Technology and Mormonism: A Two-edged Sword

Speaker 1

I’m going to introduce Bob Rees. He has been around for a while. We are very excited to have him speak today. But, yeah, for those coming in, if you can come up to the front so that we can be. As close and involved as possible. Bob?

Robert A Rees

Yes, he has been around a while. Maybe too long. We’ll see. I know that the scriptures say that you shouldn’t take the upper seats at the feast. But today we will suggest you violate that and move closer, because I feel like there’s this great chasm that separates me from you, and I’m I would normally, as a teacher, come down among you. But since this will only stretch a few feet, we’re stuck with this. When I started teaching in the former Soviet Union, I found that all of my students were afraid, because they had lived under the Soviet system, to ever venture an opinion or to give a private Expression, and I found the only way I could get them to do it was to walk right down in front of them and ask them a question and speak to them. I can’t do that to you because of the it’s so interesting. We’re talking about technology. I feel like we’re in about 1850 with the system that we’ve got. Anyway, thank you very much for being here.

Robert A Rees

This my children and my grandchildren would be laughing that I am talking about technology because they are they kid me unmercifully about how little I know. Anyway, I do know a few things about some things related to technology, and so therefore this session

Robert A Rees

Beginning with the development of primitive tools, humans have wrestled with the question as to whether technology represents peril or progress. The same tool that Cain used to kill an animal for food or thwart a threatening beast he used to kill his brother Abel. In his poem, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment, written during the Second World War, the poet Richard Eberhardt writes, You would feel That after so many centuries, God would give man to repent, yet he can kill, as Cain could. But with multitudinous will, no further advanced than in his ancient furies. Our highly developed arsenal of military weaponry currently employed in the Middle East confirms Eberhardt’s judgment. Reading the morning news, one has to agree that we can and do kill, as Cain could, but in much larger numbers. and with much greater efficiency and through more technolog technologically advanced. And though more technologically advanced, we are no further morally advanced than in our ancient Furies.

Robert A Rees

Similarly, the same technologies that allow General Conference to be broadcast live around the world in over one hundred languages also makes possible the multi billion dollar industry of pornography and drug addiction, as well as many other activities that undermine society and destroy human lives. Computer data storage systems that greatly enhance ancestral research and genealogical work are also employed in fraudulent and deceptive criminal schemes that rob the poor as well as the nation’s coffers. The same iPads that missionaries now use to teach the gospel can lead to inefficient and inappropriate use, including by missionaries, including accessing sites that can be counterproductive and even spiritually dangerous. Some missionaries have been sent home for spending time on the wrong sites. It is worth noting that along with their iPads, missionaries are given a booklet, quote, standards for using technology and missionary work. In the digital age, something that the first missionaries who went out with their copies of the Book of Mormon didn’t have to deal with. And the same smartphones allow for the reading of scriptures in sacrific meeting, also allow the same people sitting in sacrific meeting to watch videos on YouTube, movies or a million other visuals during that sacred hour. I was thinking about this not too long ago, sitting in sacrament meeting with everybody out with their iPads and their iPhones, and wondering if the bishop had some kind of a technology in front of him who could say, who’s really reading the scriptures? And who’s looking at the thing? It might be interesting.

Robert A Rees

Anyway, from the beginning, the eldest church, the LDS Church, has used technology to advance its interests. A 2007 article on LDS in the LDS Newsroom titled Technology Used by Church in Early Years. States that, quote, in 1867, the church had an installation of a 500-mile telegraph line connecting outlying settlements through the hub of the church. in Salt Lake City. And then to 1996, when the church entered officially the World Wide Web, the church has historically implemented communications technologies in a timely way. Quickly taking advantage of the telegraph in 1867, the telephone in 1876, radio in 1922, television in 1948. The Church’s use of technology has significantly expanded with the development of computers, digital technology, satellites and other inventions. According to the article, quote, for a number of years the computer services department of the church, this is something I didn’t know until I read it. ran a three-shift, twenty four hour, six day a week schedule to manage the workload generated by the exciting new technologies.

Robert A Rees

In 1974, Prospencer W. Kimball said, I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly a glimpse. When we have used the satellite and related discoveries to their greatest potential, then, and not until then, shall we approach the insistence of our Lord and Master to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Robert A Rees

In a 2014 BYU Education Week address, David A. Bednar spoke of the wonders and blessings of modern technology, which he also saw as a direct blessing from heaven. We are blessed to live, learn, and serve in the most remarkable dispensation, an important aspect of the fullness that is available to us. is a miraculous progression of innovations and innovations that enabled and accelerated the work of salvation, an almost endless list of technologies and tools that bless our lives. And there are a million people down in Silicon Valley currently at work on a million more. All of these advancements are part of the Lord’s hastening his work in the latter days. It is no coincidence, said Elder Bednar, that these powerful communication innovations and inventions are occurring in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Social media channels are global tools that can personally and positively impact large numbers of individuals and families. And I believe the time has come for us as disciples of Christ to use these inspired tools appropriately and more effectively.

Robert A Rees

Like many modern organizations, the Church currently uses technology in a number of positive, constructive and expansive ways, especially in terms of information and communication. Unlike churches like the Shakers and the Mennonites that eschew modern improvements for simpler, less technologically oriented lifestyles, The Mormon Church retains a cadre of highly trained specialists and technicians who employ technology in both ordinary and in creative ways to serve the Church’s fourfold mission. For example, the church has developed the most comprehensive and sophisticated genealogical research and storage system in the world. With the advent of personal computers and the Internet, This system, which has its own website, familysearch. org, is available in homes, libraries and chapels to millions of people throughout the world.

Robert A Rees

An article in the LDS Examiner this week titled Mormon Church Uses Technology to Reach Youth Around the World. Kelly Foss reports, quote, partly because of the centralized structure of the Mormon Church, it has been an early and effective adapter of technology in fulfilling its mission. This is especially true of the youth of the church. The Worldwide Faith has members in over one hundred fifty nations and leverages technology to stay connected with even small church branches in faraway nations across the globe.

Robert A Rees

An article in the Charlotte Technology Examiner titled The Eldest Church’s Mormon Message. In this, Brent Jackson observes: In the last few years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made quantum leaps in the use of technology and communicating to its members and to the world, causing many churches to look on with Mormon envy. Even the Roman Catholic Church, with over a billion members worldwide, doesn’t compete with the exposure and efficiency in communicating the communication the LDS Church is reaching. More than most churches, the LDS Church has caught the vision of utilizing technology to accomplish its goals.

Robert A Rees

Jackson notes, especially the church and church affiliated groups and individuals have created sophisticated sites which get priority ranking on Google searches. Quote, today, if you Google the words Jamarman, Joseph Smith, and Latter-day Saints, you will see that the majority of Page one results are some of the most well done sites on the Internet, done by the LDS Church or its members. They even dominate the most widely used name in all of Christianity, Jesus Christ. Twenty minutes? This has forty, right?

Robert A Rees

Jackson, noting the church’s sophisticated use of broadcasts, websitecasts and mobile devices, including apps, concludes: clearly the LDS Church is laser-focused on communication with its borders. and the world, and clearly it’s working with the appearance blitz from seemingly every direction. You would have to live in a cave not to be exposed to information about this church.

Robert A Rees

As smartly and as successfully as the church is using technology, as hopeful as it is in spreading the gospel and managing the myriad activities that take place within the church and through the church, The Church is increasingly cognizant of the perils and potential misuses of technology. In an April 2008 General Conference address, President Utdorf spoke of the advantages of modern technology, but warned Be cautious. These same technologies can allow evil influences to cross the threshold of your homes. These dangerous traps are only a mouse click away. pornography, violence, intolerance and ungodliness destroys families, marriages and individual lives. These dangers are distributed through many media, through magazines, books, television, movies, et cetera.

Robert A Rees

In a general conference address entitled Let Our Voices Be Heard, Elder Ballard said that in addition to avoiding negative influence, Latter-day Saints should be active in opposing them. The question under consideration here is the extent to which technology enhances or imperils our lives and advances or retards the ultimate flowering of the kingdom of God.

Robert A Rees

Take climate change, for example. Many moderns, some Mormons, like many moderns, some Mormons believe that whatever mess we make of the world, eventually Christ will come and clean it up. Our refusal to acknowledge and take responsibility for the devastation to nature and the environment, much of it’s caused by modern technology, will have a dramatic effect on the Church’s ultimate mission. The Church is our inheritance and we are its stewards. For this reason, I believe that the tenth article of faith should be changed from its current passive. The earth will be renewed to receive its paradisecal blessing. Glory to we will renew the earth to receive its paradise of glory. Same is true with peace. We have a choice of turning our vast technological weaponry into plowshares. However, given Mormons’ penchants to be a warlike people, as President Kimball characterizes, such a peaceful future seems like a fanciful dream.

Robert A Rees

Another way in which technology can have a negative effect is distracting us from important matters by dominating our attention and occupying our affections. In an article in the June twenty ten Ensign titled Things As They Really Are, Elder Bednar addressed the negative impact of media on relationships. Sadly, some young men and young women in the church today neglect eternal relationships for digital distractions, diversions, and detours that have no lasting value. My heart aches when a young couple experience marital difficulty because of the ex the excessive addicting effect of excessive video gaming or online socializing. And I think that that is a clearly a danger that is affecting our families.

Robert A Rees

I’m not suggesting all technology is bad, he said. But it is not. Nor am I saying we should not use as many capabilities to communicate to lift and brighten lives. But I’m raising a warning a warning voice. Although Rednar seems to be giving a warning voice a lot Days, which I think in this case is certainly well deserved.

Robert A Rees

One of the problems with our constant obsession with social media and electronic devices. Is that they lead to what Linda Stone calls continuous partial attention. It’s a wonderful term. Continuous partial attention, which means that we’re not paying full attention to anyone, to ourselves, to God, or to others.

Robert A Rees

When the transatlantic cable was finally finished in the middle of the nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau observed, With our hundred quote modern improvements, there is an illusion about them. There is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be petty toys. We are in great haste, he said. to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas. But Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. As if the objective were to walk fast and not to talk were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks closer to the new. But perchance the first news that will leak through the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the hooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile a minute does not carry the most important messages. He is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. As Thoreau said, these are improved means to an unimproved end.

Robert A Rees

Well, there are many other such devices that we all are aware of. One of those, it seems to me, that we should have some concern about is the extent to which modern technology allows for the surveillance of private and personal communications. According to Lewis Lapham, since 1911, the apparatus to gather intelligence on American citizens has grown to include more than 3,000 government and private agencies involved in intelligence gathering at seventeen thousand locations across the United States. And there is a huge national database that facilitates mass surveillance in the United States. According to the ACLU, the Patriot Act passed in 19 in right after 9-11. allows the government to monitor phone, e mail communications, collect bank and credit reporting records and track the activity of innocent Americans on the Internet.

Robert A Rees

There is no evidence that the Church employs technology to keep track of the private lives of members. But Given its response to criticism and the example of governments and corporations, it is possible that in the future it might be tempted to do so. As Brett Jackson observes, quote, no church in the world knows more about how their members are doing and where they are than the LDS Church. With the home teaching program, the leaders of each local congregation have an insight into each member’s status and needs. Enter the LDS Church Leaders secure resources about members utilizing the Internet. Leaders have access to nonsensitive data hopefully not sensitive, about each member wherever whenever they need it. In addition, leaders have instant access via web or device to any other leaders’ information in the world if they need to contact them.

Robert A Rees

The ironically named Strengthening Church Members’ Community, established under the direction of President Ezrat Benson. Who had a penchant for suspecting conspiracy in high and low places, suggests a possible use of technology to collect information on critics and suspected apostates of the Church. According to church spokesman Don Lafeva, the committee, quote, receives complaints from church members about other members who have made statements that conceivably could do harm to the church. and passes those on to local leaders. It says it makes no judgment on such communication, but leaves this up to the discretion of local leaders. Based on my experience, and I do have a file, the Church Strengthened Church Members Committee, and it’s been there for some years, and this may be going into it, who knows. Based on my experience, it is a rare leader who, upon receiving such a communication from the Strengthening Members’ Committee, which is headed by two members of the Quorum of the Twelve, chooses not to act. When the church feels threatened from within or without, history shows that such threats can cause not only a defensive, but a punitive reaction. As I say, there is no evidence that the Church uses or plans on using technology for such purposes, but the fact that the Strengthening Members’ Committee was secret until inadvertently relieved revealed in nineteen ninety one gives one pause.

Robert A Rees

Given where we are in the history of the world, it is impossible to conceive of a world without technology or without new technological inventions. Drones that carry nuclear weapons, machines that think, automobiles that drive themselves, medical advances that significantly extend life, brain-to-brain communication, time travel. Who knows what the future holds? What we do know is that if we use technology intelligently and righteously, it can be a blessing. If we don’t, it certainly will be a curse.

Robert A Rees

As B. F. Skinner said, the real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men and women do. And we could add, the real problem isn’t whether we can construct machines that feel, but whether we can continue to feel. We can’t make it back to the garden or into the future without listening to our own and to one another’s hearts. No technology is a substitute for that. No electronic media are capable of empathy and compassion. At least not yet. No technology produces holiness. No machines are capable of giving and accepting love. Machines may be able to approximate some of the functions of the human brain, but only gods and humans have hearts capable of deep and enduring love.

Robert A Rees

Thus, when we stand before the keeper of the gate, the Holy One of Israel, he will not ask how many tweets we send a day. how quickly we can find something on the Internet, or how many friends we have on Facebook. Rather, like the Egyptians, he will weigh our hearts. Thank you. We now have time for questions. Okay.

Speaker 4

I think it’s honestly there’s no evidence that the church is doing that. I went to put their app for my on my phone for the scripture. And I read the thing that you’re always saying that we do. And it actually says that the church collects your Information that’s tracks for internet use.

Robert A Rees

That’s what you get by me for not meeting that. I always think, yes, I agree. I wonder what else I’ve agreed to. So the statement was for this recording is that on the scripture, the app that you download, apparently there is a statement there that indicates that The church wants to know how many times you read first third Nephi as opposed to how many times you read first Nephi over and over and over again. It says that they track your well, maybe somebody needs to read it sent to me, but it says they track your internet usage. Like that’s going to be not. Does that only track what you do on LPS. org at your club?

Robert A Rees

I don’t know what technology is available to keep track of all of the things that we search on the Internet. It certainly makes a lot of people nervous to think that anybody would be tracking. You do on LDS. com? It’s just on the website. Okay, so everybody’s safe, we hope, for the minute. Yes, ma’am. She asked a very good question.

Robert A Rees

I am on the National Board of a group called No Bully, and we deal with bullying in the schools. And cyberbullying is one of the really big problems. On the Internet and in our society. It has led to suicides. It is just a terrible problem. I don’t know about cyberbullying within the Mormon blogosphere, but given the vitriolic communications that go on between Mormons and anti-Mormons, between pro and con, between all of the what one might expect. Certainly, there is a lot of nastiness. On the website, and it’s on both sides of people excommunicating one another electronically. And so I don’t know. What I do know from my work with the No Bully Foundation is that it is a common problem and it’s a huge problem because people can be anonymous And can use that anonymity to bully other people.

Robert A Rees

There is a kind of implied thing. I was reading this morning, not this morning. I got up to early to do that. I was reading last night that I was reading comments on Elder Bednar’s address to the students of BYU Idaho. And or maybe it was the one about the church’s policy. And people were taking, you know, it’s very there’s very little middle ground in Mormonism these days. People run to the one pole or the other and then cast stones and verbal abuses across This widening gap. But there were some things that basically said anybody who doesn’t accept this new policy, which was a subject of a Panel that will be this afternoon is not following God, is not righteous, doesn’t support the Brethren, whatever. There is a tendency, and that happens on both sides, each side calling the other side idiots. And whatever else. So there is, if there isn’t direct bullying of a person, there certainly is a disrespect and a trashing of anyone who doesn’t agree with the person. Person’s patient. But I would guess that there is bullying. But since I am, you know, it probably wouldn’t surprise you that I was on Facebook for a day years ago. And I even understand I got hundreds of friends there, but I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a very good question, Tanya. Yes?

Speaker 4

I’ve heard of eating white as a kid because rather than technology. I’m just terrified all of it now. But um I I have heard since I was a child that um this technology is because were in the last 80s and it was all about those times. But I read this really interesting book about a year ago where the diagnostic happened on the top They said if you took them up in the 1800s and dropped them in the 1900s, they would have been shocked by what was available. They wouldn’t have known what to do with themselves. The keys, they were cards, they would have And all the new tech, right? But if you took someone from even the 1930s and dropped them into today, there just hasn’t been that much change. All of our innovation has happened online, right? It’s all this wireless stuff that I don’t even know about until I talk about it. But so I wonder, well if this tech is the fulfillment of times, why is everything else so staggering? And does that say something about our priorities? Are we missing something? Do we have to make these innovations when it comes to disease or even household short. I just I feel like we get so caught up on the tech that we can log into, the actual human experience, not a ragged, better thing.

Robert A Rees

Well, I think you’re you are making the the thing the statement was about all of these technological innovations that many of them are using basically radio waves to do To communicate. But the fact of the matter is that we can do so many things better and faster than we could. even a few years ago. I mean, the if you look at the line of technological developments over human history, it goes like this, and then it goes like this. still going into the stratosphere. The question is, are these improved means to improved ends or improved means to unimproved ends or unimproved means to unimproved ends? And this comes back to What I was saying

Robert A Rees

That, whatever, Jesus didn’t use technology to preach the gospel. And yet, he was the most powerful teacher in all of history. Am I grateful that I can carry the scriptures in my on my cell phone instead of that big quad? Yeah. Do I read it the same as I did before? That’s the question. Do we read it? Do we live by it? How is it affecting? How is technology affecting our lives?

Robert A Rees

And I think this to me would be the challenge of any church or organization. If you can keep track of people, I mean, certainly missionaries using the iPad to teach, I think, is a helpful innovation. If, in fact, the message is a good message, and if the messenger is giving that in a loving way. So we can be in love with technology, we can be enslaved to technology, technology can govern and ruin our lives. And I think there isn’t enough emphasis. On the way in which we can constructively use technology. But in a way, technology is neutral. Technology is what is cars are great convenience. Cars can be used to kill. No technology without a human being doing something with it. At least at this point, with robots, I have no idea what’s going to happen. But it is a moral question. That’s a question I’ll be talking about a little bit in the afternoon session on imagining. And there, I’m asking us to imagine what kind of technology there’s going to be 20, 30 years from now. If you could right now do that.

Robert A Rees

And part of what I’m saying, which it makes your point, is almost impossible. If you go back 30 years. And I was born in the 30s, so it shows you how old I am. Who I couldn’t have conceived of the world I live in and take for granted today. Can we conceive of the world 25, 30, or 50 years from now and what it will be like? Will we look Back on this, the same way we look back on the pioneers, and are we as incapable of looking forward as they were of seeing our day? Yes?

Speaker 7

To your the point that you made is that like Jesus didn’t use technology. But like one of Clark’s three laws was that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from all. And like we do have the miracles Spurning water to wine, raising the dead, all of those. You go back and throw the. Not capture that user. Well, but maybe the people that were actually there, right? And so like, you could even like moment like oh it was part of the RC like these are this is maybe maybe technology isn’t the right word but like that was in use like that idea Like we don’t call it technology then, I think we could call it I hate to say magic because that makes it sound bad. It’s a very good point.

Robert A Rees

And th in fact this afternoon I’m going to be talking about what we call human technology. And human technology is the use of spiritual, emotional, intellectual tools. It is you know, love, compassion, empathy. The this is human technology, and it is the combination of human technology with electronic or mechanical or other kinds of technology that makes the difference.

Robert A Rees

So yes, and it may be that uh we will have access. In fact, it’s one of the things that I you know, the the ability to access the quantum world could absolutely be an astonishing revolution. And there are people who believe that we are on the verge of being able we already can access that, that a scientist can. How can that become something that we do? That may be an astonishing technological revolution. And so, yes. Those things that we are capable of that machines aren’t, at least yet, all of them, and some of them I think machines never will be, should be part of our discussion about technology. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Um Bob? Just to tack on to what he’s saying, I would argue that um if it’s being accomplished, uh it basically That God Himself does not disobey the laws of physics, right? So if any miracle is being accomplished, it’s being accomplished through some means that we don’t yet understand. But that is ultimately technological in nature.

Robert A Rees

Yeah, and that’s the definition of a miracle: something that happens according to laws we don’t understand. Thankfully, I think we can say God understands physics post-Einstein rather than pre-Einstein. And who knows what’s going to be post-whatever we are. the laws of physics that God understands for to be able to make a command and have something come into being.

Robert A Rees

Yes, we are still We see ourselves as living in a highly advanced and enlightened age. We will be looked back on. And people in the future to say, my gosh, they were doing what? And look at our medical technology How far we’ve advanced, and yet there’s so many things that we don’t know. We don’t know how to solve a lot of medical problems today, but we know how to solve more than we did a decade ago. I have two grandchildren who are alive. because of neonatal research as a medical science that saved their lives when they were born one two and a half pounds. Now, a beautiful 15-year-old kid doing beautifully bright things. So I am very grateful to live in such a technologically advanced age.

Robert A Rees

But I think we also have to look at the dark side of technology. We have drones. That are killing thousands of innocent people around the world, or in certain parts of the world, are weaponry Is destroying lives and civilizations. Our technology is often used to nefarious and evil ends. We have to be responsible for that. And how we’d be responsible, I think, is going back to having this dialogue between our heads and our hearts and between our souls and whatever exists out there in the world we inhabit. Any other questions? Yes, question back here.

Speaker 8

So your discussion of information technology particularly seemed like you highlighted two major threats. in that as individuals, digital intimacies can rob us of connection with God and with others. And on the other side you highlighted the dangers of our church misusing information technology. To violate the trust or to enter into our lives because we’re not prepared for it. You highlighted the Bednar’s comments that address the personal. Are there any sources of thoughts towards what there can be to prevent these larger abuses, these abuses of government, abuses of organizations? Focusing too much on individual options. I thank you, Chase.

Robert A Rees

Chase is working on a PhD here at UC Berkeley. And I mentioned to him the newest issue of the Lapham Quarterly. I don’t know if you know this journal, L-A-P-H-A-M, started by Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harper’s. uh magazine. Uh anyway, his his newest issue, which just came this week, is on spying and the use of technology by governments and uh groups and individuals uh to uh to gather information almost always for ends that turn out not to be as they are promised. There is a lot of research done on that, but it because so much of the surveillance is secret and unknown, it is difficult sometimes to have reliable research. But there is research on that.

Robert A Rees

Again, I only know about the strengthening of the members’ committee and don’t know other than whether that’s still I assume that since when I first found out 40 years ago, that there was a file on me, which I was surprised, naive as I was, that such a file existed. On me. That was before the Internet. And I assume that some member of my ward who thought my gospel doctrine class was a little edgy wrote a letter to some apostle or whatever. or but now that we have the Internet, it’s so much easier. So my my file has probably not grown fatter, but deeper electronically Than it was before. But I have no idea. I really don’t know. I just know that my state president reported to me when I asked him, Do you think there is a file? And he said, Let me find out. He said, Yeah, there is one. And so I belong to some kind of a special fellowship. And all of you may be a part of it. Since you showed up here and you registered online, who knows what? Yes.

Speaker 9

I want to explore the idea of Edward Beninar’s statement of the technology of the day being part of hastening the work. Because it seems to me, from my observation, current information technology has been disruptive to the church, maybe more disruptive than useful. So I wonder if you can talk about that. Yes, very good question.

Robert A Rees

And I think the church is clearly facing This, whether or not the Internet there’s no question that the Internet has been a terribly disruptive technology for the Church. The church controlled its message before the internet, pretty much. That is, few few people could dig deep into the journal discourses or read all of the the articles that you couldn’t Google whatever, and even though the church does influence as this, as Brett Jackson said, there is a way to influence what comes up first on Google. And the church is clearly strategically controlling that because there are a lot of anti-Mormon groups that try and do that as I think some of you know that the uh uh on the Wikipedia, there is an underground battle going on on Wikipedia between the evangelicals and the anti-Mormons and the Mormons for the narrative about Joseph Smith. Because you can change things on Wikipedia. So if you think somebody’s done too polished a job, you can come in and affect that. So the there’s no question that the genie is out of the bottle, what do you want to call it, however you look at that genie.

Robert A Rees

And we are now in a world in which I think the church is I think the church is not simply aware but very wary of the potential uses of this technology. And when instantaneously things that might have been spoken within a smaller group can now be broadcast across the world. And there is a certain positive aspect of that, which is the gospel message can be broadcast to the world, but also a negative uh uh uh message can be broadcast. So I think the church is highly aware of it. I I think if you will be talking about this in the panel uh session this afternoon on the church’s change in policy. You know, how quickly that was leaked, how quickly there seemed to be damage control, how quickly. That damage control was attempted to be tamped down with Elder Nelson’s address, but we are not going to put that one back in. bottle very quickly or easily or maybe ever. One more question. Yes.

Speaker 9

Well, what what do you think has driven the church’s embrace of technology more as it’s designed? To spread the gospel message, or the desire to correlate the gospel amongst its members?

Robert A Rees

The question is the church’s interest in technology more to spread the gospel or to correlate its message. I tend to be more optimistic and I’m a very trusting person, which has gotten me into trouble. But I think the essential impulse of the church It is to fulfill its fourfold mission through any means possible. And so I think it’s the initial use of the telegraph and the telephone and radio and television. was to get that message out. That was before correlation, much of it. Post correlation, I think it’s both. Part of it is to control the message. part of us to get it out. I think there is a certain I’m sure within church leadership there is a struggle between those two things and uh and and you know, how that comes out, I think we will Just have to go home and Google tonight to find out. Thank you all very much.