Introducing Dan Wotherspoon

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 235

Guest [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm John Dehlin, your host, and I'm very excited to have all of you with us today. And I'm also very excited to have with us a very special guest and a good friend. His name is Dan Wotherspoon. Dan has been working hard in the world of Mormon Studies for many, many years. He has a PhD in religion from the Claremont Graduate School. He also has a master's in Religious Studies from Arizona State University. He's a former editor of Sunstone Magazine, the director of the Sunstone Education Foundation. He did that for about eight years. He's, he's done a lot of cool things academically. He recently helped create the Eugene England foundation website@eugene england.org and most importantly, he's just a towering intellect. The guy's got a memory that I've almost never seen matched in my professional career. And the reason why I brought him on today is a couple of reasons. He's done some recent podcasts for us, which we're very grateful. Some of the best ones I think Mormon Stories has ever had. But also I've had many people write in recently with Mormon Stories and request that I interview more people who have struggled with their faith but found a way to stay in the church and to have a positive relationship with the church, even when they know all the tough stuff. And that is a description that I think suits Dan very well. He's an active member of the LDS Church. He definitely, you know, probably wouldn't qualify as an orthodox or traditional believer in many ways. And you know, if there were sort of a short list of people who, you know, might approximate what we would think of as kind of a Stage 5 Fowler, James Fowler type Mormon. If any of you are familiar with the Stages of Faith podcast that we did a while back, Dan would definitely be on the short list of, of people who at least are aspiring to that and we might be able to say are finding comfort in that realm. I should reference that we did interview Dan along with Tom Kimball For a three part episode on the stages of faith, episodes 15 through 17 of Mormon Stories early, early on in Mormon Stories. So, Dan Wotherspoon, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:49] Thanks so much, John. It's great to be here and this side of the, of the microphone there. I've really enjoyed the interviews that I've been able to do I appreciate the invitation to do those and I'm gratified for the, for the great comments that people have, have posted about it, and I'm enjoying the Mormon Stories podcast community.

John Dehlin [00:03:08] All right, well, cool. Any, any amendments, corrections, additions or subtractions from your biography?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:14] I'm scared by the comment about my good memory because I'm sure I'll be fumbling and whatnot around, but no, the factually. You got it about right. So thanks.

Early Years and Childhood in the Church

John Dehlin [00:03:25] Okay, well, Dan, in typical Mormon stories fashion, we're gonna just take, take it through your life a little bit in your journey with Mormonism. There's a lot of people out there who are struggling to remain members of the church. There are all sorts of reasons why. So let's get a sense for your journey, starting with your early years and then take it through your crisis of faith and how you emerged and how you make comfort and peace with it all now. So tell us about your early years with the church.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:56] Well, I was certain I was born, as they say, under the covenant. My parents were both grad students at UC Berkeley at the time that they met and got married. So I was born in Oakland, California, and when I was about three years old, my dad began a teaching career at American River College in Sacramento, California. So my first, you know, all the years I can remember, from age 3 or 4 or whatever it was up until 11, I was in Sacramento, California and felt like I, you know, had the typical fully immersed Mormon childhood back then. You know, besides your Sunday meetings that, you know, there'd be a Sunday school in the morning and then you go back to sacrament meeting at night. But we, you know, I was one of the kids that had primary on Wednesday and you know, so we'd head down to the church and it was sort of, you know, Mormonism was a full immersion sort of game back there.

John Dehlin [00:04:51] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:52] I, I don't recall any particular spiritual experiences, but, you know, right from the kind of start of, you know, kindergarten and who knows how much earlier than that and on through my, my years there, I kind of was a show off. Like, you know, I didn't realize at the time that I had a really quick mind or a way of expressing myself that maybe, you know, came easier to me or whatnot than other people. So church just became another area for me, just like school where could sort of shine. So I don't know, you know, how much my Mormon experience was anything that happened to the spirit talking to me. But I know I got a lot of ego strokes from primary teachers and Sunday school teachers. And, you know, parents in the ward, you know, oh, sister Wotherspoon, your son is so smart, you know, that kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:47] So, you know, just kind of the typical kid who, you know, knew how to make an impression and, and kind of did that in his Mormonism as well as his schoolwork and things.

John Dehlin [00:05:58] And you're talking about what years there?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:01] Well, you know, my earliest memories of, you know, going to church in Sacramento up and through, you know, age 11 or, you know, through primary. So I remember, you know, I was back in the days when, you know, the later stages of primary, ages 10, 11 and 12, you had those bandalos, those green felt things, and, you know, you passed off your articles of Faith and I was a blazer and a trekker and a guide to patrol and all that stuff. So I'm definitely remembering in those years where there was a lot of achievement oriented stuff, we also had, you know, speech contests and, you know, they had the dance festivals and all that stuff. And so there was just all these different kinds of, you know, cultural things that went on in Mormonism. And I certainly, you know, took advantage of all those different things.

Teen Years and Early Spiritual Experiences

John Dehlin [00:06:45] Okay, all right. So I guess in the teen years is maybe when people first have a real shot at some type of formative, life changing spiritual experience. Did you have one before your teen years and did you have one during your teen years?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:07] Well, my parents divorced when I was 11, so my life was kind of shook up, you know, by that event. And my mother and my brother and my two sisters and I, we all moved down to San Diego. First we were in Lemon Grove, California, and we're there for a couple years. And then my grandmother died and my grandfather was home alone in his house. And so my family, my mom and us kids, we all moved in with my grandfather in Chula Vista, California. So really, you know, Sacramento for 11 years. I have a couple of years there in Lemon Grove that were my sixth and seventh grade years. And then Chula Vista, you know, all the way from the middle of junior high on through high school were there. And I don't know that I had any, you know, great spiritual experiences there. I remember, you know, we were, you know, somewhat the minority when you're a Mormon in California. And, you know, it's not super rare, but there was that, you know, 15 or 20 of us that were in the high school or in the junior high. And so there was a certain amount of, you know, I don't know, what do you get? Is it prestige the right word the way. But, you know, you're living a different standard.

Guest [00:08:20] You're.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:20] You're seeing things in different way. You sort of, you know, you grab onto anything for identity formation. And so certainly my Mormonism was a big identity thing with me. And I wouldn't have dared think about smoking or drinking or doing anything that would, you know, fall out of line with Mormonism. So I was fully living it, I guess you would say to that. And then finally for me, you know, sort of the experimentation with drinking and whatnot just sort of happened naturally as a junior in high school and as a senior and sort of that identity is, oh, I'm a Mormon to just, you know, I sure like partying. I sure like hanging out with my friends. You know, just sort of took over and I. I don't know, I just kind of fell into stuff. And I think it's partly the fact that Mormonism had been so easy for me. You know, I was getting strokes from external sources. I was the golden boy. I was the, you know, the young man that everyone wanted to. And so I never. But I never really had to work at it. And so when temptation really came along or these things, I wasn't strong enough. I hadn't really proven anything to anybody except that I was a smart guy who knew how to impress people.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] Okay, so back to the spiritual experiences question. You never had this transforming pinnacle kind of spiritual experience that kind of told you this is the one true church kind of thing or anything like that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:53] No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say okay.

John Dehlin [00:09:56] But you had good, positive experiences growing up.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:59] And then. And then you had sort of a prodigal period, is that right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:04] Definitely. I guess it, you know, from a junior in high school, I did go on and go to byu, and I went to BYU for my first semester and just straightened up. You know, I was away from friends and the things that I did there in San Diego and, you know, confess all your stuff to the bishop of your student ward and, you know, next thing I know, you know, I'll be turning 19 and I'm sure gonna go on a mission. And then, of course, you go home and see your friends again. Somehow the ideals just sort of, you know, fell by the wayside again for me. And I ended up being quite a, I don't know, wayward sort of kid up until age 22 where we can get into kind of what started making the change. But yeah, I had about a five or six year period there where I was out of the church. Not that I didn't believe it. I just didn't want to live it. I didn't want to grow up. I didn't want to be a responsible person. I wanted to just kind of follow whatever seemed the most fun and sort of the easier paths. And so I wasn't really rebelling against the church in the sense that I didn't believe in it, but I just, I was just out of the church and not really active within it.

BYU Years and Preparation for a Mission

John Dehlin [00:11:21] Okay, now, we haven't talked about a mission yet, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:24] Nope. My mission was quite late. I didn't go till I was just a few months shy of being 23.

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Okay, now wait a minute. So you went to BYU and went home when. So did you like keep partying at byu? Did you drop out of byu?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:41] I did go for another year after that first semester before I did drop out. And I was with, I was in the dorms that first semester. I actually started BYU in a January semester. So I was there from January through, you know, late April or May or whatever it was. Then I'm home for the summer and things kind of fall apart. And then when I go back, I'm with some friends from San Diego and we get, you know, we're in the same apartment along with a few other guys. And so, you know, everyone in that group sort of knew that I would hold things loosely. I actually had a girlfriend from my San Diego ward who was there at byu and we kind of, you know, fed each other's worst impulses as far as, you know, going out and doing stuff. I became friends with members of one of the sports teams, I won't say which one. And you know, a lot of those guys are non LDs. And so I just ended up attending parties and things like that. So there wasn't quite. There was certainly the honor code there and I was certainly violating it. But I think the culture back then, this is the years that Jim McMahon is quarterback and. Thanks. You know, the culture back then wasn't, you know, to really report everybody who was in violation of the honor code unless it was really flagrant or something. So I just kind of kept it, kept it quiet.

John Dehlin [00:12:55] So you were partying at byu?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:58] Yeah, I was.

John Dehlin [00:12:59] And, and how was your testimony during all this time?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:03] I don't know that I thought much about my testimony at this time. You know, I, I sure I had to take the required, you know, different religion classes and I felt some stirrings, I would suppose that. Well, I mean, I know all along I always felt I'm going to give this up someday. This is, you know, eventually I am going to grow up and I'm, you know, and I think in my heart of hearts I. I knew that I would probably repent and, you know, get back on the straight and narrow and all that stuff, but. But I don't recall a whole lot of turmoil within my soul that I was acting one way and, you know, kind of, you know, you know, attending my family home evening group at the apartment complex and maybe showing up, you know, enough times to church to. On anybody's list, but I wasn't really actively participating. I'm sure I wasn't holding callings and things.

John Dehlin [00:14:00] And were you a really good student? Were you a brainiac? Were you kind of an underachiever?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:07] I was a little bit of an underachiever that first year because again, just a lack of discipline. High school was so easy for me that I thought college would be just exactly as easy. And then no one was really making you go to class. And so that idea, well, I'll read up on it or whatnot. And you kind of blow a lot when you don't attend the lectures and see what of the material that you're reading the professor was interested in. And so, you know, I got a lot of Bs and things during my, my first year or so at byu and then of course, after my mission and all that stuff, I was, you know, straight A student and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I was definitely just kind of a lost soul. Went to BYU because that's where grandpa said he would pay. And, you know, I just, I don't know, I didn't have a lot of direction.

Path to the MTC and Mission Call

John Dehlin [00:14:55] Okay, so how'd you go from underachiever to putting in your papers to the mtc?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:03] Well, for anybody who's read things that I've written at Sunstone, this, this one event kind of really is, you know, really the ultimate, best thing in my life. I was really floundering, really lost. You know, I'd, I'd basically crossed every line that whatever I would have said in my, my life, I, I'm not going to ever fall that far, you know, down the rabbit hole or whatever. I basically went there and I was at a very, very black point when out of the blue, my uncle calls me. Now I've, you know, I'd known this uncle. He had been in, in Chula Vista with me. He and his family, I enjoyed them, I like them and things like that, but. But I have no clue what possessed him other than afterwards he and his wife told me that they just felt compelled to do it. But they invited me to move in with them in Mapleton, Utah. So this is how I ended up for a while in Mapleton, I was living in Provo. Even though I wasn't attending BYU at the time, I was living in Provo when they asked. And so I moved to Mapleton, and it just was like, here is my chance to break away from the different friends that I had, the different, you know, things that I would typically do on my weekends. And I was, I guess, just something within me just says I. You know, I knew all along that I needed to make this break. And I finally did. And so I lived with this family, George and Janie Wright, and their. And their kids for that year, for that, from, like, January of 81 till February of 82. And, you know, just somehow or other, slowly but surely, I, you know, the love of this family, it's a. It's a family that laughs a lot. They go to church. They, you know, they're fully immersed in their Mormonism. And it just kind of worked its magic on me that I was, you know, whatever. Surliness and kind of, you know, negativity, I sort of had just sort of got washed away in sort of the energy of this house. And so, you know, within a, you know, few weeks to a few months, I would start attending church. And then that would help me feel a little bit better about myself as I'm, you know, regrounding myself in things that I think are valuable and true and. And whatnot. And so finally it all, you know, things were going fantastically until June. You know, I'd gotten a job. I was actually attending the U of U at the time, too. Then they went on a vacation to, I think, Lake Tahoe or something. The whole family's gonna go. And they. They invited me to go, but I had. I had a job, and so I really couldn't go. And so they leave. And it was just like the strangest thing. It's like, who knows if there's a, you know, web of interconnectionness or something? But my main friend who had influenced me, you know, in so many ways, you know, in the partying, you know, let's go to the clubs kind of way, calls me up out of the blue. They're gone for a week, and next thing I know, I'm spending three days back in my old world. And finally, at the end of that third day as I'm driving home, and I. And I have a pack of cigarettes still on the dashboard, and I. I'm Remembering going up 1600 north in Mapleton. Towards the house that I was living at. And just the whole way home, I'd been reflecting about how much happier I was just last week that I'm feeling now after having retasted this world that I'd left behind six or eight months earlier. I just took those cigarettes, and I can still almost see them flying in my mind, almost slow motion, out into this orchard that I was passing on. Just flung them out my winter. And I remember the thought was, I'm better than these things. I'm better than the stuff that I've been doing. And from that day on, I didn't smoke again. I certainly still had to face the, you know, the real withdrawal and whatnot. But that was sort of a turning point for me where it's like, okay, I'm now actively going to choose this path that makes me feel better than that path. So that was important to me. And then what really happened next was, I guess it would be a month or two later because this was the end of June, Education week rolled around, and my aunt talked me into going with her to BYU Education Week. And somehow or other, I can't remember, you know, why or whatever, we picked this one, but ended up one of the speakers there challenged everybody in there to read the Book of Mormon. You know, we hear that all the time in church and whatnot. But for whatever reason, I was ready to read the Book of Mormon. You know, certainly I could have told you a lot about the Book of Mormon just because I had, like you say, a good memory. And I, you know, I remembered all the stories and whatnot from when I was a kid, but I hadn't really, you know, read scripture in five, six, seven years. So anyway, I'm reading this book, and it just, like, you know, right off the bat, I feel like I'm immersed in this really important, you know, moment in my life. And, you know, I'd say now that the book is screaming to me, I'm true, I'm true, and, you know, you need to, you know, come come to me and all this stuff. And I'm. And I'm. And I'm just recognizing that somehow or other I just need to change my life for real. And then I get to the sections with Alma the Younger and the Sons of Messiah. And, you know, whether those guys are fictional characters or real characters, for whatever reason they worked on me, I just could identify. You know, they were the golden boys who had everything, who, you know, you know, just every reason to be successful in leaders and whatnot, who decided to, you know, Fight against the church, kick against the pricks, whatever you want to say, and only to turn around. You know, obviously they had an angel. And maybe you could interpret my aunt and uncle as my angel experience of, you know, coming along and, you know, straightening, you know, giving me at least an opportunity to reevaluate things. But for whatever reason, those guys in their life that said, you know, it's not too late to change, you know, you can still be a person of value, you can be a person of worth again, somehow that just. That just really worked on me. So, I mean, I can't tell you, John. I probably paced the floor of my bedroom for two weeks before I, you know, even could get the humility to kneel down. And I imagine I kneeled down and, you know, just was going to start praying, you know, a half a dozen times, you know, over a course of a week or so before I'd actually, you know, open my mouth and just, you know, start to tell, you know, God, that I'm lost, you know, and that I. That I want to find myself again and stuff. So it's just a real battle. But finally, you know, I was able to do that. I was. I didn't, you know, see angels, no visitation, no, you know, trumpets, you know, welcome home, sinner. You know, back to this thing, you know, I really feel. Felt just like whatever message was there is. I'm starting to hear a little echo there. Sorry about that. But whatever message I got, it felt like it was just like, you know, hey, you've got a lot of work to do, but let's get through it, you know, let's move ahead. And so somehow I did go ahead.

Transformative Spiritual Experiences on the Mission

John Dehlin [00:22:39] So this experience was not lights or anything, but it was a feeling. What was it?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:49] Yeah, I mean, I really kind of expected it. You know, obviously I'm just this great choice soul of God, and here I pray again if he's going to really shine his love upon me. And I didn't feel unloved, but I didn't feel like. I just felt like it was a voice that says, there's still more work to do, Stick with it, we'll get you through it, you know, kind of thing. So it was. It was, it was, it was. It wasn't born again, you know, immediately change of heart kind of thing. It was like, you know, hold my hand, talk to me a lot, try to remember me and, you know, the daily things that you do, and we'll get there. So it was really. It was really kind of a strange thing. And then, you Know, so this is, you know, I'm imagining it was the

John Dehlin [00:23:37] first time something like that had happened,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:39] or, well, again, I hadn't prayed, I'm sure, in six or seven years. And so this is, you know, I certainly have this big, long initial prayer where really, honestly, I will tell you as soon as I said, you know, rest, Heavenly Father, something, I think that first prayer, I just cried for half an hour, you know, just sobbed at the state of my life, you know, and how bad I felt. But, you know, so, you know, you kind of get through that and you begin to, you know, start saying, I want to feel my way back and whatnot. And so I felt encouraged along that. But I. You know, I can't say that. I can't say that it was anything other than, like, keep at it, you know, kind of. Kind of a feeling for me. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:24:21] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:22] But so we're now probably, you know, end of August, early September, and. And, you know, so every day I'm praying. Every day I'm doing more, you know, probably I'm sure I've finished the Book of Mormon by now or something. And I. Seriously, this is one of those weird moments where I'm at the breakfast table and I had not thought of it. I had not even begun to think of it, but out of my mouth just came the words, I think I want to go on a mission. And my uncle, who, you know, I was living with, happened to be there. He was reading the paper, bowl of cereal. He goes, what? He goes, let's go talk about this. And so the next thing we know, we're writing. He. Oh, I think. I didn't. Did I say he was the bishop? He was my bishop at the time, too. So he just goes, wow, let's go talk about stuff. And so, you know, we pick up our juice and our toast or whatever, and we walk down the hall to his office there at the house, his home office. So my uncle and I chatted for a while, and we kind of looked at the obstacles that might be in the way, and certainly some of my past behaviors kind of came up in his rule book or handbook of things that you need to kind of clear with the general authority. So we ended up getting an appointment with William Grant Bangoter up in the church office building. And he and I traveled up and we met for about 20 minutes with Elder Bangoter. And during that conversation, he, you know, felt he felt able to declare to me through spiritual discernment or whatever it was, that he didn't feel like there was any Obstacles that would prevent me from serving a mission and basically cleared the way for me to put in my papers, which I did. And somewhere, you know, November or December, I received a mission call to Seattle, Washington and I left in February. So basically, go ahead, sorry.

John Dehlin [00:26:10] What type of questions do they ask in those interviews?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:13] You know, honestly, the only one that I could remember him asking is, you know, after the sort of, you know, recount your sins that basically made you come here. And I guess this will give a clue as to the nature of at least some of that he asked. He had wanted to make sure that I didn't have any children out there or something, that I would be, that I needed to be supportive, supporting and that kind of thing. And so it was like, you know, are there any loose ends or any know, consequences from these things that are, you know, that would impede, you know, you're being able to fully serve kind of thing. And then he really did spend about 10 minutes and it was very nice to say, you know, there are going to be times on your mission where you may not feel worthy to be out there because of, you know, some of this thing, some of these things and you know, being an older missionary or whatnot, you may feel conspicuous and, and whatnot. But he just wanted, you know, he just went on to testify that I was completely forgiven of these things and you know, don't let Satan get to me, that kind of, of kind of stuff. Don't ever let him be, you know, discourage me. So it was a very positive experience. He became one of my favorite general authorities. You know, you, pretty soon, you know, you're, you know, how you have the ones that you watch for and, and whatnot. So it was a good experience. So, you know, that whole Christmas was dominated by all the different things that you get, you know, for get, you know, get your overcoat and your Mr. Mac suits and your right forward thrust shoes. Remember, did you have those shoes that kind of thrust your stride forward? Anyway, it was, it was, it was funny. So, and then I, you know, went on my mission in February and it was interesting by waiting for extra years, I ended up in that window where you could only serve an 18 month mission. You know, there was that, that two and a half, three year period where some people got to choose. You know, you can either go home after 18 months after being called for two years or, or, you know, the opposite end, the 18 months you could extend for 24. I was right middle of February 83 through August 84, where I had no choice. I had an 18 month mission. I came home and basically started BYU. I, you know, I applied, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:28:20] Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So, any big life changing spiritual experiences on your mission, you know.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:26] Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:27] Visitations or. No, I mean undeniable, you know, coincidences or, you know, stuff like that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:39] Yeah, I mean, I would say at least a good half of my major wowie, zowie. Moments with spiritual things happen on my mission. So you're right, we probably should slow down. I'll tell you the first one. Well, there was one very powerful experience in the MTC that I felt like kind of the veil was, was pulled back a little bit and it kind of taught me some things about, about myself sort of, you know, you could sort of call it depth psychology kind of things that maybe you can just say that, you know, we all know deep down within ourselves. But somehow it became very clear to me that there were certain patterns, you know, in my life and whatnot that, that I've had with me. You know, at least the spiritual experience there in the MTC said, you know, these have been with you for a long time, going back before this life kind of thing. So that was, that was a pretty interesting experience there. But right out of the bat on my mission, probably my first three or four weeks there, I'm on splits with the zone leader in his area and I don't know, for those who haven't gone on a mission, at least when you're going to spend a chunk of your day tracting. We called it harvesting on our mission. You know, the field is white already to harvest. So when you do a harvest harvesting, a lot of times you would look at the map of the area and you would, you know, seek inspiration as to where you might want to go tracting. And I swear I had this little, this thing on there, it says 207th place. You know, was this one little street on this map in this other guy's area that really kind of, you know, I, I felt like this real thing to it. But I'm a greenie and the guy, you know, it's his area and he has, you know, XYZ investigators that we're going to go see and basically the whole day is planned and so, and, and he had an idea of where he wanted to go tracking. Who knows, you know, inspiration or just, you know, he's trying to knock out a quadrant or whatever reason. So I didn't really say anything. And so what happened that day was, was we ended up with everything falling through. You know, we tracked his Area out without getting any lessons. And so you're done kind of earlier, you know, than you expect on that. And we go to try to visit this investor. We drop by, drop by, drop by, all these things that he had going in his area. And so finally it's two or three in the afternoon, and we're basically exhausted with the things to do. And I mentioned to him finally, well, you know, this morning, you know, I kind of had this feeling about 277th place. And I don't know if, you know, the grids up in Seattle. I think it was northeast, you know, the northeast grid. So ne, you know, so whatever that street was. And so about the third house. So we, you know, he says, well, let's give it a try. And the third house, we knock on. I knock on the door of the lady who I talked to for a half hour on the plane ride to Seattle.

John Dehlin [00:31:38] Oh, wow.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:40] So it was. It was like, like, holy crap, I better pay attention from now on. This stuff works, you know. So I remember, you know, how you write your mission president a letter every week, and then, you know, he takes excerpts from those things and puts them in the mission newsletter and all that stuff. And so that. That little story got told in the mission field. But it was really a, like a little thing to me of, you know, and so the lady, you know, her jaw just dropped when she sees me at the door, at her door, door. And my job, as soon as it took me like, 15 seconds to remember, you know, how I. How I knew her. And she goes, you're kidding. How did you find me? You know, it's like. And I go, well, we just, you know, felt like this was the place to go. This isn't my area. And, you know, we placed a Book of Mormon with her, and she wasn't interested in hearing the gospel, so.

Guest [00:32:33] But that was.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] But that was still.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:37] It was for me. For sure. It was for me. So other mission experiences that really became key to me had to do a lot with really learning to embrace people who were not like me, people with, you know, less education who's, you know, who. Who maybe don't seem to have as bright a prospects and whatnot. I remember, you know, being just constantly taught by companions that, you know, your. Your way isn't the only way to do things. And, you know, the elder from Beaver, Utah, who, you know, isn't. Isn't the big, big deep thinker from you still has a lot of things to teach me. So I remember, you know, learning a lot of really good lessons on my mission that way. As far as spiritual experience goes, I would say this is the first of two like this that I had. And I remember praying one morning in Mount Vernon, Washington. This is a personal study time or, you know, whatever it was, and somehow or other, just completely going over for all the different investigators that we were working with in my mind, you know, just that real careful, you know, so and so. And his struggle with this and, you know, she. With her struggle with that and help us, you know, convince this person, you know, this or that. Just one of those really careful, close inventories. And what happened to me at that moment was like every. Every separation I felt from these people or from any person on the planet sort of went away. And I. And I. And I just. You know, my language back then was I felt exactly how God felt about these people. You know, that there was. That they were just, you know, perfect, wonderful, amazing beings, you know, who, you know, are, you know, pure, good, and that God sees them only as, you know, fully whole and. And all the different things. And I mean, I just, like, wow. Just I got a peak that felt like it lasted for 20 or 30 minutes of, you know, expansive view of people and, you know, who they really are deep down. And then, of course, the power of that was just incredible. I mean, for the next several weeks, I was still feeling the effects of. Of seeing people, you know, through this sort of light, this lens of light and, you know, hopefulness and whatnot. So that was, you know, that was pretty amazing experience there. And then I think I shared one in my closing remarks at Sunstone that was pretty powerful. I don't know if you want me to go into that or whatnot, but,

John Dehlin [00:35:47] yeah, I think most people have not heard it.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:50] Okay. I mentioned before that one of the, you know, the sons of Messiah and Alma the Younger were important to me. Well, there was a moment in my scripture study before my mission where the verse Mosiah 28:3 just like, stopped me in my tracks, because here I'm feeling like this kinship with these guys, and all of a sudden there's this verse that says, now they were desirous that they should, you know, take the gospel into the Lamanites, you know, their enemies, and da, da, da, da, da. For they could not bear the thought that any soul should perish. Yea, even the thought that any soul should endure endless torment, etc. Did cause them to quake and tremble. And I remember, you know, thinking about this prior to my mission. I'm saying, wow, I can't even imagine Feeling that, you know, I can't even imagine feeling love so much that you would, you would do anything, you know, to bring a message of salvation and the joy and the turnaround in your own life and that that was available to them, you know, to feel it that much for anybody, it just blew me away. And so Mosiah 28:3 kind of became, you know, one of the, you know, scriptures that I talked about as I did my farewell. I remember somehow bearing my testimony in the MTC and you know, bringing up Mosiah 23 and I'm sure my early zone conferences and whatnot. Everyone, you know, that was just sort of a theme in my mission. But you know, like everything else, you have other experiences and other scriptures that kind of come up from time to time. But anyway, about the. About 10 days before the end of my mission, I am tracking with my companion and we go to the house of a woman who basically was nice to us, but she, you know, said she wasn't interested in, in hearing the gospel. And as we left the house and kind of made our way off the driveway and onto the sidewalk and a few steps down it, I got like whacked with such a feeling of love for her and, you know, sense of the importance of the message and I can't even say, but I seriously, you know, it'll sound stupid. I quaked and I trembled, you know what I mean? I. Somehow or other I stepped into that space of feeling the way that, you know, the Book of Mormon described the sons of Messiah's feeling of loving people enough that you just, your heart just ached, you know, to, you know, have them see what you could see and the beauty of it, of it. But anyway, I, you know, my companions like, what is going on with you, dude? And I just like freaking and I can hardly talk. And again, that, that feeling just from that, that moment throughout the rest of my mission was just constant with me.

John Dehlin [00:38:48] And it wasn't because she was cute.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:51] No. I'm sure she was middle aged. Yeah, no, you know, so to me it's, it's like, okay, so I, I had another glimpse. This was. And I still had, you know, other powerful glimpses in my life. More of the deep connection of, of everybody that, that are profound experiences that anchor me. But there on my mission, I mean, I felt like it was. I mean, I interpreted it then and I interpret it still now, I have to admit as like whether it's God or not. Somehow or other, you know, I was, you know, kind of being shown that I had developed you know, into the kind of person that could love others that much. You know what I mean? So it was like. It was like a little. I don't know if it's a pat on the back or it was just like a, you know, an attaboy or. I'm not even saying it the way I want to, but it was just one of those things where somehow or other, even I'd forgotten Messiah 28:3. God hadn't, the universe hadn't. Or just somehow or other through 18 months of service. I mean, I was a very good missionary. I mean, I was not a rule breaker or any of those kinds of things. Not that I even think that that's that important now, but somehow or other I'd become that kind of person that could love enough, you know, to feel that way. So.

John Dehlin [00:40:11] And do you feel. Do you feel embarrassed to talk like that? Because I know that you'd probably think makes me sound kind of goofy or like I'm bragging or.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:21] No, I'm not. I'm not embarrassed by it. Well, I know that the. I know that the experience happened, and again, because again, I felt the effects for weeks and weeks afterwards were, you know, I was in a new, you know, kind of relationship with everybody in the world around me. All of a sudden, I loved them all, you know, and you could do anything to me or something like that, I'd be able to love you back, you know, for that time. And of course, that slowly fades as, you know, regular life enters in or whatnot, or as you kind of step away from the experience. So I'm not embarrassed to say that absolutely something like that happened where I. Where I hesitate. And this is, I guess, would come out in parts of our podcast as we keep going. You know, I don't know exactly how to interpret those things anymore. You know, back then, it was God, you know, sent me an attaboy, you know, he remembered. Even if I had forgotten Messiah 28:3, you know, I was able to get that experience. Whereas now I don't know that anybody who faithfully, you know, was outward focused for that extended period of time, you know, who was. Was working hard only to better people's lives, you know, I don't know that anybody wouldn't have that experience. I don't know that you need a God pushing a button saying, let's now bless Dan with this experience. I think in some ways that you put yourself in a. In a certain position and an attitude towards people around you that anybody might qualify, you know, for just having that Thin line between you and other people get blurred.

Returning Home and Integrating Mission Experiences

John Dehlin [00:41:55] And how much. Yeah. How much do you feel that's still, you know, hanging around? How much do you feel like you're still influenced and affected by those experiences? Like. Like, do you feel like some things rubbed off is what I'm asking?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:11] I. Well, I mean, they're. They're very stark memories for me. They're. They're touchstones in my. In my life where I know that I touched something, you know, different than ordinary life. I've had other experiences since then, so I can't really say that it was my mission experiences only that have made me feel like I'm somehow more than just my body, you know, or that. Or that other people are more than just, you know, they aren't important or aren't part of me and that, I don't know, my love for other people have come in other and other experiences.

John Dehlin [00:42:52] Sure, sure. Okay, cool. So amazing mission experiences.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:58] Yeah. I had a great mission with a fantastic mission president, and, you know, I just couldn't have done anything better. And I guess somehow or other while I'm out there, I reapply for BYU and they. They admit me again. And so I start there and I immediately get a job at the MTC teaching missionaries. And I ended up teaching for two and a half years, senior couple missionaries and senior sisters who were, you know, going on missions and just had an amazing two and a half, half years.

Marriage, Teaching at the MTC, and Graduate Study

John Dehlin [00:43:31] All right, so you're teaching the mtc, you're married?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:34] Yeah, we get married. And then I. Okay. And so at the mtc, one of the things that maybe you don't know is if CES in church education system recruits the heck out of MTC teachers, you know, like, come be a seminary teacher, come, you know, join ces, and here's the classes you should take. And so you take this first intro to what it's like to, you know, be a CS thing. And I'm gung ho and I'm sure this is what I want to do. You take the next one and you do, you know, three days of student teaching along with, you know, the class learning and, you know, you observe at seminaries and whatnot for a while. And I. I go through that, you know, well, and I'm just sure that I'm going to be a CES program person. And then I, you know, the next level is to do some sustained student teaching and they, you know, come evaluate it with. Come evaluate you from time to time, and the teacher whose class you're, you know, basically stepping into for that one hour every day for a few weeks, you know, is looking over things. And I, and I did well on all the evaluations and it was looking towards the point where they wanted to hire me. And I just had to be honest with myself. I did not enjoy my student teaching. I didn't go to seminary. I mentioned that I kind of started partying when I was a junior in high school. It doesn't mean that I was going to early morning, 6am you know, seminary in San Diego, you know, prior to that. So I really, this was my first experience at seminary. I didn't realize how much, I mean, you know, my easy, quick language is how much singing and dancing you have to do, how much, you know, shucking and jiving and, you know, showing movies and playing games and all that stuff, you know, to get the kids to maybe get a good 10 or 15 minutes worth of spiritual lesson in. And, you know, I'm, I'm there as this earnest student teacher and I've got this stuff. Shouldn't the truth entertain these kids enough? You know, kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:45:30] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:30] Anyway, it just, it was one of those things where I just wasn't relaxed and I wasn't able to. I think today I could. But at that point in my life, I was, wasn't. I couldn't relax into the teenage sort of, you know, I'll take it where I can get it kind of attitude and, you know, and I'll. And I'll have a lot of fun with the kids there. So in my, my conversation with Rand Packer, who was the, you know, head of, you know, CES recruiting and kind of this whole thing, I just told him, you know, I just don't think teenage teaching teenagers is for me. And he says, brother, I totally understand that. He says, you know, it's one of those things you're either born to or not. You can't force it. If you don't have an ease with this, don't. So don't feel like you failed. And I don't know if it was him or just somehow or other, I got it in my mind that I could maybe still teach Institute because that's college kids. You don't have to sing and dance for that. And so somehow or other, either from an indication from him that some people go directly into institute or whatnot, I just at least began to shift my idea that that might be the case.

John Dehlin [00:46:36] Case.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:46:37] But at this time, I'm now a senior at BYU and I'm, I'm thinking about what I want to do. And I knew that I had majored in philosophy and I was taking every class that I could that was related to world religions, you know, to the philosophy of Judaism. I would just, I just knew I was interested in religion in general and so I decided to look into graduate programs in religion. I I ended up going to Arizona State. In the back of my mind, it's maybe I can step into seminary institute here through qualifying with a master's degree or something. I'll be on a campus or whatever I do and they'll invite me to teach a class or two and then next thing they want me full time or something. That was in the back of my mind. But basically I decided to follow my bliss and keep studying what I was interested in in and hopefully turn into a college professor and perhaps an institute teacher. So that's what led me to Arizona State and my master's program.

Guest [00:47:41] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, Family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and Ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an E S K Y-E pixton.com thank you, Ra.

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 236

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] Well, cool, Dan. So we've spent a little bit of time just kind of talking about your formative years, kind of your early prodigal years, your decision on a mission, the wonderful spiritual experiences you had going on a mission, and your time after as an MTC instructor, et cetera, and your decisions to kind of pursue graduate work in religious studies at Arizona State. I'm kind of assuming that this is where kind of maybe things start unraveling a bit. So why don't you talk a little bit about the unraveling?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:55] All right. That's a fun way to think of it. I was sure that I was at Arizona State to learn about religion, and for whatever naive reasons, I thought that it would only enhance, you know, the truths of Mormonism to learn more about the early church fathers and, you know, the formation of the Christian tradition. I thought that would just, you know, fortify that, you know, our view as Latter Day Saints, of Jesus had 12 apostles and organized a church and, you know, let's make sure the priests is, you know, I just thought that it would just give me this fuller background for, you know, fitting the Mormon story. And the complete opposite happens. I know I. There was this. There was this moment in my first semester, and it was pretty late into it. I remember recognizing quite early that the things that I was studying. One of the best classes I ever had was methods. They called methods. And so the different methodological ways that you can approach religion. So there's the psychological approach to religion, sociology, anthropology, you know, all the different. All the different kind of schools of thought that, you know, try to explain why religion works as a phenomenon.

John Dehlin [00:02:14] That.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:14] So that was a wonderful thing. But, you know, I never wanted to let any of those so affect me that I think, oh, religion really is just the opium of the masses. You know, I never. I never wanted to really consider, you know, accepting those theories wholeheartedly. And. And so I remember kind of somewhere getting along the line of, you know, it. I've got to start letting some of this in. I gotta start, you know, really considering some of this stuff. And so I just made that choice of being less resistant to the danger that this spelled for my current worldview. And just, let's ride it out. Let's see, you know, how far the rabbit hole goes or, you know, or, you know, where it. Where it takes me. So there was that conscious decision to say, I've got to yield, at least somehow, to the power of these theories. The biggest thing, though, that came along for me was I took a class from Burton Mack, and it's kind of interesting because here's my first Claremont Collection connection. I'd heard of Claremont because I'd been attracted to something called process theology when I was at BYU in my philosophy program. So I knew Claremont was a for that. But Claremont has a school of theology who wanted to partner and kind of open up sort of a pathway or a gateway for people in the Phoenix, you know, Tempe Mesa area, where Arizona State's located, for them to take classes locally in Arizona that would then. But they'd be classes from the seminary. So in other words, you could get a lot of credits for the seminary and for your ministerial degree or whatever it is you wanted, just staying locally. So they started to send professors while I was at Arizona State, and. And I was able to register for some of these classes. So I took this class with Burton Mack, who is the most delightful person in the world. He's still one of my favorite guys, but he is an absolute, you know, big New Testament name, kind of scholar who. Whose most famous book is called A Myth of Innocence, that just basically, if you're going to take any spiritual, you know, God, you know, God directing the formation of early Christianity and the development of the Christian story and who Jesus is and all that stuff, if you're going to take God out of all of that, that's Burton Mack. He is going to lay out for you, you know, the development of, you know, of early Christianity, the development of the Jesus story, you know, the taking of, you know, these cute. What they call Q The. The saying sources. And you sort of take the. Oh, you know, you take the teachings of Paul and you put them together and you have this guide. You know, the mark is generally considered the first gospel. So, you know, anyway, I. I don't. I shouldn't go too much, but basically,

John Dehlin [00:05:16] all this sounds like Bart Ehrman stuff.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:19] Oh, sure, absolutely. So what happened was I have this delightful teacher who is. It's undeniable that scripture is not an exception to the general rule of any other kind of writing that, you know, people who write a scripture, they're trying to tell a story in a particular way. They're shaping the message to fit social conditions in some ways and things. And so just whatever idea I had that somehow scripture was a special case, that it was free from human influence, that it was directly channeled from God, and any of that idea that it was perfectly conceived and brought forth, went away during that class. And that was really the hardest thing for me. For whatever reason, it kind of seems weird to me that somehow I was invested in scripture being the exception to everything else. But anyway, that led to, you know, of course, me having to ask about other scripture, including the Mormon scriptures. And so for whatever reason, that was my pathway to where I probably started rethinking my Mormonism more than anything else. And at least, oh, now it's time to really buckle down, down and sort the fact from the fiction and, you know, the sacred story from, from probably what really happened.

Intellectual Deconstruction and Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [00:06:53] Okay, so. So your entry into the rabbit hole was a deconstruction of the New Testament. Is that, is that a fair way to summarize?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:02] Yeah, along with, you know, these methodological things that, you know, you get a group of people together and, you know, you create a feeling of excitement that can sort of feel like something spiritual, you know, you know, you're, the crowd of, you're united together in the, at the football game and you feel a spirit, you know, so there was, there was those kinds of, you know, other theories about, you know, what makes religion powerful that were there, but certainly the scripture. The scripture was probably my biggest jaw dropping and most depressing time.

John Dehlin [00:07:37] Okay, so once that fell, I mean, so you were questioning the historicity of Jesus in the New Testament then.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:46] Yeah, I don't think I doubted that he existed. But certainly the idea of him as son of God, you know, all the stuff that kind of came in after, you know, from Paul, you know, all that stuff that sort of, you know, worked its way into the telling of the, of the Gospels, you know, that he is, you know, secretly the son of man and he's revealing himself left and right and, you know, those who have eyes to see and whatnot. I was totally just sure that that was all construct.

John Dehlin [00:08:18] Yeah. Okay, so a resurrected Jesus then?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:24] Yeah, I mean, I, I can't say that I, I was 100, this didn't happen, but it's like, wow, this is a far more complicated story. And I'm, I'm certainly a lot less

John Dehlin [00:08:31] sure the credibility was weakened, maybe. Or at least your preconceptions, your preconcept notions.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:40] Yeah, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of hard to tease apart exactly what happened there. But yeah, when you, when you for the first time really say, oh, maybe this isn't true, exactly the way it's been presented to me, you kind of, you know, you enter into that new relationship with your Faith. And so, you know, it's like Fowler, there's that great line he says, you know, we don't know who discovered the properties of water, but we know it wasn't the fish. You know, this is that moment when you're kind of stepping outside your story and saying, wow, that is a story that is constructed in a certain way that, you know, there's more going on here than just an innocent, you know, straightforward telling of something factual. They're shaping at work.

Examining Mormon History and Difficult Truth Claims

John Dehlin [00:09:26] Okay, so once that fell, just give us a listing off of some of the other things that fell. Like, did you follow the traditional path of reading Fawn Brodie and church history and all that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:43] I didn't read Fawn probably for another five or six years. I guess what really happens then is, okay, my church and what I learn at my church and the way they present scripture doesn't match up with what's really going on now. Of course, I don't think to this day, I didn't think even then that Burton Mack had it 100% right. But, you know, it was undeniable that there was a lot of human things going on there to create the scripture that we have today. So, you know, I'm not saying that I hundred percent bought that his theory explained scripture totally. So anyway, so back to the Mormonism and how the different things fell. For me there, it's like, okay, we were wrong about this. What else? You know, what else doesn't match between the sacred story, the sacred narrative, what I'm being taught at church, what else doesn't match with factual things? And Gol, what would be the laundry list of things that you begin to question? I guess, I guess everything somewhere along the line. Excuse me. I know priesthood became a big thing with me. I don't know who was that introduced me to the idea of, you know, why would God require, you know, somebody, you know, anyway, for whatever reason, I just never felt like the priesthood and giving a blessing and having insight into, you know, some situation, some spirit of discernment needed priesthood. I thought everybody should be able to do that. And so I somehow right early on, I kind of started to think, you know, maybe priesthood is just a power that's available to everyone. Maybe it's just the nature of spiritual connection itself and that if you put yourself in the right frame of mind, you really can discern a lot. You know, again, this is where Tyler and Randy, or Tyson and Randy, who many of your listeners will know. I interviewed these guys who, you know, left Mormonism for atheism. They would start to, you know, this is where they'd really start to debunk this. But I sort of believed then, and I still believe now that, you know, if you quiet your mind and you give yourself permission to say, I have the right and the power to, you know, be a blessing to this person and serve them in this way, I don't really think that you need the laying on of hands, you know, by one holding the keys in order to do that. And so somehow that was very early for me, that this idea that the Mormon Church had exclusive authority. I mean, I don't mind that there's these rituals by which we, you know, place our hands upon other heads, another person's heads, and you convey something to them in terms of blessing or love, and we're uniting you in this chain, you know. You know, my son gets united to me, I'm united to my grandfather and this priesthood chain, you know, all the way back. I don't mind that all that works at that neat level. So I'm not against priesthood conveyance there. But somehow or other, early on, I just began to say to see priesthood as perhaps like Dumbo's feather. Dumbo thought that he needed the feather in order to fly when he could fly all along. I started to begin to see priesthood as that way of giving yourself permission, you know, to open, to open your heart to the universe or to. To truth or discernment or. Or the powers that connect and whatnot and, you know, and serve others. So. So that, that, that's one thing that's kind of early, but you name it, at some point. I believe in my 10 to 12 years of real wrestling, you know, where I just, like, I don't know what I'm thinking from one week to the next, you know, just whatever comes along that week, it's got me, you know, my head spinning. I'm sure I went after about every possible thing. I don't think that there's anything that I would ever failed to try to deconstruct.

John Dehlin [00:13:50] Right. So Joseph Smith and the first vision and, you know, Book of Mormon historicity, you know, the whole deal.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:02] Absolutely. I mean, yeah, historicity of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's claims. Yeah, all of them went there. I mean, I don't, you know, I. I believe that I always honored, and I always will honor, no matter where I land on the Book of Mormon. I honor the role that it played in my life. I mean, it was, you know, I mean, there's many other things that, you know, can change people's Lives as fundamentally as that changed mine. But I can never, I can never not say that that's a powerful book because it was powerful to me. Whether it's historical, you know, whether Nephi and Lehi ever took a breath in this world, if they're real people or not, you know, it doesn't matter. That book, I'll always honor the power of that book in my own life and my own journey.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:52] Same thing with Joseph Smith. I mentioned that I'm a deep, you know, kind of. I love the grand ideas the grand theory of everything is putting all together. I mean, there are so many doctrines that Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith teaches that to me are powerful. And so even as I'm, as I'm wondering what the heck is this guy doing, you know, marrying a bunch of women, you know, I don't know that I believe for a second the polygamy was inspired by God. I can't deny that, you know, some of the scriptural passages, you know, provided, they were gateways for me into this really deep, exciting, profound, you know, sort of paradigm changing views that I have in this world about, you know, who, who human beings are, you know, divine potential view of God, who wants, who's not up there trying to protect his turf, who's basically saying he's inviting us all to become, you know, like him, them. You know, if we, if we were to consider the married couple model. I always hate to use just purely male pronouns.

John Dehlin [00:16:08] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:09] So there's these, these amazing deep parts of Mormonism that became deep, became a real part of me. And again, in my study of philosophy, you know, Joseph Smith, it kind of feels to me that, you know, as chaotic as some of the things were going on in his life, there were these moments in certain passages of script scripture where, you know, he throws this little idea out there like all spirit is matter. You know, it's, it's only of a more refined nature. And if our eyes were more purified, we'd see that it's still matter. You know, I mean, he kind of throws that out there. I don't think he's doing any kind of systematic theology. And yet that, you know, provides a really interesting angle that, you know, it doesn't solve what they call in philosophy the mind body problem, but it certainly, it shifts it because now we're no longer dealing with, you know, the classic formulation is how can something that's purely mental, that doesn't exist in time and space, you know, it's got no physical substance, how does it interact with the physical brain you know, that's the typical mind body problem. Well, Joseph Smith basically has matter acting upon matter, you know, that kind of thing. And so just these weird little moments of Joseph Smith, this idea that God could cease to be God, you know, that comes out of a broader philosophy that I found to be very profound. That's not like something isn't right because God commands it. Something, you know, God commands it because it's right. In other words, there's something embedded into the fundamental nature of the universe that God can't work against, choose against, and remain, you know, somebody who's. Who's powerful in the way that, you know, that you handle. Like you said then, now you can move. See, my brain is just starting to free flow from all these really cool scriptures, you know, section 121, this idea that, you know, you live a certain, certain way, you let virtue garnish your thoughts unceasingly. You do this, you do this, and then without compulsory means, you know, just the rest flows unto you. And it's sort of like, I tend to believe now that Joseph Smith is right, that you step into a place where you're just naturally handling the powers of heaven, rather than God is pushing a button and saying, I now choose to bless John Dehlin with the following experience. I just sort of really believe that Joseph Smith intuited a lot about it. So, again, even if I'm deconstructing Joseph Smith and polygamy and polyandry and half the stuff that he does, and who knows, what with Kirtland, you know, bank society and, you know, all the different stuff in church history, that's so troubling, I'm just like, saying, I don't know, this dude had moments where he seemed to step into something pretty profound. And so I always would honor those, even as I'd wonder, you know, would I continue. Have continued to follow Joseph Smith if he had propositioned my wife? That kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:19:13] Right. Okay. So you have sort of a thing, thorough deconstruction of your testimony, but you have signposts along the way of some spiritual experiences and some theology and doctrine that you read that sort of stick around, stick to your ribs, so to speak, and keep you anchored in trying to make Mormonism work. Right. Hmm.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:43] That's interesting to put it. Is it? What's making me try to make it work? Yeah, well, here's.

John Dehlin [00:19:50] I was also.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:51] Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I guess so. There is this. There's. I'll tell you, throughout this whole thing, I felt like I was on a Good path. So even as I'm pulling it apart, you know, somehow or other, either, you know, my. My deepest self, my soul, whether. Whether, you know, my spirit is in, you know, in another realm where it knows that this is an important for everyone to go on. Who knows, whatever it is I'm feeling all along that I'm doing, I'm not sinning through my doubts. I'm not sinning through my, you know, pulling apart and demythologizing or whatnot, because I really was looking for what I could count on, what I could hang my hat on. And so there's this. I don't know if you've probably heard this phrase, it's like from Oliver Wendell Holmes. It says, you know, I wouldn't give a figure for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, I would give anything, you know, I'd give my whole soul, you know, King Lamoni's father, you know, I'd give up half my. I'd give up my. All my kingdom. I can't remember, is it half my kingdom or all my kingdom, you know, to know this God that you're teaching me, Aaron, you know, in the Book of Mormon or something. So there's this idea that there's this simplicity that I had. Now I'm in my graduate school years and, you know, I'm studying and I'm wrestling and all that stuff, but I somehow knew that I was. I was passing through something and things would become clearer to me again if I just stuck with it. So I don't know if it's spiritual promptings or whatever or it was just good friends that I had made along the way. I'll tell you, this is, you know, it's 90. Well, it's 89 that I meet a fellow named Randy Paul, who, after I left Sunstone, that's who I've gone to work with, who. So I've now known him for 21 years. And he was that friend who came along in my life who I just somehow connected with. And he's, you know, I don't remember. He's 10 years older than me or whatever. And he had just. He's just a little farther along on the path than me. You know, I recognize him as he's asked every single question that I've asked. And he's, you know, he's managed to somehow say, you know, gets better, Dan, you know, or consider this, you know, look at where the church was on this issue. X amount of years ago. Look at where there are, they are today. Give them the benefit of the doubt. You know, it's like Martin Luther King. Yeah, Martin Luther King Jr's big phrase, you know, the arc of history, you know, kind of points you towards justice sort of thing. He's kind of like the church moves along at the pace that it moves along. It's a church of free agents. It's a church of people all along, different paths, different temperaments. Just because you're a church leader doesn't make you, you're brilliant, you know, so he was kind of helping me through all stuff that I think a lot of people get hung up on. So I just, I'm just grateful that I had a friend like him. And so then he's the one who said, you know, read Sunstone, read Dialogue. And so, you know, I mean, I'm going to the Arizona State Library and I'm, you know, reading past issues of Dialogue. And I get to that, you know, Duane Jeffrey, Science and Mormonism, you know, it's the Sears savants and evolution, you know, that, that whole issue where he lays out, you know, what is it about the age of the earth and what is it about evolution that we as Latter Day Saints really need to sort of say, this is our firm commitment and how much of it can we go with science? And so I'm reading all those things and I'm kind of having a really good experience with, you know, broad minded Mormons. Even as I, you know, I still had to do the work of, you know, pulling it apart and pulling it back together. They couldn't do the thinking for me. But I sort of saw people that had emerged with, you know, what I considered a respectable faith as well as, you know, a mind and, you know, based in solace theory, solid science, etc. They'd managed to make it work. So I just, they were just, I was as helpful, it was helpful just to have those guys on the horizon for me. And then Eugene England became a person that I read several years before I first went to my first Sunstone symposium. He happened to be the opening speaker and my jaw just dropped. That I like, okay, I now know what spiritual maturity is. I knew it when I recognized it in Randy. I see it with Jean England. Here I am like, like this complete, you know, I mean, that's the kind of maturity I want to gain for myself. And they sort of just became, you know, attractors, you know, planets that kept me in orbit around Mormonism while I figured out all these different things for myself.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] And just so that Our listeners can relate. So you did have, you know, moments of inactivity or discouragement or frustration. Like, you know, how many years were you not active in the church or really doubtful about your position with the church?

Navigating Doubt While Remaining Active

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:43] Okay, right. When we moved from Claremont to Utah while I wrote my dissertation. So I finished all my coursework and passed my exams at Claremont, and then we moved to Utah thinking, who knows where life's going to take us after this? Let's move back for a couple years where my wife can be near her family and friends. And during that later part of my dissertation writing, I began a period of inactivity that probably, I mean, I never fully went inactive. I mean, they all knew who I was at church because I'd show up often enough that not a lot of people would think of it. But most days I was heading over to the Unitarian Church because there was just. It was what church became for me during this period. I'm sure that a lot of listeners can relate is like, everything I'd hear, oh, that's just simplistic. Oh, you're just relying on emotion. You are. You know, how can you testify to that as true when I know the facts don't support that? That is absolutely not what happened in church history, you know, that you're hanging your hat on. And so church just became this, like, this game of, like, oh, how can you. How can you guys not know this other stuff? Because it took me a long time to realize, okay, guess what? That was me. Just how many years ago that was me before grad school, that was me before these experiences and these opportunities to focus full time on these questions were, how can I, you know, I mean, much later, I became very forgiving of people who haven't had my. My experience. You know, they're on their spiritual journey where they are. They are most likely way ahead of me on, you know, being outwardly focused towards loving their neighbors, you know, towards, you know, serving in the community, whatever it is. You know, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're way ahead of me in other areas, even though I may have a little bit clearer sense of church history or, you know, or the facts of the matter. But anyway, so I was inactive for a while, and the Unitarian Church became a really good thing. I went, you know, Tom Goldsmith was the pastor there at the Unitarian near the University of Utah, and I would go, and it was just so refreshing to be with people who were united in a community and they were talking about good things and, you know, the sermons were Always insightful. And, you know, I remember getting introduced to Barbara Kingsolver, the novelist and spiritual. Spiritual writer and stuff through those things. And so I was growing spirits in that way. But it was so neat. I remember one day just thinking, you know, these people, they're putting on some big party and they're, you know, they're, you know, I can't remember their Christmas thing or whatever it was. And you could tell that a lot of work was going into it, and they had a lot of enthusiasm. They did this great presentation during the service of, you know, why everybody should get up excited and come to it. And I remember just thinking, you know, not one single person there is doing this because they think. Think that somehow their salvation is tied to it. You know, they're not. They're not feeling guilt. Oh, if I don't serve in my calling, you know, I'm not going to do it. And so it's just so refreshing to have people that united for good purposes and good values without any sense of guilt or something attached to it. They did it because they wanted to. So I did that for quite a while. Tom Rogers, do you know who he is?

John Dehlin [00:27:59] Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:00] He's a, you know, BYU professor and we're retired now, and a playwright and whatnot. Anyway, he became the Sunday school teacher in my Bountiful ward. We were in the same ward. And so somehow or other I'd heard of Tom, you know, through Sunstone and whatnot, I started going. I really became, you know, I became like a fan of his Sunday school classes. And he and I became friends, and I found a friend to talk to at church. And then there was another guy who I won't name his name because he's still working at the church in the historical department. We found each other and became friends. And so it's sort of, for me, the, you know, the heading back to Mormonism at that time was because of Tom Rogers and this other friend. And now I had somebody to talk to who I knew wasn't, you know, thinking terribly of me because I'm not 100% or, you know, I'm not a TBM anymore.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] Right, right. So.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:54] So that was one period. And then when we moved out to Bountiful, I mean, we moved from Bountiful out to Tooele, where I live now. We're in our second home here. So this is my previous word. I was really struggling. I can't remember exactly why I, you know, I would come to church, but I was really keeping it at a distance. I Guess I was still in that mode of picking apart everything I was hearing. And I remember coming home from church a lot and, you know, just my poor son, you know, he's 10, 11, 12 years old at this time and he's, you know, he's just hearing me and I don't have no clue what, what he would have thought of, you know, just kind of lend it all out. So church wasn't a happy time for me, but I continued to keep going and keep going and for whatever reason, like I've already told you, I wasn't not sure anything about priesthood and if that's, you know, required that you receive priesthood from somebody else and you pass along. But I did want to ordain him a deacon and I told this story on the, on the podcast about stages of faith. But we had a bishop, good man, you know, I can't to this day fault him for, you know, trying to be a leader of integrity or whatnot. But we ended up with, he came over to offer me a calling and it was right after my wife had sort of told me that she had had a conversation with him and he had started asking about me and wanting to get to, you know, know more about me and stuff. And she had told him that I was struggling or whatnot. And so then he shows up to offer me this calling and I kind of say, well, that sounds fun. I wouldn't mind being, I can't remember, I think it was teaching the 10 year olds or something. But I kind of thought, I'm really surprised that you'd offer me a calling after what my wife told you. He goes, oh, what did she tell me? You know. And so I start laying out all my struggles and I just, oh God, John. It was like, and I don't believe in this. And no, I don't believe in this. And I'm not sure that there's a devil, you know, and I'm not sure that there's a God. And I have no clue about the atonement of Christ and why that would work. And it just makes no sense to me. And I don't even know why temple work. It makes absolutely no sense that God would require, you know, people to be united in a priesthood, you know, chain of, you know, you know, welding links and all that stuff. And for whatever reason, I mean, this guy sits there for 45 minutes and all he hears is about what I, I don't believe. And so his jaw is kind of dropping and he goes, well, he goes, let me rethink of you know, extending this calling to you, and I'll get back with you. And he never, you know, came back with the calling. And that was fine with me. And I, you know, I just continued on with however it was. Well, then my son turns 12, and the bishop is shocked when I want to ordain him. And he goes, you're kidding me. And I go, yeah. And I. So I start telling him all the positive reasons that I want to, not that, you know, and to me, they were good reasons. And I didn't. I wouldn't have felt like a hypocrite doing it, because I'm, you know, I really saw it more in that anthropological. You know, this is a good thing to have priesthood, to, you know, to see priesthood as a. As a reason to serve other people. And, you know, I know that I'd feel close to you. You know, it'd be a nice thing for us to have that connection of me putting my hands on your head and saying good things and blessing with this and conferring a priesthood, even if it is, you know, just permission for you to want to grow and serve people in this way. So anyway, I kind of told him all that, and he goes, well, let me think about it and pray about it. And then a few days later, he. Well, in fact, it's the morning of. He calls and he says, dan, he goes, I just don't feel good about having you ordain your son. And then the one reason he gave, he says, I just don't know that anybody who doesn't believe that Jesus is the Christ or doesn't know that Jesus is the Christ should be able to do it. So to me, that's a little bit bizarre that that was the thing he picked up on out of all that, but he decided not to. And. And it was. It was weird. I was pissed. My wife was pissed. You know, our son was real excited. And if you knew our son, he's like the. He's like the life of the neighborhood. He's the most outgoing kid, and all the dads and in the neighborhood love him because he wants to talk hunting and fishing with them. And, you know, he's like. He's just, like, really connected with everybody. And I didn't want to disappoint him and not have him do it. So I didn't know what I was going to do that whole meeting, you know, prior to ordaining it or, you know, going in and sitting on his ordination. And so finally it does come and. And it was. It was kind of neat. Because there were. I don't know who he'd invited, but there were seven or eight of, you know, the guys in the ward, good guys who all. Who all got up there and did the. You know, performed the ordinance with them while I sat with my wife on the chair on the outside. And they finish and they're shaking everybody's hand at the end of the whole thing, and I stand up and it just like, whatever. Something came over me that said, you know, I want everybody to know here that I very much wanted to ordain my son. Bishop and I disagree on whether, you know, it was right for me to ordain him today. But I want you to know it wasn't. It's not because of any worthiness issue. It's just that my view of the Gospel and the church and priesthood and everything is very complicated right now. But I'm in the middle of a wrestle with it. I said, I know that you only wrestle with things you care about, and I love my son and I am so proud of him. And I appreciate all you guys that are here in this room today, the good examples you are, the way you've taken him under your wing, et cetera. And, you know, for whatever reason, those three or four minutes that I spoke were just. They just flowed out of me. And I. And I felt like, you know, something good came out of this day. I was able to say things from my heart that. That were good. And I'm sure everybody who didn't know what the heck this crazy guy was going to say, you know, when he's left out the ordinance, they were all relieved that it was positive in that way. And so anyway, that was my ordination with my son, and it took a couple more years. I'm sure I was inactive off and on again, you know, for those months, just because it was just too painful to go to church. Not because of this event with my son, but just again, I wasn't happier coming home because I was just, you know, wrestling with what I'd heard and deconstructing it all. So. So there were a couple periods where I really wasn't going. So. But again, I somehow or other found the groove again and found reasons to go. I don't know if they called me to a calling that I accepted and then started to feel accepted by members of the ward. Even if I'm unorthodox in this way or the other way, they valued what I could bring. And who knows? The next thing I know, I've been pretty active ever since.

John Dehlin [00:36:06] All right. Dan, so. So you've kind of brought. Brought us up to the present in terms of coming back to activity again. And I kind of would like to take some time to really have you articulate your testimony from top to bottom. Because to be honest, I don't know many people who have been able to do what you do. There's a lot of people who go through sort of a phase where they maybe think they can make the stale DS kind of approach work, and it may even work for a time, but a lot of the people that I work with end up not being able to make it work, work. I would say there's probably a lot of people that I don't know who are making it work just fine with a nuanced stage five like faith. But for the people I know, it seems relatively few and far between. Definitely not sort of with the sense of peace and satisfaction in the church. So I'd like to take some time just sort of discussing how you've pieced your testimony back together and how you look upon some of the main central

John Dehlin [00:37:23] components of a traditional testimony.

John Dehlin [00:37:25] So let's begin. You alluded to this in the atheist podcast, but tell us what God is and isn't for you.

What Dan Actually Believes About God

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:38] Let's start at the top. I don't know that there's a God. If there is a God, I'm not sure it's a personal being. But there's a piece of Mormonism that, you know, at least is compelling enough for me that I. That I definitely hold open the strong possibility that there is a God. And that. And that piece from Mormonism is, again, what I think I've alluded to a little bit earlier, that whatever, you know, God is, or however God works within the universe, it isn't a universe that God created. It has, you know, a character all of its own that God has to work with, you know, in order to do any creating and, you know, bringing. Bringing something into being. And so, you know, this whole idea of. From the King Follett discourse of, you know, God finding himself in the midst of spirits and glory saw fit to institute laws by which others could, you know, come up and sort of have the experience. I can't remember how the rest of that phrase goes, but have. Have the experience of becoming gods themselves is sort of the gist of it. That is kind of the way that says to me that I. Whatever the universe is, if it's. If it has a way of, if somebody. It makes sense that somebody could align themselves with the powers of the universe of the Potentialities and the energies of the universe in such a way that they could sort of control them. Does that make any sense there? So God. So. So one of the big, you know, dividing lines in religion is personal God or impersonal force. So you either have, you know, beings with personality and whatnot, or you have something like the dao or Dharma or the sort of this idea that there's this impersonal force that sort of, you know, organizes the world and holds it together. Well, the thing about Mormons is it kind of can address both. It says, yeah, the real stuff of the universe is this way of, you know, there's this force that sort of holds it together or this. There's this uniting principle or something. But a being could step into a position to where they can sort of understand those and then therefore be somewhat of a creator and, you know, a mover and a shaker within that universe. Yeah, so, like, godhood is an achieved state, the same way that Buddhahood, you know, at a certain point where you might have an enlightenment experience, you might receive the same sort of insight as the Buddha. You know, within Mormonism, it's called becoming a partaker of the divine nature. You know, get yourself in such a way that your character has aligned itself with, you know, love, compassion, you know, no coercion, only persuasion, only gentleness and meekness and calling and, you know, charity never faileth and all that kind of stuff. You know, once you've achieved sort of that character trait, I'm okay calling you a God. You know what I mean? Does that make any sense to you?

John Dehlin [00:41:02] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:03] So. So again, I don't know that there's a God, but I'm open to it. And I don't know. I really regret doing my little percentages at the end of, you know, the. The conversation with Tyson and Randy. But, you know, I. I just think there's enough there that I certainly am not going to close my door on that.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] And again, but how do you. So how do you be a Mormon or an active Mormon and have, you know, uncertainty about the existence of God at a level you're willing to articulate? Most Mormons are going to say, I know that God lives, you know, and I know that he loves me. And it's a total. I've never heard someone, you know, really stand up in their testimony and say, there might be a God. I'm open to the idea. And yet they're still in full fellowship, teaching and participating. So how. How do you jive that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:02] Well, I can't say that I. That I articulate it in my testimonies that I've given over the years. You know, there's certain rituals and formulations, and I can't remember somebody posted on just the Mormon podcast community this cool thing from Terrell Givens that says, I know when I'm going to testimony meeting, I'm stepping into a certain rhetorical space, you know, that kind of is different than everyday conversation or how I might, you know, view my academic life and stuff. So I recognize that. And, you know, I don't do that in those settings that call for something else. But on the other hand, I won't ever testify that I know that God lives. My testimonies have all been centered on the experience of love or honoring the goodness that I find within the church and the people who serve. It'll be centered on these profound experiences that I've had. Not that I'm telling the experiences, but I'll testify to the fact that I know that I'm an eternal being, or I believe that I'm an eternal being and that I'm grateful for the gospel, for leading me to step into these kinds of experiences that I'm testifying about. So, again, the stuff that I'm sharing with you here, I probably wouldn't share even in the priesthood lessons I teach, you know?

John Dehlin [00:43:26] Right, right. Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:27] Well, that's my current calling.

John Dehlin [00:43:28] I'm not as worried about what you say to people. I'm. I'm more. I'm more thinking about how in your own mind, you feel like you're legitimate or like you're like the others. How you don't either dismiss other people's claims or be frustrated by them or feel inadequacies by your lack of knowledge.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:01] Okay, the last question, the last part of that inadequate is about lack of knowledge. If I don't address that, make sure we come back to that. But let me. Let me share an experience with you. I actually, it was just weird that I wrote about it in Sunstone in the Touchstone section for. For the most recent issue. Again, I don't know when this will be released, so maybe the issue before, but I had this really cool experience at that ward, the same word that I, you know, wasn't allowed to ordain my son and just follow up there. And I, you know, the next bishop had no problem with me ordaining him a teacher and a priest. So we're in that ward for six or eight years or whatever, and I didn't have any other experiences like that. But there was a moment And I know it was exactly four years ago now, about four and a half years ago, because we were. We're on the Old Testament. So the last time the cycle for the Old Testament came around must have been early in that year, because the class started to discuss the Abrahamic Covenant. And I had one of those moments where you kind of step out of time in space. And I just sort of. I looked at what was happening, and it was the. It was the most amazing thing if, you know, it's hard to believe, but there was a very animated discussion going on in this Sunday school class about the Abrahamic Covenant and how much everybody there was just telling their story about why they feel blessed to be part of this lineage and, you know, this connection to Abraham. And I'm thinking, and I'm stepping back and I'm going, oh, my living heck, how long has it been? I even considered the reality of something like the Abrahamic Covenant, or let alone that it could be a powerful force in people's lives. And, you know, I'm just, like, saying, I am not like these people. You know, look at them talking, you know, inside this story. And it wasn't a story that I, you know, had stepped into really, in that sort of way for a long, long time. So I had to kind of go, what is going on here? And I started to say, well, I bet every blessing that they're talking about coming from the Abrahamic Covenant, there's a naturalistic explanation. You know, somehow they're tying it to that. But it's really because, you know, they lived according to some, you know, ethical principle or, you know, there was more naturalistic reasons for them having the blessings. But I kind of said to myself, what harm does it do that they have tied it to this overarching, sacred narrative? And I just. For whatever reason, I felt like this longing to be able to step inside the story again. And from that moment on, I began to more deliberately see what it looked like from the inside once more. Does that make any sense to you?

John Dehlin [00:46:40] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:46:41] You know, started thinking inside the box. I was very. But what was interesting is I felt completely authentic after a while, thinking inside the story to where I'll go ahead and you'd never know if I'm teaching a Book of Mormon class, that I really don't know if these are real people. You know, I'll testify to the truths and the, you know, spiritual insights or whatnot that I find that there. But you won't. You won't hear me saying, I know the Book of Mormon's historical, you know, ever you kind of thing. But they would never know that. So. So somehow or other beginning then, I was able to sort of see myself as now authentic, both within the story and without the story. And it reminded me of this really funny moment years earlier when I went to the American Academy of Religion conference. These conferences always start on a Thursday. They run Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And so I just happened to be, you know, attending a session on a Sunday morning, and it was some scholarly session, and it just happened to be a black fellow, you know, who sort of had the cadence of, you know, a Southern Baptist or whatever, you know, just sort of somebody from the South. But he's an academic, and he's doing this. This talk there. And, you know, he left his notes, and he began to really get very, very animated as he talks. And all of a sudden, he catches himself after this for about four or five minutes of this list, he goes, oh, oh, y' all have to excuse me. I didn't have a chance to go preach today. You know, in other words, you know, my real job is as a pastor, as a preacher. I'm here at an academic conference, and I'm doing academic work, but I'm kind of slipping into my preacher voice here. And I. And he just recognized it. We all laughed and stuff like that. But to me, that sort of, you know, it kind of displays this concept or this illustrates this concept of, you know, here, this guy was clearly able to do good academic stuff that would pass the muster of, you know, of a society of scholars. And yet, you know, he very comfortably would also be happy to preach, you know, salvation or whatever it would be in his thing. And I'm sure that he. What. He doesn't feel that much tension between the two worlds because they are two different worlds. Like the. The Terrell Givens quote that somebody posted on the community site. There are different rhetorical spaces, and somehow or other. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, John, that I can. I just somehow feel comfortable inside the myth because the myths have beautiful truths to them. They've got some. Some stuff that steers you in the wrong direction. And I'm the first one. You know, if somebody's telling the story in a certain way that makes God out to be sound like he's a judgmental jerk. You know, I try to work in a way within the story to say, you know, there are two ways to see that. There is. There is a way to see God as, you know, withholding blessings from people and as Punishment and stuff. And there's also within the story, a way of seeing that, you know, you're not naturally going to get blessed unless you, you know, do this or that or the other. You know what I mean? So I can kind of correct things within the myth when I see them going wrong. But I'm comfortable in the story. And then when I'm talking with my friends who are outside the story, or when I'm doing purely academic work or something like that, I feel at home there, too.

John Dehlin [00:50:05] So you're characterizing sort of the church doctrine and theology as a story. And I don't want to mischaracterize it, but what that invokes for me is the sense that it's fiction, that it's probably not real, but that you're willing to sort of play along in a fiction because you feel good and you can do good, and you have felt positive things as a result. But that's a very different. Again, that's a very different mindset. You know, Gordon B. Hinckley, a lot of people really have fastened on to his statements that it's either true or false, that it's either exactly what it claims to be be or the biggest fraud. And either Joseph saw God and Jesus or he didn't. Either he saw an angel or he didn't. Either there were plates or there weren't. And the church makes the claim to be true and God's one and only true church. And that's a totally different proposition than just saying, come be a part of our narrative. Come be a part of our story. And so you're engaging on a totally different frequency than the frequency that Mormonism engages you to participate in and validates. How do you get comfortable with that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:51:36] Boy, good questions, John. I don't think that I'm saying that it's just a story, that it's just a, you know, a fiction that I'm going along with. I don't know if it's because of, you know, in fact, I wrote my master's thesis on theories of ritual empowerment. In other words, why is it that when you, you know, participate in a ritual, many people claim that they, you know, feel more oriented and organized and spiritual, and they feel empowered after doing it. And so, of course you get it. In order to wrestle with that, you get into the whole, what is a myth and what is mythic truth versus literal truth? All that stuff. And so there's absolutely no sense that I really want to convey that. I think that the Mormon sacred narrative is just a fiction okay.

Finding Spiritual Meaning in the Mormon Narrative

John Dehlin [00:52:26] In other words, there's something. There's something spiritual behind it. You don't know what, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:52:31] Yeah. I mean, I think that Joseph Smith had an experience. I don't know exactly what it is. Obviously, you know, he was still trying to figure it out because he came up with lots of different tellings, or at least, you know, we have recordings of different things where he would emphasize this or that or the other thing. But I think we do see a turning point in his life where he, you know, he shifts away, if you want to, you know, go to rough stone rolling or whatever from money digging and treasure seeking and sort of using what I think are some sort of a genuine. I don't know. With Joseph Smith, I sort of see it as more as that ability to dissociate from, oh, you know, I don't know, to sort of step into a spiritual realm and sort of, you know, feel oriented in a universe where you maybe receive truth more archetypally or, you know, sort of in these. In these vaguer, you know, sensibilities, you sort of feel truth rather than. It comes through your mind linearly. So I see Joseph Smith as somebody who really, genuinely had a gift for stepping into those realms and coming up with good hunches and good sensibilities of what the universe might really be like. But on the other hand, you know, once he comes out with the hunch, he starts putting it in the language of the religions around him. He starts, you know, creating more of a definite narrative that then becomes, you know, it's like, have you ever heard this? The story of, like, here's a bunch of people who would have been in the same battle with each other, so some big skirmish in a war, and every one of them is processing that experience. Processing, processing, processing, processing. And there's hundreds and hundreds of different experiences that they may be having. So then all of a sudden, somebody comes along and writes the official history of that battle. And guess what starts happening? All of a sudden, their stories and the way they tell their experiences begin to fit within that narrative. You know, sort of the river is created and, you know, and your story sort of gets within the current of the stream and all that. And so the sacred narrative, you know, gets formed within Mormonism, and it sort of begins a life of its own. And it has a touchstone, certainly in events that happen. But you lose the freshness and the rawness and the confusingness of this rich spiritual experience you've had. And all of a sudden you begin to tell it in a certain way. Or you begin to. You start to remember it in a way, according to that story. So when I'm talking about the sacred narrative, it's this thing that's developed in Mormonism that unites us, you know, and it gives us a shorthand to talk with each other. And it, you know, remember that one Star Trek episode, the Next Generation, where, you know, Picard gets on this planet and he has to communicate with this group of people, and all their languages and stuff are basically, you know, stories from their mythic history, you know, so and so and so and so Aegard or whatever it was, you know, in other words, our sacred story becomes, you know, this sort of common language that unites us all. And I can't really say that that's a bad thing. I'm mad when somebody who wants to invest in church history says, well, I found this, and I found this, and I found this. And I think this story is a lot more complicated than that. I'd be really mad for somebody to come along and shut that person down. But on the other hand, I don't necessarily think that that person's complications of this really belong in Sunday school.

John Dehlin [00:56:13] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:56:14] They don't really belong across the pulpit. So as long as the tradition allows for conversation like the type that Sunstone, you know, tries to host and that, you know, different conferences and Mormon stories, podcast, and all these different things of doing, of saying, here's the sacred narrative, here's what's really happening. Don't shut down somebody who's. Who's asking these questions or seeing it in a more complicated way. But, you know, at the end of. At the end of the day, I don't have that big a problem with President Hinckley, you know, preaching to the center and rallying the base by saying, it's either this or it's either that. I mean, I know it's not either this or it's either that. And I somehow grew into that. I think I grew into it in a mature. You know, I've taken a mature spiritual approach to that. I understand that as an organizational head, you know, you shore up the center a lot more than you make the exceptions for the people on the margins. And, you know, to me, the whole point is just keep letting things like this discussion and this podcast and other podcasts and Sunstone symposiums and in the pages of the different magazines and all the different blogs, let this rest of it flourish. And as long as that's happening, I really don't have a whole lot of problems with Mormonism and official what the Church Guys do

John Dehlin [00:57:41] thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and Ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pie Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixon.com that's sky with an E S K Y E pixton.com thank you.

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 237

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John Dehlin [00:00:20] So I'm going to try and ask this question one more time. Or maybe in a different way, I don't know.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:25] But I've been avoiding you. Huh?

John Dehlin [00:00:28] No, I mean, I haven't tried to avoid anything. No, no, no, I, I know, and I, I, I think there's going to be people who really resonate with what you're saying. So I don't mean any of this with disrespect or even to directly challenge you. But, but the, the Mormonism that I feel like I, the, the, the frequency that I pick up, the, you know, the, the reality that is how people articulate and encourage kind of a worldview is, you know, God exists as an anthropomorphic being with arms and legs. Jesus is his only begotten son who came to the earth and died and was resurrected for our sins. Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus got the priesthood started. The one and only true church. And all the other churches, you know, all the other ordinances are illegitimate, blah, blah, blah. You know, Thomas S. Monson speaks with God today. It's not just this sort of loose. There's some energy, there's some goodness, there's some spirituality. I'm part of a narrative. All the other narratives are also legitimate. It's a very hard, linear, clear cut, true, false factual. This is what happened, this is what you're to believe. And the frequency that you're running at just doesn't feel like Mormonism to me. It feels, but no, I don't mean it to condemn it or to make it delegitimate because it's real and I want to be respectful of it and I want people to feel like that's an option for them. What I'm saying is it doesn't feel like the Mormonism that I've been raised to believe in. It doesn't feel like anything that a bishop or stake president or any general authority would endorse. They would call it inadequate or weakness or feeble or New Agey. You know, it just doesn't feel like the Mormonism that I think the church encourages. So it's almost like you set up shop in a place that's really not home, but you feel good. So you're going to redefine your vocabulary and your worldview so that you feel good within there. But it's not really what everybody else is thinking and doing. But I don't Mean that accusatory. I just, that I'm just trying to give you my impression of how it feels.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:09] Yeah, I get it. I don't know where to start. There's like three different things that sort of occur to me. Let's just start with Fowler. Well, maybe, maybe not. Let me just start a little bit with my experience in grad school. One of the things that, you know, when you study world religions, you, you sort of study the full arc of them. You can see that, that a lot of them, you know, they had this certain beginning and you see that they developed in this way and whatever original impulse that drove, you know, that leader, you know, to attract people to him, to say, you know, wow, you, you've got something, you've got an insight here. You've had an experience that I want to have myself. And so the, the leader early on says, you know, okay, you want to have the experience I've had, here's what you do. I'm, I'm inviting you to have this experience. And religion sort of begins there, but then it gets all these man made layers, you know, put aside it. And then as you're studying it too, you also see that there's usually an esoteric, you know, part of that religion. There's usually a fundamentalist wing of that religion. You'll see that there's the real scholarly groups, you know, like, let's say to Catholicism, there's the Society of Jesuits for those who were temperamentally oriented, you know, towards, you know, study and scholarship and all that stuff. And then you've got, you know, your contemplative traditions, you've got the nuns and the monks and all that stuff. And so when you study religions as a whole, you know, I began to say so, well, is it a Jesuit, not still a Catholic? And of course the Catholics recognize they are. And so somehow that their picture of what their religion is embraces all these as legitimate paths that sort of, you know, different people with different temperaments are going to gravitate towards, you know, these pieces of that religion. So somehow or other, because I'd seen this in so many other religions, I think I began to see and again with the help of my friend Randy Paul, he was the guy that really just like, come off the ledge, Dan. Come off the ledge and think of it, your religion is just so stupid and so, you know, only one way of viewing things. You know, see the richness. You know, you're granting, you're granting richness to Buddhism far beyond, you know, the people that practice Buddhism at The level of, you know, prayer wheels and flags that represent prayers flying through the breeze. You know, why won't you give Mormonism the same credit that you give to other religions? And so somehow or other when you say it isn't really Mormonism, you're right. I'm not in the, I'm not in the, you know, the sort of the, the rhetorical space or the experiential space with my faith and my comfort within Mormonism that probably you're right, the average person in the pew is. But I will claim that I'm very much in the Mormon mode. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm far more into the esoteric, you know, deeper doctrines. The invitation that Joseph Smith, you know, you know, conveyed of God inviting you to, you know, become like me. You know, those kinds of things. You know, that's within Mormonism. But you're right, that's not, that's not pulpit Mormonism today. So that's one thing. You know, just having that perspective on other religions helped me grant my religion the ability to have these rich elements as well as these really crappy, low level, bad religion, you know, kind of, kind of man made things that, that can make you crazy. So that's one thing. Then let me bring in the Fowler stuff.

Stages of Faith and the Path of Staying

John Dehlin [00:06:45] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:46] He has got a chapter. I believe it's the last chapter in the book. I know the chapter is called Faith in the World Today or something. And in it he develops. He didn't invent this term, but he calls it the modal developmental level of a tradition. So he basically says that all churches, all religions, center at about the level of stage three, which is the conformist level. This is the level in which

John Dehlin [00:07:22] you're

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:23] still swimming in the water. You haven't stepped out and really examined it. You know, you have authority figures, you had stories that are meaningful. You've got a sense of purpose. You know, you trust your leaders, you trust your parents. It was good enough for them, you know, you know, so the modal level is the level at which every religion pulls you up to and says, this is what it, you know, you know, this. It's pretty much. Tom Kimball, I think, talked about it a little bit in our podcast on Stages of Faith. It's like you get a free pass up to this level because the whole center of gravity of the religion is at that level. Well, that's stage three, and there's six stages of Fowler. So what happens is some people step into stage four, which is that whole, wow, maybe I need to examine this for myself, I can see now that these were stories that I grew up with and I drew meaning from. But maybe they're not 100% factual, or maybe there's harmful elements within these stories that I should de. Emphasize because that gives a really ugly picture of what God's like or what, you know, human beings are like or what's the possibilities of the world are. And so you begin to step in this stage four of pulling it apart and making, you know, making those decisions for yourself of what you really, really want. Well, guess what? Somebody in stage three is going to look at somebody who's making those steps, and what are they going to say? Ooh, you're on a dangerous path there, young man. You know, last week I heard you testifying that Jesus was the Christ, and this week you're saying you're not so sure anymore. You know, it looks to me like you're losing your way. You know, this person is just, you know, they're on it. They're actually on a. On a path towards, you know, figuring something out for themselves. But the people who are in the center are going to try to pull you back towards the center because that's the safer place. And, you know, we don't support spiritual adventurers very well. No religion does. So Mormonism isn't the only one here, right? So, you know, every, you know, every culture, every tradition has the center of gravity. And so like Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher, you know, he talks about, you know, because his whole. His whole philosophy is about, you know, throwing off typical moralities and the things you've inherited from the culture and, you know, being this. This being yourself, being a God yourself. You know, he has that language of being a God. And so he says, beware of the marketplace, because in the marketplace they want to say that all of us are equal, all of us are this. And so if you go off in this way, they're going to say, no, come back. Because you're all, you know, be like us. Be like us. And so he recognizes the same dynamic there. And so that's what I goes on within Mormonism and the center of any religion. I was reminded again this. I talked with Bon Ar Ritchie today. Every religious organization is by nature conservative. It has to perpetuate itself. It has to grow. It needs committed workers. It needs people within it. But what I think Mormonism fails to do is honor that. Guess what? We have truths that are basically telling you, you know, it's. Here's what it is. Some people say, you know, well, I knew I Couldn't rely on my parents testimony anymore. And so I prayed about it, you know, maybe over a course, a couple weeks. And I got a really good feeling. So now I know for myself the church is true. You know, I honor the fact that they've, they've taken that step. But I'll tell you what that is. In no way they have not made it through stage four to where they can begin to reclaim, you know, the goodness or something like that. It's, it's a lot longer path. Fowler usually says it takes minimum of, you know, seven, eight, you know, sometimes 20 years. Sometimes people are in stage four their entire life or something. But it's, it's not like you can just say I now value the mythic level of a religion. You know, you can't just use those words. You can't just say, I value paradox. I recognize the beauty and the importance of, you know, holding up two contrary truths and saying these look like they're opposite, but somehow or other I know they're both profoundly true. You can't just say that. You have to live into it. You know what I mean? And so when.

John Dehlin [00:11:41] What do you mean by live into it?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:43] I think you just have to live

John Dehlin [00:11:44] life as an active member.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:49] Oh, no, I'm not talking about that at all. I think it's just living life. I think most people, as they get older, begin to realize that some of the zeal and some of the easy answers and the black and white things that they saw early on in their life, there's much more shades of gray, certain things. Love becomes more important than truth for a lot of people and whatnot. And so I think the longer you live life, the longer you live with ambiguity, the longer you live with things not resolving around you, because there is no neat and tidy way that things can resolve. You sort of kind of live into it. So when you, I think I offered this critique just really in passing in the Tyson and Randy thing. You talk about the stay LDS path. From what I know about it, you know, it is using the language of Fowler, stage five, but it's like asserting it. This is how you need to think about this, you know, and here's a way, and here's a, here's a methodology and here's, you know, if you think about it this way and you think about this way and you hold paradox and you can find a way to stay LDS and all that's well and good, but that's just, that's just adding labels that, you know, you should somehow really feel the Power of. But I don't know, I think somehow or other you have to just live. You just have to really live with those things. And I mentioned that, you know, the simplicity on the other side of complexity being the. Really the prize, you know, that's the pearl that you're seeking to, you know, to have things start to feel good again. You cannot. You cannot just be in the midst of your complexity and go instantly there. You have to really, really make your way through it. And, you know, I do not want it at all. It's always the difficult thing when you talk about stuff like this. You know, I wrestled for 10, 12 years before I really got to this point of peace. You know, I had good moments, I had bad moments. I still have bad moments. You know, one of my favorite lines ever was Bill Bradshaw in a thing that I published in Sunstone, where he says, you know, here I am. For those who listen to his podcast, Let me see what. What a, you know, powerful, you know, Mormon he is. You know, he says, don't think that I don't still come home and rant and rave, you know, after an. Occasionally an occasional bad talk, you know, at church. But somehow or other, the. I don't know, living in the mythic stuff, living in the, you know, living among the pointers that I think that Joseph Smith, you know, at least articulated well to where they stuck with my soul. That, you know, that this is. That life is meaningful, that somehow or other, you know, character counts, that, you know, that we're trying to, you know, that he's. That we have an invitation to. To have every, you know, every experience that. That is possible for humans to have in a spiritual realm if we'll just put ourselves in a position to have it. All those things, I just feel so encouraged by. By these deeper currents within Mormonism that I can. I don't know, I can just kind of put up with all the black and white thinking and the. The, you know, if you want to say, you know, it's either this or it's that. It happened or it didn't happen. You know, God is this or God is that somehow or other. Those. Those questions just don't. I don't know, they just don't bother me that there's that, because, again, I was there. You know, I was in the center at one time, and I would have been inspired by that, and I would have been motivated to live a better life because I heard President Hinckley at that moment. It doesn't mean that I. I can't still Be inspired to live a better life, you know, now, even though I'm not, you know, at all a believer. And it's either this or that.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] So you're saying that it's experiential, it's not cognitive. It's something that you have to, you know, that you kind of have to live into that it kind of just comes. And, you know, I think. Yeah, I think I understand that. And, you know, that leaves a lot of people kind of waiting, which is fine. I mean, you know, life's a journey. It's not something that's just going to all happen at once. But what about, you know, what about the people who look at the church narrative? They look at the church history, they look at the church doctrine, and to them, it's just not credible. It's just totally not credible. It doesn't pass the muster, the smell test. And so, you know, leaning into it and waiting and hoping that it all works out. How do they even want to get to that place if it. If it. If the data to them scream fraud?

John Dehlin [00:16:52] Hmm.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:53] So name a doctrine, for instance, that you're thinking of that is. Would just be so not credible.

John Dehlin [00:17:01] No. Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:02] And it wouldn't be a diet.

John Dehlin [00:17:03] It wouldn't be a doctrine. It would be, for example, the fact that the Book of Mormon that, you know, there's. There's no you. If you got, you know, 100 reputable archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, you know, you know, geneticists together and said, is there any indication that there's any historical validity to this book? Any of the locations, any of the length, anything. They would pretty much laugh you out of the room. Not that you couldn't find little things that might bolster an apologetic worldview, but taken in whole, there's no one that would take that book seriously. At least the Bible, you know, it's got some ancient records that date back to a couple hundred years, you know, after Christ. At least the cities exist, at least some of those buildings that it talks about exist. None of that can be. Can be traced in the Book of Mormon. So. So the Book of Mormon seems not very credible. The. The. The whole polygamy stuff and the way that thing went down with Joseph Smith, if you really look into that. And then, you know, on the one hand, he died for it, but then he denied it. But then everyone lied about it and kept practicing it. But then they owned up to it. But then they had to stop it because the pressure got too hot. Why would God let that happen? And then it stays in the scriptures, but now, Gordon McHinkley says it's not doctrinal, but it's still, you know, taught as, you know, as, you know, it's in the scriptures and still kind of practice like this doesn't seem credible to a lot of people. And I could just name 5, 10, 20 things where the church seems to be behind the times in history. If anything, the church, for many, is not prophetic. It changes 30 years after the rest of the world gets a clue on things like, you know, race and civil rights and other things that you think would be really important to God. And so, yeah, and so, you know, there's a lot of people that just say there's not enough of a credible foundation for me to even want to lean into it, to feel good about it later. What, you know, and the fact that it's true or not really does matter, because if it screams fraud, I don't want to lean into fraud. I want to get away from fraud. And that's how a lot of people are feeling. And so they might not even want to give your utterances a chance, although I know people who do what you're doing and they have a wonderful life and they're enriched by their engagement with Mormonism. So I'm not invalidating your point of view view. I'm asking you to make a case for the person who doesn't find the church at all credible and in fact, likely fraudulent. How do you persuade them to give the Church a chance to lean into it?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:03] Yeah, I don't know that I am. I know for. Well, let's say this. I know for a fact that I don't believe that anyone's salvation, you know, whether you're going to have a good next life or a bad next life, if you believe in the next life at all. I don't believe that anything related to the church is, you know, if I believed this, if I accepted this idea, if I didn't believe that Joseph Smith was inspired to, you know, reinstitute polygamy, I don't think any of that will ever matter at any kind of salvation. You know, level the church. If you want to stay in it, stay in it, because it gives you opportunities to grow. It is home. It's, you know, it's your. Your spiritual home. It's your family tradition. It's the set of stories that you pass along to your children that tell you that this is. That there is a God, that God cares about us here, you know, that conveys values and whatnot. Stay for those reasons. Don't stay because you. You feel like if you step out of it, you, you know, there's some salvation at stake.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] So.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:35] So does that make sense to you? Let me just clear that off off the way. Okay, so. So I. I have, you know, if there's a God. If there's a God, I really don't think God's a jerk. And if in the integrity of your experience, you say, man, that's just too far out there for me, there's no punishment for that. Here's where I see some dangers of making hasty decisions. If you decide to leave Mormonism, remember that you're. And unless you step right into some other religious tradition or something like that, I think there, I mean, it takes. I don't know what it is, is who am I going to test my patience with, who am I going to be forced to have to love, who am I going to be forced to, you know, or invited quite as regularly and as vigorously to serve when I am just tired and not wanting to. You know. In other words, there are a lot of opportunities for growth that I think come within it, within the church. You know, Gene England's classic essay, why the Church is As True as the Gospel. It has a lot of sway with me, and so I'm not making a compelling argument. This has nothing to do with doctrines or whatnot. But for him, you know, the fact that the church assigns you to be in a geographical ward and makes you interact with people that you would not want to choose to have to love and get along with or something like that, that says a lot for the church. So there's that angle of, you know, I hate to see somebody. Mormonism doesn't work for me. It doesn't pass the smell test. Its doctrine seems silly. It's on the wrong side of Prop 8, all those reasons for leaving it and stuff like that, you know, yes, I'm 100% with you. There's. There's a lot of things about Mormonism that bug me, but I am. I don't know, I'm grounded by the experiences I've had within Mormonism. I'm grounded by the ideas that intrigue me. I've put the invitations to the test. You know, there was a discussion on the podcast community. I guess it was after the Tyson and Randy thing where so many people were equating spiritual experiences with emotional experiences. And it just completely, 100%. I just go, oh, I feel so sad that. I don't know. I've had these experiences, John, that are so profound. That doesn't mean that Mormonism is true. But I know that there's. I know that I'm bigger than my body. I know I'm bigger than the chemistry. I know that I'm bigger than my DNA. And somehow or other, Mormonism has invited me to. To fully explore the richness and the depth and the breadth of who I am as a. You know, possibilities for me. And it's never failed me when I've really put it to the test to, you know, to help me feel oriented in life. Oh, so I have completely lost my train of thought here. I don't know where I'm really going in here. So when you say, why would somebody want to lean into Mormonism? I don't know. Don't lean into Mormonism, but lean into experiences that first of all match your own sensibility. Like, for instance, if you were to. This is maybe something. If we do a podcast where Randy and Tyson and I and listeners can. Can talk about things, you know, I think we're free, you know, determine there's determinism. And you know what, John? I want to back out of this. So I. Anyway, let's. Where did I get. Where did I go wrong? Let's. You don't have to cut this. The listeners can hear me saying this, but where do you want. Where do you want to reorient me here? Because I don't really want to get into philosophical or scientific debates.

John Dehlin [00:25:44] No, it's fine. So.

Why Stay in Mormonism Despite Unbelief

John Dehlin [00:25:45] So.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] So I. I don't want to do an injustice by summarizing your position, but. And I just want, you know, it resonates with me. I love the church. I love going to church. I love the people at church. I love the doctrines when I was able to believe them. I love General Conference, except for the times where things are taught that don't involve love, but whenever the church sticks to the message of love and be a good father and a good husband and take care of your neighbor and do what's right and have faith and all that stuff still to this day completely resonates with me. So I'm not denying or invalidating your appeal. If I had to summarize it, you're basically saying, this is your spiritual home. These are your roots. Bloom where you're planted. You know, drill deep and focus on the goodness, not the truthfulness. In fact, ignore, if you need to, the claims about truthfulness and exclusivity. Even ignore the factual basis of the foundations if you need to. Just focus on the fact that it'll give you chances to serve, help you love your neighbor, you'll feel spiritually enriched and that somehow you can plug into the divine through the church as a conduit.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:21] Yeah. Or through the invitations that at least are in our scriptures and some of Joseph's deeper teachings. Yeah. There was one thing you kind of said early on that I didn't quite. That didn't feel right as a summary. And I'm trying to remember exactly what it was. I think it had to do with.

John Dehlin [00:27:43] If you feel unworthy compared to other people.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:46] Oh, no. God. What was it? All right, well, let me just riff for a second here on. This is too late at night after a long day. There. There is no sense. Okay. Yeah. Bloom, where you planted.

John Dehlin [00:28:12] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:12] That's where I wanted, you know, Bloom, where you planted. This is your spiritual home and stuff. All that is valid, too. But what I wanted to add there was for me, and if you. If you know my personality. And again, this may just not resonate with anybody else here, but I studied philosophy. I am interested in truth and having it presented as robustly and as fully as possible. And I think Joseph Smith had some key insights to the nature of the universe. And so for me, I'm not just here because it's my spiritual home or something like that, but partly the reason I am excited when I have opportunities to share something in a class lesson, whether sitting there from the seat or when I'm teaching or over the pulpit. And part of the reason I'm excited about Sunstone is there's these cool insights there that I want to be a champion for, that I think the world is better off if somebody picks up this piece of truth and presents it as robustly and as fully as possible, because that's a way of honoring that in the world. So my view of other religions, for instance, is that every one of them is centered around something that's absolutely true, something that is full and. Or that they can. That they can do better than everybody else. They can, you know, they focus on this insight or something better than anybody else. And guess what? I can't be both a Mormon focusing on the profound truths that I think are, you know, housed here and be a Buddhist at the same time. I just can't do both. So I'm grateful that I feel called to expand on these truths here, and I am grateful that the Buddhists over there are expanding on theirs. And somehow I feel like we're all enriched because truth is getting its most robust chance to prove itself. And then when I am in dialogue with them and they are in dialogue with Me, we see things in each other's traditions, we compare ourselves with each other and because of that comparative process, we both grow, you know, to appreciate the wider variety of the beauty of the world and the truths that it holds. And you know, somehow our own perspectives on our own truths grow too. So anyway, that's for me. So to me, it's not just spiritual home chance to serve at other. You know, somehow the Mormonism for me is a far more dynamic and compelling story and set of truth claims than that.

John Dehlin [00:30:58] Yeah, yeah. So the church has some unique doctrines and theology that are uplifting and transformative and maybe even earth shatteringly innovative and inspiring. Right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:11] Yeah. And they get at certain philosophical conundrums and whatnot that a lot of other starting points don't. So yeah, I'm excited about it for all those reasons. But on the other hand, you're right, there's a bunch of crap in there. You know, here's the sandbox and I'm the one concentrating on the sand. And yet I absolutely could turn my focus and find all the cat crap. Right. You know, so it's like, what are you looking for? And somehow or other I just, you know, in those periods where I was lost and when I was sometimes, you know, inactive and stuff like that, you know, I turned. I was only seeing the cat crap. I was only seeing those little hidden, hidden things in there that just smelled. You talked about the smell test. We'll go ahead and take our analogy right there, there's pettiness, there's smallness, there's black and white thinking, there's, you know, views of sin and, and you know, God who is, you know, uber judgmental and you better grovel, you know, you know, the whole miracle of forgiveness. You know, Ed Kimball did a great job of talking with you about the Spencer W. Kimball book. The miracle of forgiveness look to me is ultimately not a net good. The fact that those ideas are still in the church, were still wrestling with those. So there's lots of different things there because for me, if there's a God and if there's anything true to the plan of salvation, God absolutely expected us to sin. And there's no reason to send somebody down here to die just so that he can somehow forgive us for our sins. I don't believe in justice and mercy as these free floating universals out there that, oh no, justice can't be robbed, you know, therefore mercy must overpower the, you know, none of that stuff. To me, the, the problem of sin is not an objective problem. So to Me, if I was going to go, you know, into the atonement and what it means to me, I'm following the Lowell Bennion gene, England, actually, back to the 12th century or whatever. Peter Abelard, you know, great theologian back then. The idea that. But, you know, sin is a reconciling ourselves with our highest selves. We've somehow or other not believed that we are worthy. And, you know, Christ comes down here, God comes down here. You know, somehow or other, we're moved to understand that this is. That we're that loved, that we're that important, and that allows us to forgive ourselves and to move on and to be unstuck. So, in other words, I'm going down a weird alley here, and I would love to do a more robust position on the atonement. But the point is, to me, that there is a lot of stuff in Mormonism that bothers me. There's a lot of stuff that I. That I hate. I don't, you know, I can see Joseph Smith. I'm restoring all things. And, you know, I'm, you know, maybe polygamy, like the early church leaders, you know, is at least fair game, and I'll consider it. But on the other hand, I'm very well, you know, plugged into the idea that, like a lot of powerful, charismatic figures, he probably had a lot of sexual energy going there, too. You know what I mean? So, you know, he attracted women, and he. And he.

John Dehlin [00:34:36] And he.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:36] And he did that. And it's possible, very much, that he was thinking with absolutely nothing to do with his spiritual, you know, insight. And he was. He was just justifying that. So I don't know what to make of it, but I don't know. Somehow or other, I just. Whatever that calculus, that sort of this invisible feeling my way through Mormonism worldview, as those things just quit becoming as important to me. So.

John Dehlin [00:35:03] Okay, okay, so. So let's jump back a little bit to the laundry list I was going to go through and feel free to make really quick responses, but I just want to sort of paint the full picture. So in terms of whether Jesus is the literal son of God and he came to the earth and died for all our sins and had this atonement moment where he suffered for all the sins so that cosmically there could be a balance, and then he died and three days later was resurrected. And how invested are you in that literality of that narrative?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:38] Practically none.

John Dehlin [00:35:40] Okay, so that's pretty. Pretty radical. And that Joseph Smith, the God in Jesus, literally appeared to him in a corporeal visit and asked him to start the one true church. How invested there?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:59] Hardly at all. Though I do think something profound happened with. And I do entertain the possibility that God could have a corporal body.

John Dehlin [00:36:08] Yeah, sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:36:09] But I don't believe that there was an ancient church organized in this way. That is the one true way to organize a church that needed to be restored. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And Book of Mormon as a historical record of events that actually existed with people who actually wrote the book that

Dan Wotherspoon [00:36:33] existed on plates, et cetera, I'm not that invested. I am open to the possibility

John Dehlin [00:36:41] the

Dan Wotherspoon [00:36:42] Book of Mormon, again, as I mentioned before, will always hold a place as a turning point in my life. So I'll always honor that. So that maybe, maybe keeps the, you know, the. I mean, of course, obviously when I was thinking that the sons of Messiah and Alma the Younger, you know, you know, when I was like them, it probably helped the fact that I thought that there was. They were factual beings who actually lived. But you know, I know that there's archetypes like them in lots of literature that could have been something I connected with and decided to, you know, this is the time to change my life and I can be more than I'm. Than the failure that I have been so far. So I'm not that invested in whether it's true or not. I'll let you know if. For those readers who are listeners who want to go to Sunstone website, there was an article by C. Jess Grossbeck, I'm guessing in the mid-2000s that we published in Sunstone that probably comes the closest to me as sort of articulating a way of valuing the Book of Mormon. And he frames it in terms of like it being a shamanic act. And I won't accept, I won't try to explain that, you know, at all here, but if anybody wants to kind of get a clue where I'm a little bit, that's probably the closest to my view and value the way I value the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:38:01] Okay. Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:02] As articulated there. And I actually probably co. Wrote that article just.

John Dehlin [00:38:06] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:06] As the editor. As the editor of Sunstone helping, helping clarify what I thought were some really insightful ideas, but kind of pulling them together. Hopefully they present.

Views on Joseph Smith, Polygamy, and Revelation

John Dehlin [00:38:14] So the likelihood that there were actual plates for you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:21] I don't know. There were some interesting things in Rough Stone Rolling that reminded me of events where Joseph Smith seemed to be, you know, carrying things around and literally burying things. And so whether we go with the Dan Vogel, he created it or not, I don't know. The plates, at least the actual existence of plates is one thing. Whether these were plates that contained the record of ancient Nephites is another thing. You know what I mean? Who knows? He may have found something or he may have made something, but I don't necessarily believe that these things that he's carrying around in a bag and burying under floorboards and the bricks of the hearth and all that stuff, I don't know that that's the ancient record of Nephite people.

John Dehlin [00:39:13] What's more probable in your mind that it was fraudulent or that it was, as the Church tells you is, you know, accurate? That those things really happened

Dan Wotherspoon [00:39:26] somewhere in the middle? You know, fraudulent means. I mean, that always brings in that deliberately trying to deceive sort of thing. I believe that whatever Joseph Smith was doing to translate the golden, translate the Book of Mormon, you know, the process by which he translated the Book of Mormon, I think he thought that he was directly plugged into to God and a true story.

John Dehlin [00:39:51] And he could have done that having manufactured or lied about the plates to you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:39:58] I don't think so. That's why, I guess I wouldn't lean necessarily towards the Vogel thing. But, you know, again, and if we believe the translation process as the sort of, what seems to be the emerging scholarly consensus, he was peeking at a stone inside a hat. And to me, that's just a way of saying that he was entering into some sort of trance state or some sort of dissociative state where he was able to stop and start without having to have somebody go back and tell him where he was. I don't know. I tend to believe that there's. There's the ability. I don't know, just channeling is that too. I'm just saying, is that to New Age a word for.

John Dehlin [00:40:44] Well,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:47] I tend to believe that we can kind of get out of our own heads and sort of tap into a spiritual field and, you know, have whatever comes to our minds feel like it's absolutely the truth?

John Dehlin [00:41:00] No, I understand all that, but the claim that there are plates that he got from an angel, either the angel gave him plates or not. There's. I don't know, there's any way to sort of finesse out of that. Right. So either he was lying or he had the plates. There's no middle ground there. Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:24] I guess. I mean, I don't know what,

John Dehlin [00:41:29] you

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:29] know, what all that, that let's, you know, take the wagon on the fourth year to the hill where he promised to get Them to me and all that, you know, was that just a show for Emma? Was that a show for, you know, he seemed to act in certain ways that line up with the idea that he thought he was going to get plates, that he thought he was, you know, in conversation with angels, etc. So I don't know if it's a total psychological break from reality. I don't know. I don't know what it is or if it's really true, but I. I can't go to simple. I'm making this all up. I think his. His behavior and his actions were fairly consistent with.

John Dehlin [00:42:13] Okay, so a middle ground for you is that he was sort of deluded into thinking there were real plates when they really weren't there.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:23] I'm not claiming that's my position.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Right, right. But that's. That would be an example of what a middle ground might be.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:30] I guess so. To me, it just is. The result of the Book of Mormon is powerful. There are places in that that feel like they're authentically in touch with powerful truths. I have no clue exactly the processes by all that. But I don't want to only concentrate on the negative things that say, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, charlatan, charlatan making this up, you know, trying to enrich and improve his family situation. I don't want to only focus on those. I want to remember. I want to remember the result that is, you know, pretty damn amazing. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:43:08] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:09] So is that me holding paradoxes without, you know, having one collapse into the other? I. Maybe that. Maybe that is so.

John Dehlin [00:43:19] That's fine. That's fine. That's good. No, I appreciate you sticking with me as I kind of put your feet to the fire a little bit just so I can see how you piece it together, because these are the types of questions that people get stuck on, really.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:32] Yeah, I understand. I understand that. And I'm. Yeah. And sometimes I, you know, there will be certain ones of these that I probably really got stuck on somewhere in my journey. I don't remember getting overly stuck on that, though. I certainly have attended many, you know, sessions that wrestled with this or that, But I don't know that I ever felt so compelled that I had to resolve that one. But I know what you mean by you can really get stuck on one. I know Randy said in his journey that, you know, the polyandry was just the, you know, that discovery totally blew any paradigm of anybody who could ever be a prophet out of the water for him. That wasn't one of the ones that, you know, totally hung me up. But I. But I did have ones that I really did have to wrestle with somewhere in my life, you know, and so. So I know the feeling of getting hung up is what I'm trying to say. Trend up.

John Dehlin [00:44:20] Sure, sure. Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:23] So.

John Dehlin [00:44:24] So. So things like polygamy, are you. Are you open to the fact that that's from God, or do you pretty much write that off as man or you just don't know?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:36] And suspending judgment, more likely not inspired by God for you? Yeah, yeah, I'd say, you know, I don't want to. I don't want to hold. I don't want to close the door. That again, what does inspired by God mean? You know, I, you know, do I. Do I believe anybody's got a direct pipeline where they're going to get a clear answer? No. You know, whatever. Whatever spiritual experiences we have, I. You know, we don't always get out of our own way. You know, we bring our own hopes and desires and wants and things to it. And I think we can feel convinced that something was true when it's really not. And so my guess is Joseph Smith was more likely, you know, had a lot of charisma and a lot of sexual energy and that he hoped that doing what the ancient prophets would do was what God wanted him to do. And he wanted to, you know, I don't know. So you can tell from that. I lean a long way towards not inspired.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:45] But I don't want to totally close the door. I mean, that's not. That's not going to be. That would never be a reason for me to leave Mormonism, you know, kind of thing. Because I. I mean, look at. If. If you're gonna. If you're gonna define what a prophet is, look at every one of the Old Testament prophets, you know, and look at anybody who's been a powerful figure, from Martin Luther King to Gandhi to, you know, whatever you want to do. These guys, you know, it doesn't invalidate their. The power of their insights, their goodness, the things that they've brought forth in the world, the fact that they're flawed and human and have weakness in this area or that area.

John Dehlin [00:46:25] But for some, invoking the Old Testament's not helping make the case because they see the Old Testament as egregiously abominable in terms of the genocide that it, you know, reports. So let me ask you this. So do you take a view of a very loose view of scripture? That scripture is not. Is probably 1%, you know, 5% revelation from God and 95% messed up man's, you know, confusion. I mean, do you have a very realistic and almost, you know, man carnal based view of scripture, you know, as a little bit better than what you would write on a good day in terms of its truthfulness with a capital T?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:20] Yeah. Your percentage was pretty low for me as far as I do think that scripture, on the whole. Well, again, at least the powerful parts to me. So I guess that's.

John Dehlin [00:47:32] I'm not asking about.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:33] You're right. I don't know what the percentage of the powerful parts are to me. Yeah. Because I do think that there's something really going on where somebody, you know, really got through to something deep and important. And, you know, my mind and my heart and my love and all those things are expanded because I've encountered that.

John Dehlin [00:47:50] So.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:51] So for me, scripture, you know, can be very, very powerful. What percentage of it I feel comfortable tossing, I guess I dos quite a bit of it. There's a neat statement along the lines from Lowell Bennion that says, basically,

John Dehlin [00:48:10] I

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:10] don't feel compelled to accept any view of God, you know, that from whatever source, scripture or whatever, that doesn't match up with the image or the beauty or the God that I've encountered through Jesus Christ. In other words, you know, Jesus Christ love, you know, compassion, reaching out to others, going to. To the poor, you know, not being legalistic, seeing the heart instead of seeing the rule, you know, all the different things that, you know, Jesus would represent. For Lobendin, he says, you know, I'm gonna toss anything from the Old Testament that makes it sound like God is this tribal, you know, deity who's ordering genocide so his people can take over land. You know, so I guess I'll claim kinship with Lowell Bennion in that way that, yeah, I tend to toss that. I'll tend to say, okay, look at if I'm a society and I, you know, you know, I'm gonna have a God that has the characteristics of a tribal God, which is a jealous God who wants no other gods before me and who, you know, your whole circle of ethical. I don't know. When your whole identity is this particular people, you tend not to think of other people as fully human beings or they can be collateral damage and all that stuff. And so when they're writing their experiences and their story in the Old Testament, I don't think that they're conveying necessarily God told us to do it. They're maybe justifying their actions. I didn't do a very good job on articulating that. But yeah, no, I tossed quite a bit of scripture. But on the other hand, I do tend to. To believe that people can break through and have real profound insights. And a lot of those things are found in the scriptures. I still read the scripture and see new things, and I'm excited to take a fresh perspective on some situation because of it.

John Dehlin [00:50:20] Sure. Okay. All right, so how about just. We'll jump to the one true church, one and only true church with exclusive priesthood authority.

Exclusive Truth Claims and Priesthood Authority

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:32] Absolutely not.

John Dehlin [00:50:34] Absolutely not. So that's the strongest answer you've given all day.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:39] But I can understand why people would say, would, you know, want to claim that, you know, talk about what you

John Dehlin [00:50:44] don't believe it before you understand.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:47] Well, I think I articulated somewhat, you know, that I think that every religion has truths that, you know, that are important for it to really dig in on and, and see how robust. In other words, I think people naturally orient around pieces of truth that are compelling. There's that great little scripture in section 93 of the DNC that says all truth acts for itself. Truth cuts its own way. We've got all these different ways that say truth is powerful, it will attract people. And so I see these truths in all these other religions too. And I love it when Mormonism says whatever's true in the world is part of Mormonism. You know, those are the kinds of things, you know, that I, that I am fine to say that. That means, you know, we're, we're not afraid of any other truth and we would welcome that truth as an enriching part of our perspective here. But yeah, when people claim that it's the one and only true church that comes out of, I don't know, sort of the dominoes. Well, of course you got the scripture In D&C1, you know, the only one with it. I'm well pleased or however the phrase goes. So you have that. But I think the domino comes from the whole story of the apostasy and the restoration. Jesus organized a church. So if that doesn't add up for me, then the restoration thing doesn't add up for me as a direct. This needed to be happening. So Jesus gave his apostles authority and as long as they were passing along to this person and that person, we were okay. But we once. The last ones of these are dead and the keys are taken from the earth and there was nobody to direct it, no one to correct false doctrine and all that stuff. If you buy all that and then you say Joseph Smith then had this restoration series of events that included return of priesthood and stuff, of course people are going to say this is the one and only true church because you've bought into that story. So as soon as you challenge that story, then that becomes a far less compelling thing thing for me. And so I don't believe the early church was at all organized around priesthood and keys and offices and all that stuff in a way that made those essential, you know, that God just has to have those back on the earth. You know, I see us as a restoration tradition. You know, Joseph Smith's father was interested in the original gospel and he, you know, sort of in the air that there were lots of churches that were trying to restore something closer to original Christianity. And so whatever powerful experience he had in the grove and the other powerful experiences have, I can see him overlaying those expectations or those hopes or that sense that the church had fallen from its original pristine thing. I can see him overlaying that on and kind of, you know, coming up with the story there. And so, so anyways, for me, when people testify that it's the one only true church, I think it's because of those dominoes. I don't know that anybody could ever receive a, a witness from God on some question like that. I've had powerful experiences within the church, you know, doesn't mean therefore it's the one and only true church. How do you ask that question? Is it the one and only true? Am I the chosen one? Am I the exclusive holder of priesthood? You know, I've seen too many powerful people doing amazing things that we would say is only able to be done through the priesthood. So I mean, it's like clearly they don't have the priesthood the least the way we do it, but they're still able to, you know, to minister in powerful ways. So. Yeah, but I'll tell you, here's what I, here's what I think is going on. Randy. Paul's helped me with this one at least this is. So I'm going to try to honor his articulation is when you, when something's so powerful in your life, you know, you would tend to kind of say this is the answer. You know, it's turned my life around. Nothing but the answer, nothing but the truth could have turned my life around this way or something. So he says, let's say you fall in love with this woman. She, you know, if that experience of love with her is so profound and so life changing and altering for you, wouldn't you naturally say something like yes, she's my soulmate. She's my one and only. True. She was, you know, we were predestined to get together, and I may have even sounded a little bit like that with my wife. And I don't believe that. I just knew that there was something about her that I would, you know, I felt a connection with or something. But I just, you would naturally start to say, you know, my wife is the best wife in the world, you know, and here's you are sitting over there going, no, Margi's the best wife in the world, you know, but it's just that kind of thing that you naturally fall in for. When you have something so powerful in your life and so beautiful in your life, you sort of want to universalize it as the truth. So I can just. There's sort of that little angle that I think explains why people want to be the sole possessor, the one and only. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:55:55] Yep, it does. That's easy to see how that happens.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about the separation through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your ward bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an e s k y e pixton.com thank you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:56:44] You. Wonder the sun gone down.

Beliefs Dan Does Not Hold in LDS Tradition

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 238

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] There's a question that I put up on Facebook. I invited people to ask you questions, right? When I started this interview, I should have looked. No, it's okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:28] I'll.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] I'll pass them on to you. They're. None of them are real curveballs, but one of the questions that people asked is, what do you not believe? And so. So I guess we've covered a lot of them. But is there anything else in the LDS tradition that you definitely don't believe? Or are you just going to say you're open to everything and you don't want to, you know, disbelieve anything because you want to remain open a little bit?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:56] What you just said there. I mean, I try to keep the door open a crack, you know, and I. And I have done a lot of thinking of where something like, for instance, I don't really think that we had a council in heaven and Satan presented a plan and Jesus presented a plan, and, you know, and that this, you know, we all, you know, those of us who came down here chose this way, and the third of the host of heaven are now banished. And, you know, they're the reason that we. That we sin and feel tempted and all that stuff. I don't believe that at all. You know, I. I would. I would maybe less than one half of 1%, that there really is probably a being named Lucifer.

John Dehlin [00:01:37] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:38] You know, or, you know, something. I think it's far more powerful to, you know, look at that archetypally as, you know, you know, safety. You know, it seems to me, you know, people aren't saying, I'm going to follow Satan because he is such a compelling guy and all that, but what's going to rally them is the idea that I'm guaranteed salvation. And if it means, you know, not really having a lot of agency or whatnot, as long as I can get back here to what is known, you know, in my life here, I'm going to go with that. You know, that's more representative to me of an attitude or. Or, you know, a kind of a temperament that some people would have. And then there's others that say, you know, I recognize that to get anything good, I've got to earn it. I somehow have to go through a testing. I've got to go through a fire. I've got to. I've got to, you know, make it really a part of Myself, I can't just have it be, you know, I can't. I can't just follow a forced path.

John Dehlin [00:02:42] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:42] And so. And so again, that's like a story. I could talk the council in heaven in Sunday school and feel authentic because I would concentrate on various aspects of it. But without believing that it's a literal story. I think it's far more powerful to think that we're capable of choosing against our own best interests than it is to think that some devil is constantly tempting us. You know what I mean? I'm afraid of my light. I'm afraid of the responsibility that comes with spiritual growth of that way. I'm afraid that I'm going to be taken out of my comfort zone. If you look at the Fowler state, five to stage six, transition, it's that letting go of the consequences. I'm still too, you know, me, myself, I'm still too chicken crap. I want to say, you know, there are certain things that I'm, you know, okay, God, I kind of feel that you're calling me, or the universe, you're calling me to take that next step and to grow in this way. But guess what? I'm too afraid of the consequences. I don't want to go down that path, and so I won't. And so those are the kinds of things and motivations that, that I think come along that we'd say, oh, no, it's Satan trying to keep me back. It's me being afraid. And I have to conquer. I have to conquer that. And that's, that's a challenge. And.

John Dehlin [00:04:01] Okay, well, any other things you don't believe?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:05] Oh, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I could see. I could see this, you know, what you're saying here. And sort of the way this is all probably adding up for listeners is the way it adds up for a lot of my friends who I, you know, I engage quite often on, know why I'm still active in the church and why they're not. And they're basically saying, well, the Mormonism that you believe in is so, you know, so flaky and not what all we hear in general conference and all that stuff, that it doesn't feel like real Mormonism to me. You know, that's what they're saying. And I'm going, well, guess what? I think I'm just focused on the true invitations that are within Mormonism to have experiences that say, grow, become more loving. You know, have experiences with God, have experiences with your true self, this expansive being that you are. I don't know, somehow or other that is just, to me, the heart of Mormonism. You know, Fowler talks about every religion is aiming you towards stage six, but every one of them is centered as its center of gravity. On stage three, Jesus is calling, the kingdom of God is within you. You know, all the traditions are basically telling you to step into full power and full, you know, acceptance of the divine being that you are. And yet, you know, our churches don't, don't emphasize that.

John Dehlin [00:05:28] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:29] So I don't know that I even did.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] No, that's fine. So it wouldn't be fruitful to go through another.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:36] Yeah. Of what I don't believe in, because whatever I do believe in, I probably believe in at an archetypal, you know, level. You know what I mean? That's, that's, yeah, that's a, that's a. The gist of the universe that I think is true. That's, that's kind of it. You know, I, I can see that we're all interconnected, you know, rather than, you know, you know, we should be welded through priesthood ordinances in the temple. You know what I mean? Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:08] Right. So are there elements of Mormonism that you sort of extricate yourself from or remove yourself from for matters of integrity? So I'll give you an example. There's some people who wouldn't feel comfortable answering the temple recommend questions the way that they're supposed to be answered

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:36] if

John Dehlin [00:06:36] they saw things the way you saw them. So they could say, well, I'll just go, because it's good, because it's spiritual for me. But the temple recommend questions clearly are asking some very specific things. And, you know, many would say even on the restoration, you've kind of, you've articulated a very different view of the restoration that, that very few bishops or stake presidents or general authorities would say, you know, qualifies in terms of the litmus test. So I'll start with the temple recommend questions. Are you, Are you comfortable having a temple recommend and answering all the questions given how you've framed your faith?

Temple Recommends, Tithing, and Mental Gymnastics

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:25] It's going to probably surprise you that I would say yes, because I, I'm trying to think of what's going on in that temple recommend question. That is a. It's a place where you basically declare what you declare, that you. Are lds, that you assent to certain really pretty broad statements. Believe in the restoration. Do you believe in God, Jesus? Do you believe that church leaders are, you know, all those different things? I know what you mean, and I know lots of people that say my Integrity can't. You know, it's too much mental gymnastics to go through. You know, how do I frame this in order to say yes? Somehow or other, I just. Just the way I'm comfortable inside the myth and the way I'm comfortable outside the myth, and I don't really feel inauthentic in either one. To me, the temp recommend question is a chance for me to reflect on am I. Do I value. Do I value the truths that the temple points to, which I do. You know, I have lots of really cool thoughts and feelings about the temple. I want to go. I feel edified when I go. I don't know. I just. I don't know that a whole lot of bishops and stake presidents, the way that a lot of people think, are looking for you to articulate it in any terms of anything other than assent or not that you feel worthy to worship with your community and willing to take upon, you know, covenants or promises, whatever that means. You know, I don't know. I haven't done a good job there. But I guess my answer is, you know, if any bishop or stake president is listening to this or listens to it in the future, you probably will want to yank a recommend from me. If you. If you. If on the. If you can't see past what I'm saying, we're getting a little echo there.

John Dehlin [00:09:53] You know,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:57] I love the truths of the gospel, and I think a lot of them are taught at the temple, and I'm grateful for the temple, and I want to be there. And I would hope that this bishop or stake president would see that in the integrity of my heart. I'm following my journey and interpreting truths according to my experiences. And they have pointed me towards valuing it at a deeper mythic level than the literal level that maybe the temple recommend questions seem like they're being asked at. So I want to go. Hopefully they'll agree. I've had a couple of, you know, stake presidents or bishops say, you know, the only thing that matters here is if you sign the recommend yourself. That's the important thing. Have you. It's your integrity that's at stake, not my job as a judge of Israel, you know, to say whether you're worthy to go to the temple or not. If you say that you are and you feel like with integrity of heart, you should go, then go. And I guess I would say that I feel like I could do that. I could sign that recommend myself.

John Dehlin [00:10:58] You know, that's the vibe I've gotten from almost every bishop I'VE ever interviewed with is. It's just up to you. If you want to judge yourself worthy, judge yourself worthy. If you don't think you're worthy, you don't judge yourself unworthy. You know, I've never felt this sort of. Now do you really believe this?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:18] Yeah. All right.

John Dehlin [00:11:19] Never. Never. Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:20] I don't think they want the 15 minute, you know, gymnastics for you to tell them, talk them through why you can say yes. Yeah, they, you know, so, um. Yeah, it's so interesting that. Yeah. So maybe a lot of people scream, this guy has no integrity because his Mormonism is so out there and so fringy and stuff like that. And yet for me, it's like, I really think I'm in the center of the true call of the gospel to, you know, to grow and love and serve and, you know, all this stuff is. I've centered on that stuff. I've gotten through the crap, you know, just to kind of get back to the place where I'm going to embrace the opportunity that Mormonism provides for me for these bigger things. So I feel super central to Mormonism, but yet I recognize that on that rhetorical level, on the level at which, you know, a lot of talks are given and a lot of, you know, be safe within the fold and all that stuff goes, you know, it just completely doesn't. I don't know, it just. That's not me. That's not my Mormonism, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:12:28] So I could hear some. I can hear some cynical listeners saying, well, with the mental gymnastics that you've taken, Dan, you could probably feel good about drinking beer and drinking wine and answering the word of wisdom questions in a way that you can feel comfortable with. You know, I could even hear people say, dan, you've redefined every word, every term, every piece of doctrine. You've deconstructed and reconstructed to your own liking every possible thing such that everything means anything you want it to mean, and nothing means anything that would be recognizable to a traditional Mormon. So, like, would it go that far? Would it go that far that you could drink beer and wine and still answer the temple recommend questions or pay your tithing to charitable organizations outside the church? Not pay it to the church, but still answer those temple recommend questions like, are there limits to your flexibility?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:35] Really good.

John Dehlin [00:13:35] Really good.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:40] I don't think that if somebody were to drink beer, wine, it's, you know, you can't feel the spirit, you know, etc. You know, in other words, God withdraws his spirit or something like that. For me, those are markers of. Of being within the community or whatnot. So certainly I don't drink beer, wine, you know, don't smoke, don't use, you know, drugs, whatever. I follow the word of wisdom other than I'm fat. But you're cute. But you're cute. Yeah, yeah, I'm a teddy bear. So I don't do that because I'm. Because I'm Mormon, not because of some spiritual reason. So if I were to say, you know, the temple is Mormonism's highest, you know, the place of its highest expression, and it's so interesting that when you go to the temple, it has nothing to do with Joseph Smith or, you know, any of these doctrines. You know, it has to do with this stuff that I have centered, you know, my spirituality around the ones that. The things I find compelling, those are the things that are in the temple. So in other words, I would not lie and say, you know, I live the word of wisdom when I don't. You know what I mean? Same thing on tithing. You know, it's basically, yeah, I may. I may choose, you know, I may not like it, but I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:15:05] That's.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:07] That's an interesting question, John. You know, well, there's the whole 10% net gross. There's also. What is your increase? And so there are, you know, I didn't, like you say, talk about I'm doing mental gymnastics.

John Dehlin [00:15:22] Well, I.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:23] Again, I don't know. I don't want to look at that because I don't sense that they're mental gymnastics because to me, they flowed these perspectives that I think I've kind of settled in on. They kind of flowed naturally out of the spiritual experiences. I had the invitations in the scriptures that I've heeded to. To have this experience or that experience or whatnot. So somehow just those things become so much more important to me than, you know, the articulate the level at which sometimes gospel principles articulated in church.

John Dehlin [00:15:57] So.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:57] So there's that aspect of it, but tithing? No. I would pay my tithing to the church to get a temple recommend. Yeah. I wouldn't claim to be, you know, worthy of a temple rec. Not worthy. I hate the worthiness part of that, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't claim, expect to enter the temple without paying tithing to the church.

John Dehlin [00:16:13] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:15] Well, I just want to make sure I wasn't. I wasn't calling what you're doing mental gymnastics sincerely.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:20] I was just skeptical among. Yeah, the listeners.

John Dehlin [00:16:23] Yeah. I mean, you know, I. I have respect for you, and, and for, for where you are and what you're trying

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:29] to do and well, well to step away from Mormonism just for a second there, you know, what is religion? Every, to me, every religion is inviting somebody to say, here's an experience. I, you know, here's, here's the experience. If you want to have this experience, do this, this, this and this and you will get that experience. Now you won't get it like automatic push a button, but you'll step in to me that this, this and this, that you do for it. It puts you in a position to where, I don't know, you, you step into that experience, you have released enough of your own personal expectations, your investment in how I look, how I feel. You've, you've gotten rid of your fears or whatever. And so you sort of just are ready to experience this, you know, deeper stuff of the universe. That this sort of is the animating core of religion. So what happens, obviously, and I think there was a good post, Andrew Ainsworth, I think in the, in the podcast community over the last few days, posted something about religion being built up, you know, around a spiritual core. But then the man made stuff comes along and pretty soon, you know, the man made stuff overpowers the spiritual, you know, core of the religion. And Buddhism has this great phrase that says, you know, the finger points at the moon, but we can't mistake the finger for the moon. So in other words, the church should be set up to point you towards having these spiritual experiences, you know, and we're not just talking about emotional experiences where you cry on your testimony. You know, it's pointing you to say, you know, see God, you know, you know, have the entire, you know, what's the oath and covenant of the priesthood, you know, receive all that I receive. The kingdom of God is within you, all those different things that it is saying to do. And so we build up this theology and this man made structures that, you know, are, start, they start, you know, small and whatnot. And they're still, they're pointing at this experience. But pretty soon, guess what? They're just that finger that points to the experience. But people are forgetting that there's the experience out there, that there's the moon and they only see the finger. Does that make any sense? I didn't know.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] That's good.

John Dehlin [00:18:50] That's good.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:51] So Joseph Smith's theology, basically, to me, you know, when it, when it all nails down to is, and it's not Joseph Smith's theology, these are his key insights. This is what I think is going on in the universe. The universe is inviting us to grow and to align ourselves with its powers, its potentials, etc. And here are pathways, here's our ways of thinking about yourself as a divine being or something that would, that would encourage you to take that step and to follow those injunctions and have these experiences and transform your soul and have your character shaped and totally grown. You know, there's this great phrase, the universe is a place for soul making. Expand your soul. That's what the gospel of Mormonism is. I think that's the gospel. That's the truth at the heart of Buddhism. I think it's the truth of the heart of so many of these traditions that basically say, align yourself with the powers of the universe and that's the purpose of things. And so any of the trappings that say, you know, God, you know, every time you sin, it is just so much harder for God to forgive you, you know, the next time you got to work that much harder to be forgiven. You know, those kinds of things just, they feel so ridiculous to me. You know, if they're, if it is true that it's harder to, to be forgiven of your sin next time, guess what? It has nothing to do with God. It's because you've re. Ingrained the habit, you know, you've got your momentum going again once more of something that you've, you know, you'd been struggling with and you gave into it again. So guess what? You know, all the habit and stuff there. God forgives you every single time you're forgiven before you even repent, in my opinion, or something like that. So any of these things that kind of take you away from that core insight about what religion is all about, I'm perfectly happy to reject. But, you know, how do I act in church meetings? I don't take it on head on. I find myself often being. It's kind of weird, I get solicited. Brother Wotherspoon, what do you think about that? Or something. Which is kind of a neat thing that some people are, have valued some of my perspectives, but I tend to, I just always tend to say, you know, there's two ways to look at sin. There's the, you know, we're violating God's law or we're harming ourselves, you know, somehow or other, you know, and so I'm able to kind of say that. And both things are within the scripture. Both things are in there. You mentioned once before something about my doctrines and whatnot. Every time I share something that I have. I've never had anybody, you know, kind of challenge that that's part of Mormonism. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:21:44] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:45] I think we all know that these are there. It may not be the most emphasized parts, and it may be like, oh, yeah, wow, I forgot about that. We probably hadn't had that brought up for six months, you know, in church. But nobody's, like, saying that, oh, you're way outside of Mormonism right. When I do it. But again, that's sort of, I guess, a way that I've learned to negotiate my way through church to, you know, I'm not out there to deconstruct the stories, and I'm not out there to tell all the different things that you're sort of asking me what I don't believe, what I don't believe. I've just found ways to positively reinforce the things I do. And I think sometimes, and especially I know that it happens. Everyone, a month later, someone will say, as Brother Wotherspoon was pointing out, you know, when we had that lesson back there, I've really been thinking about that. And somehow or other, you know, I know that somehow a perspective gets shifted. You know, what I think is a positive way. Maybe it's not, but I don't know. Somehow I feel welcomed within my ward. I'm sure I make mistakes. I'm sure I've scared the heck out of some people from time to time. But for the most part, I think most people recognize that what I'm saying is at least in the gospel.

John Dehlin [00:22:59] And how do you avoid. How do you avoid feeling just like church attendance on Sunday is a complete waste of time, especially Sunday school and elders quorum. And how do you avoid getting angry when you hear people say things that are tedious or boring or in violation of your values or ethics or that are just demonstrably false, historically or otherwise? How do you go to church and not want to rip your eyes out?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:37] Well, I would say probably once a quarter, I do want to rip my eyes out. There will be something that somebody says. I had a phrase that I used for a while there, and I don't use it anymore, but it's popped into my brain here, so maybe I ought to say it, but it was like, I really have an easier time liking my neighbors if I didn't know exactly what they think, you know what I mean? And every once in a while, you know, you'll. You'll see somebody and say, oh, I really thought that person was, you know, had thought at a different or deeper level than that. And obviously they're struggling. You know, to me they're, they've got a very, you know, one on one kind of, you know, view of, of religion and what a blessing is and all that stuff or whatever it is. And I'll kind of feel sad. But on the other hand, I do try to keep in mind that that doesn't define that person 100%. That's not the only thing about that person. You know, this is the guy who, you know. Yeah. You know, is helping his neighbor every frickin day, you know, with, you know, he's the one that shovels the walk or something. And then I also have to consider that, I mean it's so interesting. I've met enough people that like they bugged me. And then you just get to that point where you know their life story a little bit more and you know, how they were raised and you've met their parents or their siblings and you can just say they're not to blame, you know, for this way of thinking or you know, if I was abused as a child, I might have a very, a very different view of God, you know. You know, God would not be a loving father to me if my father was abusive, you know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:25:20] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:25:21] And so if they're going to give a theology that I don't like, you know, maybe I ought to cut them some slack because of their life experiences and whatnot. I mean there was this. I just met so many people that just like, were not enemies but just people I just like, oh my living heck who this later became friends just because I went to church and I got to see other parts of them or somehow we took the time, we had a 10 minute conversation, whatnot. So that works there. But you're right, there's a lot of times in Sunday school, a lot of times in priesthood meeting that you just go, this was a complete waste of 45 minutes. Once a month great priesthood lessons because I'm teaching them. My wife and I for the last year taught the marriage, you know, the marriage class for people who wanted to get out of Old Testament. So there were a lot of people that were escaping Sunday school and coming to ours. And so we had a good, we had good experience, you know, teaching that eight week course and rotating through different peoples of the ward so that, you know, in other words, I got out of it for a while. Prior to that we were two and a half years teaching the 10 year olds in primary. So you know, in some ways I haven't had to Face what you're talking about too much. But you're, but you're right. I have Sundays where I just go, wow, this was, this did not uplift me. But on the other hand, I've grown to love so many people. We are in such a great ward where, you know, I just, I just feel so blessed where we're at right now that, you know, you know, anyway, we feel, I feel fully in.

John Dehlin [00:27:01] Right, right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:02] You know, and I'll put up with a, I'll put up with a bad week, you know, every once in a while.

John Dehlin [00:27:08] And do you ever get the feeling that given the Church's stance on Prop 8 or on gay marriage or on inequality with women or whatever, or the, or the investments in the, in the multi billion dollar mall, that your money could be better spent on more meaningful, worthwhile causes or that your, your time, even though church can be bearable or even enjoyable sometimes, that maybe your time could be better spent elsewhere, but time or money better spent.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:48] Yeah, I think, I'm, I'm sure, I think that from time to time.

John Dehlin [00:27:51] For sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:54] Yeah. Prop 8 and, you know, being behind the curve like you talked about in an earlier question, and you know, we seem to, you know, beyond, we seem to emphasize certain, you know, you didn't bring this up, but, you know, we focus on sexual morality while we let, you know, women and children, you know, we, we don't do anything about the AIDS academic epidemic or, you know, in other words, what is, what is true morality war or, you know, sexual chastity, you know, that kind of, you know, we miss the mark in so many areas like that. But I don't know, there's, I do see the Church making progress. Things are moving generally in the right direction. I do think Prop 8 was a setback. I, you know, there's this great line from Joan Chittister, who's a very outspoken nun, she's a, you know, feminist, kind of the leading person. She know, she's the one that sits on all the world councils of religion and whatnot, representing, you know, Catholic nuns and whatnot. And she's this, this wonderful person who says this is her perspective on things. She says, you know, I think what we're seeing right now in a lot of the churches, you know, in the Catholic Church isn't super forward on a lot of things she says is the seeding of the question. In other words, we're just seeing the question being asked more and more and more and taking root and, you know, growing up, you know, organically within our traditions or Whatnot, we're seeing the seeding of the question. And then she kind of says, I don't know how many snowflakes it takes, you know, piled on a branch, you know, until that branch will break or till, you know, it'll give way or something. But she says, I want to be, I want my snowflake to be one of the ones that contributes, you know, to that time when, when we do see the movement, you know, So I want to add my little weight, you know, to seeing these things there. And in some ways that maybe it feel like a cop out and it may be like, oh, everyone. Dan Wotherspoon says everyone should stay in the church to be, you know, because you can work harder from the ins or then from the outset or something like that. I really would want to emphasize that I do see the church moving and growing and every, you know, it might just, it might be generational, but I do think that even sometimes, you know, people in, in the older generation that aren't so experienced with people with same sex attraction and, you know, all that stuff, you know, homosexuals and whatnot, I do see movement. And so, you know, you can't force people's minds. You just have to be patient with it and add your two cents. And so, I don't know, I just. Maybe that, maybe that just came out wrong and it's pretty late, but no, it's good.

Could God Call Someone Out of Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:30:50] So in your mind, could God, in your mind, could God call someone out of Mormonism as easily as he could call them into Mormonism? Hmm?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:59] No. If God would call you in or out, I know God will always call you to growth, you know, and I think if, if Mormonism is damaging you, you should get out. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:31:12] If it's really not, that's not. That doesn't mean you're lame or weak or condemned.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:18] No, no, you don't see. I hope, I hope, I hope if you leave, you leave really having experienced the best of Mormonism, you know what I mean? If you've never really had, you know, these powerful experiences that I have had, you know, that came within Mormon context, even though I absolutely can see them as, you know, as being experiences that simply came because I put myself in a situation, you know, a frame of mind, you know, a humility, a willingness to grow, a willingness to hear an answer that I not have otherwise heard, you know, all those different things, that. It doesn't mean that Mormonism is true because I've had spiritual experiences that come within Mormonism. But I would hope that if you're going to leave Mormonism, you're leaving a robust version of Mormonism, you know, rather than just a weak one. But on the other hand, if Mormonism is damaging to you, you know, and you've really tried to see the sand and not just the cat crap, you know, go, yeah, God. God would probably say go,

John Dehlin [00:32:33] right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:33] But I hope you hope you just don't go into, you know, I'm now gonna, you know, quit thinking that I. That it's important for me to grow and to serve and to love and. And to challenge myself. You know, I, you know, don't go just to collapse the, you know. Yeah, it'll help you. It'll help you improve your disposition. If you collapse the arm, the horn of the dilemma or the arm of the paradox that's causing you the most pain, you are going to feel enlightened and unburdened and whatnot. But don't think that that's a final position. If you get out of Mormonism, keep listening to your heart, because I do think the universe is always going to cause you to want to, you know, it's always going to call you to growth. And so, yeah, you could be growing in some other tradition. And, you know, I look at Carolyn Tanner, Irish, as somebody I really admire. She was the fiscal bishop here at Utah, you know, O.C. tanner's daughter, definitely within the Mormon fold, you know, who. Absolutely. I would take her counsel any day. You know what I mean? She's that powerful and inspired a person for me that I would really seriously consider her wisdom at any point. So I absolutely think God worked with her on a path outside of Mormonism.

Final Reflections on a Broad and Deep Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:33:56] Well, Dan, that's. I think you've made about as compelling of a case as I could imagine for sort of, I don't know, a rich, complex, nuanced, but still, you know, committed view and approach to Mormonism. So I've really enjoyed your answering my questions. Well, thanks.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:23] And it's been fun and it's been weird because. Yeah, I love. If you only heard part of this podcast, I imagine all people would hear is no, no, no, I don't, don't, don't, you know, and whatnot. And I hope that the. The other parts come through. But I do recognize that this. That, you know, was it Tyson and Randy and their thing talk about, you know, people in the west and they themselves feel like they won the cosmic lottery, you know, that they. They were blessed to be in an affluent country and raised in a home where educational opportunities were available to them and you know, and there is that whole sense of it. You know, the beauty about Mormon stories to me is that they really are stories. And wherever I've landed, it's come out of my biography. It came out of my parents, you know, asking me questions when I was a kid that had me thinking in context. It came out of, you know, spiritual experiences I had on a mission. But, you know, even this whole weirdness of a broad perspective on Mormonism. Yeah, guess what? That came out of grad school. And very few people go to grad school, you know what I mean, and study religion and somehow are introduced in a gentle way to where I never really had this angry phase about my religion. You know what I mean? I never really had this sense of betrayal that my leaders see this and they absolutely try to point me away from it and don't peek behind the curtain. We really know the wizard's behind the curtain, but we're not going to let you know that I never went through that thing. And I think it's because of my experiences of studying other religions and then Randy and others just saying, why don't you cut slack to your own the way you do others? So if my words and my testimony can kind of open up some minds and perspectives that maybe I ought to look for the sand and not just the cat crap, and maybe I ought to cut some more slack with it. I'm glad for that. But know that I recognize that my story, like every other one we've had here, is completely dependent upon my autobiography. You know, the experiences I've had when I've had them, the type of parents I had, the type of, you know, the lack of damage I. That I felt like Mormonism has ever done to me. You know, it's never kicked me in the teeth. I mean, I've had bishops and whatnot. You know, that experience with my son and other people that sort of reject any kind of extra learning outside the scriptures, you know, and I may have had people. People say, you know, I heard you quoting from this outside source, and you shouldn't have done that. But, you know, no one's really damaged me in Mormonism. And so I recognize that my optimism and my willingness to stay is partly attributable to that. So.

John Dehlin [00:37:12] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:13] It's just, you know, that's the beauty of this podcast is it's all different. And if there's something in there that's helpful to people, great. If not, don't think that I'm ever. I've ever. I don't want to disparage anyone else's path. And I hope that didn't come across that I was trying to disparage Randy and Tyson in any way. And I, I hope if we do do a live podcast, I can kind of explain a little bit more about that. So I'll, I'll just, I'll just assert that right now and defend myself later on on anything that may have sound like I was dispersion by, by saying, you know, you guys made a pretty hasty exit from Mormonism and straight into atheism. You know, there's, I didn't want that to come across as challenging. I just wanted to be able to say, you know, I understand your path and I'm grateful for your story and if I had your experiences, maybe I would have gone that direction. But because of my experiences, I still hold open, you know, openness to these realms or interconnection between people that, you know, is that intuition can be a real thing, you know, or something like that, where they, where they only see coincidence.

John Dehlin [00:38:23] Right, right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:24] Stuff like that. So anyway, I apologize for rambling on there, but thanks for the chance to tell my story. Hopefully it won't make people not want to listen to any interviews that I need in the future.

John Dehlin [00:38:35] Yeah, well, I guess I want to refer people to your original Stages of Faith podcast on Mormon Stories if anyone ever wants to hear more about James Fowler Stages of Faith. Dan's done a lot of great interviews on Mormon Stories. Dan, we have it back. Hope to have it back. Have you back to do some more.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:54] If somebody wants to not have to listen to the three hour podcast to get a feel for me and maybe you can see me present some other richer or fuller ways of this. Feel free to go to the Sunstone website. I'm sure it came out in 2009, but the pillars of my faith talk that I gave as I left Sunstone probably does the best job of anything of sort of giving the fullest perspective on, you know, why I value Mormonism and a bit more about my journey. And then also the website mormonscholarstestify. There's a brief blurb out there about some of the reasons that I stay Mormon and what I value about Mormonism. So those are a couple other resources.

John Dehlin [00:39:39] All right. Well, Dan Wotherspoon, thank you so much for coming on Mormon Stories and for sharing with people your journey.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:39:45] It was a lot of fun. Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [00:39:50] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org. if you want to help keep Mormon stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and Ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an E S K Y E pixton.com thank you.

John Dehlin [00:40:29] Me.

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