The MBA Prophet: Clark Gilbert’s Ascent to LDS Apostleship Without a Single Theology Credit

Mormon Podcast Transcription

Today’s date is February 16th, 2026. I’m Radio Free Mormon. I’ll be anchoring this show. I’m joined by my intrepid reporter colleagues, Rebecca Biblioteca and Bill Reel. How are both of you? Fantastic. Today is President’s Day, isn’t it? Yes. Yes. And excellent on this end. It’s also the anniversary of the receipt of Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants, by coincidence. Well, I’m going to have a cupcake just for that. Okay. Probably a D&C section on every day of the year at some point, right? Probably, and I know them all. Excellent. All right, everybody, everybody, we’re going to see what are the top stories tonight. We have a thumbnail that’s featuring our top story, LDS Church’s new apostle and why he was called and why the other apostles call him Mr. Stay Puft. Okay, next slide.

Let’s see, I can do these slides. I’ll do these slides since I’m in charge, Bill. Thank you. Top news stories. New apostle changes everything. BYU football player charged with rape. Morehouse students pushed back on Joseph Smith painting. Mormon grandpa sent to prison for child sexual abuse. LDS dad slash GOP leader allegedly waterboards daughter. After our conversation, I think we should probably put waterboards in quotation marks. Don’t you agree? Yeah, it’s not exactly technically waterboarding, but all of the news outlets are calling it waterboarding. It’s more like dunking like a witch. Yeah, it’s the feeling of drowning, not being able to breathe in water. I think maybe that’s why they’re using that term. Yes, I hate feeling like I’m drowning. Colorado Springs LDS Temple sails through approval. And finally, David Archuleta tells all in new book.

But first, Bill Reel has the real scoop on the first story of the new apostle who was called Bill Reel. Yeah, so the LDS Church has announced that Clark G. Gilbert has been called as the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And we’ll play a couple of soundbites from some interviews that he did. In interviews following the announcement, Gilbert described the experience as overwhelming and deeply humbling, which is, I think, what every person says when they’re called into the Quorum of the Twelve. He said that the call came unexpectedly. That, too, also seems to be a repeat thing. And that he felt a mix of shock, gratitude, and a heavy sense of responsibility. I feel like he just has a script from all the guys that got called before him, and he just reads the same things.

I like it when Bruce R. McConkie said, I knew it was coming. It was just a matter of time before I got made an apostle by my father-in-law. He is the one exception to the rule. All right, so like most new apostles, he framed the moment as sacred and life-altering, speaking about his commitment to serve God and the members of the church. He spoke about relying on faith and expressed confidence that God would help him grow spiritually. in the role. Now, before I play a couple of sound bites, he did two interviews. I think one was with Peggy Fletcher Stack, if I’m not mistaken. But the other one was with a gentleman. I didn’t catch his name, but that’s where we’ll play two sound bites from. But before we do that, I want to set this up.

By reminding people of the apostolic charge, which was given to Elder Hubie Brown. He’s the one who tells us in his memoir or biography, I guess, about him. He says that when he was called into the Quorum of the Twelve, he was given the apostolic charge. And this was upon his admission to the Quorum of the Twelve. And what he relayed to everyone who reads those words is that he had to promise, and not only that he had to, but that all the other members of the 12, when they’re called into that group, have to make a promise. But I learned something about this apostolic charge when it came to Elder Gilbert Clark. or Gilbert, sorry, and we’ll see that in just a second.

Always be willing to subjugate your own thoughts and accept the majority opinion, not only to vote for it, but to act as though it were their own original opinion after it has been approved by the majority of the council of the 12 in the first presidency. So you try to reach a vote of unity. If it can’t be reached, whatever the majority opinion is in the Quorum of the Twelve, you leave that room as if it is your opinion as well. And we’ll see that Clark refers to this in this first soundbite. So let me go to that. He said, Brother Gilbert… I should say, too, when he says he said, he’s talking about Elder Oak said, Brother Gilbert, so here we go. I keep looking for Yvonne DiCarlo. What’s that, RFM? I keep looking for Yvonne DiCarlo. It is a Munster’s joke.

Okay, let me rewind this just a touch. Walk out the door, and he said, Brother Gilbert. Will you come with me for just a minute? I have something for you. You knew something was up? I did not know something was up. I thought he would have some assignment he wanted me to follow up on. It was an assignment, but not the one I was expecting. When he first uttered those words, it was overwhelming. I felt a rush of both apprehension and joy at the same time in a way that’s hard to describe. um and uh it was an amazing moment and he taught me uh for a few minutes about my calling the next day he would do more formal training on that and give me a charge in front of all the apostles on the responsibilities of my calling and it was just an amazing and sacred window what i want to know is when he found out about the charge and thought about it a second How many of those other apostles around there, up to six, voted against him?

Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll never know, RFM, because they’ve all taken the apostolic charge as well. What I learned about this charge is that, at least in this instance, and it makes sense from a psychological standpoint, that you would have the newest apostles say it in front of the group, at least whoever is in town that day. Mm-hmm. Because by saying it in front of the group, it sort of signals, one, that everybody else has also had that same charge. Yes. And there is a pressure to live up to it because you’ve essentially made the promise in front of everyone in the room. So I thought that was kind of cool to learn that about the apostolic charge. It is. And I kind of wonder what else goes on with the apostolic charge because I’m sure they can’t resist adding things to that.

What else would there be? It seems like, yes, as you learn lessons about what could go wrong, that you would add more caveats to try to get people to always do the thing that you want them to do so that there’s never a chaotic moment. So I imagine it may be a little longer than what Hubie Brown promised. But here is that other one, too. Basically, the original part may still be in there as the foundation of it, that you shall not stop striving until you see the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because that’s what was given, I believe, originally by the three witnesses when they chose the original 12 apostles in this dispensation in 1835. And I think Oliver Cowdery gave that charge. And as we learned, 1835 or maybe earlier, Oh, yeah, right, right.

The Quorum of Apostles that the current Quorum of Apostles trace their authority to. Yeah. And here’s the second soundbite. This had something interesting in it, I thought, as well. So how fast is the church growing? You hear some people say, well, there are a lot of people falling away from the church. So where are we at on this? We see just unprecedented numbers. In my lifetime, it’s been amazing. Of course, you’ve heard the growth of missionaries serving. around the world we see Institute’s filling up all around the world that some people say well Institute’s growing in Africa but is it growing right here in Utah and all of these Institute’s we see the University of Utah Institute has grown by 40 or 50 percent just in the last five years and and I think what’s happening is young people are surrounded by a noisy increasingly secular world with polarization all around them but they aren’t finding peace in that world and when they come to an institute or to a sacrament meeting or to the gospel itself or they come to a temple they feel something different and that is hastening all across the church and yes there are people who struggle but the very answers to those struggles can be found in the gospel of jesus christ Well, that’s good to know.

I guess I’ll be going back then. It’s interesting he would say that when President Oaks just a few days ago said, we all know many, many RMs are leaving right after their mission. You know, he kind of outlined a different projection for the church, a different picture. They’ve got to get on the same memo on this. And this is the problem that President Oaks is having right off the bat, I think. Yeah, he’s new. He’s new. What struck me is I think they’re measuring things. You can measure phenomenal growth in a lot of different ways. It could be people coming into the church, new people. It could be children of record. People are having more kids. What I think they’re doing, and again, they’re also saying things that would indicate some other things are happening.

But it seems to me that what he said on one hand is that And he mentioned Utah a few times in terms of the data in Utah not being in other places in the world. But that people, young people, are looking around and recognizing that the world is becoming much more secular. He seems to indicate that young people are looking around. They’re seeing a lot more people who have left the church. They don’t want religion anymore. And as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, one way you could measure growth is that the numbers of the church are down, but that the people who stay are more vibrant in their faith. And that seems to be, at least on some cues that he’s given, what he’s speaking about.

As the members of the church look around and they see the secularization of the day, that they are doubling down on their faith And so, you know, we see more missionaries going. Maybe that’s true. But as you point out, Elder Oak says a lot of them are going home. A lot of them are stop. They stop their attendance or their activity or their faithfulness when they come back from their mission. And they don’t ever tell us exactly how they’re measuring growth. They do give us a few indicators. But there were moments in his answer there where he seemed excited about a thing he was told to say, but he also stammered at the end of the answer because he didn’t really have the specifics to give anybody. So I’ll just note that.

When you’re pitching a lie, okay, when you’re pitching a lie and you don’t want to actually say a lie, that limits what you’re able to say. And I think that may account for some of the stammering. Yeah. And can I just say it is a lie. I recently did an episode that I’ll air in the future, probably a couple of weeks about these statements on growth because I got tired of these statements. Right. And I really wanted to find out what was going on. So I found somebody that could crunch these numbers. A lot of people aren’t aware, much like the baby boomers. You know what that is, right? This huge group of people that’s moving through time. impacting each decade with their age. There is a baby boomer-like group of young people right now.

This is why they continually talk about institutes being packed, and they talk about missionaries going out, right? And they’re also trying to lower ages to get this group of young people together, married, safely, on the track, having children. There is a huge number, I learned, of people in this demographic, kind of like baby boomers, but now they’re turning 18, 19, and they are moving through the church. So you’re going to see a lot of focus on institute missions, things that young people are doing, because there are big numbers, but simply because of more children, more people that age. It’s pretty fascinating. Yeah.

And I told RFM a week or two ago, we were having similar conversations on the newscast and in content that the two of us are creating, where we’ve talked about The discrepancy between the 80s and the 90s, when the church had really vibrant growth, and the church just unapologetically moved through the world, and it had people coming out and sharing graphs and data saying how big the church would be in another decade or two or three or four. And the church was just so excited about all of that, and it didn’t have any talks about doubt or people leaving, people having questions. And not only is all the data outside the church, Widows might be an example, the Pew Research Studies, Jana Reese’s stuff with the next Mormons.

Not only is all of the data outside of the church pointing to a shrinking church, But you also have an institution that cannot stop talking about doubts, cannot stop talking about leaving. And even in this talk where this interview where Clark is wanting to say how high the growth is, he can’t help but at least acknowledge to the interviewer that the youth look all around and the world is drastically different than it was a decade or two ago where the secularization, as he put it, of the world around our youth has changed to that direction. So I don’t know. I have a hard time, like the both of you, believing there’s growth. And if they are lying, you can only bolster up the numbers for so long before you have to bring those back to earth. Here’s all I can say.

First off, let me preface by saying I don’t care if the church turns a corner and starts growing and people start joining it in great numbers, okay? It touches me not. So I’m not invested in the church going off the cliff. But compare what we just heard. And we’ve heard lots of people, especially Elder Cook. He cooks the books, remember? That’s how you can remember his name. Elder Cook and this guy now, Elder Gilbert. Is it Clark Gilbert or Gilbert Clark? Clark Gilbert. I said it wrong. Elder Gilbert, okay. Compare what he just said about church growth with what President Oaks said last week. And tell me if they’re saying the same thing. Yeah, right. If the growth were this optimistic, President Oaks would not be that pessimistic. Didn’t Oaks say one of, if not the main concern he had, was people leaving the church?

Yes. And the prophet leaders, as he put it. Hmm. Okay, well, there’s that. All right, so Gilbert’s only 55 years old and in a church where its leaders serve for life and where seniority determines who becomes the next church president. Being called this young means Gilbert is now positioned to potentially serve for decades if he outlives many of the older apostles ahead of him, and he likely will. he would someday become the prophet. In LDS leadership terms, being called at 55 lends a high likelihood of that happening. I’ll just note, Rebecca, you put a thing out this week. You, I, and RFM were in a conversation some time ago on the Mormon Newscast And you and I had a conversation. I had mentioned him being a likely candidate for future callings.

And you mentioned the future possibility of him being an apostle and sounded like you were looking around, seeing around corners when you said that. But I’ll just note somebody on ex-Mormon Reddit said the same thing. Kevin Pearson and Clark Gilbert, three years ago, are two Mormon executives who are encouraging an orthodox fundamentalist approach to to their responsibilities, interested to see if they will be rewarded with higher callings. And of course, that’s- Yeah, Rebecca’s stab at that was just a year ago. It was a year ago. And I kind of said the same thing, rewarded. We were talking about Clark Gilbert and what was happening at BYU, right? And we were talking about his orthodoxy, his cracking down on everybody.

And I had said, I wonder if now he expects kind of this idea of being rewarded and that he will be a general authority an apostle could he someday be the prophet so i don’t think i actually predicted it because i thought he was he was one to me that was the least likely because i thought if they choose him oh my goodness they’re saying it out loud what they’re trying to do where they’re trying to go they would never say it out loud Why is this poor guy so controversial? Well, I think Bill’s going to get into all of that, why he’s so controversial. Let’s just say that I’m going to refer to him as Elder Umbridge for the rest of his tenure. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you know what I’m talking about. Are you a Harry Potter fan, Bill?

I’ve watched all the Harry Potter movies. I’ve not read the books. I’m not a huge fan, but I watched the movies with kids who wanted to watch them, yeah. Do you remember Umbridge? No, I don’t know. I think it was the fifth book, which would have been the fifth movie, I think. But she took over to head Mistress of… hogwarts right took over the whole school basically and kept nailing edicts up on the wall you know 30 feet up and just very punitive and cracking down on everybody and everybody was terrorized by her very she was the one that made harry right with that magical quill pin over and over and as he wrote it would be etched into the back of his hand so hurting people and yeah Yeah, well, that sounds like this guy.

So earlier in his career, Gilbert worked at the Harvard Business School. And this is why I say this changes things. This changes the landscape of Mormonism. We just got done calling Patrick Kieran. Who’s the guy that came just after Nelson’s death? Was that Kaze? No, it was Kieran, Kaze, but someone before Nelson. Was there somebody after Kieran and before? Okay, no. I don’t think so, no. So Kieran, Kaze is certainly somebody who’s watched over the funds. He said a few things too, but Kieran was sort of thought of to be a soft guy, a much more inclusive guy. He had worked in some humanitarian efforts out in the world that had him appearing to be more inclusive. And I’ll just note that at least on the outside looking in, Clark Gilbert is the exact opposite of that.

And so this is why I say things have changed. Earlier in his career, Gilbert worked at Harvard Business School as a professor of entrepreneurial management, where he studied how organizations adapt or fail during times of disruption. He worked closely with Clayton Christensen. You may know him for writing some books on missionary work in the church, but he’s also An influential LDS business thinker. And so beyond just being a religious leader, he’s a systems thinker trained in organizational survival. Okay, next here. He later became president and CEO of the Deseret News and Deseret Digital Media. His role there was to help modernize church-owned media and transition it into the digital age. That transition, however, came with major layoffs. If you remember in 2010, under Gilbert’s leadership, the Deseret News eliminated roughly 43% of its staff. By the way, that also shows some kind of decline.

You clean house like this when doing things the way you were doing them doesn’t work. Now, we obviously live in an age where people are getting their news from online sources. But it also points to LDS faithful members reducing their subscriptions, I think, to the Deseret News. Now, he bragged, by the way. I didn’t put this in here, I don’t think. But he bragged, by the way, after he took over that the Deseret News had increased its subscriptions. And the Salt Lake Tribune did some research on that. I couldn’t find the article. It came up with a 404 error, but the URL is still online with people talking about it. Somebody may be right about that conclusion, Bill.

I think that the way that they’re presenting it is that he modernized it, which means that we don’t need as many people because we’ve got computers who can do this stuff instead of people. So therefore, they got rid of 43%. It’s probably not all of that 43%. I agree. Yeah, he also took out a lot of full-time employees, went to sort of part-time workers, had folks that even I think served in some ways from a volunteer point of view or a volunteer status, and they were creating content for them as well. But he reduced the staff significantly. All I’m saying is that when the Salt Lake Tribune looked at the data that he had said, they had demonstrated that at least in a couple of areas he had over-embellished the numbers and that some of them didn’t actually end up being true.

So I’ll just note here, the move was framed as necessary for survival, but it was painful and controversial. I remember talking about it and reading about it when it happened and it completely reshaped the printed media news arm of the church. Next up here, Gilbert also played a major role in shaping the direction of church education, particularly at BYU-Idaho, as leadership emphasized faith commitment, orthodoxy, faculty alignment with church authority. If you’ll remember this one, we did an episode looking back through time at some things that had gone on through BYU, but what had prompted us, RFM, to do that episode on Mormonism Live was about past instances where people came in and tried to get teachers in line was because this moment was happening.

And what he was doing was he was reaching out to BYU faculty after they had already signed agreements, even those who had tenure, and was trying to get every staff member, every teacher, every employee involved, Every person in the faculty of BYU-Idaho, and I think BYU did some of these same steps as well, by the way, but trying to get them to sort of recommit to a different standard that required more than the old adage of just being temple-worthy, but instead having a temple recommend. And the folks who had tenure were being interacted with on a regular basis. at the church schools in order to commit to things that were above and beyond what their actual prior commitment to their jobs were.

And I don’t have the documents for that anymore, but at the time when we talked about this, we put documents up on the screen to show that you had to go in, you had to sign off saying whether you wanted to agree to the new clause or of standards for faculty and a lot of the folks who had tenure that knew that they were a little more nuanced, a little more um inclusive in the church a little less wanting to sort of proclaim truth claims that had historical issues kept trying to put those off as much as they could and i had a couple of sources at the time in the in the church schools and both of them are no longer uh there because of their own uh accord because of you know coming to an end of their career or whatnot but uh There was a lot going on, and this guy has really been the force behind the brethren trying to get faculty in line over at BYU-Idaho.

It says here, critics argue that under his influence, church education has leaned more heavily into reinforcing traditional belief and loyalty. rather than encouraging open inquiry, critical thinking, sorry, I got that plural there, and free thought. Supporters, on the other hand, see him as someone protecting the spiritual mission of church institutions. But he was also, I mean, he was the commissioner of church education, so he was also for BYU Provo and driving things that were going on there too, right? Yeah, he started off, I think, at BYU-Idaho and then eventually became essentially over all church education at that level, yeah. All right. So I remember I remember I reported on him when that was going on.

And there was also something about where he was making sure that bishops would report back any BYU employee that seemed to have anything, you know, positive affiliation, you know, or helping the LGBTQ community friendly or sympathetic that, you know, that also would somehow go into the report back from bishops. So that’s why I say Elder Umbridge. All right, before this call, Gilbert was serving as the church commissioner of education, overseeing the entire church educational system. He also played a central role in building the BYU pathway worldwide. Now, I remember there being some facet of BYU pathway years ago, but it has gone under sort of adaptations along the way. The current, I think, name for it is BYU Pathway Worldwide, an online education program launched in 2017, designed to reach students globally while offering low-cost educational opportunities.

Prior to that, he served as president of BYU-Idaho, which we mentioned. where he helped expand online learning and reshape the university’s direction. His career clearly shows a pattern of being trusted with major institutional transitions, where he clearly always understood which way he faced. going from the Deseret News to the media arm over the Deseret News as well, going to BYU-Idaho, then going to having involvement with the BYU Pathway Program, and then moving on to Church Commissioner of Education. This guy constantly gets trusted with more responsibility and clearly is the go-to guy when the church is wanting to make shifts. in these various facets of the institution, these various entities, whether it be the education side or the media side. And by the way, those two, in my mind, couldn’t be further from each other, and yet he had his hand in both of those.

It is about the BYU Pathways program. yeah it’s worldwide it is my understanding that anyone who participates in it is required to take an edu excuse me a religion course just as if you were attending byu a religion course per semester and it is growing a lot and my question is simply this i wonder where all those hours of students attending religion courses as a requirement on the worldwide pathways program. I wonder where all those hours get counted. And we’re all the Institute program. That’s what they, they have to sign up for Institute. That’s where the growth goes right there. So, yep. That’s why they’re saying this. That’s why they’re saying they’re seeing this huge growth. Yes. And I’ve heard numerous people point to BYU pathway, that program.

Not really functioning in terms of getting somebody further education where they get some sort of certificate or degree that they can actually use out in the world. And I think there are a lot of people. In fact, I think in his conversation in the interview that not a part we played, but if you want to go find the interview, you can. He mentions that the largest amount of people who are taking those courses are Hispanic students. folks. And even Hispanic folks over in countries you wouldn’t even expect. A lot of Middle Eastern countries, for instance, where they have some collective group of Hispanic folks that make up the population there who are there for one reason or another, they’re not native to the country and they’ll be utilizing the BYU pathway program to further their education.

But the people I’ve talked to said, I’m close to that program that there really isn’t a parallel between taking that program, taking classes in that program and ending up with some sort of usable degree that you can go out and get a job in the world. And I think a lot of people start off taking classes in the BYU Pathway Program, hoping that that’s actually going to help them get some sort of jumpstart on education or some lead into getting a degree of some sort. And I don’t think that’s at all how the program ends up working for people. So there’s no way to get a degree, a diploma, by attending the BYU Pathways Project? It’s a type of diploma. It’s, I don’t know, it’s a big gray area. I’ve seen some people kind of do…

No, seriously, it’s some kind of exposés on it, but it’s certainly not just something where you’re in it and it can transfer credits and everything. It’s a way to kind of just say that you have some kind of college experience, but Bill’s right. It doesn’t necessarily translate into the real world. Yeah, and some of the stuff might count, but there are a lot of things in it that don’t count towards any sort of diploma or certification and not just the religious classes either. And so I think a lot of people start off on that path. hoping that that’s going to lead to some sort of education. And they end up just sort of taking like a bunch of non-credited extracurricular kind of things that don’t really translate into a degree. So anyway, all right. Simply look at the pattern.

Gilbert’s career has been about managing institutions during periods of change. He understands disruption. He understands how organizations lose control. And he understands how to reinforce structure when leaders feel things drifting. Don’t believe for a second that such is an accidental side note. It is exactly what you would want if your goal was to stabilize and preserve a belief system facing internal and external pressure and needing to change and adapt while maintaining some sense of identity and tradition. So my last slide here is it’s hard not to see this calling as intentional positioning for the future. The church has recently brought in leaders like Patrick Kieran, who I mentioned earlier, who many see as more pastoral and more open in tone. Clark Gilbert represents something different. He represents institutional discipline. He represents orthodoxy. He represents structural protection.

And whether one interprets that or As him being called in order to slow progressive momentum or simply balancing it will depend on the person. But one thing is clear. This was not just a spiritual call. It was also an organizational decision about the future direction and stability of the LDS Church. This was no boating accident. By the way, on the BYU Pathway site, it does say they have a number of degrees, associate degrees, the AA degrees to which I referred. And they also have bachelor’s degrees, about seven of them it looks like, having to do with business and family human services, those kinds of things, communication. So that’s what it says on their website.

Yeah, I’d love to see a survey of a thousand random people who took classes on that program and to know how many of them ended up with a diploma that allowed them to use that diploma in order to enter the workforce. My understanding is the certificates or diplomas are issued either through BYU-Idaho or Ensign College. Yeah. Yeah. Well, BYU-Idaho, of course, I’m not very familiar with Enzyme College, but So thoughts from you guys on Clark Gilbert, what else do you have to say about this guy being the newest apostle? Rebecca, you had a lot to say to me earlier on the phone. I have so much to say, and I’ve been posting so much this week that I don’t even know if I have another word to say.

I just, I will say, and I do know that I owe each of you $50 and I will hand that to you at Thrive. But I do say that I think I’ve never been so very surprised by a choice. You know, The recent ones, you’ve got Kieran, you’re like, oh, that’s fun. Fun to listen to his accent. He seems nice, you know. Kaze, oh, you know, he’s kind of exotic. This will be interesting. But this choice, you know, and just the track record of the things that we’ve seen so far. I just feel like, you know, a lot of us think, oh, maybe when Uchtdorf is the prophet, maybe there’ll be some positive changes, you know, that are more inclusive to people in the church.

And then I feel like what President Oaks has done by choosing Gilbert is create this Bednar Gilbert juggernaut. that could and will undo any changes that happen. I know I’m thinking about this very strategically, but do you remember how I put up that list of the typical characteristics of apostles that are called? Remember, they’re all around 63, 64, and they’re all of a certain background. To call someone who is so young, like 10 years younger than who you would typically call and who you have called in the last 10 years, they want him to be the prophet. And he will be the prophet when my grandkids are teenagers. So I got to have a question, okay? Because is not the new apostle chosen by the 12 apostles? I don’t know that for sure, but that’s my sort of my understanding. Supposedly it’s God.

I mean, but of course we’re not speaking in those terms, right? No. And this is why I also wonder a lot of discussion, right? There was a time that went past and you wonder, I thought they were discussing whether or not elder debate would be the one I really thought maybe they would do something amazing in the 21st century. We are in the 21st century, everybody. All the amazing stuff happens, Rebecca, you know, I guess, but no, I, I just, I, There were a lot of other people I thought, okay, if they’re not going to go for Dubay, oh, they’ll put in Matt Holland. That’s the nepotistic choice. And it’ll be cute. Another Holland in there. You know, I was fine with almost anyone else.

But this scenario, and I think it’s because he went after BYU, right? which is where I spent a large portion of my life. I went to school there, I worked there for a decade and a half. I know the professors, I know the teachers, or I knew the kinds of people that were there. The things that he did, I made that meme, I don’t know if you guys saw it, about the Harry Potter theme. He sorted faculty members into four categories. You know, let me see. I think I have it here. I can read it because this to me just says only a certain kind of person would do this is what I’m trying to say. So he, you know, and this was published. He published this was in the Tribune, the faithful core.

They teach with the Holy Spirit and weave in church tenants as they understand them. Right. So he’s trying to sort the BYU faculty and staff into people so he can decide what to do with them. The faithful core. That’s the core. It is the supportive center. They support the church but are not as enthusiastic as church leaders think they ought to be. And again, who is anyone to judge this of a person? It can only be judged on what they’re doing externally. That’s Ravenclaw. That second one is Ravenclaw. I think so, too. The next one is the secular first, right? We’re gradually going downhill. They put truth, in quotes, from any source. That’s what Joseph Smith said you had to do, otherwise you wouldn’t come out a true Mormon. He said we have to accept truth, let it come from whatever source it may. Exactly.

Did I quote Joseph Smith to you, Apostle Gilbert? This is what I’m saying. They put that on equal footing with the Latter-day Saint gospel. Okay. That’s helpful. And this last one, my friends and I have actually designed t-shirts. We’ve been posting them online. We have, this is open foes. OK, again, I’m asking you what kind of a person makes this list about people? It’s just it’s shocking to me. An open foe is they write an article or take a public position contrary to that of the church. So does that mean you’re attending your niece’s same sex wedding? Is that taking a position? You know, I don’t know what these things mean, but to sort somebody into these categories. And then the article goes on to say. And this was in the Tribune.

When presenting this to a Salt Lake City dinner group of prominent Latter-day Saints, Gilbert said that the faith’s governing first presidency will not stand for contrary opinion by the professors at BYU, according to several attendees, and that he said he will find a way to get them out. So now I know this is BYU and that’s a different scenario. It’s a private school. They can expect people, you know, to uphold their values and their mission statement. But I just just question what kind of a person divides people up like that. Others, people. And that’s what’s going to be the environment for members. That’s, I think, why I have a problem with this. Well, like I say, open foe, insert foot. But no, we have really cute t-shirts. Open faux. And one of my friends has a husband that’s more nuanced.

And he said, well, I want to be secular first. So it’s Martine’s husband. So he designed a t-shirt that says secular first. Nobody cares about the middle two. They only care about Gryffindor and Slytherin. Yeah, exactly. And again, it’s just, you know, you can use humor to kind of make a point, drive it. Yes, there we go. There we go. But, and I do again, understand it is BYU and they have the right to expect certain things, but I just question who sorts people into these groups and what is the criteria? I teach with the Holy Spirit and we’ve in church tenants as I understand them. I think I’m in the faithful core. Look at all of the, again, the last one, open foes. They write an article or take a public position contrary to that of the church.

In other words, we want zero disagreement. We want you to toe the line. Obedience is the first principle of the gospel. They have created, again, he’s done it. He’s created a way to divide people up so that the bad guys are anybody who criticizes the church at any degree. And you’re right. That’s the thing. He’s the one who’s labeling anybody who writes an article or takes a public position contrary to that of the church isn’t just somebody with a different opinion. They’re an enemy. Well, and didn’t we also sort of hear that from President Oaks at his devotional where he said several times, don’t talk to, you know, or be careful who you associate with. Only speak with those that are faithful, that have the faithful mindset. So I just see this, you know, I was already rattled by Oaks’ talk.

As you know, we did an episode on that that you’ll probably talk about later. But then the calling of Gilbert, I’m like, oh, my goodness, I feel like we’re just going in this direction, you know, and there’s a lot of members of the church that are very nuanced, have very different views, have different kinds of family members, different experiences, situations. And some of them may be considered open foes. Do you know what I mean? Even though they consider themselves an active, faithful member of the LDS church. It doesn’t matter how they consider themselves that I can assure you. Yeah. Okay, well, thank you so much for that story, Bill. Going on to Parker Kingston, who I understand was up until recently a football player with BYU. Let me see here. I can’t progress that. Are you able to, Bill? Oh, I can’t either. Interesting.

We didn’t check that. Oh, wait. No, it’s okay. I think I got it now. Thank you, Bill. BYU standout receiver Parker Kingston charged with first-degree rape in Utah. We’ll cover two stories on that. First one from February 11th, Associated Press, Audrey McEvoy. Prosecutors in Utah have filed a first-degree felony rape charge against Brigham Young University standout wide receiver Parker Kingston. Officials said Wednesday. Kingston, 21, is being held without bail in St. George, a city near Arizona, as of February 11th. Washington County prosecutors said his initial appearance in court is scheduled for Friday, that’s last Friday, and bail was then set at $100,000 at that Friday hearing. The investigation began last February, that’s 2025, prosecutors said in a news release. A woman who was 20 years old at the time told officers at a St.

George hospital that Kingston assaulted her on February 23rd, 2025, prosecutors said. And interesting that a little fact is left out of that, which we’ll get to in the probable cause affidavit. Police gathered digital and forensic evidence and interviewed the parties involved and other witnesses. Prosecutors said, BYU said in a statement that it takes any allegation very seriously and will cooperate with law enforcement. It said it would not be able to comment further due to federal and university privacy laws and practices for students. Now, February 13th, as of last Friday, update BYU says star wide receiver charged with felony rape is no longer a student there, off the team, off the campus.

Salt Lake City, Brigham Young University said Friday that standout wide receiver Parker Kingston is no longer a student at the Utah private school after he was arrested this week on a first degree felony rape charge. Kingston, 21, made his initial court appearance Friday in St. George, where prosecutors say a woman who was 20 years old at the time told officers that Kingston assaulted her at her home last February. He was arrested following a year-long investigation in which detectives collected digital and forensic evidence and interviewed witnesses, Washington County Attorney Jerry Yeager said. And it took him 12 months to do it. I found by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Kingston was a danger to the community.

Judge John Walton said during the hearing middle name, possibly boy still Walton allowed Kingston to be released Friday on a $100,000 bond with 10,000 cash immediately paid to the court after he was held initially without bail. His defense attorney, Cara Tangaro, who we’ve met before on the newscast, agreed that Kingston could have no contact with his accuser or any potential witnesses, must stay off social media, and would wear a GPS ankle monitor to ensure he doesn’t return to the southwestern Utah County, except for court appearances. He appeared before the judge by remote video link from jail Friday. If convicted, he could serve five years to life in prison. BYU spokesperson John McBride said the administration and coaches were only made aware of the investigation and the allegations against Kingston after his arrest this week.

What he’s saying is we didn’t know about this during the entire past year. For some reason, he thinks people might think he did. He declined to answer whether Kingston was kicked out or left the school voluntarily. Tangaro, that’s the defense attorney, Tangaro told Associated Press on Friday night that she had not yet talked to BYU and could not comment about the case per a court order. You know, you got crazy judges down there in Utah, I got to tell you, Bill. What are these gag orders they hand out like candy? I’m sorry, what? Oh, I was just going to ask you one question that I had asked you before. And with Jake Reslaf, he was allowed to just be suspended and sort of continue playing. And I guess, is it the difference between civil and criminal charges? Is that what it is?

Because that was confusing to me at first. A criminal case was filed against him. No criminal charges were filed against Jake, to my understanding. There’s no civil case that’s been filed against this fellow, to my knowledge. But this is criminal. felony criminal rape charges, he got arrested on. And so they said, you’re done. And I do expect that’s the difference between the two. Kingston told St. George police that all sexual activity with the woman accusing him of rape was consensual. According to an affidavit unsealed Thursday, the woman told investigators she had made clear to Kingston before he came to her house that she did not want to have sex with him. and she told him to stop several times when he initiated sex, the affidavit said.

BYU, the flagship university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon Church, has a strict honor code for students that prohibits all sexual relations outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Those who violate it can face suspension and for athletes many weeks riding the bench. Kingston was BYU’s leading receiver last season, a fact I did not know, but you probably did, Bill. He is expected to make his next court appearance February 25th. Okay, now, if you have any comments, that’s fine. Bill, did you have something to say? I don’t follow BYU football. I don’t really. Okay. Did you know that, Rebecca? Yeah, I mean, I knew that he was a wide receiver and, you know, because I follow it just when I report on the chant. Right. Which happens all the time. So. Oh, right.

Yeah, exactly. So I just feel like it’s deja vu. We just barely were covering Jake Retzlaff, you know, and all these same kind of details. And ironically, the defense consensual is what then means you have to be disciplined or leave the university. Yes. Yes. And that’s a very common defense in cases like this, obviously. Yeah. So here is the affidavit of probable cause for arrest, which was shipped to me by an attorney friend in Salt Lake City. It’s the 5th District Court. This is two pages, by the way. It’s not very, very long. State of Utah versus Parker Trent, Kingston. And there is the case number. I, Cody Layton, that would be the officer, being of lawful age and being first duly sworn upon oath to pose in state as follows. One, I am employed as a detective for the St. George Police Department.

On February 27th, mark the date, 2025, that’s last year, a 20-year-old female, A.M., they give the initials, made contact with officers at St. George Regional Hospital to report a sexual assault. On June 3rd, 2025, which I think is a little over three months later, March, April, May, yeah, it’s a little over three months later, A.M. met the alleged victim, met with a forensic interviewer at the Washington County Attorney’s Office. A.M. disclosed that during their online communication, She told Kingston multiple times that she did not want to have sex with him, and if that was the reason he wanted to meet up, he should not come. A.M. disclosed that she set clear boundaries with Kingston prior to their meetings. 4. I’m just going to say the alleged victim. This a.m. sounds like, you know, 12 a.m. or something.

The alleged victim disclosed that Kingston arrived at her residence in the early morning hours of February 23rd, 2025. And they watched a movie together. So basically they’re saying the alleged victim and they watched the movie. I’m not sure this is written correctly, but they watched the movie together. I think that’s the two of them, the alleged victim and Kingston. While watching the movie, they began to engage in some sexual activity. However, that did not include intercourse. After the sexual activity ended, The alleged victim disclosed that Kingston started to fall asleep. So she left the room to get ready for bed. When she returned approximately 15 minutes later, Kingston initiated sexual activity again. The alleged victim stated that she told Kingston to stop several times and tried to push him off of her.

The alleged victim disclosed that Kingston then spread her legs apart and penetrated her vagina with his penis without her consent and raped her. I apologize for the graphic language. They’re obviously saying what it is that needs to be to match the statutory definition of rape. In an interview with the defendant, he claims, so that’s Kingston, they interviewed him. He claims all sexual activity with the alleged victim was consensual. Based on communications obtained from Kingston’s cell phone after the incident, It can be inferred that he went to her apartment with the intention of having sexual intercourse. Oh, it can be inferred, can it? Well, what the hell do they say? That would be an interesting fact to know, other than your inference. Don’t you think that that’s other conversations? In other words, she’s clearly laid out no.

If it’s the conversations with her that he intends to have sex, then she knows on the front end what it is that he’s saying. that sort of muddies things. But if they, that’s what I mean. If they have his phone, it’s almost certain that it’s other conversations where he’s like, you know, essentially something along the lines of, I know what she’s saying, but watch this. I’m going to go there and I’m going to have sex in some way, shape or form. Well, I have no idea because we don’t know what they are, just what can be inferred from them, by the way, just okay. With affidavits, a probable cause you’re supposed to have facts. Anything that’s not a fact should not be taken into consideration by any judge.

And if there’s enough stuff in there that’s not facts to establish probable cause, it can be challenged effectively in court, and I’ve done it. So the first sentence of paragraph 7 is a fact. It’s factual in nature, right? In an interview with the defendant, he claims all sexual activity with alleged victim was consensual. But now… We get into the land of no fact. The second sentence is not a fact. Based on communication obtained from Kingston’s cell phone after the incident, it can be inferred. Come on, guys. You can do better than this. Okay. Can I ask a question about the time frame here? I would have lined that out and initialed it. When, if you go back, it said that he arrived in the early morning. Remember that? And then they watch a movie. Yeah, it says, where is it?

Early morning hours of 2, 23, 25. At her house, after the parents are asleep or something. Look at when she got ready for bed. Was he there 12 hours? Was he there 14 hours? No, no, no. No, it’s the same thing. after it’s the same night surely yeah but i mean i’m saying he must have been there all day i don’t think so i think he came there after midnight and left before dawn oh i see not early morning like 6 a.m and then okay i think this is after midnight like two maybe early morning hours Yeah, that’s usually what it means. Early morning is before the sun is out. So she stayed up for him, and they were going to meet, and then she’s going to go to bed like at 7 a.m. or something like that. Okay. That just seems strange to me.

It seems like, was he there all day? Because that’s a whole different scenario, too, if they spent all that time together. That is not my impression. Was that your impression, Bill? No, that he showed up after midnight and left in the morning sometime before, you know, when the sun comes up or whatever. Yeah. Probably. In the early morning hours. Okay. Yeah. In the early morning rain. Okay, so had we gotten past this? Oh, yeah, seven, right? I had my little rant there. Then Cody Layton, detective, says, I believe it is necessary to issue a warrant in this matter so that the defendant may be located and be brought to face the charges in this case. He swears to the truth of it on the 10th of February, 2026. And so he prints this all up. He takes it to the judge.

The judge has to review it and sign off on it, and then it becomes a warrant. The judge has to find probable cause. Based on the facts in the case or in the warrant, I should say. Okay. So some people have wondered why it took a year. Now, obviously, it took three months, just over three months for the police to even interview this person. And I don’t know why that is. There’s a reason. And I don’t know why. It may be completely innocent or it may be suggestive of other possibilities. I don’t know. But then. It took a long time. This thing’s been sitting around the St. George. Is it Washington County down there, Bill? It is. Yeah, it’s this county of Washington right there. I’m in the state of Washington.

But the county of Washington, yeah, it was sitting around in that county of Washington, Washington County Prosecutor’s Office for a long time. And I think there’s a reason for that. Okay, so did you have anything else you guys wanted to say about it? Yeah, can I address in the comments they’re asking, is he a member? He is a member. In fact, there was a big article in the Deseret News talking about how he went to the temple this same year of 2025. He was impressed with seeing his brother go through the temple to go on a mission. Didn’t mention anything about him going on a mission. But he did want to go through the temple and he did. And it was amazing.

And I saw an interview where he was talking about he didn’t go on a mission because he prayed about it and God told him he needed him to play football instead. Yeah, well, that could be it. But the timeframe is interesting because this incident is at the end of February. So either he went to the temple in those weeks in 2025 before February or the incident allegedly happened. And then he went to the temple after that and also got engaged during that time period because we saw the exciting announcement on the Jumbotron just last week with his fiance holding up her ring. So it was a big year for, there for Parker 2025. And he just seemed to be continuing to live his life, going to the temple, dating, getting engaged, you know. But again, he probably, do you think he had any knowledge?

Would a person have any knowledge if they were being investigated like this? She goes to the doctor several days later. It’s not till four months later that a prosecutor gets involved and starts looking for evidence. Would a person just be able to live their life not knowing that this was all going on? Yes. Okay. Unless there was some reason that they were contacted about it. And apparently he was not until they decided to put the habeas gravis on him and then interview him for the first time. Right. But no, there’s a number of interesting aspects to this. First off, it’s only from the affidavit of probable cause that I was able to see that she doesn’t go to the hospital for, I think, four days. And the first time police meet her is at the hospital, which suggests she did not call the police.

But you went to the hospital for some reason and then reported what happened maybe to medical staff who then called the police. I’m not exactly sure. OK, but that’s usually the way these things go when police meet somebody at the hospital. OK, so I don’t know, but I’ll guarantee you that that defense attorney is very interested in what transpired during those four days. Okay, so that’s that story. Are there any other questions in the comments section. See, Rebecca, I don’t have it on. Where do we know the defense attorney from? Prior stories where she’s represented other people. She may have represented Jake. Okay. Yeah. Because her name does sound familiar. I didn’t know if there was a certain story that you were referring to or just that she’s a well-known defense attorney in the area. Yeah. That’s all I meant. Okay. Interesting. All right.

Did you want to say anything more about this bill? Anything I do would be inferring, so I don’t have anything else to say. Okay, very good. Hey, Rebecca, I see your name is up here. I know. I don’t know why my name is there. We try to keep track. Oh, I remember this picture. It’s my favorite picture of Joseph Smith. Isn’t that nice? I’ve been reporting on this. This is my third week in a row, but something new happens every week. If you remember two weeks ago, I reported that this painting was going to be unveiled and hung in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Gallery. And then last week I reported on the actual unveiling of the painting. And this is when the dean, Dean Carter, made the statement. Do you remember what the statement is? What was it?

Well, I hope you remember it. I do. Lincoln before Lincoln. Joseph Smith was Lincoln before Lincoln. I thought you meant a subsequent statement about how we can’t get any money from supporters anymore. no, that comes up later. No, he made this statement that caught everybody’s attention that Joseph Smith is Lincoln before Lincoln for his views on, you know, enslaved people and racial equality. You know, and a lot of us were sort of scratching our head. A lot of us that know a little bit more about maybe those points of view. So the one question that I got asked after our story last week, people ask in the comments, people messaged me personally. And the question was, Does Morehouse know, right?

Do the students or the faculty or the staff, did they know some of the details of Joseph Smith that may not quite exactly align with calling him Lincoln before Lincoln? Does Morehouse know? I woke up the next morning after that to assurances that Morehouse does know. These were the headlines. There was an article in their in-house student paper. The Morehouse Chapel unveils portrait of Joseph Smith sparks student outrage. OK, this is their local paper there at the university. And even the Tribune picked it up. We were bamboozled. Students at Black College question why it honored LDS founder Joseph Smith. So very interesting. The students have gotten ahold of this and they are going to raise some questions. On the left there, you see a wall there in the gallery. It has over 300 or 300-ish paintings of all kinds of different people.

And you see right now, President Nelson has the coveted spot right next to Abraham Lincoln. Because in 2023, he was awarded with the Gandhi King Mandela Peace Prize. He’s on Anas Abe’s right hand. Yeah, exactly. Right there. And they are going to move President Nelson over and put Joseph Smith right next to President Lincoln. This is where he’s going to be situated in the gallery. So a little bit about Morehouse College, because I think this matters. None of us had ever heard of Morehouse College in Alabama before. Until 2023, when President Nelson got that award and it was all over church news. They were so excited. Pictures everywhere. It’s a prestigious, private, historically black liberal arts institution for men. It is all men. Isn’t that interesting? Located in Atlanta, Georgia, founded in 1867.

And it just says its mission is focused on developing disciplined minds, leadership service, particularly for black men, all kinds of majors, academic, business, everything. Anyways, it’s kind of one of these top notch. The students there are just fantastic. They are sharp. They are involved. They are articulate and they are concerned. You can freeze on this if you want to learn more about Morehouse. Take that picture down. And they’re saying, take that picture down. Well, and the picture has not been hung up yet. There was an unveiling, and then it’s put somewhere as they prepare a place. Because you can see that wall, it’s packed. They’re going to have to shift some people around. And as I understand it, it will be Nelson, Joseph Smith, Lincoln, in that order. Like the first presidency in heaven. Like the first presidency, exactly.

So I’m just going to read a little bit out of the article here. Let’s see if I can see it better here. It says the Martin Luther King International Chapel sparked campus outrage after unveiled a portrait of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism in its Hall of Honor. Students say the chapel administrators made the decision without meaningful student input and ignored how the honor conflicts with Morehouse’s college legacy. So this is important to note. They’re not really criticizing anybody on either side. The university who said, yes, let’s have this portrait or the church that says, you know, this is our founder. But they’re just saying there it does not match the legacy. You know, the mission of Morehouse does not match this portrait and some of the things that it represents. So so the chapel unveiled the portrait. We already talked about that.

Two days later, chapel assistants. Now, these are students that work in the chapel. They’re in charge of setting up for events, hanging the paintings, you know, just taking care of everything that happens there in the chapel. So chapel assistants began drafting a formal letter of dissent. Does Morehouse know? Yes, it does. Over the following week, tensions escalated between students and chapel leadership over representation, governance, and the symbolism of the Hall of Honor. So they are talking, you know, to the administrators, people that are in charge and saying this just doesn’t quite fit. And they actually publish a letter, you know, on the chapel page there. So this is a picture of Dean Carter. He is the one that interacts with the church quite a bit. Dean Carter’s justification for the painting. He is the dean of the Martin Luther King Jr.

International Chapel. and he has publicly praised Smith. In a published article, Carter referred to Smith as Lincoln before Lincoln. This is the statement that everybody said, okay, kind of ignited everything. In an exclusive interview with the Maroon Tiger, this is their campus newspaper, Carter defended the decision. He describes Smith’s abolitionist stance as courageous and historically significant. And so that is his point of view on where Joseph Smith stood. I personally have a different point of view. I did do a podcast last week about that, if any of you caught that. But this is a reason because of this belief that Dean Carter has put this painting in his gallery. Smith wanted to free the enslaved Africans and he wanted to have the federal government pay reparations to slave owners, Carter said. If elected, there would have been no civil war.

Now, that’s a pretty bold claim. And I’ve read over many of Joseph Smith’s statements, and it seems to me that he was saying he trusted the Southerners. He thought they were God-fearing people. If they ever did decide to end the practice of enslaved people, he would say that the government did exactly that. You know, paid them back and, you know, sent the people where they needed to go. You know, I’m not an expert in the Civil War, but I don’t think it was slavery that caused the Southern states to be in a state of open rebellion against the federal government. There were a lot of different things going on. They already had the Missouri Compromise in place. Exactly. Exactly. In 1820. Yeah. And as Bill has said over and over, Joseph Smith running for president. What did you say, Bill, before?

It’s like, you know, there’s a list of 17 guys and it’s a guy way down on the end who has this platform. He was never going to be president. This is not a legitimate presidential run or anything. So Carter also cited financial constraints. as a factor for the decision. Donors are hard to find who are willing to pay for oil portraits of people they don’t know, Carter said. I haven’t been able to find money for almost everybody you can name in Black history. So it seems like the fact that the church was able to provide a portrait, as we saw in the last slide, is a factor into whether, you know, how it ended up in this gallery. Because I think everybody’s kind of asking. Well, I hope they provided more than just the portraits. Yeah. Well, you know, like an endowment of some sort.

Can I just say here, there’s a slim to none chance that Morehouse said out loud first, we’re thinking about putting a picture of president Nelson in our place. We’re thinking about putting a picture of Joseph Smith in our place. Almost certainly that sentence says someone came to them and said, we will give you $20 million to, Only if, though, you put a picture of Joseph Smith on this wall. And the moment the price is so high that you need that and you don’t want to deny it, you’re going to come up with some reason why that person is in line with your mission, just as they did with President Nelson a few years ago, who I can’t for the life of me. figure out how he won an award for the first year that an award was given out because that award had never been given out before.

He’s the guy. That only makes sense if the church or a significant donor who’s a member went to Morehouse College and offered the money first with the caveat that the painting goes in second. Yeah, I think there is a lot of confusion on that. And hopefully we can cut through some of that in the coming days. But you do, and we’ve reported on this, the church has been trying to make strides reaching out to the NAACP, giving large donations, providing scholarships, having photo opportunities. The gospel choir that I used to sing in went and sang at a big event in Santa Fe with the NAACP. There’s a lot of press on that. you know, these relationships, bridge building, mending fences, not apologies, but, you know, these opportunities to look like, you know, there’s sort of a relationship happening there.

In fact, there were just two articles yesterday about the NAACP, like in the Tribune and the church news. I was like, wow, they are really, they’re really pushing this. So Student dissent and alleged retaliation. Here’s where it gets interesting, right? So you have these students that are part of the chapel assistant program. They see something they can’t understand. They write a letter. What happens next? So on Wednesday, February 4th, Jr. Alonzo Brinson, the 40th president of the chapel assistants and Jr., Damarian King, vice president of the same group, released a letter condemning the decision to honor Smith. The letter questioned whether the induction aligned with Morehouse’s mission and institutional values. Students involved say that the chapel administration dismissed their concerns and in some cases responded with disciplinary actions.

On February 5th, King, that’s one of the students, advanced to the finals of the Otis Moss oratorical contest. So he’s in a contest where he has to give an oration. During his speech, King publicly criticized the college’s decision. So here is what this student said as part of his oratory in a competition. And as I understand it, it was over 500 students there listening to this. He said, how are we falling asleep while a racist, unethical, miseducated, dead white man is honored with a portrait in this sacred space? King said, while hardworking, black, powerful, educated men and women are overlooked. Morehouse, how are we falling asleep? So that’s pretty powerful right there. $20 million, whatever the price is. You can buy anything in this world with money. And Morehouse College has a price.

And if you meet that price, you can have your, you know, L. Ron Hubbard can be put up on the wall of fame there. It can happen. It just takes the right amount of money to get it done. I love it when you quote the Temple Endowment authoritatively, Bill. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. OK, so but it didn’t end there because and I’ll kind of paraphrase here for the sake of time. But the same student was going to give a special address at a special gala event. He had been chosen months before and he was going to deliver the address. I bet people were unpleased when he gave this as part of his speech. Yes. The students allege that then he was a phone call. You know, somebody called him and said, you are disqualified for doing that. You are no longer going to do that.

Says your decision to do the Instagram post as well as what you said during the oratorical contest has become a negative for having you stand before people at the gala, they allege. So then it goes on and on. Let’s see. Any disciplinary action against the students? No, there hasn’t been anything that’s, you know, official yet because it’s kind of still an ongoing situation. So one thing that the students brought up is what they’re calling. Let’s see. Did I go there? I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, Rebecca. I’m laughing at the comments Bill’s putting up. Oh, are you laughing at it? Okay. I can’t read. I always read the comments, but when I’m reading my own story, I have trouble like going back and forth or my eyes would be like crossing. So reading the live chat. Exactly.

So this is one thing they brought up disparities during the unveiling. During the service, the chapel unveiled the portraits of two people, Joseph Smith Jr. and Dr. Harold Bennett, chair of philosophy and religion department at Morehouse College. And I believe he’s an award-winning professor. I think he got the 2025 professor. Anyway, he’s a very well-known, well-liked, important, award-winning professor there. The students pointed to a stark difference in how long both Bennett and Smith were honored. Any guesses to which of the two paintings had a longer oratory or who were honored longer? Any guesses? Well, I read the article. Oh, well, there you go. There you go. Yes, it’s true. The other gentleman was on her for about four minutes. And for Joseph Smith, it went on about 15 minutes, as I understand.

So the students right there said this decision diminished the work of collegiate ministry and disregarded the legacy of Morehouse College. Well, it took longer to clean them up. Yeah, I don’t know. So let’s see. I’m just going to try to paraphrase here. Anyway, basically the point, as you can guess from this whole article, is just that they’re concerned, they’re confused. Let’s get to this. And I, of course, had to put a picture of my goodness. We all know that scenario. So I’ll just read this last page here. Students argued that the controversy extends beyond one historical figure. Yes. They say the Hall of Honor sends a message about whose legacies the chapel elevates and who holds power in one of the most sacred spaces on campus.

The students continue to call for transparency, meaningful student involvement in chapel governance, and reevaluation of how leaders select the honorees. At the center of the debate stands not only a portrait on the wall, but a broader question about power, representation, and whose values the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel ultimately reflects. So it’s really not over. They are still meeting. with campus officials and right now the portrait is just kind of there safely on campus but it has not been hung up yet so i kind of feel like this and this might get a little bigger i mean it is an interesting headline if you think about it and i was going to say what happens i mean if they if they paid money if they paid good money to have it hung there then either they’re going to hang it there they’re going to return the money Well, and I remember, do you remember the Indigenous Peoples Museum where the church gave a $2 million donation?

In Oklahoma? In Oklahoma. It was all over the church news. And then the museum said, we do not want your money. And they very quietly gave it back. And I did a lot of investigative work on that. You know, it was very hard to find information. But that’s still listed out there as PR that they did give the $2 million. This would be very problematic to try to take down, give back, not hang up. I mean, this could run into some issues. But I just want to remind everybody that we did do an episode on Mormonish. It’s very short. It’s only an hour, and it goes through everything Joseph Smith said about this topic. So anyway, any thoughts on Morehouse and the students? This is the latest development in the saga. The students are kind of raising the alarm about this.

I think I made mine along the way. What do you think, Bill? I think so, too. I wonder how desperate Morehouse College has to be to put two men on the wall who clearly contributed to systemic racism and Mormonism. nelson on the back end by never being willing to acknowledge all of the past and wanting to just sweep it under the rug and joseph smith for at least if you believe brigham young saying that he got those ideas from joseph smith i don’t believe brigham young well i’d like to hear that yeah yeah Okay, so let’s go to the next story. Thank you for that, Rebecca. Oh, this is a horrible story. This is a horrible story, and I’m not going to tell you all of it, but what I’ll tell you will be too much anyway.

This comes from February 13th, last Friday, from 12 News, Joe Dana. An Arizona family sent their grandfather to jail. They worry about other sex crime victims of their grandfather. Yeah. Jeffrey Butler Rock. This guy’s name is Jeffrey Butler Rock. He pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a child in 2025. He’s 70 years old. We see that a lot. LDS Church volunteer in Corona, California, Taipei, Taiwan, Suva, Fiji, Jakarta, Indonesia, Bangkok, Thailand, and Provo, Utah. He’s been around the world because he works for the government. I think he’s either an ambassador or works with an ambassador’s office. Dateline Peoria, Arizona. A former lay minister and youth leader for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was sentenced to 18 months in Utah County Jail for sexual battery earlier this month. The sexual battery, of course, was much longer ago.

It was the sentencing that was earlier this month. Family members of 70-year-old Jeffrey Butler Rock worry there are other victims. Rock was a U.S. State Department official. and held leadership roles in LDS congregations around the world. That’s why all those far-flung locations were listed. In June 2024, Utah prosecutors charged Rock with aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony. The victim is Rock’s now-adult granddaughter, who lives in Arizona. She accused Rock of molesting her when she was between five and eight years old. Rock pleaded guilty to three lesser charges of sexual battery in December and was sentenced on February 2nd. During sentencing, Utah District Court Judge Denise Porter said Rock had, quote, blamed everyone but himself, unquote, for his criminal conviction before Rock was led away in handcuffs.

Since the 1980s, Rock held positions of trust as a Boy Scout leader, and local lay minister in LDS congregations in Utah, California, and many foreign countries. Rock also carried credibility because he was a high-level official with the U.S. State Department. Did you know this was a new slogan, I think, for the Boy Scouts, Bill? Never heard of it. No. Neither did I. Scout me in. I’m thinking they might want to rethink that one. His behavior was always very conducive to grooming behavior, and he consistently put himself in positions to be around children, said Paul Rene Pipley of Peoria, Arizona, who was raised by Rock, so one of his daughters, and is one of the four other alleged victims. Okay, so not the one for which he went to jail. We are worried there are others.

We are worried there are others, especially because of the positions of influence he held in the LDS church. The Salt Lake City-based LDS Church did not confirm leadership positions Rock has held. They were presented with them, and they failed to confirm them. They refused to. However, a spokesperson confirmed the church placed restrictions on Rock’s membership in 2023. So we won’t tell you the leadership positions he’s had, but we’ll tell you that we did a good thing and placed restrictions on him, on his membership in 2023, three years ago. A total of five relatives of Rock have publicly accused him of sexual abuse in police reports, written statements to the LDS Church, and a 2017 social media post. A second grandchild filed a police report in Surprise, Arizona in 2023, alleging molestation dating back several years. That investigation has not resulted in charges.

In 2017, an adult stepson of Rock, Patrick Rock, alleged in a Facebook post that he grew up in terror and wanted to alert others. He described Rock as a gregarious pillar of the community, but a violent sexual predator to his family members. So one face to the outside community, a completely different face when he’s at home. We lived in many countries abroad. We were isolated. He was a diplomat. His immunity protected him from local authorities. Remember, he’s got diplomatic immunity. He’s not subject to the laws of the land in which he is stationed. Patrick Rock wrote, Myself, my mom, and my sister reached out to the LDS church for help. He lied to them. They protected him with misguided mercy. Misguided mercy, he says.

Rock was part of LDS congregations in Corona, California, Provo, Utah, Virginia, Taipei, Taiwan, Suva, Fiji, Jakarta, Indonesia, Bangkok, Thailand, and Beijing, China as well. Over four decades, he held volunteer positions including branch president, high councilman, youth leader, which is going to be a young men’s leader, right, Bill? Boy scout leader and primary counselor. say family members now estranged from rock now estranged from him as recently as 2022 the lds church appointed rock to be a bishop’s counselor in bangkok thailand and i think that’s an important fact in this story according to shipley at least rock was also on a church public affairs committee see these are the callings that the church did not want to confirm that they were obviously presented with right So Rock was also on a church public affairs committee in Bangkok during the construction and dedication of the temple.

There’s that temple in Bangkok. Ripley’s description of being raised by Rock as her stepdaughter. I wonder if that’s supposed to be his stepdaughter. Is dark. She alleges Rock used a hidden camera, phone surveillance, drugs, and physical abuse. to stalk her and abuse her. Shipley alleges she was sexually assaulted by Rock beginning around age five until she left her Thailand home in 1995 to attend college at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. When I was a girl, she said, when I was a girl, he would use cold medicine to make me drowsy. We decided grape was the easiest flavor for me to take. I would wake up while he was abusing me. He ended up using stronger prescription drugs when I got older. A lot of the abuse did not involve drugs.

Shipley said the stepdaughter said that she and her mom reported Rock to local church leaders and Rock was disciplined. This fellowship in Thailand for two years. However, the abuse did not stop, she said. Over and over, we were told to support him and help him with his repentance process. But we were never offered help, Shipley said. Shipley said as an adult, she communicated again to the church about Rock’s abusive history. While receiving therapy from LDS Family Services in Arizona in 2011, She requested the church place a red flag on Rock’s church records globally. Rock was living in Provo at the time and would soon move out of the country again. At the time, the family still had contact with Rock.

Shipley, once again the stepdaughter, said LDS services told her a Utah law firm, can you guess which one, acting on behalf of the church said, Requested, she provide dates and locations of the alleged abuse and no other details. Now to the extent that this is remembered accurately, that strikes me as an attempt to decide whether statutes of limitations have run. Can I add something? Yeah, please do. Go ahead. Just those dates. I hadn’t gone through this. I, of course, always check to see if anybody had any callings or what they’re doing. And he was a second counselor in the Thailand in a bishopric there in 2023. So that confirms what Shipley said about it. Yeah. Thank you for that, Rebecca. Yeah. You are a gem.

This is continuing to quote, I provided it all and two weeks later my therapist with tears in his eyes said that he was told to tell me word for word that I am to no longer concern myself. with the membership of Jeff Rock in the church, and I need to focus on my own healing, and I must still have healing that needs to take place, or I would not have found myself in their counseling services, she said. It felt like they were saying, mind your own business. Two years later, Rock told family members in a September 2013 email he had been appointed to a stake leadership position in the High Council in Bangkok, assisting other late leaders who oversaw youth in primary programs, according to Shipley. You know, this late leader stuff.

I just don’t know if that. communicates to people how high up these like stake presidents are in the church lay leader sounds so low on the totem pole but yeah stake presidents and i think i somebody said even the the level above them are not paid and so therefore are technically defined as lay leaders So he was apparently in a high council in Bangkok, assisting other high councilmen and the state presidency. I’ll put it in Mormon terms. Okay. Who oversaw youth and primary programs. Wonder what he was over as that particular high councilman. According to Shipley, we have worried the church did not put guardrails in place to protect others from him.

Shipley said in November, 2023, Shipley traveled to Salt Lake to personally deliver, personally deliver, a written dossier of allegations against Rock to the LDS Church’s top 15 leaders in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time, Rock was living in Thailand. The packet of information contained claims of sexual abuse by Shipley, the stepdaughter, Rock’s stepson and Rock’s niece, Cammie Malden. It also contained a letter written by Rock’s ex-wife, who lived with Rock for nearly two decades, alleging severe sexual and physical abuse by Rock against her. Now, this is the ex-wife speaking, whose name is Jessica Chantowichian, is my best guess at that. She says this, the ex-wife, Jeff has spent a lot of money to lure vulnerable women with children, okay, to lure vulnerable women with children to get close to him.

I have spread the words of warning to some of my friends about Jeff’s being a child molester and to stay away from him.” Chantawitchie and the ex-wife and relatives of Rock asked the church to ensure Rock was not in a position of authority. They also requested policy changes to prevent the likelihood of church volunteers being alone with children in the future. Church volunteers, I mean, we’re talking about bishops, we’re talking about members of the high council, we’re talking about state presidencies. This church volunteers is not communicating it adequately, I think. The family’s concerns reflected a larger debate. The church relies exclusively on local worshipers to voluntarily fill leadership positions. The organizational model has come under criticism over the past decade, particularly as it relates to men in leadership positions who often hold one-on-one worthiness interviews with children and teens.

During the same month, Shipley, stepdaughter, submitted complaints to LDS Church headquarters. That same month, a stake representative of the church, just a stake representative, not even higher than that, contacted Shipley to tell her Rock had been released from his position of counselor in Bangna, Thailand, Shipley said. So apparently they called from Thailand and let her know. Shipley said she could not believe he would be allowed to have such a position. Wheeler of the LDS Church. This is a spokesperson. In 2023, the church received letters regarding this individual and encouraged, that must be when she came there personally to deliver him. The church received letters regarding this individual and encouraged family members and others to report concerns and cooperate with the criminal investigation. The church placed restrictions on this individual and does not allow him to participate in any activities or meetings involving youth or children.

So I have a symbol there of a church with a circle and a line through it. That’s not quite the restriction because he can still go to church. Those restrictions still allow him to go to church. But they placed restrictions according to them saying that Rock cannot participate in any activities or meetings involving youth or children. And that’s the end of that story. Your thoughts, how about you? Bill, what do you think of this? The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a hard time have a hard time with preventing child abuse as well. They have a two-witness rule, for instance. And so if somebody’s dragged into some sort of disciplinary action, if there’s one victim who says something, it’s not good enough. In the Jehovah’s Witnesses, you have to have at least two witnesses. And it makes proving things wrong an uphill battle.

It struck me that in this moment, it took a whole family writing a letter. It basically took the whole family going, look, we are unified in saying this guy is a child abuser before the church does anything. And we see this play out time and time again. It’s sort of one person’s word against the other. And it always seems to be about repentance. It always seems to be about that person’s getting right. There seems to be so little concern for the victims in the LDS church and so little concern for the people who have suffered at the hands of the abusers, whether it be victims or family who have just seen it from afar or whatnot. The church can do so much better, and it could start with really simple things, and we’ve laid them out before.

Just don’t let anybody be in a room alone with a child. do background checks. You’ve got so much money. You’ve got 265 billion. Actually, you got 300 billion at this point. 321. You could do background checks. It would cost you so little to do them. You just make it the protocol. You just start doing them. And the other thing too, you guys pointed to this, but in the documents… We all talk in Mormon language. We say young women, for instance, and then the world goes like, oh, those are 20, 22, 23-year-old women. We need to stop giving the LDS church that kind of grace. And when we report the news or when news agencies report the news or when people are commenting on the abuse that they’ve suffered, stop using the language the LDS church has created.

They’ve created that language often to give them a buffer. use the language that explains to the world clearly what this church is doing. That’s it for me. Rebecca. Yeah. When you read that last slide, I looked again at my little, he was in that second counselorship from April to December. So he was there and then they took him right out because that was only a few months. So the LDS church, once they finally took it seriously and became aware, you know, they did take steps there, but, One thing that stood out too is many times the whole family is groomed to allow access to the children. So it’s not always, like the wife warned, he likes to sort of groom moms with young kids, right? Sometimes the whole family is groomed to allow access to the children. He’s the best friend of the family.

Remember the Jan Broberg case? He’s our favorite home teacher and the whole family is being manipulated to trust this person And allow him, you know, I mean, I’ve I’ve heard of cases where things happen in the same room where there’s a, you know, not even recognizing what is happening because you feel so innocent. You know, it’s all innocent. It’s our good friend. It’s our home teacher. So that stood out right there, that if that’s the kind of person he is, I’m I guarantee there’s more victims in Thailand probably than they know of. That is why it’s often a condition of probation for somebody who gets convicted of something like this, that they not, without prior approval from DOC, have any relationships with any women who have children of a certain age.

The other thing that stood out is, again, we hear this all the time, the victim is told that what’s more important than the victim and their healing is the repentance of the perpetrator. And we hear that all the time and we see that in action in church courts everywhere. But we need to worry about his repentance, the victim, They’ll figure it out. They’ll be fine. But we need to get him right with God. And that’s always the number one concern. And they prove that time and time again by their actions, by the abuse hotline, all those things. It’s about getting the person to repent and back into activity. And the victim, well, hopefully that’ll be fine. But yeah, that’s disgusting. It’s an awful, horrible story. It is. It really is.

By the way, Bill, not to take away from the story and just a little bit of biblical aside. The two witnesses required by the J-dubs is based on the law of Moses in the Old Testament. And it is actually quite literally what is meant when we say, when we quote the scripture saying, in the mouths of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. Yeah, and I’m aware of that. My main impetus in saying this is that in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, in the J-dubs faith, It doesn’t matter how good of a testimony that one witness has. It doesn’t matter what the evidence is. They are adamant that their theology dictates that it has to be two witnesses. And as all of us know, one witness with the right kind of evidence is enough of a witness.

And religions hiding behind these kinds of ideas when we’re not talking about two people disagreeing about what happened on the other side of a wall that none of us seen. What we’re talking about is when one witness steps forward having evidence that is beyond a reasonable doubt in that witness alone. I think back in the days of the Mosaic Law, they probably didn’t have CSI Jerusalem or anything. They probably were kind of limited to somebody saw something. Yeah. In the age we live in, there are plenty of single witnesses who have incontrovertible evidence or evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that says that we as religious institutions should be doing something different and doing a better job to protect victims. In fact, it’s that rule that the apocryphal story of Susanna and the elders revolves. But anyway, it’s a great story.

Actually, it should have been in the Bible, but it didn’t make the cut. Okay. I think we have, Can it be? Is it temple update time, Rebecca? It’s always temple update time, but as you will see here, I’ve reduced it down to one slide because I feel that everybody knows the story. Everybody knows the rhetoric. I do not need to go into it anymore. I’m saying the same thing over and over, and everybody can probably repeat everything that’s said. We talked last week about how it was going to go to the city council meeting, the Colorado Springs Temple. There was a residence group, again, I’m repeating myself, that was in opposition to the height and the bright. I showed that letter, remember, where they said that the church temple department was directing what people would say and choosing who would speak.

And that if you were asked to speak, please say no, because it was already all orchestrated. I tried to go in and listen to the meeting, but I almost feel like I’ve lost my stomach for it. When I heard those phrases, almost, I probably just need a second wind. But when I heard those phrases again, it draws my eyes upward. It’s an integral part of my religious worship. You can’t stop me from, yeah, so does the McDonald’s sign. That’s what sounds good to me. You know, where heaven and earth meet. I just heard those over and over again. And I just thought, I’m just going to make one slide. But anyway, the Colorado Springs City Council gives the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple a unanimous, unanimous, I stuck in there till the vote, thumbs up. Yes, eight.

It was interesting because somebody else was watching it who contacted me. And this person said they had been on a city council here in Utah where another temple was being built. And so they knew how city councils worked. And they said that they really saw… the Colorado Springs City Council, no offense to any of them, just being very sort of enamored with the church’s story, kind of taken in by what this person called a dog and pony show. And this person told me when you’re on the city council, you have to kind of learn to look beyond that, you know, look beyond the smoke and mirrors, look beyond, you know, All of the answers that use wiggle words, you know, she knew how it went. But this council, they were very, very excited about the temple. No conditions. It’s going to be 140 feet tall.

It’s going to be lit, like I like to say, jacked up to Jesus. They didn’t really put anything in place. Some other city council we’ve seen, they’re like, well, look at Fairview. You know, it’s like, hey, you know, you got to turn the lights down no it can’t be lit all night it seemed like colorado springs was just very excited to push it through and it’s going to be all the things that the church dreamed of and more so now i haven’t really changed because the last time i i checked there was a very strong fundamentalist evangelical christian component in colorado springs Well, here is what I feel. I feel it’s one of the ones that really slipped in under the radar, really slipped in. And I know that the residence group maybe started a little late on things.

In fact, I kind of told their story to some of the people in Cody. Remember Cody, who started right out of the gate for all the good it did them. And they all said, oh, gosh. that’s too late. You know, you really have to have a really intense campaign for almost as soon as they reveal that drawing. So anyway, that temple will have a groundbreaking. I have not heard if a residence group is going to continue. A lot of them choose not to. It is an incredible amount of money out of your own pocket. And I know this talking to the residence group that I’ve worked with, we’re talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in for these groups to try to mobilize and, you know, change something about the temple. But it is, but it’s approved, right? It’s a deal. It’s going.

So there’s nothing to appeal unless they challenged it. Did they challenge it? Yeah. You know, they may just try to take it. I don’t know, to a higher court. We’ve seen that before where they’re going to challenge. But again, But usually they have to do something before this decision is made. And that’s what Cody was pointing out. There were some steps along the way that should have been taken in a different way. But I don’t know. We’ll find out more if there is more to. But it was funny to me, just on a personal note, how I was all gung ho. I’m going to listen to the city council meeting. And I just couldn’t do it. Isn’t that funny? After all these years, I couldn’t do it. I listened here and there. I know. You did all night long.

Is that what it says here at the bottom of this? That’s what I’m saying. There were no conditions on it. So now that happened to Cody, but simply because Cody didn’t know that it had passed because of the confusion by the city planner. Right. So Cody also passed with no conditions. Fairview is an example of here’s a town working with residents to get something. Lighting isn’t a reasonable hour. Things were lowered. Fairview is really how it should all work. But that was an anomaly because you had the city council, you know, that was sticking to their guns kind of, you know, and then eventually made a concession, but best for everyone. So anyway, we’ll go on to the next temple next, but Colorado Springs, it’s a done deal. There you go. So I think I actually have the next story too in order here.

This was a very strange headline that came out a couple of weeks ago or a week ago. Did you guys both see this? Yes. Now I’m recognizing it from what you told me. Yeah, no. And at first when I saw it, I thought, is that a picture of Merlin Olson? Only old people would know what I’m talking about. But I was like, who is that? But the headline is Wasatch County GOP Chair David Nephi Johnson is charged after allegedly waterboarding a teen. And that teen is actually his own father. daughter um yeah interesting so it says let’s see i can’t read that top line because that’s on there on behalf of the entire audience merlin olsen i know you don’t know who that is either yeah i do that’s what i’m saying you think he looks like merlin olsen i do think he looks like merlin olsen he’s kind of got that wide-eyed wondering i mean a thin merlin olsen but Kind of a ratty-looking Merlin Olson.

Yeah, okay, I digress. Here we go. Let’s go down with the story. So he is a Wasatch County Republican Party and a Heber City resident, and he was arrested and charged with a first-degree felony count of aggravated child abuse. The police allege that he waterboarded his own teenage daughter in a bathroom sink as punishment after she didn’t clean her room to his standards. She had gone out with friends. And when she came back, he said, I told you, you couldn’t go until your room is clean, something along those lines. And then allegedly this happened. He’s not really waterboarding her in the way that it used to be done with enemy combatants. He was dunking her head under the water.

Yeah, well, and yeah, I think they just use that term maybe in this case to mean somebody who’s, you know, subjected to water and feels like they can’t breathe. So you have that reaction. But it says, according to the court affidavit, he grabbed her neck and he forced her head under running water. So maybe, you know, running down over her face. I don’t know. I think that must be the case, Rebecca, because I’m thinking if you filled up a sink and stuck your face in it, it would just go everywhere. Yeah, no, I think it wasn’t a running water, I think. Can you imagine having water all over your eyes and your nose and you couldn’t breathe? I mean, I feel like you would have the same reaction as waterboarding. This is more like waterboarding.

I think she reported that she couldn’t breathe for 20 or 30 seconds. The incident was reported to authorities after the teen went to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services and they called the police. In addition to this alleged waterboarding, the teen described other alleged abusive incidents involving siblings. He pleaded not guilty and he’s out on bail. Now, interestingly, the Wasatch County GOP said it is concerned. That makes sense and has temporarily shifted the leadership to its vice chair, but emphasized that authorities should complete their investigation. So they also make another statement here where they say in the following in the day following Johnson’s arrest, the Wasatch County Republican Party released a statement where they said that they were deeply concerned and troubled by the allegation against Johnson.

However, they also asked the public to refrain from judgment and stated that all individuals are innocent until proven guilty. Absolutely. That’s true, isn’t it? And as I understand it, she has been removed from the home. She’s on no contact with her father. And I think there’s some safety protocols for the other kids too, as they sort this whole thing out. So, you know, I mean, just, just when you thought you’d heard it all, but I will say there’s a little interesting aside, a little rabbit hole that I went on today. That’ll take me just a minute here. Allegations against her and the other kids. I’m surprised he’s still in the home. Cause he’s the one who should have gone. Yeah. That’s what I don’t understand, but it looks like he’s out on bail and I don’t know. I’m talking about the CPS aspect. Oh, yeah.

No, I think that’s probably true. So I don’t know. And I guess we didn’t read this part where it said first degree felony carries potential prison time of five years to life and fines up to $10,000. So. Again, we’ll find out. But what was interesting to me is I had done a little short about the waterboarding dad. And I did find out, I believe he’s an LDS dad, if that matters to anyone. His calling right now is emergency preparedness expert in his ward in that area in Heber. So, yeah, interesting. But so I had made a short about this and. My good friend and book club co-founder Bruce this morning texted me. He goes, hey, I was watching your short about waterboarding, and I remember that there’s an LDS component to waterboarding. Are you guys aware of that at all? We invented it. Yeah, exactly.

So… So I started doing a little bit of digging. I looked at the name. And sure enough, LDS member Bruce Jensen, however you say it. Yeah. I think it’s Jensen. I’m not sure if it is Jensen. It might be Jensen. Anyway, he – yes, he and a partner are – accredited with developing that technique of waterboarding and I think sleep deprivation. So of course, my first thought is, is this guy, does he have any callings? Because I always like to find out what people’s callings are. So I asked a person who would know this, and I found out that he had a calling as a bishop in Spokane area. Then I looked, do you notice anything weird about the dates of his calling to be a bishop right there? It’s one week long. It’s one week long.

From October 14th, 2012 to October 21st, 2012, presuming we have the right person. Yeah, and it is the right person. And I thought that’s very strange. So here’s a person that is known for… Developing this technique, controversial of waterboarding. And he’s a member of the church and he’s called to be a bishop. And then he’s released a week later. So I thought, OK, there has to be a story there and I can tie it into my waterboarding story. So I keep looking and I find out that when he was called as a bishop in Spokane, it hit all the papers. Right. New Mormon bishop in Spokane has controversial past. Isn’t this interesting? This is in 2012 in October. The psychologist who helped develop military interrogation techniques that include sleep deprivation and waterboarding has been appointed to a church position.

And I found this article and versions of it in many different papers in Washington and also even some national papers. So I thought, OK, that makes sense. Maybe if he’s called. And it’s getting some traction here. And it’s not a great look for the church. Maybe that’s why he’s only a bishop for one week. So it kind of details. Yeah, it’s Jensen, not Jensen. It says he was called as a bishop and paid to go into that. And they contact him. Can I just stop you for a second, Rebecca? Because I think this is important. It is not Jensen, like it said on the other slide. No, no, that was my typo. Jensen, J-E-S-S-E-N. Yep, that was my typo. I’m sorry about that. So I know it’s hard for me to see. Yeah. And so, you know, this is all in the articles all over.

They explain what a bishop is. They explain his controversial past. They say it surprised different human rights groups, you know, that he would be put in charge of a congregation. And when they contacted him, he said, I don’t have anything to say to you and hung up. So there you go. So I can see that this would be a supercharged situation. So then I started trying to find out, did he step away? Was he asked to step away? And here it is. Psychologist who helped devise CIA interrogation program lost Mormon role. So this article goes on to say basically that local leaders, the church spokesman say, met with Jessen. and together determined that it would be difficult for him to serve as an effective leader in that position.

So that’s what they put out in all the papers, that the local leaders decided that he should not serve anymore given what happened in the past and given that now it’s getting all this national attention. Sorry, my dog is coughing. You know what’s interesting, Rebecca? The previous slide, not this one, this one here, This guy invented waterboarding and interrogation techniques. In that very last sentence, it only takes a couple of media phone calls to get underneath this guy’s feathers, to get under this guy’s skin and get him all riled up. Contact my phone for a comment. Justin said, I don’t have anything to say to you. And he hung up. Right. And I thought that too. He hung up. I thought it would at least take like some electrodes hooked up to him or something. Yeah.

Well, anyway, so this really piqued my interest because you know what I think every time a statement, oops, a statement says local leaders, you know what I think? I always think it’s not the local leaders. I mean, they just were the ones that just called him to be a bishop. Why a week later? would they change their mind? And I already kind of tipped my hand by flipping the slides, but I started to thinking what’s going on in the US the end of September, 2012. Any guesses, anybody? Why would the church not want negative headlines? Exactly. It already made the headlines. Does Romney’s religion condone torture, right? So this already is trickling up to the presidential campaign. There was talk about, should he be asked this question when he’s debating Barack Obama?

Should they talk about torture and an LDS member who created, you know, this technique? And so I predict that. What happened is that local leaders didn’t even know really what was going on. It was upper leadership that said, you get that guy out of here now. You stop those headlines. We’re done. Do you think that might be realistic? I just thought it was an interesting little rabbit hole. They’ve got an election coming up three weeks away. And the people over there in Spokane say, I think it’s a good time to make this guy a bishop. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and I think they weren’t thinking. I mean, I assume they knew. Everyone knew. He was very well known. His warden’s stake knew who he was. This is obviously a church decision at the very, very top on down. That’s what I think, yep.

That’s what I think. And I think just on a local level, you’re not thinking about it. But as soon as they saw those headlines, controversial bishop, and then loses position, and then here it is, does Romney’s religion condone torture? And this is that Mormon moment era where everything’s going great for Mormonism. You’ve got movies, you’ve got slogans, you’ve got YouTube videos, you’ve got Mitt Romney. The last thing you need is Mormons to be associated with torture. So Anyway, it’s a little side note, but I thought that was very interesting. I was not aware of that scenario. So back to you, RFM. Thank you. A couple comments. First off, I’m not monitoring the live chat, but in case there is anybody out there who is contesting what I said about Susanna and the elders not being in the Bible.

Of course, I’m referring to the Protestant Bible as opposed to the Catholic Bible. or my nsrv over there that does have the apocrypha capital t capital a in it okay that’s number one number two rebecca had you skipped an earlier slide featuring jane manning james was there anything in there that you wanted to talk about no i don’t think i just put up different slides having to do with you know the lds church and a racist past and no i didn’t skip it for any purpose except for just moving ahead so yeah any thoughts from you bill I just want to ask a question about Merlin Olsen. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Do you remember Merlin Olsen as an actor? Yeah, not a football player.

Yeah, a football player, and I was too young to watch him play, but he was the announcer on a lot of games that the 1980s Cleveland Browns played in when they went to lots of championship games. Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with Merlin Olsen. Do you have a picture of him so we can compare and see how closely the two resemble? A thinner Merlin Olson. A thinner Merlin Olson is what I’m talking about. He was quite avuncular. I mean, wasn’t he on? Was father somebody? Father Merlin? See, I’m not wrong. Look at that. You think he looks like that other guy? Yes, he looks very much like that other guy. This guy, I would let babysit my kid and wouldn’t expect the kid to get stuck under a running water. The other guy looks like he would do that just for grins.

I think the other guy looked a little bit like the Reynolds actor. I forget what his first name is. Ryan Reynolds? Ryan Reynolds. I thought it looked a little bit like him. Oh, my. Blake will be interested to hear that. Expect a lawsuit in the morning. Maybe if Ryan Reynolds and Merlin Olsen had a baby. Yeah, actually, that’s not too bad, Rebecca. I think that’s pretty good, honestly, and certainly better than a lot of them I’ve come up with. Yeah. It just popped into my head. I was a huge Little House on the Prairie fan. That’s probably why. Oh, we have an update. Yes. We’ve got an update on. Oh, yeah. Chief Mitiga. Breaking, right? Chief Mitiga update. Breaking. Yeah, we called it over a year ago.

I did a review of Chief Mitiga in an episode called Chief Mitiga and the Legend of the Lost Scrolls. It was actually originally called Chief Mitiga and the Makers of the Lost Bark. But. We changed it because that was just a little too obscure. So anyway, this cat has been running around proclaiming himself to be the best thing since Joseph Smith. He is the Lamanite. He’s the one who’s got these birchbark scrolls that have nothing but Mormonism all over them, if you interpret them correctly. And actually in that episode, the one scroll he had actually looked like a legitimate birchbark scroll. But the interpretation was crazy. It was completely different from the way anybody from that tribe would interpret it. And exactly the way that a Mormon bent on getting Mormonism out of it would interpret it.

So he was going around and then he was in the Church of Christ for a while. Bickertonites, I guess he couldn’t get an appointment with an apostle. He said at one time, it was a year ago when I was doing this. It was June, so maybe it was a year and a half ago. Anyway, he said he had an appointment with an apostle to talk with him about these scrolls in the coming week. But we never heard how that went. At least I didn’t. I certainly never heard about it from the apostles. So he left Mormonism and went to the church of Christ Bickertonites. If that’s Mormonism, then he just, you know, it was a lateral move, but he got baptized there. They accepted him and allowed him to speak.

And then he got a little too big for his britches and they, they got rid of him there. They excommunicated him. Well, now as it turns out, it appears that chief Mitiga has been, uh, Relieved of his chiefly duties, if I can put it that way. And we’ll read a little bit from this letter that was written on February 11th or signed on February 11th, 2026 from the Red Bear Pembina Chippewa Indians. And he has, of course, been going around and saying that he’s a chief in the Pembina tribe. Now, there are a number of Pembina tribes, as it turns out. This is one of them. But he’s certainly been talking about this quite a bit. And they have a few things to say to him in this letter.

It says, after due review, counsel, and deliberation, it has been determined that the responsibilities of Ojima have not been upheld in a manner consistent with the teachings of humility, balance, accountability, and service to the people. The Red Bear Band of the Pembina Chippewa Nation is governed by no other tribe, clan, or nation. No other leadership structure or system can override the generational integrity of the Red Bear Band. You, talking to David Taylor, that’s this guy’s name, you are guilty of undermining this foundation. You have publicly and privately dishonored your siblings. You, David Taylor, have dishonored your father, Gichi Aya and Ogima of the Red Bear Band. You dishonored your mother, Gichi Nokomis of the Red Bear Band. You dishonored the sacred Nuz Mani Duwag, Two-Spirit. Two-Spirit, one of the most sacred members of the Ojibwe community.

Within your own family, you have used time, energy, resources for self-promotion, declaring validation comes from exposure. No, validation comes from blood. You gave nothing back, not time, resources, unification, or participation for any member of your family or community for 10 years. All violations, and that is capitalized in the original, all violations for leadership as an Ojimas with the Red Bear Band of Pambina Chippewa Indians. And finally, Effective immediately, by the way, I’m showing a number of images from different podcasts. I didn’t have room for all of them that welcomed him on to have him talk about his view of his role in Mormonism and why it is that he should have the position of leadership. Effective immediately, the individual previously recognized in the role of Ojima is relieved of the duties, authority, and representation associated with that title.

You will always be a Pembina Chippewa, a member of the tribe. You will always be a member of the Red Bear Band. You will no longer be Ojima of the Red Bear Band. We understand you sit upon councils of other nations, of other tribes. We do not have jurisdiction nor authority to make actions within their halls. Within ours, within ours, you have none. So that’s all I’m reading from that letter. And I was surprised by the vehemence of some of the language. What did you think, Rebecca? So is he no longer chief? Can he no longer call himself chief? I think that Ojima is their word for chief. That was the impression I got. Or it’s a leadership position of some sort. He says, no, no more. And the second word after cheap, I always say Mitigawa.

I get it wrong every time I’ve done it on podcasts over and over. Mitigawa. Is that also a title, not a name? I kind of think it does. I think it, I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I’ve asked some other people, this is sort of an all in the family kind of a thing here with his, you know, family group. And so, but it sounds like, like they said in other groups, he’s a leader. Is that what it kind of sounds like? So I’m not sure, but I do know that a lot of people were really excited about the birch bark scrolls. There were many, many podcasts. There were lots of comments. I keep thinking this is the kind of thing my parents would have gone crazy over, right? They love farms. They love that kind of stuff.

They would have gone, Oh my gosh, they found some of the evidence. So yeah. Okay. If he’s not, you know, no, the usual gullible suspects were sucking down everything that David Taylor was dishing out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How many times has word radio or quick media, how many times have they stood behind somebody utilizing that voice as a credible voice in that Mormon space? Only to have, you know, at least for years, you and I in the background seeing through these things for what they are. You and I have been criticizing Chief Mitiga, you especially, for years now at this point. And as you point out, they keep wanting to put him out front. Of course, now recently he’s left the LDS church and then other folks utilized him with another LDS traditions. But man, whether it’s, what’s his name? David… No, the YouTube guy.

That’s the Mormon that’s joined other churches and David Alexander, Alexander. Yeah. Oh, they’re right. The yellow deli guy. Yeah. You know, lots of other little characters here along the way, but just see through them guys. All you have to do is use your critical thinking skills and be a rational thinker and figure out that these people do not have the credibility you wish they did. You know, Mormonism seems to attract a lot of disreputable kinds of people. There’s child molesters. There’s these kind of, I’m not saying that David Medigai is, but these kind of con men like Alexander, David Alexander. He’s another con man. And see them just in real time, right? And of course, I don’t know if it attracts people who do the affinity fraud, because it seems like they just sort of, they’re already Mormon, right?

They don’t have to be attracted to the church. But there’s all these kinds of people who seem to thrive in Mormonism. I wonder if it’s because you’re taught from being a young child on, you’re taught to see con men as the most trustable people in your world. Seers and revelators. And so you spend the rest of your life going, that’s what a good guy, that’s what a credible source of information looks like, acts like. behaves like, and then as time goes on, maybe you ought to just recognize that that mold actually should be defined in some other way. That is a really good point. It’s also like people pointing at speakers in general conferences and saying, that is a good speaker. Did you put these together for us, Bill? Those two pictures? I did put those together. We can’t let it rest, can we?

See, I still think kind of. I mean, maybe not. Maybe more like Chuck Norris. A man is more than a beard and a mustache. Yeah, well, no, I do not. It’s just something about his eyes. And maybe it’s the idealistic look in his eye. This is the difference between an angel and a demon. All right, fine. I concede. I’ll give you each another $50. Good, good. I need to stop betting on these guys. Okay, I had one last quick little thing. Tomorrow is the day David Archuleta, his new book comes out. I had to put this up because prior to just a little while ago, he was really the darling of the church.

I even went on the church website and there’s still all kinds of articles and exciting things about him and what he’s doing. and his faith and his journey and his mission and all of that. And of course, we know in the last couple of years or so, he’s kind of, you know, taken off on a path more true to himself. He even had this book called David Archuleta Chords of Strength, where he talked about when his vocal cords were, he was having problems and, you know, his spirituality and the LDS faith got him through. No more of that book. No more of any of that. His new book is out, Devout. I think it’s a very provocative cover there. And I won’t read through all the details. You guys can find it if you want. But go get this book.

His story is a story of really being a golden boy in the church. And he was so wildly famous that they used him up, I think. And then as soon as he went a different direction, as soon as he was not living the lifestyle anymore, that they insisted on. He has described before that he just felt completely cast aside. And that can be devastating, too, you know, because you really do think, oh, they just they really like me. And they didn’t. They liked, you know, the life that they thought he was portraying. But that was not true to himself. I mean, he talks about they liked how they could use him. Yes. Yeah. I mean, he talks about planning literally to end his life because he was living such a double life, you know, and then finally found this freedom.

And I think we all remember that. that very important interview with John DeLand where his mother came on the program and said, I’m sticking with my son. I mean, it was one of those examples because a lot of messaging in the church, especially decades ago was you don’t stick with your child. You throw your child out, tough love, you know, and then hopefully they’ll come back. But, She’s like, no way. He wrote a song about that. Super powerful interview. There he is with the book. But he will be giving a book tour. He’s coming to Salt Lake on the 24th. You guys can freeze on this. And he’s going to be at King’s Bookstore. And John Dillon on the 17th. Is that tomorrow? 10 a.m. He has David Archuleta on. The big interview. Not everybody knows that. It’s tomorrow. Yeah.

It’s very, very, it’s a long time in the making, I think, because we’ve all, all wanted to, you know, to hear from him. I was once at a fireside, I was singing at a fireside where he spoke, you know, they kind of brought him in. This was back in his faithful days with handlers kind of, you know, and rushed him up to the pulpit. And he talks a lot about American Idol and how His managers, after he came in second, but he was very popular, said, don’t do this mission thing. Strike while the iron’s hot kind of a thing, right? And he tried to bear his testimony there in that meeting about how it was the right choice to go on a mission.

But a lot of us speaking afterwards with each other felt like there was a lot of cognitive dissonance going on, even at that point. And he was… trying to kind of talk himself into the fact that he had made that choice. So, um, because for a while there, his career was just the LDS church. Then when he came out, broke it open with his story, you know, he’s on fire now. So watch this interview tomorrow, get the book, very exciting. And speaking of books, I have one more thing to talk about. Alyssa Grenfeld put out a short today. Now we all know, Hey, Oh my gosh, my dogs are fighting. Um, What are they doing? Anyway, Alyssa Grenfell put out a short today. We’re all familiar with her book, right? How to Leave the Mormon Church. She went to Deseret Books.

She carried her book in. And if you can see there on that last picture, she put it on the shelf. She put her book on the shelf at Deseret Books and left. So we’ll see if somebody’s browsing the shelves, finds the book and says, this looks interesting, takes it up to the counter. They probably won’t be able to scan it, but it kind of gave the idea as i was chatting about this today to some other authors who’ve written certain books like this maybe they should do that too so i thought that was kind of funny thank you for sharing that rebecca that was awesome so on the radar it’s monday night tomorrow’s the 17th what’s going on with mormonish tomorrow night Well, let’s see. Did I put the Thrive slide in next? I did. I wanted to mention that.

Don’t you think we should mention this one more time? I think it’s almost sold out, but it is coming up this weekend. If anybody still wants to go, go to Thrive Beyond Religion. Everybody’s going to be there. It’s going to be really, really awesome. So it’s my little plug. The 20th Friday evening it starts, and it’s over Sunday the 22nd in the afternoon. So Thrive Beyond Religion. Well, on more of an issue on Tuesday night, I am interviewing a Morehouse College student. There is one that we heard about in the article. That’s right. Alonzo Brinson. That’s why I was being so kind of gushing about the student body. I was actually talking about him and what an amazing young man. I had a lengthy phone conversation with him. And then I had an interview because there is more to the story.

You know, I kind of told a little bit about it today, but He’s going to talk to us on Mormonish in his own words about exactly what is happening there and what the students would like to see happen. And it was a super fascinating interview. Not that long, just an hour. So tomorrow night, Tuesday at 6 p.m., you can join Mormonish in the live chat and we’ll talk to Alonzo Brinson. That sounds fantastic. Yeah, it is. This is RFM’s favorite. How did I get in here, Bill? This is RFM’s favorite thumbnail. Yeah, there it is. This released this morning, which was the Pluribus episode where Britt Hartley and I had a conversation around the Apple TV show and some of the questions about morality and ethics that flow out of that one. So there’s that. Very good.

Let’s leave it up there for a couple seconds longer. What’s this? Is this next Wednesday? This is this Wednesday. The Don Juan of Nauvoo. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, this is Joseph Smith. This is the late reminiscences of critics of the church in 18, I believe it’s 86, maybe 1896, somewhere in there. Whatever folks sort of were left alive at that point. There was a well-known journalist who I believe was from overseas, but he went to Salt Lake City, I think in 18… Maybe I’m saying that wrong. 1865? And then the writings were in 1866, maybe. But these are witness accounts of people who were in… Utah, who shared with him their memories of what Mormonism was when they were in it and what their reminiscences are of polygamy and various other topics.

And there is one chapter in particular that’s titled The Don Juan of Nauvoo that I thought would make for an interesting evening on Mormonism Live, Wednesday at 6 p.m. Sounds fantastic, Bill. And then I got one more. What the heck? Yeah. This is an episode for the Almost Awakened podcast. Teresa and I sit down and have a conversation with a dominatrix. And I think it’s one of the best conversations I’ve had on the Almost Awakened podcast in a few years. So this is coming out Thursday morning. If you don’t want to miss this, I wouldn’t. So… I wouldn’t either. It would be painful. No whips for you. Oh, I’m sorry. No podcast for you.

This was something we put up on Thursday last, and we had an all-star panel there talking about this great first talk that President Nelson gave in public as the president and prophet of the church, where he wanted to let everybody know he’s really sad that so many people are leaving, and he knows you’re leaving because of doubts you have. But he’s not going to answer those doubts. He’s not going to talk about what they are. He’s just going to say, get closer to Jesus, by which he means get closer to me, and all your doubts will flee. And if you still need answers to those doubts, just wait until you die, and then you’ll get them all. Is that a pretty good summary? Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Okay. It was a great panel, I have to say. I was lucky enough to be invited.

It was amazing. And it is why we didn’t discuss it on the newscast today, because it was breaking news from last week, but we covered it in depth, I think, with Randy Bell and Colby and RFM, myself. Who am I forgetting? John DeLinn, of course. Yes, I forgot John DeLinn. Yes, Nemo. He remembers those kinds of things, you know. You know what? In my defense, it is late and I have not had dinner. So there you go. I have low blood sugar. Somebody sent me chocolate. Nemo. Nemo the Mormon showed up. Nemo. That was a really good episode and it’s got quite a number of views. I checked it the other day. So yeah, it was fascinating. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for mentioning all those things. Then there was the latest RFM that premiered on Saturday night.

It’s just kind of fun talking about some Mormon mission letters home. My letters recently come into my possession by a strange twist of fate. And one of those three missionaries on there is yours truly 46 years ago. You look so cocky. Like the other guys look like they’re just standing. All of us look cocky, don’t we? No, I mean, the other two look like they’re kind of just dun-dun-dun, and you’re just kind of like, uh-huh. Is it dance posture? Is that what it is? Yeah, I’m doing my John Travolta. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. It’s my John Travolta posture. It’s Vinnie Barbarino. Okay, it was natural to me. The guy on the far side, that’s Elder Weaver. He was my companion in the MTC. This is a mission conference in the spring of 1980.

And thank God it’s warming up because it was cold as F. up in fukuchiyama when i got up there with the you know the young current church historian kyle mckay as my companion and the guy in the middle he was also in our district so in other words we had a mission conference so we got to come back and see all the guys from the mtc and there’s elder weaver and here in the middle i can’t remember his name because we called him elder opie opi choro choro is elder and it comes after the name like tanaka san mister comes after the name so opi choro but i can’t remember his name for the life of me very very funny guy very funny guy okay so that’s a lot of fun and then friday we have mormonism after dark eight o’clock bm mountain time where all the cool cats come to hang out on friday night And drink their adult beverage of choice.

Right, Bill? That’s right. That’s right. We have such a good time there. We just let it all hang out. We talk about whatever. And you can call in, by which I mean Zoom in or StreamYard in or whatever you call it, link in through the computer and show up and talk. And you can ask questions. You can make comments. You can sing a song. You can do a magic trick. You can do whatever you want. You can do the resurrected Joseph Smith if you’d like. You could do that too. We’ve had that. Yeah, it’s a crazy time. And Bill’s not kidding about that. I’m not sure if it really was the resurrected Joseph Smith, but he’s not kidding about having a lady call in and claiming to be the resurrected Joseph Smith. She seemed very nice too.

A lady claimed to be the resurrected Joseph Smith? Okay. You got a problem with that? I thought maybe it was Phil Davis. Doesn’t that religious leader claim to be the… Resurrected Joseph Smith. I don’t know. I don’t know. I haven’t heard a lot from Phil lately. Yeah, no, not since the Zoom incident. Everybody turn your cameras off. Oh my gosh. Phil was filling himself up on camera. Inadvertently, I think. Maybe. Okay, so anyway that’s everything right and that’s the end of the slides that’s a wonderful thing thank you so much bill for your wonderful stories and taking care of the tech behind the scenes rebecca bibliotheca thank you for your stories as well thanks everybody for watching it’s always great to have you here please hit like please hit subscribe if you are liking and subscribing over here at mormon at mormon discussions Please also go over to Mormonish.

That other show. Yeah. What was that? Because they’re also streaming this over there. Now, you shouldn’t be chatting over there or donating over there, but you should like and subscribe over there, okay? And if you’re watching it over on Mormonish, like and subscribe there and come over here and like, subscribe, and donate, okay? That would be wonderful. All right. Thank you, everybody. Is there anything else that I need to cover, Bill or Rebecca? Just see everybody at Thrive. We’re very excited if any of you in the chat are going to be there because it’s only a couple days away and come say hi. I got to fly out of here on Thursday. It’ll be early in the morning after the Wednesday show on Mormonism Live, Bill. Yep. Yep. We’re going to be there. All kinds of stuff going on. It’s going to be great.

Seriously, there’s like 800 people. It is sold out. It is the biggest crowd you’re ever going to see. It’s pretty daunting for those of us. How many people are there? How many tickets open? There’s only 50 tickets left, the last I heard. And that was like a week ago. And I think it’s either 600 or maybe 600. I don’t know. All I know is they had to use a bigger venue and they’ve never had this many people. It’s overflowing, literally. So very exciting. I think that’s because Bill’s going to be there. Bill, what do you have to say about that? 100%. Uh-oh. Bill’s not making any sound. Bill, can’t hear. It seats 740 people, so I think we’re at 700 tickets. Okay, 700. All right. All right. Well, it’s going to be a great time.

I look forward to meeting everybody who shows up, and Rebecca’s going to be there. Bill’s going to be there. You already talked about all the people who are going to be there, didn’t you? I don’t think I did. I was mentioning the people on your little podcast about President Oaks. It’s an all-star roster. Oh, yeah. You could go back to that slide if you wanted to see who’s going to be there. Yeah, Julie DeAzevedo is going to be there. Yep. It says Hanks on here. I understand it’s DeAzevedo now. Yep. Haley Raleigh from Girls Camp. Nathan Hinckley. So exciting. Lauren Mathias. Yep. Dr. Greg Prince is going to be there. I’ve never met him yet. I’m excited. He’s a prince of a guy. There you go. Rebecca Bibliotheca, Landon Brophy, Bill Reel, Radio Free Mormon, and Dr. John Dillon. Dr.

John Dillon is going to be there. So that is a heck of a roster. And those are just the speakers. I mean, the other people that you see on our podcast all the time are going to be there too. So these are just the ones that are actually speaking. Right, and I won’t try and start listing the people I know who are going to be. No, I don’t think we can. Yeah, because then I will leave people out, and then I get the angry letters again, and so it goes. Well, everybody, thanks so much for watching. It’s been a great evening. Please remember, join Rebecca on tomorrow for Mormonish and so on around the horn, and we’ll see you back here next week. I’m guessing we will in some form or other on Monday, even though it’s right after. Yeah, this is true.

It is right after Thrive. We might have to talk about that. We might just have to kind of do a Thrive wrap up. That would be kind of interesting.