Introduction and Guest Background

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Sean Dehlin. It's March 5, 2026, and today we're answering the question, why would a recent BYU graduate resign for the Mormon Church immediately after graduating from byu? That's today's topic. And joining us in studio today is Ryan Huey, one of our most recent BYU graduates. Hey, Ryan.

Ryan Huey [00:00:25] Hey, how's it going?

John Dehlin [00:00:26] John, thanks for coming on Mormon Stories podcast.

Ryan Huey [00:00:28] Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:00:29] I don't always get an email saying, john, I'm. I just graduated, diploma in hand. Can I come on Mormon Stories and tell you why I'm leaving the church? I don't get that email every day.

Ryan Huey [00:00:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Anything you want to say as kind of a disclaimer before we dive into your story?

Ryan Huey [00:00:47] Oh, man, I don't even know. It's crazy that I'm on this podcast. I. I'm. I'm excited to share my story because it's so fresh. I think a lot of people leave the church and it takes them several years or maybe never to come out this openly about their. Exists away from the church. Um, for me, it's. I've been at this. It was like a year ago that I decided to leave. So hopping on this podcast is really fresh for me. But I'm happy to talk about my process, why everything moves so quickly, and why I decided to make that. That decision to actually formally remove my records from the church.

John Dehlin [00:01:27] All right, well, thanks for coming on. Let's dive in. So were your parents born in the Covenant Temple? Married. All that good stuff?

Family, Upbringing, and Mormon Roots

Ryan Huey [00:01:34] They were. They actually met in the mtc. Oh, they were both teachers there. They served in Japan. Both of them didn't meet on their missions, Met as teachers in the MTC after their.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] After they finished their missions.

Ryan Huey [00:01:48] After they finished their missions.

John Dehlin [00:01:49] Okay, that's pretty. That's pretty Mormon. To meet as MTC teachers and then fall in love and get married.

Ryan Huey [00:01:56] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] Do you know what temple they got married in? I'm assuming they got married in a temple.

Ryan Huey [00:02:00] Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:02:00] Okay, and where are they from? Just city wise. Your parents?

Ryan Huey [00:02:05] My mom grew up in Barstow, California.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] Okay. I've been there. I've been there. There's a really.

Ryan Huey [00:02:10] Barstow.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:02:12] She always jokes that there's a really

John Dehlin [00:02:15] good Del Taco in Barstow.

Ryan Huey [00:02:16] Yeah. Wait, that's crazy. She loves Del Taco.

John Dehlin [00:02:19] Wow.

Ryan Huey [00:02:21] Anyway, and my dad grew up in Orem, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:02:23] Okay. Orem. Was his dad a BYU professor or anything like that or.

Ryan Huey [00:02:28] Nope, not a BYU professor. His mom was A Ludlow. So pretty prominent Mormon figure. And then his dad was a convert to the church, so no, like, family history in the church. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] All right. So they get married in the temple. They both are returned missionaries. Speaking Japanese. Your mom would have been a missionary before. Young women were really encouraged very actively to serve missions. So, yeah, she must have been extra devout, I'm guessing.

Ryan Huey [00:03:00] Very. Yeah, yeah, my mom is extremely devout. That's one of the beautiful things about her still.

John Dehlin [00:03:05] Oh, cool.

Ryan Huey [00:03:06] Very devout member of the church. She's one of the most faithful women I've ever met. Honestly, I really admire her for it. We have, you know, difference of perspective and. But she has learned to really respect my perspective, and I've learned to really respect hers, and we have an incredible relationship.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Did you see the recent Father, Daughter, Mormon Stories episode I had just a

Ryan Huey [00:03:31] couple weeks ago, the two of them together on the podcast? I did. I listened to the whole thing.

John Dehlin [00:03:36] You know where I'm going with this? We need to have your mom. You and your mom on Mormon Stories.

Ryan Huey [00:03:41] Oh, that one will never happen.

John Dehlin [00:03:43] Oh, bummer.

Ryan Huey [00:03:44] Okay. All right, I'll pitch it to her.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:03:46] Yeah, I haven't even told her that I'm on.

John Dehlin [00:03:48] Oh.

Ryan Huey [00:03:49] The podcast today.

John Dehlin [00:03:50] Well, that's. That's one way to handle it. Yeah. That would be a massive surprise. But that's cool. I get it. Okay, so super devout parents when they get married. And how many children did your parents have total?

Ryan Huey [00:04:06] Six kids total.

John Dehlin [00:04:07] Whoa. Yep.

Ryan Huey [00:04:08] Me plus five siblings. I'm right in the middle.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:04:10] Three older, two younger.

John Dehlin [00:04:12] Okay. So. And where generally were you raised?

Ryan Huey [00:04:16] I grew up Missouri. Lived there for 10 years right before my senior year of high school. Moved to Colorado, finished high school there, went to a semester at byu. Idaho before I went on my mission to Texas, then went to byu. Did the full four years at byu, plus some change.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] We'll be coming back to all that.

Ryan Huey [00:04:38] We will. Yeah. I wrote that in my outline.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] Yeah. So what was your Mormon upbringing like? Was it pretty traditional? Was it untraditional?

Ryan Huey [00:04:46] Very traditional. I grew up in a small town. I was definitely a minority as a

John Dehlin [00:04:53] member of the church should a branch or a ward.

Ryan Huey [00:04:55] It was a ward. And then it split into, I think, two branches. Or it might have just split into two wards.

John Dehlin [00:05:02] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:05:04] But the church building was a good 30 minutes away from my home. Every morning, I'd wake up and drive 30 minutes to seminary and then 30 minutes back to go to school. So it was. It was about an hour round trip drive every morning before school started in order to do early morning seminary. Very devout upbringing. Family scripture study every morning. So we'd wake up. Family scripture study. And then I would go to seminary and then I would go to school. And that we never missed a day.

John Dehlin [00:05:34] Whoa.

Ryan Huey [00:05:35] Never. My mom is very committed. I truly admire her for it. I mean, she did an excellent job raising me. I'm amazing.

John Dehlin [00:05:47] She nice.

Ryan Huey [00:05:48] She's really great.

John Dehlin [00:05:49] So, you know, family meeting, all that? Yep.

Ryan Huey [00:05:54] Family home evening every week. Typical. We'd have like a, like a family home evening board and we'd rotate responsibilities. So, like, there's an agenda. Agenda for family home evening.

John Dehlin [00:06:07] Who leads a song? Who has the lesson?

Ryan Huey [00:06:09] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:06:09] Who has the treats?

Ryan Huey [00:06:10] Yep. Very traditional Mormon ringing. Family home, anything.

John Dehlin [00:06:14] What were the types of rules or moral standards, like in terms of like our movies or PG13 movies or like swearing or coke or, you know, whatever.

Ryan Huey [00:06:25] Yeah. So PG 13 movies, once you were 13, you could watch them, but it was still case by case scenario. So movie, movie. Right. So there's like a hierarchy. Violence was more acceptable than sexual content in movies. I think that might be a typical Mormon trend. And then rated, our movies were never, never watch rated R movie. And I, when I left the house, I started to watch some rated R movies, but I would vet them too. I'd be like, there's sexual content. I don't want to watch that. I was very careful even after I left my home

John Dehlin [00:07:03] and. Yeah. So anything else about your parents or your, your siblings before we kind of get into your middle school and high school years as far as it relates to the church,

Ryan Huey [00:07:18] or is it a loving, loving family?

John Dehlin [00:07:21] Were you, were you pretty happy as a Mormon kid?

Ryan Huey [00:07:24] Extremely. Yeah. I, I, My story is a little bit unique because honestly, it was a very idyllic situation growing up. Loving mom and dad, loving siblings. And even now that I've left the faith and I've opened up to my family about it, they've been extremely accepting and supportive. It's. I've dealt with different challenges leaving the church, but I'm really grateful. I haven't dealt with any sort of disownment or even ostracization. I've stayed in really good terms with the people, family and friends in my life.

John Dehlin [00:08:00] Yeah, we'll get to all that. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:08:02] But there, but there are always, there are always things and we'll. Sure, we'll talk about that.

Being Mormon in a Non-Mormon Town

John Dehlin [00:08:07] So were you pretty proud to be a Mormon in a non Mormon state? In a non Mormon town? Not just a non Mormon state or non Mormon town. Missouri is the state that issued an exterminating order against Mormons.

Ryan Huey [00:08:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:21] In the 1840s. 30-30s. 1830s, yeah. Were you proud to be a Mormon in your non Mormon town state?

Ryan Huey [00:08:31] Yes, very proud. It was my whole identity. There's a lot of church history in Missouri, but not really where I grew up. So it wasn't extremely known about, talked about. But my older brother was really well known in high school and his whole Persona was that he was Mormon. That was like his personality. He made it a really fun thing. There weren't very many Mormons and so people would, like, make fun jokes about it, but it was all in good fun. He made a really stupid, fun little video that went like, not viral, but everyone in the high school saw it. It was called Mormon Boy Swag. And it was. It was a really fun attribute and sort of characteristic that I internalized. It became my identity. I was the Mormon kid. I never swore. I never drank. People. I think it really admired me for the lifestyle I lived and that fed the, you know, the confirmation for me, the confirmation bias that what I was doing was really good. And anyway, did you feel.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] Did you. This is. This might hurt the feelings of some believing Mormons. Did you feel kind of superior to the non Mormons around you or not?

Ryan Huey [00:09:46] I am superior. Just kidding. Did I feel superior? That's a hard one to admit. But I do think there's a superiority complex found within Mormonism and I wasn't, you know, impervious to that.

John Dehlin [00:10:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really, I mean, you know, I grew up in, you may know, I grew up in Texas in a Baptist town, and my Mormon identity was like my. My shield.

Ryan Huey [00:10:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] My superhero uniform.

Ryan Huey [00:10:15] So true.

John Dehlin [00:10:16] Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:10:17] The church does such a good job of reinforcing that. You're a peculiar people.

John Dehlin [00:10:22] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:10:22] Right. You're different from the world and so you see yourself as like, set apart. But it does come with it. A form of superiority. I'm chosen by God.

John Dehlin [00:10:31] But also I. I think we both had a similar experience in that we loved it. It was. And it was probably really good for us. Like, I didn't deal with unwanted pregnancies or STIs or alcoholism or going to jail or whatever, worst case scenario, partying in high school kind of thing. Yep. I was. I think that was probably good for me. Right.

Ryan Huey [00:10:53] I agree.

John Dehlin [00:10:54] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:10:54] I'm 26 now and I don't have liver issues. I. I feel really blessed that I grew up in. In a faith like Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:11:03] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it was a very positive experience for you.

Ryan Huey [00:11:06] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:11:08] So in terms of middle School, high school. So often on Mormon stories, it's sort of the law of chastity, shame spiral. People think that I. I'm obsessed with that topic.

Ryan Huey [00:11:20] It just comes up a lot.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] I think that's a misreading. I think the church is obsessed with that topic and it comes up in every episode. But it's in your outline, so I didn't. This isn't me. This is me following your outline. So talk about, as they call it, Utah maturation and. Yeah, your. Yeah, your battles with shame and love, chastity and bishop interviews and that sort of thing. Unless there's something else you want to talk about first.

Ryan Huey [00:11:49] No, it's fine. This is the one category where I will say Mormonism maybe wasn't super great for me growing up. I think a lot of heterosexual men in the church deal with this, this battle of guilt and shame surrounding their sexuality, surrounding their sexual outlets. And I definitely faced that growing up. I was taught things like, like masturbation is second only to murder in severity as a sin.

John Dehlin [00:12:22] And people don't believe it when I say that. That's what others are taught, right? Yeah, but that's what you were taught.

Ryan Huey [00:12:28] Yeah. Some people in the church aren't taught that extreme, you know, doctrine, but it's. It's written down in, in church, like publications. It's not like it came from nowhere. I think the first strength of youth, the old one outlined.

John Dehlin [00:12:46] Well, it's in the Book of Mormon.

Ryan Huey [00:12:47] That too, right?

John Dehlin [00:12:49] Yeah, I think it comes from the Book of Mormon.

Ryan Huey [00:12:51] Yeah. And so there, There are buffet Mormons that will kind of pick and choose which teachings they agree with and disagree with. That wasn't me. I was taught that being a buffet Mormon was wrong, that it was all or nothing. This is the true church. You can't pick and choose which teachings from the true church you abide by. And so what's written down is, is. Is law. It's canon. So I grew up with this really strict, intense view on sexuality, and my sexual outlets were frowned upon kind of to the extreme.

Sexuality, Shame, and the Law of Chastity

John Dehlin [00:13:30] So how did that manifest itself in your life in terms of your interactions with the church and then with your own mental health and well being?

Ryan Huey [00:13:38] Sure. So when I was. It's. It's vulnerable, but I think vulnerability is good. So I'm gonna share. This is hard for me, but I will share it. Yeah. Growing up, I, I felt that guilt and shame as a young teenager. And I fully believed in Mormonism and I fully believed that in order to be reconciled with God, I needed to confess My sins to somebody who held authority. And so from about age 14, I started confessing to my bishop regularly. I was so embarrassed the first time, but I confessed to my bishop. The bishop said, you shouldn't take the sacrament on Sunday. But I was, I was passing the sacrament every Sunday and I was this poster child Mormon kid. It was my whole identity growing up, you know, being one of the only Mormons in my high school. And so I couldn't pass that sacrament, the sacrament that Sunday, and I couldn't take it. And I was so embarrassed that I went to the bathroom and just acted like I had to go to the bathroom for a really long time and whoops, I accidentally missed the sacrament. And I think I actually, it put more attention on me than if I had just said, I'm not doing it today. But that just, it goes to show the level of embarrassment I felt. And this was a public sort of showcase of my unworthiness.

John Dehlin [00:15:08] And just to explain to non Mormons what it means to not take the sacrament, will you explain why, like, take us, slow down and take us through how that's embarrassing and how anyone would know you're not taking the sacrament in a, on an, on any given Sunday.

Ryan Huey [00:15:23] Right. So the sacrament is an ordinance that happens every Sunday. It's a covenant or a promise you make with God. And you're renewing that promise every time you, you partake of the sacrament. It's bread and water. It used to be bread and wine. It resembles the body of Christ and the blood of Christ, and you take that upon yourself. It's really a beautiful symbol. I appreciate symbolism and metaphors, and that's one that is really tender. The thing is, it's passed around publicly. So you're sitting down in your pew or your chair and the tray gets passed to you and you take the blood and the body of Christ in front of everyone, take the bread and

John Dehlin [00:16:06] take the water, and you're kind of passing these trays down a pew and you're sitting there with your family, but there's people in front of you and behind you.

Ryan Huey [00:16:13] Totally.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] And they can just kind of side eye. Yep. And see who's taking it and who doesn't take it. Is that what you're saying?

Ryan Huey [00:16:20] Exactly. And in doctrine and covenants, we're taught that if you partake of the bread or the water unworthily, you're drinking damnation to your soul.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] I forgot about that.

Ryan Huey [00:16:32] Yeah, it's really intense teaching. And so. And what does it mean to be worthy or unworthy? Well, that's really up to the bishop, the presiding authority. And so when I confessed to the bishop for the first time, he said, you're not worthy to partake of the sacrament. We need to get your worthiness up, basically, and then you'll be able to take it. And so I'm unworthy in the sight of God, and everybody can see it. And it's a little bit bigger for me because I have this responsibility to not just partake of the sacrament, but also to pass it, because I. Because I hold priesthood authority there too. So pass the sacrament to everyone. It's what I do every Sunday. So people are going to notice if I'm all of a sudden not passing the sacrament. Why is Ryan not passing the sacrament?

John Dehlin [00:17:19] Because it's not like in a branch or a ward. There's a overabundance of young men true. To prepare and bless and pass the sacrament. So when one isn't doing it, it's pretty glaring, right?

Ryan Huey [00:17:32] Yeah. And. And it became, you know, there would be regular moments where people would come up to me and say, hey, we need help. We passing the sacrament. And I would have to say, oh, I can't do it this week. And you don't say why? But everyone goes, well, why can't you do it this week? You know, and so you, you sort of internalize everyone else's hypothetical thoughts. Yeah. Which makes you feel bad.

John Dehlin [00:17:56] I'm just processing this now that. But, you know, from my mental health training, I think the stat is like 90 of men and 50 of women, you know, masturbate or whatever.

Ryan Huey [00:18:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:09] So, like, no one should, almost no one should have been passing or blessing the sacrament.

Ryan Huey [00:18:14] Yeah. But I don't know that as a kid, so I think there's something wrong with me.

John Dehlin [00:18:18] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:18:18] Everyone else is blessing and passing the saga. No one else is dealing with worthiness. Worthiness issues. And that, what you just described, those statistics are not outlined to me. What's outlined to me is masturbation is second only to murder. And you are unworthy in the sight of God. If you do it, you have to be reconciled with priesthood authority. And so I just internalize all that. I'm. I'm dirty, I'm broken, there's something wrong with me. I have an abnormal sex drive.

John Dehlin [00:18:44] All these thoughts and what, what's super hard about this is the, the Mormon Church culture rewards lying because all that means the other bishop and his counselors and all those other boys, if they weren't confessing, they were probably lying. Right. And then the honest person gets punished while the liars get rewarded. It's. It's not a healthy system.

Ryan Huey [00:19:11] It's. It's not a healthy system and you can sort of go, well, you know, no one can lie to God. So like, you're not, you may be lying to priesthood authority, but like God can still see your sins, so you're still kind of at a deficit. There's. But you're right, the social consequences are removed from those who are able to keep quiet and just not confess regularly.

John Dehlin [00:19:33] Yeah. Okay, so you hid in the bathroom, but. But eventually I'm guessing you weren't able to fully stop because few can. Yep. Once that genie's out of the bottle. So did you stop confessing at some point or.

Ryan Huey [00:19:48] I would. So I was encouraged to confess by people who cared about me and they thought it was what was going to be good for me. Um, but I was deeply embarrassed, so I didn't fully confess my first time. And even, even without my full confession, I was still deemed unworthy. But like, I held back details because they're, I mean, those are personal things. I don't want to share those to this priesthood authority figure. It was embarrassing.

John Dehlin [00:20:11] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:20:13] And I sort of continued that trend through my teenage years of, of confessing, but not fully. And so like I, I should have not taken the sacrament most weeks. Right?

John Dehlin [00:20:27] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:20:28] But I was, I wasn't fully honest. Yeah, you're right. It. I was honestly was decent. Ized.

John Dehlin [00:20:34] Yeah. Yeah. So it really does. I mean, it's just like a yolk of shame and self loathing and even self deception or other deception. Right. Where there's like this Donny Osmond veneer, but this dark battle raging within a young Mormon boy like you.

Ryan Huey [00:20:58] Totally.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] You know.

Ryan Huey [00:20:59] Totally. Yeah. You're expected to put on this really righteous priesthood holding facade and internally I'm feeling unworthy.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:21:08] Creates some intense cognitive dissonance and just self worth issues.

John Dehlin [00:21:16] Let me really quickly, like you could. I, I could hear a Mormon apologist today say, yes, it's a suboptimal system, but what's worse is having a bunch of teenage boys and girls having unrestrained sex. And so it's the best we have for restraining that behav. And the cost is worth the benefit. I, I want you to speak to that at some point. Okay. Whether that's now or later. But I, I guess maybe let's finish the thread. So how did, how did high school continue for you and your Mormon devoutness? How did it continue? Yeah.

Deep Belief, Mission Prep, and Spiritual Experiences

Ryan Huey [00:22:00] Yeah. So through it all again, I, I attributed my identity to Mormonism So it was my whole thing. I started saving for my mission when I was 12 years old. I was working at restaurants.

John Dehlin [00:22:13] At 12. At 12, were you busing or what were you doing? Yes.

Ryan Huey [00:22:16] Oh, well, excuse me. At 12 years old, I was teaching piano. My mom is very musical. She was a piano performance major at byu.

John Dehlin [00:22:24] Oh, wow.

Ryan Huey [00:22:25] She taught me and all my siblings the piano and she would take on students, but she only had so much time. And so the more beginning piano students that wanted to take from her, she would pass on to her kids. So that gave us this cool opportunity as a 12, 13 year old boy to make a little bit of money. We would charge nothing. I think I charged $5 per piano lesson. But as a 12 year old kid, that was really fun.

John Dehlin [00:22:52] That's awesome.

Ryan Huey [00:22:52] And as soon as I started making Money, even at 12 years old, I was putting that away towards a mission. I was always thinking about going on a mission. Um, and I had all that money saved by the time I was ready to go, which was. I was ready to go once I graduated high school. Um, I had plans to go immediately. So not, not go to school, just go on the mission and then go to school after that. Um, but this was a big deal to me. From age 12 to 18, I've been thinking about going on this mission.

John Dehlin [00:23:27] I hope they call me on a mission. Right? Yeah. Is that the song?

Ryan Huey [00:23:31] When I have grown a foot or two. Yeah. So it's a big deal and you only get one shot at it. I grew up hearing these stories about these really valiant elders, and they gave their all for two years and they were fully bought in. And so I was, I was taking this very seriously. I wanted to do my mission right. And I knew in the back of my head there were sins that had not been confessed because I'd been, you know, not talking about them super openly with my priesthood authority. And so I went through the process. I, I did the mission papers and everything. And then in my final interview with my stake president, before I was ready to go on my mission, I just, I, I said there are some things that I haven't really like, shared openly and I feel like they need to be brought to the table. I made a decision to be honest. And the stake president said, okay, well, these are serious sins, second only to murder. And. And so you gotta, you gotta be clean.

John Dehlin [00:24:33] So I'm guessing that would have been dating stuff, right? Not just.

Ryan Huey [00:24:36] No, just. Just masturbation.

John Dehlin [00:24:38] What?

Ryan Huey [00:24:39] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:40] Dang.

Ryan Huey [00:24:41] I know. He was pretty intense. He was an intense guy.

John Dehlin [00:24:45] That's so random because there's. There's stake presidents that would not have kept someone from a mission.

Ryan Huey [00:24:51] Yeah, it was. It was masturbation and pornography.

John Dehlin [00:24:53] I think that they almost always go together.

Ryan Huey [00:24:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:55] For a kid.

Ryan Huey [00:24:56] I agree.

John Dehlin [00:24:57] Yeah. I mean.

Ryan Huey [00:24:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:59] Almost always these days.

Ryan Huey [00:25:00] Right.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] Yeah. So anyway.

Ryan Huey [00:25:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:25:02] I'm just saying there's a randomness. We call it ecclesiastical roulette. Bishop roulette, Stake president.

Ryan Huey [00:25:07] So true.

John Dehlin [00:25:08] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:25:09] Yeah. Because I think my bishop would have been okay with me going on the mission.

John Dehlin [00:25:13] Right.

Ryan Huey [00:25:14] But my stake president said, no, that's unacceptable. He told me I needed three months of being clean before I could serve a mission, and that would postpone, like, well into the fall. And what am I going to do during that time? Well, I guess I'll go to byu, Idaho. And so that's where I went.

John Dehlin [00:25:30] Really quick. I want to follow that. But you mentioned some experiences in Nauvoo, spiritual experiences. Still in high school, Big time. Do you want to talk about that? Because I think that's part of your spiritual. Your faith in your testimony. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:25:46] I mean, this was not. This wasn't a facade to me. I truly believed this. And I had spiritual experiences. The youngest one I can remember was probably when I was about 12 years old, listening to my mom play a song about Jesus on the piano.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] Do you know which one it was?

Ryan Huey [00:26:00] It was. You raised me up. Josh Groban, by Josh Groban.

John Dehlin [00:26:07] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:26:07] And I remember crying. It's the first time I'd cried, like, emotionally because of something spiritual. And so, like, from a young age, I was having these spiritual experiences. And I remember one in particular in Nauvoo at efy. It was my first EFY for Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:26:25] Never Mormons. This is the city, the last city Joseph Smith lived in for four years before he was killed.

Ryan Huey [00:26:31] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] Nauvoo, Illinois.

Ryan Huey [00:26:32] Nauvoo, Illinois.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] So you went there on, like, a trip, a youth trip?

Ryan Huey [00:26:36] Yeah. Efy. It's a really popular church camp. The. The church has sort of adopted fsy, which is similar. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:26:46] That's sponsored efy, Right?

Ryan Huey [00:26:48] Exactly. Yeah. And EFY still exists. I was an EFY counselor. And we'll talk about that later. But it's. It's really common for. You're the youngest you can go to. Efy is 14 years old. And then you can go 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, and then you graduate high school. So a typical. Like if you're. If you're really devout Mormon and your parents have the finances to send you to efy, and you go once A year. You're gonna go to EFY a total of four times before you graduate high school. And that was me. I went all four times. My first time was Navu, which wasn't really too far from where I grew up in Missouri. So it worked out pretty good. And.

John Dehlin [00:27:32] Because when the Mormons were kicked out of Missouri, they went to Illinois.

Ryan Huey [00:27:35] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:27:36] On foot.

Ryan Huey [00:27:37] Yeah, on foot. Handcuffs.

John Dehlin [00:27:39] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:27:42] And so where am I going with this?

John Dehlin [00:27:45] So you went to Nauvoo as your first tfy.

Ryan Huey [00:27:47] Yes, Nauvoo. First dfy. And I wanted to obtain a testimony. Right. I'd had these spiritual experiences. But you're taught growing up that you need to obtain a testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and a testimony of Jesus Christ. And so one of the EFY teachers taught a lesson about. He referred to it as the testimony triangle. Said there are three sides to your triangle. One is knowledge, one is spiritual confirmation, and then one is experiential confirmation. So to obtain this testimony, I wanted to fill all sides of the triangle. I wanted to know for myself if Joseph Smith was a prophet. And so I. I learned about Joseph Smith from the limited material the church would give me.

John Dehlin [00:28:41] Anyway, you know where. You know what I'm about to ask, but keep going.

Ryan Huey [00:28:44] Yeah. So I learned about Joseph Smith knowledge. I received a spiritual confirmation. This happened at Carthage during that week in Nauvoo. So you. You build up to going to Carthage jail. This is where Joseph Smith was murdered. It's. You're anticipating a spiritual experience there. They tell you, like, you should spiritually prepare for this. We're going to go to Carthage. This should be a beautiful thing. So you're kind of being primed to have a spiritual experience. And that happened to me. I was sitting under a tree outside of Carthage jail. I had just gone into the room where Joseph Smith was shot. I'd felt the bullet hole in the door. And I went down to a tree and I prayed. And I remember sitting under this tree and crying. And I felt like I'd received this confirmation I'd been looking for. Joseph Smith was a prophet. He had to have been. I'm feeling these emotions so strongly that I'm crying. And then. And then over the next several years, I built out that experiential side. Now I'm living it. So those three sides of the triangle were met for me. The knowledge, spiritual, and then in practice, gaining that experiential side.

John Dehlin [00:29:58] And I actually like that. I mean, that approach. Like, learn as much as you can about something. Make sure you know how you feel about it and then live it. I mean, that's pretty solid. The knowledge part obviously is coming up for me. Let's just, let's just quickly ask. Are there things you weren't taught about Joseph Smith's behavior in Nauvoo, Illinois that you wish you had known in terms of that knowledge side of the triangle and that you think might have influenced your experience? Just because I'm curious and maybe not. I, I'm just curious.

Early Doubts and a Nuanced Father

Ryan Huey [00:30:36] Totally. I, I had a unique upbringing. My, my dad was pretty nuanced in terms of church and church history to the point where he eventually was, was sort of non believing as well. But even before he was openly non believing, I could see the signs and he would talk negatively about some church history topics. So compared to a lot of my

John Dehlin [00:31:02] peers, negatively or factually? Both. Okay. Oh, both. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:31:10] So compared to a lot of my peers, I think I was less ignorant to some of the issues within church history.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] So what age do you remember your dad dropping little truth bombs for you? And at what age do you remember realizing your dad wasn't necessarily fully on board?

Ryan Huey [00:31:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:26] And at what age did you realize maybe your dad was no longer a believer?

Ryan Huey [00:31:29] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:31:30] Just to map that out on the

Ryan Huey [00:31:32] timeline, I think when I was 16 years old is when I first started to go. Okay, these, these views are pretty nuanced.

John Dehlin [00:31:39] What year was this?

Ryan Huey [00:31:40] 2000. It would have been 2016. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:31:44] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:31:46] Yeah, easy math for me that my age pretty well represents the, the year 2016. I was 16 years old.

John Dehlin [00:31:52] So you born in 2000? Ish.

Ryan Huey [00:31:54] I was born in 1999, but end of the year.

John Dehlin [00:31:57] Okay. So at 16, your dad starts dropping little truth bombs or hints.

Ryan Huey [00:32:02] Little truth bombs. And it's not like he was trying to ever like indoctrinate us or, or de. Doctrinate us, if that's even a term. I think he just, there were some issues that he couldn't really abide by. Race in the priesthood is one that I, I would hear about frequently how, how African Americans couldn't hold the priesthood for so long. And that's just factual, but it's not talked about in church settings. It's. I really have my father to attribute. Like I'm, I'm grateful that those truths genuinely were, were brought to light in, in that way. So I understood some of the issues, but on a very surface level. Surface level enough that I could kind of go, oh well, God's all knowing and I can't really comprehend his ways. And so there's gotta be A reason behind this. We can kind of just put this on the table, put it on the shelf. Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:59] And the big. Obviously we're doing this 40 part series with John Turner on Joseph Smith. Obviously, the big thing in Nauvoo is Joseph's polygamy and polyam. Right. So by 16, 17, were you aware of that?

Ryan Huey [00:33:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:13] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:33:13] Yeah. I don't think at 14 years old, when I was having this, you know, spiritual confirmation that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I think I, I knew about polygamy, but I don't think I ever really thought too hard about it. I think it was, I just took at face value the explanation that, well, Abraham had lots of wives, so clearly sometimes this is okay and sometimes it's not. And I went, okay, that makes sense. And I moved on.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] Yeah. And if you're like me, you know that there was polygamy in early Mormon history, but you're never taught to tie it to actually Joseph Smith.

Ryan Huey [00:33:46] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:47] You're only told that he was married to Emma. And for me, there was never any church discussion in Sunday school, in priesthood, in seminary, about Joseph smith marrying over 30 women. Is that, was that true for you?

Ryan Huey [00:34:03] I would say that's mostly true for me. It was talked about.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:34:08] But not frequently.

John Dehlin [00:34:09] This is post.

Ryan Huey [00:34:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:11] Gospel topics essays. This is post Mormon stories. This is post CES letter.

Ryan Huey [00:34:16] Yeah. The norm is changing big time right now. Polygamy has to be talked about. The church can't avoid it anymore. And so it is, it's, it's openly talked about in a lot of church situations. In Church on Sunday, a little bit less. But as a BYU student, certainly as any college student who attends institute, it's, it's talked about and you sort of hear the apologist arguments for it. And to be honest, I was pretty good at signing off on apologist arguments. I could, I could see both vantage points. I could see both perspectives, and I chose the one that I thought was going to make me the most happy, which was the one that kept me in the church.

John Dehlin [00:34:59] Interestingly, you kind of had your spiritual confirmation before the full knowledge.

Ryan Huey [00:35:05] True.

John Dehlin [00:35:05] So, I mean, that's advantageous for the church if they can have you with a firm emotional testimony before you're given all the information in that triangle. It's going to land differently. The information is going to land differently if you're already a believer.

Ryan Huey [00:35:19] Yeah. You're being programmed from a young age. And I know that word might carry some weight to it, but it's true. You're being conditioned to believe a certain Way. So you're going to. When you're. When you're pursuing truth, a very strong confirmation bias or a personal bias is going to be fed into that pursuit of truth. And there's nothing you can do about that because you've been raised being taught that the church is true.

John Dehlin [00:35:46] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:35:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:48] Okay, so for you, polygamy, just as polygamy was just, we don't understand God's ways. Is that pretty much okay?

Ryan Huey [00:35:54] I was able to excuse it pretty well. I got really good at mental gymnastics later on in my life. And we can talk about that. I actually read the CES letter before I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [00:36:06] Whoa. Okay, wait. I have to ask. Did it occur to you at all that you were being sort of psychologically tormented over. I'll just say masturbation. When. When the founder of your church, married mother, daughter pairs, sister pairs, teenage girls as young as 14. And by all accounts, he likely had sex with some or most of them. Right. Lied about it, hid it from his own wife. I don't mean to be ham fisted here, but I mean, that's true.

Ryan Huey [00:36:47] Right?

John Dehlin [00:36:47] And then you're being tormented for just like, normal, healthy, normative behavior that probably never. You never made that connection, I'm guessing.

Ryan Huey [00:36:56] I see that now.

John Dehlin [00:36:59] Hindsight's before today or today before.

Ryan Huey [00:37:02] Whoa, this is blowing my mind.

John Dehlin [00:37:05] No, it's wild, right? Isn't that kind of wild?

Ryan Huey [00:37:07] It's wild. And to have those kinds of thoughts to me was like, I'm just. I'm giving my. Myself an excuse for my bad behavior. I really internalized was. I truly believed that what I was doing was wrong and that it made me less than. And yeah, to come up with excuses was just avoiding the problem. I saw this as a problem.

John Dehlin [00:37:30] Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, yeah. So back to Naboo. You have a strong spiritual experience. I mean, other people go to New York and do the Sacred Grove.

Ryan Huey [00:37:43] Yep, I did that too.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] Okay. You did that too?

Ryan Huey [00:37:46] Yeah. That was my last EFY, so I must have been 17.

John Dehlin [00:37:50] Looking back now, do you see that as manipulative? Do you see that as healthy and like myth and we all need heroes and it's good. It's. It's good formation or somewhere in the middle. Like how. Looking back now, how do you see EFY visiting church sites, being given limited history and then being curated to have spiritual experiences while super young?

Ryan Huey [00:38:14] Right. I. I love a good story. Everyone loves a good story. I think stories hold the potential to, like, instill values into us. Ultimately, a story should be a mirror when you Hear about the hero. You can see yourself in the protagonist. And so those stories, you know, as a motivator. I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to be connected with God. I wanted to serve and love people around me. I don't see these stories as bad in that sense. The problem is these stories aren't given metaphorical implications. They're given literal meaning. And so there's sort of this difference. And I learned this when I was going through my faith transition between objective truth and subjective truth. I, the, I don't have a problem with the stories except that they claim to be objective.

John Dehlin [00:39:12] The only problem is, is that they don't have as much weight. They're not as persuasive. They're not as. That's actually kind of true if they're viewed as symbolic or metaphorical. So they would be neutering their value in your life if they told you. Yep. Okay. Yep. These aren't really true, right?

Ryan Huey [00:39:28] Yeah, yeah, it does hold. Wait, I, There are some religions. I know. I, A lot of people who are into Buddhism don't necessarily believe in the theology. Yeah. But they still derive a lot of value from the practices, the meditation practices. And so, yeah, it could have.

John Dehlin [00:39:47] Or even the stories, or even the stories probably aren't true.

Ryan Huey [00:39:50] Yeah. And we look at, I mean, George Washington, the founding Fathers. Right. We paint these guys to be incredible. They were slave owners. Like they were not great people. But are there still good values that you can derive from those stories? I think so. But at some point you have to, you have to learn that there, there's nuance.

John Dehlin [00:40:11] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:40:12] There are facts you're not being told. So it's tricky. I, I, I see a lot of value in my Mormon upbringing and I see, I see some misleading practices, which is ultimately what caused me to remove my records entirely.

John Dehlin [00:40:28] Sure. Yeah. You just gave the ending away. No, no, we started that way. Okay. So you have these EFY spiritual experiences at church history sites. You have a firm testimony, you have a dad who's nuanced.

Dad Comes Out as a Nonbeliever and the CES Letter

Ryan Huey [00:40:43] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:40:43] Did your dad come out to you as a non believer before you put in your mission papers?

Ryan Huey [00:40:49] He did, because I pressed him.

John Dehlin [00:40:51] Talk about. Yeah. And you told me that your dad is. Who was listening to Mormon stories years ago.

Ryan Huey [00:40:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:57] And has even come to a thrive or something.

Ryan Huey [00:40:59] Yeah. He's met you, but a lot of people. So.

John Dehlin [00:41:01] Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah. Talk, slow down and talk about like your interactions with your dad and the family dynamic.

Ryan Huey [00:41:09] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:09] When you've got this eight member devout Mormon family. Yeah. And all Of a sudden, dad starts showing cracks in his belief. What was that like?

Ryan Huey [00:41:17] Yeah, so we were. We were a poster Mormon family. I mean, we. People really looked up to our family unit, I think, for good reason. I. I really admire my parents for the way that they raised us, but. Yeah, so I. I think the decision was, like, my dad didn't believe in the church, but he recognized that the church did a lot of good for his family, and he recognized that him leaving the church would cause a lot of upset. And so he made the decision to let those personal beliefs sort of remain closeted. I don't think it was a bad decision on his part. It allowed me to sort of move forward in my childhood with limited confusion towards religion. I could kind of just believe it at face value, and I kind of do find some value in believing in something in your adolescent years. And so I don't fault my dad. I don't fault my mom at all. But I could see the cracks in his testimony. Right. And I was so judgmental, but I could tell that maybe he didn't believe things quite as devoutly as I did. And I. I kind of came to him point blank before I went on my mission, and I just said, hey, Dad, I just want to know, like, do you believe in the church? And. And my dad's an honest man. And I think he. I think he's probably torn. And I think he just went like, son, you're. You're coming to me, and you're asking me point blank. And, like, I feel like I just need to be honest with you. And, like, yeah, to be honest, I don't really believe it. And my dad did not instill this desire in me to leave the church. Right. Even after that conversation, I was 18 years old. I stayed in the church for another. Gosh. I left when I was 24, so six years after that. So it's. It was not, you know, triggered by my dad, I don't think. I think I still. Even if my dad was a fully devout Mormon, I think eventually I would have left the church.

John Dehlin [00:43:23] What do you think about him? Would you feel about him when he told you that?

Ryan Huey [00:43:29] I'm ashamed to admit that I felt some judgment. I also wanted to understand where he was coming from. I think I've always had a pretty open mind, even as a devout member of the church. I've always been pretty nuanced towards lgbtq, and I've always felt like we should just love everyone where they're at, despite their beliefs. I've had these sorts of Thoughts and ideas. And so when my dad said, I don't believe in the church anymore, I wanted to understand where he was coming from. And that's why I read the CES letter at 18 years old, before I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [00:44:02] And he didn't recommend it, or he did recommend it.

Ryan Huey [00:44:05] I'm trying. I don't remember who recommended it, but I actually think I know. My older brother had read the CES letter, and he is still active lds. My mom had read the CES letter, and she's still active lds.

John Dehlin [00:44:19] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:44:19] And so I felt comfortable reading it because these devout members of the church had read it. And I wasn't worried about sort of dismantling my testimony, but I. But I moved forward very cautiously and very intentionally. I would read the CES letter, like, contingent on me reading the Book of Mormon the same amount of time. So I could read the CES letter, but I had to dedicate the same amount of time to reading the Book of Mormon. And I had regular conversations with faithful members who had read the CES letter. And I. I approached it from a standpoint of, I want to understand this document from both sides. I came away from reading the CES letter understanding both sides on some arguments and on others, not really being able to excuse the Book of Abraham is one that I've never been able to reconcile.

John Dehlin [00:45:10] So that was a problem for you at 18?

Ryan Huey [00:45:12] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was never able to reconcile the Book of Abraham. I was able to kind of, you know, throughout the. The long scroll theory or the catalyst theory, and. But. But I never fully reconciled that one. That one was one where I had to go, okay, I just need to act on faith. And now I look back and I go, why?

John Dehlin [00:45:34] But that was the impetus to my faith crisis.

Ryan Huey [00:45:37] Really. The big one broke your shelf.

John Dehlin [00:45:40] That was the first big one. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:45:42] It's a big one.

John Dehlin [00:45:43] Yeah. Yeah. Because mostly because I had lived to my 30s and never been told the story.

Ryan Huey [00:45:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] I'm like, this my response.

Ryan Huey [00:45:51] That'll do it.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] Well, my cousin told me, let me tell you about these scrolls and the mummy and the fact that Egyptologists.

Ryan Huey [00:45:57] Right.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] You know, my response was, there's no way that's true.

Ryan Huey [00:46:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:02] And he's like, go, read about it. I'm like, okay, but this is back in, like, 2000, 2001. Anyway, for me, it was just the fact that I had not been told it.

Ryan Huey [00:46:10] I can only imagine, because I. Because I had heard some things growing up.

John Dehlin [00:46:14] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:46:15] But I think a lot of members of the church who are now in their 40s and 50s.

John Dehlin [00:46:19] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:46:19] I mean, growing up.

John Dehlin [00:46:20] Like your dad.

Ryan Huey [00:46:21] Like my dad. I mean, growing up, you're told nothing.

John Dehlin [00:46:24] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:46:25] I mean, you, you find this stuff out and you go, oh, I've been lied to my whole life. And I think the shelf breaks really quickly. In that case, for those who don't

John Dehlin [00:46:34] know, go to cesletter.org it's a book, it's a PDF and it's just. Jeremy Runnels is a someone who's been on Mormon stories many times. It's basically 80 page document about the things that caused him to lose his faith. It's influenced a lot of people. Wow. So, okay, so you read the CES letter at 18 before your mission. Yep. Book of Abraham was a crack or a shelf item. Yeah. Do you remember any other shelf? Was polygamy a shelf item or was racism a shelf item?

Ryan Huey [00:47:06] It's all tough.

John Dehlin [00:47:06] Book of Mormon. Was Book of Mormon historicity a shelf item?

Ryan Huey [00:47:10] Yeah, there. And there were some. I read. Eventually I read a response to the CES letter.

John Dehlin [00:47:15] An apologist response by Jim Bennett or someone else.

Ryan Huey [00:47:18] I don't remember.

John Dehlin [00:47:18] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:47:21] But I know he met Jeremy Reynolds.

John Dehlin [00:47:22] Yeah, it's Jim Bennett.

Ryan Huey [00:47:23] Okay. And so I was able to, I mean, there, there are some things. So, like the historicity of the Book of Mormon and, you know, claiming that Joseph Smith sort of took names of cities and places from his childhood or from maps that he had and stuff like that. There are some claims that are far fetched. Like some of those, those cities that Joseph Smith supposedly derived from his childhood weren't named until after the Book of Mormon was published. I don't know, little things like that. So I was able to look at the CES letter with some nuance. Look at the response with some nuance. I think I was a closeted, very nuanced Mormon and outwardly I was just fully devout, fully bought in, but inwardly I went, there's the possibility that this is not right.

John Dehlin [00:48:13] Interesting.

Ryan Huey [00:48:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:14] So at 18, you were willing to, you were willing to at least entertain the possibility in your mind that the church wasn't true.

Ryan Huey [00:48:23] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:48:24] Whoa.

Ryan Huey [00:48:24] And I think I've heard you talk about being a utility Mormon before. Yeah, I think I fell into that category where I went, I don't know, like there's, there's definitely possibility for this being not true. But it works so well in my life. I fit the mold great. I'm a, I'm a straight white male. I've got the priesthood. Right. A loving Mormon family, a loving community, all these friends in the church. It worked really well for me in my life, and I think it was an avenue through which I could do a lot of good. I could serve within my community. There's. There's serving outside of the community as well. And so if I'm 50, 50 on whether or not it's true, why don't I just fully commit to it being true? Because it's going to do the best for me in my life. Or so I thought.

John Dehlin [00:49:12] No, I. I stayed in the church 13 years after I lost my faith in it.

Ryan Huey [00:49:17] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:49:17] Feeling like it would be the best thing for my marriage.

Ryan Huey [00:49:20] Interesting.

John Dehlin [00:49:20] For myself and for my children.

Ryan Huey [00:49:22] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:49:23] Can I just say really quickly, I had the same dilemma your dad did. When I was in Logan, I met a man who's my accountant, who did my. Did my, you know, taxes for Mormon stories and for our personal. And he confided in me that he didn't believe anymore, but he had not told his wife or kids because he. He didn't want to wreck their lives. He didn't want to blow up his marriage.

Ryan Huey [00:49:49] Wild.

John Dehlin [00:49:50] And. And so, you know, that introduced to me this idea of, like, whoa, do I lie to my kids? Do I hide this from my kids? But then the flip side is, if I lie and hide from my kids because I think it's good for them overall, then if they go on a mission and get married in the temple, but then find out it's not true, and then their life blows up as a result, and they find out I knew and hid and lied to them or raised them in something I knew wasn't true, then they would turn to me and say, you knew all along. And that's the dilemma a parent faces. Do they want to blow up their family? Do they want to blow up their marriage? Not all marriages survive this. Do they know a better way to raise their kids?

Ryan Huey [00:50:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:39] So that's the type of stuff your dad was. And I struggle with trying to figure all this out.

Ryan Huey [00:50:44] Totally. So it's a valid struggle. I think a good analogy, and this would sound so offensive to a believing member of the church, is Santa Claus. Parents lie to their kids all the time, and it's about Santa. And eventually either you tell your kids or they find out that Santa Claus isn't real. And imagine that, but stretched out over a lot more years. And you build your life around it, and it's just. It's. It's discovering Santa Claus isn't real to the extreme.

John Dehlin [00:51:14] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess for your dad, I mean, something that really stresses Out a non believing Mormon parent is the idea of their kids serving a mission and becoming part of the church's effective salesforce when the parent knows that they don't believe anymore. That's a really hard thing for a parent. And I think every non believing Mormon parent faces that moment of, do I at least let my kid know I don't believe anymore before they make the final decision to go on a mission. Right. And I guess for your dad's sake, for his conscience's sake, there's a part of me that's glad he was able to. That you forced that conversation with him.

Ryan Huey [00:51:58] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:51:58] Because I imagine that felt good to him on some level to be able to have that conversation with you before you served your mission.

Ryan Huey [00:52:05] Yeah, I would agree.

John Dehlin [00:52:06] Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that's really fascinating. And so you were. Would you say you were 50? 50. Church is true at that point?

Serving a Mission and Temple Experience

Ryan Huey [00:52:15] At that point, yes.

John Dehlin [00:52:17] Wow.

Ryan Huey [00:52:17] And I made the decision to serve my mission anyway.

John Dehlin [00:52:21] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:52:21] Because I thought, well, even if the church isn't true, and this is where I gave myself an ultimatum. I said, if I ever do leave the church, I will never leave Christianity. I love Jesus way too much, and I will never remove my records from the church, because why would I do that? And spoiler alert, I wouldn't consider myself a Christian and I no longer have my records in the church. But I decided I'm going to follow Jesus even if the church isn't true. This is a way that I can follow Jesus, serve people the way he would. So I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [00:52:54] Okay, wait. So as an act of faith, you put in your papers and then you're told by your stake president because you do healthy, normative teenage boy and girl behavior, you aren't worthy yet to go on a mission. So you go to BYU Idaho.

Ryan Huey [00:53:12] Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] First semester or for a year?

Ryan Huey [00:53:14] Yeah. So first thing before I went to BYU Idaho is I got rid of my smartphone and I got a flip phone.

John Dehlin [00:53:20] I've thought about doing that. Not for porn, but yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:53:24] Just in general.

John Dehlin [00:53:25] Social media is such a problem. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:53:27] And social media was part of it, but it was mostly the porn thing. I actually don't have social media anymore. I got rid of it maybe five months ago. Still have my smartphone, but I got rid of that distraction. That's besides the point. Got a flip phone, went to BYU Idaho for a semester. I did my. I got, you know, I was clean for three months.

John Dehlin [00:53:49] So you did it?

Ryan Huey [00:53:50] I did it.

John Dehlin [00:53:50] You did three months. That's actually very. I'll just say Is. I was a therapist at BYU in the counseling center.

Ryan Huey [00:53:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:58] And students would come to me trying to stay clean for multiple months.

Ryan Huey [00:54:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:03] And it's very hard. Not. Not. Not just because it's normal, healthy behavior, but because trying not to do it psychologically often makes you want to do it more.

Ryan Huey [00:54:14] Exactly. It's like, don't think about unicorns. What do you think about.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:54:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:19] So the fact that you went three months is kind of very. It was very. It's very difficult, I think, in my experience.

Ryan Huey [00:54:26] Yeah. And if I didn't get the flip phone, I don't think I could have done it, but I pretty much couldn't access any adult content.

John Dehlin [00:54:33] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:54:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:35] You didn't have a laptop.

Ryan Huey [00:54:36] Yeah, I did, but I was able to restrain. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:42] Well. Okay. How was byu, Idaho?

Ryan Huey [00:54:44] Loved it.

John Dehlin [00:54:45] Oh, cool.

Ryan Huey [00:54:46] Loved it. Only there for one semester. I think I loved BYU Idaho even more than that. I loved the autonomy that I was suddenly given. You know, I grew up in a very structured home and, like, very regimented, and so I was suddenly all on my own. And that was incredibly exciting to me. I'm a very independent person, like, to figure things out on my own, so I had a great time. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:55:10] Was it good for your testimony? BYU, ID?

Ryan Huey [00:55:12] Yeah, for sure. I was all. I was all bought in. Went after that semester. Went on my mission, I think. Yeah. I had. I made that decision. I was gonna commit to the church anyway, even though I wasn't sure if it was true. And I committed to that. That when I left on my mission. Are you ready to jump into mission now? Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:55:33] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:55:34] When I left on my mission, you got called. That's when I realized Texas, Fort Worth.

John Dehlin [00:55:39] Okay.

Ryan Huey [00:55:41] I realized that I. It was really. It's really hard to serve a mission if you don't know the church is true.

John Dehlin [00:55:46] Yeah, absolutely. Because you're supposed to testify that you know it's true every day, Everyone, every day. And it's not. You can't just say, I hope it's true. Yeah. Or I feel it's true. Right.

Ryan Huey [00:55:58] Yeah. You can't sit down with someone who's interested in the church and be like, yeah, I think this might be. This might be true. We have cookies sometimes at activities. Yeah. So I. I quickly discovered that that wasn't going to cut it. I needed to know that the church was true for myself, and it became my. My endeavor. I was told in the MTC that the more you. This is crazy. The more that you proclaim the truthfulness of the gospel, the more you'll believe it yourself. Well, duh. I mean, that's like, that's like emotional mental programming at its finest. And to me, I was like, oh, I just need to act in faith. But now I was being programmed.

John Dehlin [00:56:41] Yeah. The best way to gain a testimony is by burying it. That's what I was saying.

Ryan Huey [00:56:44] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:56:45] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:56:46] So I did that.

John Dehlin [00:56:47] That's self brainwashing.

Ryan Huey [00:56:49] Self brainwashing? Yeah. Wild. But you don't see that. Yeah, you are in an echo chamber for two years. It's insane.

John Dehlin [00:56:56] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:56:59] Yep. The first year. So like, first half of my mission was really like building that, building that, building that. I had a moment halfway through my mission where I was preparing to go to the temple. I was going to get to go. I didn't get to go that much on my mission. And I went, dallas, Temple, Dallas. And had a, like a subpar experience. And that affected me.

John Dehlin [00:57:20] What does that mean, subpar experience in the temple?

Ryan Huey [00:57:23] I mean, I've been going through this, this piecing together my faith for a year and really committing to the bit. And then I had this moment where I was going to go to the temple. I fasted to prepare. I prayed every day and read my scriptures about temple work. I was, I wanted to have a really meaningful experience in the temple because I thought this is the moment that my testimony is, is made or it's broken. And I went to the temple and it was fine, but there was. I didn't feel anything special. Yeah, it was, it was a ritual, it was a ceremony. And then I went home and I went, that's it. That's what I'm committing my life to right now. I've spent a year devoting myself to this. I had a moment halfway through my mission where I went, I don't know. I don't know if this is what I want to do. I called my mission president and told him about my experience. He was a very loving man. Love my mission president. And he helped me sort of reason through some of this. He sent me some scriptures to read in Exodus about temple stuff and helps me sort of piece together why I could have had that experience. And he helped me do the mental gymnastics to go, okay, no, I can keep doing this. And I. And I finished. And then the second half of my mission was like, testimony built, testimony built, testimony built. And by the time I came home from my mission, I had sort of worked through that faith crisis. And stepping off the plane coming home, I was fully bought in, fully bought into the church. I had read a response to the CES letter at that point, so I'd kind of worked that through. I'd read a lot of material about temple ceremonies and stuff, and I thought, no, I fully believe this. Like, I'm committed. And that was freshman byu, Ryan. Fully committed.

John Dehlin [00:59:17] Would it surprise you to know that the author of the response to the CES letter doesn't really view things that way anymore?

Ryan Huey [00:59:24] No way. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me, actually.

John Dehlin [00:59:28] Yeah. Wow.

Ryan Huey [00:59:29] He.

John Dehlin [00:59:30] I did, like, 10 hours with him on Mormon stories.

Ryan Huey [00:59:33] Really?

John Dehlin [00:59:33] While he was still a believer? Yeah. A nuanced believer, sure. But I don't think he's still in the same place.

Ryan Huey [00:59:40] That's fascinating.

John Dehlin [00:59:41] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [00:59:41] Yeah. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:59:44] But I think he's still great. I mean, I think he still feels like, oh, it's helped people. So I'll leave it up.

Ryan Huey [00:59:49] Sure. Yeah. Okay, cool.

John Dehlin [00:59:52] Anyway, it's kind of wild.

Ryan Huey [00:59:53] That is pretty wild.

Arriving at BYU and Navigating the Honor Code

John Dehlin [00:59:56] So you get home and what. What happens? Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:00:01] Yep. Go to BYU Provo.

John Dehlin [01:00:03] Not Idaho.

Ryan Huey [01:00:04] Not Idaho.

John Dehlin [01:00:05] Why?

Ryan Huey [01:00:06] I always wanted to go to Provo. I didn't get in the first time I applied. BYU, ID is my backup plan. Reapplied and got in okay. Went there fully devout. I'm pretty normal. Like, I. I went there.

John Dehlin [01:00:20] When you sign the honor code before you go, do you think about what you're signing? And do you think about the fact that your education, your. Your degree, your standing, your status at the university could be in jeopardy if you lose your faith? Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:00:40] No, not really. Why would I lose my faith, John?

John Dehlin [01:00:44] Exactly. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:00:48] No, yeah, it was. It wasn't a question in my mind. Obviously, I'm going to be Mormon for the rest of my life.

John Dehlin [01:00:53] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:00:53] Yeah. So now you don't really think about those implications, which I think this is where I felt like I. I kind of got, you know, a little bait and switch from byu, and I, I. My last year at BYU was not enjoyable.

John Dehlin [01:01:09] Well, don't. Don't jump ahead.

Ryan Huey [01:01:11] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:01:11] So you go to BYU Provo. Yeah. What was it like? Did you do the dorms?

Ryan Huey [01:01:16] Did you Actually, no. I had some friends who were no longer freshmen, and I wanted to live with them.

John Dehlin [01:01:22] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:01:22] And so it was actually against the rules. You had to live in the dorms as a freshman. But I read the fine prints and saw that you don't lose any sort of, like, endorsements or accreditation or anything like that. You just have to pay, like, a $75 fine. And so I said, okay, well, I'm just going to pay the fine. So I lived off campus. Never did the freshman housing thing.

John Dehlin [01:01:43] Did you let's see. So you didn't live in the dorms. Did you know what you wanted to study degree wise?

Ryan Huey [01:01:59] Yeah, I thought that I wanted to do like pre dental stuff, so study science. And then I decided I didn't want to do that and then I didn't know what I wanted to do. And then I looked into entrepreneurship and then that wasn't a good fit. I bounced around a bit, ultimately settled on HR management. It was within the business school which I had an affinity for, that sort of thing. And it was very, it was a very people oriented degree and I'm a very social person and I could take my business acumen and sort of apply the two together. It just seemed like a good fit. And when I took some of the classes and started moving that direction, I discovered that it was something I, I was at least somewhat passionate about and ended up getting my degree there.

John Dehlin [01:02:45] I forgot to ask you a question about your mission, so I'm going to just throw this in.

Ryan Huey [01:02:50] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:02:50] When you were doubting on your mission, halfway through, did you ever reach out to your dad to talk to him about it?

Ryan Huey [01:02:57] I did.

John Dehlin [01:02:58] How was that? Or your mom?

Ryan Huey [01:03:01] I did not reach out to my mom. I reached out to my dad.

John Dehlin [01:03:05] Were you able to call home by this point? Weekly.

Ryan Huey [01:03:08] Weekly.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] Okay. So they had changed the rule about that.

Ryan Huey [01:03:11] They had changed the rule. The first couple months of my mission was old rule and then, but for most of my mission I could call every week. Yep. I called my dad.

John Dehlin [01:03:19] How did he handle his son? Questioning the faith as a missionary, as a non believing, physically and mentally out Mormon dad?

Ryan Huey [01:03:29] Yeah, he's, he's just so supportive. He, he sees a lot of value in me, discovering who I am and discovering what I believe and he'll support me any way I go.

John Dehlin [01:03:41] So he didn't, you didn't feel like he was trying to influence you, like come home, you know?

Ryan Huey [01:03:45] No, my dad has never tried to influence me one way or the other.

John Dehlin [01:03:48] Wow.

Ryan Huey [01:03:48] Uh, he's been very supportive. I'm sure internally he might struggle with that. He might want to try to convince me to leave, but he doesn't do that because this isn't, this isn't his journey, it's mine. And so he'll, I love this about my dad. He'll listen to me and he'll say like, like, son, that's, these are good thoughts you're having. Like, I support you if you're in and I support you if you're out. He's always been that way.

John Dehlin [01:04:16] Makes me want to know what his profession is, but you may or may not be able to say.

Ryan Huey [01:04:18] He's a. I don't know if I can. I'm sure I can. I mean, by trade, he's a therapist.

John Dehlin [01:04:23] Oh, a psychologist Or a psychologist.

Ryan Huey [01:04:25] He got his PhD in marriage and family psychology.

John Dehlin [01:04:28] Oh, cool. From Texas Tech.

Ryan Huey [01:04:30] From Purdue.

John Dehlin [01:04:31] Oh, okay, cool. Oh, wow. All right, cool. Shout out to Brother Huey.

Ryan Huey [01:04:37] Brother Huey.

John Dehlin [01:04:38] Was he ever a bishop?

Ryan Huey [01:04:40] He was in the bishopric.

John Dehlin [01:04:41] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:04:41] Ever a bishop? I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:04:43] Okay, well, that's cool. So he let you have your own journey. Okay, so back to BYU. What year did you start BYU? Oh, that's what I was trying to think.

Ryan Huey [01:04:51] 2021.

John Dehlin [01:04:53] Okay, so this is post Covid.

Ryan Huey [01:04:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:04:56] This is during the COVID era.

Ryan Huey [01:04:58] Was it 2020? No, it was beginning of 2021.

John Dehlin [01:05:01] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:05:02] Like January 2020.

John Dehlin [01:05:03] So this would have been in the COVID era.

Ryan Huey [01:05:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:05] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:05:06] Covet hit halfway through my mission, and then. Yeah, first couple years of BYU were pretty covet influenced.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] Okay. Okay. So we're talking 2000s now at BYU. All right. So, I mean, I have a couple questions about what was going on. Byu, there was the whole light the rainbow thing, right?

Ryan Huey [01:05:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:25] Was that. And, you know, the church.

Ryan Huey [01:05:27] I never cared.

John Dehlin [01:05:28] What?

Ryan Huey [01:05:28] I never cared.

John Dehlin [01:05:29] Okay, wait, wait. You said earlier you were LGBT kind of friendly.

Ryan Huey [01:05:33] I was, yeah. But I didn't have, like, a political stance on it. I was, like, pretty ignorant, I'm ashamed to admit now, like, politically, even, like, social politics. I kind of just went. My. My concerns to graduate college, find a wife, and have some kids. So I supported lgbtq. If I stopped, you know, two guys or two girls holding hands, I didn't care. And I. I had some friends that were gay, and it never affected my relationships with them. But I. I guess I wasn't. I wasn't overly adamant about lgbtq.

John Dehlin [01:06:07] So when LGBT BYU students are secretly lighting up the big Y. Byu, why? On the side of the mountain, Rainbow at night with rainbow colors. What did you think or feel about that?

Ryan Huey [01:06:20] Not much. I. I guess I had heard. I'd heard about it through social circle. Other BYU students. I think a lot of BYU students who are devout, which was my friend group, would talk, you know, kind of negatively about that kind of a thing. And I never talked negatively about it. I would just kind of go, I don't know why we care to talk about it positively or negatively. People can kind of do what they want.

John Dehlin [01:06:42] Kind of a libertarian. Live and let live.

Ryan Huey [01:06:45] Yeah, kind of. And I'm not that way now. Now I, like, I. I'm pretty adamant about accepting people for who they are. I was recently hanging out with some. Some of my friends who all graduated from byu, and they're all still devout, and they were. They were throwing around the word tranny and it.

John Dehlin [01:07:06] Referring to transgender people, referring to transgender.

Ryan Huey [01:07:08] It stabbed me in the. In the heart. And I went. I don't know if I would have said. I think I did say. I've. I've been much more vocal about that sort of thing now. But it kind of hit me because I went, these are my friends. Like, did I ever say that derogatory term? Like, I've sort of become more self aware of the ways in which I've been just kind of ignorant about social issues that do matter. But as a BYU student, I just didn't. I was pretty apathetic. I didn't really care.

John Dehlin [01:07:40] Yeah. I mean, it's developmentally normal to be focused on what you're focused on as a young adult oftentimes. Do you remember Holland's musket speech? Well, do you remember. Do you remember the BYU graduate? Well, do you remember. There's so many things to remember. Do you remember when Cosmo was gay? When Cosmo came out as gay? Were you there when that happened?

Ryan Huey [01:08:01] I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:08:01] You didn't even know. That's Charlie Bird.

Ryan Huey [01:08:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:03] So at some point while you were at byu, the Cosmo, the cougar came out as gay, but you didn't even know.

Ryan Huey [01:08:08] No.

John Dehlin [01:08:08] What a bubble.

Ryan Huey [01:08:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:10] You're there. It's national news.

Ryan Huey [01:08:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:12] And you didn't even know.

Ryan Huey [01:08:14] Yeah. I'm ashamed to admit I was politically very ignorant.

John Dehlin [01:08:17] No, don't be ashamed. It's just. It's just. It's. The bubble's real. I say that all the time. The Mormon bubble is real. Right. Mormons do their thing, and they often are oblivious to what's going on in the church.

Ryan Huey [01:08:28] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:08:28] Let alone outside the church. Okay, so you didn't know Charlie Bird, Cosmo, came out as gay, did you? Do you remember when Holland gave the famous musket talk? Yep. Okay. Yeah. Because that was in response to Charlie. No, that was in response to another BYU student who is valedictorian coming out as gay during his graduation valedictorian speech. Holland's talk was in response to that.

Ryan Huey [01:08:51] So that's messy.

John Dehlin [01:08:52] Did you process. Did you know about the. The valedictorian coming out as gay as a BOA student? Do you remember that?

Ryan Huey [01:09:00] I didn't know about the valedictorian coming out as gay.

John Dehlin [01:09:02] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:09:03] I knew about the musket fire speech, and I listened to it and I went, well, that's pretty intense. But it didn't. It didn't rock me. Like, it, like it would today. Like, if I heard that today, I'd be like, oh, my God. But, okay, back then, I just kind of went, oh, that's. It's intense. But, yeah, Godly truth is. Godly truth. I don't know. I probably said something stupid like that.

John Dehlin [01:09:25] No, no, no. I mean, yeah. I imagine most BYU students and most Mormons are just that way.

Ryan Huey [01:09:31] Right.

John Dehlin [01:09:31] Focused on their faith and their lives.

Ryan Huey [01:09:33] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:09:34] And they are oblivious to all the stuff that's going on. Okay, how did you have. So at some point, the church with. With Mormon stories and the CES letter and other things, the Church realized it was going to lose a lot of the older generations. But the reason why mostly was, as we mentioned earlier, was because they felt deceived. So they realized they had to change church curriculum and expose young Mormons to the basic problems with the Church in a way where they would still believe, but not feel like they were lied to. Right. So did you get any instruction at BYU in your religion classes or elsewhere around things like the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith's polygamy, the First Vision, the Seer Stone in the hat, treasure digging, all that stuff?

Faith Crisis Deepens at BYU

Ryan Huey [01:10:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:10:29] How. Like, talk about that. What classes? What professors? What did you learn?

Ryan Huey [01:10:35] Yeah, Foundations of the Restoration. They would. They would touch on that sort of thing. And I guess I had already worked through a lot of that stuff.

John Dehlin [01:10:47] Interesting. You were. You were, quote, inoculated, right?

Ryan Huey [01:10:50] Yeah. And so I, I just kind of. I was like, yeah, I already know about this. So it didn't, like, impact me in a. In a major way.

John Dehlin [01:10:58] I mean, that's. I think you could say, in a way, that's a smart decision the Church made to inoculate people. Right. By exposing them to these concepts early.

Ryan Huey [01:11:09] Yeah, fair enough. And I think I was inoculated maybe a little bit earlier than most. So for some people, maybe a Foundations of the Restoration class would open their eyes a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:11:20] Yeah. But for you is old hat.

Ryan Huey [01:11:21] But you're. But you're being fed the historical information from an apologist standpoint, and you're not hearing. It's not an open debate. It's like, these are the Church facts, and this is how we can reconcile the fact that the Church is true with the historical facts. It's not like you have John de Lin there to debate someone. So you're hearing the facts. But you're hearing them in a very

John Dehlin [01:11:44] positive light and not with full information, I should add.

Ryan Huey [01:11:48] And I. I think you're probably right about that.

John Dehlin [01:11:50] Yeah, yeah. And I. I wouldn't expect them to give all the information, but they're going to give just enough and then with the right framing, to have the greatest chance that you'll keep believing or just not pay attention, which is what happened with you.

Ryan Huey [01:12:04] I think a common rhetoric is, here's a piece of controversial information, here's how we can make it make sense with the church. So now you know there's controversial information, but it can be made okay with the church. And so you go, oh, okay. And so when you hear something controversial in the future, you're like, oh, there's probably a good rebuttal for this. Like, the church is true no matter what someone tells me. I just haven't really heard the other argument. But whatever. I believe in the Church. I don't need to hear the other argument.

John Dehlin [01:12:31] It's almost like once you've been able to reconcile one issue with, I had that faithful emotional experience and I'm committed to this, then 10, 20 more issues could arise and they all just kind of off, off the back like water to a duck, basically. Is that fair?

Ryan Huey [01:12:50] I would agree.

John Dehlin [01:12:52] It's pretty powerful. I mean, it explains why the Church has survived the Internet. I mean, it's lost a lot of people, but it's kept a lot of people. Yep. And it was keeping you for years, which is why.

Ryan Huey [01:13:03] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:13:03] Yeah. Okay. Okay. I have to ask also, we've covered this in the past on Mormon stories. Were there. Were you aware of students at BYU who didn't believe or who were questioning or doubting their faith? What was that? How did you perceive them? Did you perceive that they had a place to go, ways to meet each other right now? I mean, while you were faithful at byu? Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:13:29] Yeah. I'm excited to touch on this one.

John Dehlin [01:13:30] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:13:32] No.

John Dehlin [01:13:33] No. What?

Ryan Huey [01:13:34] No, I didn't know about people who had left the church who didn't believe in the church, people who are having faith crisis.

John Dehlin [01:13:40] Because what happens if you're a B way student and you lose your faith?

Ryan Huey [01:13:42] You put a big target on your back, your diploma's in jeopardy. Um, I mean, it's. It's an uncomfortable place to be.

John Dehlin [01:13:50] So are. Are you saying a BYU student can be kicked out of the university if they lose their faith?

Ryan Huey [01:13:55] I don't think they can be kicked out if they lose their faith. But you can be kicked out if you live a lifestyle outside of Mormonism. Hypothetically, if I drink coffee on campus, I could be kicked out because that falls outside of the honor code.

John Dehlin [01:14:09] Well, if you stop going to church, you get kicked out.

Ryan Huey [01:14:11] That's also true. You have to be an active church attendee.

John Dehlin [01:14:15] So I mean it's, it's kind of like the masturbation thing. You hide it, you lie about it. Right. And you just get by.

Ryan Huey [01:14:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] But if you were to come out about it and talk about it and act accordingly, meaning not go to church, tell people you don't believe anymore, you are getting kicked out. Right.

Ryan Huey [01:14:33] And the, the attrition numbers, it's, it's something like 50% of converts leave and something like 1/3, about 36% of born and raised Mormons leave. So you know, there are BYU students that are going to leave the church or who have inwardly left, but you don't hear about it. It's very hush hush. And it wasn't until I left the church and I started, you know, finding these people. And then when you find one or two, then you get invited to social events and you, you find this sort of like underground operation and you realize that it's a pretty vast network. There are a lot of people at BYU who are nuanced, who are questioning, who are just straight up non believing, but they're very cautious for good reason. Their, their diploma is on the line and if you step out of line, you can lose that. It's, it's a really miserable place to sit and I'm sure we'll talk more about it later.

John Dehlin [01:15:32] Yeah. And another weird, unfortunate reality is so many BYU credits don't transfer.

Ryan Huey [01:15:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:40] So you know, all the religion classes you have to take don't transfer. A lot of the language credits may not transfer and like American Heritage won't transfer. So like you could end up setting yourself back a full year, if not more. Right. In addition to disappointing your parents and, and your, your siblings in your community and all the other things. And it can be very expensive, especially if you, you aren't loaded and don't have a ton of money. So I mean, it's big stakes.

Ryan Huey [01:16:11] Big stakes.

John Dehlin [01:16:12] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:16:13] I think, I think in reality the, the risk is pretty low. I don't think that like disbelieving in the church would get you kicked out of BYU by, in and of itself. Maybe I'm ignorant, so this is where a lot of people disagree with me, but I feel like most people wouldn't like report you to the honor code. And then I haven't had any bump ins with the honor code. But I, I feel like most people would be like, oh, you're struggling with your faith. Let's help you. I, I never felt like I was going to be kicked out for disbelieving. But if you openly disbelieve, you put a target on your back.

John Dehlin [01:16:49] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:16:49] And now everyone's looking at you. And if you step out of line.

John Dehlin [01:16:53] Yes.

Ryan Huey [01:16:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:54] Yeah. I'm not saying, I'm not saying, nor do I believe that if you quietly disbelieve and you tell a roommate, they're going to kick you out. Of course not.

Ryan Huey [01:17:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:03] Because that'd be so many students. But. But you have to hide and lie. Yep. And either. Yeah. And you know, you can't be open about it.

Ryan Huey [01:17:13] Totally. And the stakes are so high. It's like if I'm walking on a three foot walkway, like, the chances of me stepping off that walkway are, Are pretty low. But if that walkway is a hundred feet off the ground, it's gonna be really scary walking on that. Even though the likelihood of me falling off is very low. The stakes are so high. And so you're just kind of in this constant state of, of paranoia, like, am I gonna step out of line? Am I gonna lose my diploma? What are all those implications?

John Dehlin [01:17:44] Yeah, that's the. Yeah. And so it's the, it's the living authentically hiding.

Ryan Huey [01:17:52] That's big too.

John Dehlin [01:17:53] And. And then the fear of what happens if you're found out.

Ryan Huey [01:17:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:58] During a pretty formative time where if there's any time in your life where you should be able to talk openly about what you think and feel, form your identity, meet others, figure out where you want to go in your life. It probably should be your university experience.

Ryan Huey [01:18:13] I would agree.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] But you can't. Right. You can't openly do that without putting a target on your back and risking.

Ryan Huey [01:18:20] And that creates a whole separate issue. This inauthentic, inauthenticity issue or this like, double life. Right. You feel like you have, you almost like you have to live this double life. When you're on campus, you have to act a certain way. And then when you're off campus, you can sort of go and like, take a breath of fresh air. Like, I don't have to act anymore. And that that's a miserable place to sit in. I found I'd like part of this interview to be like, I, I understand there are a lot of BYU students who probably listen to the Mormon Stories podcast. And so hopefully people can hear my story and see themselves in it a little bit and maybe, you know, take some tips and tricks from it. But one. One of them was coffee shops.

John Dehlin [01:19:04] Okay, wait, before we get there.

Ryan Huey [01:19:05] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:19:06] Yeah, so it's. So how far into your time in Provo were you a committed believer? And then what, what, how did the cracks start emerging for you?

Ryan Huey [01:19:19] Yeah, let's talk about that.

John Dehlin [01:19:20] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:19:22] It was, it was like a year ago that I was like, done.

John Dehlin [01:19:26] So you're. So you got through your junior year at BYU as a committed orthodox believer.

Ryan Huey [01:19:31] Yeah, so it was, it was really the last two semesters. So one full year for me.

John Dehlin [01:19:36] What happened?

Ryan Huey [01:19:36] But the semester prior to that, I think cracks had started to form.

John Dehlin [01:19:39] What happened there?

Ryan Huey [01:19:42] For me, it was a lot less church history based. I had read the CES letter, I had read the apologist arguments. None of that was really a huge surprise to me. It was honestly a pursuit of God. I had this really deep relationship with who I. Who I deemed Jesus Christ and God. But I was, I was reading in Galatians about Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. And at this point I had, I had taken a step away from King James and I was reading niv. So I was, I was taking a step towards Christianity, like mainstream Christianity, because I had found like a new sort of spiritual connection to it. And I. And I liked that. Anyway, in the niv, the, the wording is something along the lines of. After his conversion on the road to Damascus for three years, Paul's immediate response was not to console any human being. And he goes on to outline why, why that decision was made. Right. This, this godly truth that was given to him did not come from human origin. It came from a godly source. And so there were other apostles preaching at the time. He could have reached out to. He could have, you know, assimilated into the church at that time. But for three years, he just focused on his relationship with God. That really hit me because I realized that my relationship with God, as strong as it was, was always imposed from this external source, the Mormon Church. And so how can I know that that is singular between me and God?

John Dehlin [01:21:22] Interesting.

Ryan Huey [01:21:23] If it's so. So my exodus out of the church was much more theological, philosophical, and much less church history. I think for most people, it's church history or social, political issues. Not really the case for me.

John Dehlin [01:21:37] So before we follow that thread out, I want to make sure you mentioned becoming an EFY counselor.

Ryan Huey [01:21:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:21:44] Three years ago.

Ryan Huey [01:21:45] Oh, yeah, yeah, we should touch on that.

John Dehlin [01:21:47] Do you want to touch on that first? Because that precedes your loss of faith. Was that an important. That you mentioned your outline.

Ryan Huey [01:21:53] So, yeah, let's talk about that because that is a big deal. I was full. So I've worked with teenagers quite a bit. I think that it just kind of fits my personality. I, I like to have a lot of fun. I'm a lot of, you know, high energy. So I've been a youth mentor. I've been a cross country coach. I've been music teacher.

John Dehlin [01:22:14] Did you run cross country in high school?

Ryan Huey [01:22:16] No, I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:22:17] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:22:18] I was a youth mentor at a. At a residential treatment center. And while I was there, I formed a cross country team.

John Dehlin [01:22:23] Nice.

Ryan Huey [01:22:24] And ran it. So it was just a little passion project on the side.

John Dehlin [01:22:27] Nice.

Ryan Huey [01:22:30] But I wanted to be an EFI counselor. EFI impacted me. A ton. Went to all four years. So I made that decision and it was incredible. I don't have a ton to say about EFI and hxp, but basically, I love hxp. Again, it used to be H E F Y.

John Dehlin [01:22:50] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:22:51] Now it's hxp. It's humanitarian.

John Dehlin [01:22:54] Oh, it's. It's where you go to a foreign country and.

Ryan Huey [01:22:57] Right.

John Dehlin [01:22:57] Where'd you go? What countries?

Ryan Huey [01:22:59] I went to Colombia. I only did it for one summer, but it's a month long trip. Both of these experiences were incredible. The people I met, I'm still friends with to this day. The youth that I was a mentor over, um, I, I regularly, at this point now, a lot of them are going on missions. So I regularly get updated and attend mission farewells. I, I love these kids with my whole heart. And I like, I will always cherish the memories I made as an EFY counselor and an HXP leader. Um, I really do think there was something special there. It sort of changed definition or form in my life. But there's like, there's a powerful force that I attributed to God when I was having those experiences. And now I think I attribute more to love. But I just, I don't have anything negative to say about hxp. I just, I loved those experiences.

John Dehlin [01:23:57] No, I don't. And I don't need you to say negative things. I love dfy. Yeah. I think you mentioned your outline partly because, well, you know, Mark Twain said travel is fatal to prejudice. So I think getting that, that trip to Columbia opened your eyes a little bit. Yeah. And then also I think the type of love you experienced there, you wrote your outline was different than any type of love you'd ever experienced prior. So that's all. I'm not digging for dirt I don't.

Ryan Huey [01:24:24] Yeah, no, I would agree. Yeah. I, we don't. And we don't have to touch on this too much either, but I agree. I really like that quote. I've never heard it by Mark Twain, but I, I think part of me having open mind did come from travel. I've been to, I've traveled a lot more than most people do in their undergrad. I really made that a priority. So I've been to like 15 countries and seen a lot of cultures and just sort of experienced love on a humanity scale. And I think that did a. Did wonders in terms of broadening my perspective on who and what God is and how love sort of spans to everyone.

John Dehlin [01:25:03] Okay. Okay. So that, that was a mind. It sounds like that was a soul expanding experience.

Ryan Huey [01:25:10] Incredible.

John Dehlin [01:25:11] Being an EFY counselor and.

Ryan Huey [01:25:12] Yep. Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful. Really strengthened my testimony as an EFY counselor and as an HXP leader. I had, I was, I faced some cognitive dissonance as an HXP leader because I had doubts prior to me leaving on my HXP trip. I really wasn't so like sure about the church.

John Dehlin [01:25:32] You also mentioned traveling to several five countries in Europe. Yes, I forgot about that. That's also. That must have been mind expanding.

Ryan Huey [01:25:41] Yeah, I. Probably four or five years ago, probably four years ago, my really. My best friend got me into travel. He is in New Zealand currently. He's been over 50 countries. It's his passion. He loves to travel the world and he got me into it. The first trip I took while I was in college was a trip to visit five different countries in Europe. We climbed, I'm a rock climber. We climbed the Luzoni Dam. Yeah. Perspective widening, you know, broadening for sure. And all of those travel experiences I've had have sort of made me realize how small Mormonism is, how small my, my subjective upbringing was. It's broadened my perspective to maybe there could be truth, love and happiness outside of this bubble that I grew up in.

John Dehlin [01:26:32] Yeah, I remember doing the math. I call it doing the math where I divided the number of Mormons, you

Ryan Huey [01:26:39] know, by the population of the world,

John Dehlin [01:26:40] by the population of the world.

Ryan Huey [01:26:41] 02%. If you, if you're counting 17 million, which is not an accurate number.

John Dehlin [01:26:47] And you concluded something that I concluded, which is, what about God?

Ryan Huey [01:26:52] Yeah, he's way bigger. He's got to be bigger than religion

John Dehlin [01:26:55] or he's really ineffective or he's bad at his job or humans are terrible people. You know what I mean?

Ryan Huey [01:27:02] Like there's a lot of Conclusions you can, you can make there.

John Dehlin [01:27:05] But, but the number is a problem.

Ryan Huey [01:27:07] It is, yeah. We've got the three characteristics of God. Omnipotence, omniscience and omni. Benevolent. He's all loving, he's all knowing, he's all powerful. That God, his one true Church is 0.02% of the population. I don't, that's, that's a, that's a stretch now.

John Dehlin [01:27:26] Now of course a apologist Mormon would say, oh, but everyone can get their work done for them when they die. And so Mormon is. That's the feature, not the bug of Mormonism.

Ryan Huey [01:27:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:35] Because everybody can. Has a chance of the celestial kingdom, unlike the rest of the world. World.

Ryan Huey [01:27:39] Yeah, that's, that's a nice backflip by the apologists. The mental gymnastics are impressive.

John Dehlin [01:27:44] But you don't buy that now.

Ryan Huey [01:27:45] No, I don't buy it anymore.

Belief Collapses in Junior and Senior Year

John Dehlin [01:27:46] Okay. Okay. So we're at the kind of junior to senior year. What, what? Some cracks have developed. But how, how did you start going downhill?

Ryan Huey [01:27:59] So, yeah, read, I read that snippet in Galatians. I, I did some soul searching. I'm a big journaler and I was journaling and just saying, you know, I, I feel like I want to, I want to seek God in my life. I don't want to put constraints on him. I don't want to put God in a box. I don't want to say God is a man. I don't want to say God is Jesus. I don't want to say God is this or this or this. So I, I sort of embarked on this philosophical journey where I thought, well, okay, who and what is God? And I, I just, I followed that train of thought. I think the big thing, I could really get into the weeds on philosophy and my thought process that eventually led me out of the church. I could just talk for hours about that.

John Dehlin [01:28:50] Well, let's, let's hit some of the big ones.

Ryan Huey [01:28:52] Yeah, that was the big thing. God. My view of God expanded and sort of burst religion asunder. Sounds dramatic because Mormon God is, can

John Dehlin [01:29:07] be viewed as small.

Ryan Huey [01:29:09] Yes, I would say so. And like Mormon God abides by a set of rules. I think that God as a concept is this ineffable being. And if, if God is those three things, all loving, all powerful, all knowing, he would, I mean, just by light years and be. He'd be really far away from us in terms of comprehension. We could never understand a God like that. And so the natural human tendency when we don't understand something is to model It. We do this with the atom. We don't know what the atom looks like, but we have the Bohr model. I think we do the same thing with religion, where God is this ineffable entity. We're going to give it a name and a face. We're going to give it a set of rules. We call that theology. We're going to build a religion around this. And I just, I started to deconstruct religion and, and God as this, you know, definable thing. And that was what, you know, the cracks and then that's what just kind of burst it. And it was so quick. Once I started down that line of logic and reasoning, it was, it was seriously, you know, 24 years of my life, formative programming, all of that. And in two weeks, I had completely lost.

John Dehlin [01:30:26] Wow.

Ryan Huey [01:30:26] My testimony.

John Dehlin [01:30:27] Let me just put on my Mormon apologist hat just to push back on a couple things you said. So a Mormon apologist would say, you know, that three legs of the stool. Yeah. The Odyssey, is it? Or the problem with evil. Sorry.

Ryan Huey [01:30:44] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:30:44] What's that called? Is that the opposite?

Ryan Huey [01:30:46] Yeah. Problem with evil. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:30:49] You've got one of the legs wrong. Mormonism is, is unique in that it doesn't claim that God's all powerful. God. Mormon God.

Ryan Huey [01:30:57] We have free will.

John Dehlin [01:30:58] Not just that, yes, we have free will, but also Mormon God is one of many gods. And Mormon God has to live in, in the rules of the universe.

Ryan Huey [01:31:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:13] In other words, God has to. God is subject to law, moral law, somehow. That's, that's teaching. That's Mormon theology. So what if somebody said, well, come back, you know, come back. Ryan, you got it wrong. You have unrealistic expectations of Mormon God. Mormon God is not all powerful. Mormon God is a lower G God. Not a, a capital G God. It's a lowercase G God. Mormon God is subject to rules.

Ryan Huey [01:31:41] Yeah, I would agree with you on that. I do think that they sort of limit the power that God has in Mormonism. Certainly not in Christianity.

John Dehlin [01:31:50] Right.

Ryan Huey [01:31:53] Yeah. That's a. Thank you, apologist.

John Dehlin [01:31:55] So you're going to come back.

Ryan Huey [01:31:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:56] You're going to come back to church? No, I mean, I'll just say the answer that often people who have thought about this give to that is, well, if Mormon God isn't all powerful, then is Mormon God a God worth worshiping?

Ryan Huey [01:32:11] Worth worshiping? Yeah, yeah. I, it's, it's, it's been long enough that it's a little bit difficult for me to step back into that way. Of thinking.

John Dehlin [01:32:20] Because you don't have that mindset now.

Ryan Huey [01:32:22] I don't.

John Dehlin [01:32:22] Okay. You move beyond even the God. Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:32:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:25] Okay. So I'm not, and I'm not trying to persuade you, and I just.

Ryan Huey [01:32:28] This is good, honestly. Okay. Okay. Appreciate it.

John Dehlin [01:32:30] Okay. So your belief. Let's just say your belief in Mormon God deconstructed in two weeks.

Ryan Huey [01:32:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:37] As a senior at byu. Yep. Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:32:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:41] So what's that like?

Ryan Huey [01:32:43] Yeah. Moved very quickly. I'm a fast mover in general. When I set my mind to something, I just move forward with it. And so I was the same way with this. Honestly, I got excited about it. I went, oh, my God. I discovered this God that's bigger than religion and I don't know what it is. And I'm so excited to figure out what I do believe in now. I got really excited. And I didn't really mourn my loss of faith or religion right away. I did eventually, big time.

Small Acts of Quiet Rebellion on Campus

John Dehlin [01:33:12] So did you perceive danger for yourself at BYU once? Not really. Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:33:18] I was pretty ignorant. And once I started to, I was pretty open right at the onset. And I had some people who, like, heard me being open, who were also nuanced or had left but were much more cautious than I was, reach out to me and say, hey, Ryan, I really respect what you're feeling. To be honest, I feel the same way. I think you should be a lot more careful than you're being right now. And I went, oh, it's like, it's like if you're talking out loud in a setting where you're supposed to be whispering and someone comes up to you and is like, hey, we need to be quiet right now.

John Dehlin [01:33:48] You're saying the quiet parts out loud, basically.

Ryan Huey [01:33:50] Yeah, exactly. And. And then that put me in this mindset of you're in danger and you have to be very careful, tread lightly.

John Dehlin [01:33:59] Which you were.

Ryan Huey [01:34:00] Which I was.

John Dehlin [01:34:02] And then what were you? I mean, do you think?

Ryan Huey [01:34:04] I mean, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I, like I was mentioning earlier, even if the risk is low, the stakes are high.

John Dehlin [01:34:10] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:34:11] And that's what was outlined to me, was, hey, Ryan, like, you only have a year left. If I were you, I'd tread very lightly, be careful, because you would. You don't want to lose your diploma. Um, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:24] So kind of the students are self policing a little bit.

Ryan Huey [01:34:26] Maybe. A little bit. Yeah. Just out of, out of care for me. They're like, hey, Ryan, like, I respect you, you being outward, but I would be a little bit more cautious so, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:36] What was that last year like? Was it hard? Was it fun? Was it exciting?

Ryan Huey [01:34:41] Um, so it was one semester of just me. It was like a soul searching semester. I, I felt immediately very lonely because I had. I'm very social. I've got all these friends, but they're all very active in the faith. And so even though they still want to hang out with me and see me and stuff, when I'd go to those social settings, something just felt very off. I know I no longer viewed things, the world, the church, everything, the way that they did. So I felt different than them. And I wanted to explore this new life that I was given, this new world where I can do anything, I can experience anything, I can, I can follow any train of thought. And so I wanted to experiment. But. But I wasn't in a social setting where something like that would be, you know, acceptable. And, and so I just kind of. I struggled because I. I felt like I. Even though my friends didn't leave me, I felt like I'd lost the old friendship. I'd lost that connection I had with them.

John Dehlin [01:35:50] What's tricky is they weren't friends with you at that point. They were friends with an old you and you couldn't be you.

Ryan Huey [01:35:57] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:35:58] So you're lonely in these relationships because you're not actually being you. You're having to create the perception that you're someone that you're not.

Ryan Huey [01:36:06] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:36:06] So that's going to be lonely. Plus you have no one to talk to. Very well connect with. Right.

Ryan Huey [01:36:10] Very well said.

John Dehlin [01:36:11] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:36:12] Yeah, I agree. So they're still there. They're still in my life. But the old friendship is no longer. And a new friendship needs to form. But I'm not in an emotional space where that can form. It's like breaking up with somebody and then seeing that person regularly. You don't. You still. That person isn't. Doesn't hold any sort of negative space in your life really. But you don't want to see him every day. And that's kind of how I felt. And so I was really lonely. Didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to. Of course that's not true. I had, I had people in my life I could, I could talk with, but. But the loneliness felt very real. Um, it was then that I decided

John Dehlin [01:36:51] to pierce my ears as a BYU student.

Ryan Huey [01:36:54] As a BYU student.

John Dehlin [01:36:55] It was no longer after the church. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

Ryan Huey [01:36:57] It was no longer against the honor code. And it's funny because I pierced my ears, not because I thought it would look really cool. And now I love them. I think they look awesome. But I pierced them because I thought, I know that a third of Mormons leave the church. There's got to be people who are at least questioning.

John Dehlin [01:37:17] There's actually two thirds of Mormons leave the church.

Ryan Huey [01:37:20] Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

John Dehlin [01:37:21] Well, 5 million.

Ryan Huey [01:37:23] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:24] Out of 17, right?

Ryan Huey [01:37:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:29] But it's 40 of those raised in the church.

Ryan Huey [01:37:31] Right, Right.

John Dehlin [01:37:32] Leave the church.

Ryan Huey [01:37:32] There we go.

John Dehlin [01:37:33] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:37:33] So I knew that there were people who might be going through something similar, and I thought a subtle way to signal that would probably be to pierce my ears. No one, no one else is doing that. And it actually worked like a charm. There were two ways to sort of find this underground.

John Dehlin [01:37:48] Oh, it's like dog whistles. Like.

Ryan Huey [01:37:51] Yeah. So, like, I pierced my ears. And then for my study breaks, I wouldn't go to the library. I would go to the coffee shop on center street and I started which one?

John Dehlin [01:38:00] What's it called?

Ryan Huey [01:38:00] Peace on Earth.

John Dehlin [01:38:01] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:38:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:02] There's Starbucks right off campus.

Ryan Huey [01:38:05] I think there are a few, like, drive through. I don't really go to the drive through coffee places. I like to sit down with a book and, you know, hang out for a bit.

John Dehlin [01:38:11] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:38:14] But yeah, those, those two methods were. They worked. They, they. I was able to.

John Dehlin [01:38:20] So BYU students go to coffee shops.

Ryan Huey [01:38:22] The ones that, the ones that are. Yeah. Not the really devout Mormons, they won't go there. That's why it was like BYU felt like kind of a hostile environment. Going back to that, like, breakup analogy, it's like, it's like being at your ex girlfriend's house. Like, you feel. It's really unnerving. Like, that feels weird. Um, and so this, like, safe haven was, Was the coffee shop. Like, like any coffee shop, I could go there and be like, like, the super devout Mormons are. Are not here. And these are just regular people. It was like a step out of the bubble.

John Dehlin [01:38:53] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:38:54] And then the earrings too, kind of set me apart. And very quickly I was able to make some friends with people who are nuanced or questioning or had left or didn't believe or whatever. And that, that was very beneficial for my mental health.

John Dehlin [01:39:07] So you're at a coffee shop and you're how you just strike up conversations or what?

Ryan Huey [01:39:11] I'm very social.

John Dehlin [01:39:12] So you just say hi to people at coffee shops and are you a student and.

Ryan Huey [01:39:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:17] And you made friendships that way?

Ryan Huey [01:39:19] Yeah, coffee shops are very social in, in general. And I'm, I'm a very social. I'm social in all aspects. I love to meet new people and just strike up conversation.

John Dehlin [01:39:30] So if the church of BYU has orthodoxy spies, they're going to start going to coffee shops.

Ryan Huey [01:39:35] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:39:35] Oh, are we ruining it?

Ryan Huey [01:39:37] Oh, we might be. We might be letting it out. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:41] Be careful what you say at a Provo copy shop. Coffee shop, BYU students.

Ryan Huey [01:39:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:47] Be careful who you tell what.

Ryan Huey [01:39:48] But it was cool. I was able to find people that I could have open conversation with, find people who I could sort of relate to in this way. My old friends loved me, but like I couldn't really talk about critical church issues. I couldn't talk about philosophy that fell outside of Mormon belief. I could, but it just wasn't the same. It was like constantly talking with people who vehemently oppose your perspective and that just doesn't feel good.

John Dehlin [01:40:18] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:40:19] And it feels, it feels hostile.

John Dehlin [01:40:22] So let me back up for a second. Did you date a lot at byu? Did you date those first three years at BYU Provo and then did dating change after, you know, your senior year, after you lost your faith? If so, how, if you're comfortable sharing?

Ryan Huey [01:40:38] Good question. And this will touch on a, on an important topic. Yeah, I, yeah, dating all through. I had a girlfriend my, must have been my freshman year, maybe my sophomore year for a while. We dated for like 10 months.

John Dehlin [01:40:53] Post mission.

Ryan Huey [01:40:53] Post mission. This is the longest relationship I've had and then I've had some, some shorter term relationships throughout and all of it has been within the church. And I just assumed, and this was said explicitly after I left the church by someone who loves me very much said, how are you going to find like a good girl to date and marry? Now that's wild. That that was, that's the perspective that the good girls and guys are Mormon. And if you date outside the Mormon church, you're going to have a really hard time finding a good person.

John Dehlin [01:41:32] That's why I asked you when you were a kid if you thought you were better than other people. Right? Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:41:37] Yeah. You are chosen of God. You are better than other people. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So I just, I had this, this idea that dating in the church was the way to go. And so I was really good at being the super devout Mormon. Even though I think internally maybe closeted, I was a little bit more nuanced than most. I projected an all in Persona and I dated in the church, had had fine relationships in the church, but I was really scared when I left that what dating was going to be like.

John Dehlin [01:42:11] Wait, what kept you from getting married to some of those young women you dated as a projectingly orthodox Mormon.

Ryan Huey [01:42:19] Yeah, the only girl that, I mean, I dated a girl for 10 months so we could have gotten married. I mean, the other relationships were too short to really even consider that.

John Dehlin [01:42:29] Not by many standards.

Ryan Huey [01:42:30] Not by many standards, fair enough. But no, it's just, you know, typical relationship stuff. I think by that point I started to think, oh, do I, do I want to spend a lifetime with this person? And just thought really deeply about it and looked within myself and went, I don't, I don't think this is my person. And so, you know, went separate ways there.

John Dehlin [01:42:51] So faith issues never came into your dating?

Ryan Huey [01:42:54] So there was one. Yeah. Okay. There was. Yeah. My last relationship before I left the church. It wasn't an official relationship. I was just talking to someone and, and I, I mentioned some of these maybe nuanced beliefs or just not even nuanced beliefs, just questions. I was like, yeah, I don't really know, like about this. And I think I at one point said out loud, like, you know, my, my priority is to follow God in my life and hypothetically, if God told me to leave Mormonism, like, I would totally do it. And I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back for her. And she, very shortly after that conversation said, like, I think we should end things. And I sort of pressed and said, why do you feel that way? And, and I, she, she mentioned she was questioning my testimony. She mentioned that she had gone to the temple and had a bad feeling about the relationship. And that kind of hit me. And I, I do think that was one of the sort of kickstarters or instigators, me going, do I want to date in a culture that's like that, that's, that's so close minded that me even having questions that fall outside of Mormonism is enough to end a relationship. Is this, is this an environment I want to date in?

John Dehlin [01:44:19] Yeah. People Mormons often marry the church first and their partner second.

Ryan Huey [01:44:24] Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:24] Believing Mormons.

Ryan Huey [01:44:25] Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:25] Not always, but a lot of times.

Ryan Huey [01:44:27] Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:28] You're, it's like a three, I don't want to say three way, but it's like Jesus, them and their partner.

Ryan Huey [01:44:34] But yeah. And the church will teach you that.

John Dehlin [01:44:36] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:44:36] You know, you should, your, your marriage, your relationship should be built on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:43] And it's, I guess it's totally fine as long as you're on the plan. Nobody ever changes their mind, which 40% or more will.

Ryan Huey [01:44:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:53] So you're kind of coin tossing the Future of your marriage.

Ryan Huey [01:44:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:59] When you marry an orthodox, devout, believing Mormon with the understanding that you'll stay Mormon for the rest of your life, you're kind of coin tossing your. Your marriage.

Ryan Huey [01:45:08] Yeah, I would agree.

John Dehlin [01:45:09] Yeah. And maybe everyone is. So, I mean, maybe that's not unique, but it presents problems later.

Ryan Huey [01:45:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:17] For many. Okay, so dating. So once you lost your faith your senior year, did dating change for you? How did you date at that point? Or did you stop or.

Ryan Huey [01:45:27] I. Well, I wasn't interested in dating at that point. I thought, well, I'm. I'm about to embark on a very difficult journey of piecing together my beliefs. My whole faith structure, belief system has fallen apart. I don't know what I stand for anymore. I got to figure all this stuff out. So it really wasn't a priority to me.

John Dehlin [01:45:48] But.

Ryan Huey [01:45:49] But just naturally going about and being, you know, social and active and stuff, like, I still meet lots of people and met some incredible women and like, girls and, you know, no relationships. But just like, I'm realizing that there are incredible people outside of Mormonism. This is where Mormon Stories podcast was really beneficial, where I was able to see.

John Dehlin [01:46:12] Did you know about it before your senior year? Byu?

Ryan Huey [01:46:15] I knew about it. I didn't really listen to a lot of the podcasts. For me, it wasn't like I didn't go to Mormon Stories podcast for research. I go. I went to it after I had already decided to leave the church as a form of validation because I was seeing people who had left the church who were happy. And I was always told that the plan of happiness or like the happiest you'd ever be was in the church. And so that sort of broke that preconceived belief that I had.

Mormon Stories as a Lifeline While Still at BYU

John Dehlin [01:46:42] What were the. Just because I want to know how to help people. What were the types of interviews that you can recall on Mormon Stories that were helpful to you as a BYU student that you remember, if you remember any the.

Ryan Huey [01:46:55] Just the. These ones, the interviews with people who have left the church and hearing their story. Because I think everyone who leaves the church can relate to someone else's story to some degree. And it was, it was the common theme of I actually feel better. And like, like, I feel like this was a good thing for me. I feel. I feel like a better person. After leaving the church. I was terrified that I was going to become a worse version of myself. And you're at byu, Every guest speaker that comes into a class is a church leader or a member of the church who made it really big in business and they also have an awesome family life. And so you're being fed this narrative that to be successful you got to be Mormon. And if you fall outside of that religion, you can be a little happy, but it's not lasting, enduring happiness. And your, your success is going to be built on a house of cards and it's not real. And, and so Mormon Stories podcast helped me break out of that narrative and realize that they're very successful people, very happy people who have grown into themselves since they left Mormonism. You can write your own story. You don't have to follow the, the prescription that's been given to you as a child.

John Dehlin [01:48:12] You may not even remember. But is there a story or two? You can recommend others as ones that were particularly. And it's okay if it's all runs together. You don't.

Ryan Huey [01:48:19] I watched some recently I loved and I'm trying to remember his name. He was, he served his mission in Russia.

John Dehlin [01:48:26] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:48:26] What's his name?

John Dehlin [01:48:27] Yeah, don't put me on the spot.

Ryan Huey [01:48:30] Oh, sorry. Served his mission in Russia. Had a, had a really crazy experience there. This was a recent one. Man, that guy is so smart. And I look, I'm being put on the spot too. I can't remember his name, but that one was really impactful. I'm. Maybe I'm just bad with names.

John Dehlin [01:48:49] Tyson.

Ryan Huey [01:48:49] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:48:50] Kyson, Dana. I. On the spot. I can't remember names.

Ryan Huey [01:48:53] Yeah, but you're saying now I remember. Kyson, Dana. There was another one that was a girl, I can't remember her name either, who was close to my age. So that was impactful because I was able to resonate with her story. Yeah, those are some.

John Dehlin [01:49:10] Okay, that's good. I'm glad Mormon Stories was helpful to you. I often wonder as someone who went to byu, met my wife at byu, got married after byu. I'm always thinking about the BYU students. So I'm glad it was helpful to help you process. There's a, Is there like a secret? Sort of like formal, like. Okay, let me, let me tell you this. So like back in 20, I'll say 2012, 2013, there was like a Kate Kelly from Ordained Women used to run like this meeting where they'd meet, you know, once a week at someone's house at night and a bunch of unorthodox slash non believing BYU students would invite speakers to come speak. It was kind of formal.

Ryan Huey [01:50:06] Interesting.

John Dehlin [01:50:08] This was the year that like I think Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, could have been Donald Rumsfeld. I don't remember some, some controversial conservative Republican was going to like give the graduation speech at byu and a bunch of liberal BYU students who were Democrat were outraged. And I think they invited Ralph Nader to come to BYU to give like an alternative. I think it was alter alternative commencement.

Ryan Huey [01:50:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:50:36] Where they had two graduation ceremonies like one for the, you know, normal kids and one for the liberal progressive kids.

Ryan Huey [01:50:44] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:50:45] This was long time ago. I remember I interviewed Ashley Sanders and she was Neil A. Maxwell's granddaughter. Like there was a huge liberal Democrat, even ex Mormon or non believing Mormon contingent see at BYU that you could find and get to know and socialize with. Were there things like that underground or. When I was at byu, there was an underground newspaper called the Student Review that was published off campus and before that it was called the 7th East Press where you would get the Daily Universe, you go to the stall and get the Daily Universe newspaper, but you would also go to the stall right next to it and get the Student Review newspaper or which was like an alternative, you know, liberal critical newspaper and you could read both. Was there anything like that even online like Instagram or Reddit or whatever? Were there ways that non believing BYU students could find each other, get to know each other, even get together and have fun or date or party or whatever? Not really, no. Well, I was 30, 000 students. I think that would exist.

Ryan Huey [01:52:02] Yeah, you'd think it would. And I bet if I was more involved in politics, I would have, I would have run into this. But I wasn't very political.

John Dehlin [01:52:09] Oh. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:52:09] And so I didn't. Yeah, I wasn't exposed politically. For me it was, it was. I had to get the earrings pierced and I had to go to coffee shops. That's how I found the people. But there can't be, there can't be a club. Imagine like the non believing Mormons club at byu. There's no way. So you. It has to be underground. BYU forces it to be. No one wants a target on their back.

John Dehlin [01:52:30] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:52:31] So as a non believing member at byu, if you're not super social like I am, I can only imagine how lonely you feel.

John Dehlin [01:52:41] Yeah. That's why you wanted to do this interview, right? Partly.

Ryan Huey [01:52:45] Partly, yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:47] How? And this is not to get political. I'm just curious objectively, analytically how Trumpy or MAGA was the BYU student body.

Ryan Huey [01:53:00] I mean, neutral conservative, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:53:03] Okay.

Ryan Huey [01:53:03] Yeah. But I was more focused on the like, so the social issues surrounding lgbtq. I definitely noticed like people were pretty judgmental towards, towards lgbtq.

John Dehlin [01:53:16] So the general vibe.

Ryan Huey [01:53:17] The general vibe.

John Dehlin [01:53:18] Conservative is kind of anti lgbt.

Ryan Huey [01:53:20] Yeah. But honestly, I think a lot of the, like maybe I was just really was super politically ignorant, but I didn't notice like a crazy conservative or a crazy liberal.

John Dehlin [01:53:33] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:53:34] Like dichotomy.

John Dehlin [01:53:36] It wasn't heavily politicized. BYU Provo wasn't heavily politicized. Not that in your experience.

Ryan Huey [01:53:42] In my experience, no. And I think it was just because I, I kind of chose to.

John Dehlin [01:53:47] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:53:48] Not care about that kind of stuff and whether, you know, for right or for wrong. I think now I, I recognize that. I actually don't like that I want to not be politically ignorant. But at the time it was like, well, there are bigger things than politics. Like God is bigger than politics. So yeah, why don't I just seek God in my life and life purpose and.

John Dehlin [01:54:07] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:54:07] The other stuff can fall by the wayside.

John Dehlin [01:54:09] Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, finding your eternal companion, dating.

Ryan Huey [01:54:15] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:54:17] Doing well in your classes and figuring out your career and maybe having babies. That keeps you pretty busy, right?

Ryan Huey [01:54:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:23] And serving in your callings in church

Ryan Huey [01:54:24] totally keeps you distracted.

Final Year, Emotional Struggles, and Graduation

John Dehlin [01:54:27] So how would you say your final year was? Happy? Sad, Exciting, miserable, Suicidal? You know, like depressing.

Ryan Huey [01:54:36] So it was, I left the church and then I had like a full semester of me being like, what's going on?

John Dehlin [01:54:42] Wait, did you like literally stop going to church?

Ryan Huey [01:54:45] I did, yeah, actually.

John Dehlin [01:54:47] How? Without like losing your ecclesiastical endorsement?

Ryan Huey [01:54:50] I would go like every once in a while, but then I went a period of like a couple months where I just didn't go at all. I actually, I had an incredible bishop who I told him what I was going through, which again now people would go, what? What were you thinking? But I told my bishop, I said, I've gone on this soul searching journey. Here's what I've discovered. I don't believe in the church anymore. And to be honest, when I go to church, it's a very triggering environment. And so like I'll check in with you regularly, but I don't really want to go to sacrament meeting.

John Dehlin [01:55:21] Whoa, you told your Mormon bishop this as a BYU student?

Ryan Huey [01:55:24] Yeah. And when I, when I mentioned this to other BYU students who are questioning or non believing, they went, they were just mind blown. Why would you say that to your bishop? Like, that's insane. But I really, I had a really good relationship with my bishop. Keep in mind, I've been confessing and regularly meeting with all of my bishops for all of my upbringing. So like I had a really tight relationship with him before I decided to Leave the church.

John Dehlin [01:55:47] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:55:48] So even when I was in my questioning phase, I was telling him about the questioning thing and then when I decided I didn't believe in it anymore, I told him I think I've decided I don't believe in it and I need to take a break. And he was very supportive.

John Dehlin [01:55:59] Nice.

Ryan Huey [01:56:00] So he, he was an incredible bishop.

John Dehlin [01:56:02] That's great. You hit the bad lottery as a stake with the stake president and as you hit the good lottery at byu.

Ryan Huey [01:56:11] Yeah. And isn't it funny that like God's dictation comes, goes through. You just don't know like you're, you're receiving different information based on who the, the God authority is, but that God authority is supposed to be speaking for God and God's going to give you conflicting answers and. Yeah, besides the point. But I left the church while I decided I was done. I opened up to my family very quickly. My family is incredibly supportive and loving and I thought it'd be safe to share what I had discovered with them.

John Dehlin [01:56:43] Was your mom bombed? She's the or still orthodox believer, right?

Ryan Huey [01:56:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:47] You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to.

Ryan Huey [01:56:49] Thank you. It's all good. Yeah. So coming out, to my family, coming out. It's funny. That is what it feels like. It really feels like you're coming out. But it's, but it's in terms of belief instead of sexual orientation. But

John Dehlin [01:57:06] I've had many gay people tell me it was harder to come out as a non believing Mormon than as coming out, coming out as gay.

Ryan Huey [01:57:12] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:57:12] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [01:57:13] Wow. It's a big deal. I felt good about my decision. I felt altruistic in my desires. I didn't feel like this was tainted by any like selfish desire. I was excited to explore this life that was true and authentic to who I wanted to be who I was in the moment. I didn't really grapple with any cognitive dissonance until I started opening up to people that cared about me, friends and family. And then I was smacked with this wave of intense guilt and shame. Not, not because of anything that anyone said, but because of the silent judgments that I, that I could hear. You know, whether or not I'm reading other people's minds, which is impossible to do. And so, but I know what it's like because I was in the church and when people would leave the church, I know the silent judgments that I would hold and I know the secret conversations that I would have with people. And so I, I internalized that. Even though I wasn't hearing it with my ears, I could kind of internalize the judgment I was feeling from these people that I loved so much. And I just felt really bad. A lot of guilt and shame. I felt that really heavy for that semester at byu. In my journal entries I, I kept saying like, I really need to get out. And I, I ended up taking like, I took a weekend trip to Colorado. Cause I just needed to get out of Utah and I would. And the coffee shop was a way to kind of get out of feeling judged all the time. I ended up buying a plane ticket to Southeast Asia. I spent two months solo traveling, went to three different countries. Um, so super like in the bubble, feeling really uncomfortable at byu. And then the summer hit and I was able to fully expand. I could be whoever I wanted. I could tell whatever story I wanted. It was incredible. And I learned so much about myself on that two month trip. And then internship in Arizona, similar thing. I was away from Utah. I felt like over this last. That was this last summer, I grew so much into myself and I learned who I was and this like idea of God, it was also like a godly search. And God changed form for me. I mean like I, I'd seen God as this like father like entity in my life. And then all of a sudden I had these experiences where I realized that like I'm deeply connected with myself and I think I've, I think informing my relationship with God. I've really been coming to know myself on a deeper level and just all of these really beautiful philosophical soul searching breakthroughs. Summer was incredible. Came back from the summer, went back to BYU in the fall and in like two to three weeks I felt like I had gone right back to that mental space that I was in before I had left byu.

John Dehlin [02:00:07] How'd that feel?

Ryan Huey [02:00:08] Terrible. It was like a relapse. I felt like I'd broken free and I could fully be myself. And I came back and just felt shackled again.

John Dehlin [02:00:19] So like a psychological prison.

Ryan Huey [02:00:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:00:23] And at that point you had just fall one, one semester left.

Ryan Huey [02:00:27] Yep. Yeah. Decided to stick it through. One semester left?

John Dehlin [02:00:31] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:00:32] It was really hard, maybe even harder than the first semester.

John Dehlin [02:00:37] What were the hardest parts?

Ryan Huey [02:00:42] BYU is a triggering environment. The campus. My, my attendance in my classes went down. People noticed it. And I got good enough grades to graduate, whatever, but it was really hard for me to go to class. I just, I would, I didn't want to talk to anyone. I, I started noticing the little things that make people Mormon, the little unwritten things that people do. The way people Dress. The tight pants, the, the BYU shirts. Just these little things. Like, I, I felt like, what's, what's a BYU shirt?

John Dehlin [02:01:18] Like literally a shirt that says.

Ryan Huey [02:01:19] Yeah, like literally a shirt.

John Dehlin [02:01:21] Okay.

Ryan Huey [02:01:22] I would just. I don't know, you see little things. I feel like I got to the point where I could spot a member of the church really quickly.

John Dehlin [02:01:29] Wait, tight pants?

Ryan Huey [02:01:31] Tight pants is like a BYU thing. It's really funny.

John Dehlin [02:01:33] A believing BYU student would wear tight pants.

Ryan Huey [02:01:36] Yeah. Like the skinny jeans. For some reason that's like a dead giveaway. Like, what if you wear, if you wear skinny jeans, you're a devout morbid. Like at byu.

John Dehlin [02:01:46] That's weird. I thought it'd be the other way. A devout Mormon wear baggy pants.

Ryan Huey [02:01:49] No. Yeah, they wear skinny pants. Oh, okay.

John Dehlin [02:01:52] That's the guys.

Ryan Huey [02:01:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:54] Okay.

Ryan Huey [02:01:55] Just like little things and mannerisms. Right. Like I would just. I got to this point where I, I started to see myself as different and I felt like I didn't fit in and I didn't belong. But I had to go to get good grades. I took a real. I, I found the easiest religion class that was online so that I didn't have to go in person. It was living profits. And I'm being tested on questions like, where did Elder Bednar serve his mission? I'm going, really? This is.

John Dehlin [02:02:24] As a university student.

Ryan Huey [02:02:25] This is my education. Really?

John Dehlin [02:02:28] That was called Teachings of the Living Prophets when I was a BYU student.

Ryan Huey [02:02:32] It might have been something like that.

John Dehlin [02:02:35] And you just didn't, you didn't like that class?

Ryan Huey [02:02:39] No, it just, it just felt so arduous. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:02:43] Yeah,

Ryan Huey [02:02:46] yeah. Not, not a, not a very enjoyable. Last semester. I, and I found enjoyment in other things for sure. I had a hard time enjoying or feeling comfortable on BYU campus, though.

John Dehlin [02:02:57] Did you consider the counseling center at byu?

Ryan Huey [02:03:00] I did.

John Dehlin [02:03:01] To see a therapist?

Ryan Huey [02:03:02] Yeah. I did the CAPS program, like a six week free therapy program at byu and it was helpful.

John Dehlin [02:03:10] Did you feel safe to tell a BYU therapist?

Ryan Huey [02:03:14] I mean, there, you know, I'm, I'm protected by the law, so, yeah, I felt pretty, pretty comfortable sharing my experiences and beliefs. And it was, it was okay. It was a, it was a mediocre experience. It's actually my only experience with therapy ever, even. Even though my dad's a therapist.

John Dehlin [02:03:34] For many, many years, the therapists at BYU CAPS were huge Mormon Stories fans and they would come to all my events and just secretly tell me, that's funny. We're on the front lines and we're,

Ryan Huey [02:03:47] you know, we're that makes a lot of sense.

John Dehlin [02:03:49] I mean, but I don't know if it's still true. That that was true for the first 15 years of Mormon stories. I haven't heard from that.

Ryan Huey [02:03:54] That's gotta be the only avenue through which you can openly communicate your beliefs if, if they differ from Mormonism. I can't think of any other safe space that Mormon that BYU provides than the CAPS program. And BYU doesn't provide it. The law provides it.

John Dehlin [02:04:10] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:04:11] BYU doesn't create a safe environment for people who are non believing. And if you're not believing, they're going to try to convince you to believe.

John Dehlin [02:04:19] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:04:21] There was one class that I took my last semester that the professor seemed very, just like open to anyone and everyone. And that was a rare feeling. I was initially planning on not even taking this class. It fell outside of my schedule. I didn't really want to do it. But the material, the first reading that we had was this really beautiful poetic reading called the Prophet, not about Mormonism. And this, this professor just really called to me. He seemed like really engaged in an authentic way and I thought that was really cool and I'm really glad I took that class. One of the, one of our assignments was to create a life design framework. And there was a section about beliefs. And it wasn't in regards to religion, although a lot of people did implement their religious beliefs into that section of the assignment. But it was like, what do you believe in? Like, what core values do you hold? And everyone had five minutes to present their life design framework and then a 2 minute Q& A. And I took this opportunity to share what I believed. I didn't share what I disbelieved about the church, but I shared some, some deep philosophical principles that would fall outside of Mormonism. I talked about existentialism, I talked about absurdism, I talked about determinism, which is the disbelief in free will. And I actually shared what. Like why I believe in. Well, I at the time was intrigued by determinism and it sparked, you know, controversy and questions in the class. But it was, it was a very rare circumstance where I felt safe to openly share what I believed without fear of consequence. There was a little bit of fear consequence, but not, not a ton. I ended up, some people came up to me. The TA of the class came up to me at the end of the semester and said, hey, I just wanted to say, like, I'm really grateful to you for being open about what you believe. I feel like this isn't a place where most people are yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:18] You went down the nihilism rabbit hole at byu.

Ryan Huey [02:06:20] I did.

John Dehlin [02:06:21] If you got into absurdism.

Ryan Huey [02:06:22] I did.

John Dehlin [02:06:23] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:06:23] Pretty well.

John Dehlin [02:06:24] That's pretty deep stuff.

Ryan Huey [02:06:26] Yeah. And. And, you know, I love Alex o'. Connor. He was a. I listened to a lot of his content on YouTube and really. Yeah. Really fell into the philosophy. It was. It was. I was. I was so religious. I read my scriptures and prayed every single day. And then when I left Mormonism, it felt like there was this gaping hole, and I truly think philosophy filled that hole for me. I started to read philosophy in lieu of scriptures and started to journal in lieu of praying, and it was really beneficial for me.

John Dehlin [02:06:58] Wow. Yeah. There's gotta be BYU professors that don't believe. I hear it every semester. But either they are afraid to lose their job, or they don't think they can get another job, or they stay in part because they want to be a positive influencer, support for all types of BYU students.

Ryan Huey [02:07:18] Yeah. That'd be a tough spot to be in as a BYU professor. I don't think I could do it.

John Dehlin [02:07:22] Yeah. All right. So did you ever get, like, really depressed that final semester or not too bad? You did?

Ryan Huey [02:07:31] Yeah, it was. It was mostly in regards to philosophy. I felt I fell into nihilism pretty heavy. There was a period of about two weeks where I was. I just felt like there's no purpose to my existence. That was hard.

John Dehlin [02:07:46] How'd you pull out of that?

Ryan Huey [02:07:49] I didn't. Well, I did. I mean, it's. It's tough. You have this belief structure that gives you this overarching purpose to your life. You take that away and then you ask yourself, well, is there a purpose to life? And I think if you follow the thread, like, really follow the thread, eventually everyone comes to this place of. Of this nihilistic headspace of, no, there's no purpose to life. And then. How do you reconcile that? A couple responses. I immediately fell into an existentialist philosophical lens, which is, life is meaningless, but meaning can be derived from any situation based on how you want to create meaning in your life.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] And that can be framed as a feature, not a book.

Ryan Huey [02:08:34] Yes. Yeah, I would agree.

John Dehlin [02:08:36] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:08:38] And then I. But then. But then I. Unfortunately, I thought about it a little too hard, which I tend to do, and I went from this existentialist philosophy of, well, I can give life meaning to, but I'm only giving life meaning to escape the discomfort of its inherent meaninglessness.

John Dehlin [02:08:57] And then I went, crap, now you know why religion exists. Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:09:02] Literally. Anyway, so that. So then I was like, no, I'm just nihilist. There's no purpose. And I fell into that headspace for a solid two weeks and was the most sad and depressed I've ever felt. And I realized I can't do this. There were two things that pulled me out of that really nihilistic headspace. The first one was. Was curiosity. I feel like if, even if life is inherently meaningless, there's. There's a poll and I call, and it's curiosity. Like, it's the what ifs in your life. Like, what. What gets me out of bed in the morning is, what if. What if I get out of bed in the morning? What if I pursue a career? What if I pursue romance? What if I pursue this or that? Life is a big question mark. And so that curiosity can propel you forward, which, which can make you happy. So curiosity is one. And then absurdism is just the decision to laugh at the meaninglessness of life. It's to. One must imagine Sisyphus. Happy is a. Is a popular, you know, quote in absurdism. And, and it's true. Like life. If life really is just meaningless.

John Dehlin [02:10:14] Sisyphus is the guy pushing the rock up the hill to have it just come back down again.

Ryan Huey [02:10:18] Right, Exactly. He's. He's condemned to, you know, this. His version of hell is that he's pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity, and he'll never reach the top of the hill. So there's no point.

John Dehlin [02:10:29] Right.

Ryan Huey [02:10:29] There's no. There's no summit. And, and that is. That is nihilism. We're pushing this rock called life with for no reason. And so absurdism says one must imagine Sisyphus happy. How do you imagine someone who's condemned to push a rock up a hill forever as. As happy? It's a tricky one. And absurdism will say, well, you laugh at it. You laugh at the stupidity of this situation that we're in. This. The absurdity. Right. Of this human condition. So that's been. It sounds. Well, whatever it's. That that's actually helped me, oddly enough, falling into this absurdist mindset. This is just. This is just dumb that I exist. But what the hell? Like, let's do it. Anyway, I.

John Dehlin [02:11:20] Well, a couple things. I. I take it a little bit further. I think it's a miracle that we exist. Like, I think it's unbelievably, miraculously profound. Yeah, almost. I don't want to say spiritual, but, like, we should just all be dust. That should be it. The fact that we are sentient beings is Mind blowing on this beautiful and terrible planet.

Ryan Huey [02:11:47] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:11:49] Like, the elements don't get this. Most elements don't get that. Is this experience, but we do. So for me, life has revived with incredible meaning and wonder and beauty and power.

Ryan Huey [02:12:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:06] And I'm incredibly grateful to be alive and wanting to suck the marrow from the bone of life because it's a miracle, even if there's no God or no meaning, which also, I don't know.

Ryan Huey [02:12:19] Privilege. Right.

John Dehlin [02:12:20] I think so.

Ryan Huey [02:12:21] I agree. And I've actually arrived pretty recently at a. At a headspace similar where I'm. I'm grateful for what life gives me. You can look at life as constantly taking away or you can look at life as constantly giving.

John Dehlin [02:12:34] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:12:35] And I think the giving one is not. Doesn't just feel better. I think it's more accurate.

John Dehlin [02:12:42] Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And of course, there's so much glibness and privilege that we're dripping in because, you know, we're not an Iranian. Iranian school girl just got bombed.

Ryan Huey [02:12:56] Right.

John Dehlin [02:12:56] We're. We're straight, you know, we're white. We're in America, and maybe our day is coming. You know what I mean? But I, I do acknowledge the privilege we have. But sometimes people in developing countries have higher average happiness rates than people in America. So, I mean, it's not. Privilege isn't the only traditional classic privilege. Social privilege as defined in leftist America isn't necessarily the framing of joy and meaning and fulfillment in life. You know what I mean? So anyway. Well, it's interesting because this ties back to early in our interview where we were talking about the value of myth, the value of scripture, and whether it's true or not being important. You ultimately crashed into that wall of, like, what if it's not.

Ryan Huey [02:13:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:54] Real, then what? And it's. It's a really hard. It's a hard reality to crash into, isn't it?

Ryan Huey [02:14:01] Yeah. People, I think. I think the church will paint truth as this, like, fluffy stuffed animal. Like, truth is good. Like, you have a loving father in heaven and you can live with your families for eternity. Right. And like, I don't think truth, a pursuit of truth, shouldn't be what's the fluffiest. A pursuit of truth should be what's real. And sometimes that hurts and it's painful. I've heard it described before. Leaving Mormonism is like sitting by a warm fire in a cabin in a comfy chair, and you walk out the door and it's a blizzard and it's cold, so you turn back to go into the Cabin. And the cabin never existed.

John Dehlin [02:14:43] Ouch.

Ryan Huey [02:14:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:45] Except it did exist because it was your whole childhood and adolescence and young adulthood. Yeah. But it did exist.

Ryan Huey [02:14:51] But it feels like it never. Like it was, it was a figment of your imagination because it's not real.

John Dehlin [02:14:58] Yeah. My metaphor is like, you grow up with these loving parents that raise you well and treat you well, and then when you become an adult, you find out they weren't really your parents.

Ryan Huey [02:15:07] Yeah. Wow.

John Dehlin [02:15:08] Right. That they lied to you.

Ryan Huey [02:15:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:11] You know, they stole you when you were a baby or you were assigned to them and adopted, but they never told you.

Ryan Huey [02:15:17] You know, it hurts to be deceived for years.

John Dehlin [02:15:22] Yeah. And some would say we had an amazing upbringing.

Ryan Huey [02:15:28] True.

John Dehlin [02:15:28] And I have both.

Ryan Huey [02:15:29] I think there's space for both of those.

John Dehlin [02:15:30] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:15:31] You can look at the, the good and you can recognize the bad.

John Dehlin [02:15:35] Both can be true. Yes, it can be both. And. Yeah. Well, I, you know, the one thing that I'm always mindful of, you know, I, I, I, I probably mentioned this too much, but, like, I've never, I still haven't tried alcohol in 56. And. Yeah, it's just, it's not a big deal. I don't think it really means that much. It's bad for you.

Ryan Huey [02:15:55] It's expensive.

John Dehlin [02:15:55] What's that?

Ryan Huey [02:15:56] It's bad for you. It's expensive.

John Dehlin [02:15:57] Well, for me, there's, I was going to say something a little bit different. It's just like a symbolic, for me personally, it's like a symbolic decision to say, keep the good.

Ryan Huey [02:16:08] I love it.

John Dehlin [02:16:09] You know what I mean? And it's not, I'm not projecting that. I'm not virtue signaling to anyone else. For me, it's just like one way it worked for me. I think there's risk in it. I don't need the calories, I don't need the expense. I don't need the risk. But it's like a tangible column that I can say, hey, keep the good. Like, it can get sketchy out there. Guidelines are good. Guardrails are good. I was thinking about coming to interview you this morning. And I'm like some ex Mormons I interview. Their life goes off the rails. And the metaphor of a train is quite apt. A train ain't going nowhere with tracks. A kite ain't staying up in the air without a string. Right. I think we do well with, with frameworks or limits or controls.

Ryan Huey [02:17:03] I agree.

John Dehlin [02:17:05] And I was thinking what's mine now? And it's kind of my wife, like Margi, I love it. It's her job isn't to police me, but I think we kind of provide each other structure.

Ryan Huey [02:17:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:15] And the one thing that I want for you and for everyone and for me is that we don't go off the rails. Do you, do you think about that in your life going forward? Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:17:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:27] You want to talk about that?

Ryan Huey [02:17:28] Sure. I agree. Honestly, I think the church, it was the rails, it was the string on the kite in a lot of really meaningful ways. And I think that it doesn't need to be the only thing that grounds you and I you, but you. It's true. You need something. Right.

John Dehlin [02:17:46] Self imposed grounding doesn't always work.

Ryan Huey [02:17:48] No. And I think a punitive God that's

John Dehlin [02:17:52] there to punish you sometimes does work.

Ryan Huey [02:17:54] It sometimes does. And I, I genuinely believe that the church is like, for some people, it's probably better to stay in the church.

John Dehlin [02:18:01] Right.

Ryan Huey [02:18:02] And for some people, it's better to leave. Like, I, I. There's objective truth and there's subjective truth. And I'm so okay with people's own subjective truth. Um, I got no issue with that. I find issue when you take your subjective truth and tell me it's objective and I need to abide by it. That's where I take issue. But, but yeah, it's good to have those guidelines. You. I want to live a good life. And to me that does look like some discipline. It looks like some direction. And when you go off the rails, you people are miserable. That's, that's Aside from religion. That's just a proven point in psychology.

John Dehlin [02:18:41] It's actually even more complex than, like, some people do best staying and some people do best living. Some people do horribly staying, but stay anyway. And some people leave and their life becomes a disaster. Like it's all four. Right. And there's all sorts of shades in the middle. It's just life has suffering. Life is complex.

Ryan Huey [02:19:01] Totally.

John Dehlin [02:19:02] And it's complex in or out. You know, you really don't escape the complexity in or out, you just get a different type of complexity.

Ryan Huey [02:19:10] It's true. Yeah. Everyone has such a unique life experience. We're all individuals.

John Dehlin [02:19:15] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:19:15] We're gonna have unique lessons.

John Dehlin [02:19:17] Yeah. Let me ask you one, one question that I think some will care about. What have you decided to do with your church membership? Have you decided to stay on the rolls to resign? And how have you come to that decision?

Resigning from the Church After Graduating

Ryan Huey [02:19:29] Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you asked. I told myself I'd do two things when I graduated from byu. One of them was to apply to Mormon Stories podcast and the other one was to formally remove my records from the church. I never thought I would take that step. Even, I thought, even if I hypothetically did leave the church, why would I go through that? And, but really my decision just hinged on the numbers reporting of the church. There are 17.5-ish million members of the church and the church will report that every year at their church audit report. But they don't mention that activity levels are closer to like 5 million.

John Dehlin [02:20:15] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:20:16] To me, it's a misleading number. I, I spent time on my mission talking about the growth of the church to try and, you know, illustrate how God's work is progressing. This is clearly the work of God because look how much we've expanded.

John Dehlin [02:20:29] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:20:30] But attrition numbers are not mentioned at all. So I, I think that that's dishonest on the church's behalf. It could, it very easily could be a number reported. It's, it's widely known. We know the church membership, 17.5 million. And we know the wards in operation divide the two.

John Dehlin [02:20:49] And they track attendance weekly and they attract.

Ryan Huey [02:20:52] So they know if, if the 17.5 million were accurate, we'd see something like 500 to 600 members per ward. But we know the activity level levels are closer to like 150. So the church knows this. There's no way they can't. But they don't report on it. They'll just report the 17.5 million number. To me, that's dishonest.

John Dehlin [02:21:14] It's worse because they used to report on it and then they stopped.

Ryan Huey [02:21:17] Oh.

John Dehlin [02:21:17] Once the numbers got bad.

Ryan Huey [02:21:19] That's interesting.

John Dehlin [02:21:19] Every general conference, they used to report the membership numbers and then a few years ago, they stopped reporting the membership numbers.

Ryan Huey [02:21:26] Yeah. And I mean, even if you are reporting 17.5 million, it's, it's misleading.

John Dehlin [02:21:30] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:21:31] Because.

John Dehlin [02:21:31] But I'm just saying to the members, they don't even report that.

Ryan Huey [02:21:34] Yeah. Wild.

John Dehlin [02:21:35] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:21:36] Yeah. So I think that's dishonest and I don't want my number to go. It's, I don't want my number falsely reported in a misleading manner.

John Dehlin [02:21:46] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:21:46] And so that, that's purely my intention in removing my record. I don't want to be associated with the 17.5 million to try to like, push a narrative that Mormonism is, you know, growing rapidly or whatever. I, I don't think it's accurate.

John Dehlin [02:22:00] Yeah. Yeah. Well, lots of people make that decision. I didn't get to make that decision. They just kicked me out.

Ryan Huey [02:22:07] So.

John Dehlin [02:22:08] But some people stay, keep their names on the Record, some don't. So thanks for sharing that.

Ryan Huey [02:22:14] Yeah, of course.

Life After Mormonism and Looking Ahead

John Dehlin [02:22:15] So how are you feeling about your future now? That kind of the Mormon dream has become a just a vision of the past, you know?

Ryan Huey [02:22:27] Right.

John Dehlin [02:22:28] How are you feeling about your future?

Ryan Huey [02:22:30] There's a level of uncertainty that's unprecedented. Up until this point in my life, my life can go any direction. It's. It's insight exciting and invigorating, and it's also terrifying if I'm being like, fully honest and transparent. I don't really know where my life is going to go. I'm really curious to see how it unfolds. I'm piecing together things, aspects of my life that I still want or other aspects that I want to add. One that for that, for this last year, I've been like, well, do I even want the whole. Whole marriage and family thing? And I've discovered pretty recently that that's still something I want. I think, like Margi grounds you. I believe that a significant other in a family would. Would ground me to love and caring and nurturing. That. That's a. That's like a very healthy human thing to have in your life. And ultimately I. I value love kind of above everything else. And so to, you know, to maximize the love in my life, I think means to raise a family. So that's something I still want. And there. There is kind of a path to get there. It's almost like I've. I've still fallen back into the same desires. I still want a family, I still want to raise kids. And in order to do that, I think a steady career is probably the best way to go. Also, life experience is important. I want to travel, I want to make friends. I want to be. I don't want to live my life based on fear or guilt or shame. So there are lots of tenets and I'm sort of piecing it together. But the cool thing is I've been given a blank canvas and now I'm painting the picture that I want to paint. And I'm not just coloring within the lines anymore. And in my opinion, it creates a more beautiful painting.

John Dehlin [02:24:14] You can make a master. You can make a masterpiece, but it'll be yours.

Ryan Huey [02:24:20] Yeah, I agree. I agree.

John Dehlin [02:24:22] Or you can make just a. A great painting doesn't have to be a masterpiece or a mess. It could just be your great painting.

Ryan Huey [02:24:29] And life is subjective. Some people are going to look at my painting and they're going to say, that's ugly. And other people are going to look at it and Say it's beautiful. And that doesn't matter to me. I think that every painting is beautiful, truly. And every life lives. Is beautiful.

John Dehlin [02:24:43] That's true. Amen. Well, this has been beautiful. Any final words of wisdom or perspective you want to share for, let's say, for a BYU student that's watching this and just trying to figure out how to.

Ryan Huey [02:24:57] Yeah. Find the coffee shops. Peace on Earth. I expect a commission check.

John Dehlin [02:25:02] Wait, say that last part again.

Ryan Huey [02:25:03] Peace on Earth. I expect a commission check.

John Dehlin [02:25:05] Wait, what does that mean?

Ryan Huey [02:25:06] Peace on earth.

John Dehlin [02:25:07] Is that. Yeah, we should.

Ryan Huey [02:25:10] We should.

John Dehlin [02:25:11] We should create merch. So here's a business opportunity.

Ryan Huey [02:25:14] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:25:15] Be my merch guy. Create a T shirt that's like, find a coffee shop.

Ryan Huey [02:25:21] I like it.

John Dehlin [02:25:22] It'll be like this little underground.

Ryan Huey [02:25:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:25] Would it be student get in trouble for wearing a T shirt that said find a coffee shop?

Ryan Huey [02:25:29] I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:25:30] It could be like this little signaling, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have your face on the back, maybe.

Ryan Huey [02:25:37] That's right. Find a coffee shop.

John Dehlin [02:25:40] Okay. Any other. Any other words of wisdom or advice or.

Ryan Huey [02:25:44] Did we get it, man, the pressure's on. I don't know about any final words of advice.

John Dehlin [02:25:50] Any siblings. Do you want to talk about whether any of your five siblings are still in or out or.

Ryan Huey [02:25:55] Yeah, so actually, half of my family's in. Half my family's out now.

John Dehlin [02:26:01] The 40, 50% is holding. True.

Ryan Huey [02:26:03] Yeah, yeah. True.

John Dehlin [02:26:05] Yeah, yeah. And then this is a super devout Mormon family and.

Ryan Huey [02:26:08] Oh, we were so devout. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's okay. You know, everyone paves their own path.

John Dehlin [02:26:15] Are some of the. Are some of the ones still in kind of nuanced, progressive, liberal, or are they pretty hard line, orthodox?

Ryan Huey [02:26:22] They're pretty hard line.

John Dehlin [02:26:22] Okay.

Ryan Huey [02:26:23] To be honest. Yeah, maybe a little bit.

John Dehlin [02:26:25] Okay.

Ryan Huey [02:26:25] I think. But they under. They're hardlined. But they're. But they're not ignorant, which I really admire about them. They. I think a lot of them have read the CS letter. They understand the issues and they chosen.

Coming Out to Family and Final Reflections

John Dehlin [02:26:35] What are family reunions like when you all get together?

Ryan Huey [02:26:38] You know, it's. It's a total shift in dynamic when someone leaves, especially when half the family leaves. We all still, when we're together as a family, we follow the Mormon rules. We don't swear, we don't drink. We don't do any of that.

John Dehlin [02:26:50] Say family prayers before dinner.

Ryan Huey [02:26:52] Yep. We will still do that. Yeah. And so nothing wrong with that. No, there's nothing wrong with it.

John Dehlin [02:26:57] Yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:26:58] Yeah, I agree. And we all love each other. It's a new dynamic. It's like we were talking about. It's a. It's an old friendship that dies, but like a phoenix from the ashes, a new. A new one forms. And, and I think the new, the new friendship or relationship that forms is, is often just as good or maybe even sometimes better because there's real authenticity in it. I don't have any final words, but just everyone's path is beautiful. Everyone's path is their own. And that's all I have to say.

John Dehlin [02:27:35] So if there's an ex Mormon young man or young woman that's, you know, wanting to be your friend or more, how do they get a hold of you?

Ryan Huey [02:27:43] Yeah, so I'm not on social media

John Dehlin [02:27:44] or never Mormon or never Mormon.

Ryan Huey [02:27:45] All this sounds so lame. This makes me sound like such a grandpa. But probably email, because I don't have social media.

John Dehlin [02:27:53] Do you want to share your email address?

Ryan Huey [02:27:55] Yeah, sure. It's ryan Michael Huey, gmail.com.

John Dehlin [02:27:59] ryan Michael. H U E Y Ryan Michael Huey.

Ryan Huey [02:28:04] Honestly, I would love that. My, my intent was twofold in, in auditioning for this interview. One was I wanted to not live my life in fear or hidden. I wanted to just be open about and authentic about who I am. So, so that's, for me, that's. My selfish desire, is that this is my coming out. The. The other desire was provide myself as a resource, a voice of support to people who are going through a similar process. It can be incredibly difficult. I know for me, it was literally the most difficult thing I've ever done. And so, yeah, reach out to me. I would love to answer emails and give you my phone number or whatever, but coffee and grab coffee.

John Dehlin [02:28:45] Ryan Michael Huey or hot chocolate.

Ryan Huey [02:28:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:49] A couple years ago, I had some BYU students reach out to me and say, we're closet Mormon Stories listeners. There's a group of 12 of us who get together regularly. Can we come to the studio? So they came here to the studio and we, we had, I ordered lunch. We. We ate lunch right around that table over there.

Ryan Huey [02:29:06] That's so fun.

John Dehlin [02:29:07] We all took a selfie with like, you know, Mormon coral horror and 12 BYU students. It was super fun. So, yeah, UVU students, if you ever want to do a Mormon Stories field trip, I'm in Salt Lake.

Ryan Huey [02:29:19] I love that.

John Dehlin [02:29:20] And I'll keep your. I'll keep your secrets. I won't.

Ryan Huey [02:29:22] Well, I'll be waiting for the emails. I'll put together a group and then we can all go get dinner or something fun. Yeah, that'd be good. Go To a coffee shop.

John Dehlin [02:29:29] All right. All right. You can do my merch.

Ryan Huey [02:29:32] Yeah, I got you.

John Dehlin [02:29:33] Okay. All right. And your dad. Shout out to brother Huey. Yep.

Ryan Huey [02:29:40] And sister here.

John Dehlin [02:29:41] Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Huey [02:29:42] They're both incredible.

John Dehlin [02:29:43] Yeah. All right, well, Ryan, Huey, thanks for coming on more stories. I know it's going to help a lot of people. And you know, my heart, Margi's heart is definitely with BYU students. So thanks for being willing to come out air quotes so quickly in service of those who might benefit from your story.

Ryan Huey [02:30:03] Thank you so much, Don.

Closing Remarks and Channel Milestone

John Dehlin [02:30:05] All right, and just to close, we're like 300 subscribers away from 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Let's break 300,000. That helps us get better guests. Honestly, I got Barton Bert Erman on last week and, you know, his agent looks at how many subscribers we have and that makes him want to come on to sell his book. So please subscribe. Please, like, please comment. We value all that. If you're a donor. Thank you. We couldn't do this without you.

Ryan Huey [02:30:35] We.

John Dehlin [02:30:35] Our ad revenue is in decline. We don't really do ads. We don't do sponsorships. The way we exist, for the most part, is through donations. So if you value this content you want to see continue, Please go to MormonStories.org donate, become a monthly donor, and that's how we'll be able to continue. The Mormon Church is threatening to sue us. It could be a multimillion dollar lawsuit. We're in the final stages of mediation. It looks like it's. I can't imagine it ending successfully. I could be surprised, but we may be facing a multimillion dollar possible lawsuit from the church. So we need your support. So please support us if you can. If you can't, don't worry about it. Don't stress, don't feel bad, Enjoy the podcast. We give it away for free. But if you can't support us, we really appreciate it. You can. There are other ways to support us besides financially. Again, subscribing, liking, giving us a positive rating on itunes, on Spotify, on Facebook, wherever, sharing, spreading the word. And we're always looking for people to apply, just like Ryan. What he did is he went to MormonStories.org apply. He filled out the application, recorded a three minute application video. Margi and I reviewed it. We felt like it would be a really interesting and novel episode. And so we invited him on. That's how you get a Mormon stories. Now we get about 1000 interviews a year and the ones that make it usually are Good storytellers with a good story who we get a real clear sense know what our audience would find interesting. If you're just trying to sell a book and you're not really a listener to Mormon stories, or you just, you know, have a story that's been told a lot that isn't much different, you know, there's less of a chance you're going to be accepted. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that if you're just a normal, everyday Mormon that we won't want you. We often get people telling us the interviews we value most are regular, everyday Mormons. So it's not that we need, you know, Internet celebrities or published authors or, you know, clickbait scandal stuff. An everyday Mormon story can be some of the most compelling, like the father daughter combo that we interviewed just a few weeks ago. It's just, is it a heartfelt, uplifting, inspiring, touching, moving story with good storytellers? So don't rule yourself out if you're a great, a good storyteller or an authentic storyteller. And I don't even mean charismatic, I just mean heartfelt, sincere, honest. Those are the types of things we're looking for. So please apply mormonstories.org apply. We would love to consider you for Mormon Stories. And if we don't accept you, that doesn't mean your story isn't worthy or good or valuable. It just means we have too many to choose from. Someday there'll be someone else start of Mormon Stories and I can just pass all the people who we don't accept on to someone else to have them tell their story because everyone's story deserves to be told. Margi and I just can't do it all. Especially while we're being sued by the church or allegedly sued or possibly sued. So anyway, that's it. Thanks for your support. Thanks for joining us today. Huge thanks to Brooklyn and Julia. They do all our post production and pre production. They do a great job. Margi as a co host is great and all the people running LDS discussions, Julia and Colby and Nemo, so we're grateful to them as well. So that's it. Thanks for joining us today. Please reach out. I hope more BYU students in the future will reach out to us as well. Love to have field trips here on Mormon Stories Studios. And that's it. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care everybody.

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.