Introduction and Trevor's Background

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 711

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is March 24, 2017, and we have kind of a super cool show in store for you. We're gonna do something we've kind of never done before. Maybe a couple things we've never done before.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] So to give you a little bit of background today on Mormon Stories, we're interviewing Trevor. Trevor reached out to me a while back and let me know that he was going to be meeting with the General Authority to talk about his faith crisis.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] This meeting happened just a few weeks ago. It happened on March 3rd. And the general Authority that Trevor met with was Don R. Clark. For those of you don't know, I'll just read a little bit from Don R. Clark's biography. John R. Clark was sustained a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy in April 1, 2006, but then a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in Apr. 2, 2011. He served as president of the Central American area from 2007 to 2011, and he's currently serving as an assistant executive director in the Missionary department. So he's a high up bureaucrat in the LDS Church for the Missionary department and, and he's area assistant for the Utah North, Utah Salt Lake City and Utah south areas.

John Dehlin [00:01:52] So he's up there and I'm guessing he works very closely with the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy. So that's Don Clark. Trevor met with Don Clark and he met with another gentleman named Matthew Grow. And I'm going to pull up Matthew Grow's profile as well because it's also very interesting.

John Dehlin [00:02:17] Matthew Grow, if you go ahead and check his bio on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, you will find that it says the following. He's the director of publications at the Church History Department and a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers. So he was very, very involved in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He's co authored or authored several books by, by Oxford University Press, Yale University Press.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] He's done work on LDS Church history. He has a PhD in American history from the University of Notre Dame. And if you listen to the recording that we're going to be sharing, what you'll notice is that he is that Matthew Grow says that he was heavily involved in those essays that were released. So what we're gonna do for this interview is kind of fun. We're gonna start with interviewing Trevor a bit about his story. Trevor's got a cool story. It's definitely worth hearing. Then what we're gonna do that's new.

John Dehlin [00:03:20] The first part that we're gonna do that's new is we're actually gonna play the audio recording of Trevor's interview with the General Authority, Elder Don R. Clarke and with Matthew Grow of the LDS Church History Department. And for me, it's a really fascinating interview because, you know, number one, it's with the General Authority. Number two, the General Authority stays silent for a lot of it and lets Matthew Grow answer his questions. I think it's really interesting to hear how, let's just say one of the arch apologists for the Mormon Church, somebody who's deeply embedded in the Church History Department, Joseph Papers Project, the essays. And interesting to hear how someone like that answers, you know, questions about polygamy, answers questions about Book of Abraham.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] And this is sort of the cream of the crop for Mormon apologetics, I would say. And so that's going to be fascinating. I think it's a really worthwhile hour and 20 minutes to listen. And then finally we've invited some brilliant panelists.

John Dehlin [00:04:26] Lindsay Hanson park of Sunstone in the Year of Polygamy, John Hamer, who's also who's on Infants on Thrones podcast, but he's also supported the John Whitmer association and right now he's the pastor of Community of Christ in Toronto, their congregation. And he's been a real leader with Community of Christ and helping them sort of pursue what's called the Seekers program, which is providing a landing place for members of the LDS Church who leave but who still want some sort of restoration based spiritual life.

John Dehlin [00:05:02] The Community of Christ Seekers program has been really useful and John Hamer's really been supportive of that. And he's just been on Mormon Stories a million times and he's brilliant and we love him, yada, yada, yada. And then finally we're also going to have on our panel Glenn Osland. Glenn Osland is the founder or co founder of Infants on Thrones podcast. He's brilliant. We've had him on Mormon stories before and we're just super excited to have kind of a mini infant smackdown with Lindsey Hansen park joining to sort of dissect this audio interview of Elder Clark at General Authority and Matthew Grow of the LDS Church History Department.

John Dehlin [00:05:40] So we are in for a really fun three hours. So those of you who are joining us live on Facebook, we want your comments, we want your questions, we want your feedback. So please be aggressive there and we'll take your questions and comments throughout the show. So that's a long intro, but Trevor, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Trevor Haugen [00:06:01] Hey, John, how are you?

John Dehlin [00:06:03] Good. It's super happy to have you.

Trevor Haugen [00:06:06] Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

John Dehlin [00:06:07] I really appreciate you reaching out. So we'll talk in a bit about why you wanted to share your audio recording of your meeting with Elder Clark and Matthew growing. But let's save that, because I think what I really like to do first is set the context. And I think you've got a really interesting story about, you know, your commitment to the church, your experiences as a Mormon prior to your mission, your mission experience and then after your mission experience, what led to your faith crisis and then what enabled you to get a general authority and Matt grow to meet with you. So do you mind starting with your story?

Trevor Haugen [00:06:46] That sounds great. Do you want to kick it off with a question or should I?

John Dehlin [00:06:51] Yeah. So are you. So let's, as infants, have primed us. Talk to us about your Mormon credibility scale, where, you know, do you have multi generational Mormon heritage? Start there.

Trevor Haugen [00:07:03] Yeah, so, okay, so I'll just start. I'm 35 years old. I live in South Jordan, kind of the Mecca here. And I grew up on the Wasatch front. Currently I own a production company called Haugen Creative, where we make films and produce video.

Trevor Haugen [00:07:19] But, yeah, I have kind of the classic Mormon story, I guess. You know, growing up did everything that a typical Mormon family would do in Utah. Family prayers every single night. You know, my parents were really good at that. We'd go through streaks where we would read the scriptures as a family. But it was definitely, you know, is definitely kind of taught, you know, that we read the scriptures ourselves, was taught tithing. You know, I always took that very serious. And I always, you know, I always prided myself in the sense that I never missed paying tithing. You know, I would even pay, like, more just in case I was like, somehow getting the math wrong, you know.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:00] And so I was always kind of trying to go, you know, go above and beyond. I would have fun with it. You know, I try not to take things too serious because, you know, I kind of wanted to attract people to the faith that way. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, that's pretty much it. My dad was my scout leader growing

John Dehlin [00:08:19] up, so

Trevor Haugen [00:08:22] I always joke that my dad got his eagle twice, once for himself and then second through me vicariously.

John Dehlin [00:08:28] That's awesome.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:29] Wasn't so much for me, but I learned a lot. I really enjoyed it. And. Yeah, but I mean, my parents, they raised us five kids. The best thing, you know, knew how to. With A lot of love and just had a really happy childhood. Great family.

John Dehlin [00:08:42] How. Talk about your. Your testimony. Did. Did you have a good experience as a Mormon youth? Did you attend seminary? Did you gain a testimony? Talk about that.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:54] Yeah. So I lived everything to, you know, the fullest. I think I was very. I was very, like, adamant on following, you know, like, the word of wisdom. Never touched, touch, drugs or alcohol. Was never even a temptation for me. But I. Yeah, I mean, I. I got my. What is it, Duty of God award. Graduated seminary institute. How deep do I go here? You know, I mean, I was a virgin when I got married. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] So you were in it to win?

Trevor Haugen [00:09:28] Barely. Come on. You know, but we made it. We made it. And. But, yeah, I mean, just. I had a testimony, you know, I kind of received a testimony, I guess, kind of like twice, in a way, because the first time I got a testimony, I feel like it was kind of like a pressured feeling, you know, like crap. I. You know, I'm being expected to serve a mission for two years. I should probably figure out if this is true, you know?

John Dehlin [00:09:57] Sure.

Trevor Haugen [00:09:58] I think there's a lot of social pressure that comes down to that. I hadn't. You know, I mean, I always assumed it was true, but I had never kind of done, like, put Moroni 10 to the test, per se. So before my mission, I read the entire Book of Mormon, made a lot of notes. You know, I took it really serious. And then I remember praying, and this is right before I put in my papers. And I was sitting there, and I was just, you know, I was waiting for, you know, this big, you know, burning in the bosom kind of feeling, and it just.

Trevor Haugen [00:10:28] It wasn't coming. And so I kind of just, like. I remember like. Like wanting to feel it so bad that I feel like it was almost like a. Like a forced kind of, like, feeling. I don't know. I mean, that's. That's the first time that I kind of, like, I was like, okay, well, I feel good enough. I think maybe that's the feeling they're talking about.

Trevor Haugen [00:10:48] The second time I got a testimony was the real deal. That was in the mtc. And, you know, I. I know a lot of missionaries are, like, ready to get out of the MTC and get to the field. But for me, like, I didn't want to leave the MTC because I just felt the spirit so strong there, you know, and. And it was just. It was awesome. It was. It was a really cool environment. So that's where I was like, this is it you know, this is. This is true, you know, so it

John Dehlin [00:11:16] wasn't from, like, you know, kneeling down and reading the Book of Mormon. It was just the feeling that the MTC gave you. Just. It just felt amazing. And you knew it was true.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:26] Yeah, I mean, I always felt good about stuff. You know what I mean? But it wasn't like this. You know what I mean? Like, overwhelming spiritual confirmation, I guess you could say. So, yeah. So the MTC was. I mean, they know what they're doing there. You know, they got a good system, but it worked.

John Dehlin [00:11:42] Okay. Okay, but you were. But. But at least for a time, you were just absolutely believing and.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:47] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:11:48] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:49] I had no reason to question.

Trevor's Mission and Elder Clarke's Leadership

John Dehlin [00:11:50] Okay, so tell us again where you went on your mission.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:53] So I served in the Bolivia Santa Cruz mission.

John Dehlin [00:11:56] Okay, and your mission president was who?

Trevor Haugen [00:11:59] So. My mission president. So this is all going to kind of tie together. My first mission president was. Was. Was Elder Shumway, and then my second mission president is Elder Don Clark.

John Dehlin [00:12:13] Okay, and real quick, like, what type of mission did you have? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Were you. You know, leadership positions? What was that like?

Trevor Haugen [00:12:21] Yeah, I mean, it was definitely difficult. I mean, you know, the first six to nine months, I think, for any missionary is hard. The one letter that never made it home was my letter, you know, telling my dad that I wanted to come home because I wasn't gonna get the Spanish.

Trevor Haugen [00:12:36] But, you know, you end up figuring it out and. And then just really enjoying. I had a lot of fun with my mission. Some areas I was in, I felt like I was like, in a Planet Earth or, like, National Geographic episode. It was really remote. It's like, what am I doing here? You know, we would. You know, there wasn't much in ways of, like, commodities like, even heating water, you know, electricity, all that kind of stuff. And I remember.

Trevor Haugen [00:13:06] I remember filling the fonts up to baptize these people, and the water was so freezing that literally people would, like, go. Start going down into the water and like, like, totally just, you know, give, like, you know, my salvation is important, but not that important. Like, it was freezing, you know, and so we. You know, it was definitely, like, definitely an experience and. But I. I really enjoyed it. You know, we would give people blessings. They seem to get better. Seemed like we were doing good things. I did try casting the devil out a couple times, and that wasn't too successful.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] But the devil wouldn't leave.

Trevor Haugen [00:13:49] He just wouldn't go, man. Oh, he was insistent.

John Dehlin [00:13:52] What a pesky little booger.

Trevor Haugen [00:13:54] Yeah, yeah. So. But it was.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] So did you. Did you have. Were you district leader, zone leader, any of that stuff?

Trevor Haugen [00:14:00] Yeah, district leader, zone leader. I then went on to become AP as well, and so worked really closely with. With. With Elder Clark.

John Dehlin [00:14:08] Okay, so you were Elder. You were Elder Clark's Zoni or ap?

Trevor Haugen [00:14:12] Ap. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] Okay. Wow. So tell us what he was like as a mission president.

Trevor Haugen [00:14:17] You know, amazing, actually. Very, very, very driven. He would teach us that nothing was impossible, to always find solutions. He was a very successful businessman, you know, prior to being a mission president. He took a lot of that into the mission and was really successful.

Trevor Haugen [00:14:39] There were a couple things that bothered me about the mission when he first came in. Mainly the big focus on baptism, you know, and I was noticing that the missionaries that were, like, most obedient or most spiritual weren't necessarily the ones having the most success. Seemed like, like the salesman type missionaries were the ones that were always, you know, getting. Getting the baptisms. And it was. It was just really focused on numbers, you know, on baptizing people. And. And the quality wasn't always great. You know, mostly it was.

Trevor Haugen [00:15:14] It was really, really like uneducated people or young people or kids, you know, and so I. I wanted to see that change. And, you know, when. When Elder Clark came in, I think he. I think he made a very.

Trevor Haugen [00:15:29] He was very determined to change that, and I think he. I think he started to change that kind of mentality in the mission, kind of focusing more on retention and such.

John Dehlin [00:15:39] Okay, so he wasn't just in it to score numbers. He was. He was trying to bring quality families into the. Into the church.

Trevor Haugen [00:15:48] Yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, I mean, obviously the focus was still there. Like, you can't get rid of that completely, you know, But. But yeah, the focus changed a little bit to, you know, to retention and, you know, and families and stuff like that.

John Dehlin [00:16:03] What was he like? Was he like a businessman? Was he like a spiritual giant? Like what? Well, with what personality did he leave the mission, Lead the mission?

Trevor Haugen [00:16:13] Yeah, it was a good mix between the two, but I would say a very, very, very heavy on the. On the business side because he would bring a lot of experiences, but, I mean, that's what he had to draw

John Dehlin [00:16:24] from, you know, what's his background? Do you know?

Trevor Haugen [00:16:27] I know he was in. I know he was in. Oh, you know, I. I don't even want to go there because I might screw it up. You know what I mean? But.

John Dehlin [00:16:38] No, that's okay.

Trevor Haugen [00:16:39] I think he consulted a lot of companies on sales and marketing and such.

John Dehlin [00:16:42] Okay, I'm just going to read here. Elder Clark earned an associate's degree from Ricks College and a bachelor's degree in business from byu. He completed a master's degree in business administration from Washington State University. His career included senior executive positions in several retailing companies. So he was a retailer basically?

Trevor Haugen [00:17:02] Yeah, he helped a lot of companies save a lot of money. So he figured out ways to do things, you know, less expensive, I guess you could say.

John Dehlin [00:17:12] Okay, cool.

Trevor Haugen [00:17:14] He's always, yeah, solution driven, just great guy. I really do have a lot of respect for him.

John Dehlin [00:17:19] And anything, anything that you want to share about your personal interactions with him. Did you ever, like, have problems that he helped you fix or things you were struggling with that he helped you or, like, really cool things he did on his mission or really cool moments you had with him? Anything, Anything you would want to share or is it just a normal, you know, mission president, missionary relationship?

Trevor Haugen [00:17:44] He would. He would call me sometimes. You know, I think we were supposed to get up at 6:30 or. Anyway, I might be off on that, but it's been a while, John. But so let's say, you know, 6:20 rolls around, he's calling me, you know, because as APs, we had cell phones. We're the only ones with cell phones. He would call me and he'd be like, good afternoon. As if I'd slept in, you know, like, I should always be up a half an hour earlier, you know, than it says I should be in. A half an hour earlier. I should be reading my scriptures, you know, a few minutes longer, whatever, you know. So, yeah, he was always expecting greatness from us. And I think that was something that I carried through my life, you know, after the mission.

John Dehlin [00:18:26] So did that kind of make you want to be better and do better? Was it motivating?

Trevor Haugen [00:18:30] Yeah, it was motivating, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:31] And.

Trevor Haugen [00:18:33] But also variant, like, he's an intimidating guy, you know, because he has had so much success in his life, you know, and he is very. He speaks very direct and very plainly with things. And so, you know, so at the same time, I didn't feel like I could always just like, you know, voice concerns or talk plainly with them. It was just kind of like, yes, sir kind of situation, you know, and I was fine with that, you know, because he, you know, what he's doing.

John Dehlin [00:19:03] Okay, cool. So last question. Any. Any big things happen on your mission, like scandals or, like, problems or major accomplishments with Elder Clark that, that you or President Clark at the time that are worth mentioning?

Trevor Haugen [00:19:19] Well, we Started having a lot of success in the mission. He kind of instilled in us this idea of nothing, you know, that you can do anything and everything's possible. And, and so when I actually left from being an ap, I actually went back into the field for four and a half months before I finished my mission. And just our zone alone, I believe there were seven companionships, but we were baptizing over 100 people a month. And that's just in one.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] Just in one zone.

Trevor Haugen [00:19:46] One zone.

John Dehlin [00:19:47] So what were total baptisms for the mission in a month?

Trevor Haugen [00:19:53] I mean, I would say maybe 600ish maybe.

John Dehlin [00:19:59] That's crazy. That's crazy. Six to 800 per month.

Trevor Haugen [00:20:04] That's a lot.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] That's the same old stuff, you know. Same old stuff, yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:20:08] And so, you know, we're trying to focus, you know, the attention, but at the same time there's just, it's still a mission, you know, and I think, I think there are numbers that the church wants to see. Maybe, maybe there's a little bit of pressure on that side, you know, but, but the intentions had changed, you know what I mean? But the numbers hadn't changed.

John Dehlin [00:20:28] The numbers, but the numbers stayed. And those are, that's what you get

Trevor Haugen [00:20:31] praised for at the end of the day, you know, you want your, you want your zone to be the golden zone, you know, at the end of the month, you know, you want your, you know, your leaders and your, you know, your group to be feeling like, you know, they're part of the greatest zone in the mission, you know.

John Dehlin [00:20:47] And yeah, totally. Gary writes, I barely got six baptisms on my whole mission in Nebraska. 600amonth is crazy. Thanks for that comment, Gary.

Trevor Haugen [00:20:59] Yeah, that's insane.

John Dehlin [00:21:00] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:21:02] And one thing that I, that I've noticed since I've been back is I've talked to friends that have served, like in Europe, and it's crazy because, you know, most of the time I'm like, so did you have much success? How was that? You know, and was it hard? And you know, they say usually it's, you know, maybe three baptisms, five baptisms or whatever. I'm like, wow, so who are these people? And I come to find out most of them are like immigrants from different countries, farmers, you know. I mean, like I baptized a guy and you know, in Italy, but he was from Peru, you know, or an 8 year old kid or something. And so, so yeah, and then I look at my mission. It's just insane, the contrast, you know.

John Dehlin [00:21:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you had a. So it Sounds like you left your mission just on cloud nine, right?

Life After Mission, Marriage, and Faith Crisis Begins

Trevor Haugen [00:21:52] Oh, yeah, yeah. I got back, continue to live the gospel. Served in a lot of callings back home. I didn't let it, you know, slide, obviously. I started focusing on my life, my career, studying all that kind of stuff, but. But I did serve in the church and a lot of different callings.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] So talk. Just talk about, like. Yeah. Your trajectory. What, you know, did you marry in the temple? Did you go to school?

Trevor Haugen [00:22:19] Yeah, I first got married when I was 23. Got sealed in the temple to my wife. To my first wife, I should say. And to make a long story short, we were married for five and a half years, and that just didn't work out.

John Dehlin [00:22:33] Do you feel like you married too quickly? Like you didn't quite know her, right?

Trevor Haugen [00:22:37] Yeah, there was a little bit of that. We grew a lot in our 20s and kind of became different people with different goals. You know, she was a great girl. It was just kind of the odds were stacked against us a little bit. And so when I was 29, we. We got a divorce. And then I got. Then I went back to my mission 10 years later and decided, you know, to kind of, you know, go visit some people, and that's where I met my now wife.

John Dehlin [00:23:02] So, you know, you married someone from Bolivia that you met when you returned to Bolivia?

Trevor Haugen [00:23:08] I did, yeah. And I hadn't known her. I didn't meet her in the mission, but. But. But I met her there.

John Dehlin [00:23:14] And that's what they all say, Trevor.

Trevor Haugen [00:23:15] Yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, you got it.

John Dehlin [00:23:18] No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Trevor Haugen [00:23:19] You know, I wish I would have met her, you know, 10 years earlier. Expedited the process a little bit, but, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:25] Did you marry her in the temple?

Trevor Haugen [00:23:27] We did. We got. So we initially got sealed in.

John Dehlin [00:23:29] Or.

Trevor Haugen [00:23:29] We initially got married in Bolivia, just civilly, because we wanted to get the immigration process going. And then I came back. We lived apart for about a year, which was hard to say the least, but the church was something we had in common, and it was something that we took very serious. We would pray together every single night. We would read the scriptures together. We felt very strong together. She got here, and we got sealed in the temple in Salt Lake Temple.

John Dehlin [00:23:56] Did you have to have your sealing to your previous wife canceled or not?

Trevor Haugen [00:24:00] So I tried, but. But, you know, she wasn't married yet. And so I guess the policy is, you know, for, you know, to reach the highest degree of celestial kingdom, you know, you need that saving ordinance. So I. Yes. So that Was denied. But, you know, I'm not complaining. I had two, two wives waiting for me, so it was great.

John Dehlin [00:24:23] Now, how did she feel about remaining sealed, your ex wife feel about remaining sealed to you while you were getting sealed to somebody else?

Trevor Haugen [00:24:31] I don't think she might. I don't know. I never asked her.

John Dehlin [00:24:34] But how did your, how did your second wife feel about staying sealed to your first wife?

Trevor Haugen [00:24:41] That's probably more. More of a. Yeah. So she didn't like it at all.

John Dehlin [00:24:49] How'd you like it?

Trevor Haugen [00:24:50] I mean, you know, I was, I was bugged by it. You know, I talked to local leaders about it. What do I got to do? And just kind of like, well, you got to wait until she decides to get sealed again, you know, and so that was something that would eat away at. Especially my wife, you know, Veronica, she didn't like that idea that I was sealed to two people, you know, and especially when a lot of people would talk about polygamy like, we don't practice it anymore.

Trevor Haugen [00:25:14] And it's like, are you sure? You know, like, because my husband sealed the two people, you know, but we didn't really let it affect our testimony. I mean, we still served in, you know, mainly Spanish speaking wards here in the South Jordan area. And I felt like that's where I could kind of, you know, use my talents to the best of the their ability and served as an executive secretary, worked in the elders quorum with the young men, taught. Anyway, so. Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:25:46] okay, so what, so what, what started your faith crisis? What happened? How old were you? And what happened?

Trevor Haugen [00:25:53] All right, so I was. So this was 2015, so I was about, I was about 34 years old and I, you know, the policy came out and, you know, I don't think it's anybody leaving the church. I don't think it's ever one thing. Right. I think it's always a series of events that happen because there's a breaking down, like a deconstruction of your faith. Right.

Trevor Haugen [00:26:20] That was very true for me because, you know, the policy came out of children, you know, with gay parents not being able to participate, you know, in church. And, and I just, you know, and then that later became a doctrine, if I'm not mistaken.

Trevor Haugen [00:26:36] But I, it just didn't sit well with me. Like I, you know, I got a bad feeling about it. I, I was trying to, you know, look into all the positive reasons, justify it the best that I could, you know, but there was just something that just like, I don't know, it left me like a Sick feeling inside. It's like. It's like when you're eating a meal, this is the best way to put it. You're enjoying a meal, and then you look down about halfway through and you see something that kind of like, grosses you out, you know, like something doesn't look right or something.

Trevor Haugen [00:27:07] And you kind of like, you put that to the side, but. But it's not enough to stop eating. Like, you still keep eating it, but you're just a little more weary, you know, that's kind of. That's kind of where I was at, you know, I was just kind of. I started just looking at it a little differently.

Trevor Haugen [00:27:23] That's kind of where I started. And then. And then about six months later, I ventured off to do a film in Southeast Asia. And the film was.

John Dehlin [00:27:37] Tell us about the film. Just a little bit.

Trevor Haugen [00:27:39] Okay, so the name of the film is Jiji VI. Shit, it's spelled J I J I, V I S H A and it means in Hindu, the desire to continue on, to live on. So it wasn't so much about Buddhism, but it was kind of like a. Like a Planet Earth type, style, you know, silent documentary, if you will. But it definitely centered around Buddhism since, you know, all of the places that we were filming were, you know, cultures. It was about cultures and traditions that have lived on, you know, through. Through the ages in Southeast Asia. Super interesting, you know, and me and my buddy that co produced the film with me, we studied a lot about Buddhism, a lot about their culture and traditions for about a year leading up to this.

Trevor Haugen [00:28:27] And it started just kind of opening my mind to different possibilities, you know, but it wasn't until I actually went there and lived there for a bit and hung out with these people and saw the commitment level that they have to their faith and what they believe and the experiences that they've had, you know, the spiritual conviction they have. And I remember coming home and telling my friend, you know, if we were born in Thailand or Myanmar, do you think we would be Buddhists today?

Trevor Haugen [00:29:05] You know, it was just like a. Like a thought that I'd never really. I just never thought of that, you know, like, would I even have an open enough mind in that scenario to even look at something like Mormonism, you know, or would I lasso all of my spiritual experiences that I'd had up to that point in my life to Buddhism, you know? And so I started to kind of step outside myself and take a look at.

Trevor Haugen [00:29:30] At me, you know, kind of from the outside looking in. And my belief, I Mean, you know, I. I believed in something that I was handed. You know, I'd never looked into anything. I'd never read the Quran, for example, and prayed about it, you know, and so, yeah, so that. That just started opening my mind to things. But still, I wasn't, like. I wasn't to the point where I'm like, I'm gonna go investigate the church or anything like that. I was still very, like, determined not to look at any negative things against the church at that point, you know?

Discovering the CES Letter and Key Doubts

John Dehlin [00:30:04] So what changed?

Trevor Haugen [00:30:06] So what changed was summer of last year, and me and my wife, because she came along with me as well, and we've kind of been, you know, we've been talking, so we. We've been kind of opening our mind to things at the same time. But in the matter of, like, a week, we heard about this thing called the CES letter.

John Dehlin [00:30:29] Tell us, what year. What year was that about?

Trevor Haugen [00:30:31] This was last. This is 2016. Summer 2016. Believe it or not, I had never heard of the CES letter before and never even heard of most of these issues that are in the CES letter. And so we were just hearing it, hearing about it from so many different people. You know, like, we were at the park, and we talked to somebody that's now an apostate, and I'm like, oh, wow. If you don't mind me asking, like, what led to that? You know, and CS letter or, you know, I'm hanging out with some people, and it's like, oh, yeah, we decided to resign because of the CS letter. And, you know, it's just. It was almost like I felt like I was driven to look at this. And so luckily, me and Veronica, we decided to look at it and read it together. And that's where it all started.

John Dehlin [00:31:16] So you guys read. And she was open. She was willing to read it.

Trevor Haugen [00:31:20] Luckily, yeah, my wife was right there by my side. She didn't. I don't think her faith deconstructed or fell apart as quickly as mine did. We definitely had, you know, a few months where I was going back and forth, you know, and. And, you know, I. I would be like, no, this is it. This is done. But then I'd be like, well, what does it hurt? You know, what does it hurt to just go to church, you know what I mean, and just kind of play along or whatever? Like, you know, like, maybe this is still a good thing kind of thing. And we were going like that, but there was just too much that I read into to just let it be, you know, like, I know.

John Dehlin [00:32:02] What were the biggest issues bugging you? Just tell us the top three or five.

Trevor Haugen [00:32:06] Well, you'll see my top five in the recording, so I won't go into too much detail, but my biggest thing was spiritual, you know, confirmation, just epistemology,

John Dehlin [00:32:17] you know, don't other religions, don't other believers of other religions claim the same type of emotional or spiritual witness?

Trevor Haugen [00:32:25] Right, right. I would think that most people in the world are spiritual and most people that are religious tie their spirituality to a religion. So how am I any different? And I can't step, I can't step into their body, so I will never know if what they're feeling is stronger than what I'm feeling and vice versa. So pretty arrogant for me to say that, you know, what I have in this tiny little box that I was given that's the ultimate end all truth. And so that was probably my biggest thing. But obviously list them.

John Dehlin [00:32:54] Just list the four or five.

Trevor Haugen [00:32:56] Yeah. So Book of Abraham and just this whole gift of translation that Joseph Smith claimed to have. The Book of Mormon, all the, the anachronisms that go along with that DNA. No archaeological evidence that directly supports the Book of Mormon.

Trevor Haugen [00:33:17] Joseph Smith. I, you know, I feel like. So I got a lot out of the CS letter, but I was definitely cross checking it. And not only just cross checking it online, but I was also ordering a lot of books. I felt like I hadn't like, it was, I was like eating books like I hadn't eaten in a couple years. I was just plowing through information and, and I learned a lot about Joseph Smith and learned that he wasn't quite the man that I thought he was, you know, and I mean, I knew about a little bit about the polygamy, didn't look too much into that, but the polyandry is one thing that just really caught me off guard.

John Dehlin [00:33:57] And polyandry, you mean? What?

Trevor Haugen [00:33:59] So polyandry, meaning that Joseph Smith had had wives that were married to other men. A lot of times these men had the priesthood as well, and these men were alive, you know, I mean, why, why would a prophet of God need to get sealed to women that are already married to members of the church?

John Dehlin [00:34:23] And what about the 14, 15 year olds? Was that a problem?

Trevor Haugen [00:34:26] Of course. But you know, for some reason I think I kind of knew that. I just never let it bother me for some reason. You know, it's weird. It's weird. Now look like from the outside looking in, like, wow. You know, I mean, there are a lot of things, you know, but you Know, you just kind of. You go with it. You assume it's not a big deal.

Seeking an Audience with a General Authority

John Dehlin [00:34:47] So any big happenings prior to you trying to get an audience with Elder Clark? Anything you want to tell us about your story before we jump into.

Trevor Haugen [00:34:59] Yeah, yeah, I do want to say that, you know, a lot of people look, you know, maybe they'll look at a couple things. Maybe they'll peruse the, you know, see us letter, or they'll look at some of the concerns that people are having, and they'll see there's a defense with the church. Right. They'll see that the church has a stance or the apologetics have a stance. And a lot of people, I think. And a lot of times I think it stems from fear or comfort, you know, not wanting to step outside of something that's foreign to them. I don't know, there's probably a lot of psychological reasons to it, but they just look at the defense real quick.

Trevor Haugen [00:35:36] They just want to know there is a defense to it. Me, on the other hand, I was like, no, like, I really want to put this on trial. I want to see what the church is saying. I want to see what the truth is out there, you know, And I.

Trevor Haugen [00:35:51] You know what I mean? Like, I want to see what, you know, what stands up, you know, and so. And so I've been very sincere, you know, through this whole process. You know, I remember one day just whispering to myself, the church isn't true, you know, and it was the scariest thought I'd ever had.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] How long ago? How long ago was that? Do you remember what month this was?

Trevor Haugen [00:36:21] Probably November of 2016. Okay, November.

John Dehlin [00:36:25] So just four or five months ago.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:27] Yeah. And, you know, and this was something that I wanted to remember me being kind of a documentarian and, like, basically videoing my whole life. I did a lot of, like, video journal entries, you know, documenting my experience. And me now looking back on those.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:47] I mean, I watched a video just the other day from my experience, and it just. It tears me up inside because. Sorry. Because, you know, I was just. I felt so beaten down, you know, and confused, and I felt alone, and I felt like I couldn't talk anybody about it, you know, and. And, John, this is, you know, something I got to thank you for because, you know, your podcast saved my life.

Trevor Haugen [00:37:20] Because it's a hard thing, you know, it's not. This is not. I didn't want to leave the church, you know. Sorry. I didn't want to leave the church. You know, I was hoping that it would be true, but I couldn't go back on what I knew. It reminded me a lot of the Matrix. I'd taken the blue pill or the red pill, and I couldn't pretend that I'd taken the poop.

Trevor Haugen [00:37:51] But, yeah, I feel like there's a lot of people in my same boat. I know people personally that are going through this right now, and it's not. It's not an easy thing, and you don't quite understand it, you know, until you go through it.

Trevor Haugen [00:38:06] But the reason I document. I documented all these things was because people need that support. People need to know that they're not alone, you know, And I think that. I think that people need to know what the church's stance really is on this stuff. You know, when you make a.

Trevor Haugen [00:38:30] When you make a claim, you know, to be the only true church on the face of the earth, you know, I think it's important that you're honest, you know, if you have the most correct book that exists, you know, on Earth, I think it's important that that's true. I mean, these are big, big claims, you know, and so they should be able to back that up. And. Yeah. So anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but, yeah, I mean, that's beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:39:05] Thank you. And if I can just echo. If they're going to require 10% of your income, if they're going to keep you out of a temple and prevent you from attending the wedding of a loved one, if a faith crisis can jeopardize a marriage and a family, and if pronouncements about LGBT people or women can cause depression or anxiety or even suicide and death, the stakes are super high. And messages about sexuality that can lead someone who can't stop masturbating want to kill themselves or even cut themselves off, you know, cut. Cut off a part of them, because the trauma is so hard about not being able to stop being evil or dirty. The stakes are super high.

Trevor Haugen [00:39:46] And so, yeah, families are definitely being ripped apart by this. You know, like you said, people are killing themselves over this stuff. You know, and so I think they need to understand that people believe them in a very literal sense. You know, when they say they're prophets, seers, and revelators, we as members of the church, we believe that they're having this personal conversation or something or apparition with Jesus Christ, and they allow it to be assumed. And I think that's just not okay.

John Dehlin [00:40:23] Yeah, totally.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:25] But anyways.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:27] I would like to say one thing that. I mean, maybe just kind of one last Thing that might help people out there that might be going through something similar. I know we want to get to, you know, to this recording and everything, but I just, I. You know, I feel like.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:48] Like a lot of people are afraid of leaving a religion, leaving the church, because you've had it your whole life, right? It's a scary frontier, you know, you don't know life without the church, but once you realize that you don't need a specific religion, like, life is, like, it's so exciting. Like, I wish I could talk to myself, you know, a year, six months ago or a year ago, and.

Trevor Haugen [00:41:17] And just say, like, it's gonna be awesome. You know, like, instead of assuming it's all taken care of, you can actually now go out and discover what actually brings you joy, who you really are, you know, what. What works for you, you know, so your life can. Can be the best life that you can be, you know, and you don't need religion. And John could. Could, you know, echo this, but you don't need religion to have God in your life. You don't need it to have morality or spirituality in your life.

Trevor Haugen [00:41:45] And I just. I learned how to separate those. But anyway, talking to my family about it, though, I. I listened to your panel discussion that you had, and it was.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] Which panel?

Trevor Haugen [00:41:56] So it was Mormon transitions. It was maybe in. I think it was January of this year, and maybe we can put a link to it after or something, I don't know. But you were talking about people transitioning, how to talk to people, and I think I was waiting for that. You know, I knew I had to talk to my family, you know, since I knew it wasn't true since November, and I was putting it off, putting it off. And it just got to the point where I was like, I need to deal with this. You know, this is not something that you can just forget about.

Trevor Haugen [00:42:27] And so, you know, it's like, I think everybody asks that, right? Do I write a letter? You know, do I. Do I make it all complicated? Do I just send a simple text? Like, what do I do? And I think one thing that helped me that, you know, kind of the conclusion that you and the panel came up with was keeping it simple, you know, and so when I talk to my siblings about was a conversation that we had, and I just said that my views had changed, you know, in regards to the church. And I'm, you know, we've decided not to participate. It's, you know, I don't want you to feel like I am going to ever try to Convince you this is what I believe, and I think it's important you know that.

Trevor Haugen [00:43:13] But, you know, we don't need to talk about it. It doesn't need to be awkward, you know, and if you ask me questions, obviously I'm going to be honest with you, but I'm never going to push any of this on you.

Trevor Haugen [00:43:26] The one exception was my parents. I kind of. And I, you know, and I regret that a little bit, but I think there were things said both ways that. That we regret, But I think it was just because I have such a close relationship with my parents. I just couldn't not tell them exactly why. And I gave them, like, maybe the CS letter and like in 20 minutes, you know, just.

John Dehlin [00:43:50] But.

Trevor Haugen [00:43:50] But all in all, I think it went well. Things are mending from then. It's been a couple months since I've told them. I don't feel like my family doesn't love me. I think it's all about love, understanding, patience on both sides, you know, and anyway, I told my parents, I said, I will talk to anybody, and, you know, we don't need to talk about it anymore. But if there's somebody you want me to talk to you about it, if it makes you feel better, I'll do it. And so they contacted my mission president, who's now Elder Clark, in the first quorum of the Seventy. He contacted me. We went to lunch first. And the first meeting, unfortunately, was pretty fruitless. I was disappointed a little bit because I was expecting to go in and get all these miraculous answers to all of my questions.

John Dehlin [00:44:40] How did you set up the meeting? You just emailed him and said, hey, let's talk. Did you.

Trevor Haugen [00:44:44] Yeah, we.

John Dehlin [00:44:45] Did you prime him in your email with your concerns?

Trevor Haugen [00:44:48] We talked on the phone. You know, I've stayed fairly close to him. He's been doing mission reunions, I mean, since he got back from the mission. Believe it or not, I was still going to mission reunions 15 years after my mission. So that'll give you. On the. On the member scale. I don't know. But anyway, so. So we've stayed very close. I talked to him on the phone, and we've had very open, sincere conversations about it, you know, and he used. Very kind and loving about it. But what was kind of disappointing was him not answering my questions and just more sidestepping everything and just kind of basically telling me.

Trevor Haugen [00:45:27] And I think he literally said. Said this. Look, I don't profess to know all the answers. I don't profess to be the smartest person, but I know people that do that. I'm too busy to try to figure all of that out.

Trevor Haugen [00:45:42] But there are guys that. That do spend their time doing that. And that was kind of scary to me because this is somebody in the first quorum of the 70s, somebody that could very well be an apostle for the church that says, I don't know. And that was. For me, that was.

Trevor Haugen [00:46:00] That was scary. You know, that was. It was disappointing. I just kind of. I left that meeting feeling very empty. He just. Every concern I had, he would say, just put it in an email. Go ahead and put it in an email. Put in an email.

Trevor Haugen [00:46:13] And. And, I mean, I guess I can understand. He wants to make sure he takes, you know, a good approach at it instead of debating it. He wants to maybe look through the things, you know, get familiar with it. But what ended up happening is he set up a second meeting, and this time it was with Matt Grow.

Meeting Matthew Grow and Elder Clarke

Trevor Haugen [00:46:35] And, you know, and so, as you know, Matt Grow is the director of publications for LDS Church History Department. So I was really excited to meet with this guy, you know, and this time I decided to record the conversation.

Trevor Haugen [00:46:53] And the biggest reason I decided to was because I wanted to have it for me personally, just to remember. Remember exactly what they said, what they believed, because I'm confused on their stance and what they actually believe. And I felt like this was a golden opportunity, a general authority with one of the top historians of the church.

Trevor Haugen [00:47:15] And I also wanted to have it so that I could prove to my parents that I was actually talking to these people, you know, and maybe share it with my close family, but that was it. One thing you'll notice when you listen to the conversation is it's not a debate. I didn't go in there with that mentality. I literally wanted to just go in and know what they truly believe. And so a lot of things I kind of. I went along with, but that wasn't my intention. You know, it was more just to be able to share with people what is at the heart of the church and what people are actually believing.

Trevor Haugen [00:47:52] And I honestly think. I mean, I honestly think them hearing this back or, you know, or finding out, because, you know, honestly, this is. This is gonna be a shock. They, you know, they are most likely unaware that this recording exists.

Trevor Haugen [00:48:10] I imagine they'll be shocked to find that I'm sharing it. But. But at the same time, I can't imagine them being too upset because this is what they believe and this is what they want to share with people, you know, so.

John Dehlin [00:48:24] So why wouldn't they? I mean, if he's a special witness for the church, if he's an authority figure, a general authority in the first quorum of the 70, what does he have to hide? Why would he want his testimony to be shared on the rooftops to all? And if Matt Grow represents the church history department, if he's at the highest levels, why would he not want to share with the world whatever wisdom he has to help people through a faith crisis? Right, Right.

Trevor Haugen [00:48:56] Absolutely. Absolutely. I believe this would be any message they would give to anybody that's doubting. And this is your audience, John. So I think they would actually be thrilled to be able to be talking to your audience today. So I hope that's how they see it, you know, because I, you know, I just. This is not like, hey, let's reveal who the wizard of Oz really is kind of thing. It's not like that. You know what I mean? It's. It's not in a demeaning way. I'm very sincere, and I want to share it with people that are in the same boat as I am.

John Dehlin [00:49:29] Right. And so real quickly, where did you meet? When did you meet? What was it like going into the room?

Trevor Haugen [00:49:36] So the second meeting, we first met in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and then Elder Clark walked me over to. And my wife came with me. She's so awesome. My wife came with me. She was holding my hand through the whole meeting. She was awesome. You won't hear her much. She laughs every once in a while, but she kind of leaves the talking to me. But she was there supporting me through the whole thing, which was awesome. We went into the Church History Museum.

Trevor Haugen [00:50:01] First thing I saw when I walked into the Church History Museum were those kind of bronze cut out, like, statues of the, you know, the witnesses with the Book of Mormon standing over the Book of Mormon, touching them, flipping through the plates.

Trevor Haugen [00:50:15] And I just got this just. Just sick feeling, you know, and just looking around, I was just like, wow. Like, I. Because I hadn't gone into some of these space, these spaces since I had left the church, you know, and so now to see it from a different perspective was crazy. Then he brought us up to whatever floor he was on. We walked around a little bit. Yeah. And we met deep inside this, The Church History Museum, up in his. Matt Gro's office.

John Dehlin [00:50:45] So you met in Matt Gro's office?

Trevor Haugen [00:50:47] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:50:48] Okay. I have to just ask. What was that like emotionally? You were an AP for this mission president who is so powerful now. He's a general authority. And you're not only meeting on his turf in the super powerful, ostentatious sort of environment, but you're admitting this super vulnerable thing, which is, I used to be up here in your eyes, and now I'm going to be down here in your eyes, and I'm going to be admitting that I don't believe anymore, and I'm really struggling. What's it like for you emotionally, to have to, you know, attend that event?

Trevor Haugen [00:51:28] A lot of nerves, A lot of anxiety leading up to it. It's not that I was nervous about the information that I was going to bring, but like I said, he's a very kind of intimidating kind of person, and I'd never quite stepped up, you know, and confronted him on anything or, you know, or anything like that. So it was definitely kind of a change as far as, like, how our relationship had been up to that point. And so, yeah, so it was. It was scary. I mean, it was similar to talking to my dad about it. You know, it's not the easiest thing, but it's something that needs to happen.

John Dehlin [00:52:08] Sure.

Recap and Context for the Recorded Meetings

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 712

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's March 29, 2017, and we are here to interview Trevor Haugen. And Trevor is going to be known to many of you and is not going to be known to others. But basically, let me just give kind of the rundown.

John Dehlin [00:00:56] We interviewed Trevor about sort of in episode one of this series, about his faith journey, about his mission in Latin America, about his temple marriage, about his second temple marriage, and about his faith crisis and all of that. And we did all that in episode one. And then in episode one, we talked about how we were going to be releasing in episode two, an audio recording of an interview that Trevor had with his former mission president, who became a general authority, Don Clark, and Matthew J. Grow, who is in the LDS Church History department. So that was what we had planned. We went ahead and released the audio recording from that meeting, and then we did a couple hours of analysis with Lindsay Hansa Park, John Hamer, and Glenn Osland, and we released it all.

John Dehlin [00:01:58] And those of you who have already listened to all that, please don't feel like we're expecting you to tune in and listen to more. But we decided after about a day of having released that, and Trevor, we can talk about this, but basically we decided to take it all down, and we reconsidered the effectiveness of sharing an audio recording that was made in private.

John Dehlin [00:02:28] And so that's true. However, Trevor still. And I still felt like Trevor's story deserved to be told. And so we weren't comfortable just sort of scrapping the whole project. And so what we've decided to do is to go ahead and have a conversation between me and Trevor where we talk about that meeting that he had with Elder Clark and with Matthew Grow, but not to release the audio from it. And it's just sort of a practical, pragmatic, and in some cases, ethical decision that we made. And so that's what we're gonna do over the next hour or two, we are going to have Trevor tell the story of the meeting that he had in March 2017 with Elder Groh.

John Dehlin [00:03:17] Sorry, Elder Clark and Matt Groh. And we're gonna have Trevor tell the story. I'll help him. And then we're gonna analyze those responses, and we're gonna release this as an episode on Mormon Stories so that Trevor's story gets told. So with all that disclaimer, Trevor Haugen. Welcome to welcome Back to Mormon Stories podcast.

Trevor Haugen [00:03:37] Hey, John, thanks for having me. This is like, take two.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:03:43] Get it right this time.

John Dehlin [00:03:45] And we're doing the recording live on Facebook live, not because we expect more people to tune in. Again, if you've already checked all this out and you don't feel like you want to listen to it, please don't. But if you do want to, if you do want to tune in, and right now we have 73 people who have tuned in. We do welcome people to share their questions, their thoughts, their concerns. And throughout this discussion, and definitely at the end, we're willing to take questions not just about the meeting, but also just about, you know, our decisions to take things down, etc. And again, we don't expect anyone to tune in or listen, but we want Trevor's story to be part of the historical record and that's why we're re recording.

John Dehlin [00:04:32] At least that's why I'm re recording. So with all that, Trevor, do you want to say anything really quickly about the decision to take down the audio recording? What would you like to say about that?

Trevor Haugen [00:04:47] Yeah, you know, and I think, I think you did a great job and explaining just, you know, really the last couple days have been a little crazy for us. It's given us some time to kind of reflect on, you know, some decisions that we made. And you know, I mean, really the biggest thing is that, you know, my whole for coming on Mormon stories is to share my story.

Trevor Haugen [00:05:11] It's not to convince or persuade anybody. This is just a very. I wanted, I wanted to just be a very raw look at what happened and kind of how it felt for me. I'm not an educator or an expert. I'm just simply somebody with questions that happened to, you know, get a meeting with two very influential people, the church, and think. A lot of times I know what happened with me is when I, when I was meeting with my local leaders, it kind of felt like, well, you know, I might not have the answers, but somebody, you know, kind of higher up might have it or, you know, I want to introduce you to this person, this person, this person.

Trevor Haugen [00:05:50] And so it just kind of got to the point where that escalated and I found myself in this situation. And another thing to understand is that naturally I'm a documentarian. So I, up to this point in my, you know, in my journey, I documented everything since the first week when I started going through this, I just knew this was going to be a big enough deal that I should probably start, you know, videoing myself and my feelings and how I, you know, and just how this was all happening, you know. And so I'm really glad that I did that. And this was just kind of another piece of that for me.

Trevor Haugen [00:06:26] It was later on that, you know, after having listened to this several times, John, after sharing this with you, that we decided, you know, we wanted to share this. And I wanted it to be in the best light possible in the most accurate way possible.

Trevor Haugen [00:06:42] And so that's why, you know, we had originally kind of decided to share it. But I do understand that the people could view it as. Is unethical. And we don't want, you know, the means to any end to distract, you know, or make us less effective in sharing stories, you know. So that's my take.

John Dehlin [00:07:06] Yeah. Yeah. And it was a really tough call because on some level, the church makes such important claims. The church expects so much of its members, and it's not often forthcoming in these sorts of conversations that from a journalistic standpoint, there are many people who feel like it's fair game, especially if there's suicides or families at risk, that it's fair game to have them be on record, especially when it's legal to obtain that record. I think that's a fair argument, but it's also a fair argument to say it's a breach of trust and unethical. And so it's just a difficult choice. So, anyway, should we dive in?

Trevor Haugen [00:07:52] Let's do it.

Discussing the Meeting's Date and Setting

John Dehlin [00:07:54] All right, so what was the date. What was the date that you met with Elder Clark and Matthew grow?

Trevor Haugen [00:08:01] This was March 3rd, 2017.

John Dehlin [00:08:04] Okay. And where. And where did you. Where did you meet exactly?

Trevor Haugen [00:08:07] We met at the church history museum.

John Dehlin [00:08:10] Okay. In a room. Just some room there, or is it in.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:13] Right. So we went up to the third floor, I believe, and that's where Matt Grow's office is. And we just kind of went in there and sat down and had a conversation. It was me and my wife and Matt Grow. And then Elder Clark was kind of sitting by the side of Matt Grow's desk there. And so it's kind of the four of us engaging in conversation. My wife didn't participate too much, but. And actually, Elder Clark didn't engage very much. Well, I would say, Gosh, 80% of it or so was. Was kind of a conversation between me and Matt Grow.

John Dehlin [00:08:52] Okay.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:55] So

John Dehlin [00:08:57] as we've talked about it, the meeting was framed around an email that you had sent Elder Clark and that had been shared with Matthew Growing. So I think as part of the structure for this interview, why don't you go ahead and we'll read each of the main questions that you offered and Then try to retell the story of what happened with each question. Is that okay?

Trevor Haugen [00:09:24] Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:26] So why don't you read the first question or issue in your email and then I'll follow up.

Trevor Haugen [00:09:33] Right. And just to give a little context, too, I did meet with Elder Clark prior to this meeting. We went to lunch, and the purpose of that meeting was to just kind of have a candid conversation about some of my concerns.

Trevor Haugen [00:09:50] As you'll remember from part one, Elder Clark was my mission president, you know, and so I just. I figured the amount of time and, you know, and also his close relationship with the higher ups in the church, he would. He would know some good answers to these questions. You know, I.

Trevor Haugen [00:10:12] This to be, you know, completely kind of open with where I was at at this point. I was already disaffected. I mean, this is after I had met with my family. This was kind of the last, kind of my final prayer, if you will, just giving the church maybe one more shot. I wasn't going into this wanting to debate the issues as much as I was just wanting to kind of just understand one final time what it is they actually believe and how they believe it, you know, and so, and so I felt like I was going into it with an open mind, but at the same time, I did want to share my perspectives with these guys.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:00] And so when I originally met with Elder Clark, Elder Clark didn't have really anything to say about the issues. It was just that he knew people that were, you know, more maybe a little smarter than him is what he said on these issues. Just because he doesn't have time to really investigate all of this stuff. And so to put it in an email and he was going to share it with some people and see if he might be able to help me get some answers. So that's kind of what led to this meeting and the email that I drafted.

John Dehlin [00:11:37] Okay, so let's dig into the email.

Spiritual Witness and Epistemology in the Conversation

Trevor Haugen [00:11:39] So the first thing that I kind of addressed was spiritual witness.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] And

Trevor Haugen [00:11:46] that was a big thing for me. Should I just read it?

John Dehlin [00:11:49] Please just read it.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:51] So I just said every major religion has members that believe that the spirit of God has bore witness to them, that their religion is true, or it's the. It's, you know, the true path to God and heaven. Just. Just as it would be arrogant for a member of any other religion to deny my spiritual experience and testimony of the truthful truthfulness of the church, it would likewise be arrogant for me to deny their spiritual experiences or testimonies of the truthfulness of their religion. But every religion cannot be right together. And one main point that I had here was all of the different kind of breakoffs of the church.

Trevor Haugen [00:12:30] I mean, there's been so many and so many different prophets. And to go to a testimony meeting in the RLDS Church or any other break off would feel very similar to the LDS Church, but the prophets would be replaced. And so they can't all be right together. And so that was a big one for me.

John Dehlin [00:12:52] Okay. And I'm just gonna. I'm gonna let listeners know ahead of time that this is gonna be the first in a. In hopefully what is a series of five or six people who are gonna be sharing their experiences with Mormon general authorities, because we think it's a very common thing when someone's had a faith crisis to get an audience with the general authority. I did it. I met with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland twice. And we think that because that's a thing, because it's something that's done, it's something that isn't talked about, that there's historical value, you know, spiritual value, ethical value, moral value in people telling those stories so that in 2017 we can know what it's like to talk to a general authority during this past decade around these sorts of issues.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] So if anybody has had a meeting with the general authority that they want to actually talk about and share their story, I just want to make sure people know that we're not just doing Trevor, we're going to do five or six of these and hopefully have this sort of little repository of oral stories of people's experiences. Meeting with general authorities can be good, it can be bad. Ok, so Trevor, once you guys started talking about this question of spiritual witness, I'm going to go ahead and sort of speak back and summarize what we heard from Grow and from Clark. So what I heard was that Growing immediately went to discuss this issue of the only true church.

John Dehlin [00:14:20] And it seemed like his point was to say that there's truth everywhere, that Joseph Smith got his truth from wherever he could find it. If he could find some truth in the masonry ceremony, he would incorporate that into the. The temple ceremony. He talked about a general authority statement that basically said all the world religions have truth in them.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] And that was sort of his response to this question. There's truth everywhere. And the church is becoming more expansive. He also seemed to not want to. Okay, so then he basically talked about how authority was the point, that while there's truth in all the religions, that authority was where the LDS Church had the distinguishing sort of benefit.

John Dehlin [00:15:06] And so after that, it seemed like he kind of then said, so there's this question of the one and only true church. And. And I heard him actually say he doesn't have much to say about that. And he kind of even deferred to Elder Grow, and Grow didn't speak up at this point. So we're about 17 minutes into the interview.

Trevor Haugen [00:15:28] Yeah. And you mean Elder Clark.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] Elder Clark. I'm sorry, Elder Clark, thank you. So how did you feel about Grow's response to that question?

Trevor Haugen [00:15:38] Well, first of all, I was hoping Elder Clark would have been more involved, like you mentioned. And I think Matt Grow also was kind of wanting to lean on him a little bit as well, but Elder Clark was definitely just kind of letting him do the work. But I, you know, the thing is, is how I felt about that is this. I mean, this is something that I, you know, I. This is a response that I would have given, you know, in the mission. This was. This is something that I had already thought about. But there's. There's some.

Trevor Haugen [00:16:12] In my mind, there were just some kind of issues, some core issues with that, because when God the Father and Jesus Christ saw Joseph Smith in the first vision, they told him that every other religion was an abomination in his sight. And so to now go back on that and say, well, we kind of think that there's, you know, like, that there's good in every church. You know, we're just saying, hey, let us add to that, you know, that that kind of goes against, you know, what was initially supposedly said to Joseph Smith from. From God himself.

Trevor Haugen [00:16:52] When you say everything's an abomination, like, that's a pretty strong word, you know. And so we very much believe that this is the only true church. And I always understood that we had evidence and logic on our side, at least to a certain point, to back it up. And so one point that I. That I made to Matt was I just said, well, I know that a lot of it comes down to faith. I know a lot of it comes down to, you know, following the spirit. But where most religions have, you know, a lot of logic and science leading up to a point, then there's a gap to where you find God.

Trevor Haugen [00:17:27] Feel like Mormonism is redefining that faith in the sense that as Mormons, we have to believe and have faith despite science, logic, DNA analysis, I mean, all of that. And so what I was telling Matt was just, you know, help me at least, you know, make sense of this half of a Bridge that should be there, that's just not anymore.

John Dehlin [00:17:54] Yeah. So if I were to summarize, you feel like, you know, even in Doctrine and Covenants, I think section one, it makes it clear that all other churches are an abomination. That's been the narrative that we were raised on. And so to some extent now to just focus on the good and the truth that's everywhere feels like a bait and switch to you a little bit. Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:18:18] And another thing is, you know, I talked at the beginning when I first sat down with Matt and Elder Clark. We were talking about, you know, some different concerns that I had. And one of the things in the very beginning of the meeting was that I talked about as I've kind of stepped away from the church a little bit and been able to look outside in and talk to some of the members of the church. What scared me most is I've started to see what I see in, like, Scientology documentaries, you know, and I. And what I mean by that is this mind control going on when you have talks. Like Boyd K. Packer when he says, how can I bear a testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, the gospel is true? You know, they basically say the way

John Dehlin [00:19:08] to gain a testimony is by burying it.

Trevor Haugen [00:19:10] Yeah. He says the testimony found in bearing it. And to me, is that ethical? You know, how is that not bearing false witness? Is that not a part of this whole, you know, mind control thing, you know, that's happening? And so that scared me, John. That really scared me. And as I talk to people and they're unwilling to even open their mind to the opposite side, you know, of things, or just the un. Whitewashed history of the church and the hidden doctrine of the church. It's scary to me that people can't even entertain that, you know, and so. Yeah, so that's part of that whole thing as well.

John Dehlin [00:19:54] Yeah. Yeah. And I would just also add that in some sense, the church kind of speaks out of both sides of its mouth, because you can find these isolated quotes where we emphasize the goodness and truth out there. But make no mistake about it, our missionaries are there to convert people away from their faith. We don't consider baptisms of any other Christian church to be legitimate.

John Dehlin [00:20:21] We don't consider that they have any legitimate authority. And the prevailing, the dominant, the absolute narrative in General Conference through 2017 is this is God's one true church. Join it or you're not part of God's true church. And so for grow to be focusing on the good, that's Found everywhere. It's a nice progressive move. And you hear that from Patrick Mason, you hear that from Givens and others, but it's just not consistent with the prevailing authoritative narrative. And to say that those are in any way comparable or equal or deserve equal weight, it really can't be both. It's either.

John Dehlin [00:21:06] It's just like Gord v. Hinckley has said. It's either everything it's claimed to be, or it's the greatest fraud. You can find Holland saying that, you can find apostles and prophets saying that for dozens and dozens of years. They're the ones who've set it up this way, and it's still framed in this way. And so to claim that it's about goodness everywhere, just not living in reality, you know.

Trevor Haugen [00:21:34] Yeah, absolutely. And they did. And there was a part where Matt did. Did confirm, you know, the fact that it is kind of all or nothing with the church. It's all or nothing. So, yeah, that's. That's. That.

John Dehlin [00:21:50] That.

Trevor Haugen [00:21:50] That's a big claim to be the only true church on the face of the planet and yet just ask everybody to just follow the spirit. When something doesn't make sense, you know, or history, DNA, science, logic, disprove something, just follow the spirit. That, to me, can only get me so far, especially as I'm meeting other people out there in the world that. That are spiritual, that have had spiritual experiences, and they've tied them to the religion that they have, you know, and so I can't step into anybody else's body, John. I don't know what they're feeling. So I can never say that my feeling of the spirit is stronger than theirs. Does that make sense? So my whole thing was just. I could no longer rely 100% on the spirit alone to guide me. So things start. Started. I mean, they need to make sense, at least.

John Dehlin [00:22:46] Yeah. That basically called out the epistemology problem. How do we know if something's true? And. And the church's excessive reliance on feelings, irrespective of facts is just deeply problematic. Because some Muslims believe in Islam so much, they've had such a strong spiritual witness that Islam's true that they're willing to fly their plane into buildings. So you just can't claim that feelings are a reliable demonstration of evidence that something's true, because every religion relies on feelings as evidence that the religion is true.

Trevor Haugen [00:23:24] Well, and you want to talk. You want to talk about feelings. I mean, look at. Look at the. I mean, just look at the commitment, right? I mean, like you said, flying Planes into buildings and, you know, and these suicide, you know, these kamikazes, basically, they believe that God is telling them to do that. That's got to be a pretty intense feeling if we feel like we're feeling the spirit, you know. And another thing is you look at Buddhism, you know, and people committing their entire life to the practice of Buddhism. You look at evangelist conventions, you know, look at the spirit that you feel there. I mean, those guys are getting people on stage that haven't walked in years, that have been sick, and they're healing people. Talk about authority, talk about priesthood. How do you explain these things?

John Dehlin [00:24:14] Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. I think we've covered that one well. And I appreciate where grow is coming from, but I just. I think it's. It comes to me. It just doesn't seem consistent, and it seems a little bit disingenuous. It's sort of like saying these are not the droids you're looking for. When the stark reality is the brethren themselves, as official prophets, seers and revelators, frame it as the one true church with exclusive authority. And so to encourage people to lower their standards, I think is not consistent with the LDS Church. Okay, why don't you read question number two about Book of Abraham and just read the question. You don't even. Just read it straight so that we know what they read when we had the meeting.

The Book of Abraham and Apologetic Arguments

Trevor Haugen [00:25:01] Okay. A lot of these aren't so much

John Dehlin [00:25:03] in question form, but I'll try whatever read the statement.

Trevor Haugen [00:25:09] So I just put. We have testable claims from Joseph Smith that can help us prove whether he was a true prophet or not. You shall know them by their fruits. One of these is the power of translation from God. Joseph Smith claimed that he could translate documents from Egyptian or reformed Egyptian to English, but nobody could cross check this at the time, since linguistics could not directly translate Egyptian at the time. Today, however, they can, and they have. We don't have the plates from the Book of Mormon. We don't have the Kinderhook plates, but we do have these scraps, as Magro would say, of the papyrus from the Book of Abraham and also the facsimiles right here actually still in the canonized scripture in the Book of Abraham that Joseph Smith supposedly translated.

Trevor Haugen [00:25:59] So the fact that Egyptologists found the source material for the Book of Abraham to be nothing more than just pagan funerary text of a deceased man named Hor, and that none of these descriptions actually match up with the facsimile, basically every. Every item that we have to test Joseph Smith's Ability to translate. He fails every single time. And so. So, yeah, so that.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] Okay, so that was the statement. So my, you know, my recounting of what Grove's response was was to first make the very classic apologetic claim that we don't have all the scrolls. I think he said that we have just 10, 10% of the scrolls that they, you know, a bunch was destroyed in the fire. So again, apologists are always going to the gaps to say maybe the truth is in the evidence we don't have. Right. As if the absence of evidence sort of proves something or at least allows for plausible deniability.

John Dehlin [00:27:06] He does acknowledge that these are funerary texts and that just as the essays acknowledge that Abraham, from what we have, Abraham's name, you know, pretty much doesn't appear anywhere. There's really no. And it doesn't. The dating of the scrolls don't date to the time of Abraham. He acknowledges that.

John Dehlin [00:27:29] And then he goes into talking about what he calls two impulses. He said Joseph Smith as translator had a scholarly impulse and a spiritual impulse. And that basically we know that there are times where he's trying to understand and learn Hebrew or Greek, and he's trying to, you know, really translate in the sense of the understanding of the word translate that we all have, which is trying to convert one language into English. But he says there's a second impulse, which is a spiritual impulse, where like with the Book of Moses, text just comes to him through revelation.

John Dehlin [00:28:08] And this is basically how he's trying to explain the Book of Abraham. It's a very classic. It's where apologists go these days, that in reality, the scrolls were a catalyst to inspire him to channel God's inspiration. And it's used with the Book of Mormon as well. And I'm not gonna editorialize yet on that, but that's basically what he said. And, you know, then he tries to say, Joseph never tells us exactly how he gets the Book of Abraham or the Book of Mormon. He it's just by the gift and power of God.

John Dehlin [00:28:44] And he was very hesitant to allow the word fraud to be used. Instead, he says it's untestable. And then you gave a really good response where you actually said the facsimiles are testable and they were attempted to be translated and the translations are all inaccurate, which he totally recognized.

John Dehlin [00:29:09] But he basically said from a secular intellectual standpoint, you might choose Trevor to use the word fraud, but from a spiritual standpoint, you can't say it's not revelation. And so that was basically the discussion of Book of Abraham. So how did you feel and what was your reaction to Gros response there? And again we have no response from Clark up through the 27 minute mark. And so again, Clark remained silent during this whole time.

Trevor Haugen [00:29:50] And I remember looking over to Elder Clark and hoping that he would chime in, but it didn't seem like he had too much to say regarding this. And I don't know if that's from his lack of understanding on the this subject matter. I mean, I can't assume either way, but. Or maybe he was just wanting Matt as the expert to kind of do all the talking. But yeah, I do got to give it to Matt on this one because like, it's not that like either of us are winning different points or anything like that. It's just, I'm just saying I can see where he's coming from from a faith promoting apologetic kind of, you know, perspective.

Trevor Haugen [00:30:37] However, for me it's just a little too convenient. When you say, it kind of reminds me of the whole idea of, well, sometimes Joseph spoke as a man and sometimes he spoke as a prophet, right? So whenever it's untestable or, you know, or he's right, he was speaking as a prophet. But when he, for example, whenever it's

John Dehlin [00:31:01] something we don't like, then he was right.

Trevor Haugen [00:31:04] Well, he sent Oliver Cowdery to go to Canada and sell the Book of Mormon, right. And that was Revelation from God. And then when they went up and did the whole thing and it didn't work out and nobody wanted to buy it and they came back, turns out that he was actually speaking as a man. So it's almost, it's a little too convenient to say that when he's wrong, he's speaking as a man, right. And when he's, you know, and we're, when we can't test it or when he's right, oh, that was him being a prophet. It's the same thing here. It's kind of like, well, yeah, when we can test it and it's proven false, that means it was a spiritual translation, right?

Trevor Haugen [00:31:44] It wasn't actual translation. That just seems a little too convenient for me. And like you said these, a lot of these things aren't spiritual, they're very literal. Like, how do you explain the facsimiles? Like, what kind of, like what spiritual thing am I supposed to get out of some of this stuff? Answers to the Hebrew word meaning rao ki yang. And so it's just weird. And no Egyptian could look at this with a straight face and like actually Accept this as historical legit.

John Dehlin [00:32:17] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's clear that Joseph was giving people the impression that he was translating, not channeling spirituality. You know what I'm saying?

Trevor Haugen [00:32:29] Well, he had the Alphabet right. He was taking a very scholarly approach, and there are witnesses to that. And So, I mean, 86% or something like that of the book of Abraham is actually taken from the Bible. So why did he need to really, like, invent? I mean, if most of it was gonna be relevatory or spiritual anyway, why go through all of this pain of coming up with his Egyptian Alphabet and grammar and all this kind of stuff when really he could have just prayed or looked at his stone?

John Dehlin [00:33:08] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:33:09] I don't know. It's just. It doesn't make sense to me. But that's. You know. But I can see Matt's point where, hey, just have faith on it. It's a spiritual translation.

John Dehlin [00:33:20] And I think. I think we probably should have started acknowledging how kind it was for Elder Clark to meet with you. Maybe you did. Or how generous it was for Matt Grow to meet that they were sincerely offering pastoral care. And at least on Grove's part, making a really sincere attempt not to demean you, not to belittle you, but to just share his best understanding of how this could be reconciled. So there's a degree to which they're working in good faith. They're trying their best to help you, and they deserve credit for their time and kindness and generosity.

Trevor Haugen [00:33:58] Well, yeah, these guys don't have time to meet with people like me every single day. I mean, if they would meet with people like us every day, I mean, they would have no life, you know, but that's why. That's why, you know, I wanted to share this with people, because I feel like a lot of people would love to kind of be in this. In this situation. I think it's ideas that are worth sharing, you know? But I do think it was very, very kind of Matt to take his time and Elder Clark. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:34:28] Yeah. And at least I don't know that people feel like Elder Clark came off very, very well. But I think most people feel like maybe Grow didn't give the best answers, but he came across quite well, quite candid, very, you know, very apologetic, but also not demeaning or belittling. So many people feel like Grow came out. Well, I just want to add something that maybe you've already just kind of mentioned Again, it's apologists always going to where the ground is unprovable to make their point.

John Dehlin [00:35:05] And at the End of this conversation. Grow basically says we need a greater and a better understanding of what being a prophet means. And in theory, that's okay, except for the fact that the prevailing orthodox narrative makes it very clear what a prophet is, which is to talk to God. And when an apologist takes that move of saying, well, I think we need to have a deeper understanding of what translation means or what profit means, what they're really doing is defining down. They're basically saying prophet.

John Dehlin [00:35:41] They're saying it quietly, they're saying it behind closed doors. They're saying it, you know, Givens will say it in a little secret private meeting with a bunch of people who are hand selected at a state conference. Okay, maybe profit means something different than what we thought. Maybe translation means something a little bit different than what we thought. But in reality, they're basically lowering the bar and lowering the standard.

John Dehlin [00:36:04] And that's not what we signed up for. That's not what people got converted to. That's not what my ancestors got converted to. That's not why I served a mission. And so it's just this constant defining down of these terms.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:19] Do we not know what a prophet, seer and revelator should be doing? Yeah, within the church that. I mean, I felt like it was.

John Dehlin [00:36:27] This comes up, this comes up later in the conversation.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:30] It absolutely does. Do we touch on it right now?

John Dehlin [00:36:32] No, let's wait. Let's wait. Okay, okay, okay. But I just. But I just wanted to mention that Grow brought bro starts bringing this up.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:39] Right.

John Dehlin [00:36:40] Okay. So the next topic that you wrote about was Book of Mormon. Why don't you go ahead and read your. And by the way, we have 165 people tuned in to Facebook. Facebook Live. I'll just read one comment. Spencer writes Book of Abraham should be the nail in the coffin. Can't see how anyone looks past that. I just want to agree with Spencer. If John Dehlin purchased some scrolls in 2017 and claimed to translate them and produced a text that then by Egyptologist standards could be clearly demonstrated to not even date to the time of Abraham, to not have the words of Abraham anywhere in it, Mormon apologists would say, John's a liar, John's deceiving people.

John Dehlin [00:37:26] He's a laughingstock. Ignore him. And so I just want to sort of agree with Spencer that what apologists do is they change their standard of credibility for Joseph Smith. Where that standard of credibility would not apply to any other non Mormon nonprofit in the history of the world, but they're willing to give Joseph Smith a

Trevor Haugen [00:37:47] power John, isn't that what the apologists say about you anyway?

John Dehlin [00:37:51] Yeah, yeah, they do. And we'll talk about that with Jeremy Runnels. And my only point is just that I'm just trying to reflect what Spencer basically said, which is the Book of Abraham is a smoking gun and it should by itself alone demonstrate that Joseph Smith was a fraud. But so many people just don't want to accept it.

Trevor Haugen [00:38:17] You know, the fact that it's still in the canonized scripture of the church, it just, just blows my mind.

John Dehlin [00:38:24] And I've actually heard rumors that Terrell Gibbons has been privately recommending to the brethren that the Book of Abraham be removed from the canon because it's not credible. Now he won't admit that publicly, but I have it on good sources that that's what he's telling people privately.

Trevor Haugen [00:38:40] Well, it makes sense. I think it would be a good move.

John Dehlin [00:38:43] Debbie writes, when the facsimiles are there clearly incorrect in the translation and they say, oh, that was a spiritual translation, do they not see that they're suggesting that God was fine with setting up his prophet to look like a fraud? That's a really good point, Debbie. She goes on to write that God, who surely knew that the Rosetta Stone would shortly be thereafter discovered and that Egyptian writing would be translatable, knew that Joseph would be revealed as a fraud if he claimed to have translated the papyru, thought using the papyri as an apparent source would be fine. Question mark. And I think that's, that's a really good point by Debbie.

Trevor Haugen [00:39:20] That would be really playing with our minds, wouldn't it be? I mean to say, by their fruits you shall know them and then just make their fruits completely just hoaxy feeling. That's, you know, that's misleading.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] Katie writes, if the Book of Abraham wasn't a literal translation, why the need to spend thousands of dollars donated by the saints in tithing to purchase the scrolls? That's another great point made by Katie Man. Our listeners are very thoughtful listeners. Please, please continue bringing up your comments and questions and we'll read them after our analysis. Laura writes, don't forget the Kinderhook plates. And of course that's, that's another example where Joseph Smith claimed to have translated something and it was a, they were made up plates with a made up language just to be able to show that Joseph Smith was just making crap up.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:16] Yeah, but they're not in the scriptures, you know what I mean? Like. Yes, that's a good point. I mean another thing that I brought up Is this Zelf? You know, anytime Joseph Smith would find anything, like his credibility of being able to view ancient documents for what they really were is just completely unreliable.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] Right.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:39] But the fact that the Book of Abraham is scripture, it's in the.

John Dehlin [00:40:42] Oh, sure, sure, it's insane. But there's just Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Kinderhook plates. Kinderhook plates isn't necessarily smoking gun, but if you put all those dots together, of course it forms a line. Annalisa writes, apologists always go to the ground of which is unprovable. And that's totally a great way to summarize. Okay, Trevor, why don't you go ahead and read Book of Mormon if that's okay.

Trevor Haugen [00:41:05] Right. And. Okay. So many things to say.

John Dehlin [00:41:10] Did you want to follow up with

Trevor Haugen [00:41:11] one of the things I was gonna say? You know, one big thing that Matt did mention was this kitchen sink approach. And that that to me was, you know, and what he means by that is, you know, the CES letter.

John Dehlin [00:41:27] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:41:27] You know, or a lot of people that are kind of, you know, questioning or whatever, they tend to spend a lot of time just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just kind of rapid fire concerns and brushing over a lot of things, but without actually going into detail. And my whole thing on that is because I've heard that before, but my whole thing on that is that's simply not the case.

Trevor Haugen [00:41:51] The kitchen sink approach is effective because it gives people a reference point to a lot of things that are going on. But it's not like these are shallow points. There are just a lot of things going on here. So these are my top five. But I got to tell you, John, it was really tough for me to pick five because I have hundred plus concerns. And these are not shallow concerns. You can do research on every single one and get very deep in every single one and see that they check out.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] And it's also a weird apologetic defense to say, oh my gosh, there's so much evidence. That's a problem when you bring too much evidence to the table. That's sort of a weird judo move. Because the truth is, if there's a mountain of evidence, that should speak to the lack of credibility of the claims, not to the integrity of the critics who are bringing the evidence forward. Now, the evidence is crap, but the evidence is not crap. The evidence is like completely credible on pretty much every front, you know, by most of the modern. Whether it's Sandra Tanner, Gerald Tanner, Jeremy Runnels, Mormon think it's all credible.

John Dehlin [00:43:07] The essays, if they do anything is they confirm that what B H Roberts, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, Grant Palmer, Jeremy Runnels, Mormonthink, Mormon stories. What they've all been saying is absolutely true and legitimate. So don't use the argument, oh, you're bringing too much evidence. The kitchen sink. I'm overwhelmed.

Trevor Haugen [00:43:28] I would have loved to see the kitchen when I first started going through this. I would have loved to see the kitchen sink approach from the church in response to this. I would have loved to seen that. I wouldn't have complained at all. But the things that I see is like, oh, well, he got this fact wrong. He got this wrong. He got this wrong. And when I look into those where it's inaccurate. And again, we're talking heavily about the CES letter. I don't want to make my entire experience hinge on the CS letter. It's just that Jeremy Runnels did an incredible job summarizing all these points, but it's outside that, too. And what I was going to say is the points that they make where, you know, saying the CS letter isn't 100% accurate, when I look into those, it's like, well, you didn't get the spelling of this right.

John Dehlin [00:44:17] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:44:17] Or the name of this place is wrong. Or, you know what I mean? Very small stuff. When fundamentally the issue still.

John Dehlin [00:44:25] Or the critics are bad people. We'll talk about that.

Book of Mormon Origins and Historicity

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 713

Trevor Haugen [00:00:28] Okay, we'll get into that.

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Let's go ahead and read Book of Mormon. Let's do Book of Mormon. And listeners, Listeners live. Go ahead and post your concerns and questions about the Book of Mormon. Take it away, Trevor.

Trevor Haugen [00:00:38] The first thing that I brought up was that I could start to see how a story could have been concocted by Joseph smith that wasn't 100% original. This idea of Native Americans originating.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] Do you want to read your Book of Mormon point in the email?

Trevor Haugen [00:00:52] I do want to read it, but there was one thing that we mentioned that wasn't in here that I wanted to get into, and it was this whole thing on View of the Hebrews. Do you remember that?

John Dehlin [00:01:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and read what you wrote in the email and then talk about that.

Trevor Haugen [00:01:05] Okay, Okay. I just said, similar to the Book of Abraham, there are 1769 King James Version edition errors in the Book of Mormon, errors unique to the Bible that Joseph Smith owned word for word. How could these have made it into an ancient record? That was my first point.

John Dehlin [00:01:22] And then you went on to that was. That was the Book of Mormon part.

Trevor Haugen [00:01:25] This was. This is just kind of one little. Yeah. Point within the Book of Mormon. And then we kind of got into this discussion of, you know, with the Bible, other books like View of the Hebrews, which Joseph Smith very, very likely would have had in his possession, written by Oliver Cowdery's pastor, has basically the story of the Book of Mormon. In other words, this was a very popular tale at the time. And so the Bible, the View of the Hebrews, the language that was used in the late war that Joseph Smith most likely studied as a young boy, all of these things, you can start seeing them all come together, and you can see how Joseph Smith would have pieced together the Book of Mormon.

Trevor Haugen [00:02:15] A lot of people say, well, he was 14 years old. How can an uneducated farm boy do this? But he wasn't 14. He was in his 20s when this was happening. He was a smart guy. I mean, you got to give him that. Joseph Smith was brilliant, and he knew the Bible a lot more than we give him credit for. You know, we say he's this stupid, uneducated boy, but it's like when you really get into a story and know Joseph Smith, you realize how smart he was and how much he knew about God and the Bible.

John Dehlin [00:02:51] Right. Okay, so I'll recount now what I. What I wrote down to be groes responses. His immediate response to View of the Hebrews and the late war was that, you know, go read them was what he said. And he was basically saying, you know, if you think. If you think Joseph got the Book of Mormon from view of the Hebrews, just go read View of the Hebrews and it'll obviously prove to you that there's no real meaningful relation. And I thought it was cool because you actually said you had read from view of the Hebrews and from late war, maybe not all of it, but you had read from it.

John Dehlin [00:03:30] And anyway, that was an interesting exchange. But, you know, this is what apologists also say is they say, well, it's not like he copied View of the Hebrew into the Book of Mormon. But I don't think anybody's really claiming that. It's just that the prevailing understanding in upstate New York in the 1830s about where native Americans came from for many was that they came from Israel.

John Dehlin [00:04:00] And so that that clearly was the truth that Joseph was pulling from to inspire the Book of Mormon. And there are themes in not text, but themes in view of the Hebrews that clearly appear in the Book of Mormon. And that's all the people claim when they try and say that Joseph's the view of the Hebrews inspired the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:04:24] And then, like you said in the discussion with Grow, the text from the late war sounds almost identical in terms of the, you know, and it came to pass sort of language. The King James English of the late war reads in the very same sort of style as the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] And so then Grogh goes on to basically give a Book of Mormon, a Brigham Young quote, where he says that Brigham Young said, I wouldn't be stumbled if the prophet Joseph Smith translated 40 times the same text, and it was different each time. And the way Gross summarized that was to say that God speaks in the language of the translators.

John Dehlin [00:05:07] He expresses it in the prophet's language. And so there's another argument that Joseph only has the words that he has. Yeah. So when he comes up with the Book of Mormon, he can only have the words that he has.

Trevor Haugen [00:05:21] So when the words appear on the stone, how I understand it, and this is how it's stated in lds.org is that when he's looking at the Seer Stone, the words appeared to him almost glowing. Wouldn't he just write that down?

John Dehlin [00:05:40] Exactly.

Trevor Haugen [00:05:41] Would he have to interpret that word and then translate it himself into a word that makes sense to him? That. You know what I mean? So that doesn't really. That to me, felt really kind of flat for me.

John Dehlin [00:05:53] Totally, totally. He goes on to give a Quote from Givens, which is that God intentionally leaves this evidence muddled so that there's a role of faith involved. Now again, fine, if that's your view of God, that God provides some evidence, but not a lot of evidence, and then a lot of counter evidence so that you can like spend your existence sort of trying to make sense of it all and then need to believe in something that isn't necessarily testable or true. And that that's literally like the main test of your mortal existence that you'll put your faith in some, some extraterrestrial being that these super flawed prophets tell you exists and are true.

John Dehlin [00:06:39] And if you're not willing to ignore the real evidence and, and believe on the words of these men who want your money, that somehow you fail the test. And it's an interesting view of God, but that's basically what Terrell Gibbons and Grow are basically saying is God intentionally makes it hard and confusing so that there's a role for faith. And again, I guess it depends on your view of God. Trevor, you responded by saying that it's just too muddled, that, that science matters. There's evidence, there's logic, there's DNA, and that faith is fine, but that faith shouldn't be required, you know, in spite of the evidence, that faith should sit along with the evidence. And then someone can believe if the thing that they're believing in has at least some substance to back it up. And you just.

Trevor Haugen [00:07:33] Yeah, John, I mean, the thing is, is. And I brought this up to Matt, I said, you know, do you believe that if we did not have Jerusalem today, right, or any evidence that the people of the Bible actually existed, that Jesus Christ may have actually existed?

Trevor Haugen [00:07:54] Do you believe we would have as many Christians as we have today? I highly doubt that because it would be a completely fictional place. We have the Roman Empire, we have the Egyptian pyramids. I mean, it's not crazy to think that these people would be leaving behind some trace.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:14] My biggest thing and you know, and obviously Matt Gro, he's not an archaeologist and so, you know, he was doing his best, he gave me some resources. But the biggest thing for me was the fact that there is no archaeological evidence to directly support the Book of Mormon or the Nephites, Lamanites, who numbered in the millions. And I bring up the fact that on Hill Cumorah there was supposedly a war of a couple million people that happened.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:47] Why are there zero traces of hair, bones, swords, you know, shields, helmets, chariots, armor, anything? Just one thing, you know, and it's not just that, but anywhere, you know. And in my email I talk a lot about Thomas Ferguson, who was part of the New World Archaeological Organization. That was actually.

Trevor Haugen [00:09:17] He was, he was part of BYU's archaeological division. From what I understand, he was contracted by the church to go out and find archaeological evidence. And after 17 years of trying to dig up evidence for the Book of Mormon, he said, you can't set the Book of Mormon geography down anywhere because it's fictional and it will never meet the requirements of dirt archaeology, you know, and so it just doesn't confirm what's in the book.

Trevor Haugen [00:09:43] I can get it when people say, well, it's a faith, you know, it's a faith promoting book. There's some good stories in there that we can really learn from. They're, you know, maybe parables or something, but to actually believe that it happened, that it's historic.

John Dehlin [00:09:59] Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, totally. And this was where I think Grow. One of the weakest points for grow, because basically he brings up the work of John Sorensen. And you know, John Sorensen is a professor at byu. I don't know if he's an anthropologist or an archaeologist, exactly what it is, but he definitely has a PhD from a reputable school.

John Dehlin [00:10:25] But at the same time, if you reference the Mormon Stories episode that I did with Mormon, with Michael Koh, who's a Yale trained archaeologist who is a specialist in Mesoamerica during the time that the Book of Mormon takes place, just go back and listen to that episode. Michael Coe, C O E.

John Dehlin [00:10:42] You know, I asked him, were there metal swords? He says no. Were there horses? No. Were there cattle? No. Were there sheep? No. Wheels? Chariots? You know, he goes, you know, wheat, barley? He basically just makes it very obvious that there is not a shred of meaningful, credible archaeological evidence to bolster the Book of Mormon. And anyone who really understands and is objective about this issue will realize that John Sorensen, I'm sure he's a lovely man. I'm sure that John Sorensen is smart, sure that his degree is credible, but there's not a non Mormon archaeologist anywhere that would back up the things that John Sorensen writes in his books, like the Mormon Codex, I think it's called, where he tries to shoehorn cherry picked archaeological anthropological evidence to demonstrate the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, if it were even worthy of consideration.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] But non Mormon archaeologists and apologists, which it's not, it would be a laughingstock. And so for Grow and then Clark to kind of say, hey, there's this smart guy at BYU, who's got a PhD, who's written this book that no one really understands. Just trust that. And you don't need to worry about all the others that would say that it's sort of a laughingstock. I felt like that was a weak part of, of Groves. Of Groves. And Clark's response?

Trevor Haugen [00:12:14] Yeah, I mean, it was disappointing to me as well. But he did preface saying he's not an archaeologist, you know, an archaeologist. This is not his expertise, you know what I mean? So he did just kind of pass me off to a source that he believes is the best source. And unfortunately it is John Sorensen. That was kind of where he was pointing me to. And having looked at John Sorensen a little bit prior to that, I knew already, you know, what that was gonna look like. I didn't spend a lot of time reading John Sorensen stuff because very early on I could see it was, it was a lot of theory and interpretation from, you know, from a member of the church.

Trevor Haugen [00:12:55] And that's not so much what I was, what I was interested in. Anybody can have theories and I didn't look into theories on the, on the stuff that was going against the Church's view, you know what I mean? So I'm just looking at stuff that actually makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:13:13] Totally. The other thing we just have to acknowledge about Sorensen is that he has a conflict of interest. His salary, his pension is all tied to him bolstering the Book of Mormon claims. His job is dependent on that he would be fired immediately from BYU if he started telling people the church wasn't true and the archeology doesn't match up.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] So he's cherry picking evidence to prove his faith based beliefs with zero credibility in sort of a peer reviewed, objective way. So I do think it's fair that GROW mentions him. I just don't think it's a very credible thing to refer people to. And it's a common tactic to say a smart guy has done all the thinking so you don't really have to. And, and I just, I don't like that approach. It's what they did with Hugh Nibley and it's what they're doing with John Sorensen and John Sorensen nor Hugh Nibley were credible. And we know now through Mormon leaks that the Church actually disregarded Hugh Nibley's apologetics in some instances. Really quick. Oh, go ahead.

Trevor Haugen [00:14:21] I was gonna say Matt Groh did make a good point with the DNA analysis. I thought kind of an original thing that I had never heard before because, you know, you Know, I came in saying that DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle east or from Israelites, but rather from Asia through the Bering Strait. His thing was, I thought his most. His strongest point was that we don't know what Lehi's DNA would have been. Okay, again, but it's just. It was something new that I'd never heard. Right.

John Dehlin [00:14:54] No. And just because maybe I've been, you know, I've been dealing with these things more. I heard that at a fair conference, like back in 2005, 2006, 2007. I don't remember the exact date, but that's been around a long time. But again, I just want to call attention to something. Apologists are always trying to find the gaps and say that we don't know for sure. They're trying to create plausible deniability. They're trying to make the target as small as possible so that then they can still create the possibility of belief. And just refer to the wonderful DNA episodes that Jamie Hannis Handy did for Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:15:35] It's just not credible. I can guarantee you something. If the DNA tests of Native Americans were to have shown that somehow Native Americans had DNA that matched what we expect is real DNA to have been in 600 BC, the church would be going bananas over it and showing that it proved the Church was true. Just like with the Book of Abraham. If it turned out that Joseph's translation of the Book of Abraham and Egyptian Book of Abraham had been actual factual, the Church would have said, game over. The Church is true. But because the evidence doesn't go in their favor, they're gonna say, oh, well, maybe.

John Dehlin [00:16:15] Maybe there are other massive populations in ancient America that unfortunately, strangely, the Book of Mormon never talks about. Maybe that DNA swamped all the DNA of the Lehites. And again, if that's true, they mentioned Zoramites, they mentioned Mulekites, they mentioned Jaredites, why would they not have mentioned in the Book of Mormon this massive population that would have ended up swamping their DNA? And again, of course, we don't have samples of Lehi's DNA, but how convenient is that for the Church to then say, oh, okay, since we don't have hair from Lehi because Lehi didn't exist, by the way. Oh, that we don't know what his DNA was, and so we can't ever really know what to expect the DNA to be. It's typical apologetics, making the target so small that you can't disprove it.

Lamanite Identity and Racial Language in Scripture

Trevor Haugen [00:17:07] Oh, and wasn't it interesting as well when. When I said, well, didn't it used to say in the introduction of the Book of Mormon that all of. Because they talked about, well, they don't know how many people were already here. You know what I mean? Like, the DNA could have been lost, you know, or whatever. And I pointed to the fact that I remember growing up reading in the introduction of the Book of Mormon that these were the primary ancestors.

John Dehlin [00:17:38] Principal ancestors.

Trevor Haugen [00:17:39] Yeah. Or the principal ancestors.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:17:41] So that, to me, doesn't sound like. And. And I know since then they've changed that. But what was most concerning, instead of actually addressing that, it was more kind. They kind of took the route of, well, yeah, but that's not Joseph Smith's. Right. Like, that's not.

John Dehlin [00:17:59] Yeah, they were like, there was a committee that did 1920 that put that introduction in there. And you. You very rightly asserted you. Yeah, it was probably a committee that was approved by the prophet at the time.

Trevor Haugen [00:18:10] Well, and that's true. Yeah, that's the thing. Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:12] But it's not just that. It's that Joseph Smith himself sent missionaries to the Native Americans to convert them because he was telling everyone that the Native Americans were the pure blood of Israel, the whole Book of Mormon. You know, this is a point that Brett Metcalf made in my interview with him. The Book of Mormon says that its main purpose is to bring the Native Americans, the Lamanites, the descendants of Lehi, to bring the gospel back to them.

John Dehlin [00:18:43] And so if the Book of Mormon's express claim is to bring Lamanites to Christ, if Joseph Smith himself is sending missionaries to American Indians to convert them because they're the pure blood of Israel, then are we supposed to now go, oh, well, Joseph misunderstood the fundamental purpose of the Book of Mormon, Joseph misunderstood who Lamanites were. This committee in 1920 misunderstood, but now in 2017, we're supposed to go, oh, okay, now the prophets are getting it right. When for over 150 years, they had no clue who the Lamanites even were. Again, who are the Lamanites? It's the shrinking target where the Lamanites are disappearing. We don't talk about them anymore.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] Spencer Kimball used to care about the Lamanites. Now we don't care about him anymore. We've changed the Lamanite generation performing group to now be some other name because now we just kind of don't want to ever talk about Lamanites because it's all of a sudden inconvenient. When it was the foundational understanding of Joseph Smith and the purpose of the Book of Mormon to be for the Native Americans that everyone knew were the descendants of Lehi.

Trevor Haugen [00:19:58] My wife is from Bolivia and she's still trying to get over the fact that she might not be a Lamanite. That. I mean, when I served a mission 15 years ago, that was very clear to all of us missionaries that we are. We are preaching to the, you know, to the Lamanite, the ancestors. We would actually tell people that, like, these are your ancestors, this book, you know, like, you need to know this, you know, and then when, I mean, you can get into a lot of other things with that that are derogatory, that I'm really surprised that people actually don't see. But again, you know, most.

Trevor Haugen [00:20:37] Most of these people that were, you know, talking to in Latin America so nice and humble and loving, they would never even be defensive on the fact, you know, but, but to me, I always kind of felt like. Like the church was talking about them as if they were a lesser people.

Trevor Haugen [00:20:56] And I always. Yeah, like you said, it was always kind of a touchy thing for me. You know, I never felt comfortable talking about it in that sense. But. But anyway, yeah, but, but it is assumed, I think.

John Dehlin [00:21:07] Very much.

Trevor Haugen [00:21:08] Very much.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] And so really quick, I want to go to some of the comments for our live listeners. We have 210 live listeners right now, which is a great number. So people are finding value in this conversation. Eric writes that you have awesome hair, Trevor. So I just wanna. That's a really important substantive conversation.

Trevor Haugen [00:21:29] Let's talk about that for a while. I like where that conversation's going.

John Dehlin [00:21:32] Yeah, I think it's really important someone writes down below, they remind us about the words, you know, when grow was saying, Joseph only has the words that he has. And so of course, the Book of Mormon says horse when it was probably something else, like a tapir. Or of course, it's, you know, maybe elephant when it wasn't an elephant, but that's not true. One of our listeners reminds us that the words, you know, kurilam and kumamon or whatever, those words are some of the words for currency like C9 or whatever. Joseph is creating words that don't exist in his context. And that's because he's claiming that he's seeing in a stone the words that are actually written.

John Dehlin [00:22:23] So this defense that Joseph can only use the words that he has. It's not a really credible response. Yeah. And it was Bruce that wrote, if God's using Joseph's words, where did the words curlam and kumam come from.

Trevor Haugen [00:22:42] Do you not use that in your everyday vocabulary?

John Dehlin [00:22:43] John Curlam and kumam. I can't even pronounce it. Debbie writes, if the words appeared on the stone like words written on a piece of parchment, why were there so many errors that had to be fixed later? Did God not know the word horse? Did God not know the correct translation of the Isaiah passages that mysteriously have the same errors as those that the King James Version translators mistranslator in the Book of Mormon? Those are really good points.

John Dehlin [00:23:10] There are other points about DNA, so I'm just going to go up. Heath writes, we do know what Lehi's cultural DNA markers were. The argument is only used to confuse people who think you need to have an individual present to know their DNA profile.

John Dehlin [00:23:28] That's a really good point. Heath, super glad that you're joining us. Bruce writes, the Book of Mormon says the brass plates told Nephi that he, Lehi and their ancestors came from Joseph. So that seems to be Semitic. That's a really good point. Alice writes, one of the issues I kind of had with the interview. No, we're going to talk about polygamy later. Aaron says the DNA could be Jewish, a perfect match. But if it is from thousands of years before Nephi came, it doesn't matter.

John Dehlin [00:24:00] Spencer writes anachronisms in the Book of Mormon is another blow to its claims of historicity. Heath writes, book of Mormon internal prophecies indicate that the seed of Lehi will be preserved. Seed indicates direct blood descendants or DNA. And Heath, that's a really, really important point. Aaron writes, don't forget the revelations to marry Lamanite women as concubines to turn their skin white and delicent. Yes, that's an important point. Joseph Smith, when apologists try to defend polygamy because we have Joseph having sex with Fanny Alger somewhere around 1835.

John Dehlin [00:24:39] If the revelation for polygamy, which became DNC132, didn't even get written down until sometime in the Nauvoo time period in 1840s. Apologists, you know, critics are like, well, why is Joseph sleeping with with Fanny Alger in 1835, five to seven, eight years before the D&C 132 is even revealed.

John Dehlin [00:25:02] What apologists go back to was this 1831 version of a revelation that Joseph received where he's basically telling his missionaries to go out to get Native American wives to enter into plural relationships with them because many of them were married and that through children or progeny from those relationships that their skin would be turned white into lightsome.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] So again, that's Joseph having a very clear view that Native Americans were direct descendants of Lehi and that their skin was to be turned white and delightsome. And that's when Jasmine's comment comes in. Jasmine says, I'm Mexican and to continue perpetuating the Book of Mormon as a historical fact is racist.

Trevor Haugen [00:25:50] And.

John Dehlin [00:25:50] And she uses the terms racist in capital letters. Book of Mormon is a racist document, and the teachings from the Book of Mormon are racist. And perpetuating the Book of Mormon as a historical document is a huge disservice to your wife and to people in the Pacific Islands and to all the Native Americans out there.

Trevor Haugen [00:26:12] Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And another thing is people are like, well, why are you all of a sudden so interested in DNA and archaeology and all this kind of stuff? And it's not like all of a sudden I'm like, having a special interest in it. It's just my entire life I assumed, I assumed that we had enough archaeological evidence on our side and logic. I had seen these giant books, you know, like John Sorensen's that's like, you know, Book of Mormon archeology explained or something, you know, and you just kind of. You just assume like, I'm not going to read that giant fat book, but you just assumed that we had enough on our side.

Trevor Haugen [00:26:49] It actually blew my mind when at 35 years old, John at 35 years old, like. And I know I'm not the only one. I mean, there's some people older than me that are just coming to this realization, like, wait a minute, there is zero archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon. Like what? Like this. To me, a lot of people point to the Book of Abraham as the smoking gun, but to me, this was it for me. And what I told Matt was this was the domino that just kind of started everything for me, you know, just kind of tipped everything.

John Dehlin [00:27:24] Yeah, absolutely. I'm just gonna also just add, Bethany writes, thank you for discussing the racism. And Jasmine writes, please talk about how Book of Mormon historicity is a race issue and that not framing it, that was not framing that it was. Is perpetuating racism. It promotes erasure for Latino identities. So, Jasmine, we're super grateful that you're. And Bethany and others, we're super grateful you're bringing up the race issue. That's really important. Gracie writes, jasmine, you're correct. I grew up believing I was a descendant of Lehi because I'm Mexican and somehow I was cursed for Being brown.

John Dehlin [00:28:04] And that's just kind of a disgusting, racist, awful thing. And the Book of Mormon still has got all that language that it hasn't changed, but somehow apologists are okay with that. They're kind of like, these are not the droids you're looking for. Okay, really quick, going back to the interview, you get frustrated at this point. It's around the 41 minute mark, and you basically just say, man, don't the quorum of the 15 talk to God?

John Dehlin [00:28:32] Because you know, as soon as everything gets redefined in the committee in 1920 was right until it was wrong, and then the committee gets reversed in the 1990s or 2000s, you're just exasperated by this point. And of course Gros says, well, what does that mean to talk to God? And that's when Clark jumps in.

John Dehlin [00:28:56] And again, it's worth noting that Clark doesn't actually speak up until 39 minutes into the hour and 20 minute conversation. But Clark does speak up at this point and he starts invoking the blacks in the priesthood thing. And he starts incorporating sort of Greg Prince's narrative, which we all have the benefit from now, which is that it wasn't doctrine like the first presidency sort of signed a document saying that the black priesthood ban was doctrine, which I think happened in the 1950s. You guys can find that source document.

John Dehlin [00:29:35] But Clark says it was a process. It was David O. McKay struggling with it and talking to people and trying to build a coalition. And it was a still small voice that came to Kimball.

Trevor Haugen [00:29:47] I didn't even understand where he was going with that. Actually, when he started talking about that,

John Dehlin [00:29:51] they were basically saying, revelation doesn't come by God picking up the bat, by prophets picking up the bat phone and talking to God. Revelation comes through the still small voice that can be misunderstood. And Trevor, it's just like you and me, when we try and talk to God, we all see through a glass darkly.

Trevor Haugen [00:30:09] And well, is that what the rest of the members of the church assume? Because that's not what I assumed.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] That's the problem. And that's again, the apologists backtracking and trying to define down what a prophet means. Now all of a sudden a prop. Well, they're trying to have it both ways because later in the interview they're like, well, yes, prophets can talk to God and there definitely can be direct revelation. But again, conveniently, whenever the revelation turns out to be wrong or racist, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, a prophet see through a glass darkly. And you know, they have this still small Voice that can sometimes be misinterpreted. And in the interview, you're like, well, what the freak is the use of a prophet? Those are my words, not yours. If the communication is so dark and

Trevor Haugen [00:30:56] confusing, you're taking the words out of my mind, what I was thinking.

John Dehlin [00:31:01] Okay, good. I'm channeling you in a spiritual way instead of in a scholarly way.

Trevor Haugen [00:31:07] Well, John, it gets to the point where it gets frustrating, right? Like, you know, for you, say, about 40 minutes, it was very, you know, kind conversation. It was open. I was agreeing with them. And a lot. A lot of their things. Again, I. I didn't have time or really want to debate the facts with them that, you know, it was more to get their. Their take and their belief on things. But it gets to a point when it builds up so much that I just got so frustrated that I'm just like, well, why even have a prophet then? I mean, you know, if we're saying right now, if Elder Clark is saying that, no, actually the prophet receives revelation just like you and I, or it's not too different than you and I receive revelation, that's really scary to me.

Trevor Haugen [00:31:50] And that. I mean, I guess it makes sense why there's been no prophecy, if that's the way it's going. But I always believed. When I served a mission, I believed. Man, there was that. What was it? The 15 witnesses video around the time of Gordon B. Hinckley. And they're looking into the camera and they're saying, I know.

Trevor Haugen [00:32:13] You know, I know Jesus Christ lives. And you could see it in their eyes. And you just. They, you know, they want you to assume they have had this intimate. Call it a conversation, call it a meeting or visitation or whatever. But, you know, I don't think I'm the only one that believed that. That these men are actually conversing or communicating with God in a different way or a higher.

John Dehlin [00:32:41] It's the story that we all bought into and all the people that. The missionary discussion shows Joseph kneeling in a grove of trees and God and Jesus appearing above them. And again, it's a. Oh, sorry, John,

Trevor Haugen [00:32:55] but I was just gonna say, I need to throw this in before I forget is another thing he says was. But at the end of the day, there's really no way to know. And I was like, I mean, we could ask him.

John Dehlin [00:33:08] Yeah. And so again, in the interview, we've got Grow wanting it both ways. He's saying that there are dramatic spiritual outpourings, but oftentimes it's through a process where they see Darkly. And then Clark jumps in around the 43 minute mark and says, we can never understand how it happened, but it happened. And then he says, he kind of changes the conversation and says, but prophets keep us going in the right direction.

Prophecy, Witnesses, and Credibility of Evidence

John Dehlin [00:33:38] And then for me, what was one of the major low points for the entire conversation around the 43 minute mark where he says, trevor, what's the chances of keeping your kids in the right direction without the church? And then he just does this insulting move where he says, in the church we have problems, but out of the church they really have problems. And then he mentions some Jewish guy and we don't. I don't remember exactly what he says about the Jewish guy. Those are his words, not mine. But he's basically making the point that you're never going to be able to raise healthy, happy kids outside of the church.

John Dehlin [00:34:16] You can only raise healthy, happy kids inside the church. And I'll just say it again. I think people deserve a special place in spirit prison for telling using this fear based approach to tell people you'll never find happiness and your kids will be prostitutes and drug addicts if you try and raise them out of the church. So that. How did that strike you?

Trevor Haugen [00:34:40] All I can tell you is how it made me feel. It was kind of the bully approach. I felt like, kind of like that talk, I believe was, Elder Ballard, where will you go? Yeah, kind of, what will you do?

Trevor Haugen [00:34:54] And it is. And honestly I felt that, I have felt that going through my transition. There's a fear of. Because you've lived your entire life with the church, you don't know what life is like outside of the church. And they make it seem, you know, very scary. You know, they want to paint this picture of a world that is full of just violence and rape. And I mean, what I don't know, but you leave the church and it's game over for you. And that's simply not the case.

Trevor Haugen [00:35:26] I've actually found that as I've distanced myself from the church, I've been able to connect with a higher power and be more spiritual, be able to actually step outside of this little box that they've created for me. You know what I mean?

Trevor Haugen [00:35:40] So now since I've been able to experience so many positive things outside the church, now I can look at that as being something very abusive. Does that make sense? Just that mentality. It's very unhealthy, you know, to say that you cannot have happiness, children cannot be good people without religion and more specifically the LDS Church in their life.

John Dehlin [00:36:07] Yeah. I mean, that is. That is literally what an abusive spouse says to keep the abused spouse put. They say, I made you. You'll never be happy and healthy without me. You, you'll never survive. That's the type of abusive rhetoric that keeps an abused spouse in a relationship.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:29] Is this where we talked about prophecy, John? Should we go into that?

John Dehlin [00:36:32] Yeah, let me just read a couple comments really quick. Phoebe writes, we all have personal revelation unless it contradicts the leadership's revelations. She says, what about praying to know if the Book of Mormon is not true? When can those that have done that become significant? So the brethren. If we receive a witness that confirms what the brethren's teaching, well, then that's a true witness. But if it ever confirms something that isn't what the brethren say, well, then that's Satan or that's a false witness. And, and that's a really good point.

Trevor Haugen [00:37:05] Phoebe writes, according to Packer, there's three ways you can fill the spirit, right? It's either your own feelings, the Holy Ghost, or the devil. Yeah, like, but how can I discern if the devil can dress up like the Holy Ghost?

John Dehlin [00:37:19] I mean, it's just a God.

Trevor Haugen [00:37:20] Whose tokenism is that?

John Dehlin [00:37:21] It's a weird type of God. Cameron writes, I hate the rhetoric that it's impossible to have good morals without religion. It is absolutely consulting. That's absolutely true. Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead. So like you said, the conversation then turns to Jeremy Runnels. And again around the 44 minute mark, the discussion about Jeremy Runnels, it happens in sort of two different parts, but it's one of the most insulting parts of the interview.

John Dehlin [00:37:56] He basically assassinates Jeremy's character in a couple places. The first time, he basically says, I read somewhere that Jeremy promised that he wasn't gonna publish CES letter until his mother died, but then he published it before his mother died. And he basically said, what kind of despicable. These are my words. What kind of despicable human being would dishonor their parents that way? Of course that's a problem because, you know, what about the things Joseph Smith did to his own wife? But let's ignore that.

John Dehlin [00:38:27] That's because Jeremy Reynolds is an evil human being. And then you very, very lovingly came to Jeremy's defense and basically said, I think Jeremy wanted to share his truth with loved ones. Isn't that a good impulse? If you've seen discovered truth, isn't that good to want to share it?

John Dehlin [00:38:46] And then this is one of the very most important points that my Buddy Christian wanted to make sure that I emphasized. One of the weird things that Clark does is he basically says, I admit that the church misled people for over a century on its historical narrative. Now, those aren't his words, but if you go back and listen to it, he admits that the church gave a false narrative. And this is exactly what Richard Bushman told people recently in A Fireside, that the predominant historical narrative the church has taught is unsustainable.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] That's what Clark agreed to. And then he said, oh, but now the church with its essays is now putting out an even. In a balanced sort of representation of the historical record, which to my understanding, most of the historical people that read the essays feel like they are not fair and accurate in their laying out. But then he turns it back on Jeremy and he says, well, Jeremy doesn't do that. He doesn't lay out a fair treatment of the pros and the cons, and it's just a not credible treatment. So what did you think about his early statements about Jeremy Reynolds?

Trevor Haugen [00:40:02] Well, it's kind of like as if somebody were to say, well, I'm just gonna look at Joseph Smith, look at his character, and then I'm gonna decide whether or not I should take. Whether I should read the Book of Mormon or not. Right. It's kind of backwards.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:19] And so, yeah, it's. It doesn't make sense to me because he actually comes out and says that he hasn't read the CES letter in its entirety. He's brushed over it, he kind of gets it right. But he hasn't really looked into it. But it seems like he's really looked into Jeremy's backstory. And I think again, that's where, you know, a lot of times these apologists turn to, you know, is attacking personal character.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:49] The thing with me, though, and I said this was the difference between, you know, attacking Jeremy Runnels versus. Versus attacking Joseph Smith is one of these people are self proclaiming to have seen God, to be a prophet of God and starting a religion. One of them is simply asking questions. Yeah, that's the difference. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] Beautifully said. Michelle writes, I'm watching live from Provincetown, Massachusetts, with no personal connection to Mormonism, just a lifelong curiosity about these beliefs you are discussing. She says, thanks for the master class. That's high praise from Michelle in Massachusetts, who's never been Mormon. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] Bill Porter writes, most of my friends outside of the church behave better than some in the church. Amy writes, religion is full of moral relativity and immaturity. Jace writes, all children are born Atheists. A lot of people like the comparison of the abusive mentality when they tell people, you'll never find happiness outside of the church. Sommer writes, it was my number one fear when my sister in law told me she no longer believed. I thought, how is she going to raise her kids without it now that I'm out? Summer says, it's easy to see the beauty of raising my kids so differently. Free to be whoever they want to be.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] And a lot of people are just really upset that Clark would basically say that you can't raise happy, healthy kids. Fred writes saying, it's worse outside of the church question mark. The presumptuous arrogance of those people is just staggering.

John Dehlin [00:42:31] And Cameron writes, I hate the rhetoric that it's impossible to have good morals without religion. It's absolutely insulting. And I just think every prophet, seer, revelator, quorum of 70, bishop, stake president needs to get that point that they're being deeply offensive and abusive when they use that rhetoric.

Trevor Haugen [00:42:52] Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

John Dehlin [00:42:55] Okay. It goes on to a discussion about fair, the apologetic group. They make it very clear that FAIR is not funded by the church. But what they do is they go, hey, FAIR is just a bunch of good people, good men and women trying to do the best they can. Again, they're going to imbue on FAIR people these really altruistic, pleasant, happy, good motives when they were just willing to throw, or at least Clark and I think Grow does it too, willing to throw Jeremy Runnels under the bus.

Trevor Haugen [00:43:27] Was Elder Clark's point about why Jeremy Runnels character was in question. Was that even, I don't know, was that even convincing to anybody else? That's what I would love to ask people. I mean that he, that he didn't respect, you know, Elder Clark says, well, I just can't imagine listening to somebody that wouldn't respect a dying mother's wishes. That was.

John Dehlin [00:43:52] No, it's, it's a typical ad hominem attack. If you don't have a strong argument, you attack the person who's making the counter argument. It's typical Mormon apologetics. You know, FARMS did it, Maxwell Institute did it. FAIR does it. FAIR tries not to do it anymore. But clearly Mormon general authorities and historians are still doing it behind closed doors. And they do it with John Dehlin, they do it with Kate Kelly, they did it with Von Brody, they did it with Michael Quinn, they did it with Simon Sotherton. Oh, they're adulterers. Oh, they're child molesters. Oh, they're you know, they don't love their moms. They kill little kiddies and torture them. They'll use any, any justification they can to associate evil with the critic so that you won't consider their argument.

Trevor Haugen [00:44:40] Well. And as disturbing as this whole conversation was, believe it or not, it got worse when, when I said, well, you know, Jeremy Reynolds isn't, you know, professing to be a, you know, anything more than a man with questions. And he's, you know, it's not like he's running a religion here. And Elder Clark very, very adamantly says, oh, yes, he is. And, and I'm kind of shocked by it. I was like, oh, what do you, what do you mean by that? You know, and he says, well, he's running the anti Mormon religion.

John Dehlin [00:45:13] Yeah, yeah. And that was at the 53 minute mark. Super disgusting. He says that Jeremy Runnels tells you to follow him. And it's just. It's just a disgusting, awful. Jeremy Runnels is a good man. And what people should do is say critics have credible concerns. They're generally honest people just trying to discover what's true. We may disagree with them, but we're not going to malign their character. And it's something that apologists and historians who work for the church don't yet have the integrity to admit. And so they use ad hominem. And it's really disgusting. There's no other word for it.

Trevor Haugen [00:45:59] Right.

John Dehlin [00:45:59] Okay, let's jump to the issue number four that you wrote in your email, which is about the witnesses.

Trevor Haugen [00:46:06] Okay. So we, we started talking about the witnesses. And kind of how I let off on this was, you know, and I'm not sure if when the last time you may have gone to the church history museum, but for me, I hadn't gone since I'd gone through this whole crisis. And I remember it being such a beautiful museum. And so when I walked in, I was just wondering, I wonder how my perspective will have changed now. Understand a little bit more. And so when I walked in, the first thing that I saw were these sculpture kind of art renditions of the witnesses. And there's the three witnesses there around a rock.

Trevor Haugen [00:46:43] And they're all, you know, they're flipping through the. The pages of the, you know, golden plates. And that to me just automatically gave me a really sick feeling inside because for somebody that's investigating the church, right. That it gives off a feeling of.

Trevor Haugen [00:47:06] That literally happened when it didn't. And so, you know, if, if you're already in the church and you're Aware of the fact that they only saw the plates in vision. And maybe they had this experience in vision, and maybe this whole rendition is just a dream.

Trevor Haugen [00:47:24] Right, that's one thing. But I think that people believe when they see stuff like that, that that literally happened. Right. And so I talked about that and I talked about. And then this is what I wrote in the email. I said my testimony in the Book of Mormon leaned not completely, but heavily on the fact that 11 witnesses had seen and or touched the plates. And I was relying on these men as credible witnesses. I was surprised to learn, however, that not one person, by their account, have ever seen them with their physical eyes or touched them. The witnesses, by their own admission, seem to have only seen the angel and plates in a visionary state in their minds, as Joseph suggested to them, not really with their natural eyes, as most members are taught. So why would real metal plates need to be seen in a vision or with spiritual eyes, as many of the witnesses later testified?

John Dehlin [00:48:18] Right.

Trevor Haugen [00:48:19] That was my.

John Dehlin [00:48:20] And there was. And so, you know, the response was basically there was a discussion about, you know, whether or not it's true that all of the witnesses ended up following strangling. You know, John Hamer made the point that Emma didn't follow Strang.

John Dehlin [00:48:39] And someone mentioned, I think it was grow, that Cowdery didn't become a Strangite. I don't think that totally matters. I think your bigger point was, if these witnesses are so credible, why are they following the next goofball who claims to be a prophet and who claims to manufacture scripture?

John Dehlin [00:48:55] How can they be credible? You also go on to talk about, oh, there was some debate from Growing about whether or not the witnesses saw with their natural eyes versus touched with their hands what was claimed, what wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:49:10] I think reasonable people can debate whether or not the record shows that people were claiming spiritualized versus realized, a vision versus a real experience. Touching versus not touching. The point I think you were trying to make is there are a lot of questions about how real these experiences were versus sort of imagined.

John Dehlin [00:49:32] But I think you then spoke up to a more important point, which was Joseph Smith ended up eviscerating the credibility. Number one, most of the people that followed Joseph ended up leaving the church. That's true with Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, the Whitmers. That's true with Hiram Page. I believe that's true with those other eight witnesses, that whole family. And Joseph eviscerated them their credibility. He called, you mentioned that he calls Cowdery. What did he call Cowdery?

Trevor Haugen [00:50:08] A counterfeit. A liar.

John Dehlin [00:50:09] Yeah, yeah. Martin Harris was a buffoon. You know, Joseph assassinated the character of anyone who ended up leaving the church, including the three and the eight witnesses that weren't Smiths, basically. And so the point that you made is, how can we rely on these witnesses? And if they're following Strang, if they're eviscerated by Joseph as being liars and adulterers and cheaters?

Trevor Haugen [00:50:35] Well, it comes down to this idea of convenience again. And, you know, thinking back to, you know, my time in the church and, you know, anytime the witnesses were brought up, it was always. They were always talked about as, you know, like put, you know, definitely put up on kind of a higher, you know, chair, if you will. Just as good, honest, like Abe Lincoln type people. You know what I mean?

Trevor Haugen [00:51:04] And then later, you know, anytime you talk about something that might, you know, be, you know, put them in a negative light, then it's brought up like, oh, well, you know, Joseph Smith did say that this guy was, you know, liar, counterfeit, thief, all that kind of stuff. So that probably explains that. So again, it goes back to this convenience thing, right? When they were in favor of it, they were the best men ever, the most honest people ever. As soon as they testify against it. Right. Or say something to make people doubt, I should say that's probably more accurate.

Trevor Haugen [00:51:40] It's like, oh, well, they were. They were liars and counterfeiters. Anyway, so. So anyway, so does that make sense? It goes back to that. There's a theme going on here of convenience and contradiction.

John Dehlin [00:51:52] Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm gonna bring in some comments from our listeners. Spencer also wrote, Bethany writes that the essays are completely whitewashed. That's a good point. Spencer invokes, you know, reminds us that it's the ad hominem fallacy. You know, don't attack the person, critique the ideas. I think Joseph used ad hominem when the witnesses were against him, like you say. But when the witnesses were for him, like you say, the witnesses were awesome. Chelsea writes, I choose to live a life without fear.

John Dehlin [00:52:25] Kimberly writes, the point. Wasn't Joseph Smith raised outside of Mormonism? That's again, to this point, about can good people be raised outside of Mormonism? Gabe makes a really good point. We are encouraged to read the Book of Mormon and use it to. To judge if Joseph is a true prophet. However, we are discouraged from looking at Joseph's history and past. How come an individual like Jeremy Runnels doesn't get the same courtesy? In other words, why don't the brethren Just say, yeah, check out the CES letter. Pray about it. If it seems true, if it inspires you, then you have your witness. But the brethren, again, don't want to steer you in any way that would allow you to make a conclusion that doesn't support what they want to say.

John Dehlin [00:53:09] Joshua writes, church leaders should know that the glow of the spirit doesn't shine from a gaslight. Treating Jeremy that way is deplorable. That is good poetic prose, Joshua. Thank you for writing. Other people are attacking the ad hominem. They're really frustrated with that. Andrew writes, Jeremy Runnels character is impeccable. Meeting him in person will clear that up for anyone who has questions in regards to his motives. I've met, met Jeremy many, many times and I found his character.

Trevor Haugen [00:53:37] Well, that's the difference. We can actually, we can actually give Jeremy a call. We can meet with him. We can talk to Jeremy. We can't talk to Joseph. Right. We have no idea really how bad it was, you know. And so yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:56] Greg Kearney writes really quickly. Greg Kearney is a great guy. He's one of the first people I interviewed at Mormon Stories. I interviewed him about masonry. He's been a supporter of fair, I think in the past. Maybe he still is.

John Dehlin [00:54:09] Greg writes now, John, I have never personally attacked you or anyone else, Gregory, I've never claimed that you've attacked me. FAIR has had a history of ad hominem in the past and I think I did say that they're trying to clean that up. I think there's an instance with Scott Gordon last year where he kind of blew that.

John Dehlin [00:54:28] But I believe him and I take him and others at their word that fair's trying to clean that up. My sister and my brother in law are part of fair. I think there's a lot of good people at fair. My point was historically, ad hominem has been a classic go to tool for apologists.

John Dehlin [00:54:44] And then Christina writes, the bishop from the pulpit told the ward not to associate with my family after they left. So Christina's dad was my second counselor in the stake presidency in Houston. When he left the church. Tina was told the bishop told the members of the ward not to associate with the Prince family. After the Prince family left, many rumored that Bill Prince had lost his mind. Even his own parents told the other siblings that he had lost his mind and went crazy because he had left the church. So Bill's parents, Doug Prince took told their children that their son Bill had lost his mind and went crazy.

John Dehlin [00:55:23] So again, rank and file Members look to church leaders and apologists learn ad hominem and then they do it to each other as well. It's a really ugly sort of residual of the human experience and a patriarchy. And I think it's just a crappy way that apologists try and justify what they do.

General Authorities, Experts, and Church Scholarship

Trevor Haugen [00:55:44] And one thing I want to kind of touch on, and this was somebody's comment about the CS letter about Jeremy Runnels, his credibility and all that. But it got me thinking about the CS letter in general, that it's sad, but the, this is what I see going on right now, especially with my kind of my circle, is that people have seen that the CS letter is so powerful in drawing people away from the church, that instead of taking the stance, well, go ahead, I mean, we're open to information, we're open to truth. And actually I talked about that with Elder Clark and he said, I think we would agree with that, that we are all searching for truth.

Trevor Haugen [00:56:33] Wouldn't the approach that would be a little more effective be, well, go ahead and read the CES letter and pray about it. It's a personal thing. Look into it, you know, talk to God, you know, and, and receive your own personal revelation on it. But instead they take this approach that is very much fear based again, that the CS letter is of the devil and it's a slippery slope. And as soon as you read it, the devil will creep into your, your mind or his spirit will overtake you and you will have a exorcism or something. I don't, I don't understand their mentality that.

Trevor Haugen [00:57:11] But the word is definitely going around. As far as what I've heard, people in the church are saying the CS letter is of the devil. And I don't think that's an effective approach for them to take.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] Absolutely. A lot of really good comments coming in. I'm gonna refer to them in a bit. Let's go ahead and return. Okay, so one of the really important points for me was in. Was it the 52 minute and 20 mark right in the middle of the conversation about Jeremy Runnels, Basically, Elder Clark makes one of the biggest points, I think, for you, Trevor, of this whole takeaway. He basically points to grow and he says, this is why I bring grow into this conversation. He basically says, I'm not that smart. I don't have time to spend a lot of time on these issues and to delve into them.

John Dehlin [00:58:09] So what we do as general authorities is bring in the smart people like Patrick Mason, like grow, like Fluman, like John Gee, like Hugh Nibley, Sorensen, Bushman, Givens, and, and we basically point to the smart people to explain all this away. How did you receive sort of that admission by Clark that the brethren have to point to the smart scholars to explain this stuff?

Trevor Haugen [00:58:45] Scary, I think, would be the word. I mean, here's the thing, and I don't doubt that he is busy, but at the end of the day he works for the church. I would think that his number one responsibility would be to be familiar with this stuff as a high ranking leader and official of the church. Look, I'm busy.

Trevor Haugen [00:59:07] I don't work for the church. I have a career, I have a young family. But still, in a short six month time frame, I've been able to assemble all of this knowledge on these subjects in my spare time.

Trevor Haugen [00:59:23] Every night, you know, two, three hours a night, I look into it, I read something, I'm educating myself. So for him to use that cop out for me was really kind of scary. It showed me actually that more than anything that there was a lack of care and interest, you know, in really knowing these things.

Trevor Haugen [00:59:48] And it was very revealing to me that these prophets and apostles are leaning very heavily on these apologists, historians, to kind of do the job for them. And I think that's a little backwards in a lot of ways. Because if these men, I mean, what would be more powerful? Finding somebody that went to Notre Dame or talking to the guy that's having direct communication with God,

John Dehlin [01:00:17] Right? Yeah, yeah. It's supposed to be from the prophet that you read the truth and the scholars, you know, it's also interesting how when a learned scholar criticizes the church, well, that's pride and that's the learnings of men. But when a scholar validates the Church's point of view, well, here's a smart, honorable, good man who supports what we're saying. They always kind of again, want it both ways.

Trevor Haugen [01:00:46] Yeah. And another thing that was brought up was, you know, well, we can always do tit for tat. That was said several times, kind of tit for tat kind of thing. You know, to me this is not. These issues are not tit for tat. I mean, these are giant, like earth shattering concerns and issues that we have. And I'm not talking about little events in time that have happened to some more of these obscure prophets. I'm talking about the cornerstone or you know, the basic foundation of our faith. And that's Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon. And we, I think all of us, everybody as members of the church, but Especially the leaders of the Church should know. Should know how to answer these questions.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] Absolutely. You're right. It's a cop out for them to say, I don't have time. I'm too busy administering the Church. People's faith is based on evidence. It's based on factual historical claims. And if that's the case, if you're going to be a general authority, if you're going to be an apostle or first president, first presidency member, if you're going to represent the church, apologize for the church, encourage people to join the church, you should know its history very, very well. And if, like you said, Trevor, if 20 or 40 or 50,000 Mormon stories listeners or, you know, 50,000 CES letter readers or 100,000 CES letter readers can take time from their busy schedule as having day jobs, as being parents, as whatever they are in school, and we can take the time to learn this stuff.

John Dehlin [01:02:31] So can members of the quorum of the 70. So can the First Presidency. And they should. It's their duty, I think. And it's a cop out when they don't. I'm gonna just read some other really good comments from our listeners really quick. Phoebe, when we were talking about the can, can the eight and the three witnesses have been reliable, she says, stop for a second and think, you know, can 12 to 15 people coordinate something that is a lie? I think that's a really good point. I think they can, or they can be deceived.

John Dehlin [01:03:04] Susan writes, I grew up in the church, I'm 65, and I've never heard anything other than that the witnesses saw the book physically. So Susan is reflecting what many of us were surprised to read, that in some instances, the. The witnesses talked about what Joshua wrote as second sight or the ides of our understanding, which is a point that Grant Palmer brings up in his book, An Insider View of Mormon Origins.

John Dehlin [01:03:32] Again, maybe the historical record is murky there. What's not murky is that definitely this idea of spiritual eyes and second sight was heavily interwoven in the perspective of the people.

Trevor Haugen [01:03:47] Yeah, we don't understand that. From a 21st century perspective, we assume that these things. When somebody says, I touched the plates and I saw the plates, obviously we are taking that in a literal way. We don't take into consideration that a lot of these men were very much into magic at the time. You know, like dreaming and seeing God and second sight, having divining rods and seer stones and treasure hunting and all that, that was totally just normal. And so when you take that and you you write it in a very literal way. Over time, as that magic has disappeared, we now take it in a very literal way. And the church doesn't correct it. They allow us all to assume that it happened.

John Dehlin [01:04:41] These were superstitious people. Joseph was running around claiming that he could find buried treasure, taking people to these supposed caves or burial sites, saying that he could see the treasure in the ground. Oh, but the angels withdrew the treasure. Like, these are kooky, superstitious people to start with. And that's who Joseph chose in many instances as his followers. So it's possible they were lying. It's also possible that Joseph just fooled them like the charlatan that he likely was in that context.

Trevor Haugen [01:05:15] Well, I think they wanted to believe, too. It was exciting, for sure. I mean, gosh. And a testament to that is that the majority of the witnesses follow after Joseph Smith. They followed a guy by the name of James Strang.

Trevor Haugen [01:05:32] You mentioned that. But he received supposedly revelation from God that he needed to translate the brass plates that were given to him that Laban had, and he actually translated them. And some of the same witnesses came along for that rite as well. And so even though they never denied their testimony, I mean, can you imagine denying your testimony of something that you said you saw once? That would completely ruin your credibility?

Trevor Haugen [01:06:00] You know what I mean? I don't think these guys ever denied seeing it in a vision. You know, of course they're not going to ever go back on that because that completely would ruin their character. Right. But the fact that they're catching on to other ideas out there that are just blatant frauds says a lot about who these men were.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] Yeah, And I think it was David Whitmer that wrote this pamphlet that basically said, I still believe the Book of Mormon, you know, is of divine origins. But Joseph Smith, that stuff about Melchizedek priesthood, Joseph made all that crap up. That never happened. He never told us about any of that. I don't know where he got that. And it's just another example of the witnesses basically wanting to say on the one hand that, you know, they didn't lie about the Book of Mormon, but they're so willing to throw Joseph under the bus later. Really quickly, Heath makes the important point that you can't talk to Thomas S.

John Dehlin [01:06:58] Monson. And that's true about the apostles and the general authorities. They'll only talk to you in secret, private, behind closed doors. They don't want you to record the conversation. But none of them, none of them. They won't even sign their names to the essays. They want to be able to say, well, the scholars wrote the essays. If the essays are wrong, even though the First Presidency approved them, their names aren't on them, so that if there's anything wrong there, it's someone else's fault. And just the inaccessibility of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the twelve, and the general authorities is totally suspect and unacceptable. Heath makes that point.

John Dehlin [01:07:34] I think that's a really important point. David says that if investigators were able to make an informed, logical decision about the church, given all the evidence, a few would ever really join the church. My dear friend Melissa Wells, who I grew up with. Hello, Melissa. She was surprised to hear what we just told about the Prince family. Yes, Melissa Wells, that did happen to the Prince family. They were completely maligned and thrown under the bus by people that they served for decades.

John Dehlin [01:08:07] All right. And then Bethany writes, the number one sign of a cult is you will never find success or happiness is when they tell people, you will never find success or happiness outside of the group. And Thomas McConkie once told me, the sign of a cult is any organization that won't let you leave it with your dignity intact. And I think that's a really important point. The church needs to let people leave with dignity.

Polygamy, Polyandry, and Early Church Practices

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 714

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Okay. The final point that you included in your letter was about polygamy and polyandry. Why don't you go ahead and talk to us about what points you were making there?

Trevor Haugen [00:00:41] Well, Joseph Smith had at least 34 wives. But what really, you know, and I always thought that Joseph Smith may have practiced polygamy. I mean, I knew it was a big thing with Brigham Young and, you know, and a few prophets after that, but I didn't know how big it was with Joseph Smith. And so as I started looking into it and realizing that he had that many polygamous wives and then seeing him constantly covering it up and lying about wasn't something that he was owning, you know, and so that, that was a red flag for me. But probably the biggest thing was when I learned about polyandry, I had never even heard of that word before.

Trevor Haugen [00:01:31] I'd never heard it spoken in church. And I actually had to look up the definition. But what it is is a man that marries another man's wife. And so Joseph Smith had 11, I believe, polyandrous marriages as well. And several of those were to priesthood holding men. And so when I was a missionary, I would talk about polygamy very quickly, you know, dismiss it, say it's not something we, you know, practice anymore. It was something that we were using in the beginning of the church because of persecution. We needed to really quickly be able to populate an area or it was to help out, you know, elderly women and maybe even people that never got married, helped them with a sealing ordinance.

Trevor Haugen [00:02:19] That was my always thing. But how am I supposed to justify the polyandry? Like, how could I ever explain to somebody the purpose for that?

John Dehlin [00:02:29] Yeah, yeah. And so Gros response, he basically kind of pulls his church historian Joseph Smith Papers project card. He basically, you know, oversaw the creation of the essays and the editorial process. He oversees the Joseph Smith Papers project. And he says to you, and I believe he's sincere, right? But he basically, and it was kind of sweet, he basically said, I've spent the last six years reading pretty much everything that Joseph Smith ever wrote, and I've come to you say you've come to detest him or whatever word it was you used to say. You, you just stopped liking Joseph Smith. Basically, you saw him in a bad light. Basically, Grose says, the more I read about Joseph, the more I come to like him better. So that was it. What did you think about that?

Trevor Haugen [00:03:26] Well, thinking about it after, it kind of made sense to me actually, because I've been studying so much on Joseph Smith's life and his actions. Right. And where Matt is talking about his writings. So I think we're talking about two different things. I had always looked at Joseph Smith's writings and so of course I praised the man. You know, I mean, everything he said was, was, was beautiful and brilliant and happy and good. But when it was, when I actually started looking at him as a person, his actions, what he was actually doing, that's when his character was defiled to me. And so we were kind of talking about two different things, I think.

John Dehlin [00:04:13] Right. Not his writings, but his behavior.

Trevor Haugen [00:04:15] Exactly, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:04:17] And I mean, Joseph Smith deceived people about treasure digging. He deceived people about the Kirtland bank and people lost their fortunes. He deceived people about translating ancient records. He lied to his own wife that he was practicing polygamy and he hid it from her, which violates the text of DNC 132, by the way, because the wife is supposed to be able to approve any subsequent wives to get taken.

Trevor Haugen [00:04:41] Well, yeah. And DNC 13263 goes especially against polyandry.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] Yeah. And he's taking on other people's wives. He's sending people on missions and then propositioning their wives while the men are away on missions that he sent them on. And then he's, he's actually propositioning 14, 15, 16 year olds with this massive abuse of power that's predatory, inappropriate for young girls. Any of us by any standard today, would kill or throw someone in jail for doing the types of things to our daughters that Joseph Smith did to other people's daughters. And then he would threaten them. He would say, if you, I'll coerce you, and if you become my plural wife, then you and your whole family will be sealed in the celestial kingdom with me.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] But if you do not accept plural marriage with me, you and all your family will be condemned. And then if any plural, possible, plural wife disagreed to be Joseph's plural wife, then he would actually and spoke about it publicly. He would malign them as whores in, in the newspaper.

John Dehlin [00:05:53] And then of course, when William Law tells the world I was in the first Presidency, Joseph's lying about polygamy. I saw him practicing polygamy. I know he's doing it. Then Joseph calls him a liar and destroys the printing press and tries to destroy all the evidence that was made. How can grow or anyone say, oh my gosh, I, I think Joseph, he was a good man. The more I read about Joseph Smith, the more I love him. Those are the acts of A charlatan. Those are the acts of somebody who is predatory and abusing their power. And I was really sad. There were probably two people that canceled their donations to Mormon Stories as a result of our previous episodes, more people gave money than took money away.

John Dehlin [00:06:44] So none of our decisions were about the money. But I did think to myself, for the people that canceled their donations, I thought, interesting. You'll give 10% of your income to a church whose profit has done all these heinous things, including abusing children, lying to their wife, embezzling people's money. You'll keep giving 10% to that organization that has policies that cause young LGBT Mormons to kill themselves and that actually causes marriages to unravel and children to be torn from their parents.

John Dehlin [00:07:20] You'll keep donating to that organization. But if on Mormon Stories we share the recording of a general authority, you'll cancel your donations because that's beyond the pale. I just kind of question the values and the priorities of the people that would make that decision.

Trevor Haugen [00:07:39] John, did you see the, the, the. What was happening when we were talking about Joseph Smith's character, Right. And how they're so quick to justify everything he's done, but never with Jeremy Runnels. Right. And how can they look at this as. Okay, I just don't understand it. The magnifying glass, glass that they're putting these people under.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:05] I mean, you would think that you would need a, like a more powerful magnifying glass when you're talking about a prophet. They let these things slide and they justify things. Like, well, we don't know if, you know, really if the polyandrous marriages were sexual in nature. Right. We don't know that. It's like, well, I never really write down in my journal like, man had some great sex last night. You know, like, that's not something that's really talked about. I mean, so, yeah, we don't know these things, but the fact that they were going on and with very young girls, that's what, that's the problem is that this is ruining people's lives.

Trevor Haugen [00:08:43] This is exactly. This is a great point, because stuff like this still happens today, you know, and he uses an example where he says, well, you know, there's a story of a man, he was 31, you know, back in 1840, and he marries a 15 year old girl. And although maybe some eyebrows were raised or whatever, you know, it was a fine thing to happen because back then it was a different time. Well, first of all, it was still a big deal, okay, to marry Somebody that's that young. But the biggest difference between that story and a Joseph Smith story is that they fell in love with. They both consensually decided to get married out of love.

John Dehlin [00:09:30] And it wasn't illegal, right?

Trevor Haugen [00:09:34] And Joseph coercive, right? It wasn't divisive. Joseph Smith, on the other hand, he's talking to these poor. These poor girls and he's giving them stories like. And I know that, you know, these stories were told to different individuals, but the story that kind of that was going on was, you know, that either I will, I promise your entire family with salvation, right? Blessing her and her entire family with eternal salvation. If she does it or if she doesn't, there's an angel with a flaming sword that will kill Joseph. Right? And so to put these people in this situation, like, what do you expect them to do, you know? And these kids are so young. Why get married to them? They have their whole lives to find a priesthood holding man. I just. I can't get over it.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] I can't get over it. And just to recount Grove's responses to the polygamy, again, it was the incredibly shrinking narrative. He's like, we don't really have journal writings of women contemporary to the actual time and events where they say, I had sex with Joseph. Today, of course they're married to other men. Are they going to be writing down in their journal, I'm married to this other guy, hey, but today I had great sex with Joseph. That would be kind of a dumb thing to do, I'm sure. Joseph. Because we know Joseph and others were lying about it. Of course Joseph's gonna tell them, don't write about this stuff.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] So that's kind of a weird argument. Again, Grow wanted to say we don't have any contemporary evidence. We just have recollections that were written down or testified to decades later. But again, this is the point Lindsay Hanson park made. When it's something like the priesthood restoration, which we have no contemporary evidence for the Melchizedek priesthood, I'm not even sure about the Aaronic priesthood. We're still willing to sort of base our entire authority as a church on these happenings that weren't written down until what, five, seven, eight years later. That's. In that case, we'll cherry pick and use the evidence in our favor. But if these women claim decades later to have had sex with Joseph Smith, oh, well, it was written too far, too far later.

John Dehlin [00:11:45] It wasn't contemporary, or we need to kind of discredit. Again, expecting that people are gonna be writing about their sex at all in their journals.

Trevor Haugen [00:11:53] Well, it's a double standard. It comes down to the convenience with apologists.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] It always is. Then he goes on, he talks about Nauvoo. There's no records. It's all reflections. And then he does the typical sort of, who's the guy? Brian Hales, sort of, we don't have any evidence of sexual polyandry. It's just ceilings. And you guys got into a discussion about whether or not Brigham Young was polyandrous. And again, he used Andrew Jackson as an example of someone who married someone who wasn't divorced yet, which he said was a scandal. But I think that's a bad example, comparing that to Joseph to say Andrew Jackson married a woman who couldn't get a divorce in a way to justify Joseph's polyandry marrying you men, you know, marrying women who were married to men that they lived with.

Trevor Haugen [00:12:46] Well, and he admitted that was not going on with Joseph Smith, too. He used that to justify Brigham Young. But. But he, you know what I mean? He very, very much stated that that was not the case with Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:12:59] Like, that's fine. It's just always shrinking. So he basically lays out three possibilities. Again, this is the plausible deniability approach. You know, there's no. Number one is these weren't traditional marriages. That's the first possibility for polyandry. That they weren't. There was no sex, that there wasn't financial support. So the polyandrous marriages are okay because they weren't traditional marriages. That was the first point that grow made. The second was maybe they were just ceilings. Maybe it was just about the dynastic ceilings in the future. And it really wasn't about marriage in this life. And then the third is most women that were in polyandrous relationships were not married to righteous priesthood holders.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] And it could have been these women wanting to access the blessings of heaven. And again, is that really what God is going to require? Is that, oh, my gosh, I'm not married to a righteous priesthood holder, so let me scramble and get married to Joseph Smith before he dies, because otherwise I'm screwed in heaven. Right.

Trevor Haugen [00:14:02] Isn't that what temple work is for?

John Dehlin [00:14:04] Exactly the millennium? Yeah. Yeah. And this is where you, at the one hour mark, you make this beautiful point, which is this is my biggest problem, is that religion can be used to justify horrible things. And you talk about, you know, Muslims that, you know, sort of radical Muslims that kill people. Jihad. You mentioned Nephi cutting off Laban's head. And you're basically saying it's unacceptable, the level of pain and suffering that religion can cause.

Trevor Haugen [00:14:39] Religion, obviously can be very dangerous. When my God says something that's against what your God says, what does that create? These are not ideas. These are. These are higher than us. These are. These are as profound as profound belief and conviction can get. That's where war breaks out.

Trevor Haugen [00:14:57] Not, you know, between nations or between people. Does that make sense? It's scary, and it can be dangerous. And this is an absolutely perfect example of that, of justifying certain things, because God said it was okay, you know, and then one thing I want to make sure that we don't forget is when we talked about Brigham Young, because I said, well, you know, I remember Elder Clark chimed in here, and he says, well, none of us like the idea of polygamy. You know, Sister Clark, you know, absolutely hates the idea of, you know, of polygamy. And I say something along the fact, along the lines of, well, it's too bad that in order for us to reach the highest, you know, glory of the celestial kingdom, we all have to be polygamists.

Trevor Haugen [00:15:48] And Matt Grow goes on to say, you know, well, that was never taught. That was actually never really taught. And I said, well, Brigham Young says in Journal of Discourses that the only men who become gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. And what was really interesting there, and I know you caught this as well, but it was this whole, oh, well, we can't hang our hat on every little thing that Brigham Young says. Kind of like, oh, that cute little prophet saying all these stupid stuff, just, you know, like discounting the fact that we have Brigham Young University.

Trevor Haugen [00:16:25] You know, like, Brigham Young was a big deal. And to just write off what other prophets have said, if they contradict what we're teaching now, I don't think we can do that or should be able

John Dehlin [00:16:37] to do that for sure, for sure. Again, it's sort of like, ignore the past prophets. How do you know if a prophet's telling the truth? He's alive and his mouth is moving. Otherwise, anything a prophet said is fair game to be undermined at any time. And anyone with a brain is going to say, well, if I can't trust Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or John Taylor, how can I trust Thomas S. Monson today? But they don't. They don't want to talk about that. And it's just not consistent.

John Dehlin [00:17:10] I'll just quickly add that, yeah, it was interesting. The grow was like, well, you know, those. Those utterances that Polygamy was required to be exalted in the highest degree was just during this small time when the church was being persecuted right around the, you know, right before the manifesto was written. But Lindsay Hansen Clark, you know, makes it very clear that this was a very significant and prevailing narrative for many, many, many years.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] She says there's a reason why there's three degrees in the celestial kingdom. If you read doctrine and Covenants 132, it's called what, the new and everlasting covenant of plural marriage. So to say, now that it's some small, obscure, minimal thing, I think, you know, comes across as disingenuous.

John Dehlin [00:17:59] All right, so, yeah, he talked about that aristocrat that married his cousin. He talked about the angel and the flaming sword. And then it was kind of interesting. It seemed like he was saying that angel with the flaming sword happened with Zina, who was in her 20s, not with the teenager. And again, I just. Is it less abusive for God to send an angel and a flaming sword if Joseph is threatening, you know, someone in their 20s than if they're a teenager? That was just kind of a weird justification. I felt like.

Trevor Haugen [00:18:28] Well, and if he's telling one, that one person that I doubt he's, you know what I mean, filtering it for the 14 year olds. But again, that's speculation. That's, you know, but I'm just saying that was. That was a story that was being shared, you know, throughout a lot of his plural marriages.

John Dehlin [00:18:45] Yeah, yeah. Then the conversation basically went to, you know, again, dismantling what Brigham Young said because they had a different style in General Conference, that there was a lot of speculation. And then you speak up, how do we know, you know, what a prophet says is true if it's always changing?

John Dehlin [00:19:04] And then Gross says, you know, listen, we're all enmeshed in our culture. You know, we're going to be racist in the 1830s. And then you point out, oh, my gosh, well, our church was racist in the 1970s. And your basic point was, the prophets seem to always be enmeshed in culture.

John Dehlin [00:19:23] When are they ever not? And I would make the point. Isn't that a point of a prophet? They can transcend culture and get God's direct direction divorced from culture. Isn't that what the real value would be? But if the prophets are always 30 years behind the civil rights movements of the days, then are the prophets being prophets or are they simply old dudes who are reactive to the courage of the civil rights leaders of the.

Trevor Haugen [00:19:52] Which is more likely, right? Which is More likely.

John Dehlin [00:19:55] Yeah, it's like Occam's razor. What's the more. What's the more simple, logical explanation?

Trevor Haugen [00:20:03] And at this, this point of our conversation, it goes into kind of rapid fire mode because I had run out of time that I have with them. But there was just so many things that they had said that I had to, I had to just bring to their attention, you know, and this is kind of where we talked really quickly about proclamation of the families. You know, we even got into City Creek and tithing and all that kind of stuff.

Prophetic Authority, Tithing, and Church Finances

John Dehlin [00:20:27] Yeah. And I just want to. This is for me one of the most important parts of the interview because you basically say, why don't the prophets consult with God? This is just too overwhelming that we can't ever really trust what they say. That's when Clark responds, yeah, there's always going to be tit for tat, you know, and he basically went on to say that.

John Dehlin [00:20:57] He basically quotes Oakes when Oakes says that they're alls be tit for tat. And then you're basically saying, well, then when can we ever trust that a prophet has really spoken for God? And basically this is when Clark speaks up and says, the prophets set the direction. They set the direction for the church. And you're like, well, when have they done it? And he's like, well, eternal families. And he basically offers proclamation of the family as proof that the prophets set the direction for the church. And he called that revelation. Which is really ironic because what we know about the proclamation of the family is that lawyers drafted the proclamation of the family during the time of the Hawaii same sex marriage ruling because the church needed some document because the Book of Mormon, silent on it on homosexuality, Doctrine and Covenants is silent on homosexuality.

John Dehlin [00:21:49] We, we have miracle forgiveness, but we don't have church policy around homosexuality. And so lawyers draft proclamation on the family to submit an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, so that they can have standing to oppose same sex marriage. And now Clark is citing that as an evidence of revelation. So again, it's the lawyers, It's Curtin and McConkie who are the prophets, seers and revelators. Not, you know, not the general authorities of the church.

Trevor Haugen [00:22:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:20] Not to mention the fact that that document is heinous and deeply offensive to feminists, to working women, to LGBT people, to people who get same sex married, to people who have a more progressive view of gender roles. It's a, it's a horrendous document. So it's so ironic to list that as an example of God leading prophets in just way too many ways.

Trevor Haugen [00:22:43] And it wasn't even, it wasn't. He didn't say revelation, he said prophecy. And again, all of this stuff, you know, what means what at the end of the day. Right. But to me, a prophecy is something that's, that's very divine, that's miraculous. That would be to, for me, something miraculous that happens or warning a people of something that actually comes to pass.

Trevor Haugen [00:23:10] That's what, that's why I asked what prophecies have, have come since Joseph, you know, and, and when he pointed to the proclamation of the family, I almost felt bad that that's where he went. I was almost inside. I was like, oh no, don't go there, you know, because, because I, because, you know, I mean, like to point to that, of all things, you know, and, and so I had to say something, you know, and I, and I mentioned that feel that it's a very kind of homophobic document. And he responds with trying to explain, you know, that it is prophetic. And I asked him, well, how so?

Trevor Haugen [00:23:51] And he goes on to talk about, well, the nature of the family, the importance of a husband and a wife and all this kind of stuff. And I said, well, and that's exactly the problem is that we are getting too involved politically on these issues.

Trevor Haugen [00:24:07] When I believe people are born that way and have the right to be happy. And what do we lose as a religion by allowing them to do that? I mean, we can say that it's against the religion and stuff, but to go knocking door to door and take part in this, you know, like proclamation, aid and proclamation to the family, it's really, it's taking it too far. And he responds, and he says, well, Trevor, if we were all homosexuals, then this whole thing would end.

Trevor Haugen [00:24:39] And that was, that was very revealing to me of how these men actually think. I don't know if they think it's contagious or it's genetic. I can't believe I just said it's genetic. But I'm just saying that like, you know, my response was not everyone needs to be homosexual.

Trevor Haugen [00:25:00] People will be heterosexual, people will be homosexual. And we can live together in a world, we can love each other and we can allow each other to be happy. And that's a point that I feel strongly on. And for him to point that the one prophecy that we've had over the past hundred plus years is a proclamation to the family, that was sad for me.

John Dehlin [00:25:23] And I loved how you called it a homophobic document. Directly to them. He goes on. And this was another just really disappointing part from Elder Clark. He goes on to literally make the claim that if everyone on earth were homosexuals, that this all ends, he said, meaning human existence. And I just think that's. I'm sorry, that's one of the most dumb, ignorant statements that a person could make. It's offensive. And man, we gotta pick leaders of a multinational billion dollar corporation that are a little bit more thoughtful and sophisticated than then it goes on to talk about. You know, he basically makes the same old claim that, well, the church, the church doesn't let single people have sex or who are heterosexuals.

John Dehlin [00:26:09] So we're being consistent by not letting homosexuals have sex or get married. And you make the very important point that as I recall, that at least heterosexuals have the opportunity to get married and have sex, whereas homosexuals never have that opportunity. And again, Clark founds falls back to saying, prophets have stated this. It's what families were made for, blah blah, blah. You keep saying, what does it mean to be a prophet? What does it mean to be a seer and a revelator?

John Dehlin [00:26:43] And then he lists the Perpetual Education Fund as prophetic as being temples. Dotting the world is prophetic. And again, construction projects do not equate to revelation. A construction project is when you have money and you build a building. It's not God telling you something that's going to happen in the future. The Perpetual Education Fund doesn't necessarily constitute revelation. It's like, huh, let's have a program. Let's see if we can find a way to educate people from the third world. It's not a prophecy where you're predicting or seeing the what's going to happen in the future.

Trevor Haugen [00:27:22] Absolutely. And I have my own thoughts on temples and perpetual education. I brought them to him, you know, how much service are we really doing with these programs? But even if they were doing good, I agree, and they are humanitarian efforts maybe or you know, constructions programs and stuff, but it's not prophecy

John Dehlin [00:27:44] exactly.

Trevor Haugen [00:27:45] Difference.

John Dehlin [00:27:46] Yeah, exactly. So you guys talk about temples for a bit. You basically make the point that temples are kind of worthless if the church isn't what it claims to be. You know, that was an interesting part of the conversation. And then as we're kind of wrapping up, you basically have Clark asserting that the prophets do communicate with God Gro basically saying that there's always a need for faith.

John Dehlin [00:28:12] Clark reaffirms that the church gives millions of dollars a year in humanitarian aid, which there's two problems with that argument, problem number one is it always wants credit and visibility for its humanitarian aid. Which is weird because Jesus said, give your alms in private. So why is a church that follows Christ kind of bragging about their humanitarian aid? But even so, if you look at the percentage of the church's revenue they. That it gives to humanitarian aid, apparently it's very, very small relative to other much smaller organizations that give much larger percentages of their income to humanitarian aid.

Trevor Haugen [00:28:51] Yeah. And that sparked, for me, the whole idea of tithing. Isn't the idea of tithing to give from the heart. Give what you can. The fact that we can't go into the temple, we can't participate in these saving ordinances unless we are giving 10% to the church. That's as if there's an admission price to heaven. And I think there's something fundamentally wrong with that, with the principle of what tithing should actually be.

John Dehlin [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah, that's totally fair. And then ironically, right after talking about humanitarian aid, we talk about the City Creek Mall and basically grow. And Clark basically make the argument that that was because Salt Lake City's church headquarters, it's where the Salt Lake City temple is. We gotta build up the city. We gotta make it pretty. We gotta keep downtown looking beautiful. Which is a fine argument, except that what is building a ornate deluxe mall with the Victoria's Secret, you know, and a diamond store? Like, what does that have to do with Christianity and the messages in the Book of Mormon about fine apparel and about keeping things humble and pride? It sort of falls against that. But also he throws Detroit under the bus.

Trevor Haugen [00:30:08] Basically.

John Dehlin [00:30:08] Clark says, we don't want Salt Lake City looking like Detroit. Which I hear Detroit's looking a lot better these days. Anyway, it's weird how Clark continually throws Jerry Runnels and, you know, Detroit and non Mormons. He's throwing everyone under the bus that he can. He's the. He's the bus thrower, basically.

Trevor Haugen [00:30:28] Maybe Detroit's looking a little better because the church has gotten involved. No. Yeah. I mean, he says, you know, do you know what happens to city centers when we don't protect them? And I said, I don't think all city centers need a religion to build a mall, you know, around their cathedral or temple. It's in order for the city to be clean and productive. You know what I mean? That kind of falls in the same category to me of this thought that your children cannot be safe unless they're in the church.

John Dehlin [00:31:00] Yeah. Jasmine makes the point that there's no Victoria's Secret at City Creek. He says, I wish City Creek had a Victoria's Secret. Okay, I stand corrected. But you know, just go look at the list of the stores there. You make up your mind if just go read the Book of Mormon and the speeches in the Book of Mormon about fine, costly apparel, about jewelry, about, you know, ornate appearance. And then go walk around City Mall and ask yourself, is City Mall consistent with the messages in the Book of Mormon?

Trevor Haugen [00:31:31] It's definitely not one giant deseret book. We'll just put it that way.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] Yeah, yeah. You go on to basically say it's wrong for the church to require money to access the temple. That that's messed up. You know, Clark responds by saying without tithing, we'd be a bankrupt church. And basically the way this whole conversation wraps up, Clark basically says there's going to be more problems. There's always going to be tit for tat.

John Dehlin [00:32:00] He makes a reference to the Hoffman. I mean, we covered everything. He references the Hoffman records and he basically says that Hoffman fooled a lot of people. At this point, Grow basically mentioned some historical conference that he went to where all sorts of non Mormon historians admitted being fooled by Mark Hoffman.

John Dehlin [00:32:20] And Clark makes this really hilarious and amazing and candid admission. He says, we do a lot of thinking that we don't pray over. So on the one hand he asserts just 10 minutes earlier that prophets speak with God. And then later he says we do a lot of thinking and I assume acting that we don't pray over. And so, you know, they want to have it both ways. If, if the church does something right, then prophets are talking to God. If the church does something wrong, we do a lot of thinking that we don't pray over. We're just men. We're acting as men. Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:32:57] Yep. And you know, I think a lot of people might be questioning, you know, what was President Clark or what was Elder Clark's idea of this whole meeting? What was I hoping to get out of it? You know what I mean? What were our different intentions? But I do want. I actually just read the bottom of my email, which I forgot was in my email to Elder Clark and Matt Grow, and it says I would be open to any information that you guys have on these topics as I currently have an extremely open mind to any information that would better guide me to be fair.

Trevor Haugen [00:33:33] However, I want to let you know that I am currently a disaffected member of the church and I am looking into sharing these ideas with the public. I wish someone would have shared them with me a long Time ago.

Trevor Haugen [00:33:45] So. So I think it was very clear to them where I was at. There was no, you know what I mean, misunderstanding there. And you know, will my relationship with Elder Clark be changed? Absolutely. I mean, you know, I don't expect us to be chummy old pals after this, but.

Trevor Haugen [00:34:09] But the problem is that Elder Clark's mind and his ideas and thoughts are destructive. I think they are. They're not conducive to a good organization. I still feel like he's clinging on to a lot of homophobic, racist ideas that I just don't think should exist in any religion. And so.

Trevor Haugen [00:34:44] And so, come what may, you know, with that. And it'll be what it'll be, you know, But I think it was important enough. Important enough to share.

Decision to Release the Recording and Fallout

John Dehlin [00:34:57] Yeah. So let's just summarize really quickly. This is really hard. One of the most conflicting things, there was a comment somewhere earlier where somebody basically said, haha, John, we caught you. You pulled these interviews because people threatened to take away their money. I want to be really clear about this. More people donated money because of these episodes than took money away. There was only like two people that canceled their donations and there were like four or five. I don't know how many people that started donations. This was clearly a net revenue benefit for Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. So if I were motivated purely by money, I would have kept up the old interviews.

John Dehlin [00:35:41] It was incredibly difficult to go back to our panelists, John Hamer, Lindsay Henson Park, Glenn Oslin, who had spent hours with us, not to mention Glenn spending hours of time editing for the Infants on Throne version. It was incredibly hard to go back to them and say, I'm pulling it. We're pulling.

John Dehlin [00:36:01] Was hard to go back to all the listeners who were like, wait, I was listening. I love that. Why'd you pull. Was not because of money. This was a money winner for the open stories, not a money loser. So why did we pull it? Trevor, a lot of people are asking that.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] You said it before. Just say it again succinctly. Why did you decide, or what do you want to say about why you decided to pull this? You said at the beginning, let's just say it at the end.

Trevor Haugen [00:36:28] Right, right. Well, to clear up any legal implications. From what I understand, I have every right in the state of Utah to record any conversation. I'd like

John Dehlin [00:36:42] that you're a part of

Trevor Haugen [00:36:43] that I'm a part of. Right. And so in that sense, it was legal. I do understand the ethical question behind it, obviously. Obviously. Because, you know, we've received a lot of messages from different people and it was funny to see the two camps. Right. Because it's always going to be under debate because it was completely ethical. To those that share the belief that the church is being dishonest, it needs to be more transparent because facts matter to us.

Trevor Haugen [00:37:19] But I'm starting to learn that they may not matter to everybody. Some people are not interested in that and they just want. They want to believe and they just want to have faith. And in that case, to those people, obviously this is an unethical thing to do. And so.

Trevor Haugen [00:37:39] But again, we don't want. I mean my goal and John's goal is to be effective and really just share ideas in an open way that we would want other people to share them with us. And if something, the means to an end, if that's going to be a stumbling block in us being able to share a story, then that's a real problem and it makes us less effective. But yeah, as far as the ethical thing goes, that could be debated either way, left or right, all day long.

John Dehlin [00:38:18] Corinne asks, have you heard from Clark or grow since you released this audio? And you don't have to answer. If you don't want to answer, don't answer.

Trevor Haugen [00:38:31] I will say directly no.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] Okay. Corrine and others, Tyler, want to know how this has affected your family relationships. Do you want to talk about that or do you want to not talk about that?

Trevor Haugen [00:38:51] I'll talk about it. Generally that. I'll just say this, that over the last few days it's become a lot more apparent to me. It's just confirmed to me the fear that this religion does lean more into what you would call a cultural than I was ever aware of. And you don't realize how hard it is to break away from it or how tight the grasp is that they have on your life until you try to break free of it or you try to talk about it openly.

Trevor Haugen [00:39:30] And yeah, I mean, obviously my entire family is completely lds, just true believing active members of the church. And I tried to do this in a third party way. I wasn't so much trying to put it in their face, but obviously it gets back to them and they didn't appreciate the way that maybe I had gone about it. Obviously it's put some strain there, but nothing that we can't work out and work through and with time hopefully heal from. But, but this is, you know, it is, it's hurting families, it's tearing people apart that we can't talk about this kind of stuff. And the fact that none of my.

Trevor Haugen [00:40:18] None of my family actually listened to my story. I can't say none of them, but from my best understanding and the people I have talked to, nobody has actually listened to my story, listened to the recording, to actually even judge it for what it is. They've quickly jumped to conclusions and it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate.

John Dehlin [00:40:46] Melissa, my good friend Melissa from high school, says, trevor, you were supported and loved. Bethany writes, fear is the church's superpower. Brian writes, thanks again, Trevor, for doing this. It's been very helpful. I had the CS letter at the ready for difficult conversations. Now I can also reference the responses from Clark and Grow. I'm glad I saved a copy. Must have been inspiration.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] Bethany talks about the role of whistleblowers. I want to invite listeners, if they have any final questions for Trevor, to go ahead and post them, because we're about to wrap up. Trevor, really quickly, one of the. In terms of why I pulled it down as well, I just want to say that it's a fair. You know, on the one hand, it's this whistleblower question. On the one hand, journalists. Someone sent me an excerpt from the journalist code that basically said something to the effect of, as a reporter, as a journalist, don't try and obtain information through gotcha journalism through deception or other sorts of means unless, and it's got this sort of clause, unless there's a problem where the people aren't forthcoming about the information and when there's a compelling interest that the information gets told.

John Dehlin [00:42:13] And I don't know if that applies to this situation, but I like the spirit of that idea. If the first presidency, the apostles, if the Quorum of the twelve, if they were out in public giving these answers, if they were recording their answers and sharing it with everybody, writing their name to the answers, addressing these things publicly, we wouldn't need to have private recordings. We wouldn't need. But they're not doing it. It's always private audience, behind closed doors. Don't tell anybody, don't share it.

John Dehlin [00:42:48] And even with this recording, there's people who are like, well, what's the difference between sharing the recording? And you've obviously listened to the recording and now you're going to be retelling it. And by the way you're retelling of it is unethical because you're misrepresenting what was said. Well, that's the catch 22, isn't it? Because if we would be allowed to release the recording or if the brethren would release the recordings, Then we wouldn't be able to take their statements out of context. But because they won't let us release the recordings then, now we can be dismissed and accused of taking all their words out of context.

John Dehlin [00:43:21] And which is it again, there needs to be consistency here. So just like the good people at MormonLeaks say, they're all about transparency and if the church would be more transparent and honest, there wouldn't be a need for people to be recording secret conversations. That's all true. And why did we pull it down? For me, in addition to the concerns that you shared with me privately, you know, do we want to live in a world where everybody is scared that their private conversations are, are going to be recorded and posted on the Internet? And yeah, that's a fair question. And I don't want Open Stories Foundation Mormon stories me to be sort of perceived as this place that's unsafe.

John Dehlin [00:44:05] I can assure you this. I have hundreds of recordings that have been made of conversations with prophets, I'm sorry, with apostles, 70 general authorities, bishops, stake presidents, apologists that I've never released. And I've never released them because the people who shared them with me asked me not to release them. And so I won't, I won't violate that. So, you know, I don't believe in a by any means necessary approach. I think that we have the standard of not becoming the monsters that we've run from. And so we need to bring our best ethics. And so I thought about it and I wish I had come to this conclusion before.

John Dehlin [00:44:51] I can't say I regret what we did, but I can say that I don't think the ends justified the means. I don't think in the net good that enough good came from it to justify the gray. And so yeah, it's not a direct apology, but I think it was the right thing to pull it down.

John Dehlin [00:45:12] And I don't plan on sharing secretly recorded things in the future unless there's something so significant that I think it crosses that threshold of members absolutely needing to know. But if you're going to ask me in the future, I'm probably not going to be releasing private conversations behind closed doors of people just doing their best to answer questions. Unless again, there's some really severe compelling need because maybe we don't all want to live in the world where we're worried about our private conversations being recorded and shared. Anything you want to say in response to that?

Trevor's Conclusions and Future Relationship with the Church

Trevor Haugen [00:45:51] Well, John, I think, I mean, you pretty much nailed it on the head there. I just want to say, just kind of, in conclusion, wrapping this up is that, you know, I. The overall feeling that I got from this whole meeting was that, yes, we are open to truth, but. But facts don't matter at the same time. And so how can I live in a world where that makes sense? It just. It just doesn't. And so, sorry, but I just. I can't. I can't, like, be sane and, you know, and accept that.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] Yeah. And I would just add. I think the message they're saying is facts matter when they support the conclusions we want you to arrive at. Facts don't matter if they contradict the conclusions that we want you to arrive at. And that's not. That's not ethical, that's not consistent. There's no integrity there. And I don't mean to be absolutist, but it's not a credible position. And that's why I think apologists are fraught. I think apologists are defending the indefensible, and they need to do it in a better way. And that's why I'm gonna keep being hard on apologists until they stop doing that.

Trevor Haugen [00:47:14] Well, I just can't imagine. I can't imagine anybody going into the meeting that I went into and coming out positive. Like, I can't imagine anybody coming out of that and being like, well, that was it. Like, I'm back in, you know, like, so the church really needs to start, like, assembling the. You know, like, circling the wagons a little bit and getting on the same page with how they're going to respond to this, actually take these concerns seriously.

Trevor Haugen [00:47:42] Decide, you know, to be transparent instead of dancing around issues and coming up with justifications. Keep your message consistent throughout, you know, And, I mean, they've got to figure this out, John. I honestly believe that if they don't reform in some way, that over the next 15 years, with the Internet and access to information, there's just going to be fewer and fewer people that are going to want to latch onto it. And. But even if they do reform it to match the culture or whatever, does that really mean now that it's true?

Trevor Haugen [00:48:21] You know what I mean? I've heard a lot of people say that, well, they got to be, you know, they've got to change the way they're thinking about that and this and that and the other. But it's kind of like the whole, you know, giving the blacks the priesthood and as if we can't look at history, you know. Yeah, there's just certain things they can't undo.

John Dehlin [00:48:38] A bunch of writers are writing in expressing love and gratitude to you, Trevor, for doing this. So lots of love coming from the comments. A lot of people are asking Trevor, what do you believe now? Do you know what you believe now? Have you replaced your beliefs? Do you want to share what your beliefs are now?

Trevor Haugen [00:48:58] So I won't get too much into it because I'm still very fresh out of this whole experience. But what I will say is that, is that unlike a lot of people that leave the church, I've clung on to my spirituality. I believe that I've had spiritual instances in my life. I decide to hang on to those. I'm not a religious person in any way, shape or form.

Trevor Haugen [00:49:26] The LDS Church has opened my eyes to the dangers of religion. And as I've looked into it more, I just don't like the idea of religion. But spirituality is something that I'm having actually a lot of fun discovering. I feel like I'm like young again, you know, like I'm just now discovering myself. And whereas before I was religious, but I wasn't necessarily spiritual, always go hand in hand, you know. So I'm opening my eyes to a lot of Eastern teachings, Buddhism, Hinduism. I love meditating and just opening up this channel between me and whatever that is, whatever's up there, whatever that is.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] Brian asks if you're going to resign or if you have resigned and if so, why or why not.

Trevor Haugen [00:50:18] I'm sure that that's coming my way. And so it's kind of that decision time whether, you know, I let them break up with me or I break

John Dehlin [00:50:27] up with them first.

Trevor Haugen [00:50:29] It's like I'm in junior high again. But yeah, I haven't made my decision there. But I would assume that, you know, within the next couple months either I will have resigned or been excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:50:41] So there may be a disciplinary council in your future. Yeah, if that happens.

Trevor Haugen [00:50:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:46] Yeah.

Trevor Haugen [00:50:47] Let's see if they allow me to bring a cell phone.

John Dehlin [00:50:51] That's awesome. Joe says Trevor lunches on me sometime for doing these interviews. A lot of people just really appreciate it. Andrew asks a really good question. What about your personal and professional projects? Is there any way people who really see you as a light can support other work that you're doing now?

Trevor Haugen [00:51:12] Oh, yeah. So that's a great question because I have a lot of plans for the future. You can check out what I do for a profession at hagencreative.

John Dehlin [00:51:21] Com H A U G E N Creative dot com.

Trevor Haugen [00:51:24] Yep. And you can see our creative work that we do. Film. You could see our film that we did that centered around Buddhism called Ggvisha. And you can see some of the commercial work we do. But more on a personal note, I am compiling a lot of the stuff that I've talked about on this podcast as far as the videos that I'd made back last summer when I was first going through this. A lot of emotional videos going through this process. Me ordering books, showing the different books that I was reading. I did a good job of kind of documenting that experience.

Trevor Haugen [00:51:55] So my next step is to come up with kind of a vlog about that that will talk about my past experience with religion, my way out of Mormonism, and then I'm hoping to be able to share some ideas and explore spirituality with viewers like you on YouTube. So should be a fun adventure.

John Dehlin [00:52:20] I love it. All right, so I want to just conclude by thanking you, Trevor. I mean, I think we went into this interview wondering, is it going to be interesting? Is it going to be relevant? We already did a smackdown. But I just want to tell you, number one, we had like 250 simultaneous viewers sustained for a huge part of this conversation. This is one of the largest listening audiences Mormon Stories has ever had. If I go back and look right now, there's been 369 comments and 5.5 thousand views of today's discussion. I think that what I love about this is that we let Lindsay and Glenn and John Hamer do the smackdown.

John Dehlin [00:53:11] But I think what this shows. And by the way, it's 5.9000 views now for 372 comments. What this shows, Trevor, is how thoughtful and intelligent you are and how sincere you are. So I think it's a huge win that we went back and did this recording. I know that people loved it. We've got so many likes and comments and views and shares. This was a huge success.

Trevor Haugen [00:53:36] All I'm doing is asking questions that people should ask. And honestly, I just want people to know that at the end of this, I don't care if people decide to stay in the church or not. That is not my intent. I am, you know, I don't think it's your intent, John. Our intention is not to convince anyone, to persuade anyone, but I believe that people deserve to know the information. I believe that people should be given everything and then from there be able to make an educated decision based on information and spiritual guidance.

John Dehlin [00:54:11] 100%. No one believes this if they're a believer. But my goal is not to lead people away from the Church of Mormonism. If I could wave My magic wand. Everyone could download from a database all the facts and all the evidence about Mormonism and its truth claims. And if then they decided that they wanted to continue engaging in Mormonism, then bless them, great. But everybody, I think everybody deserves the right to know all the evidence, all, all the facts, all the harm caused by the church and then make an informed decision. And there's a lot of good the Church does. There's a lot of good teachings in the church.

John Dehlin [00:54:50] None of us are saying there aren't good teachings, there aren't good people, there aren't good leaders. And there are good things about the Church. None of us are saying that. We're not saying don't be a Mormon or leave the Church. What we are saying is inform yourself not only of the history and the facts and the doctrine, but inform yourself of the harm that the Church does to LGBT people, to women, to people of color, to families, to doubters. And if you then decide you want to remain, remain, bless you.

Trevor Haugen [00:55:19] And we're saying that not all truth and all, you know, everything good that exists in this world can only be found in the LDS Church.

John Dehlin [00:55:28] Yeah, there's good everywhere. And don't be, don't stay in the church because you're scared that you can't be happy or that your kids are going to be messed up. Yes, hundreds of thousands of children of active Mormons are messed up. I tell you that as somebody who is a psychologist at a university counseling center that was 80% Mormon for six years, if you count all the work that I did at Utah State University. I still talk to children of active Mormons all the time. You do not have a guarantee that your children are going to be awesome by remaining active. There are good children in Mormonism. Good children out of Mormonism. There are messed up children in Mormonism. Messed up children out of Mormonism. There's divorce in Mormonism. Divorce out of Mormonism. Do not let the fear that the church gives you rule your life.

Trevor Haugen [00:56:19] Yeah, if there was one takeaway, I think for people is to replace that fear with excitement. There's so much to discover out there and to explore, man. And it's so fun. Every day is just so fun, you know, because you can, you can learn something new and decide whether you want to make that a part of your life. Whether does that teaching or does that idea help me be a greater version of myself, you know what I mean? Instead of restricting your ideas into one. So that would be my big takeaway, is if you are scared, if you are feeling this fear, anxiety of being who you know deep inside you really want to be. Just know that very quickly that's replaced with fun excitement and just agree. Yeah, just awesome stuff.

John Dehlin [00:57:08] A quick shout out to everyone who joined us today. I just noticed Hans and Brigitte Matzon spend their evening in Spain or Sweden, wherever they are. Shout out to the Mattsons. We love you guys. Yeah, shout out to everyone who joined us today. Steve Holbrooke, Jerry Lee Renshaw, you know Tina Prince, all my old Melissa Wells, all my old friends, Heath Hendrickson, current friends. Just love you guys for joining us.

John Dehlin [00:57:33] Want to thank Trevor for your courage. Want to thank Lindsay Hanson Park, John Hamer and Glenn Osland for their participation in the series that we took down. I want to just thank I want to thank Matt Grow and Dawn Clark for their kindness and generosity and being willing to meet with you.

John Dehlin [00:57:55] Of course they're not going to love how we talked about that meeting, but I think they deserve credit for trying to show you love and support and we need to thank them for that. And thank any church leader that tries to give thoughtful, loving, responsible support to members who doubt in question. Hopefully this will help educate the Church on how to train the There are prophets, apostles, 70 quorum members, stake presidents and bishops, on how not to talk to doubters and on how to talk to doubters. And I guarantee they're paying attention and I guarantee that this is going to help improve how they deal with doubters in the future.

John Dehlin [00:58:39] Finally, I just want to thank the Open Stories Foundation Board of Directors that makes all this possible. I want to thank Amy Shoemaker Grubbs, who's my director of operations. I want to thank all of those who make this possible. And most importantly, I want to thank the donors, those of you who donate to the Open Stories foundation, to Mormon Stories, to a Thoughtful Faith, to Mormon Matters, to Mormon Transitions. Your donations pay for the mission of the Open Stories foundation, which makes everything we do possible. So please, if you've benefited from this, if you like it, if you want to see it, continue, your tax deductions are donated.

John Dehlin [00:59:17] Your donations are tax deductible. They will go to good use. We're transparent in our finances. Please donate to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation PayPal donor box. However you want to do it, write us a letter, send a check. We will use your donations responsibly. We will be transparent in how we handle your donations and we will continue supporting people in transition, supporting progressive Mormons, post Mormons, and helping the church get better. Indirectly. That's not our goal, but that's the result. So with that, Trevor Hargan. Love you.

Trevor Haugen [00:59:51] Love you, John.

John Dehlin [00:59:52] Thanks for coming, brother.

Trevor Haugen [00:59:54] Appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:59:54] Thanks to all our listeners. And please join us again soon for another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody. This was super fun.

Trevor Haugen [01:00:03] See you guys.

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.