Introducing John Larsen and the Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am your host for today, John Dehlin. It is August 28, 2023, and today we have for you another monthly Mormon expression themed episode on Mormon Stories Podcast with the one with the only John Larsen and my co host for the month, Cara Burrell, also known as Nuance O. Hey, John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:00:27] Hey.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Hey.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:00:29] Hi, friends.

John Dehlin [00:00:30] How y' all doing?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:00:31] Amazing.

John Larsen [00:00:32] Good. Yeah. All right,

John Dehlin [00:00:36] Kara, I think you have a really important announcement. Do you want to give us a preview for that announcement, everybody?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:00:43] I decided to just play with the big boys and I started a non profit called the Nuance Hug foundation and I'm going to be starting a podcast conjoining with it. And so I will talk about it, tell you about an event that I'm going to do at the end and what I'm up to. So I've been working on this project for three or four months to try to get it off the ground and would appreciate your support. So I'll talk about it at the end of the.

John Dehlin [00:01:09] And the date. And the date for this event is what? So people can put it in the calendars right now.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:01:13] September 9, Saturday, September 9, in the Cottonwood Heights, right? Yep.

John Dehlin [00:01:18] All right, so everybody stay tuned to the end of the episode. Carrie's going to tell you all about it. All right, John Larsen, how are you doing, brother?

John Larsen [00:01:27] I'm doing well. We're in the middle of the harvest, doing a lot of canning.

John Dehlin [00:01:32] What are you canning?

John Larsen [00:01:34] We've been doing applesauce all weekend and I'm doing some pickles and some tomatillo salsa tomorrow.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] That sounds amazing. Well, we've got another. Really quickly, we've got another exciting episode with John Larsen today. We are going to be. I think we're going to be talking about the whistleblowers and we'll talk a little bit more about what that entails in a minute. But just for those who don't know, John Larsen in the past hosted one of the most important Mormon themed podcasts in the history of Mormonism called Mormon Expression Podcast. We at the Open Stories foundation have helped resurrect that podcast so that it's available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts. And also we bring John Larsen back monthly to do an episode because we value his work so much. So please, please check out Mormon Expression podcast. There's 300 plus episodes of some of the best Mormon themed podcasting content ever. And it's great stuff. And John Larsen, anything you want to

John Larsen [00:02:36] add to that, no, thanks for hosting it. I'm glad it's still out there, making an impact. It's been rewarding over the years to hear from people who. It helps them to realize that it's not them. They're not the one that's crazy. And so, yeah, I'm glad it's still tickling people's fancy.

John Dehlin [00:02:55] Absolutely. And for those who value John Larsen and Nuance Ho on Mormon stories and the Mormon expression content, you can go to mormonstories.org mormonexpression and become a monthly donor to this project. We do pay John and Kara for their appearances. Please. While you're at it, please, please donate to nuanceho her Patreon or her donor box or her Venmo, because we gotta pay our content creators to help them do great work. Do you agree or do you disagree, Kara?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:03:25] I agree. And if my donor box and Venmo are available, those will be tax deductible now.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] Yeah. So soon. I think even now because it's retroactive your donations and Nuance who are about to become tax deductible, which will be good. All right. Congrats, Kara.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:03:45] Thanks, guys.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] All right, John, normally you have some announcements maybe. Do you have any announcements today for us?

John Larsen [00:03:53] Sure. First, I'd like to still keep thanking folks who are giving stuff to the farm. We've been able to install all sorts of drip lines and get automatic water timers that have made it so I can do a lot more than I could just by hand. We've had folks who've given us bat houses and watering things for the chickens and just all sorts of things that have helped make my life so I can devote more time to this. So thanks to everyone who has gone to. Oh, johnlarson.org right there and has followed to my Amazon store. So I really appreciate it. It's really been touching.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] That's amazing. I think it'd be fun for us to see photos sometime of some of the cool things you're doing. So bring those and we'll do some. An announcement, one of these episodes where you can visually show us the cool stuff you're doing.

John Larsen [00:04:47] Sure. And the website for the farm is set to launch in September, probably near the end of September, and we'll be able to put things up there and folks who are interested in the kind of things that we. We are doing. And I say we. It's not just me out here. I've been. What do you say? Finding. Finding the others. Finding other folks who are interested in kind of eating closer to the Ground, as we like to say, of, you know, going back to growing more of your own stuff and canning it and yeah, just eating less corporate food is one of our goals. And it's been a lot of fun to meet a lot of people. I'm doing different things, so I love it.

John Larsen's Background and Current Projects

John Dehlin [00:05:34] Now, John Larsen, also, what the heck is this YouTube video right here? I'm going to just do a little bit of it. What the heck is this? This is John Larsen on YouTube, published by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

John Larsen [00:05:49] Occasionally dress yourself.

John Dehlin [00:05:51] Corvallis John Larsen. What the heck is that?

John Larsen [00:05:54] It's almost like you're a priest. You're going to crash their servers.

John Dehlin [00:05:58] Have you started a church? Have you become that cult leader, everyone?

John Larsen [00:06:01] No, that. I already did that. Done and done.

John Dehlin [00:06:05] That's what this cool video is. We'll include it in the show notes.

John Larsen [00:06:08] Well, you know, I have to explain things to Mormons sometimes. So for most churches or whatever, and the Unitarian Universalist really kind of doesn't count as a church very much, but they have the liturgical year, so the reverend tends to take the summer off. The kids take the summer off in education, and they'll bring in guest speakers. Well, I've been, I've been head. I've. Kimmy and I go out to the fellowship here. We, we love it. It's great part of our life. And they figured me out. They finally found out that I did this, so they asked me to come give a talk on my journey out of the church and how it relates to the Unitarian Church.

John Larsen [00:06:57] So I guess if you're interested in how my faith journey has played out, then you're welcome to go take a look at it, please. I would say you're in their house as a courtesy, so be kind. But yeah, you can check it out if you like.

John Dehlin [00:07:19] Yeah. And the clip that we're just referring to is called A Religious Journey Leaving Home, Finding Home with John Larsen. And again, it's at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, Oregon. So that's super cool. I'm going to subscribe to it as well. So that's cool. John. Maybe some people who like to stereotype ex Mormons would think John Larsen be the last person to step foot in a church, but they'd be wrong.

John Larsen [00:07:48] No. Yeah. Actually, I have attended off and on as Unitarians do, but it's been an important part of my life. Zilpha and I actually started attending before we stopped attending the Mormon Church. And I think, you know, in a nutshell, there's a lot of great Things that many of us experienced as Mormons, you know, the community, the chance for service, the chance to participate, to have, I don't know, you know, holiday dinners and stuff with other people, to meet other like minded people. And, and that's, I think that a lot of Mormons, ex Mormons, kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater. Understandably, you know, they get burned out on organized religion, as it, as it were.

John Larsen [00:08:38] And the Unitarians Universalists have been around for a long time. They follow the pattern of the good parts about church, but there's no particular requirement for belief. They have their seven principles, which are pretty lightweight, but no one cares if you believe in God or not.

John Dehlin [00:08:57] All right, John Larsen, well, let's go ahead. And any other announcements you want to add before we dive in?

John Larsen [00:09:04] Well, my folks are actually visiting. It's been really great. My parents, I've talked about them over the years. They're wonderful people. When I left the church, we had a conversation and we agreed that our relationship was much more important than, than what we believed about the universe or metaphysics. And they have always been wonderful and accepting of my trans children and they're here with me. But my dad last night made a request, so I'm fulfilling it.

John Larsen [00:09:36] He requested that I do acknowledge that the church in Salt Lake, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, prefers not to be called the Mormon Church and prefers to be called by the full name because of their belief in Jesus Christ. And he said, he asked me to acknowledge that and then I could say what I wanted. So I will acknowledge it. And as it is important to him and important to others, I respect that

John Dehlin [00:10:05] Way to model healthy parental dialogue and healthy respect. That's beautiful. Does that mean your dad watches enough to hear us use the term Mormon Church to then raise the objection? Is that what that means?

John Larsen [00:10:19] Not much. I think that, that he was there for that talk, that you just were pimping out there and I didn't, I didn't do that. I just said Mormon. I don't, I don't think they, they listen to very much of what I do, which is probably a key to the piece.

John Dehlin [00:10:37] Well, I love that you're modeling healthy dialogue anyway.

John Larsen [00:10:41] Well, there's a lot of, you know, I, and I want to make this point. I've made it over and over and over again the years, but it gets lost. I, I think Mormon people for the, for the, for the, for the most part, for the better part, are great people. I mean, there's, there's assholes everywhere. And, and, but Mormons aren't particular assholes. Some of them become asshole. Ish. But the most, most Mormons are wonderful, genuine people striving, trying their best to live good lives. And my criticisms are almost universally aimed at the church and the doctrine and the foundation, but I think the people tend to behave themselves. Now, you know, we talk about racism and sexism and bigotry and those hard issues, but I think your garden variety Mormon is not any more bigoted than, than your garden variety, you know, American for. Whatever that means.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] Yeah, beautiful. All right, so should we jump to the, should we jump to the topic for tonight's episode?

Reframing the Term Anti-Mormon Literature

John Larsen [00:11:48] Yeah, that's actually a good segue. I wanted to, at the top, talk a little bit about the term anti Mormon, because what we're going to be going through here is kind of a survey, a history of some of the most influential, impactful anti Mormon books that have been written over the course of the church. And after I put this list together, I realized it was a great kind of overview of the history of the church.

John Larsen [00:12:16] But sometimes Mormons make the comparison to when we say an anti Semite, somebody who has a real prejudicial view of Jewish people, and they kind of played that card as if you criticize the church. This is something I'm sure you felt, John. I felt there are those who kind of do this sleight of hand that if you say any criticism of the church, its corporation, its lawyers, any of that, they're saying, well, you're expressing hate for a people.

John Larsen [00:12:55] And it isn't like that. So. And that's why I think some of these books are discounted outright and not read by people interested in the restoration or in the Mormon movement because they're labeled as anti Mormon. But that does not mean what it means when you're an anti Semite, for example, it means that you're dealing with the difficult parts or rejecting the truth claims of the church and not necessarily attacking the people. And I want to make that. That really, I want to make that apparent up front and that.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] And because we haven't really talked about introducing the theme, that disclaimer is important as it ties to the theme how

John Larsen [00:13:45] all these are anti Mormon books or have been labeled as such.

John Dehlin [00:13:50] So what is the title and what are these books about so that people understand.

John Larsen [00:13:56] Okay, yeah, good. Yeah. So I have a list here of 18 books that have been really impactful or influential that were all written by the turncoats, These were all written by people who were active or prominent in the church. And then lost their faith and then wrote exposes or other books about the church. And we go from really the beginning of the church to the modern era.

John Larsen [00:14:22] And they are about insiders who are complaining about different elements. And they're a great source for information and they need to be evaluated. Mormons are really good about taking anything that they deem to be critical or even different than the church and labeling all as satanic lies and categorizing it such that you don't have to look at that, you don't have to take their arguments seriously. You don't need to listen to what these guys are saying. And, you know, and that's a problem with whistleblowers in general, is they're oftentimes looked down upon. They are maligned, they are marginalized, they are othered. And really they have some of the most compelling and interesting things to say because they were once part of the organization, which is, you know, why your voice and my voice, for example, have had some impact, because we understand what it was like to be a Mormon and we understand it from the inside out. And these works are extremely important for understanding the history of the church and how we got here.

Overview of the Eighteen Whistleblower Books

John Dehlin [00:15:31] Okay, and so what you've put together is A list of 18 books, mostly of whistleblowers, people who were members and then apostatized and left the church and then wrote about it.

John Larsen [00:15:43] And.

John Dehlin [00:15:43] And before we just dive right in, it's fair to say that a few on that list actually didn't apostatize. But you included them anyway, right?

John Larsen [00:15:53] Yeah, that's true. I classified them as basically giving major critique of the church in a way that was impactful, and we'll get through the cases, but there's nobody on this list who wasn't a member of the church for at least a little while. And I said 18 books. There's 17 books in a newspaper, but yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:16] All right, so that's exciting. So we're going to dive in and talk about, I don't know, 18 whistleblowers slash books, newspapers that helped change Mormonism. So should we start with the first?

Early Exposés: Howe, Bennett, and the Nauvoo Expositor

John Larsen [00:16:29] Sure. The very first anti Mormon book that was written was mormonism unveiled by E.B. howe. Unveiled is misspelled in this case. It's U N V A I L E D. And there's another book that we'll get to later in the list by.

John Larsen [00:16:48] By Lee, that was Mormonism Unveiled spelled with an E. So that's, that's an important distinction. 1834 was the year, and E.B. howe had been A member in the New York era, before Kirtland, before the Ohio era, the church. So this is the earliest real collected criticism of the church. Now, the newspapers followed the development of Mormonism and would oftentimes print articles and different things like that. And there would be itinerant speakers who'd go around and talk about it. But this is the first real book we have.

John Larsen [00:17:26] It's actually got a long name, and here's the long name. Mormonism Unveiled. Or A faithful account of the singular imposition and delusion from its rise to the present time, with sketches of the characters of its propagators and a full detail of the manner in which the famous gold Bible was brought before the world, to which are added inquiries into the probability the historical part of said Bible was written by one Solomon spalding more than 20 years ago and by him intending to have been published as a romance.

John Dehlin [00:17:56] That's the full title. Are you kidding?

John Larsen [00:18:01] Well, that's how I interpret it. Maybe I'm stretching a little bit there. So E.B. howe was connected to Joseph Smith as. And this is one of the first big attacks of calling Joseph Smith a gold digger, a treasure seeker. Now, we do need to stop saying that because I'm sure I don't know about. I can't crawl into Howe's heart. But at the time, the aboriginal Americans, the Native Americans, were generally maligned and thought to be sort of a subspecies all over the place.

John Larsen [00:18:46] Let's start saying honestly what Joseph Smith was. He was a grave robber. And that's what they were doing, the Iroquois. And we'll have to go through this really quick, it's a big point, but they would bury their dead in these mounds. And when they buried their dead, they would bury them with their jewelry and their full regalia, and for warriors, they'd bury them with the. Their material. Now, by the time Joseph Smith was around in the early part of the 19th century, the Iroquois and the Indians on the east coast have been trading with the Spanish since the early 1500s. And one of the things that the Indians liked were Spanish short swords.

John Larsen [00:19:40] They also would trade for breastplates, helmets and shields. So you have literally Hundreds of years, 200 years or so, that you had graves that were dug in which people were buried with European armament. Now, somebody who doesn't know sort of the history of the aboriginal people in America might dig that up and say, oh, my God, there was a civilization here, and these bodies are in big mounds. They must have had gigantic wars in which they piled up all the dead, because here we Keep finding all these things. So I just bring that up, that. That was one of the chief complaints of E.B. howe.

John Larsen [00:20:28] He identified Joseph Smith as a gravedigger, really. And it was not an activity that was respectable then, either. So Joseph Smith had been arrested for it and convicted. He had a reputation for doing this among other people. It was skullduggery, even at the time, literally.

John Larsen [00:20:50] He also criticized the King James gibberish. He said, this is just a lot of, like, wonk, wonk, wonk taken out of the King James. And he also gave a big criticism of them talking in tongues. Now, I don't know that we have spent a lot of time dealing with this, but we should. The early Saints and Brigham Young was a big. Would speak in. What is it called, glasnost or something like that, where they go glossolalia or something. Yeah, something like that. That was really a big thing in Mormonism until after Brigham died, really.

John Larsen [00:21:27] And oftentimes visitors would talk about it, you know, so the kind of Holy Roller churches that you've heard about, where people are throwing themselves on the ground in fits and speaking in languages and screaming and stuff like that, that was the early church, by the way. So he was really critical of this. He also pointed out problems of Sidney Rigdon, and he mentioned the Spalding Transcript, which was accused of being used to create the Book of Mormon. So E.B. howe was dismissed outright. Said he was satanic and whatever. But it's a great source for early information on the church. And most of his criticism has been backed up by other sources.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] Yeah, many of these titles I'm not going to have anything to say about, but this one, I'll just say a couple impressions I have. One is that you get the impression that basically all he did was go around to all of Joseph's neighbors, people who worked closely with him, and, you know, got their versions of what they experienced. And, you know, of course, that's because he wasn't a believer, was criticizing Joseph Smith in the church, and because he was interviewing none. Faithful, committed Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] I guess that's made historians, past and present, especially faithful Mormon historians, really discredit and dismiss what. What he. What E.B. howe wrote. And I've always been disappointed by that, you know, because if you just think about the FBI or the CIA, when they're hiring an employee, or the justice, you know, the State Department, when they're hiring an employee, what do they do? They literally send investigators out to the neighbors of the people that they're hiring to say, what have you noticed Living next to them for so long. Like, why is that not credible testimony or witness people who literally physically resided as neighbors or as co workers within this case, Joseph Smith of the Smith family for in some cases years or decades.

John Dehlin [00:23:39] It doesn't seem like it makes sense for that to be summarily dismissed. In addition to the point you just made, John Larsen, that so many of his accusations that were dismissed by faithful Mormon historians as biased have since turned out to be true. For me, the most important of which is not just Joseph Smith's treasure digging, but particularly the affidavit that he obtained of Isaac Hale, Emma Smith's dad, who Joseph Smith boarded with while he was treasure digging in.

John Dehlin [00:24:16] Was it Harmony? Harmony, Pennsylvania. And Isaac Hale basically said not only Joseph was a treasure digger, he seemed sketchy to me. I never really liked him. And then later, the really important testimony where Isaac Hale basically says, once I called Joseph on his shenanigans, he bawled and he said he was sorry and he said he never could see anything in the first place and he's never going to do it again.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] That's his father in law, who Joseph Smith lived with. That's super important testimony. And we have E.B. howe to thank for, as I understand it, for coming up with that affidavit. So that's just one example of, of, of the real good stuff, you know, and by the way, if someone's been burned by Mormonism, and I think, is it right, John Larsen, that like E.B. house, sister or wife or some close family member of his, he lost to the Mormon Church, like, if somebody has been hurt by the church, does that make them less credible of a witness or more credible of a witness? You know, I ask you.

John Dehlin [00:25:24] So anyway, those are just some of my reflections on E.B. howe, but I think it's a really important set of documents to check out.

John Larsen [00:25:34] Yeah, and. And I think one of the things you can always ask is what is the motivation? I mean, some of these folks we're going to go through clearly had sort of a profit motivation. But what did EB how get out of this? You know, what he saw was somebody who believed to be a scoundrel who was bilking his neighbors for treasure and time and property and other things. And he's like, this guy's a fraud and wanted to expose him, you know, where the next book we're gonna talk about, John C. Bennett. Well, he had a big axe to grind. So, you know, you can talk about his motivation.

John Larsen [00:26:08] But I think when there's not a real Benefit for them to lie and publish a book, one needs to give it a little bit more weight. But with all these things, I would say read them, ask yourself. And I will say almost everything that we're going to be going from the 19th century at least, is available online. Most of these things have been scanned and uploaded. So if you do a quick little Google search and you want to read any of these, you can download the text for free.

John Dehlin [00:26:38] Almost all of them. Kara, do you have anything you want to say about E.B. howe's Mormonism Unveiled?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:26:44] Yeah, I did an episode with Bill real on my YouTube channel a couple months ago, and for it, I read Dan Vogel's commentary on the book Mormonism Unveiled. Because there's so many, I guess, Mormon apologists and historians who just want to say it's already been debunked. This is going. I think the theme of us going through these different, you know, critiques of the truth of Mormonism is people just want to sweep everything under the rug and say, oh, this is. This started with Mormonism Unveiled and it's already been debunked and everything. And it's like, not really. There's legitimate problems that are brought up in Mormonism Unveiled that have to do with Joseph's treasure digging and, you know, what people thought of him.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:27:26] And then you add that into the context of Edie Howe is a newspaper editor who. A lot of Mormons move into the town just like every time the Mormons would move somewhere else. They're a big political force and people want to know what they're doing, what are they up to? Why are they so secretive? Are they like Masons? What do we need to know about them? And so a church that has a lot of secrets.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:27:48] People in those days, they wanted to get to the bottom of what it's all about. And I think it could have just been not taken so seriously that, that this is, you know, when you think you're in the one true church. If people are investigating your roots and it turns out that it's scandalous and to do with fraudulent activity, people are going to say that they're either liars or then as time comes out, it's the going to nuance what Joseph's treasure digging was. But yeah, at the time, that was really important information for. For new Edie Howe to get out and for people to understand what Mormonism was all about.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:28:22] When, you know, you don't have the Internet, people don't know. They can't research. Who are all these Mormons that just moved into my town. They have a right to understand what is this new political force that's going on.

John Dehlin [00:28:31] And, John, I. I just think I. I think I may have said E.B.

John Larsen [00:28:34] how?

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Not Ed.

John Larsen [00:28:35] How.

John Dehlin [00:28:35] And I think Cara just helped. Helped us realize that we have the wrong initial there.

John Larsen [00:28:40] I. I thought it was E.B. but it's Ed.

John Dehlin [00:28:44] You're right, Kara. I. I checked. It's ebird. D. How. E, D. How. So anyway, Kara, thanks for coming in with the. With this spelling correction. We appreciate it.

John Larsen [00:28:54] Yeah, thanks.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:28:54] Yeah, yeah, I did a whole breakdown on that. That thing, because Mormon apologists, they bring it up so much that I was like, let me read this whole commentary by Dan Vogel. Let me get to the bottom of it. Of what this initial first critique of Mormonism and how it started, how it all came out. Because John, if you remember on the. John on the Rodney Meldrum episode, he's like, you know, this has all been around. These lies have always been around since Mormonism unveiled. They want to point back to that. And so it's important, I think, if you're interested in Mormon history, to know what that first book, what that expose was about.

John Dehlin [00:29:25] Beautiful.

John Larsen [00:29:25] And I would offer to people, you know, that is one of the first apologetic defenses. They always say, oh, we've already dealt with that. We've already talked about it. And, But. But these books are really interesting, so go, Go read them. If you have a firm faith in the. Your testimony in the church, it won't impact it. If you want to know about the history and what people thought about the. The Mormons at the time, then they're, They're. They're. They're really fascinating. But this, having been dealt with, is just a thing they made up. That's not real.

John Dehlin [00:29:57] Yeah. All right, John, what's the second book?

John Larsen [00:29:59] Okay. The History of the Saints or An Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism by John C. Bennett? Now, there are some real characters from the early church, and Joseph Smith had this bad habit of, like, a new kid would roll into town and he would just, like, forget everything he was doing and whoever once was there and he would just get enamored with these guys. He did it with Martin Harris. He did it with Oliver Cowdery. He. He did it with. He did it with Sidney Rigdon, and then he did it with John C. Bennett. So Bennett was an actual scoundrel. He was.

John Larsen [00:30:38] He. And it's. It's hard to really dig into his history, but he. He presented himself as a doctor, and that will come up in the story here. In a minute. But it's unlikely he ever actually had a practice, a licensed practice, practice medicine. He had abandoned his family to come into Nauvoo. And he was just all around not a good guy. Joseph fell in love with him and he rose quickly to become the church assistant president. Joseph Smith made up a new position and put him above his counselors.

John Larsen [00:31:12] And of course, this is 1842 when this was written. The Quorum of the Twelve didn't have like line authority like they do now. So he just rose right straight to the top. And Joseph Smith made him the mayor of Nauvoo and a major general. Now a major general is a two star general. So at 1842, you have to remember that Joseph Smith has given up wearing civilian clothes and is parading around in Napoleonic garb. He's wearing a big old hat and the white trousers and the long boots with a sword. And so.

John Larsen [00:31:46] So, you know, at this time they're all kind of like playing soldier and getting this militia up. Well, John C. Bennett was part by other historical records of when they first started practicing polygamy. They first started it in darkness and he was one that was, was involved in it. And he is rumored and believed to be the Nauvoo abortionist. So. So, you know, the question is, how are these guys sneaking around all the time and there weren't all these babies born in the early era. That's one of the theories. So that's. I'll leave that for your own homework to go read about that wild accusation.

John Larsen [00:32:27] This book actually provides us the earliest portrait of Joseph Smith. The earliest sketch ever made of Joseph Smith was in this book. And this was an expose of polygamy. So he wrote about what they were doing and how they were doing it. Of course, Joseph Smith and the others vilified him. And there's a lot of tit for tat and finger pointing back and forth and actual real violence between these guys. But it is an interesting book and an interesting look into what craziness was going on at the height of Nauvoo. 1842.

John Dehlin [00:33:05] Yeah. And I think John C. Bennett was really crucial in helping Joseph Smith obtain a charter from the state of Illinois to be able to, I don't know, start a city and to run it properly. I'm surprised the date. I've thought there's no way that book was published in 1842. Like it wasn't another two years. He came in like 1840 and he probably had his party in 18. Like he wasn't with Joseph that long. So it's weird that he got a book out that fast that was an expose. It's not like he had Amazon and PDFs that he could create or anything like that.

John Dehlin [00:33:42] As I'm reading through the description again, even though he's clearly biased, he does get stuff right because he talks about, for example, the Danites, which is a real thing. He talks about a conspiracy to overthrow the US Government. And I don't know if it's fair to say that Joseph Smith wanted to overthrow the US Government, but it is fair to say the council of the 50 declared Joseph Smith, what, King of the world or anointed him as king of the world. And so John Bennett's at least touching on some of the critiques that later turn out to be true. And then, of course, the big one that kind of maybe John C.

John Dehlin [00:34:23] Bennett's hands are dirty is that, you know, he was kicked out of the church for spiritual wifery or for allegedly, you know, you know, adultery or fornication. But then that always begs the question, wait a minute. Was he just doing what Joseph was doing with polygamy? But then Joseph didn't like him anymore for some reason, had a falling out, and then he got fingered, pointed the finger at as being a polygamist or as being a spiritual waifarist, when really he was sanctioned by Joseph to do it and was just doing what he learned for Joseph as part of the inner circle. Because at the time, Bennett would have been busted for, quote, spiritual wifery.

John Dehlin [00:35:05] Joseph was still denying publicly that he was a polygamist at all. And so that's how Joseph could have gotten busted and kicked out for that.

John Larsen [00:35:14] At the time, they were denying the accusations of polygamy altogether. They're saying, no, it's all lies.

John Dehlin [00:35:20] Yeah. Yeah. Kara, anything you want to say about

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:35:23] John C. Bennett, I will just point people to Ben Park's book. Kingdom of Nauvoo was real page turner, especially on that Navu period of Mormon history. And John C. Bennett takes up a major part of that book, and it's a fascinating part of Mormon history. And, yeah, it deals with a lot of the things about spiritual wifery and then the evolution of what Joseph's going to do. Now that this is a practice that I. I think is described as, like, Bennett being the one to first initiate it and kind of get those ideas into Joseph's minds and take a hold, and then he's too far in, you know, with his spiritual lifery that now he has to create an entire doctrine and, you know, an entire new.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:36:09] I. I honestly think Bennett was the, you know, the impetus to so much of what later became Mormonism that as the mayor and being so influential in the beginning and then being too fast and loose with his spiritual wifery to the point that they had to ask him to act like we're not part of. He's not part of this group anymore. So they can keep things above board, you know? So, yeah, Kingdom of Navi was a good book on that, too.

John Dehlin [00:36:35] Thanks.

John Larsen [00:36:36] Yeah, it kind of got away from them. The way they practice polygamy in the very beginning was that Joseph Smith or one of the other authorities would ask you, you might be a married woman, you might be a young woman. They would ask you to come to kind of the official headquarters. And you'd get there, and then there'd be, like, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, there'd be two priesthood officials, and then they would tell you that there's this secret thing we're doing. You're not allowed to tell anybody, and we're gonna do this marriage, and this is right and proper. Now you believe Joseph Smith is the prophet.

John Larsen [00:37:11] So they did this multiple times. We have lots of affidavits on this. We have lots of faithful sources of how they were working. The problem is, once they kind of got the method down, then it's pretty clear that John C. Bennett and William Smith, Joseph Smith's little brother, went and started doing this on their own. So they would just go to. They would just go to women and say, hey, you're gonna be. You're gonna be my wife. My wife. Even though they weren't registering it or doing anything. So it did get out of. We. We know those two did it, probably others. So it got out of control really fast. So Joseph needed a fall guy, and the fall guy was Bennett.

John Dehlin [00:37:53] Got it. Okay. All right, all right, Makes sense.

John Larsen [00:37:56] All right, we're going to Skip ahead to 1844. It's. It's absolutely important to mention the Nauvoo Expositor. And I would say, please see the Mormon Expression podcast. We tore apart every single word of this thing. And I will say it is absolutely 100% accurate from front to back. William Blah was the stake president of Nauvoo. And as these things, you know, we go from 1842 to 1844. As it was just getting hot in Nauvoo, things just kept heating up. It kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and more out of control. Eventually, it broke into two factions of church leadership and the Nauvoo Expositor. Was of course, the newspaper where the ones who were rejecting this spiritual wifery.

John Larsen [00:38:40] And that exposed everything that was going on. And of course the response I've always thought it's poetic, this sort of the Age of Mormon expansion, 1833 began outside of independence with them overturning the printing press, the Mormon printing press, and scattering the type of and ended right before Joseph Smith's death, with Joseph Smith leading the overturning of the printing press and scattering the type. So it is this karmic release of what was done to the Mormons, the Mormons did to everyone else, and that was part and parcel to Joseph Smith's eventual assassination.

John Larsen [00:39:23] It's hard to use the word assassination for somebody who died in a gunfight because Joseph Smith was shot shooting a gun back at the time.

John Dehlin [00:39:29] Right. Maybe I'll just add that I just released an episode with Radio Free Mormon on Mormon stories. Well, let me just echo John Larsen, your and it's called Navo Expositor for Dummies and it's episodes 37A and 37B of Mormon expression. I didn't listen to all Mormon Expression episodes, but I definitely listened to those two. And and they're phenomenal high recommends. Definitely top 10 favorites of mine from the Mormon Expression catalog. We'll include links to those. I'm also going to add that Radio Free Mormon and I just did an episode on the Nauvoo Expositor and the reason why we did it is because Radio Free Mormon has been being battered lately by sort of neo fundamentalist modern Mormon apologists that are trying to claim that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy, that it was Brigham Young who introduced polygamy and who apostatized.

John Dehlin [00:40:26] But Joseph, they want him to remain pure and unadulterated, literally. And what Radio Free Mormon is able to do, he's able to take the text from the Nauvoo Expositor that was released right before Joseph Smith died and and make direct parallels in text not only to journal entries and to meeting minutes, but also to DNC132.

John Dehlin [00:40:58] In other words, there's direct parallels verbiage, verbatim, between the Nauvoo Expositor and what ends up as DNC132 with levels of detail that are just inexplicable, other than to say that DNC132 must have been produced at the same around the same time the Nauvoo Expositor happened. It's an excellent episode and I highly, highly recommend it.

John Larsen [00:41:21] Wow. Sounds awesome.

John Dehlin [00:41:23] It's good stuff. Okay. All right, William Law is a real hero also. Just a great guy, honest. And he was excommunicated for telling the truth. He wasn't excommunicated for lying. He wasn't even excommunicated for apostasy in the sense that he, like, stopped believing. If you read the novel Expositor, he says, I still believe in Joseph. I still believe in the Restoration. I still believe in the Book of Mormon. I just think Joseph Smith's basically sex trafficking European women, and, you know, he's going crazy with this King of the world Council of 50 stuff. But I still believe in the Restoration. So I think of all the credible people that.

John Dehlin [00:42:05] Who's ever risen up to oppose Joseph Smith, William Law, to me, is a favorite and perhaps a standout. Yeah. So in my view, William Law is one of the great heroes of Mormon history and one of the unsung heroes. The Church should issue him an apology. The Mormon Church should issue him an apology. We should respect and honor him for telling the truth. He was certainly much more of a true teller than Joseph Smith ended up to be. And he's. He's one of my great heroes. All right, John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:42:36] I agree.

John Dehlin [00:42:37] Oh, go ahead.

John Larsen [00:42:38] I just say, and I agree. He. He. He. He did us all a service, and he recorded what was going on, and it's a. A shame what happened to him.

John Dehlin [00:42:47] Yeah. All right, what's next?

Lucy Mack Smith's Biography and Early Polygamy Accounts

John Larsen [00:42:50] So our next one, we're gonna skip ahead a few years, and if you're only gonna read one of these books, really, this is the one to read. Now, this is 1853 biographical sketches of Joseph Smith by his progenitor, Lucy Mack Smith. Now, there are three versions of this book, and you want to get the earliest one. And if you. If you. If you look and read the preface to the books, you can find the ones that have the different changes.

John Larsen [00:43:20] Lucy Mack Smith was no fan of Brigham Young for reasons we'll get to in a second here. And then Brigham Young, actually, after this book was written, he issued a general recall. It was an excommunicable offense in Utah to have a copy of these books. They gathered everyone they could find, and they burned them all. And then he had his lackeys rewrite and then republish this book under Lucy Mack's name.

John Larsen [00:43:48] So that's one of the versions of the book, and you don't want to read that one. It changes. Now, the great thing about Lucy, this is, of course, Joseph Smith's mother, and, you know, she believed in her son 100% and never waved and never faltered and One of the problems during the succession crisis is Joseph Smith had very clearly stated on more than one occasion that the prophet mantle was patrilineal and should go to his children.

John Larsen [00:44:26] And this was one of the early breaks. And the reorganized church was sort of founded on this principle, but eventually they kind of walked away from it. In the long run, it's really hard to have a system like that.

John Larsen [00:44:41] But she gives this raw, honest, clear view of Joseph Smith and accidentally reveals some things the church wouldn't want to be revealed. For example, she makes clear that Joseph Smith grew up telling stories about the Nephites and the Lamanites in these wars before he ever got the golden plates.

John Larsen [00:45:04] That was just one of the things that he did as a kid. You know, like, how did he do that? Strange. But it is a really great look, raw look at Joseph Smith the church would find unfriendly. But it's his mother, so it's delightful.

John Dehlin [00:45:23] The two things that I think of, and this may be a little bit repetitive, but the two things that this book is most often cited for in my mind is, number one, she tells in this book about Joseph Smith Sr's dream of the Tree of Life and the. And the rod in the midst of darkness. Am I wrong about that, John Larsen?

John Larsen [00:45:45] Basically, no, you're right. So she wanted to establish that her husband was actually the patriarch who started this movement. And then that was gonna be handed to Alvin, but Alvin died. Cause he was the firstborn. And then Joseph stepped in and kind of took over the mantle. And so Lucy saw this, this thing that had already been established with Joseph's father. So you're exactly right. She talks about that. That whole vision was had by him before the Book of Mormon ever was around.

John Dehlin [00:46:22] Yeah, so if you look, if you read Joseph Smith Sr's dream of the Tree of Life, it's really hard to distinguish it between that and Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon, which is a really important piece of evidence to show that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century document. You know, Rocky Mountain Bible fan fiction, as Kara often likes to say, and sells merch to that effect.

John Dehlin [00:46:49] But that's important. Also her accounts of Joseph smith in the 1820s being able to sit by the family fire and tell story after story after story about Native Americans who lived in America in great wars and all these sort of fictional Native American characters.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] Her recounting Joseph's memory and his storytelling abilities to speak for hours helps sort of address the canard that many apologists try to advance, which is that he was too dumb, too uneducated, you know, just. He was too much of a simpleton to be able to create such a book.

John Dehlin [00:47:38] You know, Lucy would say he was brilliant and was such a good storyteller, he could speak for hours and keep people spellbound, talking about, you know, fictional. Fictitious. Is that a word? Fictitious? Fictional. Native Americans. Am I wrong?

John Larsen [00:47:52] Yeah, yeah, fictional. No, that's what the. No, you're right. And that's what a lot of these books establish. And as you go through the family lure, you know, the apologists like to have this boy who's just naive, wandering into the forest and creating this thing out of whole cloth, which he couldn't do, therefore it must be angelically or divinely inspired. But really, you start seeing bits and pieces of this all around, and it really starts to form a real picture. And this is part of it.

John Dehlin [00:48:23] All right, what's number five? John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:48:26] Number five was a really important book, and I'll be honest, it's one that I have not read and it's not written about very much, but it sort of. It made a splash. It was 1855. The female life among the Mormons by one C.H. clark.

John Larsen [00:48:40] Now, this time frame is really important. So 1844, Joseph Smith is assassinated. 46, you know, they cross the Mississippi into winter quarters, and 47, they start rolling out to Utah. And so the early years were really hard. And then in 1856, a couple things happened. On September 11, 1856, was the mass murder of the Fancher party in. Commonly known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre down in southern Utah.

John Larsen [00:49:17] And that, among other things, got the attention of the. Of the federal government. And they sent out, I don't know how big of it was a battalion or bigger or smaller. Commonly referred to in non Mormon circles as the Utah War. And in Mormon circles it's referred to as Johnston's Army.

John Larsen [00:49:39] They sent this, you know, this detachment to put an end to the problem in the West. Now, Brigham Young was shrewd and. And one of the things that he did when they got to Utah is he tried to span. Try to space out the Mormon settlements so they sat on every source of water.

John Larsen [00:50:04] So that's why there's so many little Mormon towns all up and down from Nevada, well, Mexico, all the way up into Canada, all the way into, you know, California is, Is. Is. Brigham was trying to get strategic control of the westward migration path. And of course, the Mormons actually got very rich off of selling to both the 49ers and other immigrants to the. That Took the California route of, of buying their, their cows and their horses and their wagons on the cheap, selling wheat and goods expensively.

John Larsen [00:50:42] And the federal government, they weren't real super happy about this. And there had been word coming out about polygamy. Now that same year, 56 in the fall is when the brethren decided to become public. Now if you were in Utah, you knew that polygamy was going on, but they were still publicly denying that they were practicing it until 56. This book was the first expose written by a woman who had been part of polygamy. And you know, it was a tell all and it made a splash. So it helped drive anti Mormon sentiment in, in the country. And Mormonism probably would have been wiped out completely if it wasn't for the rise of the Civil War, all the detachments and whatever military gaming that was being done out west. They all got called back as, as the war started really firing up in 1860.

John Dehlin [00:51:41] All right, so that's Female Life among the Mormons by C.H. clark, published in 1855. What comes next? John Larsen?

Women Who Exposed Polygamy: Stenhouse and Ann Eliza Young

John Larsen [00:51:49] All right, the next one was a book and this, this gets a little complicated here because we have a husband and wife who wrote, they each wrote a book and she wrote her first version and then renamed it and wrote it again.

John Larsen [00:52:06] So this, the first one we're going to Talk about is 1872 called Expose of Polygamy in A Lady's Life among the Mormons by Fanny Steinhaus. Her husband was TBH Steinhaus and he wrote the next book on our list which is called the Rocky Mountain A Full and Complete History of the Mormons.

John Larsen [00:52:26] And then the 1872 expose of polygamy was republished. She added more content to it and it was republished in 1874 called Tell It All A Woman's Life in Polygamy. And by the way, I always got confused by these books until I was preparing for this and I finally sorted out what had gone on here.

John Larsen [00:52:44] So the Steinhaus's were really, they were movers and shakers in Salt Lake City. They founded the Daily Telegraph, which was the first newspaper in Salt Lake City and the first faithful newspaper. They were, they were faithful. They had, they were, you know, just in Salt Lake in 1862, TBH Steinhaus took his second wife.

John Larsen [00:53:10] That relationship eventually ended and she became the one of the wives of Brigham Young. In 1870 they got dis. Whatever, disillusioned with polygamy and what was going on and they left the church and they were principal founders of the Godbeit movement which is A whole topic in and of itself. The Godbeites were like the Unitarian Universalists of Mormonism, and they had a much more liberal view of things, and they kind of rejected polygamy and some of the more hardline things.

John Larsen [00:53:44] Well, these two are really important because of the time frame the war is over, and the first anti polygamy act had been passed in the late 60s, and these guys went on the circuit. So they would go from town to town and give lectures about Mormonism and the books. If you can get a. If you can get a copy of them, you can buy it from Amazon. They're available online. They had a lot of line drawings that showed, you know, temple ceremonies. They had big excerpts of the temple. We know a lot about the temple from the, from these books, and just generally talked about everything that was going on.

John Larsen [00:54:21] But these books had just such an impact on the American public, and more importantly, them doing the lecture series, that it really keyed things up for the Edmonds act and then the Edmunds Tucker act coming up here in a few years in which the Mormon authorities had to go underground and they started seizing the property of the church. So this really played into that narrative.

John Dehlin [00:54:49] Yeah. You know, I am going to give a shout out to a content creator that I really have come to respect. Under Instagram, she goes by Uncertainly Carly C A R L y. And on TikTok, she goes by Carl's head Jr. But she has been reading excerpts of Fanny Stenhouse's book Expose of Polygamy in Utah, A Lady's Life among the Mormons. And it's scandalous and outrageous and appears to be quite a credible read. And so you're not the only one these days recommending that book, John Larsen and I, I want to strongly recommend that just based on Carly. Uncertainly Carly's recommendations as well. It's great stuff.

John Larsen [00:55:40] Yeah, yeah, they're great. I. I actually have original copies of both of. Of all these, and they're. They're really fun to. To look at and go through. Just good stuff.

John Dehlin [00:55:52] Yeah. All right, so that's, that's five and six, is that right?

John Larsen [00:55:57] Yeah, yeah. Well. And so the next book was written on its heels, which was 1876, a book called Wife Number 19 by Ann Eliza Young. Now, Anne was born in 1844 in Nauvoo, and her father took a second wife when she was 1 years old. So this is the first individual who wrote a big expose who not only was a plural wife, but had grown up in polygamy. So she was A second generationer.

John Larsen [00:56:28] She had married somebody, and she divorced her first husband, and then she married Brigham Young when she was 24 and he was 67. If that's not. If that's not creepy for you. And then in 1961, Irving Wallace did a recount, a replay of this book, and he said, okay, she was actually the 27th wife of Brigham Young. She wasn't wife number 19. And that's telling that she didn't even know which wife she was. And researchers have now concluded she was actually the 52nd wife of Brigham Young. So Brigham Young was able to hide at least, what, 32 different wives from her as his wife that she didn't know at all.

John Larsen [00:57:15] So this was another big popular expose in the series. People gobbled this stuff up. And so 1882, like I referenced before, was when the Edmonds act was passed. The Edmonds act outlawed cohabitation. And that's when you get the term cohab, which is still the term I use when referring to the polygamists, because before that, they had said, okay, bigamy. Marrying more than one person is illegal, but there was some legal shady ground because they'd only legally marry their first wife and not the second, third, or fourth. So the Edmonds act made it illegal to cohabitate. And then what the federal agents which flooded into Utah would.

John Larsen [00:57:56] Would do is they would. They would stake out the houses of the second and third wives. So when the horny general authorities would sneak in through the window, there'd be the federales to lock them up. And a lot of them did get locked up. 1887, it wasn't working. And the Edmunds Tucker act was. This needs to have its own whole podcast. Disincorporated the church, and then the federal government just started seizing all the property to the church.

John Larsen [00:58:27] And the general authorities were all underground. The church was falling apart. And so that was a really important part of the history. But these books were key to getting that outrage about what was going on in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:58:44] Yeah. And again, that's if she's married to Brigham Young herself. And Eliza Young. And this is book number eight. I'm sorry, I had it. Had it wrong. This is book number eight, wife number 19, by Ann Eliza Young. It's hard to get any closer than to the prophet himself, right?

John Larsen [00:59:00] Yeah. Yeah. So she was really seeing where the Kool Aid was made. There's another great book written that's not for this one we need to talk about in the future. Clarissa Young, Brigham Young's daughter, wrote a fantastic book called Brigham Young at home, she was faithful. But it still exposes a lot of thing like how Brigham Young treated his slaves and stuff like that. So yeah, we do have first hand accounts of what it was like. She did divorce Brigham Young and took him to the cleaners. But yeah, it's an important book.

John Dehlin [00:59:40] Okay.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [00:59:42] I was also going to say that I remember flipping through that book when I was a nanny once to a family that was not Mormon and I didn't know if it was pro Mormon or anti Mormon. And it was my first exposure to this less than whitewashed version of polygamy that we knew that polygamy was practiced. Know when you're in the church, but you just don't know to what extent. And if I remember correctly, that was one of the first books that really exposed that, you know, like we were talking about with Mormonism unveiled, these new people are moving into town, the new Mormons are moving in.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:00:17] And what are they all about? What is this polygamy all about? Because there's, there's this seedy underbelly of polygamy and the reputation of Mormons being polygamous and the things they believed was difficult to gain more converts and gain more wives to travel out to Utah and correct me if I'm wrong, in that book is where she describes in detail those really heart wrenching stories of all of the converts from Europe that were traveling all the way to Salt Lake to then become traded like cattle within Mormonism. Does that sound familiar?

John Larsen [01:00:53] That that's truly like there was a big.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:00:55] They didn't have anywhere to go.

John Larsen [01:00:57] Yeah, yeah. Because they would, as part of the law of consecration, they would give everything they had to the church, oftentimes in winter quarters. So by the time they got to Utah, they were starving, impoverished, had nothing. But the trafficking was worse than that. There was a lot of accusation both inside and outside the church of the elders on missions, trying to pick the brightest and prettiest young girls. So the teenage girls were a hot commodity. And there's multiple cases where men would leave their first wife, go on missions to England or to Scandinavia, they would marry a second woman, not tell her, bring her back and not have told the first wife and then get to Utah.

John Larsen [01:01:47] Now suddenly these two women find themselves, I mean, this is the literal definition of sex trafficking. Right. Find themselves in this situation. But where to go? I mean, you. Do you walk 180 hours or whatever it would take to cross the Nevada desert? Did you cross the Wasatch Mountains and go to go to Denver? I mean, what would you do.

John Larsen [01:02:11] And there are. There are accounts of. Of 49ers and other people coming through Utah and having women beg them to haul them out of Utah. And Will Bagley, the historian, late Will Baggery, great man. He estimated that half of everybody who came out to Utah actually left. They turned around and went back.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:02:34] Yeah. Especially hard if you are trafficked from England or Europe and just.

John Larsen [01:02:39] Or Sweden and you don't even speak English. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:02:44] So I remember reading that book a little bit on that subject and her exposing that this is more than just your common everyday Christian religion that just moved out west. It's got some. Some really sex trafficky ties and. Yeah, anyway.

John Dehlin [01:03:00] Yeah. And for those who are joining us for the first time, just recently I did an episode with Julia and Nemo and Samantha Shelley from Zelph on the Shelf about the Navajo expositor Joseph Smith, answering the question, was Joseph Smith guilty of sex trafficking? Because I think there's really good evidence that demonstrates that he was, at least by modern standards. All right, John, what's next?

John D. Lee, the Danites, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre

John Larsen [01:03:31] All right, now we're getting into the Dirty Books. 1877 Mormonism unveiled by John D. Lee. Now let's talk about Lee. He'd been a long member of the church and. And he was adopted by Brigham Young. So sometime around in Nauvoo, and this is. It's hard to trace the actual beginning. They would do ceilings of women to men, but they started doing ceilings of men to men to sort of build their dynastic empire. And for a lot of years, John D. Lee changed his name and went by John D. Lee Young. And he was really proud of the fact that he had been adopted into. What do they call him in multi level marketing? His upchannel or whatever.

John Dehlin [01:04:21] His upline.

John Larsen [01:04:22] Yeah, his upline. He was. So he was an insider and he was part of the leadership. I can't remember exactly what his position was, but he was down in St. George when the order came. And the whole Mountain Meadows massacre is a big complicated thing, but suffice it to say that John D. Lee took the fall and he was blamed for the entire thing. And he was put to death for it. They killed him. So right before he was executed, he wrote this book and exposed a lot of the inner workings of polygamy, a lot of the inner workings of the power of Brigham Young, how Brigham Young manipulated people. And he confessed outright his role in Mountain Meadows. So we did get a lot of information from him on that. It's a fascinating book.

John Dehlin [01:05:28] I've been reading Barbara Brown and Richard Turley's new book, sort of their Part two of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. We're going to be covering it on Mormon stories soon. I've got a copy of it here somewhere, but. Oh, here it is. It's called Vengeance Is Mine, the Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath by Richard Turley and Barbara Brown. Barbara's amazing. I love her. She's the head of Signature Books right now. And as I'm reading the accounts of John D. Lee, I have to say he's not a fully sympathetic character. When I thought of him as, quote, the fall guy, I kind of thought of him as just being the good soldier doing what he was told. And then he's getting punished for. For things that he did obediently up the chain, even to Brigham Young. But he's problematic. Were you going to agree with that, John?

John Larsen [01:06:28] Yeah, yeah, he's an interesting cat and he stayed faithful to some degree or the other till his end. And he definitely had a role in what was happening and he definitely pulled the trigger and murdered somebody in cold blood. So, yeah, it's a really, really dark part of American history, and I think it remains one of the most bloody battles or incidents in American history. And, you know, they killed everybody who was above 8 years old and the

John Dehlin [01:07:10] kids, I think it was 6, actually,

John Larsen [01:07:12] if you go look at the monument, you know, they did their best guess. There are some nine year olds who survived and some seven year olds who were killed. So I think the idea was that under Mormon theology, children are innocent till the age of eight. So I think they were generally shooting for that. And then of course, they had taken all these poor kids who just watched their families be massacred, some of them with hatchets, some of them with bullets, and then they adopted them into these families. Of course they lost and the people of Arkansas came and got the kids. And if you go down to Mountain Meadows, I've been there a few times, there are always Arkansas state flags there.

John Larsen [01:07:59] And of course, this also led to the assassination or the murder or whatever you want to say of Parley P. Pratt in part or the whole thing was related. But yeah, it's a really dark history and this is where we get some information about it.

John Dehlin [01:08:15] If I'm remembering right, Parley P. Pratt went cross. He took on a polygamous wife who happened to be married to some other guy in Arkansas, and he got killed for trying to practice polygamy in Arkansas such that when these immigrants came across the plains that, that, you know, the murder of Parley P. Pratt, although some Would, you know, some would say he was, you know, problematic. I think the Saints in Utah, you know, took it out on the Arkansans and these immigrants for, you know, some random dude who was mad that Parley was sleeping with his wife, that he killed Parley. Does that sound right?

John Larsen [01:09:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So under Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, they had taught that the only marriages that were actually valid were ones that were performed by church authority. So they oftentimes allowed or encouraged people who had left their spouses and not actually become divorced to marry. So Parley P. Pratt had married a woman in the temple, but she was not divorced from her husband, and he was back east. And her husband chased Parley P. Pratt down across the prairie, caught up to him and shot him dead for, you know, cuckolding him, for sleeping with his wife. And then, you know, at the time, you know, imagine rumors and all that.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:09:51] And.

John Larsen [01:09:51] Yeah. And so it wasn't very long behind this that Johnston's army was sent. So they had rightfully ascertained that things were hot between the United States and the Utah territories, and things were heating up, but they overshot and they murdered all these people, and it's a big stain on the church even to today.

John Dehlin [01:10:20] Yeah. All right, well, I guess we're halfway done with the list. We're nine down and nine to go. Does that sound right?

John Larsen [01:10:30] Yeah. So on the same kind of level, in 1904 was published Brigham Young's Destroying Angel Being the Life Confession and starting a disclosure of the notorious Bill Hickman, the Danite chief of Utah. Dan Hickman, or Bill Hickman, also known as Wild Bill Hickman, was a Danite, and he was one of Brigham Young's assassins and bodyguards.

John Larsen [01:10:56] He. A wild story, he kind of went rogue, that he started a gang of horse thieves, and there were. There were two competing gangs of horse thieves in the United In. In Salt Lake at the time. And Wild Bill got involved in a gunfight on State street, where he was shot three or four times and dragged over to one of his wives houses where they held him after Brigham Young had ordered a hit on him.

John Larsen [01:11:25] And he eventually wrote this manuscript and handed it off to a guy named Beetle John Hansen. And he's the one who eventually published it. But Bill Hickman, you know, he told all the stories. You know, he was a murderous cuss. And I think he claimed he'd murdered over 70 people, and he had the receipts sometimes. So this is a great source for that underground and how Brigham Young deployed violence to help keep the colonies in check.

John Dehlin [01:12:01] All right. That sounds. That sounds like a fascinating. A fascinating book. Cara, anything you want to add about last episode, last. Last book, or this one?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:12:14] No, I just want to read it now. Danites and basically anything in Mormonism where they get to have a secret, separate group to do their dirty work that they. They don't want to be associated with doing is always a fascinating ploy that they like to utilize. So the Danites, I think, is. It's always an interesting aspect of Mormon history that I. There's aspects that, you know, carry over to today in certain ways. You could say.

John Dehlin [01:12:43] And John. And John, isn't the Danite thing something that maybe the Church tried to hide and deny for a long time still? And the Fon Brody. The Fon Brody wrote about and others. And you're saying that you think they're still trying to deny it?

John Larsen [01:12:58] I think it's still swept under the rug. If you read any of the Church history. I mean, the Danites were formed in Illinois and were heavy in those wars, those border skirmishes, and then they popped back up in Nauvoo, and that they never quite went away. But, you know, the problem is whenever you have a group that operates secretly, you can have rogue agents who others have no way of telling if they are or not.

John Larsen [01:13:32] So there really is a fog of war to know what things they were doing on their own versus what things they were doing. You know, Brigham Young had these guys out stealing horses and harassing the Ute and the Paiutes, but then they just said, well, we can steal horses from the. From the. The Gentiles. And then they started stealing horses from. From the Mormons, and, you know, it's just like they released a monster. So. But this is all history that I think most Mormons would say, you're being sensational. There were no hitmen. Brigham Young didn't order the killing of anybody. You're just making shit up. But it's. It's real. We have lots of records, lots of testimonials, lots of evidence.

John Dehlin [01:14:17] Yeah. And just as my memory, I think the day night started. The day night started in Missouri, even before Illinois.

John Larsen [01:14:24] Is that.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] Is that possible? John Larsen.

John Larsen [01:14:26] Yes. Yes, I said. I said Illinois. I meant Missouri. You're right.

John Dehlin [01:14:29] Okay. Yeah. I just want to make sure people don't. Don't hit us up with corrections. So, yeah, I think it was 1838 in Missouri where the Danites first got started because of all the persecution with Missouri Governor Boggs, the extermination order. I mean, in all fairness, you know, we weren't getting a lot of love. So we decided to give a little pushback, let's say.

John Larsen [01:14:52] Yeah, yeah, those, those wars were bloody on both sides. Lots of burning of homesteads and different stuff. But yeah, it resulted in the expulsion of the Mormons and the extermination order, which stayed in effect until the 70s.

Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History

John Dehlin [01:15:09] All right, well, now we get to books that I definitely start to know about more. And next 1:11 is one that we mention all the time on Mormon stories. Take it away, John Larsen.

John Larsen [01:15:23] Yeah, this one is probably one of the most impactful books on this list. No Man Knows My history by Fawn McKay Brody. Fawn McKay was David O. McKay's niece. And at the time, David O. McKay is an interesting fella. He loved to wear white suits when everyone else wore black. And he had this big kind of mane of hair, this gorgeous hair. And he was the first prophet to shave himself completely clean. And he was.

John Dehlin [01:15:58] His beard, right?

John Larsen [01:16:00] He didn't wear a beard. You know, everyone knows that true prophets have beards, but he broke that. He broke that paradigm. So he also is the first one to be called the Prophet since Joseph Smith. They never referred to Brigham Young as the Prophet. And of course there was a whole succession crisis. And Brigham was very careful in the beginning to not put himself on par with Joseph Smith. Because early Joseph Smith followers, Joseph was, was sainted, he was holy. And so they didn't call him the prophet until McKay. And he sort of wore that, that mantle. The reason I bring this up is he was beloved in a way that I think modern Mormons don't quite understand.

John Larsen [01:16:52] And it was just seen as this huge betrayal from Fawn Brody to write this book. The book is well researched and it is well put together and it exposes a lot of the dirt about who Joseph Smith was, what he was actually doing, where he was going, what was happening. That.

John Larsen [01:17:16] That had been buried effectively by the church and it was picked up by a lot of Mormon critics outside. In 1945 was the time that Mormons were really making a play for legitimacy in the United States and trying to put behind them their frontier and rough edged beginning. And so this book pissed a lot of people off.

John Dehlin [01:17:42] Yeah, it's a classic. I like to say it's the best biography in existence about Joseph Smith. Still, a lot of people say, well, Rough Stone Rolling is more current, you know, but. But the truth is most people, many people find Rough Stone Rolling to be just boring, long and boring. Is that, is that unfair, John Larsen of a criticism?

John Larsen [01:18:08] No, that's. That's my take, if you're going to read Bushman, read his. Read his book he wrote on Joseph Smith before Rough Stone Rolling.

John Dehlin [01:18:15] It was called Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Early Mormonism.

John Larsen [01:18:18] Yeah, I think so. It's much more interesting read. And Rough Stone Rolling is on this list, so we'll get to it in a minute.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:18:24] Okay?

John Dehlin [01:18:24] Okay. Okay. And Dan Vogel, of course, has done some amazing biographies on Joseph Smith. There's a new one that just came out about his time in Kirtland, but. And I guess it's okay to say that Fawn Brody was criticized for employing what I think some have called psychobiography, where she's trying to merge modern psychological concepts and even try and diagnose Joseph Smith a little bit and get inside his head.

John Dehlin [01:18:54] But, but I don't think that's a really fair criticism. I think it's a gripping read. I think it's a fun read and I don't even think it's an anti Mormon read. I think it was Richard Bushman himself that that quoted from. I think Fawn Brody in no Man Knows My History was his number one source that he quoted from in Rough Stone Rolling, if I'm not mistaken. And even Bushman said she did a great job and was not, quote, anti Mormon in her treatment of Joseph Smith. So that's pretty high praise for Fawn Brody as far as I'm concerned.

John Larsen [01:19:28] Yeah. And I agree with that criticism when I read it. She does like talk about what Joseph was thinking a little too much for me, but it is accurate. An interesting thing about Fawn Brody is she went on after she wrote this book to write a biography of Thomas Jefferson.

John Larsen [01:19:47] And that biography of Thomas Jefferson was largely panned outside of Mormon circles. And Mormons used it as justification to say, look, see, she's writing. She's writing things she doesn't have evidence for. And the number one criticism of Brody's A biography of Jefferson was Brody wrote that Jefferson had fathered children by Sally Hemings, which was considered to be. You're making fun of a sacred founding father of the United States. Of course he wouldn't sleep with his black slaves. Of course Jefferson wouldn't do that. How dare you accuse this founding father, which of course we have genetically proven since then that Jefferson did actually sire offspring via his slave Sally Hemings. And Fawn Brody was vindicated and she proved it without.

John Dehlin [01:20:42] Without genetics. So she's an OG and she ended up as faculty at ucla. We, we brought Newell Bringhurst on Mormon stories to tell the story of Fawn McKay, Brody. So I'll. I'll refer all of you to that interview with Neil Bringhurst as well. He's great. Kara, anything you want to say about Fawn Brody? And no man knows my history.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:21:04] Yeah, I thought you were going to say we brought Kara's friend Evon and explained to her no man knows my history. That video that we did on my YouTube channel explaining where we get all this information about Joseph's treasure digging and his polygamy activities and things that really. Yes. Like the first expose that I think put it into the mainstream was Von Brody's book. And she has the street cred, as, you know, McKay's niece and going on to be such an awesome historian in her own right. And I, I have a hard time, you know, reading things like all of us do things that are in long time written a long time ago might be written in old fancy language, but the tea and that Von Brody spills in that book is.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:21:47] It's so hard to actually put it down because it's. I don't know where else it is in, in Mormon history other than the book is like page 28. I always. Sorry, indulge me for a second. My favorite thing to bring up to like, kind of prove the weirdness of the situation that was going on in Joseph Smith's treasure digging life with his family is she describes on page 28 how there were these rumors going around that his older brother Alvin's body was being dug up. Because the townspeople were so annoyed with the. The family's treasure digging. They're like, how would you like it if we went and dug up your son's body?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:22:22] And then she tells the story about how the family went and like had to go dig up their own son's body to make sure he was still there. And it has the actual writing from the newspaper, the, the Wayne Sentinel in the book that they, that Joseph Smith Sr. Printed in the newspaper for a week to be like, hey, all you townspeople, it's really mean practical joke that you did that because we had to go dig up his body. And that is not a nice thing to do anyway, his. His little f you to the whole crowd. And the newspaper is in there and, and just really good evidence, evidence on top of evidence of what the situation of Joseph's family, the treasure digging, what that looked like. And so much, so much good, so much more. I love that book.

John Dehlin [01:23:04] Yeah. Like, you know, 80% of whatever the tenors came up with or what Jeremy Reynolds put in the CES letter, you know, Fon Brody got right back in 18, 1945. And John Larsen. Spoiler alert. What was Fawn McKay, Brody's reward by her uncle for writing what to date is probably the best and most accurate history of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. What was her reward by that white lion maned haired Mark Twain looking prophet, David O. McKay. What was her reward?

John Larsen [01:23:42] I don't know this. You'll have to tell me.

John Dehlin [01:23:44] She was excommunicated, of course.

John Larsen [01:23:46] Oh, well, yeah, that kind of goes without saying.

John Dehlin [01:23:49] Yeah, the truth tellers often get excommunicated. That's just the way.

John Larsen [01:23:53] And I should add that there, there are some who say that she used her, her McKay status to get access to documents the church didn't want them to see. But you guys don't get credit for keeping things secret. I don't know. It's a weak criticism.

John Dehlin [01:24:11] Yeah. All right, well, what's, what's number 12?

Juanita Brooks and the Tanners as Faithful Critics

John Larsen [01:24:15] All right, 1950. We've already kind of hinted at this one. A really important book, the Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks. Now, Juanita never left the church. She stayed faithful to Mormonism her whole life. What Juanita had done is she went around to all the survivors, the old men that were still alive who had participated in this, and she had grown up under the shadow of this.

John Larsen [01:24:45] And the accounts really talk about how it just wrecked these men. You can imagine as a 19 year old boy grabbing your squirrel rifle, going, and then just assassinating somebody in a line. So for those who don't know, because I know there are a lot of people who don't come from Mormon history. So they surrounded the Fancher party, they were starving them out, they're running out of water.

John Larsen [01:25:11] And then, because the Mormons were of higher order, and there's some controversy in everything I'm saying here, they talked to the local Indians and they had them come and help participate because the Mormon men did not want to kill women and children.

John Larsen [01:25:30] But they. So they took all these Mormon men and boys and then they said they were going to march the Fancher party down to get food and water. So they had either a Mormon or an Indian next to each member of the party.

John Larsen [01:25:47] And I actually think they took the children to be assassinated. They took them to another place, but as they were walking down, they came to a point where they halted the column and. And then they said the famous line, brethren, do your duty. And everyone was to turn and then shoot the person next to him in the head. Which they did.

John Larsen [01:26:07] And then of course, the douchebag. Fucking terrible. Human beings that were the Mormons down there took and piled up their bodies and didn't bury them. So wolves and coyotes just scattered the bones everywhere. But it destroyed these men.

John Larsen [01:26:27] These men had psychological problems and issues their whole life. And that's what Fawn Brody had keyed on. So she went and meticulously researched everything that happened. And it is a hard read, but it's something that anybody who has an interest in Mormon history should read.

John Larsen [01:26:47] Juanita Brooks. And they didn't dare excommunicate her because she didn't say anything that wasn't true. And she was kind of a beloved figure in the community, but she never served in church. They blackballed her and really maligned her. And it was really later that she was vindicated. But Juanita Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, one of the most important books in Mormonism,

John Dehlin [01:27:15] I'll just add, one of the most impressive things about it was the number one, you know, Juanita Brooks was not a formal trained historian, like with the PhD in history or anything like that. And then the other thing is she did it like, as I understand it, she wrote the book like in her laundry room and the equivalent of like her laundry room while she's raising a bunch of kids, while she's doing all these domestic duties that, you know, mid 20th century Mormon housewife would be doing in southern Utah. And she was able to write a top notch world class history book under those circumstances and care. I'm imagining that both Fawn Brody and Juanita Brooks would be inspirational to someone like you who's trying to raise young kids and do something important in this space.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:28:11] I am definitely looking up to them. I mean, I started all of this tiktoking while I was literally breastfeeding a baby and writing scripts off the side. So women, we're doing it. We're doing it all.

John Dehlin [01:28:25] And I think to David Obaquez credit, if my memory is right, he told whoever wanted to excommunicate Juanita Brooks, it was David O. McKay that said, hands off of her. So while he wasn't willing to spare his own niece for some reason, he intervened and kept Juanita Brooks from being excommunicated. I think I remember reading that in Greg Prince's David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Does that sound right, John Larsen?

John Larsen [01:28:55] Yeah, and that's really par for course for David O. McKay. Sometimes he would swing one way and swing the other way and you know, he'd be really, you know, he was very much kind of in Ezra Benson's camp. Like we talked about a few weeks ago, but sometimes he'd be really super compassionate like Sterling McMurran and others. He, he, he was hands off these guys. So, so that, that sounds about right for David O. McKay, but I, I can't climb into his mind.

John Dehlin [01:29:23] Yeah. All right, question.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:29:26] Yeah, Kara, so when people like this with, you know, like, why does she stay faithful in the church? How did, how did her testimony then develop? Does anyone, like, have an answer to how she's able to write this with still, you know, wanting to retain her membership in the church?

John Dehlin [01:29:45] I mean, I did an episode with Dan McClellan today about that. There's plenty of brilliant, thoughtful, well informed academic, you know, historians and scholars, Terrell and Fiona Givens, Richard and Claudia Bushman, you know, Leonard Arrington himself, who maintained faith at some level until the day they died. So whether it's family ties or emotional ties or conditioning or sincere belief, there's no correlation necessarily. There's no causal connection between studying Mormon history and faithfulness. You know, it can go any way. John, what would you add to that?

John Larsen [01:30:31] Yeah, I don't. Intelligence is not a predictor of leaving the church. There are super intelligent, sensitive people on all sides. And just religion is so fundamental to some people. You know, I've been having some great conversations with my father, and it helps me understand that for a lot of LDS people, a lot of Mormons, the problems with the church are part of the puzzle of the church. That that's just sort of how it is that the, the, the gospel is always, always beset with all sorts of problems, that Satan is real and God works in mysterious ways and his ways are not our ways. So I think for a lot of people, they're not fazzled, they're not phased by these, by these episodes that they still find them horrific, they still find them problematic.

John Larsen [01:31:23] It just never cracks their testimony. And that, that's nothing either good nor bad about people. It just tells us something about the way human psychology works, the way religion works.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:31:34] Yeah, because that's always.

John Dehlin [01:31:36] That's helpful, Kara.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:31:37] Yeah, I mean, I, I know the answer. I was just making sure the audience did. But I do think it's. It's interesting that when there's people like Fawn Brody who get excommunicated or who would have said how, how much she wanted to even stay in the church. Right. But when people who write about these things stay in the church, but the church themselves are worried that they need to excommunicate them where, like John Delane, like you got kicked out of the church, like you would have stayed if they didn't excommunicate you to a certain extent. Right. So, like, that they're worried that people are going to write things that are going to be so problematic for faith building and testimonies of the church.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:32:10] But the very people themselves are like, I can make this work. I can still explain this history, but the church wants to cover up the history or excommunicate the person. When the person themselves who usually is writing these things, they can, they can still remain faithful in the church. It doesn't absolutely mean a death sentence to everybody's testimony, but it, it is more like indicative of the way that the church operates, that they, they want to have the least amount of this information available and to push people to the outside, to the margins who expose the unsavory history to say that it's, it's not sanctioned because we excommunicated them or like, you know, like it's, it's a complicated mix of, of fact and fiction because it's from an apostate or whatever.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:32:51] But it's just interesting to me that so many people, so many historians know these things and the church are the, the last people who actually want them out. They need to whitewash it in some way.

John Dehlin [01:33:00] Yeah, yeah. The church, the Mormon Church, clearly excommunicates people, number one, to discredit them amongst believers, and number two, to punish them and to make their lives hell so that other people will think twice before they ever criticize the church or speak openly about it. And that started with Joseph Smith. And there's a long tradition of the church excommunicating and punishing its truth tellers. And it's one of the most egregious and awful things about the church. And unfortunately, it's a sure sign of a cult is any organization that excommunicates its truth tellers. So there we have it. John Larsen. Should we go to number 13?

John Larsen [01:33:44] Yeah, number 13. 1963. Mormonism. Shadow or reality by Gerald and Sandra Tanner. And this book sort of stands. This is the first one they published. And then of course, they published a lot of stuff afterwards. Now, Gerald and Sandra Tanner were from Mormon royalty. They were from the Tanner family. You know, you probably, those who are older can remember N. Eldon Tanner and OC Tanner. They're still the place that makes the high school rings is O.C. tanner. He was a big guy in the church and there's a couple others. So they were part of the inner circle family. So when Gerald did this, it was seen as a huge betrayal. Gerald and Sandra Tanner, of course, had converted from Mormonism to become evangelical Christians. And they set up a mission inside Salt Lake that I'm not sure Sandra's getting up there, but it's called Utah Lighthouse Ministries. I think it's still there.

John Dehlin [01:34:51] No, it's not there anymore. She closed it recently.

John Larsen [01:34:54] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:34:55] Yeah, she closed it.

John Larsen [01:34:57] And now we're getting into people that I've actually met. So Sandra Tanner, Gerald, passed away before, I think, back in the 80s. Sandra is a delightful human being. She is wonderful and compassionate. And they have done probably to date, the most thorough documentation of all the problems in the church. And they do it in a very transparent way. The books that they publish, and a lot of them you can download online, they have the pictures of the original. If they're talking about changes in text, they will show you the change. They don't just talk about it. So just this thorough treasure trove of all. All the problems with the church were documented by the Tanners.

John Dehlin [01:35:51] Yeah, they're legends. And as I understand it, John Larsen, Mormonism shadow reality has gone through many revisions. So It's a late 1970s, early 1980s version. That's the most update and current, and that's the one to get. And if you go to Utah Lighthouse Ministry, most of these books now are available for free in PDF form. You might be able to order them a print version still. But I think she's starting to give away the PDFs for free, and it's a phenomenal resource.

John Larsen [01:36:25] Yeah, yeah. And I was just looking over here on the shelf while I was talking. So here's my copy of the History of the Saints by John C. Bennett, which was published by Utah Lighthouse Ministries. And here's my copy of Ed Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, which was printed by Utah Lighthouse Ministries. So they've been a great source for getting documents that were hard to find. And you have to remember, you know, we said, oh, just go on Google and do a quick search and you'll find a PDF of it that's fairly recent history. If it's 1987 and you wanted to read this stuff, you either had to find a copy in a special collection in some university somewhere.

John Larsen [01:37:05] And luckily they were able to gather all this stuff in and make it available. So you could go down to Utah Lighthouse Ministries and actually buy a copy. That's where I bought mine. I bought them there on 13th Street.

John Larsen [01:37:18] So, yeah, they've been really great truth tellers. My only petty wish is that they'd apply the same logic to evangelical Christianity. They apply to Mormonism, but other than that, they're wonderful people.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] And we've interviewed Sandra quite a bit on Mormon Stories podcast. She's told her full story. We've had her back on to talk about lots of different cool things. And her biography, recently a biography of her and Gerald's life was released by Signature Books, and it's a banger. And there's a ton of new stuff in there. And I think it was awarded, like, Book of the Year by the Mormon Historical Association. So it's a great book, It's a great reference. And their versions.

John Larsen [01:38:07] I want to point out one of the most important things about Gerald and Sanders Tanner, for those who doubt. In 1980s, when Hoffman was doing his forgeries, he came out with a salamander letter and he took Dallin Oaks and Hinckley and those guys to the cleaners. Gerald and Sandra saw it, looked at, and said, this is a forgery. And so they. Hoffman was able to fool the prophet seers and revelators and was able to get the church to buy a clunker. But Gerald and Sandra recognized it as a forgery because they knew what the original documents looked like, they knew what was written. And so I don't think they get enough praise for that, that they had the spirit of discernment and were able to see through that killer Hoffman where the church could not. Kara, did you have something else?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:39:00] I was gonna say it's my favorite book of all time and I wanna be buried with it. So I own, like, three copies of it in every room that I walk into. I just make sure this next one we're gonna talk about no shadow reality, Mormonism.

John Larsen [01:39:12] Shadow reality. All right, so the next book is kind of interesting because it was published in 1985, but it is kind of out of time. So this is Studies of the Book of Mormon by B.H. roberts. Now, B.H. roberts was, I believe, a 70. He was an insider in the church, and he is the one who compiled the history of the church, the comprehensive history of the church that we all know and love. I'm sure the church doesn't want us to read it anymore, but it was a really important book for a long time.

B.H. Roberts, Michael Quinn, and Insider Scholarly Doubts

John Larsen [01:39:47] He was commissioned in 1922 to do a comparison of the View of the Hebrews, a book that was published about five years before the Book of Mormon was published, that there had long been rumors that Joseph Smith had borrowed from this book and taken a lot. So B.H. roberts, church historian, general authority, gets assigned to do a Comparison of the View of the Hebrews to the Book of Mormon. And he completes his work in 1922 and he is supposed to give it to the church, but he does note that they refuse to read it, they refuse to look at it.

John Larsen [01:40:31] Sterling McMurran, who I referred to earlier, Sterling McMurran was a history professor of philosophy and he was one of the swearing elders. He was an important academic and social figure in Salt Lake City during the mid part of the 20th century. But he says that the church worked to suppress the eventual publication. So, you know, the question is, why did it take until 1985? So BH Roberts had distributed copies of this to different people outside the church. And so the church apparently had worked to keep it under wraps until it finally leaked out and was printed by signature books in 1985.

John Larsen [01:41:15] So B.H. roberts does a very thorough breakdown of comparison of the Book of Mormon to the View of Hebrews and shows that, yeah, there are a lot of parallels that go way beyond coincidence. And he deals with some other problems, anachronisms, problematic use of King James language in the Book of Mormon and other things that it's really sort of a devastating takedown of the Book of Mormon.

John Larsen [01:41:41] And because it was done by somebody who really had full access to everything and likely expressed doubts. Now the controversial thing is it appears that when he writes the book, he loses his testimony. And BH Roberts had a drinking problem and so the church would secret him out to rehab. But. But he did give testimony verbally after 1922 that he believed the Book of Mormon. So apologists have always glommed onto that saying he didn't lose his testimony. But a lot of critics and ex Mormons like to say, you know, he completely lost his testimony. That's why they spirited him away. And he passed away in 1933, so we really can't ask him anymore.

John Dehlin [01:42:30] Yeah, and I just have to give a shout out to Shannon Caldwell Montez. She wrote a master's thesis out of the University of Nevada at Reno, I believe, called B.H. roberts and the Secret Mormon Meetings of 1922. We've had her on Mormon Stories for several episodes to talk about that whole situation. And I got really fired up at that point because I just had no idea that as early as 19 and BH Roberts, John Larsen, I don't know if you remember this or read this, but BH Roberts, once he compiles his analysis of the Book of Mormon in view of the Hebrews, he calls like a three day meeting and the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 and all the general authorities attend and he gives his summary of his findings.

John Dehlin [01:43:20] So that's a clear instance in Mormon history where all the brethren, the entire top church leadership of the Mormon Church were put on notice that the Book of Mormon has serious challenges to its credibility by one of its own, which would have been in a really important moment to, you know, start practicing some informed consent. But of course, the church just, I think they ended up sending him on a mission like back to New York. And he kind of dies in obscurity. And it's almost like the church erased his name from the manuals, you know, after his death, so that no one would ever dare utter his name. And in my view, it's kind of a bit of a tragic story.

John Larsen [01:44:05] Absolutely, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:06] Yeah. Any thoughts or feelings of BH Roberts? Kara?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:44:11] That episode with Shannon Caldwell Montez was the first Mormon stories episode I'd ever watched after I left the church. And I was equally furious for those same reasons of that the Church has known these things for so long. And, and who was the, was it one person in the Apostles, the one that's like an intellectual, like a scientist, and he talks in his journals about what the meetings were that day. Do you know, I'm talking about. And he's, he's writing where it says, we were presented with some information, but the Book of Mormon says that, yeah,

John Dehlin [01:44:41] it was talmadge or widgetow, like talmage or width. One of those guys.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:44:44] Yeah, talmadge. It was talmage. Yeah, I made a TikTok about it at the time. I was so mad about it because he says in his journal like, well, the Book of Mormon says that there were horses on the continent. So there were horses on the continent and a story, stuff like that, you know, so it's, it's interesting to see the, in real time cognitive dissonance of they're presented with this information in, you know, 1922 and completely slipped under the rug everybody who listens to Mormon stories, everyone who's had a faith crisis, all of this stuff could have been better integrated and nuanced over time. But it's just since the Internet that all of these things finally come out.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:45:19] But yeah, the Church has known about these same things since BH Roberts was smart enough, brave enough to hold these meetings and say, hey guys, we need to do something about this because this is not as historical as we think it is. We just get rid of B.H. roberts. That'll solve the problem. How's it going, Mormon Church? Is it going well, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:37] So check out Shannon Caldwell Montez's series on Mormon stories, or just download her thesis. It's really important stuff.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:45:43] It's so good.

John Dehlin [01:45:45] All right, John Larsen, we're coming to number 15. We're getting close to the end here.

John Larsen [01:45:49] We're down to the final four. All right, so the. The next is. Is another man that I was privileged to meet with. I. I sat for an hour in Colorado City, The. The. With him in a park not long before he passed away, right before the COVID And we reminisced about, um, how fucked up Mormonism is.

John Larsen [01:46:14] D. Michael Quinn was a very popular professor at byu, and he was a protege of Arrington during the Camelot years. The Camelot years were the late 70s and early 80s, when Arrington was the church historian and opened the church archives up for legitimate historians to come in and review. And some of the most important books on Mormonism were written by these professors and graduate students at the time. So the 70s, 80s, we get a lot of heavy research on Mormonism because they finally had access to the archives. Michael Quinn was a prolific note taker.

John Larsen [01:47:02] And after the archives were closed down, he had his notes. And Michael Quinn, it should be noted, was a really popular teacher. He was articulate, he was smart, and he's a decent writer. So Quinn writes in. He actually was excommunicated before this. He'd written some papers. He was probably the principal target of the famous September 6th excommunications that happened in 1993.

John Larsen [01:47:39] So he was excommunicated for writing the truth. But he published the book that we're referring to, the first series, in 1994, which is the Mormon Hierarchy series. The Mormon Hierarchy, origins of power, 1997, the extensions of power, and the 2017, the final one, which is more about the finances. I can't remember the name. He'd also written Mormonism the Magic WorldView before the 1994 thing, and I think that's the one that got him excommunicated.

John Larsen [01:48:16] So if you read this is anybody who wants to be anybody in church history should read, especially the first two books. The book itself is more footnotes than text. He understood what he was up against, and he footnoted every single claim he makes in the book. Now, here's where this is important is at the time the apologist said, well, these are just coming from his notes. We can't verify. He could just be making things up. But the Joseph Smith papers have since vindicated Michael Quinn on every fucking point.

John Larsen [01:48:58] That although he was excommunicated he was lambasted, he was outed. They not only went after him at byu, they made sure he couldn't be hired anywhere in the West. They pursued him through his life and made sure he couldn't get chairmanships, made sure he couldn't get stipends. And luckily there were enough like pimo, rich Mormons who knew that he was done dirty that kind of supported him. But he never was a wealthy man. He lived with his mother, he would couch surf around with a lot of prominent ex Mormons and prominent Mormons.

John Larsen [01:49:39] But he was destroyed for these books. And they are an absolute important piece in the puzzle for us understanding Mormon history and where a lot of the dirty stuff was going on.

John Dehlin [01:49:52] Yeah, absolutely. John Larsen. I don't know if you know about this John Larsen, but one of the fun things to come out of the Tanner biography was that the church kind of commissioned someone in the 1970s to write a critique of Mormonism, Shadow and Reality, because it was getting too much, it was getting too popular. And guess who it was? Who? Leonard Arrington unofficially commissioned to write the response. And the critique of Mormonism shattered reality. Can you guess?

John Larsen [01:50:30] I can see where you're leading me.

John Dehlin [01:50:31] Yes, it was Michael Quinn and it was published under the name Dr. Clandestine, or that's how the Tanners referred to it anyway. But that's a really fun chapter in the Tanner's book is that before Michael Quinn was a critic, he was kind of an apologist. But it's also unfair to call him a critic because as I understand it, even though he knew all this stuff about history. Again, to your question, Kara Burrell. Michael Quinn died a believer in golden plates and in the authenticity of the Restoration and in Joseph Smith. And that's one of the most mind boggling paradoxes in all my work in Mormon stories is that Michael Quinn literally died a believer in Joseph Smith and in golden plates.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:51:18] What year did he die again?

John Larsen [01:51:21] 2021, a couple years ago. Yeah, he died in the middle of

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:51:24] COVID Yeah, because you have a famous Mormon stories interview with him, correct? Where he sits down on that stage. Cause I remember editing that into a TikTok when I worked for you, which I don't anymore. I'm my own businesswoman now. And I took out that clip where he was being interviewed, if I remember correctly, correctly that he was interviewed for his like a history position by like Elder Ballard or something, right? And he. There's that famous quote where I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess it's Elder Ballard says to Him, Packer. I idealize the truth. Yeah, unfortunately. And it's like you're holding too, too firmly to the truth, bra. We need you to nuance and lie for us a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:52:02] Yeah. That whole not all, not, not everything that is true is useful sort of came out of the Michael Quinn era. That quote, and also the quote, the three great enemies to the church are gays, feminists and intellectuals. And I think Michael Quinn was all three. Is that fair to say?

John Larsen [01:52:18] Yeah, he was closeted till after they excommunicated him. It's. I don't, I don't think that was a factor in his excommunication, but it, it, I, I know I've. There have been a lot of uncharitable things said about him in his life and, and the fact that he was a homosexual man. A lot of faithful people say, you know, he kind of got what he deserved.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:52:39] Yeah, you can be an intellectual, just don't act on it. That's what he was acting on.

John Dehlin [01:52:45] John. I think one of the things that got him in trouble as well was publishing a list of all the post manifesto polygamy instances that he could find at church headquarters. I think that got him in trouble as well.

John Larsen [01:52:57] Yeah. Post manifesto polygamy is one of the, is one of the big things. And he wrote a lot about the council of 50, and that's a lot of. They have since released the minutes from the Council of 50 in the Joseph Smith Papers. They kind of had to, but that was something they denied even existed before he wrote his book.

John Dehlin [01:53:17] Final thing I'll just say about Michael Quinn is Signature Books is just now releasing a book on the September 6th, because what, it's the 93, like it's, you know, 30ish year anniversary, the September 6th, and that's significant. But also it turns out Michael Quinn wrote an autobiography. Did you know that, John Larsen?

John Larsen [01:53:38] I did not.

John Dehlin [01:53:39] And Signature Books will soon be releasing Michael Quinn's autobiography, which apparently he's got some interesting tidbits in it as well.

John Larsen [01:53:46] I'm sure he was connected to who's who. They all knew. They all knew Michael Quinn. I mean, I know some things, I've heard some stories, but that's for another day.

John Dehlin [01:53:57] All right.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:53:57] When I was at Sunstone last month, they did a September 6th panel when they had someone. I don't remember who exactly.

John Dehlin [01:54:04] It was Barbara. It was Barbara Brown. Yeah.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:54:05] Okay. Yeah. Read the excerpts from it. And the room was packed. Packed. They had to open up the extra walls to get more people sat in there. It Was like a love fest, a cry fest. Some beautiful stories, but, yeah, they were reading expert excerpts from the. His autobiography and gorgeous. But I always think of Quinn as when I was, you know, deconstructing. And you're trying to figure out how you believe something for so long in this narrative of the church being restored. And you're like, it feels so good. Like you put yourself back in your Mormon shoes. It's like, it feels so good that there's an apostasy and a restoration and things fall in order and there's the restoration of the priesthood and these lines and keys and stuff.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [01:54:42] And I remember reading Quinn's work really helped me deconstruct how things have been shoehorned in. I never know the right phrase to use of how the church was able to paint these narratives. Like things had always been this way. Like Joseph had the successor in Brigham Young, and the priesthood was restored at this date. But all of those things came much, much later. And it wasn't the church that I thought it was. It was a lot of things, you know, posthumously shoved back into history to make a nice pretty little package. And that's just not the way the church was actually restored.

John Dehlin [01:55:17] Yeah. Beautiful. Thanks, Kara. All right, three to go. The next is the legendary Grant Palmer. And this is a book that was. Well, the Mormon hierarchy series was definitely influential for me. So is no Man Knows My History, but an insider's view of Mormon origins was highly significant. So tell us about that, John Larsen.

Grant Palmer, the CES Letter, and Modern Whistleblowers

John Larsen [01:55:39] Yeah, this is 2002, and for those of us who lived through it, this was a big breakout for the, I don't know, Mormon truth movement, because it's hard to call Grant a. He stayed fairly faithful. So his story was he had spent his career in church educational system as an institute and seminary teacher, and then eventually as an institute director when he wrote the book. And one of Grant Palmer's issues was he was very Christ centered. He was very Christian in his views and interpretations, and he. He leaned towards a more mainstream but liberal view of Jesus, one that I think most people would find very palatable.

John Larsen [01:56:32] But that was sort of the grounds of him exposing some of the problems. And, you know, one of the things that he wrote about in the book was he talked in detail about the problems of the biblical use of the scripture, of the Bible in the Book of Mormon. And he kind of laid that out in plain language, and he got press coverage. And this book had a lot of impact. It's small.

John Larsen [01:56:58] It was fairly easy to read. It was written in plain language. And so it was really accessible to a lot of people. And he was seen as an insider, the insider's view. He was disfellowshipped. And then he passed away.

John Larsen [01:57:15] Oh, I don't know, 2010, 2014, around about there. I actually interviewed him, viewed him on Mormon Expression. There's an old interview I have with him, and we did in his living room. He was. He was a very generous and loving man. But his book made a big splash.

John Dehlin [01:57:35] Absolutely. He was one of the first people I interviewed on Marmus Stories and, and, you know, Dan Peterson and the apologists at Fairmormon and Maxwell Institute, you know, they never forgave me for just giving him a voice. But because he worked for so long as a CES employee and because he just did a lot of really good history, the church was terrified that an insider would write about Joseph Smith in the way he did. And if you're looking for a book that works to explain how the Book of Mormon was created and what Joseph Smith's early life was like, you read Fawn Brody, no Man Knows My History.

John Dehlin [01:58:17] And you read Grant Palmer's An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, and you're going to have a pretty good sense for how Joseph Smith did a lot of the things that he did. He also talks a lot about the three witnesses and the eight Witnesses, and he talks a lot about this idea of second sight, about how the witnesses most likely didn't actually see the things they claimed to have saw with their physical eyes, but instead they saw it with their spiritual eyes.

John Dehlin [01:58:47] And it's just a great, important read. We interviewed Grant Palmer several times in Mormon Stories, including a few times right before his death. It was a big loss to our community. And if Grant Palmer's still out there, we send you our love and our respect.

John Larsen [01:59:03] Indeed. Yeah. Very, very generous, caring man. I'm privileged to have met him.

John Dehlin [01:59:11] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:59:12] All right.

John Dehlin [01:59:13] I should add that he's the one that. That had a mole. A former 70 who was able to leak to him many of the insider experiences that a member of the presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy would have, including the allegation that Mormon apostles receive a million dollar signing bonus when they become apostles. And, you know, he introduced this term, church broke, which is that once. Once these apostles are totally dependent on the church for their finances. They're going to be loyal to the church until they die. And yeah, I even know who the allegedly anonymous general authority was.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:00:00] So can I say his name?

John Larsen [02:00:03] No.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:00:03] What, is it a secret?

John Larsen [02:00:06] No. I don't know. I know who. I don't care.

John Dehlin [02:00:08] Go ahead.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:00:10] His name is Enzo something or other.

John Dehlin [02:00:12] Boucher. Yeah. Enzio Bushe. Yeah. And the only reason I'm willing to say that now is because he also passed away a few years ago. And, you know, so it's. It's no longer a secret. So.

John Larsen [02:00:26] All right, well, cool. The second to last. This is an interesting book because, you know, I'm talking about the turncoats. And in here we have Richard Bushman. You know, how do you put Richard Bushman? That. This book flipped the entire game in 2005, because Richard Bushman really was the first one to publicly and openly acknowledge that most of what people had been excommunicated about, most of what the ex Mormons and the critics had been whining about for. For 170 years, was all true.

John Larsen [02:01:10] And everything you need to know about why the church is not what it says it is and why it's not true is contained in this book. This book has two big problems, though. It is way too big, and it is a snore fest. It is so hard to read. I believe it's that way, by design. This is my conspiracy theory. I believe they wrote it in such a way that. That it's hard to read. They sold tens, hundreds of thousands of copies of this book, and I doubt less than 1% of the church membership whoever bought it ever cracked the COVID But this became what later turned into the Church Essays, where the church had to start owning its history.

John Larsen [02:01:54] So this book is so important because once you read this, you then have to go back and reevaluate everything the church was saying about apologists. I mean, critics. That the apologists were saying about critics. Because he legitimized most of the criticisms that we were all. We were all pushing forward.

John Dehlin [02:02:17] Yeah. Yep. And again, Richard interview is someone that I interviewed right. In 2005, which is the year, I believe, that Roughstone Rolling came out. And it's definitely one of the most important interviews that I ever did. Kara, any. Any thoughts on Richard Bushman?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:02:35] No, but everything comes back to Rod Meldrum for me. I'm so sorry. It always does. Just the traditionalist faction of Mormons that, like my parents are part of that there is this idea that there are two. Two different factions that have broken off in Mormon history and. And Richard Bushman being trained under. Why am I forgetting his name? Arrington.

John Dehlin [02:03:04] Leonard Arrington.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:03:06] Leonard Arrington. And that having a more authentic view of what is historical in Mormonism is akin to being like Kori Whore and anything that is, you know, negative and casting doubt on the prophet and his treasure digging. These, these historians in a lot of Mormon circles are looked as if they are horror like the actual historians like Richard Bushman to people like the Firm foundation and Rod Meldrum and Hannah Stoddard and my parents and stuff that they've broken away because they are not giving faith promoting views of the church. So even in our interview, John, that we did with Rod and you're saying you're like, why would the church ask Bushman to write Gravestone Rolling?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:03:45] You know, and it's like, I don't know. You'd have to ask them. Like he doesn't have a good answer. It all really wants to. To come down to that. Well, he's only getting his information from Rewind Mormonism unveiled where we started that it's like they're just drumming up the old past. Like, but what if it's actually true and there's. There's evidence to support these claims. It's not just these people have been taken by the devil to. Because again, let's be realistic about the church we're talking about here. Started by Joseph Smith who says that you had two opportunities before you when you joined the church to join Satan or join God's church.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:04:19] And if you ever leave it, you do so by the enticings of Satan. That's you know, in, in the Firm Foundation)'s books, quotes from Joseph Smith. So if there's anything that causes you to lose your testimony and if it's, you know, Richard Bushman book, you did so by the enticings of the devil. And the church is paying people like this because they're. There's this whole seedy underbelly of the, of the leaders themselves not knowing what the history is. And they don't want the historians to be ousted from there historian society. So they let them tell this, this false version of history. That's why I was so confused in our Rod Meldrum interview of like, why would the church, you know, commission a book like this that's just kind of retelling the same things that Von Brody got kicked out of the church for.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:05:03] But there is a narrative within the church that there's. There's these core whores, there's these antichrists that are leading people astray. And at the end of the day you just have to have a revelation about what is true. Stick with that. And any history about Joseph Smith, the makings of Mormonism, that would make your testimony a little bit weak. That is Satan Getting in there, like Satan, is an active force within the Mormon Church, even to its own historic societies. It's crazy.

John Dehlin [02:05:30] Yeah, I never, never expected faithful Mormons to be attacking Richard Bushman as an apostate, but that's how weird things have gotten in the past five, five or ten years. All right, John Larsen, one book to go. What's the 18th and final book on your list of whistleblowers?

John Larsen [02:05:49] And again, These are chronological. 2013. The Gentle Soul. He's a great guy, Jeremy Renaus. And he wrote the CES Letter. The CES Letter really takes the baton from the Tanners, from Gerald and Sandra, and is just the best succinct, laying out in an honest sort of queering way. The whole thing is written as this letter to CS that Jeremy claims he sent and never got a response from, of saying, can you please help me understand these issues? But this has been one of the most impactful books in the last decade, or by far in terms of people reading it and understanding the issues in a clear way, understanding the scope.

John Larsen [02:06:50] It's something I've said for a long time and really propelled me into doing the podcast. The problem with the church is hard to find a smoking gun. But when you step back and look at the sheer weight and volume of all the problems, you know, you can dismiss a sin or two of Joseph Smith, but the inventory of crimes, the inventory of crimes of Brigham Young, all the things that have happened. The problems with the Pearl of Great Price, the problems with the Book of Mormon, the problems with biblical interpretation, the problems with racism, the problems with women and polygamy, and we just go on and on and on. And the very best, most distinct roll up of those issues is the CES letter.

John Dehlin [02:07:32] Yeah, and it's probably, you know, we've mentioned some bangers, we've mentioned Von Brody, we've mentioned the Tanners. It's probably fair to say there's no other single book that's ever been released that could probably be attributed to having taken more people out of the church in shorter amounts of time. Because I can't. I can say tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people stumbled on the CES letter, read it in one afternoon, and we're gone. If not in a few days or weeks, sometimes in a few hours. So it's legendary and it's kind of deadly.

John Larsen [02:08:10] Well, and again, Jeremy's a great guy, and he's also legally deaf, you know, so he had his own obstacles to overcome. But it's just absolutely a brilliant piece and. And, well, Done. And I know he set up a nonprofit. As long as we're talking about that, and if you go to the CES Letter website, you know, one thing that Jeremy has wanted to do is do more of the work. Dig in deeper and you can support his work and what he does there on the website. So I'd encourage people to do so. He deserves it. He did. He did phenomenal work.

John Dehlin [02:08:48] We love Jeremy Runnels. My interviews with him on Mormon stories are some of the things I'm most proud of. And we just wish him only the best, and he's a great guy. Kerry, anything you want to say about Jeremy or CES Letter? Have you ever met Jeremy Runnels, Kara? I'm trying to remember.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:09:04] No, I haven't, but I'd love to meet him one day. My brother's also deaf and ex Mormon, so. Feel like he's a brother of mine. No, but if I remember correctly, the website for the CS letter, like 90 plus person percent of his, like, footnotes and references directly link to the Church's own websites. Like the. The dismissing the CS Letter gets kind of hard when the evidence is taken. Will take you directly to the Church's own sources. Right?

John Dehlin [02:09:36] Yeah. Yep. The other thing that's so great about CS Letters, it's just so well designed. It's so simplified. It's kind of like truthful Mormon history on crack. It just gets to the most essential stuff quickest and in the most fatal way for many people's faith, so. All right, John Larsen. Well, we did it. We got through 18 books in a little under two and a half hours. I don't know. That's pretty good.

Reflections on the Series and Closing Announcements

John Larsen [02:10:04] Well, I like this series of books. There's others have been written, but it kind of. We also did a brief history of the Church while we were doing it, and that's what's interesting about these books is, you know, they speak to what was going on at the time. And, and, and, you know, I've told the story many, many times, but, you know, when I started to study the. The history of the Church and read the real source material, it just came alive to me. And it was this weird, crazy, funky thing and, and don't deprive yourself the pleasure of reading the source, reading these guys. And that's why I called them the Turncoats, because, you know, there's a lot of histories that are written that have summed up this stuff, but these are all people who have their hands in the pot. So it makes it a lot more interesting for me.

John Dehlin [02:10:50] Beautiful. All right, well, listeners and viewers. Oh by the way, speaking of nonprofits and their difficulty, Kara, you have an important announcement to make and we'd love to give you a chance to make it. So what's going on with with Nuance Ho in her evolution?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:11:09] Thanks guys. So while there is a lot of overhead and it is a big hassle and it has taken a long time, I decided to put on my big girl pants and play with the big boys. And under very many lovely ex Mormon podcasters encouragement, help me set up a non profit.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:11:31] It's called the Nuance Hug Foundation). Play on my name, Nuance Ho. And I will be launching a podcast of my own. I have my YouTube channel, but in addition to that I'll be doing a podcast going over Mormon history in depth. And there's been, you know, so many great podcasts and so many great resources and I feel like I fulfill a great little niche as a female in the space doing things where I'm providing validation and lulls, especially in my own way. And the support for my YouTube channel has been amazing and makes me so happy. And this is a way where I can be able to get bigger donors to help make this a full time job and keep me sustainable in my studio right here and you know, keep, keep up this progress of keeping the Mormon Church accountable, giving information to people who are interested in Mormon history and wanting to deconstruct.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:12:23] So super, super grateful for all of the people that came before me who have put out so much amazing information that I can draw from. So I'm gonna do a fundraiser and a big party. So hopefully by the time this airs, there will be a link down below where you can get some more information about how to come to my party. We can hang out, we can talk more about what I'm up to. And so just keep following my YouTube channel and my Instagram especially for more information. And then the podcast will soon be available wherever podcasts are sold. So really excited to get started on this new project. So thanks everyone for your support. Hoping to make a big splash and do it, do it in my caraway. And that's it.

John Dehlin [02:13:13] Congrats Kara. Good luck.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:13:15] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:13:16] And if I can come to your party, I will, but everyone else should come and donate. Support the Nuance Hug Foundation).

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:13:23] Isn't that a cute name? Can we all just sit back and be like, wow, Cara, what a play on the adorable the Nuance Hug Foundation). Fantastic adorbs.

John Dehlin [02:13:31] Super adorable.

John Larsen [02:13:31] I think you need to do a mashup and start doing ho hugs that's

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:13:35] for if this fails and I have to go over to a different website like a snuggle buddy or something. No, I want to do something that will make a long lasting impact. And I have a history just being a comedian and doing standup and just I didn't expect to, like I said earlier, to be breastfeeding my son one day and then snowball into TikTok and working at Mormon Stories and then just kind of trying my hand out at doing long format YouTube videos. And my Patreon's been doing really well. So I think it's time to play with the big boys now and be able to give, give more resources and my own, my own unique way.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:14:17] So the supporters have been so, so nice. I get really, really life changing emails and messages almost every day of what kind, the content and the impact that it makes in people's lives. So if I start my nonprofit, I think it'll help me to be more fully funded to keep doing that full time and not as sporadically as I have been in the past. So it's all about, you know, just being sustainable and putting out good work. So hope everyone will support me. That would mean so much. So thanks.

John Dehlin [02:14:47] All right, Cara, good luck. We expect, we look forward to great things from you.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:14:51] Expect good things. Yeah. So yeah, September, come out to my party. September.

John Dehlin [02:14:56] September 9th, right?

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:14:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:58] All right.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:14:59] That's a Saturday.

John Dehlin [02:15:01] All right. And John Larsen, I want to thank you again for your, this monthly series on Mormon stories. I just, every, every week I talk to people who are like, yeah, you know, I don't, I don't watch Mormon stories that much except for all the John Larsen episodes. There's a lot of people, in fact, I met someone the other day who said like their 14 year old kid doesn't give a hoot about Mormon stories except he watches every John Larsen episode. So, so you've got a fan base out there and I want to thank you, John Larsen, for, for showing up and doing great work now, for all the great work you've done over the years and for any work you're willing to do going forward. You're an important voice and I'm proud to be associated with you.

John Larsen [02:15:44] Well, it's a kick and you know, it helps a lot of people and you know, if it can make people laugh, then I'm. That I'm, I'm on board because it really is hilarious, all this stuff. It's tragic. This is all tragic. But let's be honest, the whole thing is hilarious.

John Dehlin [02:16:04] Yep. And if you want to support John Larsen's ongoing project, the Mormon Expression Project, both the keeping up of his catalog of Mormon Expression podcasts but also his monthly appearance with Kara on Mormon stories. Please go to mormonstories.org mormonexpression and become a monthly donor. And we'll keep bringing John Larsen on for as long as you guys will pay for his brilliance and for care as a sidekick. So, yeah, you guys are both awesome. Thanks for coming and joining us today.

Kara (Nuance Hug Foundation) [02:16:34] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:16:35] All right.

John Larsen [02:16:36] Thanks guys.

John Dehlin [02:16:37] You guys take care. Take care all viewers and listeners. Be kind to each other. Be good to each other. Check out all these wonderful books. We'll have links in the description to all these books that you can buy and read. Be kind to each other. Be good to each other. Informed consent is thumbs up. We say these things in the name of John Larsen and Kara Burrell. Amen. Take care, everyone. We'll see you guys super soon. Bye. 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.