Uplift 2018 - Q&A with Dr. Daniel Peterson

hello good morning everybody this is Leo with uplift and we're just glad to have you all here we love you all very much as always just really appreciate people's support and and loving each other with compassion with understanding with patience as we work through the challenges with faith we're excited to have dr. Peterson with us today I sure love him and all of his contributions through up over the years many people have expressed you know gratitude to him personally and also indirectly online to say thank you to him for being a representative of Christ providing good answers to difficult questions being a solid historian a wonderful example in that way and just really appreciate you dr. Peterson for being here today we just love you a lot and thank you for being here we've sent you a few questions in advance but we'd like to have you briefly say hello and introduce yourself to us hi well it's good to be here this should be fun I hope it'll be fun you know it didn't your introduction was a little love I don't know what to say I mean I remember sitting next to he nibbly once when it was during a prayer and and the person praying went on and on not saying he did but went on and on and on about what a great privilege it was to sit at the feet of you nibbly and what a genius he was at cetera and during the prayer rather loudly nibbly sitting next to me suddenly said ah shucks sometimes I feel like though my name is Dan Peterson I'm I'm a professor of Asian and Near Eastern languages who are you my specialty is Arabic and Islamic studies specifically Islamic philosophical theology and the Quran I suppose but I teach courses on Islamic cultural history and and all sorts of stuff introductions to Islam and and occasionally Arabic at fairly advanced levels like courses on the Quran and things like that but my my other passion I suppose has been for a long time dealing with controversial latter-day Saint related issues I was involved from an early stage of my career at BYU with the old farms the foundation frankly researching women studies than its successor organization the Maxwell Institute and then following that with some others founded an organization called the interpreter foundation which which is something I'm really committed to now and we you know publish at least one new article every week it's kind of funny we didn't set out to do that we thought we'd publish an article every week for the first two or three weeks to sort of establish your presence and now it's been well we're nearing five and a half six years doing an article every week and now I think we've created a monster if we ever miss a week I know some critics out there will say haha we knew they'd fail so anyway working with that is a lot of fun oh that's enough of that yeah well very good well thanks again so let's go through some of these questions here we'll start with the first one the question is our computers and can you tell us about any cool faith promoting research you're currently involved with or you're aware of anything that's kind of cutting-edge that is helpful for defending the faith well you know a project that I'm working with privately I'm not letting much of it out I'm holding my holding my ammunition I guess is I I started working on a project years ago and I encountered a young man in a student ward that I was serving in who had you know saying he was having a faith crisis would be putting it mildly he had decided he wanted his name removed he had decided he was an atheist and so a friend of mine and I our high council rep who just happened to be happened to me a non academic who happened to have a PhD from the University of Chicago in some relevant fields we would spend every Sunday during gospel doctrine class having a two-on-one session with him as friendly just trying to create some doubts about his doubts and so on and I'm again thinking about some of the things we were saying in those sessions and thinking well maybe that we were in up in the short book so I began blinking away on my computer about the short book and pretty soon it turned into a really long book than a really long book that I broke it into since then broken it into five books and they've gotten to be five large books and I don't know whether the thing will ever appear at some point I've got to say enough pasta but but there's a lot of stuff going into that to try to make a case not to prove the gospel true but to sort of you know inspire some doubts I think about people live down or in people who doubt and we'll see how effective that is but their arguments that have impressed me and I don't claim that all of it is original it's certainly not but it's being reapplied in a way so that's that's my personal passionate project but right now I've got enough duties at BYU and and with interpreter and so on that I don't get to it very much there you know some of the things I'm interested in I'm really excited about Matt Bowen at byu-hawaii who's been doing work in multiple articles for interpreter about what seemed to be Hebrew / Semitic / even Egyptian word plays in the Book of Mormon which seem to suggest the original language of the text may not be English that it's actually some form of Hebrew or an ancient Near Eastern languages names for example it seemed peculiarly suited to the stories in which they appear and so on and he's published a number of articles on that I now have the galleys of a book that we'll be publishing where he's putting a lot of that material together and that's just it's an interesting challenge it's a fresh approach to to Book of Mormon issues in antiquity or the work the Royal Skousen and and Stan Carmack have done on early modern English in in the Book of Mormon that's odd I mean even from a believers point of view it's odd they didn't expect to find it they just began noticing it they're both very accomplished linguists and and you know from a believers point of view you wonder what on earth is that doing there how did it get there but I would say from a non-believers point of view it's it's even harder to explain because there seems no naturalistic way of explaining how English that comes from the 1500s and doesn't appear in the King James Bible or in the the dialect of Joseph Smith's world new york would make it into the original manuscript that's just strange and it's very slight but it's there and it's undeniably present and it's just odd but i sometimes think of it as kind of a divine joke i mean just wait till you notice this that'll make you wonder but there there are a lot of things going on right now there's one i can't even mention because i just know it from correspondence with the person who found something that strikes me as as potentially stunning certainly significant but until unless than until he publishes it say anything but this is i mention it not to be deliberately tantalizing but just because i found out about it within the past couple of days and I thought oh please write this up and do it soon and please submit it to interpreter I don't know if you will or not but but but it's fun stuff and it's something that others should have noticed earlier should have looked for but he did he found it and it's it's it's pretty interesting so a lot of things but another point I want to make I suppose is that from my point of view the case for the antiquity the kemaman or you know these other things is not going to be accomplished by one single slam-dunk I don't think that's in the cards I actually don't think if I dare appear into the mind of God I know I don't think that's in the game plan that would coerce belief in a way that that belief is not to be coerced under the situations in mortality that we find ourselves in it's some it's a cumulative case made of lots of small things that can be individually dismissed but if you see them all together you know in my opinion you should start to go wow that's interesting and then as more unfolds wow that's that's really quite astonishing and how did Joseph commit pull that office you know this sort of thoughtless frontier yokel that fun roadie portrayed started off in her view as a joke and just kind of got out of hand I just that just doesn't wash for me those are some of the things that that I'm interested in right now yeah that's wonderful you kind of touched on this and one of the other questions we had was around the early modern or early English he talked about the archaic English and local Mormon and I think that's something that we some of us have been thinking about as well and and you can just maybe just jump right to that you have any leading theories as to why it's in there other than just a joke is there anything else one of the one of the ideas that's been out there circulating and I confess I probably helped it circulate it I shouldn't have now that I see the life it's taken on upon itself is the idea of some sort of celestial translation committee involving William Tyndale or something like that I think I remember royal Skousen mentioning that to me when I asked him so how do you explain this what do you make of it he said well you know maybe it was a committee and William Tyndale on it it was a joke and and but I've mentioned it as a joke and now some people dismisses the you know the celestial translation committee what a stupid desperate idea well that's that's not actually the idea the idea is simply that as these linguists began looking at the tax doing royal has been working for a quarter of a century or more on the textual history of the Book of Mormon it's a really interesting and in mine from my point of view meticulous monumental work he's been doing but he began noticing linguistic quirks odd things archaic uses and so on but that he began to check out and many of them date to before the King James not all of them do but some of them do before and and they you can't explain them by the King James because they're not in it they're in other texts from the 1570s or even earlier and so on one level he says look I'm not trying to explain I'm just telling you it's there you know and don't hold me accountable for any theory about why it just is there and it's odd but it's that the argument shouldn't be Oh the counter-argument shouldn't be Oh will the celestial translation committee is stupid fine that who cares it's got nothing to do with it it doesn't actually obviate the fact that that these strange lexical and syntactic features appear in the original manuscript and and to some extent survived even into the into the printed versions but but you know Stan and and and royal in particular have looked really really intently at Joseph Smith's dialect as far as you can reconstruct it and at you know at documents from letters and so on from that period it's trying to find does anyone use these words or these constructions and then found them but they can find them in earlier source documents and and not just uneducated English one of the Stan's contributions has been pointed out the lot of the the so-called grammatical errors and they're legion especially in the original manuscript actually at a certain period of english were used by highly educated authors at places like Oxford and Cambridge and if you start looking at the early modern English phenomenon then you think maybe those aren't errors at all they're errors now but they weren't errors then and again to be honest I don't have a an explanation for it I'm puzzled but but my my comment would be what I said before that that I can sort of understand if the text was supernaturally delivered how they might arrive from an earlier period without any kind of transitional forms or something like that in in the language around Joseph Smith but from a naturalistic point of view I can't think of any explanation other than the Joseph somehow stumbled upon some document from the 1500s and pawned it off as his Book of Mormon which I don't know of anybody who actually suggests a theory like that and that self will be monumentally strange so it's to me it's it's a question in need of a solution but I think that and I don't like you to use the word supernatural really I know it's got all sorts of issues in it but but you know I would say that the supernaturalists have it have an easier way to an explanation though we don't really have one but I think we can imagine a few but the naturalist don't have any explanation at all that I can think of simply denying that it exists at all which I think it pretty plainly does yeah just based on the evidence there really is nothing there for them right and so one of the things I was thinking about is just a simple idea maybe you can toss toss this away for me but is that when God speaks to us he speaks to us in a way that that sounds and feels authentic I just still small voice that I feel in here my my life it sounds and feels like like it's God it's not within me it's not in my own brain it's something outside of me and I and I often wondered if Joseph received that the language in the way he did so that it would sound authentic in it obviously the evidence is that it took off The Book of Mormon was popular you know people join the church because of it yeah and you know I don't know if that's a possible explanation but I thought and if there's no selection committee um you know God could have provided this old sounding document so that people read and say this sounds like it's right in the past you know in a way that maybe resonates with them I don't know yeah you know Joseph was dictating the Book of Mormon in an era where they didn't have modern translations of the Bible I mean now you can pick them up and there's some even one of my favorites is is a kind of Hawaiian pidgin translation in the New Testament I need I'm sorry I know it's meant actually seriously because there's still large numbers of people in Hawaii who were more comfortable with what's called Hawaiian pidgin but to me it's really funny it's called the Jesus book you know and and the Lord is da boss and he why you wanna make us his kind guy and that sort of stuff but this anyway you can translate the Scriptures into any kind of language you want modern slang the another of my favorites is there's a cotton patch edition of the Bible which is translated in kind of a I guess a southern black vernacular and it's wonderful I'm gonna read these things you really do see things in a fresh way but in Joseph's day you didn't have that that the Bible for english-speakers was the authorized version the King James Version and if the Book of Mormon come along sounding like you know like the the writing of a contemporary journalist or something like that I don't think anybody would have bought it they just would have violated everything they expected in scripture scripture was King James language and that's how they heard it so you know the old joke about the woman who says she doesn't like modern translations because the King James Bible was good enough for Jesus is good enough for her but there would have been an awful lot of people in Joseph's environment not very sophisticated but you know unaware of any other way of translating the Bible that was the Bible this is how the Bible sounds it doesn't sound that way in the Koine Greek but they didn't know that the King James Bible is in some ways more literary than than the text it's translated from but Koine Greek was kind of common man language in those days but but I think I think you're right I think that's a major point which is the Book of Mormon had to have an archaic sound now one one important point I don't mean to make the whole interview about this but one important point the Royal would want me to make I know it's something that's really important to him is that although the book of woman does reflect early modern English it doesn't reflect it doesn't include any words or or syntactical structures that that that we can't understand that is there were things in the language in that period that would have just left even learning language and and royal scratching their heads till they researched it but have all been edited out what's there maybe archaic but it's not incomprehensible the Lord does speak to us after the man of our language and so the features are there and you can learn a little more precisely what they mean if you research them but we're not lost we're not just left mystified by what the text is talking about and so Royal says this is really important there's a kind of filter there that that allows our chasms to appear but incomprehensible ARC isms don't not once wow that's fascinating well it's wonderful we can probably switch gears here a little bit we have a couple questions in the chat window there you can also glance at those if you'd like just to see what people are saying but we can move on here until you click on that I just that they just see chat and but no questions are appearing okay well if you click on the link there and you see anything in the window that shows up that's great if not I can we can go through those I'll read those afterwards and we can look through those together okay nope no problem yeah I think I think I already addressed the first one yeah anyway yeah yeah no I think we're good and so I think it's important for us to talk with you you're one of your recent addresses that we have appreciated is the benefits of theism versus atheism and and as the question though its number two their atheism is on the rise in developing countries and give me advice for us to deal with that personally we have people in our group for over 700 members now and we're we have people in our group that are struggling with atheism there there are you know and I'm a past atheist and we have people that kind of just borderline you know this could all be false as it all could all be true and those thoughts do come in and are difficult to deal with and so any advice just practical advice spiritual advice you can give for people who are still struggling with that that thought then you know what isn't real you know I gave a talk a while ago I think it's the one you're probably referring to where I was talking about in effect some of the health benefits of of theism now I'm not stupid enough to think that that's an argument for the truth of theism it may be a useful auxiliary argument that that in a universe that's structured with some purpose it's not surprising if it's theistic that the theism would would confer benefits but I know that all sorts of false beliefs might be might be beneficial at least in the short term so on the other hand but I think that argument does is to is to materially weaken the claim of some I saw it just last night by a well by a very vocal ex-mormon atheist saying that you know religion is nothing more than a kind of collective mental illness oh that's Freudianism Freud said religions of collective neurosis basically argued that people who are theists are sick in some way well all the evidence will I would say just about all the evidence overwhelmingly of the evidence shows the contrary again that doesn't prove that theism is true but it does sort of take Freud out from my point of view that that believing in God religious activity I mean it's complex matter is it is it belief itself is an activity in a church is it the social connections that that are brought by membership and church or activity with a community probably a lot of factors go into it but the atheistic position and the lifestyle associated with it seem to confer all sorts of demonstrable benefits you know more rapid recovery from surgery less depression it doesn't mean religious people don't get depressed but but statistically the case is pretty strong and they they've been a lot of a lot of studies done on this by people in England by Harold I don't even know how he says his name I'm a German speaker I'd say how can I get a Duke that's probably coning or something like that but but he's edited the Oxford encyclopedia of religion and health and I mean just looked at hundreds and hundreds of studies and says this is just incontrovertible that the theism confers health benefits and other benefits but hey you can't the trouble is you can't adopt theism just to be healthy like taking a I understand that what would I say to people are struggling with theism I would say well continue to struggle my argument would be partially that that we have a natural inclination contra Freud to to be theists you know there's a book by an author whose name I can't remember called faces in the cloud where he he argues that the the origin of religion consists in a natural human tendency conferred by evolution to see personal factors in the like we see faces and clouds we are equipped pre-programmed to see faces and clouds to recognize his personal agents as a matter of safety if you are looking at the thick grass and you see the eyes of a tiger it's kind of useful to note that so you can start moving away but in other words religion is a natural thing a lot of people are now arguing again that seems to me contrary to Freud it's not an aberration it's a it's a natural way of human thinking some people would say well a way we have to overcome I would say well no I mean it's natural for people to look at a sunset and marvel at the beauty of the universe and feel some intuition that something is behind it that's not a convincing argument maybe to some to some it is it's enough to say you know I just I look at the universe as is I cannot believe it's the product of chance one of my great regrets is that and stop me if I'm going on too long I my wife isn't here to tell me you know stop it stop it but one of my great regrets is that Allan Sandage who was one of the great observational astronomers in 20th century student event when Hubble and so on himself you know a great figure the discoverer of quasars the guy who came up with a precise figure for Hubble's constant and all the sudden thing I didn't know it he was a neighbor of mine when I was growing up in California we probably lived within a few blocks of each other at most I just didn't know and he died just shortly after the time that I figured out only a few years ago where he lived my sister-in-law ran it was in a in a woman's hair Solana's something started talking with this nice little British lady who was an astronomer they got talking about what her husband did he was an astronomer too and her name was Sandidge and my sister-in-law told me the story this you're kidding Sandidge like Allan Sandage yeah I think that's the name and I was immediately plotting I was gonna come down and make contact with him then he died of like pantry Atkin pancreatic cancer shortly after that but but he was one that's a long wind-up to to the idea he was one as an astronomer first-rate astronomer who said relatively maturely late in life that just he spent all of his life studying the orderliness of the universe the structure of the thing and he just come to the conclusion that he just personally could not imagine it not being the result of a theistic intelligence and and so that's a natural reaction for people have but it's it's convincing the semanas and others I understand that my big multi book project is an attempt to sort of you know help people along that way I I call it the working title is the reasonable leap into light then it's a leap but it's a reasonable one and that there are things about the universe that it's difficult to account for on a purely naturalistic basis I think consciousness itself is very difficult to account for I don't even see why evolutionarily it's necessary in a way you know some sort of device that interact with it interacts with its environment but does not have subjective consciousness would be just as evolutionarily fit why do we have this subjective consciousness where does it come from and then there are even readings of quantum physics and some other things that suggest that the mind is maybe as fundamental as matter maybe even it we in a way more fundamental than matter to the universe those are just hints to me and I'd again I don't think that they're slam-dunk arguments but they mean that it's a reasonable way of looking at the universe to see the presence of mind on a vast scale not only in us but maybe even subatomic particles some some not crazy physicists say and so but then you know my argument goes on I say look it's not just a matter of science and looking at things that way there are historical reasons for believing in theism I look at the arguments around the resurrection of Christ they're actually stronger than I used to think they were I think the best single explanation for the rise of Christianity is that the disciples found the tomb empty and really did have an encounter with Jesus certainly they thought they did how do you account for the transformation of these guys huddling in the upper room and on Saturday and suddenly in the next weeks they're out being arrested beaten and then being out on the streets again still preaching saying so the authorities you know okay maybe you have to beat us you do what you have to do we'll do what we have to do and basically thumbing their nose at the authorities how did Peter get from the shores of the Sea of Galilee to Rome what on earth is Peter doing in Rome as a Galilean fisherman barely educated and normal fisherman would have never gone out of Palestine probably rarely more than 50 miles from his home and he ends up on the streets of Rome imprisoned by the Emperor how do you explain that I it by the idea that something enormous had happened in Peters life and the lives of those around him that's wonderful really appreciate that lots to think about thank you we have a question about any we can dive into this if you if you'd like of course this is your specialty but anything with related to Islam and our friends Muslim friends that we can learn from to benefit us in our faith is as Christians or as latter-day saints yeah I think so one of the things has impressed me about about good Muslim friends that I have is is how the German or what is consequent how how consistent they are in their in their life that is that that it's a it's seven-day-a-week religion for them I mean not only shown in the way they dress but in the way they think the five daily prayers and I kind of envy that in a way we're supposed to pray always you know pray morning noon and night most of us manage to squeeze in occasionally a morning prayer and you know in a tired evening prayer and and so on but a Muslim life is structured around going to prayer coming from brer or praying much of the day and and so they're always thinking about who they are I think Mormons are pretty good at that we have things that remind us right down to the level of the word of wisdom I think one of the major functions the word wisdom might be to remind us with such intimate things as what we eat and drink of who we are and in social gatherings to kind of forces sometimes in the missionary experiences I've been forced more than once when I wasn't really in the mood when someone says here you know have a beer okay I have some coffee no thanks no thanks oh come on have some yeah pour it for you no thanks I really don't want it and finally look I don't drink well why what do you mean you don't drink and off we go you know it forces us to remember who we are but Muslims are good at that too you know the way they dress often certainly women and and the modesty I'm not advocating you know then they called the eye slits and gloves and all that sort of thing but but but I like the 24/7 character of the religion I like the seriousness with which they take their scriptures uh this is what Christmas dinner I'll call holy and me I suppose and and I can tell you a couple stories with one Muslim one Middle Eastern but not Muslim just well one's actually at BYU I was I was talking with a student life first came to BYU he was a Palestinian kid and he was really disgusted with Mormons with his fellow students he hadn't been at BYU long but he was convinced that they were not serious about their religion and why was that how did he know that well because they put their scriptures on the floor which no Muslim would ever do with the Quran and they mark them up and they treat them with disrespect and and I think I finally to him that this was just a different way of treating the Scriptures didn't mean that we didn't take them seriously Muslim would never mark up a copy in the Arabic Quran for exactly just wouldn't take a magic marker to it ever worlds without end but we do that and eventually he he came around he really had enjoyed his experience of BYU but um but he he raised an interesting issue I mean it's they take the Quran very seriously they really respect it they they were growing certain things as holy and I said well sometimes we probably do take these things for granted we don't pay enough attention to them another experience I had was was in the Middle East I had the privilege of studying for six months the rather famous Catholic priest who was an authority of all things on the Islamic philosophy georgeanna Wafi he was the head of the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies in Cairo and there are a lot of stories about that he was a really fun person one of my favorite people in my entire life but I remember once coming out of that Dominican Institute and there were group of peasant women there probably some of the Muslims they didn't really care was kind of an ecumenical attitude the peasants they were there for a blessing and I came out and they thought I was a priest so they asked me for a blessing and I explained no no no no no I'm not a priest I'll go back in I'll get one of them and he'll come out take care of you and and then as I walked away I thought well but what's funny about this is from a Mormon point of view not meaning to be flip they aren't priests I was I was the only person there who held what a lot of a saint would regard as valid priesthood authority and it wasn't that I wanted to sneak and you know give them a blessing that I wouldn't have done that they were there for me for the Catholic fathers but but I thought why didn't that even occur to me why was it that was so quick to say oh I'm not a priest they're priests you know I'm not taking this seriously enough and once I was standing on the beach at Alexandria which is a city that's around a bay and it's very shallow doesn't go back very far I didn't and so you can see a lot of it when you're standing on the beaches hood curves around the water there and I suddenly realized I think I'm the only person in this city who holds the priesthood there's a really daunting thought now that I ought to be aware of more than I am more commonly than I am so I think remembering who you are what you've been given is is is something that we can learn from Muslims their address we have a certain mode address many of us and but does it become something we take for granted should it remind us every day of who we are what promises we've made what what message we bear mm-hmm that's wonderful thank you so much yeah I love to go and participate at some point in a in a prayer with with Muslims I I so busy with what I'm doing these days but one day I'd like to do that and it's a very inspiring sight to see they're large groups of people praying together yeah I've had people write to me some latter-day saints who've been a little disturbed by the fact that they attended a mosque service and felt the spirit and they worried about it oh and in my responses no I felt it I mean I'm nice these are serious devout people we're trying to serve God and trying to commune with God why shouldn't I feel the spirit there mm-hmm yeah that's one of the arguments going back atheism for a brief moment one of the arguments is there's a video online YouTube that shows a bunch of different people basically burying their testimony you know an FLDS woman you know a Muslim there's all these different people from different religions saying how they feel that their path is right you know they've been directed by God or by a lot it's you know follow that path and and so that way is one of the arguments that goes right against in our most core truth claims is that the Spirit has confirmed the truth to us the you know of LDS truth claims and so that's one of the things that we've been challenged with is to try to explain you know that God loves all of his children and he'll give us you know the peace of the light of Christ and whatever you want to holy spirit will will reach out to people and God loves all of his children and any sincere seeker I believe that asks and faith or pleads you know to whatever they think God looks like her whoever he is his love is that great that he'll reach out to them and send them peace yeah you know one of the more clever of retorts that I hear occasionally from from atheists as they'll say well I'm just an atheist with respect to one more God than you are yes but I try to explain to them that that's actually not my position I don't believe that Muslims are praying to a non-existent false god and the word Allah is just the Arabic word for God they're praying the same God that I pray to they have a different conception of him but I don't I don't doubt that their God exists and for that matter you read the chapter in Acts where Paul is preaching to the the Athenians on Mars Hill and he says you know God has said you know as your poet has said we are God's offspring he's quoting from a poem about Zeus and Paul you don't return him is normally very ecumenical but Paul Paul is applying a poem about Zeus to the God of the Bible he obviously sees Zeus is in some sense a pagan equivalent of the biblical God and so you know I'm I'm willing to say even the pagan Greeks certainly the most sophisticated ones Plato and Socrates who often talked about God in the singular I don't believe they were talking about a false God they were talking about the same God that I worship the god of monotheism but even even pagan deities I think there's a dim sense there may be of divine truth I don't reject that so they're wrong when they say they're just atheists with regard to one more God I'm not an atheist with regard to any of the major deities if you will I mean obviously this gets ludicrous drug-eluting in Michigan do I believe in and Leela Marduk well we'd have to talk about that but but I think when people have religious experiences and traditions other than mine it's entirely possible I even expect but they're having genuine religious experience that's wonderful I agree amen brother so one of the big items that and this is a personal one from me dr. Peterson that I've been wrestling with I met with my bishop last night and in full disclosure to talk through some of the ideas that we have around trying to better protect our children we have this very aggressive approach that I I would term aggressive trying to create all tomatos demands you know by the you know from the first presidency there's a march coming up in Salt Lake he probably heard about March 30th March for protecting the children and this I don't know if you followed much of what's happening here but you know I've been reading some of the stories I feel that some of them are authentic that we've had in some cases in our past as members of the church unfortunately have some children have experienced inappropriate interview questions and other you know forms of abuse within the church and I feel like I met we met with dr. what's his name I can't remember all right off the top my head but we just barely met with him and he talked about shining a light in all the dark corners white of Christ and even you know as we're in the middle of the restoration we're still you know trying to approach Christ and all that we do refining our our understanding of who he is and becoming closer to him and with dr. Patrick Mason all right but I felt like that's a very powerful focus for us as Saints to try to allow the light of Christ to shine in all the dark corners and to do it in a way that's appropriate through priesthood channels you know and you know long-suffering persuasion gentleness meekness kindness and to speak openly about concerns but to try to you know keep everything within the left the bounds the Lord has provided to us and so any thoughts there about you know maybe how we can speak with our leaders and a positive destructive way with our fellow Saints about ways that we might be able to better protect children and perhaps in interviews or other waste to deep leadership by any ideas their thoughts yeah you know I've read some of these stories and there somewhere I I have to admit I think oh my word is this even possible it just seems off the charts I you know seems as if the the soul requirement for serving in high church office II am Bishop on up would be a propensity child molestation and that just seems to me too much so so I have to admit I I some of the stories make me wonder know with entrustment on but if even one such story is true it's obviously one story to many and and if if this kind of abuse or if inappropriate questions are being asked them they need to be stopped and I know that I know it happens I was told many years ago before this became an issue for most people by a friend of mine a contemporary of mine who now if I named him it'll be easy to find the me holds a very high responsible position in in the federal government structure but he he told me about growing up in a branch outside the United States and and being the sole kid the sole youth in the branch so the branch president interviewed him on a regular basis and introduced him to just about every kind of sin that he was a kid the mission would ask him have you ever done X he said I don't think so I don't know what it is well let me explain what X is and then then the branch president would you know would go on and explain in some detail and he said wow those sessions were just fascinating I've learned all sorts of things that that I'd never heard of well that's obviously way over the top that's totally inappropriate it didn't involve physical abuse or sexual molestation or anything but still in a sense it was obviously beyond the handbook beyond the Mandate of the branch president and so on and I would hope you know the handbook is pretty clear about questions that it'd be asked for these interviews but some bishops and branch presidents undoubtedly go beyond them don't pay attention to them we're not supposed to impose our little hobbies as I'm free to ask if people obey the word of wisdom they were refraining from consuming certain things but not to get into well you know do you eat chocolate do you drink chocolate can I deny temple recommend for that that's not my province as a church leader and so I think on one level one thing that ought to be done simply is maybe better training we ought to have conversations about this what is appropriate for you to ask and what's inappropriate for you to ask I don't think honestly I don't think it's a problem for the overwhelming majority of bishops and branch presidents unless my experience is completely under representative i I just I haven't encountered that in my own circles or heard of it but that it happens sometimes well we have an untrained and very large theurgy so yeah I'd be surprised almost anything can happen in a big enough group and but it ought to be rooted out and if their people have been traumatized by that I'm desperately sorry about that and hope that we can minimize it I I do think that you're right that the current approach that's being taken by some Sam young the leader in this movement yes Sam as I understand it is out of the church I don't know that for sure I just have a few contacts with them friendly I might say but that in itself is going to compromise or weaken his his his claim on the attention of active church members just for human nature of reasons if people come to you and they are there outside they come to you as critics they're not friends you know I'll take criticisms of a family member from another family member a lot more easily than I will from someone who's outside the family and has no demonstrated investment in it or affection for it does that make sense absolutely they seem give me a comparable situation and you know for example is that there's a woman up in Toronto who's written a book critical critical of certain aspects of Islamic culture today she is herself a Muslim and I thought oh now this is interesting then I found out that she in fact never attends the mosque and she's a lesbian and I thought well whatever you may think about that that means Muslims are not going to take her seriously those same sorts of criticisms could have been made by a Muslim woman who was actively engaged in Islam and they might have listened but they won't take this woman seriously I just about guarantee it she can't help what she is maybe you know but the fact is that she's not a good spokeswoman a spokesperson spokeswoman for these concerns likewise if if this movement is seen as being a movement of people who this is just the latest weapon they picked up to hit the church with then the natural human instinct not just a Mormon one is to circle the wagons so if if the if the concerns can be raised by people who love the church people who are in the chapel not just out in the foyer you know complaining but are actually in the chapel then I think the odds are much higher that mems the church will listen to it and say well you know okay if that's an issue we will take steps to meet it but there's a natural tendency to say it's not an issue but these people always do this they're always telling them truths about us and this is probably just one more so I'm sympathetic to any movement that that makes interviews better that helps young people that avoids damage that can help people to maintain activity in the church but I think it's better to come from people within the church if they're energized and alerted to an issue and they come lovingly to church leaders and say I love the church my love food churches absolutely clear I mean Hugh Nibley used to get off some really really harsh attacks on Mormon culture and sons of work but he had credibility he had standing because his loyal leavin kingdom was unquestionable but the same criticisms made by someone else sake contrast I don't know maybe he's sterling McMurran or some of you know further afield they just wouldn't be received the same way I was in meetings with when nibbly would would go out to church and make comments about the church in the presence of Neil Maxwell for example when elder Maxwell would just smile and say thank you you we know you love the kingdom and we take that seriously I don't reacted the same way to Gerald Tanner making those same comments yeah when I first I appreciate that it's and that's what I personally committed to do I like I said I've met with my state president and met with my bishop even last night and I I do feel like there are things we can try to do within church policy and try to protect these little ones from Annie and I when I initially saw said I'm actually spoken with Sam a couple times on the phone so you know and I have encouraged him personally and even publicly on my timeline and Facebook to try to revise his petition and try to use a softer tone he is still active memory I was at least is he's saying that and I believe he is and but as far as you know messaging in a way that people can you know hey what are you saying you know I actually listen and open your heart in mind I was grateful enough that I was able to see that an initial my initial reaction was a knee-jerk reaction saying oh my goodness this is a terrible thing that he's trying to do to defame the church and I initially was like you know taken back by and initially my argument was I started arguing with people critics online and saying you're up in the night we have 30,000 bishops and all of them you know I'm guarantee all of them are doing a wonderful job you know and I just didn't have any kind of data to back that up but I just reacted and as I started reading a few of these these very heart-wrenching stories my heart broke and I I felt like Christ spoke to me directly he said these little ones need to be protected I love these little ones and there are people that have been damaged on sometimes unintentionally you know unintentional grooming that can happen for example and I've been studying this now and I just feel like and I appreciate what you've said dr. Peter so but I just feel like any members of the church that are listening to this exchange - please soften your hearts and to be willing to work with in church policy to speak with our leaders to talk about this openly and not that you're you know my bishops a wonderful man I sustain him openly less i express my love and appreciation to him but I felt the Spirit is we've talked openly about this and he was willing to look at some of the suggested changes within policy a few things that can be done within reason to try to protect himself from accusation and also from you know any children that might feel like they you know there's an appropriate appropriate situation which I'm sure will never happen with him he's a wonderful man but those are my thoughts there and I I just really appreciate what you said and and I feel like we all need to pick ourselves up and be open and talk open you know in constructive ways with each other and with the light of Christ allowing that dark corner in our church to fade away quickly now you know bishops on the whole overwhelmingly I'm sure we're trying to do the right thing oh yes the ones who've asked inappropriate questions I'm in most cases I expect are trying to do the right thing I mean I I served as a Bishop of a of a single young adult Ward so I didn't deal with small children but there would be times when you know someone would come in and I'd ask the question you know do you keep the law of chastity and there'd be hesitation and then a yes or something like that and and I always kind of wanted to know well now how do I go about this kind of want to know what does that mean to you why the hesitation I'm not yeah I have critics who were commenting on the fact that I was a bishop they were sure that I was engaging in Korean you know interest and you know did I just got a rise just to being excited about about talking to these people I didn't that's not my favorite thing I remember a kid once who who'd had some problems and I spent a lot of time with him and toward the end of it well at the end of it I said look I think we're I think we're fine and if you've done everything you need to do and I think I can say on behalf of the church that you're good to go and and so on and and he said oh thank you for all the time you spent with me and I said I don't worry that's why they pay me the big bucks and and he said then to my shock he said oh I've always wanted to ask how much do they pay you to be bishop I thought you've got to be kidding me so I said look let me tell you something I would not do this for money I'll do it for free but I would never ever ever have agreed to do this for money it's just not the kind of thing I wanted to do but but with some of these people I think though I just I need to know a little bit more what do you mean when you hesitantly say yeah I think I'm keeping the law of chastity what does that mean to you and and then there are questions that sometimes you'd have to ask and again you have to do those sensitively as you can and not because you're trying to get some sort of you know in Bishop's office porn but okay you you you did X was it a one-time slip-up or is this something you've been doing on a regular basis for a year year and a half I bring that figure up because I know the case like that where I thought good grief it's nothing else I have to admire them for their dedication I mean a year and a half three times a day that's it and well that's a little different than a one-time slip-up on a date and and that helps me kind of know how I need to react to this how to counsel yeah but it's but it's a really hard sensitive thing and I I tried to be sensitive I'm sure I'm not the most sensitive person in the world but but but on the other hand I said that you know bishops I think overwhelming trying to do the right thing but I in my life have been run over occasionally by my bishop or a church leader you know in ways that that kind of heard nothing related to sexual molestation or anything like that and in my 10 years of Bishop I hope I didn't do that but I might have and I'm unaware of it but that's often the worst kind you know you don't even know that you said something I hurt someone's feelings or offended them or something so we're trying but you know in this life we see through a glass darkly and the church is run by by imperfect human beings good ones almost overwhelmingly but but still thank you so much for talking about that with me I appreciate that so I think that we're good on the help any questions we've hit an hour now and I think you nice to open it up for anybody else that is interested any other final thoughts though from you dr. Peterson before I mean we can also give you another minute as we close up fine and fire you know final nine minutes but anything you know I really appreciate this opportunity I hope I've been too long-winded but I appreciate the opportunity to talk and in a friendly environment one of the things that that I regret about a lot of online discourse is it gets so ugly so fast and and I think probably most of the people involved are actually decent people in real life if they would meet face to face they discovered that the other person is not actually a monster though there are some people out there online but I think may well be monsters I mean I just think to myself I would never treat anyone the way you treat people people that I see or me or whatever and what is this the real you coming out suppressed and ordinary human interaction but but now that you're anonymous behind a computer keyboard you just you just let it fly but you know I I can get along with people that I differ with I I differ with most people politically my side almost never wins but I have lots of friends of all political persuasions and I get along with people of all different religious and spiritual paths or non spiritual paths and I I like to think that I understand that I people will say to me okay you have no idea the arguments that have compelled me to be an atheist oh actually I do I know I don't come out of a faithful Mormon background and and I I didn't consider myself a Mormon theist for a while and I most of my friends were will not LDS most of the many of them were were atheists or agnostics growing up you know this is the high school level and then I went to BYU but I've always been I've always been aware of that side and I think I've on this student I get the arguments so I can talk with those people without feeling like there's something wrong with them or you know I have to say you're evil because you don't believe as I do but that's hard to get across on on the internet and and so I appreciate this as a way of speaking respectfully and civilly you yeah thank you for saying that of course refer anybody you can to us we do have an open group on Facebook and and our sole intention is to build faith and to love people and allow them to express concerns and and hopefully receive good answers so thank you so much yeah so we'll go ahead and finish the meal so that's in the group here that wants to ask any live questions please feel free bharden had a question about the the petition he says out of 30,000 bishops all volunteers rotating every five years there are bound to be a few weird things happen what is the current procedure for members to raise concerns what if a state president isn't concerned is there a hotline what do we know about the church is what is it currently doing to address these kinds of situations when they happen anything that you know about yeah I don't know about a hotline that might be a good idea you know obviously the the procedure would be to go to a bishop if it's someone who's you know who's in the ward who's causing trouble a teacher a youth advisor something like that if the Bishop isn't concerned then obviously the state president would be the next level but it's conceivable that a state president might might not take it seriously I mean it's it's hard this has been a problem always with people reporting abuse by parents you know that the Friends of the parents will say oh you know I just I just can't believe that I've known Frank for forty years I did it's just inconceivable this must be a false account in some cases maybe it is but in others it's not so the next level of authority in the church I suppose would be to go to the area president or someone like that or or an area authority seventy would be over a state president now that's hard for many members to do they wouldn't even know who to go to so if there isn't a hotline I can see that maybe they should be maybe that's something to raise but here's another thing I'd say that if you went to someone like that and you you come to that person as a person who loves the church who cares about the gospel and so on I think they're much more inclined to listen that if you say you Mormon you know you priesthood holders you think you can do anything get away with it then person's gonna say you know you're obviously angry you're not being fair and I don't take you as seriously as I would otherwise but I don't know about a hotline I never heard of any when I was serving as a bishop right now and just a gospel doctrine teacher so I didn't hear about these things my favorite calling in the church but like coming visitors talking I noticed one question about do visiting me at the alhambra granada spain the idea of the fountain of the lions so the courtyard of the lions yeah there's a good picture of it that's a fascinating thing twelve lions Holdings Mason up with the four rivers of paradise coming out from it and you know I looking at this I can't help but think of a Temple Baptist Baptist or your typical baptismal font and it said it's suggested by some of the ideas before it came from a Jewish him here Jewish prints are no woman which I can well imagine the the lions don't look much like lions my guess is they were sculpted by somebody who'd never seen a lion he'd read some descriptions but didn't really know what they look like I don't know much beyond that except to say that it does it does connect with temple ideas in a way because there are four water courses to go out from it those are very much in Islamic tradition the four rivers of paradise that I mentioned in Genesis and this probably was originally not gravel it was probably originally rose bushes and gardens orange trees maybe even a Miss in the space which again is connected with the Garden of Eden this lease would be the waters of life flowing out of the Garden of Eden issuing the four rivers as as the early chapters of Genesis described so does it have temple links absolutely it does even if you leave the Jewish in you're out that's how the Muslims would have thought of it this is a recreation of the of the gardens of paradise and the El Umbra is very much the pavilions of paradise that are mentioned in the Quran or the righteous will dwell amidst the gardens and these beautiful pavilions and and rivers of milk wine honey and water you know flowing through the garden it's just an indescribable enriched place and the temple of course too is associated with with the Garden of Eden than creation and all that so so yeah it's it's perceptive to notice that how it's cool great question Rolf we had a couple questions earlier from Neil but I don't know if he's dropped off or not anybody else wanted to ask me other questions please go ahead live is great if you're comfortable showing your face if not I can ask for you I'm not I don't mind at this point showing Mike's hasten it's already out there if not that's okay and what we'll do is what can end the recording here in a second after some final remarks from you dr. Peterson a final spiritual messages encouragement you have a lot of people of course as you know that are struggling with faith and anything you want to you know send a message to them of love of hope of peace yeah I would encourage people who are struggling to hang on I realized that there is a point where some will say well why you know I've concluded that it's not true I'm out of here my conviction is that it is true but I can't transfer that to other people so I can just say look if you if you still have a yearning for it to be true if you have a if you if you see it as a glorious thing if it were true then I hope you'll hang on the Lord doesn't answer on our timetable and and it may take a long time and that's that's part of the struggle of his life and I wish I could help I'm I'm actually with this series of books I'm writing trying to do something that I can do to help in cases like that there are there are reasons to believe and I will freely admit their reasons not to believe there are challenges to faith I think that's the way it's supposed to be but but I've had people I have this sort of controversial image online some may know that I don't think on the whole that it's an accurate representation have made that one of the things that's been said about me as an ears bribe people out of the church I am absolutely not eager to drive people out of the church people have asked me well what if I don't believe but I just I really like the church should I still come absolutely if you have any sense that it might be true keep coming there's there may be a time when the sparkle catch I can't predict when it will be I and there's no earthly way that that you can be manipulated by another person's genuine belief I haven't experienced on my mission that it has intrigued me in a sense I was taken I was in the mission home of the time and I was taken on some errand I don't remember why out to a town called Beale or bien in French Jews out of a northwest of Switzerland I never served there I didn't know anybody there and we were delivering something I can't remember what I ended up talking with a lady who'd been an investigator of the church for seven years that was not unusual in Switzerland would hang around from not quite willing to join but still interested for years before they actually were converted and she and I had a conversation for about 10 minutes max I think and as I say she'd been investigating in church for seven years seven and a half I think and and she was baptized the following week and she said it was the conversation with brother Peterson that did it I'd love to boast about this but for the life of me I can't think of anything I said that was all not impressive I swear we talked about the weather or something and and whatever I said somehow it affected her I can't imagine it would have affected anybody else if I could put it in a bottle and it would be universally impactful I'd do it but I don't know what it was like all I can say is that you just keep at it you know people are trying to work with people who are struggling or people who are struggling and you just never know you can't humanly predict when the fire will catch but it may well it could be tomorrow it could be in five years it could be in ten and for all I know it may not come in this life but if you still have a desire to serve you know if the word is working a little bit if this appeals to you if you think as I do with it but leave aside the truth or falsehood question but it would be a glorious thing if Mormonism or true but maybe that's enough I I cannot conceive of a vision of human origins and destiny but is grander and richer and more satisfying more exciting than the latter-day saint plan of salvation plan of happiness the idea of premortal existence literal kinship with God and going on to exaltation what could be better than this there's there's no better worldview leaving aside the truth questions so even if that's all it is that keeps you going and keep going and I'm a Norwegian I don't use the language of love very often you know my dad remembers when he was sent off to World War two with Patton's Third Army and there was a very real chance that that but he might die might never see his parents again and his dad sent him off with a handshake and you know Scandinavian I don't know it's just its genetic or something like that but but the fact is you know I do have a message of love for people out there was struggling I'm sympathetic to you I don't think you're struggling because you're evil wicked Dee craved nibbly you know defective in some way understand these issues and that they can give you reason to doubt and that you might well have been run over by a church remember a church leader or something like there are all sorts of reasons why we can lose our zeal for the church for the gospel but the Lord loves us unconditionally I'm in favor of stating issues clearly and engaging arguments directly and that sort of thing but that is never to be confused with being personally hostile yeah thank you so much I appreciate that yeah we do love everybody and again appreciate dr. Peterson for being here with us and and we'll go ahead and end the recording now and and then maybe other people might speak up that were otherwise not comfortable but thank you and have a good rest of the day

Channel: Uplift Community of Faith

Views: 8,336

Rating: 4.6606059 out of 5

Keywords: Faith, Doubt, LDS, Mormon, Christianity, Jesus, Christ

Id: 3L8wzbAJWZA

Length: 67min 40sec (4060 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 19 2018