Here is a more than a top 10 list of things I didn’t have time to ask Dr Matt Harris about and his amazing book, “2nd Class Saints.” I’ll also announce the contest winner! Check out our conversation…
Don’t miss our other conversations with Matt: https://gospeltangents.com/people/matt-harris/
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GT 00:00 It says we are live, so I know I’m 15 minutes late. I apologize for that. Of course, my computer doesn’t want to connect to the internet, and then it has to do updates, and so I apologize. But welcome to everybody who’s here, and if you’re watching this later, welcome to you too as well. So go ahead and tell me. We’re live streaming currently on YouTube, Facebook and hopefully LinkedIn. So go ahead and add a comment who you are and where you live. Do you see this nice little gold thing I have here? It turns and you can see that those have contest entries. Maybe I should turn it so you guys can see. I got a new cool thing here. I don’t know what you call this, but I can spin it around. Anyway, it’s in my way right now, so we will be adding that shortly. So, go ahead and tell me who you are and where you’re from, and that would be awesome.
GT 01:07 I also want to just say, for the live viewers here, if you have any questions about Matt’s amazing book, which is behind me right there, is that the one I’m giving away. Actually, I think this is the one I’m going to give away. I’ve got mine over here, and I have some notes. Anyway, we’ll be giving away this shortly. I’m going to show you my notes here really quickly. I’ve got two pages of notes. I decided to put together a PowerPoint this time because–oh, and by the way, please let me know if I have good audio or bad audio, because my meter says it’s good. But last time, it was my camera, and it was crappy audio. So, if the audio sounds good, let me know. I don’t have my monitor, and I was already late, so I didn’t want to hook that up.
GT 02:06 Anyway, this is the stuff I didn’t get to talk to Matt about in the interview. Some of that stuff, I do want to mention that we have talked about previously. So finally, I decided I should be a little bit organized and put together a PowerPoint to talk about a few things. I want you guys to know as I pull up my PowerPoint here, I’ll share it in just a minute. Hopefully it’s not going to be too hard to find. I just set it up on a different computer. But feel free to ask me any questions you might have about the book, any questions you’d like to ask. I will do my best to answer them, because I’ve talked to Matt a lot about this on camera, off camera.
GT 02:59 I do want to share some of my older episodes with you guys, especially if you’re newer listeners, and you weren’t here, I think it was six years ago. I can’t remember when we first talked. I like to joke. I think it’s kind of true, though, that I discovered Matt. At least I was the first podcaster to discover Matt. So, we’ve been talking about some of this stuff–at the end of the interview, we talked about Monroe Fleming, I remember–and you probably heard me say that when he talked about Monroe Fleming being almost ordained in 1969, my jaw about hit the floor. I think I’ve got my slide show. It’s very short, but it’ll kind of keep us on task here. I’m going to share that in just a moment. Please post your comments, questions. I’d love to hear them. I can’t see the comments when I’m on the slideshow, but I will try to answer them. So, it ended up, it’s kind of a top 10 list, because I had 10 items before I ran out of time. Actually, I had more than 10. But I wanted to share some things from the book that I just thought were amazing. Let me share my screen now.
GT 04:43 Here we go. So, it says that I’m sharing my screen. This is Matt’s amazing book. I really think–in fact, I was just talking to a seminary teacher today and told him I was doing a live stream. I don’t know if he’s going to be watching, but he said this book is going to be talked about for decades. It is. It is a game changer in black history. I think the first book, probably, that was the game changer was Saints, Slaves and Blacks, by Newell Bringhurst, which is somewhere, I think behind me on my shelf. This book is just amazing. So, I have a link here. I’ve actually created a new playlist called Second Class Saints. The first six or seven episodes are the newest stuff, but then we go to the older stuff. Just to give you an idea of some of the things, these are screenshots. Some of them are chopped off, as you can see, but I didn’t have time to fix them. I was just glad I had this. [One of them is,] Before 1978, LDS policies for biracial families in Brazil and South Africa. I just thought that was amazing. We talk a lot about both countries. When, Where and Why Did the One Drop Rule Originate? I thought that was an amazing episode. I think all of these are amazing. Did President McKay Try to Rescind the Ban in 1955? Kind of, yes. Hugh B. Brown’s Attempts to End the Ban in 1962, we go into way more detail than we did in our latest interview. So, that was amazing. How Kimball Persuaded the Apostles to Agree on Lifting the Ban.
GT 06:36 I think these are mostly in chronological order. I might be not giving them to you [chronologically.] Almost Famous: 1969 Black Ordination Nixed by Lee. That was the one where–well, I will say this. I only had one camera back then, and now that I go back and listen to my audio, I was like, wow. My audio is really crappy back then. So, just know that I’ve upgraded my equipment since these. I’ve gotten a second camera. I’ve gotten better audio. So, the audio is not great on these, but the episodes are amazing, absolutely amazing. Some of the other stuff: Did Nixon and Carter Pressure BYU Over Race? The answer is absolutely yes. Did the IRS– was the threat–they did not threaten them with the IRS, basically. But Carter and Nixon did talk to BYU about race. So, that was a really cool episode. The coolest thing about that episode was Matt– of course, President Carter is still alive. He’s nearing 100 years old, I think. But Matt, in the interview, said, and this was six years ago [that] he had written President Carter a letter and gotten a response back. I just thought that was a super fun interview, living history. This is what Matt does. He’s amazing.
GT 08:00 Race and Religious Minorities at BYU. That was a fun episode. Civil Rights Investigations at BYU in 1968. You can see you’ve got two Democratic presidents and a Republican president all pressuring BYU on civil rights and that. How Brazil Influenced Official Declaration 2, I thought that was amazing. The Sports Protests Against BYU Matt alluded to. We didn’t have time to talk about that, but we did some six years ago. Bruce R. McConkie Helped Write the Official Declaration 2. That was pretty, pretty amazing. So, all of these are episodes that–we’ve been talking about this book for over six years. Other things, Pros and Cons of the Race Essay. Matt and Newell Bringhurst edited a book on the Gospel Topics Essays. A lot of the stuff that they talked about in that book ended up in Second Class Saints, as well. We talked about the Randy Bott episode in the Washington Post. That’s, of course, in the book, as well. Matt goes into greater detail about the Accreditation Problems at the BYU Law School. Dallin Oaks was called to be the BYU President, specifically to start a law school. The American Bar Association had big problems with the race policies at BYU. They’re starting a new law school, and they might not get accredited. ow, obviously they’re accredited, and they have been for a long time. But that was a big concern when Elder Oaks was President Oaks at BYU. And so that was a really, really interesting episode.
GT 09:51 By the way, that picture was taken by me outside the J. Reuben Clark Law School. That was a super fun episode. We talked about the impact of protests on the apostles. These are the apostles when David O McKay was prophet: Hugh B. Brown, . Eldon Tanner and Alvin Dyer were in the First Presidency. Of course, you can see– and I’ve got the–I’m pretty sure this is in ranked order of seniority. You can see Marion G Romney, he was later in the First Presidency, as well. But these were the apostles that were around in 1969 when David O McKay was still living. He died, of course, in January of 1970. But that was a very, very interesting episode. We also talked in more depth about Racism in Mormon scriptures, in the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon. If you haven’t, if you didn’t get enough of Matt Harris, watch my old episodes. They’re amazing, if you ask me.
GT 10:58 I thought we could share. I almost put top 10 things and then I erased it, because I was going to have more than 10. But I ran out of time and only got 10. So these are in page order of the book, and I might even give you a few that I didn’t have time to write down. I was shocked as early as page 32, George Albert Smith, the prophet–I can’t remember if he was prophet at the time, but he called the ban a custom and not revelation. I believe he was Prophet when he called it a custom, not a revelation. Of course, he was, if I remember, if my memory is right, I think he was president from 1945 to 1951. David on McKay replaced him, if I have those years right. I hope I have them right. Let me know if I didn’t. I’d like to correct the record, if I didn’t have that right. But Joseph Fielding Smith on page 36 cleared a black man who was one sixth, well, he was 1/64 black, so he’s really white. But you know that mattered back then. He told, he counseled the young man to keep this a secret, so that he could marry in the temple. I was just shocked that Joseph Fielding Smith, of all people, would do that. So good for him. I wish it was– whatever. But, Smith knew about it and still cleared a man. This is a black man, but he really wasn’t black. Anyway, he was 1/64 black.
GT 12:29 Page 38, Eldred Smith told blacks to move to Fiji in order to get the priesthood. Because Fijians, even though they were dark skinned, it was perfectly fine, because they weren’t from Africa. And so one way around the ban, and Eldred Smith was, of course, the church patriarch. He just died recently. He was over 100 years old. He was a church patriarch until, I want to say 1978-79, 1980, somewhere around there, when he was made emeritus.[1] That position is no longer available to have a–basically, he would give patriarchal blessings to people who didn’t live in stakes. That was his calling. Anyway, that was held by Joseph Smith, Sr. I think Hyrum Smith held that for a while. That’s always been a Smith all the way down to Eldred, until he was released. I was really interested. Mark Petersen gave a–so in 1954, I think that was the time for the very contentious Supreme Court case of Brown versus Board of Education, where schools were desegregated. Mark E. Petersen was railing against that decision. Later on, he was embarrassed that he about his own 1954 talk he gave promoting segregation. So that was really interesting. I did not know that Petersen later became embarrassed about that talk that he gave. Page 128 this one isn’t really related to the race ban, but I did not know that Ernest Wilkinson started the Honor Code in 1951 which is, of course, still in place at BYU. So, I just thought that was pretty interesting.
GT 14:24 Page 153, now, if you’re from Utah, and if you were a BYU fan, like my parents were, and I would listen to Paul James every week. He was the BYU football and basketball announcer, and so he’s recently passed away, too. But he was the voice of BYU sports for decades. Now it’s Greg Wrubel. Greg Wrubel from KSL replaced Paul James, but I remember Paul James and I was surprised, number one, that Matt quoted him in the book; but number two, that he said BYU would be out of the athletic business in six months. They were really worried about some of the sports protests. And so, if you go back and look at those episodes where we talked more in depth about the sports protests that were just really amazing.
GT 15:23 And then, speaking of that, pages 161 and 166, Matt discusses at Colorado State University, who was in the WAC (Western Athletic Conference) which was the same conference as BYU for decades. Colorado State there was a Molotov cocktail thrown, a flammable–usually you’d put an accelerant, like gasoline or something in it. You would light a cloth on fire. You would throw the bottle. And then, of course, the bottle would break, the flames would ignite the gasoline, or whatever, their accelerant, they used lighter fluid sometimes. That’s a big deal. So, there were bomb threats in the 1960s against BYU at some of these other places. And Matt goes in [depth.] I’m a sports guy, so this is really interesting to me, as well.
GT 16:14 And so page 176, this is during the Civil Rights investigations of the late 60s and early 70s, the government came down hard on BYU with regards to the race policy. BYU had to get hire some—I think, they hired a black woman, as nursing faculty, to fulfill the requirement that they were now integrated in their teaching. But I was shocked to hear that Bill Cosby and Alex Haley–everybody knows who Bill Cosby is, probably. Alex Haley wrote Roots, that 1970s thing about slavery in America. Both of those men were rejected to speak at BYU. So, I was really, really surprised to learn about that.
GT 17:04 Page 186, Boyd K. Packer was very instrumental in the firing of Lowell Bennion from the University of Utah Institute. Of course, Lowell went on to move across the street, literally across the street, and became a faculty at the University of Utah, and so that was sad, I think, personally. But page 206, Doug Wallace baptized Larry Lester and ordained him. Of course, the Church did not recognize that ordination. I think that was before the ban was over. It was in the 1970s. Do I have that on my notes? What year it was? It was in a Travelodge swimming pool. Of course, the church rejected that baptism and ordination. But Doug Wallace was trying to make a point. I was kind of familiar with that story, but Matt had way more details than what I knew. I didn’t know it was a Travelodge swimming pool. I thought that was kind of funny. So, that’s the end of my slides. That’s basically what I ran out of. And so that’s up to page 206.
Viewer Comments & Questions
GT 18:19 What I thought I would do, these are bonus episodes. But actually, now that we’ve got some stuff here, let’s see some comments here. Ryan de Roque, now I would just mention that Ryan’s welcome. He’s a passionate listener. He’s not a member of the LDS Church. So, he’s not going to have some, shall we say, correlated takes here. But we’ll see what Ryan says. “The LDS Church says the point of prophets is to transcend the falsehoods and immoral views of broader society. It turns out that these same prophets were promulgating falsehoods and immoral views of broader society regarding race for over 100 years. They held to those same falsehoods and immoral views. Once society had begun to progress past them, based on what we’ve learned from Dr Harris, the Church only improved on race issues, mainly through pressure applied by society, ex-Mormons and fringy, progressive Mormons.”
GT 18:20 Fringy? What are you talking about, Ryan? Anyway.
GT 19:15 “Seeing how wrong they were and seeing the suffering they caused…”
GT 19:30 Boy, he’s got a long comment here.
GT 19:33 “…by the racism of Mormon leaders, how are these leaders still seen as trustworthy authorities, let alone prophets, seers and revelators on moral issues.”
GT 19:43 I’ll stop there. So Ryan, here’s what I will say in a kind of answer to that question. That is a very common question, more of a statement than a question, I would say, among ex-Mormons, or people who don’t support the LDS Church. If you’ve seen my YouTube page, there are still people who defend the ban, which I don’t. I think it was wrong. But there are people that just think God is at the helm and he’s directing people the way they are. And so, I would assume most of these people, well, no. I won’t make that assumption. Anyway, I understand your point of view. There are lots of people who believe in the prophets, and they have their own rationalizations, which I don’t necessarily agree with.
GT 20:47 “How have they maintained their standing against such overwhelming evidence that they should not be listened to?” Well, people gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, to answer your question, although it seems more like a rhetorical question than anything. But yeah, so people have a testimony, a personal testimony. So, every church has skeletons in the closet, and Mormons, I would say, are more–not that we’re perfect by any means, but we are probably more open and our history is more available than most of the other places. Anyway, that’s sort of an answer to your question.
GT 21:39 Terry Davis, are you a member of the church? I don’t know if he’s speaking about Ryan or me.
GT 21:44 Ryan is not. I am.
GT 21:49 Okay, so maybe he heard that. PokePhantom: “Oh, I get this live while driving.”
GT 22:00 Well, PokePhantom, you shouldn’t be watching this while you’re driving, unless somebody else is driving, then it’s okay.
GT 22:05 “Stay safe and out of the weather today, Rick.”
GT 22:08 So, I actually did my first, well, they called it a 5k. It was the slowest time ever. My son wanted to know what my time was, and I said, “Embarrassing. It was embarrassingly slow.” It was my slowest 5k ever, and I ran for the first mile. Now I haven’t, and I told somebody there, I said, I have not run in at least five years, and probably more like–probably five is about right. But it was my first race in probably 20 years. It was great, wonderful weather. I hear about in about three hours, we’re going to get some bad weather, but right now, we are doing great. I was going to mow the lawn on after, but I decided I better get my live stream ready, which I was still late. So, I apologize for that. But anyway, Poke Phantom, you stay safe while driving and I’m glad that you could finally join us. That’s awesome.
GT 23:09 Ryan said, “Thanks.” You’re welcome
GT 23:12 Oh, and then Terry said, “To clarify, I was asking Ryan.” You knew that I was a member. Okay, great. That’s awesome. So, if you have any more comments or questions, post them here.
Polynesian & Indian Racism
I’m just going to look at my notes here. These are kind of bonus things. I can’t even read my own handwriting. I think it says John P. or Ray was ordained in 1976. So, that must have been a black man. So that was before the 1978 revelation. So, there were always exceptions to this. Let’s see Morris Udall. Mo Udall, he was in the Carter administration, I believe. I don’t even know what my notes said there, but that was interesting. Wow, my handwriting is terrible. But the problem is, I will tell you one of the things that I do that my neighbors find really funny, but I have a really [strange habit.] I don’t exercise nearly enough, mainly because I don’t have time, but I will take a book. Oh, and by the way, this is my next episode, so we’ve got Imperial Zions. We’re sticking with the racism talk topic. We’re going to Imperial Zions.
GT 24:32 And, oh, by the way, I haven’t updated my web page yet, but I’m giving away a book, one of these, too. So, if you don’t win today, after this, go to gospeltangents.com/contest,[2] and you could win this. This is interesting because Dr. Amanda Hendrix-Komoto I gave a preview for those of you who watched the Secret Episode. She teaches at Montana State University, and she talks about Polynesian, and Native American racism. It’s very different than Matt’s book, because Matt just talked mostly about blacks. Some of you may not know, I thought this was very interesting in Amanda’s book, for just a second here, that Tahiti has an extremely large Community of Christ presence. I don’t know if my friend Paul Debarthe is listening. Paul’s wife, who just passed away, I guess it’s been about a year now. She was Tahitian, and she experienced a lot of racism in the Community of Christ, even. In fact, Paul, in our interview, talks about how leadership in the Community of Christ told Paul that he shouldn’t he shouldn’t marry outside his race, because they just didn’t recommend it. And so, it’s not just the LDS Church. That’s been a nationwide cultural issue. I don’t remember when Paul got married, probably the 1970s. I hope that’s right, Paul. I don’t know your family history, good enough, but that sounds right to me. That’s something that a lot of churches and the nation as a whole [struggled with.] Anyway, that’s going to be a fun interview with Amanda. We’re also, so the first, probably, hour, we talk about racism, and then the second hour we’re going to talk about abortion, both 19th and 21st century. Amanda grew up in Idaho, and so we’re going to talk about John C. Bennett and possible abortions in the 19th century. And then we’re going to talk about the Comstock Act, because that came up in the interview, and how it’s even in the news today, and efforts to ban abortion. So that’ll be a lot of fun.
More from Matt’s Book
GT 26:56 I’m trying to look here. Oh, so one of the things that I think I probably misspoke on a previous interview that Matt in his book corrected me on. I always thought that Mark E. Petersen was in Brazil when the announcement came through. Apparently he was in Ecuador. And so, I guess Ecuador. Isn’t that by the equator? I hope so. I’m not a geography expert there, but I thought that was interesting. Let’s see. We talked about, what about the women? I thought that was such an amazing story with Franklin Richards. Oh, here’s another one that I thought was very interesting. You will hear a lot of critics of the Church say that the reason why the ban was lifted was because the Church was going to lose its tax exempt status. Matt talks about the Wisconsin tax case, [which] didn’t occur until 1979 to 1981 and of course, the ban was lifted in 1978. So, it’s not even the right time period. But yes, just to be clear, the Johnson, Carter and Nixon administrations all put a ton of pressure. I don’t think Carter put very much pressure on. But Nixon and Lyndon Johnson both put a lot of pressure with the Department of Education, especially on BYU over this. So that was very interesting.
GT 26:54 Matt talks about the Ron Esplin article that was a response to Lester Bush’s article. I thought that had some really interesting details. Basically, the Church leaders wanted [a response.] They didn’t have any way to refute what Lester Bush wrote in 1973 and so they went to Ron Esplin, who was a BYU faculty member at the time, and said, “You need to refute this. You need to put it back on Joseph Smith.” So Ron, as a loyal soldier, did, but his article has proved to be not well received. Also on page 247, Bush and Mauss. Lester Bush and Armand Mauss were targeted by Mark E Peterson over their writings about race. I thought that was very interesting. Page 254, Edward Kimball was reproved by McConkie. I thought that–no, sorry. I have that backwards. Edward Kimball reproved Bruce R McConkie. He was tasked with that. I thought that was interesting. The Prophet’s son is going to reprove an apostle over his teaching. So, I thought that was a really, really interesting story.
GT 28:48 Let’s see. I know that Matt talked or I think Matt’s talked about this on other podcasts, but it was new to me. Page 256, President Kimball didn’t want us to baptize a lot of blacks, even after the revelation was received, because, “We will turn into the Assemblies of God,” which was a terrible thing to say. I will just say my friend Chris Thomas, he’s a member of the,–or, I don’t know if–the Assemblies of God, they’re a Pentecostal church. They’re not centrally organized like the LDS church is. But anyway, Chris attends. I know Chris attends the Assemblies of God here in Ogden when he comes. Anyway, Chris, let me know, I would like to go with you sometime, hopefully in October. I think I should also mention that you guys need to come to BOMSA. Oh, BOMSA in October, Book of Mormon Studies Association, that’s going to be up in Logan. So, you need to come. Chris will be there. Chris is one of the keynote or plenary speakers. I can’t remember. Unfortunately, Matt won’t be here this year, but Matt was there last year, and Matt gave a great presentation. It was very awesome. BYU Education week starts on Monday, if you’re in the Provo area. I already know some people coming in from out of town, who I can’t wait to see. Ben Spackman is coming in and my friend Jenny Smith. So shout out to Jenny. Looking forward to seeing you.
GT 31:41 Let’s see. Oh, this was very cringy and interesting. They wanted, on page 275, I’m trying to read what this other thing is, and I can’t even understand what I wrote. On page 275, they wanted Satan to be played by a dark skinned person in the temple in 1990. Excuse me, is that right? I don’t think that’s right. I must have written something down wrong. But I know that President Hinckley had approached a Samoan member of the church to be part of the temple film, and the Samoan member got really upset when he found out they wanted him to portray Satan, because Satan is dark skinned. And anyway, I just–that was a cringy story.
GT 32:37 I have a question here. And it’s around that as well. Maybe I’ll have to read the book again. But my question here that I wrote, that I wanted to ask Matt about, was, “Did Hinckley or Monson call Helvicio Martins.” I’m probably saying it wrong, he was the first black Seventy in the Church. He was from Brazil, very dark skinned. I know that President Kimball, in about 1976–before the ban was lifted, Helvicio Martins was donating money to a temple that he could not even attend. Like, wow. I just, I don’t get that. But I know that Kimball had said something about, “Stay faithful, Brother Martin’s.” Anyway, so he did. of course, in 1978 he was one of the first people ordained in Brazil, and rose up. Martins was a businessman in Brazil, so we had a lot of good organizational abilities and stuff like that. And so in 1980–I don’t remember the year. I think 1987, that’s my guess off the top of my head, around then or so. But it was when President Benson, of all people, who was a really against civil rights and really pro segregation–under President Benson’s leadership, Helvicio Martins was called as a general authority, the first black general authority in the Church. And so, I was wondering, given Benson’s [history,] he was very diminished mentally towards the end of his life. And so I was wondering how much Monson and Hinckley had to do with that calling of Helvecio Martins. So I wish–I might have to ask Matt again that one, because that–I really wish I could have asked that question.
GT 34:59 Let’s see here. Oh, I was really surprised on page 310. Elder Oaks is famous for saying that we don’t expect apologies and we don’t seek them. Matt references Elder Eyring’s expression of regret with regards to the Mountain Meadows Massacre. So it was not– technically, it’s not an apology. And so it’s really interesting, if you apologize, if you’re an organization like the Church, and if you apologize–and this was really interesting, especially given my experience at the previous Community of Christ World Conference a year ago in April, where the delegates at the at the conference passed a resolution asking the Community of Christ to apologize for past racism. The resolution passed. President Veazey dismissed everybody to lunch. When they came back from lunch, basically he said, we talked to our lawyers, and we’re not going to pursue that. I guess there are legal issues that I don’t really understand. I’m sure, especially given [that] Elder Oaks is a lawyer, he has reasons for not wanting to apologize. But you know, Elder Eyring did express regret. If you go back to my Rick Turley and Barbara Brown interview I which was amazing, too. There’s been some amazing books coming out lately. Rick said that he felt like it was an apology, but the word apology was not used. It was a statement of regret.
GT 36:57 Page 314, I was surprised that Ayla Stewart was mentioned by Matt, but this shows you how cutting edge it is. I mean, that was just a few years ago. She’s was promoting white power and very racist things. I believe she was disciplined, if not excommunicated, because she was, “Not in harmony with the Church.” So that was interesting.
GT 37:28 And then on page 316, the last note that I wrote was a painting of a black Jesus and the Church thought that was fine. So, we’ve come a long way. Anyway, there you have it. There is the stuff that I didn’t get to ask Matt about, but I thought I’d share some of that with you. So if you have any comments questions, go feel free to add those in there.
Contest Winner
GT 37:56 I guess it must be time. I just got this. This is my new little contest barrel thing here. So I’m going to–you can hear it squeaking there. I’ve got to oil it or something. We’re mixing these up, and I’m going to pick one of these. One of you is going to be a winner right now. There we go. So, we’ll see who this is here. I was surprised. Some of you wait until the last minute to register. Even this morning, you were lucky that I hadn’t printed these out yet, because I was doing that race. Let’s see who’s the winner here. So you got lucky if you even entered this morning. But, if you want to enter now, for the next one, it’s going to be with Imperial Zions, with Amanda Hendrix-Komoto. And so I’ve now picked a winner here. Let me see who it is. Oh, it’s a blank piece of paper. I forgot I was supposed to get rid of the blanks. Let’s see here, last time I did this, the microphone cut out. Oh, here’s another blank piece of paper. Wow. Let’s try this one. Okay, this is the winner. Try number three. Brian Martin from Mesa, Arizona. I like it when they’re local, because I can send them to you, or I can go personally deliver it and get a photo. So Brian Martin, congratulations. You are a winner, autographed winner of Second Class Saints. Brian, you should come up to Utah.
GT 39:46 Here’s another funny thing. So there it is. You can see right there, signed by Matt Harris. So, I just finally, I guess I was really slow, in mailing out my thing, because I the Secret Covenants, the last contest– I just thought I would share this really quickly, and I just mailed it on, like Monday. And part of the reason why was because I was interviewing Cheryl Bruno and John Dinger. I got John Dinger to sign it, so he got an extra signature. So, only one in this one, though, Matt’s the sole author of this one.
Viewer Comments/Questions 2
GT 40:31 Anyway, let’s see here. There’s a few more things here. “Maybe President Benson was just listening to the Lord?” Maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what that refers to. You probably–are you referring to Helvecio Martins maybe? But the problem is, I mean, that’s possible. The problem is, he was so mentally incapacitated that he was basically in a hospital. What’s his name? Matt often refers to both President McKay and President Benson as non-compos mentis, which basically means they don’t know what’s going on. I mean, they’re just like out of it. And so, I know when you have Alzheimers, and it wasn’t Alzheimers, per se, maybe it was, or dementia, but at any rate, Benson was pretty sick when that happened, and I don’t know “That’s old school.” “And cool with the blanks here.” “I guess blanks are phantoms.” I’ll take it. “Congrats.” All right. “And then had good days and bad days.” Yeah, both Benson and McKay had good days and bad days.
GT 41:55 Anyway, that was a fascinating, fascinating conversation. I will try not to wait too long on this one, because it’s already been signed, and I will try to get that out to you, Brian, hopefully this week or Monday, probably on Monday, I don’t know. The post office is closed today, so I’ll take it in Monday. I’ll try to get that done. It’s good to see you all. I don’t have a ton more here. So we’ll keep this as a little bit shorter of one.
GT 42:33 I guess I’ll just give you a preview of upcoming interviews at Sunstone. I’ve interviewed Matt on the Monday before Sunstone. And then I interviewed Amanda on Thursday, I think it was. And then I interviewed. I’m getting them all mixed up. I interviewed Cheryl and John, Cheryl Bruno and John Dinger together. then John had to go. And I interviewed Cheryl by herself about both–so Cheryl and John, we talked about the William Marks biography, which is fascinating. It’s really well written. It might win best biography. It was really well written. And then I talked to Cheryl, finally, about her chapter in Secret Covenants. And I hadn’t talked to Cheryl about her previous book. Cheryl had been busy writing. This is her third book. She and Nick LIterskI and Joe Steve Zwick had written the Freemasonry book, and so we got to do that as well. Who am I missing? Oh, Joe Geisner, you can see here Writing Mormon History. He gave a fascinating–so he’s got a new book coming out, and apparently it’s orange, not green. The old one, the first edition, sorry, I can’t point and see where I’m doing. The first edition of Writing Mormon History is green. So we talked about that. And then Joe read his introduction to Writing Mormon History II. So that will be cool. He said it was the first time he’s ever done that, and it says here, pre order your copy today, available October 28. He’s got some amazing authors in there.
GT 44:15 Oh, Rob Lauer, I attended his presentation at Sunstone. He’s kind of a screenwriter and playwright, and has had a very interesting journey in and out of Mormonism. I’ll just say that in and out and in and out. Anyway, he is part of the Reform Mormonism Movement, and honestly, that was something I had not heard about until I heard his presentation at Sunstone. And so that was very interesting. You’ve got all those to look forward to. I hope I didn’t miss anybody. But I will say this, I was disappointed with Sunstone last year because I didn’t think the presentation was very good, and they made up for it this year, they were a lot better. And so there were some really, really good presentations. I don’t think I finished talking about Joe. Joe Geisner also did a presentation on lost manuscripts. These are manuscripts that have never been found. So, like the lost 116, pages, and we talk about other things. I mean, that’s probably the–actually, I said, that’s the first one that was lost. Right? And he said, “Yes, it is.” He said, “I never thought about it that way. But yes, it is.” And so anyway, so he talks about lost manuscripts of Mormonism. I will tell you. The funny thing about my interview with Joe was we were at Sunstone, and I said, “When are you leaving?” And he goes, “Oh, Sunday early.” And I said, “I would love to do that,”–here, I’ll answer that question in just a minute. But so, I said, let me go home. It’s like an hour home, an hour back, and I’ll meet you at your hotel, and we’ll do it. And he said, “Great.”
GT 46:16 And so I drove home, drove back, and when I got back, I realized I’d brought all my tripods and everything, all the heavy stuff, except my camera. Oh my gosh! So I just bought a new phone, and by the way, I should show you off, very cool cover. You can hold it either way. You can still read it. Great for the Pixel 8 Pro. I didn’t know the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro are different sizes. I should give away. I should do a giveaway for a Pixel 8 case. And so, I recorded the whole thing on my phone. It was three hours before the battery ran out. Oh, and then I couldn’t it get off my phone for like two weeks. I got it off finally. That was a fun interview, and the first interview that I’ve done with a cell phone, so we’ll see that.
GT 47:14 So, that’s what you have to look forward to. Terry Davis asked, “How about interviewing some Church historians.” I have already [asked.] Marlin K. Jensen, I would love to. I don’t really have a good contact for that. Steven Snow I interviewed, and that was a big deal. Let me tell you this story about Steven Snow, because it was right before Sunstone. Curt Bench had been selling some of my transcripts. I should show them to you. Here’s some of my latest ones, such as Val Larsen and Mark Sheerer. These a year old, but I just got them finished. And so they’re new on Amazon. But Curt had asked for a few. He had run out of some transcripts, so he asked me if he could bring him some. And so I remember I brought them in and gave them to Curt. I had just published my Steven Snow interview. So, I was talking to Curt there, and this man standing next to me, that I have no idea who he was, he pulls his headphones out, and he says, I’m listening to the Steven Snow interview right now. It’s awesome. I was like, “Cool!” So, Terry, you need to go look at my Steven Snow interview. It was amazing. It was fantastic. It was definitely–oh and good.
GT 48:50 So you said–yeah, you watched the Snow interviews. And then Walter Reade, you’ve got the exact same phone. Is it a pro or not a pro? Because I will give you–it’s not quite as ornate as this one, but I will give you, Walter, my Google Pixel 8, because it doesn’t fit my phone, and then I had to get another one. Oh, you’ve got the Pro also. Okay, well, it won’t fit your phone. I will tell you what, the first person to email me with a Google Pixel 8 phone, not the Pro, but the 8, I will mail that to you because I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. It doesn’t fit my phone. Basically, I can’t remember. It doesn’t have the icons across here, and it’s only got, I think it’s–I can’t remember if it’s in black or white, the Gospel Tangents, only one of them. But it’ll be cool. I will just give that to you, the first person to email me, you’ll get it. So, email me at gospeltangents@gmail.com, and I will send that out to you, because I don’t know what else I’m going to do with it.
GT 49:54 But anyway, the Snow interview was fantastic. I would love to get Marlin Jensen. I remember I tried to get LeGrand Curtis, the previous historian, and he had just been called. This was at Palmyra. He hadn’t been church historian [for very long.] I think he’d just been announced. Anyway, I was like, “Hey, I’m Rick Bennett. I’ve got a podcast, Gospel Tangents.” He didn’t know who I was. ” I’d love to interview you, and he was like, “Ahh.. I don’t know.” Then COVID hit and then he got released. I didn’t even know [he was close to being released.] With COVID, I wasn’t even going to try to interview anybody. But I have talked to Kyle McKay. Hopefully he’s coming to Whitmer. That’s another thing, you need to come to St. George in September 12 through the 15th. I’m already planning [to go.] Anyway, there’s a Mountain Meadows Massacre trip, and there’s also a Short Creek trip, the pre and post conference tours. I’ve been to Mountain Meadows enough times that I was like, I’m going to go to Short Creek. But I heard, I’m trying to remember, I was talking to somebody about the Mountain Meadows, and I said somebody was going to be there. I mean, Barbara and Rick will be there. I don’t know who the third person was, but it sounded really interesting. I was like, oh, maybe I should go to that. I’m pretty sure Janiece Johnson will be there. I don’t know. I mean, they’re the big three Mountain Meadows people, especially now that Will Bagley has passed away. Terry those are great suggestions. It’s just hard to cut through the red tape and get these interviews. But yeah, my Steven Snow was super fun. Thanks again for watching.
GT 51:54 I think I’m out of things to say, so I’m going to let you guys go. Just look forward to Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, that’ll be a lot of fun. She’s from Idaho. She’s from the same area as my mom was from, and so we probably talked way too much about potatoes at the beginning, I’ll just warn you. But it was a fun interview, and Amanda’s coming to Whitmer in September, too. So, you could meet her. Matt’s coming. Well, I’m sure Matt’s coming because you heard that he’s the president, or he will be announced as President-elect, I guess. Whitmer’s so much fun. It’s just a lot of fun. You need to go there. BYU Education this week. Whitmer in September, October, is BOMSA. That’s all I know. I sent out my newsletter with some of the other things going on. Good to see you all, and thanks for watching.
[1] He was made emeritus in 1979.
[2] Contest ended in 2024.
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