Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmont,

where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church

and grow it by way of visions, manifestations,

and miracles.

Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm Garrett Dirkmont and I'm

joined by my friend Richard Leduc.

Let's go ahead and start off with the question that we've received.

This comes from Brady.

We recently had general conference.

It seems like every general conference there are many people within the church that disagree with things said by the prophet or other apostles.

How is this different to or similar to the early church?

That's a great question, Brady.

I get the same thing.

Every general conference, your Twitter and Facebook and Instagram feed explodes, often with people saying wonderful and kind

things, but also with people of all kinds of political stripes. The reality is the current

positions that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds would

would not fit neatly inside a box of any of the American political parties. There are beliefs

that the church holds that are far more representative of one party and beliefs they hold that

are far more representative of another.

And yet because we live in this kind of binary political world, oftentimes people see

general conference addresses as either things that further their own personal political beliefs or you know put them

...