Episode 554: Gene Grant, Life-Long Liberal Latter-day Saint

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2022

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Gene Grant (late 60s, served two missions, married father of four, former Mayor, Attorney ) shares his sometimes-painful journey as a liberal Latter-day Saint. Gene has the long view of being on this road and has seen a lot of positive change and improvements. He has also had some very difficult experiences—including the threat (after his second mission) of having his temple privileges removed. If you are a liberal Latter-day Saint looking for tools, perspectives, and reasons to stay in the Church—this podcast will help you. And if you are a conservative leader/member looking to build Zion where we are stronger using our diversity to bless and lift others, this podcast will help you. This is not a podcast to change your political views—rather Gene sharing his 5 decades of experience to help us better love, see and support each other as Latter-day Saints working to Gather Israel and build Zion. Thank you, Gene, for being on the podcast. Your story personally blessed and help me and will do the same for many others! ** Please Check Out My New Book (Listen, Learn and Love: Improving Latter-day Saint Culture; link below) which has a chapter on this subject ** Deseret Book: https://deseretbook.com/p/listen-learn-love Amazon: amazon.com/dp/1462139566

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:10.3	My guest on today's podcast, joining me via Zoom from his home in Oregon is my new friend Gene Grant.
0:17.7	Welcome to the podcast, Gene.
0:19.5	Thank you. Glad to be here. Gene and I have been
0:22.5	communicating for a couple months. He reached out to me like many of my guests, too. He didn't
0:27.0	ask to be on the podcast. That was my idea. But he is going to share his story as an active
0:32.6	Latter-day Saint. He's nearly 70 years old, but he's a liberal Latter-day Saint, and he's been navigating being a liberal, which is a minority political position in our church for about five decades.
0:45.6	And the best I can see on demographics is more of our millennials and Gen Zs, maybe 50-50 percent are voting liberal or would be classified as liberal, or at least not conservative.
0:57.5	And this podcast is supportive of liberals and conservatives.
1:01.8	But often liberal voices are a little muted in a religion that's perhaps dominantly politically conservative.
1:11.7	Our joint hope is that maybe what Gene shares will be helpful to younger liberal
1:17.1	Latter-day Saints, wondering how to navigate being committed Latter-day Saints and holding liberal
1:22.4	views.
1:23.8	Many of you may be liberal.
1:25.9	Our also hope is that if you're a conservative
1:27.9	Latter-day Saint, that you will have a chance to hear from a liberal Latter-day Saint
1:32.2	and help sort of heal our divide and bring us closer together and support each other.
1:38.0	I love Elder Cook's comment of unity and diversity, and I used to at one point think
1:43.9	that religion was just an extension of my own political
1:46.6	party, but it's a higher law.
1:48.8	It's a holier law where we come together.
1:51.6	And I think good chip Zion needs to have liberals and conservatives.
	...

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