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PODCAST

Church History Matters

Scripture Central

The Church History Matters Podcast features in-depth conversations between Scott and Casey where they dive deep into both the challenges and beauty of Latter-day Saint Church History

religion & spirituality christianity

All Episodes

01:11:38

Modern Church Financial Controversies

Church History Matters ·

2024/02/20

How does the Church justify putting over one billion dollars into building a mall in downtown Salt Lake City? And did they use tithing money to do so? Also, is it true that the Church has over 100 billion dollars in reserve? Why won’t Church leaders just disclose exactly how much they actually have? If it’s anywhere near that number, is it ethical for the Church to continue to ask its members—especially its poorer members—to tithe? Furthermore, what’s the deal with the Church paying a 5 million

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55:11

Zion-Building Through Poverty-Elimination

Church History Matters ·

2024/02/13

Zion has been defined as God’s people being of one heart and one mind, dwelling together in righteousness, and having no poor among them. Since Joseph Smith’s day Latter-day Saints have made continuous efforts toward this Zion ideal, including not only assisting the poor and needy, but going even further to help them eliminate poverty from their lives by becoming self reliant.In this episode of Church History Matters we want to trace the fascinating story of our current Church system for

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59:48

Consecration in Nauvoo & Utah

Church History Matters ·

2024/02/06

In his July 1838 tithing revelation, the Lord both affirmed the law of consecration and modified the ongoing way in which the saints were expected to consecrate of their money and property. Rather than following the 1831 system outlined in D&C 42 of legally deeding all of their property to the bishop and receiving back from him a legal lease of property known as a stewardship, the Lord asked the saints instead to follow a tithing system of paying “one-tenth of all their interest annually”

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58:32

Did Tithing Replace Consecration?

Church History Matters ·

2024/01/30

In the aftermath of the significant 1837 failure of the Church’s banking business in Kirtland, Ohio and the subsequent fallout with several Church leaders—including death threats—Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon fled Ohio to be with Church members in Far West, Missouri. Shortly thereafter, in April 1838, the Lord commanded the saints to build the Far West temple, but charged them not to go into more debt to do so. Church leaders were then already steeped in debts from Kirtland as it was. So in

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50:48

Are Church “For-Profit” Businesses Okay?

Church History Matters ·

2024/01/23

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today owns and operates several successful for-profit businesses, from livestock and agriculture to publishing and digital media to real estate and many others. This has caused some to wonder, does a Church focused on bringing people to Christ have any business getting involved in business? Are business ventures like these compatible with the mission of the Church generally and the founding principles of consecration specifically? In this episode of

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57:54

Consecration and the Beginning of Church Finances

Church History Matters ·

2024/01/16

In the last few years the finances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been in the media spotlight—and not always in positive ways. It’s no secret that the Church today has amassed an impressive financial reserve to ensure the accomplishment of its purposes. But it was not always so. There have been some narrow straits through which the Church has had to pass to get to where it is financially today. It is quite compelling history actually—which is why we wanted to dedicate a

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01:00:19

Seekers Wanted: Interview with Dr. Anthony Sweat

Church History Matters ·

2024/01/09

What kind of thinking skills do we need to develop in order to gain and maintain the kind of robust faith we desire? This question is the central subject of a book by Dr. Anthony Sweat entitled, “Seekers Wanted, the Skills You Need for the Faith You Want.” In this book Dr. Sweat offers keen insights into many of the principles of truth-seeking we have been exploring throughout this series as well as many others we didn’t cover! Casey and I were excited to interview Dr. Sweat for this episode of

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55:04

Real vs. Rumor: An Interview with Dr. Keith Erekson

Church History Matters ·

2024/01/02

In this episode of Church History Matters, we are joined by special guest Dr. Keith Erekson, a Church Historian. Dr. Erekson wrote an important book entitled “Real vs. Rumor: How to Dispel Latter-day Myths.” It embodies many of the principles of truth-seeking we have been exploring throughout this series … and then some! Casey and I were excited to interview Dr. Erekson about his book and to invite him to demonstrate what those principles look like in practice by inviting him to grapple on-air with

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00:53

God Bless You All!

Church History Matters ·

2023/12/26

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Church History Matters! We'll see you next week :)

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01:00:25

Why Evidence-Based Faith Matters

Church History Matters ·

2023/12/19

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” Hebrews 11:1 reads, “the evidence of things not seen.” Hmm. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Does this mean faith is the evidence we have of things not seen? Or could we say it this way: faith is the level of confidence we feel toward a truth-claim or proposed reality which we have not seen based on the degree of evidence we have accumulated of its truthfulness and existence? If so, is this why the Lord’s prescription in D&C 88:118 for

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57:22

Why Contextualizing Facts Matters So Much

Church History Matters ·

2023/12/12

Facts don’t interpret themselves. People interpret facts. And the people best equipped to most accurately interpret facts are those who understand the contexts in which those facts were originally embedded. This is especially important in understanding Church History because a fact—especially a potentially shocking or scandalous sounding fact—isolated from its context is a fact certain to be misunderstood. This reality is too often leveraged by critics against Church members as a weapon of mass

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51:06

Why Mental Flexibility is So Crucial for Durable...

Church History Matters ·

2023/12/05

A fundamental moment in all good learning is that moment where we modify our assumptions about the world as a result of acquiring new and more accurate knowledge. This in turn hopefully primes us to make better decisions. On one level, it’s what learning is all about. Sounds pretty basic right? Well, it is. But it isn’t always easy. Church History can teach us that modifying one’s assumptions can be a challenge for some when it requires them to rethink their ideas about God, prophets, and the

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01:07:20

Are Criticisms of the Book of Mormon Witnesses...

Church History Matters ·

2023/11/28

How can we confidently discern the difference between a reliable historical claim and an unreliable one? This is what Casey and I discussed in our last episode where we introduced five source critical questions we can all ask to carefully assess the reliability of a historical truth claim. In this episode of Church History Matters, we’re going to practice putting these five questions to work by actually using them to measure and evaluate various historical truth-claims about the witnesses of the

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57:47

How Can We Think Like Historians?

Church History Matters ·

2023/11/21

How can we know what actually happened in the past? Whose stories are true? Piecing together accurate history can be tricky business. People in the past, like people today, were diverse. Some were honest. Some were not. Some were straight shooting truth tellers who gave honest (though subjective) accounts of what happened. Others emphasized or omitted specific details in ways that would serve their particular agenda. So, how should we think about and evaluate the reliability of historical claims and

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51:15

Workshopping the Three Lenses

Church History Matters ·

2023/11/14

How can we confidently determine what is and what is not reliable doctrine so we can decide what to believe? This is what Casey and I discussed in our last episode where we introduced what we called the Three Doctrinal Lenses, or criteria, by which we can assess the doctrinal reliability of a truth claim. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we’re going to practice putting these three lenses to work by actually using them to measure and evaluate various theological truth-claims to

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01:01:28

How Do We Become Doctrinally Confident?

Church History Matters ·

2023/11/07

Just before he left home for college, eighteen year old Henry Eyring, the future world renowned LDS scientist, was invited by his father, Edward Eyring, to sit down for some fatherly counsel. After sharing his firm conviction that Joseph Smith was a true prophet whom God used to restore his church, Edward said to his son, “Now, there are a lot of other matters which are much less clear to me. But in this Church you don’t have to believe anything that isn’t true.” In this Church you don’t have to

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54:45

What Do You Know? And How Do You Know It?

Church History Matters ·

2023/10/31

What is truth? What does it mean to really “know” something? And what are the best methods and tools to come to know a thing? In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we begin our new series on Good Thinking where we explore the important role our brain and intellect play in truth seeking and the life of faith. Specifically in this series we want to explore what mental moves are made, or what frameworks of thinking are used by intelligent, critically thinking Latter-day Saints whose faith is

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01:09:32

Q&R with Dr. Kerry Muhlestein! Tough Book of Abraham...

Church History Matters ·

2023/10/24

There was in 2nd Century BC Egypt an indisputable multicultural sharing of religious ideas between Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians. How should that fact influence how we evaluate Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the Abraham facsimiles in general and individual hieroglyphics on the facsimiles specifically? On a related note, some of Joseph’s descriptions of Facsimile #2 contain temple themes, saying more will be revealed about those in the temple. Can Egyptologists today read those hieroglyphs? And are

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01:04:20

Beyond Book of Abraham Controversies

Church History Matters ·

2023/10/17

So, the Book of Abraham is the touchpoint of some serious controversies—and we’ve talked about some of those in our last two episodes and we’ll probably talk about them more next week as well. But, to be clear, the Book of Abraham is also the source of some dazzling doctrinal gems which validate and expand upon other key restoration teachings. So, in this episode of Church History Matters we leave the controversial to bask, however briefly, in what makes the book of Abraham beautiful to us. For

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55:58

The Abraham Facsimile Conundrum: Is it All or Nothing?

Church History Matters ·

2023/10/10

In Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the facsimiles found in our Pearl of Great Price he ties all three of them to Abraham; yet, when some modern Egyptologists look at those same facsimiles today they say they have nothing to do with Abraham: one is simply an embalming scene, one a disk representing the eye of Horus, and one a judgment scene from an Egyptian book of the dead. So, is this an either or, sudden-death scenario? Must we, in the name of honesty and rationality, pick a side? Must we either

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