A Conversation with Kirk Hays

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Ian and Jim sit down with a lifelong friend — Kirk Hays, former Scotland Edinburgh Mission AP and bishop turned humanitarian, artist, and TikTok influencer known as The Vagabond Artist.

From his unexpected call to serve in Scotland in the 1980s to leading a ward as a non-believing bishop, Kirk shares his raw, honest, and often surprising story of wrestling with faith, church leadership, and personal integrity. 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside

(00:17):
Out.
I'm your co-host, Ian Wilkes,and I'm joined, as always, by
the most excellent Mr.
Jim Bennett.
Hello, Jim.
Hello, Ian.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing really well.
The sun is shining.
I'm happy to be alive.
And we're here with a very, veryspecial guest.

SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
I am very excited about this.
This is one of my favoritepeople in the world.
So I'm really grateful thatwe're going to have this
discussion.

SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
Mine too.
And it's an absolute honor andprivilege for me to do the
introduction to the one and onlyKirk Hayes, all the way from
Honduras.
Hello, Kirk.

SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
Hello, how are you?
And you guys are some of myfavorite people too.
I can't believe that...
I mean, what is it, 25, 30 yearsago that we met?
35

SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
to 40 years almost.
So

SPEAKER_02 (01:06):
old.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
We're really old.
We're really old.
It's a real honor because I metKirk through serving in the
Scotland Edmund Mission.
I'm from the UK, from Yorkshire,traveled 100 miles.
over the border from Englandinto Scotland.
You know, there's Brits.

(01:29):
And there were mostly Americansin the mission.
And there were some legends.
When I arrived there, there weresome legends that, you know,
within a day, you get to knowwho's who pretty much.
You know, you're with yourcompanion and you learn within a
week maximum, you know, who'swho, if you like, in the
mission.
And you get to know the legends.

(01:51):
And the legends were, you know,Matt Holland and Elder Simpson,
Elder Murdoch.
You remember those guys?
Oh, yeah.
And there was just a handful ofmissionaries who were absolute
legends.
I thought, I've got to meetthese guys.
They sound amazing.
And one of the great names, Jim,that was in that pack was Kirk
Hayes.

(02:12):
And Kirk, you had an amazingreputation.
You were...
known for your work at work,your boldness, your knowledge of
the gospel, and just being awonderful missionary to serve
with.
Somebody who's really devoted.
And you were someone that Ireally wanted to meet, and I

(02:34):
heard all about you even beforeI met you.
When did you come out into themission?

SPEAKER_02 (02:40):
I came out in 1985, and I got to say, you're very
kind, and I'm honored by that,but both of you were people that
I looked up to on my mission.
I mean, I was older, notchronologically for you, Ian,
but had been out longer, butboth of you were people that I
really looked up to.
Yeah, I came out in 1985 underPresident Dunn and then was

(03:04):
there during the transition withPresident Banks.
I think I got...
named the zone leader the daythat Present Banks came in.
So that was the change.
And that's why I really got toknow Jim better.
And I had already knew you, Ian,because we were together down in
Dalkeith.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (03:22):
That's right.
That's right.
So yeah, I mean, Banks becamethe mission president in July, I
think, 87.
I had done for about six monthsand then banks came in in um
july 7th jim you came out inseptember i think in the end of
87 yeah so um yeah so we'd loveto in our conversation we'd love

(03:43):
to get into some of theexperiences and stories on the
mission um but uh again thankyou so much for coming on to the
uh the podcast um and as i saythese this is one of the
relationships that um and i'msure i speak for jim that
Although we've not connectedover the years from time to
time, it's been many years sincewe've been in touch, I feel like

(04:05):
we've met each other last weekagain.
And these are thoserelationships that you take with
you for your entire life.
And we share something veryunique and very distinct,
serving missionaries inScotland, and that kind of
connects us and binds us.
We'll get into that, hopefully,later on in our conversation,
Kurt.
But what we'd like to do is justgive us a bit of your

(04:25):
background.
you know, uh, who you are, uh,growing up, you know, your
background and your family andthe church, et cetera.
And just take us through alittle bit of your early
experiences, uh, you know, youthand YSA up to the point of, uh,
your decision to serve amission.
And again, a bit about yourselfif you're, if you're okay with
that.

(04:45):
Sure.

SPEAKER_02 (04:46):
Yeah.
I, uh, I was born in Montana.
Um, but at a young age, we moveddown to Utah, uh, My dad was an
avid fisherman though.
So every year we would pack upand move back to Montana at
Yellowstone and he would fishfor three months.
And the family was too big forus all to fit in the trailer.

(05:08):
So I grew up three months ayear.
My bedroom was a tent.
Not a lot of people can saythat, but it was a great way to
grow up.
And I think I learned a lot frommy dad about that experience
that later affected my life andthe trajectory of my life.
So I grew up in Utah, normalkind of Utah growing up.

(05:29):
Everybody was Mormon.
You went to church.
My dad had served a missionarymission in Germany.
And so, you know, I grew up kindof with that expectation.
And then I went to seminary,quickly decided I didn't like
that so much.
So I would skip And nevergraduated from seminary, never

(05:53):
really anticipated that I wouldgo on a mission, never planned
on it.
And then went by accidentbecause I was dating this girl
and she kind of wanted me to go.
And one day I just said I wasgoing to go and I was surprised
to hear it as she was or anybodyelse.
And the next thing I know, I'mpacked up and on my way to the
MTC.

(06:15):
even though I had never reallyintended to do that.
And they quickly figured outthat maybe I wasn't the guy that
they wanted.
And they tried to send me homeand I had to go meet with the
general authority.
And the general authority says,we're going to send you home.
I said, that's fine.
I don't really want to be hereanyway.
And he says, okay, I'm going totalk to your stake president.
We're going to send you home.
And then I went back to the MTCand I waited for the call to go

(06:36):
home and nobody called.
And next thing I knew I was atthe airport and I was in
Scotland, so I don't know how Islipped through the cracks, but
that's how I ended up on mymission, kind of by accident.

SPEAKER_00 (06:49):
Wow, that's amazing.
Just go back a little bit,because that's fascinating.
Tell us a bit of detail aboutwhat happened there.
There's always a girl involved,right?
So you went on a mission becauseof a girl.
I put a bit of expectation thereon you.
And then you put your papers in.
You got called to Scotland firsttime.

(07:11):
Right.
Great.
Best place to

SPEAKER_02 (07:13):
get

SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
called, right?
Of course.
It's the truest mission on theface of the earth, right?
And then you had doubts or youhad some issues about getting
out there.
Just tell me what happenedthere.

SPEAKER_02 (07:28):
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you go through theusual confession stuff before
you go.
And, you know, I confessed tosomething when I was in the MTC
that they decided it wasdifferent than what I confessed
to before.
So I had to go meet with them.
But the real fundamental issuewas when I was out there, I
mean, even though I was on mymission, I didn't really have a
testimony.

(07:49):
I didn't believe.
And I remember there was a dayat the MTC where I decided that
I was going to pretend like Ibelieved until I did.
All right.
I was going to act like Ibelieve until I did.
I use the word act instead ofpretend back then.
And then I just started actinglike I was I was going to that I

(08:10):
that I believed.
And I wholeheartedly devotedmyself to that.
And right around then, that'swhen they were talking with me
about, you know, should youreally be here?
And yeah.
uh, yeah.
And so I remember you, you getcalled, you have to get in a bus
and they take you from Provo toSalt Lake and, you know, you
meet with this general authorityand there were like four of us.

(08:32):
And one of the guys in there,he's like crying and he's like,
they're going to send me home,but in six months I'll be back.
And, and, you know, I'm going touse that time to learn
Portuguese.
I remember that's what he waslearning.
And, uh, and he said to me, arethey going to send you home?
I said, I don't know.
I hadn't been in yet, but, But Isaid, I'm not going to come
back.
Right.
I barely got here.

(08:53):
They don't want me.
I'm not going to come back.
And I went in and that's whatthe general authority said.
We're going to send probablysend you home.
We're going to talk to yourstake president and you can come
back.
And he says, I'm not comingback.
Right.
And I think and he was shockedlike that never occurred to him
that somebody would say no.
Right.

(09:14):
And so, yeah.
Yeah.
And so then he told me, yeah,you're probably going to go
home.
And then I just sat there forthe next two weeks waiting for
him to come get me.
And nobody ever did.
And next thing I know, I'm on avery hot stifling bus going
through from Edinburgh down toDumfries and car sick and

(09:37):
miserable.
And that's how I ended up inScotland.
That's

SPEAKER_00 (09:43):
amazing.

SPEAKER_02 (09:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
Well, you know, I mean, you talk about looking up
to us or looking up to me.
I was a greenie when I got outthere.
You, you went home probably veryearly in my mission and you were
quite the rock star.
I remember I had the one day, wehad one day together where, um,

(10:05):
elder Hanson, my trainer, uh,came back to Dundee to baptize
one of his investigators and youand I went tracking together.
And I just, in complete awe ofyou that whole day, I just
thought this guy, you were thezone leader in Dundee at the
time and it was just like, wow,this is the guy who gets it, who

(10:26):
understands it.
So if you had told me at thetime that you didn't really
believe and you were just sortof acting, I wouldn't have
believed you.
I would have thought, no, thisguy, this is the spiritual giant
that I need to look up to.
And you went on to be anassistant to the president right
after that, did you not?

SPEAKER_02 (10:47):
Yeah, I did, for Bambi Banks, Elder Banks.
And acting is probably thewrong, or pretending is probably
the wrong word.
It was, you know, you have tohave faith enough to trust that
you will get a testimony.
And I was in that stage of...
I was acting like it and devotedto it.

(11:10):
I mean, I don't think I waslying, but I was looking for a
way to have faith and so actinglike I did.
And I think that that came todefine a lot of my life of where
I was.
I think I was good atadministrative stuff and
motivating people and thingslike that.
And that oftentimes got...

(11:33):
you get put into a leadershiprole that probably, from a
spiritual sense, you're notcompletely prepared for.

SPEAKER_01 (11:40):
But

SPEAKER_02 (11:41):
I wanted to be clear about that.
I wasn't lying.
I

SPEAKER_01 (11:44):
definitely

SPEAKER_02 (11:45):
didn't believe in that way.
Sorry, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 (11:48):
I don't mean to interrupt you, but I remember
talking to you at a reunion.
Because you were called intoleadership after your mission
very quickly, if I recallcorrectly.
You were called as a bishop as avery young man.

SPEAKER_02 (12:01):
I was, yes.
in my 30s.

SPEAKER_01 (12:05):
And I remember you saying something along the lines
of, I was the only bishop thatdidn't pray.
Can you elaborate on that alittle bit?

SPEAKER_02 (12:17):
Yeah, so I come home off of my mission and very
quickly quit going to church.
Ended up moving to Virginia tofinish law school, came back.
My wife, started to go to churchtake our two kids and uh and i
went to pick her up one day andi thought you know i went in and

(12:41):
everybody was there and ithought you know this is a
really good way to raise kids itwould be good to raise your kids
in the church so i'm going tostart coming back to church just
because it would be a good wayto raise kids not because i
necessarily believed that it wastrue um And so, you know, you
start showing up and they startgiving you callings.
And the next thing I know, I'mlike the elders quorum

(13:03):
president.
And then the stake presidentshows up and says, you know, God
has spoken to the prophet andyou are to be the bishop.
And I remember being shocked bythat because, you know, I, I
knew that I didn't, I didn'tpray.
I wasn't, I didn't really have atestimony of God.
And so I, I became an accidenttoo.

(13:25):
I kind of, I kind of say that.
And that was a really hard thingfor me because, you know, I
rationalized for myself, beingthe bishop was important.
It was something I wanted to doto help other people.
And I had had this course incollege called Myth, Magic, and

(13:49):
Religion, where they talkedabout how shamans are just as
good at curing alcoholism asChristians.
as any other program.
And people get faith healed.
And it happens because thepeople who are sick believe in
the person who's saying thatthey have this magical ability

(14:10):
to heal them.
And so I rationalized that evenif I didn't believe it, other
people believed.
And because of that, I could doa lot of good.
And I think I did a lot of goodas a bishop.
For a long time, I thought Iwould never do that much good
again in my life.
And Gladly, I'm happy to reportI don't think that's true

(14:30):
anymore.
I think I'm doing a lot of greatthings now.
But yeah, that's why I kind ofwent along with it.
I felt like I could really makea difference within the church,
and I could make a difference inpeople's lives, and I hope I
did.
But it creates this fracturewithin yourself, right?
So on the public side, you arethis person that people look up

(14:53):
to and they turn to for faith.
They believe in things becauseyou say them.
And then internally, you'refeeling like the ultimate
imposter, right?
That's imposter syndrome to themax.
And you feel unworthy and youfeel guilty.
You feel like everybody elsebelieves, so why don't you...

(15:14):
And even though I was trying todo the things that I thought God
wanted, yeah, that stillfractures you.
And so I went through a periodof, while I was bishop, of
incredible depression.
And I would just come home.

(15:35):
You know, I was working at thetime.
You work 60 hours a week.
I would...
record my time as a bishop everyonce in a while.
And I was working like 28 hoursa week as bishop.
And then you got a young familyyou're trying to keep together.
And, and, uh, and I would just,if I had any time, I would just
lay on the couch and watch castaway.
And I would get so depressedwhen he got rescued.

(15:58):
My view is I just wanted toescape to a small Caribbean
Island.
Right.
And I recognize I'm living that,but, uh, But yeah, I mean, it
really, it broke me as a personthere for a long time.
So I don't know if that answeredyour question, but I really felt
like I was doing the rightthing.

(16:18):
I felt like I was making adifference in people's life.
And I think I was a good bishop.
I hope that the people that werein my congregation think that I
was a good bishop.

SPEAKER_01 (16:28):
Well, so your ultimate departure from the
church, did that come...
Did that come in close proximityto your time as bishop?
After you were released asbishop, is that when you went, I
just can't do this anymore?

SPEAKER_02 (16:43):
Yeah.
So, you know, I was coming up, Iwas about a year short of when
they usually release you asbishop, but my son was having a
hard time and I just wasn'taround.
You know, you're just neverthere.
And I went to the stakepresident and I talked to the
stake president and said, youknow, my son needs me.
He needs me in his life.
And my son, The stake presidentstarted crying.

(17:03):
He says, yeah, I know myfamily's falling apart too,
right?
There's always that stereotypethat the worst kids in the ward
are the bishop's kids, right?
Because their dad's not theremost of the time.
I said, I think I need to bethere for him.
And he said, I just have to havefaith that like Abraham, you
know, that you put your kids onthe altar and you have to have

(17:26):
faith that God will save them.
And I just looked at the stakepresident.
I just thought, this is the mostinsane thing I've ever heard.
What if the lesson of Abrahamreally is, don't try and kill
your kids.
Even if some voice tells you,don't sacrifice your children.
And I told him, I just got to bereleased, right?

(17:49):
So that didn't have anything todo with faith.
That was about protecting myfamily.
And it wasn't, I mean, I'dalready been there a long time.
I was coming up on gettingreleased in the near future.
So I asked to get released andthen it was probably six months
later, I'm in the airportwaiting for a flight and I'm

(18:09):
reading Discover Magazine aboutsome great scientific invention
or discovery.
And I thought to myself, what amI doing?
This is what I believe in.
I believe in science.
I believe in things I can know.
I believe in things I canunderstand.
And why am I pretending tobelieve in something else?
And that's when I decided that Iwould just kind of come out of

(18:33):
the closet as a non-believer.
So it was shortly after that.

SPEAKER_01 (18:39):
And go ahead.
Well, so did you resign yourmembership or what was the
impact on your family?
I mean, was your wife still abeliever?
Were your children still?
How many kids do you have, bythe way?
I

SPEAKER_02 (18:51):
have three.
My son was actually on hismission at the time.
He was on his mission.
He was on his mission.
The marriage ended shortlythereafter.
And I think those two thingswent together.
I don't think that I could stayin the church and get divorced.
And I couldn't get divorced.
I couldn't leave the church andstay married.

(19:15):
I couldn't get divorced and stayin the church, however that
works out.
The two things kind of had to gotogether, um, which was hard.
I mean, that was unfair to, toher, but that's kind of on my
personal journey, that's kind ofwhere things went and how we
ended up.
And so, uh, so after that, therebecomes all these rumors because

(19:38):
somebody as prominent as abishop isn't allowed to leave
the church for the, for just notbelieving, right?
There has to be some sin.
So there were all these rumorsgoing around that I was gay,
that I had a secret lover thewhole time i was the bishop that
i had stole funds from thechurch that i was involved in
felony drug writing i mean theywould come up with any story

(20:01):
other than no he just doesn'tbelieve right that wasn't an
acceptable answer

SPEAKER_00 (20:08):
but the church just can't do it can it i mean it
just can't accept a reason forleaving because his true claims
are unfounded or people stopbelieving.
You have to be a sinner or lazyor involved in some serious
offense.
I had the same, a lot of thesame stuff directed at me when I
left.

(20:28):
I was on the state presidencyhere and And then I even had
somebody spoke about me in achurch talk who derided me in a
church talk.
And, you know, don't be likeIan, President Wilkes, who fell
from this height and Satan's gothim.
And I'm in league with Luciferand awful, awful things.

(20:48):
They just can't accept thatpeople leave because they, you
know, they disbelieve.
What I find fascinating is thatjust, you know, you're saying
when you were serving as abishop, you were serving because
you wanted to help people, whichI think is the highest goal,
actually.
If you look at our churchcompared to other churches, and

(21:09):
I grew up with Church ofEngland.
I joined the church at 16, asyou know.
But there are many churches outthere that don't ask or request
people to demonstrate theirfaith.
in a testimony or stand up andsay you know that the church is
true and you have thisincredible, you've got to
demonstrate and prove yourincredible conviction and

(21:30):
devotion in all these differentareas.
There are a lot of churches outthere that are quite happy for
people to show up and to helpand to serve and to volunteer
and just to be a helper to helpothers without having all this
commit 100% to all this beliefsystem.
Our church is quite different.
The demands are extraordinary.
The church owns It tries toinfluence every aspect of your

(21:55):
life, how you feel in yourrelationships, what you wear,
how you behave, etc.
It's an incredibly high-demandreligion.
But I think it's fantastic thatyou accepted that calling and
you just wanted to help.
And if you were as good as abishop, as you were as a
missionary, you would have beena fine bishop.
I have no doubt about that.

(22:16):
And I think it's fantastic thatyou put your family first.
And you were probably released alittle bit early.
And so was there anything that,aside from time with your
family, which was a concern foryou, were there any specific
issues that you had with thechurch that was a catalyst also

(22:39):
for you leaving?
Was there any doctrinal policyor historical information in
that?
was also part of your decisionto leave the church.

SPEAKER_02 (22:49):
Yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, you hear
discussions of deconstruction oftheir faith, right, as they go
through the process of findingitems that they didn't believe
in, historical matters, thingslike that.
There were certainly items thatI was vehemently opposed to the
position of the church.
Proposition 8 was going on atthe time.
I had a stake president that,even though we weren't in

(23:11):
California, wanted all of thesethings read from the pulpit
about how bad homosexuality wasand the church was opposed to
any legalization of marriage oranything that attempted to
compromise.
And I wouldn't let him readthose in my...
ward and there was a lot offighting over that which

(23:32):
probably contributed to the ohhe must be gay thing later but
so there were doctrinal thingslike that the church's position
on women the delay of the churchin allowing blacks to have the
priesthood black people to havethe priesthood was a big issue
for me even when I was ateenager so there were those

(23:55):
things but my my journey outsideof the church wasn't a matter of
deconstruction because thereyou're taking a belief and
you're deconstructing it.
And I didn't really believe.
And so it was easy for me.
It just kind of, it was like aballoon that just popped.
And so it went away.
It wasn't a matter ofdeconstructing.

(24:16):
So I can't say that I left for adoctrinal reason other than
simply, I just didn't believe.
I didn't believe in the churchas a whole and, uh, or even in
God.
And so, um, So it wasn't reallya deconstruction kind of a thing
like that for me.
But definitely, a church shouldbe the leader on civil rights

(24:41):
issues, right?
It should be the one fightingfor people to have human dignity
and rights.
And the church has always beenthe last one to the party,
right?
I mean, it took a decade afterthe civil rights movement in
order for the...
for black people to be given thepriesthood.
They should have been the veryfirst ones fighting for those

(25:02):
rights, not the last one tofinally give up, right?
Same thing with women's rights,things like that.
I remember the day that Ilearned about black people being
given the priesthood and I wasreading the Doctrine and
Covenants and I got to that partof it and I'm like 12 at the
time.
And I get to that and readingthat was the first time that I

(25:25):
ever learned that, right?
Because you didn't talk about itanymore in the church.
And by then it would have beenthe 1980s.
And I went to my mom.
I was so upset.
My mom asked, why are you upset?
And I'm like, did you know this?
Did you know that black peoplecouldn't get the priesthood
before?
And she said, yeah, that alwaysreally bothered me when I was a

(25:45):
kid.
And I prayed about it.
And God told me to just wait andlook.
Miraculous thing happened.
Eventually, the blacks got thepriesthood, the black people.
And I said to her then, I says,I would never wait for God to do
the right thing.
He's not doing the right thing.
That's not the right place tobe.

(26:07):
And then when you find yourselfin the middle of that with gay
rights, where the church is notdoing the right thing and is
causing so much harm because ofit, I wasn't going to stand by
like her and just wait for Godto catch up with, with that
piece of human decency.
And I had a son that I knew wasgay.

(26:29):
I mean, I knew he was gay fromwhen he was 18 months old and he
used to walk around and hismom's high heels was a feather
boa pretending to be KoalaDeVille, right?
I mean, this was not a surprisecoming.
And so I knew that at some pointhe was going to have to leave
the church.
And I knew that, uh, it would beeasier if he had an example, um,

(26:50):
of that.
So, but the fundamental basiswas, I just didn't believe.

SPEAKER_01 (26:56):
Well, talking about that, I mean, because I don't
know anybody in the church who,well, I do know some people, but
most people in the church wouldsay the same thing, that they
were troubled by it and theywere struggling with it.
And when we try to sort ofconfront the legacy of of the

(27:19):
priesthood and temple banbecause i i'm even uncomfortable
just calling it the priesthoodban they couldn't have the
priesthood because black womenweren't allowed to go through
the temple uh black people werenot allowed to be sealed
together as families which we wetout as the central doctrine or
one of the most importantdoctrines uh of the church and

(27:43):
you know and and The thing thatis always stunning to me,
because the way you're talkingnow is like God would not be
last.
It is always stunning to me tohear people who are so eager to
throw God under the bus insteadof throwing human fallible

(28:05):
leaders under the bus.
There's a huge contingent withinthe church that is more
comfortable saying, well, Godwas just a racist.
then they are saying, well,Brigham Young was just a racist.
And you look at Brigham Young'sstatements, you look at Brigham
Young's...
We referenced on this podcastwith a guy who was saying the
church has never been racist,the church has never done

(28:26):
anything wrong, and I pointedout, okay, well, how do you
reconcile that with thisstatement from Brigham Young
that says the law of God, whichwill always be so, is that if
the...
if you mix your blood with theseed of Cain, the punishment is
death on the spot.
And he said, oh, well, this is,I was attacking the press

(28:48):
before.
We can't have any confidence inany of that.
I don't know if that was, heeven said that, you know, and
this is coming from the Journalof Discourses, which was edited
by Brigham Young.
And the talks were includeddirectly by Brigham Young.
So whether or not he actuallysaid it, he put, his name behind
it after the fact.

(29:08):
I mean, it was certainlysomething he believed.
It's so, I mean, it is just soremarkable to me that we are
not, we are so unwilling toadmit error, admit the
fallibility of leaders, that weare willing to ascribe the kinds

(29:30):
of bigotry that you'redescribing.
We're willing to attribute thatto God.
rather than attribute that toman.
And I think the only way to stayin the church is to recognize
that fallibility is built intothe system, that fallibility
isn't just a bug.
Fallibility is the purpose ofmortality, that the theological

(29:55):
center of Mormonism is the ideaof agency, the idea that we
chose to come to mortality tomake mistakes, And we should not
only just acknowledge them, weshould expect them.
And the way the church dealswith that, I think, gives

(30:17):
members sort of 180 degreedifferent approach to that is
that we say we kind of pay lipservice to the idea that, oh,
yeah, we're going to makemistakes.
And, oh, yeah, we've done thingsthat are wrong.
But then when you say, OK, well,what have you done that's wrong?
Can you point out a mistake tome?

(30:38):
And no one's willing to do that.
It's interesting, particularlyon this issue, that the church,
there's a professor at theUniversity of Utah by the name
of Paul Reeve, who's written anumber of really wonderful
books.
Very thoughtful guy, veryintelligent guy, and a believing
member of the church.
But he wrote a book called Let'sTalk About Race and the

(31:00):
Priesthood.
And And it's published byDeseret Book.
And Deseret Book came to him andsaid, we want you to write this.
And he says, I'm not going towrite this unless you allow me
to come to the conclusion, theonly logical conclusion in
confronting this, that this wasa terrible error, that this was

(31:24):
a mistake, and that this was notof God, and that this was of
man.
And they said, go ahead.
And so Deseret Book has quietlypublished this book.
But my guess is most people havenot heard of it.
It's a lot like the GospelTopics essays that are willing
to sort of acknowledge thatthere have been mistakes, but

(31:47):
they're not willing to sort ofcross the line and say, this was
a mistake.
We were wrong.
And the official line is justlike what Kirk your mom was
saying is okay just wait andthen finally God will come
around and God had his purposesfor perpetuating this ban when

(32:08):
in fact it's if you look at thehistorical record it's painfully
obvious that this was not rootedin Revelation and that this was
this adopted a 19th centuryProtestant justification for
slavery the whole idea of thecurse of Cain and everything
else was a way that slave ownersassuaged their consciences and

(32:33):
said, well, this must be fromGod and it must be okay to be
doing this terrible, horriblething.
But as you talk about that, it'sjust really fascinating to me
that so many members of thechurch are willing to attribute
racism to God as opposed toattributing racism to man.

(32:53):
Does that make any sense?
I mean, has that been yourexperience?

SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Yeah, and I've heard you say that on this podcast
before.
There's been other times whenI've heard a similar thing kind
of from you on, Jim.
Myself,

SPEAKER_01 (33:07):
yes.
It's a one-trick pony.

SPEAKER_02 (33:09):
No, because I think it's an interesting attempt to
resolve that conflict when youhave something that is morally
wrong that has been the policyof the church.
And I think that the tensionwith that argument, that it's
people instead of God.
The first is, is these arepeople that are supposedly
chosen by God and speaking onbehalf of God.

(33:30):
So you can say Spencer W.
Kimball was a racist.
And I think that everybody wouldagree with that now.
The things that he said wereincredibly racist.
And yet 1976, they come out withthis, with this proclamation.
So you could say that up untilthe proclamation comes out, that
it was, it was Spencer W.
Kimball.

(33:50):
and racism, and after theproclamation comes out, now God
has intervened.
But that begs the question, whydidn't

SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
God intervene?
You're talking about thepriesthood revelation?
It was in 78?

SPEAKER_02 (34:01):
78, yeah.
Oh, was it 78?
Okay.
Sorry.
Thanks for that clarification.
So you could say that, well,that's when God stepped in.
But that begs the question, whydidn't God step in earlier?
And you can say, yeah, BrighamYoung was a racist.
But it's because Brigham Youngwas a racist.

(34:22):
You forget that at that time,there were abolitionists all
throughout the United States.
There were people and throughoutthe world, right?
That were saying slavery iswrong.
The mistreatment of black peopleis wrong.
God could have picked any one ofthose, but he picked the racist,
right?
So to be the leader.

(34:43):
So I think that there's thetension first of these are
people saying they act as God'sleader.
or as God's mouthpiece, and aresaying that this is coming from
God.
So either they're lying to usabout what God says, or they're
lying to us about them being amouthpiece for God.
Then the second layer you getis, why does God delay in

(35:03):
intervening?
Why does he wait till 1976?
Why doesn't he do it in, forgetdoing it in the 1800s when Other
people were standing up forcivil rights.
Why didn't he do it in the 1960swhen the civil rights movement
was on?
So why is God the last one toshow up to change it?
Why is he waiting for theracists to catch up rather than

(35:24):
embracing the people whobelieved in those civil rights
things?
And then the last thing is thosepeople really mislead.
When church leaders are wrongabout morality issues, they
cause other people to be wrong.
I remember a time I was in BigV, which was like our department
store.
And there was a couple in frontof us in line.
And I'm a young child.

(35:44):
I'm like five at the time, six.
And it's an interracial couple,a white woman and a black man.
And I remember my mom saying, wedon't believe in that.
That is wrong.
My mom is the least racistperson I know.
She loves everybody, right?
That wasn't her speaking.

(36:05):
That was me.
I don't know who was the prophetthen, Spencer W.
Kimball or whoever it was.
That was him speaking throughher.
She was repeating what she hadbeen told.
So God would be, under thattheory, God would be allowing
this mouthpiece, his mouthpiece,to lead people into immoral

(36:26):
actions.
So I think that there are thosethree problems kind of with that
approach.
I think you've just got to admiteither...
Either the prophet's the prophetand he's speaking for God and
you've got to justify that andyou've got to own up to it and
say, okay, for some reason Godis saying it.
Or you've got to, you know, youcan't sidestep it by pretending

(36:50):
that it's somebody else andGod's okay.

SPEAKER_00 (36:54):
These points are some of the most important
points and issues that I've everheard.
including we've ever discussedon the podcast.
The two things that I'm thinkingof is as the only true living
church upon the face of theearth with all these claims that
the prophet is the only personon the planet that speaks the

(37:17):
mind and will of God, that knowsthe mind and will of God.
Your most important point thatthe church be first leading
this, dealing with this firstand ahead of everyone else
considering this uniquerelationship with God.
I think that's one of the mostimportant issues that we've ever
discussed or even contemplatedin life, in our experience with

(37:40):
the church, but also on ourpodcast.
And the second thing that hadn'tdawned on me until now,
actually, in this conversationwith you, Kirk, that, Jim,
you've got people that areinherently good people.
right?
Kind, good, naturally,instinctively, good, loving
everybody, no matter what coloror religion, right?

(38:02):
They love everybody becausethat's who they are, you know,
like Kirk's mom.
And then you get the church thatpressurizes people to believe a
certain way.
You've got to believe in thesethings and accept the prophets
and, you know, you've got toaccept and support all the
prophets and all the doctrineover the years.
And that, those doctrines andthose policies, uh, damage and

(38:24):
diminish people's naturalinstinctive good qualities that
these people repeat andregurgitate awful awful
teachings when in fact that'snot how they feel I feel so
strong about it because this wasmy experience on this very issue
as you know I left because ofthe essay mostly the race and

(38:46):
the priesthood essay that cameout it was wrong it was flat out
evil to have that disgusting, tohave that, and the comments that
Brigham Young and Bruce McConkiesaid about black people and
others was awful, disgusting,terrible things.
And why would God allow that,right?

(39:07):
And so you've got good people inthe church that are some kind
of, trying to reconcile this.
I think it's absolutely awful.
So there's two things there.
Jim, did you want to step in onsomething?
I think, do you want to saysomething on this?

SPEAKER_01 (39:21):
Well, no, I mean, I don't want to, I'm not, I'm
sitting here trying to figureout the best way to make sense
of this.
Because I am aware of this, Ifeel exactly the same way, and
yet I am still in the church.
And so there's sort of a tensionthere in terms of, okay, well,

(39:43):
Kirk, you've sort of outlined aclear dichotomy, which is, and
tell me if I'm getting thisright or wrong.
But which is either we acceptthat all of these failings are
God's fault and that he's chosenracist mouthpieces and he's

(40:03):
chosen people who have madethese errors.
And so that gives him theresponsibility for them.
Or we just sort of have toaccept that the church is not
what it claims to be at all andwe have to walk out.
I mean, is that kind of a steelman description of what you're
saying?

SPEAKER_02 (40:23):
Well, I think that goes back to, I think that most
Mormons today are sympathetic tohomosexuals and don't think that
the church is on the right sideof that issue.
I

SPEAKER_01 (40:40):
would agree that most Mormons are exactly

SPEAKER_02 (40:44):
that.
Yeah.
So they rationalized staying inthe church with the same thing
that my mom did.
Eventually, the doctrine isgoing to change.
And they justify that or explainit away by saying, I can do more
to make the church be better bystaying in the church than
leaving the church.
And I'm not going to questionthat.
I think that I did some reallyimportant things to blunt a lot

(41:08):
of the doctrine.
the worst parts about the churchby being in the church and being
in a position to make adifference, right?
There were people that they wentafter that I protected.
And there were some people thatthey didn't go after that they
should have.
And I think that I wasinstrumental in that.

(41:31):
Maybe we come back to that in aminute.
But But I think that that's thatdebate between you stay in the
church to effectually change ordo you leave the church?
For me, I think that the churchonly makes fundamental change
when it receives pressure fromoutside.
It doesn't care about thepressure from inside.
So you have to naturally growenough people to have the right

(41:52):
morality to finally get aroundto doing the right thing.
And that's probably why thechurch is so far behind
everybody else on civil rightsissues, right?
Because it takes a long time togrow those people.
to change the old guard, whichis, I mean, what's the average
age in the quorum now, right?

SPEAKER_01 (42:12):
So this is the first time the first presidency has
consisted solely of people overthe age of 90.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (42:19):
So you're taking the morality from 90 years ago to
lead this powerful church and tosay that this is the morality
that everybody should follow.
And so, so, you know, you're,it, it, The structure of the
church is designed to make a bigship that doesn't turn very
fast, which is a great thingwhen you want stability, but not

(42:40):
when you require the ability tochange as circumstances change,
and especially if you're offcourse, which is, I think, what
the church is on a number ofissues.
It's dramatically off course,and it has a hard time coming
back.
It takes generations to get backon course, and by the time it
gets there, it'll be off courseagain, right?

(43:02):
on the issue of civil rights forAfrican Americans, on the issue
of rights for women, on theissue of rights for homosexuals,
it was behind the times and itshould have been one of the
leaders.
There was such an opportunityfor the church when I was the

(43:24):
bishop and these issues of howdo we treat people fairly who
are homosexual?
And the church's stance was,well, we're going to go out and
we're going to pay a lot ofmoney to make sure the
Proposition 8 doesn't passbecause we don't want them to
get married.
Instead of coming forward andsaying, everybody is a child of
God.
Love is love.
We may not agree with thisparticular kind, but we agree

(43:46):
with the fundamental principlethat people should be treated
fairly.
And so we're going to throw ourfull support behind legal
unions, right?
Maybe not marriage, but legalunions.
Let us become an advocate forpeople that are...
For equality and for justice.
And instead, they went the otherway.

(44:06):
And I think that right now,there are people that are trying
to figure out.
The United States is in a crisisright now.
And there are people looking forleadership from a church that
claims that they can tell themwhat God wants for issues that
matter in their life.
The whole reason why you havemodern day prophets is so they

(44:26):
can tell you in time.
And yet we don't see anythingfrom the church on the threats
that are being called byevangelical Christianity in the
United States and thesedramatic, terrible, unjust
policies that are going.
The church remains silent.
It should be the leader.

SPEAKER_01 (44:48):
Ian, that's a huge concern for you.
You've talked about that manytimes.
I

SPEAKER_00 (44:53):
keep coming back to this question.
about, you know, look at theworld that we're in right now.
Look at all the wars, thedivisions, all the division
across society, the inequalitythat's out there, and just a
crazy world that we're living inwith all these issues and
immigration and health andpolitics and just endless

(45:17):
problems that we've got in theworld.
Where's the church on this?
I think we dedicated quite a bitof time, Kirk, on our podcast to
what's the role of the church inspeaking up about these issues
as a multi-billion dollarenterprise and as a church
that's pretty established withan extraordinary vast amount of

(45:40):
resources network across theworld and wants to have these
photo ops with the Pope.
and photo ops with thesedifferent leaders around the
world.
And he's very, very good at thephoto ops, you know, for the
images and the newsletter, etcetera.
But where's the substance?
Where's the leadership?
If the claim is that we've gotthis inside track with the Lord,

(46:02):
that we know stuff, and we knowstuff first, and we've got
solutions because God hasrevealed them to us, and we've
got that unique insight becausewe're the only true church on
the point of faith of the earth.
Either God is speaking to theprophets and they're ignoring
him, or God is silent on theseissues and doesn't care, doesn't
have anything to say aboutwhat's going on on this planet,

(46:23):
or he does and the firstpresence is kind of picky and
choosy about what they want tosay.
The only conclusion I can cometo is that it's a man-made
church, and the church is tryingto walk a fine line on politics.
It's afraid to speak up andstand out and be the first on
things.
That's where I am.
I mean, Jim's on a differentposition.

(46:45):
So the church holds its membersto a high standard and a high
level of accountability.
Look at the interview processand the transparency around
holding members accountable toliving the standards.
It's about time, I think, thatthe church held itself to the

(47:05):
same standards and transparencyand accountability and did more
and actually did what it'ssupposed to do, which is to lead
and be first and to speak up,even on unpopular issues, do the
right thing.
There are examples of peoplethat have done that.
I think Mitt Romney, who Jimknows from his experience, has

(47:29):
spoken up politically on somethings.
So I think there are people inthe church, Uchtdorf and Romney
and probably some other peoplethat from time to time...
I would add

SPEAKER_02 (47:38):
Senator Bennett to that.

SPEAKER_00 (47:39):
Senator Bennett as well.

SPEAKER_02 (47:41):
A man who, not on my political...
but who I have incrediblerespect for.
Your father was an amazing,great man, Jim.
And he raised an amazing, greatson.

SPEAKER_01 (47:53):
Well, thank you.
Thank you on both counts.
But I would absolutely agreewith you that, I mean, so much
of, really, the reason I amstill in the church is because
of the goodness of my father andhow he navigated all of this and
the kinds of discussions we hadon this.

(48:14):
And where I was going earlier interms of when I was trying to
steel man your argument, Kirk,is that I'm trying...
I really do genuinely believethere is a third way.
That in order for the church tocontinue to survive and to
thrive, essentially, I think wehave to...

(48:40):
we have to come up with adifferent paradigm for what the
church is.
Because both of you areoutlining something that I think
is very representative of howmost people in and out of the
church see the church.
We announce we are the only trueand living church on the face of
the earth.
We announce that we have aprophet who speaks to God.

(49:01):
And so everybody says, well, ifyou have a prophet who speaks to
God, this is what I wouldexpect.
a prophet who speaks to God todo.
And this is what I would expectthe church of God to do.
And I think those expectationsare reasonable.
And I think at the same time, Ithink that particularly in the

(49:25):
church, we have sort of createdthis kind of complacency where
we are willing to punt off ourshortcomings and our failures to
God and say, well, geez, yeah,the church didn't lead out on

(49:46):
this.
Well, it must have been becausethat's what God wanted, not
because God respected the agencyof us and we didn't have the
courage or the ability to goahead and lead out on this.
So Backing up a little bit interms of my theological

(50:06):
perspective, I have becomelargely a universalist.
I see the world in Latter-daySaint terms.
I find elements of Latter-daySaint theology extraordinarily
compelling, particularly withregard to how they deal with
theodicy, with the idea thatwhat happened before this life

(50:28):
informs what happens in thislife.
which helps us understand thatthe purpose of this life, you
know, when you start asking, whyis there so much suffering in
the world?
You say, that's what we signedup for, because we recognize
that's how we become more likeGod.
I mean, I find that wholetheological framework very

(50:50):
compelling.
I also find the fact, I firmlybelieve, I mean, you talked,
Kirk, about the idea, you didsome good when you were on the
inside, and I think youabsolutely did.
I feel convicted that this iswhere God wants me.
And so I sit here and I'mlistening to both of you talk
about the shortcomings of thechurch.

(51:11):
And I can't disagree withanything of what you're saying.
What I can do is say, I thinkthe only way forward for the
church is to incorporate thatand embrace that and take
accountability for for all ofthe times we failed, for all of
the times we've lagged behind.

(51:33):
And recognize that that is allpart of the process too.
But what that requires us to dois give up the pedestalization
of church leaders.
Give up the idea that Russell M.
Nelson has more access to Godthan anybody else.

(51:53):
Essentially redefine what wemean when we talk about a
prophet seer and revelator, whatwe mean when we talk about
church leaders and apostles,because they want to have their
cake and eat it too.
They want us to recognize theirweaknesses, and yet they want us

(52:13):
to treat them like they don'thave any.
It's the President Oaksstatement that it's wrong to
criticize the church, even ifthe criticism is true.
And it's just, You look at thatand I just say, look, things
that can't go on forevereventually stop.

(52:34):
And this kind of falseinfallibility and this refusal
to take accountability for wherewe have made mistakes eventually
is going to have to stop one wayor the other.
Either it stops with us actuallytaking accountability or it
stops with the church going offa cliff and falling into total

(52:54):
irrelevance.
because the church is nevergoing to go away.
The church has enough money toperpetuate itself essentially
through eternity.
But the church is in seriousdanger of just becoming
irrelevant, becoming amarginalized sort of group.

(53:14):
It's increasingly getting areputation for being a
right-wing group, which isinteresting because when I
worked in...
I worked...
When my father lost, I ended upgoing to work for Sam Granato,
who was the Democrat running forthat seat that Mike Lee
eventually won.

(53:35):
And when I started working forSam Granato, I was surprised to
go to a campaign meeting and seeElder Stephen Snow at the
campaign meeting.
And Elder Snow at the time was asitting general authority.
I think he was the churchhistorian.
at the time, but he's also abelieving Democrat.

(53:57):
And I essentially said, what areyou doing here?
I didn't say it quite thatbluntly.
But his response was the churchis very concerned that it's
getting a reputation for being aright-wing church.
And the church is very eager tosee credible Democrats in
office.

(54:17):
And I went, well, that'swonderful.
Why don't you say that publicly?
And he said, well, we can't dothat.
We have to maintain this kind ofidea of neutrality.
The point being, I think theidea that the church is
monolithic behind the scenes,the idea that everybody is in

(54:42):
lockstep with the idea of wenever apologize and we are
hardliners and this will never,ever, ever, ever, ever change.
I don't think that that playsout in terms of what's actually
happening behind the scenes.
I think there is, you know, GregPrince and I had a conversation

(55:04):
about this.
He's a scholar who wrote thewonderful book, David O.
McKay and the Rise of ModernMormonism.
He just says there is moredivision, particularly on LGBTQ
issues than on any other issuein the church within our
lifetimes.
And I think, Kirk, you'reabsolutely right that this is
going to change.

(55:24):
I mean, I don't think it hasany, I don't think the church,
the church's position now isentirely untenable.
I mean, the fact that back whenyou read The Miracle of
Forgiveness and Spencer Kimballwas saying you need to beat your
head against the door until yourmuscles are bloody and you're,
you know, that quote justabsolutely haunts me.

(55:47):
We had a whole podcast on themiracle of forgiveness.
So I don't want to get too muchinto that.
But the thing about presidentKimball's position back then is
it add the luxury or at leasthad the benefit of being
consistent with itself.
That if we truly believe thatpeople do not, the people choose

(56:09):
to be gay, people choose to betransgender and they do so it
would, by making a morallydubious choice, if we truly
believe that, then we arejustified in denying them the
blessings of the church as theymake evil choices.
But we no longer believe that.

(56:30):
The church, and I think Prop 8did this, the backlash to Prop
8, and this also reinforces,Kirk, what you're saying about
pressure from the outside,because the backlash to Prop 8
forced the church to reevaluatetheir approach.
And that's the first time thechurch quietly, again, the same

(56:51):
way they released the gospeltopics essays, they didn't call
attention to it, which drives mecrazy, but quietly admitted, no,
people don't choose to be gay.
No, this is not a morallydubious choice.
People don't choose this.
They won't go far enough to saythey're born this way, but

(57:11):
that's clearly the implication.
They also say, okay, you can'tchange your orientation by
praying it away.
They've said both of thosethings, which I think are huge
shifts from where the church waswhen we were all serving
missions.
But at the same time, okay,they've said that.

(57:34):
Well, the logical conclusion tothat is, okay, well, if they
didn't choose it, if it doesn'tchange, then...
there must be a righteouspurpose for it, that the Lord
must have a use for it, and thatthere must be some sort of
righteous expression for it.

(57:57):
And the church has said, no, youdidn't choose this.
It can't change, but we're stillgoing to treat you as if you did
choose this and as if it willchange.
And so that is not...
a logically tenable position,let alone a morally tenable one.
Logically, it's going to have toresolve one way or the other.

(58:19):
You're going to have to eithergo back to Spencer W.
Kimball and say, we were rightthe first time, you did choose
this, you are wicked, and we aregoing to punish you.
Or we have to go forward to theidea of inclusion, to the idea
of there is some kind ofrighteous purpose.

(58:40):
for our LGBTQ brothers andsisters.
And I don't see any way thatthey can go backward,
particularly with the rise of,the rising generation just has
absolutely no tolerance for thatkind of bigotry.
And they also are notsusceptible to the kinds of

(59:02):
things that were being saidduring Prop 8, because the
warning during Prop 8 was, ifyou legalize gay marriage,
Traditional marriage is going tofall by the wayside.
Civilization is essentiallygoing to collapse.
The world is going to end if welegalize gay marriage.
Well, we legalize gay marriageand the world is not, not only

(59:25):
is the world not ending, butit's been, I think everybody
seems to recognize that it'sbeen a positive civilizationally
and the church has even,endorsed the Respect for
Marriage Act, which codifies thelegality of gay marriage in all

(59:46):
50 states.

SPEAKER_02 (59:47):
The church supported that because it carves out
religious...
Carves out all these exceptions.

SPEAKER_01 (59:54):
The point is...
They agree with you.
All this ground because thechurch has lost on this issue...
In every possible way it is tolose.
I agree

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:09):
with that.
And I agree with yourproposition that it's not
monolithic.
And I think that the bestexample of that is the church's
stance on gay marriageconstituting apostasy.
Right.
So you're talking about, well,they're getting more liberal.
And then this rule comes out.
And for your listeners, itstated that if anybody gets

(01:00:30):
married in the church, they arean apostate and their children
are apostates.
And having sat in a lot ofdisciplinary councils, I can
tell you exactly what that was.
So one of the problems that thechurch has with its stance on
gay marriage is that everybodyknows that it's wrong, right?

(01:00:53):
Most of the membership knowsthat this is the wrong position.
They just know it in their gut.
Morally, we're taught to bekind, and this is not kind.
And the problem that the churchhas is it was easy to maintain
the discrimination against blackpeople because they didn't know

(01:01:14):
a lot of black people, right?
There was segregation within thecountry.
So it was easy to vilify as, youknow, well, they were evil in
the pre-existence or they carrythe curse of Cain because you
didn't know.
on a one-to-one basis.
The church fails to be able tohold that line when it comes to

(01:01:36):
homosexuals and trans people andeverybody else because we all
know them.
They are our children.
They are our uncles and aunts.
You know, we know them.
And a lot of gay people go tochurch, right?
My son was the very last personin my family who, he was gay.
He was the last person to leavethe church because for him, It

(01:02:00):
was a spiritual experience.
He really believed.
They had to kick him out becausehe kept coming to church.
And so now you've got a problem.
If you're in Salt Lake and youare trying to have this hard
line against gay people, you'reundercut every time they go to
church and they see somebodythat they like and that they
love who is in the pew who isgay.

(01:02:21):
So you have got to createseparation for them.
And that is what all of that...
that declaration that they wereapostates.
And they take the authority awayfrom the local leaders.
My son was discriminated againstby the teachings of the church,

(01:02:43):
but never by his bishop.
His bishop loved him, and hisbishop was understanding, and
his bishop cared for him.
And when I was a bishop, Iprotected all of the gay people
that were coming to church.
Because this is how you do it.
If somebody is gay and they're amale, that has to go to the
stake president.

(01:03:04):
And it's a stake matter.
I'm only in charge of females orsomebody who doesn't have the
priesthood.
So I would just go to my stakepresident and say, hey, he's
having this same-sex marriageissue.
I don't think you need to dealwith it.
I think I can deal with it.
And my stake president wasalways glad to wash his hands
and say, sure.
And then I would protect them.

(01:03:25):
And I think that a lot of localleaders are in active but
clandestine rebellion againstthe policies of the church, and
they were protecting gay people,and they were not enforcing.
And so when the church came outwith the gay people who get
married are apostates, it tookcare of those two problems.

(01:03:49):
The first thing is it takes allauthority away from the local
leaders who are showing sympathytowards gay people.
Because there are only a fewthings that as a local leader,
we did not have authority over.
If you sold money from thechurch, if you committed incest,
if you committed murder, and ifyou were an apostate, those

(01:04:10):
things had to go to Salt Lake.
So by declaring them to beapostates, they've removed local
control and therefore localsympathy from the local leaders
and they've ship it back to SaltLake where the hard line could
be maintained.
The second thing is, it's onething that people, gay people
that go to church know that theyare condemned in the eyes of the

(01:04:32):
church as well as God, right?
But they are willing becausethey believe enough to accept
that punishment for themselves.
And usually it's because thesame thing that motivated me to
start going to church, they wanttheir children to be in church.
And so by the church declaringthat not only is the parent of
an apostate, the children are anapostate too, it took away all

(01:04:57):
of the reason for those gaypeople to be there.
We are gonna punish yourchildren because of the way that
you are.
We don't do that with anybodyelse.
We're gonna do it with gaypeople.
And

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:07):
though it passes.
I don't wanna interrupt youbecause I just want to say that
I had never thought of it inthose terms I have never heard a
clearer and more sensiblejustification for punishing the
children of gay people, thatthey're trying to take away
motivation for gay people tocontinue to participate in the

(01:05:30):
church.
I had never thought of it inthat way, and I think that's
actually a brilliant way to lookat it.
So, sorry, continue to go.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:36):
And so I think that that passes.
That is the hard line.
But as you said, it's notmonolithic.
I think there are people who arefighting for a more sympathetic
view, and eventually thosepeople won over, right?
And we're able to reverse thatpolicy.
But that doesn't mean the churchis doing the right thing.

(01:05:58):
What

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:00):
that policy does, though, is demonstrate that the
church does not really have thepowers to reverse this.
I mean, it was an attempt toreverse this.
It was an attempt to say, okay,I'm seeing too much sympathy.
We're seeing too much movementin that direction.
Let's just quash it.
Let's just step on it and makeit go away.

(01:06:22):
And we'll just issue this edict.
We'll create this policy andthat'll be the end of it.
And not only has it not been theend of it, but it has, the fact
that it had to be reversed threeand a half years later I think
that has to be extraordinarilyembarrassing to church leaders.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:43):
Yeah, because I remember them saying, lining up
to say, God told us this.
Right, right.
It was the same thing as when,you know, they said, well, God
finally told us it was okay tolet blacks have the priesthood.
They were lining up to say, Godis telling us that the family
proclamation is right.
And he's telling us that thispolicy that they are apostates

(01:07:03):
is right.
And they were lining up.
And then three and a half yearslater, they had to back down.
But don't overestimate that.
I think that that's becausethere is a fight in the highest
level of the church over whatthat stand would be.
And It wasn't pressure fromwithin the church, I don't
think.
I think that, I mean, you sawthe numbers right after that.

(01:07:23):
The church just became vilified.
People were leaving left andright.
And it was an external force onthe church that caused that
change.
It wasn't the people who stayedwithin that effectuated that, I
don't think.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:37):
President Nelson went into great detail,
actually, when, you know, in2015, when the church
implemented the policy that madeit difficult for children of
same-sex couples to be baptizedand blessed.
Nelson is on record in theinterview, I think I have seen
that, going into great detail ofthe revelatory process about why

(01:08:00):
that was such a significantdecision, a controversial one,
but they went into great detailabout why, of the details, the
process of why God told them todo that.
And then three and a half yearslater, They changed the whole
thing.
Embarrassment is anunderstatement.
The church is wrong on this andso many other issues as well.

(01:08:23):
We talk in the other podcast, wetry to walk a balance.
The church has a lot of greatthings.
We know that.
But on certain things like raceand the priesthood and gay
rights, et cetera, and civilrights, it's either on the wrong
side or it's on the right side,but is laid bare.
to the length of the show.

(01:08:45):
Kirk, Jim, we're coming up tothe end of a podcast here.
Again, I want to express ourgratitude for you taking time.
And I could, by the way, I'velearned so much from you today.
There's things that you've saidthat I've never seen or
understood before.
And Jim's highlighted one ofthose things as well amongst a

(01:09:06):
few things.
Just a couple of questions on myend, and Jim, you can add yours,
and then we can just kind ofwrap this up in the next
probably five, maybe sevenminutes or so if we can.
But where are you now with yourfaith, Kirk?
Tell us a bit about your life,and you've also got a large

(01:09:27):
TikTok following.
Tell us about that.

UNKNOWN (01:09:30):
Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:31):
Yeah, so when I look back at the events that changed
my life, you know, we've talkedabout a few of those, but
shortly after I left the churchand I was trying to figure out,
so what's going to be my moralcompass going forward?
I went to a pub in Arizona,Seamus's Pub, with a lesbian

(01:09:53):
artist studying, getting her PhDin Russian literature, and we
were just talking about life,and I was talking about, what
morality do I do?
What is the purpose of life?
If you no longer believe in God,what is the purpose of life?
And she said something thatchanged my life.
She said, once you recognizethat your existence is finite,

(01:10:14):
every moment becomes precious.
One of the things aboutbelieving that you're going to
live forever Your family isgoing to be forever is any given
moment isn't that important.
I think that's one of the thingsthe church takes advantage of.
They demand so much time awayfrom your family because it's
OK.
You're going to be with themforever.

(01:10:35):
Right.
When you admit or or acknowledgethat, no, when you die, that's
it.
then every moment becomes somuch more precious.
There isn't an infinite numberof them.
This is it.
And so I really began to think,what is really important with

(01:10:56):
this finite amount of time thatI have?
And I decided that just goingthrough the motions and doing
everything that society says youshould do isn't how I wanted to
spend my few years here on theearth.
And so I decided...
I'm going to start from scratchand I'm going to reevaluate

(01:11:17):
everything that I know aboutwhat is purposeful and what is
meaningful.
And I decided I was going todrop out of the rat race of
consumerism that, you know, Ithink most people are engaged in
where they're selling their timeto buy more and more stuff so
that they, hoping that that'sgoing to make them happy and
give them meaning and really istaking them farther from what
does.

(01:11:37):
And I decided I was going tosimplify my life down to just a
couple of core values.
drop out of the rat race quitspending money and go do what i
think is really important so i iuh i dropped out and i moved
down to honduras and now i livea very simple life on the beach

(01:11:59):
i have three core values thatare important to me the first
one is creativity um i i try andcreate as an artist.
And the second is I try and dogood.
I'm involved in a lot ofhumanitarian and environmental
issues here.
And the last is to experience.
I think that the universeexperiences itself through us.
And so every year I take two bigadventures and I go off and I do

(01:12:24):
it.
I just got back from hiking 400kilometers across Turkey, Last
fall, I was diving in thePacific on the atomic fleet,
which are shipwrecks that wereblown up by an atomic bomb by
the US at Bikini Atoll and sunk.
And so I do something like thattwice a year to experience

(01:12:45):
what's really out there.
So that's where I am now.
And it goes back to thatrealization that every moment is
precious.
So I'm sure as hell going tospend every moment trying to
make the most of it.
You mentioned the videos, thesocial media.
Our island here has 4,000 peopleon it.

(01:13:06):
It's so small that we don't haveany cars, but we have some
medical clinics.
When I went there, it was rightafter COVID, and the nurses here
were making half of what theynormally do, even though they
were working all the timebecause the Honduran government
couldn't afford to pay them.
One of the nurses there, I'mlike, what can we do to help?
She said, told the story aboutthis mother who brought in her

(01:13:28):
daughter who was havingseizures.
And they thought at first it wasepilepsy.
And then they realized, no, shewas just dehydrated because she
had had a terrible fever for aweek.
And the doctor says, you need toget her Tylenol.
We need to get that fever down.
And the mother took the daughterand was leaving because she
couldn't afford Tylenol.

(01:13:50):
Tylenol here on our island costs$18.
the average person makes 12.
So it's a day and a half work toget children's Tylenol.
So the nurse, out of the littlebit of money that she had, she
was making half what shenormally does, went out and
bought the Tylenol and gave itto that child.
And I vowed that as long as Iwas here, I was never going to

(01:14:11):
happen again.
So I decided that if at first Iwas just buying the medicine
myself and then I got onFacebook and I was like, if you,
if you want, you can donate tome and I'll take the medicine
down.
And then I, one day I justthought, you know, what if I got
on TikTok and, and I started totell people out the island, I
got them to love the island somuch that they would go to an

(01:14:34):
Amazon wishlist and they wouldjust buy it on their Amazon
wishlist.
And then I would arrange for itto be brought down.
And so we started that threeyears ago.
We bring down hundreds of poundsof medicine every month.
My last big call that I came outasking people to do it, there
were trucks.

(01:14:54):
Amazon had to send trucks fullof just donations.
We had over a thousand packagesdelivered to my friend's house,
over$70,000 in donations bythese people that now follow
Amazon.
The Vagabond Artist, that's whatI go by, Vagabond Artist.
And so what started out as thissocial media thing to get people

(01:15:16):
to love our island enough todonate has now turned into this,
you know, 1.5 million followersacross TikTok and Instagram.
All of these people donating,all these people doing the right
thing.
And so it's really been anamazing experience.
So you can see them if you wantto join.
You can go to TikTok, I'mVagabond Artist.
And if you go to my link tree,you will find the Utila Medical

(01:15:39):
Clinic Amazon wishlist.
You can just purchase everythingthere.
And then it shows up in Phoenix,Arizona, and we bring it down
every month.
And peoples that are visiting intheir bags, they just bring it
down.
So zero cost.
We kind of hacked humanitarianaid, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:01):
Erica, I think that's amazing.
You know, you're not in thechurch, but you've found, you
know, people in the churchthink, some people think that
there's no life after church.
Clearly, you know, my life iswonderful.
Your life is wonderful andextraordinary.
And you're doing so much good.

(01:16:21):
And there is life after church.
And it's wonderful that youfound your place place of mind
and a place of heart and aphysical place that you can live
your, you know, live what'simportant to your values.
Before we close our podcast,Jim, do you have any thoughts or

(01:16:43):
comments, final thoughts fromyour end?

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:47):
I just don't want to close this podcast.
No.
I could go on.
I mean, the insights that youprovided here, Kirk, are going
to leave me I'm going to bethinking about them and
wrestling with them for a verylong time after this podcast
concludes.
I would love to continue thisdiscussion for hours on end.

(01:17:14):
Ian, if Kirk's willing, I wouldlove to have him back.
We've had some guests back, butI want Kirk back.
I want maybe a, uh, an annualcheckup at least, uh, to hear
where you're going because,because I just think your
insights here, your experiencehere are just so extraordinary.

(01:17:39):
And, uh, you are so clearly aman of compassion and a man of
integrity and, and what you aredoing is, is just so
inspirational to me that I wantto be able to, to continue this
and to be able to extend this.
So, um, I just can't thank youenough for coming on and for
having this conversation withus.

(01:17:59):
And I hope you'll considercoming back.
I have

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:04):
loved it.
And thank you so much.
And yeah, I'm on an island wherewhen it gets dark, there's
nothing to do anyway.
So yeah, I'll talk to you guys.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:12):
Yeah, perhaps when we meet again, it should be.
Thank you.
It should be in Honduras.
We should go down there.
Come

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:19):
down.
We'll do a YouTube

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:22):
video.
Live on the beach.
Donate so we could get theticket to go down.
This is one of the most amazingconversations I've ever had,
Cecilia.
I've learned so much.
There's things that I've, youknow, you have these
conversations on the podcast andyou learn things from time to
time.
This has been one of the mostimpactful for me.

(01:18:43):
There's things that you've saidthat I never saw happening.
before, so thank you for that.
I know our listeners will bevery grateful for this
conversation.
Before we close, Kirk, if thispodcast was being listened to by
the First Presidency and theApostles or leaders, and I like
to think some of the generalauthorities have listened to
some of our podcasts.

(01:19:05):
In fact, I've been told that ourpodcast is known to some of the
church leaders.
What message would you give tothe First Presidency?
With all your experience,insights, the success, the pain
that you've gone through, theexperience that you've seen with
people, what message would yougive to the first presence in
regards to the direction youshould take on some of the items

(01:19:29):
that we talked about or manyother issues that you want to
mention here?

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:34):
Wow, that's a big question.
I think the thing that I wouldsay to them is you're sitting
on...
an incredible amount of wealth.
You have the chance to not dospiritual change only, but to
make real change in people'slives that will last for

(01:19:55):
generations.
Spend it.
You change those lives.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:03):
Kirk, thank you so much for being with us today.
So grateful to you.
We want to thank our listenerswho are wonderful listeners and
grateful for the opportunity tobe able to connect to our
listeners and help as many livesas we can.
We know your experience here,this experience here will change

(01:20:25):
a lot of lives.
Kirk, we're grateful to you.
We love you.
Express our love to you and yourfamily.
So thank you again for takingtime to come on.
And Jim, thank you again foryour wonderful insights.
Kirk, thank you.
Jim, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:39):
Thank you.
It's been an honor to talk toyou guys.

SPEAKER_01 (01:20:41):
Thank you both.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:43):
And I am just amazed that, I guess, 35 years later,
we're still friends and stillhaving these amazing discussions
that we started when we werejust kids.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:54):
This is a lifelong relationship that we will add
another milestone to thatrelationship when we're in
Honduras with you in a fewmonths, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:05):
That would be fantastic.
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:07):
Thank you, Kirk.
Thank you, Jim.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:09):
Thank you bye.