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Hello everyone. My name is John DeLin. Welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast. It is November 28th, 2017 and we are very excited to have with us Karen and Kirk Strong.

Allow me to give you an introduction to them because some of you won't be familiar with what this interview is about.

So several years ago, I interviewed a man named Denver Snuffer. Denver Snuffer is a convert to the LDS Church. He went to BYU Law School and has served as an attorney for I don't know how many years.

He was in Salt Lake City and over time he wrote a few books. These books were basically about developing relationship with Christ as a member of the LDS Church.

And over time the leaders of the LDS Church started becoming increasingly uncomfortable with these books. I can think of two main reasons why.

The first is that Denver Snuffer started encouraging LDS Church members to develop their own personal relationship with Christ. Not just through prayer but maybe even some might say seeking a visitation from Christ.

And at least that's how I was introduced to Denver Snuffer's teachings. Some say the brother were uncomfortable with that. Maybe because they were concerned that they would be cut out as the middle men, brokering people's relationships with Christ. Those are my words and I'll take responsibility for those.

So that was part one of why maybe the brother got uncomfortable with Denver Snuffer. The second was that his teachings resembled fundamentalism. And I use that term in a very specific way. I don't mean FLDS Church, polygamous fundamentalism. But what his writing seemed to do was to go back into original early LDS Church days. Joseph Smith Times, Kurt Linara, I would say specifically, with a heavy focus on the book of Mormon.

And to sort of notice where the modern LDS Church sort of strayed from the original teachings of Joseph Smith and from the teachings found in the book of Mormon. And as he noted those, I'm sure the brethren maybe felt like they're being criticized or called onto the carpet for straying from the teachings of Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon Christ.

Regardless, around 2013 on the 20th anniversary of the September 6th X Communications, Denver Snuffer was excommunicated. And that sort of kicked off this wave of excommunications that went into 2014, 2015 and 2016. And Denver Snuffer kind of led the way.

We did interview Denver Snuffer on Mormon Stories Podcast prior to his excommunication, I believe. And you can search Mormon Stories Denver Snuffer and refer to that interview.

But we have not been able to get Denver to come on Mormon Stories since his excommunication or at least in the past few years. However, the movement that he started continues to go on very strong. There are thousands and thousands of people,

former LDS Church members who have been rebaptized and who have started following the teachings of Christ or as sort of influenced by Denver Snuffer and others. Some of them called them the Remnant Movement.

There's a website that they have called Zines Return. You can go to ZinesReturn.org as we have this interview today. Check out their beliefs.

They have asked us for the purposes of this interview to refer to the movement as doctrine of Christ. But they issue labels because they really, number one, aren't trying to start a new church and they're trying to avoid the mistakes of the past.

And really, they're just trying to focus on the teachings of Christ without having it get labeled or corporatized in any way that could set it down the same path that the LDS Church sort of followed.

So we don't even have a really solid name for them, but that's not a huge problem because they're here to kind of represent their own beliefs and their perspectives.

So we are going to be interviewed and now I will welcome you all. I will introduce you all. First, those of you are joining us through Facebook Live. Thanks for joining us.

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