Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's February 19, 2025, and today we have good news. The thumbnail for today is Mormon Church Caves to Pressure. But while we're often covering, you know, sometimes covering critical stories on Mormon Stories, podcast stories that are critical of the LDS Church, today I think we're going to be complimenting the LDS Church and celebrating a change that they made. So some of you will remember, back in December, the LDS Church released, we'll call it a Lesson for Children that was sort of like this cartoonish story about Joseph Smith's polygamy. And we did an entire episode about it.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] In fact, several YouTubers, podcasters, influencers, TikTokers did episodes about it because collectively, those of us in the liberal to ex Mormon wings of the Internet felt like this polygamy lesson for children was functioning, maybe unintentionally, as a lesson to help groom children for being abused and or for being recruited into polygamy. And so Mormon Stories did an episode, I think, you know, Radio Free Mormon Bill Real, Rebecca Biblioteca Mormonist did an episode. Others did episodes. And we all basically said, this is a fundamentally bad idea. This lesson needs to be changed. It's going to hurt children. And it's what, a month and a half to two months after the fact.

John Dehlin [00:01:41] And I found out this morning, thanks to the email of a viewer listener, that I don't have permission to use their name. They said, hey, John, you'll be happy to know that the Church changed the lesson and clearly changed it as a result of our episode. Now, officially, we can't know why the Church made the change, but we are going to be highlighting what it was like before, what it was liked after. We're going to show some of the criticisms that were made by us and by others, and we'll let everyone draw their own conclusions. But really, it kind of doesn't matter. I mean, on the one hand, we all, I think on the Mormon Internet feel happy to know we're probably being listened to.

John Dehlin [00:02:28] We're probably influential in checking the Mormon Church and helping it make good decisions. We can't for sure take credit, but, you know, we're going to still celebrate the fact that, that it appears as though the Church is listening. And that's a positive thing. And it's a positive thing that the Church would be willing to make a change so, so soon after it released something. So we have back on today's episode, a Face and a Name. Many of you will be familiar with. It's Alyssa Whitbeck. Hey, Alyssa.

Guest [00:03:03] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:03:04] Welcome back.

Alyssa Alexander [00:03:04] Thank you. Glad to be talking about something positive here.

John Dehlin [00:03:08] Yeah. And you, you were on that episode a couple months ago.

Alyssa Alexander [00:03:11] I was.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] You helped lead it. So we thought it'd be cool to have you back.

Alyssa Alexander [00:03:14] Yeah, thanks. That's good to see. Good to see some for momentum here.

John Dehlin [00:03:18] Yeah. Yeah. And I guess we, we wanted to have you here in December because you could share your perspective as a mother of a young son, as a more, you know, as a. As a woman raised Mormon with a young son, how you would feel about this polygamy lesson being taught to your child. That was kind of the perspective.

Alyssa Alexander [00:03:39] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, my kid, I was around a lot of Mormon children, so it's just, I think very much on the forefront what these messages are being taught, not only, not directly to my child because he's not in the church right now, but the messages that are being taught to his peers and that are in the community, I think are really influential in this next generation. So it's important stuff, I think, to talk about.

John Dehlin [00:04:01] Yeah. So thanks for joining us on last minute notice. We regret that Natasha Helfer, she was also in that episode with us, I believe.

Julia [00:04:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] As a marriage and family therapist, as a sex therapist, as a mental health advocate. Natasha's in Costa Rica, so she can't join us today. We send Natasha our love and respect, but we also have Julia to join us. And Julia kind of structured today's episode. Hey, Julia.

Alyssa Alexander [00:04:27] Hi.

Julia [00:04:28] Yeah, I can't replace Natasha, but I'm happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:04:31] Yeah, well, thanks. Also this morning I'm like, Julia, get on this episode. And you, you jumped right on it and created some great slides. So thanks, Julia, for helping make today possible.

Julia [00:04:41] Yeah, of course.

John Dehlin [00:04:43] All right, well, I do want to welcome our live audience. We are live streaming. We hope to have a vibrant discussion there. We welcome comments, questions. Hopefully Maven will be there to help moderate the chats and to star any questions or comments that are relevant. I'll try and pay attention as well.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] But we do, we always welcome our live stream audience as well as our non live audience later. And we want to remind everybody that Mormon stories exist because of the generous donations of our just monthly donors. So if you're a monthly donor to Mormon Stories podcast, thank you. If you're not a monthly donor and you value this type of content, the best way to help us, even more valuable than super chats on YouTube, is just to go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button, become a monthly donor, and that's how we're able to pay the bills. If you do want to make sure your comment or question gets seen today on YouTube, the best way to do that is through the super chat function where you throw a little cheddar cheese our way.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] And then we YouTube make sure that we see. Make sure that we see your comment or question. All right, so without any further ado, Julia, is there anything I missed in the introduction before we jump into the slides?

Pattern of Church Responses to Public Pressure

Julia [00:06:08] No, I don't think so. I. I will say that we did an episode a while back about the changes to the Book of Mormon introduction, and we kind of show a clear pattern on how. How the community, especially the ex Mormon space, was, like, talking about that a bunch, and then the church changed it. And so, like, I don't know if. If this has. This was changed by. We're about to talk about this, but I don't know if the. If we're the ones helping the church change to be better. But, like, I just think that with that one, at least there was a clear. There seemed to be a clear connection. So, like.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] Yeah, yeah, no, that's good to note. And honestly, I'm of two minds. One is to be humble and to never overstate what your influence might or might not be, because that's kind of arrogant and lame. On the other hand, I know for a fact that the church pays attention to what we do, and I know for a fact that what we in the. In the ex Mormon Internet do collectively is making a big difference. There's just some speculation involved. So we'll try and be humble and prideful at the same time. How does that sound, Melissa?

Alyssa Alexander [00:07:09] Perfect balance. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:11] Of humility and pride. Anyway. All right, Julia, so we'll. We'll turn the time over to you, and then Alyssa and I will just be a support for you as you take us through what you found out.

Julia [00:07:24] Yeah. So this. First, we're just going to show a clip from the episode that we did a couple months ago. And here you're just talking about the. How the church is forcing, has been kind of forced to change and be better and to be transparent about these things. And so the church created these children's stories, and this one, this lesson is specifically geared towards polygamy. And so this is just your. You talking about the church being kind of forced to change. And then here we're going to talk about the church changing even more.

John Dehlin [00:07:50] Okay. I'll just add that, you know, it would be One thing, if they were coming clean of their own volition. But we all know that it's the Internet that's forced the church to become honest. And with all the people hemorrhaging as they are leaving the church, that they realize they have to inoculate their youth and their children, or those same people will feel betrayed when they become of age to stumble on Mormon stories of the CES letter. So you could frame this as kind of devious, that if you just kind of slip it in there when they're young, either they're going to hear about it, then go, oh, this is not the droid you're looking for, because I learned about that when I was 8.

John Dehlin [00:08:35] Or, you know, best case, they never stumble on it. But when they're an adult, the church can point back and say, oh, we had that in your scriptures back in 2024. So, I mean, you could argue that this is, like, sneaky strategy to. To be able to inoculate them from being concerned later. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] I have to say before you say anything, Julia, that I missed my beard. I'm looking at myself with that hat and beard, and I'm saying, why did I shave? Anyway, sorry. Go ahead, Julia. What were you going to say in response?

Julia [00:09:09] No, I just like that the setup where it's like, the church has been kind of forced to change, and I think we're just seeing that throughout church history.

John Dehlin [00:09:17] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I think that's. I'm glad you brought that back. All right, what should we talk about next?

Online Critics Respond to the Polygamy Lesson

Julia [00:09:25] So one thing I set up to do is to talk about. Just kind of show different channels that we're talking about this. Talking about the problematic lesson for the this. So this is in a children's storybook, the Doctrine Covenant Stories, that it's specifically for children. And so I just wanted to show other channels that were criticizing this and talking about this and how, like Alyssa was saying, this is not really an appropriate lesson to be giving to kids. And so I just wanted. I just had some slides on that.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] Yeah, And I. I had a. There's a. There's a prominent YouTuber who has, I don't know, over 110,000 subscribers. Her name is Michelle Stone, Right?

Julia [00:10:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:03] And Michelle Stone, again. I talked to her for two hours today. She has a YouTube channel called 132 Problems Revisiting Mormon Polygamy. And Michelle has a really interesting position. Michelle is sort of, by many people's account, the leader of this new movement within.

John Dehlin [00:10:29] Within Mormonism to hold the belief that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy. Now, of course, the RLDS Church, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which was Emma Smith's branch of Mormonism that she started with her son Joseph Smith III, a decade, decade or two after Joseph Smith Jr. Died. Of course, the RLDS church for, I don't know, 100 years, 150 years, denied that Joseph Smith ever practiced polygamy, even though Emma knew he practiced polygamy. And the church she founded, you know, and she founded the church for over 150 years, the RLDS church based its doctrine and theology on the fact that it was Brigham who was the bad guy.

John Dehlin [00:11:18] It was Brigham who started the polygamy. And Joseph Smith was pure in that sense. Since, like the 1960s or 70s, the RLDS church reversed their position and acknowledged that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, which was a big step.

John Dehlin [00:11:36] And so that sort of many thought would lead to the decline of what some would say are called polygamy deniers. Although I think Michelle would prefer us to refer to her as a monogamy affirmer because I think she views the term polygamy denier as a pejorative.

John Dehlin [00:11:56] But anyway, the reason why I'm mentioning all that history is because just in the past few years, at least in part Due to Michelle's YouTube channel and leadership, there's this big upswing of believing faithful Latter Day Saints who believe, as the RLDS Church did, that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy, that Brigham Young was the bad guy, and it, you know, not to misstate their position, but that the next 10 or 12 prophets after Brigham Young were all misled and somehow didn't get the memo that God hated polygamy. And instead the church can be simultaneously true still and inspired by prophets still. But somehow God would let the first, well, the second to the what, 12th or 13th or 14th prophet or all believe in and practice polygamy, even though it's an abomination, but they're still prophets, but somehow God allowed it anyway. Did you know about this movement, Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [00:12:58] I heard of it. I hadn't heard of Michelle specifically, but I had heard that there was at least a little bit of discussion that that was kind of rumbling in the culture. So it is really interesting because it seems like within active believers right now, there's both an uptick in members who are learning about polygamy earlier and members who are denying it. So it seems like this, these are a bit at odds.

John Dehlin [00:13:19] Yeah.

Alyssa Alexander [00:13:20] In active Mormonism right now, yeah, and

John Dehlin [00:13:23] we just recently did an LDS discussions episode where we, we basically, you know, Julia put together evidence to show the evidence of, of Joseph Smith's sexual relations with over half of his 34 plus wives. And in that episode, I intentionally wouldn't mention Michelle Stone's name. And, and she called me on it. And I think she's releasing an episode this Sunday where she kind of is a little bit grouchy at me for, like, intentionally not naming her. Kind of like Voldemort, you know, he who shall not be named. And I was honest with her about why, like, I try to be careful with my platform to not allow disinformation to be shared.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] That's just a general rule. And so when I make an exception and have like, Rod Meldrum or someone like that, come on, who believes that I don't know that the Earth's core is ice instead of molten lava and that The Earth is 6,000 years old, and they try and quote science as a way to buttress this pseudoscience.

John Dehlin [00:14:34] I tend to not want to have people like that on the podcast. And then if I do, I. I feel like I need to challenge them, which sometimes makes the episodes more confrontational than I like them to be. And so again, I right now would view, and I think the majority of historians, incredible historians that I know would agree that this idea that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy would likely fall into the conspiracy theory unsubstantiated, not credible category. And so that's why, historically, out of no disrespect to Michelle, I have wanted to be careful about not promulgating disinformation. Now, I know that I understand why Michelle would be annoyed by that, if not upset or offended.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] But, you know, once I saw that her channel has over 100,000 subscribers now, like, that's three times as big as Nemo the Mormon, or like Radio Free Mormon or Bill Real. Like, once somebody reaches the six figures in subscribers, they're a force to be reckoned with. And I don't know if you know this, Alyssa or Julia, but in 2025, the Mormon Church is now excommunicating members who maintain the position that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:15:59] And I didn't, you know, this has happened with Denver Snuffer. This has happened with Avram Gileadi. Like, the church has a past of excommunicating, sort of what I would call neo fundamentalists, but I didn't realize there was a new resurgence of the church excommunicating kind of neo Fundamentalists. And it was Michelle's YouTube channel that made me aware of that. So for all those reasons, I had a two hour call with Michelle today. She's lovely, she's smart, we're on good terms and we're actually going to have her on Mormon Stories podcast soon. But the reason why I mentioned all this is because Michelle has the theory that this lesson was put in the children's storybook in reaction to the church wanting to make sure children believed that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy in response to her movement of leading people to believe that he was a monogamist. Is that too complicated? Did you follow all that, Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [00:17:05] I followed it, but it is interesting. It's interesting. This kind of balance that they're finding themselves in right now with polygamy, where they're trying to be transparent, but they've also hid it for so long, but also now they're excommunicating people for disagreeing with. It's fascinating.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] Yeah. To have the church in this corner where it has to defend the practice of polygamy and prop it up and punish people who don't believe. Like Michelle. Her whole point is Joseph Smith was too good of a guy. There's no way he would do something so horrible as polygamy. But then Brigham Young's a horrible human and then all the other prophets after him were suckers. Like, those aren't her words, but like those are the implications of her belief. And it's weird that the Mormon Church is put in this position of having to argue with that. Julia, I'd love your take on any of this so far.

Julia [00:17:55] Oh, no, I'm just. This has been great. I. I would be really interested to see Michelle come on and hear what she has to say. She does seem like an amazing person. I don't like historically, I don't agree with some of the things. And one thing I'm interested in is you did an episode with Radio Free Mormon where he came on and he talked about the Nauvoo Expositor and how in that in the Expositor they quote Almost directly from DNC 132. Which part of the movement is that? The. Brigham Young came up with that later in the Utah period. But this is Nauvoo in 1844.

Julia [00:18:24] And so I don't. She probably. She maybe has responded on her own channel about the Nauvoo Expositor. I haven't looked into that because I agree with the consensus of the historians that polygamy was practiced by Joseph Smith. Anyway. So I'm really interested to see what she has to say and hear her story in Mormonism. And I'm assuming she's still an active member of the church. Is that right?

John Dehlin [00:18:44] She is an active, believing member of the church. And she. I think she told me she has not responded yet to my episode with rfm, but she. She says she is releasing part one, I think of a response to our Julia, our LDS discussions episode this Sunday.

Julia [00:19:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:19:07] And she. She warned me that she's a little bit spicy, kind of mad at me a little bit for, like, not saying her name. She basically.

Guest 2 [00:19:16] But.

John Dehlin [00:19:17] But it's. I love her position. She's like, stop talking about me. Talk to me. And that's fair. That's totally fair. So she called me out. I'll swallow the humble pie. I will also just say really quickly, Coach, I want to thank Fudge Bot, Fudgebot, I guess, for. For subscribing as a member to our YouTube channel. And I just want to let everyone know, coaches in the house from the Cultural Hall. He says he's having Michelle on his show tomorrow night. So Cultural hall does amazing work. And thanks for the super chat, Coach. Thanks for joining us, and we're super happy to have you in the house. Okay.

Alyssa Alexander [00:20:00] One thing I want to mention really, really quick, please. That, I think is an interesting connection between Michelle Stone's stance and the original lesson that we had is it seems that both, you know, the Mormon church, the mainstream Mormon church, and Michelle Young, the main goal here is to continue to prop up Joseph Smith, to see him as a hero. It seems that any sort of criticism of Joseph Smith's behavior or any sort of perspective that he could have done something wrong is something that on all ends of the believing Mormon spectrum, people feel really uncomfortable with. People feel much more comfortable saying that Brigham Young made mistakes.

Alyssa Alexander [00:20:34] But it just seems that there is. Although the history, you know, differs between what Michelle is saying and what the active church is saying, the main theme is Joseph Smith prays to the man. You know, he. He was following the Lord. And it seems like that's really what everyone who's in the church is still really trying to. To hold on to.

John Dehlin [00:20:52] Yeah, I'll also just note. That's a good point. I'll also note Maven's point that it's worth noting that people like Jacob Hansen, whose name I hate to mention, and Brian Hales, they're both trying to get Michelle Stone excommunicated. They're actively sending information to Michelle's bishop and SIG president, calling her an APOSTATE and trying to get her excommunicated. And I hate it because I've been treated that way. I've been excommunicated. I just denounce and detest people who operate in that way.

John Dehlin [00:21:27] Okay, all right, so. All right, so let's see the reason. Let's go back to the slides for a second. The reason why we're bringing her up is because to give her proper credit, two days before we did our episode in December, she released an episode giving her criticisms of this story and cartoon. So that's, that's what this first slide is. It's showing her YouTube channel. And I just thought it would be interesting to share a comment we got on this recent LDS discussions episode. The episode was. Was called did Joseph Smith have Sex with His Plural Wives? The answer is yes, at least 17 different wives.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] Seventeen times. But somebody commented just today, yes, I know of someone who was excommunicated for teaching. Joseph Smith wasn't a polygamist. And so anyway, we wanted to give credit where credit is due. Michelle was an early opiner in this regard. Tell us about this slide, Julia.

Julia [00:22:33] Yeah, so this is showing an image of just her YouTube channel. This is a screenshot of her part one and part two where she talks about this, these, these chapters on the Polygamy for the children. The first, her first title is the Importance of Age Appropriateness and Parental Consent. And then Plural Marriage for Children. And then it kind of cuts off a little bit. And then she's got a part two where it says False Narratives and Weak Sources, Plural Marriage for Children, Part two. So she's going through and she's talking about them. I haven't seen them all in full, although I did pull a clip from it because she's also criticizing this lesson and how she does it for a different reason, although I think most of us would agree that teaching these things to children is not okay.

Julia [00:23:13] And so that's one of the clips I pulled from her. And then again, there was other channels that cover this, this, these chapters as well, or this chapter. Do we want to show those too?

John Dehlin [00:23:22] Yeah.

Julia [00:23:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:23] And I just want to add that one of the things that was obvious when I talked to Michelle for a couple hours is we, we're aligned on so many things. Her basic position is that polygamy is horrific and that it's detestable and disgusting and awful and that God hates it and how could we agree? So, I mean, it's just a matter of whether or not Joseph was involved. Anyway, really quickly, we want to thank Unexcited for sharing a comment. And the comment is Female Panelists Appreciation Fund. So there you go, Alyssa.

Julia [00:24:00] Great.

Alyssa Alexander [00:24:00] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:24:01] There's at least one viewer and listener that's glad we've got some women on the panel. So thanks for that donation. Okay, Julia, let's go back. Let's go back to the slides. Here's the next slide.

Analyzing the Original Children's Polygamy Chapter

Julia [00:24:12] So we have a life. Take two. My friend Jenny, she also did one called Grooming Kids for Polygamy, and she talks about this, these, this chapter as well. And then you have Mormonish podcasts where Bill Real and RFM were on as well.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] And Rebecca Biblioteca.

Julia [00:24:23] Rebecca. Yeah, that's her channel.

John Dehlin [00:24:24] Landon.

Julia [00:24:25] Yeah, yeah, Landon. And it's called let's Read a Bedtime Story about Plural Marriage. Controversial. Controversial LDS Church history cartoons.

Alyssa Alexander [00:24:32] And.

Julia [00:24:32] And then it cuts off. But yeah. So there's. So a lot of people covered this topic. And then one of them that was covered was, let's see, the bishop's interview.

Guest 3 [00:24:40] He.

Julia [00:24:41] So I pull a clip from here from him. So what I kind of, how I kind of set up this episode is to show a clip and then to show. Because we're have, we have comparisons from the, the original version back in December to what was changed probably today. And so we're showing a clip of the criticism and then showing the comparison of how the church has now changed it. And so this first clip is the bishop's interview. Nathan Hinckley, I think. And so he's talking about this during the, in the chapter, the church used the word hard several times, like an excessive amount of times. And so the first clip is as criticism of that aspect.

John Dehlin [00:25:14] And Julie, if it's okay, I want to also take credit because I hammered that point.

Julia [00:25:17] Oh, yeah, you did.

John Dehlin [00:25:18] And so did Alyssa. So. But Nathan's great. Nathan is a former Mormon bishop. He lives in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. He's a friend of the podcast, and we hope to have him on someday. But let's show, let's go and show Nathan's critique. We'll go ahead and. We'll go ahead and address the fact that. Here I go. That they use the word hard oftentimes in this write up, which is a little bit odd. But anyway, I digress.

Alyssa Alexander [00:25:53] I guess I, I will say we'll get to this later, but I had a little bit of a middle school

Julia [00:26:00] giggle when it, it referred to this

Guest [00:26:04] being hard for the apostles.

Julia [00:26:06] Yep, I'm sure it was.

John Dehlin [00:26:09] Yeah. And the headline said, faith to obey what the prophets. Even when it's Hard. Oh, there we go. We can show the next. We have a. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Julia.

Julia [00:26:17] This is a comparison slide. So right away, you'll notice that they change the little subheading.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] Read the left and then read the right for the people that are just listening.

Julia [00:26:24] Right. So the original one says, faith to obey a law from the Lord even when it's hard. And the new version now says a commandment for a time.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] Okay.

Julia [00:26:34] And then do we want to read both sides?

John Dehlin [00:26:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do a before and an after.

Julia [00:26:40] Okay, so I'll read the original. So this. This first section says, while the prophet Joseph was studying the Bible, he read about the prophets like Abraham and Moses, who had been married to more than one wife. Joseph wondered how the Lord felt about that, so he decided to ask the Lord.

John Dehlin [00:26:57] Okay, and then you want me to read the. What they changed it to?

Julia [00:27:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:01] What they changed it to was while the prophet Joseph was studying the Bible, he read about prophets like Abraham and Moses, who had been married to more than one wife. Joseph had a lot of questions, so he decided to pray and ask the Lord. Now, what do we think? What's significant about that change? Alyssa, do you have. Alyssa or Julia, do you all have a theory about. Was that even a substantive change?

Alyssa Alexander [00:27:27] Do we want to address the subtitle or the. Both.

John Dehlin [00:27:31] Yeah. Yeah, both.

Alyssa Alexander [00:27:32] Okay. Subtitle change first, I think is extremely significant change. Not only is it just linguistically, I think it's important for writers to pay attention to the connotations of the words they're including. So this shouldn't have made it to print in the first place. But also just the main theme, you know, rather than viewing polygamy as something that is like this aspirational commandment or an aspirational example of people following difficult commandments, which I think is really dangerous for children to be taking onto themselves, especially really young, changing it to something a little bit less divisive. Just saying this is a commandment for a time, I think is a positive change inherently. I think that's. That will lead to less damage for children.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] Yeah, and just if I can piggyback on that, like, you wouldn't want to say Nephi. Isn't Nephi's example of chopping off Laban's head a great example of obeying the Holy Ghost when he comes to you. Like, you wouldn't want to tell a kid that.

Alyssa Alexander [00:28:37] Right, Right, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:28:38] Because it's a horrible example, even if it's true, which I think many of us don't believe. The Holy Ghost would tell someone to do that. Even if it were true, it would be a horrific thing to tell a kid.

Alyssa Alexander [00:28:50] Right, right. Because children, they do not have the ability to have nuance about these types of ideas about murder and about murder, Infidelity. Exactly. And I think that's part of what really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way about this particular lesson was, was just that it was really teaching children and grooming them that not only was polygamy okay, but also that they should follow authority leaders in the church even when it goes against something that they're feeling. And I'm glad that right off the, right out of the gate with their subtitle, they've changed that to make it a little bit less devious.

John Dehlin [00:29:25] What was the bluey comment you made about.

Alyssa Alexander [00:29:27] Oh, yeah, okay, I'm trying to remember. The, the, oh, the mom was talking to the little girl and said, you know, sometimes your inside voice says no when your outside voice says yes. And kind of being able to understand consent and understand pressure and coercion.

Alyssa Alexander [00:29:45] And that, by the way, the little kid in that, In Bluey, they're 4 and 6. And so that seems like a pretty age appropriate way to teach four and six year olds. Four and six is also the age of children in primary, the littlest kids. And just as a brief, a brief aside, my little boy is four and we're already kind of starting to see with friends, playmates, cousins, kids at preschool, they talk about church, they talk about everything, four year olds. And we're already kind of starting to see a little bit of that deviation and lifestyle kind of happening. Kids noticing it slightly barely.

Alyssa Alexander [00:30:20] And I guess my main point there is that children are already starting to pick up on messaging of church themes and of both the good and the bad as young as four, which is almost as young as you can possibly be to be in primary.

Alyssa Alexander [00:30:35] And so I think not only is this message that was originally, you know, unhealthy for older children, 10 year olds thinking of this, starting as young as four, that's the age of these children are already going to kind of start internalizing these messages, even if it's just a little bit. That's when these things start. They do not have the cognitive ability to really start separating ideas and adding nuance and adding progressive Mormon takes that adults can do. Adults can add a, you know, can, can understand polygamy in a lot more of a nuanced, complicated way and can maybe even decide that the church is, is okay for them even if they disagree with Joseph but children don't have the ability to do that.

Alyssa Alexander [00:31:14] And so I'm just really glad for all little kids that are going to be taught this message, whether they're 4 or 10 or 11, that the main subtitle, as soon as they hear about it, is not that it's important to obey a law from the Lord when it's difficult, but this is just an example of a historical moment. Do I think that children should be taught this at all at this age? No. But I do think teaching it to children as history is much safer than teaching it to children as an aspirational story of these sacrifice of these women as sacrificial lambs and these men as, you know, doing what God intended. And power over women is what God intended. So.

John Dehlin [00:31:56] Yeah.

Alyssa Alexander [00:31:57] Anyway. Soapbox over.

John Dehlin [00:31:58] No, that's good. Julia, did you have anything to say about that title change before we go to the. To the.

Julia [00:32:04] No, that was okay. That was brilliant.

John Dehlin [00:32:06] Okay, perfect. So. All right, Alyssa, so I stopped you before you went down to the bottom of this slide. What, what did you want to say? What is meaningful about that change to you? Joseph had a lot of questions, so he decided to pray and ask the Lord versus Joseph wondered how the Lord felt about that. What. What is that? What does that mean to you?

Alyssa Alexander [00:32:32] My first take? Well, just kind of like mulling this over for a little while. Is it?

Guest 4 [00:32:39] Almost.

Alyssa Alexander [00:32:39] And I'd love to hear other people's perspectives, but it feels like Joseph wondered how the Lord felt about that.

John Dehlin [00:32:47] It's almost like he likes the idea and wants to see if the Lord likes it.

Alyssa Alexander [00:32:50] And he's also not sure whether it was a commandment or not a commandment, he's like, was this their own free will or was this a commandment? But then as soon as we just say Joseph had a lot of questions,

John Dehlin [00:33:01] it's almost like he was concerned.

Alyssa Alexander [00:33:03] Exactly. Right.

Julia [00:33:05] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:05] Which is, what do you think, Julia? Is that a stretch or does that. What do you think, Julia?

Julia [00:33:09] No, I think. I think that's kind of how they're spinning that, because it's like Joseph wondered how the Lord felt about that. So we decided to ask the Lord versus Joseph had a lot of questions. It kind of just changes the feeling of it. Was this Joseph's idea? Was this God's idea? Also, the aspect of if kids have questions, they can pray and receive revelation, that could be another thing. But yeah, Alyssa, I like, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, too.

John Dehlin [00:33:33] Yeah, I think, I think it's important in 2025, if the church is going to say Joseph did practice polygamy with 14 year olds and women already married, that they want to make it. Like he's really reluctant. You know what I mean?

Alyssa Alexander [00:33:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] Which of course he would tell people he was reluctant at the time, but was he, you know.

Alyssa Alexander [00:33:54] Right, right. And I mean, even just.

Julia [00:33:57] Yeah.

Alyssa Alexander [00:33:57] Saying he had, he had questions, we can see that it could, that he could be hesitant about it. But also when we said that Joseph wondered how the Lord felt is kind of suggesting that like the Lord could be feeling either way. It almost to me also feels like in the second, in the newer edition, he has questions, but he already knows that that's what the Lord is wanting. That's assumed because it's something that a biblical, a biblical figure would do. And he's hesitant about it. He wants to know why the Lord would do that. But in the first one, he's not sure whether that was from God or not, so.

Alyssa Alexander [00:34:30] So he's going to ask him the other one. It sounds to me like he knows it's from God. It's putting a little bit more of the control in God's hands, a little bit more reluctance in Joseph, Joseph's hands. And he just wants a little bit more clarification for not only was this okay, but why is this okay? Is the way that it feels like it's that slight phrase change reads to me.

John Dehlin [00:34:51] Got it. All right, Julia, what's next?

Julia [00:34:55] So this next clip is just from. I think it's Natasha Helford talking about what kind of God we want to believe in. And I think maybe Michelle Stone would even ask this question too. Whether is God this type of God or is he this type in his command of polygamy? And she would, of course would say that, or I would, I would imagine she'd say that God isn't this kind of God and he would not ever command polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] All right, let's roll the tape.

Guest [00:35:16] And this, this really poses, I think, a more complex question for LDS members and church leadership is do they want to believe in a God who was okay with things like rape, plunder, murder, sexual assault, divorce, polygamy, sexual trauma or not? It's pretty simple. You kind of got to either agree that either God's kind of an ass or maybe we got God wrong.

Alyssa Alexander [00:35:40] Mormon God.

John Dehlin [00:35:41] Mormon God. My Christian friends are always angry at how many Mormons, ex Mormons become atheists and agnostics. And it's, it's because of stuff like this. Like this stuff kills people's belief in

Guest [00:35:53] God and I would also challenge back a little bit because this is not just a Mormon God issue. These issues, slavery, rape, murder, genocide, are all things that we can justify through the Old Testament God. And so, again, Christian God, and probably

John Dehlin [00:36:11] at least Muslim God.

Julia [00:36:13] Yes.

Guest [00:36:13] People have to decide if we're going to believe in a God, what kind of God are we going to believe in? And could we, as people have gotten that idea wrong to justify a lot of things that people have done throughout the centuries? Right. So.

John Dehlin [00:36:31] All right, Julia.

Julia [00:36:33] Yeah, I just like that. Just her setup. Where do we believe that God is this way? Or is he kind of an ass? Or like, is this. I don't know. I just really like the way she framed it. And she just is very well spoken.

John Dehlin [00:36:45] Absolutely. Yeah. Shout out to Natasha. All right, let's go to the next slide.

Comparing Original and Revised Lesson Panels

Julia [00:36:51] Okay, so this is the next panel. So these are all in order. So on the original, there's. There was a very little change, but we can go ahead and read it and discuss it. So the original one says the Lord said that usually a man should have only one wife, but sometimes the Lord commanded his people to be in marriages of one man and more than one woman. This was called plural marriage. The Lord told Joseph that his people should only be in plural marriages if he commands it. And, John, do you want to read the new version?

John Dehlin [00:37:19] Okay. And so the new version says the Lord said that usually a man should have only one wife. That seems identical, but sometimes the Lord commanded, and this is what's different, a man to be married to more than one wife. I have no idea what the difference is. Alyssa, anything jumping out to you?

Alyssa Alexander [00:37:41] Two things.

John Dehlin [00:37:41] Okay.

Alyssa Alexander [00:37:42] Actually, well, first off, I hate that they repeat wife twice in one paragraph. Bad. Don't do that. Just. Just redundant. But it feels very interesting to me in a disappointing way. We said that this podcast is going to be mostly positive. It will be mostly positive. They made mostly positive changes, but this was a slight negative. I would say, for them just to be referring to the man multiple times as a man, referring to the women multiple times just by her relationship to the men as wife, which just felt like an unnecessary change.

Alyssa Alexander [00:38:19] I mean, he said the difference between his people to be in marriages of one man and more than one wife. And then he said which. Which is also interesting too, because the other thing that stands out to me is that the commandment here sounds as though the commandment is being given directly to men rather than to his people, which maybe, I mean, which is more accurate, right. Historically, with what they were. They were teaching they were teaching that the Lord was speaking primarily through the men. So that is more accurate. But yeah, I do think that that is, is taking a little bit of power away from the women.

John Dehlin [00:38:51] And so this is like almost a step backwards.

Alyssa Alexander [00:38:53] It feels like a step back. It feels like they're taking a little bit of power away from the women here, which I, again, I think is slightly more transparent is the fact that that's the way that they pinned it.

John Dehlin [00:39:02] I mean, that's how DNC132 reads.

Alyssa Alexander [00:39:05] But as far as we're talking about the implicit messages the children are receiving love, that the men are continually referred to as men and the women are continually referred to as the wife. So that's a bummer.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] And I'm just trying. And Julie, I want to get you in on this. I'm just trying to put myself in the head of the people making the decision. Like when the guy who has this idea, and it's probably a guy, when he says, let's make this change, why is he recommending this particular change to be made? Do you have any speculation, Julia?

Julia [00:39:38] Yeah, I have some thoughts too. So here they. In the first side, it says, here, I'll show it again, it says his people. And then it switches it to a man. So my first thoughts were Joseph Smith was very specific on who. I don't know how he chose, but. But some of them. So when you say his people, my thoughts are every member of the church of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But that's not the case because you have people like John C. Bennett who were super high up in the church. You have others, I can't remember everybody's name. They were brought to have a church council where they were punished for living polygamy.

Julia [00:40:11] And so them changing that from his people, meaning sort of like everybody should live polygamy to sometimes the Lord commands a man to marry women. That kind of changes it. So that to me, in my historic, this historic studies, changes it to like everyone's doing it. But now Joseph gets to select who's doing it. But then another thought I had, which it's not really pointing out to this, but it's saying that one man. Here, let me show it again. So it says a man to be married to more than one wife. And never at any point does it talk about women being married to more than one man.

Julia [00:40:43] Because Joseph Smith married 14 women who were already married. And it never alludes to that in this slide, which, I mean, I don't know if you'd Want to teach children that right away. It is historically what was happening anyway. So I just thought it was interesting that neither panel really talked about the women having more than one husband. Like, it doesn't justify polyandry at all.

John Dehlin [00:41:05] I'm just. I'm still. I know I'm slow, but I'm still trying to figure out why somebody thought this was an improvement.

Alyssa Alexander [00:41:13] Maybe they were just copywriting and just were trying to. To make it more precise or change their sentence up and didn't realize the connotations it was changing. But I do really like. I do really like Julia's point, too, though, that changing it to one man maybe would also make people now be like, see, it wasn't everybody. It was just this, like, select, small group of.

John Dehlin [00:41:34] So it's downplaying.

Alyssa Alexander [00:41:36] It feels like it's. It's downplaying the number of people that were involved.

John Dehlin [00:41:39] Okay.

Alyssa Alexander [00:41:40] As well.

John Dehlin [00:41:40] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:41:41] And.

John Dehlin [00:41:42] And it's a. It's a backslide from our perspective. But it is more true to DNC 132. This. The. The change. So if they were trying to say, well, it's not really the people that are commanded. Joseph just kind of picked his buddies.

Alyssa Alexander [00:41:57] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:58] And said, hey, you get these women as wives.

Alyssa Alexander [00:42:01] Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] And in that sense, they made it more accurate, but also more offensive.

Alyssa Alexander [00:42:05] Right. The double whammy there.

John Dehlin [00:42:09] All right, well, isn't that a weird change?

Alyssa Alexander [00:42:11] It is a. It is a weird change. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:13] It's a weird change. Weird change. Julia. Okay, go ahead, Julia.

Julia [00:42:17] Yeah, so the next one is just another clip from Natasha Helfer. This is probably my favorite part of the podcast. Just because it's. She just is so articulate. So, yeah, you can just go ahead and play it.

John Dehlin [00:42:26] Okay.

Julia [00:42:27] It's just so good.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] Okay.

Guest [00:42:30] But my basic argument is that Mormon polygamy was a form of sexual assault. Given our current definitions of how we define sexual assault, which includes forced coercion, a lot of times people think of sexual assault is just a physical manifestation when somebody touches your body incorrectly. No. Sexual assault can be exhibitionism. That is, unwanted sexual assault can definitely include forced coercion where people don't know they cannot give consent because consent is coerced. And some people might confuse this with unwanted sexual consent. I do think that there are times when people will have sex for a variety of reasons, and maybe it's not because they want pleasure out of it, but when you're entering the concept of coercion, we are now past that as well.

Guest [00:43:26] We are now in the realm of sexual assault. And so What I want to say is that the church doing this story the way they have, they're participating in a story of sexual assault, and they are also combining it with classic grooming and abuse of power dynamics. Right now on that page that is current, that is what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is doing. It's participating in a sexual assault story and framing it so that it's very easy for vulnerable members of the church, especially children and adolescents and even adults, to be groomed and coerced. I am not going to split words on this. This is serious.

John Dehlin [00:44:18] Yeah, well, yeah, we love. We love Natasha's wisdom. Right?

Alyssa Alexander [00:44:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:25] Important insight she throws down.

Guest 2 [00:44:28] Yeah.

Julia [00:44:29] So I just wanted to say so on that. I really. I agree with her that the church promoting this is. They're kind of being involved in. In the coercion for these children or whatever. So this next slide, this two panel, I really feel like is kind of mirroring, like, her criticism could. I have no idea if this is accurate, but could be why the church changed that or this type of criticism. So the next panel, I'll go ahead and read the original side. So it says, a few years later, the Lord told Joseph to marry other women. Joseph didn't want to marry other wives, but he knew it was a commandment from the Lord. When Joseph asked a woman to marry him, he told her to pray about it. He wanted her to know from the Lord that it was right. And, John, do you want to read the new version?

John Dehlin [00:45:13] Okay. Yeah. So the. The new version just says, years later, the Lord told Joseph and some other saints to be in plural marriages. It was not easy to live this commandment. I think what's most important is to say what got dropped. Right. So what got. Let's. Let's just accent what got dropped. It sounds like that first sentence. A few years later, the Lord told Joseph to marry other women. No, that kind of got changed a little bit, but then they dropped the sentence. Joseph didn't want to marry other wives. Let's stop and talk about that for a second. Why in the world would they want to drop that?

Alyssa Alexander [00:46:01] I think there. I mean, from my perspective, there's a few reasons. One is, you know, one could be that they. They don't believe the reluctant polygamist narrative. That might not be it, but it could also be them seeing kind of like what Natasha was saying, that by the Lord commanding this and Joseph not wanting to, now they're putting Joseph into a position where he would have been coerced. Right. And so I feel like, they're just trying to take out any language here.

John Dehlin [00:46:31] So if the angel with the flaming sword allegedly is forcing Joseph to do polygamy against his will, that's coercion.

Guest 4 [00:46:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:42] And they wouldn't want to be admitting to children that God as an. Forced Joseph by. By threat of death to be a

Alyssa Alexander [00:46:53] sexual predator to then force women. Right, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:46:57] Okay, that's so dark.

Alyssa Alexander [00:46:59] It is.

John Dehlin [00:46:59] It's like a chain of darkness. Yeah.

Julia [00:47:02] And I think the next sentence reflects the same thing. So you have Joseph being coerced in this. In this first or the second sentence, but he knew. And then later it says when Joseph asked a woman to marry him, he told her to pray about it. And you have these stories where they. Martha Brotherton was locked in the office for an hour or so. Kind of. They're like, you have to come up with an answer in an hour. And so she was being. She was being kind of forced by the prophet to enter into polygamy with Brigham. And then you have other stories where they Give the women 24 hours to answer the question of whether they'd marry Joseph or another prominent leader.

Julia [00:47:35] So, like, they're trying to change the language of, like, God's not. God's not going to try to force Joseph and God's not going to try to force these women when. I mean, we know that's historically what was happening, but. Yeah, it's. They're just changing the language to be better.

John Dehlin [00:47:49] So, I mean. Yeah, that. So already this is the first I've seen any of these. So this is a cold viewing for me. Like, they're making it simultaneously. They're taking out some of the most offensive parts. But in that sense, it's deceptive because they're just. They're whitewashing. They're whitewashing their own whitewashing,

Alyssa Alexander [00:48:16] which, I mean. And I guess this would be not. This is from. Not the perspective of a therapist or a psychologist, but from the perspective of a mom. Yeah. I would be glad for the insinuation of sexual assault to not be addressed yet. You know, like. Like, I think that. I mean, it is complicated because of course, then down the road we're just kind of kicking the can of the problem until they're older to. To really realize how bad it was. But I am glad that, you know, kids aren't kind of being taught this language that that heavenly Father loves you so much. But sometimes, you know, he makes people do things that they don't want to do that feel really, really icky.

John Dehlin [00:49:02] Sometimes he forces rape exactly right.

Alyssa Alexander [00:49:05] And so I think with. With both, with all this language in the original, all of the decisions about polygamy are put on the Lord. So the Lord is coercing Joseph, who is then coercing the women, who are then praying to the Lord. And the Lord is then, you know, allegedly also telling them, yep, you got to do this. You still don't have a say. And so there's just no agency anywhere. And I mean, granted, in the new version, they still say it was a hard commandment or difficult. Did they say hard? Difficult.

Julia [00:49:36] It was not easy.

Alyssa Alexander [00:49:37] It was not easy to live this commandment. So they're still saying it's a commandment. They're still saying it's something that they have to do, which I don't think is great, but, you know, from the perspective of a five year old learning about it and seems like a little bit of a softer segue into it.

John Dehlin [00:49:56] So an improvement for kids, not a victory for transparency.

Alyssa Alexander [00:50:01] Exactly. I can see that.

John Dehlin [00:50:02] I can see church leaders or like people on the correlation committee that made these changes saying, like, see those ex Mormons, they complain one way and then we make the change and they complain the other way. I don't think that's the spirit that we're coming at this from. I think we're just trying to do our best job at kind of analyzing it.

Alyssa Alexander [00:50:21] Yeah. It is a difficult one, though, because I genuinely. This history is so messy. I don't know how they could win.

John Dehlin [00:50:29] It's lipstick on a pig.

Guest 3 [00:50:31] Truly.

John Dehlin [00:50:33] Julia, did you want to add anything to what Alyssa has been saying?

Julia [00:50:38] Yeah, just at the very beginning, you had said something to the effect of these are positive changes. And until, until you had said that, because to me, when the church starts changing things, it's a problem. It's problematic. But like, until you said that, I was like, oh, I guess these are positive changes because to me, I had seen them as kind of negative. Like what you just said. The church is whitewashing their whitewashing. And so, like, I have that, like, I have mixed feelings because, I mean, while I think children at a certain age should not be taught things just in general, I think that, like, taking these stories out, it, like, hides history. Like, for example, this next. This next section that we're talking about involves Emma. So when you. But when you take that out, she has no story, she has no voice anymore.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] She's erased.

Julia [00:51:20] She's erased. Right. And so, like, I have a hard time balancing, like, what's appropriate for kids and what are we erasing from history. So.

John Dehlin [00:51:28] Yeah, well, so I'm excited to get to that next slide. I just want to reiterate that, you know, what's taken out is when Joseph asked a woman to marry him, he told her to pray about it. He wanted her to know from the Lord that it was right. I'm so glad that's not there from a child's standpoint. Yeah, right. Because that's horrific. Because, you know, it basically just says, yeah, it's just all the things we've been saying already, it's so disturbing. I'm glad it's gone. And like you said, Julia, it's bad that it's deceptive. So, I mean, the church really can't win.

Alyssa Alexander [00:52:07] Yeah, right. One thing in particular about this prayer line. Why I think it's good that it's not there for the kids, specifically. Polygamy is a concept that they will have absolutely no frame of reference for. You know, they don't know what it is. But one of the very first things children learn in primary is about prayer. And so I feel like to be weaponizing prayer with this original version, kind of using it as a way to hurt kids like prayer. I think at its best, Mormon prayer is best, is a way to feel loved, as a way to show gratitude, as a way to ask for help, you know, whether you believe it or not.

Alyssa Alexander [00:52:41] I think we can try. And if I'm trying to, like, put on my Mormon brain and try to say, how is this something that can be useful for little kids? And so I am glad that there's not a line that's weaponizing one of the very first tenets of a testimony for these kids, one of, like, the things that is going to be the most sacred for them. So that feels like another reason why I'm glad that they change this line in particular for. For them.

John Dehlin [00:53:11] All right, Julia, do you want to set up the next slide?

Julia [00:53:15] Yeah. Yeah. So this next one comes from Michelle Stone's channel 132. Problems with. I can't remember what the whole title was, but from her channel. And she's talking about this. These next. This next panel of images from the children's story concerning Emma. And so we'll just watch the clip, and then we can compare the two parts.

John Dehlin [00:53:33] Yeah, she. She has a very significant soft spot in her heart for Emma and how horrifically Emma was treated by both. Well, not by Joseph, but by Brigham. But anyway, let's roll a clip.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:53:47] And then we get into the troubled relationship between Joseph and Emma, which is also completely dumbed down according to the narrative. But I believe the narrative is false. This commandment was also hard for Joseph's first wife, Emma. Oh, man.

Video Clip 1 [00:54:01] Sometimes Emma helped Joseph decide who he should ask to marry him. Other times, Emma did not want Joseph to marry other women. Oh my gosh. I just, I just can't handle this. And then let's look at what it cites to right. Doctrine and covenants 132, 55, 56, which tells us that Emma, that she needs to stay herself, not partake of what, what the Lord offered her. I've covered this and other issues and let my handmade made receive all those that have been given unto my service servant Joseph. Right, or they shall be destroyed, saith the Lord. For I the Lord God. For I am the Lord God, and ye shall obey my voice.

Video Clip 1 [00:54:43] And I give unto my servant that he shall be made ruler over many people. Is this where it says, and I command I, I command my servant Emma Smith to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord. For I am the Lord thy God, and I will destroy her if she obey not in my law. And it goes on from there. And yet this is how we are teaching it to children with that citation. Why don't we have God threatening to destroy Emma? Why don't we have a different picture of this if we want to tell this horrible, horrible story that Emma. Oh, anyway, let's. It's just awful. I, I, it's just awful in every way. And I don't think it is factually appropriate.

Julia [00:55:24] So yeah, so I just wanted to, like, I love her passion. Like, I know she disagrees with the history, but I love her passion on how mistreated Emma was. Like, it links to the verses that say that she'll be destroyed if she doesn't accept polygamy. And I just love that. The, and then she's right. It is horrible that they're, that they're showing this. It's, it's not, I wouldn't want my kids to know about that. And just the. Yeah. So if we show the panel. So in the original version, Michelle read it. I don't know if we need to read it again.

John Dehlin [00:55:53] No, go ahead. Just to make it clear.

Julia [00:55:55] Okay. So it says this commandment was also hard for Joseph's first wife, Emma. Sometimes Emma helped Joseph decide who he should ask to marry him. Other times, Emma did not want Joseph to marry other women. And the new and in the New version that has been completely removed.

John Dehlin [00:56:11] Oh, man. I mean, that's. Go ahead, Julia.

Julia [00:56:15] Oh, yeah, that's. It's just. It's just gone. Like, so. So while. Yes, while. I don't really like that they're telling this story to children. Like, and also that's confusing. God told her that, Joseph, that her husband needs to live polygamy. And she's, you know, waffling back and forth. I don't like this. I. I'm gonna pick wives for you. I'm gonna get mad at you for picking certain wives. Like, that's just hard because it's like, how do you know whether. Like, it's just complicated for kids, but then them completely removing it. Like, I have mixed feelings because you're erasing Emma, but also you're being better for children. Like, consuming these. I don't know how to. What are your guys's thoughts?

John Dehlin [00:56:48] Alyssa, you've got a distressed face.

Alyssa Alexander [00:56:50] I am distressed.

John Dehlin [00:56:51] Why are you distressed?

Alyssa Alexander [00:56:53] I mean.

Julia [00:56:53] Yeah, this is.

Alyssa Alexander [00:56:54] This is a really painful one. And I. I completely sympathize with. With Michelle's frustration here and the fact that, I mean, I liked her point that, like, it's pretty disgusting that they would. Would brush over this while still citing that Doctrine and Covenants section. That feels really insidious to me that they're like, they're referencing all of this destruction and pain and betrayal. And then the way that they frame it is, you know, this commandment was also hard for Emma. But. Oh, man. I mean, this is just why this teaching history is just so difficult. Because, Julia, I also agree with you that, like, erasing women's stories, especially in a church that has so few women's stories, is really sad.

Alyssa Alexander [00:57:41] And I think we also, like, you know, young boys and girls in the church should be able to have more women role models to look up to. The problem is, historically, the women in the church have. They haven't been treated very well. And I think we've looked up to Emma a lot, and we've, you know, really praised her for the Relief Society. But then when we actually look at the history, even that has a pretty dark underbelly.

Alyssa Alexander [00:58:03] And so I think it really puts us in a bit of a pickle, because how is it that we can celebrate these women's stories in age appropriate ways for children when no part of the actual story is age appropriate for children? Like, there's no way to dumb it down to make it feel safe for kids. But it's also reality, and it's the only reality that we have, unfortunately, because all of these stories, women's stories from this time period and throughout a lot of Mormon history are jaded by polygamy and are jaded by assault. And it's. There's no real way around that.

John Dehlin [00:58:43] You know, I'm. It's just kind of occurring to me, why, Julia, you structured these slides the way he did. Because the first reaction I had to you, Alyssa, was like, well, isn't it better to make a story less harmful for children than to tell factual history to children that's damaging to children? Like the lesser of two evils is to whitewash for children's improved mental health?

John Dehlin [00:59:14] Right. In the short term, yeah. Right. But then I'm thinking about that more, and I'm thinking, thinking, you know, what's probably better is to just not talk about this at all. Maybe to not even talk about plural marriage to children at all.

John Dehlin [00:59:32] Right. Because then you're not deceiving children. And so then I'm thinking, well, then why did they even do this? And then it goes back to Julia, how you kind of started today's episode. The good faith assumption would be they did it because they want to be finally honest and transparent. The cynical interpretation would be like. Like you noted in the clip, I think you shared of me, they're just trying to inoculate children so that they'll have remembered the polygamy discussion from very early ages. Julia, what do you think?

Julia [01:00:07] No, yeah, that's great. Like, I agree. Like, I. I don't. Yeah. I have mixed feelings with, like, are they. Is this better or is this worse? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:00:15] But it's not that we're just malcontents. Right? Alyssa, help me here.

Alyssa Alexander [01:00:19] Yeah, I mean, we're trying.

John Dehlin [01:00:23] We really are. Okay. And just in the spirit of throwing a bone, I want to share a couple comments. JD Prime Fit says thank you for sharing insights on truthfulness and history. Thank you for that. Kelly writes, I love all of you and your content. Thank you, Kelly, for the support. Another B says, I figured out super chat. Natasha with Michelle, please. What does that mean, Natasha with Michelle?

Alyssa Alexander [01:00:56] I think that means bring them on together.

John Dehlin [01:00:57] Oh, okay. All right. All right. Well, I think Natasha and Michelle would agree that polygamy is abusive and damaging, but, yeah, good idea. Here for comments. Says, thank you for the forced coercion. Reference agency in LDS doctrine is always leveraged. It needs to be called out. Thank you for that. Super chat as well. Okay, go ahead. So Emma's erased. What next, Julia?

Julia [01:01:31] Yeah. So this next clip comes from the Bedtime Stories one from Mormonish podcast. And so this clip is, they're talking about the next two panels where they talk about, let's see, the 12 apostles being commanded to live polygamy and then Brigham Young also being commanded. So we'll, we'll watch that clip and then they'll read and talk about it, and then we'll talk about the changes that were made.

John Dehlin [01:01:51] Okay, so this would have been commentary back in December, right, When they were critiquing the original, Right?

Julia [01:01:57] Yes.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:01:58] Okay, so it goes on. And here is Joseph in the school of the prophets. And again, if you look at their cartoon faces, they just look so worried about what he's telling them. They, you can tell they don't want to do it. You know, they're under great duress. But again, have to do hard things. Right. It says Joseph taught the twelve apostles about plural marriage. It was a hard commandment for them too.

Video Clip 2 [01:02:23] Okay, I gotta tell you something.

Video Clip 2 [01:02:25] Yeah.

Video Clip 2 [01:02:26] They're kidding us. This is like Robin Williams ad libbing all the stuff with a genie that got left in the movie that they didn't notice. They are working hard into this so many times. And how many panels are they going to have a bed drawn into it, is what I want to know. It was like the first two on the page here. We got Brigham, we get a break from the school of the prophets. Yeah, but really, really, I think some people are having fun with this.

Video Clip 2 [01:02:49] I can't imagine who created this. And I mean, of course there's no author listed or anything. And if it was reviewed, was there no person that looked at this and just thought, this is, this is not a good look. This is inoculation, this is grooming. You're right. There are so many pictures with two pictures with a bed in it. It's.

Video Clip 2 [01:03:07] I, I don't know how this got

Video Clip 2 [01:03:08] through the review process. How could you not? Yep, there it is. You're right. How could you be that little aware of what you're saying or what you're encouraging children to be exposed to you?

John Dehlin [01:03:19] So I never made that connection that they show a bed twice in these panels for children. I also love the speculation that there's some rogue church employee that's embedding sort of like off color Easter eggs into their animations. That's a credit to rfm. I mean, they did that at Disney. Right. Wasn't there a problem with multiple Disney posters having like phallic symbols included by kind of rogue Disney employees trying to stretch appropriate boundaries?

Alyssa Alexander [01:03:57] Yeah, I can't remember what they were. But.

Julia [01:03:58] And then even in the films itself, I don't know if we. If we want to get into Disney conspiracy, but, like, even the films itself, like the Lion King, there was an inappropriate word spelled. And then, like, in the Little Mermaid, there was an inappropriate thing during the wedding. Like, so those things got slipped in. And he's implying that, like. Or even a genie. And with the Aladdin, he's implying that things slipped in and, like, snuck past the review process, which is interesting because now if we're. If we're okay to look at these changes now, these two panels have been completely removed. So you have the original side that says Joseph taught. That taught the 12 apostles about plural marriage. It was a hard commandment for them, too.

John Dehlin [01:04:36] Totally removed.

Julia [01:04:38] Totally removed.

John Dehlin [01:04:38] And if you skip to the next really quickly, just. Just so we don't miss it, like, are we speculating? Let's speculate. Why would they remove this? Is it because of the word hard? Because they could have just changed that to difficult, Although that would have been obvious, and we would have all made fun of them just getting rid of the word hard. But why, aside from that word, why would they not want kids to be taught that Joseph instructed the 12 apostles that they needed to do plural marriage to. Why would they want to remove that? Alyssa, any speculation?

Alyssa Alexander [01:05:15] Well, I had. I had two thoughts. One of them is more positive toward the church. One of them is more critical. So who knows which one it could be? I remember last time when we discussed this slide, we were critical that so much of the focus of this whole lesson was on men's reactions. Most. There was a couple women here and there. And then we have this picture with, like, 10 men shown kind of giving the reactions. They're. They're distraught about it. And so maybe, you know, from a best faith perspective, they're taking out Emma's story. Okay, let's also take out the 12 apostles. Let's just try to, like, focus it a little bit. We don't need to include quite so many men pictured here, but.

Guest [01:05:56] Or.

Alyssa Alexander [01:05:57] Or what? Because I could also see realistically happening is kind of going back to the idea that this wasn't as broad in the churches as, like, they're trying to downplay how many people were involved. So they're saying, let's just. We'll just talk about the apostles later. Let's just keep a focus mostly on Joseph and Brigham and that it was a few people. And let's just try to keep it as kind of like this niche thing that was going on, and we don't need to bring in more characters to the story.

John Dehlin [01:06:25] Interesting. I think that is an apologetic trend for Mormon apologists in 2025. I think in the, in the Erickson. Julia, you'll remember this. In the Keith Erickson video, wasn't he just trying to say almost nobody practiced it?

Julia [01:06:40] Oh, yeah. Like, he was like, oh, only a. Only a tiny percentage of people. Even though I think he even says that the tiny percentage was, I kind of want to say hundreds of people that lived it. I don't remember the exact statistics, but, yeah, he was trying to say that basically nobody did it.

John Dehlin [01:06:53] Yeah. So. Okay, Julia, any, any. Anything you wanted to add to this panel?

Brigham Young and Changes to Specific Panels

Julia [01:06:59] My thought was that kind of on the more positive side. So at the first headline for this lesson was, the original side was faith to obey a law from the Lord, even when it's hard. And so you have, like, they're taking out. It was hard for Emma, but she did it anyway. It was hard for the twelve apostles, but they did it anyway. And so it's kind of removing that because I think that's a lot of pressure to put on children. Like, you have to obey. If it's hard, you got to do it anyway. So it's removing that. It's taking away the pressure. So I appreciate that.

Julia [01:07:27] And like, you're saying, Alyssa, like, it's taking out characters that we really don't need. It's going to, like, confuse the kids or, like, that's more people to keep track of. But, like, so I think that's a positive thing. But on my. The other side says, like, well, you're erasing history by not sharing it. But again, children, child age appropriateness. So, yeah, I was thinking just, just

Alyssa Alexander [01:07:47] from what we were saying a minute ago about how is it that the church could do this effectively and unfortunately, really, I think maybe what the best thing for them to do that they would never do would to be able to teach it as a mistake, just announce it completely. Because originally the original way that it was taught, this lesson was framed was as this aspirational. See, look, they did these hard things, and. And you can follow difficult commandments too. And then they took that out, which is good.

Alyssa Alexander [01:08:16] But now it's like the whitewash of the whitewashed. And now we're kind of in this. Okay, are we just inoculating the children? Are we just kicking the can down the road for them to feel betrayed later? And so really, it seems like, unfortunately, what would be the most effective way to teach history I think. And it seems like a lot of difficult parts of history that children have to learn and the teenagers have to learn is saying, this is what happened.

Alyssa Alexander [01:08:41] We're not adding a moral to it as a good thing. The church shouldn't have done this. This was a mistake. Boom. And then they would probably have people have faith crises. God let this happen, or whatever. But I'm. But as far as being the most age appropriate way to teach history to children, just, you know, just thinking right now in the moment would probably say this polygamy is something bad that happened, and that's. That's a sad part of. Of our history and then leaving it there, you know. Anyway.

John Dehlin [01:09:13] Yeah. Interesting. All right, Julia, did you have something else, or you want to go to the next slide?

Julia [01:09:21] Yeah, the next slide just shows the second panel where the original side says, brigham Young and his wife Mary Ann prayed a lot to the Lord about what to do. They learned that they should obey the commandment of plural marriage. And as you can see from the new version, that has been completely removed. So. And then, like, the. It's. It's a good thing, I guess, that it's removed, that the image of the bed. There's like, at least two beds in this whole chapter that's been. That's been gone. But then you're like, I'm not sure why they, again, were characters, I guess, that they don't want to be bogged the kids down with. I don't know, thoughts on why that was changed.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] I mean, it could just be as simple as. Make it shorter.

Alyssa Alexander [01:10:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:02] Cut as much as we can. Because isn't this, like, cut to half overall? Isn't basically half was removed of the story. So, I mean, it could be that. Yeah, it could be not wanting to infect William Young, although he was the alpha male of polygamy. Right. Wasn't he. Wasn't he the polygamy alpha?

Alyssa Alexander [01:10:22] That's, you know, that's. That's what he sure wants to think.

John Dehlin [01:10:29] I just had the thought. You know, obviously, I think Michelle Stone's preference would be that the church remove DNC132 and just tell the church that it was a huge mistake. I think that would be her preference. I think that would probably be my preference.

John Dehlin [01:10:47] I wanted to read you something, Julia and Alyssa, and see if y' all knew this, but I was going through Sandra Tanner's old pamphlets, and I discovered something really interesting. So tell me if you knew this. In. In 1930, Apostle James E. Talmadge edited and published a condensed version of the Doctrine and Covenants, titled Latter Day Revelation, Selections from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.

John Dehlin [01:11:19] The addition aimed to make the doctrinal parts more accessible by reducing the book's bulk. Consequently, it omitted 95 sections entirely and portions of 21 others, including. Da da da what? Section 132, including section 132, which addresses the principle of plural marriage. And the first thing that comes to my mind is the Jefferson Bible. Have you heard of the Jefferson Bible, Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [01:11:49] I've heard of it, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:50] Do you know what it is?

Alyssa Alexander [01:11:51] But I don't know. I know.

John Dehlin [01:11:52] Do you know what it is, Julia?

Julia [01:11:54] Just the Thomas Jefferson. I don't know very much about it.

John Dehlin [01:11:56] He basically just said, the Bible's got a bunch of garbage in it. Let's just have a Bible that's only Jesus's words, no commentary, none of the other gospels. It's just what Jesus said, because to him, that would. That's the most valuable part of the New Testament. So it seems like Talmage is taking a page out of Thomas Jefferson's book and trying to produce a D and C. That's the most relevant to modern times, but also the least problematic. Do either of you ought to guess what happens when he releases this version of the dnc? Alyssa?

Julia [01:12:31] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [01:12:32] Do you have a guess?

Alyssa Alexander [01:12:33] I have no idea. I mean, clearly, they didn't stand.

John Dehlin [01:12:36] All right, Julia, do you want to guess what happens?

Julia [01:12:39] I'm guessing he removes. Does he remove all of.

John Dehlin [01:12:42] No, I'm saying what happened. What was the reaction when he released this version of the dnc? Do you want to guess what. What the reaction was? And what happened?

Julia [01:12:52] Was he excommunicated Talmage?

John Dehlin [01:12:54] No, Talmage was not excommunicated. Julia, what do you think the backlash was? And. And the reaction? Do you have a theory?

Julia [01:13:01] I'm. I'm assuming that the. Because the church has to have this be true and part of its doctrine, I'm assuming they got mad at him and pulled printing.

John Dehlin [01:13:08] Okay.

Julia [01:13:08] I don't know.

Guest 3 [01:13:09] I'll.

John Dehlin [01:13:09] I'll tell you what it. What it says here. It says, the exclusion of DNC 132 led to criticism, particularly from fundamentalist groups who accused the church of altering its scriptures. In response to the controversy, church president Heber J. Grant ordered the withdrawal of the publication and the remaining copies were destroyed to prevent further conflict. Anyway, and then it goes on to say, Additionally, in the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, edited by apostle orson Pratt, Section 132 was included for the first time Replacing an earlier article on marriage from the 1835 edition that had advocated monogamy. Anyway, Julia, did you know about the James E. Talmadge version of the dnc?

Julia [01:14:03] I had no idea that.

John Dehlin [01:14:05] That was kind of cool, right?

Julia [01:14:06] Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised because, like, the church is known for, like, if something is in print that they don't like, they'll pull all the copies, burn them. Like Lucy Max Smith's history. Brigham did not like that. He ordered it all to be destroyed and then had it changed. So, yeah, I'm not surprised, but, I mean, I kind of am.

John Dehlin [01:14:21] Yeah, well, it's foreshadowing because obviously the church will receive, like, today. Today's episode. In some ways, from the church perspective, they can't win if they end up yanking D&C. 132. You know, we're all acts. Mormons are all going to say, see, the church was making it all up to begin with. And the prophets aren't inspired. Right.

Alyssa Alexander [01:14:41] So, I mean, they probably wish they would have just. Just stuck with Talmage's version. Then the prophets now are like, man,

John Dehlin [01:14:49] we should have just stuck with Talmadge

Alyssa Alexander [01:14:52] left that we wouldn't have so many problems now.

John Dehlin [01:14:55] Well, are we our own worst enemy? That's what I want to know. If we want. What do we want? Do we want to criticize the church, or do we want the church to make positive changes? Which is it, Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [01:15:03] Can we do both? Isn't that a magic unicorn?

John Dehlin [01:15:09] All right, anything else with this Brigham Young panel, Julia?

Julia [01:15:12] No, I think that's good. We can go to the next clip.

John Dehlin [01:15:14] Okay. All right, let's tell us about the next clip.

Julia [01:15:17] So this is just another one from. From the same episode with Mormonish podcast.

John Dehlin [01:15:21] Okay, I'll roll it.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [01:15:24] They made laws against it. Some saints, including church leaders, were put in prison.

Video Clip 3 [01:15:29] Again, I try to picture a child

Video Clip 3 [01:15:31] being read this and going, a prophet went to jail, Mom. It's just so much information to take in, and it's all very scary and disturbing.

Video Clip 3 [01:15:40] You know, jail is bad non Mormons. Those bad non Mormons.

Video Clip 3 [01:15:44] Yep, Yep, exactly. But the Lord blessed the families who obeyed his commandments, even when it was hard.

John Dehlin [01:15:54] Julia.

Julia [01:15:55] Oh, yeah. So we can just go. If you'll skip. We can just talk about the. We can just look at the panel.

John Dehlin [01:16:00] Okay, there it is.

Julia [01:16:01] Okay. Yeah. So on the original side, it says for many years, some of the saints were asked to be in plural marriages. People outside the church did not like plural marriage. They made laws against it. Some saints, including church Leaders were put in prison, but the Lord blessed the families who obeyed his commandments, even when it was hard.

John Dehlin [01:16:23] Okay, so we've got them. Let's just talk about what they removed, because I think that's maybe most interesting. They removed. For many years, some of the saints were asked to be in plural marriages. Okay. Sounds like they're just trying to shorten it. People outside the church did not like plural marriage. They removed that. Why would they remove that again? Is it just to shorten it?

Alyssa Alexander [01:16:49] Yeah, maybe just to shorten it. Maybe just to keep the focus less on public perception and more on the legality.

Julia [01:16:56] Yeah, because they. Yeah, they changed. You know, like, they said they made laws against it. It's just they. People outside the church and they changed it to. Now it says the government made laws against plural marriage. So I guess they're like, they're specifying. Yeah, they're specifying, like, not people, but the government. Like, it's. It's more like, historically accurate, I guess.

John Dehlin [01:17:15] Yeah. And then it includes some saints, including church leaders were put in prison.

Julia [01:17:22] So that's the same.

John Dehlin [01:17:23] Keeps that, but then it removes. But the Lord blessed the families who obeyed his commandments even when it was hard. So again, it's that word hard that's, you know, problematic. I think that's probably the main reason this entire. These changes were made. Once they knew there was a hardcore, weird, gross sexual reference, I. I probably think that's the number one reason they made the change.

Guest 3 [01:17:49] Yeah.

Alyssa Alexander [01:17:49] And Morgan Ish podcast commented and said that they removed the beds.

John Dehlin [01:17:53] Oh, there's no more beds.

Alyssa Alexander [01:17:55] Yeah. So that's great.

John Dehlin [01:17:56] Yeah.

Alyssa Alexander [01:17:58] Yeah. For whatever reason, they realized the weird euphemisms were there, and then.

John Dehlin [01:18:03] Oh, go ahead, Julia.

Julia [01:18:04] I'm just gonna say I also appreciate, like, we've been talking about this whole time like, it's. It's removing the pressure from the kids. Like, the end sentence is. Is. But the Lord blessed the families who obeyed his commandments even when it was hard. So it's like, this was hard, but they did it anyway. And it was hard for Emma. She did it anyway. It was hard for the apostles. They did it anyway. So it's taking away the pressure. So I appreciate that. And I guess that goes along with what you're saying. They're removing it because it's hard, because they're using that word, which is problematic. But I appreciate that they're making this more positive for the kids.

Alyssa Alexander [01:18:35] Yeah. And it is staying more historically focused. Like this slide in particular. We're not. We're not Adding a lesson for them to be learned about how they can behave like these people in the stories. It's just saying, this is what happened. The government made laws. People were put in prison. They're not putting.

John Dehlin [01:18:52] It's more just the facts.

Alyssa Alexander [01:18:54] It's just the facts. Yeah. They're not trying to.

John Dehlin [01:18:56] A moral lesson to be extra.

Alyssa Alexander [01:18:57] Right, Exactly. It seems like they're even doing a little bit less of, like, trying to show that, oh, you know, these things even really had it. They were really sad or, you know, even taking out some of that emotion, which I think is. Is also good, you know, some of that controversial reaction.

John Dehlin [01:19:13] Okay.

Guest 2 [01:19:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:16] So the next panel. Is this the first one that remains unchanged? Completely unchanged, Julia.

Julia [01:19:22] The only one. I think this is the last one, too.

John Dehlin [01:19:25] Okay.

Alyssa Alexander [01:19:25] They're like, we. We nailed this one. Like, that's perfect.

The Unchanged Final Panel and Its Implications

John Dehlin [01:19:30] All right, so we've. The final panel remains unchanged. Go ahead and read that, Julia, if you don't mind.

Julia [01:19:35] In 1890, the Lord told Wilford Woodruff, the president of the church, that men should not marry more than one wife anymore. The leaders of the church share this commandment with the saints. This is still the Lord's commandment today. A man should be married to only one wife.

John Dehlin [01:19:54] Okay, Julia, how do you feel about that?

Julia [01:19:56] I mean, like, I. I, like. I mean, I don't know. I. In my historic brain, I know that this was not the end of polygamy. They went on to officiate polygamous marriages on boats outside of the United States, Mexico, Canada.

John Dehlin [01:20:11] Yeah, right.

Julia [01:20:12] All over the place. So it wasn't even, like, from the church leaders themselves. They were still living polygamy. So, like, sure, we're. We're not telling the whole history, but, like, this is still the Lord's commandment. So they're saying, we don't. We. We don't believe in polygamy. We should not be living polygamy now. We should be only one and one. Because there have been stories of missionaries particularly, who have been convinced that polygamy has been restored through other means.

Julia [01:20:39] I can't remember specific names of. Of sex, these sexual abusers or whatever, but the. But I've heard of stories where sister missionaries have been convinced that polygamy has been restored. And. And anyway, if you. If you have this rhetoric to children now, if you start saying, oh, we don't live polygamy, then that will help them at least to not engage in this coerciveness from other people who are saying that polygamy has been restored. Does that make sense? So like, some of it's good, but yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:07] For me, my. Well, let's hear you first, Alyssa.

Alyssa Alexander [01:21:10] Yeah, I mean, I think again, historically, it's not telling the full story. None of this is referencing, of course, eternal polygamy, that, that we're all going to be polygamists in heaven, so that it's never really over.

John Dehlin [01:21:22] Which, which is the doctrine.

Alyssa Alexander [01:21:23] Which is still the doctrine. Right, Exactly. And you know, just another small note, we just kind of have that repeat that, that we were harping on a little bit a minute ago with the we say a man should be married to only one wife. Which, you know, I think there's, if they were going to spend some time to revise it, they could have, you know, change it to women.

John Dehlin [01:21:40] But if you're going to say man, say woman, if you're going to say husband, then say wife.

Alyssa Alexander [01:21:44] Exactly.

Julia [01:21:45] Just keep it, just keep it consistent.

John Dehlin [01:21:46] Yeah, yeah, I, I was going to say, like to echo your point, Julia, the two top ranking Mormons in the Mormon church today in 2025 are in polygamous celestial marriages. Prophet Russell M. Nelson is sealed to two women in heaven based on DNC 132. And D H Oaks, the number two in command in the Mormon Church in 2025, is sealed to two women in heaven forever based on DNC 132. So this is a total false impression that it's no longer doctrine. Although we're glad kids aren't being groomed for polygamy, to your point. And Julia, the, the, the link for the show notes so that our viewers and listeners can listen to the episode.

John Dehlin [01:22:35] My interview with Dr. Dave Christian, who's one of my dearest friends, he's a psychologist in Logan who was called to a mission in Australia. And in his mission in Australia, his mission president started telling the sister missionaries that they were called to be his plural wife.

Julia [01:22:53] Oh my gosh.

John Dehlin [01:22:54] And that's a Mormon Stories episode. So check out Dr. David Christian and Julie. Let's, let's make sure to include that in the show notes because it's an episode worth resurrecting because that, and that's not the first time and it's not the only time that that's happened. As long as it's in DNC 132, there's a risk of Mormon women being groomed into polygamy. My friend Holly Alden, her bishop told her, I think she was growing up in Wyoming. But her bishop, growing up as a teenage girl, told her that he felt inspired that she was going to be one of his plural wives about Bishop.

John Dehlin [01:23:34] And as long as DNC 132 is in there, Mormon men are going to feel like the Holy Ghost when they're getting a sexual urge. They're going to interpret that as the Holy Ghost telling them that they need to live. DNC132 so until they remove DNC132 and denounce it, there's this grooming and predation is going to continue.

Alyssa Alexander [01:23:57] Yeah, which is. I agree. Which is why, you know, my, my perfect plan that I said a little bit ago. Well, if they just said it as history and they acknowledge that it bad history, that we made mistakes that can actually happen because it goes against the real doctrine, you know. And so. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it puts, it puts them in a really tough spot because how are they supposed to be honest when the honesty is. Is pretty messed up?

John Dehlin [01:24:23] And this is the conversation I was having with Michelle Stone earlier today that we'll talk about in her episode. The Brethren can't say polygamy was a mistake because it undermines their main source of authority. Their main value add to the modern church and to the world is that they speak with God. Am I wrong? Like, isn't that what we're all taught?

Alyssa Alexander [01:24:47] That's what separates us from all the other religions?

John Dehlin [01:24:50] All the other religions have false popes and priests that oppress. The Mormon Church has prophets who speak to God. But if they tell Everybody the first 12 or 14 Mormon prophets totally became sexual predators and God never bothered to tell them to stop, then what's the conclusion that modern Mormons are all going to make, or many modern Mormons are going to make?

Alyssa Alexander [01:25:16] Well, then there's no revelation at all that you're not any more special than any other Christian religion.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] If those prophets were getting it wrong,

Alyssa Alexander [01:25:23] then you should be getting it wrong.

John Dehlin [01:25:25] How do we know you're getting anything right now?

Alyssa Alexander [01:25:27] Russell M. Nelson, which is also a problem because Russell and Dallin are in polygamous marriages. So as soon as we say, well, the first, you know, the second through the 12th prophet weren't supposed to be practicing polygamy, then we. Then it's really quick jump to say, but aren't our two current top leaders also technically practicing polygamy, even if it's not in the abusive way?

Julia [01:25:50] That's.

Alyssa Alexander [01:25:51] Then they're still. Then they would be deceived by the earlier prophets.

John Dehlin [01:25:54] And, and I, I'm gonna get called out. It may not be 12, it may be nine. I don't remember how Many prophets practice polygamy, but it's everyone up until before David O. McKay. So I'll count that up, Julia, while you give your comments.

Julia [01:26:06] Sure. Yeah. I just wanted to, I just wanted to say too, even though the, you know, the church points out, you know, we don't live polygamy now, one man, one woman, we still sort of do because like you said, the top two leaders. And with that, with that part of the theology or doctrine, so still here, that causes a lot of turmoil to a lot of women. And I know there was a talk given by Elder Oaks and I can link it into the show notes, but he brought that up. He said, I. This woman approached me and she was concerned about polygamy and he just kind of laughed it off.

Julia [01:26:35] It was a laugh track. Everyone laughed. And like, I, I don't think he realizes how hard this is for us. So the idea, like, if your husband passes away, you have to. That's it. You're only sealed to him. Even if you get married again, this, this new husband won't be with you forever. Or you'll have to choose between one and the other. Like, it's just harder for women. Or the prospect of if you go to heaven, you will have to share your husband with multiple women and you'll just have to, I don't like, I mean, be pregnant for eternity. Like, I don't like heaven for Mormon women.

Julia [01:27:07] It's just awful. But, but just that I don't think the church leaders realize that even if we're not living it here and it's just in heaven, that stuff still so hard for a lot of women and

Alyssa Alexander [01:27:17] it changes the dynamics that we live now. You know, I think one thing that maybe church leaders will think or that I, you know, hear people think is like. And that I think Dallin Ho said in that talk that you're referencing, Julia, is like, that's something for us to figure out down the road after we're dead, we'll figure it all out. But the. Not only is it emotional turmoil for a lot of women now, but, but it's also like you were referencing, it changes literal behavior that people are doing. Mormon women whose husbands pass away either don't get remarried or they get remarried to someone without seal getting sealed in the temple. Like, they have to make decisions that Mormon men don't have to make. And that's a real lived experience that differs because of this eternal principle.

Guest 2 [01:28:03] Right.

Alyssa Alexander [01:28:03] And so it's not just something that we will think about down the road. It's something that is affecting women's lived experience now. And when we have all these scriptures of these men having power over women, that's just a theme. And so a lot of women in the church are harmed by Mormon men, maybe well meaning Mormon men, but who are in, you know, unhealthy relationships. Like this is just something that is continuing. And they're also taught, you know, this man speaks to God through the priesthood. He also has, he's the head of the household. He has more authority. Like these types of lessons, even, even

Alyssa Alexander [01:28:37] at the very best, when we think, well, this is something that we'll practice in the next life, it's still something that is affecting the lived experience of Mormon women. Especially now that we, that we have to acknowledge and that we would, we would rather not a lot of the time.

Julia [01:28:52] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:28:54] I probably should mention my dear friend Carolyn Pearson's book, the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. Buy that book, Read it. It talks about all the negative ramifications of how basically polygamy still haunts Mormon women today in the modern church.

John Dehlin [01:29:12] I, I did an episode with her about that. You can check that out and you can also buy her book and a shout out to her because we love her. Really quickly, I just want to also share a couple more comments because there are so many good comments coming in.

John Dehlin [01:29:31] One of my favorite viewers listeners, Gail Gali. Is it Gali? Sinatra says God forbid the church be honest. Thank you, golly for that comment. Marissa Marek says 48 years lost to Mormon men pain unbearable lies and abuse warped reality stole my worth healing, reclaiming time.

John Dehlin [01:29:58] Thanks for this show and community. So, so sorry for the pain. Marissa, thank you so much for sharing. A couple other comments that are worth sharing. The Grand Scuba, also one of my favorite commenters. He's into Mormon scholarship. He writes Keith Erickson recently told women to basically just get over it. Alyssa, what do you think? Just get over it.

Alyssa Alexander [01:30:23] Yeah, you know, wouldn't that be nice, Julia?

John Dehlin [01:30:27] Just, just get over it.

Julia [01:30:28] I hate that. Like he's not. Voices of women are not being heard. That's what I'm gathering from that comment. I hate that.

John Dehlin [01:30:35] Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's an awful comment. Our friend Nathan Hinckley from the bishop's interview is saying, but they do it with racism sort of. He's basically making, and this is the point Michelle made to me, I don't mean to give spoilers, but she made the point that the church got rid of the priesthood and temple ban for black people and they got rid of me. Polygamy the first time. They've done difficult. I'll say difficult. They've done difficult things in the past. They've made big changes, and this will only benefit the church. What do y' all think, Alyssa and Julia? I'm curious your opinions.

John Dehlin [01:31:14] Tomorrow the church comes out and says polygamous was a mistake. We're getting rid of DNC 132. Sorry about that. Time to move on. Follow the prophet. Does that make the church stronger in five to 10 years or weaker than it otherwise would have been if they hadn't have announced the change? Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [01:31:38] I think it would make it healthier if they acknowledge that that's the key thing, right? That they also didn't do it with the priesthood ban. If they said this was a mistake, this is a problem. This is why we're changing it. I think that would, would most likely make the church weaker because, you know, they're showing that, that they are fallible.

John Dehlin [01:32:00] But I don't think they govern the church based on what will be healthiest for the members. I honestly don't think that's. I think that's far down the list. I think butts and seats, tithing receipts, you know, I think those are probably. And PR image. I think they see those three as the most sacred things. Butts and seats, activity rates, money and pr. I think the health of the membership. I don't mean to be cynical. I would say it's far down the list.

Alyssa Alexander [01:32:33] I think they could make a PR stance about it, you know, saying, oh, we don't do this anymore. But the problem is, I think that would be really similar to what happened with, with the priesthood ban, where it was not acknowledging a lot of the harm caused and a lot of the, the pain has continued through the modern church. And it was also very dismissive of people's lived experiences. And I think that is, you know, a tiny bit of, of that happened with like, temple changes, where people who are out of the church feel like now their story is invalid because people that are going through the temple now have a very different experience than they did five years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, wherever.

Could the Church Ever Admit Polygamy Was a Mistake

John Dehlin [01:33:14] Julia, your thoughts, your prediction, your guess of what? Say, say this church announced polygamy was a mistake tomorrow.

Julia [01:33:25] Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [01:33:26] Would it be good or good or bad for the church in terms of what they care about most, which is revenue, butts and seats activity, npr, better or worse for the church?

Julia [01:33:40] Yeah, I agree with Alyssa. I think healthier and, but weaker. So it would make the church a healthier place. But the church overall would be weaker and, like.

John Dehlin [01:33:47] But they do keep going, and then.

Julia [01:33:49] No, no, no, that's good. Keep. Yeah. What's your question?

John Dehlin [01:33:52] Well, I was just thinking about it. I just got through saying they cared about pr. I do think PR is one of the top three things the church cares about most. And I think it would be good PR for the church to both renounce polygamy and to show they're willing to say I'm sorry and willing to change a problem. So I'm actually arguing against myself. I think that would be good for the church based on their own values, partially. So they'd get the win of a good PR move, the win of. Of killing the skeleton in the closet, the loss of the people that would leave the church as a result. Fair.

Alyssa Alexander [01:34:35] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:34:37] All right.

John Dehlin [01:34:37] Julia.

Julia [01:34:39] Yeah, I just.

John Dehlin [01:34:40] Yeah, go ahead.

Julia [01:34:42] I was just gonna say, like, the. The church. There's that song where it says, do what is right. Let the consequences follow. And, like, if the church was really that way, they would have. They would have done that. Like, hey, polygamy was a mistake. Women were coerced, and that's wrong, and we're so sorry, and we're taking this out of our doctrine. I feel like that's the right thing to do. And if they lose members, so be it. Let the consequences follow. But the church will not do that, just as they wouldn't do that with other things like, sure, they changed the temple and priesthood, man, but they didn't apologize for it. A lot of things like that happen in the church just won't apologize. They won't acknowledge and let the consequences follow.

John Dehlin [01:35:16] Yeah, I don't mean to be super cynical, but more my view, because I quoted that all through my excommunication, that I was trying to stand up for, you know, LGBT people, for feminists, for women, for people of color. I would always say the church taught me, do it is right. Let the consequence follow. And if the church excommunicates me, then I learned to do what's right in spite of the adversity. I realize that that's probably fits in the category of rules for thee and not for me, that the church wants the members to obey the church, even if there are difficult consequences for the members in obeying the church. But I don't think the church. I think the church is more ruled by do what Curt McConkie says. Let the consequence fall. I don't mean to be cynical.

Guest 2 [01:36:10] Is.

John Dehlin [01:36:10] Is that fair?

Julia [01:36:12] I think that's fair. Like, you're seeing. We have The. Yeah, I think that's fair, Alyssa.

John Dehlin [01:36:18] Is that too cynical?

Alyssa Alexander [01:36:19] It's unfortunate, but it seems to be the pattern. Do you. Okay, I have a. Just a question. When, when the Church rolled back the 2015 exclusion policy. That was theoretically, I don't think they apologized for it, but that was still a decent PR move. But I don't think it, it improved the church in the years since then. Do you have a sense on if it helped people stay?

John Dehlin [01:36:40] I think it, I think. Imagine that the, the November 2015 policy punctured a big hole in the floor of the boat.

Julia [01:36:50] Should we explain what that is?

John Dehlin [01:36:51] Yeah. So in, in 2015, after the Obergefell decision where same sex marriage was legalized throughout the entire United States, the Mormon Church came out with a policy in, in December, right? November, in November 2015, basically making same sex legal, same sex marriage, an immediate act of apostasy punishable by required disciplinary counsel and excommunication, which made legal same sex marriage a more grievous offense in the eyes of the Church than pedophilia, child abuse, marital rape, spousal abuse, and even murder. Because all those things that I just mentioned, you know, at the time in November 2015, were not mandatory excommunications or even mandatory disciplinary councils, but instead were optional.

John Dehlin [01:37:51] So they made legal same sex marriage worse than rape and murder. And then to add insult to injury, they made it so that the children of same sex married couples couldn't get blessed as babies, couldn't get baptized as 8 year olds, couldn't become members of the Church, couldn't serve missions, couldn't advance in the priesthood of their men, and couldn't become members until the age of 18.

John Dehlin [01:38:17] And only if those 18 year old children denounced their parents marriage, Their, their parents same sex marriage. That was the November 2015 policy that was implemented by Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks, while Thomas S. Monson was senile.

John Dehlin [01:38:37] And so they sort of shoved that in to the policy without approval from the prophet of the church or the quorum of the 12. They just ramroded that through. It was a huge disaster, punctured a huge hole in the boat of the church.

John Dehlin [01:38:55] Mass resignations, we're talking tens of thousands of resignations. And then after the water, after the water was filling up the boat of the church, four years later, the church had had enough. And Russell and Nelson announced that that policy had been rescinded by revelation.

John Dehlin [01:39:16] But he didn't say it was a mistake. He said it was revelation. In November 2015, when we implemented it, God wanted it implemented in November 2015, and then in 2019, God wanted it taken away. And we don't know the mysteries of God, but both were revelations. So there wasn't a mea culpa. It was a mistake. There was. God's ways are mysterious.

Alyssa Alexander [01:39:41] And Nelson was able to also get the credit for changing it, even though he was also the one that implemented it but took the fall, you know.

John Dehlin [01:39:49] Yeah, yeah, stick it to the Dead Sea, you know, senile dead prophet. Right.

Alyssa Alexander [01:39:54] But as far as PR goes, do you feel like when it was rescinded, it would. It was positive if they rescinded polygamy, it would have some.

John Dehlin [01:40:01] I think it's like a tourniquet. It stopped the hemorrhaging. It stopped most of the hemorrhaging. And it was a. It was an improvement. Of course, all the ex Mormons and liberal Mormons said both can't be revelation, blah, blah, blah. They complained it didn't totally fix the problem, but it's like a tourniquet. It stopped the bleeding. I think most. For most. For the most part. Julia, what do you think?

Julia [01:40:26] I don't know because like, if they removed polygamy now, I feel like a lot of people are, you know, this was a mistake. We're sorry. This is not a thing anymore in our theology. I feel like that would cause a lot of people to leave again. The church would be healthier, but like, I don't. Yeah, I don't know if it would save people, keep them to save, stay. I don't know. Maybe that's. That's what you're asking, Alyssa, if people would stay or people would leave. I don't know.

Alyssa Alexander [01:40:49] Yeah, I'm just wondering about overall, overall perception, longevity of the church. I feel like. I'm sure they would have people leave it immediately.

John Dehlin [01:40:56] I am sure that rescinding the November 2015 policy was good for the church that they.

Alyssa Alexander [01:41:04] In the long run, in the long

John Dehlin [01:41:05] run, it's long run better for their image. Long run better to stop the hemorrhaging. I'm 100 sure of that. So I guess I'm answering your question. I think it would be long run probably good for the church to get rid of DNC132 and to denounce. Not denounce polygamy, but. Oh, didn't. Didn't Oaks give a talk in this past general conference where he basically said some commandments given at one point are right then and wrong. I think that's probably Oak setting up the church for the rescinding of DNC 132.

Alyssa Alexander [01:41:42] Yeah, kind of prepping, inoculating members that it's not as shocking. And I mean, that's the subtitle of the lesson that we were talking about, too. The new improved subtitle is okay, man, for a time. So they're really trying to double down on that.

Julia [01:41:54] Maybe that's.

John Dehlin [01:41:56] I think it's a guarantee that that's the direction the church is going to go. At some point, Oaks probably is going to get this revelation when you have to.

Alyssa Alexander [01:42:04] Feet of fire. Give it a year.

John Dehlin [01:42:05] Oh, I'm gonna say next year, 2026.

Alyssa Alexander [01:42:13] Optimistic. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:42:15] I'll say a year. Within a year of Nelson dying. I think that's going to be the big thing that Oaks does, is he maybe takes DNC132 out of the Doctrine and Covenants and says it was revelation when it was put there. And now God's telling us that it's time to move on and we're taking it up.

Julia [01:42:34] But John, that takes away one of his wives. That either takes away. Right. That either takes away his first or second wife.

John Dehlin [01:42:40] Oh, that's. So he won't grant any press interviews, basically. That's a good point. Maybe I'm wrong. That's me being optimistic.

Alyssa Alexander [01:42:50] I like it.

John Dehlin [01:42:52] That's a good point. Julia. Really quickly, Susie Catherine writes, every day I get more angry at the church. Carolyn Pearson, thank you. Thanks for that, for that comment and that super chat. Some people are asking me to share the survey that I, that I released yesterday. So I'm just going to go ahead and put it up on the screen. For those who don't know, we did a.

Survey Data on Member Awareness of Joseph Smith's Polygamy

Alyssa Alexander [01:43:18] We.

John Dehlin [01:43:18] We've released this survey with like 15 questions that we're encouraging all of you to fill out and then also encouraging you to administer the survey to missionaries, Mormon missionaries, your bishops, your stake presidents, your church leaders, your spouses, your believing family. Because we want as many people to fill this out as possible. And it's all about people's perceptions, whether the Church has been honest about its history. And so because people are asking me to mention it, I'm just going to show a couple of the answers and just to give an update. So as of as of today, over 3200 people have filled out the survey, which is kind of fun, right, Julia?

Julia [01:44:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:04] And I'm going to show the polygamy answers just to kind of give a sense for people's perception about the church's honesty regarding polygamy. So. So if you could put that up on the screen. Yeah. So the question four is, during your time as a church member. And listen, I'd be interested in getting your answer here. During your time as a church member, was it your general experience that both investigators and members were broadly and explicitly taught that Joseph smith married over 30 women in his lifetime, including girls as young as 14, mother, daughter pairs, sister pairs, and over 10 women who were already married at the time he was sealed to them. So we've got 3231 responses to that question. And you'll find it interesting to know that 97% say that this was not a teaching that was broadly taught during their time as members. Alyssa?

Guest [01:45:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:06] Do you want to opine that question?

Alyssa Alexander [01:45:08] 97.1% now you just increased it. Just increased it.

John Dehlin [01:45:13] Okay, so you agree that.

Alyssa Alexander [01:45:14] I agree I wasn't taught it.

John Dehlin [01:45:16] No, you weren't taught it. When did you, when did you discover those facts? How old were you?

Alyssa Alexander [01:45:21] I was, I think I was. It wasn't until my, I started having faith crisis. So 2018ish, mid-20s.

John Dehlin [01:45:31] So we're talking like six or seven years ago, basically.

Alyssa Alexander [01:45:33] Yeah. Post seminary, all the things.

Guest [01:45:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:35] Yeah. All right, the. I'll just go ahead and share the second question. You can answer this too. Julia. During your time as a church member, was it your general experience that both investigators and members were broadly taught that Joseph Smith hid his first 22 polygamous marriages from his first wife, Emma, and that his first wife, Emma was sealed to Joseph after at least 22 other women? And that one's even got a bigger number. That's 98.9% say they were never taught that. And so, Alyssa, I'm guessing you're going to push that to just a clean 99%.

Alyssa Alexander [01:46:10] Clean 99 over here, yes.

John Dehlin [01:46:12] Were you not taught that growing up?

Alyssa Alexander [01:46:13] Oh, yeah, no, not even close.

John Dehlin [01:46:16] And at the end of the survey, we asked people to share whether this would be information important to determine whether Joseph Smith was a prophet, whether the church was true, and whether they would have liked to know this information before they made decisions like going to byu, getting temple married. And I'm wondering what you would say.

Alyssa Alexander [01:46:35] You know, I would have really loved to know that.

John Dehlin [01:46:38] Would those things have impacted whether you got a temple marriage?

Alyssa Alexander [01:46:41] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:46:42] Yeah. How would, would it?

Alyssa Alexander [01:46:44] Well, I mean, I mean, I think it just would have first of all just slowed everything down, which I think would have been helpful.

Guest 3 [01:46:51] But.

Alyssa Alexander [01:46:52] But yeah, I think I had a very rosy colored, rose colored glasses perspective of Joseph up until, yeah, mid-20s. And so I think even Just having a little bit more of that nuanced understanding, even if I, even if I understood a fraction of it, just knew that there was something else that was going on, I think would have absolutely changed a lot of my decisions that would have had a big outcomes.

John Dehlin [01:47:15] Yeah. All right, well, thanks for that, Alyssa. Julia, any comments before we go into the final slides?

Julia [01:47:23] No, just my, that, that statistic right here with Emma, like, I didn't know Joseph, I didn't know Joseph practiced polygamy. I knew later and I thought it was just widows and. But I had God's God or Joseph's treatment of Emma makes me feel like, nope, this isn't true. Like, I would have, I wouldn't have gone to byu. I wouldn't have served a mission. I wouldn't have married in the temple. Like, all of my decisions would have been different if I had thought that the church wasn't true. But like, I, I didn't, I didn't find out any of this until way later. So.

John Dehlin [01:47:51] So you're saying, you're saying Emma is a smoking gun for you, Julia? God and Brigham Young's treatment, God, Joseph and Brigham Young's treatment, collective treatment of Emma is just a flat out, full stop smoking gun for you, Julia?

Julia [01:48:07] Probably. Like, I didn't, I didn't. For in reality, in my own experience, it was Dinah Huntington because like that whole thing, the whole story is awful. But like just knowing Emma, remind our

John Dehlin [01:48:17] never Mormons about that story.

Julia [01:48:18] So, so Zina Huntington was married to this man that she loved. So, but before that, while she was dating him, Joseph approached her and said, hey, God said that you're supposed to be my wife. She was like, no, I'm in love with Henry. So they, so she, Henry and her approached Joseph and they said, because you're the prophet, will you marry us? And he says, yes. And then they go to be married and he doesn't show up. And John C. Bennett has to marry them. And then she gets pregnant, is still with the love of her life. Joseph approaches her, then, hey, God said, you have to marry me.

Julia [01:48:46] So she's like, okay. So she does. And then he keeps sending Henry on missions. Henry loves her. You can see from his love letters, his letters to her that he loves her. And then eventually Joseph dies. And then Brigham takes her as, as his polyam, polyandrous wife. And then he keeps sending Henry on missions. And then one of his letters, he finds out from his companion that. That Zina is now Brigham's wife and is no longer his wife. And Brigham won't even let him back in the valley. I think like he, he's not welcome with the church. He does. Eventually I think he gets sick and he dies in Zina's home in Utah.

Julia [01:49:20] But like the whole story is so heartbreaking. So yeah, in reality it was Zina, but knowing just Emma's side of the story where like she was the 20 something woman sealed to Joseph and he was lying to her about polygamy. He had these fake marriages to the women he'd already chosen. Like, it's just that God doesn't, if, if God is real, he's not going to treat people like that. And anyway, so yeah, so sure she would have been if I'd known more about it. But yeah, I don't, I just don't like Emma's treatment in this at all.

John Dehlin [01:49:52] It's a horrible story. Yeah. All right, well, let's go ahead, Julia, and finish out the, the slides that we have.

Consent, Coercion, and Harm in Mormon Polygamy

Julia [01:50:04] Yeah. So this one is, this one's Natasha Helfer and she's talking about how this concept of consent and what that means and, and really in Mormon polygamy, consent doesn't exist. First of all, you have a prophet of God who is, who is telling you that this thing is right and you have to do it. And so that's. Anyway, so this is just her talking about consent.

▶ Video Clip 4

Video Clip 4 [01:50:24] They're talking about consent. Right. And consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. So again, I'm not against the concept of polygamy as a relational structure. What I'm against is coercion in any relationship structure. Right. So polygamy could be done following sexual health principles. I don't know. There's many examples of that throughout history. And I think polyamory is definitely done in sexual health principles, principled ways or can be. That's not really the issue because again, for anybody who's sitting on a monogamous high horse, there's plenty of coercion and similar themes happening in a compulsory monogamous script, which is also what we have in most of Christendom, not just LDS land. So anyway, so consent has to be given, has been agreed to. Consent cannot be given by somebody who's underage. So Even if a 14 year old is going, I think this is a fabulous idea.

Video Clip 4 [01:51:22] God, God told me, God told me

Video Clip 4 [01:51:26] himself that I should listen to this person who's telling me to have sex with them. That's not, they're not capable of giving consent.

Video Clip 4 [01:51:33] Because does anybody think that those 12 year old girls that Warren Jeffs approached didn't have a witness from God and the Holy Ghost that they should sleep with the prophet. Am I wrong?

Video Clip 4 [01:51:44] Well, what I think is interesting about you bringing up the Warren Jeff story is that this cartoon can absolutely be used by that religion as well.

Video Clip 4 [01:51:50] It will be.

Video Clip 4 [01:51:51] Right. So and so if we think, if we're so narcissistic to think. Well, of course you should be able to tell if Jeff's is lying to you. Like, but President Nelson is not. We have some confirmation bias to deal with.

Video Clip 4 [01:52:06] Right.

Video Clip 4 [01:52:06] And I don't think we're wanting to do that work. We're not wanting to do that work. Okay, so then the next one is if someone agrees to an activity under pressure of intimidation or threat that isn't considered consent and unequal power dynamics which you brought up earlier, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee or student, those are modern day examples, also mean the consent cannot be freely given. So if a prophet who is claiming to speak for God isn't the biggest power dynamic differential that we could have with anybody under them, we're again not looking at the issue freely. And there's no way to consent to Mormon polygamy when it's created from this profit down God, down power dynamic. There's no way to do it.

Guest 3 [01:52:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:59] Love, Natasha. Yeah. Any responses, Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [01:53:03] Yeah, I mean I love what she's saying. I think tying it back to this children's lesson, I think from everything that I am learning about how to teach children, you know, from my own study as a parent, is that the most important thing to teach children about relationships is about love, is about consent, is about, you know, just some of these basic things. Good touch, bad touch, safe people making sure, you know, you're able to communicate with your parents if something goes awry. And those very fundamental skills, I think are the only skills, the only stories of any sort of relationship dynamics that children especially should be taught.

Alyssa Alexander [01:53:45] And so this in an attempt to have transparency is just muddying the water. I think for what children are learning about what relationship dynamics look like and not, I mean, I think showing that there's lots of different types of relationships is a great thing.

Alyssa Alexander [01:54:02] But even just showing examples of lack of consent, even though this story now with the revision is no longer propping up these people as heroes for following the Lord, they're still including an example that we know from the context is inherently abusive sexual assault and that they're, you know, the fact that they wrote this story in a kid toned way and that they think that the children, this is A good thing for children to learn about relationships or to learn about the church I think is going against a lot of the fundamentals that Natasha is talking about here and can just confuse use children more about how to prepare for healthier relationships.

John Dehlin [01:54:44] Julia?

Julia [01:54:45] Yeah, as I was listening to her I was thinking of like this idea of consent and the things that were in the this chapter and the things that were removed. I think overall this is, this is a positive change because you they've taken out. This is hard for Joseph, this is hard for Emma, this is hard for the 12 apostles. Those have been removed and so it's because I think those leaving those in there can feel confuses kids on what consent is. Consent is oh, you're told to do this thing and you have to do it anyway which is taking the power away from them and like this top down thing where you can't get the prophet of God can't get consent because he's speaking for God.

Julia [01:55:18] So I think that's it's making it more comfortable for kids and presenting it in a more fact based way and removing those. So like yeah, I think overall this is a positive change because it, it takes away that element of it. So those are my thoughts.

John Dehlin [01:55:32] All right. Some people are asking, they're saying they can't find the new article so I'm going to go ahead and post it in the comments and then we'll also make sure it's in the show notes. I think we have at least one or two more slides. Julia, do you want to take those?

Julia [01:55:54] Yes. So this next one this and I hope, I think Mormonish is in the comments. So this next one comes from the Mormonish podcast. I was watching some of the scenes from it to add them into this show and they referenced this talk given by M. Russell Ballard and this was in 2016 I believe and John, do you want to go ahead and read this?

Teaching Honest Church History to Young Members

John Dehlin [01:56:15] Sure. It's by studying by faith Elder M. Russell Ballard, who's now deceased but he was the president or acting president of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles. It says spiritual inoculation. Tell me you want to stop, Julia. We give medical inoculations to our precious missionaries before sending them into the mission field so they will be protected against diseases that can harm them. Oh my gosh. Is truth a disease? All right, let's keep going. In a similar fashion before you send your students into the world, inoculate them by providing faithful, thoughtful and and accurate interpretation of gospel doctrine. The scriptures are history and those topics that are sometimes misunderstood. I Mean, he's basically saying gaslight them or misinterpret the history so that they don't see the problems with it. But anyway, I'll keep going. Do you want me to keep going?

Julia [01:57:09] Yeah, if you'll just actually finish the whole thing.

John Dehlin [01:57:10] Okay. To name a few such topics that are less known, I wonder why, or controversial. I'm talking about plural marriage, seer stones, different accounts of the first vision, the process of translation of the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham, gender issues, race and the priesthood, and a heavenly mother. What? The efforts to inoculate our young people will often fall to church education system teachers. With those thoughts in mind, find time to think about your opportunities and your responsibilities. Alyssa?

Alyssa Alexander [01:57:50] Well, I mean, I guess they just. You just went out and said it,

John Dehlin [01:57:53] so you said the quiet thing out

Alyssa Alexander [01:57:54] loud thing out loud. All of this potential, you know, brainstorming and thinking about if they're trying to inoculate children into thinking these things. Well, he straight up said, let's inoculate people before they go into the world on difficult issues so that they don't have to confront it later. They can just shut that part away when it becomes an issue.

John Dehlin [01:58:15] Yeah, yeah. I mean, in a way, he's saying that truthful history is a disease that causes people to lose their testimonies, but he's not saying that. What he's saying is contextualize these difficult historical topics when people are young. Some would say gaslight, some would say whitewash. Some would say contextualize properly faithfully these historical events when they're young so that later they won't a discover the problems uncontextualized and then also accuse the church of hiding or misleading them. Right.

Alyssa Alexander [01:58:55] Yeah. And I think contextualized faithfully is a really important point that he's not saying, you know, tell them about these things that are taught in the church. Tell them in a faithful way. You know, everything that you teach your children should be through the lens that this is objectively Right. This is objective truth. This is what you should also believe. Young child.

John Dehlin [01:59:15] Yeah, it's very much. These are not the droids you're looking for kind of language. But at the same time, it's funny, because that's exactly. Today's episode is all about them trying to inoculate and. And bungling over themselves as they try, because on the one hand, they're trying to inoculate. On the other hand, they're editing and taking down half of the inoculation because they're seeing that. I don't know if this is a good analogy, but I guess if the inoculation is too strong, you actually pass on the disease and you kill the patient.

Alyssa Alexander [01:59:46] Like, yeah, the analogy perfect.

John Dehlin [01:59:50] Julia, why did you share this slide?

Julia [01:59:53] Like, like, let's just said it's, he's saying, he's just saying it. He's saying the quiet part out loud. Like he's saying we have to inoculate them. And like there, like you said, there's a difference. Like inoculating is like sharing it through a faithful lens or only sharing parts of it because that will help their faith. But if you share all of it, like your survey, like, oh, if they know that Emma was the 22nd something wife sealed, don't tell them that because that's, that's going to hurt them. Even though it's accurate, it's going to hurt them. So like it's not the full truth. It's not being totally transparent. It's just enough to get them to not question or to not be concerned later when they hear it again.

John Dehlin [02:00:24] So yeah, because a lot of people do that nowadays. You'll talk to these young, you know, 20 something Mormons and you bring up kinderhook plates or polygamy and they're like, oh, I learned about that in seminary. Now did they actually learn about all of it? Did they learn about the 14 year olds? Did they learn about the sexual, you know, polyandry or, or were they just like, yeah, there was some messy polygamy stuff, but the Lord has wisdom and these are not the droids you're looking for. And you know, encode in your mind that polygamy is not a problem. I think that's the way it's working. So in some sense it's working.

Alyssa Alexander [02:01:02] I think, yeah, I think, I think it might be too. And I think it's, I mean if when you have the, the main thesis that this is the one true church, that your goal as a parent, your goal as a CES instructor is not just to teach the principles, but to teach the principles so that the young people will make decisions to stay in the church, stay on the covenant path, whatever, that's just going to change the message. And I think that really is impacting a lot of how these stories are told is that they're not just told the way a historian would tell them without bias.

Alyssa Alexander [02:01:36] They're told very clearly with the intent to keep a person faithful. And that's, that's, I guess, you know, the part that they're admitting, the part that we're critical of because it's, you know, not totally honest. It's keep, it's leaving things out and it's also making it. So it becomes more difficult for people to make decisions on their own. They're just kind of being led into, I mean, propaganda perhaps that's a strong word, but it works in a similar way where we're trying to teach them this is the answer. You don't even have to question what the answer is because you already have the answer. We're just giving you a few pieces of the puzzle so you're not shocked later.

John Dehlin [02:02:13] It's probably slightly misleading to say that the inoculation is working because on ex Mormon Reddit all the time now you're seeing these Mormon high school kids in seminary like sharing ridiculous things they're learning in seminary on ex Mormon Reddit as like closeted pimo non believing high school students. So clearly it's not working with, with all the kids, probably particularly the precocious or smart ones. What would you add, Julia?

Julia [02:02:44] Well, hang on, I would. So I was in the church for 30 years and I feel like I'm a somewhat intelligent person.

John Dehlin [02:02:49] So I feel like highly intelligent maybe.

Julia [02:02:51] Sure. But like I stayed in and I was eating or drinking the Kool Aid and so I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it's an intelligence thing or like the smarter ones.

John Dehlin [02:02:57] Right, Okay.

Julia [02:02:58] I think that's a little unfair characteristic. But yeah, I think that, yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [02:03:02] No, that's fair. Thanks for calling me on that. So what is it, what is it that makes some high school students figure out when they're given the inoculated history that this is a problem? What traits would make a high school kid more likely to sniff out the problem if it's not intelligence? And I agree there's no, probably a very weak correlation between intelligence and disaffection for intellectual reasons because we've got very brilliant, we've got Carol Givens and Patrick Mason and Richard Bushman and Fiona Givens and so many very smart but believing liberal Mormons. If it's not intelligence, what does make a high school kid? What makes their BS meter go off?

Alyssa Alexander [02:03:57] Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know for sure as someone who was fully believing as a high school kid. So, so I'm just kind of guessing here, but it does seem like a lot of the time what can push someone over the edges is seeing harm and specifically being seeing harm within a close circle. So if it's working for you, if everybody that you know is happy and living it well and it's going okay. The stakes, it seems like it would be then be easier to kind of think of the nuance a little bit more.

John Dehlin [02:04:28] That's a great point, Julia. You have other theories.

Julia [02:04:31] My first thought was that same one too, where it's like, if you're seeing. Like, for me, it was harming me because I was. Came out as a queer woman and I could see that it was harming others. I also think another aspect, and I'm just sort of spitballing here, but, like, if you can. If you can see, like, things are going to be okay if the church is false. Like, if the church is false, life goes on. Things are still going to be great. Like, if you can just let yourself say that. I feel like that allows a safe place for landing. Whereas, like, people who stay in the church, they're like, no, this has to be true. There is no safe place to land. Like, I don't know. I don't know if it's like a fear thing. I don't know. That's just a thought that I was having. I'm not sure.

John Dehlin [02:05:05] No, that's a great point. If. If it's relatively. Well, a lot of them are closeted, but certainly if they feel psychologically or temporarily safe to not believe, they're gonna feel more free to question and doubt. And. Yeah, I think the more pain and discomfort they're experiencing, the more likely they are to see a problem. I think those are great theories. There's probably also just personality dynamics. People that are more. More of a believing brain versus more of a skeptical, questioning brain. There's probably just inherent. Born with personality traits that also impact it.

Alyssa Alexander [02:05:46] And it does seem like a more general distrust of authority is becoming more and more common with younger people. So it will be interesting, too.

John Dehlin [02:05:53] Yeah.

Alyssa Alexander [02:05:54] Where. Yes. Yeah. Where just because people that they trust are saying something doesn't seem like it's necessarily becoming an automatic truth for a lot of teenagers right now.

John Dehlin [02:06:06] Yeah. All right, Julie, got one more clip.

Julia [02:06:09] Yeah. So this is from the Mormonish podcast that we've been showing clips from. This is rfm. And he just. It's really quick, and I just really like it, so I. I figured we'd share.

John Dehlin [02:06:17] Okay. More cowboy, more cowbell, more. More rfm.

Guest 3 [02:06:23] But the two points I want to observe are, number one is that whoever made this and approved it, their faith blinds them to how horrible this is. And the second observation is that a faith that can blind you to how horrible this is is problematic in some degree.

John Dehlin [02:06:46] Yeah. Mic drop, Alyssa.

Alyssa Alexander [02:06:49] Yeah, I think that's probably one of the hardest. No pun intended. One of the most difficult elements of. Of processing some of these things is realizing that you were okay with some really horrific stories. And I think that especially for people who become inoculated or indoctrinated with some of these polygamous stories, then grow into adults, the, you know, realizing that you were. That you became okay with it. I think a lot of people will put the guilt on themselves, even though, of course, a lot of that is on the church, the way the church is spinning it. But I think that in some ways, that's just an extra layer of pain. To know it and to have been okay with it and to have defended it puts people in a harder or more difficult position when their faith ends up cracking down the road.

John Dehlin [02:07:37] Julia.

Julia [02:07:39] I think a lot of people, myself included, they feel after leaving the church, they feel, like, sort of embarrassed. They feel like they've done harm because, like, they were doing those things. Like, the blind faith is problematic. Like, I believed in a church that was harming LGBTQ kids. I was believing in a church that, like, it's problematic to believe in a seer stone or, like, other things. Like, other aspects of the church. Like, why. Like, that's. Like, it's embarrassing. Why did I do that? And, like, a lot of people can feel that way. I don't think we should feel shame about it because we did the best that we could. But, yeah, I just, like. Yeah, like, I don't know. I don't know what else to add. It's just that, like, coming from that place and moving to a different one.

Closing Reflections and Final Thoughts

John Dehlin [02:08:16] All right, well, this has been a great episode. I'm so glad we did it. Julie, you did such a great job organizing it. Alyssa, I'm so grateful you could come last minute. I want to give you each a chance to give. Come up with some final thoughts to be respectful and polite. I'll go first.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] So, overall, I just want to say good job, Mormon Church, for number one, making this awful lesson less harmful for children. And that's not a snarky, cynical, congratulations, sincere congratulations for making this less harmful to children. I think you successfully made it less harmful for children overall, even though it is increasing the deception. It's. I think I've decided that it's better to be. It's better to whitewash and not harm children with harmful messages than to just flat out both whitewash and. And harm children with harmful messages. So congratulations on that. Sincerely, congratulations on making a change so close to the original, because normally it seems like more mature church tactic has always been wait a year or two or five and then if something just secretly goes down the memory hole.

John Dehlin [02:09:39] Of course you knew that this episode was coming as soon as you contemplated making a change. And of course you know that this won't be the only episode congratulating and making fun of you for making a change two months after you release something. But still, congratulations for doing the right thing. Even though a difficult consequence followed. That's my sincere congratulations and gratitude.

John Dehlin [02:10:10] Still long, super long way to go. I think the right answer is to get rid of this heinous, abusive teaching. Remove DNC132 from the doctrine and Covenants. Tell everyone it was a mistake. I think that will be the best bet for you in the long run.

John Dehlin [02:10:28] But until then, nice job. Nice baby step. One step back. Two steps forward. One step back. Two steps forward. Julia, you go next. We're going to give a list of the last word.

Julia [02:10:41] Good. I was glad. I was going to suggest doing that anyway. So like, for me, yeah, this is like, like, yes, these are good changes. I'm glad that they're making them. We should not be teaching our children these types of things like speaking, like their inner inside voice saying something different or then their outside voice is hearing. Like, so, yes, good. It is still inoculation. And instead of just like removing it completely, like, let's just not, let's just remove the disease or whatever, let's remove polygamy, let's remove whatever other problematic thing. It is still inoculation and I still don't like that. So like, so, yes, good on you. I. I think we should just remove the whole thing.

John Dehlin [02:11:18] Alyssa, before I give you the last word, I just want to say, I guarantee, promise you one thing, that when they rescind polygamy and DC 132, they do it by revelation and say it was revelation then and we're moving in his revelation now. Okay, Alyssa, final word.

Alyssa Alexander [02:11:36] Yeah. Just one thing I was thinking about with this part of why it's so great they changed it so quickly is I don't think there was time for any children to actually have been taught this lesson because this lesson was in the Come follow me manual. It was supposed to be taught later in the year in 2025. So theoretically no active Mormons have taught this to children yet. So I think that's great. It seems that a lot of the time changes happen is after people have already been harmed. So I'm glad that they made the mistake, changed it a little bit before we have this as a problem.

Alyssa Alexander [02:12:07] So I think that's, that's really good. Overall, I feel like this entire, just as soon as the polygamy lesson dropped, it was for better or for worse, a little bit of a warm fuzzy for me that I made the right call to not raise my kiddo in the church. Just glad that that's not a conversation that I have to be having.

Alyssa Alexander [02:12:27] But I am glad because we do live in an area where a lot of Mormons are around and I want what's healthiest for all children. I think it's really good to have any sort of positive forward momentum for kids to be less harmed. I think, especially from a young age, it's incredibly important to teach children about healthy relationships, to give them examples of healthy relationships and the way that they're going to be interacting with each other, I think had the potential to be worse because of, because of this original lesson. The way that they expect adults to treat them, the way they expect their own relationships to be changing, I think has the potential to be hurt based on all these polygamy lessons, period.

Alyssa Alexander [02:13:13] And so any sort of trimming of that, any sort of postponing of abusive relationship dynamics, I think is good for the community at large.

John Dehlin [02:13:25] Love it. Really quickly I want to ask all of you right now to please subscribe to this YouTube channel or this Facebook channel because that helps with the algorithms.

Julia [02:13:37] Please.

John Dehlin [02:13:37] Like this episode, we had well over a thousand people tuning in. Please take the time to subscribe to our channel and like it. That means a lot. I want to thank really quickly all of our donors who make all this possible.

John Dehlin [02:13:55] These donors just go to mormonstories.org they click on the donate button, they become a monthly donor. You're our backbone and you're the reason why we're able to keep doing this stuff. Thank you. I want to also thank the people that donated through super chats today and all the people that commented you all help make things successful as well. I want to share a few final comments that are coming in from our live stream audience.

John Dehlin [02:14:20] Marissa writes, Gerardo and Maven, thank you for the work you do. We love you. Agreed. Gerardo and Maven do great work for Mormon Stories in the Open Stories Foundation. Alan Zabriskie writes, hats off to all the ex Mormon podcasters. It's been invaluable in my deconstruction. So yes, hats off to Rebecca Biblioteca Landon.

John Dehlin [02:14:41] You know, Mormonish Bill Real rfm, Radio Free Mormon, More Mormonism Live to Michelle Stone and 132Problems. Is that the name of the YouTube channel? We plan to have her on Mormon Stories soon. You know, Nemo the Mormon, you know, life take two. Just all the great ex Mormon TikTokers and YouTubers and podcasters. We are making a difference. If they're listening to this stuff, they're listening to all the stuff. We've known that for years.

John Dehlin [02:15:18] But it's so fun to be a part of this community that's driving direct change. We're probably making more change at the church than many lifetime church employees. Do you think that's fair to say?

Alyssa Alexander [02:15:30] I mean, I'll take credit.

John Dehlin [02:15:31] Yeah, me too. Yeah, I think we're making a big difference and this is. I think this is pretty good evidence that that's true. So hats off to all the podcasters, tick Tockers and YouTubers out there. Beyond Belief says, thanks guys. A great cast as ever. Amen to that. New Richard Jones says thank you, John, Julie and Alyssa, thank you, Maven and Coco. Thank you. Gerardo C. Gail says excellent show. Yeah. Thanks to everyone who is valuating and valuing and appreciating what we do. There's too, too much to mention. Thanks for joining today on Mormon Stories. Alyssa, thanks again for joining us last minute.

Guest 2 [02:16:14] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:16:15] Hope you'll come back.

Alyssa Alexander [02:16:16] Always.

John Dehlin [02:16:17] Alyssa, thanks again for organizing this and making it all possible.

Alyssa Alexander [02:16:21] Julia.

John Dehlin [02:16:21] Julia, what did I say?

Julia [02:16:23] It's fine.

John Dehlin [02:16:23] Thank you, Julia. Thanks for all you do. You do great work.

Julia [02:16:26] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:16:27] And thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. We value your feedback. You can make it as comments on these episodes. We read every comment. You can also email us@mormonstoriesmail.com we would love to hear your feedback if you have ideas for other shows. If you want to be a guest on Mormon Stories, there's a way to apply. You can just click on the apply to be a guest and fill out the form, record the video, send it in. We do our best to review every application. We do review every application and we bring on as many people as we can. I'm trying to think of creative ways to bring on people for opportunities other than just the long form interviews because there's so much talent out there that we're not engaging with.

John Dehlin [02:17:10] So we're always thinking about that one idea I have. Julia. I know. Julia, you help us with shorts. Would it be cool if we had people record like a one to three minute Mormon story, submit those and we release those as like Mormon story shorts on our TikTok channel? And those might do better on TikTok than editing short clips from our long form. What do you think?

Julia [02:17:34] I think that'd be great. Like, And I think TikTok and Instagram now allow for longer than 90 seconds. So yeah, I think that's a great idea.

John Dehlin [02:17:42] Yeah. So anyway, we're toying with that idea. If any of you are interested in that, email us and let us know. But anyway, thanks for joining us. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Stay tuned for more cool stuff. Apply to be on the show if you want. Thanks for your support and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

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