Jonathan: I don’t even care if people believe the Book of Mormon is a literal history. I don’t think that’s essential to salvation. I think what we have to agree on is Zion is a big tent. There are stakes all over, every stake is different. Every individual is different. What unites us is our devotion to Christ, and our desire to build Zion. And short of that, we can all believe whatever we want. But what I don’t want to have happen, and this happened. I could give you plenty of anecdotes of this. I don’t want people abandoning the ship Zion, because they lose faith either in the Mesoamerican or the abstract map that Tyler Griffin is teaching. And kids do. They look at that they say that Mesoamerica doesn’t make any sense, and the prophets taught this anyway, so, why are we saying they were wrong? They related to that is the translation. If people want to believe…
GT: So, you’d be totally fine with somebody that said, “The Book of Mormon is ahistorical. I love the spiritual message.”
Jonathan: That’s right, that’s fine with me. I’ve talked about this a lot, but I don’t know if my perspective has gotten through. Moroni 10:3-5 talks about, read this ask the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost manifests the truth to you. Everybody interprets that is meaning you have to have a spiritual witness. But, that’s not what Moroni said. The next few verses, he warns us against thinking that. He says, “There’s lots of different ways the Holy Ghost works.” He talks about the gifts of the Spirit, one of those was the gift of wisdom and the gift of knowledge. Those are not the same as a spiritual impression, and those are gifts of the Spirit. Some people have a gift of knowledge, where they can learn things, and that’s how they learn the truth is through this gift of knowledge. Others have a gift of wisdom, which is kind of a nuance, but it’s related to that. Others have a gift of healing or whatever. Someone could experience the gift of healing, like these evangelicals. They could experience a gift of healing. I’ve talked to some that have had miraculous healings, and that’s their testimony to them from the Holy Ghost, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not, you know, I read the Book of Mormon, I get a warm feeling. Some people have that. Moroni says, “Some people have a gift of great faith.” That’s what that weren’t feeling is. But I’ve talked to people, sincere people who’ve read the Book of Mormon, and they do not get that response when they pray about it. That’s because they have a different spiritual gift. And we’re not opening the door to these other spiritual gifts for people who have them. That’s why I think the Heartland is so crucial. Because if you are a person that has the gift of knowledge, you need to have access to the knowledge in order for that gift to become effective. And part of that knowledge is the actual Church History. And what did Joseph and Oliver actually teach? It has to do with the translation and the geography, both.
