Welcome and Introduction to Jared Smith

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your co host for today, John Dehlin. And today we have in studio someone we don't normally have in studio, Nemo.

Nemo [00:00:11] Hi everyone.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] What the freak are you doing here?

Nemo [00:00:14] I'm just having a good time.

John Dehlin [00:00:15] Nemo's in the house, everyone. He's visiting from the UK and it's good to have you, Nemo.

Nemo [00:00:21] Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm really excited about this guest.

John Dehlin [00:00:24] And you don't just come to visit, you bring a guest.

Nemo [00:00:27] Yeah, I bring treats for everyone when I visit from abroad.

John Dehlin [00:00:32] For those of you who don't know, for the three of you who don't know, Nemo is the head, the face, the voice, the brain behind the Nemo the Mormon YouTube channel. So check it out, support it, subscribe and like to it as you subscribe and like to this Mormon Stories podcast as well. Nemo, how do you want to begin today's episode?

Nemo [00:00:54] Oh, well, I'm really excited about this guest because we have someone who has experienced Mormonism a lot but has not had a chance to really sit down with the ex Mormon community and have a chat with us about our experience. So he's someone I've had a chance to sit down and talk with about his experience of reading the Book of Mormon and about his experience of going on a cruise with a bunch of influencers. But we'll get to all that because I think we should let him introduce himself.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] Okay, who are you?

Jared Smith [00:01:21] Brother John. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Jared Smith. I'm the guy behind the heliocentric YouTube channel and I have a series on there called Atheist Church Audit.

John Dehlin [00:01:34] And yeah, so you, we'll be talking about this, but you're a former Christian who became an atheist and now you have a YouTube channel where as an atheist you check out churches.

Jared Smith [00:01:47] Yeah, yeah. So my background is that I'm an atheist with a couple of degrees in theology. I did convert.

John Dehlin [00:01:53] What are they?

Jared Smith [00:01:54] Well, so my, my first degree in theology was a non accredited degree in practical ministry from a little Pentecostal pseudo seminary called Fire School of Ministry out there in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then my second degree, I like to say that I got a degree in Christian heavy metal music at Wheaton College because I studied theology, ancient languages and digital audio engineering, focusing on the conversation between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, culminating in an album called Ishmael. So it was an 11 song metal album that got me my degree at Wheaton College.

John Dehlin [00:02:31] And Mormons tend to be a Little bit insular sometimes. So they won't know what. Maybe many won't. And I hope I'm not underestimating you, dear viewers and audience members, but many may not know how what Wheaton College means in a broader evangelical Christian context.

Jared Smith [00:02:50] Yeah, yeah. I mean, so Wheaton College, we liked to call ourselves the Harvard of Christian institutions, which is probably a little generous, but it was, it was still like, you know, maybe not the BYU of Christian schools, but one of the, you know, premier evangelical institutions.

John Dehlin [00:03:10] Is it in Illinois? Yeah, Wheaton, Illinois. Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:03:12] I had a blast there. It was a really good time.

John Dehlin [00:03:14] And, and you, you joked about, and we'll talk about this, but like you associated Billy Graham with Wheaton.

Jared Smith [00:03:21] Yeah. So Billy Graham is Wheaton College's most famous alumnus.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Okay.

Jared Smith [00:03:26] And so you know, the, one of the biggest buildings on campus there is the Billy Graham. It's funny because he's kind of, you know, the, the old school evangelical and probably most of the staff and faculty there don't quite align with that flavor of evangelicalism anymore. But he's still part of our legacy. And so.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] Yeah, so part of today will be your story. Part of today will be how an ex Christian atheist experiences Mormonism.

Jared Smith [00:03:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:56] In the modern day. So part of today will be your story. Part of today will be how an ex Christian atheist encounters Mormonism and maybe sprinkled throughout. You can ask me an email questions about Mormonism and, or ex Mormonism.

Jared Smith [00:04:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:17] And we can just have a fun chat.

Jared Smith [00:04:19] 100%. Yeah. I mean the, the short and sweet of it is that I don't think I've ever been more confused and perplexed by a relig religious denomination or, or sect before. I don't mean sect in a, in a, with any sort of negative connotation. But yeah, like I'm fascinated by this whole world and it's been such a, like honor and a privilege kind of getting to be an outsider looking in and experiencing this whole complicated world. And so yeah, I'm just, I'm grateful.

Visiting and Auditing Various Churches and Religions

John Dehlin [00:04:51] Tell us some of the churches or religions that you've scrutinized or observed so far.

Jared Smith [00:04:57] Yeah, yeah. So my whole shtick with atheist church audit, what I love to do is I love to go and experience religions. I love to go and you know, see them in the flesh because it's kind of too easy, especially nowadays with short form content to just, you know, hey, let me clip farm all of the worst moments of the Mormon faith or you know, Scientology or any of these groups and just have a never Ending conveyor belt of, like, awful things that people have said. Right. I think it's much more honest and much more difficult to go in person and visit these places and hear them out and see them face to face. So one of my modus operandi is that I like to go in blind usually. I don't like to Google churches before I go and visit them. I don't want to know about their, you know, big scandals before I go and, you know, sit down, have a chat with them. I want to go and experience it as a total novice. Right. As, you know, an earnest person seeking wood. So I think that's super important for me, so.

John Dehlin [00:06:01] Sounds super lazy. Joking.

Jared Smith [00:06:04] Sometimes it is. Not gonna lie.

John Dehlin [00:06:06] Or sustainable is another way to. Another way to say it.

Jared Smith [00:06:08] I mean, you know, candidly, sometimes it is just like throwing a dart on the map and being like, yeah, I don't know. This place looks interesting. Then have stumbled into some really weird churches through doing that. Right.

Nemo [00:06:19] What's the strangest one you've stumbled into?

Jared Smith [00:06:21] Oh, man. I mean, I think that the United House of Prayer for All People is probably got to be up there. So it is a small denomination with about 100 congregations in the US and their leader is affectionately known by all of its adherents as Sweet Daddy. And so they sing hymns to him every time he walks into a room. There are, you know, virgins in white dresses, literally fanning him with big fans when he enters a room. Standard protocol is that you reach into your wallet and pull out crisp dollar bills for him to come and snatch from the audience.

John Dehlin [00:07:01] Dang.

Jared Smith [00:07:02] I mean, this is like a real church that's here in America.

John Dehlin [00:07:04] Wow.

Jared Smith [00:07:05] And just nobody knows about it.

John Dehlin [00:07:07] Where's it based?

Jared Smith [00:07:08] So their headquarters is in Washington, D.C. but then they've got churches kind of scattered throughout the U.S. is it Christian? Yeah, yeah, it's Christian. It's a.

Nemo [00:07:18] A.

Jared Smith [00:07:18] A black denomination that was started in the early 1900s. And for whatever reason, they've just never gotten much media attention.

John Dehlin [00:07:27] Sweet Daddy.

Jared Smith [00:07:28] Sweet Daddy, yeah. Church of the United House of Prayer for All People. That's their full name.

John Dehlin [00:07:34] Whoa. Okay.

Jared Smith [00:07:35] That's wild.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] And just do, like, five or ten of the other churches or religions. You've. You've.

Jared Smith [00:07:40] Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I've done. I've been to pretty much every main or every major Christian denomination. You know, I've visited the Catholics. I've. I've done a Pascha service with the Eastern Orthodox. I just got back from two weeks in Egypt exploring Coptic Christianity, Presbyterians, Methodists, Armenians Calvinists. One of the other groups that I've been pretty critical of has been the Jehovah's Witnesses. So I've got a lot of Jehovah's Witness friends and, and, and supporters and they've been one of the, one of the few groups that I've seen just kind of unilateral harm. Right. Not, not like, not a hundred percent. Right. But I tend to be probably more gracious than, than the average atheist, which occasionally is like a valid criticism of my work. But in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses, just like going and experiencing them was so off putting and kind of scary for me at times. Just like, you know, the disfellowshipping arrangement, the blood doctrine. They don't allow blood transfusions. And didn't I just change? It was softened recently. I don't want to misstate it, but from what I understand, as of like 10 minutes ago, they are now allowed to preserve their own blood for a blood transfusion with themselves.

John Dehlin [00:09:07] Okay.

Jared Smith [00:09:08] But if you're in a car wreck, from what I'm pretty sure that the protocol is still, you are expected to bleed out if you need blood transfusion. They, they carry like cards on them, like medical cards that say, I am a Jehovah's Witness. If I am in need of blood, I reject it. And I mean, it's, it's heartbreaking.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] Baby steps, brother. Baby steps.

Jared Smith [00:09:28] Baby steps. So I'm very excited about this, about this Slight, slight improvements.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] We know a lot about slight improvements.

Nemo [00:09:36] Yeah, right. Ye.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] Yeah.

Nemo [00:09:37] Very experienced with baby steps.

John Dehlin [00:09:39] Yeah.

Nemo [00:09:40] Baby steps that fall over sometimes and then get back up further back than they were. But yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] In fact, we have a big announcement to make to you, Jared. Women can now be presidents of the Sunday school in Mormonism.

Jared Smith [00:09:52] Let's go.

John Dehlin [00:09:53] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:09:53] All about it, man. What an upgrade.

Nemo [00:09:56] And at exactly the same time they did it, they then made Sunday school shorter. I think it's a coincidence. It must be

John Dehlin [00:10:06] anyway.

Jared Smith [00:10:06] Oh, man, that's.

John Dehlin [00:10:08] That's gold. Well, I want to have a. I want to hear your assessment of Mormons versus Joe's Witness, who does more harm. But not now. Sure, not now. Maybe, maybe that can be something we cover a little 100. Okay. Any other cults, like if you've done Scientology or, you know, candidly.

Jared Smith [00:10:23] So there's a lot of cults that I want to investigate soon, but I'm still waiting for kind of more support and funding candidly to have a legal team behind me because a lot of the cults that I'm starting to slowly investigate. They're too litigious for me to like, safely investigate in the way that I want to.

John Dehlin [00:10:42] That's one of the things about the warmer church. They don't sue you.

Nemo [00:10:48] No, they don't.

Jared Smith [00:10:49] Thoughts and prayers, John?

John Dehlin [00:10:51] Actually, I haven't been sued by the church yet.

Nemo [00:10:53] Oh.

John Dehlin [00:10:54] I've just been threatened with.

Nemo [00:10:55] I put on notice.

Jared Smith [00:10:56] I see.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] And I've done two full days of mediation to avoid being sued.

Jared Smith [00:11:00] I see.

John Dehlin [00:11:01] I see.

Jared Smith [00:11:01] Well, all the best, man.

John Dehlin [00:11:03] Thanks. Thanks. No, we're less, for sure, less litigious in terms of suing people than Scientologists and jobs Witnesses.

Jared Smith [00:11:11] Yeah, yeah, I mean, I. I will say.

John Dehlin [00:11:13] I mean, it could change. Yeah, keep going. Sorry.

Jared Smith [00:11:16] No, I mean, I'm just. I'm very grateful that like, you know, that that hasn't been an issue, thankfully, with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah. Maybe. The only other group that I think is worth mentioning is probably the group surrounding Apostle Catherine Cricket out in California, in Los Angeles, the. The birthplace of the Foursquare movement. There's an apostle out there who I've seen some really concerning stuff from. I'm, you know, saw her live and in person, and her congregation really emphasizes and prioritizes exorcisms and miracles, which usually results in, you know, contorting and. And, you know, seizing on the ground and screaming hysterically. It's really scary seeing that in person.

Nemo [00:12:02] Is she the one that called you out? She called you out personally?

Jared Smith [00:12:06] Yeah. So it was kind of. It was kind of bizarre being there because I just kind of showed up on a random Sunday I caught wind of like, hey, there's this group that you should go and check out. So I show up for a normal Sunday morning and I don't think that she knew who I was, but I was just standing there in, in the service and I was probably the only person there who, you know, wasn't, you know, arms raised, eyes close, caught up in the spirit. And she. She starts kind of doing like cold reads from stage and starts, you know, prophesying over people and, you know, she's pointing out people and she is immediately drawn to me because I'm the only one there. Just kind of like looking around, you know, just observing. And she goes, you, you're just so misunderstood. And it seems like there was a baked in level of irony.

Nemo [00:13:02] Yes.

Jared Smith [00:13:03] In that.

Nemo [00:13:03] Do you feel misunderstood, Jared?

Jared Smith [00:13:05] Well, clearly by her, because she didn't know that I was there to audit her church.

Nemo [00:13:08] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:13:09] So very fun.

Jared's Christian Upbringing and Family Faith

John Dehlin [00:13:11] Well, let's jump into your story. So Tell us a bit about your Christian upbringing, assuming you had one.

Jared Smith [00:13:17] Yeah, yeah, I did. So, you know, my parents raised me kind of lightly Pentecostal, I would say.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] In North Carolina?

Jared Smith [00:13:25] Yeah, in North Carolina, kind of between Charlotte and Greensboro, out in the sticks. You know, I was not a. Not a country boy, but, you know, raised adjacent to the country. Like, I think in the small Pentecostal church that I grew up in, I was the only kid in my youth group to not get pregnant or impregnate somebody out of wedlock.

John Dehlin [00:13:49] Wow.

Jared Smith [00:13:50] So really bizarre and unique experience.

John Dehlin [00:13:54] What's. How do you account for that fertility rate of young kids,

Jared Smith [00:14:00] poor sex education, and living in a rural community? I would say, you know, it's just. That was just kind of how people did things, you know, for. For better or worse. It was. It was pretty sad.

John Dehlin [00:14:10] So would you say your. Your home was highly religious?

Jared Smith [00:14:15] Yeah, I would say so. And maybe I. I have to remind myself, like, how religious it was. It was weird, right? So I had my big come to Jesus moment when I was 13 and just immediately went headlong into it. Right. And I think there was an element of it where I was always kind of running from something. I was running from nihilism, I was running from atheism. And I think that thrust me headlong into the arms of Jesus. And so, you know, immediately I began cultivating a relationship with the Holy Spirit, you know, developed a testimony, as you guys would say, and. And then also got really into theology, apologetics, studying the early church.

John Dehlin [00:15:01] Did your commitment to the Pentecostal faith begin with speaking in tongues, sort of confessional or whatever it's called?

Jared Smith [00:15:11] It's so funny. Right? Because historically, the Pentecostals really emphasized speaking in tongues. I feel like that's kind of been belittled over the past 50 years or so, maybe even shorter than that, maybe the past 30. Where now kind of like the gifts of the Spirit in general account for much more than just speaking in tongues. And so, yeah, I. You know, I think I tried it, and it was like, I just. I just don't think this is my thing. So I never really had much of a consistent era where I was consistently speaking in tongues.

John Dehlin [00:15:47] So that wasn't a rite of passage for your. No Pentecostal upbringing?

Jared Smith [00:15:52] No, not for mine specifically.

John Dehlin [00:15:54] What about, like, an altar call kind of being saved moment at the altar? Is that stereotypical? No.

Jared Smith [00:16:02] So I was. Can I swear on the show?

John Dehlin [00:16:06] Yeah, sure.

Jared Smith [00:16:06] Cool. So I was at a Christmas party in 2007, and I was starting to talk to my Older brother who was, you know, off at ECU studying religion and philosophy.

John Dehlin [00:16:17] Eastern Carolina.

Jared Smith [00:16:18] Eastern Carolina University.

Nemo [00:16:19] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:16:20] Big party school. And so, you know, I idolized him because he was 10 years older than me. And we were talking to this Christmas party, and he's just kind of, like, casually like, hey, that Christianity stuff, you know, it's. Right. And something about, like, what he was saying to me just, like, broke something inside of me. And I just. I interrupted him in the middle of a sentence and, like, sprinted to my mom's minivan, locked myself inside, and just started, like, heaving and. And sobbing and, like, the. The thought of my world view being, like, upended like that, even though it was a worldview that I really didn't care about. Right. I didn't give a crap about religion at 13. But then all of a sudden, at the prospect of having it taken away from me, it was like, I need this. I need this to be real.

John Dehlin [00:17:03] And backfire effect for the win.

Jared Smith [00:17:06] Yeah, yeah, truly. And so, I mean, from there, I, you know, was trying to find my epistemological and spiritual footing and grounding, trying to, you know, figure out, like, what I believe, but also really, really wanting Christianity to be true because I thought it was beautiful. And so, you know, by the end of high school, I was a chaplain. I was a worship leader. I eventually, like, shortly after, became a street preacher for a little while, you know, was standing on park benches, you know, pontificating about the love of God and imploring people to come and, you know, know the Savior and. And that was my whole world, man. Yeah, I. In high school, I was. My ritual daily to wake up at 5am and have an hour of just, like, divine contemplation and, you know, adoring Christ and reading the Scriptures and, you know, dancing with the Holy Spirit around my bedroom. That was. That was my whole world.

Nemo [00:18:06] I think that would have been more fun than seminary, I think. I wish I'd done that.

John Dehlin [00:18:11] I mean, we had good dances. I don't know about you, but not around our bed.

Nemo [00:18:15] Yeah, we had good dances. Yeah. Like, youth social dances. Like, you'll go to an LDS meeting house and a bunch of the young people will be there, and there's, like, they'll get a DJ in or someone to play some music. It's all clean music. It's all Mormon appropriate music.

Jared Smith [00:18:28] Do they allow, like, slow dancing?

Nemo [00:18:30] Yeah, there's slow dancing involved. There's line dancing, a big thing as well.

Jared Smith [00:18:33] Scandalous.

John Dehlin [00:18:34] No, no. We hear an abomination. I grew up in the 80s and we had incredible dances with hundreds of youth dancing to Michael Jackson and, and, you know, Howard Jones and.

Jared Smith [00:18:43] Awesome.

Nemo [00:18:44] It was a good time.

John Dehlin [00:18:45] Yeah. Dancing has not been prohibited at all in, in my Mormon experience.

Jared Smith [00:18:50] I'd love to hear that.

John Dehlin [00:18:51] I mean, we're. We, We. We created the Osmonds.

Jared Smith [00:18:53] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:18:55] Maybe they're too old.

Jared Smith [00:18:55] Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses created Michael Jackson, so sort of.

John Dehlin [00:18:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, exactly. And I don't think Jehovah's Witnesses are supposed to dance.

Jared Smith [00:19:04] I don't know. It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that they would like, but I'll. I'll abstain from. Given a definitive answer on that one.

John Dehlin [00:19:12] Celebrities get a pass in many high demand religions. Yeah.

Nemo [00:19:16] Many places.

John Dehlin [00:19:18] Anyway, so you were dancing around your bed.

Jared Smith [00:19:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:22] So what were kind of the pillars of your. So it sounds like reading the Bible, praying, testifying. What were some of the pillars of your Christian upbringing? Theologically, behaviorally, doctrinally?

Jared Smith [00:19:36] That's such an interesting way to phrase it. I mean, I think that, you know, having an intimacy with the Holy Spirit was kind of everything to me.

John Dehlin [00:19:43] Right. What if you had feelings?

Jared Smith [00:19:46] Yeah, I mean, you know, a deep and immediate sense of, you know, the reality of God with me. Right. Not just kind of like an abstract theological statement of like, oh, I believe that, you know, God is up in the heavens and he hears our prayers, but, like, no, God is here. He's like a dove resting on my shoulder. Right. I mean, it was very intimate. Like, it was very spiritually intimate. So that was a huge thing.

John Dehlin [00:20:12] When you had a decision to make, would you be asking God?

Jared Smith [00:20:15] Oh, I would ask God what color shirt I should pick in the morning.

John Dehlin [00:20:18] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:20:18] You know, like, everything. Was consulting him in prayer, like a

Nemo [00:20:23] codependent relationship with God.

Jared Smith [00:20:24] Yeah, I would say so. No, and that's a, That's a great way to put it. And candidly, I would say that, like, that's maybe one of the hardest things about my deconversion is being frustrated with the sense of, like, oh, man, maybe there's not a right answer to every single little decision I have to make. That. That feels like, like a greater responsibility

Nemo [00:20:50] in some sense because you lose the level of certainty.

Jared Smith [00:20:53] Yeah.

Nemo [00:20:53] That comes with that.

Jared Smith [00:20:55] Yeah. I can't outsource it.

Nemo [00:20:57] No.

Jared Smith [00:20:57] You know, I have to take responsibility if I, If I, you know, do

Nemo [00:21:01] wear the wrong color shirt.

Jared Smith [00:21:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you just miss it.

Nemo [00:21:06] Exactly. And then the outfit's ruined and then, you know, that's on you yeah, and

Jared Smith [00:21:10] you know, my, my date doesn't like my, my pastel colored shirt. She was hoping for something, you know, darker. And because of that, I don't get to meet my God ordained wife.

Nemo [00:21:19] Well, this thing, we joke, right? But actually we, we can convince ourselves that these very small decisions can also be the thing that meant that we didn't get what we were meant to get in these massive ways. And so that can lead to this almost scrupulosity inducing, praying to God about every single decision. Because what if I get one of these little decisions wrong, that I might not meet the woman I'm meant to marry, or I might get in the car at the wrong time and then I might get in an accident. Whereas if I'd not got in the car at that time, it would have been fine. Hindsight allows us to look back and say, well, because I did this, I then avoided that. But we can never actually know the idea of an omnipotent God allows people to believe that because he could know he can guide you to avoid those things.

Jared Smith [00:21:57] For sure. For sure.

Nemo [00:22:01] So the relationship you had with God as you've described it, because we've talked about this, sounds a lot more intimate of a relationship sometimes than I think what we find in Mormonism.

Jared Smith [00:22:11] That's. Oh man, we're diving in deep fast. I'm so here for it. I think that is one of my kind of biggest and looming questions and maybe soft criticisms for Mormonism that I have so far is I'm still intrigued by the place of Jesus within Mormonism versus the place of Jesus within Nicene Christianity. And within that, there's, you know, different, there's a, there's different variations and permutations of that. But, but I think there's still kind of like a distinct flavor between the two that I'm interested in.

John Dehlin [00:22:46] How is it for you? We'll, we'll, we'll put a pin in that and definitely address that a little bit later. But I don't want to lose the mojo of your story. Sure, sure. What did Jesus in your life mean for you at the time? In your teens, man, because you mentioned God being on your shoulders, so to speak.

Jared Smith [00:23:02] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:03] Were God and Jesus the same thing to you or is there a difference?

Jared Smith [00:23:07] I mean, yes and no. Right. Because I mean, that gets into trinitarian orthodoxy. And so you kind of, you know, you're, you're a heretic if you say yes and a heretic if you say no. But by and large, right, I was, I was praying to the Trinity So I was praying to Christ, who is fully God. And so, yeah, yeah, you know, I would. Christ was perfection embodied. And so, you know, God was not just good. God was perfection itself. And I was fortunate enough to have a relationship with perfection through Christ and through intimacy with him, through his sacrifice.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] But would you say your personal relationship was more with God? In other words, it's hard to think of them as two. You kind of have to pick who, you know, is it God or Jesus that you're kind of homies with?

Jared Smith [00:24:01] I don't. I don't think so. I think it was genuinely both. You know, it's sort of like Christ is the gateway to God and he is God himself.

John Dehlin [00:24:09] Okay.

Jared Smith [00:24:10] Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [00:24:11] Your Mormonism's showing, John.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] Yeah.

Nemo [00:24:13] You want to separate them into two, which I. I have the same instinct to be like, okay, but we need to pick one. Right. I'm. I'm also struggling with this idea of what it could be.

Jared Smith [00:24:21] I never had that. That's.

John Dehlin [00:24:23] Lord. Was it Christ? Was it when you picked one name?

Jared Smith [00:24:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] For that being, you would address. What was it all of them?

Jared Smith [00:24:30] It wasn't one name. I mean, it truly is three in one. And I mean, it was like,

John Dehlin [00:24:37] you

Jared Smith [00:24:37] know, it's like, you know, when it's frustrating because I'm imagining, you know, any of my nicene Christian friends watching this, and they're going to be like, oh, that's a heresy. That's a heresy because anytime you try to explain the Trinity, you wind up in theological pigeonholes that are technically incorrect because the Trinity as so defined is in ineffable mystery. Right. But it's. It's this pervasive sense of threeness and oneness, and one that is. Yeah, it's a mystery. And so, you know, as I would meditate on Christ, you know, I would think about Christ walking on the water or Christ feeding the 5,000. And it was like, this is God doing this. And it's also, you know, a human doing this. And then, you know, as I would. As I would worship, you know, the Lord, it would be like, well, I'm thinking about God the Father, the creator of everything. I'm thinking about the Holy Spirit who was poured out on the day of Pentecost, and they kind of flowed into each other and yet remain some level of distinct. It's. It's funky.

Devotion, Behavior, and Standing Out as a Teenager

John Dehlin [00:25:49] What were some of the behavioral markers of your devotion and maybe ways you stood out from your peers behaviorally in high school?

Jared Smith [00:25:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:25:59] Were there some. No.

Jared Smith [00:26:00] I mean, I. I remember very vividly, like, being 16 or so and thinking, like, what kind of a person do I want to be? You know, what kind of citizen do I want to be? How do I want to exemplify the gospel? And I. I kind of, like, sketched out, like, well, you know, I. I could be an upstanding citizen of my community, and I could be the kind of, you know, guy who gets straight A's and is very well behaved and, like. And I just kind of thought that through, and I was like, that sounds really boring and. And stupid. That, like, no, I want to be, like, I want to be a zealot. Like, I want to be a John the Baptist screaming in the wilderness, you know, telling people to repent of their, you know, of their greed, of their sexual immorality, and. And in addition to that, to fall in love with the God who is love himself. And so, I mean, I think that, you know, I was always looking for an opportunity to, you know, shoehorn Jesus into a conversation. I was always looking for an opportunity to, you know, pray with somebody. I would. I would often ask people, like, hey, man, like, can I. Can I bless you? Can I just, you know, take you aside and throw a hand on your shoulder and just go to the Lord in prayer with you? And then beyond that, like, sexual purity was a huge thing for me. So I don't know how. How detailed I can get, but, I mean, I didn't look at porn or masturbate from, you know, 13 to 21. And I. In high school, even, I took it so seriously that I was known as, like, the kid who would not hug women in high school. That was seen as, like, too sexually salacious for me. And I was like, no, it's. You know, I don't even want to approach, you know, the. The ring around the ring, around the ring, which is, you know, the. The line in the sand that is sexual purity. Like, I. I want nothing to do with it. I would take my contact lenses out of my head anytime I would go to the gym. So I wasn't even, like. I literally couldn't even see the. The pretty girls working out at the gym.

John Dehlin [00:28:06] Whoa.

Jared Smith [00:28:06] It was just, you know, so ridiculous.

John Dehlin [00:28:08] Dude. I made it to 26. Well, I mean, I got married at 24, but, I mean, that 26 was my. My first time.

Jared Smith [00:28:17] Gotcha.

John Dehlin [00:28:18] Break that rule.

Jared Smith [00:28:19] Wow. Yeah, that's. That's wildly impressive.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] I mean, if I don't. I don't know. It's just what happened. Yeah, I don't think it was some huge thing to brag about necessarily. Now, but I mean, it's. I, I just say I relate is what I'm saying.

Jared Smith [00:28:32] Sure, sure.

John Dehlin [00:28:33] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:28:34] No, that's, that's real.

John Dehlin [00:28:36] So did your peers. Let's say there's a pie chart of peers who knew you in high school. What percent found you annoying and insufferable versus like super cool and like really special and neat versus kind of mad normal or moderate or something like that. You have a sense.

Jared Smith [00:28:54] Yeah, yeah. I would say that it was probably 50, 50. With the caveat being that occasionally, once in a blue moon, the ones who thought I was annoying would occasionally be like, all right, but you kind of warmed me over this time. I always remember there was this Lithuanian kid that we like, we imported him from Lithuania and like several other Lithuanian students explicitly to play basketball for our high school team. And you know, like, none of those guys were religious. They didn't give a crap about being at a Christian high school. And we weren't friends, we weren't close. But on the last day of school when everyone was signing each other's yearbooks, you know, he kind of like gave me a head nod and you know, wrote like, you know, God bless you, brother. You know, just like a, like a small concession of like, hey, you're an annoying twerp. But, but, but I appreciate your heart.

John Dehlin [00:29:46] And so did it fuel your confidence or your self esteem to know you were like hyper righteous working for Jesus amongst your secular peers?

Jared Smith [00:29:59] Sometimes, yeah. I mean, sometimes it did. Right. Like it gives you a cosmic sense of worth knowing that like, you are co laboring with God, to use a New Testament term, to bring about goodness and righteousness and healing in the world. You know, you're bringing people closer to God who is love himself, and that feels really affirming and it feels super disorienting walking away from that. So there's that. I think sometimes it felt like, yeah, man, I really wish that I wasn't a chaplain or a worship leader to my peers because it feels kind of like being a pastor in some sense where it's like, I really wish I could just like bro out with these people and like, you know, make fart jokes and drink a beer and, and do all that. But it's like, no, but I'm, I'm in a different category and I, I can't, I can't be that person to these people. Like, I have a different vocation to, in terms of like, my relationship to them.

Nemo [00:31:00] So did you feel called to be doing what you were doing in that sense because you described it as a vocation, did it feel like a sort of a calling?

Jared Smith [00:31:07] Yeah, it's funny, right? Because I was homeschooled from 7th grade to 10th grade and I was such a, like when I had my conversion experience at 13, I was this weird kind of anti social kid. Right. And then I, I became religious and then became like explosively social. And then by the time I was in 10th grade, I was like, I really, really, really want to go back and like socialize with friends. And so sophomore, or I'm sorry, junior and senior year, I went back to a Christian high school kind of with the explicit intention of preaching Jesus to kids who were already Christian. And so like, yeah man, I would, I would preach to the, the high schoolers and the middle schoolers two or three times a week and just, you know, stand up on stage and, and cry and implore them to, you know, come to the love of Christ and you know, accept a true relationship with him. And, and so I, I saw that as kind of like a God given mission to preach to the Christian kids.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] Right. You know, I'm curious. Like I, when I, when I listen to this Jared, I relate to your sense of mission and a sense of wanting to set a good example and to be hyper righteous. I wasn't as overtly preachy, sure, sure, to my peers, but I, but they all knew I was Mormon and they all knew I didn't drink or smoke or have sex and they knew that I was down to talk religion if they wanted to. But I, for some reason I, the, I stopped short of being like super evangelical. Nemo, I'm wondering how much you relate to kind of the identity and the approach that Jared had in high school.

Nemo [00:32:52] Yeah, I would say I was opinionated but not preachy. As in, I had my strong opinions. If it came up, we'd talk about it. I would really defend the church, I'd be pushing the church, I would try and convert friends, but I wouldn't get up on a stage. It strikes me as quite interesting because you think about the early history of the church. We have pictures of Mormon missionaries in Britain standing in town squares and preaching on boxes, preaching this similar way. And missionaries even in the sort of 50s. You got pictures of Ballard when he was talking about his mission in the uk. They used to stand in the town square, but somewhere along the way Mormonism lost its town square preaching and engaging methods to the point where you weren't doing it. I wasn't doing it. It wasn't necessarily part of the culture to stand up and be the spectacle and preach. It would happen more in conversations between people.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] And relationships.

Nemo [00:33:39] And relationships.

John Dehlin [00:33:39] That's how it was for me.

Nemo [00:33:40] Yeah. That's how we were taught to try and convert people is building relationships. That missionary preaching disappeared and I don't know quite where it did because it used to be there.

John Dehlin [00:33:50] Although there were missionaries, Mormon missionaries that would stand on boxes during your time. Yeah, it's rare but I mean you'd always hear stories of some. So it wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't.

Nemo [00:34:02] The practice felt like, yeah, they were trying to almost copy the missionaries of old.

John Dehlin [00:34:05] Rather than in England.

Nemo [00:34:06] Yeah. Rather than doing what was kind of

John Dehlin [00:34:09] natural to hear about Mormon missionaries going to England and converting a thousand people. Right.

Nemo [00:34:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:14] Anyway. Okay, cool. So did you ever like commit some big sin in high school that you felt super guilty and shameful about, man, Calling me out. Were you screwed up?

Seeds of Doubt and the Path to Deconversion

Jared Smith [00:34:25] No, no, I, and, and maybe that is like genuinely a source of pride for me was, you know, my, my little hellion days. All of that happened after I deconverted because I think I had a sense of like, you know, whenever someone's going through, you know, a time of deconstruction, I think that there's, you know, for some people it's like they, they, they backslide to some degree. Right. And it's like, well, you know, maybe I'll start drinking or I'll start smoking or I'll have sex with my girlfriend. And then they kind of like realize through that process, okay, maybe I actually didn't believe this as much as I thought I did, but for me it was sort of like, no, like if I'm still going to claim this title of Christian, then I'm, I'm going to keep living that out. And so either like, yeah, I don't know, it was just like, I'm not going to bastardize the title like that. And so I, I felt like it was more appropriate for me to say, hey, I, I, I, I should, you know, deconvert rather than, you know, become a half assed Christian. Not just because, like, I thought it wasn't true, but also because, yeah, kind

Nemo [00:35:56] of all or nothing mentality of I'm either going to be all in or I have to be out.

Jared Smith [00:36:01] And it's funny, right, because there, there was a biblical reason for that for me. Famously in First Corinthians 15, Paul says, if the dead are not raised, then we of all men are most to be pitied. And so he kind of gives this ultimatum and says like, listen, if this is just a, you know, helpful, useful fiction, then it's not worth believing. This is like, we've given so much for this gospel. If it's bullshit, then don't. Don't follow it. And then you start to believe that it's bullshit, and the house of card tumbles quick.

Nemo [00:36:40] But it's amazing how it doesn't always tumble quick for everyone, because there are examples in Mormonism where an ultimatum like that is given, where it's like, hey, it's either all true or it's not. And then someone will discover a small way in which it's not true, and they'll find a way to justify that to themselves so that they don't have to accept the terms of that ultimatum. So it's interesting that you did seem to accept the terms of that sort of ultimatum, whereas not everyone would necessarily.

Jared Smith [00:37:03] Yeah. And I'm not sure that that ultimatum is top of mind for other people, and I. I wish that it weren't right.

Nemo [00:37:10] Why do you think it was for you?

Jared Smith [00:37:12] I think it was because I was a Bible literalist. And, you know, I think that as somebody who really prioritized the 66 books of our canon, it was like, you know, it was spelled out pretty clearly for me, and I kind of took Paul up at his word. I think for other people, you know, they. They can still hold a level of cognitive dissonance and say, like, well, I don't know, maybe it is mythology, maybe it is mystery, or if you're Jordan Peterson, maybe it's truer than true. Right. But I don't think any. That any of those were ever an option for me.

Nemo [00:37:49] So to, I suppose, ask a question of. Sometimes it's said that those who leave the Mormon church were the most devout. Often. Or the ones that took it most seriously, perhaps.

Jared Smith [00:38:00] Yeah.

Nemo [00:38:01] And do you think that's what plays in here, is that when you take it very seriously and very literally, that then when you discover something that isn't right, you take those ultimatums. And so the people that are left who don't leave are the ones who are better able to be more flexible, and perhaps it leaves the church with its sort of middle ground.

Jared Smith [00:38:19] Yeah. Yeah. There was a podcast that I went on maybe a year ago, and the host asked me that same question, and I. I think my response was something along the lines of, like, I. I continually feel condescended to by Christians who never took it as seriously as I did. You know, the. The kind of like, you know, hey, Jared, like, you know, it sounds like you were Awfully hard on yourself. Did you ever just, like, enjoy the grace of Christ? I'm just, like, rolling my eyes like, dude, how many hours do I have to spend, like, wallowing in my room, you know, like, crying at, you know, the. The undeserved grace of God that showers on me like rain, you know, like, how. How deep of an experience do I have to have to convince you that, like, like, no, I. It was my everything, man.

John Dehlin [00:39:10] Mormons are often saddled. Ex Mormons are often saddled with the accusation that they never really believed to begin with, that they never, you know, just wanted an excuse to sin. And I was going to say, Nemo, if you think about the prominent ex Mormon YouTubers right now, me, you, RFM, Bill Real, Alyssa Grenfell, I would say on the spectrum of devotion, we all were higher than average devout. And so there's got to be something about sort of like, the more devout you were as a religious person, if you leave, the more likely you are to become an ex religious YouTuber.

Nemo [00:39:54] Well, yeah, because I was going to bring that to you, Jared. It's like, do you feel like this same zealousness you were talking about, where you'd get up on stage and spread your message and talk about it? Is that what then led you to do this? I don't want to jump ahead because I want to go through the deconstruction process. But just as a kind of tangent

Jared Smith [00:40:09] for a second, I would say no. I would say that maybe, you know, maybe my innate sense of, you know, wanting to speak up when something's wrong, like, maybe that fuels part of it. And so that's maybe a common through line. But I would say probably my. My atheist church audit thing, that was more so birthed out of my desire to better preach the gospel. So kind of one of my maxims is that speaking is a platform that is earned through listening. And so, you know, I would be, you know, out on the streets trying to share the gospel with a Muslim. And it felt kind of lame that I was inviting him to my church without even being willing to extend that offer both ways. You know, like, well, what if he invites me to his mosque? And so that was kind of what prompted me to start exploring other faith communities, was like, hey, if I'm going to have the gall to, you know, ask this person to change their religion and, you know, take me at my word, I need to be able to explore their faith at least well enough to know that I'm not, like, making a mockery of it every time I try to talk to them about it. So I went to a couple of mosques when I was still in seminary before.

John Dehlin [00:41:21] I want to get there before we do. Sure. You mentioned in high school your brother told you that it was all bullshit. I think you said the word was. So tell us about in high school the anti Christian or anti Bible kind of messages. The main ones that you were confronte started with.

Jared Smith [00:41:40] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:40] That you had. I guess that shaped you to become an apologist, a Christian apologist at some point.

Jared Smith [00:41:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:45] What were the big. Yeah. Doubts or questions about your own faith that you had to hit early?

Jared Smith [00:41:50] Sure, sure.

John Dehlin [00:41:51] What were the big ones?

Jared Smith [00:41:52] So like when I came to faith, it was 2013 and so that was kind of right at the cutting edge, maybe a little bit late, but, you know, kind of right there square in the middle of the new atheist movement. And so, you know, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins were there on the scene posing.

Nemo [00:42:11] Don't forget Grayling.

Jared Smith [00:42:12] Who?

Nemo [00:42:12] We don't forget A.C. grayling.

John Dehlin [00:42:14] Who.

Nemo [00:42:14] He's the fourth one.

Jared Smith [00:42:16] Yeah, he's not the fourth one. It was Dennett.

Nemo [00:42:18] It's Dennett, yeah.

Jared Smith [00:42:19] Oh, Dennett.

Nemo [00:42:20] Just messing with you. Carry on.

Jared Smith [00:42:22] But, you know, like all of those people were posing these real, real challenges to my faith. You know, whether that was like biblical literalism. Right. The issue of the resurrection and its historicity, Young earth creationism and evolution was a, was a thing. But like I, I kind of moved past that and squared with theistic evolution eventually and then just, you know, the philosophical and theological arguments against it. Right. So I think that all of those

John Dehlin [00:42:52] were really like, the problem of evil.

Jared Smith [00:42:54] The problem of evil. The, the problem of the biblical canon, the Lord. What else? I mean, the, the problem of religious exclusivity was, was big.

John Dehlin [00:43:11] And are you wrestling with these things in high school?

Jared Smith [00:43:13] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:14] As you're preaching to everyone about.

Jared Smith [00:43:16] Of course.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] So did that lead? Because I'm really relating to this because I had all those questions in high school. As a Mormon, were you privately questioning and doubting how were you resolving some of these really big major challenges to your faith?

Jared Smith [00:43:31] No, I mean, I think I, I started reading apologetics. Right.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] Christian apologetics.

Jared Smith [00:43:35] Christian apologetics, yeah. I mean, kind of at a novice level. Right. I was a high schooler, but I started devouring William Lane Craig's content when I was still in high school.

John Dehlin [00:43:43] About what?

Jared Smith [00:43:45] Well, he's, you know, got answers about the, the problem of evil. He's got answers regarding, you know, how

John Dehlin [00:43:52] does he, how does he solve that? 1. I'm. I'm dying to know. Quickly, one minute.

Nemo [00:43:57] Do we have time?

Jared Smith [00:43:58] One minute. One common apologetic way to solve the problem of evil is to say that, well, by asking the question, you're acknowledging that there is such a thing as evil, which implies the existence of good, which therefore implies the existence of a divine, ubiquitous standard of good versus evil. And so the only way that you're able to ask that question is because God exists and he is the definition of what goodness is.

Nemo [00:44:25] And there's so many logical leaps in that, it's scary.

John Dehlin [00:44:27] Oh, it's good. But it's fun to hear.

Nemo [00:44:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:29] Yeah. Okay. How about evolution? This is fun. So how did you resolve evolution as a high schooler? Oh, I mean, evolution, age of the Earth and evolution.

Wrestling With Evolution and Christian Apologetics

Jared Smith [00:44:39] I mean, I think that I probably took the normal trajectory of being, like, starting off as a young earth creationist. 6,000 years old earth. The earth is 6,000 years old. And then eventually slid into. Well, okay, it's old Earth creationism. Right. That the universe and the Earth are billions of years old. But evolution is still bs, Right. There was still a literal Garden of Eden, still a literal Adam and Eve and a literal serpent, and then eventually, you know, fell into theistic evolution, which looks at Genesis in terms of, like, divine history. Right. Or religious history rather than, like, literalistic history. It's. It's trying to.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] It's myth. It's metaphor.

Jared Smith [00:45:23] Yeah. I think myth is always. Myth will always sound like fiction to Christians. And so I want to, like, be careful with my terms, because myth has the connotation of just being bullshit. And I think that.

John Dehlin [00:45:38] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:45:39] To. To be fair to my theistic evolutionary friends, they would say, like, no, it's a truth truer than true.

John Dehlin [00:45:45] Yeah. Like Joseph Campbell. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't mean it in a disparaging way. What about global flood? Literal Noah.

Jared Smith [00:45:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] Of every animal on the ark.

Jared Smith [00:45:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:55] How did you reconcile that in high school?

Jared Smith [00:45:57] In high school. I mean, for a little while there, there was some, you know, kind of, like, pseudo sciencey, like, well, you know, this obscure journal of archaeology in Germany, you know, found this discovery that allegedly proves a worldwide flood. Or like, you know, because there's. There's apologists kind of across the spectrum. Right. So you've got young Earth apologists who are gung ho on trying to really prove the. The worldwide flood and debunk evolution. And then you've got much more sophisticated apologists, in my mind, who are defending a much more cautious or humble version of Christianity.

John Dehlin [00:46:39] So, yeah, I've got one for you.

Jared Smith [00:46:40] Hit me.

John Dehlin [00:46:41] Did you ever have a Christian apologist claim that the core of the earth was ice and that's where the water receded to after the global flood? It receded back to the core of the earth and became an ice core?

Jared Smith [00:46:56] No.

John Dehlin [00:46:56] All right, we got one out of you. There's a. There's a Mormon apologetic group that claims. Look at your face. Look at his face right now. We got. Somebody said this to Rod Meldrum. Send that face to Rod Meldrum. Dude.

Jared Smith [00:47:09] I've just. I've just come to accept that, like, there's always somebody out there with a weirder idea.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] Every time.

Nemo [00:47:15] Every time Rod Meldrum posts something, I'm just gonna send him that face as a react.

John Dehlin [00:47:18] That needs to be a meme. Let's do it.

Jared Smith [00:47:20] Let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:47:20] Make me a meme. I don't mean any disrespect, really. Okay, how about, like. Yeah. Did you think about biblical criticism in high school? And how did you reconcile, like, discrepancies in the Gospels and contradictions?

Jared Smith [00:47:39] Well, I mean, I think. Think that when you're Bart Ehrman stuff, basically. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:42] Oh, and you would have been in Bart Ehrman's backyard.

Jared Smith [00:47:44] Yay.

John Dehlin [00:47:45] Did you know you were in Bart Ehrman's backyard?

Jared Smith [00:47:46] I kind of knew when I started watching some of his stuff and reading his books, it would have been a tiny bit later for me. I think I started, like, I read his. One of his first books when I was like 20. Yeah. I was doing. I was doing an archeological dig in Palestine and was, yeah, reading through his book Forged, and was like, still trying to figure out, like, ah, shit, how do I. How do I deal with this?

John Dehlin [00:48:08] What was the main thesis of that book?

Jared Smith [00:48:10] Forged? Yeah, essentially that there's pseudo Pigrapha in the New Testament. So, yeah, the easiest book to kind of debunk is the book of Second Peter. There's just no conceivable way that that was written by a Aramaic speaking fisherman in rural Galilee.

John Dehlin [00:48:26] He knew too much. He knew too much. The writer knew too much.

Jared Smith [00:48:28] Yeah. And so. So eventually, you know, like, Christian apologists will find different ways to kind of work around that. They'll either say, well, it was, you know, Peter's core ideas that were written down by a scribe who was speaking Greek and translating it. Or you could say that it was a letter that came out of the Petron School of Theology. So I mean, I mean, there's ways to get around it, but I think that kind of, you know, at the age of 23. After, you know, going through three years of pseudo seminary and two years of my, you know, second theology degree, I just got tired of squinting and I kind of came to realize, like, I think the reality is that I really, really, really want this to be true. And I don't think that that's sufficient reason for saying that it is.

Nemo [00:49:16] Can I ask a quick question before we get into to that?

Jared Smith [00:49:19] Yeah.

Nemo [00:49:20] Was there ever a point at which, before you started to engage with apologetics, before you started trying to come up with answers, was there ever a point you attempted just to bury your head in the sand at these questions, at these challenges to the Bible?

Jared Smith [00:49:30] No.

Nemo [00:49:31] Okay.

Jared Smith [00:49:31] I vividly remember talking to one of my Bible teachers in high school, and you could tell that he was probably five, six years older than me, and he was kind of gently admitting to that, you know, like, you know, man, I. I've. I got really, you know, anxious, you know, the past couple of years really dealing with all these apologetic questions. And, And I think I just came to a place where I realized, like, hey, this is where I've, you know, staked my claim and I'm happy here. And I, you know, I just. I feel better about, like, not having to. To worry about it all the time.

John Dehlin [00:50:05] Why are you nodding, Nemo?

Nemo [00:50:06] Well, because that tracks perf into the Mormon experience for many people.

Jared Smith [00:50:10] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:50:10] Plenty of Mormons. Like, ah, it's my tribe.

Nemo [00:50:12] It's my tribe.

Jared Smith [00:50:12] They're my people, you know, and it works for me.

John Dehlin [00:50:15] It's a great way to live.

Jared Smith [00:50:16] Yeah.

Nemo [00:50:17] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:50:17] And I, Yeah, I, I don't have any disrespect for it.

John Dehlin [00:50:20] No, there's nothing wrong with that.

Jared Smith [00:50:22] I think, I think candidly, like, you know, the more I explore these religious communities, especially communities that are foreign to me, it's like, man, I just want these people to be.

Nemo [00:50:33] Well.

John Dehlin [00:50:33] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:50:33] I don't give a shit if you have some weird conspiratorial ideas about the center of the Earth or about, you know, aliens visiting us or, like, you

John Dehlin [00:50:40] did make a weird face, though.

Jared Smith [00:50:41] I did make a weird face. It's, you know.

John Dehlin [00:50:44] No, it's good.

Jared Smith [00:50:45] But, but at the end of the day, do you love your wife?

John Dehlin [00:50:48] Yeah. Like, good to your kids?

Jared Smith [00:50:50] Are you good to your kids? Like, are you kind? Are you, you know, siloed and sectarian and terrified of everyone around you, or are you good? And if, if you're the latter, then, like, I'm not trying to crop on

John Dehlin [00:51:03] your faith or make you deconvert as a believing Christian. Were you ever confronted with, like, Christian nationalism or. Or Christian racism?

Jared Smith [00:51:17] No, I would. I would say the opposite. And. And this is still kind of a world that I'm still unpacking and still trying to, like, really wrap my head around. When I was in that world, I saw the ways in which Christianity was a force for anti racism.

John Dehlin [00:51:39] Nice.

Jared Smith [00:51:40] My children's church pastor, the guy who, like, you know, looked after our kids, was a former neo Nazi, and not in the kind of like, you know, that term gets hurled at a lot of people. I mean, the dude had, like, a big swastika tattooed on his arm. I mean, he was scary, and he got saved. He was softened, and, you know, he ended up doing prison ministry with, you know, shoulder to shoulder with black men in his community. Hallelujah. Right. Like, that was my experience of Christianity and racism. That's not the full experience and not at all to, like, belittle, you know, the very real, terrible, terrible, awful history of, you know, racism and Christianity in America. Hell, the. The Southern Baptist Convention started because they were pro racism or pro slavery. So, like, there's. There's more to that story. But my. My own personal experience was that I also, you know, the. The Pentecostal pseudo seminary that I went to would be loosely affiliated with what's called the New Apostolic Reformation, the nar. The nar and, you know, kind of the Bill Johnson, Chris Valatin apostle. Catherine Crick would kind of be in that sphere as well. And they often get lumped into, like, the Christian nationalist, you know, sphere. And they often are like some of the. Paula White, for example, like, she's kind of in that sphere. And so, you know, she is Trump's spiritual advisor. They would very heavily be pigeonholed as, you know, de facto Christian nationalists. But when I was in seminary, I took a whole course on religious freedoms in America, and the entire course was, like, blatantly anti Christian nationalist. And it was saying, like, hey, listen, if we, you know, don't give our Muslim neighbors the same rights and freedoms that we are trying to afford to our Christian friends, then we're shooting ourselves in the foot and we are, you know, dooming ourselves by creating a legal system that, you know, favors us now but is going to, you know, turn on us when the powers that be decide that they don't like our version of Christianity. And so it's still difficult for me to parse through that, and it's. It's something that I'm still reading about.

Attending Wheaton and Studying Practical Ministry

John Dehlin [00:54:07] All right, so as you graduate from high school, did many of your peers want to go To Wheaton. Was that a sign of your extra religiosity?

Jared Smith [00:54:16] Well, so before I went Wheaton, I went to Fire School of Ministry. So after high school, yeah, I went there. I was the only kid in my class who did. And yeah, man, it was. It was three years of chaos. Fire School of Ministry is kind of hyper charismatic. So like we had an entire college level course on the love of God. A college level course on casting out demons. A college level course on speaking in tongues.

John Dehlin [00:54:42] Casting out demons. A whole course on speaking in tongues or casting out demons? Yeah, man. Whoa. We were hardcore against the Mormons.

Nemo [00:54:49] What does that look like?

John Dehlin [00:54:52] Yeah. A semester on casting out demons.

Jared Smith [00:54:56] Yeah.

Nemo [00:54:56] How do you get past lecture one?

Jared Smith [00:54:59] You mean how did I get past lecture?

Nemo [00:55:00] Well, no, how is there more than one lecture on that?

John Dehlin [00:55:02] This sounds like Defense against the Dark Arts, basically.

Jared Smith [00:55:05] Basically, Yeah, I mean, it was kind

Nemo [00:55:06] of Hogwarts again, like if speaking in tongues is a. Okay, so speaking in tongues is a genuine manifestation of a, of a being moved upon by the spirit of God. Right. How do you teach that?

Jared Smith [00:55:17] Well, it's not, it's not that you're teaching it, you're teaching the theology around it.

Nemo [00:55:21] Right, right.

Jared Smith [00:55:22] So, I mean, you know, what is the significance of, of glossolalia, which is speaking other languages? No, I'm sorry. Glossolalia is speaking with heavenly languages. And xenolalia like, like the, the same etymological root as xenophobia nations is, you know, speaking miraculously in other languages. Right. And speaking Chinese on the, the flip of a dime. Because you're a missionary and in Taiwan.

Nemo [00:55:44] Well, and that's the version that Mormons believe in. Yeah, yeah,

John Dehlin [00:55:49] now, now, back then.

Nemo [00:55:51] Yes, yeah. Again, like with the preaching and the standing on soapboxes, it's changed.

John Dehlin [00:55:55] It's become a bit more boring, less supernatural.

Nemo [00:55:59] Yes, indeed.

John Dehlin [00:56:00] Yeah.

Jared Smith [00:56:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:01] So, wow. A semester on speaking in tongues. A semester on casting on demons. Did you ever successfully cast out a demon? I want to know. Or will you ever, ever possessed by a demon? I want to know.

Jared Smith [00:56:12] Well, the story that I always tell is, you know, one of my good friends at the seminary, he was kind of a little hellion like we both were. And so they would, they would kind of pair you up with, with a person and they would ask you to like, you know, go through this list of very pensive prayers and just see if you have any kind of like demonic residue in there. You know, just kind of, you know, do like a deep.

John Dehlin [00:56:38] Yeah, yeah.

Jared Smith [00:56:41] And so, you know, we, we went through the whole prayers and it was a big nothing burger. But he, like, walked up to other kids in the class afterwards and he was like, dude, can I be real with you? I laid my hands on Jared and I said, lord, if there's anything in you in him that's. That's not of you, just let it come out of him right now. And he was like. And I kid you not, y', all, a face came out of his chest went. And, you know.

John Dehlin [00:57:08] You didn't notice that?

Jared Smith [00:57:09] I didn't. Well, no.

John Dehlin [00:57:10] It was your chest, your shirt.

Jared Smith [00:57:12] Yeah, he was. He was telling.

John Dehlin [00:57:13] But you didn't. What?

Jared Smith [00:57:14] He was just telling tall tales. He was just telling the other kids in the class that, like, a demonic face, you know, emerged from my chest cavity and started chomping at people. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:22] No, but I mean, I. I know that because we as Mormons taught about evil spirits and exorcisms, that. That really. Yeah. That made it more likely that kids in high school might have an experience where they perceived some sort of demon or some need for an exorcism. Interesting.

Jared Smith [00:57:41] What does an exorcism look like in the Mormon world?

John Dehlin [00:57:44] Not to derail, but, I mean, you raise your right arm to the square and you say demon, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the holy Melchizedek priesthood, which I bear, I command you to depart. And that's actually part of the Mormon Temple ceremony. Peter, I believe in the Mormon Temple ceremony casts out Satan from the Garden of Eden by raising his right arm to the square and casting him out. Well, you look perplexed. You did a whole semester on this.

Jared Smith [00:58:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:11] Teaching me. Why am I teaching you how this works? You did this.

Jared Smith [00:58:14] Well, you guys have got some extra fodder in your canon that we don't have.

John Dehlin [00:58:18] We meant it. You were just playing around. You guys are playing church. We're actually. Get the joke.

Nemo [00:58:23] Yeah. We've put the Bradley Wilcox clip in there.

John Dehlin [00:58:26] Y' all were playing church. We were doing church. Dang. I'm kidding.

Jared Smith [00:58:29] Got him.

John Dehlin [00:58:29] I'm teasing. I'm teasing. No, I had a mission president who asked me to. To curse a house.

Nemo [00:58:37] Interesting.

John Dehlin [00:58:38] So I. So I. I was with a companion teaching this really rich woman. And my companion was a dark skinned sort of a. They were called indios in Guatemala. They're native Guatemalans that didn't have a European lighter brown skin. They had the dark blacker skin. And there was really bad racism in Guatemala and Latin America between the brown skinned.

Jared Smith [00:59:02] Right.

John Dehlin [00:59:03] Mescalados, the European and indios mixed versus just the natives. And she was just super racist and mean to him to his face. Wow. And he ball. He cried when we got home. And we told the mission president and he asked me and my other companion to go to the guy's house, raise our well, perform the dusting off of the feet ceremony, which is in the Doctrine and Covenants, which is literally to perform a cursing of the house. And so I and my companion, Elder Peverall, dusted off our feet and cursed this woman's house.

Jared Smith [00:59:37] How do you balance that with turning the other cheek?

John Dehlin [00:59:40] I mean, Joseph Smith said it. You do what Joseph Smith said. I mean, obviously you would have known that this, even in high school, that the Bible's full of contradictions. Sure, sure, right. On the one hand Jesus is saying love everyone. On the other hand, God is committing genocide. Right.

Nemo [00:59:55] I think Joseph Smith himself referenced that in the Happiness Letter. He says at times God will say thou shalt not kill, and at other times he shall say thou shalt utterly destroy. You know, he was leaning into the contradictions and saying, and really it's just about when God says, or when God through his servant says this is what we should do, then that's what we should do. We should do what's expedient for the time. It's no secret that Mormon theology is about expedience. And that's why living prophets can guide that expedience. Whatever is necessary at the time for God's children is what the church gets to do.

John Dehlin [01:00:24] But it felt weird as a Christian missionary to be cursing the household.

Jared Smith [01:00:28] I can imagine.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] In the name of Jesus. I did it at the request of my mission president. It's in my journal too. I've got it written in. Anyway, so back to you. Okay, so you go to this hyper Christian. Was it a college?

Jared Smith [01:00:46] I, I tend to call it a pseudo seminary because people don't even have a category for it. It was a three year non accredited degree in practical ministry, whatever the hell that means. But it was like, you know, 50 kids stuffed into a couple of trailers behind a church out in Concord, North Carolina. Like it wasn't a thing. But I mean it was.

Nemo [01:01:02] Did you get a certificate though?

Jared Smith [01:01:04] Yeah, it's probably scribbled out in crayon, but yeah, yeah, I did.

John Dehlin [01:01:07] And your parents didn't mind you going there?

Jared Smith [01:01:09] No, they were super supportive because, you know, it's funny, after high school I was like, well, you know, I could go to a four year Christian college, like Wheaton College, but I, I don't want to go there because that's where you know, fiery, passionate Christians go to lose their zeal and I want to be a zealot. So I'm going to go to a place called Fire and you know, take over the world for Jesus and set this world ablaze.

John Dehlin [01:01:31] Wheaton wasn't intense enough for you?

Jared Smith [01:01:33] No, God no. That was like, that was like a pansy school in my mind.

John Dehlin [01:01:37] And 18, it's like BYU Idaho.

Nemo [01:01:39] Go to BYU Idaho. Cuz they're like BYU Provo is too liberal.

Jared Smith [01:01:43] Seriously?

Nemo [01:01:43] Yeah, yeah, BYUI is where it's at.

John Dehlin [01:01:47] It's next level.

Jared Smith [01:01:47] Dang. The more, you know, fun. So yeah, then at 21, graduated from there and was like, well, guess I have to start from scratch.

John Dehlin [01:01:57] And so why, why slum at Wheaton then? Well, after you reached your spiritual pinnacle?

Jared Smith [01:02:03] Because. So part of my, part of my story is that I spent one semester out in the Netherlands at like a satellite campus that we had. Which is hilarious. Like 50 kids in a school have a satellite campus. And that place I'm comfortable calling a cult, that very tight knit insular community, showed all of the sure signs of being a high control group. And that was pretty disorienting and damaging. So at 21, after I graduated from that school, I was like, okay, well I, I would love to remain a Christian because I still love Jesus, I still love scripture. That was a bit much. Let's, let's see if we can, you know, go to a place that's a little bit more academically rigorous, a little bit more intellectual and see if we can, you know, patch things up there. And so I went to Wheaton College wanting to be like an ancient languages major and candidly, just, you know, I wanted to be like a, like a Christian Bart Ehrman, but then quickly realized that like, oh, you have to be smart to study ancient languages and so pivoted and, and studied Christian heavy metal instead.

Nemo [01:03:17] So had you already got that desire for like or that fondness for heavy metal music before?

Jared Smith [01:03:25] Yeah, I mean that was kind of like one of the most fun parts of my upbringing. Right. Was somehow even though my faith was like very austere in some regards, it was always permissible to bang my head and you know, thrash around in a mosh pit for Jesus. So like the Christian metal scene raised me. I didn't listen to metal music before I discovered Christian metal music. And so like to this day, heavy metal music to me has the connotation of like oh, the grandeur of God, you know, the omnipotence of God the Father, you know, the badassery of the apostles in the New Testament. Like, it's a very unique experience. But, yeah, Burly dudes and biker jackets kind of raised me in the faith

Nemo [01:04:10] because just to give the sort of the Mormon parallel that you and I did a video, I believe it's called what in the Hill Song is this?

Jared Smith [01:04:15] Yeah.

Nemo [01:04:16] Where the Mormon Church started to do these sort of festivals where there was contemporary worship music.

Jared Smith [01:04:21] Sure.

Nemo [01:04:22] Which has never been part of the Mormon playbook up until that point. It seems like they're taking a leaf out of the Hill song. But because Mormon worship music has been, for the longest time, the Tabernacle Choir, it was, you know, very. I don't know what you call it. Just standard Protestant choral music.

Jared Smith [01:04:39] Yeah. Yeah.

Nemo [01:04:40] And that's what it was. And there was all these things about appropriateness of music. If you wanted to try and do a musical item in a sacrament meeting had to be within certain bounds. There's an idea of the spirit within the church that is all about reverence. Feeling the spirit is about things being reverent and quiet and orderly. The pinnacle of Mormon worship is sitting quietly in a room for two hours and then going. And sitting quietly in another room and then going, getting changed and going home. That's the pinnacle of Mormon religious worship as far as it's contained in the temple ceremony. It's all about quietness and order. You and I went to a temple open house today, and one of the things I said to you was that you're not getting the full experience of what it's like in the temple because actually it's too noisy right now because there's too many people in here chattering around and moving around. It's a very quiet, austere thing. So that's what feeling the spirit is. Which is why it's so odd from a Mormon perspective to have this idea of thrash metal music being a Christian form of worship to us, and to then see the church moving towards these worship concerts, because that's not reverent. That makes sense, John.

John Dehlin [01:05:40] Yeah. Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:05:42] That's wild.

John Dehlin [01:05:43] So for you, there was no contradiction between heavy metal rock music?

Nemo [01:05:47] You could feel the spirit in that.

Jared Smith [01:05:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:50] Did you grow up in worship services with rock music, basically?

Jared Smith [01:05:54] I mean, kind of like the. The hillsong rock music that Nemo's talking about. Yeah. That was pretty, you know, common. But then kind of like in my personal worship time, it was. Would alternate between, like this really serene, you know, still quiet, you know, music. Sometimes it was choir music, sometimes it was soft rock or whatever. And then you Know, jumping up and down on my bed and. And you know, shouting Jesus to the heavens and you know, declaring the victory of. Of Christ's sacrifice over all the world and. Yeah, like there was never any conflict there in my mind.

John Dehlin [01:06:32] So did you start that band in the.

Jared Smith [01:06:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:36] So the quasi seminary place.

Jared Smith [01:06:38] Yeah. So the name of my YouTube channel is also the name of my one man metal band.

John Dehlin [01:06:44] It was a one man metal band.

Jared Smith [01:06:45] Yeah, yeah. So I'm just a. I'm a solo musician playing guitar and bass and screaming into a microphone in my bedroom and Heliocentric.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] That was the name of the one man band.

Jared Smith [01:06:56] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:57] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:06:57] And still gone, still ongoing, still writing new music. But.

John Dehlin [01:07:00] And it was about glory to Christ kind of thing.

Jared Smith [01:07:03] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:04] I mean, give us an examples lyrics of one of your songs.

Jared Smith [01:07:08] Oh, goodness. Well, so my first album. Let's see. My first album was all about the martyrs. So like the. The martyrs and what's called the Anti Nicene era. So prior to the. The Council of Nicaea in 325. And yeah, each song was cataloging the different story of a different martyr. So like I've got a couplet of songs that deal with Perpetua and Felicitas, two martyrs in Carthage who were martyred in, I believe, 201 AD and like just the most like harrowing stories, you know, these. These gut wrenching stories of these two young women who, you know, according to this, to the story, you know, gladly went to the sword and. And you know, forsook everything for. For the sake of Christ. And so it's kind of these two songs that are really like wrestling with the tension of that and. And grieving, you know, the fact that they, you know, they left orphans behind. Right. I'm trying to think of a lyric from that one song.

John Dehlin [01:08:16] I'll put you on the spot. It's okay.

Jared Smith [01:08:18] No, no.

John Dehlin [01:08:18] A long time ago,

Jared Smith [01:08:23] The. The last line in one of the songs, I'm imagining the mother Perpetua, saying to her child who's wrestling with the death of her mother. And she says, the child says, I watch my mother fall where she stood. And then the mother says, I fell into the arms of the God whose face fell upon us. And then the child responds, I will rise and meet you in the air. I'm gonna cry if I think about it, man. Because it's such a beautiful story. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:03] A mother and a daughter getting martyred, getting killed, stabbed.

Jared Smith [01:09:07] Well, she left her. Her child behind to be. To be raised essentially as an orphan. And that's part of the tension there in the story is, did she make the wrong call?

John Dehlin [01:09:19] So the mother dies, the daughter watches.

Jared Smith [01:09:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:21] The mom get killed.

Jared Smith [01:09:22] Not necessarily. I think it was probably, you know. Yeah. I don't. I don't think that they would have allowed.

John Dehlin [01:09:28] And it's just kind of. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but, like screamo.

Jared Smith [01:09:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:32] Yeah. Okay, so you're, like, screaming these lyrics about this touching scene of a mother dying, leaving a daughter behind.

Jared Smith [01:09:39] Yeah. And I think the screaming is kind

John Dehlin [01:09:42] of, you know, Is it cathartic?

Jared Smith [01:09:45] Yeah. And I mean, I think that metal, you know, normally, like, it has the. The sound or the connotation rather of being angry. But to me, a lot of times the connotation is like anguish. You know, you're screaming about things that are not right in this hellish world and you're wishing that they were. And so that's kind of the general vibe of a lot of my music.

Nemo [01:10:09] And Jared, I will say, is the archetypal method musician and that he's smiley and lovely and quite softly spoken when you talk to him and interview him, and then you hear the sounds that come out of his mouth when he makes music, and it's very different. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:22] So check out heliocentric YouTube channel for more. Okay, so I want to talk forever about your story, but we gotta hear about your encountering Mormonism. So let's jump to how'd you lose your faith at Wheaton?

Losing His Faith and Leaving Christianity

Jared Smith [01:10:37] Oh, man, I think, you know, I was 23, was pretty disillusioned with everything, and it was sort of like, you know, I loved my faith, I loved my religion, but I kind of just came to feel like it was the most intellectually honest to say, hey, I really love this, and I really love Christianity and Christ and scripture, but I just don't think it's true.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] What were the. Let's just say three to five biggest issues that took you out, if you could.

Jared Smith [01:11:09] I don't like to say.

John Dehlin [01:11:11] What do you mean?

Jared Smith [01:11:12] I usually, you know.

John Dehlin [01:11:14] But you don't like to talk about it.

Jared Smith [01:11:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:16] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:11:16] Because I. I usually refrain from saying, for a few different reasons. One, I'm not a debater, and I feel like anytime I, you know, offer up the reasons for, you know, why I, you know, left the faith, it just opens the door for, you know, a slew of response videos to. To say why those reasons were invalid. And I just don't like playing that game.

John Dehlin [01:11:40] Interesting.

Jared Smith [01:11:42] So, you know, like, suffice it to say I was a true believer, and now I'm truly not. And the other reason is that, like, I. I don't really relish the idea of putting other people in the emotionally distressing place that I was in by, you know, having people question my faith and do all of that. I think that, like, you know, if there's, you know, if somebody, like, wants to leave, right, they can. They can Google, you know, 10 reasons why the Bible isn't true or 10 reasons why Jesus didn't rise from the dead. They can find resources like that. But I don't think it's my goal to impose questioning on people like that if they're not in a season of life where they're ready for that.

John Dehlin [01:12:29] That's beautiful. And it condemns about 10,000 hours of my programming.

Nemo [01:12:34] Well,

John Dehlin [01:12:37] I'm kidding.

Jared Smith [01:12:38] No, no, I. I mean, I think also, like, to some degree, like, I. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but in my mind, we're doing somewhat, slightly different things. Like. I don't know. I don't know. I. I think that I should say.

John Dehlin [01:12:51] And yours, Nemo.

Nemo [01:12:52] Yeah, yeah. My entire YouTube channel down the toilet.

John Dehlin [01:12:55] No, no, sorry, I interrupted.

Jared Smith [01:12:56] No, no, no. But I mean, like, I think that what you're both doing, like, there. There's a super important place for it. Like, especially, you know, if I really enjoyed your conversation with Greg Matson. I watched that just before coming here. And I loved, you know, both of. I love that conversation. I think you mentioned to him just like, I don't know, you mentioned to him the idea that, like, well, you know, the church has kind of had a racket on, you know, information about the church for so long and, like, hey, this isn't trying to, you know, steal the spotlight from what the church is doing or upend everything the church has ever done. It's just to offer the other perspective. And I think that that's totally fair and totally valid.

John Dehlin [01:13:51] Yeah, people like, one of the ways, I think I. In Mormon stories, and maybe you, Nemo, are most misunderstood. People are convinced that I hate the church, that I want to see the church destroyed, and that all I'm trying to do. I was once called a spiritual Jack Kevorkian that, you know, the people. Do you know who that is? Jack Kevorkian made his name in the 80s and 90s because he was the first, I think, physician to come out for physician assisted suicide. So he was called Dr. Death.

Jared Smith [01:14:22] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] And he actually performed illegal euthanasia.

Jared Smith [01:14:27] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:14:27] With, like, terminally ill, super suffering patients and recorded it and would share it and would Be willing to go to jail just to say the way, you know, our medical system prolongs suffering and, and takes advantage of the people who are sick. People should have the right to die under their own terms without suffering, without ruining their life savings or going bankrupt or bankrupting their family. Anyway, he was called Dr. Death. And then people have called me or Mormon stories, sort of. So John just loves, like a vampire sucking the faith out of people's faith. But the weird thing is, like you, I love it if belief provides meaning. I have zero desire to take people's belief away. I'm not even trying to get them not to believe anymore. And I actually have a lot of love for the church and I just want to see it get healthy. I don't think the world is better off if the church is destroyed or goes away.

Jared Smith [01:15:24] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:25] It's all just what you said. And I felt like I might have. I, and like hundreds of thousands of other people I've met feel like they may have made very different decisions if they'd been given all the information. And I like to tell myself the way that I, you know, would answer the accusation that we're trying to take people's faith away is we release three to five hour episodes because it takes a matter of initiative and interest to want to sit through a three to five hour episode.

Jared Smith [01:15:57] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:15:58] And only people who really want or need to know are going to give it more than five minutes. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a way I justify it to myself.

Jared Smith [01:16:07] Sure, sure.

John Dehlin [01:16:07] But anyway, sorry to go on that rant.

Jared Smith [01:16:09] No, no, no.

Nemo [01:16:10] I make short, sharp, snappy videos just to really get in the punch.

John Dehlin [01:16:14] Nemo's the vampire.

Jared Smith [01:16:16] Calling yourself out. I mean, at the end of the day, like, I want my religious friends to do religion better.

John Dehlin [01:16:25] Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:16:25] You know, like, I don't particularly care if you're on the inside or outside of a faith. I just want to see you do it well. And I tend to see my stuff as, you know, kind of. What would you call it? Like an outsider's consult. An outsider's consultation. You know, because, you know, I don't think the solution 100 of the time is just, yeah, you need to, you need to leave and walk away from faith. I think there's plenty of valid times where it's like, no, you stay in, man. Like, and I'm here for it, you know, but if you're, if you're on the verge of suicide, if you're, you know, beating yourself up over your sexuality or, you know, you're being exploited financially or, you know, being forced into forced labor, then we have a problem, you know, then we should have a, a real heart to heart. But. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:25] So you lost your faith around 23 age? 23?

Jared Smith [01:17:29] Yeah, yeah, I was 23.

John Dehlin [01:17:30] And you're held now?

Jared Smith [01:17:32] 31.

John Dehlin [01:17:34] So how did you go from losing your faith to starting a YouTube channel? Well, starting or pivoting a YouTube channel towards what you're doing now, I think

Jared Smith [01:17:45] the, the real start was like, you know, I, I was an atheist for several years and I would still go to churches sometimes just kind of like casually, you know, like. Yeah, I don't have any spite for these people. I think that that's kind of one of the weird dimensions of my atheism is that. Or, or maybe one of the unique things about it is for a lot of atheists, I know they feel as though religion were imposed on them. You know, it was shoved down their throat or, you know, they had some, you know, prick of a pastor who was really domineering and, and I had like the occasional person in my life like that, but that wasn't the trajectory of, of my faith. It was very self sustaining. You know, it was me in my bedroom, me forcing myself to, you know, take on these really austere, you know, rules against, you know, sexuality and, and all of this. Like, no one was imposing that on me. And so when I left it, it wasn't like, ah, screw this pastor or screw this preacher, screw this church or denomination. I, I just, I just didn't think it was true. And so I think that left me a lot more gracious to like the average member and the average church.

Nemo [01:19:11] But did you, did you feel like there was an institution that you belonged to?

Jared Smith [01:19:15] No.

Nemo [01:19:16] Right. Because I feel like that may be where there's a key difference. Yeah. Is that those who leave the Mormon faith very much had leaving an institution.

Jared Smith [01:19:24] Right.

Nemo [01:19:25] And they had a relationship to that institution as well as their own personal faith. And so they're going to be dealing not only with the loss of their personal faith, but also the changing of their relationship to that institution.

Jared Smith [01:19:35] Yeah.

Nemo [01:19:36] That leads to different behaviors.

Jared Smith [01:19:38] I mean, it kind of grieves me that there's any spirituality or spiritual system that is so closely intertwined with an institution like that.

Nemo [01:19:48] Yeah. But Mormonism, if you could define it as anything, it's gatekeeping. I think it is gatekeeping, the relationship to Jesus Christ. You have relationship to Jesus Christ by walking the covenant path. And how do you walk the covenant path? Well, by performing the covenants. That we provide you access to through our temples, that you need to pay in order to enter through communities that you have to be baptized into and you have to show up for and be involved in. And, you know, I don't think it's possible in the way that Mormonism is presenting itself to have a Mormon faith as an individual, like you've described the way that you had a faith in your bedroom. I don't think it's possible to be Mormon in your bedroom necessarily. Not. Certainly the church wouldn't say so.

Jared Smith [01:20:33] Sure, sure.

Nemo [01:20:34] They would look at it and go, no, you can't be Mormon in your bedroom. You need to be Mormon through the processes of the church.

Jared Smith [01:20:41] I see, I see.

Starting a YouTube Channel Exploring Religions

John Dehlin [01:20:43] So, yeah, when did your YouTube channel start exploring other religions or churches? How long ago?

Jared Smith [01:20:51] I've only been doing this for a couple of years and I think it was like that initial sense and desire that I had to better understand religious communities around me so that I could, I could preach the gospel to them. I think that just kind of morphed into a general curiosity about people and, you know, trying to better understand them in their own terms.

John Dehlin [01:21:10] Did you have a day job before?

Jared Smith [01:21:13] Yeah, yeah, so I, I still have that day job. You know, I'm still, still working nine to five.

John Dehlin [01:21:20] Do you say what it is, your job?

Jared Smith [01:21:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a, I'm a videographer.

John Dehlin [01:21:23] Oh, okay. Okay.

Jared Smith [01:21:24] Or a video producer. So I, I, because your, your videos

John Dehlin [01:21:28] are well edited, aren't you? Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:21:31] Shout out to my editor, Jake, Jake Sandvik. Incredible, incredible human being. He's been working with me for the past six months and has made my videos substantially better and, and much funnier. But yeah, so I, I edit videos and, and shoot videos, you know, for commercial corporate crap.

John Dehlin [01:21:48] Okay, so this is a side gig. It's not your main gig.

Jared Smith [01:21:51] Yeah, for now.

John Dehlin [01:21:52] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:21:52] Fingers crossed someday you're trying to move

John Dehlin [01:21:54] it towards a full time gig.

Jared Smith [01:21:55] I would love that.

John Dehlin [01:21:56] Oh, cool. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So we started by you talking about some of the churches you've explored. Let's just dive in for the next, I don't know, 30 minutes and talk about what you've observed about Mormons and ex Mormons and Mormonism and then also you can ask us any questions.

Jared Smith [01:22:14] For sure, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:22:15] So how did you start getting interested in Mormons?

Jared Smith [01:22:18] Well, I mean, you know, like my whole thing is I want to, I want to see it all right. And, you know, for, for now at least, I've kind of kept it to the scope of Christianity and it's like, yeah, you got to visit the Christian Scientists, you got to visit the Jehovah's Witnesses, and you got to visit the Mormons. So my first visit to.

John Dehlin [01:22:35] So you consider Mormons Christian? I think that's a hot take.

Jared Smith [01:22:39] Like, like yes and no. And I mean, I'm a myological nihilist for those who care what that term means. But what does it mean? So myology is the, the study of like, categories. And so like, like how many colors are there between the color blue and red? Like, that's a myological question. Where does the ocean become the sea? That's a myological question. And so like the, the category of Christian. I think it depends on who you ask. Right. I don't think that there's some ontological answer to that question or some, you know, definition written in the stars. So if you ask a nicene Christian, usually they're going to say that Mormons aren't Christian. If you ask a sociologist, they're usually going to say, yeah, they're Christian in that they are building off of the, the capital provided to them by the Old and New Testaments. If you ask a Mormon, they're going to say yes in a heartbeat. So, you know, it's, it's a, a tricky thing. But yeah, I, I knew that I wanted to visit a ward really early on and one of the first times I ever did that was I went to a fast and testimony Sunday and

John Dehlin [01:23:49] I was in North Carolina.

Jared Smith [01:23:51] In North Carolina. Yeah.

Nemo [01:23:52] That is deep ending it.

Jared Smith [01:23:54] Yeah. Wait, it's what.

Nemo [01:23:55] That's going in at the deep end.

John Dehlin [01:23:56] Yeah.

Nemo [01:23:57] You know what I mean?

Jared Smith [01:23:57] Yeah, it was. So I went and I was, I was pretty appalled and I. It's one of the few times that I like really blasted a church and just told them like, guys, what is going on here? The, like, everyone was so sad and so miserable to be there and it just broke my brain that like. Yeah. That these people just clearly did not want to be there.

Nemo [01:24:25] There's a big sense of duty in Mormonism.

Jared Smith [01:24:27] Yeah. And I think that like, yeah, like I, I was kind of dealing with a little bit of cognitive dissonance because, like, I've got, you know, I had some Mormon friends growing up and it's like, how are these people who were so smiley and happy on the outside? How are they? How is there a congregation of them that is this morose on a Sunday morning? So that was the first time that I went to a ward. Second time.

John Dehlin [01:24:53] Did you, did you find testimony meaning to be interesting?

Jared Smith [01:24:58] I, well, not as interesting as I would have hoped, I. I mean, it was kind of just a lot of, you know, tired young parents kind of complaining. They're like, yeah, well, you know, dog died this week, and Bishop said he was going to call us. He forgot. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. It was like. It was, like, comedic. It was so bad.

John Dehlin [01:25:20] Oh, man.

Jared Smith [01:25:22] And so, you know, I blasted them for that. And then a few months later, I went to a young adult ward.

Nemo [01:25:27] And how did you decide to go back? Why did you decide to give Mormonism another go?

John Dehlin [01:25:30] Oh, it's his job, Nemo.

Nemo [01:25:32] Yeah, but there's another church you could have gone to, right?

Jared Smith [01:25:35] I mean, I think the Mormons are robust and complicated enough to warrant more than one visit.

John Dehlin [01:25:41] At least two visits, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you went to young adult, single adult.

First Encounters With Mormon Congregations

Jared Smith [01:25:45] Yeah, went to a young young adult ward and had a blast. Like, genuinely had so much fun. I think I spent five hours there because, like, you know, stayed for the sacrament and then just was hanging out with some kids afterwards, and, like, we were vibing for hours and hours.

John Dehlin [01:26:00] Are you single or.

Jared Smith [01:26:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:02] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:26:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:03] So you're scoping out the scene.

Jared Smith [01:26:04] No, no, no, no, no, no.

John Dehlin [01:26:06] Well, what do you mean, no?

Jared Smith [01:26:08] I. Oh, man. Yeah, I. I feel like I. I would. I would shipwreck a young Mormon gal's faith very quickly.

Nemo [01:26:16] We're gonna get him on mutual John.

John Dehlin [01:26:18] I don't know, man. Or she would convert you very quickly.

Jared Smith [01:26:20] Hey, shoot your shot.

John Dehlin [01:26:21] Have you ever heard of flirt convert? That's a thing, bro.

Jared Smith [01:26:24] That is a thing. I mean, listen, if there's any. Any women of the Mormon variety who want to shoot their shot, take a stab at it.

Nemo [01:26:34] Slide into his dms.

Jared Smith [01:26:35] Slide into my dms, please.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:26:37] It's all downhill from here.

John Dehlin [01:26:39] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:26:40] Am I blushing?

John Dehlin [01:26:42] You're good. I know there's some Mormon women out there going, challenge acceptance. Yeah.

Nemo [01:26:46] They'll make a moment out of you yet.

Jared Smith [01:26:48] Terrifying.

John Dehlin [01:26:49] It's happened to, you know, others. So anyway. Okay, yeah. So you went to a young single adult in, like, UNC Chapel Hill slash rally Durham area?

Jared Smith [01:26:58] Somewhere around there, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:58] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:26:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:59] And you found the kids to be what?

Jared Smith [01:27:02] Oh, I mean, they were. They were sociable. They were, you know, friendly and kind and gracious. Like, I had a blast with them.

John Dehlin [01:27:09] Naive, intelligent.

Jared Smith [01:27:10] No, I would say that they were the. The one of my homies there, and we're still friends. Like, stupid smart. I mean, you know, like, insanely well read with, like, the enlightenment thinkers and, you know, was just. Yeah. Like. Like Impressively intelligent. I mean, you know, was not a, you know, didn't have his head in the sand. He wasn't really so much in the, you know, Mormon apologetics scene. He was just kind of intelligent and appreciated his own faith.

John Dehlin [01:27:40] That's because, you know, where that leads the apologetics. Yeah, it leads ad Mormonism.

Jared Smith [01:27:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:46] I mean, you know, it's not always, but.

Jared Smith [01:27:48] Well, I think apologetics in any sphere, you know, candidly, I think it forces you to examine a way. Examine religion in a way that it's not meant to be examined.

John Dehlin [01:27:59] Yeah, Yep. Yeah, yeah. Because it's using tools for different, I don't know, empirical or epistemological kind of paradigm. Right.

Jared Smith [01:28:07] Yeah. Yeah. And so, I don't know, I hope that's not uncharitable.

John Dehlin [01:28:12] So you met these young Mormon adults, had a great time with them.

Jared Smith [01:28:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:16] Found them to be enjoyable to be around. Did you feel like I'm with a bunch of cult members, or did you feel like I'm with a bunch of really cool young adults?

Jared Smith [01:28:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, in that moment, it felt like, yeah, these are, you know, just like any other, you know, Sunday school kids. Right.

John Dehlin [01:28:30] And just got a little nicer, a little smarter. Yeah. More friendly.

Jared Smith [01:28:34] I'd say so.

John Dehlin [01:28:35] Yeah. A little more clean cut. Yeah. See?

Nemo [01:28:38] And then speaking of the Mormons here, we're pretty cool.

Jared Smith [01:28:42] And then, you know, my most recent foray into the LDS world was I got to go on a big Mormon cruise, as I.

John Dehlin [01:28:50] Did someone reach out to you at that point?

Jared Smith [01:28:51] Yeah.

Nemo [01:28:52] So before that, you read the entire Book of Mormon. Let's not forget that.

John Dehlin [01:28:55] How'd that happen?

Jared Smith [01:28:55] Thank you. Well, so it was just like, you know, I've met with probably 10 missionaries over the years and just, you know, trying to better understand, like, wait, what is the sales pitch? Like, what is the theology? What's happening here? And so, you know, they, they would always ask me, like, well, just read this one or two verses in second Nephi. And, And I was like, I just. It bugs me because, you know, I, I'm. I'm not a Mormon. Right. I'm a Nevermo. And on the outside, it's like you hear all this hubbub about, you know, the, the, the critics would say, like, this silly story of Joseph finding these, you know, BS plates out in the woods and translating them in hat. And, and, you know, I knew about the polygamy. I knew about the, you know, him marrying very young women. Like, I knew all of that. What I didn't know is, like, what's what the hell is in the book. And so I was like, I need to actually sit down and read this because I feel like that's the one thing that nobody ever talks about. And so when I finally sat down and read the whole thing, my big takeaway was like, hey, I. Candidly, you know, as somebody who reads a lot of, you know, other scriptures, I think that this is probably, unfortunately, the. The worst religious text that I've ever read. The worst religious primary text.

John Dehlin [01:30:14] You found the Book of Mormon to be, what, boring? What about sometimes inspiring or sometimes interesting or. No, I. I mean, it's got a lot. It's like, you. At worst, it's Bible Jesus fan fiction, right?

Jared Smith [01:30:28] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:29] But there's got to be some interesting or good about it.

Jared Smith [01:30:32] Sure, sure. I mean, you know, it's been like a few months since I've read it, and it already is kind of like evading me the. The most interesting parts. So I do, you know, credit where credit's due. I need to go back and read it maybe with a missionary and, like, you know, really parse through it properly to get. Get the. The best I can out of it. But, like, you know, I read a lot of the Gnostic Gospels, I've read the Quran. I'm slowly making my way through science and health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and I feel

John Dehlin [01:31:02] like the Book of Mormon is more boring than the Quran.

Jared Smith [01:31:04] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:06] Did you hear that?

Jared Smith [01:31:07] Yeah, I had that.

John Dehlin [01:31:08] That's rude.

Jared Smith [01:31:08] I'm sorry.

Nemo [01:31:09] Some shade, isn't it?

John Dehlin [01:31:11] You know, Mark Twain said about the Book of Mormon.

Nemo [01:31:13] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:13] You do? Yeah. Okay.

Jared Smith [01:31:14] Chloroform and friends.

John Dehlin [01:31:15] Yeah, it's.

Nemo [01:31:16] And do you find that to be an accurate description?

Jared Smith [01:31:19] Yeah, and I don't.

John Dehlin [01:31:21] Were there parts that inspired you or.

Nemo [01:31:23] What about the war chapters? Like lopping off arms and stuff?

Jared Smith [01:31:27] I don't know. It just kind of sounded like white noise to me. Now, again, I've got a reading disability. I'm not very smart. The King Jamesian English may have thrown me for a loop. So take it all with a grain of salt.

John Dehlin [01:31:37] The Book of Moroni says you have to read with real intent.

Nemo [01:31:42] Do you feel like you had real intent, Jared?

John Dehlin [01:31:44] I don't think he did, Nemo.

Jared Smith [01:31:45] You got me.

Nemo [01:31:46] I don't think so. So there you go. Well, he brought a cynical atheist.

Reading the Book of Mormon and First Impressions

John Dehlin [01:31:50] I think he brought a cynical, cold, negative heart to his reading of the Book of Mormon.

Jared Smith [01:31:56] And to those people, it's like, at least I read it, man. You know, half of the people Half of the. What are they called? Investigators that you meet with.

Nemo [01:32:03] Sorry, they call them friends now, but. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:05] Huh.

Nemo [01:32:05] They call them friends now.

Jared Smith [01:32:06] Really?

Nemo [01:32:07] Yeah. Rather than investigators. Sounds a bit.

John Dehlin [01:32:10] I don't think that's gonna hold, Nemo.

Nemo [01:32:12] I don't think so. But that's, you know, that's what they call them at the moment.

Jared Smith [01:32:14] It's a little funky.

Nemo [01:32:15] But I would say there are members, Candidly, there are members of the church that haven't read the entire Book of Mormon.

Jared Smith [01:32:20] Right.

Nemo [01:32:20] Oh, I'm sure it's a rite of passage within the church. It's something people proudly do and a lot of people do do it. But there are members of the church who haven't read it. Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:32:27] I mean, same with, you know, Protestant Christians. Right. I mean, the vast majority have never read the Bible cover to cover.

John Dehlin [01:32:32] Yeah. So did you do an episode about

Jared Smith [01:32:34] reading the Book of Mormon? Yeah.

Nemo [01:32:35] And then we.

Jared Smith [01:32:37] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:37] What was it about?

Jared Smith [01:32:38] So it was just called I'm an atheist. I read the entire Book of Mormon. It's my most viral video, unsurprisingly.

John Dehlin [01:32:45] Oh, really?

Jared Smith [01:32:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:45] And your basic summary was. It was boring. That was your main take?

Jared Smith [01:32:48] It was boring. And then I was. I was actually like actively upset with Jesus appearance in 4th Nephi.

John Dehlin [01:32:54] Why?

Jared Smith [01:32:55] Because he doesn't.

John Dehlin [01:32:56] More Jesus.

Jared Smith [01:32:56] He doesn't do anything. It's not more Jesus that's the problem. No, it's. It's another testament, people. Not in any meaningful way.

John Dehlin [01:33:03] Any blessed children.

Jared Smith [01:33:04] No, no, no, no, no.

John Dehlin [01:33:05] You didn't read it.

Jared Smith [01:33:06] I did.

John Dehlin [01:33:07] No, you didn't. He causes a big earthquake and thousands of people die.

Nemo [01:33:10] Like whole city disappears in archaeological evidence

John Dehlin [01:33:13] anymore volcanoes and like earthquakes and lava and screaming people. Like, he did all sorts of stuff.

Nemo [01:33:21] He called three immortal men. You know what I mean? He called 12 disciples and three of them are still alive.

John Dehlin [01:33:26] He called 12 apostles. You didn't read it. Naoman found him on it.

Nemo [01:33:30] He didn't read it.

John Dehlin [01:33:31] No, I'm teasing you. I'm teasing you.

Jared Smith [01:33:32] No, no, no, no. I. I mean, like.

Nemo [01:33:34] No, no. Tell us your point though, about how Jesus didn't do anything, because I am genuinely curious.

John Dehlin [01:33:37] Because like, Book of Mormon Jesus, we

Jared Smith [01:33:39] should say in the Gnostic Gospels, right? It's the same thing. It's Jesus fanfiction. And Jesus does these insane miracles that are just so otherworldly that, you know, it's like these stories are not in the New Testament, they're not in Paul, but it's stories of like Jesus, you know, making clay pigeons by. By the by, The. By the riverbed and, like, blowing on them, and they come to life as real birds. It's so magical. Or you have, like, the story. Oh, man, I forget which gospel it's in, but, you know, there's a story of Jesus. He's playing on a rooftop with some other kids, and one of the kids falls off the roof and dies. And so, you know, everyone in the city comes and they huddle around the kid and they're like, oh, my gosh. Like, how did this happen? And so Mother Mary comes and she's like, jesus, did you push this kid? Did you kill him? And Jesus is like, no, Mom, I didn't. I didn't do that. And she's like, jesus. And he's like. He rolls his eyes, he grabs the kid, raises him from the dead, and is like, billy, did I kill you? And he's like, it wasn't you. And he's like, see? So he raises a kid from the dead just to vindicate himself of a murder charge.

Nemo [01:34:52] Right.

John Dehlin [01:34:52] It's crazy.

Jared Smith [01:34:53] There's nothing like that in the Book of Mormon.

Nemo [01:34:55] Jesus turns up and does the Sermon on the Mount again.

Jared Smith [01:34:57] Yes. It's literally copied and pasted.

John Dehlin [01:34:59] I seriously think you. Or we need to have him back on and read the story of Ammon and see if he finds the story of Ammon interesting.

Jared Smith [01:35:06] I would say I love it.

John Dehlin [01:35:06] Or the story. Horror. Right. I can guarantee you we can pick five stories of the Book of Mormon that you will find fascinating.

Jared Smith [01:35:14] I would sincerely love that because.

Nemo [01:35:16] Yeah, let's do it.

John Dehlin [01:35:17] It. Yeah.

Nemo [01:35:17] Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:35:18] 100%.

John Dehlin [01:35:18] Nemo and John defend that there are parts of the Book of Mormon that are interesting and even enlightening. You heard it first here on Mormon stories.

Nemo [01:35:26] Beautiful.

Jared Smith [01:35:27] Beautiful. I would. I would love to have my mind changed because, you know, 16 million people say that it's the most beautiful book in. Ever written.

John Dehlin [01:35:34] It's probably like a million who say that.

Nemo [01:35:35] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:38] Point taken. Well, like, two thirds of the people ever baptized Mormon are no longer attending church. And then of the 5 or 4 million who are still active, how many

Nemo [01:35:46] of them would actually say a bunch

John Dehlin [01:35:47] of those are kids or haven't fully read the book? Or it's only like a third of the 4 million that are really devout.

Nemo [01:35:54] I'd say it's a third of the third that are like, wow.

John Dehlin [01:35:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, that third is pretty devout and committed. Okay, so you read the Book of Mormon, thought it was boring. Did a thing with Nemo, and then

Nemo [01:36:08] because I corrected him on a few Things? Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:10] Did you do the thing with Nemo before you got invited on the Cool cruise?

Jared Smith [01:36:12] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:13] Okay, so basically, Jacob Hanson was trolling Nemo the Mormon.

Nemo [01:36:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:18] And then reached out and said, I'll bring this guy on a cruise.

Jared Smith [01:36:20] Well, so I met, I met Jacob Hansen at Ruslan's Bless God Summit. Ruslan, KD is one of the biggest evangelical youtubers and he's a homie of mine. And so when I was out there at his conference, I, I ran into Jacob Hansen. I knew who he was. We, we got along well. And so he invited me onto this Mormon cruise. Right. And he very graciously forewent his honorarium for, you know, his speaking fee for that cruise in order to bring along a buddy.

John Dehlin [01:36:50] You know why he had to do that, right?

Jared Smith [01:36:51] Why?

John Dehlin [01:36:52] Because he's on record of chastising ex Mormons for making any money at all. So he had to find a way to transfer that money somewhere so he wouldn't be made a hypocrite. I'm totally kidding. Kidding.

Nemo [01:37:03] Well, no, there is a Facebook post of him mocking Al Carraway for going on a cruise and saying, I don't like when people monetize their Mormon fame.

John Dehlin [01:37:11] Priestcraft. Mormons call it priest.

Jared Smith [01:37:14] I think I asked him about it and I think he said, like, I don't know, man, I changed my mind.

John Dehlin [01:37:17] Like, no, I'm teasing. I think he wanted you there and thought it would be good for everyone to have you. Go.

Jared Smith [01:37:22] I'm totally, I'm so grateful I went because, you know, out of all of the experiences that I've had of getting to explore Mormonism and Latter Day Saints, that was by far the most enlightening.

John Dehlin [01:37:33] All right, time for a firing around. You ready? Okay, so a couple sentences on Jacob Hansen. Your reactions about him as a person go. And they're going to be others. So this is the first one.

Jared Smith [01:37:46] He's a fighter, right? And so, you know, online, he, he's pugilistic. I, I don't want to comment on, on his online stuff. I'm trying my best to avoid, you know, YouTube drama the best I can, you know, in person, I love him.

John Dehlin [01:38:03] Right, you love him.

Jared Smith [01:38:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:04] What are three things you love about Jacob Hansen? In person?

Jared Smith [01:38:08] In person, you know, he, he was gracious. He loves his wife, loves his wife and kids. When we were in Mexico, he. There, there was an 80 year old widow who was on board and he, you know, was going to go like, you know, hop on a sailboat and, and float around the island, but he was like, oh, like, Martha, you know, you. You don't have any London to, like, hang out with today. Come on, let's like, you know, walk you ashore.

John Dehlin [01:38:34] That's nice.

Jared Smith [01:38:35] It was really gracious and I'm blanking on a third, but. But like, I so loves his wife.

John Dehlin [01:38:40] Nice. To widows. That's not bad. Not bad. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:38:45] Jasmine Rap spoke with her very little.

John Dehlin [01:38:49] Okay. Not. Not much to say.

Jared Smith [01:38:51] Greg Matson, I ran into him at the gym and, you know, in between both of us trying to, you know, get his swole as we could, we were talking a little bit and. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:03] What do you like about Greg?

Jared Smith [01:39:05] Here's the thing. I, I have watched very little of these people's content online. I have a very unique window and a very unique purview on who they are as people, because with most of them, I haven't watched their content. And that's a super important disclaimer. So I'll say a lot of nice things about, you know, some of these people online or, or, you know, who they are in person and then kind of recoil and, and maybe wince a little bit when I see some of the stuff that about. And with some of them, again, I want to keep this off the record, but with some of them, I've talked to them about it and, you know, pulled them aside off the scenes and, or called them up and said, hey, man, like, you made this post and, and said these things or made these apologetic points that kind of made me uncomfortable. And I think to me that's, that's much more important than, you know, like, making a Pete. A takedown piece of, you know, like. Because I could, I could do that all day with, with every YouTuber ever, ever. And, and anyone could do that with me. Right? Because I. God, I'm an idiot.

John Dehlin [01:40:04] So anything. Any reactions to Cardon Ellis or the stick of Joseph Bros. Any.

Jared Smith [01:40:11] I don't, I don't want to say,

John Dehlin [01:40:12] you know, okay, no, I'm not looking for dirt. I'm just saying.

Jared Smith [01:40:15] No, I, I mean.

John Dehlin [01:40:17] Okay, yeah, no, that's good. Did you get a sense for any of the apologetic, Mormon apologetic arguments they were making either on the cruise or at all? How would you or would you not compare Mormon apologetics to, like, traditional Christian apologetics? Or do you even have a, A take on that?

Evaluating Mormon Apologetics and Truth Claims

Jared Smith [01:40:39] Yeah, it's. It's interesting, right? I mean, sometimes it, it can feel a little speculative and.

John Dehlin [01:40:46] Mormon apologetics.

Jared Smith [01:40:47] Mormon apologetics, yeah. And, you know, I, I can kind of like, look at it and say, like, yeah, I just, I, I don't know how to, how to disprove this or that claim, but I've kind of been around the block with other religious denominations and organizations to kind of know how these arguments look and sound and feel and say like, yeah, I, I, I, if I had to guess, I, I don't think that this hold holds weight or would hold weight if I were to investigate it more thoroughly.

John Dehlin [01:41:19] What are the top three to five Mormon truth claims that you think are least believable or of most concern to you? Do you want to say or do you not want to say?

Jared Smith [01:41:30] I probably don't want to say.

John Dehlin [01:41:31] Okay, that's fair. Yeah, that'll make this shorter. Okay.

Jared Smith [01:41:35] I kind of wanted to maybe rather than talk about the Mormon truth claims. Right. Because spoiler alert. I don't think Joseph Smith was a prophet. I don't think he discovered, you know, the true testament of Jesus Christ scribbled on golden plates. Like, I don't think that's a shocker to anyone. I'm shook personally. Terrified in the corner. I don't know, it's like, I don't think that anyone is going to be shocked or amazed by that. I think that I'm more interested in the heart of Mormonism and, you know, like how Mormonism feels and sees itself.

John Dehlin [01:42:13] I love that. How does it feel? How does Mormonism feel to you? How do you perceive the heart of Mormonism?

Jared Smith [01:42:20] Yeah, yeah, it's very family centric, for better or worse, maybe even more family centric than God centric and I think that that's fascinating. So you know, like recently there was a, a friend of mine named Than on the Inspiring Philosophy channel, he made a whole video saying that, that Mormons are actually atheists or they believe in a type of atheism because, you know, God the Father and Jesus Christ are not the, the omni gods of classical theism. And I think to, you know, to, to push back against Stan's point, that's probably an overstatement. Right. It's because then you would also have to say that like the pantheons of Greece and Rome, because none of those gods are like, you know, I don't think they would say Zeus is like omnipotent. And so you would have to say like, well, are they atheistic as well? But so I do think that that's a huge deal. Right. Like how the idea of a lack of true monotheism plays into the soul of Mormonism. I'm, I'm way more interested about that and, and the way that Jesus Christ plays into that because to. To kind of jump the gun a little bit.

Nemo [01:43:38] Do you?

Jared Smith [01:43:39] You know, I was talking about my. My relationship with, you know, this kind of transcendence experience of Jesus at the beginning. And it sounds like that doesn't resonate with y'. All. That doesn't click in the same way that it does for me in my mind, insofar as I've heard it, and I would love to be corrected, Jesus almost feels relegated to the role of like a big brother in Mormonism. You know, he's like. He's like a wise guru who's trying to take you to the next level. But he's not the originator of the cosmos itself. He's not the grounds of being. He's not the great I am in some ineffable metaphysical sense. It feels like he's just the guy who's done it better than us and did it before us.

Nemo [01:44:24] Well, yeah, because it's the non trinitarian view. So you've got God the Father for all that other stuff.

John Dehlin [01:44:30] Well, maybe I would love to give my answer to that, if that's a question, and then let Nemo may see things differently for me. I would say you did not characterize how I internalized Jesus as a Mormon. So as a Mormon, Elohim, you're right. God the Father in Mormonism probably had a God and was once like us and then worked up through the ranks of being a really good human and then became exalted and then became a God. So in that sense, Elohim, you know, was the child of a God and a grandson of a God. But Mormons believe that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament. So all of that Old Testament stuff with miracles and with all the, you know, all the things that happened in the Old Testament. For a Mormon, Jesus did that, not God, really? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So in fact, Jesus created the earth, so God's up there in heaven sort of overseeing it. But it's Jesus, Son of God, also God, you should understand that idea, who's actually creating the earth. So, yeah, Jesus is big G God for me. And then, you know, in the Doctrine and Covenants, all the revelations, Joseph's receiving, he's receiving that from Jesus Jehovah, not from God the Father. So Jesus is the one giving us our revelation. Jesus is the one who died for us on the cross. Jesus bled from every pore, suffered for every sin mankind ever committed, and then resurrected and now is taking his place as sort of the God of this earth.

Jared Smith [01:46:13] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:13] So no, no, no. Now, I would say my reaction to what you just said is that as Mormons in the past 10 years have needed to pivot because of the bad. Because of the problems the Internet has posed to Mormon history, doctrine and theology, and all the antagonism the Mormon Church has experienced from evangelicals, the church has chosen to pivot more towards a flavor of evangelical Christianity. And in that sense, just in the past 10 years, they've really started playing up Jesus being more the elder brother, you know, more traditional Christianity in that sense.

Jared Smith [01:46:57] Well, I think the. The thing that I'm getting at is the idea of celestial progression. Right. The idea that, you know, God within Mormonism was. And not to. What do they call it? The, you know, as God now is. So once was man.

John Dehlin [01:47:13] Theosis.

Jared Smith [01:47:14] Yeah.

Nemo [01:47:14] Or as manner as God once was. As God know, as man may be.

Jared Smith [01:47:18] Yes. What is that couplet called?

John Dehlin [01:47:23] Right.

Nemo [01:47:23] Yes, yes. Deification.

Jared Smith [01:47:25] But so, I mean, the idea that God is not innately transcendent or divine, but, you know, he's at some level, like he was a dude from some other universe who became a God. Right.

John Dehlin [01:47:38] I just say the same brain of yours.

Jared Smith [01:47:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:41] That can see God and Jesus as the same, but different. Divine, but human.

Jared Smith [01:47:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:46] I think that same brain could wrap its brain around God being supreme and the Father, but Jesus also being supreme, but also being the Son. Like, I would think you could wrap your brain around that just as easily as you could the Trinity.

Jared Smith [01:48:00] Well, I think the thing for me is imagining, like, within orthodox Mormon thought, like I could, through the sacraments and the endowment, you know, attain a level of divinity, you know, identical to Elohim someday.

John Dehlin [01:48:18] Right. It's a feature, not a bug, brother.

Jared Smith [01:48:19] Right, right.

Nemo [01:48:21] Usp.

Jared Smith [01:48:21] But it seems like. Because in my, you know, formerly Protestant brain, it's like, doesn't that belittle God?

John Dehlin [01:48:30] Oh, it means he's generous. He's so generous, he wants us to partake of all that he has.

Jared Smith [01:48:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:35] I think C.S. lewis vibed around these ideas. Really?

Nemo [01:48:38] That's why he gets quoted so much.

John Dehlin [01:48:39] Yeah. Mormons love to quote CS Lewis is quoted more than most Mormon general authorities.

Nemo [01:48:44] They call him the 13th apostle, often

John Dehlin [01:48:46] because he agrees with our theology and he's an outsider. Fair enough. But CS Lewis always talked about humans being gods in embryo. And anyway, no, I think you can believe that God is super G and that we can become super GS too.

Nemo [01:49:02] What you're getting at there is. There's a difference then, with the relationship between. Because you're loving a being that is, that is something you can never attain and so fills a sort of gap there. Whereas what you're seeing is that we're worshiping essentially Gods that are something that we could then become. So it's less that we're worshiping them for their supreme nature that we can never attain, and more that we're trying to be like them.

Jared Smith [01:49:25] Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [01:49:26] That creates a different relationship. You're trying to, we're trying to emulate or work towards being able to emulate very specifically the nature of God. Whereas you're trying to have a relationship with a being that, that fills in gaps that you can't attain because you don't believe that you can actually become like him. You want to be loved by him, you want to be with him, you want to be close to him, you can't become Him. Whereas if you believe you could become something like that, that's going to change the relationship to it.

Jared Smith [01:49:52] Sure, sure. I mean, I, that's like my, my theological brain is like, you know, pouring smoke out of my ears right now, trying to, trying to distill this down. I mean, so here's a theological conundrum, right? This is called the Euthyphro Dilemma. Is goodness is something good because God decrees arbitrarily that it's good, or is it good and then God just retroactively identifies it as such?

Nemo [01:50:29] Is it innately good or is it good because it's characterized as such by God?

Jared Smith [01:50:32] Right, right. And the classical theistic answer to that question is God is goodness himself. God is perfection itself. And so to my mind, it's like, okay, well, you know, in the, the great pantheon of Mormon gods and gods in. In progress, it's like they're all attaining to this goodness. But like, what the hell is goodness? You know what I mean? Like, like what is this standard of, of, you know, perfection or near perfection that they're trying to attain to. And if there's like, is there a law above all of the gods?

Nemo [01:51:09] Well, yeah, because there's ideas within Mormonism that God is bound by certain eternal laws. Right. When we do what he asks, then he's bound to bless us and things like that. So then creates a problem with God's omnipotence, because God isn't actually that omnipotent. He's fairly limited.

John Dehlin [01:51:21] That's where the idea of a small G God versus a big G God comes from.

Jared Smith [01:51:24] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [01:51:25] Can I blow your mind for just one second?

Jared Smith [01:51:27] Get me.

John Dehlin [01:51:28] So you're reminding me of the. This one of my first Video interviews ever was with a woman named Ann Wild. She was raised orthodox traditional Mormon, learned about Joseph Smith, the Brigham Young's polygamy, and realized, whoa, the true Mormonism practices polygamy. So she divorced her Mormon husband so she could marry a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist named Ogden Kraut. And she became his third wife and spent the rest of her life publishing his revelations and his books and his scripture.

Jared Smith [01:51:56] What is this group called?

John Dehlin [01:51:57] There's all sorts of offshoot fundamentalist Mormon polygamists. He was an independent Mormon fundamentalist polygamist. But I was talking to her about that. I'm like, well, now he has to divide his love up into three. How could he love you? He can only love a third of you or love you a third as well. And she was said to be no grasshopper. You don't understand. Like, polygamy amplifies love. You learn true sacrifice and true empathy. And polygamous people are able to love exponentially more than you monogamous. And it's the same type of vibe where we could just as easily say to you, you just have limited thinking. You know, your views of God are just simplistic. You monogamy, you, you monotheists.

Jared Smith [01:52:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:48] Which I know you're an atheist, but like your monotheist brain is limiting the glory and the majesty of God because a real God would want his children to achieve all of the majesty that he achieved. It's not philosophically. I don't think any of it makes sense. So like, for you to pretend that, you know, you take that position of like, well, that doesn't make total philosophical sense. You're an embodiment. Believe it.

Jared Smith [01:53:13] You're not wrong.

John Dehlin [01:53:14] You're not wrong.

Nemo [01:53:14] And the problem with limiting God's power and making him non omnipotent, as some apologists do, is it makes the problem of evil worse, not better. Because all of a sudden you're like, right, okay, so we've got a God that's actually just powerless to stop evil. So then at what point why we worship him at that point, because he kind of becomes useless in that respect if he can't even stop suffering. Or if he can, but only at specific times when he chooses to, because then you have to question his choices 100%. Yeah.

Closing Thoughts on Mormonism and Future Plans

John Dehlin [01:53:39] So I feel super bad because I can't go long today. Normally we do three, four, five hours. But any other big questions you have, just really quickly. And then what we'll do is we'll have a follow up collab with Yumi and Nemo sure, sure. And we can. At least one episode is going to be John and Nemo try and convince Jared Smith that there are interesting and even inspiring parts of the Book of Mormon. All right. Are you up for that?

Jared Smith [01:54:06] Sign me up.

John Dehlin [01:54:06] Are you up for that?

Nemo [01:54:07] I'm absolutely up for that.

John Dehlin [01:54:08] Okay. And then we can have another episode at least where you hit us with your hardest questions.

Jared Smith [01:54:12] 100.

John Dehlin [01:54:13] We take all the time that we have to convince you. Sure. Why Mormonism is the best of all man. False churches.

Jared Smith [01:54:19] I feel so bad because I. I feel like I spent this whole time blabbing about myself. I was.

John Dehlin [01:54:24] I did this. I did this. No, I like to hear people's stories. I'm bored of talking about Mormons.

Nemo [01:54:29] It's called Mormon story stories for a reason. He's never gonna let you Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:54:33] Give us a question. You got a question?

Jared Smith [01:54:35] Well, no, I was just gonna say, you know, like, I. I feel bad because, you know, part of my. My desire to be here was to kind of give the. The Xmos a chance to kind of correct my record. Right. I feel like I've thrown a lot of gracious flowers to, you know, active believing Latter Day Saints. And it's like, hey, y', all, I want to, you know, extend that same courtesy to people who have been burned by Mormonism. And so I guess, my apologies that.

John Dehlin [01:55:00] No, let's do this. So we'll have our viewers and listeners watch your episode with Jacob.

Jared Smith [01:55:06] Okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:55:07] Your episode with Nemo and any other. Any other episodes you recommend that they. That they prep should then do a live stream with Yumi and Nemo.

Jared Smith [01:55:16] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:55:17] Where. Where we can have that intense conversation you want to have?

Jared Smith [01:55:20] Sure, sure.

John Dehlin [01:55:20] How do we do do that? What video should they watch besides the ones I mentioned?

Jared Smith [01:55:26] Other than those? I would say my. My first video on the Latter Day Saints, which is just called this Mormon Church sucked.

John Dehlin [01:55:32] Okay.

Jared Smith [01:55:33] It's got a thumbnail of me going like, ah, I think that that's probably a good place to start. And then you can see my. My evolution of thought. But I still feel like I'm, you know, I still feel like I'm playing softball a little bit. I feel like I haven't really, you know, slammed the gavel down at any point yet. And I feel kind of.

Nemo [01:55:50] Do you feel like you have to.

Jared Smith [01:55:53] I just don't want to feel like I'm, like I'm giving anyone a pass.

John Dehlin [01:55:58] I mean, I'm inspired and intrigued by this idea that you don't want to tell people why you lost your Christian faith. And you don't want to talk bad about. You don't want to talk dirt on any of the lovely Mormon apologists you've met. Like, there's something really anti YouTube about that that I love because I actually see social media as being such a problem with mental health and, you know, polarization and conflict in society. So, like, I find some of your approaches, like, unheard of and deeply refreshing.

Jared Smith [01:56:32] Honestly, I really appreciate that.

John Dehlin [01:56:34] Yeah, yeah. And you still come across as funny and entertaining in your episodes.

Jared Smith [01:56:39] I'm trying. My darnedest man.

John Dehlin [01:56:41] Yeah.

Nemo [01:56:41] Yeah.

Jared Smith [01:56:41] That's the secret.

John Dehlin [01:56:42] Just so I'm curious what type of conversations you would want to have, have given that you firewall, like, drama of. Of attacking people and you firewall wanting

Nemo [01:56:51] to us to attack them for him. So he has those. And then we get frustrated and we put it out there and he's like, I'm just listening.

Jared Smith [01:57:00] I mean, a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:57:02] Yeah. I mean, okay.

Jared Smith [01:57:03] No, but I mean, I. I want to give you guys, you know, the opportunity to speak your piece. Right. And, you know, it's. It's your Mormon story to tell. Right.

John Dehlin [01:57:12] All right. All right. So let's plan a couple episodes.

Jared Smith [01:57:16] Sure, sure.

John Dehlin [01:57:16] Because, you know, maybe that'll be good. We'll have a. We'll have this conversation, be a bit of a series, and we'll provide some great content for people, not try and do it all in a three to four to five hour episode like I normally do.

Jared Smith [01:57:27] For sure. For sure.

John Dehlin [01:57:28] Any final words you want to say about Mormons or believing Mormons or apologetic Mormons or ex Mormons? Any final Mormon testimonies you want to share?

Jared Smith [01:57:44] Mormons just have better hair than the rest of the Christian world. I'm panicking. I'm floundering over here.

John Dehlin [01:57:55] Like we said, we have good. We have. We. We value families.

Jared Smith [01:57:59] Yeah, no, that you guys do. Really enjoy family.

John Dehlin [01:58:01] Yeah, I think that's. I think family might be the most important thing. I just went to a funeral today.

Jared Smith [01:58:05] Oh, no.

John Dehlin [01:58:06] Bill Bradshaw, former guest on Mormon Stories and my research collaborator, and he has such a beautiful family. And I think if you're gonna do one thing right as a religion or a church, have it be families. Now, having said that, there's a lot of my viewers and listeners that are gonna say the Mormon Church destroys families.

Jared Smith [01:58:27] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:58:27] So it's complicated. But a Mormon family can be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

Jared Smith [01:58:34] 100%.

Nemo [01:58:35] Yeah, I agree with that.

Jared Smith [01:58:37] I'm sorry for your loss, by the way.

John Dehlin [01:58:38] Oh, well, more his family, but he was. He was a great guy. Bill Bradshaw. Go watch that episode, everybody. We just released it. Re. Released it last week. Great guy. Anyway. Well, fun. Well, Jared Smith, it's fun to get to know you a bit. Tell us again.

Jared Smith [01:58:54] Likewise.

John Dehlin [01:58:54] Number one, the name of your channel, and number two, how people can donate or support you.

Jared Smith [01:58:58] Sure, sure. The name of my channel is Heliocentric. My series is called Atheist Church Audit. If you just punch that in, you'll see a bunch of thumbnails of me making really dopey faces. And then if anyone feels compelled to help support my stupid mission of visiting fun churches and weird religious sects, patreon.com heliocentric is probably the best place where they could do that.

John Dehlin [01:59:24] Donate to Jared so he could attack Scientologists and pay his legal bills when he does. Did I get that right? Yeah.

Nemo [01:59:33] I think that was the entire purpose of this episode. I think was to get him enough money to take down Scientology and pay

John Dehlin [01:59:39] the bills of doing so. Beautiful. Thanks for coming all the way here. Did you come here for this or for something else?

Jared Smith [01:59:44] I mean, it was this. We've got a temple endowment or. I'm sorry.

Nemo [01:59:48] We know.

Jared Smith [01:59:49] Temple open house. My apologies.

John Dehlin [01:59:50] You went to the temple?

Jared Smith [01:59:51] We went to the temple this morning. I'm sorry. We didn't get to talk about that.

John Dehlin [01:59:54] What'd you think? Overall S. Tier A.

Jared Smith [01:59:57] It's weird.

John Dehlin [01:59:58] Weird.

Jared Smith [01:59:59] It's weird.

John Dehlin [01:59:59] It's chandeliers and white, gaudy gold, beautiful furniture. And.

Jared Smith [02:00:05] What? It's kind of strange in terms of, like. It didn't feel transcendent. It felt a little uncanny because it

John Dehlin [02:00:14] hasn't been dedicated yet. There we go. Once they dedicated. There we go. The Holy Spirit can dwell in it until the. That is just another building.

Jared Smith [02:00:22] Fair enough. Fair enough.

John Dehlin [02:00:23] You did not read the Book of Mormon with sincere intent.

Jared Smith [02:00:25] I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [02:00:26] And you did not go into the Mormon Temple with the prayer in your heart.

Jared Smith [02:00:29] It went in big, and I think that was the problem.

John Dehlin [02:00:31] Yeah. Plus, you have a Nemo. You think you're going to feel the spirit going to a temple with Nemo?

Jared Smith [02:00:35] Not a chance with this guy.

John Dehlin [02:00:36] The Lord cannot dwell where there's iniquity.

Nemo [02:00:39] And British people, famously,

John Dehlin [02:00:45] you need to come back to Utah and have a proper Mormon experience.

Jared Smith [02:00:48] I would love that. I would love that. Maybe I'll go to General Conference.

John Dehlin [02:00:52] Are you going to General Conference this weekend?

Jared Smith [02:00:53] I think we're going to General Conference.

John Dehlin [02:00:55] Are y' all gonna, like, do, like, maybe a review of General Conference or something?

Jared Smith [02:00:58] I'm hoping to conference, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:01] Okay, Nemo, what do you want to tell my audience now? You have them captivated.

Nemo [02:01:07] Be nice to each other. Be more like Jared, right?

Jared Smith [02:01:11] Oh, please don't do that.

Nemo [02:01:12] You know, try and build some bridges. Try and understand each other. I think it's been a really good conversation for that. That. Don't be scared of atheism. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:21] Support Nemo the Mormon.

Nemo [02:01:23] Yeah, sure. You can do that if you like. I'm really happy to be out here in Utah, but I am. Yeah, I'm out here just chilling. So if I've put some videos up already, that'll go out while I'm out here. And if you want to support me doing this, then, yeah, it's donorbox.org nemothermormon all right, awesome.

Jared Smith [02:01:42] John, thanks so much for having me. Nemo, you're a homie. You're a real one.

John Dehlin [02:01:47] Sorry we couldn't go five hours.

Jared Smith [02:01:49] All good.

John Dehlin [02:01:49] But I'm glad we could have you in studio. Keep up the good work.

Jared Smith [02:01:52] Thank you so much. Let's collab 100%. I'm down.

John Dehlin [02:01:55] All right. All right. Jared Smith, everybody. Heliocentric Nemo the Mormon, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. Our Mormon Stories, thanks to Julia and Brooklyn for all they do to make what we do possible. Thanks to our donors that donate. Couldn't do it without you. Like, and subscribe and do all the things, but mostly 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. And Nemo the Mormon and Heliocentric, give us your Email us at mormonstories at gmail com, comment on YouTube, and we'll see you all again soon. 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.