Episode 108: The First Year in the GSL

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:23)
Before we begin, we need to make a very important statement. We here at the Sunstone History Podcast have had no involvement with Tim Ballard, none. Other than maybe making fun of his terrible, awful, no good, very bad books. For the record, Lincoln did not read the Book of Mormon, and Timmy can suck it on that count.
Now, on to the main course.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:45)
Okay, well wait, that's not actually accurate. We did invite him years ago when he was in his glory days to speak at Sunstone.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:55)
Glory days?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:56)
I would say early days.
Early days. When, you know, there was this new young kid on the block that was going to save all the kids. And so we had heard about him, and so we invited him to Pillars of Our Faith to speak with Ed Smart.
He backed out the day of, but Ed Smart did come, and he was lovely. And I also had a brief conversation with Tim Ballard back in 2015 when I was trying to connect Short Creek with trafficking resources. And that was a weird time because he basically, it was a very short phone call, he said he wasn't really involved or interested in helping trafficking victims in Utah, which I thought was really weird. So that was that. So one of us has been connected briefly with the man.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:38)
Fine. I have had no involvement with him then, except making fun of his crappy, crappy books.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:45)
I think you should talk a minute about his books, because from what I understand, if Glenn Beck is to be believed, he believes that Tim Ballard is, quote, a tremendous author.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:56)
Is Glenn Beck ever not to be believed? Let's be honest for a minute. Now, it is interesting. And so a couple of his books were published by Desiree Book.
You have the Washington Hypothesis and you have the Lincoln Hypothesis. The latter, super egregious. The basic idea is that Lincoln checks out the Book of Mormon from the Library of Congress, reads it, and it inspires him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Such a steaming pile of garbage.
At least he used hypothesis. I will give him that because there is absolutely no shred of evidence for any of the stuff in his books. It's all nonsense. My favorite part, his last hypothesis book, the Pilgrim Hypothesis, wasn't Desiree Book. It was Covenant because apparently Washington, Lincoln, sure. But the Pilgrims, that's a bridge too far for Desiree Book.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:44)
So wait, what was the premise of that one?

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:47)
I could not even muster enough energy to figure that part out.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:51)
I'm sure it had to do with Pilgrims finding gold plates and treasure and then ending up at the Boston Museum.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:58)
I'm sure they're proto-Mormons. I mean, that part's pretty obvious because who in American history isn't a proto-Mormon in his mind?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:05)
All I know is his cell phone rant, his 13-minute cell phone rant or whatever that was on, that was recorded a couple weeks ago where he was saying he was innocent. He was at the Revolutionary War Monument in Boston. That was the truest history I've ever seen Ballard give. Like it was just, there's a man. Did you watch it?

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:25)
I heard about it. I haven't seen it now.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:27)
Oh, it's so good. Tim Ballard is like, I don't think the church denounced me. There's no way they did. And then in such a dude bro way, there's a small crowd of people around him who's like, Hey, Jimmy, or Hey, Rick, you tell him, you tell him, right?
And then some guy will be like, Yeah, dude, Elder Ballard really loves you. And one of the guys that steps forward is dressed in a Revolutionary War outfit. He's got like a dry corner hat.
And I was just like, wow, this is a wild time. So yeah, well, does it feel better now that you got to get that out of your system?

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:59)
I just sleep better at night knowing that they got pulled off the shelves.
But at least the last time I checked, not his audio. At such stellar events as Time Out for Women. Those were all still there. I thought that was funny.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:13)
Well, now I know what I'm going to get you for Christmas.
It's going to be that John McNaughton painting of Ballard to hang over your bed, along with your death masks. Have you seen this?