Source: LDS Church Post Sparks Backlash on Women’s Roles Channel: Mormon Discussion Inc. Published: April 13, 2026 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: LDS Church Post Sparks Backlash on Women’s Roles
Channel: Mormon Discussion Inc.
Published: April 13, 2026
Duration: 2:17:51
Views: 21,459
Category: Nonprofits & Activism
Video ID: 0vgOQIzgk7g

Description

In this episode of The Mormon Newscast, we dive into the current shift in the LDS Church and what happens when the Mormon Church’s current messaging doesn’t quite match what members were taught for decades?

This all came to a head this week over a recent post from Church Public Relations that highlights a husband supporting his wife’s education and career. Sounds harmless… until the comments section lights up. Faithful members are pushing back, pointing out that this doesn’t align with what they were taught about women’s roles in the home. Is this a shift? A reframe? Or something else entirely?

ALSO COVERED:

The word “Mormon” might be making a quiet comeback—for legal reasons Energy healing gets dismissed… while priesthood power remains unquestioned The Chosen director tells LDS members to relax a bit about Jesus portrayals A bishop and former stake president arrested for alleged rape A Tremonton judge pleads guilty to sexual crimes against children

We break it all down—what’s happening, why it matters, and where the tension is showing up.

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Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 All right. I think we’ve started. This is it. The Mormon Newscast, Monday, April thirteenth. It’s my dad’s birthday. Maybe it’s a good happy birthday to some of you out there as well. Welcome to the Mormon Newscast. I’m joined by my co-host Radio Free Mormon and Rebecca Bibliotheca. How are the two of you this evening? Fantastic. It’s not such a happy day for me, Bill. Why? That’s thirty-one years ago.

0:24 So we don’t have to go into that here. Let’s not go there. We’ll save that for the after show that we don’t have. there you go maybe we should do that too have after shows after all the shows that we do which content i think is anyone so all right so here we go let’s jump into this i’ll put up on the screen Glad both of you guys are here. Glad all of you out there are here as well. This is the thumbnail for tonight.

0:49 And the stories that we’re going to go over are Mormon backlash over shifting gender roles. This has been quite the buzz the last few days. Crazy to see the uproar on social media. We’re going to talk about it. That’ll be our lead story. I’ll be covering that. Rebecca’s got the story. It’s back, baby. The word Mormon returns for legal purposes. So we’ll get an update on what’s been going on maybe with some of that trademark stuff in the sense that the church was, there was some worry that they would be losing that trademark if they didn’t use it. Lose it if you don’t use it. And so maybe they’re using it again. Rebecca’s going to tell us.

1:25 Radio Free Mormon brings the story LDS Bishop and former stake president arrested on rape allegations. Man, I think so far we’ve had two abuse stories or more every week, except for one week we had one. If folks are keeping track, keeping count, RFM will have that story for us. And then Rebecca will bring us these last three stories. Energy healing, not real, but priesthood. totally real that’ll be rebecca lighten up about jesus the chosen director tells lds members maybe maybe mormons are taking jesus too seriously that would be a first all right and then last uh trey martin judge pleads guilty actually this is urfm as well correct yes it’ll be a brief update on that horrific case that broke open a little over a year ago now i think it was That was where the judge and the fire chief were banding together.

2:20 Yes, they were using their powers for the most evil thing they could possibly be doing. Yeah, talk about being in the public trust and breaking that public trust. Radio Free Mormon will bring us that story. I’ll start us off with our lead story, but Rebecca, please tell us a little bit about this thumbnail here you created. You know, I have so much fun with AI, and people hate me for it, but I’m sorry I do. I’m sure I’ll get over it sometime.

2:42 Next week is a week where several of us on the newscast are going to be out of town, and so we’re calling it a little spring break break. So we are not going to be having the newscast next Monday on April. I will say or not say whether this is exactly where we’re going to be, this picture here. Everybody looks pretty happy, but yeah, don’t worry. If you don’t see us next Monday on the we will be back on the twenty seven. So. All right. Excellent.

3:12 So there’s that. And with that, I’ll jump into our lead story. This was on Twitter. This was on the church’s official Twitter account. I’ll read this post. Seems it seems simple enough. It’s not really that big of a deal, and yet this thing just took off. But I guess when you’re Mormon, you’ve been Mormon forever, and you’ve learned Mormon theology, this stuff does get serious.

3:39 So this post said, I grew up in Arizona, served a mission in Mexico, went to college thinking I had a pretty clear path for my life. Then I met my now wife, Victoria, and everything changed in the best way. She always knew she wanted to be a doctor. Pediatric neurology isn’t an easy road, but it’s who she is. Compassionate, steady, brilliant, and drawn to help kids and families through the hardest things life hands them.

4:06 When she got into med school in California, we packed up and moved. Stepping into her dream together was an easy choice. I wanted to support her the way she has always supported me. And honestly, watching her work and sacrifice and love people like she does has strengthened my faith more than anything else. My path hasn’t been as clear. I’ve tried different directions. I’ve learned a lot and prayed a lot.

4:32 Some days I still feel like I’m figuring it out. But I do know that God doesn’t measure timelines. He measures love and humility and the way we show up for each other. Supporting her doesn’t shrink my purpose. It expands it. Our callings from God can look different, and that’s beautiful. I’m building my future too. But I’m grateful that right now part of my purpose is cheering for the person I love most as she steps into hers.

5:00 That’s not one right way to build a family or a future. Sorry, there’s not one right way to build a family or a future. For us, this is ours and it’s sacred. And this is Nate. And like I was saying, anywhere else in the world, there’s a few religions on the earth where this would be a problem, but anywhere else in the world, this would have gotten two hundred likes and a bunch of people just jumping in and making positive comments. But here, that’s not what happened.

5:25 I want to get your guys’ initial thoughts on the post itself before I jump into some of the reaction from it. Bill, my first thing, and I think Rebecca can answer this too, but my first question is, where is this posted exactly? And what does it mean? And what kind of authority does it bear? If any, is this just like a personal opinion of Nate thrown up on a message board somewhere or what?

5:48 No, this is the official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints X, or used to be Twitter, that page. Now, it might be in other places too, could be on Instagram or whatever, but this is where I found it was on Twitter, and I think this is where some of the other podcasts picked it up from as well. Is there any kind of a screening process, or is it once you’re a member, you can post anything that you want? Oh, no, no, no. This is the church posting this.

6:17 This is not Nate posting this. This is Nate sharing his story with the church and the church quoting him and publicizing his story on their official Twitter page. Well, then that’s significant. I’m sorry, Rebecca. I was going to say, even more interesting, some people are speculating, of course, that this story was curated or solicited to find somebody who’s a husband supporting a wife because the church wants this. in the open narrative.

6:47 And it is important to know that it is from the LDS church. That’s why what Bill’s going to talk about makes such a difference. But as far as my reaction to this, you know, I read it, I saw it a few places and saw people were commenting on it. I still thought, you know, it has kind of a little bit of a taste of I’m letting her do this. You know what I mean? And then it’s a couple where one is very successful and has a path and the other is lost, right? Trying to find their path.

7:13 Is it sort of a backhanded way to talk about, you know, women, usually the one supporting the husband in that role? Why can’t it be a story about two successful people? who are both supporting each other. It doesn’t have to be a big deal that he’s supporting him. She supports him. He supports her. Why can’t it just be an equal partnership? It still does not quite sound like that.

7:33 It still has, and maybe I’m just reading that because I’m a girl, a little bit of a condescending tone. I know it’s weird, but I’m stepping into her world. And gosh, that makes me kind of lost and oblivious, but I’ll find my way, but I’m happy for her. It should just be two people living their life, making decisions as a couple and celebrating that. So interesting. Any other thoughts from you, RFM?

7:56 I don’t know what the hell’s so sacred about it. Why does everything that every Mormon does have to be sacred, no matter what it is? I’m sorry, that’s the last line. He gets so pedantic all of a sudden. I think that he should be a school teacher. That’s the path for you, Nate. You should be an elementary school teacher. You’re so pedantic. He ends it with, there’s not one right way to build a family or a future. For us, this is ours, and it’s sacred.

8:25 Okay. Go ahead. Sorry, please. I’m crossing my eyes at his saying such a thing or writing such a thing, which is just not the main part of the story, which is that apparently the church chose to publish it as an official what? With their imprimatur of authority? Yeah. Yeah. My hunch is this story has the feel of being put out to accomplish this very purpose, which is to show the saints that in twenty twenty six, the Mormon church is not the same old Mormon church and that women can pursue their careers and men can play a supportive role.

9:07 When you call it sacred, as you pointed out, RFM, when you call it sacred, I think you’re intentionally trying to create a buffer zone between you and being criticized. And so he’s trying to tell everyone out there, like, you don’t know me, what my life looks like and what parts of my story are sacred with God and part of my journey. You have no business to know. And so it’s to sort of stop the judgment before it even starts. Of course, it won’t do any good.

9:34 bill it’s interesting you put it that way because you really beautifully described exactly why it is we use sacred to describe the secret stuff we do inside temples it’s a buffer to stop criticism yeah here Can I just say I also I think maybe the word is sort of a soft launch of this idea, you know, because I’ve seen some other personal stories of people floating around out there.

9:56 You know, this one got a lot of attention because it’s a man talking about not really having a career supporting his wife. But I do think they’re soft launching this a little bit just to kind of ease it into the collective out there. But people are taking note, especially women my age. And we’re going to get into that, I’m sure. There’s a lot to this story. I’ll try to run through most of this quickly, but there’s a lot of slides here.

10:18 First, I’ll just note this was picked up by Axios about eleven hours ago. This is not just a story in Mormon circles. It’s being picked up outside of Mormonism as well. Of course, I bet the rest of the world is just thinking to themselves, like, I don’t see the big deal here, and yet for Mormons, this is a big deal. It runs so counter what we’ve been taught and raised with, the ideals that we’ve been told to set as standards and expectations in our life.

10:43 All right, so I also want to note the reason I got turned on to this, Rebecca, you pointed this out, is that Latter Daily Saints, picked up on this story and he played, he read it online and then talked about a bunch of the comments that were coming in. There were also tons of comments on this redo of that post. This also has thirty seven views as of sorry, thirty seven thousand views as of this morning.

11:10 I want to note some of the feedback that came in from the Twitter post. And if you go listen to the latter daily saints. you’ll see tons of comments that they reiterate that were said on the post. I tried to pick some of the newer ones, but it did not take me long to accumulate tons of them. And so there were some that were supportive. I’ll just note Richard Papa Osler. We all know who that is. This is a beautiful story. Love the line, stepping into her dream.

11:39 You are an awesome family. There’s a couple of other ones there. If anybody wants to read these, you can pause these. I’ll probably only pick one or two from each category, but there were some supportive comments. comments there sharing at the bottom for instance beautiful message there were also a ton of criticism my mother taught me if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything so i will say this brethren reconsider this post in the message it sends who an ark steadier yeah vern the ark steadier vern saves the ark You’ve got the C saying the church should not be promoting delaying family for worldly pursuits.

12:19 The last guy points out the family proclamation says the opposite of this story. And so I’ll just note that, that there were some that were critical. There were some that saw the irony. This particular one pointed out that, a church talk. I’m not going to go read it, but it’s a church talk given years and years ago from an LDS leader pointing out the fact that this is not the way we do things.

12:43 Men preside, women work in the home and raise the family and are the nurturers. Men play the priesthood role and are the providers. And so they’re basically saying like, this isn’t what we were taught. Here’s another one that points out Elder Oaks and something he says along the lines of teaching the opposite of what Nate in the original post is saying. There were a couple of others.

13:06 Bottom one, I was once taught by a general authority that we should teach the ideal and let God handle the outliers personally. I remember that, by the way. This sounds like an outlier situation. So they can both be true. Yeah, there you go. It’s such an outlier situation that this guy just has no direction in his life, and his father-in-law is wondering what the hell his daughter saw in him.

13:31 Yeah, let’s check back in with them in about five years. We’ll see. See what happens, huh? There are people who think it’s a hostile takeover. This isn’t from the brethren. It’s from a bunch of Gen Z social media influencers working for the church. Again, when the Mormon and gay, instead of Mormons and gays, which means that there’s Mormons and there’s gays, when the church put that side out, I had people in my own extended family on my ex’s side who thought that the church had been sabotaged and somebody had put out a website that was not the church at all.

14:11 When they put out mormonandgay.org, there was even more of that. There have been times when Aaron Sherinian first came into the church that people thought like, ooh, how did he get into the role that he did? Did the church get sort of blindsided? Here is one of those, a hostile takeover. This isn’t from the brethren. It’s from a bunch of Gen Z social media influencers, working for the church so the church is being sabotaged from the inside there were people who expressed sadness this is so disheartening the single most important unit unit is the family unit and here we have a wife drawn to help children but not her own our church used to stand for something concrete we were a peculiar people now we’re whatever So what are you guys thinking of these reactions so far?

15:03 I think Grill and Johnny is pretty peculiar. I will add that I remember this specifically happening with the Race and the Priesthood Gospel Topics essay when that was released in December, I think it was, of two thousand and thirteen. There were people and one of them was the recurring character over at Infants on Thrones. You know, the guy who represented the typical Mormon from, I don’t know, Valley and he believed and stated it as his belief that that was the, the website was hacked.

15:37 And this was not really something that the church had released saying that, um, equivocating on the issue of whether the priest had banded was from God and whether the curse was real, which he still believed in spite of what the church was telling him now. So yes, this is, it’s an amazing thing that on the church’s own official website, You see something you don’t like, and it’s got to be a hack job.

16:00 Even though you would think that the church, I don’t know, they might let people know if they’ve been hacked. This was Mike Tannehill, wasn’t it? That was it. That was the guy, Mike Tannehill. Yeah, I remember him. Yeah, that’s major cognitive dissonance. And I come across this all the time in the posts that I make because ninety percent of the stuff that I post is from the church website, is from faithful sources.

16:24 And when people come across things that I post that they can’t fathom, the church has said or said in the past. Their first reaction is, well, that’s not real. That, you know, and of course you give them all the story. Nope, that’s not real. Your brain will not allow you to think that that is real because it does not match at all what you believe the doctrine or the policies of the church are.

16:41 And I just have to point out that President Oaks in his first speech, prophetic address at BYU, you know, was talking about people not getting married and not having children. You know, he was towing that party line that some of the people here are sad, doesn’t seem to exist here in this post. On the other side of that, you have more women than men leaving the LDS church, young women, especially who are saying this narrative that you guys are selling.

17:05 This is not me. This is not even how I was raised because I feel a lot of Mormon parents, they’re not teaching their girls this. They want their girls to be very successful and self-reliant. And so they’re kind of getting all kinds of mixed messages. So I think that’s what’s driving this, you know, just how much this is in the media and everybody’s looking at it. But I do feel, and I think you’re going to talk about this, Bill, that the different perspectives come from different age groups.

17:31 You know, the younger people are like, yeah, of course, that’s how it’s supposed to be. You know, somebody my age is going to have a very different perspective. But But the faithful reaction, the more traditional faithful reaction is just fascinating to watch because they’re saying, you know, why isn’t the church telling the women to stay home anymore? This is what they’re supposed to do.

17:50 So, and they’re saying it out loud right there. Yeah. And I’ll note that, uh, There’s been a lot that’s, we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Again, this is just a Twitter post being reiterated by someone named Nate. The church picked it up. Somebody in the church picked it up and posted it. And some people think it’s just a rogue public affairs department. Other people think the church has lost its way.

18:16 But if we just go back in time, let me take you down a little stroll of memory lane. Remember when women were told to get off the stand? And the church seemed to be moving towards retrenching in some patriarchy. Well, that didn’t go well, did it? Because then you had this moment with Sister Dennis and her comment that there is no other religious organization in the world that I know of that has so broadly given power and authority to women.

18:46 And those two stories combined with a third one, which we’ll get to in a moment, but those two stories I’ll start off with, created such a negative reaction. Women were like, really? That’s where we fit in at the church? That’s how we belong here? This is what our role is? And there were tons of comments, especially on Sister Dennis’s article where she gave that quote. But I’ll note, remember this.

19:11 We had Jared Halverson. Women have always outnumbered men, not at the pulpit, but in the pew. So much heavy lifting in the kingdom of God is done by God’s daughters. Remember that one? Yeah. This is when he opened up his mouth and put his foot right in it. I know he meant it as a compliment. And maybe that makes it worse. I don’t know. It does show some sort of ignorance on the part of people who say stupid things like that.

19:39 And then I’ll just note outside of Mormonism, new research on church attendance, decline of women or the rise of men. This is nothing to do with Mormonism. This is Christianity at large. But we’ve seen this play out in our own, in this faith of Mormonism. Here is Jana Reese. U.S. Gen Zers and millennials are leaving the LDS church, data confirms. So we could see that the younger generations have a significantly lower retention rate.

20:09 Again, retention rate of those in the seventies and eighties, almost eighty percent. The nineties, pretty much the same. Two thousands, it drops down to fifty eight. two thousand and tens, fifty four, and now the two thousands and twenties, a thirty eight percent retention rate. This explains why last week we say missionaries are going up in numbers, but those same people a year or two later are no longer in the church to get their baby blessed so that it’s not a child born in the covenant or a child of record.

20:43 And so what we end up with is the church is shrinking. Church denies it, but it’s happening. Here’s one more from Halverson. Well, maybe… When it’s not at the pulpit and in the pew, maybe the women sense that it really isn’t fair or balanced or equal. I’ll just note. And then we’ve been pointing out over the last couple of months that suddenly, for the first time I think ever, there are more men in the LDS church than women.

21:27 And this was the graph that was shared in the Salt Lake Tribune, the articles in the top right-hand corner, LDS Church Retention. rates are down. In the U.S., male membership is up. So in two thousand and seven, it was pretty much sixty percent, almost women, just a little over forty percent men. But in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, it’s fifty two percent men, forty eight percent women.

21:55 The women are stepping away. So what has the church done about this? Well, Remember when they removed sexism for the most part out of the temple? Fourteen changes, less touching, more Jesus. That was Jan Arese’s coverage of all the temple changes back in twenty-three. How about this one? Ordained Women posted this back in twenty-twenty-five, March twenty-second. This was Elder Renlund, that very bottom part of the top.

22:23 Church leaders haven’t done as good a job as I think we can. to address existing balances so we’re going to do better we’ve been for almost two hundred years is what ordained women says hey sorry bill i’m sorry bill i usually don’t interrupt unless it’s important but you had said existing balances when it’s existing imbalances oh existing imbalances sorry and then the middle paragraph renlin said um Any proposed reason for that asymmetry with regard to priesthood office ordination is speculative.

22:58 He noticed that the reason for the asymmetry between men and women regarding priesthood office ordination has not been revealed. It’s like he’s leaving room. They realize they’ve got a problem, and they don’t want to put walls in place where they might have to take them down. So he’s indicating that the reason women don’t have priesthood or more responsibility is solely because the revelations haven’t been given yet.

23:24 So maybe, maybe. Then we had this. Remember the new garments? Instead of talking about the hundreds of women waiting in line to buy garments was the title of that article. Mormon women go crazy over more revealing version of sacred underwear. Mormon women can wear new sacred undergarments. Some wonder, why now? Well, why now is the reason. When you see all these changes back to back to back, Here we’ve got the Salt Lake Tribune.

23:53 Remember the change we just had recently, allowing women to serve in LDS Sunday school presidencies. You put all of these changes together and you can see that in the last five years, really three or four, The church has made significant changes that run counter to telling women to get off the stand, telling women that they have as much power and authority as they could possibly have, that they shouldn’t worry about it.

24:22 The church is caving, trying to make adaptations to hold on to the female members of the church. LDS women serve missions now at eighteen. Another change that happened, bringing men and women, male and female, into balance in terms of what ages they can go. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago. Men went at nineteen. Women were supposed to get married. And only if you were in your mid-twenties and you hadn’t found an eternal companion yet and you just didn’t know what to do with your life.

24:53 Well, then maybe for you, a mission was a good thing. We are so removed from that. But I want to note, this didn’t happen in a vacuum. This was the one that I wanted to point people to. Rebecca, you had mentioned this. This is, oh my God, Camille Johnson. The original article on the left, top LDS women’s leader touts joyful juggle. Fez to put motherhood first. The Tribune comes out with the follow-up article, LDS women to church leaders.

25:25 When did the rules change about women working outside the home? Notice, by the way, it has changed. It’s not just Camille Johnson. It’s not just this Twitter article. You had a different one you sent me today, Rebecca. Jessica Dobernick shares why being a working mom. This is posted at BYU, Idaho. Is this their Facebook page? I think so. Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of in circulating. But yeah, it’s not just a person posting. It’s promoted by the institution.

25:58 Yeah. So you’ve got BYU-Idaho saying, Jessica Dobernik shares why being a working mom isn’t about choosing work over family. It’s about using your strengths to bless both. A powerful reminder from a Brigham Young University, Idaho alum, your talents were meant to be used, not buried. And so I’ll just add here before I jump into the last little section, all of us, we’re on the outside of belief.

26:26 And we know what Mormonism taught in the seventies, the eighties, the nineties before as well, but the seventies, eighties and nineties. And I understand why believing Latter-day Saints are bothered by this Twitter post, but as somebody who no longer believes it’s easy to see that The brethren are changing their approach. They don’t want to say it out loud directly because that will piss everybody off, just like putting these posts on BYU-Idaho or Twitter is pissing people off.

26:57 But at the same time, they are making the change with or without the criticism. And when you start to see all the changes that have happened over the last five years, and you see this change showing up in multiple places… you begin to realize that, oh, this is now a church that is encouraging, maybe subtly, but encouraging its female members to feel safe and welcomed to work outside the home and to work towards their professional achievements as much as anything they do inside the home.

27:31 Your thoughts here before I go to the last section. have to say we also forgot towels right they can pass out towels they can be witnesses for baptisms they can be greeters in other words when you compare that to everything you also just said they’re trying to get them to do anything they can aside from giving them any real power so it’s completely window dressing somebody in the chat said they didn’t do really it is just window dressing but they have to give the illusion of trying to give women a purpose and make them look like they matter because exactly what you described, everybody’s leaving.

28:08 And I made this observation quite a while ago, especially when Camille spoke. A lot of women said, wait a minute, what do you mean a juggle? What do you mean you were a lawyer and you had kids and you had help in the home and you’re also called to a top position in the church? And then I started looking at all the top positions for women in the church and And I think I found one that was a, somebody that was like a volunteer stay at home.

28:32 Everybody’s a career person. And the women that the top leaders marry as second wives are career people. So they’re basically promoting and rewarding the women that are doing exactly opposite of what myself and many others my age were told to do and i kind of say facetiously but i mean it show me somebody in a top leadership position for women who was a stay-at-home mom had six kids had to stop going to the gym she’s twenty pounds overweight she’s you know you just do not see this kind of person in the top leadership and i know that younger people are not getting this and i’m so excited for them that they have the green light.

29:08 Someone in the comments said, I was scorned. Women in our ward were scorned for working. And I lived in that era. You were scorned. And you had the proclamation thrown at you. You had everything thrown at you. Nobody worked. What are you doing trying to work? And I worked at BYU. Even when I had two little toddlers, I kept working. It was a necessity at the time. And it was very made very clear to me at BYU that there was really nothing for a working mom.

29:33 In fact, people would say to me, wow, I don’t know anybody else that has kids that’s still working. You know, there was no maternity leave. I went back to work four days after a C-section. I know TMI. There was no help for a nursing mother. You know, when I asked about accommodations, I said, go to your car. This is the kind of thing I was finally sort of just forced out. And then I got a lot of, you know, support and I got a lot of.

29:56 accolades for being a stay-at-home mom, even though it wasn’t the best thing for my family. So I think the problem that women my age have with this new rebrand and this soft reboot is that, you know, don’t you dare tell us that you didn’t tell us to go home because you did tell us to go home. And every single decision that we all made from a girl choosing classes in high school, choosing your college, choosing your classes, choosing your major, you know, all of it was informed by the fact that you’re going to be a mom and you’re not going to have a career. unless it’s a desperate situation.

30:26 So more power to everybody who now has the green light. And I’m super excited for younger people. But, you know, the rest of us are just kind of left going, what happened? You know, what happened to it? So sorry for that long answer, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I think that I’m speaking for a lot of people. I’ve gotten a lot of messages from people my age that are saying this exact same thing. You know, what about us? It’s too late for us. So.

30:50 RFM, any thoughts from you? Wow. Well, all I know is that this has been a really long time coming. And it seems especially long because I seem to have lived through it all. I’m not on the front lines, but I sure have observed it. Oh my gosh, how long has it taken? It was twenty years ago, I think it was, or fifteen or twenty years ago when the church was doing the I’m a Mormon campaign and featuring working moms.

31:21 even working moms with no man in the home. And then saying proudly at the end, I’m a Mormon, which evoked a similar response to my second wife at the time, Rebecca, when she found out about that from the missionaries. Yeah, she was very, very upset. And I can understand why. But like you said, if they’re going to change, then ultimately this is going to have to happen at some point, isn’t it?

31:51 Better sooner than later. But acknowledge the past. Acknowledge what every other woman went through and then say it’s a new day and this is amazing for women and we’re so excited for these fierce little girls in primary, right, who are just going to have a straight shot to the stars. You know, they’re not going to be held back. Acknowledge, though, what happened to the rest of us. That’s what I say. Yeah, and it’s not here yet.

32:15 I mean, the dawn grows incrementally, and I think they do it very, very slowly. And by the way, this idea of a soft launch, can I just say this to the brethren and to the SEMCs watching? Please report this back to the brethren. You guys are a bunch of freaking cowards. You know that? If you’re going to change something, have the cojones to stand up and say that you’re changing it.

32:38 Like Rebecca just said, we used to do this, but now it’s a new day. And now we’re prepared to enter the twentieth century. And yes, I meant to say the twentieth century that we’re prepared to enter into. Take responsibility for your own actions. Isn’t someone who doesn’t take responsibility for their own actions, isn’t that the definition or a definition of a coward? You guys are all cowards.

33:06 Okay, that’s all I wanted to say. I’ll note too, when you make the changes as soft launches through the mouths of members, when you throw Jessica Dobernik onto the BYU-Idaho Facebook page, or you put Nate on the Twitter account, and you allow them to take the brunt of the criticism, and the reason the criticism exists is because the leader hasn’t said anything. If the leader stepped out front first and said…

33:35 as you point out, Rebecca, it’s a new day. Things have changed in the past. Either A, we weren’t getting further light knowledge that we needed and we messed up, or it was a different time, whatever excuse you want to use. But don’t allow Jessica and Nate to take the fall for the changes that you want to do. By soft launching it, what you’ve ended up doing is you’ve ended up creating a Confusion, right?

34:01 And this was the last segment I wanted to go into, which is the people who expressed their perspective on that post expressing confusion. I use that from Hanson because he was talking about it in regards to the church having multiple positions around gay and transgender issues and how he felt that he and other members of the church were confused. They’re doing the exact same game plan.

34:33 here with this. So some of these, the confusing responses, I’m curious if church PR has posted the following sentiment on any official social media at any point in the last five years, quote, supporting my husband doesn’t shrink my purpose. It expands it. Our callings from God can look different and that’s beautiful. So they’re playing sort of the opposite role and going like, do we ever do this anymore? Light of Antioch.

35:04 Wait, why would the church make a post about women, a woman who wants a career over being a mother? What am I missing here? And then the last one here, Heidi, I’m feeling so discouraged that the message from my Savior’s church is that my dreams and my worth lie in the workplace. We are barraged by this messaging. She put my, but it’s by this messaging from the world that we aren’t enough till we contribute in the workforce. We need to make motherhood valued again.

35:34 Again, she goes on, but I just took the top part of that. You guys want to say something there? I’m just going, oh my gosh. Yeah. At that sentiment, because I can understand why she’d be saying it. Talk about confused. But why do they think that if you work, you can’t be a good mother? Where’s the husband? Why don’t you be parents, right? Why don’t you raise the kids together? That’s the best way to do it.

35:56 And again, I think maybe the underlying thing here is tithing, right? Double income. Everybody has to have it now. Double the tithing. That could be part of it. And I didn’t just put slide after slide of people expressing confusion. That’s how it divided up. I tried to figure out what emotions or motivations people had as they were sharing them, and I tried to categorize them. Sometimes I only had one comment to fit that emotion, such as sad.

36:27 But when it came to confusing, page after page. So this was the first page. No, this was the second one. Look at this. Many things about this post seem off. The message, whether intended or not, is the opposite of what the church has taught for generations. Family, family first, school career as it happens, mother’s duty is first to be mother’s, and yes, exceptions exist and are fine, but they’re not the goal.

36:54 If a mother works, she isn’t less of a mother. If a father stays home… He isn’t less of a father, but we have clear guidance on the ideal outcomes for a family. Don’t forget that the family proclamation is doctrine. By the way, is the family proclamation doctrine? Last I heard, they wanted to frame it as it was based on doctrines, but nobody anymore wants to say the family proclamation itself is doctrine.

37:20 Well, they’re morphing it into doctrine. Remember our segment on that? It was never doctrine, and lately they have been saying doctrine, but that’s not correct. My position is that it’s not just doctrine. It’s scripture, and it’s not just scripture. It’s super scripture. It’s the most authoritative scripture the church has because what other scripture gets framed and hung on the wall in all Mormon homes? That’s a good point.

37:43 This one here, church’s PR department clearly tone deaf and out of touch with the current climate on this one. Why put this poor kid’s face up online and make him fodder for a culture war? That was to the point I was making. Yeah. To take the fall. Yeah. Benjamin, could we get one of the brethren to comment on this? Is this the new ideal that the church wants us to strive for? Were my mom and wife wrong to sacrifice so much? There’s that.

38:15 And then here’s another one. Again, more of them. Look at the bottom one. Nice try, Aaron Sherinian. Uninspired pill bug. What is going on with the church’s media team? Look at the top one. Really bizarre post from the PR department here. No mention of Christ, claiming there’s no prescribed family structure, and then celebrating an inversion of the family proclamation for no apparent reason.

38:42 Wrong. There is a reason. The brethren… have approved or created a new process going forward where they want to highlight examples of women working outside the home so that they end up with less. Going forward, the world is changing. It will no longer tolerate patriarchy to the extreme that Mormonism does it. So it has to change. And it’s happening right before your eyes. So this is page one. Three of confusion. And here were two more.

39:16 Again, I don’t think I can fill up one page of just comments in any of the other motivations. Seriously, who’s in charge of the PR for this account? And then the last one, I think this post is a little odd considering the numerous talks on marriage and the family proclamation, the last two conferences. And, and I also understand the ideal is not always attainable in a worldwide landscape to the church.

39:41 You’re confusing people because you won’t do what RFM said. Stand up, one of you in the top fifteen, and explain why things are different today in this category and in numerous others versus what you taught in the eighties and nineties. I like how they point at the line, I’m supporting my wife’s dreams, as if it’s the worst thing a person could possibly say. What a monster. He’s a complete monster.

40:09 Do you remember, though, Bill, President Hinckley, when he said on whichever news program or in whichever magazine, you know, ask about man and God and was God a man? And he hemmed and hawed and really threw our doctrine under the bus. Then he went to conference a few weeks later, nod, nod, wink, wink, and let the saints know, no, we’re really doing it this way. But we kind of have to say it this way.

40:31 There’s a history in the church of doing that. The soft launch that you can backpedal really quick. you know, when it’s forward facing to the media, but then you guys all know what we really want you to do. It’s very diabolical. I blame you, Aaron Sharonian. I think it is a soft launch, but do you see a distinction between a soft launch and a trial balloon? I’m using them in the same way.

40:52 I just mean that they’re putting stuff out there to see, you know, and this is going to tell them if they’re really trying to focus on the future, they’re just going to throw away those of us older saints who say, what happened? I wasn’t raised that way. You know, we’re fine. We’re expendable. They need the young people. They need that balloon of young people, the eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

41:11 They’re moving through the church and they need to make it very attractive for the women to stay and to raise children in it. And I think this is all part of it. Yep. And then I just wanted to note this last one I had up. This was kudos to you, RFM. How I feel about this in conclusion. It’s the point you made here, your comment. What did you think the ongoing restoration was going to look like?

41:35 Take your vitamins, and then here you are laughing hysterically. Because again, outside the church, we all see it. The church isn’t true. The church has to move and shift and adapt as the world changes, and it has to do so in ways that are constantly abandoning, contradicting, and throwing under the bus its past teachings. The doctrines of the past are the fluffery of today that can be changed on a whim.

42:02 And so much around the gender roles, sexism, patriarchy, women’s responsibilities are changing and have changed so much in recent years. It is obvious to me, I know it’s obvious to both of you, that the church is just going a different direction. And it’s in the middle of doing it, and you’re watching it in real time right in front of your face. Final thoughts from the two of you, because this is the ongoing restoration.

42:34 RFM, you first, and then Rebecca, and then we’ll move on to the next story. I’m just going to say that maybe our attitudes toward that proclamation, with me and one of the Paul Bearer brothers right there, the one who was on that thumbnail looks really miffed. And his brother, by the way, is that, you know, I was thinking about time and I was thinking they probably are not older than thirty. Would you think, Rebecca?

43:00 No, they’re very young. I’ve met them. And again, that latter daily news, that is the stick of Joseph Paul brothers that are doing that. So, yes, they’re very young. So all I’m saying then is that I’m sixty six. They have never been in a world that hasn’t had the family proclamation in it. Yeah. which makes it seem, I’m sure, older and more authoritative to them than it does to me, who have lived, I’ve lived in the world longer without the family proclamation in it than I have with it, because thirty five was ninety five.

43:37 I was thirty five in nineteen ninety five when it was was brought out. And it’s been, what, thirty one years since then, right? Yeah, it doesn’t impress me as much as I think it does them. Yeah, and don’t forget, Billy Graham is the one that wrote the Family Proclamation. Remember the segment that we did on that? They basically borrowed it from another religion. It was another statement from somebody else and kind of made it our own.

44:03 There’s a reason they haven’t canonized it also. They know. They know they’re going to have to do this, you know, soft launch, trial balloon, and then it’s going to have to get any bigger, even bigger. So there’s a reason it’s not in the back of your DNC right now, I think. And this will be interesting to watch. It’s fascinating, Bill, that you saw that this was picked up by other outsized media, that they actually can see this.

44:22 But it also speaks to a bigger picture just nationally, the return of trad wives, you know. there’s a big divide and and it’s really interesting i did think of one more example remember the statement on tim ballard that was just put into vice they’re so good at this they just don’t want to take responsibility and that statement also people were like it’s a lie it’s got to be made up aaron shirinian so i agree with you rfm coward somebody say something of substance and let the chips fall where they may that’s what real leaders do Yeah, these are not leaders.

44:53 I laugh every time someone refers to them as a church leader. They’re just managers and not even good managers at that. And the PR team is the worst. Yeah. Well, kudos to the church in making the change and shame on you for not being the ones to stand up time after time and explain it. I will note just really quickly before we go to the next story, these all came in. So Trish Perry, four dollars and ninety nine cents.

45:19 Mormons assimilate other people’s histories, cultures. Why not self assimilate as mainstream Christianity when convenient? God works in chameleon ways. A little lipstick on that was a phrase Elder Ballard told women to put a little lipstick on. I wonder if the birth rate has gone down as well. Sure has, of course. Put a little lipstick on again, ten dollars this time. When my kids were little, women were scorned in my ward for working. Even in conference, Gordon B. Hinckley said women needed to stay home.

45:50 That was our place. And Trish Perry, one more time as well. There has to be a way to grandmother us into the gaslighting we have endured as pre-now LDS women. Thank you for this wonderful channel, you three. So thank you so much for the super chats. Let’s move on to the next story. I’ve taken up enough time. The correct name of the church is the church taking back the name Mormon. Rebecca, let us know. Is it happening? I know.

46:18 No, you should have taken that amount of time, Bill. That was a really, really important story. And I’m sure we’ll have updates on it. So yeah, this was the story I was going to cover last week. Just to, just a quick little thing but it’s very interesting and the story all started because a friend of mine who is not even lds um sent me a survey that she’d been sent from family search are you guys familiar with what family search is it’s the church sponsored genealogical site yeah so i’ll circle back to that but this all started because somebody sent me a family search survey So if we all remember eight years ago in October, you know, two thousand eighteen LDS members were told to stop using the word Mormon. We all remember this.

46:57 And yes, he technically President Nelson did not say it is a victory for Satan. He said using nicknames like these, you know, taking the name of the Savior out of the church is a victim for victory for Satan. But so many other people have interpreted it to mean that. And many LDS people say it’s a victory for Satan. I’ve had that thrown in my face multiple times. I’m sure you guys have too.

47:18 So basically the last eight years, you can’t say the word Mormon and the LDS church is not using the word Mormon. Well, now all of a sudden what you covered, I can’t remember which one of you, Bill, I think covered last week or two weeks ago. You know, John Dillon, possible lawsuit, mediation. He is Mormon stories, Mormon discussions, Mormon-ish. The church seems to be trying to stamp it out, the use, other people using the word Mormon. And why would this be, right?

47:45 And I thought this was interesting. I think this is actually from your slide, Bill, but a lawyer that was working on this case said she explained it in basic terms, a trademark. And we’re talking about the trademark, the word Mormon, right? It can fall apart in two main ways. Either it becomes so common that it no longer belongs to anybody, right? Or the organization using it walks away from it and shows no real intent on using it.

48:14 Would both of you say that’s kind of what it looks like the church has done at this point? Walked away from, I mean, basically vilified it to their entire membership. You know, they’re not using the word Mormon. The lawyer went on to say it’s usually hard to prove that somebody abandoned a trademark. In this case, maybe not so much because we have the conference talks. Most groups don’t come right out and say, we’re done with this, which is kind of what the LDS church did.

48:38 But in this situation, the church did exactly that, right? So now they’re in this situation where they’re trying to get others to stop using Mormon. Their trademark is up next year. I don’t know if they can really up the trademark because they’ve so distanced themselves from the word Mormon. So the word, the Mormon trademark expires in twenty twenty seven. It has to be renewed.

49:02 According to the registration, which you see here, it is used for. And this is interesting. Educational services, namely providing classes, conferences and institutes in the field of field of history and religion and religion. genealogy services. So it has a very specific use listed on the trademark. It’s not like it says this is for identifying our religion, anything like that.

49:28 It’s more like something that is associated with these things here, educational purposes, genealogy. And that’s where this gets really interesting. Were you guys aware that that’s what the trademark was for Mormon? Had you even thought about that, Bill? No. Yeah. RFM, were you ever aware of anything about the trademark? Not for podcasts. Yeah, not at all. So, okay. So this is the survey that came out.

49:50 So it was from family search and they’re, they’re sending it out to everyone. Like I said, my friend is not LDS, but she does use family search. She lives in Nauvoo. She’s amazing. So she gets this, uh, family search thing and it struck her odd. Right away, if you look at the second panel there, this came from, provided by, it says the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints down there in the bottom. It says, thank you.

50:14 From now on, we will refer to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Mormon Church. Now, she thought that was really interesting. She had not seen that before. So as the survey progresses, they’re going to say Mormon church. So she sent that to me because she thought it was fascinating. And here we go. We move on with some questions. It says, were you aware that Roots Text is sponsored by the Mormon church?

50:36 Were you aware that FamilySearch is sponsored by the Mormon church? To what extent was the Mormon church sponsoring the conference a factor? you deciding whether to go or not. Just over and over again, the Mormon church, the Mormon church. I mean, we really haven’t seen anything like this for quite a while. This last question, very loaded. What is your overall perception of the Mormon church? So she took the survey. I took the survey too. That was kind of fun.

51:01 But the point is, if you go back to this slide. Is one of the boxes for overall perception marked devious? I don’t think so. Is devious up there? I think it’s up there. Yeah. I don’t know if there’s room to comment anywhere on there. But the important thing to look at here is if you go back over here, here’s a survey sent out by the LDS Church. It clearly says LDS Church is also interchangeably used with the word Mormons.

51:29 So I didn’t really even think too much about that until I started talking to my good friend Ron Yorgason, who kind of keeps his eye on these kinds of things, tracks trademarks and stuff. And I’m just going to read you really quick what he said so you understand the point I’m trying to get at. The Mormon trademark expires in twenty twenty seven. So and he gives a link to where you can see it.

51:49 Also note that they don’t own the trademark in every use case of the word. They tried to get more general trademark before and they were shot down. These are the official categories and they own it in genealogy, family search, and educational services. So it’s not a coincidence that they are doing this, putting the name of the church and the word Mormon in an email sent out by the church.

52:11 It’s not a coincidence they’re doing this survey and promoting genealogy services. It’s also not a coincidence that the church’s official name is their And I’ll paraphrase here exactly what I just said. They’re on that same page. So basically they need to establish its use in educational services. So they’ve already done it here in genealogy. If they were to go to court now, for example, with John Dillon, they could say yeah we can re-register our trademark because look here’s an email we sent out and it clearly says we’re the mormon church now they need it in educational services so ron is telling us all uh be on the lookout for something promoting pathways institute classes or maybe historical conferences not necessarily run by the church but sponsored where you’ll see something similar the word mormon linked to the church and that’s all they need is a couple of them and then they have their basis to renew their trademark.

53:03 So I just thought that was interesting. And if any of you come across anything like that, where the church is saying, you know, now referred to as the Mormon church or also known as, I think it’s all for this trademark purposes. So anyway, that was my quick little update. Let me know if you see any information on it. Bill, any thoughts on that? And then RFM? Yeah, these are the games you have to play, right?

53:23 You tell the members one message, don’t use that word anymore because you don’t want members finding that word in search engines. You don’t want them typing that word out and finding Mormon stories or Mormon discussion or Radio Free Mormon. So you try to distract members from doing it. Meanwhile, in order to fight against those who are using that word, you have to establish that you actually love that word and it’s one of your favorite words to use.

53:48 And so this is the game that they play. Yep, you hit it on the head right there. You know, I did a multi-part podcast years ago, somewhat popular, titled, Why Are Mormons So Fake? And this is why. They don’t mean anything that they say. Yeah. So true. All right. Well, there’s that story. Got another super chat in from Trish Perry, nine dollars and ninety nine cents. If Mormon were a baby, the LDS cult has already abandoned it. So it has a new, better adoptive parents.

54:24 Boo to the leadership of the wannabe like Jesus cult. OK, so there’s that. Yeah, this is the deadbeat dad who the kid’s fourteen and looking good in football and now wants to come back into his life. Well, talking about deadbeat human beings, we have a religious bishop arrested for alleged rape in abuse of a minor relative. Was this a Catholic bishop, RFM? What was this? Should I start my mockery of ABC News at this point? Because it’s going to be throughout. What the hell are they doing?

54:58 This guy is a Mormon bishop, and he’s a pastor. mormon stake president and a current mormon high council member and a current stake sunday school president you know what is this religious bull uh excuse me what is this religious bishop crap abc who are you covering for and why okay crimes against children religious bishop and by the way you go through the comments the first hundred comments are saying is there a different kind of bishop than religious if you’re not playing chess rfm can i interrupt for one second i think i know the answer to this um give me just a moment the bishop abel hart is the author of that article born and raised in utah oh So my hunch, again, my hunch is when you’re a faithful Mormon, you’re trying to give the church cover.

55:50 And what will absolutely get more clicks is Mormon bishop. Mm-hmm. Whereas saying religious bishop distances the church. So when I went looking for her, I was not surprised at all that she was born and raised in Utah. And I, again, she’s showing her shoulders, but that could be the new garment style. My hunch is that she is an active believing Latter-day Saint. Maybe not, but then it would be really strange why she used that wording.

56:17 My understanding is that the headlines are done by somebody other than the reporter at all newspapers. But I don’t know the answer, but there’s obviously a question, because that’s just funny. My theory is that it was LDS Bishop. That was the headline up until the very last minute, and then something happened. Somebody contacted them, or somebody else inside said no, and it was quickly changed to religious bishop.

56:45 But I will tell you that they mentioned this guy’s last name in the, the article at the end. And then they found out somebody mentioned it and then they took it out. So it’s all very strange, but all I’m going to say is this, okay, there’s going to be more details on this later or upcoming in the coming weeks, I’m sure. So in a way, this is kind of being broken now, mainly because of Rebecca, I’m reporting on it, but this is her research, right? Rebecca.

57:11 Well, yes, I need to turn it over to a lawyer to cover my, you know what? So, Oh, right. Okay. So this is what Rebecca told me. Oh, stop. Anyway, this is so strange. This is child sex abuse. If you need to leave the room, leave the room. If there’s other people in the room who need to leave the room, get them out of the room. Yeah, child sex abuse. There’s apparently… There is a member of the church who has had leadership callings in the past, leadership callings currently, stake level, and in Texas was charged and alleged that he had molested a child in some way, sexually.

57:55 And that’s in Texas, okay? And then, and that’s just earlier this year, by the way, this is April thirteenth, two thousand twenty six. I think you mentioned that earlier, Bill. So the year is not that far over, just barely over a quarter done earlier this year. He’s charged with child sex abuse in Texas, and then he flies up to Utah and gets charged with abusing a child in Utah.

58:22 All within the last couple of months, it’s absolutely insane. so let’s try and i wanted to give that basic outline of what it looks like so hopefully these details will make more sense as we go through them so content warning this article contains information about child sexual abuse reader discretion and listener discretion is advised report child sexual abuse to local law enforcement and contact the dcfs For more information, visit dcfs.utah.gov.

59:03 And now the story. And that’s why I put this picture of all these different bishops there. South Jordan, Utah. A religious bishop. It is in the story. She wrote it. A religious bishop from Texas has been arrested for allegedly raping and sexually abusing his minor relative in Utah. The fifty-three-year-old man has been arrested on one count of object rape of a child, first degree felony, and one count of sexual abuse of a child, second degree felony.

59:45 According to court documents, he is from Texas, where he is, and I put in parentheses, was, question mark, a religious bishop. Now, that’s because there’s some information about his past, because we believe we know who this guy is and his full name, which we’ll get to here in a second. So it seems like he was a bishop, unless they’re thinking, once a bishop, always a bishop, but okay. Okay.

1:00:14 It is alleged that on March ninth of this year, the man raped and sexually abused his minor relative while at a family member’s home in South Jordan, Utah. The victim reported that the two were lying side by side on a bunk bed when he began sexually assaulting her. This is after he’s been charged in Texas. was sexually assaulting. I would think a different child. She stated that she felt scared and wanted to tell him, no, the man was eventually called by someone else in the home and left the room.

1:00:59 So there’s other people in the house. I mentioned that perhaps it’s obvious why I mentioned that because he, it is so brazen. I mean, It is so brazen, and he’s been charged with and been bailed out from Texas for the same type of offense just within the past month or so that he’s in Utah doing this, allegedly. Following the assault… The victim recalled feeling uncomfortable around the man.

1:01:38 She also told law enforcement that she experienced mental health difficulties, which if that’s what she really said would make it sound like she’s more than just a little toddler. On April ninth, the man traveled back to Utah to attend a grandchild’s blessing. Okay, so March, he’s in Utah from Texas apparently, right? March ninth, the allegation is, Lies back to Texas. Apparently now it’s a month later on April ninth, the man traveled back to Utah to attend a grandchild’s blessing.

1:02:13 And those happened by the way, when the, when a kid is eight, well, no, actually just when they’re a baby. So that would be a baby. He was taken into custody without incident at the Salt Lake city airport. Court documents, this is still from the story from this ABC News article, okay? Court documents state that a few weeks prior to his arrest in Utah, he was arrested in Texas for a similar crime.

1:02:41 ABC for it does not have further details on the arrest. Yeah, do they not? Or do they have them and they don’t want to publish them? At this time, the suspect is being held without bail in the Salt Lake County Jail. Now, the reason I say that is because our own intrepid Rebecca Biblioteca was able to find a number of details about what’s going on down. And actually, you know, I’ll let you disclose how it was that you figured all this out.

1:03:15 And you can do it now or later if you want, Rebecca. I can explain it very quickly now because I think it informs the rest of what you’re going to say. But of course, a lot of us saw this headline and we were so confused. Religious bishop. You know, then once we read the article, we saw that it said, you know, blessing. And we thought, OK, this has got to be, you know, some kind of LDS connection. Family in South Jordan. We really believe that.

1:03:35 And then I didn’t get too much farther on. I thought that’s interesting because it said in the article, we are not going to name this person to protect the family, as it also says. Our good friend Martine texted me and said, did you notice that they gave his last name? And they did. It’s been taken out, hasn’t it, RFM? Oh, yeah, absolutely. They took it out. It’s fun. They figured it out.

1:03:54 Someone said, hey, after saying we’re not going to include his name, we put his name in. Yep. And where it was, as I said, and then Brown continued to molest her. It was right there in the bunk bed paragraph. Brown was the last name. So I didn’t have much to do that day. And I thought, okay, we know he’s arrested on April ninth or tenth. Says he’s right there at the airport. Let me see if I can search the Salt Lake arrest docket and see if there’s someone named Brown who’s arrested for CSA. There it was right there.

1:04:20 And then I thought, well, let me double check. Let me run this name through Texas in the last little while. I found arrest record for him on January, January, January, January, January, January, January, January, January, January, Shocking to me as far as going to court a few days later, allegedly perpetrated. It’s just, you know, people must have known there was no protection for children.

1:04:59 And I think that’s the point of even reporting on this. All these touch points where there could have been protection, either institutionally, you know, for the church or family members. I just can’t really fathom the story. Yeah, it’s a shocker. And I’ll just go ahead and say it right here, okay? Because there’s a debate in the community about the names of, there’s not a debate about the names of victims, but there is a debate about the names of alleged perpetrators when a relationship might allow the victim to be figured out who it is.

1:05:34 And The downside of that, from my point of view, is that what it means is that if you are an alleged or child sex offender, that you get special treatment if you molest kids in your family. But this guy’s name is Brian Randall Brown, so you can understand there’s two sides to the issue. Brian with a Y, Lampasus Dispatch Record, the Lampasus Dispatch Record. Lampasas, Texas. By the way, think Austin.

1:06:07 Think maybe a little bit northwest of Austin. And Austin’s in the heart of Texas. This is from January twenty second, two thousand and twenty six by the news staff reporting that on January twentieth, the following arrests were reported in the Lampasas dispatch record by area law enforcement officials. The dispatch record prints the name and charges of people arrested on at least one Class B misdemeanor or more serious charge.

1:06:36 And here’s the very first one they have on the list. Brian, with the Y, Randall Brown, fifty-three, that’s his age, of Kempner, K-E-M-P-N-E-R, Kempner, Texas, was arrested on a charge of indecency with a child, sexual contact. period and then it goes on to the next person who was arrested so we have that information of an arrest being made january twentieth of what is apparently this individual for what is apparently that crime in texas and this is from the docket for um do you remember which uh court this was This is the Texas court.

1:07:23 Is this the Texas one? Yeah. It’s a Texas court. So let’s make that clear. Three times in Texas over the last couple of months. Yeah. It’s in Killeen County, I believe. So this may be a Killeen County court. You’ll see the case number over there. See where it’s circled in the middle where it says defendant Brown comma Brian with a Y Randall. Over there to the right of that, offense indecency with child sexual contact.

1:07:48 That’s the same guy who got arrested on January, is reported in the newspaper there. You can see there’s an indictment date on the left, February, eleventh, twenty twenty six. Court date, February, twenty seventh, twenty twenty six or setting for arraignment nine o’clock. So that was arraignment on February, twenty seventh. The DA is Jessica Guy. He appears to be out on bond because his bondsman is listed as A Action Bonds.

1:08:22 So he was not held in custody. Bail was set. And he got out on bail, which is very strange because now he’s going to be flying to Utah, not once but twice. And I only say that because it’s very common for Let’s just put it here. Anytime a felony is charged here in Washington State, it’s an automatic condition that you not leave the state. I mean, that’s in the boilerplate. Now, there are times when a person has a good reason to leave the state.

1:08:54 And if you go in front of a judge and the judge thinks it’s appropriate, and usually it’s not a big problem, a judge will allow them to do that. Just that one time. And I don’t know if that’s what happened here and if his attorney went in front of a judge, but apparently he’s leaving the state of Texas. I will guarantee that, uh, one of his conditions is that he maintained strict law abiding behavior, which he did apparently not do.

1:09:21 And here is a little information back from, Hey Bill, did you have something you wanted to say? Um, I had notes here. I think I’ll save mine for the end. So I think I’m good until we get to the end of this story. Okay. All right. Uh, you Rebecca. No, I think you’re doing great. Just the timeline is so unusual. If you look at court appearance, alleged incident, court appearance, it boggles the mind.

1:09:47 What this document does, and this is from a church website, is that correct, Rebecca? Yeah, they put this out back in two thousand nine, as they always do, to announce, you know, a big long list of new church leaders called. So this was one in a list. Yes, and so what this establishes is that Brian Randall Brown, who in two thousand and nine was thirty seven years old. And who is also a technology director for Kowloon or Kowloon Independent School District.

1:10:17 He was he worked at a school in the school district, actually, so a bunch of schools, I imagine succeeding Arch Ratliff Junior. His wife is Julie Rebecca Swain Brown. And then it talks about his counselors and et cetera. But mainly that’s establishing that he was called as a state president at the age of thirty seven. Back in two thousand and nine, Brian Randall Brown was. And this place, Corpus Christi, Texas State, Kalalin is a school district that’s basically it’s a suburb of Corpus Christi.

1:10:53 Here is where his name would have been back in two thousand and nine when he was still working there at the Kalal and Independent School District on the technology team and director of technology. It’s now Kevin Beatty, but that has no relevance to the story, just showing where it would have been. Now, here’s a map of Texas, at least southern Texas. And you can see Kalal in there, circled in yellow, and the print is in red.

1:11:19 You don’t see Corpus Christi because basically that’s covering it. That’s where Corpus Christi is. And from there, you can see it’s on the coast. And you can see where Houston is, and you can see, most importantly, where Austin is. Not just because I went there, but because a little bit up and to the left of that is where he’s going to end up moving to. Because that’s where the allegation is that he molested a child in Texas. Okay? So there’s Kalalin down there.

1:11:48 That’s the same map. And this is the information that, you go ahead and you describe how you obtained this. I don’t want to goof it up. Rebecca, if you would describe how you obtained it. Just kind of a rundown of the different callings that a person could have. It’s available in certain ways. And you can see that we saw that announcement of being a stake president. Prior to that, he was a counselor in the stake. He was a bishop.

1:12:14 But so long ago, it’s very interesting to me that that would be the title of the news article, Religious Bishop, when you can see it was over a decade ago. So that’s interesting. And then after being a stake president, I can figure out callings of people in leadership. So a tenure gap there, and that could be meaning that he became a gospel doctrine or a primary teacher, but from stake president to no leadership for ten years, And then just in December, put in as the stake Sunday school president and high counselor and then released the day before that arraignment hearing.

1:12:54 Remember, the arrest is is January twentyth, released from callings February tenth and then back in court. So I don’t know. It paints an unusual picture. You know, again, all these crimes are alleged, but it does paint an unusual picture. And you do wonder why they chose Bishop in their title when he had been a stake president for much longer than he was a bishop. Yeah, with your permission, I want to read through this again, just slowly to make it clear what’s going on with this information and how he was in leadership in a very high stake level, the highest stake level there is.

1:13:27 Brian R. Brown, and this is the Ryan Brown that we’re talking, or Randall Brown, had multiple callings in Texas. This is from your source, correct, Rebecca? That’s a yes? Yes. Yeah. State clerk in the Corpus Christi stake from to . From to he was a Bishop from to he was a second counselor in the state presidency from to October, he was the first counselor in the state presidency.

1:14:13 That’s a short time, but that’s because from October, two thousand and nine, he became the state president of the Corpus Christi State. Up until January of two thousand and fifteen. Now, that’s just a little over five years, and most people know that typically state presidents serve for ten years. So I don’t know if there’s a reason that that appears to have come to a conclusion. He’s calling a state president. It looks like it’s prematurely.

1:14:45 But he does not appear to have had a leadership calling. And that’s all that the source can track. A leadership calling until November of two thousand and twenty five. So ten years. Ten years without any leadership callings, which is strange for a guy who’s been a state president. but there’s a ten-year blackout of leadership callings for him, which could be explained in different ways.

1:15:15 But all we know is that November twenty third, twenty twenty five, he got called with two callings. And we also know he’s moved up there by Texas. In that interim, he moved at ten years. He’s up by Austin, Texas. If I said Texas, Austin, Texas. Both those callings and the two callings he got on the same day were to be the state Sunday school president. And a high councilman. stake Sunday school president, high counselor.

1:15:49 Got him on the same day, lost him on the same day, which was just a couple of months later, on February the tenth, two thousand and twenty-six, after he’s been arrested and apparently people have found out. Both those callings were issued and released on the same day, less than three months total, no active calling. Can I just ask this question right now, Rebecca, of you? What do you make of the fact that all of a sudden there’s ten years where he doesn’t have any callings in leadership? Yeah, again, it’s speculation.

1:16:18 And again, he could have been a gospel doctrine teacher, a primary teacher, a young men’s advisor all that time. But I do think out in the mission field, right, the rest of the world, when you have a priesthood holder who’s in a high position, you usually see them continue on that track. You usually see them become something else, you know, maybe a temple president, maybe, you know. So I don’t know. I really can’t say what happened. But it is interesting that he…

1:16:45 You brought this up, RFM, that he was released on a day that wasn’t a Sunday. And typically they do release people on a Sunday. Every Tuesday of this year. Yeah, he was released on a Tuesday, which speaks to maybe, you know, something quickly released, you know, right away, maybe getting information. I don’t know. It was just a little bit different. And when I say released, I mean the most current, the thing that happened right before his arraignment the next day. You know, and technically, really…

1:17:12 Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s been a while, but people are not released on Sunday. They’re released prior to Sunday and it’s just a vote of thanks after it’s announced that they have been released, right? Yeah, but typically they’ll get that vote and then they’ll enter it into the system after the fact. So it is possible that that Sunday he was released prior to the tenth.

1:17:31 And then, you know, but what we do know is it happened within two weeks of the arrest, you know, three weeks of the arrest on the twentieth. So it happened very quickly. Let me ask this and I want to get your thoughts, Bill. If there’s anybody out there who goes to church in the Killeen Stake down there in Texas and and you were there for the release or know anything about this, if you could get a hold of us, that would be great if you have any information about this.

1:17:58 Where should they get a hold of us, Bill? Well, they could go on to the Mormon Newscast Facebook page for one, but if they want to message us directly, it’ll be mormondiscussions, with an S on the end, podcast, with an S on the end, at gmail.com. I just like hearing you say that, that entire. Great. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, this is what happens. Oh, I’m sorry, Bill. Yeah. Did you have any thoughts about this in this ten year? I mean, just a blank.

1:18:32 And by the way, the beginning of the ten years, he’s down there in Kowloon. When the curtain lifts after the ten years is over, now he’s up here by Austin. It can be a lot of things. I know that when a stake president is released, I’ve heard before behind the scenes, having served in leadership, that they want the past stake president a little bit out of the way so that the new stake president isn’t bumping up against sort of people’s running back to that guy since he’s still in some leadership calling and trying to sort of pit them against each other.

1:19:06 So sometimes they’ll distance that stake president for a little bit. but not ten years. Maybe a ward closed or a state closed down. Maybe something got consolidated or a state got split. There are lots of reasons for why it could happen, but knowing enough about these kinds of stories, my mind at least wants to make room that there are a couple of interpretations that would be much more nefarious of the data.

1:19:35 And yeah, we’ve heard enough of these stories to know that these things can happen while people are serving and it can be swept under the rug. And these are early days yet on this story. By the way, notice all these details that Rebecca got and that we’re presenting to you tonight, courtesy of her and her sources and her investigation, that ABC just couldn’t dig out. Now, here’s Austin, okay.

1:20:00 So over here, you can see where Austin is up there in the heart of Texas. This is a different map showing where Austin is. And it’s north. That’s more north, northwest. But you can see Lampasas. I have it underlined in yellow. I also have circled up there Waco because that’s up by thirty-five from Austin. But there you go. There’s Lampasas. Now, the reason they have Lampasas underlined is because The place where he lived, remember Kempner with a K, is on this road between Lampasas and Killeen right there to the right. It’s on that highway.

1:20:37 It’s a little bit closer. So I get a little bit closer between Lampasas on the left and Killeen on the right, which is the name of the state. That’s where Fort Hood is, everybody. If you don’t know that, that’s what the big thing is there in Killeen. Otherwise, it would look more like Kempner. And Kempner is right there between them on one ninety. And that’s where this guy lived, Brian Randall Brown, or lives, though not presently.

1:21:05 So here’s the timeline, apparently. It’s a crazy timeline. January tenth, twenty twenty six. Brian Randall Brown arrested in Texas for child sexual assault. I think it was the twentieth. I think it was the twentieth. Yeah. OK, the twentieth then. Thank you. It’s probably a typo on my part. One, ten, twenty six arrested in Texas. One, twenty, twenty six arrested in Texas for child sex assault.

1:21:33 February tenth, twenty, twenty six released a stakes Sunday school president and high councilman. So that happens eleven days later. Also, on this same day, it’s the next day, the eleventh. Oh, really? I don’t think so. That’s the tenth. February tenth, two thousand twenty six. He’s indicted in Texas. Are you checking back on that, Rebecca, right now? Yeah. I mean, my source said that the indictment happened on the eleventh, but you have the actual records. So it probably is on the tenth.

1:22:07 So because there’s a lot of dates. Either way, it’s a date. Right. Indictment date is is the eleventh right there. That’s two typos. I mean, it’s within, you know. Good job keeping me honest. No, someone has needed more coffee, obviously. So, yeah. So January twenty th, he’s arrested in Texas for child sex assault. February twenty th, twenty six and pay no attention to what these dates say. Just listen to what I’m saying.

1:22:33 Release the state Sunday school president, a high councilman the next day on February eleventh, twenty twenty six. He’s indicted in Texas on February twenty seventh, twenty twenty six. He’s arraigned in Texas. And now on March ninth, which is ten days later, this is really the important thing. On March ninth, ten days after he’s arraigned in Texas on a child sex assault charge, he’s in Utah allegedly committing another child sex assault.

1:23:03 And March, was when his pretrial hearing was in Texas, which he was required to attend. So he had to fly back for that. Unless he appeared over, you know, zoom, but the newspaper report that ABC report talks about him flying back to Utah. So that’s where he’s flying back from, Texas, almost certainly. And on April ninth, twenty twenty six, he returns to Utah for a baby blessing and gets arrested.

1:23:28 And I think that happened at the at the airport on the way in. So they knew he was coming. They said, we’re going to arrest you. So now he is in Utah. He’s in the prison over there and he’s got no bail yet. And I’m going to guess that a judge is probably not going to give him any bail. And I sure as hell wouldn’t. Yeah, you had a video you wanted to show too. Is that for later?

1:23:56 That’s the update on the other case, but yeah. Let me note a couple of things here. First off, when I think about what a news article is to accomplish, one is that it’s supposed to inform the public of information that allows the public to be informed of the news. Two is that when it’s something online, for instance, you either want to sell newspapers, you want to get clicks to your article, and number three, you want to sell advertising.

1:24:30 Those to me seem like the three main motivations of people in journalism. Notice that when you make the title religious bishop, arrested for alleged rape and abuse of a minor relative, you don’t improve the clicks versus Mormon bishop. You would diminish the amount of clicks you would get. Because you diminish the amount of clicks, you’re going to have trouble selling to advertisers as easily and for as high of a price.

1:25:02 And you don’t do a good job of informing the public of the actual news. There’s only one thing you do accomplish, though, which is that anybody trying to search for LDS sex abuse, Mormon sex abuse, will come up empty. It hides the search results, but it doesn’t serve any of the other three purposes that a journalist should have at the top of their list in trying to do their job.

1:25:32 One more thing, and then Rebecca, if you have any thoughts. I’ll just note, this guy had served in the church for decades, and he’s the kind of guy, allegedly, he’s the kind of guy who sexually abuses a child, gets caught, and then within ten days tries to do it again. I can only imagine what that kind of person has done elsewhere over decades and decades of time. So this story is not over. And he didn’t just start. You’re right. People need to know. People need to know who this guy is.

1:26:13 They deserve to know. If they were around this guy when he was their bishop, their state president, they had kids going in for interviews. Yeah, they should know. Just my opinion. What do you think, Rebecca? Yeah, and that really is my only motivation for doing this kind of, you know, digging around. And I never put out his name when I discovered it because I thought, let’s just wait for the media to do it. We don’t need to do that.

1:26:37 But again, there’s so many different touch points where you could protect a child in your ward, in your stake, and touch points where you could protect family. And it reminded me of the Wade Christofferson situation where eventually family were the victims, right? Nobody is protecting family. people, you know, in the institution, through the institution, and somehow the information is not getting to the very most vulnerable in either families or the institution.

1:27:06 And that’s just, that’s where it’s so heartbreaking. I mean, and disgusting. And again, all of this is alleged, but that timeline, I just really can’t fathom how that happened, what happened there. how family had no idea that a month earlier he had been arrested. I just don’t know how that all slips through the cracks and something needs to change in that to protect. As I said, it all trickles down to the very most vulnerable and that’s the children who can’t protect themselves. So we see this all the time.

1:27:37 And that is the other aspect you’re right, which is, um, I believe that the parents need to know, everybody needs to know, but the church would want them not to know because those are more lawsuits in the wings. So why is ABC protecting the Mormon church? That’s what I want to know. Yeah, it seems like it’s clear that it is. So while the Mormon church should be carrying a ton of, about child sex abuse what it actually seems to care about is energy healings so rebecca tell us about where we run up against the church whereas child sex abuse for some reason doesn’t really do that yeah what a segue but you’re right the title of this article is growth of energy healing worries the LDS and the Catholic and other religious leaders.

1:28:34 So this is such a concern that there’s even a headline about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen, I think you’re right, Bill. I’ve never seen a headline that says LDS church concerned about CSA or, you know, sometimes you see new guidelines, but I’ve never seen a headline like that. So yeah, that is a good segue. So I’m just going to paraphrase this, but this is very interesting. Do you guys know what energy healing is? RFM, do you know what that is?

1:28:57 i know bill does using your energy to heal people yeah that’s right isn’t that interesting yeah we’ll get into it so um in this article here which is in the tribune it highlights this growing concern among religious leaders about the rising popularity of energy healing practices the approaches are becoming more common across all different faith communities including Latter-day Saints, Catholics.

1:29:20 And it brings up these questions of how does this align, or more likely, how does this conflict with traditional religious beliefs? And I will tell you that I was a young mom in a cul-de-sac in the heart of the heart of Mormonism right when doTERRA came out. If you’re familiar with the healing oils and the natural oils of the doTERRA MLM, everybody in my neighborhood jumped on board very quickly.

1:29:44 I did not. Maybe I wasn’t popular. I was out of the loop. But I, for some reason, didn’t really understand what was happening. But they were all talking about classes they were taking and crystals and oils and massage sessions and healing. And then it started to get a little darker. They had sort of convinced one woman in the ward she didn’t need her medication prescribed by her doctor for mental health issues.

1:30:05 And there were some incidents that happened and some teenagers that probably should have gone home. to a therapist and instead went to a crystal, you know, placing crystals all over their body. Anyway, it was very strange. I stayed away from it. But I did see how many, many people and all of these neighbors, of course, were in the church, faithful Latter-day Saints, all in the callings, But they were very, very entranced with this new, you know, I think it really came to a head with doTERRA, kind of became more popular there.

1:30:34 So the energy healing refers to practices like Reiki, you know, or the oils, the crystals, other alternative methods that claim to manipulate unseen spiritual energy. or bodily energy to promote physical and emotional healing. These practices are often presented as spiritual in nature, and which can make them appealing to people who are already religious. And I will say appealing to women.

1:30:58 In many religions, they do not have the power, as we have discussed. And here is sort of an arena where they can meet with other women, sort of exercise this power field that they’re doing something for their family, for their children, you know, in helping with healing and, you know, well-being. So I can definitely see the appeal, especially in a patriarchal system, for sure. Religious leaders worry that energy healing introduces ideas that they conflict with the core doctrines about God and healing and divine power.

1:31:30 because God is the one that heals us, right? There’s nothing crazy about that, but there is something wrong with energy healing. So they see a risk. These practices can blur those lines between established religious teachings and the new age spirituality, potentially leading members in other misleading spiritual directions. It reminds me of yoga. I know younger people don’t believe me, but in my day, as I always say, yoga and meditation, the church said no, no way.

1:31:59 That is going to make you a Buddhist. That is going to lead you somewhere else. You do not do those meditative healing spiritual practices of yoga and meditation. Absolutely not. Cannot get involved in that. So I laugh every time I see a post where they say, oh, yoga is amazing. We’re having it at the Stakes Center. I just shake my head. This is… Maybe I should write a book. How it used to be.

1:32:19 I could call it In My Day or something like that. I’m sure no one would read it. Anyway, within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now we’re going to get specific to Mormons. Healing is traditionally associated with the priesthood blessing, right? And faith in Jesus Christ. Although we have seen it more recently, the faith not to be healed. It may or may not work.

1:32:38 But either way, you go through the priesthood. You do not use any other kind of a practice. Leaders are concerned that energy healing practices could compete with or imitate the sacred roles, shifting attention away from the Christ-centered healing and, most importantly, the priesthood authority. Because that’s what the LDS Church has that nobody else has. We have the priesthood authority. We can heal. And that, remember that talk?

1:33:04 It really used to be, you will be healed. Like here’s Jasmine. She’s talking about prayer circles and healings. And now it really is. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it’s still the priesthood and it’s really important. Is that a real thing with Jasmine? Is that not a joke? No, that’s not a joke. I would never use a real person in an AI like that. No, I follow the church’s counsel. No, this is actually one of her TikToks. It says Latter-day Saint prayer circles.

1:33:27 And she’s got a circle of some people. It looks like they’re wearing white. Yeah. They’re in a circle. I was shocked too, but I found it. What did they say in the little print up there? Latter-day Temple Prayer Circle. Latter-day Temple Prayer Circle. Prayer Circle, yeah, which is a healing circle. So what she’s going to do is she’s going to go to these old documents, like the Gospel of John, where it talks about, you know, dancing in a circle. And, oh, look, they did it too. Yep.

1:33:50 And she does make a lot of parallels. By the way, I’m sorry, I said the Gospel of John. I meant the Acts of John. course because everyone’s going to call you on that no one else knows the difference okay um and and again i have to go to the handbook because i’m sure you all understand where i’m going here that they’re saying energy healing bad priesthood power good right this is what we need to stick to so in the handbook it says priesthood blessings of healing are given by those who hold the necessary priesthood office church members are discouraged from seeking miraculous or supernatural healing because that’s not what they’re promoting the priesthood blessing to be, right?

1:34:27 From an individual or group that claims to have special methods for accessing healing power. Isn’t that what the priesthood is? We claim to have a special method to access healing power outside of prayer and properly performed priesthood blessings. These practices are also often referred to as energy healing. So they are really saying, we’ve got it. We’ve got the corner market. We access the miraculous.

1:34:53 We are the ones and And we’re going to crack down on you if you don’t. I even remember a conference talk a couple of years ago where they alluded to it, said it. And there was a lot of discussion I saw where people were saying, is that what they mean? Because there are a lot of people that are into this energy healing. The popularity of energy healing is being driven by increasing interest in holistic wellness just across the board and emotional health.

1:35:16 Social media and online communities have accelerated the spread of these practices and many individuals blend them with their existing religious beliefs rather than replacing religion entirely. And this is what you see with Mormonism. Mormonism is hardwired to just simply accept this element of energy healing and crystals and oils into what already exists because it’s already mystical.

1:35:40 It’s already magical. This is LDS approach to energy healing. There are books on this. LDS bent on the energy healing. There are big conferences on this, but the church is absolutely saying this is not going to happen. So the article says the main risks that the church is concerned about are the spiritual confusion and also potential for financial exploitation. Now they’re worried about confusion. Yeah. Yeah.

1:36:04 And it’s not like they’re not asking you for ten percent of your income in order to have the priesthood and go to the temple and be in a prayer circle. I mean, you know, there is money exchanged in both of these scenarios. There is also concern that individuals may delay or avoid seeking legitimate medical care. OK, I do see that in favor of alternative treatments that lack scientific support.

1:36:25 But I do know LDS also put up medical care. My parents were like this and go for the priesthood blessing. They’ll wait for the priesthood blessing before just simply going to the doctor. In fact, I have a story of my family. My mom was extremely ill and she was just having the blessings. You know, she was just having my dad and not going to the doctor. Even as a teenager, I knew she needed to go to the doctor. It was getting pretty serious.

1:36:48 And my dad finally called the bishop, bringing the big guns, the counselors and the bishop to give her a priesthood blessing. They took one look at her and said, no blessing, go to the hospital. So in that case, Bishop Roulette, those men, no, thank goodness they did that, right? They knew, but- My family was more like, well, God, you know, so maybe I’m a little jaded on this and it kind of makes me angry.

1:37:10 But there are a lot of these groups if you’re not aware of them. And it is fascinating. And I do think it goes on to say church leaders encourage members to rely on licensed medical professionals. Of course, they do be cautious about unproven therapies and healing should be centered in faith. and Jesus Christ rather than an alternative spiritual system. So here’s another one, Healing Arts, Gift from God. These are all Latter-day Saints.

1:37:35 They just kind of mingle the two together because they really do fit very well together. And I will say that a lot of women, when they post about healing and energy and that kind of thing, they take it back to the early church where women were giving blessings. Women did have power. Of course, that was Brigham Young era that was taken away, but they did. And I think it’s a way that women sort of find that power again.

1:37:58 So I honestly don’t blame mostly predominantly women for getting involved in this, but there’s a concern. And I think these movements are growing. So I think it’ll be an even bigger concern moving forward. So thoughts on this energy healing, bad priesthood, good bill first, and then our event. Well, first, let me say the article started off with Catholics and Latter-day Saint, you know, the churches are worried about energy healing.

1:38:24 Two religions that have a pandemic, an epidemic of child abuse occurring within their ranks, fighting it, moving leadership around, changing things out, and then still claiming like we’re doing the best at this. Trust us. I think it’s such a strange thing to have after we just talked about this extent of child abuse. Having an awareness of what kinds of things does two churches that both claim to be the only true and living church of Jesus Christ upon the earth, what are the things they focus on? What’s important and what isn’t?

1:39:01 And second, I’ll say this. To the Latter-day Saint, isn’t the Catholic’s healing power no better than the energy healers? And to the Catholic. Yes. Isn’t the Mormon priesthood blessing just as useless as the energy healing with crystals or oils? In other words, isn’t it pretty much like the Spider-Man meme, except they’re all pointing at themselves and saying, I’m the real Spider-Man.

1:39:29 It’s me. I have the power. There is a common denominator, I think. That’s a great observation. I love that. You’re absolutely right. It is. You know what I think the common denominator is? What’s that? Well, both the Catholics and the Mormons are pointing at the women. That is true. It’s empowering for women, these practices, and they have access to them and they’re good at it and they’re kind of rewarded for it and they’re looked up to for it. You’re absolutely right.

1:39:55 We got to shut that down. That could be the ulterior motive. Yeah, Rebecca, you were saying you don’t blame mostly predominantly Mormon women for engaging in the energy healing. Well, I do blame mostly predominant Mormon men for engaging in the priesthood. It’s like they’re saying, okay, I had to write this one down. It’s like they’re saying, don’t use energy healing. Don’t use energy healing. It doesn’t work.

1:40:22 We have the true priesthood that doesn’t work. Yeah. But it healed a gnat. Remember, it brought a gnat back to life. Remember that story? They’re arguing over powerless powers. Yes. And we could test it, right? We could send, again, we could go into a children’s hospital. Let’s pick the Salt Lake Children’s Primary Hospital. Let’s pick three wings, but let’s randomize the patients.

1:40:51 Let’s send the energy healers down one, the Catholics down the other, and the Latter-day Saints down the final wing. And let’s check the results. Anybody want to make bets on what the results would be? It would be statistically insignificant. Of one wing’s magic powers over another wing’s magic powers. So RFM, what you’re saying is hitting the nail right on the head. Why fight over a fake power by arguing for your fake power? But I do think there’s a placebo effect.

1:41:23 I mean, getting a priesthood blessing, if you’re a believing member, you feel blessed. Comfort because you’re told that’s what you’re going to feel and people are caring about you. The same with energy healing. You have people caring about you and trying to help you. And so there is a placebo effect. And so why deny that to people? If energy is working for them and making them feel better, you know, mentally placebo, why deny them that?

1:41:45 Yeah, the placebo effect, my understanding is it’s a real thing. It’s recognized and it’s accounted for when doing these kinds of studies. Because it occurs at a relatively consistent rate. Yeah, then it’s just you’re psyching yourself into thinking that it’s working. How about that? But have you noticed in conference that, you know, we always had these miraculous healing stories for decades.

1:42:05 And then about the last ten years, it seemed like they were stretching. Like the gnat and there were some other strange ones. The gnat was a stretch. Yeah, and then it just morphed into have the faith not to be healed. So I think they really are recognizing that they can’t support those miraculous claims from in the earlier church. And now it’s just, you just got to take whatever God dishes out to you.

1:42:25 You know what the gnat said after he got smacked? Uh-oh, what? Help me, help me. I’ve got some crystals for that gnat. Like somebody mentioned earlier, I think you put it up on the screen. It says the apostles, they’re the smart ones. They know that stones are not for healing. They’re for peeping. Yeah, I think I had that start over here somewhere. That was a great one. Well, let’s jump to our next story.

1:42:59 We’re moving from – I don’t even know how to explain this. I’ll say, Bill, you know what? Let me just put this one next week so that RFM can finish his because it’s timely news. And I want to spend a little time on this because it’s kind of funny. So if we can just fast forward and let RFM do his, and then I’ll bump this to next week. We always have so much news, everybody. It’s hard to pick.

1:43:18 I will say, I feel like you’re always laying your stories on the altar. Well, yeah. We don’t need you to, you can. No, no, no, no. I’m doing it for a purpose. I kind of see the whole show as a whole and I see what fits. And I think RFM story is really important. It’s very timely in the news about the judge. All I’m doing is playing a video for three minutes. I’d like to hear your story, Rebecca. All right, fine. I just was thinking of time.

1:43:41 I was thinking of everybody. Okay, let me pull up my slide. And you always do. And I always do. I try to, I think everybody wants to have dinner, right? I know I do. Okay, so this caught my eye because it was The Chosen, right? Do you guys watch The Chosen at all? never never well it’s the story and the life of christ in a very accessible personable way here he is the chosen director says to latterly saints loosen up right loosen up about jesus um he says i feel like it’s okay for me to say this because as you know I’m the honored evangelical mascot of the LDS Church, says filmmaker Dallas Jenkins.

1:44:17 He’s being interviewed from some podcast called Follow Him, right? So he says, I would say that there is such a reverence and such a genuine respect for Christ, which is great. You guys probably do that better even than the evangelicals do. But then he got to the point, right? And what is he going to say? He says, but he tells them sometimes it can lead to formality. Really? Mormons being formal?

1:44:42 That’s kind of shocking. The director didn’t say this kind of formality can be alienating. Nevertheless, the subtext was there. I’ve seen it in paintings, Jenkins said. I’ve seen it in some of the LDS videos and portrayals of Christ. He looks and sounds like he’s quoting the King James Bible. I wonder why, which he is. And again, this comes from a good place of honoring the scripture.

1:45:06 So he’s kind of giving this, he’s trying to kind of stick it to the Mormons, but then he’s also saying, but it’s okay. It’s all really good. So again, In contrast, he talks about the chosen and how they’ve chosen to make Christ absolutely human. Look at this actor. They’ve chosen to play Christ. He just looks like he’s your best friend, your best buddy. And this is why it’s so popular. They’re making the scriptures.

1:45:28 They’re taking them down to just a very human level of the life of Christ and making them very accessible to everybody. So why are Mormons so awkward about Jesus? I just wanted to delve into this for a second. Why are they so awkward? Because they are at least, you know, maybe they’re trying to get a little better at it, but even that is awkward as they try. So one of the reasons I think he talked about the paintings, serious Viking Jesus paintings. was our Jesus growing up, right?

1:45:55 This is our Jesus in the red robe and looking very serious. And do you guys remember hearing that Del Parsons, the artist, number one, that it was a self-portrait of Del and number two, that the brethren said, this looks like what Jesus actually looked like. Do you remember hearing that back in the day? That’s what they said. I remember the second part a little bit. I mean, there’s even a worse picture of Jesus. I don’t think that Dale Parsons did. That’s angry as hell, Jesus. Have you ever seen that one? Oh, yeah. No, he did like a series of this.

1:46:24 He was commissioned. But the rumor was that he kept taking the sketch, the painting back to the brother. And they said, not quite right, not quite right, because they’ve seen him. Back in my day, they’d seen him. They’d walked and talked with him. And finally, when he kind of allegedly did this little bit of a self-portrait, they said, that’s him. That is the closest that we’re going to get to Jesus. I read some other things.

1:46:45 That’s all, of course, a faith-promoting rumor. One of his relatives said, oh, no, they commissioned it. And they specifically said, make him with auburn hair and blue eyes. so having walked and talked with jesus the brethren knew that he has auburn hair and blue eyes well this relative that i read what what this person was writing said oh no no it’s not a self-portrait in fact dell the artist went to a fair in idaho and found this guy see that guy right there that’s the model for jesus there he is he was at the idaho state fair and that’s him so i don’t know redneck jesus The bottom line is the pictures that we grew up with, there were only a few that were approved and they were very serious.

1:47:28 You did not see what I’m going to show in a minute. My favorite montage, Smiling Jesus. Deseret Book is making an effort. They’ve been putting out pictures, more of a Middle Eastern looking Jesus, just more of an accessible Jesus, Jesus that looks like you, right? And a lot of people actually even push back and say, that’s not my Jesus. My mom was one of those, not my Jesus. But we all remember this. Look at Jesus today.

1:47:53 I mean, this is not the Jesus we grew up with. He’s not only smiling, he’s smoking hot. I call this, hey girl, Jesus, right? Have you guys ever displayed any picture like this in your home? no feels like no i’m telling you a lot of people do if you go into lds homes you will see especially the one the one that i’m looking at over on the left you know the bedroom eyes the hey girl jesus so it’s a different day mormons are trying to embrace mainstream christianity and embrace literally smiling jesus so there he is um they’re smiling holland I was going to say, okay, so in the same article, they’re talking about Elder Kieron, right?

1:48:36 And he, look at him just smiling there. He’s a happy guy. And he is saying that we need members of the church. We need joy. We need to have joy in our worship. Joy, joy, joy. As I said here in the title, am I frozen? I can’t tell. As I said here in the title, I can’t tell either. I know. No over-the-top praising or worship, always reverence. That was how it was back in, you know, when I was raised in the church, you don’t do that.

1:49:04 You don’t praise, you don’t worship, you don’t raise your hand. It’s very serious. Your arms are folded. Your head is down. You were in the most locked up position you could ever be. And now Elder Karen is saying, I don’t understand why members don’t have joy. Well, the reason they don’t have joy, if you read some of these quotes over here on the other side, is there are many scriptures that say, not with much laughter, cast away your idle thoughts, your excessive laughter, no light speech, no laughter. This was absolutely hammered into us. Church is a serious business.

1:49:34 So is religion. And I think that picture of Elder Holland kind of sums up how we were all raised and spent our time in the church. But they’re trying to make a change. Yes, RFM. Elder Chiron, which always reminds me of the Star Trek episode. I am Chiron. Chiron. Yes. No one else. Yeah. It’s like he didn’t take out his endowment and take the oath to avoid any loud laughter. Come on. He knows what the score is. Come on. I’m good. There’s an oath in the temple.

1:50:00 That’s what’s so funny. But he’s going, come on, why don’t you have joy? It reminds me, heaven, we’ll get to music next. When they started doing those worldwide broadcasts of the rock bands for Jesus, for the young people and the young men’s general board and the young women’s general board, they’re out there and they are praising. And they say, this is so joyful. I’ve never done anything like that.

1:50:19 Of course, you’ve never done anything like this. You were never allowed to do this. You were specifically forbidden from doing something like this, but now it’s all okay. Mainstream Christianity. And my main one I want to talk about is don’t say the name Jesus. Um, this is funny. This is an exponent article. The person says other irritating changes. The church involves hymns. I know it was a little wacky to have everybody saying, do you remember this? You who unto Jesus? Do you guys remember that?

1:50:45 You who went to, and everyone would go, you who? Yeah. Singers hate that. Yeah. What did they change it to? Who unto the savior? That’s it. thing that it doesn’t even have the right rhythm or the right syllables but i’m saying that we never said the word jesus we said the savior i even went to a fifth sunday meeting once where they told us try not to speak of deity very often but if you must don’t ever say jesus you know that’s that’s christian you say the savior so um a whole message board here where somebody said yes I was just going to explain that a little bit, that you went past it so fast.

1:51:23 It’s written, you who, but of course the line is, you, yeah. You, who unto, yeah. It always sounded like, you who, like they were calling out, you who unto Jesus. That’s why they changed it, because we had fun with it. You could actually sing, you who, it was a fun way to sing it. And now it’s, who unto the Savior. Yeah, see, formal. That’s exactly right. I’m a whole message board where they talked about it. Do Mormons hate the word Jesus? And they did back in the day.

1:51:49 When I was growing up, you did not say Jesus. Jesus is a new thing. Also the word God, you said heavenly father. It was very, very formal. And so I had to make this meme kind of describing what I’m talking about, where a young person says, praise Jesus, right? And the older person says, I was taught saying that is irreverent and too informal and does not show respect to our savior, Jesus Christ.

1:52:10 So it is a new day. It all goes along with mainstream Christianity. And if you really want to get really up close and personal, with Jesus. There is now AI Jesus. Apparently, faith-based AI and software and everything is huge. It’s a huge and growing industry across all denominations. This is AI Jesus. It’s kind of pattern on the chosen Jesus. You can sign up. He’s your own personal savior and he gets to know you. He knows everything about you. You can ask him questions. Yeah. Oh Jesus.

1:52:43 Exactly. And he’s right there. And everybody that’s using it says they just feel wonderful. You can talk to Jesus every day and he’s there for you. Yes. Why do I feel like Jesus is making kissy faces at me? Because he has to be, Hey girl, Jesus. That’s the only reason that you’re going to talk to him every day. He has to be very attractive and tell you the answers that you want.

1:53:04 And that’s why I think I would like to get in on this money-making. If you guys are with me, I think Mary Magdalene, I’m thinking this might be the person that maybe guys want to talk to. She could give advice. She could be there for you. She could quote scriptures. So you’re never going to get anywhere with her. She’s a perpetual virgin. I know. Well, that’s true. Wasn’t she married to Christ? I don’t know. Anyway, so that’s my idea.

1:53:26 But it is very interesting that it’s noticed how formal Mormons are about Jesus, and then they’re kind of awkwardly trying to change it. Jesus, praise Jesus. And it’s great. In ten years from now, they’ll just be the same as any other Christian denomination. They’ll be very comfortable talking about Jesus and worshiping Jesus. But for now, it’s kind of interesting to watch them try to do it.

1:53:48 Any thoughts on this interesting story about formality, informality, and AI? Hey, girl, Jesus. And Mary being married to Jesus. And Mary being married to Jesus. Yeah, it’s all that. Bill, what do you think? Well, first off, I just want to note that I’m going to go back here, actually. Let’s see if I can find that slide of Del Parson really quick. Yeah, there he is. Del Parson. He reminds me a little bit of Bill Bixby. Yeah, he does, doesn’t he?

1:54:18 Maybe, you know, right before Bixby turned into Ferrigno. Yeah. My favorite Martian. Courtship of Eddie’s father. Well, now I’m never going to look at that Jesus picture without thinking of Bill Bixby and wonder what would happen if we made Jesus angry, right? He was always on TV when I was young. Yep, he was a big star. That’s funny. What a funny observation. The only other thing I’ll say is that it’s a strange thing when leaders in the church today condemn members or wish they would do differently when all we’re doing is following the rules of yesterday. Again, nobody’s told us differently.

1:54:59 Maybe you could take time to explain why we’re allowed to be happy today. and have emotions and laugh loudly now when we weren’t allowed to do any of that. The reason we put burlap on the walls, the reason we didn’t hang pictures in the rooms or in the chapel, we were to be the stoic religious sect in Christianity. And we took that seriously to the point where we made covenants not to ever do loud laughs in our private or public lives.

1:55:30 You know, under the heading of the reasons I don’t like Elder Kieron, because I think he’s a sneaky SOB, and I talked about that in my conference review, but this is another way. This is a particularly insidious form of gaslighting, where he’s going to blame the members for not being happy enough in their worship services at the Mormon church. Who created that? Mormons are just human, just like Catholics are human.

1:55:55 If Mormons are doing something differently in their meetings, it’s because the leaders taught us to do it that way. Yep, just another example. Oh, okay. Well, anything else? Otherwise, I’ll jump out of here. Yep, that’s it. Now we’ve got to go, let’s get past Bixby. Let’s go to the end of the story. We come to this story. We talked about this before at the lunch table, the judge, the fire chief, the conversations that they’ve had.

1:56:27 How is this case going, RFM? Yeah, well, it continues, as these cases will do through the criminal court system. That’s one thing that always happens. They go through them once they’re caught anyway and charged. So, by the way, I am not telling a joke about that whole Jesus story that you just did, okay? Because I think if I told it, we’d get thrown off the air. So I’ll save that for the next Mormonism After Dark, if anybody reminds me of it, okay? It’s written down right there.

1:56:56 This is the case where a judge and a fire chief were getting together in order to not only exchange pictures of children engaged in sexual conduct, but were planning together to abuse children themselves. This happened a little over a year ago when it came to light. And the way it came to light is that the fire chief was arrested. He was arrested first. The cops grabbed his computer. They arrested him, threw him in jail.

1:57:33 He appeared in front of this judge, this man right here, sitting judge. And I had his name written down over here. That’s Kevin Christensen. Kevin Christensen, sitting judge, and the prosecutor’s asking for no bail, and he says, okay, well, I’m going to give bail on this fire chief guy, and he bails out, and then it’s just a few days later that they’re going through the computer of the fire chief guy, and they find the evidence that incriminates the judge that he just appeared in front of who released him on bail. That’s this guy.

1:58:07 The fire chief, that case continues, I believe, without resolution yet that I know of. This one is being resolved now. It was last Thursday, I believe it was, when Kevin Christensen, former judge, Pleaded guilty. The reason we cover him, he’s a member of the church. I do not recall the fire chief as being a member of the church that we know, but this guy definitely is. And a sitting judge.

1:58:31 This is an incredibly atrocious and troubling case. But this is where it is that on last Thursday, he pleads guilty. And let me see here. I’ll take this one off the stage. Let me see if I can do that here. Is that yours, Bill? Do you have to take it? Hang on. We’ve got three of them up here. There we go. Just trying to put this one up. All right, I should be able to do this one then. Here’s how it looked in court.

1:59:01 New at six tonight, a former Box Elder County judge takes a plea deal on a sexual misconduct case. Two News chief investigative reporter Wendy Halloran was in the courtroom and joins us live from Ogden tonight. So Wendy, what changed today? Well, Heidi and Mark, Kevin Christensen is accused of sexually enticing two minors and sharing what is characterized as disturbing chats with the Tremonton Fire Chief about sexually abusing children.

1:59:28 He pleaded not guilty, but today a reversal due to a plea bargain. Elmer Box Elder County Justice Court Judge Kevin Christensen led into court in handcuffs after prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office struck a plea deal to bring this case to a resolution. March, twenty twenty four, then Assistant Attorney General Carl Holland charged Christensen with three counts of attempted aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of enticing a minor on the Internet, dealing in materials harmful to a minor and obstruction of justice.

1:59:59 But today, that eight count charging document was down to only three charges, the most serious a second degree felony reduced to third degree. Judge Catherine Conklin wanted clarification on the number of charges AG prosecutors agreed to dismiss. So I’m understanding we are going down from five second degree felonies and three third degree felonies to three third degree felonies.

2:00:24 That’s accurate, Your Honor. Christensen then pled guilty to three third-degree felonies. As to an amended count one enticing a minor using the internet, a third-degree felony, how do you plead? Guilty. Christensen’s former adopted daughter does not want to show her face, she says, for her children’s sake. She says she was left in the dark about this plea deal despite having a close relationship with him, as well as Christensen being an active grandfather to her children.

2:00:52 Honestly, I have no words for it. I don’t. I personally I was not talked to about it and so it is heartbreaking for me and questions why prosecutors offered Christianson a plea deal to begin with. I think he should have had all counts. Without being dropped, I think there should not have been a deal. Now I asked the AG’s office to explain why many charges were dropped and reduced in severity, if you will, and if they will be seeking prison time.

2:01:25 Anna Tibbetts, a spokesperson for the AG’s office, issued the following statement, which reads in part, The defendant pleaded guilty to three felony child sex abuse crimes. On that basis, we amended the charges to better reflect the evidence. We are seeking prison time and the defendant will be on the sex offender registry. Now back out here live, Christensen will be sentenced on the morning of June eighth.

2:01:50 Reporting live from Ogden, Wendy Halloran, KUTV, Two News. And in the hearing, they scheduled a half day of court time for that sentencing hearing. Any comments from you, Rebecca, Bill, about this case? I know there’s a lot of questions about why these three charges and why none of the serious, the more serious ones. I don’t know. I mean, these things happen. I don’t know what the evidence is.

2:02:19 I don’t know if the evidence is squishy or there’s plausible defenses to the more serious, and that’s why they went with the lower three. I think he’s getting a good deal. What do you think, Bill? Well, he’s got a member of his own family, right? His adopted or foster daughter who wanted to see him serve hard time. Didn’t want her face shown. sort of makes you wonder, but I will just note that at least with the allegations, uh, and the original charges was that he was enticing a minor online.

2:02:56 This wasn’t just a matter of sharing ideas or talking out concepts. This was real rubber meets the road, him trying to do this. And at least that’s how it showed up in the original charges, allegedly, uh, allegedly against him. The charges obviously were real and existed. Um, We live in a world where people do horrible things, but because trials are difficult and you don’t want to walk away and let a jury end up letting the person off, that you go with whatever you’re sure you can get.

2:03:31 And so you see these compromises all the time. I know you see them all the time, RFM. I wish people who abuse children couldn’t get off so easy. I will tell you, and then I want to hear your thoughts, Rebecca, is that from a legal process perspective and from a prosecutor’s perspective, there’s basically two models of the way you do things. There’s the model where you charge everything you possibly can, and even if it’s a little squishy, but you’re not supposed to do that.

2:04:03 You charge everything you possibly can, and then you make the deal, and you dismiss all of these, you know, half the charges or whatever, like appears to have happened here. The other model is you don’t charge everything you can as a prosecutor. You only charge what you want them to plead guilty to. And then if they don’t plead guilty to it, then you amend the information. You add all the additional charges that you didn’t file at the beginning.

2:04:27 Now, from a prosecutor’s point of view, you can see that only charging what you want them to plead to looks better. It’s all about appearance and psychology. It has nothing to do with how these things actually pan out. But if you just do it that way, then you look a lot better as a prosecutor, right? The problem is from the defense point of view, pleading guilty to everything you’re charged with under threat of charging additional things is not as attractive to a defendant.

2:04:53 It cannot be made to look as attractive as if you have all these charges and now you’re getting all of these dismissed and you’re only pleading to these. So once again, I’m saying all that psychology and public appearance, but it’s a very real thing. And I don’t know what model they follow, but it looks like the former and not the latter. Or excuse me, the latter and not the former. What do you think, Rebecca?

2:05:19 Well, I just think a judge is a trusted individual by both parents and young people, children. I think a fire chief who’s also involved in this story allegedly is a trusted person, especially to kids, right? Go find a fireman if you’re in trouble, right? That kind of thing. And I think church leaders are trusted by adults and by children. And I just think Everybody needs not to be so trusting.

2:05:47 I mean, how many of these do we need to see? I don’t know how many. It seems like there’s two or three on every newscast. But, you know, having covered these now for three years, you know, oh, my gosh, it makes you feel like you really can’t trust anybody. But, you know, there’s truth to that, especially when you’re when you’re caring for children. You have got to err on the side of I don’t necessarily trust right now. I have to be careful.

2:06:09 So and that’s just the way the world is. I agree with everything you said, but you were going, going, going in this one direction I thought you were going and at the last second you made a hard left and you went somewhere else. I agree with where you went, but where I thought you were going and what I want to add to it is, yes, he’s in a position of trust. That means he should not be getting a better deal.

2:06:28 He should not be getting the same deal as somebody else. He should be getting a much harsher sentence because of his position in the community. And I’m just going to say, uh, apparently the maximum is five years and they’re recommending that they all run at the same time. So it’s a total of five years, five years running concurrently on all three counts. Uh, the, the judge could say, okay, well, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to do consecutive.

2:06:54 But I believe that the agreement, because I watched the hearing. I didn’t want to play it for everybody because that’d be kind of boring. But in the hearing, they said that the agreement between the parties is that whatever the judge orders as far as a sentence goes, it’s up to five years, is to be served concurrently. So it’d be served at the same time. So if the judge goes along with that and the judge doesn’t have to, then the maximum would be five years. She would do the maximum on all three.

2:07:21 It would all run at the same time or concurrently and it would be a total of five years. So there’s no way that he does not do some kind of time. He has to do some. I think it’s, yeah, I don’t think it’s possible that he would do no jail time. Because I just wonder, a judge, it seems to me that that kind of a person would have a hard time incarcerated and add to that the fact that he’s know in there for what he’s in there for well he’s been in for over a year already yeah doing local time at the jail as opposed to the prison right um i was going to say one other thing about it but did you want to say something bill okay well i can’t remember what i was going to say about it but you know it’s just um this is the other thing i’m not criticizing the judge All I’m doing is I’m making it sure that everybody understands she didn’t have to take that plea.

2:08:16 Yeah, that’s what the attorneys cooked up. We’ll dismiss the five serious ones. He pleads guilty to the three less serious ones. The judge does not have to accept a plea when it’s presented to them. Would you say, though, RFM, that they almost always do? Yes. Oh, almost always. Absolutely. But this is an extreme situation. He’s a judge. He was a judge. He did this when he was a judge.

2:08:42 I have had the experience as a defense attorney of standing in front of a judge with the prosecutor and presenting this great plea deal that I got on behalf of my client and having the judge say, yeah, I’m not accepting this. I got too good a deal for my client apparently from the prosecutor and the judge said, no, I’m not doing this. So it was like, well, I have to fall back and, you know, figure out what the heck we’re going to do and find a different judge or whatever, you know, who will do the deal.

2:09:12 Yeah. It’s tricky thing, isn’t it? Cause the client can plead guilty thinking they’ve agreed to a really low plea deal. And then the judge can go, well, you pled guilty, but I’m not accepting the plea deal. Now you’ve got, you know, twenty five years in prison or whatever it is. yes and that is a separate thing though related and that’s why everybody who it’s in the it’s in the the writing of the document it’s in the print on the multi-page guilty plea statement that the judge is not bound by the attorney’s recommendations then the judge can send you to anything the judge wants to up to and including the maximum so everybody has to know that before they enter their play what you’re talking about is after having entered the plea Then doing a sentence that’s different than the agreed recommendation, absolutely.

2:09:56 But even before that, the judge doesn’t even have to accept the plea and say, I’m not even accepting this. Hey, Bill? Oh, sorry. If you plead guilty and you had a plea deal worked out with the prosecutor, the judge doesn’t accept it, can you withdraw your guilty plea? It was never accepted in the first place, so there’s nothing to withdraw. Okay, gotcha. The charges are still pending. Gotcha. Okay. Well, that’s great.

2:10:26 Well, thank you for that story. Again, once again, child abuse rampant week in and week out in the LDS church, the gold standard. And yet we run into it all the time. You are a prophet yet again. Yeah. There’ll be a bunch more. We predicted for this year. Yeah. There’ll be a bunch more. There’ll be more this week. Watch that. Okay. So on the radar, these are the things that we’ve got going out this week.

2:10:50 Rebecca, what do you have happening Tuesday on Mormon-ish? Yeah. Yes, Mormonish is always Tuesday night at six p.m. Mountain Time. And I have one of my favorite guests and sometimes co-host, Unoriginal Jim. We are going through a talk that was given to some of the Latter-day Saints in Africa. The title of the episode is LDS Tithing in Africa. And basically the talk says, and this is a quote, tithing is rent to the Lord to live on the earth. and you better pay up.

2:11:18 So yeah, this one’s going to make you guys a little bit angry, but I couldn’t believe some of the words that were said in this talk to manipulate the saints in Africa. I just couldn’t believe it. Rent to the Lord to even live on this earth. You’ve got to pay rent. So tune in. I know it’s such a feel good episode, but it’s important. It’s important. I know. Tuesday night, six PM mountain time with an original gym. We didn’t call it rent in my day. We called it fire insurance. Yep, there’s that too.

2:11:45 But either way, it’s coercive and manipulative, and people don’t need that. So this is the rent we give to the Lord, we pay to the Lord to stay on His earth? I don’t know. Yeah, yeah. Wednesday night, everybody. I understand that this is still a go. It is green, lit. Bart Ehrman, author, professor. Does the Bible prove Mormonism is true? We’re going to ask him a bunch of questions on that subject.

2:12:14 And we’re going to find out what the real dope is from the guy who knows. Excellent. And then Thursday morning, this is the next in my series of a logical deconstruction of Mormonism. This will be DNA and the Book of Mormon. And so that’ll be Thursday sometime around eight or nine a.m. That’ll show up. These have been a lot of fun. They’re all really short, five to ten minutes each.

2:12:37 And I think overwhelming in a series when you see all thirty of these put together and realize that on every single issue, the critic has the more rational argument. So check that out. And then Friday, RFM. Not Friday. Cannot be Friday. No Mormonism after dark Friday. By the way, I’ve got to talk to you, Bill, about renaming that Deconstruction After Dark or something like it. But I’m going to be out of state on Friday. I’m going to be incommunicado.

2:13:07 It’s going to be a real brief trip, and I should be back on Saturday afternoon. I may. I’m going to try. I can’t promise. But I’m going to try to do Deconstruction After Dark on Saturday night at eight o’clock p.m. Mountain Time. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll let a few things slip about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. I’m a busy RFM. Why are we calling it Deconstruction After Dark?

2:13:33 To make it broader and more inclusive than just Mormonism After Dark. You know about half of the people who listen have never even been Mormon. There you go. Well, and it also keeps the church off your back because it doesn’t have the word Mormon anymore, so. I have used the word Mormon in the last eight years and the church has. Much more. Okay, so I think that was, was that it? Oh, there’s this. Oh yeah, that’s this going great guns.

2:14:01 The apologist filed bar complaints against me featuring Rebecca Bibliotheca. Did you watch that? Did you see yourself? No, I haven’t watched it yet. Did you use clips from when we did that other episode? Yes, I used a clip. I used a clip, the clip. Because you’re talking about the cavalry, right? Yes, yes, the nerds. You were saying it’s T-A and R-B, and I made very clear. I broke it and said, that’s Travis Anderson, and that’s Robert Boylan.

2:14:29 Then I read the names of all the scholars at the end that you didn’t want to read back then. Exactly. So a disclaimer, I never name names. I let other people do it. Okay, Mr. Brown will be nice. We’ll be glad to hear that, I’m sure. All right. Anything else? I think that’s it. Yes. And only at two hours and fourteen minutes. Now it’s fifteen. I have one more thing. I’m just laughing in the chat that everybody’s saying, haha, four twenty.

2:14:57 You guys aren’t going to be here on four twenty. You guys know what that stands for, right? Yeah. Bill does. No. How would you explain it, Bill? Well, how would you explain it? Why don’t you explain it, Rebecca? Oh, well, I mean, it basically represents, it’s a numeric code, meaning, you know, cannabis consumption, right? So when we say we’re going to be gone for four-twenty, people, you know, think we may be gone somewhere else. What do you think’s in the pipe?

2:15:27 Bill, how would you explain it for people that are going, what is she talking about? It’s an abbreviated term for marijuana, cannabis, or twenty. And hence on April twentieth is a lot of people celebrate the ability to use cannabis. They celebrated on that day by using cannabis. So some people on April twentieth do get together with friends and check out for a little while. You don’t do that, though, do you, Bill?

2:15:52 Because you’re in Utah, and cannabis is not legal for recreational consumption there. Actually, it is legal for recreational consumption if you have a license to use cannabis. No, it’s medical. But you just say you have a strained back or your ears hurt or listening to Dives Lazarus gives you a headache. Whatever it is. Whatever it is. Well, that last one, no jury would convict.

2:16:17 So not recreational, but not hard to get either. Wouldn’t take much. So there’s that. Dead by a man who sounds like he has experience. No, no, very little. Well, folks, I’ll just remind you that it is legal up here in Washington for pretty much anything you want to do with it. That’s great. I’m happy for you and all the other folks there in Washington. For all of you out there, I hope that you’re enjoying your life, whether you live in Utah or the state of Washington.

2:16:47 But do please like and subscribe and please do donate. We’ve got the two donation links. I’ll put them. in the chat here just as we’re closing out. But folks, please like and subscribe and please go to both channels. Go to over to Mormonish. Please subscribe there. Go over to Mormon Discussion. Please subscribe there. Check out all the content we’re putting out this week. Donation links are going into the chat right now.

2:17:12 Otherwise, we’ll see everybody a week from tonight. Actually, we won’t. We’re doing spring break. We’ll be gone. And who knows where we’ll be. And then we’ll see you guys back in two weeks. Otherwise, we’ll be putting out other stuff over the course of the week. And we’ll see everybody soon. So bye-bye, everybody. Thanks for watching. That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of the Mormon Newscast.

2:17:34 We appreciate you tuning in and sharing this time with us. Keep the conversation going and stay informed on all things Mormonism. Until next week, wishing you peace and joy. See you next Monday at six p.m. on the Mormon Newscast.