Transcription
From someone who sits on the Evangelical side of the table, if someone does leave for doctrinal reasons, but they land at an Evangelical church, or a Protestant church, or a Catholic Church for that matter, I'm sensing as though the response that people within the Latter-Day Saint church have to a situation like that 30 years ago is being responded to much differently in 2024. Is that something that has shifted? And if so, why do you believe that it is?
I think it has. I think we're getting better at recognizing the good everywhere else. If someone were to leave because they found Jesus elsewhere, I'm so grateful they found Jesus. It makes me wonder what are we not doing to help them find, find him? Because honestly, from my perspective, I've never seen anything like the restored gospel in terms of identifying who Jesus is. Joseph Smith once said that by proving contraries, truth is made manifest. And it's this idea of paradoxes and opposites and coming together, and somehow in the wrestle between those, there is the justice and mercy that Jesus was wrestling with—with the woman taken in adultery. There's faith and works that Paul, Paul and James and others were trying to, to wrestle with. There's the male and female that we see from the Garden of Eden on down, and these paradoxes that are so difficult, and yet Christ himself is this contrary of divinity and humanity coming together. And I've never seen a, a theology that is equipped to handle those paradoxes quite like the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When I was at Divinity School, I remember one class—class was still 5 minutes away—away. It was just a Catholic, a Protestant, and me waiting for this—this sounds like a good joke starting it, really does. And you didn't walk into a bar—no bar, but there we are—Divinity School, waiting for the rest of the classes to come. And the Catholic and Protestant are looking at me going, "Jared, we know you're LDS, where do you guys fit?" The Catholic was like, "I mean, you're not one of us, so you're Protestant, right, kind of by default?" And the Protestant's like, "Well, hot potato, we don't—he's not—he's not one of us." And I just laughed. I said, "If you two got married and had a kid, it would be me." And they're like, "Huh?" I said, "There's things about Catholicism, and there's things about Protestantism that are on opposite sides, and if you were to fuse those, and in my—from my perspective—take the best of both worlds, and there's the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ." You could say the same thing about Judaism and Christianity. If a Jew and a Christian got married and had a child, from my perspective, it would be a Latter-Day Saint.
Joseph Smith's uh, mission was not just to restore New Testament Christianity, but Old Testament House of Israel covenant theology as well. And, and this binding of prophets—Old Testament—and apostles—New Testament—and spiritual gifts—New Testament—along with patriarchal blessings—Old Testament—and Temple and church, and, and the body of Christ and the house of Israel, and all these—to me, there's something deep and rich. From my perspective, if Latter-day Saints simply understood what we had, there would be less, less of a struggle. And if we understood what everyone else has, there would be less angst. If someone leaves us to go find Jesus somewhere else, again, my biggest priority is to find, connect with God, find Jesus Christ, and I'm happy to leave things in their omnipotent hands. Yeah. And there's even uh, verses within our uh, canon of scripture that ought to give Latter-day Saints hope if they have loved ones that are struggling, or loved ones that have left, or loved ones that have found more comfortable homes elsewhere in Christianity. As I often tell my students, permanent bad news is against my religion. I just don't believe in it. And I believe in a God of ample provision and paternal regard. Those are two quotes from Joseph Smith that give me hope for the process, whatever it might be, wherever he leads me, wherever he leads you, wherever he leads any of us, uh, I'm content with letting God helm the ship. Yeah. [Music]