Asking a Mormon Leader My Hardest Questions
Sean McDowell
apologetics
August 7, 2026
I got a tour inside the San Diego Latter-day Saint temple and now I'm following up with an interview with Neal Walton who is a stake president in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in San Diego. Apparently, I was the first Christian apologist who'd ever shown up with a film crew and asked for an interview. We worked through the differences plainly. The Trinity. Whether God the Father has a physical body. Baptism for the dead. Faith and works. Exaltation versus salvation. Whether Jesus is the uncreated, eternal God. Neither of us pretended those are small, and neither of us tried to win.
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0:00 — What a stake president actually does
0:47 — "Has an apologist ever shown up before?"
1:20 — No pay, no degree, no formal training
2:05 — The morning I went to seminary at 5 a.m.
2:48 — Losing a four-year-old daughter
3:14 — "If your God is good, why would he allow this?"
4:40 — Did it make you doubt?
5:21 — The verse that settled him
6:26 — Do you have doubts now?
7:51 — What am I missing out on?
9:03 — Temples, service, and interfaith work
10:28 — Pushing back on "one big happy family"
11:01 — "Go straight to the source"
12:04 — Seven questions to gauge whether you love truth
12:21 — I read it. I prayed. I wasn't settled.
12:57 — "So what's my next step?"
14:44 — My dad's story
16:13 — "Son, love truth"
16:44 — Is there evidence behind the Book of Mormon?
17:12 — Questions versus doubts
19:16 — What a Sunday sermon looks like
21:26 — How he defines faith
22:36 — The biggest misconceptions
23:26 — Three distinct beings
25:13 — Where we actually differ
27:20 — The Trinity
28:16 — A physical body, baptism for the dead, faith and works
29:02 — Exaltation, and whether Jesus is uncreated
29:30 — His response
32:36 — Temple recommends and the celestial kingdom
32:54 — "There's order in God's house"
34:38 — He turns the question on me
35:50 — Why I actually came
36:19 — "I don't find it true or compelling — and I think I get it"












