Standard of Truth

We meant to get to Muhammad. Instead, this became the Lord's Prayer episode. Elder Harris writes from Brazil, asking why so many people there recite the Our Father. We open Matthew 6, where Jesus warns against praying to be seen and against vain repetitions, then gives a prayer, since your Father knows what you need before you ask.

We cover the Joseph Smith Translation's "suffer us not to be led into temptation," the Didache telling early Christians to pray it three times a day, and the Puritans' 1645 opening prayer about their own vileness. Plus Cromwell in Ireland, John Calvin cough drops, and how new the sinner's prayer is. We end on why a Catholic reciting it is an act of faith, and a reminder that nothing separates you from the love of Christ.

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In part two of our Galatians 1:8 series, we return to the claim that an angel bringing “another gospel” proves Mormonism false. Gerrit then the argument back to 1831, reading from Abner Cole’s Palmyra Reflector and Alexander Campbell. Both compared Joseph Smith to Muhammad before the Church was even a year old. We also talk about why quick social media charts misrepresent what most Christians actually believe.

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A missionary in the Philippines asks why early Saints never made the sign of the cross. A new dad, writing from the delivery room, asks about Joseph Smith’s politics and how they compare with President Oaks’s recent address. Gerrit explains the political manifesto, why Moses Thatcher was removed from the Twelve, and how sugar beets pushed Church leaders toward tariffs.

Then they take on a viral meme that groups Joseph Smith with Muhammad under Galatians 1:8. Gerrit walks through angels bringing new messages, from Abraham to John’s Revelation, and asks where the Bible says revelation ended.

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We break down the October 2026 General Conference. The heart of the episode: President Christofferson's address on gambling. Richard debuts a montage of the duo's many tongue-in-cheek nods to President Hinckley's 2005 talk.

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Heidi writes mid-labor to ask about D&C 76: does rejecting the gospel in this life really cap you at the terrestrial kingdom? We discuss that we simply don't know what fully constitutes a person's opportunity to accept Christ, and that a bitter, door-slammed missionary is nobody's final judge. Joseph Smith's own teachings point to a far more merciful God.

That flows into a heavyweight take on "after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23): Pelagius, Calvinism vs. Arminianism, evangelicalism's assurance-of-salvation hybrid, and President Oaks's "Have You Been Saved?" The through-line: we're saved only by grace, and living prophets, not proof-texts, tell us how that grace applies.

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We crack open an all-missionary mailbag with letters from the Philippines, Cincinnati, and beyond. Then the big question: was Cincinnati really cursed by Joseph Smith? We dig into D&C 61, trace how "well nigh ripened for destruction" shifted across the manuscript versions, and follow Orson F. Whitney's later meetinghouse dedication, settling the folklore with actual sources (plus a spirited defense of five-way chili).

A tender Yom Kippur reflection on grace we don't deserve gives way to the 1831 Lockport Balance's "Gold Bible" hit piece, where an over/under on "Joe" mentions reveals how casually, and confidently, falsehoods get printed.

Broadcasting from Medellín, Pablo Escobar's 200 feral hippos and all

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We celebrate 10 million downloads, the arrival of video recordings of the podcast, and a missionary listener who has built a four-generation podcast family tree using "phone checks" on exchanges.

After Nauvoo and before St. George, where did the Saints receive their endowments? Gerrit walks through the Council House, the Endowment House, and Addison Pratt's 1849 endowment atop Ensign Peak, and why exceptions belong to God and His prophets, not to us. A listener shares how the podcast helped a friend through a faith crisis. Gerrit also reads a Shaker elder's 1830 journal account of Oliver Cowdery's visit: an early description of translation by spectacles and hat, and a rejection of the Book of Mormon because it fails to preach celibacy.

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The heart of the episode is a Lyceum dive into a March 16, 1841 discourse of Joseph Smith on the Second Coming and the Millennium. Joseph taught that the wicked won't all be destroyed at Christ's coming, that non-members will remain through the Millennium, and that Christ will come and go rather than reside on earth continuously. We trace how Brigham Young echoed these ideas in Civil War-era sermons, contrast pre-, post-, and amillennial views, and close on the expansive, near-universal scope of salvation in Latter-day Saint theology.

We also talk about college football, the perils of a name like "Kjersta," and the news that Richard’s son (Elder Parker LeDuc) finally requested podcast access after 34 days in the Mexico MTC (while Kai skips the overbooked Philippine MTC entirely and heads straight to the field).

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Richard hadn't showered in days, his water heater's dead, and his family staged an intervention over his baggy clothes. We read emails from listeners and missionaries, including an elder serving in the California Ontario Mission, whose Gen Z slang ("capping," "yapping") had us reaching for a translation guide. Then we got into apostate #8: Ezra Booth. A former Methodist minister and early high priest, Booth apostatized barely a year into the Church and published the first widely reprinted insider attacks on Joseph Smith, fuel for Eber Howe's Mormonism Unveiled. We dug into Sidney Rigdon's public debate challenge, D&C 71, and why Booth grasped prophetic authority better than today's splinter movements. The takeaway, vet your sources and stay close to the prophets.

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In this episode, we continue our deep dive into Ezra Booth's anti-Mormon letters from October 1831, examining how this early apostate mounted his attack against our fledgling church. What fascinates us most is that Booth personally witnessed miracles, including Elsa Johnson's arm being healed, yet later dismissed such spiritual experiences as delusion or deliberate fraud.

We highlight striking logical contradictions in his arguments: he claims only Joseph saw angels, then attacks witness testimonies about seeing them. His scattershot approach, depicting believers as liars, crazy, or stupid, mirrors modern anti-Mormon rhetoric perfectly. Ironically, Booth himself confirms early church members used "Melchizedek priesthood" language and testified of spiritual experiences, undermining later revisionist claims these were later developments.

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We open with incredible news from Sweetwater Rescue: a second Kyulu Stake group reached the Nairobi Kenya Temple and set a record for the most endowments performed in an African temple in a single day.

Gerrit answers a litner’s question on whether or not Brigham Young secretly altered Joseph Smith’s journals to invent polygamy, a claim popular among denialists. Gerrit's dander meter climbs as he unpacks what "revised history" actually meant, why the sources hold up, and the irony of the charge coming from the Bickertonite tradition, which rejects nearly everything Joseph taught after the Book of Mormon.

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This episode of the Standard of Truth continues discussing the apostasy of Ezra Booth, a former Methodist minister who joined the early Church after witnessing Joseph Smith heal Elsa Johnson’s arm.

Gerrit traces Booth’s journey to Missouri in 1831, his disillusionment upon finding the future site of Zion to be a rough frontier town, and his subsequent public renunciation of the faith through nine letters published in the Ohio Star.

We examine how Booth reframed Mormonism as a deliberate deception rather than sincere belief, and how anti-Mormon arguments shifted from “converts are biblically ignorant” to “converts are insane” once educated ministers joined.

Link to the Norm McDonald’s Better Than Ezra joke:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zyaf1Vg4S7I

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In this episode we dive deeper into Ezra Booth, ranked #8 in the "Great Apostate Hall of Shame." Once a prominent Methodist minister leading anti-Masonry campaigns in Ohio, Booth's conversion to Mormonism shocked his community and sparked heated newspaper responses.

We examine his miraculous experiences witnessing the instant healing of Eliza Johnson and attending the historic June 1831 ordination of high priesthood in Kirtland, where Satan allegedly manifested to disrupt proceedings. Yet despite these profound spiritual experiences, Booth would soon apostatize, becoming one of the Church's most vocal and cruel enemies. The episode explores how even those who witness divine power can fall away, emphasizing the importance of daily spiritual practice.

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In this episode, Gerrit pays a heartfelt tribute to Eric Smith, a beloved Joseph Smith Papers colleague and devoted listener who recently passed after a long battle with cancer, complete with the legendary tales of stolen break-room milk and a service missionary's knuckle-deep Oreo heist.

The mailbag delivers a live-show love story, a a testimony-strengthening note from Kimberly, and a listener's run-in with anti-Mormon radio. That sparks a robust discussion on how critics caricature Latter-day Saint belief without ever reading Doctrine and Covenants 76. Poor Ezra Booth gets bumped yet again.

Gina and Eric’s Cancer Relief Fund
https://www.gofundme.com/f/eric-and-ginas-cancer-relief-fund?attribution_id=sl:87024ae3-cbef-4e34-98d5-176e68d9ec63&ts=1784776752&utm_campaign=natman_sharesheet_dash&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link&video_sharing=enabled

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Richard braves self-diagnosed tuberculosis as he and Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat dig into the mailbag: identical twins listening from two different Zions, an ambitious MTC zone leader, and a great question from Joni. Did a prophet really call Del Parson's red-robe painting the most accurate likeness of Christ? Gerrit explains why that's folklore, and why the anti-Catholic climate of the Second Great Awakening made images of Jesus and even crosses on churches, unthinkable for early American Protestants.

Then the Great Apostates Hall of Shame lands at #8: Ezra Booth, the Methodist minister converted by a miraculous healing in the Hiram, Ohio home, who reportedly walked away once he realized the Restored Church offered no paid clergy.

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In this episode, we continue our discussion of the Lyceum (debates/discussions) in Nauvoo. From the most popular chewing tobacco (it is Copenhagen byt the way) to manners and the Trinity, we just about cover everything

#SmallWonder

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Was Francis Scott Key a bitter recluse who denounced America and wrote the anthem from a boat offshore? No, no he was not.

Elder Gurr writes in with an investigator's list of questions, and we tackle the big ones. Who holds the authority to decide which parts of the Bible are "translated correctly"? Who decided the canon, and why did Protestants pull the Apocrypha after 1,400 years? On grace versus works, why "saved by grace alone" quietly assumes a premise a billion Catholics reject, and why Calvinists and Arminians don't even worship the same Jesus.

The upshot: the disagreement itself is the case for a Restoration.

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The podcast begins with the US-Bosnia World Cup match (SEC championships as the definitive metric), then open the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. Jerry from North Dakota earns a heartfelt thank-you and an unnecessary swipe at the Bismarck capitol building, plus a Roosevelt-in-the-Badlands tangent and BYU's windowless MARB building. Elder Ballard (the Nauvoo Mississippi River mission one) requests a new segment: ranking the top apostates.

Enter the debut of the "The Great Apostate Hall of Shame." First up, outside-looking-in: Joseph Wakefield, a powerhouse early missionary who baptized George A. Smith, then apostatized, joined Kirtland's anti-Mormon committee, and helped hire Philastus Hurlbut.

Reason for Apostasy: He couldn't accept D&C 76's expansive vision of heaven.

The Takeaway: Don't let any belief become the one that separates you from the prophet.

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We are recording in front of a live studio audience in Nauvoo, Illinois.

In this week's episode, we begin with a movie review of the 1980s classic Prodigal Son and Cipher in the Snow, and then make the obvious transition to Nauvoo Lyceum. Gerrit regales the audience with several topics discussed in this adult education program, and we cover the Chestnut Hill College Lacrosse Team's dominance from 2021 to 2024

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In this episode, we answer a litter's questions who wrote while in "DEEP" labor asking about the lesser-known Pratt brothers and an audio submission from Filer, Idaho about the legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought the teenage Jesus to Cornwall. Gerrit traces the idea to William of Malmesbury's 12th-century history of Glastonbury and its tangle of Arthurian folklore.

We close with part three of our King Follett sermon series, where Gerrit warns against apologists who lean on the Thomas Bullock account's apparent mistranscription to claim Joseph taught God was God from all eternity, arguing that you can't play historian with one discrepant source against five consistent ones, and that watering down what Joseph actually taught to appease traditional Christian critics is selling your birthright for a mess of pottage that won't even fill you up.

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