1362: Investigating the Dark Side of Mormonism - Lynn Packer Pt. 4
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2020
⏱️ 130 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join us now for Part 4 of our interview with legendary Mormon journalist Lynn Packer (nephew of Boyd K. Packer), wherein he will be sharing with us what it was like to cover the darker side of Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a journalist. Some of the stories we will cover in this episode include those of: Mark Hofmann, Ervil LeBaron, the Lafferty brothers, and Ted Bundy.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host John DeLin. It is November 11th, 2020. |
| 0:06.6 | And I'm super excited to have you joining us for our continuing series, |
| 0:11.6 | interviewing legendary Mormon journalist Lynn Packer, nephew of Boyd K. Packer. |
| 0:17.9 | If you were able to join us for our previous episodes, Lynn Packer, as the nephew of Boyd K. Packer, |
| 0:23.3 | was able to share with us his insight into the rise of Boyd K. Packer into a position of power. |
| 0:31.7 | And that's of course LDS or Mormon Church, a possible Boyd K. Packer into a position of power. |
| 0:37.6 | Before he ascends into the Cormor the Twelve Apostles, that was the first episode we did with journalist Lynn Packer. |
| 0:44.6 | The second was Lynn's own story about his early years in the church, his efforts to become a journalist |
| 0:52.3 | and him actually becoming a journalist for KSL, in Salt Lake City and in Utah. |
| 0:58.1 | And we talked a little bit about his interactions with Boyd K. Packer at the time. |
| 1:02.1 | And we finished that second part talking briefly about Lynn's experience as a journalist in Vietnam. |
| 1:10.6 | And we've had several people write in about how touched and moved they were by Lynn's stories as a Mormon journalist in Vietnam. |
| 1:16.6 | We talked a bit about Lynn's testimony in the early 60s, his mission experience was a great episode. |
| 1:22.0 | I strongly recommend you go back and watch or listen to those two. |
| 1:25.4 | Last night I released a part three with Lynn Packer, which was a short 30 minute video that Lynn has shared on YouTube. |
| 1:33.4 | I titled the episode J. Ruben Clark, Boyd K. Packer and the Chartered Course of the Church in Education. |
| 1:39.5 | For me, this was a really informative and interesting piece that Lynn produced as a background to his Pollyght Dun book |
| 1:47.8 | because it talks about how the LDS Church in the mid 50s, specifically in 1954, under the influence of J. Ruben Clark, |
| 1:56.2 | Harold B. Lee and Boyd K. Packer sort of turned the emphasis of the church away from scholarship, away from science, |
| 2:04.8 | away from critical thinking towards this premise that emotion and feelings are what matters most |
| 2:12.0 | and that the church education system needs to stop emphasizing facts and evidence and scholarship and critical thinking |
| 2:18.9 | and instead needs to turn its focus towards building and growing testimonies based on emotion. |
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