Introduction to the Episode and Guests

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 15

John Dehlin [00:00:10] Hello and welcome to the Mormon Stories podcast. My name is John Dehlin. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you've been enjoying the podcasts. For those of you who are able to listen to the Todd Compton series on polygamy, hope you enjoyed it. As always, we really appreciate your feedback. Please send all feedback to mormonstoriesmail.com or check out mormonstories.org or LDS Liberation Front for places to comment. Today we are very excited to have two very special guests. My guests today are Dan Wotherspoon and Tom Kimball. Hey, guys, thanks for coming in.

Tom Kimball [00:00:54] Hey, John, thanks for. Thanks for having us.

John Dehlin [00:00:58] Let me introduce both of you guys a little bit. Dan Wotherspoon, many of you will recognize him as the editor of Sunstone magazine. You have a more swankified title, don't you, Dan?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:10] I'm also executive director of the Sunstone Education Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:01:14] Okay, that sounds a little bit swankified.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:16] There you go.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] And you have a graduate degree, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:18] I have, yeah, both a Master's and a PhD in religion from.

John Dehlin [00:01:22] Your PhD is from Claremont.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:24] Claremont Graduate University and your master's is from asu Arizona State.

John Dehlin [00:01:28] Okay. And so welcome, Dan.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:31] Thanks.

John Dehlin [00:01:33] Tom Kimball, is it? What's your title? Signature.

Tom Kimball [00:01:38] I'm just the chief book hawker at Signature Books. I'm the guy who makes the phone calls.

John Dehlin [00:01:43] So Tom's kind of sales. I'm the blue collar work guy. He's sales, marketing and evangelism and Signature Books here in Salt Lake City, Utah. And also a big fan of Mormon studies. So welcome to you both.

Tom Kimball [00:01:56] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:01:58] Just for our listener's sake, the topic that we have for you today is one. It's quite interesting. It's definitely interesting to me. There's a fellow named James Fowler who has written on the topic, which he likes to call Stages of Faith. But the basic introduction that I'd like to set up is the following. Many people in Mormonism who move beyond sort of the Sunday school correlated early years of a testimony, oftentimes when they bump up into church history or have tough issues within the church or just mature basically, often come to a crisis of faith.

John Dehlin [00:02:38] And those who frequent the Internet and various forums and blogs on the Internet often jump into this exploration that can often lead to a complete erosion of their faith as they knew it. And many of us Mormons who go through this cycle tend to think that it's an experience that's quite unique to Mormonism. And the truth is that this fellow named James Fowler has studied lots of religions and has a lot to teach. Us about the various stages of faith.

John Dehlin [00:03:13] There is analysis that's been done that says that as a human being progresses through their faith in their respective religions or whatever it is, that there are common things that happen to them as they progress and develop and grow. And so that's pretty much what we're going to talk about today. So to begin, I'd like to turn the time over to Dan Wotherspoon to start. And Dan's going to give us sort of a James Fowler stages of Faith 101, an introduction to who James Fowler was and how he came up with these stages. So, Dan, tell us more.

James Fowler's Stages of Faith Overview

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:51] All right, thanks. James Fowler's book Stages of Faith came out, I believe, in 1986. It's definitely in the mid-80s. I first encountered in 1988 as a grad student at Arizona State. It was in a course called Methods, where you basically look at religion from all sorts of different perspectives. And his was presented as part of a psychological approach to religion, looking at religion from psychological. Informed by psychological theories. Anyway, Fowler and his group for years just conducted interviews with literally thousands of people. And from these questionnaires that they put out there, they began to group people and noticed that there were certain meta things, even though you may be interviewing a Christian and a Muslim and a Buddhist and things like that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:45] There were sort of these categories and ways of thinking that were beyond each individual tradition that they sort of began to look at as stages or waves or movements within the life of a person of faith. And they interviewed children right on to people in their 80s and 90s.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:06] And what they basically came up with was a schema of different. Again, I'll just use the word stage, but these aren't hard and fast levels. It's not like you're in stage three, then you're in stage four, then you're in stage five all at once. It's just sort of a gradual progression throughout your life of the way you make meaning and the. The way you learn to value the world and your place within it. So that's what stage theories are. Now, the individual stages I can start going through in a minute.

Tom Kimball [00:05:38] They're not real things, but they're ways in which to quantify in which the experience that you're having.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:45] Right. And Fowler, again, his work is specifically on faith, but it's in conversation with Piaget, who is the famous theorist of child development. Also Erik Erickson, who taught James Fowler. Lawrence Kohlberg did sort of the same thing with moral development. How is it that we develop our ethics Carol Gilligan was a student of Kohlberg, and she talked about the way we value or we see the world in terms of justice or care. So he's in conversation with all these things, but he specifically focused on faith. And so this is just one aspect of developmental theory, even though it certainly touched bases and has roots in all of them.

Early Stages: Childhood and Adolescent Faith

John Dehlin [00:06:31] So tell us about the stages.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:32] Okay. Well, the basic schema starts with birth. And he kind of has something that he kind of considers a pre stage, which is basically the first task of life as a child coming out of the womb, is you just get a felt character for the universe.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:50] You know, mom is holding me. She puts me down. Does she come back? Yes. I learned to count on mom as a steady presence in my life. It's this. Before language emerges, you sort of get a sense of whether the universe is a friendly place or not, whether it kind of welcomes your presence or if you feel like an intrusion. So this is. You know, things can break down at this stage. Obviously, we've all heard about the children who don't get held enough having problems, bonding later because this early felt sense of the universe is friendly or not, it's a very important task, but it's not really a stage, at least.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:29] And again, just to let you know, Fowler has six stages. A guy like Ken Wilber has nine stages. You know, there's. There's all sorts.

Tom Kimball [00:07:37] Carol Gilligan's just three.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:38] Carol Gilligan has three basic ones that have sub stages and stuff. So these are all just artificial constructs, but they describe a pretty consistent story. The first stage that Fowler gives a real name to, it is intuitive Projective faith. Okay, and this is about age 2, when language helps the children sort of mediate the world. You know, they learn to speak. They start matching sounds and objects. They're able to communicate in this new way rather than just facial expressions and goos and gahs. With mom, they're able to walk and talk. They're able to question things. Everything is a new discovery. They learn the power of naming all sorts of things like that. And in this stage, this is also where fantasy and imagination comes up.

John Dehlin [00:08:33] So everything you've talked about so far is stage one.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:36] This is stage one.

John Dehlin [00:08:36] Does stage one have a title?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:38] Yeah. Intuitive Projective.

John Dehlin [00:08:39] This is stage one, Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:41] Because you're just intuiting the world and you're sort of projecting your presence into it and kind of naming things. You know, this is up to preschool, basically, this stage. You may know that your pet died. You may know that grandma and grandpa died. You may wonder about heaven or hell. If you were raised in a religious tradition, you may have heard terms like God and the devil and have conceptions and ideas about them, but you haven't put it together in any kind of logical way.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:12] About the time you start school, around six or seven, is about when his stage two, which he calls mythic, literal. And here's all of a sudden, the brain is also forming during all this time to where it's now able to engage in what Piaget called concrete operational thinking. And this is when the world becomes linear. It's orderly, it's predictable.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:39] And this is where that sense about rightness and wrongness, good and evil, this is fair. This isn't fair. Things should be based on reciprocity. If I do this, I should get. This is how the world should work. And then when you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:56] You know, the way that this actually works out is often through stories. So here's where narrative begins to enter people's life. And that's why mythic is an important term within this. You sort of hear stories, you understand that there's rules. You know, that the family kind of has a sense of what they should be doing or things like this and all that's kind of operating in your life. And, I don't know, we all remember our children. Dad, you said a bad word. You know, and there's. There's no understanding of the interior life of even yourself or others. You know, it doesn't match the rules and what. And what it should be.

John Dehlin [00:10:34] So not a lot of. Not a lot of nuance there.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:36] Not a lot of. Not a nuance. Yeah. And one of the phrases I like in Fowler as he talks about here is these children, they have stories, but they don't have the story of their stories. They don't have the one that sort of unifies and brings it all together.

Tom Kimball [00:10:51] That's like my little boy who's the moral cop in the house. You know, we'll be watching this show, and it's a little scary, and he'll turn to me and say, dad, I really shouldn't be watching this movie. Or anyway. Yeah, it's just very. It's all really super black and white.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:06] Jimmy's dad smokes. Then they'll tell you right there in the grocery store or something like that. Yeah. So they have this basic felt smell sense of how the world should be. And if I pray, God should answer my prayer. If I write the letter to Santa Claus, I will get the toy. And there's just no stepping back and reflecting on it. Or really trying to make it all fit together.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:31] So about the time adolescence comes along, you're pretty well ready to move into what he calls the synthetic conventional stage, which is his stage three. And this is the stage where ultimately I think it's. I should have looked at the numbers again. But somewhere in the low 60% of adults, he feels like, end up here and pretty much don't move beyond this stage. This is sort of a terminal stage.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:56] But beginning in early adolescence, you now have this sort of sense where you begin to get this story of stories. You begin to take perspective of yourself and relationships to others. One of Fowler's great little couplets that he's constantly using is, I see you seeing me. I see the me I think you see.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:22] And then you see you. According to me, you see the you you think I see. And so this idea of taking perspectives into there. And so this is where in adolescence we become very self conscious. Because remember, as a child, you don't care. Everybody thinks about you. You're the center of the universe. You're doing this, and you don't have that real sense of where you fit within other people. And you don't really have any kind of nuanced understanding that you're different than others. But in this stage in adolescence and on up, you're very conscious of others. And so what you're doing here, like I said, as far as your story goes, you're developing a story of your stories.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:02] You're drawing everything into unity. And so. So that's what the term synthetic comes from. Let's see, where would I want to go from here? The main points of this, though, and this is where we can recognize. And Tom, in my conversations with Tom for the last 10 years about stages.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:21] Well, Tom, probably five years we've been engaged in it, somewhere between that. Yeah, Tom always picks up on this. But this idea is that all your stories, your symbols and the things that mean you really come from other places than yourself. It's your family, it's your religion, it's your teachers.

Tom Kimball [00:13:41] Isn't it a sense that maybe I'm getting this wrong, but the idea that your tradition or your culture or your group has spent all the time sufficient to come up with the moral or the strategy, and so all you need to do is rely on them because they've. They've been doing it for generation and generation.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:01] Right, right. So, yeah, so your story, your story of stories is not really reflected on. It's tacit.

Tom Kimball [00:14:09] It's where someone says, so what do you think about Abortion? Well, my dad says, or my church leader says, it's never what I say. Right, right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:21] And so my favorite phrase in the Fowler literature, all the different four or five books that I've read, is that, what is it? We're not sure who discovered the principles of water, but we're pretty darn sure

Tom Kimball [00:14:40] it isn't the fish because they're swimming in it. And you have it ever present all the time. You don't have any way of metering it, measuring it.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:53] It's a tacit understanding. You're swimming in it. You haven't stepped out and looked at it as a system or as a story or one story among others. You kind of have. It all came through the important people in your life. And like you said, they've done the thinking.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:10] You haven't needed to reflect on it. So at this point where you basically have life figured out and the whole world makes sense to you, often what will happen is college will come along or something will happen in your life that sort of upsets the apple cart, like a bookstore. There you go, like Tom and reading and actually not just buying the books, but actually reading the books.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:34] All of a sudden that idea that this worldview that I had developed and I thought I'd examined, I really hadn't. And so college is often a natural time, but often it's in your 30s or 40s where it might be the first time that you really begin to question your faith as faith. I remember a very interesting priesthood meeting when this really sharp guy in the ward actually said, I know the church is true. Then he stopped. He says, you know, though I don't think I've ever asked myself if it might not be true.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:05] And it was a neat moment where I recognized that there's a guy I could talk to. But anyways, stage four for Fowler is called individuative reflective faith. The two parts of that word, individualative, means that all of a sudden I now have to be responsible for my own.

Stage Four: Individuative and Critical Faith

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:25] What I value, what I think, my own opinions. I'm less reliant anymore upon my parents, my church leaders, my teachers, kind of the whole history of thought up that point. And I have to consciously choose what it is that I believe and value. And reflective means is again, now I'm out of the water. Now, even though I've still been swimming in the water. And obviously those are my main lenses, I now recognize that that was a worldview and that there are other worldviews besides mine that need to be taken into perspective. And so that's individual and reflective are those kinds of two things.

Tom Kimball [00:17:04] Now, what happens in stage four, in many ways, is what this conversation in my mind is all about, because.

John Dehlin [00:17:13] Which conversation?

Tom Kimball [00:17:15] The conversation of stage theory. Because in stage three, you're happy. You know, your world is around. You're at the center of the universe, and, you know, it's a pleasant, comfortable arena. And stage four is when you're pulling yourself out of that and where your world sort of starts to fall apart. And so stage three doesn't matter to anybody, really, in a lot of ways, until you're in stage four.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:42] Exactly. In 1988, when I encountered this, I was probably a highly functioning level three who absolutely knew the church was true. And I was going to grad school, and I was only looking for extra things that would help me prove that that was true. And it took me about a good six months into grad school before I started to say, wow, these are pretty powerful theories. These are powerful perspectives. Maybe I should actually let them affect my worldview instead of just being able to explain what they say to actually let them in. And that was probably the big moment. So when I read Fowler, it was when I still had the tiger by the tail.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:20] I still had the world figured out, so it didn't mean anything to me. And it wasn't until 1997, when I was really crashing and burning and probably been in stage four for eight or nine years, that Fowler became important, like you said, because then I was fully enmeshed in a stage four situation.

John Dehlin [00:18:40] Cool. So stage four, Individual and reflective faith.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:47] Right.

Tom Kimball [00:18:47] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:48] And again, this is a demythology. Some of the key words that probably ought to bring up here is this is a demythologizing stage. This is when you're able to separate. Okay, I've had this story come along, this mythos, and I don't mean myth in the terms of Little Red Riding Hood or a fable, but mythic stories. You know, these stories that have values. The myth of the American Dream, this idea that, you know, manifest Destiny or something. All of a sudden I might question that, whereas before I wouldn't. And so you demythologize it, and you're teasing apart and you're pulling apart everything that used to make sense to you and kind of examining it and wondering, can I really go with this anymore?

Tom Kimball [00:19:31] Right. Yeah. You know, getting back to the idea that this is where it's important as you're demythologizing, at least in my case, I felt like the lights were going out and I Started to give up the things that I cared most about and the things that I thought were the most important. And I started to think that there was no hope other than just naturalistic chemistry, evolution, and so forth.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] So there's a lot of angst and frustration and emotion associated and sometimes negative emotion associated with this stage. And we don't want to jump into your stories yet, but just on a general level, it seems like you say this is a stage that really matters because at three, you're kind of fat, dumb and happy, so to speak. But if you happen to hit four, it sounds like you're saying that a lot of cognitive dissonance starts to emerge.

Tom Kimball [00:20:33] Right. And the advantage of what we're going to be discussing today with the stage theory is that when you're moving into this four, into this uncomfortable, unsure area, stage theory is kind of the light at the end of the tunnel in a way.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:48] Right. Especially as you get a glimpse of what five might look like and what six might look like. And that there is a sort of a putting back together that will naturally emerge as you. As you keep fighting through it.

Tom Kimball [00:20:59] And I think that Joe Average person, with regards to stage theory can piece this together. I think we can really simplify this for. I mean, I consider myself kind of a blue collar kind of person. And I think that if I can grasp it, I think that Joe Average can kind of wrap their minds around these concepts.

John Dehlin [00:21:18] And just to summarize, stage theory pretty much exists to help you get from three to five, which we're going to talk to in a second.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:26] Well, it exists as an explanatory schema of how, you know, it's just a map and it doesn't. It doesn't have a purpose other than to do that. But, boy, the way it's helped me in my life was absolutely in this.

John Dehlin [00:21:36] That would be, in my. In my interpretation, the positive, productive value to learning it and understanding it.

Tom Kimball [00:21:44] Well, it offers hope.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:46] Yeah. Yeah.

Stages Five and Six: Conjunctive and Universal Faith

John Dehlin [00:21:46] Okay, so four we've talked about.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:49] Okay, well, and let me just. Before I lose this little thought, what it's done for me is it actually made me feel like I was part of this larger community of spiritual travelers. So that even if I may have felt alone in my ward, even in my family or something, it sort of gave me hope that I was actually on a path that thousands or millions had trod before.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:15] And that. That if I just kept working at my spirituality and kept trying to put myself in situations where I was constantly rethinking the world, that these perspectives that are More hopeful that come up with stages five and six might occur in my life. And indeed they did. And they had already begun to occur in glimpses by the time I really caught hold of this. And it was just neat to feel better about it anyway.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:44] Stage five, he calls conjunctive. This idea of conjoining. And this is sort of the re putting back together what you had torn apart in stage four. It usually doesn't happen before midlife. So probably age 35 to 40 ish is the average time when somebody would enter this. And there's a lot of reasons for that. You've now lived a lot of life as an adult and you recognize that you've made choices and you've gone down roads that can't be changed, that you have a certain personality that's most likely kind of your personality for life. And you can't just turn on a dime and completely reinvent yourself.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:22] You're both old and young. Some of your friends are dying. So death is a far bigger reality to you. Sort of get unsettled when you're in that kind of thing. You recognize that I have both masculine and feminine characteristics, that you have a conscious self, you have an unconscious self. All these different polarities are coming together there.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:48] What happens in this, you're gaining a comfortableness with paradox, the idea that the great truths of the world are paradoxical. What is it Jesus says you must lose your life to what? To find it. How could that be true? And you sort of begin to sense that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:08] Well, there's the great Nicholas of Cusa phrase that basically is, God is the place where all opposites and contradictions meet and are reconciled. So there's that sense of coming to terms with paradox and feeling comfortable in a world that's rich and far beyond either or right or wrong, truth or false categories.

Tom Kimball [00:24:31] Isn't it a sense of seeing the forest and the trees sort of thing. You have the. You're able to see the big picture and also see the close up, which in a lot of ways is a trick and something that you. Even as your brain develops, as you're growing older, some of these concepts you wouldn't be able to grasp in your younger years.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:54] Right, right. And in fact, the stage four thing which you brought about brain is there. It's usually in late adolescence, into your early 20s that your neocortex forms in your brain, which is sort of this mediator between the right and left hemispheres. And so it's not until almost in your late teens that you're even able to Separate the symbol from what it symbolizes. You say, oh, flag. You know, patriotism represents freedom. But you know, if the flag hits the ground, it's not literally the flag that's defaced, you know, in other words,

Tom Kimball [00:25:27] anyway, I shouldn't have gone down, but my 12 year old is not going to be a stage five guru, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:25:33] So the flag hits the ground, it's defiled, you know, and stuff like that. Now, for religious faith, especially those of us who are within a tradition, the neat thing that happens here is you no longer are like looking at the stories of your tradition and reducing them down to, oh, that's crap, or that's this. You're beginning to sort of say that this story, even though it's no longer literal for me, it really has important truths that it conveys. Or you begin to sense that that's an important sort of framing for my child, even though I've moved beyond it and I no longer need it. And you begin to make peace with the fact that there are people around you that take these stories literally and you sort of, you participate in the reality of the symbols and the myths without just totally deconstructing them.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:28] One of the other neat aspects of Stage five has to do with what Fowler calls the scandal of the particular. And it's how a Stage five person manages this. Now, the scandal of the particular is basically the idea of how come God, who's universal and has truths and whatever, works through particular people who are enmeshed in particular traditions, etc. So the scandal is often phrased in the famous ones, like how odd of God to choose the Jews, or the phrase, could anything good come out of Nazareth? It's this idea that how could you make these large, wonderful claims about chosenness? Or that you're the way, the truth and the life.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:15] When we know you, you're born here, you're raised here, your tradition is this. And so the making, the making peace with the scandal in particular, is this coming to sense that God can only work in particular contexts. Tom talked a little bit earlier about the forest and the trees.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:35] You can talk about the forest, but yet there is no forest without individual trees. So this neat part about Stage five that's really meant a lot to me lately is this idea that, okay, I am a Mormon, I'm within this tradition, and yet I still have the right to say that there are certain universal truths that I can claim as valid and things that I can proclaim from my very particular position.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:08] Teresa of Calcutta could only do what she could do. Primarily because of her Catholic upbringing and the sort of things that they do. You can't escape community. You are enmeshed in particular. And so that's one of the neat things about Stage five that I like.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:24] Stage six is the rarest of all. The stage. I think that Fowler estimates maybe 1 to 2% maximum people ever approach this. And what stage six is, he calls it a universalizing faith. And universalizing is the term he uses because when you're in five, you're still enmeshed in this particularity, even though you're willing to talk about grand truths and that there is this. But you're still tied to your community, you're still tied to your family. And you don't have this radical embracing of the will of God as beyond everything. So stage six is kind of this decentralization or this decentering of yourself from your tradition.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:14] Fowler talks about how difficult it is to talk about because it's just this radical identification with the will of God. Among the examples that he'll use. Well, actually, one of the things that happens. Tom always picks up on this when he talks about it is that you may lose your fear of being harmed.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:34] Instead of worrying about your own safety, you'll act so radically that you'll probably tick people off and they'll want to kill you. So he'll talk about a Martin Luther King or a Jesus who's so fully mirroring God's love and light and truth that fear of safety, perfect love, casteth out fear.

Tom Kimball [00:29:53] Fowler says that the Stage six person has a tendency to be killed by the people that he's trying to help.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:00] Right, right, right. And a stage six perspective. The way Fowler actually reads Jesus, who says, I am the way, the truth and the life is not in the way that a lot of us would tend to read it usually. And that is he's announcing titles.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:16] This is me. But it's more like the organic statement of somebody who so fully identifies with the divine will that I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, I am the perfect mirror of God. And in fact, that's a famous phrase of being a mirror of God that a lot of mystics from different traditions will do. I sort of fully reflect God's will that in God you see me, or in me you see God, Jesus. What did he say? If you want to see the Father, show me the Father. Check me out, you'll see the Father. And it's not in any arrogant way. It's just simply.

Tom Kimball [00:30:53] It's not arrogant.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:53] It's not bragging. It's rare to encounter. Doesn't sound a lot of fun, like you're going to get killed and all that stuff. But it's out there and certainly important. So those are the basic six stages of Fowler, as far as I could just lay them out here at this moment.

John Dehlin [00:31:12] Very, very good. Well, Dan, that is an excellent introduction to James Fowler and the Stages of Faith. What I think makes sense in this podcast is for us to now split it. Those of you listening, thank you for joining. You have just heard an introduction to James Fowler, the Stages of Faith by Dan Wotherspoon, and we hope you've enjoyed it. Please send us any email you would like to@mormonstories.org also go up to ldsliberationfront.net I believe, but you can just Google for it LDS Liberation Front if you want to blog about this episode. But what we want to entice you with in our very next episode, which you're actually going to record immediately, we are going to actually to illustrate these stages of faith, we're going to have Tom Kimball sort of guide us through his personal story as it relates to Stages three, through whatever he's bold enough to claim in his own personal life.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] And Dan's going to interject perhaps some of his personal stories as well. So don't stop listening. Tune into episode two, which you can get very quickly to hear more about Stages of Faith. Thanks again for tuning in, and we hope to talk to you soon.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:39] The depth of your dreams, the height of your wishes.

Tom Kimball's Personal Faith Journey

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 16

John Dehlin [00:00:11] Hello and welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. This is John Dehlin. Here I have with me Tom Kimball and Dan Wotherspoon. This is episode two of our feature on James Fowler in the stages of faith. So without any further ado, now that we have actually gotten from Brother Dan an overview of the stages of faith, we would now like to turn the lead time over to Tom. And Tom is going to walk us through sort of a Mormonization of the stages of faith, illustrated by his own personal stories of his journey. Tom.

Tom Kimball [00:00:51] Thanks, John. You know, maybe just quickly I could tell you a little bit about myself. You know, I went on a mission to Birmingham, Alabama, and I think, you know, it was an English mission.

John Dehlin [00:01:05] Wait, wait, sorry. Why don't you even back up a bit? Tell us a bit about your heritage to inform that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:11] Okay. He's a Kimball.

John Dehlin [00:01:13] Oh, yes, there's that. Well,

Tom Kimball [00:01:19] you know, I come through a lot of interesting early Mormon families. For example, my great grandfather William A. Fowler wrote, we thank thee, O God, for profit. HEBER C. Kimball. My family tree coalesces quite a bit. In other words, it doesn't fork very well. I come through a Sol Smith, who was Joseph Smith's senior's father three times. You know, Joe Hills Johnson, who wrote High on a Mountaintop is a great grandfather. My namesake is Thomas Kimball, after Thomas Stephen Williams, who was a hero in the Mormon Battalion but also a noted thief. And his son in law was David Kimball, who was one of the three rescuers of the Martin Hancar Company.

John Dehlin [00:02:13] So Mormon through and through.

Tom Kimball [00:02:15] Yeah, you know, I can't escape it in any way, shape or form.

John Dehlin [00:02:20] Okay.

Tom Kimball [00:02:21] I grew up in the blue collar neighborhoods of Granger, Utah, it's now West Valley, and had a very orthodox upbringing. My father was the only Mormon in his, in his family. But how did that happen? Well, the Kimball, the Kimball brothers, Heber Kimball's sons, they kind of had to take care of each other. And because of that, a lot of them became kind of wild cowboy types. And my father went around converting his cousins. You know, it's kind of interesting.

John Dehlin [00:02:56] So let me just understand. So because Heber C. Kimball had so many wives, he wasn't able necessarily to give them all lots and lots of attention. I think I remember you telling me that built up some resentment among them and caused many of them to leave the church, is that right?

Tom Kimball [00:03:11] Well, he had 42 boys and 16 girls. He had 43 wives. So, yeah, the brothers sort of had to take care of each other. And the brothers were just wild boys. They were cowboys And Mormonism was important to them in the sense of culture, but not necessarily in practice.

John Dehlin [00:03:32] So a lot of your ancestors post the Nauvoo years fell away, Salt Lake

Tom Kimball [00:03:37] years and Utah years. Okay, so anyway, you know, I grew up, but, but I did grow up in a fairly orthodox home and you know, I served an LDS mission in Alabama and that was kind of tricky. You know, we got anti almost every day and these little 14 year old kids would come up and quote entire sections of the Bible to you, you know, and so I got into reading books and just devouring apologetics just so I could try and survive on a daily basis.

John Dehlin [00:04:11] And just to tie this to Fowler, on your mission, you started out stage three and that's probably what most Mormons do. Is that right or not?

Tom Kimball [00:04:18] Well, let's talk about stage three. For Mormons, stage three is the. And thanks to Dan for giving us the rundown earlier. But to try and bring it down to something more practical, at least on my level. I view stage three as sort of where my tradition, I'm the center of my tradition and I can rely, I rely on my tradition to have had the experience and the practical experimentization of concepts that I don't actually have to have an opinion. I can rely on my tradition for the opinion on the concepts. For example, abortion. You can tell someone's in stage three because you say so what do you think about abortion?

Tom Kimball [00:05:10] They'll say, well, you know, this general authority says this or my father says that. It's not necessarily their own concepts, their own logic, their own language. They're relying on their tradition to have the opinion for them. Stage three is, for me it was a very comfortable place. I kind of view it as the return missionary stage because you have, you have an answer for everything.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:05:36] And it's all church based. But are there. But are, you know, would the average missionary be a stage two or stage three? That's kind of what I'm wondering.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:44] Stage three. Very few people by the time they're a young adult are still stage two

John Dehlin [00:05:51] and that's why we've jumped. So, okay, so your mission, you were stage three, your worldview was the church's view.

Tom Kimball [00:05:58] Yeah. You know, when you come home, you know, the church view was that I should come home and get married and have a family and this, that and the other. And so, you know, you conform. It's the conformist orthodox, it's the happy place. It's a very pleasant place to begin, be in because you're, you have a sense of community and you have an answer for everything. You know, where you fit in the universe, you know why you fit universe, and you know where you're going. And, you know, there's this celestial kingdom and there's this whole plan, and you're part of that plan. That for me, is Mormonism stage three.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:32] Right. And it doesn't mean that you don't have your own flavor of Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:06:35] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:36] It just simply means that, you know, you're all drawing from the same symbols. You may put them together in a slightly different way. We have conservatives and, you know, and, you know, and temperament. And just what you sort of naturally bring as your personality is obviously going to. Going to shape the way you tell the story. But again, the key point is you haven't really stepped outside your story to really think of it as a story. It is really. It's reality. And you just haven't. Like you're the fish swimming in water. You haven't reflected on it yet.

Tom Kimball [00:07:04] You know, I'm very fortunate in some ways because I have people to bounce these things off of. And it's unfortunate when I bump into people who are living in different places and they don't really have anybody to talk about these things.

Tom Kimball [00:07:20] But probably my biggest step into the next stage, I was working at the bookstore. So I started off with Desert Book, and then I moved on to Benchmark Books. And when you're reading, you're reading about your culture, you're starting to find out about the flaws. There's loose ends that you stumble onto. And as you try to tidy up these loose ends, sometimes you just tidy one up and it creates three or four more that don't seem to be able to be hammered down, and it just sort of unravels.

Tom Kimball [00:08:03] You know, I was sitting in the bookstore, and I would practice my narrative about the book, the new book that came out, and I would kind of try it on for size. You know, I had my own concept about why this book was important and why that book was important. As you'd say it to the customer, you kind of gauge his reaction, and you could kind of tell if it was working or not.

Tom Kimball [00:08:27] And I remember having sort of this kind of conversation with one of my clients, regular clients, and it just kind of dawned on me that I had this sort of epiphany that if all these books were true. I'm sorry, if you took all these books and all these concepts, there seemed to me to only be two paths. There was fundamentalism or atheism, and I wasn't on either of these real Paths, though I could see that this is probably the only two ways.

Tom Kimball [00:09:01] And so I turned to Dan at the bookstore and said, okay, here's what I'm seeing. And I'm not particularly on either of these paths, but I can see these being the two out. One of the two out.

John Dehlin [00:09:13] Why those extremes?

Tom Kimball [00:09:15] Because I. Because what about.

John Dehlin [00:09:17] What about the books pointing to you, to those two extremes? Help me understand just one level deeper. Why seeing a bunch of books about various topics, probably something about Nauvoo Years, something about Kirtland, maybe something about polygamy.

Tom Kimball [00:09:29] Because my current tradition didn't reflect what I was finding in the books.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] And so what made that point to fundamentalism?

Tom Kimball [00:09:37] Well, because, you know, fundamentalism is, you know, what Brigham Young and Joseph Smith were teaching isn't necessarily what I was finding in Sunday school and in my own current tradition.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] Okay, so you're saying early sort of hardcore teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham that maybe today many would say we've distanced ourselves from. You're saying that if our church was founded on prophets, Joseph was the main prophet, Brigham became number two. They made some pretty solid statements that maybe we've sort of moved away from. And you basically said, if the founding of the church was valid, then we need to get back to those founding teachings, which would be fundamentalist. Right, Okay, I see what you're saying.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:17] Yeah. The water is more pure at the source of the stream. So as it bubbles from the earth, it's very pure. But as it rolls down the hill, it picks up all this debris. And so you begin to say, wow, this doesn't match what it used to be. I bet I'll go back there with my heart and my mind. And in some ways it's a very comfortable thing because usually what's in these books are complexity. And you're saying, I'm going to reject this complexity and go back. I'm going to explain away this complexity by simply saying, the errors of men have creeped in. I'm going back to the Gospel.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] So blood atonement becomes something that's undeniable, and Adam God theory becomes something that is just a fact.

Tom Kimball [00:10:57] And polygamy, not that it is a fact, but it's something that. That would speak to my soul. Yeah, that would make sense.

John Dehlin [00:11:04] Right. Okay. So the choices become go back to the roots, be fundamentalist, or your entire world caves in your religious world.

Tom Kimball [00:11:12] Right, right. But I wasn't prepared to go either way.

John Dehlin [00:11:14] Right.

Tom Kimball [00:11:15] And that's part of what stage four is. Four is when you. When things are starting to unravel the. The way you can tell if a Latter Day Saint for me is in stage four is that they're developing opinions about things that aren't necessarily reflective of their tradition, their orthodox tradition, and they're okay with that. And if their tradition happens to agree with them, great. But not necessarily, but also, at least for me, and this is an ongoing process, I found that I would turn to my elders quorum and I'd say, okay, I've got these questions and I would unload on them and they would freak out, right?

Tom Kimball [00:12:02] And when I was the teacher they said, okay, if you're going to discuss that, you need to sit down, you know, so, you know, I wasn't sure where to turn. I talked to my, I tried to turn to my father early, before he died and you know, he didn't want to hear it. And I, you know, and I start turning to my wife and she's like, whoa, you know, she's kind of freaking out.

Tom Kimball [00:12:24] It's a difficult place to be in. You're trying to find a way to be understood and you're kind of freaking everybody else out around you and you've learned to kind of be quiet after a while and you start to suffer.

Tom Kimball [00:12:38] And for me, once I gave up the Mormon hierarchy, that was sort of the first step. And then I sort of said, well, if I can give up that, if I'm going to allow myself to give up that, can I allow myself to give up Joseph? Okay, well, okay, I allowed myself to give up Joseph. Okay, well Jesus, what do you mean

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:59] give up the hierarchy, give up Joseph?

Tom Kimball [00:13:01] Well, what I mean the hierarchy is the Mormon hierarchy that they, the things that they are saying and the things that they're offering to me are pure truth. Once I gave that up that it's just their opinion, then I turned to Joseph and I said, okay, is he a source for truth and sort of testing the waters? I allowed myself to give him up. And then once I felt, well I still have Jesus, and then I sort of said, okay, well allow myself to give up Jesus and then it's just a half stone's throw away. So it's an unraveling, giving up God.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] In other words, if the current general authorities aren't in harmony with the original church leaders, then the current general authorities must not be in step. But if Joseph claimed to have created a church that was going to last to the millennium and it's not, then Joseph must not be either. But if my view of a modern day prophet and of Joseph both fall Then why does Christ any more legitimate than them? And all of a sudden it just cards falls.

Tom Kimball [00:14:07] Yeah. And you know, and it's really a mental gymnastics thing where you're just saying, okay, I'm allowing this to. I'm just going to see how far I go and see how comfortable I am at these places. And, you know, when you get to the point where you allow yourself to give up God, then it's kind of scary because then it's just this Life. I've got 40 more years. I can see why people will freak out and they'll go and cheat on their wife or whatever. I have a different view of that and I'd love to talk about that at some point. The dark night of the soul.

John Dehlin [00:14:43] Well, talk about it now. I think it's a great time to talk about it.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:46] There's really one more aspect to why atheism sort of head towards atheism. And it's not just this slowly giving up this, giving up that, and sort of having the snowball that way. The thing about stage four is it's very similar to stage three, because in stage three you still thought that God could reveal the truth in a clear way. In other words, life really can be figured out. Well, stage four, you don't give that up right away. You still think that you still are kind of, you're recognizing gray and you're giving lip service to it, but you really do think that you can find truth. Capital T, truth.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] Right. And that's when Tom was trying to go to Elders quorum and resolve it. Right, right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:29] And so as long as you're holding on to capital T, truth, and then you keep having one domino fall and then another one and another one. All of a sudden you're going to pretty much say, there is no capital T truth. And that's why God sort of can disappear and stuff there too. It's not just, oh, I'm going to take one step further and try this idea on for sights. It's not until stage five or the beginning of stage five. Like I said in my little overview, that paradox, that truth is both and that light is both wave and particle properties, depending on what question I ask it or what experiment I'm doing. The truth experience.

Tom Kimball [00:16:14] Yeah. See, I'm stolen for the most part. I'm still in a black and white environment. Either it's all true or it's all false. And there's the feeling of betrayal. I feel like my parents may have betrayed me, my leaders have betrayed me. There's still a very Emotional hardcore belief structure. I'm just replacing one for the other.

The Dark Night of the Soul in Stage Four

John Dehlin [00:16:44] So talk about this. Stage four, Dark Night of the Soul.

Tom Kimball [00:16:47] Well, let me back up and give maybe one more narrative. One of the things I think that was positive for me with regards to this is the issue. I was speaking to my mom about this and, you know, she's obviously not very happy about it being a very orthodox conformist Latter Day Saint and a good woman.

Tom Kimball [00:17:13] But I told her that I had people around me who I felt were feeling the same way, and yet they were very good people and specifically very good men who I saw do very magnanimous things. And I didn't feel that they did it because of an eternal reward or an eternal punishment. They were doing it because it was the right thing to do.

Tom Kimball [00:17:41] And, you know, I think that is an incredible thing and it's something that I really admired and I wanted to be kind of like that myself. And I'm not saying that I am, but I, you know, it's something that I admire and I hold up and my mom said, well, if there is no God, then I've wasted my life.

Tom Kimball [00:18:08] And I thought that was. I felt bad about that. And so it sort of made me think about this. If there is no God, I've got to make things work now and I've got to live in the moment, but not, you know, and still embracing my Mormonism, finding happiness but not pleasure, you know, doing things that, that are. That make me happy in the sense that I'm making the world better, I'm making my community better, I'm making my family better, because, you know, for a period of time, I view that that's all there is.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] Right.

Tom Kimball [00:18:47] And so, you know, now, and I take that as a great gift in a way that this dark period of my life gave me. And that is that, you know, I have now to fix it. I don't not going to fix it in the next life. I've got to fix my world and my family and create beauty now and not later. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:19:10] Yeah. And I think you mentioned me earlier today a quote or a reference to a mystic that illustrates this point a little bit.

Tom Kimball [00:19:20] You know, I talk to everybody I can think of about this and it always ends up on this conversation. Because I think this is just a great conversation. Yeah. Because I think this is cool stuff. And I was telling Jana Rees, who's the Publisher's Weekly person, about some of the stuff, and she recommended this book. It was called the Dark Night of the Soul by a 16th century mystic by the name of Saint John of the Cross. And, you know, the book was a hard read. He's Spanish and it's been translated into English.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:50] Juan de la Cruz.

Tom Kimball [00:19:52] And the book kind of meanders and stuff. And I was really frustrated with the book. And then I finally found it. He talks about this dark night of the soul and how it's this training ground and this is how you're going to become enlightened and this, that and the other. But he didn't tell you what it was. And finally, about halfway through the book, he basically says that God, when he feels that you're ready, withdraws from you. And he stops answering your prayers, he stops answering your meditations, and he. And he sets you down and abandons you. And this is where you learn about spirituality, is when he abandoned you.

Tom Kimball [00:20:35] And for me, that was. That was really beautiful because that's sort of what I was learning. I was learning that I needed to be. That I could find beauty and goodness out of my creation and that this is a gift that I wouldn't have been able to have had I not gone into this. I would still be doing good because I was afraid of punishment or because I wanted a reward and not just because it was the right thing to do.

John Dehlin [00:21:05] Yeah. So all of a sudden your decision to choose right or wrong is purely based on your belief and your conviction in wanting to do right or wrong for its own sake.

Tom Kimball [00:21:17] I'm not perfect. I'm still a big screw up. Ask my wife.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:21] There are two great phrases, one from Mormonism that I like, and it's Hubie Brown. I wish I had the reference handy. But he talks about doubt or faith needing to serve a stewardship of doubt. That doubt is a training ground and it's actually holy. We put that there. And then James Fowler has a great one as he talks about stage five and what prepares you for the putting back together process. He says you often have to know the sacrament of defeat. This idea that there are some things I just can't change and there's been some crap and it didn't go my way and that that's a sacrament. So those are really great phrases that kind of play on the same.

Tom Kimball [00:22:03] The interesting thing that Fowler talks about is that it's very difficult to look into the stage ahead of you. People in stage three who are within their tradition and they're in the comfortable place, they look at people in stage four as being behind them in the growth process.

Tom Kimball [00:22:26] And that's the same thing with four is with people who are In Stage five or higher. I find that when I first started studying stage theory, I talked to people who I felt, I feel now that are clearly in stage five. And I felt that they were sellouts. You know, I felt that they were. They had just decided to go back to Jesus or to go back to their tradition and that, you know, I'm the one that was really the enlightened one. I'm the one that gave up, you know, the myth. I'm the one that's living in the real world and those people are behind me.

Tom Kimball [00:23:02] And the same, you know, it's just a church. You know, I talk to people at church and try to explain this to them and they talk in terms of one day you'll be back where I'm

John Dehlin [00:23:17] at or be up to where I'm at. Yeah, right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:21] Because you know what? I wanted to bring that up earlier. The church has the great thing. It says pray about it, find out for yourself, don't rely on your parents testimony. Do it. And there's always this encouragement to do it. So most Latter Day Saints will do that and they will get burning in the bosom experiences. And so they really in many ways think that they've been through stage four and solved it with just these few prayers. Whereas Fowler will tell you you're looking at before you're looking at 10, 15, 20 years, if at all, sometimes that by the time you do it. And then the other thing I wanted to say is that these stages, you go back and forth all the time.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:04] It's on a continuum. And I'll tell you, when you're under stress, guess what, you're going to revert to your old patterns. When life is going well, then the new vistas of possibilities of the stages and sort of the sensibilities that are ahead come to you. So at any time in your life, if you're having a bad day, I bet you're acting a lot more like the previous stage than the head of Y1.

Tom Kimball [00:24:28] We have bad stages, bad times all the time. Yeah. You know, but let me just tell you what I think is most important about stage theory. And that is that when I sort of felt like I was hitting the very bottom and you start to feel like.

Tom Kimball [00:24:48] And you finally embraced the. This idea that, okay, there's no afterlife and this is just it, and I've found some peace here still I have hope for something more. I mean, is it really this simple? Is it really this simple that it's just all chemistry and there's no metaphysics?

Tom Kimball [00:25:12] And yet I Saw people who had gone through exactly what I had gone through and were having metaphysical stuff going on with them and were having spirituality. And even though I felt that there were sellouts, it was stage theory that helped me understand that as you spend your time in stage four and you have to spend your time there, there's no escaping it. And people experience it maybe lighter or more difficultly, depending on their maturity. I'm probably very unmature. And so I.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:25:48] And their family. Their families and their circle of friends. I mean, it's not just you and

Tom Kimball [00:25:53] your temperament, but it gives you. But the concepts of stage theory have given me the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's something I can hope for, especially when I was at the very, very bottom.

Mormon Models for Stage Five Faith

John Dehlin [00:26:04] So are there any Mormon models for Stage five that would be familiar enough to our listeners for us to set them up as an example?

Tom Kimball [00:26:16] That's not a very nice thing to do, but I put Dan up.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:20] I recognized when I first started coming to Sunstone, people like Eugene England and Leonard Arrington and Lowell Bennion and Armand Moss and these people, as you know my phrase was they have a more mature spirituality than me.

John Dehlin [00:26:35] In other words, they have grown up

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:38] spirituality where I'm kind of this fragile kid thing. Even though I had no language of stage theory or something, I recognized that their testimony means more to me because I can tell that they've been through the war, they've been where I am, and they have emerged with hope and I hadn't yet. To me, that's one of the. The best things that I hope we can occasionally do with Sunstone. And that's offer. Certainly we have a lot of Stage four kind of things, but I try to print as much constructive hopefulness stuff that there is light at the end of the tunnel kinds of pieces working at the bookstore.

Tom Kimball [00:27:20] We kind of get to see this stuff close up. You see these kids come home from their missions and they're sort of like me. They're the book nerds. And they were. They were using the books as apologetics, and he was helping them answer the hard questions, and they were reading and they were on fire. And then a few years later, they'd come in with all of their books and they would dump them and they would leave the church. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen this sort of scenario over and over and over again.

Tom Kimball [00:27:54] I have a friend that just within a year ago, he was teasing me about my doubt. And now, just within the past couple weeks, he's just like, yeah, I'm ready to walk, you know, and you're. And you're trying to tell him. And I was telling him then, yeah, you know, it's coming because I could see it coming for him. And now I'm trying to say, now, hold on, hang on.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:13] It gets better.

Tom Kimball [00:28:13] Hang on. It's bad for a while, but. And you have to just deal with it. But the other interesting thing about stage theory, and the unfortunate thing, I guess, is that Fowler talks about that when a person is in, like, stage stage three, most people, or a good majority of people, don't actually move past stage three. And the same thing with stage four. Once you get into stage four, it's very easily. It's very easy to get locked into that stage and stay there your whole life.

John Dehlin [00:28:42] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:42] Because you're the true and the enlightened one, and everybody else is weak.

Tom Kimball [00:28:45] Like you said, I'm the enlightened one. I'm the one that gave it all up.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:49] You know, I'm facing the world with courage. I'm not blinking at the abyss, all that stuff. And so you can really fall in love with it now, if I can tell a story on Tom, and you'll know where I'm going in just a second. I brought James Fowler to Sunstone. As soon as I became the first symposium there, we did a workshop. And Tom had just probably, what, about a year or two into your tomb? And you talked to him afterwards, saying, I'm really stuck. I'm in stage four. What can I do to kind of move out of there? Do you want to go ahead and give me your answer? Okay, the answer. This is what Fowler said to Tom.

Tom Kimball [00:29:25] It was really kind of disappointing because I said, okay, you know, Dr. Fowler, I'm a big fan, and, you know, I've Mormonized your theory. I hope you don't mind. He's like, oh, no, no, that's okay. I said, from my perspective, this is stage three, and this is stage four, and this is stage five. But I was using very Mormon terms, and I said, can you, you know, expand on that? He goes, no, you got it. And I was like, oh, no, no, no. You're supposed to expand it, you know. And so in desperation, I said, look, I'm stage four. How do I get to stage five? And he said, you know, something to the effects of, you know, if you're not. If you're not standing in the train tracks, you're not going to get hit by the train. He said, you stopped praying, huh? I was like, well, yeah, kind of

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:18] went, when I gave up God,

Tom Kimball [00:30:22] he said, well, you'll have to start praying again.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:26] You have to start putting yourself in that position to have spiritual experiences again, even though you've deconstructed spirit spirituality as bunk and weakness. And he's just dead on. Right. I just love the fact that you interacted with him and that was the answer.

John Dehlin [00:30:42] So this is a call to the disaffected Mormon to basically pray, read your scriptures, attend the temple, and basically do all the things that we might mock at church saying, oh, those are for the simple minded folk.

Tom Kimball [00:30:59] That's still a trick though.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:01] But the point is there is this way of reading those things in a very non literal, but yet, wow, these are far more profound truths than I ever thought. And that's what the stage five is. And if we're honest with ourselves and if we really get quiet and turn off that voice in our head that, the BS meter, it's all bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If I can cuss on Mormon Stories podcast, if we do that, I bet there's this tug of our spirits that says, you know what, I know that those things are there. And so what we just have to do is we just have to live and be willing to open our hearts to it again

John Dehlin [00:31:45] and just quickly. Stage six Mormon. Do we have an example or is that just too far out?

Tom Kimball [00:31:52] Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:31:52] Okay, Jesus is the stage four Mormon.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:55] Well, I mean, I think there's some Latter Day Saints who've acted against their own best interest, honestly. When Gene England died, Peggy Fletcher said, dan, who do you foresee on the horizon as the next Gene England? Is there someone there? And my answer just off the top of my head is, who would want to be Gene Englund because he was so wonderfully alive with, with the spirit of God. And he would talk to people just knowing that they would just see things as he would see if they just talked long enough. And he was constantly getting kicked in the teeth and things like that. I think in some ways he acted in this very radical way for a Latter Day Saint who really was trying to reflect the will of God.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:44] Now doesn't mean that he's a perfect messenger. I do think he was naive in some ways as far as how that approach would work and that other people have motives that aren't as pure as his. But, you know, at least close up, he felt like a. He felt pretty sixish to you. Well, at least on the cusp of six or whatever it would be. And you know, these whole things, you know, I don't want to ever sound like ranking. And you know, at our best moments, a lot of us probably, wow, I did that purely because it was the right thing to do, you know, and that's at least a hint of six, an echo of it.

Tom Kimball [00:33:23] Dan mentioned a thing about ranking. That's the unfortunate part of the stage theory is the effort isn't to rank people and say this person's ahead of that person and this, that and the other. Even though I've alluded to that myself, the idea is more of an understanding.

Tom Kimball [00:33:43] As I've studied stage theory, it's allowed me to be more empathetic to my faithful, true believing latter day Saint family neighbors. For example, I had a sister in law sent me a very nice letter expressing concern about my doubts and she essentially was bearing her testimony. And I thought about it, you know, and, and I'm not upset at her that she said that I'm actually, she's one of the first persons in my family to actually express even concern.

Tom Kimball [00:34:19] And it allows me to say, okay, these people are in, this is their worldview and I can accept what they're doing within their worldview and it allows me not to be so judgmental or upset at them for being judgmental towards me. Because. Because I realized that when you're in that stage, you will look at me a certain way.

John Dehlin [00:34:42] How do you keep from being condescending though? That sounds so. Oh, I'll have empathy on you because I understand that you're in that other stage.

Tom Kimball [00:34:52] It's not said, it's just felt right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:55] Yeah, if it's coming out of your brain, then you're not there. If it's just as a natural, if you can say that's pretty perfect for where they are or that's the perfect place for them to be and just trust that as needed, they will move on.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:15] I don't know, just that whole idea that the world is right as it is, that's one of the things that I've just learned as I've hung out with church members a lot more. Those who I used to think were just oh non thinking if only they would read a book, then we could have a real conversation.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:32] I've just learned that they're on a journey and I just have to trust that they're on a journey and that at the right moment the spirit will do it. You did a great podcast with roasted tomatoes in Serenity Valley and her story was profound for me to listen to and to just as long as she was paying attention to her own spirituality, wonderful things happen. To her and the people in church who you just don't think have a thought outside the box in their head. I tell you, you have a great conversation with them and you can just tell their journey, and it just feels good to me.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] This has been very good. I have a few lines of questioning I want to take you guys through. Just sort of work with me as I try and test a few thoughts and bounce some things off you. Okay, Wrong.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:36:20] You're wrong. You're wrong.

Iron Rods, Liahonas, and Apologists by Stage

John Dehlin [00:36:21] Okay, so the first, I want to kind of. I know it's not about levels and it's not about stereotyping, but I want to level and stereotype for a minute because I want to try and solidify in the minds of our listeners, you know, what the buckets who the buckets of people are in Mormonism and where they likely fit on a simplistic scale or understanding of these.

John Dehlin [00:36:47] So to begin with, you know, we're not going to talk about one because that's basically babies, right? So stage two, you know, is mostly children. And the one point that I just want to confirm with you guys there is, you know, I have children, right? And sometimes, you know, they're young. I have children anywhere from 2 to 10 years old. And because I've gone through some issues with Mormon studies and trying to work through it all, I have a tendency to want to try and get them out of stage two as quickly as possible. And so I'm trying to introduce complex thoughts, nuanced things, etc. And the sense that I get is that children need to be in stage two.

Tom Kimball [00:37:29] Yeah. You have to remember that each of these stages can't be skipped and they're all healthy. And that's, you know, once again, that helps me understand why, you know, when I see people venting at me from stage three to my lowly stage four, that, you know, I realize that they're in a healthy place and that this is what they do. Where I'm at is a healthy place, and there's hope for further enlightenment and resolution.

John Dehlin [00:38:00] And the message to those of us with children is, you know, children's brains aren't developed yet to be able to understand and deal with nuance. Maybe the best thing a child can have is just to know that things are simple, things are safe, things are happy, and that that's the best nurturing environment for a child to develop fully. Is that a pretty safe thing to say?

Tom Kimball [00:38:21] Yeah. And you also know that your children are going to eventually move into a stage three regardless. It's within your tradition. Or without, they're going to have something that they're going to be stage three at. And, you know, this has sort of helped me to feel that, well, that it's okay if my son becomes a stage three Mormon and he turns to me and says, dad, I'm going to go to byu. Well, it's disappointing.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:49] It's going to be.

Tom Kimball [00:38:51] But if that's the worst case scenario for my son, gee whiz, that's not bad.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:56] The one point about stage two to stage three, it is important for them to have stories. So please let them go to Sunday school. Please let them. Here are the stories. You certainly may want to say, well, that was a weird interpretation your teacher gave on that story. But you want them to have the story because the transition to stage three, remember, is to develop that unifying, overarching story. And when you try to put a bad interpretation of this story up against that story, up against that story, they're naturally going to kind of get a way that they kind of come together in a coherent and hopefully a little bit healthier way than even just the really ridiculous, you know, translation you heard from, from Sunday school.

John Dehlin [00:39:36] Okay, so, so that's stage two. The thing I wanted to ask about stage three is, you know, for those who have read Richard Paul's or Richard Pol's article on Iron Rod versus Liahona, it's pretty safe to say that an Iron Rod Mormon fits in stage three. You guys cool with that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:39:54] Nope, I'm not heading where you're headed. I have a feeling you're gonna say Liahonas are four. Where? I don't think that.

John Dehlin [00:40:02] Well, stick with the iron rod with me first. Are Iron Rod Mormons Stage 3?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:09] I look at Iron Rod vs. Liahona a little bit more like near natural temperament. Am I sort of an orderly, rule driven person who likes my world tidy, or am I comfortable with a compass that's pointing me in the general direction and I'm ready to go adventuring? So I would say you're right. There's a three, probably a temperamental person who's more of a type A personality, who's more of an iron rod personality would more likely stay in stage three than an iron rodder, but I mean, than a Liahona, but I wouldn't make Iron Rod a hard and fast stage three. And Liahona.

John Dehlin [00:40:46] Okay, okay, that's fine. I just seen how you, I just

Tom Kimball [00:40:48] test you, you know, the stage stuff, you kind of, if you look at it more like a ladder, you know, sometimes I feel like Right now I feel like my foot's just coming out of three. Most of me isn't. Four. Most of me is agnostic. I've upgraded myself from atheist.

John Dehlin [00:41:06] Okay.

Tom Kimball [00:41:07] But I have a fist in stage five.

John Dehlin [00:41:09] Okay.

Tom Kimball [00:41:10] You know, and so maybe what you're referring to is different nuances along the glomming along the thing and the potential for the person to move along.

John Dehlin [00:41:19] Because the next thing I was going to ask is think of your average apologist with fair or with farms, would they fit in? But you're making, you're making it be early 4. And I'm stereotyping here on.

Tom Kimball [00:41:30] You're making a stereotype and I'm doing it on purpose.

John Dehlin [00:41:34] Well, yeah, but, but I just want to try and leave within people's minds some anchors as, as to where people. You guys are.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:44] What a minefield here you're asking us to go into. Because again, remember, we're only talking about faith development, Harry. There's intellectual development, there's moral development, there's athletic and how, you know, you use your body development. There's all these different lines of development and certainly these. We're not saying that somebody in stage four is smarter than somebody in stage four. I'm not asking that or anything like that. Apologists and people value the intellect. They do things. But you're right, there may be this moment where they haven't 100% considered the question. Maybe it isn't true.

Tom Kimball [00:42:19] Well, they haven't allowed themselves to say, is it. Is there this possibility that it's not what? It's not orthodox, it's not the tradition.

John Dehlin [00:42:30] So I'm trying to say, for example, can an apologist fit in any one bucket? What you guys are saying is an apologist can be a stage three or a stage four or even a stage five.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:40] Well, again, I consider myself an apologist for the church in many ways. Even though I think I'm not doing it deductively, I'm doing it more inductively. In other words, I'm not starting with the truths and saying these are the hundred percent yeses. And therefore I deduct, deduce, deduce, deduce to the conclusions. Instead, I'm saying, wow, here's this factors that factors this space, spiritual experience here is this. It all adds up to a pretty neat world. So I'm kind of putting it together. You know, I would, I would say there are apologists who put things together from the bottom up instead of the top down. And I guess that would be more of a stage five kind of Apologist versus.

John Dehlin [00:43:22] Okay, so they can't span stages. That's cool.

Tom Kimball [00:43:25] When I was an apologist, I felt like I was stage three.

John Dehlin [00:43:28] Okay, so let me ask of a flip to that. And the average anti Mormon that you would see up on exmormon.org or you know, any ex Mormon, someone who's really angry, really critical, really cynical, clearly they can't be.

Tom Kimball [00:43:47] This could be their stage three.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:52] You know, most likely they crashed and burned out of a stage three and are in an early stage four sort of oh my, these guys know that they're lying to us kind of perspective.

Tom Kimball [00:44:07] Yeah, it depends on the individual. You know, it's even hard to self deduce. But you know, stage three is when you have your orthodox belief conformity, the thing you're conforming to. And who's to say when that is for any individual?

John Dehlin [00:44:27] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:28] Somebody could have been raised by anti Mormon parents.

Tom Kimball [00:44:31] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:31] And those are the authority figures in their life. So therefore it's a stage three anti Mormonism versus somebody who was fully immersed in Mormonism, they were swimming in the Mormon lake or fishbowl and then got out of it. Then you're right. It's probably more of a stage four in that perspective.

John Dehlin [00:44:49] Okay. Okay, cool.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:51] So you've really made us nervous with all these last little.

John Dehlin [00:44:53] All right, well, you know, I think these are some questions that people will think about. So. So the message I'm hearing from you is if you're going to be even aspire to a stage five, you have no purpose labeling people and putting them into various stages. Is that true?

Tom Kimball [00:45:08] No, I think, I think what I'm trying to say is that, is that stage four is where this matters. Because if you're in stage five, stage three in a way doesn't really matter anymore because you're really moving along stage three, you don't care because you're happy, you're within your tradition and so forth. It's in stage four when you're crashing and burning and it's all kind of unwinding and it's unscrewing. That's when this matters. At least that's when it did for me.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:40] You're asking questions from a stage four perspective.

John Dehlin [00:45:43] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:43] You know, rather than a five in some ways. Not that you're as. Yeah, you know, I'm not making a claim about you, but I'm saying those questions kind of come out of a stage four world.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] Okay, that's cool. So I'm clearly stage four, That's. No, no, I'm kidding. I'M kidding. I'm kidding. That's a joke. Okay, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna put you guys even more on the spot and make you squirm. Don't wimp out on me.

Does the Church Encourage Growth Beyond Stage Three

John Dehlin [00:46:08] So if I were to mention. Think about the church administration, the church leadership, all right, not so much spiritually, but just organizationally. If I were to mention terms like correlation, like orthodoxy, think about the way the church. If I were to, say, September 6th, if I were to say warnings against symposia, where do you think the church, if you can even label the church generally, where do you think they want people to be? Where do you think they encourage people to be? You know, is it as easy to say simply that the church wants everyone to stay in stage three forever, never go to stage four or beyond, and anyone who's tried to go to four or five has been slapped down and excommunicated?

Tom Kimball [00:47:03] That's a really great question. You know, Ken Wilber talks about that a community will have a center of gravity and the center of gravity for we're talking specifically faith. There are other center of gravities that your community will have, faith and morality and, you know, the ability to get an education and so on and so forth. Whatever the center of gravity of your tradition or your community is, the individual sort of gets a free ride to that point of center of gravity. But if the individual wants to move, move beyond or transcend that center of gravity, the community will try to yank them back and try to pull them down. And I think that's sort of where the question that you're asking, I think this relates specifically to that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:58] Yeah. Fowler has the term modal development, the average modal developmental level that a community has. And he says pretty much every church is right at stage three. And if you think about it, it's not in terms of the individuals don't have a glimpse of the greater spirituality. Because every tradition teaches. I mean, Jesus message is a radical Stage 6 message, and that's the highest ideals. But the lived life level and the average level in which you run an organization, you can't have a bunch of people who are acting like Jesus. And so a lot of things like correlation that you mentioned and all that come out of the desire to administer the church more effectively and to be ministers. I don't think it comes out necessarily out of stage three, people. It's just the nature of all organizations would want to be. To be conservative and to cater to the middle, the critical mass.

Tom Kimball [00:48:57] I'm kind of going to try Something on for size. But, you know, I look at my tradition, my Mormonism that I came from as a stage three center of gravity. And I've felt that over the years as I've attended Sunstone, that sunstone is maybe something else, and I'd hate to label it 4 or whatever, but maybe the discussion is at a 5, but the listeners are at a 4. Is that fair?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:49:28] Sure. Again, one of the phrases I like is, do you value spiritual journeys? In other words, do you trust people that they're on a journey and that it's a good journey, and that if they're acting out of their best heart and it's not out of a desire to sin or to deceive or something like that, do you trust that journey, even if that means that sometimes that journey is going to meander and stuff like that? Again, Serenity Valley and Roasted Tomatoes was a terrific example of wandering far and wide and stuff like that. And yet the spirit is ultimately going to bring you to a place of peace and goodness. I don't know where I'm headed with that, but it was.

Tom Kimball [00:50:18] Well, you know, it's interesting because I look at people that. I've been going to Sunstone since about 1990, and I found the people that introduced me to it early on, they no longer attend. And I don't think it's because they're upset with Sunstone. I just think that they've kind of. It was a. It was a. It was a oasis for them during their stage four, during their doubts. And once they spent their time there, they moved on. And, you know, I keep wanting to drag those guys back in.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:53] Well, I try to have them come and speak. Speak. Because they're modeling, again, to me, a mature spirituality that, you know, we can all benefit from. Just meeting.

John Dehlin [00:51:02] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:51:09] The depth of your dreams, the height of your wishes.

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 17

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:09] The depth of your dreams.

John Dehlin [00:00:13] So, so if the church, if the church organizationally, you know, for its own health and its own human reasons, needs to nurture the level three, and that's what it feels is best, that's what it needs to do to stay healthy. A couple things come to mind. What is the role of a stage 4 or 5 person? Are they unhealthy? Are they an enemy to the church from the sense that they're disruptive? And then how can a stage four or five person find peace if they're sort of viewed as a germ or a bacteria that, that is unhealthy to the organization?

Tom Kimball [00:00:57] Well, maybe I could tell my story now. Okay. I think I have a story that maybe will help illustrate this. You know, this in 2005. Well, first of all, I consider myself an active Latter Day Saint. I attend, you know, very regularly and I'm in the Boy Scout program. I'm the 11 year old leader, one of the 11 year old leaders. And this year my 8 year old son, well, my son turned 8 and my other boy turned 12.

Tom Kimball [00:01:37] And so for a father within Mormonism, that's an important time to step up and to have what I feel is a very special bonding experience with your child. And as the time came close for my youngest son to be baptized, the bishop sort of caught me in the hallway and he's a great guy and he drug me into the office and said, hey, I want you to get a temple recommend. I see that it's lapsed. And I was trying to explain very nicely that I didn't really want a temple recommend at this time. And you know, no offense and it's not cheating on my wife or anything.

Tom Kimball [00:02:22] I'm just at this period where I really would like to bow out at the moment. And he said, well, why? And I was like, I don't really want to get into it, but it's not about sin. I have some doubts and I just want to kind of leave it at that.

Tom Kimball [00:02:40] And then he sort of said, well, if you have doubts, the reason for me bringing you in here was about baptizing your son. And you know, there may be doubts that this issue of doubt may prevent you from performing that ordinance. And started talking to me in terms of trying to find a father in law or this, that and the other. And I sort of wasn't very happy about that. You know, I consider myself an active, worthy priesthood holder. And you know, I didn't want anybody else to do it. And so I went home and we sort of set up an appointment to come back and visit him.

Tom Kimball [00:03:20] And I was talking to my wife, and she spoke to her dad, and her dad said something. He said, you know, Tom, you should go fight. You know, if you want to do this, you should go fight for it.

Tom Kimball [00:03:34] So I did. I set some ground rules for my interaction with. With my leaders. And the ground rules were that my wife would always be there because I felt that my doubts and these decisions impacted us as a family and very specifically as a marriage.

Tom Kimball [00:04:00] And so the first meeting that we met with the bishop, he wanted me to tell him what my doubts were. And. I had spoken with Dan, and he had had a little bit of a similar experience. And I realized that probably the mistake, the place not to go to, was to say, to unleash a laundry list of all the things I thought was wrong with the church. I think that was the wrong way to go.

Tom Kimball [00:04:38] So I said, look, I don't think that you will have the answer. That's probably not the right thing. I said, I probably said something along the lines of, I don't feel that there are answers to the questions that I have.

Tom Kimball [00:04:55] And I told him I felt that in time that those things would sort of work themselves out. But I. I still wanted to baptize my son, and I felt this is an important bonding experience between the two of us, and no one else was going to baptize my son. This is something I was going to do or it would not happen.

Tom Kimball [00:05:16] And he said, okay, and that was the end of it. And several months went by and nothing was happening. And so I approached him and said, look, you know, we need to resolve this, because I'm sitting here waiting, and I'm kind of nervous, and my little boy really wanted to be baptized. And, you know, he had moved past his time, and I had a lot of concerns about the way that it was being perceived in the neighborhood and so forth. The unspoken.

Tom Kimball [00:05:52] I said, we need to resolve this. And so we went back in, and he insisted, once again, that I give him a reason or a doubt. And so I felt this was a mistake, but I gave him one, and he agreed with me initially. It was interesting.

John Dehlin [00:06:13] So he shared your doubt.

Tom Kimball [00:06:14] I shared a doubt.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] He shared your doubt.

Tom Kimball [00:06:16] He shared that doubt. Well, he agreed with the complexity of it and that it was a problem. So. But he said, you know, we'll eventually. He just said, let's maybe we should kick this up to the next level. Maybe we should talk to the stake president.

Tom Kimball [00:06:36] So I was very concerned about that. I didn't know how that would go. Come to find out, the stake president teaches at the elementary school, and he's one of my kids teaching teachers, and the stake president knows my children.

Tom Kimball [00:06:52] And that was, I felt, very important here. Okay? And so, once again, I insisted that my wife be there. And the same thing. He wanted me to, you know, tell him what was wrong with the church. And I felt that I communicated poorly. I wasn't ready for this conversation, and I don't know if I had the right words that I wanted to say. And it. It just didn't necessarily come out well. And I'm not necessarily a great communicator and certainly wasn't prepared for all of this.

Tom Kimball [00:07:24] And I'm sure that I expressed things to him in an angry way that I didn't really feel. It was just kind of anger of the situation. So he wanted us to come back. So we came back, and the interesting thing is that he said the prayer, and this time he insisted that I speak with him alone. And I really didn't feel comfortable with that. But he put his foot down and I finally said, okay.

Tom Kimball [00:07:59] And first thing out of his mouth was, you know, have you cheated on your wife? And then after that, it was, you know, he. He asked me very sexually explicit questions that I felt were inappropriate. And I wanted my wife back in here.

Tom Kimball [00:08:21] And then once we got her back in here, it boiled down to my belief in priesthood. Whether or not if I put my hands on my son, if there was a power that actually came through me to my son, and actually something happened, happened. And, you know, I told them that I had serious doubts that that was the case. But I hoped that there was something at the heart of the priesthood that made this valid and an important event.

Tom Kimball [00:08:55] And I don't know, you know, if that was kicked down or how that went. But clearly I'm expressing. I was expressing the fact that I had serious doubts about all of it, everything, including God. But I was trying to also express that I had hope.

Tom Kimball [00:09:15] I had some hope that there was something here that was meaningful. And I also expressed the concern that, gee, if I was just hanging out in the bars, wouldn't he go to the bar and kind of drag me out and try. Try and clean me up for a few weeks and have me perform this ordinance? I would think that he would do that. And yet I'm in church. I'm here, I'm active, and I'm participating, and I'm a priesthood holder and I'm worthy.

Tom Kimball [00:09:51] So I don't know how that would happen. But Once again, this is a good man, a man who loves my kids. And it was very clear that that was the case. And I could tell from the way that he spoke about my children that he cared about them and he felt that he cared about us as well.

Tom Kimball [00:10:09] So he gets kicked back down to the bishop. And by this time, it's about six months into this, and we come in and the bishop has blocked an hour for my wife and I to discuss this. And for the first time in any of this narrative, he asked me to say the prayer.

Tom Kimball [00:10:36] And had I had this whole thing to do over again, I would have insisted on praying at each of these meetings. You know, I would have been the one saying the words, because this was about me and my faith and my doubts.

Tom Kimball [00:10:54] And so I said in my prayer, and I feel that when you pray, especially when you pray out loud, it's an opportunity for you not to have a conversation, but to bear your soul and to bear the things that are the most important to you. And I wasn't trying to manipulate the bishop.

Tom Kimball [00:11:14] The things that I said is I thank God for my doubts because I felt that my doubts make me a better person and have made me a better person. And I asked God to bless my leaders because I felt that they were good men and that God would bless my family. And most importantly, that regardless of whatever the decision was made, that I would feel comfortable with the decision.

Tom Kimball [00:11:43] And when I was done, my bishop was in tears, and he said that he had had a revelation and that it would be a disservice to me and my family not to allow me to perform these ordinances. And so, you know, the interesting thing about this is my biggest complaints about my doubts where the issues of when you're in your community and they know that you're a doubter, you kind of get ostracized. You don't let. I mean, I haven't been asked to speak in my ward since the first year I was there. I've been there for seven years. I haven't been asked to pray in a very, very long time.

Tom Kimball [00:12:29] It is interesting, though, in Sunday school, they say, do we have a volunteer? And it's like, okay, someone other than Tom, right? There's the only chance I get to pray in church, you know, and, you know, they're certainly not going to let me teach. And, you know, and, you know, there's this idea that here's my son. The teachers know clearly that he's eight and a half years old, he hasn't been baptized.

Tom Kimball [00:12:56] And I didn't think it was very nice to not let me do it in the sense that people around me would think that something else was going on, that maybe I was being unfaithful to my wife or. Or other things. Why is it that Tom's not being allowed to do these things?

Tom Kimball [00:13:13] And that's a problem as well. So, anyways, the interesting thing is once all this sort of happened and I gave a Sunstone presentation, I kind of mentioned some of these same things. It was interesting. The next week, the Elders Quorum president walks up to me and says, you know, Tom, I. I know you have a lot of doubts and this, that, and the other, but if you'll feel, just go. But, you know, I love your comments in church and you always try to contribute positively. If you'll go through the manual, pick a couple lessons, I'll let you teach it.

John Dehlin [00:13:48] Oh, wow.

Tom Kimball [00:13:49] And it's like synchronicity, you know, I complain and I get resolution. And a few weeks later, the bishop calls up and says, hey, really like you and Paige to. To say the opening closing prayer in sacramenting. Wow. You know.

John Dehlin [00:14:10] Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:14:11] You know, and maybe it's just me. I have a tendency to sort of reach out a bit and impose myself in my ward and I try to do service and, you know, I brought a bunch of the guys together to help cut a tree down and do this, that and the other. And I think over the past seven years, the ward has sort of begin to trust me. You know, I'm the evil, the bad guy they know that they like, I guess. I don't know.

Tom Kimball [00:14:46] And I've learned to love them, and I think they've started to learn to trust me. And I'm suddenly finding myself kind of happy at church. I find myself, you know, all the things that I have doubts about, they're all still there. And the things that I feel are absolutely untrue are still untrue.

Tom Kimball [00:15:17] But I can. Well, maybe one more quick example. A few weeks back, I actually walked out of church for the first time in the middle of a lesson. And as the lesson was being given, there was clearly an ideology that I don't believe in anymore.

Tom Kimball [00:15:41] An intolerance was being discussed. Homophobic intolerance was being discussed. And the person that was giving the lesson is a friend of mine. And I really like her, and she's very cool. And I wasn't mad at her. I was just mad at what was being said.

Tom Kimball [00:16:03] And I couldn't be there. I either had to say something and wreck all the goodwill I've built up over the past six months or six years or whatever, or I needed the walk, and so I walked instead of.

Tom Kimball [00:16:16] So. But, you know, maybe that's my glimpse into stage five, you know, that I'm not upset at the person. I'm just. I just the idea. I just can't. I just can't allow. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] Well, thanks. I can speak on behalf of our listeners and say thanks for sharing that story. I think it gives. It will offer a lot of people hope that after facing the dark night of the soul and after having things unravel and after staring squarely in the eyes of atheism and meaninglessness, that there's a way to start building things back together again and piecing things together.

Tom Kimball [00:17:01] Well, the interesting thing is that my wife's going, you know, she's at a different, you know, we're going at this completely different directions, and she's, you know, finding herself being very unhappy at church. And it's not, once again, it's not the people. It's just. She's not. She's ready. She's ready to walk. And yet I'm the one that's. That's sort of happy at the moment. And yet all those years I was unhappy and she was happy. We're doing this little swap thing. It's kind of interesting. And who knows where it'll be in five years, But I have a lot of hope. I have hope that one way or another, we'll find peace with regards to it.

John Dehlin [00:17:41] Well, thanks, Tom, for sharing that with us. Dan, let's turn to you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you've passed through these phases and where you are now.

Dan Wotherspoon's Personal Faith Journey

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:57] Wow. I don't know about telling you the whole journey of it all, but certainly my stage four really began in grad school as we talked about. And I would say it was lasting at least 10, 12 years before I was feeling good about maybe that the world would make sense again, that I could have a spiritual life that felt coherent, that matched the deep desires of my heart, and that I could sort of pull all this together within Mormonism. But I have a story similar to Tom's about the moment when it came time to ordain my son as a deacon. That illustrates one point that I think Tom's story talks about.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:50] But maybe if I tell my little tale there, we can lift up and talk about it in an interesting way. Shortly after. This is. I guess he's 18. So six years ago, when my wife and I were new in our ward, the bishop came to chat with me and offered me a calling. And it was fresh on the heels from my wife telling me that she had had a discussion with him about me and that I was sort of a non traditional Mormon. He would see me at church every time. But somehow she, it came up in a conversation. So she told me she just had this conversation with the bishop.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:32] And so when he offered me this calling, I kind of said, well, sure, that feels good and everything, but Laurie told me that she had this conversation with you and I'm kind of surprised that you're offering me a calling. And that was a foolish thing for me to do because the next thing he says, well, why would it be foolish to offer you a calling? And I go, well, you know, I don't really believe everything in Mormonism the way the average Latter Day Saint does. And so the next thing you know, we're on this conversation of basically everything that I don't believe.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:04] Instead of me trying to always phrase things in terms of, well, I believe it, but I believe it in this way and I spin it this way. And, and you know, and when you look at it from this perspective, yes, I believe it, but I don't believe it literally. And instead of kind of posing it positively, it ended up being just like a half hour discussion with the bishop's jaw draw dropping, open as nope, I don't believe that either. Nope, I don't believe that either. And I was just absolutely explaining my stage four faith in the wrong way in terms of negative propositions. So at the end of the conversation he goes, well, maybe I ought to rethink offering you this calling.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:46] Let me get back to you. The next thing I knew, we probably didn't talk for six months. He kept seeing me at church and I never really brought it up. He never really brought it up. And then I guess it was actually nine months later because I sort of remember that happening. In December, my son turned 12 and the matter of, of him being ordained to the priesthood came up.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:16] And I had been committed all along to wanting to do that whatever my doubts were as to far like Tom, Tom said whether there's any real power in the priesthood. I knew that I loved my son. I knew that the church was good.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:35] I wanted him to have the opportunities to serve in the priesthood the way I had. I felt blessed by my upbringing in the church and I had all these positive reasons for wanting him to follow in those paths. And I certainly, it would have been neat to have him have my priesthood line of Authority, whatever that meant.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:56] And so the bishop basically posed to me the question as it came up to who would ordain my son? Well, have your beliefs changed since the last time we talked those nine months ago or so? And I said, I'm not sure what you mean. And so just the way he posed the questions, I wasn't smart enough to really catch on that I really should just not be fully forthcoming and that I really should always try to answer the questions as positively as I could.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:28] Anyway, long and short of it was he didn't feel good about me being able to ordain my son. I lived with that idea for a few days. Seemed like this was probably a couple of weeks before the Sunday when my son would be officially 12 and wanting to do it.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:49] And I ended up writing him a letter and I explained to him all the reasons that I felt worthy to do it and that these are just questions and things of mine that are in flux. And he said that he would pray about was actually the morning that everything was scheduled for my son to be ordained, that he called me and said that he had made it a matter of a lot of prayer and that he didn't feel that somebody who couldn't.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:20] In particular, the one that he mentioned was that I wasn't 100% sure that Jesus was the Christ and that that through Jesus was the only way to be saved. He didn't feel like somebody who didn't have that powerful testimony of the atonement should be able to perform this ordinance.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:39] So my wife and I were quite upset, but it was the morning of and we kept that upset to ourselves and we had alerted our son that it would probably admit that was a possibility. And he didn't care. He just wanted to be ordained.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:56] So anyway, during that sacrament meeting where I knew that he was going to be ordained afterwards, a peaceful feeling came over me and I determined to let the ordinance go ahead. And it turned out to be a really cool experience.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:14] A bunch of neat men in the ward had been his young men leader. My son is this outgoing hunting and fishing. In fact, Tom had taken him deer hunting a few times. And there were a lot of guys in the ward who sort of adopted Alex as just this sort of neat kid. And quite a few of them came to this room down the hall from the bishop's office for his ordination. And as the ordination took place, I sat there with my wife and she was pretty upset about this whole thing like tomorrow mentioned her. Big thing was she had been primary president before and she had seen how many of these guys that they would pull out of the bars and clean them up for a few weeks and give them that opportunity to have that bonding experience of performing the ordinance for their child.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:59] And here, you know, I, who I was fighting for my testimony with every breath, you know, couldn't do that. But anyway, as the ordinance went on, it was great. And as everybody stood up and started shaking his hand, I just felt it was a good opportunity to speak and to let everyone know before they left the room that I loved my boy and the only reason that I disagreed with the bishop's decision to not allow me to ordain him, but that I didn't want anyone there to think that there was anything amiss in my life that caused it, but only that the gospel and my relationship with the church was complicated at that moment, and that I was fighting and that I was wrestling, and I was able to express that, you know, you only wrestle and fight with something because you care about it, that it's meaningful.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:25:55] Otherwise, you wouldn't. You would just give up and not do it. And that I was grateful for the role that each of those men were playing in my son's life, that they were good men, they were good examples and was grateful for their friendship.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:09] And, you know, my son, I don't know how much it meant to him, but my wife's bawling and the spirit's really strong in the room, and it turned out to be what I thought was a great experience of being able to participate without participating and kind of clearly let my son know at that moment that my heart was with him, that. That I was hoping to do that

John Dehlin [00:26:32] and

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:35] that it wasn't any question other than just that things were more complicated for me at that moment.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] Right. And a year or two down the road.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:45] Yeah. When it came time to have him be a teacher, I'd kind of grown up, and I'd learned to bear more positive testimony. I'd learned to speak from what I shared in common with other ward members. And so I believe it was actually a new bishop by that time. But, you know, by this time, my faith and things were growing in my sort of sense. So I never had any problems with the rest of his ordinations through his years. He's now 18, and I can hear

John Dehlin [00:27:12] a cynic saying, oh, so you learned to lie?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:14] Basically, not at all.

John Dehlin [00:27:15] So what would your response be?

Tom Kimball [00:27:17] No, you know, that's something I think is really important. You know, I have this conversation about what happened to me with. With my buddies, and they turn to me. And they say, well, you know, Tom, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna tell my bishop my doubts. I'm just gonna lie.

Tom Kimball [00:27:36] And that kind of breaks my heart. I feel it's sad that these guys feel that it's not worth the hassle to go through sort of what I went through in order to be allowed to baptize their kids. But on the same token, I also felt that I had to approach this in a very mature way.

Tom Kimball [00:28:04] And maybe a lot of the maturity issues and the problems with it had to do with my immaturity. But also the way to make the way that I felt that I made it work was sort of by kind of biting the bullet and trying to be as mature as I possibly could with these men who were really trying to do the best they could with the data. It's not their fault that I moved into their ward, you know.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:34] Yeah. And I really believe that my bishop did pray and that he was acting for what he thought was best. I think, you know, it wasn't the right answer, and I declared that. But, no, I don't sense that any shifts that happened with me over the next few years were ever any kind of calculated thing. It was just a growing to where if you were to have the scale of doubt versus hope or faith or whatever you'd want to call it, that slowly but surely my hopefulness became slightly more important for me to express than my doubts.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:14] The whole thing. To me, both Tom's and my stories, they just illustrate the problem of language and this ability to talk from one worldview to another. Ken Wilber, who's another stage theorist, talks about. He says it's not just that the world looks or seems different to people who are in different stages. He says it is different.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:36] It. It's like. I don't know, the great story is like the Giver, where everything's in black and white, and then all of a sudden, one person begins to seem color or Pleasantville, the movie or something like that. The world turns when you're in from one stage to another. It's actually like you're living in a different world. And it's so very difficult to speak across those boundaries. Plato's great analogy of the kids cave in the Republic is that we're all sort of living in this world where reality for us is shadows.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:13] A person unshackles from this. They journey out of the cave. And at first, as they go out into the sunlight, everything's disoriented because their eyes have to adjust to the light. And then as their eyes adjust to the light, they realize that this is a richer world. But then they go back and say, like Lehi, I want to share the tree of life with my children. The natural reaction. But then, like Tom was saying to the people who were still living in the world of shadows, this person was talking nonsense, or this person couldn't be talking something higher because now that he's seen the light, it's hard for him to even recognize the shadows anymore.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:00] And so, oh, you, who could manipulate you, who lived in our world and were so well thought of, now look at you. And they don't realize it's just his eyes can't adjust to the dark. Boy, I'm really getting in trouble here. But the point is, it's hard to convey to them that you're in some better. We had a great piece in Sunstone just this last issue, that November issue by Stephen Carter, and in fact, it's on the Sunstone lit podcast, and it's Winter, Winter Light, and it's this. He's talking about sharing his testimony with his mother, and she wants the conventional language. And he lives in Alaska.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:42] And the analogy he uses as is she wants to talk about the sun. But I've seen and experienced the aurora borealis, you know, and it's this idea of, you know. You know, we love each other, but it's difficult for her to understand me especially.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:01] But my love for her is the same. So these stories, really. It's a difficult thing. But it's. I don't know, Tom. It is something that. At least for me, it's not like in my head, I've learned to feel more comfortable with that language barrier. It's just been more of a. Something in my heart opening up.

Tom Kimball [00:32:23] I. I think that for me, it. You know, like, the experience that I had with my bishop and my stake president was a. Was a very important experience to go through for both of you.

John Dehlin [00:32:35] For both of you.

Tom Kimball [00:32:36] And. And I'm a new person. I feel like I'm a new person coming out the other end. And it was a positive, even though there was a lot of negative involved in it. I think my leaders grew. I think I grew, and I wouldn't change that. And I feel bad for some of my buddies who say that, you know, they're afraid to even have that conversation. They feel like they'll just have to just tell the bishop what he wants to hear rather than, you know, trying to express to the bishop. I have great hope. I have a lot of doubts, but I still want to be able to do these things, and I'm comfortable with this, that, and the other. I wasn't comfortable with going to the temple, but I am comfortable with ordaining and baptizing my children.

John Dehlin [00:33:24] Right. Oh, go ahead. Oh.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:26] I'm saying one of the positive ways of framing my testimony for me now is not so much in the typical I know the church is true language, but there's probably two ways I phrase it the most. I know that the church is good.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:41] Another way I'll phrase it is I know that church is my home. And then the one that's sort of emerging is, I know or I believe that God has called me to do my growing and my journeying with this group and among these people. So, again, it's kind of that scandal of particularity, the scandal of particular we talked about earlier.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:09] It's that feeling at home in the fact that I'm in a church that began in upstate New York 176 years ago, and yet it's claiming to be the one and only true church, and it's claiming its prophet is really the prophet for the whole world. I'm all of a sudden more comfortable with the fact that, yeah, our church can claim some universal truths for it, even though it's in this very particular thing.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:36] My testimony, at least lately, is that I'm called to be in this church, whether it's the one and only true church or not. So I don't know if that's related, but that certainly helped me.

Tom Kimball [00:34:52] Like I said, I've found myself to be comfortable in my ward and. But I also find, like, when I'm sitting in elders quorum, you know, I finally feel like I've opened up enough to the guys. They have a sense of where I'm kind of coming from.

Tom Kimball [00:35:12] But I still feel like I need to contribute positively, even though I don't always and quite often disagree with what's going on within the lesson. I don't know how you deal with it, Dan. I'd be curious to hear, but I find that I kind of have to pick my battles.

Tom Kimball [00:35:31] And if I hear, like, for example, the other day someone had talked about honesty, and I threw a negative out and I said, you know, the Mormon Book trade. I got into this business because this was something that was kind of sacred to me, and it was something that was important to me. And I. There was something beautiful in my life. And yet I was surprised that when I got into it that there was a lot of bad people in the Mormon book trade. I mean, just bad people.

Tom Kimball [00:36:01] And I just kind of spit that out. Well, someone else threw out something else kind of negative. And I thought, oh, I didn't want to be the beginner of something negative. So I try to say, hey, you know, but, you know, I've lost my wallet in several different countries and, you know, Salt Lake is the only place I've ever had it returned with the cash, let alone with the cash still in it. You know, try to find opportunities to say something positive so that when there is something that I think is important, that is more cultural or is more divisive, I can contribute what I think is from them a negative, but what I think is a positive.

Tom Kimball [00:36:43] And they're not just saying, oh, that's Tom. He's always, you know, griping about this, griping about that. And then I sort of feel like I need six more months of getting my positive back up so I can say this one critical little thing.

John Dehlin [00:36:56] Right?

Tom Kimball [00:36:57] Yeah, I don't know.

Why Remain in the Mormon Church

John Dehlin [00:36:59] Okay, let me hear. Let me ask a question on behalf of our listeners, especially the skeptical ones. I can think of some ex Mormon friends or some really alienated, disaffected Mormons who are saying, why bother? Why bother? I mean, you guys, you guys were atheists. Maybe you've become agnostic or believing in a really new age kind of God. You've passed through this journey. You're going to experience all sorts of cognitive dissonance and frustration going back to church and trying to reassimilate, trying to build up nine months of positive comments so you can feel free. Free to say a negative thing or an honest critical thing. You know, what would your message be to those people? To say, yes, it's worth it.

Tom Kimball [00:37:51] Well, you know, what's in it?

John Dehlin [00:37:53] What's in it for you? Why are you still in several things.

Tom Kimball [00:37:57] One, Mormonism is my tribe. You know, this is. I had honest and sincere positive experiences in my youth that I wouldn't mind passing on to my kids. There is some things that are wrong that are messed up, but I can't help fix those things on the outside. I can't. You know, if I walk away, then, you know, my kids are still going to be there because my wife's probably going to take them. Or there's the potential of that. Why not gently soldier on within my tradition? The thing that I know, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:38:40] Dan.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:41] Well, it seems to me my initial thought when hearing your question is it's a question that comes out of heads, whereas my answer comes from heart, from spirit, from a Feeling from just a piece that it is worth it. And so to try to say, oh, it's all about if you want change, you have to change from within. As if my decision to stay within Mormonism is now to affect change. It's not that. It's this sense of peace. I mean, again, like I say, when I'm stressed out, I can get sarcastic and dismissive of the church and start thinking evil and bad at it. But when I'm my best self, I feel at home there. And I can't tell you why it's worth it because it's not a head

John Dehlin [00:39:44] answer, it's a hard answer.

Tom Kimball [00:39:46] I feel like a missionary in a small way. I mean, my neighbors have to put up with me. You know, they might, the elders quorum, they have to have me sitting there and they, they probably have a sense of what I'm thinking when they're saying things and it makes them kind of think twice before they just say stuff because, you know, especially if it's an anti woman stuff or a misogynist statement, you know, I've said more than once, hey man, if my wife was here, she'd have your lunch, you know, because what you're saying is wrong. Just my presence affects stuff for what I think is the better.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:27] Yeah, there's sort of an informal calling, quote unquote calling that sort of comes when you have reached the point where they like you anyway. And all of a sudden you're kind of the guy who, even if you don't speak up in class or because there's this sort of pressure to give the orthodox answer for everybody, either if you didn't speak up in class or they didn't speak up in class. You'll get the phone call an hour after church saying what did you really think about how that went? And it's because this sort of openness

John Dehlin [00:41:04] about

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:06] our testimonies being ones of hope and faith rather than knowledge and all is perfect and right, that gives them, they feel like they have space to ask you that question.

Tom Kimball [00:41:20] I hope I'm blazing a trail for the next guy that comes along. And maybe that next guy is my kid or a nephew or a grandson or something like that. I feel like I'm, by being here within my tradition, that I'm somehow making it a softer landing for the next guy. And it's interesting too because like there's two ex Mormon families in my neighborhood and I'm kind of the bridge. Or my wife and I, more my wife are sort of the bridge for those guys to the rest of the neighborhood.

John Dehlin [00:41:53] Right. So this sort of takes me to my final question then. It's pretty clear through both of your stories and through the stories I've heard that people are in stage three. They're excited, they're happy, they're motivated, and then they bump up to a person or some literature or some experiences that are in stage four or five that jar them out of stage three and take them into this dark night where hopefully at the other end, they're going to reach this. This level five or this stage five that we all agree is very hard to arrive at. So can you guys give me any sense of certainty or of confidence or assurance that level three is worth leaving and that it's a journey worth having, that staying in that cocoon isn't actually the best of all states because you eliminate the risk, you eliminate the pain.

Is the Journey from Stage Three to Five Worth It

John Dehlin [00:42:59] It's simpler. Can you give any of our listeners an assurance that that journey from three to five, or at least the attempt to make that journey, is a journey worth embarking on?

Tom Kimball [00:43:11] The only thing I can offer is, personally, when I was in stage three, I was a homophobic and I was a racist.

John Dehlin [00:43:20] Literally. Or are you just being dramatic?

Tom Kimball [00:43:23] And there are things that were not good about myself that I feel were. I wouldn't trade where I'm at now for anything. And I wouldn't have traded when I was unhappy and agnostic, completely agnostic, or if not atheistic, I wouldn't have traded then where I was then for anything else because I.

Tom Kimball [00:43:49] I was seeing the world with new eyes. And how do you offer that to someone else? I don't know. But for me, I feel that I'm a better person and I'm finding myself through this struggle and nothing's been resolved.

Tom Kimball [00:44:09] Once again, the things that I feel were wrong with Mormonism when I was coming out of it, that hasn't been resolved really. But I'm finding that I'm finding myself at peace and I'm happy with it all. And I think I'm a better person. So that's the only reason. I can see that it's important for someone to come out of three, but I'm certainly not going to judge someone who's just hanging out in three.

John Dehlin [00:44:31] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:32] I don't think you make a choice to leave three. I think just the questions come. Something in life happens. You bump up at ideas and it's such an act of will and it takes so much, much energy to wall yourself off from really where I believe your spirit's tugging you that maybe it can be done, and you can certainly resist for a while, but most likely, you know you're going to journey out of three, or at least start the journey into four.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:59] Not through a conscious decision. But there are some great phrases from philosophy and literature that all apply here. And I think, like the one, I'd rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Which is basically that idea that once somebody has gained new knowledge or a new perspective or a wider perspective, they recognize that it's good, even though it's complicated their life and they may feel dissatisfied. None of us would really trade it. Just like Truman, the Truman Show.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:38] He could have stayed in the world, but he knew that there wasn't going to be any happiness there in the smaller world. Plus, the girl with the beautiful eyes on the outside.

John Dehlin [00:45:51] Let me just push you one last time, Dan, because this is something I personally struggle with. Someone who works for Sunstone, someone who participates on Internet chat groups or has a blog where they're blogging about their experiences in stage four and stage five are going to influence those who just do a simple, innocent Google search, or, you know, they happen to be the cousin or the aunt or the uncle or the child of the person who's being vocal and being open and sometimes even being an activist around these issues. And the person may be motivated purely by a desire to help people through stage four.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] But the simple fact is that as soon as you publish a magazine or a book or blog or speak up in Sunday school, you are becoming an agent for some people. Out of stage three into four and five, do you feel guilty about that? Can you reconcile it? Because it's not just them naturally stumbling upon it themselves. No. When those of us who choose to be vocal speak out, we are becoming agents and accelerating that move out of three. And are we comfortable and secure that that is the right thing to be? Or should we all just shut up and let those have their own journeys and not accelerate or risk accelerating people into that stage?

Tom Kimball [00:47:26] That's a really. I think that's the tricky part about where I am at right now, and that is that, you know, like with my bishop, I don't really want to create cognitive dissonance for my bishop. I don't. And yet I have this tremendous need to be understood. And that's what causes most of the problem, is I want. I want my mom to understand what I'm going through. I want my wife to understand what I'm going through. I want my buddies to understand what I'm going through. But the process of having Them understand what I'm going through has the potential of causing them a lot of pain.

Tom Kimball [00:47:59] That I know what that pain is because I've gone through it. So it's this balancing act of wanting to be understood, but also not wanting to create problems for that person because who knows how that will unwind. Will they get a divorce? Well, they, you know, they lose their, their, their family. The potential of loss within Mormonism when you lose your faith is huge. And do you want to create that for the other person?

John Dehlin [00:48:26] Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:48:26] You want to. Do you want to be an agent for that? And yet I want to be understood, damn it.

John Dehlin [00:48:32] Right. But that's stage four thinking, isn't it? Is it possible that stage five doesn't care so much about being understood?

Tom Kimball [00:48:37] Maybe it's just my lack of maturity.

John Dehlin [00:48:40] Dan, what do you think?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:41] Well, a couple of years ago I wrote an editorial in Sunstone about this question of should everything that we do have to be investigator safe? Put that in other words, what if somebody. The very first introduction to Mormonism is Sunstone magazine. Do I have to worry about that when I publish it? And I basically was arguing against that notion and just rejecting it outright.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:49:07] That as long as I feel that Sunstone and these blogs and stage four, whatever kind of discussions you want to talk about them, as long as they're not targeting and trying to go in and raid people out of the church and deliberately screw up their life the way I do think anti Mormonism in some ways does. And perhaps some of the ex Mormon groups are trying to be aggressive there. But certainly we have a right to gather together as people to publish magazines that are for our specific community without having to worry that somebody may stumble. We'd be paralyzed and we wouldn't get past really gospel principles manual with anything if that were our overriding concern.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:49:56] So I just think people self select, you know, if they bump up against Sunstone and they're not ready for it, most the people I would. I tend to believe that it's just gonna not be on their radar screen. It's not gonna, it's not gonna register.

John Dehlin [00:50:13] They'll just bounce right up. Right.

Tom Kimball [00:50:14] If there's something second that it is, it's like, oh my gosh, where was this been all of my life?

John Dehlin [00:50:21] You know?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:22] Yeah. My journey to Sensor really was. Thank goodness I'm not the only one in the church thinking these thoughts.

Tom Kimball [00:50:28] I'm not a freak.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:32] I don't know. That's a difficult issue, John. But I don't think we can paralyze ourselves with that Question. I know where my heart is. I know where the idea of a spiritual journey, there's going to be people at different parts on that journey. And to say that we all have to. To hang back there so people ought to be able to talk to each other wherever we are on it. I reject the premise of having to protect.

John Dehlin [00:51:01] If I can borrow, just sort of, in closing, if I can borrow from traditional Mormon theology, there was a war in heaven fought over this notion of should we send them down when there's so much risk? And we didn't just send them down, but we put a veil up to make it even more difficult potentially for them to find their way because the path would be obscured.

John Dehlin [00:51:27] It's pretty clear that the motive behind that decision to not compel everyone to follow the designated path, but to find their own way was that there would be strength and learning that would come from it. And so we're sort of fighting that war in heaven each day here on the earth as to whether we are going to allow the risk for the potential benefit of that growth.

John Dehlin [00:51:53] And if I could just add one more thing, I remember professor van der Graaff at BYU once saying that testimony shouldn't be soap bubbles that are guarded and protected for fear of them popping, but instead, testimony should be jackhammers that divide asunder. You know, anything less than solid that comes in their path. So those are just a couple thoughts

Dan Wotherspoon [00:52:14] for Kent Van de Graaff, the anatomy professor.

John Dehlin [00:52:16] Yes. Awesome guy who actually passed away recently.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:52:20] Oh, did he?

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [00:52:23] All right, brethren, Well, I just want to thank you both for taking us through this journey. I, for one, really appreciate it. I'm sure we're gonna have many listeners who also benefit. And I just want to say to you, thanks, Tom. Thanks for coming on Mormon Stories.

Tom Kimball [00:52:38] Thanks for the venue, John. I think this is an important arena and an important place to be able to have these kinds of conversations.

John Dehlin [00:52:47] Thanks, Tom and Dan, thank you also for coming on.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:52:50] It was fun, sort of.

John Dehlin [00:52:52] It's midnight right now, so now I gotta drive home. Okay. So with that, thanks for tuning in to Mormon Stories. We'd like to again encourage you to please email. Email us with your feedback@mormonstoriesmail.com Also, if you go up to ldsliberationfront.com or.net, whatever it is, I'll learn that URL. One of these days you can blog and discuss this podcast courtesy of Roasted Tomatoes and Serenity Valley, our two friends in the blogger knackle. Thanks again for tuning in. Please stay tuned for more episodes. Take care.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:53:36] The depth of your dreams, the height of your wishes.

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