The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – We Believe: Membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: A Christian Conversation by Phillip M Graehl

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

We Believe: Membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: A Christian Conversation by Phillip M Graehl Phillipmgraehlbooks.com https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPGL17P3 If Jesus Christ is to all people our Good Shepherd and his gospel is the good news, why is there so much contentious debate in the world over all this goodness? Why is there such derision cast between religious bodies and their adherents toward others of differing beliefs? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its members have been persecuted since the founding of the Church, and its members often called non-Christian. Is this really true? There are many truths about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that invite discussion. There are also many fallacies and misunderstandings regarding the Church that deserve exposure and explanation. Herein is described to the traditional Christian world and all others who will inquire some history as well as doctrines and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, given in an attempt to help bridge a divide that need not exist between disciples of Jesus Christ. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” About the author I am a “mid-boomer” having been born in 1955, in Provo, Utah. The first few years of my life were spent in Fort Collins, Colorado where my father attended veterinary school, alternating with summers in Provo which was my father’s home town. Over a two year period I lived in Bend, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah; and then Glendale, California. Grades K – 3 were in Glendale, and then we moved to Huntington Beach, California. While in Huntington Beach I enjoyed bodysurfing and surfing as well as outdoor sports in general including backpacking and skiing. I also played high school football, basketball, and baseball. I attended college at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and graduated with a bachelor’s of science degree in Geology. One summer in college I worked on the North Slope of Alaska for a geophysical company. The summer after college graduation I worked in Uranium exploration in northern Idaho and northeastern Washington. I attended medical school for two years at the University of Utah and completed medical school at the University of California, Irvine. My post graduate training was in orthopedic surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. Prior to completing my training in San Antonio I met and married my wife of the last forty years. My wife is also a physician. Fellowship training in lower extremity total joint replacement and sports medicine occurred in San Antonio, Texas and then Sydney, Australia. My first orthopedic practice was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Then after two years I immigrated to Texas where I practiced for another thirty years in the northern suburbs of Dallas, Texas. I continue to enjoy outdoor sports, fishing, and I am an admirer of Western art of the United States. After two total hip replacements I have abandoned skiing, but I continue to enjoy hiking in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. I have also found that I enjoy writing. Following my retirement I enrolled at the University of Texas at Dallas and began with a creative writing class. Thereafter, the Covid pandemic caused an acute cessation of my post-post-graduate education.

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Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author is brought to you by majestic authors' media, specializing in strategic marketing and publishing to help authors reach their ideal audience and maximize their book's success, turning powerful messages into global impact, one story at a time. Timmy amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his book called We Believe, membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian conversation by Philip M. Grail.

We're going to get into him, talk about his interest and some of the insights that he put into his book, he is a retired orthopedic surgeon living in Texas with his wife of 38 years in their son. Raised in a non-religious household, he began studying the Bible at age 38 after feeling unfulfilled despite achieving many of his life's goals. His search let him discover Jesus Christ as the Savior and Redeemer and eventually explore his family's religious roots in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Through studying the Book of Mormon and his faith, he found a deeper understanding of life, renewed hope, and lasting happiness. Welcome to show, Philip.

How are you, sir? I'm great. Thanks for the invitation to be on your podcast. Thank you for coming. We're honored to have you. Give us dot com's websites where we want people to find out more about you. I have a book website, the Philcom. You can also find the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, those type of platforms.

That's about it right now. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your book? Basically, it is an olive branch handout to the world of Christianity to build bridges of understanding between Christian faiths. The history of Christianity and its reaction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been one that's been, oh, I'd say one of contention. and I don't think that that should necessarily be the case. I think peoples that are purporting to want to live the life of the discipleship in Jesus Christ should treat each other like he recommended we do.

I find that we don't always do that, then that comes from both sides of the aisle. So it's just a way for me to try to dispel some of the erroneous information that Christians use to criticize the church. Not that there aren't differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christian denominations, but they certainly aren't of the, I don't think that it should keep us from being able to talk to each other. And I've been a witness to those contentious.

There was another word that I had that was a little bit better, but a little bit, you know, not nice. but when I lived in Utah 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever, how long, 2000, before that and before that, so yeah, 20 years ago, I worked at one point with a company that they sold edited films that had been, they took out all the sex, violence, swear words, and all that sort of stuff. And much of the degree in of Hollywood, because you're messing with art, and I think eventually the FCC ended up shutting them down over some false stuff. stuff and bad things they were doing. But when I worked with him, they had a big organization. They would edit these movies and then resell them and stuff. And so they would sell them to churches. And usually they would target churches and then they would get the churches to open up their membership and then they would sell these movies to them. And we would get, we started

getting newsletters from the Southern Baptists and other Christians around the nation. They put us on their list. And then I would talk to a lot of them. And it was why. because I spent, I'd been living from 2004. I came when I was 12 or 13, and so I was here about 20 years, I think, before I moved out. And they would say stuff to me that was just beyond comprehension. They'd be like, so what are the Mormons like walking around with their black capes and their horns? What seen them in the streets? And you're like, what drugs are you on, man?

Of course, back then you couldn't check what an average street in Utah look like with Google Maps yet. But the stuff they would come up with about Mormons, and you're like, no, you would try and correct them. You'd be like, no, I walk around downtown all day long. They're not, they don't wear horns. They don't wear capes or black or some sort of get up like Matrix or something. And you're like, no, there's not, they just kind of do their thing. And so, yeah, there was, it was wild, some of the crazy stuff they would say to me. And I'd be like, yeah, that's not true.

They're just human beings walking around, man. I was like, I don't know where you're getting this determination. And I mentioned that was 20 years ago it was probably worse or the same. I don't know. There are some things in the church's history that cause even people in the church to scratch their head a little bit. And so there are some things that when taken out of context look a little bit worse than they really are. But in my research in writing the book, I didn't get all the answers I was looking for in regards to those things. What were some things?

Were there any things that you found that surprised you in the volume of the, what you wrote in your research or things that maybe you thought you really had tried to help other Christians understand Mormons and what they're up to. What were some of them maybe sandouts that you came across? I had the horns. That was always the weirdest shit. The main thing I think that is important to point out to all Christians, and I think there's other denominations who suffer perhaps not as bad as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

but still are seen as on the fringe of Christianity. But if you look at the basic doctrine that we believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God that he came to this earth and taught us his gospel and atoned for our sins and was crucified and resurrected, and he is our Savior and Redeemer, those things I think we can all, all Christians can agree on. And we're no different in that regard than any other Christian denomination. Yeah. You spent a lot of time researching this.

Why do you think it is they come up with really weird stuff like that? It's one thing if you want to say, we don't know, like Mormon is they do something. This one Mormon guy did something bad, right? But to just label people to like to walk around horns all day in public downtown, you're like, what the day? Like, just coming up with that, I would initially say, okay. that sounds a little too far-fetched. We would see pictures by now. We had photographs 20 years ago.

I think a lot of people hear things from the pulpits of their own churches that are not well thought out, or they're just parroting things that have been said for the last 200 years about the church. That was the other thing I hoped to get people who might be interested in just something about the church, are all these things that I've heard, are they really true? Yeah. There are three big historical things in the church that people do question quite a lot. One is the fact that during a time in the church, plural marriage was practiced or polygamy.

And so in looking into that, I found that an interesting thing, because even in the book of Mormon, it says that the men shall have only one wife. But it does say at the same time, if the Lord decides to build up a people unto himself, then he will at times allow for plural marriage, which he did with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yeah, I was going to say it's in the Bible, right? Yeah. You'd think with Christianity, it would be like, it's in the Bible. The other thing is, is that it was very, if you read the revelation that brought it to the forefront, The prophet of the church had to approve such marriages.

The people involved had to give consent. That is, both the husband and the wife or wives. And then depending on how you try to categorize statistically how many people participated in a plural marriage, if you say what percentage of the men in the church participated, it was only 2 to 5%. But if you talked about the amount, the number of families or the number of persons that were involved in plural marriage relationships, the number goes quite up, got quite a ways. That's something that you really have to look at. It gives you an uneasy feeling when you consider that there's times when God will allow that because most of us, it doesn't come natural to want to do that. Then the other thing was blacks in the priesthood.

There was a time in the church when African Americans were not allowed to hold the priesthood or receive temple ordinances. Now, that wasn't from the beginning. The church was organized in 1830, and blacks were allowed to participate in the priesthood and in temple ordinances until 1852. And that's when Brigham Young was the prophet of the church. In researching this, I could never find an exact reason why this was implemented. There are some people who speculate it was because of political reasons. The Brigham Young changed the rules? Well, yeah, he changed the rules, but then he said this is only going to be for a time.

and then these privileges will be restored. And it didn't take, it was only people of, black people of African descent, Polynesians, people from India, those kind of, they weren't included in this. So none of it really makes all that much sense to me. And I could find, of course, no scriptural backing for it because the scriptures say that God is no respect to a person, male, female, bond or free, black or white, Jew or Gentile. It really sits as kind of an enigma to me even still. Now, did you ever get a hold of the original copies or the earlier copies of the Book of Mormon?

Because most of the Book of Mormon has been scrubbed, and it was scrubbed to the racist stuff, too. Yeah, no, the, there's still in the Book of Mormon, there talks about when there was two groups of people that came to the Western Hemisphere, or one group of people that split in two that came to the Western Hemisphere. and the wicked ones, we'll call them, at least they were the wicked ones to start with, they received a mark, said a mark of blackness. Now, there's still debate as to whether that was black skin or a black mark that they put on their skin. I have no idea. That's that part of it. I don't really have an answer what that mark of blackness exactly was.

My understanding from being in the church was they used it for racism. One of the challenges of Brigham Young is he was an incredible racist. He said some horrific things about them. You found those quotes, didn't you? From him? I didn't find the quotes, but I do know in looking over the years at the supposed reasons why this was implemented in a lot of the church leaders, it sounds, it sounds racist.

Yeah, I believe the instruction came from Brigham Young was so toxic. They can't ever publish his journals. They just can't. They won't. There's a lot of journals they won't publish either. But between that, the black folks back then and the Indians, of course, the Meadows massacre and stuff like that, that was Brigham called the ball on that and sent them after him.

So, you know, it was a big thing back then. I was in the church when Spencer W. Campbell made this epiphany announcement as they were opening African missions that all blacks could have the priesthood now. Yeah. Yeah, because they weren't selling well in Africa. You know, when you tell people, you've got to join our church, but no one can be a leader here. It's a little hard. Yeah, there's all kinds of takes on that. And unfortunately, what coincided, it was even after the big civil rights,

here in this country and it almost appeared to some people that it was just a capitulation to what was going on in the world and that the church was backed into a car. I don't necessarily feel that way 100%, but I really don't have any defensible position to put forth as to why it was implemented. Yeah. If you go, if you look it up, the timing of the opening of those missions in sending missionaries to South America and South America and Africa. It was because it wasn't selling because people were like, you want me to join your church, but I can't hold the priesthood, I can't do anything. And I'm told that I'm a second-class citizen

because of Kane or something. I believe all that originated from, it originated from one of the guys in the, maybe it was Nephi, Lehihi. No, Lehii was the dad, Nefi was the kid. Wasn't there an evil brother. Anyway, I think they'd knock it back to Kane and Adam, if I recall correctly. And it's all kinds of stories. Descendants of Ham, who was... Yeah, yeah. ...sons, and then there's Kane. None of those are really... There again, none of those really hold water, and I think there again, it was people trying to justify their own prejudiced outlook.

So... Brigham Young said, he is quoted saying some really heinous stuff I wouldn't even repeat about black people. And I don't think he talked to them in a humane way. It's when you hear the quotes that he made and the way he discussed it, you can only guess what's in that journal. He won't publish. I've not seen any of that stuff myself, so I can't really comment on it. Yeah. What are some other aspects of the book? You're trying to open a dialogue. You want to have a healthy discussion with people, and you want people to understand the point of view. And I think you're right. There's a lot of these preachers that out there. I used to have an uncle who was a Southern

Baptist preacher and some of the stuff that I would hear from of him. I'd just be like, okay, dude, I've read the Bible. I'm not sure Jesus was that big of an asshole. I told her anybody that big of a jerk. But it's whatever, man, money's money. You got to put fear into people and to control them. And some of the things I saw, like I said, we get all these calls from the South and they'd be like, to the Mormons do this. And you're like, under what? What you just said is so dumb. not you, the person that contacted me. What you just said is so dumb. The fact that you would consider that's a reality is just, I don't know, I think somebody

said, don't the Mormons do human sacrifices? And you're like, what? Like that would be legal and stupid stuff. Yeah, there's all, when they went to build the temple here in Dallas in the early 80s, there was a group of Baptists that were all up in arms because they didn't want to have those Mormons bringing corpses in and having them baptized. The baptism for the dead, they thought was involving dead people, as opposed to proxy baptisms for people who had died in the past.

So that was an interesting misconception. The bottom line is, I guess what it boils down to is if you're going to hate me, I want you to at least know why you hate me and not have it be false information. But that's cynical. I really do think that most people don't really want to hate people, even though we become quite polarized. We sit down next to each other. If we don't know their political party or their religious bent, we can oftentimes just have the greatest conversations and no one's the wiser. I think that we need to look at each other as the humans that we are. And if you're interested in deliast, into somebody's religion. I don't think the first thing you want to do is jump on them when they say some, oh, you're one of those crazy folk because it goes nowhere. Nobody gets changed of their opinion in situations like that. Yeah. And that was the other thing about polygamy. Polygamy was in the Bible. And polygamy was necessary back then because there were so many men that lost and died and fell by the wayside during that trek. The trek.

I was just up the other day, two to weekends shooting it, photographing it. So this is the place monument. I'm not sure you're familiar with that, but that's basically what they say, Brighamong stood at this peak. And it's the view of the valleys. Incredible. That's why I was up there. And they got these little cool buildings they built.

But I'm just thinking about that view. It's a hell of a view. It's sad they didn't put apartments or buildings on it. They have buildings, but you can't really see the view. And the beautiful sunsets, too. You can see the great lake that they, I think they thought it was a normal lake. Saltwater scurvy lake. And so it was just amazing what they did.

And I drove up to canyon that leads to that. And it's very tiny, very small. And it went up to the East Canyon. And I just thought about the small distance that I was doing in 110 degree heat, 105 degree heat. And I was just thinking, man, these people did this with these carts. And here's a fun fact. I don't know if you know this, but if you ever come to Utah and you drive from the top to the bottom or from Salt Lake to Las Vegas, St. George, every one of those cities along that line is a day's travel by cart. So you may see the distance between there's Beaver and there's, what's the other place?

There's Beaver and Fillmore. Yeah, those might be like a 30-minute drive for you and I. That was a whole day of cart operation. So if these guys want to go to Vegas and I don't know, party it on, I don't know. They did open the, they did settle Vegas, actually. They built the first fort there. And the fort's still there. But when you think about the distance that they would travel just to go do something,

and you're just like, my God. And the heat and water and bugs and lions and tigers and bears and Indians and all that stuff, it's pretty crazy to think about. They did quite a job of settling that. area. Yeah, yeah. Even up into Idaho and down into Arizona as well. Bring Mungs, we're building the state out. They can't, we're claiming it. But so many people died. There was between the Indians, scurvy, snakes and lions and tigers and bears and stuff. Their women do tend to outlive men. They have a better gene pool because they they carry the species forward without. If all

women die, we're really screwed it at the propagation of the species concept. Men can die, but not women. And so you had all these women. He had, I think it was 75 wives or something like that. I don't know that number. Let me see if I can pull it again. But so he had a lot. And I remember he complained to Mark Twain when Mark Twain came through. He was married to 56 wives. I stand corrected there. That's why you should always Google stuff, folks, even if I say it. And 56 wives, he had 57 children by 16 of his wives. All right, I'm not going to figure all that of math out. But yeah, you had a lot of wives.

But a lot of these were women that couldn't take care of themselves. Their husbands had died, probably along that 2,000, 3,000 mile journey, whatever it was, from Missouri to Utah. I just, sometimes I go out there. I was out in the planes out in Toella last week. And there's this huge, giant, massive valley, almost this, maybe not as big of Salt Lake City, but it's huge. And I just thought of the hand carts out there in the middle of nowhere just trying to push them. And I think what they got me was this is the place, monument that they have there. They have pictures, they have real built hand carts of what these people travel with.

And some of them didn't carry much more than a couple, like three kids could sleep on it or something. And then you had to have luggage on that part, probably. And I just looked at that. And I went some guy walked this from Missouri to Utah. Yeah, and sometimes when the husband died, the wife did it. Yeah, yeah. So you kind of had to have polygamy back then. It was a thing.

And so, you know, I don't know. Nowadays, I do the joke, and I've done this joke for 20 or 30 years because I saw what was coming, the dissolving of the middle class. Thanks, Reagan. I'm still waiting for my trickle-down economics check. But I always joke that someday we're going to have an economy and inflation, and the middle class is going to be downtrodden into the low. lower class, that you're going to, we're a two-income economy, you're going to need three incomes

to survive, so we're all going to have to go to polygamy to Faithville. And we're kind of there now if you've seen grass prices. Yeah, yeah, things are getting tough, that's for sure. Seriously, I know people, they have two double incomes. They make a lot of money, and they're, they're, like, struggling. I make a lot of money. I don't have wife and kids, and I'm pretty smart with my money and debt, but it wouldn't take much to put me in the poor house if you took some of it away. And so I'm just sitting there looking, maybe I should get a wife with a job and money and maybe get me two or three wives. I'll just move down to, what's that weird alcove at the bottom of Utah, where they have the plagues.

Yeah, with the border of Arizona. Yeah, down there. Get down there. Have you gotten a response yet from any Christian folks yet? I'm not sure how long of the book's been out. It's been out since January. It's been out since January. And like I say, the marketing has just been gotten going. Okay. It really hasn't. I've sent some copies to some pastors. One is one, my wife's not a member of the church and she listens to a pastor out on the East Coast. And I watch with her. And for most of the broadcast that he has, I say, I agree with everything he said. Now, there are times when I don't agree. And I do think it's interesting when he makes comments about members of the church that are stereotypical and not really well informed. I sent him a copy, but I haven't heard anything.

Yeah. That'll be interesting to see if he reads it. It's a, I don't know why they can't just stand on their own merits and be like, hey, our church is great and let's study the Bible more. In fact, you know what's funny is I think my, I think on Monday or Tuesday this week, two days ago, we had somebody on who was raised in a, in a household where the father or mother was Lutheran and devout lately. They have a whole family history of Lutheranism. And then the other spouse, I can't remember which it was, the wife or husband, was a devout Christian, or not, I'm sorry, devout Catholic. And they have a huge history. And not only that, they were German Lutheran and Italian Catholic, which if you understand World War I or World War II, the Germans and the Nazis didn't get along well.

And they wanted to enter the Vatican property. And so they have a sort of history really, lucky each other. But you could have been one of those families. That sounds even worse than... That reminds me. That reminds me I did send a copy to the Pope, but I... Oh, did you? But I had from him.

Since he's American, I figured he should read it, but I haven't heard back. I sent one after Secretary Hegeseth came out a few weeks ago and said that they were... The military is no longer going to consider Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Christian religion. and I sent Donald Trump a copy and said he out of distributed it to his cabinet and let them maybe reassess. I got a form letter back from President Trump. That did shock me. And in fact, I have a lot of Catholic friends. I have friends from everywhere.

And they were surprised, too. And there was a bunch of religions they left off whatever that list they made at the Pentagon. And it was really surprising because I'm like, I knew this was a theocracy we're trying to overthrow. democracy with, but I didn't realize it was only certain religions or the right ones, according to them, right? And I was like, wow, that's a balzy move. That's kind of interesting. They pulled that stunt. I know the Mormons got upset, and I can't remember if it's been changed back or not. I think they backpedaled a little bit. The bottom line is, is what's contained in somebody's mind very rarely changes. It's as we've become less prejudice as

a society, I've always felt that people just keep their thoughts to themselves and they're more politically correct than they used to be. I'm not sure that they're any less. In some cases, in some cases, I think that. Yeah, a lot of people hid that. And then it kind of came out in 2015 and you started looking at people like, I didn't know you're incredible racist. You've been playing along this whole time. And they're like, yeah. Donald Trump says I can be a racist. So I'm letting it all out. So I, I agree with you. People tend to keep it under wraps and hide it. Maybe they should call them closet erasists. I think that's probably appropriate.

Yeah. It's people who got their things. So you've told the story. Now, what do you think about this thing where the churches come out and said they don't want to be called Mormons, but the problem is they still use it everywhere. In fact, there's still commercials. Well, the church itself has basically taken the word Mormon after out of everything. And the reason I think it was is because originally, that term Mormon was used as a derogatory term by opponents of the church, just based on the

term the Book of Mormon. Yes, the church wants to be known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is a mouthful. Yeah. But there really is no such thing as the Mormon church. And there never has been. But it became so common in the vernacular, not only of the country, but in the church itself, that it's taken a long time. And we'll take a long time to erase that word as a description of a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Maybe they're, I think they were using it maybe as a gradual against them where they were saying they're not true Christians, they're Mormons. So they're not Christians. It's a little word game.

I think that's where the true name of the church comes in to help substantiate the fact that we are. But there again, I think people are going to have. to decide for themselves. And I would rather have them try to decide for themselves than listen to their pastor or their preacher up there on Sunday, pounding the pulpit and talking about the satanic horde that are the Mormons, that kind of thing. It is pretty interesting. I can vaguely remember all the weird stuff that they would call us up and be like, so what's it like? And you're like, dude, like, some of the stuff they come up with just so imaginative.

You're just like, what world are you living in, man? Because people don't walk around in America like that. And it was just always weird. And they would hear from different places. So, you know, it's a good thing. You're laying that foundation out there for people. And do you dress the big kerfuffle they got in where they were hiding their, the huge head funds, hedge funds they built with tithing money, and they were hiding it not only

from their members, but the IRS. And they got caught? you do you step into that at all? I've, so here's my take on that. The whistleblower on that, to me, was a guy who thought that the funds ought to be used in a different manner. That is, and typically more in the present, helping poor and needy, even though the church does spend quite a bit of money in all those kind of things.

But what people have to realize is that for those of us who believe, we also be believe that there's something coming up in the not too distant future, the second coming of Jesus Christ to the earth. And we know that the times leading up to that are going to get pretty difficult for everybody, including. And so I think the church has to have reserves in anticipation of the needs that are going to be coming forth. So I wasn't really up on the nitty gritty of what they thought, what SEC regulations or that kind of thing was, were breached. I just found it interesting that some guy could think that he knew better how to distribute the funds than the church was doing. And I think he was just a little short-sighted.

But anyway, it's one of those things that it tried the faith of some members. A lot of things do. I remember I was in college and at the University of Utah, and these letters came out that supposedly had been written by Joseph Smith that were basically fake, that said the church. Yeah, so they were, yeah. Applied the church wasn't what they said it was, and then they found out that they were all fake. So people get trials of their faith all the time, and it's something we all have to work through. That was a famous case where the guy, I think he tried to blow some people up or blew some people up, because he was trying to try to blow some people up, because he was trying to hide his fake, him forging the documents.

And I think he went to jail, I think. It was a whole big thing back then. But no, I think the two biggest elements of that was the concern for the fact that they admitted they hit it because they were worried that their tithing income would fall off. So they hit it from their members. The other thing is it was a clear criminal violation of the IRS Code. And they've pled guilty to that and paid the reparations. So it was a big deal.

And for the people I know that are paying into that church, believing that money goes to something good. And I don't know where they're at. They're probably the fifth largest landholder in the United States or sixth largest landholder. You're talking to the trillions in funds. I mean, they could really quit accepting tithing right now. And they could live off the income of everything they've built and invested in it. But then the members wouldn't have the blessings that are attendant with paying tithing. So that's the other side of that coin.

That's what I always tell people pay me monthly. You wouldn't have the blessing of paying me monthly. Jokes. And so as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book and get to know you better.coms, etc. All right. I'd be happy for people who even don't know about the church but think that they've heard some weird things. things and what maybe we'd like to find out about it from a source that I'm going to say is unbiased. I'm not somebody that works for the church, is paid by the church.

And I came across my involvement in a very special way that happened to me. You found the church later in life, too. You weren't born into it. Sorry to interrupt you, but I think that's a salient point. It's an interesting story, too, because my parents were married in the Salt Lake Temple, but I never saw them enter a church when I was on the earth. So they were basically, here's the deal. And they were born in the late 20s.

And back in those days, everything social, your athletics, your dances, everything was church. So you got carried along in the church, even if you didn't have a testimony of the gospel, because that's just if you wanted to go to a dance, it was at the church on Saturday night. If you wanted to play softball, it was at the church field. And so I think a lot of people in that era just got carried along but really didn't invest in it to gain a testimony or so forth. So, yeah, my folks fell away and that's just one of those things. And so I knew a little bit about the church, but I didn't know much. But the one thing is I had a lot of cousins who were active in the church.

And I'm thinking, these guys seem like pretty good guys to me. I'm not sure why people are so down on members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So anyway, when I finally read the Bible, I said, okay, I probably owe it to my precursors to at least read the Book of Mormon and see what I think. So I did, and I was convinced. If you can, try and find the early copies before the PR agents got to him. If I recall rightly the N-W-R-S-in there quite a bit, N-E-G-R-O. And that got scrubbed. It's been scrubbed over 4,000 things have been edited in it.

So one of the best things I ever did was I got a hold of, and it turns out my mom had them. She had old 1800s, early 1900s, old 1800s church history books. And back then, they didn't PR it. They just went, yeah, yeah, that's the way we did it. So what? And it'll really open your eyes to a lot of things. Check those out. I'd recommend everybody to check those books out as well.

Technically, the word of God is not supposed to edit it. In fact, I believe Joseph's going to state that, but it's been heavily redacted and edited. But yeah, it's important to question faith. It's important to learn about one's faith. It's important to educate. It's important to discuss and debate. There's so much of it now. The church's biggest issue has been people have had access to the Internet, and they can study and they can do data, and they can pull different things.

And people can either find that it supports the religion. but I would say it's probably one of the most misunderstood religions. I have family that's in the Mormon church. And some of the things that people have come up to me about Mormons, I'm just like, dude, what the hell, man? I just, what you came up with is so dumb. I don't know. People walking around in black capes and horns.

Like, how would that be great during the summer? Anyway, that's crazy, man. And they don't, folks. I was downtown last week. So they haven't even started. yet or something. I don't know what the joke is there. Well, thank you very much for coming the show. We really appreciate it, Philip. My pleasure, and I really appreciate the invitation. Thanks, for honours for us for tuning in. Ordin'phe's book, We Believe, membership in the Church

of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian conversation. Thanks for honest for tuning in. Go to goodrease.com, fortress Christfoss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Christfoss, YouTube.com, Fortress Christfoss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walshow podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy.

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