Introducing John Dehlin and Mormon Stories

John Larsen [00:00:00] This is the Mormon Expression Podcast. Find us on the web@mormonexpression.com. Okay, welcome back. In 2005, John Dehlin started a podcast known as Mormon Stories, which explored some issues of faith and identity in the Mormon Church. The podcast and John's subsequent work has remained an influential piece of Internet Mormonism. Delin has continued his Internet work with Mormon Matters and his Most recent project, stay LDS.com John's activity in the Mormon universe is not limited to the Internet. Besides being an active member and serving in callings, he's also served on the Sunstone board as an Executive Director of the Sunstone Education Foundation. John recently completed his Ms. In Instructional Technology from Utah State University and currently works the director of MIT's OpenCourseWare consortium. Welcome to the podcast. We're also joined by two of our regulars, George.

George [00:00:55] Hi, everybody.

John Larsen [00:00:57] And Tom.

Tom [00:00:58] Hey, what's up, guys?

John Larsen [00:01:01] Well, once again, thanks, John. You are the in my mind when I first heard one of your podcasts all those years ago, that's when I first decided that I wanted to do it. So maybe in a real way you're the inspiration for what we're doing today.

John Dehlin [00:01:17] Well, shucks, thanks. And I have to say I've listened every one of your episodes and I've really been enjoying them. So thanks for what you're doing. I've always wished that more people would pod, and I don't know why it's taken so long for something to get up and running, but I'm really grateful you guys are doing it.

John Larsen [00:01:38] Well, it's been fun so far, and last week, well, I guess it would have been two weeks ago now. George and Tom, they did theirs and I wasn't involved in that one at all. And I'm really pleased with the way that came out. So maybe we'll take this opportunity to extend the open invitation to the world to record their podcast and I'll do my part to help them get out there, even if we have to use Mormon expression to publish it. Okay, John, I guess one of the main things that I'm interested in and we'll post the links out there. It's interesting to listen to your stuff and then read the comments you've had, especially as you discontinued the project. I guess where I most want to talk about today is kind of the aftermath. I mean, that sounds ominous, but now that you've been through it and you've done the conversations, they were obviously very meaningful to a lot of people. Kind of what that's done to you, how has that Changed you.

John Dehlin [00:02:31] Wow.

John Larsen [00:02:32] Yeah. That's a big one, isn't it?

John Dehlin [00:02:35] Well, I guess it. It's introduced me to over a thousand pretty amazing people. I mean, to this day, I still have phone calls or lunches with between one and three people all over the world who are struggling and need to talk. You know, I've counseled with people about divorce and eating disorders and depression, and pretty much any city I go, I can contact former listeners and they'll pick me up at the airport and let me stay in their home, having never met me face to face. I have so many dear friends, I can't even count them all or keep track of them all. But that's been probably the biggest blessing is just the amazing people I've been able to become friends with and to play a small part in their lives. But secondly, it was an important processing for me because when I started Mormon Stories, I did it really idealistically. I had just got done reading a bunch of books by Lowell Bennion and Eugene England and T. Edgar Lyon and all these guys who had sort of steeped themselves in true Mormon history and somehow emerged on the other end with their testimonies intact. So when I started Mormon Stories, it was with the intent to sort of inoculate everyone and make it so that their testimonies could never be threatened. But I quickly realized, maybe a year into it, that simply by exposing people to the tougher issues and quests, I was in some instances likely going to be, if not introducing them to the complexities, but maybe even accelerating their disaffection from the church. Simultaneous to that, I started experiencing my own disaffection from the church. And that's the phase where I started interviewing people like Grant Palmer and Paul Toscano and others. And that sort of culminated in my own sort of going inactive and kind of taking my family with me for, I don't know, probably a full year, not fully inactive, but maybe going once a month for just an hour, and the rest of the time just sort of trying to see if we could pull ourselves out. And I guess what's been interesting is a culminating sort of thing is that we ended up all coming back to the church, and I ended up getting rid of something which disturbed me for probably 18 years, which was my annoyance at uninformed comments in church or assertions about exclusive truth or authority. Those things used to continuously grate on my nerves. And I wondered whether I would ever get to the point where I could sit in three hours of church and not feel like it was Fingernails scratching up against a chalkboard. And I guess the final thing that's come out of this whole journey is not only am I attending church again, but I found a way to no longer be annoyed by those absolute truth claims and uninformed assertions about sort of whitewashed church history. And that's been really neat, and it's been a total space to me.

Personal Faith Crisis and Finding Peace

John Larsen [00:06:27] So do you feel you've kind of passed through and come out on the other side and you've found peace again?

John Dehlin [00:06:33] Totally, but I don't think that it's a linear journey. I think there's a lot of people who find peace without coming back to the church. I don't think coming back to the church is necessarily required to find peace and spirituality and fulfillment. But for me, coming back to the church was how I felt whole again.

Tom [00:06:59] This is interesting because I followed your podcast, John, and I hate to admit I have listened to all of them. It was brutal.

John Dehlin [00:07:12] I'm sorry for you.

Tom [00:07:14] No, I enjoyed them. I really did. I think one of the things that while I'm listening to him and I'm kind of going through my own crisis of fame, kind of trying to reevaluate my own belief systems, I have to admit, I was actually kind of concerned about where you were and how you could have done the things you did or talked to the people you could and how you could reorganize your thoughts. And I thought that the advice that you would have to help people stay in the faith or even help people try to slowly exit the church or wherever they ended up going, I thought that was interesting. And when everything stopped and when you had stopped Mormon stories, and it seemed like it was kind of abrupt, there was people like me and a few people that I talked about that was actually very concerned about you and what had happened, so.

John Dehlin [00:08:07] Oh, thank you. Thanks for that.

Tom [00:08:11] Did you. Was it. Was it. I mean, obviously it was a big decision to all of a sudden stop, but have you had any thoughts since you've stopped to maybe continue on or do a few others or.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] Yeah, I'm, you know, some will be good. Happy to hear this, and most will probably not. But I am considering doing a series on LDS members who have been through the crisis of faith, who are fully aware of all the history, but who have come back on the other end, not only active again, but content in their membership. And that's, you know, part of what think made Mormon stories attractive to many was that it was always a little bit edgy. It was always a little bit controversial. It was always a little bit sort of on the, you know, just a little bit flippant or harsh or whatever in terms of the topics that we covered. A little bit cavalier, the topics we covered and the people that we interviewed. So some are going to maybe view that series if I'm able to pull it off as a yawner. But I am interested in interviewing a series of people just to see how others have found a way to journey back into full fellowship and contentment. But that's about all I've planned right now.

George [00:09:41] Hey, John, just on the past ones, what was your favorite? Do you have it? Can you put your finger on a favorite interview that you did?

John Dehlin [00:09:51] No, there's just so many ones that I loved. Just today, I listened to the Stages of Faith podcast with Dan Witherspoon and Tom Kimball, and I think those guys were absolutely brilliant. And recently I've been having some heated discussions with some folks on the Post Mormon board who consider my approach to reactivity and the stale DS approach to be disingenuous. They call me a liar and they call me deceitful and they call me all these really nasty things. And I just go back and listen to Dan and Tom talk about how they went through their dark nights of the soul and how they were candid with their bishopric members about it and how they worked through it to find a constructive conclusion to their disaffection that they culminated in activity. I think that it's just a fascinating podcast, and I think that James Fowler stages of faith are not perfect, but I think that it's one of the most important things we should consider, because whether or not you end up in or out of the church, I really do aspire for everyone to reach higher levels of enlightenment and even spirituality. And Fowler maps out a way for us to do that and ties it to just see people who have done it in the past. This journey we're on of disillusionment and disaffection from Mormonism is so not a Mormon journey. It's a religious journey. And Judaism's been through it and Catholicism has been through it, and we're absolutely late to the game. So I think James Fowler is someone that we would all do well to understand. Not so we'll all come back to the church, but so we won't stop in what he calls stage four, in the stages of bitterness and anger and resentment and frustration, and will seek to reassemble things in a way that lead to contentment and peace and joy and patience and all those virtues that can be Christlike or Buddha like, or pick your favorite enlightened atheist. So Stages of Faith is one. I love the Richard Bushman interview just because he's the first kind of rock star that I was able to interview. I think Paul Toscano was an absolute whirlwind of intellect and passion. I loved interviewing Ann Wilde, the polygamist, you know, sitting down in the home of an active believing fundamentalist who was also extremely witty and thoughtful and intelligent who's lived. The principle was just so. It was just so mind blowing. And I'm friends with her to this day. Those are some of my favorites, but I could go on and on.

Favorite Episodes, Regrets, and Labels

Tom [00:12:59] What about some that you regret? Were there any of them that you're kind of like, oh, I shouldn't have done that? Maybe even where you kind of exposed yourself a little bit? Or maybe the one with Hiram.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] Hiram was a real risk right from the very start because Greg Prince, who I did my first interview with Greg Prince, and Greg Prince is fascinating because he's, you know, been a chairman of Dialogue, and he's been in a new Mormon history for some time. He's carefully managed his scholarship such that he could publish some things that to some, could be viewed as quite disturbing or controversial, but he did it in a way to where he could still sell his books through Deseret Book and maintain ties to general authorities and maintain his credibility. And he warned me at the very beginning, he said, don't interview an ex Mormon. Be very careful how you manage your entrance into this space, because you can erode your credibility. And once you've done that, you really shoot yourself in the foot. And to some degree, he was absolutely right. Because of the decisions I made early on, I sort of immediately ostracized myself from the mainstream blogger Knackle, from the bloggers on Times and Sins and by common consent. They always sort of viewed me as radioactive. A lot of them, not all of them. They delisted me several times from ldsblogs.org, whenever, you know, interesting things would happen. They would conscientiously avoid giving me any publicity. And, you know, it was just sort of a. And I quickly became sort of affiliated with the disaffected Mormon underground, even though I was trying to help people stay in the church. And that was a weird sort of paradox given where my heart was at the time. And so I guess I could have managed my decisions better. But, you know, it's strange to see the blogger Knackle now sort of turn to all the topics and the audiences that I was addressing early on. I'm not saying that I led them to that, but I think in reality there's very little difference between the conversations they're having now and the ones that I was trying to have back then. So in some ways they were just being really cautious and they were able to stay in the mainstream by moving more slowly. And I sort of was a little bit excluded from the mainstream by moving too quickly. But I also am not really ashamed of that because it was an effort from the heart. I didn't believe in pulling punches. I didn't believe in trying to hide things. And I felt like if I came from the heart, I was asking sincere questions and tried to moderate a middle ground that somehow in the end truth would win out. And I think I've had over 20,000, probably 30 to 40,000 listeners to Mormon's Story since I released it. And I think I've reached a whole audience that the blogger Knuckle probably still has yet to reach. So I'm ambivalent about it. Everyone always loves to be accepted by everybody. And in some ways I put myself in the position of being in the middle of the road where I get sort of hit by both lanes on the freeway. But it's been such an amazing ride, I guess I can't really regret any of it.

John Larsen [00:16:54] Well, and to what you're saying, your interview with Hiram, now Hiram is a friend of mine and he's been on an interesting journey since then, but that's a topic for another day. But your interview with Hiram probably

Tom [00:17:05] gave

John Larsen [00:17:05] you credibility to people that you could reach who were in serious doubt. It showed that you weren't just going to tow the party line. So I think on the flip side, it probably did much for some of the, the people you were actually aiming at.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] Yeah, I appreciate that. I'd love to catch up with Hiram. It's been a long time. But yeah, I do feel like my heart is still very much with disaffected Mormons. I mean, if you were to ask me if I were able to have a three hour dinner, would I rather have a three hour dinner with the average true believing Mormon or with the average disaffected Mormon, I think it probably wouldn't even be a question just because that's where my heart is. I love these people. I empathize with these people. I've been one of these people. And every day my heart goes out to the divorce, the depression, the ostracization, and the alienation that comes from either having to live a lie or live in secret or feel ashamed or alone for simply seeking honesty and truth. And I think it's just a great tragedy. And so I'm proud to have been affiliated and to have tried to build bridges. And that screencast I did called how to Stay in the Church. No, called why People Leave the Church and how we can help. I've left that up sort of a great personal peril because I just have to think that at some point somebody's going to feel like that's just too dangerous of an entity to sort of leave up there. But until there's something else out there trying to bridge the gap, and I really know of nothing apologetics do not try and help true believing Mormons understand disaffected Mormons better. None of the church materials do. And a lot of this sort of blogger knuckles stuff just tries to skirt the issue, you know, however they choose to skirt it. And so much of the disaffected stuff is just scorched earth. And so I'm proud to be this bridge, although it's really painful because these people that I really try and help with these bridges, I feel like in many ways they've turned against me and view me as the worst of all possible parties, because at least the true believers are ignorant and at least the apologists aren't duplicitous, but they view me as disingenuous and as a turncoat and all sorts of horrible names they call me. And it hurts my feelings, but, you know, I'm okay. But it's been a weird ride to try and help these people and to feel so summarily chastised, although I know not everybody feels that way. And I also know that in many ways I've brought this on myself at times by being a little bit careless in the labels I use and in the ways I've tried to describe them.

George [00:20:24] So, John, I would have a question for you about that, though. I understand. And we had a discussion about this a couple weeks ago on the podcast about labels and what some of the labels mean. And you just talked about some of the labels that people have given you. What label would you give yourself today? Are you a tbm? Are you a nom? Are you part of the dmu? Are you a new category or a new label? Or would you go the route that says you don't want to be labeled as anything? Where are you at?

John Dehlin [00:20:59] Yeah, I do think labels do us all a disservice. So I'm definitely. I definitely wouldn't characterize myself as a tbm. Not by a long shot. I definitely don't consider myself disaffected because I'm very happy in the church and I love the church and my goal to see the church grow and progress and to see more health and vitality within the church. I don't like NAM partly because in spite of the good intentions, I see NAM as. I don't know, I love NAM and I love the people at nam, but Flack and NAM and some of those other sites sort of just all bleed together for me these days and, you know, so I don't know that any of those labels really fit. I guess the way I'll just characterize myself is I'm a member of the LDS Church. I consider myself a believer, but not necessarily in all the doctrine or all the theology. I'm aspiring towards. Fowler Stage five, which is sort of a re approaching of the faith, appreciating nuance, appreciating metaphors and the metaphorical value and the symbolic value, appreciating the community. But it would be incomplete to say that my affiliation is purely social or practical or fear based out of what would happen if I leave. I really do first and foremost see the LDS Church as my spiritual home. I've tried Unitarian, I've tried Episcopalian, I've flirted with the community of Christ. I've studied Reformed Judaism. And none of those places just ever felt like spiritual home for me. Even though I think they're beautiful traditions and I think they're full of amazingly spiritual people. And I think I know a lot of amazingly spiritual atheists. But for me, spirituality is at the root of my return to the church. I have had profound spiritual experiences in the church. I am spiritually fed when I go. The way that I interpret some of the doctrines and the theology and the symbols are definitely non traditional. But one of the areas where I disagree most with a lot of these people@postmormon.org and other places is that I really do think that 60% of the church sort of fits in the category of what I would call a cafeteria or a buffet Mormon. I mean, you just start off the bat. 70% of the church is inactive. Let's just say most favorably, 60% of the church is completely inactive. Probably 20 to 30% of those even consider themselves LDS. And then of the 30 to 40% that are, maybe 30% of those are full tithe paying, active believing members. So that 60% of active members clearly, at a minimum, aren't following all the commandments of the church. And without fail, whenever I'VE interviewed these people privately. If I push on things like the 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants and polygamy, or blacks in the priesthood, or the one and only true church sort of franchise concept, almost everyone I've ever interviewed in private is willing to confess. At the end of the day, you know what? It's the best I've found and I'm going with it. And if I'm wrong, I think I will have lived a better life for it. And so I really feel like I'm in the mainstream of the Church. It's just that I have probably a little bit more, maybe a lot more knowledge than the average member about the church history and the disturbing things. And probably my interpretations of the symbols and of the doctrine are a bit less literal, probably a lot less literal than a lot of the average members. But. But I still see them as in the same category of practical cafeteria type members as I am. That's a horribly long response.

Staying in the Church While Disaffected

George [00:25:42] How much do you think your location in relationship to the Wasatch Front in northern Utah? How much has that influenced this, if any? Because I can imagine that it's much easier to accept the church as your cultural and spiritual source, even though you say it wasn't made on social decisions. The church is just huge where you live.

John Dehlin [00:26:08] Yeah, well, I've talked. Like I said, I've counseled with over a thousand disaffected Mormons over the past four years. And that number is actually not an exaggeration. I've put enough of them to know that the number one reason why I'm still active, first and foremost, is because I'm a sixth generation pioneer blood Mormon. And it's easier for folks like us to find reasons to stay on average than it is for example, for a convert. The second reason I'm still in the church is because I have interpreted my experiences with the church in a very favorable light. The church has been extremely powerful and meaningful to me at very important moments throughout my life. I've led an incredibly blessed life and I sort of credit the church with having brought me an incredible amount of joy and prosperity. And so if I were to leave the church, it wouldn't be because I hated, would be in spite of my love for it. And that's a very different situation than people who have been abused by ecclesiastical leaders or by their parents or just had a horrible experience. I mean, I've had hard times. I had a pretty horrible aspect to my mission experience. But the fact that I credit the church with just being A huge blessing to me and my family is the second main reason. The third thing I'll just say is that I've lived most of my life outside the church. I grew up in Texas, the whole time in the church. And then after BYU, I lived in Dallas, D.C. chicago and Seattle for 12 years before I ever moved back to Logan. Even then, when I was in an increasingly bitter stage about the church, I still loved it. So, no, I could easily have checked out of the church here. My family was expecting it. All my family knew that I was disaffected. I would never hid it from anybody. In fact, the opposite. I was in everybody's face about it. My whole community knew I was disaffected. The local Logan newspaper did a full page article on Mormon stories. I was on Good Morning America. And like I said, we went inactive for a year and told everybody and still was warmly treated in the community and was warmly treated by my family. So we returned for one reason, and that's because the light, the spiritual light, went dim the longer we stayed away and the farther the distance we got from the church. Not just for me, but for my wife and for my children. And the moment that we returned to full activity, the light bulb went back on spiritually, and it's been shining bright ever since. That is why I'm in the church.

John Larsen [00:29:34] Yeah, you know, I agree with you, coming from the other side, sort of. You know, myself, I did a lot of the study. I did a lot of people. But ultimately, for my wife and I, it wasn't the history that led us out of the church. It was the fact that it wasn't as spiritually fulfilling for us and we found our peace and our place outside, like many others do. But I fully acknowledge that there's many, many, many people who find that inside the church. And for them, I say, great, if that's where your spiritual home is, if that's where things are and you can work through those details, you understand it, you're going into the faith with open eyes, then I applaud you and your ilk.

John Dehlin [00:30:14] And I'll just return that and say that I know that for many people the church is just boring and tedious and provincial. And I used to feel that way. If anybody leaves Mormonism and trades up in terms of spirituality and enlightenment, I applaud them. And I regret that at times I've characterized those who have left the church as sort of, by and large, becoming sad, hedonistic sort of castaways, because I never really meant to characterize it that way. But sometimes that's how what I wrote came across. I think that if you can become more spiritual and more Christlike, I'll just say christlike, but I mean, just good by leaving the church, then follow that.

John Larsen [00:31:15] Well, we are. We are sad and hedonistic, but we like it that way. So, John, now there's an interesting kind of. Obviously you filled a niche there with the number of people contact you, the number of downloads you have. You know, frankly, a lot of the content that the church puts out is quite bland and not very fulfilling. So there's a lot of people who went to you to kind of fill that gap as they start leaving the church and say, what do I. Or start questioning the church, what do I cling to? Now, why do you think that gap exists?

John Dehlin [00:31:51] Oh, well, I wrote about this in my essay, how to Stay in the Church After Becoming Disaffected. And there's a section in there about understanding the dilemma of the Brethren. And I've thought about this enough and spoken with enough people to sort of put together this sort of scenario. If you think about the general authority of the church, and specifically the prophets and the apostles, number one, they are true believers. I'm convinced of this. I'm not one that buys into this notion that they're really wizards behind the curtain trying to prop up something that they know is a fraud. I have a lot of reason to believe, and even personal interactions that confirm satisfy my belief that these men, number one, first and foremost, are sincere believers in the capital T, truthfulness of the church.

John Larsen [00:32:53] I agree with you, by the way. I think that's right.

John Dehlin [00:32:56] Yeah. Secondly, I think that the brethren feel tortured, and I actually know that at least some of them feel very tortured about paradox between protecting and defending the institution of the church, which they see as their probably one of their primary responsibilities. They've inherited this church, for better or for worse. There's a lot of complexity. There are a lot of prior statements that they can't change because they inherited their position in the church and all the baggage that comes with it. They can't go back and tell Brigham not to say the things he said or tell Joseph not to do some of the things he did.

Tom [00:33:52] But they could apologize for it, though, couldn't they, John?

John Dehlin [00:33:54] Okay, yeah, we'll get to that. So I feel like they start as feeling like they're stewards of the church and that in spite of the baggage that they've inherited, it's their goal to keep it strong. Their goal is to keep the church strong. And Healthy, because what point if the Church unravels? I think that if I were them, that would be one of my primary concerns, in parallel with the second concern, which is reaching out to the One. And I absolutely know that the Brethren reach out to the One continuously. I personally have had two interactions with high level members of the church in very personal, direct, meaningful ways. They have personally reached out to me during moments of crisis in my life. And I know that whether it's homosexuals or feminists or intellectuals, the three great threats to Mormonism or whoever, that they don't just cavalierly disregard the plight of these people, they feel this pain as much as almost anyone could, because not only are they good men who care about the One, and they believe the Scriptures enough to heed Christ's admonition about seeking after the One, but they also spend so much time with these people and a huge percentage of their time is talking one on one with these people that they feel it and they live it every day. So they're torn between caring about the One and wanting to preserve and strengthen the Church. And so back when I was in my disaffected days, I kept saying, why don't they just come out and apologize? Why don't they just come out and, and publish all the seedy Mormon history, take responsibility for it, give women the priesthood, denounce the Book of Mormon as not historical and the Book of Abraham too, and why don't they just own up to all these things that we think are a disaster and then everything will be bluebirds and lollipops and rainbows. But you have to realize that maturity is defined for me as navigating paradox. And to do what I just suggested would be, and we have the reorganized Church and much of Protestant Christianity as examples of how that type of approach can lead to a weakening of the institution.

George [00:37:00] So, Joan, I agree with you, but I want to interrupt you really quickly and ask you a question. Any one of those steps would be a major change in communication PR policy doctrine, call it what you will, but I think there would be some opportunities for them to change and take some baby steps along that way. The Church is always pushing out having such and such letter read in sacrament meeting. What if they were just to send out a letter and say, please have all ward librarians remove all pictures of Joseph translating from the gold plates behind a sheet. Remove from your library and please remove references to this. We want to accurately describe the translation process from now on in all official documentation. That's just an example of what I think would be baby step, but it would be a really good step in the way to say, you know what we're trying to do what we can. We aren't going to come out and say the Book of Mormon is incorrect, but we're at least going to correct some of the misconceptions of things that could affect the finances. Would be another good example.

Baby Steps for Institutional Change

John Dehlin [00:38:15] Okay, so let's turn the table just a second, if you'll allow me. And I just want to put you guys through an exercise. Can you guys name any of the baby steps that the church has taken in the past 20 years towards this more enlightened, open, honest approach? I can name 10 off the top of my head, but I would love to hear if you guys can acknowledge any of these before I have to list them.

George [00:38:44] I think President Hinckley did a great job of reaching out to our neighbors, of trying to have more of a consent tone towards members of other faiths. I think he did a good job. That would be one that I would say would be a baby step.

John Larsen [00:39:02] I would offer up Elder Jensen and the things they're doing in the church history department shows a turnaround from the sort of dark ages of the 80s.

John Dehlin [00:39:12] Okay. Anything else?

Tom [00:39:13] I think the. Obviously it's a little bit longer than what you're saying. The blacks and the priests didn't. That was huge. And also recently when President Hinckley was still alive, when he kind of denounced racism. I think that was a good step.

John Dehlin [00:39:29] Exactly. And I'll just add, how about the fact that we've gone from shock aversion therapy in the 70s with homosexuals to now the position that we shouldn't judge what caused their homosexuality, we shouldn't judge them for being gay. It's likely not something that can be fixed. The church's position on homosexuality relative to its position in the 70s is, I think, a giant leap. I think the semi apology that the church made over Mountain Meadows was definitely a good step forward. I think the fact that the church would not only sell but majorly promote rough stone rolling Deseret book, I just can't. I couldn't believe walking in a Deseret book and seeing this mountain of rough stone rolling books being put front and center, wherein pretty much everything that Fawn Brodie alleged is confirmed in that book without the psychological sort of interpretations. The way that they've changed the temple ceremony to take out a lot of the barbaric, nastified things that used to be in there. The changing of the foreword to the Book of Mormon, the Joseph Smith Papers Project. The fact that they're no longer calling the Lamanite generation at BYU the Lamanite generation. And that's just off the top of my head. I could probably. The fact that, the fact that John Dehlin has not been excommunicated yet.

George [00:41:15] John, do you think how many of those things that we've talked about in the last minute or two are things that they were. It wasn't their choice to talk about some of these. I mean the DNA thing and taking out and changing the header to the Book of Mormon, I didn't get the feeling like that was their choice. And it was actually only in the double day version of the Book of Mormon it was changed. I mean the church publication still mentions that. If I, if I understand my facts right. And some of these things I think they had to tip. I think they had their hand tipped. And then other things, I agree. I think they have, it has come out in their choices. I think the temple ceremony changes maybe. And I don't. This is just guessing. You may know better. I think those are probably the result of lawsuits, weren't they? It wasn't the fact that we were, we did that or the church did that proactively. They probably did a lot of these things reactively.

John Dehlin [00:42:08] Well, you know, I guess I've lived in experience enough to realize that there is no such thing as a single motivation for any act. I totally acknowledge that. Pressures in science and just reality can definitely be important factors in forcing power's hand to change. I think Martin Luther King in his journey taught us that power almost never relinquishes itself without pressure. But I think it would also be unfair and inaccurate to simply take the purely cynical perspective that they did it for purely self interested or reasons out of compulsion. I think that depending on the change, my guess is there was a change of heart and in many instances a sincere regret for how we're treated at BYU or how we've talked about blacks or how sort of the teachings about Lamanites have led to sort of racist views and et cetera, et cetera. I think that the church is probably remorseful about how they handle the September 6th and my guess is they probably realized pretty quickly that excommunicating people probably was counterproductive and in many ways sad. So yeah, I think that in some ways pressure was significant. But you know, organizations can also be obstinate and in spite of pressure, they can still choose to not change and try and make progress. And so I guess, you know, that's. I tend to give the church the benefit of the doubt. But I applaud the church for the steps forward.

Tom [00:44:22] I also think that the release of that new Mountain Metal Massacre book by Richard Turley and Glenn Leonard and Walker, I think that was a big step forward too. Although, you know, Mountain Metal Master is kind of a big, touchy feely subject for me. I think I certainly would have liked just a downright apology instead of expressed profound regrets. I don't know, maybe I'm asking too much, But I would most certainly like just a genuine apology. And I think that most people, even when it comes to racism, the massacre, or even a lot of things, I think they just want a sincere apology from a general authority. And why they aren't actually doing that is a really good question. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:45:11] Well, it's. Yeah, I totally empathize with that point of view. I think that if I had to look at it from their point of view, my guess is the primary reason they don't do that is legal. I think that they don't want to open themselves up to massive lawsuits that could drain the coffers of the church from descendants of the Fancher party or whatever they were called. I know that may sound horrible, but to people that a church would care about things such as finances and legal stuff. But my guess is that that's just a reality and they don't want to open themselves up to that. But it's also, you know, the truth is, how do you apologize for something a bunch of other people did 100 and whatever years ago? I mean, it wasn't like the church issued official church sort of directives. It was more Brigham Young sort of stoking an environment through his speeches. And then a bunch of people sort of acting, you know, act ways that they thought was right. And yeah, they were all members, but, you know, can we really say it was the church that did that?

John Larsen [00:46:25] I think I have a response to that. You know, I agree with your premise, John, but there's a limit to it. For me, part of the reason is that the church is very sophisticated in its communication, in everything it does. If we take a doctrine, let's take for example, something like birth control, where the church was unambiguously opposed to birth control. Many, many statements, they said that over and over again that it was sinful. And then what they do is they move it into a position where it becomes ambiguous. Same thing with, say, the racist doctrines behind the blacks and the priesthood, the teachings about Cain and the stuff that's in the Pearl, great prize. They don't repudiate that stuff. They just move it into a realm of ambiguousness where you could go either way. The problem I have with that is it encourages a lot of fundamentalist thinkers to still stay on those old platforms and still believe those things are right. My contention about the Church is they're very sophisticated, they know what they're doing, and they're doing that on purpose. So I agree the Church is making motion in the right direction, but they're very craftily moving to a position where they don't have to repudiate the old stuff, but can have more liberal people interpret it in their own way. So they're kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too. And for that I think they're guilty of that. But I do acknowledge that they're moving in the right direction.

John Dehlin [00:47:48] Yeah. And I'll just respond and say that the idealistic part of me would like that as well, that every time the Church acknowledges a change in direction, that they would put out a General Conference memo and alert everybody to it. On the flip side, the Church is run by men, It's a corporation, and it is run by a lot of the same philosophies that run the federal government and major corporations. And I think that what it's trying to do and what it's always tried to do is preserve people's respect for the prophetic mantle. I think they see themselves as prophets, seers and revelators, even if flawed. And I think that they don't want to draw attention to the fact that sometimes things lead people in the wrong directions by whenever there's a mistake calling attention to it. I think that they have made a calculation that they'll be able to keep the most people in the Church and keep the Church the strongest by instead of doing big mea culpas and sort of 30 lash apologies each time they make a misstep, that they'll just quietly try to turn in more positive directions whenever they can and not draw attention to it. I think that in a purely idealistic sense, what you call for would be probably the highest form of integrity, but it's just not the way organizations usually operate, especially legal ones. But I know there's exceptions, and I know that the idealistic part of me would not want to see Christchurch act in a legalistic sort of bureaucratic way, but no, that's just the decisions they've made. I can see why they've made the decisions. My heart wishes that there could be more candor, but I Guess I understand the decision they've made and we'll see whether it comes back to haunt him or bite him. There's clearly a case that this approach is coming back to bite or haunt the church.

Mormon Stories Legacy and Reaching the Struggling

Tom [00:50:07] Okay, John, to move back to your Mormon stories for a minute, I wanted to ask you a question. During your experience, I mean, how long did it go? Like 2 years, 3 years?

John Dehlin [00:50:19] Say it again.

George [00:50:19] I'm sorry?

Tom [00:50:20] For your podcast, when you were doing your podcast, how long did that. From beginning to end, Was it about two years, three years?

John Dehlin [00:50:27] Yeah, something like two or three years. I kind of stopped and started a lot in between.

Tom [00:50:31] So you were obviously kind of restructuring your own beliefs and trying to slot where you can still be comfortable with the church. Were any of your historical problems or questions or doubts ever resolved by talking to some of these people that you interviewed?

John Dehlin [00:50:52] Let's see. No, not really.

Tom [00:51:00] Okay. All right.

John Dehlin [00:51:01] I mean, I mean, I'm still sad about how blacks are treated. I'm still sad about how gays are treated. I'm still sad about women and sort of. I'm not saying the women should have the priesthood and I'm not saying women are treated horribly. But when I think about what women were able to do in the 1800s in terms of ordinances and what they're able to do now, part of me feels like there's been a loss there. It's not like I feel better about polygamy and feel good about it. So all the problem areas sort of remain problematic. So in terms of feeling resolved about those, I don't think that I have, but just I'm feeling better about. About my relationship with the church. And I feel like I now understand. Having gone through all those interviews and really tried to put myself in the position of the church, I feel like I can see things from their perspective now. And I feel like understanding is sort of a key to peace and love. And I feel like through it all I've developed empathy and understanding for why they do the things they do, even though I don't always agree with them.

Tom [00:52:26] What about. Well, I guess for me, listening to you now and listening to some of your podcasts in the past, what exactly is your motivation to want to keep them in the church? If you're a cafeteria style belief system that you have now, what exactly is your motivation to want to keep people in the church? Isn't it okay if you just kind of hold up your sign and say, this works for me, but go around me if you'd like? Because obviously you said that during your path that you probably made just as many friends as you have enemies and getting snowballs thrown at you, both sides. But what's the motivation to want to keep them in the church?

John Dehlin [00:53:08] Well, the truth is, my motivation is to create spaces for people to find health. If my only motivation were to keep people in the church, I probably would have taken Mormon stories down and never put it back up. I. What I want people to do is to find health. And I used to think. I used to think that staying in the church was the only way to find health and true happiness. And I no longer believe that. I believe that some people will find greater health and happiness by leaving. And I believe that Mormon stories provides people with the information to become informed and to let them make that decision themselves. So in that respect, I'm proud of it, because I do think that people should be. I do think that people should, once they want to be fully aware, they should have the chance to know everything and then make an informed decision. So my goal for people to find health and happiness. The reason why I started stale ds.com was because I'm not going to back away from the fact that I've seen a lot of people leave the church and on the other end find misery, divorce, depression, isolation, bitterness and unhappiness. I'm not going to walk away from that. I'm not going to say that it's been the majority. I'm not going to say that it's been 20%. Maybe it just has only been 5% of those who have left the church. And those just happen to be a lot of the people who talk to me. I don't know what the ratio is. All I know is I know hundreds of people who fit that category. And what I believe is that other religions have a rich tradition of having people of all types within their membership. And Mormonism is relatively young in this regard. And so because we're so young, we're like the Catholicism of the 1700s or the Judaism of the 1700s, where it was either in or out, all or nothing, or at least that's kind of the perception. But I don't believe there are some people for whom I fervently believe that whether it's because of their marriage or their heritage or their community or just their particular situation, that they would be best served by sticking around if they could find a way to do it in a healthy way. And I think that very few people have tried to carve out a space for them, not only trying to provide them with the vocabulary and the philosophy to be able to conceptualize a pathway towards staying, but also to build enough tolerance within the general Mormon body such that these people aren't rejected as viruses or bacteria in the body religious. And so my involvement is. Staledias.com isn't to make it so everybody stays. It's a supplement to Mormon stories, simply to say for those who feel like they would be better off by finding a way to stay, here's a way to do it. But it's not my assertion that everyone should stay.

John Larsen [00:56:42] I agree with you on both counts. I know that I'm obviously non traditional, but if there was a place for me, I'd probably keep going. But I think it's about me as much as it is about the church. And I don't think that the church has grown up enough to take those people with different point of views. That's one of the reasons I think your voice and those who help is so important, in part because the second issue you brought up, leaving the church, and rather than saying leaving the church, that disassociation from the traditional fundamentalist view that most Mormons have is a very bloody process and it's very, very difficult. Like you, I've known lots of people going through it. It leaves the wreckage of lives and marriages and all that. And probably more than anything, that's why I've stayed involved in the communities that I do to do what I can to help people through it. To me, if they find their place in the church, that's fine. If they find their place out of the church. But that transition is a difficult, difficult place to be in. And whatever anybody can do to help, I think is worthwhile.

George [00:57:46] So I want to explore that just a little bit. Combining something that John mentioned earlier and then combining something that you've said in a couple of your podcasts. A few minutes ago, you mentioned that many of the brethren spend quite a bit of their time working with individual people. So, you know, Joe or Jane or somebody like that. So I think that's wonderful that they're doing one on one work with people. But in the concept of the 99 and the 1, I think that there seems to be a lot of sense of doing anything about the One as a group. So if you take a bunch of people named Joe or Jane and all of them have the same issue, I don't see the church reaching out to them as a group. And I wanted to combine that with one of the things that you'd mentioned and I think the Sunstone Symposium podcast that you have I can't remember what it's titled really. You're encouraging people to stay in the church, to contribute, to help and make it a better place. And I'm paraphrasing what your message was, but you basically were encouraging those of us who have a lot of this knowledge to help the people who are coming up to their crises now. So how do we combine and how do we as a group of people reach out when we are not given a tool to use, sanctioned by the church to help the one as a group? There's just nothing there. Sunstones Discouraged group meetings are discouraged. Dissenting votes or dissenting points of view are labeled as apostate. How do you find these and how do you become a resource to other people?

John Dehlin [00:59:40] Well, this is a great question. I'll just challenge one little assertion you made about dissenting voices being discouraged. Elder Werthland gave a talk before his death and I don't even remember the name of the talk, but it was an amazing talk that basically said the church is more like a symphony where we need lots of voices. And it seemed to be a talk that was calling out and encouraging an acceptance of differences and variation within the church. But I will totally agree that culturally dissent is discouraged and sometimes officially, and maybe oftentimes officially still dissent is discouraged. So I feel the pain of this question and it speaks to the motivation for why I've been doing what I've been doing for the past four years. If you wanted me to try and answer why the brethren don't do something officially about these problems to reach out to the disaffected members en masse, I'll just give you my opinion. My opinion is it's because they don't have the answers. I think that if you sat them down and said help solve the DNA problem for me, help me believe in the book of Abraham based on the papyru, explain to me polyandry, please help me feel better about it. I don't think they would have an answer. I know that this is a problem because they not only claim, but I believe they believe themselves to be prophetseers, leaders. But I don't think anyone who has studied what it means to be a prophet scripturally would acknowledge that rarely does prophesy and revelator mean a you're perfect or B that you have a direct line of communication with God. In the scriptures, especially in the Bible, prophets are often screw ups. They're often sort of goofs and I think they recognize their own limitations and fallibilities better than anyone. Else. And so the first reason why they don't come up with a coordinated curriculum is because I don't think they have the answers. I think that they do have one answer, but it's the Sunday school answer. I think they sincerely believe that even the most disaffected among us likely had spiritual inspiration at some point during our journey and would have access to more spiritual inspiration and enlightenment if we would continue to follow and live the principles of the Gospel. So I think that they're doing the best they feel they can in terms of administering to the one by saying, pray, live the commandments, read the Scriptures. Because I think that they honestly believe that there is no intellectual resolution to these problems and that the only resolution is a spiritual one. And since they're doing all they can to continue encouraging spiritual enlightenment, I think that's the best that they feel that they can do. Now, in parallel to that, I think that it's a lot safer for them to let these types of solutions bubble up. And you'll notice that there haven't been many high profile excommunications since Margaret Toscano in like 1995 or whenever she excommunicated. They didn't excommunicate Grant Palmer. They didn't excommunicate Thomas Murphy. I know that some of that was because of pr, but the church is letting a thousand flowers bloom. And I think they're hoping that the members can take on this burden and responsibility of trying to work through these issues slowly and in a way that doesn't too quickly expose people to the problems. And I think, I'm guessing that their hope is that through the bloggernackle, through the apologetic stuff and through the books that get published now through Deseret books, that slowly there'll be a cultural shift towards more awareness and openness and even tolerance, but that it won't come at the expense of members who probably aren't ready to be talking about this stuff. Through some type of official Sunday school for the disaffected.

George [01:04:14] You come up with any suggestions about what people, individuals can do to help move this forward?

John Dehlin [01:04:24] Well, you know, I've tried a lot of things that have and haven't worked. I've tried to bring stuff like this up in Elders Quorum and Relief Society or Sunday School. That almost always backfires. I've tried to pull members aside and inform them individually about corrections or errors or whatever, and that hasn't worked. I've tried to reach out to a lot of disaffected people. And my guess is that my Success rate at keeping them in the church is relatively low. So I don't have any good answers other than. Helping people feel like they're not alone is usually very helpful. Helping encourage people to go slowly is usually very helpful. Trying to administer to the believing family members of someone who's disaffected so as to save the marriage has proved helpful. I'd much rather see a couple stay together and leave the church together than split up a family with one staying a believer and one staying a disbeliever. So that's helpful. I think the bloggernackle and the books being published are slowly informing the membership, but I think this is a really tough nut to crack. And I think the church's vitality in the future in some ways hangs in the balance because growth in the church in the US is probably slowing. I don't think that Google is helping the missionary effort necessarily. I think it's leading to a lot of. I mean, I'm seeing thousands and thousands of people leave the church every year still over these issues. So I think that the way the church deals with these issues in the future is a tricky one. I will say that I think the biggest thing the church has to do is figure out how to become relevant, exciting and spiritually meaningful to the lives of its members. That's probably the best thing that it could do if it could find a way to recapture the spirit that I experienced in the 70s of roadshows and members saving their money to build the church and the sense of community and of love and of ownership of the church and all the extracurricular activities that made people feel part of something really beautiful. I think the extent to which the church can recapture that and de correlate and de sterilize might be an important way. But I can't guarantee that that would help. But it seems like that might be their best bet.

John Larsen [01:07:05] Great, John, you've been as articulate as usual. I think you're a great asset to the church and if they had more doing what you're doing, I think their future would be brighter.

Tom [01:07:20] And John, from me personally, I really appreciate what you've done and sincerely and genuinely I appreciate what you've done. I know you put your neck out there big time, but you've been a big help to me personally. So I wanted to thank you for that.

John Dehlin [01:07:37] Well, thanks guys. It's an honor to talk to you guys and I really appreciate what you guys are doing and, and I would love to see more joy and less pain and more health. And somehow I think we're all going to be part of that, part of that outcome. So thanks for doing your part too.

Tom [01:07:55] Great.

John Larsen [01:07:55] That's a worthy goal. So you can see more of John's work and his current project. Stay lds.com youm can check out the original podcast on mormonstories.org and John, are you still involved with Mormon Matters?

John Dehlin [01:08:10] I still own it and I occasionally contribute, but that's run by a lot of good people, so yes and no.

John Larsen [01:08:17] Okay, so you can check out that over there. This discussion continues@mormonexpression.com check out our blog there. You can also call us at 801-906-6722 or you can email us your comments@mailormonexpression.com our music is provided by Kevin McLeod at incompetech.com.com.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.