145: Talking Polygamy and Politics with Jim Bennett: Difference between revisions

* “Was Joseph Smith Really a Polygamist? A Conversation with Michelle Brady Stone”

* Inside Out with Jim Bennett and Ian Wilks

* [https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book/ces-letter-reply-faithful-answers-those-who-doubt A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter, by Jim Bennett]

  | transcript = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNY7GGZYN-E&t=00m00s 00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. This episode requires a bit of an introduction. I have been working so hard on the response videos I've been doing to the contemporaneous evidence that has been presented, and my next episode will be coming out next week on that. In the meantime, I thought it would be useful to share this conversation. I, um, was really excited to have this conversation with Jim Bennett. I was told by various people that we should have a conversation. So I was excited to do that. I Did not expect the conversation to take some of the turns it did. I was not planning on a conversation that touched on political issues, and I was worried that maybe I wouldn't be able to use this. But, um, many of you know Karen, my editor, and she, I, she watched it, and she said she actually loved the conversation because what it represented was two people who view the world very differently from just a huge ideological divide coming together and doing their Us to respectfully engage in conversation. And we kind of thought, here we are right after the election, that's, you know, created some strong feelings. And going into the holidays where we will be, um, visiting with people possibly who see the world differently than we do as we are gathering with family. And we thought maybe it would be a good idea to let us all kind of get a preview of how these conversations can be had. I think that, um, while I didn't expect the the conversation to go this direction and I'm expecting that some of you might feel some tension rising from various perspectives when you hear things say that you don't agree with, whichever side you tend to lean more toward, Jim or me. Um, I'm hoping that it will be worth it and that you will enjoy the conversation and being able to, I think that maybe it's good for us to get more comfortable with those, um, feelings. That's what I was going to say. Hopefully, we can all start going, I can, I can handle this. I can handle having my worldview challenged and engaging with someone who has a completely Different worldview. So that's what I am hoping for. I do want to say from the beginning that the day after this conversation, um, I went on Jim's, um, podcast, and actually he and Ian and I had a fantastic conversation that I should be able to link to. So look for that in the description. Um, so you can listen to that one if you want to talk, if you want something that's a little bit more of a feel good conversation that focuses more on polygamy than this one was able to do. But with all of that being said, I think this was a valuable. Conversation. I am happy to say that I consider Jim a friend. I'm really glad that we connected. We are looking forward to future conversations. So the, the moral of the story is hang in there, don't write people off and don't give up because it is important that we learn to have these difficult conversations and that we learn to have relationships even when there are very big differences in perspectives. With all of that being said, thank you for joining me, and here's the episode. Welcome to this conversation. I am excited to be here with Jim Bennett, who I am meeting for the first time along with many of you, I guess those of you who don't already know Jim, but I had some listeners reach out to me and tell me, you, you need to call Jim Bennett. So I went ahead and And reached out to him and was, I'm really glad I did. We were able to put something together and I'm really excited, Jim, to let you kind of share your story and then discuss some of the things that we sort of have in common and see the same ways and, and see what we can navigate there. So, welcome to the program. Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?