And one of his counselors in the RLDS Church, first presidency, suggested that he ought to be horsewhiped.

So that's quite interesting. He has taught religion, history, political science, and sociology at Graceland College since 1966.

Let's see, Grant McMurray, the new prophet, president of the RLDS Church, is well prepared for his new position by the virtue of having had the privilege of taking six religion courses from Brother Russell.

He had had Graceland between 1966 and 1969, so I think that's interesting. He is published, treasure in earth and vessels, an introduction to the new testament back in 1966, and is currently working on three books.

He has published articles in the variety of journals, including dialogue, sandstone, journal, Mormon history, and the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal.

He was given the true believer comeback of the year award by the John Whitmer Historical Association 1985, for affirming the Book of Mormon as legitimate scripture shortly after advocating the LDS Church's quit publishing the doctrine and covenants, has sensory evaluated his position on the Book of Mormon.

And of course, probably the only LDS or RLDS person who has taught Von Brody, no man knows my history as an adult Sunday school class text, which is quite interesting.

His wife Lois, he has two daughters, and one granddaughter who arrived back on February 25th, so I think we have a lot to learn from Brother Russell this morning, and it's good to have you here.

Brother Russell.

I stay at Levine and Paul's house, and when into Christian's room, Christian's on a mission, you know, and they gave me Christian's room, and their on the dresser was a copy of Treasure in earth and vessels that I wrote in 1966, and they just told me for sure that Christian had been meeting regularly before I left on a get ready for his mission.

Just one little footnote before I start, and that is this is, you know, related to a book I'm writing on a struggle that's taken place in the RLDS Church the last 40 years, and I was very involved in that struggle, and so I have to be especially careful to try to be objective about as I can, you know, about something that I was involved in.

In this paper, I'm going to argue that the 1960s was the decade of decision for the RLDS Church in which the decisive move, I'm sorry, move from a sectarian worldview to a denominational worldview took place among the RLDS General Authorities, and that by the time of the Biannual World Conference in April of 1970, the new direction of the RLDS Church was becoming quite clear,

and the more alert and politically sophisticated among the RLDS Fundamentals were understandably aligned because they understood that in a hierarchical church, the members usually follow leaders or resist unsuccessfully.

These Fundamentals were not placated when at that conference the General Authorities explained that they weren't really trying to make significant changes in the church, but I would argue that the significant changes had pretty well already been made.

What about terminology? Fundamentals, of course, I mean referring to RLDS members has nothing to do with polygamy.

It's simply, Fundamentals is just a person who holds that to the traditional teachings of the church, and they attempt to base their teachings almost exclusively upon the inspired version of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the doctrine of covenants, which we call the three standard book.

The Liberals, on the other hand, are those who believe Scripture is conditioned by culture, and while it is important, it is far from infallible.

They seek to make RLDS theology more compatible with mainstream Christian thought.

And then finally, we don't use the term General Authorities for our first presidency, 12 apostles, and presiding bishopric, but I will use it here today hoping that that will give my paper more authority.

Major change, so it's much easier to say than the long phrase we have.

Major changes really begin at the beginning of a decade. History doesn't really cooperate that way so much.

So let's begin the decade of the 1960s, 15 months early for RLDS purposes in October of 1958, when W. Wallace Smith became the president of the church.

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