Introduction to J. Bonner Ritchie and His Work

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you its listeners to keep Mormon Stories alive. Please consider donating today@mormonstories.org to make a contribution to Mormon Stories. Just click on the Make a Donation button at the top right of the MormonStories.org website.

John Dehlin [00:00:20] For all this and more, please check out MormonStories.org and thank you for listening. This is John de Lynn and thank you again for tuning in to Mormon Stories. A few weeks ago, a very close friend of mine named Russell mailed me a CD full of his favorite Sunstone Symposium MP3s.

John Dehlin [00:01:00] While several of them struck me as profound, one presentation in particular was groundbreaking and almost breathtaking to me. It was a presentation delivered in a 1992 Pillars of My Faith session by J. Bonner ritchie. A former BYU professor of organizational behavior, Brother Ritchie obtained his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and served for many years both in the Church and and on the Sunstone Board of Directors, where he continues serving to this day as an expert in both organizations and conflict resolution. Brother Ritchie even served as a mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis during the 1970s, including at least one meeting, and perhaps several, with Yasser Arafat himself.

John Dehlin [00:01:48] In this presentation, Brother Ritchie thoughtfully discusses the nature of both organizations and individuals and how there must needs be a natural and even healthy tension between the two. He discusses the importance of paradox in a mature and faithful worldview and provides invaluable tips on how to healthily remain a member of the LDS Church or any organization in spite or even because of the inevitable challenges that will continue to arise.

John Dehlin [00:02:21] To me, this presentation represents some of the finest thinking and feeling, along with hope that will ever be offered to a struggling and thinking Mormon who wishes to remain a member of the LDS Church. I truly hope that you enjoy and are inspired by this presentation, as I was.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] Finally, if you find yourself enjoying this presentation, please go over to sunstoneonline.com and check out their MP3 library of past Sunstone Symposium episodes. It's an invaluable, rich treasure trove full of wisdom and knowledge, and I know that if you check it out, you'll find many things there that are worth your time. And thanks again for listening.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:03:14] What an honor to be on the agenda this evening. Thanks to Kent for the introduction. He used the term friend. That was nice of Kent. He and I are the senior members of the Board of Trustees of Sunstone, having predated all the current officers and editor and publisher and and I don't know how many times I've driven from Provo to Salt Lake, to a Sunstone meeting late in the day after a frustrating day at byu, angry, hostile, frustrated, and come away a bit more mellow, a bit reassured with friends and colleagues and people who constitute a fun kind of support system, as many of you do.

Foundations of Thoughtful, Loving Faith

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:04:10] I see lots of friends, some I know and some I don't. But I've enjoyed that Sunstone service. It's been a long time, and I value those who care. I appreciate Martin's poetry. Martin is a neighbor and and while his voice may not be quite as attractive in some sense, I love the poetic tone that he brings and the feeling that he brings. And I've respected him over the years.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:04:44] Tonight we're talking about caring, passion, commitment, risks, love, relationships, power, fear. We're talking about those things that really matter. And sometimes it's hard. I appreciate Ross's pause as he reflected on a transition of values, whether it was coming from baseball or Montpelier or visit in Salt Lake.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:05:31] And I appreciate Molly's transition from a loving Protestant to a struggling Mormon. I appreciate the process by which we confront our daily realities in Jean Paul Sartre's terms. Until you march to the barricades with the workers of the world, life has no meaning.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:06:01] Until you put yourself on a line for something other than blind obedience, cursory performance, passing, participation, you're nothing more than a manipulated variable in somebody's production function that counts widgets or dollars or attendance or compliance or spurious orthodoxy.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:06:33] And those things are counted by those who dare not march to the barricades. Now, it's risky to march to those barricades. You might get shot, you might get chastised. You might make a brilliant breakthrough in some sense. But it is risky. And marching to the barricades is fun in the same way that weeding the garden is fun.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:07:00] It's really nice to have a clean, beautifully manicured yard. And it's nice to have risen to the heights of a moral threat or commitment and found yourself on a side that you like. But sometimes it wasn't fun in process.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:07:23] Those who say learning is fun have either never learned or never had fun. And those who say that moral commitment is easy have never made the moral commitment. And those who want the rewards of conformity while living a life of independence have never confronted the assumptions of freedom and intellectual integrity and honesty and values and love and loyalty.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:08:09] The tension that comes from commitment was never intended to be easy. And it's not going to get any easier. I appreciate Sunstone, not because I agree with everything that's said I agree with precious little that's said here or anywhere else, but I defend with passion the right to say it.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:08:36] We are not an alternative voice. We are not a competing voice. We are an honest voice of people who care about each other, about love, about conflict, about fear. And the process of this community is to share our reflections on our Mormon experience.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:09:09] Not the experience of the pioneers in crossing the plains. Not the experience of those who built the west, fun as those stories are. Not the experience of great Mormon athletes who were written about in in books that sell wildly.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:09:29] Not the experience of great Mormon business executives who rise to the pinnacle of corporate power, which is very reassuring when we need another explanation of getting through the eye of a needle with all of our money, with the Mormon experience of you and I as we struggle each day as a single mother, resists the stereotyping that so often takes place attempting to support and love and raise children as an unmarried single person, as we listened in a session a couple of hours ago, attempts to avoid that stereotypical position imposed by so many well meaning but absolutely uninformed leaders.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:10:22] The concern of somebody coming home from primary saying they were not allowed in the chapel because a primary president wouldn't allow any little girls with pants on in God's chapel, or the experience coming home from a gospel doctrine class word that position that you can't accept was forced.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:10:47] And those who perhaps naively asked for clarification were embarrassed. The experience of those who stand for what they believe when the costs are high and wonders why others don't appreciate them. It's that experience that we need to share and explore.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:11:11] Not in a challenging, condemning, competing alternative interpretation, but an honest concern on the part of real people who care differently than those who can perform without meaning, who can act without conflict, who can serve without struggle. We're different.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:11:37] I appreciated the religion professor who recently handed me a paper written by one of his students who said his two heroes were Hugh Nibley and Bonarici. Hugh Nibley, because there was no question in the world he dare not answer.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:11:58] And Bonarici, because there is no question in the world he dare not ask. And therefore I have lots of questions about my Mormon experience and about yours. And I don't propose that there's a universal answer to any of those. Well, I propose that some of our integrity demands the inquiry, demands the process, and demands the passionate pursuit of that truth that may be absolutely idiosyncratic, but is absolutely essential that we pursue.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:12:45] So in that Mormon experience, whether it's God's Republican Senator or a Stand on paramutual betting or abortion or school prayer or academic freedom at Brigham Young, or intellectual freedom in Mormon culture or United States role in Kuwait, or our child's attempt to demand answers to impossible questions.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:13:28] I want to be part of a culture that dares to ask the questions and can live with uncomfortable or no answers because we have friends that share our passion and our concern. It's not easy. There will be tension, there will be frustration. For those who think the cost is high, the rewards are infinite. I would suggest in my Parthenon,

John Dehlin [00:14:10] the

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:14:10] pillars are idiosyncratic, and let me honestly try and state what they are. Honesty is not always rewarded in our culture in a world of political correctness and bureaucratic correctness. Rules are rules, after all, and religious correctness, let's say the right thing, even if it's not heartfelt felt.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:14:35] Let me try and suggest five pillars in that structure of love and faith, an acknowledgement if not understanding, of the mission of the Savior and the power it brings and the dilemmas it creates, and see what those idiosyncratic pillars might mean.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:14:59] The first one for me, in the framework that both Molly and Ross articulated, has to do with the dignity and the integrity and the freedom of the individual. Let me share with you a reference from Elie Wiesel, the survivor of the Holy Holocaust, who, upon reflection of the responsibilities of people who stand by and watch people being murdered, said in the Testament, one generation after his writings, one of the just men came to Sodom, determined to save its inhabitants from sin and punishment. Night and day he walked the streets and markets, protesting against greed and theft, falsehood and indifference. In the beginning, people listened and smiled ironically.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:16:01] Then they stopped listening. He no longer even amused them. The killers went on killing. The wise kept silent as if there were no just men in their midst. One day, a child moved by compassion for the unfortunate teacher approached him with these words, poor stranger, you shout, you scream. Don't you see it's hopeless?

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:16:24] Yes, I see, said the just man. And why do you, Dwan? I'll tell you why. In the beginning, I thought I could change the world. Now I know I cannot. If I still shout today, if I still scream, is to prevent the world from changing me.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:16:48] Integrity demands taking a stand, whether it's comfortable or popular or shared, not demanding or expecting that it may necessarily change the world, but that if you don't take take this stand, the world will change you. Your position may be wrong, it may be whimsical, it may be superficial, it may be doomed, but it is yours, and it's the only one that matters.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:17:29] And if you're important enough to have somebody attempt to correct you, you listen carefully to their advice. If you're wise enough to internalize new data and reconsider your position, consider changing if you are wrong or if you have a better position, but make it yours. Don't live on borrowed light.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:17:57] John Taylor once said that I would not be asleep slave even to God. Strong words from a president of the church. I am God's free man. John Taylor stated and advised others to so agree. My second pillar, in addition to the dignity, integrity and freedom of the individual, I would say sanctity of the individual is dependent on my field.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:18:33] Ross field of history and Molly's of law inevitably and absolutely biased them beyond hope when it comes to encompassing universal truth. They always look at the world from that particular perspective. I am equally trapped. Let me acknowledge my field.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:19:00] I have spent a lifetime with one single passion helping people learn to protect themselves from organizational abuse. That passion started as a young army officer in Berlin the day the wall went up. That was, I think, 10 years ago.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:19:27] And I found myself with a young soldier who said, hell no, Lieutenant Ritchie, I won't do it. And I thought, gee whiz, I had power to tell people what to do. And John decided not to do it. Along with my father and mother, moving from Heber City to San Francisco when I was a young boy, that young private John Mayday telling me that he wasn't going to do what I told him to do was one of those powerful learning experiences in life that I dearly love.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:20:06] There are others, such as spending a day in jail in Chicago. If you're going to spend a day in jail, that's a good place to turn it into a learning experience. Meeting my wife, A baseball religion odyssey. When Mark one day said, dad, what are we going to do?

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:20:33] And I said, gee, I don't know, maybe make a proposal. Mark. And he proposed that he and I go to a baseball game in every major league park in the American and National League that summer. One of the prices of not being an authoritarian ruler is having to listen to crazy ideas from subordinates, students, citizens, ward members, children, Sunstone subscribers who didn't like a particular issue, those who think we're too conservative or too liberal.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:21:21] And of course they're both right. And so Mark and I took our trip, went to 26 baseball games, 17,000 miles. In a van to save money. And that does approximate religion. And as my friend Carl Hawkins said one day, Bonner, I didn't know you liked baseball that much. And I said I don't.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:22:03] But I do like Mark that much. And that's religion. And that's a model of organization that says to idiosyncratic needs and developments, situations and conflicts. It's a model of organization that acknowledges as a premise what I learned when John told me he wasn't going to do what he was ordered to do that cold morning in Germany.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:22:36] And that is that organizations are always subordinated to people. There always means, never ends. And until that's understood and believed, we have a very high probability of surrendering. And when it is understood and believed, we can conform or not for good or bad reason and maintain our integrity.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:23:02] All organizations are immoral. The only question is the degree. Some are much more immoral than others. But since no universal principle is infinitely and absolutely appropriate for all people in all circumstances, we have rules that don't fit everyone.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:23:23] And many of you don't fit some of the rules. You were too old for your class in primary. You didn't like the lesson in high priest quorum. You were troubled with with the restructuring of the Relief Society. You were part of the pain when for the first time in statistical history of the church, the young women's activity rate dipped below the young men because of incredible torture and pain of 14, 15, 16 year old girls attempting to decide who they are in a very difficult culture and opting to go elsewhere. And with that pain and concern, we restructure and we reorganize and we make the gymnasium available to the young women's basketball team prior to the young men's and we let young women wear pants to church as if we had any right to tell them what they could wear.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:24:22] But most importantly, we realize that organizations are immoral. It's in the nature of the system. Sometimes it's because of the will of people who set out to manipulate, abuse and control and in an egocentric exercise of authority, see how many people they can bring into compliance with their arbitrary will.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:24:47] But sometimes it's the inadvertent and well intended efforts of a sincere leader who cannot make a rule that applies and serves everyone. The rules will always hurt someone. Organizations can never be universal and they can never be perfect.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:25:10] A perfect organization is an absolute oxymoron. Organizations are always compensating mechanisms to help people grow and develop and rise above the barriers and boundaries of human and inferior structure and philosophy and bureaucracy and ideology. God probably had the best shot at making a good organization and even he lost a third Good leadership doesn't mean you don't lose anybody. It means you respect the right of people to decide that your program doesn't serve their needs.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:25:55] And that takes a very mature leader, one who can hear the sweet counsel in reference to a talk I gave last year attempting to define the essence of relationship in the kingdom. And that sweet counsel means patience, tolerance, listening, and tentativeness, not with respect to what you believe, but with respect to what you hear from someone else.

Organizations, Authority, and Winning What Matters

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:26:21] So the second pillar is an understanding of organization that really believes what the 121st section says that as soon as people get a little authority, as they suppose, they begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. And in any organization, there's more than you know. The term is not all, it's almost all. And in every organization there's one of those almost all, which means there's unrighteous dominion by will or default. And therefore only you can protect yourself against organizational abuse.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:26:55] My third pillar is that of stewardship for the world. The world starts with the person next to you in a family or intimate context and expands to those in concentric circles that would include neighbors in the scriptural and literal definition.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:27:22] That includes community in terms of schools and health care and child care and those political decisions and judgments that we have to make to run a city or a state or nation. It especially includes those who are of a different gender, faith, ethnic origin, race, language.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:27:51] I learned that lesson in an interesting fashion in the little village of Esauiya on the edge of Jerusalem. As my family and I lived there three years ago for a year, and as I found myself the target of stones coming through my car windows at a time of enthusiastic intifada uprising, I decided I needed to know more about the village that was stoning me.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:28:24] Another marvelous learning experience. And there's a tradition in this little village where the grandfather Mohammed goes to heaven and God says, muhammad, what did you do with the land? Muhammad says, I cared for it, I tended it. I developed and preserved it as a gift for my children.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:28:59] Then my father Faisal dies and he goes to heaven, and God says, what did you do with the land? He says, I took care of it, I tended it. I was a good steward, and I gave it to my children.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:29:10] Then they come to me, Ahmed, they said, what did you do with the land? He says, the Jews took it from me and it destroyed all my opportunities for blessings. That stewardship from the land felt by that Issawiya family taught me a lesson in terms of caring for something, regardless of where you come down, in terms of the current conflict or the tragedy in Sarajevo or many other parts of the world.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:29:48] The stewardship applies to ideas, to family, to those of another race, to the trees, to the land. And it has to be such that when denied the opportunity to exercise that stewardship, opportunities for the most important blessings of life are gone.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:30:16] Not a bad metaphor. Am I my brother's keeper? The answer has been given many times in a marvelous book attempting to place the contemporary conflict in the world of environmental issues, wilderness designation, which I'm very involved in in Utah, and other concerns of an attempt to redefine who we are.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:30:45] The author Dan Kamis, in the book Community and the Politics of Space, said, I once heard a description of what it was that made Athens, Athens so remarkable as a place that was to spawn the new idea on the face of the earth, that of democracy. And my favorite description of what made it work in Athens was that in spite of all of their differences, Athenians cared more for Athens than they cared about winning.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:31:14] Sparta cared more about winning than they cared about values. As you make a pilgrimage to Sparta, another Athens, there's not a heck of a lot left in Sparta. The legacy to the world From Sparta who won the war decisively?

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:31:32] The Peloponnesian War clearly went to the militaristic, authoritarian, disciplined world of Sparta. But how do we even know about the Peloponnesian War? Because Athenian historians cared more about truth than they cared about winning a short term war. Because Athenian poets and Athenian philosophers and Athenian scholars cared more about larger issues than they cared about a little battlefield victory.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:32:03] Setting priorities for winning what's worth winning Difficult. While you may not like the reference in terms of the ultimate motivation, let me suggest at least the words of Brutus in defense of his attack on Caesar. If there have any assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus love Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar. This is my not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:32:39] Had you rather Caesar living and die slaves, then that Caesar were dead and lived free? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him. As he was fortunate, I rejoice. As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was too ambitious, I slew him.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:32:58] You might not agree with the defense, but the logic of a relative set of priorities in terms of commitment is sort of interesting. Are you your brother and sister's keeper? Do you care more about the world than you care about winning a petty battle? Or somebody else is winning a battle where you're on the losing end, can you lose a short term war for the glory of philosophy, beauty, truth and democracy and love of God and freedom?

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:33:34] The fourth pillar is that the glory of God is intelligence. Learning with passion. Parker Palmer In a remarkable recent book, To Know as We Are Known, a Quaker professor talks about the spirituality of teaching and says, to teach is to create a space where the community of truth is practiced.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:34:04] To teach is to create a space where the community of truth is practiced. Learning is threatening. Learning is dangerous. In that same reference of Julius Caesar, you remember it was Caesar who said that he'd rather have fat, sloppy men than Cassius, who thinks too much and is therefore dangerous.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:34:29] As Einstein argues about learning. You know plenty of scriptures about learning and the burden of intellectual and passionate inquiry. But let me borrow from Albert Einstein. When I go to Washington D.C. i go often because my friend Omar is there and I have to take care of him because he gets in trouble if I don't stop in fairly often. And when I'm there, there's three places I have to go. One is to the Lincoln Memorial, actually four places now. One is to the Jefferson Memorial, one is to the Vietnamese Memorial.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:35:05] Many of my friends are listed on that black granite. As I came home from Germany because I knew the bureaucratic system and I knew how to get out of the army and go back to graduate school. And my friends who are good soldiers went the other way and went to Vietnam and died.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:35:24] So I go there. But I also like to go visit that warm, soft, sensitive memorial to Albert Einstein where engraven in that copper rough rock it says, the right to search for truth. Truth implies a duty. One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:35:51] Learning is painful. It's not always fun, but it's absolutely essential. My fifth pillar is that all of these things are fun, poignant, troublesome paradoxes. Elder Maxwell had a very nice conference talk some years ago on paradoxes. Unbridled freedom, unprincipled search for truth, Honesty without compassion are not good policies.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:36:41] The paradoxes abide everywhere. The obvious ones are simple. Thou shalt not kill. It is better that one man should perish than a whole nation dwindle in unbelief. You shouldn't kill unless it serves a purpose, shouldn't lie unless it serves a purpose. You shouldn't tell the truth unless it serves a purpose. You honor your father and mother unless they get in the way of loving the Lord. And then you.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:37:09] The paradox is losing yourself in order to find yourself. Of course, justice and mercy Freedom and order. The issue isn't that those paradoxes are resolvable, it's that they must be transcended. And that's where the power comes. The paradoxes aren't resolved. They're not solved. You don't solve a paradox, you transcend it.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:37:35] Schumacher argues that the mature person is the one that can hold two opposing truths in mind at the same time without being frustrated. I try and hold three, But I'm usually frustrated. The issue is great truths, you know. The opposite of a small truth is a lie, a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:38:11] And only when that's understood can we transcend the dilemmas of obedience in a world of independent responsibility and freedom, in a world of order and honoring father and mother, in a world of leaving them for Christ or not killing and Laban and so forth.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:38:38] Of course there are great truths, like intellectual inquiry, passionate devotion and duty to the commitments that you make in a family, in an academic discipline, in the job, where it's your duty to be honest. And of course, that runs into problems when that honesty makes someone sad, when it hurts someone, when it offends someone, when it makes the world look less comfortable, when, in Jan Shipp's fun insights as to the dilemmas of Mormon culture, she argues that our biggest challenge and problem is to get our history straight.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:39:21] It's hard. It's very hard. I've so often used Robert Frost's poem, but let me use it again with perhaps a little different interpretation. Two roads diverged in the yellow wood. I'm sorry I could not travel both and be one travel long I searched on, I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth, Then took the other as just as fair and having perhaps a better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear. Though as for that passing both that morning equally lay and leaves no step had trodden black all I kept the first for another day yet knowing how way leads the to on the way, I doubt if I should ever come back.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:40:02] I shall be telling us with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. But he didn't take the one less traveled by.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:40:14] He accepted the responsibility of making a choice, because he said, really they were both about the same. He didn't wait nor blame his mother or his bishop or his professor or the police officer or his boss or God for telling which road to take or Blaming them for having taken the wrong road. He simply made a decision.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:40:44] He accepted the responsibility of choice, which is what freedom is all about. And we're back to the beginning. The pillars of my faith are the dignity, integrity and freedom of the individual. A concept of organization that allows for the fact that no organization can ever take care of anyone and can never do everything that that one person needs done.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:41:18] That all organizations are immoral to a degree, some more than others, some on purpose. I honestly believe that Saddam Hussein is evil in managing his organizations, and I believe that President Benson is not. But there are still processes that lead to abuse of people, and only you can protect yourself against that abuse, no one else. An understanding of organization that allows us enough information to model, to protect ourselves, and to use the organization positively. That's my field. I create organizations to try and make them do great good. And at the same time, my primary function in teaching is to help people understand the organization and to protect themselves against me as a teacher or against the organization that they're part of.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:42:08] And I've got enough students in this class that could articulate some of my strategies in doing it. And they're often not comfortable and often not fun, and they're not intended to be. Glory of God is intelligence, learning and the resolution of paradox.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:42:25] Those are the things I've learned in Sunday school. Those are the things I've learned in reading. Those are the things I've learned in academic discourse. And I am grateful to Sunstone and to you for providing the opportunity for all of us to share our experiences and perhaps help each other protect ourselves ever so slightly. Not against an evil, but perhaps a well intended person. Help us to move on to another arena of life, to move into an arena that serves our purpose and some way that perhaps we didn't know. And I'm grateful to people like Nick Smith for the contribution that he has made and for the comments he made at the beginning tonight.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:43:08] Yes, every year for the past dozens of years that I've been involved in Sunstone, we've run a deficit. And every year we've got contributions the following year to help make up the last year's deficit. And as we add subscriptions, we add costs, you know, we've got a classic example of what Albert Morrow called the failure of success.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:43:31] You know, as the subscriptions go up, we're delighted and we're enthused and they've gone. When Dan took over as publisher, and I pay tribute to Dan for the work that he did as publisher of Sunstone for many years as Dan took over, we had 3,500 subscriptions. We've now got 10,000. That's progress.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:43:50] But it's added expenses. Your subscriptions don't. Your subscription fee doesn't pay. And so as we add more, it costs us more to print this early magazine. And every subscription we add costs us that much more. It makes it, we have to raise that much more. So if we were in a more different setting, we'd pass a plate tonight and not let you out of here till we have $33,000.74 in the pot. We're not going to do that. We are going to ask you to home and go home and think about it and sit down and write your check. But I appreciate you. I appreciate Sunstone.

J. Bonner Ritchie [00:44:23] I appreciate the confidence that's been extended in me in serving as the chair of the board of Sunstone through a fun and exciting and very frustrating time. And as I struggle as a faculty member at byu, attempting to moderate that world of an exciting challenge and opportunity to learn more about organizations and academic freedom and the rights of individuals. And as I do so in the larger church culture and in the culture of Utah and the United States and the world, I simply hope that all of us can get our priorities reasonably straight. Not perfect, but just reasonably straight. That we can remember that the opposite of a great truth is another great truth, and that we can resolve and transcend those paradox boxes not by waiting for somebody to tell us what to do, Ophelia waiting for somebody to tell us what to do, but rather we can decide for ourselves and be responsible, free children of God. And with that, we will make the world a much better place. Thank you for your love and your support. God bless you.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] This program has been a production of Mormon Stories Podcast. To comment on this episode or to peruse the archives of past episodes, please visit us online@mormonstories.org Also, please consider supporting Mormon Stories Podcast by making a contribution today. Thanks again for listening.

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.