Ezra Taft Benson

I'm glad you brought that up, John, because when Hank said Gordon B. Hinckley, and you and I are saying Spencer Kimball, but the truth is Howard W.

Hunter, Ezra Taft Benson, Gordon B. Hinckley, Thomas S. Monson, Russell M. Nelson, and Dallin H. Oaks, every one of them I've received a witness.

Every one of them I've felt that.

I remember one time, I don't know exactly the context, but all of a sudden I heard President Hinckley's voice, and I got tingles.

I don't know that every allegation is true.

There's one story where they claim that the person who was doing the SRA stuff had a mask of a man named Ezra Taft Benson,

who

I have no doubt Ezra Taft Benson didn't do that.

He was the president of the church and he was actually warning about this stuff going on and they silenced him.

They shut him down.

Right.

And they end up shutting this guy down.

After walking away from Mormonism, he embraced mainstream Christianity, and his channel has become a major hub for deep-dive LDS critiques.

In today's highlights, Lance examines talks given by prominent Mormon leaders, including Apostle David Bednar and former church president Ezra Taft Benson.

By holding their words directly up to biblical scripture, Lance makes the case that these general authorities actually devalue the Bible and argues that their teachings demonstrate they prioritize church loyalty and human authority over loving God.

Whether you agree with his perspective or not, it's a fascinating, hard-hitting breakdown you won't want to miss.

There will be no deep exegesis of Scripture, probably no exegesis of Scripture at all, because Well, honestly, Scripture doesn't hold a lot of value to them.

So let us begin by listening to the opening paragraphs, the opening stanzas of the Bednar talk.

Ezra Taft Benson.

served as the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from November 1985 until May 1994.

Your book really highlights this reality.

Ezra Taft Benson and many others spoke out about this blatant reality as well.

Right.

Well, it's so amazing that James Carville, Rahm Emanuel.

I think it was four-year Senate hearings put our entire faith on trial, but who ultimately stayed in office for 30 years and sort of broke the glass ceiling, proving that a Latter-day Saint could also be a loyal American statesman.

And then, of course, we moved into the mid-20th century to look at Ezra Taft Benson, an active apostle who entered the executive branch as President Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture, heavily shaping the political identity of modern church culture.

But today, Casey, it is time to land the plane on this series.

And we are bringing the historical narrative right into the living memory of almost everyone listening.

But here's a question I just wanted to end with today, which is this.

Now that Senator Romney has retired from public office, a major chapter in Latter-day Saint and national history has come to a close.

He was arguably the most prominent Latter-day Saint political figure in American history, Reed Smoot and Ezra Taft Benson notwithstanding, by the way.

So based on everything you witnessed across 15 years with him in his political career, what would you say is the blueprint here? that he leaves behind for future members of the church, whether Republican, Democrat, Independent, but future members of the church who want to enter national politics without losing their soul.

with the history of the department that he oversaw.

That's a very different context for the book that he published versus how he had written it before he had known that Ezra Taft Benson was gonna do what he did.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

And Alma goes into a beautiful discussion about humility.

Some of you will remember that President Ezra Taft Benson used to say, speaking a lot about pride and humility, he said, God will have a humble people.

We can either choose to be humble or we can let him humble us One is a use of our agency where we choose humility, we choose meekness, we choose to humbly go to the Lord and say, what would thou have me do next, versus waiting for him to send, as Mormon is going to tell us later on in the book of Helaman, he's going to jump in and say, except he visit them with famine, pestilence, disease, terror, sickness, they will not remember him.

So, for us as a society, it's our choice.

right.

In the early 80s, I think I want to say right around 1985, it might even have been earlier, but Ezra Taft Benson, who was the prophet of the church at the time, he has this famous talk where he said, don't see R-rated movies.

And...

And then that's just kind of a thing that people have clung to, even though I think it's a little outdated, right?