Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John de Lynn. It is December 22, 2020 and we have a fun and an important topic today. There's been a lot of interesting and fascinating episodes on Mormon stories in the past several months. It's been a great year, a lot of heated stuff. But I was really, really grateful when Anthony Miller reached out recently. I just had Anthony on. My interview with Anthony about Fair Mormon and apologetics has been really well received and I was just extra delighted when, when Anthony said, hey, John, you know, there's a lot of people that are feeling tender things about Christmas and you know, feeling a sense of loss around sometimes their clear sense of the divine or even of, of the, the role of Jesus in their life. And so Christmas pulls a lot of different emotions. Sometimes people, especially early in their journey, don't quite know how to do Christmas. And so Anthony said, john, why don't we do a little episode where we bring on some amazing humans and just talk about how to enjoy Christmas after, during and after a faith crisis. And I just thought that was a great idea. And so that's what it's going to be about today. It's going to be about finding joy during the Christmas season after your orthodox Mormon faith has, has been deconstructed. We are live streaming this and we're live streaming it for at least one main reason. I really want to hear from people who have tips and tricks and ideas about how they enjoy Christmas and we're going to share those in addition to having this wonderful panel. So today we have Anthony, we have Janice Spangler, and we have Britt, and we're going to have each one introduce themselves. So Anthony, since this was your brainchild, why don't you go first and then we'll have Janet and Britt introduce themselves as well.

Anthony Miller [00:02:07] All right, thank you. So I share my Mormon Stories journey last. I shared it last year in August of 2019 and it's long, but I'll just kind of give you a summary. I was very orthodox believer of the church. The church worked very, very well for me. As a straight, white male, never divorced, professional, I served in many positions. I was very much a critical thinker in all areas of my life except for my faith. I had very heavy shelves. And in 2016 our then 22 year old son came out to us as gay. And in searching for resources to support him, not being able to shelve the dominant narratives with regard to our son and the church, I stumbled across the gospel topics Essays and reviews of them by MormonThink and Mormon Stories and the CS letter in Fair Mormon. And for the subsequent about three or four days with very little sleep, experienced a very acute existential faith and identity crisis. And through help, through things like Mormon Stories Workshop, participating in Sunstone Online Resources, in Person resources, I've reconstructed a sense of meaning and purpose and actively participate in these communities. So in any event, what really precipitated this is I remember how painful and difficult my first deconstructed Christmas was in December of 2016. It was so painful because I had so much meaning attributed to Christmas. But by that time I had deconstructed quite a bit of Christianity in the New Testament. And this last week I had a very tender conversation with a friend in our local support group during one of our meetups about that person's first deconstructed Christmas experience. And it was a very tender and treasured conversation that we shared in our Mormon Spectrum group. And that led me to reach out to John to suggest this is the kind of thing that we should have a discussion about because there are people in a very painful circumstance this time. So that's what who I am, that's what led to this. And I am very grateful for the opportunity to participate today and and invite a couple of my friends to join us here.

John Dehlin [00:04:41] Beautiful. Thanks, Anthony. And yeah, if listeners have questions or tips or tricks or anything stories, we will read them on the air because it'll just be so fun to get many minds and many hearts sharing. So if you have secular or even nuanced or progressive or liberal Christmas traditions, please, please write them out and we'll read them on the air and share them with everybody. Jana, you have been a dear friend of mine and a contributor in this space for quite some time. I'm really thrilled to have you back on Mormon Stories. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to those who may not know you.

Jana Spangler [00:05:28] Okay. Thank you, John. I'm really happy to be back here, always happy to be on Mormon Stories. So I am an integral professional coach who specializes in faith transitions, all things faith transition and relationship. I work with a lot of mixed faith couples and just people who are either deconstructing themselves or are supporting someone else who is deconstructing their faith.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:05:55] And

Jana Spangler [00:05:57] this, you know, when Anthony reached out to me to be part of this panel, this subject really is near and dear to my heart because I see clients in my office every single year who are really struggling with this. And this year is no exception. It's really, in the months leading up to Christmas, it's a huge theme for everyone. So I'm really happy to be here and to be discussing how strategies and ways that we can help people through this, what can be a very difficult time.

John Dehlin [00:06:29] And you're working with Symmetry Solutions, right, with Natasha?

Jana Spangler [00:06:32] I am.

John Dehlin [00:06:32] Okay, great, great. Welcome, Jana.

Jana Spangler [00:06:37] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] Now, Britt, is this your first time on Mormon Stories?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:06:40] This is my first time.

John Dehlin [00:06:42] All right, well, take it away. Tell us a bit about yourself and tell us about your book and tell us about the little events you're doing in Boise that you reached out to me about a little while ago. I think that's interesting.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:06:56] Yeah. So my name is Brittney Hartley. I'm the author of the book Mormon Philosophy Simplified, which came out a year ago. Is doing as well as you could hope for for a the niche of Mormon philosophy. It's a very small niche subject. I am a PhD student in Theology and my focus is on spirituality for those outside of religion. What are called the nuns and the Duns.

John Dehlin [00:07:20] Whoa, I didn't know that.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:07:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:23] Where are you studying?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:07:25] So I study at Northwind Theological Seminary and I'm the. The technical title of it is Open and Relational Theology under Thomas Ord. So that's been really fun for me. And then I run a Mormon spectrum group in Boise, Idaho, and I bugged John a while ago because Boise is the forgotten little sister of Salt Lake. You know, we have a pretty heavy Mormon community. We were part of the rescue. We have a lot of faith crisis and families falling apart and that whole thing. But we don't have all of the resources of the John de Lynn's and the Janas and the Natasha's to come do things. And so if you're in Idaho, if you're in the Boise area, reach out to me. We do a lot of really fun things. We have people like Jackson Washburn and Fiona Givens and Jared Anderson come and share kind of the more their Mormon stories and. And then we also have, you know, Sufi mystics and meditators and pagan witches and anything in spiritual exploration. And we do that together and we have retreats and so reach out to me if that's something that's interesting to you in Idaho, I love it.

John Dehlin [00:08:45] That's so great to know you're there. So you're basically doing what we're trying to do. But in, but in Boise I'm trying.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:08:52] If I could be the Jana of Boise, I would be very happy with myself.

John Dehlin [00:08:58] Now do you, do you do coaching or therapy?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:09:00] Kind of Stuff? No, I mean, privately I do a lot. You know, I talk to a lot of people. No, when I finish my PhD program, I'm, I'm more going into the chaplain kind of area of service. Prisons and hospitals and places where people are having big questions and big issues, but they don't necessarily have a religious context to deal with those things. That's kind of the area that I'm moving into.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] That's great. All right, well, this is great. Let me just begin with a, with a question that. Well, I think I want to begin in two parts because on the one hand I've spoken quite a bit. When we've tried to kind of sample people who lose their faith in Mormonism, we found that a good chunk of them, maybe even up to half or a little more than half, sometimes tend to go all the way. It starts with Joseph Smith and, you know, prophets and the priesthood in the Mormon Church, and it unravels all the way down to God and Jesus. Now, having said that, I think it's much more complicated than that because number one, a good chunk of people that lose their faith in, in Mormonism still believe in God and Jesus, period, like in all the ways. And so I think we have to make sure that we include a discussion of that in our conversation today. But then also there's something between being atheist and agnostic and, or agnostic and being a born again or a non denominational Christian. There is finding, there is finding value maybe just a little bit less literal or even a little less certain way. Now having said all that, Anthony, why don't you kick it off and we'll kind of, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll introduce a few topics and we'll kind of go around with each one. Anthony, what's the first thing you want to kind of start with? Out of the gate, as we, as we try and identify the various Mormon experiences that have to kind of deal with, with this journey.

How Faith Transitions Affect Personal Identity

Anthony Miller [00:11:09] Sure. So I would start out by sharing some things that I've shared in the past that as human beings, our natural tendency is to enmesh our sense of personal identity with our belief constructs and so forth. And so what our roles are, what our forms are, our callings, our beliefs, our community, how we experience spirituality or elevation, emotion or whatever it is that you want to call it. We attribute meaning to those things. And then our natural tendency then is to enmesh that with our sense of identity. A common experience not 100% of the time, but a common experience of someone who goes through a faith transition, what leads to their faith transition is a crumbling of those constructs of belief, of community, of how they made sense of things and so forth. And because all those things are so enmeshed with our personal sense of identity, a faith crisis is often referred to or similar to a personal identity or an existential crisis where we're trying to figure out what anything means. And so for me, that was the circumstance. What, what tipped me over into a faith crisis is I had many treasured spiritual experiences, but my construct for those spiritual experiences was based on them being reliable divine witnesses of truth. There are other faith traditions that refer to them as communion with God or other kinds of things, but for me, they were reliable divine witnesses of truth. And when and when I experienced my acute existential faith crisis, and that construct for those spiritual experiences crumbled on me. I had the experience of the dark. It's referred to as the dark night of the soul, or God leaving the corner of the room where you once knew him, or basically the heavens closing. Kind of was my experience because my brain couldn't hold that dissonance of treasured spiritual experiences not meaning what I thought they were now in my personal experience. And like I said, this isn't everybody's experience, but it's not uncommon that when everything loses meaning, it's very unsettling, very disorienting, and extremely painful because we can't figure out what anything means. In Mormonism, the construct is that if you lose belief or faith, it's. It's because it's your fault. At least that's the understanding that I had. So I felt like it was my fault that I lost belief and that the heavens closed and it was extremely painful. But then I was afraid to tell anyone because I didn't want to trigger a faith crisis in them. But at the same time, I was concerned about telling them because actually what happened when I started talking to my friends, their belief system was that if you lost belief, it was because there was some great sin that you were hiding or something that you did to lose that belief. So it's an extremely. For me, it was an extremely painful and unsettling experience. So the next thing that I did is I looked around and I saw examples like Dan Witherspoon, and I saw examples like Rob Bell and people, people from non Mormon faith communities like Rachel Held Evans and so forth, Richard Rohr, John Shelby Spong and others who had developed a construct or sense of Christianity. And I saw people that reconstructed or had a belief in Christianity and they practiced it within the LDS Church. And so I wanted to figure out, I wanted to deconstruct the Mormon sense. I wanted to understand the origins and deconstruct the Mormon sense of Christianity in the New Testament, so forth, and then try to figure out, to reconstruct some sort of meaning that would work. And so what happened to me is I ended up reading Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. I studied quite a bit of other scholarship with regard to how the New Testament came about. I read Reza Aslan's Zealot, and as I deconstructed Mormonism, then what followed for me in my experience, like you mentioned John, that not everyone has this experience. But for me, I deconstructed Christianity too, and came to the belief that there was value in these stories in the New Testament, but that they were more metaphorical than literal, and that the Nativity story that exists in Matthew and Luke, but that doesn't get written about by Paul or, or the writer of Mark or the writer of the Gospel of John was probably more metaphorical rather than literally historical. So that first Christmas was extremely painful for me because I had so much meaning and identity wrapped into Christmas and the Nativity story and having that being literally true that it was very painful for me. So in any event, that's kind of what I wanted to share about the experience. I think everybody has a little bit of a different experience, but that's what led to the kinds of things that we might talk about today.

John Dehlin [00:16:59] I love it. And yeah, that's. That is a really common thing, is you start pulling the thread on the Book of Mormon and you start deconstructing. You can, you know, you can pull the thread on everything and end up feeling like there's nothing. And not only are you feeling that big loss, that big emptiness in your chest, but you're also, like, feeling angry, you're feeling abandoned, you're feeling betrayed. And so not only do you not have, in some cases, the positive, affirming beliefs and the traditions and the comfort, but those things can become triggering for you where the things that used to bring you joy and happiness make you angry, make you feel almost traumatized. And so Christmas can, can not only become not enjoyable, it can become distressing for. For many, or at least for a time.

Anthony Miller [00:17:55] Right. Like a tradition in our family. For Christmas Eve was to read the Nativity story in Luke, which was always a beautiful thing to me. And when I was newly constructed, I was asked to read the Nativity story in Luke, and I had no idea of what that was going to do to me until it happened. And it was very painful to be there, somewhat closeted, that I had deconstructed trying to participate in this family tradition. Me reading the nativity story and Luke to the family.

John Dehlin [00:18:31] What was that like for you at the time? Do you describe what that. The experience.

Anthony Miller [00:18:36] It. It was absolutely surreal. And I experienced fear in that if I. If I shared what I was experiencing with my family, that that would be painful for them. I didn't want to inflict pain on them. I didn't want to lose trust and emotional intimacy and confidence from them. It was just extremely disorienting, and it took me by surprise. I didn't realize that that's what was going to happen.

John Dehlin [00:19:10] Yeah. Yeah. That's tough stuff. All right, Jana, let's have you go next. And. And you can kind of give not only what it's been like for you, but anything you want to share about a lot of the people you work with, because we all probably interface with slightly different subsets of our population.

Navigating Anger and Grief at Christmas

Jana Spangler [00:19:32] Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that, Anthony. I mean, that is a really common thing that I. I see. It's really difficult. We have a culture of sharing in the church that really depends on. It's based on agreement. It's based on. On all of us seeing things the same way and understanding things in the same way. We don't have a lot of practice of differentiation or of bringing something new to the subject. We. We all get really nervous when someone shares something outside of the norm or the correlation or the things that we normally talk about. So it's. It's really extremely difficult to be, especially if you're closeted, to act like everything's okay. You don't want to act in a way that would bring questions to the people that are around you of what's going on with you, especially if you're not ready to share. All of that can be really, really hard for people. And so many people. I mean, like John, like you said, different people handle this differently. And there are some people who never let go of God and Jesus, but that doesn't mean that they're not having big questions about what all of that means. And so one of the biggest things that I see with my clients is that this anger and sadness and triggering that they feel around things that used to inspire them is really distressing. And part of what makes it distressing is we don't know how to handle anger well in our culture. This is not something even in the bigger culture. This is not just a church culture, but we're really good at it. In our church culture, we don't know how to handle anger and to recognize what those triggers mean, that they're actually meaning something very deep and meaningful about our experience and about what is coming online for us, a new perspective that is coming online for us, bigger perspectives that are coming online for us. But when that triggers a negative experience, the only story we have is that we've done something wrong, that we are. That we are experiencing this in the wrong way. And I so often have clients coming into my office just desperate to not feel the anger, to not feel the triggers. And a lot of the work that I end up doing with people is just allowing the experience. Whatever experience you're having is valid and just getting to a deeper meaning of what that is meaning, and then having better ways to communicate and work with your families during a time like that and to handle tips and tricks to handle the triggers that are coming up, because they're inevitable. If you're going through deconstruction, you're going to feel them, especially if you are celebrating Christmas with other believers. It. It's just. It's really hard. And we don't have a map, a very good map for working through that.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] Yeah, don't do anger. Well, I think we're discouraged from feeling angry. I think the church teaches that contentions of the devil. And. And there's also this sort of, like, stereotype on people who lose their faith that they're just angry. And so we feel that double pressure to never be angry because we don't want to fill the stereotype. And so we just pack and pack and stuff. When we pack that anger too long.

Jana Spangler [00:23:06] Absolutely. I mean, people just, whoever you are, people just want to be understood. We want to be seen. We want to be accepted as exactly how we are and what we're going through. And that is a really tall order for believing family and friends and for ourselves because of the narratives that we have been brought up with. And so, yeah, there's. I see that pressure all the time for people to just show up and be happy because they don't want other people saying, oh, look, see, this is. These are the fruits of you questioning and having a problem and stepping away is. Look how angry you are. So it's obvious you're doing something wrong. It's. It's so much pressure at a time that is already so hard when people. What they really need is to be seen and heard.

John Dehlin [00:23:57] Yeah, but who wants to be Grinch at Christmas, right? The ex Mormon, the doubting Mormon Grinch. Oh, yeah. You know that story you're telling about the baby Jesus may not have happened, you know. Oh, you know that beautiful Wise men. Yeah. That was like three years before, after, you know, whatever it is. You don't want to be Grinch, Right?

Jana Spangler [00:24:18] Absolutely. And I wouldn't recommend that as a strategy, just so, you know, to get along well with your family. I would not recommend that.

Anthony Miller [00:24:28] Yeah, I. I'd bump one, if that's okay. I'd bump one thought in that. With regard to grief, when we're experiencing grief, when we're experiencing, you know, the anger and depression stages of grief, when we're. When we're dealing with these kinds of things like. Like Jana is referring to, our countenance does change because we're those. We're experiencing those things. And so not only might we have a believing family member or friend, you know, kind of shame us like Jana was referring to, but they might actually feel justified in saying those things and calling us to repentance because our countenance has changed, because we are experiencing deep grief during this period of time. And they might even sense, if we're not fully out to our family with regard to our changed beliefs, they might sense that we're not being fully transparent even. And so it kind of feeds into this narrative that when you lose belief, it's because your countenance changes. It's because you're under the control at the adversary, or you've made bad choices or you're hiding some great sin or something like that.

John Dehlin [00:25:42] Yeah. Yeah. It's so tricky. All right, Brittney, what are some opening thoughts you have on what we've talked about so far?

Finding a Nuanced Approach to Mormon History

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:25:52] Sure. So I. My story is a little bit different than Anthony's. My. So I'm a history teacher by trade, and so I have always had a nuanced kind of approach to Mormonism. When I was 17 and went to BYU, Idaho, I was in the history department and history teacher. Mormon are, by definition highly nuanced. You know, Leonard Arrington type, Hubie Brown type Mormon. And so that was really my. Even though that's a more nuanced approach as a. From a human development side, that was kind of my orthodox box. And so that's where I stayed for my young adult years. And then it just wasn't like all boxes. It eventually showed some cracks and then started to crumble. And about 10 years ago, had a full faith crisis. And for me, like Janice talked about before, it was all the way down to nothing. All the way down. And for me, as like a deeply philosophical person, truly nihilistic atheism, just for about a year, just really felt like there was nothing I could grab hold on that was solid and like Anthony spoke to. It just felt like the floor had gone out underneath me. I felt very disconnected. It was just a really. It was, it was a very hard time. It was just hard. And Bill Real was the first, first person in my life to tell me that I wasn't broken. And I cannot tell you, I've shared this story before, but I cannot tell you at that time what that meant for me as I feel like I'm falling apart and I'm getting judgment and pushback from my friends and family to have someone tell you you're not broken. These are growing pains. And so Bill and I have had a long friendship since then. And you can actually listen to some of our earlier podcasts where we're in a different place than where we are now.

John Dehlin [00:27:57] Wait, do you do the podcast with Bill?

Jana Spangler [00:27:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:00] Okay, tell us what that's called.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:28:02] So Bill does Mormon discussions podcast, right. And I've interviewed him before. I think we've gone on three or four times. So every couple years we would kind of do a podcast and we'd both be in different places. And so that's been kind of fun to have that be public that, that, you know, every couple years when we did a podcast, we'd be catching up with things that were similar as we're going through this kind of decade long journey. So that's available if you want to look that up. And so for me, the thing that brought me back wasn't the kind of lovely books that I actually really like that Anthony mentioned. It was taking a full step back and really thinking a lot about myths and stories and how I wanted to interact with that. So what happens is people who find themselves in this space where they're very triggered, we have myths all around us, right? We have money is a myth and America is a myth and democracy is a myth. And we have social constructs and myths that surround us all of the time that we intentionally kind of buy into so that we can connect with one another. And so what I find a lot is that people who are newly out, and certainly it was this way for me. You have all these myths that you're interacting with, but if it's God or it's Jesus or it's Christmas, like, I just, I can't do any of it. Right. You just cut off from that totally. And that was Just where I was at that time. And then slowly, intentionally, I began to. As I've, you know, I've stepped back, I'm feeling pain, I'm feeling overwhelmed by all these myths that kind of gave me some structure. And then over time I was able to step back into those stories in an authentic way. And that's when that is truly the freedom and the beauty that comes on the other side of faith crisis. So I have taught seminary. Post faith crisis, I have interacted.

John Dehlin [00:30:11] Lds, Mormon seminary.

Anthony Miller [00:30:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:13] Oh, wow.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:30:14] As a paid position in Idaho, I have interacted with Mormonism in various ways that are authentic to me. But I also can. But having to be being able to intentionally choose that these are the things in the Christmas story and the Nativity story that still connect with me, that I can connect with you, or I can connect with my ancestry or I can connect with my community through this story, I can intentionally walk into that space. And then if there's something in that story that no longer resonates with me, I can leave it behind. And that kind of freedom, that kind of dance, to be able to balance my authenticity and my desire for community has been truly the best part of post faith crisis life.

John Dehlin [00:30:59] Beautiful. I think, I think that's a really important thing for us to dig into. So thank you for giving that introduction to that idea, Britt. And I want to come back to it in a bit, if it's okay. I want to briefly touch on this, this idea that maybe some people haven't considered and the intent isn't to start anyone's faith crisis, but there's probably some who are just now in it where they're, they're deconstructing the Mormonism, but they haven't even gotten to the Bible yet. And without having the intention of jump starting someone's faith crisis potentially in the Bible. Anthony, do you want to just kind of give a brief, just a brief kind of touch on some of the reasons why Christianity might be at play for some in terms of what they're struggling with and how that affects Christmas.

Anthony Miller [00:31:55] Sure, I'd be happy to. So there's everybody, you know, that went to Sunday school and listened to some of the lessons with that are they would hear stories in the gospels about parables, the parable of the sheep and the goats or the, or of the rich man, or all these stories that are attributed to the historical Jesus as, as stories that teach principles, you know, and then, and then if you study biblical scholarship and how the New Testament was created, what you find is that not Only are some of the parables metaphor, but a lot of the history is also metaphor and allegory. And so if you're interested in studying some of these things, we'll maybe put some resources in the footnotes. The most commonly known biblical scholar with regard to the New Testament in terms of critical scholarship is Bart Ehrman. You could start reading Misquoting Jesus. A lot of people, like I mentioned before, I read Reza Aslan's Zealot. And then there are faithful scholars. Trevin Hatch is a BYU professor that wrote a fantastic book about Jesus being a Jew in Jerusalem. That's very good scholarship, but from a faithful standpoint. But. But that also talks about the metaphor. There are other examples in the Bible of stories that aren't historical. At least that's what the scholarship tells us. But there's strong symbolism in them. So, for example, the story of Job was written to be not as a literal historical story about a literal historical person, but the character of Job. And the story of Job is a metaphor for Israel, and Israel being tested by the Lord and so forth. Or the story of Jonah is also a metaphor and a satirical allegory to suggest that God could love non Israelites. So many of the stories in the Bible were intentionally written as kind of like a combination of mythicized history or scripturalized history to teach principles and stories and narratives through metaphor. And all cultures do this. If you go to Hawaii, there's the volcano goddess Pele, and Hawaiians know that she's not a real person, but they still celebrate rituals and dances with regard to the volcano goddess. Most of these Jews who I know are secular Jews, and most of them have studied scholarship with regard to the Hebrew Bible. And they've come to the conclusion that the character of Moses and the character of Abraham are also composite, legendary, mythical, more metaphorical than lyrical literal characters. But even as secular Jews, they celebrate Hanukkah and things like that. So this is how Scripture is actually generally written. It's not written to be a literal historical story. That's word for word transcription about things that actually happened with regard to the New Testament, kind of the brief overview is the. The oldest writings that we have in the New Testament are those of the apostle Paul. They were written in the 50s. So more than a couple decades after, or right at a couple decades after the historical Jesus was killed, Paul talks.

John Dehlin [00:35:48] And just to be clear, I think a lot. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but I want to like, you know, for our listeners who haven't really thought a lot about this, you would think, wait, Matthew was one? And. And I don't think we've thought a lot about this at all as Mormon. And of course, if you want a really good series on this, check out my David Bacavoy interviews. But I think a lot of Mormon haven't really thought this through. And they're just like, okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they must have been four of the 12 apostles, right? And so they lived during Jesus's time. And so they were watching what was going on and they wrote down in their journals, right? They wrote down what they heard from Jesus and what they saw Jesus do. And then when they were done, somehow those papers, those journals got passed down. And at some point there was some committee that put them together. And we have the New Testament, right? Isn't that what happened, Anthony?

Anthony Miller [00:36:41] That. That is absolutely not what happened. Most of the people in that period were not literate. They spoke Aramaic. Jesus, Jesus's followers spoke Aramaic. The New Testament texts were written in Greek in a foreign language to Jesus's initial followers. And the oldest texts were probably not written down until several decades after the historical Jesus died and largely based on oral tradition. So I think members of the church are going to increasingly get exposed to this kind of scholarship, in great part probably due to the Thomas Wayment translation that includes notes and background about these different texts. But kind of back to the evolution of Christology and the character of Jesus and the symbolism and the metaphor applied to that character is we start with the writings of Paul where Jesus really is divine at the crucifixion resurrection period. And Paul doesn't talk about the nativity, he does talk about the symbolism of baptism. The next text that was written in time was probably plus or minus 70 cell, so many decades after Jesus died. And it is the Gospel attributed to Mark. The gospels were written anonymously, and only later were names attributed to them as authors. And in the Gospel of Mark, Mark doesn't talk about the nativity story at all. Jesus really becomes divine or an extra divine character at the baptism. Then a decade or two or more after the gospel attributed to Mark was written, the gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke were written. And there's an evolution of Christology because Jesus becomes divine at the nativity and we have the nativity story. And if you study the scholarship, I won't get too deep into this, but there's competing genealogies between the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, and there's different stories that get mixed together in our nativity story. In terms of the Magi that come from the east. The Magi coming from the east also has a symbolic, metaphorical meaning that was written into the story to say that something good could come out of the East. And then, and then Matthew and Luke impute a lot, primarily Matthew impute a lot of Moses archetypal imagery on the historical Jesus in the Nativity story. But there's some complexities in terms of there weren't really major censuses that required people to go back to their homeland where their ancestors from 4 to 700 years in the past were. They're just. That wouldn't, that wouldn't make any sense. Like that'd be like me having to go to Switzerland for a census, you know, for my ancestors that lived centuries ago. Herod died in 4 BCE. There's a number of other things in the Nativity story that critical scholarship would indicate that they aren't literally historical, but they're symbolic. And then the Gospel that was written latest probably several decades after Matthew and Luke were written, is the Gospel attributed to John. And there's an evolution of Christology there where the character of Jesus becomes, is divine at the beginning. And the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Right. And so in studying those things, some people are able to come up with faithful reconciliations for those ambiguities. And then some people, when they go through those things, they experience a level of deconstruction where these stories are probably more metaphorical than literally historical. And so they have a crumbling of meaning because the narrative that they've always connected to and that has been enmeshed with their identity is that the stories needed to be literally historical to have any meaning whatsoever. And if they're not literally historical, then they lose all meaning. So that's kind of the background of the scholarship and why some people, if they unpack this stuff, end up in a deconstructed state because they're trying to hold a non binary view with regard to things being literally historical in order to have value. And it's stretching for them to, to find or reconstruct a sense of meaning and beauty of things that aren't literally historical. Just like Job is a metaphor for Israel kind of thing.

Deconstructing the Nativity Story

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:41:49] Please can I add something here, John? So I think something if and if I were to recommend to anyone who was interested in all the wonderful stuff that Anthony just mentioned, your eight hour podcast with David Bacavoy is one of the best things on the Internet. And it really shows how Scripture is just Myth on top of myth on top of myth and culture and translation, and it's just so incredibly complex. And I think what that hap. What happened to me and what happens to a lot of Mormon is that not only do we do that with scripture, but then we can't stop that deconstruction. So now you're deconstructing language, and now you're deconstructing your sense of self and. And. And family and what it means to be an American. And you're realizing that all these things. Things are myths on myths and stories and social constructs that allow us to connect with each other and to lose that kind of foundation is. Is at first very scary. It's very unknown. It is. It can be very terrifying. It can just take the breath out of you. But the beautiful thing is to be able to walk back into that and say, these are the ways that I choose to connect with other people. These are the myths and the constructs that I'm now intentionally choosing to step into. And so you have someone like Richard Dawkins, who's much more atheistic than I am. Right. Famous atheist. And someone asked him what he does at Christmas time, and he says, I really love the Christmas carols. And he's like, I don't. I don't Frost be the snowman. I don't want Rudolph. I don't want any secular. I want the King's James version, Christmas hymns, and I want to sing them. And he does that. And so the beautiful thing is to be able to. How can I step back into humanity in a way that is authentic to me? And that intention with. With your authentic self and the people that you care about is where the real beauty happens.

John Dehlin [00:43:49] Yeah, beautiful. Jenna, did you have something you want to add?

Jana Spangler [00:43:56] Yeah, I'd love to. So we're talking a lot about kind of this deconstruction thing. I think it's helpful for people to understand really what is. What is going on. When we've been raised in one particular narrative of how the things have gone, we can call that kind of the order phase of our lives. And this happens not just with religion. This can happen in a lot of ways. We go through an order phase when we're being raised by our parents to understand the way the world. World works. And then typically around adolescence, we'll experience some sort of deconstruction of a lot of those other things. Now in Mormonism, we don't do deconstruction of. I think. I think the newer generations are doing this more earlier and earlier. But most of the people that I see are in their 30s, 40s, 50s now, just considering a new story for the first time later in life. But if you're going to have a very ordered beginning, which is actually a very good place to be, you're. You're going to have to do deconstruction in order to invite in some new perspective that is coming online. And no one likes deconstruction. It's messy, it's painful, it hurts. We don't like undoing all of the stories that we've ever heard. Especially a Christmas story is so magical. And it can be a beautiful thing when you take it literally. And it's a great place to start. And for some people, it works for their entire lives. But I just. I just want to offer to people who are experiencing this kind of deconstruction that it is normal. It is okay. It is. You can't avoid it. And if you're ever going to move on to something new that is trying to come online for you, you're going to have to face it. So I think it's. It's also good to notice that some people, deconstruction doesn't look the same for everybody. You know, I can hear for. For Anthony, it's. I know Anthony. Anthony's a dear friend and he is. Will call himself a very concrete thinker. And it's so important for him to read all of these books and to. To see what parts of the story do and do not fit this narrative of what is true. And that is such a valid, important thing for people to do for other people. That kind of study is. Is not in them. It's not really what's trying to be undone in them, but maybe it's more of the lens of holding things so tightly that they need to deconstruct. Maybe they need to let in this idea that maybe this Christmas story is bigger than Mormonism. Maybe God is bigger than Mormonism. Maybe Christ is bigger than Mormonism. You know, many people know that. I have studied for two years with Father Richard Rohrer, who is a Catholic priest who is very, very versed in this kind of deconstruction reconstruction of all of our stories. One of the stories that he shared with, with a group of us was that he traveled to India at one point, and his guide, they got in a discussion about. About religion. And Richard asked his guide about atheism in India and whether that exists. And his guide says, no, it really doesn't exist here. And then he thought for a minute and he said, oh, except if they were Christian first. And I think the reason that that rings true, and I think it is the reason why so many people going through a Mormon faith Christ end up crisis, end up in. In atheism or agnosticism, at least for a time, is that I think when we hold our truth claims and our stories so tightly and literally that when you start to question it, as Brittney said and as we've all said, you pull the thread and it just keeps going. It goes down to not just the Christmas story, it goes down to our identities. It goes down to everything about us and how we've defined ourselves in the universe and with our relationships and with our families and everything else. If we've only imagined this one thing, then then sometimes that's the only option because we haven't imagined something bigger. But believe it or not, Christianity has been a lot around a long time, and there actually were some amazing things going on during the Apostolic that, you know, there's a lot of wisdom about that and a lot of people who have held things in a more metaphorical way for a very long time that can be really, really helpful. So I like to talk about deconstruction is not just this horrible, awful triggering time, but it's also an invitation to see something in a new way that may inspire you actually on deeper levels than you've ever experienced before. Because that is the gift and the beauty of a second half of life in a spiritual sense is now we get to have a relationship with some of these stories and myths that whether they're true or not, ceases to be the thing that we need to worry about. But we can start to say what is really real for me, what is coming online for me, what is inspiring about this story, what does not work for me. And our triggers are an amazing place to start to look for that. What is not working for me, what is triggering me in this moment, what does my soul need to reject? And what is still inspirational? And if you're really trying to get along with other people, stay in that inspirational space and start to ask other people in their literal place. Believe me, there are things underneath what they're taking literally that are inspiring to them. And that's the realm where we can start to actually get along with people and connect and still have a beautiful Christmas season with the people that we love.

John Dehlin [00:50:10] I love it. Let me just ask. And by the way, I'm going to refer people to my Bart Ehrman interview as well. I did interview Bart Ehrman. He gave an overview of several of his books. And it's a great way to just kind of get a sense for a lot of the critical scholarship around Jesus and the New Testament. But if we go back to what you were saying, Anthony, and kind of the history you were trying to share with us, I guess there's a question that we should start with before we get to the metaphorical. Does someone have to throw away the idea of a literal Jesus? And the reason I'm asking is because, you know, it's, it's one thing to believe that Jesus is the literal son of God who came to the earth and understood what we dealt with and suffered and, and suffered for our sins and died and was resurrected. You know, that's a really powerful story that feels very real, that feels transformative. It gives us hope for resurrection and an afterlife. It gives us this idea that we're unconditionally loved. It gives us this idea that all our mistakes can be, you know, forgiven and that we can be wiped clean. Like there's so much good in addition to the great teachings Jesus taught. So I'll ask you guys, you know, does, does evidence, does the evidence. Is the evidence so overwhelming that you have to just throw out the idea that Jesus was a literal being and that there was no Jesus and that it's all myth and story? Or can you. Are there credible, smart, intelligent, informed people that are still like, oh yeah, I'm. Jesus lived and I believe in him and he was the son of God. You know, do any of you guys want to, want to respond to that? Because I, I want to make sure people know they have lots of options.

Was Jesus a Real Historical Person?

Anthony Miller [00:52:05] I'll jump in.

John Dehlin [00:52:06] Who wants to jump in first?

Anthony Miller [00:52:08] Yeah, I'll jump in first.

John Dehlin [00:52:09] Anthony, you may be muted. No, no, I'm not hearing.

Anthony Miller [00:52:16] Test, test, test.

John Dehlin [00:52:17] Go ahead, go ahead, Anthony. Go ahead and talk.

Anthony Miller [00:52:19] All right, so. So the first thing is, I would say in deconstructing all this myself, I found that the consensus of scholars is that there was a historical Jesus who lived and he was killed by the Romans. And some of the stories attributed to the historical Jesus are. There's a reasonable argument that some of those stories would be literally historical. But the purpose and intent of scriptures wasn't to record a modern day construct of history of, you know, eyewitness, you know, accounts. It was more involved in a theological or metaphorical, a form of art and beauty. That is how scripture was. So, so the first thing is, I would say while there's a few scholars who think that the character of Jesus might not have been historical. The consensus of scholars, the large consensus is that he was literally historical. The next thing that I would share is when I was in my dark night of the soul period and I reached out to one of my closest friends who was my stake president, he shared a metaphor or an analogy with me that has proved to be extremely helpful. I think it's brilliant. I don't know if he came up with it by himself or he heard it from somewhere else. But what he said is, he said, anthony, I want you to imagine that you have this beautiful thousand piece puzzle that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose in life. It's been prescribed to you. All those thousand pieces were given to you. They all fit together and it gave you confidence and purpose and so forth. And now, through no fault of your own with this faith crisis, the equivalent of having that thousand piece puzzle shoved on all onto the floor and it's on the floor, and a thousand pieces on the floor is extremely painful and disorienting. And so he said what? The next thing is that you're going to do is you're going to lean down on the floor and you're going to pick up a piece of the puzzle that was there and you're going to look at it and you're going to sit with it and if it doesn't make sense to you anymore, then you're going to set it aside. But if it's one that you look at and it resonates with you and it makes sense, you're going to set it back on your table. And he said, over time what you're going to do is you're going to add puzzle pieces to your table. And with those pieces you're going to build a new puzzle and it's going to be a lot smaller than the one was before, but it's going to mean a heck of a lot more because it's going to be something that you built. And in fact, it might even be more meaning than the thousand piece puzzle. Now, when he shared that allegory with me, like I was in the dark night of the soul, it was too painful even to start picking up the pieces like it was a disaster. But over time that allegory has been very helpful. So referring to what you're talking about, John, and in terms of picking up pieces and building a new puzzle, that piece of the puzzle could be more of a mystical Bryce Heyman type of pan, Anthea, Richard Rohr, Rob Bell type of puzzle where Jesus is a symbol for, for the divinity incarnate with the idea that divinity is omnipresent and it exists in and all through us. And, and Jesus was a son of God in, in the same way that we're sons and daughters of God or divinity. And, and that the character of Jesus in the myth and the story in the Gospels is a representation of what God would say if he was dictating to us according to the writers of those Gospels. But that, but that character is expressing truths in terms of utility or meaning or purpose that can be applied to our lives. And then it becomes beautiful, the beauty of the myth becomes beautiful. If the character of Jesus is a representative of divinity and that divinity is omnipresent and it's part of us too, and we can manifest that divinity in similar ways that the historical Jesus manifested

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [00:56:54] it,

Anthony Miller [00:56:56] whether it's literally or metaphorically. Obviously we're probably not going to walk around healing people by putting mud in their eyes, but that could be a metaphor for healing and ministering to and touching people and so forth. So in any event, that's what I would share is that over time, I think, you know, Brit talked about building a box, whether it was a rigid box or a nuanced box. My stake president talked about a thousand piece puzzle. I think, I think for human beings to developmentally progress if they have constructs that are rigid, whether it's a box or a puzzle or whatnot, they're going to get to a point where they can't continue to develop until they break out of the box or until the puzzle pieces. And so there's an important deconstructive phase that's an important step in order to be able to begin to reconstruct. And the question I'd have for Jana is, can people really reconstruct and create new meaning without unpacking the rigidity that was there before? If they just refuse to ever unpack the rigidity, can they ever get to a point where they create something new? Or whether it's a acute process or an incremental process, do they actually have to put in the work to unpack or deconstruct to some level so they can create something new? That would be a question for Jana.

Jana Spangler [00:58:32] Yeah. So this is what I think. I think there are a lot of ways to get where we're going in life. I think that people who hold Jesus as literal throughout their lives can have enormous spiritual depth in holding that literality. I think that they also have to recognize that when we hold things very literally and very rigidly, we are a natural outcropping of that that you cannot get around is that you are drawing lines. You are drawing lines where other people are going to fit outside of that. And that's a hurdle that you have to deal with. But I, you know, I don't know that anyone has to do any of this. I don't know anyone who has gone said, you know, it's time for a faith crisis in my life. It's time for me to deconstruct these things. It is something that you are either invited into or you are not, by your life, by your circumstances, by your personality, by something else. So I think there is a place for literal believers. I think there is a place for atheists. I think there is a place for nuanced believers. Everyone is, I think, in the more and more and more I work with people, I just recognize a wisdom in the way that they are moving through any deconstruction or spiritual journey that they are having in their lives. So, yes, if you're going to have a truly big experience of having a really, a new perspective and a new way of seeing things, you're going to have to go through some deconstruction. Now, whether that's actually doing a literal deconstruction or just a deconstruction of the way you've held things like informationally or just emotionally, that deconstruction has to take place. And you will know you're done with deconstruction when it no longer pulls on you. You know, most people I talk to have a period of time where they can't get enough of the information because they just need to orient themselves that there is indeed a new way of looking at things. So I think to truly get to somewhere new where you're seeing from a different lens, yes, you need to go through deconstruction. But I think that if the literalism and all of that is working for you, then really what your challenge is is can you open yourself to at least allow in another way of thinking? Otherwise, you are drawing lines that are going to cause problems in your relationships with people who think differently.

John Dehlin [01:01:16] Love it. Britt, you want to add anything to what's been talked about so far and specifically, anything responding to Anthony and Jana, but also just this question of, you know, do we even, you know, do you have thoughts on Jesus as a historical figure and the viability or credibility of, of not letting go of Jesus and the way, the way you do Christmas as a questioning or doubting Mormon is you just keep believing in Jesus, right?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:01:45] Yeah, So I do have some Thoughts there. As far as to Jesus being an actual person who lived on the earth, I agree with Anthony. The scholarship seems to lean that way. One of the strongest ones for me as I was kind of diving into this was how language tracks and changes and moves around can be documented in history. And just how quickly the stories of Jesus and mentions of Jesus go from here outward tends to be pretty strong evidence that this was a real person and not just a story. And to bring in what Jana was talking about here for me, I spent, you know, I'm a historian, you know, I'm a history teacher. And so I did spend a couple years trying to make sense of what was going on here. And it was probably a good two, three years really diving into biblical scholarship. And. And what happened was I was never going to fully know what happened 2,000 years ago. And there was this. And again, like Janice said, it wasn't just that I woke up one day and decided, I'm not going to try to figure out this problem. In order for me to build my life on it, there's something else. There's some other way I need to connect and build a life here that is not dependent on. On knowing exactly what happened 2,000 years ago. Because this is not working for me and I'm not growing and I'm done reading all this stuff. I can't make perfect sense of it. And so that's when what came alive for me was not trying to figure out who was Jesus 2000 years ago and what exactly happened. But why do we care? What is it about the story of Jesus and the rich man that 2000 years later still calls out to me and my ego? What is it about calming the storm that still resonates with me as a human in a completely different world 2000 years later? And once I was ready to make that shift, I was able to grow in a new direction.

John Dehlin [01:03:59] Love it. So that's. That's basically saying we can't know for sure. It was a long time ago. More of a present minded focus of what can it mean to me now. I had someone tell me the other day that true for them now means what makes me live a happier, healthier life. So true. True isn't like trying to discern the unknowable millennia ago. But true is like, does it make me a better dad? Does it make me a better wife, a husband, father, you know, that sort of thing. But that is that kind of what you're saying, Brit is focused on the. No.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:04:34] Yeah. And some people really do that intuitively my husband doesn't really read at all. That's not part of his kind of spiritual wheelhouse. It's not something that speaks to him. He has that practical philosophy really, kind of intuitively. And I kind of had this, like, 10 journey around to that point where I had to read a lot of books and think and talk about a lot of different things to get there. And it doesn't mean that that journey through scripture didn't have other fruits and didn't help me grow. I don't regret, you know, my journey at all. I don't think you have to throw away scripture just because we can't make sense of it. There's, there's beautiful, you know, stories there that can still really enrich your life. But, yeah, eventually I had to let go that I'm not going to fully know what happened in Christianity or Mormonism or any of it. In order for that to be my foundation of my life. That's never going to crumble. That's not going to be it. And I need to find a new way to interact with the world.

John Dehlin [01:05:36] Love it.

Jana Spangler [01:05:37] So can I say something? I, I love that, Brit, and, and what I've found in my journey is that both have been incredibly important to me. So I, I totally resonate, Brit, with that, that, like, well, we're never really going to know. And I also really resonate with you, Anthony, with just, like, it's, it's. I love the Bible scholarship that I've read. I'm not really, really well versed in it, but I love the information that I get. And so what I just really wish we could move more toward is, is a way where we can hold all of that, where, if we get a new piece of information from history that challenges the way that we have thought, that even though our initial reaction is often just to push against it and say, no, that can't be. Because I really don't want to deal with the internal mess that it's going to bring up if I let that in, but rather to lean into it and say, okay, we don't have to fight this. And the reason it's not going to take me down is because ultimately you can hold it the way the Brit holds it and say, really, how important is this to the, the life that I'm trying to live and my own goodness. So I, I, I love both approaches.

John Dehlin [01:06:53] Love it. Love it. Okay. All right. Where should we go next, Anthony?

Advice for Approaching Christmas After Deconstruction

Anthony Miller [01:07:01] So the next, the next part of the conversation, I think there's two pieces. One is if, if I or the other member this, of this panel could go back in time and have a discussion with me In December of 2016, when I was in that newly deconstructed state. And it was really painful and it was surrounded by my very true, believing, orthodox, literalist, fundamentalist, believing Mormon family. And we were going to sing, I knew we were going to end up singing hymns. And I was faced with, in front of the family, reading the Nativity story in, in Luke. And I'm in this very painful, lonely place. Number one, what are the kinds of things that we would say to that person? And number two, as a community, what are the things that we can do to support people like that when they're in that painful deconstructive phase? So those are the questions.

John Dehlin [01:08:13] All right, who wants to take a first stab at that? Jana?

Jana Spangler [01:08:18] I can give it a shot. So if you are in that really, really raw place, I think it kind of depends partially on whether you're open with the fact that you're seeing things a little differently or not. But I think it's really important to decide for yourself, first of all, what is safe for me to engage in. If it's just so difficult for you to try to nuance this or see this in different ways, and it's really, really triggering for you, it may be necessary for you to just opt out of certain activities. And that can be really difficult if you're not. If people don't know that you're even going through anything, because again, you might be inviting questions. You're not ready to divulge what you're going through. So some of those boundaries can be external, like, I'm just going to opt out, but it can also be an internal boundary. And one of the ways that you can do that, a couple ways you can do that, but just one. One of the skills that is really important to develop anyway if you're in a mixed faith family situation, is to take that pressure off of yourself to determine what is what is happening here true, is what is not happening here true, but instead to get really curious about what this is for other people. You know, get outside of yourself for that, for the time period of what it is that you're engaging in. So maybe just see what it is that you notice in your kids that is really inspiring to them about this story or, or with your spouse or with parents, whomever, just notice, notice what they what. And this is part of the practicing of differentiation. Consciously tell yourself it is okay for them to believe something different than what I'm Believing, because at the base of it, that is a big part of the root of the emotional difficulty, is making space for ourselves to have our own way of looking at things, our own way of believing in things, and to say, I can believe something different than you believe, and we can still get along. So those are times.

John Dehlin [01:10:51] A lot of times, Janet, it's kind of like a parent. Oftentimes it's the male parent, but sometimes it's the female parent. And they're like, I was betrayed. I was lied to. I don't want my kids to believe a lie. Or my. My spouse, I, you know, she's the most intimate. Or he's the most intimate person to me. I need to be able to tell them what I'm thinking and feeling. And I want to save everyone from ignorance and being let down later. And so I just have to spoil Christmas. I have to, you know, not only say that Santa doesn't exist, but Jesus doesn't either, because nobody can get fooled and dissatisfied, disappointed like I was. It's kind of this idea of saving your kids or saving your spouse from. From disappointment. And I want to get Brittan Anthony's view on this as well.

Jana Spangler [01:11:41] Yeah, well, can we just first of all honor that? Those feelings, while they feel destructive, especially to people, to the believers, it's really coming from a place of love and from recognizing their own hurt and wanting to save other people from the hurt that they're experiencing. So I think it's really important to sit in that and see what our motivations really are. But also notice something I would offer is, you know, we don't get upset about. So let me put it this way. Believing the Christmas story is not inherently a damaging thing. It's how we're holding it that is. Can be a damaging thing. So, you know, we can read stories to our kids about, you know, we could. We could pick one from another faith, from another tradition. And it's not necessarily damaging to read a story that someone else holds in a belief that story is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you've got someone saying, you have to believe this story or else, then it does become damaging. So recognize that we can have stories. We can hold things. When kids are small, trust me, they're not going to be able to understand anything beyond the literal anyway. And stories are helpful. Stories are helpful. I mean, we read Green Eggs and Ham to kids to encourage them to try new foods. I mean, there are things about the story that can be helpful. And if you really want to be helpful to your family, in seeing something bigger, invite them into something bigger. This is the way that we move through things, just fighting against something. Typically, especially around Christmas time, this just brings contention. What really brings people together is finding the pieces that are pointing to values we all hold, pointing to things that we all find inspirational, and just focus on bringing that to the family dynamic. Whatever still inspires you about the story.

John Dehlin [01:13:54] So avoid the negativity, avoid the criticism, avoid the deconstruction. Find what's edifying and uplifting and put that forward instead of trying to deconstruct.

Jana Spangler [01:14:05] Absolutely. I mean, do your deconstruction in places where other people are doing their deconstruction. Do your deconstruction internally. Don't deny yourself the deconstruction. But I think you can hold, you know, for a moment with other people, focus on that positivity, focus on what you actually share. Because I have never met with a mixed faith, family or couple yet who did not hold a ton of things still in common that they both held dear. And that's where we can still connect. So from a relational standpoint, that's the way you're going to get through this in a way that is still uplifting.

John Dehlin [01:14:50] So if you still believe in music, do that. If you still believe in, you know, taking treats to your neighbor with your masks on, do that. If you, if you love the, the Charlie Brown cartoons, do that. If you, you know, if you like playing games, do that. Don't let kind of like the hook of theology or doctrine or the church get you sucked into being a contrarian or a negative force at a time when people just want peace and comfort and family time. Is that what you're saying?

Jana Spangler [01:15:27] I. I am. And I'm also saying that even if the, the discussion goes toward Jesus or whatever, can we get to what that symbolizes? And if you, if you ask your family, like, why is that important to you? Those are the kinds of questions that are, what does that inspire in you? You're going to get to universal themes of love and peace and joy and redemption and forgiveness, all things that we all need in our lives and we can all resonate with. So even if you, even if it goes to something not quite as secular as Charlie Brown or something else, you can still be part of those conversations if you focus less on why they believe what they believe or, you know, what else that they believe in or whatever, but just get to those roots that are at the bottom of the Christmas story.

John Dehlin [01:16:22] I love it. Britt, what would you add?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:16:27] I'm really just gonna echo Some things, because Jenna's brilliant. If I could go back 10 years and just like a mantra to give myself, it would truly be permission, like that would be a big word mantra for me during that time is just to say to myself, I give you permission to take, to take a time out from Christmas this year. As I'm reconciling things, I give my purse, I give myself permission to choose one thing that I really love about Christmas and really put my heart into that. Wherever you are, wherever that chapter is, whatever you're you're feeling. Because as you're, as you're deconstructing, you're also trying to rekindle this kind of relationship with yourself and permission from yourself. I really wish that, you know, if I wanted to not attend that thing, that I would have been better at just saying, I give you permission to say, I'm not ready to do that yet. And, and that's it, without any explanation why. So that would be the first thing that I would offer my past self is just to give yourself permission for wherever you are. If that means pulling back and taking some time, do it. If that means doing ward things but not doing family, however that looks for you, just really fully give yourself permission forever, wherever your journey is calling you. And the second thing that was a really good construct for me that helped me to wrestle with this is I'm a history teacher, right? So at different phases of a, of a history class, and we do this naturally as humans. What I'm going to tell a kindergartner about Columbus is going to be different than a sixth grader and a high schooler and a college student. And we do that naturally. Pretty, you know, pretty. We just kind of go through that as humans because we're. If you don't have any hang ups, if you don't have your identity wrapped into it, then you can kind of do that pretty fluidly as a human. And so I started to really think of doing the same thing for Christmas. You know, we have, like John was saying, there's this temptation when you're first come out to just kind of wreak havoc. And then people don't realize that what people do for Christmas is the same thing that we do for 4th of July. How we each feel as an American is totally different. And we are all in different places, but we show up as a family and we do fireworks and that's great. And to take that approach that we have in other areas of our lives where the differentiation is working and to really have that be a help for how I want to structure my relationship with Christmas. And so for me, the first thing I did, I think the first idea I held onto is that, you know what? I really like the idea that if there's a God, it's among the least of us. An immigrant family born in a barn surrounded by poop, that the gospel is given to the shepherds. They're the outsiders, they're the marginalized who are speaking to the center. If you want to connect with me with this idea, I can connect with you here. And that was my first kind of connection where I'm right. I love this idea about Christmas, and I can connect here. And then slowly over time, you know, over the past decade, I've been able to. To build on that until, you know, last year, I have a wonderful bishop in my leadership. Roulette and I shared the Christmas message for our ward. And I am on a completely different place than most the people in my ward. But I shared the story of Henry Longfellow's poem I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day and how it was about, you know, it's written in the Civil War that year. The country's torn apart. His wife died in his arms in a fire that year. His son was in this. This, you know, Union army. He's at. He's at the hospital with his son. And he. He. He's hopeless, in despair. I bow my head. There is no peace on earth, I said. And then in that moment, the Christmas bells began to ring. And so it's this song about hopelessness and hope. And now I may have a different personal connection to some of those ideas about life and death and hope and hopelessness and how Jesus plays a part in it. But as I'm telling this story and we're drinking hot chocolate and we're singing together and we're serving one another. It's beautiful. It's sacred. Even though we're all meeting that story from a different place. And that, to me is. Is really where the magic of Christmas began to come alive again. But I wish I would have given myself more permission and time to get there without feeling like I needed to rush to get there. Because it. It takes time. It just takes time.

Giving Yourself Permission to Enjoy Christmas

John Dehlin [01:21:23] I love it. We have a comment from a listener, and we have lots of good comments. But Randall writes, I wish these conversations were happening on Mormon stories in 2015 during my own faith crisis. He says, maybe they were. I did a lot wrong. I truth bombed any chance I could get. It's just so Mormon to warn others. That is so Mormon. Everyone who's been warned needs to warn their neighbor, needs to warn their grandma, needs to warn their mother in law. I think.

Anthony Miller [01:21:53] I, I don't.

John Dehlin [01:21:54] I, I can't speak for you guys, but I would want to say we've all been there at one point or another.

Anthony Miller [01:22:01] Yeah. That just means that Randall is one of us because nobody does it.

John Dehlin [01:22:05] So the fact that everyone's smiling means that maybe Randall shouldn't beat himself up for having fallen into that, that mini trap a little bit.

Jana Spangler [01:22:13] Well, and how Mormon to beat ourselves up over it too. Right?

Anthony Miller [01:22:19] Yeah. We want to hold grace for ourselves. So I have a couple thoughts that I'd like to share on this topic. So the first thing that I would share is Secular Buddha principles from Secular Buddhism really helped me in navigating all these things. And one principle of secular Buddhism is disattachment, which is kind of what Jana was referring to. And that's where when we experience something, what we do is we get curious about the origin of the experience and we get curious about the origin of the emotions and why we're experiencing these things. And, and an Eckhart Tolle kind of principle of secular Buddha Buddhism is to recognize or to at least view things through the construct that we aren't our voice in our heads. What we are is our being and our being, and our identity is the entity or the being that recognizes the voice in the head that has the ability to recognize those emotions. And so when we're faced with those things, we can get curious about the origin of those things and then that principle of disattachment and can help us as we try to navigate boundaries, whether they're boundaries for ourselves or boundaries for others. The second thing that I would have done going back in time to myself in Christmas of 2016, is I would have let myself know that Ex Mormon Reddit has a pinned thread at the top of Ex Mormon Reddit of weekend meetups. And I could have gone to a weekend meetup at a coffee house in Orem or in Springville or somewhere else where there could be another community of people that I could go sit with and have someone validate my journey. It's not quite the same as looking for an AA meeting, but in a similar way, it's looking for a place of community where I can go vent and talk about with things with people that they can appreciate and understand my story and that they can express a sense of love and intimacy and relationship and friendship with me without that's unconditional. And so I would have sought out Places and people and things, whether it's online or in person, to be able to vent about and process things so that I'm not venting about and processing things in front of of people for with whom that that would damage those relationships. In the time of COVID you know, we can. That thread, that pinned thread of weekend meetups. They're online meetups. It's. I think it's also helpful. There are many online support groups, whether it's Mormon stories, podcast community or Mormon enlightenment or other kinds of groups. Or you can create your own small group if you want to on Facebook or social media and just name it whatever you want and invite 20 or 30 people to it. You can do that. You can go to Mormon Spectrum website and you can look for in person local meetup communities and you can find a community. If they're not active, maybe you can reactivate it. If there's not one in your area, maybe you can start one. But it's really important as you're going through this experience to find means of support and places to go vent about and talk about things and just have your experience validated as far as what we can do to support people. You know, sitting in a. We were able to do a local meetup but situation physically distance sufficiently so was safe with COVID We had this meetup last week and there's one person in our group, local Mormon Spectrum group in particular, who was experiencing that this kind of thing, which is what precipitated my invitation to John to have this discussion today. And I think there was value in just sitting with that person and letting them know that they're not going insane and that what they're experiencing is totally valid and not uncommon. And just knowing that they're going to be okay, I mean that's powerful. And then one last thing with regard to what's going on, I think part of the curiosity and part of the comfort level with differentiation and being able to experience disattachment from things that are triggering. It can include going and observing other individuals and other communities the way they practice Christmas. So it can include going and watching a Christmas Mass. It can include going and watching something with regard to Hanukkah, or it can include one thing that was really helpful for me is the subsequent Christmas. So in 2017 I found a local progressive Christian mainline. I think it was a United Church of Christ in Orem because I was in Utah county that year and my son and I went and we participated in their Christmas Eve sing along and we sang carols and the pastor read passages from multiple translations, not just the King James version of the Bible, and, and introduced Maya Angelou and Brene Brown to the discussion and talked about stories and symbols. And while there were periods that it was a little bit triggering because I still had this connected meaning of Mormonism and literalist fundamentalism to some of these songs and some of these stories, it was also a little bit stretching and helpful for me to be in a community where they were talking about these things as symbols, you know, using verbiage, like from Joseph Campbell's the Power of Myth and whatnot. There are several podcasts and books that are super helpful, like Rob Bell's book what is the Bible? Is helpful. So there's lots of resources to help you if you're in this situation and there. And if you're supporting people in this situation, there's lots of resources to help you support them.

Exploring Other Religious Services at Christmas

John Dehlin [01:28:56] I love it. Jen and Britt, have either of you tried to attend other religious services on. On Christmas just to kind of see what's going on there? And how has that worked?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:29:09] I didn't 10 years ago just because, like I said earlier, like, my step back was like a big step back, and so I wasn't. I wasn't ready for that. But since then I have. And I especially love the music for Catholic. I'll attend sometimes a Catholic mass. I'll attend. I. I just love. I. I just love meeting with people in their sacred places. So I'll go with anyone anywhere now. So I, I didn't originally, but that's something that I enjoy doing now.

John Dehlin [01:29:43] About you, Jenna.

Jana Spangler [01:29:45] Yeah, So I haven't for Christmas, but I did for Easter one year, and it was honestly one of the most amazing experiences, spending Easter, a day when you never know, in the. In the LDS congregation where you might get a talk on tithing and it's Easter, you never know. But it was so beautiful to me. Like, it was this whole experience of it looked pretty, it was in this gorgeous cathedral, it smelled pretty, it sounded pretty, and every word spoken was tied to Jesus. And for me at that point in my journey, it was just a beautiful thing for me to deconstruct this thing I grew up with that had judgment about the way, the rote way that other. That the Catholic Church did things. And, you know, I grew up in an era when the Catholic Church was really looked at as the great and abominable church by some. And, you know, so it was a really important moment of deconstruction for me, of holding those things as lesser than so for Christmas, I haven't been to other services as much, but I definitely have tied into other faiths and the way that they hold the Christmas story, which I just think it's so important as you're trying to come into your own spiritually. We don't always have the imagination of how other people are holding this. How are other people holding this story? How are other people holding God and Christ and whatever? And it doesn't mean that they've got the right way and we've got the wrong way, or we've got the right way and they've got the wrong way. What it's helped me do recognize that there are more. One more ways than one and that they all hold value. And then it has helped me in my journey to say what really resonates with me, how do I want to hold these things? So I highly recommend it. One of the lenses that you don't get so much in our culture that was touched on by Brittney that has been so important for me in coming to a new place for Christmas is this idea of a lens of Jesus, God showing up in the lowliest of places. And if I really think of that in my. In our world today, that's not always the place we look for God. We don't imagine that in the place where in the manger, among the life, the livestock, that that's where we're going to find God. But I think that speaks a very deep truth, that when. When we recognize that that's where God shows up. God no longer becomes this. This capitalistic, imperialistic, judging God that needs us to be in all the right places at all the right times. But that is invitational to us and invitational to really look to the marginalized, to really look to other places. We haven't always imagined that that's really where God is going to show up. So for me, it's made the Christmas story be something that's inviting me into love. That love is not coercive. And it's really something where we can find it anywhere that we are.

John Dehlin [01:33:23] You know, I was just having this thought that. That we suffer so much from having been raised in a high demand kind of orthodox or fundamentalist religion. Because if you look at how other people do religion, and I mean, the overwhelming number of people in the United States, for example, do religion, they don't take it all too seriously. They go when they feel like it. They don't go when they don't feel like it. They believe the stuff they want to believe. They don't believe the stuff they don't want to believe, they may not believe at all. But it's a nice way to kind of, It's a nice little service. It's a nice, you know, way to give the kids some community. And there's nothing wrong with doing either Mormonism or progressive Mormonism or even post Mormonism. That way where you, you know, we talked about earlier, the need to, like, warn your neighbor and proselyte is so Mormon. I think this need to, like, take everything so literally, take everything so seriously, have the stakes all be so high. That's also so very Mormon, isn't it?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:34:29] Well

John Dehlin [01:34:32] chilled out and relaxed and not

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:34:34] so serious sometimes in the back of my head, because when I was in school, I remember, like, he's a Jack Mormon. Like, that was such like a, sometimes, like that voice, it's so deep in there, like, because I would love to just be like, you know, I have friends that are secular Jews that just interact with Judaism in a cultural way. And I'm always just like, gosh, I would love that. And then there's that little voice like, Jack Mormon. And like, you have to sometimes break through some of that early conditioning.

John Dehlin [01:35:02] But isn't that, isn't that playing into a false narrative? Does it have to be that way?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:35:09] No, but you're, you are going to have to do some intentional work to get through that conditioning, because that conditioning is going to be there. If you were raised in the church, it just will be. You can't really escape that real quick.

John Dehlin [01:35:19] And Jen, I want to hear your point. I, I was just going to say I was because I've interviewed some of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City recently, and that's a great episode, series of episodes, if you guys haven't checked that out. I, I, I, I've had, I've been watching the Real Housewives, and there's this woman on the Real Housewives that owns like, two vodka brands, and she's like, you can tell that, you know, they drink and, you know, but she calls it, she calls it Mormonism 2.0. And, you know, for her, she's, and she's not never been a part of our communities. So it doesn't come out of this kind of Internet. Dan Witherspoon, you know, progressive Mormonism. It's literally just like, screw you, I'm doing Mormonism the way I want and nobody's going to tell me I can't. And if I want to own a vodka brand and, and be on the Real Housewives and drink on national television, and just tell everyone in the Salt Lake Tribune I'm not going to have a temple recommend because I don't need to go into that building, but I'll still go into the smaller building. And, and she's just owning it. And there's something kind of, I don't know, dangerous but refreshing about that. What were you going to say, Jenna?

Jana Spangler [01:36:28] Well, I'll respond to both of those things because I do think it's really amazing and inspiring to see people being able to own their own authority that way. And there are consequences for people and there's a certain amount of privilege that goes along with that because not every family is going to allow that kind of thing. And so sometimes we beat ourselves up. This is something I really see in these struggling post Mormon, progressive Mormon circles is that we somehow we've been so trained to think that there's a right way to do something that we're still trying to find the right way to do our post Mormonism or nuanced Mormonism. And I just want to give people freedom. Like, just because someone else can make that work doesn't mean you should have to be able to. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if that doesn't work for you. But what I do think works across the board is I would just love to help people take that authority inside so that we can live more authentic, full lives and find that path that is right for us. But I want to also respond, John, to this idea that it is very, very Mormon, as you were saying, to hold these things so tightly and not know how to give people room. But I also want to say that my time studying with Richard Rohrer at the Living School, I was the only Mormon in my cohort of there were about 160 people, but my first time there, there were about 500 people with three cohorts meeting together. And I was stunned at how universal some of these things are. They may not be as prevalent in all cultures, but I will tell you that every religious culture, especially in America, we all kind of do our religion from a cerebral place. We, we all tend to draw these lines of I've got it right and you've got it wrong. That's just our ego at work looking for a way to be separate and superior. So if you came up in a family that's Catholic, that held it in a very close knit way, you're going to be having a lot of these same issues, a lot of these same problems. And I was stunned when I was in there Hearing the questions people are asking, I'm like, oh, I guess maybe this isn't just a Mormon. This is a human issue. And this is something that all of, I think Western Christianity is having to reckon with. And that's why Richard Rohrer resonates in our community. But he resonates in a lot of communities because he's naming it. That's why people are drawn to him. He is naming the ways that we hold things so tightly in. Fundamentalism is a great building block, but not a good place to end up for actually having, doing transformational spirituality rather than just transactional religion.

John Dehlin [01:39:18] What do you mean by that?

Jana Spangler [01:39:22] So really, if. If we're looking at the story of Christ in a bigger way as being invitation to being something bigger, and most Christian sects are holding it this way, in some way, they might be talking about it far more literally in, you need to check these boxes to get to heaven. But really underneath all of that is this bigger story of becoming something better, of treating each other people better, of seeing God in everyone. I mean, I love the phrase of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. We tend to ignore the afflicting the comfortable part. That's just the way things work. And when you get an institution together and when they hold things very tightly, we tend to forget this. So I think to me, the invitation of Christ and what I focus on around Christmas time is it's an. It's an invitation for me to transform. Now, if religion helps you do that, then fantastic. If you have to divorce yourself from your religion in order to transform, that is a valid path. I'm just really passionate about people finding the place that works for them and honoring where they are in the journey, because there are many roads to the top of Mount Fuji. But I love the Christ story because to me, it is inclusive, it is beautiful. And if we focus on New Testament Jesus, not just imperial Jesus, I think Jesus really points to what is really important, which is caring for the people who are marginalized in their society and to check ourselves, check our privilege, check our stories. What is holding us back from just being more open and invitational to other people and allowing them to live their lives trusting them and believing that they actually know what's best for themselves.

John Dehlin [01:41:25] Love it.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:41:26] Can I just say, I named one of my children Fuji because I love so much the phrase, there's more than one way up Mount Fuji. And that's my symbolic message to him.

John Dehlin [01:41:35] That's great. That's great. It's also a film, Anthony. We're We're. I. I have some practical things I want to ask about. I want to ask about traditions. I want to ask about the singing. But. But where do you want to go next, Anthony? And then I want to throw some of those things in.

Anthony Miller [01:41:58] So I want to add one observation before that part of the conversation. So, in particular this year, with all the division, you know, the political division, the division on social media about how to deal with COVID I mean, all these kinds of divisive things that have been happening this year, I'd ask that we consider that, like Britt referred to the power of the connecting myth, that Christmas time, regardless of how you look at it, it's actually a uniting common myth that's global. Right? Because during Christmas time, whether someone's secular or not, their charitable donations go up and our charitable disposition increases. And we find beauty in things, even if they're just Christmas lights. Or maybe we find beauty in listening to the Messiah or there's all these different symbols that are part of this overall connecting myth that. That regardless of what kind of theological implications you want to apply to all this, this is really an important time of year. And I think that we can hold. We can do better holding grace for people that experience Christmas across the spectrum, while recognizing that this is a global connecting event. And all these claims that there's a war on Christmas and everything negates the fact that we're part of something that's bigger than ourselves and we're connecting with our families and maybe we're connecting with people that we have a significant differentiation with in terms of politics or in terms of belief about conspiracy and things like that. So this actually can be a very beautiful time when we consider that overall,

Christmas as a Shared Connecting Myth

John Dehlin [01:44:15] what do you think about talking about politics during Christmas?

Anthony Miller [01:44:20] Generally not helpful.

How Panelists Celebrate Christmas Today

John Dehlin [01:44:26] All right, let's talk traditions. Tell me how you. Let's just. Let's go through one by one and let's tell us how you do Christmas now and then I'll go when I'm. When I'm done. When you guys are done. Who wants to go first? How do you guys do Christmas now?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:44:43] I. I wrote a list in preparation to. Of what I do for Christmas, and I hope that it's just helpful. I wish someone like Anthony was talking about. We. I've done this with Mormon spectrum groups where we talk about this, and I wish I would have had all these ideas from other people on how they do Christmas. So I wrote a list, and I hope it's just helpful for someone. So my kids do this activity where they have this book called Soft Enough for a King. And there's this manger. And every time you do something nice for someone, you put a piece of straw in the manger and you're trying to. To make it soft enough for baby Jesus. And I love it because my kids are kinder that month. They are trying to put as much straw into that manger. And then Christmas morning, I put the little baby Jesus in the manger. It's this great little book activity that we do. My parents and my grandparents did a Christmas Eve dinner where they were trying to kind of like eat what Mary and Joseph would have ate. So, you know, figs and olives and hummus and pita bread. And even though it's not exactly what Mary and Joseph would have eaten, and it's not maybe even historical, and the story and the whole. I love, I still do it because we sit on the floor by candlelight on Christmas Eve and it's just this very simple reminder that in the middle of the hullabaloo of Christmas and, you know, parades and these big things that, that the story is about this really quiet, simple moment. And so bringing that message into my family is something that I still do. I love the wise men who followed the symbolic star to find hidden treasures in the world. So we're following our deepest intuitions. I love anytime humans gather to. To sing, and I still sing Christmas hymns.

Anthony Miller [01:46:40] You do?

John Dehlin [01:46:41] Those aren't triggering for you?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:46:42] Not anymore, no.

John Dehlin [01:46:46] Was that always true or did they used to be?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:46:50] I think just as a history person, I always just had a nuanced perspective with Christmas. And so it. That wasn't a super triggering part of my journey. I still something that helped me with that is I went to a Tongan ward once and they were singing together. And this was during my faith crisis time period. And it was so beautiful because it was in a different language. It was in Tongan, so I wasn't focused on all the triggering words. And when I stepped back and saw these Tongan people sing together, I could actually see, oh, these are humans who are meeting together on a Sunday to talk about the mysteries of life. They're sharing stories, they're giving service, they're giving each other hugs. It's beautiful. But it wasn't until I saw that disconnected from the language that was triggering me that I could move into that space. And so now it's something I enjoy doing. Christmas cookies. I have this rolling pin that belongs to my great grandma. And I was laughing because we were doing these Santa hats. I was rolling it out. I don't Santa with my kids. It's not something that I've ever done,

John Dehlin [01:48:00] but I'm even as an orthodox believer,

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [01:48:02] no, I'm, you know, I was always a history nerd and I just could never really get there. But we were making these Santa hats and I. And so the Santa hat, even though we're making something that, you know, I don't really connect with, I don't want that, that little symbol that I don't connect with to take away this moment where I'm bringing my kids into this activity. Activity that my mom did with her mom and that her mom did with her mom. And so, yeah, we make Santa hat cookies. And I don't do. I don't really do anything with Santa. But using that rolling pin and doing something that my, my mother's and mother's mothers have done, it can still be really deeply meaningful. I love the female aspects of the Nativity. I love that, that Mary has this central role in the story. She has the. She has a revelation. She's having these spiritual experiences with the women. Love this phrase that says Mary kept all these things in her heart, which are these, you know, deep intuitions and spiritual strengths of women. We have, we have a revelation coming to a woman. We have the only time Christ was anointed was by a woman. And then we have his resurrection story, trust to a woman. And so there's some of those themes that come out that I really enjoy. And then like we talked about earlier, this idea of God being in places, you know, not the big cathedrals, not, not the government buildings, not these really prideful big places that we build, but in, in the quiet and in the simple moments is. Is where we can find God. And that message still speaks to me today.

John Dehlin [01:49:43] Love it. Thanks, Britt. Jenny, you want to go?

Jana Spangler [01:49:50] Sure. So I just. Personal confession time. I was. I've always been a crap Mormon when it comes to making Christmas meaningful for my family, so. So it's interesting. It actually set us up well to be a mixed faith family because we don't really do things that are super triggering. All of our Christmas traditions just happen to be around spending time together and food and meals and whatever. That's really kind of been the sum and substance of it. I've kind of always just allowed the church to be the place that we talk about the churchy stuff, so. And I've always, and I always just beat myself up over that, in true Mormon style, that I wasn't more proactive to do this stuff. But I Was frankly just too tired and it wasn't my priority. So it was. I just got through the stuff. But turns out that stuff is meaningful for my family just to spend time. So the things that I would say that I could offer are just more of my personal, individual practice around Christmas that I'm still playing with and putting together. But, you know, for people who maybe don't live with families or especially this year around Covid, if you want to make it more individual, I'll just throw out a few ideas. One, I just love that it happened. I'm so glad that Christmas is actually tied in these roots to the. This pagan rituals and holidays, because I love that it's close to the solstice, and the solstice has become something that's been really cool for me. Just, it's so symbolic. This walk through the dark has been so symbolic of where I am in my life, in trying to reconstruct what I believe that one of the things that I will do, I happen to be a night owl. My family, they are not so much. And so I'll turn off all the lights and just be in my house in the dark and just kind of walk through and. And it's interesting that that helps me. It's just symbolic for me of the dark I'm walking through in trying to figure out exactly what my beliefs are. Sometimes I will light a candle or do a meditation just to center myself in myself, in trusting myself when it comes to. And then something that I've adopted from other faiths is the way that they do Advent. And there are some really lovely, beautiful things. If you just look up, you know, prayer books or readings for Advent. If you Google that, there's. There are. Are endless numbers of these that Christian sects have put out that have really beautiful meditations and readings about Advent and the whole Advent season about new beginnings. What am I letting die within me? What am I inviting in? What is something new that is coming online for me? Because what I find is that when we break these constructs of the literalness of Mormonism, then we get to kind of play in more of our inner world and more of what things really deeply mean to us. So that's, for me, that's been a big part of it. I will echo what Brittney said about looking at these feminine. How the feminine divine plays into the whole Christmas story and season. I was just recently introduced by Maxine Hanks to a single story of Anna that is in the Anna is Mary's mother. And there's actually a story of that in the apocrypha. And so just hearing this, these feminine lenses have been really, really helpful for me. Bring on something that I hadn't imagined before. I love now looking at the Christmas story, now that I look at it in a less literal way. For me, I love looking at each of the people in the Christmas story and looking at them as an archetype of something that I've experienced. So how have I been, Mary? How have I been called into something I didn't ask for that was super scary and that I knew that the people around me would not understand? How have I been, Joseph, where I need to extend grace and belief and trust to somebody? Where have I been? Where have I been the Christ child? Where have I been the shepherds? And that's been really helpful for me just to explore again kind of my inner world. And then the last thing I'll mention, which I just think is the point of the whole thing, I think so often we just jump in the Christmas story straight to atonement. And I know that working with atonement can be really, really hard in faith transition. So I like to focus on incarnation and that's, that's something that some of the other Christian sects really focus on. But I love this idea of incarnation because what that really is is all of this love and peace and all of that other stuff that's going on inside me isn't really meaningful unless I bring it into my body, into my actions. And so this, this idea of God incarnating in the world, because I can't. It's hard to fall in love with an idea. But I can really follow a man and I can get behind some or a woman, someone who is flesh and blood and is having life experience that I can relate to. So what am I incarnating and am I incarnating? Is there stuff inside me, a giving part of me or a loving part of me that needs to be born into action? So I've. That's a meditation I've been really doing this year is just paying attention to incarnation.

John Dehlin [01:55:33] Love it. Good stuff. Thank you, Jana. Thank you, Britt. Anthony, how about you guys?

Anthony Miller [01:55:45] So, so we have some traditions that we participate in. It might be 15 years ago or more, when I was high priest group leader, we, we had some friends, members of our ward, who one year, after reading some things in the newspaper, they decided to go ahead and contact family services about the needs of children that have been put in foster care with limited resources and things. Some kids maybe are extracted from a home where there's drug abuse or other kinds of abuse, and they leave the home just with the clothes on their back or in their pajamas kind of thing. And so they contacted family services to find out what were the needs of the kids in. In the foster care program. And. And over time, they would have, like, an annual Christmas party. And so they. They put together, like, a pegboard with pseudonym names for the. For the kids, not their actual name and the age and the gender and what the need might be. And then we would show up and we would decide how many envelopes to take off the pegboard, and then we would go shopping, and then we would come back and we would wrap the presents and. And have food and sing Christmas carols, and. And it was just a very enriching experience that we would include our children in and so forth. Eventually, it's probably my fault. I don't know. The ward council decided to go ahead and invite that couple, that family, to make a award and then subsequently a stake activity. And I think that's good because it ended up. We ended up with a lot more participation inside and outside of the church in that tradition. And so here we are more than a decade later, and that is part of our family tradition. We participate in that. And the number. The number of people, the number of children who are in a place of need in the foster care program is probably as big now as it has ever been, particularly with COVID going on and. And alcohol, alcoholism or homelessness or other kinds of things that are occurring these days. So that. Anyway, that's one significant tradition. And I. And I think that people who want to get creative about things like that, they could contact family services and deal with the, you know, the needs that are in the foster care program. They can contact nonprofits and charities. In our town, city of Billings, Montana, the nonprofit for homeless youth is called Tumbleweed. And at different times, they have quite a few youth in their system, typically disproportionately represented by the LGBTQ community of homeless youth and teenagers. And they have needs. So that's been a really big part of our tradition and experience. There are other things that we do in our family. We get together and we talk about what we're grateful for, and everybody gets pajamas for Christmas Eve. And we read Luke, the. The Nativity story in Luke, and. And those things are still very treasured to me at this point. I. I try to do my best to see the value and the myth of things, understanding that it's dogmatism that is the problem typically with religion Fundamentalist literalism, dogmatism, where people are imputing their beliefs on others. Even like during. There was a period in history where, with the Spanish Inquisition and so forth, where great harms were perpetrated on people that didn't have the same beliefs out of dogmatism and fundamental literalism. And so I try to be conscious of what are the things that I can do that I can extract the good pieces of the puzzle and. And that I can love and support people, even people that are stuck in dogmatism. So those are the kinds of things that we do. We typically spend Christmas with family. And then following Christmas week, we typically have some friends that we do outdoor activities with on New Year's Day. That has become an important tradition for us too. So that's what we do.

John Dehlin [02:00:32] Love it. Thank you, Anthony.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:00:35] What do you do, John?

John Dehlin [02:00:36] Oh, thanks for asking. Let's see. So we usually make some type of soup for New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve. Margi had the tradition of some sort of chicken noodle soup kind of thing. But we play around with different things. But sometimes the idea of a soup on. On Christmas Eve, sometimes we like to go out and get hot cocoa or coffee or whatever, get donuts and drive around and see the Christmas lights around Salt Lake City. My friend Richard Holdman, he's. He's like this wizard of, like, Christmas displays. And there are places around everywhere, but definitely around Salt Lake City in Utah, where you can drive through these amazing Christmas displays with music and animated characters and anyway, Christmas lights, donuts, cider, hot chocolate, that's always somewhere in the mix. Margi and I like to go on lots of walks. We actually walk on this loop where we pass by Janice Spangler's house and then walk back around. We like to go out at night and go on walks and see the lights. That's always fun. I like to take my kids snowboarding sometimes. We've snowboarded on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Eve or Christmas Day just because it's not as populated. And that's a really fun thing to do. And I mean, let's face it, Margi has the brunt of Christmas shopping and Christmas packing. Just the way we divide responsibilities. So Margi is just always welcoming time to snuggle up by the fire and read. So if I could take the kids out. We try and do that. We've always tried to go on a family walk or a hike as part of a Christmas tradition at some point, sometimes with teens and young adults, that is or isn't successful. But that leads me to another point, we've got this idea of invitation only. In other words, instead of trying to force everyone to do everything, we just invite people. Hey, who wants to play a board game? Who wants to watch a show? Who wants to go on a hike? And we don't have this sort of like, everyone's got to do it and everybody's got to be happy and, oh, a big anger and stink if, if someone doesn't want to, or somebody wants to take a nap or not, not, not participate. That's a really important thing for us. We've always had a movie tradition. We either watch Little Women, the one with. Not the most recent one, although we like that one, but the one before that. There's been like three or four or five little Women, but we like to watch Little Women as a tradition. We watch the Family Stone as a family tradition. We watch Miracle on 34th Street. We watch the Charlie Brown. You know, my. Adrian and I, my, my oldest. We watched Year Without a Santa Claus recently just for fun. The Rudolph, all those Rankin, whatever animated Christmases are fun. Of course we want. We like It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. That's a classic. We watch that whenever we can. So movies are, Are really an important part. Again, board games. We have a gas fire, so we like to light, you know, the fire and we do the. We open one present on. This is very traditional. I know. We open one present on Christmas Eve as a family. Margi and I still lay out stockings for everyone the morning of Christmas, like Santa. And then we all open presents together. We take turns opening presents. So it's. It's more of a drawn out, enjoyable thing instead of like everybody opening everything at once. We always have a yummy breakfast and a yummy dinner. We only do two meals on Christmas Day. We play Christmas music. We're not. We don't read the Christmas story anymore. I think Jesus. I, you know, for me, the teachings of Jesus about love and kindness and charity and service, those are still very deep and rich and meaningful. Carolyn Pearson said to me the other day, jesus is, you know, the best we've got in terms of, like, role models for how to live. And I don't know if that's technically true, but not a bad role model in many ways, especially if you adjust for the time period. Pretty, pretty significant role model with lots of connections to lots of other people, if you want to have a common language to be able to connect and share with other people. So. But, but we don't, we don't really read the Bible that's too triggering for my family. I think all the excommunication trauma just made everybody have a bad taste in their mouths for anything that even smells like organized religion. But that's just us. I, I actually don't feel that way.

Anthony Miller [02:05:29] It's.

John Dehlin [02:05:29] My family feels more anti religious, so to speak, than I do. And I don't want to speak for everyone in my family. But again, we, we've got trauma around organized religion. We just do. But we still really enjoy Christmas and we, we look forward to it. And I think that takes me to one of the most important points for me that you guys have already stated is give yourself time. If, if Christmas is painful, if Christmas is triggering, if Christmas does put you in a foul mood, just own it and lean into it and make it what you want, personalize it, customize it. Feel, feel free to take sabbaticals from whatever aspect of Christmas is triggering for you. Give it lots of time. And you may find in one or two or three or five years you feel very differently. But I like the idea of focusing on the good, focusing on the positive, avoiding the bombs. And I love Anthony, what you said about finding outlets, finding community, whether it's ex Mormon Reddit or the Facebook groups or the Mormon spectrum groups, whatever you got to do, don't just pack it and stuff it. Find outlets to grieve, find friends and relationships, to talk and to any whatever extent you have to complain or moan or even rage, do that. Just do it in an environment where the ones you love, you're not kind of spoiling their time as well.

Closing Thoughts and Final Reflections

Anthony Miller [02:07:00] So I saw that Brit needs to head out. I was wondering if you had some finals.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:07:04] Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry, I have to, we have some Christmas plans. But I do have to head out. But yeah, just to echo what John said, I just want to everyone listening, just from all four of us, just, we are giving you permission. Like I just want ever resonated with you or didn't resonate with you if you spent this two hours with us just from all four of us, we just give you so much permission to do Christmas the way way that is authentic to you and that whatever way you do it, it's going to be beautiful. And when you do it next year, it's going to be different and 10 years and 15 years and just really trust yourself in that process.

John Dehlin [02:07:47] And Britt, if somebody wants to follow you or buy your book or any of that good stuff, how do they get more?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:07:53] Brittney, that is a dangerous game and an acquired taste. So my book's on Amazon. It's called Mormon Philosophy Simplified An Easy LDS Approach to Classic Philosophical Questions. It might be a little bit too late. What's that?

John Dehlin [02:08:11] Who's the audience for that?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:08:14] I. I really think it's for anyone who wants to understand Mormonism. The, the purpose of the book is it was an outlet for me to. I couldn't understand what I wanted to do with Mormonism until I understood it kind of meta. Really understood the whole metaphysical world of Mormonism. And I. So this book is my journey into. If I put all the best thinkers of Mormonism, all of them, into one room and I asked them basic philosophical questions, what would be the best answers that would come out of that room? And so I really think it's for. Helpful for a bunch of different people on. On the spectrum. If you are an active member and you've always just kind of thought about those things, maybe you've thought about problem of evil or nature of God and you can, you know, you've thought about things before. I've really gathered and I really think it's the best book out there for what are the best answers to these really basic fundamental questions. There it is. I have a forward by Fiona Givens. I have a lot of reviews that you can read from trusted active members and names that you would recognize if you listen to Mormon stories. And so you can find me, you can find that book there. And then if you want to get in contact with me, especially if you're in the Boise area, my email is brittanylhartleymail and just shoot me an email or find me on Facebook and. And I'd love to connect.

John Dehlin [02:09:47] So we have a question. Can we get this book in PDF? I know it's on Kindle.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:09:54] It's not in PDF. You can do it on Kindle.

John Dehlin [02:09:58] Okay, thanks for that question, Logan and Brett. I honestly sometimes I'm just not able to get back with people, but I actually have totally spaced that you even wrote a book. So if I can either find that book or you can get me a electronic. It'd be fun to have you back and have you tell us why philosophy is interesting and important for us to know in a.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:10:21] It's been really, you know, to go back to Anthony's analogy. You know, we have tables where we're kind of dealing with our puzzles. And to me philosophy was really just a table that gave me the tools to kind of work on my puzzle. And it was very helpful for me and helpful for my journey. If you notice the COVID when you put that cover up there, that covers. Based on the. That moment at the Truman Show. So you see where you kind of hit the wall. He hits the wall, he climbs up the stairs. And are you going to stay in this world that was created for you, or are you going to open the door into the unknown? And that's what the COVID of the book is based on that. That moment.

John Dehlin [02:10:59] Love it. All right, Brett, well, it's been so lovely to have you on. Will you come back on Mormon stories anytime.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:11:06] John and I love hanging out with Anthony and Jana. We kind of circle in similar groups online, so I'm always happy to talk with them too. So love you all.

Jana Spangler [02:11:15] Merry Christmas.

John Dehlin [02:11:16] If somebody in Boise wants to join your little group, how do they join?

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:11:19] I have a private Facebook group for, for that. And so just find me on Facebook and I'll be able to. To get you into that. And we have people all across the spectrum and we're just exploring spiritual topics together. And like Anthony said, if you. So two years ago, there wasn't this thing and I knew that I needed it. And so me and a friend of mine, I, I co run it with a friend, with another couple. We just started it and now it has 40 people. And we've, you know, gotten some really big names to come talk to us. And so if you're in a city, if you're not in Salt Lake and don't have. Have these wonderful Jenna, John de Lynn, Anthony people, you know, to. If you're not in Utah and you're in a city, I guarantee you there's other people who need a community just as much as you do. And if you don't have it, then make one. It was one of the best things that, that I've done is to, to create a space where I could fully be held in all of my messy complexity. It's been one of the greatest blessings of my life. So if you don't have one in your city, definitely, definitely make one.

Anthony Miller [02:12:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:25] And you can literally just create a Facebook. Call it arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:12:28] That's what I did. I made a Facebook, I invited a few friends. Now two years later, we have a really thriving community. I called it, you know, the Boise Post Orthodox LDS group is what I called it, I think. And, and if that is something that you don't have, like, just, just make it. Because we all, we all need a community that can hold us, especially when you're going through a faith transition.

John Dehlin [02:12:52] And I'm happy to share the community on Facebook to recruit. You can get our Mormon Spectrum. You can, we can. There's lots of ways we can get the word out. And I think there's almost any city in the country we can get five to 10 people at a minimum and sometimes 50 or more. So yeah. All right, Brit.

Brittney (Mormon Stories Podcast guest / Mormon Philosophy Simplified author) [02:13:10] All right. Merry Christmas.

John Dehlin [02:13:11] Love you all so much. Jana, what are some final thoughts you want to leave us with today?

Jana Spangler [02:13:21] So I think I've pretty much shared what I have to share. I would just emphasize I love John, what you talked about being invitational, I think that just beyond Christmas, that is just really important in allowing it's messaging to other people that what you're up for where you are is okay. And you know, Anthony asked earlier, what advice do we have for more of the believing community if you have someone who is experiencing difficulty with Christmas? So I just think that invitational thing is really, really important for us to get through our heads. We sometimes in our culture get fixated on the way things need to be and this is how we have to do it in order to be happy. But it can actually really make people miserable if it's not what they're up for. So asking people what they're up for, asking people how they can want or are able to contribute or participate this year could be really helpful for that. And if you're the person who is having the struggle, my biggest advice to you is to be able to notice what it is that you need, what you're up for, and just be able to communicate that simply and clearly and lovingly. And you don't have to, don't feel pressure to explain everything that you're going through or why you are where you are. Please don't feel that pressure. You can simply say, I'm not up for this particular thing this year and is that okay? And ask for what it is that you need that you, you know, whether it's to step away or to do things in a different way or to contribute in a different way. So empower yourselves. So often we just feel like we have to go with the flow and not rock the boat. But it's, it's not a good long term strategy for us. So it's good to get in touch with your own wants and needs.

John Dehlin [02:15:27] I love it. Yeah. So often we think if we just pack it in and stuff it down that, you know, that's the right thing to do. But the truth is if you, if at a, if at best you just implode psychologically, get depressed, stress, you know, self medicate, that's not good for you and it's not Good for anyone. And what's more common is you pack it and pack it and pack it until you blow up and then you blow up. It's just much easier to just get comfortable learning to set boundaries in a kind way, learning to say no, learning to have these difficult conversations, but to, instead of losing yourself in the sense of like harming yourself, what you do is you protect yourself, which ends up protecting other people. It's, it's a little bit counterintuitive for how we were raised as Mormon to be this kind of self sacrificing martyr that then blows up and harms themselves or other people. Right. So I just love that, Jenna.

Jana Spangler [02:16:32] Absolutely. And you don't have to have it all figured out before you. Sometimes we feel that, that pressure, like I can't tell anyone until I know what it is that I am dealing with. I mean, honestly, that can take years to figure out where you're, where you're headed, that you can communicate that I don't know where I am. And right now these things are triggering for me and get a dialogue going. It's scary and it's hard, but in the long term, it is better for your own mental health. It's better for the people around you. And one last thought is just. We often think about Christ and God in these imperial ways, like I've mentioned before. But one of the most beautiful realizations I've had is that the Christmas story can also be a beautiful example of the God of vulnerability. I mean, there's, there's no one more vulnerable than, you know, this place where Christ was born. And it's something that is so missing from our culture. We do not value vulnerability very much until we start going through faith crisis and then it starts to come online. I see it coming online for a lot of people, but that vulnerability truly is what helps us get along in our family relationships. Super hard to step into. But you know, just being able to say, I'm, I'm confused, I don't know where I am. All I know is that this is hard for me and you know, it's a very vulnerable thing to say and I just need your trust. But sometimes just even, just that much can, can help to bond us together.

John Dehlin [02:18:25] Love it. Love it. And Jana, if people want to follow you, seek out your coaching services, participate in your wisdom and grace. How do they do that?

Jana Spangler [02:18:40] So for now, I'm working on getting a website up where I'll have all of my materials in one place. But for now, probably the best place to connect is On Facebook, I am under Jana Johnson Spangler, and you can message me there. Professionally, my professional services is with Symmetry Solutions, and that website is symmetrysols sols.com and so you can. I have a page there where you can interact with me and there's a number to connect for services.

John Dehlin [02:19:11] And what types of coaching do you do?

Jana Spangler [02:19:14] So I would say, I mean, my training is very broad for really anything that someone wants to bring, that maybe there's something that's just difficult for you, that you want to find new ways of approaching. But the bulk of what I do is with people going through some sort of faith shift or loved ones of people who are going through a face shift. So I work with individuals, families, couples, and that's really where my specialty lies, is helping people figure this out for themselves. What is the best path for me and how do we keep relationships and our own well being in a good place as we move through this very difficult, difficult path?

John Dehlin [02:20:03] All right. Yeah, Jan's great. Check her out. Someday we'll do retreats again, right, Jenna?

Jana Spangler [02:20:08] I hope so. Love retreats. I think they're so good for people. People just love them.

John Dehlin [02:20:14] Totally. All right, Janice, so glad you were able to join us today.

Anthony Miller [02:20:18] Thank you.

Jana Spangler [02:20:19] Thank you.

Wrap-Up and Merry Christmas

John Dehlin [02:20:20] All right, Anthony, bring us home. This was your idea. It was a lovely idea. I get you twice in one week.

Anthony Miller [02:20:26] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:28] My audience gets you twice in one week. So how would you like to, you know, wrap things up on your end?

Anthony Miller [02:20:36] Well, I just want to express appreciation to allow us to have this discussion on your platform. I. I hope that there are a lot of people that this can help for years to come, not just this week. And I'm extremely grateful for everyone that participated, for Jana and Britt, and look forward to doing more of these from time to time. And I just would try to express, do my best to express those of you who are processing this difficult time, that kind of early stage of deconstruction, that you're not alone in this, that people like us, we're here for you. We're going to do our best to try to support you and, and you'll be able to get through this. We have confidence that you'll be able to get through this. But at the same time, we acknowledge how difficult it is. So in any event, we're here for you and we're grateful to be here with you.

John Dehlin [02:21:31] And if people want to follow your goodness, how do they do that, Anthony?

Anthony Miller [02:21:36] So I have a blog, unpackingambiguity.com they can find me on Facebook Anthony D. Miller. You can Google my name, Anthony Miller, Mormon Stories. And you'll find the different episodes in which I've participated on Mormon Stories. And I've also participated in a series with the Mormon Discussion podcast with Bill Rill and Alan Mount. And other people, including Jana, participated in one of those episodes, as well as other podcasts. So if you Google my name, you'll find me also that I did an episode with Gina Colvin and an episode with Glenn Oslin for infants on Thrones, too. So those are the places you can find me.

John Dehlin [02:22:25] Love it. Love it. All right, well, thanks so much, everyone. Thanks for joining us again. Anthony, thanks for organizing this. Jenny, you're awesome. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for your support. Support. Merry, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Have a great holidays. To you guys. To all our listeners, let's find a way to increase the healing and growth, the productivity, the constructive relationships, the love, you know, the peace and. And let's give ourselves the grace and the patience and the forgiveness if we're not always kind or loving or patient or if we're sometimes grouchy or even irritable or mean. Let's give ourselves grace, too, and realize that that's all part of the journey.

Anthony Miller [02:23:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:23:13] And let's have a wonderful holidays. How does that sound?

Jana Spangler [02:23:16] Merry Christmas.

Anthony Miller [02:23:17] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:23:18] All right. Thanks, everybody. You guys take care. Merry Christmas and happy New Year, everybody. We'll see you guys soon on Mormon Stories. Bye, everybody.

Anthony Miller [02:23:26] By.

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