Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 991

Juli Egley [00:00:00] Sa.

John Dehlin [00:00:30] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is October 2, 2018, and we are very excited to be broadcasting live to you today. For those of you on Facebook, live from Salt Lake City, Utah in the Mormon Story studios today we have a really sobering story.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] And so I think I want to begin just with some trigger warnings. Today we're going to be talking about sexual abuse with kind of an overriding theme of how the Mormon Church in 2018 continues to cover up and protect their abusers at the expense of the abused.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] So that's the theme. We plan to do a multi interview series on this topic, just like we did kind of the Losing the Lamanites series and the inappropriate bishop interview series. So if any of you are interested and willing to come on Mormon Stories on Video and tell your stories about how you were the victim of abuse and the church covered it up and protected the abuser at your expense.

John Dehlin [00:01:45] Our intent is not to embarrass or shame the church, or even even less to embarrass or shame perpetrators. It's to help fix a system that systematically is again harming abuse victims by focusing on sort of its own legal concerns, its own reputation concerns, and its own leadership at the expense of the abused.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] So thank you for joining us. Today we have in studio Jared and Julie Egli. They live in Idaho, is that right? And the story is kind of harrowing because it involves Jared's uncle. Jared will be telling us a story about how he was abused as a 6 or 7 year old by his uncle when the uncle was around 18. 17. 18.

Juli Egley [00:02:42] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] And lately, recently, within how many years ago, about three years ago, his brother, his uncle, was called as a bishop, to Jared's knowledge, having never confessed the sexual abuse or received any punishment for it. Jared and Julie kind of did a lot of due diligence to let the bishop, the stake president, and even a Mormon general authority know about the abuse so that this could be handled quietly and let's just say diplomatically. And it appears as though this was completely bungled by the church. And so the only reason they're coming out now is because they, they feel like the way the church has handled this is unacceptable. And so because the way they handle it was so unacceptable, they want the church to handle these things more appropriately. Is that true?

Jared Egley [00:03:49] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:03:50] So that's kind of the teaser or the abstract of what story we're about to hear today. It's somber stuff, it's sobering stuff, trigger warnings, Please practice self care. Please know that we're going to be talking about some heavy things, even some graphic things. And so if you need to turn it off or monitor who's in the room, practice self care. Take it in increments, whatever it is you need to do to practice self care, please know ahead of time that we're going to be talking about heavy stuff. So without any further ado, Jared and Julie Egli, thank you so much for coming to our studios. Thanks for joining us on Mormon Stories.

Jared Egley [00:04:31] Thanks for having us, John. We appreciate it.

Juli Egley [00:04:34] Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] All right, so is there any disclaimer or intro you want to sort of add to supplement what I just said before we dive into your stories?

Jared Egley [00:04:45] No. None that I can think of.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] No.

Juli Egley [00:04:48] Okay, we're good.

John Dehlin [00:04:50] Okay. So before we talk at all about the abuse, let's just establish a little bit about your backgrounds as Mormons

Juli Egley [00:05:00] so

John Dehlin [00:05:00] that we can then just sort of know from what background and point of view you guys are telling the story now. Is that okay?

Jared Egley [00:05:09] Sure.

Juli Egley [00:05:10] Perfect.

Jared's Background and Faith History

John Dehlin [00:05:10] Okay. So, Jared, let's start with you. Let's. We won't do a long treatment of your background, but just give us kind of the bullet points of your history and background of the church and what the church has meant to you prior to deciding that you wanted to speak openly about these issues. Sure.

Jared Egley [00:05:30] I was born and raised lds. Fifth generation. My ancestors came from Switzerland, and we currently live on the farm that my great, great grandfather homesteaded in the 1880s.

John Dehlin [00:05:44] What was his last name?

Jared Egley [00:05:45] Egli.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] Okay.

Juli Egley [00:05:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] Oh, wow.

Jared Egley [00:05:47] Yeah. So same last name came from Switzerland. Every generation of the Egley family has been active LDS members.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] Where's that farm exactly?

Jared Egley [00:05:58] It's in Southeast Idaho, just north of Preston.

John Dehlin [00:06:00] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:06:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:01] So around Preston Franklin.

Juli Egley [00:06:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:03] Okay.

Juli Egley [00:06:03] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:06:03] Preston is the closest city.

John Dehlin [00:06:05] Okay. What high school is in that area?

Jared Egley [00:06:07] Preston High.

John Dehlin [00:06:08] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:06:09] Napoleon Dynamite.

Juli Egley [00:06:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:10] See? Did you know Jared Hess at all?

Jared Egley [00:06:12] I did.

John Dehlin [00:06:12] You knew him?

Jared Egley [00:06:13] Yeah. In fact, we were in Young Men's together.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] Oh, wow.

Jared Egley [00:06:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:17] Jared's a friend of mine.

Jared Egley [00:06:18] Yep. I'll. I'll make sure we were in the Riverdale ward.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:06:22] Together.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] Okay.

Juli Egley [00:06:23] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:06:23] So you know Jared and his brothers?

Jared Egley [00:06:25] I haven't talked to him since I was in Young Men, so I don't know him that well, but we were in the same ward at one point.

John Dehlin [00:06:30] Okay. Yep. All right. So that's. So great great grandfather is that.

Jared Egley [00:06:36] Great great grandfather.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] Any idea if he was a polygamist?

Jared Egley [00:06:39] He. He was not.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] Okay, so that's interesting.

Jared Egley [00:06:43] There is some family history there that we question whether he was or not, but no, none. None of the Eglis were, were polygamists

John Dehlin [00:06:49] that you're aware of.

Jared Egley [00:06:50] There was some divorce and some marrying of some neighbors and stuff like that. That doesn't make a lot of sense, but yeah.

Juli Egley [00:06:56] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:06:56] Not polygamists, to my knowledge. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:06:59] So anything you want to say about your background before you talk about you like your ancestors or anything like that?

Jared Egley [00:07:04] No, I'm good with that.

John Dehlin [00:07:05] Okay. Just farmers.

Jared Egley [00:07:07] Farmers from Switzerland that came over and every genre. I'm the first generation that's not been a full time farmer.

John Dehlin [00:07:14] And what farming was it? What type of farming? Was it milk? Was it dairy? Was it potatoes?

Jared Egley [00:07:20] Beef, cattle and crops? We, right now we run a large alfalfa farm.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:07:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:27] Okay. So your upbringing in the church just at a high level?

Jared Egley [00:07:30] We were active members of the church. I always remember going to church. We, you know, that was what we did. I don't know that we regularly had family home evening and scripture study, but we were always active in the church as long as I can remember. Our family became a lot more active when I was in middle school and high school years and my dad was called into a bishopric about the time I left on my mission and has been either in a bishopric or a bishop or a high counselor for the last 25 years. So we have a very active family and I was always very active. Served a mission when I was 19, went to Montana, all the way from Idaho, came back, went to byu, got married in the Salt Lake Temple, and we've been active tithe paying members until April, this last April.

John Dehlin [00:08:24] So how many years is that?

Jared Egley [00:08:26] Would have been 40. Well, I was 40, turned 42 in April.

John Dehlin [00:08:31] So how many of those 42 years would you have considered yourself an orthodox believing Mormon?

Jared Egley [00:08:40] I'm going to say 39 or 40.

John Dehlin [00:08:42] So almost four decades as an orthodox.

Jared Egley [00:08:45] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:08:45] Believing, active Mormon. Correct. And how would you generally characterize your experiences in the church and relationships in the church?

Jared Egley [00:08:54] Good.

John Dehlin [00:08:54] Not talking about the abuse or the

Jared Egley [00:08:56] way it was handled, but just I loved the church. I mean, every decision that I made was based upon principles that the church taught. And I loved the church. I believed it. And it brought meaning to my life. It brought answers to my life. And I had no reason to not believe what I was taught. I had questions like everybody else. You know, I have stuff from my mission about anachronisms in the Book of Mormon and historicity and stuff like that, but none of that stuff ever caused me to question my faith or trust in the church.

John Dehlin [00:09:28] You shelved that stuff?

Jared Egley [00:09:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:31] How about church service? Did you serve in Callings throughout those four decades?

Jared Egley [00:09:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:35] After your mission.

Jared Egley [00:09:36] Yeah. I've served in elders quorum presidencies for a number of years. I'm still currently the young in the Young Men's presidency in our ward. Whoa. You can ask my bishop why I've not been released. I've asked to be released, but I'm still.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] So you're currently.

Jared Egley [00:09:50] Currently.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] You have a calling. You currently have a calling in your ward?

Jared Egley [00:09:53] I have a calling. Okay. I'm the Young Men's secretary. Currently. Currently.

John Dehlin [00:09:56] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:09:57] I've been to church since April, but I'm still there.

John Dehlin [00:09:59] Okay. Yeah, but for 40 years, you were

Jared Egley [00:10:01] active and believed served. Never said no to a calling.

Juli Egley [00:10:04] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:07] Okay. And how many. I guess we'll talk to Julie in a second. But Mary, in the temple.

Jared Egley [00:10:15] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:10:15] How many kids do you have?

Jared Egley [00:10:16] Kids.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] Four kids.

Jared Egley [00:10:17] Four kids.

John Dehlin [00:10:18] Okay. All right. Anything else you want to say about your Mormon upbringing?

Jared Egley [00:10:22] No, just that we were.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] We were.

Jared Egley [00:10:24] Were absolutely active members of the church and it meant the world to us.

John Dehlin [00:10:28] Okay. Julie,

Juli Egley [00:10:35] I have some. I do have polygamy in my background. My great. Great. One of the greats was John Pack.

John Dehlin [00:10:41] Wait just one second. Jared, are you feeling something right now? I'm just sensing you might be feeling a little emotional, but. You all right?

Jared Egley [00:10:47] Yeah, I'm good.

John Dehlin [00:10:48] Okay. All right. Julie.

Juli Egley [00:10:50] Yeah. So, yeah, I have polygamy. I'm sixth generation. All four grand. All my parents both set six generations back. My parents both come. I have. John Pack was an ancestor, and he had, I think, five wives. He was on the. His name's on the monument. He was with Brigham Young's party when they came to Salt Lake. Um, so my parents were both raised very active. Their parents were both temple workers. Lots of family history. I one day traced a family history line all the way back to Adam.

John Dehlin [00:11:26] I haven't since found it, but just clicking through that.

Juli Egley [00:11:30] Yeah, there he was. Yeah. So my parents were both very active members. They both got married young. My early years in the church, my mom was the perfect Mormon mother. She was the bishop's daughter. You know, we did everything right. We had family home, evening. My dad worked away from home a lot. That stressed their marriage. They ended up.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] What city was this in again?

Juli Egley [00:11:59] I grew up in Colville, Utah. Little tiny town outside of Park City, Morgan area.

John Dehlin [00:12:04] Okay.

Juli Egley [00:12:06] My dad ended up cheating on my mom. My mom went to her bishop for counsel and was told she had a greater sin because she couldn't forgive my dad that kind of strained her relationship to the church. So my parents ended up getting divorced. We still went to church, but we weren't forced to go to church.

Juli Egley [00:12:26] My mom and dad tried to make it work for us the best they could. We stayed in the same house, and they would take turns because my dad worked away from home. When he was home, he would be with us. When he was gone, my mom would come back.

Juli Egley [00:12:39] So I was kind of unsupervised as a teenager at times, but I still was a good kid. I didn't. I went to girls camp, graduated from seminary, didn't go every Sunday, but I still believed was still on the Mormon path. Wasn't perfect by any means. Graduated high school, went to college. Now I met Jared.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] So which college?

Juli Egley [00:13:08] I went to the good school in Provo. Uvsc at the time. Uvu.

John Dehlin [00:13:14] The Wolverines?

Juli Egley [00:13:15] Yes.

Jared Egley [00:13:16] The one that people that can't get into BYU go to.

Juli Egley [00:13:18] I didn't even apply to byu.

John Dehlin [00:13:20] Oh, no digs? No digs on Mormon stories?

Juli Egley [00:13:24] No, no, no, no. Yeah, we were in Provo, Happy Valley. So we met. Do you want to know the story of how we met? Does that matter? Just. We met, dated for about a year, got married in the temple. He was. I graduated from nursing school about six months after we got married. Then we moved to Vegas. Then we moved to Preston. Then we moved to Houston for Jared's career. We lived in the Woodlands, Texas, for about six and a half years. Jared worked at Continental Express. We had three kids, lived the dream. We were both in presidencies.

John Dehlin [00:14:08] So you served in colleagues?

Juli Egley [00:14:10] Yeah, yeah, I think I was the secretary of every organization. Jared was in Elders Quorum because he had a truck and could help people move.

Juli's Faith and the Marriage

John Dehlin [00:14:17] So were you faithful when you got married? Did you believe?

Juli Egley [00:14:21] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:14:22] What was your vision of your marriage and your family? Church wives.

Juli Egley [00:14:26] So my mom actually was disfellowshipped from the church, and we chose to get married in the temple. She was not at our wedding, which was a very hard thing for me. Now, at the time, I feel really bad because I felt like if she wanted to be there, she would have been there. But she had the. She's amazing. She had the integrity that she wouldn't lie just to be there. She was just outside and felt like she was part of it and supportive completely. But, yeah, I basically chose the church over my family. So I was all in. It's what you do. It's where you go.

John Dehlin [00:15:06] What about your dad? Was he at your wedding?

Juli Egley [00:15:08] He was there. Yeah, he was there. So, yeah, you choose the Mormon path and you be the Mormon mom and the Mormon wife and serve. And. And I mean, I was a missionary till, you know, I made non member friends out in the mission field and, you know, tried to convert them and just lived the dream. We had perfect life. Jared got a job with Delta. We moved back to what we felt was Zion, I guess, and moved back to Idaho, had another child, so we have four kids now. We lived in Preston for about five years and then we moved up to the farm where Jared's dad farms and kind of helped do that. That brought us up to. Yeah, current day.

John Dehlin [00:16:09] Okay, so as far as your faith goes, you know, prior to this sort of stuff, where was your testimony? Where was your faith? How did you feel about the church?

Juli Egley [00:16:21] I knew it, I knew it. I believed it. I mean, I was the. I actually got called to be primary president the same time I served in primary in our ward in Mink Creek. And since the time we moved up there. And then I got called to be primary president about the same time Jared told me about the abuse. And then that's where it got tricky. But up to that point, we went to church every Sunday. We weren't great at having family home evening. We spent a lot of time together as a family. But Jared's schedule is not your typical 9 to 5. So when he was home, we would do family events. It wasn't always on Monday, but we taught the kids the gospel, we believed, we had family prayer. We weren't the best at reading scriptures because I'm not a morning person, but we. We were all in.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] And. And Jared, you're a pilot for. Do you want to say who or do you not want to say who? You're a commercial airline pilot.

Jared Egley [00:17:22] I'm a commercial airline pilot. Let's leave it at that.

John Dehlin [00:17:24] Okay. And you do international flights, so you fly?

Jared Egley [00:17:27] Yeah, I mostly do domestic flights by choice, but.

John Dehlin [00:17:31] But you have flown internationally? Big, big jets.

Jared Egley [00:17:33] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:17:34] All right. Okay. And have you worked at all outside the home?

Juli Egley [00:17:37] Yes, I actually was a nurse, a registered nurse, and I worked in labor and delivery, so. And that's when we were in Texas. I would work when he was home. He would take care of the kids while I worked, and we worked our schedules around each other. Then when we moved back, we had our fourth child. I continued to work for about a year and a half, and then it got to the point where it was easier for him to go to work and I just worked part time, so then I got to stay home.

Childhood Abuse and Its Long-Term Impact

John Dehlin [00:18:02] All right, well, so I guess to summarize, it sounds like for four decades both of you were faithful orthodox Mormons, committed to the church. And as I understand it, from what background I've heard, there's no motive to hurt the church or to attack the church. This all kind of blindsided you in terms of your faith, is that right? This whole experience?

Juli Egley [00:18:27] Yes.

Jared Egley [00:18:27] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] Okay. All right, well, let's, if it's okay, let's jump to the story. Sure. How do you want to, how do you want to start telling us kind of what, what happened to you when you were, when you were a child?

Jared Egley [00:18:42] Well, I guess I could just start when the abuse occurred. You know, everybody's always asked what your earliest childhood memories are. That's a common question that people ask in group settings. And you know, my entire life, when that question would come up, I remembered abuse that I experienced when I was a child.

Jared Egley [00:19:02] And that abuse would occur in my grandparents home when we would go to visit my grandparents. I had an uncle that was 12 years older than I was and he had some tractors that were toy tractors that of course a six year old would love to play with. And I always liked to go to grandma and grandpa's and play with those tractors. And he kept those tractors in his room. And I remember that I would go to his room and in order for me to play with those tractors, I would have to perform oral sex on my uncle.

Jared Egley [00:19:40] And I vividly remember that. It's something that I've always remembered and you know, it's what happened. I don't know why I allowed it to happen, but I remember that happening. And then, you know, I would watch him masturbate into a garbage can. And those are vivid memories. Like I can remember those as clearly as any of my childhood memories that I have. I've always remembered them.

Jared Egley [00:20:11] It happened on numerous occasions. I can remember, I think, three occasions where that happened that are separate. I don't know if it happened more than that and I don't remember if it happened over a one month period or a six month period. Those are details that I don't remember.

Jared Egley [00:20:27] And then when that abuse was over, he would tell me that if I wanted to play with those tractors again, that I wouldn't tell anybody. And that if I did tell anybody that I would be in a lot of trouble because what I had done was wrong. And I knew that what I had done was wrong. I felt, I remember the feelings of feeling that that was not something that was right.

Jared Egley [00:20:45] So I did. As a child, I feared that if I told anybody that I would be in trouble and that I wouldn't get to play with those tractors again, which to a six year old that's like the most important thing, you know. So I didn't tell anybody. The abuse did eventually stop.

Jared Egley [00:21:02] Like I said, I don't know how long it occurred. I don't know why it stopped. He did go on a mission, so it would have had to have stopped. Maybe because he went on his mission. I don't know those details.

Jared Egley [00:21:12] No adults were ever made aware of the abuse and he never did tell anybody or take care of that abuse. So I don't. He would be the only one that would know those details. I don't know those details. So the abuse stopped and I continued to live my life.

John Dehlin [00:21:30] Let me ask you, and I don't even know if you're able to remember or conceptualize this, but can you talk at all about what that type of abuse does to a child? Can you even tease that out?

Jared Egley [00:21:46] I just remember those details being very vivid. I mean there are details. Like I have other childhood memories that you can kind of remember. Like I have a childhood. I threw a rock at a kid in kindergarten and I thought I was going to get kicked out of school. So instead of going to see the principal, I just walked home and the whole town was looking for me. And I remember that, but not very clearly, but I remember the abuse vividly. Like it's something that I've never forgotten.

John Dehlin [00:22:14] And this some would ask, well, was this something that was recovered memory that some therapist kind of led you to remember?

Jared Egley [00:22:22] I've never talked to a therapist in my life ever.

John Dehlin [00:22:25] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:22:25] And I've always remembered those things. Like I said, whenever the conversation comes up in a group setting of. What are your earliest childhood memories? Those are mine. And obviously I didn't tell anybody that that was that those were my memories, but I've always had them as long as I can remember.

John Dehlin [00:22:40] And is there anything you can say to how that affects a child or a boy or even a, a youth, a young male, to sort of have experience that and then to. To grow up with those memories having never told anybody? Is it.

Jared Egley [00:23:00] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:23:00] Is it harmful? Is it.

Jared Egley [00:23:02] Oh, it was very harmful. Because it something that you. For at least for me, I was so afraid. I remember being afraid as a child that somebody would find out and I would be in trouble. So I wasn't going to tell any. There was no way I was going to tell anybody.

Jared Egley [00:23:15] I do remember having a conversation with. It must have. We've talked about this with my parents. Because I remember having a conversation in a car. I know that most children never, never, never tell adults that they are abused. Usually if they do find out it's by accident that a child says something. I do remember a memory in a car asking somebody if, when I got big, if somebody did the things that I did to my uncle, if I could have the same things happen.

Jared Egley [00:23:45] And my parents don't remember that. So I don't know if that's a valid memory or not, but I didn't, you know, I never told anybody because I was afraid that I would be in trouble. And then as you get older, you know, I remember as I got older, early teenage years, I didn't want my friends to know what I. What I'd experienced. And I honestly, in my mind, had questioned whether or not I was gay because I had done things that were considered homosexual acts. Did that make me. I wasn't attracted to men. But I had those questions, and it was a concern to me as a early.

Jared Egley [00:24:21] As an early adolescent youth. And, you know, I like other people, and I will talk about that. I had masturbated as a young teenage kid, and I thought the reason why I did those things was because of the abuse.

Jared Egley [00:24:34] And I thought that, you know, listening to church leaders that those, you know, only people that are broken do those things, and only people, you know, those are sins and those are bad. And I thought that the reason why I have that flaw in my character is because I was abused.

Jared Egley [00:24:49] And maybe that's the way I was because of that abuse. But I didn't want anybody to find out because I didn't want to be embarrassed by those things. So bishop's interviews, to me as an early teenager, were miserable because I thought that they were these men that could see through your soul and could use discernment and know everything about you.

Jared Egley [00:25:13] And I wasn't going to admit to them that I had masturbated because I was certain that they would find out that I had been abused, and I didn't want them. So I dreaded bishop's interviews, and they were miserable. And I went in there and lied my way through them as an early teenager because I, at all costs, did not want them to know of the abuse that I experienced. So I did everything I could to avoid bishops interviews. I despised them. I was asked by bishops if I masturbated, and I just lied and said no.

Jared Egley [00:25:44] I never had them dig any deeper than that. But I never admitted that I had done those things for them to dig deeper into those interviews. But they were. I remember them being miserable. Interviews. One of the things that I think comes into my life is I've always been uncomfortable around priesthood leaders, may be because of that.

Jared Egley [00:26:03] So, you know, that's how I kind of lived my life. As I grew older, I realized that I didn't do anything wrong. I wouldn't be in trouble. But I didn't want to confess or let anybody know because I was embarrassed about what had happened. So I, you know, so.

John Dehlin [00:26:19] So it sounds like some of the harm is you, basically, from a very young age, you're feeling like you did something wrong, feeling like you have to keep something secret, feeling like if someone found out, you could get in trouble. And then you're carrying that year after year after year.

Jared Egley [00:26:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:26:36] And then as you start to mature into adult, you know, into adolescence, the guilt and the shame and then the association of that with other things that are basically normal, it just has you carrying a burden and a sense of guilt and shame for a decade or decades.

Jared Egley [00:26:55] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:26:56] Feeling like you can't talk to anybody and then teaching you to lie because you are scared about what happens. If you're honest, then you're sort of like nurtured or corralled into becoming a liar or someone who lies, not a liar, someone who lies, then you've got

Jared Egley [00:27:11] that extra burden of, well, I always felt that way. I felt like a liar in Bishop's interviews because I was.

John Dehlin [00:27:16] And that makes you feel just worse about yourself.

Jared Egley [00:27:19] But it was. It was better for me to be a liar than to let them know at that point in my life what had. What had happened.

John Dehlin [00:27:26] Yeah. So I guess if we're summarizing some of the effects on a child and a youth, it's just carrying a lot of guilt and shame and sadness and secrecy that you shouldn't have to carry. Growing up is hard enough.

Jared Egley [00:27:40] Right.

John Dehlin [00:27:41] And then having it affect how you think of yourself in your own sexual development, causing a lot of confusion and noise when it's hard enough to just go through puberty without having to carry that baggage.

Jared Egley [00:27:55] And as a victim of that, I'm not going to say that only victims understand why victims don't come forward immediately. But I know why I didn't. You know, I have valid reasons for not bringing that up.

John Dehlin [00:28:12] What were they summarize. Where did you get in trouble?

Jared Egley [00:28:15] Get in trouble and guilt, shame. I didn't. You know, if my friends as a teenager found out what I had done,

John Dehlin [00:28:20] would they make fun of you?

Jared Egley [00:28:21] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] They stigmatize you.

Jared Egley [00:28:23] Correct? Right.

John Dehlin [00:28:25] Yeah.

Juli Egley [00:28:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:27] So that's, that's heavy stuff to have to carry.

Jared Egley [00:28:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:30] Did it, did it, did you just internalize it or did it come out in unhealthy ways as internal?

Jared Egley [00:28:37] I internalized it very well. In fact, when I was 15 years old, I broke my back on a motorcycle. And that was a pivotal point in my life where things changed for me because I, you know, I was given a very small chance to walk again as a 15 year old kid. And I matured very, very quickly.

Jared Egley [00:28:57] And I was told by numerous people around me that was a miracle that had happened and that the priesthood had healed me, because I did. I walked out of a hospital two months after I was told I probably wouldn't walk out of a hospital.

Jared Egley [00:29:11] And I got a patriarchal blessing shortly after that. Said my life had been preserved for a purpose. And at that point in my life, I changed to be somebody that was more. I doubled down on being good because I felt like God had protected me and I owed him something. And so I doubled down on being good at that point in my life. And I was a good kid from that point on. You know, I didn't do things that were not, you know, I didn't sin much as a kid after that. And I became sin. Yeah, right, exactly. You know, but I became more faithful and doubled down on being good.

Jared Egley [00:29:46] And that, that is how I internalized that was, I'm going to beat this by being, being better. And so I did that as a teenager. I decided, you know, I finished high school and I turned in my mission papers to go on a mission, I think on a Tuesday or a Wednesday.

Jared Egley [00:30:03] And that weekend I broke my back a second time on a snowmobile. So by the time I was 19 years old, I have broken my back twice. I have two sets of metal rods in my back. And at that point, you know, I was being told, there's a reason for this, but I was mad because I thought I've done everything in the last four years to be good and this, and now I can't go on a mission like I was gonna go, and now I can't go.

Jared Egley [00:30:30] And so the next few months of that portion of my life was very difficult. I didn't know. I did question whether or not that happened because I had not confessed of some of the things that I'd done prior to age 15 because I didn't want to.

Jared Egley [00:30:44] And that was always in the back of my mind, but I still never did confess those things. And the doctor, that was my doctor at that point in time, she Was not a member of the church. She said she would not sign the medical release for me to go on a mission for three years because she knew that I would be sleeping on a dirt floor, walking through a jungle, and with my back injuries, she said that that's something that couldn't be done. So. So I decided I was going to give up on that and go to school. My mom and my dad were upset about that.

Jared Egley [00:31:14] They had a stake conference where I believe it was Elder Fowler, who was in the first quorum of the 70 at the time, came to that state conference. They drugged me up to talk to him after the stake conference. And he asked what was going on. And I told him. I said I was going to go on a mission. I broke my back. I can't get the medical release signed. I'm just going to give up and go to college. And I still remember the feelings of the spiritual feeling that Mormons talk about. He told me, he says, you don't go to school, the Lord will make it possible for you to go on a mission.

Jared Egley [00:31:43] And within a week, my medical papers were signed to go on a mission. Now, we had a bishop. He wasn't the bishop at the time, but he was in our ward. He was a doctor. He took the papers and signed them. And I'm almost certain now, as I look back, that the asterisk at the bottom was, this kid can only go somewhere where there's good medical care. He has to be somewhere where he has a normal house and he can't have a bike. And I was sent to Montana. The first area that I went into was in Great Falls. It was in the city. And the companion that I got was really excited because he had been a walking, biking area. And we had a car.

John Dehlin [00:32:23] So you had cars and stateside.

Jared Egley [00:32:25] Cars stateside. I had to go to a doctor in Montana every month and get X rays and send them, and. And it worked out great. And I served a great mission and had a wonderful, wonderful mission.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] And that's just the church looking out for you and letting you serve, but serving in a way that would be

Jared Egley [00:32:38] medically healthy for you, which, looking back, that was. I'm glad they did that because it worked well for me.

John Dehlin [00:32:44] Of course, they frame it as divine intervention, but really it's just being respectful to your medical condition.

Abuse Disclosure and Mission Experience

Jared Egley [00:32:50] And it worked great. But on my mission, I had an experience about six months into my mission, and the experience that I had about six months into my mission was that I had not. You know, when you get asked that question, is There anything that you have not taken care of with priesthood leaders that you should take care of? I had not taken care of some of those things that I had done early on because I didn't want the abuse to come out. And I confessed those to my mission president about six months in.

Jared Egley [00:33:14] And I told him I didn't confess the abuse, but I confessed that I had had problems as an early teenager with masturbation. I had never brought that up with anybody. And he was a great mission president. He ended up being an MTC mission president while I was at byu When I came home. He's instrumental in me getting into BYU to begin with because I wasn't smart enough.

Jared Egley [00:33:34] But he did get me in. He looked at me and he says, did this happen, like, right before he came on your mission? I said, no. This was when I was. Before I was age 15. He's like, oh, well, not a problem. Don't worry about that. Just go out and go to work. So I did, but I left.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] And you were confessing masturbation, correct?

Jared Egley [00:33:52] That I hadn't confessed to anybody else prior. So I walked out of that zone conference knowing that I had confessed everything and was. Was good.

John Dehlin [00:34:02] And why didn't you feel safe by the time you're 19 or 20 or whatever to talk about the abuse?

Jared Egley [00:34:09] I don't know. I just. I don't. I can't answer that question. I don't know why. I just didn't want to talk about it.

John Dehlin [00:34:14] But you knew about the abuse?

Jared Egley [00:34:15] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:16] It would have been, in fact, a memory fresh in your mind. But you didn't feel safe talking about it?

Jared Egley [00:34:22] No. And that experience that I had when I confessed those things, I left that meeting with a understanding of the atonement that my uncle had been forgiven. Like I forgave him for the abuse that he subjected me to. And all of the burdens that had been on my shoulders growing up with that abuse, I felt those disappeared, and it was no longer an issue for me. Like, I didn't need to internalize it. I didn't think about it.

Jared Egley [00:34:50] The heaviness and the burdens of that were gone. And I always believed that that was me feeling the power of the atonement, you know, those burdens being lifted and disappearing. And I. From that point on in my life, I finished my mission. I came home. I was comfortable being at weddings or family reunions with my uncle. I held no grudge.

Jared Egley [00:35:13] It was not an issue. Even though I had those memories, it was not an issue. And I had no intentions ever of ever bringing that up because it wasn't. Not a problem for me.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Julie, anything you want to throw in here? Kind of as he's kind of shared the narrative relating to your marriage to him, your memories, Anything you want to throw in? Just kind of up to the timeline.

Juli Egley [00:35:41] Yeah. No. I never would have imagined that Jared had suffered any kind of abuse. I mean, he and Lynn weren't. Or he and his uncle were not close, but they could be at a family event. You would never have sensed tension. You would never have sensed anything was a problem. They. He didn't seek him out, but it wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't an issue.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] Sometimes victims of sexual abuse, it affects their sexual relations or sexuality in marriage. Did. Was that a side of. Is there anything you want to share about that?

Jared Egley [00:36:23] No, no. We talked to Natasha about that and it's not affected us at all that we know. Maybe we're not normal. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:36:31] No, no, that's a, that's a shout out to Natasha. Hilford Park.

Jared Egley [00:36:33] Yes, a huge shout out.

John Dehlin [00:36:35] Who introduced this? The Eglis to me. To me. She's interviewed them on Mormon mental health podcast, is that right?

Jared Egley [00:36:41] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:36:42] And check out Mormon mental health podcast. Natasha is a real pioneer in this.

Juli Egley [00:36:46] She's amazing.

John Dehlin [00:36:47] And so. Thanks.

Juli Egley [00:36:48] Super amazing. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:50] Okay. So. And so things were. It was a good marriage.

Juli Egley [00:36:56] We were good.

John Dehlin [00:36:56] You didn't know there was a problem?

Juli Egley [00:36:57] Yeah. No. Okay.

Jared Egley [00:36:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:59] And you're thriving your career. You become a commercial airline pilot. That's a top notch job.

Juli Egley [00:37:04] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:37:05] You know, very successful in my career endeavors. And, you know, we had great kids and, and life just, you know, moved on very, very quickly until.

John Dehlin [00:37:15] So someone would say, like, leave it then.

Jared Egley [00:37:19] Right.

John Dehlin [00:37:20] Like, you're healthy, you're happy, you're in a good marriage, you're having a healthy sex life, you know, your sexual identity. By this point, you've forgiven your uncle. It's all, you know, he's moved on, you've moved on. So, like, I mean, obviously that's, that's one thing that comes to mind. So how in the, how in the world could this come back up? And why. What happened?

The Alleged Abuser Is Called as Bishop

Jared Egley [00:37:41] Well, and that's what I, you know, I had no intentions of ever bringing this up and my uncle around. I don't remember the exact years, but he, he was called, I believe, first to be on a high council.

Jared Egley [00:37:55] And it didn't bother me that bad, but I scratched my head a little and thought, hmm, you know, I'm pretty sure he's never confessed or taken care of what he did, because had he done so, I probably would have heard something from somebody, but I don't know. I would hope, but I didn't know. So I just, you know, in the back of my mind I had questions about that, but it didn't bother me that bad.

Jared Egley [00:38:18] He got sick and actually got bladder cancer and struggled. He's a cancer survivor and he overcame that and then was called into a bishopric. And I don't know the exact timeline of this. He may have been in a bishopric before he was sick and then they released him when he got sick. But when he got better from cancer three years ago in the summer of 2015, he was called to be a bishop.

Jared Egley [00:38:40] And I remember being at my parents house and they were all excited and says, oh, your uncle Lynn's been called to be a bishop. All of my, my grandfather had four sons. All four had now been called to be bishops at one point in time in their life. And that was a very proud moment in our Mormon family was all of the sons of grandpa have now been bishops.

Jared Egley [00:39:01] And that day to me was something in my mind clicked and said, no, this, that, how does that work? Like that can't work for, for me. Like, you know, I, I, I was not comfortable with that. And so I started to question stuff initially I was really quickly, I, I

John Dehlin [00:39:25] don't like someone might in a faithful orthodox Mormon might immediately say the atonement, like correct, widen in your mind. You just go, oh, I've forgiven him. I'm sure the Lord's forgiven him. The Lord in his wisdom, there's discernment with the calling of leaders. Clearly the Lord has forgiven him, it's taken care of and his calling's inspired. What kept you from just sort of like drawing that conclusion and moving on?

Jared Egley [00:39:49] I don't know because I tried to draw that conclusion. I tried to draw the conclusion. But in my mind the conclusion was the way I understand the atonement to work is unless you confess and forsake and make your wrongs right and restitution,

John Dehlin [00:40:01] which would have involved at least an apology.

Jared Egley [00:40:04] Correct. So he's been living his life. When somebody asks him the question, is there anything that you have done in your life you've not taken care of with priesthood leaders? I knew that clearly there was something that he had done that he had not taken care of with priesthood leaders. And that bothered me. I thought, how can revelation work to call this man into that position when clearly he's probably not worthy to be called into that position?

Jared Egley [00:40:27] And that's the road that I, that I went down. And so I actually started to get on the Internet, get copies of handbooks on the Internet to see what the handbook said about how the church deals with abuse. Because I want to know, maybe it's ok.

Jared Egley [00:40:42] Maybe he did go and confess it and maybe he did take care of it. And as I start to study those things, I realize that had he confessed it most likely would not be called as a bishop, but he's called as a bishop. So in my mind I had to reconcile. Is he called by revelation? Did God call him to this position or did God not call him into this position?

Jared Egley [00:41:04] And you know, I came to the conclusion in my mind that most likely he didn't call him into this position. That was my thoughts.

John Dehlin [00:41:12] And this is just something that I'll, I'll just jump in and say we are raised to believe that callings are inspired of God as Mormons, but over the past several years, I've had many, many people come to me and tell me that, you know, their uncle or their brother or their dad or their husband was in an affair when they were called into the bishopric or b bishop or in a stake presidency or even a stake president, former sexual abusers, current and former abusers, current and former adulterers, current and former people engaging in business fraud. And it, you know, I don't mean to like attack Mormon doctrine or people's sacred beliefs, but this idea that every person who receives a calling, that it's inspired of God and is worthy, is a real.

John Dehlin [00:42:00] It's one, it's clearly not true and two, it's very damaging because what it does is it enables people to be put in positions of trust. And then in those positions of trust and power, it enables people like a Joseph Bishop to do something like sexually abuse a missionary in the MTC as a mission president. And so we have to, we have to find a way to get rid of this belief that all callings are inspired or it, or it allows very dangerous people to have even more power and access to abuse others. I'm sorry for that detour, but I

Jared Egley [00:42:39] just think that's exactly what I would say. And in my mind, from a victim's perspective, you know, I felt like I was, you know, God's going to reward him and call him to be a bishop and he's going to get this position, which is a, you know, a position that some people in the church, you know, covet.

Jared Egley [00:42:58] And as a victim, how does that make a victim feel? Like God, God doesn't care about things that happen to you as a victim? He's going to reward this perpetrator. And so I struggled with that for probably a year, trying to figure out what. What's going on here. Like, what. How does this work? Is. Does. Is discernment real? I knew from early on as a kid in bishop's interviews that some of these guys don't have discernment because they clearly didn't discern that I was lying to them through a bishop's interview.

Jared Egley [00:43:27] And maybe there's no discernment in the way bishops are called. So I spent some time trying to figure out how this works. And then in that process, I ran across a podcast that you had done with the sex crime investigator from Arizona, I believe. I never heard of Mormon Stories podcast, but when I was Googling, how does the LDS Church deal with sex abuse? That came up and I listened to that and I'm like. Because I thought that this was a very isolated, you know, in my naive Mormon mind was, this is a very rare isolated. This has got to be one of the only. This can't. This can't be a big problem. This is. This is just an isolated incident.

John Dehlin [00:44:05] That's the episode with Matt Long, by the way, for those who want to.

Jared Egley [00:44:08] Yeah, very, very good episode. There was another one that you did earlier with

Juli Egley [00:44:13] Barbara.

Jared Egley [00:44:13] Barbara Peterson, maybe somebody. There was two of them that I found that I'd listened to. And those interviews, you know, opened up my eyes to this is, this is. This happens more than just with me. And of course, that led me to start to question, well, if this isn't what they say it is, maybe nothing else is either. And I very quickly went down the road that most people that are experiencing faith transitions go through. I knew a lot of those issues before, very, very mildly. But as I started to research what else may not be right, I very quickly went down that road of questioning my faith and questioning whether the church was what it claimed to be and my life was a mess.

John Dehlin [00:45:00] And what year was this?

Jared Egley [00:45:02] This would have been 2005, summer of 2015 to summer of 2016.

John Dehlin [00:45:07] So two to three years ago, you're going through a full blown faith crisis.

Jared Egley [00:45:10] Yeah, by myself, you know, I'm at work, you know, Googling and listening to podcasts and trying to read stuff and ordering books. And she doesn't know that I'm doing any of this.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] What made you scared to tell her?

Jared Egley [00:45:26] Honestly, I don't know, because I knew that she would probably. I. I wasn't the type that thought that she would leave me why not? I don't know. I just trusted that she would. Would not. But I didn't want to tell anybody. Like, my dad was our bishop for part of that time.

Jared Egley [00:45:48] And I just. I didn't. I didn't want anybody to know that I didn't believe, but I didn't believe, and that was the issue. And I. I didn't want to be around anybody. Like, I would bid to work on Sunday so I didn't have to go to church. And I would avoid family stuff if I could be alone. I didn't want to be around anybody, my wife, my kids, my family included. I just. It was miserable.

Jared Egley [00:46:15] And she knew something was going on. She didn't know what. And at that same time, I had a side business in North Dakota, and I had a court case. I had to go up to Bismarck. I had to drive to Bismarck to a court hearing for this business that I had been running. And it was a 12 hour drive up, one hour appearance in court, drive back. And I just told her, I got to drive up. I'm gonna drive up. I'm gonna go to the drive back. I'm gonna make a quick trip out of it. She's like, I'm going with you. And I'm like, no, you're not.

Jared Egley [00:46:46] I'm driving by myself. I need 24 hours, you know, of alone time. I don't want. And I told her she couldn't come. And we got in probably almost one of the first fights we've ever been in in our marriage. And she dug her heels in and said, I'm going. And I said, I'm leaving without you. And I woke up early. I was going to leave without her, and she was ready.

Juli Egley [00:47:04] I got up early. She got up my stuff.

Juli's Reaction and Coming Forward

John Dehlin [00:47:06] So, Julie, tell us your. What.

Juli Egley [00:47:08] Your.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] What's happening as an observer, as he's going through this. What was it like for you?

Juli Egley [00:47:13] So we moved up to the family farm. And I remember sitting in early society lesson. And it was on trials. And I remember thinking in my head, you know, everyone's like, everyone has trials. They're all different. And I'm like, I don't. This is crazy and this is prideful, whatever. But I had no trials. We were happy. We had a great marriage. We have four amazing kids. We're financially successful. We're where we had planned to be. I'm like, maybe. So I convinced myself that's my trial, is to not have trials and not be prideful.

Juli Egley [00:47:50] So we start building a house, we get this side business. I start on some Trials, I guess. But I noticed that Jared starts withdrawing. I think it's the stress of this business. He's farming more. He. Between his airline job and his farming job in the summer, I mean, he would work 18 hours a day, you know, six days a week, because you always took Sunday off.

Juli Egley [00:48:15] His stress loads through the roof. I assume he's, you know, over the top with this business, the house, the farm. I'm trying to make it as. Get it back to the way it used to be when we had no trials.

Jared Egley [00:48:29] And I use that stuff as an excuse when it would come up, as, you know, I used, I'm just busy. I don't have days off. And I used that as an excuse to cover up what I was really going through.

John Dehlin [00:48:40] Overworking is a form of self medication,

Jared Egley [00:48:43] and I definitely, definitely did that.

Juli Egley [00:48:45] So he did that.

John Dehlin [00:48:46] An avoidance. An avoidance of dealing with issues.

Juli Egley [00:48:49] Yeah, he was withdrawing from. You know, he would usually always engage more with the kids and with me, and he just kind of wanted to be by himself. And so he's got this car ride coming up, and I know something's. Something's up. And I was. I was going. And like, he said, we, like, it's crazy, but we never fought. I guess he just put up with my crazy ways and would let me get away with stuff. But we never fought. And that's the closest to we. I'm going, no, you're not.

John Dehlin [00:49:19] And what were you thinking and feeling?

Juli Egley [00:49:21] I didn't know. I just felt like something is going on and I don't know what. And I mean, I, you know, I really just thought he was stressed with the business, stressed with the house, stressed with the farm.

John Dehlin [00:49:36] But why go? Why did you want to go?

Juli Egley [00:49:38] Because I didn't want him to go by himself. I just was gonna force myself.

John Dehlin [00:49:42] What were you saying?

Juli Egley [00:49:43] Force him to spend time with me.

John Dehlin [00:49:45] What were you worried?

Juli Egley [00:49:47] I don't know that I was worried about anything, but I just felt like if I could get him alone and cornered, maybe I could alleviate some of the stress. Maybe because he used to talk to me all the time. You know, we'd talk about things and he hadn't been talking to me. And I. I'm the talky, touchy feely one, and he's the I need my bubble one. And so I just knew. I'm going because something is going on.

John Dehlin [00:50:13] Okay, good for you. I like that image of you just, I'm going.

Juli Egley [00:50:17] I did.

Jared Egley [00:50:17] And I was mad.

Juli Egley [00:50:18] I had my stuff packed. I got up. I think I got up at like 5 and got ready just in case. And he wakes up, and I'm in the car.

John Dehlin [00:50:27] Literally?

Jared Egley [00:50:28] Yeah, literally. And I was mad, and so.

John Dehlin [00:50:31] You were mad?

Jared Egley [00:50:32] I was mad.

John Dehlin [00:50:32] Why?

Jared Egley [00:50:33] Because I didn't want to go. I wanted to spend, you know, 12 hours in a car with nobody there to, you know, just. I just want to be alone. And so we drove until we were past Bozeman. So we drove for four hours. And honestly, silence was not a word said. Like, not. Not a word said.

Jared Egley [00:50:57] And I remember being on the road between Bozeman and Billings thinking, something. Something's got to change. Like, I can't. I can't do this any longer. And so I told her. I said, I've got something to tell you. And she's like.

Jared Egley [00:51:13] I don't know what she was thinking. She's like, okay, you can tell. I remember her saying, you can tell me anything. Whatever it is, I. I will stay with you. And I. I, in my mind, thought that she might be thinking that I was having an affair with somebody or was cheating on her, was gonna want a div.

John Dehlin [00:51:28] What did you think?

Juli Egley [00:51:29] I don't remember thinking those things. I just knew something was not right.

John Dehlin [00:51:33] What made you say, you can tell me anything. I will leave you?

Juli Egley [00:51:38] Maybe that's my flaw. Maybe I would choose Jared over the Church no matter what, but I would.

John Dehlin [00:51:46] So that was your biggest fear that he had?

Juli Egley [00:51:48] I mean, no, I don't think it was. I didn't even really think the Church had anything to do with it. I just knew that Jared was the most important thing in my life. And no matter what or who or even an affair, I knew that I would try and work through it because he was the most important.

Jared Egley [00:52:13] And I knew that she had no idea. I mean, I knew that she. If I were to ask her to list a dozen things of what she thought was going on that she would never guess in a million years what they were.

Juli Egley [00:52:30] Well. And he actually said to me, how good of a counselor are you? And I was like, what do you mean? I took some psychology classes. Like, where is this going?

Jared Egley [00:52:43] But I told her it was the hardest. It was the hardest thing that I've ever done in my entire life was to tell my wife that I had been abused as a child and that she. She was the first one that I'd ever told and that I didn't know what to do and that I didn't believe in the Church anymore. And, you know, I just unloaded the whole mess on her for the next hour and a half or whatever. In the car.

Jared Egley [00:53:17] And I didn't know, you know, I didn't know what to do. And that's, that's why I had to tell her. I'm like, I don't. I can't keep doing this, but I don't know what to do. And so she right off the bat says, well, we've got to tell somebody.

Jared Egley [00:53:39] You know, somebody needs to know that this happened. And I said, no, I can't. That was, I believe, In September of 2016, I think, some. Somewhere around there. And I wasn't comfortable telling. You know, I. I didn't want to talk to my parents about it. I didn't want to talk to any priesthood leaders about it.

Jared Egley [00:54:02] I said, we need to just take our time and figure this out because this is something that we need to make sure is handled so that everybody can. Everybody's lives can be as easy as possible because it's a mess. I knew it was a mess. I knew it was going to be a huge mess. And I knew eventually we would have to tell somebody, but I wasn't ready then.

Jared Egley [00:54:23] And so we, at that point, it was great because I said, look, you've got to listen to these podcasts about how the church is dealing with sex abuse. And so I sent her those and. And then I'm like, well, you've got to listen to these podcasts about this and about that.

Jared Egley [00:54:40] And so we were very quickly. I don't know if she was. I honestly at that point had pretty much determined in my life that I didn't believe that the church was what it claimed to be, but I figured that was still a good place to be.

Jared Egley [00:55:00] So we kind of went through that faith transition over the next year kind of together, trying to sort things out. She was called to be the primary president, I think, right before we left on that trip. And I was sitting there with the. The bishopric member was.

Jared Egley [00:55:14] Came to call her to be the primary president. And I'm sitting there in the. In the back of my mind screaming, no, don't say yes. But I knew she was going to say yes. So she said yes. And I'm like, great, Now I don't believe in. My wife's the primary president. And.

Jared Egley [00:55:30] But we went through the next year kind of going down that faith crisis road, but knew that the bigger issue was what do we do about my uncle who's a bishop, who shouldn't be a bishop? And I knew we had to tell somebody about it. And I drugged my feet as long as I could because I didn't want to tell anybody about it because it was difficult. And I knew that it was going to make our lives probably more difficult to bring that up. So we, we decided to tell our bishop in December of 2017.

John Dehlin [00:56:07] Let me, let me pause before you do that. Sure. Okay. I'm going to just read a few comments from our listeners. We have a very large audience joining us, a couple hundred plus people joining us live. So we want to thank you guys for joining us. I'll just read a couple comments and then I'm going to ask the audience one thing before we continue.

Live Audience Response and Sharing the Story

John Dehlin [00:56:27] This is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. Somebody just posted. This is a real tear, tearjerker. And it is so Ivana writes, I just realized that it's not just the LDS church admin covering up abuse. It's people in the church like my parents who never reported abuse from neighbors. Why? To not make waves. So she's basically saying one of the things that enables silence is just this fear of making waves, not wanting to hurt people, not wanting to hurt the church, not wanting to hurt the church's reputation, not wanting to cause problems. Thank you, Ivana. Jake writes, it can be so nerve wracking to share these things in private, let alone live on Facebook in front of hundreds of people.

John Dehlin [00:57:07] I'm grateful for the courage you both are showing right now and on behalf of my family, we support you 100%. So that's a little support from Jake. Thanks, Jake. Curtis writes, that is exactly what happened to me in reference to the abuse. So you're not alone. Already people are coming out saying something similar has happened to them. Thanks, Curtis, for being vulnerable. Victoria writes, I understand you. I was also abused as a child and these memories never change. We keep these secrets for so long, but eventually when we do speak out as an adult, it helps release a lot of the damaging issue that we carry with us.

John Dehlin [00:57:44] So she's saying it was very much a release for her to get this out and not keep it tracked down. And we'll talk about whether that was your experience as well. But thanks, Victoria. Lisa writes, you have to wonder how it is that these men are able to move forward in life when the victims hold on to the things that happen to them through life. So when we think about your uncle, how did he just move on?

John Dehlin [00:58:10] How did he, what did, what did he do intellectually, psychologically, emotionally to just pretend that this never happened or did he handle in other ways? We don't know. We would love to interview him. If he ends up watching this and with your permission, you know that's an option that we have. If there are other abusers that want to come on Mormon stories and talk about how they do it, abuse from the point of an abuser, that would be a very sacred experience. But we would welcome abusers to come on and tell their side of the story if they're willing. Probably few will want to take us up on that.

John Dehlin [00:58:47] Lisa writes. No, sorry. Daniel writes, the vulnerability here is amazing and heartbreaking and beautiful. Thank you for sharing your story with us. So thanks, Daniel. Daniel's a great supporter. I just want to ask listeners a favor. Right now we have a couple hundred people who are tuning in live. We are about to talk about the main thrust of this interview, which isn't to embarrass your uncle. It isn't to out him or shame him, although that's an inevitable product. But the purpose of this interview is to highlight how the church handles victims of abuse bureaucratically, administratively. And so I want to ask every listener who's willing right now to please go to this video stream and share it on your walls, if you're comfortable.

John Dehlin [00:59:36] And just say, I'm listening right now to an interview of a victim of sexual abuse whose perpetrator ended up as bishop. And the focus will be how the church handles abuse. And even if you are skeptical, the point is that someone is reporting abuse. Someone else is a bishop.

John Dehlin [00:59:57] And it's an important thing to discuss how people who allege abuse are treated and how alleged perpetrators are handled. And it's going to involve a general authority. It involves a current bishop, and it involves people's lives. And this is during right smack dab in the middle of the Kavanaugh hearings with the US Supreme Court and the MeToo movement, after Harvey Weinstein and, you know, the United States and even the world is having this reckoning of what? How do we handle victims of abuse reporters, even years or decades after the abuse happened? How do we handle it? And it's not just Brett Kavanaugh. It's not just Dr.

John Dehlin [01:00:41] Ford. It's not just the U.S. supreme Court. It's Mormonism, it's Catholicism, it's Scientology, it's Jehovah's Witness, it's schools, it's whatever. And we all have to get comfortable talking about these issues and handling them in a better way. So I invite all of you listeners who are willing and who are vulnerable and who are in a position of privilege, willing to be vulnerable and who are in a position of privilege to please right now, or if you're listening after this has been live. If you're willing to share this interview on your walls and say, help team with us to learn about and talk about how to handle abuse, we can reach a lot more people that way, because breaking the code of silence is part of how we, we improve and get better.

John Dehlin [01:01:26] So please share this right now on your walls, if you're willing. Let's see the live, active listeners increase to 3 or 400 if we can share it afterwards as well. And let's, and let's see if we can make a positive difference and help the Mormon Church and all of us in all of our organizational stewardships learn to discuss openly these issues and to handle them better. Is that all right?

Jared Egley [01:01:51] That's great.

Reporting the Abuse to Church Leaders

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 992

John Dehlin [00:00:31] So now you're at the point where you've come out to your. Your. Your wife. She's been supportive, Julie and Jared. Now you're trying to think about how to. How to talk about your uncle who's a bishop, to LDS Church leaders.

Jared Egley [00:00:47] Right.

John Dehlin [00:00:47] So what did you do?

Jared Egley [00:00:49] Well, we. We knew we had to do something. We knew that it wasn't right, that he was in a position to be a bishop and to have the ability to have children. You know, we didn't know if he had abused other people. We didn't know. We didn't know anything about anything, but we knew that we had to tell somebody. And so In December of 2017, we met with our bishop. It doubled as a tithing settlement meeting as well.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] This is less than a year ago, which means you sat on this at least a year after trucking to Julie.

Juli Egley [00:01:23] It was a year and a couple months.

John Dehlin [00:01:25] And it wasn't something you rushed into.

Juli Egley [00:01:26] No, during that time, I mean, we got home, he told me, I'm scouring the Internet. Kind of. He's. He's ahead of me. So I'm scouring the Internet. Of. Of course it's taken care of. You know, in the 80s, someone just brushed it under the table. But, you know, I go to the handbooks, I go to the podcasts. How is it dealt with, that kind of thing? Well, of course, God would intervene because bishops names go up to the 12, you know, is what we're told.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] Yeah, the first presidency approves bishops.

Juli Egley [00:01:56] This one, maybe, just not this one. Don't know why, but if there's a time for revelation, it's right there. I mean, I was a primary president. I know that. Who could be a teacher. Maybe that one. Yeah, that sounds good. You know, that works in primary. But a bishop.

Jared Egley [00:02:10] Mm.

John Dehlin [00:02:10] Mm.

Juli Egley [00:02:11] That. That's important.

John Dehlin [00:02:13] So that deconstruction, as if primary teachers aren't important, right?

Juli Egley [00:02:18] No, they are, because they're the.

John Dehlin [00:02:19] No, I know you're not saying that, but, like, we have that mentality. It's just a. It's just a primary teacher. But they're the ones who could be alone with kids. Right?

Juli Egley [00:02:27] True.

John Dehlin [00:02:27] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:02:28] They're the ones who, you know, mold the minds of our children in some way.

John Dehlin [00:02:31] They're even more important. But anyway.

Juli Egley [00:02:34] But anyway. So we're going through, at that point, kind of the normal faith crisis of questioning, how does this work? How does this. And so, you know, a year and a few months later, it's December, it's tithing settlement. We've got other issues at that point too, because our deconstruction of faith has started with this event and now it's spread. But we're still in. I mean, we just, we baptized our son that year. That was a decision that a lot of, you know, we, we're still in. We're still making this work. We're trying to figure out how to nuance it, but we're still here. But at the Sam Young petition had come up. We both signed it. You know, we start thinking he's meeting alone with people.

Jared Egley [00:03:20] It's just not good.

Juli Egley [00:03:21] This is not a good situation.

Jared Egley [00:03:23] Somebody needs to know. That's we. We knew that we had a duty to make someone aware that you may have a problem here and there. Somebody needs to know.

John Dehlin [00:03:35] And that's kudos to Sam Young and the Protect LDS Children movement, everyone who supported him, because that has enabled a lot of victims to. It's given them the courage and the, and the interest and the willingness to speak out. Well, kudos to them. And, you know, for those who are just dropping in and don't know anything about Sam Young, he was just excommunicated a couple weeks ago, literally as a former bishop, only for fighting to protect children from abuse.

Juli Egley [00:04:03] Right.

Jared Egley [00:04:04] Which is ridiculous.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:04:05] And that's in my mind, I was saying not only do we have bishops that are asking inappropriate questions, but you may have bishops that are dangerous in addition to just. These aren't all just good men asking inappropriate questions because they may feel they have to ask these inappropriate questions. You've got a system in place that's allowing some bishops to get in there that should have. Shouldn't be there. And that's why I felt that it was important to, to let someone know. So.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] And because oftentimes abusers repeat the abuse.

Jared Egley [00:04:40] Correct. And we didn't know when you, when

John Dehlin [00:04:43] you're at the level of.

Jared Egley [00:04:44] Right.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] Having a 6, 7 year old child perform oral sex on you, that that's

Jared Egley [00:04:49] a level of severity that's not normal. Way outside the normal world.

John Dehlin [00:04:54] And the probability that there have been other victims is likely high.

Jared Egley [00:04:58] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] So you have good reason to.

Juli Egley [00:05:02] And we'd been researching these things like.

Jared Egley [00:05:04] And we knew that. So we felt we had to let somebody know. And I was at the point where I wasn't going to pay any more tithing to an organization that I felt I had been. Had been dishonest to me. So we went into tithing settlement. And I pay my tithing once a year. I've always done it. I go into tithing settlement, write a check for the year. And our bishop, you know, says, it shows you've paid zero tithing for the year. You know, how would you like to declare your tithing settlement? I says, I'm not going to pay tithing this year. And I says, I've got problems with the church. I don't agree with some of the things that we're being taught. And the bishop looked at us like a deer in the headlights because we are very, you know, like primary president,

Juli Egley [00:05:43] elders quorum secretary, sitting here.

Jared Egley [00:05:45] My dad's a high councilman. He'd been our bishop for five years. Years were good friends. And he's like, where did this come from?

Juli Egley [00:05:50] He was blindsided.

John Dehlin [00:05:51] And this is in, like, rural farm farmland, Idaho, where everyone grew up together. Everyone knew each other. Right, Right. Everyone to high school together.

Jared Egley [00:06:02] I cut our bishop's hay for him. You know, he's. We, you know, good friends with his wife. You can just see in his mind that he's like, what is going on? Like, what? What's going on?

John Dehlin [00:06:14] And again, this is the Preston Franklin kind of right outside of Preston Franklin.

Juli Egley [00:06:18] It's actually Mink Creek.

John Dehlin [00:06:19] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:06:19] It's north of Mink Crick.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] You call it Crick?

Juli Egley [00:06:22] It's Crick. If you're from there, you call it Mink Crick. If you're not, you call it Mink Creek.

John Dehlin [00:06:26] Right, Right.

Jared Egley [00:06:27] Okay. So anyways, that comes up, and he's trying to process what's going on. And Julie just says, you know, something happened to Jared when he was a young child, and we need to tell you that. And so we told him. We told him what had happened.

John Dehlin [00:06:40] And that's the first time you told a Mormon leader?

Jared Egley [00:06:43] That's the first time I told the Mormon leader.

Juli Egley [00:06:45] The first time he told anyone besides me.

John Dehlin [00:06:47] That was number two.

Juli Egley [00:06:48] And we didn't get explicit. We said he was abused.

Jared Egley [00:06:52] I just said I was abused by. And he knows my uncle. I said I was abused by my uncle, and he's now a bishop. And I says, over the last few years. I can't reconcile that in my mind.

John Dehlin [00:07:02] Oh, so in that moment, he knows who it is. It's his friend, and it's someone.

Jared Egley [00:07:08] They're not close friends, but he knows who he is.

John Dehlin [00:07:09] Knows who he is and knew that he was a sitting bishop.

Juli Egley [00:07:12] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:07:12] So, okay, notice has been served.

Jared Egley [00:07:15] Yeah. And so he knows in December of 2017. And he, you know, he was very kind. He said he was sorry, and he didn't know what to say. Like. And we were sitting there thinking, what's he going to say. And he didn't know what to say. But he did ask us for our temple recommends because we didn't pay tithing. So we didn't have him with us. So we said, well, we don't got him with us. And he says, well, don't go to the temple then. So we were told in that meeting not to attend the temple because we did not pay our tithe.

Juli Egley [00:07:48] And this is in a conversation of, well, what are your thoughts on the temple? What are your thoughts on the Book of Mormon? Dealing with our faith crisis.

John Dehlin [00:07:54] Okay, so after you've confessed that or reported that abuse by a sitting bishop, it turns into an inquisition on your faith and your worthiness.

Juli Egley [00:08:04] And he was trying to figure out how he.

John Dehlin [00:08:05] Your worthiness.

Jared Egley [00:08:07] Correct. But yes, we were told we were not worthy to go to the temple.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] And you, you made a real. You made a point to mention to me that this is a good man. This is very good man, someone you love.

Jared Egley [00:08:18] I still respect the man, but it's

John Dehlin [00:08:20] sometimes the systems that make good people do.

Jared Egley [00:08:24] He's a dentist. He doesn't know. He's not trained. He's not trained in. Somebody walks through your door and says, you know, 35 years ago, I was sexually abused as a child. He has no tools to deal with that. I thought that they did. I thought that there would be. And he says, I'm going to have to talk to President Keller about this, who's our stake president, who's also a good family friend. And he says, I'll get back with you.

John Dehlin [00:08:47] But still, the. So that's the compassion part of me. And you, the anger part of me is saying, how in the world when you're reporting a very serious childhood sexual abuse, does it turn in not only to a worthiness inquisition on. Instead of like, oh, my gosh, how do I find you support. How do I find you a therapist? Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's talk to this bishop. Let's get him in here. It turns into a worthiness interview where you're told, let me have your temple recommends. You can't go to the temple anymore. That is correct. Mind. What was that like? How did you feel?

Jared Egley [00:09:25] I was smart enough to know that he is a very by the book man. And I kind of knew that when I didn't pay tithing that that would probably. I didn't think it would happen that meeting, but I was pretty sure that it was going to happen.

Jared Egley [00:09:41] But I was very surprised that I just, I just told him something that is very Serious. And it didn't seem like it was very serious. He was concerned about it and said he was going to talk to the Stake president about it. And he did ask me, what do you want to be done with this? And I said, I don't know. I'm just telling you. I'm telling you guys that you have a problem with the bishop that shouldn't be a bishop. I don't know what you want to do. Like, it's not up. It's not what I want done with it. It's like we're. We have an obligation to let you know you got a problem here. I. You. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] But you were surprised that what the.

Jared Egley [00:10:21] The conversation was more concerned about our faith in the church.

John Dehlin [00:10:27] So what was it like for you, Julie?

Juli Egley [00:10:30] Same that he, He. He did express empathy. And I'm. I'm so sorry that happened to you. But there was no.

Jared Egley [00:10:40] I've never, to this day, nine months later, been asked if there's any help that I need or been offered any counseling.

Juli Egley [00:10:46] Counseling. Jared probably wouldn't have taken him up on that, but nothing was offered. No skills, no. Hey, this works well for other people of abuse. Nothing about the abuse was ever offered. Besides, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Jared Egley [00:11:02] They apologized that the abuse had happened, and I.

Juli Egley [00:11:04] We feel really bad that that happened to you. Now, how can we get you back believing the way you're supposed to be believing?

Jared Egley [00:11:10] That's right. Yeah. So we, we met with him that night. We.

John Dehlin [00:11:15] How did it end?

Juli Egley [00:11:17] He hugged us and told us he loved us and he didn't want to take our temple recommends. It was more kind of like we were discussing our faith, and we'd recently been to the temple, and he was kind of asking us, and then he was like, oh, well, do you have your recommends with you? And we said, no. And he's like, well, since you're not paying tithing, probably don't go. And we were both kind of like, okay.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] You could, you might think, I mean, if there were ever a time a spiritual leader would want you going to the temple, that would be it.

Juli Egley [00:11:46] Go sit in the temple as a couple and think about these things, you know?

Jared Egley [00:11:51] But I knew that you had to pay your tithing to have a temple recommend, so I kind of figured that that's where they'd go if they were going to follow the rules. So it ended by him saying, I got to talk to President Keller. We'll see what we need, if I can.

Juli Egley [00:12:02] He asked our.

Jared Egley [00:12:02] He asked if he could Talk to President Keller. And I said, that's why we're here. Yeah, you need to talk to him. So we got a call from the stake president.

John Dehlin [00:12:10] Wait, what was it like driving home? What were you thinking and feeling?

Juli Egley [00:12:13] We didn't drive home. We drove to his parents house.

Jared Egley [00:12:16] Yeah, we drove straight to my parents

Juli Egley [00:12:18] because his dad's on the high council. We are no longer temple holding members. Temple recommend holding members of our ward.

Jared Egley [00:12:26] We didn't want.

Juli Egley [00:12:26] He's gonna find out.

Jared Egley [00:12:27] We didn't want him to find out through anyone else. Stake president.

John Dehlin [00:12:30] So what'd you do?

Jared Egley [00:12:31] We stopped in and

Juli Egley [00:12:34] small chatted for a minute.

Jared Egley [00:12:36] Small chatted and then told them.

John Dehlin [00:12:37] What was that like? That's like double stress or trauma in one night.

Jared Egley [00:12:43] It was good because my parents have been great to us through this whole process as, as well as we could expect, especially with the abuse aspect. Maybe not so much about faith issues, but they, they didn't know. They had no idea that the abuse had occurred. And you could see my dad was angry. The, you know, had, you know, I think he said a couple times, had I known, I would have lynched him, you know.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] So he believed you?

Jared Egley [00:13:07] My parents did believe me. I still believe that. They do believe me. They've said a few things every now and then that make me question whether they believe me. But I think in their mind that's their active Mormon coming out saying, how can I believe? How can I believe?

John Dehlin [00:13:19] Both trying to manage their cognitive dissonance.

Jared Egley [00:13:22] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:13:22] But overall your general impression was that they believed you and were upset.

Juli Egley [00:13:26] Well, and we walked into that thinking because Jared had that memory in the card that I thought maybe they knew. And that was one thing that had been hard for us over the years was if I knew that somebody did that to my kid. No one had ever talked to Jared. Nothing had ever been said. So we go in and he started the conversation with, I remember what Lynn did to me. And his parents both kind of blank face. And he's like, I remember saying this to you in the car. And they both said, we don't remember that.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] Yeah, that's the, that's the thing as a parent, like I've had a kid experience some really traumatic things and it's just you, you don't. You want to believe anything but that that happens.

Juli Egley [00:14:09] And his mom's reaction was, I don't remember you telling me that. But I remember your sister when she was very young, coming to me and saying this uncle had asked her to pull her pants down. I mean, it's the 80s. His mom had just said, oh, well, you just don't be alone with him anymore. We're not gonna. And her sister was in the room. And since that aunt came and said she must be telling the truth, but they both have that memory, so there's nothing ever said.

John Dehlin [00:14:41] One other family member that experienced abuse, too.

Jared Egley [00:14:43] She doesn't recall anything like that happening at this point, so.

John Dehlin [00:14:48] But the mom does.

Jared Egley [00:14:49] My mom remembers her coming to them and saying that. So, yeah, as a child. So it went good. We told them. We told them what was going on. We did tell them. I did tell them. You know, this has caused me to. To lose a lot of faith in the church. I didn't tell them that I didn't believe at that time, but I told them we didn't pay tithing. And we're questioning whether this is a good place.

Juli Egley [00:15:11] And we're still trying to make it work. I mean, we live in Mormondom, you know, our kids, it's everything. So we're trying to make this work, even if we have to be nuanced.

Jared Egley [00:15:21] I still believed it was a good place for our kids, even though it may turn into a very difficult place for us. So, you know, that's what we.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] So your motives aren't to take down the church?

Jared Egley [00:15:31] No, no. In fact, we continued to go to church.

Juli Egley [00:15:34] I was still primary President going to PPIs. Teaching primary.

Jared Egley [00:15:38] Yeah.

Juli Egley [00:15:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:39] Okay. So. Anything else about telling your parents or.

Jared Egley [00:15:42] No.

John Dehlin [00:15:42] Okay, so. So then what happened next?

Jared Egley [00:15:45] Stake president called us. We met with him. He was very concerned and wanted to get our side of the story. So he. We went in, told him the story. He says, I'm gonna. He knew my uncle's stake president because it's in the same area. So he says, I know his stake president, President Ballard. I'm gonna get in contact with him and we'll work this out.

John Dehlin [00:16:05] Any idea if it's related to.

Jared Egley [00:16:07] I don't know if it's related to him.

John Dehlin [00:16:10] I'm Russell Ballard.

Jared Egley [00:16:11] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:16:11] Apostle?

Jared Egley [00:16:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:12] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:16:13] I'm not sure I've thought that, but I don't. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:16:15] Okay.

Juli Egley [00:16:15] And again, the stake president asked us, what do you want done? And we're like, I don't know. I don't know.

Jared Egley [00:16:23] It's up to you. Like, we're telling you this because we think that you need to act upon this.

Juli Egley [00:16:27] And we care about his uncle's family,

John Dehlin [00:16:29] and that's a burden. That's a burden that shouldn't be put on victims. Right.

Jared Egley [00:16:33] That's the way I feel now.

John Dehlin [00:16:35] The church should have a protocol. It's like, call, you know, get you number one, get you therapy, get you support. Release the effing bishop. Right, right. And call the police. Notify the authorities.

Jared Egley [00:16:49] So.

John Dehlin [00:16:50] Right. And. And like, you know. Yeah. Do something. Not ask you what you want to be done. That's a very. That feels to me like a very lawyerly.

Juli Egley [00:16:59] And I feel like they were trying to be respectful, but they didn't know what to do. But they didn't know what to do. And then it puts it back on you, like, well, so I have to tell you what to do.

Jared Egley [00:17:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:09] You don't want to be responsible for wrecking someone's life.

Jared Egley [00:17:13] No. And that's. That burden was on me, like, I didn't want to be the one that caused all that negative things to happen in his life. So he took that information and was going to get with President Ballard and figure out what needed to be done, basically. And so we had met the timeline. We met with our bishop again a time or two about our faith crisis,

Juli Egley [00:17:34] and he actually offered. He felt really bad that he'd taken our temple recommends. He said, let's get you on a payment plan for tithing, and you can nuance some of these questions. Do you believe in the. You know, do you feel good when you read the Book of Mormon? That means you believe it. Do you feel good in the temple? That means he's trying to help us. Walk us through temple recommend questions. And we're like.

John Dehlin [00:17:53] I says, no, not nuance the tithing.

Juli Egley [00:17:55] Not nuanced the tithing.

Jared Egley [00:17:56] Get on the plan, payment plan. And I. I declined. I says, you know what? I know what the rules are. I know how you want those questions answered, and we're not gonna lie about it. So I.

John Dehlin [00:18:08] That felt dishonest to you?

Jared Egley [00:18:09] Felt dishonest to me. So I'm like, I'm not gonna pay tithing. I'm not gonna lie about those questions. So I guess I'm not worthy of a temple recommend. So we have not had temple recommend since then.

John Dehlin [00:18:18] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:18:19] So we had a number of conversations with our bishop and stake president over the faith crisis issue.

Juli Egley [00:18:24] Nothing more was said about the abuse.

Jared Egley [00:18:26] Nothing more was said about the abuse.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] Nothing more was said about the abuse for.

Jared Egley [00:18:30] Let me get the timeline now. I believe about three weeks.

Juli Egley [00:18:37] So,

Jared Egley [00:18:41] yeah. So I didn't hear anything else other than we'd met with our bishop about our faith crisis stuff until finally on February 12th.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] So a few months later.

Jared Egley [00:18:51] Yeah, a few months later. I'm like what? I haven't heard anything. What's going on? So I texted my stake president and said, what's going on? And he texted me back, and I have all the texts that I've saved. He said, I haven't heard anything. Let me get in contact with President Ballard and see what he's done. So he got in contact with President Ballard, and we set up a meeting and met with our stake president again on the 15th. But President Ballard had not brought it up with my uncle at that point. So he was made aware of the accusation, but had spent over a month trying to determine what course of action to take.

Jared Egley [00:19:26] Had not contacted my uncle or brought it up with my uncle. And my stake president didn't. Hadn't brought it up with anybody. And so I says, well, are we just going to do nothing? Like, something's got to be done? And they. My stake president said, well, we don't know how to approach this. We don't know the best way to approach this. And so in that meeting on the 15th of February, somehow along the line, the plan got concocted that maybe I should go talk to my uncle about this.

Juli Egley [00:19:53] Well, I think Jared said.

Jared Egley [00:19:55] And I may have brought it up because we started to brainstorm on, is it your responsibility, my stake president's responsibility, to go talk to my uncle?

John Dehlin [00:20:04] This is like the Keystone Cops.

Jared Egley [00:20:05] It's like, yeah, like, I shouldn't be there as a victim. Like, why should I be there trying to figure out how they're going to confront my uncle. Like, that shouldn't have been my responsibility. But there I was. And at the end of that meeting, you know, the plan came up that maybe the best thing would be for me to contact my uncle and confront him about the abuse. They wanted to pray about it for a couple of days. So the two stake presidents prayed about it and thought about it for a couple of days, and both agreed that if I was comfortable, that would be a good idea. So I decided, well, I guess I'm going to contact my uncle, who I haven't talked to for a number of years. I've seen him in passing at some weddings and stuff, but.

Juli Egley [00:20:45] And I'm freaking out.

Jared Egley [00:20:46] I guess I'm gonna go. I guess I'm gonna go contact my uncle. So in my mind, I'm trying to do this in a way that his wife won't find out or, you know, I didn't know. I wanted to do this as discreetly and quietly as possible out of respect for him, and let him be the one that tells People. So I actually just texted him and I said, hey, Lynn, it's Jared. I need to visit with you about something. And that was like at 8 in the morning on a Saturday. And he didn't get back with me.

Juli Egley [00:21:15] I reached out to Natasha because I'd been listening to her podcasts and I'm freaking out because I'm going to go talk. He's going to confront his abuser. He's told me and some others, you know, like, I am like, what should he say? What should he do? I want to go with him. He doesn't want me to go with him. He wants to do it by himself. So I get in contact with her through Facebook messenger and her secretary and she's giving me some ideas. She writes this rough blog post about, you know, maybe do this, maybe be prepared for it not to go well. And I'm like, oh no, it's not going to go well. And that he's going to take it really hard, but so go ahead.

Confronting the Alleged Abuser Directly

Jared Egley [00:21:57] Yeah. So I texted him on a Saturday morning and I don't hear back from him all day long. I'm thinking he's blowing me off. And at five o' clock that afternoon, he finally texted me back, said he'd been in the temple all day at a wedding and he was busy and he had just got my text, he'd be more than willing to meet with me anytime. And I said, how about in an hour?

Jared Egley [00:22:13] Because I'm like, I gotta just get this done. It's like ripping a band aid off. I'm not gonna set up an appointment for days. And I'm on my way down there. How about we meet in your bishop's office in an hour? And he said, great. So we let my stake president and his stake president know that I was meeting with him that night. So we met with him, I think at seven is when we met with him. And so I met with them. And honestly the experience that I have of that meeting was.

Jared Egley [00:22:40] It was almost like. It was an experience that was almost like out of body. It was so hard for me to do that. I just did it and I didn't feel like I was there. It was a.

John Dehlin [00:22:53] You're almost dissociated because of the stress of confronting your views.

Jared Egley [00:22:56] It was a stress level that I. I mean, you know, I've dealt with high stress levels in my life and my job and stuff and, and it was hard to do, but I knew I had to do it, so I did it. And we chit chatted for a couple minutes and I.

Jared Egley [00:23:11] I wish I would have recorded that conversation, but I didn't. And I think the way I brought it up was I said, I remember what happened between you and I when I was a child, and I'm here to talk about that. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about.

Jared Egley [00:23:24] And I said, I have vivid memories of sexual abuse as a child between me and you, and I've never forgotten those. And it's an issue for me now in my life. It's caused me to question my faith. I don't believe that you've taken care of those things. And. And I believe it's a problem that needs to be resolved. And I've told my stake president, and your stake president is aware of it. I just wanted to let you know. And he denied that he remembered anything. I think his response was, we spent a lot of time together when we were kids, was his response. He wasn't surprised in any way or never said, sorry, you know, nothing.

Jared Egley [00:24:08] He. In my mind, he was ready for me or somebody else to confront him with abuse. And I didn't know what to say at that point because, I mean. What else do you say? I mean, I didn't know what to say other than, well, I have those memories, and I don't know what to do now. And so it ended very awkwardly, and I left.

John Dehlin [00:24:32] So either he lied or has blocked it out of his own memory.

Jared Egley [00:24:36] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:24:37] So from your perspective.

Jared Egley [00:24:39] From my perspective, yeah. And so I went out.

John Dehlin [00:24:43] Did you think about going with him, Julie?

Juli Egley [00:24:45] I wanted to go with him. I was in the car.

Jared Egley [00:24:46] She was in the car.

Juli Egley [00:24:47] I wanted to go with him.

John Dehlin [00:24:48] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:24:48] Yeah.

Juli Egley [00:24:49] He said that there was no. I mean, I try and think of how I would respond if someone accused me of those things, and I would have been shocked. I would have. How could you say that? Why would you think that? What. What are you talking about? Jared said there was none of that. That it was just a very cold. I don't remember that.

Jared Egley [00:25:08] We spent a lot.

Juli Egley [00:25:08] We spent a lot of time together, but I don't remember that.

John Dehlin [00:25:11] That's kind of weird.

Jared Egley [00:25:12] Yeah. And he never reached out. He's never reached out to me since that day.

John Dehlin [00:25:16] Not once.

Jared Egley [00:25:17] Not once. He never reached out to my parents.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] What?

Jared Egley [00:25:20] His older brother. He never called my dad and said, oh, my goodness, like, this just happened. Until, like, three weeks ago. My parents finally made the effort to get in contact with him. But he never reached out to any. Any of us at all, nor his wife.

John Dehlin [00:25:35] That's super weird.

Juli Egley [00:25:36] And his wife they would usually come at Memorial Day to visit graves, things like that. We didn't see him, so we didn't. We didn't know if she knew or anything. Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:25:47] So that happened. I try to. I. I go out to the car where Julie is, and I'm like, he doesn't remember it. Says it didn't. He doesn't remember it happening.

John Dehlin [00:25:55] Does that make you second guess yourself?

Jared Egley [00:25:57] Yes, absolutely. Because now I'm like, do I really? Maybe I. Maybe it didn't happen. Like, I immediately started to second guess myself, but I knew that that was not the. I know what happened happened. That's not a memory that I'm making up. And so I only second guessed myself for a few seconds. And then I quickly realized that this is a bigger mess now than I ever thought it would be. And so I wanted to meet with his stake president to give his stake president just my side of the story. So he knew. And he wouldn't answer our call. His voicemail box was full, so you couldn't leave a message. I could text him, but he wouldn't respond back. I called my stake president and said, I would really like to meet with President Ballard tonight. Like, I'm down here. Can I go meet him anywhere?

Juli Egley [00:26:44] And they both knew that that meeting was happening.

Jared Egley [00:26:47] And he said, let me try to get a hold of him. He actually got a hold of him, and he told my stake president that he was a little bit busy that evening and it may not work out. And I'm thinking in my mind, I'm sitting there, you know, totally in a mental mess now, thinking, if I was a stake president and I had somebody that was accusing a bishop that I had of sexual abuse, I think that would very quickly rise to the top of my priority list. Like, I would want to go visit with this victim to get their side of the story.

Jared Egley [00:27:16] Not. It may not work out. I'm a little busy tonight. We waited around for three hours down there to see if he would meet with us. Texting him, calling my stake president, saying, you know, we're here. We went to Wendy's and sat at Wendy's for, like, an hour and a half so we could wait to meet with him, and he wouldn't meet with us that night.

John Dehlin [00:27:35] And it's. It's something that's hard, is it's gotta be a conflict of interest to have to report to a stake president who called this man his bishop, because it's. It's going to be immediately questioning their own inspiration because they're the ones that Made the call.

Jared Egley [00:27:51] Right. And that's why I wanted to meet with him, to say, I get that you're in a tough position now, President Ballard, but hear my side of the story, because this is my side of the story.

Juli Egley [00:28:00] And they are actually close friends.

Jared Egley [00:28:03] Yeah, they're. They're. My uncle and that stake president are very good friends.

John Dehlin [00:28:07] So you're. So you're the abuser. Your uncle, the abuser, and the stake President Ballard are close friends.

Juli Egley [00:28:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:28:15] So that adds another layer of conflict of interest.

Jared Egley [00:28:18] And I totally understand that's a he said, he said thing at this point, that it's an alleged. You know, I'm alleging this. It's many years ago. I totally get that. And I understand the position that Elder Ballard was in with, you know, he's the one who called him. And how do you. How do you figure that out? So I figured, okay, well, he's not gonna be with us tonight.

John Dehlin [00:28:38] The only thing I'll say is that whether or not it actually happened, the seriousness of the allegation.

Juli Egley [00:28:45] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:28:46] To me, because of the risk of other people being hurt, makes it so action needs to be taken regardless of whether it actually happened.

Juli Egley [00:28:55] Exactly.

Jared Egley [00:28:56] And that's what I tell people. I don't expect anybody to believe me or to believe my uncle or to not believe me or to not believe my uncle. That's not the issue here now. The issue now here is there's an accusation there that's serious and from a credible person. What are we going to do about it? I feel I'm credible.

Jared Egley [00:29:14] I don't have anything to win from this. Like, I have everything to lose from coming forward here. Like, it would be way easier for me to have just zipped my lips and kept it quiet. So I'm gaining nothing.

Jared Egley [00:29:28] So I tried to meet with him for another three weeks. He couldn't leave a voicemail ever. It was full. I would text him. He wouldn't text me back. And then he called me a couple times. The first time I actually got ahold of him, he says, well, I do interviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesday's full, but I could meet you on Thursday. I was out of town that Thursday for work. So I'm like, I can't. I can't do that. But I'm driving to work on Monday. Can I stop by somewhere Monday and just visit with you? And he says, I only do interviews Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Jared Egley [00:29:55] He gave me that option. And so I tried for three weeks to meet with him. Finally, after three weeks, I realized this guy doesn't want to meet with me. And I was mad. And so I finally just texted him back and said, look, it's obvious that you don't want to meet with me. If you need any information from me, you can get it through my stake president, because he clearly was making no effort to meet with me at all. So he's never. Other than a few brief phone conversations with me, never met. I've never met with his stake president, so. So I told, you know, I met with my uncle. And that happened on February 12th, March 3rd, or March 3rd. Yeah. So March 3rd.

John Dehlin [00:30:36] This year.

Jared Egley [00:30:37] Of this year, on March 3rd. And my stake president actually contacted the area Authority, who was Elder Stephen Lang at the time. He's been released. L A I N G. Okay. He's now the temple president, Brigham City. He's released. Replaced by Elder Christensen, I believe, who's now an area authority or the area president. Went from an area authority to an area president. So there's been a change in general authorities over the area. But my stake president contacted Elder Lang, and up to this point, I had not shared vivid details of the abuse with anybody other than my wife and my parents. I hadn't told them what the abuse was. And my stake president, we met with him again, and he said that he had contacted Elder Lang, and Elder Lang's response was, sometimes things happen in our youth and our memories are faint. We need to trust in the atonement and move on.

John Dehlin [00:31:29] Read that again.

Jared Egley [00:31:31] Sometimes things happen in our youth and our memories are faint. We need to trust in the atonement and move on. That was what I was told the general authority over our area had said when he was told about my allegations. And how'd that make you feel?

Juli Egley [00:31:48] Awful.

John Dehlin [00:31:48] Why?

Jared Egley [00:31:50] I thought that we were doing the right thing and that this was something that was going to be taken care of. And obviously I was being told the way I took that was I need to trust in the atonement. Like, what? The atonement's for forgiveness. Like, I. Why do I need to trust in the atonement? Like, I'm doing what's right here, and I'm stepping out of my comfort zone to make sure that right decisions are made. And this area authority is telling me, basically, he doesn't believe me is the way I took that. Took that.

John Dehlin [00:32:23] And it's a selective reading of the atonement because we're all taught part of the atonement is you have to make restitution.

Jared Egley [00:32:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:30] So it's saying focus on the forgiveness part, but we're going to ignore the restitution part,

Jared Egley [00:32:40] so.

John Dehlin [00:32:40] And how did that make you feel, Julie, when. When you heard the general authority give that response?

Juli Egley [00:32:47] Things happen in our youth. Not those kinds of things. I thought he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand the severity of this. In my mind, I thought I gave him a little bit of leeway in thinking. He doesn't get how serious this is. And that was valid, but it was very dismissive.

Jared Egley [00:33:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] Yeah. And you're expecting more. You're kind of. I'm imagining. Expecting more awareness, more sensitivity, a better approach to handling the higher up you go on the chain.

Juli Egley [00:33:20] Yes.

Jared Egley [00:33:20] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:21] And I'm guessing that's not.

Jared Egley [00:33:22] No, it didn't feel that. It felt like we were being dismissed more so by them, which can be even more painful. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:33:29] You expect better responses the more you go up the chain.

Jared Egley [00:33:32] Some answers.

Juli Egley [00:33:33] I. At this point, something needs to be done. I'm like, this is almost four months, like three and a half months. Like, what are you doing? You need to do something. And not going back to. You don't have to believe Jared. You don't have to believe his uncle, but something needs to be done.

Jared Egley [00:33:56] So nothing was done for another month. So I think it's April 3rd, is the next day that comes up finally, like April 3rd. Yeah. I texted my stake president again on April 3rd, and his text backs to me was he thought that I was handling with my uncle's stake president. So he thought for the whole month we were working with my uncle's stake president on how to handle this issue.

John Dehlin [00:34:20] So clearly there's no communication between stake

Jared Egley [00:34:22] presidents and it's out of his stake. So he does have no authority. We've learned that, that he was told, this is not your stake. You need to be concerned with the faith crisis. We'll deal with the abuse done in this state.

John Dehlin [00:34:35] But the other state president's stonewalling.

Jared Egley [00:34:36] So, yeah, he hasn't done anything. So he. He calls, he says, I'll check into this. So he calls me back a little bit later and said, I talked to President Ballard. And he said he had visited with Lynn and that the issue had come up, so they had visited.

Juli Egley [00:34:54] Not that he called him in to visit about that issue, but in a visit that they had, it did come up.

Jared Egley [00:34:59] So my stake president, I was mad again. I'm like, something's got to happen here. So he. This is. And in the meantime, between me meeting with my uncle by myself and this month now, the whole McKenna Denson thing came out. Her name wasn't out yet. But the whole Joseph Bishop thing broke in the news. And so the church was scrambling to handle these things a little bit differently, I believe.

Church Leadership's Handling of the Allegations

John Dehlin [00:35:26] Yeah. And I just want to. I just have to throw this in that for as poorly as you were treated, my guess is that you were treated five times better than a woman would be treated in the same situation. Because you have the priesthood, you're an upstanding member of the community, you generate the revenue. And as awful as you've been treated. And we'll be interviewing women about their experiences. My guess is the experience of a female is actually multiple times worse.

Jared Egley [00:35:55] I agree.

John Dehlin [00:35:56] Than what you're experiencing. And I just want to. It's a shout out to women and an acknowledgement that as poorly as you were treated, you were a person of privilege and power. And look how poorly you were treated. Think about how people without privilege or power.

Jared Egley [00:36:09] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] And without priesthood or treated anyway.

Jared Egley [00:36:12] I agree.

Juli Egley [00:36:12] And that actually when President Ballard kind of was after forever was like, well, I guess I can meet with you. He actually said, I've heard you're a pretty good. Like he said something about that. He heard that he was a pretty good individual.

Jared Egley [00:36:26] Like, I think he wrote me off at first because he thought I was,

Juli Egley [00:36:30] but he was like, oh, he actually has some credibility. I guess I could meet with you.

Jared Egley [00:36:36] Yeah. So anyways, my stake president at that point calls Salt Lake again. He'd call the 800 number right off the bat and didn't get any information there other than the statute of limitations, I think was expired or something.

John Dehlin [00:36:48] Because that 1-800 number isn't there to protect victims.

Jared Egley [00:36:51] Right.

John Dehlin [00:36:51] It's Curtin McConkie trying to look at the law and advise the church not about how to help the victims, but how to protect itself against lawsuits. Which is why statute of limitations comes up.

Jared Egley [00:37:05] Right.

John Dehlin [00:37:05] Which is mind boggling that that number is not primarily to provide aid and comfort. And to this date, you haven't received therapy paid for by the church for the abuse.

Jared Egley [00:37:16] Someone's even asked if I would do that. I probably wouldn't take any therapy from the church.

John Dehlin [00:37:21] But no one's even asked, which is outrageous. Okay.

Jared Egley [00:37:23] So we were on vacation in California and my stake president actually called me and said he had called Salt Lake again to bring the issue up again and that he was informed that the inside legal counsel had referred this to the outside legal counsel and that they were very aware of it and that we may or may not hear from the outside counsel, which we've never heard from any lawyers from the church at all. But that's what. That's what. And he said that in a way that's like, this is a good thing. Like, the attorneys are now aware of it. So that's what we were told then.

Jared Egley [00:37:57] We never heard from those guys. But in that conversation, he said, Elder Lang, the area authority, would be willing to meet with you if you feel like you would like to meet with him. And so we said, absolutely, we'd like to meet with him. I've got a few questions for him. I want to, you know, hear his take on how we should handle this. So we met with elder Lang on April 25th. He drove up and met with us in our bishop's office. So

Juli Egley [00:38:22] when we heard that Elder Lang said that those are things we do in our youth, we kind of paused. I reached out to Natasha again and I said, I just want to clarify. This is the age difference, 12 year age span. Here's what transpired are these things that happen in our youth. So she actually, we're on this vacation in California, got my message, said she was meeting with some colleagues. They were going to discuss our situation. During that discussion, she realized she felt like she was a mandatory reporter. So we were notified she was going to be reporting it to cps.

Jared Egley [00:39:02] Yeah. So on that vacation, we were told, natasha's going to report this. And the church attorneys were made aware of it and that we could meet with Elder Lang when we got home. So we did. We met with elder Lang on April 25. It was three hours we visited with him, and my stake president and my bishop were there. And for three hours we visited. That. We have that recorded. And we went through our faith crisis issues, but mostly focused on how this was being handled, how the abuse was being handled. He apologized again that the abuse had occurred, said he was very sorry that it had happened.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] You felt believed by the general authority, by Elder Lang? No, but he apologized.

Jared Egley [00:39:43] He apologized and said he was sorry that I had experienced this, but then told me that the way that the church operates is that we only do things in the mouth of two or three witnesses. And since I was only one witness, that there was really nothing that could be done. And he tried to get me to understand my uncle's side of the story. He's like, you got to understand the other side of the story, that it's a. It's an accusation that's only backed up by one. One person. And we can't do anything unless it's in the mouth of two or three witnesses. And I was not very Nice to him in a couple of.

Jared Egley [00:40:16] A couple of times in that meeting. Because I was frustrated at saying that's ridiculous. There's never multiple witnesses that all come forward at the same time. Like, of course, there's only one witness here, but that doesn't mean you do

John Dehlin [00:40:28] nothing that basically says that if you want to abuse children, make sure you're

Jared Egley [00:40:32] alone with the child, which is always the case. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:36] And. And will we may or may not. You may or may not decide to release that recording? It's something we've talked about, but ultimately that's going to be up to you. But listeners there, you know, look for the possibility that we release some or all of that recording. But. But if you guys decide not to, that's totally fine as well. But I just want to insert that so that people are aware to think about that. Anyway, so he says no, two or three witnesses.

Juli Egley [00:41:00] Yeah, well, and I called him out on it and I said, what about if this was a business? What if this was a business? And this came through an HR department that an employee was accused in the past of. And he's. He said, well, I was in education. He was. He was the Utah state superintendent. He said, in an education, they are immediately placed on administrative leave until they figured out. And I said, well, okay then.

John Dehlin [00:41:24] The general authority said this.

Juli Egley [00:41:26] Yes. I said, okay then. And he said, but that's not how we do it in the church. We need the mouth of two or three witnesses.

Jared Egley [00:41:33] And I understand that. I get that there are false accusations. And the, The. The issue I have in the church is there's. There's nobody's livelihood at stake here. You're more safe to believe the victim than the abuser. And in the meantime, till we get to the bottom of this, let's not leave him in the position that he's in.

John Dehlin [00:41:55] Yeah. Release the bishop. Release the bishop, Nobody dies.

Jared Egley [00:41:59] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] It's respectful to the correct to the alleged victim, and it allows time for the process to unfold.

Juli Egley [00:42:06] And even, I mean, all of his ward members, they don't even have to believe that this is true. But there's an accusation there.

Jared Egley [00:42:13] They should be aware of that. You know, so that was kind of our process of that. Is this. We, we believe the way that this is being handled is wrong. And we believe that the way that you're continually placing this burden back on us after now, five months after we brought this up is ridiculous. And the last half of that meeting ended with them counseling us on our faith crisis. Again, my stake president, as much as I Love him and as much as I care about him, really kind of chewed us out for not looking at things in a faithful way. And don't leave the faith of your fathers.

Jared Egley [00:42:47] And, you know, and I left that meeting with. I mean, if there's one point in my faith transition where I decided that the church was not just not true, but harmful, that was it. I left that night thinking, not only is this not true, but it. It's damaging and it's harmful, and I don't want anybody else to experience what we've experienced here. And so.

John Dehlin [00:43:13] And I'm. I'm just going to jump in. And we have a listener, Pamela, who writes, I spoke with Lang. So she spoke with Lang, too, about abuse. He told me he would look into my daughter's abuser. He never called me back.

Juli Egley [00:43:31] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:43:33] So we have a second, two or three witnesses. We have two witnesses on how Elder Lang, who's now currently serving as a temple, as the temple president of Brigham City.

Jared Egley [00:43:45] Right.

John Dehlin [00:43:47] We have two instances where he is really bungled something very sensitive.

Jared Egley [00:43:52] He told us in that meeting that he had a few more questions for my uncle and that he was going to get in touch with him and that we would hear from him. We've never heard from Elder Lang since he was released. And I get that he was in a transitional period, but we never heard anything from him after that meeting at all until my wife contacted my uncle's wife and we heard what they were told by Elder Lang. So it was reported, though. Natasha reported it. And we never heard anything from any law enforcement officials at all.

John Dehlin [00:44:23] Probably because the statute of limitations.

Jared Egley [00:44:25] It was reported in Idaho. Yeah. So it was reported in April. And I had wondered, am I gonna. His sheriff's office gonna come? Anybody call me? And I never heard a word. Well, there was a small brush fire up at our. Around our house on August 6th. So just over, you know, two months ago. And I, you know, farmers, we see a brush fire, so we run up there to try to help with this brush fire. We're helping with this brush fire. One of the sheriff's deputies, who was younger than me but I knew growing up, comes over and says, I got a report from somewhere in the Midwest that has your name on it.

Jared Egley [00:44:57] And I don't really know what we should do with it. Do you know anything about that? And I knew exactly what it was. And I says, oh, yeah, I know what it is. Maybe why don't you stop by my house and I'll fill you in. So that day on August 6, the sheriff's deputy came by my house and I told him the entire story. And so it. It has been reported. And the Franklin County Sheriff's Department does have my statement, and they're aware of it. Statute of limitations has long since run out, so there's nothing they can do. And I get that. But it has been reported. And there was more empathy and sympathy from that sheriff's deputy than there ever was for many of my priesthood leaders.

John Dehlin [00:45:32] Yeah, yeah. Diamond writes, this poor guy, he keeps being understanding of them and nobody understands him. That so, so painful. Robin writes, is not his sisters and mom a witness? He asked his sister to take off her pants. The.

Jared Egley [00:45:47] The bishop, in my mind.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] So why isn't that two or three witnesses right there? Yeah, that's a good point. Thank you, Robin, for bringing that up.

Jared Egley [00:45:56] Okay, so I. I have that experience with the sheriff's deputy. This is August 6th now, so. And that upsets me that they waited so long to contact me. We have a wedding that's coming up. I have a nephew that's getting married in the temple. We're obviously not going because we don't have temple recommends, but my parents are stressed to the max because they don't want to go to this temple wedding and see my uncle, who has, up to this point, not contacted them. So they had never talked to my uncle. They didn't want to meet him in the temple wedding ceiling. So my parents weren't even going to go to my nephew's wedding, which bugged me.

Jared Egley [00:46:35] I'm like, this is exactly what I didn't want to happen, is to have this be a completely egg shoe, Everybody tiptoeing around everybody, and a complete mess. So my parents actually went to the wedding. My uncle and aunt did not show up to the wedding. They claimed that they didn't know about it, which was not correct, and that they had things that came up. So the wedding thing happens, and I'm like, okay, this is now August, and it's causing issues in our family, and I don't need to keep dealing with this. I was at a point now where I'm like, I was fine with this abuse for 35 years, but now I'm not because I've spent the last seven months with this being continually brought up, me being not believed, me being, you know, looked at as unworthy.

Jared Egley [00:47:23] They've totally brought this. If the hardest nine months in my life for me to deal with this abuse has been the last nine months

John Dehlin [00:47:31] because they say it re. Traumatizes you. It does talk about that.

Jared Egley [00:47:37] I don't know how to explain it other than I lose some nights I can't sleep over this issue. I, you know, the anger, the guilt, the, you know, it's just, it just takes over your life again. And it shouldn't, you know, I should have.

John Dehlin [00:47:54] Should be a healing thing.

Jared Egley [00:47:56] Correct. And it's not. It's a, you know, you're, you know our name, you know, we're now non temple recommend holding, you know, members. And it gets worse here because what happens is I decide, this is it, I'm done. I'm going to give them one more chance to take care of this and I'm not going to worry about this anymore. It's not. And Natasha helped us work through that. She's told us, this isn't your problem. It's not your duty to protect people in his ward. It's not your duty to help him repent. None of that's your problem. That's their problem. Your problem is you. And to deal with you and for you to heal. And so I finally determined in August, this is it, we're going to fix this. And I'm not going to let them continue to make me the victim again here.

Juli Egley [00:48:41] And the hardest part of the retraumatization is not his uncle. It's not his uncle retraumatizing him. It's the church. And the church was everything to us.

John Dehlin [00:48:50] Exactly.

Juli Egley [00:48:51] It was this organization that we based our entire life, our marriage, our parenting, our where we live, what we do, everything around. And now this church is doing this to us when we are just trying to bring these, bring this forward because this should not happen.

John Dehlin [00:49:12] How much money in tithing do you think you paid too much? Tens of thousands, right?

Jared Egley [00:49:17] Oh, I probably paid a quarter of a million in tithing.

John Dehlin [00:49:21] And with all the service and all the commitment and the fact that the church claims to be led by Christ and led by prophets and to have

Juli Egley [00:49:29] the gold standard of dealing with child abuse and sexual assault.

John Dehlin [00:49:32] It claims to have the gold standard.

Juli Egley [00:49:33] It claims to have the gold standard.

Jared Egley [00:49:35] So I printed this out, which is the Mormon Newsroom statement that they send all media to on how the church deals with abuse. I printed this out yesterday. Show the camera so you can go to Mormon Newsroom. There's an infographic as well that comes with that, which looks like this. And for me to read through this,

John Dehlin [00:49:54] what are some of the points?

Juli Egley [00:49:55] It's laughable.

John Dehlin [00:49:57] That make you angry.

Jared Egley [00:49:59] Literally the only thing on here that the church has done that they say they do is there's windows in the in our church house Sunday school building.

John Dehlin [00:50:06] But that's not church wide. But what are the things that it claims it does that it didn't do?

Juli Egley [00:50:11] The vigilant thing, where Was that?

Jared Egley [00:50:17] Okay. 24 hour helpline professionals are on the line to make certain the victim is cared for and ensure compliance with all reporting laws.

John Dehlin [00:50:24] Not true.

Jared Egley [00:50:24] Never happened.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:50:25] Natasha finally reported it.

John Dehlin [00:50:27] Okay.

Jared Egley [00:50:28] After she realized, like, nothing.

Juli Egley [00:50:30] To make sure that the victim is

Jared Egley [00:50:31] cared for, Team creates a plan to move forward. I mean, the only plan that we ever had was they could put us on a tithing plan leaders are instructed on how to address victims and perpetrators. My leaders had no idea, and they

Juli Egley [00:50:44] say they have no idea.

Jared Egley [00:50:45] Elder Lang had no idea how to deal with this. Church works with authorities as they investigate and prosecute abuse.

Juli Egley [00:50:54] They did say they were happy it was reported to cps, but they didn't

Jared Egley [00:50:58] ever take any responsibility to report it as necessary. Other congregational leaders are made aware so that they can be vigilant. For nine months, there's a bishop in Benson, Utah who's been accused of these things. And for nine months have people been made aware so that they can be vigilant.

John Dehlin [00:51:14] He's still bishop.

Jared Egley [00:51:15] Currently Bishop, yeah. Church supports investigation, counseling and prosecution of the abuser. He's still a bishop. Abuser faces church discipline. He's still a bishop. And I read through this, and it just is a mess. You know, leader meets frequently with the victim to counsel and help healing. I mean, our healing has been. We don't, you know, believe our faith crisis has been our issue. So that they say that publicly, they do not do that. There may be cases where they do do that, but for the vast majority of the cases, they don't follow what they say they do. And that's a cultural issue. They've done that since the day that Joseph Smith stood in front of the people in Nauvoo and said he wasn't a polygamist.

Jared Egley [00:52:04] Or the manifesto when they said they weren't practicing polygamy. They're not doing what they're saying they're doing publicly. And that's a problem. And it's a problem that gets shouldered back on the victims of abuse, whether it's sexual abuse, sexual assault, domestic abuse, the victims are the ones that are shouldering the problems. And when someone like us, we look to the church for help because we always thought that if we needed help, that's where we get it. And to turn to the church doing what we feel has been right and getting no help has totally been a miserable Experience.

Family Fallout and Going Public

Jared Egley [00:52:40] So the thing that made me the most mad, which has led me to be public about this, is after I realized that this was a mess in our family. My wife decided that she wanted to talk to my uncle's wife because we didn't know if she knew. We thought maybe he's just keeping this secret. So she did what I did with my uncle, texted her and says, I need to meet with you. And so she went down and met with my uncle's wife in her office where she works on. Do you remember what day that was?

Juli Egley [00:53:07] August.

John Dehlin [00:53:09] This is a couple months ago.

Juli Egley [00:53:10] Just like a month ago.

Jared Egley [00:53:12] So she can tell you that how that went.

Juli Egley [00:53:13] So I went down there and met with her. We chit chatted kind of the same. Again, I couldn't tell. You know, she was very cordial. I honestly couldn't tell. We talked for a minute about what we'd been doing and. And I said, do you know why I'm here? And she said, yes, I think I do.

Juli Egley [00:53:31] So I learned that Lynn thought Jared wanted to meet with him because I was mad at him over a family campground. He had texted me the year before. I had. I knew about it. I knew about the abuse. At the time. I didn't want to talk to him. I think I sent a very short text saying it was unavailable. Flooded wasn't going to work out. But check with my mother in law. He thought I was mad. So when Jared gets the text, hey, Jared wants to meet with me. I bet he's coming to tell me why Julie's mad. So he gets home from the meeting with Jared. Shelly says, why is Julie mad at you? Oh, no. Jared accused me of this.

Jared Egley [00:54:08] So he told his wife that night.

Juli Egley [00:54:09] So that was actually. It made me feel better, it really did because I had no idea if he would tell her. So that actually did alleviate some feelings. I said, honestly, one great concern I have is his reaction to the accusation. And she said, oh, that's. That's just how he is. That's just how he acts.

John Dehlin [00:54:31] Meaning never reaching out again.

Juli Egley [00:54:33] Never reaching out again. Not showing shock, not showing surprise.

John Dehlin [00:54:38] Just Robotics.

Juli Egley [00:54:39] Why have you not reached out? Well, we were waiting for Jared's parents to reach out to us because we thought maybe they were mad at us. I said, what about your kids? I have a great concern for your kids. They have two older children and they've adopted a child that has mild developmental issues. I was very concerned about her. She had history of abuse in an orphanage in another country.

Juli Egley [00:55:06] She assured me she'd never seen any signs of abuse with her children. She said she would go home and ask him for permission to ask their kids if she could ask them about that. Which I thought, how about you just go ask him? Like, really?

Juli Egley [00:55:23] She told me flat out that she did not believe Jared's story because she and her husband have had multiple spiritual experiences together. If he had done this, there's no way the spirit could be with him and they never would have had those spiritual experiences, which is mind blowing to me.

Jared Egley [00:55:45] And the best part was, is that the stats in his ward are so

Juli Egley [00:55:48] far, and this couldn't be true because the stats in his ward are the best in the stake. So if he wasn't meant to be bishop, how could the stats be good? They both had spiritual experiences for him to be called to a bishop, and then six months later, guess what? He was called to be a bishop. I kind of logically tried to explain some of those things and said, you know, five years, a lot of people start speculating that they could be called as a bishop. Could that be it? Oh, no, no. These were.

Jared Egley [00:56:20] I would expect her to side with her husband, though it wasn't a surprise to me that that's the way she went. And I don't invalidate their spiritual experiences,

John Dehlin [00:56:28] but that logic shows egregious naivete.

Jared Egley [00:56:33] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:56:34] Because George P. Lee, as a general authority, sexually abused people. We have Joseph Bishop as MTC president who allegedly raped someone in the basement. And he's admitted to it. Right. And we know that bishops and stake presidents have been adulterers and sexual abusers. Thousands, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, have.

Juli Egley [00:56:56] And they probably do have spiritual experiences. I'm not saying that they don't.

John Dehlin [00:57:00] They perceive they have what they perceive to be spiritual experiences.

Juli Egley [00:57:03] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:57:04] In fact, many of them are experts at manipulating people. That's the ability of abusive people is their experts at manipulating emotion and manipulating others. And that's what gives them the power and the ability to abuse people. So this whole. This whole associating, these feelings that we've been taught are spiritual experiences with whatever meaning we attach to it, which is the church, is true. This person must be good with God. Those are false equivalences. Right, Right.

Jared Egley [00:57:39] And just because he's a good bishop and his stats are good and he's good to his wife and maybe good to his neighbors, doesn't mean that he did horrible things to me 35 years ago.

John Dehlin [00:57:49] Yeah. It's kind of like the trains ran on time in Nazi Germany, you know, so what?

Jared Egley [00:57:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:55] And what does it have to do with your abuse Right.

Jared Egley [00:57:57] Nothing like, he abused me as a child. And that's an issue. That doesn't mean that he can't have done other good things in his life.

Juli Egley [00:58:05] Exactly.

Jared Egley [00:58:05] And you can't use those good things to invalidate that he may have done bad things. Yes, but the biggest problem, the biggest thing that sent me off the edge was she said that they were told by Elder Lang.

Juli Egley [00:58:18] He was told she was not there.

Jared Egley [00:58:20] So Elder Lang told my uncle that he sensed discrepancies in my story and that he believed that we were using this as an excuse to leave the church and that Lynn would not be released as a bishop and that we would receive a letter telling us of that decision, which we did not ever see. And so I was livid. I mean, I was ready to. I mean, I'm like, are you what you think?

John Dehlin [00:58:44] What did you. When you heard that?

Juli Egley [00:58:46] I was so mad, I. Oh, and also that their stake president said that we refused to meet with him, the

Jared Egley [00:58:54] one that blew me off for three

Juli Egley [00:58:55] weeks, that we were blowing him off, and that we refused to meet with him when that was an absolute lie. And our stake president can vouch that that is an outright lie because he tried to set up meetings for us as well. So I was. I told her that that was not true. I said, we have nothing to gain through this. We have nothing to gain.

John Dehlin [00:59:18] They're turning it as you're just trying to justify your sin.

Juli Egley [00:59:21] If we need to leave the church, we will just leave the church quietly, peacefully. They've given us plenty of reasons.

Jared Egley [00:59:29] Yeah, well. And prior to this, I had done an interview over the phone with Larry Craig from KUTV News in relation to Sam Young's Protect the Children movement. I shared my story with Sam Young anonymously because I thought that it was important that people realize maybe some of these bishops are bad bishops. And that reporter eventually, out of the blue, reached out to me. I didn't reach out to him. I got an email from him one day through Sam Young, and I debated whether or not to share my story with him. But I shared it without names, but there was enough information in there that people could connect the dots. And that's on KUTV News. You can see that I let my stake president.

John Dehlin [01:00:09] We'll include a link to that in our show notes.

Jared Egley [01:00:13] After I had heard what Elder Lang had told my uncle, I immediately went home, went to my bishop and said, enough's enough. This is ridiculous. And if it's not going to be dealt with, I feel like I'm justified in dealing with this. How I want to deal with this. Not following your rules to deal with this anymore. I've done an article on KUTV News. I'm willing to speak up about this. If things aren't going to be handled correctly, then I don't want to be vocal, but I'm going to have to be. And I shared the same thing with my stake president. We met with him the next morning.

Jared Egley [01:00:45] He called us immediately. We met with him. I told him the same thing. He read the article. He sent the KUTV News article to my uncle's stake president. And my stake president assured me that he was going to talk with President Christiansen now and run it back up the ladder again.

John Dehlin [01:01:00] The new area.

Jared Egley [01:01:00] New area authority, and he would get back with us. So he. We met with him a week later. He said, I've talked to Elder Christiansen. He's very concerned about this. He said he wanted to be kept very close. And my stake president and my uncle's stake president had met together to kind of figure out again for the fourth time nine months later, what are we going to do about this? And I thought that they were going to release him because of that.

Juli Egley [01:01:28] And we went and met with Natasha that same time.

Jared Egley [01:01:31] That same week was the week we went and met with Natasha. And I was pretty certain that my anger and my willingness to speak about this and saying this is wrong. They clearly knew that it wasn't about me or about my uncle. It was about, he shouldn't be a bishop. Like, you guys can't have this policy to have him in there as a bishop. It's something that can't, you know, it's an allegation. I get that. You don't have to believe me, but this is something where this man's not beyond reproach and it's not going to ruin his life to be an elders quorum instructor. And we need to protect the kids that are there.

Jared Egley [01:02:06] And I don't think there's a single woman in that ward that has children that, even if they didn't, believe me, would feel comfortable sending their kids into his office to talk about things that bishops talk about. I just don't. And it's not. That's not keeping members informed of, to be vigilant.

Jared Egley [01:02:23] So I was pretty sure something was going to happen. We met with Natasha, shared our, you know, visited with her, and I said, I'm pretty sure something will happen. Well, about a week and a half ago, I got a text from my stake president that said, unless we continue to push this issue, I Could read the text. But summarizing it, he said, unfortunately, unless we continue to press this issue, it looks as if nothing is going to be done. Would you like to continue to press this issue and I'll read the texts just because I was just amazed that here we are nine months, fourth time that we're. Nothing's. Nothing's being done here still.

Juli Egley [01:03:04] And so CPS knows, law enforcement knows church lawyers, inside council, outside counsel, two general authorities.

Jared Egley [01:03:14] Yeah.

Juli Egley [01:03:15] Four times this has been brought up.

Jared Egley [01:03:17] Nine months of mental burdens we shouldn't have to deal with. And this is the text I get a couple weeks ago. Says, just wanted to say I think we have ran as far as we are going to go. Unless you feel you would like to personally meet with President Ballard or Elder Christensen. I have a sense it is an issue that will not be discussed again unless we bring it up. I'm willing to do whatever you feel is best for you to do. I have no expectations other than you will do what is best for you and your family. I'm here for whatever it may be. So he places the burden on me.

John Dehlin [01:03:45] Your stake president.

Jared Egley [01:03:46] My stake president basically says supportive. Either way, he's going to be a bishop. He's not going to be released. If you want to continue to push it, I'll do it. If not, whatever. And I'm done working in their system.

John Dehlin [01:04:00] So you don't want to go to Christensen and meet with them?

Jared Egley [01:04:02] I said, I don't need a visit with them. It's not going to do any good for me or my wife, and I don't think will do any good for anyone else at this point. And then I sent him this. I said, I do want to say I think it is a huge mistake for them to go this route, but that's not my problem. They can deal with whatever consequences follow for their decisions. I know that my wife and I have done nothing without a lot of thought and prayer. We are at peace, knowing we have done what is right and are fine with whatever consequences, follow our decisions.

Jared Egley [01:04:27] I really feel that my Savior would be with me on this issue and not the direction the church is going. And I left it at that. And that gave me the excuse to say, I've done everything that the church would want me to do to handle this the way they would want it handled, and they have failed every time.

Jared Egley [01:04:45] And so I'm willing to speak about this because it's an issue that needs to be fixed. And silencing the victims in these cases is not the solution to the problem, and that's what they're doing. And it needs to stop.

Jared Egley [01:05:00] So if they're not going to handle it, then I'm willing to share. I know that I can't do anything myself, but the hundreds or thousands of us that are in the same situation, the stories that hear over and over again that are the same need to be heard and people need to speak up and the church needs to realize that they are doing things wrong.

John Dehlin [01:05:21] So at a minimum, it seems like the ward members and stake members in your uncle's ward and stake need to be made aware that very credible allegations of super egregious child sexual abuse had been made against their sitting bishop. And they all need to know that that's who's leading that ward. And interviewing children and interviewing youth and sitting alone with these youth and young women and young men and adult women and adult men, they all should be made aware because that is in and of itself a significant threat to their health and safety. Am I wrong?

Jared Egley [01:06:07] I think you're exactly right. And that's what the Mormon newsroom advice says that they do, which they clearly don't. I mean, I don't think that anybody, I don't think anybody would feel comfortable with anybody who's been accused of those things. Being a bishop. They're clearly not beyond reproach. And your chances of, you know, if

Juli Egley [01:06:33] you just, if you even take us out of the situation, if you just look at stat like statistics of abuse reports, they're 98% credible. So the church is taking a 2% gamble and that we're using this to leave the church. Yeah, so I guess that's the gamble

John Dehlin [01:06:51] they want to take because legally, if the church takes action, I'm sure they're concerned that they're acknowledging or admitting that the abuse happened. And then they risk not only liability, but their own reputation, their own credibility, potential lawsuits, and just the admission that someone was called to a position that should have never been called and that damages the reputation of the church in their mind. And so they're taking the legalistic lawyerly cover your bases, protect yourself approach.

Jared Egley [01:07:25] And that's why they don't, that's why they don't discipline people that are accused, like Joseph Bishop or my uncle, because as soon as they do, they admit guilt. And that's. That to me is ridiculous that we're letting attorneys run this show when people's lives are being railroaded and they're just leaving a mess of carnage in people's lives, which they don't care about. They care More about their risk and their image and their liability. And that's wrong.

John Dehlin [01:07:58] And what's then just an extra order of magnitude crazy or egregious is that the whistleblowers, the people like the Kate Kelly's, the Sam Youngs, the Jeremy Runnels, who call to the church's attention in a very public way so that they even have a chance at making the positive change, they shoot the messenger, they execute the messenger, the person that actually is the one that leads to them making the positive change. So they're shooting and killing, assassinating the whistleblowers.

Jared Egley [01:08:34] Correct. Well, and in our community, we're the ones that have left the church because of doubts. You know, where the doubting, you know, people, people in our neighbors don't know why we're not at church, but they should, you know, but they're being told that, well, they're non temple recommend holding doubters and you know, don't, don't listen to what they have to say and that's the way they discredit you and keep their power there. And that's, it's tough for us to deal with.

Juli Egley [01:09:03] But I mean, I went from, I told them that they had to release me finally in March, I couldn't do it anymore. And so we went one week I was the primary president, we didn't go back. The next week they released me. And we haven't been since.

Jared Egley [01:09:20] So I think that's basically the story and where it sits today is my uncle is still a bishop and

Juli Egley [01:09:29] you

Jared Egley [01:09:29] know, it's obvious to me that the general authorities believe him and not me, otherwise he would be released as a bishop. That's the message that I get from them is that there's, you know, or

Juli Egley [01:09:43] the lawyers are telling them they can't take action because it admits guilt.

Jared Egley [01:09:46] Yeah, Their legal risk in my case is zero because the statute of limitations are expired. So a Curtin and McConkey attorney would be saying we have no risk. The only risk they have is me being vocal and public about this, which they, you know, two, you go back two weeks ago and all my, you know, the only thing I've done is shared a story without names on KUTV news. So I've not been very vocal about this at all. But, you know, I'm not afraid to do so.

John Dehlin [01:10:15] Now one of our listeners, Lori, she writes, you can just see this guy's anger. I'm so sorry this happened to you. My husband wants me to take my issue to the church and to the, the church school. But I honestly don't think I could go through what you are going through. This is grueling. And that's a really important point that Lori's making, which is how many of these instances of abuse go unreported?

Juli Egley [01:10:42] Right.

John Dehlin [01:10:43] And then when you see the way that this is handled and what it puts people through, it's this huge disincentive to suppress anyone else. They're just going to say, why? Why bother? Why go through this? It's just punishing. And so that's all the more a credit and a kudo. Well, congratulation. It's just so amazing that you guys are willing to go through this because what's your upside? You're not getting a financial settlement. You have a successful financial position.

Juli Egley [01:11:13] We've been accused that we're doing it for notoriety.

John Dehlin [01:11:16] So you want fame.

Jared Egley [01:11:18] Yeah.

Juli Egley [01:11:18] Great.

John Dehlin [01:11:19] To be known as the victim of sexual abuse is so. It has so many rewards to it.

Juli Egley [01:11:26] Yeah.

Jared Egley [01:11:27] I'm just basking all the rewards. Like we've. It's been miserable for us. And I would hope that people that have similar stories would have the courage to, number one, report it to law enforcement first. They're not going to get much help reporting it to their bishops.

Jared Egley [01:11:45] Report it to law enforcement and find somebody that is a counselor that can give you the help and the guidance that you need. Laurie, the person there, I mean, there's nothing that is more healing than to speak about that to somebody that understands you. And that's not going to be a bishop or stake president. In most cases, that's going to be a counselor. But law enforcement needs to know these things. They need to be reported to law enforcement first and let them deal with those issues. And then you need to find somebody that can listen to you and help you.

Jared Egley [01:12:19] Staying silent is not going to solve that. It's just going to be a burden you're going to continue to carry your entire life. But there are people that you can talk to that will help. And it does help. You just have to make sure that you talk to the right people. And that's the hard part, is active members of the church think the right people are your bishop, but they're not. And when you realize that, that can be devastating.

Advice for Survivors and Fellow Victims

John Dehlin [01:12:45] So what. What counsel do you give people? So you're saying, speak up. If you're in a position to do so, get help. Sounds like Natasha Alford Parker is someone you can recommend. You can contact Natasha atashaparker.org yeah, she's great. You can go to the Mormon Mental Health association website and There's a list of providers there who many of them are going to be skilled with dealing with trauma victims.

Juli Egley [01:13:11] And Natasha, actually, when we spoke with her, she kind of walked us through of do we need counseling? Do we not? What could it do? What are the benefits? How do you receive counseling? All those kinds of things. And it was very beneficial.

John Dehlin [01:13:25] Any other suggestions you can make to victims of their family?

Juli Egley [01:13:29] It was very hard for Jared to speak and it was hard for me because with this faith transition, it was hard to share because this was such a pivotal part of it. I didn't feel like I could share his story and it was very hard for him to share. But I think once he started to share has been. I don't want to speak for you.

Jared Egley [01:13:51] It helps, helps to share the story that you have with the people that you trust. You have to be careful sharing it with those that you do trust. But it definitely helps. And if you're in a position where you feel you can do that, it's going to be beneficial for you. It's not going to be beneficial to stay silent.

Personal Healing and Life After Coming Forward

John Dehlin [01:14:10] So for you, this has been grueling. This has been frustrating, angering. Has it been healing? And if so, how it has, other

Jared Egley [01:14:18] than the anger towards the church, and that's where we're at now.

John Dehlin [01:14:21] How has it been healing?

Jared Egley [01:14:23] You know, I'm willing to talk with my wife about that, and we understand each other a lot better than we did before. You know, I know that she's got my back and I've got hers. And our relationship with our kids, you know, the big fear that everybody's tried to.

Jared Egley [01:14:38] Tried to bring into our life is, what about your kids? You know, what are. Your kids are all going to turn out to be, you know, trouble children. But the relationship we have with our kids is better than it's ever been.

Jared Egley [01:14:49] And our family is way more open than we've ever been. We can talk about things. They know they can come to us with anything. And it's a no judgment zone there that we respect their views. And so as a family, we're in a much better position. I feel we're in a much healthier position, a much happier position when it comes to, you know, our relationship with our parents.

Jared Egley [01:15:12] Julie's parents have been phenomenal. My parents have been great. Although the faith issue there, they're still very active, believing members. And that relationship is different. So the church relationship, the community that we've lost there is hard and will probably continue to be hard. I don't ever see that changing much but we're better for speaking up. Although there are days when the anger level really rises and you don't know whether it's something that you should suppress and just not. But I think sometimes anger is an emotion that needs to be used.

John Dehlin [01:15:52] Anger is something you learn from and lean into and process, not suppress and

Juli Egley [01:15:56] avoid and not hang in there forever. I mean, it's getting better.

Jared Egley [01:16:00] And you know, stuff that happens and seems to happen regularly now, the Kavanaugh hearings, you know, I understand, I understand those scenarios so much better now. And the anger from seeing how people that don't understand those situations deal, deal with that. You know, if you can use that anger to try to promote awareness, awareness and stuff that will improve people's lives, it needs to be done instead of tearing people down. So.

John Dehlin [01:16:28] So your mental health has improved, your marriage is improved, your relationship with your children has improved. I imagine you feel like your kids are safer from not being.

Jared Egley [01:16:37] Absolutely, yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:39] Raised in an institution that handles abuse in this way.

Jared Egley [01:16:43] And that's why initially we figured we would be nuanced and continue to go so our kids would have a place with their friends in the community because it's almost all lds. But I no longer feel comfortable with them there because I don't want them to be. You know, they go to college and get married and move on. I don't know if the bishop that they're going to have is going to be a bishop that can't be trusted. So.

Jared Egley [01:17:04] And we're very open with our kids and you know, they're the generation that they make their own decisions. So my 14 year old did not get ordained to be a teacher and my 12 year old did not get ordained to be a deacon. And that was their choice that they made. They were given the choice and told that we would support them and they decided not to. And my 17 year old daughter did not enroll in Release Time Seminary this year. So they're making their own decisions and they're doing very well and they're very happy. And I think that's a happier, healthier way to raise kids than to force them into something that, in my opinion, and I know it's my opinion, is not what is not truth and is not something that's going to bring them happiness.

Juli Egley [01:17:49] The community aspect of it is hard.

John Dehlin [01:17:51] But why? What's hard about it?

Juli Egley [01:17:53] Because everybody's Mormon. There's rumors about, because my daughter didn't sign up for seminary, that she's an atheist, which she's not at all.

John Dehlin [01:18:02] As if that's a horrible as if that's a horrible thing.

Juli Egley [01:18:04] She's a great girl who probably doesn't believe that much different from a lot of the kids in seminary, but, you know, and our 14 year old had to stand up to the kid in the ward that said, are you not getting ordained? Nope, I'm not. You know, just things kids have enough to deal with. They shouldn't have to deal with this as well. They should just be able to be who they are and be confident in that. And so we'll see.

John Dehlin [01:18:31] Anything else you want to say, Julie, about how things are now, what you've learned from all this?

Juli Egley [01:18:42] It's hard when your entire faith crumbles because you don't trust anything anymore, which is a hard place to be, but it's a freeing place to be. At the same time, we're in the process of figuring out where we belong, what we believe, what we don't believe, and, and that's a scary thing. But at the same time, it can be very freeing and very, like I said, opening, you know, open with our kids and not judgmental and not being told what to believe. So it's scary, but it's good.

John Dehlin [01:19:19] Really quickly, what if someone were to. If someone were to say, well, okay, you just got offended. You left the church because you're offended. Right. That's a common trope or a common stereotype. Can you just quickly talk about other. Other things you've learned or other major factors? You don't have to go into detail, but like, list the other factors that have contributed to your decision to not continue believing or your loss of faith. Do either of you want to just

Faith Transition and Leaving the Church

Jared Egley [01:19:47] like, like the faith transition issues?

John Dehlin [01:19:49] Yeah.

Jared Egley [01:19:49] Well, so the big things for me,

John Dehlin [01:19:52] because this happened and people are going to say, well, that's why you left, because.

Jared Egley [01:19:55] Right.

John Dehlin [01:19:55] Well, I think they were offended because of the way the church handled it. Is that why you left?

Jared Egley [01:20:00] No, that's part of the puzzle. I mean, I think everybody that goes through a faith transition has some event in their life that moves them to question whether that's a. You know, you've heard this. Everybody has something in their life that moves them. The thing that moved me to question my faith was my uncle being called as a bishop and he abused me as a child. That, that allowed me to say, let me look at this. And as I started to look at those things, some of the things that I didn't know, the Book of Abraham issues were big initially, but I kind of looked at things and said, what does Mormonism have that's different from Christianity.

Jared Egley [01:20:41] And the three pivotal things for me were the temple, the priesthood keys, and the Book of Mormon. And so I spent a lot of time looking into the origin of the temple endowment ceremony and where all of our temple stuff comes from. And I looked.

John Dehlin [01:20:57] And you found what?

Jared Egley [01:20:58] Well, I found that, you know, obviously that the sealing ceremony and the endowment ceremony originated within the Quorum of the Anointed, which was the quorum that secretly kept polygamy a secret in Nauvoo, and that's where that came from. That's the only people that received those ceilings and endowments were the polygamists, her uncle or her ancestor. John Pack was one of those that was in that quorum, and he was only allowed in that quorum because he agreed with the principle of polygamy. So they let him in. Those are the only people that wore garments. And so when you look at that, everything, you know, that's a problem for you.

John Dehlin [01:21:32] Why?

Jared Egley [01:21:34] Because that's not what we're. You know, we're told that, you know, the temple endowment ceremony is something that has been ancient and ancient in origin and handed down through time, and that it's not tied to polygamy, but it clearly originated with polygamy, and it clearly originated with Masonic issues, and it's not what we're taught today. And so.

John Dehlin [01:21:54] So for you, the fact that it originated with the Masonic Lodge, not, you know, some ancient Solomon. Yeah. Which is only a few hundred years old, actually. And then the fact that it's tainted by having originally been used as a. As a way to create these blood oaths so that polygamy could be kept from people hidden and practiced in a private and yet very abusive way.

Jared Egley [01:22:19] Right.

John Dehlin [01:22:19] For you, that taints the temple ritual.

Jared Egley [01:22:21] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:22:21] Okay.

Jared Egley [01:22:22] That, to me, allows me to say those things that are done in there are not essential for my salvation and the restoration of the priesthood. You get into the. Did Peter, James and John and John the Baptist really come and restore keys to. To Joseph and Oliver? I don't believe so. I believe. I believe that's highly questionable with the way that that unfolded. So I don't believe that. That that was the case.

John Dehlin [01:22:46] What a lot of people. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that Joseph never talked about the Melchizedek priesthood until.

Jared Egley [01:22:51] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:22:52] Until 1838.

Jared Egley [01:22:54] Right.

John Dehlin [01:22:54] That none of the early church leaders ever heard any mention of the Melchizedek priesthood. There's no date.

Juli Egley [01:22:59] Right.

John Dehlin [01:23:00] There's no written record. And then in 1838, when the church is falling apart, people are questioning the authority. He writes back into the narrative that there was a Melchizedek priesthood. And even today we don't celebrate the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood because there's no date, because we don't know when it happened, because it never happened, because it was written back in the narrative.

Juli Egley [01:23:20] Book of Commandments versus the Doctrine and Covenants, what was added in.

Jared Egley [01:23:24] So that fell apart for me.

John Dehlin [01:23:26] Even David Whitmer was like, what was Joseph talking about? I have no idea what he means by exactly. And he was one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, correct? Yeah, yeah. So the whole Melchizedek priesthood is bankrupt.

Jared Egley [01:23:35] Right. That falls apart. So that's not that important. And then the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the anachronisms and the DNA evidence, you know, I firmly believe that it's a modern day document. I don't believe that it's ancient. I don't believe that he translated it. So if those things fall apart, what's left for me to give all that I can to that organization? And I believed initially that I could still support and be a member and gain the benefits from the organization. But when I realized that it's not a safe place and that the things that they're doing to protect abusers, I can find a lot of other places that are safer places.

John Dehlin [01:24:16] People like to say, I don't need. I think I've heard Bill Riel say this, but I don't think he was the first to say it, that I don't need the church to be true, I just need it to be good.

Jared Egley [01:24:24] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:24:24] And what you're saying is what.

Jared Egley [01:24:26] And I get that sexual abuse happens in every organization, happens in every church, happens in every business, it happens in every government. It happens everywhere. And it's not that it happens in the church, it's that it's not dealt with. You know, the, the measure of a good organization is how they deal with that. There are plenty. If you want to be a member of a church, there are plenty of churches that deal with sexual abuse on a very good, in a very good way.

Jared Egley [01:24:52] And unfortunately, I don't believe that the LDS Church is one of those. And so that's why we've decided that that's not where we're going to be for now. And I don't know where we end up. You know, we like going to evangelical churches. It's not that I, you know, if I were to, you know, I don't know what I believe at this point, I'm very comfortable saying that I'm an agnostic, maybe an atheist, but I don't know. I would hope there's something, but I don't know.

Jared Egley [01:25:16] I find value in good Christian based teachings, even though I don't know that Jesus really was resurrected, but I find value in those. But I have a hard time tying myself to another organization and pledging allegiance to another organization.

John Dehlin [01:25:33] Tammy writes, the church should be better than the rest of the world if Jesus is leading it. That's a good point, Tammy. Julie, anything else you want to add about your loss of faith that that isn't just reducible to?

Juli Egley [01:25:45] You were offended, I think, like what you said about Bill Real. It actually reminded me in a recent podcast he did where they were talking about the face to face with Elder Cook. He said a statement that summed up basically how I felt and it was kind of what you said and I had to listen to it 10 times and write it down. But he said I went from going the church may not be true, but it still has the ability to be good to going to. Not only is the church probably not true, but that it causes deep trauma and hurt intentionally to others if that damage will protect its authority in any way, shape or form.

Juli Egley [01:26:20] And once I came to grips with the fact that the church will do anything, including damaging and traumatizing its own members, if that protects its authority, then I no longer had a need or a want or a desire to walk people back into belief in the nonsensical.

John Dehlin [01:26:35] That's Bill Real.

Juli Egley [01:26:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:26:36] Yeah. And that Elder Quentin Cook Nauvoo, you know, a little fireside that they had deserves its own series on Mormon stories because it's.

Juli Egley [01:26:48] I actually had a proud parenting moment because our 17 year old came and said to me, can you believe they said this? She was shocked in that they would claim the things that they said in

John Dehlin [01:26:58] that because it was massive whitewashing and, you know, deception and gaslighting the way that they're talking about polygamy and the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, church authority, the neo apologists and the faithful Church historians are gaslighting and deceiving people now systematically. And it's deeply troubling. And we have to do a series on that as well.

Juli Egley [01:27:24] And I think Jared's more logical and I agree with everything he logically says. I sometimes I'm a little bit more emotional, but I feel deeply betrayed. And then when the church tells me it's my fault because I just misunderstand translation or I misunderstand what it, what Joseph actually meant when he said, restored or revelation and puts it back on me that I was. We were even told by Elder Lang that we just misinterpreted what we understood revelation was.

John Dehlin [01:27:55] Yeah. Kimberly Anderson, one of our loyal listeners. Hey, Kimberly. She asks if LGBTQ+ issues factor into your disaffection at all.

Juli Egley [01:28:07] They do. I. I've. All. That's always kind of been a shelf issue for me, and that. I tried to explain it away, you know, well, that's just a temptation God would give because I knew. I've always known that people would not choose that, but I.

Jared Egley [01:28:21] We both have friends from our childhood that are lgbtq.

Juli Egley [01:28:25] Yeah. And the treatment of that and the policy, that was a huge issue for us before we just added it to the shelf till the shelf crumbled.

Jared Egley [01:28:34] And that's an issue for me. Participating in other evangelical organizations is. A lot of them are not accepting at all of that, and so I have a hard time. You know, there's some evangelical churches that I really enjoy, other than the fact that they're not going to accept LGBTQ people for who they are. So that's not a major issue for us, but it's something that I've always believed the way that the church has handled that is wrong. The November 15th policy was troubling to us, but we were going through a lot of other things at that time. At least I was. But, yeah, the way that those. The way the LGBTQ people are treated is wrong. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:18] And we always forget women. What about the way women are treated? Not able to hold leadership positions, not able to hold the priesthood. Let's. Let's let Julie answer that first.

Jared Egley [01:29:26] Well, let me answer one thing first, and then let Julie answer, because she. For the. For most of these interviews that we have had with bishops and stake presidents and Elder Lang, the focus has been me. Like, they have looked at me, they've talked to me, they've asked me, and it's been about the priesthood holder, the male, and very rarely. She was usually sitting over here kind of as a side guest, like, there. There was not a lot of concern for her, and that. That was troubling to me. She brought that up a couple times, and it was very obvious that their concern for her, both of us sitting there having the same issues, that they were not concerned about her. And I saw that. That. I saw that come out in that process, and it was troubling to me.

John Dehlin [01:30:18] Julie, what are you feeling?

Juli Egley [01:30:20] It's actually kind of funny because I listened to one of your podcasts. I can't remember Their names, the mother daughter combination that you did a couple weeks ago.

John Dehlin [01:30:29] Katie and her mom, Jill. Katie and Jill.

Juli Egley [01:30:32] And Jill was talking about how our stake president came on her porch and said, well, we don't need a hold of court. I listen as I mow my lawn. And I literally yelled, are you kidding me?

John Dehlin [01:30:42] She was in a same sex marriage.

Juli Egley [01:30:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:30:44] And the bishop's like, and you're a

Juli Egley [01:30:45] woman, so you actually don't need to be held a court. You can just be excommunicated. And I was like, that made you feel what? Just outraged. That really like women basically run, not run the church, but it kind of would fall apart without women in the Middle east society and everything that they do. Polygamy is a big issue for me. Reading my ancestors journals and their testimonies of John Pack's wife flat out says polygamy was the worst and hardest thing of her life and it nearly killed her. But she's glad she did it because she'll be rewarded in heaven. And that just makes me sick to my stomach listening to the polygamy stories of the way that women were treated. And it's. It's not fair. It's wrong. I don't. I never really considered myself a feminist until I realized what a feminist was.

John Dehlin [01:31:37] And then what is it to you?

Juli Egley [01:31:39] Just that you stand up and believe that women should be treated the same as men. And that is definitely true. So yes, I have issue with that.

John Dehlin [01:31:52] Well, wow. Well, this is powerful stuff. And I. If I were to read all the people thanking you and telling you how courageous you both are, it would take another hour. But I want to give you guys a chance to each kind of give some closing thoughts and share whatever I didn't ask that you wish I'd asked or whatever you want to say that we didn't cover or any final words for abuse victims, for family of abuse victims, for church leaders. I want to give you guys each a chance to kind of give a final statement. It almost sounds legal. Legalistic. Who wants to go first?

Juli Egley [01:32:31] I'll go first.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] Okay.

Juli Egley [01:32:33] I guess the saddest thing to me in the faith transition stories that I hear is when the wife chooses the church or the husband chooses the church. And I get that. But at the same time, when the

John Dehlin [01:32:46] believer chooses the church over their non

Juli Egley [01:32:48] believing spouse over their non believing spouse, that breaks my heart. I mean, even what kind of a church is it that teaches families that would tell you to destroy your family. So I would just say give them the benefit of the doubt.

Juli Egley [01:33:05] Jared and I We were on a similar path. He got there a little quicker than I did. But just have patience with each other and work through it and talk to each other and if there's a sexual abuse, just talk about it. The more you talk about it, the better it gets. It's hard and it's scary and our life isn't perfect. Now we're probably going to get some backlash for this in the community as well as, but we feel like it's the right thing to do and we feel like the church isn't going to do it. So unfortunately the burden's been placed on us again.

Juli Egley [01:33:46] So just believe your truth. You don't have to believe what they tell you to believe. You know in your mind what's true and in your heart. And I'm not just being logical and non emotional. And people say you've got to trust the spirit and ignore your mind. And we've been told that the devil has checked his box and that we're just as evil as can be. And I don't feel evil. I feel good, I feel happy, I feel free, I feel happier without the community backlash. If we could live outside of Mormondom, this would be.

Juli Egley [01:34:26] And that's what I've told Jared. I am so, so, so sorry that he had to go through the things he did, but I am so, so glad that he finally told me and that we were able to open our eyes and see this organization for what it is.

Juli Egley [01:34:46] Because I don't want my kids to have to figure this out on their own. If I can protect them, and even if they choose it, I want them to do so with eyes wide open that they know what they're getting into, that they're choosing the truth to, not this whitewashed version that we've been sold our entire lives. So I'm not sorry it happened because of that.

John Dehlin [01:35:16] Jared.

Jared Egley [01:35:20] You know, my primary purpose of being here is that I think that there's a problem within institutions and how they deal with sexual assault, sexual abuse and domestic abuse. And silence is not the answer to that. The story is not, it's not a story about me, it's not a story about my uncle. It's a story about abuse. And people need to speak up about abuse and institutions need to deal with that abuse differently than they have been dealing with it. And if anybody, you know, people who really know me, like, if I, if I can be here speaking up about this, anybody can. Like, I am not a, I am not a public person.

Jared Egley [01:36:04] Like, for me to speak up about these things is Difficult. And if I can do it, anybody can do it. And that's the solution to this problem, is the solution is not silence. The solution is not atonement and forgiveness.

Jared Egley [01:36:18] The solution is people need to be aware that these things happen and that institutions need to be held accountable for the way that they deal with those things. And there's right ways to deal with these things that can make it better for everybody involved.

Jared Egley [01:36:31] And that's what I want people to know, is that we need to speak up. Silence is not the answer to this. And if there's enough people that speak up about these things, maybe a difference can be made, because there's just carnage that's being left behind in people's lives, whether that's abuse or LGBTQ people's lives. I mean, the amount of damage that's.

John Dehlin [01:36:55] Or just kids who masturbate or. Yeah, normal sexual exploration.

Juli Egley [01:37:00] Exactly.

Jared Egley [01:37:01] Right. I mean, I don't. It's just amazing that this is the way things are dealt with when, if you deal with them correctly, people aren't going to look at you and say, wow, you're dealing with that good. I'm not going to be a part of that. Like, you know, doing the right thing is going to. Is the right way to go. So that's what I would say, is people need to speak out about this. It does help, you know, find people that you can trust. Don't internalize it. Don't bury it deeper. You know, go to someone that can give you help and it can make a difference. That's what I would hope would come of this from my vulnerability in speaking out. You know, if it can make a difference and help make a difference, then it's been worth it.

Call to Action and Closing Part Two

John Dehlin [01:37:53] So the call to action, for those of you who are listening, if you're suffering with a history of abuse and you haven't spoken to anyone, find a trusted loved one to speak with. Find a therapist like Natasha Parker. NatashaParker.org, go to Mormon Mental Health Association. Find a good therapist to talk to, report to police when it's appropriate.

John Dehlin [01:38:16] Be really careful about talking to church leaders about it. Use caution there, but speak out, get help. And then for all of you who want to do more, share this podcast on your wall. Share it on Instagram, share it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, email it to friends and family. Share this story and other stories like it everywhere you can. We. We had, you know, at least 54 shares. I don't know. You know, we. I know we've had hundreds and hundreds of people tune in now, we're up to 55 shares. I hope that those of you who are listening will consider sharing this story and other stories publicly that will make a difference.

John Dehlin [01:38:59] We need to get to not only the members of the ward of this bishop, but members of the stake family members. And it's not just this bishop in, you know, in Mink Crick, it's bishops and stake presidents everywhere. So we need to build broad awareness about how people think that leaders are inspired. People think that their children and young adults are safe. They're not. The church is not a safe place for its youth, for its children, for its adults, young adults. So we need to speak up. As the scriptures say, everyone who has been warned needs to warn their neighbor. You've all been warned. Warn your loved ones, warn your neighbors, speak up in or out of the church.

John Dehlin [01:39:44] And that's the way people get protected. And then here are Mormon stories. We will do at least a few more stories of how the church protects abusers at the expense of the abused. So if you want to message us, email us@mormonstoriesmail.com Tell us your story. We can't tell all the stories, but we'll tell a few. And that can be your way as well. You can write about it, you can blog about it, you can Facebook about it, but we just all need to speak out until changes happen. And there should be outrage. This story alone should generate outrage to the point where this bishop gets suspended or is released not because he's guilty, but because a credible, multiple credible allegations have been made where it's clear that this person never.

John Dehlin [01:40:34] Where the church has been put on notice that they have a potential serious problem. Nothing's been done. And I would call on listeners to do all they can to make it so the church makes the right decision here by any means necessary that's legal and ethical and kind and compassionate. Because this, honestly, this man shouldn't remain as bishop until this gets resolved.

John Dehlin [01:40:58] And this isn't the only case. There are hundreds and thousands of issues like it. So if you want to come on Mormon Stories and tell your story, mormonstoriesmail.com we'd love it. Any other things I'm forgetting, It's not

Juli Egley [01:41:10] the bishop in Mink Crick. He's a good guy, right?

John Dehlin [01:41:13] This is the bishop. Where?

Jared Egley [01:41:15] Benson, Utah.

John Dehlin [01:41:16] In Benson, Utah. Yeah. You can figure out who this is if you care and if you want to.

Jared Egley [01:41:21] Doesn't take. Doesn't take a lot of footwork to figure that out.

John Dehlin [01:41:24] But it's a stake president in Benson and It's a stake president. You know, it's stake presidents in Southern Idaho that are mishandling a really important situation. There's a general. There's a temple president that's complicit in this in the Brigham City Temple, and there's an area authority president, that area authority, general authority, who is not handling this right.

Jared Egley [01:41:46] He's busy fighting Prop 2. Right now.

John Dehlin [01:41:48] He's fighting Prop 2, trying to keep the citizens of Utah for voting for marijuana. So priorities.

Jared Egley [01:41:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:55] Mormon Church.

Jared Egley [01:41:56] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:41:57] Sam Young and medical marijuana needs to be defeated. Need to be defeated. But we'll leave legitimately accuse sexual abusers in office and excommunicate Sam Young and fight Prop 2. So we need to speak up, and you guys are heroes for telling this story. And I, on behalf of I and my listeners, Jared and Julie, we cannot thank you enough for your courage and your honesty and your openness and your sacrifices. We love you.

Juli Egley [01:42:28] Thanks.

Jared Egley [01:42:29] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:42:29] And there's listeners that write, we live near you and we want to reach out. So go back to the comments and there's some people saying, you're not alone. We'll be your community. And that's true. We will be your community.

Juli Egley [01:42:42] Thank you. And you are amazing. Like, I can't imagine going through what you went through with nothing and no one and the Internet and Mormon stories, and we didn't really include that in our story, but it was a huge. I mean, I've probably listened. We probably both listened to almost all of your stories. So it's. It's a huge. And that's why we're doing this, is because we know what a difference the stories can make. So thank you.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] Well, thank you. And a huge shout out, as you mentioned it, a huge shout out to our board of directors at the Open Stories foundation, to Cody Layton, who produces these podcast episodes, and to all the donors and supporters who make Mormon Stories of the Oba Stories foundation possible. We couldn't do without you. So a huge thank you to anyone who supports us. And if you want to support us, MormonStories.org, you can donate there. Your donations make a huge difference and keep this alive. So please support us if you can, but thank you guys so much. We love you. Please stay in touch and bless you, and we wish you happy, fulfilling, meaningful, thriving lives in your future.

Jared Egley [01:43:49] Thank you.

Juli Egley [01:43:49] Thanks.

John Dehlin [01:43:50] Take care, guys. Take care, everybody. Talk to you again soon on Warmer Stories. Take care.

Part Three Begins and Deeper Faith Questions

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 993

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sam? Absolutely. I think we should start with prayer, man. Let's get going. All right. Please, if you would.

Guest [00:00:41] Our Eternal Father in heaven, we express gratitude for the blessing of gathering together this evening.

Jared Egley [00:00:46] We're thankful for Jared and Julie and

Guest [00:00:49] their willingness to be with us tonight.

Jared Egley [00:00:52] We're grateful for Bishop Iverson and for

Guest [00:00:55] Elder Lang and for their willingness to serve, to bless. We appreciate the spirit that we've already felt here. Invite and ask that it might be here in plenty tonight.

John Dehlin [00:01:09] And we express a desire that we might feel of thy love and of

Guest [00:01:17] thy care, and that we might receive some feelings and answers that will help all of us as we move forward. We're most mindful of the equies and the wonderful children, grateful for the blessing that they are to us and to this area. And express the desire that we might be of assistance in some way for the pain that's been caused through the years. We're grateful for these blessings this night. Pray for these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

John Dehlin [00:01:55] Thank you. Well, thank you for coming. President has told me a little bit about a situation that occurred when you were a child with then an uncle that was a teenager. And so he's told me a little bit about that. And then you. You've actually had a meeting with your uncle, as I understand, and he denied any sort of involvement. And his state president, I know, has met with him. I have not met with him, but that's kind of what I. What I know about it now. The president has also indicated that the church's council has been involved and they're looking into some of that situation.

Guest [00:02:50] Did they contact you? No.

Jared Egley [00:02:54] And he. It was most likely reported to CPS this morning as well through a. I

Juli Egley [00:03:02] contacted a therapist to kind of get some counsel through the whole thing. And she determined that she was a mandatory reporter.

John Dehlin [00:03:10] Yeah. Yeah, there could be. Most states have something like that.

Jared Egley [00:03:15] I called President Ballard and made him aware of that and just. He told me, told him heads up that CPS may just recently, like within

John Dehlin [00:03:24] the last couple of days.

Jared Egley [00:03:25] I called him about three. I didn't know that it was reported today until last night late.

John Dehlin [00:03:30] Oh, okay.

Juli Egley [00:03:31] She let me know last night that she was going to report it this morning. Plan to report it this morning.

Jared Egley [00:03:35] And so I called President Ballard to let him know and to let Lynn know that CPS may be knocking on somebody's door.

John Dehlin [00:03:44] Sure.

Juli Egley [00:03:44] Right.

Guest [00:03:45] Of this maybe was happening 10 days

Jared Egley [00:03:48] ago, seven days ago. She didn't report it because she did not feel. I. I was originally.

Juli Egley [00:03:57] She was kind of unclear on.

Jared Egley [00:03:59] She legally has to.

Juli Egley [00:04:00] She was unclear at first if she had to or not. So she contacted her ethic board, ethics board and her lawyer through her licensure and then determined that she was supposed to.

Jared Egley [00:04:13] Her concern, and I don't know if I've shared specific specifics with Bishop or with Dax, is that I was 6 at the time. I believe plus or minus a year. He's 11 years older than me, so he was 17 or 18, plus or minus a year.

Jared Egley [00:04:29] It was abuse that occurred. I can remember specifically three times. It may have happened more. It was abuse that I was burned by him to. He had tractors that I like to play with, and in order for me to play with those, I had to perform oral sex on him.

Jared Egley [00:04:52] And then I remember that, and I remember watching him. You know, I hate to share details with people, but I. She feels that it's. It is abuse that there is no way that he does not remember. And because of the age gap and difference and because of my age and his age at the time, that she feels that I'm probably not the only victim and he potentially could continue to be a threat to other children.

John Dehlin [00:05:18] That would certainly be a concern.

Jared Egley [00:05:21] And so that's why she's decided that she has an obligation to report to cps because she feels that it's not safe for him to be around children of a young age.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] You don't know of any others. I mean, any of your siblings or.

Jared Egley [00:05:33] So my parents. My mother remembered my older sister coming to her and telling her that Lynn had asked her to pull her pants down. And my mom did not do anything about that. My sister does not remember that. My parents did talk to my sister. She says she doesn't remember that. But my mother. When. The first thing my mother said when we sat down and told him is she said, I remember Tara saying something. And my aunt also was with my mom when my younger. When my older sister mentioned that. And my aunt remembers my older sister saying that as well.

Jared Egley [00:06:09] And so they thought that it may have happened to her. But my older sister now says she doesn't remember that happened. None of the other three of my other siblings were probably. They were all younger than me. And I'm not aware of anybody else that we haven't spread. You know, we haven't advertised this to know.

John Dehlin [00:06:33] Sure, sure. How's the relationship between your uncle and. I guess it would be your father's brother.

Jared Egley [00:06:41] It's his youngest brother.

John Dehlin [00:06:42] Yeah. How's their relationship?

Jared Egley [00:06:44] You know, it's been good. And I had A good relationship with him, and I was comfortable around him and really was over these issues until I sat with him for 30 minutes and talked to him about this six weeks ago.

John Dehlin [00:06:58] And.

Jared Egley [00:06:59] And since then, I have no desire to be around the man. I approached him on my own in his bishop's office so that I could give him an opportunity as easy as possible for him to fix this in his life. I texted him secretly and privately and told him I needed to visit with him and it would be best in the office at his church so that his wife wouldn't know. You know, I was thinking of every possible way to make this easy for him, and it was not easy for me to go visit with him.

John Dehlin [00:07:31] No, I can see it wouldn't be.

Jared Egley [00:07:34] And it was a meeting. Was not good. He was very, you know, I. I could tell he was.

Guest [00:07:45] He.

Jared Egley [00:07:46] He was prepared for me to be there. I feel. And I'm not an expert on this. He has not. That's been. I look on my dad six weeks ago, more than six weeks ago, he's not called to see how we're doing. He's not reached out to my dad to say, hey, Ken, what do we. What do we do about this? He's. He's said nothing to anybody other than President Ballard. So,

John Dehlin [00:08:14] you know, and President Ballard probably approached him because when President Keller first contacted me, then I contacted President Bowden to see if he knew and had done had any conversations.

Guest [00:08:29] Right.

Jared Egley [00:08:29] Because that was the conversation that we had first is maybe he's taking care of this with his priesthood leaders. We didn't know.

John Dehlin [00:08:35] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:08:36] But obviously that's not the case.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] Has he. And I don't know this. Has he been in the Newton area for a long, long time?

Jared Egley [00:08:48] He's been there for I don't know how many years.

Juli Egley [00:08:51] Probably since they were married.

Jared Egley [00:08:53] Since they were married? Yeah. He lives on the farm that his wife. He lives next to his wife's parents, and he runs the little farm there.

John Dehlin [00:09:00] Okay. And that would have been. Oh, probably. What if he was late teens, maybe six to eight years after the event, if they married. You have any idea?

Jared Egley [00:09:13] Probably because he went on a mission to Australia and came home and was married shortly after that, so.

John Dehlin [00:09:22] Well, that is a. There's nothing we can say about that except we're sorry that that happened to you. I'm glad that those that are involved are. From the legal end of it. Yeah.

Guest [00:09:41] Julie, I noticed when you were mentioning about your counselor, it kind of made

John Dehlin [00:09:45] you a little bit emotional.

Guest [00:09:46] Tell me what you were thinking.

Juli Egley [00:09:55] I just Feel bad because Jared has had no choice in this whole thing. He didn't have a choice as a child. He got over it.

Jared Egley [00:10:08] No, I've had some slow.

Juli Egley [00:10:10] Yeah, but the way that things have gone, you haven't had a choice, so. But then I was mad that, you know, that you guys couldn't report it. So the choice is back on him. Okay. Do you want to report it? So the choice is back on him, and then I reach out to her, and then it feels like the choice is gone. But then that's. That takes away your power as well. I don't know. It's just. It's just a bad situation either way. I don't. I don't like that you can't report it, but I don't like that she has to report it either.

Guest [00:10:46] It's.

Juli Egley [00:10:47] I don't know. There's.

Guest [00:10:51] Well, I'm just think that I hate that you feel like you're in the middle of that, you know, when you were going to get. Trying to find some comfort also. And then that comes up and I,

Juli Egley [00:11:04] And I understand it. And it's just a hard situation because if I knew that he was abusing other people or had abused other people, for sure. But, I mean, you know, up. And

Jared Egley [00:11:22] I don't.

Juli Egley [00:11:22] I feel bad for his wife or, you know, I don't want to destroy his life. But then at the same time, honestly, I'm kind of angry at this point, too. He had an opportunity to take care of this and he didn't. And he's made the choice of where it's going. But I'm.

Jared Egley [00:11:43] This has made our lives a mess, and it's gotten worse since December. It's not gotten any better.

John Dehlin [00:11:50] What brought it to a. Kind of a focal point? I mean, obviously it's been, what, 30 years, 20 years. What brought it to the surface?

Jared Egley [00:12:00] When they called him as a bishop.

John Dehlin [00:12:01] When they called him as a bishop,

Jared Egley [00:12:03] he was called into a bishop Rick, or he was called as a high counselor at first. And I never mentioned this, you know, I never mentioned this name. I told her, what, a year and a half ago, he was called as a high counselor first. And I, I mean, I remember. I've remembered these things my whole life.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] Sure.

Jared Egley [00:12:20] And when they called him as a high counselor, I was like, well, you know what? How does that work? But he's a high counselor. He was then called into a bishopric. And I was kind of like, well, that's, you know, he's. That's a little bit odd. How's he, you know, Because I believed that God calls people through revelation. And I knew what he had done, and I knew that God was not going to call him into position to be in a bishopric.

Jared Egley [00:12:49] But he was there. But he was there. And so he's called into a bishopric. And I'm questioning how that works. He then got cancer, bladder cancer, and that they released him because of that. And he went through that for two, two and a half, three years, and was pretty sick and got over that. And then after he got better, they called him as the bishop. And that was almost. It would be three years ago this summer sometime. I don't remember the exact month that it would be about three years this summer that he was called as a bishop.

John Dehlin [00:13:17] As a bishop, Okay.

Jared Egley [00:13:19] I believe so. I don't know the exact date, but it was in the summer three years ago, roughly.

John Dehlin [00:13:25] And so in that intervening time, then

Jared Egley [00:13:29] the past three years, that's just so since then. What happened with me is when they called me as a bishop, I'm like, okay, this. In my mind, that didn't make sense to me. And I was kind of, you know, angry at God because I'm thinking, you know, what.

Jared Egley [00:13:48] How in questioning whether, you know, how does this work, are bishops called by revelation? Because if they are, why did you call him as a bishop when he had done the things that he had done? Nobody had ever approached me. And I didn't think he'd repented, because if he had repented, would I not have been contacted and told, hey, I'm sorry about this? So I knew he hadn't.

Jared Egley [00:14:10] And so I started to question how this whole process worked. So my dad was a bishop at the time, and I couldn't go ask him because then I would have to tell him. And so I, you know, I got on the Internet to figure out what. What should have, you know, had he repented, what should have been done?

Jared Egley [00:14:28] And if you read the handbook, he should have had a disciplinary council on. His records should have been annotated, most likely. That's the way I interpreted that book. And so if he had repented, he would have had a disciplinary council, maybe just disfellowshipped, you know, maybe not. But his records most likely would have been annotated. That would have probably. I know that they can petition the First Presidency or ask for those annotations to be removed, but from everything that I could gather, those are not removed

Guest [00:14:56] for those type of things, childhood child

John Dehlin [00:14:59] abuse would be very, very unlikely.

Jared Egley [00:15:02] Correct. So if his records would have been annotated, he never would have been called as a bishop, but he's a bishop. And so in my mind, I'm thinking if he did what he was supposed to do, he would not be a bishop. Why would God call him to be a bishop? He shouldn't be. If the handbook and the church policies are God's policies, he shouldn't be a bishop.

Guest [00:15:25] But he is.

Jared Egley [00:15:26] So is the hamburg in the policies, are they God's policies?

John Dehlin [00:15:31] Yeah.

Wrestling with Revelation, Priesthood, and Church Truth Claims

Jared Egley [00:15:32] So why would God inspire through revelation for him to be a bishop? And that's where I started to go, because that was the question. What's the answer to that? Like, what's your answer to that?

John Dehlin [00:15:46] My answer to that is that God does inspire priesthood leaders that have the responsibility to make calls, but he doesn't force others against their will. So someone can. And sometimes they do say things that don't disclose.

Jared Egley [00:16:12] Okay, so when you're thinking of calling a new bishop, I imagine that stake presidents have a four or five names. Here's who could be bishops in this war.

John Dehlin [00:16:25] That was my experience. I'm sure President Keller has similar.

Jared Egley [00:16:28] And so would God even allow that person to be in a position where he doesn't disclose something? Would not through revelation, President Keller or stake president say, I've got these five guys, I'm not going to choose this one? Would not God say, you've got five men that are qualified based upon whatever qualifications we're looking at. Active, Melchizedek, priesthood holder, tithe payers, temporary. They're qualified. I've got these five men. And if revelation is involved, would God not say, president Ballard, these four are good, but not this guy. I promise you that I understand more than anybody that God has to work, work with imperfect people.

John Dehlin [00:17:12] Sure.

Jared Egley [00:17:12] That to me is a testimony builder because I know that bishops are men and stake presidents are men and area authority. We're all, we're all human. And I understand that there are priesthood leaders that might swear at their neighbor or get upset with their kids or slip up in one way or maybe be dishonest in dealings with their fellow men or in their work. I get that, but that's a lot different than this.

Jared Egley [00:17:47] So would God not inspire somebody to say, you know, if there's a 1% chance that God is giving us revelation, in my mind, that's when he does it. That's when he says, president Ballard, not this one, not this one. And he doesn't even give him the chance to not disclose.

Jared Egley [00:18:06] President Ballard doesn't know why, but he knows I've got five men and this is not one of them, because God has revealed that to me, that's the way I feel that the God that I know would work.

John Dehlin [00:18:19] Well, it typically isn't the way that he has in the past. Now he can. But in the past, he gives people the opportunity. So even in the scriptures, there was a case where there was a brother called to the First Presidency, Jesse Goss, who served for a little while, but then it came to light that he couldn't do it. So when you read in the Doctrine and Covenants, now that was given to Frederick G. Williams, that's when he came into the first Presidency. There was another case where

Jared Egley [00:19:03] there's lots of cases in the early church where very high leaders were called the sugar men.

John Dehlin [00:19:09] Well, but here's the thing. Even in the one that I'm thinking of is in the 39th section, it's a revelation given to James Coble, who the Lord himself gave counsel to James Covel. And then just a few, few weeks later, he had turned against it. And so the call that had been extended was. Was rescinded or the opportunity to serve was rescinded. On the other hand, this might have been the, this might have been the way that, that it could come to light. I mean, it has been, I don't know. I'm going to say 30 years. I don't know how long ago it was.

Jared Egley [00:19:52] 35.

John Dehlin [00:19:52] 35 years. Okay, so 35 years, nothing. Maybe it does need to come to life. If he hadn't been called, probably nothing would have happened. But as it is, at least someone is looking into it now, and there may be the possibility that we can bring some resolution.

John Dehlin [00:20:15] So I don't know. The Lord guides His church, but he doesn't force us, and he doesn't force anyone to be. To make choices or disclose or be honest. He gives them the opportunity. So when we're calling bishops, when I was a stake president, I don't do that anymore because that's not my keys. But when President Keller is looking at bishops, he probably does have three.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] And he's looking at them based on the experience that he's had with them, their service in the ward or in the state that they know about. And there could be things 30 years in the past that they have no idea about, so they can extend that call, and maybe that's what brings it out.

John Dehlin [00:21:13] And if there are other victims, you know that's going to cause everyone some real heartburn and some real angst, because there's no way that the Lord countenances

Jared Egley [00:21:25] child abuse in any form so my other issue with this is in Lyn's case and in the case of the MTC president has been in the news lately. And there's another case of a mission president that had issues before that's not been very well publicized. The common thread that these men are telling us is, well, I was just called as a bishop, so God must have forgiven me. Joseph Bishop said that. He said that.

John Dehlin [00:21:58] And so misunderstanding, it's a rationalization, but

Jared Egley [00:22:02] that's what they're thinking.

John Dehlin [00:22:04] It's the way they rationalize their own misbehavior.

Jared Egley [00:22:07] I just have a very hard time believing that they're being called by revelation. And if they're not being called by Revelation, that opens up an entire other can of worms. Which is the bigger issue in this whole scenario, is because of that instant, you know, my testimony and my faith in the church that I grew up in has been shattered. And so I work through these issues trying to figure out, how does this work. Looking at the handbook, you know, I looked on the Internet of how has the church dealt with sex abuse cases in the past? And, you know, and I can probably tell you how they've dealt with almost all of them that have been in the public, because I would look into these and say, okay, what's the church?

Jared Egley [00:22:54] How have they dealt with how, you know, what's going on? How do you deal with these cases? How do professionals deal with these cases? And as I look through these things, I realize that the church has not dealt with these things in very good ways in a lot of cases. And so as my testimony begins to shatter over this issue, that's when she starts realizing something's going on here. And after about a year of that going on, I finally had to tell her, okay, here's the issue, because it was a mess, and I couldn't be dishonest to my wife over those issues. And so that's when I told her, look, I'm struggling to believe that this church is what it claims to be.

Jared Egley [00:23:40] And here's why. And here's what caused me to disbelief that. That. And. And so for. For a year, we struggled with what to do with that. Do we tell people about it? And I didn't want to tell anybody about it because I knew it was not going to be easy. So we. It took us about a year before we told Bishop Iverson what was going on. And my parents and Dax, I was in December.

Guest [00:24:10] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:24:10] But, you know, there's a lot of issues that come up, and I know that you've dealt with them. Dax is dealt with them. We've all dealt with some of the troubling issues of the church. And I've known about most of these since I was a missionary.

Jared Egley [00:24:26] There's polygamy and all the common historical and doctrinal issues that are tough. I've known about those. And that didn't affect my testimony until this, because after this, then I'm willing to say, you know what, I knew of those issues and I would defend the church all day long.

Jared Egley [00:24:43] And I believed all day long because I believed that we were led by revelation. But when I step back and say, you know what? I'm not quite sure about this now. There's so many of those things that make sense, more sense when you believe that and when you start to really look into those things deeper. The Joseph Smith Papers project. And a lot of these things, there's a lot of very troubling issues within the church that back up my thoughts and my feelings that God isn't calling these men by revelation. And I have read scriptures and prayed and fasted and I've received answers to some of those prayers that some of the things that I believe now are right.

Jared Egley [00:25:31] And so that's kind of where I'm at today is, you know, I'm not sure that I believe it anymore. And I don't know how to overcome that. I wish I could go back in time and unlearn a whole lot of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] Yeah, it'd be nice if it was as clean as we picture at one time that it was that God guided every step along the way. What I have come to understand is that he doesn't do that very often.

John Dehlin [00:26:01] Generally reveals a goal and then lets those that he's revealed it to work it out and move along. And it's a reflection. Some of the things that we look at, such as how child abuse was dealt with. Other issues of a social nature reflect in some respects the society of the time.

John Dehlin [00:26:27] I mean, I'm currently reading today, I was reading in the New Testament in Timothy, and here Paul is talking about things that are a reflection of that society that he's putting in the context of this is how the gospel of the church works, which absolutely is not how it works either today or I don't think even the Lord is intended it to, but it was a reflection of the sight. Things like let the women keep silent in the church. Well, goodness gracious, no, we don't look at that that way at all as the progression of the Lord's kingdom has gone forward.

John Dehlin [00:27:14] But what I have come to understand is that he works with people and he works with the conditions and the whole thing. Both individuals and the church are progressing toward what will be a kingdom worthy of his return.

John Dehlin [00:27:36] And so along the way, we'll find all kinds of starts and stops because he doesn't guide every step. He never has, as I can understand it, even clear back with the earliest records. And of course, then we can get into the whole discussion about whether or not those records that we have now in the Old Testament or even the New Testament, are they really real?

John Dehlin [00:28:01] I mean, they are not from original manuscripts. We know that, correct? I mean, the earliest ones of the New Testament are like 300 years or so. Maybe the one in Mark, you can maybe get back to about 100 years after. But no, there are accounts, and probably written accounts of oral histories when they get in.

John Dehlin [00:28:23] So all of that being the case, you know, the question is, does he. Does he. Does he guide it in such an extent that he takes out of possibility someone making a mistake? In my understanding, my conclusions? No, he doesn't. But he keeps it moving forward. And as he does, and as we do the very best we can individually in whatever calling we have,

Jared Egley [00:29:01] we.

John Dehlin [00:29:03] We progress, and so does the kingdom. There's no question that calls come, but I think what we think of sometimes, maybe even naively, as revelation, is more a matter of feeling than it is declaratory in the point that out of all the possibilities, only this one is the one.

John Dehlin [00:29:36] You read in with the. Even in the New Testament, when they replaced Judas, came down to 2, and it says they cast their lots, which is, I suppose, they voiced their opinion, and the lot fell on the thighs. So if it was clear, if the Lord was saying, this is the only one, you wouldn't have to do that.

John Dehlin [00:30:01] So there are a lot of things in the church history that are done by people trying to do the best they can based on where the Lord has said, this is where we want to go. Very seldom in my experience or my understanding, as I've looked at history, says, that's where we're going, and these are the steps we'll take to get there.

John Dehlin [00:30:23] He says, that's where we're going now. You work it out. When you get too far up the hill, he pulls it back and corrects it. So to my understanding, as I've wrestled with some of the same things that you're talking about, I have come to conclude that that's how he works.

John Dehlin [00:30:43] And therefore the starts and stops and things that are a little different now than we, we want them, or a little different then than they are now or we think they should be, are the reflections of the weaknesses of men and the society at the time. The weaknesses of society, the weaknesses of the culture, all of which is trying to be brought up to a standard worthy of being in the presence of the Lord, with our Father in him, in the celestial community.

John Dehlin [00:31:17] So it's a process for everybody. And you know, just in a by lifetime I can see the changes that have come with major sorts of things. The priesthood for all male members. You know, as a missionary I anguished because we had wonderful African American and people that were interested and when we got to that, we didn't have a choice and they chose not to.

John Dehlin [00:31:51] But now that's not such an issue. The thing that I have confidence in, well, not only do I have confidence in, but my testimonies build up, is that the atonement of the Savior makes up for all that. Everything that's unfair, everything that is unjust, everything that is done by those who may or may not have had the best intentions but were operating within whatever stewardship they had that may have offended some.

John Dehlin [00:32:31] The Atomo Omeka. And my biggest goal, my biggest challenge, as I think is really the challenge for any of us, is to say what can I understand that is guiding us? And for me, it isn't really the church organization, great as it is for all the things it does. Has programs for the youth, programs for children, has a way of organizing so we have an opportunity to watch over each other and gives us a sense of belonging to wards and stakes, corns and auxiliaries.

John Dehlin [00:33:19] All that stuff's good. But I can find the same thing in society. I can find brotherhood and fellowship in a fraternity of some sort or Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, or some sort of a civic group. I can find opportunities to serve in the Red Cross or in a multitude of charitable sorts of ways that benefit people.

John Dehlin [00:33:45] I can find opportunities to learn through myriad of opportunities that exist in our society here in America, through community colleges and colleges and online learning, even public education. We spend a fortune on those are all things that we do. The difference is for me

Guest [00:34:08] in the

John Dehlin [00:34:08] church are the ordinances. And the ordinances are what bring me to Christ. We know, I know without any doubt that the doctrine of Christ is real. He is indeed the Son of God, and therefore to follow what he would invite us to do individually, have faith, repent, be baptized and keep his commandments.

John Dehlin [00:34:42] Now, for me, the beauty of the church is being able to receive those ordinances baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost sacrament, and then ultimately the ordinances of the temple and to be guided by that spirit. And there are things that happen all the way along that I can find a fence in.

John Dehlin [00:35:11] Whether it's by not you, but a bishop that offended someone. Oh, I've done that. You know, I don't. I haven't. In my personal life, I have not been the victim of a child abuse, as you know. That just breaks my heart.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] It breaks my heart that that would happen to anyone. I think of my grandchildren and I see them. And if that were to happen to them at the age you're talking about, it would break my heart. And I know it breaks the Savior's heart and I know it breaks our Heavenly Father's heart, but the atonement will make up for everything if we'll let it.

John Dehlin [00:35:59] Now, whether or not, you know, compromising your faith in this church, this is the place that I found that leads me to the truth. And again, the truth is not something that's said by edict from a priesthood leader.

John Dehlin [00:36:21] There may be some things that are revealed that we've seen. Like a statement on the family. Well, that's a great statement. But the truth of it isn't because President Hinckley says it. It's because I haven't come to understand what the Lord means. It's so consistent with his purposes.

John Dehlin [00:36:41] Statement on as recently as the Sabbath day observance and now the change that President Nelson has announced with regard to the importance of caring for each other. For me, the truth of them comes not because they've been said by those that we sustain as prophets, seers and revelators. That's the starting point. The truth comes when I have done, as Moroni has said from the very beginning, get a testimony of it for yourself. And I got that.

John Dehlin [00:37:14] So I can look at these things. And when I hear about this bishop guy at the mtc, it breaks my heart. Think of all the people that will be dissuaded from coming into Christ because of that. Some of them are the victims. And that that sister that came forward, I don't know how to handle that.

Jared Egley [00:37:36] Did you follow how the Church dealt with that? And do you agree with how the church dealt with that? They dealt with that horribly wrong.

John Dehlin [00:37:44] Horribly wrong, yeah. It doesn't sound like it was handled very well because it first came to light both you years after it happened.

Jared Egley [00:37:51] Well, even recently, when she comes forward and it gets into the meeting, the church releases a statement that basically tries to discredit her and Then the church releases a nine page dossier telling why don't believe this lady. This is the, this is the church. How do we say that this is God's church, that she's one of God's children, the prophet is the prophet for all people. And for the church to come out and say, well, she's untrustworthy, she's had, she's, I mean, if you read those statements, I have seen where some people

John Dehlin [00:38:27] have said that I have, I don't see where, where, where the Lord is saying that and, and ultimately. And anyone

Guest [00:38:46] who.

Jared Egley [00:38:47] Would you want one of your granddaughters to be dealt with the way that she was dealt with if your granddaughter was abused?

John Dehlin [00:38:52] Oh, no, absolutely.

Jared Egley [00:38:53] And when I come forward, I don't think Bishop Iverson and President Keller or maybe even you know how to deal with these things. I don't think that anybody understands and has been trained and knows these seriousness of these things. And they just hope that we're, that, you know, the atonement can take care of these things and we'll just let it be. But that's not, I mean,

John Dehlin [00:39:23] action comes in and you acknowledge, I'm sure, the difficulty that it creates when there are no corroborations. If we say, if we say, gee, we don't believe you, Brother Eboli, and we say we side with your uncle, that's a problem. On the other hand, if we can't find something that corroborates something, we say we believe you, but we don't believe you, uncle. You know, in a different room, a different setting, we've got the same issue.

John Dehlin [00:40:05] So it is difficult. It really is difficult. You know, throughout, throughout the scriptures, Even as I was reading this, this morning in Timothy, Paul speaking to Timothy is saying Timothy, as a bishop says if someone's, if there's a problem, you gotta have a couple of witnesses before you can really do something.

John Dehlin [00:40:31] Otherwise it's a one word against another. And so the fact that there are those who can help figure out some of this stuff out, they're gonna have to ask some questions. If this counselor is reported at the CPS and they start asking some questions, maybe some things will come out that people wouldn't otherwise volunteer, that's not a bad thing.

John Dehlin [00:40:54] So I don't, personally, I don't have any heartburn about those coming out. I don't have any. My angst and my pain is for the victims. Bishop guy, as they dig that out and find out some, you know, they're gonna have to take care of that. They meaning it's going to be somebody like these guys, because the prophet isn't going to do it. He doesn't have to. Well, he holds all the keys, but he doesn't deal with that. For 16 billion members.

John Dehlin [00:41:24] That's where President Keller holds the keys for that church. Disciplinary action, as does. As does your good bishop here. They'll be the ones that'll have to deal with that.

Jared Egley [00:41:35] Are they trained to deal with that? What do you mean, trained?

Guest [00:41:39] I mean, what is it you're looking for?

Jared Egley [00:41:43] What are you told to do when somebody comes in and says, I've been abused by somebody who's a bishop?

John Dehlin [00:41:51] You call the hotline for counsel.

Jared Egley [00:41:53] But you also do this.

John Dehlin [00:41:58] The line that he called to the church's legal counsel to see. But we also encourage the individual to report. And if someone say, your uncle and I don't know, because we're using this situation, if he were to come in and confess, then the counsel would be, you need to report.

John Dehlin [00:42:23] You need to report that yourself. Now, the problem they run into, as in the legal sense is that priest penitent sort of thing is they don't disclose what's related to confession. But we strongly encourage that that needs to happen. If your uncle were to come forward, or if it was, if we could identify somehow that it really did happen, then for him to repent, he would have to make some sort of confession. He'd have to also comply with whatever legal consequences there might be.

John Dehlin [00:43:10] That's the way it works. The difficulty that all of us face is that with one person saying one thing and one person saying another thing and no corroboration in clean, it's very difficult. From the time the Lord was here, he said in the mouth of two or three witnesses, that makes it hard. He could do it. There's no question he could do it. The Lord could do it. He could sit up here and he could say, okay, Bishop, look out over your congregation. You need to talk to that one and that one and that one, and this is what you need to talk about.

John Dehlin [00:43:47] But he doesn't do it, does he? Sometimes. Sometimes not that much. Because we all have agency and we get to make the choices. We can lie to our bishop, we can lie to our stake president. It happens. Happens a lot.

John Dehlin [00:44:11] And because of the love these brethren have for everyone, Bellocs accept that because they want to trust and have confidence. On occasion. On occasion, the Lord will say, no, that's not right. But he told Joseph Smith, he still believe in Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:44:32] You can't always tell evil people or evil designs that people might have. So you do the best you can. So I'm sorry. You know, there are a couple things I'm really. I've heard today that I'm really sorry about the pain that's caused you. There's no way to undo that.

Jared Egley [00:45:00] I mean,

John Dehlin [00:45:03] in best case scenario, if somehow your uncle came to his senses and apologized and everything, it is not going to undo the 35 years that you've wrestled with that in character.

Jared Egley [00:45:18] It doesn't undo the questioning.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] Yeah, yeah. And that's the second level. That's even more so because look what it's done.

Jared Egley [00:45:25] Right. And I can't not.

Juli Egley [00:45:34] Can I ask you. So in. Take the church out of it, in a business sense, human resources, someone comes and says, president Keller sexually assaulted me. What happens?

John Dehlin [00:45:53] Well, as a school person, that's where I spent my career. If that was disclosed to us, we had. We have to disclose to the. We have to report.

Juli Egley [00:46:00] Just like, you know, I mean, do

Jared Egley [00:46:03] you leave him in as a teacher?

Juli Egley [00:46:04] I'm sorry. He's denying it. You're accusing him. We can't prove it. So he's going to stay being a teacher.

John Dehlin [00:46:09] What we have done and most cases do, you know, put them on some sort of leave, probably an administrative leave until they can get to the bottom of it.

Juli Egley [00:46:18] So here's my issue. The church claims that we have this amazing gold standard of a program that protects victims when they do nothing for four and a half months. Nothing

John Dehlin [00:46:35] for four and a half months relative to your uncle. Is that what I'm talking about?

Juli Egley [00:46:39] I'm not saying he has to be excommunicated. I'm not saying any other organization would take some kind of action.

John Dehlin [00:46:51] I'm.

Juli Egley [00:46:52] I'm just so frustrated that. Well, God leads us, so God will. God will reveal it. But then you just said that God doesn't reveal conference.

John Dehlin [00:47:05] Well, yeah, but you have the things

Jared Egley [00:47:08] that you told me.

John Dehlin [00:47:08] I don't hear that in conference. I don't hear it to that micro level. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, I hear it at the macro level. That's what I'm saying. This is where we're going now. Figure it out. I hear it at the macro, but I don't hear it at the micro level. I've never heard that. I've never heard that the Lord will put in the heart of a bishop or stake president or. I had the opportunity recently to sit in front of President Eyring. I've been with President Nelson. I've never heard that. They will look and say,

Jared Egley [00:47:48] you need

John Dehlin [00:47:48] to repent of that and reveal what it is.

Jared Egley [00:47:52] Well, I can. I could almost guarantee you that 80% of members that walk through these doors and come to church on Sundays believe that that's the way that it works. Well, when we believe that that's the way that it works, and we teach our kids in primary that that's the way that it works, and we teach our missionaries to tell people that's the way that it works. And then when you're me and it doesn't work that way, and we're sitting here saying it doesn't work that way, we've been taught that it works that way. That's a cultural issue that people are going to struggle with.

John Dehlin [00:48:24] What you're saying is not foreign to me. I have a son who could be sitting right there. Not with the sexual abuse, but with all the things you're saying. He could sit right there. And I have another son that could sit right there. He's not quite that far along. Yeah, but I can understand where that comes from, because. Who taught you that?

Jared Egley [00:48:52] The church probably taught me that.

John Dehlin [00:48:53] The Church didn't teach you that? Who taught you that?

Juli Egley [00:48:56] Every primary teacher I ever had, every young woman teacher I ever had, every bishop I ever had.

Jared Egley [00:49:01] Well, and nowadays they're teaching in General Conference. She was the primary president. You teach from the correlated manual. That has things in there that shouldn't be being taught to our kids because they're wrong.

John Dehlin [00:49:11] Well, the point I'm getting at, we teach from what our experience is and what our understanding might be.

Juli Egley [00:49:19] When we get a manual and it says teach this, this, that is not their experience. That is what the Church is telling them to teach.

John Dehlin [00:49:30] Does it tell us to teach that the Lord will look into the heartbeats of the Israel and tell them why their sins are.

Juli Egley [00:49:37] But it tells us that.

Jared Egley [00:49:38] It tells us to teach our kids that Peter, James and John came to Joseph Smith shortly after John the Baptist did and restored the keys to the priesthood. When I question that that's really the case, because if you look at historical documents, months, that's very questionable. And so I have. I have three things that I thought about very, very deeply in the last year. Because I had a testimony to this. I had a testimony strong as you men did.

Jared Egley [00:50:07] And if I decide that this is not, not true, what do I lose? And so my three things that are important are, number one, the priesthood keys. Do we have the priesthood keys here? Is the priesthood in this church, number one? Because if it is, then I stay Number two, Are the temple ordinances revealed through Joseph Smith? And are they necessary to gain exaltation in the celestial kingdom to have an eternal marriage and eternal families? Because if they are, then I stay. Number three. Scripture, Scriptures. Is the Book of Mormon. The Doctrine and Covenants, the pearl of great price?

Jared Egley [00:50:47] Joseph Smith translation. Are the scriptures that have been revealed to us in our day. Are they what we claim they are? Because if they are, then I stay. Those are. Those are three things. Now, I could list 50 other things which are insignificant in my opinion. Polygamy, lax in the priesthood. I've known about those for a long time.

Jared Egley [00:51:08] Take it or leave it. It doesn't make the gospel true or untrue, but those three things really do. If they're true, then you stay. If they're not, we're no different than any other organization.

John Dehlin [00:51:19] Agreed.

Jared Egley [00:51:20] So did Peter, James and John come to Joseph Smith and give him those keys? Who ordained Joseph Smith to the highest high priesthood? To the Melchizedek priesthood? Who ordained him into the priesthood?

John Dehlin [00:51:35] Peter, James, and John collectively.

Jared Egley [00:51:37] Okay, on what dates?

John Dehlin [00:51:39] We don't know.

Jared Egley [00:51:40] So you can get into man or. Yeah, I've read that book two and Lyman White ordained it in 1831.

John Dehlin [00:51:49] Yeah, and. Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:51:51] And you.

John Dehlin [00:51:52] Can you get to the point that, you know, we know at least there was a record that May 15, 18, 1829, was when John the Baptist came. We don't have that same record.

Jared Egley [00:52:04] But was anybody saying John the Baptist came? When did they first start to tell people that John the Baptist and Peter, James and John had restored the priesthood? When were the first journal entries written? When did people start to say this?

John Dehlin [00:52:16] Quite a bit later.

Jared Egley [00:52:17] Quite a bit later. Like four years later. Like 1831 to 1832.

John Dehlin [00:52:22] Ish.

Jared Egley [00:52:22] They were saying, well, the angels did. But then if you take the 1830 Book of Commandments and compare it to 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, all of this is added after the fact. You can find statements from early church leaders that disagreed with the changes that Joseph and Sidney made to the 1835. And so you start to. And I mean, I've spent literally hundreds of hours on this, and I've read nothing but stuff that comes from the church and from byu, which is scholarly stuff. And it becomes very, very questionable whether or not the narrative we teach is what we teach on the priesthood.

Guest [00:53:02] So Moses and Elijah, they appear.

Jared Egley [00:53:05] Nobody said anything about that until years and years later. Those were all added into section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835 edition. If you look at the Section of the book of Commandments. And I got to get side by side comparisons. All of the names of all the people that appeared to restore keys were added later. And it was a very. It was very controversial in the church at the time. And you can get journal entries of people that say, well, the 1830 Book of Commandments was the celestial law. The new book that Joseph Scott is treacherous. People left the church over those changes. They did.

John Dehlin [00:53:42] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:53:43] And so that brings up the question is if you have journal entries of Lyman White ordaining them to the high priesthood, and then all this other questionable stuff, and the dispute with Bishop Partridge in the Missouri church and what Joseph and Sidney were trying to do to establish their base of power so that Bishop Partridge couldn't outpower them.

Jared Egley [00:54:02] This whole narrative of telling my kids that Peter, James and John came and ordained them to pre and gave him the keys is questionable. I don't want my kids in five years to read what I've read and say, wait, you told me this, dad? Because I don't know that it happened. It's more likely that it didn't. Based on the historical record, that's the priesthood keys, the temple. I mean, can anybody explain to me why the temple endowment ceremony is 80% similar to the Masonic ceremony and why those things? You know, I know the church's answers because that's the mode that Joseph is using. But none of it came from Solomon's temple. And even the masons agree with that.

John Dehlin [00:54:43] No, absolutely not. And the same with the book of Abraham. Some people think it was a literal translation.

Jared Egley [00:54:52] Joseph said it was.

John Dehlin [00:54:54] Well, he said he got it from papyrus, just like he got from the Book of Mormon from plates. He couldn't read those plates. No way he could read those plates.

Juli Egley [00:55:06] He didn't even look at the plates.

John Dehlin [00:55:08] Not a lot of times he didn't, because he couldn't read them anyway. What are the plates for? You ever want to buy the plates? I mean, if God wanted to reveal it, he could have revealed it. What are the plates for?

Juli Egley [00:55:22] The plates of brass to make us confused?

John Dehlin [00:55:28] Because with the plates, we have the testimony of three people that saw them directly from the nave.

Juli Egley [00:55:37] But did they see them? Because they go back and say that some of them said they saw him with their spiritual eyes.

Jared Egley [00:55:44] Some of them saw plates that they later saw from the voree plates in the other churches. Because they left.

Guest [00:55:50] Yeah.

Jared Egley [00:55:50] And they joined other things after Joe and they left. And they have the exact same testimony, other plates. And so those men said the same thing for plates that Oliver And Sydney did come back.

John Dehlin [00:56:06] I mean Oliver and Martin Harris did, right? The other eight. The interesting thing about the men's. We have those apathy David's from them. They witnessed it there for us. Now we think, wait a minute, that's 200 years ago. Just about. That doesn't count. The Lord doesn't look at 200 years as any time at all. He looks at. He looks at the whole creation and those were given Christ. Joseph didn't need the plates to get the Book of Mormon. He didn't.

Guest [00:56:45] We did.

John Dehlin [00:56:48] Without the plates and without the testimony of those 11 witnesses, that book would be nothing more. The argument that that is a creation of someone's mind is as valid as anything. But it's very hard to dismiss the testimony of those eight men, especially the three that left the church and had plenty of opportunity to deny that. And while. Whitmer did say about something about some other place, he never denied those. Neither did Oliver neither. And they had plenty of opportunity. It would have been in their best interest sometimes personally to do that. And I haven't tracked the other eight as well. For me I've come to that conclusion that the plates, the plates are for us. They're not for Joseph to actually translate. And so when he got the papyrus,

Jared Egley [00:57:55] which he couldn't read either and told everybody that he was translating it, well, he was.

John Dehlin [00:58:01] He was translating it by the gift of God. But does that mean that he read the characters? He didn't read the characters on the plates. I doubt he read the characters on the papyrus either.

Jared Egley [00:58:17] What about the Joseph Smith translation of the Scriptures? How did he get that?

John Dehlin [00:58:22] That was a long time labor. I don't know exactly how he got all of that. I presume that as he read it he had inspired thoughts and added here and there. I mean when you read through those things, a lot of them are.

Jared Egley [00:58:38] So we could say he came up with a similar way that he came up with the book of Abraham. It's not a literal translation, but it was inspired thoughts.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] And a lot of the things have been subsequently brought even closer into harm. You when you look at things like the Greek manuscripts and the Greek.

Jared Egley [00:58:54] Okay, so you read the scholarship out of BYU that came out in September on the Joseph Smith translation from the

John Dehlin [00:59:01] Scriptures

Jared Egley [00:59:03] just came out in September.

Guest [00:59:04] Just this.

Jared Egley [00:59:05] Literally this last September.

John Dehlin [00:59:06] I don't think it happened yet.

Jared Egley [00:59:08] So scholars from BYU have now determined that over 300 of the verses that Joseph Smith Smith translated most of Joseph Smith Matthew is a direct copy, like word for word copy from the Adam Clark Bible Commentary, which is a six volume Bible commentary that Sidney had from when he was a preacher that Sidney was very familiar with and that they believe. And there's a thesis coming out on that shortly. But they believe that all of the Joseph Smith translation is basically a copy of the Adam Clark Bible Commentary. It's word for word from Adam Clark.

Jared Egley [00:59:50] But Joseph told people that he was inspired. He didn't go and say, hey, Sidney and I are reading this Bible Commentary. It's very good. It helps us understand the scriptures a lot better and it can expound our knowledge on what the scriptures really mean. He told them that the Lord was revealing to him through revelation that this is what needs to be done, when in fact him and Sidney were doing it from Adam Clark's Bible.

John Dehlin [01:00:12] The only disagreement I would have there with your brother Edley is that's a conclusion. That's a conclusion that's come by someone who, who has either discern, ascertained for sure that Sydney had it and it was being used or that it existed. I mean it exists.

Jared Egley [01:00:35] You can get it on. It exists today. And they have a copy. Apparently they have a copy, personal copy of Sidney Riggins that's signed by Sydney. So they have it.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] But to say, to say that that is how it happened is as much an assumption as it is to say that it was translated by the power of God.

Jared Egley [01:00:57] I do agree. I do agree. Because it can go either way.

John Dehlin [01:00:59] Yeah.

Jared Egley [01:01:00] And I do that. But when we see that the Joseph Smith translation is very likely that it could have come from Adam Clark's Bible commentary, the Book of Abraham is very likely not what Joseph said it was. It's an inspired. I think the Church's official stance is now was a, an inspired translate. It's not a translation. They're changing what translation means. And it's quite clear that most of the Doctrine and Covenants has been changed a lot. So we have those three bonds in Scripture that aren't what they claim they are. They're very questionable on how they came up with them. That leaves us with the Book of Mormon. Did the same thing happen with the Book of Mormon? And that's a whole different issue. Is it historical?

John Dehlin [01:01:45] That's where I would disagree. I think the conclusions you're drawing can be drawn. But I'm not, I'm not willing to concede that they are the only conclusions.

Jared Egley [01:01:56] I'm not either. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:01:57] The Doctrine and Covenants that we have, yeah, it's different than the 1830 version. It's actually different than the 1835 version.

Jared Egley [01:02:06] Right. It's been right.

John Dehlin [01:02:09] But it is consistent to me with the understanding that revelation continues to exist and things will be fine. The account that we have in Pearl of Great Price of the first vision is a classic example. The 1838 version.

John Dehlin [01:02:27] There were other versions written earlier and when you read them there are some similarities and there are some differences, but in 18 years, because that's what it is from 1828, 1838, Joseph had learned a lot. And so the knowledge that he had gained helped him understand the experience he had much better in 1838 than he had in 1820 when he first had it.

John Dehlin [01:03:02] So the version that he wrote that we have in the 1830 Habers now to me is much more informative and priceless because it reflects some of his understanding. The same is true of every other of those revelations that came along because once they come, then there's understanding that comes with them as the brethren try to do the best they can to implement and understand it. And.

John Dehlin [01:03:32] And as far as other inspired people, hey, those who claim that we're the only ones that have any corner on inspired knowledge are short sighted. The Bible commentary you talked about, there's another one that James E. Talmage referenced a lot when he was writing Jesus the crunch.

Jared Egley [01:03:59] And that's what James E. Talmadge said. He didn't say that he was getting in another way. And I have trouble when people.

John Dehlin [01:04:06] CS Lewis has some wonderful insight. Yes, there are lots of people who have some wonderful insights.

Jared Egley [01:04:14] But my issue is Joseph told people this when it most likely was this.

John Dehlin [01:04:26] That's probably where we have to. Most likely it's possible. And the other thing that is possible is that Joseph didn't leave many records himself. But what we have is mostly the journals that you mentioned and some of the things that his scribes wrote for him that they wrote, what they understood him to say or what perhaps they felt he said. So there's all kinds of opportunities for deciding what does that really mean. And that's why the first and foremost principle of the gospel is always going to be faith. You want to believe. And your three principles, the three things that you believe. Critical.

Guest [01:05:16] I know.

Jared Egley [01:05:17] And that's why I struggle, because I can. I have faith. I know God and I have come closer to my Savior in the last two years than I've been my entire life. He has not abandoned me. I mean, there are times in my life when I was a kid when he was the only person that I could go to and he has been with me in my life when My uncle was called as a bishop. I felt abandoned, but I had not been abandoned, and he has definitely not abandoned me recently.

Jared Egley [01:05:47] And my faith in my Savior and the love that he has for me is stronger than it's ever been. But my faith in things, those three things, is weaker than it's ever been. Well, that's. That's our issue. And how do we. How do we fit in with this group? Because we don't. We don't fit in with Mormonism. If you don't believe those things, you don't fit. You can't. Can you participate?

John Dehlin [01:06:16] Yeah. I'd say yes, because to me, those are things that bring us to understand the Savior. You say you know your Savior. I do. Is He a spirit? Is He a being?

Jared Egley [01:06:38] I believe that he is. I believe that my Savior is the one who redeems me from my sins. I believe that he is God.

John Dehlin [01:06:47] I do, too. I do, too.

Jared Egley [01:06:51] He was the Creator.

John Dehlin [01:06:52] He created everything under the guidance, under the assignment, actually his Father. I believe they are distinct, real beings, and that only comes from revelation because you don't find that in any of the common theologies.

Jared Egley [01:07:16] So do you believe that God is a God of flesh and bone?

John Dehlin [01:07:19] Yes, I do.

Jared Egley [01:07:19] You know that Joseph didn't teach that in the lectures on faith.

John Dehlin [01:07:24] I've read the lectures on faith, and yeah, he didn't make a big issue

Jared Egley [01:07:29] of it, but everybody teaches he's a body of spirit.

John Dehlin [01:07:33] Yeah, well, but that's a matter of. That's a matter of understanding, because I would say he's a body of spirit, too.

Jared Egley [01:07:43] I can honestly say that to me, it doesn't matter if I know God has a body of flesh and bone or by the Spirit. I feel God's love in my heart. I know he strengthens me. I know he guides me. I have seen it in my life many, many times on my mission. I know that there was a God that loved me, that was guiding us to bring goodness to people's lives. And I've seen that in my life now. And I know that there's nothing that I can do without his love and without his help. And the salvation only comes through Him. It's not. It's not my. It's not my what I do that saves me. It's him. I love him, and that's what matters. There's nothing more important than that.

John Dehlin [01:08:35] Right?

Jared Egley [01:08:36] The three issues that I talked about, I don't believe are as important as having you believe that Christ is my Savior and that if I love him and do my best to emulate Him. Salvation comes. I, I struggle, disagree, struggle to believe that I have to, you know, do these seven things, It's one, not one,

John Dehlin [01:09:06] lead you to many others. Exactly right to say I believe in Christ and then say heaven can do anything else then that it denies Christ because Christ says, if you love me, keep my commandments. And the more we understand him, the more we understand what we need to do to be like him. Which means we receive personally more command to be like Him.

Jared Egley [01:09:34] Well, I, I appreciate you visiting with us because I, I don't like, I don't like to be here talking about these things, you know, three years, I just don't. I mean, I want to believe those things, but I struggle to believe those things now because of the way my life has been the last couple of years, especially since December, has not made it easier for me and I had all the hope in the world. This is what I, this is what I do. These are my priesthood leaders and this is what God wants me to do. And it has not helped,

Guest [01:10:19] And it

Jared Egley [01:10:20] should have if it was real, but it hasn't. And I've received help from people that are not in this room, that should never have helped me. Co workers, people that had no idea what we were experiencing, that just showed up. Those were miracles as the latest hashtag. Those were tender mercies in our lives when we needed them. And it was people that had no idea.

Guest [01:10:47] And

Jared Egley [01:10:51] so I hope that you can understand why I struggle with these things. It's not because I don't want to be here. The easiest thing for me would be to not have told anybody anything and just showed up and played the part. I couldn't do that. And I can't say that I'm going to believe those things when I really don't. And I, I have not tried to unbelieve those things. I've not.

Guest [01:11:21] But.

Looking Forward and Closing Reflections

John Dehlin [01:11:25] So, Jared, Julie, going forward from here, what would you expect? What would you want to have happen if I could ask you?

Jared Egley [01:11:40] I don't care. That's the thing that frustrates me is everybody thinks that's my care and that's not been my care. I could care less what happens with him. I did at one point. But after I met with him, I don't care if he goes. I don't care what happens with him. I had forgiven him, I had moved on. I had no anger feelings. And because of the last, since December, those things have all came back up. And if he's not going to be man enough to. I mean, the things That I have done, have been the hardest things I've done in my life. And if he's not going to be the person that has the courage to do what is right, then I don't care. I don't care what happens with him. It's not my problem. You know, I didn't choose for any of this.

Guest [01:12:31] He chose.

Jared Egley [01:12:32] He chose that and he's going to put me here. And so I. I'm gonna choose to not deal with that. That's his issue. He can, you know, I don't need to continue to focus on that. I need to say I'm, you know, I'm done worrying about him and what happened, and I need to move on with that. My issue is where do I end up with my faith? And I don't feel comfortable wanting to

Guest [01:13:00] come here

Jared Egley [01:13:03] because I don't feel like I belong.

John Dehlin [01:13:09] What are you doing? You say you felt closer to your savior. What are you doing to develop that feeling and that closeness?

Jared Egley [01:13:17] I study my scriptures every day. I mean, I have Bible studies online. I mean, I probably have done it too much. I have been to more churches because my biggest fear is what happens with my children. You know, if I decide that I'm not coming to church. I'm not a two Saturday individual. I'm not going to just say, oh, I got a Saturday and a Saturday. That's not the right choice.

John Dehlin [01:13:43] Good.

Jared Egley [01:13:44] But if I'm not going to go here on Sunday, because. Because when I come and she can attest to this, I come here and it is not recently. It's not good for me because it. I leave with feelings of that's, you know, that's not right. That's not good. This is not bringing us closer. And I. And I feel. I don't feel good when I come here. We don't have temple recommends because we don't match all the. We don't have all the beliefs, and so we don't really fit. We, you know, so my biggest concern is where. Where do we land from this?

John Dehlin [01:14:20] What do I.

Jared Egley [01:14:21] What do my. Where are my kids? If it was just us, we can screw ourselves up all day long. We'll be fine whatever we do. But my kids won't. And I don't. I'm not gonna just not go to church somewhere. So I've been to a lot of different churches and I have a job where I can for a year. I would bid to work on Sunday so that I didn't have to come here because it was not a good place for me. And I would wake up and go to church somewhere. I've been to Baptist churches, to Catholic churches, to Lutheran churches. I mean, you name it. I've been to 20 different churches in the last year.

John Dehlin [01:14:58] You're finding some good in most of them.

Jared Egley [01:15:00] I find good in almost all of them. And I find that I feel so good when I attend a church that just focuses me on my Savior and nothing else, because I feel that that's all that matters to me.

Jared Egley [01:15:16] And so where do we land? You know, I'm not going to drive two hours to church, but there are very good evangelical Christian churches that can center me in Christ and that can center my children in Christ. And kids turn out fine in those places. You know, I have family, parents, siblings that are like, well, you know, your kids are gonna turn out horrible. And it's like they, you know, Mormons don't have a hold on good kids. And number, number one, Mormons don't have the hold on that. Number two, I don't believe the kids turn out good because of the church they go to. Kids are gonna turn out good because what mom and dad do inside the walls of their home, that's where good kids are raised.

Jared Egley [01:15:56] They're not good kids aren't raised on Sundays and Tuesdays. It helps. But good kids are raised in your home. And so I think my kids will be fine if they aren't here. And so if I'm not here, you know, I'm not going to send my kids here. But we not be. We're a family, and we're going to do what we feel is right. And at this point, we honestly don't feel that we fit here.

Jared Egley [01:16:21] And I think. I feel that it's kind of dangerous for my kids because what, you know, do. We teach our kids all this stuff, and then in 10 years, I have my child come back from his mission when he's heard all these things that he's been told on his mission that he was never told before he left that are true, and his testimony is shaken. I don't want that to happen to my kid. So my kids are going to know these issues, and they should. And I feel that if the church isn't going to be open and teach them, then I have an obligation to teach them and let them know that not everything may be as you're told, but the one thing that is as you're told is that God lives.

Jared Egley [01:17:04] He loves you. Jesus Christ is your savior, and he's the only one that can save you from your sins and your problems. And that's where you need to live.

John Dehlin [01:17:14] I agree.

Jared Egley [01:17:15] So, I mean, it's a mess in our lives. We would love to be here. This is our community. I mean, this is our family, my parents, you know, it's. It's just a mess,

John Dehlin [01:17:29] but it's a difficult situation to be in. I commend you for your goals. Personally, the reason I'm here is because in this church, I come to know the Savior more completely than any other experience I've had or any other theology I've looked into. Do I spend years and years looking into them and going to them? No. As long as my spirit is being satisfied and growing and I'm coming to understand the Satan. And in that I have come to recognize, just as you said, there is good in not only all Christian churches, but in most religions. In fact, all religions, whether it's Islam or Buddhism or Taoism or Hinduism, there's good in all of them. This is the one that has helped me come to know the Savior

Juli Egley [01:18:32] that

John Dehlin [01:18:32] I can bear witness of, because it's for me. And I leave that with you. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. I wish you well.

Guest [01:18:43] Seriously,

John Dehlin [01:18:48] Bishop, anything you want to add? I apologize if I haven't taking steps that I should have. I'm really sorry if I haven't done that. I want you guys to know I love you guys.

Jared Egley [01:19:12] And I hope nothing changes between us, between our kids.

John Dehlin [01:19:21] You guys are great. And my heart. I mean, what I've told you so many of the. Awkward, unexplainable feelings that you felt. I'm so sorry. As I have thought and pondered. What in the world can I help Jerry and Julie with? You asked a question of me after a talk that I gave Dave, and I said, where do we go from here? It really is up to you and what you want. It is. If you want to believe you're 100% right. You're going to have to believe in a different way. Probably, I think a better way, accurate way. Margaret read me, was reading me some stories, if you want something. She read some accounts of people's journals that did corroborate the things that happened, the things that the Church was saying.

Jared Egley [01:21:06] I'm sure there's more out there.

John Dehlin [01:21:08] I don't know where to find them. But if you want to, if you have time, then have at it. But. I, too, know that Christ lives and that somehow, some way, the atonement will go through for all of us. I told you about that picture. I find myself in that kneeling man's position so much More often than I'd like. Whatever I can do. Thank you. Present anything you'd like to add?

Jared Egley [01:22:04] Well, I just

John Dehlin [01:22:09] express my love to both of you. We love you very much.

Jared Egley [01:22:18] Hate that the whole thing has happened, really.

Guest [01:22:24] Defense of Bishop Iverson. I think he's been there for you.

Jared Egley [01:22:27] I'm not saying somebody else hasn't affected

Guest [01:22:29] you more, touched you more.

Jared Egley [01:22:31] But Bishop Iverson has cried over you,

John Dehlin [01:22:35] he's prayed over you.

Guest [01:22:37] He's been there for you. And there's some things I disagree with and I'm going to say. Does that make sense? If you want to say the things you feel, I'm glad to hear it. But I disagree with what you say that Bishop Iverson holds keys and he blesses you. He's blessed your family, and he's wanted to bless them every way he can. And there's never been once he's done anything contrary to or tried to hurt

John Dehlin [01:23:07] you in any way.

Guest [01:23:08] He wouldn't do it. And the fact that you know what happened in April 1930 is something maybe not on the top of his mind, has not changed that. You're on the top of his mind in 2018, and both of you know it. I'm not gonna lie that the priest did it on the earth. I know it's on the earth. And if you say Peter, James and John weren't there, say it, that's fine. And I've read those accounts. I know what they say, and it's wrong. Peter, James and John did restore keys. And I tell you what.

John Dehlin [01:23:39] What?

Guest [01:23:39] There was something that happened in Kirkland and Moses did appear and Elijah did appear, and they did restore keys. And if you don't want to believe it, it's your choice. And do I have the facts on it? No, I don't. And do I have somebody that wrote something then? No, I don't.

Jared Egley [01:23:58] But I can tell you what.

Guest [01:23:59] I have 23 million accounts of what happened to Mr. Crosland and that turtle and that dog, and that happened now. But I can tell you I know when my father laid his hands on my head, something happened. And I've used that priesthood numerous times this month.

Jared Egley [01:24:15] And there's a priesthood on the earth,

Guest [01:24:17] and I pass it to my son, and I got it from my dad. And how it came about through Peter, James and John, I wasn't there. But what I do know is I felt that power. I felt that strength. I know it works. I know it heals. I've seen it. I've been a part of it. I know it casts out Evil spirits. I've seen it, I've been a part of it. Do I want to pass that on to my children? Yes, I do.

Guest [01:24:41] Do I want them to go finding it somewhere else? No, I want them to find it here. Because it is here. The fact that you even say priesthood keys, the fact that you even say we don't know that they passed the keys, the fact that you say you know where that came from. It didn't come from what was being taught then.

Guest [01:25:02] It came because it was revealed. Priesthood keys was not something that's been discussed and is not something that's often discussed. It is something that was revealed. The fact that we even have to think about a Moses returning keys for a dispensation or Elijah for a dispensation is something unique.

Jared Egley [01:25:23] You know the Christian church had keys or statues of Peter. Every time you see a statue of Peter in Rome, he's holding keys.

Guest [01:25:29] And what did that mean? Come on, what did that mean? What did it mean to them?

Jared Egley [01:25:37] Don't know.

Guest [01:25:37] Yeah, exactly. But we know. And you can go ask any Catholic church, any Christian church, what do those keys mean? And you'll be interested to find out what the answer is. But we know, we know what they do and we know why it is Moses had certain keys and why Elijah had certain keys. We know those things. Find one that talks about a pre existence. Find one that talks about eternal marriage and eternal families.

Guest [01:26:06] And you can find a piece here and a piece there. But put it all together and share it surely. Don't leave that. Don't leave the faith of your fathers. Don't leave it. We talk about those things that you can find good here and good there. But there is nothing that speaks about the atonement like the Book of Mormon does. Nothing.

Guest [01:26:27] I mean, you can read what you want. I have never read anything that speaks about the atonement and brings it to my heart like the Book of Mormon does. How does that happen? It wasn't done by Joseph Smith.

Guest [01:26:41] And you talk about, you believe, you can believe and it matters that you believe in Jesus Christ. But there is a covenant people. That's what all of this is about. It is about a covenant people. An Old Testament means an old covenant. A New Testament means a new covenant. That's what it is. And why is there an organization? Because it brings these covenant people together.

Guest [01:27:05] And we build temples to bring blessings to man and woman to be sealed together and children. And how do we do that? We do it through covenant people. I can't build a temple wherever we have temples on the earth to bring people to the covenant of bringing those families together. I cannot do it alone. John Huntsman couldn't do it alone. It takes a covenant people. That's how we're able to do those things and bring those teachings.

Guest [01:27:35] And you just, I just beg you not to leave that. And we can go on and on about it, but 90% of what you think, 95% of what you think and know came because of this church. And you can pay out that, you know, he did not read them that way. The way that that picture is is not the way that it happened. And first of all, I say it did happen with Emma and he did look at those plates with Emma and she accounts that that's the way it happened. Did it happen the majority of the time with that way? It did with Emma, but not with the others.

Guest [01:28:15] But the fact that we say, okay, it didn't happen. So that is a fraud. That does not take away the fact that it did happen once or twice is a way that we can teach our children. This is what translation means.

Guest [01:28:34] How do you teach a seven year old what translation is? You can't have a picture of him looking into a hat, looking into a stone. It does not tell them what translation is. And so some of the fact is that we just have to teach in ways that children understand it. Is there some of that stuff that we look at and we say that is not the total picture? Now that we look back, possibly some of that stuff is not exactly the way it all was the whole time. But the fact of the matter is there's got to be a way we can teach primary kids what translation means.

Guest [01:29:10] And the fact that it happened to emphasize means that we can show that to children and say this is what happened. And what does it bring to them? It brings to them an understanding of what the Book of Mormon is, that no man wrote this book named Joseph Smith. He did not write that. He translated it. And that's why we can read through

Jared Egley [01:29:33] that Book of Mormon.

Guest [01:29:34] And it is not one man writing that book. It is not one man writing that book. And the understanding of a covenant people. How did Joseph Smith understand covenant people? How did he understand that? And it's throughout the whole Book of Mormon from the beginning to the end. It's covenant, covenant, covenant people. And we come together as covenant people. That's why we join together.

Guest [01:29:57] That's why we get together. It's because we have to have a covenant people. And through a covenant people, we do things that we cannot do alone. Exaltation happens through that. And so there's just so much that we can talk, we can get down to the nitty gritty about on those things. But ultimately you both have a witness of things that are true. You know it, you felt it, you've lived it.

Guest [01:30:24] And I'm just begging you, don't go off looking somewhere else. Don't do it. And sure, you're going to have some things that you're going to have to deal with. That's part of it. That's what faith is. But faith, when I run into those things, makes me just dig deeper and say, this is where I'm at.

Guest [01:30:43] I just. I'm here and it is three, four, five generations and I'm sticking here. And I love it. And the organization has brought to me blessings to serve and to bless that are numerous. Numerous. It happens every day. That would not have happened. It will happen to my children if they'll just be true to the faith.

Guest [01:31:07] And so I just. I beg you not to do that. I beg you for your own selves, for your children, for your grandchildren. I'm not saying people are bad in any other religion. I'm not saying that. I'm saying this is the faith of our fathers that brings us such great joy in the sacrifices, in the covenants, in the ordinances. And you don't want to leave. That's my testimony.

Guest [01:31:32] And I love you so much. And that's why I say it. That's why I say it. I want Hayden in this church. I want her in that temple. I want her to be sealed to a husband.

John Dehlin [01:31:45] I want it for her.

Guest [01:31:47] And I don't want her going anywhere else. I don't.

Jared Egley [01:31:53] Thanks, Dax.

John Dehlin [01:31:55] Thank you.

Juli Egley [01:31:56] President, can I just ask you, because I'm. Just. The whole way that the church deals with sex abuse, I'm hoping that they're doing something. I feel bad for Dax. I feel bad for President Ballard because they don't know what to do. We get in the situation of he said, he said, she said. Like, I just wish that they had some policies or things that I don't want Lynn excommunicated, but I would just

Jared Egley [01:32:31] need to put worrying on it.

Juli Egley [01:32:32] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:32:33] Well, I just. I would say that they do have procedures, procedures and policies to guide that as far as an investigative arm, other than questions that priesthood key holders ask when they probe with, like in this case. And they can, if there's anyone else they can talk to. The church doesn't have a secret police. It's not going to. It will rely because it's a violation of the law as well as God's law. It will rely upon the laws of the land as much as we can. Obviously the laws of the land can change and they do. But no, it's probably going to. Probably going to rest with those priesthood keyholders mostly.

Guest [01:33:25] And I appreciate what you just said because.

John Dehlin [01:33:28] Because it is true, Elderling, that there

Jared Egley [01:33:30] are some spots that it does get

John Dehlin [01:33:32] a little bit hard.

Jared Egley [01:33:33] It was difficult for me that I

Guest [01:33:36] can call the 800 number and they can talk to me about legal issues, they can talk to me about counseling. But it was difficult when I had to work with. Not difficult to work with Elder Ballard. He's wonderful. But it's difficult to know what we're supposed to do to address it at this moment. Moment if that makes sense for their, for their understanding and for the perpetrator or possible perpetrator. And if I could have called that other, if I could have called that stake president and he would have said that would have never happened by my bishop, I'm not sure where I would have gone.

John Dehlin [01:34:14] Well, and we're essentially at the same. We're at the same point with this CPS worker. Eventually they're going to have to ask some questions and they'll be seeking. They may talk to you some more. They may talk to Lynn. They may even decide that they have the authority to ask some other family members. But ultimately it's going to come down to can they find something that corroborates it.

Guest [01:34:47] And I'm sorry, I don't think it was ever meant that we wanted to get to the bottom of because we can. I mean, that's the laws, that's the law's place. But to be able to address it directly and to say, look, let's talk about this and President Ballard to know what to do. Okay, what do I do right now? That's frustrating.

Juli Egley [01:35:06] That's what I think.

John Dehlin [01:35:07] What has happened, I know is that as soon as it was, as soon as it was reported here. You talked to President Ballard. I talked to President Ballard. You talked to President Ballard. President Ballard has reported to me that he has talked to Lyn and I asked him to go back and talk to him another time after meeting. Now I'm going to ask him to go out to talk to him again with another couple of questions. But ultimately there isn't any.

John Dehlin [01:35:45] There isn't. There isn't a police force that's going to ferret this out. And it is possible, although, because, because God values agency so highly, it's unlikely that he's going to take that away from anyone. He certainly didn't. At the expense of his only begotten son, Unfairly, inhumanely, unjustly treated and abused to the ultimate degree.

John Dehlin [01:36:30] Even if you modicum of bareness, he could have struck somebody down. He didn't do it because agency is so crucial to this whole process. Thank you for being here. I'm so sorry. I know these brethren have been with you and they're their sorrow. But the grief that you experienced and the torment has come beyond the abuse to the anguish that you're feeling about dealing with historical issues and facts that don't line up with the primary version of how we can teach the Gospel expeditiously.

John Dehlin [01:37:19] I'm sorry for those two. I sincerely do wish you well in your quest to come to know the Savior again. For me it has been through the revelations that have come. When Joseph described the Book of Mormon as the keystone of our religion, he was exactly right on. You're a man of faith. I can tell that President Keller opened for us. Would you be kind enough to give us a benediction?

Jared Egley [01:37:58] Our Father in Heaven, we are thankful

John Dehlin [01:37:59] that we were able to gather here

Jared Egley [01:38:01] today, especially grateful for Elder Lane, for President Keller and for Bishop Iverson would ask that Thou would please bless them for their efforts and for their dedication to the Gospel. Father, please help all of us to be able to do the things in our lives that will bring us closer to our Savior, to Thy Son, and help us to always be mindful of the blessings which he has given us in our lives.

Jared Egley [01:38:33] And Father, we ask you to please at this time help Julie and I, that we may be able to continue to strive to do Thy will, that we may not forget to involve Thee in those decisions. We're thankful for the love and the guidance which Thou has given us so far in our lives.

Jared Egley [01:39:00] And as you bless all of us as we leave tonight, that Thy Spirit will be with us, that we may be grateful for that which we have. And we pray for these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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