The Sean McDowell Show - The New Mormonism: How LDS Beliefs Are Changing

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Mormonism is changing and the version of it a Latter-day Saint holds today may look almost nothing like the version their parents held. I sat down with Aaron Shafovaloff and Brandi Bronson to map what's actually happening. Aaron has done evangelism in Utah for two decades and volunteers with Mormonism Research Ministry. Brandy was LDS for 27 years before leaving. Aaron lays out seven distinct streams within the movement today and Brandy describes the Mormonism she was raised in divine nature, eternal progression, creating worlds, and what made her start to question it. CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Timestamps 0:00 — What is "the new Mormonism"? 0:27 — Brandy: 27 years as a Latter-day Saint 1:08 — Aaron: two decades of evangelism in Utah 2:05 — The eras: early, pioneer, correlation, neo-orthodoxy 4:54 — Is it changing faster now? 5:42 — Ships at sea with no anchor 6:51 — Brandy's 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 7:16 — The great apostasy and the exclusivity claim 9:16 — When the cracks appeared for her 11:09 — The seven streams 12:37 — Correlated Mormonism 13:24 — Neo-orthodoxy and "a crush on evangelical grace" 15:08 — Revisionism 16:21 — Primitive Mormonism 17:23 — Progressive Mormonism 18:29 — Cultural Mormonism 19:13 — Which streams are actually biggest 21:26 — Why the apologist and the stake president sounded so different 22:22 — Why Mormons are forced to be more nuanced now 24:19 — "I even considered staying" 27:15 — The Gospel Topics essays 30:06 — Who is Blake Ostler? 31:14 — The regress of deities 32:24 — Ostler's reinterpretation 35:02 — Is any stream moving genuinely orthodox? 36:38 — "More rhetorical than structural" 41:17 — What used to make something essentially Mormon 45:13 — What holds it together now 46:45 — Do you have to believe in Jesus to stay a member? 50:32 — Why orthopraxy over orthodoxy 52:23 — Universalism and "we're all going to make it" 55:18 — 2 Nephi 25:23, before and after 59:07 — Are more people coming to Christ? 1:03:32 — The one change Aaron celebrates without reservation 1:04:25 — If you're LDS, I want to hear from you 1:05:03 — Where to follow Brandy and Aaron Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Life Audio The reason that I left Mormonism, a big part of it was that I could see there were inconsistencies and that things were changing that shouldn't be changing. Would you say there's more change taking place today or it's always been a movement in change and it's just shifting differently today? The clearest way I can think about it today is in terms of there's just being different streams. After you become a member, after you pass baptismal interview and you're baptized into the LDS church, you can kind of believe whatever you want as long as you're not agitating against the leadership.

And so what it results in is in a radical disunity at a belief level within the Latter-Dy Saint-Eam. What is the new Mormonism? How are both the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shifting today? Given their life experience, research, and ministry, I can't think of two people more qualified to address these questions than our two guests today, Aaron Shafavlov and Brandy Bronson. Thank you both for coming on. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Absolutely.

So let's just dive right in. And I'll start with you, Brandy. Why are you interested in this topic of the new Mormonism? Well, I think it hits home for me because I was raised a Mormon and I was a Mormon for 27 years and I loved my experience as a Latter-day Saint. And I love the people. I love the people. And I see that as Mormonism is shifting right now, people are turning more not towards Christianity, but this weird mix where they're using a lot of the same words, but I still don't

feel like we're getting the gospel. So I think that this really matters and I want to speak to it. I can't wait to hear from your personal experience what you've seen from the time that you grew up and trend your seeing shifting today. But Aaron, you have a different story and motivation. Tell us about your interest in Mormonism as a whole, but in particular in the new Mormonism. I moved to Utah in 2005 and I've been doing evangelism either at Temple Square or in downtown on Provo or near BYU for about 20 years for about two decades. And we've been seeing a lot of changes in the LDS culture. But a short answer to your question is I just love the LDS people. I'd love to see Christ honored for who he really is and with the true gospel in Utah as a

part of the evangelism, church planning movement. And also I work with Mormonism research ministry as a volunteer helping research these issues. I hope everybody watching this picks up in the fact that I pick the two of you, not because you have an ax to grind, but because you love LDS, you have an experience and a care for these people that God loves deeply. And I want, and I know that's going to shine through today in our conversation. Aaron, let me shift you as we get into some of details. Now, we're actually going to dive into the details, but what is meant by the term the new Mormonism? I think that if you look at Mormonism, you can divide it up in two different eras. They're sort of the early Joseph Smith, late Joseph Smith eras. And then there's

the pioneer Mormon season. Some people call it middle Mormonism, where they're running with the radical distinctives, the things that we think of as being weird today about historic Latterty Saint teachings really come to the foreground in Middle Mormonism or Pioneer Mormonism. But in the 1890s, the Latterty Saint movement really tried to be more interoperative. integrated into society. And so it tried to systematize a lot of its teachings, be more American, fit in more, celebrate monogamy over polygamy. There's a number of issues there. And then what happened is that there was the correlation era, I would argue, where the LDS Church was trying to systematize even further with its manuals and its institutionally supervised sort of outlets.

and we got a lot of influence from Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce McConkey, who became foregrounded, highlighted voices. I think what happened to finish this off in the late 1890s and in the 1990s, there was an emergence, well, there was really the foregrounding of Mormon neo-Orthodoxy where they're in dialogue with evangelicals and they're becoming more comfortable with rejecting the teachings of their own leaders, if you will. And they're kind of quiet. They're polite.

They don't overtly undermine, but they do implicitly undermine the tradition of Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce Mankke. And so you had a lot of influence from BYU professors. And then you had another movement where there was a more of a liberal LDS focus

on higher criticism and following some of the sort of the, the atheistic criticisms of classical Christianity, Mormonism started adopting a lot of that as part of it's apologetic. And then we'll talk about it later, but you have the influence of an LDS philosopher named Blake Osler. So today, the new Mormonism is sort of a, it's a mix of different streams of thought within the Latter-Dy Saint movement. Some are more traditionalist following the big doctrines we think about coming from Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce McConkey. And some are a vocal apologetic

minority trying to really reinvent a kind of synthetic or new Mormonism that is quietly and politely trying to undermine and reverse the teachings of some of its most prominent apostles and prophets. I'm going to come to you in a second, Brandy, but first, Aaron, it sounds like there's always been changes in the history of Mormonism. And of course, early in Joseph Smith's life, when you have the Book of Mormon, largely Orthodox in a lot of the teachings, but Doctrine and Covenant, Book of Abraham, Kingfault discourse. Then you see some of these more radical teachings emerge. Would you say there's more change taking place today, or it's always been a movement in change, and it's just shifting differently today? Oh, that's a great question. I think you're

asking, is it changing at the same rate? Yeah. I don't know. The clearest way I can think about it today is in terms of there's just being different streams within the Latterty Singh movement. And I think that those streams are so different. I think of them as ships out at sea that don't put an anchor down. Each of these ships has the same flag, the same logo, the same veneer, the same stated allegiance. But they're going in different parts of the ocean. The winds are bringing them into very different places. And today, the Latter-Dy Saint movement, really the sort of the unifying bond for Latterty

Saints in the mainstream sect is really the institution. when after you become a member, after you passed the baptismal interview and you're baptized to the LDS church, you can kind of believe whatever you want as long as you're not agitating against the leadership. And so what it results in is in a radical disunity at a belief level within the Latterty Saint movement. Super interesting. Now, we're going to get into your different streams, which when you sent me some insights

about this, it was so fascinating. I think our viewers and listeners are going to find this really helpful. Brandy, you break down categories of Mormonism a little bit differently. You call it kind of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. Give us some of the categories of how you understand the new Mormonism. Yeah. First, I want to add to what Aaron was saying were, and I think the Mormonism that I knew, the reason that I left Mormonism, a big part of it was that I could see there were inconsistencies and that things were changing that shouldn't be changing, right? Like we believe that it's line upon line, not retraction upon retraction. And when I started to see a lot of inconsistencies on that foundational level, that's when I started to go,

oh, something's really, really wrong here, right? But regardless of the changes over time, I believe there's always been a foundational claim of Mormonism, which is a great apostasy, and that we are the one true church, right? And there's this exclusivity to that. So I think that those transcend all levels of Mormonism until New Mormonism. I think New Mormonism is really the first time that I'm hearing that the apostasy was more just an establishment of the ecclesiastical structure of the church, but that were just merely a denomination. And for me, that kind of eradicates the exclusive nature of Mormonism.

So that's why I kind of call it like a snake eating its own tail, where before there were still legitimate claims to Mormonism, and Mormonism now doesn't have that. So I would say the first version of Mormonism really is that OG Mormonism with Joseph Smith and Sears stones and large volumes of doctrine coming forth. And that was just basically the Mormonism that I was aware of. And then 2.0 was really that isolationist movement like Aaron was talking about out west with the frontier and Brigham Young instituting blood atonement. And there was Adam God Doctrine and there was a lot of really unique things that took its own form within that second stream of Mormonism.

And then I would call 3.0 more of the Mormonism that I was raised in, which is that things were a little bit more harmonized. You could see that the lectures on faith had already been removed in the 1920s. So we didn't have that in the doctrine covenants. We didn't have a question about how many were in the Godhead. I believe there were three and that they were all distinct beings with unified purpose. The blacks had the priesthood at this point. and Bruce Omerconquy was cool. And we had, you know, all of this doctrine really solidified for us.

And so that was the Mormonism that I knew well. But I did believe. And I always said this to my friends growing up, which is we're different. And it matters, you know, and especially my mom, she was a Methodist before joining the church as an early teen. And hearing stories growing up about how Mormonism was worth converting to, that Mormonism was different than creedal Christianity, as they call it. And that we needed the gospel.

we needed the restored gospel on the earth and that's what I believed. And so hearing this rhetoric now within New Mormonism that, you know, as long as you're glorifying God and you're working towards this, that there's really not a big difference is it's just unheard of, in my opinion. No, in some ways this is a whole separate conversation. But what was like, give me the kind of Twitter version of when those cracks started to appear for you that made you question the LDS faith? Yeah. Well, first it was a lot actually had to do with abortion and some of their, their takes on things that really led me to believe not that there was an issue with the Book of Mormon because honestly, Sean, like even if I had social issues, I still was like, well, the restoration's

true, right? Like I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith and the restoration. So I was never really wavering in that testimony. It wasn't until a family member who I knew was disaffected with the church. I sat down with him and I said, hey, like what's going on with the church? I almost feel like there's another apostasy going on. And I actually think a lot of Mormons feel that way now, which also leads into new Mormonism. I don't think that there's that direction that the leadership used to give. If you listen to general conference, you're just not going to receive a lot of meat anymore.

But I just felt a little disaffected with the leadership. And so I was like, maybe we have another apostasy. And my family member told me to go look at Mormon think, which is a site that had both the apologists as well as the critics view. And I never would have looked at like the gospel, any other type of anti-Mormon stuff, right? Like the CES letter and things like that. I couldn't stomach that.

So, yeah, I looked at that. And I started to realize for the first time that the history of the law, of the Mormon church was not what I was sold my whole life. And that was a really hard season for me because I didn't know about searstones and hats. And I didn't know about a lot of the things that the translation process that we can get into all that. You're right. This is a whole different conversation for another day. But yeah, I think it was the historical claims of Mormonism as well as the changing doctrine that really solidified that, oh, I've been sold something that isn't true. All right, folks. Comment if you like, you know what? We want you to have Brandi back to do a deep dive on

her story and conversion. I'm so tempted to go there, but we won't. We'll hold off on that. One of the things you sent me, Aaron, was that kind of these different strains, like six or seven different strains, so to speak, for lack of a better word, who identify as Mormons today. And of course, one of those strains, you mentioned the name, Blake Osler as an apologist who's influential. We can circle back to that. But what are some of these main differences? Once somebody says, I'm a Mormon, believe in the restoration, follow some of these teachings, what are some of those different strains that people can follow today under the broad umbrella of Latter-day Saints?

Yeah, it's really important when you hear Latter-day Saints say, we believe or we don't believe. They're typically speaking from a stream inadvertently, maybe sometimes over-representing their stream. But the mainstreams that I identify are pioneer Mormonism, where someone's got more of an interest in the distinctives of Brigham Young. And you'll find some modern Latter-day Saints that have this sort of flavor where they're more friendly to some of these pioneer ideas. But you're going to see this more with the fundamentalist movement or some of the polygamous groups. We interact with them in Utah, the All-Red Group, the Peterson group.

There's just a number of, you know, people think of this as like abstract, but it's quite real here in Utah will re-interact with people that are a part of these groups. And then there's some mainstream Latter-Day Saints who kind of have one-foot and one-foot-out. You can tell that they have some more affinity with this. The second stream would be correlated Mormonism, and this is going to be people who have a higher regard for Latter-day Saint prophetic direction. And they think of the manuals and the general conference talks as being more sticky and reliable and perpetual in their momentum. They're to be trusted. And there's a lot of influence here. with, like I said, Bruce McConkey and Joseph Fielding Smith.

And these people are either very affirming of the Kingfollett discourse and something called the sermon in the grove. They're very affirming that God has a God, affirming of something called spirit birth. They'll use language like we're literal children of heavenly parents. They're very overt about heavenly mother, if you ask them. Some people might hedge on the as man is God once was, as God as man may be. But that rhetorical layer of hedging typically behind it, though, is essentially an affirmation of it. The third stream is, you could call it Mormon neo-Orthodoxy or you might call it accommodationism.

And this is a view of, I think it was really spearheaded mostly by BYU professors who realized that they could minimize Latter-day Saint doctrine proper to what their standard works or canon teaches, irrespective of what their leaders have taught publicly. And so they really tried to approach something called official doctrine or sort of a sense of formal dogma. They really tried to strip away things that were not supported by the standard works. And so you even had some people starting to suggestively question whether Heavenly Mother was a doctrine. You had a lot of Latter-day Saint professors.

Really big names in this movement would be Stephenie Robinson wrote believing Christ. Arguably is that kind of an under-my. and a rejection of Spencer Kimball's miracle of forgiveness. And then we have Brad Wilcox today. It has a really famous talk called His Grace is Sufficient. And they're really trying to undo and undermine this very rich LDS prophetic tradition of teaching that salvation is in the most robust sense, a merit system that we're earning, qualifying for, being worthy of the celestial kingdom and of exultation.

The neo-Orthodoxy movement or the accommodationism stream really is trying to say it's not about merit. There's still, there's still a works-based system there structurally, but they're really trying to go heavy into evangelical grace rhetoric. And if I could speak in very informally here, it's almost like they have a crush on the evangelical view of grace. And they yearn to have they're thirsty for something that's more gracious. Hey listeners, it's Kelly from Life Audio. We know life gets busy, and sometimes it's easy for your faith to get pushed to the side. That's why we created the Good Word, a free weekly newsletter designed to give you a moment to slow down, be encouraged, and reconnect with what matters most, God's Word. Inside, you'll find devotionals,

guided prayers, podcast recommendations, and other faith-filled content we think you'll love. No ads, no clutter. Just good content to help you stay rooted in God's Word throughout your week. Sign up for the Good Word today at lifeadio.com forward slash the good word. That's life audio.com forward slash the good word. Another stream would be revisionism, and this is Blake Osler, Benjamin Spackman. These guys are really into higher criticism. They have a very low view of Latter-day St. Prophets. For them, the standard works are not as binding.

Rather, we have modern LDS profits to almost help us understand the subset or the parts of the standard works that are still trustworthy. And some of these guys, they don't even think God knows the future. They bought into open theism, contrary to the prophetic tradition of the Latterty, St. Prophets and Apostles, who've taught very clearly that God knows the future exhaustively. They really, Blake Osler, for example, argues that the book of Mormon, it has an ancient, authentic core, but Joseph Smith added his own sort of fictional layer on top of it, his own, he expanded this ancient core. So I mean, it's, it's, uh, you're going to get this from guys like Jacob Hanson, um, where they're really trying to, um, reinvent Mormonism, uh,

with a heavy influence from Blake Osler. Um, I'll try to finish this off. Primative Mormonism. And this is a real movement here in Utah. This is very different. This is sort of a, this is often a polygamy denier movement adjacent, uh, stream of one. Mormonism that argues that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy. They have a very low view of Brigham Young, even a conspiratorial view of Brigham Young's involvement in polygamy. And they do not, a lot of them don't really want to talk about the book of Abraham or the later DNC sections. They don't really have a high regard for modern Latterty St. Prophets and Apostles, but they love the book of Mormon. And so because of that, there's more of that, you know, early Mormon Protestant

adjacent evangelical-ish, sometimes I call Evangeliefish, sort of, you know, version of stream of Mormonism. Some of these are members of the mainstream Latter-day Saint sect or institution out of Salt Lake Lake City. Some of them have left of the Latter-Dy-State institution and joined other groups. There's two more. And these are very real. These are people I talk with all the time.

Progressive Mormons who long for the Latter-day St. institution to adopt same-sex marriage in a more robust way, into its theology, into its liturgy, into its increasing accommodation and honor. They really celebrate the idea that in the Lauderday Saint movement, you know, you can be transgender and go to church and hold your membership. And as of 2019, the LDS Church no longer counts same-sex marriage to be an act of apostasy for purposes of church discipline. So this stream, there's another Osler. There's a, I think it's Richard Osler and Blair Osler, not Blake Osler, but two other Osler that really are representative of progressive Lauderday Saints who are very much into feminism and liberal politics, but they're

very much accommodated and welcomed into the Latter-day Saint movement. It doesn't do a lot of boundary maintenance anymore unless you're agitating against the leadership. And then finally, this is a gigantic stream in Utah, there's cultural Mormonism. These are people who are not really that interested in theological truth claims. They might be defensive of a Latter-day Saint religion up front, but when you talk with them, they're kind of like, I don't care. I love the moral structure. I love that it makes me feel good. It makes me a better person. It kind of doesn't matter in the end, whether it's true. It's still worth believing because of the social, moral benefit it brings into my life. Anyway, those seven streams are very, very different, but they're the kinds of people

we actually talk to in Utah. And I think they're important because it helps us not project any one of those onto the whole movement. I'm going to come to you in a second, Brandy, kind of for your reaction to these categories. But Aaron, there's bottom up research and there's like top-down research. You're obviously doing bottom-up research because you're out there everyday talking to people noticing these categories. What's your sense of the size of these categories, the scope of them, what is the biggest, what's the smallest? If you had to give a sense of that, where would you place some of the most significant and least significant ones? Yeah, sometimes I find little hiccups or strands of pioneer Mormonism, but that's really the

minority position today. I think that we're in a transition right now where we're sort of quietly retiring aspects of correlated Mormonism. But that remains, I think, the plural majority of the Latter-day Saint. People, at least among the people that really care about the truth claims. The primitive movement, that's a minority view, but we just run into it enough to make note of it. In terms of the vocal apologetic minority, the young men that want to engage on the street who have been watching YouTube videos, Jacob Hanson, Hayden Carroll. These men are disproportionately of the revisionist or Oslerian influence or adjacent influence.

The vocal LDS apologetic minority is disproportionately of the revisionist stream. And this is kind of frustrating. When you want to do public interactions or public engagement with informal representatives of the LDS movement, the people who are most willing to engage are typically leaning more under the neo-Orthodoxy or the revisionism streams, whereas the common people we talk to are leaning more under the correlated streams. So there's a divide there. I do interact a lot with LDS apologists or apologetic-minded young men, and that's just disproportionately LDS revisionism today. And I'm sure you've encountered that with some of your

interactions maybe with LDS professors and so forth. Yeah, that's so interesting because when I did the tour that I posted recently, I was able to talk with an outspoken LDS apologist and also sit down with a stake president and their thinking and their ministry and their approach. It was like eye-opening how distinct that it was and really fascinating. It felt like it was almost two completely different conversations and practices which made me wonder, how much are your typical Mormon who goes to church? Who are they listening to?

Who are they following? Who's informing them? And I think the church, it seems like they've lost or they're losing the top-down ability to control in a sense what people believe. And social media and YouTube has changed all of that. Now, Brandy, you're shaking your head up and now. Tell me your reaction to the categories, Aaron said, or just anything I mentioned that you think would be.

helpful. I think it was a mic drop. I have nothing dad. No, I always have something bad. I feel like, I feel like there is so much to say here because I think Mormons are forced to be more nuanced now than ever before. With the internet came the gospel topic essays and a lot of things and they're looking at this going, how do I reconcile this? So I think we're forced to become more nuanced. And in that regard, you do kind of have this devaluing of these spiritual leaders, like you said, this top down authority structure for the first time is kind of like, well, I'm going to hold the prophet to the canon and I'm going to hold the prophet to my own personal revelation. Whereas previously in Mormonism, you did have when the prophet speaks, the thinking is done,

right? Like the debate is over. And so with that in mind, you're like, okay, for the first time we're going to be the oracles of truth. And if it matches up with my personal revelation, then I will concede to the prophet. And we have not really seen that before. So I think that there's that. And I also love what Aaron was talking about with people feeling like, well, at least I lived a good life, right? And they feel really good about. who they are. That's such a Mormon thing for me when I was like, you know what? If the Mormon Church isn't true, at least I lived a really good life and at least I was a really good person. And it's funny looking back at that now, especially as a Christian having a very different

perspective of my own nature. But at the time, I was thinking really highly of myself. I think it also has to do with the divine nature. And we don't need to get into that. But Mormonism really sets you up to believe that it's us or nothing. That if it's not the Mormon church, then it's no one. And so I really felt that way as well. And so you're forced to make it work. Like, why would I go anywhere else? They clearly don't have the truth. It's Mormonism robust. And so I'm going to find a way to make this work for me.

I have a buddy named Michael Florioim, and he talks about how there's really three types of Mormons. There's social Mormons and there's spiritual Mormons and there's doctrinal Mormons. And I think a lot of doctrinal Mormons have to sometimes evolve into more of a social Mormon where they're like, you know what? Yeah, I can concede that things got weird with Brigham Young and that there have been doctrinal changes. But I'm just going to find the good and I'm going to serve the poor.

and I'm going to go to church with my family and I'm going to have that structure. And to be honest with you, Sean, I even considered staying Mormon when I believe there was nothing after Mormonism because I was like, what do I do with my kids? I've got three kids. I was looking forward to putting them through the church and going through the same steps that I did. Mormonism offered me a purpose and identity that not many people had growing up around me. And so I was like, what do I do with my kids? And there's really real questions that you would struggle with if you start to see that Mormonism

isn't adding up on a doctrinal level. And so people are going to become more nuanced. And so you're going to see a million streams. I think this is just the beginning. I think Aaron's going to have a list of 100 ships by the end of the year because it's just, it's getting untenable to follow the mainstream Mormonism. Now, Aaron, I'd love your reaction to that because in some ways if you went back, I don't know, I'm just throwing 10, 20 years ago, these number of streams would be surprising.

Certainly the neo-Orthodoxy with not just books written by Blake Osler, at least early 2000s or so, but being spread through YouTube is new. Some of the progressive strain probably existed, but not as much as it does today. Do you resonate with that, that in some ways we're just seeing the crack and that we'll probably have a lot more strains as we move forward into the future? It's hard for me to tell where things are going. It's moving so fast I can barely keep up. So I don't know.

Wow. It's, you know, I think one of the things that blows me away, and there's a book called the next Mormons, I think. And the author talks about how over half of Latterty Saint Millennials support same-sex marriage. So this is just a whole new ballpark. There's a whole new ballgame that we can't predict. So I mean, it's really interesting.

You could come to Utah and really not think about or read much, much about Mormonism and just come with the gospel and come with a really high view of the Bible and the resurrection of Christ and salvation by great. through faith and then plug into a local church and then serve your community. And you could get really far in a sense. You don't really have to be an expert of Mormonism. It's kind of imploding in some ways in some quarters. It's eating its own tail, like Brandy said. And you don't have to be an expert on Mormonism to love on the LDS people with the gospel. It's such a mess that if you just bring the

stability of the gospel and of the biblical worldview, I think that is a sense. solve for a lot of people who are realizing that their feet are firmly planted in mid-air or their own shifting sand. I think what we're seeing in the New Mormonism in some ways we're seeing in all sorts of other faiths, like even within broad or historic Christenum, there's no longer a bilgram-type figure that ties people together across differences. There's no longer a mere Christianity. There's all these strains and infighting we didn't seem to have as much in the past.

Brandy, you mentioned something. I want to make sure it's not lost on. our audience. You mentioned the gospel topic series. I actually have this book sitting on my desk right now, and it came out in 2020, and you said it's because of the internet. Now, explain to us what the internet brought with challenges that about six, seven years ago, it says a scholarly engagement, some leaders felt like they needed to formally respond. Yeah, I think that the church did feel like they needed to formally respond because the tanners and certain places and institutions were putting pressure on the church to come and be more honest and forthright with their own history. And again,

like I mentioned, I had never even heard of the peepstone in the hat when I was a Latterday saint. I went through seminary. I went to BYU. I went through the temple. Like, I had never heard of these things. And I think that the church was forced to concede to these things. I will say, though, that when they brought out the gospel topic essays, I believe it was 2014. Is that right, Erin? I think it was 2014 when the gospel topic essays came out. And they were kind of quietly released. A lot of people didn't really know about them. And I think it was more for the church to go, hey, we did it. Like, we said it. It's out there. And now we're not hiding anything, but it was never really publicly announced. So I think it had to kind of get its own momentum. And people started to hear

about it more as time went on. But to be honest with you, as an act of Latter-day Saints, it was being introduced to ideas that I never would have heard through my ward or my state president or my pickup that the internet allowed not only for me to be exposed to these things, but also to put pressure on the church to actually concede to them because I will say even with the gospel, excuse me, even with the CES letter and Mormon think and all these sites that I was visiting, it was the gospel topic essays. It was hearing from the horse's mouth these things that were conceded about the first vision narratives, about the historical claims of Mormonism that I went, oh my goodness, they're conceding to this. I thought this was just anti-mormon propaganda.

This is why I was told never to go on the internet because this was going to take away my faith that I know was good and true. And so I think it was really hearing that the church had to concede to these things that really solidified my decision to leave. And I think the church was forced to do that because of the internet. Just to give people some context, I have at least a 2020 gospel topic series here. And there's topics like DNA and the Book of Mormon, some of those serious challenges that undermine some of the book Mormon claims. There's chapters here on plural marriage after 1890. A lot of people learned about how many wives, a couple dozen plus Joseph Smith had. Of course, questions related to the book of Abraham.

These are huge challenges. Some of the claims that Joseph has made again in the Book of Mormon about blacks and the priesthood going back to the 1970s. These were pushed by the internet and the church felt the need to formally respond. This version that I have is at least 2020. So that's six, seven years ago. And, of course, social media and YouTube has even taken off since then. Aaron, let me circle back with you. You mentioned the name Blake Ossel.

I read one of his books recently exploring Mormon thought. he's a brilliant thinker, a systematic philosopher, really, as far as I can tell, and there's been some brilliant thinkers, obviously, going back to the Pratt's in the beginning of, you know, the LDS movement. But he's a very sophisticated, thoughtful thinker. Explain a little bit who he is and his influence and how we're seeing it play out today through some of these neo-Orthodox LDS apologists. Yeah, as he shares his own story, as I understand it, he came to a head where he realized he could not trust Joseph Fielding Smith on the topic of evolution. Joseph Fielding Smith was more fundamentalist

in his more evangelical adjacent on some of these issues. You might even say that Joseph Fielding Smith had a more inerrant, sorry, inerrancy adjacent view of scripture. And Blake Osler talks about how he basically realized he had to chart his own path. He had to go in a different direction. And what followed was a series of, I would say, undermining or turning over of Latter-day St. St. physicians, I think the most important issue where Osler speaks against his own prophetic tradition is on the issue of the regress of deities.

And the idea here is that Joseph Smith, in the Kingfollett discourse, taught that God was once a man as we are now, and followed that up in a sermon called the sermon in the grove where he taught that the father had a father. And now that, there's two issues there. What did Joseph Smith mean? And then what did subsequent latter to St. prophets and apostles receive that to mean? What did they think?

think that meant. How did they take that and run with it? Well, the near unanimous position of Middle Mormonism, pioneer Mormonism, integration error Mormonism, correlation error Mormonism, even he concedes in his book that it's been, the dominant position has been that Heavenly Father has a Heavenly Father, that there's essentially a Heavenly Grandfather. There's an ancestry of gods that these deities have a domain that's specific to them, respective to them. So you'll hear things like, well, there's one God for us, or there's a most high pertaining to us. And this is the kind of Latter-Dy saint theology that we've run into, that we've trained to interact with. Well, Osler goes back to the Kingfellate discourse in the sermon in the grove, and he argues instead two things that it's not that Heavenly Father was not yet God.

and then as a man became later a God, rather he argues that Heavenly Father was always fully God. And now he's defining that differently, that he's always chosen perfectly and had the fullness of divinity. And then he emptied himself of divinity, subtract, you know, he was, it's kind of like super conodicism.

He takes a break from being fully divine, becomes immortal. And so he condescends, and he experiences mortality, and then he resurrects and ascends and goes back to participating in full divinity. So in Osler's view, it's not that God was at a point never had been God and then became a God, and it's not that there's an ancestry of divine superiors that are domain-specific. In his view, rather, there's one godhead with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and there's no other godheads beyond or superior to or beside this Godhead. for other domains.

So, I mean, evangelicals got really excited about the direction this was going in. But he was essentially, Osler was undermining his own prophetic and apostolic tradition. So some of the young Latterty St. Men that we talked to on the street today are insistent that, quote, we believe there's only one God, that he's always been God. Now, there's a little asterisk on that. Osler argues that when Heavenly Father became a mortal, there was almost, you might call it a substitute deity or a deity swap. Someone fills in for Heavenly Father and temporarily functions as Heavenly Father.

And Heavenly Father, as we know him, as a mortal, is temporarily worshiping a deity who temporarily has taken his place. So anyway, this is not the traditional Mormonism that probably Brandy grew up with. It's not the traditional Mormonism that we've interacted with. Osler feels very free to say things like Brigham Young's theology was a disaster. He writes that. He also argues that it's really not Brigham's place

to be much of a theologian. It really wasn't his role or position to be a theologian that you really need, I would argue that the posture is, you really need people like Blake Osler to kind of undo the errors of Latterday St. Prophets and Apostles. I hope that gives you a flavor, though, of where that goes. Yeah, that really does.

Question on ask both of you to weigh in, is do you, is there any strain within LDS theology today that you think is genuinely moving more Orthodox? And you call this the Neo-Orthodox, and you said evangelicals got excited. I've got his book here. I think he wrote it early 2000s, his first draft, if I'm not mistaken, 2001. So it's been around a quarter century influencing people. Is there a movement towards evangelicalism or broadly Protestantism? Or I guess those aren't the terms of looking for orthodoxy in any one of these strains?

Or is it still bound by certain broader Mormon commitments, even if we can question things like God had a father and the progression of deities? What's your sense of that, Aaron? Then I want to come to you, Brandy. Yeah, I think I would separate out revisionism or sort of the Oslerian stream. And then I would separate that out from BYU Neo-Orthodoxy, which is more evangelical adjacent in some rhetoric, at least. Now, that LDS Neo-Orthodoxy per Stephenie Robinson, Brad Wilcox,

I think those are the kinds of people that the evangelical interfaith movement got really excited about because they're trying to distance themselves from LDS traditionalism. They're trying to politely do it by not public. discounting their own prophets and apostles, but they're essentially undermining their own prophets and apostles. The problem, though, is it's, it ends up being, it ends up being more rhetorical than structural in the end. There's a book by Kendall White, maybe it's O. Kindle White, called Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy, where the author argues that they, there's a, there's a tension within Latterty Saint thinking because, Mormonism started with the book of Mormon and more primitive Protestant, you know, American

views of God. And because that's sort of embedded in the scripture and because then it shot off later to a more finite view of God, they're always struggling with this pull between finitism and absolutism. And neo-Orthodoxy represents sort of the pull back to absolutism, but they never really make a full commitment to it. The structure underneath it still ends up being essentially Mormon. And that goes for both the Neo-Orthodoxy movement and then the revisionism of Blake Osler. They're still arguing that God is essentially an aggregate of inadequate finite parts. They're still arguing that God is not truly transcendent over all of creation.

They're still arguing for some form of, often arguing for some form of exultation. that violates Christian principles. They're still not giving God glory for everything that Christians give him glory for. They're still not, I think, I would argue, promoting the kind of unadulterated full worship of Jesus as a terminus of proper worship. They're really not going the whole way to end by, sorry, the thought. I think this is where here Christians and evangelicals are, that we do well to retrieve our own creedal heritage of the, the Nicene Creed and to think more about Calcedon. Those things were really valuable to the Christian tradition in terms of drawing boundaries.

And I think where some evangelicals, where we were getting excited, we started to compromise the boundaries and we started to say, well, maybe if Latter-day Saints can use the same language, we can count them in, even though they're still excluding us, they're still saying that we're of the great apostasy and they're still not receiving our baptisms as valid. and they're still saying that there's a great apostasy, you know, people started to maybe compromise on those issues. Yeah, that's really helpful. What's your sense, branding,

in terms of the categories that you give 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. Is there any part of you that says, well, 4.0 might be a significant strain to those who are Orthodox, or do you not see that kind of movement taking place? Well, it's interesting because I agree with Aaron, there's kind of this weird limbo going on where people are saying a lot of words, but I don't think they're really properly understanding what they mean. And so you have young LDS now who are saying words like grace or gospel or salvation.

And they don't really define it through the Mormon lens, the traditional Orthodox Mormon lens, but they're also not defining it through a proper Christian lens. And they're kind of floating in this space. And then when you get into it with them, a lot of them, it's like, well, we'll just focus on orthopraxy anyway. Like, just be a good person kind of thing, right? And so it goes back to the social Mormon stuff. But I do see a subset of Mormons actually getting frustrated with the lack of direction

and wanting. I was actually joking with the Latter-day Saint the other day because I still have a lot of Latter-day Saint-Friends and I still communicate with them and I want to have a relationship with them. I want the best for them. And we were talking about how, man, wouldn't it be nice if Mormon hasn't had its own counsel right now to just kind of lock it all in and to get everybody on the same page and maybe come up with a new article of faith or have a creed? We don't want to use word creed because that's kind of triggering the Mormons. But some type of article of faith, right, that you can champion around and really get that unified feeling because I think people

are missing. And this is another reason why I think people are moving to more of that traditional Christian language is they don't have that group identity anymore in Mormonism. Like what is the ism of Mormonism? What is that what is that boundary of like what do we need to agree with on a fundamental level that makes us Mormon? And I don't feel like people really feel that identity as much as I used to. That's really interesting. Two of you said the same thing. You're kind of hitting at what is, to use your term, Aaron, what is essentially Mormon? That's the way you framed it. And you seem to be implying Brandy that that is, it's not really known as clearly as it. it was in the past. So let me ask you for a second, Brandy, what that was in the past that you think

tied. And I mean, this is the, in the past like 25, 50 years. And then I want to come to you, Aaron, and ask what you mean by essentially Mormon today and what ties it together. So what would have been those big pillars that made something essentially Mormon before the new Mormonism? Yeah, that's a great question. I think first and foremost, like faith is here to answer the questions of who are we and where are we going and who is God? Those are very foundational questions. And Mormons used to say that we were born of divine nature is to actualize our divine nature and become gods.

Like that is why we're here. And God is not some immaterial because there's no such thing as immaterial in Joseph Smith's language, right? If you read the doctrine covenants, there's nothing truly immaterial. So Christians are out there worshiping like a God that just doesn't exist because to him immaterial means non-existent. But to believe in God would to believe in that physical. being that exalted man of God who is married and has spirit, spirit children, and that we

can perpetuate that cycle. And that's why we're here. We're all acquiescing to the same eternal divine law. And so we're divine. God is divine. We all have the same species. And we're here to perpetuate and create forever worlds without end. And that was my purpose and my being. And that is, I mean, I know, Aaron, through the streams, it's obvious that there are some latter-day saints early on who didn't fully get on board with the regress of gods. But that was something that I never knew there was another option. Like that's all that was sold to me. Right. So that was just Mormonism to me. And everyone I knew, we talk about what kind of worlds we were going to make. And if we were going to have Nerf gun fights on there. And like, I knew I was

going to be eternally pregnant forever, which I wasn't excited about. But I was, was happy to, you know, have babies and stuff. And actually, I know this is kind of a caveat, but polygamy. I know that polygamy became something through the second manifesto. And more of that, at the end of like the 2.0 era of Mormonism, I would say 3.0 was that, oh, polygamy is you know that's for the fundamentalists and we kind of stick our noses up to those those freaky fundamentalists but i still believe that it was an eternal law that needed to be practiced in the next life per brigham young's you know doctrine and i believe i'd have to share my husband and these were really hard doctrines that i swallowed because that was to be a mormonist to believe that you know polygamy

is an eternal law that the new and everlasting covenant did include that so um i would say that was Mormonism from what I grew up in and everyone around me were we were all in the same page. There were no issues. And I also think speaking back to technology, it's fractured so many people because you can find your own brand of Mormonism and then there's an echo chamber and then it builds, right? Like you get the progressive branches and you get people who are like, yeah, you think like me? Like I thought I was all alone and it just kind of builds these echo chambers where you see a lot more factions that didn't exist before the internet. I was recently reading and then I'm going to come back to you, Aaron. I was recently reading a BYU

prof who didn't deny the progression of gods but just said it's such a small minority it's not significant we don't talk about this it's secondary let's focus on what really matters sounds like your experience was very different from that wasn't it oh absolutely that was the whole point it was like who am i i'm a divine daughter where am i going i'm going to be i'm i was sealed to my husband in the sacramento temple and in between semesters at b yu because that's totally a probo thing to do right is just like let's go get sealed in between our studies and our semesters. And I knew that we were just going to create worlds and have spirit children and perpetuate that cycle over and over again. Because to be stagnant to not create was damnation, right? It wasn't necessarily separate from God as

much as it was. We were here to build. We're here to create. And if you speak to older latter day saints, they will still concede that. They'll be like, well, what do you mean? And this was the problem I had with creedal Christianity was this idea that we're just here to glorify God. because I'm like, well, a bigger God would want you to become everything that he is and have those worlds and dominions and to be able to create the way that he does. And so I never truly understood when I was LDS what was so enticing about the Christian God and the message of why we're here because for me I was an eternal, uncreated being who had the potential to do what the father did.

And I thought that that was more loving. So, yeah, I didn't have that. There was no discrepancies when I was growing up with that doctrine. Aaron, let me circle back to you again. use the term essentially Mormon. And in the past, it might have been the priesthood, the scriptures, the living prophet, the progression of deities, baptizing for the dead, certain core beliefs and practices that are found uniquely, at least uniquely expressed in Latter-day Saints scriptures that are not

in the Bible, or at least maybe hinted at, but not in their fullness would be argued. what are those essentially Mormon beliefs that tie people together today? Or is that era of kind of essential beliefs itself even crumbling? It's a great question. I think Latter-Dy Saints are asking that same question. There is a BYU student named Noah Arment who has talked about how the Latter-D-D-Saint movement, the LSD Church, has provided its proffered different model. of what constitutes official doctrine,

but it doesn't really have an official doctrine of what constitutes official doctrine. And they're starting to talk more now about what he calls covenantal nondogmatism or radical nondogmatism. And the way this plays out on the street for me is some Latter-day St. students will say, well, maybe sort of the essential core

is the baptismal interview, the short series of questions asked before they allow you to be baptized into the LDS church. Maybe that is sort of the modern functional creed of the Latter-D-Ease saint movement. And I pushed that even further because in reality and in practice, there really are no required beliefs at all after baptism into the LDS Church. So at a standard evangelical church, if you become a member,

it's predicated on continued belief. Of course, there's patience for seasons of struggle and doubt and lots of grace and mercy. but if somebody at my church, for example, said, I believe, I no longer believe Jesus rose from the dead, I don't believe there's a God. And they persisted in that belief for, say, a year. They recalcitrant after lots of pleading. We would remove them from the roles of our local church. And of course, invite them to be a welcomed guest, a welcome to visitor to come and mingle, and we would want to be a good influence on them. And we would want them to hear the Word of God. But in the Latterty Saint movement, if you are a stated atheist, If you say, if you privately confess to your bishop, if you self-report a stated ongoing

rejection of Joseph Smith, a rejection of God, a rejection of Jesus, that is not grounds for removal of membership. There are no continued requirements for any beliefs whatsoever, so long as you're not agitating against the leadership or publicly agitating for your views. So really, in terms of like, after you get through the gate of, baptism, there are no unifying required beliefs for membership. And there really isn't that much of a policing or boundary maintenance on the meaning of the terms that you affirm in the baptismal primal initial baptismal interview. So I mean, I've heard Latterty Saint thinkers talk about how

you kind of, in theory, you could hold to a neoclassical view of the Trinity and be a Latter-day saint. Or you could be a full-on thing. Brighamite and hold to infinite regress and the gods are still growing and they're polygamist. You can kind of believe what you want. You can be a progressive who loves same-sex marriage and everything related to LGBTQ. So you don't really, you know, this is on the street. This is the way I engage this. I say, what does a person have to believe in order to maintain their membership in the LDS church?

And the conversation might move to a temple. recommend interview and I relocate it. It's not about that. I'm asking about retaining your essential membership. And do you have, here's how I put it. Do you have to believe in Jesus to continue to maintain your essential membership in the LDS church? Do you have to believe in Jesus? And the final answer is essentially no. You do not have to believe in Jesus anymore to retain or maintain your essential membership in the LDS Church so long as you're not agitating the leadership. Now, maybe I'm totally missing something here, but I could think of two reasons for that.

Number one is you want as many people in the church to inflate your numbers. I mean, that's a cynical reason. Second is within LDS seems to be a much more focus on orthopraxy than on orthodoxy. Hence, a lot of apologists that I talk with say, you know, the proof is in the fruit, so to speak. test a prophet by its fruit. And whether somebody apparently says they believe in Jesus or not, regression of gods or not, all the other Mormon scriptures outside of the Bible,

the Trinity, if they are living out the way Mormons are supposed to live out, they're completely fine with that. Is that your take or am I missing something why there would be apparently so much allowed diversity within LDS today? Aaron. Yeah, I think it comes down to not really,

understanding the gospel. And so I think we'll hear from the people you've talked to, and maybe Brandy could speak to this, but there's this fundamental idea that if I'm just a good person, everything will work out. And I think that there's a misunderstanding here of the gospel, because for evangelicals or Protestants or classic Christians, we fundamentally do not believe we're good people. I'm not a good person who occasionally does bad things. I'm a bad person who's inclined to do bad things and I need to be born again fundamentally. I need to be forgiven. I need to be adopted by God. I need to be united to Christ or I will be punished rightly and justly for my sins and go to hell forever. I need to be redeemed from the penalty of the law. I need Jesus to be my proxy.

I need him to fulfill the full covenant keeping obedience that was required of me. I need Jesus to do that on my behalf as my proxy or I will be condemned to hell forever. and I can receive that gift immediately as a free gift by very weak faith, by very unimpressive weak faith with the changed heart. And so I think that Latter-day Saints kind of fall back to, and this really is not that much different in my view to what we might call mainline Protestantism, not to conflate that with mainstream Protestantism, but the PCUSA, sort of United Methodist inclination more and more,

of progressive mainline Christianity where, you know, whether Jesus rose from the dead really isn't pivotal anymore. It's just about being a good person. It's that fundamental idea that we're good people and that we don't really have to worry about the wrath of God. Brandy, jump in here and give your comments on what was just shared if you want to weigh in as well. Yeah, I think with New Mormonism, you're seeing this undertone of universalism and political correctness. And so while you'll see Latter-day Saints get online and say it's this way or it's this way. They'll go, hey, listen, at the end of the day, we're all going to make it. And what we're not going to do is judge each other for a difference in our doctrines or the way that we practice. And that's what's kind of

interesting about this emphasis on orthopraxy. Because on one end you say, hey, we can all disagree on doctrine at the end of the day, but the way that we live our lives as social Mormons really is what's going to bind us together. But then you get online and you see how people respond to each other when you say, hey, you shouldn't be leaving the temple with a strapless dress on. Like, you're not even keeping your covenants, you're not in your garments. And you'll get a lot of people saying, hey, that's between her and the Lord. We're not to judge them. Now we've got Mormons openly who are faithful Latter-day Saints claiming that they're active,

drinking coffee, having, you know, obviously the tattoos and the piercings is a little bit more nuanced now because they took it out of the handbook. They never advocated for it, but they kind of just slowly took it away, which is kind of how Mormons changed things from the top. But there is a sense of don't judge. And the one thing you shouldn't do is judge people. So that's that political correctness creeping into new Mormonism where at the end of the day, even what you do and how you represent your Mormonism needs to be up to you. And no one else can tell you how to live that way.

And to Aaron's other point, I know people who are atheists who are active Latter-day Saints who go to church and do the things. And a lot of it is because of the social repercussions that would ensue if they were to leave and potentially lose their family or their marriage or their job. But it really comes down to, are you stepping in line? Are you stepping into church every week? are you fulfilling your calling and doing the things that you need to do? And it becomes a very outward faith with no meat on the inside. And that's what's really sad about it. To echo his points on the gospel, these people are lost. They don't understand. They probably don't understand who they are before God and they don't understand God. And when I was LDS, I believed in a different version of my

creator. And I would have rejected and outright did reject the God that I now worship because I was given false ideas about him. It was really sad, but the more that I ruminate, the more I realized that Mormonism is a counterfeit of the Christian gospel, but it also offered a straw man of the Christian gospel because I not only saw that Mormonism wasn't the real Christianity, but when I left, I thought, well, I'm never trying that because, you know, the Council of Nicaea is what created the Bible and the Trinity. And I was, you know, I was committing modalism everywhere with my versions of the Trinity. And I was so ignorant to so many things, but I had been sold lies about what Christianity really is. And so these people just need to be told the gospel in a way that is,

they're able to understand it. And that's going to be the hard part is how do we evangelize, how do we articulate the gospel of the people who don't fit into the categories that I did? Because people ask me, Brandy, like, how do you share the gospel with these people? And sometimes I'm like, hey, listen, these are not the same Mormons that I was. And so I'm learning this with you. Like, this is challenging. And it's, the landscape is changing so quickly. Let me narrow down into a particular passage that evangelicals and Protestants often debate and discuss with their LDS friends is Second Nephi 2523. I know you've talked about this, Aaron. What's traditionally how that has been understood and how are we seeing that shift today?

It's a great data point. It's a great use case or example for a lot of these changes. in the earliest versions of Mormonism, you really had a more Wesleyan, Armenian, revivalist, sort of excited, charismatic, evangelical adjacent view of God and the gospel. And you do have some strains of perfectionism, some passages of the book of Mormon. But one problem that both Latter-day Saints and evangelicals have with the Book of Mormon is that we tend to read modern Mormonism into the 1830 Book of Mormon. The short story is in the late 1950s,

as best as I can tell the latter-day saint culture with especially its leadership, its prophets and apostles, started interpreting, after all, we're saved by grace, after all we can do in 2nd, Nephi, 25, 23, as grace kicking in or applying after we've exhausted maximum effort and not just effort, but meritorious effort. There's an earning, a qualifying, a being worthy of, and a maximal possible obedience. and then and only then does grace apply in the fullest sense. And this was perpetuated by prophets and apostles from the late 19, from the mid-20th century into the late 20th century.

And that's when the neo-Orthodoxy shift. A lot of it had to do with this passage with Bruce Hafen and Stephenie Robinson and people like now, Brad Wilcox, who are saying, well, actually, we were wrong to read it that way. And they assign that misreading typically to a cultural problem. And really, it was a top-down institutionally influenced problem. And they started to say, well, maybe after all we can do means in spite of all that we can do or notwithstanding all that we've done.

Now, grammatically, that's possible. I actually think that you can suss that out when you think about talking to a friend and you say something like, after all I've done for you, I can't believe X, Y, Z. sometimes we do use it that way, and that might be the original reading of 2nd Nephi, 25, 23. But the point I would make is that prophets and apostles in the LDS Church are supposed to have the authority and the revelatory influence to help train us how to read the scriptures. They're supposed to be in a position where they can authoritatively help us interpret scriptures. And what happened was that Latter-day Saint, BYU professors and so forth, decided that LDS prophets

and apostles, they got it wrong. And so they started trying to basically turn the ship around with Second Nephi 25, 23, and eventually there was a bottom up influence into the LDS prophets and apostles where they started to adopt that more neo-Orthodox reading. Now, where are we at today? Just because they've reinterpreted this passage in a more evangelical adjacent way, it doesn't mean they have evangelical theology. And so I think the question at the end of the day still is,

is Mormonism as a structure and as a system, is it still systematically, works-based system, even if they're not using the overt language of earning and qualifying for in the same way that they once did. I would argue that it's still a works-based system, but that's for a different discussion. Yep, folks, you heard it if you want him to come back and lay out that case, why he still thinks his work-based system. You're going to have to let us know in the comments, and we will do a follow-up on that one. Let me just a couple of questions here as we've got to wrap this up. Given the shifts within Mormonism are either or both of you, I'm going to ask this question, are you seeing more people turn to Christ actually in the sense of kind of the orthodox,

historic understanding of who Jesus is, given that there are strains of like re-envisioning the nature, at least in terms of the way it's described of faith and works, re-envisioning kind of the Trinity in some sense, reinvisioning authority in some sense. Are we seeing more people come to Christ because the language is at least closer. And like you said at the beginning, Brandy, there's language to describe Mormonism as another denomination rather than the complete restored gospel and all the other sects were false. So I'd love your take on that from each one of you. I'll start with you, Brandy.

Are you seeing more people respond now in light of these shifts or is it really hard to tell? Well, I think it's actually both and because I feel like on one end, the LDS Church is becoming, they're de-emphasizing from the top a lot of these core Orthodox Mormon doctrines to cast a wider net and to maintain and retain members. So that's what I think is kind of the main catalyst behind some of these changes, the de-emphasizing of the doctrine. So I think in one end, it's actually to retain members. And so to keep the church thriving.

On the other hand, I see God using this. I see God using this in a big way. Like, for example, I met up with a girl at the gym and she was, she's still LDS. She was excited about how the church is allowing all these different translations of the Bible now. So now we don't just have to read the King James version and they had a policy update and have you heard and all these cool changes are happening and she's amped and she's pumped. And in one way, you're going, okay, so Mormons are clearly wanting some type of change. Like they don't want to read King James. They don't want to emphasize obedience and merit mercy and all the things that I was told I had to do to reach the social kingdom.

They don't want that anymore. Some of them really do want the grace of the gospel, even though, again, they don't properly understand the foundation of Christianity. So I think in some ways it's going to help retain. But then in other ways, like talking to Pastor Brian from unveiling Mormonism, which I want to give him a shout out, he's incredible. I love his ministry. And he is talking about how many ex-Mormons he's seen come into his church and in churches in Utah in particular. because the second you say, hey, we're just another denomination. You're going to get Mormons going, okay, well, then I'm going to go wear pants and drink coffee.

And I'm going to go listen to better music. And so you're kind of opening the door to, you know, people wanting to try out other churches. I actually, I work in the check-in area at my church. And I've seen Mormon families come in. And I think that some of them are just like, hey, well, we're kind of feeling like for the first time that we can go check out other churches. I never thought I could. When I was Mormon, it was like Mormonism or bust. You don't go to a different church.

You don't go, you know what I mean? Like there was a great apostasy, haven't you guys heard? But now it's kind of like, you know, you can go and try out other things. And so there's a little bit more freedom there. So I think it's actually hurting the church. And I think it's also a way to retain members. And I don't know how it's going to shake out. Very interesting.

Aaron, what's your take on this? When it comes to the vocal apologetic minority of revisionism, I'm actually seen in that corner of the LDS universe a more aggressive anti-protestinism. So definitely there's a recalcitrant entrenching. an aggression toward really an anti-Protistinism. When it comes to the neo-Orthodoxy wing of things, I think it's hard to tell. It's the kind of, I think about the parable of,

was it Jesus talked about those that went, is it the parable, the virgins, where they're all going to see the bridegroom, but they don't all have oil in their lamp. I'm sorry if I miscategorized that. But there's a, there's a sense in which some people are drawn to the Savior. It's almost like they're flirting with the gospel of grace. They really, they kind of want it in some sense. They want to believe it, but they can't quite commit themselves to it. And I've had

really important discussions with Latter-day Saints that where someone really is thinking about making the jump, but the call to discipleship is just staring them in the face, the cost of making that switch. is too much for some people. And so they ultimately decide to just stay. Now, I will say that the encouragement of the LDS Church to read the Bible in modern English, I think is the first genuine, positive, like, pure, I don't know, maybe it isn't. It's the thing that I've celebrated most without reservation in the Latterty's Saint community. I love it.

their encouragement to buy an ESV Bible or at least the permission that the, the favorable rhetoric toward, you know, experimenting with reading the Bible in a language other than the King James, I think is probably one of the most positive developments we've seen in the Latterty St. St. I love that. My encouragement for LDS who are with us is my encouragement for anybody is start

with the gospel of John. I love that book. It's so insightful and interesting. Then maybe Galatians or Romans to get a little bit of a balance. But Brandy, Aaron, this is so helpful. You both are the perfect guest to explain this. I want to say one last thing. If you're LDS and you've stayed with us, I would love to know what you think about this.

I do not read all the comments on all my videos. I literally don't have time. But I'm going to read many. I'm not promising I'll respond all of them, but I'm going to go through and read a lot of the comments on this video. I don't know what you think. What category do you fit into? Are there categories that we missed? What do you see?

What are your thoughts on this conversation? And if you're LDS, say, hey, I'm LDS. Here's what I think. I would be fascinated to get your take on this conversation and beyond. I think it would be real helpful for everybody. Brandy and Aaron, how can people follow what you're doing? Brandy, are you doing stuff publicly picking and follow? I heard the podcast on unveiling Mormonism.

That was fantastic. But anything else you're doing where people can follow you? Yeah. So about two years ago, I wrote a book called The Journey to Jesus, just trying to connect with people who have left Mormonism. telling them don't give up, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a Christianity and a Jesus offered to you after Mormonism. And there's a bread of life out there.

And I wanted people to have that hope that I had found. So I created a landing page. It's just the journey to Jesus on Instagram. And that's where I connect with a lot of ex-Mormans and Christians and have learned a lot about new Mormonism through being online on Instagram. So you can just find me there. Love it. All right, friends.

I would love to know if you want me to have Brandy back to hear about her journey to Jesus. If your publisher can send me a copy, I'd love to get one and talk to my team. Aaron, how can people follow what you're doing? I volunteer with Mormonism Research Ministry, which is at mrm.org, and also the Utah Christian Research Center. We have a brick and mortar place in Utah. You come and there's a free tour. There's a bookstore there.

But we also have a YouTube channel for the Utah Christian Research Center where I've given a number of lectures on a topic I call mapping Mormon theologies. And this is where I've tried to kind of delete. lineate the different streams of LDS thought and map them to historical developments. So if you're more interested in this, I would look at the YouTube channel for the Utah Christian Research Center. Super helpful. I'm a huge fan of MRM.org.

Co-wrote a book, as you know, edited with Eric Johnson, who works there. It's just my go-to ministry that I refer people to. A lot of people don't know. I actually edited a book. You gave us a contribution, Aaron, called Sharing the Good News with Mormons that lay out different strategies, how to do this. All right, friends, make sure you hit subscribe. Let us know what you think about this kind of content on my channel.

It's not really apologetics. It's about trends and changes that are taking place. If you have any suggested topics, you'd love me to explore. Let me know that below. We also have a master's program, and we talk about different faiths and world religions and offer full classes on Latter-day Saint theology and practice. So if you've ever thought about studying apologetics,

we'd love to have you at Talbot at Biola University. All right, friends, this is awesome. Thank you both for coming on. We'll do it again. Thanks, Sean. Hey, friends. If you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button

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and online programs an apologetic, spiritual formation, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Have you ever attempted to read the entire Bible? Did you do it or did you only make it part way? I'm John Stongy and I host a podcast that will make it possible for you to make it through the entire Bible, one chapter at a time.

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