”Aaaaand We’re Back!” Update and Relaunch

Outer brightness, from Mormon to Jesus.

If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do? Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Did I warn myself again?

No. He made me alive together with Christ. Listen, I can no more manufacture the second birth than I manufactured the first one. All right. Hey, Fireflies. Welcome back to Outer Brightness after many, many months of being away from hearing our voices. You've got here the apostate Paul and my co-host Matthew, the knucklier Calvinist. Matthew and I are reconnecting also after several months of not talking except over some instant messages. Both of us have been fairly busy this year. We'll get into that a little bit, but Matthew, welcome back to recording for Outer Brightness. Yeah, it's exciting. Glad to be back. It's been a while since we've had one of our in-depth conversations.

Yeah, it definitely has. The cool thing though is that even though both of us have been very busy in the interim, I did make a trip out to Utah to visit family. And while I was out there, I was able to connect with Matthew in Idaho Falls and with his wife, Rebecca, we had dinner together with my sister Marta. So that was fun to do. Yeah, it was really good to meet you and your sister. It was pretty cool. We had a really good conversation.

Yeah, it was awesome. So let's kind of just dive into a little bit. As I mentioned that we've both been very busy this year. I'll talk a little bit about my circumstances and then Matthew, maybe you can share with our listeners what's been going on with you in your life as well. So this year for me at work has been very busy. I work for a Fortune 50 company and lead a team of proposal writers. And as we have had some natural attrition to our team, we have not backfilled those positions. I suppose you could say that the effects of the pandemic have kind of caught up with our company. And so there was a period of time where we looked to save some money, not by cutting positions, but by not backfilling positions. And so that made for lots of additional work for myself and the team that I lead.

And so it's been a very busy year at work, some long hours. And so extracurricular time to be able to record the podcast just wasn't there as much as I would have liked it to have been. But we are in a position now where we're actively recruiting to backfill the positions that we've been down.

That will hopefully take place before the end of the year so we can get some folks trained, but hopefully in a better place with work. But it gave me the opportunity to kind of step back and consider what we're doing with the podcast. And Matthew and I had a conversation when we met for dinner about what's the future of the podcast?

Is there a future for the podcast? Have we fulfilled our mandate, so to speak, the goal that we set out to do? Initially, we wanted to talk about each of the articles of faith of the LDS church and what we believed when we were Latter-day Saints and what we believe now as biblical Christians. And we completed that task. And so we were kind of asking the question, is there more for us to do with this?

And I think I can speak for myself and Matthew can speak for himself, but I think there is more for us to do. And so we've decided to do a relaunch and that's why we're getting together today to talk a little bit about what that relaunch is going to look like. And yeah, and just kind of catch up our listeners on this path, these past eight months or so, seven months or so that we have not been releasing episodes regularly. So Matthew, why don't you catch our listeners up on what's been going on with you? Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So a lot of stuff's happened. I can't even remember the last time I recorded. But yeah, for the past year, well, last year I was really busy preparing a dissertation. It was my last year at RPI. So I was spending a lot of time preparing that and preparing for my defense.

So I defended last November and I passed my defense. And then I spent the next month doing revisions to my thesis. So that took a lot of time as well. And in the meantime, we're also, Rebecca and I were preparing to get married. So we had set, we had gotten engaged in October and we set our wedding date in December because I didn't know when I would have to move to Idaho.

So, uh, yeah, that kind of, uh, I kind of shocked everybody in terms of the timetable. So, uh, yeah, we, uh, had our pastoral meetings where, um, I forget what it's called exactly, like, uh, marriage counseling or pre-marriage counseling. So we met with our past every week and did that. And then, um, yeah, defended my thesis, uh, submitted it and then started my new job in December as well. So I started working remotely and then I've been working remotely in New York for about, uh, eight months as we started to get the house ready to be sold on the market because we were staying with our in-laws house. They'd moved out, they bought a new house.

We stayed in their old houses. We helped them put it on the market. And then, um, so we said, okay, well we're going to move in August. So, you know, uh, I guess that's when we're going to put the house on the market.

So, uh, we moved to Idaho falls in August and then we've, we had kind of been working, looking for a few weeks for place to live, finally found an apartment. So that's where we are now. That's where all the stuff is. And hopefully, uh, move all that to do some storage area. But, um, yeah, so we moved in.

Um, so we got a place in Idaho falls. So I've been, uh, I also got a really bad case of the flu. It might've been COVID. I don't know.

We were, we were down pretty bad for a couple of weeks. And, uh, yeah, so, but we're both film, both film pretty well. Um, also I'd been preparing for months, probably since about February or March, I've been preparing for this exam, uh, for, for work. I guess it's kind of, it's not really necessary for work.

It was kind of a thing I've always wanted to do. It's called the professional engineering exam. It's an eight and a half hour exam.

So, um, I've been preparing for that. I, uh, I either waited too long to schedule it or they're just weren't enough spots, but basically the only place where it was offering it is it was only being offered once a year, one day a year. And that was in October. And, uh, the only location I could find near me was either a Montana or Boise. And it makes it sound like, Oh, Boise, that's close to Idaho falls, right? Well, it was actually a four hour drive West to get to Boise. So I drove four hours the night before stay in the hotel, took the exam, then right after the exam at six o'clock, seven o'clock, I drove home another four hours East. And so I got home close to midnight. So I was pretty long day after an eight hour exam. So that was a last week and I'm still waiting for the results. So I don't know if I passed or not.

Um, some of the questions are really weird. So I might have to end up taking the exam again next year, but we'll see. So that's basically caught up. So yeah, I've just been, been working at INL. I'm really liking it there.

Um, hopefully be converted to full staff this year where my boss is working on that. So lots of, lots of changes. Yeah, nice. Congratulations, Matthew on all of that. It's, uh, been a very exciting time, uh, for you for sure. And, uh, lots of new experiences for you and Rebecca, uh, with the move and, uh, kind of beginning your lives together. And so, uh, praise God for all of that for, uh, your renewed health and, uh, be praying for the successful results for, for the engineering exam. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Oh yeah. We're, uh, do we want to mention our articles or are we going to wait to talk about those? Yeah. Yeah.

Take it. Let's, uh, let's jump into that. Why don't you mention them?

Yeah. So we were, uh, invited by our friend, uh, Fred Anson, we were invited to write some articles. Um, so we were each given kind of like one article to write about, uh, on his website beggars bread. And so, um, it's, it's a series called, uh, 10 things or 10 myths, I guess it was a 10 minutes or 10 things more than say 10 minutes. It used to be called 10 things more than say it. I think I didn't really like that title either.

So I'm glad they changed it, but yeah, 10 minutes. So it's kind of like each one of us tackled, um, myths related that are, you know, most frequently believed or repeated by, by people in discussions with Latter-day Saints. So we each were, uh, we were each given a topic to, uh, discuss or to write about. So both of our articles were published, right? Yours was the week before mine.

I forget when you were, when yours dropped. They're coming out every two weeks. Um, and so mine, my first one I've got, I've actually got another one that I, uh, owe to Fred, um, but the first one that I wrote was part four. Um, and yeah, the series is called 10 myths that, um, hang on, let me pull up my article and, uh, it's 10 myths, which we initially were calling it 10 lies, but we decided to change that language because sometimes, um, we thought maybe Latter-day Saints don't intentionally lie about these things, but, um, they, they, they're myths because they're not true. So, uh, 10 myths that Mormonism tells about biblical Christianity, and it's a series of 10, 10 articles. Um, the first one was, uh, that biblical Christianity apostatized. The second one was that the Bible has been corrupted. The third one was that biblical Christians believe in cheap grace. Um, Michael Flournoy, our friend, and, uh, sometimes co-host of the podcast, uh, wrote that one. Um, I wrote biblical Christians believe Christ prayed to himself, which was an article, uh, kind of digging into the Trinity and the doctrine of the Trinity. And then Matthew, yours, uh, no, sorry. Uh, yeah, yours just published today.

Um, and that is that the biblical Christian God is a monster who sends good people to hell just because they never had a chance to hear the gospel. Um, and your article is, uh, very good, very well written. So encourage our listeners to check that out. Um, anything else you want to kind of say about that, that series of articles, Matthew, or what we're looking to do there.

Well, I liked, I liked yours as well. I'd also recommend they read yours, of course, especially because, you know, so often one of the saints and others, they, they misunderstand, or they, they misspeak about the Trinity. So I love, I just want to read your conclusion. Um, the father is God, the son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not three gods, but one true God, the son did not pray to himself, but to his father. So that's kind of like in a nutshell, that's, that's the article.

I think it's great. But, um, thanks for that, Matthew. One of the, one of the other things that I said in the article that, um, that I particularly liked, uh, not because I wrote it, but because I think it makes sense is that, you know, Latter Day saints fail to acknowledge that the threeness of God and the doctrine of the Trinity is a real distinction of persons. Um, often in, in conversations with Latter Day saints, they, uh, will argue against the Trinity as if it's modalism.

Um, and, uh, and we'll argue that it is modalism, uh, just by default. And, um, that's not, in my opinion, a very, uh, charitable or, or honest way to go about dialogue with, with biblical Christians, if you're a Latter Day saint. Um, and so I wanted to call out that, you know, it's important for Latter Day saints to acknowledge that for, for Trinitarian Christians, um, the distinction between persons is real.

Yeah, that's great. And it's, um, like you said, I think it's, I think it's to, hopefully the series will be there to clarify and to prevent misunderstandings rather than to, I don't know, to cause offense. That's kind of, that's kind of what, not what I wanted to do when I wrote my article.

I'm sure you're probably the same that my goal is to just put the truth out there. You know, I kind of, we talked a lot about it, you know, among all the authors of these articles. And I was just like, well, you know, there's so much more I want to say or could say, but it's kind of limited in space and time. So it's like, you know, I just wanted to let the Bible speak for itself and it's like, just let it, you know, stand on its own two feet kind of thing. So if they, if they want to interact with it, you know, there's a comment section on, on beggars bread, they can leave replies to it.

Um, they can tweet us or they can, you know, email us however they want to contact us if they have questions or comments, or they think that maybe we didn't do as good a job explaining some point. So I would appreciate the feedback on that, at least on my article. Yeah, absolutely. Um, to, to kind of touch on your article, Matthew, you mentioned that you, you know, you kind of wanted to put the, the biblical data out there and let it kind of stand on its own two feet. And I think you did a, uh, a really good job of that. Um, each of the articles, um, for our listeners, uh, benefit is, has the same format. So, um, we kind of line up what are the 10 myths at the beginning.

And there's a, there's a kind of boilerplate introduction to each of the articles that touches on what we're trying to do with the articles. And then, um, we go into what the myth is in that particular article that we're addressing then a section on why it's a myth. Um, and then a section, another section on how it's a myth and the how it's a myth section really kind of digs into, um, the way things really are viewed, um, from a biblical perspective by Christians. And so, um, Matthew did a really good job of kind of laying out the evidence from the book of Romans, um, for, you know, where God's sovereignty comes into play, uh, in terms of salvation.

And so, um, you know, for our listeners benefit really, really would recommend that you check his article out. Um, because like I said, that, that section really does a great job of working through Romans and what it says there. Um, and then, then there's a section, you know, why it matters. Um, and that's where we really try to get at the heart of the issue, uh, for latter day saints. Um, and, uh, so just want to touch on a paragraph from Matthew section of why it matters that, um, I think is really well done. Um, so Matthew's, you know, addressing the myth of is God a monster, uh, because he would, uh, send someone to hell.

Right. And, um, that's often a charge that that comes against biblical Christians from latter day saints. And Matthew asks the question, but why does this matter? Um, it shows us that we are sinful creatures. We cannot hope to stand innocent before God based on our works. We cannot be righteous by what we do in terms of trying to keep God's law by our own gumption and best efforts and shaking our fists at God for executing justice against those who deserve punishment.

Won't fix the problem either. God is fully just and right to punish those who break his law as he sees fit. And he has declared that the wages of sin is death. So, um, you know, a lot of times latter day saints try to pretend to try to pit, um, you know, Paul, the apostle against Jesus. Um, but if you think about like the, um, in the gospels when the rich young ruler comes to Jesus, uh, and, and, and kind of boasts about all that he's done from his youth, um, to live according to the law of Moses and what more does he need to do, uh, to, um, inherit eternal life. You know, you can kind of, you can kind of ask the question, what, what's the question behind the rich young ruler's question, right? Cause he kind of comes and boasts about what he's done. Um, and so you kind of wonder like, is the question behind the question really, um, is he really looking for Jesus to say nothing? You've, you've done it, you know, you've done it all. Um, but that's not what Jesus tells him.

He tells him to go, go and sell all that he has. Um, and it kind of points up that, that even in this person's life, who was trying to live according, or at least according to his own words, was trying to live according to the law of Moses, uh, in, in every degree, uh, from the time he was a youth, there was something yet that he wasn't willing to do. Right. And it kind of points up the fact that, that that's true of all of us.

Um, right. There's, there's, uh, we're, we're never going to be able to do everything. And, and, and also there's, because of the sin nature, we're not going to want to do everything right.

Without being reborn. Um, and that's kind of that key difference between I think Latter-day Saint theology or Latter-day Saint views of soteriology is, is, is where that act of God and in giving the new heart, uh, comes in, right? They like to say, if you love me, keep my commandments. But why does that statement begin with an if, right? I mean, if you love me, keep my commandments kind of some kind of, kind of implies that there are people who wouldn't love him and why wouldn't they love him?

Right. But the Latter-day Saint save you is kind of like, well, everybody should love Jesus, but there are people who don't. And then the question is why, and there are people who don't love God. And the question is why. And so your article, Matthew really kind of digs into that.

And that's where that kind of key ground of disagreement between Latter-day Saint soteriology and Christian, uh, biblical soteriology lies. Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Paul.

Fireflies. What we'll be doing over the next several months is publishing some episodes that Matthew and I had recorded earlier this year and had intended to release, um, before I got so busy, uh, and wasn't able to keep up with the production schedule. But, um, we'd like to take a little bit of time, uh, to share with you what we'll have upcoming. Um, this episode will publish first on Tuesday, uh, October 25th.

So two days from now. Um, so you'll have that quick update and, uh, introduction to what we're going to have coming in terms of our future episodes. And then, uh, we'll be going to a biweekly, uh, release schedule rather than a weekly release schedule. We think this will be, uh, something that we'll be able to keep up with better than, than a weekly, uh, schedule, just to, uh, just given that we're both going to be continuing to be a little bit busier than maybe we have been in the past. Um, but the first, uh, future episode that we'll have coming up, uh, is an interview that we did with Sandra Tanner.

Um, and that's going to release on November 1st. Um, and so we thought it would be fun to come together with, with Sandra Tanner. She's so knowledgeable about Mormonism and, um, all of the ins and outs of, uh, the ways that, uh, LDS doctrine has changed over the years and adapted in response sometimes to the work of, of Sandra and her, uh, late husband Gerald. Um, but we thought it would become fun to kind of come together with her and talk about why, uh, why she's stuck with Christianity after deconstructing Mormonism. A lot of times when she interviews with people, the focus is deconstructing Mormonism. And so we thought it would be kind of fun to, to give her a chance to talk about, um, why she, why she remains a believer, uh, in Jesus, uh, after deconstructing Mormonism. So we had her on for that interview. Um, Matthew, what do you, what do you remember about that interview?

Uh, and that you think our listeners can look forward to? Yeah, as a while ago, I'm trying to remember everything we talked about. I just remember, um, it's like Sandra has been, like you said, Sandra's just so knowledgeable. I mean, she's, she discovered a lot of the, you know, a lot of the information, um, put out, printed out a lot of the data along with her husband, Gerald is like, like you said, so it's like, she, she, she knows it because she, you know, she literally wrote the book on a lot of this stuff. So I was surprised just how sharp she still is, you know, how, how much she still knows. And you can ask her questions and she could bring up things and, you know, she doesn't, I mean, like maybe subtle details, which is normal, you know, she might, she, um, might struggle to remember, but a lot of it, you know, she's just, it's like, she's a college professor, you know, that's just been teaching for decades and she just knows like the back of her hand and, uh, just her, her very kind and sweet demeanor that she had with us. I mean, that she's, she's just a wonderful woman. So yeah, I hope our listeners really enjoy that interview because I, I enjoyed being able to talk with her in person after hearing everything she said and, you know, reading her books. And so it was great to meet her.

How about you, Paul? What, what were the things that you remember most about it? So I remember, um, one thing I remember in particular that, that our listeners won't necessarily hear in the episode, um, but that we got to experience was, was her heart, uh, as a Christian, um, because where she was living, um, in the, in the home and office where she and Gerald have had the, the Utah lighthouse ministry bookstore, uh, for decades. Um, she recently moved out of there, um, and we'll be closing the bookstore in 2023, um, and retiring, but, um, she lives in a part of salt lake city where there's, um, quite a large homeless population and, uh, it's right across the street from, um, I think there's still the salt lake bees, the minor league team there that might, they might be something else now. Uh, they were the bees when I still lived there a couple of decades ago, but, um, she allows the, uh, homeless men who were, you know, living on the streets around her house to use her, her hose bed to get drinking water.

And, um, uh, and I'm assuming maybe bathe as well, but, um, or, or kind of clean themselves up a little bit. But, um, one of them had, had started using the hose bed that night and, and then came to knock on the door and she went to, to speak with him during our interview and had to pause with us for a moment. Um, but got to see her heart as a Christian woman, you know, that she's not, she's not just someone who's, you know, trying to tear down Mormonism or something. She actually has, uh, this Christian heart to, to help people as much as she can in any way, in any way that she can.

Um, even though as an elderly woman, uh, that kind of puts her in a compromised position relative to her safety, um, she was willing to, to take that risk in order to, um, help these men in any way that she could. So I thought that was really, really nice and decent of her. And, uh, I also remember you, you mentioning to her in the, in the interview, Matthew, because I was talking about how, um, when I first, uh, kind of encountered their writings, um, was through, uh, the, the work of, um, fair Mormon when I was going through my initial faith crisis. And, um, I remember hearing about the tanners from my mom, but hadn't really encountered their writings. And, uh, I was just mentioning how, you know, they're, they're ad hominem attacks against them, um, really kind of interested me more in what they had to say and what they were writing about and talking about. Um, so it's kind of, it's kind of interesting, you know, cause if you think about Mormon history, you know, people like, uh, Eber D how, uh, that wrote, uh, I think Mormonism unveiled and, um, you know, had, had kind of an impact, uh, on people being interested in Mormonism because they were trying to, uh, trying to write an expose about it.

Right. And, uh, far fair had kind of the same impact on me. They made me more interested in reading what the tanners had to say because they were trying to do an expose on them as horrible people.

So, um, well done, uh, fair Mormon. But, um, yeah, look forward to that interview, uh, with Sandra Tanner. I, I also, while during my time in Utah, uh, in September, got to stop into the bookstore and see Sandra and, uh, spent about an hour chatting with her.

Um, so that was, that was fun to finally meet her in person and, um, just talk with her about things. So that'll come up. That interview will release on November 1st.

And then two weeks later on the 15th of November, we're going to release an interview that we did with Dwayne Green. Uh, Matthew, you went on his show, um, what about a year and a half ago or so? Yeah.

Something like that over a year ago. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, Dwayne Green, um, Matthew, why don't you talk about him a little bit? You're, you're a little bit more familiar with him and, and, uh, uh, I think you listened to him a little bit more than I do, but, um, yeah, take it away. Talk about what we, what we talked with Dwayne about.

Yeah. So, um, we, so going back Dwayne Green, um, so he's someone I've known in some groups that I'm in and on Facebook. So we're both part of, uh, uh, you might be a heretic. It's a group on Facebook.

It's kind of like a Christian parody group where we post all kinds of things and just kind of fun, you know, tease, make fun about it. But at the same time, it also kind of gives us opportunity to share biblical truths because there's a lot of people from all over the spectrum and theologically to come in there. You know, there's, there's even Latter-day Saints that show up and you know, everybody's welcome.

We don't really kick somebody out unless they, you know, are really causing problems. So we have all kinds of people that show up there. So we post some things. We, you know, we have some last, but at the same time, I think it's a good opportunity to share, uh, to share truth with people. So, uh, Dwayne is, is one of the, uh, moderators there.

So I'm a moderator also, uh, in that group. And so we kind of, uh, we kind of got to know each other that way and we've shared posts with each other. He started a YouTube channel. I think it was related to his seminary degree or his college degree. Um, so he had started a, um, YouTube channel, like I said, where he talks about all kinds of things. Usually it was, um, related to the Bible and then it kind of just grew. It kind of just evolved to where he kind of wanted to find his niche.

You know, he wanted to find what he really liked. And so a lot of what he started posting on his YouTube channel is about the Bible. Um, so he's had, um, all kinds of scholars, uh, on his channel who are experts in the new Testament and the old Testament and, uh, you know, critical, the critical texts versus the ecclesiastical texts.

So he's had people on there to give their views. And, um, he's kind of, he's not, he's not hard one way or the other, you know, like he, I believe he really likes the King James and I still like the King James too. Um, but he's still not, you know, he's not King James only, um, advocate. So he's, but he's had people who are King James only advocates or a Texas receptives advocates.

For those who don't know, Texas receptives is just Latin for the received text. And that's referring to the Greek text that was compiled in the creation of the King James Bible. And so there are those who say that the text, that text, that specific Greek text is the one we should use. So he's, he's, um, so he had me on to talk about, uh, not about, you know, biblical texts and textual criticism, because I'm definitely not an expert on that, but he had me on to talk about my faith journey and being a Latter-day Saint.

And, um, so that was really fun to have him on, to be on his program. Then we invited him on our program and we, um, so we talked about, um, the Greek new Testament. So that's the one thing that we wanted to talk about is kind of get kind of dip our toes a little bit into textual criticism, since that's a topic that, you know, a lot of, uh, we have a lot of debate with the Latter-day saints, you know, they'll say, you can't even know what the Bible says, you know, how do you even know what the text is?

Because it's been changed over time, et cetera. And so we kind of talked about that. We talked a little bit about, um, transmission versus translation. So transmission is the copying of texts and, you know, trans, transmitting those texts throughout time. You know, you make one copy and you'll have transmission lines. So, you know, copies will deviate into different transmission lines and they'll go to different locations. And so textual critical scholars, they try to figure out how those texts all connect, you know, like if there's a copy error made in one text, it'll propagate through other texts. And then comparing that to other textual lines, then you can find out where errors propagated and then you can figure out, you know, what was added, what was taken away, typically what was added. So we kind of just talked about that and what his views were about the King James Bible.

And, you know, if we should use the critical text, which is the one that modern textual critical scholars use, or the Texas Receptus, like I said, which is kind of what was used to make the King James Bible. So, um, yeah, so that's basically kind of what we talked about. Um, what, what do you remember that interview, Paul, that, that you enjoyed? Um, so what I remember most about that interview is, is really realizing just, uh, how little I know about textual criticism. Cause it's not, you know, I learned enough, uh, in seminary to be dangerous, but, uh, it's something that, that Dwayne really, uh, delves into. And, um, so I had made a mistake, uh, in talking about the Texas Receptus and referred to it as a critical text and, and he corrected me there.

It's not a critical text. Um, but, um, yeah, so I found the interview with him very interesting, uh, to learn a little bit more about, um, you know, what goes into the King James only debate, uh, with regards to Texas Receptus versus modern critical texts and, um, and kind of the differences in methodology, uh, that went into, uh, the compilation of, uh, the Texas Receptus versus modern critical texts. And so, um, really interesting art, a really interesting interview for sure. It's, it's, it's a little bit, um, I'll just say it's a little bit wonky for, uh, some, uh, maybe for, for the taste of some, but, uh, I think it's an interesting, uh, like you were saying, Matthew kind of foray dipping our toes into, uh, textual criticism. Um, the people that the scholars that kind of live in that world, um, it's a very, uh, specific kind of knowledge and, and, um, skillset that they bring to the table. And so, um, it's not something that, uh, all of us are kind of always thinking about, but it affects, uh, the way that we, uh, interpret the scripture interpret scripture and, and the ways that, uh, scripture is translated.

And so it's an important conversation to have, um, because I think that, uh, a lot of times latter-day saints and, and sometimes some Christians as well will overemphasize, um, the extent to which they think the, the, the Bible has been corrupted. And so, um, I think that it's kind of an important, uh, corrective to, to hear that interview with Duane Green. Would you agree with that assessment? Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of great points that you made, Paul.

Um, yeah, I agree. It's, we kind of wanted them on just because like you said, the corruption of the text is such a big topic that is brought up so, so often by LDS. And we, we made a series about, uh, which article of faith was it an article, faith number eight, and about the reliability of scripture. And so we had like a three or four part series about how we can trust scripture and when we can rely on it. So, but this is kind of like getting, we kind of wanted to get more detail into why you can trust it.

You know, like with the sexual criticism, does that mean we should doubt the Bibles that we're reading? So yeah, I really enjoyed it. And yeah, like you, I'm not an expert on it. So it was really great to hear from Duane who's kind of, I mean, he, he doesn't have like a master's or PhD in textual criticism or anything of that nature. And he's not a textual critical scholar himself, but he's interviewed people who are. And it was cool that he kind of just absorbed, you know, all that information from them and from reading. And, and so it was cool to be able to, to talk to him in his, his experience and what he's learned. I've, I'd only before, I'd only read one book because I was interested in it by Theodore Letus. He's kind of like one of the main advocates of the Texas Receptus, but he called it the ecclesiastical text. So I had read his book on, on that topic and he had some interesting arguments. I wasn't fully convinced, but he had some interesting arguments that made me think about some things in a different way. So yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

And I didn't, didn't mean to imply that Duane himself is wonky, but the topic can get wonky. And so, but it's, but it's, it's an important one to kind of dive into one of the, one of the things about our, our modern age and I'm probably going to sound like an old person here, but one of the things about our modern age that I, I kind of lament sometimes is the extent to which, and I, and I can be guilty of this as well, the extent to which we're willing to listen to a short sound by maybe a Tik TOK video. That's one to three minutes long about a topic.

And we're like, oh, now I know that the church has been lying to the world for all these centuries and millennia. And, you know, I think it just requires a bit more patience and a bit more willingness to dig in and really pay attention to the details than, than that. And so the discussion with Duane is kind of an opportunity for some of our listeners to do that a little bit with textual criticism.

Yeah, for sure. So next up, two weeks after that, we'll be releasing an episode, another interview that we did with a listener named Sarah Bateman. And she had reached out to us because she and her parents were meeting with some LDS missionaries and she had some questions for us as Christians who were formerly Latter-day Saints on how to have effective conversations, effective biblical and doctrinal conversations with Latter-day Saint missionaries. So we got together with Sarah and had a, had a good conversation with her about that, answered some of her questions and allowed her to share her thoughts on how the conversations with the missionaries were going between her parents and herself and the missionaries.

And her father is a Christian pastor. Um, and so, you know, that was interesting to talk about as well. Um, Matthew, what, what stands out to you about our conversation with Sarah? Like you'd, um, like you'd said before, where it's unfortunate that so much of our information today is disseminated through very short media, you know, sound clips, TikToks, you know, two minute YouTube videos, things like that. That's what gets clicks or maybe just, you know, articles where people don't even read the article.

They just read the clickbait title and then they get upset about it. You know, so much of a, so much of today is that's, that's how people get their, their news. And so to hear from her, I think the thing that stuck out the most to me was just her desire and her love for, for Latter-day Saints and for her genuine curiosity to know what it is they actually believe so that she can dialogue with them. Like, um, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of easy when you're wanting to talk to people of a different faith to just get just the bare minimum amount of knowledge or understanding so that, you know, how to, you know, to attack them or to defeat them, you know, it's kind of like, okay, just tell me how to use this weapon and then I'll go out and just, you know, take them all out. You know, but she kind of seemed like she really wanted to like dive in deep into her understanding of the LDS faith. And, um, she said, uh, I think she said she listened to like most or all of our episodes and I was like, what, like 120 episodes or something. I was like, man, I kind of feel bad for you having to listen to my droning voice for, you know, however many hours, but, um, no, it was, it was great that she, she, that she found use in our, in our program, which is kind of one of the goals that we'd had for the program is we just wanted whoever uses it for it to be useful.

That was my kind of my goal. You know, whether it's Latter-day Saints or doubting, and they kind of want to find a Christian home to land in or they're scared about leaving. And so they're wondering what it's like on the other side or like I said, people who had never been LDS who want to know more about the LDS faith. That's another thing too. Um, so I was just, I was just really pleased and grateful and humble that, you know, that our material could actually be helpful to her. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

All right. So the next episode is going to be coming out on December 13th is, uh, some time that we spent with Michael Flournoy, um, talking about, uh, understanding grace. Uh, it's a discussion about Brad Wilcox's speech. Um, when we, when we had the interview with Sarah Bateman, she mentioned, um, that, you know, she had perceived that there were differences between how Latter-day Saints and Protestants understand and talk about grace. And, um, that, that those differences have kind of been at the forefront of the discussions that she and her parents have been having with LDS missionaries. Um, and she had asked because one of the missionaries had recommended to them, uh, Brad Wilcox's BYU devotional speech titled his grace is sufficient. So she had asked if we had ever talked about that, uh, that speech on, uh, the podcast. And, um, we hadn't, but our friend and, and co-host sometimes Michael Flournoy, uh, did write an article about, uh, Wilcox's speech. So we had Michael on to talk about, uh, Brad Wilcox's speech.

So that'll be coming up on December 13th. Um, and then, uh, coming up in, in November, we're going to be interviewing Rich Hoyer. Uh, he was on the podcast once before. Rich is a, uh, Christian pastor in, uh, the, the Christian tradition, uh, to which I belong in the American, uh, restoration movement, um, independent Christian churches, churches of Christ. And, uh, Rich, uh, is from the Louisville area and, uh, had for several years hosted a, an apologetics conference in Louisville called the reveal conference. And we had him on, um, a year or so ago to, uh, talk about why Christian apologetics is important, uh, because that's a topic that is near and dear to his heart. Um, and because it is, he has recently released a, uh, book called, so you think you understand Christianity, uh, subtitled teaching Christianity to a culture that's saturated with misconceptions. Um, and I think that's a really interesting title.

Um, I've listened to the book, uh, the Kindle version of the book I've listened to, uh, through Kindle reader, uh, while I've mowed lawns. Um, and we're going to interview Rich about the book, uh, coming up in November. So, um, you can look forward to that. And then, um, there's a number of episodes that we recorded, um, and just, uh, haven't released yet, but we're going to get them out.

Um, running between, uh, like I said, November 1st and, uh, March 7th on a biweekly basis. Um, we did an episode that we called the, uh, Joseph and Mary chain. Uh, Matthew and I kind of came together to talk about, uh, what it means to worship and whether or not Roman Catholics worship Mary, whether or not latter day saints worship Joseph Smith.

Those are charges that get thrown around a lot. Um, and you know, there's the perennial accusation that singing the LDS him praise to the man equates to worship to Joseph Smith. So we decided it might be fun to talk about that.

Um, and so we did that. Um, we had an episode called that we're calling the harrowing of hell and second chances, which kind of was an outgrowth of some feedback we received from publishing our episode on, uh, Jonathan Edwards, or no, sorry, that was from the episode on, uh, the apostles creed, because there were some latter day saints that, that felt like there was a certain phrase, uh, descended Christ, descended into hell and the apostles creed that, uh, maybe latter day saint doctrine, uh, fit better with then, uh, traditional Christian doctrine. And so, uh, with, with their view of, um, second chances in the, in the spirit world for those who did not accept the gospel on earth. And so we, we have this episode called the harrowing of hell and second chances, uh, where we're talking about that.

Um, we also have an episode that'll, uh, be released early next year called the candle of the Lord. Uh, it's, we're calling that the testimonium part two, um, with that testimonium series, we're looking to kind of dig into, um, what is the internal witness of the Holy spirit? How does that differ from, um, the way latter day saints talk about their testimonies and are there differences and what does that look like? Um, and so one of the classic, uh, LDS speeches on having a testimony or gaining a testimony is called the candle of the board by Boyd K. Packer, who was an LDS apostle. So we came together and, and kind of read through, uh, Boyd K. Packer speech and, and talked about it. Um, we, we received a question about, uh, tad collisters, other tad collisters, uh, article that the LDS church ruins its members for other Christian churches, which is kind of a polemical article, uh, that was published in the LDS church news a while back, um, arguing that because LDS doctrine, uh, is better than a Christian doctrine and in certain regards, according to his argument that the LDS church ruins its members for other Christian churches, because no other Christian churches have these specific doctrines that are unique to Mormonism. So we came together and read that article and talked about it. And then, uh, finally on March 7th of next year, we will, uh, release an episode called 17 evidences of the, sorry, an episode called 17 evidences of the devil's church, uh, where Michael Fornoy again is the guest to talk about his article of that title.

Um, and what he's trying to do with that article is, um, there's a classic Mormon apologetics article, um, that what's a title and 17 evidences of the true church. Is that what it is, Matthew? Uh, I think, I think I'd say, yeah.

Yeah. And so Michael's, Michael's title is kind of a play on that. Um, and so, uh, Michael seeks to address that article and the claims that are made within that article. So we had him on to talk about his article and, um, we'll be releasing that March 7th. Um, and that kind of will bring us up to date with, uh, all of the episodes that we have kind of in the can and, um, prepared to go and release to you. And then Matthew and I will be beginning a regular recording schedule again, uh, after the first of the year. Um, and so, you know, glad to be back, uh, recording for you and, uh, hope you've stuck around with us.

I know I've, I've checked the, the, the podbean stats a few times here and there. So I know that there's continual, uh, listeners, um, we're getting downloads every week. And so, um, that's encouraged us to, uh, as we've asked the question, is there a future for those podcasts? That's encouraged us to let us know that there are still people out there for whom this is meaningful. And so, uh, as long as there are people out there for whom this is meaningful, we're going to continue to, to have our conversations. Yeah, for sure. You know, we're, we've got a lot of different ideas of where we're going to take the podcast in the future, you know, one different ideas in terms of topics and people we can interview.

I think also my moving from New York to Idaho will also open up some doors in terms of people we could interview since we were both away from, you know, the, the Utah, Idaho, Arizona area, but now that I'm, but now that I'm here, you know, I've, I've thought about people we can, we can interview like local pastors and, and missionaries and, or, you know, whoever. So yeah, we've got a lot of great stuff coming, so I hope you'll stick around. Looking forward to it. So welcome back, fireflies, and we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you. Thank you.