Welcome and Introductions

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 514

Glenn [00:00:03] The kindly light amid encircling gloom.

Bob [00:00:12] Well, it's a delight, let me tell you, as one of the few that's partaking among us.

Glenn [00:00:16] It is delightful.

Tom [00:00:18] I'm not going to shy away from this. I. I'm going to go with Bob's foreman tread scale.

John Dehlin [00:00:24] For some reason, the number 3.5 is coming up for me right now. I'm not sure why. I don't know why that number. My Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation.

Matt [00:00:39] Philosophies of Men.

Jake [00:00:42] We are

Matt [00:00:45] fun and funny and I want to laugh, laughing, entertainment, not taking things so seriously.

John Dehlin [00:01:00] I have. I have a hard time telling Matt and Bob apart when I listen. Honestly. No, no, no. Sorry, not Matt. Scott. Scott.

Matt [00:01:08] There you go. That's.

Scott [00:01:09] Yeah, I've heard that before. Everybody. Yeah.

Glenn [00:01:11] Nobody.

Scott [00:01:12] It seems like I'm.

Matt [00:01:13] It sounds like Seth Rogen.

Guest [00:01:21] Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural. Would our heavenly Father do that in it? I'm too sexy for compassion. Too sexy for compassion. So called tolerance must be wrong.

John Dehlin [00:01:48] I'm not doing this for the money. I'm not doing it for the attention. I think every single Mormon on this planet has the right to know the factual record as it relates to the Church's origins. Everyone should be able to make a conscious decision with all the information on the table. This is Infants on Mormon Stories podcast.

Matt [00:02:12] Philosophies of men mingled with human. We are the core of the core.

John Dehlin [00:02:21] Hello, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I should probably say a very special edition of Mormon Stories podcast. Because today we have in store for you something the likes you've never heard probably on Mormon Stories podcast before. Today we are going to be interviewing the quorum from what is becoming one of the most interesting and compelling podcasts within Mormonism. And that's saying a lot because These days, in 2014, there are a lot of Mormon themed podcasts out there. But today I'm going to be interviewing the perma panelists from the Infants on Thrones podcast. You can check them out@infantsonthrones.com and it's a panelist of, I don't know, several white guys, basically. But they're all really cool and interesting. What's that? Dude bros. Dude bros. Yeah, I think

Matt [00:03:26] that's the feminist term.

John Dehlin [00:03:27] I like it. I like it. That was Matt, by the way. But the panelists on Infants on Thrones podcasts are Glenn, Matt, Scott, Randy, Bob, Jake, and Tom. And they're all with us today, and I'm super excited. A couple little, you know, couple little things about the podcast just to kind of give listeners a heads up. It's. It's definitely lively.

Glenn [00:03:56] We listen to infants on Thrones, but you can't listen to infants on Thrones.

Guest [00:04:00] Why?

John Dehlin [00:04:01] I chew a little.

Glenn [00:04:02] Because they don't use very good language, do they?

John Dehlin [00:04:05] There's a little bit. Occasionally a swear word might slip out. So I just want to give my listeners a warning that there's a chance.

Glenn [00:04:14] We'll bleep for you, John. We'll use some nice sound effects.

John Dehlin [00:04:18] Well, you know, I'd say let's keep it real. I'll just put an explicit warning.

Glenn [00:04:23] Maybe you could give us an example of some of the words that you don't want us to say.

Matt [00:04:29] Like if there's a list, for example.

Scott [00:04:30] Yeah, Seven words you can't say.

John Dehlin [00:04:33] Well, that actually brings me to the

Glenn [00:04:35] first question, but there's 50 bucks in this for me, John. I'll split it with you.

Scott [00:04:40] Okay.

Guest [00:04:40] All right.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] All right. Well, that was actually gonna be my first question, is, are you guys gonna be swearing tonight? On my podcast, Nothing destroys the charm of a meal more quickly. Don't discuss unpleasant topics such as gruesome sights or sounds.

Matt [00:04:55] Be yourself.

John Dehlin [00:04:57] Just be sure it's your best self.

Tom [00:04:59] I usually base it on. On how Randy feels. So if Randy starts swearing, I just follow suit and it goes from there.

John Dehlin [00:05:07] Brandy, what's your answer?

Randy [00:05:09] Yeah, I'm kind of the flag bearer on the swearing. It's kind of a little. Kind of a remnant of my Mormon experience. I had a hard time as a Mormon with all of the moralizing of things that I didn't think mattered about your moral character. So I kind of made that my signature. But, you know, I'm adaptable. I don't swear in front of my patients.

John Dehlin [00:05:34] No, no, no.

Randy [00:05:35] If you don't want me to swear, I won't swear.

John Dehlin [00:05:37] No, I put this question first because I had dreams of one of you answering. No, we got it.

Glenn [00:05:48] There it is.

John Dehlin [00:05:50] 50 bucks. You guys totally disappointed me.

Scott [00:05:53] And we can just put that audio clip wherever we want.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] Yeah, no, you guys are free to swear on this podcast, and I don't need you to bleep it. And I just warn my listeners that there will be swear words in this episode because that's partly what emphasant Thrones is all about.

Glenn [00:06:10] Like, one Mormon Stories episode on itunes that has the explicit label on it, and that'll be ours. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:06:16] You'll be the one.

Randy [00:06:17] Nice you had. You had bent Washburn on and there was some swearing. And did you put explicit on that? That's irresponsible. That's pretty irresponsible of you.

Matt [00:06:29] Well, swearing is not forced, but that it just comes out in order to season the language, in order to add the right emphasis.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] No, with you guys, I'm sure it's completely natural.

Randy [00:06:40] We have the entire English language at our disposal.

Matt [00:06:43] Everyone.

Guest [00:06:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:46] All right, so this is going to be interesting because there's so many of you, and I've got like three pages worth of questions, but let's just jump right in. So for those who haven't heard if it's on Thrones podcast, and I'm going to guess that there's a decent sized portion of my audience who haven't. Glenn, how would you describe the podcast to the listeners who haven't listened to it?

Randy [00:07:09] Wow.

Glenn [00:07:10] Well, I think our official tagline that we have written on the website is it's an. I should read it. I don't know, it's like an entertaining episode or podcast about self discovery or something like that. I don't know. I mean, we're just guys who like to talk with each other, and Mormonism's a common thread, but we like talking about different things besides Mormonism as well. I mean, it usually comes back to it. And so, I don't know, we just do it because it's fun.

John Dehlin [00:07:38] Yeah.

Randy [00:07:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:39] And, you know, if I had to characterize it, it's a bunch of guys that kind of like each other most of the time, kind of being rowdy, kind of being rambunctious, letting the swear words fly, but also doing some pretty interesting and spirited analysis and debate and discussion. It's almost like you guys are at a bar drinking. Maybe sometimes you actually are drinking. Maybe some of you are actually drinking tonight. Cheers. Nice. But I think it's really well done also, I just have to say. And we'll talk about this later, Glenn. It's certainly. It's been inspired by Radiolab, right. In terms of the editing and sound.

Jake [00:08:22] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:08:24] All right.

John Dehlin [00:08:25] You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab from wny.

Jake [00:08:32] See?

John Dehlin [00:08:32] Yeah.

Randy [00:08:33] And npr.

Glenn [00:08:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:36] Is that fair to say?

Glenn [00:08:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] Talk about that just for a second.

Glenn [00:08:39] Well, so when. When we were. When we were starting out, we've been doing this for about two and a half years, and when we first started out that Radiolab was really what we were aiming for. And. Okay, on three, we'll do five. Okay, ready?

Guest [00:08:56] Five. Five.

Glenn [00:08:57] Five, four, four, three, two, one.

John Dehlin [00:09:03] Sucks.

Glenn [00:09:06] If you go back and listen to some of our first few episodes, they're highly edited, you know, putting different people's stories in and narrating in between. And that became so cumbersome, it almost was a disincentive to producing episodes. So we kind of moved away from that a little bit, but I think we still, you know, it's mainly now just interjecting pop culture references, or if we're talking about, you know, something that you can find on YouTube, then we go and we get the audio from YouTube and we put that on. So, yeah, it's not exactly Radiolab. It kind of started off more that way than I think it is now.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] Okay. But it's still got a nice. I still like the flair of the editing, so. Cool. All right, so we've got a lot to cover tonight. Let's just begin by having each of you give a brief introduction about yourself. You know, no more than a minute, but just tell us a bit about just some high level details about your life. Glenn, we'll start with you. Jump in.

Panel Members Share Their Backgrounds

Glenn [00:10:08] Okay. I live in Indiana and I've been out of the church. Like, I haven't really attended church for maybe two or three years. I really loved the church when I was in it. I mean, there were things that I didn't like the church culture, but I was really interested in doctrine and exploring doctrines, and that's something that I'm still interested in. And it kind of drove my. My academic pursuit. So when I got off my mission and I went to byu, I studied English and then I got interested in folklore, and that's what brought me out to Indiana.

Glenn [00:10:41] But then I stopped academia. I started working for a medical device company that's local here. And now I have a job where I travel a lot. So some of the episodes that we've done, I've actually been in other countries when we've recorded it.

Glenn [00:10:56] But yeah, that's me. I'm totally interested in Mormonism, interested in looking at things from different perspectives, and I just still find all that really engaging.

John Dehlin [00:11:08] Yeah. And served your mission in Japan, right?

Glenn [00:11:10] Japan, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:12] I think that's when you and I first started collaborating is when you were in Japan, is that right?

Glenn [00:11:16] Not as a missionary, but I lived in Japan for three years.

John Dehlin [00:11:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are my first memories of you, is when you were living in Japan. Cool. All right. And you've only been to jail once, according to what I've heard. Is that right?

Glenn [00:11:32] 24 hours. Yeah, that's true, actually. Yeah.

Matt [00:11:37] Research.

Glenn [00:11:39] Yeah, yeah, it doesn't take much to Google and find it, but.

John Dehlin [00:11:42] Yeah, No, I didn't Google you. I listened to the My Mormon Expression episode.

Glenn [00:11:46] I think we talked about it there.

John Dehlin [00:11:48] Yeah, that was a good episode. All right, Matt, you're next.

Matt [00:11:52] All right, well, I'm an attorney by trade. I live in Arizona. Born in the church, raised in the church, married in the church, did my mission, and for all intents and purposes, left, what, three, four years ago. Really? Haven't been back to church for all intents and purposes in three, four years. Does that sum me up? That's pretty weak. But I still love talking about Mormonism. I love talking about it with all different types of people, from believers to these guys here. And it seems to creep up no matter how very. What Michael Corleone. No matter how far I feel like

Guest [00:12:39] I'm out, they pull me back in. Yeah.

Matt [00:12:42] So there's always something to discuss, but more importantly, it's just. It's influenced and affected so much of my life that it creeps in. In almost everything. So why not talk about it?

John Dehlin [00:12:54] Yeah, I'm with you.

Randy [00:12:55] Yeah.

Matt [00:12:56] My wife's with me, and my wife left. Left about the same time as I have, and she's. Without her, I don't know where I'd be. We have. We have fun on this journey together.

John Dehlin [00:13:08] Yeah. And Matt, are you okay talking about the legal work you do? Because I think that's super interesting.

Matt [00:13:16] Yeah, I try not to talk about it very much on the podcast because I never want it to come off as if I'm speaking for anyone. But I'm a criminal attorney by trade. I'm a trial attorney by trade. My expertise is in sexual related crimes and child crimes, as well as homicide and death penalty cases.

John Dehlin [00:13:39] Yeah, that would be a fascinating podcast interview in and of itself if there was an opportunity. But that's cool stuff.

Randy [00:13:47] That's why we call him Batman.

Matt [00:13:51] And one of the. Actually, one of the things I've done the past two years has been involved with failure to report sex cases in religion and specifically the LDS Church.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] Yeah, very cool stuff.

Guest [00:14:08] All right.

Matt [00:14:08] Happy, happy, bright stuff.

John Dehlin [00:14:13] Yeah, that's good. It's important stuff. All right, Scott, tell us a bit about you.

Scott [00:14:19] Yes, sir. Let's see. Born and raised in the church as well. Went on my mission to Korea. Had my faith crisis about five and a half years ago when I got called to be in the Elders Quorum presidency. Didn't stop attending until about one year ago. So I think I've probably on the more recent end of the spectrum at least in terms of our panel, in terms of my attendance at church. But yeah, I just really have enjoyed the podcast and in making friends and getting to talk about interesting things and having cool guests on and getting to do stuff like this, it's just a fun side project. And part of what makes it fun is that none of us take it too seriously.

John Dehlin [00:15:09] So, you know, Scott, I think your legal work is also kind of interesting. Are you comfortable talking about that?

Scott [00:15:16] Yeah, sure, yeah. I'm an attorney. I'm in private practice, so I do about 80% of my practice is family law, and I also do some criminal defense work. But kind of my bread and butter is divorce custody, you know, real nasty, contentious family court stuff like that. I was in courts day on two hearings. So, yeah, it's kind of a different side of humanity that I get to see every day.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] Yeah. And I'll just say that I remember meeting Matt and Scott both first during the One Mormon Stories conference that we held in Phoenix. And I just have to say that Scott and Matt, along with a bunch of other really cool folks, started a support group for Mormons and post Mormons in Phoenix. It's Grow 500 members, and I think it's one of the most inspiring examples of how a community of post Mormons and of active Mormons and everyone in between can get together and really help each other out. And I just want to give you guys a shout out about that. And if anybody lives in kind of the Phoenix area and is looking for a great group of people to hang out with, Matt and Scott are part of a really cool group. It's called Phoenix Open Mormons.

Scott [00:16:35] Right?

Glenn [00:16:35] Yeah, thanks.

Scott [00:16:36] Appreciate the plug.

John Dehlin [00:16:37] No, it's good stuff. All right, Randy.

Randy [00:16:44] I was born in the church, one of seven kids in Southern California, went on a mission to exotic Tempe, Arizona and married in the temple and left the church intellectually probably about five years ago. Stopped going about four years ago, and three years ago sent my letter of resignation. As far as my podcasting, basically, John, you created my career in podcasting.

Glenn [00:17:18] Welcome everybody, to another episode of Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [00:17:21] My name is Dan Weatherspoon and I'm very pleased today to interview Randall Snyder. Randy Snyder, we'll call him. And that's what he always goes by.

Bob [00:17:29] Randy.

John Dehlin [00:17:29] Why don't you say hi so people get to know your voice?

Randy [00:17:31] Hello, everybody. It never occurred to me until you asked me after I'd been an atheist for all of one year to represent all post Mormon atheists on your podcast. It resulted in a six hour long Droning podcast.

Glenn [00:17:50] And Randy, you're the only one of us that's actually resigned from the church, right? The rest of us haven't done that.

Randy [00:17:56] Yeah, I've done it. I don't know about the rest of you.

Glenn [00:17:58] I don't think any, anybody else has.

Randy [00:18:00] So I'm the only one that's officially resigned. And I sent my letter to a lot of people and everyone loved it except for Glenn. He laughed, just laughed in my face.

Glenn [00:18:10] We need to do an episode on it too. Like we want to do like one on our exit stories. And I want, I want, I want to get your letter on there.

Randy [00:18:16] He basically was, he didn't use this analogy, but the analogy basically that he used was I was like a dog barking at a train going by. But you know, it's a yage.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] It's basically a yage. Right?

Randy [00:18:29] Well, I felt good barking. The barking felt good. But yeah, that's my story. I'm the one who's on this podcast considered the strident atheist, which I take exception with that.

Matt [00:18:42] You know, I've decided it's that way because you self identify that way so often. So if you just stop saying it would stop.

Tom [00:18:49] True.

Matt [00:18:50] I replace you as the strident angry angel.

Randy [00:18:53] You definitely replaced me as the biggest asshole.

Matt [00:18:57] That's not true.

John Dehlin [00:18:59] Bob's.

Tom [00:19:00] Whoa, whoa, no, Matt, I can't hold a candle to your assholery false. Okay, moving on.

How the Panelists First Connected

John Dehlin [00:19:08] Randy, you and I first met. I remember you reaching out to me with your buddy Adam. Yeah, I remember like early on, was it you or Adam who was struggling? We kind of had a couple Skype sessions to try and kind talk through some stuff, if I remember right.

Randy [00:19:25] Well, Adam and I were kind of step by step holding hands as we walked because we were really good friends. He was a dermatology resident in Jacksonville Beaches ward and I was orthodontic resident. So we had, we hit it and we both loved sports. We hit it off. And after we both left our residencies, he called me and said he had a problem with Joseph Smith because of rough stone rolling. And so that was about 2006. And then as we were like struggling through this, he through his sister had found out about your podcast that was defunct at the time. You had just like quit. And that's when I met you was during that hiatus that you had not met you, but, but we talked on the phone and you were kind of like my counselor through this.

John Dehlin [00:20:23] I'm guessed that was 2009 though, right?

Randy [00:20:26] 2000, yeah, it was 2009. Yes. When did you Start up again around that time.

John Dehlin [00:20:34] Yeah, around that time.

Tom [00:20:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:35] I've actually quit and started a couple times.

Randy [00:20:37] But yeah, so it was about.

John Dehlin [00:20:40] And Randy's been cool enough to invite me to a couple of USCs. A huge USC football fan fight on

Matt [00:20:50] Randy.

Randy [00:20:50] What does that mean again?

Matt [00:20:51] I forget.

Randy [00:20:53] That's the French horns in the song Conquest. It's one of our fight songs. It's just a noise.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] Brandy's the only reason I follow UFC football.

Randy [00:21:02] I get a text after every USC game from John.

John Dehlin [00:21:06] All right, Bob, you and I actually maybe go back the farthest because I remember emails from you really early on.

Matt [00:21:14] Yeah, the first one yet, John.

Bob [00:21:16] What's that?

Matt [00:21:17] Have you finished reading the first one yet?

John Dehlin [00:21:23] Bob writes long emails. And Bob, I know your brother Tom, too. I worked with your brother Tom.

Tom [00:21:31] Yeah, what's funny, John, is we met before. We chatted over email. This goes way, way, way, way back. We met in Salt Lake at a get together. A blogger nackle get together in the 2004, 2005 timeframe. I think it was like Fowles with,

John Dehlin [00:21:48] like, Jordan and John Fowles.

Tom [00:21:49] Yes, yes. At their house. And at the time, I remember you were sort of out of left field. I mean, we'll get to this. But it was interesting because we're like all bloggers who know each other. And then there's this guy, John Dehlin, and nobody knew exactly who you were, but that was pre Mormon stories, I think. So it's interesting.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] And you've been with Microsoft how long?

Tom [00:22:11] Actually, I don't work for. I was with Microsoft for nearly five years. Now I work in the Bay Area for a company called SAP.

John Dehlin [00:22:21] Oh, yeah, of course.

Tom [00:22:22] Yeah. So I grew up, was born, raised in the church, served a mission, married in the temple, met my wife on my mission. What else? No kids, married 12 years and left the church, I guess. Crisis of Faith 2007, came out to family 2009. So it's been a few years, but can't leave it alone.

John Dehlin [00:22:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Randy [00:22:46] We need to do a podcast on why Bob hasn't had kids yet.

Tom [00:22:50] Like a whole podcast just on that one topic. Sure.

Bob [00:22:55] Cool.

John Dehlin [00:22:56] Well, Tom, I think I met you and knew you from the Mormon expression days as one of the first panelists there. But maybe we. Maybe not. But tell us a bit about you.

Jake [00:23:07] Yeah, I think that was it. We had some email correspondence. But, you know, I was probably one of the thousands that was trying to get to the John de Lynn. But yeah, so I live in Orem. I was an elders Quorum president. I was on the high council when I went through my crisis of faith back in 2008, 2009. And then I did the similar thing that Randy did. Wrote a letter, but I didn't send it in. I haven't resigned yet. My wife still attends, so I still attend occasionally. I actually attended church two weeks ago. So it's, it's just a, you know, it's just a form of negotiation to keep peace in the, in the Perry household. And that, and that's fine with me because my, you know, I still deeply love my wife and I, you know, that's meaningful to me to keep peace in the household.

Glenn [00:24:00] So do you still have, like, good friends in the ward and stuff that make it easier for you to be there when you are there?

Jake [00:24:06] Some, yeah. I mean, there's a handful of them, but most of them, you know, are turncoats. I'm kidding.

Glenn [00:24:12] Mine moved to North Carolina.

Jake [00:24:15] I've been meeting with my stake president pretty regularly in the last little while. So at first I was a little panicked that it was going to lead to an excommunication.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] But yeah, I was going to say that doesn't end well.

Jake [00:24:30] So far so good. You know, he seems to be very genuine and appreciative of my efforts.

Randy [00:24:43] How many times has he bore his testimony to you, Tom?

Jake [00:24:46] However many times we've met three times. Every time. But it doesn't matter because he does seem to. I mean, he's been reading the stuff like, you know, I give him homework

Glenn [00:24:57] and he's been reading it.

John Dehlin [00:24:59] Yeah. All right, well, tell me how.

Matt [00:25:03] Tell me how it ends then, John.

John Dehlin [00:25:05] I won't tell you how this ends.

Matt [00:25:09] It heads in front of 12 people, bro.

John Dehlin [00:25:11] No, I'm sure, I'm sure it'll end up better for you than it has for me.

Matt [00:25:15] So is Randy the only one who's resigned?

Glenn [00:25:18] Where have you been?

Randy [00:25:19] Hey, welcome to 20 minutes.

Tom [00:25:21] This is a map.

Jake [00:25:21] Did you just have a stroke?

Matt [00:25:24] Did we answer that question?

John Dehlin [00:25:25] Yes, we did.

Matt [00:25:26] I hate when I do that.

Scott [00:25:27] Yeah, there's a Skype lag of about 23 minutes.

Matt [00:25:31] So when are we going to hear from Tom?

Jake [00:25:33] Yeah,

Bob [00:25:37] the funny thing is I bet a lot of listeners will be like, well, have we heard from Tom? Because we all sound the same, so.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] Well, Jake, you're the most recent to join, so just tell us a bit about you and your famousness.

Glenn [00:25:52] Hi, I'm brother Jake.

Bob [00:25:53] Hi, I'm brother Jake. I'm brother Jake.

Scott [00:25:54] And in response to all these so

Bob [00:25:56] called intellectuals and feminists talking about how Mormons are sexist, racist, how complicated the gospel is.

Glenn [00:26:00] What's this Book of Mormon thing?

Scott [00:26:01] So let me set the record straight. Mormons are not polygamists.

Bob [00:26:04] I mean, yeah, we used to be, sure.

Scott [00:26:06] But let me explain.

Bob [00:26:08] Right. Well, I'm a very, very minor Internet celebrity.

John Dehlin [00:26:13] Oh, you're a major Internet celebrity.

Bob [00:26:16] Well, so I have a very similar background.

John Dehlin [00:26:21] This is the Brother Jake for everyone who has listened to Brother Jake. So go ahead, brother.

Guest 2 [00:26:26] Right.

Bob [00:26:26] So if you've seen the Brother Jake videos, that's me. And I have a similar background to the other panelists. Grew up in the church, served a mission in Peru when I came back in early 2009, kind of in the wake of the 2008 election collection and Prop 8 type stuff. So I consider the Prop 8 people to be kind of the baby boomers of post Mormonism. So anyway, I'm part of that whole wave of people. Anyway. But we ended up moving when I got married. My wife did a master's program at the School of Music at Indiana University, so we ended up in Bloomington. And Glenn was actually my first home teacher.

Guest [00:27:03] Nice. Yeah.

Bob [00:27:04] So it was pretty cool. We hit it off, and I sat in on a couple warm expression podcasts, just as a panelist on a couple of them.

John Dehlin [00:27:15] But eventually, were either you were Glenn TBMs when you first met

Bob [00:27:20] Glenn, how would you say? I know Glenn wasn't, but, no, I wouldn't.

Glenn [00:27:24] One of the first experiences Jake seeing me was when I stood up and bore my UN testimony to the ward, which we did a podcast about. So that's out there, but yeah, so. And Jake's wife. It's funny because when I look at the two of you now, I think that she's a little more conservative than you are when it comes to the church, but back then, I would have said that you were a little more conservative than she is when it comes to the church, but I wouldn't think that Jake was tbm. One of my favorite experiences with Jake was at the end of an elders quorum, and we had been talking about a couple of things, and there's like, five minutes left, and Jake raises his hand.

Glenn [00:28:01] He goes, what's the whole deal with, like, the priesthood ordinances in the church and exclusivity? I mean, what is the deal with priesthood exclusivity in the temple? And everybody is, like, looking at each other, you know, like, I loved it. There wasn't any time to answer the question, and nobody that would really want to discuss it anyways. But I think our former Bishop, who was the Stake High Councilor at the time, bore his testimony and that was it. Did I get that right, Jake? Was that the question that you asked?

Bob [00:28:31] I don't remember what it was. It was something about the exclusivity. Why are we focused on who gets into heaven and who doesn't? That type.

Glenn [00:28:39] So it was kind of edgy for a normal elders corm type question. And it was totally endearing of Jake to me from the start. So, no, I wouldn't call him a tbm.

John Dehlin [00:28:50] I'm just loving the idea of you two and Elders Quorum together. That just makes me really happy with Adam Fisher. Oh, that's like the coolest. Elders Quorum officially.

Bob [00:29:01] Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome. Actually. If I was still in Bloomington, I might still be going to church, but when I moved, we moved here to North Carolina. I live in North Carolina now. And yeah, so I stopped attending it about a year ago. But I guess it was about two years ago or 18 months ago that I started the Brother Jake series, and it kind of took on a little life of its own. So, anyway, so I'm the new. I'm definitely the most recent to the whole podcasting Mormon media world, or post Mormon media world or whatever you want to call it. So I don't know, I feel like I'm the new guy.

John Dehlin [00:29:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt [00:29:38] Jake's also the baby of the infants, Right.

Bob [00:29:41] I'm the youngest by far.

Matt [00:29:42] How old are you? 26, right?

Bob [00:29:44] Yeah, 26.

John Dehlin [00:29:45] Oh, wow, that's super young.

Randy [00:29:46] Yeah. Most of us are from our mid-30s to our 40s.

John Dehlin [00:29:51] Mid-40s. Yeah.

Randy [00:29:52] And Jake is just a babe. I mean, did you say mid-40s? Glenn's a senior member.

Glenn [00:30:00] 42.

John Dehlin [00:30:01] Randy, how old are you?

Randy [00:30:02] I'm 40.

John Dehlin [00:30:03] Okay. Wow. Okay.

Randy [00:30:05] And Jake, you got home from your mission in 09.

John Dehlin [00:30:07] That's crazy.

Bob [00:30:08] Yeah. So I'm the most influential. I'm the infantiest infant of us.

John Dehlin [00:30:14] Wow. You were like, in eighth grade when I started Mormon Stories.

Matt [00:30:18] That's insane.

Randy [00:30:22] Yeah. Not only that, John, I served in his hometown. Show low. I was a missionary when he was four years old. He was a Sunbeam or whatever. One above Sunbeam when I was a missionary.

Glenn [00:30:34] The same one armed guy, right? Oh, no, no. You didn't know the same one armed guy.

Randy [00:30:39] Thanks for the inside. Inside joke.

John Dehlin [00:30:43] Well, Brother Jake, where do people watch your videos? How do they get to them? Just a quick shout out.

Bob [00:30:49] They're on YouTube, so you can just Google search Brother Jake, and there's a channel they'll come up they're all awesome, right?

John Dehlin [00:30:57] Well, they're all awesome. All right, well, that's. That's the introduction now. We're about an hour in. No, just kidding. We'll see how we can get through the rest of these questions, but real quickly, I want to just hear firing round. What it was that was the main impetus to you guys losing your faith. So we'll go in the same order. So, Glenn, what was it for you?

Faith Crisis Turning Points for Each Panelist

Glenn [00:31:22] Let's reverse order.

John Dehlin [00:31:24] Okay. Jake. Jake, what was it for you?

Bob [00:31:28] Yeah, the catalyst for me was Prop 8. So coming back from my mission, the girl I was dating who later became my wife, she was definitely not happy with the church's actions in Prop 8 and the way that they were talking about homosexuality. And it wasn't something I'd ever really considered before. But anyway, that was kind of the catalyst for me.

Jake [00:31:48] All right, Tom, I think my. Yeah, it's Mountain Meadows Massacre was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. So.

Guest 2 [00:31:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:56] And you interviewed what's his name for that on Mormon Expression. Right.

Jake [00:32:02] Will Bagley and Gene Sessions.

Randy [00:32:04] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:32:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:05] That was great. That was great. Okay, Bob.

Tom [00:32:09] Oh, gosh. It was a slow burnout with my Mormon liberal blogging shout out to By Common Consent back in the day.

John Dehlin [00:32:16] So you started on By Common Consent?

Tom [00:32:18] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was doing that before they came together. I was one of the originals. Lasted not super long. But I'd say the straw that broke the camel's back was probably Grant Palmer's book, Insider's View. I really enjoyed it, and I was struggling with the Book of Mormon historicity, but looking back, it's one of those things you kind of want to change your answer. In retrospect, it's like. Like, don't let it be the Book of Mormon. I want it to be something else and more creative, but that's kind of what it was.

John Dehlin [00:32:48] Are you still friends with Steve Evans?

Tom [00:32:51] Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure. We haven't caught up in a long time, but we chat on Facebook every once in a while.

John Dehlin [00:32:59] Awesome. All right, Randy.

Randy [00:33:03] Well, like, there's certain points that led to a certain kind of a precipitation of it. So 2006, I learned about polyandry through rough stone rolling. At the time, I was a newly called high priest group leader in my ward.

John Dehlin [00:33:19] Stone rolling kind of didn't address polyandry very much.

Randy [00:33:22] No, it addresses it. It apologizes for it, but it definitely acknowledges that it happened. That was a slow burn. For two years until 2008, when Prop 8 came out, I was in Arizona at the time. So we had Prop 102. And as one of the leaders in the ward, they were asking me to do a lot of things. Put a sign in my yard, knock on doors, make phone calls. I didn't want to do any of that. And that was the moment where we talked about Adam earlier. He and I both. This whole prop. He lived in California at the time. This whole Prop 8, 102 thing was just something that just morally was repulsive to us, and it made us wonder if we were good Mormons or not. And then 2009, beginning of 2009 is when I learned about Mormon stories. So Mormon stories took me home.

John Dehlin [00:34:18] Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it.

Randy [00:34:22] Mormon stories. And it wasn't Mormon stories as much as it was like, you introduced me to people like Grant Palmer, and then I read his book, and then he introduced me to people like Todd Compton, and then I read his book. So, you know, it wasn't like you said, this is what you need to believe. But you introduced me to stuff where I had the information and I was able to make a decision on my own. So I guess it's a combination of Polyandry and Prop 8.

John Dehlin [00:34:49] Yeah. And Mormon stories. I'll take it.

Randy [00:34:52] Mormon stories.

Bob [00:34:53] Mormon stories is the gateway drug.

Glenn [00:34:55] Marijuana.

Bob [00:34:56] Post Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:34:57] Okay.

Scott [00:35:00] That means that our whole solar system could be like one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being.

John Dehlin [00:35:13] This is too much.

Scott [00:35:15] That means that one tiny atom in

John Dehlin [00:35:22] my fingernail could be one little tiny universe.

Glenn [00:35:34] Could I buy some pot from you?

John Dehlin [00:35:36] Yep. All right, Scott.

Scott [00:35:39] Sure. So I was the typical fast burn. I went from, you know, being super excited to being called into the Elders Quorum presidency and thinking, I'm just gonna, you know, really magnify my calling. And I wanted to read a bunch of church history. And then, like, over the next day or two, trying to figure out which books I wanted to order on Amazon, I'd run into, like, all of the problematic issues and just started binging.

Glenn [00:36:06] And my.

Scott [00:36:07] I mean, I didn't know anything before that. And, you know, two or three days later, it was. It was all. Had all fallen apart for me. I've just been trying to pick up the pieces ever since.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Holy moly. So a couple days, it fell apart.

Matt [00:36:21] Yeah.

Scott [00:36:21] Like, before my books even got there from Amazon, like, two days, I'd already read Farms review of In Sacred Loneliness. And as soon as I read that and it said, there's a line in there that said something like, there's not good evidence that Joseph Smith had sex with any of his polyandrous wives. Except one. And then that was like, okay, well, you know, that's on the BYU website talking about this book. Do I really even need to read the book? Like, what's the.

John Dehlin [00:36:57] Except one.

Glenn [00:36:58] Yeah, that's not so bad.

Scott [00:37:00] It's still there, too. I found it a few months ago. Still there.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] Oh, my gosh. All right, and what year was that, Scott?

Scott [00:37:09] That was 2009. That was April of 2009. So I was just. I just finished my second year of law school and had, you know, like, two weeks off before my summer job started. So that was Satan's barn door wide open right there.

John Dehlin [00:37:25] Got it. Okay. All right, Matt, what was it for you?

Matt [00:37:29] So I was called to be gospel doctrine teacher, and I had this nice little following, and I taught for four years. And it'd be one of those things where when I teach, the thing would be overflowing, and I'd explore all types of different ideas and really go out and research all the scriptures in context.

Matt [00:37:46] And that was what started me away from the church, reading scriptures in context and seeing the mormification or how Mormon centric these lesson manuals were trying to be. And it didn't make sense. And I started reading both the Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon, and it just started hitting me that, well, this is pretty self.

Matt [00:38:13] You know, this seems to be just Joseph Smith doing his own thing. Why this seems weird. And that's what started it. And then Prop 8, or in Arizona, it was Prop 102 hit. And that, to me, was so clearly an amoral position to take, just as it pertains to equal protection and those types of issues that. That.

Matt [00:38:40] That just tripped something in my head that said, the brethren are wrong. They can be wrong. They're historically wrong. If they're wrong on so many things, I need to look at other things. And then that led me down the rabbit's hole to historicity of the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, polyandry, post manifesto polygamy, and you just start tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And everything just kind of tumbles after that.

John Dehlin [00:39:08] What year was that?

Matt [00:39:10] It would have been sometime between 2006, 2007, until, like, 2010.

John Dehlin [00:39:17] Okay.

Matt [00:39:18] And your interview with Grant Palmer was probably the most transformative interview for me and just clarifying issues.

John Dehlin [00:39:31] So the first one or the second one?

Matt [00:39:34] The first one.

John Dehlin [00:39:34] Okay. Okay.

Matt [00:39:35] I can remember I went on a run, and I don't run. I don't. I go to the Gym I spend 20, 30 minutes. I'm done. But I went on a run and I didn't stop through the whole thing. It's true. And at some point, this is. This is a true story. At some point, I'm like sobbing over the. Just the. I don't know, the clarity that I had that it was. He just articulated things that I had kind of Just barely kind of approached from the periphery. And it just. Everything was, for me, was clarified after that moment.

John Dehlin [00:40:11] I'm so sorry.

Matt [00:40:12] No, no, it's great. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had.

John Dehlin [00:40:17] That's awesome. No, I mean, I've met you and I'm trying to imagine you sobbing, and it is heartwarming. It's heartwarming.

Matt [00:40:24] Gentle giant. I'm actually pretty sensitive guy.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] No, I know, I know.

Randy [00:40:30] Cool.

John Dehlin [00:40:30] That's a cool story. Thanks for sharing, Glenn.

Scott [00:40:34] All right.

Glenn [00:40:34] Well, I think a combination of Bob and Matt a little bit with the slow burn, enjoying the gospel doctrine, when that was taken away, I kind of didn't have an outlet to explore anymore. And like, what Matt said, I did a lot of research that was just looking in the scriptures and thinking about it and going, that doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

Glenn [00:40:56] There were also people in my life that considered themselves to be very pious Mormons that were totally hypocrite, you know, like horrible gossip type people that kind of put a little tarnish on it. When I was on my mission, there were a lot of really politically ambitious missionaries. And that kind of opened up my eyes, you know, John, a little bit like your baptism story, you know, did in yours. I just kind of went, wait a second, what's going on here? But, you know, it was a slow burn that took a long time. And, you know, for people that listen to Mormon expression and remember me when I was a part of that podcast, I think I've even changed since then.

Glenn [00:41:41] I think I was probably more nomish in those days and now much less forgiving. I mean, it might sound strange for people that listen to Infamous on Thrones and know, but I'm pretty critical of people and beliefs and things much, much more so now than I was maybe three, four years ago. So

John Dehlin [00:42:06] very cool. I just remembered that I interviewed your family for an entire episode about divorce on Mormon Stories. I totally forgot about that.

Glenn [00:42:15] Yeah, I've actually. I shared that with two or three people in the last week. Yeah, that's still out there.

John Dehlin [00:42:23] I haven't met your mom, your dad, but your mom is super cool.

Glenn [00:42:26] Yeah, yeah, my. And it's funny. I think. I think she would probably be really. There was a time where she wouldn't want me to talk about her and her faith journey on the podcast, but she's totally out now. And it's awesome.

John Dehlin [00:42:39] Oh, it's awesome.

Glenn [00:42:40] It's so great.

Randy [00:42:43] And your mom and your sister Melissa, who's awesome, by the way, too.

John Dehlin [00:42:47] Melissa's awesome too. Shout out to Melissa.

Glenn [00:42:49] And my brother who was on that. That episode. And you know, he. He left after high school, so he. He was out before any of us for. For different reasons. But, you know, so. But my dad's not. My dad's still very much in. And we don't. We don't talk much and. And I don't know how aware he is or is not of this podcast. I was shocked that he was able to. Or that he was willing to do that episode with us, John, because that was.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] I remember him. He was a bit of an odd. Odd duck. Not odd, but just conservative or something.

Glenn [00:43:21] Yeah. And we. We hadn't talked together as a group, the five of us, up until that point, and we haven't since, you know, so it was. It was just a really pivotal moment. Very interesting there.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] But, yeah, I totally forgotten about that until just now.

Matt [00:43:39] Yeah, that was an awesome episode. And I always forget that that was you, Glenn. Yeah. Because when I listened to it, it wasn't. It wasn't Glenn, my friend who I've talked to for hours. It was just this dude and his family. So I gotta go back and listen to that.

Randy [00:43:54] The best moment was when your dad identified as a McConkie Mormon and he totally owned it. And Glenn's like, no, dad. That speaks volumes.

Bob [00:44:03] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:44:07] That's awesome. All right, so. So Matt gets brownie points for being prescient because he's already answered the question I'm about to ask. So, Matt, you get a twofer on this one. I assume that part of the reason why you guys podcast is because you've had some pretty significant moments in your life in association with podcasts, whether it be Mormon stories, Mormon expressions, or even others, maybe even non Mormon ones. But I just thought it'd be fun, since we're talking about your histories, to have each of you sort of pick. If you had to pick one episode that was like earth shattering or mind blowing or seismic shifts for you, if you had to pick one, which would you pick? And obviously it could be anything. So I'll start from the middle of the pack. So, Scott, I'll start with you.

Bob [00:45:01] Sure.

Scott [00:45:01] So I would say Probably Mormon expressions 2 part episode on the Nauvoo Expositor.

John Dehlin [00:45:08] That was a great one.

Guest [00:45:09] Yeah.

Scott [00:45:09] Mind blower. That's a classic. I've probably listened to it three or four times. It's just, you know, it's one of those things. For me, the reason I'm involved with this a lot is just because I. I find Mormonism interesting and I find Mormon history interesting. And what's more interesting than. Than the late Nauvoo period? I mean, it's just crazy. So. Yeah, and they did a great job. And that was. That was just a lot of. A lot of fun to listen to.

John Dehlin [00:45:34] I agree. That was awesome. All right, Randy.

Most Influential Podcasts and Episodes

Randy [00:45:37] That's going to sound lame after Matt, but my first introduction to podcast period was Mormon Stories. That was pretty early in the. Well, no, it wasn't really that early in the podcasting scene, but I hadn't tapped into the podcast scene. Probably the. Sorry, John. Probably the most important podcast for my life was Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

John Dehlin [00:46:02] Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Randy [00:46:03] That took me to the next. Is that particular episode or of Skeptics Guide. Yeah, the first one they ever did. But before that it was the Grant Palmer one. He had raised things, issues that I had never been aware of or considered. I was already kind of disillusioned with the church, but, like, I didn't have anything to like put my feet on for why I felt the way I did other than polyandry. But Grant Palmer's. That interview was epic to me. I can still remember exactly where I was. I went golfing. I was driving to go golfing and listen to it on the way in. I couldn't wait to finish golfing so I can get back in my car and listen to the rest of the Grant Palmer interview. And I didn't cry like Matt did. But it was such an intense, amazing experience to listen to Grant Palmer's interview.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] Yeah, that was powerful. I interviewed him in his house. That was kind of mind blowing.

Matt [00:47:15] How early?

Randy [00:47:15] That was pretty early. That was one of your first ones, wasn't it?

John Dehlin [00:47:18] Yeah, and I made a lot of enemies in Fair and Farms when I did that interview. But yep, that was probably in the first 30, I wanna say, but I'm not totally sure. Yeah, and you don't need to apologize if you list something else. I swear, I'm not fishing for compliments here. I just think it's kind of an interesting question, so don't feel any pressure to say Mormon stories. Jake, did you have a mind shifting podcast experience or Are you too young? Are you too young?

Bob [00:47:45] No, I did. In fact, it was. I mean, there are two that come to mind. One was the interview with Michael Koh on Mormon Stories, and that was. I remember where I was for that one. I was actually. I was on this hellish flight across the country for, I think it was like over Christmas or something. So I was flying from Indiana to Utah, and we got stuck somewhere, and we're just sitting there, and we're sitting there and I'm just listening to this incredibly positive. This man who's incredibly positive about Joseph Smith, about Mormonism, not the most congenial man you could ever imagine, just flatly deconstructing any sort of argument for.

Bob [00:48:24] In my mind, deconstructing any sort of argument for the historicity of the Book of Mormon from an archaeological standpoint, that was mind bending for me. But another one was actually one of the first podcasts, Infants on Thrones did the apostasy podcast that Glenn showed me that was so. I don't know, it was just so inspiring to listen to somebody who. Someone that I knew that had produced something that was so well done and edited together and so stylized in a way that I loved hearing. So that was something that was really inspiring for me to eventually start podcasting or when he asked me to come on Infants on Thrones, I was very excited to jump on.

John Dehlin [00:49:04] So, see, Glenn, you were the gateway for Jake, right?

Bob [00:49:06] Exactly.

Glenn [00:49:07] Well, we kind of influenced each other. And it's interesting that when we did our first promo for Infants on Thrones, I put together like this little five minute thing, and Jake and his wife Erica were in my house and I played it for him. And Erica's like, no. And I listened. I changed it up. But yeah, they were influential on me as well.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] That's awesome. All right, Tom, how about you?

Jake [00:49:31] Oh, most influential podcast. I guess I'll go to the earliest that I can possibly think of. I'm gonna go with the Church Is Not True podcast with Bob McHugh.

John Dehlin [00:49:42] Nice.

Jake [00:49:43] You can't really find it anywhere, I don't think. I don't know if you can. I ended up saving it, but I might have it on my external somewhere.

Randy [00:49:51] But I had to say, I can listen to Bob McHugh all day.

John Dehlin [00:49:56] Yeah, he's great.

Jake [00:49:57] Because I remember when I was going through all my stuff and I was trying to find anything on Mormonism out there in the podcast world, and there really was Slim Pickens back then, and I. I found like, an archive of the Church is not true or whatever. And I found that they had interviewed or talked to Bob McHugh, and I listened to that probably three or four times straight. And it was a little bit after that that I kind of got gutsy, and I reached out to Bob and we had some email correspondence and a couple phone calls and whatnot. But that was probably the most powerful and transformative for me in the early days. I mean, there's a few Sunstone panel audio that I listen to that kind of stop me dead in my tracks, but I don't know. Bob McHugh is pretty transformative for me.

John Dehlin [00:50:48] I ran into him back in, like, 2000, 2001, when I was having my faith crisis. I stumbled on his writings, and he was definitely a really important influence. I interviewed Hiram from thechurchisnotrue.com as my second interview. Second interview, I think.

Jake [00:51:06] Yeah. And then you yanked it, and then you kind of.

John Dehlin [00:51:08] He asked me to. He asked me to. Yeah, he. He, like, started having second thoughts and having. Getting scared, so he asked me to take it down. And Hiram's not his real name, by the way.

Jake [00:51:20] Have you. Have you had any correspondence with Tim at all?

John Dehlin [00:51:23] Many years ago, he, like. Yeah, but. But not really. I don't know where he is or what's going on. Mike Norton was the other part of that podcast, right?

Jake [00:51:31] I think so, yeah. He's still around.

John Dehlin [00:51:34] That was interesting. Yeah, that was an interesting podcast. Cool. All right, Bob.

Tom [00:51:40] I think I'm gonna go with the Pullman one that Jesse, I mean, Scott, did with Glenn. I just. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really well edited, and I thought it showed the church for what it really is in a very vivid way. So it's just stuck in my memory that way. And then the other one I wanted to give a quick shout out to because I'm vain. Like, that is the Book of Mormon movie review that Matt and I did with Matt's friend from another podcast. And we did that on Mormon Expression. And it just got me to the point where I was realizing that I really enjoyed podcasting.

Tom [00:52:21] And it was a thing. It's like an outlet. It's a way for me to. To be disagreeable and have fun at the same time in a way that I sort of missed out on being in a righteous Zion, like home, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:52:35] And you guys talk a bit about the backstory of that on your. My Mormon Expression podcast, I should note.

Tom [00:52:40] Yeah. Yeah, we do.

John Dehlin [00:52:42] Okay, Glenn, did I already ask you?

Glenn [00:52:44] No.

John Dehlin [00:52:45] Okay, Glenn,

Glenn [00:52:48] there's a ton. I'm going to go with the Mormon Expression And Zilpha interviewing Nate just. It made homosexuality like.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] I love that. That was amazing.

Glenn [00:52:58] Just so. So. Because I didn't have that 2008 or Prop 8, whenever that was. What was that?

John Dehlin [00:53:06] 20 2008.

Glenn [00:53:07] Was it in 2008? Yeah, so. So I was in Japan, and during that time, and so it didn't. I was kind of aware what was going on, but I didn't have the reaction that a lot of people have had. But listening to Zilpha and Nate was when just like, homosexuals became very real people to me. And so there have been a ton of really influential episodes, but I'm going to put that at top.

John Dehlin [00:53:33] Yeah, I love that one too. That was great. All right, Matt, you get a second one. Do you want to throw another one on or are you good? Did we lose Matt?

Randy [00:53:43] He's got a 23 minute lag, remember?

Scott [00:53:45] Yeah, I'll throw on a second one. This is Scott again. Okay, I'll throw on a second one. You're episode 29. When you talked about the Atonement and how that didn't make sense, that was a profound moment for me too.

Tom [00:54:01] Oh, yeah, I'll second that. Is that one of those. That is it Still Living Still.

John Dehlin [00:54:08] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the first time I allowed myself to be interviewed.

Tom [00:54:14] Yeah, that was good.

Glenn [00:54:15] You got really raw in that one.

Scott [00:54:17] Yeah, I loved it. Yeah. And you broke. I mean, it was maybe only a few minutes, but you kind of broke down like, well, why would it make sense for Jesus to give us these

Glenn [00:54:27] sins and then punish us for having them?

Scott [00:54:29] Punish us for having them, and then we have to use this thing called the Atonement, but if we don't do it right then, and we're supposed to be thankful it doesn't work and to just. Yeah, it was great.

John Dehlin [00:54:39] Thanks. That was fun. All right, so did we lose?

Glenn [00:54:45] Not important. Did we lose Matt? Not important.

John Dehlin [00:54:48] Okay.

Tom [00:54:48] All right.

John Dehlin [00:54:49] All right. Well, that's fun. Okay, so I guess I want to refer the listeners, if they haven't heard it, to the Maya Mormon Expression episode. And I'll just say, you know, what that episode was about was just basically just the fact that many of you guys were early contributors or middle late contributors to the Mormon Expression podcast. And I just have to say that it was that interview that made me want to interview you guys, but not because it had to do with anything with John Larsen. I was really put off by the fact when I first saw that you guys were doing that interview or that episode where you were going to kind of dish a little bit. I thought on John Larsen.

Glenn [00:55:37] You thought it was going to be a hit piece.

John Dehlin [00:55:40] I did. And I thought, this is going to make me sick to my stomach, and it's really hard to do this kind of stuff and you guys are just going to dump on John. And I was just not looking forward to it, and I almost didn't give it a fair chance. But when I listened to. And what really struck me, well, first of all, was how much respect I felt that you guys had for John

Glenn [00:56:03] Larsen after you got past Matt reading his email at the beginning. Yeah, I think there's probably several.

John Dehlin [00:56:19] But, you know, to me, I felt like you guys really respected John, but also. So I just love the candor and the sincerity of everyone sharing their experience. You know what I mean? But I'm only mentioning that to short circuit a bit. Real long conversation we could have about how you guys met and your time with Mormon expression. I don't think we need to totally go into that here unless there's something you guys want to say about it. But I'll just say that many of you guys were part of Mormon expression, and then you decided to jump off and start your own. Is there anything else that needs to be talked about here about that? Anybody?

Glenn [00:56:54] I would just say it really influenced. I mean, still, I think you can see the influence of Mormon expression and the things that we do. And I think, especially with our listener essays, that's a feature that I really like about infants on Thrones. And so I know there have been questions about that.

Glenn [00:57:14] If people want to do a listener essay, it's still. We're still accepting them. You can go onto our website on the contact tab. There's instructions on how to do it. I think the one thing, two things that I'd say about it. One, please don't send a written essay. Like, record it so that we can hear it, because, like, reading it, it's a different type of language than you actually speak. And it's hard to hear how you're going to sound when you're. When you're explaining, you're telling your story, whatever it is that you're passionate, you want to talk about. So record something, email it to us.

Glenn [00:57:48] We've got instructions on how to do that. And then the second thing, sometimes it takes us a long time to get to them. And, you know, so what. What we do, we've got like a shared Dropbox that all of us have access to, and we put. Put them in a folder there, and then we kind of get to them when we get to them. And I don't know, do you guys even know how many we have that are sitting in our Dropbox right now?

Randy [00:58:09] Like a half dozen?

Jake [00:58:10] Yeah, I was going to say five or six, right?

Glenn [00:58:12] Yeah, five or six. And so it just takes us a while to get to some of them. And, you know, apologies for that, but that's just kind of the way it goes. But that's definitely an influence from Mormon expression. So I think there's still things that we do that were started there.

Origins and Early Days of Infants on Thrones

John Dehlin [00:58:31] Right. All right, I'm gonna stop. We're right at about 54, so I'm gonna go ahead and stop and mark that kind of as potentially the first episode. Let's just have a really brief discussion about how it started. Like, well, we don't need to talk necessarily about Mormon expression unless it's super important, but more just like the brainchild. Like, what were the early sparks and some of the early thoughts behind it? And it's kind of the early deliberations.

Scott [00:59:09] Well, so it started out, part of it was because Mormon expression was kind of on or. Yeah, Mormon expression was on hiatus. There was a bit of a vacuum there. And I think me and Matt talked on the phone a couple of times. We'd been talking about some other things, and then we'd gotten Glenn involved and, you know, Tom and Bob, and we all just kind of. I think it gelled together pretty quickly through a series of phone calls. And then I remember Glenn.

John Dehlin [00:59:40] So it started with Scott and Matt.

Scott [00:59:43] Well, no, no, I think it was. It was. Honestly, it was. How would you guys describe it?

Glenn [00:59:47] No, I think that's right, Scott. I mean, you and Matt were having some independent conversations. I'd been talking with Tom a little bit about, yeah, maybe, maybe. But it was then you and I had some conversation. We're like. And gross. Delicious.

John Dehlin [01:00:05] It's delicious.

Scott [01:00:09] And then when it really fired up was when Glenn sent out, like this, his initial draft of the promo audio that was just so awesome. And it was like, how do we not.

John Dehlin [01:00:21] Oh, yeah.

Scott [01:00:22] It was like, how do we not do this?

Matt [01:00:24] It was like it was off the Cult of Personality by Living Color. And it was. Had all these clips in and because.

Scott [01:00:30] Yeah, I was so fired up when you sent that out.

Glenn [01:00:34] Cause I thought we should call ourselves not another Mormon themed podcast or something like that. You know, kind of like, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. And that quickly got voted down. And, you know, it was through email that we had a lot of suggestions for a name. And I Think it was Tom that suggested Infants on Thrones among like maybe five or six others. But we all kind of went, yeah, that sounds cool.

Matt [01:00:57] All it said was, is it time? Question mark? And he sent this audio clip that was. I mean, not un. I think it's been used before, but it's basically a little intro. A little Infants on Thrones intro teaser. And I was like, Scott, man, I got pretty worked up. I thought this.

Randy [01:01:12] Yeah, it is time.

Matt [01:01:14] It is time to do something.

John Dehlin [01:01:15] All right, Glenn, you're gonna have to splice that in. Okay, moments that we have left, we

Guest [01:01:21] want to talk right down to earth

John Dehlin [01:01:24] in a land language that everybody here can easily understand.

Randy [01:01:30] Welcome back, everyone, to the Mormon Truth.

John Dehlin [01:01:39] Stories podcast. Okay, welcome back to another edition of Mormon Expression.

Glenn [01:01:42] On this episode of the bcc.com get

Randy [01:01:44] in line and grab your dish.

John Dehlin [01:01:46] It's time for another helping of the Mormon Potluck podcast.

Randy [01:02:15] But not only that, you know, we talked about this earlier in episode one, but we did the Book of Mormon movie review. And we did it. It was pre infants, but it was edited infant style. You know, Glenn had edited in a bunch of audio clips from the movie. And then that sat and sat and sat.

Glenn [01:02:41] Yeah, because we did it like in February and then it wasn't until June.

Randy [01:02:45] Yeah. So it sat for four months. And all of us knew it was a good episode. I highly recommend everyone to listen to it, mainly for the fact that we had a never Mormon watch that movie and review it. And to listen to the moment we talked about this earlier. But the moment where he's like, you guys read this book when you were in Sunday school and it said that dark skin was a curse so that you wouldn't want to have sex with dark skinned people. Didn't you think that was racist? Like, you could just. You could hear the gears grinding in his brain. And we all just were. It was such a beautiful moment. Like, yes, of course. And. And. But when that sat and sat and sat for four months, I think that. Glenn, am I wrong? That kind of grated on you?

Glenn [01:03:38] Oh, sure. But I was already done with Mormon Expression by then anyway, so I was.

Randy [01:03:42] Well, maybe this is more Matt and I, because Matt and I were still exchanging texts and emails about it. Our episode was so great and John won't release it. And so I think that's what really made Matt and I really want to get on board. When Glenn came calling to start a

Scott [01:04:00] new podcast, the group gelled together pretty quickly. I mean, we all had relationships with each other. Like, I talked to Tom And Glenn a lot. Matt, you know, I worked with him here. Randy I'd met. I mean, Matt and Randy are super good friends. Bob, we all knew. I mean, it was. The group came together. The initial group came together. Really, really. Just, I mean, it was like instant.

Glenn [01:04:29] And like I said, even. Even in the beginning, like, Jake was involved to a degree. I mean, he was aware he was having influence on us. It just wasn't until later that I'm like, let's just do this for real, man, and bring Jake into it.

Matt [01:04:42] Jake was on the first. Jake was on the masturbation of the porn.

Glenn [01:04:47] Well, that was Mormon expression. Yeah, but Jake, you and Erica were on the Atonement one, right? That's probably why you listen to it.

Bob [01:04:56] No, the apostasy.

Glenn [01:04:57] Oh, the apostasy.

Guest [01:04:58] Yeah.

Glenn [01:04:58] Not the Atonement Apostasy. Another Abram.

Bob [01:05:01] Right.

John Dehlin [01:05:02] And what month and year did you guys release your first episode?

Randy [01:05:08] We recorded June.

Matt [01:05:10] June 2012 was our first recording.

Glenn [01:05:12] Yeah. And we released a little promo, but we didn't really start until about August 2012.

John Dehlin [01:05:18] Okay. Okay, so this is like, this is a full year and more after the Phoenix, Arizona Mormon Stories Conference, right?

Guest 2 [01:05:26] Right.

Matt [01:05:27] Yeah.

Jake [01:05:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:28] Okay. All right, so I'm putting it together. That's right before I kind of, like, imploded. That's what she said. All right, so I've got it. I've got it in my. I've got it in my memory bank. Okay, so why, like, what made you guys think that another Mormon podcast was even necessary? Like, you know, what were you thinking about that?

Matt [01:05:49] Well, for me, this is. Matt, I had my own.

John Dehlin [01:05:55] And feel free to criticize. I mean, no, hold the bar. I'm cool.

Matt [01:05:59] I had my own Mormon themed podcast and it was inspired by you, John. It was called Mormon Mission Stories. But we ended up not doing very well because of just creative difference. I had this complete TBM on one side. Me, I'm trying to use this to keep me in the church, but I just want to talk about real, raw, honest stories about the mission that aren't always faith promoting. And I just thought they were. Were fun and funny and I wanted to laugh. And that's what I felt was lacking in the Mormon podcast world was just laughing entertainment, kind of taking things, not taking things so seriously.

Matt [01:06:35] There was this real heady stuff and just conversations, but there wasn't just. There wasn't a lot of levity. And that's what I wanted is. Thought that that was lacking. And so for me, that was a big motivation is just to have. Have have fun conversations that were maybe a little lighter and not so deep and heady and just.

Glenn [01:06:56] Just, like, talking about feminism and things like that. This is feminists,

Matt [01:07:08] Philosophies of people. We are the group.

Randy [01:07:19] Yeah.

Scott [01:07:19] But no, from the beginning, we knew things that we didn't want to do as well. Like we didn't want to take donations. We didn't want to start a Facebook page Community. Yeah, Facebook community. We didn't want to moderate anything with other people. We didn't want to have, you know, support groups or anything like that. It was just, hey, we're going to have fun, and we're going to do this project, and as soon as it's not fun anymore, you know, then we're going to be done well.

Jake [01:07:47] And originally, we also wanted to push away from Mormonism to some degree as well. We wanted to do other topics. I mean, that was. If I remember right, that was part of the reason why we didn't want Mormon in our. In our.

Glenn [01:08:00] In our name.

Jake [01:08:02] And also when we listed our podcast on itunes, we're under philosophy, not. Not under religious anything, because we wanted

Matt [01:08:10] to hurt our listenership to a degree.

Glenn [01:08:12] Yeah, we should be under Entertainment, Bob.

Tom [01:08:15] All right, well, we're doing pretty well under philosophy, though. I kind of like being in the top 10 there on iTunes.

John Dehlin [01:08:21] That's sweet.

Glenn [01:08:21] We're not really in the top 10 in philosophy. What is that? It, like, rotates.

Jake [01:08:25] Depends on the day you check. Quit downplaying it.

Tom [01:08:29] Come on, man. Come on. We're awesome.

Randy [01:08:31] Did we ever. I don't. Because a lot of the listeners on Mormon stories aren't going to know why we're called Infants on Thrones. Did we ever say where the name really came from?

John Dehlin [01:08:40] Yeah, Tom. Where'd you get that from, Tom?

Jake [01:08:42] It was from the King Follett discourse, and we've done several discussions in our podcast about it, but it was Joseph Smith who pontificated about, you know, seeing infants on thrones and the child won't grow one stature or something like that.

Matt [01:08:57] So one cubit.

Randy [01:08:59] One cubit.

Jake [01:08:59] One cubit. It was more of just the silliness and the ridiculousness of it that kind of, I think, drew us to that name. I think.

Randy [01:09:08] Yeah.

Jake [01:09:08] Did you guys agree?

Randy [01:09:09] The other thing we liked is that it was also pretty accurate in describing us as a bunch of, you know, we're not experts on anything other than our fields that we practice in. And so we're basically just infants in the world trying to discover the world. Because when you're Mormon, all the answers are given to you on a platter. And once you leave Mormonism now, you gotta, like, get this whole big world

Jake [01:09:35] to explore, a whole new world.

Matt [01:09:39] Did you really do that? Horrible. Oh, God.

Glenn [01:09:43] That was the first. That was, like, one of the first clips I did, because you said that in our intro, and I put that in.

Randy [01:09:48] I don't know. And now we've got this whole new world opened up to us.

Scott [01:09:55] He just saved himself, like, 10 minutes of editing by singing it right in there.

John Dehlin [01:10:00] He really evolved.

Randy [01:10:01] But the name of the podcast is kind of a double entendre. It's an homage to Mormonism and the absurdity of some of the aspects of Mormonism. But it's also.

Glenn [01:10:10] What does it juxtapose, though, Randy?

Randy [01:10:12] I have no problem with comparisons because it'll be. The juxtaposition will be stark.

Glenn [01:10:16] I like that you use the word juxtaposition.

Matt [01:10:18] You get one of those once an episode. You get one, two, and one big word.

Randy [01:10:27] There's no.

John Dehlin [01:10:29] Randy, I don't know if you remember this, but I distinctly remember being with you in Southern California and you telling me that you're gonna do this podcast with these guys. And he told me the name. And I remember telling you, dude, put Mormon somewhere in the title because it'll be more successful that way. Do you remember that?

Randy [01:10:51] I don't remember that, but I've been. Maybe it got into my subconscious because I've been fighting. I've been fighting this battle for years with these guys.

Jake [01:10:58] It's true. Randy's been telling us that we should have had Mormon in our name.

Randy [01:11:02] If we don't have Mormon in our name, we are not going to be as accessible to the ex Mormon community, which really is probably a good thing. The bulk of our listenership, I think

John Dehlin [01:11:16] you guys are finding. I think you're finding your audience for sure.

Glenn [01:11:18] I think it's been good that we've flown under the radar for as long as we have.

John Dehlin [01:11:23] It's helped you develop kind of a style because it's more.

Glenn [01:11:26] Because it's more about us, you know, I mean, it's just. This is a hobby that we do because it's fun. And I, you know, I don't. I don't want to get, like, so big or anything like that because I, you know.

Scott [01:11:38] What do you mean, flown under the radar, Glenn?

Glenn [01:11:40] Oh, you know, like, we don't have huge numbers of listenership. You know how people say, why don't you advertise in more places? Why don't you, like, promote yourself? And, like, we. I don't think we do a ton of that. We really have. We've just kind of done this, and it is organic growth. Yeah. So that's what I mean by fly under the radar.

John Dehlin [01:12:01] But I think you guys are really coming on, so it's fun to see you guys be successful.

Audience, Identity, and Tone of the Podcast

Bob [01:12:05] So,

John Dehlin [01:12:07] okay, so the all maleness, all whiteness, all straightness, you guys are all getting kind of hammered. Not all, but there's some people that are kind of hammering you guys for the. Just tell me how you guys think about that and what the future might hold in terms of more diversity or not, you know?

Jake [01:12:27] Well, haven't we talked about this from the beginning about who, you know, are we going to let other people determine what our voice is going to be? Aren't we just a bunch of guys hanging out? Should we have more? Should we have females? Should we have someone that's a little more believing? I mean, it's just. And we do deal with this quite a bit. It seems like we talk about it, and it's one of the reasons why we bring Chelsea on from time to time. And it seems like, you know, we've been kind of Chelsea centric as of late, but I think that's just more of a circumstance than anything. But I don't know. Me personally, it's just like, I would rather us just do what is fun and keeps us motivated. I don't really.

Tom [01:13:08] Right.

Jake [01:13:09] I don't know. I don't feel. I don't feel driven to. To say, oh, so this one guy who has initials as his avatar, we should definitely do what he says.

Guest 2 [01:13:22] Yeah.

Matt [01:13:22] When you start responding to what you think people want to hear, I think you lose a voice, you lose power. If you. You know, I steal this from Howard Stern, really is. I want to do a show that I want to do and that I listen to, and I think there will be a nice subsection of people that will listen to it, too. And those who won't, just.

Randy [01:13:42] Just won't.

Matt [01:13:42] But I don't think they will. If I was to try to be not as genuine and not as honest by going out and getting. Trying to cater to a certain demographic or whatnot. So, yeah, I think it happens. And if it happens organically, and there's a real reason, because we like the person, we like their voice, then that's awesome. But to say, boy, let's go find a female, let's go find a person of color, let's go find somebody who might be, you know, lesbian or homosexual or questioning or whatever, then it loses all it Just lose all genuineness. And that's what I hope. If nothing else, I hope that we're honest and we're genuine.

Glenn [01:14:22] I also, I don't. I don't know really what the difference is between being, like, a Perma panelist and just doing stuff because, you know, like, Allison, it's time to play guests.

Randy [01:14:34] Who said it? The game where you guess who said it?

Glenn [01:14:37] Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul or a general authority. She might as well be a Perma panelist for. You know, as. As much as we respect her and share things with her and get her input and she contributes, it's just she's not on the mailing list, which is intentional. So we can talk about her behind her back, you know?

Jake [01:15:00] You know, like, we love Alice.

Glenn [01:15:02] We totally love Alice.

Matt [01:15:03] Well, especially when she started talking about how she likes how women smell and stuff.

Glenn [01:15:06] That was hot, you know, but so, like, when, when, when. When I'm looking, when I've got a topic that I want to talk about, I might have, like, three or four people in mind that I think would be good to. To have that discussion with. And it might be some of these core guys here. It might be other people that we've had conversations with, you know, like a Chelsea or a John Hamer or Allison or Nick or. I mean, there's.

John Dehlin [01:15:30] There's.

Glenn [01:15:31] Yeah.

Scott [01:15:31] Or Kim, Erica, Kristen.

Glenn [01:15:34] Yeah, there's a lot of people that will bring on for topical things, but it's just because that's the kind of conversation that I want to have. So, yeah, I mean, I echo what Tom and Matt were saying. I don't ever want us to, like, try to fit a quota, but at the same time, I'm very interested in hearing other people's stories and exploring, you know, through their eyes. So, you know, we'll do episodes about feminism or we'll. We'll, you know, talk about different issues that we might not normally do, but that doesn't mean it's become. It's going to become our hallmark or trademark or fundamentally change what we're doing, although I hope we're learning and evolving through it. So I don't know.

Randy [01:16:17] And I.

Jake [01:16:17] And I've always hoped that people would look at our podcast the same way I look at other podcasts, find the ones that interest you, cherry pick through the archives and dig it, you know? You know, I always get astounded when I see feedback or criticism saying, I just listen to this Reason podcast and it's trash. I'm not gonna listen to another episode like what? I mean, I feel like we have quite a bit of diversity, quite a broad sense of topics and discussions that really. That's, that's the one you're gonna put the nail in the coffin for. All right.

Randy [01:16:48] Yeah. Well, do you get that, John? We Release on average 2 a week, so there's a lot to dig from.

Matt [01:16:55] Yeah, I mean, have you gotten that, John? I mean, how many episodes do you have? You're coming on 500, right?

John Dehlin [01:17:01] If you count all the ones I did with Mormon Matters and Sunstone, it might be 550, you know, I mean,

Matt [01:17:07] do you get people after one episode? I'm done with you, John Dehlin. Now you've lost a listener.

John Dehlin [01:17:12] I lose a listener?

Jake [01:17:13] Seriously?

John Dehlin [01:17:14] Yeah, all the time. Yeah, all the time. Yeah. You can't really cater to the lone voices. And I think authenticity wins in the podcasting world, you know? I think it does,

Matt [01:17:27] yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:28] Yeah. Well, that's, that's awesome to hear your perspective on that. Do you guys have a sense for who you think your audience is? Like, do you have a target audience? I think that's the demographics.

Jake [01:17:40] Red headed women, am I right?

Glenn [01:17:44] That's my wife.

Scott [01:17:45] We've done a number of studies or surveys.

Bob [01:17:48] Yeah, studies. We haven't done any studies.

Scott [01:17:52] No, we've got done. We've done some surveys and it's surprising, I'm always surprised when I see the way that the demographics come out. We get young people and older people and we've had a pretty good number of female listeners and we have a lot of nevermos, which just confuses me.

Guest [01:18:11] And.

Scott [01:18:12] Yeah, I mean, it's kind of all over the board. It's people from all over and believers.

John Dehlin [01:18:17] Do you have believers?

Scott [01:18:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've had some, some a lot less.

Glenn [01:18:21] It's hard to know because even with the surveys that we do, I think the most that we've ever is maybe 250 people respond to a survey and we probably have a core audience around three or four thousand, would you say, Bob?

Tom [01:18:34] Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, the ones that are listening to nearly every episode or checking in, it's just like the way they do church statistics, the people who come more than once a month, right? Yeah, probably 5,000 at the most.

Glenn [01:18:44] So it's hard to extrapolate what we get from surveys onto our general audience.

Guest [01:18:49] But

Glenn [01:18:51] I think that we are influenced by what people say in the surveys and the feedback. I know, I always love reading it, but I don't think we're really tailoring it to a Particular audience or a particular demographic.

Tom [01:19:03] Right.

Randy [01:19:04] Really, the bottom line is we're not asking for money and we never will. And I know Bob doesn't like me to say we never will.

Tom [01:19:14] Never say never. Not for this topic. Just in general, it's a good rule of thumb.

Randy [01:19:19] This is a hobby. This is. I mean, not to sound narcissistic. This is more about us than our listeners. Because as soon as we're not enjoying it, it's over. You know, none of us are relying on this as an income source or anything like that. It's just like, let's just be fun. Let's be authentic, and let's see where that takes us.

Matt [01:19:43] You know, I like to think that our demo and this has come out from surveys often, but. But I'd like to hope that at some point we can be a place where people sit and say, we can ride this wave for a little while. You hear a lot of times Mormon stories is regarded as somewhat transitional at times, and I don't necessarily agree with that, but I've heard that. And Mormon expression is, after you've kind of gone and you're in your angry phase, and then we've heard people say, you know, but infants is a place where you can just settle, and it's almost reflective. Now we maybe gotten through the transition, and I really like that.

Matt [01:20:20] I think if that was true, that's more than I'd ever aspired to. But that would be awesome if we can be considered a landing place for people who have transitioned through some sort of trauma, whether that be Mormonism or something else where they've got to reflect and say, wow, life's pretty crazy and kind of funny, and we can poke fun of it sometimes.

John Dehlin [01:20:46] Yeah, I would call that the developmental theory of Mormon podcasting. Sort of. You start out with Mormon stories.

Glenn [01:20:53] We're Fowler. Stage five.

Scott [01:20:55] Stage five. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:58] I love it.

Guest [01:20:59] I love it.

Tom [01:21:00] Fuck.

Randy [01:21:01] Fowler.

Tom [01:21:02] Fowler.

John Dehlin [01:21:06] Oh, yeah. So that's a great segue. So my buddy David Christiansen, he's a comic, and I think the profanity is fun and refreshing, so I love it. Fuck. Fuck. But, you know, I am going to ask you guys how you think about doing that. A couple of the interesting comments I heard about the swearing was, number one, a guy who's a professional comedian who said that swearing is a crutch. You know, can't you be funny without the swearing? The other one said, you know, I want to be able to share this with people, but I can't because of the swearing. How do you guys process the Swearing that you do in terms of your listenership and your reach.

Swearing Policy and Editing Process

Jake [01:21:46] I think Jake should do this since we have an entire episode on the swearing.

Glenn [01:21:51] Jake, Jake.

Scott [01:21:52] Jake.

Bob [01:21:52] Hey. Hey.

John Dehlin [01:21:54] You could just as much argue that people listen to you because of the swearing. So that's one take.

Bob [01:21:59] One take. Well, I mean. And you know, by the same token, I wouldn't say that somebody who never swears is also using that as a crutch. So I just, I think that whatever language you use should be. I mean, I'm getting to the point where I have a hard time kind of empathizing with the idea that there are. There are sounds that you can make with your mouth that make something un. Listenable to. You know, like, it's just.

Bob [01:22:27] I mean, swearing is kind of. It's arbitrary and it's not something. I mean, it's. It's just a social construct. So in a way it's hard to. But so is Mormonism, so is everything that we're doing. So is podcasting, so it's hard to argue that as well. I don't know. I guess I'm talking myself in circles a little bit, but I just think that people should express themselves authentically how it feels right for them and what's appropriate for the context. And since this is a personal endeavor for all of us, kind of a hobby endeavor, I think that it's.

Bob [01:23:02] I don't know, it's. This is us. You know, if you wanted a watered down version or if you wanted some sort of censored version of us, it wouldn't be what it is, which you

Glenn [01:23:10] did for us once we did do. We did kind of experiment with one episode and then it was like a Mike Tannehill. Was it the Noah one or was it the unintentional racist?

Bob [01:23:22] That was the racism one. That was the only really good one that we did with Mike.

Glenn [01:23:25] Yeah, I mean, true.

John Dehlin [01:23:28] It's true.

Bob [01:23:29] The rest weren't that good.

Glenn [01:23:31] And we're talking about Mike Tyne Hill, not any of the other mics that we've. We've had on. So you and Erica went through that one and edited out not just swear words, but even some of the content that might have been a little sarcastic, critical towards the brethren, or, you know, something to try and make it more TBM friendly. And we just, we watched the downloads to see, okay, is this going to have a significant spike or, you know, is there any impact here? Any reason why we might want to do something like this? Like have an infant's light, you know, stream or something? But Nah, too much. Too much work.

Bob [01:24:07] And, and, and I feel like the people that would be off put by the swearing are going to be off put by the tone and then the mentality and the approach that we take toward modernism anyway. I mean, we don't have any reverence. So having irreverent language is just kind of a cherry on top of that shit sundae that they're not going to want to eat anyway.

Matt [01:24:27] We don't take ourselves that seriously. I think if we really thought, oh, this episode is going to reach people and this is going to affect people on a real level, maybe we'd think about doing that. I think we'd be fooling ourselves to think that that would. Even if it was shared with believing friends and family member that they would look at anything other than, yeah, those are four or five apostates. Why should I listen to them? So it's just not worth it.

Glenn [01:24:54] And when we started, we were more sensitive. I think we were kind of divided as a group as to how we wanted to censor our content. And, you know, we've talked about this a few times on our podcast that there was a comparison to a movie as an abortion, and then to one up, Randy called it a hanger abortion. You know, something like that. And we just went back and forth and back and forth and, you know, pulled it out and it was so offensive and we just shouldn't do that. But it started sucking the fun out of it, you know, when we started censoring ourselves too much.

Glenn [01:25:27] So I, for one, who was on the side of let's censor things and make the content more accessible to a more general audience, I kind of went, you know, let's just let it fly and let it be what it is, and people can self select. And if it's not for them, then it's not for them.

John Dehlin [01:25:43] Yeah. I want to ask each of you your favorite swear word. All right. Starting with Bob. Bob, favorite swear word.

Tom [01:25:52] Hell.

John Dehlin [01:25:53] All right, Glenn.

Scott [01:25:54] Shit.

John Dehlin [01:25:55] Hey, Matt.

Matt [01:25:57] Jackass.

John Dehlin [01:25:58] Scott.

Scott [01:26:00] Shit. But I don't swear much, so. Yeah, I don't know, it's not really a big thing for me, but. Shit.

John Dehlin [01:26:08] Dead Randy.

Randy [01:26:11] Jesus Christ.

Matt [01:26:14] Wow.

Randy [01:26:16] Nothing makes me feel better saying that, Jake.

Glenn [01:26:21] God damn it.

John Dehlin [01:26:23] Okay.

Jake [01:26:24] And Tom, I'm gonna go with either damnit or Jackass. I like those.

John Dehlin [01:26:28] Nobody dropped the F bomb. Not one of you dropped the F bomb.

Glenn [01:26:32] Randy dropped it and wrapped it up in.

John Dehlin [01:26:38] In between our Lord and Savior. He dropped the.

Matt [01:26:40] But that. But that's my second favorite.

John Dehlin [01:26:44] All right, all right, real quick, Randy, how Long? How long? Sorry, Glenn. How long does it take to edit these episodes? It seems like it would take forever.

Glenn [01:26:53] No, I don't know. It depends. It just depends on how much content we add to it. Because then if we're going to add clips, then it takes however long it takes me to watch those clips and figure out which clips I'm gonna put in and then to put in it. But I've got it down pretty quickly. You know, we've done some episodes, there's a few that we've recorded, and then I've stayed up for a couple of hours after recording and released it the next day. And it's just kind of formulaic at that point where you put on an intro and an outro and there you go. Because we're not having.

Matt [01:27:28] You got to listen to the whole thing sometimes.

Glenn [01:27:29] But there have been ones that, you know, like the. The one last week with John de Lynn and Kate Kelly. The pieces that you wrote about why you were X and she was. Or why she was X and you weren't. I didn't listen to that before we put it out. I didn't have time. But. But I think a lot of times we have kind of a nice system where mainly it's Bob, but sometimes it'll be one of the other guys will. Will listen to the episode and send edit notes that are timestamped and say, cut it here, stop it when Glenn says xyz, and start it when Randy says BYC or something.

John Dehlin [01:28:12] That's super helpful.

Glenn [01:28:13] Then it goes really, really quickly because all that thinking has been done for you. Once Bob says that the thinking has been done.

Matt [01:28:22] Yes. But also the collaborative process is a lot of fun.

Glenn [01:28:25] It is.

Bob [01:28:26] Yeah.

Matt [01:28:26] I've done minisodes or just stuff that I've done my own little production on, and then sending it out to the guys for input is a lot of fun. And, you know, little tweaks here and there.

Randy [01:28:37] It's just.

Matt [01:28:38] It makes it not just a better product, but it's. This is why I like working with these guys, is because it's fun to collaborate.

Glenn [01:28:47] Let's now ask Scott how long it takes to edit an episode.

Tom [01:28:52] Months.

Glenn [01:28:52] Months?

Jake [01:28:54] Months.

Scott [01:28:55] I'm the slowest.

John Dehlin [01:28:58] That's awesome.

Scott [01:28:59] No, I'm not too bad. But it's a question of when I'm going to do it.

Leadership and Group Dynamics Behind the Show

John Dehlin [01:29:07] Okay, so I have a setup to this question, but, Glenn, I remember when you reached out to me early on. Maybe I have this wrong, but I seem to remember you making a pitch to me early on, probably from Japan, wanting to maybe do some interviews or participate in Mormon stories in some way.

Matt [01:29:27] I did that as well. John, I sent you an email and said, here's the six interviews I want to do. I want to produce for you. Because you made a call for it at one point and you said, yeah, go do it. Let's do it. And I never did.

Glenn [01:29:41] So you got the green light and you didn't take it.

Matt [01:29:44] Yeah, it's true. John said, those sound great. Do it. Let me know when they're done. And I was like, oh, well, where to go from there?

Glenn [01:29:53] I got a pat on the head and no green light. But, you know, it was. It was like, thanks, that sounds awesome. But like, it wasn't. But. But. And I don't know what the time frame was. I don't remember, because after I started doing a couple of Mormon expression episodes, then you sent me a message on Facebook or something that was like, dude, wrong team.

Randy [01:30:18] But.

Tom [01:30:18] But.

Glenn [01:30:19] So I think there were things that we were doing, like with the. The Second Ward, you know, maybe we started getting to know each other through that more. And. And I think that's where I first met Randy and Scott actually was through interactions on that, I think. I think.

Matt [01:30:34] Oh, so you guys were on the Second Ward?

Randy [01:30:35] Yeah, I was in the first and Second Ward.

Matt [01:30:38] Yeah, yeah, me, I was as well, Randy. So you ended up staying only on the first ord.

John Dehlin [01:30:43] So does someone want to tell me what you're talking about right now?

Bob [01:30:47] I'm confused.

Glenn [01:30:48] John had some secret, secret societies online that we couldn't talk about.

Matt [01:30:53] The first online group you started, and then it got too big, and then you started a Second Ward.

John Dehlin [01:30:59] Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Matt [01:31:00] You're with me.

John Dehlin [01:31:02] Oh, no, no, I totally know. I just. I think the listeners might be lost. But yeah, I started. I started a private forum of like 200 of my closest friends and just to see what would happen. What you guys are referring to as First Ward still exists today. It's this amazing community of people that are all super close whenever anyone is in.

Glenn [01:31:24] Is that the swinger ward?

John Dehlin [01:31:26] No.

Glenn [01:31:27] Oh, not that close.

John Dehlin [01:31:28] Not that I know.

Glenn [01:31:28] Not that close.

John Dehlin [01:31:29] Not that I know.

Glenn [01:31:30] Maybe some.

John Dehlin [01:31:31] Maybe some asshole.

Randy [01:31:32] Shout out to Heather Olson Beal.

John Dehlin [01:31:35] Yeah, yeah, it's a great group. And then when that group got too big, I created a second one. And I think a lot of you guys were part of that second one, but some of you are part of the first.

Bob [01:31:42] So.

Matt [01:31:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:44] So, okay, here's where I was going, though. So Glenn, I remember, like, going, eh. Glenn's style isn't my style. And I was just so scared to let go of creative control. Go ahead.

Glenn [01:31:56] No, it's because I was doing that, like I had a website called Mormonfolklore.org or something with this satirical character, Steven Erasus Knudsen III.

John Dehlin [01:32:06] Yeah.

Glenn [01:32:06] And like, it was. It was very biting satire. And I think I referred you to that as like a way of getting to know me. And you're like, no, no, that's not. That's not gonna do. I'll bet that was it.

Jake [01:32:19] Well, I turn anybody off, right?

John Dehlin [01:32:24] I kinda. I kind of remember that. And then. And then when you join Mormon Expression, and you know, I certainly remember some of my earliest times listening, feeling tension between you and John Larsen. And so I. So my most. A really strong memory that comes through listening to your. My Mormon Expression episode was how all the other panelists on Infants on Thrones kind of referred to you kind of as the leader. And I felt a lot of respect from them towards you.

Glenn [01:33:00] I just over talk everybody.

John Dehlin [01:33:02] No, no, I think you generally are kind of the leader of the podcast. You guys can tell me if I'm wrong about that. But I just realized that if that's true, I just think you were never meant to follow. I think you were meant to do your own thing. And once you were able to get your own thing and with a great group of co collaborators, that's when your real creative passion and energy was able to come through. I just want to say that was one of the things that touched me listening to the episode was to be able to see your leadership come through and how it's really blossomed. That was gratifying for me as someone who dissed you early on.

Scott [01:33:40] That's totally. I'll step in and say that's totally true. Glenn is the leader, whether by default or just by the fact that he steps up and does that. But no, he takes the lead on 90% of the editing work, probably. He coordinates a lot of our episodes. He puts in a lot of legwork, and sometimes the rest of us just kind of show up and he's the one running the show. We all try to participate and help out in our own different ways, but for sure, Glenn's the primary motivator in the group, I would say, and I

Glenn [01:34:18] am super uncomfortable with that. I am.

Scott [01:34:22] Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. No, you don't want to be. This is the thing. You don't want to be. But you're. At times, you're so much more enthusiastic than the rest of us. Like Glenn will just. When you wake up on Thursday morning and something got posted by Glenn at 3. 3am that's because Glenn is just like, super excited about whatever project he's working on, and he just edited it and posted it. And like, we all wake up and we're like, oh, we have a new episode. Episode. Hmm. Interesting.

John Dehlin [01:34:50] So, yeah, well, I think it's. I think it's really cool. Not, not just your leadership, Glenn, but. But just the, the vibe and the comradery and the mutual respect of the panel. So I just have to make a shout out about that.

Glenn [01:35:01] Well, I think, you know, we talked earlier some of the things that we. We wanted to avoid. And I think one of the things we really wanted to avoid was having a leader. And you know that that's one of the reasons we didn't want to have one personality. That was predominant on. On the podcast. And I still don't. I still don't want that. So I, I don't know. I. It does make me uncomfortable.

Scott [01:35:25] I meant that in more of a backstage production sense. We don't. I mean, we, we still don't believe anything that comes out of your mouth.

Jake [01:35:33] Right.

Scott [01:35:33] Or give you any extra first to him on anything.

Randy [01:35:38] If Glenn's a leader, it's because he has the most energy and the most motivation and the most skill in editing and the most reverend.

Glenn [01:35:50] You got balls as big as choice Bells.

Tom [01:35:55] Thank you.

Randy [01:35:56] But if you're. Look, if you think of a leader as someone who is an infallible figure, He is an embattled leader because we beat the. Out of him all the time. You know, we all are free to just like, free to choose, unload on each other. No, true. Like, we. How many times have we had. Threads have gone over a hundred emails where we're just going back and forth.

Glenn [01:36:28] 37.

Randy [01:36:30] Just going over our history. How many times have I blown up on you, but then I feel bad afterward and I wanna.

Glenn [01:36:36] Yeah, I know. 37. 37.

Matt [01:36:41] That's how many times.

Glenn [01:36:42] That's how many times I've been keeping track.

Randy [01:36:44] You've kept track.

Guest [01:36:45] Wow.

Randy [01:36:46] And like, there's no. There's no dominant person saying, okay, fuck all you guys, I'm the leader. This is how I want it done. It's gonna be done this way. It doesn't happen with us.

John Dehlin [01:36:57] In other words, you're not Mormon stories and you're not Mormon expressions.

Randy [01:37:00] Yeah, there's no charismatic leader, but, you know, but Glenn does the most. And you know, so I guess if you want to point to someone who's the most important person for the infants and its success. It's definitely Glenn.

Matt [01:37:17] Yeah, Glenn's prolific in putting out content. He's extremely creative. That's why we brought Jake on. Jake, what's up with that? I thought you were going to come on and produce more contact, but what ever. It's. But Glenn, he is. He is prolific. He started these minis and I thought, to me, that was an inspiration.

Glenn [01:37:37] You're listening to Radio Lab, Radio Lab Shorts.

Matt [01:37:43] This is infants on throats.

John Dehlin [01:37:47] Minisode

Matt [01:37:49] is to be able to put out little blurbs of 7 to 15 minutes episodes of topics or something that doesn't cover a whole hour or two hours, but needs to be said or wants to be said. That, to me, was a real important turn in our podcast and kind of some of the things that we've done. And Glenn just threw one out. So he is. He is prolific and he can churn stuff out and edits the fuck out of things, as Randy likes to say. And we would have had 10 episodes a year versus the 24 plus episodes a year that we have if it

Scott [01:38:29] wasn't for 100 episodes. We have 100 episodes to date this year.

John Dehlin [01:38:34] Nice, nice. Congrats, Centennial. All right, so for those who haven't listened, I want to just do a round robin. If each of you were to recommend one Infants on Thrones episode, what would be the one you would recommend? So let's start.

Guest [01:38:52] Start.

John Dehlin [01:38:52] Let's start with Tom. Tom, if listeners have to pick one, what would you pick?

Bob [01:38:56] Jeez.

Jake [01:38:59] Well, if you want it. My favorite minisode is the regret one that Glenn did.

Glenn [01:39:04] So you're not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you? He was.

Jake [01:39:15] I kind of have a soft spot for suicide. And, you know, Glenn and I, we've had some pretty personal conversations about, you know, his experiences, my experiences, and stuff like that. So that's. That's my favorite minisode as far as full episodes.

Glenn [01:39:31] Oh,

John Dehlin [01:39:36] You're taking the hit so your buddies can think of theirs.

Jake [01:39:40] I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:39:41] Well, I'm gonna say mine. I'm gonna say mine. While you're thinking, Tom. My favorite, I think, is who wrote the Book of Mormon where you interviewed John Hamer first and then you interviewed Craig Krittle. I swear, there's so much in there that I had no idea. It was so deep, so thoughtful, so insightful. Absolutely loved it. So I'm gonna put that as my favorite. So. All right, Tom.

Jake [01:40:07] All right. That's a good one. But it's a little long for me. But, yeah, I like it. All right, I'm gonna go with little factories. I've listened to that a few times, and I think I. Yeah, I was a part of it. I think just as far as, like, the evolution of the discussion goes, you know, there's some really fun humor parts, and then the, you know, edit. You know, the editing was really phenomenal. Where we edit in the speech. That was really pretty hard to find. And I don't know, there's some really touching parts.

John Dehlin [01:40:38] Lloyd K. Packer, little factories talk.

Jake [01:40:40] Yeah, we had some really cool feedback too. You know, I don't know that.

John Dehlin [01:40:46] Okay, that's perfect. All right, Jake.

Favorite Infants on Thrones Episodes

Bob [01:40:50] Okay. I would probably have to say, and this is. This may be. There may be a recency bias with this one just because it was. It happened not too long ago. But I really, really enjoyed the polygamy essay smackdown one that we did because we had John Hamer on that one.

Glenn [01:41:06] And having.

Bob [01:41:07] And listening to him, being able to talk with him about, about, you know, deconstructing that whole essay was really, really interesting. I thought it was fascinating.

John Dehlin [01:41:14] So you guys scooped me on that one. I, I, you guys totally scooped me, but it was, it was awesome.

Bob [01:41:18] Oh, right, right. Yeah, because he was right.

Matt [01:41:21] You had Hamer on.

Bob [01:41:22] Right, right.

Glenn [01:41:22] You scooped yourself.

Randy [01:41:23] John, John, John, we only scooped you because you canceled.

John Dehlin [01:41:27] Right, I know, I know. No, it was a good scoop.

Bob [01:41:30] I was, I was, I wasn't even thinking that. Sorry to rub it in, man.

John Dehlin [01:41:34] No, it's good, it's good. I, I had approached him, but then my wife told me I needed to wait a day. So you guys, you guys earned it fair and square. All right, Randy.

Randy [01:41:46] I think my favorite one is Book of Abraham Smackdown, part one. But mainly it's because of the intro.

John Dehlin [01:41:54] Who was on that? Who's on that?

Scott [01:41:56] I was on that.

John Dehlin [01:41:58] Jake was there a special guest? Was it a special guest? Okay, okay.

Randy [01:42:01] Jake was the angry personality.

Glenn [01:42:04] Yeah, that one, bro.

Randy [01:42:06] Glenn was the TBM whisperer.

Matt [01:42:09] Jake dropped so many F bombs in that I don't know why.

Bob [01:42:13] That one really got under my skin. That one was embarrassing for me, actually. I changed the way that I approach podcasts after that one.

Randy [01:42:22] The reason why I love it is, well, first of all, it was my idea to bring in Flight of the Concord's song friends. They intuit that it takes a lot of work to indoctrinate. And when they see that the kids aren't getting that early indoctrination, they panic.

Scott [01:43:01] If they see that they're watching too

Glenn [01:43:02] many cartoons or they're playing Xbox too much or they're, you know, they'll try and rope them in exactly like Randy's saying.

Tom [01:43:19] Oh man, I'd be the worst parent. That's horrible.

Glenn [01:43:24] Friends make graphs together. I can't wait to up a kid.

Bob [01:43:29] I'm gonna.

Matt [01:43:30] It's about time, Jake.

Randy [01:43:32] What are you, 25 now?

Scott [01:43:33] There's our Easter egg.

Glenn [01:43:34] Friends help you when you're in danger. Friends are people who are not strangers. Friends help your shift into a new place. Tell you if you've got food on your face. Friends are the ones on whom you could depend.

Randy [01:43:44] He's my friend. He's not my friend.

Glenn [01:43:45] Friends are the ones who are there in the end. He's my friend.

Randy [01:43:48] They're not my friend.

Bob [01:43:49] Yeah, I mean they. I love lying to children. It is. My favorite thing in the whole world is telling them lies and getting them to believe it. So maybe I should raise them in the church.

Glenn [01:44:01] If you troop over, I'll catch you fall. If you kick my dick, I won't break your balls. If you get drunk and vomit on me, I'll make sure I come and get up trickly. If you cross the road and a truck struck you, I'll scrape you up and reconstruct you. I'll cheer you up if you're depressed. If you get murdered, I'll have any your death.

Scott [01:44:18] Well, I've got my. I've got my almost 5 year old convinced that I literally cannot hear what she's saying unless she asks it in a really polite way.

John Dehlin [01:44:27] See, that's what I'm talking about. That's awesome.

Glenn [01:44:37] Me and him together. Me and John Forever.

Randy [01:44:45] My 6 year old. Sweet, sweetest kid. He would be such a great Mormon. He believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny. But if you try to ask him about Jesus, man, he's not real, but the Easter Bunny. I mean Easter bunny.

Glenn [01:45:03] Friends go jogging at the track. Friends borrow money, never pay it back. Friends do not let friends do crack. Friends go out and grab a snack. Friends drink beer in the sun. Unlike girlfriends, they don't mind if you

John Dehlin [01:45:14] have more than one.

Glenn [01:45:14] Friends tell you when your fly's undone, your fly's undone.

Randy [01:45:18] But man, because the evidence of the Easter bunnies, he leaves a basket. The evidence of Santa Claus's leaves presence. There's evidence, you know that's true.

Tom [01:45:28] What evidence?

Randy [01:45:29] What evidence do you have for Jesus?

Glenn [01:45:30] My uncle John had a special friend. They dressed alike.

John Dehlin [01:45:33] His name was Ben.

Glenn [01:45:34] I've never seen two friends like them. They were very, very friendly Men.

Guest [01:45:40] Friends.

John Dehlin [01:45:41] Friends. Friends.

Guest [01:45:44] Friends.

John Dehlin [01:45:44] Friends, Friends. Friends. Friends.

Glenn [01:45:49] Friends, Friends,

Tom [01:45:52] Friends.

Randy [01:45:57] And the intro really, to me, captures what this podcast is about. So we have this awesome song by Flight of the Conchords with Jim Gaffigan as the guest star for that song. And it's just us bullshitting before we even start the podcast about raising children. And to me, the first, that intro is the best intro we've ever done. I get goosebumps every time I listen to that intro. But I also love the podcast as well, because we take a church article that's hidden from the members on LDS.org on apologetics for the Book of Abraham, and line by line, we break that sucker down. All right, that was a lot of fun.

John Dehlin [01:46:45] Book of Abraham smackdown.

Scott [01:46:47] Scott, I'm going to say the under the Banner of Heaven episode, was that about Krakauer's book? Yeah, it was about Krakauer's book. It was towards the beginning when we started. It was one of our earlier ones. There were a bunch of clips and everything that we put in there. But, yeah, that was one of my favorites.

John Dehlin [01:47:05] That book made me sick to my stomach because of the Lafferty brothers, but also just because I realized for the first time, there's very little difference between Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs. You know what I mean?

Scott [01:47:17] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:47:17] It was that book that kind of drew those lines, connected those dots for me.

Tom [01:47:21] Me.

Scott [01:47:21] Yeah, it's a tough book to read. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:23] All right, Matt.

Matt [01:47:24] Yeah, I'm glad Scott mentioned that one, because now I can mention a different one. One of my favorites is Fear. That was early October 2012 Halloween episode because it has so many elements. Glenn did some interviews. I did some interviews. I did a group interview where we played with a Ouija board, did some man on street interviews, and it was the closest thing to Radiolab, I think that was done. And I just loved it. And then the other two I want to mention are Bob's Coffee. I'm sorry, Tom's Coffee episode, and Randy's arachnophobia episode where he talks about his growth in coming to go from abhorring to really embracing just homosexuality. So those two things by embracing. Not embracing in, like, a literal sense, but in a mental sense, I think. You know what I mean? But I wish the other guys would do more minisodes, because when they do them, they're just fantastic.

Guest [01:48:32] Amen.

Matt [01:48:33] And then there's a lot of episodes that happened that were never intended to happen. They were just conversations that happened organically, and there was just a flow, and we just started having fun and going on some little Jag and it becomes a new topic. And those. And I can't even point to the ones. And, Glenn, you might be better than me to say this is the one that. That happened. Those are fun because they're fun having it, having those conversations, and then they're fun listening back to them.

Guest [01:49:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:02] All right, Bob.

Tom [01:49:04] Okay, so I'm not going to shy away from this. I'm going to go with Bob's Mormon cred sc.

John Dehlin [01:49:14] Surprise, surprise.

Scott [01:49:16] No, you're saying it was the greatest ever.

John Dehlin [01:49:20] For some reason. For some reason, number 3.5 is coming out for me right now. I'm not sure why.

Scott [01:49:25] I don't know why.

John Dehlin [01:49:26] That number just popped in my head. So 3.3-3.5 is just, for some reason, that number.

Bob [01:49:35] Oh, boy.

Tom [01:49:36] No comment. So. So I really have a lot of fun when I can use this as an outlet to test ideas I have. And the reason I like Bob's Mormon credit scale as a project is because I had this idea of defining the Mormon experience and quantifying it and giving people a credibility score, which is, like, an awful, horrible thing to do. But it was just so much fun, and it really. Just having all the guys sort of beat me up on. On all my points and how I came to it and sort of, you know, hold my own and show them how they're all idiots and they don't get it.

Tom [01:50:13] No, I'm just kidding. It wasn't like that, but I had a lot of fun. And so that's the thing. For me, it's not the best one, but it was the one that was the most fun. So I'm just going with that as my answer. All right.

John Dehlin [01:50:24] All right, Glenn, bring us home.

Glenn [01:50:26] Well, I think we have to go with Tao of Mormonism.

Guest 2 [01:50:29] Him?

Glenn [01:50:37] No, no, but for.

Guest [01:50:38] For.

John Dehlin [01:50:39] For.

Glenn [01:50:39] I think that's our worst.

Matt [01:50:40] The Krista episodes of.

John Dehlin [01:50:42] I was gonna say Krista. That would have been.

Glenn [01:50:44] No, when she channels Emma Smith. I mean, come on.

Scott [01:50:47] For real.

Glenn [01:50:48] That was awesome. What questions would you ask if you could talk to Emma Smith? Okay, people, you know the disclaimer. If psychic talk makes your blood boil, then this is not the episode for you. What about, like, Emma Smith who traced the outline of the plates underneath a handkerchief?

Guest 2 [01:51:11] I don't think that happened. Okay, Tracy, she said she's, like, totally right here. Do you want to ask for anything? I'm, like, giving a strong M. Smith vibe.

Glenn [01:51:22] Oh, my goodness.

Guest 2 [01:51:27] I don't even know what to say.

Glenn [01:51:29] Yeah, I mean, what did. What did she think about William Law?

Guest 2 [01:51:33] That was what I was gonna ask William Long, other than I think she. Wait, William Law?

Randy [01:51:41] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:51:42] Did she hate him? She hated him. Would that make sense? No.

Glenn [01:51:51] Well, it's not. It's not. It's not how the story goes.

Guest 2 [01:51:55] What's the story?

Glenn [01:51:56] The story was that William, she says

Guest 2 [01:51:59] it's a complete law lie.

Glenn [01:52:04] So what.

Matt [01:52:06] What.

Glenn [01:52:07] What does she have to say about Fanny Alger?

Guest 2 [01:52:09] I said, I told you, I don't want to talk about these old people. I want to tell you what's true and what's not true. I'm tired of talking about these people. I'm done with these people. I'm tired. I'm tired of these people. Sorry. They're like jumping. Jumping on a. She's showing him jumping on a moving train that's preparing to crash.

Guest 2 [01:52:28] It was my goal to redirect the train. She's like, redirecting it and showing it away, like, towards. Towards truth. Because I believed in the beginning and even in the end that Joseph could have steered that train towards good and towards truth. I always felt God's presence with him, but he chose to ignore that God in favor of like a crowd of people around him and pleasing that crowd. That is when we grew so separate. It's because he, like, he has this little entourage and she's not part of it. She didn't. She didn't to want. Want part of it. That's why you're seeing me as antisocial and having nothing good to say, that I don't like anything.

Guest 2 [01:53:10] But in truth, I don't like the entourage. I don't like those around him. I don't like those feeling. They're like whispering in his ears, telling him what to prophesize about. It wasn't even coming from him. Some of it didn't even come from his imagination because he couldn't say no and push people away. They were like, Washington, his feet, she's showing.

Randy [01:53:34] But she also said that you and Tom were married at some previous life.

John Dehlin [01:53:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest [01:53:38] That.

Glenn [01:53:39] That was fun. But I. For, for reals, though, I've got the same answer as, as Tom. The little factories. I, I absolutely. I love the discussion, probably for a lot of the same reasons that Tom mentioned. Because we start off so locker room, you know, jocular with masturbation jokes, and by the end of it, we're just incensed at the bigotry and hatred that's institutionalized in that talk, and we can't even stomach it. We're so angry and just like viscerally upset with it. I Listened to that with my kids and it was a lot of fun. And that intro was the Boyd K. Packer. I'm too sexy.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [01:54:19] Of all the blessings that have come, the best thing in my life is the companionship and coverage I get from very young man. Why would our Heavenly Father do that? Anyway? Will you raise an alarm?

Video Clip 1 [01:54:39] An alarm? An alarm.

Video Clip 1 [01:54:44] To sexy or wickedness. To sexy for wickedness it never was. Happiness I'm too sexy. Or compassion. Too sexy or compassion. So called tolerance must be wrong. We cannot be happy, nor saved, nor exalted without fighting the gay lesbian movement.

Video Clip 1 [01:55:07] Growing numbers of people now campaign to make spiritually dangerous lifestyles legal and socially acceptable. Now, in the spirit of love and sympathy, I speak to you who may be struggling against temptations for which there is no moral expression. And the simple truth is the penis of any individual bumps up against the penis of another.

Video Clip 1 [01:55:33] Do not yield. Cultivate the spiritual strength to resist all of your life, if need be. In the spirit of love, sympathy. Keep your covenant and you'll be saved. Break them and you will not. I'm to sexy or perversion. To sexy or that substance. It might be likened to having a little factory in your body, one designed to produce that substance that can generate life. As you move closer to manhood, this little factory will sometimes produce an oversupply of this substance the Lord has produced, provided a way for that to be released. You on the catwalk, yeah, go on the catwalk, yeah I shake my little on the catwalk.

Video Clip 1 [01:56:19] There are some circumstances in which young men may be tempted to handle one another. Sometimes this begins in a moment of idle foolishness when boys are just playing around. When a young man is finding his way into manhood, such experiences can misdirect his normal dis desires and pervert him.

Video Clip 1 [01:56:39] No one is predestined to a life of perversion. I repeat very plainly, physical mischief with another man is forbidden. I'm too sexy for the devil. To sexy for sympathy, compassion. Physical mischief. To sex. For men. To sexy. For masculine, manly, manly men. To sexy on thrones,

Bob [01:57:13] which was a

Glenn [01:57:14] lot of fun to put together. And, you know, so there have been a couple things like that.

Jake [01:57:19] A little long, but yeah, I was good.

Glenn [01:57:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:21] Yeah.

Glenn [01:57:22] You guys thought. Some. Some of you thought it was a

Matt [01:57:23] little long, but no, I was. I laughed. I laughed so many times listening to that. And I was in the conversation. But that was the one that. We've got feedback from a guy who identified as a gay man growing up in the church who basically said, thank you. It was so great to hear four or five straight guys defending me. I felt protected or I felt taken up for as a kid in listening back to them.

Glenn [01:57:53] Yeah, that was Nate.

Randy [01:57:55] That was Zilpha's interview that Glenn mentioned earlier.

Glenn [01:57:57] Yeah, that was Nate who gave us that.

Matt [01:57:59] Oh, that's right. That's right. And that really did.

John Dehlin [01:58:01] It touched me. That's awesome. Well, Glenn, speaking of Kristen, I don't know if you remember this, but there was a time where I was interested in sponsoring new podcasts out of the Open Stories foundation, and I got Jared Anderson to start Mormon Sunday School and Dan Witherspoon to start Mormon Matters. And I remember approaching you saying, dude, do you want to start a podcast with me? I think this is around the time, Tell me if I'm wrong, that you were breaking off from John Larsen. And what I remember you saying is that you wanted to start a podcast on Joseph Smith, but that you wanted full creative control and the ability to play this thing with Krista with the seance. And I was like, no, good move.

Relationship with Mormon Stories and John Dehlin

Guest [01:58:49] Good move.

John Dehlin [01:58:50] Right, yeah.

Glenn [01:58:52] That was around the same time that I was thinking of Infants on Thrones as well, you know, with these guys. Because, like, I had so many conversations with her that were just so much fun. And, like, I'd read sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, and she would interpret things, you know, or say, like, oh, yeah, this one's definitely real. Oh, no, that one's made up. And I just thought that that would be an interesting way to read the Doctrine and Covenants. But what I really wanted to do with that Joseph Smith project, and I still think about it from time to time, and I think about it with John Hamer as maybe helping out with something like this.

Glenn [01:59:30] But the church or KBYU put together a TV series. I think there were two seasons on the Joseph Smith papers. And so there's. There's all of this content that's just out there ready to be smackdowned, just ready to be critiqued on the life of Joseph Smith that I think would be so fun to do, but a lot of work. So I've got all these Joseph Smith books, and I start reading them, and I get into, like, halfway through the first chapter, and then I get bored and I start reading something else.

Matt [02:00:04] Will someone read this to me?

Glenn [02:00:05] Right. Yeah.

Guest 2 [02:00:06] Right?

Glenn [02:00:07] Yeah. Can I get this an audiobook?

John Dehlin [02:00:09] What? Yeah, so I just thought it was cool because you know how, like, those are stories of Elvis or the Beatles going to the record label, and the. The record label says no, and then they go on and Become famous. You know, I, I turned you guys down and now look what you become.

Randy [02:00:23] You're.

John Dehlin [02:00:23] You're becoming famous.

Randy [02:00:25] We're so famous.

Jake [02:00:26] We're so.

Matt [02:00:26] There are dozens of listeners, John. Literally. Literally.

Randy [02:00:30] Well, but literally dozens.

Bob [02:00:32] But.

Glenn [02:00:32] So, you know, and I think, I think one of the inspirations, you know, you mentioned the, you listened, John, to the. Our Mormon expression episode, but you came to Indianapolis maybe a month or so ago, and we were going to get together, but kind of at the last minute I pulled a Randy on you, like if it was a Tom date.

Tom [02:00:50] But.

Glenn [02:00:51] And so we weren't able to get together. And in the follow up, I think you suggested maybe we could do something together with Infants on Thrones. And like, the thing that I first thought was, I wonder if we'll get a John Dehlin bump. Because I, Because I must. I'm a total stat stats nerd and stats hound. And these guys will tell you it's one of the things that they're like, Glenn, why do you. Why do you feel driven to. To have this itchy trigger finger and release three episodes or four episodes in a week? And I'm like, because our stats are going down. These bars, they need to go up and they're going down.

Jake [02:01:28] He needs medication.

Glenn [02:01:29] I might. I might.

Scott [02:01:30] So.

Randy [02:01:31] Yes. So you always resist putting Mormon anywhere in our tagline or

Glenn [02:01:37] rebrand now. I mean, I like Infants on Thrones.

Jake [02:01:40] We.

Glenn [02:01:41] I do put Mormon in the. A lot of the feeds, you know, when we post. But, but anyway, so.

Tom [02:01:48] So I hope you guys get a.

Glenn [02:01:51] Well, I, I'm curious just when you post those questions. Last week we started to see a little bit of a bump, so it's already starting, so I'll be curious to see. But when we had, when we did Tom Phillips earlier this year, like in February, that, like, quadrupled our listenership or more. I mean, that was a huge bump for us.

John Dehlin [02:02:15] So I listened to that one.

Jake [02:02:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:17] Yeah, that was good. Okay. So you guys have talked about being under the radar a little bit. Has anything ever blown up for you guys where, like, you did something and it either caused a huge battle between you or like there was a really significant uproar where people got really pissed off and were really critical or angry, or have you guys just kind of avoided all that, that Kate Kelly.

Matt [02:02:50] Closest thing last week with Kate Kelly,

Glenn [02:02:52] but none of us got angry with each other.

Tom [02:02:55] No, no, no, we don't get.

Scott [02:02:57] Yeah, I'd say for the most part, we've avoided all of that.

Matt [02:03:01] Our dust ups come up and Resolve within a few hours and a few snippy emails that end up turning into tasks. And then we all hug it up.

John Dehlin [02:03:11] Yeah, we hug it out.

Jake [02:03:12] Yeah.

Randy [02:03:13] Yeah. But, I mean, Glenn already mentioned the Tom Phillips thing was a huge bump that caused a major increase in our listenership.

Matt [02:03:22] That was all positive.

Randy [02:03:23] That was all positive. But the feminism thing, I don't know how many listeners are members of Mormon Hub, but those people that are will know the huge personal. Like, you know, you guys did a podcast. I mean, the Kate Kelly John Dehlin podcast, you know, was something you guys spun together. Well, you spun together in, like, a matter of hours. Like, I got an email that Glenn was like, really emotionally.

Glenn [02:03:59] I want to talk about this. Do you guys want to talk about this?

Jake [02:04:01] No exclamation points.

John Dehlin [02:04:02] I want to talk about this.

Randy [02:04:04] Glenn's like, I want to talk about this.

Glenn [02:04:05] Get on the.

Guest [02:04:06] Get on Skype.

Matt [02:04:06] Can anyone get on Skype now?

Glenn [02:04:08] Right now?

Randy [02:04:08] Yeah. And I was in a hotel, so I couldn't get on. But so the guys that got on, got on and they did that two hour podcast. And then we reached out to Kate Kelly personally, and thread was started, well,

Glenn [02:04:22] just by tagging her on the Mormon Hub, you know, tagged both her and John. So they knew, hey, we're talking about you.

Scott [02:04:29] They're really personal tag you.

Bob [02:04:31] Like, it was very.

Scott [02:04:33] Right, right.

Randy [02:04:34] Didn't that thread go over 200?

Glenn [02:04:36] It went over 300.

Bob [02:04:37] It was like.

Scott [02:04:37] 300. Yeah.

Jake [02:04:38] 300.

John Dehlin [02:04:39] Is that the biggest dust up you guys have had in terms of, like, you know, noise or heat from.

Glenn [02:04:44] From outside?

Randy [02:04:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, Certainly heat.

Tom [02:04:47] I think.

Glenn [02:04:48] I think the only one that even comes close, and it's very small, was on Reddit when. When we did the Manacled Mormon and sex change and somebody put the header, you know, do the. Do the panelists on Infants on Thrones read this? Because you guys suck. And, you know, but even that wasn't that big of a deal. We had some exchanges with them, and then, you know, it's like, all right, yeah.

Matt [02:05:13] And then they said, but Matt was on too, so it's okay. And then they said, yeah, you're right.

Tom [02:05:17] Matt saved the day. Drunk man. I. I think.

Glenn [02:05:20] I think the. The biggest internal things that we've had just come from my exuberance and like, maybe Bob saying, okay, slow down. And I'm like, no, I don't want to slow down. Slow down. You know, so, I mean, some conflicts with that, but it's not really a big deal.

John Dehlin [02:05:39] Okay.

Matt [02:05:40] So I want to ask you, though, John did you feel that we were unfair or somehow too glib towards you or somehow attacked you?

Tom [02:05:49] Well, the numbers 3. The number 3 or 3.5 was in his head.

Glenn [02:05:56] So, Bob, you're often the self aware police. How does John rank here on a scale of 1 to 5, being self aware in this essay?

Tom [02:06:08] Oh, he's in the 3ish range. Really?

Glenn [02:06:13] Yeah, I give him a higher score than that, but. Okay, go ahead.

Tom [02:06:16] Oh, you give him a higher score? I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh and I have to be self aware on the self aware meter. But I think there's some back patting. He's patting himself on the back throughout here, telling us about his connections to the top and. Oh, because all of you people out there are asking so much, this burden of mine to expose all this information. I guess since enough of you have asked, I mean, there's just. And I'm being a cynic and I'm playing that role. But just the, the way he's phrasing it is kind of,

Glenn [02:06:57] but you know that there've got to be tons. Yeah, I was trying to think of the right adjective, but. But lots of people that keep asking him, what's going on with this? What's going on with this? And have been for months. And he's been pretty silent on it. And so for him to come out and go, okay, all right, you guys want to know what I think I'm gonna put it all out here so I don't have to keep answering these questions over and over and over and over and over again. And I thought he did a pretty good job with that.

Matt [02:07:25] I, I agree.

Tom [02:07:27] All right.

Jake [02:07:28] Okay.

Glenn [02:07:29] Yeah.

Tom [02:07:29] 3.5 out of 5.

Matt [02:07:32] There's no half star.

Glenn [02:07:34] You have lost all self aware crime. Don't start with that.

Randy [02:07:43] Did you listen to the episode?

John Dehlin [02:07:44] No, I listened to the whole thing. And no, I swear I was really honored and kind of touched just that you would even think that it was relevant enough to talk about. So I was. And I thought you guys were really respectful and I really appreciate your analysis. I. This really hit home for me during the My Mormon Expression episode. But I honestly really value all the panelists perspectives. So when you guys talk, I'm like, wow, this is really thoughtful. This is really seasoned. This is really insightful and I learn a lot. So I really appreciated it and I was just grateful the whole time. There were several moments where I laughed out loud, very loud, and I thought it was great. So I was grateful. Really? Yeah.

Glenn [02:08:33] So what did you think of Kate's responses on the Mormon hub.

Tom [02:08:36] Oh, I'm pretty sure he didn't go through all that.

Matt [02:08:39] He liked a few of them.

John Dehlin [02:08:42] Kate reached out to me very, very early and made some fun comments about you guys, but I was glad the conversation was happening. From her perspective, any conversation about feminism is a good thing.

Glenn [02:08:53] What? I didn't get that from our interaction.

Tom [02:08:56] That's nice of you to say. We'll run with it. That's good.

John Dehlin [02:08:59] That's my opinion. That's my opinion. I'm not saying that's how she feels, but I, I hope you guys can get around. I think that would be really fun.

Glenn [02:09:06] Yeah, I don't see that happening.

John Dehlin [02:09:11] Yeah, well, I, I think it's, I think it's an important conversation, so I'm glad that was happening.

Glenn [02:09:15] Yeah. I mean, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be opposed to it. I just, I, I, I have a hard time seeing her wanting to. That that would even be worthy.

John Dehlin [02:09:23] We're not worthy.

Glenn [02:09:25] We're not worthy.

Guest [02:09:26] You're worthy. You're worthy.

Guest 2 [02:09:27] You're worth.

Tom [02:09:27] Get up.

Glenn [02:09:28] Because, you know, I gotta tell you, from my whole experience with this feminism thing, I really hate the terminology and the jargon that's in it. Like, male ally. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna identify myself as a male ally. I want to throw up when I hear that.

Randy [02:09:43] Yeah.

Glenn [02:09:43] You know, but, but at the same time, I agree with it. I just don't want, I just don't want to, like, get all those labels and. Yeah, it's kind of left a sour taste in my mouth. Even though I do agree that there needs to be gender equality. Of course. But, man, it's so hard to talk about.

John Dehlin [02:10:04] Geez, it is, man. And if you open your mouth, you get accused of mansplaining. And it's just, you know, it's tricky, but it's also a really important conversation. So I thought it was really fun. I was really grateful you guys did that.

Glenn [02:10:19] And then, and I think the day after that happened, Bob and I, and Chelsea was part of it for a little bit. She didn't say much, but we had a conversation with Margaret Toscano that was awesome.

Tom [02:10:34] It was great.

Glenn [02:10:34] And there was no requirement that we speak the language or anything like that. We're just having a great discussion and feminism was part of it, but it wasn't the whole thing.

John Dehlin [02:10:44] Margaret Sausage. Yeah.

Glenn [02:10:45] It was just so fun. So I, I don't know.

Matt [02:10:48] So you guys decided to be feminist rather than talk about feminist?

Glenn [02:10:52] Yeah.

Randy [02:10:52] Right.

Tom [02:10:52] There you go.

Glenn [02:10:53] But not feminist. It's not that word.

Tom [02:10:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:56] And Chelsea. Chelsea was a brilliant addition, I have to say.

Randy [02:10:59] She.

John Dehlin [02:10:59] She is brilliant.

Jake [02:11:00] So.

Glenn [02:11:05] Matt's got the biggest issue. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:08] A lot of people really like the placebo episode.

Glenn [02:11:11] I thought they were fantastic people.

Matt [02:11:12] Is great.

Glenn [02:11:24] Hello, this is Heather.

Guest 2 [02:11:26] I am the unofficial matriarch of the Mormon Expositor podcast. I'm only 35. Can you be a matriarch at 35?

Glenn [02:11:34] Anyway, you can comment on this episode on the website Infants on Throne.

Guest 2 [02:11:40] And if you really like what you

Tom [02:11:41] hear, give the quorum a five star

Glenn [02:11:43] rating and write a short review on itunes.

Guest 2 [02:11:45] I did.

Glenn [02:11:47] Anyone for the closing prayer?

John Dehlin [02:12:05] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower lights. Anyone need a potty break or. I got a breaker.

Randy [02:12:23] I gotta go to bed. It's nine o'.

Jake [02:12:24] Clock.

Guest [02:12:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:30] All right, well, let's just jump.

Glenn [02:12:31] Is Matt there? Is Matt on?

Scott [02:12:33] I don't know.

Randy [02:12:33] Yeah, Matt.

Jake [02:12:34] What the.

Bob [02:12:37] Serious. Thank you.

Scott [02:12:37] I'll text him.

Glenn [02:12:38] I. I texted him.

Randy [02:12:40] What a dick.

Tom [02:12:42] I love how that's the default.

Scott [02:12:44] You know what happened? You know what happens?

John Dehlin [02:12:46] Oh, the.

Glenn [02:12:47] The bat.

Scott [02:12:48] Kristen's. Kristen's walking around half dressed.

Glenn [02:12:50] Yeah, well.

Matt [02:12:50] Oh, yeah, sorry.

John Dehlin [02:12:51] I just got a.

Matt [02:12:52] Got a. What was going on? Came back.

Randy [02:12:55] Somebody. Somebody got killed. Right.

Scott [02:12:56] We were just talking about your wife.

Glenn [02:12:57] Don't worry about phone.

Matt [02:13:00] Yeah, it was the. It was the bat phone, in fact, revolving a murder. But

John Dehlin [02:13:06] welcome back.

Matt [02:13:06] Welcome back. Yeah, thanks. And yes, Kristen is walking around naked. I'm just kidding.

Part Two Begins: Hobbies and Personal Lives

John Dehlin [02:13:13] All right, all right, all right. So. All right, so we're ready to start part two. Everybody ready? Everybody ready? Because I had dreams of one of you answering. No. Thank you. For Impact on Impact on Thrones.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 515

John Dehlin [00:00:00] All right, all right.

Guest [00:00:02] So.

John Dehlin [00:00:03] All right, so we're ready to start part two. Everybody ready? Everybody ready?

Jake [00:00:16] Well, it's a delight, let me tell you, as one of the few that's partaken among this. It is delightful.

Bob [00:00:22] I'm not gonna shy away from this. I. I'm gonna go with Bob Foreman tread scale.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] For some reason, number 3.5 is coming

Matt [00:00:30] out for me right now.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] I' sure. Why. I don't know why that my head Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation.

Matt [00:00:46] We are the world.

Matt [00:00:49] Fun and funny and I want to laugh, laughing, entertainment. Not taking things so seriously.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] I have. I have a hard time telling Matt and Bob apart when I listen. Honestly. No, no, no, sorry. Not Matt. Scott. Scott.

Randy [00:01:11] And there you go.

John Dehlin [00:01:12] That's.

Glenn [00:01:13] Yeah, I've heard that before.

Jake [00:01:14] Everybody. Yeah.

Tom [00:01:15] Nobody.

Jake [00:01:16] It seems like I'm.

Matt [00:01:17] It sounds like Seth Rogen.

Randy [00:01:25] Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn

Tom [00:01:31] tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural.

Guest [00:01:34] Not so.

Tom [00:01:35] Why would our heavenly father do that?

Bob [00:01:45] Compassion to sexy or compassion.

Randy [00:01:47] So called tolerance must be wrong.

John Dehlin [00:01:52] I'm not doing this for the money. I'm not doing it for the attention. I think every single Mormon on this planet has the right to know the factual record as it relates to the church's origins. Everyone should be able to make a conscious decision with all the information on the table. This is Infant Science Mormon Stories podcast.

Matt [00:02:16] Philosophies of men mingled with humor. We are the core of the core.

John Dehlin [00:02:28] Hello and welcome back to part two of my awesome, some fun, insightful interview with the panelists on Infants on Thrones. At infantsonthrones.com, i'm John Dehlin. And now we're gonna kind of get back to the personal and then end by just talking about sort of issues within Mormonism generally and within the blogosphere, the podcast realm and the church. It's gonna be kind of a free for all of a bunch of topics, but I wanna start by just talking about a few more things that are kind of personal. One question I thought would be fun is to have each of you just kind of share with something that you all do, each of you do in your spare time that doesn't have to do with Mormonism just so we can learn a tiny bit more about you guys individually.

John Dehlin [00:03:15] And I'll start from the middle of the pack according to my little list on the paper. So I'll start with Scott. Scott, what's something that you do in your free time that doesn't have to do with Mormonism.

Scott [00:03:24] So I just. I've gotten into motorcycle riding recently.

John Dehlin [00:03:28] Nice.

Glenn [00:03:29] Well, I've been.

Scott [00:03:29] I've been into. Into motor motorbikes and that sort of thing my whole life, but I just got a. Just got a street bike, so. Yeah, that's my thing right now.

John Dehlin [00:03:37] So not. Not. Not motocross, but. But street bike.

Matt [00:03:40] No.

Scott [00:03:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] Is it a Harley?

Scott [00:03:42] No, it's a BMW.

John Dehlin [00:03:44] Nice. All right. Wear your helmet. Promise. You wear your helmet always.

Scott [00:03:48] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:03:49] All right. Randy, how about you?

Randy [00:03:51] Nothing. I used to golf a lot. Then I tweaked my back too many times golfing. And, you know, I have a job that's a little bit physical. It's not super physical, but, you know, you do have to have a functioning back to do orthodontics. And I've moved recently from Kansas City to Denver, and one of the things that I plan to do once the weather turns is fly fishing. I've always loved fly fishing. When I was at byu, that's where I first picked it up. Byu? Provo Canyon. It's a great place to go fishing. So that's something I want to do, mainly because I need to find something that I can do with my boys that's good quality bonding time.

Bob [00:04:47] All right.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] I got a buddy who can hook you up, Randy. So let's talk afterwards if you want to. If you want a good experience.

Randy [00:04:53] Does he live in Denver?

John Dehlin [00:04:54] No, but we could find a way to make it work. Okay. He likes to go to Denver. I'll say that.

Glenn [00:05:01] Is that a euphemism?

John Dehlin [00:05:06] No.

Glenn [00:05:07] Okay.

Randy [00:05:08] He likes to smoke. He likes to smoke weed.

Glenn [00:05:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:12] I did not say that.

Glenn [00:05:14] He likes to go to Denver.

John Dehlin [00:05:16] Bob, how'd you get.

Glenn [00:05:17] We all like to go to Denver.

Bob [00:05:19] Hey, Matt, what do I do in my spare time?

Matt [00:05:22] Movies, homie.

Bob [00:05:24] There you go.

Tom [00:05:25] Gaming.

Bob [00:05:26] I'm a media consumer. I love to play games, watch movies, listen to music. So I'm looking or listening. Looking at a screen or listening to a podcast or music. So I enjoy just. I just enjoy that side of sensual stimulation. I don't know what to call it. It's fun.

John Dehlin [00:05:47] Favorite movie of all time. No pressure.

Bob [00:05:51] Well, I would have to say something like, you know, Citizen Kane or Casablanca, but I'm gonna go with. For me, personally, nothing tops a night of drinking while watching Office Space.

Randy [00:06:05] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:06:08] I'm gonna have to go ahead

Glenn [00:06:09] and sort of disagree with you there.

Bob [00:06:10] I can do that over and over again.

Matt [00:06:12] That's not bad. That's a good one. Good for you, Bob.

Randy [00:06:16] I'm gonna need to movie cred restored.

Matt [00:06:19] Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot better.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] All right, Glenn, you're next.

Glenn [00:06:24] Probably similar to Bob, but maybe not as snobbishly because you have kids.

John Dehlin [00:06:32] Honestly.

Tom [00:06:32] Honestly.

Glenn [00:06:33] Thank you for catching that. No, I mean, I do spend.

John Dehlin [00:06:38] So I'm scared to ask you your favorite movie now.

Glenn [00:06:41] My favorite movie. I don't know if I have one, but. But we watched Phone Booth the other night and that's awesome.

Jake [00:06:46] Love.

Matt [00:06:47] That was all right, Colin Farrell.

Glenn [00:06:49] Yeah, but it's all like. It all happens in this contained space. It's kind of brilliant. It's like that and it's just, it's very talky. But I like, I like talkie kind of stuff when it's good dialogue. So I like, I like watching TV shows.

Matt [00:07:03] Like Tarantino talkie or like.

Glenn [00:07:05] No, more like Aaron Sorkin. Yeah, I love Aaron Sorkin.

John Dehlin [00:07:10] Yeah, West Wing.

Glenn [00:07:11] Yeah, yeah, Like West Wing is super cool.

Randy [00:07:13] See, I didn't know that you could list watching movies as your.

Matt [00:07:22] Is that a hobby?

Randy [00:07:23] Yeah.

Glenn [00:07:24] Bob even added drinking to it since

Matt [00:07:28] I've got my hobbies. My tv.

Glenn [00:07:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:32] So it's all right, Randy, because we're going to get you out fly fishing. You're going to be glad you mentioned that one.

Glenn [00:07:35] I spend a lot of time on my computer and a lot of it is editing the podc and I'll do that while the kids are watching a show. My daughters are enjoying Gilmore Girls right now.

John Dehlin [00:07:50] That's a great show. That's very talky. Yeah, it's a very talky show, Jake.

Jake [00:07:58] Okay, so I mean, I probably not allowed to say this one, but I play a lot of video games.

John Dehlin [00:08:05] Nice.

Matt [00:08:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:08:06] I thought you were gonna say porn.

Jake [00:08:08] Yeah, I don't know.

Matt [00:08:09] Yeah, nudist clubs. Go Jake.

Jake [00:08:14] No, nudist gun. Although I do love onsen, which is Japanese bathhouses. Right, Glenn?

Bob [00:08:20] Woohoo.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] So, Jake, do you mean like console games or computer games?

Jake [00:08:26] Well, I usually do console games just because I like the ergonomics of the controller. It bothers me to play on the computer. Although, you know, first person shooters. Yeah, there's some first person shooters I kind of like. I don't know, I like stealthy games too. So when you're like sneaking around and the thing is, video games are a thing that I think that I personally like to do, but I'm not convinced that they're not a terrible thing in general because it's just because like in a video game I'll be walking around and be like, you know, What? I only have three smoke bombs. I should probably have five for this next mission.

Jake [00:09:07] So I'll just walk up to a stranger and stab them to death and then search their corpse and be like, oh no, he only had five francs. He didn't actually have a smoke bomb. I better go murder another person and see if they have a smoke bomb.

John Dehlin [00:09:20] So you like, you play those like assassin games, right?

Jake [00:09:23] Yeah, yeah. Assassin's Creed, right? Like Assassin's Creed and stuff like that. So yeah. And the one with like pimps?

John Dehlin [00:09:30] What's the one with like pimps and prostitutes?

Bob [00:09:32] Grand Theft Auto.

John Dehlin [00:09:33] Yeah.

Scott [00:09:33] Grand Theft Auto is also great.

Jake [00:09:35] One Ioshock series a big fan of. But yeah, I'm not sure that they're not terrible, but I like, I like them. I also like coast fishing. I've gotten into that here in North Carolina.

Bob [00:09:45] Oh sure, I like bird watching too,

Jake [00:09:51] but there's nothing that can really compete with like being able to sit in your house and but go through a simulated experience where you're like, you know, save the world, you know, so it's kind of. I feel like it's hot wiring your brain a little bit. I don't know if it's a good thing, but I like doing it, so whatever.

John Dehlin [00:10:10] All right, Tom.

Matt [00:10:12] I like cycling and I love sports. I'm also kind of a comedy nerd. Comedy nut that way. Good comedy, not like the Bob comedy.

Bob [00:10:23] Oh, what are you talking about?

John Dehlin [00:10:29] Speaking of sports, I'm surprised you guys didn't do a smackdown on that full page article that came out in the Desert News a week or two ago about how all UW fans should be BYU fans too. Oh yeah, right.

Jake [00:10:42] I remember seeing that.

Matt [00:10:44] Because it doesn't deserve the public air.

Matt [00:10:47] It's.

Matt [00:10:47] It's such crap.

Scott [00:10:50] We did, we did do a Manti Teo episode.

Randy [00:10:52] Hello, this is the real fake Lyne Kakua. A lot of people have said that I'm fake and maybe I'm a little

Scott [00:11:05] superficial, but what do you want to know?

Randy [00:11:10] I think Manti is a great guy.

Scott [00:11:13] Anyway, Randy, this is what I want to say to you tonight at 9pm Central.

Randy [00:11:21] I know it's a special time for you and I know there are certain things that you want to do that you don't want to miss out on. I can help you with that, big boy.

John Dehlin [00:11:32] That's awesome. I remember that. All right, Matt.

Matt [00:11:38] Well, I have a road bike. I like to like to do road biking since I jacked up my knee a few years ago. TV movies. But I mean, this sounds real contrived but my weekends, I just like going and running errands with my wife. We just kind of hang out doing stupid stuff.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] As long as.

Matt [00:11:58] I know it sounds really horrible, it's less sweet because it's really about me trying to get it on with her. It's really a. It's a. Yeah, it's like a long con. Is the more time I do that I get to do stuff with her naughty bits and so. But, yeah, no, it's true. I just like to really do really mundane, stupid stuff as long as I'm with my wife.

John Dehlin [00:12:27] You're a smart man.

Matt [00:12:29] I know it sounds like that. I wish it wasn't. I wish it just happens to be true.

Randy [00:12:34] Do you take any road trips to California with her?

Matt [00:12:37] We do. We just did this weekend. We go to California. We just take road trips. And it's really not about going anywhere. It's. It sounds. It's horrible. I'm sorry, but I just.

Jake [00:12:47] We just like you seriously apologizing for enjoying spending time with your spouse.

Matt [00:12:52] We like being. I know it's. But it sounds so contrived and it sounds so fake, and I hate that. But it's. It's just. We like being. We like going on road trips so that we're in the car.

Glenn [00:13:01] You are so sexist, Matt. You are being so sexist right now.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] Jeez.

Glenn [00:13:07] Can't even believe.

John Dehlin [00:13:08] No, it's good.

Bob [00:13:09] I love it.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] I love it.

Matt [00:13:10] That's what we do.

John Dehlin [00:13:12] All right, so this is going to be probably the most serious question I ask, and I don't know if you guys are ready for it, and I don't know how you want to handle it. I promise it'll be the only one. I'm curious if you guys are willing or able to share something vulnerable with the audience about you that maybe the audience wouldn't know. So something you've done, you regret, something that's hard, that's happened to you, something vulnerable. And this will be, I swear, the only kind of semi serious question that I ask. And if you want to make a joke of it, that's cool, too.

Glenn [00:13:43] No, seriously, like, the other day, I was looking for five smoke bombs, and I only had three. And I walked up behind somebody,

Randy [00:13:53] and you stabbed.

Glenn [00:13:53] I stabbed him. I mean, he was more vulnerable than I was.

Matt [00:13:58] Or she.

Glenn [00:13:59] It was a little girl, but, you know. But I got the smoke bombs, so.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] All right, do you guys want to. Do you want to do this question? You all right with it?

Matt [00:14:09] Sure.

Bob [00:14:09] Just waiting for someone else to stall

Randy [00:14:11] while I keep all Right.

John Dehlin [00:14:13] I'm going to start with Tom, because

Randy [00:14:15] my honest answer is for thing that's.

Matt [00:14:22] Oh, my gosh.

Bob [00:14:23] Jesus.

Matt [00:14:24] You weren't going to do that, Randy?

Randy [00:14:27] No, I totally. It's just that you ask a question like that, and it's like, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. And how do I top that? How do I come up?

Glenn [00:14:36] You have to say the first thing that comes to your mind.

Randy [00:14:38] No, but it's like, what else is there?

John Dehlin [00:14:41] That's awesome.

Randy [00:14:42] Anyway, you asked someone else first.

Difficult Personal Experiences Outside the Church

John Dehlin [00:14:45] All right, all right, all right. So, Tom, going with you first.

Matt [00:14:49] Ooh. Okay. I tried to kill myself when I was a teenager, and I've always been. I've always kind of had this. I don't know if it's a fascination with suicide, but I had a friend that killed himself in 2011, and this party really died. But no, in 2011, I had a friend that killed himself. And then I. Then I became actively involved in the. In the suicide support groups, and I volunteered for the suicide hotline for almost two years.

John Dehlin [00:15:29] That's awesome.

Randy [00:15:30] So, wow.

John Dehlin [00:15:31] All right, Tom. Thanks for sharing, Jake.

Jake [00:15:36] Oh, does anyone else have one? I'm. I'm trying to think of one. I mean, I just.

Glenn [00:15:43] I know. I know. One for you.

Guest [00:15:46] Yes.

Randy [00:15:47] I'm not gonna say this is a

Glenn [00:15:50] weird line of questioning.

John Dehlin [00:15:52] It's my only weird one.

Matt [00:15:53] Okay.

Glenn [00:15:55] I'm looking down the list, and you've got. Is religion a net bad? And you think that we're finishing up at that one?

John Dehlin [00:16:00] I'm gonna skip that one. All right, so, Randy, come back to you.

Matt [00:16:14] Jeez.

Scott [00:16:16] Can I jump in? Do you want me to rescue you here?

Tom [00:16:18] Thank you.

Scott [00:16:18] This is Scott.

John Dehlin [00:16:19] Scott. Yeah.

Scott [00:16:22] This isn't probably shocking to a lot of our listeners, and it's not something that's unique to me. Certainly having left the church, it's probably ubiquitous, in fact, to everybody. But you know, personally, for me, this whole process of leaving the church, like, we joke about it and we laugh about it a lot, but it's really, really hard. And I mean, even. Even though I've been out publicly, you know, for a while, there's still ramifications for it. Like, personally, like, with me, with my family, with, you know, people that I'm really, really close to. And so even though we have that tone of levity in it, I want to just kind of, you know, I'll put that out there that it's tough for me. Like, it's not an easy thing even now to be going through.

Randy [00:17:18] I'll echo that, yeah, actually, I'm ready to answer.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] Thanks, Scott. All right, Randy,

Are Ex-Mormons Happier After Leaving

Randy [00:17:27] this is something I would really like to do. A podcast on the question of are you happier now? Because I do hear a lot of ex Mormons say they're so much happier now after they've left the church. And, you know, part of it is that I have inherited from my mother, you know, a pretty high anxiety level.

Randy [00:17:55] I haven't gone to a psychologist or a psychiatrist to deal with it. I kind of self medicate because, you know, I can self medicate with propranolol, which lowers my blood pressure, but I am anxiety ridden. And that hasn't really changed since I left the church.

Randy [00:18:16] And, you know, I can't honestly say that I'm happier now than I was as a true believing Mormon. And I think that's an interesting topic to explore. So that's kind of my confession. I'm not going to be one of those people that. One of those ex Mormons that trumpets how much happier I am now than I was before, because I don't know if I am.

Randy [00:18:41] But it really doesn't matter because I can't go back. The genie's out of the bottle. I can't put the genie back in, so I now have to exist in this world.

Scott [00:18:51] So let me ask you this then. If you could go back, would you. If you could put the genie back in the bottle, would you?

Randy [00:18:57] No.

Scott [00:18:58] Okay, so that's. Yeah. Because I've thought about the same thing and I. Even though you might not be happier now, if it's. If it's not a place that you'd rather go back to, I don't know. That's an interesting. That's an interesting difference.

Randy [00:19:14] Yeah, we had a podcast about the truth seeking brain. To me, like, I wouldn't take that pill. The red or the blue pill from

John Dehlin [00:19:23] Blue pill would be going back, I think.

Randy [00:19:25] Yeah, I would not take the blue pill because the truth above my hap. I value the truth above my happiness. And that's something that is just ingrained in my DNA. So I wouldn't go back.

John Dehlin [00:19:43] Wow, thanks, Randy. I'm gonna do this testimony meeting style. I'm gonna wait and let the silence force you guys to come out. So I'm just gonna be quiet and let you guys self select.

Matt [00:19:53] All right, this. I'll go. This is Matt. So my vulnerable thing is I'm irrevocably broken. It's because I've seen things, I've talked to kids about, things that nobody should talk to kids about. I'VE lived it. And as a result of that, I'm broken. And I just acknowledge that I'm damaged because of my job. So that's my one. That's one vulnerable thing. The other thing is from leaving Mormonism is relationships with my family are worse.

Jake [00:20:34] Yeah. And I actually kind of want to piggyback off that. So my family stumbled across the Brother Jake videos, and my immediate family, and my mom actually listens to Infants on Thrones regularly, even though she's definitely a true believer.

Jake [00:20:54] And the things that I'm doing, the things that I do in Brother Jake and I do on Infants on Thrones, I feel like they are therapeutic from my end for processing this exit out of Mormonism, but doing it in the way that I've been doing it, it has damaged my relationship with them. And I'm kind of afraid that I'm burning that house down, you know, I'm burning that bridge for my own, you know, just to keep warm in this transitionary period. I don't know if things will ever recover from the kind of public ridicule that I've brought or the public light of ridicule that I brought on the church.

Jake [00:21:40] In their minds, I don't know if that'll ostracize me from them forever, and that's scary to me. And. And sometimes I wonder if I'm just being selfish, but I feel like I'd go crazy if I didn't do anything.

John Dehlin [00:21:57] Yeah. I can relate to that a lot.

Glenn [00:22:01] So.

Guest [00:22:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:02] Thank you, Jake.

Matt [00:22:03] Mental health, the personal mental health is more important to me just to piggyback on what Jake is saying.

Jake [00:22:12] Right, right.

Glenn [00:22:15] I feel like every time we do one of these podcasts, there's a vulnerability because we use our real names like I use my name. I talk about where I live, and I've got children. So there's times I worry about that and think, okay, this is out here. Anybody can listen to it. There could be somebody who isn't completely mentally stable, you know, in different ways than we're not mentally stable, and it could be dangerous.

Scott [00:22:46] So there's.

Glenn [00:22:47] There's times I worry about that a little bit and wonder if I've. By doing this for as long as I've been doing it and saying things that I say that could upset, you know, some people, if I'm putting myself or my kids in danger with it, you know, because it's really easy to be critical about things when you're on Reddit and you're using a fake name or, you know, and any place where there's that anonymity, but we. We strip that away. And so I kind of feel like anytime we have conversations, we're making ourselves vulnerable, so.

John Dehlin [00:23:29] Yep, I relate to that too. All right, Bob.

Bob [00:23:33] Oh, gosh, I'm the caboose here. Wow. You know, the first thing that happened with me is, as I did the Randy thing, where I'm like, okay, I can't talk about those five things. What's number six on Creepy Bob? Baggage. That's okay for a podcast. No, I feel like we have a really good time on the podcast, and we have this banter thing going on where we're open and honest. And I mentioned it earlier, it's an outlet for me to really express myself and also get people to push back on me in a way that I didn't get in my normal growing up environment or that I don't get quite in the same way at work or in other spheres that I participate in.

Bob [00:24:23] But at the same time, deep down inside, I'm the guy who always wants to reconcile and write the super long emails until we actually do understand each other. And when that doesn't happen, which it has in life with certain people, and somebody just wants to walk away from me and rely on the last assumption they made or the last interaction where we weren't able to come to terms, it actually affects me. Even though I want to admit that it doesn't, or I want to think it doesn't, but it really does. Like, I'm somebody who wants approval more than I wish I did. So that's my thing that I don't want to admit, but I just admitted. How's that?

Glenn [00:25:04] 3.5.

Bob [00:25:08] I'll take it.

John Dehlin [00:25:09] That's awesome. All right, guys, thanks. That was really cool. Thanks for entertaining that question. All right, so now let's flip it. If you guys had to tell the audience something that's kind of cool about yourself, something that you're proud of, something that you would even be bragging about that, you know, you may not want to say because you don't want to sound like a boaster, like an ass or whatever, but go ahead, like, let it fly. So, Matt, what's something you're proud of?

Matt [00:25:41] I'm proud of the work that I do.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] Yeah.

Matt [00:25:43] I'm proud of how good I am at it. I think it's something I do very well, and I. I'm proud that people would probably, like, not like to see me on the other side in the courtroom.

Matt [00:26:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:03] So you protect children, right? I mean, that's kind of what you do.

Matt [00:26:07] Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a calling and something to get passionate about. It's easy to get worked up over. And I enjoy advocacy. I enjoy taking things that have very little evidence and being able to explain to juries how the real world works, and taking very little evidence and explaining why you should convict on the word of a child.

Tom [00:26:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:38] Glenn, what's something you're proud of?

Glenn [00:26:41] I'm proud of Infants on Thrones. You know, I. And this might be a little bit vulnerable, too, but I've always had a really strong creative urge. And when the Internet was brand new, I mean, I think in 1997, I did a folklore webpage. And, you know, people would submit their stories and I'd post them online and. And, you know, that. That was kind of like. Like a creative expression for me. I went through a phase where I wrote screenplays and even tried to shop one of them quite seriously. Talked with a producer once and came, came. I got offered a job to ghost write a screenplay, and they were going to pay me $2,000 to do it, and I had to turn it down because I was in the middle of writing my master's thesis.

Glenn [00:27:36] And so I wasn't allowed to accept that job. So that was something. I've written music and play the guitar and sing, and I've probably written over, I don't know, 30, 40 songs. I haven't done it a lot lately. And so my, like, all those creative urges and talents or whatever have been channeled into Infants on Thrones and then Mormon expression before that, and it's been really fulfilling. So it's something I'm. I'm very proud of and enjoy

Bob [00:28:12] just.

Glenn [00:28:12] Just that creating process. It's a lot of fun.

Matt [00:28:15] At the fear of sounding like I'm washing Glenn's balls, I actually think. I actually think you're pretty good at some of that stuff, Glenn.

Glenn [00:28:24] Oh, you like my music? Because it's so much like.

Randy [00:28:26] No, no, no, no. That's not what he said.

Matt [00:28:34] All right, Bob, Fan of your screenplays.

Bob [00:28:38] Oh, what am I proud of? Before I sold out and started working for the man and got an MBA and did the, like, white male thing to make money, I had a couple of my own businesses. And I'm proud of the fact that every business I've started, I've exited successfully making more money than I entered. Like, not millions, but successfully making money. And I've really enjoyed that. I love entrepreneurship, and I'll probably do it again someday. Right now I'm just a little chicken shit. And like the constant salary I get from a corporate gig. But yeah, started a couple websites, had my own computer house call business back in the day. So that's kind of my little thing. I like starting businesses and selling them, I guess, but I'm not proud enough of it to not work because I still need money.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] Sure, I have a lot of respect for people who can successfully start a business. That's good stuff, Scott.

Scott [00:29:45] Sure, this one might be a little bit more humble, but it's something that I'm proud of personally. So I do a lot of home improvement, working with my hands kinds of things. I'm a big DIY kind of guy. Do, you know, work on my own cars, work on my own motor kind of stuff, anything around the house, renovated bathrooms and things like that. Reroofed and done some pretty heavy duty construction type work for somebody who, you know, sits in an office all day.

John Dehlin [00:30:19] So I totally respect that stuff. That's good stuff, Randy.

Randy [00:30:27] Mine's gonna sound totally cheesy, but it's gonna be, you know, honest. The thing I'm most proud of is my six. I have two biological kids, six and eight year old, and they tell me pretty much every day that I'm the best dad in the world. A couple of times I've tried to show them that's objectively false,

Bob [00:30:56] like the true best dad would.

Randy [00:31:01] But the love and respect of my little ones is the thing I'm most proud of. It's the best thing I've ever done.

John Dehlin [00:31:15] That's awesome.

Randy [00:31:18] Told you it was gonna be cheesy.

John Dehlin [00:31:20] No, it's good, Jake.

Jake [00:31:24] Well, this, yeah, I guess this is something I don't really get to say, but I'm very, very proud of Brother Jake. And this is because I started doing Brother Jake with basically coming from no writing experience whatsoever, no filmmaking experience whatsoever, you know, just basically starting from nothing to some. Some idea that I had one day. And I've never advertised it anywhere. I've never paid for ads, I've never done. I've never other than just upload the videos to YouTube and post them on a couple places. I'll throw them up on Reddit or something like that. And then maybe occasionally I'll post them on Facebook in some of the Mormon places.

Jake [00:32:06] But all of the following that it's gotten so far has been completely organic. I haven't really been pushed or done anything like that with it at all. And it's become kind of a meme of the fringy kind of post Mormon community. I was actually very Flattered when Kate Kelly referred to it. She said super VIP Heaven in her Mormon Stories interview. I don't know if you remember that, John, but I do. I was like, yeah, that was a big. That was very satisfying for me. Even though she probably hates infants on Thrones now. Oh, well, I still got it.

Matt [00:32:50] We still got Brother Jake, right?

Jake [00:32:52] Anyway, I am proud of that. That's something that really came to fruition in a way that I didn't anticipate at all.

Matt [00:33:00] So you should be proud of it, Jake, because I like bragging on you and telling you how. Hey, one of my buddies, Brother Jake, and in fact, we do a podcast together. I love it, dude.

Jake [00:33:09] I'm sorry I'm not producing more on Infants on Thrones, Matt. I didn't realize I was letting you down. I gotta get.

Matt [00:33:15] Shit, dude. What have I done lately? Come on.

Randy [00:33:20] Yeah, I'm actually in total awe of how Jake is so young, but so talented. And, like, I'm just so, so happy that he's part of the podcast.

Matt [00:33:33] Agreed.

John Dehlin [00:33:34] Agreed. That's awesome. All right, Tom.

Matt [00:33:39] I think I mentioned it before. I'm actually very proud. And I've hardly told anybody this. Getting involved with the suicide crisis center for almost two years or whatever, that was a tough deal. It was. When I lost my friend, I kind of felt like maybe it's part of going through my crisis of faith where I felt like I was going through this. I was relying on guys like you via your podcast, John, and getting involved with Mormon expression and talking to Bob McHugh, I. I felt like I needed to pay that forward. And when it came to suicide, it just hit me so hard. I just felt like I needed to pay that forward.

Matt [00:34:20] And so, you know, there was. It was a huge sacrifice for me and my family because I was taking overnight shifts and hours after work, and I wouldn't get home till pretty late, but it was. It was just something that I felt so called to do.

Matt [00:34:38] And at the. You know, there were some phone calls that we would get in and I would hang up, and I. It was so touching to me because I felt like I was making a difference, even if it was just a handful of people here and there. But, you know, if somehow I could reach through the ether and touch someone, then I felt like that was giving meaning to my life.

Matt [00:35:06] And I don't know if that was that for me personally. That was just a big thing for me. You know, I talked to my wife about really being called to do it, and she was 100% supportive. And my dad actually told me at lunch, you know, a couple months ago that he was incredibly touched and proud of me for doing that, because he's like, I could never do that. I mean, taking phone calls from someone who's, you know, up to their eyeballs and depression and whatnot, and they want to take their life, and, you know, I'm fortunate enough to take that phone call.

Matt [00:35:42] It's. I don't know, talking to people at that very, very, very vulnerable place is. It's something that. It's tough. It's really, really tough. And I had to go through training and all that.

John Dehlin [00:35:55] But that's awesome. That's awesome.

Jake [00:35:59] That's incredible, Tom. Seriously, the mental fortitude of talking to somebody at that moment in their life, I can't even imagine that that's serious stuff.

Matt [00:36:09] Well, you know, and I think. I don't know, part of it is because there is a handful of us, and it seems like suicide is just becoming more and more common, unfortunately. But it's one of those preventable things. It really, really is. And when. When my friend killed himself, it took me so long to go through the stages of anger and regret, and, I mean, I was so angry because it's such. It feels like such a selfish thing when it hits you, so personal, because you think, why didn't he just reach out to me? Why didn't I just make that one phone call? Why did I feel like I could have been a better friend to him in those moments? And

John Dehlin [00:36:54] it just.

Matt [00:36:55] It leaves such a wake of destruction behind for everyone. It's so horrible.

Matt [00:37:00] But do you think it's happening more? That we're finally willing to talk about and explore it? And so it seems like it's at the forefront, too, so often now.

Matt [00:37:12] Yeah, but I also think that. I don't know, life is hard, and it's. I don't know the statistics, but it seems like it goes in waves, you know, with. With the economy crashing. I remember it being very, very high right around then, and. And luckily, you know, gay awareness is becoming more and more accepted, and so that's a good thing. But, you know, there's just. There's just times I do know for a fact that Utah county is a hotbed for suicide. And it's just a combination of factors. You know, it could be anywhere from religious pressures to. To gay. You know, being in the closet, not being able to be accepted, and, you know, prescription overdoses and just societal pressures and financial pressures and all that stuff. And most of the time, the stuff that. That I would Encounter. It was mostly, you know, just hardcore depression and family pressures. Really?

Tom [00:38:11] Yeah.

Randy [00:38:12] I mean, John, you can speak to this since you're a professional, but people don't kill themselves in a selfish state of mind.

Tom [00:38:19] Usually

Randy [00:38:22] most of the time, they're suffering from severe depression. And it's not that they want to kill themselves. It's not that they want to stop living. It's that they want the pain to stop. And so I'm very reticent to ever. And I know you didn't mean it in this way, Tom, but to pass judgment on people being selfish and killing themselves. Some people are, because, you know, they got caught in something, they don't want to deal with the consequences of it, so they kill themselves. But most of the time, people are just suffering from severe depression and they just want to stop suffering.

Matt [00:39:00] No, absolutely. And I didn't mean to make it sound like that is reality. It just feels that way. Right?

Randy [00:39:09] It felt that way for you as a friend.

Matt [00:39:10] Yeah, it did. Because when it happened, you know, you're dealing with the loss of someone who's close to you, but then you're also dealing with this bitterness and anger. And, like, why does this have to be. Because it's so senseless. It didn't have to be this way. I mean, it is preventable.

Randy [00:39:30] You're dealing with the guilt of, what else could I have done?

Bob [00:39:32] Right.

Matt [00:39:33] Yeah, because you're taking a lot of the burden on yourself unnecessarily, of course. Because like you said, it's taken me a long time to really accept the fact that, you know, my friend and myself are probably have a lot more in common than I like to admit. Because if I was dealing with something where I was planning to kill myself, I don't think I'd go to my closest friend and say, hey, I'm thinking about killing myself. You want to talk me out of it? That usually doesn't happen.

Matt [00:40:06] It's usually someone that you just kind of have to watch for signals. You know, like, they become more introverted and they. They kind of become more isolated. You have to watch for those signals, and then you have to take a proactive approach and say, hey, you want to go hang out and just talk and just let them kind of bring it up on their own? And hopefully they. They will. Sometimes they won't, but, yeah, brilliant.

Would You Rather Reform or Dissolve the Church

John Dehlin [00:40:34] That was really cool. Thanks for entertaining those two questions. All right, let's shift gears, and we're going to end by talking about our favorite topic, which is Mormonism. We'll have a bit of a free for all. As we close, I'm going to start with the question that one of the listeners asked. If you guys had to choose between helping the church improve or seeing it go up in flames, which would you pick? And I'm going to just open it up to the quorum to discuss.

Bob [00:41:05] Well, it's easy to assume that you can hold things constant and not think of your family and the cost, the situation that they would be in. If you can think of the church as that other, then sure, go up in flames. But there's still too many people who are close to me for me not to wrestle with what I would really want. I would. So in a perfect world, I would love it if I could get my family out to watch the burning building with me. But that's an easy answer, of course.

John Dehlin [00:41:33] Is this Scott or Bob? Was that Scott or Bob?

Scott [00:41:35] That was Bob.

John Dehlin [00:41:35] Okay, that's Bob. All right.

Glenn [00:41:37] So what does it mean for it to improve though? Like what? Because for me, in order for the church to be a healthy information it would have or a healthy place for people to be, parts of it would definitely have to burn. You know, they're. You would have to burn out all of that literal believing, self congratulatory, aren't we awesome? You know, and then what would you have, what would the sacrament talks be if it wasn't self validation? Every single topic, just a different flavor of it.

Matt [00:42:10] Right.

Glenn [00:42:10] You know, and there's so much of that self congratulatory validate Going back to Jake's question and the last five minutes of elders quorum. Why do we have to have the priesthood that every single person in the world needs in order to get into heaven? How are you going to get past that where all you are is a charitable group of people that are doing good in your community and you have this common heritage of Mormonism that's your DNA and shared. I mean, what would that be? You'd have to burn out so much of it to get to that healthy place. So I don't know.

Guest [00:42:49] Right.

Jake [00:42:50] And having it change, having it improve, I mean, it's an improvement from my perspective. But a lot of the things that I would have it improve would be the things that the people that I love. Like Bob was talking about, the people that I love that are in the church that they take very seriously and that things that they get utility from in the church, like a literal belief in the Book of Mormon, I personally would want that to change, but that's just so that I would feel more comfortable at Church. But, you know, I have people in my family that are very tight that get a lot of utility out of that particular idea. So it's hard to say if we're really going for one or the other. I don't know, it just seems so relative.

Glenn [00:43:36] And like, if you think about ordained women, you know, like, the measure of improvement there is that gender equality is balanced out in the church, so that women have the priesthood too. Is that an improvement? Yeah, it's an improvement where you've got equality. But to me, the whole priesthood, like, what is priesthood then? Is it still the hierarchy? Yeah, well, not just the hierarchy, but, you know, like, one of the things in my slow burn out was a realization that Jesus atonement was really, really powerful to forgive anybody of any sins. But it's dormant. It's dormant in the world until the Mormon priesthood activates it.

Glenn [00:44:18] And that really, really bothered me. It just seemed so egocentric, ethnocentric, that we're putting ourselves above Jesus as, yeah, he's pretty powerful, but it doesn't have any effect until we say so, you know. And so is that still the priesthood, what the priesthood is, even though women have it? And is that an improvement in the church as far as the one true elitist claim? So, yeah, it's a tricky question for me.

John Dehlin [00:44:50] John, what do you think? Matt?

Matt [00:44:53] Yeah, I don't buy either of those things. I want Mormonism to be irrelevant and have as little effect and impact on the world. So I guess to the extent that that means burn it down, maybe. Maybe that's my answer. But I want it, along with other religions, to have less impact because I think there will be less damage, less pain to people. So I want it to be irrelevant. Yet here I am talking about it a couple times a week.

Jake [00:45:18] So rather than burning it down, you'd want it to wither?

Matt [00:45:22] Yeah. Yeah, that's fair.

John Dehlin [00:45:24] All right, Scott.

Scott [00:45:29] You know, I want people to make their own, their own choice. I want people to have options. I want people to know that, you know, the Book of Abraham papyri is out there. And if people choose to stay in the church, then that's fine, but I think it's inevitable that it's going to go up in flames and I'd rather see it happen before too many generations go by with this kind of painful degradation. So, yeah, if there were some kind of, like, event that just made it so that everybody could move on, that'd be great.

Randy [00:46:13] Randy, this is a hard question for me because your dad is so awesome. Yeah, he is. You met him. You also met his wife who thought that the only reason men turned gay is because they didn't have any luck with the ladies.

Matt [00:46:31] Well, isn't there some truth to that?

Randy [00:46:33] Randy and John and I looked at each other and it was this weird moment, like, are you going to do it? Am I going to do it? Are we going to take on this Fox News conservative? But to me, it's like, it's so hard because it's. You're weighing the suffering of the minority versus the joy of the majority.

Randy [00:46:59] And, You know, because I'm such a champion of. And I always have been since I was a kid, I was always the kid that took pride in, you know, defending kids from bullies. That's just part of my DNA.

Randy [00:47:21] And because of how acute the pain is for the minority and the fact that the majority could probably find joy in other places, I probably would like to see the church burned down. But if it happened too quickly, if it was like a total apocalyptic, apocalyptic burn down, I think that'd be too painful for too many people.

Randy [00:47:49] So I guess what I'm rooting for is a gradual withering of the church and its significance and its messages that are so misogynistic and homophobic and so fearful of the outside world that is apostates. So I don't know. Is that even an answer?

John Dehlin [00:48:14] That's awesome. Tom, do you have anything to add? Jake, you already spoke, right?

Matt [00:48:20] Yeah, yeah. I would just pretty much echo what Matt and Randy said. I'd like to see the people, the members, reduce the power and influence that the church has over them. And obviously the indirect consequence, the church kind of wither a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:48:39] Something that I heard, I think it was Sam Harris, but I'm sure it's any of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, say, is that they kind of viewed liberals or progressives within a religious tradition as being like the worst of all possible positions. And I think I heard John Larsen say this recently as well. Do you guys feel that way, that, like, noms, New Order Mormons or liberals or progressives are, like, actually damaging?

Scott [00:49:07] Yeah. We did a whole episode on

Guest [00:49:11] what

Scott [00:49:11] we call damn liberals, where we went round and round on this. So I think we're kind of all over the map.

Glenn [00:49:18] That was about a year ago, though. So are we still in the same place as we were then?

Bob [00:49:22] I don't know.

Randy [00:49:23] Sam Harris argument is that sensible liberal believers give cover to the extremists because they make looking. They make it look like believing is something that's reasonable, which gives Cover to the believers that are extremists. And I don't buy that argument at all. Everyone's personal experience is their personal experience. Can I look at someone like John Hamer and say he's giving coverage to someone like one of the Lafferty brothers? That makes no sense to me. So, no, I don't.

Glenn [00:50:04] Because he believes in a God.

Matt [00:50:07] Yeah.

Randy [00:50:08] John Hamer is a liberal believer.

Guest [00:50:09] Okay.

Randy [00:50:10] Do you think he's giving cover to the Lafferty brothers?

Glenn [00:50:14] No, I don't.

Randy [00:50:15] There you go. It's ridiculous to me that it is. It's a ridiculous hypothesis.

Tom [00:50:21] Yeah.

Glenn [00:50:22] We were able to knock that straw man down, like, easy.

Randy [00:50:26] I know it was a straw man, but I mean, do the rest of you believe that people that are liberal and sensible, they believe in evolution, but they still believe in Jesus? Guys like Mike Bond, do you believe that they give cover to extremists?

Scott [00:50:46] Well, I don't think so.

Bob [00:50:47] Yeah. But I think there's some more nuanced discussion there. Like, I mean, the infamous Bill Maher episode with Sam Harris and Ben Affleck getting his panties in a bunch. That's a little more nuanced than.

Randy [00:50:58] That's a pretty sex thing to say. Panties in a bunch.

Bob [00:51:01] Edit that out.

Randy [00:51:02] Get rid of that baggage, man.

Glenn [00:51:05] Bob is the one feminist on the panel.

Bob [00:51:08] I can't even make my point anymore.

John Dehlin [00:51:09] No, it's all right. Sorry. All right, so I think. So we'll refer our listeners to that episode. Damn. Damn liberals. Is that what it is?

Scott [00:51:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] Okay.

Bob [00:51:21] All right.

Matt [00:51:21] But you know, I'll say I really have a tough time finding much empathy for the ordained women crowd, for example, because as I keep saying all the time, if you want the preacher, take mine. I mean, here you can have this thing that has no effect, no impact, no real tangible thing. And I understand the argument, but it is real and tangible because you give it power. And that's the point. You give it power, but it's the voice.

Glenn [00:51:46] It's like the being looked at as a leader and that kind of peer being able to attain to that more than any power, I think with them.

Matt [00:51:56] No, absolutely. But it's why, if you are in a church, you are in an organization that devalues you so much. Why are you asking for scraps? So I do have a difficult time with that piece of it. But that's a little different question. People who are looking to change what isn't what I think is just a fundamentally flawed organization, and this is kind

Glenn [00:52:20] of a running discussion that we've never. I Don't think we've ever completely taken head on, but it pops up from time to time. And whether religion is a net negative or a net positive, you know, we've talked about it a couple times. I think, I think your position on that issue is really going to color your answer to that question, John. You know, like if you think the noms are giving coverage, then you're kind of assuming that it's a net negative, I think. And, you know, I think going back to Randy's original comment with it, everybody has their own experience in the religion, and I don't know that people are looking to others to really validate them as much, especially when you grow up in it and it becomes your world and this little bubble that you just live in and you're happy with. So why, why change it?

Guest [00:53:08] I don't know.

Scott [00:53:08] So.

John Dehlin [00:53:09] Right, right. Okay, okay. So this is a question that's purely indulgent for me. I'm curious to hear what you guys think. But I think about, you know, just the past 10 years that, that I've been trying to be involved in kind of Mormonism publicly. Mormon culture. You know, it felt like early on, like, you know, Bob, with the blogger nackle, we were all thinking about the promise of what the Internet could do. And then blogs started really proliferating and there was competition and there was a time where blogs were the thing, you know what I mean? And there were these blog aggregators and people would get excluded from them or

The Future of Mormonism and Internet Influence

Bob [00:53:52] included or an archipelago.

John Dehlin [00:53:54] Yeah, people really paid attention to those things. And then at some point, podcasts started to emerge and started to really get some traction. And it felt like the podcast started to really suck the life out of blogging to some extent.

Glenn [00:54:12] I thought you were just going to leave it at suck.

John Dehlin [00:54:16] Well, no. And the blogs are still going, but they seem to have a lot less gravitas than they used to. Then Facebook came and kind of blew everything up. I'm not even mentioning the forums, the Internet forums that existed before the blogs and the podcasts, and these are all still going. But then sometimes I feel like, wow, look how far we've come. In 10 years. There's like dozens of Mormon themed podcasts and the blogs are kind of petering out now. The church has finally come clean with its essays. I do think that all of us played a role in that.

John Dehlin [00:54:54] You know, that's just my opinion. You know, John Larsen said recently that he felt that that was hubris, but I do think that we all kind of played a role. But then I have a hard time thinking about, you know, now the church has come clean on the essays. They've kind of drawn some lines in the sand. They're not going to budge on homosexuality. They're not going to budge on women's ordination.

John Dehlin [00:55:16] I kind of wonder where are we and where are we going? Is, is everything going to keep really accelerating and things are going to kind of explode, or are we all just going to kind of get tired and peter out?

John Dehlin [00:55:32] Where are we and where do you guys think we're going in terms of kind of social media and Mormonism? Anyone want to take that on?

Glenn [00:55:44] I'll start. I Disagree that the lds.org essays are progress. I mean, I haven't thought about it that much, but is there anything new that they're providing that hasn't been out there in some form, even if it's an apologetic forum? I don't know. It just, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like they're really owning anything. They're just saying, yeah, there's people out there that are saying negative stuff. Here's kind of what it is. But here's your answer to it. So we can ignore it and move on. Nothing to see here.

John Dehlin [00:56:16] Well, I'll just tell you my. Let me jump in, because I. So I read Fawn Brody, I read Michael Quinn, I read Graham Palmer. All back in like 2000, 2001. Right. But for some reason, the thing that was most, that I remember as being most devastating to me was reading Richard Bushman's Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Early Mormonism. Because when you read all that difficult history, but you're reading it through someone that isn't sort of church sanctioned, there's always in the back of your mind like, well, maybe it's not true and maybe it's being spun and maybe there's a way to get out of this.

John Dehlin [00:56:58] But for me, when a patriarch and the church's foremost authority on Joseph Smith is acknowledging all the hard stuff, for me that's when the cards really started falling. And so I would just say, I mean, I don't mean to disagree on Infants on Thrones, but I guess that's my job on Infants on Thrones is to disagree. So, Glenn, I'm going to say you're full of shit and I'm just joking.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] But the reason why is because I think that now we can point to lds.org and say polyandry and we can point to lds.org and SAY the word Abraham doesn't appear anywhere in the papyra.

Glenn [00:57:38] I guess Then we're asking, what are you defining as progress? You know, I mean, because if progress is just that, the church is starting to own up to some of the difficult things from official anonymous sources on LDS.org, we still don't know exactly who it is. They're not saying it over the pulpit in General conference.

Glenn [00:58:00] It's like Fair or Farms 3.0 that now it's on lds.org hidden where people can't really see it. And it doesn't really, you know, it's an inoculation attempt. So, you know, if they come out in General conference and you know, ask Colin next time you have lunch with them to talk about the essays in General Conference, and then I'll say, yeah, I'm full of shit, but, you know, maybe it's a little bit of progress. I see your point. I just don't see that it's that monumental.

Glenn [00:58:32] But I do agree that the, the ease of access to information and people being able to get on and do podcasts like we have and other people have, have created such a noise and clamor that the church has had to respond to it somehow. And this is how they've respond to it. But I don't, I don't know. I don't get the progress. I just don't see.

Matt [00:58:52] I'm going to agree with John because I still go to church and the essays have been mentioned in sacrament talks.

Randy [00:59:00] Well, that's the question I had is John, what percentage of bishops, let's call them Mordor, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and California. What percentage of the bishops even know they exist?

John Dehlin [00:59:16] Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I want to say over half, but what do you think?

Randy [00:59:20] Really? That's generous.

Scott [00:59:23] I emailed my old bishop when the polyandry one came out because he straight up told me that that was false when I, when I was going through my faith crisis. And so I emailed it to him and was really polite and asked him if he, if he had, if he knew anything about it. And he didn't. He didn't have a clue.

Glenn [00:59:42] And I know for a fact that our bishop in Bloomington right now has never even read the Book of Mormon, so I doubt he knows what's on lds.org he's my former father in law, so I kind of know a little

Bob [00:59:54] bit about him, but way to out him that way. Nice.

Glenn [00:59:59] But that's not his reason for being in the church. It's not typical. It's not typical.

Jake [01:00:03] Well, I think this kind of goes back to the question that John asked earlier about whether we'd like to see the church change or improve or burn down or whatever, or wither and, you know, in terms of progress toward the church burning down or withering, I agree. It's not really. I mean, I can see Glenn's point. It's not like it's causing this mass exodus because it's not something that's well known. But in terms of alleviating, vindicating the concerns that many who've had faith crisis such as ourselves have had, and alleviating some of that cognitive dissonance that some people feel, I think that it is progress. So I guess that's me being diplomatic.

Randy [01:00:48] But it's progress in the sense that they had to put something out to say, look, we weren't hiding anything. Look, you know, it's only for people that are, like, struggling and have come across information and they can just say, look, it's been here all along, you

Glenn [01:01:05] know, and here are some more support beams for your shelf.

Randy [01:01:08] Right, Exactly. But it's not something that is announced over the pulpit. And I would submit that way less than 50% of the bishops in just the United States alone, way less than 50% of the bishops have any clue that they exist. Because you can't just go to lds.org and find them. You have to get a link to find them. Somebody has to send you a link, right? I mean, carrying this shit as much as they can as per their MO for the last 50 years.

Bob [01:01:44] But we're getting stuck on, like, the particulars of the here and now of a very specific moment in time. And I think John's original question is really interesting. Like, where are we? What's happening? What's happened in the last 10 years? Where are the next 10 years? Where are we going to go?

Bob [01:01:59] What's the trajectory for Mormonism? And, you know, I'm maybe the analogy guy. I like making analogies. I think of Mormonism as Fox News. Like, it's never going to go away, or it'll take a long time for it to go away. And there's, there's, it's an older demographic that's participating the most.

Bob [01:02:18] But as people die off and younger people leave and find better sources, there's just going to be less relevance. So I think that we're seeing the hints of that. It's just going to take a while. And in the meantime, we've got, just because I like the analogy, we have John Larsen playing the character of Bill Maher. We've got Brother Jake as Colbert. We've got infants on Thrones as Jon Stewart. We've got John de Lynn. If I want to be. If I want to be nice, I'll give you Anderson Cooper. If I want to be mean, I'd give you Wolf Blitzer

Jake [01:02:49] Cooper on handsomeness,

Randy [01:02:51] I'd say Anderson's quite the catch.

Bob [01:02:55] No, we're all doing our own little thing, and it could be like, just thoughts from the peanut gallery, and nothing's changing. And I don't. You know, and I. And I. And I've seen. Extending the analogy. I've seen Jon Stewart, you know, people call him out and be like, hey, are you. What are you doing? Are you just having a good time? Are you impacting change? Do you think? You know, people are listening. The government's gonna change the situation.

Glenn [01:03:17] Analogies. But it's on a. On a much smaller scale.

Bob [01:03:21] Of course. Of course. I'm just doing it for fun. It's not like we're really nearly as impactful, because Cob.

Glenn [01:03:26] I know. I'm just trying to get to a point where we can ask John about his numbers.

Bob [01:03:31] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:03:33] Yeah. I mean, you want to know my numbers?

Bob [01:03:36] Yeah.

Glenn [01:03:37] Whip it out.

John Dehlin [01:03:40] I think any given episode that we release within, let's just say a month of it being out probably is at about 40,000, 50,000 downloads.

Glenn [01:03:50] Wow.

Scott [01:03:51] For the single episode.

Guest [01:03:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:53] Yeah.

Bob [01:03:53] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:03:55] But some go higher. Some can go as high as 80, 90, or 100,000. It just depends on whether it's, like a really blockbuster episode or just kind of one of the run of the mills. But for some reason, the number 40, 50,000 on average, after a month or two of the episode being downloaded is where I am. And of course, I don't know how many people, how many actual listeners that represents, but I do feel like. I do feel like Mormon stories has penetrated within. Like, in the U.S. let's just say three to five people in every wardrobe have heard of Mormon stories.

Scott [01:04:31] Oh, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:04:32] Yeah. And so if you extrapolate that for how many awards there are in the U.S. i want to say 25,000, you know, I think. And that's just Mormon stories. There's Kate Kelly. I think she's reached even more people than I have in terms of just name awareness, you know, and, yeah, so I have a hard time sometimes. I want to feel like all of us together, and I'm talking Sunstone Dialogue, Mormon History association, the blogger nacl, all the forums, all the podcasts. Sometimes I want to feel like we've really made a dent. And then sometimes I Actually feel like we should just give up. We haven't even made a dent. And I honestly.

Glenn [01:05:11] But why? But, John, I mean, because I think this is where our motivations are a little bit different. Like, what do you want to make a dent in? And why aren't you just doing it? Because you love talking with these people and you're getting really good stuff.

John Dehlin [01:05:24] No, I am not. I'm not doing this for the money. I'm not doing this for the press. I'm not doing it for the media. I'm not doing it for the attention. I'm doing this for kind of what Scott said. I think every single Mormon on this planet has the right to know the factual record as it relates to the church's origins.

John Dehlin [01:05:47] And everyone should be able to make a conscious decision as to. With all the information on the table as to whether or not they want to engage. And if they have all the information in the context that allows them to see the information for what it is, and then they decide to stay a member, then I'm like, hooray, Love your Mormonism. But if people are being held to Mormonism because of coercion or deception or because of pressure, then I think that's abusive. And I want people liberated. And that is why I'm. That's why I've been doing it from the very first day, and that's why I'm still clinging to the podcast with my clenched fist.

Glenn [01:06:28] Well, and I think. I think that's also. You know, you've been called the safe Podcast, right? You make. You use this really cheesy intro music that drives me nuts every time I try and listen to it. It's to create that safe space where a Mormon who's never had to struggle with hard questions could come on and go, all right, I'm feeling a little awkward, but I'm gonna push through. Whereas, like, coming onto Infants on Thrones, it'd be like, nah, no, that's too much. Too much, absolutely. Yeah.

Randy [01:07:04] But sorry, John, to me, it sounds like a little bit of a naive position. You cited Michael Shermer earlier,

Matt [01:07:14] why people

Randy [01:07:15] believe weird things, or, you know, he has a couple of books like that. And one of his points is that you can't reason people out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

Glenn [01:07:28] No, but he's just making information available.

John Dehlin [01:07:30] No, but, Randy, I wasn't speaking comprehensively because that has been one of the. I don't want to say genius, but that is one of. Been the strategic objectives of Mormon stories. A story isn't just information. A story is this narrative that people take you on, where as they take you on it, you not only gain information, but the story hooks you and you start to feel emotion. And so that's why I've stuck so much to stories. That's why I started with stories, because I felt like stories would penetrate deeper than factual information ever would.

Randy [01:08:08] That's a really good answer.

Matt [01:08:10] Yeah. I don't know that I've ever put

Randy [01:08:12] me in my place that way. John, you put me in your place.

John Dehlin [01:08:15] No, no, no. I'm not trying to put anyone in your place.

Randy [01:08:17] But you did, in a sense.

Matt [01:08:19] Easy.

John Dehlin [01:08:22] Maybe I've been holding my cards a little bit close to my vest, honestly. Sometimes I feel like I'm the most authentic guy in the world. And sometimes I feel like I'm super dishonest and deceptive because I have been trying to think from the very start, and I've been trying to, like, be objective, but I know that I'm not objective. But I've tried to play both sides, but I know that I'm not on one side. But then I've genuinely had changes in my position over time, and I've had to try and mask that or think of the greater good.

John Dehlin [01:08:55] And sometimes I've been convinced one way or the other. So it's just been a huge mess for me. But through it all, I've wanted stories to penetrate with both information and emotion, to then allow people to free them. I mean, the analogy I've always thought about is Harriet Tubman freeing people from slavery. And I'm not saying Mormonism is slavery, but I want to free them from the bondage of sort of unenlightened, unaware subjugation.

Glenn [01:09:23] You want to provide the information so if people stumble across it, they can have access and then they can make a choice.

John Dehlin [01:09:28] And the emotional experience that disentangles them to the point where they might feel like they are awake enough and enlightened enough to then be able to make that conscious decision.

Glenn [01:09:40] Yeah, yeah.

Randy [01:09:41] You know, and I even said this, Glenn, you said, I'm very easy to put my place just because I like teasing you.

Glenn [01:09:47] And that was one of the questions that people got. Why do we tease Randy? So it's because we love you.

Matt [01:09:51] It is because we love you.

Randy [01:09:53] But one of the things that I brought up in that podcast, the Truth Seeking Brain, was you have to have an emotional break from the church at some level before you even entertain the information. And that's brilliant, John. You totally enlightened me on your approach.

Matt [01:10:17] And you've been listening for seven years.

John Dehlin's Standing with the Church

Glenn [01:10:21] So I want to ask you, John, are you kind of resigned to your fate at this point where you see the writing on the wall? You think excommunication, it's gonna happen? I'm not gonna try and talk my way around it this time. If they're gonna bring it, then bring it.

John Dehlin [01:10:39] Oh, I'm already there. I mean, I was 100% candid with my former stake president. But with this one, I've been really, obviously, kind of. Kind of bold and strident with him, both privately and publicly. But it's funny. Cause you guys mentioned the Breyer patch in your interview. And it is one thing that's true, and that's that back when Oakes gave his talk last October, that's two Octobers ago now, that kind of sent me over the edge. There was this moment where I was, like, sitting in a restaurant, and I said, I have to get comfortable with the fact that they might excommunicate me. Okay, that's it. I'm comfortable.

Glenn [01:11:23] Just two years ago.

John Dehlin [01:11:25] Well, it would have been about a year and a half ago or I don't know. But, yeah, I had to get to the point. And it did take me that long to get to the point where I said, you know what? If they excommunicate me, I'm okay with it. Because what happened was I was living under this illusion for many years. I was trying to free the members was always my first goal. But help the church. If the church could change as a byproduct, that would make me happy. You know what I mean? And so I always had this illusion that, oh, they're getting more progressive on the gay issue.

John Dehlin [01:11:58] They're starting to be more open about their history. But when Oaks gave that talk, that made it really clear that they were going to be doubling down on LGBT issues and doubling down on other types of issues. And they were actually regressing and retrenching. That's when something snapped in me. And I said, as long as I felt like they're moving in the right direction to a significant degree, I'm going to be willing to work with them and try and help reform. But if they're going to double down, I'm done. And that's when it snapped for me. And I said, at this point, if they excommunicate me, I'll be okay with that.

John Dehlin [01:12:30] Because if they're going to double down, they're going to hurt too many people, and I'm not going to stand for that anymore. And that's when I started doing more of the strident things. It's when I wrote oaksvail on Facebook. It's when I started saying, I'm going to do the unthinkable. I'm going to publicly criticize the church leaders and reap the whirlwind of that. And.

John Dehlin [01:12:52] And I've been more and more open and public ever since. And so, yeah, I've been ready for about a year or more feeling like I'll be at peace if they excommunicate me. But that's not to say that it's something that I want and that I'm begging for them to do, because I think it's a brutal and inhumane process. There's still a huge chunk of me, psychologically, that's still feels emotionally tied to Mormonism. There's still a lot of people that I think would feel hurt. And so it's always something where there's mixed motivations for me. And so when I hear you guys say that I'm acting like the briar rabbit or whatever, it's true that there's a part of me that's like, bring it on.

John Dehlin [01:13:33] If you want to bring it on, bring it on. But there's another part of me that still feels like I'd be kind of sad. But overall, yeah, I made peace with that a little over a year ago.

Matt [01:13:43] But they've got a Marge. This is their own. Their last quiver. Right. Their last shot to marginalize you to people who you can have influence on, like they did with Kate Kelly. And you're kind of the last one there. John Larsen. He's done it to himself.

John Dehlin [01:14:02] He resigned. He resigned.

Matt [01:14:04] Right. He did it to himself. We've done it to ourselves, just by our tone, if nothing else.

Glenn [01:14:08] Well, and we're aiming for a. We've got very different objectives than what John just talked about.

Matt [01:14:14] Oh, absolutely.

Glenn [01:14:16] You know, John, I know you used to hesitate to talk about times where you had met with Holland, you know, in a public thing. Do you still have those kinds of interactions? Like, do you have, like. I made the joke earlier about having lunch with him, but do you still have those kinds of interactions? Is that part of your life?

John Dehlin [01:14:37] No, no. I've had two lunches with Elder Holland and no correspondence with them since. And I have emailed him on occasion. I definitely emailed Holland when I found out Daniel Peterson was writing the hit piece. And I got the impression that Holland was involved in that whole deal of ultimately Daniel Peterson being removed. I don't have hard evidence of that, but I got some indirect evidence from people who were involved. But then. And when I was then corresponding with my stake president, the last real direct conversation I got, the stake president told an area authority to tell my stake president to tell me that Holland said to never mention him again in public in any way in association with me.

Matt [01:15:31] What was the timing of those meetings and his Book of Mormon crawl over under around was.

Randy [01:15:37] That was a long time ago.

John Dehlin [01:15:38] Holland gave that talk between my first and my second lunch with him.

Matt [01:15:42] Oh, interesting.

John Dehlin [01:15:44] That's what was so disappointing, because when I had my first lunch with Holland, I was so hopeful. He said he wanted a big tent, he wanted everybody in it, because he doesn't know what that means.

Glenn [01:15:55] What do you mean he doesn't know what that means? He's just trying to placate you.

John Dehlin [01:15:59] He was, but I felt like he was sincere at the time. But then he gave that Book of Mormon talk, and I'm like, who is this guy? How in the world can he make me feel like he wants progressives in the church and then turn around and give that talk to the church? So my second meeting, I was a little bit more strong with him, but I ultimately just got the sense that he was a bit of a politician, frankly, that he was really good at making people feel good when he was with them one on one, but that you didn't get a real sense for the conviction of how he was going to act, because he was going to act in whatever way he felt like it was going to benefit the church.

Glenn [01:16:37] What did you think when. I mean, I'm assuming you saw that BBC piece with him where he's sitting across from the interviewer and he's not doing well.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:16:44] Apostles rarely speak to the media, but I get to meet one of the quorum of 12, Elder Holland, Joseph Smith got these papyri and he translated them and subsequently as the Egyptian. Egyptology crack the code. Something completely different.

Video Clip 2 [01:17:00] All I'm saying. All I'm. All I'm saying is that what got translated got translated into the word of God, the vehicle for that I do not understand and don't claim to know and know no Egyptian.

Video Clip 2 [01:17:13] As a matter of historical fact. Was Joseph Smith convicted of being a con man in 1826?

Video Clip 2 [01:17:18] I have no idea.

Video Clip 2 [01:17:20] There's a court record in New York there, and we've got an email of it.

Video Clip 2 [01:17:24] There's a good deal of difficulty in the early frontier life in America, but that's an incidental matter to the character and integrity of the man, let's talk

Video Clip 2 [01:17:35] about Mitt Romney, the man who may well become the most powerful man on earth. As a Mormon in the temple, I've been told he would have sworn an oath to say that he would not pass on what happens in the temple lest he slit his throat. Is that true?

Video Clip 2 [01:17:57] That's not true. That's not true. We do not have penalties in the temple.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:02] You used to.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:03] We used to.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:04] Therefore, he swore an oath saying, I will not tell anyone about the secrets here, lest I slip my throne.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:13] Well, the vow that was made was regarding the ordinance. The ordinance of the Temple.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:22] It sounds Masonic, sir. It sounds Masonic.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:25] Well, it's similar to a Masonic relationship.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:30] The most, potentially the most powerful man on the world has sworn an oath, which he meant at the time, whatever it is now, that he must know, not tell anyone about what he's seen, lest he slit his floor, that he

Video Clip 2 [01:18:43] would not tell anyone about his personal pledge to the Lord. I'm assuming that any religious candidate, an evangelical, a Roman Catholic, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Osama, I mean, President Obama. I'm assuming that anybody who has a relationship to God has made a pledge of some kind to God. There'd be some kind of loyalty to God or. What kind of a God is that?

Video Clip 2 [01:19:13] We did talk to a number of people who've left the church, more than 30. And there is a massive gap between what they've told me and what you're telling me.

Video Clip 2 [01:19:22] Well, when we all get together, that'd help. If you'll give me that list and if you want to sit with us, let's go get them together and let's talk.

Video Clip 2 [01:19:29] What they said to me that they believe the Mormon Church is a cult. They believe it's a cult, like the Church of Scientology, but actually it's smarter and more powerful.

Video Clip 2 [01:19:41] Well, I guess if that's what they believe, it's probably a good thing they chose to leave it because we're not a cult. I'm not an idiot, you know. I've read a couple of books and I've been to a pretty good school. And I have chosen to be in this church because of the faith that I feel and the inspiration that comes.

Video Clip 2 [01:20:01] No, I'm not calling you a cult. I'm just saying that I've met people

Video Clip 2 [01:20:04] who used to be in church. Well, I've met people, and if people want to call us a cult, they can call us a cult. And you can call us a cult, but we are 14 million and growing. And I'd like to think that your Respect for me would be enough to know that this man doesn't seem like a dodo.

John Dehlin [01:20:24] Yeah, that was a huge confirmation of my experience with him because, yeah, he was totally not credible and he embarrassed himself. And I can see why none of the apostles have given a substantive interview since.

Matt [01:20:37] Is that the dodo comment?

John Dehlin [01:20:41] I've read a few books and I think

Randy [01:20:45] I went to a pretty good school.

Glenn [01:20:47] But he also said something there about like, you know, with the ex Mormons who have criticisms, like, well, get them together. Let's, you know, we'll have a talk, you know, and it's like to me that when you said the big tent Mormonism thing, John, that was what popped into my mind when he said that, like, he doesn't really know what it means to get everybody together and have a talk and let's really validate everybody's concerns. He can't. He can't possibly do that. And so, like, I wonder how

Jake [01:21:17] devious

Glenn [01:21:18] any of these guys like Holland, the Apostles are or how just completely naive and faithful they really are to their callings and their sense of themselves, and they just really are out of touch with people who have genuine concerns with the church. Do you have any insight into that?

John Dehlin [01:21:39] I think it's mixed. I think more and more they have no. They have no cover. I mean, everything's out there so much. And now the church is publishing it. The apostles had to. As I understand it, they actually reviewed and approved these essays. So they've got smaller and smaller cover to kind of claim like they're hiding behind. But I do think. I think we're all speculating, but I think they just love the church and believe it's good and they'll do anything they can to protect it. And as Upton Sinclair said, it's hard to get a man to have a point of view and his livelihood depends on not having it. And there's just way too much at risk for them to ever to concede or backtrack. And so I think they'll fight it to the end, but I think in the backs of their minds, they know that there's some serious problems.

Glenn [01:22:27] So, like, an Elder Eyring would kind of chuckle under his breath when President Monson is sworn in. Brother Jack, we had talked about Brother Jack as a cultural meme, yet I

Jake [01:22:38] don't think that's penetrated quite got there yet.

Randy [01:22:42] Well, I just don't know why any of these grassroots movements are surprised like K. Kelly, by the reaction when you have an institution where the leaders are chosen by outliving Their peers. So the 15 most powerful, powerful people in the church, their morality and how they see the world is from the 50s and 60s. That's how old they are. And it's a patriarchal gerontocracy. And I just don't understand how anyone thinks that a grassroots movement are going to move these men when they're dealing with men that are old and entrenched. And the natural reaction of anyone, all of us, the natural reaction when your whole worldview is attacked is to retrench. So why is anyone surprised that they retrench? I just don't get that.

Glenn [01:23:45] I think it's because they're approaching it with their hope and with their faith and their love of the church. And that's what they want. They want to be able to keep the church.

Jake [01:23:54] And I bet a lot of them wouldn't describe their reaction as surprise, but as disappointment. I mean, you can still have that optimism and that disposition to act even if you're not surprised, if it doesn't necessarily work out for you.

Randy [01:24:09] Yeah, but disappointment comes with an actual hope that it would be otherwise.

Glenn [01:24:14] But they're not seeing the leaders the way that you're describing them, Randy. They don't, they don't see them that way as like a geritocracy, that they're, you know, jockeying.

Randy [01:24:23] I don't know why they don't.

Jake [01:24:26] Well, I mean it's ordained, like ordained women, they believe in the priesthood. Right. So they believe at some level these men are inspired, that there's some divinity in the structure.

Glenn [01:24:39] Why didn't you see it before you saw it?

Randy [01:24:43] Well, that's a good question, I guess, because, you know, it was something that was taught to me from, since I was a little kid.

Matt [01:24:57] And you left it. Right.

Randy [01:24:59] These are not people that are ignorant of the facts. Were you once? I was not ignorant of the facts. I left.

Glenn [01:25:06] Right, right.

Randy [01:25:08] So these are people that are not ignorant of the facts. They know how the system works, they're educated, they're intelligent people. And then they look at it and then they think they can exact change from a grassroots level and then they're surprised or hurt that it doesn't work out the way they want it to. So like, if you're comparing 19 year old Randy on his mission to Kate Kelly, that's not a fair comparison because you're a man. No, Kate Kelly was way more informed. Kate Kelly is way more informed and intelligent than I was at 19. So you're trying to say, well, why

Matt [01:25:45] didn't you see it when she's 19 making a joke.

Bob [01:25:48] Yeah, stop getting your boxers in a bunch.

Scott [01:25:52] Good job. Not all men wear boxers. Okay?

Randy [01:25:56] Yeah, I don't wear boxers.

Scott [01:25:58] Not all men.

Tom [01:25:59] Yeah,

Matt [01:26:02] that's progress.

John Dehlin [01:26:03] But if my. You know, I think if Michael Quinn can still believe, then Kate Kelly can still believe. You know what I mean? It's not always the information that knocks people out, you know, And John Hamer.

Guest [01:26:15] Good point.

Randy [01:26:16] Hamer doesn't believe. Like.

Glenn [01:26:18] Okay, okay, I should have just left it. I should have just left it there.

John Dehlin [01:26:24] All right, so I'm not trying to avoid questions, but I want to ask one kind of last big question before I have you guys bear your secular testimonies. Is something significant happening or not? Have we, over the past 10, 20, 30, 40 years, depending on whether you start with BH Roberts or not, have we sort of put a chink in the armor? Is that. Is there a crack. Is there a crack in the foundation of Mordor? Like, you know, are we onto something significant? Or really are we all just a drop in the bucket? And the church is gonna. And the church is gonna continue powering on.

Glenn [01:27:09] We do need to get Krista the psychic on to answer this question. She will tell us that we're of part.

Jake [01:27:15] I can tell you what she would say.

Matt [01:27:20] Well, it's statistically significant. Whether or not it's ultimately significant in the long run to have real global impact on the church. I don't know that that's the case, but it certainly is having impact on a scale that has never been seen before. And I think that will continue. So there will be a nice large or larger percentage leaving the church than ever did 20, 30 years ago, but ultimately that number is a drop in the bucket. So both things are true.

John Dehlin [01:27:53] It's statistically significant. But a small effect size is what you're saying.

Bob [01:27:57] Yeah, I co sign that because I think there's a parallel here to the Mormon narrative of where we are in eternity and how this moment of time is the most important ever. Don't screw up right now. Even though you exist forever, that's a coincidence. And I think humans tend to just do that by default is to be like, oh, the last 10 years of what I've done in the world, how big is it? And the truth is it's nothing. But relative to a tinier framework that you construct, sure, there's been a little bit of change, but it's really. Nobody cares. What are we, like 5 million active people? Nobody cares. Right. In the grand scheme of things.

Jake [01:28:37] Right. I mean, I do think that the things like the Book of Abraham essay, for example. I mean, sure, there's a lot of apologetic nonsense in there, but there's. But it is significant that they would acknowledge the existence of the papyri and the fact that they don't match the. You know, the scholarly understanding of the writings don't match what's in the Book of Abraham at all. I think that. I mean, these are significant details, but I think. I think it's kind of a correlation causation problem where we're all reacting to the same thing, and that thing is the Internet.

Jake [01:29:10] So the birth of the blogging and podcasting that was enabled by the Internet, as well as the threat that the stimulus that caused that eventually led to these essays, that's also the Internet. But that isn't to say that the podcasting or the blogging influence the essays directly. It's just they're all kind of happening together as part of a larger trend that's going on.

Glenn [01:29:38] Yeah, I'm expanding my view right now, and I'm thinking about the invention of the printing press and the effect that that ultimately had on the demise of Catholicism, you know, branch off of Protestantism, you know, so maybe the Internet as a mechanism in the big picture will have a significant impact, like the printing press did, and move people more towards secular humanism. That's possible. But I still think, you know, Bob's got a very valid point that we've got to be careful that we're not patting ourselves on the back too much for this moment in time. You know, we're taking advantage of a medium that is relatively new, and I think we'll probably see the ripple effect of that and the ramifications more in later years. But it could. It could have a bigger impact than maybe, at first glance, I thought it did.

Scott [01:30:32] Anecdotally, I would say things are different now, and they're becoming. It's becoming more and more so all the time. In terms of every Mormon circle that I'm in, meaning, you know, my wards, growing up. Excuse me, growing up, or people from my mission or people that I knew in college, there are people in those groups that I know that are leaving the church, every single one.

Scott [01:31:01] And those people all have resources on the Internet that they can go to. They all have books that they can order online and read, and they all have community outside of the church that are nearby them that they can reach out to. And 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that wasn't the case. Those books hadn't been written.

Scott [01:31:22] The communities didn't exist. There Wasn't any kind anything major going on online. And I think that is a game changer in terms of what's going to happen. I don't think it's exponential, but, but it's going to be on the increase.

Randy [01:31:40] And I think the end game for all this is going to be a more retrenched, more uber conservative LDS church going forward. I just think people that are more liberally disposed will find those things will leave, but that's just all that's going to do is leave the more strident right wing conservative people. I think the church is going to become more and more extremist.

Scott [01:32:07] But do you think they've become more extremist in the last year?

John Dehlin [01:32:10] You've got the Maxwell Institute kicking out Daniel Peterson and those guys. You've got Terrell Givens and Fiona Givens. His book being sold front and center at Deseret Book. You don't think that's going to have an impact

Randy [01:32:24] to the average member that I know? No.

Scott [01:32:29] See, I've heard just the opposite. I've heard, I've heard average members talking about how they don't like that the church is becoming more liberal, how they're toning things down on gays, how they're, you know, there was a friendly article in the, in the church news about Muslims and I heard people complaining about it, you know, like, well, why is the church promoting that kind of a thing? So I think the church right now is in just an incredibly awkward position where they've got this huge inertia of their membership of what they've all been raised on and then they've got their PR and their public side in terms of what they have to do and they're just getting spread apart.

John Dehlin [01:33:12] Interesting.

Randy [01:33:14] So John, you envision a church that becomes more like the community of Christ?

John Dehlin [01:33:20] No, I honestly have no idea. That's why I'm, I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes because sometimes I feel like the church is going to make progress and sometimes I feel like it's just going to get worse and sometimes I feel like it's just going to stay the same. And I honestly have no idea.

Matt [01:33:37] Right. Because it does things that make you indicate. If you try to read the tea leaves, it's oh, there's progress here and then there's, you said the Oaks talk and you say, okay, it's going to get worse and it's even going to become back to the 80s and the dark Ages and then there's progress again. And so that, I mean I have that schizophrenic reaction as well, because that's what they do.

Randy [01:33:59] Well, even when they give a talk that seems like liberal, Mormons get all excited over is Uchtdorf's talk, and in the end he says, doubt your doubts. You know, it's basically the same message. Just they're reacting to a lot of outside social pressures, like John Dehlin and, you know, they want to give lip service, but really they're just retrenching. I seriously think because of the structure of the institution, they are fundamentally unable to be progressive in any way. And they're just going to get smaller and more and more conservative because the other people will leave.

Matt [01:34:45] And I really believe they want us to. They don't want us back. They want. They're just as happy to have. They're thrilled I'm not teaching gospel doctrine anymore. They're thrilled that we're not there. I believe that.

Matt [01:35:02] When you say they. I don't even know what that means, because.

Matt [01:35:05] Fair enough. At least the 12 and the people who. How about this? Curtin McConkie's thrilled.

Randy [01:35:13] Can you tell me the last General Conference that was like, really progressive? General conference is really the thermometer or the barometer of where the church's direction is going. And we're always citing General Conference talks as the things that disappoint us.

Matt [01:35:31] You get a mixed bag every conference.

John Dehlin [01:35:33] Yeptorf Uchtdorf will say something good. Then Christopher Neil Anderson will give something

Matt [01:35:39] awful, you know, and my church leaders in my. In my ward and in my stake, they're still inviting me to take callings. And they know where I am, they know where I stand. So what does that tell you?

Randy [01:35:50] They don't have a lot of people.

Glenn [01:35:52] They don't respect you.

Matt [01:35:54] They don't respect me.

Bob [01:35:55] Thanks, Glenn.

Scott [01:35:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:58] So you guys are. You guys aren't bullish or bearish on the church. You're just kind of. You think it's going to sputter along. Is that right?

Scott [01:36:08] Yeah, pretty much.

Matt [01:36:09] Yeah.

Matt [01:36:09] It'll continue. The stone without hands will kind of move limp forward and not really be stopped, but not be anything of consequence to many people.

Randy [01:36:21] Just like every stone, it peters out.

Glenn [01:36:23] Do you guys ever look at world events and like, fall back into your Mormon think and go, oh, could be. The end is coming. The end is here. Yeah, there was gonna. It did say there was gonna be all this weather change. There was gonna be all this conflict in the Middle east, you know. You know, all wars and rumors of

John Dehlin [01:36:43] wars and all this stuff.

Glenn [01:36:45] Earthquakes in diverse places. But the moon is red tonight. It said it was gonna turn it to blood. Like, does that ever cross anybody's mind?

Matt [01:36:52] No, not even a little bit crosses my mind.

Randy [01:36:58] All right, so let's name a time when there wasn't wars or rumors of wars.

Matt [01:37:01] Name one time in the Middle East.

John Dehlin [01:37:05] Yeah. The history of mankind is the history of war. Okay, so.

Matt [01:37:11] And it's getting better. Things are actually getting better. John, didn't you write something recently? I did on that. I read that, and I've articulated that, and you did a better job than me. But things are better than they have ever been.

John Dehlin [01:37:24] Things are better. All right, so the future of infants on Thrones, if you guys had to predict how long it will survive, you know, six months, a year, five years. And do you guys have anything cool in store for our listeners to kind of look forward to? That's where to tie it back.

Randy [01:37:44] It'll last as long as it'll last.

Matt [01:37:46] Yeah.

Bob [01:37:48] There's no signs of it slowing down. I feel like. I think it's easy to commit for a couple more years pretty easily, but that's kind of as far out as I ever say about anything in my life.

Glenn [01:37:59] I think overall, we've been pretty resistant to adding core members, like, even though we have people that can be regular contributors. Maybe, like, if you go out more than a couple of years, you might see some of us kind of lose interest and go, okay, I'm not going to be involved in other people adding. That could happen. But I don't know. I don't know.

Tom [01:38:23] It's hard.

Glenn [01:38:23] It's hard to see that as far as anything. The reason I was chuckling for something fun is because we've been talking since July about doing Little Factories, the Musical as like, a Christmas gift for everyone. And we even came up with, like, this. This Scrooge type storyline. And then, you know, I didn't tell you guys this, but last Saturday I was watching the Nutcracker and I thought, oh, the Nutcracker, the Nutcracker, Nutcracker. But, you know, I don't.

Tom [01:38:51] I.

Glenn [01:38:52] That's as far as it's gone. So I don't think it's actually ever going to happen.

Bob [01:38:55] No.

Jake [01:38:56] But we haven't come up some other holiday to.

John Dehlin [01:38:58] Yeah, yeah.

Jake [01:38:59] Blow the deadline off to look for

Glenn [01:39:01] it coming to a feed near you December 2015.

Matt [01:39:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:07] So it'll last as long as the last.

Randy [01:39:11] I've tried to leave a couple of times, but Glenn keeps calling, keeps talking me back on. What back on? Oh, come on. You know, Tom, you remember My email. I'm done. I don't want to talk about Mormonism anymore.

Glenn [01:39:26] I don't remember that.

Matt [01:39:28] I couldn't remember why you changed your mind. I was just glad you did.

Randy [01:39:31] That's because Glenn. Glenn contacted me. Apparently, he's got amnesia about it.

Scott [01:39:34] Yeah, I do.

Tom [01:39:36] Yeah.

Matt [01:39:36] But my response is, then don't talk about Mormonism. Let's just talk about shit we like

Matt [01:39:39] to talk about It Always.

Randy [01:39:42] It always comes back to Mormonism, because that's our whole experience.

Matt [01:39:46] Right. Which is why we continue to talk about it, bud.

Randy [01:39:49] And why Jake just got so pissed off at the Book of Abraham smackdown is the more we look at it, the more we're like, actually, I have the same problem when I watch the Daily show and Colbert Report. I get so angry at my conservative family, and I'm just like, this is so unhealthy. And so the more we talk about Mormonism, the more or the less charitable I am towards my believing friends and family members that they believe this stupid shit.

Bob [01:40:21] I agree with that.

Randy [01:40:22] And it's unhealthy. It's like it poisons the well of my relationships, and sometimes I just want to get away from it. And even though Glenn doesn't remember, I basically sent in my resignation email, and he talked me back into it to come back.

Glenn [01:40:42] I probably just didn't even realize that you were serious. Come back oh, yeah, Baby come back

John Dehlin [01:40:48] Baby, come back Any kind of fool could truly see There was something in everything about you Baby, come back. You could blame it all on me I was wrong.

Glenn [01:41:08] I was wrong.

Matt [01:41:10] Baby, baby, come back.

Randy [01:41:13] So this is my official resignation. I'm done.

John Dehlin [01:41:16] Oh, whoa. Don't do it, Randy.

Glenn [01:41:22] But you're gonna do that? You're gonna do that Saturday's warrior minisode that we've been talking about for a while, right? That when your kids were watching it and they're like, what is this?

Randy [01:41:30] For, like, six months? Yeah.

Glenn [01:41:31] That's awesome.

Tom [01:41:32] And.

Glenn [01:41:32] And. And the funerals. You got to do the funerals one.

Randy [01:41:35] And then I'm done.

Tom [01:41:36] And.

Glenn [01:41:36] And then what?

Guest [01:41:37] What?

Glenn [01:41:37] You were gonna do one with my sister. Which one was that one?

Randy [01:41:40] That's on. That was the one on funeral.

Glenn [01:41:42] Oh. Because she's gonna, like, hand you your lunch on that one. She's so ready.

Matt [01:41:46] And the euthanasia.

Bob [01:41:48] Euthanasia. And I had an idea for you, Randy, but I'm gonna hold it for 2016.

Scott [01:41:53] Yeah, you're not done, Randy. Sorry. That's awesome. No one's taking me seriously.

Secular Testimonies and Closing Reflections

John Dehlin [01:41:59] All right, fellas, well, let's End. As you guys know, I always end. You got to leave your listeners with something you believe with your secular testimony, infants on throne style. So I'm going to start with. I'm going to start with Jake. Jake, give our listeners something you believe as a closing thought.

Jake [01:42:23] Well, I actually have a minisode of brother Jake Baers testimony.

John Dehlin [01:42:29] Nice.

Jake [01:42:30] So that would be one to look up where I bear my testimony about the scientific method. But that's, you know, that's all good. But something I believe, I believe in. Although I don't believe in absolute morality, I do believe in objective morality. I believe that. I believe in humanism. I believe that we can find solutions and we can reach consensus as a society to bring the most amount of utility to the largest number of people. And we can come together, we have the fortitude within us to be able to care for those around us without necessarily expecting something in return, some sort of eternal reward. And I believe that, that we have that empathy wired in us and we can pursue that. So I guess morality outside of religion. That's my testimony.

John Dehlin [01:43:36] All right. Excellent. Liked it. That was good. All right, Tom, you're next.

Guest [01:43:41] Oh,

Matt [01:43:44] I would. I think people should laugh more, they should have more fun, enjoy life. My. My wife, kids around with me because it, it's one of the joys that I just thoroughly enjoy is just making her laugh. It's like a challenge that I have, you know, even if it's a dumb joke or something. But she told me the other day, she's like, you know, the littlest things seem to make you so happy and that is the absolute truth. Just the tiniest little gestures, this, the tiniest little thing. Sometimes when I'm listening to a podcast, sometimes when I'm listening to music and just something brings a smile to my face and gets me through the day, I can hang on to that moment for quite a while and it carries me to the next moment, to the next.

Matt [01:44:29] And that's really what I hold onto the most right now. Just because all this, you know, transitioning out of the church, the having to accept this.

Randy [01:44:41] Yeah.

Matt [01:44:42] The large level of uncertainty, it's just, it's overwhelming. It, it's just, it can be. It's just too, too much to bear for me personally. And so, you know, I, I find little diversions, I find little things to enjoy. I love my family, my kids, they mean everything to me. And I just, it's like I hold them closer now than I ever did. And I think that's a good thing. So I don't know, I guess my testimony be, enjoy the little things and hold your family and your friends close. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:15] Nice. All right, Bob.

Bob [01:45:20] So when I decided to tell my family that I had left Mormonism, and so I was kind of, you know, living in the, Living a double life Mormon style for two years. But when I wrote them a letter, I wanted to let them know, like, the things that still matter to me even if the church had fallen away in my life. And so it's like a quick list, but here's just a smattering of the things that matter to me that I

Randy [01:45:48] believe hold

Bob [01:45:50] self sustainability, change for the better, humor, comedy and drama, love and family, doing good for others, experiencing the world, knowledge, and last but not least, pleasant interactions with friends, acquaintances and strangers.

John Dehlin [01:46:08] Nice. It's like a value statement. Yeah, very nice. You gotta post that somewhere, Bob.

Matt [01:46:15] Thanks, Bob.

John Dehlin [01:46:19] All right, Scott.

Scott [01:46:21] Sure. Two things. Live authentically and be, be out. Just. I personally was not out for too long and it was damaging, more damaging than it needed to be. It's damaging enough. It's fine to take your time, but I would encourage anybody who is not out, who doesn't have the ability to, you know, have that, have that open door with people in their lives to take that step. It's really hard, but it's totally, totally worth it. And don't, don't put up with that for too long in your life because it sucks.

Scott [01:47:08] Second thing is because people, even though they can be really awful sometime sometimes, I have a really deep belief and a faith in people, in their inherent goodness. And that when you reel with people, that, that reaps huge rewards.

Scott [01:47:30] At the end of the day, our relationships are really what we care about. We really don't care a whole lot about much else. But if we, if we have good relationships with people that we love, then that's what's important. So cultivating that and trying to keep that as authentic as we can, that's kind of what my life's about now.

John Dehlin [01:47:55] Nice. All right, Matt.

Matt [01:48:00] Yeah, echoing some things, but personal relationships and the concept of impermanence makes those personal relationships just that much more special and important. You know, sometimes I think the idea of eternal relationships in the eternity actually cheapens what we have here.

Matt [01:48:25] And so those two things I believe in that sometimes relationships are. Well, in every instance, relationships are impermanent, and that's okay. And sometimes they're impermanent because we get upset with each other and we just can't maintain friendships or relationships the way that we could. But in the period of time where we have them, they are so important and so meaningful.

Matt [01:48:54] Some of my closest friends in the world I see on a regular basis and may not hang out like I ever did before, but the period of time when I did, it was special, and it was important. And, you know, I hope to be with my wife for as many years as I'll be alive, but at some point, that won't happen. But, you know, it's okay, because we are together, and we see each other now we're together.

Matt [01:49:23] And the appreciation of that with friends and family and even co workers and just laughing with people, that's what I believe in, is finding those moments and appreciating them for what they are, which is very, very brief, very, very impermanent, but yet really, really special.

John Dehlin [01:49:51] Nice. All right, Randy.

Randy [01:49:57] Well, I'm a secular humanist, so I believe that moral questions should be subjected to logic, reason, and evidence as best that we have, but also infused with a heavy dose of human empathy. That's. That's how I live my life.

Randy [01:50:20] I just. I also believe that getting rid of the eternal perspective really intensifies the importance of the here and now. Like, for example, I know that my kids have only one childhood, and there's no throne in heaven for them, you know, so. And at one point, my kid that's 6 years old almost drowned on my watch. And it was a horrific, horrific experience.

Randy [01:50:56] But because of that experience, I'm even more acutely aware of how precious his childhood is. And so I try to spend as much time as. As I can with my kids. So I guess those are my pillars. It kind of echoes what Matt said, really appreciate what you have now and, you know, appreciate it to its fullest. And the other is the morality issue. So those are the things I hang my hat on.

John Dehlin [01:51:32] Beautiful. All right, Glenn, bring us home.

Glenn [01:51:35] Well, I think, you know, we do a lot of mocking and criticizing in what we do, and I think there's a place for that. And I think it's important that if you're gonna dish it out, you got to be able to take it. And so when you're doing that, there has to be, like, an element of charity in what you do. And this is going to sound like I'm making a joke, but I'm really not, because this was a formative aspect of Mormonism, that charity.

Glenn [01:52:07] If you don't have charity, you're nothing. Right. And charity suffereth long and is kind and envieth not, and is not puffed up, Seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if you have not charity, your nothing for charity never faileth cleave unto it. It's the greatest thing of all. I think that's pretty Good.

Randy [01:52:44] Moroni, chapter seven, verse 45.

Glenn [01:52:46] Yeah, and it's also kind of word for word and somewhere in the King James too, which is amazing.

Randy [01:52:51] That's weird how that happened.

Glenn [01:52:54] It was that important that we get this message.

Bob [01:52:56] But Glenn, speaking of mockery and criticism, you could sub in obedience and that would still like be totally Mormon too. I mean, it's, you know, the way we. Whenever we talk about anything. It's the most important charity first of all in heaven.

Glenn [01:53:11] The superlative part of it.

Scott [01:53:12] Is that what you're saying?

Bob [01:53:15] Yeah.

Tom [01:53:16] Yeah.

Glenn [01:53:17] It's 2am Now. I'm kind of losing.

John Dehlin [01:53:19] Oh, well, in the spirit of Infants on Thrones, I'll just say that you all sound like a bunch of girls. Oh, yeah.

Matt [01:53:29] You know, that was pretty.

Matt [01:53:30] Takes one to know one.

Matt [01:53:31] Oh, my gosh.

Randy [01:53:35] I'll take that as a compliment.

John Dehlin [01:53:38] Oh, the feminists are going to kill me. Okay, so I'd like to thank all the listeners who stuck with us for four freaking hours. I want to thank you said freaking. I know. Fetching. Thanks for sticking with us, listeners. Thanks to this awesome panel, Infants on Thrones. You guys are doing great work. I love it and I appreciate you giving me a chance to interview you and all the listeners. Please check out infantsonthrones.com please show them a good friendly Mormon Stories bump because their work is really quality stuff and it's worth listening to.

John Dehlin [01:54:19] And you know, I hope you guys will join us on the on the Mormon Stories blog to give your comments, but I'm sure you'll post this at your blog too. So let the conversations rage on. But I just, I think you guys are all amazing. I appreciate all you've done and I really look forward to what you're going to do in the future. So thanks for coming on.

Glenn [01:54:41] Thank you, John.

Bob [01:54:42] Thanks. Thanks, John.

Outro and Episode Wrap-Up

John Dehlin [01:54:46] Hi, this is John Dehlin from Logan, Utah, and I am a douchebag. You can comment on this episode on the website infantsonthrones.com and if you really like what you hear, give the Quorum a five star rating and write a short review on itunes. I did. Anyone for the closing prayer?

Glenn [01:55:06] Have you really, John? Because we have. In our two and a half years. We have 214 ratings on iTunes. You've got 255. So we, we passed Mormon expression and we threw a party that day. We got you in our sights. And I will say that of our 214, 205 are five star ratings, which is 96%. And if you're 255, you've got 2. 211, which is only 83%.

Bob [01:55:37] So rubbing it in.

Guest [01:55:39] Wow.

Glenn [01:55:39] I just, I just wanted to point that out.

John Dehlin [01:55:42] That's awesome. I love it. All right, I'll. I'll, I'll. I'll join you in the party when you. When you surpass me.

Guest [01:55:48] How's that?

Tom [01:55:50] All right.

Randy [01:55:51] Just so you know, John, I gave a five star review to you.

John Dehlin [01:55:54] Oh, thank you. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights.

Matt [01:56:16] Why am I always measuring stuff?

Bob [01:56:18] Because you're like. You're like.

Glenn [01:56:20] You're.

John Dehlin [01:56:20] You.

Glenn [01:56:21] We used to be married.

Bob [01:56:22] Yeah, that's married.

Matt [01:56:25] Why don't you do the dishes in your.

Guest [01:56:27] I.

John Dehlin [01:56:27] You know what?

Glenn [01:56:28] That's what I started doing. I have become the dishes person in my house since that whole Kate Kelly flare up. I went to my wife and I said, you know what? From now on, this is my job. I got it. And I've gone like a whole six days doing it. And I'm like. And she's like, yeah, this is kind of cool. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm the dishes guy.

Bob [01:56:49] But, Glenn, you don't get any credit for that. Right, Because.

John Dehlin [01:56:52] Right.

Bob [01:56:53] Like babysitting your own child.

Glenn [01:56:54] No, but it was not all men do the dishes. No, it was something that I recognized, you know, because I went to one of those links that Kate shared there, and, like, one of the first things was, do more housework. And I'm like, yeah, you know, the housework thing isn't a chauvinism thing as much as it is just being lazy and your tolerance for filth. And I have a higher tolerance for filth than my wife does, so she does it more often than I do. But I thought, I'm gonna step up.

Jake [01:57:19] I'm gonna do that.

Tom [01:57:20] That's.

Glenn [01:57:20] That's where.

Tom [01:57:21] That's.

Glenn [01:57:21] That's an area I can make an impact.

Matt [01:57:22] So good for you, Glenn.

Glenn [01:57:24] And you're my role model, Matt.

Matt [01:57:27] Well, yeah, but I see, I started Doing housework and those types of things to get out of church.

Scott [01:57:32] Yeah.

Matt [01:57:32] So I would. I would do all the laundry on Sunday so I could stay home and watch football, and I would do laundry, and that was the. Once I started doing that, it was a little bit of a little under hat, a little shady.

Glenn [01:57:44] Yeah.

Matt [01:57:44] Is that she couldn't be mad at

Glenn [01:57:46] you if the house was clean when she got home.

Matt [01:57:48] That's exactly it. And then it turned out I actually liked it because now I got more time with my wife because we didn't have to go do that stuff. So it really kind of. That was the starting point of it. But then helping out actually became a natural thing because it's like, wow. Things get done quicker this way, so.

Tom [01:58:04] Yeah.

Matt [01:58:04] There you go.

Glenn [01:58:05] Cool.

Matt [01:58:06] So if you don't want to go to church, guys, and you want to watch football, tell your wife, leave all the laundry. I'll do all the laundry. I'll do all the folding, and you will get a bigger pass.

John Dehlin [01:58:16] Brilliant.

Matt [01:58:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:17] Love it.

Jake [01:58:18] Yacht tip number five.

Matt [01:58:21] And then you have to get the NFL Sunday tickets because. So you can watch more games. And then it's really an investment in the laundry and in the housework and.

Bob [01:58:29] Yeah, we get.

Randy [01:58:30] We get that. We get it.

Matt [01:58:35] Randy's over there with his finger in the air. Wrap it up.

Matt [01:58:39] We get it.

John Dehlin [01:58:41] All right, you guys ready for part three?

Glenn [01:58:44] Oh, we've been recording for two and a half minutes.

John Dehlin [01:58:46] No, I know. So have I.

Jake [01:58:48] Okay, well, I want to grab a drink of water real quick. I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [01:58:50] Okay.

Glenn [01:58:51] I'm gonna get a drink of something

Jake [01:58:52] else real quick, too.

Glenn [01:58:53] Hang on. Thank you for listening to Imprints on Thrones.

Randy [01:58:58] Imprints on Thrones.

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