In this episode of Mormon Stories Podcast, we talk with Jean Daniel about his journey from a devoted Mormon convert to a Christian pastor. Growing up in Boston, Jean discovered Mormonism as a teenager and found in it a strong sense of structure, identity, and belonging. He served a mission in San Diego, CA and was later married in the Newport beach temple.
While studying at Harvard and Yale Divinity Schools, Jean began to see the value in many Christian traditions and ultimately let go of the idea of “one true church.” He shares how this shift led him toward a more open, hopeful approach to Christianity grounded in community. Today, Jean serves as the National Pastor of Canada for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
This is a thoughtful conversation about faith after Mormonism and building a meaningful spiritual community with progressive beliefs.
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Guest: Jean Daniel O'Donncada
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction and Guest Welcome
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is January 14, 2026. Happy New Year. And today we are interviewing a fascinating guest. He's the head of a religious denomination. That denomination is the Christian Church Disciples
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:00:18] of Christ in Canada.
John Dehlin [00:00:20] But also he is a former Mormon and he was an undergraduate at Harvard studying religion. While he was at Harvard, he worked for David Bachavoy. Many of you will know that name. David Bacavoy has been on Mormon Story several times. He was a former CES instructor and got his graduate degree from Brandeis, understanding ancient languages and ancient scripture. He even taught what institute at the Harvard Cambridge kind of area while you were there.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:00:52] He taught at a few different universities in the greater Boston area.
John Dehlin [00:00:55] Yeah. And then he went on to get his M. Div. From Yale. Is that right, M. Div.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:01:01] Yes, I got my M. Div. At Yale.
John Dehlin [00:01:03] And after leaving Mormonism and getting his M. Div, he ended up again the head of an entire religion or church, global church. And interestingly, it's a restorationist church. But even more interestingly, it's not a Mormon themed restorationist church. In fact, it could be argued that all of the Mormon restorationist traditions actually descend from his church. Tell us the history about that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:01:37] I would absolutely argue that. So this will be massively summarized. There's a wonderful book that's actually by an LDS scholar who has some perspectives with which I disagree, but the scholarship is excellent. Roseanne Benson from Brigham Young University wrote a book on Alexander Campbell, who's one of the founders of my movement in which I now find myself and Joseph Smith. So restorationism is a concept that exists in Christianity and existed before Mormons took the term. And there are a few different streams of thinkers that some predate Joseph Smith and some were contemporaneous with him. So one of the major founders of our movement, Alexander Campbell, was living in what's now West Virginia. At the time, it was simply called Virginia, and he began a movement called the Disciples of Christ. Alexander Campbell was about 17 years older than Joseph Smith. So older but contemporaneous. They met each other and did not like one another. For reasons that I think can become clear. Our movement also had other founders because what we represent is a merger of different people of similar ideas. But broadly speaking, the story that we hear about Joseph Smith being frustrated with the quantity of denominations and everybody fighting, that was a common frontier story. It was not unique to Palmyra, New York. It was something that Alexander Campbell's father, Thomas Campbell, was complaining about in Washington, Pennsylvania in the 1790s. And actually Thomas Campbell, the father of Alexander Campbell, wrote that the church of Christ on earth is essentially intentionally and constitutionally one and includes all people who believe in Jesus Christ. So his idea was, rather than saying, there's no one true church, I'm going to start the one true church. He said, there is no one true church because true Christians belong to that one true church, regardless of the name on the sign, the name on the door, that the true church of Jesus Christ is bigger than any human institution. And Alexander Campbell followed. And this restorationist idea was, we want to get back to New Testament Christianity. But the major difference between Alexander Campbell and then Joseph Smith was Alexander Campbell didn't claim to be a prophet. So he said, this is my goal, this is what I aspire to, but I'm going to achieve it by Bible study and by having conversations with other Christians. And we're going to find the essence of what makes somebody simply Christian. So we have a few kind of historic slogans in our movement, one of which is no creed but Christ, meaning like Mormonism, initially, we don't believe in having creedal statements that exclude people. I happen to believe basically every line of what's in the Nicene Creed, but my church would be defined as non creedal because we don't make people sign a statement of faith to be baptized, to take communion, to be ordained, because those creeds aren't in the Bible. So no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible. You can see where that would cause us a division with Joseph Smith later on. No law but love and no name but the divine. And the no name but the divine is why our movement is called the Christian Church in the way that especially the past prophet of Mormonism was really trying to emphasize. The name the Church of Jesus Christ. Our legal entity name in Canada, where I serve, is the Christian Church in Canada. And I know if you look at just the names of our churches, the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, one sort of looks like somebody plagiarizing somebody, but slightly changing the words like one does in an academic paper in a hurry in high school. But there is a theological parallel in why that happened. Because both restoration movements, mine and Mormonism, believed that the church should simply be named after Christ. The problem when you do that pragmatically, is you still need a distinct name for yourself. So our name is the Christian Church, parentheses, Disciples of Christ. And that is also us trying to use a simple biblical term for ourselves. And then you see the Church of Jesus Christ of, well, what's a different biblical term we can use to describe ourselves to be distinct of Latter Day
John Dehlin [00:06:14] Saints, which was like the third name of the LDS Church. Actually, it was not neither the first nor the.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:06:21] Exactly. And then, and I would say my own tradition, Alexander Campbell had argued for simply being called Disciples of Christ. There's another movement happening in Kentucky under a gentleman named Barton Stone that was simply called the Christian Church. Our long name came about because of merger. But I don't want to claim that we got it right from the start.
John Dehlin [00:06:40] We did not. That's great. So that's a. Hopefully that's an interesting, captivating intro. We're going to be covering all sorts of stuff in today's episode and including Jean Daniel's story. He has a Mormon story. He's a convert to the church. But also, you know, one of the
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:06:58] things
John Dehlin [00:07:00] we always want to do on Mormon stories is help people heal and grow. We've never had a primary goal on Mormon stories of deconstruction because we don't think it's necessarily healthy or responsible to just take stuff away from people, but not in any way try to support a rebuilding. And so plenty of Mormons, it turns out, according to surveys, plenty of plenty of former Mormons end up as either atheist or some form of agnostic or both. And many leave Christianity altogether, but some don't. And also, you know, for those who are trying to create meaning and purpose and identity and have a moral framework and a sense of spirituality, we love the idea of putting forward healthy, possible role models or avenues that people can take if they want to continue pursuing a Christian identity and Christian practices. We want to support that. So that's. Those are some of my intentions for today. Do you have any additional intentions, Jean Daniel?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:08:21] Yeah, I appreciate what you said. I think my intention would be to show people possibilities. I don't believe that my path is what everybody will feel called to, but I think Mormonism does a very good job when you are inside of it of convincing you that it is the one true church and thus that it is what church is and what religion is. And so I feel like a lot of people who leave Mormonism think the only alternative is nothing. And that is a valid alternative. That's where people want to go. But that wouldn't have worked for me. And it is factually not the only possibility.
John Dehlin [00:09:04] Really quick, thank you for that. Really quick, your, your global church has how many total congregations worldwide do you know? Approximately?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:09:12] That's hard to measure because we don't have an emphasis on a hierarchy or central organization like Judaism, kind of. Yeah. We have millions worldwide of members worldwide. What we would call restorationism, the restoration movement, which most commonly the biggest umbrella terms people may have heard of are Christian church, Disciples of Christ. We're quite large in the American Midwest. In many parts of the Midwest, we would be the biggest old church in town. We have a few thriving congregations in the Salt Lake Valley, including a Tongan or a Samoan congregation. There's also the Churches of Christ, which are historically part of the same movement as us. It's quite imprecise, but broadly, I'd say we are the more progressive and liberal ones in the Christian church. Disciples of Christ. The Churches of Christ are broad, broadly speaking, a bit more conservative and traditionalist, but that can be imprecise. There'll be exceptions on both sides. We also deeply believe in Christian unity. We deeply believe that denominations should merge. And so one of our end goals is not to take over the world, but to disappear. And so two of the places we're biggest in the world are North India and the Philippines. In both cases, we are part of merged churches. So the Church of North India is a merger of multiple Protestant denominations. The United Church of Christ in the Philippines is a merger of multiple Protestant denominations. And for us, that's actually a goal, not a loss. So it's a shift in mentality. But it's hard to explain to the evangelizing Latter Day Saint mind that our goal is not necessarily more members, but more people to know Jesus, no matter how they label it.
Growing Up and Converting to Mormonism at 13
John Dehlin [00:11:04] I love it. All right. Okay. Well, maybe without any further ado, let's dive into your Mormon story and then we'll talk about your post Mormon story. Is that all right?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:11:15] Sure.
John Dehlin [00:11:16] So I understand you grew up in the Massachusetts. In the State of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:11:24] I didn't have to correct you there. Yes.
John Dehlin [00:11:25] And. But you converted to the church at a young age. So how does your Mormon story begin?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:11:32] Well, I grew up. My whole life has been kind of jointly American and Canadian. I mostly was in the U.S. in my childhood, mostly in Canada in my adulthood. But growing up outside of Boston, I was the youngest of five children. My mother was extremely devout Christian, but completely inconsistent about denomination. So in my childhood, I think my family attended and were members of every conceivable form of Christianity. My mom described herself as a church hopper. Just, you know, she liked the music, she liked the pastor. We'd be a member for two or three years. So my family was Roman Catholic when I was born, but they ceased being Roman Catholic by the time I was a toddler. Developing any long term memories? So I remember my childhood as being primarily different forms of evangelical Christian. And my mother passed away when I was 11 and she was kind of the primary force for church attendance. When she passed away I ended up living with another family for a year in their care and they were extremely conservative, Roman Catholic, but they allowed me to continue going to my mother's Protestant church while teaching me their version of Roman Catholicism, which I don't think was a fair representation of that broad tradition by the way, but it was a very conservative and controlling form in that family. My first knowledge of Mormonism actually was as a newspaper boy because Mitt Romney was on the front page of the Boston Globe at that time he was running for U.S. senate.
John Dehlin [00:13:20] This is after he had served as governor.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:13:22] No, this was before in the 90s
John Dehlin [00:13:25] when he was running against Ted Kennedy.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:13:26] He ran against Ted Kennedy and this very conservative woman with whose family I was living saw him on the COVID of the page and she said, I think I'm going to vote for him. It's too bad he belongs to a cult. So actually my first introduction to the existence of Mormons was being told that it was a cult, but being told it was by a cult by someone who I did not like or admire. So preteen resistance being what it is, that led to deep curiosity about Mormonism and I think that would have been sixth grade I obtained a copy of the Book of Mormon. I think I got it just through a library or maybe I called the 1, 800 number. I'm not sure how I achieved it, but I got a copy of the Book of Mormon and read a few pages. I'd grown up Christian going to Sunday school. The biblical language was not off putting to me. My initial feeling of the Book of Mormon was it was this kind of uncanny valley of it felt like the Bible but didn't feel like the Bible and that was a strange feeling. Put it on the shelf and ignored it for a few years. I moved around a lot because of the family situation so I couldn't keep going to my familiar church. And I remember in about seventh grade trying to figure out where to religiously place myself. I had a deceased evangelical mother. I had a non religious father who was not opposed to me going to church but wasn't going to be helpful in deciding or picking where I go. I got into studying world religions at a nerdier than you would expect level for a seventh grader even trying to find ways of experimenting with what would it like to be Jewish for a week? Or what would it be like to be Muslim for a week? Or what would it be like to be Roman Catholic for a week? And in retrospect, the way I experimented with all these is not correct, but it was my well informed best trying to find some truth. So just continued in that kind of uncertain seeker mode through my teens. And then in 10th grade in Massachusetts where I lived, Mormons were few and far between. But again, because I'm at Romney, not unknown as a quantity, but there were only two Latter Day Saints in my high school, twin siblings, in fact in my grade, who were in my estimation, extremely cool, such that they were not in my social circle. They were never mean to me, but I was not friends with them. They were above me. But one of my other friends, when I kind of mentioned my religious quest and trying to learn more about different faiths, was like, oh, well, Ryan's a Mormon. And So this fellow 10th grader, I was very much a nerdy drama club kid. He was cool and athletic and as I said, never mean to me. But we just weren't in the same circle. I walked up to him and I said, you're Mormon. Where does your church meet? What time does it meet? How do people dress? And you know, to his credit for being a good Mormon boy, as he was at the time, he said, do you want a ride? And he brought me to church with him. And you know, at the time I was described as a golden convert because I was eager for this to be true. The story of Joseph Smith, as it had been told to me, was deeply resonant.
John Dehlin [00:17:12] Yeah, it almost sounds like a story.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:17:14] Well, exactly. It's like, well, you know, I'm a 15 year old and I've tried all these different churches and which one's true, which one is true? And it was a parallel story. And I also was feeling that a lot of other churches when I kind of visited with enthusiasm, they weren't good enough at youth ministry to know what to do with a nerd like me. And it wasn't that they were mean, but they weren't very responsive. And Mormons matched enthusiasm with enthusiasm. Like, I came in enthusiastic and they came back enthusiastic.
John Dehlin [00:17:52] Yeah, few things are loved more by Mormons than, than energetic Mormon converts.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:17:58] Yeah. And I mean also the, the youth group, as I said, Mormons are few and far between. So the youth group was strong, but we had to drive 25 minutes to get to the church. It Meant that, you know, there'd only be one or two Mormon kids per high school to make up our youth group. Our youth group was from across a wide region. And socially, it was amazing because these were good looking, wealthy, kind kids who, under normal rules of high school social life would have nothing to do with me, who are extremely welcoming and kind. I'm still in touch with most of my cohort of priests and laurels. We're all over the map on how Mormon we are or are not today. But my genuine love of those people and the love and inclusion I felt was very real.
John Dehlin [00:18:50] What Boston Water Stake was the Hingham
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:18:52] Ward of the Hingham Stake. Okay, so South Shore.
John Dehlin [00:18:55] Okay.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:18:58] And I met with the missionaries at Ryan's house. They came to farmers from rural Utah, and they taught the first lesson. And I think I was very eager to belong. And I said, yeah, I just want to be in. I just want to be in this. And it all happened quite quickly once it began happening. And part of it was because on the April vacation week of school that year, the youth group was going on a massive trip to the Washington, D.C. temple, which at the time was still the closest temple to Boston, and then to some church history sites. And so the bishop wanted me to be baptized in time to participate in baptisms for the dead in the D.C. temple. So it was 10th grade, shortly before April vacation week, and I was baptized. And I think within a week or two of the baptism was on this road trip and went to the D.C. temple, did baptisms for the dead, went to Harmony, Pennsylvania to see the priesthood restoration site, went to the Hill, Cumorah, went to Joseph Smith's home in Palmyra and the Sacred Grove. And I was fully in. Once I was in, being Mormon was my identity. My non Mormon friends gave me the nickname of John the Mormon, just kind of parallel John the Baptist. And it was profoundly important to me. It became an obsessive interest, my whole sense of identity, but it was also a sense of belonging. And one of the things I find interesting, looking back as an ex Mormon, is I'm very open about what they did. Right. I now work for and lead in a very progressive, LGBTQ inclusive women ordaining denomination. But I'm deeply aware that when I was a weird kid, even in liberal Massachusetts, it wasn't the churches with rainbow flags that welcomed me because they didn't do youth ministry well enough. It was the conservative Mormon Church that welcomed me because they actually valued youth enough to have something to introduce me into. And I. I do have Retrospective, retroactive critiques of Mormonism. But the valuing of youth and the welcome that I felt was incredible. And other things in my life were going quite poorly. After I joined Mormonism, I dropped out of high school. I was not having an academic good time. This was. Now, I understand undiagnosed autism was the issue, but at the time, I was just a weird kid who everybody thought was very bright but also wouldn't apply himself, which is a common undiagnosed autism story. But that's a different podcast. But the church was my stability. And when you're a high school dropout at 16 or 17, there's no youth organization or school support. So then the church became all the more important. Eventually, I did really quickly a couple things.
John Dehlin [00:22:37] How much time between you meeting. What was his name?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:22:41] Ryan.
John Dehlin [00:22:42] Ryan, yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:22:43] I'm happy to name him fully. Ryan McIlvain. Ryan McIlvain, who has a wonderful novel about his Mormon experience called Elders.
John Dehlin [00:22:50] I don't remember if I actually interviewed him or if I just heard about his book. I may have interviewed him, actually. Okay, but how. How much time between meeting Ryan and actually getting baptized just for fun?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:23:01] No more than four months.
John Dehlin [00:23:03] Okay.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:23:03] So, yeah, I don't know the exact timeline, but it was quick.
John Dehlin [00:23:06] Okay, really quickly, I'm remembering from the movie Goodwill Hunting, which is one of my favorite movies, the term a Southie. Yeah. Is that. Is South Shore?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:23:15] No, Southie is a neighborhood within Boston, and South Shore are the suburbs. Okay. Further out, just what.
John Dehlin [00:23:20] I know it's geeky nerdy of me, but I had to ask that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:23:23] But there's a lot about Goodwill Hunting that actually does show the culture of growing up in the greater Boston area. And one of the challenges I had in my early Mormon years was I felt there was actually quite a strong tension between those of us who were from Massachusetts in the wards and people who were originally from Utah. Because in the Mormon world, as I experienced it, late 90s, so I don't want to speak for all times and all places, people from Utah tended to be wealthier. They kind of swooped in. They'd live in the ward for three months and somehow become a bishop. And people who had thick Boston accents were there. I often felt that there was a bit of an intense snobbery there that I experienced, where on one hand, I felt very loved by my friends, but they'd also constantly be complaining about how horrible Massachusetts was because they lived in Utah till they were 12 and everything was perfect in Utah, and. And I actually tended to believe them at the time, it wasn't until I first visited Utah that I realized Utah has coffee shops and things open on Sundays and bars. And that all blew my mind because I had been told by all these kids from Utah who moved to Massachusetts and hated it that everybody was perfectly Mormon in Utah. But,
John Dehlin [00:24:51] yeah, I'm dying to know how you go from dropping out of high school to Harvard undergrad, but before we
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:24:57] get there, that's not quite a Mormon story. But yeah.
John Dehlin [00:25:01] So I love your thought. I mean, there's this kind of idea. If a tree falls in the woods, but no one's around, does it make a sound? If a progressive Christian church is super supportive of LGBT people but doesn't have a youth program, it's useless. Does it really say it.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:25:23] It's useless.
John Dehlin [00:25:24] That's wild.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:25:25] I would absolutely stand by that. I mean, most of my career up until now has been in youth ministry, preaching this, that. Why are the conservative churches getting vulnerable? Young people and progressive ones aren't. Is because they try. They bother. And that can be applied to secular organizations too, because sometimes people say, oh, you don't need church through all these secular organizations. As a kid who came from no money, even in liberal Massachusetts, there was no alternative that I was able to find. The only group that offered me love and inclusion at no cost was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
John Dehlin [00:26:03] Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, people. People are often wanting me to hate the Mormon Church or to try and destroy the Mormon Church. And I just. I continue partly because of my own experience in the church. Even though I acknowledge I have. I'm. I am, and was dripping with privilege as a Mormon, I still am a believer that loneliness and meaninglessness can be more deadly than, you know, pick. Pick your other reason to not be a member of the Mormon Church. So if you're. If you're facing loneliness and meaninglessness, sometimes some religions better than none.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:26:48] I think that certainly can be true. I also think we need to replace things. So sometimes people will use the word deconstruction to talk about their faith journey. And I actually prefer deconstruction over alternative words like demolition, because you can rebuild with things you've deconstructed. You can take things apart and say, this thing is good, or this thing could be good if altered. But there's a lot good about my Mormon experience that I have deliberately and openly tried to learn from in other settings.
John Dehlin [00:27:25] Would you. Okay, yeah, so we'll. We'll talk more about that. But I love. I love that we're having this Conversation. So okay, so how did you go from. Well, first of all, why didn't Mormonism keep you from dropping out of high school? You one might think that if you've got all these new friends, you're part of this constructive, healthy youth group, you could kind of figure it out and turn your life around in whatever way and be a high school success story because of Mormonism.
High School, Depression, and Early Doubts
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:27:56] Yeah, I think I have one or two former bishops who would have longed for that as well. So that may be on me. I think I was quite depressed as a high schooler for various reasons. I mentioned I'm now openly autistic, but that wasn't the language we had for what I was experiencing at the time. It's a bit of a different conversation. But the, the clinical definition of autism has shifted since I was young. So I wasn't autistic at that time as it was defined. I was passionate about learning, but I wasn't passionate about demonstrating my learning in the way the school wanted me to. And that was often framed as why aren't you applying yourself? But when I left high school after 10th grade, I immediately got a job teaching ballroom dance at night and then teaching history at a museum during the day. So as a 16 year old high school dropout, I got two jobs where most of my colleagues had bachelor's or master's degrees in the subject. That's part to pre answer your question. How did I end up going from high school dropout to Harvard? That helped that I got these very kind of nerdy jobs, so to speak. So I worked at a museum called Plymouth Patuxent Museums that teaches the history of the pilgrims and that may have been kind of the twin with Mormonism for what kept me alive in that phase of my life because my gifts and talents were firmed there and people in the church tried to support, make sure that I got a ged. You know, of course the goal with all young men is how do we get him on a mission? Which my ward did support me on. I had absolutely no financial resources to pay for my own way as a missionary. As I said, I had a non religious father who wasn't opposed to my spiritual journeys, but certainly it wasn't on him to pay for my spiritual journey. So my words supported my mission. And then I did. Eventually I got the GED and then I served a mission. I went to San Diego.
John Dehlin [00:30:14] How was your mission?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:30:16] Well, terrible at the time. I think I was obligated to call it the best two years of my life. Of course it was not to be clear, there were people I met in San Diego and with whom I'm still in touch, who are some of the best people I've ever known. I think at every point in my Mormon journey, I can say that I've met some amazing and wonderful people. And they are quite evenly split between people who are now ex Mormon and people who are still quite devout. And I remain grateful for those people. But overall, the mission experience was, I think, in terms of both neurodiversity and culture. Too many shocks. And I was disappointed not to get a foreign language or foreign country mission. I was sent San Diego, English speaking. I was quite sad about that because I thought this would be an amazing opportunity to travel. But nonetheless, it was the opposite corner of the country and as culturally different as it could get. The real culture shock was actually suddenly being surrounded by Latter Day Saints who are from Utah, who are from rural Utah, conservative Utah. I was from Massachusetts. My father was a union president. So I was not ever politically conservative. I was not politically conservative even while devoutly Mormon. I had. By the time I was at the npc, Mitt Romney was running for governor. I had my absentee ballot with me at the MPC to mail in, and my whole district wanted to look at it because there was a Mormon's name on the governor election for Massachusetts. And I voted against him at the MTC and put it in the mail. And they were scandalized, like, you can't do that. I'm like, I absolutely can. He seems like a lovely gentleman and he's wrong for my state. So there was, I mean, it was
John Dehlin [00:32:27] actually viewed as a. By people of Massachusetts is a pretty good governor, it turns out, at least by. By. I used to, I used to work for mit.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:32:35] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:32:36] And many of the even, even queer, you know, employees of MIT that I collaborated with were interested in me partly because they really liked what Mitt Romney did.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:32:47] No, I just politically disagreed with him. I didn't think of him as a bad guy. I've since. Because Massachusetts Mormonism is a small world. I've met him on a few occasions. He would not remember me and they're nothing but pleasant experiences. But I just politically disagreed with him. So.
John Dehlin [00:33:04] Oh, that's fine. So you scandalized the idea.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:33:07] I scandalized them. And some thought that was a warning sign that I was never going to be a good Mormon. And I'm sad that they turned out to be right. But I did believe that the church was politically diverse and ought to be so. But there was that culture shock misfortune.
John Dehlin [00:33:23] Disabused you of that misperception. I'm kidding a little bit.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:33:27] But I also thought I had a unique as a missionary, I thought I had a unique story to tell, a unique perspective. But the lack of alone time, ever, the extremely restrictive rules that were just arbitrary, really grated upon me. I like routine, but I don't like arbitrariness. One of the major changes that happened during my mission was we switched from memorized discussions to making outlines before Preach My gospel got fully published. My mission was in that limbo state where missionaries were making their own outlines of discussions. But I remember my whole time at the mpc, we were memorizing word for word discussions. And it was at the end of my time at the MTC that they announced, we're no longer doing that. And I remember this experience of just three weeks ago. I was getting in trouble with my MTC teacher for doubting the pedagogical merit of memorized verbatim discussions and being rebuked for that. And then an apostle shows up to the MTC on our way out to say, throw it all out. Like, wait, I was right. I think that's kind of a case study on how Mormonism changes that. There are people who know that a certain change needs to be made, but they're actually heretics. If they mention it before the brethren,
John Dehlin [00:35:03] they say, don't get ahead of the brethren.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:35:05] Yes. So my mission, I would say, was a. It was a painful experience, but I loved the people. And I know that's, you know, a cliche mission phrase, but the way that I lived into loving the people is I moved back to San Diego and lived there for a year as a non missionary because I actually wanted to experience that community. Allowed to go on the beach, amongst other things.
Serving a Mission in San Diego
John Dehlin [00:35:34] Yeah. Yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:35:35] And I still have a deep love for San Diego.
John Dehlin [00:35:37] Yeah. Okay. So you made it through your mission. You survived it. Didn't love it, but probably grew
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:35:45] in ways that I needed to and didn't need to. Yes.
John Dehlin [00:35:48] I mean, I'll just ask this as someone who knows a little bit about autism, but not a lot. I do know that many people who are diagnosed with autism experience over, you know, sensory overload. And. And then I also am aware of a totally different condition like obsessive compulsive disorder, where the treatment of OCD literally is exposure to the over stimuli. That that's actually the cure or the treatment. Is that not the case? Is exposure. Can exposure to a feared or over stimulus within autism actually be strengthening versus, you know, harmful or do you know, I wouldn't feel resilience and strength.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:36:45] I wouldn't feel qualified to speak for anybody else's experience. For me, I would say there's a mix where I have experience that things that overwhelmed me with practice no longer do. And there are things where when shoved on me too much, too fast, still recoil to this day.
John Dehlin [00:37:09] They can sink your boat.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:37:10] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:37:11] Okay.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:37:12] Some of each.
John Dehlin [00:37:13] Okay. All right. So how did you end up at Harvard after your mission?
Post-Mission Life and Path to Harvard
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:37:18] Well, there are a few more steps. After my mission, I returned to working for one of the museums I had worked for before my mission. I did move back to San Diego after my mission, but it was not instantaneous. So I was back in Massachusetts, working back in the museum industry. I took a continuing education class with Harvard initially not as a full time student. They had a continuing education class, specifically in museum administration. And I was working in a museum as a day job. So I thought this is a way to kind of get my foot in the door in academia. It was a wonderful experience because it was a course and something I cared about. One of the problems I had in high school, and this is typical with some of my late diagnosed autistic friends, is I couldn't learn well from people I didn't find impressive. And what I mean by that is I needed to know that my teachers really knew a lot. And not everybody at Harvard is good at teaching, but everybody teaching at Harvard knows more than you do in their subject. They really do. And when that is one of the things that makes you resistant to learning from somebody. That wall came down and I loved that course. I did well in that course. Again, it was just a one off continuing education course, but it told me that the narrative of being a high school dropout, meaning I'm academically incapable, wasn't true. Another thing that kind of told me that that wasn't true was my boss at the museum who had his doctorate from Harvard. And he said, you're as bright as students I worked with as a doctoral advisor. I'll write nice things about you. I'll explain the situation. I'll explain. You got a job at this museum at 16, where most of your colleagues we required to have a bachelor's degree in history. And you've been doing this job well. And so that made things possible. It didn't seem imminently possible. So for two summers I worked for what was then called efy, I think it's now called for the Strength of Youth. So as a counselor, the first summer and the second summer, I was a building Counselor, which is the kind of supervising and training the counselors. That second summer was touring across California. In fact, I'm still friends with many of the people from that phase of my life. Going out to dinner with two of my fellow building counselors later tonight who are here in Utah. So again, that's another case study. The EFY team. I got to work with just phenomenal people who I still adore to this day. That's where I met a beautiful blonde Southern Californian Mormon girl. And we started dating and I stayed in California so I could continue dating her. We got married in the Newport beach temple and then we were deciding what to do. And I wasn't enrolled in any university. She was at the time, halfway through her bachelor's degree in Southern California. And I said, well, I can find a place to apply to here. And she kind of said, if you have an opportunity to go to Harvard, we're moving to Massachusetts. And I contacted Harvard and I had a weird story. By that point I was 23, had one college course, a GED, and a lot of confidence that confused them. And they provisionally allowed me to take more courses and then allowed me to apply officially based on the courses that I had been allowed to take as a not matriculating student. And that's how I ended up there. And while there, I was hired to be the secretary for the institute. So while an undergraduate, I worked for the church education system as the support specialist was the official title. I think I was one of only two male support specialists across the country at the time. Just as female CES teachers were rare, male support specialists were rare. All of the emails I got from Salt Lake City were addressed as Dear sisters, which I think that's just a little niche thing about the gender dynamics of Mormonism is they would hire a man, but they forgot that they did often. And that's where I had wonderful institute teachers that I worked with.
John Dehlin [00:42:10] They was David Bachavoy, one of your.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:42:12] Yeah, there were three full time staff there, Tom Chapman, Bill Fot, and David Bachavoy. And I have nothing but praise for all three of those gentlemen. They were phenomenal to work with and amazing mentors and very honest. And what I mean by that is, correlation aside, they taught students the truth. They taught church history honestly, they taught biblical studies honestly. Because the students weren't going to fall for denying what primary sources clearly said. And overall, it was actually quite a positive time. So my journey out of Mormonism, certainly I had negative experiences as you do in any organization or with any group of People. But for me, it was more intellectual, where I just. My undergraduate studies, I ended up majoring, concentrating in religion. Fairly accidentally, I took one Apostle Paul class with a professor who I adored, and then I took another, and then I took another. And then he said, what other religion courses are you taking? And I said, well, none. And he said, well, take this course with somebody else. Take this course with somebody else. So I ended up, somewhat accidentally, ending up primarily focusing on New Testament, though the major isn't that specific. Becoming and looking at the example of like David Bockavoy, who was a PhD student at Brandeis at the time, seeing that there was a path for a Mormon Bible scholar. So I thought my path was to be a Latter Day Saint Bible scholar.
John Dehlin [00:43:56] That was your original goal?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:43:58] That was the goal.
John Dehlin [00:43:59] Oh, wow.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:44:00] Because that was the path available to me as a religion major who's Latter Day Saint. And I had phenomenal professors at Harvard. My classes as an undergrad were actually at the Divinity School. Usually I just had to write a shorter paper. So I took a divinity school course. But if the grad students were writing 20 pages, I wrote 10. A lot of those professors, Helmut Kester, Francois Beauvin, were ordained Christian pastors by background, but they were there as Bible professors. And I was noticing that I was learning phenomenal things from this Lutheran pastor, this Swiss Reformed pastor. I also would invite my classmates to hear me if I was giving a talk at the Mormon Church. And they would come, but they would counter offer and invite me when they gave a sermon at the Presbyterian Church. And a few things started happening. One was I discovered that there were young women and openly gay people who gave the best sermons I'd ever heard in my life. Phenomenal, brilliant Bible scholars, compassionate, eloquent people. And the idea that the gift of the Holy Spirit would leave you if you didn't live up to Mormon standards, and that the eloquence of somebody's sermon was also some kind of a measure of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well, this didn't work when general conference talks were monotone corporate presentations that didn't even get basic things about biblical Hebrew or Greek correct. And openly gay alcohol drinking. Harvard classmates were giving brilliant sermons that connected the scriptures to modern life, that found connections with social justice issues, and that didn't lead me out of Mormonism. But what it taught me was you need to rethink what the one true church means because it's not the one true church because it has the most compassionate people. It's not the one true church because it has the best preaching. It's not the one true church because it correctly interprets the Bible. And honest Mormons who were Bible scholars own up to that. They did then and they do now. That was one element. Another element was though my local experience was phenomenal, my experience of the international church was problematic. What I mean by that is working for ces, my local bosses were phenomenal to work with. But I would get communiques from church education system saying things like, hey, if a student asks about the priesthood ban on black people, just say, we don't know. And I just thought, but we have conference talks from 1976. We know what Bruce R. McConkie taught about black people. We do know why are we doing this 1984 style denial. And part of what majoring in religion at a non Mormon school did gave me was a connection with how other churches were dealing with this. Because the reality is no major American institution that has existed for a long time is exempt from a problematic history of racism. But even the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in opposition to Northern Baptists over slavery, has apologized. But Mormonism doesn't apologize. Mormonism doesn't ever apologize. It doesn't ever repent. It just pretends things never happened. And when you're looking at the Southern Baptist Convention as a progressive example, that's a little bit eyebrow raising. Also, while I was in undergrad, was Prop 8 was happening in California. And I said, my wife was from California, I served in San Diego. Watching my church just patently lie about gay people. This all became deeply troubling for me and I was wrestling with it. Two other things happened during my undergrad. I think that kind of helped me see the way out. One was when I was applying to graduate schools in religion. I was applying to master's degrees in New Testament. One of my dear mentors who since passed, Francois Beauvin, is a Swiss Reformed pastor who taught New Testament at Harvard. I was a little bit his teacher's pet. Not because I was good at biblical Greek, but because I spent.
John Dehlin [00:49:02] You had a French sounding name.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:49:05] We could speak French to each other and he would make little jokes in class just for me. But I really grew to admire him and love him. And when I asked him to write my recommendation letter for Yale Divinity School, I wanted to go from Harvard to Yale because that's where the other amazing professors were. I had taken a lot of great courses with Harvard professors and half of the things I was reading were from scholars from Yale. So I was like, I want to go to Yale. I want to go to a different place and. But at the time, I was still planning on getting a Master of Arts degree in New Testament with the intention of being a devout Mormon Bible scholar. Professor Bovin asked me before he wrote the letter. He said, why are you applying to the Master of Arts and New Testament degree and not the M. Div. Which is the longer master's degree? That is for pastors. That includes things like nonprofit management and pastoral counseling and preaching. And I said, well, because I'm not going to become a pastor. That's not how it works in Mormonism. Bishops are just fidelity investment vice presidents who get asked to do it for five years, they're not people who studied the Scriptures.
John Dehlin [00:50:19] And that's certainly a Massachusetts take or Boston take on Mormon leadership.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:50:27] Yeah, he knows who he is.
John Dehlin [00:50:30] You forgot to mention management consulting. You know, founding partners.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:50:35] Yes, yes. Somebody who just moved in from Utah and still has Utah plates on their BMW and becomes your bishop without knowing how to pronounce the name of the town that your word is in, but.
John Dehlin [00:50:47] Or that Boston is a commonwealth, not a state.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:50:50] Massachusetts.
John Dehlin [00:50:52] Sorry.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:50:52] It's okay. So I explained I can't become clergy. That's not how it works in Mormonism. And he just said to me, do you have to be Mormon?
John Dehlin [00:51:06] Whoa.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:51:07] Which just simply never occurred to me. It never occurred to me that I didn't have to be Mormon despite having spent the first 15 years of my life not Mormon. Another thing that happened was one of my friends and classmates was intern at the Memorial Church at Harvard, which is an ecumenical, which is multi denominational university chapel. And because, you know, I wanted to go hear her preach, once I went, I loved the service so much, they did a Sunday night 9pm service for students and I started going to that supplementally. Like, you know, I still was an active member of my ward, but as a supplement, I went to this ecumenical Sunday night service. I love the music. It was classmates preaching and the chaplain for students, Reverend Jonathan Page, wonderful example, who had done Harvard, then Yale Divinity School, then was working in student ministry, was leading the service. And even though he knew I was devout Mormon, he invited me to do all kinds of things. You know, help with leading worship, help with prayers. He invited me to give my first sermon ever outside of a Mormon context at Harvard Memorial Church. Just. And I realized when I was trying to discern what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wanted his job like I wanted to do what he did. I didn't want to be the lecturer on New Testament. I wanted his job because One of the things that Francois Beauvin also said, in addition to have you considered not being Mormon? Was you don't ask me Bible scholar questions in class. You ask me pastor questions, which I took as like an intellectual insult. But he said, no, no. You don't ask me about the Greek grammar. You ask me, how do you teach this story to a 6 year old and an 80 year old at the same time? That's a pastor question.
John Dehlin [00:53:02] He was just noting that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:53:03] He was just noting who I was. He wasn't trying to lead me out of Mormonism or into, or into Swiss Reformed. He just said, you're acting like a pastor. That being said, I was admitted to Yale into the Master of Arts and New Testament program.
John Dehlin [00:53:20] Before we jump there, can I ask a couple questions?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:53:22] Yeah.
Navigating Mormonism and Academia at Harvard
John Dehlin [00:53:23] Okay. So you were at Harvard between what years?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:53:28] Full time? Between 2006, 2010.
John Dehlin [00:53:30] Okay, so that was, that was before I did a workshop at Harvard with like Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and others. I actually did one Mormon Stories conference there.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:53:43] She was the faculty advisor of the Latter Day Saint Club Right. When I was there.
John Dehlin [00:53:47] Yeah, but, but that was during the time I was doing Mormon stories early on. And it was, you know, around the time I interviewed Richard Bushman on Mormon Stories. And so, you know, I've had enough connection with current and former students and, or faculty and or staff at Harvard or MIT to know that there's a vibrant Mormon intellectual community there. Indeed, that Cambridge and Boston are much more like Berkeley and much less like the rest of the Mormon Church wards and congregations throughout the United States. And that, you know, I would, I would imagine that you could get exposure as an undergraduate at Harvard, even in 2008, 2009, 2010, to a lot of the historical problems with the Mormon Church and the questions around Mormon Church truth claims.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:54:54] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:54:55] Did you, I mean, this is a multifactorial question, so please forgive in advance, but did, did you confront, let's just say, the CS letter type issues, Mormon truth claims, problems with Joseph Smith's founding narrative? Did you become aware of those issues while at Harvard? Did you discuss them? Did any of those things challenge your faith? Did you find that Harvard and MIT Institute students were more shielded from that stuff versus swimming in it? And did any of that affect your ultimate decisions to leave? It's a big question, but take as much time as you want.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:55:42] I don't think I was ever oblivious to the complicated and competing truth claims about history of Mormonism. Even as a 15 year old, I read Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My History before Getting baptized.
John Dehlin [00:56:00] Whoa, that's rare. Not unheard of, but very rare.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:56:04] But I knew that there were competing stories. So actually, I think my crisis of faith was more institutional. And what I mean by that was,
John Dehlin [00:56:13] wait, why didn't that stuff bug you? And I mean, from the time you're 14, 15 through graduating from Harvard. So let's just take peepstones.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:56:25] I worked at a history museum about the Pilgrims.
John Dehlin [00:56:27] Okay?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [00:56:28] A lot of Americans have a very shallow idea of who the Pilgrims were, and they get politically upset at you if you quote primary sources that say these people on the Mayflower were a diverse group with diverse motives. Like liberals and conservatives get mad at you for that because it doesn't meet what they want you to believe about the Pilgrims. So I think I was already in the world of history is complicated. People tell the stories trying to sell something. Today, they're trying to. People try to sell the pilgrim narrative to demonstrate some modern political point one way or another. People will do that with church history narratives majoring in religion. Christianity itself has complicated origins and conflicts. Christianity as a whole is not a neat, tidy story, never mind any particular denomination of it. So I don't think I was scandalized that everything is complicated and everything will have competing views and everything will have some people saying it's this or some people saying it's that. And as you're saying about kind of the cultural milieu of being Mormon in Boston at that time, devout people who were stake presidents and bishops and CES teachers and temple workers would openly say, oh, the first vision story changed a bunch of times. Oh, you know, correlation is telling you, like the simplified version. If anything, that may have kept me in longer because people were actually being honest about it. And so that's what I mean by saying my leaving the church was not a historical objection so much as an institutional objection to. But the modern institution right now is lying about stuff. It wasn't what happened in the past that bothered me, because nobody's past comes up clean. It was the fact that the modern church lies about it. So at the beginning of our interview, I mentioned that a BYU scholar wrote a book comparing the founder of my current church, Alexander Campbell, with Joseph Smith. And she notes in the introduction that Disciples of Christ scholars have been criticizing Alexander Campbell for our entire history. And Latter Day Saint scholars don't tend to criticize Joseph Smith's claims. So if you make a comparison book, as she did, comparing the teachings of these two men, Alexander Campbell might come out worse, because for us, as disciples of Christ, if you say That a gentleman who helped start my movement 200 years ago said something racist. My response as a current leader of that denomination is, yes, he did, and he was wrong. End of story. Whereas the institution of Mormonism. There are certainly Mormon scholars who are an exception to this, but the institution of Mormonism won't do that. They won't say Brigham Young was racist and that was wrong in that kind of direct way of saying even, you know, we repent of what he did not. We changed the policy because the Holy Spirit guided us to. We repent. That may be a bit of a theological distinction, but for me, there's a big difference between changing the policy in 1978 and saying we repent of having not done this before.
Leaving the Mormon Church
John Dehlin [01:00:09] And
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:00:12] so I think for me, one of the things that came up that kind of led towards me leaving the church in 2010 was discerning what I was called to do with my life, because I was about to go to graduate school and I had to figure out what I was going to do with my life. And I kept being told I would be a good pastor. I think if I were a good consultant or a good executive or a good physician, I could have stayed Mormon in that kind of liberal Mormon way. But I knew I couldn't become a CES teacher. I knew I probably couldn't become a Brigham Young University professor. I could maybe follow David Bockavoy's path at the time, or Taylor Petrie, who was in my singles word bishopric, who's a scholar of Mormonism now. I could have tried to follow one of their paths.
John Dehlin [01:01:06] But
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:01:08] when I was discerning, what am I going to do with my life, I felt this very inconvenient spiritual sense. You're supposed to be a pastor like your chaplain, like your friends at Harvard Divinity School are becoming. And it's a very unusual story, by the way, for other denominations to say that you felt called to be a liberal Protestant pastor before you were a liberal Protestant. Because I actually felt that sense of calling before I found a church home. And toward the end of my last year of undergraduate, my wife was, as I mentioned, she was a little bit academically ahead of me. So she was finishing her master's degree when I finished my bachelor's degree, because she did not serve a mission. So that's how the timing worked out. I said to her, I'm having a lot of doubts and struggles, and I don't know what to do with these, but I'll continue to follow all of the rules. I'll continue to try to be temple worthy. But if they ask me if I have a certain testimony of stuff, I don't know, maybe I'm gonna have six months or a year where I'm not allowed to go to the temple with you because I won't be able to say, I know, with every fiber of my being, but I'm not gonna stop wearing garments. I'm not gonna start drinking. I'm not gonna do any of that. One of the things where Mormonism really fits my personality is I'm innately a bit prudish and boring. And so being forbidden from alcohol and casual sex was very easy for my personality type. But when I finally confided all of that in her, she just said, oh, I don't think I believe any of it. She was way ahead of me on that journey. And we decided when we moved to Connecticut for me to go to Yale Divinity School, we'd go church shopping.
John Dehlin [01:02:53] Okay, wait, before we jump to that, we'll come right back to it. I have a couple more questions, I'm sure. Okay, so I can get. How if you just are almost immunized with the idea that everybody's flawed, all churches are flawed. So I don't need my church and all secular institutions or even Joseph Smith to be perfect. Sorry, what?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:03:16] And all secular institutions are flawed, too.
John Dehlin [01:03:18] Okay, so you had all that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:03:19] That's part of why I couldn't become anti religious, Because I'm like, have you seen museums? Have you seen universities? Have you seen hospitals?
John Dehlin [01:03:26] Yeah. Who was the secular Chaplin who was at Harvard for many years? Kaplan. Was that his name?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:03:34] I'm blanking on his name. I met him on multiple occasions.
John Dehlin [01:03:37] Epstein.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:03:37] Greg Epstein, I think.
John Dehlin [01:03:39] Okay. All right. Yeah. So did. You did, yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:03:42] Because the Mormon Institute teacher was considered the Mormon chaplain to Harvard.
John Dehlin [01:03:46] Greg Epstein. Okay. I was following him for a while, and I was hopeful that there could be a secular replacement for church, But I've since lost hope for that a little bit. Okay, so I can see how you can. You became immunized to flawed churches and even flawed prophets or flawed religious founders. I'm going to ask you how you overcame a couple other things. How did you overcome atheism slash nihilism, you know, slash the problem of evil, that sort of thing?
Wrestling with Flawed Institutions and Belief
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:04:24] Well, I would say that the way that I'm okay with flawed people, I would nuance. I'm okay with flawed people who admit that they're flawed. So that actually became why Mormonism was unsustainable for me, because there wasn't enough admission of flaws. I Think if the church were institutionally as honest as frankly the community of Christ is about Mormon history, that would not have been a deal breaker for me. But it wasn't. And it, and it still isn't, they'd
John Dehlin [01:05:00] be more, they'd be more ethical, but maybe less healthy and less strong. We could talk about that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:05:06] Well, I think they'd be both healthier and stronger, but smaller because numbers aren't the only measure. But so as far as atheism and nihilism go, I've tried to be atheistic. I personally can't do it. And for me it comes down to I have felt loved when there is no rational explanation for feeling loved. And my theism is as simple as that. I've studied a lot of theology and philosophy and I cannot make my theism more intellectually salient than just saying I have felt loved when I have no other rational explanation for love. The other part of it is if you did rationally explain why loved by some higher power, some one. Something. I'm not very invested in any particular exact description of what God is. There is a, a doctor of the, the Catholic Church, Thomas Aquinas, who in the Middle Ages wrote proofs for the existence of God to massively summarize them. None of them to me prove that God exists. What he really is arguing is something you and I both agree exists. I am calling God. So, you know, I have friends and people in my life who say, oh, I'm not atheist, but I believe in meaning and love. My response to that is, what do you think I mean when I say God? So I'm far more interested in what I have in common with somebody in our beliefs than what words we choose to use for it. I love that I use the word God to describe the feeling of meaning and love. Yeah, I do not picture an embodied white male. I use God to describe things beyond my capability of description. So I'm not nihilistic or atheist because I have positive experiences that I can't deny any more than I can deny my negative experiences. I know a lot of folks when they, when they leave a high control religion such as Mormonism, as I experienced it, there's this pendulum swing to, well, I'm not religious anymore and I didn't know how to be not religious. Um, and I wasn't. What made me feel safe to step out of Mormonism wasn't non religion. It was actually progressive liberal Protestantism. It was churches that had women in leadership, churches that had openly gay leaders. It was churches that admitted their colonialist and racist pasts honestly and openly. But still let me sing hymns and celebrate holidays and let me have doubts, let me have questions. So what I gave up when I gave up Mormonism was not necessarily, you know, belief in God, because I didn't give that up. The single Mormon belief that I reject most is probably, I know with every fiber of my being that is claiming to know anything. I give up claiming to know stuff with every fiber of my being, I hope. But even I believe is sometimes too strong of a word for where I am on any point of doctrine. So, you know, I hope I don't, I don't know anything. And I. I don't know that there's nothing any more than I know that there is what I was taught that there is. So now I just say I don't, I don't know. One of the big shifts for me came from being, you know, studying the Bible. The word faith that we often translate as faith in the Bible is a Greek term, pistis, which many would argue is better translated as faithfulness. And that distinction is really important to me because it shifts belonging to a faith from an intellectual assent to in some historical claim or doctrinal claim to remaining in a relationship. And so my sense of faithfulness to broader Christianity is that Christianity is my home, it's my community, and it's the people with whom I have doubts and with whom I wrestle. It's not a list of intellectual ascents. My faithfulness is when I doubt the existence of God. I go to church on Sunday because I promised Susan I was going to help with setting up coffee hour. And if I don't know if God exists, but I know I promised Susan I'm going to help help setting up coffee hour. I'm being faithful to Christian community. To be clear, most of the time I absolutely believe in God, but I'm not going to pretend it's every day.
John Dehlin [01:10:25] Man, I love this. So I've got several questions. I'll try and remember them all. So it's common for people who leave Mormonism and or Christianity to deconstruct the Bible and just say the Bible's got as many flaws, if not more flaws in the Book of Mormon, both in terms of its historicity or ahistoricity and its ethics, whether it's by some people's report condoning slavery or being homophobic or even genocide. So they either deconstruct the Bible as either not historical or flawed or immoral, and they deconstruct the Christian narrative either because they question whether Jesus ever really existed. And even if he did exist, they question that he rose from the dead and, and we'll save all mankind. And then a particular Mormon slant that gets deconstructed is this idea that God had to find some way to make all the sin justified, and so he had to kill and torture his own perfect son because there was no other way to get his children back. So how have you worked through all that Christian stuff?
Rethinking Scripture and the Historical Jesus
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:11:45] I think your question assumes Mormonism is correct about something that I don't think it is.
John Dehlin [01:11:52] Which question? Because I threw a compound question at you, like I often do.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:11:56] Well, I think the very idea of, like, well, what if the Bible is flawed seems to be premised on. It's a problem if it is.
John Dehlin [01:12:06] Well, Mormonism teaches that the Bible's flawed.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:12:09] Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things I find really interesting. When people see an LDS Bible scholar like Dan McClellan say, the Bible doesn't teach this thing that Mormonism clearly teaches, they're like, how can you say that? It's like, well, because Mormonism doesn't depend on the Bible teaching it. He. You can say the Bible doesn't teach us about homosexuality, but if, you know Dallin H. Oaks does, you. You follow Dallin H. Oaks, you can have that. That separation. What I mean is I don't need the Bible to be perfect because I don't follow the Bible the way I think people assume I do. People project what it means to take the Bible seriously. Previous generations thought that certain stories were helpful to pass on to me. And I don't think, is it historically accurate? Is the most interesting question with any Bible story. To me, the most interesting question is, why did somebody think I should hear this story? Why did somebody think this story was worth passing on to me? And that to me is the question that I have in my Bible study before I preach. Why did we inherit this story? And what can it tell a modern generation? The Bible is a library. You know, sometimes even, you know, fundamentalist Christians will say, the Bible is clear. No, it's not. That's like saying the library is clear.
John Dehlin [01:13:42] Or to say the Bible says, yeah, quote.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:13:46] I mean, quote your source. More specifically, because there's. There are debates within the Bible. The Bible's an evolution of humans understanding. And so if you say, well, the Bible at one point condoned a certain thing, it's like, no, that author condoned a certain thing. And we see not just what God has done, but how humans have projected their biases onto God and how we have evolved in our understanding of God, I think it's biblically clear that monotheism is a belief that evolved. It is not always in the Bible, and that's controversial. To some of my fellow Christians, not generally Bible scholars, though, monotheism was a view that evolved prophets are in conversation and in opposition with one another, building upon and contradicting one another. I mean, Jesus constantly frames things as you have heard it said, but I say unto you. And what's really interesting about that is he does not throw away tradition, but he doesn't passively accept it. And to me, that's often my relationship with the Bible or Christian history as a whole is I will neither throw it away nor passively accept it. One of the metaphors I often use I was a university chaplain for a number of years. I used with my university students was think about the advice your grandparents give you and how sometimes it is poignant and profound and sometimes it is premised on things that are completely out of date and don't make any sense. And you should listen to them and you should learn from them and you should ask, why are they telling me this story? Doesn't mean you should necessarily do exactly what they say. Or my other kind of strained metaphor is, would you like a physician who only read a book from 2,000 years ago about human anatomy?
John Dehlin [01:15:43] No.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:15:44] Would you like physician who says that that book from 2,000 years ago about human anatomy is crap, so he's just going to make it up on the fly? No, you want somebody who's learned from the past, but is also learning in the present. And so with all of the biblical analysis and Christian history, I think the question is, why were these stories passed on to me? And how do I not start at zero? I think sometimes people will have this kind of facile argument, like, well, I don't like religion because how come there's evil and good in the world? And I'd say it's an excellent point, but Genesis 1 and 2 are fundamentally not a science text, but they are a story about trying to make sense of the fact that clearly creation is good and clearly suffering happens. And you don't even have to be satisfied with their answer. I'm not satisfied with Genesis 1 and 2's answers entirely, but it shows me that these ancient people weren't stupid. They looked around and they saw that creation was good, but also pain and death were real and they were trying to make sense of it. And so for me, accepting my Christian tradition is about accepting, among other things, that previous generations have something that I should learn from and that I'm not starting at zero. I'm not so clever that I'm the first person to notice bad things happen to good people. I'm not so clever to be the first one to notice. Creation is beautiful, but it also is painful. And, you know, I like the metaphor, and it's a biblical metaphor of wrestling.
John Dehlin [01:17:31] Jacob?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:17:32] Yeah, we. We wrestle. And, you know, I'm in touch with many other ex Mormons, and I do often get a little bit of arguments with them when I say, I think a lot of you are very Mormon in your ex Mormonism because you're still very absolutist. And my journey is just one of, as I said, what I've given up most is standing up at a pulpit and saying, I know with every fiber of my being, I don't know anything with every fiber of my being. And academically speaking and professionally speaking, I now know more about the Bible and church history than I've ever known.
John Dehlin [01:18:16] What if somebody were to say, well, those things you can say about those things you say about scripture that you're interested in, why they were shared, could be applied to the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses, and Mormon scripture as well?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:18:35] Sure. I mean, that's one way one could be Mormon. If you start writing papers about it, writing books about it, making a podcast about it. How long is this institution going to put up with you?
John Dehlin [01:18:50] About 10 years. Yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:18:54] You and I both know many people who've tried. One of the things I appreciate in my current tradition and position is I'm allowed to say what I think. And even though I'm in a position of leadership in my church, nobody has to listen to me. It's something I want to be very clear about is denominational leadership in my church. I am not a prophet. One of my colleagues once described that the only power in our tradition a pastor has is the power of persuasion. I have no more authority than I convince you. And so if I make a TikTok post that one of the people who attends one of my congregations thinks is wrong or heretical, do you know what they get to do? They get to comment that's wrong and that's heretical, and they get to make their point. And neither of us are excommunicated at the end of the day, which I think is pretty beautiful.
John Dehlin [01:19:52] That's beautiful. What about the literality of a literal Jesus Christ, half man, half God, who died after three days and will resurrect all bodies and humans to an eternal, celestial, you know, afterlife.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:20:10] Well, not half man, half God. The traditional orthodox doctrine would be fully man, fully God, despite how those fractions work.
John Dehlin [01:20:17] You've already lost me.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:20:18] Um, I just, I'm just stating the. That the traditional lowercase O, orthodox Christian view is Jesus fully human, fully divine. So I'd say there, there are two levels to answering that. There's my personal belief. But I, you know, I'm aware of what I do for a living and how I'm dressed, and my, My church's stance. My church's stance is no creed but Christ. And what that means is if somebody identifies as following Jesus, they're in. And most people I know in my church have fairly traditional and orthodox views, but we don't measure their worthiness on those. So on everything you mentioned, you know, I would say that is the historic traditional belief of Christian community. And I believe it in the sense of it's a story I've received from the ancestors in faith that feels meaningful and powerful to me and that I hope is true. And I hope it's true is the way I tend to use belief now, as opposed to in my Mormon years when it was kind of an intellectual certainty. But my faithfulness to the community does not depend upon that being historical, literal truth. That's. It's something I hope for. I would say when it comes to any big and implausible thing in doctrine, whether Mormon specific or Christian generally, once one accepts an omnipotent God, one accepts all possibilities. So it stops being interesting. Like, could God do this? Yeah. Did God is a different question. But like, could. Well, if there is a God, yes, God could. Did God? I've been told by people I love, yes, and I hope they're right.
John Dehlin [01:22:29] But like, let's say that you had a 1% probability that you would be resurrected, and then you found out that the probability was 0.000001 that you would actually be resurrected. Would that matter to you today in your faith? Do you understand what I mean by the question?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:22:52] I think so. I'm not in this for resurrection.
John Dehlin [01:22:58] You're not in this for eternal life?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:23:00] I hope for eternal life, but that's not my driving motive. Interesting, because Jesus taught us to pray, and one of the parts of his prayer is that we pray that his kingdom come or his reign come on earth as it is in heaven. And I think that's a call to remind ourselves frequently about our responsibilities. Now I have hopes for eternal life and resurrection. It's something I believe in, in the sense I just described and I hope for, but it's not my daily motivating. It's not what motivates me each day. Because my call is to make heaven on earth. My call is to create inclusion, love, and welcome on earth now. And so if I do church in a way that is making people loved and included and sustained and strengthened so that their life on earth feels more heavenly, and then I just die. Okay, I think. I think an obsession with what comes next is a way Christians let themselves off the hook for making heaven on earth great. We're all going to be equal in heaven. Why in God's name are you not treating people equal now? Everybody's going to be perfectly resurrected in heaven. Why in God's name are you not looking at every other human on earth right now as if they're made in the image and likeness of God as they are? I don't like using the afterlife as our get out of compassion now card. So I hope I would behave the same.
John Dehlin [01:25:05] And then I think a lot of Christians will say something like, christ is the only way, that Jesus himself said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father except by me. I'm paraphrasing. And then there's other Christians that would say that you have to be saved. And of course, there's those that believe you have to believe that the Bible's inerrant like. But start with the. Start with the. What do you think? What. How do you interpret Christ's words, that he's the way? What does that do with Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Jews and. And all the other faiths? Start there.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:25:50] Sure. Okay. When Jesus says that he is the way, the truth and the life, the way that I interpret that is by following him. So I live my life as if I think that that's correct. That is my life. Right. That's how I respond. That's what I do. So if I believe, and I believe, and I hope that if there is a God, God is omniscient. That is all knowing part of believing God is all knowing is believing that I am not. And so I don't have much patience for my fellow Christians thinking they know a lot, because I don't know. But again, the call to follow Jesus, for me, is not a call to make proclamations about the afterlife or about other people's souls or to judge other people. It's about, I was called to follow him, and I say, yes, and I'm following him, and other people sense calls and sense goodness in ways that I don't understand or that are different than mine. And I hope they follow those calls to do what is good and right. So, you know, historically there's been a stream of progressive Christianity that would interpret Jesus saying I am the way, the truth, and life as meaning everyone who is saved is saved through him, even if they don't identify in that language, which, to the chagrin of his more conservative fans, seems to be something C.S. lewis argues in the Chronicles of Narnia, where there are people who are described in that series of book as following Aslan, even though they didn't know Aslan's name. I also understand where people of other faiths still don't like that as a framework because they're like, no, I really don't follow Jesus, so I want to be respectful to those people and say, I don't know. I don't know. I know that I feel called to follow Jesus, But I also don't believe that a loving God's mode of operation is wanting to condemn people
John Dehlin [01:28:07] or keep people out. I guess that's the same thing.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:28:09] Yeah. So any kind of talk about who's saved, who isn't saved, it doesn't interest me on two levels. One, because if it's true, I can't possibly know. And two, some of the theories being put forth by more conservative Christians don't seem like they reflect a God of love. And one place where I will be absolutely biblically literalist is where the Bible says God is love. And so any vision of God that doesn't match God being love, I hold suspect and condemning people by default doesn't match my sense of God being love. So I don't presume to know how God's infinite love works, but I presume it is love, and I presume it is infinite. And I'm more interested in what do I do now. And what I do now is I do my best to follow the example that I find in Jesus.
John Dehlin [01:29:00] And do you even care about what he meant, what he may have meant when he said that?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:29:06] I think I care. I think if I was kind of put on my Bible scholar hat, I think what he meant was he was talking to a group of people and he's telling them to follow him. And so I do. That's what caring what he meant means to me, is I believe he said, I'm the way, Follow me, and so I follow him. But interpreting that Jesus, that means Jesus
Exploring Paths to God Beyond Mormonism
John Dehlin [01:29:34] is the only way to God.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:29:36] No, that's not what I'm Saying I wouldn't claim to know. What I'm claiming to know is that I feel like he called me to follow him. And I'm trying to.
John Dehlin [01:29:45] I see.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:29:46] I don't want to get into judging other people's calls because that's not my job.
John Dehlin [01:29:50] But when he says I am the way, that could easily be interpreted as there's no other way that could be.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:29:59] I'm not trying to be evasive. I'm trying to be sincere in not knowing if that distinction makes sense. I call people to follow Jesus. I strive to follow Jesus, but I also don't judge another. A commandment I received from Jesus, who I feel called to follow, is don't judge. I don't judge other people's choices in that way necessarily. I don't. I don't know their lived experiences. I don't know. And. And I know I should emphasize. I know that people have been hurt by Christianity as they've seen it and as they've experienced it. And I think it would be a cruel God who judges you based on you, perhaps rightfully rejecting his worst representatives. And so I guess I suppose I'm a little thrown off by this question because I dwell in a part of Christianity where we don't even talk this way very often. We just. This obsession with, you know, telling people that they need to get saved is so foreign to me because I feel like Jesus was clear about what the top commandment was. The greatest commandment is to love God, and the second is like unto it, to love your neighbor as yourself. And there are other places where Scriptures are clear that the measure of how you love God is actually how you're loving your neighbor. So when Christians get obsessed with these questions of how to save people rather than how to serve people, I think they've already lost the plot. Your job is to serve them. God's job is to save them. You just go, love.
John Dehlin [01:31:53] Yeah. And just because this is fun for me, like, I think an evangelical Christian might say, no, if I help someone be saved, that's the most loving thing I can do for somebody.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:32:05] And I think that within the framework of what they believe, they're correct. You know, if you genuinely believe that God is going to condemn somebody to hell unless they say the sinner's prayer, it is actually deeply unloving not to tell them to say the sinner's prayer. But I think that that fundamental framework assumes a crueler God than the one that I see in the New Testament described as God is love. And so if God is love, Those side questions become irrelevant. The way that I practice my Christian faith.
John Dehlin [01:32:43] Okay, last question in this sort of detour before we jump back to your story. But thank you for. This is really important and valuable to me, and I'm hopeful that it will be valuable to others. So thank you for entertaining my questions.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:33:02] In.
John Dehlin [01:33:02] As of 2026, have you ever found a human who lived, who even came close to, in your mind, rivaling Jesus as someone worthy of following? So, like, I'll just. Gandhi, who, as I say that I know, studied Jesus? Martin Luther King, like Eckhart Tolle, Buddha, like, it's interesting. I would be curious to know whether you've ever tried to think if there's anyone else more worthy of following or if. If anyone's even come close.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:33:46] In my lived experience, no one has come close. But that doesn't mean that other people are unworthy of emulation or learning from, you know. So, I mean, you mentioned Martin Luther King, a Christian pastor, and I think that gets strangely de emphasized. I mean, I know people who will in the same breath say religion does nothing but harm and evil in the world and we should all be more like Martin Luther King. And I'm like, what? And what it shows is they have very specific definition of religion in their mind, I think. But, you know, Martin Luther King was a pastor, an ordained Christian minister. I think we should strive to learn from anybody who's worth learning from. And so I while to me, Jesus is my ultimate example, and I won't shy or back down from that. That's the choice I've made with the life that I have, is that I am a disciple, which means a student, a follower of Jesus Christ as best as I can understand his teachings and his way and what he's asking me to do with my life. But he learned from other people. He studied the prophets who came before him as presented in the Gospels. He listened to John the Baptist and learned from him. And he listened to his mother and learned from her. And the idea that we have nobody else to learn from would be patently absurd. And I've known Christians who claim that the only one they follow is Jesus Christ. And usually that's some kind of euphemism for I only follow my own interpretations of things, and I don't want any influence from anybody else. All of our discernment of what is true and how do I live my life is always done in community. It's always done in reaction to and in conversation with others. And I think we should always be open to good examples Holy examples, righteous examples coming from any possible direction. And I mean, that's scary to people who want to maintain an institution or maintain power. Right? Because. Part of my journey out of Mormonism was realizing that an openly gay university chaplain was a better, more compassionate pastor to me than any Mormon bishop. And if I had been a better Mormon and you know, in air quotes, better Mormon and just dismissed the gay chaplain out of hand in advance before I could know that about him, I wouldn't have had the questions of like, wait, how is he so good at this? Because I would have pre dismissed him. So I don't think any Christian should ignore the possibility that God is going to work through them or teach them through anybody else, no matter where they come from. So certainly other thinkers, both religious and secular, have influenced my, my thought and my learning and. But I do strive to prioritize Jesus.
John Dehlin [01:37:07] Beautiful. All right, well, I've got more questions, but let's jump back to your story and then we'll come back to a few more questions. Is that all right?
Yale Divinity School and Becoming a Pastor
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:37:13] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:13] Okay.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:37:14] What just happened? I've lost track. Where were we in the story?
John Dehlin [01:37:17] So you were about to graduate from. Anything important about Yale Div. School that you want to share in your story?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:37:25] Well, so I moved summer of 2010 to New Haven, Connecticut to do Divinity school. Divinity school, I think they listed our names and our hometowns and our denominations and kind of like this Getting to know each other booklet. I was still listed as Latter Day Saint there, which quickly became awkward and disappointing to the other Latter Day Saint who'd been admitted my year. When I said, like, I'm happy to be your friend, but I'm not going to church with you ever. You know, I. So I, by that time I had twin toddlers, ended up living in Yale University married housing, which they have much smaller complex than byu, but Yale does have it and would you believe disproportionately highly Mormon population in that housing complex? Of course, you know, also some Hidic Jews, some Muslims, very religious little housing complex. I was trying to be subtle and, and not Mormon. We invited our upstairs neighbors to come over, you know, just for. To socialize and meet them. They immediately recognized that most of my furniture, I got like some of my chairs, my coffee tables from my ward doing a renovation and giving away its old furniture. So I had clearly Mormon meeting house furniture in my living room that they immediately recognized. And they're like, oh, so when are you gonna start attending the ward here? Is this funny that like the standard issue LDS coffee table and chair Gave us away. But our LDS neighbors were nothing but sweet to us, though we were kind of clear we're not going. At Yale Divinity School, my first two years, I worked for United Church of Christ congregation, which is old New England Congregationalist churches, the Puritans. But this shocks a lot of people to know where do the Puritans go? They became the most liberal denominations in the U.S. they're still there, but they actually are quite progressive. I worked as a youth pastor for Congregationalist church for two years at Yale.
John Dehlin [01:39:48] Did you have to convert to some church? Did you resign your LDS church membership? Did you get baptized into a different church?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:39:56] Well, other churches are less prone to believe that only their ordinances count. So I joined the Congregationalist church, but there was no re baptism. There was no conversion process. It was like, do you love Jesus and you want to be a member of this church? Okay, you're in. I did not resign from the Mormon Church because I think there's just a stubborn part of me that said I don't have to do things your way so you can kick me out or not. I'm just not going to anymore. And so just. I just left. I didn't. I think even going through, you know, the resignation process acknowledges their authority in a way that I wasn't in the mood to do. So I worked as the youth pastor at this Congregationalist church. And of course I had questions because my resume said, you know, I directed, I helped lead these LDS youth camps. I worked for LDS religious education. They obviously said, what's this about? And I explained, like, I think women are equal in leadership. I don't think gay marriage is a threat to family. I like Jesus. I'm not sure what I believe on everything else. And they let me serve with them and work with them. And so that's at Yale. I just, I studied Christian ministry. I said I was initially admitted to do New Testament master's degree. I was able to switch to the Master of Divinity program, the pastor training program during orientation week. I made that switch right away, not sure where it would lead because I once again didn't know what church to belong to. So a lot of seminaries, in the non Mormon sense of the world word, graduate schools for religion seminaries are affiliated with a particular church. Yale Divinity School is not. It is broadly liberal and Protestant, and even that is not universally the case. There are students of every religion and no religion. Episcopalians are the biggest group, but it is not an Episcopalian school. And I showed up there and I was doing the pastor training degree, not knowing what denomination I was. And you do need to know that because it affects your course selection. And I just didn't know because I knew. I think when I started at Yale Divinity School, what I could say is I believe in women's equality, I believe in gay rights and I believe in Jesus. Where do I go? And it turns out there are a lot of options. And it's one of those things where I think there's this narrative that religion is inherently conservative that you get if you grew up in a religiously conservative world, but it's objectively not true. You know, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church usa, the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, the American Baptist Church, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. There are so many churches that have been ordaining women for decades, if not a century or two, that have been blessing same sex marriages long before the government moved. There are instances where it wasn't churches holding marriage equality back, it was churches suing for the religious freedom to perform same sex marriages. So I didn't know what denomination I was going to be.
John Dehlin [01:43:39] We could add, you use and reform a Reconstructionist Judaism as well.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:43:44] Absolutely, absolutely. And so, you know, and where I live in Canada, the biggest church, of course is the Roman Catholic Church, but the second biggest church is the United Church of Canada, which supported same sex marriage before the government did. So especially in my context in Canada, when people say, oh, you know, religion is always conservative and holding us back, I'm like, you're just watching too much Fox News even though you live in Canada, because that's just not the lived reality here. But so I just continued studying and discerning where I was called to be. And I came to believe that no individual institution is the one true church of Jesus Christ. And most institutions don't claim to be. By the way, the idea that every church is going around saying we're the only true church and nobody else is is factually wrong. Most churches believe that they're doing the best they can with the information they have. And you're still a good Christian. If you go to the different church down the street and we can think you're a Christian, even if we think you're wrong on point X, Y or Z, you're still in the broad umbrella. And I mean, that lowers the pressure immensely, but it also makes the decision harder to make. But ultimately, I didn't really pick. I just kind of felt like I love Jesus and equality and I don't know where to go. That worked out very well. For me in the sense that when I graduated Yale Divinity School, I was admitted to a PhD at Universe Montreal.
John Dehlin [01:45:21] That's Montreal for the rest of us.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:45:22] University of Montreal, except pronounced correctly. And so I moved to Montreal and the first job I was offered when I got there was Protestant chaplain to McGill University.
John Dehlin [01:45:38] That's an Ivy League level university in Canada.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:45:41] I mean, it's certainly an elite university. Yeah. But one of the things that was wonderful about having that be my first job out of seminary is I was Protestant chaplain very broadly, not Baptist chaplain, not Presbyterian chaplain, not Episcopal, you know, just the Protestant chaplain, which allowed me to just serve young people who wanted a safe Christian community. And, you know, I did supplemental things. That was at my job for about 10 years, leading Bible studies and retreat weekends and providing pastoral care. And some of the students would go to various churches on Sunday mornings that helped fund our ministry. Some only went to our student ministries. It's also a place I'll openly. I was never secretive about this. There are a lot of fantastic things that I learned at CES that I used for 10 years as the Protestant chaplain at McGill. A lot of the things that we did in the institute in Boston that were just objectively good ideas. And I said, what if we do it without sexism or homophobia? The way that singles words empower young people, for example, is phenomenal. And other Christian traditions could learn so much from that. Letting young people preach, letting young people teach the faith. One of the great paradoxes of Mormonism is the ageism that on one hand, it's a gerontocracy where the leadership is men in their 90s who've outlasted everybody. But the missionary force are 18 year olds. The actual profound trust the church puts in its young people is something I think other churches could learn from and should learn from. So at McGill, for the 10 years I was there, a lot of our most effective ministry, I will openly admit, came from taking a pragmatic Mormon approach and doing it in a socially progressive way. And so in that regard, if I look back, I'm like, did God make me Mormon for a few years? So I'd have all these ideas to steal. Half joking, half, not just kind of like, okay, there's a lot. There's a lot pragmatically that the Latter Day Saints do quite well that other Christians should learn from, even if I maintain my doctrinal and social justice objections.
Leading a National Christian Congregation
John Dehlin [01:48:14] And after 10 years at McGill, did you go, how did you end up the head of a glob national church?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:48:22] National, not Global. We have no global head. Well, so my position as Prowse and chaplain at MIGUEL was sponsored by multiple churches. And now two and a half years ago, the Christian Church Disciples of Christ in Canada, which is one of our sponsors, was looking for a national pastor. So the role of national pastor is primarily I'm a pastor to our pastors. So I provide pastoral care to our pastors.
John Dehlin [01:48:54] Like 20?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:48:55] About 20. And we have. It's also nonprofit consulting. So you know, each local church needs if they need assistance with building renovation or hiring a pastor. I don't know how to do everything myself, but I'm a kind of a center of networking to say, okay, well, here's an organization that specializes in low cost building loans for nonprofits. This other congregation worked with them on their roof repair, connecting people. So it's not top down. I don't make any local decisions for people. I am a consultant who helps and supports them. Excuse me. That position opened up about two and a half years ago.
John Dehlin [01:49:37] And were you ever a pastor of a congregation in the Christian church Disciples of Christ in Canada?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:49:45] No. And that's very unusual that I would get in my current position that way. I had done university chaplaincy. I had been specialized in the young adults my whole career.
John Dehlin [01:49:55] And you weren't an actual member of that church, right?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:49:59] I was. The way church membership can work in different Protestant churches is certainly different than the LDS model. As clergy, we're credentialed by different bodies. Right. Like to say that you are a pastor or a priest of a certain church is to have your credentials accepted by them. And as I mentioned before, there is not in fact this we're the one true church ideology going on between all these different organizations. There's a lot of mutual recognition of ministry. So my ordination service that had happened at the end of my time at Yale was by a congregation that itself was affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Christian Church Disciples of Christ. So my ordination was in two denominations to begin with. Then I immediately got a job that was kind of with neither of them. But all these different churches that sponsored our ministry recognized my credentials. So I have credentials that are recognized by a wide diversity of Protestant churches. And that sometimes strikes people as strange. But it's not necessarily stranger than being a licensed clinical therapist in three states. You have to know the differences of procedures and policies. But if it's not a crisis of conscience for you to adjust when you, you know. So if I celebrate communion in a Lutheran church and I celebrate communion in a Disciples Church, and I celebrate Communion in the United Church of Canada. I'm going to use slightly different words, but none of those words are offensively too different for me to say them.
John Dehlin [01:51:33] Got it. Have you met John Hamer?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:51:35] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:51:36] Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:51:40] Oh. He's one of the leaders of the Community of Christ in Canada.
John Dehlin [01:51:43] Right. How long ago did you meet him?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:51:46] About two years ago. I met him once. I got my current job at a retreat of national denominational leaders.
John Dehlin [01:51:53] Oh, cool. Very cool.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:51:56] There was a brief period towards the end of my undergrad where I thought maybe I should go to the Community of Christ, but they didn't exist near me. And fundamentally, I don't think I felt attached enough to Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon to fight to keep them. It was actually only two or three months ago I visited a Community of Christ Sunday service for the first time in rural Ontario in Canada. I checked one out just because I was so curious. And it's interesting to talk about the common roots of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, because the Community of Christ service absolutely feels like the halfway mark between our two churches.
John Dehlin [01:52:43] Oh, interesting.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:52:44] Just in terms of the feeling and the vibe and the kind of the music and the way that the service is done. Because there are certain things in our restorationist movement in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, that Mormons, I would, you know, argue inherited from us, even when they spin it as a fresh revelation. Not just the name, as I discussed previously, but also weekly communion, a strong belief in allowing more than just the head of the congregation to preside. So in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, we believe in what's called lay precedence, which is that any member of the congregation can lead communion. They don't have to be ordained. Mormons kind of dealt with that by ordaining half the congregation. We tend to have the interpretation, it's a biblical principle called priesthood of all believers, that if you believe in Jesus, you are authorized to act in his name. But I share that because the Community of Christ has a much closer to the Disciples of Christ approach to how they interpret and live into scripture and tradition. But with the Mormon additions and it was an uncanny experience for me, the congregation that welcomed me was extraordinarily lovely and welcoming. You know, they're hospitable in every way, but they didn't convert.
John Dehlin [01:54:17] Sure. Well, the reason I ask, for those who are longtime Mormon Stories podcast listeners, the name John Hamer will be familiar to you. He's one of the most knowledgeable humans alive about Mormon History and restorationist Mormon history. Brilliant guy, went to byu, was gay, left the church, went to University of Michigan, became a mapmaker and has done most of the maps for Joseph Smith Papers project and Mormon authors believing or not since the very beginning. I think for those following the John Turner series on John Turner's biography of Joseph Smith, John Hamer did those maps. But anyway, I met John Hamer at Sunstone back in 2004, 2005, long before we ever joined the reorganized church. And I think by 2007 we were just like man, the church, the LDS church is clearly not going to be where many people end up. But we still love so many good things about our Mormon upbringing. So how in the world do or can we help ex Mormons find something either analogous to or better than their Mormon church experience? And we thought, huh, maybe Community of Christ can sort of be this progressive Mormonism landing place. And so the idea was, look, they, they accept women being ordained, they have renounced and apologized for the priesthood ban they allow. I, yeah, they're more progressive in so many ways. And so we thought maybe we should start supporting that migration. I couldn't. I talked to enough people who, who saw things like you, they're to say it a little bit differently than you say it. They would say to me, I can't build on Joseph Smith as a foundation. He, the fact that he in their view was a sexual predator or a fraud or whatever just made any Mormon themed restoration foundation a non starter. So that's where I saw so many people end up that I just said, yeah, I don't think I can get behind the Community of Christ as a destination for ex Mormons just for that reason alone, I think I have more. But I. Go ahead. You want to jump?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:56:57] Well, if, if in my own journey I had been in the community of Christ, I imagine I would have stayed. But I just. Because, because they've apologized, because they're open, because they're honest. But because I was leaving, you know, the mainstream LDS Church, I couldn't at that time jump into a place that had that baggage for me. Similarly, you know, when I was at Yale Divinity School trying to figure out what kind of Protestant I was, I was really clear with myself that I believed in LGBTQ rights. And the United Methodist Church was in a massive internal fight over it. And I think people staying in the United Methodist Church fighting for justice, are doing good and holy things, but I wasn't going to step into that, right, because like I, I, if I were there, and that was my fight to have, I would maybe join in and stay in to fight for that justice. But as somebody coming in from the outside, I just wanted to step into a church where that was a settled matter.
John Dehlin [01:58:02] So that makes sense. So, yeah, so this is where John and I, we still remain close friends and big supporters of each other. He joined Community of Christ and then ended up becoming a leader. He and his partners ended up becoming the leaders of the Toronto Community of Christ congregation. And I think he reached the level of 70 at some point within Community of Christ. Now, he'll admit that with the selling off of the Kirtland Temple and so many treasured, let's just say, relics or assets within Community of Christ that hasn't turned out like he hoped it would. He's still doing great things with his congregation and specifically with his YouTube channel. And I still think he maintains an affiliation. But what, what, what I am getting at though, is this idea, let's go back to this idea of if a tree falls in the woods, but no one hears it, does it make a sound? You were able to enumerate several progressive Christian churches that, like Community of Christ, are far closer to your own moral and ethical and religious sensibilities. Lutheran Presbyterian, Universal Unitarians, Reformed Jews. Like, there's a, there's a gazillion. Right. All those churches seem to be dying in. Okay, I'm not telling you what I'm about to say is true. I'll tell you my impression. My impression is that Christianity in the United States is in decline overall.
Ex-Mormons, Declining Church Attendance, and Community
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [01:59:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:59:57] And that if you had to pick the churches that tended to be the ones that are most in decline, including Community of Christ, it's the liberal slash progressive churches. The ones that are at least slightly growing or growing are either the LDS Church, the Mormon Church, or, you know, certain mega churches that are evangelical or like Assemblies of God or is it Christian Science. There's some Jehovah's Witnesses, like some of the more you could say maligned as culty Christian churches who are often viewed as the most growing. Seventh Day Adventists. I don't know how well they're doing. But anyway, to summarize, my point is. Yes, yes, your church sounds lovely. Like immediately, I want you say there's two or three congregations in Salt Lake. I want to attend one. Yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:01:01] Check them out.
John Dehlin [02:01:02] I'll, I'll tell you, I, I, if, if you give me an address of the one you think would be most enjoyable. I will, I'll give you, I'll give you two questions in this regard. One is, I My family and I went on a tour of Christian churches when we were, when I was, when we were kicked out of the Mormon church. We attended a Quaker church in Logan. We attended, I think a Presbyterian church, maybe a Methodist church, Episcopalian church. We attended the UUs. All of them did not feel inspiring to me. They felt too political. Even though I'm very political, I don't want to attend a church that feels super political for whatever weird reason. But even more importantly, I'm so Mormonized in my religious language and spiritual sensibilities. Just not to go too off the track, but a couple weeks ago I was in Florida visiting my parents and my stepmom was singing in church and I went to a Mormon church. I felt fantastic. I loved it. Like, you know, people may hate me to say this, but 10 years after my excommunication, I attend a Mormon congregation and I feel inspired and uplifted in spite of all the problems. Yeah. So my spiritual language is so Mormon and I found so many of these Protestant churches, I don't know if liturgy is the word, but like just to know, not be inspiring. They were certainly in my sensibilities, less inspiring than Mormonism. And I'm not saying that's true. I'm just saying that was my experience and way less interesting or exciting than like a Joel Osteen or like a, you know, some of these mega church, super entertaining kind of experiences. So talk to us about joining a Christian church in 2026 in terms of it being an engaging, uplifting, inspiring experience like you had at Harvard. And is, you know, the extent to which these churches are growing and vibrant and having youth to actually influence versus being dying churches that are all old people, that aren't really influencing any people, LGBT or not. Talk about that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:03:43] Oh yeah, there's a lot there.
John Dehlin [02:03:45] Thank you for your patience.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:03:46] Now, to go way back just slightly before your question, I want to note when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints made all those purchases from the community of Christ, it was the largest funding that the LDs have ever done to an organization that celebrates same sex weddings and ordains women. And I think that's, that's remarkable. That tithing money went.
John Dehlin [02:04:10] That's a nice spin to support, but
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:04:12] it's, I mean, it's just factually true that I.
John Dehlin [02:04:14] To support the pensions of a dying church?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:04:16] Well, I think it's more nuanced than that, but I think there is, there
John Dehlin [02:04:20] is a. I'm being cynical. I'm sorry.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:04:23] There is an element I don't Think you could?
John Dehlin [02:04:26] Well, I don't want to nitpick, but like the church, buying valuable assets from community of Christ does not need to imply any sort of endorsement or support.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:04:35] No, it's not an endorsement. It's just an inadvertent thing that brings
John Dehlin [02:04:39] me some joy that we're on the same page.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:04:42] So institutional Christianity is on the decline in much of the world. It is not overall in decline. The idea that the church is dying is something I have called out within my own country as saying, is an extremely white idea. And what I mean by that is white churches are dying in Christianity in the United States and Canada. The growth we see, yeah, we can look at it denominationally, but if we actually look at it in the cultural and linguistic makeup of the congregations, it's more that if you're worshiping in English and you're all white people, there is a decline. But immigrant churches, churches and other languages are generally growing and thriving.
John Dehlin [02:05:31] And I love that. I love that. I supported that. But I just want to say yes to all that. We had a Kenyan ex Mormon come on and say he's still glad the church is growing in Kenya even though he's left the church, because he acknowledges that for a developing country, even Mormonism is a net positive. So I want to grant all that and say I'm white. Most of my listeners are white. Okay, what about us? Even though I'm not diminishing at all the importance of other races or ethnicities or countries or nationalities.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:06:08] Well, I mean, one of the things
John Dehlin [02:06:09] I would say is I'm really not.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:06:10] No, no. But I mean, so there are a few aspects to it. There's this common trope that conservative Christians love to believe that I don't think holds up to statistical analysis. The liberals are all dying, and they are not. What I think is more true is that The Liberals are 20 years ahead of them on the same trend. They're all declining. Liberal churches are further along on the trend line. There are a few reasons for this. As a progressive church, we don't tell you that you're going to be damned if you stop going to church. So progressive churches, people can just be bored out. Right. They just, you know, as you were describing, something just doesn't resonate. They're not offended, they're not angry, they're not bitter. They're not theologically opposed. They're just kind of bored because we don't have the stick of like eternal
John Dehlin [02:06:56] damnation and manipulation and coercion.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:06:59] Yeah. The only reason to go to one
John Dehlin [02:07:01] of the or like, you won't be with your family in the afterlife, you
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:07:04] don't have only reason to go. One of the congregations that I'm involved in is because it's meaningful to you.
John Dehlin [02:07:10] Yeah. To your life now.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:07:13] Yeah. And so if we're failing at that and many congregations are failing at that, we shrink. I believe people are fundamentally pragmatic. So when people sometimes say, like, oh, we're not going to church because the kid has lacrosse, so, well, the lacrosse team has done something that your church hasn't. People just fundamentally go to what they value and to what is valuable to them. So I think those of us in Christian leadership need to just stop the blame game. I think the conservatives are delusional if they don't think that they're just behind on the same trend line. I think there are some ways that churches grow that are not always replicable or even desired to be replicable. But high birth rates and high control lead to greater growth and a perceived threat.
John Dehlin [02:08:06] Right.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:06] But also, like, sincerely, the Amish are one of the fastest growing religious traditions in the United States right now by huge margins.
John Dehlin [02:08:13] Really?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:14] Because of massive birth rate.
John Dehlin [02:08:15] I did not know that.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:16] And high retention, you know, but if you retain 50 to 70% of the kids who grew up in your tradition and you're having families of eight or 10 kids.
John Dehlin [02:08:26] Yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:26] You grow.
John Dehlin [02:08:27] Wow.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:27] And Mormonism has benefited from that for a long time. Its birth rates and retention rates are both in decline.
John Dehlin [02:08:33] That's right.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:35] But behind the trend of Roman Catholic, it used to be that if a family had 10 kids, you'd be like, are you Roman Catholic or are you Mormon? But that's kind of no longer true culturally of Roman Catholics. It still happens. But Mormonism is on that same path where these 13, 10 kid families are getting rare even in we're now at
John Dehlin [02:08:55] three per couple in the United States.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:08:59] So I just say this to say that there is this general trend line down from institutional religion. I think there's also a misconception about the history of religion in North America that it used to be that everybody goes to church and now it's declining. It's been going up and down. There's been no point in either American or Canadian history where most people went to church every Sunday. That's actually never happened. People who have a cultural memory of that are wrong. They may have grown up in a community or family where that was the case. It peaked around 50% in the 1950s. But the 1950s, which a lot of our oldest folks are looking back on as the good old days. That was an aberration in North American religious history.
John Dehlin [02:09:40] That's immediately post World War II.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:09:42] Exactly. That's not the norm. You know, at the time that Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith were roaming the frontiers, church attendance in the United States may have been estimated around 17, 20%. So this idea that, you know, everybody was very religious and now they're not, that's not quite true. When I was in university chaplaincy, I did a graduate school paper on thriving young adult ministries. And I had high church Anglican friends who said, what young people respond to is ancient liturgy. I had fundamentalist Baptist colleagues who said, no, what they want is traditional doctrine. So I did this analysis of what young adult groups were thriving at university campuses. You know, what they had in common. It wasn't politics, it wasn't worship style. I only found two statistical commonalities. They had free food and they didn't meet in the morning. Conservative or liberal, Muslim, Christian or Jewish. The organizations that gave food and didn't meet in the morning grew. And to me, that's very pragmatic because it's serve people, serve their needs, and they'll come. And so I think we build community. So when you mention somebody, if you visit a church and you don't have a powerful experience, there are a few reasons for that. One is you have your own background. I have my own background. We have our own background that shapes what we're expecting, what feels like home, what feels familiar. If you grew up in Mormon worship, an Episcopal cathedral is not going to feel familiar. It's not going to feel like home. Now there are ex Mormons.
Finding a Spiritual Home After Mormonism
John Dehlin [02:11:27] Beautiful.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:11:28] And there are ex Mormons who become Episcopalians. There's a wonderful, somewhat viral on TikTok Episcopal priest in Arizona, I follow. Who grew up Mormon here in Utah. So he. That was his journey. His name's Father Tim. I'm blanking on his last name. But as wonderful, funny tiktoks about faith, certainly people have that experience of that resonates with them. The other thing I'd say about finding a community that excites you is, you know, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, if you're going to join a community, don't ask what the community can do for you, but what you can do for the community. And if you want to step into a community and participate, if you have a favorite kind of music, a way that you like to worship, a way that you like to celebrate, and you bring in your gifts and talents, they'll accept it. And I would even say this to People who are not religious and don't want to be religious. Sometimes people will say to me, like, well, why doesn't my church down the street have a food bank? And I'll say to them, go down the street and ask them, volunteer, and if you think that they should have a food bank, go volunteer to set one up. It's like, well, I don't believe in Jesus. I'm like, I don't think most pastors are going to care. Right? Like, if you want to come to my basement and help me run a food bank, I'm going to let you, and I'm not going to. But if you come from Mormonism and you think I'm going to ask you about what kind of underwear you're wearing, or if you smoke or if you drink coffee. No, No. I mean, I've worked in churches where we have talented musicians who openly tell me I'm in the choir because I love singing and I don't believe any of this stuff. And I say, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. They're contributing to a community. And so I think one of the challenges, though, if you're coming from an LDS standpoint, is in other churches, they're not going to tell you what to do. They don't generally. I mean, there will be exceptions to everything generally. The calling system as it works in Mormonism isn't how anybody does things anywhere else. The idea that you show up and you're told you are now in charge of nursery. Most congregations of other traditions operate on a volunteer basis of you having the inner sense of, I would like to offer this gift and the congregation, you know, assisting you, depending on the vulnerability. If you're volunteering for nursery, for example, background checking, you. But. And I think that can be a challenge for Mormons trying to find a religious home. And this was a challenge for me that you don't step in and have that immediate. Everybody is like, oh, you were one of us in Logan, Utah. You're one of us in Hingham, Massachusetts. It can be welcoming, but it's a slower welcome because it's like, well, we want to get to know you.
John Dehlin [02:14:25] And
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:14:28] sometimes they don't want to scare you away by giving you a calling right away. Now it's actually challenging for me. I'm not a good passive worshiper. What I mean by that is I'm just not good at just going to church and sitting still. I sometimes joke that becoming a pastor for me was an escalation of volunteering. Right. Just like, why don't you give out the bulletins, why don't you lead a prayer, why don't you read a scripture, why don't you give the sermon? Why don't you give the sermon next week? Why don't you go to graduate school and give more sermon? You know, and in other congregations, other kinds of Christianity, we do let the congregants discern how involved to be. And I think when you come from a Mormon cultural background, that could feel like not being included or involved. If you're expecting it to work the way it does in Mormonism, rather than people thinking, if you come in, sit quietly in the back row and immediately leave, they actually respect that out of respecting, oh, that's all they want. And there are some times where they're not going to beg you to stay for coffee hour because they're trying to actually respect that, hey, if that's all you want, that's okay. But my own Mormon background, I struggled with that. Like, well, they left. They didn't say for coffee hour. They must hate this church. They must feel unloved. Didn't occur to me they might just be an introvert who doesn't want to talk to anybody. So certainly I would say if, you know, if you're looking for another community, to find community and check out places, but, you know, meet with the pastor, offer to get involved, share what your gifts are, whether you're Mormon or not Mormon, I would say always be extremely careful telling religious leaders, you know how to play piano. Never ever reveal that you know how to play the piano to a religious leader unless you are ready to be asked all the time. That is something that is absolutely true across traditions. But. As far as, you know, overall, just the. The question of institutional decline. I don't believe that the church of Jesus Christ, in terms of the spiritual community that makes the love of God known in the world, is measured the way that I had to measure it on my mission. You know, how many copies of the Book of Mormon did I give away? How many cards did I give away with a phone number to get a dvd? How many doors did I knock on? I think there are people doing amazing ministry and communities that have five or six people that love each other and care for each other. I think there are churches with a thousand people that are an hour of light entertainment on Sunday and everything in between. And the measure of Christian growth could be a numeric measure, but it could also be a depth. How much are people's lives being affected? And I don't want to be entirely dismissive of stats because I think there's a reality that if nobody goes to your church, you're not reaching anybody, you are doing something wrong, you're not responding to your community's needs. But people don't owe it to you to go to your church either. So you try to make something that's meaningful for people. And church is meaningful for me because I'm a participant in making it. And I know for Mormons who aren't used to kind of like a divide between clergy and laity in the way that is in most other churches, that also can be tricky to navigate. So. Well, there's a full time spiritual person here. What do they do? You know, and sometimes I'll try to describe my current job in Mormon language for people to be like, well, you know, stake president, it's institute teacher, it's, it's a blend.
John Dehlin [02:18:45] But well, here's so oftentimes. So I. Let's just start with the reality that in 2026, depression, anxiety, mental illness, loneliness, addiction, take your pick on social psychological malady, they're all arguably at historic peaks. And there are many that tend to want to associate the decline of organized religious or religion participation with the decline of mental health and the increase of loneliness in the United States. If we can agree to start at that premise. Do you accept that premise with nuance? Okay, but generally kind of, yes.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:19:45] I, I think some of the increase in mental health struggles we see is an improvement in diagnosis. I think that's something we need to acknowledge that. Is depression more common or are we being more honest about naming it when it exists? And certainly that's a conversation that happens around ADHD and autism as well. But I'm willing to accept the probability that there's a general increase in mental health struggles and anxieties given gestures broadly the world. I think it's self serving of religion to tie it to a decline in religious attendance. I'll be a bit more pragmatic about it. I think loneliness is because people are spending more time alone. And I think spending less time in church is certainly one way people are spending more time alone. But if you look at secular social organizations, they're in the similar decline. The Elks Lodge, the Rotary Club, bowling leagues. People are self isolating religiously and secularly. I think what a healthy religious community can offer is, as I described way back in, what I was looking for as a teenager that kind of got me into Mormonism is people need a community that they can just step into that is free. I think a lot of Us, when we leave a certain religion or leave religion altogether, we're not thinking deliberately enough about what is going to replace the genuine good that this thing had done in my life. And there are some genuine goods. And you can say, well, I don't believe in God, but did you meet with the same group of people once a week and say, hey, how was your week? Because that's a genuine good and it needs to be filled in your life. And as a Christian pastor, I'd be the first to say, I hope your local Christian church is a place where you could experience that. But if you're telling me that you've joined a community theater that's giving you that, I would say thanks be to God. But be proactive about finding community with my own. My daughters now are 18. They're twins, so they're both 18. I've been very clear with them that to me, passing on my Christian beliefs to them is not their intellectual ascent and certain doctrinal statements that I make, but it is the belief that they need to go to that church youth event because it's their calling not just to have a good time, though I hope they do, but to love and include the other kids there. You know, I've raised against everything in the genetics and personality I offered them. I have somehow raised conventionally attractive, socially adept young women who are kind of pretty and cool.
John Dehlin [02:22:28] Were they raised in a church?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:22:30] Yeah, going to church with me all along. They're French, English, bilingual. So they've had to be the narrators of the Christmas pageants all the years growing up in church.
John Dehlin [02:22:42] Which church most of or which churches?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:22:46] The church I was attending primarily the longest while they were growing up was the Anglican, which is Canadian for Episcopalian Cathedral in downtown Montreal. And they, you know, it's a multilingual church, had services in franchise services in English, which actually, that reminds me, you know, earlier when I was mentioning that the decline of churches is a very white phenomenon. Being a French speaking Protestant is exceptionally, statistically rare. Quebec is dominantly Roman Catholic. When I go to a Protestant church that is mostly French speakers, it is also mostly black people. So I would kind of say to a white person being like, well, all the white churches near me are declining. Then go worship with people who look differently than you.
John Dehlin [02:23:29] So in Salt Lake, that's the Tongans, apparently.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:23:32] Yeah, that may well be the case. I don't know our congregations in Salt Lake.
John Dehlin [02:23:36] I know there's a Calvary Baptist Church here in Salt Lake as well.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:23:40] So, yeah, my daughters were raised going to Church, going to youth events. But what I mean is the value that I want them to receive as much as what I believe about Christianity is my belief in participating community in a way where you are sharing love with people who couldn't otherwise get it. And they're involved in secular things. They were involved in their school's music program and very good at that. But frankly, a lot of social things for adults and children are based on money or talent. I love community theater, but community theater, even community theater, will welcome you based on whether or not you're good at something. And a good church, unlike anything else I see paralleled really in secular society, welcomes the poor, the weird, the socially inept. And you know, if you're meeting with somebody after church, having an awkward conversation with an awkward person, you might be the only person asking them all week how their week was. And that is absolutely holy. So I would strongly encourage people who leave Mormonism to say not only where can I receive that? But where can I offer that? And I hope a local church is a good option. But I'm not naive or exclusivist. It's not the only one.
John Dehlin [02:25:07] Yeah, so there were a few years ago, South Mountain Church reached out to me. They're an evangelical, non denominational Christian church in Draper, and I attended a couple times. I interviewed their pastor, Pastor Rick at the time, because they had this heavy outreach to ex Mormons to support them in their transition, but also to help them find a church, a church home. And there are others. There's K2 in Salt Lake, there's Center Point. Like there are lots of non denominational Christian churches in Utah, but they still tend to be exclusivistic, they still tend to be literalistic with the Bible, and they oftentimes tend to be homophobic or, you know, sexist in some ways. And they just, they didn't quite have the formula that I could feel enthusiastic, really jumping on board with, personally, even though I think they do great work and great people there. And I, I don't discourage people from attending. Please check out those churches and others and see if they work for you. They, they couldn't work for me, so. And I've heard even Sandra Tanner, who's someone that all my audience, I think, respects, say she laments that in Utah there's still no church that she feels comfortable recommending. No Christian church that she feels comfortable recommending in all of Utah, which is saying something because she's very devoutly Christian. So here, let me, let me throw out with you a formula that I and my friend Clint have been bantering, banting about for some time. There should be a way to create a Christian church in Utah that says that has your views on God. You're literally you, Jean Daniel, your views on God or others, you know, But I mean, like that. It seems like your views on God. Many ex Mormons, even atheist or agnostic ones, would feel comfortable with your. The way you define God. So we'll take Jean Daniel's, the Danielle Daniel.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:27:24] Danielle.
John Dehlin [02:27:24] John Daniel's views on God, John Daniel's views on Christ and on Christianity and on the Bible and on Scripture and will create a Christian church. And we'll. But we'll also steal the best of Mormonism. So we'll have vibrant youth programs and vibrant children's primaries or the equivalents and youth, you know, youth conferences and roadshows and all the good things. And we'll have great a choir like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but we'll also maybe do choir better. We'll steal from the Baptist, you know, a really vibrant choir or music.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:28:12] And there are a lot of upbeat Methodist songs that the LDS hymnal has put at half speed and you should try them back at their intended tempos.
John Dehlin [02:28:21] But also, even if a rock, we'll borrow from what is it? Song. What is it? The Global Hillsong. We'll have great songs and great musical experiences and great sermons. We'll steal from Joel Osteen or whoever, super great, compelling sermons, and we'll create this experience. You don't have to come every week, but maybe you want to come every week because it's so awesome. We'll have coffee, but, you know, come once a month or come every other week, it seems like. And by the way, church still serve
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:28:56] hot cocoa because a lot of us ex Mormons discover that we never liked coffee all along.
John Dehlin [02:29:00] Not even lattes.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:29:01] I still don't like lattes. The residual Mormonism is strong.
John Dehlin [02:29:05] Okay, all right. Well, anyway, it seems like this formula should be doable, and yet no one's done it. And again, the biggest. The biggest thing I think competes with ex Mormons attending church. I jokingly say brunch or I say hikes because it's really enjoyable to stay home and go to brunch or really enjoyable to stay home and go on hikes. But I think there's a lot of lonely. Or there's a lot of lonely ex Mormons. There's a lot of ex Mormons that struggle with meaning and purpose. And frankly, there's a lot of ex mor. Mormons that could benefit from a moral structure, but also from just service. But no one has been able to pull together this formula into a non fraudulent, non culty, financially viable and organizationally sustainable model.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:30:05] Because I'm national pastor of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ in Canada. I don't know the congregations and yet Utah very well, but I know we have them and I think people should check them out and see what their experience of them is. I don't, you know, my tradition that I now represent, we have extreme variety of worship style from one congregation to another. All I can say that is in common across our congregations and worship style is that you will be welcome and we're going to have communion and you'll be allowed to take communion. We have churches that are very evangelical and Pentecostal in their style. We have churches that are very traditional and mainline in their style. So I'm not sure which our Utah ones would fall into on that. But there's also nothing stopping ex Mormons from creating those things here. But it's not going to be given from the top down. It's going to have to be something that people organically do. You know, in defense of hiking and brunch, those are fantastic things to do. Also can be done on Saturday morning.
John Dehlin [02:31:14] Also can be done with the church.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:31:17] Yeah. And also church can be done at times other than Sunday morning, Especially in buildings where lots of wards share a building. Mormons are already used to the fact that church doesn't have to be in the morning. There's a thriving Hispanic church right around the corner from my house that meets on Saturday evenings. They don't even meet Sunday morning. I'm not fastidious about the exact time. I think if you're meeting people's needs and building community, that's a good and holy thing. Yeah. One of the things I had to do ex Mormon when I left Mormonism. This may have more to do with my autism than my religious beliefs. I found it a bit jarring to not have rules for everything. Even when I didn't like the Mormon rules, it was helpful to have the structure of them knowing, you know, as an awkward and autistic person. Mormon dating is actually easier than secular dating. Right. Because I'm like, oh, we're not having sex on this date. Fantastic. Because of the clarity. Just because we know there's a rule that's not allowed. Okay, great. Then I don't have to worry about that. And so I found as a new ex Mormon, I kind of missed the for the Strength of Youth pamphlet. Not as Exact content, but having structure. So I literally wrote myself a rule book, which is so nerdy. But it helped me to say, you know, I'm not just gonna go off some proverbial deep end. I did a thing that. I don't know how common this is with ex Mormons, where I kept following Mormon rules for quite some time as well, to demonstrate that I didn't leave because I wanted to live a life of sin.
John Dehlin [02:33:09] Yeah.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:33:10] Because I knew that I'm still there for the most part, you know, So I was like, well, I'm never gonna drink alcohol or coffee or
John Dehlin [02:33:21] coffee's just crazy. But keep going.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:33:23] It turns out I don't like alcohol or coffee, but I really enjoy comfortable underwear and R rated movies. That's where I've fallen on these things.
John Dehlin [02:33:31] I love it. Well, I, you know, and I. I totally bless and support people who just don't need any of this stuff that we're talking about. And I'm also just aware that our society seems to be in crisis. And I'm aware that sometimes nature abhors a vacuum. And when there's no religion, sometimes worse things end up filling that vacuum for a lot of people. And so I had such, what I believe to be a positive experience. Being raised Mormon and being a weekly attender of a church, acknowledging all the privilege that I had that contributed to that. I also know that I'm not alone in that, that I. I really wish that churches could have a real rebound. And I love the vision that you put forward. I just want to see it be successful and thrive and grow. Yeah. So anyway, that's an invitation to you and to others who are viewing and listening to. If anybody likes this vision. I think it's a worthy thing to pursue. I do want, if you can get to us, a list of the congregations that are in the Salt Lake area.
Reflections and Closing Thoughts
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:34:56] Yeah, I certainly can.
John Dehlin [02:34:57] I would love to attend one of the churches here, just see what it's like or like, start a franchise with the right people and the right slant. Because I. I think I could enjoy it, honestly.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:35:11] Wonderful. I think for people wrestling with Mormonism who find that they still love something about the teachings of Jesus, my call to them would not be join my church instead though, if that is good for you. Lovely. My call would be to say, if the commandment to love your neighbor resonates with you, figure out how to love your neighbors and church at its best, Including Mormonism at its best gives you a framework for knowing your neighbors and knowing how to love them at its worst. It Undermines you loving your neighbors. And so whether it's in or out of a church body, love your neighbors and you'll find fulfillment in that.
John Dehlin [02:36:10] Well, amen to that for sure. I've so loved this conversation. I'm so grateful that you travel from Montreal. I know I'm pronouncing it wrong. How do you pronounce Montreal?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:36:22] That's perfect for an English speaker. I say Montreal, but yeah, okay.
John Dehlin [02:36:28] Thank you for traveling from Montreal to share with us your story. Are there any other stories and or messages that you wanted to make sure and convey before we close?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:36:44] I just really want to emphasize that the category of religion is so much bigger than Mormonism and to invite people to explore and simply inviting people to explore the possibilities to recognize that religion and Christianity are very diverse terms and can mean lots of things. And while I respect people wanting nothing to do with any of that after the painful experiences, I'm not oblivious to why people would feel that way. I have found deep meaning and hope and fulfillment in being open minded. And I also wish that for people for whom that is a possibility. And things are not all or nothing. You can do what works for you and you can love and find love in places that are called churches and are not called churches.
John Dehlin [02:37:54] Beautiful. I love that. Please self promote your TikTok channel, your church, your website, anything, your writings. Do you have a book like take this Time to self promote.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:38:10] If any of you are publishers who'd like me to write a book, please be in touch. I don't currently have a book a contract. I do make educational tiktoks about religion and linguistics and my side passions of Anne of Green Gables and training border collies. Other interests, not just the religion. Under my full name, John Daniel Odeniha at TikTok and on Instagram I have. If you've ever heard of the Fringe Theater Festival, I have a play that is touring this coming summer in select cities.
John Dehlin [02:38:47] Wait, you're a playwright?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:38:48] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:38:48] Okay.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:38:49] Yeah. So I have a. I have a play called An Autistic Priest and a Dog Walk into a Bar that toured a few cities last summer and is touring a few more this summer, but we don't know all the cities yet. So my website is my last name, which I say Odanaha, but it's looks like Odonkata Ca. We'll have to write it down for the audience somewhere.
John Dehlin [02:39:12] But yeah, I'm giving it to Brooklyn right now to include in the show notes.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:39:18] Fantastic.
John Dehlin [02:39:19] And again, the name.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:39:21] My church is the Christian church Disciples of Christ in Canada Our website is thechristianchurch ca and what's it called again
John Dehlin [02:39:29] in Salt Lake City?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:39:31] Well, our denomination is called the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, but I'm not sure the name of the local congregations here. But I'll get that to you.
John Dehlin [02:39:38] Okay. And we'll put it in the show notes.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:39:39] Yeah, it'll be better in the show notes than this clip of me not knowing.
John Dehlin [02:39:42] And again, your TikTok channel is called
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:39:44] John Daniello Danaja spelled. So the whole TikTok channel is J E a N D a N I E L O D O N N C A D A.
John Dehlin [02:39:59] In other words, check our show notes.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:40:01] Yeah. And my Instagram is the the same.
John Dehlin [02:40:04] Okay, perfect. Well, Jean, Danielle, thank you so much for coming on Mormon Stories. This has been delightful. I've loved it. 10 out of 10. 12 out of 10. And I, I hope we can stay in touch because I, I think your approach to religion and Christianity could help a lot of people who could use help and could lead to a lot of people being loved who need love.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:40:34] I hope so as well. Amen.
John Dehlin [02:40:37] All right. All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thank you to those of you who donate to make this possible. We couldn't do it without you, so thank you. For those who are not donors but value this content and want to see it continue, all you got to do is go to mormonstories.org donate and become a monthly donor. Our donations are in pretty significant decline, as is our ad revenue. I don't know exactly why that is, but I don't care. It's just the way the world works. But regardless of that, if you value this type of content and want to see it stay alive and continue the way you do it is to just become a monthly donor. We're tax deductible in the US we're transparent in our finances and we try to be. Really? You just raised your arm there. You're pro transparency.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:41:30] I am. It's one of my ex Mormon religious leader takes.
John Dehlin [02:41:34] Well, you know, non profits in the US who aren't religions have to be transparent.
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:41:39] Yes. I think churches should have to be too.
John Dehlin [02:41:42] So y' all don't have to be, but you are, Is that what you're saying?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:41:45] We strive to be fully transparent in our finances.
John Dehlin [02:41:47] That's good. Yeah. Well, anyway, we try to be as well and we try and be responsible in the way we spend the money you give. So please become a monthly donor if you'd like. There are other ways you can support us as well. Subscribing to this channel. We're like 3,000 away from hitting 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. Please take the time to subscribe to like to comment. That all helps with the algorithms. We love your feedback. So please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com or comment on this episode. We read every comment either on Spotify or on YouTube or on the blog. So please, please comment and give us your feedback. We are always looking for cool, interesting people to interview on Mormon stories. The way we found John, Danielle, is he filled out an application and recorded a three minute video, right?
Jean Daniel O'Donncada [02:42:40] I think so, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:42:41] And that's how we found him. So believe it or not, we get over a thousand applications a year and we're struggling month to month to find the right fits for our audience. So that's not to say anything disparaging about those who we don't accept. We're just always trying to make these interviews supremely relevant and compelling to our particular audience. And so if you feel like you've got a story that would be thoughtful and interesting and compelling for, for our audience, please apply. Mormonstories.org apply. Please record that video, please make your case and we would love to consider you for the show. I think that's all I've got. Thanks to Brooklyn and Julia for all they do behind the scenes along with Margi to make all this possible and to our board and yeah, so I guess I normally say be good to each other, be kind to each other. I'll add Love One another to today's episode and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.
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.
Thumbnail Credits: Main image courtesy of Jean Daniel O’Donncada; Background image from FCC Richmond
One Response
Hi John, my comment for this one is in response to something you said; “sometimes nature abhors a vacuum and when there is no religion sometimes worse things end up filling that vacuum for a lot of people.” I would agree with you at some level while also reminding you that I would consider forced polygamy and the practice of blood atonement among others are some of the worse things I can imagine.