Welcome and Guest Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is July 7, 2021, and today we have a very special Mormon Stories podcast interview. I say that every time, and I mean it. Every single time. Today we are interviewing Warren Driggs and Cindy Poulson Driggs, and they are currently residents in St. George, but they grew up here in. Or at least Warren did here in Holiday, Utah. So, Cindy and Warren, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Warren Driggs [00:00:34] Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:36] Yeah, it's so great to have you here.

Cindy Driggs [00:00:37] It's a pleasure. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:00:40] For those who like kind of a preview of what we're going to be talking about, I know about Warren. Well, first of all, I met Warren and Cindy in St. George. I went down there for an event a couple years ago, and they were gracious enough to host a gathering of ex Mormons down in St. George. Beautiful home, amazing guests, wonderful food, delightful conversation, and I just thought these people would be amazing interviews on Mormon Stories Podcast. I also learned about Warren because he is the author of a book of several books, but one book is called Mormon A Memoir by Warren Driggs. And he is also the author of A Tortoise in the Old Scratch Swimming in Deep Water, a novel of Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:01:29] So. And it's a very interesting book. Definitely a worthwhile read. And so I know a little bit more about Warren than I do about Cindy. But here is kind of what today's interview is mostly going to be about. It's going to be about their respective Mormon upbringings. I will give away just what I know, which is that Warren definitely would have reached adulthood, more of a, let's say, orthodox or faithful Mormon than Cindy was. Not to disparage Cindy, they did get married in the temple as Mormons. We'll talk about that. But let's just say that Warren was gung ho, maybe Cindy was a little bit less so, but they were going to make it work as Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:02:12] And I think where it gets interesting is let's just say in their late 20s, mid to late 20s, Warren starts to have doubts in question. And let's just say by their late 20s, early 30s, they've pretty much left Mormon orthodoxy, although they kind of remained in the church, as they like to say, peripheral Mormons staying associated enough to where all their children were baptized.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] But, you know, by the mid-1980s, mid to late 1980s, by their kind of mid-30s, they kind of stopped going to the church altogether. And so today we're going to be talking about their Mormon story, but we're also going to be focusing on, you know, what happens when a Mormon couple leaves the church in the 80s and then is still surrounded by friends and family that are all Mormon. And then we'll get into, what's it like, you know, to have to rebuild your life, having left the church and, you know, with that big fear always in the back of your mind, can I raise decent kids without the church?

John Dehlin [00:03:22] Can I will my marriage survive if we leave the church? Can we be healthy, happy, functional people after leaving the church? Or are we destined towards sadness and debauchery and the like? And so, yeah, and then whatever else comes along. But that is kind of what today's Mormon Stories episode is going to be about. Now, Cindy and Warren, is there anything you guys want to add or correct or change about the introduction or is that. But I kind of get close.

Warren Driggs [00:03:54] You summed it up well. Thank you.

Cindy Driggs [00:03:56] Okay, good.

John Dehlin [00:03:56] Well, it's fun to have you.

Warren Driggs [00:03:57] Thanks.

Cindy Driggs [00:03:58] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] And of course, we are joined today by Carah Burrell. Carah, it's always so lovely to have you. How are you doing, Carah?

Carah Burrell [00:04:05] I'm doing so good. We were just talking with Warren and Cindy, and they're already making me laugh. So I think this is going to be a really, really good one.

John Dehlin [00:04:12] All right, well, Carah, it's great to have you. I want to thank Mormon Stories supporters for your support because we had a great year last year. We, we have a little bit of extra cash in the bank. We've able to bring Carah on. She handles audio and video time codes editing. If you go up to YouTube now, all of our most recent Mormon Stories episodes, we have these time codes where you can jump back and forth. You can click on the time codes in the description of the YouTube and jump back and forward to different parts of the interview or jump to the parts you're most interested in.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] And that's good for the algorithms, and that's due to Carah's good work. We also love Carah's perspective here on the podcast. And I do have to just say, Carah has helped bring the Open Stories Foundation, Me and Mormon Stories podcast into the TikTok age. Carah is a tiktoker herself. She's got an amazing TikTok channel and she's brought our Mormon stories podcast TikTok channel from nothing to over 40,000 followers in less than a month. And some videos have over a million 1.5 million views.

John Dehlin [00:05:20] Carah's been brilliant on that. I have a TikTok channel as well now, and it's not doing nearly as well as Carah's, but what we do do is we chop up these Mormon Stories podcast interviews into one minute chunks and share them. And they've been really, I want to say, kind of wildly popular for a new TikTok channel.

Carah Burrell [00:05:41] Yeah. And I always want to encourage people to get on TikTok to be able to see them, but if you are not, we try to repost them on Instagram and all the comments and people feeling very validated and maybe going and checking out episodes that they didn't know existed before you connecting with a story, a one minute clip of something and then go checking out the longer interview. So there's just too much good information, too many good stories on Mormon Stories to not chop them up and make sure that they are out to the masses, you know.

John Dehlin [00:06:07] Yeah, yeah. And I just want to say there's a, you know, we're not trying to stall or waste your time or even do commercials here on Mormon Stories podcast, but there's a reason I'm mentioning TikTok. I have never seen anything like TikTok in the 20 years I've been doing kind of social media or Internet stuff. Within Mormonism, you are able to reach more people in a shorter amount of time and, and honestly, younger generations in ways that, that with YouTube and Instagram and Facebook are just not possible. So if you want to make a, if you want to make a difference, if you believe, for example, in the principle of informed consent that, that humans, even, even teens or children deserve to know what they're committing their lives to before they commit their lives to it, if you believe that people deserve to have full information, especially when it comes to a high demand religion that is going to take so much of your life.

John Dehlin [00:07:03] If you believe in informed consent, then TikTok is the platform I believe right now to really reach the most amount of people with the least amount of time, effort and money. And that's why we're investing in it. That's why we're talking to you about it. And, and there's one other quick thing I'm just going to mention. We are, you know, we are always flooded with requests to do Mormon Stories podcast interviews. There's never going to be a time where like TikTok is going to be a requirement to come on Mormon Stories. But I will say this. We've launched a few campaigns around Mormon informed consent, Mormon harm, why Mormon truth matters.

John Dehlin [00:07:38] These are all tags that we've created on TikTok to try and start this conversation about informed consent within Mormonism. And we're gonna. We're launching one other quick little campaign, which is my Mormon Story. So what we wanna encourage people to do on TikTok is to figure out a creative, touching, genuine way to tell your Mormon story in a minute or less.

John Dehlin [00:08:00] And we are gonna be monitoring that tag. So, hashtag mymormonstory, we're gonna be monitoring that tag and within the next month, we will be selecting someone to come on Mormon Stories who kind of gave the most effective. My Mormon story on TikTok. So that's, you know, thank you for your support in allowing us to kind of spread the TikTok love. We're doing it because we're mission driven and we know that TikTok is making and is going to make a big difference. And we're never going to stop YouTube. We're never going to stop, you know, Instagram and Facebook, but we're adding TikTok care. Anything else you want to add to that? That little.

Carah Burrell [00:08:36] Yeah, all of that is just to say thank you to the donors that are able to pay for my salary now and able to keep me employed. Keep everything on TikTok going, keep this ball rolling and everything. So. Couldn't do without the donors.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] Yeah. And, yeah, please, please continue your support and if you like, having Carah here support us and we'll keep her here as long as she wants to be here and as long as we're adding value to you. So thanks for your patience, listeners. And now it's time to get to Warren and Cindy. How you guys do? How you guys feeling?

Cindy Driggs [00:09:08] Great. Great.

Warren Driggs [00:09:09] Feeling great.

John Dehlin [00:09:09] Cindy, did you ever guess that you would be sitting in front of a microphone and telling your Mormon story?

Cindy Driggs [00:09:16] Never in a million years. Never. Never. No. But happy to be here. You've helped so many people, including myself, which I didn't think I had a lot of. I didn't believe I needed a lot of help undoing my Mormon background. But it's been very helpful. So thank you for all you do.

John Dehlin [00:09:35] Oh, it's our pleasure.

Warren Driggs [00:09:36] Amen to that.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] Thanks, Warren. Thanks, Sydney. Okay, well, let's begin with your respective Mormon stories and we'll kind of tell them. Let's stick to the chronology. Let's not jump ahead and let's. We'll kind of tell them in parallel. I'll jump back and forth between you, but let's just relax and have a good time. Okay, who wants to start? Should we. Should we have Warren start? All right, Warren, where does your Mormon story begin? I. I've you know, read from your book. But.

Warren's Family Roots in Early Mormonism

Warren Driggs [00:10:00] Okay, my Mormon story begins all the way back to Palmyra. My. I get my Palmyra. Palmyra. My great, great, great. I'm going to go with four great grandfather was a pal of Joseph Smith. And they were pals in Palmyra. He joined the church. One of the early people.

John Dehlin [00:10:24] What was his last name?

Warren Driggs [00:10:25] Edmund Durfee.

Cindy Driggs [00:10:27] Okay.

Warren Driggs [00:10:27] And I know this story because. And I know about my ancestry because when I was eight years old, I think one of my very first presents I ever got for my birthday was a book of remembrance. Do you remember these? For the geriatrics. It was a, you know, and rectangular, heavy book. And it's filled with those blank pages that look like March Madness brackets. And you fill them out. My dad was big into genealogy, so I thought, man, this would be really cool. So I hunkered down over the kitchen table and I was going bananas with it. My goal was to go all the way back to Adam and Eve, you know, or at least back to Moses or something.

John Dehlin [00:11:06] Totally doable.

Warren Driggs [00:11:07] Yeah, totally doable.

John Dehlin [00:11:08] Bible does that.

Cindy Driggs [00:11:09] Sure.

Warren Driggs [00:11:10] I didn't get that far, but I did make it all the way back to Palmyra. And then I conquered, dunked out. But he was the early guy and he was with Joseph. And then in the winter, as you know, in the winter of 1831, maybe the coldest winter on record, they were. They left Palmyra, kind of fled Palmyra, really, and loaded their rusty sleighs and wagons and whatever, made the 300 mile trek to this town called Kirtland, where they ran into Sidney Rigdon. And then he didn't even have time to unpack his bags because Joseph said, listen, you and Oliver and Parley B. Pratt, you gotta go find the Promised land because this isn't going to cut it.

Warren Driggs [00:11:53] We need the real Promised land and it's farther west. So they made that trek. He hung out in Missouri, you know, and suffered the beat down that the Mormons had there. Joseph went to jail. He followed Brigham and the guys up to Nauvoo. He settled in a little suburb of Nauvoo called Morley Settlement. And he was gunned down there by the bad guys, presumably with liquor on their breath. That's what I always knew, that if you were an anti Mormon, you had liquor on your breath and all that kind of stuff. But then his family and you always

John Dehlin [00:12:35] have to call Joseph Smith Joe, Joe, you're an anti Mormon. You have to be drunk Joe. And you gotta talk about Joe.

Warren Driggs [00:12:42] Hey, what's up?

John Dehlin [00:12:43] Joe isn't that the stereotype?

Warren Driggs [00:12:45] Absolutely. There was no reverence. And it was shameful the way they. They called him Joe. But then all of his kids and. And his wife, they made it over to Salt Lake. They're in the first band of pioneers. And I guess it would be my great grandfather moved up to a beautiful little. The Teton Valley up, you know, in Idaho, you know where that is. And they named the town after him. That's Driggs, Idaho. And that's where my dad was born. They lived in poverty.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] Your last name is Driggs?

Warren Driggs [00:13:20] Yeah. So that's my great grandfather. And they were royalty. I am royalty.

John Dehlin [00:13:26] You're Driggs. You're Southern. Is it Southern Idaho? You're Southern Idaho royalty.

Warren Driggs [00:13:30] I'm a little bit bitter, though, because they sold all of that Teton Valley land, just nothing. And I could have been some. You know, we could have been rich. But they grew strawberries, of all things. And the growing season was about 45 minutes a year, and. But then he died when my dad was very young, and they moved to Salt Lake so that, you know, where he met my mom, my grandmother. My dad's mom was born in Mexico, and she was a friend of George Romney, Mitt's dad, who was also, I believe, born in Mexico because they fled down there to practice polygamy, and then Pancho Villa ran them out of town and they came up here, and then that's why they wound up in Driggs, Idaho.

Warren Driggs [00:14:19] So that's. That's on my mom's side of the family was equally, I guess, tenured or. But she didn't know that much about her history, so she didn't regale us with stories about it like my dad did.

John Dehlin [00:14:35] Okay, and you were born.

Warren Driggs [00:14:36] I was born in Salt Lake City. Okay. 1956, and the third of ten kids. And. Yeah, we can talk about my childhood. It was.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] You were born in holiday area? Yeah, St. Mark's or.

Warren Driggs [00:14:53] I was actually born in. My parents lived in Sugar House.

Carah Burrell [00:14:56] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:14:56] Okay.

Warren Driggs [00:14:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:57] Is the house still there?

Warren Driggs [00:14:58] The house is still there. And I. On Emerson Ave. And I still drive by every now and then and to check it out, but my dad owned a gas station, and then he. When I was young, and then he became an insurance salesman. But, you know, let me just finish a little bit more about my childhood.

Growing Up in a Devout Mormon Household

Warren Driggs [00:15:21] We were extremely devout. You know, there are 10 kids, and in our ward at the time, it wasn't that weird to have 10 kids. In fact, there were a lot of families that had 10 kids and nine kids eight kids. You know, my best friend only had four siblings. And, you know, I, I was horrified by that because, you know, they, they hadn't received the memo. Right. And so, yeah, they, they were, they were very devout, but they were very different. My dad's devotion, or Mormonism, was really fantastical. It bordered on almost delusional, the way he would regale us with stories about the last days.

Warren Driggs [00:16:03] He was that guy who's a visionary. He made Lehi look stupid. You know, he was. Really had all these grand thoughts about it. My mom's background was different. She was more very conservative, very obedient, very devout. But she didn't buy into the last days that were obviously nigh at hand. Right. And so growing up, I was always petrified that at any moment Jesus would come. But what sucked about it was I knew that he would come to Jackson County, Missouri. This was a terrible thought for me because I was just a child. And I thought, the good news is I'll survive, obviously, because I'm not a gentile and I'm a saint, and I'm a good little saint.

Warren Driggs [00:16:52] But when Jesus comes and firebombs everybody, the Mormons will only be left. But then I will have to walk back to Jackson county because that's where the Garden of Eden was. And that kind of troubled me for a bit because I assumed the Garden of Eden was maybe somewhere by Egypt or something. But anyway, so we would walk back and I thought, man, that's going to really be tough. You know, walking all the way back there. I envisioned, you know, walking back the wreckage of cars and burnt people and stepping over them and gnawing on beef jerky as I'm making my way there. And. But at least I would survive.

Warren Driggs [00:17:29] And my mom thought that that kind of talk was crazy. She didn't, she didn't say it, but when my dad would tell us all these stories, she wasn't sitting on the edge of the sofa with this look of enchantment on her face and say, smarter.

John Dehlin [00:17:47] Was she a little bit.

Warren Driggs [00:17:47] Much smarter? She wouldn't say, geez, Leonard, then what'll happen? My, my, my mom was very smart, but they were, you know, high school dropouts. My mom got married at 17. Yeah, I don't think they had to get married. I've done the math. I'm optimistic.

Cindy Driggs [00:18:06] I'm.

Warren Driggs [00:18:07] I'm fairly sure. But yeah, she got married at 17 and her father was a lawyer, and my dad's came from poverty. And so they were very different people, Very different.

John Dehlin [00:18:20] So you've, you know, I'm 51. I'm old enough to remember kind of the 70s and 80s kind of class Mormonism and you know, younger, younger folks, teens and people in their 20s and 30s even may not remember kind of this turbocharged Mormonism that, that was still around in the 70s and 80s. I, I came from a family of four and I still felt like I was a legit Mormon. But I knew, even growing up in Katy, Texas, I knew about those families with 10 or 12 kids. Yeah, you know, some of the, you know, fascination with the last days real affiliation with Bruce R. McConkey and Joseph Fielding Smith style Mormonism, you know, wouldn't touch, I don't know if your family's like this, wouldn't touch a cola beverage or a caffeinated beverage if their life depended on it.

John Dehlin [00:19:05] I even know of a family that would tell a story about when they were at the amusement park and the only cups that were available said Coca Cola on it. To avoid the appearance of evil, they would drink their, their soda in a circle with their backs outward in the circle so that no one would see that the word Coke was on their cup. Like that's kind of. Did you guys have other of those kind of super turbocharged orthodox?

Warren Driggs [00:19:29] Oh, yeah, yeah. And that seems sensible to turn around so they wouldn't see that. But wow. No, everybody I knew was Mormon without exception. And you know, my doctor and dentist and school teacher and principal and friends and I mean everybody. I didn't know anybody that wasn't Mormon. And just to illustrate how Mormon it was in my little neck of the woods growing up with everybody being a turbo Mormon, I remember in the second grade, my buddy Mark, he was in my ward. Our school teacher said, can anybody name the presidents?

Warren Driggs [00:20:08] And Mark, great kid, you know, good buddy of mine says, yeah, I can. She says, well, that's great, Mark. Why don't you come up and stand up in front of the class and tell us the president. He says, well, I can do them and I can do them in order. And well, naturally she was very impressed. So we stood up there and she said, take it away. He said, okay.

Warren Driggs [00:20:27] First there was Joseph Smith, then Brigham Young, then John Taylor, then Wilford Woodruff. And by the time he got to Wilford, she cut him off and said, no, I meant the presidency of the United States. I mean that's, and, and all of us, including myself, I was at my desk, you know, checking him off. And he was spot on, you know, up to that point. So that's the way it was. And yeah, it Was so, so that was the environment that I grew up in. Extremely Mormon when I was.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] What about Word of Wisdom?

Warren Driggs [00:21:02] Oh, the word of Wisdom. My goodness.

John Dehlin [00:21:04] I.

Warren Driggs [00:21:04] When I was a little boy, one of my very first memories was the fireworks at Liberty park, our park here in Salt Lake City. It's going to be the big fireworks display and I'm. I'm sitting on a quilt there on the grass and I can see a father and his children and he was pushing them on the swing and he was smoking and I remember just being horrified and I felt such pity for those kids because obviously he didn't love his children because he was obviously a wicked person and therefore he couldn't be a good dad. And, you know, I just waited for him to push the swing too hard or slug one of his kids because he was, you know, how could you be good?

Warren Driggs [00:21:47] I mean. And then I went to my grandma's house in Sugar House and I remember walking into her house because I was bored. No one was there. And I was, I was horrified to see a jar of Sanka speaking of the word of wisdom on her kitchen counter.

John Dehlin [00:22:05] You have to tell our listeners what Senka was. Whoa.

Warren Driggs [00:22:07] Wow. So that does take me. I remember Sanka. Yeah, Postum Sanka. That's decaffeinated coffee. But it still was close enough and, you know, avoid the very appearance of evil. My eyes about popped out of my head because my grandma was very devout and I saw this and I dared.

John Dehlin [00:22:23] Sanka's decaffeinated coffee.

Warren Driggs [00:22:24] Decaffeinate coffee. But I dared get close enough to it and I checked it out and it was only half full. So I held it up in front of me like an undetonated hand grenade, wondering if I should rat out my grandma or not because I knew my mom would pass out, you know, if she knew that. So. Yeah, that. The word of wisdom was a big deal. We didn't drink coke. No way. We just take cracked wheat from those 50 cracked wheat.

John Dehlin [00:22:55] We did cracked weed. Tell us about cracked wheat.

Warren Driggs [00:22:58] Well, you know, we were, we weren't preppers like they are today, but, you know, the last days we had our two year supply and.

John Dehlin [00:23:04] Which meant what?

Warren Driggs [00:23:06] Which meant. Yeah, in our basement we had 50 gallon drums of wheat everywhere. And I didn't.

John Dehlin [00:23:14] Of cracked wheat.

Warren Driggs [00:23:14] Of cracked wheat. I didn't even want to survive the apocalypse.

Cindy Driggs [00:23:20] Right.

John Dehlin [00:23:20] I mean, did your mom ever try and feed you cracked wheat?

Warren Driggs [00:23:23] Oh, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:23:24] Don't you have to mill it? Do you have like a big loud milling thing in your kitchen too?

John Dehlin [00:23:27] That's One way. Yeah, but sometimes they'll. Sometimes mom would serve it to me as breakfast. So she would steam the correct wheat and you would just have half the time wheat.

Warren Driggs [00:23:36] It was hard as a rock, you know, and you're chipping your teeth and with the powdered milk and. And you're gonna like this bustle, you know, you're going to like this. Because my mom didn't. She was pretty stern and extremely obedience. Obedient. Obedience was her creed. She was the kind of person that if the prophet said, I want you to stand on your head in the southwest corner of your kitchen on Thursday afternoons at 2:15 for 15 minutes, she would do it. You didn't doubt your doubts or you doubted your. Or whatever it is.

John Dehlin [00:24:17] You did doubt your doubts.

Warren Driggs [00:24:18] You did doubt your doubts. You believed at all costs. My dad was not a rule follower. My mom really was. My dad was a principal guy, wasn't a rule guy. So they always clashed. They clashed in a lot of ways because my dad had this irrational exuberance for us kids, all 10 of us. He was extremely positive. He made us think that we were the smartest and the coolest and the most impressive no matter what it was, without any basis whatsoever. He was delusional in his way. Well, my mom was therefore required to tamp down his irrational enthusiasm or exuberance about us. And she was effective at that.

Warren Driggs [00:25:05] So, you know, I mentioned in my book I had just passed the bar exam, and I. I was very proud of myself. I was very special because here I am, you know, I thought it was pretty cool. And I went over to her house for lunch, and I had just bought a brand new tie from Nordstrom. It was $100. And that was an extravagant expense for us at the time, but I was so proud of this tie. And I walked in and she was in her sewing room off the kitchen.

Warren Driggs [00:25:34] And I said, what about this tie? I spent a hundred bucks on this thing. You know, I'm pretty cool, right? She had the scissors in her hand and she walked up to me, she says, oh, honey, that is a beautiful tie. She took the tie in one hand and snipped it right in half. And she said, it's just a tie, Warren. Now get over yourself. It's like, wow. So I. I remember that.

John Dehlin [00:26:00] A true story, Sydney? Is that a true story?

Cindy Driggs [00:26:02] That's. That's true. She was. She was quite a character. Interesting woman.

Warren Driggs [00:26:08] Yeah, she was.

John Dehlin [00:26:09] That's an epic story.

Warren Driggs [00:26:11] Oh, my mom. There are a lot of epic stories. As devout as she was, man, she Walked out of Ghostbusters because they swore she was. She did enjoy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but she was,

Cindy Driggs [00:26:28] she was, she was

Warren Driggs [00:26:29] different lady, don't you think?

Cindy Driggs [00:26:32] I would say to this day, there's so many things that I think, oh, Warren's mother would not have liked this. Her judgment, I still feel that.

Warren Driggs [00:26:42] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [00:26:42] And she. A lot of judgment. A great woman, but a lot of judgment.

Warren Driggs [00:26:48] Yeah, I agree.

John Dehlin [00:26:49] Yeah. Really quick, what were your. What, what were politics like in your home? Any. Any, you know, we've talked about. Yeah, Benson and the John Bircher Society and stuff. You want to talk about that at all?

Politics, Culture, and the Church in the 1960s

Warren Driggs [00:27:01] Yeah, politics. We were Republicans, just. I don't know why, I just knew that Republicans were bad and Democrats. Or Republicans were good. Democrats were bad. Speaking of the John Bircher Society, I remember my entire youth centered around the ward, right. That's where I learned how to swear and fight. That's where I saw my first Playboy. My buddy Howard had smuggled in, you know, after we'd passed the sacrament, he had smuggled in a Playboy into church. And we.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] Church?

Warren Driggs [00:27:38] Oh, yeah. Four or five of us are down in this stall in the bathroom. The same stall where the back of it had a very.

John Dehlin [00:27:45] Did the church collapse?

Warren Driggs [00:27:46] No, it didn't. It survived it remarkably. But this same stall on the back of the door had a very impressive, anatomically correct drawn penis. And we're. We're sitting in this stall, all four of us, looking at this Playboy. And it was the most glorious thing I had ever seen in my life. And so we looked at that, you know, we stuck it in the Pirate camp Santa bushes outside the church and looked at that every day for weeks. And I. I can still see Ms. July staring back at me fetchingly on that bearskin rug and.

Warren Driggs [00:28:29] But I learned that. I learned. But you mentioned John Bircher Society. We had to go home teaching, and I thought it was a height of cruelty to make kids go home teaching. Why? They had to haul me along. The senior guy would haul me along as a 12 year old. And it's not like I was going to bowl them over with a dissertation on the atonement or anything. You know, all they did was talk about the weather and stuff. But one time I went with Brother Crofts was his name, and he was my senior companion or not. He was the adult guy. We went to this guy's house and they start talking politics or whatever.

Warren Driggs [00:29:11] And then the guy that we were visiting started talking about the John Bircher Society and he was a John Birch guy, apparently. Brother Crofts didn't like the John Birchers, so they get into a big fight. Well, I didn't know who John Birch was. I thought he was, like a tree specialist or something. Like he was a. He knew about birches or something. Well, they then get in a fight. So here I'm sitting in their living room sofa. These two adult men stand up, start shoving each other. We then get in the car afterwards.

Warren Driggs [00:29:45] And that's one of the few swear words I heard. We get back in the car and it's really quiet, right? Because I'm nervous because this guy just got in a fight. It was weirdest thing I've ever seen. We're driving along in silence for a minute. He looked over at me, he said, just so you know, brother Crofts is a dumbass John Bircher society. So that was, you know. Anyway, the John Birch. We're Republicans, big time.

John Dehlin [00:30:10] Okay. All right. Well, this is fun. I'm getting a good flavor for what it's like to grow up as a. As a kid in Salt Lake City. What, in the 50s.

Warren Driggs [00:30:19] And it would have been the early 60s in our poem. Yeah, early 60s, mid-60s. As a teenager. I remember this. This was as a teenager, as a height of the era. And I remember one Saturday.

John Dehlin [00:30:34] How old were you? Would you have been in 64?

Warren Driggs [00:30:37] I would have been eight.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] So do you remember the Beatles coming to America?

Warren Driggs [00:30:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:42] Were you into the Beatles?

Warren Driggs [00:30:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:43] Okay.

Warren Driggs [00:30:44] Yeah. My parents.

John Dehlin [00:30:45] He was assassinated.

Warren Driggs [00:30:46] Yeah, I do.

John Dehlin [00:30:47] Okay.

Warren Driggs [00:30:47] My parents, you know, rock and roll, you know, they were.

John Dehlin [00:30:50] They were against rock and roll.

Warren Driggs [00:30:51] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] Okay.

Warren Driggs [00:30:52] Oh, yeah. Even some Osmonds wrote cakes. They were Mormon. In fact, how you could deny the truth of the church when we had the Osmonds was a mystery to me. Right. Even the Carpenters and that hard rock, you know, thing was just not acceptable.

John Dehlin [00:31:08] The Carpenters were taboo.

Warren Driggs [00:31:09] Well, they were not modern, but they. Yeah, it was just. And then when they were secular, they were secular.

John Dehlin [00:31:18] Is that right?

Warren Driggs [00:31:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:19] I'm not trying to, like, inject.

Warren Driggs [00:31:20] Yeah, they were.

Carah Burrell [00:31:21] I wish the Carpenters were a cult, because I would join the Carpenter's cult.

Warren Driggs [00:31:24] And I had a crush on her, you know, and.

Carah Burrell [00:31:27] But.

Warren Driggs [00:31:28] Yeah, but I remember my sister. My older sister would have been maybe 16 at the height of the era. And one morning, Saturday morning, she wakes up bright and early. I happen to be up, and she's walking out the door, and she had a poster that she'd made. And I said, where are you going? She said, I'm going down at the Salt Palace.

Warren Driggs [00:31:49] Why? Well, the bishop we're going to go down to march against the era. And she'd drawn a poster like, stop the era, Stop the madness or whatever. I said, well, the era, that sounds like a good thing. Equal rights, laudable even, really. So what's the promises? I don't know anything about it, but the bishop said to go march against it, so that's what we're doing.

Warren Driggs [00:32:15] That, that a woman would. Would march against equal rights for her gender, even back then was sort of astonishing to me. But I didn't. My ox wasn't being gored, so I didn't really care. I just thought it was kind of weird.

Youth, Counterculture, and Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:32:32] So as the Beatles come to America and then, you know, the Beatles start growing their hair out and then kind of Woodstock starts coming on. What year did you graduate from high school?

Warren Driggs [00:32:41] 73.

John Dehlin [00:32:42] 73. Okay.

Cindy Driggs [00:32:43] 74.

Warren Driggs [00:32:43] Oh, 74.

John Dehlin [00:32:45] Okay. Okay. So the. So, so by the late 60s, early 70s, there's hippies, there's long hair, Woodstock, you know, comes around, free love and all that, and then the anti Vietnam kind of sentiment. How did, how did you experience all of that as a. As a Mormon teen growing up in Utah? I'm just curious.

Warren Driggs [00:33:06] I was.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] And what were your parents thinking and feeling?

Warren Driggs [00:33:09] And I think my parents were so weary of 10 kids that they didn't really know that much about my life. They didn't. They didn't. For example, they wouldn't have known what grade I was in. They didn't know that I graduated high school with a 1.5. And I don't think that they would have 1.5 GPA. And I don't think that they would have been that disturbed by that because they. I was never encouraged to go to college that was hedonistic. And you would. Those college professors would put all these awful things in your head and teach you about vices like biology and anthropology and science. So they were not really aware of my life.

Warren Driggs [00:33:54] But I was sort of a hippie. I mean, I had hair, you know, down my, you know, way past here. And I was a ski bum. And my parents didn't. My mom didn't want me to have long hair. My dad didn't care. He's not the rural guy. He was like, no, Warren's cool. He'll be fine. It's all good. The only fight my parents had was when I came home. I had a dirt bike, Kawasaki dirt bike. And I had a T shirt that I thought it was really cool, and it was a picture of a Kawasaki. And it said, put something exciting between your legs.

Warren Driggs [00:34:30] And I walked in, you know, with my long hair, and I was so cool. My ride was cool, Right. My mom just about needed cpr, and it's like, my dad's going, well, first of all, I didn't even think my mom would get it, you know, because she was, like, 40, right. And so. But she got it all right. And I remember that evening, I. There was a vent that I could listen to their convo, and she said, leonard, this is just out of control. You know, he'll probably be on a sexual watch list someday or whatever. And my dad said, that's fine. Don't worry about it.

Warren Driggs [00:35:04] So. But otherwise, they didn't really care about what I wore, what I look like, my long hair, whether I went to school. So I didn't.

John Dehlin [00:35:13] Yeah, it's hard to keep track of all those kids, right?

Warren Driggs [00:35:16] Yeah, it was hard. I'm sure it was hard. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] All right, we're gonna come back to potentially deviant behaviors, but I'm gonna jump to Cindy now, and we're gonna bring. Bring. Get up to speed on Cindy's story. So, Cindy, you've been enjoying the comfort of silence. It's time to disrupt that comfort.

Cindy Driggs [00:35:33] Oh, shoot. Feels really good just to listen to Warren. I had a very different upbringing than Warren. Both of my parents were from Mormon stock, came over Danish and English immigrants, and my mother grew up in Mesa, Arizona, and all very strong Mormon family. And my father grew up in Ephraim, Utah. Very strong Mormon family. However, both of my parents were sort of the black sheep of their family. My father, 1941, came along and Pearl harbor, and my father enlisted and joined the Air Force. And they had met in Arizona when he was in Arizona for a training, and they had one of these war romances that they did not know each other well at all. A little bit of correspondence through the war. But then he went off, and he was in the Air Force, and he was actually shot down and was a POW in Romania until the end of the war.

John Dehlin [00:36:50] So he was in the Western Theater.

Cindy Driggs [00:36:52] Yes. European. Yes. And had a pow. Pow? Yes. Interesting story. Interesting story. So,

John Dehlin [00:37:02] as a Mormon,

Cindy Driggs [00:37:06] I believe at that time he had lost his faith, and he'd been exposed to the world in the war, but they came back.

John Dehlin [00:37:16] Okay, wait, was Romania. And if you don't know any of this, it's fun to just ask. Was Romania occupied by the Nazis at the time? By Germany? Do you know what was it?

Cindy Driggs [00:37:28] Yes, occupied by Germany at the time. And he was treated very well.

John Dehlin [00:37:33] Oh, he was treated well.

Cindy Driggs [00:37:34] Not like the Japanese pow.

John Dehlin [00:37:37] Was he a bomber or a fighter pilot?

Cindy Driggs [00:37:39] Or a bomber. And he was in the Ploesti raid, which was one of the last, towards the end of the war, and they bombed all the oil fields in Libya. So they sent these guys out.

Warren Driggs [00:37:52] From Libya.

Cindy Driggs [00:37:53] From Libya and they sent all these pilots out and they said, not many of you will return. And he got shot down and he broke his wrist, but a couple of the pilots in his plane died. And so, yeah, interesting story.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] So he didn't have, like, faith promoting Paul H. Dunn, like stories of how the Lord saved him or, you know.

Cindy Driggs [00:38:17] No, no, he didn't make any of those up.

John Dehlin [00:38:19] But he said some prayer.

Cindy Driggs [00:38:20] No, no. Heavenly Father saved him.

John Dehlin [00:38:23] None of that. I don't mean to mock. I'm just.

Cindy Driggs [00:38:25] No, no, he did.

Carah Burrell [00:38:26] He didn't.

Cindy Driggs [00:38:26] He has an interesting story, though. He's WR history and he's actually been interviewed and hopefully they're going to make a story out of his raid. And who is the author? Is it Aaron? I can't remember. Makos, who does stories. War stories. So, anyway, interesting. And then he came back after the war.

John Dehlin [00:38:54] Was that a big deal when he was. Came home after being released, prisoner of war?

Cindy Driggs [00:38:59] Yeah, that was a big deal. That was a big deal. And his mother passed away at the time, which was very sad to him.

John Dehlin [00:39:05] Before he returned.

Cindy Driggs [00:39:06] Before he returned, yes. He loved his mother. He had a very good relationship with his mother. And they lived in Manti, Utah. And I believe he couldn't wait to get out of Manti. And I often reflect on how different my life would have been had he stayed in Manti. But he saw the world. He came out after his war experience and married my mother. They had a very short courtship.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] Where'd they meet?

Cindy Driggs [00:39:39] They met in Mesa, Arizona.

John Dehlin [00:39:42] Oh, okay.

Cindy Driggs [00:39:43] And so he had a few days off from his Air Force duties and he married my mother. They did not know each other well at all, and they were as different as could be. And she saw this handsome Air Force cadet and she couldn't wait to get away from her domineering Mormon mother, who was impossible to live with. And she kind of said, take me wherever you're going, I want to go.

Cindy Driggs [00:40:11] So they traveled the world and all over. I'm the youngest of four, and I happened to be born in Paris, France, when my father was over there serving in Paris. And they saw the world and it was a great life. They loved it.

Cindy Driggs [00:40:34] However, then the kids were getting older and wanted some stability for the children in. In high school with friends and all. And so they moved back to Salt Lake City where they had roots. Some of their family had lived, settled in Salt Lake City. So we moved. I went to Highland High School and to the University of Utah. Rams. Yeah. Go Rams. All right, so that's where.

Cindy's Mormon Childhood and Family Background

John Dehlin [00:41:02] University of Utah.

Cindy Driggs [00:41:03] University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:41:05] What was your Mormon upbringing like in. In Salt Lake area? So you lived in Sugar House area?

Cindy Driggs [00:41:11] I lived just east of Foothill Boulevard. Yes. In, in, in the.

John Dehlin [00:41:17] In. Okay.

Cindy Driggs [00:41:18] Yeah, just a little east of Foothill area.

John Dehlin [00:41:20] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [00:41:21] And very different than, than Warren's. My. My parents were Mormon in name only.

John Dehlin [00:41:28] Really.

Cindy Driggs [00:41:29] Right. Well, they were, they were kind of the black sheep of their family and they.

Warren Driggs [00:41:32] Do you know what happened?

John Dehlin [00:41:34] Do you know? Was there something that caused that? Do you even know?

Cindy Driggs [00:41:37] I just don't think they ever were believers. And. But they grew up in small towns and everyone was Mormon in Mesa, Arizona and Ephraim. I mean, geez, everyone was Mormon there. And then he went to serve in the Air Force and they had dinner parties and cocktail parties.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] Okay, wait, I want to ask about this because nowadays, you know, we have this sort of, the past 20 years, this epidemic of people having a huge faith crisis where they like we're in. Were super believers, but then they find out, you know, in their 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s that it's not true. And then it's this multi year trauma. I, you know, then you hear about. And I interviewed, I interviewed a reporter, Rod Decker, left the church in his, you know. Yeah, teens. We heard that.

Cindy Driggs [00:42:28] That was a great, great interview.

John Dehlin [00:42:30] Thank you. Yeah. But he's just like, oh, yeah, I just left. It wasn't working for me. I'm like, how does that. Wait a minute. Like, why, what, why was it this huge multi decade traumatic thing? Did you ever get a chance to talk to your parents about that? How they just kind of like they're living in, you know, East Bench, Salt Lake City. They leave the church in effect, and it's no big deal. How does that work? Did you even get to talk to them about it? Or do you even not know yourself?

Cindy Driggs [00:42:57] We talked about that and they had a lot of Mormon friends and I, I went to Mormon primary and all my cousins were Mormon and all my friends were. And I went to primary.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] Do you still went to a young church?

Cindy Driggs [00:43:17] Oh, yes, I went to church and my parents did a little bit too, however, because I was the youngest by then it's like, ah, we're sort of over that. And my father.

John Dehlin [00:43:29] Did they want you to be raised in it?

Cindy Driggs [00:43:31] They did. They did Want me to be raised in that. And they wanted me to go to primary. In fact, my mother was a primary president for a while, and she tried to toe the line, but she would have gone wherever my dad was going, my mother was going. She just, she was happy to be his wife. And he was a very strong man. And so whatever. Whatever dad said, that's what she did.

John Dehlin [00:43:57] So you kind of. I grew up watching, like, Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and those sort of very patriarchal black and white TV sitcoms. Even Brady Bunch a little bit. Would you say that Ozzie and Harriet. Would you say that your parents fit that kind of really patriarchal, orthodox. Not orthodox. Patriarchal, kind of traditional, stereotypical gender roles?

Cindy Driggs [00:44:23] Absolutely. Absolutely. My dad would fold his arms and say, you know, how come dinner's not ready yet? And so. But my mother was a great, great wife.

John Dehlin [00:44:34] She had the hair and the apron.

Cindy Driggs [00:44:36] Oh, yes, yes. She was great. She was very quiet. And my dad was in charge. And he was very intellectual and very well read. And I believe that he was probably the reason that we sort of moved away from the church because I knew how smart he was and how well read he was.

John Dehlin [00:45:01] Did he ever write about or were you ever able to talk to him about his actual loss of faith, or was it just something you.

Cindy Driggs [00:45:07] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [00:45:09] Tell us what you remember about how he talked about that.

Cindy Driggs [00:45:14] Oh, gosh, help me out here, Warren. What would you say? You talked to him a lot about that. I just don't think that he believed. And he was a big, big Brig Madsen fan and friends of Brig Madsen and some of the other. Brigham Madsen and Sterling McMurran.

John Dehlin [00:45:33] Okay, so those Mormon liberal University of Utah professors.

Cindy Driggs [00:45:37] Right. And from. From as long as I could know him, he, he was always sort of into the sunstone and, and, and, and involved in the liberal Mormon thinkers.

Carah Burrell [00:45:50] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:45:51] In the 60s.

Cindy Driggs [00:45:52] In the 60s.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] Wow.

Cindy Driggs [00:45:53] In the 60s.

John Dehlin [00:45:54] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [00:45:54] Okay. And then. And they would take us to church, but he just never was a real believer. But he didn't mind us believing.

John Dehlin [00:46:02] Yeah. Where did he go to school? Did he attend the U?

Cindy Driggs [00:46:06] He went to Snow College, and then after Snow College, he went to the University of Utah, and then he got his master's at Stanford and then he got his PhD from the University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:46:22] Yeah. So, okay, so if he was at the u. In the 60s and 70s, he would have been exposed to a lot of those liberal secular Mormons like Sterling McMurran.

Cindy Driggs [00:46:34] Right. They were good friends of his and they.

John Dehlin [00:46:36] And that would have influenced Intellectual life.

Cindy Driggs [00:46:39] They bantered back and forth. However, they were part of the ward and they had some ward groups that they would socialize with and some of the ones that dared to drink coffee and maybe have a little cocktail every now and then.

John Dehlin [00:46:52] Yeah, and then I know Eugene England, I think he. He went to Stanford and he was the one who started dialogue. So there's a chance that your dad would have known some of those early intellectuals that ended up starting dialogue at some point.

Cindy Driggs [00:47:07] Right, right. He probably would have. But. But very well read man, but very Ozzie and Harriet type of upbringing.

John Dehlin [00:47:15] And what was his profession? Did you say attorney?

Cindy Driggs [00:47:18] He was in the Air Force until he retired as colonel and then he was in real estate for a while and then he was a professor at the University of Utah in military science, in business administration. So he had kind of a varied career and did some interesting things. But of course he's most well known for his being in the Air Force and pow. And that seemed to carry him a lot in his life. And it is quite interesting.

John Dehlin [00:47:48] Do you have a sense for how happy your mom was in that traditional role of a stay at home mom in the 60s?

Cindy Driggs [00:47:58] I think she was very happy. I think she had low expectations about how her life would be and she didn't have much growing up. And so when this handsome man took her away, she was very happy to just live that life and raise children. And she was pretty happy. She was a pretty happy woman.

John Dehlin [00:48:26] So there's this dynamic now that may or may not have been the case when you were growing up where if you, if you are attending church and sort of bathing in the orthodoxy and yet, you know, your parents either aren't fully believers or aren't fully on board, it's easy for you to start thinking there's something wrong with my parents or worrying about their salvation or even looking down on them some. Did you experience any of that as you kind of navigated the cognitive dissonance of Mormon orthodoxy that you were exposed to relative to their being Mormon in name only, as you described it?

Cindy Driggs [00:49:04] I always thought they were great people and so I didn't have much of that.

John Dehlin [00:49:10] You weren't worried about their soul or.

Cindy Driggs [00:49:12] I wish they would have gone to church with me when I was going in high school. But my older sister, she's 11 years older than I am, she remembers crying over that her parents drank coffee and she wouldn't go on a trip with the family because she had to get perfect attendance in primary.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] She got sucked in a little bit.

Cindy Driggs [00:49:36] Yeah, she got sucked In. And she's really bitter about that now because, gosh, I missed family trips and all. But anyway. And none of my siblings are active in the Mormon Church. Right.

Warren Driggs [00:49:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:50] So I'm just like. There's this mentality that I'm just trying to wrap my brain around where we're in Salt Lake City, the Mormon equivalent of the VATICAN in the 60s, when you would think things are way more strict and harsh than they are now. And yet there was this sort of like, yeah, we don't take it too seriously. Your parents weren't taking it too seriously. You weren't taking it too seriously. And it was not a big problem. They were still navigating in and out of society and culture. And that's such a contrast to now, where if somebody decides they're not going to take it too seriously. Where are your garments? Why don't you wear your garments? Oh, my gosh. I'm worried about you. Like, it almost seems like things were more relaxed then than they are now. Am I misunderstanding sort of the way Utah Mormonism is?

Cindy Driggs [00:50:35] Oh, well, I still think it was pretty. It was all of our friends. All of my friends were Mormon, and no one really knew much about my parents, and so I kind of kept it all.

John Dehlin [00:50:50] It was diplomatic.

Cindy Driggs [00:50:51] Yeah. Kind of buttoned up and. And didn't. Didn't say much about that, but they definitely wanted me to go to primary and Young Women's, and. And all.

John Dehlin [00:51:02] Were you. So your parents maybe weren't outspoken about their lack of belief? They just kind of kept it to themselves.

Cindy Driggs [00:51:08] They kind of kept it quiet. They kind of kept it quiet. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:11] And then how did you guys hide? Okay, so behaviorally, we heard from Warren about, like, you know, no, caffeine. Like, coffee is, like, the worst thing ever. You know, just real orthodoxy behaviorally. Talk about your family and your childhood in teens, how they were different.

Cindy's Parents and Their Relationship to the Church

Cindy Driggs [00:51:31] Well, they drank coffee, and they. My father, as long as I can remember him, he'd have scotch every night for. Really? Yeah, just one scotch. And that was good.

John Dehlin [00:51:41] So Don Draper.

Cindy Driggs [00:51:44] So they. But. And they were.

John Dehlin [00:51:47] That's alcohol.

Cindy Driggs [00:51:48] That's right. Right. That's right.

John Dehlin [00:51:49] Is that even allowed in Salt Lake City?

Warren Driggs [00:51:50] It's hard to get.

Cindy Driggs [00:51:52] In fact, he tells a story when they moved to St. George when I got married in 1977, and he said when they lived down there, the only place for visiting professors at Dixie to have coffee would be to go to the clubhouse at Bloomington Country Club. That was the only place that they could even get a cup of coffee. Yes. That's Right.

John Dehlin [00:52:26] So how else were you guys different than your friends? How else was your family different than your friends?

Warren Driggs [00:52:31] Well,

Cindy Driggs [00:52:34] my friends, they would go on, they'd go on church outings and all with their families. My family didn't do any of that. I was the caboose. And by then they had one foot out the door and they were wanting to be retired.

John Dehlin [00:52:49] And of parenting, of not just Mormonism, but of parenting yourself.

Cindy Driggs [00:52:52] Right, right. They were sort of done by then. And they were pretty conservative. They were, I would say they were pretty strong Republicans. But they kind of did a switch when they didn't like their Reagan trickle down economics. That didn't work for them. They didn't believe in that. And then

John Dehlin [00:53:20] so later in their life.

Cindy Driggs [00:53:21] Yeah, later in their life they came and the choice issue, that was a big deal for both of them. They, they believed it. They were very pro choice, and so they kind of did a flip.

John Dehlin [00:53:33] Okay, so Reagan made them Democrats.

Cindy Driggs [00:53:35] Yeah. Yeah. All right,

John Dehlin [00:53:40] so this is great. Anything else you want to. I mean, I really want to get to kind of your courtship and, and, and all that. So where, where should we go next? Anything else you want to say about your upbringing? Cindy, before we talked about you guys coming together, what were you interested in? Like, what were your interests? Intellectually, artistically, extracurricular?

Cindy Driggs [00:54:02] I always like sports, but that was before. Is it Title ix? So I dance and a little bit of tennis and I wish I would have done more of that, but back in the 60s, that wasn't something that girls did, but I always enjoyed that.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] Not until Billie Jean King.

Cindy Driggs [00:54:21] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:54:21] In the era. Right.

Cindy Driggs [00:54:22] Yeah. I enjoyed skiing and I had a great group of friends and I believe most of them, maybe one is still active in the Mormon church, but all of them, you know, a couple of them went on missions and that. And they've, they've all left most of your friends? Most of my friends, yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:44] Okay. All right, well, let's, let's talk about how you guys ended up becoming the power couple that you are.

Warren Driggs [00:54:51] Oh, we really are.

Cindy Driggs [00:54:53] We are power.

Warren Driggs [00:54:55] We were. I, I would add to Cindy's recitation of her parents. Her dad was an intellectual rock star and had a tremendous influence on me, much to my parents regret chagrin. Yeah. When we were going to get married, my parents were very unhappy because Cindy was beautiful and great and all, but, but she was not very active. But my parents know that. They knew that because we were lined up by my cousin who lived next door to Cindy. And so my aunt tells my mom, you know, that Cindy Paulson, her mom and dad, you know, they drink coffee, so Katie bar the door. Next thing you know, you know.

Warren Driggs [00:55:50] So they weren't very happy about it, but they were different because they were in the intellectual crowd and they were the Ozzie and Harriet. And my family was very different. 10 kids. Unlike Cindy's dad. My dad was a man well before his time. He did all the shopping for food, the cooking, the clean. He was a renaissance guy.

Warren Driggs [00:56:17] Seemed like my mom was. Was always upstairs with a headache. And I can understand why with 10 kids and all, but we had. We met in high school, but we had Highland.

John Dehlin [00:56:31] You were both at Highland?

Warren Driggs [00:56:32] I was Olympus High School.

John Dehlin [00:56:33] Okay, but you were both in high school, right?

Warren Driggs [00:56:36] We're in high school when we met at a stomp. I don't know if they call them stomps.

John Dehlin [00:56:40] What's a stomp?

Warren Driggs [00:56:41] A stomp is a dance. It was kind of.

John Dehlin [00:56:44] It was multi school.

Warren Driggs [00:56:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:46] Okay.

Warren Driggs [00:56:46] So we, we actually met at East High, but, you know, our child. Yeah, at East High, but that's where

John Dehlin [00:56:54] High School Musical was filmed.

Warren Driggs [00:56:55] Yeah, it was, yeah. And also at Entrada, where we live. And so our grandkids love to see that because it, it features where we live now.

Cindy Driggs [00:57:05] But our.

Warren Driggs [00:57:05] Our upbringing was, I mean, dramatically different. I know that you did baptisms for the dead, right?

Cindy Driggs [00:57:14] Yep. That was great because you went to go for ice cream after. I didn't know what I was doing, but the ice cream was good.

Carah Burrell [00:57:22] But.

Warren Driggs [00:57:22] But even back then, as devout as I was about baptisms for the dead, which was awesome, by the way, because, you know, it's like, you know, I don't know how many people I have been. I've been Juan Valdez from the 18th century and whatever, and I keep getting dunked repeatedly with my buddies, and it was just really fun. And then we go to. For ice cream. But I. Even then I had. I was not an intellectual. I'm not an intellectual. But I. I wondered about that because first of all, it's just weird, right? I mean, it's just weird. And even as a child, I thought, this is really weird, you know, and as long as I'm.

John Dehlin [00:58:05] What was weird about it?

Warren Driggs [00:58:06] Well, baptizing dead people, I mean, and

Carah Burrell [00:58:10] by proxy, like cadavers or something.

Warren Driggs [00:58:12] No, but it's still pretty weird, you know, And. And I. I regret that I wasn't maybe baptized for a celebrated person, you know, Like, I could have been George Washington or somebody, you know, but yeah, Abraham Lincoln would have been really awesome. But even back then, I wondered okay. As I understood it, we had to get baptized because these people were born before John the Baptist taught Joseph how to do a proper baptism. Because obviously, nobody knows more about how to do a proper baptism than the most famous baptizer in history. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was the man. But I remember thinking, well, gosh, I wonder.

Warren Driggs [00:58:55] I wonder about, like, Moses and Abraham. I mean, they probably didn't get a proper baptism. And then I started thinking, how would you even baptize them for the dead? They don't even have a last name. I mean, she's like Moses or Abraham. So they might be screwed. I don't know. I can't really say. And even I, I even Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who weren't, didn't even know Jesus. You know, the Gospels were written well after he was dead. They probably didn't have a proper baptism. So they might be loitering around there waiting for somebody to baptize them. And that would be a shame, you know, if Mark, Luke, and John and these people can't even get into heaven.

Warren Driggs [00:59:42] But how would we baptize them? We don't know their last name. And this was a vexing problem for me even as a child. But. And the Scouts, you know, were you in Girl Scouts?

Youth, Dating, and Shame in Mormon Culture

Cindy Driggs [00:59:53] I was in Girl Scouts, but it had nothing to do with the Mormon Church. Not like it did.

Warren Driggs [01:00:01] Boy Scout was 100%. You know, it was part and parcel. The deacons Quorum was the troop. And I remember going on scout camps. And of course, everyone was a Mormon. But there was one kid named Kevin who moved into our neighborhood, and he joined our scout troop. It's like, kevin's not a Mormon. It's like, whoa, Kevin's not a Mormon? What?

Warren Driggs [01:00:26] How can that be? He didn't last very long. And it may have been because his parents weren't giddy about the fact that, you know, when he went to pass off his cooking merit badge, it ended with a prayer or, you know, something like that. Right. But I remember poor Kevin at a scout camp. We all had testimony meeting. You know, where you sit around the campfire, big circles of.

Warren Driggs [01:00:52] And it wasn't odd that you would have a testimony meeting at a scout camp. In fact, it would have been mandatory. It would have been weird if you didn't. So naturally, right before you break into stories about Hiram, you know, the axe murder and stuff. We would have, because that was mandatory also. But we would have a testimony meeting, and so we'd all stand up, we'd go around the circle, and every kid said, exactly the same thing.

Warren Driggs [01:01:20] I know the church is true. I know Joe Smith is a prophet of God. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I love my mom and dad named Jesus Christ. Amen. And if you said it in any other order or any other way, it'd be like, whoa, that's crazy. If you went off, it's like, whoa. You're experimenting with your spiritual side, and that's impressive, but you shut up so we can get to Hiram. But it came around the circle, and then it was Kevin's turn.

Warren Driggs [01:01:44] Now the pressure was building. So it's like, Kevin. Oh, poor Kevin. I mean, he's 12. Say, what the hell is this? You know what is. We're not learning how to tie knots here, you know? So he. Poor Kevin, finally stands up, and he didn't say anything. He's like, what, Cat's got your tongue? I mean, don't you know who Joseph Smith is? He finally said, I love God, and sat down. You could have heard a pin drop, say, well, that kid's going to hell. You know, so. But we were.

Warren Driggs [01:02:19] We met there, but then Cindy is very modest about her sport. She was a amazing skier, and that's how we spent our youth skiing. And that's kind of where we met.

John Dehlin [01:02:34] And you met before mission? Before mission, yes. Did you guys start dating before the mission? Yeah, let's talk about that.

Warren Driggs [01:02:42] Well, right before I left dating in

John Dehlin [01:02:44] the late 60s, early 70s. That sounds like trouble.

Cindy Driggs [01:02:47] It was so different than it is now because there was no texting, no cell phones. And so we went on a few dates, you know, a couple dates before his mission, and very little communication, but, boy, was he cute. Oh, man.

Warren Driggs [01:03:05] Oh, really? As soon as he stopped.

Cindy Driggs [01:03:08] Yeah. And. And I dated a lot of guys, but I just. Warren, I just fell head over heels.

Warren Driggs [01:03:18] That's sweet.

Cindy Driggs [01:03:18] Over Warren and I. Yeah, there was no going back on that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:24] Really? So childhood, almost Childhood sweethearts.

Cindy Driggs [01:03:27] Yeah. I mean, I. Yeah.

Warren Driggs [01:03:29] 16 and 17.

Carah Burrell [01:03:30] 16.

Cindy Driggs [01:03:30] 17. But I loved his family, too. And they were a very different Mormon family than I had been around. And the Mormons I knew were so buttoned up, they didn't have fun. They were very traditional. The priesthood and the submissive woman. And that was not Warren's family at all. So I loved that about his dad, that he was this renaissance man who did the dishes. And he was. And he was great, and he was a great dad. And so I thought, okay, I'm not super devout Mormon, but I could. I knew this was part of who Warren was. He was going on A mission. And if I wanted to be with Warren, I better be good little Mormon girl. And I tried to do that.

Warren Driggs [01:04:29] Now you beguiled me. You know you did.

John Dehlin [01:04:32] Okay. So were you guys inappropriate prior to your.

Warren Driggs [01:04:37] You know, I tried to be.

John Dehlin [01:04:39] Were you?

Warren Driggs [01:04:40] I tried. You know, I. I would repackage my arguments and my supplications and stuff, but I could never really. Yeah, but, yeah, we had our moments and we had to confess, and we'll talk about confessing in a minute. Before we were married.

John Dehlin [01:04:57] Oh, after your mission.

Warren Driggs [01:04:58] After our mission. Because that was. That was. That was really messed up. But before that, I. We.

John Dehlin [01:05:04] Shame. Was shame a big part of your upbringing at all as teenagers? I always ask about Mormon shame because I've. I've kind of realized that Mormon shame is sort of a secret ingredient to binding people and their commitment to the church because when they feel awful about themselves, then they need Jesus and they need the atonement and they need the church and they need the bishop, and it's a way to get people really bound to the church. So I'm curious. Were you guys. I'm not asking for any other reason than just to know if shame was a part of your Mormon upbringing or not so much.

Cindy Driggs [01:05:36] It was not for me. It was. It was something that was not ever talked about, not discussed at all.

Warren Driggs [01:05:43] I don't think it was for me either. I was so arrogant, I didn't feel the need to be shameful about anything.

John Dehlin [01:05:49] So, like, looking at. Looking at Playboys, for example, or, you know.

Warren Driggs [01:05:53] Yeah, I got over that shame pretty quick.

John Dehlin [01:05:55] You got over that?

Warren Driggs [01:05:56] O. Yeah. Really quick. It was awesome. And, you know, I drank a little bit in high school, and I felt, if there's one crime, why didn't that haunt you? That did. And I'll tell you why it didn't haunt me. But I knew that was bad. I mean, I had been to jail, for example, and. How'd you go to jail? Well. But that crime was modest in comparison to that first Coors that I drank.

John Dehlin [01:06:26] Oh.

Warren Driggs [01:06:27] The reason I went to jail, by the way. I went to Aspen. Remember? I was a ski bum and long hair and I couldn't drink coffee and I had to drink. I had to go there all night or to drive there. So I got hopped up on no dose because that wouldn't be. Yeah, that wouldn't be breaking the word of wisdom. It just. It's just too weird. Anyway, I go there, and on my way back, this. This is a true story. I'm racing back in my sports car. Because remember, I was cool, right? With long hair, and I thought I was a.

Warren Driggs [01:06:59] And I was speeding. I get pulled over just outside of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Cop pulls me over. You're speeding. Get out of the car. All I had on was boxer shorts, and they were still wet because I'd just been swimming.

Warren Driggs [01:07:14] So he says, stand up and put your arms on the car. So I stood up, like I've seen him do on tv. And he patted me down. I mean, like, on my bare skin, down my legs and everything. It wasn't creepy. It was just odd. You know, it's like, dude, I mean, I'm practically naked, right?

Warren Driggs [01:07:31] Puts me in a squad car, says, you're going to jail, and this. And I. I'd seen enough TV that I knew I could make a phone call. So I called my dad. You know, hey, you know, phone rings, my brother picks up. Hey, get dad. Make me. No, I'm serious. Get dad. I'm, like, in jail and, okay, but hustle. Because I'm waiting for a call, you know, it was. Went that way. My dad then said, okay, I'll wire you the money to post your bell. But that was back in the day that they thought, well, maybe a few days in jail would do him some good.

Warren Driggs [01:08:03] So I laid there in jail, and they passed the food under the door, you know, and it was. It was harrowing for me there. It was a very small jail. There were four people. And I'm. I'm positive I'm the first person in the Colorado Correctional Facility that denied coffee on moral grounds in jail, right? Because I could do a lot of stuff, but I couldn't drink coffee. Anyway, I finally let out, and shortly thereafter, very small. The jail was.

Warren Driggs [01:08:41] I mean, had one little waiting room and then. Or a little lobby area, I guess, where he congregate. And then three or four little stalls. I got out. And shortly thereafter, they caught Ted Bundy and they put him in my jail cell. And he escaped a few days later by going up through the ceiling, something I never thought of doing, right? And he escaped down to Florida, and that's where he murdered the girls for which he was executed.

Cindy Driggs [01:09:09] It.

Warren Driggs [01:09:10] But of. Of my crimes and my miscreant behavior, I would say the word of wisdom was most impressionable because drinking a beer was so. Of course, now it seems silly, but back then, it was so personal to Mormonism. It was like I was turning my back not just on Jesus, which was kind of a big thing, but I was. It was such an objective sin that was identity marker unique to Me and Mormonism. And I turned my back on that. And for that I felt guilty once again. I was able to get over it pretty quickly and I didn't have scars to deal with it, but. And then. And then I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [01:10:05] All right, anything else you guys want to say about your. Your pre mission courtship or. We cover it? Cindy, anything you want to add? Ah, it's important to your story.

Cindy Driggs [01:10:16] Yeah, he was just hot, cute, handsome, great skier. Nice. Cool. Okay.

Warren's Mission Experience

Warren Driggs [01:10:24] To cut you off so that you won't continue to embarrass me, I will tell you one more story. Right before my mission. And this. This has stuck with me for a long time. My buddy and I had patched a plan to go on a road trip. And we were in Southern California and we'd been gone for about three weeks. My parents had no idea where I was, other than I was in California.

Warren Driggs [01:10:49] And I woke up in the middle of the night, maybe it's 4 o' clock in the morning. With the most real dream I'd ever had. To this day, it's just so vivid and so real. I was laying on the ground in the desert. Our VW bug, my buddy's bug was tipped upside down. And we were on the hot pavement and the paramedics were putting a sheet over his face like he had just died and I was going to be next.

Warren Driggs [01:11:22] And I shot up in bed like, wow, that is so real. Remember, it's four o' clock in the morning. My parents had no idea where I was and they were loath to make long distance phone calls. But the phone rings at 4 o'clock in the morning at the buddy of a buddy of a buddy's house.

Warren Driggs [01:11:42] I knew it was going to be my mom. I pick up the phone. Oh, Warren, I'm so glad you answered the phone. She said, you, dad and I have been trying to reach you for the last two hours. Called everybody we knew because I had. This is my mom talking. I had the most incredible dream.

Warren Driggs [01:12:03] I dreamed that you were lying on the pavement and the VW Bug was tipped upside down. And Spencer, my buddy was laying there next to you and they were putting a sheet over his head. I thought, man, that's the weirdest I have ever heard. I still don't know what to make of that. Now, my mom would say that that is positive proof that the golden tablets were real, right? But she. Because everything was funneled through the prism of Mormonism. Well, that proves that the prophet is a real prophet.

Warren Driggs [01:12:39] I'm persuaded it doesn't mean Anything like that. But I don't know what to make of that to this day. That we'd have these coincident dreams like that that were both identical. Thought that was pretty weird. It didn't inspire me to go on a mission because of course I was gonna go on a mission. And I'll tell you about my mission now, if this is a good time. Unless you wanna. Yeah, okay. So I had a good mission. I went to Mexico.

John Dehlin [01:13:06] Mexico? What part?

Warren Driggs [01:13:07] Torreon Central part of Mexico. And there was never a question that I would go. I mean, it was the equivalent of going from 10th grade to 11th grade. Went to Mexico. I had to learn Spanish. This is when they had the ltm, not the mtc. And my first experience that I'd like to mention in my mission was my missionary companion was a very devout kid from.

John Dehlin [01:13:34] Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Really quick, quickly. You would have had to go through the temple, the endowment ceremony.

Warren Driggs [01:13:40] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:41] Prior to serving a mission.

Warren Driggs [01:13:44] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:13:46] I'm just old enough to have experienced something very similar to what you experienced. Which was the death oaths, the penalties.

Warren Driggs [01:13:54] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:55] The throat slitting and the self emboweling. And the shield during the washings and anointings where you're effectively naked with this kind of poncho. Sick poncho. So is there anything you want to say about how you experienced the temple?

Warren Driggs [01:14:10] Well, there's a lot I'd like to say about it because it was just so weird, but I just assumed that. I thought it was weird. But then I persuaded myself that it wasn't weird because nobody else thought it was weird. Or at least they didn't say that it was weird.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] So when you're doing those death cutting

Warren Driggs [01:14:24] your throat, I walk in there and I'm wearing the baker's hat and Cindy tells a story about, you know, I get my temper recommendations and she had this thing. I thought it was hilarious. Get my temple recommend. I'm a worthy vessel. I mean, they card you. You've got to be on the top of your game. Righteous to get into the temple. So I get into the temple, go downstairs, and Cindy said she had the same reaction. She goes in there, first thing I see a change in white clothes and there's a locker with padlocks. I thought, well, this is a curious thing. The most righteous people on earth.

John Dehlin [01:15:00] What?

Warren Driggs [01:15:01] Nobody's leaving until we find out who stole brother Driggs's wallet. I mean, you know, in the temple. It's kind of funny when you think about it. But then I wore the baker's hat and the white thing and the apron with the leaves. And back then.

John Dehlin [01:15:17] Was it a movie or was it.

Warren Driggs [01:15:18] It was a live thing.

John Dehlin [01:15:19] It was solid. Live. Live ceremony.

Warren Driggs [01:15:21] And I knew the story of Adam and Eve. You know, not only did I know it, but I believed it. Of course, I thought it was a little weird with the talking snake and all, but the. It's kind of weird, right? So I was. I was kind of excited because you go through it and they had live actors back then, and it's very different back then. This had to be 45 years ago or more. More than that, even. And I was so excited because Adam and Eve are coming down. I just couldn't wait to see Eve because I assumed she would be this voluptuous, gorgeous, scantily clad woman. Well, imagine my disappointment when Eve comes out. She's got. She's a little old lady with a gray bun. It's like. I figured she was the understudy for the real.

John Dehlin [01:16:10] You didn't get the movies later, right?

Warren Driggs [01:16:11] No, I didn't get the movies. And then the guy that played the devil was a really nice, bumbling man, and he's playing the devil. And he didn't seem very.

John Dehlin [01:16:24] He didn't sell it.

Warren Driggs [01:16:26] No. But then, you know, this is how I persuade myself. No, that's perfect, because you know what? That's the way the devil is. Oh, he makes you seem so. Like, he's just so nice and just a kind, little old neighbor.

Warren Driggs [01:16:41] I saw that. I saw that guy at a ward party a few years later. And I says, hey, you're the guy. You played the devil at the temple. He says, yeah, that was mean. He was just a gregarious, nice guy, but I didn't believe it. The rest apart, I kept waiting to see if you'd pinch Sister Henderson's ass or spike the punch. But. But the whole slit your wrist thing. Throat, your throat, and then disembowel you. And the promises he made. I mean, I made them. I just thought it was weird. But I went with my mom and dad. I'm looking over at my mom and dad and they're doing it.

Warren Driggs [01:17:18] Everybody was doing it. They were all sober adults. I thought, okay, yeah. But of course, I couldn't remember the secret passwords and the slogans and. Because I didn't have a good memory anyway. And I got those handshakes and it was. It was weird. It was really weird. But I didn't say anything. I just. Yeah, that was weird.

John Dehlin [01:17:41] Yeah. Okay.

Warren Driggs [01:17:42] And then I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [01:17:43] I always have to ask about. About that.

Warren Driggs [01:17:45] Yeah. And Cindy's got even better stories about being groped and stuff, but we'll get to that.

Carah Burrell [01:17:50] Damn.

Warren Driggs [01:17:51] So then.

John Dehlin [01:17:52] Sorry about that.

Warren Driggs [01:17:53] I go on my mission. I'm in the. The missionary training, or the LTM is. And my. My first companion was from Texas. His name was Gary, and he was a great guy, as devout as they come. But, oh, he was homesick. And after about two or three weeks, he was lobbying hard to go home. I don't know if you can come home now. I guess you can, but back then, boy, they threw the cavalry at you. His mom, his dad. He's negotiating for a way out because he was so abjectly homesick. But a really had a profound testimony. For weeks, he's trying to get to go home. Mom and dad wouldn't let him. Bishop wouldn't let him. You got to stick it out. One day we come home to our little dorm on the BYU campus, and he starts packing his bags.

John Dehlin [01:18:47] This is.

Cindy Driggs [01:18:48] Whoa.

Warren Driggs [01:18:48] You get to go home. You're going home? He says, yeah, I'm going home. I said, well, how did that work? He says, well, I have to go home. I've been excommunicated. It's like, wow. It would have been less surprising if he had said that he was an undercover Catholic or something, you know.

Warren Driggs [01:19:09] So you've been excommunicated? I didn't even dare say the word. That was just such a. Wow. He says, yeah. What happened? He said, well, I told him I had sex with my girlfriend the night before I left on my mission. So I've been excommunicated and have to go home. So. Man, that's awful, dude. Sorry. He says, I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Warren Driggs [01:19:33] And I said, what do you mean? You didn't have sex with your girlfriend? He says, no, I don't have a girlfriend. I'm a virgin. And I thought about that. How awful. He would have rather been excommunicated than stick it out. And for me, it was really hard. But it wasn't like that. I wasn't prepared to be excommunicated for it.

Carah Burrell [01:20:00] But

John Dehlin [01:20:02] anyway, that's intense.

Warren Driggs [01:20:04] But my mission. I had had a lot of blessings given to me. Cindy probably had, too. And I'd seen a zillion blessings. My dad was a big blessing guy, right? He took that seriously. You know, if you're studying for a math test, blessing. If you're having a bummer day, blessing, whatever. So I was familiar with that, but I'd never given one, and I'd been in the mission for about two months or so when I got my first chance. And Sister Ramirez was about a 85 year old woman and she was a member of the church and she was surrounded by maybe, I don't know, 30 of her extended family, including her adult daughters and stuff.

Warren Driggs [01:20:50] And she's sitting on a La Z boy with a multicolored Afghan yarn, Afghan up on her. My senior companion says, brother Driggs, here you go. It's your first one. So, you know, I, I, I really knocked it out of the park. I'll be honest, it was the most inspiring. I wish I had recorded it. It was so good. It was so good. I blessed her that she would regain her health and, and walk and not be weary in the whole deal. It was really, really good, I must admit. And I, I finished the blessing. I take my hands off her head, I step back to watch the magic, right?

Warren Driggs [01:21:33] She's got her eyes closed and her adult daughter said, okay, mom, the missionaries are leaving. Time to thank the missionaries. Few seconds go by. Mom, missionaries are leaving. Will you please thank. She was dead. She died during my blessing. Right smack dab in the middle of my blessing, she died.

Warren Driggs [01:21:57] And my companion looks at me like, dude, we gotta get out of here. So we jumped on our bikes and took off before rigamortis set in. Back at the Ramirez household, right, Everybody's tiny, trying to come to grips with the fact that the missionaries killed Grandma. And it's like, I don't, I remember thinking how that happened.

Warren Driggs [01:22:25] It didn't rock my faith, but it was sort of weird. My very first blessing, probably my best one I'd ever done, and she died during it. I didn't quite know what to make, what to make of that.

John Dehlin [01:22:41] But how did you make, how did you conclude? How did you. I just rationalize that.

Warren Driggs [01:22:47] I just, I don't know, I just,

John Dehlin [01:22:50] I mean, the classic rationalization is I either like, she wasn't worthy or I wasn't worthy or I got it wrong or the word is mysterious.

Warren Driggs [01:22:59] Yeah, well, he works in mysterious ways. Of course he does. And we know that. And maybe she was sipping coffee on the side. I mean, I don't know, but I didn't really let it affect me. But then later on in my mission, it was even a more interesting issue arose because I was the assistant to the mission president. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:23:29] Which is a privilege and honor, I guess. I'm sure Cindy wasn't surprised, right?

Warren Driggs [01:23:34] Well, it seems easy.

Cindy Driggs [01:23:35] She's a rock star.

Warren Driggs [01:23:35] Yeah, Right. But anyway, so I'm the. I'm the assistant to the mission president. And our mission president was maybe 45, 50. Surely his sexual life had long since expired. I mean, because he was like, 50, right? And I'm 20, so I'm not thinking that. But, boy, I was really troubled by the fact that he and Sister Moreno, a sister missionary, would spend hours in his office alone. And I thought, man, is her sinning so robust, are her confessions so lengthy that this is required? Well, after about two weeks, everybody in the mission is talking about psych. What's going on with this? This is a real problem.

Warren Driggs [01:24:28] So I'm thinking, wow, I gotta do something about it, but what can I do, right? So that night, I knelt down and I let it rip, man. I told Heavenly Father, you're God and everything. Hate to boss you around, but you gotta do something about this, and you're God, and it's your timeframe and all, and I hate to put a timeframe on, but I'm giving you 24 hours.

John Dehlin [01:24:53] As if he didn't know what was going on, right?

Warren Driggs [01:24:56] As if he didn't. Elder Driggs, like, no, you.

Cindy Driggs [01:24:57] You.

Warren Driggs [01:24:58] I. I'm making you aware of this because you're not omnipotent, right? And you're not the Almighty. So let me clue you in on what's going on. This is a real problem, and I'm. I'm doing the SOS And I hate to give you a deadline, but I'm giving you 24 hours. You got to do something ultimatum for God. I did. I went to sleep that night, slept like a baby, knowing that God had heard my sos, given my virtue and everything. Wake up the next morning and I get a phone call. The president has just been killed in an auto accident. It was like, holy shit, I killed somebody else. I killed the mission president. I mean, that's kind of what I thought. I wanted to say. Well, God, I didn't want you to kill him. I just wanted you to maybe maim him or maybe do something.

John Dehlin [01:25:53] How about we'll just get him released, whatever?

Carah Burrell [01:25:56] And so that different kind of release.

Warren Driggs [01:25:58] Yeah, a different. Anyway, that was kind of troubling. I didn't know if I was. Had superpowers or.

John Dehlin [01:26:08] So in your mind, you got him.

Cindy Driggs [01:26:09] You.

John Dehlin [01:26:10] You gave Heavenly Father that ultimatum, and so he needed to take him out.

Warren Driggs [01:26:14] It was hard for me not to conclude maybe that had something to do with it.

John Dehlin [01:26:21] And how certain are you today that he was sexually involved with the sister missionary?

Warren Driggs [01:26:25] Oh, I would say 100.

John Dehlin [01:26:26] 100. Okay.

Warren Driggs [01:26:27] Well, I can't say, yeah, I know it happens. But after he, after, after he died, I had to go into his office, you know, and kind of clean out his. And he had a suit coat hanging there and I take it to give to his wife. And I just put my hand in the pockets and there's like four or five condoms and.

Cindy Driggs [01:26:47] No way.

Warren Driggs [01:26:48] Yeah. And then inside the drawer, his office drew there a bunch of condoms and said, this can't be good. But I never told anybody about that because I figured that was not my place. Well, the next day, you know, all the missionaries are like 300 missionaries. We're all thinking, geez, the mission president just died. This is like, wow, what are we going to do? The phone rings. It's the missionary or it's the church. They say, brother Dregs, you're the senior guy around. President Spencer W. Kimball wants to talk to you. So it's like, wow, that's cool, you know. So I get on the phone, he

John Dehlin [01:27:34] says, was he a prophet at the time?

Warren Driggs [01:27:35] Yeah, he was a prophet. And he said, elder Dregs, we have a lot of confidence in you. Like, he knew me. Right? You see, we have a lot of confidence in you, want you to be the mission president. And yeah, you be the mission president. We're going to get you somebody else within a few days, but you just hold down the fort. And we're really sorry this happened. So I'm thinking, cool, I'm the mission president. We didn't get a new mission present for several weeks. So I was a mission president.

John Dehlin [01:28:06] Oh, not everyone can see that.

Warren Driggs [01:28:08] Yeah, well, during that time, another missionary came to me and said, yeah, I had sex with, you know, this person. I said, well, what do you want me to do about it? Well, you're the mission president. Do something about it. It's like, well, my only question was, was she hot? You know, I. I mean, no, it wasn't. But I'm thinking, geez, that's.

Carah Burrell [01:28:27] You had a good time or now

Cindy Driggs [01:28:28] you're serving, like, so you got to

Warren Driggs [01:28:30] stay here until a new, like an adult comes in, you know, to X you or whatever else. But speaking of general authorities on my mission, one other one is.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Wait. Can I ask you a question really quick? So do you think there was any shenanigans going on with your mission president's car accident? Was he goofing off? Was he doing something he shouldn't have been? Was it just totally random?

John Dehlin [01:28:56] Because that's a pretty serious deal. And by the way, I'm just going to alert listeners I actually have an episode on Mormon stories podcast number 557. And Dr. Dave Christian on epistemology. And Orson Wright, the polygamous mission president and one of my dear friends from Logan, Dave Christian. When he was a missionary in Australia, his mission president took on several of the sister missionaries as plural wives while they were missionaries. And he was removed from the mission and all the sister missionaries were released, but he was practicing polygamy with his sister missionaries as a mission president. So I just want to refer everyone to episode 557.

John Dehlin [01:29:35] And this kind of stuff happens. And so that, that's what makes me want to ask you. And by the way, the church totally hit it, covered it up, didn't even tell the missionaries what happened. And as far as everyone else knew, he was just reassigned, you know, because that's how they do it. They kind of sweep everything under the rug.

Warren Driggs [01:29:49] That's crazy.

John Dehlin [01:29:50] Do you have a sense for whether there's any other shenanigans going on?

Warren Driggs [01:29:53] I don't think so. I don't think anybody cut his brake lines. I, I can't see God, you know, cutting his brake line or anything. I mean, it was an accident. But what. One thing that did trouble me, knowing that I might have been complicit at least partly in his death, or maybe it was a murder, was the fact that his 16 year old son Ryan was in the car and he was also killed. So now I'm thinking, now what have I done that's not responsible?

John Dehlin [01:30:20] Did you feel responsible or did you feel like. Hold up. I did.

Warren Driggs [01:30:23] I felt a little bit like I might have been complicit in some ways. Well, God, I didn't tell you to take him out, so that's on you, right? God, but that's sad. Yeah, it was really sad. And I don't think there was any, there was nothing really to hide other than, you know, I, I didn't expect the church, and I still wouldn't expect the church to make a public apology for his behavior with that sister missionary. That, that it would be damaging to his wife. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:30:56] I wonder how she's doing anyway.

Warren Driggs [01:30:57] I don't know. Well, the other one was Howard W. Hunter, came down to our mission and by the way, I just have to get something off my chest with the whole middle initial thing. What is up with that? And if, and if it doesn't work in the middle of like Spencer W. Kimball, Thomas S. Monson, they all have to have that. And if it doesn't sound right in the middle Then they have to put it at the front. El Tom Perry. If you said Tom Perry, you say, who's that? But El Tom Perry will. Duh. So the middle initials is kind of a weird thing to marker.

John Dehlin [01:31:35] It's a marker of status. Right. I mean, I have authority. It's a marker of authority, I guess.

Warren Driggs [01:31:39] But they weren't called that before. They be. But then they take that on and I don't remember. I'm no student of. Of the scriptures or anything, but I don't remember the original apostles doing that. I mean, they didn't. They just went like by Matthew or by Judas. I mean, Jesus. Maybe Jesus. Jesus age. Jesus age Christ. But other than that, middle.

John Dehlin [01:32:05] And I'm going to blame it on Joseph F. Smith and Joseph Feeling Smith, because they have the same name. He needed to differentiate the two. So Joseph F. Was the dead son of Hiram. Joseph Fielding became the grandson. And I'm guessing that it started with Joseph F. Smith as like the real. But it may have been sooner.

Carah Burrell [01:32:25] Joseph F. Smith. Remember the F? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:29] Remember the F. Right.

Warren Driggs [01:32:30] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] The F means something very different.

Warren Driggs [01:32:33] Yeah, but can't we change that? I mean, shouldn't we change that? It seems there's weed. Well, yeah, there are a lot of changes I would make. But anyway, Howard Hunter was down there.

John Dehlin [01:32:47] Howard W. Hunter.

Warren Driggs [01:32:48] Howard W. Hunter. Howie.

Carah Burrell [01:32:51] That's the rebellion of an ex Mormon. Like, I'm gonna call him Joe or Howie or Russell Nelson.

Warren Driggs [01:32:56] Joe.

John Dehlin [01:32:57] How?

Warren Driggs [01:32:57] It would be almost sacrilegious and to call him Russ Nelson, wouldn't it?

John Dehlin [01:33:02] Yeah, yeah, sure. That's so. No. In Mormonism, that's a sign of disrespect. If you say rusty or rusty and you're intentionally being said.

Encounters with Church Leaders on the Mission

Warren Driggs [01:33:10] Well, I don't want to intentionally dis Howard W. But he was speaking and I was translating for him. And he was an apostle at the time. And this would have been in 19. I'm going to say 1976. And what was what I'd like to say about that? In Salt Lake City, they were suffering a drought. It was a dry time. And I'll never forget in his speech and I'm translating, he says, we need all of you here. And this is in the middle of Mexico. I mean, this wasn't. Wasn't even in the United States. And he said, all of you need to pray that we get rain in Utah and in Salt Lake City. I remember thinking, wow, really? It just made the church seem so small, so provincial here.

John Dehlin [01:34:14] Did he say moisture? I don't know what he said because that's maybe for those who don't know. In Utah, they pray for moisture. They don't rain.

Warren Driggs [01:34:21] They pray for moisture. We'll take it.

John Dehlin [01:34:23] You know that Carah. Had you heard that before?

Warren Driggs [01:34:25] But I remember thinking, well, this is very odd to me that he wouldn't have a broader worldwide view of starvation or drought or hunger. He's talking to these very people that had nothing. And he's uber concerned about getting moisture in Salt Lake. And it just made this church seem fairly small to me. But anyway,

Carah Burrell [01:34:57] that's hugely problematic. Yeah, I don't. That's really, really discerning. I mean, do you want me go on a rant here? How I feel about that? I mean, it just feels like the myopic white man's conservative view from Salt Lake City going to, I don't want to say like a third world country, but going to a very poor country where people have so little and helping to increase even more what they already have. That they have already. You know, I don't want to maybe you could say stolen the resources of other countries just to only enrich themselves even more. And then. Please. Also, even though he's prophet too, right? Like he's the prophet and president.

John Dehlin [01:35:38] He's an apostle.

Carah Burrell [01:35:39] Oh, he was apostle at the time. Like you have a communication with God. Why are you asking these people to go and

John Dehlin [01:35:46] anti imperialistic, anti colonialistic care just emerged.

Carah Burrell [01:35:49] I'm sorry, I'm just like, no, it's good. Could we do better? There's just. You have so, so few times to talk to people and it just seems like the times when apostles or prophets travel, they say the, the, the. They waste their breath on some of the most unimportant things when there's just higher level things we could be discussing.

John Dehlin [01:36:07] Well, I'm. Yeah. And I'm interested, Warren, that you're like, you're either assistant the president and or like backup mission president. Why are you having these questions and doubts and thoughts at all?

Warren Driggs [01:36:18] Well, I, I only was. But they, they easily ran off me like water off the duck's back because I had built up such a reservoir of belief.

John Dehlin [01:36:29] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [01:36:30] Based, by the way, on really nothing. I mean, when I reflect back, did I really have a testimony? I mean, there were times where I felt good, like I would in a Hallmark movie. I feel touched when I hear a song. I had those. But boy, I was so arrogant in my righteousness. And in fact, to prove that point, I brought with me a letter. I was so proud of it, I saved it on this onion skin. Nice stated November of 1976. And I was on my mission and we came in contact with a letter from Gerald and Sandra Tanner. And the letter was Questions that Deserve Answers. Let me just read you my response because I felt.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] Wait, what? So what did you. I want to know just a tiny bit about the content of whatever you were exposed to you that was the impetus to you wanting to write this letter.

Warren Driggs [01:37:44] It was a letter from the Lighthouse ministry, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, about what was in it. It just had a series of questions, I suppose, like, well, how do you explain this, this and this and isn't this troubling? Or shouldn't this be troubling?

John Dehlin [01:37:58] Tell us the title again.

Warren Driggs [01:38:00] Questions that Deserve Answers.

John Dehlin [01:38:02] That's from the tenors.

Warren Driggs [01:38:03] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:38:04] We're going to provide a link to that.

Warren Driggs [01:38:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:06] Because I've got all their stuff on the website.

Warren Driggs [01:38:08] I know that's what it's called because I have it in quotes and I'll just read it.

John Dehlin [01:38:13] All right.

Warren Driggs [01:38:13] Dear Brother and Sister Tanner, I received your letter. Questions that Deserves Answers. And so I thought I would take a few minutes to write to you. It's hard for me to read this without giggling. Write to express to you the sorrow I feel for your attitude of such a letter.

Warren Driggs [01:38:36] In your letter you asked many questions. Just by reading over them, I could easily answer most of them. Some I'm not too sure about. But after a little bit of study, I could easily answer all of these questions.

Warren Driggs [01:38:53] The funny thing was though, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be very dumb on my part. Half these words are misspelled by the to write and tell you the answers because you would not accept them anyway. You would still keep persecuting what I believe in.

Warren Driggs [01:39:13] So taking all this into consideration, I decided to just leave you with my testimony. I know without a doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true church on the face of the earth. I know without a doubt that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. And I go on and give my rote testimony and I say as part of my calling to be a missionary, I have an obligation to call to.

Warren Driggs [01:39:41] I can barely read this. To call people to repentance and to challenge them to repent. And so I say in the name of Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, I was a foot wiper. I was going to wipe my feet on by the power that I hold, that you must repent, blah, blah, blah. And then I end it by saying, with much love.

Warren Driggs [01:40:07] But anyway, I came across that letter and I'm just so mortified by it. Amused by it. I think back at that little 19 year old kid who didn't know jack shit about any.

John Dehlin [01:40:23] Do you remember anything about the substance of the letter?

Warren Driggs [01:40:26] No, no, I'll have to track it down. But as I mentioned in my letter, I could easily answer all those questions, duh, because the church is true. And so the answers would not only be obvious, but anybody with a lick of sense could see that golden tablets were real and all that stuff. So.

John Dehlin [01:40:47] So I want you to look into the camera and, and say what you want to say to Sandra Tanner because she's still with us.

Warren Driggs [01:40:54] Okay. I know she is.

Cindy Driggs [01:40:55] And Sandra, listen to her podcast. It was wonderful.

John Dehlin [01:40:57] Oh, good.

Cindy Driggs [01:40:58] By the way, she's a remarkable woman.

Warren Driggs [01:41:00] I would, I would say we'll send her this clip. Okay, well, my Sandra, my. You were hugely important to me because when I lost my faith, we can get to that and I'll tell you about that, but I spent a lot of time down at your store and you were extremely important in my life. So thank you. Thanks for all you've done and I'm sorry I called you out, but take another look at that letter. Consider it, because maybe, just maybe. Anyway, yeah, that's it. Gerald and Sandra Tanner.

John Dehlin [01:41:37] And anyway, so there's a bullet in your outline about a brothel, and I can't let you leave your mission without telling us the brothel story. Oh, or did you? Did I?

Warren Driggs [01:41:46] No, no. I mean, I mean, so on my mission, you know, my companion and I went to this house with about eight young women and one older woman. The young woman women were wearing enough makeup to frost a cupcake. I mean, they were attractive and.

Warren Driggs [01:42:11] But so faithful was I. I tried to overlook that. I just wanted to teach them about the gospel. And they seemed really interested. They really did. We had flat tummies back then and my mission companions were very handsome and they probably thought, yeah, we've got one on the line. I mean, and so we kept going back and back to the brothel. Finally, it occurred to me when they said, are you basically, are you going to use our services or not?

Warren Driggs [01:42:42] It's like, like I was so naive. It's like, oh, this is a brothel. And it still bugs me to this day that because I know we could have got like a punch pass, a punch card pass for, you know, three freebies or whatever, celebrate their baptism and their conversion, but we didn't. But my mission experience, by the way, and I hate to hog all this because Cindy's got a lot of Important things to say.

John Dehlin [01:43:12] But, but Cindy's happy now. We're going to have to. We're coming at you, Cindy. Don't get too comfortable.

Warren Driggs [01:43:17] I have grown weary of listening to people talk about how a mission is the greatest thing because it provides so much growth to young missionaries. And I suppose it does in some respects. But when I look back on my mission, I think that the thing that causes growth is to make decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions, whether you choose wisely or otherwise. That's the whole point of growth. It seems to me.

Warren Driggs [01:43:53] I'm in a cocoon in Salt Lake City. I get placed into the mission field where I decided nothing. I did not make a single choice. I didn't decide when to wake up, where I went, what I read, what I watched, what I ate, who I hung out with, whether I could call home. Right. I made zero decisions.

Warren Driggs [01:44:19] And I think it actually, I would make the argument that it actually frustrates someone's growth because if they don't make any decisions, it would seem between the ages of 19 and 21, you'd have more personal growth even if you're living in your parents basement or something because at least then you could decide what time to come in at night and whether to watch TV or what to do. And I had none of that. And I think it actually stifles growth. And then you go directly to BYU and double down and they tell you how long your sideburns can be and you know, that whole weird business.

Warren Driggs [01:45:01] So I grew weary about that because my mission was a good experience. But I don't know that I had a lot of personal growth.

John Dehlin [01:45:08] I mean it's hard because on the one hand you do learn a language and you do leave home and if you are lucky enough to serve a second language mission, you sometimes get to live in a foreign country. There's a lot of cool things about that.

Warren Driggs [01:45:24] Yeah. I don't dismiss that you get to

John Dehlin [01:45:26] be away from home for a couple years and I, you know, if there were ever kind of a cult like experience in the Mormon world, the, the Mormon mission would be the closest thing to the most cultiest thing you can do.

Warren Driggs [01:45:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:42] Just in terms of how strict and especially back when we were serving missions. So yeah, it's complicated but I definitely validate what you're saying.

Warren Driggs [01:45:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:51] It's not real life. Right.

Warren Driggs [01:45:53] It wasn't for me and I, I presume it wasn't for the others.

John Dehlin [01:45:57] And we all know the main reason the Mormon Church has their youths or missions is to Bind them to the church. The converts that may or may not come have super low retention rates and they may or may not stay. But the real value is what it does to the missionary for the church. Yeah, right.

Warren Driggs [01:46:16] I think that that's true and if I were the church I would foist it upon them too.

John Dehlin [01:46:23] But yeah.

Warren Driggs [01:46:25] So then I came home from my

John Dehlin [01:46:26] mission and then you talked about racist views. Anything you want to say about racism on your mission?

Warren Driggs [01:46:34] I was a racist. And how so? Well, I grew up believing that people of color were fence sitters. And for the listeners who don't know what I'm talking about, the old war in heaven that those people who didn't immediately jump on the bandwagon for Jesus and his plan who dilly dallied sat on the fence too long. There was a price that had to be paid for their initial reluctance to commit wholeheartedly to Jesus in the pre existence.

John Dehlin [01:47:13] What was that price?

Warren Driggs [01:47:14] And that price was a curse. Dark skin. And so where'd you learn that? I learned that growing up. I can't. Well I mean it's scriptural so I learned it there. But I, I learned it and therefore and I'm now in Mexico and they have swarthy skin or darker skin and I didn't quite know what to make of that is a naive idiot at 19. But I kind of assumed maybe they sat on the fence a split second shorter than let's say an African person. I didn't quite know what to make.

John Dehlin [01:47:56] A little more valiant than Africans, just

Warren Driggs [01:47:58] a less, a tad more valiant.

John Dehlin [01:48:01] The Latin Americans were more valiant than Africans, thus slightly lighter skinned but less valiant than.

Warren Driggs [01:48:07] And I don't know what to make of Asians, how long they had they, you know, dilly dallied.

John Dehlin [01:48:11] But I actually came across a memo on my mission of a talk given by a Mormon general authority that literally laid out the different shades of skin color and, and described each of the, as he would call races associated with each of the skin colors to explain the degrees of valiancy tied to the skin color there somewhere out there. I'll have a listener if any of you listeners remember the talk that I'm talking about. There is one. I don't remember who wrote it, but you weren't the only one to think or feel that. And it was actually codified at one point or another in a general authorities.

Carah Burrell [01:48:50] But the church is totally against like the theories of men mingled with scripture. Like they would never do that. What do you think?

Warren Driggs [01:48:55] No, of course not. Of course not. But you Know, of course, that's just so outrageous. And anytime. I don't want to have even an ounce of racism, I don't think that I do now or sexism or homophobia or anything, but whenever I do feel just a tiny little kernel of that, I know I shouldn't blame Mormonism because racism existed long before Joseph Smith and the tablets came along.

Warren Driggs [01:49:28] On the other hand, I would also like to believe my racism was not mine. I really don't think that it was, and it makes me sick to my stomach. And my confession here may absolve me of a little bit of that, but, you know, I was just a kid. I didn't know better. There was one African American kid at Evergreen Junior High. His name was Coy. He was my friend. He's the only black person I met until I was like, 50, I swear.

Warren Driggs [01:50:04] And I. I want. I looked at him and I thought, guy's such a good kid. I wonder what he did to misbehave in the pre existence to merit that skin curse. It must have been pretty bad. And, you know, now this is his comeuppance.

Warren Driggs [01:50:24] And I'm so ashamed of that. Of course I am. And any of my sexism. I had the priesthood at 12. My mother did not. My sisters did not. Just because I was a boy and a white boy and I had so much white privilege. And I'm. There are times I feel like I must apologize for my white privilege, but that's not mine either. So anyway, that. That's why I put that bullet point about my racism.

John Dehlin [01:50:58] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:50:58] When you were a missionary in Mexico, we had Gerardo on, and he talked about that there were missionaries that would literally go out and a selling point of the gospel was to say that this is your heritage. Was that something that you were teaching the Mexicans,

John Dehlin [01:51:13] that they were lame?

Warren Driggs [01:51:13] Sure, they were Lamanites, but I was not very clear on the doctrine. I'm not a scriptorian, but I always kind of thought those were Native Americans. But maybe they're the same. I mean, I don't know. The whole concept is so absurd that it's hard now to even talk about it with any sincerity, because it's so. It's so absurd on its face.

John Dehlin [01:51:40] I remember as a missionary in Guatemala, feeling like Native Americans or, you know, Latinos were the pure blood of Israel. Like, oh, well, these were part of the 12 original 12 tribes. I, as a white Mormon, was adopted into the 12 tribes of Israel. But these Lamanites, they're the real pure blood of David. And, yeah, Abraham Isaac and Jacob literally running through their veins. You don't remember. Do you remember feeling that, or.

Warren Driggs [01:52:04] Yeah, I mean, I was adopted into the House of Israel, right? And I told, I have a dear friend who's Jewish. And I said, well, I'm Jewish, too. And he said, what in the hell are you talking about? I said, yeah, I'm Jewish. I'm adopted into the House of Israel. He said, what are you talking about? And I said, it's too long of a story. Just trust me. When the church is true, I'm Jewish, too. So we're good, right?

Carah Burrell [01:52:33] The things that we say when we just start with the presupposition that the church is true, and you're like. Like absurdity after absurdity. You can just spout these things off and you're like, well, if it's true,

Warren Driggs [01:52:40] I don't care if it sounds absurd, right? Before we got. Right before we got married, I'd been home from my mission. I'll just tell you one more story, and then you take over bearer. But there was a girl, her name was Lisa, and she was a Catholic. And I went out with her once or twice before my mission.

Warren Driggs [01:53:06] And then she wrote me a lot during my mission. And about two months before I was to come home, she says, I want to be baptized. I want you to baptize me. I think she liked me. So of course I was giddy. It's like, yeah, let's do it right? So that maybe a day or two after I got home from my mission, I baptized Lisa and I put her down into the waters. Made her clean as a whistle, you know, from sin. And now she's a Mormon, and it's all good.

Warren Driggs [01:53:36] She comes up out of the waters of baptism, and I never saw her again. Fifteen years later, Cindy and I are laying in bed, minding our own business, watching tv. The news comes on. And there is a news story about Missy Manners, the largest porn star in America.

Warren Driggs [01:53:58] And we both looked at each other like, holy shit, that's Lisa. So I baptized, you know, the biggest porn star of all. And Cindy's only question was, look at me dead in the eye, Warren. Dead in the eye. Do you have any regrets? I said, well, yeah, of course I do, you know, but. Yeah. So anyway.

Returning Home and Reflecting on the Mission

John Dehlin [01:54:24] So that was your mission. Anything else you want to say about your mission? Is that it?

Warren Driggs [01:54:28] Yeah, that's. That's it. Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [01:54:30] And Sydney, what'd you do while he was on his mission? Anything you want to say or.

Cindy Driggs [01:54:35] Oh, I enjoyed myself. It was.

John Dehlin [01:54:37] Were you guys writing each Other. Were you waiting? In Mormonism, the term waiting for means that a girl won't have any other boyfriends while her boyfriend is on a mission. So were you waiting for him? Were you faithful? Did you Dear John him? Which is a term I don't think we've ever really talked about on Mormon stories. And, you know, did you put yourself in cold storage, as is said in Saturday's Warrior for two years? How did that.

Cindy Driggs [01:55:06] I definitely did not do cold storage. I, I. Sorry. But I enjoyed myself. I, I went to the University of Utah and joined a sorority up there.

John Dehlin [01:55:20] Which one?

Cindy Driggs [01:55:21] Kiamaga. And I was actually in. It was kind of the Mormon girl, straight girl sorority. And I never felt like I really fit in with that group. It was. They were all the musicians and very, very straight legs group. In fact, I. My sorority sisters were Russell Nilsen's daughters. They were part of that group.

John Dehlin [01:55:45] I can't wait.

Cindy Driggs [01:55:46] Yeah, some of those girls. Yeah. So it was a pretty strong Mormon and that just wasn't my scene. I was more of a sports kind of girl anyway. So I sort of felt like I had joined the wrong one. But I had a good time and dated. But we still wrote all for his mission, except at one point Warren wrote me off and said I was way too worldly. What?

Carah Burrell [01:56:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:13] What?

Cindy Driggs [01:56:13] You forgot about that, didn't you?

John Dehlin [01:56:15] I say, what did he say?

Cindy Driggs [01:56:17] Well, what was he.

John Dehlin [01:56:18] Please, honey, you're insufferable.

Warren Driggs [01:56:20] Honey, this is being exactly.

Cindy Driggs [01:56:21] I guess I was talking too much about, you know, not churchy type things and I was talking about going skiing or something like that.

John Dehlin [01:56:31] And your letters to him.

Cindy Driggs [01:56:32] I guess, I guess so. He, he wrote me off at some point for a couple. There were a few months that we did not correspond, Warren. But then we kind of picked it up.

Warren Driggs [01:56:43] What a dummy.

John Dehlin [01:56:44] What happened, Warren? Do you remember? Do you remember?

Warren Driggs [01:56:46] I remember that.

John Dehlin [01:56:47] What were you thinking?

Warren Driggs [01:56:48] I don't know what I was thinking. It was the dumbest thing I've ever done. But, you know, I'm trying to talk about high minded gospel principles, you know, and Cindy wants to talk about. I think when you get home, you should buy a BMW and you know, let's get our seasons pass at Snowbird. And I'm trying to harness my virtue and my unblemished. You have to remember, during this time I was still. I still had the flattering notion that I would become a God and have my own planet.

John Dehlin [01:57:27] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [01:57:27] You know, during this period of my life.

Carah Burrell [01:57:29] So where'd you get that from? That's not doctrine.

Warren Driggs [01:57:32] I love that, man. I was going to get my own planet. And the mere thought.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] That doctrine's in the news right now, by the way.

Warren Driggs [01:57:38] Is it?

Carah Burrell [01:57:38] That's all the joke I was trying to make, that.

John Dehlin [01:57:40] Yeah. No, no, no.

Carah Burrell [01:57:40] It's all kind of being reversed. So anyone who thought that. I don't know where you got that from, guys.

John Dehlin [01:57:43] The church just came out with a. Some type of web document this week where they kind of have backed out of that.

Warren Driggs [01:57:49] Okay, now that pisses me off, because the thing that kept me in the church as long as it did was the thought that. That I would have a harem. I would have my own planet. I would pollinate every single one of them. Because what sense would it be to have a planet if you didn't have a lot of kids? You need to populate it. It would make no sense to have an empty planet. So that kept me on the straight and narrow for quite a while.

John Dehlin [01:58:14] You could have eternal celestial sex, Basically.

Warren Driggs [01:58:16] Yeah. That I was going to become a God.

Carah Burrell [01:58:18] And I like the word pollen. Pollinate the planet. I've never heard that. Like your penis as a stinger for women.

Warren Driggs [01:58:24] Whatever.

John Dehlin [01:58:24] Very poetic.

Warren Driggs [01:58:25] I was a little bee buzzing around and.

John Dehlin [01:58:28] Yeah, yeah, okay, so you were insufferable. And anything else you want to say about your time, Cindy? Going at the U. What were you studying at the U?

Courtship, Engagement, and Temple Wedding

Cindy Driggs [01:58:37] I was studying merchandising, and I like fashion. Merchandising, yes. And I love the U. It was great. I just thought it was so much fun. I was living at home. I wish I could have gone away to school and had that opportunity, but I didn't. But then that's how it was back then, in the 70s, most people just went to the commuter school in Utah. Great experience. But I still loved Warren. I dated a lot of guys, but he was definitely the one I loved.

John Dehlin [01:59:11] You wanted to marry him when he.

Cindy Driggs [01:59:12] Yes, yes. I really, really loved Warren.

John Dehlin [01:59:16] Did you try and up your spiritual game once? He kind of, you know, expressed some caution and some hesitance.

Cindy Driggs [01:59:23] Did you.

John Dehlin [01:59:24] Did you train up your spiritual game at all?

Cindy Driggs [01:59:26] I did. I did. And I. And I knew that sounds so degrading.

John Dehlin [01:59:30] Talk about racism. Like, this is so degrading.

Cindy Driggs [01:59:33] I had. I knew I had to up my spiritual game. Absolutely. That I needed to be a good little Mormon girl. And I. And I thought, okay, I can do this. Lots of my friends did. And I didn't have a burning testimony, but I thought, I can do this. And it's part of the package. And gosh, I'm young and dumb and 19 years old, and it's all going to work out. So he came home and we dated for just. I mean, three days. And we were. Then we got engaged. And after three days. No, I would say it was a couple months, but. And I knew his parents.

Cindy Driggs [02:00:21] I was not the girl they wanted him to marry because, you know, the aunt lived there and it's like, oh, that family's not. They're not Mormon royalty, as you speak of. And I wasn't the kind of girl that. I mean, I wasn't a bad girl. I just didn't have a faithful Mormon family that they wanted Warren to marry into.

John Dehlin [02:00:42] Spiritual pedigree.

Cindy Driggs [02:00:45] Exactly. I did not have that. But I thought, okay, this is part of the game, and I can play this game and I can really try hard to be a good little Mormon girl. And I tried so much. I tried to do that. I really did.

Carah Burrell [02:01:04] And

Cindy Driggs [02:01:07] so then we. After a couple months, we were pretty smitten with each other. Couldn't keep our hands off each other. So what else do you do but get engaged and get married quick, fast. Run. Run to the temple. So we. We were engaged. I think we got engaged. She got back in May, and we were engaged in August. And then we had plans for a March wedding, and then we moved it up to December, and then we moved it up to.

John Dehlin [02:01:42] Why did you move?

Cindy Driggs [02:01:43] And why does it. Why does anyone have those quick Mormon weddings? I thought no one knew.

John Dehlin [02:01:48] Could possibly know Mormons.

Cindy Driggs [02:01:50] Okay. You get married so you can have.

Warren Driggs [02:01:52] Have sex.

Cindy Driggs [02:01:52] Yeah, absolutely. Legally.

John Dehlin [02:01:54] Because you didn't want to wait.

Cindy Driggs [02:01:55] Exactly. You get married because why else would you get married but have sex?

Warren Driggs [02:01:59] If one of my kids pulled that stunt, be horrified.

Cindy Driggs [02:02:04] Anyway, so we. We got ready. We were engaged. And. And then I knew. I. My parents never wore garments, so I didn't really. Even though they were married in the temple, they had never. And I asked them once why they didn't wear them, and they said, well, because we were in the military and they didn't want anything to be teased about if you were in the military wearing garments. So they never wore garments. So I knew that was the whole package of getting married in the temple. And it's like, yeah. So I knew that was going to be a challenge for me even before I went through.

Cindy Driggs [02:02:43] So I got ready to. We were engaged and quick engagement. And my parents were. No. Stropping this train. They loved Warren. He was great. And yeah, might as well get married so they could retire and move to St. George. So great. Take her off our hands. It's sort of embarrassing, but yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:10] Okay. So quick, Cindy, before we talk about your wedding and everything, I referenced back just an hour or so ago, kind of the shame cycle, we made some allusions to Law of Chastity stuff. We talked about dating. You said you didn't put yourself on cold storage for those two years you were dating. You had sort of a less strict upbringing. Is there anything you want to say about dating as a woman in Salt Lake City who is loosely Mormon in terms of, like, dating and. Or engagements with the bishop and. Or guilt and. Or even your courtship with Warren prior to getting married, Just kind

John Dehlin [02:03:53] of putting out on the table that there's this expectation that all moron couple, all Mormon couples will arrive at the temple gates having never had any sexual relations, being pure as the driven snow, preferably never even touching any body part, self or other, other than sort of dispassionate kissing. That's kind of the standard within Mormonism. And is there anything you want to say about any of that that's important to the story?

Cindy Driggs [02:04:22] Well, we. We. We did more than kiss. Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:28] Okay.

Cindy Driggs [02:04:29] So sorry if our children are listening to this, but we.

John Dehlin [02:04:33] After his mission.

Cindy Driggs [02:04:34] After his mission. Yeah. And so.

Warren Driggs [02:04:37] But I didn't want to.

John Dehlin [02:04:38] Okay, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Because you were insufferable mission President A.P. warren. That was almost writing her off. So how do you. How do I. My brain just can't even make sense of this insufferable, uber righteous Warren. You know, may I jump in? Being imperial business, being impure?

Warren Driggs [02:04:59] Because I don't think. I really wasn't insufferable.

John Dehlin [02:05:02] Okay.

Warren Driggs [02:05:02] I was. I had a moment where I thought, I gotta hone in on my righteousness, but I was not.

John Dehlin [02:05:13] You were more laid back than I'm saying.

Warren Driggs [02:05:14] I was very laid back, actually, as it turns out. I mean, I remained a ski bum. I was not too uptight about stuff.

John Dehlin [02:05:22] You didn't totally lose your identity on your mission?

Warren Driggs [02:05:25] I really didn't.

Carah Burrell [02:05:26] Okay.

Cindy Driggs [02:05:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:05:27] So when he came home, you didn't meet him?

Cindy Driggs [02:05:28] Oh, I. I was concerned because I'd been at the University of Utah, enjoying my life and dating. And I think that when I sort of get a little bit serious with some other guys, it's like, well, I think she has this RM she's waiting for or this missionary she's waiting for. So that was always in the back of my mind. And I never met anyone that even came close to Warren. But it was fun. Fun to go out and date and spend time with guys but then he got back from his mission. I was a little concerned that he was going to be really weird because I didn't want that. Some of them get really goofy.

John Dehlin [02:06:15] I mean, your parents were pretty cosmopolitan, right?

Cindy Driggs [02:06:17] Yes, yes, very much. And so he came back and. And, you know, I remember one of our first. First nights together, and I came and sat down about this close to him on the sofa, and he, like, kind of sat up and moved to the edge of the sofa, and it's like, please. Okay. But that didn't last. That did not last very long. So anyway, so pretty soon it was clear that we were in love and couldn't keep our hands off each other. So we better get married. So we go for our. Our bishop's interview or for temple recommend or temple recommend.

John Dehlin [02:06:57] To get married.

Cindy Driggs [02:06:58] To get married in the temple. Because there was never any question that I was going to get married in the temple with Warren. That was just what we were going to do. So I.

John Dehlin [02:07:08] Remind me, were your parents married in the temple?

Cindy Driggs [02:07:10] They were, but they were never active. But I knew what was required of me, and I tried really hard, and I really wanted to have a testimony. I really wanted to be a believer, but I wasn't. But I was trying hard, and I knew that I could live that life, and I knew it would be a challenge, though. But I figured I could do that because I loved Warren and I was 19, and, you know, you're dumb and you just get married. And so we went in for our. We were getting ready for our bishop's interview and stake president's interview. And I talked to my bishop, and he was a very nice man and told him that, you know, we've done a few things, and

John Dehlin [02:08:04] were you volunteering it or was he asking?

Cindy Driggs [02:08:06] He was asking. He was asking.

John Dehlin [02:08:08] So he's asking you to live the law of chastity, right?

Cindy Driggs [02:08:11] And I says, you know, we weren't, you know, totally perfect, but, you know, there was no intercourse or anything of that nature. And he says, okay, Warren, what's that look?

Warren Driggs [02:08:22] There's no look whatsoever. Kids, your mom and dad are pure as a driven snow.

Cindy Driggs [02:08:27] You're good. So anyway, he was fine. He says, great, you know, go see the stake president. We go. And I. Well, we had separate interviews with our stake presidents. And I believe Warren's stake president said, run, don't walk. Run to the temple. Make it happen quick, before you're not virgins anymore. But I go to my stake president, and he was. His son was interviewed on Mormon stories a while ago, and I Won't disclose anyone's name, but he was my stake president and so I go to see him and man, he got out his little notebook and he was sitting on the big desk and he wanted details about everything.

Pre-Wedding Interviews and Church Expectations

John Dehlin [02:09:20] What kind of questions would he ask?

Cindy Driggs [02:09:21] Oh, petting. Was it, you know, below, below the waist. Did you have an orgasm? Did you? All sorts of.

John Dehlin [02:09:28] Over the clothes?

Cindy Driggs [02:09:29] All sorts of. Yeah, over the clothes. Under the clothes. How many times? He wanted details.

Warren Driggs [02:09:36] What positions? Did you have an orgasm? Amateural sex. What was it like? How did it feel? I mean, just you?

John Dehlin [02:09:45] Was it just you?

Cindy Driggs [02:09:46] It was just me. It was just me.

Warren Driggs [02:09:47] I had been in his room moments earlier and I had the good judgment to fib a little bit. So then I come back and I'm waiting and then Cindy's in there for five hours.

John Dehlin [02:09:58] This is like the prisoner's dilemma, the classic prisoner's dilemma where they interview people separately to see if the story lines up. You don't know who's telling the truth.

Cindy Driggs [02:10:08] Well, so I was very uncomfortable and I just thought that was really inappropriate. And then he said, I don't know if I'm going to let you get married in the temple. And I mean we had our invitations and they were ready to be mailed out and I left there crying.

John Dehlin [02:10:31] Did you consider lying?

Cindy Driggs [02:10:33] Well, I should have. I mean. Well, yeah, yeah, I did, I did. I mean I probably should have lied but you know, I was trying to be honest. Be honest, be honest. And so I, I left that interview. And he says, I'm going to think about this. And, and I didn't consider at the time that that was really inappropriate, all that for him to ask all those questions one on one. And I think things have changed now.

John Dehlin [02:11:02] No, I mean there's an option of parents insisting that their kids never be alone with the bishop, but I would say 99% of all youth, children, youth and adult interviews to this day remain one on one interviews. Like all the church did was because of Sam Young. And the march for the children is add a little line saying if a parent insists or requests it, then they're allowed to be with their kid. But, but just like how, you know, a Mormon now can choose a civil wedding before a temple wedding, most aren't choosing a civil wedding instead of a temple wedding because that's viewed as kind of the faithless, inferior way to do it.

John Dehlin [02:11:51] And just like that, with the, with the one on one interviews, it's 9912 year old girls alone with a 40, 50 year old man talking about if she Touches herself and where. That's, that's how it is still to this day. So I don't.

Carah Burrell [02:12:04] From an untrained.

John Dehlin [02:12:05] What's that like?

Carah Burrell [02:12:06] From an untrained bishop that's really just up to their discretion of how much detail they want to get into. And nobody else will know. It's not recorded. There's no way for anyone else to know besides the two people that are in the room of what was happening in there.

John Dehlin [02:12:16] And I know my daughters were asked if they masturbated and how many times and when and where, alone with the man in the room. And you know, the church has been really smart to respond to public pressure by making tweaks to their policy so that they can say publicly that this is an option, but to make sure that they don't go overboard in how it gets rolled out and implemented such that it's still very much the shame parade. One on one interviews, talking about graphic sexual stuff to this day.

Cindy Driggs [02:12:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:49] So I just, I don't mean to rant, but yeah, I wanted to make

Carah Burrell [02:12:52] sure that still it has not been updated since maybe your interview.

Cindy Driggs [02:12:55] Oh, interesting. Interesting. Well, yeah, I felt. But I, I was crying. It was horrible. It's like, oh, gosh, what are we going to tell everyone? We've got these invitations. No, we can't get married. Well, duh, we know why. Because you were playing around. But then he says, I guess a few days later, he kind of the authority. It's like, I guess you can get married and I guess it's all right.

John Dehlin [02:13:22] He put the fear of God in shame.

Cindy Driggs [02:13:25] Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [02:13:25] That's a, it's probably not intentional, but that's a tactic of coercion. It's, it's a way to wield undo influence, to say for the rest of your life, don't step out of line.

Warren Driggs [02:13:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:36] Because if you step out of line, you will be publicly shamed. Let's give you a taste of that. So that you never think. And again, I don't think it's explicit, maybe not intentional, but it's the way the system ends up working out. So he wanted to put the fear of God in you, basically. And did he?

Cindy Driggs [02:13:52] Oh, he did. I was crying. And then within. We met after our interview and, and Warren says, oh, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. And what was your reaction?

Warren Driggs [02:14:04] I mean, I was, I was, I mean, our, our invitations were out, they were in the mail. We had the beautiful little temple embossed on them. I mean, this was, this was Just not acceptable. And so Cindy comes out and he told both of us, I got to think about, I probably won't let you get married in the temple. It was total power thing. And I, if he were here, I just slug him. He's such a prick. But anyway, we get in the car, Cindy's crying, and it's like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do?

Warren Driggs [02:14:41] They lived way up by the H, on the mountain by Highland High. And we're driving down three blocks. And during that three block period of time, I remember looking at Cindy thinking, I love you so much, but I wish I'd never met you because, oh my God, our world is going to be ugly. I never want to touch you again. I never want to see you again. Two blocks later we had pulled over and,

John Dehlin [02:15:14] and we're going at it again after two blocks.

Warren Driggs [02:15:16] But this time we had the good judgment to keep our robust sinning to

John Dehlin [02:15:22] ourselves, to be discreet.

Cindy Driggs [02:15:26] Yeah. And you know, seriously, I should have lied about it. You know, that's how I feel. Because he was that fear of God that he, he laid on us and maybe he obviously he thought he was doing his job and. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:44] And we haven't even, you know, there, there are a few moments I had this interaction with Leah Remini, ex Scientologist, where I would say a couple things about Mormonism and her mind would just be blown there, you know, because we're swimming in the waters of Mormonism. There are just certain things that are just normal to us that are mind blowing. But the idea that two adults in their 20s would individually sit alone with a man, both a man and a woman would sit alone with a man who's going to ask you detailed questions about your sexual behavior and then make some sort of assessment at the threat of disrupting your wedding plans.

John Dehlin [02:16:22] That's, I mean, by any other standard, it's outrageous and it's cult like and it's, it's insidious and horrific. And yet for us, that wasn't, you know, when you started that we're just like, oh, yeah, of course, this is the interview. This is what you do before you get married as a Mormon. And we're, we're so swimming in the Mormon waters. We're not even outraged by the fact that even the fact that you were having this interview at all is, is outrageous.

Warren Driggs [02:16:50] Do you know what's remarkable when I reflect back on it? I was upset with him because of the consequences then he was in charge and he was a power. So I was upset. But it may Sound crazy, but I never really considered that he was getting off on this because he was in his late 40s, might have even been 50. And again, I thought his sexual interest had long since expired.

John Dehlin [02:17:14] Mission president.

Warren Driggs [02:17:15] Yeah, it expired. Like, what? So I didn't. Now, as an adult, I look back and think, oh, my God, that. That perv. I mean, that was wholly unnecessary, obviously.

John Dehlin [02:17:28] Yeah. You could just say, are you living live chassis or not?

Warren Driggs [02:17:30] Yeah, story. Yeah, whatever.

Cindy Driggs [02:17:32] Right.

John Dehlin [02:17:33] And did you feel like it was. Like it was. Did you feel awkward in that way?

Warren Driggs [02:17:38] Oh, yes.

Cindy Driggs [02:17:39] He. Yes. I thought he was asking very inappropriate questions. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:44] Like, he was like, almost he was getting some sort of gratification.

Cindy Driggs [02:17:48] Oh, yeah, I do. Yeah. He was behind a desk, and I don't know, but I just. He did not need to know all that information.

Warren Driggs [02:17:59] Yeah, no, no.

John Dehlin [02:18:02] I'm so sorry that happened to you. I'm really sorry.

Cindy Driggs [02:18:04] Yeah, yeah. But.

John Dehlin [02:18:09] So thus, we learned a lie in the Mormon Church or be discreet or however you want to say it. It's weird when a Christian religion has policies that teach their members to lie, because who wants to be embarrassed and have to notify everybody that the dates have changed and you know, and everybody knows. And anyway, it's. What a mess. Yeah. Stop that. Mormon Church.

Cindy Driggs [02:18:33] Right, Right.

Warren Driggs [02:18:34] Please.

John Dehlin [02:18:35] Okay. What else do you guys want to say about your temple wedding?

Cindy Driggs [02:18:41] Well, we. So I had to go through and have my endowments, and so I did that, I believe, about a day or so before I went. And I was worried about that. The only thing I knew is that I'd been taught all my life from young women's teachers. Oh, it's the most beautiful place. It's so lovely. And there's nothing like a temple wedding or going through the temple. And so I go through, get my garments, which I was not looking forward to at all. And the whole temple ceremony, endowment ceremony was so. Blew me away. I was so horrified by the whole scene. I thought it was cultish. I. It just scared me to death. And I just was not prepared for that at all.

Warren Driggs [02:19:46] How about when they rub that stuff on you or whatever they did.

Carah Burrell [02:19:49] Yes.

Cindy Driggs [02:19:49] And then so I. So I go in there and they've got the veil, and I can't remember a lot because we only went through a few. I was so horrified that I knew after I went through. It's like, I'm not doing this again. I did not want to go again. And so you would have put on

John Dehlin [02:20:08] a shield that was like a poncho where you were fully naked on the

Cindy Driggs [02:20:11] sides Of Right, right.

John Dehlin [02:20:13] And then would have been anointing you with oil, where they would have been, I guess it would have been sisters, right? Elderly sisters. They would have been kind of putting their finger in the oil and then touching different body parts of you under the. While you're naked under the silky poncho.

Cindy Driggs [02:20:28] And that was very uncomfortable for me. I felt like that was very inappropriate what they were doing and touching. And that was very uncomfortable, out of line, I thought some of that behavior. So that went. Had my garments on afterwards. And then the next day we're to get married. And I remember, I remember having cold feet about getting married just because I was so horrified by the endowment thing. And then in our wedding, none of my family was allowed to go because they were not card carrying Mormons with temple recommends.

John Dehlin [02:21:17] Meaning your parents.

Cindy Driggs [02:21:18] My parents. Your parents. They did not go to my wedding. I suppose they could have lied or they could have started pain, tithing or whatever, but they didn't want to. They wanted to be real about who they were. So they, my sisters, my brothers, no one in my family. And I remember when we got married thinking, now how, how are my parents less worthy and less good than your family just because they believe in the Mormon doctrine? And that was very troubling to me. But I was like, okay, well whatever, this is how it is. But it was troubling.

John Dehlin [02:22:05] It's another one of those things we do that is just mind blowing, but

Cindy Driggs [02:22:08] you just kind of suck it up and, and it's like, okay, that's how it's got to be.

John Dehlin [02:22:12] And just to be clear, in Mormonism to this day, parents and siblings and you know, are excluded from most Mormon weddings if they're not either Mormons or a card carrying temple recommend holding active, faithful Mormons, which means you have to pay tithing. So basically you have to pay the church 10% of your income to be able to attend your own children's wedding. And they've made a rule, a loophole, to allow a civil service first. But I hear that's extremely rare because it's viewed as an inferior decision to do the secular wedding first. So it's still to this day, one of the most insidious things about Mormonism.

Cindy Driggs [02:22:55] Yeah, it's just so exclusionary and so unkind and that, yeah, that was troubling for me. But you know, it's part of the package and that's what you do. So. And then on my wedding day, when you should feel very beautiful, oh gosh, I felt I had on this ridiculous temple garb and I felt just really not very beautiful on my wedding day. And it was. And then I'm looking at Warren in his baker's hat and crazy, crazy garb, and it was. I can't remember. Yes. And it was. It was really troubling to me, but I kind of kept it all buttoned up. And I really didn't even talk to Warren about that because it's like, well, you know, we just got back from a mission, we just got married in the trampole, and that's just how we're going to live our life. So I just kind of sucked it up.

Warren Driggs [02:23:49] So weird.

Cindy Driggs [02:23:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:54] Now, if I had been your parents, I imagine I would have wanted to, like, pull you aside and say, look, you're going to go through this temple. It's going to be super creepy and weird and violent and inappropriate. I'm sorry you have to go through this. You know, something to kind of warn you that you're about to go through something traumatic. In fact, my dad did that with me.

Cindy Driggs [02:24:12] Did he? Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:14] And my dad's still a believer, but he's like, I never liked the temple, and I think it's a huge waste of time. And it's not about Jesus, and. And it's creepy and weird, and so I, you know, I. I was able to, like, at least have a parent identify. But your. Your parents didn't pull you aside and kind of warn you?

Cindy Driggs [02:24:31] No, no. The. The. The only thing my mom said is, she says, gosh, you've got such a cute little figure and now you're going to have to wear garments. And it's like. And you have to cover everything up. And. And so anyway, but I do remember I had a good friend who was getting ready to go on a mission, and I said, hey, let me just tell you, the temple ceremony is really strange. Just so you know. I was kind of horrified by the whole thing. And you're told how beautiful and wonderful, but it creeped me out. And she said to me years later, you were the only person who said that to me. And thank you so much, because no one dared to say that,

John Dehlin [02:25:22] because you're not allowed to talk about it.

Cindy Driggs [02:25:23] Right.

John Dehlin [02:25:24] Let alone talk negatively about it.

Cindy Driggs [02:25:25] Exactly. And so after we got married, we went to the temple maybe a handful of times, and you were never excited about going, and I certainly wasn't going to push it. So we just didn't go.

Early Seeds of Doubt and Difficult Questions

John Dehlin [02:25:42] Well, see, now there's the beginning of your downfall.

Warren Driggs [02:25:44] Right?

Cindy Driggs [02:25:44] Yes. Right there. Right there.

Carah Burrell [02:25:47] Yeah. I felt similarly, if you can't have A testimony of the temple. And that's what you do as an adult. You're kind of like, well, then what's the point? I was told that this is the most holy that I'll ever feel. And if you don't feel holy there, you're not really excited to be an adult in the church very much anymore.

John Dehlin [02:26:00] Who felt holy in the temple prior to 1990, if ever it was so

Carah Burrell [02:26:06] violent, you can convince yourself maybe weird

Warren Driggs [02:26:09] that when they changed the slit your throat thing, really, they waited that long?

Cindy Driggs [02:26:14] And it was so sexist when I went there and the men on one side, the women on one side, you

John Dehlin [02:26:20] had to veil your face.

Cindy Driggs [02:26:21] Yes. I just thought, I'm part of a cult.

John Dehlin [02:26:25] The man would hearken to God. So the man would make covenants with God, but the woman would make covenants with the husband who made covenants with God. So the man covenants to obey God, the woman covenants to obey and. Or hearken her husband.

Carah Burrell [02:26:42] Yeah, and that's important to point out because I think a lot of Mormons will defend that by saying like, oh, when you go to the temple, you know what covenants you're going to make? It is never discussed. Am I wrong?

John Dehlin [02:26:51] That beforehand.

Carah Burrell [02:26:52] Beforehand that you'll be covenanting to obey your husband?

John Dehlin [02:26:55] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [02:26:56] They still do that?

John Dehlin [02:26:57] No, that's one of the weird things about Mormonism is they Mormons have the impression that the church never changes, that the gospel is eternal. From Adam till now, it's never changed that Adam wore a CTR ring. I'm exaggerating. You know that.

Carah Burrell [02:27:15] Well, he wore garments.

John Dehlin [02:27:16] What's that?

Carah Burrell [02:27:17] Well, kind of literally like he had his own version of garments.

John Dehlin [02:27:21] Yeah, I mean, we've even got Native Americans before Jesus was ever born, baptizing each other in the name of Jesus. Like some, you know, somehow it's always been Jesus, Christianity, even before Christ was born. But the church never changes.

John Dehlin [02:27:35] God never changes. That's what Mormons believe. And the church freaking changes all the time. It changes its doctrine, it changes its policies, it changes its temple, it changes its theology. Polygamy, racism, it's changing all the time. And you know, it hasn't been until the last few years where the Mormon Church did take away the veil from the woman so the woman no longer has to cover her face with a veil and the woman no longer hearkens to God. But the only reason they made that change is because a bunch of us on the Internet for years and years made this horrible, embarrassing, sort of like shameful call out to how sexist the temple ceremony was.

John Dehlin [02:28:19] And only after a couple decades of us collectively shaming the church publicly do they make the change. But never apologize and just say, whoa, isn't it a miracle? There's revelation and now ongoing revelation. And now we're making the temple even better. And the members. And this is fine. It's human nature. I'm getting a little ranty, so I'm going to calm down. But it is a fascinating, it's a fascinating dynamic within Mormonism that for the members it's as if, you know, it's as if Yoda or whoever kind of waves their hand and says, these are not the droids you're looking for. And nobody bats an eye.

John Dehlin [02:28:59] Nobody bats an eye when the temple ceremony's changed. Nobody bats an eye when revelations are rescinded, when doctrines are altered, because they just celebrate it as new revelation. So there's no such thing as the brethren ever getting it wrong, as God changing his mind, as the church repenting.

Carah Burrell [02:29:19] It's just further light and knowledge.

John Dehlin [02:29:21] It's just further light knowledge. And it's really, I mean, but it's, but, but for those of us that like really took it seriously, it is a traumatic thing. It's like, wait, this was revelation? We were taught that God gave this revelation to Joseph Smith or this was the same ceremony that Adam and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, you know, this is the same ritual. And so when they're changing the garment or shortening the garment or changing the temple ceremony or changing polygamy or the racist doctrine, and you know, we're always, there's a, there's a lot of Mormons, maybe a minority of Mormons who are like ambivalent about it because they're like, well, I guess we like progress. But why in the heck is God changing revelation if this is straight from God?

Warren Driggs [02:30:06] Well, it's, you're right, but most of

John Dehlin [02:30:08] most Mormons are oblivious to all this and they're just like, whatever.

Warren Driggs [02:30:11] Well, to me it is fairly shocking how often God does change, change his mind in Mormonism and yet still manages to get it wrong. That's really remarkable because they won't take little baby steps, you know, like, like the blacks in the priesthood, for example. That was a moment for us because we'd been married a year or two and they changed the rule and we

John Dehlin [02:30:39] blacks were allowed to get to Houston

Warren Driggs [02:30:40] and we thought that was great. You know, we.

John Dehlin [02:30:43] So for our non Mormon listeners, up until 1978, black Mormon men were second class citizens in the Mormon Church. They weren't allowed to receive the priesthood. They weren't allowed to go to the temple, they weren't allowed to serve missions. They had to sit outside, priest, quorum, priesthood quorum. They were second class citizens. And women too weren't allowed black women, women of color were not allowed to get out, take out their endowments, be in the temple in all the ways. So Black people were second class citizens in Mormonism up till 1978, including people who had whatsoever.

Carah Burrell [02:31:15] You could have white skin, but if you had any heritage, a drop of blood. Drop of blood that was from Africa, you were kind of grouped in as well. So it was very strictly enforced on that topic.

Warren Driggs [02:31:26] My brother, the only sibling of mine who's left the faith other than me. The remainder have varying levels of devotion. But my brother went to Brazil on his mission. And as you know, Brazil is a cosmopolitan collection of Europeans and the old slave traffic. And so they've intermingled.

John Dehlin [02:31:48] And Native Americans, right?

Warren Driggs [02:31:49] Yeah. To make a beautiful culture. Well, they were instructed. This is pre1978 when he was on his mission. The missionary department had to deal with this vaccine problem because why would you bother baptizing somebody with a drop of black blood? Because they couldn't go on to hold high office or they wouldn't be leaders in the church. So their sensible solution was to tell the missionaries, knock on the door, ding dong, hi, we're the Mormon missionaries. We're from Utah and our heritage is Norwegian and Danish. What's yours? And then the Brazilian, they try to racially profile. They do. Then the Brazilian family said, well, you know, I'm German or I'm this and that. And then they would say, well, to further dig a little deeper, they would say, what about, just curious, any African heritage?

Cindy Driggs [02:32:45] Maybe?

Warren Driggs [02:32:46] Does grandma have kinky hair? I mean, anything like that? And then they would oftentimes say, well, yeah, I think like 8%. And then the missionaries were instructed to leave him a pamphlet and say, that's great, well, have a nice day. And they would leave.

Warren Driggs [02:33:03] That just doesn't feel very sermon on the Mountie to me. And it was the black and the priesthood thing that didn't fracture my faith, but it troubled me because I know that Mormonism constantly whitewashes its history. A young Mormon today might be tempted to believe that the Mormon prophet back then was actually arm in arm with Martin Luther King down in Selma and gave his seat up to Rosa Parks. They would be tempted to think that because, after all, thorough Bailey's a Mormon. And don't forget Gladys Knight, she of the Pips, they're so proud about that. But what troubled me about the black and the priesthood thing, obviously it took him so long, which is weird, but I had been taught that the prophet and Jesus were chummy.

Warren Driggs [02:33:59] I mean, like, talk to each other. I mean, they had a real connection. And therefore, when I heard Spencer W. Kimball explain how the revelation came to be, I was a little bit troubled because what he said was, well, I wanted to change the rule. And so I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and I kept praying, asking God, and I finally said, God, I'm going to go ahead and make this change.

Warren Driggs [02:34:34] If you disagree, let me know. And not having heard anything, I assume that was the green light to go ahead and make the change. Well, that was like, wait a minute. That's very different than. I thought that it went down. I thought the prophet and Jesus had coffee together. I thought that they socialized. I thought that they talked. So that was.

Warren Driggs [02:35:01] That was a bit troubling. But when that black and the priesthood thing, I'm embarrassed to say I didn't do a cartwheel. My reaction was, well, it's about time. I mean, it wasn't my ox being gored. Like I said, I didn't go out there and pound a Black Lives Matter poster onto my front lawn. It's like, yeah, good, great. But it bugged me how it went down and how they. About everything. Not just that.

John Dehlin [02:35:32] That was a crack for you.

Warren Driggs [02:35:33] It's a little crack because now we've been married a year or two and. And then, you know, back to the garments. When I was growing up, you know, my dad and mom be. Walked around the house, you know, their garments occasionally. Not my mom, but I'd seen her, I think. But I'll tell you what it was. It was kind of weird, but she's my mom and whatever. She's 40 and.

Cindy Driggs [02:35:59] But.

Warren Driggs [02:35:59] But the first time I saw Cindy. Cindy is very attractive, as you can see, but the first time I saw Cindy. Now back then, they just had one piecers, you know, with the union flapping back, they didn't have the two piecers. The first time I saw Cindy standing there brushing her teeth in her long johns with her bra and panties on the outside of her garments, which is something I couldn't unsee. It was like, wow, that's like, really weird. It's like a little kid that pulls his whitey tighties over his jeans to be Superman. It was just weird, you know. So that was.

Cindy Driggs [02:36:52] Was her.

John Dehlin [02:36:52] You were 11.

Cindy Driggs [02:36:53] Oh, hey. They were always A huge challenge for me. Yeah, they were never fun. Ever, ever, ever. I. Yeah, I felt icky. I didn't feel cute ever. In garments.

Warren Driggs [02:37:05] Never really bothered me. I thought they were quite comfy, you know, I didn't have that big of a deal with them.

John Dehlin [02:37:10] How long did you end up wearing them?

Cindy Driggs [02:37:13] I wore them. We got married in 77. And then our. When our daughter was. I looked for any opportunity I could to take them off. And then when my daughter, our daughter was born in 85, I took off the top half and because I was nursing and then pretty soon it was just. And then I just says, hey, I'm done. I'm not wearing these anymore.

John Dehlin [02:37:34] So almost 10 years.

Cindy Driggs [02:37:35] Oh, yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah. I tried hard for a long time,

John Dehlin [02:37:40] but geez, in the summer.

Cindy Driggs [02:37:42] Hot, uncomfortable. Oh, oh gosh. Yeah, it's crazy.

Warren Driggs [02:37:49] So we were active, we were going to school. Cindy graduated from college. I entered College as a 21 year old married male with a 1.5 high school GPA. I don't know how I got into college, I can't remember, but I got into the University of Utah and I was a house painter and one of. Right, this is right after we were married. I was hired to paint the house of the patriarch of the church is. And his name was Smith, I think Eldridge or something like that. And he lived up, you know, and not in the avenues, but up in Olympus Cove area in East Salt Lake.

Warren Driggs [02:38:34] I'm painting the inside of his house and he knew that I was a Mormon and after a long day of painting says, hey, I'll show you something you might get a kick out of, you might think is pretty cool. So he takes me into a spare bedroom in his house, like a three bedroom home. And the spare bedroom had a closet, you know, with louver doors that you open.

Warren Driggs [02:38:57] I'm thinking, what's he going to show me? Opens these Louver doors and there's a box, like a shoe box up on the. The cabinet or up on the shelf and he pulls it down. He sits on the bed, opens the box and he pulls out a bloody shirt with bullet holes in it.

Warren Driggs [02:39:16] He said, this is Hyrum's shirt that he was martyred in. And he says, here, take it. I don't want you to try it on, but hold it up to yourself and I'll tell you that was. It was a moving experience because I was still a boy of faith. And I was sitting in this little bedroom holding up Hyrum's bloody shirt with bullet holes in him. That he was wearing in the Carthage jail. And it was very moving to me.

Warren Driggs [02:39:50] And I thought, well this bloody shirt is positive proof that the church must be true. I didn't really think that, but kind of weird. But at the same time, once again I was struck by how small and provincial it made my church same that this holy relic of this so called mainstream in their sort of dreams. But this worldwide church would have such a holy relic as Hyrum's bloody bullet ridden shirt. And I'm holding it in a spare bedroom.

John Dehlin [02:40:32] In a shoebox.

Warren Driggs [02:40:33] In a shoebox in his closet.

John Dehlin [02:40:36] Do you think it was real or do you think.

Warren Driggs [02:40:37] Oh yeah, well he was Hiram because the patriarch goes. Hiram was the first patriarch.

John Dehlin [02:40:43] Yeah. The more the. The church used to have like an official church patriarch, not just a stake patriarch, but like. And it had to be someone of blood lineage. It was Hiram tied back to. To one of the Smith family members.

Warren Driggs [02:40:58] So he had all of that, all of Hiram's possessions. And so that was his shirt and it was moving but at the same time, like I said, it made it seem kind of small. Like this. This is cool. But you know, now if I was holding this shroud of turin or something, that'd be kind of cool. But it wouldn't be in a shoebox, you know, behind some louver doors in a closet in the spare bedroom.

John Dehlin [02:41:25] I'm sure it's not there now hopefully.

Warren Driggs [02:41:27] Well, he's dead, I'm sure long dead. And I don't know what they do with it now. But that was his personal.

John Dehlin [02:41:32] Why they haven't pulled that out, I don't know.

Warren Driggs [02:41:35] I don't know. They finally let loose with the, with the magic rock.

John Dehlin [02:41:40] And so anybody knows where Hiram's bloodied bullet ridden shirt is, I want to let us know.

Carah Burrell [02:41:45] I want to create a Jurassic park where we clone the blood of Hiram and bring him to back to life and we'll have a Mormon Jurassic Park. Of all these Mormon men, I want

John Dehlin [02:41:56] to know is that. It's your church headquarters. Is that in the archives? Is that still in the Smith family possession? If anybody else has seen Hyam's bloody bullet ridden shirt, I want to hear about it. Email me, make a comment in the comments section on MormonStories.org okay.

Carah Burrell [02:42:13] Better not be cut up for rags or something. That's what my mom does.

John Dehlin [02:42:16] Oops. Oh, we used to for the.

Carah Burrell [02:42:18] That was Hiram's bloody shirt.

Warren Driggs [02:42:21] It was kind of cool though, I thought. But that is cool.

Discovering Critical Church History

John Dehlin [02:42:26] All right, so where does your story progress? How does your. Where does your Mormon story go.

Warren Driggs [02:42:31] It goes south or up?

Carah Burrell [02:42:34] I think we're sitting here.

Cindy Driggs [02:42:36] It goes to the moon. And.

Warren Driggs [02:42:39] And I have to. And I don't mean to hog all the airtime, but. But I have to give Cindy's dad props because he was an enlightened, worldly man who's an intellectual, and I was painting his house. I was a painter, right? And he would kind of needle me a little bit, you know, like, what about this and what about that? And I kind of blew him off, like, well, you're just stupid. I mean, what do you know? I know beyond a shadow of a

John Dehlin [02:43:15] doubt he didn't serve a mission, right? Because he was a veteran, right?

Warren Driggs [02:43:18] And he said, I want you to read a book. And I. And he said, and. And here it is. And because I was a pleaser, I took it home. But I didn't read it. It was Fon Brody's.

John Dehlin [02:43:31] What's the title?

Warren Driggs [02:43:32] No Man Knows.

John Dehlin [02:43:33] I mean, I say all the way,

Warren Driggs [02:43:35] no Man Knows My History by Fon Brody. By Fawn Brody. And I didn't want to read it for several reasons. First of all, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction that he could somehow injure my faith, because I was much stronger than that. My faith was impenetrable. Secondly, I didn't want to read it because I thought it might be. Well, it may not be faith promoting. And anything sold outside a Deseret book, of course, I would be on the slippery slide to apostasy. And I didn't want to take that ride. But after about six months, on a lark, I decided to read it.

Carah Burrell [02:44:18] And.

Warren Driggs [02:44:18] Holy shit.

John Dehlin [02:44:19] Do you remember how old you were at that point?

Warren Driggs [02:44:22] Mid-20s.

John Dehlin [02:44:23] Okay.

Warren Driggs [02:44:24] It changed.

John Dehlin [02:44:25] He had a couple kids by that point, probably.

Carah Burrell [02:44:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:44:29] Okay. And you're living where?

Cindy Driggs [02:44:32] Living in Sandy, Utah. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:44:35] All right.

Warren Driggs [02:44:36] That book was a life changing moment for me because some people can read that sort of book and it doesn't affect them. In fact, I know a lot of people that remain devout that read the CES letter or whatever, and somehow they're Teflon. It doesn't bug them. It bugged me. So much so that I wanted to prove her wrong. Like, that didn't happen. And that's nonsense.

John Dehlin [02:45:11] Prove Fon Brody wrong. Sure.

Warren Driggs [02:45:13] How dare you. Right. So I decided to peek under the covers a little bit, and that led me on my journey. And what happens is like, can I just jump in?

John Dehlin [02:45:26] I will never pass up an opportunity to talk about this book. So F.A. mcKay Brody was David O. McKay's niece, David O. McKay was a Mormon prophet, one of the longest serving Mormon prophets, I think, in history. Beloved prophet. He had a niece who in the late 30s, early 40s, decided that she was going to get to the bottom of the truth about Joseph smith. And by 1945 she releases this book, the definitive, to this day, the best biography ever written on Joseph, Joseph Smith. The most factual, the most truthful, the most gripping, the most interesting, the most compelling, the most persuasive. It is, you know, Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling.

John Dehlin [02:46:06] Can't hold a candle to Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My History. In fact, her book is the most quoted source in Rough Stone Rolling. And so she releases this book in 1945. What an OG. Not only is she David O. McKay's niece, she's a woman. And then she is a top notch historian. She goes on to work at UCLA as a tenured faculty history.

Carah Burrell [02:46:29] All of this while a young mother. Just gotta like put that in there too. She's so badass.

John Dehlin [02:46:33] Yeah. So she releases this book in 1945 and if you think about 80% of what the CES letter has, it can, it's all in there. And somehow this shows how powerful the church is, how powerful what we call milieu control is. It's a technique for high demand religions or, or cults, frankly, where they are so good at controlling sources of information that a book like this can exist, it can be a great book, it can be a life changing book. And most Mormons not only will never have read it, but most of them will never, to this day to 2021 will never have heard of it. And if you had heard of it, you would have known this is an evil, evil, evil book that you should never read.

Warren Driggs [02:47:18] Right.

John Dehlin [02:47:18] And this is how Mormons remain in ignorance. But listeners, if you have not read no Man Knows My History, literally pause this episode. Stop listening to Mormon stories. Go read no Man Knows My History. And we need to hire someone to fund an audiobook for no Man Knows My History. Yeah, the rights are owned by, I think Alfred Knoff books. We need to find out how to get either we need to have a bootleg copy of Alan Mount reading no Man Knows My History, or we need to go back and find the agent. Whoever owns the rights get permission. Because once Mormonism has an audio copy of no Man Knows My History, things will change. And I'm sorry for that little, that, that side, that side rant, but it's a really important book. So having said all that.

Warren Driggs [02:48:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:48:10] Warren, Driggs can you remember some of the things you read in that book that you had either not believed and. Or had never heard before? Well, most that were influential to you.

Warren Driggs [02:48:20] Most of that I'd never heard, of course. And with all due respect, I want to echo what you said with all due respect to Brother Bushman, whose Rough Stone is. Is an incredible work too. Fawn Brody has no peer and. And she's also written other books, by the way. Anyway, she's written a classic biography on Thomas Jefferson and others, but she's a rock star. And I read that book and the thing that I mean, within the first several pages, I was dumbstruck by her fraudulent portrayal of the translation process of

John Dehlin [02:48:55] the Book of Mormon because she claimed

Warren Driggs [02:48:58] head and a hat and the magic rock and the whole thing, it was like, like. And Martin Harris was such a dipshit and it. I. These were. Sorry, these were revered saints of Mormonism. And here's this south park basically portrayal of Martin Harris, like, wow, dum dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. And. But that I thought, well, Anyway, so I devoured that. If you saw my copy of Rough Stone Rolling, I might have a dog eared page or two.

Warren Driggs [02:49:43] But if you saw my original copy of no Man Knows My History, it is dog eared. It is worn. It's kind of. The pages are falling out. I have, because I just. I didn't just read it. I studied it because I wanted to know. I never did that before that I never studied to know the church was true.

Warren Driggs [02:50:11] My exercise wasn't necessarily to prove that the church was true, but it was just like, then I'm learning all about the mummy scrolls and I'm thinking, I was so dumb, I thought those were the Dead Sea Scrolls. And I didn't quite get the whole mummy thing. And she's telling about some guy in a covered wagon with some Egyptian mummies and their scrolls come rolling through Kirtland and he's. It was like, really?

Warren Driggs [02:50:38] Well, I was so troubled. I remember talking to my brother, who's on our paint crew, and we're both reading this together and kind of like, yikes. If this is even 2% true. We've been lied to. This is complete and utter bullshit. And why weren't we told?

Warren Driggs [02:51:03] Why don't other people know about this? And when they find out, why aren't they as horrified as we are? That remains a mystery to me why they aren't more troubled. I was troubled, but I didn't want to give Cindy's dad credit because for some reason I thought that that would.

Warren Driggs [02:51:24] I don't know why it didn't, but I kind of hid that. But then I'd. Maybe because he was such a scholar on Mormon history and he was in the Swearing Elders and the sterling McMurra and Brigh Madsen that Cindy made reference to. So then it kind of crept out that I was losing my faith, and I Talked to Sterling McMurran about my faith.

John Dehlin [02:51:50] How'd you know Sterling McMurran?

Warren Driggs [02:51:51] Because Cindy's dad was his buddy.

John Dehlin [02:51:54] Whoa. He really was.

Cindy Driggs [02:51:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:55] He connected with the Swearing Elders.

Warren Driggs [02:51:57] Yeah, yeah. They went to lunch every week.

John Dehlin [02:51:59] And for those who don't know what I'm talking about, we did talk about this in the Rod Decker interview a little bit. Swearing Elders was a group of secular Mormon intellectuals that were faculty at the University of Utah and who would. Would sometimes hold these meetings where they would talk about secular things. Right. And even ask controversial questions. As early as the early 60s, as I understand it.

Warren Driggs [02:52:25] Well, Sterling McMurran, again, like von Brody, has no peer and. But he was.

John Dehlin [02:52:32] So you got to meet him.

Warren Driggs [02:52:34] Oh, yeah. He was not threatening. He was so nice and he was so normal and he was like a grandpa sort of guy. And. And I remember I was so troubled and this is how dumb I was.

John Dehlin [02:52:47] So your dad said, I'll hook you up with stuff.

Warren Driggs [02:52:48] Yeah, well, so I met him and I. And he's looking this dumb little 28 year old, and I'm basically saying, well, Mr. McMurran, do you know that there was a rock in the hat? You know, I'm trying because I just want to burst forth with this knowledge. And he smiled and he looked at me and we talked for many. And I said, how. How do you do it? How do you remain a member of the church, given all that, you know. And I will never forget what he said. And it really affected me because I was on the verge of veering toward anger and betrayal, and I was perilously close to being really pissed. And I'll never forget what he told me. He said, warren, I remain a member of the church and I still like to talk about this stuff because it is so fun.

John Dehlin [02:53:58] It is fun.

Warren Driggs [02:53:59] That was his thing. And I said, now what do you mean fun? Why is this fun? And he said, this is so much fun. And I would caution you, young man, if you can approach it that way, that it is fun and not take it so personally and don't be angry. I can understand why you might be tempted to be angry, but don't be angry. And a few days later, I met the guy at the library at University of Utah who was one of the Dr. Attia or something like that, who's one of the early guys who translated the.

John Dehlin [02:54:42] The papyru.

Warren Driggs [02:54:43] The papyrus. Yeah, of course, is before the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone actually was available, but they didn't know about it on the prairie in Kirtland. So I said, so have you. Have you actually read them? Because you're an Egyptologist.

John Dehlin [02:54:57] This is a U of U professor, right?

Warren Driggs [02:54:59] He says, yeah, I've read them. And this one, I was wavering. I said, well, what do they say? And he laughed and he said, well, it's sort of silly. I remember thinking, wow, you've actually read them. So they don't say. They don't address Kolob, you know, the orb and all.

Warren Driggs [02:55:26] So Sterling McMurran. And just those few words from a person like that was very impactful in my life. And I determined at that point point that I was going to learn everything I could about our history. And I have become something of a historian and I love it.

Warren Driggs [02:55:46] I don't get angry sometimes. I get frustrated. I get frustrated by the concerted effort to whitewash our history. That bugs me. But then I think, yeah, just let it go. It's fun. And Warren, if you can remember that it's fun and not have a chip on your shoulder, your life will be so much better. And you know what? I think he was dead. Right? So that's kind of where I am. And then you can tell about.

John Dehlin [02:56:22] Well, just really quickly. One of the really interesting things, things in David O. McKay's Rise of Modern Mormonism is that at one point, one of the apostles had it out for sternly McMurran and they were gunning for his excommunication. And I think it was David O. McKay that said, leave him alone.

Warren Driggs [02:56:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:56:39] So David O. McKay intervened on behalf of sternly McMurran to keep him from being excommunicated, even though he didn't do that for his own niece.

Warren Driggs [02:56:45] Right.

John Dehlin [02:56:46] Because I guess she had crossed a

Warren Driggs [02:56:47] bridge too far, I think.

John Dehlin [02:56:49] But that's, you know, that's interesting that Sterling was lucky that he rolled the. When he rolled his ecclesiastical roulette or whatever, he had the right prophet.

Warren Driggs [02:57:01] My guess is that had they excommunicated him, he would have had fun with it. I don't think he would have been angry. I don't think he would have stomped his foot down. I think he would have really enjoyed the court. And he Would have had fun with it.

John Dehlin [02:57:19] Well, he was smarter than all of them.

Warren Driggs [02:57:21] He was smarter than all of them put together, and a brilliant man, and so was Cindy's dad. These were intellectuals, none of whom remained believers. Because I shouldn't say this, because I know a lot of smart people who remain believers, and it would be disingenuous, and it would be unfair for me to call them stupid. Stupid, because they're not stupid. But it is a puzzle to me how someone so smart could maintain their belief in the golden plates and could maintain their belief in all this stuff that we're talking about when they know. They. They know. When I was going through this, Cindy and I, we were old school research, and I kind of expect a badge for that because.

John Dehlin [02:58:15] What do you mean by that?

Warren Driggs [02:58:16] What I mean by that is it was an effort to find this information.

John Dehlin [02:58:21] You just Google it. CES letter.

Warren Driggs [02:58:23] No Mormon stories. I kind of think it's cheating to just read the CES letter and go, well, that man. There was no Internet or anything. We'd go down to the lighthouse ministry and just search through their books and read old diaries. And that was

John Dehlin [02:58:41] my journal Discourses volumes, right?

Warren Driggs [02:58:45] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:46] Church history. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Warren Driggs [02:58:48] All of it. And by the way, there's a lot of stuff in the journal Discourses. It's just crazy. And Joseph Smith's journals, which are like, wow, didn't know that. But the first visions and all that. I remember talking to Sterling McMurran about that. Say, did you know there's more than one first vision? And again, he just looked at me, and I was aware of that. He was very, very nice person, though.

John Dehlin [02:59:14] But anyway, Cindy, let me ask. So, number one, this was your dad. And then your dad's rubbing elbows with all these Mormon intellectuals, and then you had spent all these years trying to become the model Mormon wife and mom, even though you never really were able to gain that testimony, but you were like, you know, you committed to it, and we're trying to live it. And then all of a sudden, your husband started to question it and doubt it. And it's under your dad's influence. I would love to hear. Kind of like, we can even go back in time. Do you want to share what that whole thing was like for you?

Cindy Driggs [02:59:57] Well, that's exactly it. I just felt like I had to. I knew how smart my father was and intellectual, well read. He knew Mormon history very well. And I just felt like I had kind of put on my blinders and thought, okay, I'm going to Go with it, because that's what I've committed to. And so I'm going to live the Mormon life. And then when Warren came to me and said he was having doubts, it was like, oh, okay.

John Dehlin [03:00:41] Were you afraid? Were you excited? How did you feel?

Cindy Driggs [03:00:43] No, I wasn't afraid. I. I think I. I'm not sure exactly. I was just. I was open to that. I'll just say I was open to that. And I didn't just believe the church, and it was tough to live that that way. And I. I didn't have a testimony, and I was not a believer.

John Dehlin [03:01:07] Were you troubled that you didn't have a testimony? Did you feel like it was you, like you were the problem?

Cindy Driggs [03:01:13] Maybe a little bit. Yes. Yes. And I, I tried to. I went to church. I did. Did the whole Mormon lifestyle, and it just. I. I was troubled. It was.

John Dehlin [03:01:25] Did you ever go to your parents or Warren and say, I just. I'm trying to believe and I just can't get the witness or I just can't. Or did you just keep that to your. To yourself?

Cindy Driggs [03:01:36] I kind of kept it to myself. I kind of kept it to myself.

John Dehlin [03:01:39] Is that a burden?

Warren Driggs [03:01:41] Or you just didn't take it too seriously?

Cindy Driggs [03:01:42] Yes, yes. And then I would say that. And for example, we didn't drink or did any of that. But when I was in college, I started to drink coffee because I'd get up at 7:45 classes. It's like, oh, man.

Cindy Driggs [03:02:01] So I'd start to drink coffee in college, and then. And then we get married in the temple. Can't do this. So start with the Diet Coke in the morning. And then a couple years into my marriage, I thought, this Diet Coke stuff is so bad. I mean, this is bad stuff I'm drinking. I'd be much better off to drink coffee in the morning.

Cindy Driggs [03:02:23] So I started sneaking a little coffee. And so Warren would go to school or work, and I'd just fix a cup of coffee and I'd feel a whole lot better. And I didn't feel guilty about it, but I kind of kept it all to myself.

Cindy Driggs [03:02:40] That was sort of my way of dealing with this. But when he came to me and he was having doubts, it was really easy for me to let it go because I'd never had a testimony.

John Dehlin [03:02:51] To let what go?

Cindy Driggs [03:02:52] Let the Mormonism go.

John Dehlin [03:02:53] Oh, yeah, that was not a hard thing for you, right?

Cindy Driggs [03:02:57] In fact, speaking of Fawn Brody, one of her quotes was, when she left the Mormon Church, it was like taking off a fur coat on a hot summer. Day. And I felt that way too. It just felt really good.

Cindy Driggs [03:03:17] Even though I was not a strong believer, it just felt good to let it go. And then another story about Sterling McMurran is my dad. When he was close to his deathbed and he said to Sterling, hey, if you get up there and there really is an eternity, will you come back and let me know? I want to know if there's life after death.

Cindy Driggs [03:03:45] And my dad always says, nope, never came back. Guess there's no life after death. So anyway, I felt like I. Because I was the one who dragged Warren down because of my father and because Warren married a girl who wasn't a believing Mormon or just my family, I sort of felt like I needed to hang on to the church going and play the game when Warren was out. So I did. I did for a while. I took the kids and he didn't go, oh, wow.

Warren Driggs [03:04:26] Yeah, you kept it up for a

Cindy Driggs [03:04:29] short period of time. And then that kind of went south too. That was tough. It's tough to have a toe in the church because it just doesn't work.

John Dehlin [03:04:39] Well, your dad did it, your parents did it.

Cindy Driggs [03:04:42] Yeah, they did it.

Warren Driggs [03:04:43] That's true.

Cindy Driggs [03:04:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:04:44] So what was different?

Cindy Driggs [03:04:45] Maybe it was easier back then. I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:04:49] Can we jump into that for just a second? Okay, I'm going to make a weird analogy, but hopefully it'll make some sense. Kerry, you can tell me if I'm totally off here. So. So I studied US presidents, kind of mid 20th century US presidents. I don't know why, but I really got in Teddy Roosevelt and then FDR and then eventually JFK and then Lyndon B. Johnson. And one of the things that blew me away was, you know, because I was studying US Presidents during the time of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. And how, you know, he. He has.

Warren Driggs [03:05:22] He didn't have sex with her.

John Dehlin [03:05:23] You know, he gets a. Oral sex in the Oval Office with an intern, and it's like the world comes unglued. So as I'm experiencing that, watching that in history, I'm reading about, like, jfk. And you read about JFK and he was sleeping with like, all the women in the White House. Like, all of them. Like, in fact, one of the. The. One of the memoirs I read basically said that, like, when he had a cold sore, you could almost guarantee his secretaries would have cold sores. Like, that's. That was jfk. But there was this understanding in the press corps that that's something you would never ever talk about in the press and there was just this, I'll just say gentleman's agreement that, like, it's off limits, you know, that's.

John Dehlin [03:06:11] And that had nothing to do with how good of a president he was or what kind of man he was or even. And his integrity. That's just kind of the way thing things were. Now, this isn't me saying that that's good or bad or that, you know, but it's this idea that we. I grew up with this idea that like every new year we're getting more immoral as a society, more laxed. Right. As a society. And it's rock and roll and it's satanic rock music and AC DC and Led Zeppelin and Madonna and Prince and the world's coming unglued. Right.

John Dehlin [03:06:46] But once I started reading about history, I realized that like, the 50s and 60s in many ways were kind of more sophisticated than we are now. That Somehow in the 80s and 90s we got more puritanical and more evangelical.

John Dehlin [03:07:03] Whereas in the 50s, 60s and 70s, maybe 50s and 60s, we somehow were more sophisticated and progressive and even more tolerant as a society. And I don't know how to make sense of that, but when I hear you guys talk about Cindy, your dad and your parents type of Mormonism, it's just a very different thing. It's like, we'll just be discreet. I'll have my scotch every night, drink coffee on the side. Still send my kids to church. They're not coming unglued about the truth claims. They don't even.

John Dehlin [03:07:34] They're not even afraid of you being raised in the church. It's just like, yeah, this is just part of the. The thing we do as a culture. And I've heard other prominent Mormon families the same thing. Yeah, we don't believe, but we're not going to make a big stink about that. And we're still going to send our kids on missions. And some of them even like go on missions knowing that it's not really true. But this is just kind of what Mormons do.

Warren Driggs [03:07:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:07:57] And it's a very different mentality than the way we're sitting in 2021, where it's like, I'm not going to dare let. Let the Mormon church influence my daughters. And the church is corrupt and it's a cult and they betrayed me and we got to get out of here and take everyone we can with us.

John Dehlin [03:08:16] Can we? Like, was that approach better? Like, almost. Warren, you're talking about Sterling McMorin's approach as if it was almost like cooler and More sophisticated. And that the inference then is that, like, now we're too uptight, that we're taking it too literally, too seriously, and that it's not the big deal that Jeremy Runnels and me and Carah and a lot of the ex Mormon Internet are making it. And I'm just trying to. I don't want to, like, derail our conversation, but, like, this is the same. This is the same conversation I had with Rod Decker. He's like, oh, yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't for me. Like, wasn't for you.

John Dehlin [03:08:52] He's like, yeah, it wasn't a big deal. Like, wasn't a big deal. This is the biggest deal ever. Informed consent. And I know I'm getting ran into here, but it's like, nowadays I feel like it's the biggest deal. Like, it's 10% of your income. It's your life.

John Dehlin [03:09:06] It's shame. And it's, you know, people deserve to have the information and to make conscious choices of their own free will. And then the church isn't true, and that's a scandal. But even Sterling McMurran didn't agree with me. And I'm trying to make. I'm trying to bridge that because I respect the guy and I respect you guys and I respect your dad. Even though I never met him, he was a totally different mindset. Help me understand it.

Cindy Driggs [03:09:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:09:30] Well, who's right?

Warren Driggs [03:09:32] I would push back on that. I, I what? On what? You said that the church is becoming more intolerant. Or you didn't say it that way, but I would say that back in the day, there was more orthodoxy and a more a commitment to orthodoxy. I think Sterling McMurran and Cindy's dad, they were the exception to the rule. And now.

John Dehlin [03:09:58] But they weren't excommunicated for apostasy.

Warren Driggs [03:10:00] No, they weren't.

John Dehlin [03:10:01] Now, if you now, if you make the wrong Facebook or Instagram post, you're in a disciplinary council, right?

Warren Driggs [03:10:07] Yeah, And I would welcome that. I'm. Yeah. In fact, I was rooting for that. I wrote a book about Joseph Smith and I thought, man, this maybe will get me in front of a court. But. But it didn't. Because I don't think they wanted to mess with it. But I think that maybe.

Gradual Disillusionment and Fading Belief

Warren Driggs [03:10:26] I know a lot more casual, disbelieving Mormons now than way back then. I think right now there's an erosion of faith that's well known. And it's not just Mormonism, it's Christianity. It's religion as a whole. I believe that erosion of faith might account for our hand wringing today.

Warren Driggs [03:10:57] Because those who are determined to believe are ever more threatened. They are no longer the majority. They no longer have the high moral road that they once climbed, in my opinion. And so as a consequence, those who stay in are doubly determined to double down. And it's right.

Warren Driggs [03:11:21] Back then when I was a child, if there was an inactive Mormon, that was unusual. I thought so I think there's more casual Mormons today. But there is a fear within the church and a rightful fear that this got to go a different direction. It's got to go quickly because it's losing faith. I look at my. I have 82 cousins, okay?

John Dehlin [03:11:56] First cousins, first cousins.

Warren Driggs [03:11:58] I could name them all, believe it or not. I'll have the good judgment not to do that right now because.

Carah Burrell [03:12:03] But Mormon stories are supposed to be long. Do it warranty?

Warren Driggs [03:12:07] No. But I would say of those 82 cousins who are between the ages of, let's say, 80 and 60 or whatever, maybe 10 of them maybe are out of the church. There may be another percentage that are in, but the next generation. My parents had 50 grandchildren. Fully half of them are no longer Mormon. My prediction is that their children, it will be 10%. It's just not sustainable today with the advent of science and the Internet, it's just. And so the Mormon church is frantically changing, trying to make it more modern. Let's inch the garments up, let's do whatever we can to take the veil

John Dehlin [03:13:11] away from the women's faces.

Warren Driggs [03:13:12] Yeah, let's try and make it more

John Dehlin [03:13:14] modern, make more ceremony less creepy.

Warren Driggs [03:13:16] My guess is that within a year or two, women, for example, in the church will be allowed to be the executive secretary in the ward and they will allow people to drink coffee. I mean, I had in my mission the most beautiful people that were ready to be baptized, but they couldn't give up coffee.

Carah Burrell [03:13:42] So expanding into Asia with tea, they

Warren Driggs [03:13:46] lost their chance at salvation. Dang it. So they're screwed forevermore. I don't. I don't think that that's sustainable either. I think that they will continue to modernize it because what's happened, as you know, we used to take great pride in that. We are a peculiar people, but we don't want to be that peculiar. We want to be mainstream. And so as a concession to mainstream, we're going to change and tweak. And it's inevitable, of course, women will have the priesthood. I don't know when, but within a decade or something, it just seems inconceivable. That they won't. They have to. And same sex marriage and those issues will become mainstream and they will be fine. They have to, and so they will.

Carah Burrell [03:14:30] The church gives into progress when they can no longer prevent it. It's an old phrase.

Warren Driggs [03:14:35] Sure.

John Dehlin [03:14:36] So let me ask you this way. You guys chose a different path than your parents. Cindy, you certainly, as you certainly. And you said you came, kept going when he had stopped, but you certainly could have just said, look, Warren, have your coffee, have your scotch. I'll have my coffee now. I don't have to hide it, but let's keep sending our kids to church like your parents did to you. Let's keep going long enough to kind of maintain our membership, maybe keep a temple recommend, but, you know, privately. Maybe not wear the garments all the time or even some of the time, but let's have that, that public Mormon face, But then the private secular life.

John Dehlin [03:15:16] Let's be cosmopolitan Mormons in name only, like my parents, but live and live it enough to create the appearance of club membership and just pass that on. Why did I want to hear from both of you? Why did you not carry on that tradition of cosmopolitan Mormons in name only? You called it peripheral moments.

Cindy Driggs [03:15:43] Well, so for a short period of time, I hung in there because I didn't want to be the one that pulled him down. And we'd have the kids. We'd go with the kids for a period of time and then we got tired of going and so we had the kids go a little bit. But that's just not right. I mean, if we're not going.

John Dehlin [03:16:10] Works for you.

Cindy Driggs [03:16:11] Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I wanted to. I wanted to. That was part of my social life. But for our kids, you wanted to. I wanted to. I wanted to. But we sent them for a while.

John Dehlin [03:16:23] Were they in Utah? Salt Lake?

Cindy Driggs [03:16:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:16:26] So you're on holiday by this point?

Cindy Driggs [03:16:28] Yes, we'd moved to holiday and we really wanted them.

John Dehlin [03:16:31] Cool Mormon kids and holidays.

Cindy Driggs [03:16:32] Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Great neighborhood, great friends, and there's that sense of community and moving to a new home. I was really anxious to get involved, get the boys in scout troops, find babysitters and just network with the community. I really felt like I needed that and wanted that. So we did that for a while and. And then when we'd send the kids to church, they would. It wasn't about. It's like, oh, good, they'll go and learn about Jesus and how to be kind. It wasn't any of that. It was worshipping the authorities and it was, don't drink Coffee. And then they come home and they see their mom drinking coffee. And it became. Instead of, oh, it's a good thing, we're going to hang in there. It moved on to be a negative

John Dehlin [03:17:30] thing, that it might not be good

Cindy Driggs [03:17:32] for them, that it might not be good for them. And I felt like they were living with judgment. What they were learning with their church was racism, sexism, judgment, homophobia. And that wasn't what I wanted. Why would I send my children there when I didn't believe that? So they could have gone. I mean, we. But, you know, when we said, hey, we're going on a hike Sunday. Do you want to go do that or go to church? Well, yeah, go on the hike.

Warren Driggs [03:18:09] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [03:18:10] So it took care of itself. And I will say this, that. But the kids did really well. And they were all baptized when our youngest got to. We were way out by then, but we did. Just because all of his friends. Holiday, Utah. All of his friends were Mormon. But the kids did really well. And I really feel like. I know some parents are afraid to leave because they can't raise moral, kind children. I think we did, and I think we did a great job. And they're kind, loving, nice people. Live with the Golden Rule. What's more important than that? And that was sort of our philosophy.

Warren Driggs [03:18:59] Boy, I echo everything you just said. We went through a period of time where I knew beyond a shadow of doubt the church was true and it was good. And then I went through a phase where I thought, well, it's not true, but it's good.

Warren Driggs [03:19:15] And then I came full circle and said, well, neither is it true nor is it good, because any organization or group that permits intolerance, racism, sexism, and all these things is bad on its face. And how can I belong to a group or an organization that stands for that? We send our kids to school. Sunday school. What'd you learn about. Well, I learned that Brigham Young and John Taylor. And it's like, oh, for the love of. So that wasn't good. Almost anathema to me.

Warren Driggs [03:19:53] I couldn't stand that. And it bugs me. This is where I get a little bit bitter. It bugs me that the church. And I'll even go beyond the Mormon Church, Christianity, religion, claims authorship, a virtue. The notion that Joseph Smith somehow was responsible for engendering virtue, honesty, goodness, whatever, obeying the law and stuff is so offensive. As if he's the author of that. As if Jesus is the author of that. These things existed long before that, naturally. So it just kind of bugged me that if you're not a Mormon, you can't be good. And so when we left the faith, people waited with bated breath.

Warren Driggs [03:20:52] Okay, let's see what happens. Their marriage is going to fall apart. Their kids are going to become obvious drug addicts. Their lives will be unhappy. And I'll be honest, I think it sort of bugged them that that didn't happen because they expected that. It's like, wait a minute, they can still lead normal lives. They still live. They love each other. They still volunteer for the pta, they. They don't cheat on their taxes any more than anybody else. I don't at all. For the record, where's the camera? But I. I was almost a little bit surprised by that.

Warren Driggs [03:21:37] I was surprised. When I reflected back, it's like, oh, wait a minute. This may sound really arrogant. I think I'm a bit better person without the Church. Not only did it not diminish me, it enhanced me because I was no longer as intolerant as judgmental I was. But, boy, I'll tell you, people scattered from us the way people scatter when somebody vomits and they don't want to be splashed on.

Quietly Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [03:22:08] Yeah, let's talk about that. Because in 2021, and it's still hard to leave the church, but it's becoming so common that, you know, the church and orthodox Mormons are just having to get used to it. Leaving the church in the 80s in Holiday, Utah, I imagine that might have been intense. So what social and familial repercussions did you guys experience once you left?

Cindy Driggs [03:22:35] Well, I would say to that what Warren was talking about, that when we did, I was a little Molly Mormon for a good 10 years. And when we did leave and I took off the garments and we were done, I experienced less from where I was coming. How I look at people, much less judgmental, much kinder, much.

John Dehlin [03:23:05] You were towards other.

Cindy Driggs [03:23:06] Yes. I just. In my head, I wasn't. There was something about when you see someone with garments, it's like, oh, yeah, they're one of us. Yeah, you can identify with them. But when there was none of that anymore, it's like, hey, we're all just people and we're all trying to live our life. And I felt much more free to not be perfect and to.

Warren Driggs [03:23:31] That's how you felt about them? How do you think they felt about you?

Cindy Driggs [03:23:35] Oh, well, they didn't want to be around me because I, yeah, I was poisoned.

John Dehlin [03:23:40] But did you really feel like you were to them in their eyes?

Cindy Driggs [03:23:44] They, oh, I'm sure they did.

John Dehlin [03:23:47] Was there ward members, people, neighbors? Like, who is this?

Cindy Driggs [03:23:50] Yeah, there would be kids that our children would be playing with that I could feel that they. There was judgment there.

Warren Driggs [03:24:00] How about our nieces and nephews? Boy, were they wary.

Cindy Driggs [03:24:03] Don't get around warm.

Warren Driggs [03:24:05] They can infect you.

Cindy Driggs [03:24:06] Oh, yeah.

Warren Driggs [03:24:06] And even though we never tried, we don't have a soapbox about it.

Cindy Driggs [03:24:10] And of course, no one ever asked us. I mean, I think that. I think many, many Mormons do not want to even ask because they don't want to know and they're afraid of maybe what you may say, so they just don't ask. All the years we've been out, we've rarely been asked.

Carah Burrell [03:24:28] Never.

Cindy Driggs [03:24:29] Yeah, no one ever asked.

Warren Driggs [03:24:30] As big a deal as it was to leave the Church for us and our family and our network and everything, as big a deal as that was, not one person asked us why. I know they speculated, and I know they gossiped, and I know they were wary of us.

Warren Driggs [03:24:50] And I'll tell you what else they were. This is just my opinion. Maybe I'm lying, but they were jealous of us. There was a certain segment of the population that was jealous of us because take my best friend from high school who remains a Mormon bishop to this day. Great guy. Dear, dear friend. When I left the faith, he said, call Warren. You are so lucky.

Warren Driggs [03:25:18] I said, really? I'm surprised to hear you say that. I'm lucky. He says, yeah, you're so lucky. Now that you no longer have a testimony that the Church is true, you can screw chicks, you can rob banks, you can do whatever you want. I'm looking at him like, oh, my gosh, is that what you would do? I mean, it was startling to me to have an adult say that and mean it. They were jealous. Like, wow, you just got a 10% raise and you don't have to wear a garment, and you can ski on Sunday. And I think there was a bit of jealousy about that.

Warren Driggs [03:25:56] And there was also just enormous misunderstanding, as if we had a soapbox. We weren't trying to. You know, we went for years. We didn't try and persuade anybody about anything. Hell, what do we know?

John Dehlin [03:26:13] You were viewed as a threat, though, by.

Warren Driggs [03:26:15] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:26:16] Did you feel like. Like, for me there, you know, there are, let's just say, in laws who won't literally be in the same room as me, who don't want their children near me. If I come to their house, they leave. Like, that's. That's how bad it is with me now. Part of that is probably because I have a podcast and I've been excommunicated. And, you know, I. I do this for a living, and I think that's disturbing. So was it that severe for you guys or somewhere close to that, or was it just more what was said behind your backs, but you still got together for, you know, family reunions or family dinners and still maintained some social connection and some. Even some familial intimacy, or were there real breaks or disruptions in relationships?

Cindy Driggs [03:27:12] I would say we were pretty quiet about it. And we slowly left. And even with the garments, we, you know, for a long time, we'd wear clothes that you couldn't see that we weren't wearing them. And it was a process.

Warren Driggs [03:27:26] Kind of a tapered taper.

Cindy Driggs [03:27:27] We tapered off slowly.

John Dehlin [03:27:29] You were discreet?

Cindy Driggs [03:27:30] We were discreet about it. And we didn't make a big production announcement.

John Dehlin [03:27:35] You didn't write some letter to everybody? I'm resigning, and here's why. Here's my 95 theses.

Cindy Driggs [03:27:41] Not at all. And then with the children, we made it sort of mandatory that they went away to college out of state, because we just wanted them to be exposed to new ideas and different ideas instead of, you know, holiday Utah.

John Dehlin [03:28:01] What states did they.

Cindy Driggs [03:28:04] They went to Arizona and California to school and Great experiences.

John Dehlin [03:28:09] It's expensive, though.

Cindy Driggs [03:28:10] Yeah, it was expensive. I hope it was worth it.

Warren Driggs [03:28:13] One thing that helped our transition, I think, was at the same time we were transitioning out, we started to meet a lot of friends who are not Mormon because our kids went to Roland Hall.

John Dehlin [03:28:26] Oh, so they went to a prison. Private school.

Warren Driggs [03:28:28] Yeah. And so for a brief period of time. So then we were introduced to people

John Dehlin [03:28:33] that Salt Lake has non Mormons, A couple of them.

Warren Driggs [03:28:36] And we met them and I'm joking.

John Dehlin [03:28:39] For those who don't know now Salt Lake is more non Mormon than Mormon.

Warren Driggs [03:28:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:43] And that's just the demographic change that's happened in the past few years. So Salt Lake's more non Mormon than Mormon.

Warren Driggs [03:28:48] Yeah. So it was a challenge, especially not with Cindy's family, who celebrated our lack of faith. They celebrated it.

John Dehlin [03:28:58] They did.

Warren Driggs [03:28:58] Well, yeah, they did.

John Dehlin [03:29:00] They were happy.

Cindy Driggs [03:29:00] Yes, Cindy. Go, Warren. It's about time.

Warren Driggs [03:29:04] Let me introduce you to this really expensive bottle of whatever. And. Because they're. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:29:10] But was that fun?

Warren Driggs [03:29:12] Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was great. It still is after all these years. My family, though, hardly celebrated it. And did they blame Cindy? No.

John Dehlin [03:29:27] That's good.

Warren Driggs [03:29:27] I don't think so.

Cindy Driggs [03:29:29] A little bit.

Warren Driggs [03:29:29] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [03:29:30] Maybe they should have blamed me more with my dad.

Warren Driggs [03:29:35] Yeah, but I remember even my. My amazing mother, right before she died, she wanted to have one more conversation with me. And this was because I knew that she wanted to talk about the church. I knew that that was code for I want to bear my testimony to you. And I said, mom, tell you what, I'd love to come and talk to you. I'd love to have a conversation about the church.

Warren Driggs [03:30:03] I would like to know if going into our conversation, you would acknowledge the remote possibility that maybe something I believe in, even though it disagrees with you, is something that you would accept. Even the remote possibility that I might be right.

Warren Driggs [03:30:22] My mom said, warren, I love you so much, but I couldn't do that. I said, you couldn't do what? You couldn't acknowledge even the remote possibility that, you know. And she said, no, I'm sorry, I couldn't do that. So I went over and she bore her testimony to me because I'm a dutiful son and it was fine. But how did that make me feel that my own mother would have probably wished me dead rather than lose my faith because it was okay you felt that way. Yeah, well, I know that's true.

Warren Driggs [03:30:54] And it was. I've decided it's only because she loved me so much that she didn't want me to go to hell. And so she would have much rather me died, hopefully in a painless way like carbon monoxide, poison or something. But, yeah, then lose my faith. I mean, this is a generational boo boo. This is huge.

Warren Driggs [03:31:17] But I would say that leaving the faith was so hard because now a lot of people who have now since recently lost their faith are coming out of the woodwork and we're some of the first people they call and they will report back to us like, oh, we are so sorry the way we judged you. Do you know how many people talked about you guys? Do you know how many people gossiped for years that wrote you off? I am so sorry. And we've had a lot of those conversations and.

Warren Driggs [03:31:50] But, you know, we. For so many years, we'd go to the temple to see our siblings get. My siblings get married, the nieces and nephews, and of course would wait outside like you do. And the other day.

John Dehlin [03:32:04] What's that like to wait outside?

Warren Driggs [03:32:06] Now I. Now I feel better about. Because I don't feel like a dumbass, you know, going in, with all due respect, of course.

John Dehlin [03:32:13] How did it feel at the time, though? What's the social.

Warren Driggs [03:32:17] It was. It was sort. The first few times it was embarrassing because, like, wow. And and my brother, who remains very devout, very smart, one of those people that I don't get why there's not more angst with him. He was telling me this story the other day. He said, God, Warren, my partner, my business partner's son got married in the temple. I go running down there, I'm a little bit. Almost going to be late. I go in there, brandish my temple recommend, and the guy at the front gate, the officer or whatever, says, sorry, it elapsed or it expired yesterday. He says, come on, man, let me in.

Warren Driggs [03:33:01] It's only one day. If you can call my bishop, call my stake president, come on, I'm good. And they said, nope, can't do it. He says, oh, are you kidding me? Please get on the phone one day late. Nope, can't do it. So he said, warren, you won't believe it.

Warren Driggs [03:33:14] I had to wait outside and watch all these other people walk in, and they're all staring at me like I'm somehow less worthy. Man, it was so humiliating. It was so awful. I'm just sitting there looking at him like, do you have effing amnesia?

Warren Driggs [03:33:36] Do you know who you're speaking to? But his reaction was, I was so humiliated because everybody was whispering. It's like, why isn't he going in? I wanted to shout, I'm only one day overdue. But I didn't. But, man, you know, So I get it.

Cindy Driggs [03:33:57] But

Warren Driggs [03:34:00] none of us can smell our own shit, right? I mean, can't we agree on that? So I leave. It was after 9, 11, and I'm driving to lunch with my partners. They're in the back seat. They both happened to be Mormon bishops at the time.

Warren Driggs [03:34:15] And we got along great. We just didn't talk about religion very much. They were driving along, they said, God, what's the deal with those Muslims anyway? How'd that go? And I said, geez, I'm no student of history, but there was a guy named Mohammed in the 5th, 6th, 7th century, somewhere in there, he claimed that an angel came down to him.

Warren Driggs [03:34:38] And as if on cue, these two Mormon bishops in the back, spontaneous. An angel. It was the funniest thing because as soon as they said it, they realized they're faux pas. And it was like, oh, but our angels are legit, and your angels are just wholly disbelievable. So, yeah, it's crazy, but we've made it through. And after, After I had been out of the church with a profound disbelief in the church, I get called by the stake president and I get a phone call. And they said, president Jones wants to speak with you. And I'm thinking, president of what? Because, you know, I hadn't been to church in 20 years.

Warren Driggs [03:35:31] Oh, the stake president. And it was a guy that I knew. So I thought, y' all go down there, I'll talk to him, whatever. Hopefully, I'll be getting axed or something. I go in there and he says, brother Driggs. I hadn't been called Brother Dreggs in a long time. Felt good, you know. He said, brother Driggs, we want you to be in the Stake High Council.

Warren Driggs [03:35:51] What? And I said, are you messing with me? Am I being punked right now? You want me to be in the State Kai Council? Yeah, we do. And I said, well, but I believe that Joseph Smith was a fraud. I believe he was a sexual predator. I believe that it's nonsense. I don't believe one ounce of it.

Warren Driggs [03:36:15] This is what was remarkable. He said, okay, I know, but we need people like you, and would you at least consider it? And still, I think Allen Funt. Now, your listeners won't know who that is. Allen Funt was going to come walking in at any moment and saying, you know, candid Camera. Because this was very, very curious thing to me, and I don't know what to make of that to this day. I said, no, I don't need to think about it. It would be a foolish mistake to put me on the Stake High Council. First of all, I would never go. And if I ever did speak, it would not be a sermon you'd want to hear.

Warren Driggs [03:36:53] He said, well, are you sure? Because we could use you. I'm not kidding. That's pretty weird. And then I was also lectured. So my note with Thomas S. Monson, got to get the S in there, Spencer. Is that what it is?

John Dehlin [03:37:09] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [03:37:10] Oh, okay. If you said, Thomas Spencer Monson would know who you're talking about, it's probably true. But we. We kind of had a little pen pal thing because I was reading the newspaper. This is back when they had the Salt Lake Tribune. And every six months when they have General Conference, they have their books that are written and they're pimping their book for sale at Deseret.

Cindy Driggs [03:37:32] Book.

Warren Driggs [03:37:32] And there's a picture of a book and it's maybe this big in the newspaper article. And it was titled. The book was titled My Favorite Stories of Jesus or something like that by Thomas S. Monson. And on the COVID of the book was Thomas S. Monson, just, you know, posing and just looking as handsome as he could be. And Looking great. And so I ripped that out and I wrote him a letter, Handwritten letter. I said, listen, it's probably none of my business what you put on your jacket, but this is a curious way to spread the gospel of Jesus. Would it have killed you to put a picture of Jesus on there?

Warren Driggs [03:38:14] Or maybe a nice sunset or something? He writes me back, dear brother Dregs, I'm way too busy to even have any notion of what's on the COVID I recommend that you concern yourself with other things. It was kind of a snotty thing. Sort of pissed me off. So I wait.

Warren Driggs [03:38:37] Six months later, another book by Thomas S. Monson. Another pose. Instead of this, it was this or whatever, another pose with him on the COVID So I rip it out again and I send it to him. I go, here you go again. This is very strange.

Warren Driggs [03:38:54] Then I went to Deseret Book, and He's written like 21 books. Every single one had his mug on the COVID And he wrote back, and he said, you need to get over this and you need to repent, because this is, you know, I'm thinking, wow, okay, I'm good. We're done, right? But then I took the deposition about. I was a lawyer. I took the deposition on a completely unrelated matter, and I took the deposition of the manager, the general manager of Deseret Book.

Warren Driggs [03:39:23] After the deposition is over and stuff. I says, hey, you got a second? He says, yeah, what's up? I said, I'm just curious. Like, when the general authorities rob Write books, do they have much to do with like. Like, what would be on the jacket, for example, the Jack cover? He said, well, no, not usually. Most of them will defer to us. There's only two that are Nazis. And I said, like, well, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but Elder Monson is a Nazi. About.

Carah Burrell [03:39:59] Did he say the word Nazi?

Warren Driggs [03:40:01] He might have, but the point was, oh, he's rabidly involved. Yeah. He decides the font, he decides the interior, the interior design, everything. Said, no. He poses. He will spend a full day getting his photograph, getting it just right, the sheen, you know, etc. I thought, well, I'll be a son of a gun. It's like, come on, dude.

Carah Burrell [03:40:26] So anyway, I just Google image search Thomas S. Monson books, and you're right. It's every single one. Is his face looking very handsome. And it's all things that are, like, to the rescue. Thomas S. Monson space. Pathway to perfection. Thomas S. Monson space.

Warren Driggs [03:40:39] Should have put John de Lynn on that one.

John Dehlin [03:40:41] Yeah, let's let's have Brooklyn splice in some of these. Is that all right? Put that in the.

Carah Burrell [03:40:47] An Invitation to Exaltation with Thomas S. Monson's face on. Like he's the one who's the mouthpiece of God. He's the one inviting you to do these things.

Warren Driggs [03:40:55] It was just a strange way to pimp Jesus.

Cindy Driggs [03:40:57] If you really.

Warren Driggs [03:40:58] If that's your calling to you, you'd think you wouldn't put your image on the COVID But maybe that's just me.

John Dehlin [03:41:06] Well, first of all, Thomas S. Monson's a holiday boy in the sense that I live just like a block away from where he raised his family. So he's a Holiday native. So we have to just give. Give the late Thomas S. Monson a holiday shout out. Go Titans. Titans.

Cindy Driggs [03:41:21] Titans.

Warren Driggs [03:41:21] Titans this. Titans.

John Dehlin [03:41:23] Yeah, yeah, but.

Carah Burrell [03:41:25] And I want to also give a shout out to all of the Mormon women who were passed over and not invited to the Stake High Council in favor of somebody who didn't even freaking believe.

Warren Driggs [03:41:36] That's kind of weird, right? Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:41:38] Women can't have the priesthood, but we'll give it to somebody who calls Joseph's Smith a pedophile to his face. Come on.

Warren Driggs [03:41:43] Yeah. I wouldn't call him a pedophile, to be clear. I would call him a predator.

Carah Burrell [03:41:48] Predator.

Warren Driggs [03:41:49] Maybe pedophilia. I mean.

John Dehlin [03:41:51] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [03:41:51] Yeah. Helen mark Kimball was 14.

Carah Burrell [03:41:53] I have a TikTok about Jeremy Reynolds and his CS letter. Description of why Jeremy Reynolds calls him. You know what I'm talking about about a pedophile. Anyway, it gets hairy, but anyway.

Warren Driggs [03:42:05] But we grew up with unique. Life's always on the lookout for the three witnesses. You know, as a kid, this is what I grew up with. I was always.

John Dehlin [03:42:16] And I was always like the three Nephites.

Warren Driggs [03:42:18] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [03:42:19] Or the.

Warren Driggs [03:42:19] Not three. The three Nephites. I was always on the lookout for them. And I didn't know if they traveled in a trio or they split up to do more stuff. And so this is. This is it. And I. And I became actually one of the three Nephites. I'll just bore you with one quick story. We have a place in St. George and place in Holiday. We were in St. George a few years ago and I told Cindy, I think I'm going to walk home. And she said, now what do you mean walk home? You are home. I said, no, I'm going to walk home to Salt Lake. So I put a backpack on. I left our house down in St. George and I walked to Salt Lake to our house up Here on holiday? Yeah, it was stupid thing. I don't recommend you do it. Took 17 days.

John Dehlin [03:43:05] Where'd you sleep?

Warren Driggs [03:43:06] I just kind of. I didn't want to go buy 15. How dumb would that be? As if walking home from St. George isn't dumb enough. But I just wound my way through the mountains or I slept out or whatever. I got a couple of conjugal visits. Sorry kids along the way, but I'm this back to the three Nephites thing. I'm passing through a very small town in central Utah and it was, I think it was called Central. And I'm kind of scruffy and have a backpack on. It was a nice day. And I can see up ahead there's a lemonade stand, a cardboard table and two adolescent girls, maybe 11 or something, are selling lemonade.

Warren Driggs [03:43:45] There's a stack of Dixie cups, a watered down pitcher of lemonade and a little jar, glass jar with three quarters in it and. And then a sign said lemonade, 50 cents. Hey mister, do you want some lemonade? Sure, love some.

Warren Driggs [03:43:59] They pour me a glass, I drink it. All I had on me was a hundred dollar bill. So I give them a hundred dollar bill and they're looking at me like I'm high, like, dude, it's 50 cents. We can't make change. And I said, I'll tell you what, you can keep the change if you promise me you'll save it.

Warren Driggs [03:44:17] I go gol Thanks. I put my backpack on, start to walk away. And these two girls are arguing, right? They're having a discussion animate. And I thought I didn't know what that was about. I get about 15ft away. They said, hey mister, I stopped and turned around. They said, we've decided you can have one free refill.

Warren Driggs [03:44:38] I've thought so often about what happened in the tiny little hamlet of central Utah since that time. They walk into their house. Where'd you get the hundred dollar bill? It was some guy. What did he look like? He was kind of scruffy, he had a knapsack. What was he driving? He just came out of nowhere. He was walking and then he gave us this money and then he just walked away.

John Dehlin [03:45:10] I would bet usually it's when we turned around he was gone.

Warren Driggs [03:45:15] I would bet that the story and the tale of one of the three Nephites that was roaming through lives to this day and it's probably faith promoting. And I've often reflected that our faith is sometimes based on no more than that kind of bullshit, right? Because the story gets told. My daughter Saw one of the three Nephites and you know, anyway, that's a.

John Dehlin [03:45:43] Or beauty. Like someone. Some others. One person's is another person.

Warren Driggs [03:45:47] I suppose so. I don't know what's so beautiful about, you know that story that they saw one of the three Nephites. I'd rather see one of the Beatles, but I don't know about you.

Life After Mormonism: Navigating New Freedoms

John Dehlin [03:45:58] Let me ask you. Let me ask you guys a couple questions before we sign off, if it's okay. So I want to. I'm going to ask you just how you dealt with some of the most difficult aspects of leaving the church, particularly in Utah. And Carrie, if you've got other ones you want to add, I invite you to jump in as well. But you know, there's a lot of like, as you said, a lot of fear that. Will my. Will our marriage last? Will my spouse cheat on me? Will our kids become sex workers or drug addicts? Will.

John Dehlin [03:46:33] Will our family stay tight? You know, can we all be good people? Whatever, Right. Will we be good moral, ethical people? So I'm going to ask you just how you dealt with a few things. Just, just for those who are contemplating or have decided they need to make that step, but they just don't know where to even begin. Is that okay?

Warren Driggs [03:46:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:46:52] Okay. So how did you guys deal with coffee?

Warren Driggs [03:46:56] Embraced it.

Cindy Driggs [03:46:57] Embraced it? Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:46:58] What do you mean?

Warren Driggs [03:46:59] It's good.

Carah Burrell [03:47:01] More energy to put up with the bullshit.

Warren Driggs [03:47:03] Although I will say that for the first few years, we hid the coffee maker.

Cindy Driggs [03:47:07] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [03:47:08] You know, my parents come by for an unexpected visit. Cindy, stall him at the door. And I'm grabbing the coffee maker and throwing it into the pantry. And, and, and I, I'm just a. I'm just a coward, I guess that I, you know, I'm a 35 year old man and I'm hiding the coffee maker like it's a small bag of heroin. Pretty weird. It is weird.

Cindy Driggs [03:47:37] Yeah. I, I've been a little bit involved with the Waka women.

Warren Driggs [03:47:43] Oh.

Cindy Driggs [03:47:43] And I have really enjoyed some of those women. They're. They all have interesting stories, really great women. And I was asking some of them, what's the best thing about leaving the church for you? And one of them says, coffee, she says, it's transformed my life. And I said, how so? She said my digestion was so bad, constipated my whole life. I mean, TMI right here, it's transformed my life. Just that little thing. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:48:15] So anyway, that's a big deal.

Carah Burrell [03:48:17] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [03:48:18] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:48:18] So coffee. Coffee's in.

Cindy Driggs [03:48:20] Coffee's in.

John Dehlin [03:48:21] Okay. Kids. Your kids were allowed to drink coffee growing?

Cindy Driggs [03:48:24] Sure, sure.

John Dehlin [03:48:25] And they turned out okay in that way?

Cindy Driggs [03:48:26] I think they're okay.

Warren Driggs [03:48:28] Our kids are remarkable. They're all educated and successful and genuine. And I believe they're all atheists. I presume they are. We don't really talk about it much, but if the notion that you couldn't drink coffee would be so weird even to them, that's just one generation later. It's been pretty seamless. Thank God.

Carah Burrell [03:48:56] Yeah. I don't think the church is going to something so simple and strange like that. That can help your digestion. That is just like. It's better than an energy drink. And do you guys know that right on the other side, Right on the sides of Freedom Boulevard on. In Provo by byu, there's coffee shops on each side now there's a Dutch Brothers and a Starbucks on each side. Yeah, that wasn't there a couple years ago. Maybe one year ago. And I'm like, you know, that's where the BYU students are going. What are they going to do? Kick everyone out of school?

Cindy Driggs [03:49:24] Sure.

John Dehlin [03:49:25] Right across from Healing Halls, there's a Starbucks. Okay. How have you guys dealt with alcohol, both yourselves and with your kids as they became teens and young adults? There's this fear that if you drink, you'll become an alcoholic or blah, blah, it's bad for you or whatever. What do you guys want to say about how you've handled alcohol?

Cindy Driggs [03:49:47] Well, there definitely is a learning curve to learning to drink alcohol. And we enjoy alcohol. We don't abuse alcohol. I mean, occasionally we'll drink a little bit too much, but it's been a positive for us in our life.

John Dehlin [03:50:04] A positive?

Cindy Driggs [03:50:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:50:05] What makes it positive for you?

Cindy Driggs [03:50:08] It's just a relaxing thing. It's just to have a glass of wine at the end of the day or a drink at the end of the day. It's just kind of a nice way to unwind. I think it makes you loosen up a little bit and conversation flows and it's just been really nice. It's been great.

Warren Driggs [03:50:27] Yeah, I'd agree with that. And I. Cindy's sister owns wineries. And so Cindy's modest. She has a very sophisticated opinion about wines and. Yeah, you do. And you're not a snob about it. But drinking alcohol is a real joy to us. It's not a gateway. I guess it could be. If there was never any alcohol, there would never be any alcoholics, and that would be good.

Warren Driggs [03:50:58] But our kids, I think we handled it well because our kids, when they turned 18, we didn't make it. And certainly it wasn't a moral demerit to drink alcohol. What happens with most young Mormons, kids, or even adults who suddenly decide to drink, they go balls to the wall. Right? That's reckless and it's stupid. Most of our friends and most of the people we know who didn't grow up with the pesky word of wisdom, their kids, they would have wine at Thanksgiving dinner with their 15. And then when they do grow older, it's not a thing. Let's have a glass of wine, let's have a cocktail.

Warren Driggs [03:51:45] I mean, but most Mormons, I found when they lose their faith, they kind of go overboard, like they're making up for lost time. And that's not healthy. But in our life, I would say alcohol's been great.

Cindy Driggs [03:52:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:52:04] Okay. Another common thing I see in the post Mormon world is, you know, somebody loses their faith in their 30s or 40s or even 50s, and for some reason, and I it seems to be sometimes more often men than women. Although I don't have data on this, and I could be wrong, and I don't want to perpetuate stereotypes, but it's a common reaction to say, oh my gosh, if now that I know the church isn't true, I would have made a lot of different decisions. Maybe I would have married somebody else. Maybe I would have experimented sexually with different partners. There's all sorts of learning and life experience that's normative for people outside of a high demand religion, especially in the college years, but sometimes high school that I missed out on.

John Dehlin [03:52:46] And it really messes with some people's minds to the point of them, you know, wanting to even end the marriage and. Or experiment within the marriage just to try and reclaim some of that opportunity or Experimentation.

Warren Driggs [03:53:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:53:01] So there's that part of sexuality, and I'm curious if. If that is even something you guys have anything you want to say about. And then there's the separate thing about how to deal with your kids once they become of age of potentially being sexually active. So tackle the first one to the extent that there might be anything to say or not, and then go to the second.

Warren Driggs [03:53:21] Go ahead.

Cindy Driggs [03:53:22] It's all you.

John Dehlin [03:53:27] Did you ever feel that way, Warren?

Warren Driggs [03:53:29] I will admit that I feel cheated a little bit. I feel cheated mostly not now, but I feel che. I felt cheated out of felt or you feel? I felt okay. And I guess to some extent I still feel cheated out of a normal college experience. You know, I hope that I would have married Cindy, but there is no way. I would have married her because I was horny. That was reckless. It was stupid. Why would you do that? We didn't even know each other. I felt

Carah Burrell [03:54:11] so.

Warren Driggs [03:54:11] Yeah. In some respects I live vicariously through our kids lives and their college experience. Man, they had fun, they were normal. They were just normal.

Cindy Driggs [03:54:22] Right.

Warren Driggs [03:54:24] So, yeah. I will admit to feeling a little bit. I have some regrets. I'm not really going out of my way to make up for all those regrets, but I have some.

Cindy Driggs [03:54:37] Yeah. Yeah. And obviously all those years of paying tithing and all that, it's like, gosh, that's a lot of money, you know, that we paid to the church and a lot of Sundays. I mean there's not one Sunday that goes by that we're not going somewhere fun. We look at people going to church and think, oh, so glad we don't have to do that anymore.

Warren Driggs [03:55:06] Yeah. You asked a follow up question about our children.

John Dehlin [03:55:10] Yeah. So, yeah. Kids becoming sexually active, what was that like?

Warren Driggs [03:55:16] My reaction to that would be there's no real moral demerit provided that they're mature and that they are kind and they're not just sport effing. Yeah. I can't say that word right. The bad word. But that to me, I don't like.

John Dehlin [03:55:36] Don't ask Carah.

Cindy Driggs [03:55:36] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:55:37] He looks at me, I was like, of course you can look at him.

Warren Driggs [03:55:40] But I don't like that. I don't really respect that. But it wouldn't trouble me. It never did. And I think our kids, as long as you are respectful. Cindy's sister is on the board of Planned Parenthood or was. And where at? National Board of Planned Parenthood. Cindy's sister. But anyway, I'll tell my story about. So her son got. Goes away to UCLA and his aunt Cindy's sister gave him a shoebox chuck full of condoms to take to school. We go to the parents back to school night. Well, not back to school night, but Parents day a month later.

Cindy Driggs [03:56:24] That is not true. I know what you're going to say is not true.

Warren Driggs [03:56:28] Cindy is counting the condoms. Like, no. Oh my God. A lot of gone. And so once we were like, yikes. I guess. But then again. Yeah, it's normal.

Cindy Driggs [03:56:43] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [03:56:44] It's not.

Cindy Driggs [03:56:45] Yeah.

Warren Driggs [03:56:45] It's not weird.

Cindy Driggs [03:56:46] Yeah. I'm sure that they experimented and had some fun and drank too much and played around and they were human.

Warren Driggs [03:56:54] Yeah.

Cindy Driggs [03:56:55] And it's their choice. Their choice.

Beliefs About God and the Afterlife Today

John Dehlin [03:57:00] Okay. What about belief in you? You've already answered this, but I'm just going to have it be its own Segment. What about belief in God, belief in afterlife, heaven, seeing family again. You know, some people typically say to a post Mormon like, well, if you don't, it's similar to why don't you go rape and pillage and plunder, you don't have any morals anymore. But there's a cousin to that, which is why even bother with life? Life isn't even worth living if you're, if, if, if there's not an afterlife, what's the point? It's, and the implication there is it's so miserable. You know, maybe that's a reflection of the life they're living. But what they often say is life is so awful it's not even worth living if there's not a God.

Cindy Driggs [03:57:50] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:57:51] What do you live for now?

Warren Driggs [03:57:52] Well, and that sort of thing is to me a bit offensive that the only reason you would do good or not misbehave is because of some fear or reward about doing good for good sake. And I. Don't believe in an afterlife. I'm kind of, you know, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence kind of a guy. I have no reason to believe there's life after death. If there is, great. And I used to as a child feel so bad for non Mormons who didn't believe that they would live with their parents and their loved ones when they die. I used to think, how could you cope with the concept of death?

Warren Driggs [03:58:45] But I've come to believe that my atheism, I don't know, I don't know what I am, but I don't have a belief in the afterlife. And that is strangely comforting to me because no longer do I need to worry.

Warren Driggs [03:59:00] And by the way, it goes without saying that it doesn't matter what I believe. I could believe the earth is flat until I'm blue in the face. And it doesn't make it so. So if there's a life after death, great. And if there's not great, I won't miss anybody.

Warren Driggs [03:59:17] I'll be dead. It's not like I will be roaming around up there yearning to see Cindy or my kids. I won't know that I miss them. That's a perception that you could only feel as a live human being. And so it's strangely comforting. And, and to that point, when my mom passed away, my brother and I, the black sheep, she loved us very much.

Warren Driggs [03:59:42] I remember thinking, how could it be heaven to my mom to be up there when her kids are not with her? That to me would be the definition of hell. How could she possibly Think that that celestial kingdom that she has cooked up in her mind would be a happy experience.

Warren Driggs [04:00:08] So I no longer worry about the topic because it doesn't matter what I believe. But I'm strangely comforted by the fact that if we die, there's nothing there. I'm good.

Cindy Driggs [04:00:21] Same here. Well said, Warren. I feel very comfortable with that. I don't believe in a higher power, if there happens to be one. Great. But I think life is about here and now and live for today because there may not be a tomorrow.

John Dehlin [04:00:42] That's exactly what the Book of Mormon says is evil to say, eat, drink, and Mary, for tomorrow you die.

Warren Driggs [04:00:47] I guess I'm evil.

John Dehlin [04:00:48] That's evil.

Cindy Driggs [04:00:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:00:50] Do you guys feel evil?

Cindy Driggs [04:00:53] I think I'm a pretty nice person.

Warren Driggs [04:00:54] I have some wicked ways, but. But no, I don't feel evil. One more thing. Sorry to interrupt.

John Dehlin [04:01:01] Were you about to finish? Because I wanted.

Cindy Driggs [04:01:03] No, no, that was. You said it.

Warren Driggs [04:01:05] Well, I was just going to say that we read a study once and I'll probably butcher it, but the study showed, and your listeners will have to vet me on this, that atheists donate more to charity, commit fewer crimes, have a smaller percentage of divorce, and a host of other things. That's pretty telling to me. It doesn't tell me that atheism makes you a better person, but it might. It might. Because you no longer are penalized by the weight of fear and judgment. And so you just do good for good sake.

Cindy Driggs [04:01:48] Right.

Carah Burrell [04:01:50] Anyway, and like you were saying earlier that. Didn't you say that it helped you open up to loving all different types of people? You weren't stuck in your homophobia or your racism, and that you realize this is your only life to live, so you should love people to the fullest.

Cindy Driggs [04:02:02] Yes, absolutely. Big tent, everybody's, you know, being human being kind. Golden rule.

Carah Burrell [04:02:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:02:13] So why. What's the purpose of life, then, if life isn't to sort of gain that position in the afterlife with the celestial pollinating increase, you know, what are you. What do we. What. What's the point? Like, how do you. Like, what's the point? Why are you even bothering? What's the point of life?

Cindy Driggs [04:02:35] I don't know. I don't know.

Warren Driggs [04:02:36] I think it's. I don't mean to be overly cynical, but I think it's kind of a cosmic fluke, I think. I don't think that there's a grand design. My grandparents were everything, my mom was everything happens for a reason type. I don't believe that. I don't believe that there's a grand puppeteer. I don't up there pulling the strings. I don't believe that there is some eternal plan. And because I'm not a scientist, I can't explain how we came to be. But I don't believe that I was formed by God. And I don't believe that Cindy is the result of taking Adam's rib or whatever. You know, I just think that we're here because we're here and it just happened. And maybe it happens on other orbs. I suspect it probably does, but I don't assign any. Certainly no spiritual religiousness to that.

Cindy Driggs [04:03:45] And I think it's nice to just be open to whatever. There are no set of rules that we have to live by, but universe, bring it my way. Whatever happens, be free. Live your truth.

John Dehlin [04:04:04] One of the most common comments I get on YouTube is evangelical Christians that are like, oh, I'm just. I'm so happy they left the cult. You know that this is the words of evangelical Christians. I'm so happy they left the church, but I'm just so sad that they lost their belief in God and Jesus. Why couldn't they just hold on to their beliefs in God and Jesus? You know, the church ruined them for God and Jesus. And there's this for me, what sticks out for me most about that is there's this group of Christians that are hearing this and saying they feel really sad for you.

John Dehlin [04:04:37] They are sad. They're like, they're heartbroken that you guys don't believe in God and Jesus. And what would you guys say to an evangelical Christian that is sad to hear you say that you've let go of God and Jesus? What would you say to them? Cindy, you go first.

Cindy Driggs [04:05:00] There may be. I mean, I believe Jesus lived, and I think his teachings are beautiful. There may be a God. I personally don't believe there is, but if you want to believe in God, good for you. Your choice. But I'm very comfortable in my beliefs.

John Dehlin [04:05:22] What's your response to them feeling sad that you've lost your faith in God and Jesus?

Cindy Driggs [04:05:28] I'm sorry that you feel that way, because I'm not sad. Yeah, I'm sorry you're not sad. No, I'm not sad. I feel really good.

Carah Burrell [04:05:40] Did you ever, like, dabble after you lost your faith in Mormonism, in Christianity, and you're like, okay, maybe, maybe I could. Because a lot of people, they start to piece together critical thinking skills, and they are not able to devote their life to one belief system based on bad evidence. I'm never Going to do that again. Did you have those kinds of wheels turning in your head?

Cindy Driggs [04:05:59] A little bit. I thought maybe there's something else out there, but the feminism was a big deal for me in any religion. Well, I know that there's some that aren't that way, but. But any Christian church, the women are.

John Dehlin [04:06:16] Yeah, second class.

Cindy Driggs [04:06:17] Second class. And that just didn't work for me because I'm a feminist, even though I didn't live as a feminist lifestyle because I raised children for the most part, but I'm very much a feminist.

John Dehlin [04:06:30] Well, a feminist would say to allow women to do whatever they want and if they want to be a stay at home mom, that's feminism. I don't mean to correct you, but I just wanted to.

Cindy Driggs [04:06:41] No, I'm very comfortable and being without. And without a belief system, I guess humanist, what is it? The secular humanist. I would put myself in that category,

Carah Burrell [04:06:57] like striving towards good secular principles that can't be argued with, in my opinion. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.

Warren Driggs [04:07:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:07:06] What about a savior?

Warren Driggs [04:07:08] I would say to those people, I'm flattered that you would care about me, but I'm kind of. Don't have pity on me. I don't pity them for their entrapment in their belief, but I guess my response to them would be, why do you believe in God? What is your evidence for that? I don't want to challenge you, but what's up with that? A beautiful sunset, a peacock?

Warren Driggs [04:07:44] I mean, that's not evidence of God. And I think some of the explanations. Well, I felt a certain way and I suppose those are legitimate feelings. I'm not challenging that. But I do agree that sometimes Mormons, when they lose their faith in Mormonism, they throw it all out. Their world is so rocked. Well, if I can't believe in this, what can I believe in? So they have to start over from scratch. And that's what we did. We started over from scratch and we had to build a building block. Okay.

Warren Driggs [04:08:23] I can say with complete certainty in my own mind that the Mormon church is not true. So my toolbox is limited, but I have enough tools to at least eliminate the thought that the golden tablets are real or that the earth is 6,000 years old or some of those things. Then I think, okay, what about God?

Warren Driggs [04:08:50] Hmm? What is the evidence for that? What about Jesus? You know, I know that Jesus was an historical figure, but I only know that because of, I think, two lines, two sentences in the contemporary historian of the time that there was a guy named Jesus.

Warren Driggs [04:09:13] So you Know, did. Was there Jesus that died for the sins and lived in the tomb and all that crap? I just can't believe that. And if they feel sorry for me for that, I don't have a response other than I'm as happy as a clam and I'm okay not believing that.

Warren Driggs [04:09:35] In fact, it's very liberating because, remember, we didn't choose anything. We didn't choose what to believe. I didn't choose what to believe until I became an adult. And only then could I make my own choices. And those choices may have been wrong. I don't think they were, but they were thoughtful and they were my choices, and they were based on evidence.

Warren Driggs [04:10:01] I'm kind of a scientific guy, and there's no evidence for it. And so I'm satisfied. And if I'm wrong and it turns out that there's a God, I have every expectation God won't be pissed. That seems like a pretty petty thing for a God to be mad.

John Dehlin [04:10:19] He sends you guys to the bad place.

Warren Driggs [04:10:21] There is no bad place. And if there is, that would be great, because then I could hang with people like us. We can make up for all our regrets.

Cindy Driggs [04:10:30] That's right.

Carah Burrell [04:10:36] Didn't I start this interview four hours ago saying that they were already making me laugh before we even hit record? These are good jokes, Martin. I agree.

Reflections on Leaving and Looking Forward

John Dehlin [04:10:44] All right, well, what else did you guys want to share that hasn't been shared? Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Cindy Driggs [04:10:54] Gosh, it's been a lot of fun. You do a lot of really great things. Thank you so much. I. I will say, as I've listened to these Mormon podcasts over the last few years, I didn't think I had that much undoing to do, deprogram unpacking. But I think I did. I think I did because there were. Because I did feel so much freer when I left. And so some of those things, like, yeah, as I listen to some of these stories of other folks, it's like, wow. Yeah, that is how I felt. And so it's really helpful. And I hope that we've been able to say something that will help a few people along the way. Live your truth. Be who you are. And if your kids make some mistakes along the way, and if we do, it's okay. Yeah, it's. We're all human. But be true to yourself.

Warren Driggs [04:12:00] Agree.

John Dehlin [04:12:02] That was well said.

Warren Driggs [04:12:03] That was well said. Yeah. I have nothing to add. I'm sure that your listeners are just bored to tears at this point, so we'll shut up.

John Dehlin [04:12:14] No, I always like to tell those who come on that, you know, there's going to be the cohort that was affected by brooke and John McClay, or the cohort that was affected by Jeremy Runnels, or the cohort that was affected by Leah and Cody Young, or, you know, Hallie Everts, you know, it's like. Or Carah Burrell, like, there's every single story that ever gets told on Mormon stories ends up having its sphere of influence that. That becomes life changing for the people who experience it in their own time and situation. And so you will be that to tens of thousands of people, if not more.

Warren Driggs [04:12:54] If I could say one thing to them, I would say, please don't be afraid of what's on the other side, because what you're going to find is it's liberating. There's much joy. There's less pain, not more pain. And we know how difficult it is. We've been there.

Warren Driggs [04:13:13] But it's a huge crowd on the other side. You Mormons, right now. When I left Mormonism, it's almost as if the burden of proof shifted to me to prove that the golden tablets weren't real. How did that happen?

Warren Driggs [04:13:37] It's like, wait a minute. That is such a preposterous thing. The burden of proof ought to be on you to prove that they are. But when I left, it shifted. And I know that that happens to Mormons, and I know that they may fear that their life will go down the tubes and all, but I am very optimistic the opposite will happen. Their lives will be happier. They will have less. Yeah, they'll. They'll.

Cindy Driggs [04:14:09] They'll have better family relationships. I really believe that.

John Dehlin [04:14:14] With each other and with your kids.

Cindy Driggs [04:14:16] Right. More honesty. Not. Not, no. Less fear. Not no fear, but less fear, less shame. Better. Better relationships with your children.

Warren Driggs [04:14:29] And I think now is the time to leave. And I say that not because I'm trying to recruit people to leave, because I don't really give a shit, but now's the time to leave because it's easy and it's okay.

Warren Driggs [04:14:44] It's okay and it's more acceptable. It's no longer like it was 40 years ago. It's so much easier. And I don't mean to diminish the difficulty, but it's not that hard. And you would find that on the other side, for every one Mormon, there are millions of people who don't believe in the golden blades. There are millions of people who don't think that baptism for the dead is a sensible policy or that the mummy scrolls. I mean, when you get out of our little community, I think you find that. Oh, wait a minute.

Warren Driggs [04:15:31] We were the weird ones, right? We're the weird ones. The rest of humanity is not weird. We're joining the vast majority of people, and so I wouldn't be afraid. Easy for me to say because I've been through it, but, yeah, that's what I would say to these people.

Carah Burrell [04:15:54] Right on.

John Dehlin [04:15:57] And this doesn't necessarily need to mean anything, but I've been to your home in St. George, and I don't think you have suffered. I don't think you've failed to prosper in your lives from leaving the church.

Cindy Driggs [04:16:10] It's been a good move.

Warren Driggs [04:16:11] We've been lucky.

John Dehlin [04:16:12] Yeah, we've been lucky you didn't become homeless.

Warren Driggs [04:16:16] I guess I'm saying no, no, thank goodness. We're good.

John Dehlin [04:16:23] Well, I won't say that it's easy to leave the church in 2021, but I don't think anyone could argue that with the. With the reality that it's. There's never been an easier or better time to make that transition than in 2021.

Carah Burrell [04:16:39] The community will catch you. We're here for you.

John Dehlin [04:16:41] What's that?

Carah Burrell [04:16:42] The community will catch you. I don't know. We have. We have Facebook groups, we have some meetups and Thrive events, and, like, the time is now. Question now for those who want to

John Dehlin [04:16:52] leave and for those who want to

Carah Burrell [04:16:53] stay, we'll make the church healthier for you too.

John Dehlin [04:16:56] But yeah, yeah, as long as people know what they're a part of and are. Are choosing it with full, informed consent. Thumbs up.

Cindy Driggs [04:17:04] Great.

John Dehlin [04:17:04] Thumbs up from John.

Cindy Driggs [04:17:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:17:06] Thumbs up from Carah.

Carah Burrell [04:17:07] Thumbs up from Carah at the Nuance House.

Warren Driggs [04:17:08] Yeah, that's my.

Carah Burrell [04:17:11] That's my reason for calling myself. It's because I don't want. I don't want to give Mormons, every Mormon, the wrong impression. You know that like. Like, I get it.

Warren Driggs [04:17:19] I get the nuance ho. Is that what it is? Okay.

Cindy Driggs [04:17:24] Nuanced hoe.

Warren Driggs [04:17:25] I thought you said how, and I thought. Oh, shoot. I didn't mean to suggest that you were a nuanced hoe.

Carah Burrell [04:17:30] No.

Warren Driggs [04:17:31] Okay. That's okay.

Carah Burrell [04:17:33] The hoe of nuance.

Warren Driggs [04:17:34] Yes.

Carah Burrell [04:17:34] Yes.

Warren Driggs [04:17:35] Okay, Got it.

John Dehlin [04:17:36] All right. Well, it's been so lovely to get to spend some time with you guys and to see you again. Thanks so much for your hospitality in St. George. That one evening was lovely. Maybe we can do something again. We are planning a St. George. Thrive, actually, I should say. There's thrive for women. Carah, do you want to do you Remember is it October 2nd?

Carah Burrell [04:17:57] October 2nd to Saturday all day at the the Provo Library. A bunch of women speakers myself will be. What's the word? I guess emceeing it. Tasha Helfer, Dana Bun. A bunch of really other great speakers all throughout the day. Chelsea Homer. Yeah. So we're putting on a big event.

John Dehlin [04:18:14] It's half sold out. You can go to thrivebeyondreligion.com to register for Thrive for Women October 2nd over General Conference weekend. So if you don't want to be face quite the onslaught of of general conference messages, you can come to opposite land to a safe enclave of a bunch of Amazing Women. October 2nd. We are also planning a Thrive November in Salt Lake City. We are negotiating a contract with an amazing special guest speaker. But I'm not going to tell you now who that is because we got to wait till the inks signed. But we're gonna. We're planning an amazing Thrive in Salt Lake City in November. Go to Thrive Beyond Mormonism. ThriveBeyondReligion.com to register for that. We're also planning a Thrive St. George. Now it's for February, so I'll be coming back.

Warren Driggs [04:19:11] Great. You're always welcome.

Cindy Driggs [04:19:12] Great.

Warren Driggs [04:19:13] I hope you'll. I hope you'll let us know.

John Dehlin [04:19:15] And I think we're planning Thrive Arizona in potentially the October timeframe after women's Thrive for women. And there are other groups. There's a Thrive Southern Alberta, kind of a Karsten kind of area, Thrive that some people have expressed interest in. People express interest in Northern California and Sacramento in Boise. If any of you want to put on a Thrive event, which is just basically a day or a day and a half to bring some cool speakers and meet other people like you in your area and celebrate healing and growth and learn tips and tricks and tools for finding healing and growth beyond Mormon orthodoxy. Reach out to me and we'll make it happen.

John Dehlin [04:20:03] Because we want to have Thrive events. We want to fill the calendar, fill the world, fill the earth with Thrive events just wherever you you are that you need support and community and tips and tricks and tools and a fun time. We want to bring a Thrive event to you. And that's a partnership between the Open Stories foundation and the Thrive foundation, which is its own separate entity now. So anyway, thought I'd say that. Carah, anything else you want to say before we end?

Warren's Memoir and Closing Thoughts

Carah Burrell [04:20:31] No. A great representation of all the cool stuff that we have coming up. I just was wanting to know because I wanted you to pimp up his. His Memoir. Wait, wait. I wanted to ask, though, Warren, do you have an audio version of the book? Because I think the number one question everyone wants to know is, is your voice recorded in this memoir? Because we got to get that to happen. That's all I really wanted to know.

Warren Driggs [04:20:52] Matthew McConaughey to do it.

Cindy Driggs [04:20:53] No.

Carah Burrell [04:20:54] You have got better.

John Dehlin [04:20:58] I love that.

Warren Driggs [04:20:59] But no, it's not on. On audio recording, you can get Kindle or.

John Dehlin [04:21:02] The book is Mormon. Mormon Boy, a memoir by Warren Driggs. He also has the books Tortoise in the Road, Old Scratch and Swimming in Deep Water, a novel of Joseph Smith. And there's another book that won't be discussed right now.

Warren Driggs [04:21:18] Yeah, a project that we're working on that if that project comes to fruition, I hope you'll have me back.

John Dehlin [04:21:25] Okay. All right, so we'll check out that book. It's available, like you said, through Amazon.

Warren Driggs [04:21:31] Amazon. Barnes. Yeah, wherever.

John Dehlin [04:21:34] All right. Anything you want to say?

Cindy Driggs [04:21:36] No, it was a pleasure.

John Dehlin [04:21:38] Do you want to pimp?

Cindy Driggs [04:21:38] No, it was a pleasure. Just. Just. Warren's books are great. Seriously. I mean, I'm married to him, but his books are. That Mormon Boy is quite entertaining. Great books. So. All right, take a peek.

John Dehlin [04:21:51] Well, you guys, thank you for coming on. You guys are amazing.

Warren Driggs [04:21:54] Thank you.

Cindy Driggs [04:21:55] It was our pleasure.

John Dehlin [04:21:56] Thanks for being willing to. To share your story and give people hope and light that if. If religion isn't going to work out for them, that they. They. There. There can still be joy and healing and maybe even trading up and kind of an improvement in life. Thanks for being willing to tell that story.

Warren Driggs [04:22:16] Thank you.

Cindy Driggs [04:22:16] It gives people hope. Thank you.

Warren Driggs [04:22:18] It was fun. It was a pleasure.

Cindy Driggs [04:22:19] Great. Yeah. Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:22:22] And listeners, thank you so much for tuning into Mormon stories. PODC today. We are growing like weeds. We're getting 2,000 new subscribers a month on YouTube. We broached. We broke into the top 10 of religious themed podcasts in the United States over the past month. So we were literally in the top 10 with Joel Osteen and, you know, Rick Warren. That's how popular Mormon Stories, you know, has gotten over the past few months. It goes in and out of the top top 25, but we broached top 10. So we're just so thrilled. That has to all be Carah. So thank you.

Carah Burrell [04:23:01] Carah, stop. Stop.

John Dehlin [04:23:03] No, but thanks to all you who support and donate to the Open Stories foundation that make this possible. My. I couldn't do this without your financial support. We couldn't have brought Carah on without your financial support. We also have Gerardo who does our cinematography and our thumbnail thumbnails and consulting. We have Brooklyn Alden that does all our video and audio editing. She's amazing. We have an amazing board of directors and all of this is possible. This amazing facility, the studio with state of the art, so to speak, lighting and camera and cinematography. It's all because of you. So thanks to those of you who donate and support Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [04:23:43] And the sad news is we're always losing donors. Whether it's people fall on financial hard times or they lose interest or they move on or they want to support other worthy causes or they just get sick of it all. We're always losing 20 donors a month. And if we don't replace them over time, it means we have to ramp down our services and stop doing what we do.

John Dehlin [04:24:05] Plus we've made a financial investment in Brooklyn and Alden and Brooklyn and Gerardo and Carah and we want to be able to keep them on because TikTok is having an amazing impact. Instagram is starting to have a bigger impact. We want to do Thrive and many other things, but we only can with your support. So if you are one of the, you know, one out of a thousand listeners or viewers actually donate, which means 999 plus per 1,000 don't. If you're one of those that benefits from this program, you that enjoys it regularly and you're not a subscriber or donor, we would ask you to please just take the step to go to mormithstories.org find the donate button at the top of the page.

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John Dehlin [04:25:56] Emailing us mormonstories gmail.com respectful comments, please. Not rude, mean comments, but comments on all the different platforms or email to us. We really appreciate that. Support direct messages, all of that. We read every email or direct message that comes in. We can't respond to all of them. We do our best. And also if you've got great ideas of interviews that we should do, if you know super cool people that should be interviewed because they'll have a great interest by our listening audience or viewing audience, we want to hear about it.

John Dehlin [04:26:31] And most importantly, if you want to appear on Mormon Stories Podcast, the best way to do it is to go to create a TikTok account, record a one minute or a three minute sort of my Mormon Story monologue, and then tag it Mormon Stories Podcast or MormonStories Podcast and Pound My Mormon Story. And we're going to start perusing that regularly and we promise within the next month or two, if a worthy candidate arises, we will have you on to Mormon Stories Podcast.

John Dehlin [04:27:04] So please join TikTok and participate in it if you can. If you're not a conspiracy theorist that the Chinese are out to destroy us all. Like somehow it's okay for the Chinese to use Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, but somehow, if we use an app created in China, we're contributing to a new world order. What do you think about that, Carah?

Carah Burrell [04:27:24] Yeah. And even if we are, TikTok is worth it.

John Dehlin [04:27:28] Although I have to admit, it went down like yesterday, the day before, and I didn't know what to do with myself just because I was in the middle of recording stuff. Anyway, we've gone along enough.

Carah Burrell [04:27:37] Enough.

John Dehlin [04:27:38] Love you guys. Thanks for all the support. Thanks for listening. And Carrie, you're awesome. Thanks for joining us.

Carah Burrell [04:27:43] Yeah, thanks, John.

John Dehlin [04:27:44] Thanks you guys for having me as a sidekick partner. And most importantly, thanks so much, guys.

Cindy Driggs [04:27:52] Thanks.

Warren Driggs [04:27:52] Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:27:53] It's been so pleasure to have you, Warren and Cindy. Please don't be strangers.

Warren Driggs [04:27:57] Well, we want pleasure. Thank you very much.

Cindy Driggs [04:27:59] Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:28:00] Take care, everybody. See y' all again soon on Mormon Stories Podcast.

Carah Burrell [04:28:03] Bye.

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