Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-hosts: Carah Burrell, Gerardo Sumano
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introducing the Brad Wilcox Fireside Controversy
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is February 7, 2022, and we are super excited for today's episode. I am joined by my partner in goodness and truth, Carah Burrell. Hey, Carah.
Carah Burrell [00:00:17] Hi, John. Hey, everyone.
John Dehlin [00:00:18] Thanks for joining us.
Carah Burrell [00:00:19] Yep, thanks for having me. Hope you guys are excited.
John Dehlin [00:00:22] Absolutely. And if that weren't enough, we're also really excited to have with us Gerardo. Hey, Gerardo.
Carah Burrell [00:00:28] Hey.
Gerardo Sumano [00:00:29] Hey, John. Hey, Carah.
John Dehlin [00:00:30] It's good to have you.
Carah Burrell [00:00:31] Hello.
Gerardo Sumano [00:00:32] Yeah, I'm excited for this one.
John Dehlin [00:00:34] I love it. In. In the past episode with Simon, that look up care that we. We called this the First Presidency. This is the Mormon Stories first Presidency right here. Although I don't want to be. I don't want to be president, so.
Carah Burrell [00:00:45] Yeah. Oh, perfect.
John Dehlin [00:00:47] Can I be your.
Carah Burrell [00:00:48] So many ideas.
John Dehlin [00:00:49] Be your counselor.
Carah Burrell [00:00:50] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:00:51] All right. All right, Gerardo. And I'll be your counselor.
Carah Burrell [00:00:53] Anyway, we've already decorated, too.
John Dehlin [00:00:56] I know. There's a candle going, 30 more family, all sorts of good things. All right, so a special, special episode. Yesterday, February 6th, my text app started blowing up from friends of mine in Alpine, Utah. There was a, I guess a tri Stake youth fireside that was hosted by none other than Brad Wilcox, who is a BYU professor. He's well known, and I guess his official title is second counselor in the Young Men General Presidency for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint. So it's fair to say Brad is one of the top three leaders in the entire Mormon Church over youth. That's not exaggerating. And so, like, right under general authorities would be the auxiliary for sure. Correct? Yeah. So Brad is a really big deal. He's pretty much about as close to a general authority as you can come. And he gave a fireside talk that was about 50 minutes long. And it was to the youth. And what I'm going to share now is the Mormon Stories blog post because we have to explain you kind of our format for today. So, first of all, one of the things that the LDS Church does is they'll sue you if you release an entire, you know, 50 minute episode. And I guess I should start by saying this episode that was released was, I think, explosive. Do you think explosive is exaggerating, Carah?
Carah Burrell [00:02:25] I was just telling the chat that, like, I've had to stop swearing all morning. I've been.
Brad Wilcox [00:02:31] It was.
John Dehlin [00:02:32] It was mind blowing, John.
Carah Burrell [00:02:34] Yeah, it's so I have.
John Dehlin [00:02:36] Carah says profanity inducing. Gerardo says mind blowing. I say explosive just to kind of give you guys a sense for some of the quotes that Brad. This is just a preview. Brad says things like you want to
Carah Burrell [00:02:49] walk away from the church. Walk away from anything that lets you anything in your life count or matter beyond this life. All right, we're gonna go.
John Dehlin [00:02:58] So yeah, we're getting worse.
Carah Burrell [00:03:00] So maybe instead of asking why did the blacks have to wait till 1978, maybe what we should be asking is why did the whites and other races have to wait till 1829? It gets worse.
John Dehlin [00:03:10] Okay, I'll do one. Christianity has a problem. A huge problem.
Gerardo Sumano [00:03:14] Don't spoil it, John. Too much.
John Dehlin [00:03:15] What's that?
Gerardo Sumano [00:03:16] Don't spoil it too much.
John Dehlin [00:03:17] Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:03:18] Yeah, we're just trying to buckle in practice self care.
John Dehlin [00:03:22] Some of the most egregious statements I've seen anywhere he mentions. So we are going to be covering it today and I just want to kind of explain the format. So we, we do have a copy of the Full talk and normally we would just prefer to share that. The problem is the church will sue us if we just share the full talk. So for those of you who want to go watch the Full talk right now, you can go to mormonstories.org we have a embedded link to the the Full talk that is shared by the Church and by the Alpine. It says Alpine Tri State Regional Fireside Webinar that is shared now. So you can go watch it. But we know that that's going to be taken down within probably a few hours because this is so explosive. So expect that link to disappear. So what we did is we went ahead and downloaded the full video and re uploaded it, but we didn't upload it completely because that's how the Church sues you. So they'll send Curt McConkey after you and file a copyright violation on YouTube and have the entire video taken down
Carah Burrell [00:04:26] and get like a strike against our account probably too.
John Dehlin [00:04:29] And it could, yeah could. It could jeopardize our account. So on the Understanding Mormonism channel because we don't want this to affect Mormon stories, we've broken the talk out into nine different sections and you, we, we've created a playlist. So if you want, if, if the church's own video gets taken down, then you can go to the playlist on Understanding Mormonism and watch it uninterrupted in nine separate parts. But that's why we broke it up into nine separate parts.
Carah Burrell [00:04:55] And I really enc you to go listen to the whole thing. We're going to play a lot of clips but it's up to you to go listen to it and make your own opinions.
John Dehlin [00:05:02] Yeah. And then on the Mormon Stories podcast channel, we have to provide commentary or die. Or literally they'll shut. They'll shut the video down.
Carah Burrell [00:05:11] And I thought they were going to say we have to provide commentary or we will die.
John Dehlin [00:05:14] That's also true. That's also true.
Carah Burrell [00:05:16] Or they will take the video down.
John Dehlin [00:05:17] Yeah, but, but, but this is the channel where we're actually going to do what's called a response video, where we are going to play excerpts from the video and make commentary. And that's what's going to allow us on the Mormon Stories podcast channel to release pretty much what's going to amount to the whole video. Yeah. So this is that. Hold on to your hats. This is going to be really explosive. Gerardo, is there anything you want to say kind of before we. Before we jump in?
Context and Background of the Talk
Gerardo Sumano [00:05:43] I think it was great explanation. I mean, I know a few people may wonder why you're not providing the whole context. Well, that's the main reason we have to provide, I think it's at least 50% commentary rights for it not to violate copyright laws. And we also want to jump right in and go and comment on everything that Wilcox said. So it's going to be really interesting.
Brad Wilcox [00:06:09] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:06:10] Because we think this is breaking news. And by the way, we're also releasing our video, the unedited video version that you can download on MormonStories.org to make your own. It's not audio correct corrected. Our versions are audio corrected. But if you want to just download the raw video and then chop it up audio corrected and make your own videos, we don't want to hold you hostage to our content.
Carah Burrell [00:06:34] So, yeah, in other words, we want as many people who are on Tick Tock to be able to take the videos and make your own commentary on them and spread them around the platform as much as possible. So we want to make that easy and accessible.
John Dehlin [00:06:45] Yeah. Oh, and I'm going to say one last thing. I want to kind of make it really clear. And I tried. You know, Carah and Gerardo and I talked about this beforehand. The purpose of this episode is not to bash Brad Wilcox. It's not to shame him for me. It's not even to call him out. I am going to spend hopefully zero amount of my commentary criticizing Brad Wilcox. What we like to say on Mormon Stories podcast, we've got this from other people, is its systems, not people. And so we don't like shaming or calling out individuals. But Brad Wilcox is a high level leader of the Mormon Church. And I guarantee you that his commentary represents orthodox Mormon church leadership positions on issues like is this the one true church, the Godhead, the priesthood, on the Holy Ghost, on epistemology, on, you know, living prophets, all those things. Other Christian churches, what's that? And other Christians and then other Christian churches as well.
Gerardo Sumano [00:07:49] He talks a lot about that, which. Sorry to interrupt, but I, I think that was part of the things that shocked me the most. I think the church had stopped for a while talking about other ambassading other churches, especially Christian churches. The fact that just he went after them, that was. It's kind of like relieving McConkey, Joseph filming Smith, Mormonism.
Carah Burrell [00:08:15] Right.
John Dehlin [00:08:16] Yeah. He goes after other religions in, in really hideous ways. And yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:08:20] All under the context of kind of in like a fear mongering way of the talking to the youth. Just remember that you're, as you're watching this, he's talking to the youth at a fireside in a way that you'll see a lot of people leaving and where else are they going to go? Kind of under that kind of guise.
John Dehlin [00:08:33] So yeah, and then what we'll do is we'll, we'll, we'll try and incorporate your comments as it makes sense. But what we may do is, is we'll have Karen Gerardo star the comments that are most interesting or applicable and maybe we'll do a Q and A or highlight the commentary at the end.
Carah Burrell [00:08:49] Right.
John Dehlin [00:08:50] So that we don't make the early part of our commentary too long.
Carah Burrell [00:08:53] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:08:54] So Gerardo and Kerry liberally use the star feature in the comment section. You know what that is, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:09:00] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:09:01] Okay. All right, so without any further ado, let's go ahead and get started. And the first clip that we're going to share, we're not starting from the very, very beginning. First of all, there's a. I thought it was really lovely that a young woman conducts this meeting. And honestly, I've never seen a young woman conduct a major Mormon church meeting before. Is that. And of course I haven't been attending in the past few years. Have either of you ever heard of a woman, let alone a young woman, conducting a meeting where the Stake Presidency members are on the stand? Is that new or not from us?
Gerardo Sumano [00:09:36] Yeah, I think it's a thumbs up
Carah Burrell [00:09:38] in the right direction.
John Dehlin [00:09:39] What's that, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:09:41] It's neon, progressive. I've never seen that before.
John Dehlin [00:09:44] And we left that out not to not give the church credit for that, but just to protect the privacy of the young women involved. But that was really cool. There's also a musical number that he references, a piano number of a church hymn that I think the youth arranged himself and then played. I don't remember his name. Yes, you'll hear him mention it later on. But. But it's basically just the. The woman. You know, the woman. The young woman conducts. There's a musical number played, and then Brad Wilcox is the only speaker. So that's.
Carah Burrell [00:10:21] That's the context.
John Dehlin [00:10:21] That's what you're missing before. Before we start. All right.
Gerardo Sumano [00:10:27] And the beginning that we're putting at the end.
John Dehlin [00:10:30] Yeah. So there is a section where he talks about why. What's it called, Gerardo? What's the program?
Gerardo Sumano [00:10:37] Fsy.
John Dehlin [00:10:38] Fsy, which stands for Strength for Youth Only. Oh, for Youth Only for Strength of Youth.
Brad Wilcox [00:10:44] Wait.
Gerardo Sumano [00:10:44] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:10:46] Which is. I guess the church is. The church is sunsetting the EFY program and is replacing it with. With fsy. Is that right, Gerardo? Is. Is. Is EFY going away?
Gerardo Sumano [00:11:03] So what I'm understanding is EFY was owned by byu, the church. Well, he explains this.
John Dehlin [00:11:10] Okay, we're gonna talk about that at the end.
Gerardo Sumano [00:11:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the church now owns it and rebranded it at FS as FSY for
John Dehlin [00:11:19] the Strength of the Church.
Brad Wilcox [00:11:20] For the.
Gerardo Sumano [00:11:21] And now the church is going to be providing the. The. The retreat, you know, themselves.
John Dehlin [00:11:30] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [00:11:31] Without byu.
John Dehlin [00:11:32] Okay. And we. We save that to the end because we wanted to jump into just the commentary first on. On youth leaving the church. So let's go ahead. And this is like the beginning of the talk.
Young People Leaving Religion and the Church
Brad Wilcox [00:11:46] In the newspaper, it says that young people are leaving religion, and it compared your generation to my generation on four important questions. Number one, is religion very important? 59% of my generation said yes. 41% of your generation said yes. Do you attend weekly religious services? 38% of your generation said yes. 27 of my generation said yes. Do you pray at least once a day? 61% of my generation said yes. 42% of your generation said yes. And do you believe in heaven? 74% of my generation said yes. And 67% of your generation said yes. Now, you can see that those numbers are going down in every category. And you don't need a newspaper to tell you that, because how many of you know somebody who used to go to church who no longer goes to church? Raise your hands if you know somebody. Yeah, look at all those hands.
John Dehlin [00:12:52] Okay, so Carah's raising her hand.
Carah Burrell [00:12:55] I think I met a couple, but lazy learners.
John Dehlin [00:13:00] One thing that's interesting right off the bat is that he's acknowledging openly to an entire three stakes full of youth that there's an epidemic and a crisis of people leaving the church, and he's having everyone raise their hand and acknowledge that it's a big problem. I think that's a remarkable way to start a stake. Fireside. Carah, any. Anything you want to add as a commentary?
Carah Burrell [00:13:23] We have to get to the next clips, when I'll get my commentary going, because he has a reason why he's setting this up.
John Dehlin [00:13:28] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [00:13:29] I do want to say that it. Well, he. He frames it as everybody, like, people are leaving religion. And then he get. He gives the stats. It's. It's kind of interesting. But, yeah, like Chris said, let's go to the next one.
John Dehlin [00:13:44] But I mean, my point is, isn't it interesting that he is telling everyone in the stake that there's a massive problem with people?
Carah Burrell [00:13:50] There's an elephant in the room. We all know people who have been leaving the church. What's the deal with that? I'll tell you what it is.
Gerardo Sumano [00:13:56] It was interesting that one of the leaders on top didn't raise his hand.
John Dehlin [00:14:01] I didn't know anyone.
Carah Burrell [00:14:04] He's been in his basement since the
John Dehlin [00:14:05] beginning of COVID What's the chance? Okay. All right, so we'll go to the next. The next clip, which is entitled Our church is doing much better. So let's hear how our church is doing much better.
Brad Wilcox [00:14:18] Now, let me tell you two things about that. Number one, our church is doing much better than many churches. As people are turning away in a secular world from all things religious, many churches are being hurt by it. Our church is weathering that storm much better than most churches, and especially much better than most Christian churches. I know you think, whoa, but everybody's leaving the church. No, if you actually look at the numbers, there's not any more leaving now than have left to any generation in the history of the church. People left in Kirtland, Ohio. People left once the saints moved to Salt Lake. I mean, people have left the church in every generation. And then.
John Dehlin [00:15:12] Okay, so. So one thing that's just super interesting about that is we. I know that we all have kind of a visceral reaction to want to respond to that, but the truth is that at the. At the very real truth is we don't know because the church doesn't release its statistics on how many people are leaving. Yeah, right.
Carah Burrell [00:15:31] Yeah. It kind of just feels like he's. He's buttering people up of being like, you are the ones who are Staying, though if you're here, then you're at least you're, you're in the in tribe. You know, you're in the in group here. So there's a lot of people falling away. You guys have got it. And I'm gonna speak directly to your souls, pump you up. That's high.
Gerardo Sumano [00:15:47] But we do know that a higher percentage of youth are leaving the church or are not going to stay in the church eventually than before. Right?
John Dehlin [00:15:57] Like, not just, not just that. We had, we had Marlon JENSEN Just like five or 10 years ago, give a public talk where he says never since Kirtland has has the church been experiencing a level of apostasy like we are now, really, that that made international headlines. And he literally says, and I was the one who had a friend record that talk. He literally says in there, we're losing our best and brightest. When you combine that. And we've done multiple podcasts on this. When you. The church's growth rate. The church's growth rate. Growth rate has officially slowed to less than 1%. And if you look at internationally, Western Europe, Asia, even Latin America, you've got retention rates now of less than 10%. And you've got the church actually declining in Latin America, Western Europe and Asia. And the only place it's growing is in the United States only because of birth rate. Right. Because Mormons have three kids on average
Carah Burrell [00:17:03] and I had three.
Brad Wilcox [00:17:04] Right.
John Dehlin [00:17:05] And then in Africa, where it's growing gangbusters. But that's a different, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a type of growth that may or may not be sustainable, but it is inarguable that the church's growth rate is dramatically slowing and that within 10 to 20 years the church will literally be in decline, whereas right now it's growing at a growth rate of less than 1%. And so, and yes, Herod, to your point, we've, we've received statistics and I've got actually breaking news that I'm going to share in a, in a, in a following podcast. I spoke, I know I spoke recently with a member of a stake High Council along the Wasatch front. He told me specifically that in his stake, 2/3 of the young men that reached pre stage are not serving missions.
Carah Burrell [00:17:55] 2 thirds.
John Dehlin [00:17:56] 2 thirds of the. In on the Wasatch front, 2 thirds of the young men who reach priest age do not serve missions. That 2/3 of the women that their stake currently have out on. Two thirds of the missionaries that their state currently has out on missions are Women. So women make up 2/3 of the, of the missionaries in this stake because the, the men are, the young men aren't going on missions. And, and we also have heard the stat from Greg Prince that It's something like 80% of kids raised Mormon in the US within five years of mission. AIDS are no longer active. So like 8. We're losing 80 of our, of our Mormon youth. Raised Mormon.
Carah Burrell [00:18:40] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:18:40] So wouldn't be a misre representation of what he's saying? Well, because he's saying that youth or people are not living more now than they were before when he was young. I would say people or the youth would like stay active or serve missions more when he was a youth than now. So in some way he's misrepresenting the facts.
Carah Burrell [00:19:07] I think he knows the data. He's up there. He has to know that that is like semi lie.
John Dehlin [00:19:14] Yeah. And I think, but I think there's also, there's also something really worth commenting here on the fact that our church is doing better than other churches, Christian churches, and the fact that we're, that we're not losing everyone. Part of what's, part of what's important about that is to understand undue influence in high demand religions. Every, every single episode on Mormon Stories podcast we mentioned the bubble. What's the bubble? It's the fact that we're interviewing people in 2022 that have never heard of the CES letter. They'd never heard of Mormon stories, they'd never heard of ordained women, they've never heard of. And they didn't even know that Joseph Smith was a polygamy polygamist in 2022. These are doctors and lawyers and dentists and Relief Society presidents. It's because the church has such a strong hold on the information that its members receive and because everyone is, every Mormon is scared to the point of never looking at any resource that isn't church approved. That is one of the reasons why our church is not in decline, along with all the social penalties of what happens when you leave the church. You may get divorced, you may lose custody of your kids, you may lose the respect of your parents, of your siblings, of your grandchildren. You may lose access to your grandchildren. There are so many reasons why the Mormon Church is not hemorrhaging at the rate of other Christian churches. And they're not all good.
Carah Burrell [00:20:44] Yeah. I would describe it simply as like a double edged sword of like a high demand religion that you're saying like the bubble keeps people in because they don't have access to information, then when they do leave the bubble. Yeah, that is why Mormon stories and these other platforms need to exist because then when they do find out the information, their life is devastated in all the ways that you mentioned. And so Brad's going to get into a lot of the tools of undue influence that do keep these youths in the bubble to never stray, never look outside, because this is the only place that you'll find happiness, purpose in life. So yeah, this is this talk. Let's play more clips, as you'll see.
John Dehlin [00:21:13] Did you want to add anything else, Rodo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:21:15] Something that just, it would be interesting to do if there's a researcher out there, is compare the Mormon Church with other high demand religions like the Jehovah Witnesses, for example. I know the Jehovah Witnesses are not having, are, are pretty much thriving even in this age where secularism, you know, is, is, is going up or rampant. So it would be interesting to compare the Mormon Church with these other religions who are also not being as affected and see what they have in common. And I think what we would find would be what you're talking about, John, is undue influence and, and high demand religions are. These are the ones that are kind of like surviving a little bit better than the other ones.
John Dehlin [00:22:01] Yeah, I would say the ones that, the ones that are doing better than us are like Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses, frankly. Like it's not the, you know, yes, Episcopalians and even, and evangelicals, I don't know how we compare to evangelicals, but obviously Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, they're all in decline because, you know, and that's part of the irony is the more progressive the church becomes, the more it weakens its own membership, the more fundamentalist the church becomes, the more it slows its ultimate demise. And so that's, I think what's hardest for the brethren is trying to decide do we become progressive and keep the progressives and then piss off the conservatives or do we stay fundamentalist and accelerate the demise of the, of the, of the liberals. I do want to make one last point from this state president, Stake High Council member who's leaked. He says that in his stake he's had far more people like by a factor of four or five leave the church along the Wasatch front because they're fundamentalist, ultra orthodox conservative Mormons and they're mad that the church is pro vaccine, they're mad that the church is pro mask, they're mad that the first Presidency has come out. You know, against the virus and, and for the vaccine. And that is what's causing the biggest hemorrhage in these stakes along the Wasatch front. Does that surprise you?
Gerardo Sumano [00:23:24] Karen Wilcox actually mentions it.
John Dehlin [00:23:27] Oh, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:23:28] On his duck. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:23:29] Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [00:23:31] Sorry, go ahead.
John Dehlin [00:23:32] Should we.
Carah Burrell [00:23:33] I was just gonna say. No, it doesn't surprise me. I think just, you know, we were talking about in Simon Soderson's episode, if you guys haven't didn't notice, we have a new series coming out with Simon Solderson about Mormon doctrine versus science and talking about when you teach, you know, anti science, like pro dogma kind of things in a religion, don't be surprised that people kind of splinter and go one way when the church tries to move in a slightly more progressive attitude. So anyone who loses their faith in Mormonism whatsoever has, has my heart. And it's a devastating thing for anyone to go to go through for any reason. So we'll try to be as inclusive for all people leaving the religion and waking up to the realities of the things that they were taught and to believe about living prophets. So Mormon stories will be open for everyone, though. Anyway, just want to always make sure to share my love.
John Dehlin [00:24:15] This, this, this inside source told me that a member of his stake presidency had to resign because he was so pro Trump, so conservative, so anti mask, so anti vax, that he had to resign as a member of a stake presidency. So anyway, we'll talk about that in our next episode.
Carah Burrell [00:24:33] All right, so baby steps, you know, baby steps, baby steps. It's fine.
John Dehlin [00:24:36] So now Brad goes on to talk about. It's not, it's not so much that people are leaving, it's just that they're leaving loudly and publicly. So here's the next comment.
Brad Wilcox [00:24:46] The numbers aren't that different. The difference is that now people leave very publicly where people used to just step away and nobody knew about it. Now they leave on TikTok and thousands of people watch them as they sit and gripe about the church. And so because it's so public, then we think, oh, everybody's doing it. But that's not the case. The church is strong. The youth of the church are strong. The young single adults of the church are strong. And there's not that many more leaving now than there were when I was growing up. It's just happening in a much more public way.
John Dehlin [00:25:27] Okay, I am just dying to hear your reactions. Heraldo, why don't you start on that one? What's your reaction to that?
Gerardo Sumano [00:25:35] I mean, I don't know if I would agree with him that more people are not leaving now than before. I think more people are leaving now. But I. I also agree that with him. That I do agree with him. Sorry. That people are living more publicly now than they were before. Dan Vogel, Jeremy Reynolds, they all always talk about how when they were leaving, there was no. There was no CS letter, there was no community out there, and that now people are finding that. And it's. Although transitioning out of Mormonism is still hard, it definitely makes it a lot easier finding or seeing other people who are finding the same problems, who have the same questions, the same doubts, and that you're not alone on this journey.
John Dehlin [00:26:25] Yeah. Yeah. All right, Carah, what's. What's your reaction?
Carah Burrell [00:26:29] I take issue with his word gripe that they gripe on social media, and I just wanted to type that into Google for the thesaurus on that is to complain, to grumble, to moan, to protest, to whine. And what is the number one thing people are complaining, groaning and whining about? Is it really that insignificant, Brad? Is it something that maybe you should take issue with and if you did, people would leave less? It has to do with not the church. Not being transparent is probably the number one gripe people have. People have a big gripe about, like, having a lot of major life decisions based around the lies that they were told. And so if you want to call it a gripe, you're just going to be digging your own hole. Because until you listen to the reasons people are living and pay attention to them and just if you're going to call them a gripe, your church isn't going to get any more. Any stronger.
John Dehlin [00:27:14] Yeah. To call like LGBT pain and suffering griping lgbt, the LGBT suicide epidemic, is that griping? The racism and misogyny, is that griping
Carah Burrell [00:27:25] people on TikTok friends of mine whose wives left them the day that they said that they couldn't believe in the church anymore. What a gripe. Like, get a life.
John Dehlin [00:27:32] Yeah. Yeah. People's like marriages being blown up and being. You know, we take this stuff seriously
Carah Burrell [00:27:37] here, Brad, why don't you.
John Dehlin [00:27:39] And, but, but, but also for me, the. The predominant volume of tiktoks that I've seen are around accurate church history. It's basically just tick tockers telling the truth about our church history when the church went way too long, deceiving people about its history. So it's. That's. That's an unfortunate framing, but it is a win that he's calling attention to TikTok like, this is something anytime. Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:28:06] TikTok is out of the mouths of a general presidency member of the church in any form or fashion. Any general authority mentioning the word TikTok.
John Dehlin [00:28:15] Yeah, please market TikTok. Like, you know, we've talked about this on Mormon Stories podcast, like the Mormon. This YouTube channel. The Mormon Stories podcast YouTube channel is this week gonna reach 50,000 subscribers, which we're over the moon. Thrilling.
Carah Burrell [00:28:28] Happy birthday to me.
John Dehlin [00:28:29] We're thrilled about when I brought Carah on seven or eight months ago to start our TikTok channel. Mormon Stories podcast, TikTok channel. She's grown it along with our amazing interviewees and, you know, our Gerardo and cinematography and everything else. We're. We're over 120,000 subscribers on. On TikTok, and some of our videos have gotten a million or plus views.
Carah Burrell [00:28:53] And so almost all of them, I just want to add, are just people telling their stories. And it goes back to, like, the general principle at Mormon Stories. If you let people tell their stories and what they experience, people want to tune in. They want to empathize. They want to see, like, what a realistic life as a Mormon is. And so just by posting little clips of the stories. Yeah. John was saying that the TikTok has grown massively in the last few months.
John Dehlin [00:29:13] And I know this is unrealistic, but wouldn't it be amazing if Brad could say, hey, people are expressing their feelings on TikTok. They're sharing legitimate concerns with the church. They're talking about history that they weren't taught. Like, wouldn't it be amazing if our top church leaders could show empathy and understanding for what they're now calling gripes? Because I think it's beyond question that there are legitimate issues that are causing people to leave. So someday we'll hope for a time when. When they can do that. All right, I do want to comment.
Gerardo Sumano [00:29:48] Just last thing I. I do know, I did notice from watching the video a couple. The whole talk a couple times, what he was doing by mentioning Tick Tock or mentioning controversial stuff about Joseph or Brigham or blacks in the priesthood or woman in the priesthood, he was inoculating the youth into what they're supposed to think about these things and how to respond to those things. So he's mentioning TikTok in a scary way. In, like, kind of like in a way so that the youth can start dismissing.
John Dehlin [00:30:20] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:30:20] Those kind of videos when they see them. And he'll do that with these other controversial stuff as we go on.
John Dehlin [00:30:27] That's a great point, Gerardo. There's no credible Way to leave a high demand religion. Some say the definition of a cult is you can't leave with your dignity intact. So there's no good reason to leave the church. There's no good reason to doubt the church. And so the church has to color everyone who criticizes the church or who leaves the church as griping, angry, disgruntled losers, basically.
Gerardo Sumano [00:30:48] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:30:48] And kind of stupid as we'll get to, too.
John Dehlin [00:30:50] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:30:50] Yeah, you guys, buckle up.
John Dehlin [00:30:52] Buckle up. Okay, so the next. The next of this next clip is apostates are choosing to do it the absolute hard way. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Brad Wilcox.
Wilcox on Why People Choose to Leave the Church
Brad Wilcox [00:31:03] Now, what scares me about people making the choice to leave isn't that we have a few less people in the church. Doesn't bother me that we have fewer people sitting in the pews. What bothers me is that we have the church in fewer people. That's what bothers me. Because they're going to face the same challenges we face. They're going to face the same struggles and the same trials and the same heartbreaks, and they're choosing to do it in the absolute hardest way possible. They're choosing to do it without God, without Christ, without the church. By leaving the church, it doesn't mean that they escaped the trials of life. It just means they escape the blessings that can help them deal with the trials of life. We know that the Lord said, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is.
John Dehlin [00:32:25] Okay, Carah, let's have you. Let's have you start on that one.
Carah Burrell [00:32:28] Okay. Just the idea that, like, people who leave the church are doing it in the absolute hardest way, and that is, I would, I think, is some kind of tool of undue influence. When you're telling people that it is nothing but a dark and dreary world out there, that you are doing it the hardest way, you're doing it without the blessings of the gospel. So not only do I feel like I'm not doing it the hardest way, I'm doing it with. I mean, when I think when I was a teenager and I wanted to be a better person, how did I become a better person? How did all of us, we thought, I have to read my scriptures more, I have to do more. I have to put more into the church. Even if you didn't actually feel like you were getting anything out of it. You just felt like you were always paying into the system. And then I became an adult and I realized that the way that I become a better person is I base my life on evidence and empathy. And what are like the best practices, like psychologically and how do I actually move the needle for myself? And it doesn't have anything to do with a lot of fairy tales, to be honest. Okay. It has to be based on actual hard evidence. And so when he says that we're doing it the hardest way, I couldn't disagree anymore. It feels hard when you're leaving. It feels like you are computer without an operating system is how I felt. I felt like I had nothing but these tools. These tools don't work for me anymore. And so there is going to be a transition period for every person who leaves the church. But trust me, on the other side, you have so much better. And then the blessings that he's talking about, that we do it without the blessings. There's no blessing in getting three kids up for school or, sorry, three kids up for church and sitting through three hours of church and cleaning the toilets and serving in the temple to baptize dead people. There's no, there's no blessings in all of the things that are. There's a list of 600 things that make you a good Latter Day Saint. I lived it for 30 years, and I can tell you that it left me empty and yearning for a lot more. The blessings that are always supposed to be so wildly amazing. I felt like we're always just a carrot on the end of the stick. If you do more, be more, try more, you'll get there eventually. And then I had a last point, but I forgot it.
John Dehlin [00:34:27] I'll jump in, you come back. Yeah. His statement kind of for me begs the question, why are people leaving if the church is so amazing, if the church is such an amazing bomb, if you can't be happy and healthy without God, Jesus, and, you know, the, the Mormon Church, then why would people be leaving in droves now? He's already answered that. He's refusing to accept that they are or to admit that they are leaving in droves, but the evidence shows that they literally are leaving in droves. Not just the Mormon Church, but also other Christian faiths generally. But if the church was as amazing as he makes it sound, I don't think people would be leaving it. It would kind of sell itself. And so I think that's a problem. But I'm also, again, I really reject this notion that without God, without Jesus, and without the Mormon Church, you can't be healthy and happy and that you can't cope with life. Like you said, Carah, there are so many LGBT people, women, youth, mental, that feel suffocated, like they feel like they're dying attending the Mormon Church regularly, dying inside, living in an inauthentic, unethical life, living in. In a family that's not functioning well. And then kids are just finding the church boring and stilted and irrelevant. And again, if the church had a better value proposition, I think that would solve the problem. But. But organized religion, generally, Christianity generally in the Mormon Church specifically, just can't create a value proposition that would make people stay.
Carah Burrell [00:36:04] Yeah, and I wanted to read Drunken Reaper's comment that said, what blessings is he talking about? The term blessings is used so vaguely. We'd like an example. And I remember the point I wanted to make is that we're talking about a church that is under 16 million members, with God apparently, who set up this entire system. So if these blessings are as wonderful as the church supposes them to be, you have to admit that for the billions of people that have ever lived on planet Earth or live there now, these blessings are not available to them. And it makes me very difficult to worship a God in this Mormon framework that knows that. That he has, like, mostly just people in, like, this region of the United States of America get the most blessings. And I'm going to forget all the rest of my. Oh, what about baptisms from the dead? Well, I guess living these blessings and receiving them on Earth wasn't that big of a deal to the Mormon God in the first place. We're getting into Carah's shelf items.
John Dehlin [00:36:53] All right. But anyway, so, Gerardo, let's bring you in here. What. What do you want to say about this clip?
Gerardo Sumano [00:36:59] Yeah, I. I tend to agree with you, John. It's hard for me to go and, like, do what he's doing in the opposite and. And say, like, oh, Brad, you. You think you're so much healthier in the church. Wait till you see, like, how I am doing. I don't like that kind of rhetoric because it's kind of like, I do better than you. Like, you do better than me. Like, you know, it's kind of like a fight. But I do have a problem with someone saying that I cannot be healthy and happy outside the church.
John Dehlin [00:37:34] Tell us why.
Gerardo Sumano [00:37:36] Well, someone not respecting my decisions. Like, they're not respecting my free will, and they're not respecting or validating my experience when I was part of the church. You know, he's not.
John Dehlin [00:37:50] For those who don't know your story, Gerardo. For those who don't know your story.
Gerardo Sumano [00:37:54] So I, I grew up in the, in the church as, as a gay person. And I was told how evil that was, how I was never gonna be happy if I pursued a same sex relationship, and how I needed to change. Well, when I came out, the church was still promoting the ideas of conversion therapy. And I, I tried that path and, and it was horrible. It was destructive. It damaged my. My mental health, my personal life. So it's really hard for me to just hear him say that without the church, I'm nothing. And that I tried the more difficult path when I actually tried the path inside the church. I guess all I'm asking is like, Brad, just listen to people's stories. Right? Like, and, and let's not point fingers because I, I don't like pointing fingers at people that are in the church and saying, oh, you don't realize how unhappy you actually are. Right. Like, because that's also invalidating their experiences. So.
John Dehlin [00:39:06] And Gerardo, just to. Just to really be clear, are you happier now or happier than when you were in the church?
Gerardo Sumano [00:39:12] Yeah, I'm definitely happier now.
John Dehlin [00:39:14] And are you healthier now or were you healthier when you were in the church?
Gerardo Sumano [00:39:17] I am healthier now.
John Dehlin [00:39:19] And is life harder now or harder than when you were in the church?
Gerardo Sumano [00:39:22] It's much easier now.
John Dehlin [00:39:24] Carah, are you happier now or happier than when you were in the church?
Carah Burrell [00:39:29] 1,000% happier.
John Dehlin [00:39:31] Okay. Are you healthy now or healthier when you were in the church?
Carah Burrell [00:39:35] So much healthier. Mentally, physically, all of the things on all of the spectrums. And I'm not just saying that because I, I lived Mormonism the healthiest way that I think I could have. I'm a straight white chick living in Utah. It didn't do. It didn't treat me poorly, to be honest, but it's. Did not help me reach my potential.
John Dehlin [00:39:58] You could say, yeah, and I'm. I'm personally healthier and happier. I've lost 20, 30 pounds. My marriage is better. I'm a better dad. I have a better relationship with all my kids. Like, I'm on top of the world. And, you know, maybe life will strike me down at some point. But like, and this is true, yes, leaving the church is hard. And I would even say, yes, the Mormon church provides a lot of value to its membership. It provides identity, spirituality, community. It provides friends. It provides a sense of meaning and purpose. It resolves concerns about the afterlife. Like, to its credit, organized religion has thrived and existed for a long, long time because it adds value. But, but, but also the racism, the sexism, the misogyny, the homophobia, and the fact that now we're learning that it was built on lies and it isn't true, that all makes it so. People's experiences in the church become toxic. And I just wish the church could be humble about that and acknowledge it. And so I agree with you, Gerardo. I wish he could just listen to people's stories and stop generalizing in a way that makes his decision sound good. And all of us seem sad and broken and bad.
Brad Wilcox [00:41:16] Right?
John Dehlin [00:41:17] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:18] Okay, so just one thing, because I think I validate when, when I, when, when I, when there's someone in the church, like a family member who is in the church, and I genuinely think that they are happier and healthier and the church was made for them. I'm okay validating that. Why can't they do that? This, like, you know, towards us? Why cannot, why can't they validate that? Being outside the church, it's, it's an all right decision for some, you know.
John Dehlin [00:41:51] Exactly. Yeah, yeah. There's no legitimate way to leave a high demand religion. You're always, you always made the worst choice and you're always sad and immoral and broken. If you leave a high demand religion, that's how you know it's a high demand religion or cult.
Gerardo Sumano [00:42:05] Right.
Carah Burrell [00:42:05] You start off with the doctrine of the pre existence of Satan's plan, Jesus plan. You're either going with Satan or you're going with Jesus's plan to all come back and be one big happy family in the afterlife. And if you can't follow that plan, then you're just.
John Dehlin [00:42:19] You're following Satan.
Carah Burrell [00:42:20] You're following Satan.
John Dehlin [00:42:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, let's go to the next part of Brad's Clip
What Members Lose When They Leave Mormonism
Brad Wilcox [00:42:28] light. Now, some people as they walk away from the church, they think they're losing the labor part. They think they're losing the heavy laden part. But what they're really losing is the light and easy part. Life is the heavy laden part. And they are losing the easy and light way of being able to face the realities of life.
John Dehlin [00:43:03] I guess we risk beating a dead horse here. But Carol, why don't you.
Carah Burrell [00:43:08] I think just like you were saying, the church provides a lot of, you know, good things to people. I think that they are not real, but just, you know, like the promises of an mlm. But the ideas that he's talking about are Just basically the church's basic eternal perspective that you're losing the light, you're losing that all of this comes in context. All of the labor that you put into life has a greater context. It's for your greater good. And that's a wonderful framing and that's why I think religion has been so successful. And that's why. Yeah, the, the way that he's framing it though, is gonna sound like if you don't have that framing that I just mentioned, you are in the darkness. So yeah, it's. It's a small notice of the word choices that I don't.
John Dehlin [00:43:49] Please Mormon Church. You know, light and darkness got you in trouble with racist kind of language in the Book of Mormon. But also just. Even if you're just talking about photogenic light, it's insulting because it just light dark dichotomy insinuates darkness on the part of people who don't make your choice. Stop telling us that our lives are dark and that your lives are full of light. I was a therapist for Mormons for six years and I sat in front of a lot of depressed, suicidal Mormons whose lives felt so dark they didn't want to live anymore. So please stop insinuating Mormon Church. Brad Wilcox. That to be Mormon means to have a light, happy, bright life. We know that Utah leads the nation in some studies on the usage of antidepressant medications. We know that Utah youth lead the nation in suicides. We know that there's an epidemic of porn use here as a way to self medicate distress. Divorce rates are no better, you know, in Utah than elsewhere for all the reasons we know. This is something. A third of all Mormon missionaries are coming home early. Like if you would think that if there was ever going to be a place where you were going to have happiness and joy, it's on a Mormon mission. A full third of Mormon missionaries come home early. That doesn't even mention all the ones who stay on their missions and are miserable, but just like develop anxiety and depression and dysfunction. There, there. So just. Can we please stop equating staying in the church with light and happiness? Gerardo, we're kind of beating a dead horse, but I want to get you in here too.
Gerardo Sumano [00:45:38] No, yeah, I agree with everything you said there. Definitely. Leaving the Mormon church can be healthy and is healthy. Studies prove that people experiences proves that people's stories, they just need to be honest and say it, you know, like, it's okay if you leave the church.
John Dehlin [00:46:06] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The other, the only other thing I'll just say really quickly. I really, I have a tiny bit of a problem with this idea of life is the hard part. Like what I found is that what, what religion does is it says, let us tell you your past, and then let us, let us tell you what your future will be. In other words. Yeah, you'll pay 10% of your income to the church. You'll do, you'll obey all these rules, don't drink coffee, don't have too much fun, spend your life serving the church, and then the joy will come when you die. Or if you're gay, be celibate, be straight, get into a mixed orientation marriage, and you'll have happiness once you die. And so when he acts like Mormonism, that the purpose of life is to be sad or dark or heavy, that life is darkness and heaviness, and that the church is what makes it light, I would just argue that oftentimes it's an orthodox religious mindset that makes life hard, that makes life sad, that makes life depressing for the promise of a life, a happy life in the afterlife, which may or may not come.
Carah Burrell [00:47:20] Yeah. It's like the perfect embodiment in that quote from Spencer W. Kimball in the book that's called Miracle Forgiveness where he says, like, beat yourself senseless if it means, you know, you have to become straight. It's like physically put yourself through the hardest thing you can to make yourself right with God because you'll have a reward one day.
John Dehlin [00:47:40] Yeah. Or better day, you know, better dead than unclean. He'll say, like, it's better for you to die fighting off a rapist than to allow yourself to get raped.
Carah Burrell [00:47:49] Right.
John Dehlin [00:47:50] Because better dead than unclean.
Carah Burrell [00:47:51] Yeah. I'm just trying to make the point that like so much of the church's rhetoric is about, like, kill yourself to get there, to the promised land, because at least that you'll die trying instead of giving up like some kind of pathetic, lazy learner. You know?
Gerardo Sumano [00:48:02] And I just want to bring up the fact that, I mean, we'll talk about it later, but the, this prophet, seers and revelators who are promising these things, they don't know. They've never been there. They tell us there's so many things that we don't know about. They don't have the answers. They can't tell us if I'm gonna be gay in the afterlife.
Carah Burrell [00:48:22] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:48:22] They can't tell a women where they're gonna live is their husband gets a different wife. They, they can't tell us so many things. Why Would we rely on them to guide our entire this existence? You know, for something that they don't even know like the majority of what they're talking about and they say.
Carah Burrell [00:48:45] And they laugh at it too. Yeah, that's a great point. Harto. They laugh at it like that Elks. Elks, right. Oaks quote where that woman was genuinely sincerely asking like what will happen in the afterlife if my husband has two wives and he's like hahaha, don't worry about it. And it's like I have a say in my life here. That would be really important if you could tell me. He's like, don't worry about it, you know. Yeah, that's a really good point though.
John Dehlin [00:49:07] All right, let's keep going. This part is really sad for me. But let's hear Brad continue.
Brad Wilcox [00:49:14] Brad Wilcox maybe some people can leave some churches and they don't miss that much, but you leave this church, you miss everything. You miss everything. Let's talk about the blessings of the gospel that you can only find here. We're going to tie each one up to a letter in the word gospel. G O S P E L as.
John Dehlin [00:49:42] Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to just jump in there as the first reactor. Like he starts. He says that, you know, if you leave other churches you might be okay, but if you leave this church it's devastating. Like doesn't that say something? If a church has you so dependent, so mind controlled or so conditioned, kind of this conditioned helplessness where you can't be healthy and happy without it. Is it actually a virtue to say that people who leave church x fare the worst of anybody? Or would it be a virtue to say man, yeah, the people who leave our church, they fare the best. Like I'm just not sure that's a virtue that he's bragging.
Carah Burrell [00:50:25] That's like big pharma, like pumping out opioids. Like when they leave our drug they have to go to rehab. It's like that's not a selling point. I don't want to know that.
John Dehlin [00:50:34] Yeah, but that also just this totalistic thinking which is a, you know, if you look at Luna Lindsey Corbin's you know, book Recovering Agency and Lindsay talks about the 31 flavors of undue influence. Like this totalistic thinking. You really. And he's gonna, he's gonna come back to this theme several times. You lose everything. You lose your life, you lose your health, you lose your marriage, you lose your kids. Like that's almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. Because many people who leave Mormonism do Feel like they've lost everything.
Carah Burrell [00:51:04] Yeah, they can't do it anymore. They feel like they told me I was gonna lose everything. So I don't have any moral framework anymore. Like, bleep it. Whatever goes that can happen.
John Dehlin [00:51:13] Like, yeah, if you leave a high demand religion or a culture, you might lose your spouse, you might lose your children, you might lose your job, you might lose your mental health, you'll lose all your friends and all your community. So, yeah, it's devastating to leave Mormonism. But is that a virtue or a bug? You know what I mean? Is that a feature or a bug? And he's talking about that problem like it's a feature, Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [00:51:35] Yeah, it's just. And. And this idea, the. The new generations, like, of apologists like Kwaku and Cardinal Ellis, they always try to move the goal post and say that Mormonism doesn't claim to be, you know, the best religion on the one that has, like, you know, everything and. And knows everything. But that's literally what Brad is saying in this talk. He is saying that other churches, it's fine if you leave them, like, who cares? But if you leave this one, this is a special one, and he'll talk about the being the one true church and what that means. But yeah, I just want. I just wanted to emphasize that point that he is bringing back these ideas of superior superiority of being Mormon compared to any other Christian.
John Dehlin [00:52:35] Yeah, it's like our. Our church is better than everybody else. Yeah, it's the. It's the. It's like there's American exceptionalism and there's Mormon exceptionalism. We're the one true church, and we'll get to that.
Carah Burrell [00:52:46] Sorry if I read a comment.
John Dehlin [00:52:47] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:52:48] Liz says, I do miss everything. I miss the guilt. I miss the shade. I miss the worry of having to be a polygamist in the afterlife. I miss the homophobia and sexism. Yep. Yeah, me too, Liz. I am just painting after it.
John Dehlin [00:53:02] Karen and I have this talk about, like, we have to check our anger, check our profanity, check our sarcasm. Just go to sarcasm in this episode. Yeah. Okay. So. So in this talk, Brad then moves. He's done this setup now he moves to this acronym which he has put together called Gospel. And he literally tells the. The kids, like, hey, if you ever get asked to give a talk, give this talk. Use this acronym. And so he's going to have a word or a phrase for each G, O, S, P, E, L. For those six letters. Each one is going to be kind of. This is like Mormonism's top six features, if you had to pick, if this is the sales pitch of Mormonism, if these six things are the Mormonism's top virtues. And he starts off with G. G is for Godhead. And so that's where he begins. So let's hear about the Godhead.
Wilcox Explains Core Mormon Doctrine
Brad Wilcox [00:53:59] Our view of the Godhead is very different than the view of many Christians. Most Christians believe that God and Jesus are the same being and that God. Jesus is a spirit. And we don't believe that. We know that God and Jesus are separate beings and that they have physical, tangible, perfected bodies. Well, how do we know that? Well, we could turn to some scriptures that talk about it, but mostly we know it because of Joseph Smith. He saw them. That's what Jackson was playing about when he played that song. He saw them.
John Dehlin [00:54:40] So the Godhead, Joseph Smith noticed, you know, taught us all that God and Jesus were separate. And that's one of the defining virtues of Mormonism. Gerardo, do you want to give a response to that?
Gerardo Sumano [00:54:52] Yeah. Two things. First, one, there's. There's this idea that I taught on my mission. I'm pretty sure it was part of Preach My Gospel, where it says that the reason why we know that. That God and Jesus have bought tangible bodies like ours is because. Because of Joseph's first vision. That's not actually true. Like, he didn't touch them. Them. And so even. Even if his first vision was real and he actually saw two beings, there was no way for him to know that they. That they had tangible bodies of flesh and bone. So that's number one. And number two, he. He makes a big deal about this idea that Mormonism is the only, like, the only or one of the only churches that teach the Godhead being two separate beings. There's actually other religions that teach that. It's not just Mormonism. The Jehovah Witnesses believe that the Heavenly Father and Jesus are separate beings. So I just wanted to bring. Bring that up.
John Dehlin [00:55:59] Yeah, I'll just say my little piece for those of you who don't, you know, who haven't really studied Mormon history in depth. It is a really superficial explanation. It's a whitewashing of an explanation because we know for a fact that Joseph Smith's first account of his first vision, he says the Lord visited him. Because at the time, Joseph Smith, in the early 1830s, and at the time he wrote the Book of Mormon, he. Joseph Smith himself believed that God and Jesus were one. And so that's also reflected in the original version of the Book of Mormon. If you go back and read the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon, all throughout the Book of Mormon, it makes it very clear that God and Jesus are the same being. And so it wasn't until later that Joseph Smith evolved that theology. And if you even look at the lectures on faith, they used to be a part of the scriptures. Tell us, Carah, why the lectures on faith are no longer a part of Mormon scriptures?
Carah Burrell [00:56:55] Because they're too contradictory.
John Dehlin [00:56:57] It's because they also advanced the idea of God and Jesus being one, and the brethren realized that that was confusing. So for Brad Wilcox to just state, yep, Joseph. With Joseph, we've always known that God and Jesus were separate, Separate beings. That's. That's really not telling the full story. And it's a whitewashing that does us a disservice in terms of accurate, honest history.
Carah Burrell [00:57:19] Yes. Not telling the truth is lying, in my opinion. And in the churches, when they say if you obfuscate the truth and you omit certain details, that's the same as lying.
John Dehlin [00:57:29] We were taught. We were taught complete honesty, and that means telling the whole truth.
Carah Burrell [00:57:33] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:57:34] Her arter. We can say, yeah, just a correction. I, I could be mistaken, but my understanding is that Lectures and Faith distinguishes between God and Jesus, but it says that God, the Heavenly Father, does not have a body, while Jesus has body. And, and this. And the Holy Ghost, it identifies as the mind of the Godhead. It's definitely different from what Mormonism teaches today. And that's why we'll let our.
John Dehlin [00:58:02] We'll let our listeners, our amazing listeners and viewers in the comments, fact check us and let us know. But it doesn't matter. I think the point is he's, you know, but, but anyway. And again, it just goes back to this idea of we're better than other people because of this really obscure piece of doctrine that we think is super important.
Gerardo Sumano [00:58:21] Well, that changed, right? Because even the lectures on faith shows that it changed. Like, anyway.
Joseph Smith's Honesty and Truth Claims
John Dehlin [00:58:28] Yeah, all right. He goes on to talk about Joseph Smith's honesty, and he poses, you know, poses the question, did Joseph Smith lie? Let's see what he says about that.
Brad Wilcox [00:58:40] Yeah, but maybe Joseph Smith lied. If you haven't heard that yet, you certainly will. Lots of people say, oh, he just made it all up. He just made up that story. But people who go there don't understand why we lie, because you certainly don't lie in an effort to be found out. You don't tell your teacher, I didn't get my homework done because aliens beamed down and sucked it into the mothership? No, your teacher's never going to believe that. So what do you tell? Well, not you, because you don't lie. But what do your friends tell the teacher? Yeah, the dog ate my homework. Oh, my gosh. My mom washed it in the washing machine. Oh, the one I hear at byu where little children have signed an honor code. Is my printer broke every time a paper is due? You have no idea how many broken printers fill Utah Valley. It's just an epidemic now. Why do they say that to me? Because it's something I might believe. Do you think Joseph Smith was that different? If he were lying, then he would have said what everybody wanted to hear. He would have said, I saw God, and God and Jesus are one being, and God and Jesus are spirit. That's what people wanted to hear. That's what they would have believed. And yet he didn't say that. He said God and Jesus are separate beings with physical, tangible, perfected bodies.
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:19] Whoa.
Brad Wilcox [01:00:20] That is so far out of the realm of believability that Joseph Smith proves himself either a horrible liar. I mean, he was bad at it. Or a speaker of.
John Dehlin [01:00:37] And we cut off what.
Carah Burrell [01:00:38] Or a speaker of who knows?
John Dehlin [01:00:40] Was that truth, Gerardo? What word got cut off there?
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:43] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:00:43] Speaker of truth. All right, I've got. I've got reactions to this. Do you want to go first, Gerardo, on this one?
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:48] Yeah, I would love to start.
John Dehlin [01:00:50] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:51] Wilcox just gave the perfect argument as to why Joseph lied. So his argument is that because Joseph told his first vision, which supposedly was so controversial, he couldn't have light. The reality is that at the time Joseph Smith started talking about the first vision, he was talking about it how everybody understood the Godhead to be.
Brad Wilcox [01:01:21] He.
Gerardo Sumano [01:01:22] He was talking about it as Jesus and God being one being. And. And. And the. And then he starts modifying his. His ideas on the Godhead later on. So, again, Wilcox just made the perfect argument as to. That proves. If we follow his argument, it proves that Joseph lied because it was until later when he changed his ideas of the Godhead once he had, you know, enough followers that were gonna trust in what he was saying.
Brad Wilcox [01:01:58] And.
Gerardo Sumano [01:01:59] And we know that part of it was also influenced by his study of the Bible and Hebrew, but. Yeah, interesting.
Carah Burrell [01:02:06] Exactly. I want to give you a round of applause. Those are, like, excellent summary.
John Dehlin [01:02:10] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:02:11] I couldn't say it better. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:02:12] And care, do you have anything you want to add to Gerardo?
Carah Burrell [01:02:15] Or it would be really sarcastic.
John Dehlin [01:02:18] Okay, well, I'll just make the point that. Yeah, Gerardo, what you're referring to is the 1832 version of the first version account versus the 1838 version of the first.
Gerardo Sumano [01:02:31] Don't forget the Book of Mormon. Right, right. Mormon talks about it as Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [01:02:36] In 1832 version of the first vision account, God and Jesus are one. Literally says that I, my Father are one. And then later it changes. So when was he lying? And he gives that again. It's this dichotomy that I know people like Patrick Mason and Richard Bushman, Terrell Givens hate. Either Joseph Smith was a truth teller or he was a total liar. And we know Joseph Smith was a liar. If you just look at polygamy alone, Emma was like the 22nd wife that was sealed to Joseph. So why was Joseph's first legal wife, the 22nd wife to be sealed to him? Because he hid the 21 wives from his own wife. Not to mention the adulterous affair with Fanny Alger that she probably found out about. Like, we know Joseph Smith lied about polygamy to everyone. And so for Brad to just sort of blanket and say Joseph Smith was a teller of truth when we know he lied and even the church admits he wasn't honest with the membership and with Emma and with the public about his polygamy, and that's just one thing that's also a problem. I'll say one last thing as well. He kind of wants this logic that if Joseph Smith were a liar, then he would come up with doctrinal innovations in scripture that everyone agreed with. But that makes no sense. Like, think about it. You've got all these existing churches and you want to come out with a new church. So are you going to come out with the church that teaches everything that's the same as everybody else? No, you have to come out with the product that differentiates itself from other from other churches. And in fact, if you look at like the early parts of the dnc, it says that the creeds of all the other churches were an abomination and that this was God's only one true church that God approved of. Joseph wasn't doing that because he was a liar or because he was a truth teller. He was doing that to differentiate his product from the existing churches because he needed reasons for people to leave those churches and come to his. So what Joseph's going to do is come up with a new slant, new doctrine, new theology, a new book to make his product more appealing. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:04:51] Yeah. 100.
Brad Wilcox [01:04:51] I do.
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:52] I do want to say something, though, because when. Because Brad's argument still Applies because, applies because the Book of Mormon would have sounded super familiar to, in what he was teaching to any Christian out there. So Joseph Smith started with something familiar for people to join and then it was later on when he started developing the more, you know, like weird parts of, of the doctrine of Mormonism. But initially the Book of Mormon just sounded like any Methodist, you know, preacher would, would talk about. And even Sandra Tanner tells us that even while Joseph Smith was living, any Latter Day Saint who would have heard about the first vision, they would have only just thought about it as like Stephen in the Bible seeing God and Jesus on a vision, they, and, and still believing that they were one. So, so, so Brad's argument still applies and still in my mind still kind of like if we apply it, it proves that Joseph lied because at the beginning he had very Christian and very familiar doctrines that people joined at the beginning.
John Dehlin [01:06:13] Yeah, anybody who analyzes the text of the Book of Mormon will know it's just like he just takes huge chunks of the New Testament and like copies and pastes them in, including the heirs of the editions of the Book of Mormon that he happened to have of the Bible that he happened to have in his possession. And yeah, it was basically just, I mean, fan fiction. Right. The Book of Mormon is literally New Testament fan fiction, clearly written in the 19th century. And there's, there's no way even the
Gerardo Sumano [01:06:40] Bible translation, that was not even that he was, you know, re translating the Bible. That was not super foreign. There was Adam Clark who was like a famous preacher pastor, who, who was, you know, who Joseph was taking his ideas. So he was not even that innovating
Carah Burrell [01:06:58] with the first vision as well. Like we've heard that argument all the time. Like why would a boy make this up knowing that he's going to get all of this persecution when like, like four towns over there's people having first visions all over. Like that wasn't out of character for people in that time too. So.
Wilcox on Faith and Exclusive Access to God
John Dehlin [01:07:12] All right, let's continue the next clip we've titled True Faith. Here we go. What is true faith?
Brad Wilcox [01:07:18] True faith isn't just believing in some higher power. True faith is knowing God, knowing his attributes, what he's like knowing his plan for us, and knowing that our lives are being lived in accordance with that plan.
John Dehlin [01:07:40] Yeah, so I think what he's setting up here is, is only Mormons can have true faith because they're the only ones who really understand God and his nature. And, and anyone who has faith in God and Jesus, but they don't understand the Nature of God. They have false faith. Did I get that wrong?
Gerardo Sumano [01:07:56] Gerardo, you got that right. Yeah. And the reason I put it here is like. Is like, do they really know God? Like, there's just so many things that they.
Brad Wilcox [01:08:05] They.
Gerardo Sumano [01:08:06] That prophets today say, oh, we don't know. You know, when hard questions arise, prophets all of a sudden know nothing about the afterlife. Don't know much about mother in heaven. They don't really want to talk about. Are there many of them? Is it. Is it one? Let's just not discuss that. Like, are we all gonna, you know, like, all these questions that people really have about the afterlife, about God, they just don't want. So is. Is it. Is it real? Does it. What he's saying, does it reflect reality? Do Mormons really know more about God than other. Any other Christian would would say they know.
John Dehlin [01:08:46] And even the main value proposition that came out of Joseph Smith's final years, which was that Mormons become gods. And that's. That's why, you know, the plan of salvation is so cool. Now the church is backtracking on that and saying, well, that's just hearsay. That's just folklore. Even. Even the one thing that that is is kind of cool to some, the church is seeming to back away from. Yeah, let's jump to where he gets. He. He uses the word stupid. He gets a little bit animated here.
Carah Burrell [01:09:19] Listen to his logic. See if you follow it.
Brad Wilcox [01:09:23] So you want to walk away from the church, say goodbye to your whole concept of God. I had some kid at BYU say to me, I don't believe in Joseph Smith anymore, but I still believe in God and Jesus. And I said, look, I don't mean to be rude, but do you realize how stupid you just sounded? He's like, what? I said, you don't believe in Joseph Smith, but you still believe in God and Jesus. You separated them. Who taught you to do that? Who taught you that they're separate beings? Joseph Smith. So don't tell me you don't believe in Joseph Smith anymore when your whole concept of God, your whole covenant relationship with him is thanks to Joseph Smith.
Carah Burrell [01:10:19] Logic would tell me that if God and Jesus are truly two beings and they have a church and they sent, hey, Jesus, I need you to go down to earth to redeem mankind. And Jesus Christ is like, that sounds dope, dad. And they really are two separate beings, and that is a true thing. Logic would follow that if a person named Joseph Smith made up of a religion and just happened to get that right. And then some BYU students stumbled along and found that truth out, it would tell me that that could be correct regardless of whatever con man decided to, like, scoop that into his religion. So that's my problem with that argument, first and foremost. And then that is a very inflammatory thing for him to say, that your entire concept of God is gone. Your concept of God is gone. So this is the biggest deal in the entire world. You leave the church, you're basically lost in the dreary world without God. Good luck, kid. Hope that you brought a sandwich with you.
John Dehlin [01:11:12] What I'm not loving is number one. You know, we all know how traumatic a faith crisis can be for people when they're in. Really makes me sad that, like, a member of the young Men's presidency, one of the top leaders for youth in our church. But ever call someone stupid is calling a tender kid who's having a faith crisis, calling them stupid and then mocking them for just continuing to believe some of the things the church and their parents conditioned them to believe like that. It's, it's kind of sophistry. He thinks he's being really clever and cute here, but he comes off as insulting and is not super bright to me in this, in this one, you know, in this one point that he's trying to make. What was your reaction, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [01:11:58] No, I think it's awful that he wants to monopolize the concept of the godhead or the belief in the Godhead. I mean, I'm not super open about my own views, but I, I, I don't necessarily believe in God or Jesus, but, but it still bothers me that he won't allow others to keep some of Mormonism when they leave. And that's sad and, and outrageous to me.
John Dehlin [01:12:31] Yeah, yeah, it's, it's unfortunate, and it makes me sad. I hope, I hope that he'll learn to use more kindness and empathy when talking with youth about something so tender. Okay, let's go to the next clip.
Brad Wilcox [01:12:50] What do you get here that you don't get anywhere else? A knowledge of God and a covenant relationship with him that suddenly allows this higher power to have power in your life. And I don't want to walk away from that. I don't want to say goodbye to that. G stands for Godhead. O stands for only true church.
John Dehlin [01:13:26] Okay, Gerardo, what, what point were you wanting to make with that clip?
Gerardo Sumano [01:13:30] Just. He's just making the same points over and over again, right? That if you leave the church, you leave God. This is the only church that has the, the right view of God. And the one that's going to make you happy and healthy and help you have a fulfilling life. We all know, we all that left, we know those ideas are wrong. Those are the ideas that are stupid. And so yeah, that was my point.
John Dehlin [01:14:01] Okay. Okay, that makes sense. And we don't have to make extensive comments on every clip. Care, did you have any, anything else to add to that?
Carah Burrell [01:14:09] Let me just highlight Bart's comment that said Mormons think that they have a monopoly on truth. And that's just, it's, it's not only is it dogmatic and divisive and authoritarian, it just is not conducive to a healthy society. So even if Mormonism was true, I don't think that these types of things that Brad is saying is healthy.
John Dehlin [01:14:26] Yeah, Jesus, it seems like Jesus taught humility. Right. And, and it's not humble to be kind of bragging.
Carah Burrell [01:14:34] It's kind of under like a fear mongering kind of umbrella here too.
John Dehlin [01:14:37] Of like walk away from everything.
Brad Wilcox [01:14:39] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:14:39] Okay, let's go to the next clip.
The Only True Church Claim Examined
Brad Wilcox [01:14:43] How many of you have ever heard somebody testify that this is the only true church? How many have ever said those words? Yeah, we hear them. We say them all the time. But some people get kind of bent out of shape when you say those words. If you haven't yet run into somebody who gets a little uptight when you say this is the only true church, then you will run into somebody who will get uptight because they don't like that. They don't think that sounds very tolerant. And in today's world, tolerance trumps all. So by hang, we better be tolerant. And we sure don't want anybody to feel bad because we say we're the only true church.
John Dehlin [01:15:25] Okay. And I think, I think we should have set that up a little bit because the G is for Godhead. So we've cleared the G. You know, we're spelling out the acronym gospel. His O is only true church. And I was surprised when that's what he came up with. Only because you see this language from people like Patrick Mason and Terrell, Fiona Givens and others, I almost had the impression that the church was kind of trying to back away from using such polarizing language. Because if our church is the only true church, again with these dichotomies, what does that mean about all the other churches?
Carah Burrell [01:16:03] They're abominations.
John Dehlin [01:16:04] That they're false.
Gerardo Sumano [01:16:05] They're false.
Carah Burrell [01:16:06] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:16:06] They're false churches. Right. And that's just so insulting. And it gets worse. But I was surprised that he pulled out the only true church. Gerardo, how about you? Were you surprised that that was the O or is that par for the course?
Gerardo Sumano [01:16:19] Yeah. And I also think it's interesting how he mocks how in today's, today's age people are more tolerant and like to encourage tolerance. And in some way he kind of mocks that and says, well, we have to be tolerant in today's day, so we better be careful about when we say and explain ourselves when we say only true church. I think coming from someone who is to who's supposed to be representing Christ, you know, and the church of cry of Jesus Christ, the fact that he's mocking that, that we, we are all nowadays trying to be more tolerant that we. That in past times it's kind of ridiculous.
John Dehlin [01:17:04] Yeah. That rubbed me wrong. Kind of this, this kind of contempt for tolerance that he kind of had a smirk and a chuckle.
Carah Burrell [01:17:11] Yeah. And I also just want to remind people that he's talking to a group of youth here. And so it just really disheartens me that the tone that he's taking with these youth is that of, yeah. Mocking tolerance. And also like they're gonna go out and take the same kind of confidence that he has to say that this is the only true church. How do you think, like kind of an immature Mormon youth is going to use that with their peers at school and in other religions? He's not teaching that type of Christ like Mormonism that I at least was taught that was. That was a lot more inclusive and inviting. And like, what are the truths that you have? Like we have truths in our church. We believe it's true. It's a little bit of a softer tone. And it just disheartens me that, that there could be youths that are going to go and take this kind of really harsh tone with their peers.
Brad Wilcox [01:17:50] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:17:51] One of our, one of our viewers on YouTube me thinks writes. So tolerance is a bad thing because it seems that the persecution complex of the church is constantly calling foul for people not being tolerant of Mormon. I'll say Mormonism. She writes Mormon nonsense. But that's also a good point. The Mormon church is always crying foul with the religious freedom. We want respect. Don't mock our cherished beliefs. Don't mock our temple ceremony. Don't mock our prophet Joseph Smith. You know, he says that the tick tock. What was the word he used for tick tock again? Griping. And yet, and yet he seems to be very willing to be intolerant and mock not only people who leave the church, but other faiths as well.
Carah Burrell [01:18:34] Yeah, he's. I see this as a man who's trying to give the youth confidence to stand up for their beliefs in the same way that he is being very bold right now, but it's just coming across really negatively, unfortunately.
Brad Wilcox [01:18:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:18:48] Yeah. Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:18:51] So.
John Dehlin [01:18:52] All right. There's more. There's more to the one true church. Only two church. Let's hear how we follows this theme.
Brad Wilcox [01:18:59] Church. The reason that people get uptight is because they don't understand why we say it. We're not having a competition. How many of you have ever gone to a high school game? How many have ever yelled these words, we're number one. We're number one. How many have ever yelled those words? Do you realize that every high school in the nation yells those words? I have never been to a high school game and heard people scream, we're number 439. We're number 400. No, everybody's number one. Why? Because it's a spirit of competition. But we're not screaming we're number one, saying we're better than everybody else. We're saying we're the only true church. In a spirit of invitation. President Boyd. K Pop.
John Dehlin [01:19:53] Oh, my gosh. That is so Gerardo. You go first. You're laughing. You get to go first.
Gerardo Sumano [01:19:58] Just like, dude, like, this Guy has a PhD and he comes up with this lot, like, this arguments that are supposed to convince.
John Dehlin [01:20:07] Yeah. No, let me just say it. Like, he starts out by saying, this isn't a competition, and then he gives this sports analogy. And sports are structurally competitive.
Gerardo Sumano [01:20:17] And then what he's trying to say is, like, we don't do that.
Brad Wilcox [01:20:20] We.
Gerardo Sumano [01:20:21] We invite people. That's what he's trying to say.
Carah Burrell [01:20:23] That's like having the best football team in the state, and you're a private university. You know, it's like, you could be number one if you could come here. Like, if you could, like, pass the exams and, like, throw a football as high as I can. Like, basically, he's saying, like, we're exclusive, but we're still inviting you. That's how I see it. Sorry for the sarcasm. Damn it. I was trying to be good.
John Dehlin [01:20:43] But, but, but. But also, when he says it's not better, like, the church literally says that it's the one and only true church, which implies others are false. But it also states in the Doctrine and Covenants that all their creeds are what, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [01:20:58] An abomination.
John Dehlin [01:20:59] An abomination. And then he's mocking everybody's illegitimate Christian beliefs as well. He is saying. He absolutely is saying that we're better.
Gerardo Sumano [01:21:10] We're number one.
John Dehlin [01:21:11] Yeah, he is saying we're number one.
Gerardo Sumano [01:21:13] If you follow his argument. He's trying to. He's trying to say that.
Brad Wilcox [01:21:16] That.
Gerardo Sumano [01:21:17] That's kind of dumb. He's saying it's dumb to think that we're trying to say we're number one, because look at every school in the nation. They all say they're number one. Well, that kind of. If we take his argument and, you know, apply it to other churches, like, there's no churches out there who are saying we are the false church or we are, you know, the second or the 400 or the 42nd church. Every church would say that they've, you know, they'll take their. Their people on the right path. So it's just interesting that he's coming up with these arguments to, you know, defend the church and prove that. Why the church is the only true church. I don't know. Kind of interesting.
John Dehlin [01:22:06] Yeah. I just think he. He's saying. He's saying we're number one, but also saying that. That he's not saying we're number one. Yeah, he's saying we're better than everybody and then trying to. It's. It is gaslighting. Yeah, I think it's gas. I mean, it comes across as gaslighting, maybe.
Gerardo Sumano [01:22:24] Yep.
John Dehlin [01:22:26] All right. He goes on the whole piano.
▶ Video Clip 1Video Clip 1 [01:22:30] Packer used to say, truth's like a piano keyboard. Some churches play a few notes. Some churches play several octaves, but we're the only church that has a whole piano. So when we are saying we're the only true church, we're just inviting people to come and see what we can add to the truths that already fill their lives. If they think they can play some pretty music now, man, we want them to know that they can play like Jackson. I mean, we want them to know that they can play with the whole piano. And I don't want to lose the whole piano. You walk away from the church, say goodbye to the whole piano, have fun playing Chopsticks the rest of your life. I don't want to play Chopsticks the
Video Clip 1 [01:23:20] rest of my life.
Video Clip 1 [01:23:21] I want to play like Jackson. And to do that, you have to have the whole.
John Dehlin [01:23:27] Oh, my gosh.
Carah Burrell [01:23:28] Okay, John, what's the name of that one church? It's like a Christian church. It's like Unitarian, something Universalist, where, like, they have, like. Like, female ministers and, like, they're LGBTQ friendly. So if somebody leaves that church and converts the Mormon Church, what is the tune that they're adding because it sounds like they'd be subtracting a whole lot of great values to move backwards in time to go back to. Do you see. Do you see where I'm going with this? Of like, he's saying that all of these other churches can have truth in them, but you're just going to be playing chopsticks until you come play on our full piano. I'm wondering if you are, Gerardo, You. You are a member of the LGBTQ community.
Gerardo Sumano [01:24:12] People who don't need to stay because it gets worse, I promise.
Carah Burrell [01:24:14] Yeah. I'm just saying, like, if you're a member, remember, Mormonism sometimes is like a box is how I would describe it. If you do not fit within that box, let's say that you're queer or you have, like, feminist leanings or something. That if you find a church that fits your box quite nicely. He's saying that you will never actually be full playing your best music until you come confine yourself in our box.
John Dehlin [01:24:37] Yeah. He's saying that no other churches have good things that we don't have. Right?
Carah Burrell [01:24:42] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:24:42] Which. Ask other members of other churches or people who have less left our church and gone to other churches. There are absolutely churches that have way better things than our church. There are churches that serve coffee, for heaven's sakes. But. But what's more, he's. He. He on the one hand says we're not trying to insult other churches or be competitive, but then he kind of smirks and says it's a half piano. And the best that other churches are going to provide you is chopsticks. That the Mormon Church provides you with what, a bachelor or a Beethoven sonata, and that any other church is going to provide you at best with chopsticks. Like, is he not listening to himself? How is that not incredibly insulting?
Carah Burrell [01:25:23] He thinks that this camera is off and this is not going to be on the Internet.
Gerardo Sumano [01:25:27] I guess here is just a thought I just had. Like, if. If he has this idea of having the whole piano conflicts with the idea of an ongoing restoration. And I don't know if you. Good point too, if you guys have noticed, but this idea of the ongoing restoration is. Is quite new. Joe's like Brigham Young and other Wilford Witcher. They used to teach that the restoration was done right, that we had everything that we needed to get to heaven. Then some updates needed to ongoing restoration has resurfaced to justify blacks in the priesthood and the changes in the temple ceremony and all this stuff.
Carah Burrell [01:26:08] Stuff.
Gerardo Sumano [01:26:09] But if we have the whole piano? Why are there so many changes? And why are things supposedly yet to be revealed? Right. Like, so do we really have the whole piano?
John Dehlin [01:26:20] Yeah, it's super insulting. Christian friend asks, does he know he's being recorded? Christian friend? Yes. They announced it at the beginning of the episode, at the beginning of the fireside, that they're streaming through Zoom to all these different places. What he doesn't necessarily know, which kind of befuddles me, is that this is going to be shared on Mormon Stories podcast and on YouTube and not just taken down quickly. I, I mean, I. You would think he would know after what we did with some of his prior comments on Tick Tock, you would think he would know that this was going to be shared across the world. But I guess, inexplicably, maybe he didn't realize that.
Carah Burrell [01:26:56] And again, going back to our earlier point, he, he is one person, but this is a representation of like the McConkey Mormonism, like this old school orthodox Mormonism. So this is not about even Brad and what he's saying. This is about these ID ideas that are really pertinent in the Mormon Church anyway, so.
Mormonism's Gift of the Holy Ghost vs Other Faiths
John Dehlin [01:27:15] Right, okay, next quote is about the spirit versus the gift of the Holy Ghost. And again, this is where we're better than other people. Here we go.
▶ Video Clip 2Video Clip 2 [01:27:25] Fight with a missionary companion once because he said that Latter Day Saints are the only ones who can feel the spirit. And I said, and he said, uh, huh. I said. He said, huh? And that's how missionaries fight. And I said, look, if they can't feel the spirit, what do they feel on Christmas Eve when they're singing Silent Night and the little kids are all dressed in bathrobes doing the manger scene? What do they feel? He says, the spirit of the devil. I said, no, you can't feel the spirit of the devil when little kids are dressed in bathrobes. You can't feel the little spirit of the devil when they're singing Silent Night. What my companion was trying to say is that we do have something that sets us apart, but it's not the spirit. Muslims feel the spirit. Hindus feel the spirit. Jews feel the spirit.
Video Clip 2 [01:28:25] Spirit.
Video Clip 2 [01:28:26] Catholics feel the spirit. The spirit will come and go in their lives. What we have that they don't have is the gift of the Holy Ghost. And that's the chance to have the spirit with.
Gerardo Sumano [01:28:39] Yeah, sorry, it cuts out. But he says that's the chance to feel the spirit, like the whole time. That's what he said.
John Dehlin [01:28:46] Yeah. So on the one hand, you know, let's just give credit where credit is due. He's not saying that only Mormons can ever feel the Holy Ghost, which on the one hand, I guess, is generous. No, it's not her.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:01] He's getting rid of a problem, John. He's getting. He's trying to get rid and inoculate the youth as to why people feel good in their own churches.
Carah Burrell [01:29:11] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:12] If this is the only true church, nobody else is supposed to feel good in their other churches.
John Dehlin [01:29:17] Right. So they need an explanation.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:19] He. Yeah, he has to come up with an explanation as to why others, including people who are not members of the church, feel good or feel guidance from, you know, the Holy Ghost or the Spirit. And, but, and to me, to me, this is evident by the fact that he then has to tackle the fact that members of the church, really, if you ask any member, none of them will say that they feel the spirit the whole time.
Brad Wilcox [01:29:48] Time.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:49] Right. So he tries to say everyone else that is not a member feels. Feels the spirit sometimes. But. But we feel it all the time. And then he realizes he's in. In a problem again, because really a lot of members would, or most members would say that they don't feel the spirit all the time.
Brad Wilcox [01:30:09] Yeah. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:30:10] And he actually tries to address this later. And there's. It's a big problem because a lot of people go to church and feel. A lot of Mormons go to church and feel super bored. Or a lot of youth like me read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and they don't feel a gosh darn thing.
Carah Burrell [01:30:24] Or especially when you're trying to make a decision and you have like, some kind of, you know, the spirit with you that you're told is going to be the blessing that's going to help and guide you. And you're like, I got nothing. That's supposedly where it's supposed to come in. And you're just like, it's blank, flatlined,
John Dehlin [01:30:37] you know, or just all the anxiety and depression that's around these days. Are, are. Are all those, you know, Mormons on SSRIs feeling the holy Spirit all the time? If they are, why are they needing SSRIs, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. So he goes on and explains. And again, somehow it's not insulting that they can occasionally feel it, but we get to feel it all the time. It is, it's. It's. Again, it's insulting. But he doesn't listen to himself and realize how insulting he is. But he goes on. So let's play.
▶ Video Clip 3Video Clip 3 [01:31:08] He continues all right, so if I don't tie a knot at the end of the balloon, what's going to happen? Make the sound effects good. That's how the spirit kind of goes in and out of people's lives. But when we are baptized, then we get the knot in the end of the balloon. That's called the gift of the Holy Ghost. And it allows us to keep the spirit with us all the time.
Video Clip 3 [01:31:34] Time.
Video Clip 3 [01:31:35] Thank you, Jay. Now, the good news is that most of you received that gift when you were 8 years old. The bad news is that most of you received that gift when you were 8 years old. And then young people say to me, brother Wilcox, I've never felt the spirit. And I say, yeah, you have. They go, uh. And they go, uh huh? And they go, and then we're fighting again. I've never felt the spirit. No, of course you felt the spirit. Stephen Covey used to tell students at BYU when they'd say, I've never felt the spirit, he'd say, you're like a fish. You're swimming around in the water and you're going, water? What water? I don't see any water. When does a fish notice the water? When he's out of the water. And then he goes, whoa, I was in the water all the time. Sometimes that's what has to happen with young Latter Day Saints. They have to do something stupid, distance themselves from the spirit. And then they say, I was feeling it all the time. I just didn't recognize it.
John Dehlin [01:32:44] Yeah. This is a really important thing to cover. Gerardo, do you want to go first on this one?
Gerardo Sumano [01:32:51] I've talked too much. Let's let Kira echo.
John Dehlin [01:32:53] All right, Kira.
Carah Burrell [01:32:54] People are loving you and your commentary today, Gerardo, and so am I. I'll go.
Gerardo Sumano [01:32:58] I' go, but okay.
Gaslighting, Feelings, and Testimony Building
Carah Burrell [01:32:59] The first thing that just comes to mind for me is like a major red flag for gaslighting. Gaslighting? Gaslighting.
John Dehlin [01:33:06] What do you mean?
Carah Burrell [01:33:08] What I mean by that is I'd have to get into the description of the spirit. To me, I mean, this is my personal opinion, but I can't. You know, you can't speak definitively if somebody is actually feeling the Holy Ghost, but I think we've studied it enough that it would be more described as elevated emotion, which is the emotion elicited by witnessing virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness experienced as a distinct feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation and affection for the individual who. Whose exceptional conduct is being observed. And again, that's universal, again, across all different nationalities. And religion and somebody on an island who's never heard of Mormonism can feel the exact same type of elevated emotion or the spirit as somebody in Alpine, Utah, obviously. So my problem with the gaslighting, that's
John Dehlin [01:33:54] the technical term, that's the technical term for what the Mormon Church trademarks as the Holy Ghost.
Carah Burrell [01:33:58] As the Holy Ghost.
John Dehlin [01:33:59] It's called elevation, emotion. Look it up. Humans feel it. Mormons slap a label of Holy Ghost on it. So that's your first point.
Carah Burrell [01:34:06] Yeah, I love it.
Brad Wilcox [01:34:07] So.
Carah Burrell [01:34:07] So half of me wants to say that everyone feels elevated emotion at some time sometime. Like we all witness these beautiful acts that make our hearts warm and things. It just depends on if the person is actually able to attribute that to the church being true and then that having a utility in life. And they're. They're assigning that feeling.
Brad Wilcox [01:34:26] Oh.
Carah Burrell [01:34:26] To the church being true. I'm feeling the spirit that everyone's talking about. So that's why it's split a little bit for me on, on unlike why it's gaslighting, because it is so universal and it is, like you said, very much like trademarked.
John Dehlin [01:34:39] Yeah, yeah. So when he tells the story of like Mormon youth saying, I don't feel the spirit, number one, if they're saying they don't feel the spirit, that should matter. Like, why isn't the Holy Ghost powerful enough, enough to have a kid recognize when he's feeling it or not? But it. But it also, there's this, there's this assumption then, if it's true, that Mormons are swimming in the spirit so often that they just don't even recognize that they're feeling it. Again, that implies that everyone who's not Mormon is not swimming in the same spirit and is not feeling. Is there any evidence that non Mormons, that their default setting is somehow inferior or lower, Higher levels of depression, you know, lower levels of happiness? Because Mormons are swimming in constant feeling of the spirit while everybody else isn't. Like, it makes no sense. But also it is a. It is a real form of gaslighting. When somebody says, well, I was promised that if I came to church and obeyed the commandments and live the gospel and read the Book of Mormon, I would feel something really special and unique. And then they don't feel it. And so the answer is, well, you were feeling it all along. You're basically redefining the expectation so that they then redefine the words to then come to believe that the church must be true. Because my leader is telling me, I've Been feeling it all along. And it's a.
Brad Wilcox [01:36:07] You.
John Dehlin [01:36:08] It's a coercion. It's a coercive way to, to wield undue influence on people to make them give their lives to the church.
Carah Burrell [01:36:16] Yeah. In other words, you're not letting the youths of the church actually tell you what their experiences are. You're redefining what their experiences are and then feeding it back to them.
John Dehlin [01:36:24] You're redefining it low.
Carah Burrell [01:36:26] Yeah.
Brad Wilcox [01:36:26] To.
John Dehlin [01:36:26] To a. To a status that you really can't state is empirically different than somebody outside the church. Because what Brad's saying is that a Mormon feels the spirit all the time, and that is categorically different than what a Catholic or a Buddhist or a Muslim or an atheist or an agnostic feels, you know, as their base set
Carah Burrell [01:36:47] of feelings, which I just want to clarify for the reason why we read that. I, I read that definition of elevated emotion for those listening on audio that wasn't memorized. I had to read that. The reason why I read that is because we're trying to make it seem that it's a quite a universal thing that people are feeling this elevated emotion thing. And so me speaking as like a atheist and agnostic atheist, I can say, I'm sure our listeners can say that once you recognize, oh, that was what I labeled as the Spirit, it's just elevated emotion. I feel it now more because I could recognize it and I can actually assign a truthful label to what it is we understand, like this psychological phenomenon. And I'm not assigning a religious or spiritual label to it anymore. And it actually is more powerful and I notice it more. So if I'm going to leave the church and I'm not going to have the spirit with me jokes on you, I have it more than ever. So
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:34] I think there's something really powerful, John, of taking something that is part of the human experience, something that's just normal and beautiful about the human experience, like elevation emotion and capitalizing and monopolizing it, for sure. And teaching your members that elevation emotion means the church is true and defining what elevation emotion is. That's why I have, I have a really big problem when people, when the church talks about LGBT people being sons and daughters of God and how that's the first thing they need to remember because the church gets to define what being a son and daughter of God means, and they get to, you know, set the rules and prescriptions as to what the expectations are. And it's the same thing that's happening here. Happening here. So Brad sets a problem when he, he tries to create an argument of us versus them because that's what creates the hook, that's what creates the, the value of the church. Like what do we have here that, that you won't have outside the church? And by doing so he, he says, you know, like they feel the spirit, but we feel it all the time. He creates a problem because like you just explained, most members don't feel it all the time. And they'll say that and they'll ask questions and they'll ask their leaders, why are we not feeling it all the time? So he tries to respond to this by saying, oh, it's because you were baptized at age and you received the Holy Ghost, so you've lived it with it your whole life, so you just don't notice it. Well, the problem with that is that, you know, like people, us who have left the church. I don't feel any different or well, I actually feel better now that I'm outside as a gay person outside the church than when I was inside the church.
Carah Burrell [01:39:37] I think swimming in a better water now. Yeah, sorry, you're swimming in the water you were meant to be in, which is like actually loving yourself instead of trying to change yourself.
Gerardo Sumano [01:39:46] Right. And he's, he tries to solve that problem by saying like you actually have noticed when you've lost it and that's when you sin or when you do something bad and then you feel bad and then that's, that means that you've lost the spirit and, and then you realize you had head the whole time. The problem with that is that people that have grown up in the church since they are eight years old, they've been told by the church as to what's wrong and what's right, what they're not supposed to do. And a lot of these things are just part of the human experience and part of like what everybody does, you know, like sexual exploration, masturbation, liking people of their same sex. And with those things happen because you've been programmed that these things are evil, you're obviously gonna feel bad. God. And, and, and, and he tries to again monopolize this feeling and say that means that you've lost the spirit. And so he solved that problem through the shame that the church causes. Right on people.
John Dehlin [01:40:49] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:40:50] Yes. And may I just, since we're talking about the youth, may I just share a short story that shows this, highlights this point perfectly? Because what Harada was just explaining was the church's this self fulfilling prophecy and I'm hearing an Echo in my headphones. John, do you know why that is? Anyway, okay, anyway. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. I as a youth growing up in Provo was told that, that there's darkness in these places in my patriarchal blessing not to go into places where the spirit will not emanate. That was in my patriarchal blessing and I really believed that. So when I'm 19, working at a summer camp and people are partying, I walked into a party, people are drinking, they're doing completely developmentally normal things. And I had a panic attack that I had to leave just because I witnessed that. Because I just. It was a self fulfilling prophecy. If I'm in the place that doesn't have the spirit, that means that I'm now evil and I need to, you know, hightail it out of there. Like it all is like this all. You know what I'm meaning? Sorry. Makes sense. It just is like this self fulfilling prophecy that I'm, I am programmed to find evil where they're really. It's like kind of a gray area. It's not that evil, you know?
John Dehlin [01:41:51] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:41:52] It's not that bad.
John Dehlin [01:41:52] Yeah. The way I, the way I to summarize this dilemma and I, and I'm going to admit I learned this, I think I heard this first from John Larsen, who we bring on Mormon Stories monthly. Two things that number one is that the church takes from its members what is theirs or what is the human experience, rebrands it.
Carah Burrell [01:42:14] Sure.
John Dehlin [01:42:14] And then sells it back to them is if the church owns it and controls it. That's the first part of it it. And then the second part is, is the church creates an illness that it then presents itself as the cure for. And those are the two things that the church is doing. And the way that the church teaches epistemology or doesn't teach epistemology and the way that the church talks about feelings and emotion and the Holy Ghost and sin, that is the way that is the core to the church's formula for how they maintain their status as a high demand religion and how they control their. Their members.
Carah Burrell [01:42:56] Well said.
John Dehlin [01:42:57] Yeah. Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [01:42:59] Just that I think to me what proves that this ideas of the church, what Brad Wilcox is teaching are wrong. One is that members in the church are always even apostles say that the number one question they get is how can I know if. When I got an impression, when I have an impression, if that impression is coming from the spirit or myself. And apostles themselves have acknowledged that they even have a hard time to separate when it's coming from them and when it's coming from the spirit. So that kind of. To me, that tells me that it is. That's just part of everybody's experience, having impressions, having thoughts. And they. And what proves it to me, too, that it doesn't really come from, like, a. A divine source, is that a lot of the times these impressions are wrong. Like, my husband had impressions about during his mission, about what he was supposed to study as his career. And then when he. And then he came back and realized that he hated that. That. Or like, you know, like everybody has had impressions on their missions about knocking a door or talking to someone, and then the person rejected them. And so we. So that proves to. Like. To me, that proves that this. Impressions that. That the church wants to monopolize and say, this is the Spirit. They're actually just part of, you know. You know, believing as a human.
John Dehlin [01:44:34] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:44:34] 100. You guys are killing it today.
John Dehlin [01:44:37] All right, well, Brad goes on to talk about the spirit not being a furnace. Instead, it's. The spirit is a furnace, not a fire. So he'll extend the metaphor, sing the
Brad Wilcox [01:44:45] spirit of God like a fire is burning. I felt that fire, but I don't feel it every day. I'm kind of glad I don't feel it every day. I mean, you couldn't even get through your morning, for peace sake. The alarm would go off and you'd be like, whoa, Feeling the spirit. Yeah. Then you'd be in the shower going, and you'd be pouring your Captain Crunch. You couldn't even get through the morning. So it's a good thing you're not feeling the spirit like a fire all the time. Sometimes I think maybe we ought to sing the spirit of God like a furnace is working. See, when it's a cold day outside and you walk into your house, you don't notice the furnace. None of you walk in your house and go, the furnace is working. Now, when do you notice the furnace? When it's not working. And then you don't sit there and say, I guess this is my new normal. No, you call somebody because you want to get it fixed, because you want to feel. Catch the word. Comfortable. You want to feel comfortable.
Carah Burrell [01:46:06] What if the furnace is pumping, like, carbon monoxide into your house? Should you fix that furnace? Or maybe you should call a repairman, somebody who is, like, accredited and has the best reviews on Yelp and stuff, and you actually get a furnace to work in your house because the one that was in there was poisoning you. What about you Think about that analogy, Brad.
John Dehlin [01:46:26] Yeah. Be careful using analogies around Carah. She really. She will extend them in ways you may not, like Brad Wilcox. All right, I. I think we've beat a dead horse here. Anything else you want to add, Gerardo? Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:46:38] Well, it's just that he admits that people that, you know, like when. When youth are going to notice that they don't have the spirit is when they don't feel comfortable. And that's because that's how the church has programmed them to think. And that's sad.
John Dehlin [01:46:55] Yeah. Just this whole idea of truth is feelings, and testimony is knowledge and truth. The Mormon Church just needs to do an Epistemology 101 course. It needs to go through one itself and then take its members through one. Because this idea of equating feelings with evidence is just. It's what makes people fly planes into the Twin Towers thinking that God wanted them to. Literally every religion claims that the feelings that they condition in their members and the feelings that they create in their members are of God. But literally, Warren Jeffs, you know, a follower of Warren Jeff's, feels literally the identical thing that a Mormon girl in Draper, Utah, feels. There's no difference and no one could ever establish a difference. And it's the same with Jews and Muslims and Hindus and even secular people. I feel the same overwhelming emotion, you know, elevation, emotion, now that I did in testimony meetings as a Mormon. It's just elevation, emotion. And the church needs to just kind of.
Carah Burrell [01:47:56] Are you guys feeling elevated emotion right now? Because you're loving this and you're watching three people do something amazing, right?
John Dehlin [01:48:02] They must be watching this. And if you're not, there's a sin. And if you're not, there must be some sin in your life that you. You haven't repented for. Okay, now a threat about leaving the church.
Brad Wilcox [01:48:15] Now you want to leave the church. Well, say goodbye to the knot in the end of your balloon. Say goodbye to the gift of the Holy Ghost. Oh, you'll feel the spirit now and then, but you're not going to be able to feel it always. And that means you're going to miss the guidance, you're going to miss the testimony. You're going to miss the direction, the peace, the comfort, the sanctification that that spirit can bring into your life. I don't want to miss those things. I need them. Too desperate.
John Dehlin [01:48:49] Yeah. So again, it's just this idea that if you leave the church, you're losing everything. And he's going to actually, literally say that later. I just want to call out. He drops into this kind of testimony voice where his voice starts wobbling and it sounds like he's getting emotional. And it's what Jeffrey Holland does is what Henry Eyring does. And it's what people that are trying to manipulate you do. It may be sincere for him, but that testimony voice was really clear in that last.
Carah Burrell [01:49:15] Is anyone getting like some strong MLM vibes? Maybe I'm like the only like, like white chick from Utah who sat through like 15 MLM pitches and rolled my eyes all throughout my 20s. If it's like, do you really want to miss out on the guidance of your upline? Do you really want to miss out on all of the blessings that you're going to have from having 20% off of Mary Kay anytime you want it? Like, it just sounds like, what if the thing that you're selling has way too many downsides and not enough upsides? I think I've thought that through. Have you, Karen?
John Dehlin [01:49:48] Anyway, yeah. And these are impressionable youth. And so what makes this so insidious is this isn't the type of language the church would use in general conference. It's not the type of language that the church would generally tend to use publicly. It's generally the type of fear scare tactics on impressionable youth that they're only going to use when they think the public isn't going to be watching. And when, when you, when you factor in the fact that he's talking to little 12 year olds and 14 year olds and 16 year olds that are in very formative stages of their life life and literally saying that if you leave the church, you're going to lose everything that is. That is coercion and undue influence to people. And, and it's irresponsible in my opinion. Gerardo, anything you want to add?
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:34] No, I agree.
John Dehlin [01:50:35] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:36] Everything you said, I just like what
Carah Burrell [01:50:37] Grant said right here. That the desperate language that they use on the youth, like hanging on by their fingernails, they know that they got a big problem here.
John Dehlin [01:50:46] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:50:46] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:50:47] Okay, so with the metaphor so far, what's the first letter?
Carah Burrell [01:50:52] Gospel godhead.
John Dehlin [01:50:54] O Gospel godhead.
Carah Burrell [01:50:57] Only true.
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:58] Only true church spirit.
John Dehlin [01:51:00] Okay, so we're still in only true church. And this is one of the most.
Gerardo Sumano [01:51:04] We're in spirit. We're in spirit.
John Dehlin [01:51:05] Oh, this is spirit now. G, O, S. Okay, this is one of the most insulting parts of the whole talk as far as I'm concerned, where he talks about having real church versus playing church. So let's hear this.
Wilcox's Analogies About Covenants and Commitment
Brad Wilcox [01:51:22] How many of you used to play school? Okay, good I'm glad to see those hands up. How many of you used to play church? I'm glad to see a few hands go up. My kids played church. They'd pull out the stuffed animals, they'd put them on the couch. They'd. They'd sing the song, they'd do the talk. Got a little nervous when my daughter started blessing the sacrament, but they'd play church. And I used to think, oh, that's so cute. It's so cute. But now I'm older, and I realized it wasn't just cute. It's actually what most people in the world are doing. They're playing church. They're sincere, they want it to count, but they don't have the authority. They don't have God's permission. So that the things they do really count on earth and in eternity.
John Dehlin [01:52:23] Yeah, Gerardo, what you. What you got on that one?
Gerardo Sumano [01:52:28] Yeah, it's just. He starts saying that this idea. Well, giving this idea out that the other churches are playing church. They're not real churches. I think it gets more insidious when he goes and attacks someone's wedding ceremony. And he brings it up. But I think this sets the context as to what he means by playing church.
John Dehlin [01:52:51] Yeah. Again, he wants to say he's not saying we're number one. He's not denigrating other faiths. We're not saying we're better. And then he brings up a metaphor about we do real church. The rest are just playing church. Yep. Yeah. It's super. Yeah. So. So let's play the clip about ceiling. Because I think this is where it gets really kind of toxic.
▶ Video Clip 4Video Clip 4 [01:53:14] One girl came late to work, and I said, where have you been? She says, I'm sorry, but I was at my wedding rehearsal, and I'm just so upset. I said, maybe you shouldn't marry him. And she said, I'm not upset at my fiance. I'm upset at the preacher. I said, how can you be mad at a preacher? They're nice. She said, well, I'm not mad at the preacher. I just don't like those words. What words is she talking about? Till death do you part? Most churches don't say that anymore. Now they say, as long as you both shall live, It's the same thing. And she didn't like those words. She said, I feel like I'm getting divorced the day I'm getting married. I was like, whoa, this is like a missionary moment. This is a missionary moment. I mean, Brad, come on. Don't blow it. Don't blow it. So I said, in my church, we get married in the temple where we are sealed for time and all eternity. And she went,
Video Clip 4 [01:54:37] oh, I love that.
Video Clip 4 [01:54:44] And I said, fill the font. I'm going to baptize this girl right now. No, she didn't want to get baptized. She didn't even want to meet the missionaries. But she did want to rewrite her wedding ceremony. So she went to the minister and she said, may I write my own ceremony? And he said, for an extra fee. So she paid the extra money, and she wrote her own ceremony.
John Dehlin [01:55:12] Okay, I'm. I'm. I'm. It's tiny bit sad. We stopped it before he finished the story.
Carah Burrell [01:55:16] So there's another clip of the other story.
Brad Wilcox [01:55:17] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:18] But I did want to comment on the fee.
John Dehlin [01:55:20] Go ahead.
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:20] Yeah, he's like, for a fee, he kind of, like. I don't know. To me, he kind of mocks the fact that the preacher wanted a fee. I doubt the preacher wanted a fee, but talk about a fee.
John Dehlin [01:55:34] Talk about a fee, right?
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:35] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:55:36] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:36] The church requires you to pay 10 of your income for life.
Carah Burrell [01:55:42] Can you imagine if she said to
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:43] him, like, not just yours. Every. Every person that you care about who wants to attend your wedding has to also contribute 10, pay the fee?
Brad Wilcox [01:55:53] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:55:54] Can you imagine if she came back and said, the preacher is going to let me change my vows, but I have to pay 10 for the rest of my life to his church? And so does everyone in attendance also have to do that? Can you imagine if Brad told that story? Everyone would be like, I think that
Gerardo Sumano [01:56:07] was giving him better fee.
Carah Burrell [01:56:08] Yeah. I was like, he probably got a good deal on that. The point that I just want to make is, like, not only. Obviously, he's being very condescending, and obviously he has a vested interest in being condescending to these youth. Okay. But the. The greater point that I want to make. I forgot. Dang it.
John Dehlin [01:56:23] Oh, it's okay. It's okay. We'll come back to it. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll. We'll. We'll do this second part. Then Carah's gonna remember. But, yeah, so he's gonna go on and talk about the ceiling itself. So we'll come right back.
Brad Wilcox [01:56:35] And I sat there in that Protestant church and listened as the preacher sealed them for time and all eternity. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I'm freaking out. I'm like, whoa. Everybody in the church was like, oh, that is so special. I was like, that is so wrong. That's just, like, wrong. Like, lightning bolt wrong. Why? It's a free country. They can say whatever they want to say. Why did I feel it was wrong? Authority. No authority. They just didn't have permission to say those words. And so did it count eternally? No. Because they were playing church.
Carah Burrell [01:57:29] Hey, quick shout out to Shirelle. I can't remember your handle right now. Dang it.
John Dehlin [01:57:35] Oh, it's okay.
Carah Burrell [01:57:36] Anyway, I just wanted to say I. She says that she owns a wedding venue and that story sounds very fake. Oh, yeah, because it just makes me think, like, is there a pastor who's like, my whole speech is like, I'm gonna take hours to type this out and like, change two words. Like, does he really care?
John Dehlin [01:57:51] Well, I. This is. This is a little bit of a hot issue for me because if you really do think about Mormon doctrine, in Mormon doctrine, no other baptism counts in existence. That's just a fact. That's not like John being hyperbolic or rhetorical. The whole reason we have baptisms for the dead and not only spend so much of our spare time as Mormons baptizing dead people, but also we're taught that what are we going to do for the thousand years in the millennium. Carabarell, did you. Were you ever taught this?
Carah Burrell [01:58:25] Oh, we're just going to be drumming up for baptisms. Baptism every. Everybody back to another shelf item of cares. Back to when.
John Dehlin [01:58:33] Back to Adam. Back to Adam and Eve before that.
Carah Burrell [01:58:36] Yeah, like billions of baptisms.
John Dehlin [01:58:38] The reason why the whole baptism for the dead doctrine exists is because literally, Mormons believe every other Christian baptism or every other religious ordinance of any other religious tradition is completely illegitimate. But it gets worse. No marriage that's ever been performed on the planet that isn't performed by. By Mormons. Those marriages, those families are all dissolved. Those marriages are dead. That's just a fact. But if you actually try and say this to a non Mormon in front of another Mormon, the Mormon will go crazy and say, that's not. That's not what we believe. That's not what we teach. Because it's so offensive to actually say it. It. But it is a complete fact. It's why we do ceilings. Why do ceilings for the what? Like it's, for example, we do ceilings for the dead because non Mormon marriages are literally illegitimate. And so. And so. So core Mormon doctrine is deeply offensive that way in and of itself. And then just what adds insult to injury is that Brad here is now saying it. He's basically saying every other church, when they do a baptism, they're doing what, Carah?
Carah Burrell [01:59:49] They're playing church.
John Dehlin [01:59:50] They're playing church. Every other non Mormon but still Christian wedding. What are they doing?
Carah Burrell [01:59:57] They're just pretending that they're going to be together forever. Not without our ceremony.
John Dehlin [02:00:01] Yeah, and then, and then he's implying that somehow because we claim to have authority, because we, we claim to have the keys to. Just by claiming it, that makes us a legitimate illegitimate or sorry. Just by claiming that we have the keys and the authority that somehow means that it's true that we have authority. And then if anybody else makes the same claim, well, that's clearly wrong. Wrong. He's pounding the pulpit. Wrong. Because that's illegitimate.
Carah Burrell [02:00:28] Because if you are like to invent a religion or a God or a ceremony or all of these things, it best be something that you can't prove until the next life. Yeah, it's like on what proof are you even saying that this is the only way that you get to be sealed with your spouse in the afterlife? Maybe, we don't know, maybe that ceremony did work. I don't know. You don't have any proof one way or another, Brad, because when you talk
John Dehlin [02:00:46] to your Christian friends and you're like, well, without Mormonism, your family won't exist in heaven. They're like, what, my family's going to exist in heaven?
Carah Burrell [02:00:54] Like a manufactured scarcity.
John Dehlin [02:00:55] Like, hey, families exist in heaven. They persist in heaven. And it's, it's the Mormon Church that's dividing families in heaven. Christians just kind of assume they're going to be together with their family members.
Carah Burrell [02:01:06] Right.
John Dehlin [02:01:06] It. Herdo, what do you want to add where.
Gerardo Sumano [02:01:09] Well, and then when you factor the fact, when you factor in, you know, the idea that, that these ceilings were pretty much created to justify polygamy, that the doctrine of the ceilings, where it was originally invented or put out by Joseph, Joseph Smith as a way so he could do ceilings behind Emma's back, that in reality they were not exactly how we would use them today. That, that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cow started talking about having received the priesthood a lot later and even David Whitmer didn't believe them and that there's so many issues with the priesthood restoration. You know, we don't have a date for the Melchizedek priesthood. The fact that Joseph was marrying other men's wives before the ceiling powers were supposedly restored, and then he came up with that story later so he could, you know, say that he had received that power. You know, all these issues with Mormon history about how the church actually may not even have. And then. Well, and then the issues of all the, like, all the other splinter groups from Mormonism who claim to be the ones that have the direct line of authority from Joseph Smith, like Brad Wilcox has very little to. To fall on when he. When he brings up this idea that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake is the only one that has. Has the authority.
John Dehlin [02:02:54] Yeah. All right.
Carah Burrell [02:02:57] So you don't move a lot of baptisms by saying anything else, though. You don't move a lot of converts by saying, like, maybe we have the authority.
John Dehlin [02:03:04] One of many good churches.
Carah Burrell [02:03:05] So as I was trying to say at the beginning, he has a vested interest in being so condescending. It just Mormon stories. We're going to have to call you on it. And I remember the thing I was going to say earlier, which is I identify as, like, an agnostic atheist, like I was saying. And I am still not even that, like, rude or dogmatic about other people's beliefs. If something. If that. That ceiling, ceiling quote unquote, gave that woman hope that he's talking about, I would not stigmatize it and put it down as something less than I would say, like, that's a beautiful ceremony that you guys had. But he wants to act. He. He again has a vested interest in saying, only ours, ours only. And trying to give that to the youth that, like, don't you dare leave because you're gonna try to play church, but it won't mean anything. Be like, that is. I do not want to interact with other people in the world who think that the things that are meaningful to me, whether in my marriage or the way that I live my life, what I believe about the afterlife are meaningless. That's so condescending and just, again, just not fruitful for the betterment of society. Please knock it off.
John Dehlin [02:03:59] Are you saying that if he's more rooted. Insulting than you, then he's really rude and insulting? I'm just kidding. I was trying to.
Carah Burrell [02:04:05] I'm quitting.
John Dehlin [02:04:06] She throws her headset off and walks away. No, it's good. Okay. I think. Tell me if I'm wrong, Gerardo. We're at the P now, so there was Godhead, one true church and spirit. Now that we're getting to the blacks in the priesthood section, I think we're at priesthood. But before we do.
Gerardo Sumano [02:04:24] Yeah, we're still in priesthood.
John Dehlin [02:04:25] Yeah, we're at the P. We're at priesthood. Okay. Yeah, Carah, go ahead.
Carah Burrell [02:04:28] I'm not insulting believers. I'm insulting the people who are insulting believers of different types of beliefs.
John Dehlin [02:04:35] No, no, no. I was. I was totally kidding.
Carah Burrell [02:04:36] Yeah, he was kidding. But I have to say, I come back of some kind.
John Dehlin [02:04:40] I appreciate it. Okay, so we are now in the P, which is priesthood. The P. So we've got three letters left, worth the P. And I'm just going to let everybody know. So this is for sure going to be one of the most polarizing and controversial parts of the entire talk. Am I right, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [02:04:56] Yes.
Carah Burrell [02:04:57] Okay, set your. Just put your jaws down so you. It'll save time, everyone.
John Dehlin [02:05:02] Yeah, just go ahead and put your jaws down now. So as he's talking about priesthood, he goes on a rant about blacks in the priesthood. And here is the most outrageous thing, one of the most outrageous things I've ever heard.
Brad Wilcox [02:05:13] How come the blacks didn't get the priesthood until 19. 1978? What's up with that, Brother Wilcox? What? Brigham Young was a jerk. Members of the church were prejudiced. Maybe we're asking the wrong question. Maybe instead of saying why did the blacks have to wait until 1978, maybe what we should be asking is, why did the whites and other races have to wait until 1829?
John Dehlin [02:05:46] Holy.
Carah Burrell [02:05:47] All right, let's. Let's just rattle off. What are the tools of Undelia. Influence. I'm seeing a lot of. I'm feeling the taste of thought stopping right now. What else are you saying? No, that's.
John Dehlin [02:05:56] No, that's totally true. That's totally true.
Carah Burrell [02:05:57] Like the. The. I left my jaw open and now the palate. I need a palate cleanser after this. But I'm feeling a lot of thought stopping. I'm feeling a lot of, like, people's. The reason why people would bring that up is they're asking the question, does prejudice this affect the church members who apparently speak for God? Does that affect their prophecies and the doctrine of the church? And he wants to thought stop that. Very correct idea. You should go down that lane. You should ask that question. He's saying, what if we ask a different question? What has to do with my race and my privilege?
Gerardo Sumano [02:06:29] Someone mentioned that. That the people on the back are feeling so uncomfortable. And the irony is that I noticed that, too. But they start feeling uncomfortable when he calls. Calls Brigham Young a jerk.
John Dehlin [02:06:41] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:06:42] Not when he says the thing about the. About the whites.
Carah Burrell [02:06:45] Did they, like, flinch or something?
Gerardo Sumano [02:06:47] Well, they. They kind of just go like. Like the stick pressing.
John Dehlin [02:06:50] Well, Gerardo, as. As someone who. I mean, of the three of us, you would. Would most represent a person of color. Like, what is your reaction to that statement?
Gerardo Sumano [02:07:02] It's. It's awful. It's there's, if you study the history of the church, it was not just that blacks didn't get the priesthood. It was active persecution against equality, against, you know, getting rid of segregation, against the civil rights movement. We have prophet seers and revelators giving talks and, and ranting about how the civil rights movement was, was a communist plot from the devil, how Martin Luther King was a communist. Today Russell M. Nelson wants to play nice and, and talk about how nice Martin Luther King was. But man, just study some history and, and realize that it was not just, just bring him young being a jerk. It was like a lineup of prophets, years and revelators being jerks. And the fact that when, you know, like people of, of these race, black black people were not able to receive the blessings of, of the priesthood and get sealed. It was not just like they were not able to bless their fam, the man was not able to bless their family or serving the bishopric. They were not able to have an eternal family. So the biggest promise that today Mormonism gives to people and you know, the highest and the most important sales pitch like this was something that blacks were denied for a long, long period of time. And that a lot of members didn't like this idea, they didn't like this policy or doctrine and doctrines until finally the church caved in. And if you study the history, you'll know why they caved in. It was pressure from the outside, from the inside that finally made the brethren cave in. But yeah, it's just kind of outrageous what he said.
John Dehlin [02:09:11] Yeah, like our church has a deeply racist past. And it's not just the way that we excluded African Americans from full fellowship for almost two centuries. Like that's awful. But also the teachings in the Book of Mormon that dark skin is equated with the curse that the Native Americans who, you know, that the dark Native Americans who were bad killed off, the white skinned Native Americans who were righteous and good and Native Americans right now are darker because they're descendants of more evil ancestors. And that God, I mean the Book of Mormon literally says this, that God made their skin dark so that they would appear dark and loathsome. Loathsome to their white counterparts. Like, and then, and then just to kind of brush by that, that Brigham Young was a jerk. Like Brigham Young said some of the most heinous, deeply racist things. And he's basically saying that's not why, that's not why blacks didn't get the priesthood. It, it's not because Brigham Young was a jerk. And then he says prejudice. He Says it's not because there was prejudice. And then he turns it. You know, it's like his own, like all lives matter or white lives matter bumper sticker. Like he kids. The answer is, why didn't whites get the priested at 1829? I mean, it's just I. I couldn't believe it.
Gerardo Sumano [02:10:31] Even though. Even though the gospel topic essay tries to, you know, give the insinuate that. That Brigham Young was a product of
John Dehlin [02:10:40] his time and all those teachings up until the 1978 were folklore, that they were policies, that they were the opinions of men. If you read the race in the priesthood essay, it definitely does its best without actually apologizing, to walk back and neutralize and even downplay all that racism and to denounce it as being bad. And now Brad Wilcox is like trying to undo all of that. That and say, hey, white should have gotten it sooner.
Brad Wilcox [02:11:15] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [02:11:16] Yes, that's exactly what he did. And okay, I'm gonna play a little bit of devil's advocate to try to like steel man. His argument, what he's trying to say is that our God has ways that are above our ways that, you know, God has always had chosen people at different times, whether it's the Israelites and why did God choose to not restore the gospel till 1825 or whatever. I should probably know the number. And all of these years between Christ and the apostasy. So he's trying to say that's just how God is. He's a really unfair God. And so that doesn't actually make us feel any better to a. That these people are only pushed to include people like, you know, of African descent with the priesthood when push comes to shove. Not to mention all the things that Gerardo just said of all the ways they were actually trying to hold for civil rights rights back. But not only is that a problem that the prophets were. Were, you know, holding out as long as they possibly could, but also it just is really painful and unfortunate that he's painting a God that these youths are going to worship that's gonna say. He's gonna say, life's really unfair. I'm a really racist God. That's just what you gotta deal with. Sorry. I apparently am not a God of confusion, but also sometimes I am. So.
Race, Priesthood History, and Accountability
John Dehlin [02:12:26] Yeah, it is. But isn't it bizarre that he's one of the top leaders in the Mormon Church and we're in a post George Floyd world, We're in the Black Lives Matter movement era. And that is literally what he thinks he should say to the youth of our church as one of the top three leaders within the Mormon youth program worldwide.
Carah Burrell [02:12:50] It's frightening.
John Dehlin [02:12:50] And if he thinks that and feels that and feels comfortable saying must be that the people above him him think and feel that and feel comfortable saying it as well. Like has he been paying attention at all to. To the plight of African Americans and people of color not just in the 21st century, but over the past two or 300 years? What would make him feel on any planet like he should ever say those words privately or publicly? It's, it's my.
Carah Burrell [02:13:22] To minimize the prejudice and racism of the blacks. Could you say, say anything more? Like, like, oh gosh, like I think, I think we have evolved some better terms there. Why don't you update that too, Brad, please. That was. And somebody asked in the chat, what does he do for a living? He teaches full time at byu.
John Dehlin [02:13:42] He helps run the Mormon Church is the answer.
Carah Burrell [02:13:44] He teaches youth and young adults.
John Dehlin [02:13:46] He runs the Mormon Church's youth program worldwide.
Carah Burrell [02:13:49] So it's not like he's like Wilcox does. Will you take a break from being the local mechanic and go give a speech? No, this is his full time job to give speeches like this.
John Dehlin [02:13:57] One of the top 100 leaders in the Mormon Church.
Carah Burrell [02:14:00] Yep.
John Dehlin [02:14:00] Yeah. All right, well now it's time to be grateful. So it's. Let's hear about gratitude.
Carah Burrell [02:14:07] I'm exhausted. Grateful. It's almost over.
Brad Wilcox [02:14:09] And why did the gentiles have to wait until after the Jews? And why did everybody in the House of Israel except the tribe of Levi have to wait until when you look at it like that, then instead of trying to feel like you have to figure out God's timeline, we can just be grateful. Grateful right down to our socks that the blacks received the priesthood in 78. Grateful right down to our socks that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had the priesthood should restore to them in 1829. Maybe we should just feel grateful. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:14:52] And I just, I don't want to beat a dead horse but like I wonder if our people want to say feel grateful.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:57] Sorry.
John Dehlin [02:14:58] Yeah, go ahead.
Brad Wilcox [02:14:58] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:59] Yeah. I just want to say that the church needs to come clean and tell us straight forward like was the black priesthood ban from God or not? Was, was it a man made policy? Was it just a policy? Or, or did God commanded this to happen? That's a problem because they try to play both sides. Even the gospel topic essay was written so anyone that reads it can come with, come up with the both conclusions. And, and no one has given us a real Answer.
John Dehlin [02:15:33] But, Gerardo, and I'm just going to be a little tiny bit sarcastic here, but I'll flag it. You've got it all wrong, Gerardo. That's not what. What needs to happen. You just need to be grateful.
Gerardo Sumano [02:15:44] Right?
John Dehlin [02:15:45] No, I mean, that's.
Gerardo Sumano [02:15:45] I guess. I guess. I guess that's what we need to do.
John Dehlin [02:15:48] Like that.
Brad Wilcox [02:15:49] That is.
John Dehlin [02:15:50] That is. It's gaslighting. It's basically. And not. Not to be too harsh or mean, but, like, people should feel outraged by the systemic racism, especially people of color in this church, especially African Americans. And what he's saying is down to our socks. You, none of you, even African Americans, should not feel like injustice has been had. You just need to feel grateful down to your socks. And that's the only acceptable response.
Carah Burrell [02:16:19] It's literally the same argument that I've heard before from people who are, like, telling people that their ancestors were slaves and brought over here on slave ships. So just be grateful that you're in America. Just be grateful. And not. Not mentioning any of, like, the systemic problems that still exist, because that's what Brad doesn't want to talk about. He doesn't want to say that those policies that ended, are we so grateful now? We're done with it? He's acting like there's no ramifications. There's no ripple effects. Everything is signed, seal delivered, and we're good now. It's the same issues in the Mormon Church that America is still dealing with. And people just. Just be grateful for what you got.
John Dehlin [02:16:51] It's just such an egregious lack of sophistication and an egregious level of insensitivity and hubris and, I don't know, racism. I don't know what else.
Carah Burrell [02:17:01] Doesn't it just make you kind of want to pull the audience and every. Every teenager that walked out of there to, what did you think of that? Did you like it? Were you uncomfortable? Or were you, like, eating it up for sure?
John Dehlin [02:17:11] And he goes on. And as if it's not enough to have said that about, you know, the racist issues, he's now going to talk about women in the priesthood. So, car, you get to talk first and respond to this one. I'm guessing you're going to need to be sorry.
Gerardo Sumano [02:17:26] This one split in three.
Brad Wilcox [02:17:27] I mean, that's what I want, you know.
John Dehlin [02:17:29] Okay, this one. This one's split in three. Gerardo.
Carah Burrell [02:17:31] Yeah. There's three of these. You're fine. You're fine. That's the first one.
John Dehlin [02:17:34] Okay, so this is going to be the first of three. All right.
Brad Wilcox [02:17:39] Yeah. But Brother Wilcox, how come the girls don't have the priesthood? I mean, that's what I want to know. How come the girls don't have the priesthood? What's up with that? Girls, you're going to hear a lot of people say a lot of things, and many of them say them with very angry voices. But just because somebody's angry doesn't necessarily make him or her right. Just because somebody's loud doesn't necessarily make him or her right. I was at a professional conference for byu. I had a name tag. It said, brad Wilcox, Brigham Young University. Some lady walked up to me that I didn't even know. She sees my name tag and she's like, oh, why don't you give women the priesthood? Just like that. And I said, good to meet you, too. And then I asked, what's the priesthood? And she said, well, I don't know, but I think the women should have it. Seriously, I don't know, but the women should have it. What's malaria? I don't know, but the women should have it. It.
John Dehlin [02:18:56] All right, Carah, this one's yours.
Carah Burrell [02:18:58] All right, first of all, thank you, Brad, for comparing the priesthood to a disease. No comment there. Second, what the woman was screaming at you, Brad, that you were too defensive to actually listen to was that the woman was asking for equality. And if she can't define the, like, disparity between men and women in the church, maybe because she's not familiar with the church, that's fine, but all she's trying to do is push for equality in the church. And it sounds like you were giving her some short shrift there. And then finally, just because you have a title that says a special Witness of Christ or whatever your title is, that you have the priesthood, that doesn't make it so either. So just playing off of the idea that he said, just because you're loud doesn't mean that you're correct. So furthermore, people are trying to push for equality. And his logic is, if you can't define it the way that I can define it, then you're stupid and wrong, and I'm not gonna listen to you.
John Dehlin [02:19:53] What did you think, Carah, of him saying some lady and then characterizing that lady as being loud and ignorant? Like, it's so his first chance. This is his first chance to address an issue that's, you know, very important to some Mormon women. Yeah, it's gonna be. The first thing that comes out of his mouth is he's responding to. To you. Know, women not having the priesthood, and it's not like empathy. It's not like, oh, man, I can see why some would feel sensitive about this. I can see why some are leaving the church over this. I can see why some would feel like there is an inequality. And I can empathize with that. It's literally, some lady was loud and ignorant.
Carah Burrell [02:20:30] Yeah. So I'm gonna have to do a whole deconstruction of like my political and like my ideology and things. So. I used to be quite the anti feminist a few years ago. And so I used to equate people who were angry with not having good arguments because if they had good arguments, they would just shut up. And what I had to learn is people have a righteous anger a lot of times, and this person was probably righteously angry. And if you just, you know, chalk that up to the conflict and contention is of the devil, then you don't have to listen to their arguments. How convenient for people who have been oppressed for so long that you don't have to listen to their arguments anymore because they're so righteously angry. Angry at you. So that's all that means to me is.
John Dehlin [02:21:08] Anyway, is he also kind of fulfilling the stereotype that women are kind of dumb and loud? Like is like. Or, you know.
Carah Burrell [02:21:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:21:16] Or stay quiet so you're not loud like this other.
Carah Burrell [02:21:18] I would have paid attention to her argument if she was more quiet and meek like the woman I'm used to interacting with. And then women's general presidency.
John Dehlin [02:21:25] Yeah. Yeah. It's like, stay quiet, don't be loud. Right.
Carah Burrell [02:21:27] Yeah. Yeah. And the main point I'm just trying to make is don't let people's message get lost by you trying to play a word game with them, Brad. Or don't try to get it lost because now you have to pay attention to it because they're too angry. What the woman was asking for, if you were to steel man her opposition to what the church is doing. She is trying to ask for equality and all you're doing is just telling her to sit down and shut up. So that further adds to the problem.
John Dehlin [02:21:55] Again, it's mocking her. Carrie. I love Carrie. Line. Fuller's comment. Thanks, Brad, for mansplaining to us why women not having the priesthood is not a problem. Problem.
Carah Burrell [02:22:03] We're just getting started, baby. Sweet shakes, baby girl. Like, sweetheart, sweetie pie. Like all of the most condescending things I could say to you right now. Like, Brad's just getting started.
John Dehlin [02:22:13] Yeah. And I just want to say he displays a Fundamental lack of empathy and kindness and charity.
Carah Burrell [02:22:20] And again, if he was speaking to adults, I wouldn't have as much of a cringe reaction. But he's speaking to youth who need to learn empathy for people as they're going to go out into the other, the. To the world of differing ideas and opinions. And he's exemplifying something that I do not think should be replicated.
John Dehlin [02:22:35] And it's also dumb because. Because we know that young kids are leaving the church over LGBTQ issues and women are leaving the church over not being equal. So it's actually dumb for him to be so insulting to women here. But all right, on to part two of his comments about women.
Women, Priesthood Keys, and Gender Inequality
Brad Wilcox [02:22:53] So what is it that women don't have? Two things. One, priesthood keys and two, priesthood ordination. Well, how come women don't have priesthood keys? Well, how come most men in the church don't have priesthood keys? Priesthood keys are an organizational structure. It's how God's house is a house of order. And so not every anybody needs them, just those who are part of this organizational structure. So how many men in a ward have priesthood keys? The spirit is whispering. Spirit is whispering. You knew it. You knew it. I'm so proud of you. Let's name them. The Bishop, the elders quorum president, the teachers quorum president, and the Deacons Quorum president. So girls don't mix keys up with influence. We're certainly not saying the only ones who have influence in the church are the bishop, the elders quorum president, the teachers quorum president, and the Deacons Quorum president. Surely there are others at all levels of the church who have great influence without having keys. So don't mix those up. Don't wreck. Don't think that that's something that's needed to be able to make a difference.
Carah Burrell [02:24:24] Hey, Brad, I want you to give your next talk, and I want you to do nothing but quote women from the church that have given, you know, generally society president. Like, any. Any woman who's that influence. I want you to do nothing but come up with a talk of just their quotes and their influence and maybe, like, try to find some of the doctrine that they forwarded on. Oh, that doesn't exist. You probably can't do that. That'd be a really, like, tall order for you to do. It's because having the priesthood does equate to influence. And what he's trying to do here is he's trying to, like, confuse and change the meaning of the priesthood keys. You can still have plenty of influence. Not in the structure that the church is. And Brad, you know that.
John Dehlin [02:25:04] Yeah. Like he's basically saying, oh, the fact that young deacon, 12 year old boys get to pass the sacrament in a very visible way and the girls just stay seated, that doesn't mean anything. The teachers, the 14 year olds get to prepare the sacrament in a very visible way.
Carah Burrell [02:25:18] Just because boys and girls are treated differently doesn't mean that, that means that there's a difference in the way that they're treated.
John Dehlin [02:25:24] Or like the bishopric gets to make the decisions for the ward and decide who's in what position and where the money goes or how the money gets spent.
Carah Burrell [02:25:31] Everything comes down to gender roles in the church. Everything. And especially if you want to talk about like little girls looking up to like what it means to be a spiritual leader, the mom has one role, the dad has a different one. And they're very distinct and different. And that is the, that is the church's bread and butter is to make sure that those gender roles are really, really like as defined as possible so that you stay in your place. And if you're ever to, you know, ask to have the priesthood or something, that's the quickest way for the church to know that you are trying to push and you're trying to be too progressive. You're not, you're not in the in group anymore.
John Dehlin [02:26:06] You're.
Carah Burrell [02:26:07] You are, you are. What's the word I'm looking for? Finish my sentence. You are therefore by church, by trying to be a progressive person in the church who's asking for more equality, that signals that you are not in line with the brethren. Yeah, like that alone tells people that you're on the out group. Now when we know that every change that's ever happened in the church is by usually agitators who are, you know, walking that fine line of being on the out group. Like between again, like, like the blacks in the priesthood problems and all of these issues with polygamy. It's always been people who are on the fringes trying to say, can we have a little bit of equality please? And the church saying, no, no. Okay, you're making us. Okay, fine. So he's act, he's making it so like a non issue when you know, Brad, this is gonna be, this is
John Dehlin [02:27:00] a big issue for people and, and Gerardo, you. I was literally googling the image that you brought up as soon as you brought it up. Go tell us why you brought this up, Gerardo. And what this image is for the people that are just listening,
Gerardo Sumano [02:27:14] talking about. He's Talking about women's influence in the church and how that's not affected by priesthood Keys. You just have to look at the conference summary. Reports that missed on Sunday post after every conference. This one is from last year, April 2021. It says conference summary. Men spoke for 419 minutes, 33 speakers and nine prayers. Women had 20 minutes, two speakers and one prayer. We're talking about influence of women in the church. This is General conference is the perfect example of what kind of influence women have in the church.
Carah Burrell [02:27:57] And that. And. And I also just want to combine that point with the point I was just trying to make, which is like we had to fight for even that table scrap. Like, are you kidding me here?
John Dehlin [02:28:04] Yeah. Women weren't allowed to. Just. Just a few decades ago, women weren't
Gerardo Sumano [02:28:08] allowed to pray in church, I think in this last decade.
Carah Burrell [02:28:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just recently. Or like pray even in sacrament meetings. Right?
John Dehlin [02:28:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And it's. It's just like. It's. It's kind of a form of. Again, it's a form of gaslighting and dismissiveness. We. You know, and it's. And it's worse because not only Gerardo, those. Those stats you had about number of speakers and our speakers and minutes spoken. All that's really relevant. But when. When the men give talks, who are they quoting?
Carah Burrell [02:28:39] Other men.
John Dehlin [02:28:40] Are they quoting other women?
Carah Burrell [02:28:41] That's what I was trying to say.
John Dehlin [02:28:43] Exactly. They're quoting other men.
Carah Burrell [02:28:44] Me. John, quote me from five minutes ago.
John Dehlin [02:28:46] It's brilliant.
Gerardo Sumano [02:28:47] So, I mean, the first women. Sorry, the first women praying on General Conference was2013.
John Dehlin [02:28:52] Yeah, yeah. And this is not even talking about. What about the board meetings? What about the First Presidency meetings? The quorum of the 12 meetings, all the leadership meetings, all the leaders at church headquarters, all the general managers of all the departments, all the major employees. The church is like 99% white men in all the power positions. Women are given a couple ceremonial positions, and then there are all the secretaries or the administrative assistance existence.
Carah Burrell [02:29:19] Yeah, right, right, right.
John Dehlin [02:29:21] It's.
Carah Burrell [02:29:22] Yeah. Again, he's just trying to confuse. And maybe inoculate is another good word to use on the youth, where it's like, you're gonna hear that there's inequality in the church, but it's actually, it's just these four priesthood keys, which I will never forget how many priesthood keys there are, because he screamed them in my earphones just now. So.
John Dehlin [02:29:36] But that's a redirection.
Carah Burrell [02:29:37] Yeah, it's just a redirection.
John Dehlin [02:29:38] As if keys was the Only way to wield or exhibit.
Gerardo Sumano [02:29:41] It's not real, it's not reality. We were complaining about because the bishop up can delegate those keys or use like, you know, have his. Their con. His counselors use those keys. And then same with deacons and math and teachers, presidents. So it's just. It's just more than what he's trying to.
John Dehlin [02:30:01] Yeah, yeah.
Carah Burrell [02:30:01] And let me bring up one other point by James, who said, are the few women in leadership roles paid like the top men of the church? Is there equal opportunity employment there? I doubt it.
John Dehlin [02:30:11] Yeah. Anyway, I mean, what it comes down to is who's in the room when the decisions get made and who are the decision makers. And it's always. It's always the men.
Gerardo Sumano [02:30:20] We have one of the count. One of the counselors of the Relief Society president is on record stating that she was upset that they were not consulted when the family proclamation was being written.
Carah Burrell [02:30:34] They didn't include women in writing about the family.
John Dehlin [02:30:36] For sure.
Gerardo Sumano [02:30:37] Right, for sure.
Carah Burrell [02:30:38] They're like, we're writing about gender roles. Get out of here.
John Dehlin [02:30:41] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [02:30:41] This is ours.
Brad Wilcox [02:30:42] Yep.
John Dehlin [02:30:43] All right. He continues. Let's continue with Brad exhausted. Yeah, I know. It's time to. It's time to go. All right, let's keep going here. Oh, wait, the. Let me add this back to the stream. Okay. More Brad. But Brad's not done talking about women, so here we go.
Brad Wilcox [02:30:58] What else don't women have? Priesthood ordination. They're not ordained to the priesthood. Well, how come they're not ordained to the priesthood? Maybe we're asking the wrong question. Maybe we should be asking, why don't they need to be girls? How many of you have ever entered a temple to perform ordinances? Okay, raise your hands high. Raise them high. Okay. Do you realize that you have done something that no man on this earth can do? There is not a male on this planet who can enter a temple to perform ordinances without being ordained. And yet you just waltz right in. You walk right in. So what is it that sisters are bringing with them from a premortal life that men are trying to learn through ordination? Maybe that's the question that ought to be keeping us up at
John Dehlin [02:32:08] that. Make you feel. No, literally care. Does that make you feel better? Does that make you feel better? Did he make you feel better?
Carah Burrell [02:32:14] No, because the brain cells in my head are all, like, killing themselves right now. It's just like, get me out of here. No more.
John Dehlin [02:32:20] Let me just reset it. Argument. Women are allowed to perform certain rituals in the temple without having the priesthood. Men have to have the priesthood in the temple to perform the same rituals. Therefore women must have brought something to earth extra good that men are trying to learn. Therefore you should feel okay that women don't have the priesthood.
Carah Burrell [02:32:43] That is so convenient. How convenient. I have so many analogies. None of them are appropriate. It think of them by yourself.
John Dehlin [02:32:53] Why does that. No, seriously, why does that make you feel better? Like just say without even humor. Just. Why doesn't that make you feel better?
Carah Burrell [02:32:59] Because he is obfuscating the point and baseline. We don't care. Women in the church, we're between 12 and whatever, when we can go in and we get to do a baptism for the dead. But men have to have, you know, like a priesthood keys bestowed upon him is his point. And we get to do that. We don't have to have a little special ceremony to be able to do that.
John Dehlin [02:33:22] Whoa.
Carah Burrell [02:33:24] So cool. I wasn't talking about that, Brad. I was talking about the entire structure of the entire church being sexist and misogynistic. That's our. Our problem is bigger than just wanting to have like a little ceremony so that we can also do baptisms in the temple. That's not the point that we care about.
Gerardo Sumano [02:33:37] And also, women don't get to enter the temple without a man giving them a recommend, without a man interviewing them about their worthiness.
John Dehlin [02:33:48] Women can't even go through the veil without a man knowing their name and taking them through the veil. How about that?
Carah Burrell [02:33:54] Like he is completely like whitewashing this entire temple idea ceremony. The temple from start to finish. Like Carter just said, from there's no such thing as a man having to answer to a woman with like a worthiness checklist before they go through. So from from start to finish to, you know, you're getting your endowments out and being your hand held to the veil and your husband knows your new name in the temple, but you don't get to know his. And from the veils and the promising to hearken unto your husband the same way that he hearkens unto God, every step of the temple is just like bleeds with sexism and misogyny. But he wants to very conveniently just say the one thing where it's like, maybe you guys just have something. We don't forget all the other junk in the back there. Just between you and me, me super cool. You guys don't need a ceremony and a little priesthood thing to go through the temple. Forget about everything else. Don't look in this closet over here of dead bodies.
John Dehlin [02:34:42] I want to fact Check myself. Carah, when. When you're taken through the veil for your own endowment, does a woman take you through or does a man take you through?
Carah Burrell [02:34:50] I meant when I'm going through the veil. When you do.
John Dehlin [02:34:52] No, I'm asking. I don't know the answer to this question. So when you took out your endowment.
Carah Burrell [02:34:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:34:56] And you're at the veil and you have to knock on the thing and say the words so that. That you're led through the veil, is a woman taking you through the veil
Carah Burrell [02:35:04] like a temple worker? Yes, yes. The temple workers there.
John Dehlin [02:35:07] It's a woman.
Carah Burrell [02:35:07] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:35:08] Okay, so I.
Carah Burrell [02:35:08] But to be received. Okay, but we were talking about just being received into the celestial room. Being se. Received into heaven.
John Dehlin [02:35:13] Does a woman take you through.
Carah Burrell [02:35:14] No, because you're holding the hand of your husband or your.
John Dehlin [02:35:16] That's when you're married.
Carah Burrell [02:35:17] Yes. When you're getting married.
John Dehlin [02:35:18] Okay. When you're getting married, it is.
Gerardo Sumano [02:35:19] What about. But what about when I thought they all have to be men because they're representing Heavenly Father.
Carah Burrell [02:35:25] Yeah, yeah. The person on the other side of the veil. That's what I'm saying, what John was saying. I thought you meant like the person whispering in your ear.
John Dehlin [02:35:29] It's like you're a person you're shaking hands with. Is it always a man?
Carah Burrell [02:35:33] It's always a man. It's always representing God or your husband.
John Dehlin [02:35:35] Okay, so it is a man that takes you through. The only other thing I was just going to ask Carah, like, I don't know if this is called pedestalizing, but what do you think about, like, he just said it. He just said women are more righteous than men. And men are spending their. Mormon Men are spending their lives trying to learn what women already come here with. Is that pedestalizing? And does that make you feel better when he's literally saying women are more righteous than men? So take that, women. You should feel good about your place in the church, because I'm telling you, the only reason men have all this power is because they have to learn things you already know. Does that make you feel better?
Carah Burrell [02:36:12] No, it doesn't make me feel better. And I think women's intuition tells them that something is off within the church. And then there's this apologetic answer that I heard in the church that I bought into. You guys probably did too. It's what Brad is preaching right now. Now it's that if you feel uncomfortable at the inequality, it's actually because you're so good. And the guys over there, they have to learn something in this life. And that can make you feel better for a while and it can snuff down like this feelings and this insecurities that you're not like going to be at equal status within the church. But push comes to shove time and time again, you hear so many traumatizing stories of women going in to see their bishops and people who are just not able to handle like, what do they call it, the council, when just not, not able to have like a fair amount of masculine and feminine balance within the church. You hear that enough that you recognize that a equal female presence needs to be not just where John was saying, where decisions are being made, but where people like in a, in a, like an interpersonal way and like a, a way that, that men are used to interacting with women, that there needs to be a female presence in all of these different areas. And you recognize that in a. Enough. By the time I'm 30 years old, I see it and I can't put the, you know, toothpaste back in the tube. I see too much harm being done by women being excluded from these areas. And I'm like, that doesn't make me feel better anymore that they needed something to learn. How about the people they're hurting now? How about the people that they're actually harming? Because there's not women in these areas? How about that?
John Dehlin [02:37:34] Yeah. If you just look at all the women that have been sexually abused by priesthood leadership or all the women that have been victims of sexual assault or rape that the Mormon Church leadership covered up. Up protecting the predators at the expense of the victims, all the women who haven't been believed, all the abusive women, all the women who were abused by abusive spouses that were, that were pressured or even forced to stay with their abusive spouse. There are just so many ways that the, if the Mormon Church had, would allow women at the highest levels of the church all this child abuse. Do you think, I mean this is a fair question. Question. If, if 15 women were leading this Mormon Church, would there ever be a scenario, a systemic scenario where 12 year old girls were, would be allowed to be asked sexually explicit questions by a man alone in a room?
Carah Burrell [02:38:25] No.
John Dehlin [02:38:25] Like, would, would 15 women.
Carah Burrell [02:38:27] Hope not.
John Dehlin [02:38:27] Ever allow that to happen?
Carah Burrell [02:38:29] Hope not.
John Dehlin [02:38:29] Yeah. Like.
Gerardo Sumano [02:38:30] Yeah, unless they're Wendy Nelson.
John Dehlin [02:38:33] I mean, unless they, they're, they're products of the patriarchy. Yeah, but, but I, I just think it's, it's a, it's a gaslight. It's a way to gaslight and to be demeaning or insulting to say, listen, women, you're not going to get a seat at the table. You're not going to be able to make any of the decisions. But we all know that you're better than men a little bit. And so, like, there's your little bone, you know, there's our little pedestalizing you little bone. Hopefully that makes you feel happy that there's systemic abuse and injustice.
Carah Burrell [02:39:06] And if this is like God set up the system where, like, this is your proving ground, and this is where men are practicing more and they need this mantle upon their shoulders because they need to practice more to get up to our level is what I was told in the church. Sorry, I don't want to be your practice ground. I don't want to be in a church that has a practice ground with all this carnage behind it.
Gerardo Sumano [02:39:25] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:39:25] And I'll just. I'll just add really briefly. That does it. You know, they say that patriarchy hurts men, too. Is it good to tell all these boys and men that they're inferior to women? And does that set up a power of balance instruction? We know that the boys and men tend to masturbate and look at pornography, maybe at slightly higher rates than women. I've just seen so many. So much marital pain within Mormonism come about because the women literally just hold on to this idea that they're spiritually superior sometimes to their husbands. And then if they catch their husband doing something wrong, it's like, why aren't you the priesthood holder? You should be. You're not toeing the line. Does this. This perceived spiritual imbalance, does it. Could it harm men, too?
Carah Burrell [02:40:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:40:12] I mean, not that this is about
Carah Burrell [02:40:14] men, but I can't think of a situation that wouldn't benefit from having more women and more equality in it.
John Dehlin [02:40:19] Yeah. Everyone wins. Yeah. All right, so, Gerardo, for this next slide, I hope we're at that. I hope we're off of the authority part. Where. Where are we in the acronym? I guess I'm asking Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [02:40:35] We just passed priesthood, so G, O,
John Dehlin [02:40:38] S, P. Now we're on gospels for everyone. Gospel is for everyone. So now we're at the E. The gospel is for everyone. And this quote doesn't quite fit the idea. So basically, you want to hear this?
Gerardo Sumano [02:40:50] Sorry, he's still talking about priesthood in this last one.
John Dehlin [02:40:53] Okay, okay. All right, so let's hear one more thing.
Carah Burrell [02:40:55] This one.
Brad Wilcox [02:40:57] You want to walk away from the church, Walk away from anything that lets anything in your life count or matter beyond this life. You're walking away from priesthood, and I don't want to Live in that land where purpose becomes empty and where anything good has an end. I don't want to be there. I don't want that. I want to be able to have priesthood, and that's what we've got in the church.
John Dehlin [02:41:37] Okay. I don't know if. Is it beating a dead horse to continue on that?
Gerardo Sumano [02:41:41] I think we can skip. We can just go to the next one.
John Dehlin [02:41:43] Okay, let's go to the next one. Now, is this where we're at E are we?
Gerardo Sumano [02:41:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:41:47] Okay. The E is everyone. Right. And so this is his grand.
Gerardo Sumano [02:41:53] Someone said E is for enough.
John Dehlin [02:41:55] Yeah. No, this is E is his everyone. It's his grand gesture that. You thought Mormons were bigoted and exclusive and had a superiority complex. But in reality, the gospel is for everyone. And this is where he talks about how magnanimous it is that in the Mormon Church, we have ordinary. We're getting everyone to heaven, whereas other Christian churches, you know, don't have answers for the need for ordinances and authority. So we're at the E part, and let's hear why. Christianity has a problem.
Temple, Baptism for the Dead, and Living Prophets
Brad Wilcox [02:42:29] Christianity has a problem. A huge problem. Jesus said, get baptized or you're not going to heaven. And yet most people in the world have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ, let alone been baptized. That's a problem. Do you realize we're part of the only church that has the solution? The solution to that problem? Offering an opportunity. Not forcing anyone, but offering an opportunity to everyone to receive the very ordinances that Jesus said are essential to their salvation and progress.
Carah Burrell [02:43:08] Wow.
Brad Wilcox [02:43:08] I don't know about you, but I like being part of the solution. There's enough problems in the world. I like being part of the solution.
John Dehlin [02:43:19] Oh, there's so much there. Gerardo, you want to go first on that one?
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:22] Yeah. But number one, I think he makes it more of a problem that other churches. I don't think other churches would think that's a problem.
John Dehlin [02:43:34] Exactly, exactly. In other churches, it's just like families are together in heaven. Like, they solved the problem, right?
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:40] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:43:40] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:41] And when it comes with, like Jesus said that you have to get baptized. Well, according to Mormon doctrine, people need to get in. Need to get sealed or get married in order to get to the highest celestial kingdom. But now we're telling, you know, the. The single people in the church that they're gonna be fine, that it's going to be sorted out in the afterlife life. Even though Jesus taught that there's no marriage after this life, there's no marriage in the resurrection. Joseph Talked about it. So the Mormon Church also has a problem with what. When it comes to exaltation and when they promise that, you know, the highest degree of heaven. So I think it's. It's dumb. And, and yeah. To point the. The finger at other churches when the church. Church again has problems as well with their doctrine that things that don't make sense. So the same way. So all I would. I'm saying the same way that Mormons would make sense about people, young single people staying single for their whole life and how that's going to be sorted in the afterlife by God. That's the same way Christians do. I don't think Christians lose lip sleep because, you know, there's no baptism for everyone. And the other thing is that I want to say I know quite a bit about Jehovah Witnesses and I think the proposal, the proposition of Jehovah Witnesses in their doctrine about people that don't get to know the gospel in this life is a lot better than Mormon. Than Mormon's proposition.
John Dehlin [02:45:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carah Burrell [02:45:22] You want to talk about who has a problem, Brad, Baseline. It's a problem that the Mormon Church is against the number one most commonly drunk beverage beverage in the entire world, which is like green tea, coffee, and then beer. So you want to talk about a problem, you got a problem there that. That is not open to everyone. That is like cultural, like, annihilation for like thousands of years of people's traditions. So that's already just. You want to talk a huge problem. And then the things that come to mind for me are that if there is a person who thinks that this is a convincing argument, just remember that Brad is banking on the idea that Jesus actually, if there's a Jesus, he actually said, you have to have a baptism and you have to have it through this one special way. And so that's a whole lot of, like, presuppositions that he's banking on that have to come true. And may I circle back to my previous argument for a church that also is not for everyone, because if you drink green tea, you could have all the baptisms you want want, and you're out on your tailbone, you know? And finally, I just think that I could live my best Christian principles without getting baptized and drink all the coffee I want and we'll sort it out in the afterlife.
John Dehlin [02:46:31] Thanks, Carah. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna. This is kind of going to be me too. But literally nowhere did Jesus say, you have to have an endowment to make it to the. Make it to Heaven. Nowhere did he say you have to have a washings and anointings to make it into heaven in a Mormon temple. Nowhere did he even say you have to get baptized. All that there is is there's that scripture that says, except a man be born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That could mean a gazillion different things. It doesn't need to mean a Mormon baptism. And of course, like you pointed out, Gerardo, Jesus literally said the opposite. In Mormonism, you have to have a Mormon marriage in a temple to make it to the top degree of heaven. Jesus literally said there is no marriage in heaven. And, and, and so like, that's a for sure one where Jesus actually said the opposite.
Carah Burrell [02:47:19] He's like cherry picking the things Jesus said that fit with us and then we're going to.
John Dehlin [02:47:22] He's not even doing that. Like, he's literally listing a bunch of ordinances that Jesus never said were important. He's saying that they're a requirement for heaven.
Carah Burrell [02:47:30] Our Jesus did, though.
John Dehlin [02:47:31] Well, I mean, not the one in the Bible.
Carah Burrell [02:47:33] That's what I'm saying. By cherry picking, he's saying Jesus said you have to be baptized. Yeah, you got to be baptized.
John Dehlin [02:47:38] Our Jesus said a bunch of things that everyone else who believes in Jesus us don't believe that he ever said. And so to hold that against other churches is wild. Our Jesus said that we should all get tattoos. But like, your Jesus doesn't think that. Why is that relevant? Just because he's. He's making, you know, we've made up a bunch of extra requirements and ultimately at the end of the day, it's just exclusive again. He's just doing this thing again where we're the right church, we've got the ordinances, we've got the authority. Everybody else is wrong, everybody's inferior and it's insulting to other religious traditions. But he thinks he's being. I mean, this is literally the E in the E that's called everyone. He's listing all the reasons why all these people aren't going to be able to make it to the top degree of heaven.
Carah Burrell [02:48:21] It's like my analogy earlier about like, if you're playing for like the best football team, it's like you could play on the best football team if you could make it and follow all the rules and pass the exams. Is this analogy working for you, John?
John Dehlin [02:48:31] It's blame. It's blame. Reverse and say, we don't keep you. We don't. We don't keep you out of the temple. You keep yourself out of the temple by not paying 10% of your income and stopping that coffee habit, you keep yourself out of the temple.
Carah Burrell [02:48:43] And I cannot do that. Say this enough. Nothing irritates me more than like, this, the colonialist perspective that the church has of going into other countries and taking away something that is their deeply rooted traditions and saying, this is the number one church. So you're going to want to get with this program. That is nothing. It's wreaked nothing but havoc on humanity. Just stop. Just knock that off. All of the righteousness of the church of like the way that we do it is the only right way, is so exclusionary. And it's really irritating that he doesn't notice that in the E of this everyone.
John Dehlin [02:49:13] Yeah, I think Trent says it best. Trent wrote E equals exclusive, not everybody.
Carah Burrell [02:49:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:49:18] And it's totally ironic. Ironic in the letter of everybody, it's actually exclusive. What's that?
Carah Burrell [02:49:25] It's ironic. Don't you think?
John Dehlin [02:49:26] It's super ironic. Yeah. Okay. He goes on to talk about, is this still E. Gerardo, walk away. This next clip, is this still in the E for everyone?
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:36] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:49:37] Okay, here we go. This one's egregious.
Brad Wilcox [02:49:40] You want to walk away from the church, walk away from temples. And I don't want to walk away from temples because that's where not only can we find salvation, but we can offer it to everyone. And I love that. G stands.
John Dehlin [02:49:59] Yeah. And. And I just, number one, I. I literally, I don't know many Mormons who don't want to walk away from the temple. Almost every Mormon I've ever met wants to walk away from the temple. To a person, it's one of the most traumatic, barbaric, like weird, culty, like, experience of their entire Mormon experience. And, and when they attend regularly, it's one of the most super boring, hard to stay awake experiences, spirit less experiences in all of Mormonism. So it's weird that he says, I don't want to walk away. I think most Mormons not only want to walk away from the temple, most Mormons don't attend the temple because it's so boring.
Gerardo Sumano [02:50:38] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:50:38] And weird.
Carah Burrell [02:50:39] Tell us what you really think.
Brad Wilcox [02:50:41] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:50:41] There's constant talks everywhere around the world being, you know, encouraging members to go to the temple. The temple's empty. Maybe not in Utah, maybe like Rexburg, you know, but like in Mexico, we were here all the time. Like how the temple was empty, like if nothing was done, then they would have to close for. For day, like for A few days and, like, only be open for, like, you know, like, Wednesday to through Friday and stuff like that. Like, I don't know. I've always seen the church, other than in Rexburg and maybe some parts of Utah, struggled to keep the temples busy.
John Dehlin [02:51:22] Yeah. And Mormons just. And. And also, this is something that's interesting. Temple recommend holding membership is in a steep decline after Covid. This is another thing my inside sources told me is that the. The number. The number of active temple recommending holding Mormons has dropped by over 10 percentage points since COVID So, yeah, it's.
Carah Burrell [02:51:45] And may I just add, I always. I'm just a math girl. No, I'm not.
Gerardo Sumano [02:51:49] Not.
Carah Burrell [02:51:49] But if you just do the math and let's say that there's 107 billion people on Earth. Let's just say I made up that number and I didn't Google it because I'm just really smart and that's just the accurate right number. Oh, John's looking at my computer screen. I did Google it. Dang it. I've been found out. Anyway, let's just hypothetically say that there's been 107 billion people who have ever lived on planet Earth who will need a baptism at some point if every single member of the church, 16 million of us, dropped off the face of the planet and there were, like, four people doing baptisms for the dead for the entire millennium. I don't think that's actually going to make that big of a difference because it's 107 billion people who need baptisms, apparently.
John Dehlin [02:52:18] So there's literally been, like, less than 100 million Mormons ever in the history of the world and, like, 107 billion people. And he's listing this in the E that he calls everyone. It's.
Carah Burrell [02:52:30] You won't be able to get to baptize people in the afterlife. I actually would rather do something to help people in this life, actually.
John Dehlin [02:52:37] All right, Gerardo, what's the L in gospel? G O, S, P E, L. What's the living prophet? Living prophets. So now we're in their. Their grand finale here, and he's going to talk about why we believe in Jesus. Here we go. Living prophets.
Brad Wilcox [02:52:55] Living prophets. Many people believe in Jesus because of Peter, James, and John. We believe because of Peter, James, and John, but also because of Russell Dallin and Henry. Russell M. Dallin, Henry. Same priesthood authority, same special calling, same special witness of the Savior. We are to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places. And we can do that much better when we're standing on the shoulders of special witnesses at all times and in all things beings and in all places.
John Dehlin [02:53:42] Yeah. All right, so we believe in Jesus because of, you know, those leaders. Gerardo, what was your, what, what did you think was interesting about that?
Gerardo Sumano [02:53:54] Just again, the monopolizing of Jesus and saying like, we believe in the true Jesus because of these leaders and it's because of them that we believe in them and, and without them we're nothing. So he kind of like brings back that idea of Joseph that he. Of Joseph Smith. Like without Joseph Smith, you can't believe in God and Jesus. Just kind of interesting.
Brad Wilcox [02:54:19] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:54:20] Tell my Christian friends, you know Chris, Thomas and.
Gerardo Sumano [02:54:22] Right.
John Dehlin [02:54:23] You know Randy, you know Randy and just, you know, all my friends, my Christian friends, that they can't believe in God and Jesus because they don't have Russell and Nelson to worship.
Gerardo Sumano [02:54:34] I think most Christians would consider idolatry.
John Dehlin [02:54:37] Yeah, I think a lot of Mormons these days are feeling like the way Mormons worship their leaders is a form of idolatry. Okay, this next quote for me is one of the most offensive things I heard in the whole talk after kind of the racist stuff. It's where he literally claims that, that Mormons are the only Christians led by Jesus Christ. You heard it first here on Mormon Stories. Everybody, here's the actual quote.
Brad Wilcox [02:55:04] Many Christians follow Christ and they follow him very sincerely. But we are the only Christians on this planet who are led by Jesus Christ.
John Dehlin [02:55:23] Like I am just like, that's another mouth open moment. He just said that we are the only Christians on the planet that are led by Jesus Christ. What do you say about that?
Carah Burrell [02:55:37] Christ was kind of short sighted with, with only allowing like a certain, like race to be able to like, you know, actually fully participate for a long time. Christ was kind of short sighted in like establishing it on one continent.
John Dehlin [02:55:50] And I mean this is the, this is the creator of the universe, right? So like Jesus is Jehovah in Mormonism. Jesus really created all the earth. Jesus has all power. Jesus is, you know, super loving, loves everyone, all powerful Mormon. Jesus creates the plan of happiness and plan of salvation for all, assuming all of, you know, God's children. And then he only makes it accessible to like point two percent of his entire global population. And they all just happen to be white people living in Utah and Idaho. And that's the supreme ruler and creator of the universe. That's the best they can do. Those are the followers that he's only able to get to follow him are a bunch of white people in Utah and Idaho because Mormons are the only ones that are truly led by Jesus. And then just not to mention how insulting. It's insulting to Jesus, and then it's insulting to all the other Christians.
Carah Burrell [02:56:53] And may I just add harkening back to his last point of like, you know about Jesus because of Russell, because of Henry. You know about Jesus, the Jesus in the Mormon Church because of Brigham. You know about the. The person who was telling you about this Jesus has been so wrong on so many important issues, whether it's race or LGBTQ issues or whatever. The Jesus that is even leading the church is not a guy that I even want to be down with. There's lots of other Christian churches where I'm like, like, hell, yeah, I like that guy Jesus all day, every day. But does that point make sense?
John Dehlin [02:57:23] Yeah. Gerardo, what's your thought on that? On that quote?
Gerardo Sumano [02:57:26] Yeah. Kind of validate what Carah's saying. I think it's really in. Interesting. I mean, if you think about it, I'm pretty sure Russell M. Nelson was called to the quorum of 12 when the priesthood ban was still in place. So.
John Dehlin [02:57:40] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:57:41] You know, is this the kind of people who we are actually supposed to be looking at? Someone that, like, supported racism and didn't speak out against it?
John Dehlin [02:57:50] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:57:51] DS who says super homophobic things like. And keep saying them. And. But I mean, if that.
Brad Wilcox [02:58:01] If.
Gerardo Sumano [02:58:02] If they are the ones that are supposed to be leading us to Jesus, I'm sure there's a lot better people out there in the world than these guys.
Carah Burrell [02:58:12] Totally. It's, like, really insulting that they're like, not only are we the only people that are led by Christ, the other people who actually follow more of the attributes of Christ, they ain't got it.
John Dehlin [02:58:22] Yeah. One of my late friends, Grant Palmer, after he wrote his amazing book, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, he wrote a book about Jesus. And he wrote a book about Mormon Jesus and how the Mormon Jesus, like Sandra Tanner, you know, like my friend Randy, you know, know Grant Palmer remained a Christian until his death. And he talks about the difference between kind of a traditional, you know, Jesus of Christianity and Mormon Jesus. And his point was Mormon. He's not a big fan of Mormon Jesus. I love how Nemo. Big shout out to Nemo the Mormon. He's got an amazing. He's got an amazing channel. Please check out Nemo the Mormon on YouTube. But he writes for God. So loved the world that he gave less than one half. Well, actually 0.2% of his children the truth. And that's just a good way to.
Carah Burrell [02:59:09] And that if they were in the right social class with the right color of their skin, that they would advance only after billions of years of the earth already being created.
John Dehlin [02:59:18] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:59:18] Yeah. That's actually a really good book. I read it right when I was in the middle of my.
John Dehlin [02:59:24] We'll put it in the show notes Grant Palmer's book about Jesus. We'll do inside an insider's view and Grant Palmer's book about Jesus. All right, he's bringing it home now. And he's going to say that one of the problems with leaving Mormonism is walking away from our priesthood leaders. So let's hear that logic.
▶ Video Clip 5Video Clip 5 [02:59:43] You want to walk away from the church? Well, say goodbye to living prophets. Say goodbye.
Video Clip 5 [02:59:52] Just.
Video Clip 5 [02:59:53] You have to see Christ through a pretty small window when you're stuck with just the Bible. So say goodbye to the larger window that we have because of the living prophets. Say goodbye to President Nelson. I don't want. I want him to live to be 120. I don't want to say goodbye to him. Say goodbye to Elder Uchtdorf.
Video Clip 5 [03:00:13] No.
Video Clip 5 [03:00:14] Yes, you must say goodbye. Walk away from the church. Say goodbye to Elder Holland. Say goodbye to Elder Christofferson. Say goodbye to Elder Anderson. Say goodbye to all of these leaders that I just don't want to live my life with. I just don't know what my life would be without their examples, without their teachings, without their testimonies, especially when times get hard.
Carah Burrell [03:00:40] So he's setting up the idea that times are going to get hard. Life has got lots of trials. Don't you dare try to give up these men who have led our church to just so much success. Just what would you possibly do without them making it look like there's. You could only view the world through this tiny, narrow box now. And I'm here to tell you that actually there isn't a box you can see, like, in full, vibrant colors outside the church. Sorry, go ahead.
Gerardo Sumano [03:01:05] He skipped. He skipped Other Oaks. He went from Nelson directly to Uchtdorf and then to Holland and Anderson.
Carah Burrell [03:01:13] Oh, drama.
John Dehlin [03:01:16] Yeah. Ed Ballard. He's good. Baller. I was just gonna say number one. He says that the Bible is a very small window and that if you. If you leave Mormonism, that you're going to be seeing Jesus through a very small window. I. I just want to make my point that I think Mormonism limits Jesus. Mormonism creates a very stilted and a narrow Jesus. I don't think Mormons. Jesus is expansive and broad. But, but I also just want you guys all to hear what he just said. He literally just said, I don't want to live my life without the Mormon First Presidency and without the Mormon Quorum of the 12. And I, I mean, I want to be a little bit snarky about that, but really, that's a, that's a sad point of view. Like, you don't want to live. And I think he means it at some level, like, he can't imagine life being worth living if. If these, like, 90 year old dudes from Idaho and Utah in suits who live in Salt Lake weren't around. And I can understand respecting them and even loving them and revering them, but, like, to take it to the point of saying I wouldn't want to live my life with. I mean, without them being alive, that feels like we said before, it feels like idolatry. And that is one of the biggest problems of the modern Mormon Church is that we worship our top leaders. We're forbidden from criticizing them. We swear an oath in the Mormon Temple to never speak ill of the Lord's anointed. And what gets excommunicated, actually making a public critique or a criticism of, of these leaders. And we've just got to ratchet down the Mormon leader worship and the Mormon leader idolatry.
Panel Reflections and Final Takeaways
Carah Burrell [03:02:55] Right on.
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:02:57] Gerardo, were you gonna add something?
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:59] Yeah, and I'm not too sad about saying goodbye to the homophobic hate of Holland and Oaks. You know, I, I don't feel sad about saying bye to muskets, musket fire, or Russell M. Nelson's racism from. Of the past. And, you know, I don't, I, I don't feel sad about leaving all that. I don't know about you guys.
John Dehlin [03:03:26] Yeah. And Gerardo, you bring up a really good point. Like, if there's one thing that think about every major civil rights rights moment of, you know, of the past two centuries, whether it's voting rights for women, whether it's the, you know, whether it's equal rights, you know, the Equal Rights Amendment, whether it's the civil rights movement, whether it's the LGBTQ movement, whether it's the environment, like, there's one thing you can always count for certain, and that's that these leaders that he's talking about are going to reliably be 10 to 30 years behind the rest of society on any major social justice issue. And so, in fact, this idea of being weepy, that we're losing our prophets, seers and revelators, where does the racism come? It comes from Mormon leaders. It doesn't come from God, it doesn't come from Jesus. Where does the homophobia come from? Dallin H. Oaks, Boyd K. Packer. You know, who is it that said that there are no gays in the church? It's Bednar. Where does you know the jokes about like women and gender and put on a little lipstick, women lose a little weight? Comes from Ballard. Like, not to mention the egregious things of Brigham Young and so many, you know, Markey Peterson, all the masturbation and porn sort of self hatred. All of that stuff comes from these prophet seers and revelators. And it's always reliably 10, 20, 30 years behind the time times. And who is it, like you made this point earlier, Karen. Who, who is it, Carah, that ends up pushing Mormon church leaders to change? I'll just give a perfect example. Was it Ballard or Uchtdorf or Eyring or Holland that made it so, you know, 12 year old girls could bring their parent into their bishop's interviews? Was it, was it, you know, Russell M. Nelson or Elder Oaks that made it so know 12 year old girls shouldn't be alone with grown men in a room talking about their genitals and their private parts? It was Sam Young who led the, the Protect LDS Church movement. And these prophet seers and revelators, what did they do as a thank you to Sam Young for protecting LDS children? What did they do, Carah?
Carah Burrell [03:05:38] They excommunicated him. Yeah, I get a little bit weepy. I don't want to be in a
Gerardo Sumano [03:05:42] church that I think it's Protect LDS Children. Children. Right, Yeah, I think you said Protect LDS Church.
John Dehlin [03:05:47] Okay, yeah, sorry. Protect LDS children.
Carah Burrell [03:05:50] That's not quite what it is.
John Dehlin [03:05:51] And even the changes for women, was it Oaks and Bednar and Ballard and Nelson who led the changes for women? No, it was the ordained women movement. Was it Nelson and Oakes and Holland and Bednar and Uchtdorf that led the church to be transparent in its history? No, it was like Hans Mattson after he had left the church and Jeremy Runnels and all the podcasters out there and MormonThink and CES letter that literally embarrassed the church to the point where it had to become open and honest and transparent about its problematic history. And so these, these brethren, if there's one thing these brethren are, it's that they're reliably, reliably late to the game, reliably irresponsible and reliably reliable on its critics and its, and its excommunicated members. To actually steer the direction and the future of the church. And of course, they reward its social justice and its critics with excommunication.
Brad Wilcox [03:06:56] So.
Carah Burrell [03:06:56] And just to drive that point home, like, just especially Wendy Nelson's talk this last week of like, put an exclamation point on anything that a prophet or a leader of the church has said and putting a question mark on everything anyone else says. But to John's point, why don't we put a question mark on anything the leaders are saying? Because Brad's here saying like they should be held with the highest of esteem. We couldn't possibly live without their counsel and their leadership when John just make the perfect. John just made the perfect point that they are consistently needing to be questioned. And people like Brad don't have any kind of, like, they don't see any validity in that. And that's frightening.
John Dehlin [03:07:30] The Mormon Church not only didn't, you know, lead the civil rights movement, the Mormon Church fought and opposed the civil rights.
Carah Burrell [03:07:38] Special witnesses of Jesus Christ. Apostles of the church wrote to Governor Romney, right. And said, I'm getting my history right here. And said that we are not liking what the civil rights thing is doing right here. People who have that mantle that he's speaking about right now, the exact same mantle not very long ago, were hindering the progress of people in America. Let that sink in.
John Dehlin [03:07:58] Yeah. They called Martin Luther King Jr. A racist and a communist. And they literally fought segregation, they fought the civil rights movement, Brigham Young had slaves. And then literally the Mormon Church single handedly not only defeated the Equal Rights Amendment in the late 70s, early 80s, they also took marriage equality away from the citizens of California and fought marriage equality in the United States until they just, just lost.
Carah Burrell [03:08:26] Which begs the question, I'm gonna say something with all of this confidence that Brad has that these people speak for God. If we know that they are so consistently wrong at proclaiming doctrine, at proclaiming policy, whatever you want to call it, with what confidence are Mormons able to actually look up to these leaders to then go forward and proclaim correct doctrine on LGBTQ issues, a million other issues that they have, have. Where do they get their confidence from? Because they have to acknowledge that they should not have had such like, optimistic, like ideal, like idealism for how these, these past prophets and apostles, like, governed the church. We know we should have questioned them more then. That just begs the question, we need to be questioning them more now.
John Dehlin [03:09:08] Yeah. How do we know when a Mormon leader is speaking for God when they've gotten so much wrong for so long?
Gerardo Sumano [03:09:16] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [03:09:17] Any final point on this rota?
Brad Wilcox [03:09:19] No.
John Dehlin [03:09:20] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [03:09:20] I agree with everything.
John Dehlin [03:09:21] So this next.
Carah Burrell [03:09:22] I'm awake again.
John Dehlin [03:09:23] This next slide is for me one of the three most offensive comments. For sure.
Carah Burrell [03:09:27] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:09:28] And it's basically this suggestion that if you, you. And it's basically what makes this so egregious is that he's saying this literally to 12, 14, 16 year old girls and boys in their formative years who are trying to figure out their life, who are scared and terrified about what they're gonna do if they're in faith crisis or if they're gay or if they're lesbian or if they're transgender. And they're trying to figure out can. Some of them are trying to figure out, we know 80% are gonna leave the church. Like literally 80% of the kids listening to him are going to leave the church. The statistics tell us that. And yet here is what he has to say to these vulnerable kids to plant in their minds the danger that they should be terrified if they leave. So here it is.
Brad Wilcox [03:10:16] If you walk away from this religion, you lose everything. You lose everything, everything that truly matters most. So stay put, stay strong. Look for every possible reason there is to stay and there is to share,
John Dehlin [03:10:43] really. Like, you lose everything if you leave this church.
Carah Burrell [03:10:47] All right, Steel man, his argument though. What are you losing? You're losing the priesthood. That's pretty much like placebo effect. I don't think I'm losing much there. What else are we losing?
John Dehlin [03:10:56] We're losing temples, your eternal marriage, your eternal family. Meaning, purpose, spirituality, identity, morality, community, all your friends. Like it's true. If you leave Mormonism or any high demand religion, or in some cases cults, you lose everything. You lose your job, your marriage, your kids, your parents, your grandparents, your siblings. You do lose a lot. You can lose your livelihood and your income. I mean, that's true in some sense. This is like a self fulfilling prophecy. It's kind of a warning. It's like we're going to destroy you. If you leave this church, you will lose everything. But he's painting it like it's, you know, it's, it's, it's like there's no redeeming.
Gerardo Sumano [03:11:36] Yeah, like there's nothing after this, after Mormonism.
Carah Burrell [03:11:40] Sounds like a drug habit I shouldn't take up in the first place. Is this convincing to converts? If a convert heard this, they'd be like, okay, so if I, I back out and I realize it's not for me, I'm gonna lose everything.
John Dehlin [03:11:49] It's, it's really ominous. Why don't you jump in here? We've been talking a lot towards the end.
Gerardo Sumano [03:11:55] I think we've said enough. Honestly, like, I just think. Yeah, we. It's. It's just really hard for me to hear him speaking to the youth that way and making them believe that if they leave or their friends or the people that they know who have left, they have lost everything and that they're nothing without the church. Because that's what pretty much he's saying. They're nothing without the church.
John Dehlin [03:12:26] Yeah, that's exactly what he's saying. And we got to give Dan Vogel. We love Dan Vogel. He's the top Joseph Smith historian in the world, possibly ever. Dan Vogel's tuned in and he says that's why the post Mormon community is so important. That's what we're trying to do with Thrive. That's why I'm wearing this hat. Thrive. If thrive means one thing, it's not a multi level marketing scheme. It's not a church, it's. It's not a for profit business. Thrive is a non profit dedicated to one thing. Well, three things. Healing, growth and community for people leaving high demand religion. That's why we're doing Thrive. We're trying to, to dispel the heinous, egregious, damaging lie that you can't be a healthy, happy parent or, or spouse or human or single person. You can't be morally, can't be ethical, you can't be spiritual without the Mormon Church. And we are here to say you can actually become happier. You could become healthier, you could become a better parent if you're a parent, you can become a better spouse if you're married. You can have less depression, less anxiety. You can become a more moral person, a more spiritual person, a more ethical person. And overall have better friends, better community, better relationship, more meaning. Better meaning. Better purpose and even a better resolution. And you can live in the present moment and make the most of your life instead of living for some future that someone else handed to you that you know may or may not even come, let alone be something desirable to be a part of.
Carah Burrell [03:14:02] Nice.
John Dehlin [03:14:04] Rock on, Gerardo. Anything you want to add?
Gerardo Sumano [03:14:07] No, no.
Carah Burrell [03:14:09] Those things are all true for me. May I just bear witness? And my hat. Powder Mountain is about three things. Skiing Powder Mountain just wanted to. We were both wearing hats. Today was like we went to the prom with the same dress. I'm just like, oh.
Gerardo Sumano [03:14:23] Anyway, that was a good way to end.
Carah Burrell [03:14:25] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:14:26] Yeah. And so the for strength of the youth thing it's an important thing. But maybe we'll save that for another time. Time. Is that all right?
Gerardo Sumano [03:14:31] Yeah. Yep.
John Dehlin [03:14:32] Okay.
Carah Burrell [03:14:32] Not over fangirling that. Dan Vogel's here.
John Dehlin [03:14:35] Yeah. We love you, Dan Vogel. Everyone. Check out Dan Vogel. He's got one of the most important books out.
Carah Burrell [03:14:43] The reason I'm fangirling is because I've been reading this all.
John Dehlin [03:14:45] Joseph Smith, the Making of a Profit.
Carah Burrell [03:14:48] So good.
John Dehlin [03:14:48] And he just. He just submitted to Signature Books, the final draft of his new book on Kirtland, Charisma Under Pressure or something like that. Charisma Under Fire. And then we hope, we pray, that Signature Books, the Smith Pettit foundation will approve Dan writing his third book on Joseph Smith about the Nauvoo time period. But we love you, Dan. We're grateful for you. We also love Radio Free Mormon, Bill Real, Brett Metcalf, all those amazing people, all those historians. Anyway, Gerardo, I just want to thank you for a second because I dumped this on your plate last night late, and you recorded this stuff, you uploaded it, and then you stayed up till at least 1am parsing the time codes and preparing this episode. And Gerardo, so much of what we do, we couldn't do without you. So.
Gerardo Sumano [03:15:39] Yeah. Thank you, John. Thank you. This was. This was great.
Carah Burrell [03:15:43] Yeah, thanks, Harto.
John Dehlin [03:15:44] And I'm not going to name my sources that leaked this video to me, but I am going to thank my sources for leaking this video to me. And I want to encourage all of you. You, whenever you hear about an important talk being given, you know, state conference, area conference, regional conference, whenever you're having a private meeting with the general authority or an area authority, and it's legal to do so, please record it. Use screens, you know, eCamm. Use screen recording software. Use your phone. Record this stuff. Because the only way, you know, silence is the killer. Secrets are the killer. But. But recording things is our power. And now Brad is hopefully going to learn a lesson and stop saying so many egregious things. And hopefully the Mormon Church will learn a lesson from this and weed out of its, you know, church educators, its leaders, its leadership. So much of this judgmental, hateful, racist, sexist, homophobic, exclusive, bigoted kind of teachings and doctrines, doctrine. And please, Mormon Church leaders, please, Brad Wilcox, everyone, please be more charitable. Please be more empathetic. Please work to be kind and loving and supportive of people who don't believe and think like you, instead of constantly denigrating and speaking down to and judging and belittling people of other faiths or people of no faith. All right, are we good?
Carah Burrell [03:17:15] We're good.
John Dehlin [03:17:17] We've had the largest sustained live audience in the history of Mormon Stories podcast. I think today.
Carah Burrell [03:17:23] Thanks, everybody.
John Dehlin [03:17:23] Reach 12 to 1300 simultaneous listeners. So thanks to all our amazing viewers. Sorry we couldn't incorporate all your comments. Thanks to those who comment. Please continue the comments on Facebook and on YouTube. Share this with everyone far and wide. You can get the Original video@mormonstories.org you can also get the full uncommented version of this@mormonstories.org or on the Understanding Mormonism YouTube channel. Again, we broke it up into nine different parts so that the Mormon Church wouldn't sue us and register a copyright claim. But you can get that full version there. And for a limited time, let me just refresh and see if the church has already taken down it's Fireside webinar. Nope, the Fireside and Webinar is still up. So for at least the next few hours, if you want to see the original video in the source, you can. If you go to mormonstories stories.org there's a link to the original and again, there's a link to download the source video. Or you can go to Understanding Mormonism to watch all these clips broken out. But yeah, thanks to everyone. We love you guys. Carah, you're freaking amazing. Thanks for being here, representing all the many, many wonderful things you represent.
Carah Burrell [03:18:32] Thanks. So nice. Yeah, thanks everyone for tuning in.
John Dehlin [03:18:35] All right, thanks, Gerardo. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you guys all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast, please. Oh, oh, go ahead.
Gerardo Sumano [03:18:44] We want them to subscribe. Let everyone know they should subscribe to this channel on YouTube.
John Dehlin [03:18:48] Yeah. So subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on Facebook, follow us on Tick Tock, become a subscriber and a supporter on Tick Tock and on Instagram. And then if you like to see this type of groundbreaking reporting and coverage of current events, Please go to MormonStories.org, become a monthly donor. We lose 10 to 20 of our monthly subscribers per month, and if we don't replace them, then our revenue starts going down and we can't afford Carah, and we can't afford Gerardo, and we can't afford Brooklyn and Jennifer and Jen and, you know, all this equipment and, and all the. The work that goes behind this. So because less than one out of a thousand of you actually donate, Please go to mormonstories.org Become a monthly donor. Whatever you can afford. And what we'll do is we'll keep doing all this great, groundbreaking breaking work to make sure you get the latest news and insight and reporting. All right, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Take care, and we'll see you guys all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Bye, everybody.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
You’ve heard of The Swedish Rescue, right? Our Mormon Stories inbox had an influx of incensed Latter-day Saints across all spectrums of belief last night as Brad Wilcox gave a fireside talk that we’re calling “The Alpine Utah Mormon Youth Rescue.” Just like the LDS church’s response to the wave of apostasy in 2012 affecting Swedish members, Brad Wilcox, professor of ancient scripture at BYU and second counselor in the Young Men general presidency, spoke to the youth February 6th, 2022 in a talk about how leaving the Mormon church means “you lose everything that matters”.
Join John, Gerardo, and Carah as we play clips and react to Brad explaining his reasons to the youth of the church that those who leave the faith are taking “the hardest possible route in life.” Other quotes from the talk include:
- “Maybe instead of asking ‘why did the blacks have to wait until 1978’, maybe what we should be asking is ‘why did the whites and other races have to wait until 1829?’”
- “We are the only Christians in the world led by Christ”
- “When you walk away from this church you lose everything that matters in your life.”
Show Notes:
View our playlist with the full talk on our Understanding Mormonism channel. Individual sections are included below. To download the raw video file click here.
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The Full Talk Broken Out into Chunks (for Copyright reasons):
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The G-O-S-P-E-L
Part 3: G is for Godhead
Part 4: O is for “Only True Church”
Part 5: S is for Spirit
Part 6: P is for Priesthood
Part 7: E is for Everyone
Part 8: L is for “Living Prophets”
Part 9: Closing Remarks
The Original Link (that we expect will be taken down very soon):
https://youtu.be/tIX8dS1FKk8
One Response
I can’t believe that here, in 2022, church officials are still dishing out the same kind of tripe I grew up listening to in the 60’s. The same uninspired dogmatic fear mongering only now it gets posted to the web so that millions can see it for exactly what it is. I might be encouraged by his apology but for the fact that he’s been repeating this nonsense for years, without a twinge of of remorse or regret one suspects, then says sorry only when he gets exposed to the broader public. The word disingenuous comes to mind.