I don't think we can ever transcend Joseph Smith or consider him to be a valued personality, but now we'll move on.
I don't think you'll see that among believers in the faith, because there are too many other things that came from him
that are the reasons why we do what we do and we are what we are. That there are unanswered questions, to be sure.
That there are things that I'm as anxious as the next guy to learn more detail on, I really want to know. But in the interim,
it really doesn't, doesn't trouble me.
We're in the religion-making business, as you intimated earlier, only for a short time, I mean, compared to the
Christian church, which has been at this for a couple of millennia. We're about halfway to Nicaea.
And so, and so in that sense — I remember a very tender moment. I was speaking with — I've been invited
to the Salt Lake Theological Seminary, basically an Evangelical seminary, to discuss a book I had done on Jesus.
And they had read it, and they wanted me to come and just respond to questions.
And it was, it was a very enjoyable couple of hours.
The very last question that was asked by one of my friends there was this one.
He said, 'Bob, what can we do for you?'
And I, I wasn't ready for that question. I said, 'What do you mean?'
He said, 'What can we, as Evangelicals, do for our Mormon friends?'
And I, I guess my mind could have gone a hundred different ways, but what I came back with was this.
I said, 'Boy, I appreciate you asking that. I don't think I've ever been asked that.'
But, but I said, 'Try this. Cut us a little slack, will you? Give us a little time.
We're in the religion-making business, and this takes time. It takes centuries.
And, and trying to explain the faith and articulate the faith, that doesn't come over night.
We've really only been about that for 20 or 30 years.'
