In this episode of Church History Matters, we are joined by special guest Dr. Keith Erekson, a Church Historian. Dr. Erekson wrote an important book entitled “Real vs. Rumor: How to Dispel Latter-day Myths.” It embodies many of the principles of truth-seeking we have been exploring throughout this series … and then some! Casey and I were excited to interview Dr. Erekson about his book and to invite him to demonstrate what those principles look like in practice by inviting him to grapple on-air w...
Jan 02, 2024•55 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Church History Matters! We'll see you next week :)
Dec 26, 2023•53 sec•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast “Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” Hebrews 11:1 reads, “the evidence of things not seen.” Hmm. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Does this mean faith is the evidence we have of things not seen? Or could we say it this way: faith is the level of confidence we feel toward a truth-claim or proposed reality which we have not seen based on the degree of evidence we have accumulated of its truthfulness and existence? If so, is this why the Lord’s prescription in D&C 88:118 for t...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast Facts don’t interpret themselves. People interpret facts. And the people best equipped to most accurately interpret facts are those who understand the contexts in which those facts were originally embedded. This is especially important in understanding Church History because a fact—especially a potentially shocking or scandalous sounding fact—isolated from its context is a fact certain to be misunderstood. This reality is too often leveraged by critics against Church members as a weapon of mass ...
Dec 12, 2023•57 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast A fundamental moment in all good learning is that moment where we modify our assumptions about the world as a result of acquiring new and more accurate knowledge. This in turn hopefully primes us to make better decisions. On one level, it’s what learning is all about. Sounds pretty basic right? Well, it is. But it isn’t always easy. Church History can teach us that modifying one’s assumptions can be a challenge for some when it requires them to rethink their ideas about God, prophets, and the Ch...
Dec 05, 2023•51 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast How can we confidently discern the difference between a reliable historical claim and an unreliable one? This is what Casey and I discussed in our last episode where we introduced five source critical questions we can all ask to carefully assess the reliability of a historical truth claim. In this episode of Church History Matters, we’re going to practice putting these five questions to work by actually using them to measure and evaluate various historical truth-claims about the witnesses of the...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast How can we know what actually happened in the past? Whose stories are true? Piecing together accurate history can be tricky business. People in the past, like people today, were diverse. Some were honest. Some were not. Some were straight shooting truth tellers who gave honest (though subjective) accounts of what happened. Others emphasized or omitted specific details in ways that would serve their particular agenda. So, how should we think about and evaluate the reliability of historical claims...
Nov 21, 2023•58 min•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast How can we confidently determine what is and what is not reliable doctrine so we can decide what to believe? This is what Casey and I discussed in our last episode where we introduced what we called the Three Doctrinal Lenses, or criteria, by which we can assess the doctrinal reliability of a truth claim. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we’re going to practice putting these three lenses to work by actually using them to measure and evaluate various theological truth-claims to deter...
Nov 14, 2023•51 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast Just before he left home for college, eighteen year old Henry Eyring, the future world renowned LDS scientist, was invited by his father, Edward Eyring, to sit down for some fatherly counsel. After sharing his firm conviction that Joseph Smith was a true prophet whom God used to restore his church, Edward said to his son, “Now, there are a lot of other matters which are much less clear to me. But in this Church you don’t have to believe anything that isn’t true.” In this Church you don’t have to...
Nov 07, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast What is truth? What does it mean to really “know” something? And what are the best methods and tools to come to know a thing? In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we begin our new series on Good Thinking where we explore the important role our brain and intellect play in truth seeking and the life of faith. Specifically in this series we want to explore what mental moves are made, or what frameworks of thinking are used by intelligent, critically thinking Latter-day Saints whose faith i...
Oct 31, 2023•55 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast There was in 2nd Century BC Egypt an indisputable multicultural sharing of religious ideas between Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians. How should that fact influence how we evaluate Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the Abraham facsimiles in general and individual hieroglyphics on the facsimiles specifically? On a related note, some of Joseph’s descriptions of Facsimile #2 contain temple themes, saying more will be revealed about those in the temple. Can Egyptologists today read those hieroglyphs? And ...
Oct 24, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast So, the Book of Abraham is the touchpoint of some serious controversies—and we’ve talked about some of those in our last two episodes and we’ll probably talk about them more next week as well. But, to be clear, the Book of Abraham is also the source of some dazzling doctrinal gems which validate and expand upon other key restoration teachings. So, in this episode of Church History Matters we leave the controversial to bask, however briefly, in what makes the book of Abraham beautiful to us. For ...
Oct 17, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast In Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the facsimiles found in our Pearl of Great Price he ties all three of them to Abraham; yet, when some modern Egyptologists look at those same facsimiles today they say they have nothing to do with Abraham: one is simply an embalming scene, one a disk representing the eye of Horus, and one a judgment scene from an Egyptian book of the dead. So, is this an either or, sudden-death scenario? Must we, in the name of honesty and rationality, pick a side? Must we ei...
Oct 10, 2023•56 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast The book of Abraham, Joseph Smith’s final translation project, is easily one of the most controversial books of scripture in the Latter-day Saint canon. And we want to talk about it. In this episode of Church History Matters, we dig into the fascinating story of how the exploits of a 19th century grave robber in Egypt ended up expanding our scriptural canon! We look at where in Egypt the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was purportedly translated came from and how Joseph Smith came to posse...
Oct 03, 2023•56 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast Because of our location in time and good record keeping, we are privileged to have an up close and personal view of the production of modern scriptural canon. And it’s a bit of a rollercoaster! From its first publication in 1835 to its current version today the Doctrine and Covenants has undergone major additions, deletions, rearrangement, and textual changes to its contents. In this episode of Church History Matters we’ll take a ride through the history of this iterative production of the Doctr...
Sep 26, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast One of the biggest criticisms of scripture generally is the extent to which humans were involved in its production. On the one hand, we can’t really expect scripture to be effortlessly beamed down from heaven to flawed and imperfect humans and then interpreted flawlessly and recorded perfectly, can we? But on the other hand, how “divine” and trustworthy can scripture be if flawed humans were involved in writing it, compiling it, editing it, and publishing it? In this episode of Church History Ma...
Sep 19, 2023•54 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast Did Joseph Smith ever consider his Bible translation work finished? Will the JST ever be canonized and replace the King James Version as the official Latter-day Saint Bible? Why haven’t any other of our prophets since Joseph Smith engaged in similar translation work? How can we reconcile Joseph Smith’s Bible revision work with Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:19 which actually warn against adding to the Bible? Is there any evidence whatsoever that Joseph Smith consulted any outside sources in h...
Sep 12, 2023•50 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast In his Bible translation project did Joseph Smith plagiarize the work of a prominent British scholar named Adam Clarke? Or, if you don’t want to call it plagiarism, did Joseph Smith “borrow” or appropriate phrases and ideas from Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary (without attribution) which are found in our JST footnotes today? This is the question at the heart of the biggest modern controversy surrounding Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation. In this episode of Church History Matters, we trace the orig...
Sep 05, 2023•1 hr•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Because there are no explicitly stated purposes of Joseph Smith’s Bible translation project—either by him or in any of his revelations—all explanations offered about or criticisms leveled at his Bible translation are based on assumptions and best guesses at best. But then, there’s nothing wrong with educated best guesses so long as we are not overly dogmatic and we humbly recognize the tentativeness of our position. The current best evidence from the best scholarship on the topic proposes that t...
Aug 29, 2023•55 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Aside from his Book of Mormon translation project, Joseph Smith engaged in at least three other scripture production projects that we know of. The first was his ambitious Bible translation project we now know as the Joseph Smith Translation, the second was the printing of his own revelations which we now know as the Doctrine and Covenants, and the third was his project of translation which commenced after he acquired papyrus scrolls from Egypt which we now know as the Book of Abraham. Throughout...
Aug 22, 2023•58 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Some people see a connection between the Church’s past restrictive policy towared blacks in the Church and the Church’s current restrictive policy toward gays in the Church—specifically prohibiting gay temple marriage. In what ways are these two issues similar and in what ways are they different? How can church members reconcile (a) the teaching that the prophet / president won't ever lead the church astray with (b) the fact that church presidents for over a century taught false doctrine about b...
Aug 15, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Paul Reeve recently wrote: In June 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball received a revelation which returned the Church to its universal roots and restored what was lost, priesthood and temple admission to people of African descent. This … did not mark something new as much as it reestablished a commitment to the founding principles of the Restoration. [It] reconfirmed the Church’s original universalism, that the human family in all of its diversity is equal in God’s sight, that Jesus Christ claim...
Aug 08, 2023•57 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast In 1907, the First Presidency codified the Church’s official policy about black African participation in both priesthood and temple declaring that, “No one known to have in his veins negro blood, (it matters not how remote a degree) can either have the Priesthood in any degree or the blessings of the Temple of God; no matter how otherwise worthy he may be.” By contrast, in 2020 Church President Russell M. Nelson reminded all church members that, “Your standing before God is not determined by the...
Aug 01, 2023•43 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Once people come to terms with the uncomfortable idea that Brigham Young committed an error in endorsing a priesthood ban on church members with black African ancestry, a puzzling question naturally follows: “If the ban was an error, then why didn’t it get corrected earlier than 1978?! There were nine Church presidents between Brigham Young and Spencer W. Kimball and 101 years between President Young’s death in 1877 and President Kimball’s revelation in 1978. So why did it take so long to correc...
Jul 25, 2023•52 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast The historical record shows that Joseph Smith did not implement or endorse any practices or policies which specifically prevented Church members with black African ancestry from fully participating in priesthood offices or temple worship. But in 1847, only three years after Joseph’s death, attitudes and teachings of some church leaders began to shift away from full inclusion of blacks, to partial exclusion—until only five years later, in 1852, President Brigham Young first publicly articulated a...
Jul 18, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast In the broader American culture in which Joseph Smith lived and led the growing Church of Jesus Christ, white attitudes and beliefs about the inferiority of black Africans dominated the scene. In this pre-Civil War context, exactly half of the states in the Union had legalized slavery and built their economies on it, while the other half did not. Yet fears were shared on both sides about what might happen to the country (and to the purity of the white race) if all slaves were set free and allowe...
Jul 11, 2023•48 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast There was a season in our Church’s history when members with black African ancestry were unevenly barred from both priesthood and temple privileges. This overtly discriminatory practice is one of the most challenging aspects of our history and, for many, is one of the most difficult to understand. How could something like this happen in a Church led by living prophets and apostles? It’s a fair question. And the truth is, the answer is impossible to really get at without understanding the prevail...
Jul 04, 2023•49 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Did Joseph Smith have any regrets about plural marriage? Like, with full hindsight, if he could go back and change anything about the way he implemented plural marriage, what might he do differently? Also, more and more people are denying that Joseph Smith ever practiced polygamy or that he lied about doing so. Is there even a shred of truth to either of these claims? Did Joseph ever send men on missions and marry their wives while they were gone? Were there any women who denied Joseph’s proposa...
Jun 27, 2023•59 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast In 1852, only eight years after Joseph Smith’s death, Church leaders in Utah publicly announced to the astonished world what some had suspected—that Latter-day Saints did indeed practice the principle of plural marriage. But now that it was out there in the open, it could be openly challenged and attacked. And it was. Relentlessly. For decades. In today’s episode of Church History Matters we’ll walk you through the history of how plural marriage came to a rocky end under the draconian legislatio...
Jun 20, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast In June and July of 1843 tensions ran high in the marriage of Joseph and Emma Smith. After she had tried but failed to embrace the principle of plural marriage earlier that May, and after Hyrum Smith had tried but failed to convince her of the rightness of plural marriage even with a copy of Doctrine and Covenants 132 in hand, records indicate that Emma became for a time rebellious, bitter, resentful, and angry. In fact from July through September of 1843 Emma became confrontational to Joseph’s ...
Jun 13, 2023•43 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast 
