Introduction and Show Banter

Bill Reel [00:00:00] Welcome to the groundbreaking news program that delves into the heart of Mormonism. Your weekly window into the unique intersections of news, history and culture that resonate with the tapestry of Mormonism. So whether you're tuning in from the heart of Utah or joining us from around the world, your favorite news program starts now. Where news meets insight and the stories of our faith unfold.

John Dehlin [00:00:23] Hello, everyone, and welcome to an episode, the next episode of what we're now calling the Mormon Newscast. I am your. Your host for today, John Dehlin. And I am joined by Rebecca Biblioteca of Mormonish Podcast. Hey, Rebecca.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:00:39] Hey, how is everybody? Happy New Year.

John Dehlin [00:00:41] Great to have you. We also have with us Radio Free Mormon. Hey, Radio Free Mormon, good evening.

Radio Free Mormon [00:00:47] As well as Mormon Sunday School, as well as brush up your Shakespeare.

John Dehlin [00:00:50] That's right. Couple new podcasts. Excited about that. And Bill Real, we got Bill Real in the house. Hey, Bill.

Bill Reel [00:00:57] Johnny. Johnny D. How are you doing?

John Dehlin [00:00:59] Good. Thanks for. Thanks for joining us today. We're all back. The crew is back. All right, well, we welcome everyone. Some of you may know that we've been experimenting with different names. We started out with the intent to name this program the Mormon Times. I received a tip that maybe there might be questions around the legality of the usage of that name. And so to avoid any risk, we, we soft pedaled away from the Mormon Times. We've thought about different names, and for today, we're trying on the name the Mormon Newscast. So that's what we're going with today. And we hope it sticks, but we reserve the right to name it whatever the freak we rot. Is that. Is that true, everyone?

Bill Reel [00:01:50] It doesn't. It doesn't matter as long as these four are here talking about the news.

John Dehlin [00:01:53] That's right. That's right.

Radio Free Mormon [00:01:55] I can call you Johnny D. Can I call you Johnny Five?

John Dehlin [00:01:59] Yeah. Our Short Circuit. Absolutely. I love that movie, Short Circle. Got it.

Radio Free Mormon [00:02:05] Bill got that reference.

John Dehlin [00:02:05] Yeah, I didn't get it, but I did love Short Circuit. I loved it.

Radio Free Mormon [00:02:08] 95 Alive.

John Dehlin [00:02:10] I love that. I love. I love Short Circuit. I can definitely endorse that. All right, well, Happy New Year as well. This is the first Mormon newscast of 2024. So we're excited to have you all here today. We have four main topics we're going to be covering. We're going to be starting by the Mormon bishop resigning from the pulpit. I'm going to be kind of leading that story. And then we're going to move to the story of Utah no longer being a majority Mormon state. Bill's going to cover cover that story with our analysis. Then our family is going to talk about a new report from the Widow's Mite people. We love those people. And we're going to be discussing a newly released hot off the press released, I think as of today, an analysis of child sex abuse in Australia. And it will end with Rebecca having done hours of analysis regarding topics and questions replacing the gospel topics essays. That's what we have in store for today. We welcome everyone who's joined us for the live chat for the live stream on our various YouTube and Facebook channels. We always appreciate you subscribing to all of our channels including Mormon Stories podcast. I didn't mention that at the beginning. Please subscribe to all of our channels on YouTube. Please like and share. And of course we always appreciate donations to our respective organizations or the super chats that come in as well. And we've already got one from Alex Timas who writes the world is better because of your work. Thank you team. Thank you Alex. And thank you team. I am honored to be on a podcast with these fine people. Anything any y' all want to say before we jump in? I know the Cleveland Browns made the the playoffs. That's kind of a big deal, right Bill?

Bill Reel [00:03:57] It rarely happens. It's once every decade or so we make the playoffs. This is our shot. We actually have a really good team this year. Although we're on our fourth quarterback, 38 year old, almost 39 year old Joe Flapper.

John Dehlin [00:04:08] And isn't it like the oldest quarterback matchup against like the youngest quarterback or something like that?

Bill Reel [00:04:13] It's yes. And it's also the first team to make the playoffs having started four quarterbacks in a season. We actually started five.

John Dehlin [00:04:19] Wow, that's amazing. Go, go Browns.

Bill Reel [00:04:22] Go Browns.

John Dehlin [00:04:22] Go Browns. RFM Seahawks, right? What's your team?

Radio Free Mormon [00:04:27] I don't think they even exist anymore. I think they're gone.

John Dehlin [00:04:31] And Rebecca, Denver Broncos. What you got? What you got for us?

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:04:36] Since my kids are too old now to play sports, I no longer cheer for any team. You know, it used to be whatever little league, soccer, football, you know, that was me, the soccer mom. But now I'm just podcasting. Go podcast.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] Okay. And I'm gonna. Don't hate me Bill. Or rfm. I have to go with the Chiefs cause my son in law is a huge Chiefs fan. Blame it on Alex Smith who was at the U, went to the Chiefs, my son in law fell in love with the Chiefs and now even though it's Patrick Mahomes and you gotta like Mahomes, right?

Bill Reel [00:05:05] I thought you were gonna tell me you're a Taylor Swift fan and that you ended up joining the Chiefs because of that.

John Dehlin [00:05:10] No, I've been a Chiefs fan for several. Okay, now we've just lost half our audience talking about football. All right, well, we're gonna start with this hot story that broke last week while I was in Los Angeles. The story is a Mormon bishop resigning from the pulpit. I don't think this has ever been done before in the sense I know that we on Mormon. Well, Bill Real is a former bishop, so that's relevant. And I think, Bill Real, you're probably the first actively serving bishop to ever appear on a Mormon themed podcast. Is that true?

A Mormon Bishop Resigns From the Pulpit

Bill Reel [00:05:44] You'll have to tell me. It was too early for me to know, but I was interviewed by you, and I think I was the first currently serving bishop interviewed on a Mormon podcast.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] I think you were, because this is before we even did video. You interviewed with the Mormon stories? Audio only. But anyway, you know, various bishops and ex bishops and resigned bishops have been on all the podcasts over the years. But I think this is the first time a bishop's ever resigned on video, and then it got shared on the Internet. And I want to give credit to the ex Mormon Reddit, which is where I think a lot of us discovered about this. I do want to give a quick disclaimer. We will not be. I hope this isn't too disappointing. We will not be interviewing this bishop today on the podcast. Although I think a few of us have spoken with this bishop, and he does plan on doing an interview and telling his story, but it won't be happening today. What we're going to be doing today, as a matter of record, is playing his resignation video and commenting on it. And that's going to be part one. But stay tuned for more information later. If and when this bishop decides to tell his full story, that will be available hopefully soon. All right, so do any of you want to give. I was traveling. I was in Los Angeles when the story broke. Do any of you want to give any background about this story before I launch into it? And if not, we can just launch into it.

Radio Free Mormon [00:07:16] From my perspective, the story is noteworthy because of its lack of background. We know very little except that apparently this man is a bishop. That he made a resignation speech of some ambiguous nature that was filmed and then put on the Internet and then taken down, then put up, then taken down, then put up, and. And finally I think it stayed up for good. And I'm glad that you're going to be having him on for an interview, so maybe we can get some details out of this fellow.

John Dehlin [00:07:40] Yeah, I think all that. It's pretty much public knowledge that this happened in Mississippi. Right. That he's a bishop in Mississippi.

Radio Free Mormon [00:07:47] That's what I hear.

John Dehlin [00:07:48] And Bill, anything else, Bill? Rebecca, anything else you want to add?

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:07:52] I would just add that he. Since that video that I believe have been two others, I think one was a TikTok and what was another video just kind of clarifying some of the statements that he's made. The last video that I saw on Tick Tock, he was talking to his family about second Saturday. So I know there's a story there and hopefully we'll be able to hear that soon.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] Yeah, yeah, we won't be playing that one today. Big thanks to Anthony Campbell for his support. He loves Mormonish. So that's. That's Rebecca's podcast. So happy, happy for that. I want Mormonism Live people to share their comments because we know and ready for more people. We know those podcasts are loved as well. And also a.k.a. the Cat Lady. Thanks for your support.

Radio Free Mormon [00:08:32] All right, talking about second Saturdays, it sounds like he went from zero to 60 in 10 seconds.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:08:37] That was my thought.

John Dehlin [00:08:39] Well, part of the question, you know, I weirdly, I interviewed two actively serving bishops on Mormon Stories podcast last year, and this was while they were serving. And both of them were willing to say that they no longer believed as active Mormon bishops on the podcast. And I just. There's going to be more and more of this in the weeks and months and years ahead. So the church is going to have to figure out whether to force bishops to sign NDAs. Like, I guarantee the church is going to be figuring out something to stop this from happening because it's only going to happen more. That's a prediction I have. Kelly asks, what second Saturday? Anyone want to answer? Kelly, what that is?

Bill Reel [00:09:23] Yeah, it is the Sabbath day rebranded

John Dehlin [00:09:28] by ex Mormon, right?

Bill Reel [00:09:29] Yes.

Radio Free Mormon [00:09:30] I think the idea is that most people in the world, other than Mormon and certain orthodox members of other religions, have a regular weekend. It consists of Saturday and Sunday. Mormon typically have Saturday. That's it. That's their weekend. So now they get a second Saturday if they're not going to church anymore.

John Dehlin [00:09:46] Thank you, RFM. Thank you.

Bill Reel [00:09:47] And a 10% raise.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] Also, Victoria says, go 49ers. So we got to add that. All right, I. Something tells me the NFL is going to be a theme throughout this entire episode. All right, so I'm going to play now an 8, 8, 8 and a half minute clip. Some were complaining about the audio quality, the audio quality. I did adjust the audio on this clip to make it louder for people who, who was struggling to hear the version previously. So the audio will be louder, but it's still echoey. So some of you may find it echoey. Feel free to tune in visually if you're an audio only listener. If you tune in visually, there will be subtitles, closed caption titles. I don't know how accurate they are, but that might help a little bit. But let's just go ahead and play the clip and then we're going to discuss it. Here we go.

The Bishop's Speech and His Disillusionment

Guest [00:10:41] Two and a half years ago, when I was called to be bishop President Richardson came to my home and sat down on my couch with my wife and I to shoot the call. When we left the home, I was quite emotional. But I remember shutting the door behind

Bill Reel [00:10:57] him

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:10:59] and the words from section 121 came to my mind. It is the nature and disposition of almost all men. As soon as they give a little authority, as they suppose, as they suppose, they begin to exercise unrighteous opinion. And the Spirit said, don't you ever do it. And I thought about it and I never have. Just talking with Brother Torres this morning. You know the word Israel means we who wrestle with God. I want to tell you about a wrestle I've had. Ernest Hemingway once said, the most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving something or someone too much and forgetting the true specialty. I hope to my war family hear it from me. I've asked to be released. Not because of some sin, not because of my insulting, not at all. There's just a few things that I've been required to do that I personally cannot morally stand upon. I can't. So I need to step down for me and my family's will be. It's not been easy, but I feel many ways I'm failing the word. I know this is hard, I understand. But I have to be, have to be true. Than I fit weeks I've been angry. Every Sunday people look at me and they're like, man, the ship's done wrong. I can't do that to you. I won't. I won't. Because that turns to anger and bitterness and malice. I thought I've written down a few things. If it's okay, if I could just share my thoughts. Sometimes due to church culture, we feel that we're not supposed to turn down or step away from a call. I wish I'd known it was okay. To say to myself, And they're okay. I'm not as strong as I thought I was. To seek excellence is important. I don't. That's my life. I seek excellence. More doing, more being successful. It's so much more important to know that you're okay. And I have been okay. This poem, guys. It is so hard. You have to keep everything to yourself. It is exhausting. It is broken. I didn't have to. The parents. I wish you would have told me I was enough. Never have. Whether I had worth or not wasn't contingent on how I acted. We are not loved for what we do or what we are going to do. We are loved for who we are. Not an expectation, but who we are. And to feel love for who you are is the most sacred kind of love. It's a gift that we have the opportunity to give to ourselves. If I could just say one more thing towards the youth. Because they are the reason I've stayed as long as I have. I love them. If there's ever injustice in the world, young men, young women. There's not many here, but listen. If there's ever injustice in the world, fight. If there's ever a bully somewhere, stand up to it. And if you have ever. If you ever have something to say, say it. Just say it. Don't fear, fear. Get rid of fear.

Video Clip 1 [00:16:05] And if you don't have any, and

Video Clip 1 [00:16:06] if you don't want to do that, that's okay. You're still enough. Instead of judgment, choose compassion. Instead of division. See, everybody's you, living a different life. And remember. Maybe I'll say it like Elma. And remember. Remember. If you're enough, everyone else is too. You are redeemed. You are always forgiven, no matter what. Jesus was a man who came to know the Christ. See Christ, seek only Christ. That's why people are gonna have a lot of questions. Thank you. Join the club. So do we. This has not been easy for my family. This has not been easy at all. It hasn't been easy for anybody. This is not going to continue to be easy. We want you to know that we love you. I told Jeff this morning. He said if we get called for a tornado, we're. He's still riding shotgun. I'm just not gonna wear this little shirt. I know Brother Bailey has prepared quite a bit for the next hour, so I will sit down. Tis very hard for me, But I know it's the right thing to do. Someone else who's better suited will do the job. So with that being said, let's close out the meeting. Let's do it. It's kind of ironic. I sing him number 227. There is sunshine in my soul today. After which we'll have a benediction. I totally forgot who it was who was supposed to give the prayer. Brother. I knew that. After which Brother.

John Dehlin [00:18:37] Wow. Well, Bill, since of all of us, I believe you're the only one who's been a bishop. Rebecca, have you ever been a bishop?

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:18:45] I'm still trying, but, no, not yet. I haven't made it.

John Dehlin [00:18:48] Well, Bill, what. What are your reactions? I would love to hear from you first.

Bill Reel [00:18:52] Yeah. So I don't know the backstory again. We're sort of still waiting to hear that. But what I do see is I see somebody who looks very sincere. And when I look around at what's happening in this church, you know, this church wants to say it's. It's strong as it's ever been. It's not really losing people. But when you read the data about how many of the youth are drinking coffee, how many people in the young adults aren't wearing garments, 24, 7. What I'm. What I'm seeing is that people's loyalty level is going down. People are waking up to the fact that these 15 guys at the. At the front of the front of the room that they're not worth placing blind trust into. And people are figuring out, on some level, people are figuring out that the way the church operates doesn't mesh with their inner conscience. And I'm excited to hear what the background is on this story, but I think this is a. A microcosm of a larger thing going on, which is that people are becoming dismayed with the way the church behaves, with the way the church asks folks to act at the general level and at the local level. Because as Boyd K. Packer, I think, was the one. Rfm, I think you'll. You'll know this, but boy K. Packer, I think, was the one who said, you know, it's not your job to represent the people to us. It's. It's your job to represent us to the people. And the direction from the top going down is a different sort of behavior than I think a good human being is wanting to behave like. And in the age of information, people are having a stronger resolve to not tolerate the request to behave badly. And whatever's going on, I think it's a sign of people generally waking up. Again, the coffee, the garments, people are not going to do this Mormon thing. The way their parents did it or their grandparents did it. And I see a sincere guy who gave his. Gave his time, energy and resources to the building of the kingdom of God and became dismayed and disenchanted.

John Dehlin [00:21:16] Well said. Rebecca, what were your reflections?

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:21:20] Yes, I've been talking about this with people because it's pretty much all any of us are talking about right now. We're a lot of us are curious as to how this even happened. I know we've heard stories in the last little while of people trying to get up and bear testimonies about different topics that the church doesn't want to hear and they're yanked off the stand or their mic is cut off. So I think there's curiosity as to had he arranged ahead of time to be able to address the congregation and, you know, other leaders kind of knew what he was going to say. I don't know. I think it's interesting he was able to speak at length on the topic that he did. I also see it.

John Dehlin [00:21:55] I wonder, Rebecca, if the stake president knew he was going to do that and. Or if the stake president was in the room.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:22:01] Right, yeah, that's what I'm questioning. Were there other leaders on the stand? Did he have permission? Because we all know situations where people have gotten up trying to come out during a testimony, things like that, and they have been in some cases forcibly removed. So that was one of my thoughts. Another thought, I just saw him as a man who was fighting for his son soul. He expressed. I don't want to be a person that exercises unrighteous dominion. I don't want to be a person that is forced to go against, you know, my inner compass, my inner guide. So it's almost like he's trying to save his own soul and remain the person, the morally upright person that he is in this environment where I don't know how long he was serving, but. And that would probably make a difference. The things that he's seen, the things that he's been asked to participate in and do. I feel like he's just trying to save himself.

Panelists React to the Resignation

John Dehlin [00:22:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's clearly emotionally distraught. Rfm, what would you want to add?

Radio Free Mormon [00:22:58] Yeah, I don't think that he told anybody he was going to do this because if he had, he wouldn't be doing it. Although I've got to say I wouldn't want to be the guy who had to try and remove him from the stand. His arms are as big around as my legs. And I understand he might be an MMA fighter, but. But to answer your question, Rebecca, he has been being a bishop for two and a half years now. He mentioned it was two and a half years ago that the state president came in, gave him the calling that was at the very beginning. So it's been two and a half years, usually a five year run for a bishop. So he's resigning halfway through. And it's pretty easy to put some of the pieces together. He says, number one, that he. Well, he quotes Hemingway and he talks about the worst or the most painful thing that can happen is to love someone or something so much that you lose yourself. And it's pretty clear to me that he's likening that to him and the church and that he does not want to go there. And he has been going there and now he's not going to go there anymore, which is why he's resigning. I eat loving the church so much that he's going to lose himself in the church. And he also says that there are a few things that he's been required to do as a bishop that he can't morally stand by. Well, there's only one person who can require a bishop to do something, and that's the stake president. Obviously the president of the church could, but he's not gonna because we've got a chain of authority. Right. It's the state president who's over the bishop. So it's a state president who's been requiring him to do whatever it is that he's talking about. And he says a few things that he can't morally stand by. So apparently this has come to a point, a breaking point, where he thinks I'm just going to resign now he's going to do it not in the normal way for any of those people who are watching, who are not members of the church. Normal way is you do it behind the scenes. You tell your stake president, I can't do this anymore and I'm going to resign and you need to release me. Unless the state president refused to, which would end up being a mistake by the state president, as we can see in this video.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] Yeah, what, what would y' all say to somebody who said, look, that's not the way to do it? If you love the church, if you're grateful for the church, just quietly step down. You don't need to tell everybody. You don't need to make a big thing about it. Just quietly go away. Especially if you've lost your testimony. It's not appropriate to use the pulpit to grandstand. If somebody were to say that, would any of you have, would Any of you agree with that or would any of you have a reaction to that, that question? I, yeah, I know that some apologists have made criticisms of this talk already. I don't want to dignify them by giving them any attention, but I would, I would love to give everyone here a chance to respond to an argument like that if you want to.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:25:53] I think he was very clear when he said, I'm not leaving because of this or this or this. He wanted to make it clear why he was stepping away. And I think that is a problem when you step away quietly. I have a friend who is a bishop who stepped away for very similar reasons. But 12 years ago, before any real social media and everyone on the board came up to him, what's happening? They thought maybe he had cancer. That was their answer. Do you have a health problem? Nobody knew or understood. I think this particular bishop wanted to make sure and make it very clear why he was doing it within, you know, the level that he was comfortable with. And also to make sure that he reassured the youth. He spent, you know, quite a bit of time in a lot of Kleenex talking about how much the youth meant to him so he can go out on his own terms. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

John Dehlin [00:26:40] I guess that's a problem of the church's own making. If the church has a five year term that everyone knows about and expects and then that that makes it so, if somebody leaves early, it forces everyone to wonder, did he cheat on his spouse? Has he lied? Did he lose his faith? Did he do some more egregious sin? I wonder. I guess the only thing the church could do to prevent someone like him from feeling like he needed to explain it to everyone would be to what, Remove the five year term expectation and just have there be a variable term. But if they did that, then if somebody was terminated early by the church, then everybody would wonder the same thing. So man, does the church have an out here or are they going to lose either way?

Bill Reel [00:27:36] What I would want to say is that this is a faith that through its scriptures and the teachings it imparts, it tells us to be an advocate for the truth. It tells us to stand by the convictions of our heart. It tells us to be a beacon of truth and to be a voice of warning. It can't decide that when someone does that just because the message is the opposite of what it would want, that that person is wrong for doing so. I think if you are a religion and you give people spaces to communicate Their truths. You have to live with what those truths are if somebody decides to share those.

Radio Free Mormon [00:28:23] And here's an idea. How about as a church, not requiring a leader or any member of your church to compromise the morals that the church itself has taught to you.

Bill Reel [00:28:35] Amen.

Radio Free Mormon [00:28:36] Sorry if that sounded a little acerbic.

John Dehlin [00:28:38] Such as courage and honor and honesty and complete honesty, that sort of thing. Right?

Guest [00:28:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:44] Yeah. Okay. I mean, there's been some discussion about what happened and I think there was some either statements or speculation that some sort of abuse had happened within the water stake level that this bishop knew about and that he was being not allowed to either take action and. Or to notify people about it. That's, that's what I remember reading towards the end of last week up on Reddit. Do any of y' all have anything else in terms of, you know, it could be he's lost his faith. Anyone else have any thoughts on. I know he's going to tell his full story later, but what, what do we suspect or know as of now?

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:29:37] The two things that I read were, as you said, that it was possible that he was made aware of abuse and there was not an avenue as a bishop that he felt was productive enough for him to be able to stop the abuse or report the abuse. The other thing that I came across was somebody said, and this seems very plausible, that he was uncomfortable with the kinds of sexually inappropriate and invasive questions that he was having to ask teenagers and he was being encour from above to do this. Now, anecdotally, I know this happens. As I said, my friend who was a bishop who resigned several years ago for exactly the same kind of thing, pressure from the stake president to grill and harass a teenager about details of morality. So I. This is not a one off situation. I would not be surprised if it was something like that. But again, we'll have to wait for him to tell his own story.

John Dehlin [00:30:31] Any other thoughts or reactions to that? To this topic or question?

Guest [00:30:34] Not I.

John Dehlin [00:30:35] Okay, Bill, when he talked about how hard the calling is and how hard it is to keep everything to himself, how exhausting it is and how it broke him, is that how you felt as a bishop? And maybe a part two to that question is, is that how you felt as a bishop towards the end of being a bishop, when, as I remember correctly, your faith was maybe transforming a little bit from where it was when you started?

Bill Reel [00:31:04] Yeah, I went in with the Stake Presidency on multiple occasions to be a voice for people who had doubts or issues with the church. And I would Go into these meetings with the stake president, his two counselors, the clerk and I would try to communicate that the church has made mistakes, that things haven't always gone right, that we don't as a church, always do the right thing. And it was constantly sort of thrown back, like it was minimizing the problem and making it sort of me and everybody I represented's fault for not being able to be faithful and keep it together. And that just wears on you when it sounds to me like this bishop made an attempt to go, I can't do this, I can't behave this way. I can't do the thing you're asking me to do. And it seems as though at some point he just felt like he was hitting his head against the wall and not getting anywhere. And I absolutely felt like that. And I'll just say, being a bishop in the LDS Church, if one takes it seriously and is really trying to be a good bishop, it's exhausting. It's. I remember they said, well, when you're released, you'll feel this weight that come off of you. I literally felt that. Like, I felt like, wow, I can take a breath and enjoy my life again. Because I took that calling seriously. It was exhausting.

The Burden and Challenges of Being a Bishop

John Dehlin [00:32:33] Would any of you guess that it's harder, more difficult to be a bishop, not just in the Internet age, but in 2024 than it was in, in, in 1990? Any of you have speculation about that?

Radio Free Mormon [00:32:51] Well, the degree to which you're going to be encountering members of your ward who have questions, who you are going to counsel with about them, which means, I guess, listen as much as you want and then tell them to read conference addresses in the Book of Mormon and pray and not actually address their questions. There's going to be a lot more of that today than there has been in the past, I'm sure of that.

John Dehlin [00:33:11] Yeah. So dealing with all the members leaving the church, all the difficult questions that the Internet is going to bring, all this, this idea that as a bishop you might have a member record their conversation with you and then share that on the Internet, there's gotta be all sorts of stresses about being a bishop, plus just knowing how wealthy the church is, like how hard would it be to be a Mormon bishop? Collecting the widow's might from lower income people in your ward or even higher income people in your ward, knowing that the church is sitting on a financial war chest of 150 billion and yet requiring everyone to come in and do tithing settlement, like it's gotta be, it's gotta be brutal. What's that?

Bill Reel [00:33:55] And clean the, and clean the bathroom. Like they have $150 billion and once every month and a half you have to go to the ward on Saturday and spend four hours cleaning. I want to use a different word but cleaning the toilet. You know, like you, you, you have to do this thing that it has so much money it could have 50 full time personnel at every ward building to take care of that.

Radio Free Mormon [00:34:19] That's got to be a bad job. It's like you're shaking down the inhabitants of Lake Town for Smaug.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:34:26] And there is kind of a thought that those that perhaps rise to that level of leadership are the people that have seen said yes all along, that haven't questioned that maybe don't know things. That's kind of how I like it. I think about my co host on Mormonish Landon who as he was leaving he went in to talk to the bishop. He spent three hours outlining all of his, you know, sincere concerns and questions and truth claims. And the bishop just looked at him and said, oh, I haven't heard any of this. I don't know about any of this. He honestly didn't.

John Dehlin [00:34:56] Yeah.

Bill Reel [00:34:58] In the church's favor. There's only two hours of church now. So that's at least a little bit of a benefit to the local leadership in terms of the time and energy they have to dedicate to running a ward and making it work.

John Dehlin [00:35:11] Yeah. I was also going to say I have friends that were called either into the bishopric, they were called as either Mormon bishops or members of the bishopric. And when they went in to meet with the stake president they said, you don't understand stake president. I no longer believe the church is true. I or I, my testimony does not qualify me. I'm not even sure I believe in God. And more and more I'm being told that stake presidents are calling bishops and bishopric members who literally profess non belief. And they'll say that's why we're calling you. We're calling you because we know you're an unorthodox believer and or a non believer and we think you have an important role to play with all our members struggling in their faith and in the very deed this bishop said one of the reasons he remains a bishop is for the youth. He said that. And I have to imagine that's also because of all the worthiness and you know, worthiness interviews, questions around things like masturbation, et cetera. And I imagine he feels like, like he's staying bishop so that the youth will have a better experience under him than they would under an orthodox bishop. But my question is, how much more difficult is it to be a Mormon bishop when you no longer believe some or all of the church's truth claims? Would that add an even more difficult burden than a normal bishop would have? And maybe you've already answered this, Bill, but I just want to put a fine point on that.

Bill Reel [00:36:48] That was the. The moment I no longer believed the church was true, was the moment I had to go to my stake president and go, I can't manage my own faith crisis going on more or less to sit down with members of the ward and help them with their marriage falling apart or with different issues that were going on at the personal level with those folks. And it was the point at which I said, I can't do this anymore. You have to find the next guy. And it cut to the point where my stake president didn't act. Months went by and I would say, hey, did you find the replacement? And he's like, oh, we're working on it. Just be patient. I could tell it was just kick the can down the street. And I said, no, no, I'm done. You, you have like, I'm gonna give you like three more weeks. Find the guy, because I'm done. Sometimes that's what the church almost calls on you to have to do is to say, I'm sorry, I know you're higher than me in church authority, but I'm looking up and I'm telling you to knock it off. This isn't working.

John Dehlin [00:37:48] Yeah, rfm. Rebecca, anything about being a non believing bishop and what that would be like? Anything else you want to add?

Radio Free Mormon [00:37:55] Well, there's a big plus, which is that at least you don't have to worry about your bishops losing their testimony.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:38:02] I would just think you'd have imposter syndrome, you know, to the nth degree. But I do see how you would think on certain levels you were helping people, but eventually would come to a head like it did with this bishop. I don't think that it would be anything that you could maintain long term without almost losing your sanity.

John Dehlin [00:38:18] Because I can just say, just by being a member, just by being a member, when I was still a member, I felt like I was giving my name and my reputation to a church that was definitely misleading and harming large, large numbers of people doing good, but also harming a large number of people in very significant ways and misleading them. And that was attacks. Being just a regular old member, I just can only imagine that would be significantly amplified as the bishop.

Radio Free Mormon [00:38:51] And I certainly take it for granted that you're relating this accurately, that the story was told by the stake president or whoever to this prospective bishop that we're calling you because we think it's a plus that you have no testimony. I have to suspect that that's not really the reason. And the real reason is because the talent pool is getting so shallow.

John Dehlin [00:39:16] Yeah, yeah. The people are leaving the church all over the world, which is going to be a story. Our next story. And. And that just makes it so the church has to scrape the bottom of the barrel a little bit. Although I'll just end by saying I love how he ended. Fight injustice, the stand up to bullies. And if you've got something to say, say it. Get rid of fear. And then he ended by just this message of unconditional worthiness and love. He clearly hates the idea of worthiness. Interviews and probably disciplinary councils and just this idea that youth would ever be questioned or adults would be questioned around their worth. How difficult would it be to stand up as a Mormon bishop and give this talk, knowing that your wife's there in the pews, your kids are there and that this is your community and contemplating the backlash not just in your ward, but once word gets around your stake and even your extended family. How much courage does this take? Anyone want to take that on?

Bill Reel [00:40:20] I think quite a bit.

John Dehlin [00:40:21] Yeah.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:40:23] I would say off the charts. However, I feel like we do know, I believe that his brother filmed it. So I feel like he did have support. He knew he had support, I'm guessing from his immediate family, from Looks like a Brother. So I'm hoping that he felt supported in the decision to do this.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] Yeah, I hope so too. But even, even then, it's going to be hard no matter what. All right, well, we'll stay tuned. We hope that we. We are looking forward to this bishop, hopefully telling ex bishop now. Although in Mormonism, once the bishop, you're always a bishop, right? Bishop. Bishop Real.

Bill Reel [00:40:58] You've got that, brother.

John Dehlin [00:41:00] We hope that the. We hope that the bishop will tell his full story. Stay tuned for more on that. Thanks to everyone. Thanks to the brother for recording it. Life Takes Two. Life Take Two says that he did get approval from a stake president before giving that talk. I don't know where Life Take Two gets that information, but that's what she's reporting. And then I'll just thank Justin Wright. He says, I just wanted to donate to say thanks for all. Thanks to you all for helping my wife and I find validation after leaving Mormonism. Justin, thank you all of you who donate either through super chats or just through donating to our direct websites really help keep our podcast alive.

Radio Free Mormon [00:41:45] On the issue of bravery, John, what's that? On the issue of bravery?

John Dehlin [00:41:49] Yes. Rfm.

Radio Free Mormon [00:41:50] It takes none to do it the way the Church wants you to do it, which is to go gently into that good night.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] Yeah, yeah. Just saying that takes no or very little courage.

Guest [00:42:00] Yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [00:42:01] Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:01] Thank you.

Radio Free Mormon [00:42:02] The courageous thing is to stand up and do what he did and speak the truth, at least to the extent that he felt that he was comfortable speaking it. He is a bishop. He does have certain confidentialities and I think he has a right to say why it is he's resigning.

John Dehlin [00:42:16] And I think it. I think if he has lost his faith or some of it, he probably did show restraint by not sharing that. Right.

Guest [00:42:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:42:25] Yeah. All right, well, thanks everyone. Hope you enjoyed that segment. Now let's move on to bill your segment before. Do you want to give any setup before your segment or should we just roll the tape?

Bill Reel [00:42:38] No, no, just like weeks past. A little video clip and then I'm hoping that I can get the the point of view of the three of you following it.

John Dehlin [00:42:46] All right, here's the next clip.

Mormon Population Decline in Utah

Bill Reel [00:42:50] Recent research suggests a significant shift in the religious landscape of Utah, long considered the heartland of Mormonism. According to Recent news around 2007, Utah was no longer a majority Mormon state. The ramifications of this shift are felt not only in the religious landscape, but also in the political arena, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has historically held considerable sway and influence since the mid-1800s. Even today, with less than 50% of the population being LDS, Latter Day Saints are overrepresented in Utah's legislature, holding nine of every 10 seats. But things are beginning to change. Recent attempts by the LDS Church to influence state policies highlight the changing dynamics. An example was a 2018 bill aimed at creating a two party state in regards to recordings and surveillance. Such a bill would have prevented the recording of of bishop interviews or recording an apostle or a member of the First Presidency without their knowledge, such as at a local fireside, for example. The Church had pushed for politicians under its influence to create the bill, but public uproar was such that it ultimately failed. This unsuccessful endeavor signals a trend wherein the LDS Church is finding a slow increase in the difficulty in shaping political outcomes in the state. And as the state increases in the percentage of non Mormon, the makeup of its politicians will also begin to shift. As the Demographic makeup shifts in Utah becomes more diverse. The church's traditional influence will likely begin to face challenges where for almost 200 years it was able to do whatever it wanted. If such attempts at legislative changes become harder for the LDS Church, the once strong political alignment between the church and its loyal politicians may weaken. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will likely need to soften its treatment of non Mormon and ex Mormon or risk becoming a faith that has created a growing segment of the state who have a bad taste in their mouth about the state's religion. A state with growing never Mormon and ex Mormon who view the faith's unethical actions and dishonest behaviors as a problem they won't tolerate. The call for the LDS Church to work with the majority of Utah's citizens aims to emphasize the importance of building bridges and fostering positive relationships and to distance itself from the abusive behaviors and questionable ethics that have accumulated over time. In an era where influence is earned through collaboration and understanding, I, for one, am suggesting that the LDS Church may need to reconsider its approach to maintain a positive image among Utah's evolving population. Back to you, John.

John Dehlin [00:46:31] That's so professional, Bill. You're so pro.

Bill Reel [00:46:36] Yeah, it is this thing, right? There's 42% of Utah is Mormon

John Dehlin [00:46:44] and

Bill Reel [00:46:44] 9 out of 10 politicians in Utah are Mormon. And I have a hunch that the church behind the scenes has ways in which it can manipulate the political landscape to ensure that it is continues to be overrepresented. But LDS Church, what happens when we get to 37% or 32% or 26%? Can you maintain that? And if you keep, excuse my French, pissing people off with your behavior, those same people are going to have a chance to hold you more accountable. Maybe it's time to play a little nicer.

John Dehlin [00:47:29] Love it. Mic drop. Rebecca, what do you. What do you got?

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:47:36] Well, I live in Utah and I have since 1984. Oh my good heavens. And so I've seen this. I've seen there was a. A proposition on the ballot several Years ago, Prop 4, I think it was. It was to legalize medical marijuana or something around that. I was the only one in my neighborhood that had a sign, you know, vote prop 4. And enough people voted that it did pass in favor of some level of legalizing marijuana. However, then as we went forward, started reading articles about, you know, what's going on with this. It seemed to morph. Somebody had control, somebody had influence. And by the time it was actually enacted, it was not what we had voted for. So I think there are scenarios like that that happen that make other people, even faithful members, wake up and say, wait a minute, wait a minute. The legislative process is being unduly influenced to the nth degree. I see that, of course, in Heber Valley, Utah, where our podcast is very involved in working with the citizens there, trying to encourage them to relocate a temple that's being built there. It's a predominantly the city council and, and the is full of religious, you know, of LDS members. The, the demographic is about half and half. But still, like Bill said, when you have 88% in your legislature, you're still, still going to get everyone to vote as a block. I mean, 32% is great, 20% is great as it goes down. But voting as a block, we've got a history of that, don't we?

John Dehlin [00:49:04] We sure do. Thanks, Rebecca. RFM Any comments on the story?

Radio Free Mormon [00:49:09] For the last several years it has been noted that stakes in California have been closing because the active membership has been going down, down, down. Stakes in Washington have been closing, stakes in Oregon have been closing. And the apologetic championed by the church for this sad state of affairs is that all the Mormon are moving to Utah. Well, if that's the case, I don't know why it is that we would have now a news report that Mormon are Suddenly less than 50% of the population of Utah. Perhaps they all got lost somewhere in the Nevada desert on route.

John Dehlin [00:49:54] Thank you. I'll, I guess I'll just add I'm, I'm a Utah citizen. And you know, one of the things that I noticed, I, I, I was raised Republican. I still have a lot of leanings towards conservative politics in terms of like balancing the budget, fiscal responsibility. There's a, there's a lot I could say for sort of both traditional sides of the aisle. But I can say that a Democratic vote in Utah historically has been pretty worthless because, because the, for example, the candidates for US Senate, you know, the Democrat candidates for US Senate, they just always lose resoundingly. And even the one Democratic member of the House of Representatives that we had recently lost his seat, I believe after one term. Politics are just really odd here. And the fact that Mormon represent 80, 90% of the legislature is outrageous. And you know, with Mitt Romney giving up his seat, it's really interesting now to see who's going to run for his seat and just to see, it will be interesting to see if at any point any of the members of the House of Representatives or the Senate will will be non Mormon. Because if, you know, of course Utah county is going to be largely Mormon. Of course, you know, maybe Ogden or Weber counties are going to be ish in some of southern Utah counties, but Park City is certainly not predominantly Mormon. Salt Lake county, certainly not. And we're going to see more and more erosion of the Mormon dominance. But I'll be curious to see when non Mormon or even Democrat votes start to count in Utah. I do think there's people talking about potential changes that they would like to see, including getting rid of the clergy penitent privilege. I know rfm, you and Beril have strong feelings about the value of those types of laws. Who should be or shouldn't be a mandatory reporter. I think statutes of limitations for abuse victims, that can be an interesting thing that can be impacted by a legislature that's less Mormon. So. So yeah, Bill, you bring up a really important point and I think it's going to be interesting to see whether non Mormon in Utah realize how much power they have and how soon we're going to see that reflected in more legislation and in, in those who hold public office.

Bill Reel [00:52:53] So can I add just a tangential point, please?

John Dehlin [00:52:56] Yeah.

Bill Reel [00:52:56] 2018. I remember when this happened. The, the politicians, the Lowry guy that was in the image that I showed in the video, they tried to like suddenly just throw out this bill and get it passed to make the Utah two party state. And some of the politicians that were against it reached out and said, hey, ex Mormon community, you guys have got to get loud here because otherwise they're going to, they're going to change it. It's going to happen here in the next 48 hours. It's just going to, it's going to, it's going to occur. And the, the voice of opposition was so loud that they immediately squashed it and walked away from it. Here's my question. The church has had the utmost power in Utah to do whatever the hell it's wanted forever. If the church wanted it to be a two party state 20 years ago, they could have gotten it done, no problem. Why did the LDS Church like the state being a one party state? And you look at when the church did surveillance at BYU to the homosexual community. When you look at what the church has done in the past with doing surveillance on ex Mormon at various times this church has utilized a one party state and started to see the writing on the wall that it was getting to the point where moving forward in an information age, it might hurt them more than it helped them. But Trust me, they've been using the one party state for the longest of time to their benefit.

John Dehlin [00:54:31] Yeah, it's so true. All right, any final comments on that story? Bill, thanks for bringing that to us.

Bill Reel [00:54:40] You're welcome.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:54:41] All I can say is that I think the culture is changing because I live in the heart of the heart of the bubble of the bubble of Utah county. And we're getting a Starbucks. I never thought I would see the day, but we are.

John Dehlin [00:54:52] And you know, I went to Logan and there's like four. Just recently when I was in Logan, there was no. There was. Maybe eventually there was one Starbucks. I think there's four Starbucks in Cache Valley right now. It's crazy.

Radio Free Mormon [00:55:06] Yes. And I would just make the couple of pedestrian observations that, number one, in Utah and elsewhere, not Mormon does not equal Democrat.

John Dehlin [00:55:18] That's right. Absolutely.

Radio Free Mormon [00:55:19] And the second is, I'm sure that there are Democrats who are frustrated with not having an effective vote in the state of Utah because they're so outnumbered. But of course, there are other states like that, and the reverse is true. There are Republicans in Washington. Oregon.

John Dehlin [00:55:32] Yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [00:55:33] California, who are in the same position.

John Dehlin [00:55:35] Absolutely. Absolutely. I also think we didn't mention liquor laws. Like, how many. How many non Mormon or liberal Mormon or visitors to the state. Just feel like the liquor laws in Utah are crazy. Right.

Bill Reel [00:55:50] When my dad came to visit and he. We went to Cliffside Restaurant here in Southern Utah, my dad said, I just want to get a drink. And they were like. And he's like, wait, whoa, what do you mean? They're like, you have to order food in order to get a drink. And then I have to go behind that curtain and mix your drink. You can't see me do it. And my dad looked at me like. Because he's never Mormon, my dad looked at me and like. Like, what kind of operation do they run here? Like, what is this? We're from Ohio, where you just. Wherever, you know, you could order a beer on the side of the road. Just about on a golf course for sure.

Radio Free Mormon [00:56:23] Remember back in 1997 when President Hinckley was assuring Mike Wallace that he would be able to get his drink? Yeah. Don't worry, Mike. You'll be able to get your drink.

Rebecca Biblioteca [00:56:36] You know what changes these laws quickly, and that is the world stage. I'm talking the Olympics. Do not be surprised if there will be some changes coming before then. Because when you're a fool on the world stage, as far as people saying, what's happening? How come I can't get a Drink. They don't want that look. So I predict some changes before the Olympics.

John Dehlin [00:56:56] Yeah, that would be interesting. I mean, and as the church, you know, I, we had Ryan Craig, Dr. Ryan Craigen on Mormon stories last week. He's a sociologist that really emphasizes demographics and statistics. And he made the point that the more liberal the church gets, the more progressive the Mormon Church gets, the more lenient and non literal the Mormon Church gets. The, the more it weakens itself, it doesn't strengthen itself that within a certain set of bands this, the, the, the more strict religions lose people at a lower frequency. They still lose people, but they're going to lose them in a lower frequency than the lenient churches. So it's not going to be good for the church to, to become more loosey goosey, statistically speaking. But the writing sort of on the wall, maybe, meaning what is that?

Radio Free Mormon [00:57:56] That's the writing on the wall.

John Dehlin [00:57:58] Okay. All right. All right, Bill. Well, that, that was a great segment. Thanks so much for bringing that today.

Bill Reel [00:58:04] You're welcome.

Widow's Mites Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the LDS Church

John Dehlin [00:58:05] All right.

Radio Free Mormon [00:58:06] VRFM not recorded. However, there is breaking news today. A Widow's Might Report special has just been released this very morning on January 8, 2024. And I want to go to that report right now. By the way, this is the Widow's Might. And you can access this report as well as a number of other reports that they've done, which are mostly doing with statistics at. I think it's the widowsmight.com the widowsmightreport.com. you can Google it, you can find it. I have faith in you.

John Dehlin [00:58:38] All right.

Radio Free Mormon [00:58:39] We have that, John.

John Dehlin [00:58:41] Yeah. So here's the title slide, right?

Radio Free Mormon [00:58:44] The Analysis of Child Sex Abuse in Australia. Now you say, why in Australia? Is it because maybe a dingo ate your baby? No, it's because we have statistics now about frequency of child sex abuse claims against the church in Australia. Okay. We don't have them anywhere else, at least not from an official capacity. Right. We're all out here guessing. We know of some that have happened, but we don't know the entirety because those are kept close to the church. But in Australia now we do. And if we can go to the first page of this, John, we'll understand why it is that we're getting this information out of Australia and no place else. So it's titled An Analysis of Claims against the LDS Church Under Australia's Ongoing Restitution Program for Victims of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. There's a content warning. So if this stuff upsets you and triggers you, don't read any further. However, if we can go to the, if you can scroll down to the bottom of this slide. Thank you. And go to the slide number two. We're not going to go through every one, just about half of these slides. So here's the story. In 2018, Australia commenced a 10 year program to provide compensation counseling and formal apologies to child sexual abuse survivors who were abused in or because of Australian institutions under this new federal system. Federal in Australia. And by the way, of course the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is an institution in Australia. Under this new federal system of accountability, non participating charities risked losing their registered status. As a result, nearly all Australian charities, including the LDS Church participated. So we know that the LDS Church has gone through a lot of hoops in order to rig things so that donations to the church can be counted as charitable giving by its members and therefore qualify under Australian law for a deduction. Well, if the church in Australia did not participate in this program, they risked losing that ability and therefore it appears that's the reason that they participated because I can't think of any other reason in the world why they would participate in this in Australia and nowhere else. All right, so as a result, nearly all Australian charities, including the LDS Church participated. The LDS Church has reported active claims made under this victim compensation program since 2019. Remember, started in 2018. As 10 years old go through 2028, 27 claims have been filed of which 15 came in 2022. The 23 data not yet released, 2023 new claims appear to be accelerating as program execution improves. So now here the people at the widows might extrapolate this Data. Extrapolating to 2028 when the program ends, we estimate the church will face 95. The range is 70 to 120. They're taking the median 95 total claims under Australia's national redress scheme for institutional child sexual abuse. This equates to one out of every 1600 members. About 1600 members in Australia. All right, so what they're taking is what they know, extrapolating it according to normal accounting procedures, coming up with around 95 in 2028. And then this equates to one out of every 1600 members in Australia. So based on our analysis, if the church were to offer a similar restitution program globally, or if all other countries enacted comparable programs, we estimate 10,000 plus victims could come forward to claim compensation, counseling and an apology for child sexual abuse where the church bears some responsibility. So in other words, if they did this worldwide, the cost would be around $1 billion, or in other words, less than 1% of church reserves. We could not find claims data for other major religions in Australia. For purposes of comparison, the church may be uniquely obligated to report its claims due to its complex tax avoidance structure. Right. The other churches didn't have to participate, and so they didn't. But the church did need to participate if they wanted to not take the risk of losing their tax status.

John Dehlin [01:03:20] So rfm, for those whose. Whose minds or eyes glaze over when they're reading some of the more technical language. Can you summarize what we just read so far?

Radio Free Mormon [01:03:32] I was trying to do that in between, but basically there's a program in Australia that's trying to make restitution to victims of child sex abuse. They are requiring government agencies obviously have to participate. And anybody who gets a break from the government has to participate, including those who are given tax benefits because of their religion or charity. Especially in Australia. It's not based upon. With your religion. It's based upon whether you're giving charitable donations as they're defined down there. Which is why the church went through all the hoops in order to make it so that it would qualify. And that, I think, is still under litigation in Australia. However they participated. Okay. That's number one. Second thing is, we know that basically, if you could get those stats up there again, I think it was about 1 out of 1600 members now are potentially a victim of child sex abuse. And now they're going to take that and extrapolate it to the worldwide population of the church.

John Dehlin [01:04:39] Okay.

Radio Free Mormon [01:04:39] All right. And they come up with around 10, 000 victims because obviously there's a lot more people in the world outside of Australia who are members of the church and otherwise than there are exclusively in Australia.

John Dehlin [01:04:50] Got it.

Radio Free Mormon [01:04:51] Is that good enough?

John Dehlin [01:04:51] That's great. Thank you.

Radio Free Mormon [01:04:53] Next slide, please.

John Dehlin [01:04:54] All right, next slide.

Radio Free Mormon [01:04:55] What slide is this?

John Dehlin [01:04:57] This is slide three.

Radio Free Mormon [01:04:59] Okay, we're skipping that one.

John Dehlin [01:05:00] Okay. Where are we skipping 2 next?

Radio Free Mormon [01:05:03] 1 4. And the only reason we're skipping that is because it's somewhat redundant to what we've already talked about.

John Dehlin [01:05:08] All right.

Radio Free Mormon [01:05:09] And I'm trying to keep this short.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] Absolutely. Okay. All right, slide four.

Radio Free Mormon [01:05:15] There we go. Australia has 0.91, 0.0.91 of global church membership. So less than 1% is in Australia. To relate key Australian membership figures to the global church, we multiply by 110. Okay. And that's what you do in order to make up for that. Our forecast of 95 total claims in Australia suggests 10,000 plus victimized members could come forward to claim compensation, counseling and an apology, etc. We already talked about this. If settlements average $100,000 each, the cost would be around a billion. Can you scroll down or up whichever way to reveal what?

John Dehlin [01:05:52] Absolutely.

Radio Free Mormon [01:05:52] Thank you. These estimates are in addition to abuse cases already reported and settled via scouting. Okay. Almost certainly, and this is important to remember almost certainly these figures significantly understate the scope of past abuse since most instances of childhood sexual abuse, particularly with young children, are not reported to anyone. Now can you go to the bottom of that? Is that number three or is that number four?

John Dehlin [01:06:18] This is four.

Radio Free Mormon [01:06:20] It is four. Okay, so if we go to the next one and we'll just go five and six and then we'll be done with this.

Guest [01:06:25] Okay.

Radio Free Mormon [01:06:26] Okay. So it shows that the LDS Church appears to be the only major denomination with the practice of receiving all Australian members ties and offerings into a deductible multiple gift recipient entity. And that's that whole story out there that you know about, about how the church has used Australia's laws in order to try and benefit itself and its members. And it's still in the courts as to whether it's legal. I believe the church also appears to be the only major denomination in Australia which reports active claims related to the national Restitution program for victims of institutional child sexual abuse. Okay, so it's the only one that's participating. And it shows a bunch of others who are not participating below.

John Dehlin [01:07:09] Okay,

Radio Free Mormon [01:07:11] so the LDS Church. See, all of its donations are received by one of those agencies because of the way they structured it. Catholic Church? Nope. Anglican Church? Nope. Seventh Day Adventist? Nope. But Jehovah's Witnesses.

Guest [01:07:25] Yes.

Radio Free Mormon [01:07:26] They're at the bottom. Okay, are you able to scroll that

John Dehlin [01:07:31] up a little bit there?

Radio Free Mormon [01:07:32] Yeah, there you are. Okay, so if we can go to six now. Six is really, really, I think, powerful. Okay, you're giving me motion sickness here.

John Dehlin [01:07:44] There we go.

Radio Free Mormon [01:07:45] I'm gonna have to take some Dramamine to finish this report. LDS and Catholic churches. LDS and Catholic churches appear to have similar abuse statistics. Data on the horrific crime of child sexual abuse is very difficult to find, measure or validate. Despite our best efforts to provide a comparable analysis, we acknowledge limitations in what follows. Important caveat at the outset. Going on. Based on Linked References In Source 13, the Catholic Church in the US is believed to have paid over $4 billion in settlements to around 17,000 victims over the past 40 years, which is an average of about 235,000 per victim. It is estimated that, look back laws may double to 34,000 the number of victims who ultimately come forward. With roughly 71 million Catholics in the U.S. the theorized total of 34,000 victim claims equates to roughly 1 claim per 2000 members. Here's the important stat. Roughly 1 claim per 2000 members, or 0.05% of membership for the Catholic Church. Our forecast of 95 for total claims against the LDS Church under Australia's restitution program equates to 1 claim per 1600 members, or 0.06% for the membership of the Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So in other words, based upon their analysis and they're putting forth how they're getting there and the, the estimates that they're making, all right, but basically for the Catholic Church, when it comes to a sexual abuse victim as a child, they're at 0.5% of their memberships and the LDS Church is at 0.6% of its membership. So that's why the title of this slide, if you go back to the top there, LDS and Catholic churches appear to have similar abuse statistics. Now if we go to the bottom. Thank you. Thus. Yeah, not quite. There you go. Thank you. Thus, based on analysis of preliminary forecasts and while acknowledging fundamental differences in abuse circumstances, claims, eligible child sexual abuse rates appear to be on the order of one per every 1500 to 2000 members in both the LDS and Catholic churches. To reiterate, the cumulative incidence of abuse within both systems is likely much higher. So that is the end of this report. I would encourage everybody to go to the WidowsMightReport.

John Dehlin [01:10:46] And I've, and I've, I've pasted it into the comments. I'll paste it again right now and we'll make sure Julia includes that in the show notes as well. But yeah, that's powerful rfm. You know, we know that the Catholic Church. There's an entire movie released called Spotlight which showed how systemic and common child sexual abuse was in the Catholic Church. And of course we all thought that the Catholic Church was the worst in the world in child sexual abuse and in cover ups. And what, what the widows might. People are telling us through you rfm, is that we're, we're basically at their level. At least at their level. At least at their level.

Radio Free Mormon [01:11:28] That's what it looks like based upon this analysis. John. And if you can go to the next slide because I have one other slide in the slideshow.

John Dehlin [01:11:36] Okay, let me switch.

Radio Free Mormon [01:11:37] It's from a Mormon source a the church newsroom in England, I think it is London News released from 2015. There's the link on the slide if you want to find it yourself. It's titled. This is the church's title. Effectiveness of Child Approach. Church approach, excuse me, to Preventing Child Abuse. And here's the money quote out of it. The church has long had a highly effective approach for preventing and responding to abuse. In fact, no religious organization has done more. Although no one system is perfect and no single program will work with every organization. The Church's approach is the gold standard. So I've got two observations to make. The first is this is that you probably shouldn't be bragging too much about having the gold standard in protecting children in your church when you are in a dead heat with the Catholic Church for the number of child sex abuse victims.

John Dehlin [01:12:37] Yeah. Did you say you had two?

Radio Free Mormon [01:12:40] Yes, that was the first one.

John Dehlin [01:12:41] Okay.

Radio Free Mormon [01:12:42] I was pausing for dramatic emphasis.

John Dehlin [01:12:44] Okay.

Radio Free Mormon [01:12:45] The second. The second is this. What is the second?

John Dehlin [01:12:47] Oh, yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [01:12:48] The second is this. It has long been a trope, a. I don't know, some kind of a rumor that the reason for all the child sex abuse in the Catholic Church must be linked to the. The vow of celibacy taken by the priests. And because they don't have any outlet for their sexual urges, they end up manifesting in bizarre and perverse ways. I'm sure everybody here on the panel has heard that at least once in their lives. But what this suggests is that if it's basically the same in the Catholic Church, where the Catholic priests are supposed to be celebrate celibate, excuse me, as in the Mormon Church, where there is no such celibacy mandated, then perhaps we're going to have to look at some of the reason for why it is that child sex abuse is proliferating in both religions.

John Dehlin [01:13:45] Absolutely. Rebecca, what do you have to say about the widow's mites reporting here? Anything else?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:13:52] First of all, I have to say I love the widow's mite because as we know, the church very reluctantly reports any kind of data or statistics. But when they do, when they are forced to report, often in other countries, the widow's might is right there to grab the data, crunch the data, and give us information like this that would not otherwise be readily available. And I have to say that I have heard this before, this statistic or this idea that the incidences of child sex abuse are as high, if not possibly higher, in the LDS Church. And I heard that from the amazing Dr. Randy Bell, the master of disaster, who, you know, leads an organization that crunches numbers like these. And he looked specifically at the Boy Scout situation and the amount of money that the church had tried to donate. Of course there was a little issue there, but in his research looking into it, he said to me on a podcast once, I believe that number and this will come out, he said, in the future, probably is higher probably than the Catholic Church. So there you have it from the master of disaster himself. So I tend to agree with everything the widows might said.

Comparing Abuse Patterns and Church Policy

Radio Free Mormon [01:15:02] Rebecca, we were talking about this earlier on the phone and you shared with me your thoughts about why it is that celibacy may not be the answer to why it is. This is occurring at about equal rates in both churches.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:15:14] Yeah, we were talking about that. And we were talking about the idea that in any high demand, high control organization or religious organization like the church that distorts and twists sexuality from a very young age, there's eventually a point where that is going to manifest itself in, in behavior that, well, I would say is despicable. So this can be documented. There's a sense that anytime the high demand, high control nature distorts, you know, what natural development is, there's going to be a problem. And we certainly see that in Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:15:53] I think it's also faulty to assume that all Catholic priests live the law of celibacy. Yeah, I think I, when I lived in Chicago, I had Catholic friends that joked about, and I don't mean to stereotype anyone, but these Catholic friends who are Catholic would joke to me that their priests would. Their priests would frequent gay bars in Chicago, nightlife on the down low. Which again, you can't extrapolate too much from that other than we just can't assume that they're all living celibate lives. I know in Latin America there were always reports of Catholic priests that secretly were married to, you know, had a wife and kids. They just kept that secretly on the down low. So that's, I think that's something to consider as well.

Radio Free Mormon [01:16:40] What do you think about this report from the widow's might?

Guest [01:16:43] Bill?

Bill Reel [01:16:43] Yeah, I was going to ask you rfm what I read, what I read in one of the slides, and it sounded like when you emphasized that that's what it was saying was the Australian agency was saying that if we extrapolate this to the Worldwide Church, if the church handled sex abuse cases responsibly, it would spend about $1 billion a year.

Radio Free Mormon [01:17:06] Actually, I don't think it's $1 billion a year. I think this is, well, basically all the people who would come forward so this is a 10 year program and they're estimating there's going to be about 95 in Australia. I think that was the number for the full 10 years. Not per year.

John Dehlin [01:17:23] Yeah.

Bill Reel [01:17:23] So the church who has $150 billion could do the right thing and spend 1,150th of what it has and settle legitimate sexual abuse cases in a responsible way. Yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [01:17:41] Yes, they would. They would hardly even feel that.

Bill Reel [01:17:44] Yes. And if they were. Were required, if they were required to do that, I would also expect that the Church's policies would change in such a way that sex abuse cases would legitimately go down.

Radio Free Mormon [01:17:57] Yeah, it was around a billion dollars, it said, which is only twice as much as the Church had to pay the sec.

Bill Reel [01:18:04] There you go.

John Dehlin [01:18:07] I don't think the church paid the

Bill Reel [01:18:08] SEC five million, not 500.

Radio Free Mormon [01:18:12] Okay. I wish they would have 20 times as much. I get confused when it gets to big numbers like that. I don't deal with them that often.

John Dehlin [01:18:19] Speaking of big numbers, as I understand it, the Mormon Church voluntarily offered to pay $250 million in the boy Scouts of America abuse settlement. And as I understand it, a judge turned down that amount with the logic that that was way too small for how culpable the Mormon Church likely was for all the Boy Scout abuse. My understanding is estimates are that something between, I don't know, 20,000 or more Mormon boys or adults have reported having been sexually abused as Mormon youth in the Boy Scouts of America program.

Radio Free Mormon [01:19:00] Can I throw in that, my understanding why the judge rejected that is just a little bit different?

John Dehlin [01:19:04] Yeah, please. It's probably correct. Yours is probably correct.

Radio Free Mormon [01:19:07] So 5 million times 2 is a billion. That kind of correct? No. I believe the reason why is because we all know having been members of the church and some of us been in the Boy Scouts, that the Boy Scout program was inextricably linked with the Church youth or young men's program. In fact, Boy Scouts was the church's program for the young men.

John Dehlin [01:19:30] Yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [01:19:30] And so what the Church wanted to do, the way they packaged this for the judge to get the settlement, wasn't that they were just going to spend this. How much was it? 250 million?

John Dehlin [01:19:38] Yeah. 250 million. Yep.

Radio Free Mormon [01:19:40] To settle all claims against the Boy Scouts that they, the troops they had sponsored. But they wanted it bigger than that. They got greedy. And what they wanted to do was to have it written into the agreement that this will settle not only all claims against Boy Scouts that are affiliated with the LDS Church, but also any and all potential future claims that are not even known at this point.

John Dehlin [01:20:05] Right.

Radio Free Mormon [01:20:06] Against the church's young men's program.

John Dehlin [01:20:10] Yeah, that's right.

Radio Free Mormon [01:20:12] And the judge just said, what are you talking about? Yeah, we don't know what that's going to be. That's not even what we're talking about here. And so the judge said, I'm not going to accept that deal. And so the church says, okay, well, then we're going to withdraw that offer from the table. And now the church has got to litigate it on its own. The Boy Scouts, I think, resolved it.

John Dehlin [01:20:31] Yeah. Okay. Thanks for that legal analysis, rfm, and for the story and for the widow's might that bring us such good reporting? Any final comments on the story before we move to the final story for tonight? No. All right, thanks, rfm. Rebecca, you've got the final story.

Gospel Topics Essays Replaced by New Guides

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:20:51] I'm up. That's it. I'm on deck. I think I have some slides, if I was able to get those to you. Yeah, I do. So this story actually kind of started back at the very end of 2023, where there was a head in the church news that said topics and questions replace replaces gospel topics. And Preside provides resources for those seeking answers and for helping others with other gospel questions. So, of course, alarm bells went off for everybody. We thought, are they actually replacing the gospel topics essays? So I looked into this to make sure that's not what's happening, because we all know those are very pivotal in a lot of our faith journeys. Let's go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [01:21:29] And Rebecca, if it's okay, just to give a tiny bit of history there, can you tell our never Mormon viewers and listeners what it was like in the church before the gospel topics essays and just really quickly when they came out and what they talked about and why that was important?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:21:46] Yeah, absolutely. I guess I do need to remember that instead of just saying everybody knows what this is because everybody doesn't and why should you? That's right. So these were a series of essays put out in 2013-14 ish by the church to answer questions. It was a period as the, you know, the Internet arrives and people are starting to question, they're starting to wonder about the truth claims of the church. Sometimes entire congregations have questions and they'll send general authorities to places like the Swedish Rescue to try to answer questions. So I guess somebody decided that there needed to be some essays that addressed some of the major questions that they saw being asked, some of the truth claims. So these essays were created. They're kind of authored, you don't really know who wrote them. You don't really know where they came from. And they were sort of slipped into the lexicon like nobody really knew they were there. People would come across them and use them in their lessons for Sunday school or to teach something at church. And sometimes they'd be. They'd get in trouble for that because their leaders would say, where did you get that information? Where did that come from? Because the essays attempted to at least in part, answer some of these questions, giving a little more information than what the common person would know from my perspective. And I do assess series on my podcast with the Backyard professor about the gospel topic essays. We go through one by one. They fall quite short, but they did make some strides that had not been made before. So these essays, when people who are questioning stumble across them, often can be a place where your proverbial shelf starts to break. Because you're reading this from your own church. You're reading Joseph did have more than one wife. You know, the DNA does not match up with the Book of Mormon. You're reading these things from your own church source. And so they're definitely, definitely something that a lot of people attribute some of their first cracks in their shelf, if not leaving altogether, to the gospel topics essays. So I would say that post Mormon are very protective over these essays. They exist on the church website from time to time. They're harder to find than others. They. I don't know if they move around, but sometimes it's hard to google them. So when we hear topics and questions are replacing the gospel topics essay, that's what people thought was happening. Of course, alarm bells go off, but that is actually not what happened. And I'm happy to tell you the gospel topic essays are still there for everybody to read. Was that a good enough explanation? Does anyone want to say any more about those essays?

Guest [01:24:12] No.

John Dehlin [01:24:12] That's great. And I think not just ex Mormon love these essays. I think historians, people who care about Mormon history, and even progressive and liberal Mormon all think these essays were major steps forward for the church in terms of starting to become more transparent and honest and open about its problematic history.

Bill Reel [01:24:32] Can we just be clear though? The gospel topic essays, yes, more honest, but they're not honest. They're still carefully worded. They still give the benefit of the doubt to the extreme in every instance, and they still don't give the reader a full context of why this issue is problematic.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:24:50] Absolutely. 100 correct. Yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [01:24:52] The way I look at it is the church long ago has been stealing Cookies out of the cookie jar. And they stole five cookies out of the cookie jar. And for decades and decades, they've been denying they stole any cookies out of the cookie jar. And with these essays, they are now admitting that, yes, they stole one cookie out of the cookie jar or cookies

John Dehlin [01:25:11] were stolen, but not by me.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:25:14] Are you channeling some Sesame Street? I hear this one Cookie.

John Dehlin [01:25:20] C is for cookie. It's good enough for me. C is for cookie. Okay. All right, Rebecca, what do you got?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:25:28] I don't even want to go on with my story. I just want you to keep singing. That was amazing.

Radio Free Mormon [01:25:31] I'm leaving now so I can clip that and put it on TikTok.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:25:35] Somebody clip it right now.

John Dehlin [01:25:36] Cookie, cookie, cookie. Starts with C. Hey, Bill, you're not the only guy who could do imitations.

Bill Reel [01:25:43] Look at that.

John Dehlin [01:25:45] Elmo.

Radio Free Mormon [01:25:47] Are you saying something, Rebecca? I can't remember.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:25:50] I think we'll just end it here. I mean, what can top this, right? Although this is very interesting. Okay, let's go on to our next slide quickly. So basically, the church. The church article said that this is going to be a new resource for people that have questions. Again, they're acknowledging people have questions. So next time we saw mention of this was in the Tribune. That's our next slide. There was an article just last week where the title is Leaders LDS Leadership, Sin and Policy Changes. And that's okay. Church says in new guides. So this article in the Tribune is telling us what the Church News had said a couple weeks earlier. So if you go to the next slide. I thought this was very interesting. It says the term faith crisis doesn't show up anywhere in the two brand new resources on the official website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But that appears to be precisely what the guides hope to address. So again, acknowledging that people have questions, which I think is a step in itself. So there are two different guides, and if you go to the next slide, there's one guide for a person who has questions themselves. If you are a questioner, this part of the guide is going to help you. Now, before you seek answers to your questions, this is the part that I thought was really interesting. There are some steps that you personally have to take to be in the right headspace to receive the answers that that the church wants you to receive and to accept those answers. So the first thing is you have to center your life on Jesus Christ. Okay? You have to be right with God before you can even try to get the right answer. You have to be patient with yourself and with others who are trying to help you gain answers. So you have to listen, you have to do due diligence and you have to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. If you still say that doesn't sound right, be patient, eventually you'll convince yourself it does. You have to recognize that revelation is a process. That's sort of the same thing. It's going to be a process for you to arrive at the answer they want you to arrive at. Very important here. Consult reliable sources. And this is what this new topics and questions purports to be a reliable source from the Church. And this one is also very interesting work to understand the past because of course truth claims and the past, it's a very dicey relationship. So they're telling you within this framework that you need to work carefully to understand the history of the church and how better to do that. But to turn to church approved sources themselves, like the Gospel topics essays or the topics and questions guide to be able to understand those questions from the past. The other thing that they mentioned, if you go to the next slide, did

John Dehlin [01:28:24] you want to read the bottom part or did we get the bottom part?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:28:27] What?

Radio Free Mormon [01:28:27] What?

John Dehlin [01:28:28] Did you want to read the bottom part of this slide?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:28:29] I mean, I can.

John Dehlin [01:28:30] Oh no, no, no.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:28:32] Yeah, it kind of is almost in what I described. So the other is thing. Thing that's important as a seeker of answers to your gospel questions is that you have to demonstrate patience to the members that are trying to help. So if you go to your family member and you say, I just don't understand this DNA in the Book of Mormon, they give you some kind of church answer and you're not satisfied with that. You have to be patient until you can understand what they're trying to say. Again, keep in mind, revelation can be a struggle. Also, be careful of inflammatory sources or, or sources that say that they have no bias. You need to be careful where you're getting your information from. And that I believe is from the Church. You'll get the right answer that way. You have to learn to tell the difference between facts and interpretation. That's also very important. And you have to seek out experts or those with direct knowledge of the subject. Again, it's implied that would be the church sources. So anybody have any comments just on this part as a seeker of truth and the steps that you yourself have to go through before you can find

The Church's Approach to Difficult Questions

Bill Reel [01:29:34] an answer, you know, to, to watch out for bias. For instance, it was Elder Oaks who said it's not the church's job to represent the issue fairly, nor is it the critics job to represent the issue fairly. And he was pointing to the media and saying that they the media's job to be fair about the church. But what Elder Oaks acknowledges in that admittance is that the church is just as biased as the critic. And I would argue more because I think the critic for the most part does a really good job of laying out the history in its honest, transparent, full breadth and scope. Because I'm happy if the truth is put on the table from all sides. I'm, I'm content with that. The church isn't content with that, but I'm content. I think Radio Free Mormon content. I think the two of you are content. If the Book of Abraham, for instance, if all the pros and cons, all the sticky angles to that issue were just laid on the table and people were allowed to read it and come to an understanding themselves. Elder Oaks and the church, they want you to pretend they're the unbiased, trustworthy source. But in almost every instance they are the worst source for telling an accurate portrayal of what happened in church history and an accurate portrayal of what leaders said in the past and what they meant. And so if we're going to go to sources that don't have bias, you probably ought to start by leaving the church and its sources on the cutting room floor.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:31:17] That's the irony. The truth is like a lion. If you set it free, it will be able to defend itself. Isn't that what they say?

Guest [01:31:23] Yeah.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:31:24] Any other thoughts on that?

Radio Free Mormon [01:31:25] RFM C is for crisis. That's good enough for me. And what, and, and who would be a better expert to consult on the Book of Abraham than the late, great Robert Rittner?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:31:37] Right, Exactly. That's.

Radio Free Mormon [01:31:40] But I don't think that's what they mean.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:31:41] All that is not what they mean.

Radio Free Mormon [01:31:43] All roads lead to Rome. These are strategies to kick the ball down the road until you croak without getting an answer to your questions, but remain active. That's it.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:31:52] Pain, tithing and bum in the seat. And again, I just think it really does put it back on the questioner. If you're still confused and you still feel that cognitive dissonance, you're not right with Christ. You need to look at yourself. You need to get right with God and then you're going to be able to get the answer that you're supposed to get. So, so that's the section on questioner. You yourself are the questioner. Now more interesting.

John Dehlin [01:32:14] Rebecca. Rebecca, can I just read something really quickly?

Guest [01:32:17] Yes. Please.

John Dehlin [01:32:18] I was just pulled up the Trip article just because I. I thought it was kind of interesting. And I want to read a quote from Terrell Givens, who's kind of a chief apologist for the church. He makes the quote that this section that we just read, the Work to Understand the Past section, is, quote, one of the most remarkable acknowledgments we've ever had on the official church site about the role of culture and language in shaping our understandings and in limiting our ability to hear God. And then it goes on to say it's a recognition that Protestants and Catholics came to in the early 20th century in what Givens refers to as the crisis of modernism, a period in which Western Christianity grappled with academic research on topics ranging from the history of the Bible to the theory of evolution. So he's number one, calling this a super significant statement. Why are you laughing? Why are you all laughing? I want to hear that. Why? Why are you laughing?

Radio Free Mormon [01:33:16] Because it's a great thing to have 15 prophets and apostles who can lead us directed by God to be 100 freaking years behind the Protestants and the Catholics.

John Dehlin [01:33:25] Come on, the great abominable church and all the Protestants beat us 100 years to the punch. But we thank the oh God for a profit.

Radio Free Mormon [01:33:34] What are we paying these guys for?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:33:37] Are we paying them? I hope we're not paying them. So. No. And that's a very good point. That's why it was really interesting. Understand the past and again, understand it through their lens. And it's very different than what the truth is, I'm afraid, at least in my opinion. Again, this is all in my opinion.

John Dehlin [01:33:53] And really quickly, Rebecca, I know you want to get on. I just have to share this last part. He. He writes our. Why was our crisis delayed? Our crisis was delayed about 100 years for all kinds of interesting reasons. Among them, quote, the insularity of our culture and reliance upon prophets rather than scholars. Now, I don't know if that's true, but that sounds like blaming the victim, because it's basically saying it's not the prophets, it's the insularity of our culture and the reliance on prophets rather than scholars. What do you guys think about that?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:34:28] Yeah, we never told you to listen to prophets. Where'd you get that idea?

John Dehlin [01:34:34] Who demanded that prophet follow the prophet? Right? And then. And then. And then just, you know, they go on and just say that, you know, the forecasts were wildly optimistic. Why did this happen? Because Rodney Stark made some wildly optimistic forecasts about the growth of the Church. But unfortunately those forecasts have, quote, fallen flat. That's a nice way of saying the church is hemorrhaging, it's in free fall. And the church was forced by the Internet and by podcasters and scholars, authors to come clean about its history because so many people were leaving the church, not because of the problematic history, but because they felt lied to and deceived by the Church. I also thought it was cool that this article mentioned the church's history in excommunicating scholars and podcasters and truth tellers and, you know, it seems as though the church has backed off. Yeah. The last thing on this quote, it basically Sundays, after all, 30 years ago, latter Day Saint leaders were excommunicating and disfellowshipping a number of high profile intellectuals. I don't know about this guy's math, but I don't think it's been 30 years since the Church stopped excommunicating and disfellowshipping high profile intellectuals. Bill realized communicated.

Bill Reel [01:35:59] I don't know, John, when were you excommunicated?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:36:01] I'm looking at this crowd here.

John Dehlin [01:36:03] Absolutely.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:36:03] That's what I'm looking at.

John Dehlin [01:36:05] But why are you slacking, man? You, Rebecca, why are y' all slacking? Where's your excommunications?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:36:10] We're not intellectual enough.

John Dehlin [01:36:13] I also thought it was fun that they, that they had to get a quote about Russell, M. Russell Ballard in there. That quote that he made that gone are the days where we can ignore the truth about the church history. Now we've got to be open and honest about it. So, you know, shout out to the late, great M. Russell Ballard, right?

Bill Reel [01:36:33] We're as honest as we know how to be.

Radio Free Mormon [01:36:35] That's it.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:36:37] But it's almost too little too late. It's almost at the end, right? The point of no return. Because what they're saying is that now even the most siloed active Mormon who has never even looked around at anything else is finally starting to notice something's happening. People are questioning, people are leaving. They're finally starting to notice. And so hence this guide topics and questions. So we learned about entrepreneur, but here's the most interesting part, I think is that there's a whole section on how to deal with. With questions from other people. That's not really something that they encouraged you to do in the past, is to even entertain questions from other people, right? So if you go to the next slide, there's a whole section that talks about how you might talk to somebody who has a question. So yeah, one, let's see one back. I think those. Oh, no, forward one more and then after that. Ah, there it is. Okay, so these are for seeking answers, helping those seeking answers to their own questions. So the first thing I think is very encouraging. It's. It tells you if someone comes to you as a faithful member with a question, you should respond with love. Like that shouldn't even have to be stated, but I'm glad that it is. You should respond to love with love. If your child comes to you with a question, you're a faithful Mormon. You should be able to talk to them in a loving environment, listen with humility. I guess that means maybe you don't judge them. Try to understand where they are coming from and why they are questioning. Okay, but then we get right back to it. Trust in the Lord, right? You need to be okay with God. You need to be secure in your own views so that you can reach across with the oxygen mask, the spiritual oxygen mask on your own face and you can reach out to the questioner and help them again. Next, next step, nourish your own faith. Certainly you're not going to let any kind of questions from anybody else as you're trying to help them affect your own faith. So you have to insulate that you have to protect that as you reach out and try to help someone else. And then the fifth one, I think is positive. Assist them throughout their journey. So that means don't drop them right in the middle. I think that was, you know, how many of us have ever had a conversation with somebody questions when you were still in, and they're just like, I'm not talking anymore. That's it, we're done. I'm not going to say anything else. So this guide, at least on the surface, seems to be saying, go ahead and engage, Go ahead and talk. See if you can help. The next slide shows some additional steps when dealing with a questioner, and that is avoid being dismissive or judgmental. How many of us have had that happen to us? Quite a few. Love the individual without compromise. See, these are. These, I think, are positive steps. Don't make it conditional. Either you believe in the church or I don't love you anymore. A lot of us of a certain age were raised in an era where that was quite common. Here again is a little protect yourself, establish healthy boundaries. Maybe if they're talking about things you don't want to hear too much, you might have to say to them, okay, we're going to table this. I love you, but let's Agree to disagree, become more familiar with common questions. That's my favorite. That's telling people to dig in. For example, I have friends who their child was on a mission, wrote them letters with questions as good, faithful parents. They said, we're going to find the answers. And you can imagine what happened to this whole family that has now left Mormonism. So be a safe source for discussion. And again, I think that's just being a good human being. Right. And this is a change, I think, from in the past where they told people to just stay away. However, my question about this whole list is that we get a different message from the pulpit. Just last conference we hear do not engage with people who believe differently from you. Right. So I'm not sure about that mixed message. Do any of you have any thoughts on that with what they're saying here in this guide and what we tend to hear from the pulpit?

John Dehlin [01:40:19] Yeah.

Radio Free Mormon [01:40:19] Didn't.

John Dehlin [01:40:19] Didn't Nelson himself say, don't ever ask the opinion of a non Mormon basically about anything? Yeah, right.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:40:27] That's why it's hard to reconcile the two. The two parts of the information there.

Radio Free Mormon [01:40:32] I don't know any other thought, but become more familiar with common questions. Just as long as you don't research.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:40:38] Exactly.

Radio Free Mormon [01:40:39] Is what President Oaks said in Chicago a couple years ago. Research is not the answer. Yeah, says the former Supreme Court justice who has all of his clerks doing all of his research for him to write his opinions. Oh my goodness. What the reason? This is easy for me to reconcile and I may be completely out to lunch here, but this is. This has all the earmarks of a CYA letter. They don't mean this. They have never meant this. This is bs. This is when they get caught off first base. They can point to it. If something that they never meant to do, they've never done, they're never going to do because they got the president of the church, for crying out loud, teaching the exact opposite. And they have his first counselor teaching the exact opposite. What is it that the members of the church are going to do? Are they going to listen to their leaders or are they going to find some article in an obscure location on the church website where it was designed probably to not be found, just like the essays. That's my question.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:41:44] Now you're not wrong. And think about your old friend Kyle McKay. He said finding answers is not the solution. Just let that go. So, yeah, there's definitely mixed messages. Any more thoughts on that? And then we'll dive in quickly as to what is actually in this guide. Which is absolutely fascinating.

John Dehlin [01:42:02] I'll just say that I think though, you know, back when I was really, when I was a member, when I was a progressive member trying to get the church to not only be honest about its history, but to stop stigmatizing doubt and to support questioning and most importantly, to change the culture to make Mormonism a safer place to question. I would have died. Maybe not died. I would have paid a full 10% of my tithing to get the church to make statements like this. So I don't want to be a throw water on everyone's cynicism. I think these are really significant changes. These are statements and changes I would have never expected the Mormon Church to make. And even though we're still going to get mixed messages, I'm reminded of the two meetings I had with Jeffrey R. Holland where he basically said, one of the things people don't understand about the Mormon Church is they think that the apostles just sort of say what the church needs to do and that everybody just does whatever the apostles say. But his expressed frustration to me was that it's just, it's a slog to change this church. And, and, and it takes decades. But can't we all agree that this is a really set of positive steps that we should applaud or not?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:43:28] Yeah, no, I do. And I didn't mean to be facetious. I was getting a little silly because, you know, some you of, of it, you can kind of look at it that way. But absolutely, a lot of those steps are trying to eradicate the behavior where you were simply not listened to at all. If you had a question, you were just completely shunned and othered. This is a huge step in the direction of telling faithful members you don't need to be afraid of your, your relative or your child or your neighbor who's saying, I'm just not sure anymore. And, and hopefully it, it means love wins. Right. A lot of those statements there said love the person, be compassionate, so stay with them for the journey. That's my hope for that. I hope that's what that means.

Bill Reel [01:44:05] While the Church is talking out of both sides of its mouth, at the very least, this is a reference that a doubter could point to to ask a bishop or, or a parent or a sibling to be more empathetic and compassionate.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:44:23] Right.

Bill Reel [01:44:23] While dealing with one's questions.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:44:25] Yep, absolutely.

Radio Free Mormon [01:44:27] I appreciate the youthful credulity of all three of you, and I hope that you are right and I am wrong.

John Dehlin [01:44:35] Are you that much older than the rest of us are?

Radio Free Mormon [01:44:37] No.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:44:38] You're not that much older than me.

Radio Free Mormon [01:44:40] It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage.

John Dehlin [01:44:44] Okay, I just want to say, you guys may not like Terrell Givens. Can you imagine how hard it would have been to shepherd these changes through the first presidency of the Quorum of the twelve? Don't you believe that this would have been an excruciating slog to sit in the Maxwell Institute chair and to try and convince correlation and apostles and Bednar and freaking Oaks and Nelson and all those dudes to sign off on these changes? Don't they degree don't they deserve our applause or our respect for how difficult that must have been? Or not? It's okay to say no. I just want to be fair.

Bill Reel [01:45:30] It only took 185 years to get here.

Guest [01:45:32] I know.

Radio Free Mormon [01:45:32] And at least I didn't call him freakin Givens.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:45:37] There are so many soundbites here.

Radio Free Mormon [01:45:39] I have nothing against him. I think he is the biggest thing going in Mormonism to destroy people's testimony.

John Dehlin [01:45:45] Whoa. Why? Why that? Why is that?

Radio Free Mormon [01:45:47] Oh, I did an entire episode on this at Radio Free Morning.

John Dehlin [01:45:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us about it.

Radio Free Mormon [01:45:51] What was it? The incredible. What do you call it when you're subversive? Yes, the amazing subversive Terrell Givens Trojan horse. Because he's Mr. Bricolage. That should be his. His moniker. Mr. Bricolage. You know what Bricolage is, right? It's his big fancy word that he gives to what Joseph Smith did, which means he's stealing stuff right and left from all these other different sources. And Terrell Givens goes out of his way. He puts the cherry on top of doing additional research about all these sources that Joseph Smith is cribbing from to come up with Mormonism inspired synchro.

John Dehlin [01:46:25] Inspired syncretist. Wasn't that one of his words?

Radio Free Mormon [01:46:28] Yeah. Who knows? Because he deals in big words. Yeah, and not a lot of meaning, frankly. He uses words to mask his meaning a lot. Neal A. Maxwell. However, what he does is he says everything that Joseph Smith did was done by somebody else and it was available in his environment. And he took from all these people, put it all together, and came up with a miracle of Mormonism. And so now Terrell Givens has retreated to the position, believe it or not, that the miracle of Mormonism and the inspiration and revelation of God to Joseph Smith wasn't in repeat, revealing stuff to him like I was taught when I grew up. No, the inspiration and revelation came to Joseph Smith as to what it was he should steal. From other people. That's why I call him the Amazing subversive Terrell Givens.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:47:20] You're only as good as who you steal from. We all know that.

John Dehlin [01:47:23] So, Rebecca, do you think these changes would have been hard to get through correlation And I do.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:47:28] No, I understand that there are people that are, are working. I mean, we can't say the other side, this side. There are people that are, that are trying to do good. And it would be very hard to because compared to the, the Brethren, he is very progressive, outrageously progressive. And, and he sees things perhaps they don't. And I bet he's frustrated a lot of the times.

John Dehlin [01:47:47] Okay. All right. All right. Go ahead, Rebecca. Sorry. Thanks for.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:47:51] And I know we want to make sure we, we hit the top of the hour here, but I'd like to tell you all what is actually in this guide. So the reason people were confused is it said that this was going to replace Gospel Topics. There is another section, very little used, called Gospel Topics. It was kind of half filled. It really was nothing. And that's what it's replacing. The gospel topic essays are actually referred to in a lot of the Bullet. You know, you click on these little things here if you want to, if you want to look at Book of Mormon and DNA studies and I guess we should have brought this up live, but I didn't. This is just a still picture. You would click on that and it actually takes you to a See also note. See the Gospel Topics essays. So all the Gospel topic essays are reflected in the Topics and Questions guide. Now there are 40 as of now topics that you can look up and click on. Are you curious about Book of Mormon translation? You can click on that. And that one does take you over to another Gospel Topics essay. Are you curious about Book of Mormon geography? You can click click on that. Now that takes you to a rather apologetic article that talks about they. There is no official position on Book of Mormon geography. They're not going to be weighing in on that. It happened in ancient America. That's where it was. And the most important thing to remember is the Book of Mormon should be read to increase your testimony of Christ. So that kind of gives you idea of the flavor. Now you can go to. It has a list of scriptures, it has some videos about the topic, all under this one section. And it has articles from past general authorities and profits. Now what I noticed and I've spent several hours going through this, all of the articles are really, really dated. Like we're talking 1985, 1995. I looked through all of it. The newest one I saw, the most Recent one was 2015. About any of these topics? There was one that I came across by eyring, that was 2018, but it was about a general topic, about loving yourself, forgiving yourself. So anything that has to do with history, a truth claim, a question. These articles are dated. We're going back to Hinckley's time, which is so interesting to me, why they're putting this information out that is 30 years old, 10 years old, decades old. If you go back to that slide again, the one on, oh, curious Church finance. I want to learn what's there because I heard something about an sec. See, fine. I heard something about something was happening with the stock market. Do you know what's in that section? And I should have really pulled it up. It talks about how the church, they didn't really want to get involved in commerce or business, but there they needed to have a place for people to stay when they visited Salt Lake. So one of their businesses is the Hotel Utah. They also needed to have a newspaper. So one of their businesses is. Is the Deseret News and a radio station, ksl. They also needed, oh, the sugar beet industry, you know, centuries ago. And then it ends up with a quote that says, our businesses are small and they certainly wouldn't fund the operation of the church for long, but this is what they are. So I go and read it yourself.

John Dehlin [01:51:06] The Hotel Utah doesn't even exist anymore.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:51:08] I know, I know. They were sort of forced to make these businesses. These are the extent of these holdings. The article was from 1980.

John Dehlin [01:51:15] So nothing about Ensign Peak or any of that?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:51:18] No, no. And so then I thought, okay, I see what's here. Just this list of all these topics. A lot of them lead back to the gospel topics, essays. A lot of them are very general. Old quotes, old videos, old conference talks. So I started to look. What is not there? What would I want to see? If I were a faithful member? And I went to say, my house and I heard me talking, I would go home and say, what does she mean? Youth interviews. What's that? So I made a list. These are things just off the top of my head that I looked at today that are not there. Nothing about protecting children. Nothing about the Boy Scouts, nothing about the sec. Fine. Nothing about youth interviews, charitable giving, no mention of Ensign Peak. Nothing about clone companies, nothing about LDS charities, the organization that does donate through wealthy LDS donors, nothing about church finance at all, except for that one that I just referenced. And nothing about church real estate and that was just right off the top of my head. So I will say it's a great step to have this go to guide topics and questions but they need to revamp the entire thing. They need to update it. They need to include things that people really would be looking for in the real world and they need to use current resources and I'm not sure why they don't. Maybe that's the bigger question. Any thoughts?

Final Reactions and Closing Thoughts

Radio Free Mormon [01:52:34] I feel like my cynicism has been completely vindicated.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:52:39] What

Bill Reel [01:52:43] there, there was, there was a comment in one of these pages that said something like expect change. And it occurs to me that the idea of expecting change is really just them going like look, the church today is not what Joseph Smith restored. We've changed it all. It's all different. It's all different than what bring them. Yet Brigham Young did. It's what Joseph Smith did, what John Taylor did. Like that's not today's Mormonism. We altered all of it. But you should have expected that all along. Also it occurs to me that high demand fundamentalist religions often change their vernacular like they have a unique vernacular to begin with and they're often changing it. So this topics and questions rather than the gospel topic essays you're going to because number one it makes it harder for people to find it it when you change the names often and second is if somebody's been out of the church for a little while they're using the old language and the Mormon can immediately know that this person isn't using the current language of the church. Hence some level of distrust occurs in our mind. And so you'll see high demand fundamentalist religions change their vernacular all the time, their vocabulary all the time around terms for what things mean free agency to moral agency for instance.

Radio Free Mormon [01:54:06] This kind of attitude is why you had your membership withdrawn.

Guest [01:54:09] Bill,

Bill Reel [01:54:11] there's another one.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:54:13] For example, even the section I looked up the cross because we all know we've seen this incredible interest in the cross. Now it's not only on Google Maps, younger Mormon are wearing Christian jewelry. I think there was a big picture of of on Easter of three crosses on a hill on the church website. Well in topics and questions it says we do not espouse or follow the cross with you know, the old school. What we all learned we we focus on the birth. So again I just say this is a great idea but we need to update to reflect what I think people already kind of sense. This, this is very outdated for some reason.

Radio Free Mormon [01:54:48] For some reason I would like to

John Dehlin [01:54:49] see Book of Mormon historicity and have it talk about anachronism and all the Michael Coe problems that were mentioned. Do you know if there's an essay on Book of Mormon historicity yet?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:55:04] I think it'll just refer you back to the Gospel topics essay. Yeah, everything's very vague. My co host mentioned to me, Landon, he said, you know, I think this might be just a place that like I mentioned, he had gone into his bishop with three hours of questions. Well now the bishop who doesn't know anything about those questions says, have you looked at the Topics and Questions guide? It's a place to send somebody to. And also for parents or for anybody that's, that's, you know, has a question or come to them. So that may be more what it's for is just a place to kind of send somebody to, to bide some time.

Bill Reel [01:55:38] Also the church says like, hey, past leaders have sinned and we've made mistakes, but I'll be damned if you try to ask them to name those mistakes or what those sins are. And, and it's harder, you know, it's like pulling teeth to get a top church leader to admit what the mistakes or what the sins would be.

Radio Free Mormon [01:55:56] And can I make the passing observation that it is remarkable to have a church that is led by prophets in direct contact with God, whose foundational scripture is the Book of Mormon and who has a link that says if you're curious about the geography of the Book of Mormon, click here. And when you click there, the answer from them is we got nothing.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:56:17] Exactly.

Radio Free Mormon [01:56:18] We have no idea.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:56:20] Yeah, I would encourage everyone to go, go look through it. It's, it's very interesting.

John Dehlin [01:56:24] I just, I just included a link in the comments.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:56:26] Oh, good, good.

John Dehlin [01:56:27] Yeah. All right. Anything else, Rebecca, on that?

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:56:31] No, I think that's it there. We did discover another one while we were looking at that. There's another one called History Topics and Questions, something like that. And it's very, very hidden. Like you can only kind of arrive at it in a really random roundabout way. But it does have a little more hard hitting, revealing answers. So I think maybe the big answer is there are things on the church website but they're not going to be accessible to the common person who's just trying to go through. You really have to go through, should I say rabbit hole after rabbit hole to try to find some of these answers.

John Dehlin [01:56:59] All right.

Radio Free Mormon [01:57:00] They are not made to be found.

Rebecca Biblioteca [01:57:02] No, I don't think so.

Radio Free Mormon [01:57:03] They're not written to be read.

John Dehlin [01:57:06] That's good. That's good. RFM all right, Rebecca, thanks for covering that. Well, what a fascinating program. We're almost at the two hour mark and I think we had a really

Upcoming Projects and How to Support the Show

Radio Free Mormon [01:57:18] successful show, if we do say so ourselves.

John Dehlin [01:57:20] Absolutely. We really appreciate our commenters who have been commenting. Bill, you wanted people to give us some feedback. Will you just, will you articulate that audibly, please?

Bill Reel [01:57:31] Yeah. For viewers. Here we are, we're four shows in. We're learning things as we go along. I know I certainly did from the show that I led a couple weeks ago. We would really appreciate. What do you like? What do you dislike? What parts of the show were entertaining or informative? What, what ways in which we presented that information were useful. And if you have any criticisms, we welcome hearing those as well. We're really excited to put a weekly news show together. Sorry we're. We missed Christmas and New Year's, but we wanted to spend some time with our families on the holidays. We're grateful for each of you who tune in and we would just love to have some feedback so we can know how to be better.

John Dehlin [01:58:11] And how do you want them? Just comments. Wherever they're watching or listening right now,

Bill Reel [01:58:15] I think that's the easiest thing to do. I think we're all sort of following along on those. So YouTube comments, or if it's on a Facebook post, put a comment there and let us know again what you like and dislike.

John Dehlin [01:58:24] Brilliant. And while we're at it, I'm just gonna thank all the people who have been donating to us or making comments. Thanks to Jared, Jared Jones for. For that donation. Smithen writes the gospel topic essays are on the Gospel Library app in the church history folder. Thanks for that info, Smithen. Les Adams says, love this. Thank you, Les, for the support, Jay Larsen. Also thank you for that support, Jay Larsen. Thanks to Thad Jesperson who says, I love this show, including a heart. Thank you, Thad. Debbie writes, I will give you 10% for this live. Haha. Thank you, Debbie for the support. Thank you, Thad. Also thank you, Matt Stoker as well. Thad also writes, tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart.

Radio Free Mormon [01:59:26] You get that one, John?

John Dehlin [01:59:27] Is that Shakespeare? Rfm. Something tells me that Shakespeare.

Radio Free Mormon [01:59:31] It sounds like it could be from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1.

John Dehlin [01:59:35] RFM. Tell people about your new new podcast really quick, just for those who want to know.

Radio Free Mormon [01:59:40] Sure. Thank you. There's two of them because I am trying to kill myself. I finally retired completely from the law and now I'm really piling it on myself for podcasting. But in addition to Mormonism Live, Radio Free Mormon, and now this show, which is a new show. There's two other shows I'm doing. One is Gospel Sunday School, where we go through the Come Follow me manual a week in advance. And there's like a hundred of these out there. Everybody in their dog is doing these, so I thought I might as well get into the act. And my tagline on that is where you learn stuff you're never gonna hear in regular Sunday school. So that's Mormon Sunday School with Radio Free.

John Dehlin [02:00:21] Latter Day Digest is calling it Radio Free Come Follow Me.

Radio Free Mormon [02:00:25] Yeah, that was my working title, which I mentioned on their show, and I since modified it because I didn't think that really worked. So I just want to make it more in Sunday School. Thank you, though, for that. And brush up your Shakespeare, where we make Shakespeare fun and easy and fabulous the way it was always meant to be.

John Dehlin [02:00:45] That's fantastic.

Radio Free Mormon [02:00:46] Going through Hamlet right Now, we have 15 to 20 minutes per episode. We'd go through a scene, we learn a Shakespeare line, and I repeat it throughout the show so that people can remember it and talk about it and what's going on around it in the context so we can use it in our discourse and put it up in little, you know, live chats.

John Dehlin [02:01:05] Love it. Well, you know, Saturday Night Live got it wrong. They had that episode with Christopher Walken that said more cowbell. What we really need is more rfm. That's what I think.

Radio Free Mormon [02:01:16] Well, like nature, the world can never have too much of rfm. I think Thoreau said that

John Dehlin [02:01:24] really quickly. Dwayne Duke says you make a great team. I agree. I think this is a great team. I'm proud to be a part of it. Thanks, Dwayne, for the support. And Brett Nordquist writes, I tune in each week to listen to this smart, entertaining panel. Great work. Well, you're in luck, Brett Nordquist, because we are trying to make this a weekly podcast available every Monday night, hopefully at 6pm Mountain. And we will have special episodes from time to time where we catch breaking news. But thanks everyone for that support. Really quickly, Bill Real, any. Any new stuff coming up for Mormon discussions or your network, including what's the other podcast you do, Bill Real.

Bill Reel [02:02:11] Well, Almost Awakened is one of them, but that one is a little bit on hiatus. I'll say this. This Wednesday night, we are going to sit down with Rebecca and talk about some crazy temple stories. I've got a story I can't wait to share. I'm excited to hear what you two have, and we'll let Folks, call in and join the studio. And then in a few weeks on Mormonism Live. I know this has been done in a bunch of places, but we're going to take the Rigdon Spalding theory, put the best of the evidence up on the screen, the original sources, let the viewer look at them and then I'm going to turn my time over to Radio Free Mormon and get his legal opinion on what a jury would think about these pieces of evidence. And so I'm excited to go into that as well.

Radio Free Mormon [02:02:59] And my track record in predicting what juries are going to do is phenomenal, believe me.

John Dehlin [02:03:10] How do people donate, how do people donate to Mormonism Live or Radio Free Mormon or any of these programs?

Bill Reel [02:03:15] You can go to mormondiscussions.org and click the donate button. There will be a drop down window. Pick Radio Free Mormon, pick Mormonism Live or you. The better way is to go to mormonismlive.org or radiofreemormon.org, click the Donate button at the top of the header on either of those. And, and do me a favor and send, send rfm. Five bucks a month, ten bucks a month. He really does so much great work on our channel and I think he's doing some amazing stuff. So yeah, let's chip in.

John Dehlin [02:03:46] And RFM does Radio Free Come Follow Me or the Shakespeare thing is that, are they, are those donated to separate from Radio Free Mormon or is that

Radio Free Mormon [02:03:54] all compiled and it is Mormon Sunday School. So let's quash that right now. It's not Radio Free Come Follow Me. It's Mormon freaking Sunday School. It's more Mormon Sunday School. Yes, they have their own separate pages. They are on the Mormon discussions umbrella though. Under the umbrella.

John Dehlin [02:04:11] Okay. All right.

Radio Free Mormon [02:04:12] So for that as well as for brush up your Shakespeare and Rebecca, what's

John Dehlin [02:04:16] coming on Mormon ish this year and how people donate to you?

Rebecca Biblioteca [02:04:19] Yeah, we actually have a really interesting episode, a live premiere tomorrow night, which is Tuesday at 6pm which is sort of in the framework of our first story today about the bishop because I asked myself what kinds of things, you know, would, would a bishop morally have to do that he would be upset about. And so I brought on, on Natasha Parker. Helver Parker, right. Important guest. And I also brought on the bishop that I mentioned several times here, who himself had stepped away and had had to deal with these things. So this is premiering live tomorrow night on Mormonish podcast on YouTube. I'm at 6pm so it's a really interesting discussion and I have to say it gets pretty spicy whenever Natasha is around. You do not know what you're going to hear. So it's a great conversation. So that's tomorrow night. And then I will say our guest, Good Book Club, which meets every third Sunday of the month. We're reading the God virus by Dr. Daryl Ray. If you guys haven't picked this book up, this is amazing. The God Virus. It's pretty incredible. So you can find information about that on our Facebook page for the Good Book Club. As far as donating to Mormonish, we always have links to PayPal and Venmo in our show, notes on our YouTube channel on our Facebook page. So just try to find us somewhere if you'd like.

John Dehlin [02:05:31] All right. I love it. And please, right now, if you're not subscribing to these YouTube channels or the Facebook channel, please subscribe. Please hit the like button. Please comment, please share. We all depend on the algorithms and the algorithms, like subscribers and followers and likers.

Radio Free Mormon [02:05:51] John, what happens if some wayward soul wants to donate to Mormon Stories?

John Dehlin [02:05:56] Yeah, thanks for asking. You can go to MormonStories.org and click on the donate button at the top. Become a monthly donor and we'll keep doing what we do as well with your support. Thanks for asking.

Radio Free Mormon [02:06:09] Rfm, I'm here for you.

John Dehlin [02:06:11] Yeah. And we've got, we've got really good programming coming up this, this coming year. LDS discussions. That series is going to continue. We're adding Julia along with Nemo and Mike to the LDS discussions group. We're excited about that. Lots of, lots of cool content coming. I won't, I won't list it all here, but just stay tuned. Good stuff is coming. But most importantly, check back next week, Monday at 6pm for the Mormon newscast with Rebecca Biblioteca, Radio Free Mormon and the Bill Real and John Dehlin and John de Lynn. All right, love you guys. Thanks so much. Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks, viewers and listeners. Be good to each other. Take care and we'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.

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