Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 463

Rock Waterman [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of

Rock Waterman [00:00:09] the Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:00:11] All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host John Dehlin and I'm very excited to be with you today and to share with you an interview a few hours with a man who is known as Rock Waterman or Alan Rock Waterman. He is the author and founder of the blog Pure Mormonism. You can find that@PureMormonism.blogspot.com and Rock, for those of you who are on the blogger Nako, you probably know who he is, but many won't. Probably most won't. And so I'll describe Rock a little bit. He's a bit of an enigma to me and what I love about Rock is he speaks his mind, he's very bold, where he has a very interesting angle. He sort of falls in a group that lately I kind of thought of this term, kind of a neo fundamentalist. And Rock, we'll get into that term and what it means. But what I mean when I say that is, you know, a fundamentalist Mormon in 2014, you know, you kind of think Warren Jeffs and that's not who, who I would describe Rock as being, but there is a class of Latter Day Saint who has a testimony of the restoration, of the founding of the restored gospel. I'll say, I won't say church because I know that's a term that Rock has strong feelings about. We'll talk about that. But they sort of believe in the underpinnings of the restoration, but they sort of believe that maybe the modern day church has kind of maybe at best isn't doing quite what it should be and at worst has either gone astray or apostatized. I would sort of loosely classify someone like Damon Smith or Denver Snuffer in the same sort of category, but when I do that, sometimes I get in trouble. So part of this podcast is going to be to have Rock share his story, to share his perspective. We're going to talk a lot about some of his major blog posts, things you know, about the Word of Wisdom and Tithing and the Book of Mormon and polygamy and Denver Snuffer. We're going to talk about Rock's recent interactions with his bishop. And I believe Stake president where he is potentially being threatened with disciplinary action. And then Rock's going to set me straight on what neo fundamentalism is or isn't or what he likes or doesn't like about that classification and how he would classify his work. Plus Damon Smith plus Denver Snuffer. So how's that for an introduction, Rock?

Rock Waterman [00:03:26] It sounds great. Listen, it's just an honor to be speaking with you, John Dehlin. You're one of my heroes on the Internet. So glad to be here.

John Dehlin [00:03:36] Oh, well, you're too kind, but it's fun. I've been wanting to do this for a while. So, Rock, let's start. Just, you know, we don't have to delve too deeply because I want to spend a lot of time talking about the issues. But why don't you just give us a few minute flavor of your upbringing in the church so we kind of know the context from which you come.

Rock Waterman's Early Life and Church Background

Rock Waterman [00:03:54] Okay. I was born in the church, raised in the Anaheim First Ward, and I watched that ward split while I was a teenager. We split about. Well, we split six times and then the stakes split. The church was really grow.

John Dehlin [00:04:07] And this is what time period?

Rock Waterman [00:04:08] Oh, this would be the 60s.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] Okay.

Rock Waterman [00:04:10] Okay. Yeah, I think I graduated school in 1970, so you can see I was a teenager in those days. And the church was at its height in growth. And we were hearing a lot about by their fruits ye shall know them, which we took to mean, you know, the fruits of our conversion rates and our growth and everything. I take a different view of what the fruits mean today.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] Right. You were devout.

Rock Waterman [00:04:41] Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, I wasn't even. I wasn't. I. I wasn't even typical Mormon. I was what I'd call subtypical. I. I was into it. You know, I like to go to the state dances and I participate in the road shows. And it was a cultural, you know, social thing for me. But I really, I knew nothing. Next to nothing. I knew what we learned in primary. Joseph Smith had the first vision. We learned the articles of faith and all that. But I was probably one of the worst students in seminary. I couldn't participate in the scripture chases because I didn't know my way around through the scriptures. So. You know, it's funny that people will often write to me and ask me questions as if I know something, but I don't know anything. You know, my blog is really just an attempt to sort of share some of the things that I've discovered that I was wrong about and that most of us are wrong about. Because growing up in the church, a whole lot of things we're taught, a whole lot of things that simply aren't doctrinal.

John Dehlin [00:05:45] Right.

Rock Waterman [00:05:46] Chief among them is that, that we're to follow the prophet. When Joseph Smith taught something exactly opposite that, what he said was, the people are darkened in their minds because they're depending too much on the prophet.

John Dehlin [00:05:59] So, so. So you. So you graduated from high school in Anaheim. Tell us real briefly how your life has continued just at a high level. So go to college, not go to college.

Rock Waterman [00:06:11] Yeah, I went to. I went to Cypress College, and I was. I was. I majored in musical theater. And I remember I was planning on going to byu, and I remember pouring over the BYU catalog for all the theater classes and such. I went to work at Disneyland and had intended to make that my career. And I quit. I quit over the length of my sideburns. So I was in the. In the character department. And those of us in that department saw no reason why we should worry so much about the clean cut image that Disney employees were supposed to have, since the public never saw us. But anyway.

John Dehlin [00:06:53] So you actually wore a suit?

Rock Waterman [00:06:56] Yeah, yeah. I was Goofy. I was the big bad wolf. Winnie the Pooh.

John Dehlin [00:07:00] Nice.

Rock Waterman [00:07:01] The taller characters. All right, so I quit that job, and I quit it cold. I was in the parades at the time. I think I was doing the American parade, which is the bicentennial parade. It ran for a full year. And, well, one of the head honchos came back in the entertainment department. He came back to where we were in what we called tent city, was the area behind Disneyland. And he lined up all the guys. He's going to check our sideburns. And so I just went in and I said to the secretary, martha, can you take a letter for me? And I dictated my resignation letter right there. And so then I was out on the street with no work. I found work for a little while with Pinkerton. Pinkerton Security. I was doing undercover work. My biggest job was to sit in my car, which was a 1969 Corona across the street from. From a. A tree nursery that had been been foreclosed on by the bank. And my job was to just watch that nursery all day, and if anybody came to, to make a notation of who they were and where they came from, wow. And that was it.

John Dehlin [00:08:21] Did you end up marrying the temple and having kids and all that stuff?

Rock Waterman [00:08:25] Yeah, yeah. We had a temple marriage, married the former Connie Bradfield. We have three children. They're now grown.

John Dehlin [00:08:34] Did you serve a mission?

Rock Waterman [00:08:36] Yes, yes. I went to Missouri Independence Mission.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] Oh, okay.

Rock Waterman [00:08:40] Yeah, I got to see most of the cool stuff. My big regret was that at one point I was standing across the river from Nauvoo and we. We weren't allowed to go, you know, to leave the mission area. I desperately wanted to go. None of I had been a. Become a real Nauvoo fan. Well, what happened was I had this is back in the days just after Saudi's Warrior had made such a big hit. And so our stake invested in another musical piece that was called you're no Stranger. It was about Nauvoo. And I played Porter Rockwell, and that's what got my interest in church history. Before that, I wasn't interested, but I was really interested in this Porter Rockwell character. I liked how John Carradine played him in the movie Brigham Young, and I played him like that. I became a real church history buff. So when I came back from my. When I went on my mission, I knew a lot more about the Missouri Nauvoo period than most of the other guys. And I really, you know, I wanted to see these places far west and went to the temple lot and Independence, stuff like that. Anyway, that. That started my interest in church history. And of course, the first book of Mormon I ever read was the 1830 replica edition. I. I had not been interested in seminary and reading the triple. Com version. Even on my mission, of course, I had a triple combination, but I preferred to read it in the narrative style that it was laid out originally. And that was much more interesting, I found, than reading it in the scriptures.

Developing a Different Perspective on the Church

John Dehlin [00:10:23] So when did you first start noticing that you had a different perspective than the average church member? Well, like, has it been a long time thing or.

Rock Waterman [00:10:34] The thing is, whenever I was in church, I always felt like everybody in the room in Sunday school was smarter than me and knew their scriptures and all that stuff because like I said, I never felt like. But over the years, you know, I had been reading, I read voraciously and over after a while, I began to realize that, you know, Sunday school class was just a series of. The teacher would. Would hand out slips and people would take turn reading the scriptures when it was their turn. And I noticed them skipping over some of the most interesting parts of the. Of the scriptures, you know, just to stay with the manual and that kind of thing I found kind of curious. But, you know, I think I really woke up about seven years ago when I experienced the baptism of fire, which surprised me because, you know, of course I thought I'd experienced the baptism, I'd Served a mission, for heaven's sake, you know, and, you know, bore testimony of things that I thought I knew, that I didn't really know, but that I believed. And I think we need to get. I think it would be. Serve us all better if we stopped saying, I know this, I know that, and start using the word believe more. Because it's okay to believe you can change your beliefs. But I think. I think this whole thing, by the way, pardon me for I'll be coughing now and then. I'm just recovering from pneumonia.

John Dehlin [00:12:06] No worries at all. What's baptism by fire for you?

Baptism by Fire and the Holy Ghost Experience

Rock Waterman [00:12:10] Well, here's the thing. Everything. What the church tended to teach about the baptism of fire and by turnout, to be more specific, Boyd Packer. He admitted that when he was called to be an apostle, he said he never received any super duper witness. That's my word, not his. But he taught that what he learned was that the Holy Ghost is the still, small voice, and that our testimonies grow over time and they accumulate little bit, little. And the still, small voice whispers things. But that's not what I was reading in the Scriptures every time. Everything I read about the baptism of fire was that, you know, you know it. When you get it, it hits you like, wham. So I decided I'm going to seek this baptism of fire. You know, I read Enos, and Enos struggled and struggled, and I thought, oh, you know what? You know, it seems like it was a day and a night. I think that he prayed desperately, but I didn't want to. You know, I certainly wasn't looking forward to that kind of struggle. I was just curious about it. So I was. I was at my son's home. Nobody was home at. In South Jordan, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:13:25] And you're how old at this time?

Rock Waterman [00:13:27] Oh, this was in 2007.

John Dehlin [00:13:30] How old would you have been at the time?

Rock Waterman [00:13:32] Well, I'm 61 now. I was in my mid-50s.

John Dehlin [00:13:34] Okay, mid-50s.

Rock Waterman [00:13:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:36] South Jordan.

Rock Waterman [00:13:37] Yeah. So I'm South Jordan. I stick a pillow on my head, I'm going to lay down, I'm going to think about this, and wham. It just. It just hit me. It just embraced me. I was enveloped and embraced, and I don't know how to describe it, but the love. And you know how when Enos learned that his sins were forgiven him and that's what I felt, I realized that none of that was important. The sins weren't important. And not only were my sins, it's not that my sins were forgiven me then, it's that sins are forgiven immediately. I mean, I was being told, in other words, that my sins have already been forgiven me. And Enos said. He said, lord, how is it done? And that's. That's. That's the first question. I said, wow, how do you do that? Because it's just amazing.

John Dehlin [00:14:30] Okay, what were you. Why were you praying? What were you even in need?

Rock Waterman [00:14:35] What was. I was curious. I wasn't even praying. Now, what I've learned since is that for some people, it's a real struggle to get that baptism of fire. Now, okay, first, let's back up and talk about what baptism of fire. We're not complete until we've had the baptism of fire. We get the baptism of water, and then sometime, and for most people, it's sometime later, we get the baptism of

John Dehlin [00:14:57] fire, which is different from the confirmation gift of the Holy Ghost.

Rock Waterman [00:15:03] You're saying, yes, that confirmation, when they're laying their hands on your head and they say, receive the Holy Ghost. I used to think that that, boom, I'm being sent the Holy Ghost, it's being conveyed into me. But no, that's not what that is. It's counsel. It's. I say unto you, receive the Holy Ghost. So in other words, you're being given an invitation to receive the Holy Ghost at some time. Now. It. I've since learned there's a. There's a blog called Just and True, and. And he. He spoke about that quite a bit. And a lot of other people have written in, myself included, about their baptism of fire. So this. This seems to be something that we Latter Day Saints have sort of skipped over and not given a lot of thought to. But now there is an awakening, and people are rece. Receiving this gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, here's the thing. Some people. For some people, it's a real struggle, like it was with Enos. And for some people, it just. It just comes unexpected, like it did with me.

John Dehlin [00:16:04] Okay. Seeking this. You weren't. No.

Rock Waterman [00:16:06] Well, I was curious about, so I was going to think about it. So I stuck. You know, I was going to lay on the floor on the carpet with this pillow under my head and think about it, and boom, it hit. It just washed all over me. And this is. It's just like in the scripture in Mosiah. You know, people desired this. And here's the thing. I really, really had no more desire to do evil, but I only had desire to do good continually. And it really did change me. This is the transformation that's spoken of. And this is the.

John Dehlin [00:16:37] Sounds like A born again experience.

Rock Waterman [00:16:39] Exactly, exactly. And this is the other. One of the other things that has struck me is that, you know, we deemphasize this idea of born again. You know, on my mission, we. We referred to these people derogatorily as gracers. And yet that's what the Book of Mormon teaches. And so here's the point. The whole thing about what I'm about is I notice the Book of Mormon will teach one thing and then we learn something else in church which sort of tempers what the Book of Mormon taught us or contradicts what. And so what do we go with? We go with what we learn in church when what we should be doing is focusing on what the Book of Mormon is teaching us and not what. Not. Not what's filtered through the manual.

John Dehlin [00:17:19] Okay, so let me ask you, is this different from the second comforter, this experience?

Rock Waterman [00:17:25] Yeah, the second comforter, I understand, is. This is the first comforter. The second comforter is when you see Christ. I have not experienced anything like that. I don't get revelations. I don't get anything. You know, there's nothing about me that. That you could point to and say, wow, I want to. I want to get that. All I can tell you is that when I finally, after all these years of being a member of the church and thinking I had a testimony of this and that, here comes this amazing spiritual experience that sort of made everything else irrelevant. And by everything, here's what I'm saying the interesting thing, and I didn't notice this until later thinking about it, it had nothing to do with the testimony of the church or testimony of. Of the restoration or even the Book of Mormon. What it was was the pure love of Christ. And I felt it and I experienced it, and it was. Well, it was indescribable. But so.

John Dehlin [00:18:28] So did any instruction come with it?

Rock Waterman [00:18:33] No.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] Like, you should do this or you need to. Nope, it's just a feeling.

Rock Waterman [00:18:38] No, you're right. It's. It's an experience. Yeah, feeling. Experience of love, of overwhelming love, of absolute. You know, you're okay. And so all of the. All of the things that the church teaches that we should be careful about tend tended not to be a problem. And, you know, as I learned more about what sin was in the Greek word for the sin is a Greek word which essentially means missing the mark. So as we go through life, we've got this aim, I guess the mark is we want to return to God. We want to become more Christ. Like whatever, whatever, however you might define it. But you know, we want to get through life and, and do right and do good. And occasionally we miss the mark. That's what a sin is. You know, a sin is not necessarily some horrible evil thing we've done. And this is why the, you know, the evangelicals, that when I used to object to them saying, I'm a sinner and you're a sinner, you know, well, of course we're all sinners because we all miss the mark, but it doesn't mean we're evil. That's what I thought that they were saying, oh, I'm so evil. I'm so evil. No, you know, and I was, I wanted to say, no, you're not evil. But they weren't saying that. They were saying, you know, I'm missing the mark. And so essentially, you know, it's just like stepping off the path. Well, this is why. This is why in Lehi's dream, it's so important to cling to the iron rod, because as long as you hold on to that rod, you're not going to slip onto the ditch and stuff. And if I can just say something about the iron rod, I always misinterpreted that, too. And a lot of people do. We seem to think that holding to the rod means remaining obedient to the church and its leaders and doing what you're told. No, the iron rod. Nephi tells us he got what the interpretation was. The interpretation is the word of God. So it's not the word of man. It's not the word of God filtered through men. It's just, you know, if you just cling to what God is teaching, which is why, you know, the words of Jesus are just so wonderful, because if you just sort of follow him and follow his example or do your best to follow his example, then you're clinging to the rod and you're on the right path. And your chances of slipping, you know, we're all going to let loose that rod now and then, but if we know to get back on that path. So once again, sin is essentially like, you just step off the curb. You step off the curb. Well, just step back up.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] Okay. Okay, so let's get into your paradigm then. So it sounds like the core gospel. And I'm going to read from your blog@PureMormonism.blogspot.com the subheading under pure Mormonism, it reads, free agency, Christ consciousness, unconditional love, and other forgotten teachings of the restoration. So strong emphasis on love. Strong emphasis is on you're okay, sins are forgiven. Etc. Now here's the big question, okay? Why was a restoration needed? Why not just. Why not just believe in Christ and read the New Testament and boom. Why do we need, you know, a restoration, especially a Latter Day Saint restoration?

The Restoration and the Book of Mormon

Rock Waterman [00:22:04] Well, now that I've been reading Damon Smith's books on the cultural history of the Book of Mormon, I'm realizing that the restoration as we see it has nothing to do with the restoration spoken of in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon speaks of the restoration of all things, but now when I speak of the restoration, I mean the restoration of truth. I don't believe we were intended to create a church pattern after the Old Testament church because what happened with that one, it was easily corrupted, easily diverted, just as I, I see our church diverting. If you, if you, if you start an organization where certain people are at the head and then those people can be easily influenced. You know, the idea that many members have that, that this, this church can't be led astray, that's false. That's a false teaching. There's no such teaching in the scriptures at all. Of course it can be led astray. It can be easily led astray because all you have to do is take those people at the top and divert them.

John Dehlin [00:23:17] Yeah, and the Church, the Doctrine and Covenants talks, and probably the Book of Mormon talks about the Church being under condemnation left and right, as I understand it.

Rock Waterman [00:23:27] Right, yeah, we seem to have forgotten that. We don't want to talk about that. President Benson brought it up and it was never supposed spoken of again, as far as I know.

John Dehlin [00:23:35] Okay, okay, but, but here's the, here's the thing I'm saying, like, so, you know, the typical LDS view is there's this plan of salvation. You know, we're sent to the earth to have this mortal experience that God set up, the pure true church that, you know, it started out with Judaism because, you know, mankind wasn't ready for the higher law. Then Christ came and, and established the higher law. But then within three weeks, the church fell into apostasy and mankind had to go another 1830 years until God's one true prophet could restore the one true church with exclusive authority to the earth. Okay, how much of that do you buy?

Rock Waterman [00:24:22] Well, I think we needed a clean slate, and I think the Book of Mormon provides that. I think because there wasn't apostasy precisely because the Church, the primitive church, was corrupted and diverted from its mission by its leaders who were. After 1800 years, where were we? We were floating without, of course, what Nephi tells us that the Bible has lots of things, and he calls it a stumbling block. So I think the Book of Mormon. Here's the thing. I've got this thinking that I don't follow myself. And that's once a year, a person should take a month off, maybe two months, and become a vegetarian. Cleanse their system, just start fresh. I think that we should take whatever time it takes to read the Book of Mormon and if it takes, stop attending church while you're doing that so your mind isn't clouded. I think that's probably a good idea because what we're getting from our manuals often is contradictory to the church. Look at what we're studying. Every year we'll have one of the presidents of the church, and our manual will be the teachings of John Taylor, the teachings of Lorenzo Snow, or what the heck do we care about what they say? Now, I know that may sound shocking to some people because a lot of the things they say, very good and wise counsel, they were not evil men, but they are not speaking from God. You can. You can search the Journal of Discourses till the cows come home looking for a revelation, and there isn't any. These guys, not once after the death of Joseph Smith, do we see anybody speaking for God, speaking the words God's put in his mouth the way Joseph Smith did. So, okay, so they may have led exemplary lives, but shouldn't we just focus on the words of Christ? Shouldn't that really be. I mean, look at what the other churches are doing. They're at least they're focusing primarily on what Jesus taught. We're talking about what Brigham Young taught and what John Taylor taught and what George Q. Cannon taught.

John Dehlin [00:26:51] Okay, let me ask this question in a slightly different way, and then I'll drop it because I don't want to belabor the point, but.

Rock Waterman [00:26:57] Well, clearly I'm not getting it. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:26:59] No, no, it's okay. No, I just that. Just that, you know, billions of people on the earth, billions and billions of people over the history of the earth, especially over the past 1800 years, I always struggle with this idea that there's one franchise, you know, like McDonald's or Walmart, and everybody's got to be a member of the one true franchise. And unfortunately, less than 1/2 of 1% of the world's population at any given moment has ever really had had reasonable access to the franchise. And everybody else is just wayward. That makes God appear to be completely inefficient, unproductive, and just bad at having his children do the main things that he wants them to do on this earth. And so I guess it goes back to your question about what is the church and what needed restoring. And are you telling me that for 1800 years that man, all of God's children walked without the good stuff? And it wasn't until the church was reorganized that the good stuff. Because the good stuff you're telling me is none of the layers that the LDS church added on. The good stuff is really simple. It's love your neighbor, it's you're not a bad person, it's be kind and it's, it's just do good unto others. And why do we even need a church? And are you down with this model of the franchise and the exclusive rights to the franchise business? And if not, why do we even need a restoration?

Rock Waterman [00:28:34] Yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. No, I don't agree that we need. See what? Every time you get a church, a denomination, it goes corrupt, right? Yeah. And not only that, but you get people at the top who think they own the brand.

John Dehlin [00:28:46] So right now, why believe in the restoration?

Rock Waterman [00:28:49] Well, I'm not talking about the restoration of the church. I'm talking about the restoration of truth, forgotten truths. Okay. And what the Book of Mormon, you'll notice in the Book of Mormon when it talks about the church, it's really referring to the community. But we tend to put our idea of. I wrote a piece called My Testimony of the Church and in there I explained that in the over 200 instances when the Book of Mormon refers to the church, they're not talking about an organization that had a top down management or anything like that. It was talking about the community of believers. So yeah, I think the reason we needed a restoration and the reason we blew the restoration was this. When the Book of Mormon came out, it was not really intended to have a church built up around it. John Whitmer, David Whitmer felt that officially organizing a church was a bad move. And in fact, if you look at the definition that Jesus gives of his church in DNC 1067, he says, all who repent and come unto me the same is my church. He doesn't say it's a group of, it's an organization with a flowchart.

John Dehlin [00:29:58] He says, not a corporation. It's not a corporation soul.

Rock Waterman [00:30:01] Exactly. So that would say to me that everybody, everybody in other denominations are all his church. Because what church means is a community, a congregation, a group of like minded

John Dehlin [00:30:20] individuals, in fact, trying to live like Christ. Right? Yeah. Okay. So, so would it make sense? And this is what would make sense to me. There isn't like one restoration where like, there's an apostasy and the world is in darkness, which is how we talk about it. And then all of a sudden, oh, light comes to humanity again and there's a restoration, one single restoration that happens in New York. It's more like Christ said, love everybod all blowing that. And we're all having these mini. You had a restoration when you were 55. That has nothing to do with what the church did or did the corporate legal thing that the LDS Church did. It's more like Christ said, love each other. And we're all, every day having hopefully these mini restorations where we're trying to get off the bad path and on the right path. And so this notion of a single restoration, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Rock Waterman [00:31:14] Yeah, well, I agree with you. My, my baptism of fire was completely independent of the church. And I actually wonder if I would have had experience had I been had I continued to be constantly going back every week to that.

John Dehlin [00:31:32] Yeah, maybe it was delayed by your church participation.

Rock Waterman [00:31:36] Exactly. And I believe it, and so does my wife. We both believe that our, our spiritual growth was stunted by our activity, activity in the church because. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:31:48] So there's not one restoration that's Mormon in theme. No, there's like a whole world of, of billions of people all trying to discover who Christ is and what it means. And every culture, maybe even Christian or not, are probably going to have these awakenings where they try and get back on course. True.

Rock Waterman [00:32:08] The, the biggest tragedy of the Book of Mormon is that it has become seen as proprietary to a specific church denomination. It should be out there like the I Ching, like Khalil Gibran, the Prophet. Any, any, any book that contains a lot of truth and, and, and validity that, that would be beneficial to people. That's what the Book of Mormon should be. But now people steer away from it because. Oh yeah, that's the Mormon Church's book.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] Right, right. Okay. Okay, got it. So the Church is not a corporate soul. It is not a 501C3. The church is a community of people trying to follow the spirit of what Christ taught.

Rock Waterman [00:32:51] The Church of Jesus Christ continued to exist even though the Catholic Church was running alongside, behind it, beside it, trying to take control. The Church of Jesus Christ continues to exist in the hearts of the members of the Church of the LDS Church, even though there is an organization at the top running beside it, trying to Take control of the brand. Trying to. Trying to give the impression that we're in charge. We are the supervisors. We're the gatekeepers. No, the Church of Jesus Christ is all who repent and come unto him. That's the church.

John Dehlin [00:33:24] Whether or not they're, you know, official members on the rolls.

Rock Waterman [00:33:28] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:33:29] Officially baptized or not.

Rock Waterman [00:33:31] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:33:31] Not important.

Rock Waterman [00:33:32] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:33:32] And you're saying the Book of Mormon supports this?

Rock Waterman [00:33:36] The Book of Mormon? Yeah, the Book of Mormon. The. The church. In the days of the Book of Mormon, there were no leaders there. There were priests. The priests would. Would speak to the people. And then he go back and he would work alongside. Alongside them. He wasn't the supervisor. He wasn't in charge of anybody. He didn't own the brand. He didn't. We're supposed to all be very egalitarian. In fact, you know, we're supposed to all have a role. Some are given different gifts. Some are given the gifts of prophecy. Others are given the gifts of this and that. But to. To. To claim an office of. As a prophet or an office as an apostle, just like Brett Bartel wrote in his recent guest post on my piece, the actual message of the Book of Mormon, he said. He said you can create an office of prophets and apostles, but that doesn't make you actually a prophet or an apostle.

John Dehlin [00:34:27] Right.

Rock Waterman [00:34:28] No prophet is going to have. Is going to show fruit of being a prophet. He's going to receive revelation. He's going to actually prophesy, you know, for some reason. And I don't know why it took me so long to realize this. And this is kind of the gist of my blog. And I sound like I'm coming down hard on leadership, and sometimes I do. But here's the thing. As adamant as I sound right now, I truly am filled with love. And I agree. I kind of take the position that Paul Toscano says about the leaders. You know, he was a editor of the Ensign magazine before they kicked him out of the church. And he knew a lot of these guys personally. He said, you know, all the. All of the apostles are really good men. The problem is when they get together, they act like a corporation. And this is.

John Dehlin [00:35:21] Right.

Rock Waterman [00:35:21] I forgot what point I was getting to now. But.

John Dehlin [00:35:23] No, no, let me. Let me seriously. So let's talk briefly about the Book of Mormon. Like, how is the Book of Mormon. How is what's taught in the Book of Mormon different from the way that we live our church experience today?

Rock Waterman [00:35:39] Well, I think. I think a couple of things that The Book of Mormon teaches is that it's simpler. What we've done is we've piled on all kinds of things and beliefs over the years that aren't in the Book of Mormon. And then we de. Emphasize the things that are in the Book of Mormon. For example, the doctrine of grace, which I would read in the Book of Mormon, you know, Mosiah teaching about grace. And then I'd go to church and learn that, you know, we didn't really believe the way that, you know, and we didn't believe in the baptism.

John Dehlin [00:36:15] We think grace. Tell us in a sentence what you think grace is about.

Rock Waterman [00:36:18] Grace is essentially what I experienced, this overwhelming love of Jesus, that it's okay, you know, he expects us to make mistakes. He expects us. This is what the whole purpose of our life is here on earth is to learn. And so when we slip up and we screw up and we make mistakes, it's just part of the learning process, and it's not the end of the world. You know, the. The church taught me to put on sackcloth and ashes. In fact, you know, President Kimball's book, the Miracle of Forgiveness. You know, when I was younger, I got about halfway through it. It was just so, so discouraging because it looked like it was just going to be such a fight and such a battle to get back in God's good graces. And in reality, we're always. I was already in God's good gracious graces. What I wasn't in good graces was maybe with my bishop or with the church or my idea of, you know, of what I had to do to be quote, unquote worthy. We're always worthy. We make mistakes, we screw up, we pick ourselves up, and we get back in the fight. And. And we realize that it's all part of life here on planet Earth and that.

John Dehlin [00:37:28] And that's how you read the Book of Mormon.

Rock Waterman [00:37:30] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:31] Now, okay. And any other major doctrines or.

Rock Waterman [00:37:36] Well, one of the things I appreciate about the Book of Mormon is that it does foretell that we will fall away here in our day. It's interesting that beginning with Brigham Young, the Utah pioneers began to refer to the outsiders as the Gentiles when the Book of Mormon was essentially, you know, every. Every time Mormon or Moroni spoke to the Gentiles, he was talking to the people who are reading the book. You know, not. Not just anybody. He was talking about you Gentiles. And. And Moroni laments. He says, why did you put pollute the Holy Church of God? He's Looking at us in our day and saying, you know, we had it and now we screwed it up again. And this is, you know, we're looking at a repeat of the great apostasy. And even in that day, there was a remnant of believers. You know, look, we've got to get away from this idea of having a testimony of the church or focusing on the church. And we need to look at the gospel of Christ, and we need to sort of, in some ways, divorce our. Ourselves from this allegiance we have to the church, because the church will not save us. And by the church, I'm talking about capital C Church. In my blog, I differentiate between the church, meaning headquarters, the corporation. Yeah, the corporation with a capital C, and the church as a community of believers with a small C. But we need to become just a community of equals. You know, what would serve us best is if words became more autonomous. After. After Brigham and about 10,000 of the saints moved to Utah, there were. There were thousands more that stayed behind. And they remained in their little branches, autonomous branches, and they continued to believe they didn't need leaders. Eventually, this, 15 years later, the church was reorganized there in Iowa. They were scattered. They were in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin. So they reorganized and sort of put themselves under another head. But that church also incorporated, which is something I don't think a church needs to do. I think it's. When you incorporate, you're essentially trading your sovereign of Christ for a sovereign of the state, because a corporation exists at the whim of the state.

John Dehlin [00:39:54] Right, okay. And just real briefly, we've probably talked about this before a bit on Mormon stories at some point. But, you know, one thing that I. You know, one thing that's very clear to me is the Book of Mormon has a very trinitarian view that God and Jesus are one. But it seemed like Joseph evolved in that understanding. By 1838 or so, he very much viewed God and Jesus as separate. And this whole notion of theosis starts bubbling to the top by the time we get to Nauvoo. Where are you on that?

Rock Waterman [00:40:26] Yeah, that's a good question. I don't really know. I haven't studied enough about the attributes of God. I've got Blake Oster's books on it, and I mean to go into them, but I haven't read them. But it's very interesting. On the one hand, I see what Paul Toscano strongly believes, that Jesus, as the Book of Mormon tells us over and over, the Book of Mormon says that Jesus is the Eternal Father. So how that works, I don't know. But whether or not there is another Father or some supreme being or maybe the universe itself is the Father, I don't know. But it's pretty clear our scriptures are teaching us that Jesus is God. And I think we should start praying more to Jesus and not is praying to the Father through Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] And the only other thing I'll just say is that there are all sorts of revelations Joseph received in Nauvoo that don't appear anywhere in the Book of Mormon. From the endowment to baptisms for the dead to celestial marriage, polygamy. So many things just don't appear anywhere in the Book of Mormon. So drawing the line in the sand and saying, you know, it seems weird to me to draw a line in the sand and say if it's in the Book of Mormon, it's okay, but if it came later, well, then it's not kind of pure source. Do you understand why?

Rock Waterman [00:41:53] Yeah, I'm not saying that. I think if we had a prophet, it was Joseph Smith. Now, he's a very flawed man. He admits that we admit that God. He's the only prophet I know of who has published the instances where Jesus chewed him out for making mistakes. But. So I think what he taught subsequent to the Book of Mormon is viable. On the other hand, the Book of Mormon tells us that it contains the fullness of the gospel. So it's kind of a puzzle to me. I don't know everything. I don't know anything.

John Dehlin [00:42:36] Okay, okay, so. But, but, but you do. You do see Joseph Smith as a prophet. How do you make sense of the. The polyandry and the financial improprieties and the treasure digging and all that stuff that people think is kind of weird?

Rock Waterman [00:42:52] Well, I don't buy. I don't. I no longer buy the polyandry or polygamy. It simply didn't exist until. Well, it did exist. There was all not with him. He spoke about it dozens of times. He vigorously denounced those who were practicing what they called spiritual wifery. He actually sued Chauncey Higbee for claiming that he was part of it. And then John Bennett made sure that Joseph Smith couldn't make it to the hearing, so that case was dismissed.

John Dehlin [00:43:26] Are you saying Joseph wasn't a polygamist?

Rock Waterman [00:43:28] He was not. What. Yeah, the conventional wisdom is. So this is like the biggest. Now here's. Let me. Let me put it this way. I don't believe he was. I won't take a firm stand about anything that happened historically because we just don't know. But let me And I've gotten, I've been dragged into the craziest arguments with people on this. So let me just say this. If you want to know everything there is to know about whether or not Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, there's two sets of books I'd refer people to. One is Brian Hale's three volume, Joseph Smith's Polygamy. And he covers everything. But the interesting thing, and one of the things I like about him a lot is where other historians will say this and that happened. And then you look at the footnote, and the footnote says, according to John Taylor, in 1888, the Story of the angel with a flaming sword threatening to slay Joseph if he wouldn't practice polygamy, you know, we never heard that story until 1888. And then we, then we heard other people start repeating what they'd heard John Taylor say. And then they embellished the story further. So what Brian Hales does is he takes all this stuff and he traces it to what, what do we actually know? And when did the stories, you know, when did the story first surface about this or that? And we find that, you know, well, if I go into it, I'll talk forever.

Joseph Smith, Polygamy, and Church History

John Dehlin [00:45:07] No, I'll just say this. So the women who claim to have been married to Joseph were lying, you're saying?

Rock Waterman [00:45:12] Yeah, yeah, they were put up to, they were all now married. Here's what happened. I'm going to be as brief about this as I can, but first let me make sure I recommend the other set of books, and that's Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy. Volume one is out in hardback. Volume two is about to come out. You can read them both online for free, but I prefer the hardcover books. And there will be a third volume. And when you read these, they take every accusation, they look at it and they investigate it and they, they, and they tell us where polygamy originated with Mormon polygamy, where, you know, they take all these stories. But let's, let's take a look at what happened was Brigham Young had always expected and he, he said, he said, I, I never claimed to be a prophet. Some of you have think I am, but I never claim to be a prophet. I'm only a place sitter. I paraphrasing him, he says I'm just a place sitter for when Joseph Smith's son comes of age and comes out here. Okay, so when that happened, Joseph Smith the third came of age. He and David came out on a speaking tour and they packed the churches because everybody Was, oh, this is wonderful. Joseph the Third is back. He's going to take over the church. And you know, just like everybody had always expected, the members never thought that Brigham Young had replaced Joseph Smith. Okay. They always understood, because it's a matter of record that Joseph Smith III was ordained. He was ordained with oil by Hyrum. And Joseph Smith laid his hands on his head. And Joseph announced it at a meeting in the grove that he had intended his son to take his place. So when this happened, these guys are packing the churches. Well, this is what, 15 years later. And now, you know, there's a little empire building and there's, there's money involved and, and all the apostles and you know, they got a little problem here because, because of the.

John Dehlin [00:47:19] They don't want to give up their power, you're saying.

Rock Waterman [00:47:21] Yeah, exactly. Okay, so let me just make this point. So. So, so their wives. Their wives all suddenly came out with these affidavits that they had been sealed to Joseph Smith. Well, they never said anything about this before. And we hear about the diary of Helen Martin Kimball when she was 14. No, she wrote that when she was middle aged. None of this stuff was in their diaries when they were young girls. It never happened. Or we never hear of it happening until suddenly there's an ulterior motive and there's something to lose.

John Dehlin [00:47:56] It was a way to keep Joseph Smith III and the reorganized. From taking over.

Rock Waterman [00:48:02] Yeah, from taking, you know, from taking the saints back.

John Dehlin [00:48:05] Okay, so William Law was lying.

Rock Waterman [00:48:09] William Law, from what I understand, he was. He was a usurper. He wanted. Oh, yeah, yeah. Here's the whole thing about. We look about, we look at this. The destruction of the printing presses as though Joseph Smith destroyed the press because the truth was getting out. He was just so sick and tired of the lies. And he didn't destroy the press. It was actually a lawful. Believe it or not, it was lawful to do that. It's iffy. But they got together as it was.

John Dehlin [00:48:40] Disturbance of the peace, you're saying?

Rock Waterman [00:48:41] Well, public nuisance.

John Dehlin [00:48:43] Yeah.

Rock Waterman [00:48:43] Okay. They got together in a meeting of the council of the city. City council.

John Dehlin [00:48:51] And then what about D&C? 132. I mean, that's a clear revelation. That's attributed to Joseph Smith.

Rock Waterman [00:48:56] Yeah, it's attributed to Joseph Smith. Boy, when you start looking at that, you start really having questions. Number one, it was never heard of. In fact, Emma herself said, I never heard about it until I read it in Seer. The Seer was the church paper Orson Pratt was publishing. I think in England. But Brigham Young has. Now, everybody knew in Pioneer, Utah that it was an open secret that plural marriage was being performed and was, was being practiced, but it wasn't official until 1852. Brigham has Orson Pratt announce it in conference. And then Brigham comes up and he explains, I have this letter. This revelation has been locked in my desk for all these years. And it's in the handwriting not of Joseph Smith, but it's in the handwriting of William Clayton, who was a scribe of Joseph Smith. So. Okay, that's okay. But now William Clayton is also a polygamist and it's just a little suspicious that any revelation. Two things. Joseph Smith vigorously denounced the practice throughout the last years of his life. At what point then was he going to suddenly come up and say, psych, really, it's really a true doctrine and we all have to practice it. At how was he possibly able to entice these so called wives at the same time he was telling them, look, if anybody comes to you telling you about this doctrine, whether he's a prophet, an alderman, a city councilman, a priest, anybody, then you'll know it's of the devil. Right. And so how was he going to marry these women who just heard him preach that this is the, the vilest of evils? Well, he was. It wasn't going to happen. So 132 is really, really, really iffy. Now it's possible that the first half of it was something from Joseph Smith because it doesn't discuss plural marriage at all. It discusses celestial marriage, but I have my doubts because why didn't he release it?

John Dehlin [00:51:04] Okay, so, yeah, and it is interesting. The 132 wasn't added until like 1876.

Rock Waterman [00:51:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:10] To the Doctrine of Covenants. Super late. Right.

Rock Waterman [00:51:13] And when that happened, they, they tossed out section 101 which said all churches and marriages in this church of Jesus Christ are to be, are to be between one man and one woman.

John Dehlin [00:51:26] Yeah. One woman, but one husband.

Rock Waterman [00:51:27] Yeah. And it even brought up that section. Even brought up owing to the accusations of polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:51:34] Right, right, right.

Rock Waterman [00:51:35] Really? Okay.

John Dehlin [00:51:37] So that, at least for you makes Joseph Smith no longer, you know, a liar in that sense or an adulterer or.

Rock Waterman [00:51:47] Right, right. You know, I would have to really. And here's what I've never seen anybody overcome. The information that's available in Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy. People will say, well, how about this? How about that? Well, you know, everything that you do see, like the letter to Sarah Whitney is full of ellipses. This letter to Sarah Whitney, where he says, I sure like to see you. It was written to her par. He'd like to see them all come visit me. He was in hiding because, you know, okay, his enemies were after him. So. So all of this stuff that we learn about polygamy, and a lot of it was provided by the church in order to support. To support, you know, what they were doing. Okay. And I'll just say this. You know, we'd love to get this behind us. I mean, when President Hinckley was interviewed, I think by Larry King, he said, that's behind us. It's not doctrinal. We'd love to be able to say this never happened. But if they do, if they admit to polygamy being a lie, then they have to trace their authority through Brigham Young, and they have to admit that Brigham Young is a fraud. And they will do that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] Okay. So I'll just say one last thing about it, and then I want to ask you about the Book of Mormon before we move on to kind of. Of, let's just say, contemporary issues. So it is weird that the Reorganized Church, the Community of Christ, the RLDS Church, formerly, they were the ones who staked their claim, their entire existence on the idea that polygamy never happened. It's interesting that they would be incentivized, of all people, to hold the position that you now do, that polygamy never happened. But they've changed, and now they accept that polygamy happened and lost a ton of members in the process. The only other thing I'll say is that the modern LDS church, again, would have a lot of an incentive to deny the polygamy happened. But I guess you're right. You answered that second part. Because if they denounce polygamy, they have to denounce Brigham Young through, I don't know, you know, George Albert Smith or something. And that's.

Rock Waterman [00:53:57] Yeah, they have to go through all of them. Taylor and Wilford Woodruff and all of them.

John Dehlin [00:54:02] But why would the Reorganized Church cave on something that they lose? They're such a disadvantage to sort of acknowledge.

Rock Waterman [00:54:12] Well, that was a statement by some leaders. It certainly didn't echo the sentiments of most of the members. And I think that, you know, when you look at all the histories, all we see is that, you know, it's presented as if it's a fact. And so this couple, Richard and Pamela Price, decided 30 years ago, they decided to just do deep digging and find out and what they. What they discovered. Once again, the only thing I'm going to do. I'm not going to argue with anybody about that. I'm not arguing with you, and you know that. We're not arguing, but people always want engagement arguments. I say, look, you read the book and then you make a judgment for yourself.

John Dehlin [00:54:52] Okay, and what's the name of the book again?

Rock Waterman [00:54:54] Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy. Okay, all right, Google that online.

John Dehlin [00:54:57] If you want to send me a link, I'll add it to you.

Rock Waterman [00:54:59] Sure will.

Taking the Book of Mormon Seriously

John Dehlin [00:55:00] Okay, here's my last question before we jump into contemporary issues. You know, I have a very, very hard time taking the Book of Mormon seriously as a historical record. I think it screams fiction. It screams. I really think that it's a combination of, you know, it appears to be a combination of Joseph's stories, his own personal biography, a ton of Isaiah, a ton of other parts of the Bible, you know, New Testament kind of stuff. And then the position that a lot of the sermons that were given by people in the burned over district that those sermons were incorporated in as like, you know, let's just say King Benjamin's sermons or Mosiah's sermons or whoever, you know, plus just traditional, let's just say Campbellite doctrines. I mean, there's so many problems with the Book of Mormon, its historicity, the anachronisms, the DNA stuff. It's just problematic for anyone who's willing to be objective, it seems. Now, I'm not saying that's true, I'm just saying it seems that way. And one, you mentioned to me before the podcast that some people have been surprised to learn that you actually believe in the Book of Mormon. Talk about how you overcome all those problems.

Rock Waterman [00:56:21] Yeah, you know, I've looked at them all and I was persuaded at one time, you know, I thought, you know, this, the Crittle, the idea that Crittle put forth that Sidney Rignan and Oliver Cowdery may be the authors of the Mormon and so on and all the problem. Familiar with all the problems of the Book of Mormon. I've been studying these things for three decades. But, you know, here's the thing. When I read it, it rings true. And that's all I can tell you. But other than to say that the current blog post is a guest post by a fellow named Brett Bartel. You're familiar with him. He wrote the letter to you.

John Dehlin [00:56:56] Yep.

Rock Waterman [00:56:57] So I titled it the Actual Message of the Book of Mormon. And his. His letter to you has been reproduced here, Making the Case for Belief. And I know, and I realize that some people think I'm stupid, but I Believe it's an actual historical record. Now, as Brett says, it may be a loose translation. By the way, I have to differ with you. I don't think it has any Campbellite doctrine. I think the problem with the Campbellites that they was that they read in a lot of their doctrine of the restoration what we were talking about before. According to Damon Smith and I'm inclined to that view. We never were intended to be a church with prophets and apostles and leaders, top down leadership as the Campbellites were looking forward to. They were looking for miracles and they already had their beliefs. Sidney Rigdon and his congregation in particular. Parley Bratt.

John Dehlin [00:58:00] Well, I'll just say I have no idea about who Campbell stuff. I was just trying to remember, you know, what I've read in the past, but it's been a while.

Rock Waterman [00:58:09] So anyway, Brett says something that I agree with in this letter and he says this letter is response to the CES letter and he says there's nothing in the letter that disproves the Book of Mormon, but what it does is it shows that the church narrative is false. And I agree with that. The church has screwed things up because they've tried to. I think that there has been this idea among the leaders that they need to protect our testimonies. And so they fed us only what they wanted us to know. And I don't think they ever foresaw anything like the Internet. You know, they warned us away from what they called anti Mormon literature. And they were very successful in doing that with me because you know what? I didn't realize that most anti Mormon literature that I was warned away from was our own literature, our own true history. It wasn't people making things up, although there was a lot of that. But what's happening now on the Internet, people are finding out the true history, the true theology, and it doesn't jive with, I mean jibe with what the Church has been teaching. So this, the preferred narrative of the Church is falling apart as that unravels, sadly, you know, people's, people's belief in the teachings. Now here's a. So let me get back to answer your question. If you set aside everything, you know, how the Book of Mormon came forth, the problems and put aside everything and just look at what it teaches. I don't think you can find anything to differ with. I remember years ago, I'm a big Monty Python fan and I was reading an interview with the Pythons about they had intended to make an epic parody of the life of Christ. It was going to Be, you know, of course, it turned out to be life of Brian. But what they want to do is mock the life of Christ. So as research, they started reading the New Testament, reading the words of Jesus Christ as research, and then they came back together and said, you know what? I really don't have an argument with any of this, do you? They didn't have anything to argue about Jesus. We. You know what most people's problems with Christianity is? It's about what has grown up about Christianity, not the actual teachings of Jesus. And this is what I want to say about the Book of Mormon. There's nothing in the Book of Mormon that I find doctrinally teaching theologically to argue with. I think it's all.

John Dehlin [01:00:49] But in terms of the historicity of it, you're just saying you. You've kind of said, I don't care what science comes up with. It feels right to me. And that's how you've based your perspective on the Book of Mormon.

Rock Waterman [01:01:00] True, I have. I haven't seen science conflict with it. What we. What we have is, so far, what we know. Science is not. Not definitive. We haven't discovered everything. But my understanding is we have discovered evidence of horses in the New World. My understanding is that. Oh, and, and now we're learning the. That National Geographic has discovered that the DNA in a child's bones they found shows that at least 25% of the ancient Americans came from European and Middle Eastern origins. So what we thought just a few months ago was that everybody came from Japan. Well, that's not necessarily so. So we're still fine. We're always finding out. So I don't think. Like I said, nothing.

John Dehlin [01:01:57] Do you mean Siberia?

Rock Waterman [01:01:58] No, no, I'm talking about the Middle East.

John Dehlin [01:02:01] No, but Japan.

Rock Waterman [01:02:03] Yeah. I think that the DNA that Southerton wrote about.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] Not Mongolia or Siberia.

Rock Waterman [01:02:14] Well, maybe, maybe, but I think. Think Japanese was in there somewhere. Okay, okay, don't listen to me. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:02:22] My understanding is they have not found horses in the timeframe that the Book of Mormon claims maybe tens of thousands of years prior. And I'm not at all an expert on these things.

Rock Waterman [01:02:34] Well, I'm aware that some people will say we'll look at it as a parable and a helpful parable. Okay. If you want to look at it that way, that's beneficial too. Even if Joseph Smith. Smith made it up, he certainly. He certainly pegged what would happen to his church in the later days. Sure, sure. And you know, because Mormon and Moroni are very critical of the people who claim to. Claim to be God's people and how they've polluted it. So.

John Dehlin [01:03:00] Right, okay. But the only other thing I'll say is that my understanding is if there's DNA that traces to places other than, I think it's Mongolia, it's DNA that comes 10, 20,000 years prior to when the Book of Mormon was supposedly taking place.

Rock Waterman [01:03:18] I haven't kept up with any of that stuff since I was in my 20s.

John Dehlin [01:03:21] No, no. Okay. So I'm just saying I want to just correct the record that I don't know of any science that supports the migration of a people around 6600 BC from the middle east to the New World that had horses and steel and. And, you know, all the different things that in the Michael Koh podcast, you can listen about.

Rock Waterman [01:03:44] Yeah, well, and what I'm saying here about the National Geographic discovery that there are Middle Eastern origins, that's not in the Book of Mormon timeframe either. They put it at 25,000 years earlier. But the point here is that we're still learning. We don't know because we. And what they're saying is we need more bones. We need to see more bones and check more DNA, because things they.

John Dehlin [01:04:07] They.

Rock Waterman [01:04:07] This caught them completely by surprise. Okay, okay, so.

John Dehlin [01:04:11] So last question for this episode, and then we'll move on to kind of contemporary issues, if that's okay. So to what extent does the falling away of the church sort of hang around Joseph Smith's neck in the sense that some people think in Nauvoo, he kind of went power crazy? Some people say that he was fine with personal revelation until others started having it. It, like with Orson Hyde. And he started getting uncomfortable around 1838 that people were challenging his authority. And so he kind of starts clamping down. He kind of invents this Melchizedek priesthood thing as a way to store his power up. And, you know, some could argue that the authoritative roots of the modern LDS Church sort of trace their roots ultimately to Joseph Smith's practices in the Nauvoo time frame. Are you saying it all went wrong after Joseph died, or are you willing to say that a lot of what's gone wrong is the legacy that Joseph left us with in his later life?

Rock Waterman [01:05:18] Well, I think one of the errors we make is assuming that or deifying Joseph Smith. You know, he's the one who said a prophet's only a prophet when he is acting. Speaking as a prophet, he made mistakes. I think one of his biggest flaws was, look, he was this humble, poor Dirt poor farm boy. And suddenly people like Sidney Rigdon and John C. Bennett wanted something to do with him. He was, you know, he made John Bennett the mayor. He, you know, put him in charge of all this stuff. Huge mistake. Because John Bennett was a huge imposter. And Sidney Rigdon, for all the good he was. Sidney Rigdon was known in his day as the walking Bible. He could spout scripture. And here was this, this, you know, well renowned preacher who wanted to, to attach himself to this poor farm boy. So I think Joseph Smith had this, he had this character flaw that he was impressed with, you know, shady characters. Yeah, yeah, well, he was impressed with men of letters, men who, who seem to have, you know, power and influence. And so my view of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith said, you know, trying to get something through the head of the, of the people, these people is like, like trying to chop a log with a corn dodger as a, as a wedge and a pumpkin as a beetle. Now, that doesn't make sense to a lot of people. The wedge, when you're chopping a log, you stick a little wedge in there and you hit your hammer. But underneath there, what was called a beetle was like the stump. So if you're trying to shove something through somebody's head using a piece of cornbread and a pumpkin, you're just not going to get anywhere. And he had a lot of frustration about that. So I think he was trying to. He wasn't trying to lord it over the members. In fact, he just, he kept his position was, look, I'm not in charge. He wasn't even in charge of Nauvoo. They excommunicated Pelatiah Brown without his knowledge. And afterwards he said, I don't think they should do that. You know, I don't think they should excommunicate somebody for his beliefs. Even though Pelatiah Brown had some really laughable ideas about what the Book of Revelations meant. But anyway, my point here is that the Nauvoo State Council was in charge of the church in Nauvoo. He wasn't. He saw himself as a messenger, you know, and not the head of the church. And I think he was easily taken advantage of that way because Rigdon kind of took charge in many respects. And so what happened was, I think what. I think the church under Joseph Smith was a very open, libertarian church. And when Brigham Young got a hold of it, he turned it into authoritarian, you know, you follow me? We're in charge. I think that's where, where things really went astray. I don't blame Joseph for, you know, for the way things are today. Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy.

Part Two: Corporatism and Church Correlation

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 464

Rock Waterman [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org. hello, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin, and here we are with part two of our interview with Alan Rockwaterman, founder of the blog Pure Mormonism. We spent an hour and eight minutes approximately with Rock talking about his views on Joseph Smith, on polygamy, on the Book of Mormon, on what the church means. And now we're going to. And I highly recommend it. Rock's a great guy. And now we're going to spend some time talking about contemporary issues as it relates to Rock's approach. And as you might have, if you listen to the first hour, you'll understand that Rock has a real solid sort of faith in Christ. He believes in the Book of Mormon. He has a lot of reverence for Joseph Smith. Use him as a prophet. But he feels like kind of everything that's been a lot that's been added since is either unnecessary or potentially distracting from the core messages of the Savior and of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith. Is that a fair characterization, Rock?

Rock Waterman [00:01:42] Yes. Yes, I'd say that's fair.

John Dehlin [00:01:44] All right, so now we're going to talk about several posts on Rock's blog just to get a flavor for his approach to Mormonism. And then we're going to talk about how maybe some of these posts have gotten him into trouble. And we're going to talk about where that all stands. So let's start with the blog post. And you don't have to, like, quote anything from the blog post. I'm just looking for basic ideas or arguments. Right, so. So let's start with the blog post, how corporatism has undermined and subverted the Church of Jesus Christ. What do you think you're trying to say there? Just in a nutshell?

Rock Waterman [00:02:23] Well, that's actually a review of Damon's book, the Book of Mammon, that he wrote two or three years ago. And essentially, the church. There's no reason for a church to incorporate. They say we need to incorporate for tax purposes. Well, churches are exempt from tax. They exist in a completely different sphere from the state. So the state does not have any means to cite the church. But if you're going to become something other than a church. Or if you're going to step outside the bounds of what a church supposed to do. I suppose incorporation is the thing. So if you're going to become a business, and let me just say this, the normal business of a church doesn't need incorporation. But if you're going to, you're saying

John Dehlin [00:03:09] a church can just be a 501C3? Is that what you're saying?

Rock Waterman [00:03:11] No, no, that's exactly the problem. 501 status. Applying for that is actually asking the government. It's actually making the government your God. By saying, can we have permission to not be taxed?

John Dehlin [00:03:25] Isn't that how the church. Okay, so they've done that, Is that right?

Rock Waterman [00:03:30] No, otherwise the church won't be taxed. But now you are in a taxable situation where you say, please make me exempt. It's crazy. The whole 501 thing was invented by Lyndon Baines Johnson as a way to get control of the church's. In Texas when he was a senator, he was, you know, these guys weren't doing him any favors, they were talking against him. So this enabled him to putting a. Once the church applies for 501 status, it agrees that it will lose that status if they speak against any political candidates.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] So let me see if I understand what you're saying correctly. You're saying that I could start a church tomorrow, I could get 100 or thousand or a million dollars of donations and not have to pay taxes without applying for 501 status. Yeah.

Rock Waterman [00:04:17] There are a lot of churches who have now gone. They've rescinded their 501 status. They've rescinded their incorporation. Small churches like this Laporte Church of Christ in Colorado is one example. A church is just outside the influence of government unless you're going to start investing in things that a church typically wouldn't, like real estate. Now I have no problem with the church putting money in ranches and orchards and canneries and other things that will help feed people. But when you start investing in shopping malls and condominiums in apartment buildings, then maybe you need incorporation to start protecting yourself.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] Okay, so you say you're saying the 501C3 is to protect an institution. It's not a requirement for a church

Rock Waterman [00:05:12] to be able to operate well, it changes the church. It's not even a church. When you're under 501c3. You are now a charitable organization. Okay, so you've even changed your status from church to charitable organization.

John Dehlin [00:05:24] Okay, so what else, how else is corporatism undermined and subverted the church.

Rock Waterman [00:05:29] Oh, gosh. It's been a long time since I've read that piece. Basically, well, look at what we do. We run it like a business. We were on the verge of bankruptcy in 1961 because of what? Henry Moyle. Henry Moyle was an interesting character. He was counselor to President David O. McKay. And he loved the church, but he really wasn't that familiar with doctrines or scriptures. He admitted to not really being much, but he loved the church. He loved the idea of the church. And so he felt that we can make this thing grow by building chapels. And then we'll get the missionaries to provide the converts to fill those chapels. And then as those chapels fill, those converts will pay tithing and to. To pay for, you know. But what happened was they kept building chapels and the missionaries were put under tremendous pressure to fill those chapels. And that's how we got the baseball baptisms, which I won't go into now. If some of your listeners are familiar with that, just Google baseball baptisms. So next thing you know, And I remember at this time, I remember being a teenager and hearing that the church was breaking ground on a chapel somewhere in the world every single day. Unfortunately, there wasn't anybody around to fill those chapels. So the church was out of money. And it didn't catch the attention of the 12 until they were told that payroll is probably going to be missed. That got them to perk up their ears because in spite of what we're taught, these guys do get paid, and they get paid quite well for being apostles and prophets and general authorities.

John Dehlin [00:07:19] So the church privatized its finances.

Rock Waterman [00:07:21] Right. So they called in N. Eldon Tanner, who was a wealthy Canadian industrialist, also like Henry Moyle. He even bragged. He said, I don't know anything about the Scriptures, but he did know how to make money. And he invested in oil companies, newspapers, banks, everything that you would. Everything that you would equate with Babylon. He invested and he got the church back on their feet. And it was at this point when the church decided that they would. The leaders decided they didn't need to obey Christ anymore. Jesus is very clear in two places in the Doctrine and Covenants that an accounting must be made of where the money goes, how much comes in, how much goes out. And until up until 1958, there was a very detailed account. It went on for pages and pages. You saw where the money went, how much was spent, how much came in. And they just stopped doing that. And they haven't done that since. I Wouldn't either. Because when you're. When you're spending money in ways that you shouldn't. And once again, the leadership. This is about the time the leadership began to see itself as the gatekeepers, as the owners of the brand. In fact, they do own the brand. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a trademark owned by Intellectual Reserve, which is an arm of the corporate church. And this is also the time they began to launch what's called correlation, which was a way to coordinate all of the lesson plans and everything so that essentially members were taught what the leaders wanted them to be taught, and they were fed information, only that information that they wanted the members to learn. And so we move from that point very clearly from a church where the members. And by the way, the members are supposed to the money, and we're told that the tithing is the Lord's and it's not your business what happens to it. It's just your business to pay it. But that's not true. The Lord knows that if you don't hold those with the. With the money accountable, that, you know, the Lord Acton's aphorism that power corrupts applies in the church just as well as it does in the government. So Elton Tanner was leapfrogged into the first presidency. I mean, the man was not a theologian. He was. He's the unofficial CEO of the church. He wasn't general authority material, but he sure knew how to make money. And he made money, made the money back for the church. And ever since then, it's been a secret. The finances. Finances of the church are a secret. And by the way, what Elton Tanner did was he actually brought. He also brought others in who were also investors. This is when the church, you know, we used to have theologians. You know, we used to have people like Legrand Richards and even Markey Peters and others who really know, knew the Scriptures. And then we got a bunch of corporate attorneys and businessmen and insurance salesmen.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] Okay, okay. All right. So we're too much like a corporation from your perspective. And it. And it detracts through correlation and other things. It detracts from Christ's central message. True.

Rock Waterman [00:10:48] Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the things that. That I discuss in that piece are what Damon showed about how we thought. What we thought might were inspired programs of the church were really just attempts to unload. For example, we had. We had a warehouse full of books of Mormons that we needed to get rid of before they could publish the next book, next edition. And so the idea of the family to family program was launched was to

John Dehlin [00:11:18] get rid of all these books that

Rock Waterman [00:11:19] were in our world. Yes. What we did, the interesting thing was they got the members to pay their tithing to pay for the printing of these Book of Mormons. Then they got the members to buy the books back, put their pictures with a little message in there, and then send that away. And purportedly, supposedly those books went to missionaries, but a lot of them ended up just in the basements of the mission homes because the mission presidents wanted to wait for the new books to come out. So they're still rotten somewhere.

John Dehlin [00:11:47] Okay. All right. So you're not a big fan of the, of the mall. The City Creek Mall.

Rock Waterman [00:11:52] Oh, that's. There's another. There's another.

John Dehlin [00:11:54] Let's talk about that. City Creek Mall.

Rock Waterman [00:11:58] This woke up a lot of people. Something I should tell you about my blog is I'm really not originating anything, but people find me and they say, you know, these are just the same things that I've been thinking of that have been really troubling me. And they tell me that reading my things helps them to reconcile the fact. Because people who are raised to believe that the church is true and putting their focus on the church tend to when it starts to unravel, it really affects them. And yet we have people who, like me, believe in the Book of Mormon and believe in the words of Christ and they say, I just can't reconcile the two. And then when they're able to divorce what the church is doing wrong, the capital C Church, when they are able to divorce that from the gospel, then they say, oh, okay, right, okay. And they. And then they also see that the Book of Mormon prophesies of this and warns against this stuff. But the City Creek Mall is a prime example. And my understanding, by the way, let me just say this. I. The leaders are not in unison. You know, we have this idea that the. That all 12 apostles are in uniformity on all these issues, but they're not. And I have friends who work in the church office building. I have one who came through here and visited me. We went out for pizza together and he told me stories about specific apostles that would make your head spin. But there's a lot of waste and there's a lot of personal pet projects that different, certain apostles get involved in. And he told about one who blew through $20 and it, it was. It didn't work. So what the heck, you know, moved on to somebody else.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] They've $20.

Rock Waterman [00:13:46] 20,000. Did I say 20? $20,000. And then he put their own people in, into positions, you know, who will. Cronyism, basically a lot of cronyism. It's just like any corporation. And this is the problem. It's not a church, it's a corporation. And up at the top, you know, we see them speak at general conference twice a year and they seem very humble and very serious. But the rest of the time they're managing the monetary affairs of the church. And this has been true ever since Lorenzo Snow sent the Twelve Apostles back in 1880, 1891 I think it was. You know, the apostles are supposed to go out and be witnesses for Christ. Well, what he did was he sent them out to get investments, to gather money for investments into the sugar company on the railroad. So you know, this isn't a church, it's a corporation. And the corporate board of directors spends a lot of its time managing the financial affairs of the church. So back to the Pitie Creek Mall. So now we have a mall that, you know, the excuse given a couple of excuses. First off, well, we wanted to clean up the city because things were getting pretty seedy. Well, what they meant by that was there were beggars hanging around the temple. My understanding of the ancient temple was that's where the beggars are supposed to be when the, when the people go to the temple, they remember to be charitable. But what we want to do, we wanted to chase them away. So that was one reason to build a mall. Another reason to build a mall is it creates jobs. But these are all high end stores. And this is the point I was going to get to was so Hinckley. This was Hinckley's idea. This mall was Hinckley's baby. And a lot of people didn't care for it. And after Hinckley died, it was already well underway. So what are you going to do? Right, so my point is that not, not all the 12 approved of it. You know, there's some level headed people in there. But so we got, we've got high end boutiques and you know, I've lived in Utah, Utah doesn't have enough money to maintain a mall like that. But I suppose, you know, when you're the type of person who spends their money at high end malls, you don't see anything different. So anyway, a lot of members have written me and they've said that this was their last straw. You know, this, this mal. Because it's clear that, you know, the brethren are out of. What am I looking for? Not out of the loop. You know, they're just, you know, what a church should be doing. I remember Kimball saying, you know, he was interviewed on TV, there was a piece on Mormon's 60 Minutes or something when I was a teenager. And he was asked about how much money the church collects in tithing. And he said, well, I'll tell you this, the outgo keeps pace with the income. And basically what he was, the message, at least that I was getting was that, you know, it was going out to doing good and feeding the poor. But we know now that very little, like less than 1% of the money that's tithed ever goes to the needy. And well, we're just, I mean, this is, this is so open, so blatant. A hide and mall built by a church at a time when the whole country is in a depression. And make no mistake, this is a depression. What are we doing? What is this? Well, of course, when the idea first came to Hinckley, the economy wasn't on the downslide. But you got to ask, okay, we're told that Jesus Christ is the head of this church. Are we really, really, really to believe that Jesus Christ sat at the head of the blood bored and said, here's what I want to do, guys. I want, here's, here's the blueprints. I want to build this mall. And the beauty of it from the, from the point of view of the investment vestors. Now I've heard, now I haven't confirmed this, but Taubman, the guy who built the mall, the developer, he gets a guarantee. 70 million no matter what. 75 million no matter what. So even if the mall fails, the church will give him, he invests, I think 22 million and he gets 75 million over a five year period. So even if the Millet Mall crashes and burns, the church has guaranteed funds from church funds to reimburse him. I got this from somebody who works there at the mall, an attorney.

Church Finances, Tithing, and Property

John Dehlin [00:18:23] What do you make of the idea that no tithing was spent? That it's, you know.

Rock Waterman [00:18:28] Well, you know, ultimately it's tithing money. But what are they doing? Here's what they do. They park the money. They take in hundreds of billions in tithing. Hundreds of millions. And I think it's. Some estimates are 3 billion a year in tithing. That was before 2008 when everything went to hell. But in a typical year, they take in 3 billion in tithing. They park a bunch of that into investments for three years, and then they take the millions that came from those investments and they spend those on further investments. So this is what a church does today. This is what the church does. It takes the tithing which is intended to feed the poor and pay for the legitimate needs of a church. They take the money from the poor members, the poorest of the poor, and then they park it in investments and they build multi billion dollar malls. And now here's what's funny, John. I thought, okay, you know, they got caught. You know, there was such a backlash of members saying this isn't right. I thought, okay, you know, they knew they'd made a mistake, but then they go and they announce this high rise apartment complex in Philadelphia and then they buy another high rise on Main street in Salt Lake City. So obviously they are completely immune to criticism.

John Dehlin [00:19:58] And the, and the forest preserves in Florida, they now own 2% of the state of Florida.

Rock Waterman [00:20:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big chunk of Florida.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] Yeah. They're the largest single landowner in the state of Florida.

Rock Waterman [00:20:09] Now what is this for? I mean, why? What is the church doing? Well, I'll tell you why. Because a corporation, and this is the problem with a corporation. And I discussed this in my piece on corporations. Corporations in the early years of this country had a legitimate function. The Erie Canal was built with a corporate. You can't, you can't put together a business that, that scale, you know, unless you build a corporate and make a corporation. So it was. But once the purpose was accomplished, the Erie Canal, the corporation was dissolved. Today, a corporation, if it wants anything, it wants to continue to live, to perpetuate itself. And so this is what the church is doing today. If there's anything that will ensure the corporation lives on, it's that it will have enough money to continue to live and continue to invest. But once again, they forget that this isn't their money. This money belongs to the people. It's held in fiduciary trust for the members, the members. But see now, and the fault is largely the members because many members think of themselves. They think of themselves. Well, we're just the members. Those guys are the church. No, no, we are all on the level playing field. And that money is just as much ours as it is theirs. And it's just not theirs to play with. That's the bottom line. If they need to do something with this money they should use. People would be much more willing to pay tithing now if they really realized that their tithing was being circulated among those who needed it instead of being fed these fat cats. And yeah, they're fat cats. They have unlimited credit cards. They don't have any. They have almost no oversight as to what, how they eat at the finest restaurants, they wear nice suits.

John Dehlin [00:22:01] The apostles, you're saying?

Rock Waterman [00:22:02] Yeah, the apostles, they live in nice homes, all paid for by people who can't afford. Well, I recommend the piece called bare how to calculate what you owe in tithing, which was also a guest post last month.

John Dehlin [00:22:22] Okay, let's talk about that. So there's a. There's a post that are we. Are we paying too much tithing?

Rock Waterman [00:22:26] Okay,

John Dehlin [00:22:29] and then there's the bare necessities. Just tell us about your. Your views on tithing. Talk about missionary president expenses and all those things that you think are super.

Rock Waterman [00:22:39] Are we paying Put too much Tithing was my piece. It was last year and it was basically, you know, I was motivated because I went to church and it was in November and both speakers spoke on tithing and spouted all this nonsense that just wasn't true. They were saying things like, we should pay tithing before we pay anything else. We should pay tithing on the gross of our paycheck. We get blessings when we pay tithing. None of this is in the law of tithing. We're not promised blessings for paying our tithing. Paying tithing is an obligation. But anyway, so here's the thing. So I broke down what tithing really was. And tithing is in. The law of tithing is encapsulated in seven verses in section 119. If it isn't in that section, it's not a part of the law. So we built all this kind of stuff on top of it. You know all this nonsense about. And what the Lord tells us is it's 10% of your increase annually. It's not 10% of your gross at the first of the month. It's annual at the end of the year. And the reason for that increases very little. Tithing was intended to be a very little so the church wouldn't go out of control. It was meant to. It was intended to for three purposes which are defined in that piece. And I won't spend any time going on it here. But anyway, it's a lengthy piece and very thorough, I think.

John Dehlin [00:24:07] And so what do you think they meant by tithing when that, when that section was given?

Rock Waterman [00:24:13] What they meant was, what they meant by it. Oh, is 10% increase.

John Dehlin [00:24:16] What is increase?

Rock Waterman [00:24:17] 10% of increase is what you have left over after your basic needs are met.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] So you earn, let's say you earn 50,000 in a year. You pay all your expenses, you pay

Rock Waterman [00:24:27] your mortgage, you Pay your groceries, you pay your telephone, you pay light, and then you have your disposable income.

John Dehlin [00:24:33] So let's say you got 5,000 left.

Rock Waterman [00:24:35] After all that, you pay 10% of that. So you're tithing a. Your tithing is 500.

John Dehlin [00:24:39] And you think that's how the early saints lived?

Rock Waterman [00:24:41] Oh, yeah, yeah. The first ones, there were two parts of that. The first, the existing saints were to pay, put in all of their surplus, and the surplus is the same thing as increase. It's essential. By the way, I go into a lot of detail about the definition of these words at the time of Joseph Smith. You get these from the 1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary. So there's very little question the meaning of income and increase and surplus. So the first saints were to give all of their surplus. So everything that you have that you didn't need. So, like, for example, if you got some chickens left over or some eggs left over, you give all of that. Okay. Then after that, tithing was 10% of your increase, slash surplus.

John Dehlin [00:25:28] Okay.

Rock Waterman [00:25:29] At the end of each year.

John Dehlin [00:25:30] Okay. And so that's what you think people should pay?

Rock Waterman [00:25:35] Well, I think that's what tithing is. That's what the law of tithing says. And I think, and it's interesting that the first presidency, the very latest doctrinal statement that we have on tithing, was made in 1970 by the First Presidency. And they said no one is justified in saying anything other than this. So you can't say that, you know, it should be paid, paid before you pay your rent, or even if you can't pay your rent, you pay your tithing. All of these myths that have risen up, the law of tithing is inclusive in the law of tithing. And if you go outside of that, then you're, you know, so what happens, you know, the church, instead of. Instead of encouraging the truth, they just allow people to say. And they give talks themselves. My gosh. Was it Jeffrey Holland? I think it was Jeffrey Holland. He quoted a talk by James Talmage that was. Talmadge gave like 1912. And Talmage, in this talk, he said. He said if. He said some. Sometimes you'll have good years, sometimes you'll have bad years. On those bad years, you're not expected to pay. And he's talking about the amount of increase. You know, he's all. He's also says that, you know, you're entitled. You're entitled to the necessities of life and certain luxuries before you pay your tithing. So Holland takes This talk, and he edits it down and he quotes pieces of it and then he adds his own word wording to, and he leaves out all the, all the necessary stuff. And he, you know, the impression is very, very, very much out there that, you know, pay it up front on everything. And there's Lorenzo Snow in the student manual, teaching manual on Lorenzo Snow, the teachings of the prophet Lorenzo Snow. He made a statement that every man, woman and child who has means should pay 10% of their income. Well, for some reason, they just left out those three words who have means.

John Dehlin [00:27:42] Oh, okay.

Rock Waterman [00:27:43] And by the way, the word income at the time that Joseph Smith lived and today, under legal contemplation, does not mean all that comes in. Income means that which you, it's equivalent income to a private person is equivalent to a profit from a business. First you pay your expenses. What you have left over is your income.

John Dehlin [00:28:04] Got it? Okay, so we're paying too much tithing. Talk about the bare necessities. And it looks like that was taken from some type of manual, right?

Rock Waterman [00:28:14] Yeah, it was the mission president's manual, the Appendix B in the mission president's manual. This is Jonathan Straight. Most of us have seen this. It was leaked onto the net a while back, but it took Joseph Streeter to point out that it's the tithing money that is paying for, for the, well, okay, the, the, the, the gist of this piece is a lot of people were still writing to me and asking me, okay, you know, I, I, I understand now that tithing is 10% after my basic living expenses are covered, but how do I, you know, I'm not sure about what I count as basic living expenses, you know, so, you know, of course that's up to you, but here, come here, along comes this thing that actually defines four mission presidents, what their basic living expenses are. And these basic living expenses, as it turns out, were being covered by the tithing money sent in by the saints. So among these things are modest gifts for the anniversary, birthdays, and Christmas. And Jonathan points out that he says, you know, sometimes on my birthday or Christmas, I didn't get a gift, but it's nice to know my tithing money goes to buy it to make sure that the mission president's children get a decent Christmas. So it's a really revealing piece. And I think that this is, I'm pretty sure this is what motivated my being called in by my bishop. So you want to get onto that.

Mission Presidents, Living Expenses, and Benefits

John Dehlin [00:29:45] Any other details about mission presidents and what, what they are and aren't supposed

Rock Waterman [00:29:51] to consider well, yeah, they're also entitled to having a cook and a babysitter for 20 hours a week. That's covered. That's reimbursed by tithing money. Of course, they don't have to pay all their living expenses. Gas and cars provided by the church, so they live pretty well. And in the meantime. Oh, oh, oh. And also, their children are given free tuition at byu. And this is the clincher, because for those of us who scraped and earned to pay for our own missions, if you're the son of a mission president, the church will pay for your mission. And all that comes out of the tithing money of the members. It doesn't come out of the investments that were made on the tithing. Because as we know, tithing goes directly towards. Part of what tithing goes toward is the missionary efforts of the church. So mission presidents, families up to age 25, all kinds of insurance, health insurance, dental insurance, essentially.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] So I have two questions. What does this have to do with our paying of tithing? And what's wrong with mission presidents and their families getting big discounts and reimbursements and benefits?

Rock Waterman [00:31:05] Okay, what this has to do with our paying tithing is it finally shows us what the church considers basic living expenses. So now you can take and you can look at that. You can say, okay, my life insurance, my medical insurance, all of these are basic living expenses that I take out before I pay my tithing.

John Dehlin [00:31:21] And that's what it tells them, to only count their tithing minus all these other expenses.

Rock Waterman [00:31:27] No, what it tells them about tithing is none of that money is to be tied. They don't pay tithing on anything that they. That they. That they receive. Okay, am I making myself clear enough? But what. What made this. What made this so devastating to so many people? They were just actually shocked to see this because this is an actual church document telling the mission presidents, look, you don't have to pay tithing on this. We will reimburse you for all of these things. But these are considered basic living expenses.

John Dehlin [00:31:57] I see. I see. So, so let me just restate. So, so they're getting income from. Well, first of all, mission presidents and their wives, they don't. Do they get a living expense? Do they get.

Rock Waterman [00:32:08] Look, I don't have a problem with it. I don't have a problem with it. I don't have a problem with them, you know, getting their housing and their car and their gas and all these things taken care of. All their groceries are. Especially if, you know. But see, here's the thing. Most of us were raised in the church thinking that mission presidents, they've come from careers where they were doing quite well and they paid for their own mission. So it was an eye opener for a lot of people to realize, wait a minute, they're actually doing all right. Whatever money that they have, it hasn't cost them a thing. And they're even getting their birthday and anniversary and Christmas presents covered by the tithing that you pay. So that was an eye opener for a lot of people. So there are two messages in this piece. Number one is, okay, this is what the church can say if you're having any questions about what are your basic living expenses. Your basic living expenses include extracurricular activities for your children, music lessons, horseback riding, things like that. So you can deduct all that before you pay your tithing.

John Dehlin [00:33:17] Okay? So, so the mission presidents and their wives are told, you're going to receive reimbursement for all this stuff. And before you pay your tithing on whatever money you bring in, you can first, you can first, you know, pay for your kids education, life insurance, health insurance.

Rock Waterman [00:33:35] Well, this isn't what they're no, this isn't what they're telling the mission presidents, they're telling the mission presidents is these are your basic living expenses and we are covering you. Okay. Right now what it's telling the other, what is telling the rest of us is, okay, so that's basic living expenses. So now I know I don't have to pay tithing before I pay my life insurance, before I pay my children's horseback riding lessons or whatever. So. But the other thing that it exposed was that people who are struggling to pay tithing are providing what some would call luxuries.

John Dehlin [00:34:08] Right, right. You know, through the mission gifts and other types of things.

Rock Waterman [00:34:12] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] Private schooling, you're paying for the private schooling of mission presidents. You're paying Mr. President's children, you're paying for their babysitters, you're paying for their housekeeper and their cook.

Rock Waterman [00:34:23] Yeah. And so it's one thing to, it's one thing to cover the expenses of a mission, you know, the legitimate expense of mission, but this is basically all living expenses, all groceries, everything. There isn't anything that you can think of, or there are very few things you can think. I mean, if they want to buy an extra car for themselves, and that's on themselves, but, you know, basically for three years, their living expenses are covered tithing free. Excuse me.

John Dehlin [00:34:50] Yeah. Okay.

Rock Waterman [00:34:51] So that was, that was one message. Well, yeah, so that's the second Mess. The first message is okay to, to you rank and file, normal members. This is what is considered basic living expenses, almost everything. Number two, when you do pay your tithing, here's where it's going. Now if you think that that's something mission presence, you know, just imagine what the general authorities are receiving.

John Dehlin [00:35:17] Right.

Rock Waterman [00:35:18] These guys, I'm sorry, man, these guys are. They're living pretty well. They're living better than many of the people who are paying tithing to support them. And so that's the crime. So that's the crime.

John Dehlin [00:35:28] Right.

Rock Waterman [00:35:29] Because widows were never supposed to be tithed. And what we get now is we get bishops leaning on widows to pay 10% of their gross income to the church. And where does it go? It goes to support priestcraft. There's no other word for it. The Book of Mormon strongly condemns this. They are paying the living expenses and the luxury expenses of men who don't deserve it.

John Dehlin [00:35:56] Nice cars, first class travel, housekeepers, cooks.

Rock Waterman [00:36:00] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:36:01] You know, elite education.

Rock Waterman [00:36:02] Their children. Their children. Their children's missions are paid for. Their children's BYU tuition is paid for, everything. Total insurance, life insurance and health insurance and dental. So this is something that's cut a lot of people up short because when they look at this and they see that they've been struggling and the money goes to pay to make sure that the elite in the church don't have to struggle like they do.

John Dehlin [00:36:35] Right, right. Okay, I think I understand what you're trying to say there. All right, so let's just, let's move a little bit now to. Let's talk briefly just about Damon Smith and Denver Snuffer and those types of folks. I mean, when I say neo fundamentalism, well, what's your reaction to that?

Maverick Mormons and the Denver Snuffer Movement

Rock Waterman [00:37:00] Yeah, I wish you could think of a better term. I can't. Maverick Mormon is one.

John Dehlin [00:37:08] But you understand fundamentalism. It's like saying, let's get back to the basics. We've gone astray.

Rock Waterman [00:37:12] Exactly. But yeah, the only unfortunate thing about it is, as you said earlier, most people equate fundamentalism with something that wasn't fundamental to Mormonism at all, which is polygamy. That, that, that was not fundamental to the Mormon message, in your view, right?

John Dehlin [00:37:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rock Waterman [00:37:29] And by my studied view, yeah, yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] But what do you. So is it fair to say that you and Denver and Damon are all kind of apostles in a movement?

Rock Waterman [00:37:46] Well, that's a, that's a tough question because number one, we don't want followers. None of us. Yeah, you know, that's Weird to say

John Dehlin [00:37:54] with Denver because he's got a ton of them.

Rock Waterman [00:37:56] Well, he doesn't want followers. He has a message. And I will say this. Yes, I believe he's a prophet. And that's a sticky thing to say because the moment you call somebody a prophet, a lot of people in the church go, oh, have you met, have

John Dehlin [00:38:11] you met Denver Snuffer?

Rock Waterman [00:38:12] Never met him. Communicated with him a few times.

John Dehlin [00:38:15] Okay.

Rock Waterman [00:38:15] But I've listened to. And here's what a prophet does. Prophet. He got an assignment from the Lord to convey some information. And he's conveying that information. And the interesting thing is all he's teaching is the scriptures. He's not starting anything new. He's not introducing any new doctrines. He's basically saying, let's get back to looking what the scriptures say. And so he doesn't want followers. The last thing he wants. Embarrassing. In fact, he won't televise, not televise, videotape his talks because he doesn't want people looking at him and getting distracted by who he is. And Damon has performed an invaluable service in showing us that. Whoa. We've been off track from the beginning because when I saw that the Lord told Joseph Smith in 1833 that the church is under condemnation for not reading the Book of Mormon and following its precepts, I thought what I thought, maybe you can say that today. But in 1833, wasn't everybody reading it? Damon shows the. That nobody was reading it. What they were doing with the Rigdonites and Parley P. Pratt and others, they were thumbing through it and they'd come across things that seemed to them to support their previously held ideas and they would run with that. So from the beginning, the church, okay, there should never have been a formal organized church centered around the Book of Mormon. That's what John David Whitmer says, and I inclined to agree with them. Now, should there be a church? Yeah, a church. A community of like minded believers. But we've gotten away from that and now we are. We belong to a corporation that sees us the way employees do. You know, we don't want to get on the wrong side of the bosses of the executives upstairs. We sure don't want to get them mad at us, you know, we want to make sure we're doing everything they say. When they tell us to obey, we obey. We act like employees of a corporation. They don't own us. They don't even own the church. They don't even own the gospel. They don't own the Book of Mormon. But they act as if they do and we act as if they do. And that's what gives them power. We act as if they are in charge of us. There is no one in charge of you. Jesus Christ is your God, not the church and not the leaders. And he says there is no other gatekeeper. I'm the one. And yet we want to filter our gospel. We want to ask, what does the church say about this? What do the church think? What is the church's position? Meaning what do the leaders say? What do the leaders position? We got to get away from that.

John Dehlin [00:40:58] Okay.

Rock Waterman [00:40:59] I sound like a preacher, don't I?

John Dehlin [00:41:01] Yeah, yeah. So you're saying.

Rock Waterman [00:41:03] Okay, we were talking about Denver and Damon. I'm sorry, no.

John Dehlin [00:41:06] So you, Denver and Damon don't want followers. But you all, where do you all agree? You all agree that the church is in. Is corrupt, kind of under condemnation, that the brethren have led us astray. That's all where you're similar. Right?

Rock Waterman [00:41:19] Well, Denver is an interesting character because from what I have read, and I certainly haven't read everything he's done, but he seems to believe in sustaining the leaders while at the same time the reason he was excommunicated was he wrote a book on the history of church leadership. And that church leadership shows that there's some real gaps in the authority. And you know, as Wilford Woodruff said, he. He said, you know, at the time of Joseph Smith's death, we didn't know what the keys were or what keys we had or what they did. And of course we've, over time we have created a revisionist history where there was a smooth transition and all these guys have the keys. Let me recommend something to the listeners. I wrote a piece called Training Day in which it's kind of a horse. Laugh at the idea that these guys have all these keys that they're always bragging about. They never explain what they are. But we got the keys, keys, keys. They don't know what they're talking about. They honestly don't know what they're talking about. They think that they hold the priesthood. They actually define the priesthood as the right to control the authority to control God. You don't have the authority to control God. And there's no gifts. Let's. Well, here's what I'm looking at. Here's what motivates me. We live in a church or we're members of a church today that is so different from the church in Joseph Smith's day. We don't even recognize the Differences. There were gifts in those days, gifts of the spirit. People spoke in tongues. There were healings. Women were healing, giving blessings and healing. We saw miracles all the time. Now today we say we have prophets and apostles and we give blessings, but most of those blessings never take. Most people who give a blessing to a sick person, they don't see an instant healing, and they always qualify it with some term like conditional upon your faith or whatever. We're not seeing the gifts of the Spirit, and yet we seem to think that nothing's changed. Everything's changed. The church is not the same. Okay, so I forgot where we.

John Dehlin [00:43:41] No, so you. So you rock. I'm just. I'm trying to get a sense for whether that's. There's a movement afoot.

Rock Waterman [00:43:47] Oh, yeah, well, there is, but I'm. I'm. None of us are leaders of it. And I'll tell you why there's later if you look on my blog on the lower somewhere on the right hand sage, there's my blog role. You know, it's headed. There's a heading that says blogs, I think are worth a look. Quite a few of those are blogs from people who have awakened, just as I have. I didn't start a movement. Neither did Denver. Neither did. But there's. I think there's a way. I think the spirit moves throughout this church and is moving on a lot of people. And these are just the bloggers, you know, these are just people who've decided. Have been moved enough to start a blog. And when I started this thing, I didn't even know there was others out there. And then I started seeing there were, and then more camera, but they're not, you know, they're not springboarding off me. There is a. There is an awakening that something is not quite right in the church today, and yet an understanding that the fundamental cores, the core fundamentals of the gospel are true and valid and of great worth.

John Dehlin [00:44:53] What do these people call themselves if they don't like Neo, what do they call themselves? Well, I.

Rock Waterman [00:44:59] Like I said, I've referred to the rest of them as maverick Mormons. I don't even see myself as a maverick Mormon. You know, basically, look, I called my blog Pure Mormonism because I'm looking to see. I'm trying to find out what's pure about Mormonism. And here's where it comes down to very simple. We are a church. What do we say that differentiates us from all the other churches? Well, at least this is what I taught on my mission, that we are a church. That believes in continuing revelation. In other words, the Bible isn't the last word. God continues to speak to men. So, okay, so that's our mantra. And yet if you look around for revelation, you can't find one. So where are these revelations? There's something wrong with a church that boasts of continuing revelation and can't show one.

John Dehlin [00:45:50] Yeah, I was looking at all the sections on the Doctrine and Covenants other than. So if you go up to section 130. Where's 130? Wait, what's 137? Let me just look. Okay, that's incurred. So if you go 138 up to section 137 of the Doctrine of Covenants, they all happened before 1847. Seven. So you've got. You've got 137 sections of the Doctrine of Covenants occurring through section 1847. And then you've got one released in the 20th century, which is section 138, and that's it.

Rock Waterman [00:46:33] Yeah. And even that isn't a. That isn't a revelation. That's a vision.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Right. And then you've got the two official declarations, which aren't really. They're not even called sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. And all they're really doing is undoing, you know, policies. But they're not having anything to do with. With Doctrine or Covenants, basically.

Rock Waterman [00:46:54] Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, they're. They're like section 20. A lot of them are said. Said to be revelations, but they're not revelations. You know what Brigham Young said about revelation? He said, I receive revelation all the time. I get revelations from my wives, I get revelations from my friends, because every time somebody tells me something I didn't know before, that's a revelation. But he also, in other places, he said, I'm not a prophet, so he doesn't get revelation. I never claimed to be a prophet like Joseph or Daniel. He doesn't receive revelations from God. But he's right about what a revelation is. A revelation is something new that wasn't known before, and we're not getting that in the Church.

John Dehlin [00:47:30] Yeah, and it's weird that nobody pays attention to this.

Rock Waterman [00:47:36] Well, how come it took me so long to notice? This takes me back to my baptism of fire. I got a lot smarter after that. And I don't mean I'm more intelligent. I just started wisdom. And that's when I was motivated to start the blog. I was actually motivated to start the blog because I looked around and I saw this is at the time just after 9, 11, and everybody was gung ho about going to war and we're going to send our men to fight battles overseas. And I said, well, wait a minute, what about the lessons of the Book of Mormon? There's two lessons in the Book of Mormon about war. You can distill it all to two lines. One, we have a duty and a responsibility to repel an invasion from our own lands, to defend our homes and our children, our families and our lands. But the second part of that is we are absolutely forbidden to take the battle into another land. Another people's land is off limits. And D&C98 clarifies this, where the Lord says, says, You're not to go into battle against any nation, kindred tongue or people unless I, the Lord, command it. So now here we have all these members of the church going gung ho. Usa. Usa. Let's go get them. And I thought, wait a minute, these are Mormons. And then I listened to President Hinckley's talk where, you know, three weeks in the conference, three weeks after the bomb started falling in Iraq, and he was very unequivocal about it, and he was basically saying, now here's the prophet of God. Mind you, he's saying, you know, we really have to defer to the experts on this. You know what? The prophet of God is supposed to be the one. So we all tuned in to find out what he was going to say. And he just said, who knows? And basically he said, my personal opinion. Well, wait a minute, your personal opinion? I don't want your personal opinion. I want God's personal opinion. But he says, my personal opinion is that this will all be over with soon. Well, he was wrong, wasn't he?

John Dehlin [00:49:36] Anyway, okay, so you're not big on

Rock Waterman [00:49:38] war, so let me just say this. So. So that motivated my first piece, my first blog piece, which was entitled Toby Keith and the. And the Destruction of the Nephites. And then from there, you know, I just kept hitting different topics, like how we've. How we've completely turned the word of Wisdom on its head. And, you know, beer is. Beer is not restricted in the word of wisdom. Beer is something that, that I've learned now. I still can't stand the taste of it, so I don't drink it. But God put it on this earth because our bodies need it.

John Dehlin [00:50:10] Right.

Rock Waterman [00:50:12] So go ahead. Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:50:13] No, no, no. So you're. So, you think. You think that. That it's okay to drink beer, right? Yeah. Okay, you're.

Rock Waterman [00:50:20] Well, it's right there in verse 17 in the. In The. You know, that's what barley is for.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] Drinks of barley, right?

Rock Waterman [00:50:26] Yeah. There's a difference between strong drink and the. In the.

John Dehlin [00:50:28] The.

Rock Waterman [00:50:29] In the word of wisdom and mild drinks. But anyway, what I was getting at was that this was the purpose of my blog. Let's start looking at these things that we're believing that are off kiltron and that aren't true.

John Dehlin [00:50:43] Okay. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I want to get to your. Your interaction with your bishop or stake president. I want to close out a few quick issues, so I'm gonna ask you to be super brief. Okay.

Baptism, Priesthood, and Church Membership Today

Rock Waterman [00:50:51] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:50:52] So we were paying too much tithing. True. Okay. The brethren are kind of participating in priestcraft, in your view, in terms of the salaries and the compensation packages that they receive. True?

Rock Waterman [00:51:07] Well, yes, they get paid for preaching. That's priestcraft.

John Dehlin [00:51:10] Yeah. Okay. What about the requirement and short answers, please? The requirements of baptism by water in the Mormon Church by someone with authority to go to heaven. Is that your belief or not?

Rock Waterman [00:51:26] As quickly as I can. Baptism was never intended to put you into. Baptize you into a particular denomination. Baptism is required to enter the Kingdom of God. So baptism, whether or not authority is required now. I don't know anymore. I really don't know anymore. I've always believed that, but I'm not sure. I don't know. But baptism itself is a requirement. But it doesn't make you a Mormon. When you're baptized by Mormons, what makes you a Mormon is when you're confirmed a member of the church.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Okay, so but you're saying baptism is required to go to hell.

Rock Waterman [00:51:57] Okay, I'm going to rephrase that. What makes you a Mormon is if you accept the Book of Mormon. That's why I'm a Mormon, whether I was baptized or not. But what makes you a member of the church is being confirmed member of the church. Baptism has nothing to do with putting you into this church or with joining the church.

John Dehlin [00:52:11] But is God keeping you out of heaven if you're not baptized by water?

Rock Waterman [00:52:17] I don't know. I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:52:19] Okay.

Rock Waterman [00:52:20] The Kingdom of Heaven is something different from heaven. Kingdom of Heaven is going to be, I think, an organization. And Brigham Young said some people who will be leaders in the Kingdom of Heaven won't even be members of the church. So you don't even have to be a Mormon to be in the Kingdom of Heaven.

John Dehlin [00:52:35] Okay. All right. So ironic. And Melchizedek priesthood, as you know, exclusive authority to conduct God's ordinances and to lead the church. You buy it or not buy it.

Rock Waterman [00:52:50] I am absolutely confused now about priesthood authority because I've been learning so much more, so much about it that indicates we may not have it. Well, the gifts should follow, right?

John Dehlin [00:53:04] If there's true authority, there's gifts that follow. You're not seeing the gifts.

Rock Waterman [00:53:07] Right. And the true priesthood is given directly from God to man. To say a person is anointed of God, you have to be anointed from God, not anointed from another man. Joseph Smith Translation of Bible Genesis 14 explains what a person who actually has the priesthood should be able to do. Divide mountains, foot rivers off their course. All this stuff, we don't see that.

John Dehlin [00:53:32] Okay, what about eternal marriage and the endowment ceremony? Legitimate, non necessary.

Rock Waterman [00:53:41] I'll say this about marriage first. I believe in the ceilings. I don't know. Then this is the important thing that I want to stress here. I don't claim to know anything. I used to go up on the stand at testimony meeting, say I know this and I know that I don't know anymore. But I believe that a ceiling is important. But the important thing about marriage is you're supposed to be married in public first. That was the doctrine in DNC 101 before it was removed. It's supposed to be a public wedding and then you can get sealed today. If you get sealed publicly, then you have to wait a year.

John Dehlin [00:54:12] You don't like that?

Rock Waterman [00:54:13] No.

John Dehlin [00:54:14] Okay. Homosexuality and gay marriage. Thoughts?

Rock Waterman [00:54:19] Well, I don't care. And I wrote a piece called that. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care. Because the Lord hasn't said anything about it at all in any revelation or anywhere in the Book of Mormon. I'm baffled by homosexuality. I don't understand it. I don't understand it. As I said, I agree with the Dynasty guy. You know, vagina seems to me to be the preferable method. So I don't understand it. But I also am not going to take a stand against it since I've not been ordered to. There's nothing. This is a church thing. This is not a teaching of God. God has never said anything about homosexuality. And when it was spoken of it was in the Old Testament and we don't know how dependable that is.

John Dehlin [00:55:04] Okay, so what about the argument that modern day revelation that the brethren are allowed to change things because that's what it's about. It's like the 14 fundamentals of following the prophet, that a modern day revelation always supersedes a previous revelation.

Rock Waterman [00:55:22] Well, a Revelation would. But that's not what we've gotten, has it?

John Dehlin [00:55:26] We've just gotten policy changes.

Rock Waterman [00:55:28] Yourself. Yeah, we get policy changes. And no general authority has the authority. Somebody once asked me, well, what would you, what would you do if the prophet told you not to drink beer? I said, well, first off, you know, I'd ask him to show me the revelation so that I can pray about it and get a witness of the Holy Ghost. But if he just told me, he doesn't have. He's not the Pope. He doesn't have the authority to say, you can't drink beer. That's against the rules. No, it isn't. You can't supersede God unless God has told you. And then we get to pray about it. We receive a witness, and then we all vote before the congregation about whether or not we're going to accept.

John Dehlin [00:56:05] So what's it called when we worship the prophets more than we worship God? What do you call that?

Rock Waterman [00:56:11] Idolatry.

John Dehlin [00:56:12] So you think the members of the church are guilty of idolatry, idolizing their leaders?

Rock Waterman [00:56:16] There's no question. Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith quoted Ezekiel 14 to that very, to that very end where he. And he then he turned to the, the people and said, in Ezekiel 14, God says, that man who goes to the prophet to learn about me, I'm not going to have anything to do with him paraphrasing God again. And Joseph turned to the congregation and said, the people are darkened. Oh, he says, I will darken his mind. You know, and this is the interesting thing about that scripture. Just let me say so Joseph Smith turned to the congregation, said, the people are darkened in their minds because they're depending too much on the prophet. And this is the interesting thing about this. The more I see the. That of TBMs who are focused on this worship, you know, focusing on the prophet, following the prophet, the more they are darkened in their minds. They simply cannot see. They cannot conceive of the church having any other meaning, that it is a. It is a follow the prophet type of thing. We have to look to the executives of this corporation. For all of, you know, look to Big brother.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] Okay. All right, let's go on to your interactions with your bishop and stake president. What happened? How did you get called in and who have you talked to and what's been the outcome?

Rock's Personal Situation and Excommunication

Rock Waterman [00:57:33] Well, first off, I should say I haven't attended church all of last year because. Because the timing. My wife's a semi invalid and she needs me here at home at certain times. But I used to pop in a couple of times a month. So I know this bishop, like him very much. But he called me and I haven't been there in a year. He called and I, you know, I had his. Had a secretary call. I came in and we made some small talk. And basically he told me he'd been getting some communications, wondering why I haven't. He hasn't done something about me. What, what are you talking about? Well, he says, do you, do you don't believe the prophets get revelations? I said, well, I haven't seen any. And he said, well, I see. I know they get revelations all the time. I said, well, then I'd love to see one. So we went around and around about

John Dehlin [00:58:26] that for Ensign, basically inside talks, you

Rock Waterman [00:58:29] know, he said, I've, I've sat in meetings with these men and I've seen them get revelation. Well, you know, so he has a different definition of word revelation is, than I do. My understanding of revelation is what the scriptures always taught, that they are revealing something. Deuteronomy 18 says that, that a prophet will speak the words God has put into his mouth. He's not going to just keep them to himself. So if he's getting a revelation. So I think he's mistaking inspiration for revelation. But anyway, he also told me the stake president will be wanting to meet with me and we'll have some questions. This is several weeks ago, more than a month, and I asked him. I also gave him the same invitation that all my readers know about that, you know, if you find something in one of my pieces that is undoctrinal or an error, please let me know. I'll correct it. So I said this to the bishop. He says, well, I don't read your blog. I said, why not? He says, I don't want to. So he's clearly coming from a position of having been given some orders from above. And so I recommended that before the stake president, I said, why don't you suggest the stake president read these two pieces? One of them is my testimony of the church and the other is who you call an apostate. And you can find those listeners can find those listed on the right hand side of my blog who you call an apostate and my testimony of the church. And also I would recommend now the actual message, the Book of Mormon. So if you want to know where I'm coming from, you know, that'll give you an idea. Because what I'm coming from is basically, look, I'm a firm believer. I consider myself more devout in the faith than Ever in my life. And so it is. It's interesting that there seems to be a move afoot to boot me out. But, you know, after the excommunicated September 6th back in 1994, there was a huge backlash. The church learned a lesson from that because most of the members looked at these. The people they kicked out of the church were believing Latter Day Saints. There was nothing apostate about them. And so that was a mistake. But now, 20 years later, they did it again with Denver Snuffer. I mean, here's. Here's a devoted member of the church who's faithful in everything in the gospel, and yet they kick him out. Well, why? Because they wanted him to take his book off the market. That's a crazy thing for a church to ask people to do. So it wouldn't surprise me, but it wouldn't change anything. I mean, if I was excommunicated from the church. This is a corporation. They can only take me away from the corporation. They can't kick me out of the Church of Jesus Christ. That's defined in dignity and 1067 as all who repent and come unto me. So I'm still in the church. I'll still be a Mormon because that's what you call somebody who believes in the Book of Mormon. I'll still have whatever priesthood I have. Nothing will change. I don't attend anyway. And by the way, on that topic, I think it's really interesting. Every time they excommunicate somebody from the church, one of the first things they do is they tell them, now you're encouraged to continue attending the meetings. You just can't speak out. You can't speak in church. But we sure want you to come. Well, wait a minute. Excommunication in Joseph Smith's day meant you're out. We don't want to associate with you. X means out. So what are they saying? Please make sure you're welcome to come. The other thing that I find interesting, they said, now you can't pay your tithing while you're excommunicated. But some members find it a good idea to put their tithing in a savings account, and then when they come back in the church, then they can pay that tithing. So I get a kick out of that. But anyway, the thing is, I think they expected Denver to come crawling back and repenting and saying, I'm sorry I offended you holy popes. You know, if that's what they expect from me, I'm not going to swap my testimony of Christ for a testimony of the church. I'm not going to do it. I have a firm testimony that Jesus Christ loves me and that whatever I do, I make mistakes all the time, but part of the learning process and he'll continue to love me. And you know, all these hoops that the church wants you to jump through to get back in their good graces. Who needs it? So basically, is there a movement? Yeah, there is a movement out there. And there's a lot of people. There's a lot of people who have left the church and there's a lot of people who quietly slipped away. They don't feel they need this organization to continue to worship Christ. Joseph Smith said something interesting. He said, I get more out of sitting under a tree for an hour of my scriptures than I do sitting in a church meeting. And I concur.

The Size and Future of Reform-Minded Mormonism

John Dehlin [01:03:13] If you had to estimate how many people sort of view things like you and Denver and Damon.

Rock Waterman [01:03:19] Well, I get letters, I get emails at the rate of about three a week. A lot of comments on my blog. I don't know. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] You think it's 500? You think it's a thousand? You think it's 10,000?

Rock Waterman [01:03:32] You know what I think? Well, I get 64. I got 64,000 readers last month. So there's a. There's a good chunk of people who are. Who are reading these. I'm going to hit the million mark within a couple of weeks.

John Dehlin [01:03:44] Of hits. Your website. You mean of hits?

Rock Waterman [01:03:46] Yeah. That's not a million people. It's the Same people. Same 30 or 40 people coming back. But there's an awakening.

John Dehlin [01:03:53] You think it's in the thousands? Maybe, yeah. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Which one?

Rock Waterman [01:03:59] Tens of thousands.

John Dehlin [01:04:00] And where do they congregate? How do they communicate with each other? How do they. How do they. What's their social hub?

Rock Waterman [01:04:08] Well, your. Your Facebook page. What?

John Dehlin [01:04:12] What?

Rock Waterman [01:04:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:13] Where?

Rock Waterman [01:04:14] Yes, you see them there.

John Dehlin [01:04:16] Mormon stories.

Rock Waterman [01:04:17] Yeah, Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:04:18] But that's not central. Like, where is the place?

Rock Waterman [01:04:20] There's no central hub. This is the thing, and this is the thing that I think puzzles the church hierarchy today. They can't imagine that we might not want a leader. There's no leaders in the first century church. There were no real leaders. I mean, there were the traveling apostles who went out preaching, but the Christians met together in homes and worshiped and sang and ate together. Because there is an association here in Sacramento. We get together every few months. You know, it's a loose knit group. Those of us who live in the area. In fact, we're Associated through Mormon stories, Sacramento region that you started.

John Dehlin [01:05:05] Wow. I've laid railroad tracks for the Neo. It's like Neo fuzzies.

Rock Waterman [01:05:11] It's like a meetup. Okay. But see, the thing is, we don't. We go our separate way. We don't. We don't have leaders. We don't have anybody in charge. And I think that's what puzzles people. In fact, my bishop asked me, you know, we were talking about revelations. He says, okay, Rock, what's your idea? If you heard a revelation, what kind of revelation? What would you expect? And I said, I don't know. I said, that's what a revelation is. It's something new, revealed. And he says, you know, I'm really glad to hear you say that. And I didn't know what he meant until reflecting on it later, I realized he. I assumed that I was going. The next thing I was going to say was that I've received personal revelation that I should lead this movement. We don't need a movement. We don't need leaders. Is it a church? Yeah, it's a church in the sense that we are a community of believers. But we're on the Mormon Hub. We're on. Okay, that's another Facebook page exploring sainthood. There are people on the LDS Freedom Forum talking about New Order Mormonism. There's a place all the time. It's like church, church where we can learn from one another.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] I still want you guys to give yourselves a name, because if you don't feel fundamentalists, I want a better name.

Rock Waterman [01:06:19] All right. The Church of Rockwater.

John Dehlin [01:06:21] Oh, no. Okay, so if you're excommunicated, you don't care?

Rock Waterman [01:06:27] No, I don't. It won't change my life a little bit. I won't change my relationship with God at all.

John Dehlin [01:06:33] You're kind of hoping it happens, then.

Rock Waterman [01:06:35] No, I don't care. Because here's the thing. I'm not going to quit. You have to fire me. I think we should all be in this. I think we should remain in the church. And by the way, I don't mean capital C, church. We should remain. Congruence and fellow travelers, you know, fellow. How did Paul put it? Fellow. Something with the Saints. We should remain here. At some point, Christ has said he's going to send one mighty and strong to set his house in order. And I suppose I'd kind of like to be around when it happens.

John Dehlin [01:07:07] Is that not Denver? No. And it's not. And it's not Damon.

Rock Waterman [01:07:13] I don't think it's any of us. No. We have no idea who it is.

John Dehlin [01:07:16] Someone's still coming.

Rock Waterman [01:07:17] Somebody asked me if I thought I was the one mighty and strong. I said, I'm the one feeble and asthmatic. No, I think. I don't know how or when it'll happen, but.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] And that's in the doctrine.

Rock Waterman [01:07:32] Well, you know, I shouldn't say no about Denver, but I don't think so. Denver doesn't want fall down. Denver doesn't. Denver has an assignment to carry out. He's carrying out that assignment. He's not setting the church in order, but it will come from outside. And I think we're going to lose a lot more members before it happens. And this church will be. You know, it'll be home to a core group of very faithful and obedient idolaters.

What Rock Would Change About the Church

John Dehlin [01:07:57] Okay, so if the brethren came to you and said, rock, we've been doing it all wrong, where do we go from here? Help us right the ship, what would you have them do?

Rock Waterman [01:08:05] I was asked what I would do to change the church. I'd say stop wearing suits and white ties. That's it. That's all I got, because I'm not. This isn't my. This isn't my church. It's not my. This isn't my organization. It's not my job to write the ship. It's not my thing. You know, I'm just. I'm just a humble follower of Christ, you know, and that's all I want to do. I want to follow Christ. And if you want to have a. Have a church and you want to build. Build malls and things, well, I'm going to criticize you about it, whether I'm a member or not, because I don't think it's something that a church should be involved in. I don't think that this is. I don't think this. This is what the members thought that their money was going for. But I'm not going to. You know, I don't. You know, you put me in charge and say, here, you take it. I'll say, no, thanks. I walk away. It's not my deal.

John Dehlin [01:08:50] Yeah.

Rock Waterman [01:08:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:50] Yeah. Okay. All right. Rock. Well, this has been fascinating any. You know, I often give my. My interviewees a chance to kind of bear their testimony at the end. Any final thing you want to say or any final testimony you want to share with the listeners.

Rock Waterman [01:09:06] Yeah. You know, I really, really love the gospel. I love the fact that I'm seeing it with new eyes now. And, you know, once you can separate the church from the gospel, as Elder Pullman said in his talk, and he said, there's a distinct difference between the church and the gospel. And most of us haven't learned that the church is just the vehicle for getting the gospel to us, but we should be focusing on the gospel. I love the Book of Mormon. You know, this doesn't sound like the average can testimony, but, you know, I prefer reading the Book of Mormon in. Damon Smith has put together a version of it where it's in a more narrative flow and like, similar to the 1830 edition. 1830 edition is kind of hard to read because the type didn't all reproduce well. But I recommend reading a version like that where you can just read and the flow is there and you're not broken up by verses and you get a better feel for it. I feel like I've come to know Christ more than ever. I've never met him, never seen him, never. You know.

John Dehlin [01:10:22] Are you trying. Are you trying to get the visitation like Denver?

Rock Waterman [01:10:25] No, I'm not even trying yet. I haven't even read his book. I suppose one day I will. Connie is reading it right now. That's my wife.

John Dehlin [01:10:33] But you're not trying to get a visit from Jesus, like, well, here's the thing.

Rock Waterman [01:10:36] I don't really believe I'm entitled to one. And that's probably. And that's to put it bluntly. And if we all are, then I need to get past that and realize that we're all entitled to, you know, to become close to Christ. What I'm trying to do now is emulate him. You know, I'm trying to undo a lifetime worth of being stingy and selfish, and I give away more money than I should directly to those who need it. And sometimes we get a pinch because of it. And interesting enough, somebody always comes to my rescue. So I know that there's a God out there watching over us. I love God. Once again, this. This. This is. We got to get away from the church. We got to stop hanging on the words of the brethren, the General Conference, who don't teach us anything, and look to the. You know, it's amazing how much the Book of Mormon teaches us that we didn't know and how when we separate, when we stop thinking about it and stop filtering it through what the church teaches us, we start to get the message like that grace, you know, Jesus's grace is sufficient, that he is able to deliver. I guess that's all I have to say. It's a great ride and life is really interesting, and it's hard at times, but, you know, knowing God is there. And here's the, here's the cool thing. I also am aware of, of angels. I have four or five angels that are, I don't know, assigned to me. I haven't seen them or met them, but I'm aware of them. And I don't know how to. How to better put that. And they have helped me write this blog.

John Dehlin [01:12:22] Wow.

Rock Waterman [01:12:23] And they, they. Somebody, one of them must be a pretty, pretty good writer because sometimes I'll read, reread a piece and I'll say, wow, that's. That was pretty good. Did that come out of me? Because I, you know, I never knew how to write before this.

John Dehlin [01:12:41] Well, that's powerful stuff, Rock. Thanks for. Thanks for sharing with us your story and your perspective. I wish you well.

Rock Waterman [01:12:49] Thank you, John. It was a pleasure. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. And I hope I didn't come off too abrasive. I know I do sometimes, but. No, I'm enthusiastic.

John Dehlin [01:12:59] Please take good notes or record or whatever you need to do, your interactions with your stake president. If they happen, we'd love to have you back to tell us how that ends up.

Rock Waterman [01:13:07] Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. You know, I thought I'd write about it, but it might be easier to just talk about it.

John Dehlin [01:13:11] Yeah. All right, Rock, thanks so much for coming on Mormon Stories.

Rock Waterman [01:13:15] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [01:13:16] The blog is pure Mormonism. This has been Alan Rock Waterman. So thanks again, Rock.

Rock Waterman [01:13:23] Thank you, John. Bye. Bye.

John Dehlin [01:13:24] Okay, bye.

Rock Waterman [01:13:45] Come, come, ye saints.

John Dehlin [01:13:48] No toil nor labor fear,

Rock Waterman [01:13:52] but with joy.

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