Introducing Jacob and Hannah Ricks

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 607

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. Currently it's December 28, 2015, it's 7:56pm Mountain Time. And today we have a very exciting kickoff to a small series. We are interviewing Jacob Ricks and Hannah Ripple Ricks and the reason why we're interviewing them because Jacob has been summoned to a disciplinary council on January 3, 2016.

John Dehlin [00:00:34] So following up, you know, we've covered Kate Kelly's excommunication, we've talked a bit about mine, we covered Rock Watermans, we covered Marisa and Carson Calderwood. And this is sort of the next, you know, individual in Jacob's case that's willing to talk about their disciplinary council beforehand and afterwards. And so here's how it's going to roll. We're interviewing Jacob and Hannah today on December 28th.

John Dehlin [00:01:03] We're going to talk about their background as members of the church and their sort of transition out of orthodox belief all the way through to what led to Jacob being summoned to disciplinary council. And I have to say, from what I've heard so far, it's surprisingly benign what Jacob's being called in for. But we'll let, we'll let the listeners decide.

John Dehlin [00:01:25] I just can't imagine you being excommunicated for, for what you're being called on the carpet for. But it'll be really interesting to see. So we're going to talk about all that then. Jacob and Hannah plan to record the disciplinary council. It is legal to do so in the state where they live. So they are going to record that. We hope to share that as part of this podcast series if that recorded goes well. And then the plan is to also interview Jacob and Hannah after their disciplinary council and sort of release that as a three part series again trying to shine light on the disciplinary council process.

John Dehlin [00:02:04] And the purpose isn't to shame the leaders. In fact, I had mentioned, we just got through recording an intro and I actually mentioned the sort of city and state where they live. And they wanted to make sure and try and protect the, the identity of the leaders as much as possible. So they asked me to rerecord this intro and I was happy to do it. So the purpose isn't to shame or embarrass those leaders, but instead is to, I'm going to guess, to shine light on this process and to make sure the church is sort of held accountable and that a record is made of what they're doing, you know, because there's value in that. So Jacob and Hannah, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:02:50] Thanks, John.

Jacob Ricks [00:02:51] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:53] So, Jacob, why don't we start with a bit about your story? Kind of growing up in the church and stuff that's kind of important to you for us to understand your background and maybe what. What might have led to either your faith transition or, you know, your disciplinary council. Then we'll pause. We'll have Hannah do the same thing. Because Hannah and Jacob, you guys are in similar places, belief wise. Is that fair to say?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:03:19] Yes.

Jacob Ricks [00:03:20] Yep, that's fair.

John Dehlin [00:03:21] Okay, so we'll talk about Hannah, your journey as well. Then we'll go back and talk about the events that led up to this disciplinary council, and you guys could both share perspectives on that. And we'll talk about how you're feeling about the. About the council itself. And then we'll. We'll adjourn until our next interview. How does that sound?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:03:41] Sounds great.

Jacob's Background, Mission, and Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [00:03:43] All right, so, Jacob, tell us about. Just tell us a bit about your background that you think would be relevant or interesting to our listeners as it applies to what you're about to go through.

Jacob Ricks [00:03:54] Sure. Well, I think it's probably important to understand where I grew up. I grew up just outside of Rexburg, a place you've probably heard of before, so southeast Idaho, and in a very Mormon place. I think there was probably only a handful of kids in my high school that were Mormon, so probably a lot of people can relate to that and your listeners, but grew up in a very, I guess, very Mormon family, I guess to illustrate how Mormon we were.

Jacob Ricks [00:04:27] I remember as a child, a young child, my grandparents lived around the corner and one of my uncles still lived at home. And there was a point where he had gotten a six pack of Coke and put it in grandma's fridge. And this was like a big deal. I remember hearing about this as a kid. My mom telling us that Uncle David had a six pack of Coke in grandma's fridge. And it was kind of a big deal. We thought David was really, you know, going over the deep end because he had, you know, bought this Coke. And I remember along a similar, similar line.

Jacob Ricks [00:05:07] I used to go on horse rides with my grandpa. And we had traveled to this place where we were going on a horse ride, and we spent hours in the truck with the horses in the trailer. And we were getting out, you know, getting ready to get set up, and it's dusty and dry and we're all thirsty. And we were standing in a circle, and one of the guys opened up a can of Coke and started passing it around the circle. And I remember my heart just beating out of my chest. Like, this is like the moment they talk about in Sunday school, where you have that opportunity to either to refuse the temptation that you're being presented with.

Jacob Ricks [00:05:45] And I felt guilty for a long time that I took a sip of that Coke. For years afterwards, I felt guilty and thinking I'd done something really bad. So that's kind of just an example. I grew up in a pretty very Mormon family, so grew up in the church. And I went through your typical stages.

Jacob Ricks [00:06:14] I was the deacons, quorum president, teachers quorum president, priest, first assistant to the bishop. And let's see. Let me just look at my notes here for a second. And as I prepared to go on my mission, my bishop, really, he and I had a really good relationship. And he asked me point blank, he said, do you want to go on a foreign mission? And I said, well, yes. Yeah, I want to go on a foreign mission.

Jacob Ricks [00:06:44] And he told me, I will write you. I know how to write the recommendation. I'll write you a recommendation that will get you on a foreign mission. So I said, great. So I was called on my mission to Haiti.

Jacob Ricks [00:07:01] And that was a huge undertaking for me as a kid from southeast Idaho, having never had a conversation with a black person in my life up to this point, and getting called to Haiti, where obviously I'm by far in the racial minority, it was a huge transition for me.

Jacob Ricks [00:07:27] So went to Haiti, went on my mission, had some really interesting experiences there. And some of those experiences had to do with, you know, with racial racism within the mission, which I don't know if you saw that in your mission, John.

John Dehlin [00:07:44] A little bit, yeah. If there's a story or two you wanted to tell, please feel free from your mission. No pressure. No pressure, whatever.

Jacob Ricks [00:07:52] Yeah. Oh, well, I love telling mission stories. Yes. That's how I. That's how I got my wife to marry me, was telling mission stories. So. But I guess some of the things I could share, I mean, I. Having had this very Mormon upbringing, I had a very, I guess, idyllic view of what missionaries were like and that they're these perfect people who serve the Lord 24:7 and just do all the right things.

Jacob Ricks [00:08:24] And so that I kind of struggled even in the mtc. I was reading my mission journal the other day, and. And, you know, I wrote a lot about how I was kind of annoyed that the other missionaries in my district were kind of rowdy, you know, and even in the mtc.

Jacob Ricks [00:08:45] And there was one point in the MTC where we actually Confronted one of my MTC instructors and asked him to please, you know, tone it down a little bit, because he was kind of getting a little rowdier than. Than we thought he would be. And I was the district leader in the mtc.

John Dehlin [00:09:02] He was driving the spirit away with his loud laughter.

Jacob Ricks [00:09:06] Right? Yeah. So I was concerned. And, you know, we confronted him and, you know, so it's just Uptight.

John Dehlin [00:09:15] Uptight.

Jacob Ricks [00:09:16] Yeah, I was kind of uptight. Yeah, I was, you know, and. Yeah, so I recognize that now looking back, But I think I was a product of. I was a product of my upbringing, but I was there. And that's one thing I see in my journal, is just I just wanted to be the very best missionary I could be. And what I've always been told is that the way you do that is by being obedient, this perfect obedience. And so that's really what I wanted to do, was be a really great missionary.

Jacob Ricks [00:09:53] So even in the mtc, I guess I started to see a little bit that missionaries aren't quite as perfect as I thought they were. And then that realization came pretty quickly once I got to Haiti and I was in an apartment with myself and my companion, who were American, and one other American and a Haitian who were in the same apartment.

Jacob Ricks [00:10:21] And I pretty quickly became aware that there was some serious issues with both with the foreigners and with Haitians being really upset with each other about different things, like the Haitians. The stereotype about the Haitians was that they were lazy, they didn't want to obey the rules. They were just in there because they got a check from the church every month and they sent it to their families, and they didn't really care about the work. And then the stereotype about the foreigners was they would do anything to get a leadership calling.

Jacob Ricks [00:10:54] They'll tattle on you if you do anything wrong. And so there was a lot of tension in the mission. And my mission president, I don't know, I haven't talked to anyone whose mission was like this. I don't know if it was very common, but my mission president made sure that there was always the exact same number of Haitian district leaders and Haitian and foreign district leaders and Haitian zone leaders and foreign zone leaders. And there's always a Haitian AP and a foreign AP and a Haitian office elder and a foreign office elder. So, you know, because there was. There was a lot of, you know, tension there.

Jacob Ricks [00:11:34] And so, yeah, that, you know, that tension was kind of a big. A big eye opener to me, just seeing that missionaries really are people just like we all are. And you don't become a perfect person just because you're wearing that badge. So that was a huge realization to me at that point, going on my mission.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] Okay, Any other experiences up through your mission that you think have influenced your eventual faith crisis or transition or. Not so much.

Jacob Ricks [00:12:10] Let's see. Other events in particular up through your mission. Yeah, probably just generally that I was such a by the book believer that really, I think, prepped me for a really pretty epic faith crisis. Once I discovered that things weren't as they seemed. Just like going on my mission and having to have that mini transition, realizing that missionaries weren't who I imagined they were, I think I kind of had this really perfect view of what the church was and really believed in all of it and wasn't. Even though I really felt like I was so aware of more than most people of church history. I really loved the. I loved the institute manual, the church history and the fullness of times, and read it cover to cover probably a dozen times on my mission. I just loved it. And I highlighted and marked things and I really prided myself.

John Dehlin [00:13:15] What's so funny, Hannah? Why are you smiling?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:13:19] No reason. Carry on.

John Dehlin [00:13:22] All right.

Jacob Ricks [00:13:24] Yeah, no, I really prided myself on knowing church history. And I thought that, you know, I thought I was a really good church historian, and I think I was compared to a lot of people. But so, yeah, that's probably, you know, just in general, just a real believer, you know, and went on my mission.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:13:44] And he had some pretty epic adventures on his mission that led for really good stories afterwards about just unusual events and circumstances that he would have never encountered in Idaho.

Jacob Ricks [00:13:59] Yeah, I had. One of. Probably my most interesting experience was teaching a man who was a leader of a group called the Cannibal Army. And so he'd been put in prison by the Haitian president. The Cannibal army broke down, the prison broke him out. And my companion and I happened upon him one day and started teaching him. And we gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him a first lesson. And he said he'd come to church, but everyone said that. So he ended up showing up at church on Sunday and came to church. And it was kind of a crazy thing, like the branch president and everyone wanted to line up to meet him and shake his hand afterwards.

Jacob Ricks [00:14:48] And some people were scared of him. So the Cannibal army was a group of basically hit men for hire. And so they would. He'd done a lot of terrible things. And as a missionary, I felt, you know, I felt like I Felt almost like Jesus. Like I was going to these people, I was going to the sinners, you know. And I felt really great about teaching this guy and really oblivious to any danger that it might be for me.

Jacob Ricks [00:15:17] So we taught him and we taught him a few times and he came to church a couple of times and then he was assassinated, likely by the President of Haiti. And I ended up speaking at his funeral, which was a huge political protest. It was on national Haitian television. And I was.

Jacob Ricks [00:15:37] After that, I was evacuated out of the zone and we were put in the. We called it the missionary Protection Program. We were put in the office for about three weeks while they assessed the situation to make sure it was okay for us to go back out in the field. And they decided that Haitians pretty much thought we all looked alike anyways, all of us Mormon missionaries. So they put us back out and I finished my mission, but I came home a few weeks early in an evacuation because of the cannibal army after this man was killed. Took over the city I was teaching in and took over, eventually took over the whole northern part of the country. They were headed to the capitol to get the President and the. That's when the missionaries were evacuated. So.

John Dehlin [00:16:24] Wow, that's. That's some serious epic adventure. Yeah, but what I. Tying back to a previous theme you mentioned. It sounds like you were sort of a hardcore, faithful, believing, committed member and missionary and addressing the common stereotypes of those who lose their faith or leave.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] It doesn't sound like you are the type of person that just would sort of be too lazy to remain a member or want to sin. That my understanding is from that type of personality profile. And we'll talk about this in a bit, but I'm going to predict that when you started learning about the church's history and other sorts of things, it was a matter of you taking its truth claims very seriously and your expectations of church behavior very seriously and feeling maybe as a, as a matter of principle, you had to sort of, you know, you couldn't just kind of let that stuff go. You had to take that stuff really seriously. Is that fair?

Jacob Ricks [00:17:31] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:17:32] Yeah. So that's just. That's a little teaser. Okay, Hannah, let's talk about your background a bit.

Hannah's Background and Faith Transition

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:17:39] So my background is a little bit different from Jake's. He came from a long lot of pioneers in his ancestry and I am a second generation Mormon. My parents were our reformed pot growing hippies and my mom was actually baptized when she was 11. She was living with her grandma and they immediately went inactive afterwards and this

John Dehlin [00:18:05] is in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:18:06] This is in Nova Scotia, Canada.

John Dehlin [00:18:08] Okay.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:18:08] And many years later she met up with my dad, who was a pot growing hippie. And they got together and her grandma said enough is enough. So she sent the missionaries after them and

Jacob Ricks [00:18:23] to break them up, to break

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:18:24] them up because she thought, you know, here she is living with this guy, she's having a baby with another man. Like, this is just craziness. And instead they both really became converted and it really changed around their whole course of their lives and I think added a lot of stability to my family growing up that we might not have had otherwise. So I lived in this really small town in Nova Scotia in a really small branch. And probably the word that would describe me the best at that time would be, would be zealous. That I was a very dedicated young Mormon growing up, that I was always really careful to read my simplified Book of Mormon each night.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:19:07] And I remember when I, when I was in grade four, my sister went off to byu and this was the first time I've heard of byu. And I was just blown away. Like, here's the school and it's just full of Mormons and they have this honor code where you have to wear shorts that are down your knees and isn't this amazing?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:19:26] And I tell my school friends and they'd be like, no, why would you want to go there? But it really became my goal to go to byu and so I knew it was really hard to get into byu and so I worked really hard in school and I tried to keep the honor code and all of those things with this goal in mind.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:19:51] But by the time I kind of reached junior high years, life as a Mormon in a small town was a lot more difficult. And a lot of my school friends started becoming more involved with drinking and with drugs and boys. And it was just, it was just everywhere in school. Like, you walk down the halls and people are just gossiping about nasty things that have happened or what they're going to do and, and probably in, in the middle of junior high. Like, I remember that was kind of my first episode of really just being down and blue. And at the time I attributed it to seeing a lot of my friends making choices that I thought were going to make them really sad in the long run.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:20:38] And, and I kind of had this vision for myself. Like, you know, like, I just, I just wanted to get out of my town. And I dreamed of going to Utah and being with other Mormons. And so my parents said, you know, Hannah, grade 11, grade 11, you can go to Utah.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:21:02] So at the end of grade eight, I was able, like I turned 14 and I was able to go to stake dances. And for me that was a pretty huge deal because I finally had Mormon friends. And, and I feel kind of bad now at the. The way how I kind of viewed all of my friends that definitely my stake friends were a step above my school friends. And I would have countdowns on my little school planners about the next time I would see my steak friends. And.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:21:37] So in grade 11, I did end up moving to Utah. I lived with my sister and her husband and it was within walking distance of Provo High. So I walked to school and I got a job at Thibuck Pizza.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:21:54] And it was a huge culture shock to go from a town where our branch maybe had 30 people on a good day to prove well high, where you have time release seminary. And up to that point I think I had only really passed our, you know, our once a week seminary because mom counted, you know, oh, you're the branch pianist, so that counts for so many lessons. And you've read the work of the Glory two times through, so that counts for so many lessons. And so you passed seminary and all of a sudden I'm in Provo. And it was kind of. It was a dream come true, literally.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:22:29] I've been dreaming about moving to Utah for many years and you know, it's kind of a tough adjustment to move to a new town and to make friends, but overall it was a really good experience. And then following that year, the plan was for me to return home and to finish high school in Nova Scotia. And I just. I remember on the plane ride home just crying because I didn't want to go home. And how do you ever tell your parents that? You know, how do you tell your parents who have loved and supported you and helped you to fulfill these dreams that you don't want to be home?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:23:04] And so all through that summer, I spent a lot of time crying in my room. And my one regret now is that I didn't open the door when my parents came to see what was wrong.

John Dehlin [00:23:19] And they knocked on the door.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:23:22] Oh yeah, they would knock on the door, be bawling in there. They'd want to talk. And I just, I just didn't have the words to tell them I don't want to be here. I just, I didn't want to. I didn't want to hurt them. And so I tried to, you know, reach out and to make a few more friends in our small town, you know, maybe Kind of like the ones back in Utah, you know, they weren't Mormon, but maybe they'd still be kind of fun and goofy like a lot of my friends in Provo were. And so I made one friend and he was all gung ho, willing to swing on the swings of the playground and be kind of goofy.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:23:56] And then I saw him, you know, deal drugs in that same playground. So it was finally, it got to the point where I went. I went down to my dad and I said, like, I. I want to go back. I want to go back to Utah. And obviously they were well aware that I was miserable. And so they made the arrangements to, to have me go back. But this time, instead of living with my sister, she had a baby. I moved into an apartment complex of. It was a student, student housing right across the street from Provo High, where I had three roommates who were all in college.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:24:39] And one of the things that kind of overshadowed that whole year was with a lot of self doubt, doubt that I had made the wrong decision. And this is kind of a thing that I've noticed throughout my life is that when I was trying to decide whether or not to go back, I was just, you know, fasting and praying and begging for an answer about what I should do. And I just wasn't getting an answer. And the time to leave was getting closer. I said, like, is this really. Is this really what I'm supposed to do? Is this really what God wants me to do?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:25:16] All I want to do is what he wants me to do. And. And I never really got that answer. The time came for me to leave, and so I left. But that whole year, I. I just had this guilt of having left my home and having left my friends behind back in Nova Scotia and not really being sure that I was following what God wanted me to do. And so that added a lot of stress to that whole, whole year. And, you know, I go to seminary teachers and ask for priesthood blessings and, you know, just trying to get some peace with that, with that answer.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:25:57] And I don't know if I ever really came to peace with it. But eventually the year ended and I went back home to Nova Scotia. So. And from there I went to byu, Idaho. And that is where Jake and I's story converges.

Jacob Ricks [00:26:17] That's where we met up.

John Dehlin [00:26:19] So, Hannah, real quick, was there anything about your youth or adolescence that, looking back, sort of has tied into your faith transition?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:26:30] Yes, I think. I think one thing that I've noticed looking back is that I've had a lot of periods of just being blue. And I never would have called it depression or anxiety and I didn't ever really know why. Then something would happen. I'd kind of snap out of it.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:26:56] But since we've transition and looking back, like, I, I am so much happier, happier now. And I think it's because for so many years and well, in part for so many years, I was always trying to find, follow somebody else. I was trying my hardest to, you know, read my scriptures and to follow the prophet and to follow my church leaders and if they didn't say something that was clearly written out, that was my own personal decision, then I was praying and I was feeling fasting and I was trying to follow the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost is a really tricky thing to follow.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:27:36] Like, and then so I spent a lot of time saying, like, was this the answer or is that the answer or did I misinterpret this? And, and so I had a lot of, a lot of self doubt. And I think somewhere in that process I kind of lost the ability to kind of look into my own heart and to make a decision for me because I was always looking outward for the answer.

John Dehlin [00:28:03] Yeah, yeah. And so maybe, and we'll get to this, but maybe as you've started transitioning away from orthodoxy and you notice yourself, they say wickedness never was happiness and you can't be happy with the church, but if you experiment with distance from the church and it actually leads to happiness, that's, that's going to be reinforcing.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:28:27] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:28:28] Yeah. Okay. That's powerful. Okay, so Jacob, let's go back to you. Who was sort of, who had the first cracks in their testimony?

Marriage Struggles and Shifting Beliefs

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:28:40] Well, they didn't come until after 10 years of marriage.

Jacob Ricks [00:28:45] Yeah, yeah, we, you know, we were, we were going strong for a long time. We met it, you know, met at byu, Idaho. I was, we did the thing you were supposed to do. And we didn't delay marriage or having kids or having kids. Hannah had just finished her. Or she was in her associate degree, getting ready to finish her associate degree in nursing. And I was in the nursing program. Right after she graduated with her associate degree, we got married in the Logan Temple.

John Dehlin [00:29:17] Yay. Cache Valley.

Jacob Ricks [00:29:18] Yep, Logan Temple. So got married right away and about a year later, we were expecting our first child.

John Dehlin [00:29:29] Wow.

Jacob Ricks [00:29:30] And so, you know, just, and I'm sure a lot of Mormons and other people that married young can relate to this, but really we were at a point in our lives where we were just probably just discovering who we really were. And then we Got married and kind of discovered who we were together. So, you know, and so in some ways, it's worked out really well for us. Now we have a great, you know, great marriage. But it's hard, I think, when people get married young and have to work through themselves while they're working through a spouse as well.

Jacob Ricks [00:30:09] But so we moved to. We moved to the east coast about, what, a couple of years? Two years after. About two years after we got married, we moved to the east coast and lived in Maine for five years. Five years in Maine. Well, I did graduate school and took my first job after graduate school.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:30:33] We had a really great experience in Maine with. Especially with the church, because, you know, you move there and you walk into this ward and you're like, hey, we're new. And everyone's like, yay. Like, it's a huge eruption that people are coming out of the chapel saying, quiet out here. You know, and people just welcome you in because there's so few members. And I. Lucky you'd be like, wow, here are some, like, solid members, good family. And so you're just enveloped into the ward community. And we automatically had some really great group of friends, you know, in the various parts of Maine that we lived in.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:31:13] And then after about five years, we moved to the Midwest, and the word here was just a little bit different. I really wasn't keen on moving because I loved. I loved Maine. It was close to Nova Scotia. It was close to my home. We had great friends, but we had a really good job opportunity out here, and so we moved here, and I was so sad to have left, you know, left my home, and I was really lonely. And we didn't necessarily find that same kind of reception. I'd say the people are very, very nice. And there's been a few couples who have really reached out to us and been very generous and very, very thoughtful, but they weren't necessarily in our same kind of age bracket.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:32:04] You know, they had grandkids the same age as our kids, so they weren't necessarily the people I'd call to just go hang out at the park for a while. But they were definitely people I could call if there was an emergency that I knew I could. I could rely on them. So it was a really kind of lonely time after we moved here.

Jacob Ricks [00:32:21] Yeah, it was. Moving here was really my idea for work. And so, yeah, so it was. Yeah. And like Hannah said, our previous wards, we were just so fortunate we moved in, and there was just a whole bunch of couples in our same age range with kids that love to get together and barbecue and do all this fun stuff. And we moved here, and we tried to do the same thing. We tried to invite people over, and, you know, people don't come, or, you know, it's just, you know, the town we live in, it's a small town, and there's probably maybe half a dozen families that are members of the church in our town. And the chapel is in a neighboring town about 15 miles away. So, you know, and that's where most of the members are concentrated.

John Dehlin [00:33:10] So I can hear the skeptical listeners saying, oh, they weren't converted to the church. They were just social Mormons.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:33:16] Yeah, yeah, it's easy. But we went, and I would tell my kids every Sunday, whether you like it or not, we're going to church.

Jacob Ricks [00:33:25] Right? Yeah, we made them go.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:33:27] And my goal would be to get out the house with four little kids. Jake had meetings beforehand. It's just like, okay, we're gonna go. My goal is to get there without any yelling beforehand. But it didn't matter that we were all miserable getting in that car. We were going to go church and serve our callings.

Jacob Ricks [00:33:48] It wouldn't have mattered, honestly. I mean, the social aspect, that was a bonus, but it wouldn't have even mattered at all to us. That would have been an easy thing to overcome if it weren't for the things we discovered. But.

Jacob Ricks [00:34:02] So prior to me coming here in our old ward, I was the elders quorum president. And then we got here, I was a counselor in the young men's presidency for a while, and then they made me the young men's president.

Jacob Ricks [00:34:13] So I had been. And I guess I just say that to show we were really on your way to bishopric. Well, honestly, probably. And actually, in my previous ward, we had more than one source that told us from the stake president that if I hadn't moved, I was next in line to be the bishop of the ward. And really, there just wasn't. It was a small ward, too. There wasn't a lot of leadership. So, you know, but no, we were extremely involved. And my weeks, I take call at the hospital, so my weeks when I was on call and I couldn't be there for pec, I set up Skype so I would Skype into pec so I could talk.

Jacob Ricks [00:34:57] And like Hannah said, I'd be at the meetings and she'd be wrangling the kids. And I remember, like, Hannah telling my kids, it doesn't matter what you want. You know, the church is just something. It's something we just do. And it doesn't matter if you don't want to, I mean, because it was more important than what you want. This is what God wants. Right. And so it's just, you know, you do what you got to do.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:35:21] But probably true, like perhaps also being a little bit miserable at church probably have an impact later down the road at trying to be a middle road Mormon.

Jacob Ricks [00:35:35] Right, right. Well, it probably made the transition easier that we didn't have a lot of really good friends in the ward. But the transition wouldn't have happened because we didn't have friends. That's not at all, you know, the reason that we, you know, that we became inactive, I guess you could say.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:35:54] Right. And probably some members of the board are going to listen to this perhaps. And so it's hard to say, like we had friends. It just was a very different. It wasn't close knit and it felt a little bit more distant than in other places.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] Sure, totally. I get it. Okay, so talk about if you guys feel ready, talk about the cracks and what happened to the dream marriage. The dream Mormon marriage.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:36:22] Marriage got better.

John Dehlin [00:36:23] Yeah.

Jacob Ricks [00:36:23] The marriage is still going strong. But I guess I would say Hannah's. Well, I don't want to put any sort of blame on anyone.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:36:31] We had a conversation with a family member who had left the church and they were very, very respectful and weren't really talking about it. And probably us out of like, you know, that need to not want to confront it or make them feel awkward. We didn't really ask them straight out, why did you leave? But we were kind of talking about the church. I mentioned, you know, well, you know, at least the church does so much good and they're so generous. So generous.

Jacob Ricks [00:37:01] And that was just too much for this family member to take silently. And he just mentioned a few things. I think he mentioned probably farmland in Florida and he mentioned the Monk City Creek Mall. Yeah.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:37:19] Versus how much they spent on Humanitarian 8 in, you know, the last 25 years.

Jacob Ricks [00:37:23] Yeah. So I think, I don't know if that document's available anymore, but there was a document that showed over 25 years the church spent just over a billion dollars.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:37:33] Two billion?

Jacob Ricks [00:37:34] No, it was just over a billion. It was like 1.5 billion, I think, I'm pretty sure on humanitarian kind of causes. And you know, you think, well, wow, that's a lot. But then when you look at the likely because the church doesn't release their financial records, you look at the estimated amount they take in and it's a very low maybe 1%. And then for me the bigger deal was having on record that the church spent over 2 billion just on the mall. For me, it was a huge deal because I was still in contact with a lot of friends in Haiti. One of my former mission companions was a bishop at the time, and.

Jacob Ricks [00:38:18] And I knew he was struggling just to send his kids to school and just to feed his kids. And so for me, it was just overwhelming that the church could spend over $2 billion on a mall while my friend, who is a faithful serving bishop in Haiti, you know, his kids are going to be hungry at night.

Jacob Ricks [00:38:47] That was just, for me, just overwhelming. And I'd say for me, that understanding that made me lower the barrier in my mind that I'd always had, because it was never, throughout my life, it was never an option to consider that the church wasn't true. I mean, my mind just couldn't go there because I wouldn't let it go there. It just couldn't go there.

Jacob Ricks [00:39:12] This made me, for the first time in my life, consider the possibility maybe could the church not be true? And for me, it was a pretty fast break of my shelf at that point. And I was already aware, through my own study and research about the Book of Abraham, which was probably the biggest thing on my shelf in the past. But I was able to push that aside and say, you know, we don't understand everything. And, you know, there might be an explanation, but that's not what's important to me anyway. It's the plan of salvation and whatever. But this made me reconsider that.

Jacob Ricks [00:39:49] And so I wouldn't share. That very night, that same night, I went to Hannah just in tears, and I told her that I didn't know. I didn't know if the church was true. And I told her my thoughts and I told her about the Book of Abraham, because that was really the biggest issue that I had on my shelf.

Jacob Ricks [00:40:15] And it was kind of really bad timing. I was getting ready, I think the next day I left for a week of work out of town. So during that week I was away, I found the CES letter.

John Dehlin [00:40:33] Around what month and year is this?

Jacob Ricks [00:40:35] This is January 2013.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] Okay.

Jacob Ricks [00:40:39] Yeah. So two years ago.

John Dehlin [00:40:40] Two years ago. Okay.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:40:41] 14.

Jacob Ricks [00:40:42] 2,000. No, no, January 2014.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:40:46] So we're coming up in two years.

Jacob Ricks [00:40:47] Oh, okay. 2013. Sorry, 14. Yep, you're right. January 2014. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:53] Okay, got it.

Jacob Ricks [00:40:55] So I found on this. So I went pretty quickly. Within a few days of. I went from being the, you know, the faithful young men's president, very, very believing, to really honestly not believing. At all, within just a few days. And it was. It was devastating for me. And during that week, I was away.

Jacob Ricks [00:41:17] I was working a few hours away from home, and I would just call Hannah. And I have to give Hannah credit so much for being willing to listen to me as I was talking about these things. And I've heard of so many spouses who.

Jacob Ricks [00:41:34] They don't want to hear that. And I can understand it, because if you're not in a place where you can consider the possibility that the church isn't exactly what it claims to be, that can be a really hard thing. So I'm just really grateful to my wonderful wife for listening to me. And, you know, so every night I was. I was up reading, you know, all night long, reading, researching. And I was calling Hannah and just crying and talking to her. And it was. It was really hard. It was really hard.

Jacob Ricks [00:42:07] Very difficult time for me. Very, you know, depressed. I didn't know what to. Didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know how to, you know, talk to my bishop. I didn't know how to. I was afraid what my mom was gonna think, because I really love my mom. And, you know, you just worry, you know, how. What is this. How is this gonna affect your life? So,

Exploring New Order Mormonism as a Couple

John Dehlin [00:42:27] Hannah, what made you. What allowed you to be so receptive, do you think?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:42:34] I think in part it was that this seemed almost like the first time that he really needed me, that for so long he had been kind of like this emotionally, like the emotional stability in our family. I had these ups and downs, and Jake was just solid and, you know, our provider and our protector, all of those things. And all of a sudden, he's in tears, and why would I not listen? You know, he's my husband and he needs me. And.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:43:11] And I think, too, also earlier that evening when they. When we were talking to our family members about City Creek, I had kind of. That same kind of gut reaction, too, of just being like, whoa. Like that. That just doesn't sit right. And I remember thinking even then, like, I am such. At such a weak point right now. Like, I'm. I feel really disconnected from church. I don't feel like I'm getting a lot of stress, spiritual enlightenment there. And now there's this. And so I think, too, that I was. I was in somewhat of a similar place, but maybe not quite so far in. And that also allowed me to listen to them.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:43:53] So I think going in, I was taking this information and kind of, you know, just. I didn't. I had All. Lots of, you know, four kids at home that I was watching that week that he was away. So I wasn't doing a lot of the reading.

Jacob Ricks [00:44:07] But we had three kids then.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:44:08] Oh, we had three kids.

Jacob Ricks [00:44:10] We were expecting the fourth.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:44:13] Your whole world's falling apart.

Jacob Ricks [00:44:15] Yeah. So that was another really hard thing is, you know, for me thinking we're bringing this other child into the, you know, into our lives, and we don't even know what we're doing. So that was hard.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:44:27] And I remember that week, it just felt like I was just, you know, kind of standing on a cliff and my whole identity is wrapped up with Mormonism. You know, growing up, I was the only young woman in our branch. I was the Mormon friend. I was the one at the state, like, you know, I was the girl who didn't drink because she was Mormon. Like, just everything was. I was just totally wrapped up in Mormonism and it's. And I just felt like, you know, if you take that away, what is left of me? Who is Hannah Ripple Ricks without Mormonism? Like, there just isn't anything left.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:45:07] And. And so as I was kind of getting the Cliff Notes and as I actually, I read the CES letter that week too, and I definitely, like, I think I felt my testimony just vanish probably over the next several months, but. But I felt like I still had this desire to make it work for all of the good and for my kids and because I didn't know any other life and I didn't know who I would be without it. And so for a while, I thought maybe we can make some sort of New Order Mormonism work where I don't actually have to literally believe everything, but we can still attend and have the beauty of community and maybe we should back to Maine where we've got more of a community. And so it just kind of rolled over into a great big mess for a while. Yeah.

Jacob Ricks [00:45:59] And Hannah found stay lds, I think, that week too, and sent your essay to me on stay lds and people talking about you can get through the temple recommend interview without a literal belief. So we kind of worked through that. And I remember telling. I remember telling Hannah because I think my. My crash was a little bit harder than hers. Hers took a little bit longer. But. Excuse me. I remember telling Hannah that, you know, if I have to go to church and pretend to believe, like, I will go. If it means keeping our marriage together and our family like that, that is what is most important to me. And if she felt like she needed me to support her going to church and I needed to go to church to do that. I would do it just for our family.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:46:56] That same week that Jake was away, I called our good friends in the ward, who we could always count on, and they watched the kids while I went to the temple. And that was probably my most poignant temple experience.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:47:11] And, you know, because we had gone so many times together and especially after we were married and still living in Idaho and then the Witness couple and all these things. And so as I'm sitting in the temple, like, I just keep on thinking like, this is, I am never going to be here with my husband again.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:47:28] And, you know, you see the Witness couple go up and I just said, I just cried. I just cried, really, the whole, the whole way through. Ugly crying. Sat in the celestial room and just cried. And, and I don't think I didn't realize then that it was also my goodbye to the temple. And I'm really glad that I went and had that experience. I thought it was a goodbye for being with my husband in the temple, but really it was for both of us.

John Dehlin [00:47:59] Just as a side note, going back to the CES letter, it's mind boggling to me that the CES letter has been instrumental in so many people leaving, and yet Jeremy Reynolds has never faced the disciplinary council to this day.

Jacob Ricks [00:48:12] Yeah, right. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder why that is.

John Dehlin [00:48:16] But, I mean, the speculation is that the church doesn't want to call more attention to the CES letter because it's, it's, it's nuclear.

Jacob Ricks [00:48:26] Right? Well, it's hard to recover from when, when you've grown up with a, you know, really whitewashed history of the church, which I guess they're trying to move away from now, and they're trying to inoculate the youth and teach them about these things while they're young. But for people like me who never learned about these issues, it's hard to, hard to deal with without your shelf crashing.

John Dehlin [00:48:48] You know, I've talked to a lot of people who say that if they had been properly inoculated, they would probably still be in the church today. Do you guys feel like inoculation? Because what that means is that the church's current approach, with the essays and with the, with the CES content, etc. Is actually going to be effective at sort of exposing the youth and young adults to enough of the stuff so that when they hear about peep stones, they hear about the hat, they hear about Book of Abraham, they'll be able to go, oh, yeah, I learned about that in seminary. It's it's got nothing to do with my faith. Do you guys think that inoculation would have worked on you and do you think that's going to work with the younger generations?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:49:32] I think it probably would. If I had known the issues and known how to work it into a framework, then probably so, because I was really. I really loved Mormonism. However, it seems kind of like the church is trying to do a double standard of inoculating the youth while also disciplining us who actually just. We didn't. We haven't posted anything about what made us.

Jacob Ricks [00:49:56] Right. Really. We haven't. We haven't posted any of the hard hitting things like if I. If I wanted to.

John Dehlin [00:50:02] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, before we jump into that, let me just. Okay. Any other resources that were useful to you guys while you were transitioning? So you mentioned Stale ds, you mentioned CES Letter. Just for those who are in their transition. What were their Facebook groups, websites, forums, podcasts, just to. If you had recommendations for transitioning couples, what would you recommend?

Jacob Ricks [00:50:30] Yeah, well, I listened to. I really loved, especially early on in my transition, I really loved the Richard Bushman interviews that you did and I really loved the Terrell Gibbons interviews that you did. We actually were able to go to a conference with Terrell and Fiona and Spencer Fluman.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:50:52] I don't think he wants his name.

John Dehlin [00:50:55] Thought so.

Jacob Ricks [00:50:57] I think he officially did some conferences.

John Dehlin [00:50:59] Yeah. Spencer's gone. It's known that Spencer's gone around with people.

Jacob Ricks [00:51:02] Yeah. And that was really great. I mean, I'd say if there's people who are struggling and trying to make it work, that the Givens are great people and we really, at least I really enjoyed the conference and I really, really loved talking to Spencer and just, you know, it's great to talk to really people. It was refreshing for me to talk to people who are in the church that actually acknowledge the problems. So I think that's not what we've experienced where it's, you know, we haven't really. We talked to our bishop and he is just, he has a very simple faith and he's a really nice guy, but he's not interested in even the apologetic answers. So he really couldn't help us at all with the issues we were having.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:51:54] I think one of the things that helped me that isn't really necessarily available to everyone was just having a good friend who I never really talked to about why I had come to the conclusions I did, but I was able to talk to about all the other emotions wrapped into it, like A feeling that people are going to think less of me, that I'm going to be second class, that no one's going to take my opinion seriously anymore. All of those other fears, that even with her being active in the church, she was able to take that and to turn it around with love and support.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:52:30] And I think it can be hard to find a friend like that, but I think it was really. It was really important in my journey of having her. So if people can find someone and, you know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of Facebook groups out there, like a thoughtful faith that are helpful to people who are trying to make it work in the church. I get a lot more support just in talking face to face or over the phone. So that's. That's what I kind of turned to.

Resources That Helped During Their Transition

John Dehlin [00:52:58] Okay, and as you guys started deciding that maybe the New Order Mormon approach wasn't going to work, what resources became useful as you were deciding to transition away? Any other you want to mention?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:53:15] I think that kind of one of the big turning points for me was reading. Was it the Mormon priestess?

John Dehlin [00:53:22] Oh, yeah.

Jacob Ricks [00:53:23] Feminist Mormon housewives.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:53:26] That kind of opened my eyes to the sexism in the temple that I had never paid attention to before, despite the fact that I'd gone numerous times. It just. I didn't see it. And all of a sudden it was there and I can't unsee it. And for me, that was kind of. It was a big turning point for myself, my own kind of feminist awakening, and also in how I felt about the church that all of a sudden I could see that maybe the church wasn't such a great place for women. And up to that point, I hadn't understood it. And then it gave me a lot of, I guess, peace and being able to walk away because I could see that perhaps I'd be better off without it.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] Okay, that's useful. Jacob, any other Facebook groups, websites, podcasts that were helpful in your transition out?

Jacob Ricks [00:54:32] Well, I mean, I'm not thinking of any specific podcasts in particular, but I don't mean episodes.

John Dehlin [00:54:38] I just mean, like.

Jacob Ricks [00:54:40] Yeah, in general.

John Dehlin [00:54:41] Yeah.

Jacob Ricks [00:54:43] Not a lot that comes to mind other than Mormon stories. I was a lot of. I was a big reader. I have a small library that I've accumulated, and so, you know, lots of great books.

John Dehlin [00:54:55] What were some of the big books for you?

Jacob Ricks [00:54:57] Some of the big books would be Michael Quinn's the Hierarchy of Mormonism books, the series I'm looking forward to, the financial one that's supposed to be coming out soon. And Seeing information that provides. I enjoyed David O. McKay, the Rise of Modern Mormonism. And especially I enjoyed. Let's see, was it in the Rise of Modern Mormonism when it talked about. Did it talk about. Yeah, I think it talked about Spencer Kimball when they were. When they changed the priesthood ban. And just really enlightening to see how that really happened and that it wasn't necessarily God visiting the brethren in the temple. It was Spencer Kimball trying to overcome his own racism. And he talks about it, how he had to overcome his own racist beliefs that these people couldn't have the priesthood. And that was a big. That was a huge step. And so for me, that was a big deal.

John Dehlin [00:56:00] That was probably the Spencer Kimball biography.

Jacob Ricks [00:56:03] Yeah, yeah, that was. Sorry. Yeah. Just realizing that being able to realize that, you know, how these things actually work and looking at them more human and instead of having that red phone that goes directly to God to get the message.

Going Inactive and Engaging Online

John Dehlin [00:56:20] Okay, and so at some point you guys. Did you guys go inactive? What happened?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:56:27] Well, we had a baby. And so that was kind of. For me, Jake kind of. He had this work schedule. He was on call a lot. And so initially he just kind of. He was on call and then he was away and then be on call. And so there were these other kind of excuses that he didn't have to go to church.

Jacob Ricks [00:56:45] Right. But I had to get released. I needed to get released from my calling, though, because I was still the young men's president.

John Dehlin [00:56:52] So it's hard to be inactive as young men's president.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:56:56] Right.

Jacob Ricks [00:56:56] Yeah. So I had to. I knew I couldn't. I knew I couldn't be young men's president anymore. But it took several meetings with my bishop to convince him that I couldn't be young men's president anymore. And so after a few meetings with him, of me telling him, look, I really can't do this anymore, he agreed to release me. And then I basically went inactive at that point. So.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:57:23] And I tried going with our kids for a while longer, and it just got to the point where I was physically uncomfortable because of the cognitive dissonance. I just couldn't believe that I couldn't be there. And so I told a few people that I was close with or that I was working under that I had kind of lost my testimony. And then we had a baby. And that's kind of. You know, usually when you have a baby, you take some time off anyway. And so I think that kind of became my excuse for myself. Like, I'm not going inactive, but I'm just Not feeling well or got a new little baby, so I'm gonna stay home.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:58:06] And I think we went once after he was born, and then there was a long break. And then I went at the end of the summer, and I kind of born. I got up during open mic Sunday and bore my non testimony. And that gave a lot of closure to myself. And that was kind of.

John Dehlin [00:58:27] You said you didn't believe anymore.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:58:30] I didn't say I didn't believe anymore. And I don't even really remember, actually. Maybe.

Jacob Ricks [00:58:37] I think you might have said that. Yeah. In kind of a roundabout way.

John Dehlin [00:58:42] Right.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:58:42] I tried to make it be somewhat uplifting about how, you know, that I don't even remember.

John Dehlin [00:58:53] That's fine.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:58:53] But, you know, I kind of felt. I think through this journey, I become a lot more compassionate and a lot less judgmental and feeling like there's. There's room on this mountain of life for many, many paths. And I think that was kind of the message I was trying to share, whether or not it came across that

Jacob Ricks [00:59:16] that was kind of the message, and that was this.

John Dehlin [00:59:18] That was the summer of 2015.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:59:21] That was the summer of 2014.

John Dehlin [00:59:23] Okay.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:59:24] And so since then, we've just been

John Dehlin [00:59:28] inactive for a year and a half, basically.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:59:30] Been inactive for a year and a half.

Jacob Ricks [00:59:32] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:59:32] Okay. So what led to you getting a call to disciplinary council?

Jacob Ricks [00:59:38] Well, I guess when I was going through my transition, I was doing all this reading, all this research, and when I would find something especially interesting, I would make a Facebook post about it. And so a lot of these things were historical. Like, for example, one thing that they cited, both my bishop and stake president cited, was a post I made back in July of 2014 where I was really interested in James Strang and the transition of the church in Nauvoo and Brigham Young taking over the church and leading them out west. And so I was learning about James Strang, and I found all of these parallels to Joseph Smith, and I thought it was really interesting.

Jacob Ricks [01:00:21] And so I made this little quiz on my Facebook page, and I said, hey, here's some American history trivia. I founded a religion in the 1800s. Polygamy was part of my religion. I discovered an ancient buried record, and the people who testified of this record never recanted their witness and followers included. And there were a whole bunch of members of the church, significant members of the church that followed James Strang. And so I listed the members that were part of that. And I said, who am I? And I had a hint that it's probably not the first person you think of.

Jacob Ricks [01:00:58] And I'm friends on Facebook with some professional Mormon historians. And so somebody chimed in right away and knew it was James Strang. So yeah, it was interesting though, because it was right after that post that I got a phone call from my bishop and he doesn't use Facebook, so somebody passed it on to him. But it was interesting that that was the post that he called me about. And he specifically said that it was the one about the American history quiz. This is what he was talking about. And he said some members found it disturbing.

Jacob Ricks [01:01:35] And so I, you know, I told. And he asked if I would stop posting things like that on Facebook. And I told him that as I recall, it's been a year and a half, but as I recall, I told him that I, you know, I felt like it was my kind of my right to post historical information if I felt like posting it. And no, I wouldn't stop. And then a short time later, I

John Dehlin [01:01:59] just have to say there's at least three things that are really crazy about that. One is all you did was post something factual, right? Second crazy, that's all just factual. The second crazy thing is that people are monitoring your posts and turning them into your church leader. That's crazy. And this is all what happened to me. And then the third thing is that you're being asked to silence yourself, which is also what happened to me. And those are all. So I want to say disgusting, but I don't want to use inflammatory words. So I'll just say non 2015, you know, just like 19th, 18th century. Like, I don't know how to describe that.

Jacob Ricks [01:02:41] 15th century, I don't know what century. But so a short time after that, I got a call from my stake president, basically saying the same thing. And it was this same post that he cited. And he doesn't use Facebook either. And so I had to kind of walk him through and say, he said specifically because I'm friends with a lot of the young men in the ward because I was young men's president. So he said that some of the young men, he was afraid how it was going to affect them.

Jacob Ricks [01:03:12] And so I told him, I said, you know, president on Facebook, it is so simple to unfriend me, unfollow me, even block me if you don't want to. And so if you feel like my things are negatively affecting people, feel free to tell them that if they unfriend me on Facebook, I would still be happy to be friends in real life. I won't take that personally. At all if they find the things I'm saying unhelpful or disturbing, that's fine. That's not a big. So when I explain that to him, I feel like that kind of for him, helping him understand how easy it was for them if they don't.

Jacob Ricks [01:03:48] It's not like I'm sending this stuff to people. He kind of seemed at the time to me. I had the perception that he was satisfied at the time with that. And so I went. I've gone through kind of spurts where I won't post anything about the church for. For months at a time. And then something gets me kind of riled up. And often those times are general conference

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:04:19] or during the excommunications.

Jacob Ricks [01:04:23] During your excommunications. Some of the other posts he cited were when I was linking to articles in the New York Times or other articles that were talking about you and Kate's upcoming disciplinary councils. And then I think the bigger deal for him was in the comments where I defended you and where I encouraged people to consider that the church has been wrong in the past on certain issues. Specifically, I talked about the priesthood ban and consider that the church has been wrong in the past and that they could be wrong now. And, you know, you should think independently and think for yourselves. And so I think some of those ideas are some of the things that he is upset about as well.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] So he's been tracking your Facebook posts for a year, year and a half.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:05:16] A ward member has been tracking our posts and sharing them.

John Dehlin [01:05:22] The vigilante ward member. I know it so well.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:05:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:26] And so you've been given a list of offended, offending statements, is that right?

Jacob Ricks [01:05:32] Well, not exactly. That would be much more helpful than what I've been given. I've been. So after. If we back up just a little bit, I got this phone call in July 2014. A year and a half ago was my last communication. And then just a few weeks ago.

John Dehlin [01:05:49] Okay, so you heard nothing for a year and a half.

Jacob Ricks [01:05:51] Basically hear anything for a year and a half.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:05:52] And in this time, he has been posting on and off. But like we briefly mentioned, none of it was about core doctrine. It was either a factual post, something interesting, or a quote, or his opinion on current policies and practices.

John Dehlin [01:06:09] But never like, the church is a fraud, or I know the Book of

Jacob Ricks [01:06:12] Mormon's false, or I have family members and lots of people that. That I know would be offended by that kind of thing. And so I don't talk about that, or I've never talked about what I believe you know what I believe about the church with anyone really on Facebook. But what got me posting again recently was the church's policy change about homosexuals.

Jacob Ricks [01:06:37] And so most of what I was posting was first hand accounts of people that were affected by the policy change. So I was, you know, whenever I'd happen upon a firsthand account of someone who was having a negative outcome because of the policy, I would share that.

Jacob Ricks [01:06:55] And the one post that he cited recently was from November of this year. And he picked the one post that wasn't a firsthand account. It was a quote from Joseph Smith where he said, basically summing it up, Joseph Smith said that anyone who says that they're going to follow the priesthood leader just because they say so is making a huge mistake, is basically what the quote said. But it was a quote from Joseph Smith. And then there was a discussion that followed afterwards. But I posted that really in reference to the church's policy change. But that's the one post from this year that he cited. The other four posts are from last year.

John Dehlin [01:07:39] So again, this is in a meeting with your stake president.

Jacob Ricks [01:07:44] Well, this is, this is all through phone calls, phone calls with bishop or

John Dehlin [01:07:49] stake president or both.

Jacob Ricks [01:07:50] President. I haven't talked to my bishop in two weeks, so I guess.

John Dehlin [01:07:55] So you've, you've had a series of phone calls with your stake president over the past month or two.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:08:00] Yeah, well, really just the month. And it didn't start off with, hey, we're concerned. It started, started off with, we're considering doing a disciplinary council.

Jacob Ricks [01:08:09] Yeah. There wasn't ever an option to say, he never told me. We're concerned with your Facebook posts that, you know, it's okay to say this. It's not okay to say this. And if you, you know, if you keep saying this specific thing, we're gonna hold a disciplinary council. It was just people in the ward are concerned about your Facebook posts. We're considering holding a disciplinary council. And I told him my one request was if he's going to do it, to please not let this drag on, to please decide quickly if he's going to do it. So we can not have it affect us over a long period of time.

Jacob Ricks [01:08:45] And so probably three or four days after our first conversation, he called me back and said, yes, they've decided to hold a disciplinary council. And at that point, I didn't have any specific things that he had told me that I posted. So I didn't have any. I had no idea really the specific things that he was citing.

Jacob Ricks [01:09:05] And I had to email him Back and forth a few times over the next week or so. And then he sent me a list of dates. He didn't send me any quotes of things that I said. He just sent dates of Facebook posts and said, these are the dates that I'm concerned about and that I plan to share with the High Council.

Jacob Ricks [01:09:24] And he also told me a list of members of the church, just generically. He told me, like, there's a family who now is inactive because of your Facebook post. There's a young man who doesn't want to go to baptisms for the dead because of your Facebook post. There's a young woman who has doubts because of your Facebook post. But it's been hard for me to connect that because I asked him for more specifics. And then I just got an email today, and the only specifics they added were the dates that these people came to the bishop. So it doesn't. I'm trying to figure out. What I would like to know is what these people's concerns were and how that relates to what I posted on Facebook. But it's been really difficult to get him to make that connection for me.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:10:12] And even some of the people, we don't even. It seems like they're trying to find a connection to Jacob, which is really tenuous. Like, one of the people they cited was a woman who was baptized within the last year and has since had her name removed because of concerns about Joseph Smith. But we haven't been active in the last year and a half. So the fact that they're citing that she might have been a product of Jacob's Facebook post makes it seem more like he's being a scapegoat where the ward's troubles them.

John Dehlin [01:10:42] Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about this a little bit. When you blame someone like Jake or me or even Jeremy Runnels for people leaving the church, there's two huge problems, at least with that. One is that you're totally discounting or devaluing the person's own ability to assess evidence and to come to a conclusion that's theirs. It's basically saying, well, if it weren't for you bad people, these people would never leave. And that I. I think that. I think people can be smarter than that. There can be people who look at all sorts of evidence, good and bad, and come to an informed conclusion based on their own reason and will and assessment.

John Dehlin [01:11:29] So to blame any one person is just take. Taking away a lot of credit that people deserve for. For being adults who are intelligent and thoughtful and who make their own decisions. But then a second thing that I see as a problem is just that, and I had this conversation with my stake president. I didn't tell Joseph to sleep with 14 year olds.

John Dehlin [01:11:54] I didn't pretend to translate books that really weren't translations. So if I'm just the vehicle by which people learn that, or at least one of the vehicles by which people learn that stuff, that's not on me, that's on the people who did those original acts. And how can it be that I'm to blame for. For simply being a vehicle for passing on factual information?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:12:19] Absolutely. Like you look at this list of ward members who have had questions and it's like, yeah, obviously the ward has problems, but it's not that people have questions, it's that they aren't being given sufficient answers. And you can't put the blame on us for the lack of answers.

Jacob Ricks [01:12:38] Right. And one thing I plan to bring up is that I'm very doubtful that my bishop is extremely familiar with the church's essays. And so I want to talk about that a little bit. And if, you know, if ward members are having questions about issues, have you referred them to these essays so that they can get the church's response? You know, and I can't take. If you haven't, how can I take responsibility for, you know, what these people think or do or whatever? If all I'm posting is factual information and opinions about policy, you know, I don't feel like I can repent of that.

John Dehlin [01:13:19] So I think you had told me your bishop had you told me one of them wasn't even aware of the essays. Or am I confusing your story with someone else?

Jacob Ricks [01:13:29] Yeah, I don't know if my bishop is aware of the essays. I know my stake president is aware. I don't know if he's read all of them, but he's aware of them.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:13:40] I'm sure the bishop isn't aware of a lot of the other issues that when I was meeting with him, I didn't really bring up what a lot of my issues were because I knew there weren't a lot of good questions. But I wanted to kind of see where I was coming from, at least for empathy. And so I mentioned like that there's all these anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. It's like this huge rabbit hole. You just more and more problems. And like steel, Steel wasn't around the time, you know, that Lamanites and Nephites were supposed to have been on the earth. And he just said, well, you know, I've done a lot of welding, and they must have had steel to have made it across the ocean. And it was just like.

Jacob Ricks [01:14:21] Yeah, but. But he.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] Or they couldn't. Or they couldn't have made it across the ocean because they didn't have steel.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:14:26] Right, right. Like, that was his point. Like, they must have had steel. Right.

Jacob Ricks [01:14:29] But from him, yeah, from his perspective, obviously they had steel because he knows the church is true and the Book of Mormon is true. So obviously that's not even a question for him. Obviously, they had steel. So, you know, he's not.

John Dehlin [01:14:42] He's.

Jacob Ricks [01:14:43] He's. I don't get the impression he's gonna go search out those answers, you know, and he's a nice guy. Like I say. I really. I really. We really enjoyed his friendship for some time as we were members of the church.

John Dehlin [01:14:57] And so now you're talking about the bishop now.

Jacob Ricks [01:14:59] Right, the bishop.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:15:00] You could tell, like, we felt a lot of real heartfelt concern from him, you know, and so I really don't want to throw him under the bus because it's really not his fault that he didn't have the answers either. No, But I guess my feeling going into this is like, if you don't have sufficient answers, then maybe the least we can do is to make room so that when people do have questions, they still feel like the church is a safe place to come, even with my questions, rather than if I have questions, I need to keep it to myself or I might get excommunicated, or I might. You know.

Receiving the Disciplinary Council Letter

John Dehlin [01:15:38] How would you guys describe the vibe of your stake president? Did you feel like he was warm and affirming, distant? You know? How would you describe those interactions?

Jacob Ricks [01:15:47] I guess I. Yeah, I describe most of it as. As just not a lot of communication from his end. I guess I. I don't really know what he's thinking because he doesn't. He's a man of few words, basically. So he listens, but he doesn't say a lot. And so I don't. Honestly, in a lot of ways, I don't know where he's coming from in certain issues. But he does seem very. He seems very nice. You know, he comes across very nice, but it's hard for me to get the details of, you know, why exactly this is happening.

John Dehlin [01:16:27] And are you feeling the pastoral side where he's. Or, you know, really trying to reach out and show love and support you guys, or did you shut the door on that, you know, a year and a half ago, or, you know, to what Extent are you feeling that pastoral care?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:16:44] You know, they came and visited us during a ward conference a long, long time ago.

Jacob Ricks [01:16:53] Probably, yeah, probably in that mid-2014.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:16:57] And at that time we definitely felt a lot of outpouring of love, but not really any sort of understanding of why we were at where we were at or, you know, on these, you know, like, they're like, you know, we're sorry we can't help you more. And that's.

Jacob Ricks [01:17:13] Yeah, it was kind of interesting when they came on that visit though. And I feel like this is kind of a big deal in the church is that there's so much shame around doubt. And if you doubt the church, it's something you should be ashamed of and you should whisper about and you shouldn't talk about.

Jacob Ricks [01:17:32] And that was illustrated when they came to visit us. The bishop and the stake president came and knocked on our door and when we sat down, the bishop said to us, don't worry, I haven't told the stake president anything about your concerns. And so for us it was kind of like, well, that's not very helpful, you know, but I feel like there's this secrecy around these issues. Like we at least maybe in my ward more than other places, maybe in my stake more than other places, but it's like we whisper about this stuff if we have to, we don't talk about it, we don't address these issues directly.

Jacob Ricks [01:18:11] And so that's maybe part of why I am where I am, because that's know that's how these issues are dealt with. They're not talked about openly and honestly.

John Dehlin [01:18:21] If more people open their mouths, raised their voices and spoke about these issues, we'd have more people aware of the problems and the issues and more people able to make informed choices. And that's kind of partly what Mormon stories is about. So. Okay, so recently it sounds like your stake president was just about doing the disciplinary council, not really trying to reach out and support your family. Any other final things about your interactions with your stake president before I ask you a few questions about the upcoming disciplinary council?

Jacob Ricks [01:19:01] No, I think we've summed it up.

John Dehlin [01:19:03] Okay, so you've had some phone calls, some email exchanges. He's been pretty tight lipped, but, you know, have you received a letter and what does the letter say?

Jacob Ricks [01:19:14] Oh my goodness. Oh yeah, I received the letter and receiving the letter was really, for me, kind of, kind of upsetting because. And I really hope, I guess I hope that it's a form letter that he just printed out and he gives it to everybody. Although that's pretty bad, too. But it was just so.

Jacob Ricks [01:19:35] I don't know, it just. It talked about how what joy it brings to their hearts when people repent. And that, you know, really just for me, it made me. It made out like I've done this horrible, horrible thing.

Jacob Ricks [01:19:51] And that was hard for me to read in that letter because I feel like I haven't even gotten specifics of what I've done. And I don't feel like I've done any horrible things. And I know the other things, you know, things that the church excommunicates people for. You've got to have, you know, maybe raped someone or, you know, murdered someone or things like that, or have been, you know, homosexual in a marriage. That's something else we could talk about, but that doesn't deserve excommunication. But just, you know, it views. The church, just views me, I guess, as the worst of the worst. And so that was really hard for me to get that impression from the letter, that.

Jacob Ricks [01:20:34] Because I don't feel that way. I feel like I'm a person who has been supportive of members of the church. If they understand the issues and they want to stay, I'm 100% supportive of that. And I'm the first person that will tell them there might be more positives than negatives for staying in the church. And you should really take your time and think about it. Don't rush to a decision. Decide. Consider all your options and decide what's best for you. And so I felt being made out to be this horrible, horrible person, horrible sinner, the worst of the worst was kind of hurtful.

John Dehlin [01:21:12] And the claim was apostasy. Right.

Jacob Ricks [01:21:16] It said, conduct unbecoming a member of the church for your potential apostate actions.

John Dehlin [01:21:23] Okay. And I'm sure you've looked at the criteria for apostasy. Have you checked to see if you sort of meet the criteria or not?

Jacob Ricks [01:21:33] Well, I think the only one. I think what they're going to argue that I meet is repeated. I'm not sure. I don't have the wording in front of me, but after being counseled, rep repeatedly going against the church or its leaders, and he was. When I could tell he was walking me through this, in one of our phone conversations, he confirmed with me that, do you recall a phone conversation with the bishop in 2014? And I told him, yes, I did. And I kind of said to myself in my head that he's walking me through the criteria for apostasy because he's confirming that the bishop asked me to not do this anymore, and I kept doing it.

Jacob Ricks [01:22:18] So I think that's the reasoning he's going for. But I guess my feelings are that asking anyone to not post accurate information or to have an opinion is an exercise of unrighteous dominion. I think is what they would call it in the church that a bishop shouldn't be able to ask anyone to.

Jacob Ricks [01:22:38] To not post truthful things and to not have an opinion about policy in the church. And I felt like that was really them overstepping their bounds as far as I was concerned.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] And a lot of people feel like what it really is about in 2015 is obedience to authority. And clearly you've been asked by a priesthood leader to stop doing something and you've chosen not to obey. Right?

Jacob Ricks [01:23:03] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:23:04] Yeah. Okay, so let's just talk really quickly. We've got a few minutes left. So why do you plan on attending your disciplinary council?

Deciding to Attend and Setting Expectations

Jacob Ricks [01:23:16] Well, for me, I guess we'd had a really great Thanksgiving visit with family who are members of the church. And after that visit, we felt pretty good about just leaving things as they are. And. And I think for some family members, it might be hurtful if we resigned our membership. And so we were happy to allow them. Let them have the hope that maybe we're going to return. That's fine. And it might be, it's probably better to keep the peace in our family, to leave things as they are. And we respect everyone who wants to stay in the church. We're not trying to pull people out of the church.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:23:58] And I think, too, like, at that time, I felt a little bit more like a part of the community again, you know, even. Even if just briefly, it's like I can still have those conversations about what people's callings are, or I can support them in that. It's not that we really aren't so different after all, you know?

Jacob Ricks [01:24:15] Right. Yeah. Because, yeah, we have friends here locally that are members of the church, and we. And we can talk to them about that and say, you know, hey, how's. How's the primary going? You know, how's this going? And we can talk about it and have those conversations.

Jacob Ricks [01:24:28] And we're comfortable with that now, which is great. So the reason I feel like I need to attend, I feel like now having been threatened with excommunication, the options are either I could attend or not attend, or I could resign my membership. For me, at this point, resigning feels like kind of handing them just what they want and letting them silence me for having a voice.

Jacob Ricks [01:25:01] And so. And I feel like in a lot of ways, that would be the easiest thing for them is if I quietly. And that's really. I think what the church would like people to do is just go away quietly.

Jacob Ricks [01:25:17] For me, I don't feel like that's an option, as I've. I've spent my entire life in the church, over 30 years of my life, given many, many hours of service, many tens of thousands of dollars in donations, and really all my heart given it to the church. And then for the church when I stopped going to not even care, really, as long as I go quietly, they don't really. It doesn't seem like to me that the church as an organization really cares that I've gone. And so I feel like this is my one chance to go and have a voice and speak to some of these issues.

Jacob Ricks [01:25:56] And I hope to make some of my local leaders maybe more aware and hopefully maybe more empathetic to people that they run into that have doubts or people that have left the church that they can understand maybe that this isn't as black and white as maybe I thought it was. And so that's part of what I hope to do. And I. And I also feel like the process of the disciplinary council is kind of shrouded in secrecy. And that's been emphasized by my stake president in our conversations where he's said that, you know, assured me this is going to be kept confidential and we're not going to talk about this.

Jacob Ricks [01:26:37] And it goes back to the shame, you know, there should be, from their perspective, there should be a lot of shame surrounding this and secrecy. And I feel like the process needs to be more out in the open and people need to be able to see it for what it is and see what the process is and how it comes about what happens in a disciplinary council. And if I get excommunicated, what people are getting excommunicated for in 2015, and.

Jacob Ricks [01:27:06] And my hope would be that shining some light on these issues, make people more aware of them, would be helpful to some people and possibly make leaders of the church more empathetic and more understanding of people who have doubts.

John Dehlin [01:27:28] Hannah, why are you choosing to accompany Jake?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:27:34] I think partly for my own benefit of finding my own voice and sharing it. I think for much of my life, I've been fairly passive and submissive, and this is my final chance to stand before leaders of the church and to have them listen to me. And whether or not they take it seriously or agree with me is another matter. But I feel it's really Important for myself.

John Dehlin [01:28:05] So you'll be speaking as a witness. You'll be speaking as one of his witnesses.

Jacob Ricks [01:28:09] Correct.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:28:10] And I feel too like that it's not just Jake's, you know, membership that's on the line. I remember when I was on the, you know, on the fringes of just feeling like anytime someone got excommunicated, like, I felt like, you know, if there isn't room for. For them, how is there room for me? And I feel like going into this, that's that same kind of feeling that behind us there are thousands who know these same issues and who are struggling with them and perhaps trying to find a way in the church. And can we make room. Can we allow there to be a discussion about it? Can we. That we're not going to be able to move forward as a church, as an organization, unless we can talk about these things. And so those are some of the things that I'm hoping to bring up.

John Dehlin [01:29:04] Do you guys have a prediction of how you're going to feel like you're going to sort of be heavy and sad? Is it going to be, like, tragic? Do you have anticipations for what it's going to feel like to go through this?

Jacob Ricks [01:29:21] I think either way, it's going to be in the end. I think it's going to be a liberating experience for us in the end, one way or another. And, yeah, I feel like this is. I really liked. Another interview of yours that I really liked was Brent Metcalf. And I liked how he talked about his disciplinary counsel and almost as if it was a point of progression in his life, you know, on his way through life. And I kind of feel the same way that, you know, this is going to be a very significant event for our family and something we always remember. And it's

Jacob Ricks [01:30:01] going to be a point where we can kind of draw a line and say, this is, you know, this was a point of a very significant event where we found some closure and, you know, moved on with our lives away from some of these things. So that's. That's the hope.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:30:17] Yeah, I think while we're in it, I think I'm probably gonna be very. Probably a combination of feelings, but sad. Sad to say goodbye to something that I've loved. Sad and angry at the way that they've treated someone that I love. And I think it's gonna be hard, too, to see people that we were friends with, they're speaking against us. People. Yeah.

Jacob Ricks [01:30:45] Yeah. Because they are going to have. The bishop is going to be there as A witness against me and another former member of the bishopric who we know very well is on the high council now. So there'll be people there that we know.

John Dehlin [01:31:02] That'd be hard. Hannah, how does it feel to know that you have the same beliefs as Jake, but that he's getting called to disciplinary council and you're not? Do you have any thoughts about that? Or is that not an issue for you because you haven't spoken up like him? So maybe it's as simple as that.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:31:22] Right? That hasn't been an issue the few times that I've talked about things on Facebook. I think try to be more as a peacemaker of saying, like, look, we don't have to see it so black and white, like, let's allow for him some nuance. You can think this way and I can think that way and we can still get along. And so I haven't been quite as direct. So I can, I guess, understand why they've targeted Jacob.

John Dehlin [01:31:49] But, you know, Margi was not really allowed to speak in our disciplinary council. She. She chose not to be a witness for me just because she felt like it was. It was a star chamber or a kangaroo court. She felt like the decision had already been made and so she didn't want to spend time or energy preparing a statement that was going to be ignored. That's, in fact, how my disciplinary council ended up. It's just they. They told me, you are not to ask us any questions. We will not be answering any of your questions. Questions. You're on trial here, not us. And so they spoke at me without really any interest in having a conversation.

John Dehlin [01:32:34] And then they gave me an hour, including my witnesses, to speak at them, but there was no dialogue. Every witness gave their piece and then were escorted out. I gave my talk and no, there was no question or dialogue. And so you'll speak up, but other than that, you probably won't be much of the conversation.

John Dehlin [01:33:01] As far as your feminist sort of awakenings go, do you have any thoughts from a feminist perspective on the extent to which you do or don't have a voice or any. I don't want to create or fabricate any. Any concerns. I'm just curious if that plays into this for you at all.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:33:19] I think so. I think that I am finally finding a voice or learning to be more bold. And so this is something I think that I want to do for myself, is to speak up. I really don't feel like what I say is going to affect the outcome. I think really the only way that we would Come away and beat like that. They just leave us be is if we went broken and repentant. So I really only see one outcome for us. I'd be surprised if they just let us off the hook. So I think, yeah, so I want to be there to support him and also for myself.

Jacob Ricks [01:34:05] But we should say that the. Hannah spoke with the stake president and requested to be there for the entire disciplinary council. And she's going to be present, even though she.

John Dehlin [01:34:18] What's your strategy for the disciplinary council? Do you have one? Do you have goals you hope to accomplish or.

Jacob Ricks [01:34:25] Well, I've been working on putting my thoughts together and my goals, I suppose, are, like I said, I'd like them to at least the people in the room to maybe walk away with an understanding that church history is not as black and white and challenge them with quotes from church leaders like Elder Christofferson or even Elder Ballard recently gave a talk where he said it's okay to question.

Jacob Ricks [01:35:00] And so I hope to give them some of those quotes. I hope to share some things from the essays that that might be new to them so that they can understand. Wow, maybe I really need to go and read these essays and get a better idea.

Jacob Ricks [01:35:15] So, yeah, my goal is to hopefully make them a little bit more aware of what people are going through and how hard it is, so hopefully they can be more empathetic in the future to people having these kind of issues.

John Dehlin [01:35:31] Are you hoping to influence the outcome of the decision? Are you gonna try and be conciliatory? You gonna try and keep your membership? Are you gonna stand strong and bold and sort of, you know, defy them? Like, what's your. Are you gonna try and affect the outcome at all?

Jacob Ricks [01:35:47] I feel like they're going to choose the outcome, and so I feel like I need to do what is. I need to say what is true to me and. And what's true to me is that I don't think Mormonism, by their doctrine and by their teachings, is a place that should suppress conversation or suppress truth, true information, whether it's positive or negative on the church. And so I'm going to tell them that I think it's.

Jacob Ricks [01:36:20] They're overstepping their authority by trying to tell me not to post true information and to not have an opinion. And I don't anticipate that that's going to go over really well. But I'm going to use a lot of quotes from general authorities and, you know, church doctrine and things to make my point. And I guess, you know, my hope is maybe there's someone in the room that will. That will be affected and will be able to help members of their unit who are struggling because it was really hard for us.

John Dehlin [01:36:56] Yeah. So you're going to sort of have your abinadi moment in front of the council, right?

Jacob Ricks [01:37:01] Yep. Yeah. In fact, I thought about. I considered. I considered maybe there'll be an Alma.

John Dehlin [01:37:07] Maybe there'll be an Alma in the Stake High Council.

Jacob Ricks [01:37:09] Exactly. I was thinking about saying just that as I leave for them to deliberate, saying, you know, now I know what it feels like to be a Binadi, and I'm just hoping that there's an Alma out here in this room somewhere.

John Dehlin [01:37:23] What do you anticipate the outcome will be? Do you have a prediction?

Jacob Ricks [01:37:29] I will be surprised if they don't excommunicate me. And I say that because disfellowship really isn't going to affect us at all since we don't go to church. And I'm not going to tell them that I will stop posting information that I find interesting on Facebook.

Jacob Ricks [01:37:53] That's not something I'm willing to do. And they claim that I'm making people have doubts about the church because of true information that I'm posting. And so if they're going to insist that I am connected to people leaving the church because of things I've posted, whether they're true or not, I'm guessing they're going to discipline me for that.

Jacob Ricks [01:38:18] So I'll be surprised. But I would be pleasantly surprised if they decide not to discipline me. To me, that would be a great. I feel like that would be a great thing for them to be able to say, wow, this really doesn't merit discipline.

Jacob Ricks [01:38:35] This guy should just go and do your thing. That would be great. Because I feel like that's really what should happen, because I don't feel like I should be disciplined for what they're bringing me in for. But I'd be very surprised if that's the outcome.

John Dehlin [01:38:52] Hannah, if he's disfellowship directly, will that lead you to want to do anything yourself or will that influence you?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:39:01] I will resign. And I will probably let them know then that if they excommunicate him over this, then it just shows that there is no room for me.

John Dehlin [01:39:14] Okay. And Jake, why record the proceedings and release that We've talked about the need for transparency. Is that just it or is there anything else?

Jacob Ricks [01:39:26] That's a big part. One reason also is that I feel like I have pretty much all my family is in the church and from their Perspective. Somebody who gets excommunicated must have done something really, really horrible. And so I feel like me telling them, look, if you want to know why I was excommunicated, you can just read my Facebook posts. It's all on there. That's the only reason I got excommunicated. I can just see in their heads

John Dehlin [01:39:55] thinking, yeah, really, he was an adulterer into pornography or something.

Jacob Ricks [01:40:00] There's a lot more to that story. Because really, that's probably what I would have thought. I wouldn't have thought the church would excommunicate someone for this. And so I would like a record so that people understand this is really why I was excommunicated, if I do get excommunicated.

John Dehlin [01:40:16] And apologists for. Yeah, apologists for the church do smear you when you get excommunicated. They did it with Kate. They did it with me. And that's why I had to record my conversations with my stake president, just to be able to defend myself and demonstrate what the real reasons were. So that's true.

Jacob Ricks [01:40:35] Yep. And so that's. That's a reason. And then also, like you say, just transparency. I feel like things that are done in darkness have a tendency to spawn abuse. And I feel like this is. We are in an abusive relationship with our church leaders, where they are telling me I can't do things that I have a right to do. And if the church realizes that people are going to expose these things, then hopefully they'll provide instruction to their local church leaders of how to react in these kind of situations. So that's another hope that I feel like a light needs to be shown on the process and what is happening to people.

John Dehlin [01:41:16] Yeah. All right. Well, this has been a great hour and 41 minutes. Any final thoughts you want to share with the listening audience on the relative eve of your disciplinary council?

Jacob Ricks [01:41:33] No, just. We really. We're really sad that it's come to this and that the church that we grew up in and the church that we. In a lot of ways, we still love is putting us through this, and it has been. Even though we've stepped away from our literal orthodoxy in the church, Mormonism is still so important to us and such a big part of our lives, and it hurts to be accused of what they're accusing me of and of being such a horrible person. And. And so I really hope that the outcome will be that I walk away and they decide not to discipline me. That would be a very pleasant surprise to me and would send me a good message about where the Church is. So that's my hope.

John Dehlin [01:42:25] Okay, Hannah, you get the last word.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:42:31] I guess my call is that I go to this hoping that they will leave room for us. And so I guess to a lot of your listeners, I would say, you know, make room for the people around you that, that maybe think a little bit differently, that we can find a way to coexist and to talk about these things in a way that's not divisive, that doesn't tear us apart, you know, that moment. Mormonism is still, I feel more Mormon than not. Despite the fact that we don't go to church, it's still so entwined into who I am and into my personality that it's not easily torn away, you know, that I hope that the church will make room for us. And. Yeah. And so it's my duty to do the same, I guess, for other people.

What Excommunication Means to Them

John Dehlin [01:43:29] Well, I'm sorry, I have to ask a follow up question for both of you. If you don't believe it anymore and you don't plan on attending anymore, what does it mean to leave room for you? If you're kind of checked out, like, what does that mean? Why, why shouldn't you guys not be members? Why shouldn't you just disappear from the church and leave it alone and not be a member? Or because you don't believe it and you don't go.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:43:59] Because it's our community, because it's part of who we are. Like, despite the fact that I'm not there, they are my people. And so doing an excommunication is like throwing you outside of the village and throwing your name after you. It's the ultimate rejection. And, and I know people that we're close with would say, no, Hannah, no. Like, there's room for you.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:44:27] We love you, we want you. But as an institution, they're saying if you speak up, if you think differently, if you share your voice, and it's not the same exact message that I'm sharing that you are not welcome. And I think that's a message that I've seen over and over again. You know, an online community, people say, well, maybe we can do this. So people are marginalized, have feel more welcome. And the response is, if you don't like it, then leave. And I don't think members realize what a hurtful message that is that they're giving, that if you don't like it, then leave. You are not wanted. Whereas I feel like, I guess I want a different kind of church where we can have differing opinions and we allow that.

John Dehlin [01:45:16] What if somebody said it's not that the church is rejecting you, it's that you guys have rejected the church and they're just sort of formalizing what you guys have already, the rejection that you guys have already offered them.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:45:31] That's a good question.

John Dehlin [01:45:34] These are things people asked me. I'm not, I get this, but I'm just.

Jacob Ricks [01:45:40] Yeah, no, I would say, I would echo what Hannah said and just say Mormonism is more than a set of beliefs in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and God and Jesus Christ. It's a whole way of life and it's our ancestors. For me, it's, you know, I have, I'm a fifth generation member on both sides of my family. It's, you know, pioneers crossing the plains. It's, it's all wrapped up in who I am.

Jacob Ricks [01:46:08] And so as Hannah said, it feels like a rejection from the community that even though I don't attend church, I'm still respectful of and I still feel a part of, and it feels like a rejection of my heritage and everything that I grew up in. And honestly, it's going to be hurtful, I think, for family members who, when they become aware about it, I think it'll be hurtful and it will affect relationships. And so there's a lot of reasons that I don't expect someone who hasn't gone through a similar experience to understand. So if you're listening to this and you say, wow, this guy is out there, I don't understand why he would want to remain a member. I would suggest that if you, if you haven't experienced something similar, that that may be why you don't understand.

John Dehlin [01:46:59] So my answer to my own question would be just that. Number one, it's a barbaric process. It's inhumane, it's shaming, it impacts children, it impacts the people involved, it impacts the extended family. That it's just really a medieval, barbaric sort of inhumane process. It's unkind. And then finally for me, it's particularly hypocritical or bizarre for a church that bears the name of Christ to do something so what felt to me very unchristlike. They tried to say that this is a very Christlike act. It's filled with love and concern and we're doing this for you and out of love. But it never felt that way. It felt very cold and corporate and inhumane and unkind and even hateful. So that would be how I would answer that question that I just asked

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:48:02] you, because it's more than church membership. Too excommunication is taking away these temple covenants that believing members think are necessary for salvation. And it's like, really, like, do they really feel like such. That's the harshest punishment that is available. And is it. It's Facebook posts worthy of the most harsh punishment.

Jacob Ricks [01:48:27] It just sending your family to hell because of a few Facebook posts.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:48:32] Right. For me, this is kind of the final test. And I think that's why I haven't wanted any publicity before, because will they do it? Will they actually do it over Facebook posts and that. I guess that's the question.

Jacob Ricks [01:48:47] Yeah. So I feel like, Hannah, I feel almost like in some ways, it's not me who's actually on trial. This is the church who's on trial. And we're going to find out in my hearing, are they actually going to do the most spiritually violent thing they can do, do the most damage from their perspective? To me, that is possible because of a handful of Facebook posts that were factually accurate or opinions about policy. You know, are they willing to take it that far? And really, I feel like what they do is more reflection of the church than it's a reflection on us at the end of the day.

John Dehlin [01:49:30] Yeah. Well said. Well, I want to. So, Jake and Hannah Ricks, I want to offer you, you my respect and admiration for your willingness to go through this. It's not a fun process. In the end, I'm glad I did it.

John Dehlin [01:49:46] And I feel like me and my family, we're all doing fabulously well, better than ever. So I want to give you that as an offering of hope that you're going to kind of go through this and kind of dust it off and have a fabulous life if it, you know, turns out that they excommunicate you, Jake. But I want to just congratulate you for your courage and willingness to contribute to sunlight and transparency, to share your experiences, because everyone's going to benefit from you guys sharing your story. The church will be seen for what it is, which helps it decide how it might improve or do better.

John Dehlin [01:50:25] Members are going to know. Non members are going to know public relations and pr, and everyone's going to know. And that's just all going to lead to deep thought about whether this stuff is going to continue. And if struggling Mormons see that this is the way the church deals, they're going to know that they're not welcome in the church, and it could save them a lot of money and time and effort.

John Dehlin [01:50:49] That likely is going to be thrown away with, you know, getting the wrong bishop or stake presidents. So I just want to thank you guys for coming on, sharing your story and wish you guys as happy and healthy of a January 3rd as you could possibly have.

Jacob Ricks [01:51:06] Well, thank you, John.

John Dehlin [01:51:09] And we should say that you guys have to actually drive the night before, spend the night with friends and leave your kids with friends so that you can attend a 7am disciplinary council, right?

Jacob Ricks [01:51:22] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:51:23] Yeah.

Jacob Ricks [01:51:23] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:25] So good luck with that. And we're going to look forward to hearing the actual proceedings and bringing you back to talk about your reflections on the experience. So we look forward to having you back on Mormon stories really soon.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [01:51:39] Thank you very much.

Jacob Ricks [01:51:40] Thanks.

John Dehlin [01:51:40] Thanks, guys. Take care.

Jacob Ricks [01:51:43] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:51:44] Talk to you soon.

Part Two: Recounting the Disciplinary Council

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 608

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories. I'm your host, John Dehlin. This is going to be part two of a series that we have done with Jacob and Hannah Ricks. You'll know from our first interview that Jacob was summoned to a disciplinary council on January 3, 2016.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] And so we did a full interview about his background, about Hannah's, and about their thoughts around the disciplinary council. Our plan was to have Jacob record that interview and to share the recording. I think our assumption was that Jacob would be disciplined in some way.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] So we all sort of sat at the edge of our chairs on pins and needles on Sunday, and lo and behold, what we found out was that Jacob received a verdict of no decision or no action, which meant that he was neither disfellowshipped nor excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:01:11] So we're here to have Jake and Hannah back to talk about what happened. So, Jacob, why don't you start and tell us. Tell us how it began.

Jacob Ricks [00:01:23] Sure. Well, when we. If you listen to the previous episode, then you knew we had a pretty negative point of view as far as what was going to happen there. And we felt like this was going to be, you know, that we were going to be in an abusive kind of situation. And so when we got there, we met with the state president to start and. And you know, he was. He seemed very open and to listening to our point of view when we got there. And so Hannah and I went in and I had a witness who was there and he waited outside.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] It was kind of cool, by the way, because on Facebook he was reporting, you know, every five minutes or so he would, okay. They just went in and. Okay, now it's kind of quiet in there. I'm not sure what's going on. And then. Okay, it sounds like the bishop's talking. He was sort of narrating it over text.

Jacob Ricks [00:02:29] Yeah. I don't know if there's ever been another live blog disciplinary council. So that may have been a first in Mormonism, I'm not sure. But if it was, congratulations to my friends who did the live blogging.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:02:46] So

Jacob Ricks [00:02:48] at the beginning of the council, they did an opening prayer, and then my stake president asked me to confirm that everyone present that I didn't have a problem with them being there, which I thought was a good gesture that I don't think the handbook outlines necessarily. But he asked me if I was okay with everyone there. And I did know one of the high councilmen fairly well. And of course, my bishop was there as well as a witness against me. At the disciplinary council.

Jacob Ricks [00:03:20] And after that, the stake president laid out the charges. And the charges being that I had posted things on Facebook that some members of the ward found had made them have doubts about the church. And I remember him saying, after he went through those things and the accusations that I had made, people leave the church or doubt the church.

Jacob Ricks [00:03:50] I remember him saying, you know, I just don't know what to do here. And that was kind of the feeling I got from him throughout the council was that he. That this was kind of his only move that he could think of is like, I don't know what to do with this guy in my stake who's asking hard questions that people don't have answers to. And so I guess, you know, he sincerely thought that this was the best way to counsel with other brethren about what he should do. So that's why we were there.

John Dehlin [00:04:27] Just to remind our listeners you had not had any recent interviews with your stake president leading up to the disciplinary council, correct?

Jacob Ricks [00:04:38] No, I mean, I had a phone.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] Phone and email exchanges.

Jacob Ricks [00:04:42] Right, Right. Yeah. No, the last, the last face to face contact I had with him would have been, I think in September of 2014, so over a year before that.

John Dehlin [00:04:54] A year and a half ago, basically.

Jacob Ricks [00:04:55] Yep. Yeah. So it was. So it did, you know, that was something that really came as a surprise and yeah. That there wasn't any counseling in between. So he, you know, when he outlined to the high council there that when I stopped attending church that I was the young men's president. And I think that he thought that was important because I had potential influence over young men in the ward. And so I think that was, you know, he wanted to point out that as a concern. And then he asked me, he told me that I'm charged with apostasy and asked, you know, how do you plead? Kind of like in the, like, courtroom TV shows. And I guess I told him, you know, I guess I'm not sure. Do I say not guilty? So I said not guilty. And so.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] So you didn't consider yourself to be an apostasy?

Jacob Ricks [00:05:52] Well, I don't think. I don't think, according to the handbook, that I was. And so that's what I told him, is I said, I don't think I meet the definition of apostasy that's laid out in the handbook, being that you have repeatedly attacked the church and its leaders. And so I told him that, no, I don't feel like I have, that I meet that definition. And I had never publicly stated disbelief in any of the core doctrines of the church. And so based on that, I told him, yeah, I think that people should be able to feel free to discuss the things that I've discussed without being disciplined.

John Dehlin [00:06:34] Okay. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you just didn't meet the criteria from the beginning that he should have called. Called you into counsel with you to determine that, but that instead he just went straight to a disciplinary council as a way to counsel with you. Does that. Does that sound right to you?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:06:53] It sounds during the discussion, as we were making our remarks and the witness made remarks, we're kind of talking about how harsh a disciplinary council can be, especially with the potential outcome of excommunication. And there were several points that the council member was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, this is not about. There might not be any outcome today like that of discipline. And this is just to be fact finding. And so I think the High Council had the assumption that this wasn't necessarily for discipline, but yet they were following the process of a disciplinary council very closely, and it still had that potential outcome. They still deliberated and tried to figure out what to do with this. So it seemed kind of like they were trying to have it both ways of it being both the time to counsel with the potential of discipline.

John Dehlin [00:07:42] Okay, that's what it sounds like. Okay, keep going. Jake. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Jacob Ricks [00:07:46] Yeah, no, no, no problem. But, yeah, that was kind of an interesting thing. And like Hannah says, there was one point that kind of made me smile a little bit. There was this High Councilor who kind of raised his hand and said, I'm new to the High Council. And I was under the impression that we were just here to talk. You know, I wasn't under the impression we were here to discipline. And I said, you know, my response was, well, you know, this is called a disciplinary council.

Jacob Ricks [00:08:17] That's, you know, so from my understanding, you know, we're speaking to the possibility of excommunication, because the letter that I got in the mail said that I could be excommunicated. So, anyway, it was kind of made me just kind of smile inside a little bit.

Facebook Posts, High Council, and the Hearing

Jacob Ricks [00:08:37] So my stake president had a pile of 30 or so pages of Facebook posts that I had participated in that he printed out for all of the high councilors. And so they each had this packet of information to go over. And so we spent a little over 30 minutes with them just reading through my Facebook posts. And to the stake president's credit, I feel like he tried to give me a fair shake in that. He went and printed out A couple of things that I posted that actually made the argument for me. I posted a link to Rational Faiths when you, John, were being threatened.

Jacob Ricks [00:09:22] And the bloggers had come together and signed a document saying they. They oppose people being disciplined for expressing their beliefs and things like that. And so he printed that out and pointed it out to the high councilman that the argument is that there should be room for this kind of discussion in the church. And so I appreciated that.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:09:45] Yeah. He also included a link to a Salt Lake Tribune article that I had sent him where Elder Kris Jefferson said that, you know, that people can post things that are, you know, of opposing views of the church on social media without fearing any sort of discipline. And so we prayed that often included it as well, and later on referred to it again. So I also felt like he was trying to really be fair and not come in with a preconceived notion or preconceived idea of what the outcome would be.

John Dehlin [00:10:16] I just have to note that my stake president explicitly wouldn't allow any positive evidence on my behalf. All he would. All he would present was negative stuff. And I asked him about that, and I said, this isn't about the good things you've done. This is just about the bad things you've done. So there's an interesting difference. There's another. Another difference between the stake president approaches.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:10:41] Absolutely.

Jacob Ricks [00:10:42] Yeah, I definitely agree. And I can see the reason our disciplinary council turned out the way it did is because of our stake president, because he. I can see how with the same high council and the same participants just changing that one person, and if we change seats with another person in the room, if my. For example. Well, if one of the other people in the room were the stake president, the outcome probably would have been very different. And just, you know, so. So he just really set the tone for the meeting. And I'm sure that was the case with yours as well, John, that, you know, if the, you know, the stake president sets the tone there.

Jacob Ricks [00:11:22] So after they read the Facebook post, then the stake president wanted to hear from my bishop who would talk about the members who had been affected. And he had, as we talked about in the previous episode, he had emailed a list of members who he said had been affected by my Facebook posts, but just very, very vague on how those people were connected to me. And he didn't provide any more details at the council of how these people were connected to me. Really.

John Dehlin [00:12:00] And no names, right?

Jacob Ricks [00:12:03] Oh, absolutely. And not just no names, no specifics of this person doubted specifically because of this, except for the one exception to that. He says, this is really confusing to me. And this was probably the most awkward exchange in the disciplinary council was when I was questioned because I had the chance to question the bishop about the things he was witnessing against me. And so I was trying to pin him down about what is it exactly that I. I said that caused people to doubt? And the one thing he kept going back to was the historical quiz about James Strang. And for some reason, he had the impression that that had really caused a lot of people to doubt.

Jacob Ricks [00:12:52] And so I tried to kind of pin him down on it and said, so you're saying that me making a drawing parallels between these two historical figures made people doubt the church? And he said, yes. And, you know, that was kind of the end of it. But the stake president commented at that point and said, you know, he said, I'm a little bit confused about that as well. And so I think we kind of made our point that we weren't, you know, it was. He wasn't doing a good job connecting us to these people. And that was my biggest.

Jacob Ricks [00:13:29] One of my biggest protests going into this was that I was being accused of forcing people out of the church that they weren't necessarily connecting to me. And actually, during the disciplinary council, even though Hannah was there as a witness, she spoke up quite a few times, and, you know, she would interrupt and she'd raise her hand and say, excuse me, I have something to say.

John Dehlin [00:13:55] And.

Jacob Ricks [00:13:55] And she would say it. And this was. Was one of those times.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:13:58] Well, I must say, when I responded, I was feeling quite passionate at the time. And to their credit, they took it all in good stride. But at one point I said, like, can we please cross off bullet number four off the. Off of this list? Because it says here that it's someone who was converted and resigned all within this past year. And we haven't been to church in over a year. So I have a general idea of what might be. I think I might have met her in a social situation, but I don't think she recognized me, and I don't think she knows who Jake is, so if we can please just take that connection off the list.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:14:33] And. And they kind of said, well, you know, we feel like maybe there were just, you know, people start questioning in the war, then it kind of rubs off on other people. And that was kind of the response as to why she was on the list to begin with. But, yeah, I did not agree.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] Yeah, kind of really vague accusations that are really hard to defend.

Jacob Ricks [00:14:57] Right yeah. And then, you know, and so it was almost like once people started questioning it, like anyone who questioned the church after we became inactive, they decided to put on the list because we. Because somehow I may have been involved somehow.

Jacob Ricks [00:15:16] So. But I think the High Council could kind of see what was happening there. And so I think we were able to make our point on that one. But. So it also struck me during that conversation that it became.

Jacob Ricks [00:15:42] I think it became obvious to the people present that the bishop hadn't been in contact with me for over a year and a half. And so that this was really. This was really my first exchange with the bishop in almost two years.

Jacob Ricks [00:15:58] I hadn't seen him in longer than the stake president. And so I really, I think that they failed to counsel us in the way that they were supposed to, according to the manual, before they take this kind of action. And it was kind of done out of fear and desperation on the bishop's part.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:16:16] And that was kind of another point that I spoke out against is they were saying, like, this is just, you know, to gather information or, you know, like, I hate how they say threatening excommunication. And at that point I spoke up and said, like, that might have been your intent, but it's not how it's perceived. And so when you call, you know, 16 men together at 7 o' clock on a Sunday morning, it feels lot harsher than just to come together for counseling. And perhaps you should change your approach in how you want to counsel people.

Jacob Ricks [00:16:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Hannah, when Hannah spoke up the several times she did speak up, she was very forceful and she gave them her thoughts. And I'm really impressed at how well they. They took her thoughts. So because she, you know, we, and myself as well, we didn't.

Jacob Ricks [00:17:08] We didn't cede any ground. And I told them that I stand by everything that I've said, everything that they read that I posted, and that if there was something inaccurate about the historical information, I would be happy to change it. But you know that I stand by everything that I've said. And I told them that I don't believe that it is.

Jacob Ricks [00:17:33] That it is the place of. It is their job to limit the speech of members and that it's unacceptable for them to tell people what it's okay to know and not know. And so, to be honest, I'm a little surprised at the outcome, considering how open and, you know, we were about where we're at and what we believe to be right.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] Did they ask you what your beliefs were and weren't in the case, they

Jacob Ricks [00:18:06] did a little bit. Yeah. And I. And I was honest with them, and I told them that because one of the high counselors asked. He said it was important to him to know is my trajectory moving in a direction towards or away from the church, because that would make a big difference to him. And I. And I was honest with him. I told him, I'm on the spiritual journey of my lifetime, and I have no idea where I'm going to end up. So I'm not. I don't have a goal in mind right now. I'm doing my best to live the most authentic and good life that I can, and I have no idea where I'll end up. And that was my response.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] So you didn't. So did they ask you, like, the temple questions? Do you have a testimony of the restoration? Do you have a testimony? You know.

Jacob Ricks [00:18:56] Yeah. No, they. They didn't. And. But I had decided beforehand that if they did, I was going to refuse to answer because. Because I didn't feel like that's what we were there for. We were there because of some Facebook posts, and I was going. I would have told them that I'm happy to discuss my personal beliefs about higher power or things like that one on one with any of you. But. But that's not why we're here. We're here because of some Facebook posts. So let's talk about the Facebook posts.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:19:24] But you never actually have to say that.

Jacob Ricks [00:19:26] But I never said that because they.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:19:28] They didn't. Yeah, they didn't push those issues too much.

John Dehlin [00:19:33] Yeah, I think. I think you definitely. To have a different outcome, you would have had to tell them specifically that you. That you didn't believe kind of the fundamental truth claims. And it sounds like you didn't do that, which is fine.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:19:48] I think one of the overall tones of the meeting was us kind of telling them that, you know, the time to hide this information is passed. This is the point that also the witness made that. And it's time now to try to assimilate it into your own testimonies. And I reiterate that again, that if. If you want these people with infant testimonies, which is who they said Jake's posts were affecting, then that's the time to start telling them some of these uncomfortable truths so that they can grow up with it. And we talked about how the church is becoming more open about their uncomfortable past, and it's time to start reading the essay, and it's time to start understanding these issues.

Jacob Ricks [00:20:41] Yeah. So I guess that was Something we talked about quite a bit is we gave them a lot of advice during my disciplinary council. And so that was one of the things all of us, I think spoke to was that it's, you know, the time for keeping uncomfortable information from your members is gone. And, and at this point what you have to decide is how you're going to learn the information. But you're not going to be able to decide for long because it's going to be thrust upon you and your members. And so you've got to deal with it. And there needs to be a forum within the church to discuss these kind of things.

Jacob Ricks [00:21:24] And so I think that they, you know, I think they kind of heard that advice and, and acknowledge that there should be a place. So we felt like that was a positive thing and could be a, you know, could be a positive development for members that are going through a faith crisis. Because I know us and I think many like us found that when we learned these things there wasn't a local place for us to go to and talk about them. And so that's why a lot of us, I think, congregate in groups on the Internet. We find like minded people where we can discuss these issues.

Jacob Ricks [00:22:00] But you know, I hope that the church can become a safer place and a place where people can speak about what they find and information that they find and not have fear of being disciplined because of true things that they talk about that are uncomfortable.

John Dehlin [00:22:18] Was there any point where you talked about any of your doubts during the disciplinary council?

Jacob Ricks [00:22:24] Well, yeah, well I can. So I told them about, because I told them that some of you are probably familiar and some of you aren't maybe with the new gospel topics essays. And I said I'd like to read a few quotes. And I picked out some quotes that I think might be surprising to some of you to know that the church has talked about on their own website. So like some of the things I.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:22:53] So he pulled out snippets from the gospel topic essays and he said, I know that these are some of the more surprising parts of the essays and the essay puts it a little bit more context, right?

Jacob Ricks [00:23:05] So I quoted the essay where it talks about Joseph Smith being married to other men's wives. I quoted the essay on the race and the priesthood where it says the church disavows the theories about the theories of the past about black skin being a representation of not being faithful in the pre existence. I talked about, I quoted the Book of Abraham essay where it talks about how the papyrus fragments don't match up with anything in the Book of Abraham.

Jacob Ricks [00:23:33] And I talked about Joseph Smith's use of seer stones. I quoted the part where it talks about Joseph Smith using a seer stone to search for buried treasure. I. I quoted the DNA and Book of Mormon Studies essay that talks about Native Americans being descended from largely Asian DNA. So I quoted all of those things for the stake Presidency and for the High Council. And I told them that I do this in a hope that you can understand that people coming to you with doubts aren't just reading anti Mormon lies. They may have found their doubts on the church's own website.

Jacob Ricks [00:24:12] And I also use that as an argument that the church is being more open with these issues and bringing people in to discipline them because they talk about these issues is not the direction the church is moving. And so it's something they shouldn't be doing. So, yeah, I mean, I think we covered a few things,

John Dehlin [00:24:32] but you were careful to couch it in text from the church's website, not your own doubts.

Jacob Ricks [00:24:38] Sure. But if they. I think they understood that these are things that I believe. They read all my Facebook posts where one of the big things I've discussed on Facebook was blacks in the priesthood and how that. I don't believe that that was a policy that came from God. So I think they knew that that's not something I believed in. But I don't know, you know, they didn't delve into each of these, and I don't know if they were afraid to. If they're afraid to talk about these things individually. I think as a member of the church, I might have been afraid to talk about them because you would fear losing your belief or your testimony if you dive into it.

Jacob Ricks [00:25:22] But for some reason, we didn't delve into any of those things in depth. But we left, I think, hopeful that at least in our stake, that maybe the leadership would be willing to give some more training to the people who are counseling members. And we hope that it can be a positive thing for people in that area who have doubts about the church like we did. And, and so we, you know, it was the. We feel like we went there to argue that you shouldn't be kicking people out for talking about these issues on social media or publicly. And we left being acknowledged that our opinion was valid and that we were right.

Jacob Ricks [00:26:13] And so over the. Over the witness of my local bishop, who I think would have liked to have seen me disciplined. So I feel like that was a huge step here in our stake. And I'm hopeful that maybe other Places in the church, you'll see more positive change. I hope so, because I think that approach would be much better than the approach in the past.

The Outcome and Why No Action Was Taken

John Dehlin [00:26:35] How did you guys feel? How did they announce the verdict and how did it make you feel?

Jacob Ricks [00:26:41] Well, so they deliberated. The first part of the council was about three hours long.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] How many?

Jacob Ricks [00:26:48] And so we were in three hours.

John Dehlin [00:26:50] Three hours. Okay.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:26:51] There was a lot of discussion.

Jacob Ricks [00:26:52] There was. Yeah. And so we spent about three hours in the room. And if I could just talk about one exchange. Definitely not everyone in the room was on my side. There was one high Councilman who, in his final remarks, talked about Jesus, and he said, jesus lived on the earth and you lived this great life, and he died for our sins, and he would do anything for anybody. And I see nothing at all of Jesus in brother Ricks's.

Jacob Ricks [00:27:26] And that was his final thoughts to the stake president. So there was definitely people. He was the most vocal, but there was opposition to my point of view in the room. And that same high councilor went into kind of an attacking line of questioning, and where he was asking me, now that I understand that my opinions affect people and make people doubt the church, does that change how I feel? And I reiterated to him that I don't believe it's his place or anyone's place to tell people what true information they are allowed to know, that we should all be allowed to get all the information before we make an informed decision.

Jacob Ricks [00:28:11] And he kept questioning me and kind of attacking me over and over. And finally the stake president stepped in and said, hey, you need to back off, brother. So. And so we spent about three hours in there giving testimony, being questioned, and then they deliberated for, I think, a little more than an hour.

Jacob Ricks [00:28:33] And then they brought us in, Hannah and I. They brought Hannah and I in and told us that he decided to take no action. And I felt, you know, he was still a little bit torn because he. He feels like members of the church are being negatively affected.

Jacob Ricks [00:28:58] But he said that he hopes that we can actually help the stake and help him to develop a better forum for people to talk about these things. So we hope to give him some suggestions and give him some resources that we hope will be helpful. So. So, yeah, we saw it as a positive thing.

John Dehlin [00:29:15] So if I were to summarize, and you tell me if I'm wrong, you know, if we were to try and get to the bottom of why you guys weren't. Why you weren't excommunicated, here's what I would say. You, your comments prior to the disciplinary council were very benign. You didn't ever even really express any direct doubts about the church's fundamental truth claims. So in that sense, and in the sense that you had never even been counseled with by your bishop or stake president directly prior to the disciplinary council that, you know, it never should have been called in the first place.

John Dehlin [00:29:53] And once you were there, you were smart to not really volunteer any of your specific doubts around the church's truth claims, but instead, you quoted from the church's own essays, and you facilitated discussions about the importance of the church being more supportive, but you avoided any conversation that was around your doubts. And that would get contentious, revealing you as a doubter or disbeliever. It sounds like you both were very respectful, and it sounds like your stake president was open and flexible, and that led to. That led to no decision. Is that fair to say? Did I get it mostly right?

Jacob Ricks [00:30:42] I think mostly, yeah. I think the biggest factor was that our stake president went in with an open mind. I think it could have gone easily the other direction. Even. Even considering that there weren't good grounds for a disciplinary council, I think with another man, if the high councilor that was kind of attacking me was the stake president, or likely if my bishop was the stake president, the outcome would have been very different. So I have to give credit to. Honestly, I have to give credit to my stake president. But we didn't hide. I would just say that maybe the one thing I would maybe correct a little bit in your summary is I don't feel like I hid my doubts from them.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] I just said you didn't talk about them. You didn't offer them is what I. What I meant to say is you didn't offer them.

Jacob Ricks [00:31:29] Sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:29] Yeah.

Jacob Ricks [00:31:31] Right. Right. Yeah. I wasn't the one to bring them up.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] Did I say that? You hid them?

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:31:37] No. No, you didn't. I don't think so.

Jacob Ricks [00:31:39] No, I don't think so. But. Yeah. So I just don't want to give the impression that I did, because Hannah and I were both very open, and we. We went into it honestly expecting to be disciplined. And so we were. And we. And we, I think, had come to peace with that. And so we were. We were happy to be completely honest and upfront with them about what we thought. And so I have to give the most credit, like I say, to my stake president for being open, because I think if it were a different person in his seat, the outcome would have been very different.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:32:11] To me, it was kind of a testament of the power of Just being able to. To have an open and authentic conversation where both parties are open, then you can come to a, you know, a much better consensus. I think if we had tried to maybe pander more what we thought they might want to hear, it might have had the same decision of no action. But they might not have then extended the request for having us help them in the future, which. Which was really nice. It was a very sincere and heartfelt exchange.

John Dehlin [00:32:45] So they. So at the end, they asked you to actually help out with future action. With future.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:32:51] They said that they would like our suggestions on how they can develop forums within the stake so that people can have conversations about these tough issues. And so we've. I started to compile a list of changes that people who are trying to make the relationship with the church work of changes that they would like to seat, and I'm going to forward them on to the Stake President.

John Dehlin [00:33:13] That's great. Well, I'm super happy for you guys that you had a positive outcome to your liking. I think that's going to be encouraging to a lot of people. So congratulations on how you handled it. Congratulations to your stake president, how he handled it, and congratulations on getting an outcome that you guys are happy with. That's really good.

Jacob Ricks [00:33:39] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, we hope that it'll be a positive thing for some people. So we know it's not. Everyone's situation is different. And like I say, just changing who was in that seat at the head of the table could have changed the decision very easily.

Reflections and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [00:33:53] Talk real quickly just about your decision not to release the recording of the actual disciplinary council.

Jacob Ricks [00:34:00] Yeah, I guess, as I said earlier prior to the council, I felt like this was going to be. From my experience, hearing about other people's disciplinary councils and from the little information that I was provided prior, I felt like this was going to be kind of a sham to kick me out of the church. And I wanted to make sure that was documented.

John Dehlin [00:34:24] A sham. You broke up for a second. A sham? What. What did you say?

Jacob Ricks [00:34:30] Oh, it was going to be kind of a sham council, disciplinary council that it was just kind of put on to kick me out of the church. And if that was the case, which I thought it was the case, I was determined to have that documented and released so that hopefully those kind of things would not happen in the future.

Jacob Ricks [00:34:51] But since it didn't turn out that way, and since actually we felt some sincere desire, the sincere desire that they have to arrive at a good decision, we don't feel good about releasing the audio from it. But Like I say, I have to give credit to the stake president and hope that other people can have a similar. I guess I hope that no one else gets called to a disciplinary council, but I hope that more leaders in the church can have empathy and can try to understand why their members are having these issues. And hopefully this can be a lesson for at least the leaders in my that calling people to a disciplinary council for speaking up about issues is not the right move.

John Dehlin [00:35:40] Excellent. Well, this is super important and I'm really grateful you guys would come on Mormon Stories to share your experience. I think this many people will be grateful for it. And I think the church is better off by having this conversation and by you guys sharing not only how you handled what you did, but then sharing with everyone else the outcome. So thank you guys. Thank you so much.

Hannah Ripple Ricks [00:36:03] Thanks for your time.

John Dehlin [00:36:05] And you know, we'll invite you guys to come on the blog. Listeners, please feel free to share your comments or questions. You guys feel free to come on and respond if you want. And I just want to thank all the listeners for their support. And again, Jacob and Hannah Ricks, thanks for coming on Mormon Stories.

Jacob Ricks [00:36:25] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:36:26] All right, guys, take care.

Jacob Ricks [00:36:28] You too.

John Dehlin [00:36:29] Okay.

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