Introduction and Context for This Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's May 8, 2026 and today we have another episode in a long series of covering Mormon excommunications for apostasy. And specifically in this case, another Mormon podcaster has been excommunicated for apostasy. His name, for those of you who don't follow ex Mormon themed podcast these days, his name is Landon Brophy. Hey, Landy, thanks for coming.

Landon Brophy [00:00:31] No problem.

John Dehlin [00:00:32] And go ahead.

Landon Brophy [00:00:34] It's exciting. It's kind of two bucket list items this month. Getting excommunicated and being on Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [00:00:40] So now have you, I'm trying to remember, have you ever actually been like a panelist or anything?

Landon Brophy [00:00:44] I've been, yeah, we did Fairview. We were here one time. I'm trying to remember what the theme was, but we've been in the studio once as well.

John Dehlin [00:00:51] So this is the first time you've told your story?

Landon Brophy [00:00:54] Told my story, Yep.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] Yeah. And maybe Rebecca was saying that you haven't really told kind of your Mormon story yet. Is that right?

Landon Brophy [00:01:01] No, not too in depth. Not to Mormon Stories level.

John Dehlin [00:01:06] Yeah. And for those just who don't follow, Landon is one half of the groundbreaking, earth shattering, super popular ex Mormon Mormon news themed podcast called Mormonish, starring both Landon and Rebecca Bibliotheca, who's in Margi's chair, and she will be co hosting with me today. Hey, Rebecca.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:01:31] Hey. I am so excited. Like I said, we're getting the band back together.

John Dehlin [00:01:35] Yeah. Rebecca and I did kind of a Mormon Stories book club for several books. I missed that.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:01:41] Yeah, it's good.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] Yeah. And you also still run the Mormon what book club?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:01:45] The good book club. We do. It's in its sixth year, believe it or not, and that actually factors into Land of the Mormon Story. So hear more about that as we go on. It's kind of cool.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] Well, thanks for joining.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:01:55] Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] And yeah, really quickly, I'll just ask people to subscribe to Mormonish YouTube channel and podcast. And while you're doing that, we love it when you subscribe to Mormon Stories as well on YouTube and elsewhere. That helps with the algorithms. I want to welcome all of our new listeners and viewers that heard about Mormon Stories through the church's lawsuit against me. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. It's so great to have you. We just had 12 BYU students here in the studio. They asked to come visit Mormon Stories Studios and several of them heard about Mormon Stories the first time from the lawsuit. Go figure. The Barbra Streisand effect is real. So, anyway, welcome new viewers and listeners. Yes, we are being sued by the Mormon Church, and it's gonna cost us, if it goes the distance, two to three million dollars. We believe they're trying to silence us and defame me. You know, I can't say what their actual intentions are. That's just my belief. If you value this podcast and you want to see it continue, we welcome you to donate to our legal fund@mormonstories.org legal. No pressure. We'll make it through one way or another. Or we won't. But either way, there's at least 2,100 episodes for you to enjoy, whether or not we survive. So with that, yeah, Landon, you were just excommunicated. What was the official date?

Landon Brophy [00:03:23] April 16th. It was back dated April 16th. I found out last a week ago Monday.

John Dehlin [00:03:29] Okay, so just a few weeks ago you were excommunicated. Were the charges apostasy?

Landon Brophy [00:03:34] It was, yes. They misspelled it, but it was apostasy.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] Well, we have a long history of covering excommunications on Mormon stories. We covered Kate Kelly, my own Sam Young, Bill Real, Leah and Cody Young, Natasha Helfer, Jeremy Runnels, like Nima, the Mormons, so many excommunications we've covered. And I will keep covering excommunications for apostasy because one thing's for sure, in the past 20 years, being excommunicated for apostasy from the Mormon Church means you're standing for something good. It means you're standing for honesty or open conversations, or you're standing against child sexual abuse in the church or against unhealthy mental health practices, you know, or for women. You know, those are the reasons you get excommunicated these days for apostasy, believe it or not. And I'm going to guess without inviting any spoilers, yours is not too different. Is that right?

Landon Brophy [00:04:40] That's exactly right, yeah. Probably all of those things. In fact, my son said, oh, I'm proud of you, dad.

John Dehlin [00:04:49] That's awesome.

Landon Brophy [00:04:50] It's kind of a badge of honor, I guess, at this point.

John Dehlin [00:04:52] Yeah, yeah. I think in the past two decades, it's a badge of honor to be excommunicated for apostasy. So. But what we're going to do is before we dive into the actual excommunication, the before, during and after, I just want to hear your Mormon story. You've been in Bishopric's. I imagine you lived multiple decades as a very Faithful, devout Mormon. Is that right?

Landon's Early Life and Church Involvement

Landon Brophy [00:05:18] Yeah, Bishop Ricks. I was an early morning seminary teacher, young men's president, scoutmaster for years, so.

John Dehlin [00:05:27] Yeah. So you've got your own Mormon story. Yep. So let's. Maybe we'll start there, and then we'll lead to, you know, the best of times. But then what caused maybe your faith to start unraveling? And then we'll talk about the formation of the Good Book Club and Mormonish, and then we'll talk about the excommunication. Is that all right?

Landon Brophy [00:05:47] Sure, no problem.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] All right. Rebecca, anything you want to add before we jump in?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:05:52] No, I'm just glad that Landon gets a chance to tell a story because, you know, we on Mormon ish. All those things that you just mentioned, those are the topics that we hit. Like, you do, too. And, you know, Landon is very passionate about truth. Right. And he does let some of his story, when it's relevant, you know, he will tell some of it on the air, but it's an excellent story and he's an awesome person. So to be able to have him here telling it all, you know, front to the end, I'm really excited. So this is going to be good fun.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] All right. Well, Landon, where does your Mormon story begin? Were your parents Mormon? And.

Landon Brophy [00:06:26] Yeah, I guess it began where I was born in Texas. My mother is, you know, pioneer stock. My grandpa, I think, was the 11th settler of Kaysville, Utah. They came across with the pioneers, so have the pioneer stock. My dad was a convert. We actually were living in Texas. He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and then came back to Texas to do some instruction.

John Dehlin [00:06:52] Is that San Antonio?

Landon Brophy [00:06:54] No, it was actually Mineral Wells, just outside Dallas. The base is closed now that he was instructing him. But, yeah, so he came back to Utah, got a job as an air traffic controller at Salt Lake Airport. So I grew up around the airport and back in the days when you could go up in the tower at night and watch. Now, they never let you near the tower, but, yeah, so he was a convert. He had a little bit rougher growing up, and for him, the church worked. He met my mom. He got baptized in the tabernacle. There was a baptismal font in the tabernacle, and so he got baptized there.

John Dehlin [00:07:38] Salt Lake Tabernacle.

Landon Brophy [00:07:39] Salt Lake Tabernacle. Yeah. And so he accepted the church. And my dad was a fantastic man, someone I always looked up to. And so I grew up. I was one of those guys who checked the boxes. My mom always said, oh, you're the one kid we can always count on to do the right thing. And she always said, oh, you'll never be the one that disappoints me because I was always the one that checked the boxes. I was the oldest boy. I've got an older sister, but there's six of us, six siblings. But, you know, I grew up. I was one of those, you know, I earned my eagle at age 13. I mean, it was on my 13th birthday. I was there for the board of review because I always hit the box of when I was supposed to be there.

John Dehlin [00:08:30] What city were you living in?

Landon Brophy [00:08:32] I was in Kaysville at that time. Grew up in Kaysville.

John Dehlin [00:08:36] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [00:08:37] Got my Eagle Scout, then actually got into aviation. I had my.

John Dehlin [00:08:43] That's near Hill Air Force Base, right?

Landon Brophy [00:08:45] It is, yeah. Just off of there. And so I got my pilot's license when I was 16. I was motivated. I decided I wanted to be a helicopter pilot like my dad. So I applied for a scholarship, an Army ROTC scholarship. I got a three year Army ROTC scholarship.

John Dehlin [00:09:06] So that's at Weber State or.

Landon Brophy [00:09:07] I started at Weber State. I went my first year at Weber State.

John Dehlin [00:09:11] That's in Ogden.

Landon Brophy [00:09:12] In Ogden. Because I had it. I had a year and then I was going to go on my mission and I only got the three year. So then I came back and went to Utah State because they had an aviation program I wanted to be in. So Aggies. Yep, all the way. So. So yeah, I started, you know, I was always checking the boxes. I was doing what I was supposed to. Didn't really date, you know, growing up, because I didn't want to be unworthy to go on a mission or have anything that. Plus I was spending a lot of money on airplanes, so didn't get to.

John Dehlin [00:09:44] And it cost a lot of money.

Landon Brophy [00:09:45] It cost a lot of money to fly. Yep. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] 16. Are you kidding me?

Landon Brophy [00:09:49] Yeah, it was every. I worked, worked job and earned the money, and so I wasn't really dating, but it was okay because I was like, I'm going on a mission. I, you know, everything was lined up for me. You know, I got morally clean. Morally clean. You couldn't be any cleaner than me.

Growing Up Mormon, Seminary, and Youth Leadership

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:10:07] Can I just say the idea that you consciously chose not to date because you're like, this will be a disappointment. I don't want to get involved. I'm on. There was no Covenant Path then, but you were following what they later named the Covenant Path. And you really cut out a lot of that social interaction because you were so focused on doing the things in the church, you know, making sure. That you were preparing for your mission, not deviating in any way. I mean, this is who you were, you know, which is so incredible that you're sitting here now, although maybe not because it is who you are, you know what I mean?

Landon Brophy [00:10:39] Dedicated. It was, you know, I had the path, I knew where I was, was going to go. And, you know, at 19, I put the papers in, you know, it was 19 at that time, to go on my mission. I was always planning on it. I don't know that I really wanted to go on a mission. It's not like I was going, God, I can't wait to go on a mission. But it was what you had to do. And I just knew that was one of the steps. So I put in the papers, I got my mission call. And I remember it so well because in Kaysville at the time, the mission calls always came on Thursday. And the post office would call you when it came at like 6 in the morning. They'd call you and tell you your mission call was there so you could go down and pick it up from the post office in the morning and then get your family together and read the mission call. And so, you know, I always thought I'm sitting there going, okay, I'm going to be a pilot. I'm going to be

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Eagle Scout and return missionary.

Landon Brophy [00:11:43] Eagle Scout, return missionary. But I'm going certainly they're going to send me form because, you know, I'm in the. I'm going to be in the military. So there's so many places I could use a language and use a language skill. And I've already been, you know, doing a lot of military training, so I can handle the tough places if they put me there, you know. You're going to Nam, going to Nom. Yeah, that's right. So I open up that piece of paper and I read it and it says, you've been called to serve in the Indianapolis, Indiana Mission. And I just went, you know, I tried so hard to look happy, you know, I had that fake smile. Oh, Indiana. But in my heart, my heart just sunk. I was going, this is not on my list of places to go. And so I can't say I was really excited about that.

John Dehlin [00:12:33] But.

Landon Brophy [00:12:34] But. So that was maybe the first time I had just the slightest break in my shelf, if you want to call it. That was. I was like, why would God send me to Indiana? Something's wrong here. They got the wrong place. This isn't where I'm supposed to go. But I dutifully did what you're supposed to do. And of course, before you can go on your mission, you have to go to the temple. So went to do the temple stuff. I waited. It was maybe a month before I was supposed to go in the mtc. But you go with your family. At the time, I was the only one that could go in with my parents and my dad's side. No members. So it was really just a small. Just family. My mom and dad is the only people I remember being there.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:13:25] Can I ask. Sorry, I was gonna say, can I ask you, at that time, what was temple prep like for you? It seems like it's different for every person. Sometime people have family members that take them aside and really tell them what's going on. People like me, no warning whatsoever. You know, a terrible experience. And also prep sometimes in the ward. In that era, we're talking about the late 80s. What was Temple prep like for you?

Landon Brophy [00:13:48] It was, come on, we're going to the temple. Oh, okay. My mom and dad would go to the temple, you know, every month, like you were supposed to. Or at least it seemed like that's what they did. So, you know, I was looking forward to it. I'd always heard, oh, this is the Lord's university. And I was a good student. I did a lot of study. I studied the scriptures. I was very knowledgeable for my age with church history, or I thought I was knowledgeable with church history and the scriptures. And I was so excited to go to the temple because I'd heard it's the Lord's university. So I'm sitting there going, when I get there, I am going to learn. This is going to be the next step. This is really going to take me a step further than where I am in my spirituality. And when I got to the temple, just. It confused me. I guess that's the best word to use. I went in. I was in when they did the, you know, cut your stomach and your throat and pull your tongue out and all of that stuff. And I went in and I was just going, what is going on here? What am I doing? And then I'd see Peter, James and John coming in and talking. And I was going, what is Peter, James and John doing in the Garden of Eden? This is just confusing. I don't get this at all. So, you know, we went out, we left, and I remember clearly walking across the parking lot, and my dad said, well, what do you think? And all I could say was, the hats are kind of weird. That was about it. You know, I was like, I. I don't get this. This did not feel right to me. You know, then they all say, oh, you need to go back several times before your mission. I. I was like, I. I'm good. I'm not going back. Yep. I went back twice in the MTC when they, you know, Monday, oh, it's your day off. Let's go to the temple. Like, that was some sort of day off. But so I went the temple twice then. And then I, you know, got to go on the mission, and I was glad there was no temple in Indiana. Couldn't go to a temple. So, you know, I went two years. And so I would say that the mission was the next part that really started kind of affecting my shelf again, because to that point, I'd always been obedient on my own. I just followed the, you know, did what I was supposed to, did what I felt was right. And I always felt that worked for me. When I got in the mission field, all of a sudden there's all these rules, and they're trying to. It was almost like you were lying because they'd want to know how many Book of Mormons you gave away and all of that. And they'd be calling and they'd want these stats, and everyone's kind of, well, we talked to a guy, and we'll call that a discussion. You know, we may have been at the store you just talked to, but you counted it as a discussion. And I started seeing the corporate church as opposed to the church that I had grown up in and the church that I lived. You know, I'd always respected my scout leaders, my young men's leader. They were the best men that you could ask for. And I've always respected them and looked up to them and wanted to be like them. When I got in the mission field, I did not want to be like my mission president. He was not a kind person. And it just really surprised me. Some of the things I got in trouble. One time I got assigned to a little tiny town. I mean, it had a grocery store that looked like kind of just a metal building, and it had a high school in it. It had a barber shop, but, like, no restaurants. And I was there for six months, and there was a little branch there that had about 20 people in it. I loved the people in the branch. They were the best people in the world. In fact, one of them coming out to have dinner next. Next week with us.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:17:51] So you're still friends after all?

Landon Brophy [00:17:53] My friend.

John Dehlin [00:17:54] Yep.

Landon Brophy [00:17:54] She has left the church.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:17:55] That's what happens in a town of 20. Right.

Landon Brophy [00:17:57] But. So they wanted to take me to dinner. I was leaving, and they wanted to take me to lunch, but there was a snowstorm. And during this, because we were right on the edge of Illinois, everybody in this small town worked in Illinois in a place called Danville, was about 10 minutes away. But the next biggest town in Indiana was Lafayette, up where Purdue is. It was about an hour and a half away. So because it was snowing, they said, oh, we want to take you to lunch. We're just going to go to Danville, which was across the mission boundary. We went there, had lunch, came back, someone saw us and reported us. I got a call from the mission president. He was.

John Dehlin [00:18:43] How many minutes was the drive again?

Landon Brophy [00:18:44] The what?

John Dehlin [00:18:45] The drive was how many minutes?

Landon Brophy [00:18:46] Oh, it was about 10 minutes. Yeah, yeah. It was ridiculous. And actually, we had a territory that was down here. You guys may not see me, but it was just down the map. But the Danville ward cut into Indiana just slightly, so the mission boundary actually curved. So for us to go to that town, we had to go all the way around because we weren't allowed to go through the little piece that was not in our mission. But you have only so many miles on your car, but you have to go all the way around to see this town, because you couldn't go through that area. And I just was going, this is ridiculous. So, you know, when that came down, I was like, all right, this is a little overwhelming that it's this serious. But, you know, I made it through the mission. And I have to say, I can't say I was the most. I can't say I was the best missionary, had no baptisms. I taught people. I knew my stuff and I could teach, but no one really wanted to hear the message. And that was where you kind of started saying, I feel a little misled here, because I was taught we were going to come out and everyone wanted this message and they were waiting for you to come.

Mission Experience and Early Adulthood

John Dehlin [00:20:06] The field is white, ready to fall.

Landon Brophy [00:20:07] The field is white already. In fact, when I came, all you

John Dehlin [00:20:10] do is thrust your sickle.

Landon Brophy [00:20:12] They're all ready to be. And I actually, when I came home from my mission, I had to, you know, you have to do the homecoming talk. And I was like, what am I going to talk about? I really didn't have any positive experiences to talk about. So I ended up talking about how real Satan was, because I saw this everywhere on my mission. I saw one lady who was the other set of missionaries were going to baptize her, and she was Supposed to show up and she was late. She finally showed up. She had a black eye. Her ex husband had come by and found out she was getting baptized and beat her up trying to keep her from being baptized. You know, clearly the adversary. Clearly the adversary. And I was like, wow, this is. But I had just one thing after the other was that kind of thing. Every time I'd teach someone and I thought we were getting somewhere, someone would come in and the whole thing would fall apart. What years were you in Indiana? 88 to 90.

John Dehlin [00:21:21] Was Kokomo part of your mission?

Landon Brophy [00:21:22] Kokomo was. The sisters had Kokomo.

John Dehlin [00:21:25] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [00:21:27] So anyway, the mission was rough. I really felt like it was a waste of my time. It was hard to stay out because no one wanted to hear anything. But I made it through. And once I got back and I got home and I got back into my routine, I was right back into the church. You know, I. At this time, you're a returned missionary, so now you can date. And so obviously I started dating, and six months later, I was married. Oh, wow. And I wasn't, you know, I wasn't dating beforehand. So really I married the first. The first girl I kissed, I ended up marrying.

John Dehlin [00:22:05] So literally married the first.

Landon Brophy [00:22:07] Literally married the first off your mission. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] That's wild.

Landon Brophy [00:22:10] So. And. And it, you know, it. It fortunately worked for 32 years.

John Dehlin [00:22:18] That's a long time.

Landon Brophy [00:22:19] I ended up. Some of the. Leaving the church caused some problems, but I ended up. We ended up divorced. But she's still a wonderful person and, you know, the mother of my children and grandmother to my grandchildren and a very special person. So. But we. We got married, did the thing that you. That you do. You start having the kids. Had a kid before we graduated, and then we came time to graduate, and one of the things I was looking at was I wanted to do more flying. And I was in rotc, so I had to do this service contract. And one thing with the army is they said, oh, you can go all reserve if. If that's what you want. I said, oh, okay. So I was like, I want to keep flying and get build hours and stuff because I was not able to fly in the army because of my eyesight. My eyesight ended up not being good enough. So I said, well, I can do the reserves and then I can fly. What they didn't tell me is it wasn't really my choice. It was the army's choice as to whether or not I went active duty or reserve. So I was the only person that year at Utah State who asked for reserve duty. And I was the only person who got active duty.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:23:39] The adversary again.

Landon Brophy [00:23:43] So I got. I went into the military. I moved to Augusta, Georgia. I was a signal officer. Did my basic training then.

John Dehlin [00:23:53] Is that intelligence then or.

Landon Brophy [00:23:54] No, it's communication systems. So basically we'd set up tactical mobile phone systems out in the. Out in the field. So I. I went to my training there. And then they. It comes time to get. You get a letter that tells you where you're going to go. And mine, I was going, please don't let it be Korea. Please don't let it be Korea. And it was Korea.

John Dehlin [00:24:17] So you don't have a. You don't have good luck.

Landon Brophy [00:24:19] I don't have good luck anywhere.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:24:23] This story is a downer. Landon, come on.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] It gets better. He meets you.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:24:27] Yeah, that's right. At this point, though, I know that you, very young, were made a high priest. Is this during this military period of your life? And put into a bishopric through the military.

Military Service, Marriage, and Family Life

Landon Brophy [00:24:38] So, yeah, so that came just a little bit later. You know, I'm only 22. I'm a first lieutenant or a second lieutenant. I get sent to Korea. And I went to Korea. Little tiny branch, just a couple servicemen at Camp Red Cloud, Korea. But it was kind of your lifeline, you know, it was. These are the people that, you know, they're not out drinking every night and. But they had to come from different camps just to have, you know, we'd have about 10 people there and they'd come from all these different camps. So I didn't have any LDS people on the camp I was at. Everyone would leave after Sunday. So Sunday was like the time you got to spend together with each other and do, you know, meet other saints, you know. So I remember one Sunday we got to go down to Seoul and President Holland had just been made an apostle and he came to Korea and he gave his first apostolic blessing. And I was there when he gave it, and I remember him saying to the Korean people in his apostolic prayer that their children would go to North Korea and teach the North Koreans and that they'd be unified.

John Dehlin [00:26:02] I guess it could still happen.

Landon Brophy [00:26:04] Yeah. Except for those people are now. Their kids are probably. I was only 20 something at that time, so their kids are now having kids. It's certainly not going to be their kids that are doing it as missionaries. And. Yeah, based on the situation in Korea right now, it looks like we're a long way from.

John Dehlin [00:26:20] I'm guessing the South Korean members weren't faithful enough.

Landon Brophy [00:26:23] I'm Guessing that as well because Rebecca

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:26:26] absolutely put it back on the members that has, there's no other explanation that has to be.

Landon Brophy [00:26:31] At the time, the Koreans were kind of, I don't know if you remember, they, they started kind of sharing across border. They shared some, some manufacturing facilities and they let it. So, so the relations were getting a little bit more friendly during that time. The Olympics had just happened and there was some optimism that the Koreas might. Something might happen there. And that's when he, when he came. But obviously things turned out quite different. But you know, I remember going to do that and seeing that.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:27:02] So were you, if I can ask you, were you kind of awestruck? Oh my goodness, an apostle. Were you one of those kinds of members where you're just sort of hero, we're sorry. And you were writing in your journal. I got to see I wasn't a

Landon Brophy [00:27:15] journal keeper, so I didn't write it. But I remember thinking, wow, I really like this guy. He's really funny. He was a very personable person. And so I remember that about him. But I guess I should step back because when I went to Korea, as I said, I had a daughter and I had a wife at the time and Korea's unaccompanied tour, so you go for a year without your family. You have to leave your family behind. And you know, that was, that was really hard. And I remember taking my family over to my, my, my wife's sister actually moved in next to my parents. They found out that the home was for sale and they ended up buying it because my wife told her sister about it. And so my wife and my daughter were going to stay in their basement while I was gone for a year. So, you know, I felt okay. My parents are next door. Her, her sister and brother in law will take care of them. But still, leaving your one year, one year old baby and saying, I'm not going to see you for a year. You know, that was, that was really tough. And I remember trying to. The night before I had to leave, I was going, this is really hard. I don't know how to handle this. So I, I went over to my dad and I remembered, okay, dad had to do this same thing when he went to Vietnam, but he was getting shot at. So I said, I'm going to go ask my dad, how did you handle this? And I remember going over to there and I asked him about that and he said, son, you wake up in the morning, you kiss your wife, you kiss your daughter, you go do what you got to do and you get back. And that always stayed with me, that. That's, you know, you go and you do what you got to do, and then. And then you get back where you need to be. And so I went and did that year, and I came back and I got assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, and I just barely got there. And I got called in, and they called me to being the bishopric in a military ward in Fort Lewis. So I was 25 years old, and I got made a high priest at that time. And military wards are really unique because they come. You have field exercises, and everyone on post goes to these field exercises, and they might last three or four weeks. So all the men leave the ward. There's, like, only a couple men left in the ward, and the families just have to keep doing all the work. And so. And there was also a constant changeover in military wards. In fact, the bishop I got called to serve under got transferred not long after I got put in as the second counselor. And the church decided that they wanted to have a more permanent bishop, but so they called a. A chaplain, LDS chaplain. But the problem is, you can't be a bishop and be an LDS chaplain at the same time. They won't allow that. So the chaplain was going to retire, so they had to wait a few weeks before they could put him in. But the other bishop left. So they came to us and they said, you guys can basically do anything but hear a confession. And so we basically ran the ward for several weeks until the new bishop got put in, and then the new bishop got put in. And Fort Lewis is where all of the cadets come anywhere in the country. If you're an ROTC cadet, you go to Fort Lewis and go to training for 12. I think he went for six weeks, but it's about 12, 13 weeks long. So I was called to run that. So I would conduct all the services for all the LDS people. I basically was the LDS chaplain for the ROTC program. When they came in, it was a lot of fun. All the LDS guys that came in, you know, BYU brought most of them, but we. We went when they had day off. We'd play volleyball and have a fish fry in the back and stuff, and. And it was a lot of fun. So, you know, I had a lot of positive experiences there. After I got out, I moved to Portland area.

John Dehlin [00:31:49] Got out of the military.

Returning to Civilian Life and Faith Doubts Begin

Landon Brophy [00:31:50] Yeah, when I got out of the military, I owed him four years of active duty. I still was in the military as a reservist when I moved to Portland and. And I moved to Battleground Washington, which is just across the river from Portland, and I no sooner got there than I got called to be the early morning seminary teacher. That was dangerous. Tough job. Yeah. Because I would teach in the morning. I had to be there at like 6, I think is when we started, 6 to 7. Then I had to get to my job and I'd go wherever they'd have me working, and then I'd have to get home, prepare the lesson for the next day and do the teaching. But I really. I really enjoyed teaching the youth. It was just something I really enjoyed doing, and I thought it was one of the best callings you could have. But I love to study, and as a military guy, I always had to put stuff on maps, you know, so I'm trying to put the Book of Mormon on the map. So I got all the FARMS material. I was reading all the FARMS material, trying to figure it out, you know,

John Dehlin [00:32:53] and tell people what FARMS is.

Landon Brophy [00:32:56] FARMS is Ancient foundation for Ancient American Research or something like that.

John Dehlin [00:33:03] It's sort of like the Mormon apologetic group of the 70s and 80s.

Landon Brophy [00:33:07] Yes.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:33:07] Back in the day. Completely disavowed.

Landon Brophy [00:33:09] Now, of course, they were given the job to go find the archeology to support the Book of Money Mormon. And they went and they really tried. And at the time, I didn't. I didn't know that stuff was. Wasn't accurate, you know. So I'm reading the stuff and I'm going, oh, wow, this is really interesting, you know, and they'd say, oh, Lake Akilan or whatever it is, is the waters of Mormon. And I'd be looking at the book

John Dehlin [00:33:33] and I'd go, that's in Guatemala.

Landon Brophy [00:33:35] Well, they were hiding, though, and there's no trees. How did they hide for all this time with no trees on this lake? So there were things that would creep in, but I'd, you know, I'd go, oh, well, this is, you know, where they say it's happened and everything. So I'd kind of show the kids and, you know, we do the lesson, but I'd kind of put that stuff in. And so I read a lot and I studied a lot. And that's why when I started finding other things that I'm going, I should have known this. This should have been something in the manual that they told me before I told the kids. And that's. That's what really hurt. So, you know, I stayed there a couple years. I was there, and then I moved to the Boise area. We lived in Napa for several years. And then moved back to Utah. And once I got to Utah, I was in the young men's program. I loved being in the Young Men's Program 1, because you didn't have to go to the temple very often, and if you did, it was baptisms, not endowments and stuff. So. So I really enjoyed that part of it. And then I was made the scoutmaster, and I just loved being the scoutmaster. I was it for three different wards, and that was my kind of stuff. I'd rather be out under the stars than, you know, in the temple anytime. I always felt that that's how you communed with God. To me, that was how you did it, was out in nature. So I got to that point and I was in church, as Rebecca kind of talked about. Well, I'd actually. The day before, I'd been watching a TV show on the Rosetta Stone, and I was going, hey, this is quite interesting. I didn't know that we couldn't read Egyptian at one point. I just assumed. I grew up with King Tut and everything. I assumed we always knew how to read Egyptian. And so I was around.

John Dehlin [00:35:31] What year is this?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:35:32] I was just going to say that

Landon Brophy [00:35:33] this is maybe 2014.

John Dehlin [00:35:36] Okay. Probably around 12 years ago.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:35:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:39] Okay.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:35:39] You have all. You have four kids.

Landon Brophy [00:35:41] You have four kids. Wife. I'm all in.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:35:45] You're all in?

Landon Brophy [00:35:45] Yep. And so I saw this thing about it, and I'm going, okay. I didn't know we couldn't read Egyptian. This is interesting. And, you know, the Rosetta Stone, I think, was found in 1776 and then. But it was 20, 30 years later before they figured out how to. How to read the Egyptian because it had Greek and some other language. I can't remember the other language. So I was sitting. The next day I went to church, and we were studying the Pearl of great price, and I was flipping through it, and I saw all the book of Abraham, the facsimiles. And I went, we can read Egyptian now. And he says that this, says this, and I know he's a prophet. So all we need to do is get an Egyptologist to read these facsimiles, and it'll prove that Joseph Smith is a prophet.

John Dehlin [00:36:38] There you go. How'd that turn out for you?

Landon Brophy [00:36:40] How can you argue with that? I thought I was the first person who ever thought of this.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:36:45] Oh, dear.

Landon Brophy [00:36:46] I go home and I go home and I go to the Internet, and this is, you know, back when you screech and it. While you're waiting for it to load, I'm going, well, I can't go to any unfaithful site. So I went to BYU site and I typed in Book of Abraham facsimiles and I found a whole paper on it and I started reading it and I went, oh, my gosh, this is a problem.

John Dehlin [00:37:14] Someone thought of this.

Landon Brophy [00:37:15] Someone's already thought of this. Not just someone. BYU professors have reviewed this and they're saying it doesn't say anything close to what the. The Book of Mormon says that it says this is problematic. And I struggled with, how do I deal with this? Something's not right here. And that was the first initial. Something doesn't make sense here. If, if he can't get this right there, there's no excuse that for why he would get this wrong other than it was made up. But I looked at myself and I said, look at Dad's life and how much better off he was than some of his brothers and that that grew up drinking and, you know, they had a lot of problems, but he always had a good marriage, good family. I said, I want this for my family. This is what I want. So I started trying to find ways to make it work. And I decided that what I was going to do is I was going to do a study. I was going to do the church program of four years, one for each of the different standard works. But what I was going to do was I was going to approach it differently. I wasn't going to study the scripture. I was going to study all these books that had nothing to do with Mormonism, had nothing to do with religion, but related to the book. So, for instance, with the Book of Mormon, I looked at DNA, archeology, linguistics. I started looking. I'd read books about all of this stuff. You know, what plants were here.

John Dehlin [00:38:57] This is not going to end well.

Landon Brophy [00:38:58] It is not.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:38:59] I have to say, that idea that you're a lazy learner, I mean, look what you're doing, you know, intensive study. And in your heart, in your core, you're realizing that something isn't right and that perhaps something isn't true, but you're not going to go there yet because you know the consequences. And you're just reading and reading with integrity. You know what I mean? You are not going to make a decision until, you know. So, lazy learner, I'm sorry, I don't think so.

Landon Brophy [00:39:28] I kept trying to make it work. I even enrolled in Yale, has religion courses online that you can take for free. And they are fantastic. I mean, you're talking some of the best professors on religion in the country, probably the world. And so I enrolled in these online courses. I was doing the study. It was fascinating. I was learning so much. But I started learning that, number one, the things I was reading in these exterior books were all meshing. When they would say, the linguistics say that this language took at least 12,000 years go from this point to this point. So humans were here about 12,000 years ago is when they. The land bridge is about 12,000 years ago. The plants come. You know, everything is meshing. They're all agreeing that this is what happened. There's no Semitic DNA, the DNA showing that it came across from China and from Russia over the land bridge. And all of those books, even though they're written completely by separate authors, the information is meshing. It's forming a picture in my mind of what happened. And it wasn't the Book of Mormon. It wasn't the stories from the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:40:44] So the DNA evidence, the history, the linguistics, the geography, the archeology of ancient north and Central and South America, all pointed towards the core Book of Mormon narrative being false.

Landon Brophy [00:40:59] Correct?

John Dehlin [00:41:00] Is that right? Correct.

Landon Brophy [00:41:01] Yeah. And that was, you know, like, people, I'd read the DNA, you know, the church say, oh, the bottleneck, and the different things that they'd use. And I'm going, okay, that's a stretch. But you can argue that that happened with these people. But the DNA for the plants and the animals that they talk about proves that none of that was here prior. They can trace the DNA of wheat and see when it came over and that it came from Europe, it didn't come from the. You know, so all these that they supposedly brought and were growing, none of that matched either. So it's a hard argument to say that the DNA in the humans disappeared, but all the other DNA also doesn't match. It's impossible. That couldn't happen.

Reading Critically and Confronting Church History

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:41:51] So let me just ask this. So as you read book after book, and you're very pragmatic, did you at all try to gaslight yourself, try to find a way? I mean, you're so practical, you know, when you're reading these books and I feel like you would. Have you just been saying, I can't reconcile this, or was there a part of you because of everything it would mean if it wasn't real? Was there a part of you that was trying to gaslight yourself?

Landon Brophy [00:42:14] I don't feel like I always wanted to make it work. And I always kept saying, I can find an answer, but I don't think I ever ignored the evidence. The evidence was always what was driving me. And so that's why I kept going deeper and deeper because the evidence was going. Was going against everything that I knew. And so I kept trying to find some other piece of evidence that might help. But, you know, once I started taking the New Testament and the Old Testament classes, I was going, this stuff is just as falsifiable. I can see, you know, where the writers of the New Testament were not eyewitnesses. You could prove it. You could see that they were copying from the document they call Q, that they all the Matthew, Mark, Luke, the Synoptic Gospels. You could see when you started comparing stories that they were almost word for word anywhere Jesus was talking. But then the story around them was different. And so you start going, okay, the theory is, is that they only had a document that said what? Jesus. The words of Jesus. And they're building these stories around those. And you could see that when lining them up. I got a book called Gospel Parallelism, and I could line them up and I'm going, oh. Instead of he, they'd say the Lord, but every other word is exactly the same, word for word. This is not independent eyewitness accounts. This is someone building a narrative after the fact with some other document that they're using. But they're not eyewitnesses. So that really weakens the biblical position.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:43:54] So you were deconstructing Christianity at the same time as Mormonism.

Landon Brophy [00:43:59] It turned into that going down a

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:44:00] rabbit hole within a rabbit hole. I mean, you go big or go home. There you go. You are burning it all down. But that's the way you are because you read, you synthesize, you do it with integrity, and you want the truth, and you're not going to stop until you get it. And anybody that knows Landon, that is exactly how he is, which is why he's in this chair right now.

Landon Brophy [00:44:20] Then I got into the Old Testament and there's a book called who Wrote the Bible? By Friedman?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:44:27] I think so, yeah, Friedman, excellent book.

Landon Brophy [00:44:29] He's a Jewish guy and really knows his stuff. And that was so plain when you read it. And I was going, okay, we got a problem here. Because the book of Moses is following the same standard. And he breaks out that there were multiple authors of the Old Testament. And you can see it plainly when he breaks it out by the words they're using. They're calling God God. All through first Genesis, the God is called God. In the beginning, God created. When you get to chapter two, you get a second creation story, and it's always Jehovah. It would have been Jehovah in Hebrew. It would have been El in Hebrew. But in English, it's God and Jehovah. And they changed that to the Lord. So it's the Lord. And you start finding that there's one place they're always calling him the Lord, one place they're always calling him God. There's multiple flood stories, there's multiple creation stories. You break them up and you put where everybody who's calling him God, you put them together, they flow perfectly. Same thing when you break up the Lord. And so you're going, this is not Moses writing this, so we've lost, you know, But I go to the book of Moses, and Joseph Smith said he saw this in a revelation and he got all of this. But Moses switches from God and the Lord. He's using the same thing. I'm going, how did he see two different guys writing a story hundreds of years apart? This doesn't make sense. So it just all started to fall apart. And so not only was I losing my faith in Mormonism, I was losing my faith in Christianity as well as a whole.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:46:12] Were you talking to anybody? I mean, it's so hard to find people to confide in back in that era. It's not like it is now. Now, was there anybody that you could even.

Landon Brophy [00:46:22] Obviously, my wife saw me doing all this studying. I share stuff with her, and she kind of. I don't think I want to hear that. That's where it becomes tough in a marriage when the person that you're married to, you can't talk to about the things that's bothering you the most. And, you know, that's what I think eventually led to that. She actually left the church as well. But after so many years of not being able to talk to somebody about the thing that's most important to you, it kind of hurts the relationship. And so at this point, I'm going, okay, there's a lot of problems here. So my brother recommended I read Rough Stone Rolling.

John Dehlin [00:47:07] Oh, that'll fix it.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:47:08] Yeah, there you go.

Landon Brophy [00:47:09] And up to this time, I was going, this can't be right. But I don't think the brethren would know this. How would they know this? You know? So I read.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:47:24] Started.

Landon Brophy [00:47:24] I read the whole thing, Rough Stone Rolling. And I was going through there, and I'm going, this is really a problem. Everything I was told on my mission was not true.

John Dehlin [00:47:34] This is about Joseph Smith.

Landon Brophy [00:47:35] Yeah, about Joseph Smith and about him being a gold digger. I thought he was a gold miner on My mission. That's what I did know what a gold digger was. I just assumed he, you know, went looking for gold like anyone else did back in the 1800s.

John Dehlin [00:47:50] Eureka.

Landon Brophy [00:47:51] Eureka, yes.

John Dehlin [00:47:52] Golden them their hills.

Landon Brophy [00:47:53] I didn't realize the level that it was too. And once I started understanding and once I read Bushman and saw, I was like, the church knows. The church knows what? They know what happened. They know that this, that the Book of Mormon is a 18th century, 19th century production. They know. Even Richard Bushman, their historian, is saying, there's a lot of problems with the narrative. And as I was reading, I just remember one night I just set it down and I said, this is all bullshit. And I knew at that point, I can't keep keep going on with this. But I've got a problem. My. I've got three sons that are. One just came back from a mission, the other one is getting ready for a mission and the other one was. He was like 15 at the time. So he's getting ready to become a priest and that caused a problem because I'm going to. What do I do here? My son is a senior, he's getting ready, he's got a girlfriend. I don't want to screw up his, you know, he's planning on, he wants to marry this girl when he comes back from his mission. I don't want to cause any harm. So I kept going to church, but I wouldn't go to my classes. I'd go out in the car and read, read my books. And so it was really tough, but I'm going, okay. I got a little while to figure this out. And then they came out with the priesthood that you could get the, you'd get the priesthood for the year of school that you were going into or. No, the year you turned that. So all of a sudden my 15 year old is able to become a priest and I'm going, okay. This is problematic because I don't believe in this anymore. Do I tell my kids? What do I do? So I told my wife and that did not go well. She started hyperventilating, she ran out of the house. This was like 10 o' clock at night. I went out trying to find her. I couldn't find her. It was dark. She finally came back. She said, you need to go talk to the bishop. And I'm like, okay, you understand if I go talk to the bishop, that there will be no more callings, there will be no more, you know, I'll probably get released. So I went and talked to the bishop and I'd been, I was a young men's president, you know, I knew him very well.

John Dehlin [00:50:44] This was a high status position at a ward.

Landon Brophy [00:50:46] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:47] They don't, they never let me near the.

Landon Brophy [00:50:49] Well I had been as a young men president. I just been, I'd moved into, they moved me into the 11 year old scouts and I was doing 11 year old scouts and 11 year old primary. But I'd been his young men's leader for like four years. So I knew the Bishop very well and I went and talked to him and I said, you know, I, I just don't believe this. And he said, well, I think you need to read the Book of Mormon more.

John Dehlin [00:51:14] That'll fix it. Yeah, it's so weird because that's often the start of the problem.

Landon Brophy [00:51:19] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] But they don't know. They don't know.

Landon Brophy [00:51:21] Well, I told him that I was having all kinds of problems with it. And I said, you know, I said, let me give you an example of what happens when I read the Book of Mormon. Let's take the story of Ammon. You know, he goes out and he's getting the herds for the king, Lamoni, I think is his name. It's been a while. And I said, there are no herds. Herds of what? They had four domesticated animals in the new World. Llamas, guinea pigs, dogs and turkeys. So he's either watching flocks of turkey or flocks of llamas. But if they're llamas, it's down in South America. I'm going, okay, so there's, there's.

John Dehlin [00:51:58] The Bishop's like, you are too strong.

Landon Brophy [00:52:02] Then he comes and they start chopping off their hands. I said, there's no steel. Their arms. Yes, their arms. And I'm like, there's no still. There's only stacking up arms, only stone tools. How are you cutting off hands with stone tools? Obsidian.

John Dehlin [00:52:18] I'm concerned that they're telling the story like it's a good thing that he's chopping off so many.

Landon Brophy [00:52:22] Chopping off arms.

John Dehlin [00:52:23] You have to stack them up.

Landon Brophy [00:52:24] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:52:25] Somehow that's. He's the Lord's chosen.

Landon Brophy [00:52:28] That's a good.

John Dehlin [00:52:29] But you're right. Where do you get the weapons?

Landon Brophy [00:52:31] Yeah, where do you get something that's sharp enough obsidian to just cut off that many arms.

John Dehlin [00:52:35] The apologists would say it was.

Landon Brophy [00:52:37] Would say obsidian. Yeah. Which then you got a problem because then you can't say that all the tools rusted at the final last battle. All the obsidian should still be there. So you run into Another problem. Then I'm going, okay. Then he goes and he hitches up the horses to the chariots. There's no chariots, no wheels in America. There's no horses. This is the problem. Every time I read a story now, because I've done my research about the history of, of the animals, the plants, the geography, all of this stuff becomes problematic to me.

John Dehlin [00:53:12] Like telling the bishop, bishop, my thumb hurts. I keep hitting my thumb with a hammer. And the bishop's like, just hit it

Landon Brophy [00:53:18] one more time, get a bigger hammer.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:53:21] And the problem is, Landon, you're not supposed to pay attention to any of that. It's, how do you feel? How does it all make you feel? That's the only way that you can get through that.

Landon Brophy [00:53:31] Well, he told me, he asked me, he said, you know, he said, do you need to be released from your callings? And I said, I can't keep doing primary because I cannot testify of something I don't believe is true. I said, I could still work with the 11 year old scouts. I can do scouting. That doesn't bother me. I still want to contribute. I've got kids in the program. He said, let me think about it. So I came back and he released me from both callings. And he said, I said, I told him I wouldn't take any calling that involved testifying. So he said, we got a calling for you. Would you serve in the nursery?

John Dehlin [00:54:14] That's where Margi and I served at the very end.

Landon Brophy [00:54:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:17] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [00:54:17] And my wife went, because you can't

John Dehlin [00:54:19] corrupt the 2 year old.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [00:54:20] They can't understand a word you're saying. Right.

Landon Brophy [00:54:23] But my wife just went, are you crazy? And to her credit, she said, bishop, he studies hours a day. He's taking classes at Yale. He's trying to get answers. And you're saying, go to the nursery. How's he going to get answers in the nursery? So ended up not doing that. I ended up just kind of fading back. I was traveling a lot for work, so it was easy for me just to not come to church. And people wouldn't know whether I was out of town or whether I was at church. But eventually the ward split. They got a new bishop and they put us with an area way far away from our. We were the, you know, they needed bodies and we were the bodies for this new ward as the housing development went in and everything. But it's a new ward, so they got to fill every single calling. And I didn't get called at all. So I'm going, okay, the old bishop has Obviously talked to the new bishop because he knows what's going on then. But I didn't show up to tithing settlement when tithing settlement came, and when my wife went, he said, is there a reason Landon's not here? And she said, you're going to have to talk to him about it. So the bishop called me in and I went over and I sat down in his office and we talked for three hours. And I unloaded every single thing that I was having a problem with. And one of the big ones was the November 15th policy. You know, that if you. If you were a child of someone who was gay, you couldn't get baptized, you couldn't advance in the priesthood. And I said, you know, this is. This policy is hurtful and it's wrong. And I can't agree with this. It goes against everything I was taught in the church. And the bishop defended it. He was there saying, well, you know, I don't understand everything, but the brethren, they've assured us that this is. That was on a Sunday, that Wednesday, they reversed the November 15th policy.

John Dehlin [00:56:38] 2018. 2019.

Landon Brophy [00:56:40] Yeah, yeah, right. In that time frame. Yeah. Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [00:56:44] So he had defended it, and then.

Landon Brophy [00:56:46] So he defended it, telling me that I was wrong. And then it turns out, evidently I was right. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:56:53] I think that policy may have taken more people out of the church than almost anything.

Landon Brophy [00:56:58] I think so, too. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:59] Past 20 or 30 years. And oddly, it's Nelson and probably Oaks

Landon Brophy [00:57:03] that put it together behind it. Yeah. So I talked to him for three hours, and at the end he was just going, I've never heard any of this. And I said, yeah, isn't that kind of a problem that none of us have heard any of this? We both been in the church. He went to Indiana on his mission, by the way, too. So I'm like, don't you think that's a problem, that none of us have heard this and we've been in the church all of our lives? He said, would you talk to the stake President about this? And I said, I will talk to President Nelson himself if he has answers for me. But I said, I'm not going to go into the stake President's office and have him conduct some sort of worthiness interview and tell me that this is my problem because of something I did. I said, the church has a problem here and the church needs to be able to provide some answers. And I said, I'll talk to anyone that you can give to me that can provide some answers. I left the office and I never heard from the church again. I stopped going to church. First. I was like, hey, this is kind of cool. I got my Sundays off. Nobody's around. Then Covid happened. I'm like, dang, these Mormons ruined my faith.

John Dehlin [00:58:29] It was like, costco's empty.

Landon Brophy [00:58:31] All of a sudden, they were at Costco. They were at the lake on Sunday.

John Dehlin [00:58:34] The ski resorts are empty on Sunday. And then Covid.

Faith Transition and Family Dynamics

Landon Brophy [00:58:38] I was like, dang, it was so nice for those six months, you know, and until Covid happened. But Covid happened, and I guess I should go back just a little bit before that because I left this part out. My son was turning 16 or was going to have to get set apart as a priest. My other son was getting ready for a mission, and they were going to set him apart as an elder. And all of a sudden, I have to say something because I can't go to the temple with him. The bishop originally told me I could have my temple recommended or keep it. He said, go the temple, work through this. When it expired, and I went to. I said, oh, my niece is getting married. I need to get a temple recommend. He said, well, okay, let's go through the questions. And he said, okay. You know, he started answering me the question, and he said, can you answer these questions? And I said, well, no, because you haven't answered mine yet. If you can't answer mine, I can't change my answer to these. And so he said, well, you're not going to be able to have a temple recommend. And I said, well, it's probably best then, because I'm not going to tell you that I believe something I don't believe. So now I have to tell my son that I'm not going to be able to go to the temple with him. Now the cat's kind of out of the bag. They're going to be setting apart.

John Dehlin [01:00:03] Can I say that's one of the hardest things in the modern Mormon experience. You get married under the pretense that the church is true without full disclosure. You raise 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 kids believing it's true. Belief isn't something babies are born with. They have to be taught religious belief. And then they get to 18, 19, they're fully converted, ready to go on their missions, or maybe they're even on their missions, or maybe they're home for their mission in her temple, married. And then a parent, if they lose their faith, has to say, hey, I know I raised you this way. I know you've based your whole life on this. Oops. I just found out it wasn't true. You know what I mean? It's the hardest thing.

Landon Brophy [01:00:46] And same thing to your spouse. You made these eternal covenants that you're going to, you know, and now you're all of a sudden saying, I can't do this anymore. So that, you know, that was difficult. So I gathered my family around one night and I said, kids, I got to tell you something. I don't believe the church is true anymore and I'm not going to be attending anymore. I said, I'm not going to tell you why I don't believe it. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't believe it, but I will answer any questions that you have for me. And I remember we kind of hugged each other and cried, but in the end none of them asked me any questions. And that was fine because I knew he was getting ready for his mission.

John Dehlin [01:01:40] That's the last thing you want to hear when you're getting ready for a mission?

Landon Brophy [01:01:42] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:01:43] Dad is apostatized.

Landon Brophy [01:01:44] Dad, Dad's got a problem. So we went to, I remember going to church and my son was getting set apart as a, as a priest. And the bishop said, you know, you can't, you can't do the, the ordinance, but you can stand in. And I said, no, I can't. I said, I don't believe it. That would be a mockery if I did that. I'm not going to do that.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:02:09] You have too much integrity for the church. Listen to you just saying, I'm sorry, I can't. They're trying to kind of fudge it. Oh, maybe get your recommend, maybe. No, you're saying, I will not. You have too much integrity.

Landon Brophy [01:02:22] Well, you know, it's tough because you want to do that for your children. You know, you want to be part of that. And that was the hard part was when my son went to the temple before he left on his mission. And me and my 16 year old son are sitting outside at the water fountain. At the fountain? You know, not the water fountain, but the. But we just sat there waiting and we'd just gotten put in that new ward. So all the young men, leaders from that ward who didn't even know my kids, hardly all are coming out. Oh, it was so spiritual to be in there with your son, you know, and I'm going to.

John Dehlin [01:02:59] On. It's so shaming to a father.

Landon Brophy [01:03:02] Yeah. And no one knows why you're out there.

John Dehlin [01:03:04] They probably had an affair.

Landon Brophy [01:03:06] They just know you're not out there addicted to porn.

John Dehlin [01:03:08] Or something.

Landon Brophy [01:03:09] Yeah, it could be any. You don't know what they're thinking. And then you're like, hey, let me go buy all you guys lunch, because I can take you to lunch. I can't go in the temple, you know, so you go out for your lunch thing and stuff. So that was. That. That was really hard. And what I learned, you know, during COVID was they started. It felt like they were replacing you as a father because the home teachers would call and say, we want to bring the sacrament into your family. And I'm like, well, my son's a priest. He can bless it and pass it and do everything we need. Why do I need someone from outside coming into to give me the sacrament? And I remember I was gone one day and I came back and they. My wife said, oh, the home teachers came over and gave our kids a back to school blessing.

John Dehlin [01:04:02] Like a father's blessing?

Landon Brophy [01:04:03] Like a father's blessing.

John Dehlin [01:04:04] Yeah. They're basically usurping you as the father at that point. In a Mormon house, that's exactly what's happening.

Landon Brophy [01:04:10] Yeah. They're saying to your kids, your dad's not worthy to give you a priesthood blessing, so we're here to do it for you. And that really kind of started, you know, I was going, how come no one asked me? Because I may not give them a blessing, but I can certainly sit down and talk to them about, hey, why don't give them some advice? Because that's really all blessing is, some advice. You know, I'm like, I can sit down with my kid and give them advice as to, you know, what to do this year in school and that kind of stuff. So I really felt like they were usurping my authority of my own children. And that's when it really started. Starts to bother you. So all this time, though, I'm going through this all alone. I don't have. All my brothers and sisters are in. I got 40 nieces and nephews. They're all in. Half of them are big partner on missions and everything else. And I'm going, I cannot find a single person to talk to.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:05:08] Was there a point? Didn't you stumble across Mormon stories, though,

Landon Brophy [01:05:12] as a. I was just about to say that.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:05:14] Were you confused when you did it?

Landon Brophy [01:05:17] Trying to figure out, how do I stay in? How do I stay in? And still for my family, how do I stay in? But I don't believe, how do I deal with this? And so I was actually in Japan working, and my wife called and said, I found this guy who tells you how to stay in the church and be faithful even though you might be struggling with your faith.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:05:43] Faith.

Landon Brophy [01:05:44] His name's John Dehlin. And at that time, you had some. You. You'd done some podcasts where you were still in the church. I think you were faithful. I don't know faithful, if the church would call it that. But you were saying how you could stay in the church. And she'd come across those, and she shared those with me, and I said, huh, I wonder what happened to John? So I looked it up, and I called her back and I said, you know, he's been excommunicated.

John Dehlin [01:06:09] Oops. Oops.

Landon Brophy [01:06:10] But that. That's when I started. Started watching Mormon stories at that point, and it really helped. I. I was going, there's other people out there. And I actually, when I was in Japan, I was watching, and a gal that goes. That went to the same gym as me was one of the guests on your. On your show Fun. And so I was going, oh, my gosh. I know. I know who she is. I haven't ever talked to her, but I know who she is. You know, her husband was a bishop. Janine War.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:06:45] Can't remember at this point, you're just desperately looking for anybody else. Does anyone else. Is anyone else on this journey? Does anybody else have these feelings? I mean, because back in that day, even though it was less than a decade ago, it wasn't the same. You know, I think now you can find community pretty quickly, hopefully. I think everyone's made a huge effort to make that.

Landon Brophy [01:07:04] I think it's a lot easier. But this was a breakthrough because this is the first person I. I knew that was out that I could talk to. So I couldn't wait to get home. And when I got home, I went to the gym. The booth.

John Dehlin [01:07:15] Booth, yes.

Landon Brophy [01:07:16] Yes. And she wasn't there.

John Dehlin [01:07:17] He lost his faith while he was.

Landon Brophy [01:07:19] He was the bishop. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:20] In Ogden, right?

Landon Brophy [01:07:21] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:07:21] He's an Air Force guy, I think. Or worked at Hill Air Force Base.

Landon Brophy [01:07:24] Yeah, he worked at Hill Air Force Base, but he was from Syracuse.

John Dehlin [01:07:27] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [01:07:27] And. Which is where I'm from. So I got home, I went to the gymie.

John Dehlin [01:07:33] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [01:07:33] And. But she wasn't there. Bummer. The next day I went, and she was there. And I went up and I said, I saw you on Mormon Stories. I need someone to talk to. Can I talk to you and your husband? And so she had me over to their house, and I went over, and finally I could talk to someone. And that was so. I can't tell you what that did to your soul to finally have someone to talk to in that. And so from that point on, I was like, okay, I know I'm out. I've got to find a community. This is what I need. So I went on ex Mormon Reddit. I'd always kind of scroll through there. And one day I come across someone had the book Sapiens, a picture of Sapiens sitting on their lap. And they said, has anyone read this book and want to talk about it? And I was like, this is like my bible. I read Sapiens and it was just so eye opening. I love this book. And so I reached out and I said, I love that book and I would love to talk to someone about it. And another person said to the person, oh, you ought to start a book club about this, because she was a former librarian at byu.

Starting the Mormonish Podcast

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:08:53] You know where this is going?

Landon Brophy [01:08:54] You know where this is going.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:08:56] Who is this?

John Dehlin [01:08:57] I just don't know.

Landon Brophy [01:08:59] So it was Rebecca Bibliotheca. And she said, I'll start a book club if anyone will.

John Dehlin [01:09:06] That's so fun.

Landon Brophy [01:09:07] If someone will help me out with it. So me and another guy from California both said, hey, we'll help. And so we started a book club.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:09:21] But can I just say the first message? Because then we kind of jumped off Reddit and into messengers. We're all talking, trying to put this together. Thing that Landon said is, this is amazing. I'm all alone. I have no one to talk to. And that's when we thought, wow, this will be more than a book club, because how many other people are all alone with no one to talk to? And again, finding community, forming community, which is, you know, what John is all about. But yeah, it's as simple as that. Strangers meeting on Reddit and saying, let's kind of put something together. A zoom meeting where people could just meet and talk. So that is. So if you hadn't heard it before, that is how Landon and I first connected anonymously on Reddit. I'm not saying talk to every stranger, but in this case, it worked out.

Landon Brophy [01:10:05] What year around. What year was this?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:10:06] That would have been 20.

Landon Brophy [01:10:08] Wasn't it right before COVID Yeah, I

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:10:10] think it was right before COVID It

Landon Brophy [01:10:11] was right before COVID Exactly. Covid happened right after we started it.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:10:15] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [01:10:16] And so, yeah, we started the book club and we came up with a slogan. Basically, now we know what we don't know, let's find out what now we know what we don't believe. Let's find out what we do believe. And so we would read books that they weren't Mormon books. We just read books about science, space, geography. We read things to learn about things that we always learned through a Mormon lens. You'd learn evolution. No, that didn't really happen. And so we'd read a book about evolution, and then we talk about it and how our Mormon backgrounds had skewed that and what we believe now and how we believed it and how our beliefs had changed. And we ended up, you know, we're in our sixth year now with the book club.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:11:04] And do you think. Do you want to tell the story of our very first meeting? Because I think that's a great one. Or do you want me to tell you?

Landon Brophy [01:11:09] No, go ahead.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:11:11] Here's the part where I take over Landon's episode, Right? No, I mean, like I said, we just, you know, we put the word out, does anybody want to join with us to read books? About 15 people zoomed in that first zoom. We just shared the link. It's a zoom meeting. And we're all kind of introducing ourselves. All these people we still know. We're still friends with core group there. And then this one. This one video was very dark. You know, we're kind of meeting everybody, and we said, hi. You know, kind of read the name. We couldn't really tell who this person was. And she said, you know, I have to be quiet. I'm in my closet. My family's getting ready for church outside, but I really need this. And she started to cry. I mean, it makes us emotional when we talk about it, because we're like, wow, this is so needed. And it's a serious thing. It's not just going to be a light book club. It's going to be something. It's going to be a community, and it's going to help people.

John Dehlin [01:12:04] Yeah, that's beautiful.

Landon Brophy [01:12:06] We started reading the books. We started taking. We take drives places to see some of the stuff in the book where some of it happened and stuff on different books we read. And we just got a good group of friends and a good community that came from it. And so one of the people that was in that book club was Steve Pynaker. He tried to join. Well, isn't that funny?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:12:29] He contacted us and he said, hey, I'm an evangelical. Is it okay if I jump into your book club? And it was right when he was starting his podcast, and I think he was networking. Right. He was just like, hey, I want to connect. Connect with Mormons. So we met Steve at that point.

Landon Brophy [01:12:41] Yeah. And we're going, who Is this guy, why does an evangelical want to come to our book club? But he came and joined and he saw what we were doing and he asked Rebecca to come onto his podcast, which was just starting out. And Rebecca went on, and she went on and she started co hosting with him kind of on and off. But as soon as she went on, I was just like, wow, you are really good at this. You are a natural. And Steve is kind of, you know, he says it's Switzerland of Mormonism or whatever, but. So Rebecca could never say anything too negative or too one sided without it having to be challenged and brought back in. And I said, you know, you really need to start your own. Your own podcast. And she said, I don't know how to do that. And she said, I can't do that alone. And she said, I'll do it if you'll do it with me. And I'm like, I don't have any skill at doing this. I don't know the first thing about podcasting, but I said, you're really good. We need to find a way to do it. So we worked it out. We figured out how to do it. We turned on a microphone and we started talking and we started, you know, Mormonish.

John Dehlin [01:13:59] Was that 2012?

Landon Brophy [01:14:01] No, no, this would have been.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:14:03] We're going into our fourth year.

Landon Brophy [01:14:04] Yeah.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:14:05] So the book club ran for a couple of years.

John Dehlin [01:14:07] Sorry, 2022.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:14:08] Yeah, the book club went for a little while and then. That's exactly.

John Dehlin [01:14:11] That's what I meant.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:14:12] Steve did discover me. You know, people do. That's kind of a running joke. I know, it's very funny, but it. But it's true. We just turned on a camera and we turned on a mic and we had so much, many topics that we wanted to hit, you know, so many things. And we met so many people and, you know, it's a whirlwind. It really is. Over 300 episodes, you know, But Landon saying he doesn't know how to do this. I mean, he is a driving force behind more monition. The irony, of course, is that because of his job and international travel for the last year or so, he hasn't been able to be actually on camera, which is why it's so funny. We're here talking about excommunication. He has not been able to be the president that he was for the first two years, ironically. But, you know, he's always behind the scenes doing things, and, you know, he's a huge part of it.

John Dehlin [01:14:57] I'll just say. I remember meeting y' all at One of the two thrives at the Salt Palace. I'm pretty sure that was before you started Mormon. Ish.

Landon Brophy [01:15:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:15:06] While you were doing the book club.

Landon Brophy [01:15:08] Yeah. I met you at the very first. The big Salt palace one that you did. I came to that one.

John Dehlin [01:15:16] One.

Landon Brophy [01:15:16] And then I think you came to

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:15:18] one the next year.

Landon Brophy [01:15:19] The next year.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:15:20] And we all connected. Yeah.

Landon Brophy [01:15:22] And yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:23] So that was fun. And then I remember y' all coming here to the studio when you were. I think it was right when you were telling me you were going to start Mormonish. Yeah, that was so. That was fun.

Landon Brophy [01:15:32] And you were a big supporter in that. And eventually RFM and Bill, everyone was, you know, very helpful.

John Dehlin [01:15:40] Y' all are up to how many subscribers on YouTube now?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:15:42] We're like around 14,000. We're not huge, but. No, no, no.

John Dehlin [01:15:46] Breaking 10,000 is a big deal. Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:15:49] It's been a really fun journey. And everyone is so supportive.

John Dehlin [01:15:52] I mean, well, people watch you guys all the time. Tell everybody what Mormonish is. And also, we should talk about the Mormon Mormon newscast.

Landon Brophy [01:16:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:01] Because that's also.

Landon Brophy [01:16:02] That came. That came about. Yeah. After. So. So Mormonish, we started out, one of the things that we wanted to do, our tagline is living a joyful life on the other side of Mormonism, because we said, we want to look at. How can you. You know, the book club was one of the things that we were going, you know, this. You join and you get community, and you start doing these things, and it's. That's how you can cope with this. You got to find a way to find joy, because it. It can be crushing when you leave. And so we were trying to find a way that we could, you know, help build community and try to have kind of a more fun podcast type thing, as opposed to taking all the serious things. And obviously, you can't hit Mormonism without hitting serious topics, but we tried to have fun with it.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:16:48] Well, and can I just say, of course, that was our goal at the beginning. We're gonna. And we interviewed a lot of people. What are you doing now? And what are you finding? But then, right as we started, two things happened. Tim Ballard and the sec. And at that point, we're like, okay, enough of fun. I have something to say about both of these, you know, and that really is what launched Mormonish, is that every day there was something, you know, that we wanted to bring up and hold the church, you know, to task and to talk about the SEC and talk about what was happening with Tim Ballard. And so while we still have that motto, wouldn't you say? We do, Landon. There are other things that we need to deal with and talk about before we can have a joyful life on the other side of Mormonism. Right. So, yeah, it kind of became, you know, a mix of, well, like you are, John, you know, human interest and stories, but also, you know, when things happen. And I discovered probably a little more than Landon, that I love the news, I love, you know, the stories and the things that happen every day. So I kind of turned that into our focus and then Temple building, right? Yeah, I can say that. About a year into Mormon ish, somebody from Cody, someone who was a viewer of Mormonists, reached out and said, you know, there are these people here and they're concerned about the LDS Church building a temple and they're kind of trying to organize. Would you just talk to them and tell them something about, you know, they're confused about what Mormons are, what they're doing, what's, you know, the very basics about Mormonism. They don't know what's happening. And Lana and I both said, well, sure, we'd be more than happy to talk to them and see. And. And as we got to know these people and see what was happening and see what they were being told by the church about temples, we thought, okay, this is kind of important. Within three weeks, somebody from Heber Valley had contacted us and said, hey, I hear you're working with Cody. Could you help consult with us and tell us more about, you know, just the Mormon Church so we can understand how we can try to work together as neighbors? You know, that was the whole thing, all these groups. Then it was Lone Mountain that contacted us, then it was Fairview. Right. And their overall point of talking to us, wouldn't you agree, Landon, was we want to work it out altogether. We want to be good neighbors. We want them to feel included. I'm sure we can work this out. We're all God fearing Christian people. Well, if you followed us for the last couple years, it didn't always work out that way. And unfortunately a lot of the people in these towns, after going through it with what the church has done in their temple building, they now say, you know, I didn't really know what Mormons were before, which is why they talk to us. And then they say, but I do now. And that's not a positive thing that they're saying. So I would say temple building kind of became our thing and we started to collaborate with Nemo and, you know, that was very exciting. But along the way. And I think you'd agree, Landon, just meeting people, meeting people that we have on the show, meeting viewers, meeting listeners, meeting people we collaborate with, meeting other scholars, bringing them on. I mean, it's so rewarding and it's beyond anything that we ever thought it would be.

Landon Brophy [01:19:52] Yeah, we've met some wonderful people doing this.

John Dehlin [01:19:56] So I'll just say I've been around quite a bit. A long time, 21 years or more. And, you know, y' all really are between Mormonish and you and the Mormon newscast with RFM and Bill Real. And I'll add, generally unquotable Megan, we just had her on.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:20:14] She's amazing.

John Dehlin [01:20:15] Yeah. Between you, between those assets, that's where most ex Mormons and liberal Mormons get their Mormon news. It's really remarkable. And y' all are doing a fantastic job. And by the way, over 10,000 YouTube viewers subscribers is not a small deal. It's a huge feat. So y' all are.

Landon Brophy [01:20:37] Rebecca spends a lot of time looking through news articles. But you know what the amazing thing is, is that most of the. Not a lot of the sources that we get are faithful members.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:20:48] Exactly.

Landon Brophy [01:20:49] Who call up and say, I'm seeing something I don't like. And whistleblowers. Yeah, they're whistleblowers.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:20:56] They are whistleblowers. But we feel lucky in that they will contact us and say, I know I can trust you guys if I give you this. This letter that my state gave us. I just feel like somebody needs to know about this because this doesn't sit well with me. And I know if I give it to Mormonish, and actually if they gave it to any of the other groups, I know that we can trust you. You're going to redact names, you're going to present it in the spirit in which it was sent, but you're also going to make the point that they can't make themselves. So it's true. And that's what's so funny about this whole excommunication which we'll get, is that our sources are faithful. Our content, you know, that we take, you know, here's something from the church's site. Here's something from the handbook. You know, we are not going to anti Mormon. You know, we are using the church's information and then just kind of talking about it and diving in. So let's face it, as we all do. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:49] It's not lies that are the most dangerous, threatening things to the church. It's the truth.

Landon Brophy [01:21:55] Yes, that's it. And that's what you learn real fast. Because. Because in most cases, we're not saying the church is doing something that is against that. We're saying to do something against the church's doctrine. We're saying, church, you're not following your own doctrine or your own policies. That's where we have the problem. What you're teaching us is different than how you're behaving. And when I say that, I'm talking about the corporate overlying church because the church members and I say this all the time. When people always say, well, the gospel is perfect, but the people aren't. And by gospel they mean the church. I see it the opposite way. It's the imperfect people that are the beautiful part of the church. It's the church and its unability to admit that it's not perfect. That is what causes, is what causes the problems for me. So I guess we can get to the.

Receiving the Excommunication Notice

John Dehlin [01:22:59] Okay, so. Yeah, let me just establish this. So you've been doing Mormonish for four years, correct? Yeah. And in the past few years, you, Landon, have had to kind of decrease.

Landon Brophy [01:23:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:11] So you'd come on and let's just say in the past six months, how many times a month would you appear?

Landon Brophy [01:23:17] Maybe once, maybe twice a month.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:23:19] I would say like maybe once.

Landon Brophy [01:23:21] About once a month.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:23:23] Yeah. Where it used to be, every time it was the two of us interviewing

Landon Brophy [01:23:26] someone for 200 and something episodes. I was there all the time for 18 months.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:23:29] In fact. People were like, where's Landon? You know, and I'll bring somebody else on. So it is very unusual because he has a very low profile right now simply because of work. That's the only reason, you know, but he's not been seen on camera very rarely for 18 months.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] And not to call attention to this, but as far as I understand, Rebecca, you're still a member of record, correct?

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:23:49] As far as I know I am. I mean, for all I know, I got a letter somewhere, but I do not believe so. And you know, Landon and I do say, because we have, of course, like you do, people that kind of go after you. We're like, but I am a member. We do mention that, you know, and both of us, for different reasons chose not to remove our records for various family reasons or whatever. And Landon will talk about that. But we do mention on the podcast I am a member, especially when somebody calls us out. And so perhaps that's something along the lines of confusion. You know, we've heard that a lot. Maybe it's confusing if I'm sitting up There looking like a nice Mormon primary teacher, sounding like a Mormon primary teacher.

John Dehlin [01:24:28] I do see some shoulders, but I guess in 2020, it doesn't matter.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:24:31] Do you know what's funny? When I started the podcast, because I was respecting confusion and I thought, I probably do sound like a primary teacher and look like a primary teacher, I made sure that I always wore a sleeveless shirt so that somebody. When I would be on Steve's program, I was trying to be kind.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] You were dog whistling.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:24:47] Because on Steve's show, you know, we got along, we had a great time, but every once in a while, I would have to say something, you know, that. Then his viewers would say, she looks really nice and sweet, but sometimes she says horrible things. That's what they would say. But now, of course, everybody can wear sleeves. So I don't know what I need to do now to make myself look like a post Mormon. But, yeah, it's interesting. I was gonna say one more thing. Another reason that we, with struggle started Mormon ish, is because Landon and I, I'm 60, Landon's 57. We wanted to preserve and maintain the things that we were taught and what, you know, what the church was for us. Because, as you know, there's a lot of gaslighting going on where they're saying, well, that never happened. We always wore crosses. We always. And we wanted to say, no, I'm a person of a certain age and I would like to, on tape, preserve the way that it was. So that was another kind of overarching principle, I think. Wouldn't you say, Landon?

Landon Brophy [01:25:40] Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:44] Okay. So you're fading into the Mormonish, you know, distance because of work. You're thinking, you know, Rebecca's got this. I'll help out when I can. You probably weren't expecting to hear from your bishop or stake president.

Landon Brophy [01:25:59] No, I wasn't, because I haven't been to church for seven years, you know, so. So I'm getting on an airplane to fly to Italy.

John Dehlin [01:26:09] This is just a few weeks ago.

Landon Brophy [01:26:11] No, this was in the fall. In the fall.

John Dehlin [01:26:14] Okay.

Landon Brophy [01:26:15] Yeah, I go every fall or so.

John Dehlin [01:26:17] 20, 25.

Landon Brophy [01:26:18] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:26:18] Okay.

Landon Brophy [01:26:19] Yeah. So I'm getting on an airplane. I hook up to the WI FI on the plane and I get a voicemail popped in. And so this is on November 1st. So I. I listened to the voicemail, and it's the bishop who I grew up in. In the ward with. He grew up in the same ward as me. Yeah, in Kaysville. So I knew the bishop. I didn't know he was the bishop because I haven't been to church in seven years. But he's evidently the bishop because he introduces himself as Bishop, you know, with his last name. And so I'm going, why would he be calling me? And I went, oh, it's November, New bishop tithing settlement. He wants me to report whether I, you know, did my, whether I'm a full tithe payer or not, even though he knows I'm not because I haven't paid anything, you know, so I've been in a bishopric, I know what they do, you know, I'm like, it's none of his business whether I paid my tithing, you know, So I didn't call back, I didn't respond. I've kind of like, you know, the funny thing is if he'd have just called and used his name, I'd have called him right back. But when he said, this is Bishop, then I'm like, okay, this is a church related thing. And I'm, I'm not interested in that. So I thought, okay, it's tithing settlement. So nothing happened. Never heard back. Come January, in January, I got another phone call from the bishop and he's left a voicemail message and he said, I'm not sure this is your phone. And I'm like, well, it says this is Landon's phone, you know, so it's pretty obvious it's my phone. But I, I, I'm like, okay, now I know this is probably about, they're going to try to discipline me because there's no other reason for him to get a hold of me. I'm like, I, I'm not going to play this game. I'm not going to give. They, they don't have the authority to summon me anywhere because I don't belong to their church. This authority that they're claiming is nothing to me. I've turned away from it. I'm not going to give them the authority. And it's interesting because went to Italy and I went there for work, but I got to go to Pompeii. And I'm walking around Pompeii and there's all these statues to all these different gods. And I went, huh, I wonder what happened to all these gods. You know, these were clearly powerful people or powerful entities in these people's lives, and yet they're all gone. Why are they all gone? They're gone because everyone stopped believing in them. And I said, if you don't believe in them, you don't give them. They have no power. And So I said, that's what I'm going to do. I'm just not going to give the church any, any power by not believing in any of the things that, you know, I don't believe they have the power to do anything to me. So unfortunately, my birthday came up and my neighbor, who was the bishop that I had had the three hour conversation with, called me. He shares the same birthday, we went to the same mission and have the same birthday. He texts me and said, happy birthday. And, and I was like, oh, you know, I responded back in a neighborly way, unfortunately. And I can't say this for sure, so I apologize if I'm wrong in this, but I hadn't heard for years from them. So I think he was checking that my phone number still worked so that he could report back that now that's his number. So I, it was a couple weeks later and I come home on a Friday and there's a registered mail that you've missed a registered mail. And it was taped to my door. And I said, okay, I'll go. It said you had to pick it up in the next 24 hours. Well, this was on Friday at 5:00'.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:30:28] Clock.

Landon Brophy [01:30:28] So I'm like, the post office is closed and I've got something to do. I said, I know what a registered mail from the South Stake means. I don't care. I'm not picking it up. I don't, I don't care. So I didn't pick it up. I, I just kept, went off, did my thing. So it was probably five weeks later, I get another letter in the mail and I'm like, oh, this probably my excommunication letter. So I opened it up. It was not my excommunication letter. I guess because they couldn't because I didn't respond to the, to the registered mail. They sent me a letter just in the regular mail, which I'm like, well, why didn't you just do that in the first place? And then I would have got it, you know. So they, they sent me that first letter and read it. Yeah, I'm going to read that. Let me make sure I got the first one. And I don't know, the first thing that really surprised me is, you know, this letter has come up and it's right during the time that you're being sued for, you know, that we don't know. We can't tell whose Mormon stories is versus anyone else. And they sent me a paper, it's got no markings on it.

John Dehlin [01:31:45] Hold it up.

Landon Brophy [01:31:46] It's got no markings, no letterhead. No letterhead. It's just a plain piece of paper. And even the envelope they sent. If you see the envelope they sent, just a Syracuse, Utah steak written in handwritten.

John Dehlin [01:32:02] I've never seen that before. All the letters I've seen had stationary. Church stationary.

Landon Brophy [01:32:07] Yeah. I was like, okay, what's this? So I open it up and I'll read it. The very first thing that stuck out to me is they couldn't even spell out brother. They called me bro. So, Bro Landon Brophy. Okay, so I'm supposed to spell out the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but you can't spell out brother. So, Bro Landon Brophy. We have made several attempts to reach you to discuss the matter referenced below, but have not been able to connect. For that reason, we are writing to invite you, via this letter to meet with the Stake Presidency to discuss next steps. This kind of. First off, you know, we haven't been able to connect with you. They've been trying since November 1st. You know, this is now. When did I get this? April 1st part of April.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:32:57] Yeah, because they gave you a week.

Landon Brophy [01:32:59] I'm a block away from the bishop. He knows where I live. He can come over and say, hey, dude, we're going to excommunicate you. I need some information from you. I mean, that's fine. That wouldn't bother me, but everything has to be done impersonally. And I'm going, what sense does this make? If you're, you know, the church leader, shouldn't you be going out and saying, you know, visiting or talking to a person, not just sending formal letters. And, you know, the voicemails that were left just said, please contact me. They didn't say what it was about or anything like that. So they're inviting me to the Stake Presidency to discuss next steps, and I'm going. Next steps of what? I don't have any steps I want to take. This isn't so it says a Stake President Presidency membership Council will be held on your behalf. I appreciate that. That it's on my behalf. On Thursday, April 16th at 10am at the stake center, and then they give the address. The council will take place in the Stake President's office. If you need to change the appointment time, please let your bishop or President Franklin know. The purpose of this council is to consider concerns of apostasy regarding statements you have repeatedly made publicly, including through your podcast, in clear and deliberate public opposition to the doctrines, policies and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So when I Got that. I'm like, okay, that's true. I guess that's true. If, you know, the policies that I'm talking. Policies or doctrines that they're talking about are child sexual abuse temples that are being built, not following local zoning codes. You know, Tim Ballard, I thought they agreed with me on Tim Ballard. After it all came down to it, they ended up excommunicating him. You know, all the things we cover On Mormonish, the November 15th policy, that was one I spoke out against. But they tend to agree with me on that one too, so. But if that's what they want to say.

John Dehlin [01:35:11] So the things they were calling out, likely as being reasons for your excommunication, you are proud for the position you had taken.

Landon Brophy [01:35:19] Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. It didn't bother me at all. And the other thing is, when you listen to this, it says that it's in clear and deliberate public opposition to the doctrine, policies and leaders of the church.

John Dehlin [01:35:33] That's new.

Landon Brophy [01:35:34] They didn't say anything I said was untrue. They didn't say that it was in opposition to the teachings of Christ.

John Dehlin [01:35:40] Christ. That's true.

Landon Brophy [01:35:41] It's that I wasn't following the leaders. And okay, I agree. I have a big problem with how they're using tithing funds and investing in malls and stuff, if that is that the doctrines we're talking about. Do we talk about the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Yes, we do, but the church's own historians, you know, are saying that these are problematic.

John Dehlin [01:36:07] Richard Bushman says it's a 19th century documentary. Yep. Yeah.

Landon Brophy [01:36:10] Yep. So, so. But I, I'm like, okay, if that's what they want to claim, I, I'm. I guess I, I'm okay with that. You are invited to attend the council to share your perspective. You may also submit written statements from individuals who may provide relevant information with prior approval from the stake president. You may invite others to attest and speak on your behalf. So I have to call and get permission of anyone that I'm going to use. Use to speak on my behalf. And I'm just like, okay, I've seen what happened in your court. I've seen what happened in Bill's court, Natasha's court. I'm like, I know what this means. They get to say who I bring. They get to. I'm like, I want no part of this.

John Dehlin [01:36:57] It's a kangaroo court.

Landon Brophy [01:36:59] A kangaroo court is exactly what I called it. And this is the funny part. Well, there's a lot of funny parts. But he said, we ask that all who attend respect the sacred and confidential nature of the Council and comply with its procedures. Please note that legal counsel and additional supporters beyond those approved may not be present. So I'm going, okay? I'm supposed to respect the sacredness of this. When you hold all the cards, you tell me how it's going to go and you've already made a decision. And I'm supposed to respect that with some sort of sacredness and see it as holy? You may see it as holy, but I didn't ask for this. I'm not asking you to do anything on my behalf. You guys are choosing to do this. And when they tell you that they love you but don't bring your legal counsel, that's always a problem. So then he says, our hope is that this process will be conducted in a spirit of love, respect and concern for your spiritual well being. Now, I'm fine with my spiritual well being. I'm happy where I'm at. I feel like I've got answers to the questions that they couldn't answer. Answer for me. I'm at peace with where I'm at. Why do they have to call me in for my spiritual well being when I'm, when I don't have a problem? I think it's more for their well being than it is for my well being. So, you know, don't, don't gaslight me with, with your letter. And then it says, you know, Syracuse South Stake President Richard Franklin. Now notice President got spelled out all the way, bro. Did not. So that clearly tells you, you know, what their pecking order, what their pecking order is. They're going to make sure president gets his full title spelled out. So I got this. I knew that this was going to happen on the 16th of April. But you know, just like I said about the gods, that if you give them no power. And so I decided that's how I was going to approach it. I'm not even going to respond to this letter. They have no power to call me in. They can call in their wizard's counsel and do whatever they want, but it doesn't affect me. I haven't been to their church in seven years. They're going to kick me out of a church I haven't been to in seven years. And they're going to do it on a Thursday at 10:00am all these guys are taking the day off work to come and send me to hell, I guess. And I know why they did it Thursday at 10am because they've seen what happened with Natasha and others where, you know, people come out and support them. And I didn't want that. So it wouldn't have mattered whether they did it at night or day, because I'm like, I'm not even. I'm not even responding to this. So I didn't. I never sent them the letter. They went ahead and had the court and.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:39:49] Can I just say, you ended up driving past the church. You said, just because you were running an errand.

Landon Brophy [01:39:54] I was running an errand. And I went, oh, it's close to 10. I'll see if anyone's there. And, you know, there are a couple trucks in the parking lot, and they have one guy parked back under a tree. I was wondering if he was, like, security, because he was in his truck for sure. Yeah. So it was.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:40:08] If I can just say to me, you know, first of all, we didn't want to know when it was, because even that kind of puts them in your brain. But we opened that letter thinking that it was the final result. Otherwise, we would not have even opened. Although you did say, Landon, that you looked in the mirror at exactly 10am on the 16th and you felt like the light might have been away.

Landon Brophy [01:40:30] I could see it leave my eyes right there.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:40:32] But what's interesting, you know, I mean, we're talking in a lighter tone about it, you know, and you, of course, say this has no effect on you. But to me, you know, three men, as you said, take off work. They go and they sit in a room, they talk about someone they don't know. Maybe they showed some clips from the podcast. I don't know what they did, but they. You don't believe it, but they do. They believe that they're stripping you of your family forever. They are taking away your eternity. They believe it 100%, and they're willing to do it. I mean, that's the thing. You give it no power, but they're willing to do it. And who does it hurt? It hurts. Who does it hurt, Landon?

Landon Brophy [01:41:13] It hurts my mother. It hurts my family, my brothers and sisters who do believe it, but it doesn't hurt me. So it hurts me that it's hurting my family, but my family is believers, and so they're trying to hurt my family. And like I said, the bishop grew up in the ward with me, so he knows all my brothers and sisters and my mom. My dad's passed away now, so I'm going. This makes no sense. That these guys are going to get together to kick me out of a church that I've already left. Is their intent Simply to hurt my family. Is that what their intent is, the true believers? I can't say what their intent was. I believe at this point that you can say, oh, it was just local leaders. It seems kind of coincidental that this happened at the same time as you were getting your. That they were gonna sue you all. I think the same week is when it happened. So one month after Ochs took over.

John Dehlin [01:42:14] So didn't Oaks make some statement last year that we need to step up the excommunications?

Landon Brophy [01:42:20] Yep.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:42:20] Yeah, there was a whole slideshow. It was training. RFM showed it and then they had him take it. So not only did he call for Morex Communications before he was made the Prophet, but the first thing that he did, his first address at BYU after being the Prophet, specifically mentioned podcasts and specifically mentioned. Don't listen to this information, only talk to members, well informed members who can give you the right answers. So to me, those two things, maybe I'm a conspiracy theorist, but the fact that both of you in the same month, right after, after he was made the profit, and these more excommunications and a statement directly against podcasting, I do wonder if it's a tip of an iceberg kind of a thing. I do wonder if it's related.

Landon Brophy [01:43:00] Yeah, it's like you said, you can't get in their brain. But it just seems coincidental that the timing on that was. And even if did Salt Lake call and say do this or did the stake president hear the that talk and say, ah, I got one of them in my ward, I'm going to or stake. I'm going to take care of this.

John Dehlin [01:43:22] Also, y' all have been making noise about the Wade Kristofferson stuff.

Landon Brophy [01:43:25] We have.

John Dehlin [01:43:26] I have. Right.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:43:27] Yeah. See, and that's a timing thing too. All of this with you, Landon and John all within the same week, 10 day period when all the information on D. Todd Kristofferson, member of the first presidency's brother Wade, you know, was arrested for alleged csa. So it does make you, if you're conspiracy minded, are they trying to shut down?

Church Accountability and Child Sexual Abuse Concerns

Landon Brophy [01:43:46] I got that first phone call before anything Wade happened.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:43:50] But November.

Landon Brophy [01:43:52] Yeah, November 1st is when I got

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:43:54] it was still kind of all in the works though, if you think about it.

Landon Brophy [01:43:57] So it's possible that they knew about that as well. But you know, to me it doesn't matter. We've covered Rebecca every week on the newscast. There is a one to two CSA story every single week or more, and we've been hitting that pretty hard. That this is unacceptable in any organization. And I think what really got me upset was when they're suing you, and I'm looking at these law firms that they have hundreds of lawyers. They've got hundreds of lawyers, and they can't come up with a policy or a program to get rid of the CSA within the church. I mean, we did a podcast just two weeks ago where we compared the excommunication of Wade Christofferson with Lavina Anderson. And for those who don't know Lavina Anderson, she was one of September 6th and was excommunicated from exposing the abusers. Abuse of the academics, basically. It was academic abuse and all sorts of abuse, actually. And, yeah, how they used their leadership to do that. But she never became unfaithful. Even when she got excommunicated, she continued to go to church. And she went to church for 30 years. And then her stake president and bishop wanted to. They said, all right, you've been going for 30 years. This is enough. Let's get you rebaptized. And they held a. I don't know what you hold. Whatever the opposite of a court of love is. I guess they had a court of hate to bring her back. I don't know. But they had that. And they all said, yeah, you need to come back. And then they submitted it to the First Presidency. Rejected. So someone after 30 years for. She was excommunicated for apostasy is not going to be let back in the church. And they. In fact, she died, and her son went and said, I want to have her rebaptized. I want to do it. Do the work for her. They sent back a letter that said, okay, we've approved it, but we already took care of it. You don't need to do anything. Left him completely out of it. I mean, the way they treated her compared to Wade Christofferson, multiple CSA victims. One year and he's back in. And a couple years later, they remove any asterisk. He's in bishoprics, he's serving. I mean, really, you're telling me that a law firm the size of Curt McConkie can't get with the brethren and advise on a system that would shut this down? And in that, you know, if you don't mind me just stepping to the side one. One bit. I mean, in about five minutes, I sat down and made a list of seven things that the church could do to stop CSA in the church. And I don't know why they excommunicate someone for saying these things, but these are the people they're excommunicating. Anyone who comes up with ideas, I guess, number one, background checks for every leader and every adult who works with youth. Simple, easy to do. Most churches do this. No priest penitence privilege for csa. This protects both the church leader and the child. Because if someone comes and tells you that they're abusing a child and you're the bishop, I can't imagine a person who wouldn't want to step up and say, I'm protecting that child. So you just say, hey, if you want. If you say you're going to do that, you are guilty of this, we're calling the cops. Number three, all leaders who work with youth are mandatory reporters and contact law enforcement first before notifying the church. Everyone in the church that works with children should be a mandatory reporter. And by mandatory, I'm not saying by the legal standard, but the church could say, if someone tells you that they're being abused used, you call the police. You don't call the bishop, you don't call the stake president. You call the police and let them work it out. Because they have the tools to figure out whether or not it's happening and they have the tools to stop it if it's happening. Anyone confessing or convicted of CSA is excommunicated for life. They're going to ex. Do you think you'd ever be allowed back in? I don't see any chance that they're letting you back in. But someone who CSA one year and you're back in.

John Dehlin [01:48:38] If they're excommunicated at all.

Landon Brophy [01:48:40] If they're excommunicated.

John Dehlin [01:48:41] A lot of times I reckon that the majority of child abusers in the Mormon Church have never been excommunicated.

Landon Brophy [01:48:47] Yeah, but here we are for, you know, the things that we're saying we're

John Dehlin [01:48:51] excommunicated and whistleblowing on child sexual abuse

Landon Brophy [01:48:54] for whistleblowing on these things. Anyone confessing or convicted of CSA is restricted from accessing church property. We've seen them put out those letters to people saying you can't come on church property. If you're convicted of that or you confess that you've done it, send that letter to them. You send it to the apostates, send it to the people guilty of csa. Church leaders do not serve as character witnesses in CSA cases. Why in the world would the church be out there standing as witness? And we just see the Salt Lake Tribune article yesterday and today where that exact thing is happening, where professor of mathematics was accused and the department head is Writing a letter in support of him, saying what a great guy he is. Why put church leaders in that position? Tell them you're not allowed to write a letter one way or the other. You just stay out of it because you don't know that would protect the leader and would leave the perpetrator on their own to prove their own character. And then this is a big one that I'm sure they wouldn't agree. Church pays restitution to victims for any CSA that occurs on church property or by church leaders. You know, I'm not saying if you're abused in your home and your lds, that the church is responsible, but if the church got access to the children through the church's program, then I think the church has a responsibility there. But obviously, if they incorporated these others, I think that number would be far, far less. So, you know, if I can think that up in 30 minutes and put it on a podcast, how can the church, with its hundreds of lawyers, not come up with a program?

John Dehlin [01:50:38] My opinion is, and this is just my opinion, that too many church leaders, their siblings, their children, their grandchildren, are indeed abusers. And if all those abusers had to be disqualified from serving in the church, it would be massively impactful to people available to serve in church callings.

Landon Brophy [01:51:04] That's my opinion, and I can see that. But on the other hand, how many of their children, grandchildren are basically apostates at this point? And they'll. They'll excommunicate them in a heartbeat, but they won't do the csa. It blows my mind. I can't. I can't put my finger on why they wouldn't be proactive. They say they're the gold standard.

John Dehlin [01:51:29] No, the other thing is they don't want lawsuits.

Landon Brophy [01:51:32] They don't want lawsuits.

John Dehlin [01:51:33] They don't want the. The most sacred thing to the Mormon Church, other than authority, is public relations. And they don't want the media. They don't want to be admitting that there are child sexual abusers rampant throughout the church, because then it'll get bad media exposure and it'll further damage the church.

Landon Brophy [01:51:50] I think you nailed it. I think it's all about protecting the good name of the church rather than protecting children. And so that's the kind of stuff we do on Mormonish, is we. We want to bring this up. You know, hey, here's how you can improve. Here's ways to improve.

Reflections on Excommunication and Church Authority

John Dehlin [01:52:04] In my recent interview with Doug Fabrizio, it was brought up a quote from Patrick Mason, who I love and I'm close friends with this idea that they're in the souls business and so they act and think differently because they're in the souls business. And I a little bit sarcastically said, I think they're in the business business. But more importantly I said Jesus himself said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And I think we know the churches treasure is its 300 plus billion dollars in assets and its reputation that goes along with that. So it's my opinion that the church wants to protect its assets, its power,

Landon Brophy [01:52:52] than its children's reputation.

John Dehlin [01:52:54] And that trumps children.

Landon Brophy [01:52:56] Yep, I agree 100%. That's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:53:02] Well, I think they also focus on the repentance process of the perpetrator. That is a huge focus, isn't it? Otherwise why would you let them back in so soon? And I think they ignore the other part of it, the victim. How many times have we seen, you know, ward members on the side of the perpetrator even in court. Right. Supporting. So I think this, could it almost even be virtue signaling? You know, we're going to help him repent, we know he's doing better, we know he's okay now. And it's all about the perpetrators, it's

Landon Brophy [01:53:34] about the perpetrator, nothing about the victim. And that's the problem. And that's why you could say, well you might excommunicate someone who isn't guilty. You might. But same thing with apostasy or anything else. And how often are members of the church known for saying it'll work out in the end, Jesus will take care of it in the end, you know, when we get to heaven, it'll all be sorted out. So, so if you didn't do it, maintain, keep praying to God, read your scriptures, you're just not going to do it at the church. And when you get to heaven, God will say, hey, they screwed up and you'll be fine. So it doesn't make any sense. So anyway, kind of sidetracked there.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:54:15] No, you're showing reasons why you were excommunicated right there. These are the kind of issues that we like to discuss and try to shine a spotlight on, on. And it doesn't sit well all the time.

Landon Brophy [01:54:24] Yeah, but somehow this is against the policies, doctrines of the church. And I'm saying church, you're not following your own policies and practice because children should be the number one and not child sexual abusers. So you know, the church maybe disagrees with that. So anyway, a couple weeks later I got the letter in the mail that Actually includes my excommunication letter. And I have to say I was extremely disappointed as I read it because this is a half assed communication. If you're going to excommunicate me, at least do it full ass. Don't do it half ass. It's full of misspellings. They even misspelled the name of the church in this letter. Again, a white piece of paper. It's not signed by anybody. It doesn't have church logo on it.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:55:21] It doesn't even have your whole name.

Landon Brophy [01:55:23] It doesn't even have my whole name on it.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:55:24] Row broken.

Landon Brophy [01:55:25] That's right.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:55:26] It doesn't even, you know, and they're such sticklers for names. You know, everything is very ethereum.

Landon Brophy [01:55:29] They start every blessing with your full name and stuff. And they didn't do that here. It felt like a fourth grader's book report. And it looks like a fourth grader's report. It's on, you know, it's on one piece of paper. It's a half a page. It doesn't even say anything.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [01:55:47] But somebody said you had a temu excommunication ordered. What you got?

Landon Brophy [01:55:52] That's right. So I'll read through this, but I'll say I was actually as I went through this. The gaslighting that is occurring in this letter is exactly the reason that I'm no longer in the church. It just, it just shows me that they're, you know, what they're how they act on everything. So it starts out dear Bro. Brophy, again, they couldn't spell my. Spell out the whole thing. So Dear Bro. Brophy, which I thought was kind of interesting because all my brothers are Bro Brophy as well. So how do I know which Bro Brophy they excommunicated? It says a stake membership council was scheduled for you on Thursday, April 16 at 10am despite multiple attempts to contact you, you were not present and the council was held in your absence. As noted in our previous communication, the council was convened due to concerns of apostate. They did misspell apostasy with a T, a C, Y. So I don't know how you overcome apostakey, but that's, that's the burden I have to bear now. So the council was convened due to concerns of apostasy related to multiple podcast episodes in direct contradiction to the principles and doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They didn't capitalize the. And they left out the hyphen in Latter Day Saints. And so anyone who knows how marks go as we've learned so much in this lawsuit with John. They're important. If you leave out the hyphen, that's a different church. That's actually the Strangite church or the Strangite church owns that. That's why the church had to put that hyphen in there. So it sounds like I've been excommunicated from the Strangite Church because they did not spell it right. And of course there's no letterhead. So I have no way of knowing which church it is that excommunicated me. After prayerful consideration and a review of the information, we inform you that your membership has been withdrawn from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints effective April 16, 2026. I thought that was interesting because I got this, like, at the end of April. So I don't know what happens to anyone I gave blessings to that were healed between the 16th and the time because this is retroactive. So I guess any blessing would not. Would not apply. And that person would have to get sick again. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:58:14] Know.

Landon Brophy [01:58:15] Please know that membership councils are intended to be an expression of the Savior's love and an invitation to repentance and healing. I don't have anything that we've said on our show that I feel that I owe anyone any repentance for. And I don't know what they're talking about with healing, because I ain't hurt, you know, I'm fine with this. It doesn't hurt me. I don't care. I don't have any healing to do. But somehow they assume that I must have healing to do. The Lord loves you and we love you. I've never met any of these three men. We could pass each other in the store. I would have no idea who they were, but somehow they love me. They didn't love me enough in seven and a half years to stop by my house and talk to me and express any of their concerns. They only did it through mail and through phone calls where I have to come in their office. It's like they're hiding behind something that they can't come. I can't help but think the church requires their leaders to have a penis, but they don't require them to have any balls because none of them would come and talk to me and sit down and address my concerns because they know I'm dangerous, because they know the information that I know and they're afraid to come and talk to me about it. So I really have no sympathy for that. They say the door is Always open as you turn to him and follow the path of repentance. There is a way forward and a place for you in his church. Is there really? I doubt that. And the door is always open. I said, anytime in seven years, come and answer my questions. Nobody wanted to deal with it. Nobody wanted to ask the question. But now, because they've excommunicated me, they've opened the door. Like they've now all of a sudden got the answers. We encourage you to continue to pray to your Heavenly Father, seek Jesus Christ and study his words as you do so with humility. Of course, they put it back on me that it's. I'm not studying with humility. That's why I don't get it. The Holy Ghost will bring clarity, peace, and answers to your questions. I went to other bishops. I went. My mom set me up with a institute teacher. When I told her what was happening, I talked to anyone that the Church would give me. They didn't have answers. I found answers. I'm at peace. I know what I know. And I know that the Church does not have the truth that they claim that they have. So I don't. I don't need to pray. I don't need to stop by and see them. I have the answers, but they assume that I must not because they met and decided that for me. If you desire to meet, talk, or receive guidance at any time, we would welcome that opportunity and stand ready to help. Seven years. Nobody was ready to have a discussion on this. If you wish to appeal this decision, you may do so within 30 days by writing a letter to the First Presidency. Please provide your letter to the stake President who will submit it on your behalf. Evidently, I have to go through them for anything. Any appeal should clearly state any concerns regarding the procedure or decision. Of course, they didn't provide any information of what they used to do this or anything. So I don't know how I would even begin to write it other than you excommunicated me from the wrong church.

John Dehlin [02:01:58] Church.

Landon Brophy [02:01:59] And it's not signed. Amazingly, in order to resign from the Church, you have to have notary public notary signature. But they can communicate, excommunicate you and send you to hell with no. Without even a signature yet. They love me. It's just kind of hard to believe, but. So they sent that to me. Actually, they sent two letters, one registered mail, one regular mail to make sure that I knew I was excommunicated. And so I guess I'm now part of the club.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:02:35] Well, can I just say when we knew this had happened, I said to Landon, oh, how's my favorite excommunicant? And what did you say back?

Landon Brophy [02:02:44] I said, I'm an excommunican because now I can do a whole lot of things that I wasn't allowed to do as a member of the church.

John Dehlin [02:02:52] Normally, those letters say you're not allowed to wear your garments anymore and you're not allowed to pay tithing.

Landon Brophy [02:02:58] Not a problem. I stopped that seven years ago.

John Dehlin [02:03:01] Did that letter say those?

Landon Brophy [02:03:02] It doesn't say I can't pay tithing, evidently. Maybe you can still wear tithe.

John Dehlin [02:03:06] It's such a ridiculous thing to write in a letter. No more garments, no more tithing, no more tithing.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:03:13] Well, there was a lot of suspicion over this letter. Even RFM keeps saying, this is a prank. This. This is not real. You know, simply because, you know, of sort of the lackadaisical way in which it was presented. No signatures. You know, the wrong name of the church spelled out apostasy misspelled. And so I reached out to a stake president friend of mine just to say, how is the letter supposed to look? What is it supposed to be? And he said that there used to be a more specific guideline for these letters, and it has since sort of been relaxed, kind of pushed down to the level that they can kind of do what they want. So in this particular person's stake, where he's the stake president, he created or had his clerk create letterhead and, you know, making it look more official, but it really is up to individual stakes. And he said the template used to be more specific, perhaps mentioning those things like what you just said, John. But now it's just sort of, make sure you tell them what happened, add some encouraging words. So it really is, again, pushed down to that lower level, which I think is by design, because the answer is always, oh, no, it's not us, the institutional church. It is the leaders, the local leaders. Local leaders. So we thought, okay, well, maybe these leaders who did this, we don't want to disparage them as far as education level. Maybe they couldn't write the letter. But you know, me, I had to look them up. And they're like directors of engineering firm, things like that, so they probably should know how to put a letter together. But it is interesting and it is real. We do know that because Landon did recognize the voice of the bishop, you know, so that actually happened. But I can see why RFM still thinks that it may not be real.

Landon Brophy [02:04:51] Well, to me, it doesn't matter. What it says. Mormon is my culture. That's my people. That's who I grew up with. I'm still Mormon.

John Dehlin [02:05:02] Mormon.

Landon Brophy [02:05:02] And it doesn't matter what they say. I'm Mormonish, and that's the way I look at it. They can't change my culture. They can't change my people. I give them no power to do that. And since it wasn't notarized, I failed to accept it, just like they do.

Emotions, Identity, and Moving Forward

John Dehlin [02:05:20] Landon, is there any part of you that's sad or disappointed?

Landon Brophy [02:05:23] No, I really. It didn't bother me. I'm. Maybe it's because it's seven and a half years later. You know, maybe if they'd have done it a year after, maybe so. But at this point, I've moved past it. I know what I know. I've seen what they're doing to you with their legal. I've seen what they've done to all these towns and how they're threatening them. You know, to me, that's the dangerous part. And I said this. I've said this before. You know, what they're doing to you is the same thing they did to Jesus. In the scriptures. The Sadducees and the Pharisees were all lawyers. They kept trying to argue against Christ, and they couldn't win the arguments, but they had no power. They couldn't destroy him. In the Old Testament, they could call down fire from heaven and it would consume them. It's like, okay, do that. Call down fire. But they know they can't do that. So what did they do? They turned to the civil authorities and they used the civil authority to get rid of Jesus, and they convicted him of treason or claiming that he was the king. But it was the civil law that actually had power, and they had to turn to that power to crush Jesus. And I feel like that's the same thing that's happening to you. They're turning to the civil authorities to try to crush you because they've excommunicated you.

John Dehlin [02:06:48] You.

Landon Brophy [02:06:49] They can't argue with you. They see the impact that you just showing people's Mormon stories, which I don't see how they can make an argument. These are our Mormon stories. I grew up Mormon. The story I just told is my Mormon story. And so for them to say that you can't do that is just ridiculous. And the fact that they're suing you individually shows that this is personal. It is not. Not if you're just trying to stop trademark. You sue the company that's doing it, not individual people within the company. And so I thought it was interesting

John Dehlin [02:07:25] you mentioned that they told RFM to stop using their copyrighted material, and then they didn't sue them. But in our case, they told us to stop using their copyrighted material. We fixed everything that we knew to fix, and then they proceeded to sue me anyway.

Landon Brophy [02:07:43] To sue you? Yep. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:07:44] Yeah.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:07:45] How has your family reacted? Does anybody know or friends and family? Have you had any responses as this?

Landon Brophy [02:07:52] Well, it's Mother's Day coming up.

John Dehlin [02:07:55] Happy Mother's Day.

Landon Brophy [02:07:56] Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I think my mom knows at this point.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:08:01] Well, you were in the Tribune with a picture.

Landon Brophy [02:08:03] Yeah, I was in the Tribune.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:08:05] Apostate underneath it. That's what every mother wants.

Landon Brophy [02:08:07] So she may know. I don't know. She hasn't said anything. And, you know, what do you do? Call up mom and say, mom, I've been cut off from your family. You know, I don't know how to reach out and tell her that, but my sister and my brother both reached out and said, you're not excommunicated from being my brother. So, you know, I appreciate that support. And I agree. You know, they know the person I am. And the funny thing, you know, with mom is, you know, she's trying to figure out how I got to this point. And it's from following what she taught me to stand for. Truth. And when I see truth, I stand for it. That's what she taught me. I'm not going to run from it. It's what I've always done. And so it may not be the same truth that you have, mom, or my brothers and sisters, but I'm standing for the truth I have found and what I believe in. And that's how I find peace in my soul as I'm doing that. And I'm fine with them finding peace inside the church and that's they want to live their life. I have no problem with that.

John Dehlin [02:09:11] You know, I don't mean to bring it back to my lawsuit, but the church really tried to pressure me into changing the name of the podcast to Ex Mormon Stories or Post Mormon Stories. Do you feel like your story is an Ex Mormon story or a Post Mormon story?

Landon Brophy [02:09:26] It's a Mormon story. It's from start to finish. This is how my life happened growing up as a Mormon. Mormon. It's my Mormon experience.

John Dehlin [02:09:34] Just the past few years, you lost your faith, right?

Landon Brophy [02:09:37] Yeah, I was, what, 50? So seven years I've been out, but 50 years I was in.

John Dehlin [02:09:43] Yeah, it's a Mormon story.

Landon Brophy [02:09:44] And how can the Church say discount. I mean, we know they claim there's 18 million members, but we know there's only about 5 or 6 million that are probably attending. Or 4. Yeah, it could be down as low as 4. There's more people not. Not in agreement with them than there are in agreement who they. They themselves term as Mormon when they need to to get to their 18 million.

John Dehlin [02:10:07] Yeah.

Landon Brophy [02:10:08] But they don't want to hear the story of any of the other so.

John Dehlin [02:10:11] Good.

Landon Brophy [02:10:12] 12 million, you know.

John Dehlin [02:10:13] Yeah. There are three times as many people who the church claims as members who stopped attending or no longer affiliate.

Landon Brophy [02:10:21] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:10:21] The church will claim them as members, but then try and say that anyone that leaves is an ex Mormon.

Landon Brophy [02:10:27] Yep, that's.

John Dehlin [02:10:28] That's a really good point.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:10:30] And we've talked about this multiple times on multiple podcasts ever since the information about the suit came out. But we say things like, just because my Mormon story or Landon's or yours ended in us stepping away doesn't make it any less of a Mormon story. I mean, there are many ways to say it, but that is the entire point.

Landon Brophy [02:10:49] Yeah. And fun story here is we just came back from Italy, as you said, we went to Rome while we were there this time, and we went to the Vatican. The day after I'd gotten this, the day after the excommunication, we went to the Vatican and we went and they told us the story of the Sistine Chapel and how it got painted and Michelangelo. And it really was quite powerful to me because I just had had the court. I didn't know the result yet, but I knew they just met and I knew what they were going to say. But Michelangelo came in and he didn't want to paint the Sistine Chapel because he didn't support the Pope, because it was Pope Julian, I think was his name.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:11:41] He was a Medici.

Landon Brophy [02:11:43] I think he was a Medici, which shows you what happens when you put businessmen in charge of the church. He sold indulgences, and Michelangelo wanted nothing to do with that. And so the Pope made it very clear to Michelangelo that if he didn't paint the Sistine Chapel, he would never work again. And so he begrudgingly came and painted the Sistine Chapel. And in there, one of the kind of like the first counselor to the Pope was complaining about there being too much nudity and stuff on it. So Michelangelo painted this guy in there naked to get back at him. Michelangelo was the same as us. He saw something wrong, and he didn't shy away from it. He did a podcast for the day that is he painted the ceiling on there. He also painted himself with. God is holding his skin, and that is this church ripping him away and what they did to him. So his face is painted in the skin. And the thing I really loved that they told us was that there's a throne room where the Pope would sit. And Michelangelo painted directly above the Pope's throne room was God's ass. So every time the Pope looked up to heaven, that's what he saw. So there's ways to fight back. Even when you can be killed for it, there's ways to fight back. And Michelangelo was one of those. So I kind of laughed as I heard that story because I said, you know, I'm in good company.

John Dehlin [02:13:23] Well, I'm in good company, like, for way too many years. I felt kind of alone. Ish. Doing Mormon Stories podcast. And it's been so rewarding over the past five or 10 years to see Bill and Radio Free Mormon and Rebecca Yu and Landon and Nemo and Alyssa Grunfell and so many great collaborators, creators, friends, and I really love. As far as I'm concerned, we all get along. We all support each other. It's a beautiful community that we've. That we've built as Mormon and ex Mormon podcasters and content creators, and y' all have made a huge mark, and it just tickles me silly to see how much great work you're doing and continue to do so. Landon, I guess, I'm sorry, but also, congratulations. Welcome to the club.

Landon Brophy [02:14:16] Yeah, I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [02:14:17] And Rebecca, you're trailing behind. You're lacking.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:14:20] You know, nobody can understand that because it's so much more in the forefront than Landon is. It's possible, like rfm. I have a pseudonym, but most people know my actual name, so I don't know. I'm not sure if it might have something to do with. With, you know, the Streisand effect. It's a bad look to excommunicate a nice lady, right? No. Do you know what I mean?

Landon Brophy [02:14:46] You're too nice to excommunicate.

John Dehlin [02:14:49] They are selective. As far as I know, they haven't excommunicated Charlie Bird, even though he and his husband have announced they're gonna try and have a baby.

Landon Brophy [02:14:57] Congratulations to them.

John Dehlin [02:14:59] Yeah. As far as I know, they haven't excommunicated David I. Archuleta, even though he's come out and said he's in gay relationships and doesn't believe in the church anymore. As far as I know, they never excommunicated Dan Reynolds or Tyler Glenn. So if you're kind of famous, like Rebecca, basically.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:15:17] Yeah, that's it.

John Dehlin [02:15:18] That must be my fave. It's too radioactive. So, anyway, so, Rebecca, do you think it'll happen or do you think.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:15:27] Do you know if it does? Also, I don't live in the stake where my records are, so that may be a problem, too. But if it did, I would do the same thing, you know, that Landon did. Because that's how I feel. I mean, I've never removed my records to begin with. It was because of my parents. I mean, like you say, these little touch points for men, it's, oh, you can't give a priesthood blessing. For the rest of us, it's, oh, your name's going to disappear from that record. Record. And then your mom and your dad are going to wonder what happened and not be able to understand because they're elderly. So out of respect for them and other family members, I didn't do it. My parents had passed away. You know, there was a part of me that thought, hmm, but then I thought, I, like Landon, don't want to jump through those hoops. I don't want to, you know, give them any kind of power. So if it happens, I think we'll do the same thing, you know, that Landon did, and will I be sad. I mean, that part of my life, then a chapter, it's a door that's closed. But I'm Mormonish, just like Landon says. Just like you say, I'm Mormon.

John Dehlin [02:16:25] Ish.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:16:25] That's right. It's my culture, it's my heritage, it's my family, it's my ancestors. It's how I raise my children who are still in and many other relatives. And, you know, that's wonderful for them that it works. So I'm Mormonish and I will always remain that, whether I get a paper that doesn't have signatures or calls me.

Landon Brophy [02:16:43] I can write you Rebecca or something.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:16:46] I don't know what they're going to call me. But, yeah, none of that matters. I'm still more monition. I'm going to own it. And you've said that over and over and so has Landon and many others. And that's how I feel.

John Dehlin [02:16:56] Well, what a treat. Thank you so much for being willing. I think we were in touch just this week, but thanks for, on short notice, being willing to share your story to join the pantheon of other excommunicated apostates standing for truth and justice. I'll say it again. If you're excommunicated for apostasy in between2013 and 2026. It's because you're standing for something good. I don't know of an example. I mean, I guess Denver Schnupper, some might argue. I think Denver actually is standing for some really good things. He's basically standing for the Book of Mormon to be taken seriously and for the church to be less corrupt as a corporation. So I would even add Denver Snuffer to that list of standing for something good. So, yeah, if you're excommunicated for apostasy, you're doing something right, apparently. Anyway, good job, Landon. Thanks for coming on more stories. Keep up the good work.

Landon Brophy [02:17:55] Will do.

John Dehlin [02:17:55] And Rebecca Bibliotheca. Check out Rebecca every Monday evening around 6pm Utah time for the Mormon newscast along with Bill Real and Radio Free Mormon. And I miss being a part of

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:18:11] the newscast, but I know John was the impetus behind the whole thing. That's right. He set it up. And then he's like, I'm too busy.

John Dehlin [02:18:17] You are too busy getting sued.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:18:21] Too busy getting sued. Well, we like to report on you getting sued. So, yeah, we have a story every week. There you go.

John Dehlin [02:18:26] I provide you with the content, with the fodder anyway. And you can also check out Rebecca on Mormon Ish, which releases, what, at least an episode a week every Tuesday

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:18:35] night at 6pm Mountain Time. Do have a new episode. And then I, I try to do a lot of newsy shorts during the day because there's so much that comes out every single day, you know.

John Dehlin [02:18:45] Yeah, you've upped your shorts game.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:18:47] I've tried to do that to sort of compensate for land because we used to do two episodes a week but without Landon, you know, being able to do that. Although, who knows? Who knows?

John Dehlin [02:18:55] You need a new Landon. You need Landon 2.0.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:18:57] Maybe I should start auditioning co hosts. I don't know if anybody could ever replace Landon.

John Dehlin [02:19:02] Steve Pineker, we want you back.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:19:03] Oh, dear. Here go. We go.

John Dehlin [02:19:05] No, that's all right. So check out Mormonish. Subscribe to Mormonish. How can people donate to support you?

Closing Thoughts and How to Support the Show

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:19:12] Well, we're a nonprofit and so we always have links to donor box in our show notes, you know, so anybody can go in there and easily do that. And we are just always so overwhelmed when people do. We still can't believe that people donate to us, you know, and it just means so much and we've just had such wonderful, wonderful support. And I will say this as we're closing, when John says podcasters and content creators in the ex Mormon world behind the scenes, we are all friends and we do all support each other. As a new person just starting out, I was absolutely overwhelmed at the access to some of the bigger podcasters, the advice literally coming to our studio, John did and help set up some cameras and things. Everybody works together and that trickles down to how we feel about our viewers and our listeners. And it really is such a supportive environment, which is the opposite of what they try to say. You know, those apostates who've left, those lazy learners, it just, you know, light gone out of your eyes. It makes such a negative picture. And I have never met more supportive, wonderful people in my life than on the other side of Mormonism like that. So it's incredible. It's not, it's not, we're not putting it on. It really is true. So. So that's my little testimony there. The post Mormon world and the Lord

John Dehlin [02:20:26] called his podcasters Zion, for they were

Landon Brophy [02:20:30] of one heart, one heart and one

John Dehlin [02:20:31] mind and one mind and there was no poor among us. Well, how did I get that? That's what the donations were.

Rebecca Bibliotheca [02:20:38] Donor box More minute show notes.

John Dehlin [02:20:41] All right, well Rebecca, thanks for joining us today. Keep up the good work. Landon, thank you so much for all you do. And thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories podcast. Huge thanks to Julia for her work doing time codes and show notes and pre and post production. Huge thanks to Brooklyn as well that makes all this possible. Thanks to the donors that make Mormon Stories podcast possible. We are getting sued by a 350 plus billion dollar organization. I believe they're trying to silence, defame and bankroll us. That's just my opinion. So if you value this podcast also and you want to see it continue, you can go to mormonstories.org donate and become a monthly donor. If you want to donate specifically to our legal fund, you can go to mormonstories.org legal and donate to our legal fund. We would appreciate it. Also donate to Mormonish and to all the other endeavors out there. We love your feedback@mormonstoriesmail.com@mormonstoriesmail.com we love your comments on YouTube and Spotify and elsewhere. Please subscribe and like Please apply if you want to be on Mormon Stories podcast. If you've been excommunicated for apostasy and you want to tell your story or if you've got a good story to tell. MormonStories.org apply is how you apply to be on the show. You record a little 3 minute video, fill out an application form and Margaret and I, I will review it and consider you for the show. That's it. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Be Mormonish. Claim and own your Mormon ness. And I say these things in the name of Mormonish. Amen.

Landon Brophy [02:22:23] Amen.

John Dehlin [02:22:24] And we'll see you again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, 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.