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Standard of Truth

The purpose of this podcast is to help Latter-Day Saints better understand their history and increase their faith. The podcast hosted by Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, associate professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU.

Podcast · By Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat · English · Official site

Indexed episodes, last 90 days
11
Latest publication
Sep 17, 2026
Audience
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Earliest in this view
Jul 9, 2026

Latest episodes

  1. Episode · Sep 17, 2026

    S6E37 Exceptions Are God's to Make (opens the original)

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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 fr

  2. Episode · Sep 10, 2026

    S6E36 Joseph Smith on the Second Coming (Churchy McChurch Church) (opens the original)

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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

  3. Episode · Sep 3, 2026

    S6E35 The Great Apostate Hall of Shame - #8 Ezra Booth Part 5 (FINAL) (opens the original)

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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 inside

  4. Episode · Aug 27, 2026

    S6E34 The Great Apostate Hall of Shame - #8 Ezra Booth Part 4 (opens the original)

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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 testimo

  5. Episode · Aug 20, 2026

    S6E33 Did Brigham Revise Joseph's Journal? (opens the original)

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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 c

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