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Leading Saints Podcast

Incorrect Quotes, Urban Legends, and Magical Thinking at Church | An Interview with Keith Erekson

Leading Saints Podcast

Leading Saints

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2021

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Keith Erekson is an award-winning author, teacher, and public historian who has published on topics including politics, hoaxes, Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley, and Church history. He enjoys speaking at Latter-day Saint conferences and events, including BYU Education Week and RootsTech. Keith grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, served a mission in Brazil, and earned advanced degrees in history and business. For seven years he directed the Church History Library, overseeing expanded online research access and enriched public exhibits, and now works for the Church History Department in efforts to encourage outreach and historical engagement. In this podcast, Kurt and Keith dive into concepts in Keith’s book, Real vs. Rumor: How to Dispel Latter-day Myths. Highlights 5:40 Dispelling false history and rumors can help eliminate negative church culture. 6:00 Girls camp story 10:35 Always read the scriptures, talks, etc. in context. Make sure you aren’t changing the meaning. 12:45 There are many things that are true but not useful. We can use Church history but that doesn’t mean it’s useful for the building of our faith and learning. 14:30 Be careful when quoting someone. When quoting make sure to use exact words and the name of the author. Study the context around the quote. 19:20 What should bishops do when you hear someone misquoting in Sacrament meeting or in Sunday School? 22:00 How to go about correcting others and dealing with myths. Always correct with love and the spirit. Correct them only if you have the accurate information or an exact quote. It’s about helping each other out rather than proving each other wrong. If you feel like someone’s quoting is off, look it up yourself. 28:00 If you feel the urge to share a quote but don’t have all the pieces, go home and do your homework first. Find all the missing pieces before you share with everyone. 30:00 Use multiple quotes to prove a concept. You can’t just use one quote to make your case. We have to be careful not to teach false doctrine. 36:35 People exaggerate historical events to make them more inspiring. Details get lost Details get added to a story 43:25 Magical thinking: We blow up our stories or historical events and make them seem magical. The gospel should make us look inward. It’s not about an outward show. 48:00 Projecting opinions: The scripts that we have are usually built on assumptions. We are acting on assumptions not information. 51:00 Many people are questioning their faith based on information, a historical event, or a quote. We often leap to conclusions and don’t know how to think about things correctly. Treat historical events with history tools not church tools. Learn about how history works. 54:00 Change your script to learning: Take in new information with the intent to learn from it instead of letting it take a toll on your faith. Links Real vs. Rumor: How to Dispel Latter-Day Myths Keith Erekson: Investigating Latter-Day Saint Rumors and Assumptions Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0

We live in a world plagued by pornography and people are looking for help.

0:06.6

When an individual struggles with pornography, they often turn to their church leader for that help.

0:11.7

How does a leader help a person overcome the shame of this

0:14.7

issue and start seeing positive progress? How can a leader help youth to open up

0:19.5

about struggles with pornography? What are some lasting proven tactics that actually make a difference?

0:26.0

In order to help, leading Saints has created the Liberating Saints Library with more than 20

0:30.8

presentations featuring individuals who have a unique perspective or expertise

0:35.3

around this topic. Three of those most popular sessions are available to watch now.

0:40.6

Simply text the word lead to 4747.

0:44.4

To start watching now or visit leading Saints.org slash liberating.

0:49.2

And remember, text the word lead to 4747.

0:52.3

In order to access the three most popular sessions of the

0:55.8

Liberating Saints Library.

1:01.9

Leading Saints is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead.

1:07.0

And we do that through content creation, like this podcast, which we hope you will subscribe to.

1:12.0

We also have a website at

1:14.2

leading Saints.org with thousands of incredible articles all about leadership in the

1:18.5

context of being a Latter-day Saint. We host virtual summits, live events, and also have a weekly newsletter to keep you up to date

1:25.8

on all things happening with leading Saints. Visit leading Saints.org for more information. Oh, Today I've returned to a place I've recorded once before and that is the Church History Library with Keith Erikson.

2:05.9

How are you Keith?

2:06.9

Good.

2:07.9

Welcome back.

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