15 living

Apostles and you need to understand they used to anyways understand these

Apostles to have the same level of apostolic authority as Paul or Peter or James or whoever else any of the original

Apostles Now that authority was lost within a few generations of the founding of the church exactly why they call it the great apostasy, but That's questionable But then it was restored in 1829

Prior to the founding of the LDS Church now that was actually a Mythological it didn't happen in 1829.

It was made up by Joseph Smith years later as David Whitmer testified and as is clear from the changes that Joseph Smith made in the 1833

Book of Commandments, but anyway So you have men living today on earth according to Mormonism who are

Apostles in the same way that John was an Apostle and So Bruce R.

McConkie was one of those Apostles and he wrote a book called Mormon Doctrine.

I mean Rich knows exactly what

I was doing there I'm not sure why I don't have my copy in here I'm gonna probably put it in here and leave it in here in the future because I've got my quad and stuff down there but We have we have a couple of copies

It came out in both in hardback. It was a black hardbound hardback with gold lettering and But the most popular one was a paperback

Which Rich is bringing to me right now because we have them spread around. Thank you very much.

So here's Here's Mormon Doctrine. I guess this is this is this your copy? Okay. This is

Rich's copy of Mormon Doctrine If you see this book in a used bookstore grab it

Because it's becoming rare The church wants this to disappear when we would go to Salt Lake City We would during General Conference at lunch we would go over to the

LDS bookstore it was huge The whole bottom floor is two floors the whole bottom floor was theology

The writing of the Apostles yet a huge LDS scripture section Copies the

LDS scripture and every kind of leather binding you wanted different colors and things like that Anyway, McConkie was huge at that time.

He was I Think probably one of the best it was he's probably the best -known of the twelve at that time and Now when he put this book out some of the other the twelve didn't appreciate it

But this is written by an LDS Apostle Can you imagine if we had a book called

Christian Doctrine? by Peter or by Thaddeus or One of the twelve we don't know a lot about from the first century

How important that would be and it's it's written as a you know, so like master master

Mahan Mediation mediums medicine mediator

Melchizedek, so it's just you can just look things up Passover You know

Just look it up. That's what everybody wants for a doctrine book. It's alphabetical order

I'll just look up what I want to know about there. It is by an LDS Apostle You can you can hardly even find it anymore

Why? When we used to go up there there be an entire section of McConkie's books the promised

Messiah Mormon doctrine, you know now Good luck

Good luck finding anything You're not gonna find that book It's gone.

Yeah might as well be Barnes and Noble well Actually, this is a really sad thing is they've got all the precious moments stuff too

It's like precious moments invades Christian bookstores kills them that invades the

LDS bookstore killed them, too precious moments the the Star Trek Tribbles of the

The media world I'm not sure how I made that connection. But anyway, um,

I saw my Coogee in the reflection So for a second, it sort of confused me um Make a note.

He was confused by his own Coogee. That's right. That's right too bright. Um So here's the point

McConkie was McConkie's view of pre -existent spirits There's there's always been

Controversy in Mormonism about how to handle the problem of the

King follow -up funeral discourse and It was called the sermon in the grove now

I Sort of need to I think I just need to make a note and do a program soon

Where we don't have to worry about priceless Christian nationalists Pretending they're actually politicians and like they have some kind of power other than amount of clicks they get and just do a read -through of the

King follow -up funeral discourse And the sermon in the grove These were the last major Doctrinal theological

Statements made by Joseph Smith and Often they're conflated

Partly because well Probably because in what's called teachings the

Prophet Joseph Smith, but I should I should just have my books in here just leave them somewhere in teachings the

Prophet Joseph Smith by Joseph Fielding Smith That's how most people have been exposed to the

King follow -up funeral discourse from Joseph Smith was in the form it's placed there, but that's sort of an edited version and it also sort of Brings in elements the sermon in the grove, which you may not notice as you're reading it that you're reading two different presentations, but that really becomes

The central driving element of LDS theology. This is where this is where Joseph Smith said we've imagined and supposed

That God was God from all eternity I will refute the idea and take away the veil so that you may see direct quote.

Yeah, I memorized long long time ago those brain cells are still alive amazingly they have survived the degradation of all the rest this is where you get the concept of Plurality of God's eternal progression and this is why

I say if Joseph Smith had not been murdered I Think very clearly by the

Masons in June of 1844 if he had been given Even as little as one more year, but definitely two more years there would be no

Mormonism the Rapidity with which he was changing evolving

Would have rendered the movement Indefensible and incoherent

Was changing that fast and it was only his death that rescued it and allowed

Brigham Young and the others to go to Utah hide in the mountains and Sort of fill in the blanks that Smith left unfilled and So it's interesting a lot of modern

Conversation Taking place amongst Mormons what you hear that you keep hearing and saying is well

It's we can't really tell from what Joseph Smith said that's because he wasn't done He didn't think he was gonna die in that jail and It wasn't his intention to be leaving behind a finished systematic theology and once those primitive founders such as Brigham Young Orson Hyde Orson Pratt partly

Pratt Would so it's such etc When they get to Utah, they've got to somehow come up with some kind of coherent

Or at least semi -coherent theology Without a whole lot of interaction with the outside world really which is interesting anyway

They come up with a belief and you know I I make this presentation called the eternal law of progression or the law of eternal progression

But even those are those are two different takes, you know, there are there are Mormons who believed that God has reached the ultimate level of exaltation and there were others who believe no, he's

Everybody is is progressing. It's the law of eternal progression rather than the eternal law of progression there's different different ways of understanding them and And So you get to the you get to our time period now what's happened is the church

Whether it was done purposefully or not. I don't know Sent their best and their brightest from BYU out into secular universities out into Ivy League schools provided financing for them to go get their

PhDs and to raise the perspective of Mormonism by having these

Ivy League trained scholars a teaching of BYU So they'd go out they get their

PhDs that come back to teach BYU Problem is but they didn't realize maybe they didn't realize I don't know these guys come back and they inject critical theory directly in the bloodstream of Mormonism and They're becoming the next generation of Apostles general authorities

And The fact the matter is the Book of Mormon. Dr. Carver's for a good price cannot survive critical analysis

You just can't what it says happened in the new world didn't happen in the new world and the result is a large number of Mormonism scholars keep teaching there, but they don't really believe it

It's like all the Roman Catholics at many Jesuit schools around the world

They continue to teach The bodily assumption is a dogma, but then over lunch in the lunchroom

They're presenting it as mythology Because it is mythology didn't happen.

It's not apostolic. I mean stretch the imagination So the same thing happening in Utah and so a

New Mormonism is developing. Yes, sir Well, I was just gonna you reminded me of a debate that you did

I think was with Richard Hopkins up in Salt Lake City and The I'll just never forget because I was the guy running around the audience at the end with the microphone

Oh, I'll never forget this very elderly Mormon gentleman who had the hardest rock hands

I've ever Seen in my life. This man has worked with his hands in the ground his whole life

And he took hold of that microphone and I didn't fight him and he

He wanted to engage you But he looked at Hopkins and he said

I don't know where you're coming up with this stuff But that's not the Mormonism. I know yeah

All right, and he just wanted to take him to town and you know, we were seeing the seeds of this

Yeah back then. Yeah. Oh, I remember talking to an older Mormon fellow on the north east corner of Temple Square and That's on the side where the temples over on that side and he pointed up to Moroni the

Moroni that fell down during the earthquake he pointed up to Moroni and he said

Within 25 years There'll be a cross up there now That hasn't happened.

But his point was this church is changing. It's evolving and It's changing away from what it once was you're getting a radical subjectivism and Mormonism and What Aaron was saying is that the young men they talked to?

Up there in Provo, which is where BYU is if you have your pulse on BYU, you have your pulse on Mormonism 20 -25 years and The subjectivism there

The willingness when when we when we would go out to Mesa when we go to Salt Lake City back in the olden days the young guys

Not in the night in the missionaries the the 12 and 13 year old guys. They knew what they believed they don't know that they don't know it anymore and You start talking to these university aged guys and The range of belief is amazing.

They're all gravitating toward Blake Osler and Aaron provided some quotes from Osler that were really really interesting such as quote

I Personally believe that Brigham Young's theology was a disaster for the most part now

Imagine think for a second Brigham Young was the second president of the church and I Know this is this is one of those places where the emphasis and Mormonism has been changing over the years

Because all what doctrine has been changed. It's not so much the doctrine as the emphasis upon what doctrines you're teaching so it used to be a big thing get your patriarchal blessing and your patriarchal blessing you were told the line of priesthood authority that was being given to you and The fact the matter is the vast majority of people alive back then

Trace their priesthood authority back through Brigham Young if Brigham Young was a disaster and The church has thrown

Brigham Young under the bus for his racial views if if he wasn't what he claimed to be

Modern Mormonism has no authority at least by its own by its own reasoning its own argumentation but people don't seem to think about that anymore and And Mormons used to think that there was an objective element of their claim to be the one true church

But it's becoming That's becoming rarer and rarer amongst the

LDS It's becoming much more subjective. And so you got young guys

They they wouldn't believe a word this guy had to say even though he claimed to be an apostle and they don't have any problem with it

They have no problem going Sure, he was impossible. It's just his opinion. It's just his opinion

Defining LDS doctrine when I wrote It's a more of my brother. I spent a tremendous amount of time

Laying out how to define Mormon doctrine Officially what documents you can actually use and I was using

Mormon documents to define this But the fact of matter is there's a lot of Mormons today

They don't they don't care about any of that. That's it's it's become completely subjective and This Blake Osler is one of the people leading this charge with Very unusual theology especially in regards to nature of God Godhead stuff like that he he's not presenting historical

Orthodox Mormonism at all and Aaron says that a lot of the young men up there are grab they gravitate to him because he has solved the problem of eternal regression because if Before every

God there was a there had to be exaltation to Godhood and it goes back and back and back

Eventually you have to answer the question. Well, we're the first God come If you have an increasing number of gods now

Then you have a decreasing number of guys to go back in time And so eventually you get to a God who had to be a man before he became a god

But where do you come from? That's the regression thing Osler says no, that's nuts.

That's that's not we have to believe we do not have to believe in the eternal law of progression Well, that's what's been taught by the

Mormon Church, yeah, we don't have to believe it that's not Mormonism So if if the church is going to allow the

Mormon Church is going to allow that latitude From its youngest men who will be filling the positions of authority in the church.

This church is not going to last another quarter century without splitting into a

Thousand pieces all the money in the world is not going to keep that from happening because they do have all the money in the world

Okay, they've they've they are Filthy rich but even that cannot hold together in a completely fractured system that has no central theological elements a lot and So it's

Well one thing one thing I mentioned in the meeting man. It was a lot easier witnessing the

Mormons when I was 23 years old and started doing that kind of well, we did it before then but a

Whole lot easier Sure, there was still subjectivism. Sure. You had the Mormon testimony had to deal with it all that kind of stuff

But nobody was willing to just simply laugh off an apostle Laugh off a prophet they are now on their own authority and I Don't know how long that can last the the momentum is still there the money is still there

You know the family connection stuff, you know, that's gonna keep stuff going for a while But it can't

I can't do it forever It can't keep it up forever. And so I really really do wonder what the fractured elements of Mormonism are gonna look like and And we certainly need to continue to pray for those working amongst the

Mormons up there because I Thought we had to learn a lot back in my day

But now you're having to learn variations on the variations You know, it's like becoming a chess grandmaster.

How many openings you have to cram into your brain? All the different variations you can run into when it talks when we're talking about about Mormonism Um, so yeah

Now you may go I don't care about any of that stuff well, there are a lot of a lot of Mormons that are starting to question and They need knowledgeable Christians to be able to Answer their questions and direct them toward the truth so I hope you would

Give that consideration if you especially if you know Mormons in your life To be prepared to talk to him on that level okay, all right, so 2026 is here.

We are off to a fantastic start Thanks for watching the program today listening.