Cultish: The Postmodern Maze of Mormonism Vol. 2, Pt. 2

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Is Protestantism Heresy? Pt. 3 - The Pope | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

00:00

Hey, what's up, everyone? This is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here at Cultish. For any of you who don't know, we have a merchandise store if you've seen any of our cool designs.

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You can go to forgedbeardco .com forward slash cultish. You can get some great goodies for your beard or friend who has a beard.

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Also, a portion of that will go towards this ministry. All right, so this is the second part of our conversation that we had with Bradley from the

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YouTube channel God Loves Mormons. We had a great conversation and really had a great time. It was up in Harriman, Utah, where Andrew resides in his super -secret headquarters.

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So, we hope you enjoy the second part of this conversation. Enjoy the podcast. ...widening backdoor of Mormonism today, but those people aren't necessarily ending up in true churches.

01:38

With the gospel, they're ending up just like after 1975 with Jehovah's Witnesses.

01:44

You had over a million people leave the Watchtower Battle and Attract Society in the next few years. Ninety -nine plus percent of them are either religiously abused, they did not end up in a true church, they've ended up just out there, no longer listening to anybody.

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And so, that's a tragedy. And in fact, sometimes those people are harder to reach than the people who are still actively believing in the church.

02:09

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, Entering the Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here, and I'm always joined here by Ian, the super sleuth of the show.

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And we are also joined here by Brandon from... Bradley. Bradley.

02:27

It's okay, you know, yep. Yeah, I almost always say Bradley Cooper because of the famous guy.

02:33

I totally said that when we were at... I know we're going to restart, I just have to say it real quick. When we were at General Commons, I was like, yep, and Bradley Cooper's going to be here later.

02:40

And I was like, why did I say that? Bradley Campbell. Yeah, Bradley. All right, start again. All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, Entering the

02:48

Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. I am joined here by my trusted co -host and super sleuth,

02:57

Andrew, the super sleuth of the show and your super secret headquarters in your apartment in Harriman, Utah.

03:03

My secret, not -so -secret headquarters now in my apartment in Harriman, Utah. Yes, Jeremiah. If I get shot, remember that you told everyone where I was, okay?

03:11

Okay, sounds good. So this is part two of the second volume of the Postmodern Maze of Mormonism.

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We are joined here once again by Bradley from God Loves Mormons, your

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YouTube channel. Good to have you back on, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. So just real quickly, that context, if you're listening to this via audio, that is a conversation that Pastor James White, you know,

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I go to Apology of Church, so he's my pastor, was talking with my other pastor, Jeff Durbin, really just about the current state of affairs.

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And this is several years ago. And for anyone of you wondering, the music in the background, that is there because that's part of the

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Easter pageant production, which is finally happening this year, which I'm super excited for. But just real quickly, since you're kind of our guest here, give me your thoughts on everything that James said.

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Unpack that from your perspective. What first comes to mind about that? Wow. Every word he said, I was like, yep, yep, that's exactly, exactly right.

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The dumbing down of Mormonism, the watering down of their beliefs, their practices, their theology is widespread.

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There are very few, very few people that I have interacted with who wholeheartedly cling to the doctrines of Mormonism.

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What I think it was Pastor Jeff who said, you have to first convince them, convert them to Mormonism, to them, you know, share the gospel with them.

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We use that line all the time because that is exactly true. People are so watered down in their understanding and grasp of theology that they don't realize how much of a problem it is.

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They don't think on the level of, well, is this true? Does it correspond with reality? Is it actually derived from scripture or is it just this kind of idea that we like thinking about and is interesting?

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It's become more of a hobby for lots of Mormons than actual, the foundational bedrock of their worldview and their practices.

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And so, man, I, like I was saying, I almost never interact with anyone who actually clings to Mormon doctrine.

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The gospel library, I keep with me in my evangelism bag, an old version of gospel principles so that I can go to the last chapter on exaltation and walk through, here's what you think about exaltation.

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Here are the requirements for exaltation. And here's what the Bible says, literally doing that exact thing. So I think that is incredibly true.

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The backdoor of Mormonism is, it is so wide right now.

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People are leaving the church in droves, especially since COVID started and they shut down the churches.

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There are tons of people who I know personally, relationally, who were gung ho for the church prior to that.

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And then they're like, wait, the temples were always really important. That was a big thing. And then they're shut down. That's like a really significant part of our church.

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And they are on the cusp of being done with it all. And so, yeah, and they're headed straight for atheism.

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All of them, straight for it. Atheism or new age spiritualism are kind of the two categories that people are sprinting towards.

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So one of the things I had no idea about, and this is just, it's like, this is not without a sense of irony.

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I mean, almost God has a sense of humor, is that I found out that all the promotional

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LDS videos, the character that plays Jesus, he's an actual guy who lives here locally.

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And he's like super into the new age. It's possible.

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I talked with him in Provo. Brandon was talking to us about how you guys met. So you were there.

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Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It was a weird conversation. He was like,

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I'm Jesus. And I was like, what do you mean by that? Right. That's a couple of questions. Wild.

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Yeah. Very much. It's almost like you have a very common like postmodern view of the world.

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And in many ways to like, that's a lot of two where like where Joseph came from, like he was heavily involved in the occult.

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You know, it's a matter of public record that he was arrested for treasure digging with a smith. That's what his family was probably known for.

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You can see that if you want to read a fascinating book, you can read No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody.

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Excellent resource. But yeah, he was heavily into that. And so in many ways, you can't not no matter how much one tries to revise

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Mormonism or try and whitewash their history, you can't get away from the dark areas of dark origins, whether it's like the

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Masonic connections to the temple or whether it's Joseph misinvolvement in the occult, or really just the origins of the idea of baptism for the dead.

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If we just call a spade a spade, that's necromancy. That's really attempting to contact the dead. And there's plenty of people

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I know who had, like I've talked with Mormons who have had experiences talking with what they believe to be their ancestor, which ultimately the biblical are familiar spirits.

08:02

Yeah. Do you have an example of that? Oh man. I, I have not dozens. I'm not exaggerating.

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Dozens of people have cited temple visions of family members or something like that, either that they had, or that a close family member of theirs had.

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And that was the bedrock of their worldview, that experience, the bedrock. I saw, you know, great -grandma

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Jodi when I was in the celestial room and you know, and they don't go into much detail, but they're like, and,

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I knew that what I was doing was for her and I knew that it, please God. So I know that the church is true and so on and so forth.

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And I got to be like, guys, you need to read 1 John 4. Beware of false spirits.

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We know that they exist. You need to test the spirits. That's the biblical command. So that is very pervasive. Very, very, very much more so than I thought.

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It's kind of almost shockingly so, because I would have thought that that was, honestly, if coming out here, if you would have told me that I would have been like, oh man, that's probably made up or a whipped up emotionalism would have been my guess.

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But I've heard it enough times and I'm like, there might be some spiritual stuff going on here with some legitimate demonic deception.

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I've heard it enough times. Yeah. No, that's huge. I think one area that's really interesting too is that when it comes to like the new age and really the occult and even a commonality that it has with people we talk from that area, like you were just at the

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Hare Krishna temple outreach, is that their primary authority in that world is experience.

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And very, not just experience, but also very, very emotional.

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Those two things go together. And then in many ways, that's what they hold together as far as like being authoritative.

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And so where the doctrine can change, it's always founded in this emotionalism.

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We were just talking with two missionaries or two nice, kind young men. And one of the guys started really talking about his testimony and started getting teary eyed.

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And that's one of the things too, when you're talking with a cultist is that sometimes, you know, it talks in Proverbs about one, if you have, basically, if you have a word that you want, if you've already made up your mind what you're going to say next, and you're not actually listening to the person like that, that's condemned.

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And so you need to actually listen to them and hear their out. Well, you don't have to affirm it, you can acknowledge the fact that they've had this experience.

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But that's really where you see this postmodernism organism going, where it's just very, it's so experiential.

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So regardless of the changes, they're always going to pinpoint their current experience, and that's going to be their authority.

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And you know what? The LDS centralized church has over $100 billion.

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Like, if you think even about like the temple endowment ceremony, when they go through those things, those are experiences that they're using.

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They pay for these buildings with their money to get people to go in there to have a tangible, physical experience that is tied to their spirituality.

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So that's what they do. It literally entraps you, it enslaves you, if you think about it.

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And they have enough money to do it. That's what blows my mind. Like in that comment from Pastor James in the beginning, he says, like, what if there's like someone who comes and says,

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I was given the priesthood here. This is how you guys are failing. I still have it, and tries to restore it. Well, he's up against $100 billion.

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Like, how does that work? And that's very an interesting thing to think about in between the

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LDS organization and the true Christian church, where we're not to have a centralized net of income area.

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We're supposed to have different churches in different areas with local people, local problems, with the local tithe that handles local problems and solutions.

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Now we have this entity with over $100 billion. How does that in the future? Yeah, that's a great question.

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You know, I'm thinking this emotionalism that has become the foundation of Mormonism is so widespread that I think that the result, the downstream result of this is doctrine can almost be done away with, almost essentially.

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I think that there are not just in the future, but right now, thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps maybe even millions of Latter -day

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Saints, especially in Utah, though probably also outside of Utah, who care not at all about doctrine, not even a little bit, because of their emotional experiential grasp on the church.

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And so all the church provides them is experiences that then reaffirm their system, their worldview.

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And so the thing that keeps them trapped in this institution is not doctrine. It's not that the doctrine is appealing. In fact, the doctrine is very unappealing to lots of people, especially in the younger generations.

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They could care less about the doctrine and some of the stuff like that's weird. I don't even like that. I don't want to do anything with that.

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But the experience, the emotional bedrock of everything is going to become,

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I think, the new mainstream Mormon culture doctrine.

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It's super interesting because we see Scientology does the same thing, right? So, for example,

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Jerry told me the Mesa Temple finally is done. They finally rebuilt it. And on the inside, it looks like an

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Apple store now. No, the visitor center looks like an Apple store. It's super, like every aspect you see, like with all that kind of futuristic, minimalist, like they have, this is the weirdest thing, they have these like tubes.

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There's little tubes or containers and you can like walk in there. It's super quiet. And they're like these prayer tubes that you can like walk inside.

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It's the weirdest thing. Like you go inside to pray? Yeah. In the visitor center? Yeah, in Mesa.

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There are these small little like, they're clear and you open up the door and you can still see outside, but it's super quiet inside.

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So it's almost like one of those like isolation tanks or something. And you go in there, it's the weirdest thing, but it's super postmodern, super minimalistic.

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But on the inside, when we got to do the walkthrough of the temple in Mesa, it was just interesting because it looked like a really fancy, like retirement home.

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Like inside. Hotel lobby. Hotel lobby. Like this is kind of like where everyone goes who is on the

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Lawrence Wilk show is going to go to hang out. And I'm like, I'm, that's way, way back then.

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It just kind of shows you just, yeah, but they're putting like tons and tons of money into this. But let me ask you this, when it comes to just the financial decisions about where the

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Mormon church is and where they're headed, it's pretty, I think it's very indicative that the church membership is in decline in many different ways, but they're building temples everywhere.

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They're doing 17. We're announced, we're announced. Yeah. They got, they got one right on the side of the highway when

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I was driving in here, that's under construction. And like, why do you think that is? Why are they building so many temples?

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Yeah, there, I think there's a couple of reasons. The first is to give the appearance of growth. Even though there isn't any,

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I think that they really want, they have this rah, rah, you know, let's, let's, let's make people think that things are really great that we're growing and we're expanding and announcing new temples gets, you know, the whole community excited and people are like, yeah, our church is advancing when the reality is actually quite different.

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So I think it's kind of a morale boost in one sense. But I've also heard that when a temple is placed in a community, it is a hard fact that their tithing goes up in that community, that, that actually there is a tie between temples being built and tithing faithfulness.

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If you think about it, if you're tied to the tithe, if you're a, you know, Latter -day Saint who's in a community and you're kind of invested and then suddenly down the road, there's going to be a temple and, you know, temples are like the pinnacle of not just doctrine, but also the emotional experience component we were just talking about.

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That's a good way to get a person only half invested, invested. Hey, come, hey, come to the temple more often.

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You can walk here. It's your community members, your neighbors, your ward is going to be here regularly.

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You can take your youth group here. And so people end up getting roped into more of the practices of the church, making them more, you know, inclined to practice, be temple worthy, tithe and whatnot.

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So I think there's a financial component. I think there's a morale component. And then also

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I think it's a, like we were just talking about, a way to increase the emotional experiences in the regular membership.

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Temples are where people have their greatest ties to Mormonism. You have to deal with people's emotional encounters in the temple at some point.

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When I was baptized for, you know, my grandmother, I just felt, I knew that what I was doing was honoring to the

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Lord. And so I know what you're saying in the Bible here about, you know, the nature of God and salvation, but I felt that my grandma was there with me when

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I was baptized. And so getting more people into the temples, emphasizing that more, creates more of a sticky pool of emotional entrapment that then people have to wade through when they're coming out of the church.

17:05

It closes, limits the back door, I think a little bit. Wow. Yeah. So one area too that, and you're talking about just current events and how

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COVID affected the Mormon church and its growth. Obviously we know a lot of the conversations around COVID was extremely, like we were already very polarized as a nation and even just in the world in general.

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I think COVID in many ways already brought out into the forefront. Like all of a sudden the YouTube comments that were in anonymity, like they turned into real people in the year of 2020.

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That's a great way to say it. But if you think about it, so, you know, there's a whole conversation about, you know, should you wear a mask?

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Should you not wear a mask? And again, we're not going to get into that. Like the point is that was extremely polarizing.

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You had the whole, the Black Lives Matter with all the different riots and cities burning down.

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There's a lot of, there are people riding in downtown Salt Lake when this was happening. So that was another example of polarization, but in all reality, and who knows, maybe our video will be demonetized because we're at the vaccine.

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Regardless of how you feel about it, whether or not you should or should not take it, it was, it was extremely polarizing.

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And so when you had Russell Nelson come out and with him having a history as a doctor and saying and endorsing it, and I remember seeing, you know, this picture of him getting the shot.

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And then, you know, with, I think he was like wearing a mask when he's gone. That's like the typical shot, the typical shot, pun intended, photoshopped.

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Virtue signaling. Yeah. But you know, when you come out, you're not necessarily saying

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I'm the, you're not speaking as a prophet, but you're still God's prophet. You're speaking as a doctor. And I know people that I spoke with who actually were

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LDS, who said that that was extremely, they weren't unsure of what to do because there's a lot of people in, in the

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Mormon world that are very naturopathic, very health oriented. And they have the word of wisdom about health stuff a lot of times, you know?

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Right. And so I'm just making a point that I think that was another example of something just culturally that they're experiencing, everyone's experiencing polarization.

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I think culturally, that's a major example of what the Mormon church is dealing with as far as, as far as polarization goes.

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Yeah. To comment on that, I know exactly what you're talking about. I know a number of people who they cling to the church and they're like, but that one thing was a little askew from their perspective.

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And I think what it's doing for lots of, especially the more conservative branch of the modern

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LDS church, what it's doing is it is further reinforcing this idea that the prophet is no, not much more than a glorified pastor, really, in terms of they have good teachings that's helpful, but they can be wrong about virtually everything and it doesn't really matter.

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They, they only speak as a prophet when they are saying they're speaking as a prophet.

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And so it gives plausible deniability like crazy. They can teach objectively, overtly false doctrine in conference, but perhaps they were speaking as a man, not as a prophet.

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And so things like this, where, you know, so many of these conservative Mormons are, are feeling like, oh man, that's kind of weird.

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I'm not sure if I agree with that. I have problems with that. It's just further reinforcing this idea that, well, that means that the prophet really can make giant mistakes and still be a legitimate prophet of God.

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That makes it harder for them to then realize, hey, the fruits of, the fruits of these guys are bad fruit.

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You look at Joseph Smith, all the wacko stuff he did, they say, well, I mean, even now our prophets aren't perfect. They make mistakes.

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And so I guess it's okay. Joseph made mistakes. I think it's reinforcing that idea. Wow. It's like the bad fruit didn't come from the prophet tree.

20:48

It just came from his person tree. Yeah, exactly. That's a great, that's an interesting way to put that. It's like, that doesn't, but, but it doesn't jive.

20:55

Right. And it's like, it creates that cognitive dissonance that you were talking about in the first episode that they live with.

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Like, that's a legitimate form of cognitive dissonance. Yeah. Dissonance to be like, well, he said these things wrong here in general conference, but, uh, he wasn't speaking as the prophet.

21:10

Exactly. It's like, well, okay. So if he only speaks as the prophet 2 % of the time and the other 98 % can be pretty whack.

21:16

Uh, that's a little weird to me. It's also a problem when you don't know what is, uh, as a prophet, what's as a man, it's not like there's a big sign that flashes and says, this is as a prophet, you know, unless they give out a big proclamation, um, you don't really know.

21:30

And man, that creates tons of plausible deniability. We literally, as Christians, we hold our pastors to higher standards than Mormons hold their prophets to.

21:39

If a prophet stood up and started saying Adam was God, um, they might be,

21:44

Oh, interesting. He might be wrong about that. If one of our pastors got up there and started preaching, Adam was God. We'd stand up and be like, uh, we're going to talk about this, uh, usher him off and then finish the sermon.

21:53

You know, we'd be like, no, okay, hold on. Uh, seriously. And so, um, that's a, that's a huge whole nother component of the future of the

22:00

LDS church, the pers their perspective on profits and, uh, the plausible deniability that they have and how wrong can a prophet be before he's a false prophet.

22:10

Right. Well, even if you think about that, if you go back, you know, to, I think it was around then somewhere around the 1970s when

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Bruce R. McConkie wrote the book Mormon Doctrine. And I remember back in, you know, the early two thousands when

22:23

I was like going through that book and we bring it out to our outreach, I just have as a reference. I remember there was actually somebody

22:28

I talked to, um, at the Christmas lights outreach who this Mormon man, he's actually, he actually was holding a copy of Mormon doctrine, like a younger guy.

22:37

And, you know, we, we went back and forth and had a pretty, uh, insightful conversation. And, but this was a guy like who knew his doctrine, who was very upfront about what he believed that he was going to become a

22:48

God one day. But if you notice, even then they were really trying to distance themselves from people like McConkie who are fundamentalist.

22:57

And today I don't think there's anybody you, you, if you pull it out, Mormon doctrine, they're like, what is that?

23:03

Like, so there's a huge distancing as well too. What are you guys' thoughts on that? Oh man.

23:10

I, you were saying that stuff, but my brain was thinking of something totally different. I'm thinking about right now how the

23:15

LDS church is literally a pyramid scheme. It's like a multi -level marketing pyramid scheme. Cause it's like, hey, become good tithe paying members.

23:23

Do X, Y, and Z work for us without us paying you? And then at the top of the pyramid is the celestial kingdom, right?

23:31

Like it's literally a pyramid scheme. So that's what I was thinking in my head. So yeah. Aside from putting two people under you.

23:38

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know, in terms of the young man you're talking about who actually, you said that he was arguing for Mormon doctrine?

23:45

Mormon doctrine. Yes. I mean, he was somebody who was very standing behind a lot of what Bruce R.

23:51

McConkie was very upfront about, which even then I feel like that was a rarity for someone to stand behind.

23:57

And when you'd hold out Mormon doctrine, you mentioned it like that's, it became, even back then it was, even though they would very much stand behind,

24:05

Hey, we're in the truth, you're apostate. They were kind of like, eh, how they felt about McConkie.

24:10

I hear tons of people when I bring up anything that McConkie wrote, they're like, well, that wasn't official. You know, that was kind of his thoughts on stuff.

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And so a lot of the stuff they downplay as, well, that was kind of just his thinking, his ideas.

24:22

And they put them in the same closet that Brigham Young is in. The crazy uncle upstairs in the upstairs apartment.

24:28

They're McConkie's kind of up there with the Mormon doctrine stuff. But a lot of people I've ran into are not even aware of it, which is wild to me.

24:36

But the people that are aware, I have very rarely come across someone doing street evangelism stuff who looks favorably upon Mormon doctrine.

24:45

All it is, is it's a really straightforward explanation of their doctrine.

24:51

It's actually really helpful. If you just want to know without mincing words, what have Latter -day Saints thought, it's actually fairly helpful for that.

24:58

But I think because of its intensity and its straightforwardness and the intense language that he used, that's so not the culture of modern

25:06

Mormonism. They're very uncomfortable with that idea. Yeah. And that's, and again, it's all, let's jump in here.

25:11

That's just, well, I think what James White was referring to when he mentioned about the Mormonism of the seventies, that's what he was referring to.

25:18

What were your thoughts? Yeah. Like the way that I've noticed that a lot of more modern, younger

25:24

LDS people handle things that they don't agree with by saying, you know, maybe that person wasn't, he wasn't speaking as a prophet, that person wasn't a prophet, that's not scripture.

25:32

Well, they do the very same thing to biblical texts that they don't like. So as long as it doesn't fit in their worldview or like their presuppositions of the world, they just reject it outright.

25:42

Like you can read something to them from the Bible and they go, that's probably a part, you know, I don't think that one's interpreted correctly.

25:48

You're just using your interpretation. It seems like anything that disagrees with their emotional experience that they've like created in their being, they just reject it.

25:58

If it, if it contradicts with that, that's kind of what I've seen. I think the LDS church creates that kind of person.

26:03

Yeah, they really do. It's like, well, if you don't agree with it, you're just going to reject it. Take what you like, take the pieces that you want and just continue to go there.

26:09

It makes you a better person. When I interact with Latter -day Saints on the street, I love going the route of testing.

26:15

I use the language of testing all the time. So Thessalonians, it says, do not despise prophecy, but test everything and hold fast to what is good.

26:23

So I say, okay, so you have guys who are prophets, so they're giving prophecy. So I'm commanded by the

26:29

Bible to not just despise that. All right. Okay. But to test that. So how do I test that?

26:34

Well, I often will bring them to first John four and say, well, we tested against the teaching of the apostles. Okay. So let's look here.

26:41

If, if we're commanded by a revelation from God to test prophets by what the apostles have written, then you can't just say, well, you know,

26:51

I'm not really sure about that interpretation. Well, hold on. This is what God has given for you as the testing material here.

26:57

So every, the book of Mormon, all the teachings of the modern prophets, the Bible is what we test that against.

27:02

And I get a lot of people say like, okay, all right, fair. So let's deal with this text now. And then we try and hold the feet, their feet to the fire a little bit and be like, what does it mean when it says

27:11

God is not a man? What is it when the Bible says that exactly in those words,

27:16

God is not a man. You have to deal with that. Oh, so what's going on. And so sometimes that testing language I find is really helpful when talking with Latter -day saints about that.

27:24

Yeah. Yeah. So again, what you're seeing here is a huge change and shift from somebody like Brigham Young, who said,

27:31

I never preached a sermon unto the sons of man, which they might not call scripture versus now where if I was to listen to whatever

27:40

Russell M. Nelson talked about, essentially everything that he said up there at the

27:45

LDS conference, as the leader, the president, the prophet, everything really is taken with a grain of salt.

27:52

Well, I don't know if he really meant that. Is that, is that what you're saying then? I'm saying, I don't know if they would say officially that's supposed to be the case, but that is certainly practically the case.

28:01

When you talk with street level Latter -day saints, that's exactly what they think. Well, we'll take some and leave some, you know, chew on it, spit out the bones.

28:09

Some of that was good. But quite honestly, with all of the modern conferences, they don't really teach that much in way of doctrine.

28:16

A lot of it is very like, you know, love your families, care for them well, you know, and who's going to say that that's false.

28:22

So a lot of people are like, yeah, you know, I love conference because of all that, but it's really not doctrinal stuff.

28:27

So while I think that's the case, exactly what you said, they go there and they'll kind of pick and choose what they want, whether or not they're supposed to.

28:34

They don't really have to because prophets aren't really saying much these days. Right. And so let me ask you this.

28:40

We talked earlier about polygamy, like what if the laws change and historically the

28:46

LDS church has always bowed their knee to the state, whether you look at the issue of blacks in the priesthood or any of the, or had them immediately pulling back on polygamy when they're going to be exiled to Mexico, you know, that's just historically they've always tried to fit into the current zeitgeist.

29:01

So when we were out there this past weekend, there was somebody out there who was holding a sign said held a hug, a

29:10

LDS transgender person. So it was a, you know, a 60, probably a 50, 60 year old man who was mistakenly that he was a woman.

29:21

And, you know, but it was just interesting because, you know, as somebody who's a Christian and man, I want to have compassion on that person.

29:28

Then unfortunately, there are people out there, the fundamentalist streets creatures who are saying horrible derogatory things that just saddened me and made me angry.

29:35

But, you know, we need to use people with compassion. I found it very interesting that a lot of the younger people, especially people saw this, this man in a very positive light, this man wearing a dress and high heels and was holding up the sign.

29:50

And it would just, it seemed to be very view viewing him in a very much a positive light. I don't think there's anybody who saw who was on the

29:56

LDS side who's, who was like, Oh, you know, what are you doing is wrong or what's going on here. And so I think that's also just indicative of the current age of the church and really the, the age gap where you have people who are 90 years old, you know, in the, in the leadership, but then you have the younger tick -tock generation, uh, who's really into all the

30:18

LGBTQ transgender, like you name it. That's a big part of the culture. Where do you think this is going when it comes to the

30:28

Mormon church? Cause we know things are coming down the pipeline. We've already had the redefinition of marriage during the

30:33

Obama administration and things are just, this is a trajectory. The culture's headed, but they're right alongside of it.

30:39

Where do you, where does the LDS church go from here? I'm just, uh, what are your guys' thoughts? You know, in lots of ways, the church tracks behind other

30:47

States. So what we see culturally in the various U S States, Mormon church is a decade behind that trajectory.

30:54

So, um, if you ask most non Mormons in Utah, everyone is pretty much in agreement that eventually they will approve of same sex ceilings in the temples eventually down the road.

31:08

Uh, if you ask, um, Latter -day Saints, 70, 60, 70 % of people that we get into that conversation are like, oh yeah, it's coming soon.

31:17

Yeah. I'm, I'm there already. We're just waiting for the profits to get the word. Uh, and then, and then that'll be instituted. Now that again, that's in Provo.

31:23

So that's, um, you know, a younger age BYU ish age, um, people, but that is

31:29

Jeff definitely the feel that you get from people. The desire is, yeah, we really want to be inclusive to this whole, um, branch of, uh, of people.

31:38

Um, and so, uh, I think that eventually probably that will be where the church ends up straight up approval of, um, the same sex marriages, transgenderism, um, stuff like that.

31:51

But I am, I think perhaps in a minority of lots of Christians, lots of Christians think that this is going to happen imminently, you know, in the next couple years.

31:59

I think that if we look at the age of the, and the generation of the current leadership, the apostles, uh, first presidency and whatnot,

32:07

I think that they are very much removed from a lot of the kind of culture of younger

32:14

Mormonism. So my thinking is that will come, but I think, uh, the younger generations need to get into the upper echelon of leadership before we start seeing those changes.

32:24

So I think it's still a decade, a couple of decades out personally. I could be wrong, you know, who knows what's going to happen, but that's my thinking.

32:30

What are, uh, one of the question too, and you can jump in as well too, Andrew, is that, um, with like, well,

32:36

I get where you'd hold position. It's still, as long as there's the older, you know, the quorum of the 12, like the 12 who are on their nineties and this is a ways off.

32:44

One of the things that James mentioned at the very beginning about a charismatic leader who could fill in the gap.

32:49

So thinking about the younger generation, you look at right now what's going on right now, like the

32:55

Florida, the don't say gay bill. Right. And so people are just immediately jumping on, uh, completely mischaracterizing the spill, but it's just, it's a hugely emotional topic that really it's that younger generation, that younger demographic, that that's the pulse of the marketplace of the conversation going on right now.

33:13

Do you think it's possible that you could have somebody come in who was kind of like a charismatic

33:19

Mormon, younger Mormon leaders? Hey, come and follow me, but we're going to have LGBT and gender inclusion.

33:25

And if you've been excluded from the church or didn't take that gap or that vacuum, do you think there there's an opportunity for that to be filled in?

33:34

Curious what you think, Andrew? I, what I'm thinking right now is I don't think that there, they don't have a

33:41

God, right? There is no revelation coming from God. So there's an impetus and there is a motive, but that motive,

33:46

I believe is a dollar bills, right? So they've got a hundred billion dollars, if not a little bit more, uh, now.

33:54

So when those things start dwindling, I think changes start occurring, right? Since they're not actually getting revelation from God, the impetus comes from some type of structure.

34:04

What I agree, uh, heavily with Bradley, that it's going to take some time because we've got a lot of people who are boomers like an

34:10

S in the S upper Escalon, or even before that, the generation before the boomers, and they need to kind of get replaced by the more young Mormons coming from BYU.

34:20

They, they are those young ones at BYU. That's the future, but that's a generation or two away from what we're seeing now.

34:27

But I find it very hard for any movement to try to usher in LGBTQ when that, that whole structure of people is against having children, right?

34:37

Against even procreating, like in the LDS church, they want procreating tithe members, members, right?

34:44

So how can you add that to a structure when it, when your impetus, I would say is dollar bills, when it wouldn't actually add anything to you.

34:52

You know what I mean? It's actually going to take away marriage. It's going to take away children. It's going to make, uh, these, these lines muddied and blurried.

35:00

I'd say any movement that comes from a young person who may call themselves a prophet and create this other separate church,

35:05

I'd say maybe it'll last for 15 or 20 years, but it would probably die out because they're not going to have children.

35:10

They're not going to be procreating. Yeah. It's interesting. I think that you're more likely to see someone come up.

35:16

I think it was, um, Pastor James was saying this, but you're more likely to see someone come up on the conservative end, not on the liberal end.

35:23

If you're going to have someone come up and kind of, um, you know, be the, the leader of this new movement, another church, or even within the church, uh, a more structurally distinct conservative branch,

35:35

I think it would be on the conservative side, a reformation. Yeah, exactly. I think that's more likely, uh, than a liberal leader.

35:44

Um, but you know, I don't know, honestly, partially because the church keeps trending liberal. Uh, usually you're not going to have a breakaway in the direction that things are already going.

35:53

You're going to have a breakaway in the other direction. And so since it's trending liberal, um, the breakaway is going to be in the conservative direction if it happened at all.

36:03

Um, it's almost like a generational battle, right? Between, uh, the grandparents, the parents and the children of the

36:11

LDS church. That's what we're seeing right now because they're the grandparents that hold the upper echelon, like the power of influence throughout the

36:17

LDS church. And then we have the generation after them, which is like the baby boomers, right? Like my parents.

36:23

And then, then from there we have, we have us, we have like the millennials, Gen Z and those people were seeing an actual, a disintegration of the family unit as a whole within the

36:35

LDS organization, because there's no cohesion, a place that's all about family in their religion and eternal families.

36:42

You can see that they have a lot of dysfunction just because of the differing views between each generation.

36:47

It's kind of a mind mind blowing. If you think about it, it's funny you say that I oftentimes I'll have a conversation with someone who's an older generation.

36:54

And then the next conversation is with, you know, a couple of teenagers who are down in Provo. And I'm like, I really wish you guys could come with me and talk to this older dude, because I don't know that you guys are both aware that the other exists.

37:06

They're like, oh, we have, you know, we have never taught that in the younger generation. We've never, the church has never said that we've always said

37:13

X, Y, Z. And I'm like, I'm, I mean, I'm an outsider. I know that, but I'm telling you, I just talked with a guy who said the exact opposite.

37:20

So you need to know that. Yeah. Well, I may be talking about a funny story real quickly between like a generational gap.

37:26

There's a story that Jeff had, um, where he was out in the street at the LDS temple and he was talking to some younger missionaries and there's an older man that he was also talking with as well too, you know, the story.

37:37

And, um, he would just, Jeff was pushing on him. It's like, well, you believe you can become a God one day. Right. And he goes, and he was trying to get him to say it.

37:44

And it was like, he knew the missionary knew that he knew. And he was kind of whatever Jeff had said, he kind of put them into a corner.

37:50

We had to respond. So he was trying to like, you know, wishy -wash around it and not answer the question. He's like, well, you know, and so Jeff basically looked at the older guy next to the younger missionaries.

38:01

What do you believe about this? And the younger and the older guy was like, yes, I'm going to become a God of my own planet.

38:07

And it's right over there. He pointed to this one area, like in the sky. So you talk about,

38:14

I think we've all had those like stories when you've gone out to the temple, like a unique conversation that happened, but that's an example too, of the generational gap.

38:21

You have a guy who's like extremely bold in their proclamation of wanting to become a God and having their exaltation.

38:28

And then there's a generational gap between when Hinckley made that distinction on 60 minutes, where that was a huge catalyst versus this younger man who was like, eh, it's more like returning to our heavenly father.

38:38

We're just trying to change the link, say the same thing, but it, but completely, you know, change the lingo behind it.

38:46

Yeah, totally. Totally. Uh, I, if you talk to missionaries, especially, and you'll say like, so, you know, we, you guys think we can become gods.

38:55

No, no, no, we don't think that I've heard that all the time. I'm like, okay. Um, do you believe that if we adhere to all the laws and ordinances that we need to, we can be exalted in the celestial kingdom?

39:08

Well, yes. Yeah. Does that mean that we will have, you know, a kind of power and authority and right to be even perhaps worshiped someday?

39:16

And they're like, well, I guess you could say that. I'm like, do you think that we might create our own planets and have our own spirit children who could worship?

39:23

Yeah. I mean, we don't really know all the details, but we think so. I'm like, so I call that being a

39:29

God, right? Can we use that? And they're like, I, I guess if you want to word it like that, yes, then we can become gods.

39:35

So it's really interesting because they don't necessarily deny the idea, but they're aware that it's uncomfortable to say.

39:42

It's very interesting there. The ideas are still there. If you ask a couple of questions deep, but they're like, oh man, that language doesn't sound good.

39:50

Like we recognize, uh, perhaps even naturally, perhaps because of what God has done in the heart of mankind.

39:56

And like, they know that's not right. I don't like that. Like slow down. That's lesson five.

40:03

We're not even on the lessons yet, buddy. No, that's actually, that's actually a line from the

40:09

Edgar Walter Martin thing. That's I was, I love that. So we're, we're talking like in bite size pieces.

40:15

We're kind of looking at unique, distinct categories when it's like theological or just the organizational aspects of Mormonism.

40:21

And now with you being here like six months, kind of really seeing the by -product of embedded culture, you know, we're talking about cultish embedded.

40:29

I think like the aesthetic of salt Lake is interesting. Um, just because it has this aesthetic of very, very pretty on the outside, but a lot of brokenness on the inside.

40:42

I think as I was driving in here, you know, one of the things that no way talked about when we had a

40:49

Salt Lake city in the future, a cultish when he was on, uh, the show right before you guys planted, is that one of the biggest, uh, it's one of the biggest marketplaces of anywhere for plastic surgery and, and for Botox and all the things that turn you into a perfect, good looking stepford wife.

41:05

And I saw like one or two signs, uh, like giant billboards for that. So that's like one example of the culture as a whole, but like, what are some examples to not just in, um, that you've seen in Utah, uh, since you've been here, um, like at the six months, like how do you see the more, how do you see the current state of Mormonism, but like bled out through the culture you see here in Salt Lake?

41:31

Yeah. So I'll say it this way. Like when you are saved by the grace of God and he puts his spirit within you, it says he causes you to observe his statutes, right?

41:41

There's a real thing that changes where you, you then have fruits of the spirit, like gentleness, patience, self -control, all of these things that start coming through a life of walking in relationship with God.

41:53

But what you see out here in Salt Lake city is we, we say it all the time. These are, these are, these are great people.

41:59

They're so awesome to be around. They have, they love family. They love those things, but what's going on is they're actually taking biblical principles from the

42:07

Bible and they're aping them for themselves, right? So of course, they're going to emulate good things that we would want even

42:13

Christian people to do. But this is, this is the sad reality of Utah. There's a beautiful external appearance, but internally they don't have the

42:23

Holy Spirit. So imagine being a people, being a culture, being a city that tries to mimic the fruits of the spirit when you don't actually have the spirit of God.

42:32

Do you know how hard that is to do? Because you can't do it without the Holy Spirit.

42:38

So what does that do? It creates broken homes, broken families. It creates sin being unconfessed. It creates problems, right?

42:44

It creates all kinds of issues. And you see that within the people of Salt Lake city,

42:50

Utah, you see it. It's a beautiful place, but it's a place that's full of no hope because it's a false gospel that's being preached and people are trying to mimic the works and actions of the

43:00

Holy Spirit with actually, without actually being changed. There's no heart change. It's not good.

43:05

It's a, it's a bandaid. It's painful. So what we got to about the people out here, when we have conversations with them is we got to believe what

43:14

God says about them. Like in the conversations that they seem so good, they'll talk about these great things, but you look them in the eye and you say, you know what the

43:20

Bible and what God says about you is that you don't have peace with God. And I know you don't have peace with God.

43:26

I don't care about what you tell me essentially in terms of how happy you are, how great things are.

43:32

I know it's not true. We have to appeal to the words of God. And I see that's what Salt Lake City is like.

43:38

Like people have great cars. There's great money out here. Lots of Teslas out here. Lots of Teslas out here.

43:44

But deep down inside there's this, it's an illusion of happiness. It's an illusion of these things.

43:50

Like we're supposed to be storing up heavenly treasures, right? And I don't see any evidence of that being out here in the majority of the people that I've spoken with that are

43:59

LDS, that aren't saved, unfortunately. And I want them to know the true and living God. So I'm not trying to sound like someone who's saying these people are bad people.

44:06

No, they're people that are in need of a savior and they're trying to do things and mimic the works of the

44:12

Holy Spirit without actually having the Holy Spirit. And that's called a yoke. That's called a burden. That's something you will never be able to do and it will destroy you.

44:18

It'll destroy you. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Yeah. I was thinking the whole time we were talking about this pervasive sense of dissatisfaction that it's not, it's not just that people are broken.

44:32

A lot of times they, you could, you know, talk to people and they're like, Oh, my life is pretty good. I actually have a lot of stuff, but I'm not satisfied.

44:39

And the whole point of Mormonism is individual happiness. I mean, if you just straight up ask

44:44

Latter -day Saints, what is the point of life? Well, to be happy, to be with my family for all of eternity, stuff like that.

44:51

The misplaced aim and goal of Mormonism trickles down into their lives.

44:58

Biblically, we exist for the glory of God. We exist for his glory. We're saved for his glory.

45:04

We are sanctified by the Holy Spirit for his glory. And so as Christians, we can have nothing.

45:10

But if we have the Lord, if we are being sanctified, if we are conformed to the image of the son, we can be satisfied.

45:17

This is why Paul says, you know, I can be content in every circumstance, every situation, because the purpose of my existence is fulfilled in being a

45:26

Christian. Mormons, if for them, if the end goal is happiness, well, you need things to become happy.

45:32

And if you can't get those things, or if those things are temporary, or if they break or they fracture, my perfect family, we're going to dwell together.

45:39

But my son, he went off the deep end. He's no longer a member of the church now. He's an atheist. Suddenly my happy family is not here.

45:47

And how can I be satisfied without all of my family in the celestial kingdom? And so it's not just a matter of brokenness.

45:53

It's a matter of pervasive dissatisfaction. And that creates kind of this atmosphere of depression and anxiety.

46:00

And that's where you get all of the, you know, the drug problems and the prescription drug issues and whatnot is,

46:08

I think, because of the sense of, I can't be happy. And that's the point. That's my whole reason for existence.

46:14

It's because they don't understand that we exist for the glory of God. And that is such a sweet thing to recognize.

46:20

It brings us rest and hope. It means that my entire life can be taken away. I can lose every material thing.

46:27

But at the end of the day, the Lord has put me here. The Lord is good. I exist for his glory. I've been saved by the blood of Christ.

46:33

So I could be content. I can be satisfied. I wish we had a preach button. Preach. No, that's good.

46:39

And I think when people ask, we were talking about earlier, like, where is this all headed?

46:45

You know, ultimately we don't have a, we don't have a completely like prophetic lens where we can see exactly to the

46:52

T of what will happen, you know, when these elder, you know, men pass away and the younger generations come along.

46:58

But we do know two things. One, it has a foundation where it's not going to stand very much in the sense of the foolish man built his house upon the sand.

47:08

But ultimately we know that all things are going to be put under the feet of Jesus as well too, including the false gospel propagated by Joseph Smith.

47:16

But as we're here and as the Mormon church eventually, it is going to crumble at some point, you know, we don't, we're not here.

47:26

It's not enough that the Mormon church just collapses or that people would leave the church.

47:31

There's plenty of people who do that who ended up becoming atheists or agnostic, but the real heart cry and mission of cultish is that people would come out of the cults, would come out of the new age to know

47:41

Christ. As Walter Martin said, we always quote him in our, we have that little clip in our intro that says, you're in a cult.

47:49

I love you. I want you out of it. And with Christ, let's talk just real quickly as we wrap up here, what are some pinnacle examples of, as Christians kind of like a, how then shall we live?

48:00

How can we reach out to our Mormon friends and neighbors?

48:06

How can we be the fragrance of Christ to the people in trapped in this organization as it trajects into this postmodern chaos?

48:18

How do we approach this issue? How do we bring the gospel into the conversation of to our

48:24

Mormon friends and neighbors? What are your guys' thoughts as we wrap up here? First, invite them over to your house.

48:31

Seriously, your neighbors, if you're, if you're around Latter -day Saints or there's a ward in your community, find them, invite them for dinner and get to know them.

48:38

I mean, you're going to struggle to have a good relational evangelistic context if you don't have any relationships with Latter -day

48:45

Saints. So invite them over for dinner, get to know their families and also be very straightforward about the gospel.

48:52

I think one of the things that gets really hard for Christians, especially in Utah, is you're friends with your neighbors and you only talk about golf or sports.

49:00

And then suddenly it's been a year living there and now it's weird. You've not talked about the gospel. You've not talked about faith at all.

49:07

You're not talking about the differences. And so when you bring it into the conversation, it's weird. Listen, invite them over, invite them over for dinner and be really straightforward.

49:15

Hey, I'm a Christian. Have you ever interacted with a Christian before? Do you mind if I, you know, just take a couple of minutes and walk you through what we think about the gospel and whatnot?

49:23

I'd love to hear what you guys think and what you believe. And if you just start that conversation and you maintain a relationship, it'll, it's amazing how often people will bring up things of faith, will bring up their ideas and their problems.

49:35

A lot of times people in the LDS church, because their communities within their wards are so tight knit, it's very parish model, right?

49:41

So your neighbors are the same people you go to church with. Sometimes they're having struggles at home or issues, and they don't want the neighbors in the church to know because then their whole, their whole congregation knows, their ward knows, they might feel awkward and shamed about that.

49:54

And so I've heard lots of stories of Christians getting, kind of being an ear to a lot of the problems and things that go on.

49:59

And that's a fantastic position to be in. You can minister to that with a gospel. You can talk about some of those things straightforwardly.

50:07

One thing I'm really convicted about concerning Mormonism is to not treat Mormons as though they're kids.

50:13

We don't play with kid gloves. You know, you can address things head on. You don't have to be like really sly and never talk about the doctrines.

50:19

No, just be straightforward. They're humans. They can, you know, interact with them with dignity, with respect. You don't mock them.

50:25

You don't, you don't laugh at them. You don't say, oh, this is so stupid. No, listen and handle it with dignity, but be straightforward.

50:32

You know, I think the Bible actually teaches something really different than that. And that's what I believe. Do you mind if I just explain that?

50:37

And I think you'd be surprised how many people are willing to hear you out and listen. And so I think being, yeah, inviting your neighbors over for dinner, preaching the gospel to them straightforwardly, not being ashamed of the gospel, not being embarrassed about it, not thinking it's weird.

50:53

I think that if we normalize that, that's a, that's a huge service. It's not really profound. It's not really crazy. It's just what

50:59

Christians do, you know? Yeah. It's just in generational faithfulness, right?

51:04

Like the, the Colts are the unpaid debts of the church, man. And the Christians for so long, haven't been being the salt and the light, you know, it's just like what

51:12

Bradley saying, be a Christian. These are things that Christians do have conversations, getting, getting, getting those conversations, preach the gospel and be that light, be that salt and the light.

51:23

And I mean, that's really what, that's what Salt Lake city needs, right? We need some generational faithfulness. And I, I believe in time when the

51:30

Lord puts that in the hearts of men out here, this city will change to the glory of God, right?

51:36

It will happen. It, it just takes a matter of time, generational faithfulness and Christians being

51:42

Christians. Yeah. And I would say too, you know, get, start, start equipping yourself too on resources.

51:48

Like you get a copy of a letters to a Mormon elder by James white. Yep. Yeah. Um, you know, do you, are, what are some of the recommended resources that you would say that people can get like good books or things you can kind of get into to get equipped?

51:58

It depends on kind of what you want to learn. If you're just trying to learn like a background history of the

52:03

LDS church, mrm .org Mormonism research ministry, they have a really great stuff, really faithful guys.

52:09

They've been laboring for decades. They have some really good, just research specific stuff on the history of the church and different things that come out.

52:16

Um, I think our, our stuff got those Mormons. Uh, part of what we try and do is, uh, create videos that not only are helpful for a

52:24

Latter -day Saints or people leaving the LDS church, but also for Christians to be like, Hey, here are the, here are the 10 verses in the new

52:29

Testament that talk about why we don't need temples. You should know this, just go through. And so I think some of our material would be good for that.

52:36

Um, yeah. I think also just, um, become, start becoming familiar with some of the basic tense of Mormon doctrine.

52:42

Like I would say, go out of your way to memorize the articles of faith. I think that'd be pretty, a lot of them, as soon as you mentioned that,

52:48

I feel like that's been a huge, um, you know, conversation starter, quoting to them a third article of faith about what they believe in regards to salvation.

52:56

And today, what do you think about this? What do you think about this verse? And, and kind of bringing that up. That's a huge catalyst.

53:02

Yeah. Um, also I would say too, uh, if you, uh, order a book of Mormon, uh,

53:09

I was just, you're just, yeah, I love the pit, give the pits that you had order a book of Mormon and a pair of missionaries come attached.

53:16

Uh, yeah, seriously, dead serious. And honestly, if you're, if you're listening and you just don't know much about the

53:21

LDS church, but you have a heart to do outreach to Mormons, invite missionaries over. Uh, seriously, these guys, they're, they're genuine.

53:28

Um, they're good. Talk to, uh, they're lost. They need the gospel. Uh, invite them over and ask legitimate questions.

53:35

You will fall into all the traps and good. Learn the traps, learn that like, wow, we had that conversation and we, they agreed with us.

53:42

Why they shouldn't have agreed with us. I don't understand. Talk to the missionaries and they're very representative of, uh, young Mormons.

53:51

And so if you, you can learn the doctrine from them, you can kind of learn some of the cultural ticks of modern Mormonism.

53:56

I think that's honestly a really great, great way to learn. Ask questions. And if you're not sure how to talk to more missionaries, uh, this, uh, we, it just so happens we have an episode called how to talk to more missionaries.

54:05

Uh, look that up. It's in our archive. You type in just more and more missionaries. You'll see, I think we did like three or four episodes with Dan Tate for, yeah.

54:12

And I think there's also a precursor to that series called inside the life of a Mormon missionary where we were just talking with Dan about what it's, what is it, what was it really like for him when he was a missionary in the

54:21

Bible belt of Florida. And so it'll give you a good understanding. And also the one with, uh, Mike, uh,

54:27

Wilder, Michael Wilder, Adam's road, Adam's road. So he was on our show too. I think that's a great, like read his book.

54:33

It gives you just a good understanding of who these young men and women are and allows you also to see them as people.

54:39

Like so many times, I think in the world of apologetic, we're so, we're so, we're so much in a hurry just to get that right answer to a few of them and to smack them down.

54:48

And it's like, our goal is that we don't need to worry about being right. Like our goal is not to be or to win the argument.

54:54

Like that's not the case. Like you want to just love on them, have your speech be seasoned with salt, give them the gospel and pray that the, the

55:01

Holy spirit would bring them conviction would open their eyes. But I think in many ways that what Mike did, he allowed it really, when

55:08

I read this book, when I look, talk to him, like it really helped reinforce the idea that these are just, these are just young kids who are two years away from their family and are just experiencing a part of the world they're not used to.

55:22

And so there's a lot of variables where you want to be bold and preach the truth to them, but yeah. Passport to heaven is his book.

55:28

And then his mother's book, Lynn Wilder's unveiling grace is also excellent. Those two I really recommend.

55:34

Yeah. So ultimately I think, you know, we need to be the fragrance of Christ and bring and come alongside and just initiate conversations.

55:41

And, you know, at the end of the day, like where, where's it headed? How's it going to affect Salt Lake city long -term? We don't know.

55:47

We're just called be faithful. You know, we want to keep on making more content with cultists. You want to keep on being faithful with apology of Salt Lake, and you're going to do what you do, you know, at the mission church and with God loves

55:56

Mormons. And I think you just got to live to the fullest of where God's called you and know that he's going to do the work.

56:02

I mean, it's one of those really encouraging things. I think when I was out here in the place on Thursday, where are we going?

56:11

Thursday? Provo. Provo. We were in Provo. You know, it was just, I could like sense the darkness, just, it was like, you could like feel it.

56:20

And then for me, it was like heavy. And, but in it, I was feeling just a little bit overwhelmed. Like, man, I don't know.

56:25

It was like, are we really doing any good here? And you kind of having those self doubts. And it just so happens to, we came across a couple of people that night who had come to Christ, one from Apologia, the

56:34

Gospel for Mormons video that Jeff did, that's got, you know, half a million views. And then there were a couple of young ladies who came to Christ really, and Coltage was a catalyst for that.

56:43

And so here I am sort of like, oh man, you're like, it's like self doubt. And all of a sudden a couple of people come along.

56:49

We're like, God's worked. And it's like, okay. The Lord encouraged you. Yeah, exactly. And realize that God is always, he's always doing something.

56:57

You know, it's like when Jesus says right now, you don't know what I'm doing, understand what I'm doing, but later you will. And just trust that God's called you where he's placed you to be.

57:05

Yeah. First Corinthians at the beginning of it, when I planted Apollos watered, but it's

57:10

God who gives the growth. Faithfulness is the true success of ministry. Faithful, persevering, enduring amidst hardship, amidst resistance.

57:21

You just go back to scripture. You go back to the gospel and you press on for God's glory because that's the it's

57:27

God's glory. Oh yeah. Amen. Oh, well, I think that's a pretty, uh, this is the volume two of the postmodern maze of Mormonism.

57:34

I'm sure we'll probably jump back in down the road. I think that was around, gosh, that was like around the first couple of those that would have been like the beginning of 2019 when we, uh, when we did that.

57:45

So here we are 2022, all these years later. So we'll probably do another volume down the road, just as far as just kind of like the talk about the current state of affairs in Mormonism.

57:53

Cause that really is our bread and butter. That's where we came from initial with LDS outreach, apology at church and apology studios was initially apology of Christian ministries, which was primarily a counter -cult ministry, like focusing primarily on, uh,

58:06

LDS, but also Jehovah's witnesses and a couple other, uh, different cults and world religions. And, uh, here we are all these years, these years later.

58:13

So we always love jumping in here. So all that being said, if you guys enjoyed this episode, uh, go ahead and leave a comment on our social media, let us know what you thought.

58:21

And as always a program like this cannot continue without your support. So if you feel led to give and support

58:26

Coltish, go to the Coltish show .com. You can donate one time or monthly. So all that being said, uh,

58:31

Bradley, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Thanks for having me. It was great. Yeah. So God loves Mormons on YouTube. Best people can find you and lots of great content over there.

58:39

So thanks for hanging out and we'll talk to you guys next time on Coltish. We're entering to the kingdom of the Colts. Talk to you guys soon.