Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 27

John Dehlin [00:00:18] Hello and welcome to the Mormon Stories Podcast. My name is John Dehlin. As always, I'm very happy and pleased to have you with us today joining us. We always are very grateful for your listenership. As I mentioned in previous podcasts, we're up to about 12 or 1300 downloads per episode now. I don't know how many people are double downloading, but that means close to a thousand plus listeners of Mormon Stories Podcast. So we're very grateful that so many of you are tuning in and enjoying what we're doing. Again, as always, thanks for your posts on the blog, those of you who have visited us on the blog and have made posts, and most importantly, I'm just very grateful for those of you who have taken the time to donate and have donated some money to Mormon Stories Podcast to help pay for the incidentals and the ISP provider and all the other stuff. Your donations are very much appreciated. So thanks again to all of you for tuning in today. We definitely have a very different episode in store for you. In fact, it's the most a different one that we've given because today the tables will be turned. Just to give you a little context, a while back I started getting requests on many of the boards from especially people on ZLMB and View from the Foyer and Post Mormon and Ex Mormon. The most common question that I'd be asked is, John, how in the world do you stay in the church knowing all these issues and dealing with all these issues? And it's actually has been interesting to me because as my listeners have tried to probe and understand my actual position on things, I find that a lot of the liberal and ex and anti Mormons consider me to be an apologist. And you know, oftentimes a lot of the conservative folk find me to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. There's a whole block of people who just view me as a TBM true believing Mormon traditional believer. And I've gotten enough questions and comments and requests that I've decided to go against my better judgment and do a podcast where I tell my story. And interestingly enough, as some of my listeners and friends became aware that I was intending to do this podcast, one of my good friends, his name is Paul, stepped up and said, hey John, I'm going to be in Utah in the next couple weeks. How would you feel if I came and actually interviewed you? And so this, this friend of mine, Paul, is a buddy of mine who worked with me. We worked together at Microsoft. We didn't actually work in the same group, but When I was going through some interesting times church wise, my buddy Paul was one of the LDS folk that I turned to to work through a lot of the issues and to talk these things out. So, Paul, thank you for coming to my home, all the way from Salt Lake City, and joining us here in Logan for Mormon Stories.

Paul [00:03:27] Well, thank you, really. The pleasure is mine. I've been a big fan of your podcast, so it's going to be fun. I don't have any delusions that I'll do as good a job as you at the interview, but, you know, we are friends. We go back a little ways, so I thought it'd be fun. And it's all the way from Seattle, not all the way from Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:03:45] That's right. That's right.

Paul [00:03:46] I mean, I am going the distance here, right?

John Dehlin [00:03:48] Yeah. You came just for this, didn't you? Brought your whole family here just to do this podcast.

Paul [00:03:52] Exactly right.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] Well, we're grateful for it. So without any further ado, I am going to do what's least comfortable for me, and that's to give over full control and power to Paul. And Paul will now lead this interview.

Family Roots and Early Church Heritage

Paul [00:04:07] All right, well, John, let's start at the beginning. How far back do your roots go in the church?

John Dehlin [00:04:14] Well, as my listeners will maybe have heard before, I come through, like many Mormons, a long line of pioneer stock. My middle name is Parkinson, so Samuel Rose Parkinson, who was one of the early apostles of the church or one of the early leaders, is one of my ancestors. And then through another line, I'm a cousin of Ezra T. Benson, who is obviously an ancestor of Ezra Taft Benson. So my grandmother is a cousin of Ezra Taft Benson. So through both the Parkinson and Benson lines, I go quite a ways back. My ancestors settled the Cache Valley area of Idaho, which meant that my mother was born and raised in Franklin, Idaho, which is right near Preston for all of you Napoleon Dynamite fans. My mom attended Preston High School, was a cheerleader there, and was raised in a super orthodox pioneer stock household in that part of that part of Idaho. So my roots go way back. My father comes from a very different line. He was born in Salt Lake City, but he was born to blue collar sort of stock that joined the church. Probably not in its earliest years, but sometime later. I don't actually know enough about my father's genealogy, but I do know that my father's parents weren't super active when he was born. My father's mother died when he was 1 years old, and my dad, I don't even think he Finished high school because his father was a ditch digger. And it was, you know, tough times in the 30s and 40s in Salt Lake City. So that's sort of a real brief discussion about my parents and my heritage.

Paul [00:06:11] So walk us through a little bit how you feel about that heritage.

John Dehlin [00:06:16] You know, like most LDL folk, I'm pretty proud of my pioneer heritage. I really look at Mormonism as being in my blood. When people talk to me about thinking about even leaving the church, I can't even conceive it. I think of it as if a Jew were trying to not to be unjew himself. I view Mormonism in my bones, in my blood. It's who I am. And I view it as inseparable because of that, largely because of that heritage that I come from.

Paul [00:06:48] Okay, so how about your childhood?

John Dehlin [00:06:54] My. So my parents, My parents got married. It was an interesting thing because my mom came from this super traditional family and my dad was really. He sort of started getting active in the church after. In his young adult life. And so when he came into the picture, my mom's parents weren't super excited about him being around. My mom was already engaged to the local hometown hero who had played basketball at the University of Utah. He was set to be a lawyer. And my mom was set to live the ultimate conservative, pre arranged traditional Mormon life. And she really pulled a fast one on her whole family by choosing this son of ditch digger, pulled himself up by his bootstrap, super charismatic, you know, charmer. And so when my parents got married in the, in the St. George temple, they, they soon left Utah. And my family has pretty much always existed outside of the Utah, Idaho area. So, you know, they lived in several parts of the United States. But I was born in Boise, Idaho, but only lived there a year. And after leaving there, I spent. I lived in San Francisco for a year and spent almost my entire youth and childhood growing up in Texas. So I spent five years in Dallas and then 12 years in Houston, which is where I was predominantly raised. I consider myself a Texan and Houstonian. So that was my birth in my very early years.

Paul [00:08:38] So you lived in Texas until you were how old?

John Dehlin [00:08:41] Until byu, so. So until I graduated from high school.

Paul [00:08:45] Okay, so tell us a little bit about that. What were your experiences like growing up in the church, having Mormon roots, having a family that your parents come from, this background where dad might not have been the first choice, did that affect you as a child? What was the relationship like with your grandparents and with the church in general in Texas?

John Dehlin [00:09:08] Yeah, it's interesting. We were really isolated from my. From my extended family. I didn't know my dad's side of the family at all because we always lived in Texas and we visited my mom's side of the family maybe once or twice in my whole upbringing. We did have an aunt that lived nearby, but we were very isolated from our Utah family. And I only visited Utah maybe twice in my whole 18 years of growing up. And they would have been in my teenage years. So the Utah culture and the whole Utah mindset was completely foreign to me by the time I went to byu. So I. First of all, I was very distant from my extended family, but longed to be near them. And also I just idealized Utah because I figured that's where all the real church stuff happened. And we in the mission field, as it was called, you know, were carrying the torch to help spread the gospel. But I always considered Utah to be the real deal in my mind. And I was sort of longed to someday be a part of that stuff. But I love my upbringing. When we moved to Houston in third grade, the church was incredibly important to me. We lived in a small town called Katy, Texas and the church was teeny in its infancy there. It was an hour drive to the stake center from my hometown. We didn't have a ward building. We. We met in a small house across the railroad tracks from the high school in downtown Katy. In this small house that we rented, There were probably 20 families that attended. We'd have to pull out the chairs and set up sacrament meeting. The mimeographs were used. Remember the purple paper with the purple copies where you'd hand crank the ward bulletin in the program?

Paul [00:11:02] Oh yeah, that's good stuff.

John Dehlin [00:11:04] Yeah, the memories are just really profound. As a child seeing the branch grow. Bishop, President Chudley, he was a farmer. He was a soybean and a rice farmer. He was our first branch president. Just a down to earth country boy who had a bunch of really tall, strong sons. It was an amazing experience to see that small branch grow eventually into a ward. When we built the chapel and we all helped to build the chapel and had that first ward conference where the branch was made into a ward as the chapel was built. I can't describe how incredibly fulfilling that was to be a part of it.

Paul [00:11:47] How old were you at that time?

John Dehlin [00:11:49] I would have been about 10 or 10 or 11 when. When the. When the ward building got built. And then, you know, I just remember primary teachers being extremely important to me, taking time to make me feel special. I remember making close friends in the branch and in the ward and just having an incredibly positive primary experience. And the church was just interwoven into my early years.

Growing Up in a Traditional Mormon Household

Paul [00:12:22] How would you say that the atmosphere was at your house? Were you pretty traditional, conservative? Did you have regular family night, family prayer, that sort of thing? Were you scripture reading family?

John Dehlin [00:12:33] Because, because my dad had his, you know, lower income upbringing. He was always trying to be super successful. So my dad, I think he wouldn't mind me admitting, was a workaholic for most of the time I was growing up. He, he started out as a policeman, then he started being the chief of police. And then he got into state level safety programs and sort of being a state level bureaucrat. And by the time we moved to Dallas, he was a GS16 in the federal government. He has pictures of him with Nixon and Ford. He served on safety cabinets that advised the President of the United States. So he was really able to, to do well. But he worked a lot and traveled a lot and he was gone quite a bit. What took us to Houston was he cashed out and retired from his federal government job and decided to start his own business. And he started this company called Barter Systems, which was a company designed in the, in the 70s to sort of circumvent tax law by allowing the bartering of goods and services between people. And it was this fad in the, in the 70s, during the disco era, that, that he built into a multi million dollar business while we were in Houston. But when the IRS changed the tax code and caught on to what they were doing, eventually the business came crashing down and he lost everything and went bankrupt. But dad wasn't home a lot and so we would try and have family home evening every once in a while, but we probably weren't consistent in family home evening. We would try and do scripture study, but I wouldn't say that we did it all the time. Oftentimes we try and read those illustrated books of Mormon and read from there. But I would say that that traditional Mormon stuff was spotty family wise. But we always went to church. We were always very active in church. My parents held callings. My dad was a stake clerk, so he held stake level callings. My mom was always very active in music stuff and, and even though family wise, we weren't the ideal family internally, we still were very active in the church. Yeah.

Paul [00:14:49] At what age would you say you acquired a testimony?

John Dehlin [00:14:53] Ooh, that's hard to say. I think I should say that I was the youngest of four kids and there was about four to five years between each of us. So my oldest sister, Gina, she left for college when I was probably in second grade. And my oldest sister, my second oldest sister Julie, was in high school by the time I was in third or fourth grade. So my oldest sisters, they were kind of in that late 70s, early 80s era disco and, you know, hard rock and stuff.

Paul [00:15:25] Saturday's Warrior.

John Dehlin [00:15:27] Yeah, definitely, definitely. So they have interesting fun histories to tell as well. The person closest to me is my brother Joel, and we were only three years apart, so really my upbringing was just me and my brother Joel. But probably what you may be getting at is a really seminal moment in my family's life and in my life, which was when I was about in seventh grade, when my parents, after having been married for 24 years, got a divorce. And that was a big shock to me and to my family and to all the members of the ward because, you know, probably like most families in many circles, we were viewed as a very strong, cohesive, good looking, you know, successful family. And it was a huge shock to me and to a lot of people to have that family disintegrate.

Paul [00:16:20] So, you know, walk me through a little bit of how you remember reacting to the divorce and how you remember the community around you.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] Yeah, the most poignant moment for me, I mean, it was this real memorable moment of irony when I was still in primary. I was sitting up on the stand and we were having the special primary program. And it was probably a couple weeks after our parents had broken the news to us and sat us down and told us that dad was going to leave and stuff. And I remember the theme of the primary program was families can be together forever. And so here I was sitting up on the stand as a 10 or 11 year old, looking down on my mom and maybe a couple of my siblings in the audience. My dad wasn't there, and we're singing, you know, I have a family here on earth. I want to be with them through all eternity. And I'm looking down there and seeing my mom in the audience or in the congregation crying. And that was a. That moment of irony made a pretty deep imprint on my soul because, you know, throughout church you hear sort of how things should be and how things ought to be. And it's a pretty dramatic thing for a kid to have that irony of the ideal versus the real strike so hard. And that was an incredibly hard time. The nights of my mom crying and hearing her crying through the walls of my bedroom as dad was gone, and seeing how that affected my older sisters and brother who were in high school and college age. It was an incredibly traumatic and distressing time.

Parents' Divorce and Shifting Faith at Home

Paul [00:18:15] Did your parents both stay active in the church after the divorce?

John Dehlin [00:18:19] Yeah, sort of. Yeah. During the immediate years following, they both stayed active. Yeah. And so that was interesting to have them stay.

Paul [00:18:34] And were they. So your father stayed in the town?

John Dehlin [00:18:38] Yeah, same word. Yeah, dad was really cool. He just said, I'm taking off, but mom, you know, you can keep everything. You can keep the house. He was good about paying child support and alimony. I visited him on the weekends. He and mom never made public fights or there was never a bitterness. The divorce was very amicable, basically because my dad just gave my mom everything she wanted. And dad, it was kind of bizarre because dad married within a year of leaving. He remarried and mom remarried and both of them married non members on the rebound. And within a couple years, both of those marriages had failed. And so it was a really traumatic time and a really confusing time for a young kid. But in some ways you could say it was the ideal divorce because there wasn't nasty feelings in terms of people being ugly or bitter. And eventually when they each got to their third spouse, they married perfect people. And they've both been married now almost as long to their third spouse as they were to each other. So I have beautiful, wonderful stepparents now, but it was a really hard thing through high school.

Paul [00:19:55] And so your parents now are both active in the church still?

John Dehlin [00:20:03] I would say that my mom is active in the church and my dad is semi active.

Paul [00:20:10] Okay. And what's your relationship like to them now?

John Dehlin [00:20:14] I'm real close to both of them and they're really supportive and loving and good to me.

Paul [00:20:22] How do they feel about your podcast?

John Dehlin [00:20:25] Well, interesting. I'm really fortunate because my dad's always been a real non traditional Mormon and. And so, yeah, he's been great. And my mom, she's been a dialogue subscriber for about 15 years now and she's been wonderful as well. So I'm really lucky because I'm probably able to be more vocal and open and honest than a lot of people are because I've got parents who don't judge me and make me feel bad. They worry about my happiness. They worry about how their grandkids are going to turn out, but they don't make me feel like I'm inadequate or inferior or a project. And I'm really. I'm really lucky that way.

Paul [00:21:05] And they feel pretty good about us discussing their personal life here on the.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] That I can't say.

Paul [00:21:11] I can't say, okay, so let's go back to your teenage years in Texas. Your parents have just been divorced and you're half having that experience up in the primary program. Walk me through. How did the community react to the situation and did that affect your relationship to the church?

John Dehlin [00:21:36] Yeah, it was interesting because my dad, he probably wasn't embraced by the community in a very loving and supportive way. I think he felt really judged, alienated, ostracized. And that was an interesting awakening for me about just how humans can sometimes fall short of the ideal. So that was an important dynamic, but not one that impacted me because I felt like there are consequences for behavior. And so I didn't get too hung up on that. That wasn't a big problem for me. What was most significant for me was that because my mom had to go back to work and my family was all split up, the church was there for me for junior high and high school in a way that I just can't describe. I loved ward dances. I loved scouts. I loved seminary. I went to church every Sunday. When my parents weren't at church or were gone, I went by myself. I got myself up every morning at 5:30. I never once had a parent wake me up for seminary, ever. And seminary president. Once I got into high school, I got into the honors programs and sports and stuff. But church was always my only thing. Church was the core of who I was. It was the reason I existed. The youth programs in Houston back then were phenomenal. We had missionary weekends where we'd all go. Go on splits with missionaries as an entire stake. We had temple trips where we would drive to the Mesa, Arizona temple and do baptisms for the dead. We had dance festivals. We had stake road shows. We had regional scripture chases. We had, you know, incessant ward and stake dances and youth conferences. And I just, I. The youth experience in my childhood was just astoundingly amazing. And I just can't say enough about how incredible those leaders were, how fun the kids were, and how spiritually uplifting and rewarding my youth was and how the church was completely responsible for that. And, you know, I never tasted alcohol once. I still haven't to this day, even though I grew up in a real party town, never, you know, tried a cigarette, never tried any type of drug. My wife is the only person I've ever been intimate with. I mean. And, you know, I was also student body president and very popular in high school. So it wasn't like I didn't have opportunities to do all that stuff. But I just Took the church really seriously. I had great bishops, great seminary teachers, and I just say I had the ideal youth experience with the church. It was everything to me and everything that I am. I feel like I owe to that foundation and upbringing.

Social Life, Friends, and Youth in the Church

Paul [00:24:35] Your friends during junior high and high school, were they primarily the kids in your ward?

John Dehlin [00:24:41] I had two sets of friends. I did hang out with a lot of the kids in the ward and stakes. Truthfully though, I was really girl crazy. So if I had to say who my close girl, my close friends were at church, it were the girls that I became boyfriend girlfriend with because I, I lacked intimacy. I feel like I lacked some intimacy with my family because my family was broken, mom was working, my siblings were off doing whatever they were doing. So I, I found a way to get intimacy through having lots of girlfriends. So I had a ton of girlfriends. I started kissing when I was, you know, seventh grade. I never had a curfew. I was allowed to date as much and whoever I wanted and I just went hardcore dating girls. And so my fondest memories, people wise are the girls that I dated in stakes and wards and regions around me. But because I was, you know, varsity basketball and student council president and honors stuff, I had a small circle of very close friends who were non members. And that was interesting growing up in a Baptist town because religion would always come up. There'd be girls who would want to date me in high school and some of these girls were some of the most prominent kids, cute, attractive, smart girls in the whole town. And so we'd start dating and then they'd find out I was Mormon and their parents would find out and inevitably I'd get the conversation where the girl would go, john, I really like you, but my parents don't want me dating a Mormon. And they were usually Baptist and so, and even my best, my best friend Joey in high school, we sort of fell apart our senior year as he got more and more into his church and his parents started giving him a really hard time about being best friends with the Mormon. He started giving me a hard time about the doctrine of my church. We started having debates and arguments about it and it really caused a rift. So I was sort of a sore thumb, a thumb sticking out thumb in my hometown. But because I was academically and athletically and other things sort of inclined, I was able to overcome a lot of that prejudice and stuff and represent. But I will say that I'm embarrassed in many ways about who I was back then. I sort of thought I'm from the one and only True church. I'm pioneer stock. It was probably a type and a shadow of what it was like for the Missouri Saints, for all these foreigners to be around as these aliens come in and to feel like they're God's chosen people. I really had a sense that I was better and more special than everybody because I didn't drink, because I didn't smoke. And a lot of people thought I was probably arrogant and judgmental and self righteous. And so that was an interesting tension that looking back, I wish I had been a little more transcendent, a little more enlightened. But at the time I was just so into how true our church was, how righteous I was, that that's how I acted and behaved sometimes.

Paul [00:27:38] So why do you think you adopted that kind of worldview?

John Dehlin [00:27:42] Well, I. I had a really amazing seminary teacher who. His name is Lawrence Layton. And just to give you an idea of the type of person Lawrence Layton was, he was in his, you know, late 50s, early 60s when he was my seminary teachers, my seminary teacher for three years. If you'd go into his house, you know that picture where all the prophets are dressed in white, all the LDS prophets are dressed in white and they're all sort of sitting in a row.

Paul [00:28:04] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:28:05] He would, he would say, come here John, let me just tell you something. And he'd say, okay, I've been in his home. I used to home teach him. He was my, you know, I used to go to scouts with his son and he would go through and like name half of the prophets and tell me how he'd had personal experiences with them. He was, if ever there were a Bruce R. McConkie Mormon. You know, Lawrence Layton was, I was taught openly that blacks were black because they were less valiant than pre existence in seminary.

Paul [00:28:33] Can I interrupt you for just a second?

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Sure, sure.

Paul [00:28:34] Can you maybe clarify what a Bruce Armor Conkey Mormon is to you?

John Dehlin [00:28:39] Yeah, it basically a very fundamental orthodox, straight out of Mormon doctrine or the Journal of Discourses type teachings. And so heavy emphasis on the second coming is coming soon. He would tell us that we were of the chosen generation and that he had an impression from the Holy Ghost that the second coming would be in our lifetime. That he used to tell us that he had such a command of the Holy Ghost and he'd do it in a very humble way, but he would say that he could sit in the back of the chapel and sacrament meeting and spiritually tap people on the shoulder so that they would look around and actually feel like they had been tapped on the shoulder. Wondering what had happened. The two object lessons that were the most dramatic for me were one where he was trying to teach about the adulteress and he who's without sin cast the first stone. And for that seminary we came in and all the chairs had been pulled from the front of the room. We met in one of the ward buildings and he just introduced the lesson and said today we're going to talk about the adulteress and hypocrisy and stuff. And what I've done is I brought some stones here and what I'd like to do. I know that I've offended some of you. I know that I've hurt some of your feelings over the time that I've been your seminary teacher. I know I haven't been perfect sometimes I haven't been as prepared as I'd like to be. So I brought these stones and I'm going to place them before you and I'm going to kneel down and provide you with the opportunity to extol justice upon me. And he and this 60 year old man curled up in a fetal position on the floor in front of us and wept dramatically for about five minutes while we stood there and just watched. And it was an incredibly powerful spiritual experience for me. I thought this guy had a direct connection with God. And the other object lesson that is really memorable for me was the time that he was wanted to portray the crucifixion and he actually brought in a life size cross into seminary and he asked me to portray Jesus. And so he brought in nails and a hammer and he asked me to writhe in pain as I lied on the cross and he stuck nails between my fingers and nailed me to the cross in front of the students.

Paul [00:31:17] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:31:18] Yeah. This was my seminary teacher and I bought it all. I believed that he had special gifts. I believe that we were Saturday's warriors gearing up for the second coming. I was focused on signs of the times. Where were the 12 tribes? You know, spiritual gifts, healings. That was my seminary experience.

Paul [00:31:41] How much of a role in your general being do you think that played? I get a sense that the church was highly influential during your teenage years, especially post the divorce. What I don't have a good feel for is how much you feel that you were influenced by the non Mormon portion of your community.

John Dehlin [00:32:01] Yeah, I viewed the world as Mormons are the chosen people sent here to stand up for truth and righteousness in a wicked evil world and that the rest of the world either had to become Mormon or suffer heavy consequences. And I had a persecution complex because of the teachings about our church history. I had experienced persecution in my life, so it was very charged. I viewed the rest of the world as needing to repent and convert to Mormonism. And I. And I took every chance I could get to tell my friends why they should come. I invited friends to general conference. I invited friends to, you know, my word meetings. And I just had a Mormon worldview. Every data point that I processed in my life went through a Mormon lens of, you know, how does this. How can this be reconciled with the one true church, with the prophet, with the priesthood, with apostles, and with God's plan of bringing a millennial end within my lifetime? So I don't know if that answers your question, but it was an incredibly charged, millennial chosen, super righteousness, focused existence.

Paul [00:33:20] How did you view your fellow church members? Were they all up on that pedestal with you?

John Dehlin [00:33:26] Yeah, I was incredibly idealistic and, and somewhat naive. I mean, there were bad things that would go on, but I just. I had so many youth leaders who just seemed like spiritual giants to me and so many women who seemed to be willing to sacrifice so much to put on all these youth programs and great sacrament talks. And I just. I viewed myself in a fellowship of truly gifted, blessed saints. Now, there's a. There's a backstory to that as to what was really going on that I can tell you later, because a lot of these people ended up getting divorced, leaving the church, having abuse. But I didn't see any of that. I wasn't plugged into it. I viewed it as a utopian society, in many instances, not perfect, but divine in its elevated, enlightened sort of status. So it was incredible. It's incredible.

Preparing for and Serving a Mission

Paul [00:34:22] All right, John, so we're at a point now where you have a pretty conservative and pretty Mormon centered worldview, and you are viewing the world through that lens. You're a senior in high school, involved in a lot of extracurricular activity. What happens next?

John Dehlin [00:34:41] That's interesting because, you know, in junior high, I was sort of lost, and I, you know, I got some Fs and had a lot of discipline problems and. But because my brother took me aside when I was an eighth grader and told me, you know, John, I haven't done too well in school. Let me give you two pieces of advice. Get in all honors programs in high school, join every honors class that you can qualify for, and get the best grades that you possibly can. This was a real shift for me because none of my family is academic. Neither of my parents got Bachelor's degrees growing up, and all my older siblings had pretty much done poorly in school. So I. I took my brother's advice to heart and I really started excelling academically. By the time I graduated from high school, I had a 4.3Gpa. I was 11th in my class of 350 people. And I was offered, well, scholarships to pretty much any school that I applied to. So it was interesting when I went to the guidance counselor and she asked me what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a military chaplain, a Mormon military chaplain. That's sort of, again, how enmeshed Mormonism was in my life.

Paul [00:35:56] Where did the military come from?

John Dehlin [00:35:57] I just. I don't know. I just. It's patriotic, you know, it's something that's religious, but I can get paid for it. I considered being a seminary institute teacher, but it's just. It's just another example of how Mormonism was just on my mind all the time. But I was just. I was a good basketball player. I probably could have played Division 2 basketball. I'm six' six for those of you who haven't met me. I played against some guys in the Houston area that went on to play college and pro. I could have played Division 2 basketball. Probably could have gotten scholarships to Ivy League schools, maybe. But BYU is the only school I applied to. I had no interest in doing anything else. I wanted to go to Zion. I wanted to go to the Lord's University. I wanted to go to Utah, which I viewed as Zion. And I wanted to meet a bunch, a whole plethora of Mormon guys and girls, date like crazy and just feast in Zion. That's all I can say. So I got a scholarship to BYU and had an incredible freshman year at byu. Lived in the honors dorms there with a bunch of incredibly gifted, smart people. I had this interesting scholarship where I had to actually maintain a GPA above 3.9 to maintain my scholarship. And so I went to BYU, just stone set on getting a 4.0 while I was there. And so I made this interesting goal for myself that I wasn't going to kiss a girl the entire first semester that I was there. And that was a real traumatic thing for me because I was dating like crazy. But I was able to go an entire semester and not kiss anyone, which seems silly to you, probably, but for me it was a real achievement because I had just dated so wildly in high school and stuff, and, you know, it was cool. I loved my freshman year. I ate it up. All the religion classes were incredible. I was Able to take actually Book of Mormon from Jeffrey Holland. That was a really, really good experience. And I actually, his daughter Mary was actually in my ward, so Jeffrey Holland's daughter Mary was in my ward. I went out with her several times

Paul [00:38:12] during the non kissing semester.

John Dehlin [00:38:14] She. Yeah, we did. I didn't kiss Mary. I can't, can't say that I did. But I did date her. I really, really liked her. And when I went on my mission, she was one of the people that I hoped would wait for me. But it was really cool because she actually introduced me to President Holland and I got to play tennis with him one time and I beat him 6, 1. So that was my, you know, moment of fame.

Paul [00:38:41] Did attending BYU change your perspective at all?

John Dehlin [00:38:44] It just, it, you know, think about byu. You, you have these wards. It's all these guys getting ready to go on missions, all these girls who are longing to marry returned missionaries. You have all these honors religion classes where you're just eating it up. All these guys are getting their mission calls throughout the year and slowly going on missions. You have prophets and apostles coming to speak to you at BYU for assemblies. You know, it's the first time I got to see Salt Lake Temple. It's the first time I really got to see general authorities up close. It was just absolutely astounding, and it just reinforced and turbocharged everything that I felt and believed. Yeah, it was amazing.

Paul [00:39:31] And how long did you attend BYU before you went on your mission?

John Dehlin [00:39:34] Just one year.

Paul [00:39:35] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:39:36] Yeah.

Paul [00:39:39] So you've got a mission called to go where?

John Dehlin [00:39:40] Yeah, so I, I was, I was called to serve in the Guatemala City north mission. I went there in 1988. I should say. I was born in 1969, so went to BYU in 1987 and left for my mission in 1988 to Guatemala City North.

Paul [00:40:01] Well, I know there's a whole podcast dedicated to this topic, but why don't you give us the highlights of your mission?

John Dehlin [00:40:07] My mission was, you know, the MTC was astounding. Pinniger was my. The MTC president. He was incredibly inspirational and charismatic. He would tell all these stories with his raspy voice that would inspire us. He would weep and cry and preach like a Baptist preacher at times. And his wife was so sweet and she drove a BMW and she was kind of, kind of cute for an older lady. It was just, again, utopia. President Hunter was the prophet at the time, I believe, and he actually came to the MTC and spoke to us in his wheelchair. And I just ate up the mtc. Absolutely loved it. And yeah, my mission itself, Guatemala was a real shock. And you know, the poverty and the third world stuff and trying to learn the language is really overwhelming. But I had a really incredible mission in terms of what I was able to do and accomplish. I. I was able to be a branch president twice. I was able to open an area that had no members in it at all and build up a branch as branch president to where now there's actually a chapel in the town that I opened up. I served in another branch where I actually had to disfellowship a member and serve on a church court. It was quite an awakening, maturing experience for a young boy. But as you've read and I've written extensive about this, the most traumatic thing for me on my mission was dealing with the fact that we were the second highest baptizing mission in the world. So early on in the mission, I discovered that a couple companionships were baptizing over 40 people a month. And this companionship was eventually promoted to zone leaders. And then the zone of four or five mission companionships were baptizing over 120amonth in the La Laguna zone. And once I found out the tactics of these missionaries, which was to go to soccer fields and play soccer with the young boys and girls and then to take them all back to the chapel to cool off where they would baptize, you know, nine, ten at a time, ages seven to ten. It turns out seven year olds were baptized. Parents never knew, discussions were never given. Kids had never attended church and never again attended church. You know, that was the type of baptisms that were, that were happening in regions of the mission, not all over the mission, but in regions of the mission. And when I found out those tactics, I expected fully those zone leader to be punished. But to my amazement, they were made assistance to the president and, and the mission was just basically out of control, with an emphasis on numbers and certificates and rewards and incentives and parties for the highest baptizing mission companionships, etc. Go to my very first podcast to learn more about it. But that, that experience was devastating to me.

Troubling Patterns and Doubts on the Mission

Paul [00:43:26] How did you reconcile it? Was it the missionary's fault? Was it the mission president's fault, the church's fault? Something that would naturally happen.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] What was one of the bizarrest things about the mission was that the missionaries who were most successful numbers wise, were also the biggest partiers. So I remember early on my zone leader thinking my zone leaders were God. You know, seeing that he had these Janice Cat Perry tapes and someone had made a joke about him. So I went and flipped it on and heard that he had Van Halen and Rush dubbed over his James Cat Perry tapes. You know, and then I'd hear jokes about how the zone leaders would go with their cars, travel to Honduras or El Salvador, or play basketball games, not on P day. Or be in leagues, basketball leagues playing, you know, not on P Day. And I. And I'd hear about pool parties and all these crazy things that the zone leaders and APs were doing. And I. At first, I thought it was just the zone leaders. And I'll just. I'll absolutely never forget going to the APs, just distraught when I learned that my zonies were partiers. And I just went to my APs, and I said, you know, I just. I have to tell you, I don't want to be tattletale. It's just that I love this work and I believe in it so much. And I just want to tell you, these elders are partying. And I'll never forget his response. He just kind of looked at me and he shaked his head and he said, elder DA Lynn, loosen up, man. Don't be so judgmental. And it turns out that I discovered later that the AP's were partying with the zone leaders and that they were all in on it together. The top leaders in the church, in the mission, and the top baptizers were also the top partiers because they'd get all their baptisms in early, and then they'd party for the rest of the month. And, you know, this brings me back a bit to high school. This one little experience I had where I was in love with this girl, and she didn't like me, but she liked this other guy who I knew was sleeping around. He was the kind of guy who slept around. And so I remember this party one night where I was hoping Christiane would be there, and she never showed up. And then I heard in the crowd at this person's house at the party that she was off with this other guy. And I just remember looking at everyone and I said, guys, come on. They're probably doing something that they shouldn't be doing. Let's go out and find them and let's rescue Christiana, because she's going to be dragged down by this guy who's not going to lead her to virtuous places. And you could hear a pin drop as all my high school friends who weren't Mormon just kind of looked at each other and looked at me. And it was then that I realized that these people weren't like me. They. They weren't. They didn't view the world in the same way I did. And I was a completely a foreign, naive, clueless individual as they were concerned. And I mention that because that's exactly how I felt when I talked to this ap. I realized that a huge chunk of the mission was there for reasons different than the reasons I was there for. They took this a lot. And frankly, a lot of these people were Utah kids raised in Utah. And it was absolutely stunning and devastating to me to see how many missionaries, and these were the good ones who just absolutely didn't take things as seriously as I did.

Paul [00:47:08] So did you have a feeling that it might have been a difference between Utah missionaries and mission field missionaries?

John Dehlin [00:47:15] I don't think it was clear to me at the time, but I started sort of doing the math later and wondered whether that was part of the dynamic.

Paul [00:47:25] Did you feel that this was something that was entirely invented by the missionaries themselves, or did you feel that the church leadership or the mission program itself encouraged this or was in part responsible for what was happening?

John Dehlin [00:47:39] You mean the baptisms?

Paul [00:47:41] Yeah, the partying and everything else like that.

John Dehlin [00:47:44] The partying, I felt like was the missionaries just being, you know, inappropriate. The baptism stuff, I put it on. I eventually, once I confronted my mission president about it and he made excuses for it and supported it and got angry at me for calling him on it. I felt like it was a rogue mission president who had aspirations for being a general authority and just kind of let things get out of control, to be honest. Elder Ballard came and visited our mission maybe three fourths into my mission, and pretty much called our mission to repentance for retention and low quality of baptism sort of issues. And he actually set the bar. He actually made a policy in our mission that everyone had to have all six discussions and have been to church at least twice before they could be baptized. And so I had reassurance that the brethren up top weren't supporting this type of action. And it wasn't too long before my mission president had made loopholes and excuses to water down those rules that Elder Ballard had made. So I kind of eventually came to feel like first it was the rogue missionaries. Then when I confronted my mission president, it was an overly ambitious mission president. So that's kind of how I viewed it at the time. It was after I had come home from my mission, and actually I was sent home four months early after I confronted the mission president about it, and he stuck me in an area where I Developed a horrible asthma condition. And when I told him I couldn't breathe in the area, he brought me back and sent me on a plane the next day home, which I felt like was to get me out of the mission. But when I came back to Arizona to finish my mission, my last four months, and was called as a zone leader there, my mission president was Daryl Woolsey. And Daryl Woolsey had just been called as a general authority. He ended up serving in the Philippines. But I asked Daryl Woolsey, I told him the whole story, thinking that he would call Salt Lake, Salt Lake would find out about it, they would go, you know, release President, excommunicate him, and that would be it. But I was really disappointed. A week after he told me he was going to call Salt Lake, when he told me, you know what, John? I talked to Salt Lake. They just don't want to make a big stink about this. Your president's only got like six months left to go. They just decided they're just going to let it slide. And that was the first time where I even started suspecting that high level church leaders even had the capacity to be flawed and make major mistakes, or to be bureaucratic or to be political. It would have never even occurred to me that that was a possibility. I considered these men completely beyond the capacity to allow anything like that to happen without huge, negative, forceful consequences.

Paul [00:50:51] Did that realization shake you up or was that sort of a lifted burden?

John Dehlin [00:50:56] No, it was devastating. I. I went back to BYU as a sophomore, completely depressed. This mission that I had spent my whole life preparing for, that I had served willingly, I had over 120 baptisms during my mission. I never watched a movie, never watched tv, never read the newspaper, never listened to any inappropriate music, never woke up late, you know, always went to bed on time. I was a hardcore psycho, obedient missionary during my time there. And my whole life had culminated in that moment. And it would, it just, you know, the follow the brethren attitude in the MTC and the obey your leaders and exact obedience. And they talk about the stripling warriors and they obeyed with exactness. I had given, you know, 21 years of my life to being a servant of God, to helping him fulfill his desires on the earth. And I could not have been more devastated by my mission president, by many of the missionaries I served with, and by the church hierarchy's reaction immediately after my mission. Now I have to say that, you know, my brother's mission was nothing like mine. The Arizona mission that I served in was nothing like the Guatemala mission. So I'M not trying to let people think that this is a. This is the norm for missions, but. But the way that it was handled was devastating to me. Yeah. And I was severely disappointed that my mission president wasn't, you know, removed immediately and excommunicated for perverting God's holy ordinances. You know, I mean, that's how I saw it at the time.

Paul [00:52:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:42] Yeah.

Paul [00:52:42] Have you had any contact with him since?

John Dehlin [00:52:45] Yeah, I was really disappointed because when I went to a missionary union, shortly after my mission president had been called, he told us at our missionary union he'd been called to serve on the church missionary committee. And so I'm thinking, okay, great. So now what he was able to implement in our mission, plugged into the church hierarchy, he's now going to sort of be able to influence how the church baptizes worldwide.

Paul [00:53:16] So actually, can I interrupt real quick? Did you have the impression at that time that the church leadership was chosen based on the relationship you had to the hierarchy, or did you see it more of a. Anyone could be called any position and it was the Lord's will that would dictate it.

John Dehlin [00:53:31] Yeah. I was still very naive and idealistic. So I started to get hints of that. I mean, otherwise I would have never conceived it possible that the president could become a member of the church missionary committee because if God would, God would never choose that. So that's when I started wondering. But it was many years later before I actually drew the lines and started saying, wow, these men can be deeply flawed or misled. No, but at the time, I was still just shell shocked, still a tbm, but trying to piece together this huge gaping hole in my worldview of what I thought the church and its leadership should have responded like, during that experience. And I do need to throw in that a couple years after my mission, I wrote a letter to Donald H. Oaks telling him everything that happened. And he actually called me on the phone, apologized for what happened, talk to me all about how I was doing, and followed up by sending me speeches where he openly denounced to future mission presidents those tactics. And he did a great job in helping me, saving me from going to 60 Minutes or 2020 or tabloid journals to expose what I thought was rotten corruption mission practices. So to donate chokes credit. Some would say it was to, you know, PR and to keep spin from getting out of control. Others would say he was genuinely reaching out for a hurt soul. At the time. I was very touched by what he did and I'm grateful for it.

Paul [00:55:06] Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, it seems like he really took a personal interest in you. So stepping back a little bit, you're just coming off your mission. You are still very conservative and very traditional in your belief, and you still have the very Mormon centric view of things, but you're a little distressed because of the experience on the mission. So what comes next?

BYU Years and Reconstructing Faith

John Dehlin [00:55:29] So when I. When I got to BYU as a sophomore, I had no idea what I was gonna study for my undergraduate degree. I just did General Ed my freshman year. So I figured, you know, the best I could think of was, I now speak Spanish. I've had some international experience, I'll do international relations. So I went to the international relations office. And I would say one of the most miraculous moments of my life was meeting Ted Lyon. Most of my listeners will have no idea, will have no idea what the Lyon name represents, but it turns out that a very important figure in 20th century Mormon intellectualism, in Mormon history was a guy named T. Edgar Lyon, who served with Lowell Bennion as the leaders of the University of Utah institute in the 40s, 50s and early 60s. And Ted Lyon is the son of T. Edgar Lyon, who's one of these two pioneers of Mormon thought and openness, who were viewed as grandfathers to the dialogue in Sunstone. Generations later, T. Edgar Lyon and Lil Bennion were the grandfathers in many respects. Well, Ted Lyon was of the Sunstone stock. And this was in 1990, before the September 6 had happened, before Cecelia Farr and. And all that stuff happened at byu. So BYU professors were still participating in Sunstone to some degree. And there was a real vibrant honors program at BYU where liberal Mormon thinking, believing professors would hold these honors colloquium classes where instead of taking random general ed, like a psychology class or a science class or an art class or humanities class to fill general Ed, you would take these combined 12 hour colloquium classes over a one year period. So you take six credit hours one semester and six credit hours the next semester. And instead of it just being one topic, they would mesh science with art with faith with religion with humanities, all in a comprehensive class that would end up fulfilling four general ED requirements across humanities and science and history, etc. But it was done in a way that was extremely intellectual and rewarding. And Dr. Lyon encouraged me to join his Honors Colloquium class along with Clayton White and Lynn England. And it was there that I received an introduction to, you know, liberal Mormon thinking 101, because they had lectures, you know, with Van de Graaff would come in and talk about evolution, and he would talk about vestiges, and he would talk about, you know, the history of the earth. And, you know, I would suddenly be enlightened to consider that maybe things weren't as simple as Bruce McConkie had taught about evolution. They would talk about abortion, they would talk about. They would talk about some early church history, but not very much, mostly a lot of the social issues. But these were incredibly important men to me. And you know, you'll probably ask me a little bit later about my involvement in Sunstone, but I can tell you for sure that these men, along with William Bradshaw and Lamon Tullis, William Bradshaw, who taught a biology class at BYU but also taught an honors religion class, these men who showed how you could reconcile thought with faith, who were intellectuals who knew all the issues, yet they were bishops and stake presidents and mission presidents simultaneously, were fundamental in helping me step back and say, let me tell you about our history, John, as a church. Let me widen your view about how things really are and let me tell you why your faith shouldn't be disassembled at what you've experienced, but instead let me give you reasons why you might even want to be reaffirmed in your faith and even more committed to it in spite of the experiences you've had. And it was them who steered me away from going to 60 Minutes or 20 20, who steered me towards writing that letter to Elder Oaks, and who in many ways were just absolutely crucial in helping me and an entire generation of young BYU students get an enlightened, more matured, deeper view of how to reconcile thought with faith. And I just cry now because the honors program has been gutted at byu. There are no more colloquium classes like that. All the professors have left who did that sort of thing. I don't think that this is happening at BYU anymore. But at the time the student review was alive, these honors colloquium classes were alive, and you could get a sort of Sunstone Dialogue 101 experience meshed in with a very faith promoting experience at BYU that was fundamental in helping me not leave the Church.

Paul [01:00:23] So. So would you say that by the end of your experience at BYU your perspective had shift entirely to a liberal perspective? Or were you still clinging to the way you thought on your mission?

John Dehlin [01:00:38] No, I think I had this dark hole inside of me that never went away. But through, through these professors, I reconstructed my faith in a way to where I still felt very devout and committed to the church. And I didn't know anything about the church history at this point. So none of that had hit me yet. I just knew some cultural things and they had dealt with a lot of the social and the controversial, you know, socio political issues that made me realize that I could be a non conventional Mormon and still have a place. And so no, I wasn't liberal. I think I would have been considered still extremely conservative by most people in the world and even in the church.

Paul [01:01:23] You're orthodox in your beliefs at that point.

John Dehlin [01:01:26] Definitely orthodox in my behaviors, but a lot more open minded in my beliefs and willing to consider alternative views and not suspicious, but sympathetic for liberal Sunstone dialogue type Mormons. I actually did subscribe to Sunstone and Dialogue during the last few years of my time at byu and I eventually, I don't know how much our listeners know, but there was this huge thing. David Knowlton was fired from BYU for he was gay, but also for publishing stuff about Latin America that the brethren thought would endanger missionaries there. Cecilia Farr and Gail Houston were fired from BYU for talking about feminist issues and for talking about Mother in heaven. The September 6 happened while I was there, if I've got my dates right. And there was a huge sort of turbulent time at BYU where academic freedom was challenged. It's a very tumultuous time. So it was a cool time to be there. But I eventually left still feeling committed and dedicated to my faith and very excited about getting married in the temple and having kids and living the Mormon life.

Paul [01:02:46] So apart from the sort of behavior following the church program and that sort of thing, how would you say your spirituality changed or didn't change from the time that you were in your mission to the time you left byu?

John Dehlin [01:03:00] That's a really interesting question, and I probably shouldn't admit this, but I will. During my sophomore year, I was still hardcore reading the Book of Mormon every day. And my roommate Russ, who's now in a bishopric, he was a philosophy major at the time. And he just looked over at me and he said, why do you read the Book of Mormon every day? There's so many other good books you could be reading. And I do have to say that, that my scripture reading tapered off while I was at byu, but my prayers were still very consistent and my church attendance was still very consistent.

Paul [01:03:43] Did you consider yourself a spiritual person, someone inclined to spiritual feeling and that sort of thing? I'm trying to piece together myself. When you describe your view as very, I don't want to say elitist, but maybe exclusive to Mormonism, you know, did you feel that you were spiritual that time? Did you feel that you were spiritual later? You know, how does that play out?

John Dehlin [01:04:05] I did. I think I always had aspirations someday to become a general authority. To be honest. That was my mindset. So I viewed myself as gifted, I viewed myself as devout, I viewed myself as valiant. And I really felt like I had a very bright future. Church leadership and in righteousness throughout my life, although there was this whole dark hole inside of me that it was a demon that I was trying to slay. That was also I wore on my sleeve, especially during my junior senior year, that some people probably might not have seen me as I saw myself. But I still saw myself as a Saturday's warrior for sure. Oh no, I said too much I haven't sad enough I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw.

Marriage, Early Family Life, and Struggles

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 28

Paul [00:00:22] So when did you meet your wife?

John Dehlin [00:00:23] I met Margi my senior year at byu. I was dating Alyssa Hatch, who was Orrin Hatch's daughter, dating a few other girls I knew I had to get married by the time I graduated. So I had about four or five girls I was dating in parallel. And Margi, she ran cross country for byu. But what I loved most about her, I met her in family home evening in our ward. But what I loved most about her was her room. Her room was beautifully decorated. She had curtains and a beautiful bedspread and candles, and it was lit nicely. But most importantly, I looked at her bookshelf and she had books on philosophy and history and thinking books. And she was a philosophy minor and an English lit major, all the classics. And I just fell in love with Margi and her room and her. And so we got engaged and. And as I graduated From BYU in 1993, we got married in the D.C. temple, and that was the start of our marriage.

Paul [00:01:29] Great. How would you characterize her position towards the church?

John Dehlin [00:01:35] That's really interesting now because that's another reason I'm super grateful. I knew that I was going to be struggling with things later on in my life. I just had that instinct. And so I wanted to marry someone who I felt like was going to be able to be supportive of me when I went through the challenges that I went through. And that's exactly what I got in Margi. She was a convert. Her parents converted to the church in the late 70s. And even though she was a good girl and behaved in a Mormonly acceptable way, I could tell she wasn't a traditional thinker. She was raised back east in Florida and Ohio and D.C. and she wasn't of the Utah mindset. And I felt like if I ever did go through serious challenges, that Margi wouldn't be there to judge or criticize me, but that she would be supportive of me.

Paul [00:02:31] How aware was Margi of the sort of gaping hole you describe in your feelings towards the church and about your religion?

John Dehlin [00:02:40] We didn't talk extensively about it. I. The most that we got into it was me talking about my mission experience. And she could relate because she ran cross country for BYU and she had a coach there that behaved in a real abusive manner at byu girls, many of the runners there were anorexic or bulimic because of the way that he had treated them, even though they were national champions or always came in second or third in the nation. And she ended up resigning out of principle her senior year because of the way that this coach treated a lot of the girls. And so we related on that notion of standing up for what's right, of living on principle. But we didn't talk extensively about the church, so that was something that we dealt with later.

Paul [00:03:33] Okay, so you start off a new family with Margi, and you're a little distressed, but you found some ways to cope with some of the things that, you know, I guess you would call them imperfections. And Margi is, I guess, pretty much a traditional Mormon girl, but is liberally inclined, you might say.

John Dehlin [00:04:02] Yeah, yeah, I think you could. She wasn't traditional growing up back east, the church wasn't the most important thing in her life. So she listened to cool music, she read the classics. She was a thinker. She was a deep thinker. And to be honest, I didn't date many deep thinkers. And that's probably what I love most about her. She was a deep thinker. I wouldn't call her an intellectual, but she's extremely smart. She didn't like the gameplay of, you know, jockeying for intellectual supremacy, but she liked to learn and to study and to think deeply and to act courageously. And to be honest, that wasn't my experience dating most of the girls that I dated. So. So I guess I correct a little bit of that. But. But she. But she, you know, went to church and. And she wanted to get married in the temple, and. And she had had a testimony, and so, you know, I think she would have passed as a good Mormon girl, but I wouldn't have called her traditional.

Paul [00:05:06] And how orthodox were the two of you when you first started out?

John Dehlin [00:05:11] That was really interesting because I tried to pull the priesthood hierarchy, make me lunches when I go to work, and, you know, I'm the priesthood leader sort of thing early on, and that just didn't fly with her at all. So she, very early on put me in my place and said, this is going to be an egalitarian marriage. You know, we're going to be. We're going to be partners. We're going to walk side by side. And I grew up in a bit of a patriarchal home. My dad was an authority figure. He'd served in the military. He was very forceful in how he communicated, and that was kind of a shock to me, frankly.

Paul [00:05:48] Difficult.

John Dehlin [00:05:51] Yeah. Our marriage for the first seven years was sheer hell, to be honest. We had a few major issues we had to get under control. Finances was a huge issue because she had grown up wealthy. I had grown up with a bankrupt financial situation. So I was a Penny pincher. She had no idea what it meant to keep a budget or to manage finances or what compound interest was, etc. So we had a few major battles. One was getting finances under control so we wouldn't go into debt. One was balancing her family's desire to be intimately involved in our lives with our need to be an independent couple and, you know, and just learning how to communicate. But we fought ferociously for seven straight years. Marriage was hell, and it was a huge adjustment that I can't believe we made it through. But marriage was very hard those first several years.

Paul [00:06:53] What made the difference after seven years?

John Dehlin [00:06:56] Oh, well. Well, this is sort of a. I wasn't expecting you to ask this, but when I was at Microsoft, I sort of rose really quickly in the ranks, was promoted several times in a very few amount of years, and became a director after a couple years there and started developing a real following of salespeople who used the products that I created to help them sell stuff to the workforce. And at a conference in Seattle where all the Microsoft salespeople had come, there was a really attractive young lady who caught my eye, but who also started making eyes at me. And before I knew it, we were talking after an event, and then we were talking that evening, and before I knew it, by the end of the night, it was clear that if I wanted to take that relationship far, I could have. And she made that clear. And, you know, I had made the commitment that I was never going to cheat on Margi. And, you know, that wasn't even going to be an option. But here I stood with a sincere desire to do it. And that was a real shock for me because I never expected that I would even have that inkling, but I did. But I didn't cheat on Margi. I went home and told Margi everything, but I wanted to. And it was because we just weren't getting along. But I'm really grateful that I just told her how I was feeling. I wasn't using it to manipulate her. I wasn't trying to use that as a device. But we were fighting so often and so fiercely and so ferociously that I was seeking love and acceptance elsewhere. But by being really open and honest with Margi, telling her everything, it was really hard for the first couple years for her to still trust me after admitting to her I really wanted to cheat on her. But I do think that in some way that motivated her to try and to maybe change the way she was behaving in some ways. And it motivated me to be a little Bit more recommitted. And that did represent a real turning point in our marriage, though I don't know what that has to do with Mormonism, but you ask.

Paul [00:09:10] So sorry. Well, let me take a step back then and talk about those first seven years. You were having some difficulty and you were both active in the church. So were you temple recommend holders? Were you having the family home evening? Were you having the traditional sort of behavioral things you would attribute to orthodox Mormon life?

John Dehlin [00:09:36] Yeah, yeah, definitely. We did our best. Margi and I have always attended church regularly. We've held our callings and tried to serve faithfully in them. We've always remained temple worthy. We've always paid our tithing. I wouldn't say we were strong temple goers because I don't think neither she nor I had a great experience. I actually went through the temple before the changes were made around 1990. So not only was I shocked by the temple experiences that I had that I viewed as barbaric at the time, all the Masonic stuff that they've taken out now, but also after they made the changes, I was shocked that the Lord's holy ceremony could be changed. So I don't know what was worse for my testimony, the Masonic artifacts or the fact that that God's temple ceremony could be changed. So I don't think Margi was crazy about the temple either. So I wouldn't say we were heavy temple goers. We tried to read the scriptures regularly and to stay spiritually minded. We went to church regularly. As soon as our kids were born, we would sing hymns with them regularly. And we've always, each morning, started the morning out with a song and a spiritual thought and then a prayer. We did that early on and we still do that to this day. Every morning before the kids leave for school, we have a spiritual thought and we sing hymns and we kneel in prayer. So, you know, I wouldn't say we were perfect Mormons, but. And we've also always had family home evening as a family. So even in those early years, I think we've been good, devout, committed Mormons. Yeah.

Paul [00:11:27] Okay, so we're in Seattle.

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Yeah.

Paul [00:11:30] Walk me through a little bit of your experience in the church up there.

John Dehlin [00:11:34] Yeah. So just. Just to backtrack a bit. We moved from. From D.C. to Dallas. I worked for a year at a company called Bain, which was Mitt Romney's consulting firm that he became famous for before he left and did the stuff at the Salt Lake Olympics and his political stuff. Worked there a year, worked at Arthur Anderson in Chicago. For a year, two years. I worked Arthur Anderson a year, and then I became a computer programmer. And then we left Chicago once I could make really good money as a computer guy, moved to Salt Lake City. I was a consultant to the Mormon Church for a year, which was very interesting. I actually worked on a general authority candidate tracking system while I was at the church, in addition to helping them with a lot of their year 2000 initiatives. So that was fun. But eventually Microsoft hired me away and I went to work at Microsoft.

Paul [00:12:28] So, you know who the next general authorities are going to be?

John Dehlin [00:12:31] Well, I may, but I can't tell you.

Paul [00:12:35] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:12:37] So, you know, probably the most formative thing that happened to us in Seattle, other than this experience I just told you about, was when I was called to be a seminary teacher. And. I was teaching Sunday school to the 16, 17 year olds, and I was teaching about DNC and church history. And it was just really, I felt like I was doing a really good job teaching them. And I turned to them. One of them was a daughter of the bishop, the other was a daughter of the first counselor. And I said, you know, you guys enjoying this lesson? They're like, yeah, you guys think that I'm a good teacher? And they're like, yeah. I said, you should go tell your dads to call me as a seminary teacher. And sure enough, within a week, they called me to teach seminary. First year was Book of Mormon, and I got through that okay. But the second year was Doctrine and Covenants, and I really wanted to be a good seminary teacher, but I never felt like I knew church history very well. So. So I started reading the seminary and institute manuals for Doctrine and Covenants and church history, and I just underlined all sorts of stuff and started asking a lot of questions. So I learned about Leonard Arrington and the whole church history years in the 70s and early 80s. So I started reading Leonard Arrington, and a lot of my questions got answered, but I had a few more questions. So then I started reading Sunson and Dialogue and Bushman, other more intellectual church historians, and I had more questions. And then finally I started reading Michael Quinn and eventually Fawn Brody. And before you knew it, as I was teaching these seminary students church history and the Doctrine and Covenants, my entire testimony and worldview of the church was disassembling before my eyes and before my family's eyes, because I started reading about peep stones. I started reading about witnesses who, you know, didn't necessarily experience what I thought they'd experienced and the way I thought they'd experienced it. I read about alternative methods for translating the Book of Mormon. I learned about multiple versions of the first vision. I learned about polygamy. I learned about blacks. I learned about the general discourses and all the stuff that I had accepted the pat answers for who I had accepted the correlated whitewashed view of our church history. All of a sudden, all my questions started getting answered, but they were answered in the direction that wasn't necessarily faith affirming. And the real curious thing about this whole experience was that I was sharing it with my seminar students as I was experiencing it. And since I was trying to read apologetic stuff, as I was reading the tough stuff, I would teach my seminary students about Peepstones and Joseph Smith. I would teach them about, you know, Nauvoo and Carthage and what really happened at Carthage jail. And it was an absolutely very dark time for me because I wasn't sure I believed this stuff. I wasn't sure I felt right about it. But I was in a position where I needed to teach these students more, and I didn't want them to be waiting 30 or 40 years for them to learn this stuff as well. So I felt like, okay, I'll learn this stuff. I'll reconcile it spiritually and I'll teach it to them so. So that they get this stuff in high school so that they're even more better prepared. But that went over like a lead balloon. These kids would go home and tell their parents, I learned about polygamy today. I learned about peep stones today. And all of a sudden, the CES were sending people to come listen to my presentations. The bishop was saying, are you okay? What are you doing? The stake president was starting to get involved, and kids were starting to complain about me to their bishops. And it was this horrible time where I felt like I needed to be honest. I was learning all the stuff that was overwhelming me. I was trying to piece through it, through the teaching of it to these students, and it was overwhelming the students. It was overwhelming me. And pretty much it led to the complete disassembly of my testimony.

Teaching Seminary and the Unraveling of Belief

Paul [00:16:50] So would you say this disassembly was more poignant now than it was at the end of your mission?

John Dehlin [00:16:55] Yeah, it was thorough and complete. It culminated literally in me turning to Margi and saying, I think we should leave the church.

Paul [00:17:04] And what was her response?

John Dehlin [00:17:05] Well, initially it was crying in tears. But then I shared with her the stuff that I had learned and read, and she wasn't a Pat Molly Mormon sort of person.

Paul [00:17:18] So was she aware of those issues.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] No, she wasn't aware of any of it. But as I shared with her all the things that I learned about Joseph smith, about the 33 wives, about the polyandry, about Brigham Young, about his statements in the journal Discourses, as I'm sharing, sharing these things all with her, she's repulsed and disgusted and very quickly went from, I can't believe you're doing this to, all right, I'll go where you want me to go. You know? But it was. It was interesting because a real moment of coincidence was that when Margi was growing up in Florida in high school, she had a seminary teacher that was absolutely seminal in helping her stay in the church. Margi suffered from eating disorders in high school. She didn't get along with her mom super well. And this seminary teacher, Ed Gardner, was absolutely a phenomenal influence in loving Margi and supporting Margi and making her feel special and in helping her stay in the church. Well, as I was getting into my Google phase, as I was trying to reconcile this history, what do you know it? But I stumbled upon a post Mormon website that had a testimony from a man named Ed Gardner. And I said, hey, Margi, I think it's Ed. It's either Ed or Bill Gardner. They're brothers, and both of them are post Mormons. But it was very. It was just serendipitous because at the time, I was trying to sell Margi on why the church wasn't what I thought it was. I stumbled upon this person who was so formative in her life. He had shared his entire testimony of how he became a seminary institute teacher, wrote Rose in levels of church, but at the same time had a father who was a bishop who sexually molested his own children. So the father bishop molested his grandchildren, which was Margi, seminary teacher's children, which led to them going to BYU and trying to reconcile things. He taught religion at byu. He actually counseled us before we got married during one counseling session while we were at byu. But ultimately, he left the church, shared his testimony on the Internet. And. And when Margi read that Ed Gardner had left the church, that was an important block for her as well. So, anyway, how long did the whole

Paul [00:19:35] process take to go from basically a believing, committed Mormon to being prepared to leave the church?

John Dehlin [00:19:42] It was about a year and a half. It was about a year and a half. And during this time, even during my Book of Mormon years, it was a really interesting dynamic because. And you were a part of this. As I started studying things more deeply and having questions I would go to my elders quorum and try and get an answer and you know, no one would ever want to talk about any of these issues. So I'd go to my elders quorum presidency. None of them would want to talk about it. And I'd try and go to my friends. So there was this LDS alias at Microsoft for all the members of Microsoft that were also LDs. And I would just start bombing this alias with questions and issues, trying to find anyone who I could talk to. And you know, there are hundreds and hundreds, maybe even a thousand Mormons at Microsoft, I don't know. But it was, it was not too long before I was asked to stop spamming this LDS alias with questions about controversial Mormon issues. So we created a second alias. It was like shadow LDS or something like that, where the conversation started getting more and more in depth. We started having this furious raging debates between Microsofties about Mormon issues. Some of them fundamentalists, some of them like you, who are a little more liberal and open minded and knowledgeable. And that even spun out of control to where we had to take that offline and have our own private alias where like 20 of us who were left on Yahoo started. It was called lds Tough Topics, lds tt. And so through about a year and a half, I had a few close Microsoft buddies, about 20 of them that we could have these conversations with. But also I started getting up on the Internet and googling and I discovered ex Mormon, post Mormon, loyal liberal Mormon, New Order Mormon, all these websites where these conversations were being held ad nauseam. And it just became this baptism by fire immersion of all the controversial issues. And maybe you remember some of those threads and conversations. You were an important support to me at that point, by the way.

Paul [00:21:45] Oh, thanks. And you were to me as well. Those are the good old days.

John Dehlin [00:21:48] Yeah, good old days. I miss them. Yeah.

Paul [00:21:53] Okay, so it was about a year

John Dehlin [00:21:54] and a half, but it was a very tumultuous year. I was angry. I was obsessed. Every single free moment that I had, I would be on the Internet writing these mean, vicious, angry, emotional threads, reading other people's posts, responding.

Paul [00:22:09] So you're a participant, posting on these boards?

John Dehlin [00:22:11] Yeah, yeah. Writing extensive threads, arguing with people, flaming people, getting flamed back, reading Brody, reading Quinn. I was, I was of ill temperament to my family. I was not being the father that I should. I was not being the husband that I should. It was a. It was a completely dark time in my life where my worldview was crumbling. I was obsessed with learning Mormon history and doctrine and having these engagements and Debates, and, you know, you were there with me, but it was an overwhelmingly negative, dark, hard time, and obsessive and overwhelming.

Paul [00:22:50] Okay, so let's. During this time, you were teaching seminary and you started teaching outside the manual.

John Dehlin [00:22:56] Yeah.

Paul [00:22:57] And you started getting audited for that.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] Yeah.

Paul [00:22:59] And you probably distressed a few kids.

John Dehlin [00:23:02] Yeah.

Paul [00:23:03] So what was the reaction by your church leaders at that point?

John Dehlin [00:23:08] I was amazed at how supportive people were. The seminary and institute guy was not cool. He would come and take notes and give me critiques after my lessons. He would tell me, please stop teaching anything that's outside the manual. I felt completely chained and correlated and limited. And I felt like he had no idea what these issues were, why they were important. He had no empathy or understanding for me, and I felt like he was just a stiff suit trying to do his job. I had sympathy for him from his perspective, but he was in no way enlightened in my. How I was feeling at the time or supportive. And I knew that he was complaining about me. On the other hand, the bishop that we had was exceptionally supportive. He was just like, hey, man, I'm here for you. I know some of these issues, and I just want you to be happy. Would it be better for you if we released you? If we. If you don't want to be released, we'll let you stay in. You know, people. My bishop was absolutely supportive and made me. Didn't make me feel bad at all.

Paul [00:24:11] He's good, man.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] Yeah. Oh, you know Bishop Thorpe. Yeah. Good guy. Yep. And even the. Even the member of the Stake presidency that was over seminary. He told me that it wasn't appropriate to bring up controversial issues, but he didn't make me feel demeaned or judged in any way. So I actually can't complain about how the non CES people treated me. They were wonderful.

Paul [00:24:32] So did you take them up on the offer to be released?

John Dehlin [00:24:35] Yeah, actually, it was released mid year during my second year of teaching. And that was a little bit weird for the students, but I think they were probably relieved to have me gone. But that was a little bit embarrassing to just bow out mid year. But I could not, and I really regret because I signed a form saying I would only teach from the manual, but I couldn't only teach from the manual. It wasn't in me. I felt like I was purporting lies, and I felt like I was whitewashing and doing these kids a disservice by not giving them the full, real story. So even though I signed a form promising I would teach by the Manual. I ended up not being able to do it. And so I couldn't stay, but I couldn't leave. And eventually I left and it was embarrassing and I felt like all the ward members were looking at me, wondering what was going on. And they probably didn't care, probably didn't have a second thought about it. But personally, it was kind of losing face and a shameful thing to go through.

Paul [00:25:32] What was your calling after that?

John Dehlin [00:25:34] They called me into the Cub Scouts, which was probably a good thing. And for the next six months or, you know, a little less than a year, I served in Cub Scouts and I loved it. I was a Weibo's leader.

Academic Pursuits and Discovering Mormon Scholarship

Paul [00:25:48] So somewhere along the line here you make a decision that you're going to pursue an academic career in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:25:54] Yeah. So, you know, through some friends and my mother in law and some other connections, I ended up getting accepted into a PhD program at Utah State University. We had saved up enough money to be able to, you know, take care of our mortgage in a way that allowed us to not be so worried about how the future might be in a small town. And I got a cool job at a university doing really interesting stuff, so moved to Logan, Utah, and that was about a year and a half ago.

Paul [00:26:28] So bring us from the point where you moved to Logan, Utah to today.

John Dehlin [00:26:32] Yeah, so when I got here, I started learning about the Internet and, you know, I worked at Microsoft and I never learned much about the Internet while I was there. Microsoft was a little slow coming to the Internet, you could say, in some ways. But so I started learning about, you know, web stuff and then blogs and then podcasts, and that's sort of the field that I'm in. It's called instructional technology. So as I started learning about all these technologies, I also had this dream to meet all these Sunstone and Dialogue folks, because I should say that, you know, Margi and I looked at each other and asked whether we should leave the church, but we ended up not leaving the church. And I would have to say that one of the reasons we didn't leave the church is because I delved into the writings of Eugene England and Lowell Bennion and T. Edgar Lyon and. And many of the Sunstone and Dialogue folks, kind of like the professors that helped me out at byu, but a lot of these thoughtful, inspirational, devout men, Leonard Arrington, I read their books, I read their essays, I read their works, I read Sunstone, I read Dialogue. And they convinced me that there was a place for me in the Mormon Church. That thinking, believing, people who knew all the history who knew all the facts could still find a way to contribute in a positive, productive way. That is what Leonard Arrington's life is a testimony of. That's how Eugene, England lived. That's what Lowell Binion testified to until his dying day, along with T. Edgar Lyon, in spite of the fact that they were mistreated in many ways by the brethren. And so their essays and writings and sunset and dialogue absolutely kept me in the church and gave me hope that there'd be a place for me. So when I came to Logan and I started learning about technology and the Sunstone Symposium was coming up, I just had to go to the Sunstone Symposium and meet these people, whoever I could meet, and just bask in the beauty of that community and then find some way to even thank them for what they had given me. So I went to the Sunstone Symposium. I arranged with Dan Witherspoon, the editor, to give a little presentation to the board before I actually went to the Sunstone Symposium. While I was there, I met, you know, I met Grant Palmer, I met Greg Prince, I met Lavina Fielding Anderson, I met Jan Shipps, Michael Quinn. It was an absolutely stunning, you know, like a rock star celebrity weekend where I could meet all these luminaries. And in Mormon history, that had been. That had been important pieces of helping me stay within the church. And so not only was I able to meet all these people who I viewed as Mormon celebrities, but also I gave a presentation to the Sunstone board and I said, look, I've just been through this really traumatic time where I went through a huge crisis of faith and I didn't have your magazines or journals handy. And I went to the Internet. And while I was going to the Internet, you weren't there. You were not there for me. Sunstone and dialogue. And so I got inundated by ex Mormon and anti Mormon stuff, and I almost left the church over it. And I'm here today to ask you why you don't have an Internet presence. Why aren't you doing something to carry on the legacy of Lowell Bennion and Eugene England and t. Edgar Lyon, etc. So that all these people who are flocking towards ex Mormon websites can have a place to go to find a thoughtful faith that's reconcilable, to help them stay in the church? And they basically, you know, Michael Smith took me up to this little room upstairs, and on the spot, he invited me to be a member of the board. And he said, you know, we don't know much about the Internet. But if you want to come on and help make this happen, we would love to have you be a board member. And so it was then that I said, okay. And so I figured out how to start a blog, and then I figured out how to do a podcast. And I wanted to experiment myself before I. Before I actually did it for them. So I think even leading up to the Sunset Symposium, I started Mormon Stories. I started learning a little bit about it, and within a month or two, I had gotten my own Mormon Stories blog going because I had met Greg Prince at the Sunstone Symposium. I did a couple interviews with Greg Prince, got my feet wet a little bit, and then soon convinced Sunstone to do their own blog and podcast. And so it was really interesting because when I presented to Sunstone, my whole premise was, there are all these people who are falling out of the church and becoming ex Mormons, and you need to be there to help save them, to keep them from falling out, just like you helped me. So my initial motivation, which has now changed, was to be a safety net to keep people from leaving the church. And that was my motivation for Mormon Stories and for stunstone for the six months prior to about January 2006. And so everything that I did was around a thoughtful faith, was around being honest and open about the truth, but being faithful and encouraging and helping people find a way to reconcile that truth and then stay in the church. And so that. That took me through January. And I imagine you have a question that you might want to follow up

Paul [00:32:02] on there, which is, how did it change in January?

John Dehlin [00:32:05] So as I started, as I started doing these blogs and podcasts and people started listening, I realized that two things were happening. I was getting two types of emails. The first type of email was John, thank you. I've been suffering in silence for 30 years. I have no one to talk to. I thought I was the only one in the church with these concerns. And your blogs and your podcasts give me hope. Not only that I'm not alone, but also that there are other people like me and that there's a place for me in this church. And I can tell you that to this day, I get one to two emails a week that bring tears to my eyes every time I read them. And I've kept every one. And those emails are from people all over the world, not just in Utah, all over the world, who say to me, I've been suffering in silence. I've been not able to talk to my wife. I haven't been able to talk to my family. I can't talk to any church leaders. I am so grateful for your honesty and your openness and your faithful approach to these issues. You've helped keep me in the church. So that was half of the emails I was getting. Unfortunately, I was getting another half, and the other half were, wow, man, I didn't know this stuff. Dang, dang, man. That polygamy thing. Whoa, whoa. That Mason thing. Or, oh, journal discourses. And all of a sudden, I was realizing that for every person that I was helping save and keep in the church, I was introducing another person to all these issues that they had never thought of or considered. And so I realized that if my motivation was purely to keep people in the church, that I likely was going to be disappointed in the results. Because for every person that I helped save by talking openly and honestly about these issues, there were going to be other people who were going to decide to leave. And that's when I just called a halt of my podcast. I kind of shut down my blog, and for several weeks, I reached this moment of crisis where I said, can I continue knowing that I may lead as many people out of the church as I am going to help save? So that was my dilemma.

Paul [00:34:27] But after that couple of weeks, you started everything back up.

John Dehlin [00:34:30] I did, I did. I got so many overwhelming emails from people saying, please don't stop. Please keep going. We love what you're doing. You're providing such an important service. And that alone wouldn't have been enough to keep me going. But I just thought about it and I said, you know, I've been taught, do what is right, let the consequences follow. I've been taught, oh, say, what is truth? Tis the fairest gem that the riches of men can produce. I've been taught that the gospel is true, the church is true, the truth will prevail, that no unhallowed hand will stop the work from progressing. And I just couldn't wrap my brain around this notion of having it be righteous, that silence and hiding things and obfuscation was, in the end, going to be something that God himself would approve of and sanction. I really have come to believe that many of the perversions in this life stem from people who are not able to talk openly and honestly about things they're feeling, be it religious or otherwise. And so what they do is they split their soul into two parts. They have the private, hidden part where they live and think and act a certain way in private, in secret. And in a second part of their life, they act in a public way that's different from how they are privately. And I believe that many of the perversions and evils and sadness and depression in this world stem from people having to hide and cover up their innermost feelings and thoughts for fear of what people externally are going to think or feel or judge them about. I feel that that's. That's unhealthy and wrong. And so, you know, I just had to go with that instinct that in the end, truth and openness and honesty, clean. It's the ultimate antiseptic. And so, basically, if I had to believe that for the church and for my testimony to be successful, that I had to be silent and secretive and quiet and obfuscating and correlated, that would have been the death of my optimism, my hope, my faith, and my belief. And so I. I decided that I had to just go for openness and honesty and candor, and that somehow there'd be pain, there'd be consequences, maybe even consequences to me, but in the end, that truth and righteousness and goodness and openness and dialogue would ultimately be what would save the day.

Paul [00:37:25] Okay, well, let me play devil's advocate to that for a minute here. Some might say, you know, John, maybe you're right, that you really need to have openness and candor about these topics. And at the end, you know, this is really going to help advance the cause. But is that really your decision to make? Because it seems that the church has made a decision to correlate the materials and to leave out some of the details that you were sharing with your seminary class, for example. So how do you reconcile that? It seems that at least appears to you that maybe the church is being very careful about disclosure of its information and you are not.

John Dehlin [00:38:12] The way the church is run today, and I don't mean this to disparage the brethren, but the way the church is run today, very top down, very authoritative, very autocratic. I can easily see how members would get to the point where they stopped seeing the church as their church. But as I dug deep into my soul to see what I wanted to do and whether I wanted to leave and how I wanted to act, the screaming feeling within me shouted to my soul, saying, this is your church too, John. This is not their church. You're as much a Mormon as they are. You're as much a member of the church as they are. And your voice doesn't need to be silenced. You have just as much of a right to stand up and share your feelings and tell your stories, and most importantly, to let other People tell their stories as anyone else does to give their policy. I haven't sought to criticize the brethren. I haven't even taught to instruct the brethren. You'll notice that never is my intent actually been to change the church itself or the church's policies really, although that'd be a nice side effect in some instances, in my personal opinion. But my issue has never been with the church. I have only sympathy for the brethren. And I can talk to you all about my little position on why I love the brethren and think they're wonderful and only feel sorry for the position they're in and have respect for them. But my concern is with the people. I see too much pain. I see our gay brothers and sisters who have no idea what their place is in the church and the only recourse they see is leaving. I see people who struggle about the church history, who are deeply silenced and sad about these things they can't understand. And they have literally nowhere to go to talk to people about how to reconcile these issues. I see people struggling with depression, women struggling with depression. Utah leads the nation in suicides of young boys between the ages of 15 and 24. I see a lot of sadness and depression that comes mostly out of our culture, I believe. And these people need a voice. I see an entire generation of ex Mormons and liberal Mormons and anti Mormons who have been ostracized from their spouses, ostracized from their parents, completely separated from their communities. And these people haven't left the church because they're sinners. They haven't left the church because they're weak. They haven't left the church because they've been disobedient. They've left the church because they cared and they studied more deeply because they took what they were taught seriously. And they wanted to be good teachers and they wanted to be good doctrinarians and researchers. And so they wanted to learn more. And they believed the things that they were taught. And when they discovered that things were so incredibly different than how they were taught, the truth mattered to them. And that's what led them outside the church. And to have such people of integrity, of such desires for intellectual and historical accuracy, find at the other end of that not a reward for their candor and their efforts and their integrity, but instead ostracization and alienation from their families and from their communities and in some cases, losses of jobs, is a totally devastating thing for me to behold. And so everything I've done has been to give a voice to the voiceless to bring to light truth and honesty and candor and facts and history that should be brought to light so that everyone knows and is on a level playing field with regard to the facts and so that people's stories can be told. How can the Brethren, at the end of the day, argue with someone telling their story? As long as the people are being responsible, saying how they felt, saying what they experienced, the Brethren can't, you know, shut them down or criticize them because that's their experience. So by naming my blog and podcast Mormon Stories, by allowing people just to tell their stories, what I feel like I've tried to do, you know, is the things that I just said. And you know, and I know that there's a personal risk at doing this because, you know, the Brethren sent really strong messages when they excommunicated the September 6th and, and when they denounce symposia. And so, you know, I often worry about what the consequences will be for what I've tried to do. Hopefully I'll stay insignificant enough to where I'll never be a blip on their radar. But I can't not be an advocate for these people and be an advocate for honesty and openness and truth. And I believe the good consequences will ultimately follow, even if there's a lot of short term pain in the meantime.

Founding Mormon Stories and Its Purpose

Paul [00:43:17] Do you feel like you've been called to do this?

John Dehlin [00:43:21] Yeah, I do. I mean, I don't like to get superstitious and mystical, but I feel like everything I've experienced and all my experience and everything that I've lived through has culminated in this moment for me. And I hope that this isn't the only thing I do in my life. But if all I was ever able to do was to let Buckley Jepsen tell his story and to let Darren Smith and Darius Gray and Margaret Young tell their stories, and to let Hyrum tell his and to let Todd Compton tell us about the overview of what really happened with polygamy and to show Greg Kearney, who's a devout Mason but also devout Mormon, talk about how he's reconciled those two. You know, if all I've been able to do is let those people tell their stories and then through the impact of the hundreds of emails I've received, help people feel like they're not alone. I will feel like my life will have contributed positively to my heritage and my culture, but I do hope for bigger things as well, you know, going forward. Oh, no, I said too much. I haven't said enough. I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw.

Current Beliefs on God, Jesus, and Restoration

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 29

Paul [00:00:21] Let me shift gears here. I know that one of the things you wanted to accomplish on the. On the podcast was to clarify your position on some of the beliefs that you have and the way you view the church and the way you view your beliefs. So if I may, I'd like to walk through a series of questions about your beliefs and talk about how they are today.

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Okay, shoot. And I should just say that this is probably the biggest question that I get is where I stand on the church. A lot of the conservative Mormons really questioning what my beliefs are and wondering how I stay. But even more importantly, a lot of the liberal and ex and anti Mormons are saying how in the world you're an apologist, and they're trying to understand why I stay in the church. And so probably the most important thing I wanted to do was to sort of clarify my position on these things. So, shoot.

Paul [00:01:14] Let's start at the very basic, what are your feelings for God and Jesus?

John Dehlin [00:01:20] I have to say that like many people who go through the history crisis and the doctrine crisis, Mormons, very often when they go through that, don't just struggle with their testimony in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and the church, but for some reason, those dominoes fall really quickly, and it's not at all a long time before you are questioning Christ and God himself. So I have to admit that when, when my testimony fell, it fell hard and every single aspect of my faith dissolved. I did have to stare into the abyss to consider whether or not I even believed in God anymore. I can say that I've reconstructed a faith and a belief in God. But the best that I can say is two things. I believe that there's a meaning and a purpose in this life and an organizing force. For me, the idea that all of this is random and coincidental and a mistake within the universe is as absurd to me as the thought that there's some divine power or influence or order. So I still am a person of faith. And that organizing force or power within the universe I call God, whether that God has ten fingers and ten toes, whether he was once a man like we may or may not acknowledge, whether or not his name is Elohim is purely a matter of faith for me. I will accept that on faith. I will live as if that's true, and I hope that that's true in many ways. But I can't say that I believe in an anthropomorphic traditional God as Mormonism has taught me to believe. I would only have to say that's a Matter of faith, not one of strong conviction or knowledge. So that's my view of God.

Paul [00:03:16] And you pray still?

John Dehlin [00:03:17] I do. I pray and I can't stop praying. I can't say that I'm praying all the time, but I pray each night. We kneel in family prayer every morning, we pray over our meals. And in important moments in my life, I say special prayers to God. So yeah, I do pray.

Paul [00:03:36] How about the restoration?

John Dehlin [00:03:40] If you don't mind, let me just jump quickly to Jesus and the Savior before. It's interesting, and this is going to probably be the hardest for many of my listeners to take, but I would say my view of Jesus is quite unorthodox. When I started really trying to piece together what made sense for me, what never made sense for me from a Christ perspective, is the fact that on the one hand, we all come to this earth imperfect. We all come to this earth designed inherently with the proclivity towards sin. So we are all sinners by design, by birth, as the story goes. And so if that's the case, if we were built by God to be imperfect, then how in the world is it that we're supposed to feel incredibly sad and unhappy and guilty and remorseful about the fact that we're sinners? That doesn't make sense to me. So am I sad when I sin? Absolutely. When I hurt people, when I or do bad things, I feel incredibly remorseful. But I do not feel indebted or guilty or sad for the fact that I'm imperfect. I'm designed that way, I come that way and we all do. And so this typical Christian notion of us all being fallen, all being lost, all being sinners, and we would all go straight to hell if it weren't for a Savior that was sent here to. To deliver us all, it doesn't mean much to me anymore, frankly. Because if we were designed that way, I don't see why we should feel so bad about the fact that we're that way, nor feel grateful that we're designed that way. And so Heavenly Father sent us a way to save us when he built us that way. So I don't know if I'm making sense, but this whole notion of us feeling guilty and bad and horrible about being sinners is a premise upon which the atonement and Christianity is based. That doesn't resonate with me. Having said that, being righteous is extremely important to me. I try really hard to be good to people, to live a Christlike life, etc. But I'm not motivated by a sense of guilt or shame. And I'm not motivated by some reward that I hope I'm going to achieve in the afterlife, some station that I hope to obtain someday. I am motivated only by a desire to do good and to be good, and not out of guilt or thanks to some supreme being. So with that, this notion of a savior coming to the earth who has to suffer and bleed for every single sin that everyone's ever committed, and not just every sin that everyone on the earth has ever committed, but also every illness he suffered for that too. And not only for all the people on this world, but. But for all the other people on all the other worlds, which is sort of the atonement thing that I've been taught my whole life, that doesn't make sense to me. And even the fact that we teach that Christ is half God, half man, I don't understand how special or magic it necessarily is when someone who's part superhero is able to do supernatural things. And so the traditional notion of Christ dying on the cross and suffering in Gethsemane and bleeding for my own sins and suffering for everyone in the world doesn't resonate with my soul in a way that does anything productive. So go ahead, you have a question.

Paul [00:07:28] So I was going to say when we asked the question of God, you sort of said the are things that don't make sense to me about God, but I'm willing to accept them on faith and hope that they're true. In some cases, I think was what you said. Would you classify the atonement and Jesus and the role of a Savior in the plan of salvation as something that you accept on faith and hope for, or as something different?

John Dehlin [00:07:56] So the best I can affirm is that I view Christ as my personal savior. And what I mean by that is I believe that someone named Jesus did once live. I believe that he taught, at least in the core, the principles that are found in the Bible. If you look really hard, I believe that he gave his life for these teachings. And because of those teachings and the fact that they persisted over time, and the fact that I was raised with those teachings as an influence in my life, and those teachings then in effect, saved me from all sorts of bad avenues and nasty things that could have happened to me as I was growing up, his teachings and his example and his sacrifice saved me from what could have been really bad peril. In that context, I view Christ as my Savior. That I can say with a strong conviction that I'm very grateful for. And I consider myself a Christian in that I have a testimony of his teachings as found mostly in the Gospels in the New Testament. And I try very hard to practice those teachings in my daily life. Now I have a really hard time with this will bleed over in our discussion about the Mormon Church, but I have a really hard time feeling strongly about the God franchise concept that God has one true church on the earth and that only a small percentage of his children actually have the opportunity to be exposed to it. And everyone who is a member of that elite little franchise group gets special privileges and blessings and gets saved at the end of the day. But all sorts of other people are left out, left out of the bag. Whether you're born in China or you're born in Africa, you know you're not privy to God's franchise and one true church. And so, you know, you're kind of hosed. I don't buy any one church or any one faith as having an exclusive path towards exaltation or, you know, higher living in a future life. And so from that standpoint, I don't, I don't view Christ necessarily as the only path towards good living or exalted living or righteous living. I just put myself in a position where I say Islam has an important role to play in this world and Judaism has an important role to play and Buddhism has an important role to play. And those leaders were inspired in their own way as well. And any of us who think we really understand what the afterlife is really like and who's going where is sort of either being self congratulatory or judgmental or acting or believing in ways that are counterproductive to them and to the rest of the world. And this notion of one true church, I believe, is one that divides more than unifies. And so I accept Christ as my personal savior, the resurrection and his literalness as being the only one true path through Jesus Christ and Christianity towards salvation. And God, again, like an anthropomorphic God, I would have to say, would be at best a matter of faith and of hope. But I can't say that I hope Christianity's the one true path, because I just believe that God is broader and more complex than any of us understand and that there are many paths up Mount Fuji. And so I accept Christ as my personal savior. I have a testimony of him, especially of his teachings. But as to the exclusivity of the Christian faith and of Christ as an atoning savior, that all mankind will be hosed if they don't sort of go through that path would be at best A matter of faith or hope for me, but not of active belief or of active knowledge.

Paul [00:11:56] Okay, so sort of related to that, you don't necessarily buy into the idea of a one true church. How do you view the priesthood and how do you view authority in general? From your perspective, what role does that play in God's interaction with man?

John Dehlin [00:12:17] Like I said, I definitely believe in a force and in a power that's greater. And I guess my view would be that we in the church call that priesthood. But do I believe that if a mother of a Catholic, if a Catholic woman has a sick child and she blesses that child or prays for that child, do I believe that she's going to have less of a chance of that child being healed than some, you know, father in Utah giving his child a blessing? I think that God's power is all throughout the world. And I even think that probably Gordon B. Hinckley and others would affirm that. And so I think that, you know, I believe in the power of God. I believe that the power of God is in our church and that we label that priesthood. But I don't believe that we have a lock on God's power within Mormonism, you know, so that would be my take on priesthood.

Paul [00:13:16] What about this notion that you could take anyone from a random faith around the world, have them join the Mormon Church and see if we couldn't add to the good that they've learned outside the church?

John Dehlin [00:13:27] Oh, I definitely believe that our church has a ton of great things to add, but I believe that it's just as true that other faiths have so much to teach us. I've just, you know, Mark Twain, I think, once said that traveling is fatal to prejudice. And you just have to, you know, for those of you who haven't done much traveling, make some Muslim friends, make some Jewish friends, make some Catholic friends, make some Hindu friends, make some Buddhist friends if you don't have them and you're going to. Yeah, absolutely. Atheist, agnostic friends, in some cases exceptionally. So you're going to find some of the greatest, most, as you would say, Christ, like, wonderful, spiritual, gifted people that you will ever meet that you will have a hard time matching in your average LDS ward building. And so I just think that we have a lot to add to this world. There are truths and teachings that we have that I think are unique and extremely powerful and positive. But I don't think we have in any way a monopoly on goodness or righteousness or truth or have even a leg up in many instances on devout Believers or non believers throughout the world.

Paul [00:14:40] What would you say are the top three ideas or beliefs in Mormonism that add value to the world?

John Dehlin [00:14:49] You know, many of the. I've looked through the articles of faith and I find them profound. I love the fact that we disabuse the world of a notion that man is judged for the transgressions of their predecessors. That was a huge revelation. I think that our belief in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law, our emphasis in the families, our emphasis in clean living, is exemplary. I think that it keeps us in many ways out of trouble that we would otherwise get in. I believe that many of the founding principles in the Book of Mormon, the teachings about the war in heaven and the importance of free agency, are absolutely fundamental to a healthy and a positive life here on the earth. In a productive one, you could pull several quotes out of either the temple ceremony or scriptures like man should not be alone. Quotes like, we have sufficient for our needs. All throughout Mormonism, there are little pithy aphorisms and quotes and teachings that are absolutely, I believe, profoundly important teachings for living a happy life. We could do a whole podcast on incredibly profound and affirming teachings within Mormonism, especially as it relates to teachings about Jesus Christ and loving our fellow man and living a clean life and being committed to your family. I even believe that there's a lot of value and truth and in a traditional family, I'm not in any way one that judges a woman for working or, you know, gay couples or whatever, but I think there's an incredibly positive benefit to society by having a good, healthy dose of traditional families. I think my children have been incredibly blessed by having a mother stay home and cater to them and keep a clean home and orderly home and to be able to be there when they get home from school and. And I don't in any way stand in judgment over those who don't make those decisions, but I think those teachings, at least for a subset of our population, are incredibly positive.

Paul [00:17:01] Well, your kids are real sweethearts, by the way.

John Dehlin [00:17:03] Oh, thank you. So, yeah, there's so much about Mormonism that I absolutely love and champion and advocate.

Views on Scripture, Race, Polygamy, and Priesthood

Paul [00:17:13] How about the Book of Mormon?

John Dehlin [00:17:16] The Book of Mormon has been a rough one for me, and again, this is going to be extremely sensitive to some of my listeners, but, you know, I've felt the Holy Ghost profoundly in my studying of the Book of Mormon. There are sections in Second Nephi, in Alma, in Third Nephi, in Mosiah that will never leave me in terms of being incredibly profound and affecting in my life, but I have real struggles with the issues of historicity and architecture and lineage, etc. Surrounding the book of Mormon. You know, when I read about millions of soldiers fighting with helmets and shields and swords that were made of steel, I ask myself, why haven't we found one sword? Why haven't we found one helmet? Why haven't we found any remnant? Why haven't we found a geography? Yeah, why haven't we found a geography that matches the Book of Mormon geography? You know, why. Why did the Book of Mormon talk about elephants when there's, you know, I haven't been able to find any real significant substantive evidence of elephants in the Book of Mormon or horses or wheels or chariots. And I know that, you know, Fair and Farms have extensive writings on explaining why steel may not have really been steel and why an elephant may not really have been an elephant or a horse may not really have been a horse, or, yes, they found a horse once in a tar pit somewhere. But, you know, I don't think that apologetics necessarily ultimately keeps people in the church. I think it can sometimes keep people hanging on. But as I piece together a mosaic, and if you add to the lack of any archaeological evidence or linguistic evidence or anthropological evidence behind the Book of Mormon, if you add to that the DNA findings that over 90% of the Lamanites quote, that we called Lamanites and Native Americans that have been sampled, their DNA maps directly back to Asia through the Bering Strait, which is also what the anthropological and historical evidence had showed. Doesn't leave me with feeling like the Book of Mormon is exactly what I thought it was. And you even find that now that Brethren no longer say that Cumorah is necessarily in New York, or maybe there's two Cumorahs, or, you know, the Brethren are hesitant to say who the Lamanites really are, Even though for 150 years the Lamanites were all Native Americans in North, Central and South America, plus the Pacific Islanders, plus a couple others that got thrown in there. Now, all of a sudden, we have no idea who the Lamanites are. And even the apologists are acknowledging, oh, well, there must have been a big civilization existing parallel to the Nephites and Lamanites that have subsumed their DNA, you know, even if that's possible, and I don't think that any of this DNA evidence or archaeological or historical evidence disproves the Book of Mormon. Let me make that clear. Nothing that I just said leads me to conclude that the Book of Mormon is a Fraud or false. But I definitely now have come to believe that things, at minimum, are dramatically different than not only I was taught, but what prophets, seers and revelators taught for 150 years. And so I'm left feeling like the Book of Mormon at best is definitely an inspired book, but whether it's historical and literal, it would be at best a matter of faith or hope for me, but certainly is not an element of conviction. So that's a long answer to your question.

Paul [00:20:59] So to sum it up, what I say, you don't necessarily believe that it's historical, but you believe it's an important inspired book. Yes, possibly inspired fiction.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] Possibly, yeah.

Paul [00:21:12] How about the Book of Abraham?

John Dehlin [00:21:14] Yeah, you know, I learned about the Book of Abraham right, when I was teaching seminary. And I just. I'm stunned at all the stuff that I went 35 years in the church never hearing about. But when you read the story of the Book of Abraham and how it was presented by Joseph Smith and what he said it was, and then you find out when the Egyptologists have actually studied it and traced it back to what it actually was back in Egypt, and I'm not an authority at all, but the Book of Abraham becomes something that I again view as having inspiration, but probably not a literal translation.

Paul [00:21:52] Okay, how about the issue of race in the church?

John Dehlin [00:21:59] I have to say that I've only started digging into the issue of race in the past few months. But I would have to say that our history and our record on race is extremely disappointing if we are to claim that we're God's one true church on the earth with a direct line of inspiration and authority towards God. I mean, on the one hand, we're taught that our brethren, we should follow the brethren. The brethren will never lead us astray. The brethren have a direct line of communication with God. They're special witnesses for God and for Jesus. The prophets receive revelation. On the other hand, we go from Joseph Smith ordaining black men, being a friend of black men, to Brigham Young, who said some of the most racist, vile and evil statements, you know, that could have been said. I think I'm probably being a little bit angry here or extreme, but if you read the statements in journal discourses that were made by Brigham Young and others up through Mark PETERSON in the mid-1950s, we were an extremely racist church. I don't think we were necessarily any more racist than other members of the United States or world. So I don't think that we necessarily are any more guilty than anyone else. But if you then Adjust for the fact that we claim to be God's one true church on the earth with direct inspiration with, you know, visits with Christ or inspiration from Christ. We were not only not exemplary because we took 10 years longer than many churches to sort of change our ways. I just think our record on race is abominable. And if you think about the fact that not only did we legalize slavery in Utah and that some apostles held slaves and that Brigham Young taught that slavery was God's will upon the earth, and you look at how our black brothers and sisters were given secondary status for over 150 years and that we didn't come clean and fix that until 1978. You know, 10, 15, 20 years after the civil rights movement got going, you ask yourself, if ever there was a time for revelation and inspiration, it was then. I mean, God loves these people too. At least we can admit that. Now we may not have really felt strongly about that 50 years ago, but now we can say God loves all his children equally. And we have to ask ourselves, why was God's one true chosen church allowed to hold these people as second class citizens for so long? And missionaries were taught not even to proselyte to them unless they were brought and approached by them. It's just an abysmal record. And then if you add upon that the fact that we still have these racist teachings with us today, that my daughter as recently as last year was taught the curse of Cain in Sunday school, that I met a missionary a couple years ago who on his way to the MTC still believe these teachings of Brigham Young. I hear it all the time that people still believe these racist teachings. I just, you know, for a church that holds itself up as being the one true church and having direct inspiration from God, a confidence that it will exist and stand throughout any torment, I can't understand why the Church wouldn't stand up and say these teachings are abominable, they're false, they were wrong. Brigham Young was still a prophet from the Church's perspective. But those teachings about racism were absolutely disgusting and we renounce them in no uncertain terms. I'm befuddled by why it's taken us so long to even start to approach repenting. I won't be the first to have said this, but the Church teaches all of us as members to, to repent, that we need to acknowledge that we've made a sin, that we need to feel remorse for it, that we need to ask forgiveness for that sin, to make restitution for it and never do it again. And just like Darren Smith and others have taught, I don't think the church is exempt from the need to follow the paths of repentance. And many people are going to say, well, it's not the church that needs to repent because this was all God's will. I would just invite them to go through the timeline I put up on Mormon stories and see the reversals and the changes and the contradictions and the utter gross racism that was purported. And I would just ask all of you to say, is that really of God? Is that really God's will? Do you really think that that was of God? And I think people, I think it's going to be rare, the person who's going to actually come to the sole heartfelt conclusion that our history on race is anything other than embarrassing and calling out for sincere repentance over. And I think we're not going to be able to progress and move on as people until we confront this issue, because it hasn't gone away. The issue of polygamy in blacks continue to face us, confront us, and haunt us every day. And until we move past that, I think spiritually and culturally and emotionally, we are going to be stymied as a church. So I think you can see I'm a little bit passionate about that issue. Yeah, forgive my passion.

Paul [00:27:22] Well, you put polygamy into the same category of race as racism. You want to elaborate a little bit on your feelings towards it?

John Dehlin [00:27:31] Yeah, basically, you know, when you look at how polygamy evolved, that it started with Fanny Alger in 1830, whatever. 1832 or 33, Emma didn't know she was living in the House of Joseph at the time. You know, none of the church leaders were clued in on it. There was no revelation that was openly acknowledged within the church leadership. And then it sort of goes underground for a while, and then it resurfaces in late Missouri, early Nauvoo time, and it was practiced so covertly. Joseph smith married over 33 women. It turns out many of them were married to other people's, were married to other men at the time that Joseph Smith married them. You know, many of them were teenage girls. Joseph Smith denied that he was practicing polygamy up until his death. The church denied it until the 1850s. And then so conveniently, when the federal government brought all its forces to bear upon us and threatened our extinction. This doctrine that was once taught as a requirement, polygamy being taught as a requirement for eternal salvation, was so conveniently terminated once our existence was threatened to the point where we had no choice. And then you fast forward to the day where most Mormons now grow up never even knowing Joseph Smith had a spouse other than Emma. I certainly didn't until my mid-30s know that Joseph Smith ever was married to anyone else other than Emma. I thought Brigham was the first polygamist. And then you hear Gordon B. Hinckley, interviewed on Larry King Live, saying that polygamy isn't doctrinal. I can't believe that this practice was inspired and of God. And so I don't know how to reconcile that with the belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But I certainly look at polygamy along with the black thing more as a mistake or as an embarrassment than as of God's intentional designed will upon our people. And I know that's going to seem blasphemous. And I know people are going to say, how do you reconcile that with the church and with my heritage? Because my grandmother, you know, my grandmother's mother was the daughter of a polygamous marriage. But I just, I can't square not only the way that polygamy was carried out, but the way it was hidden and the way it's been distanced from now. I just can't reconcile that with it being God's will.

Paul [00:30:06] So do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet?

John Dehlin [00:30:11] The short answer to that would be yes. I believe that he was inspired of God. He made prophecies that I believe came true. I believe that he did many great and important things that were inspired, that were good for the human race. He taught many inspired and beautiful things that help people live better lives and more Christlike lives. And I expect him and honor him as a prophet. But I would have to say that my understanding of the term prophet is very loose and a lot less literal than the average member of the church because I would be fully willing to consider Confucius as a prophet and Buddha as a prophet and Muhammad as a prophet and some guy down the street as a prophet to the extent that they believed and advocated for God's truth and righteousness on the earth. So just as I'm uncomfortable with the one true church sort of exclusivity on a connection with God, I can believe Joseph Smith is a prophet, but also accept other non Mormons as prophets and also accept that Joseph Smith in many ways was flawed and sometimes tragically flawed.

Paul [00:31:20] So you would say that he was a prophet, but not the prophet?

John Dehlin [00:31:24] Certainly not the prophet, because there's been a lot of them. So I don't know what would give him any exclusivity on the term, which again, is a lot different than sort of how we're raised. But if you just look at his life, he did many good things, but he did some really horrible things. I love a lot of his teachings and accept him as a prophet, but don't see him as necessarily having a clear edge over Peter or Moses or Abraham or, or Buddha or other great people who have lived on the earth that have helped move the human race forward in positive ways. So I still accept him as a prophet, but not with an exclusivity on that phrase or term or title.

Why John Dehlin Chooses to Stay in the Church

Paul [00:32:13] So, John, you've got a good laundry list of concerns about the church still, even to this day, I would say. And it seems that you've adapted some of your beliefs to accommodate those concerns. So when you get done with all that, why stay?

John Dehlin [00:32:31] Well, that's, you know, that's probably the most important part of this podcast as far as I'm concerned. Because, you know, leaving is obviously something that I've thought about, I've entertained, and sometimes I still feel a pull towards. But I love this church and I've written actually 13 points of why I stay in the church. And so how would you like it if I told them to you now, Paul?

Paul [00:32:58] Go for it.

John Dehlin [00:32:59] The first reason I stay in this church is because it is in my DNA, it is in my blood, it is my heritage, and it is my culture. I am Mormon to the bones. To try and take Mormonism out of me would be like trying to take the two by four frames in a house out of the house. The house would cave in and it would cease to be any type or shadow of what it was. I view my entire existence as defined by Mormonism in mostly very positive ways. And to try and un Mormon myself would be like a Jew trying to un become a Jew or a black person trying to paint his skin white. It is inconceivable for me to try and disassociate that it is too comprehensively defining in who I am. So that's answer number one. Answer number two is that I believe that the Mormon Church is an incredibly positive place to establish and be a part of a community. I acknowledge that it's not the only place lots of people leave the church and become universal, unitary Unitarian Universalists or Episcopalians, or they form little secular communities. And I respect that and think there's a place for that. And I don't have a problem with that. And I don't think that Mormonisms have a monopoly on Positive, productive communities. But at the same time, I think we do a lot that's great, community wise. The home teaching program has a lot of great things to it. When it's, when it's exercised in a sincere way along with visiting, teaching. When people have babies, people bring them food. When people's homes flood, people rally around to rescue the home from floods. When there are crises, people rally. And I've not only been a participant in that, but I've been a beneficiary of that. And so I find the community an exceptionally positive one, not only to serve, but to be served. I feel like my purpose on the earth is to serve other people. And I find Mormonism as an incredibly positive place to perform that service where you can get to know people very quickly, a large group of people, and be able to get to know their needs and concerns and personalities in a way where you can help them, where that's unique. And so I love serving in this church and I love when our family needs to be served, that there's people there for us as well. So that's my second and third second and third reasons. Fourthly, I love much of their teachings. Anytime they're teaching values about truth and integrity and love and service and charity and patience, kindness and family values. From the standpoint of caring about your family and living your responsibilities as a father and as a mother and as a brother and a sister or as a member of the community, you know, the laundry list is huge. As to the positive, productive teachings within Mormonism.

Paul [00:36:17] Can I interrupt you there?

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Sure.

Paul [00:36:20] What do you think of the notion that the church is either entirely true or it's a fraud?

John Dehlin [00:36:25] I think binary thinking is one of the most damaging things that we can face in our lives. What in the world is either true or false? And this is actually one of the points that I get to what government is perfect and flawless and true of God? What marriage doesn't have serious and deep flaws? What company or organization doesn't have sincere, deep problems? What person isn't tragically gifted and flawed at the same time? And I think religions are the same way. I don't think any church stands as true and exclusive on truth and faith. I mean, if you look at the Mormon Church at the best of times, when we were most representative on the earth, we represented less than 1/2 of 1% of God's church on the earth. What kind of God sets up a plan where the whole purpose of that plan is for people to live a righteous, faithful, church based life, to get the saving ordinances to be able to return to him. He makes that plan, sends everyone down, and then doesn't provide the means for 99.95% of his children to actually have that experience. So I just cannot accept that there's only one true, technically franchise church on the earth that everyone else is just out of luck about. And so this notion of true false offends me. It's the most offensive, one of the most offensive teachings in church. And that's one of the hardest things about going to church, because testimony meetings have devolved into truth affirming sessions where the most common phrase uttered, adult or child, is I know this church is true with a capital T. And I don't think people understand what that means. I think they say that because they're conditioned to say that from a very young age. I think using even the term no, you know, is troubling for many, many people, because I think most people have testimonies at best as matters of faith and hope and belief, not knowledge. But the notion of one true church really offends me and I would love to see us. And the reason it offends me also is because not only does it make us feel more complacent and happy with ourselves than we should, but it also leads us to judge other people as being inadequate or inferior or subpar. I mean, baked into our history is the belief that all other churches in the world are, fill in the word for me, an abomination, an abomination unto God. How does that mesh with Christianity and love and faith and humility? So I think that, you know, whether or not we're one, and I'm not saying that I know we're not the one true church. It's possible, it's possible that the Mormon Church is the one true church on the face of the earth, but I don't believe it's possible that we're going to become Christ, like by focusing on that, by believing that we have a superior status to other people, or by thinking that other people are inferior to us.

Paul [00:39:35] Okay, a second follow up to your last point, the point of the church having lots of good teachings that you accept. If I were to play ex Mormon advocate, I might say, well, sure, the church has a lot of good teachings, all churches do. But there's a lot of harmful teachings in the church as well.

John Dehlin [00:39:53] Like what?

Paul [00:39:54] Oh, the racism. Take your favorite from the list that we talked about before. So what would you say to a person that would challenge you with that?

John Dehlin [00:40:04] Yeah, I would say you're absolutely right. I think that women aren't treated as well as they could. I think that people don't act like they should. I believe that there are many, many teachings that are counterproductive. But I would ask them to show me a church that doesn't either have equally significant flaws or worse flaws. And maybe they are liberalized or, you know, watered down or sanitized in a way to where they're completely politically correct, but maybe they're not viable or maybe they're weaker or maybe they don't call out to people in a way. I'm probably not being as effective at communicating this as I could, but I believe that all governments are all organizations, all marriages, and all churches ultimately fall short. Even you look at the ex Mormon community and they have their own infightings and bickerings and issues of power control, etc. I think that if you hold all other organizations to the same level of scrutiny that an ex Mormon holds the Mormon Church, you're going to end up not being able to ethically be a member of any church, of any government, of any business, and of any union or relationship, because all are going to fall short. So if all organizations and unions are flawed and some are more flawed than others, the next question is, do you become an island and not be a part of anything? Or do you say, I'm going to go ahead and be a part of this flawed thing, but maybe do my part to make it better? So that's sort of my lame response to that question.

Paul [00:41:45] Okay, well, to continue the advocation one step further, you know, sure, all these other organizations have flaws, but none of them claim to be the one true church that I should expect more from.

John Dehlin [00:41:57] Yeah.

Paul [00:41:58] How do you respond to that?

John Dehlin [00:41:59] So here's my response to that. You know, we've seen what happens to religions. The less that they demand from their members and the less extent to which they claim strong, deep connections to the divine. If you look at mainstream Christianity, I would say that it's not growing. If you read Armand Moss and what he's written, you'll realize that the more bold the claim, the stronger the devotion that the members give to the organization. And so, you know, if we use the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ as a case study, we see that for, for a long time they claimed access to truth and exclusivity on truth and God's holy priesthood. But the moment that they became watered down, the moment that they began emphasizing less their exclusivity on truth, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and the extent to which they distanced themselves for their long held claims that polygamy never happened with Joseph Smith. And they acknowledged all their weaknesses and frailties. What happened to the church? It's disassembled and become a shadow of what it once was. And so I think that the church and the brethren are acting exactly as rational people would. They say, you know, we believe this church is good. We believe this church is true, and we are. If we were to water things down, if we were to acknowledge all our mistakes, if we were to renounce all our teachings that weren't perfect, in essence, what we would do is we would kill the church. We would water it down and undermine it to the point where our critical mass would become disenchanted, disillusioned, or even less motivated because they felt like there was less of a claim on righteousness and truth and the church would dissolve and crumble. And so I see the brethren in a real pinch. They have the choice of either destroying the church by coming clean with all these issues and acknowledging all these issues, which I don't think is a rational thing to expect. But at the same time, I do believe that the brethren want to move the church forward in a positive and productive way. And so I, at the end of the day, have sympathy for them in their role of trying to navigate between trying to be progressive and improve the situation, but at the same time not alienating and deluding and destroying what's been a very successful organization by almost any standard.

Paul [00:44:39] Okay, I think I'll cut it off there. Let's keep going with your list.

John Dehlin [00:44:44] Okay. Other reasons I stay in the church, I believe that religion is good for children. Just like maybe Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny have an important place. And myths and stories have an important, you know, tall tales, Paul Bunyan, you know, they have a place in young children's lives. I believe that religion is absolutely fundamental to raising a healthy kid. I know several kids who are raised atheist and non believing, and they've turned out to be wonderful kids. So I don't believe that religion, raising kids in a religious way has an exclusive lock on having them be productive, contributing kids. But I believe that kids can't. Their brains aren't developed enough to understand the nuances of this mortal existence. And I believe that faith and simple stories and simple spiritual teachings and a belief in God and of morals and of values and the framework that religion provides is a positive, good way to raise a kid. Although I believe you can do it well elsewhere. I will say that my wife and I are vigilant in what I sometimes call deprogramming my children. We don't just tell them, believe everything you're told at church, do everything you're told at church, accept everything at face value. Part of the way that we're able to coexist in the church is by asking them every Sunday, what were you taught today? And if they were taught that blacks were less valiant than pre existence, we say, you know what, sweetie? We don't believe that. And if they're taught that God killed all the people in the flood because they were wicked and he was mad at them, we say, you know what, mommy, daddy, don't necessarily believe in a God that would be so angry and vengeful and kill so many people. So, so, So I do have to say as a caveat, that we work really hard to deprogram our children of the evil things or the bad things that we think that they're exposed to at church. But we also try really hard to reinforce the good. So I've already talked about. Oh, another thing that I think ex Mormons and anti Mormons never give the church enough credit for is the progress that the church has made. If you look at the way the church has progressed on the blacks, on women, on judging non traditional families, on all sorts of issues, on the temple ceremony being sanitized and made more, less offensive and more acceptable to, you know, to modern sensitivities, and even if you look at the way that they've held gaze, you know, you know, in the 70s, we were tying electric shock to gay people's testicles to shock them into being, you know, having aversion from, from pornographic pictures. And we've gone from that to, to a much more enlightened approach towards not being judgmental about not teaching people to just lie to their spouse and don't tell them the truth and get married and the gayness will go away. You know, we've made a lot of progress there. So I have to say, and give the church credit. And also we've distanced ourselves from all the journal discourse, nastiness that was taught by Brigham Young and others. We distance ourselves from it. And you even hear Gordon B. Hinckley, interviewed by Larry King and others. We distance ourselves and renounce a lot of that stuff, not openly, but in how we don't emphasize it or teach it anymore and how we stop encouraging it, promoting it. So I have to give the church credit for how it's progressed. May not be as progressive as some would like, but we're a large organization that's very bureaucratic and autocratic and hierarchical. And I have to give them credit, especially on race issues. I think we've really made a lot of progress in the past 20 or 30 years. Another reason I stay in the church is I have a strong desire to help those who are still in. I think there are thousands and tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people like us, like me, who are suffering in silence, whether they're a teenager who got caught in masturbation and thinks that they're evil and is suicidal because they don't want to talk to their bishop, but they don't feel worthy to go on a mission for something that, you know, may not be the ideal thing to do as a kid, but that so many people do and would be seemingly normal. You know, I would love to figure out a way to help be an advocate to keep that teenager from falling into self hating and depression and suicidal thoughts for an action that they're taught is so evil that in reality it turns out to be somewhat normal. For the closet church historian who's had their faith destroyed by history issues, for the gay person who has no idea what their place is in the church for all sorts of people like that, if all of those of us who know these issues bail, who's going to stick around to help our other brothers and sisters through these hard times, either as they're confronting them now or as they confront them later. So I just ethically and morally can't psych myself up about abandoning the church to, you know, I'll say disrespectfully the crazies to the fundamentals who would just reinforce the guilt and the shame and the sadness that's too often perpetuated sometimes within the church. Another thing that I believe that comes from a piece that Eugene England wrote. He wrote a piece that I would recommend to everyone called why the Church is as True as the Gospel. And if we're going to stipulate that sometimes I'm frustrated at church, that, that sometimes I get bored in sacrament meeting, that sometimes in Sunday school I want to throw the scriptures or a brick or something at some of the statements made or even in general conference when I get frustrated at the heavy emphasis on authority and exclusivity and truth, if we're going to stipulate that I have all sorts of struggles and issues with the church, I would ask you, if my goal is to develop, to develop Christlike love and patience and understanding in my life, where is a better place to do that in a place where I am sincerely at odds with so many people, have struggles, have frustrations, have issues. How else am I going to develop faith and patience and humility if I just flee from every situation that angers me and surround myself with people who are like me and that agree with me all the time? And so I see the church for a person like me as being an incredibly great place to learn tact and patience and forbearance and understanding, etc. It's like a laboratory for that for me. Another thing is I think the hymns totally rock.

Paul [00:51:50] You like the hymns?

John Dehlin [00:51:51] I love the hymns and I love the music. And the dilemma about the church changing. I've already talked about the brethren's dilemma of not gutting the church by trying to change it and make it progressive. I've already talked about. So in essence, those would be the main reasons why I stay in the church. But I do have to give you a caveat in that for me to be able to stay in the church and be sane, I in many ways am like Ann, who I interviewed a couple podcasts back, would consider myself a certified, bona fide, dyed in the wool buffet Mormon. And what I mean by that is I do not believe everything that was been uttered by every general authority or prophet or apostle since the history of the church. I couldn't, because there's so many things that contradict themselves, I'd go crazy trying to rationalize them all. And in fact, I don't believe everything that I read in the scriptures. And I don't believe that I should worry about that too much because we, even in our Articles of faith acknowledge that scriptures aren't necessarily perfect all the time. So I don't have to believe that God commanded the Israelites to slaughter men, women, children and animals and that anyone who didn't slaughter these children were struck down. I don't feel like I have to be to believe those things and I'm not going to believe them. I don't believe that every word that comes out of a prophet's mouth I have to follow. I believe that at the end of the day, it's my wife and my responsibility to govern our family as the Spirit or our consciences dictate. And so, you know, we go to church, but maybe every once in a while on a Sunday, we don't go and we just stay home and we play games and we go for a walk and we take a nature walk and we have the most extreme, incredibly fulfilling, rewarding Sunday that we could ever have. Sometimes going to church for three hours. So I'll skip church sometimes. I'm not incredible devout temple goer, because I'm not. I don't have a strong testimony of proxy work for the dead. So I just. When people emphasize temple attendance, I just say, you know what? That's not. That's not where my testimony is firmly rooted. And I'll try and serve in other areas, like I'll go to the blood drive or whatever. Although I was supposed to go to the blood drive today and I missed it.

Paul [00:54:15] So you're a picky eater at the Mormon cafeteria.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] I am. And I think that we all are. And that's the thing that I think we need to realize. I think that if you followed the Brethren day to day, the apostles themselves, you would find that they might miss church every once in a while. They might sip of coke. They might be mean or lose their patience or even say a swear word. I think that anyone who's close to those guys would acknowledge that they don't follow everything that they preach. Or maybe they're not as responsible fathers or grandfathers as they could be because they're so committed to their church. And so even the best of us, I think, is a buffet Mormon because you can't have a garden and write in your journal and read the scriptures and say your prayers and. And be the perfect husband, wife, father, and hold down the right job. No one can do it all. And so instead of feeling guilty and ashamed and sad about it, I'm just going to embrace the fact that I can't do it all and pick the things that I can do and that I feel good about, and I'm going to focus on those.

Paul [00:55:16] But your pickiness in the buffet line is not so much in terms of what you're willing to do, but more in terms of what you will believe.

John Dehlin [00:55:24] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Paul [00:55:25] Do you see yourself in a position where you would acquire a taste for some of those foods you've passed by, or do you think you've tried enough of them that you feel pretty, you know, pretty solid and pretty content in the foods you choose today?

John Dehlin [00:55:40] We're really extending this metaphor, aren't we? That was really good. No, I think only a fool thinks that they've got it all figured out. So I am completely open to. To revising my view that the Book of Mormon is a completely perfect historical document in every way. I'm open to reaffirming a testimony of temple work and proxy work and going hardcore on genealogy and stuff. I don't know how likely that is, but I think I'D be a fool to close myself off from further light and knowledge and understanding. And so I'm open. But I can tell you that that if I had to condense my view of the gospel into one phrase, it's be nice to the guy next to you. And I think that there's so much we can focus on and just being nice to the people around us and being kind to our kids and our spouse and our neighbor and the countries and other people and civilizations throughout the world that could consume me for a lifetime.

Paul [00:56:45] Great. Well, you know, I think we've been talking here for about three hours now.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [00:56:51] It's time for you to go home.

Paul [00:56:52] We've covered it. Yeah, I got the long drive back to Salt Lake late at night. Before I turn it over to you to kind of give final thoughts and, you know, close to the interview, just want to thank you for the opportunity to come and be part of your interview here today. This has been a lot of fun for me.

John Dehlin [00:57:08] Thank you, Paul.

Paul [00:57:09] I think it's been great to, you know, hear your position on these things and hear your testimony and wish you all, all the luck in future with the podcast.

John Dehlin [00:57:18] Well, thank you. Well, I'm thinking about handing the mic over to you because I think you did an excellent job of posing the questions and holding my feet to the fire and making me expose all sorts of things I would have never felt comfortable exposing elsewise.

Paul [00:57:31] Sorry, I didn't know about that one there.

John Dehlin [00:57:33] Yeah. Yep. So all the goodness returned to you as well.

Paul [00:57:38] Thank you. Closing thoughts.

John Dehlin [00:57:41] Yeah. So, you know, the last sort of thing that I thought you might ask that I wanted to cover was, you know, what's my goal, what's my objective? And if I had to summarize what I want, what more Mormon stories and what this podcast and my participation in Sunstone and why I'm sharing with you my views right now, you know what I want to provide a test case for, not just for myself, but for Buckley Jepsen and Darren Smith and Darius Gray and Hyrum and all the other people who represent the different factions of the alienated and the disenfranchised. I want to provide a test case for the church. And I'm going to ask the church very openly and publicly, what is the role in the church for people like me? If you're not a traditional thinker, if you don't accept every element of the gospel at face value, if you openly acknowledge that you're not perfect at observing everything the church tells you to do, and if you don't have traditional beliefs. Can you still be a Mormon? Can you still be a member of this church and not just be silent and keep quiet, but can you be an actively participating, open member of this church in a non traditional way? What's the role for our black brethren and sisters to to participate in full fellowship? What's the role of women to participate in an enlightened 21st century way? What's the place of a gay person, a person who's faithful and believing but got married in a civil service because they want the rights and protections of the law and want to participate in the community? Is there a role for people like us in the church? Or is the church only going to want people who are either quiet, who are going to toe the line and toe the party line? And so I have faith in this church. I have a testimony that this church gets it right, that this church is guided by divine good principles and that at the end of the day they're guided by positive and productive forces within this universe. And so I am very hopeful that even though the church has stumbled at times, made mistakes, excommunicated people, disfellowshipped people, alienated people, I am optimistic that under the leadership of Gordon B. Hinckley and future leaders of this church, the church is going to continue in its direction towards a positive, productive dialogue. And that at the end of the day, the church will end up finding a place for those of us who are non traditional and in accepting and carving out a place for us, reach a deeper understanding of what it means to be Christian and to be godlike and to be positive and enlightened on this earth. So that's the thing, and this is an act of faith for me, that being open and honest won't lead to negative consequences in the medium to long term, but will lead to positive and productive consequences that will lead to happiness and enlightenment for not just me, but for other members of the church and for the church itself. That's what I hope for Paul and thanks for letting me share this with you today. And for the two or three listeners who are able to make it to the end of this podcast, I offer an ice cream cone to anyone who comes to Logan, Utah while I live here and made it to the end of this interview, I will buy you personally an ice cream cone, I promise. So make that bank on it. Send me an email to remind me that you made it through and you have my word on that ice cream promise. So with that, I will bid you all a fond adieu. I will thank you for joining us to this Mormon Stories. I promise to never bore or or bother you with my own personal stories or prejudices again. If I alienate half of you so that you never come back and listen, I apologize. I hope I haven't shocked or offended. But most importantly, I hope that we'll be able to continue bringing to you more stories in the future. Again, thank you so much for your participation. For your emails of support. Please email me if you have thoughts or feelings or questions. Please come to the blog@mormonstories.org and post with your feedback. And you know, I will say that those of you who have been able to donate to help cover the costs and expenses and time that I've taken to do this, your donations are incredibly appreciated as well. So with that, thanks for tuning in. You guys are wonderful. I wish you all the best and I look forward to more conversations with you and stories with you in the future. Take care and goodbye. I haven't said enough I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you say I think I thought I.

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