What Do Mormons Believe? | Theological with Shabbos Kestenbaum

Jesus, after his resurrection, came to the Americas. That is a core tenet of your belief. What are we, as non-Mormons, getting wrong about your faith? Do we believe in a literal hell with flames and pitchforks? No. We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ can create more joy, happiness, unity within families, and that there is great eternal relief, but also that Jesus, after his resurrection, came and appeared to groups of people here in the Americas. What in the world was Jesus doing in the Americas? Who was he talking to? What were they talking about? Just educate me. Well, I'm really excited for our guest today, Michael Stanley. You are the president of the Santa Clarita Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly referred to as the Mormon Church. Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you for the opportunity. This is exciting. Yeah, so I have to say, my claim to fame is my commute to work each day to PragerU has me past the Los Angeles Mormon Church Visitor Center, which is the second largest Mormon temple in the world. I see the Golden Angel Moroni on my way to work each day, and I've always been fascinated by Mormonism. In fact, when I was at Harvard studying religion, I had two Mormon missionaries, Elder Brock and Elder Thomas, come to my house every Friday afternoon before Shabbat. I was very clear with them. I wasn't really interested in converting, although if they wanted, they can make a good argument. I was really just interested in studying their religion, and I became somewhat familiar with the Book of Mormon. I want to frame the conversation as follows. The advent of Judaism is roughly the second millennium BC. You then have the advent of Christianity roughly the first century CE. Islam comes a little later in the seventh century CE. But the Book of Mormon, not only does it come roughly 1,800 years later, it's very specific as to the advent of Mormonism. It's April 6th, 1830. Okay, very direct. And one of the things that I find most fascinating about the Book of Mormon is one of your faith-based claims is that Jesus, after his resurrection in Jerusalem, came to the Americas, like where we live today, and he spoke with the Native Americans. And I don't think enough Americans today know that that is a core tenet of your belief. So before we get into the substantive part of our conversation, if you can just educate myself and educate our listeners, what in the world was Jesus doing in the Americas? Who was he talking to? What were they talking about? Just educate me, because it's just such a fascinating part of American culture and also just your religion. Well, thank you for asking. That's a fun question. First, I'm grateful that you look at the temple each day and it points you toward heaven. Yes. Isn't that wonderful? It's a good way of starting my day. A large, beautiful building. The Book of Mormon starts off with 600 years before Christ in Jerusalem with other prophets, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and others, where God commanded a prophet named Lehi to leave Jerusalem and ultimately come to the Americas. So he and his family left Jerusalem, came to the Americas. That's how they got here. But they were prophets just like the old. They had the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible that they had up to that point in time, that they took with them. We believe that Jesus Christ established religion in his church, re-established his church in Jerusalem, and he's made this statement. He said, Other sheep I have that are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and there'll be one fold and one shepherd. So we believe that Jesus, after his resurrection, came and appeared to groups of people here in the Americas. While he was here, he taught them of his religion. He taught them many of the same tenets that he taught them in Jerusalem. He blessed the children. He healed the sick, cared for the blind, and really established a leadership there. 400 years later, ultimately, the wicked overtook the righteous, and they were all killed off. Well, that 1,000 years worth of history was written down by those prophets and written on golden tablets that don't corrode, right? And the last living prophet, well, Mormon, compiled all of the records of that thousands of years and gave it to his son Moroni, who then buried those in a hillside that, in 1830, the young boy Joseph Smith unburied and translated into what we have today as the Book of Mormon. So yes, Jesus Christ did appear here in the Americas and taught his gospel. And so the Book of Mormon with the Bible both testify of the Savior Jesus Christ. One other quick clarifying point before we get into the conversation, you mentioned prophets. Judaism believes that after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, we just lost prophecy. There's an idea in the Talmud that, you know, young kids can have prophecy, but it's really not taken literally. However, the Mormon Church, in the same way that there is a Pope who's the head of the Catholic Church, you have the president of a Mormon Church, but he's not just the president. He's an actual prophet. He is a living, walking, breathing prophet who can give prophecy. Can you talk a little bit about having a living prophet today? Now, we sustain Dallin Oaks today as prophet, seer, and revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and by default, the world, really. The same kind of a prophet as we would talk about in the Hebrew Bible, Abraham, Moses, and others, that he is at the head of the Church and can receive revelation for the Church on any topic at any time. Usually it's confined to clarification and the guidance and direction within the Church, a response to the world that we live in, to be more kind, to be more just, those kinds of teachings. So will young students at Brigham Young University in Utah, if they're seeking direction or clarity or answers in life, can they go to the prophet and ask for guidance? Well, that's a great question. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now is over 17 million individuals. There was a day that a person could literally walk into the office and say, Brigham, I've got a problem. Instead, what they do, every six months we have a general conference of the Church, and not only the prophet, but the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will also speak, along with other sister leaders, female leaders of the Church, will speak. That's held on the first Saturday and Sunday of April, and the first Saturday and Sunday of October. We welcome all the world to view those proceedings, to hear what a living prophet might say and do. I would also just add, as someone who watches some of the general conference speeches, I believe it was President Munson who gave a speech that really encapsulates the similarities between Judaism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is, he said, dare to be a Mormon, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm, and dare to make it known. As in, in the face, both quantitatively or qualitatively, of adversity and hostility, remember that you are a Mormon, you are a man of God, and I can relate to that as a Jewish person, that Jews who have a very similar history as Mormons in terms of oppression, discrimination. In fact, you quite literally have to find your Land of Zion. I mean, Pioneers Day in Utah celebrates when the Mormons who were expelled from parts of the United States found their Land of Zion on Utah, and we, of course, have the Land of Zion, which is the modern state of Israel. So I just find the the similarities historically, culturally, religiously, to be overwhelming and really obvious. But I do want to get into the meat and potatoes here, which is the impetus of our conversation. For our viewers watching, I would imagine that a significant amount of them know your faith because of the Broadway play, The Book of Mormon, or they know your faith because of how I know your faith, which is, two Mormon missionaries knocked on my door one day and said, hey, do you want to pray together and learn the Book of Mormon? And proselytizing, conversion, is a core component of your faith. I have two more missionaries here in Los Angeles that I meet with about once every other week, two sisters, and they're 19 and 20 years old, I believe, and I asked them in the beginning of our conversations, I said, I don't get it. You haven't been to college. You're in the prime of your life. Why are you doing this? They're not from Los Angeles. They actually have to learn Chinese because they primarily deal with Chinese immigrants living in Los Angeles. Why are you doing this? Spreading your religion to strangers. And they said something that was just a tremendous paradigm shift for how I view your faith and how I view religion, broadly speaking, and they said, if you have the cure to cancer, like you knew what the cure to cancer was, you have an obligation, number one, to tell people about it, and number two, on a personal level, you would just be so excited to tell people about it. You would not be able to fall asleep at night until every person on planet Earth knew what this cure was. And similarly, these sisters and the elders, which is the female term and the male term for missionaries, they really do believe that they have the cure to societal ailments. They really believe they have the cure to happiness, to salvation, to spirituality, and they just can't help themselves but spread that message. And I found that such a remarkable answer. I found it so remarkable, in fact, that the next time I was in Jerusalem, I went to visit my rabbi in the Old City of Jerusalem, and I asked him this question. I said, I met these two Mormon missionaries, which I think he was a little stunned to hear, and I had said, how come we Jews, who believe that we also have truth, how come we don't proselytize? How come we don't convert? How come we're not as enthusiastic as these young Mormons are? So I'm just curious, why is proselytizing such a key component to the Mormon faith? Well, it is interesting. There are a lot of similarities between the Latter-day Saints and our Jewish friends. Numbers wise, we're at 17.5 million. The Jews are just slightly less than that. To your point, to the missionaries, we believe that Jesus, before he ascended into heaven, said, go ye into all the world. We take that literally as a commandment, if you will, that we go into all the world and share what we know. Now, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the answers to all of the problems of the world? Do we still have challenges in our lives? Yes. Do we still deal with some of those ailments? Yes. However, we believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ can create more joy, happiness, unity within families, and that there is great eternal relief that comes from that. Now, to the missionaries. We now have over 80,000 missionaries serving worldwide. They serve for 18 months to two years. Typically, they're leaving at 18, 19 years old, maybe as late as 25. We also have hundreds and hundreds of senior missionaries that retire and go into the world, sometimes on humanitarian missions to take care of the poor and the needy, to teach leadership, to drill wells, to use their life skills to do those kinds of things. But our young missionaries, the process is interesting. Are you familiar with the process of their call? Educate me. So many of our youth grow up with an excitement. Their parents may have served missions. They learn about the church. They learn how to talk about the church, even as children and through their high school years. And they're just excited to be able to go and serve the Lord, to take two years of their life. I think it's the best education one of our youth could have. I watch those that go on missions and those that don't choose to go on missions, and they roughly graduate from college at the same time because they come back better focused on what matters most. So the process, when a young man or young woman wants to serve a mission, they go to their ecclesiastical leader, their bishop, and say, hey, I'd like to serve. They fill out some medical forms, some dental forms, some things that you're interested in kind of thing. And they send that to Salt Lake, and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles assigns them to one of 450 different missions around the world. That's a great act of faith to say, I'll go wherever in the world you want me to go. I'll speak whatever language they speak there. I'll be a companion with whoever I'm assigned for the next couple of years of my life. There's a lot of growth. Part of their days are spent teaching, going door to door and teaching people like you that will listen. Other time is spent in local service activities, working at the food bank or helping the city with literacy or whatever it might be. So they learn both service. They learn commitment. They learn the doctrine. And in many cases, they learn a new language. You know, it's interesting because on that note, if it's an act of faith, it somewhat reminds me of the book of Genesis when God calls out to Abraham and the verse says, Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, Abraham. And Abraham says, Here I am, which the rabbinic commentators understand to me, not that I'm here physically, but whatever it is you need me to do, God, I'll do it. And God actually then asks him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, which he doesn't have to do in the end, but he believes, OK, so that's what I will do. And it's sort of just reminding me when you talk about these missionaries who have not really started the great majority of their life. They've not been to college yet. They are not married. They're not necessarily in a serious relationship, but they'll just say, Lord, take me where you want. And to your point, it is the prophet, the president of the church, who kind of signs off where they'll go. I do want to be a little transparent because, as I said, the impetus of this conversation is proselytizing and conversion. And let's call a spade a spade. The reason you would want to convert someone in addition to just having this cure to cancer that we were referring to is an act of salvation. I mean, you care about them. So in the early 2000s, there was a bit of a scandal, for lack of better word, between the Jewish community and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because it turns out that the Mormon Church was performing these baptism by proxy for victims of the Holocaust, like Anne Frank, whereby someone would be baptized in the name of Anne Frank, and then Anne Frank can decide, wherever she is, whether to accept that conversion or not. And many leaders of the Jewish community were outraged by it. I'll say something that might sound a little controversial, and I think our Jewish listeners will be upset with me. I actually find that incredibly compassionate and sweet. And there's a dear friend of mine, I won't say his name, but he's actually the grandson of two different presidents of the church. I might have just given his name away. And I told him, a week ago in DC, I said, I give you full permission. If I, when I die, I hope to have a long, beautiful life, but when I eventually die, I would actually take it as a true act of kindness and friendship if you did, in fact, perform a baptism by proxy. Not because, and again, just being transparent, not because I believe in the divinity of what you're doing. I mean, there's a reason you're part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I'm Jewish, and that's fine. We have different religions. But because it's, to me, just a tremendous act of, I care about you, and I care about you so much. Even though your physical body is no longer here, I care about your eternal soul. And if anything, if my friend, who I told this to, refuses to do that when I die, it's sort of like, what the hell? I thought we liked each other. But that kind of brings me to my question. I think one of the fundamental differences, not just between Judaism and Mormonism, but Judaism and really every other religion, is that Judaism says, you do not have to be a member of our faith to get into heaven. You just don't. You can be a very good person and follow the seven Noahide laws, which we'll talk about in a moment, and you're guaranteed, says the Talmud in the tractate Sanhedrin 105a, you are guaranteed, if you are a righteous person, to go into the world to come. Mormonism would not subscribe to that. Correct me if I'm wrong. Mormonism would say, you do have to be part of our faith to get into heaven, so much so that we will, in fact, perform these baptism byproxies for people like Anne Frank, because we care so much about them. We want them to get into heaven, and they can only get in should they subscribe to our faith. Is that an accurate characterization? Well, we believe that certainly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't have all goodness, a monopoly on all goodness in the world. We believe that we can't do everything alone. We work with other religions, other people, to accomplish lots of things. That said, we believe in John 3, 5, it says, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. We believe that literally. Corinthians says, else why are they then baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead? We believe that that injunction was inadvertently placed there in the scriptures as they were trying to show that there is a resurrection, simply to say, yeah, we do these baptisms, why do we do that? We believe that all mankind does need to be baptized. Now, our Jewish friends, we've corrected that. We don't want to offensively take people that are not willing, if you will. But we do believe that everyone will at some point need to accept or reject that baptism. So in our temples, we have baptismal fonts where a proxy, someone will represent a family member that's deceased and be baptized for them in the life hereafter. We believe those people will, as you so eloquently said, have an opportunity to accept that or reject it. If they reject it, they're simply rejecting being able to go to the highest level to live with God. But there are other wonderful kingdoms and places people can live in the eternities. Right. We'll get into this later, perhaps, but there's the celestial, terrestrial, and then telestial, at least if I'm remembering correctly from what the sisters taught me. Let's go back to the seven Noahide laws just for a moment. This is first brought up again in the tractate of Sanhedrin, I think 52a. And these are seven laws that humanity, for the most part, keeps just by virtue of being alive. Right. So the prohibition of murder, the prohibition of sexual immorality, the prohibition of eating a limb from a live animal, the establishment of courts. You know, any American who's born in this country, he fulfills that just by virtue of being an American. And Judaism teaches us those seven Noahide laws because it wants to perfect civilization. In fact, Isaiah makes this clear that we need to have a perfect world in order to bring about the advent of the Messiah. And I get very upset, let's say, when I see attacks primarily on social media of talking about, you know, Jewish supremacy or the idea of chosenness being better, because it's really not better at all. And in fact, when people say Jewish supremacy, I always understood supremacy as exclusionary, meaning I can never be a white supremacist because they're not taking Jews. All right. My black friends can never be white supremacists because to be a supremacist means to exclude others. If people want to convert to Judaism, it's a difficult process. But my step grandmother did it. Can't say it was the easiest thing in the world, but you can if you want. Chosenness does not mean better, it just means different. So we take the approach of to be Jewish means you have to subscribe and commit yourself to 613 commandments. And many of them are quite difficult to keep. Just imagine if you're interested in converting to Judaism, we're happy to have you, but you'll have to give up lobster. And if you're a man, you'll have to be circumcised. Those two alone is the reason why, you know, 90% of people say, we're okay. Whereas the seven Noahide laws, we say just keep these seven and you'll get into heaven. And you'll get the same reward that I as a Jew will be getting for keeping 613. So I guess my question to you is, can the Mormon Church accept those who don't subscribe to the Mormon faith, but nevertheless see themselves as living a good, morally upstanding life? Can they still get into heaven or it still has to be through what you were describing earlier? I love the question. I love the premise of that question. The reality is, again as I mentioned, we don't have the corner on all goodness in the world. Our message to the world is bring what you've got. Bring the knowledge you have of the scriptures. Bring what you have from experiences of life and see if we can't add to it. Add more truth upon truth, if you will, to be able to do those things. So is it exclusionary? Well, God is the one that puts together the commandments, right? He's the one that establishes the covenants with us. We have the opportunity to either accept or reject those covenants, right? To our own blessing, to our own peril, right? I'll use, for example, smoking. I can choose to smoke or not to smoke. If I choose not to smoke, I might have healthier lungs theoretically, right? If I choose to smoke, then I've chosen a different path, an addiction, right? But the idea that we can accept, that God sets a standard for us to rise ourselves to. On that note of divine salvation, Judaism uses the term olam haba, literally the world to come, and there are different rabbinic interpretations as to what that means and what that would look like. Within Mormonism, there is what the sisters told me, sea turtle. There is the celestial kingdom, then there is the terrestrial kingdom, then there is the telestial kingdom. So, which is a bit of a mouthful. So if you wouldn't mind just walking me and walking our viewers through those three distinct levels of the afterlife. In the book Corinthians, it talks about different glories. One of the sun, one of the moon, one of the stars in brightness. We believe that after this life, after the millennial period, that people will be given different kingdoms of glory. A celestial kingdom where God dwells, a telestial kingdom, or a telestial kingdom similar to that which we live here on the earth. I mentioned in our pre-conversation that a person that's not living a celestial law would feel no more comfortable going into that kingdom than you would going into synagogue in your swimsuit. There's a time and a place for a swimsuit. There's a time and a place for a different kind of behavior. And so, yes, we believe in different degrees of glory. The Savior said, there are many mansions, right? I go now to prepare a place. And so we believe that after this world, again, this is part of a continuum. That it's not just immediately at death, are we assigned heaven or hell? But rather, as we continue to progress, we have different kingdoms and opportunities. So would you mind clarifying something that I'm not actually sure myself is part of the Mormon doctrine anymore, and that is the planet Kolob. Did I pronounce that correctly? It's Kolob, right? Yeah. In the early days of the church, they talked about Kolob being a place closest to where God lives. Really, it hasn't been taught in our doctrine for hundreds of years, and so it's not something that really we have a complete understanding of. But it is simply referred to as a place close to where God is. But when it was taught, that was like a physical planet? Yes. But we believe that this world will become part of a celestial sphere. And other worlds that our God has created will go back into that orbit, if you will, to be with him. How that works, what it looks like, I don't know. So let me let me ask, actually, there was a South Park episode. And weirdly enough, we have referenced Family Guy twice and South Park twice on this show. But there was a South Park episode where the devil is introducing all these new people to hell. Welcome to hell. Enjoy your stay. This is where, like, the brunch is. And so many of these devout religious practitioners, rabbis and imams and priests, they say, what the heck? We live to life in accordance with the teachings of our prophet. Why are we here? And the devil looks at his clipboard. He says, oh, it turns out it was the Mormons. The Mormons were correct. So, like, everyone else is in hell, and the Mormons are, like, playing volleyball in heaven or something. So that brings me to sort of an elementary question. What does Mormon hell look like? Because Judaism, we don't really take the idea of a devil on a pitchfork and this internal fire. But does Mormonism? To me, hell is a state of being. If you've ever done something wrong and you're afraid someone's going to catch on to what you've done, that's a hell, right? Not being able to live up to your potential. It's a damning or a stopping of a person's progress. So do we believe in a literal hell with the flames and pitchforks? No. We believe that our loving God loves all of his children. He wants them to have a glory. He wants them to do better. But just like in schools, we have to qualify to have certain professions. I want to go back to Isaiah. This is chapter 45, verse 18, where Isaiah says that God created the world so that it might be settled. And this implies a level of civilized conduct which can really only be achieved when non-Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, observe these Noahide laws that we're talking about. And the perfection of this world will then lead to the messianic era. Maimonides, who's a 12th century rabbinic sage, he writes in his book Mishneh Torah in the section of Laws of Wars and Kings. He says that we Jews need to be particularly appreciative and grateful to Christians because they spread about messianic expectations and they spread to the world the idea of monotheism in a way that we Jews, as I said earlier, we're very small in number. We were just never able to get that message across. And sort of that has been our approach from the get-go of recognizing while we may have theological differences with other faiths, I mean not may, we do have theological differences in other faiths. And I always get a kick, I was telling this earlier, I always get a kick when, you know, people who really don't like me and really don't like the Jewish faith, they'll comment on Twitter and they'll say, you know, he doesn't even believe in Jesus. I'm like, yeah, but that wasn't really a secret. I mean, I wasn't pretending I did. That's why I'm Jewish and you're Christian. And again, I want Christians to believe in Jesus and I want Christians to go to church and I want Christians to live a life in accordance with Jesus. But I do have to ask, does the Mormon faith subscribe divinity to the Hebrew Bible? I know certainly they believe in the New Testament, the origins of Jesus. What is their approach to the Hebrew Bible and the prophets like you mentioned earlier, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel? The Prophet Joseph Smith made a statement on this and he simply said this, we believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. So yes, do we do we take teachings from the Hebrew Bible? The Old Testament is what we would call it. Absolutely. Do we believe the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament and the other prophets? Absolutely. Do we believe the Book of Mormon? Yes. We believe that all of them together teach of God and of his will. So then let me go back to the conversion just briefly. In Judaism there are sort of two different converts let's say. One is called the Ger Toshav and one is called the Ger Tzedek. Ger Toshav, this is a very bizarre literal translation, is essentially the resident alien which is someone who more or less just keeps the seven Noahide laws. Charlie Kirk would be considered a Ger Toshav because he obviously was a strong Bible-believing Christian but nevertheless he was keeping things like the Sabbath. However someone who converts fully to Judaism, the 613 commandments, he's considered a Ger Tzedek, this righteous alien. Again, Ger, I'm translating as alien in its literal sense even though it has a very negative modern connotations but it's not meant in any negative ways at all. Would there be in Mormonism any aspect of someone who may not want to convert to the faith but at least subscribes to certain commandments or certain principles? Is there a Mormon equivalent to this Ger Toshav, someone who's not baptizing himself, who is not endowed in the temple but nevertheless keeps some of the commandments? So to answer that question let me give the big timeline here. Yeah. Right. We believe that we existed before we came to earth, Jeremiah, before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee. We believe that we continue after this life, that this life is just a short little glimpse, a kindergarten of our eternal existence. That may be first grade, right? And so in that eternal scheme of things we believe that if a person's on that path that leads back to God, we believe that yes, they'll make it back to him. They'll graduate from high school. Just because you weren't the best student in first grade doesn't mean you can't get a diploma. You might have been learning some things in different ways, right? Had other things going on in your existence, your family or whatever. So yes, we believe that people can get on that path. We have members of the church that are in all different phases of growth and learning. We hope that they'll learn. We hope that they'll continue to grow and progress and be a little bit better each day. I get to repent each day. I get to do a little bit better and try things over again. Hopefully that leads me over a lifetime of hopefully a long life that I'll be more Christ-like, better, more God-like in my interactions with my family and with others. So perhaps leaving the theological and going more into the cultural. I mean we're dealing and talking about pretty fundamental questions and questions pertaining to the afterlife, the soul, heaven. These 18 and 19 year olds that you're describing, these missionaries, how do you prepare young Americans, I don't mean on a practical level to learn a new language, to be independent, but I guess on a theological level, but to answer those questions that most young people really would not know where to begin, how do you prepare them to talk about those issues of the afterlife and death and heaven and hell? That's a great question. There are things, when I go into a Catholic church, I love to look at the stained glass and see the murals. It doesn't make me less of a Latter-day Saint. It's just wonderful to see what they've done. When a Catholic comes into a Latter-day Saint church, they don't see all those murals, but they see families sitting together. So we start when they're young. They attend a Bible study class, if you will, on Sunday after our sacrament meetings where we all group together. In our homes, parents are teaching their children. In high school, our youth will come an hour before school to what we call seminary, where they'll take a year and learn Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, church history over that course of four years. So they're learning some of those things. Are they great scriptorians or scholars when they go out at 18 years old? No, but they're learning. And by the time they come home, after studying each day, they become more and more immersed and more familiar over that course. So it's that process of teaching and learning each day with their companion that's pretty powerful. So a few years ago, I was at our Missionary Training Center. So once our missionaries have a call, they'll spend one week at home and then they'll go to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, typically. Provo, Utah by BYU. They also have a few others in the world. But typically, they'll go there for three weeks if they're English-speaking and already are learning their own language, for up to two months if they're learning Spanish or Chinese or something else. And then that's it. And then they're off to Hong Kong, where I served, or Taiwan, or to Bogota, or wherever it may be in the world. I took a without using a name, a very prominent Hispanic Baptist evangelical preacher. I was with him in Provo. We were doing some things at BYU. I took him over to the Missionary Training Center, went up to the top floor where some of the missionaries were learning Spanish. And they interacted with him in Spanish. And as we left, he turned to me and he goes, God is in this. And I said, what do you mean? He says, there is no way they can do what they do if God was not in this. Mic drop. You know, what do you say to that? I believe that God is in this. And so yes, are they fluent when they leave the Missionary Training Center? Oh no. But typically within about six months, these missionaries in Central and South America are speaking and communicating effectively in Spanish. For those of us that learn Chinese, it took a little bit longer. But by a year, I was living with all natives and functioning just fine. Able to go knock on doors and talk to people and carry on conversations. I actually once saw something, I think it was on Twitter, so not exactly an arbitrary truth. But one of the reasons, I don't think this is true, but I'd like your reaction. One of the reasons why the Mormon Church is so invested in sending young people out into Colombia, or China, or really the middle of nowhere, is because after being rejected for two years during this missionary service, they'll realize the outside world really is this dangerous, sinful place. And I better reinforce and isolate myself back with the church in Utah. And that's the real reason they're sending all these young, vulnerable, impressionable kids in order to get rejected. And I'm just curious your reaction to that idea. I would dispute that because there's actually more members of our church living outside of the United States than inside the United States. I think quite the opposite happens. What happens is they learn to love the people wherever they are. They start seeing the good in the people. Yes, they get rejected and that's sometimes hard because they feel like they've got an important message, but they're there to serve. The number one convert isn't the person that they teach oftentimes. Oftentimes it's themselves. They get to know themselves and their doctrine and they come home with a stronger desire to live what they've taught. So that's a side bonus. But one of the things that I think is wonderful is because they do learn to love the people. It's not uncommon for them to work in government or in business, to do business with Cambodia or with Colombia or with Taiwan because they've learned to love the people. They speak the language. They understand the culture. And so during the Olympics, it's always fun when they come to Salt Lake City because you walk down the street, you need somebody that speaks Bulgarian. Give me 15 minutes, I'll find someone. Because they've gone from all over the world. And so Salt Lake is a good place for the Olympics. So I do have to ask, because you're kind of making me think this way, there are so many misconceptions about Judaism's approach to non-Jews. The word you see most often now on Twitter is goyim, that we think less of others, which number one, the book of Genesis commands the Jewish people to be literally a big goy, a goy gadol. Goy literally just means nation. It's not good or bad. Now, historically, it might have probably been used as a pejorative, but from a biblical lens, goy just means a nation. If anything, the Talmud is replete with examples of how no one's blood is more red than the others. We're commanded to treat everyone in what's called the Selim Elohim, literally in the divine image. What is the theological approach that Mormons have to non-Mormons, especially as so much of the culture and the religion is geared towards convincing other people of the errors of their religion and the need to convert. So, does the Mormon Church look at them as lost, as evil? What is the Mormon approach to other religions? Well, I hope that we're not trying to just find fault in others. My hope is that we're able to show what we do have, and again, invite them to come and bring what they have to us. We believe that we're all brothers and sisters, fellow travelers on this globe spinning through space. As brothers and sisters, we feel an obligation to care for one another. The church this last year, just released some numbers, they've donated over 1.5 billion dollars in humanitarian aid worldwide. We don't distribute that all by ourselves. We look toward our brothers and sisters and friends in Jewish charities, or Muslim charities, or the Catholic charities, or Red Cross, other places that we work with and within those organizations to try and bless humanity. Not because we're going to necessarily convert people because of it, but because they're hungry. And we have a scriptural mandate to care for those in need, to mourn with those that mourn comfort, those that stand in need of comfort. In Exodus 22-21 and then Leviticus 19-34, we first start seeing the commands of love the stranger. And in contemporary Judaism, often left-wing Judaism, the stranger is really just a subtext for the illegal immigrant from, you know, South America. But the stranger, the Hebrew terminology is ger, which again really just means converts. When it's saying to love the stranger, it really means love the convert. And it gives us that command more than any other command. So more than the command to keep the Sabbath, more than the command to keep kosher, more than the command to honor your parents, is the command to welcome the strangers. And the verse ends by saying, for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt. And in fact, the Talmud takes this a step further. And it says, based on that biblical verse, we derive a law that you are not allowed to remind, you are not allowed to remind a convert of what their life was like pre-conversion, of what was it like eating at McDonald's and what was it like, you know, committing adultery. We shouldn't remind them of their their past sinful lives. And this is not only true of the convert, it's also true of someone who was born Jewish, but what became what's now called a bal tshuva, someone who, yes, he was born Jewish, but he wasn't religiously observant, either because he didn't care, maybe he didn't know, but then he added levels of observance, and now he's an observant Jew. We're not allowed to remind him of his past sinful life. And one of the reasons for that is because we Jews would have perhaps more of an historic claim than any other religion to say we were oppressed, and we were hated, and therefore we're going to act with vengeance, and we're going to enact revenge on those who have wronged us. And the Torah is there to remind us, no, you have to treat all with compassion, because you too were on the receiving end. And so I guess my question is, when someone does convert to the Mormon faith, which again is a central tenet to your belief, your rituals, your practices, how is that individual perceived as within the Mormon Church? Is there a similar idea of don't remind them of what it was like before the baptism? Is he considered to be a complete Mormon in the same way anyone who was born to Mormon parents? How does that process work? Well, we believe in the New Testament, Jesus was asked which of the commandments is most important, and he really kind of summarized the Ten Commandments with the first, love the Lord like God with a heart, mind, and strength, and the second is likened to it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Hopefully even better than sometimes we love ourselves. Right. That we care for those people. And so as a person comes into the Latter-day Saint faith, or as they come as a friend, as someone investigating the church, whatever it may be, we hope that we again, just like a family reunion, we welcome you in. A new daughter-in-law, a new grandchild, you're welcome here. We're glad you're with us. Bring all the good that you brought, that you have, your life experience with you, and let's move forward from here. So there's not a, hopefully there's not a stigma that we look and we go, oh you've got a tattoo of something from another church. No, you're my brother. So I have to ask then, and this is definitely an unfair question, so I'm I apologize in advance, but if you look at most public opinion polls that ask the American people to sort of just rank which religions they have a favorable view of, weirdly enough Judaism kind of score is pretty high, which I was surprised by, but you know Judaism gets top marks, Catholicism gets top marks, and what I find really bizarre is Mormonism is often one of the lowest ranked faiths by other Americans. I think a lot of that has to do with stereotypes, a lot of that has to do with misinformation or deliberate disinformation, but all of my interactions, not just you know on this show, but all my interactions with the church and with individuals from the Mormon faith have been nothing but positive. In fact the stereotype in mainstream media is that Mormons are just too, you know, gosh darn nice, and I'm saying gosh darn and not the other one because I wouldn't, you wouldn't appreciate me cursing, and so the unfair question then is what are we as non-Mormons getting wrong about your faith? What is something that, or some things that you wish, you have an platform of millions of people watching, what is, what are the things that you wish we knew better about your religion? Well I can't control what other people think. I can tell you that for me and my family we want to be the best neighbor someone ever had, and I hope that that other Latter-day Saints likewise are trying to be the best neighbor, not to be the loaf but the leavening in the loaf. Someone that can make, sorry to use that analogy with my good Jewish friend here, but to be a light in the darkness. Sometimes we probably need to be more careful. I think people sometimes fear that our, you know, missionaries are coming to my door, you know, we're here to serve, we're here to be a good neighbor, we're trying to make a difference in the world. I think oftentimes it's because they'll let social media tell our story rather than what you're doing here and letting us speak for ourselves. So I want to ask one last question on that, and I'll preface it by saying that I as a Jew very much want you and your faith to be the best Mormons that you can be, and to be going to church, not just on Sunday, but add more. I go to synagogue three times a day. I want Catholics to be going to Mass far more than most Catholics are currently. I want Pentecostals to be speaking in tongues, like I want more Christians irrespective of their denomination to be more invested in their faith. And if they were to ask me, do I need to convert to Judaism to be saved and to reach salvation? I'll say no, and don't take my word for it. Look at all of our rabbinic texts. Look at the Talmud. Look at the fact that the Hebrew Bible does not even begin with the Jewish people. It begins with Adam. And in fact, if you look at the book of Genesis with the story of Adam and Eve, God is very clear with his terminology, and he says, I'm commanding man. Not that I'm commanding Jews, or I'm commanding you, Adam. I'm commanding man, because it's first a universal story. Adam is not Jewish. Noah is not Jewish. In fact, we Jews, when we pray, we first invoke our patriarchs to receive divine mercy, and the first person we bring up—it's not Adam, it's not Noah—it's Abraham. Abraham's the founder. He's the patriarch of our religion, even though he comes hundreds of years after the individuals we just mentioned. So if people say, do I need to be Jewish to be saved? The answer is absolutely not. Abide by the seven Noahide laws. As I said, don't commit murder, don't commit sexual immorality, don't abuse animals, set up court systems, honor God. Do those things, and then you are absolutely guaranteed a place in the world to come. And so I want to ask you, and I'm prefacing this by saying, I really will not take offense. I just want to understand the perspective of other faiths. So let me ask you a direct question, and if you don't want to answer, we can cut it, but just yes or no. Would it be better if I told you at the end of this interview, I'm actually going to convert to Mormonism? That would be something that you would want, no? We certainly welcome you. So yes, we would welcome you. We welcome all to come and see. But at the same time, I'm grateful, like you are, that our Catholic friends go to Mass. I'm grateful my Jewish friends go to synagogue. I'm grateful my Muslim friends, etc., etc., etc., right? That they're involved in trying to do the best they can with what they've been taught. I believe that as we're striving to be the best people we can, that ultimately we become better brothers and sisters, friends in humanity, fellow travelers. We make a positive difference in the world that way. I think sometimes people fear us because we do have an active missionary program. But we want to be good neighbors. We want to be good friends. We want to work with you to help you overcome and be better at whatever you are, whatever you're doing. So yes, we would welcome you into the Latter-day Saint faith. We can schedule time. Well, as I said, you already have my permission when I'm dead to baptize me. So maybe don't use my actual body. I'll hopefully be in the ground. But let's live a long, healthy life. Okay, amen, amen. Let me ask you one last question, because as I said, you are the first guest to be of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And as we were saying earlier, there's so many misconceptions about your faith. People can quote, and guests have quoted the Hebrew Bible. They can quote the New Testament. In fact, even I can quote the New Testament, which is something my rabbis weren't really expecting. What is a teaching from the Book of Mormon that you would want our audience to know and perhaps even to live by? Because most Americans, they may not even be familiar that there is a book called the Book of Mormon. So what would be a lesson, or even two lessons, that you would want listeners who aren't familiar with the Book of Mormon to walk away with knowing? One of my favorite passages, and there are many in the Book of Mormon, is in the Book of Mosiah, where King Benjamin, they were changing leaders within the Church and in the governmental structure. And King Benjamin taught this. He says, are we not all beggars? Do we not depend upon the mercies of God for all we have? Ought we not to then serve one another? And I've just, I've thought about that throughout my life. I thought, you know, how do I, how do I make a difference in the world? It's not by accumulating wealth or on notoriety or honor. It's by accumulating good deeds, helping other people. And so that's one of the great teachings. I think it's a Christlike teaching to be, to be a good, a good fellow traveler, a good brother, sister, a good member of society. Well said, and I don't really have skin in the game because I'm not Mormon. I don't know what gave that away. But I would say that the media depictions of the Mormon faith have been really based upon lies. And I feel so blessed to have so many friends and leaders in the Mormon faith who've, you know, elevated my understanding of my own religion. And I think Americans would do themselves a tremendous service if, you know, they got to know a Mormon. Which, interestingly enough, I think was a campaign initiative that the Church once ran like 10, 20 years ago, get to know a Mormon or something. But we'll leave it at that. President Michael, we really appreciate the time and your perspective for your faith. So thanks again for joining us. Well, I hope you consider me now among your friend group. Yes, definitely. Once you come on the show, your friend for life. Thank you.