Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 561

Gina Colvin [00:00:00] This is a Thoughtful Faith Podcast. I'm Jina Colvin. A Thoughtful Faith Podcast is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of you, its listeners. All donations to A Thoughtful Faith are tax deductible within the United States and go directly toward the podcast and toward building a community of support for Mormons like you. To help keep the podcast alive, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting a thoughtfulfaith.org John Dehlin will be no stranger to most of our listeners. Ten years ago, he posted the first of hundreds and hundreds of podcast interviews with Mormons who have, over the last decade shared their own stories, narratives and experiences that have been painful, beautiful, angry, disillusioned, searching, or reconciled to the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. Now, where Mormon public knowledge had been largely controlled and managed by the central body of the church or had been the subject of intellectual concern and debate, John did something unique. He allowed everyday folk to tell their stories, and what emerged was a progressive Mormon movement that has over the years, grown exponentially. For the first time available to Mormons all over the world who had the technology to listen were volumes of compelling and heartbreaking personal stories, narratives that assured questioners, doubters, and those with failing faith that they weren't alone. A language was offered the questioners that brought their own experiences into sharp relief. Like faith crisis and tbm, this caused people to feel that their experience mattered, that they were relevant and noticed through social media. Mormons who felt that they were at the periphery found each other and a new Mormon subculture was born. But what is more, though, the charge has been that John has caused people to leave the church. And that may be the case in some instances. In countless thousands of documented cases, people have found strength in these honest stories enough to stay in short, Mormon stories has, as I said, been a phenomenon. Mormon stories is the result of a perfect storm of John's personal doubt, his desire to have his questions answered through the stories of others, his hubris and his confidence, his dogged insistence that if Mormonism in its dark recesses saw some sunlight, the church might be healthier for it, and his facility with the technology and, of course, the Internet. And over the years, John's faith life, his mistakes, his successes, his ideas and his schemes, and his immense compassion for the suffering, particularly for LGBT folk, have been lived publicly, and he's taken hundreds of thousands of his listeners with him on this often turbulent journey. John has, from the first, courted censure, and in 2015 he was excommunicated from the church to discuss all of these things and more. John joins me now. And first of all, congratulations, John, for 10 years of Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:03:01] Yeah, it's 10 years, and we're going

Gina Colvin [00:03:03] to get to that 10 years by beginning at the very beginning. And I wonder if you could tell us, John, somewhat of your early life as a young Mormon boy.

John Dehlin [00:03:13] Well, first, I have to say, Gene, I'm a huge fan of you, so it's an honor to be interviewed by you. So thank you.

Gina Colvin [00:03:20] Well, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:03:21] And I love what you're doing with the thoughtful faith, so keep it up.

Gina Colvin [00:03:24] Cheers.

John Dehlin's Childhood and Early Life

John Dehlin [00:03:26] All right, so you want to know about my childhood?

Gina Colvin [00:03:29] Yeah, I do. I do. I don't know about your childhood.

John Dehlin [00:03:32] Okay. So I was born in Boise, Idaho, the youngest of four children. My dad, neither of my parents graduated from college. My dad was raised in Salt Lake City to kind of a blue collar, new deal kind of manual worker kind of person. My grandfather Preston. My mother was born in Franklin, Idaho, the daughter of a Parkinson and a Benson. So my ancestors on my mom's side go back to the early Mormon pioneers, Samuel Rose Parkinson and Ezra T. Benson. So my mom, even though she didn't go to college, she was raised sort of on a. A farm in Idaho and very devout, committed to the church. And my parents were awesome. My dad was a policeman for many years, and so we traveled kind of from state to state as he got different jobs. He eventually ended up working for the federal government in the United States on kind of traffic safety. And so that moved us around a bit, and we settled in Texas. So I was raised in Dallas and Houston. Five years in Dallas and then 12 years in Houston in a suburb called Katy, Texas. And my siblings were all pretty spaced out. So by the time I was really aware, my two oldest sisters had already kind of left for college. And so mostly I. I was, you know, experiencing childhood with my older brother Joel and my parents. When we moved to Katy, Texas, in about 1978, it was just a branch there. And, you know, it was sort of the good old days of the church with roadshows and temple trips and youth conferences, and, you know, the members helped build the chapel. And it was just really the golden age for mormonism in the 70s. And so the church was a very, very important part of our upbringing. It was all about mutual and primary and young men and women's and stake dances and ward dances, and that was all super important. And it became increasingly important when my parents were divorced around kind of sixth, seventh grade for me, even though my parents were always great parents. I sort of really clung to the church as sort of my security. And so that made Boy Scouts and youth, youth activities even more important. And really, I would say that the church was the most important part of me, of my identity, of my life up through the end of high school.

Gina Colvin [00:06:30] And yeah, when your parents were divorced, who did you live with?

John Dehlin [00:06:36] So my. I started living with my mother. So my dad moved out and he got remarried pretty quickly, and then my mom got remarried pretty quickly. And so for those two years after the divorce, I lived with my mom and eventually my stepdad, and then I would go visit my dad and stepmom on the weekends. Sort of. Strangely, both of those marriages were sort of rebound marriages. And so both of those marriages ended within two years. And then both of my parents remarried again for the third time. And in their third marriages, you know, those marriages both lasted a very long time. But. But once my mom remarried her third time, actually remarried her second time, married her third time. She moved to Huntsville, Texas, which was kind of far away. And my dad moved back in our house. And so I was sort of with my mom up and up through my kind of freshman year of high school, and then mom moved out and then my dad moved back into our house, and I kind of lived with my dad and stepmom through high school and then would visit my mom on the weekends. And that's kind of how it worked.

Gina Colvin [00:07:50] So in terms of the church, you suggest that the church is really important as a stabilizing factor in your upbringing. What were your parents engagement with the church at this point? Because it seems to me a very turbulent time where you're negotiating lots and lots of relationships. Were they similarly anchored into the church?

John Dehlin [00:08:09] Yeah, my mom, both my parents are a bit different church wise now. They both consider themselves to be believers and. And there's never been a time where they weren't believers. So I never. I never could think of a time, for example, where my mom ever had a faith crisis or anything of that nature. Having said that, my mom has been a subscriber to. To Dialogue for at least 20, maybe 25 years. And both of my parents are intellectuals in their own way, even though they never graduated from college. And so I would say we were raised very devout in the church, but also in sort of ways that I would look back that were kind of progressive. So, you know, kindness would have been emphasized over obedience and doctrine. You know, I think, I think love, love for everybody was. Was certainly the most important thing. And, and family before rules. And so There was never. I. It was not in any way sort of a Bruce R. McConkie, Joseph Fielding Smith household. It was more a household where we took the church seriously. We tried to have prayer and family home evening. Oftentimes we, you know, weren't successful. But sometimes we were. We would always pray at the dinner table. We would attend church every Sunday. Sometimes we'd stay home for state conference. But both my parents were devout throughout the whole thing. What was a little bit different, my dad sort of considered himself to be more of a New Testament Mormon than a Book of Mormon Mormon. And so, for example, when I got called to Guatemala, my mission, my dad was sort of bummed. He was worried about my safety. And he's like, I would prefer it if you would go stateside. I don't want anything to happen to you. And, you know, that's a weird conversation for a parent to have with a kid. You sort of don't expect that. But he cared more about my health and safety than anything the church might say or do. And that, you know, another example would be when I was first going to go through the temple instead of dad telling me, you know, how wonderful it is, his perspective was, you know what? When I went through the temple, I didn't have the greatest experience. And I'm not really big on the temple now, but I want you to have a good experience. But just know that if you don't have a great experience, you know, you know, I didn't have a great one either. And you can still be okay in the church. And my mom was the same way. She. I never really remember my parents being into the temple. Now, having said that, there wasn't a temple in Texas when I was growing up. The first temple that appeared in Texas was in Dallas, sort of after, I think my parents split. And so the nearest temple was Phoenix, Arizona. But it was a bit of a different experience in that way. So faithful but progressive for 70s, 80s, and much more focused on love and kindness and family unity than on obedience. The last thing I'll say is when I was in the MTC and Ezra Tap Benson gave his flood the Earth with the Book of Mormon talk, I remember having to call my dad for some reason. I think it had to do with dental work that was being performed. And telling dad about the talk and him just saying, you know, I've never been big on the Book of Mormon. I think the New Testament really is what we need. And so, you know, committed to the church, but not orthodox in their, let's just say, belief in some of their practice. Does that make sense?

Gina Colvin [00:11:54] It does, it does. And I'm thinking, would this have helped this more progressive orientation towards the church, have helped you make a more sort of compassionate or a more gentle sense of this very quick succession of marriages and divorces? Because I'm wondering about what was happening with you in the church and your sense of identity and belonging of the church against lots of family disruption.

John Dehlin [00:12:26] Yeah, it was really unsettling and earth shattering for me because, number one, as a fifth, sixth grader, you just don't expect your parents to get divorced. And I remember both my brother and I sensing tension, going to our parents in fifth and sixth grade or whenever and saying, hey, is there any chance you'll get divorced? And they're like, no, there's no chance. And so when it actually happens, there's just no. No way to really prepare for that. And. And then, yeah, once it did happen, it was. It was really difficult because, you know, I remember. I remember having a primary program where I'm. I'm sitting up on the stage, all the, you know, all the primary kids are sitting up on the stage. And the theme was families can be together forever. And I'm sitting up there singing that song. You know, I have a family here on earth, and families can be together forever. And. And I'm looking down in the audience and like, my dad's not there because he's now with my stepmom and my mom's there. You can see her kind of crying in the audience. And as a kid, what do you do with that when this plan that's so clearly laid out for everybody just all of a sudden doesn't fit your experience? And so I do attribute that it was an awful time, and for many, many years our family was reeling. But at the same time, what it did for me. What it did for me was it made me turn to the church more. And so that was sort of a really important time for me to say, I'm going to be extra righteous. I'm going to be extra committed. I'm going to double down my efforts and commitment to the church so that things like that don't happen to me. And so what you would have seen for me by high school is super committed to seminary Scripture Chase champion of the entire region, not just the stake, but the entire region. You know, never trying alcohol, never messing around with girls in any way that would be inappropriate, and bearing my testimony often and just being the uber Mormon. And so that's how it affected me ultimately. But as I Look back now on sort of the ultimate faith crisis. I do think the divorce was sort of the first crack. And that crack had directly to do with the fact of trying to figure out, you know, what does someone do if the church plan no longer applies to them? And I think if you look at what I've tried to do with LGBT individuals, with, you know, intellectuals, with women's issues, with. With issues around race and other sorts of things, just all those issues, they all touch on sort of minorities in the church for whom the church plan doesn't always seem to work out so well. And I think my interest in those minority groups really does tie to feeling so disturbed by how the church didn't fit for me back then. Does that make sense?

Gina Colvin [00:15:41] It does, it does. And I'm wondering, I know this is difficult to find that memory, but you seemed really frantic in your attachment to the church. Would that be fair? Or was there. Were you sort of frantically attached to it? Like, if I really do this well, if I perform my Mormonism, this won't happen to me. Was it a fear based kind of attachment, or was there a sense of calm and peace and maybe sort of spiritual engagement?

Growing Up Mormon: Social and Spiritual Life

John Dehlin [00:16:07] Oh, it was all of the above. I mean, socially, it was amazing. I had all these friends, I. All these activities, all these youth leaders who were incredibly inspiring and supportive. So socially, it was just. It was a blast. The Houston, Texas stake in the 1980s was phenomenal. Saturday's Warrior, we put on Saturday's Warriors, a stake that was amazing. Dance festivals, youth conferences, road shows, temple trips. Like, it was just so fun. And then spiritually, my spirituality in Mormonism came mostly through my seminary teachers. My seminary teachers and testimony meetings. And so I can remember so many youth conference and temple trip testimony meetings where I would feel completely filled to the brim with what I consider to be the spirit. And I had this seminary teacher named Lawrence Layton, who. Who was this beautiful, sensitive, but super Bruce, armor, conky kind of type Mormon. And he would just weep during his seminary lessons and make you feel like, honestly, he spoke with God. And you felt so spiritual listening to his lessons that you just felt inspired. So I feel like it was very social, very spiritual in terms of testimonies and experiencing the spirituality of the lived Mormon experience. And then I wrote my journal religiously. I still have all those journals. And I prayed every day, but I think where I never really fully got it was in my prayers, because I would pray every single night. And I really tried to develop a relationship with God, but because my seminary teacher was telling me about direct answers he received and visions he received. And someone read the Book of Mormon and it lit up as if there was like a light in the Book of Mormon or somebody goes to the temple and like, as they're doing baptisms for the dead, the spirit of the person that they're doing the baptisms for would actually appear. I was really fighting for that direct spiritual experience, either in prayer or in temple attendance or in other forms of spirituality. And I never really received any of that. I never felt God telling me, turn left or turn right. I never felt God whispering in my ear, the keys are over there. I never, I would ask for answers and I would never feel like I got them in a way that I'd been sort of set up to get them. And so I just wondered, why won't God talk to me? Why won't he answer my prayers? I did, I did read the Book of Mormon cover to cover as like a 16 year old. I prayed about it multiple times, expecting some big answer, and it didn't and it never came. And, and so then I did the typical thing of saying, well, I've known all along, or you know, it came in other ways. And you know, that's what you do. You kind of, you don't want to go to there's no God or go to it's not true. And so where you go in your mind is, well, I, you know, you find other ways to sort of say it was there all along or it'll come later. And so I would say I felt like it was very social but also very spiritual. But, but, but the spiritual experiences came through social engagements or through leaders who were very inspirational. I also remember a time where just started paying attention to general conference. And during one particular general conference, I felt so full of what I called the Holy Ghost that I was literally on sort of like Spiritual Cloud 9 for weeks after that, after that general conference sort of session. And that, that was a really profound experience for me. And so, you know, I would say I thought felt very spiritual to me, but also very social.

Gina Colvin [00:20:16] And I wonder though, how ubiquitous that experience is. So we're given these mythologies, we're given these stories, or I shouldn't say mythologies, that's disrespectful. But we're given these stories of people who do extraordinary things to leverage their spiritual technologies. We think, why can't I do that? But, you know, if most of us are honest with each other, you know, the spirit is felt not rarely, but in a sort of a low burn and, you know, occasionally in these sort of swooping and deeply fulfilling moments and flashes and moments. But largely, you know, I think, you know, our spiritual lives is animation there, but not necessarily, you know, the skyrockets and sort of, you know, explosions in the air that we might think we should be entitled to. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:21:06] Yeah, yeah. And I would say, actually, part of what's ironic for me is if you look over the past kind of 10 or 11 years, I feel like that's what I kind of settled into. I dropped the expectation of getting direct answers from God, and I just sort of would go on walks or be contemplative and feel led to do various things. And if you were to ask me did I feel spiritually moved to start Mormon stories, I'd say yes. And if you were to ask for the things that I've done, even over the past three years, I would say I always felt spiritually guided and led in some way that I couldn't fully describe. And so the crazy thing is that I kind of still feel like there's some sort of. Sometimes I still feel like there's some sort of power or force guiding, even though I'm open to the fact that it's just my brain. And even though me following that guide led to my excommunication, I still feel like I've been marching to some sort of inspiration or guide in. In some ways that I can't fully describe now before.

Gina Colvin [00:22:20] And we're going to talk a little bit about this in detail later on, but before we leave. Katie, Texas. Renee Zellwinger.

John Dehlin [00:22:28] Yeah. Yeah. So that's a fun story. So I met Renee as a freshman at Katy High School. We were freshmen together. She was delightful. We met at a speech and drama tournament, so I was doing debate. She did dramatic acting. And we met. And I remember the day we met and we became good friends. And we were friends through four years of high school. We shared a love for the Beatles. And I would. The way that we would spend time together, it was never at school. We would talk on the phone, and then she would often call and ask me to come over to her house. And so I would go over to her house at night and we would sing Beatles songs together and go on drives together and just talk. And it was a really beautiful relationship. Probably sophomore, junior year, we actually. I think I was falling for her for sure. It's all over my journal. But I think she was. I think she was falling for me, at least in some ways, you know, not to kiss and Tell. But we probably did kiss once or twice in sort of our friendship together, but it was never a boyfriend, girlfriend relationship. However, my junior year, I really wanted to try and make that happen. And so I've told this story before, but I decided that because I was sort of. I thought of myself as the king of steak dances, I decided that I was going to invite her to a New Year's Eve steak dance my junior year. And so I did invite her, and surprisingly enough, she accepted. And so I picked her up for the dance, and she was wearing this beautiful. I remember it to be a black kind of velvet dress that sort of slightly fell off the shoulder. But she's a real petite girl, and so it felt perfectly modest to me. We went to the. You know, we drove probably 40, 45 minutes to the dance, because our stake covered almost a huge chunk of Houston at the time. And I showed up at the dance, and immediately the leaders in the stake noticed that her shoulders were showing. And they immediately pulled me aside and said, do you have a coat or a jacket or a sweater that your guest can use to cover herself? And I looked around, and I just thought, she's not going to dance with a coat on. You know, like, that's kind of weird. And somehow she caught wind that the leaders were not happy with her style of dress. And they. They actually told us that she would have to either cover herself up or go home and change. And we had driven, like, 45 minutes to the chapel. And so I was devastated. But I pulled them aside and I said, you know, this is an investigator. She's not a member. You know, I think. I think we could let this one go because. And they really stuck to their guns and said it wouldn't be fair to the other girls who were here, and you're going to have to have her change. And so Renee just said, please, let's just go. And we went out to the car, and she broke into tears, and I had to drive her home from the steak dance.

Gina Colvin [00:25:52] How humiliating. How humiliating.

John Dehlin [00:25:56] Yeah, it was awful. And I asked her if she still wanted to go out, and she's like, no, just take me home. I took her home. And I actually remember going back to the dance after it was over. I mean, after. After I dropped her off and just, like, going into the chapel and lying on one of the pews, just staring up at the ceiling, just wondering how in the world this could happen. Because this was, like, a girl I felt like I loved. This was like an investigator. This was, like a really big moment where Maybe she could have so much fun that she was interested in the church. And it was just heartbreaking on almost every possible level.

Gina Colvin [00:26:32] I'm feeling heartbroken for both of you. Oh, that's terrible. And, you know, you wouldn't have been able to say, you do realize she's going to be an A list movie star one day.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] No, I had no idea. And I did, I did. You know, we stayed friends and we stayed close friends through high school. And then she went to the University of Texas when I went to byu and I kind of lost. I did send her a Book of Mormon while I was on my mission, but, but, but I lost touch with her until like my senior year at BYU when she actually did call me. And she told me that she had been friends with Matthew McConaughey at the University of Texas. She told me that she had started acting in sort of B movies and in music videos. And she told me that she was dropping out of school to become an actress. And I just remember kind of going, wow. You know, like thinking in my mind that's kind of crazy and good luck, but it sounds a little bit unrealistic. But whatever makes you happy, Renee. And sure enough, a few years later, I'm married to Margi, we're living in Chicago, and the trailer for Jerry Maguire comes out. And it was the first time I saw that she had actually hit the big time. And I have not spoken with her since 1993, so I haven't really tried to reach out because I don't know that that would be. You know, Margi would love that. I don't think I'd love that. But I also don't want to be that kind of a pest. But I haven't, I haven't heard from her since 93, so I hope she's doing well.

Gina Colvin [00:28:02] I'm sure she is. Now, your decision to go to Brigham Young University, that was. That seems like a natural progression for you and your faith life?

BYU Years and Early Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:28:11] Yeah, I graduated sort of top of my class and had good scores, but I didn't apply to anywhere but BYU and I was able to get a 2 year old full tuition scholarship. And I was just so sick of dating non Mormons. I was so sick of being in a Baptist town where, where literally girls, fathers, who. There would be girls that would want to go out with me and then their fathers would find out I was Mormon and they would tell their daughters they couldn't go out with me. I mean, it was, you know, the, the local Katy Baptist Church would run seminars on the Weekends where they would show the God Makers and they would title the. The seminars Mormons and other Cults. And it just felt. It felt like a bit of a hostile environment for a Mormon. And there just weren't many Mormon girls around. So for me, BYU was like this mecca of Mormons and Mormon girls and Mormon spirituality. And I really do liken it to kind of like Dorothy going to Oz. It was like, raised in what we called the mission field. I don't know if in New Zealand they call that the mission field, but we called Texas the mission field, which is dumb, but it was like my chance to go to Zion. So BYU was the only option. And I was really like Dorothy or Glinda or Elphaba going to Oz.

Gina Colvin [00:29:34] Right?

John Dehlin [00:29:35] Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:29:36] So you're a kid in a candy shop.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] Oh, it was just, you know, I was in the honors dorm at Chipman Hall. You know, Jeffrey Holland's daughter, Mary Holland, was in our ward. You know, she was a freshman at BYU when I was there, and so she chose our ward. They chose our ward of all the wards because it had a reputation of being such a good ward. I actually got to date Mary my freshman year. I got to know Elder Holland a little bit. And, yeah, the religion classes were my favorite part of BYU at the time. And I was just ward a family home evening with my dorm mates, and I was family home evening dad. And. And, you know, hall, you know, ward prayer on Sunday nights. We'd all go to the. To the lobby of Chipman hall or to Budge hall, and we would all sing hymns and have a devotional. I would go to every devotional. It was just mission prep all the way. And it really was like a kidney candy store.

Gina Colvin [00:30:38] Yeah, the early 90s are a really important time in terms of the BYU purges and, you know, the cultural politics and the cultural wars that are going on. Were you aware of it at the

John Dehlin [00:30:49] time as a freshman? I was not at all aware as a freshman. It was more. I was just in sort of orthodox Mormon bliss. And ironically, I did have a roommate at. Well, there's a man on my dorm, a fellow student at my dorms, who had not gone on a mission. He was. He was a year older than all of us, and he didn't really consider himself to be Mormon, even though his parents were raised LDs. And he. He had really dug into church history and other types of things. And it had flirted, I think, with atheism or agnosticism. And so he would sometimes, as we were sort of engaging in religious and spiritual Rapture. He would sort of drop these little bombs to us. Like, well, you know, he would make the claim that the church allowed the blacks to have the priesthood, you know, after their tax exempt status was being threatened. And to me, it was just like, what? That is terrible. How could you ever say such a thing? That's blasphemous. Or, you know, he would. You know, they would talk a little bit about the temple ceremony and what went on in there, and I would just, this is evil, and you shouldn't be talking about this sort of stuff. And so that was. That was my mindset as a freshman. And so, yeah, it wasn't until after I had had sort of my difficult mission experiences and came home sort of with what I would call religious PTSD, that I started learning about sunstone and dialogue. And then that's when I became aware of Joanna Brooks and Voice, which was a feminist group, and Cecilia Farr and Gail Houston and David Knowlton and. And all the intellectual freedom, academic freedom issues and the September 6th stuff. That. That happened after my mission, not before.

Gina Colvin [00:32:49] And you went on your mission in your sophomore year?

John Dehlin [00:32:53] Between my freshman and sophomore year, yeah. Okay, so I was. I was 19, it was 1988, and I went to the Guatemala City North Mission.

Gina Colvin [00:33:00] Okay, now that is a really important part of your faith journey. Can we talk about that? What. What happened there?

John Dehlin [00:33:08] Yeah, so I. I love the mtc. Ed Pinniger was the president there. He was incredibly inspiring. I remember his talks just lighting me up inside, spiritually. I sang for the MTC choir. Loved that experience. And I was just the most, you know, I considered myself to be Nephi. You know, I was the hardest working, most obedient, most uptight, and, you know, probably a bit judgy, probably a little bit holier than thou. And probably some of my MTC companions were like, chill out, Elder Delin. You know, give us a break. You know, But I was wanting to learn the language super well, and I was just obeying every rule with exactness. And I just completely bought the sort of exact obedience thing, hook, line, and sinker. And when I got to Guatemala, it was difficult, but I was really, really committed to being just the perfect missionary.

Gina Colvin [00:34:12] Okay, can I just stop you there? Can we talk about that for a minute? Because you've used a few words. You've talked about being in a Mormon bliss. You talked about being in this rapture, and now obedience, and then you've sort of bookended that with, I was really uptight. Can we talk about sort of theorize that For a little bit. What is that? What is that state? Is there a psychological term for it?

John Dehlin [00:34:38] Wow, a psychological term, huh?

Gina Colvin [00:34:40] Yeah, I know. Some kind of social.

John Dehlin [00:34:42] I'm sort of scraping my, like, pathological, like.

Gina Colvin [00:34:45] I don't know. Is it a pathology? I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:34:48] I don't. I think it was just. I think it's just idealism and literalism, and it's probably some dogmatism. You know, I. It. I don't know. I don't think I had an anxiety disorder. I don't think I had depression. I don't think I had obsessive compulsive disorder. Like, I don't. I. No, no. Pathologies sort of fit. I probably had a lot of insecurities, and I think. I think Mormonism, it was my identity. I know that. It was my source of morality. It was the way that I existentially made sense of the world. So who I am, where I came from, where I was going, what my purpose was. And so I took everything very. Just literally and seriously, and I honestly. And, yeah, there was a fear of disappointing Heavenly Father, of not making the celestial kingdom, but there was also a desire to become a God and a desire to become exalted. And that. That was all just. It feels very stereotypical to me because I think there's a lot of Mormons that would sort of describe this sort of thing. Not everybody, but I do feel like in many of those ways, it was a very stereotypical experience for sort of the. You know, I guess there's the kids in high school that kind of decided to have fun and adventure and to party, and I think there's actually some virtue to that now. But that wasn't me. I was more of the Nephite type,

Gina Colvin [00:36:16] you know, but there was some kind of emotional or even spiritual social return on that, wasn't there?

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Oh, yeah. Like, I. I loved. I loved. You know, and this is going to sound. You know, this is me being vulnerable, but I'll just be honest with you. You know, some of my happiest moments in high school were during youth conference, fast, and testimony meetings where other. Other youth would get up and say how much of an example I was to them. So for me, from a very early age, being good and then doing good and then having other people recognize my doing good publicly were all very important to who I was and how I felt about myself and how I sort of got reinforcement for acting, quote, you know, righteously. And so there's a lot of ego. There is absolutely a lot of ego and self gratification in that.

Gina Colvin [00:37:18] And that's one of the beauties of Mormonism, isn't it? It gives you a set of guidelines, social guidelines, and you know that you're going to get affirmation, you know that you're going to be rewarded with a sense of belonging. And also it's going to help you in your identity formation, you know, really positive identity formation. But isn't there a way in which. And I'm trying to get to the heart of it, you know, for myself as well. Isn't there a way that this kind of certainty that Mormonism gives us makes us sort of bigger than the world? And there's, you know, a certain amount of hubris and confidence that comes with that, you know, this understanding, the sense of, actually, I know how the world works. I know what my place is in it. And, you know, and. And I feel this call to fill the world with myself and my.

John Dehlin [00:38:04] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, the way that I. The way that I think about this, I talked about this. I gave a sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Church a few weeks ago, and in there I talked about the Saturday's warrior narrative, which was that my seminary teacher taught us. He said, these are the last days. And he told us, Christ will come in my lifetime, in his lifetime. And he was like 60 at the time. 60 or 65 at the time he was telling us this. So it was like, sign of the times, Second coming is near. And then he would say, your generation is the chosen generation to usher in the second coming of Jesus. And so you are Saturday's warrior, saved to the last day, the evening of the last day to literally save mankind. And I literally believed it.

Gina Colvin [00:39:03] And.

John Dehlin [00:39:04] And in the Book of Mormon musical, there's this wonderful. During the song, I believe there's this wonderful part where Elder Price sings, I want to be the Mormon who changes all mankind.

Gina Colvin [00:39:17] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] And that is exactly how I felt going on my mission. I felt like I was God's soldier to save the Guatemalan people. And it gave me a sense of excitement, of meaning, of purpose, of identity, and. And literally, you know, there's another line in that song which is like, I'll do something incredible that blows God's freaking mind, right? Like, I felt like I had so much power and ability, I just believed it all the way, you know?

Gina Colvin [00:39:50] But it's interesting, isn't it? It gives you that sense of spiritual and earthly command and presence, but yet all of it is, all of it in terms of its praxis. All you need to do is believe and follow the guidance of the Church. It's a sort of an interesting, it seems like a very big idea with very small practical steps to take.

John Dehlin [00:40:14] Yeah, yeah. Like what 19 year old has anything to tell the world, right. To go into a foreign country, you don't know their culture, you don't know their language, you don't know where they've been and you're all of a sudden telling them that they need to follow you. There's a lot of hubris. But when you're in it, you're not thinking you're being arrogant, you're thinking you're being God's messenger and you're saving souls. And so it's ironic that it's completely arrogant from the outsider perspective, but completely innocent and naive from within the Mormon perspective, you know.

Gina Colvin [00:40:53] Right, yeah. But it does change lives though. So there's the other part of the story. You know, you might be arrogant, but that arrogance actually, you know, in some respects gets into people's lives and rescues people. It changes them.

John Dehlin [00:41:05] And I don't know, no question, I, yeah, my mission, I, you know, we probably had 120, 130 baptisms on my mission. And I saw, I saw the gospel transform lives in positive ways. And I can't, I cannot deny that it can have that effect. I've seen it in my family and so I don't, I'm not one of those, you know, I'm an ex Mormon now, even though I don't love that label. I am, I'm an ex LDS anyway, and. But I'm not one of those guys that thinks that the church is 100% evil and that it doesn't do any good. I think that if you're the right person with the right set of circumstances, the church can actually absolutely be an incredible positive influence in your life.

Gina Colvin [00:41:52] Right. But having said that, though, you know, there's something about the mission experiences. You're passing on your confidence. You're suddenly telling people, you know, who are in maybe the, you know, the terrible, terrible circumstances. Actually, you can have this too. You can know this, you can have the sensitive, this, this confidence and this certainty. And that in turn gives people confidence and belonging and a sense of identity and it makes them bigger than they were before.

John Dehlin [00:42:18] Totally. Totally. Yep. And you see it in my mission. I look back and how ironic. But these Guatemalans would proudly call themselves Lamanites, and that's just the fact that they believed in this holy book and they identified with the narrative, even though the narrative was actually specifically saying that their ancestors were given dark skin because of their wickedness. Somehow they were able to embrace the Lamanite title with pride and say, I'm a Lamanite. You know, soy lamanita or whatever it was. And it just gave them all. You know, think about it. You're in this pueblo, you live in a shack, you probably have dirt floors, and all of your family lives in a single room, and you don't have indoor plumbing, but all of a sudden, you're connected to Israelites that came from. From Christ's time, and you're. You're someone who's been prophesied about in a holy book like that. That's a pretty good deal, you know.

Gina Colvin [00:43:25] Huge. Yeah, it's huge. I mean, it's similar with New Zealand, you know, the. The layman experience. It's like, suddenly I'm bigger than the colonizers. You know, I don't. I don't just. I'm not just grappling with land claims. Actually own, you know, a spiritual history. I have a place in spiritual history that is huge. Huge.

John Dehlin [00:43:43] I'm. I'm. You know, and people don't say it this way, but really, the way I grew up lds, I felt like we were better than the rest of the world because, you know, and that sounds awful to say, but we had the truth, we had the gospel, we had God's prophet, and we had the gift of the Holy Ghost, and everyone didn't. So even though, you know, if someone would say to me in high school, do you think Mormons are better than other people? I'd say no. But in my heart, I was like, we have the truth, we have the light, we have the spirit. And so, in effect, we're superior to the rest of mankind. You know, that's just. That's what. The gift of the Holy Ghost and following God's commandments, that's what it gives you. And so, even though it's not explicit, I think we feel we carry a sense of superiority that makes us feel really good. Right?

Gina Colvin [00:44:31] Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and I wonder. I mean, is there anything wrong with it? Is there anything wrong with the bliss, with actually feeling really certain, Feeling as though that you actually have all of the answers? I mean, what's wrong with it?

John Dehlin [00:44:47] No, I think there's a. I think it's all about perspective. And I think there's a perspective where it's really helpful and benign and harmless because, you know, most Mormons are never going to say, I'm better than everybody, and they're going to Treat people with kindness. So as long as your actions are kind and loving and charitable, then I think there's a paradigm where that's probably a perfectly fine thing. Now if, where it can be messy is where your rights end and someone else's rights begin. And so Prop 8 could be an example where you think your prophet's talking to God. Your prophet says, no same sex marriage. And so now you're joining thousands of other Mormons to man the phone banks to make robocalls into California to try and change a legislative outcome, to deprive a whole class of people from some basic civil rights of the ability to get married. You know, that's, that's where this sort of optimism and confidence in your way starts to really interfere. Another example would be, you know, Jews getting offended that we're baptizing their deceased ancestors. You know, that, you know, we're doing it with, with humble, sweet optimism of doing God's will. But it happens to be terribly offensive to those who we happen to be doing it to. And so, yeah, it becomes a matter of, to what extent we're, we're harming

Gina Colvin [00:46:17] others, you know, and it does make you insensitive, I think, to diversity and to ways in which we can change and improve as a culture. I mean, if you think, look, we actually, we're there, you know, we are what God wants us to be, and I am what God wants me to be. Why would you change? Why would you be more inclusive or kinder or more compassionate or thoughtful?

John Dehlin [00:46:40] Yeah, it can lead to pride. It can lead to pride, yeah.

Mission to Guatemala and Faith Challenges

Gina Colvin [00:46:44] Okay, let's go back to your mission. So there you are in Guatemala. Tell us about. Because things crashed for you at some stage.

John Dehlin [00:46:52] Yeah, well. Yeah, well, I finished my mission a total believer. But what was, what was hard about Guatemala was first of all just right, right off my very first companion, he. I was with him for, I don't know the time, but I would say a week or two. And one day we went out for lunch. You know, the zone leaders or the mission president basically said he's getting transferred. You know, there's some challenges, but, you know, we're putting you with him because we know you're strong and that you'll be really good for him. So they didn't give me any of the details of what had happened before. So I, now that I think about it, he was my second companion. But I'd only had my first companion for. It felt like a matter of weeks before I got this new missionary. So I got this new missionary and the first couple days we're tracking, we come in for lunch, and I go into the bathroom to go the bathroom, and when I come out into our bedroom, he's not there, and the doors open, and he. He fled while we were companions, and I freaked out. And I called my zone leaders, and they came and got me. And it turns out he had fallen in love with the. With a member of the ward in his previous area, and they had transferred him out because he was getting too close to the girl, and he fled to go back and be with the girl. And I didn't know any of this, and so, you know, that was jolting for me. But, you know, I was fine. I recovered from that.

Gina Colvin [00:48:35] Did he come back?

John Dehlin [00:48:37] No, he left the mission. He left the mission with the girl. I don't know what happened with him and the girl because it was outside of our area, but I presume he went and tried to get back with the girl, but I don't know what happened there. Okay, so. But he. He was. He was a Guatemalan. He wasn't from the US So. So, yeah. So the crazy thing that started happening was the mission president had implemented these sort of sales techniques, and. And so there'd be this mission newsletter that would report on the top baptizing zones in the mission and the top baptizing companionships on the mission. And when you. Every time we had a zone conference, he would hand out certificates to all the missionaries who had baptized seven or more that month. And if you baptized 10 or more in a month, he would hand out publicly a Janice Cat Perry cassette tape of songs. And then every month, he would have a party for all the companionships that baptized 10 or more in a month. And you'd work really hard to get 10 baptisms so that you could attend this party. And he would give a steak dinner to the highest baptizing zone in the mission each month. And so he had all these crazy incentives. And at the time, because of my MTC experience and their emphasis on exact obedience, you know, it was like, wow, that. Okay, that's. He's incentivizing us, and this is the way it's done. They incentivize people. And so I was working really hard to get 10 baptisms a month, you know, but to try and do it in. In the way you should, which is to tract and to teach discussions and to bring people to church, and then after they've been to church, to baptize them. But then in these newsletters, and I've got the. I've Got the originals of these newsletters. To this day, they're started showing up these companionships that would have 40 baptisms in a month. You know, 20, 30, or 40 baptisms in a month. Now, I don't have to do the math for you guys, you know, 40 baptisms in a month is more than one a day, right? And I was like, how in the world are they doing this? And what I started seeing was in my own area, how my companions and the zone leaders were very eager to baptize people. That just seemed questionable. Maybe it was someone who didn't seem mentally stable. Maybe it was someone who was still drinking alcohol. Maybe it was these kids without their parents, but they were 8, 9 years old. And so I would go to my mission president and say, president Romney. You know, it just feels like sometimes we're baptizing people that just, they don't really have testimonies, they're not really committed, and it just feels like it's sort of not right, you know, and he would tell me, elder, don't, don't worry. You know, we're, we're planting seeds and we're bringing people to Christ. And, you know, once they get baptized, you need to remember that they get the gift of the Holy Ghost. And so even if they're not super strong when they're baptized, once they get the gift of the Holy Ghost, that can be something that awakens in them and that's really useful to them. And most importantly, if they die, we're going to have to do their temple work for them when they're dead anyway. So we may, even if, even if, you know, they don't seem like the golden investigator, we're still doing important work because we'd have to get them when they're dead anyway. And again, I was so obedient and conditioned to obedience that I was like, okay, you're, you're, you're spiritual, you're. You're intelligent. He had a PhD. You're a Romney. Like, you know, I knew that that was sort of this family of royalty that came out of Mexico. I had never heard of Mitt Romney yet, but, but, you know, I knew enough to know that he was pioneer ancestry. I knew about Marion G. Romney, and I'm like, wow, okay, I'll do what you say. And so I never stooped to those tactics as a missionary. And I was able to work hard and get 10 or 12 baptisms a month on average, but I never was able to get 20 or 30 or 40. But then, can I just ask John,

Gina Colvin [00:53:08] are these the same as the baptismal challenge discussions, the BC days?

John Dehlin [00:53:14] Probably. I mean, the way it worked, the way it ended up working in my mission, is that missionaries would challenge for baptism on the first discussion, the BC days.

Gina Colvin [00:53:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:23] And the goal was to get them. The goal was if they're not willing to get baptized after the second discussion, move on and find people who will. Don't waste your time teaching all six. If they're not willing to get baptized by the second one, find others who are. So, yeah, we didn't call it bcds, but I think it's sort of a similar thing.

Gina Colvin [00:53:44] Okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] Yeah. So. But what happened is months into my mission, you know, four months into my mission, I was asked to open an area by myself with a junior companion. So I had to go into a town with no chapel, no members, find a place to hold church, and start trying to baptize people. And that was an amazing experience for me. And within a few months, we had 40 people attending church. It was a. You know, I was branch president for four months, and that was incredible. But after that, I got called zone leader. So I was called a zone leader probably by 10 months into my mission, and I was called as a branch president again. And it was there, as a zone leader where I started finding out how these missionaries were getting 40 baptisms and what the word was that these zone leaders would go to a field and start playing soccer with little, poor Guatemalan, you know, children. So imagine these. These children that their parents aren't around, they're just. They're in poverty, mulling around this dusty sort of, you know, zone in. In downtown Guatemala. They would. They would say, hey, guys, let's all go play soccer. And they build this relationship of trust where they'd play soccer with all these children, and then they would say, hey, you know what? You guys are hot. Why don't we go back to the chapel and cool off? And then the zone leaders would take these kids back to the chapel, never having had discussions, never telling their parents, never having brought them to church, and they would fill out the baptismal forms and baptize eight or ten at a time in a single day. And I have a friend who's now in a bishopric in Salt Lake City, who. Who was there, and he saw this happen, and he retells the story of how he was there one of these times where the children were actually doing cannonballs into the baptismal font as if it were a swimming pool. And that was the environment of how these baptisms were occurring. And When I found out about this, I couldn't believe was literally like Dorothy peering behind the curtain. You know, the first time I felt like I was peering behind the curtain and seeing that there was a wizard behind it. And so I went to my mission president and I'm just like, this doesn't feel right, President Romney. And then the AP's tried to do these sorts of things in my zone while I was a zone leader. And so I talked to my mission president, you know, and I just said, this feels wrong and we're bastardizing the Lord's sacred ordinance. And instead of like, what I expected him to do was like, this is terrible. I'm going to go call those elders in right now and we're going to stop this. What he did is he yelled at me and he told me that I was defying my priesthood leadership. And this was me as a zone leader. It's not like I'm this troubled elder. I'm like a zone leader who's been baptizing 10 people a month since the start of my mission, been branch president twice. And, and here he is yelling at me for questioning his priesthood authority and leadership. And so what he ended up doing was transferring me to a small Guatemalan town that was a five hour bus ride to the nearest telephone and an 11 hour bus ride to the mission home. And it was sort of like he was exiling me for questioning these tactics. And it wasn't that I was this rebellious kid. I had never tried alcohol, drugs, smoking. I'd never done, you know, violated the word of wisdom in any serious way with a girl like Seminary President Scripture Chase Champion Student Body President Like, I was not rebellious. I was all in. And he was deeply disturbed that I was questioning his authority. And so I spent a month in Uspantan Kiche and I got really sick and I called him and I, and I don't know how psychosomatic the illness was, but I certainly was traumatized by that experience. And I called him to tell him I was sick and that I needed to come back to the Capitol for to see a doctor. And when I got back to the capital the very next day, he sent me home on a plane.

Gina Colvin [00:58:16] He sent you home?

John Dehlin [00:58:18] Sent me home saying that it was a medical, it was a medical issue. And it was a medical issue. I was having an asthmatic reaction to the town he had sent me to and I couldn't breathe and I had to take these over the counter Guatemalan pills just to be able to open up my airways, to be able to breathe. And I felt like he was using this as an excuse to get me out of the mission because there were certainly areas in the mission where I was able to function well. But I think he just, he just wanted. I think he wanted to get rid of me. But the crazy thing was he transferred me honorably. He told Salt Lake that I had been a fantastic missionary. And when I got home, I was given the option of continuing my mission or ending it. And of course I was going to continue it. I was not going to end my mission early, even though they offered me an honorable release at 20 months. And so after I got better, I transferred to the Tempe Arizona Mission. And immediately I was called as a zone leader there over the Spanish speaking missionaries. And I served for the last four months of my mission as a zone leader in the Tempe Arizona Mission. And just to make the story, just to briefly end the story, my mission president at the time was Daryl Woolsey, who had just been called as a general authority and was about to go to the Philippines. And so I told him the whole story of what had happened in Salt Lake City. And after a couple weeks, he came back and told me that he had spoken with Salt Lake, but that Salt Lake had decided that they didn't want to make a big stink, that President Romney only had a few months left on his mission and that they were not going to do anything about it. And that was again peering behind the curtain and saying, what in the heck is going on? How could the church know that this happened and just kind of blow it off and let President Romney just finish it out? And then when I got back to byu, sort of as a broken, spiritually, kind of dark and broken, I found out that President Romney had been called to serve on the mission committee, the missionary committee for the church, after he had finished his mission. And that's when I just lost it. And I was thinking about going to 2020 or 60 minutes because this felt outrageous to me. And I met all these missionaries, returned missionaries at BYU who had had similar experiences in Chile and Argentina and Brazil. I'd heard about, by this time, I'd heard about the baseball baptisms that Sunstone had talked about in Japan and in England. And I was ready to go public with this scandal, still as a believer. But fortunately, I had a BYU professor to take me under their wings. They had me draft a letter to church headquarters. And Elder Oaks ended up getting my letter. And he ended up calling me and apologizing for what happened and promising me that he would take care of it all. And so that sort of saved me from sort of going off the deep end while I was at byu.

Gina Colvin [01:01:20] That was very kind of Elder Oaks, super kind.

John Dehlin [01:01:24] And I look back, very grateful that he, that he did that.

Questions About Baptisms and Mission Leadership

Gina Colvin [01:01:28] A number of things would have happened to you, though. I mean, were you alone in your concerns about these, these baptisms?

John Dehlin [01:01:35] No, but I was one of the only ones willing to speak out, you know, and, and when you talk about psychology, there's a, there's a very famous psychological experiment called the, the Ash Line Study. Have you ever heard of it?

Gina Colvin [01:01:47] Yes, A social group cohesion. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:49] Yeah, you probably know about it better than I do. But, but if, if you've got a room full of 10 people and nine are willing to say something that doesn't, that, that isn't true a very high percentage of the time, the 10th person will also confirm the statement that isn't true just because of social pressure. And I lived that in Guatemala because I knew lots of missionaries that secretly would tell me, this is disturbing, that afterwards said that it was disturbing. But while it was going on, they refused to speak up because President Romney was stern, he was strong, he had all the power. He held their passports, he held their money. And, and everybody was scared to defy President Romney, you know, so.

Gina Colvin [01:02:34] I see. So this must have been deeply traumatic for you because this probably is the first time where your worthiness or your sense of belonging and identity in the church that you've beautifully carved out through your adolescence has been questioned.

John Dehlin [01:02:47] Oh, deep. It was deeply. It really was dark and disturbing and unsettling. And I still, it's not like I'm, oh, the church can't be true. It was more like, wow, well, the church is true, but then the church is doing awful things and how do I. And there's something rotten at church headquarters. And I'm like, how can this all be? You know, it was just dark and confusing, you know.

Gina Colvin [01:03:14] So you actually thought that at the time, like, there's actually, there's trouble afoot, there's something wrong in the structure and the organization of the church. Or did you blame it on your mission?

John Dehlin [01:03:24] President well, certainly I held President Romney accountable, but when I found out that church headquarters said, we'll just let him stay there, and in fact, he finished out his mission and in fact got called to the temple, to the, to the missionary committee, then I, then I, of course, I had to conclude that there was something wrong, that either he was deceiving them and they weren't as inspired as we would expect. Them to be or that they were playing by a set of rules that didn't feel worthy of reverence. One of the two. I didn't know what else to think.

Gina Colvin [01:04:03] Right, right, right, right. So you had the. So what I'm sensing is that you had this really fierce loyalty for the church to work right on the one hand, but you had enough ego strength to be outspoken and vocal about what you felt was amiss.

John Dehlin [01:04:21] Yeah. The only thing I would slightly correct is I had the perception that the church and the Brethren were as close to flawless and perfect as you could be. I didn't grow up knowing anything about sunstone or dialogue, knowing anything about the troubled history. All I had were these Bruce monkey worshiping seminary presidents who had met many of the prophets and who told these miraculous stories about how incredibly inspired the Brethren were and all these amazing stories about Joseph Smith. And so I viewed the church as close to perfection as it could possibly be. And so it was really like Oz, it was like, you know, it's green and it's beautiful and everybody looks well polished. And that's how I expected the church to be, you know.

Gina Colvin [01:05:11] But isn't there a way in which missions create within young people attachments to leadership? So you're actually, you have nothing. You're given, you're actually. All of your identity is erased. You go on a mission and that, you know, erasure is complete. And in trying to find yourself, you, I suppose, you know, cafect or whatever you call it attached to the mission president. And you have to believe that he's right. And if you don't, you know, you have to believe that history, otherwise all of your identity sort of falls away.

John Dehlin [01:05:48] Oh yeah. And if you, and if anybody remembers Ed Pinniger, who was the MTC president in the kind of late 80s,

Gina Colvin [01:05:57] he

John Dehlin [01:05:58] was incredibly charismatic and inspiring and his message was obedience, obedience, obedience. And he would talk about obey with exactness, you know, and he would talk about the stripling warriors and how they were obedient. And because they were obedient, they were able to slay and never get hurt. And there was such a drumbeat for obedience that you just never, you never thought to question, you know, that just wasn't imperfection and questioning was not part of the deal, you know. Yeah.

Gina Colvin [01:06:39] To the near, to the.

Return to BYU and Career Beginnings

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 562

Gina Colvin [00:00:01] Nearer my God, to thee Nearer to thee. This is part two of John de Lynn from the beginning. Okay, so you end up back at byu. You're a little bit broken.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] Yeah, I was dark. I was in a dark place.

Gina Colvin [00:00:19] Right, Tell us about that. What do you mean you're in a dark place?

John Dehlin [00:00:22] Well, I'm, I'm, you know, all this stuff, it took years. It wasn't until like the summer before my senior year that Alder Oaks contacted me. And so, you know, imagine my sophomore, junior and half of my, you know, senior year just living with this darkness. I was still active in the church, I was still attending, but I, as soon as I came back, I ran into this man named Ted Lyon who, who I've had on Mormon stories, but he's the son of T. Edgar Lyon, who was the right hand man to Lowell Bennion, who had served in the institute at the University of Utah. And Ted Lyons introduced me to these BYU courses called Colloquium, Honors Colloquium. And these were sort of where the liberals at BYU hung out and taught the students the honors program. Joanna Brooks was part of it, and all the thinky, intellectual kind of kids were part of the honors program at byu. That's where the student review crowd hung out. And Ted Lyon challenged me to take an Honors Colloquium class at BYU as a sophomore. And so it was there that I got introduced to Sunstone and Dialogue and, you know, thoughts about evolution and Age of the Earth and all the science stuff. You know, just imagine a full year of like, curriculum at BYU that was like the best of Sunstone and Dialogue. That's what my sophomore year at BYU was. And interestingly enough, it was that colloquium experience and that sort of Sunstone and Dialogue experience that saved me in the church because I'm like, oh, there are people who know these things and have difficulties and who are able to talk openly about these things and who are willing to admit that the leaders are imperfect and they're still active in Temple Recommend holding and faithful and BYU professors. And so instead of me just feeling like everything was dark and corrupt, I was able to find a bunch of professors that were like, oh, yeah, the church is flawed and this is Bill Bradshaw and, and Ted Lyon and Lamont Tullis and all these other Lynn England and Clayton White and all these Sunstone attending sort of professors at byu. And they were able to just say, yeah, the church is flawed and there's a ton of problems all through the history. And as soon as I ran into that crowd. I was like, oh, well, then I can stay in the church, because there's tons of people like me who doubt and question and find imperfections in the church but are still able to make it work. And so that being part of the honors program, Honors colloquium, and honors Religion classes really, really rescued me at byu. And so, yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:03:27] So you were reconsidering your membership before you were integrated into this colloquium?

John Dehlin [00:03:32] I wouldn't say that. I would say because I still believed through. I was still a believer through. I'd say, you know, just. I was still a. I would say, in many ways an orthodox believer through kind of 2000, 2001, seven, eight years after I left BYU. What I was, was depressed and confused and in a really dark place psychologically, not knowing how to deal with the cognitive dissonance of knowing that the church is true, but having experienced such a traumatic experience on my mission that then seemed to go to the, you know, the fish seemed to be rotting at the head. And I, you know, I, at the time, I probably would have gone more the Rock Waterman direction than the, you know, ex Mormon direction, because I still. I still maintain belief in the church. So just consider me dark and confused at this point. Not. Not really ex Mormon material. You know what I mean?

Gina Colvin [00:04:35] What. Why did it hurt you so much? Because, I mean, thousands. And when we had the same baptismal challenge discussion culture down here in New Zealand. But why were you so dark about it? Thousands and thousands of missionaries kind of put up with it. Why could, why, why did you know what was happening with you that you just couldn't just say, well, you know, that's just, that's the way it is.

John Dehlin [00:04:57] I don't think thousands of, you know, my mission was unique. We were the second highest baptizing mission in the world. We were baptizing over 700, 750 people a month and some companionships were baptizing 40 or 50 people in a month, and it was baptizing these children and it was corrupt. I doubt that that's a typical missionary experience. I would say it's not even two standard deviations within the mean.

Gina Colvin [00:05:28] But why could you say that's corrupt, but, you know, other missionaries just let it, you know, run off their shoulders?

John Dehlin [00:05:36] No, no, I, I've spoken with so many missionaries from my mission afterwards who say it was terrible.

Gina Colvin [00:05:41] Okay, okay.

John Dehlin [00:05:43] It was, it was more. It was more sort of the Stanley the Milgram experience. If you, if you've studied psychology at all, and the Obedience to authority sort of study that was done with Stanley Milgram where they, where they have a subject come in and administer shock up to lethal levels to, to the actors who were pretending to receive, to be receiving the shock. 70% of the participants were willing to administer what they believed was a lethal amount of shock to the recipients because of social pressure and peer pressure. And that was what our mission was. And so people were deeply disturbed by it. But very few people were willing to go against the grain. And that's just, that's what the obedience to authority sort of psychological literature is just all about. How could the Holocaust happen? It's because people are very unwilling to go against the grain in a very authoritative hierarchical structure.

Gina Colvin [00:06:46] Yet you did. And I'm trying to get to the heart of why you'd stick your head up above the parapets and say, and call this out.

John Dehlin [00:06:55] It's not because I believe too little. It's because I believe too much. I considered these baptisms once I found out that kids were doing cannonballs in the baptismal font during a lot of these baptisms, that these missionaries were literally baptizing 10 and then watching movies and traveling to other countries during the week. There was this egregious level of disobedience and, and then this egregious level of disrespecting God's sacred ordinances. I was believing too much at that point, and it felt like a bastardization of God's holy ordinances.

Gina Colvin [00:07:36] What were you believing in?

John Dehlin [00:07:40] The plan of salvation, in the correlated plan of salvation in God the eternal Father and his wife or wives, in, you know, Jesus and the atonement and God the church being led by the holy prophet, being one true church. Like, I was as orthodox and as literal as a believer as you could, you could have expected.

Gina Colvin [00:08:06] So the whole suite, you are okay with the whole suite and the way that you.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] Oh yeah. I didn't, I didn't feel like I had any latitude to question, not with my seminary teachers. I, and I didn't have intellectual parents that taught me nuance. I had not been exposed to sunstone or dialogue. I had been exposed to ultra orthodox, highly conservative seminary teachers and Sunday school teachers. That, that, that taught me a very obedience based, literalistic worldview on Mormonism.

Gina Colvin [00:08:39] You know, the reason I'm plugging away at this is because you're somebody who's always stuck their heads above their head above the parapets. And, and I want to know where that's coming from. Like, what is that?

John Dehlin [00:08:52] It's probably, it's probably privilege. Honestly, I Mean, I'm six foot six. I'm, you know, white, male, heterosexual, healthy. You know, I was athletic in the day, and I think I had a lot of privilege. So when there's a lot of other people who. Who maybe didn't feel like they could stick their neck out, I probably just felt enough pride and arrogance and privilege that I was safe to do so.

Gina Colvin [00:09:21] Okay. But it's not just pride and arrogance because it's principled, isn't it?

John Dehlin [00:09:25] I felt like I. I would have. I would have felt that way at the time. Yeah. So I. I was also very idealistic. I mean, you know, my parents had been divorced. The church had sort of saved me and rescued me, and I bought the literal orthodox narrative, hook, line and sinker. And so I, you know, again, I had girls saying, please have sex with me in high school. And I'm like, no, you know, that's. I'm a righteous, righteous priesthood holder. Like, I. I took all that narrative extremely seriously. And I was. You never tasted alcohol, Never tried a cigarette. Still to this day I haven't. You know, I was just your ultra orthodox member with a lot of privilege. And I think that combination made me feel. And I. And my parents weren't, you know, for whatever you could say about my parents, they're awesome. They taught me to be honest and not to nuance, and they taught me to stand up for what is right. So did the church. And so I just. I honestly, I think I just felt like I was standing up for what was right. And I guess I had enough privilege to where I felt in empowered to do so. But I don't think I was some hero, you know, it was. It was my privilege that made that even possible. Does that make sense?

Gina Colvin [00:10:41] Yeah, it does. It does, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think about, you know, school teachers, and usually it's the big, tall white dude that does really well in the classroom because everyone's in awe. So.

John Dehlin [00:10:52] Yeah. And I was captain of the varsity basketball team, student body president, you know, just straight A student. Just. I had all the privilege in the world, you know.

Gina Colvin [00:11:01] Right, yeah. And in many respects, this is the first time, really, that that privilege is being questioned. It's being subsumed in favor of other people's privilege. So that must have been a kick in the guts.

John Dehlin [00:11:12] Yeah, it was awful. It was awful for everybody.

Gina Colvin [00:11:15] Yeah. Yeah. So I just want to talk about this colloquium community. What was that like for you to go into this space where the discussion is free? It's critical. It's, you know, it's, you know, finding a conversation that suits you. What was that like for you?

Mormon Intellectual Life and the September Six

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Oh, you know, just think about your best experience with Sunstone or Dialogue and imagine being able to have that every day with a room full of the smartest students at BYU and the best, coolest professors. So, I mean, imagine having Carolyn Pearson or Richard Bushman or Terrell Givens as your, as your college professor or, you know, Maxine Hanks or, you know, whoever you want on the female side. You know, imagine being able to study religion and history and science by the finest minds who are progressive and open. You know, two or three days a week for one or two hours. Because the colloquium was a six hour class that met for two hours three times a week. It was super intense and it was so beautiful. It was. We're talking about evolution and age of the earth and dinosaurs and Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce Armaconki and problems with the church and feminism and sexism and racism. It was just this. And, you know, I wouldn't have stood for it as a freshman, but after my worldview had been cracked open, it was like Sunstone and dialogue on BYU campus in the Maeser Building with the finest minds and the smartest students all there eating it up. We're talking about dinosaurs and fossils and the age of the earth and Adam and Eve and Joseph Fielding Smith and what Bruce R. McConkie said and how they were wrong and abortion and women's issues and feminism and, you know, Bill Bradshaw was my teacher in honors religion class. And, you know, it was just this amazing mixture of faith and intellect that was so exhilarating. Joanna Brooks was a part of it, you know, and so many other really bright and shining minds. And it was, it was exhilarating. I loved it. I couldn't get enough of it. And it rescued me because it was like having Sunstone and dialogue at BYU six hours a week. You know, it was incredible with, with the finest minds. All the Benson scholars were all there in these classes with you, you know, feminism and everything. You know, it was great. It was like this. It was like this renaissance. You know, Joanna was there with, you know, she wasn't in my class, but she was on campus. And it was just a very exciting time where the Student Review, which was this alternative student newspaper, was, Was thriving. And the September 6th hadn't happened yet, but it was about to happen. Sunstone was really raging and thriving and it was just like. It was just this amazing, almost Camelot few years of inquiry and of faith, but also questioning and it was amazing.

Gina Colvin [00:14:26] Right, right. And there was a bit of a pause, sort of starting at this time to creep over byu. Were you. And you said, was it in your junior or senior year that you started to be aware of the kind of attack on intellectual freedom?

John Dehlin [00:14:43] Yeah. I mean, so I don't know if you'll know any of these names, but Cecilia Konchar Farr was an English professor. She ended up getting kicked out of BYU while I was there. David Knowlton was an anthropologist. He was publishing regularly in Sunstone. He got kicked out while I was there. Gail Houston was another one that got kicked out. And then, you know, I wasn't Like, I'd never attended a Sunstone. My first Sunstone was in 2004, 2005. But I started here, and that still felt unsafe to me. But, you know, you started hearing about what was going on at Sunstone, and, you know, you started hearing rumblings. And so that was too dangerous to be a part of. But you heard about it, and you're curious about it, and it felt scary. But it was enough in the news that you kind of started to hear about it. And I do remember, oh, oh, and Joanna Brooks was leading Take Back the Night sort of things and Voice. There was a feminist group on campus that I still. I didn't get feminism at the time, so I'm like, oh, those feminists, you know, and, you know, but it was just this exciting time where, you know, there's a lot of intellectual life, but it appears like the church is starting to clamp down. And you. You know, I still consider myself sort of a Rush Limbaugh Republican, but I was, you know, also. And faithful, but also starting to learn these exciting new things. And I still sort of viewed Sunstone and dialogue as scary. And it all kind of culminated my senior year in the September 6th happening. So the September 6th stuff happened my final semester at BYU, and as I remember, in the fall of 1993, and I remember some of the September 6 holding a press conference at a hotel down in. In Provo. I don't remember why, if it had to do with the professors that were getting kicked out or the September 6th themselves, but I remember, I seem to remember Paul Toscano and Joanna and all sorts of students doing this sort of thing and just feeling like it was a crazy, crazy, exciting but scary time, you know?

Gina Colvin [00:16:54] Right, right. And you were afraid personally, or you're afraid of the conversation. You're afraid for other people. What was happening with you personally?

John Dehlin [00:17:04] Well, I, you know, I had, you know, I Was at the time, I considered myself still very much believing. And what Joanna was doing, what the Student Review was doing, which was the alternative newspaper on campus, what the September Six were doing, I can't say I was like, yeah, this is awesome. I was more like, this seems scary. This seems dark. This seems like these people are intellectuals fighting against the church. But at the same time. And I didn't get feminism, maybe, maybe some would say I still don't. But, I mean, certainly at the time, I didn't get it fully. I didn't get a lot of the racial issues. I didn't get a lot of the intellectual issues. And so I was, like, still feeling very faithful, feeling intellectually invigorated, but also feeling like these people were going too far, the Toscanos were going too far. And, you know, Maxine Hanks and all the Joanna Brooks and Voice on campus, which was the feminist group, that's a little bit too far. But at the same time, I was curious, and so it felt really confusing. Like, on the one hand, I liked this stuff, but on the other hand, it felt contraband. On the other hand, these people were marching and doing things that seemed scary. But on the other hand, it felt kind of exciting, and I was kind of confused, but also excited.

Gina Colvin [00:18:22] What conversation were you most excited about was? Evolution?

John Dehlin [00:18:27] Yeah, it would have been more science and abortion and age of the Earth and faith questions and doubt, probably some church history stuff. And I knew about the feminist group on campus, but it probably was curious, but seemed a little bit scary. I knew about the racist sort of history in the church, and I felt like that was wrong, but I probably then and still do, lacked a lot of real deep understanding about matters of race and social justice. So it was mostly around science issues and matters of intellectual freedom and curiosity and some of the church policy issues and the leadership and how the leadership could punish people and how liberals and conservatives had a tension between them. But I would not have called myself a feminist back then. I would not say that I was LGBT friendly back then. I was against racism and questioned the priesthood ban by that time. And I started having questions about church history, but I was still very new to the inquiry. So I didn't deeply understand the problems with church history at that point. I was just excited to hear people talking about the difficult things and excited to find a community where we could start talking about them. And most of the issues were around age of the Earth, evolution, you know, those sort of things.

Gina Colvin [00:20:08] That's my sense. My sense is that you're part of A conversation. You're enjoying that conversation. But you hadn't turned that into activism.

John Dehlin [00:20:15] No, no, no, no, I was not. I was scared of activism at byu. And I would look at people like Joanna and Brian Waterman as sort of scary, you know, at that. At that point, they would have been scary to me.

Gina Colvin [00:20:28] Right, Yeah, I can see that about Joanna. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:31] No, she. She was awesome. But at the time, I was like, well, they're protesting. That's too far. You know, that's feminism. That's. That's weird. And, you know, homosexuals, I, you know, that's, you know, that's. That's going off the deep end. You know, that sort of thing would have been me.

Gina Colvin [00:20:46] Right, right. Okay. So you get to the end of nine, you get to 1993, and you're graduated now with a Political science, was it?

John Dehlin [00:20:54] Yeah, yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:20:55] Okay. And your first job. Now, hold on, hold on, woman.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] Yeah. So I met Margi my senior year. I had dated Mary Holland, Jeff. Jeff Holland's daughter. I had married Orrin Hatch's daughter.

Gina Colvin [00:21:07] You hadn't married her?

John Dehlin [00:21:09] I did. I. Did I say married?

Gina Colvin [00:21:11] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:21:12] Okay. I dated. I dated Mary Holland. I dated Alyssa Hatch, Orrin Hatch's daughter. I had, you know, I had. I had tried to find. I knew that I had had this sort of dark thing brooding inside me because of my mission. And so I was trying, subconsciously, I was trying to find someone who was thoughtful enough and open enough and progressive enough to where if this dark thing inside of me started spilling over, it would be someone that could deal with that. So I. I intentionally didn't marry sort of Molly Mormon orthodox woman. I held out to find someone who I felt like was, at least in some ways, progressive and super thoughtful. And Margi was exactly that. She was an English major. She was very well read. She was very independent, even though she was active in believing. And even though Margi and I ended up having a really tough ride in. In the early to middle parts of our marriage, I always loved her intellect and her independence, and that's why I married her.

Gina Colvin [00:22:24] So when did you get married?

John Dehlin [00:22:25] In December of 1993.

Gina Colvin [00:22:28] Right, okay.

John Dehlin [00:22:29] So. Right. You know, the. The Christmas New Year's after my. I graduated.

Gina Colvin [00:22:33] Right, okay. And you took your first job.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] Yeah, I took a job in D.C. working for a consulting firm. But very quickly, Bain and Company, which was Mitt Romney's firm, they reached out to me and invited me to interview, and I interviewed with Bain and got a job. And at the time, pretty much only Harvard, mit, Wharton, Stanford, sort of Graduates got into Bain. And I got into Bain from BYU because there was this small group of Bain partners who had done BYU undergrad before they went to Harvard Business School. And so I left Washington, D.C. after only a couple months and went to work for Bain in Dallas. And Mitt Romney was still at Bain Capital at the time. And so that was my first real job out of byu, was with this elite management consulting firm where all the managing partners had been at either Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Pennsylvania, or mit.

Gina Colvin [00:23:32] That would have been pretty heady for you as a young graduate.

John Dehlin [00:23:36] Super heady, especially because I was a political science major and I didn't really know anything about business. But I. But, you know, Bain was, was elite. And yeah, we were consulting Fortune 500 companies. I was assigned to Continental Airlines to help turn them around, and Lockheed Martin. The merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta, these defense contractors. And everyone was brilliant and rich, and it was extremely heady. And Mitt Romney was at Bain at the time. And I knew that there was one of us at the headquarters of Bain, and there was this legend at Bain that the Bain partners had run Bain into the ground. And then Mitt Romney came back and saved Bane. And so even though I was in the Dallas office, I knew that one of my fellow Mormons had turned around my parent company when it. When it was troubled. And so I viewed Mitt Romney as a hero back in 1994, long before he was ever a household name.

Gina Colvin [00:24:37] So was there at the time a strong Mormon culture threaded through Bain?

John Dehlin [00:24:43] Yeah, absolutely. So one of the managing partners at Bain Dallas, Mark Godferson, I think he's a stake president today somewhere in Dallas, and he was one of the managing partners in Bain Dallas. And then Mark Jones was a general manager at Bain. These guys had both graduated from Harvard business school with MBAs. Mark Jones was a general manager at the time at Bain Dallas, and there were several associate consultants who had graduated from byu. And so there was sort of this, I would say a third of the Bain Dallas office were BYU graduates. And so, yeah, it was. And there was enough, you know, and. And Jeffrey Holland's son, Matt Holland, originally he went to Monitor, which was a competitor to Bain in Boston. And, and so there, there were a lot of Mormons joining these management consulting firms. And McKinsey was another one that had a ton of Mormons in it. So there's a strong culture of Mormons in this management consulting industry.

Management Consulting and Career at Bain

Gina Colvin [00:25:52] Well, I'm curious to know, like, with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, Bain took a hit publicly. And lots of questions about business ethics, et cetera, were raised. What were your thoughts at the time on that kind of criticism?

John Dehlin [00:26:08] Well, I only stayed at Bain a year because the technology, the Internet boom happened around 1994 and I realized that the Internet was going to be something really huge. And so it was at Bain when I first learned about what a web browser was and what the Internet was and how to connect to it. And I immediately, I stayed one year at Bain and then I moved to Chicago to work for Arthur Andersen, which was the world's leading accounting firm at the time. But they also were world leaders in technology. So I lost track of Mitt Romney after that year of, of my time at Bain up through the point where he started running for president. But I was, I was excited when I heard he was running for President. And, and I remember that very well, but I wasn't at Bain at the time. So tell me your question again.

Gina Colvin [00:26:59] Oh, well, I was wondering if you had a reaction to, you know, some of the charges launched at Bain for the sort of unethical business practice and they're sort of speaking.

John Dehlin [00:27:09] Yeah, absolutely. I left Bain not just because the technology bubble started emerging, but also because I was uncomfortable with some of the things Bain was doing. I just noticed that these presidents of companies would call in their management consulting sort of buddies from business school and asked them to do these sorts of Turner corporate turnarounds where they would lay off a third of the workforce or find ways to sort of make the appearance of turning the company around for kind of a quick sale. And it just felt, it just, it wasn't grounded in something that felt wholesome to me. I'm not saying it was evil, but at the time it just felt, it just felt a little bit questionable. And so part of why I left was because it seemed like a little bit gimmicky, a little bit relation based and a little bit sort of like swoop in, buy the company, turn it around, or charge exorbitant fees, make these short term recommendations that weren't necessarily good for the company so that then you could have a quick sale, profit from the sale of the company and then move on to other sort of victims. I'm not saying that's what management consulting is, but it felt a little bit too much like that for me. And so I was happy to leave Bain after a year. And so I, when those sort of allegations came out about Mitt Romney, I empathized with them. But, but he was sort of a white knight to me at the time still. He was in salt. You know, he was in Boston, I was in Dallas. He was. You know, I would have probably viewed him as the Mormon good guy who was a shining light in an industry that sometimes was a little bit questionable. But I certainly could empathize with a lot of the management consulting concerns about turning a company around and selling them for a short sale and making a profit, but not necessarily adding value to the economy. That sort of stuff I detected back in 1994 and was part of why I felt like I needed to leave.

Gina Colvin [00:29:24] So there was that growing sensitivity to these sorts of, you know, maybe speculative or morally questionable things. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:33] I. I fell into management consulting. I was a political science major at byu. I was thinking about law school or some sort of PhD, and I just went to Bain, honestly, on a whim. It was like I literally went to the employment office at byu and it's like, what are good jobs? I'm not ready to go to grad school yet. They're like Bain, McKinsey monitor. And I just applied to all those schools. And then Bain showed interest because I had, like a 3.96 GPA and, you know, it was on scholarship and all that stuff. And so. And I interviewed, I guess. Okay. But I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have any business background. And once I really caught wind of what they were doing, it just didn't feel meaningful to me. And so my professional career was just this attempt to try and do something really meaningful to help the world. And Bain didn't fit that mold for me. And so I just started jumping around until I could find something meaningful.

Gina Colvin [00:30:29] Does they have a bit of a boys club, like, in terms of your job prospects, is there a way that being a BYU alumni.

John Dehlin [00:30:35] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, right. Totally. Yeah. There were VPs and management consultants at Bain and other places that are like, they would recruit at. It would be like, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, and BYU. And the managing partners, general managers, and VPs at Bain would go to BYU to recruit, and they'd get you in.

Gina Colvin [00:30:58] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:30:59] It's absolutely a good old boys club. And I remember at least one female BYU consultant that was there, but it was mostly a boys club.

Gina Colvin [00:31:09] Right, right. So you graduate in political science, you go into management consultancy, and you stumble upon software development or those techie things.

John Dehlin [00:31:20] Yep. Yeah, yeah. So I went to Arthur Anderson. I worked there a year, and then I went to join a computer consulting firm, worked there for a couple years, moved back to Salt Lake in 97 to actually be a consultant to the LDS Church. So I worked for a year as a, as a consultant to, as a technology consultant to the LDS Church where I actually worked on a general authority candidate tracking system in addition to a.

Gina Colvin [00:31:48] What? A what, sorry?

John Dehlin [00:31:50] A general authority candidate tracking system.

Gina Colvin [00:31:53] Do tell.

John Dehlin [00:31:55] Yeah, so they, they had this database that, that tracked mission presidents, temple presidents and stake presidents and it was a way for them to track over time, you know, so just imagine general authorities going to stakes missions and temple presidencies to interview people on their regular general authority work. And while they would be interviewing these people, they would ask questions about their family, about their financial situation, about, you know, how they're doing as leaders. And then the, and then all that information would be logged in this general authority candidate tracking system so that they could have knowledge over time about these candidates for general authority so that when it came time to call someone as a general authority, they could have all this information to help inform the decision.

Gina Colvin [00:32:50] Oh, nice.

John Dehlin [00:32:51] Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:32:53] Okay. Hey, can I just ask that you, were you largely self taught where it came to technology?

John Dehlin [00:32:58] Yes, completely self taught. I never took a computer class in college.

Gina Colvin [00:33:02] Oh, aren't you clever.

John Dehlin [00:33:04] Well, I don't know. Or lucky. You know, I kind of learned on the job. My brother had been a computer guy and he kind of pointed me in the right direction. He had worked for Microsoft. He was working for Microsoft by this point. So I could say my brother was a bit of a mentor to me

Gina Colvin [00:33:21] in that regard and that interest in technology. So you work for Microsoft, but that interest in technology takes you back to Utah in 2004?

John Dehlin [00:33:31] Yeah, it started. I worked for WordPerfect Corporation in 93. That was my first high tech job. And that's where I first got introduced to computers. And so, so yeah, once I went to Arthur Anderson, I really, I didn't go to tax and audit, I went to their technology group. So Arthur Anderson taught me technology more and then I became a consultant and I kind of learned on the job. And. Yeah, okay.

Technology, Education, and Emerging Faith Questions

Gina Colvin [00:33:59] I would like to ask you about OpenCourseWare and instructional technology, but only because I'm, you know, in education. So do you want to say anything about that? What OpenCourseWare is?

John Dehlin [00:34:08] Yeah. So. Okay, so I, after, after I worked at church headquarters for a year, I went to work for Microsoft. I worked there seven years. And then when I left Microsoft, I came here to Logan and eventually went to work for MIT while I was getting, while I was in graduate school for instructional technology. So I got a master's in instructional technology at Utah State and, and I became MIT's only employee west of the Mississippi. And MIT did something called OpenCourseWare, where they believed that educational content should be shared openly and publicly. And so I was their world evangelist for convincing other universities to share their learning materials on the Internet with. With everyone who could benefit. So that's what I did. For a couple of years. I worked for MIT sharing OpenCourseWare. Was that what you asked me about?

Gina Colvin [00:35:08] Yeah, it was. It was, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:10] Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:35:11] Now, so what? So where we've got to then is that you have a whole kind of professional and also an ideological sort of foundation to start looking for ways and bringing the conversation of Mormonism and intellectual. Mormon intellectualism to a broad public. So all of the stepping stones are there. You've got the questions, but now you've got the technology.

John Dehlin [00:35:42] Yep. Yeah, that was really. That was all part of it. Yeah, it was. It was a combination of all the privilege that I had that made me being able to speak out, plus all the experiences that I had that were deeply troubling to me. And then all the technology background and privilege associated with working for companies like Bain and Arthur Anderson and Microsoft, where I felt like I had power and a voice to speak out. And that all laid that groundwork for me, feeling like I had enough privilege to be able to start Mormon stories in 2005.

Gina Colvin [00:36:17] So with all of that privilege, you go to Sunstone and you become involved with them.

John Dehlin [00:36:23] Yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, folks will know that while I was at Microsoft, it's when I started, you know, I still consider myself a believer, but around 2000, 2001, I was called as a seminary teacher, and I started reading church history for the very first time in depth because I wanted to be a really good seminary teacher. And that's when I learned for the first time in depth about Joseph's polygamy. I discovered Michael Quinn. I discovered Fawn Brody and Simon Southerton and Grant Palmer and Sunstone and Dialogue in Depth. I really started studying Richard Bushman. And it was there that I had my massive faith unraveling while I was a seminary teacher at Microsoft.

Gina Colvin [00:37:12] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:37:13] And so then that took over my world for a couple years in terms of just putting me in a super dark place where I started really questioning the church in very serious ways. And that led to me choosing to leave Microsoft and move to Logan to try and figure this out and to be a part of the solution for all the people going through faith crises. And that's. That's what led to me starting Mormon stories in 2005.

Gina Colvin [00:37:42] Do you know, and I think about the language that Mormon stories has bought to people who are in a faith crisis. So for instance, the word faith crisis or the terminology faith crisis, true believing Mormons that, I mean, they are part of the, the kind of lexicon, the Mormon stories lexicon. But you didn't have that. You didn't have the words faith crisis, the words faith crisis, did you?

John Dehlin [00:38:06] Probably not, no.

Gina Colvin [00:38:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:38:08] Because I had not attended Sunstone yet and I had only read these historical books. Mostly I hadn't had a community to process this with. What happened When I went through my faith crisis at Microsoft, I started going to the. There were these boards for Mormons at Microsoft where they would talk about Mormon things as Microsoft employees. And I'd be like, have you guys heard of Fawn Brody? Have you guys heard about, you know, Simon Southerton? And I would, I would just freaking out trying to find people I could talk to about this kind of stuff. And nobody wanted to talk about it or had heard about this stuff or knew anything about this stuff. And they all just kind of responded with silence or with contempt. And, and so I felt just totally alone and isolated. And that's when I started learning about Sunstone and I started listening to some Sunstone audio recordings. I was able to watch the September 6th sort of anniversary. They did a 10 year September 6th anniversary at Sunstone, like in 2003, which I was still at Microsoft at the time. And I was able to watch those reflections by the September 6th and go, oh, that's what they were talking about. That's what they were doing back in 1993. And I started learning about the rich intellectual tradition of Sunstone and dialogue during those final years at Microsoft. And that's partly what made me feel like I needed to jump from Microsoft and join this discussion. Return to Utah, go to Sunstone, meet Dan Witherspoon and all these people, learn about dialogue and start being a part of a constructive solution to these problems.

Gina Colvin [00:39:50] But Sunstone wasn't necessarily addressing the, I suppose the psychological or the emotional impact of faith crises as such, weren't they? They seemed to me at the time to be more of an intellectual tradition, engaging with, you know, sociology and history.

John Dehlin [00:40:08] Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I remember attending my first Sunstone and getting to know the board members and Dan Witherspoon and Mike Stevens and others and basically just saying, do you guys realize there's this huge crisis of faith thing happening out there where people feel alone and desperate? Are you guys doing anything to be a part of that? And you Know, just. I feel like I kind of got blank stares. But then they responded with a lot of excitement, and I was just like, hey, Sunstone board, let's. Let's use Sunstone to help people through this very difficult crisis of faith sort of experience. Because I just know it happened to me. I've started at Microsoft to find out others who this was happening to, and we need to be a part of the solution here. And so in my original proposals to Sunstone, they put me on the Sunstone board almost immediately. And my proposal was to have Sunstone be a place that's a soft landing for people having a crisis of faith. And that was my original proposal to Dan Witherspoon and all the Sunstone people.

Gina Colvin [00:41:17] So this was a bit of a change for Sunstone too, as well, wasn't it?

John Dehlin [00:41:20] Yeah, I think they were focused on history and anthropology and September 6th and descent. And there was not a pastoral feel that I felt at Sunstone at the time. It was more essays and historical pieces and anthropological pieces, but not a pastoral sort of move. And so I went to Dan Witherspoon and I went to the board, and I'm like, let me. Come on, let's use Sunstone as a way to really help all the. All the people that are struggling with their faith and all the. I believe that more people are going to start struggling with their faith, and let's have Sunstone be that safety net that catches them before they fell out of the church. And that was kind of controversial because there was a lot of ex Mormons at Sunstone, and some people were very uncomfortable with Sunstone being used as a way to keep people in the church. But at the time, that was my. Honestly, that was my motivation.

Rise of the Bloggernacle and Online Mormon Community

Gina Colvin [00:42:19] Yeah. And so the intellectual tradition takes on a new track. It's sort of. Mormon intellectualism had always been sort of a bit of a standalone, and now it was absorbing attention, absorbing a new kind of orientation where there is attention to the personal and interpersonal faith and to the ruptures that are individually experienced by Mormons who are now finding things out that they otherwise might have been ignorant about.

John Dehlin [00:42:56] Yeah, I remember there being this weird sort of silos at Sunstone because you could attend the why I Stay panels and you could. You could be totally inspired by all the people that stay. Right. And you could go listen to Paul or Margaret Toscano, you know, rage against the Machine. But there. There wasn't a sort of. I didn't feel a pastoral sense of like, how do we help all the pain and suffering out there, it felt like everything was sort of siloed into these intellectual buckets of either the believers in some sessions or the angry discontents in the other, and a bunch of history people wanting to talk about sometimes obscure, sometimes not obscure historical details. There's all the people that are still angry about September 6th, but there was not sort of this, how do we help people through the journey? And that's when I made my first proposal to the Sunstone board. It was very much as a future psychologist, as a pastoral sort of thing that said, man, there's a lot of pain going on here. There's a lot of people leaving the church. How do we heal the pain and save the church from just dissolving? And so that, you know, I'm sure there are other people that tried that before me, but that's what I think resonated with Dan Witherspoon and Toby Pingree and Bill Bradshaw and whoever else was on the board at the time, Michael Stevens, I think they liked the energy that I was bringing and sort of the pastoral mission that I seem to be bringing.

Gina Colvin [00:44:44] So what was the state of the bloggernacle at that time? Did it even exist? Was there an online presence?

John Dehlin [00:44:51] There was around 2004. There were a few Mormon blogs. Times and Seasons was the Juggernaut by Common Consent had just come online. Steve Evans had left. I think my history is foggy, but I seem to remember Steve Evans leaving Times and Seasons and starting by Common Consent. Right around that time, I actually was part of the discussions that sort of led to By Common Consent, blog and Dialogue, having a bit of a formal relationship that Steve Evans ended up sort of formalizing with Greg Prince and others. And, yeah, the blogger knackle just started bursting onto the scene. So within a little bit of time, feminist Mormon housewives would have come on the scene and Lisa Butterworth would have been really big. And there was this just whole 20, 30, 40, 50 Mormon blogs all over the world. You know, that was all the rage in 2004. 2005 was sort of the blogger knackle exploding. And podcasts. Podcasts were just starting to appear in 2004.

Gina Colvin [00:46:02] Why did you think that podcasting or blogging was going to address some of those concerns? For those who are experiencing doubt, faith

John Dehlin [00:46:12] doubts, you know, I came to, you know, even though I had worked at Bain and Arthur Anderson and Microsoft, I felt like a neophyte when it came to Mormon discourse. I was not well read with Mormon history. I was just starting to read these things. I didn't have a PhD or a master's or legal training. At the time, I just had a bachelor's degree. And so I would go read Times and Seasons blog and By Common Consent, and it just felt like this heady intellectual discourse that really wasn't reaching the heart of all the pain that I had plugged into as I started trying to talk to people about their problems and finding out all the pain for women, for gays and lesbians, for intellectuals, for people of color, for sexual minorities. And it just felt really, the blogger knuckle felt like a bunch of cool Ivy League kids having these esoteric, intellectual, inside clubby sort of conversations that really weren't pastoral and that really weren't trying to solve any significant problems. That's how I experienced By Common Consent in Times and Seasons. It felt very cliquey, very clubby, very intellectual, but not really trying to solve the problems. And so I had discovered podcasts by that point and just fell in love with this idea of letting people tell their stories, because I didn't think intellectual debates were going to get us anywhere. I know that dialogue. I knew by that point the dialogue had been around since the 60s, that Sunstone had been around since the 80s. We had had decades of sunstone and dialogue, and there was still tension and problems. And so for me, what I felt the creative idea was with Mormon stories was how about just letting people tell their story, and instead of trying to talk history or debate minutia or be witty and see who could come up with the best intellectual jab or defense or critique, what if we just let people tell their stories, share their emotions, be authentic, and let those stories speak for themselves. And so that I think if there was an innovation with Mormon stories, there had been a few Mormon themed podcasts up to that point. There was one called the Church is Not True. There was a couple others that had just started. But Mormon Stories, I think, was the first one that just said, let's let people tell their stories and really dig deep on their emotions, on their history, on their experiences, so that people could not just have fun intellectual inquiry, but they could deeply connect to their narrative, to the emotion, to the intellectual stories going on, and really be moved. And so in some ways, Mormon stories was subversive because I really wanted to reach people intellectually, but I felt like doing it through the heart and emotions and through story was going to be the most effective way to reach people.

Gina Colvin [00:49:17] And that's very much part of the cultural turn. I mean, just theoretically speaking, attention to affect and emotion and, you know, the heart is a sort of a critical approach addressing concerns for social transformation. So this is what I'm sensing from you. You actually wanted some social transformation.

John Dehlin [00:49:38] I wanted. It was. It was partly me wanting to figure out how to stay in the church, but having tapped into all the pain while I was at Microsoft and having experienced my own pain, I'm just like. I can't just solve my own problem. That's too isolated. That's too selfish. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. There's too many people suffering. I'm gonna make this a public discussion that helps as many people as possible. And that. That. That was what that was about.

Gina Colvin [00:50:08] Right?

John Dehlin [00:50:09] It was saying, there's too much pain and suffering for this to just be me figuring it out. I'm gonna bring as many people along for the ride as I can to help as many people as possible and to make as big of a transformation in the church as I could.

Gina Colvin [00:50:22] Right, right. Yeah. And this idea that a shared conversation, shared narratives, will maybe assuage some. Some people's sense of loneliness, and, you know, they weren't alone in this.

John Dehlin [00:50:34] Totally. Totally. It was to help people not be alone. It was for me to not feel like I was alone. It was to get stories out there, to get the conversation. I just had this naive optimism that if I could get everybody talking and being open and honest, that we would all find some way to stay and to believe and to be healthier and stronger as a church and as a people.

Gina Colvin [00:50:55] Why do you think that's naive?

John Dehlin [00:51:00] I don't know. Look at what happened.

Gina Colvin [00:51:02] It's not the end of the story.

John Dehlin [00:51:05] No, I'm just saying. Well, I didn't understand. So first of all, I hadn't really, really understood the complexity of the issues. I had. I had. Yeah, I had read Michael. You know, I had read Michael Quinn. I had read, you know, Fawn Brody. I had read Leonard Arrington and. And Richard Bushman, and I knew about Sunstone and Dialogue, but I didn't know. I didn't really know Joseph Smith's history. I didn't really understand what it was like to be LGBT and Mormon. I didn't understand feminism. I didn't understand racial issues fully. And not that I do now, but, I mean, I was just really naive, and I didn't understand all the deep problems with church history. And so I was like, oh, well, I learned about this guy named Leonard Arrington, and I learned about this guy named Eugene England, and I learned about this guy named Lowell Bennion, and I learned about these smart, faithful people in Sunstone and Dialogue, and they've made it work. So if I can just take all this knowledge to the mainstream, then we'll all develop these really sophisticated, complex testimonies, and we'll all help slowly create space for intellectuals within the church, and then we'll all be singing Kumbaya, you know, by the end, because the church will grow and become strong and minorities will become more accepting and all faiths will all become more mature, and it'll be Shangri La. And, you know, that's honestly how I saw it playing out in my idealistic side.

Gina Colvin [00:52:43] Yeah, I suppose that's because your aha moment occurred for you in this environment of full disclosure. So you're saying, well, hey, if that can occur for me, then maybe it can occur for other people. They can have the aha moment too.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] Yeah, yeah, totally. I just felt we would all figure it out together and the church would be better and stronger for it. But what we needed, what was evil to me, was people suffering in silence, was people not being able to talk, was people not being informed of the issues of people being punished. I could remember the September 6th by this point, and I'm like, we can't. You know, it's not right to punish people who are asking good questions. Because once I had tapped into the history, I'm like, wait a minute. Michael Quinn had a point, and Margaret Toscano and Paul Toscano had a point. And. And, you know, Maxine Hanks had a point, and these people shouldn't have been treated that way. And Lavina Feli Anderson had a point. And instead of the church just punishing these people, we need to bring all this discussion out in the open, make it mainstream. Then the church can't just keep punishing these people. By that time, I had been inspired by the civil rights movement and the jails filling up and feeling like, you know, they can't. They can't excommunicate everybody. So if we just make these conversations, you know, and still, I think Dialogue and Sunstone had been successfully get ghettoized by this point. And so I'm just like, no, no, no, we're not going to. We're not going to ghetto Sunstone and dialogue and marginalize intellectual discourse to the. To the, you know, the 6,000 people who care about it. We're going to blow the discussion of Mormon discourse into mainstream Mormonism through the subversive means of stories and reaching people emotionally. And once we do, there'll be too many of us to keep throwing us in jail, you know, like the September 6th, they'll have to address the issues, and we'll all become healthier. The church will be healthier. The people struggling will be healthier. It'll all be healthier. Just once sunlight becomes that disinfectant. And that was the naive sort of play that Mormon stories was. It was to say, sunlight will clean everything.

Gina Colvin [00:54:52] Right, Right. So you've got moral outrage. You've also got your own personal issues that you're dealing with. And this is you now saying activism. This is your sort of, you know, moment in activism.

John Dehlin [00:55:05] Yeah, because by the time I was at Microsoft, I had had so much pain, and I had talked to secret Microsoft employees who had addictions or pornography or sexual sexuality kind of concerns. And I'm just like. Or faith issues. And I'm like, we can't just have all these people suffering in silence, and we can't have all these members thinking that the history was one way when the history was a totally different way. We have to just blast all of this into the sunlight, and sunlight will be the great disinfectant.

Gina Colvin [00:55:37] Right? Yep.

John Dehlin [00:55:38] For everybody.

Gina Colvin [00:55:39] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:55:39] You know.

Gina Colvin [00:55:40] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:55:40] Yeah.

Launching Mormon Stories Podcast

Gina Colvin [00:55:41] So when was Your first podcast?

John Dehlin [00:55:45] 2005.

Gina Colvin [00:55:46] Okay, who was it?

John Dehlin [00:55:48] Greg Prince. Well, I did an episode on my mission experience as my very first episode, and I just told my story, and I didn't even interview anybody. That was episode one. But the very first person I interviewed was Greg Prince.

Gina Colvin [00:56:00] Okay, well, tell us about that. That. That moment where you put it online. How was that for you?

John Dehlin [00:56:05] It was really. It was. It was just really mixed. It was scary. I was petrified. Like, I had lived through the September 6th. But then, you know, I had heard about Thomas Murphy and Simon Southerton and maybe Grant Palmer, you know, being disciplined in one way or another. But it felt like the church had kind of backed off a bit. It felt like it was becoming more progressive. Rough stone rolling, you know, was about to come out, and the blogger knackle was happening. And I think I had this naive optimism that this could be a new era. But at the same time, I had this terrible fear that I could end up like the September 6th. And so I just remember being petrified and scary to push the button, but also just optimistic and naive because I had learned about Lowell Bennion, Eugene England, Leonard Arrington, you know, Juanita Brooks by this point. And I'm like, hey, there's a rich intellectual tradition in Sunstone and dialogue, and a lot of these people weren't excommunicated. And so I'm going to just have. I'm Scared as heck, but I'm going to just have this faith that truth and openness and sincerity and candor and transparency and sunlight will win in the end. So it was petrifying, and it was exhilarating. It was scary, terrifying. I didn't know if someone would shoot me or hurt me or kill me. I didn't know if I'd be excommunicated. I didn't know if I'd be celebrated. I just had no idea. But I knew that after I'd been exposed to all the pain and all the difficulty and complexity, I knew that I couldn't just stay silent, so I had to speak out. And so it was just my. My moment of. Of standing up and speaking out, and it was terrifying and exhilarating.

Gina Colvin [00:58:04] Right. And when did you know that you were onto something, that people were listening and paying attention?

John Dehlin [00:58:12] Immediately. I mean, immediately I started getting emails, and people started downloading the episodes, and it immediately immediately jumped into the hundreds and then the thousands. I mean, immediately within a few episodes, thousands of thousands of episodes are being downloaded, and people are emailing me from all over the world. Seriously, imagine just soon as you publish one or two episodes, you're getting 10 or 20 emails a week from people who are writing pages and pages of their life story about their, you know, addictions, their. Their divorce, their mental illness, their ecclesiastical abuse, their. Their struggles was history. It was like. It was like imagining this huge water balloon in the sky, and I just punctured a hole in it, and the water just started pouring down on my head, and I could not answer all the phone calls and emails and requests for visits that immediately just opened up as soon as I released the podcast.

Gina Colvin [00:59:13] That was. Sounds weighty.

John Dehlin [00:59:15] It was. It was heady and weighty and amazing and terrifying. It was everything. Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:59:21] So how are you responding, aside from sort of being overwhelmed? How are you responding in particular in terms of your faith? So it's one thing to say, okay, I'm aware that people are struggling with their faith, and I'm personally struggling with my faith. And then you publish something, and suddenly a whole world sort of washes over you that is similarly struggling with your faith. How are you managing that?

John Dehlin [00:59:49] It was exhilarating and heady and terrifying because I was always worried that I was going to get excommunicated. I was always worried that I was always feeling like I was inadequate. But then so many people were so generous. I mean, very early on, I had somebody fly from, you know, Pennsylvania, you know, drive to Logan and hand me an envelope with $500. And I had an almost identical experience with somebody who flew from New York City, flies to Logan, you know, flies to Salt Lake, drives to Logan, has breakfast with me and hands me an envelope with $500. And it's just like, you've saved my life. You have changed everything for me. I have people telling me that I've saved their marriage, that I helped save them from suicide, that I've helped them stay in the church when they felt like they couldn't. And it was, I've saved their marriage, I had helped prevent divorce, they're gay. And now, you know, just imagine thousands of people with incredible pain and all of a sudden they view you as this doctor that's giving them the medicine that's curing their pain. That's what it was.

Gina Colvin [01:01:09] So you're throwing really into this place of providing kind of single handedly pastoral care for thousands of people.

John Dehlin [01:01:18] Yeah, I think that's how it felt. And by this time, by the time Mormon stories really started going, I was working for MIT in Cambridge and I was flying literally all over the world. And wherever I would go, people would want to meet me. And they would meet me at the airport, they would pick me up at the airport, they would let me stay in their home and they would treat me like royalty. They would drive me to every single business appointment that I had, feed me, and all they wanted was someone to talk to. If you will let me talk to you in the drives between your business appointments, I'll let you stay in my home and be your personal chauffeur for the entire time you're in my city.

Gina Colvin [01:01:58] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:01:59] And it was, it was that way in Beijing, it was that way in London, it was that way in Cambridge, it was that way in Seattle. Everywhere I went, I was meeting with, every single lunch or dinner I had free, I was meeting with these people who were just suffering or exhilarate, you know, having exhilaration over what I was doing to help them.

Gina Colvin [01:02:24] That's, that's, I mean, that's kind of cool, but it's sort of got to mess with your head a bit.

John Dehlin [01:02:28] Yeah, I know, it was. Yeah, you get a messiah complex. You start feeling like you're there to save the world. Like you're, you're ushering in a new millennia for the church and you're saving marriages and you're preventing suicide and you're helping people stay in the church and you know, and everybody's treating you. I mean, honestly, you start feeling probably like people treated, like people treat royalty or like they Treat prophets or general authorities. You really do start feeling like a general authority to the disaffected. And people, you know, that just. People want to give you money. They. They act in reverence in your presence. They. They will spend any time with you that they can just imagine every trapping of celebrity. You. I started feeling that.

Gina Colvin [01:03:18] I kind of feel overwhelmed for you suddenly being thrown into this place of what you call the general authority, the disaffected. How was. And I know Margi's very sort of, you know, very private, but how is she coping with these sudden demands on you?

Personal and Family Impact of the Podcast

John Dehlin [01:03:35] It was. It was very complicated because. Because we had had a rocky marriage. In several ways. Moving to Logan was good for us in several ways, because I wasn't working 60 to 80 hours a week for Bain or Microsoft or Arthur Anderson. I was home more, and I was in school. But there are a lot of very important emotional conversations and discussions that we were never able to have. You know, just sort of me being a workaholic, me trying to save the world, us having four kids, her trying to raise the four kids, us bringing our own demons to the marriage. And so I think she was uncomfortable with parts of it, but she was also very supportive. She had gone through the faith crisis with me, so she believed that there was a need out there. But she also is a very private person. And so she didn't like me bringing strangers into our home or me always being on the phone or traveling, having to save the world with my messiah complex. You know, it started to bleed over into our church experience, and we're trying to figure out how to raise our kids in the church while I'm doing the podcast and becoming a celebrity and traveling throughout the world. And then there was just a lot of basic things in our marriage that we, you know, were struggling with. And so it was. It was very hard on our marriage. But she was also very supportive, if that makes sense.

Gina Colvin [01:05:26] Yeah. Yeah, it does.

John Dehlin [01:05:27] And very. And very troubled. She was annoyed by it and supportive of it, and it was healthy and unhealthy. It was all that.

Gina Colvin [01:05:36] Right. Right now, I'm just. You're holding and accumulating not just the stories that you're producing. You're holding and accumulating story upon story upon story, people's personal stories. What's the impact that's having on your attachment to the church or your faith?

John Dehlin [01:05:58] You know, I went through some ups and downs. So originally, I'm, you know, I'm teaching, you know, the first several years of Mormon stories. I was teaching elders quorum and active in the church. And so I was trying to make it all work. I was friends. I had made friends with Greg Prince, and I was, you know, meeting all these faithful, thoughtful Mormons, Bill Bradshaw, who I had known at byu, and, you know, just all the thoughtful, faithful Mormons. I was aware of them. And so they were inspiring me. I would go to the, you know, the why I Stay panels at Sunstone were my favorite ones to attend at Sunstone. And, you know, the whole purpose of Mormon stories was to help people stay in the church and to stay faithful and active. And so for a time, that's what it was for me. It was just this naive optimism that. That if we just talked openly, we could figure it out and all be happy. So that was sort of one path, and we were doing that in the church. But then I started really digging into the difficult stuff, and I started really digging into Michael Quinn and the Toscanos and the history, and really digging into Grant Palmer, and I started interviewing, you know, these people, Grant Palmer and Michael Quinn and Simon Southerton. And, you know, and I started seeing all the pain and the difficulty that the church can inflict on gays and feminists and intellectuals and women and minorities and racial minorities. And so it was like there was this naive optimism that was driving me, but there was also all this pain I was encountering for the people for whom the church didn't work. And I was learning more about Joseph Smith and what he did. I was starting to put the pieces together more. I was starting to see the impact of the church on the people for whom it didn't work. And it all of a sudden became a lot more complex than if we just all naively, optimistically, are positive, we can figure this all out. It was. Was like, people are killing themselves, and people are being marginalized and mistreated in very significant, severe ways. And there are entire classes of people that are second or third status in the church. And most importantly, these people who are having a faith crisis are misunderstood and being mistreated, and the church isn't really doing anything to help them, and they're becoming victims, and marriages are being torn apart, and people are being driven to depression and sometimes even suicide because of all these issues. And it just became, you know, overwhelming. You know, there's this. I think there's. This is gonna sound cheesy or altruistic, but there's this moment in one of the Superman movies where, like, Superman's becoming overwhelmed by all the calls for help that he hears, and there's a point where he just, like, flies up into space and, like, puts his arms out and sort of. You could tell he's becoming overwhelmed by all the need that's out there. And I think at some point, not to put a Messiah complex on myself or Superman complex, but at some point I just started getting really overwhelmed by all the pain I was tapping into. And it just. It started to become unacceptable. I was experiencing pain, but more importantly, people of color, women, minorities, LGBT people, the historical. You know, the intellectuals, all the divorces and sadness, it just started becoming unacceptable to me. And it started making me angry. And it started turning me from this naively optimistic person that feels like if we just all talking, you know, we'll figure it out. It started turning me to feel like this is doing real harm to a lot of people and the church isn't doing enough to fix it. And I'm starting to get really angry and impatient.

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 563

Gina Colvin [00:00:01] Nearer my God to thee Nearer to

Gina Colvin [00:00:10] thee this is the final episode of John de Lynn. From the beginning, as I said in the introduction, one of the things that's really defined your work in Mormon stories is that you've. You have very publicly lived, you know, your feelings about the church. You know, and some, in some respects, that's been a criticism. It's like, well, what's, you know, how does John feel about the church now? You know, so you start from, from that place. So talk me through these phases. So 2005, you're very naive and optimistic that if you just. You can disinfect all the church with sunlight. And at what point are you starting to being worn down by it and furious about it?

John Dehlin [00:00:47] Yeah, I don't have the timeline really solid in my mind. I would need to go back. But I can tell you that during those early years, I. I took Mormon stories down at least twice. I don't know if you know this, but I. I literally took it off the Internet twice because I was feeling so overwhelmed by the pain. I was scared of being excommunicated at some points. I was wanting to go to graduate school and scared that if I applied to byu, they might not accept me. Like, different. During different points, I was terrified and scared or overwhelmed by all the pain and suffering. And so between 2005 and 2009, I took Mormon stories down at least twice, just completely off the Internet. And then during those times, there were times where I was really naively optimistic and excited and apologetic and hopeful. And then there were other times where I was just really cynical and angry. And I can tell you that when I created stale ds.com that was on one of my optimistic upswings after a negative downswing, you know. And, you know, I can. I can say, you know, I don't know exactly the timelines, but I just know that between 2005 and 2010, which was when I think I brought it back for the time where I haven't brought it down since then, it was a real roller coaster ride for me. And during that time, there were times where I was teaching elders quorum and super active. And then there were other times where I went totally inactive for almost a year. And then I'd come back and I'd be rejuvenated and I'd say, we can do this. And then I'd get. After a year or two, I'd get really angry and want to burn the whole thing down. And I definitely went through those cycles between 2005 and 2010.

Church Leaders Respond to Mormon Stories

Gina Colvin [00:02:40] So what were your ecclesiastical leaders doing? Were they sort of. Were they aware that this was happening for you in this very turbulent sort of faith life?

John Dehlin [00:02:48] Yeah, my first bishop was Bishop Farmer, and he was the first one to question me about what I was doing. And I just pulled this tactic where I had all my listeners write him a letter, you know, to tell him if I'd help them stay in the church. And literally I got like 200 letters and I packaged them all up and gave them to Bishop Farmer. And I said, here's a couple hundred people who can testify to you that I've helped them stay in the church. And through that, in my interviews with him, he's like, wow, I get that this is sort of beyond my pay grade. And he just agreed to leave me alone, you know. And then my second bishop, Bishop Stevenson, started asking some questions, but again, I probably did something similar. And he never really took action against me either. And it wasn't until my third bishop, Brian Hunt, where. And that would have been in 2013, I'm going to guess.

Gina Colvin [00:03:52] I thought Hunt was your stake president.

John Dehlin [00:03:55] Bishop Hunt was my. Brian Hunt was my bishop. Mark Jensen was my stake president.

Gina Colvin [00:04:03] Right, okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] And it was Bishop Hunt in 2014, kind of January, February, who was the one who called me in and said, I'm going to start an investigation. And this would have been the third investigation. Both of my other bishops had called me in for similar sort of investigations. I had always emerged with their support, but by the third time, I was just starting to really lose patience. And so, yeah, so it was a very turbulent up and down. Active, inactive. Active, inactive, angry, wanting to burn it all down, Messiah complex. Thinking that I could save everything, you know, just thrashing back and forth over the years.

Gina Colvin [00:04:46] So what was bringing you back to activity? Was it the sense of actually, if I'm in, then I can make a, you know, more of an impact?

John Dehlin [00:04:54] No, it was just whenever I'd go inactive, I would feel a loss. I would feel dark, I would feel more empty. I would feel like I was not doing what was good. I felt lost, I felt scared, I felt family concerns. What about my kids? What about the well being of everybody? So it was always, I'm angry, so I feel like I need to leave. And then after a year, I'd say, no, I can make this work. There's a way to make it work. And then I'd come back and my kids would. My wife and kids, bless their hearts, they'd go out with me and then they'd come back with me and Then they'd go out with me and then they'd come back with me again. And it was just this real. Over a period of, you know, 10 years thrashing back and forth. You know, this year versus that year.

Gina Colvin [00:05:44] It sounds so turbulent and disruptive for everybody.

John Dehlin [00:05:50] Yeah, it was uncomfortable for my elders quorum, it was uncomfortable for my bishoprics. It was uncomfortable for the Internet, for Mormonism, for my family, for my extended family. It was pretty awful for everybody.

Gina Colvin [00:06:02] Well, awful in one respect, but also, really, it's continued to be a balm for. Tell me about what your downloads are at the moment.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] I will get anything between, you know, within a month or two, anything between 20,000 and 80,000 downloads. It just depends on the episode. So, you know, I'd say right now, you know, within a two to three month period, an episode will be downloaded 20 to 30,000 times. And then over the. Over a longer history, it'll reach into the 50 to 80, 100 thousands. Just over time.

Gina Colvin [00:06:43] Yeah. See, that's a lot of people, isn't it? That's a lot of people. So you're doing, you know, it's serving a purpose. There's been a kind of a consistency in the actual program, in the show, Mormon stories. And that sort of sits underneath your own turbulent journey through it.

John Dehlin [00:07:01] Yeah, there's been ups and downs, but I think listenership is as high as it's ever been. Maybe, maybe it's dipped a little bit, but certainly by 20, by late 2014, 2015, listenership was as high as it's ever been.

Gina Colvin [00:07:15] Right.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] I think the excommunication probably has affected that, but up until then, it's gangbusters. And it's still, I think, the most listened to Mormon blog podcast on the Internet, I think.

Gina Colvin [00:07:28] Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So tell me, while we're talking about Mormon stories, some memorable, like some memorable episodes. Now you've got like 560 or something episodes?

Doubts Deepen and the Mormon Stories Community Grows

John Dehlin [00:07:41] Yeah, I do.

Gina Colvin [00:07:43] Yeah. Okay, so tell us, what was your most delightful.

John Dehlin [00:07:47] Oh my goodness. Oh, man, that's like asking me to choose my children.

Gina Colvin [00:07:53] Oh, I know. Sorry. Sorry. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:07:55] I really loved. I really loved my time with Carolyn Pearson. You know, I got four or five hours with her. That was just really delightful. I really enjoyed Richard Bushman, even though he cut short the interview. I really enjoyed my time with Taro Givens, at least early on. That was really exciting for me. And then I didn't enjoy. But my interview with Grant Palmer was just earth shattering and mind blowing for me. My interview with, you know, with Michael Quinn was mind Blowing. And, you know, gosh, it's like asking me to choose which is my favorite child. You know, there's been so many amazing interviews and experiences along the way. Yeah. There's just so many. How do I pick?

Gina Colvin [00:08:58] Well, you've given us a good sense. So what made those ones earth shattering for you? Because this is your personal journey as well that you're going through. You're taking people in these conversations and in these narratives. You're taking people through your personal story as well.

John Dehlin [00:09:13] Well, when you interview someone like Greg Prince or Richard Bushman or Terrell Givens or Fiona Givens, Claudia Bushman, you've got these intellectual giants that have been fixtures in Mormon studies for decades, and they're statesmanlike and they're faithful, and it's just very overwhelmingly powerful and influential. You just feel it's heady. You're grateful that they'll talk to you, and then you're just really optimistic that you can make it work. Because if these brilliant, sensitive, thoughtful people can make it work, you can, too. So that's kind of one cluster of people. And I'd say Carolyn Pearson fits in that group too, even though she's not been on the inside, like maybe Givens and Bushman have in some respect. She's every bit. Is inspirational to me. And then on the other hand, you're interviewing September 6th people. Paul Margaret Toscano and. And Grant Palmer and Michael Quinn, and people that have been excommunicated or marginalized, or people like Simon Sotherton, or people that the church views as enemies. And you're getting these other perspectives that are just really. Or you're interviewing people who have attempted suicide or been severely depressed or divorced or people who have been kicked out. And so it's this heady thrashing of, like, brilliant, inspiring, faithful people that make you feel like you can stay and make it work. And then these depressing, epic, awful stories of people like Grant Palmer, you know, being kicked out and disfellowshipped or excommunicated or Michael Quinn or whoever, and just feeling like not only have grave injustices been done, but. But the church has covered things up and hurt people and damaged people. And it really was just this thrashing of being inspired and being horrified by the abuse and the difficulties. And honestly, every single episode is like, me, maybe I can stay. Maybe I can make it work. Maybe if I ask the right question or learn the right thing, we can solve this problem for all of Mormonism. And then it's this other interview that's like, oh, my Gosh, this is terrible. Is abusive, this is horrible, this is racist, this is offensive, this is sexist, this is homophobic. How am I going to. How could I ever stay in good conscience in an organization that does these things to people? And it's just really thrashing is the best way I can describe it. It's just feeling pulled between angels and devils.

Gina Colvin [00:12:06] But isn't that the whole Mormon story?

John Dehlin [00:12:09] Yeah, it sure is. I mean, can be. I mean, a lot of people never really leave what we call Fowler Stage three, where they just. It's just sort of this bliss of. I don't want to say an ignorant bliss, but just sort of church is true and I'm not going to doubt and I'll live my whole life. There's certainly most of members probably are in that camp. But, you know, once you fall to Fowler Stage four, where you're really questioning, then it's this exhilarating thrashing of enlightenment and negativity that you just kind of thrash between. And I honestly only think at the most 5% of the membership really goes through this. But it certainly is an exhilarating ride for those of us who do.

Gina Colvin [00:12:57] So would you say that the church really belongs to the Stage three? I mean, is the church Stage three?

John Dehlin [00:13:04] I think so. It's starting to flirt with Stage four, but it's only in secret. It's like the essays are out, but they're not spoken of at conference and they're not publicized. Right. We want to create resources for Stage four people that can be given to them on demand when they need it. But if you look at the discourse in general conference, it's still very much a stage three discourse because they don't want to compromise the critical massive membership to cater to the fringy intellectuals. Right, right. Or social activists. So I would say that with the essays and with rough stone rolling and with some of their moves with women and other things, they're starting to flirt with progressivism. But it's certainly just a flirtation at this point. It's not a marriage.

Gina Colvin [00:13:59] Right now, part of the way that you have borne the weight of the Mormon Stories phenomenon is by growing, growing people into the community, growing. The podcasts tell us some of the ways that you've sort of pushed Mormon Stories out into other places and into other hands. I think I stay lds, Mormon Matters. You know, it's, you know, you've gone from Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:14:22] So I started with Mormon Stories and then, and you know, Mormon Matters was supposed to be just a different. Instead of deep individual interviews Mormon Matters was supposed to be panel discussions, and I did 10 or 20 hours of that, but then I got busy with grad school and other things, and so. But I felt like that was an asset. And it used to be one of the biggest blogs on the Internet before it imploded. It was as big as By Common Consent or Times of Seasons or Feminist Mormon Housewives.

Gina Colvin [00:14:51] Sorry, it was a blog.

John Dehlin [00:14:53] Yeah. Mormon Matters was a really, really strong, successful blog and podcast. And a bunch of the bloggers left and started Wheat and Tares.

Gina Colvin [00:15:04] Can you tell us why there was a mutiny? Should we do that or not?

John Dehlin [00:15:08] No, I don't mind. My memory is going to be foggy, but let's see the way. Boy, I'm really foggy on this.

Gina Colvin [00:15:17] Oh, maybe we shouldn't do.

John Dehlin [00:15:18] No, no, no. I know that there were. I know that. I know that it was going very well. I know that it was super successful. It was getting lots of traction. And then behind the scenes, there were certain bloggers or members of communities that started getting uncomfortable with, I don't know, my management or how are navigating the faithful with the disaffected discourse with how I was managing things. I don't know. I'm actually really drawing a blank on what led to the rift. I know that behind the scenes, I got in some really heated disagreements with some people and ended up happening. They just said, we're splitting off, and they asked permission to start their new blog, to take all the blog posts with them, and they. They split off. And honestly, I'm. I'm blanking on what the main reasons were, but I'm sure if somebody reminds me, I'll be able to think about it. But, yeah, they. They broke off and went independent.

Gina Colvin [00:16:28] Okay, okay, okay. You've grown this community. So you've got State lds, Mormon Matters.

John Dehlin [00:16:34] Yeah, so stay lds. Was. So Mormon Matters came first, I think, and then. But then I let that die. Then I started Stale DS to help people stay in the church. I ended up giving out that over to Dan, you know, to Brian Johnston and others there. I ended up recruiting Dan Witherspoon to take over Mormon Matters. Once he left Sunstone. I got sad that Dan was sort of getting put out to pasture, and I felt like he was too talented to just sort of go to waste. So I pitched Dan to take over Mormon Matters, and he graciously accepted that, so he took that over. I started a thoughtful faith with Micah and Sarah because this was during one of my manic upswings in optimism of faith. And I Just felt like we needed a faithful podcast of interviews, and so Micah and Sarah took that over. Then when they left to start exploring sainthood, you know, I eventually landed on you and had been super thrilled with that.

Gina Colvin [00:17:38] So.

John Dehlin [00:17:38] Yeah, and then I started Gay Mormon Stories with my cousin Daniel Parkinson, and what else?

Gina Colvin [00:17:45] And then you've got the podcast communities.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] Yeah, yeah. So we started all the Facebook groups once those came. And then, yeah, we started the Face to Face communities on Facebook where we'd start a city, you know, in London or Boston or Chicago or Houston, we would have Mormon Stories communities that. That could start supporting people in the cities where they lived. Right, yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:18:09] And all of these come under, more broadly, the Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:18:14] Yeah, I started open stories in 2010 when I was faced with grad school and $10 an hour assistantships. I just felt like I couldn't make ends meet on that income. But more importantly, I felt like Mormonism still needed more resources and support. So that's when, in 2010, I made a deal with my listeners. I will turn down assistantships that are offered to me in grad school if you guys will pay for Mormon Stories. And so they started donating more. And I created the nonprofit so that the donations would be tax deductible. And so the Open Stories foundation was sort of born, I think, in the 2010ish, as a way for me to fund graduate school and to keep providing support to people.

Path to Church Disciplinary Council

Gina Colvin [00:19:02] Okay, so leading up to your church discipline last year, wasn't it? Was it last year

John Dehlin [00:19:09] still this year? I think.

Gina Colvin [00:19:10] Okay, January, wasn't it?

John Dehlin [00:19:11] It was, yeah, kind of. I think it was early February where I heard the verdict, I think.

Gina Colvin [00:19:17] Right, right. What was the state of your belief? Had everything crashed down around you?

John Dehlin [00:19:26] It depends on what we're talking about. I still wanted to make the church work. I didn't want to leave the church. But Prop 8 was a big blow to me. I lost my literal belief in this being the one true church back when I worked for Microsoft. So that died. That died around 2001, you know, but I still was. Was in this mindset of it being, you know, an inspired church of many inspired churches, and still a good place to help people. So I started Mormon Stories with that mindset, and I maintained that mindset in many ways, even through 2014, 2015. But when Prop 8 happened, that was a real turning point for me in 2008 because I started becoming more sympathetic and empathetic for LGBT people, for racial minorities, for women, for feminists. And Mormon Stories really helped make Me aware of matters of race and sexuality and gender and things of that sort and intellectual issues. And so once I really became sympathetic and once Proposition 8 happened and the church was going to start really trying to clamp down on people that I felt like deserved our love and support, not discrimination, that's when it started getting really personal. And it looked by the end of 2012 that the church was going to. It looked like it had started backing off, like it was going to just kind of be a more friendly church and it wasn't going to be going after people anymore. And it felt like, you know, by this time, Terrell Givens and Roughstone rolling and all that stuff, it seemed like there was some openness that was happening. But there was a real turning point for me, I want to say around 2013, where oaks gave this talk in General Conference in October of 2013 where he basically, it seemed like he was doubling down on the proclamation on the family and on marriage being between a man and a woman. And the church's sort of anti same sex marriage initiative started to start ramping up again in 2013. And I just felt, I just reached this breaking point where I felt like if they're going to actually start doing actively working against same sex marriage and feminism and intellectuals, et cetera, I can't stay active and in good conscience stay quiet. So I felt like I had to start criticizing the Brethren openly, starting with Oakes Talk in the fall of 2013. That's when I gave my TED Talk in fall of 2013. That's when I signed on to support ordain women in December of 2013. And that's when I shortly thereafter got called in by my stake president in early 2014 and was told he was starting an investigation. And he named ordained women and my progressive Mormonism stuff as the reasons for the investigation.

Gina Colvin [00:23:07] But before that you'd had an ecclesiastical leader. I'm not sure it was a bishop or a stake president who'd actually really kind of caused a bit of a turn in you, a moment of tenderness towards the church.

John Dehlin [00:23:20] Yeah. So yeah, in 2000, probably early 2012, I was in a really angry spot and my marriage was on really on the ropes. And I was just really angry. And my stake president, Brian Jensen, Mark Jensen, reached out to me and just showed amazing love and patience and compassion. And while I was ready to burn it all down and release the Tom Phillips interview and really just go hardcore at the church, he sort of loved me back into the church for a final time. And that's when I You know, that's when I started working through some real marital difficulties with Margi. That's when I contracted my community work with the Mormon Stories communities. And that's when I really had these intense, long, heart to heart weekly meetings with my stake president, Mark Jensen, to see if I could baptize my son Winston. He made me wait a full year to be able to baptize Winston. I baptized Winston when he was nine.

Gina Colvin [00:24:33] Sorry, John. Why couldn't you baptize Winston?

John Dehlin [00:24:37] Because I had. By the time I interviewed with John Larsen and Mormon Expression Podcast, and my memory is foggy, but by early 2012, my language had become very strident in anger against the church. And I had interviewed a lot of people that had really disturbed the church headquarters by that point. And so my stake president just said, I don't feel like you're worthy to baptize your son, but I'm willing to work not because of any moral transgression at that point, but because, you know, because of my public statements and because of Mormon stories. He had heard enough complaints and concerns that he felt like we needed to work through my testimony, my faith, my commitment to the church, before he could feel comfortable allowing me to baptize Winston.

Gina Colvin [00:25:44] But there is no formal discipline.

John Dehlin [00:25:47] No, no, no, no, no.

Gina Colvin [00:25:48] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:25:49] No. There was just all my podcast stuff and my public statements, and he was concerned about the effect Mormon Stories was having on people, and he was concerned about my own testimony.

Gina Colvin [00:26:05] Right. So, okay, okay.

John Dehlin [00:26:08] So I did a full year of weekly one on ones with Mark Jensen, which sort of turned me around and made me feel like I wanted to give the church one last go. And so between summer of 2000, you know, 2012 and 2013, we came to an understanding of each other to the point where after a year, he felt comfortable letting me return to full fellowship, he felt comfortable letting me baptize Winston, and I was back active in the church again.

Gina Colvin [00:26:44] Had you toned down Mormon stories throughout that period?

John Dehlin [00:26:50] Somewhat, but I think it was still. I think still some of my was during that time. But I did agree to not publish the Tom Phillips interview. That was right at a critical period of these talks with my stake president, where he basically said, without saying, if you publish that, you will likely face disciplinary.

Gina Colvin [00:27:13] Why is that? What's the sensitivity? I mean, I've listened to the Tom Phillips interview, but let's talk about why the sensitivity around that particular podcast.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] Just because he talks about the second anointing, Right. And he recounts his experience with the second anointing in the temple and the feeling Was. That's too sacred to talk about publicly.

Gina Colvin [00:27:33] Has Tom Phillips been excommunicated?

John Dehlin [00:27:35] No, not to my knowledge. And neither is Jeremy Runnels.

Gina Colvin [00:27:39] Okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:27:40] Totally left alone.

Gina Colvin [00:27:41] Okay, interesting. So by the time you get to. Then you have a change of ecclesiastical leaders from Mark Jensen to.

John Dehlin [00:27:51] To. To. To Brian Jensen. What was it Brian Hunt? No, Brian Hunt was my bishop. Okay, who was it? Was it Brian Jensen?

Gina Colvin [00:28:02] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:28:04] Oh, man, I'm.

Gina Colvin [00:28:05] You can't remember the person who excommunicated you?

John Dehlin [00:28:08] Brian King.

Gina Colvin [00:28:09] Okay. Brian King.

John Dehlin [00:28:10] Yeah. Brian King. Yeah. So in. In the fall of 2013, Who's that general authority? The guy from California, the lawyer. Oh, my gosh. My brain is just completely f. Whitney Clayton. Oh, yeah. L. Whitney Clayton. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:28:32] So sorry. Get me out of there.

John Dehlin [00:28:33] So you'll get Dan's.

Gina Colvin [00:28:35] Thea. No, I won't.

John Dehlin [00:28:37] So, yeah, that's Dan Witherspoon, everybody. So, yeah. No, no, no. Just cut that out and just say. Just skip the part where you forgot his name and just whole thing out.

Gina Colvin [00:28:49] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:28:50] So. Oh, Jesus. So. Okay. So, yeah, so Mark Jensen gets. So El. Whitney Clayton comes to our stake in, like August of 2013, and. And he gives this talk that I record that makes it sound like they're going to start going after people. And then later he reorganizes my stake presidency. He. He releases Mark Jensen, who did not. Who was not willing to excommunicate me, who I think had pressure to excommunicate me. And he. He declined. And they. And. And L. Whitney Clayton calls Brian King as the new stake president. And it was during this same fall that I had become upset about Elder Oaks, his talk in General Conference.

Gina Colvin [00:29:38] So can I ask, were you active at that time?

John Dehlin [00:29:42] Yeah, I sure was. I was active and I was. But I was also starting to get really upset. And by active, I mean attending sacrament meeting. I think by that point I found Sunday school and priesthood not productive for me to attend. My Elders Quorum president and some other members of my ward had started to spy on me and invest me and attempted to gain entrance into some of the private forums that I was entering. And this all came out and I got really furious and I felt like I was being spied on. And so at that point, I didn't feel welcome to go to Elders Quorum because these guys who had been spying on me without telling me were in the leadership there. And so. And so I would just go to soccer meeting with my family and that's. You know, that was True. Up through June of 2014, I was still actively attending soccer, meeting with my family, and letting my kids, you know, be raised in the church. So. But it was that fall. So that. So going back, it was the fall of 2013 where L. Whitney Clayton reorganized my stake and called Brian King and where Oaks gave that talk and where I just realized I couldn't stay silent anymore about the harm being done to LGBT people and women and minorities, et cetera. And so I gave my TED Talk that November. I wrote my Ordained Women profile that December, I think. And then I got called into the bishop that sort of. January, February of 2014.

Gina Colvin [00:31:22] Okay. And we're going to talk really quickly about the charges against you for your disciplinary council. What were they exactly?

John Dehlin [00:31:31] Oh, man, I'm not prepared to. Let me just see. So. When Brian Hunt, my bishop, called me in in late January, early February of 2014, he specifically mentioned my Ordained Women profile and my work on progressive Mormonism, which was a website I had created trying to encourage a brand of progressive Mormonism. And he basically just said, those things are a problem, and I'm going to start an investigation. By that point, I didn't have patience for another investigation. I said, you, Brian Hunt, can investigate me, but I will not be participating in that investigation. So this is when I wrote him and said, I will be attending sacrament meeting with my children, and I'll still remain a member of your ward, but for ecclesiastical reasons, you can just as well not consider me a member of the ward, because I won't be interacting with you anymore as my ecclesiastical leader if you're going to conduct yet another investigation after all the investigations I had already had.

Gina Colvin [00:32:48] So you're pissed off?

John Dehlin [00:32:51] Yeah, just tired. Just tired. And, yeah, I was angry. But the crazy thing is I was still committed to activity, so I was still raising my kids in the church, and I was still attending sacrament meeting.

Gina Colvin [00:33:03] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:03] But I just. The investigations just really got to me, you know, just. You know, I remember a guy who lives on my street who is Elders Quorum president, would be, you know, home teaching me and acting like he loved me and my family. And then he'd be secretly gathering tweets and Facebook comments and trying to get into secret forums and then turning all that information in to try and get me excommunicated.

Gina Colvin [00:33:29] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:33:30] So it was in that same Elders Quorum president told me his dad, his grandpa, had been excommunicated and that it was the best thing that ever happened to him and that if he ever had to excommunicate me or had to help contribute to my excommunication. He would consider it an honor to have played a part in that, because he would feel like excommunication at that point would have been God's will, and he would have been helping perform God's will. And he told me that himself. And that was just a really twisted, sick way to be my elders, quorum president and my ecclesiastical leader. From my point of view, I don't know where that left us, but that

Gina Colvin [00:34:09] left me thinking, you've got a lot of, you know, if you kind of imagine just lots of balls in the air at this point, like so many kind of trajectory, so many, you know, a number of discursive trajectories, all held in tension with each other and all sort of being railroaded to this moment where you're actually being socially shunned because they can't manage. My sense is that they couldn't kind of manage the scope of this conversation and so targeting you as a possibility to eradicate that.

Gina Colvin [00:34:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:41] And I had had two personal lunches with Elder Holland where he had told me, we need more John de Lynds in this church and told me to keep doing what I'm doing and that he really, you know, really respected me and my work. I had had a private lunch with Marlon Jensen where he just treated me like the answer to the church's problems, where he asked me every possible question and told me, I'm going to go speak to the brethren and the Quorum of the twelve in the First Presidency. Give me all the suggestions you have on how I can help make the church better. And so I had been and I had helped the church do their study on disaffection that then led to the essays. So, like, I personally cooperated with Marlon Jensen and other members of church headquarters to gather the data that then they used to help decide to convince church headquarters to create these essays and to release them. I'm not saying I was the reason the essays happened, but I know for a fact that I was a part of why they happened. And so I don't think they knew what to do with me until Oaks. I wasn't really criticizing the Brethren publicly. I wasn't denying the church's truth claims. I was just saying I was struggling with them. And I'm just trying to interview people to reach more truth. And I think at some point I'd reached a listenership where they felt like they worried that coming after me could do more damage than leaving me alone. And I think a lot of the years I survived either through my personal relationships with Holland or Jensen or other insiders in the church, or just fear that if they did anything to me, it would really hurt the church. And at some point in 2014, 2013, 2014, whether it was my TED Talk or Ordain women or some of the interviews that I did or some of the public Facebook comments that I made, I think they just felt like I crossed a line.

Gina Colvin [00:36:44] Right. But nobody pointed that line out to you, said, hey, there's the line. Don't go over it.

John Dehlin [00:36:49] Oh, well, eventually my stake president did. That's. You know, that. That's what. That's what Brian. Brian King did starting in June of 2014.

Gina Colvin [00:36:59] Right. Okay. So do you think perhaps your disciplinary council was really a result of sort of a capriciousness at the local leadership level or maybe sort of, you know, the middling kind of general authority level, or do you think it was from higher up?

John Dehlin [00:37:15] I think when L. Whitney Clayton reorganized our stake, I think he put someone in that would take care of me, because the trainings that he was offering the members of my stake, from the rumblings that I heard, were very much hostile towards Internet activity, towards Internet activism, towards people questioning, people doubting publicly. It just. The rumblings were that L. Whitney Clayton was installing a stake president and training the leaders so that they would know what to do with people like me. And so it was by January of 2014 that my bishop, you know, who I had been very friendly with up until that point, his brother had been gay, you know, and he. I had helped counsel him about LGBT issues, and he had been really friendly to me. But by the time he was made bishop and got this training by Clayton, I think he was pushed to the point where he felt like he had no choice but to come after me. And so I think Clayton installed King so that Hunt would come after me, Brian Hunt, and then that would kick the ball rolling to make it look local so that then King could excommunicate me.

Gina Colvin [00:38:32] What about, how are you feeling about contemplating church discipline? Because you'd actually dealt with that, you know, you'd had to hold that, you know, that fear for, you know, 10 years now. So when it actually came to that point, were you resigned? Were you angry, or.

John Dehlin [00:38:49] I was everything. I was sad, I was scared. I was hopeful that it would go away. I was hopeful that I would be vindicated, that they would back down. And I was angry and vengeful and eager to burn it all down. Like everything, it was very schizophrenic for Me, it was not. It's all a lie and let's tear it down and let me figure out some scheme to burn it down. And. And it wasn't all, oh, no, you know, they're going to come after me. It was all of those things, you know what I mean?

Gina Colvin [00:39:24] Yeah. And in your disciplinary council, I know you've spoken recently about this. What's the general sense there, that this was an execution or that it was actually something a little bit more tender than that?

John Dehlin [00:39:38] There was no tenderness in my excommunication. It was cold, impersonal. People didn't want to look me in the eye. And it was clinical and antiseptic and, you know, really brutal in its impersonal nature, you know.

Gina Colvin [00:40:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how did you expect that?

John Dehlin [00:40:08] Yeah, because I had met with King. I met with President King three times and. He was just. He was like a robot. He was just. He had his marching orders, it felt like. And he was going to go, you know, think about it. So I got the letter telling me, asking me to resign or there'd be a disciplinary council in June when I had never met him and never even had one conversation with him.

Gina Colvin [00:40:45] Aren't they responsible? Is it part of the process to actually meet with the, you know, the person in question?

John Dehlin [00:40:50] Well, that's what I thought, but it turns out the King felt like Mark Jensen's meetings with me met that criteria.

Gina Colvin [00:41:00] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:41:01] So he. I don't think he felt like he had to. And he told me that he met with Mark Jensen during the transition and Mark Jensen said, yeah, well, since the fall of 2013, John's become more strident, and this isn't the same John that I rehabilitated. And President King said that he and Mark Jensen sort of had this exchange where President King said to President Jensen, I don't think I could have had as much patience as you did to meet with John for a full year. And then President Jensen said back to President King, well, I don't think that I have the courage to do what you're probably about to do to John.

Gina Colvin [00:41:50] Oh, that's sad. That's sad.

John Dehlin [00:41:52] And so King told me about that exchange personally.

Gina Colvin [00:41:55] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] Almost like he was sort of nervous but proud of how he was being the strong one who was going to sort of solve the problem, you know,

Gina Colvin [00:42:06] and I suppose we go. We can circle back to your experience in Guatemala, that, that, that these problems or these issues within Mormonism can be solved with a. With a really meaningful, tender and compassionate conversations and thoughtful and mindful conversations rather than Just the petty politicking at the local level for, you know, I know whose balls are bigger, you know.

John Dehlin [00:42:28] Yeah. I mean, I guess. I guess there's a part of me that felt like I had truth on my side. Openness and integrity and people suffering. There was a part of me that felt like, well, I'm on a first name basis with Elder Holland and Marlon Jensen, and my brother works for church headquarters. And, you know, I helped the church, you know, with my study of why people leave the church. I helped influence the direction that they took with the essays. And, you know, when Daniel Peterson came after me, he had been slapped back by Elder Holland and the Maxwell Institute. And, you know, I just felt like I had enough support on the inside, you know, to where maybe they. They wouldn't do such a thing, you know, But. But yeah, but I think L. Whitney Clayton had other plans.

Gina Colvin [00:43:29] Right. And maybe that's one of the failings and the way the church operates is that personal. Personal feeling overwhelms moral judgment and the careful weighing of people's greatest sort of needs as individuals that need care. So. And it's disappointing. So you get excommunicated, you get the letter. Was that a surprise for you?

John Dehlin [00:44:00] I think I expected it, but I probably. There was probably a part of me that still hoped that it wouldn't happen. But I figured it. I mean, King was Just think about it. So we. In our first meeting in June, well, before we ever met, he's asking me to resign or face excommunication. Then I shame him through the New York Times into meeting with me at least once. He meets with me. And, you know, that transcript, I think that's the transcript that's been published. I mean, you know, it's just clear that he's not really sincerely trying to work with me, that he's irritated, he's impersonal, he hasn't thought deeply about these issues, and he's sort of just a man on a mission. And then in August, that August meeting, I'm not sure which one I released now if it was the June or the August meeting that we had. But in the August meeting, it was just, okay, nope, I'm ready to excommunicate you now. So that was our second meeting, but it wasn't that it was here. All these conditions, and it was like, you need to take down Mormon stories, take down any offensive episode. Never again do anything that could be considered questionable. I forget now all the conditions that he gave to me, but it was basically shut down Mormon stories and stop talking about These things and stop supporting same sex marriage and stop supporting, you know, women's ordination and, you know, go silent and retract everything that you've ever said. And that, that was just. I just couldn't do it, you know, So, I mean, so then he went silent forever. But, you know, I just figured the writing was on the wall, it was just a matter of when. And of course, it was really weird that we left with such certainty that, that I wasn't gonna. I wasn't gonna agree to his demands in August. And it wasn't until the following January, February, that actually. January, that he actually took action. So my guess is he wanted to see if I would hang myself with more rope. You know, give me more rope to hang myself. And I don't think I backed down that fall. And so I think it was just maybe, maybe either they wanted the Meet the Mormons movie to come out and they didn't want all the negative publicity to be surrounding the release of that movie. Maybe that's arrogant to say. I don't know, I'm just guessing. Or maybe he just wanted to give me more rope to hang myself, or maybe he just wanted to see if I would truly rehabilitate. But at that point, I wasn't willing to stop supporting same sex marriage, which was a condition. I wasn't willing to stop supporting female ordination, which was a condition. I wasn't willing to take down past Mormon Stories episodes, which was a condition. And so I just wasn't willing to meet any of his demands.

Gina Colvin [00:46:52] A lot of that's a nonsense anyway, isn't it? I mean, there are plenty of people, hundreds and hundreds of people that support both of those things without being disciplined for it, which is.

John Dehlin [00:47:02] Well, that was the most maddening thing is because in private, and I've got recordings of all these interviews, I've got transcripts, you know, I could release them if I want to. You know, in private, he would say it was all about Mormon stories and same sex marriage and feminism and speaking out. But then in public and in my actual disciplinary council, he wanted to say it was all about not believing in Jesus and God and Joseph Smith and the restoration in the right way. So he wanted to publicly pin it all on my lack of belief, but then privately pin it on what I think were the real reasons, which were my social activism and my. The effectiveness of Mormon stories in really generating awareness and interest in discussion on these difficult issues.

Excommunication and Its Aftermath

Gina Colvin [00:47:54] Were you sad to be excommunicated?

John Dehlin [00:47:58] Oh, yeah. It was devastating and exhilarating. Like it's you know, 10 years is a long time to be in such conflict and to be thrashing between devotion and commitment and anger and resentment and trying to please the believers, but then getting hit by, you know, disaffected and then trying to please the disaffected and getting hit by the believers and trying to navigate all this within my own family and with my own children and my own marriage and trying to make sense of it all. So I'm proud that I stuck it out for as long as I did. I don't think I did the things perfectly, but I think. I think I. I managed it in a way to. To bring maximum attention to the issue, to the issues and. And support and awareness. But by. By 2014, I was just frazzled and done. And so it needed to go. Either they're going to leave me alone or excommunicate me. And, you know, it needed to go one way or the other, and I thought they were going to. You know, by the time I'd met with Elder Holland twice, by the time I'd met with Marlon Jensen, by the time I had helped the church do the study and spread the word that led to the essays, I felt like maybe I was safe. But something turned when I gave my TED Talk and when I supported ordained women. Something about those two things really snapped the issue.

Gina Colvin [00:49:31] Well, maybe they were just excuses, so.

John Dehlin [00:49:34] Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:49:35] Yeah. Okay, John, we're just about at the end.

John Dehlin [00:49:39] Oh, wow. Okay.

Gina Colvin [00:49:40] After three hours.

John Dehlin [00:49:41] Can't end on this.

Gina Colvin [00:49:43] No, we're not going to end on this. We're going to end on a more jovial kind of conversation. Now, 10 years you've been at Mormon stories, and, you know, it's been. Had a profound effect on the church, I think, and on thousands and thousands of people. And that has thrust you into the. Into the limelight somewhat. You. I know people talk about Mormon rock stars. You're one of them. What do you think has been your biggest gaffe, the thing that you could, you know, you just, like, cringe at?

John Dehlin [00:50:16] Well, for sure, my biggest gaffe was almost ruining my marriage. And. And then second to that was the way that I handled sort of 2012, where I retracted the communities and spoke openly about some of the fears that I had back in 2012 that left so many of the communities feeling like I had betrayed them. And I just. I made so many. I hurt so many people's trust and feelings. So, yeah, number one, by far is hurting Margi and almost having our marriage end. And then a distant second, but a very important second would be the way that I handled the Mormon stories, communities that left so many people feeling hurt and betrayed. And then a third, if I had to say a third, I would say it would be the fact that I wasn't able to maintain more patience and neutrality and diplomacy, you know, that I couldn't find a way to play at all so that it wouldn't end this way. You know what I mean? Ideally, for me, the ideal. I don't know if this is true now, but there's a part of me that feels like the ideal outcome would have been Mormon stories led to a. I don't know, it was the glasnost or perestroika, some sort of like, openness in Mormonism that led to a renaissance, that led to openness, where it all ended happily and the church became more progressive and tolerant and there was a place for people like me and we all sang Kumbaya like that would, you know. So I wish I could have played it to where it would have been that end. But instead, I got angry, I got bitter, I got frustrated. I lost my neutrality and I alienated a lot of people, I hurt a lot of people's feelings, and it all ended catastrophically with my excommunication and, you know, a bunch of people being grateful, but a bunch of people being really angry. And I wish I could have played it more diplomatically to where everything was happy, but it didn't work out that way.

Gina Colvin [00:52:42] Perhaps not in your lifetime or in your church lifetime, but, you know, I was sitting with a bishop, he was over several weeks ago, who was contemplating. And even my stake president has said there are shifts and changes, things are happening. And I think that's largely to do with the kind of work that, you know, people like yourself and others are doing to take away the toxicity or the fear of different. Of these hard conversations. So I don't think the story's over. Your story's not over.

John Dehlin [00:53:14] Oh, thank you. Well, I hope it all ends happy for the church, for its members, for the ex members, for me, for my family. I hope it all ends blissfully, happily.

Gina Colvin [00:53:26] Well, I don't know about happy, but, you know, functional would be good. So what have been your greatest pleasures?

Reflections on Meaning, Legacy, and the Future

John Dehlin [00:53:37] You know, I. I think I've always had this hole inside of me where I needed to feel like I was living a meaningful life and. And contributing to the world in a positive way and alleviating suffering and bringing joy. Like all my early job turbulence was over me trying to find a way to make a difference in the world. And, you know, I just. I've been able, you know, tens of thousands of people have told me that I've saved their marriage, you know, helped heal them from depression or anxiety, helped them find a way to stay in the church, helped them find a way to leave the church in a healthy way, prevented, you know, LGBT people from suicide, or helped, you know, family members and friends become more understanding or supportive of people doubting or. Or people who are gays, feminist intellectuals, and people of color and all that. From what people tell me, I feel like I've been able to make a really big difference in alleviating suffering and promoting a discussion that has led to positive change, and that has led a lot of people to become more awake in their lives and to live a life that is more meaningful to them. And I don't say that to be arrogant, but I mean, that's. I have got this insecurity where unless I'm helping others, I don't feel happy with myself. And lots of people have told me over the years that I've helped them either saved a marriage or prevented suicide or helped their transition out in a healthy way or help them stay. And I just can't tell you how deeply gratifying it is to play a part in people's lives in a way that they tell me is so important and meaningful. I mean, it's everything I could have ever hoped for. And I wouldn't. You know, I wouldn't make any change to what I've done. If it were to take away what I've been able to be a part of, I wouldn't make a change now. I would do different things if I could, but I wouldn't change the outcome. I wouldn't change what I was trying to do or the positive things that have come about as a result. Because just to this day, people tell me all the time I've helped them find more joy and meaning in their lives, and that's incredibly rewarding.

Gina Colvin [00:56:16] If you could put a life lesson on the back of a posted stamp, what would it be?

John Dehlin [00:56:27] Yeah, it would be. It's sort of the song Brave. You know, if people are suffering in the world, if you notice that they're suffering, stand up and fight to alleviate the suffering. Stand up for those who are. Who are being mistreated. And even though it's hard and painful, it's completely worth it, because obviously it's going to be hard to find someone who's been villainized and beat up is me, right, in 2015, sort of on the Mormon Internet. And I can Tell you, it's been amazing. I've loved it. The past 10 years have been excruciating and. And blissfully exhilarating, and I wouldn't trade it. And, you know, to love another, you know, Les Miserables ends by saying, to love another person is to see the face of God. And as much as people might malign or be frustrated with me or suspect my motives, if I were to say, well, my motives have always been it's been to alleviate suffering and to promote joy. And I feel like, as humbly as I can say this, I feel like I've done this with Mormon stories and with all the efforts that we've done, and I feel like the work is continuing. And there's nothing better than that. I mean, other than having a healthy, intimate relationship and being a good father. Those things are number one for me now. I neglected those things for too many years trying to save the world. But. But now that Margi and I are very, very healthy and happy, now that my kids are doing very, very well, I feel. And our family is in a very healthy. In a safe and a secure and a thriving place, I can say that the very next most awesome thing in the world is to alleviate suffering and bring joy to tens of thousands of people. And I do feel like I've helped do that.

Gina Colvin [00:58:39] And so family, when we talk about where to from here, family is central to that.

John Dehlin [00:58:46] Yeah. Margi and the kids and then my extended family, sort of secondary is the most important thing. Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:58:55] And in terms of your continued activities, where to from here?

John Dehlin [00:59:01] Yeah. So it's just, you know, I'll keep Mormon stories going as long as people are willing to support it. And there's this new initiative that I'm a part of called Mormon Transitions that I haven't really launched yet, but I'm in the planning stages where my goal is to help provide resources, information services, community support for people who are struggling with the Mormon transition. So this whole Mormon spectrum that was released In August, in 2015, that wasn't me, but that came out of a strategic retreat that I held in February where the amazing Allison Udall and the amazing Steve Holbrook and. And several other amazing people got together, inspired by the conversations at this retreat, got together and decided that they were going to make Mormon spectrum happen. And they did. And now we've got over 120 thriving communities that are being supported all over the world where people are going to get support, better support than they ever have for their Mormon transition. Whether they stay in the church or out Mormon Spectrum is this amazing resource that is now bringing community to people who need it. I was going to do that if Allison and Steve didn't do Mormon Spectrum, but because they did, I don't have to worry about that as much. And I'm so happy to see them do such an amazing job with that. And for all those who think it's me behind the scenes, that is all Allison and Steve and their own work. But I'm thrilled and I can say that I was there at the beginning where we talked and brainstormed on making that happen. And so I hope Mormon Spectrum thrives because community is a big part of what I think the future needs. We need more face to face community for liberal Mormons, progressive Mormons, questioning Mormons and post Mormons. And so community is going to be a huge thing. I'm going to do everything I can to support those communities, to help them thrive. Even as much community turmoil as we've had. Some of my proudest accomplishments are starting the Phoenix Open Mormon Community that now has over almost a thousand members. And it's super thriving. And the one in London and the one in Houston and the one in Boston and the one in, you know, all over the place, New York. We've got over 100 of these communities of progressive and post Mormons thriving. And that's not even to talk about the post Mormon communities and the ex Mormon communities and the meetups. So community is going to be the focus going forward, obviously. Mental health services. I'm so proud of Natasha Helfer Parker who started the Mormon Mental Health Association. Again, that was Natasha, but I helped her and we kind of did that together at first at least, and now it's independent and it's her own thing. And I'm so thrilled to be a part of helping people like Natasha and Jennifer Finlayson Fife and Kristi Money and, you know, so many other amazing therapists are going to start providing mental health services to Mormons in transition or post Mormons. And I'm thrilled about that. And now that I have my PhD, you know, in psychology, I might provide some coaching or some counseling services as well, although that's going to be limited because I feel like individually my best efforts right now, I think are more on a scale of one to many than on a scale of one to one. So I want to see some clients, but right now I think it's going to be few clients that I see. I'm more interested in creating podcast content and books and seminars and conferences for Mormons in transition to help them find community to help them save their marriages, to help them find mental health, to help them get the tools they need to navigate a healthy transition. And so that's what Mormon Transitions is all about. It's about creating community, creating content, and providing services to people who need support in their transition. And even now, even though I've been excommunicated, if people feel like they want to stay in the church and make it work, I'm still with stale DS, with a thoughtful faith with Mormon Matters. I am 100% excited and supportive of people staying in the church. And I validate that decision and wholeheartedly defend and stand by that decision. But I also am super excited to create content and materials and resources to help people transition either to a place of progressivism or out of the church, if that's the path that they're going to take. And so look for podcasts and books and retreats and workshops and communities all about supporting people in their transitions. And that's what mormontransitions.org is going to be all about.

Gina Colvin [01:04:22] Fabulous. So there must be, I'm hearing lots of pleasure in, in seeing people step up to make this conversation really sustainable across time.

John Dehlin [01:04:35] Yeah. Like, Gina, I'm so thrilled and in awe of your amazing work at A Thoughtful Faith. I thought a thoughtful faith was going to die after Micah and Sarah felt like they couldn't do it anymore. And I love what you're doing. I love what Dan Witherspoon's doing with Mormon Matters. I'm just super excited about Facebook and all the amazing groups out there. I'm thrilled with the church's essays. I'm thrilled with the way slowly the church is making changes for women, changes for people of color, changes for LGBT individuals. I think those changes are excruciatingly slow and minimal. But it's great to see the church moving in a positive direction. And, and it's great to see, you know, even though I've been struck down, so to speak, it's exciting to see you step up. Dan Witherspoon, step up. You know, Natasha Alford Parker, step up. You know, Alison Udall and the Mormon spectrum step up. I'm excited to see all the ex Mormon and post Mormon communities out there thriving. You know, I'm even excited to see apologists, you know, Fair and Farms and the Maxwell Institute are completely different animals in 2015 than they were even in 2007. You know, Daniel Peterson's not there anymore. Greg Smith has been disempowered. Fair has become nicer. Fair has become more diplomatic and more affirming. I'm thrilled to see Terrell Givens and Fiona Givens and Richard Bushman all achieve very high levels of prominence within the church. And you know, when I first interviewed Terrell Givens, Deseret Book wouldn't even publish his books. They wouldn't even make his books available for sale. That's what before. I interviewed Terrell Givens, after. Terrell Givens is now publishing books through Deseret Book. And that's tremendous change. I think the essays are amazing and I'm just super excited about all the positive change that the past ten years has wrought. And even though it's been a bumpy ride and a lot of people are upset at me, I think the church is making positive changes. And honestly, I think post Mormons are coming out of the closet. They're gaining respectability, and I think non traditional or post Mormonism or ex Mormonism is gaining attraction and credibility like never before. And I'm, I'm thrilled to be a part of the ex Mormon community, even though I still consider myself Mormon culturally. And so I, I think the future is super bright.

Gina Colvin [01:07:15] I was going to ask that. You sound like you still feel Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:07:19] Yeah, I'm still culturally Mormon. I'm, I'm just like a Jew, a secular Jew. I, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a secular Mormon.

Gina Colvin [01:07:28] Right.

John Dehlin [01:07:28] You know, so I still believe in spirituality. I still, I still, I still have faith and hope in some things, but it's just, it's very alternative and sort of New Agey. But yeah, I still feel very Mormon at heart. I don't think they could take that away from me.

Gina Colvin [01:07:45] Final question. Has it been worth it?

John Dehlin [01:07:48] Oh, not only that, aside from the incredible amount of pain and suffering I caused my family at times, and aside from all the people that I've hurt when I've made mistakes, which is tens of thousands of people, the rewards of what I've been a part of have given me a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment and joy. You know, it's like it's all the stuff that Christ taught coming true. There's nothing more rewarding than alleviating suffering and promoting joy. And as controversial as I might be, as much as I have so many enemies on so many different sides of the equation, I know that the people who are grateful for what we've done outweigh the detractors by at least a factor of 10 to 1. And the joy that people, the amount of suffering that we've alleviated by advocating for LGBT individuals, feminists, intellectuals, people of color, you know, the amount of suffering we've alleviated and the amount of joy and happiness that we have encouraged by helping the church change, but more importantly, by awakening people to their sort of sleep and empowering them to get the information they need to then take control of their lives and make the decisions that they feel like they need to find joy and happiness and health and well being and liberation and empowerment. There is no greater work. So it's almost like all that I was taught as a Mormon in terms of serving your fellow man and loving everybody, it all came true. I just happened to have a really bumpy ride and kind of get excommunicated along the way. But it is true that there is no greater joy on earth than alleviating suffering and promoting joy. And that's how I look on the past 10 years, in spite of all the difficulties. And I could die today. I could fall over dead, cancer, bus hit me, somebody shoot me, and I will feel like the luckiest Mormon who ever walked the face of the earth.

Gina Colvin [01:10:12] So you've had your Kumbaya moment.

John Dehlin [01:10:15] Oh, and as long as I'm alive, I'm going to have 10,000 more.

Gina Colvin [01:10:18] John de Lynn, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. And I wish you the best.

John Dehlin [01:10:23] Oh, and Gita Colvin, you're a hero of mine and you inspire me and I mean that. And keep, keep carrying the torch. And I'm going to be right there alongside with you for as long as you'll be willing to stand in in the same room as me.

Gina Colvin [01:10:38] Thank you, friend. Thanks for joining us today on a thoughtful faith podcast. To discuss this episode with others, please visit athoughtfulfaith.org and don't forget, if you'd like to support this podcast, please consider a donation. Music for this podcast was generously provided by Chellan Hunt and the Lower Lights. Thanks for listening. Hey Konara.

Gina Colvin [01:11:10] Even though it be a cross that raised me still all my song shall be Nearer, my God to me near, my God, to thee near to thee. Though like the wonder the sun gone down Darkness beyond me My rest a stone yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to thee Nearer, my God, to me Nearer to the. Sat Thou sendest me in mercy angels to be Nearer my God to me Nearer my God to the Nearer to the Nearer, my God to the near to the.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.