Introduction and Support for the Podcast

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 501

James Patterson [00:00:00] This is a thoughtful faith. I'm james patterson. A Thoughtful Faith Podcast is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of you, its listeners. All donations to A Thoughtful Faith are completely tax deductible and go directly toward the podcast and toward building a community of support for Mormons like you. To help keep the podcast alive, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting athoughtfulfaith.org. Hello and welcome to another episode of A Thoughtful Faith. I'm your host today, James Patterson, and I'm so thrilled to be here as part of A Thoughtful Faith Podcast. We're cross posting this episode of A Thoughtful Faith Today is a part of Mormon Stories Podcast. So welcome to all you Mormon Stories listeners out there. We just invite you to come check us out@A thoughtfulfaith.org when you get a chance. My co host Gina Colvin is doing some really spectacular work on a lot of different topics over at A Thoughtful Faith, but especially taking a real fascinating look at international Mormonism and people who are taking a thoughtful approach to their faith outside of the United States. So certainly a perspective we need a lot more of. And it's a huge privilege to be here with my guest. I'm excited to dive in and talk to our guest today, who is Kirk Cottle. A lot of you know Kirk as the host of Mormon Book Review Podcast, which is just an excellent look at the world of Mormon studies. But Kirk has also been in the quote unquote Mormon news, so to speak, lately because whereas before he was teaching as an online religion instructor at BYU Idaho, he is not only not teaching there anymore, but he has also resigned from the church. And that's kind of part of the story that we're going to talk about today. We're also going to talk a whole lot about a bunch of interesting stuff about Kirk because he's just a super interesting person and I really appreciate his perspective on the world and the world of Mormonism. So we're going to dig into that today. So just a little bit more about Kirk for those of you who may not be more familiar with his work. He received his master's in Interdisciplinary Studies from Martin Marylhurst University, where he wrote his master's thesis on Joseph Smith and the Eternal Possibilities of the Immortal Soul in Western Philosophical and Theological Thought. There's a mouthful. He also holds a bachelor's degree from Cascade College, which is a satellite campus of Oklahoma Christian University. So he has a very diverse educational background. That's really interesting that we'll dive into you'll often find Kirk presenting papers at academic conferences on Mormon and other aspects of religion and philosophy. And he also co chairs with Dr. Susannah Morrill, who's an associate professor of religious studies. Together they co chair the Mormon Studies session of the Pacific Northwest region of the aar. And Kirk lives in one of my most favorite areas of the United States, in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and four children. So, Kirk, why don't you start off just telling us about your life growing up until. Up until around high school and specifically, what kind of influence or role or maybe even lack of influence or role the church kind of had in your life?

Kirk Caudle's Background and Upbringing

Kirk Caudle [00:03:27] Well, first off, I was born in Portland, Oregon, but my parents were very nomadic growing up. And so I kind of grew up all over the place. I've lived in seven different states in my life total. And growing up, I went to a new school almost every year. If we count all the way through high school, I went to 15 total schools. So every year I was somewhere different. If I really have to count where I grew up, quote, unquote. There's two places I went to middle school in a small town in eastern Oregon called LeGrand, and I also went to middle school and some of high school in Anchorage, Alaska. So those are the two of the places I kind of consider growing up. And Portland has always been home for me. Whenever my parents would move away from Portland, somehow we'd always end up back here. And so I really gained a love for the city. The other thing that moving around a lot did for me, outside of anything personal, was that it gave me a different. A different perspective on the church because my family's very active. My grandparents are converts on both sides, but all my aunts and uncles and the majority of my cousins and these things are all active in the church. My family was very active. My dad has been in the high council, My dad's been in a couple bishoprics and these sorts of things. But one thing with moving around a lot and kind of going to a different school every year, that also meant that I was in a different ward every year. So, like I say, we were in church every week. We never missed. We never missed church. And so from a very young age, I. I think I began to notice how the church functioned in different areas of the United States and just different parts of cities and small towns and whatnot. And so when we'd move, I would notice different kind of nuances of how the church would run. And that started from a very young age. I think I've always been A person who questioned how things ran and why things were how they were in the world. And the church was no exception to that. So, like a lot of people around my age, probably, you know, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, these kind of growing up years is my entire worldview was completely seen through the lens of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Anytime I look at people or anytime I go to school or I do anything, everything I saw was through the lens of the church because it was just such a big. It was just such a big part of my life. My family has never been a family that was just a Sunday family that we just went to church and that was it. But at the same time, my family also. We didn't do a lot of family prayer every night, and we didn't do a lot of family home evening every night and these kind of things. And it's not from lack of trying for my parents. It's just I'm the oldest of five boys, and I think it was just hard to get everybody to do any of that stuff. But what we always did is we had gospel discussions all of the time. It was just. The church was just part of who I was. And so probably almost every day there'd be some sort of discussion about church and politics or, you know, what happens when we die, or did Adam have a belly button, all kinds of funny kind of conversations. And so that's just to say, growing up of that, the role the church played in my life was pretty much every role. The church would be inseparable for me and the things that I thought up until probably are 13 or 14 years old.

James Patterson [00:07:26] What was that point? Where. Was there a point where you started to kind of put things sort of on the shelf? When I look back at my experience with Mormonism, I guess I didn't quite realize it at the time that I was putting these on the shelf, but did you get to a point like that and did you realize that you were kind of creating this shelf of things?

Kirk Caudle [00:07:52] Yeah, I'd say probably late middle school. You know, it's always interesting when you kind of look back on your own life of when things happen, but I'd kind of guess probably 8th grade, 9th grade, age 13, 14, somewhere in there. I don't know if I had a problem with Mormonism per se, but I did have a problem with religion. I've always straddled between Mormonism and atheism, really my entire life. It's always been these two kind of polar opposites. And even at that Point in my life, there was kind of this thing where I don't think God is real. So my problem with religion when I was young, as a teenager, I think was the same kind of problem a lot of teenagers have with religion. I just thought there was too many rules. I didn't like what my parents were telling me. I didn't like what my church leaders were telling me. I didn't like what my teachers at school were telling me. I didn't like really what anybody was telling me. I always wanted to do my own thing, and so I wanted to do just whatever I wanted to do, whether for better or worse. And so my problems with religion early on, I don't think were theological in nature or ideological in nature as much as they were. That religion was more of a burden to me. My friends weren't religious. I usually didn't live in highly densely populated LDS areas. So it's not like I went to school with a lot of other Mormons or any of these kind of things. And so, yeah, I think I definitely thought about big questions forever. But those big questions aren't the things that really caused me to dislike religion early on. I think it was more that I was a regular teenager and that I had concerns that were much more mundane than any of the big things at the moment. I wanted to hang out with friends. I wanted to have fun.

James Patterson [00:09:56] And you kind of saw church as an obstacle to your enjoying.

Kirk Caudle [00:10:00] Yeah, it was a. It was a total ops. Yeah, it was a total obstacle. It was. It was a total obstacle. I mean, we have. We have rules about you can't date till you're 16 and you have word of wisdom rules and you have, maybe you shouldn't hang out with this person because they're the bad influence rules. And I always felt there was this kind of entitlement to being Mormon that I never liked this. And this kind of. We have something nobody else has and we need to go share it. And you need to always be an example to everybody you're around because everybody's watching you. That sort of talk really bothered me as a youth because I just never liked it. I never liked feeling that pressure.

James Patterson [00:10:49] You kind of got caught up in a little bit of a rough lifestyle. Talk about that a little bit.

Kirk Caudle [00:10:52] Yeah. And so once we get into like these high school years and I start questioning more things about life in general, very quickly I fall into. I think this is very common for. I think this is very common for a lot of teenagers. I don't think I'm unique in this And I don't think it is any more common for LDS teenagers than anybody else. But I very quickly got wrapped up into doing what the people around me do. One thing that's often said is, be careful who your friends are, because you'll end up doing what they do. And I actually tell my own kids this because I think it's true. For better or worse, I think that is true. I think we generally, as humans, will start doing what the people around us do. And so I lived in, generally, neighborhoods that were poor, highly minority populations. Even though the cities that I've lived in have been mostly white, the neighborhoods that I've lived in have been usually populated with most of the minorities in the city. And so I've really grown up around a lot of diversity, despite not living in highly diverse areas, which I think is interesting. So during my early teenage years, I started smoking around the age of 14, started drinking right around then. As I got older, into my later teenage years, I got into some drug use for a while, which really, really put me into kind of a tailspin about what I really do believe. And so this whole time when I'm doing these things during my teenage years, there's always this thing in the back of my mind that God's not real, but that God could be real. And if God is real, he has to be the Mormon God. He has to be the one that loves me and is watching over me and all of these kind of things.

Faith and Identity as a Mormon Teenager

James Patterson [00:12:54] As you're going through this period, you didn't really go through it with this intense feeling of guilt, like I'm sinning. I mean, what was your kind of. Your mindset?

Kirk Caudle [00:13:04] No, I didn't really have guilt as a teenager. Not in the way that I was offending God or something. Not in the way, you know, we talk about generally this kind of godly sorrow for sin and these kind of things in the church. As a teenager, I never felt that if I ever felt guilt for something, it would be because maybe I was letting my parents down or maybe I did something somebody wouldn't like or something. But I never really got the feeling until I was really older that I was ever kind of letting God down for something. I don't think I believed in God enough to really have any sense of that. And I was gonna throw in another thing that kind of got me involved in this kind of world, the party lifestyle. And I always tell people I used to be much more fun to hang out with than I am now. When I lived up in anchorage, Alaska, age 15, I actually hosted a TV sports talk show called Sports Talk Alaska. And it was on cable access, but nobody was on cable access up there except for some, like, Korean program that was just on this random channel. So one day, my. I was sitting around with my dad, and I was like, somebody should do a sports talk show where people interview high school athletes. And he's like, yeah, that's a good idea, and you should do it. And I was like, yeah, I should do it. So one day I did all this work, and I came back to him. I said, we should do a TV show. And he said, okay. So he was my cameraman. He got this camera that his work was throwing away, and it was kind of like a Wayne's World kind of thing. But we ended up. I ended up interviewing all of these high school athletes that were in the area, and I became pretty well known for the show in Anchorage. And pretty soon I started to be able to interview professional athletes and whatnot when they'd come up to Anchorage for special events. So some of the people, the bigger names that were actually on my show are Hank Aaron, the Hall of Fame baseball player, was on Sports Talk Alaska. Ray Allen, the NBA player, Brent Berry, who is a slam dunk champion, the Harlem Globetrotters were on my show. So with this is, I became very well known. I don't want to say that I was popular necessarily as a teenager, but I wasn't dorky either. If anything, people just kind of knew who I was because I was on tv. And with that, you become kind of somebody that people might want to be around. And when you're somebody people might want to be around, you have access to a lot of things that perhaps you wouldn't have otherwise as a teenager. And by things, I mean, I'm invited to a lot of parties, and I'm being exposed to drugs at a very young age, and, you know, alcohol and these kind of things. So not only did I have these kind of influences just from the neighborhood I was in, but I was also invited to parties in the very nice neighborhoods with a lot of the other cool kids. So I kind of just had it all over. And the only thing that really grounded me, and if there's one thing that the church does very, very good, and I know I'm critical a lot on some of the things the church does, but one thing I will always give the church props for, because I think this. They literally saved my life, is the youth program in my house. One thing that was always a rule is whether you agree with it or not on Tuesdays or Wednesday nights or whenever it is, Whenever mutual is, you have to go. And my parents always made me go to the activity, so I always had to go camping. I hate Scouts. I hate tying knots. I hate camping. I hate the outdoors, all of these kind of things. But I've done, like, more things than people that are like Eagle Scouts. I always went on the campouts. I'd always be at the church playing basketball. I'd always be at the church doing something. And what that did was it kept my moral compass from just kind of dropping off the face of the earth. It kept me around good influences. So I wasn't just always on the street, roaming around, having parties with people. My parents kept me in the youth program. And I really, to this day think that that was the best thing that could have been done for me because I had great youth leaders that, despite them knowing that I was into this, that and the other thing, continued to love me and continued to support me. And I still think some of those leaders that I had, I can really look at as really positive influences on my life still.

James Patterson [00:17:45] That's awesome. That's a real interesting. And paint a great picture of. Of your life growing up. And so. So, you know, if. If we were to fast forward kind of to, you know, your more formative education, it kind of seems like if you're fast forwarding, your life takes this very severe left turn out of the middle of nowhere. But can you. Can you kind of help connect the dots between the two a little better for us? Between you out as a teenager and then this. This decision to go pursue, you know, an education in religious studies?

Marriage, Conversion, and Early Religious Life

Kirk Caudle [00:18:21] Yeah. And so. So here I am as a teenager, and one thing leads to another. And kind of a fun fact about me that some people are generally somewhat surprised to hear is that I never actually graduated from high school. I only went to 10th grade. I ended up dropping out of high school, actually, to be fair, I went to just under a quarter in 11th grade, but pretty much I only went to 10th grade. And I just kind of floundered for a while. I didn't really know what to do. I went to a community college for a little while and got less than stellar grades. And I didn't really know really what I was going to do. So I ended up, to make a long story short, I ended up meeting my wife and we got married in the year 2000. July 1, 2000. And this is kind of a scandalous story because she lived in northern Arizona. I lived up in Portland. We actually Met each other on an LDS teenage chat room before we actually met. We started talking when she was about 14, 15. I was about 17 somewhere in there, and 16, 17 somewhere there. So we talked for about three years before we actually met. And then she was. Happened to be going up to Salt Lake to visit her sister. I was coming down to Salt Lake for something at the exact same time. So we decided to meet at Temple Square because that's an easy place to meet. And it was the beginning of her senior year, so I think she was 17, I was 19. And this is right when I kind of started thinking more about religion. There's a lot of people talking to me about going on a mission, but I didn't really have any kind of testimony of the church. And so this was kind of a weird time for me. We kind of see each other back and forth. Long story short, she ends up getting pregnant, and we ended up. We end up getting married two weeks after her high school graduation. And she's from a really small town in Northern Arizona, and so this kind of causes kind of a stir down there. Plus, her dad was bishop, and so that kind of adds to this whole. This whole kind of scenario and what that did. The reason I tell this story is because I think it's relevant to. To kind of my faith journey in general, because obviously, since she was pregnant and I got married and let me throw. And that's not the reason we got married. I loved her and I wanted. We wanted to marry each other anyway. But since I was 19 and my girlfriend was pregnant and then I got married to her, obviously that took out any kind of mission talk. And so I think that really burst the bubble of many around me who were trying to get me back in church and these kind of things. So anyone who's been around the LDS community for any amount of time knows that going on a mission is not only something that would be really good to do, but it really kind of is an expectation. Even if we don't want to talk about as an expectation, it really is. And so it was very strange to go from a lot of people talking to me and saying, we'd really like to get you on a mission, keep coming back to church, these kind of things, to getting your girlfriend pregnant, and then people really having no idea what to do with you, and you just

James Patterson [00:22:09] completely drop off the radar.

Kirk Caudle [00:22:11] Yeah. And so when. When we got. We end up getting married, and I actually had a conversion experience right around this time. I really wanted to know what was true. So this is. This is right. This is actually right before I met my wife for the first time. So before I'd ever met her before she's pregnant or any of these kind of things. And people are talking to me about going on a mission and all of this stuff. I'm kind of, kind of going back to church. I'm not living with my parents anymore. I'm living in an apartment with some friends and all of this. But I really want to know for myself what is true. And again, I'm kind of between atheism and Mormonism all the time. And so I go on the spiritual quest of sorts. I've always been interested in everything to do with the humanities and whatnot. And so I start reading about Buddhism and Hinduism and looking through the Quran and these kind of things. And then I read most of the Bible. I don't know if I don't think I read the entire Old Testament, but I read a lot of it. Read the New Testament, read the dnc, no church history stuff. Actually, interestingly enough, just total scripture for me. And then I get to the Book of Mormon and I read the Book of Mormon and it's very kind of classic Mormon story here of that. When I get to the end of the book and I read it, I read it relatively quickly and I prayed about it. I just had kind of the burning in the bosom feeling, the kind of like undeniable feeling. And once I had that feeling, I was sitting in my room in my apartment and that was the last time I did anything. I was like, this book's true. And I stopped drinking, I stopped smoking, I stopped doing drugs. And I was like, I want to marry. I'm going to marry this girl. Or at least I want to meet this girl. And I know there's no chance she would probably marry me. I never even met her. And I was thinking about marrying her. But this is a very LDS mindset too. I think my mind was always on marriage from a. From a young age. I didn't really ever think about living with somebody or something like that. And so I have this huge conversion experience and I'm not really sure what to do with it because not long after I have it is then my girlfriend kind of pregnant and I'm kind of thrown into life. So two years after we're married, we're active, but we're not super active. We're kind of the couple that goes to church, but kind of sneaks out after sacrament meeting before the bishop can talk to us or anything.

James Patterson [00:25:03] Right?

Kirk Caudle [00:25:06] We about. Yeah, I'D say about kind of two years after we're married. So now we're probably in like 2002, 2003 range. I end up having this kind of second conversion experience that's semi similar to the first, but a little more powerful. And in this conversion experience, I have this kind of really strong impression that I need to study religion. And this might not seem strange for people that know me now or that have read me or seen me speak somewhere that know me personally, but at the time, this was very big because I didn't really go to church and I wasn't really interested in a lot of this kind of stuff. And so I have this really big experience and I tell my wife about it and she kind of like has her own feeling about it. And I kind of entirely changed my life again at that point. All of a sudden we're very active and then we got sealed in the temple. And I say, I'm a really big movie fan. And I had all these movies. I had like 300, 400 DVDs. And I'm like, I'm gonna get rid of all my R rated movies for God. So I took all my movies and sold them and I brought. I bought all these church books. I bought, you know, stuff by Hugh Nibley and Cleon Skousen and these kind of people. This is. This was kind of my gateway drug into the Mormon studies world is the old style farms people and Skousen and kind of a lot of the classic stuff, Jesus the Christ, all of these things. Like, I started reading and I was just so moved by it all. And then I ended up going back to school after this conversion experience and I took a philosophy class and I just really loved it. And I ended up transferring to Cascade College here in Portland, which is a very small school run by the Church of Christ, which is from the Stone Campbell movement. And so they're in a restoration school. There's only about 300 students in the school. And I go into interdisciplinary studies, which is Bible and history, basically. And I just really kind of fall in love with it, as my evangelical friends would say. When I was going to school, I felt kind of called to the ministry. I felt it was what I was supposed to do. The whole time I was going to school, I always had this sense of, I'm doing this because God wants me to do this. And even if I never make any money in my entire life doing this, this is what I have to do

James Patterson [00:28:05] during this time. I mean, was there ever a moment? I mean, this is kind of like a type. Of a born again type. I'm changing my life. I'm going in a new direction. Did you ever feel a point or a time or did you go through a phase where you were trying to kind of reconcile where you were at the time and this new trajectory your life was taking with, you know, kind of those, those teenage years of, of. Of how you felt and the things you did back then? Was there ever kind of a reckoning moment for you in that regard?

Kirk Caudle [00:28:37] Well, it was definitely very strange because it is very born again for me. And so it's. It's kind of hard for me to relate to many members of the church who say, then my wife is one of these people actually, and my dad's one of these people who I guess. Well, I won't use my wife as such a great example here because she kind of has her own issues with the church at the moment. But let me use my dad, who is a. My dad's a great person. He's a kind of. And he's a really faithful guy and one of the good people that I know, but has never just had that kind of booming conversion experience. He always just says, you know, I've always known that church was true. I've always known the gospel of Jesus Christ was right since I was like 4 years old. Like, there's never been a time like I didn't know it. And that's always been very strange for me because. And I know my story is kind of the minority and probably people don't even believe my experiences. There's no reason actually anybody should believe me. You know, they didn't experience it, But. But I just have. I just had these experiences that really just did. Made me. Did what? Do 180s in my life. And the reckoning came like, right at that moment. So in the moment I knew it was happening, in the moment that I became converted to something, even in my own mind, I would think at that very time, like, this is the start of something new. Like, I really did feel like what you read in the scripture is kind of like born again, new man kind of idea.

James Patterson [00:30:19] Alma the younger.

Kirk Caudle [00:30:20] Yeah, totally. And so a lot of times in church, you know, they'll. I would sit there and, you know, still, and you'll have these things of like, don't expect Alma the younger moments or Paul moments or these kind of things. They don't really happen or they're really rare. And literally that's the only thing I can relate to. I can't relate to. I just Always knew it was true or I just always knew it was false. I can't relate to the other way either. Yeah, the only thing I can relate to is just kind of the booming experience here. It is in your face.

James Patterson [00:30:54] Yeah. So interesting. So then you kind of decide to take this road into religious studies and then you go on to grad school and talk about what made you focus in on. You kind of focused in, especially in your thesis on Joseph Smith and his kind of. His view of the eternal nature of the soul. I found that and the things that he was swimming in in the time and how he not only swam in those kind of ideas of the eternal nature of the soul, but he carved out his own, his own kind of place and his own take on things with regards to the temple and how all that comes together. What made you want to focus in on that?

Academic Interest in Joseph Smith and Mormon History

Kirk Caudle [00:31:37] Well, I've always been very. I've always been very interested about questions concerning things like. And when I say always, I kind of mean always since I was a little kid. Questions about things of eternity and free will and why are we here and what's kind of the point of all of this. And I think Mormonism has some very interesting answers for this, or at least Joseph Smith does. Let me throw in that even after my conversion experiences, I've always been kind of a quote, unquote, if you want to use this term, unorthodox kind of Mormon in the fact of that I was converted to. I was converted to the Book of Mormon. I've always been a much more left leaning, liberal member of the church from the very beginning. Even with my conversion experience, I've always had issues with the institution. And so getting back to my thesis and my studies and these kind of things is I've never really been that interested in the church per se. That's why, you know, I don't really write blog posts about cultural issues for Mormons, like women wearing pants or these kind of things. I mean, they're interesting to me, but not super interesting to me. I'm interested in what scripture says about things. And so those are the. Those are the kind of things that like, really drove me. And so when I think about the soul kind of eternally existing, there's something that I really like about that and there's something that really strikes me about it. And through my reading of scripture and Joseph Smith, I get this idea of that life is not about salvation. And in Mormonism, I think a lot of times we think that life is about salvation. We're here to to prove ourselves so that we can go to one of the degrees of glory or something. But I think there's something else going on there in that life is one about proving things to ourselves, not God. Sometimes we hear that, and I think that's true. But two of that life is a journey of discovery. It's about discovering who we actually are, not becoming something. So for example, Abraham, I'd say, has always been Abraham. If you read in the book of Abraham, it says in the beginning, you know, there's many noble and great ones. And God says, Abraham, you know, you were there, he was, or Abraham was. Or in other words, Abraham was already a noble and great one before he even came to earth. And so what, what I argue is that what Abraham had to do on earth was realize who he already was. Not that he had to become something, not that he had to become a noble and great one, but that at some point on this, in this life or the next, he has to come to the realization of who he already is. And so all of us, I think, are on this journey of discovery. And so a lot of people will argue against me and say, well, what does that say about free will? Because I'll say where you're gonna go when you die is already predetermined. And because this life isn't gonna have anything to do with salvation. So it doesn't matter if you die when you're one or you're a hundred. And what I say about that is I think that we've already, we've always been the same person eternally, and we've always, we've existed. And I think the Mormon idea of pre existence, that we've already made choices that we perhaps can't even remember. So it's not any kind of predestination by God. It's perhaps some sort of predestination by ourselves.

James Patterson [00:35:59] Interesting. And you're really forming these kind of views on. I mean, not just. This isn't just Mormonism. This is a view on the eternal nature of ourselves. You're forming these views as you're really swimming in kind of the history and the teachings of Joseph Smith.

Kirk Caudle [00:36:20] Yeah. And so I don't do a lot with kind of quotes from church leaders or any of these kind of things. Pretty much all of my arguments are always based either on statements from Joseph Smith or just straight out of scripture themselves. I think the Book of Mormon gives us a wealth of information that it's just this treasure trove of stuff that we just never really. We never really get into. And so one of the ways that I view scripture is that scripture isn't necessarily truth within itself, but I think that scripture is a tool to open us up to discovering truth.

James Patterson [00:37:03] That's a really interesting picture that you're painting of kind of your view of Mormonism. And I kind of want to tie that to. So you, you know, you're, that's, that's kind of a lot of the essence of what you go to in your thesis and you have your master's degree and then, you know, fast forwarding to now you're leading up your time at teaching at BYU Idaho. So I mean you're entering into your, this phase where you're teaching at BYU Idaho with this very, they're this very rich, especially from a historical perspective view on Mormonism and this very nuanced view of Mormonism. What kind of, I mean, I don't like using labels or anything, but I mean, how would you describe your brand of Mormonism? I guess going right up into working for BYU Idaho?

Kirk Caudle [00:37:58] Yeah, I, that's a good question. How would I describe my brand of Mormonism? I'd say, Well, I'd say I'm a big tent Mormonism person for sure. But other than that, I've kind of considered myself at least in the past few years because of my own kind of ideas are of course always fluid and moving and everything. But I really have looked at myself a lot as like a Nauvoo style Mormon. I think there's a lot going on there and as I've said other places, I think a lot is lost between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Theologically, I think just a lot of things shift and all kinds of things. And so I think, I think in Nauvoo we, we really have it, we really have something going. And I can't remember if I said this in Brian's interview or not with me, but I was talking with a friend, a good historian friend of mine, and we were saying in for any

James Patterson [00:39:14] true

Kirk Caudle [00:39:16] sect of Mormonism because a lot of people aren't aware. Well, perhaps Mormon stories listeners are aware because they're kind of not your average everyday Mormon. But a lot of people aren't aware that there's actually a lot of sex of Mormonism. I think I read somewhere there's like a hundred current sects or something of Mormonism. Of course, you know, most of them are very small. But in my opinion through this conversation with a friend of mine, if, well, I guess I could just say his name, he probably won't care. Brian Whitney if any of you know him. So I'm thinking this is what we came up with. If not, then just throw his name out because this is at least what I've come up with. I think there has to be three essential features in any kind of quote unquote true form of Mormonism. At least true in the sense of Joseph's vision of Mormonism. Let me say so let me take out the word true. I think there's three essential features in any of the versions of Joseph's view of Mormonism. Number one, I think the cause of Zion building up Zion law of consecration. Number two, temples. And number three, and this is the big one and this is where most people are going to depart from me on but I hold to it number is polygamy. I think these three things are non negotiable for Joseph and his theology. I think you don't have Joseph Smith, Mormonism without consecration and building Zion, polygamy without those things. I don't think Joseph Smith recognizes Mormonism. I mean, those three things I think are over and over just totally entrenched in this theology. So to get to your question, what do I bring to, to BYUI when I go in there with all of my baggage, this is the kind of Mormon that I kind of enter as. Now, I'm not saying I push those beliefs and the vast majority of my students would really not know what I believe personally because I kind of present information. But as far as my own personal mindset, that's kind of where I come from. And even still, and I think, I

James Patterson [00:41:36] think that's so interesting, especially as you talk about kind of the. Really what was a monumental shift between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young? I mean, just from a theological standpoint, that was not just a minor thing. I think, you know, Sunday school or seminary curriculum tends to maybe gloss over, you know, you know, the prophetic mantle shifted from Joseph to Brigham. And that was kind of it. But it's not, I mean, it's not so subtle of a shift, which is so interesting because that kind of dovetails into your, into your experience at BYU Idaho. So there's a lot of that really swimming around there, which I find interesting. But before we get into that, I just want to, I want to talk a little bit about BYU Idaho itself. What was it that kind of attracted you to teaching for BYU Idaho?

Entering Mormon Studies and Teaching at BYU-Idaho

Kirk Caudle [00:42:33] Well, number one, being a Mormon studies person and you know, there's only a few of us that are kind of crazy enough, I think, to kind of make Mormon studies our thing. But, but again, you know, I really just felt called to do that. And so, you know, I did it and I love it. And so obviously BYU or BYUI is going to be somewhere that you're gonna be drawn to if you like, teaching Book of Mormon or something. And so I'd say that was the biggest draw. Number two, if I want to get more practical is academia is really competitive. And so you kind of take a job if you can get a job. But that, that is not to say by any means that I took the job because of desperation or something, because I was, like, thrilled to be there. In fact, I loved being there, I loved my students, and I had a really good time teaching. And so. And I got to teach. I got to teach Book of Mormon. And that's my favorite. It's my favorite thing to do. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. It's one of my favorite things to teach.

James Patterson [00:43:39] And so. And you're. And you're not. You're an online instructor, meaning you're teaching from Portland and you're teaching students online. And as a, as a BYU Idaho graduate myself, I mean, I was swimming in the sea of BYU Idaho, and it has its subtle differences from byu, but it's kind of that Mormon bubble type of environment. At least that was my experience. But as an online instructor, did you get kind of a sense, I mean, there's a spirit of Rick's essence that ebbs and flows over the campus there. Did you get a feel for that as an online instructor kind of being at a distance?

Kirk Caudle [00:44:19] I got a feel of it because I got emails all the time telling me about it. And of course, I'd have to go to faculty meetings and these things where we'd talk a lot about it. And basically, I mean, if you want to get down to brass tacks about what the spirits of Ricks is, is basically we have the spirit here and the secular universities don't. And so first and foremost, you were told a lot of that. We teach by the spirit here, and that's why our students like it, because they're not going to get that. Other places.

James Patterson [00:45:04] Did you ever get the sense that other places actually included byu? Because when I was there, there was almost this sense and of almost this superiority from a. I mean, our honor code was different from byu.

Kirk Caudle [00:45:18] We.

James Patterson [00:45:18] We couldn't wear shorts, we had to wear. We had to wear long pants even in the dead of summer. And I mean, it almost felt like here's, here's a way that we are going to show, you know, in a way that we are better even than byu. We are almost on a more righteous plane than byu. Did you get that sense at all?

Kirk Caudle [00:45:36] I'm not sure if I got that sense really strongly as an online instructor, but I was told once during a conversation with somebody not long after I was hired when they were looking at my experience as an academic, and they, they told me just to let you know, BYU Idaho isn't academic institution. That's what BYU Provo does in their religion department. They do religious studies down there.

James Patterson [00:46:16] I see.

Kirk Caudle [00:46:17] Which I think when you call BYU Idaho's Department of Religious Studies and academic in that kind of way, I think that kind of says something about what Idaho thinks about themselves and academic work in general.

James Patterson [00:46:33] Yeah. Interesting.

Kirk Caudle [00:46:35] And. And again, not to paint everybody over in that department in Idaho with a broad brush, because there are some excellent people, some who I consider friends who work over there and others who I just know, either professionally or otherwise, that I think do some great work over in the Religious education department down in Provo. So I'm not putting down all you guys over there, but, but the department and in, in general isn't really an academic focus. So it's strange. Idaho has a, has a perception of BYU that I'm not even sure BYU has of itself.

James Patterson [00:47:14] Yeah, yeah. Kind of a niche that they have, they have really carved out. And so it. Give me an idea in terms of timeline. What, what year did you start, did you start teaching for BYU Idaho.

Kirk Caudle [00:47:28] Okay. So, yeah. So just to give you kind of a. Let me give you this kind of like a timeline. General. So I'm going to get married in 2000. I'm going to get sealed in 2003, I believe. And then I'm going to graduate with my bachelor's degree in 2008. And by 2008 is kind of when I'm really kind of not sure where I'm fitting in with anything as far as the church goes. And then I get my master's degree in June of 2012, and then I start teaching for BYU a year later.

James Patterson [00:48:18] Excellent.

Kirk Caudle [00:48:20] So that's kind of hopefully gives people out there listening somewhat of a timeline. And so I teach for BYUI for three. They go by trimesters, so I teach with them for three trimesters or semesters or whatever you want to call them.

James Patterson [00:48:41] Excellent. So just to kind of close out, close out this segment, you know, you find yourself at BYU as an instructor. But before, before we get into kind of what, what happened that kind of brought it all down, can you maybe just Just give us an idea because you do talk a lot about, you know, the, how much you enjoyed your experience there. Can you talk about what was, what was really good about your experience, what you enjoyed about teaching there?

Kirk Caudle [00:49:06] Well, I love teaching in general. I mean, teaching really is my passion. Say the only thing I love more than teaching is learning. And I like to think those are kind of the same thing. But what I enjoy the most is I enjoy the most getting to know my students. I had a lot of good interactions with people. My, my experience is a little different than a lot of people who teach probably at byui because I was actually teaching courses in the Pathway program, which are for people who are just kind of going back to school a lot of times later in life. So you have Pathway programs that are kind of for the 30 and younger crowd. You have Pathway programs that is for the like 31 and older crowd. And I taught the older crowd. So most of my students were like my parents age. I had a few that were around my age. I'm 34, so I had a few students like in their 30s. But the vast majority of my students, I'd say probably a good 80%, were in the 50 to 60 year old range. And so my students brought a lot of experience of their own. Many of them have had leadership callings in the past or were really active in church at the moment, married to bishops or they're really study presidents or any number of things. And so it was easy for me to connect with people because I wasn't just teaching 19 year olds, I was in having really great discussions week after week with other adults. And I just really had a good time. And I've always been really accessible to students. I always tell people they can call me, email me at any time or call me at any time and we can have discussions about whatever. Even now, I mean, there's multiple students that even after all of this have come out that have still reached out to me and still shown love to me and have become like pretty decent friends. So I've been like really thankful about that. So some of the relationships I've made with students through teaching are still there right now.

James Patterson [00:51:25] Thanks for joining us today on a thoughtful faith podcast. To discuss this episode with others, please check us out@athoughtfulfaith.org to keep the podcast alive or to join the community of support, please consider a tax deductible donation by visiting athoughtfulfaith.org Music for today's episode was generously provided by Chillen Hunt and the lower lights. Thanks for listening.

Kirk Caudle [00:51:48] Still all my song shall be nearer.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 502

James Patterson [00:00:00] This is a thoughtful faith. I'm james patterson. A Thoughtful Faith Podcast is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of you, its listeners. All donations to A Thoughtful Faith are completely tax deductible and go directly toward the podcast and toward building a community of support for Mormons like you. To help keep the podcast alive, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting athoughtfulfaith.org. Hello and welcome to A Thoughtful Face Podcast. We're here with our guest, Kirk Cottle, and we've spent the first hour kind of getting a really good idea and background of Kirk and his time growing up in the church and his real formative years in Mormon studies and studying religion and kind of the time leading up to his time at BYU Idaho. Some really interesting stuff that we were able to learn about Kirk and kind of setting us up for what happened over the course of the last few months at BYU Idaho. So, Kirk, I just kind of want to dive into that. You actually go through some of the specifics of the lecture that you gave that kind of got you into hot water. So maybe set up the background behind that and take us through kind of that discussion that you had with students, maybe some of the back and forth that you had with some of the students and how that led to kind of the situation that we'll talk about later.

Teaching Controversies and Getting in Hot Water

Kirk Caudle [00:01:46] Okay. Well, first off is there's a predetermined curriculum that is followed by for the BYU online courses. So every week I have certain kind of things that I'm supposed to

Kirk Caudle [00:02:05] grade,

Kirk Caudle [00:02:06] and the assignments are all predetermined and all of these other kind of things. Generally, we'll have some sort of discussion board. And I'm also required to have an office hour every week so where students can come to see me. And this office is a virtual office. And it's kind of cool because it's kind of this little public forum place where students can log on and there's audio video capability. So I can have a bunch of people come in and I can go on webcam and Mike and I can just kind of talk or they can call me or whatever. So once in a while, Students would have some kind of question or something that would be a little tangential to the lesson at hand. And when that would happen, I'd say, hey, just come to my office hours and we'll discuss that. Or, you know, give me a call sometime and we'll discuss that. If enough students have questions about something or really say, hey, brother Cottle, can you do A lecture on this. And I say, okay, come to my office hours and we'll do this. So one of these kind of times happened during my last semester with byui. It was kind of at the beginning of the semester and we were talking about the first presidency and there was something in the manual that said when the prophet dies that the quorum dissolves and the senior most apostle takes over to be present in the church. Non controversial enough. And you know, I don't have any problem with that. That's the way it goes. And then somebody brought up the question. They said, oh, has that always been the way it was? And I said something to the effect of yeah, that's the way it's always. That's the way it's been. Except for at the beginning it didn't really go like that between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. And then people like, oh, that'd be an interesting thing to know more about or something. I don't remember, but it was something like pretty nonchalant. And I said, hey, well if anybody wants to know more about this, come to my office hour and I will talk about it. So this is.

James Patterson [00:04:23] You were kind of teaching to the curriculum which engendered questions from your students that kind of fell. Fell outside kind of the scope of what the curriculum offered for you to teach. I mean, is that accurate to say?

Kirk Caudle [00:04:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's accurate. So within the course I'm not teaching anything that's, that's not directly from the manual or something like I'm never posting things that would be against, you know, church doctrine or, you know, any of my own. My own voice is as far as opinion wise is generally pretty absent from my courses. It's pretty much just what we're supposed to be doing, explaining assignments and whatnot. So when I invite people to my office, which I'm supposed to be doing by the way, because I'm required to have this office hour to speak with students and help them and whatnot. It's not required. It's not for a grade. In fact, I can't even. In pathway courses you're not even allowed to give extra credit. So there's no extra credit. This is only if you're an interested party and just kind of knowing more about stuff. And so I have, from my classes combined, I probably have like 30 people or so who were there or viewing it or whatnot. And then I have it recorded for students that want to watch it later. And I just thought I'd talk about some stuff that people found interesting of just Kind of what happened between the secession crisis between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. And I felt like it went well. And so afterwards, like I usually do, I Talk for about 30 to 40 minutes, and then I open up for questions. I've done this multiple times before. I actually record kind of supplementary podcast lectures for students to listen to about whatever we're doing. Again, just for people who are interested. And, yeah, apparently there was one student in there, an older male who was about 65 years old, somewhere in there, and he took offense at a few of the things that I said, and that ended up not going well for me. So basically what happened is that this person contacted me and said they were offended. And I said, I'm sorry. If there's specific things that I can help you with, let me know. But he said, you know, people's testimonies can be damaged by this, that and the other thing.

James Patterson [00:06:59] Yeah. So before you kind of go into that, can you kind of give us, I mean, like, the real abbreviated version? A lot of our listeners probably have. They understand the history, but in the context of you're teaching this kind of private lecture, what did you kind of step the students through in terms of. They're asking a question from the curriculum that's not covered in the curriculum. So you kind of, in the process of your role as an instructor, you are kind of in a position where you have to step outside the curriculum and use your knowledge in the way that you've been trained, but kind of take us through what. The thought process that you help step them through in terms terms of what the history was behind the succession crisis.

Kirk Caudle [00:07:42] Yeah. And so this might not all be totally the way it is now, because I can't. This has now been so long since I've actually done this lecture. And like I said, it was recorded, but after it was recorded, byu, I actually went into my account and deleted it. So I actually have never watched it back.

James Patterson [00:08:02] Wow.

Kirk Caudle [00:08:02] So they stopped other people from watching it. So I've never seen it back. Because I was actually gonna go back and watch and say, like, okay, did I say something like, worse than I thought?

James Patterson [00:08:11] Yeah. To kind of examine, you know, where, you know, they think that, you know, it seems like I went off the rails. It'd be interesting to see where that might have. Where that might have occurred. But you weren't able to do that.

Kirk Caudle [00:08:22] Yeah. So I see. So it was disappeared. I had some. Like, the older ones that I had was on. Were on my faculty page there that I could send to students, but that one was Gone. But, but basically I kind of set up Nauvoo in 1843, 1844, just to give, because I'm really big into context. And. So the question had come up, you know, why would there be confusion in the first place, right? I mean, if the church is always saying it's just the senior most apostle, wouldn't it just make sense that Brigham Young would do it? And that's a totally legitimate question from people because that's what we hear in church. It just seems very obvious to us now. Mormons would think it was strange if President Monson died and then nobody knows who's going to be prophet because we say, well, the Lord's created an order and these are the way things have always been done. So I tried to set up this thing of, you know, Joseph kind of had a lot of power and you had the, of course, the High Council and William Marks and these guys that had some authority. And then you had like the quorum of the 12. But they kind of function a little bit differently than they do now. They're kind of more missionaries. And Joseph Smith never actually names a successor. So I kind of bring up this kind of, these kind of things kind of go over the martyrdom like very generally and why people might have wanted to kill Joseph and how that might have played into things.

James Patterson [00:09:50] But. And that's so foreign to us today because, I mean, there's so much structure and order in the church today that that concept of, I mean, when Joseph died, there really wasn't a clear answer about who was in charge. And that's such a foreign concept, I think, probably to most Mormons today. Would you agree?

Kirk Caudle [00:10:10] Yeah, I agree. And I think one of the feedback I heard, again, only one person complained. In fact, this was my only complaint ever for my entire teaching career. Not just at BYU Idaho, but for years I taught at the institute here in Portland that served the students of Portland State University. And the institute director is actually one of my best friends who's actually one of the greatest guys I know, Stuart Weed. He's now retired, but Mormon Stories fans might know the name Josh Weed, but it's Josh Weed's father, okay? And so he was the institute director there for years. And he's just an incredible, incredibly open minded guy and one of the most loving people I've ever met. So a lot of people are like, how did you ever teach at an institute? And I say it's because Stuart Weed was the director. But anyway, let me get back to what I was saying. Now I have to go back to my train of thought of saying, Oh, yeah, so generally we have this kind of like narrative that we've always been taught in Sunday school and that we think everything kind of falls in line. So right off as I'm doing this lecture, I think people are like, oh, this kind of sounds a little different than I've heard before. But the feedback I got from most students is the feedback I usually get of, well, that was really interesting. I've heard bits and pieces of a lot of that before, but I've never really just like heard it all like at one time.

Student Questions, Church History, and Institutional Pressure

James Patterson [00:11:43] And also to put that into context, I mean, these, you're teaching pathway students. So a lot like you had said, a lot of these students aren't necessarily 19 and 20 and 21 year olds. These are older people who have grown up in the church for the most part. Is that right?

Kirk Caudle [00:11:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have some converts, but for the most part they're people that have been 50, 55, 60, and they've been members, you know, since 15 years old or been born in the church or. And so their questions are a little different. So they're not kind of like 19 year old questions, but they're kind of very mature kind of people in the church. Questions to where when I talk about this, they would say, okay, I've heard blank. Now, is this just anti Mormon rhetoric or is this like a real thing that happened?

James Patterson [00:12:31] Right.

Kirk Caudle [00:12:32] And I think that the context of this lecture was all kind of within more of that framework rather than just teach me stuff I've heard blank about polygamy. Is this true kind of, kind of idea? And so when I, so I set up this martyrdom and what's really becomes, I think the crux of all of this that the student at hand takes issue with is I say the dividing line between Brigham Young and everybody else was polygamy. I said, if you were a polygamist, then you would probably follow Brigham Young because he kind of had the mantle of polygamy right there with him. And I said, most, if not all of the other people that were really trying to be the leader of the church, they were anti polygamists. Because that kind of fell into my lecture about one of the reasons Joseph was killed and maybe the relief side, he didn't trust him at times and these kind of things because it all kind of revolved around polygamy. Right. But Brigham Young was really carrying this. And so it just kind of got, I think people, you know, thinking about that polygamous question and then after that, I had a question from a student of, well, when's the first time Joseph practiced polygamy? And I brought up Fanny really quickly, and then Louisa Beaman and these other kind of things. And these are the things that were pointed at, as were issues as well. As I talked about Brigham Young, when he was called, and the miraculous transfiguration as not being entirely historically backed up. I didn't say it was true or false. I said you could go and look at the literature and see what you think. But it's just not necessarily agreed upon historically that he actually turned into Joseph Smith.

James Patterson [00:14:30] Right. And there's also, if I understand correctly, there's also some evidence that shows that the church even kind of either itself or kind of encouraged later in the Utah period. Some of the rewriting of that story is that. Am I getting that right?

Kirk Caudle [00:14:48] Yeah, yeah. I think you have kind of a lot of, like, issues going around with that.

James Patterson [00:14:53] But, you know, as clear, it's not this cut and dry necessarily story that, you know, for example, that I grew up with.

Kirk Caudle [00:15:01] Yeah. And with the students, you know, as with most things when I teach, I didn't say anything like, now, you've always been taught this, but this is false or something. And, you know, believe me, this never happened. Or it's none of that kind of. None of that kind of talk. It was just like, okay, here's where you can find some more information about this. But, yeah, so basically there's a complaint, and we're in teaching groups in byu, Idaho. So this person called the teaching group leader, she contacts me about a week late after it happens and says, look, there's kind of this complaint. Don't worry. People kind of complain all the time. I think she even says, like, I watched your lecture and it was really interesting or whatever, but, like, nothing will become of this. So I didn't think, you know, anything was gonna happen. Whatever. I just kind of go on. And then like weeks go by, maybe somewhere like around a month goes by, and I get this. I get this email from the head of the online learning department, and he says, the chair of the Religious Ed department would like to talk to you asap. I think, you know, something like that. Could we, could we. Could we meet with you at your earliest convenience or something like tomorrow? And I'm like, sure. So actually I'm thinking like, oh, maybe they want me to come, like, move to Idaho or something. Yeah. I don't know what it is. I don't know why they would be talking to me. But then after I get that email. The student that had the issue with me, he actually tried to send a complaint to somebody, but he actually sent it to my email instead of the other email. And so I saw the complaint to me, so I wrote him back. I was like, you want to send this to the other place? So that was kind of awkward. So then I knew what was coming because I actually saw this other email before that.

James Patterson [00:17:10] I mean, you didn't. You didn't even have a sense that anything.

Kirk Caudle [00:17:13] No.

James Patterson [00:17:14] Anything was wrong?

Kirk Caudle [00:17:15] No. In fact, I was just told, like. Yeah. By a teaching group leader. Like, you know, people, sometimes you have a weird complaint or something, but don't worry about it. Like, there's no issue. And so I brought up before. And I know other commentators have brought this up on, like, kind of multiple things online. Is that is what makes this interesting, is the timing. And I only bring this up just because of everything else that's going on, is they get in contact with me. Exactly one day, be one and two days respectively, before John Delenn and Kate Kelly received their letters. And, you know, they post them on Facebook. So. So I get this. I get this thing that was supposedly not a big deal. I get this summons, for lack of a better term. And then on Facebook, I start seeing all these people posted. Like, I'm just got this letter today. Just got this letter. So in a week, all these people are getting this stuff, and all of a sudden I'm throwing, like, right in the middle of this. And so I don't know if it's related or if it's not related, but it. But the timing is just so strange to me.

James Patterson [00:18:29] Yeah. Either way, you've got. You've got bells and whistles going on in your head.

Kirk Caudle [00:18:33] Yeah. And so it's either. I mean. And I still say to this day, it could just be paranoia. I totally admit. It could just be that or it could be something else. But. Yeah, just. But the timing that nothing is done with it for so long, and then it just happens to fall when everything else is. Just happens to start. The other chips start falling with other people too. Just seem very strange to me.

Confrontation with BYU-Idaho Administration

James Patterson [00:19:00] So that kind of leads up into you actually have a. Was it a phone call or was it like a web conference that you have with.

Kirk Caudle [00:19:07] It's a phone call. So I'm with the head of the online learning department. I'm with the chair of the religious Ed department. And I think there was a third person, but I'm not for sure. I can't remember anymore. But this lasts for about 40, 45 minutes. And it seems more like a disciplinary council than anything else. I'm told that I'm not bearing testimony enough. I'm told that I could be damaging testimonies with what I do. They told me they're ready to fire me right on the spot, although I showed a repentant heart. And so they're going to give me another chance. They're really speaking to me as if they're my ecclesiastical leaders. And the thing that really got me is he said, if we have to fire you, then we're going to have to turn you over to your stake president to see if any further action would have to be taken. Because I guess if you're released from teaching religion at a church school, then that becomes a thing, I don't know,

James Patterson [00:20:19] layer of the onion. That's also so interesting to me because working for the church in a number of different capacities is tied to, you know, worthiness in terms of. Most church jobs are tied to a temple recommend from. From what I understand, it's been my experience, so. So the two are kind of interestingly interesting, intertwined.

Kirk Caudle [00:20:45] Yeah. And so I just. I didn't like that at all. And. And the line that. That really got me the most is because I'm. I am one of. One of the highest, if not in some cases highest rated student or highly rated professors of religion at BYU Idaho that teach online by students. My student reviews, and I'm not saying this to brag or anything, but my student reviews are much, much above average. And the things students like about me the most are my live lectures and that I'm interactive with them, and I'll answer questions and these things. And so I brought this up to them, and their response was. And this is an exact quote. Their response was, brother Cottle, we don't care what the students think. We care that the curriculum is being taught. And then I was told that even during office hours or any other time that I'm speaking with students, I shouldn't say anything that's not in the manual or from a recent general conference address. And then I was also told that I shouldn't speak to students anymore kind of for the rest of the semester, and why they kind of figure this whole thing out. And so I kind of became really absentee. And students noticed that during the second half of the semester, People are like, you became like, really quiet in this class.

James Patterson [00:22:17] So I run. I really want to go back to that point, though. That's so interesting to me, because here you are, you know, You've got a master's degree in religious studies. You, I mean, you have, you did your thesis on Joseph Smith. And I mean, you were just. It seems so odd to me that they're drawing the line right at, right at church curriculum, but that it seems to be very much the environment that, that you were dealing with it at BYU Idaho.

Kirk Caudle [00:22:48] Yeah, BYU Idaho has a very strong emphasis on kind of the seminaries and institute program, the CES model of. And they even say as much. And I was told this in this interview and other places of we're here to build disciples of Jesus Christ, not to build history teachers or theologians or any of these other things. And so correct information, this is my interpretation at least. Correct information when it comes to facts are secondary to testimonies. So another thing that was, you know, quoted to me is the most. Who said it? Was it, I think President Packer, Packer Oaks, one of the two, that everything that is true isn't necessarily useful or not all answers need questions, these kind of, these kind of things. But I was, I was quoted a lot of this kind of same kind of material as. Yeah, your students may have answer and may have questions, but not all of those questions are for you to answer. Sometimes you just say, we don't know, and you just kind of leave it at that or these things. And I'm not above that. I mean, I agree. I say I don't know all the time. I readily admit I don't even know that much stuff. I don't really have any answers for anything. But there are things that are factual that we do know. So if somebody says, when did Joseph Smith first encounter polygamy? I don't know that I have to just kind of build somebody's testimony or destroy it as much as I feel I could just answer the question. And that was just kind of, that mindset wasn't acceptable.

James Patterson [00:24:29] And so, I mean, what, what's going through your. You talked a little bit about. It felt very much like more like a disciplinary counselor or meeting with your ecclesiastical leaders. But what. Was there anything else going through your mind? I mean, right at the time of the interview? I mean, did you feel, I mean, was it, was it anger or, you know, more frustration or sadness? What were you kind of feeling at the time?

Kirk Caudle [00:24:56] I see a mixture between sadness and hurt because I felt that what was being leveled against me is that I was somewhat of an anti Mormon and that I was trying to somehow drive people away from the church or give people the wrong idea about things or these things. And that can't be further from the truth. I would never want to destroy somebody's faith about something they would believe, leave or make their life worse or anything like that. I mean, one of the reason I teach is because I feel like it does make people's lives better and that there is something positive from there. And I got the feeling that they really thought I was just there to just put people down or something. And I was really confused by that. Another thing I might throw in is that because I asked, I said, what. What did I say, though, that was false and these things? And the short answer was nothing. They actually sent my recorded lecture to a few historians on campus and. And they said that it was all false. I mean, it was all true. They said nothing I said was just false. But then they kind of said the buzzword that you've heard floating around the blogger nackle and everywhere else as they said, we didn't like your tone. They basically didn't like my presentation. The way I was saying, the way I was presenting the information was. Seemed to be more problematic than the information itself. And I think one of the reasons is perhaps people can even tell by how I talk here. I just have a certain way of speaking. I think that just doesn't sound that devotional. And I think what they're looking for is kind of merit, more this kind of bearing testimony and talking in a sweet voice and talking about how the spirit is moving me to say, X, Y and Z. And that's just kind of never been my teaching style, but I think that's what they were alluding to.

James Patterson [00:27:09] Yeah. And was it. I mean, was that ever. I mean, was that a point of like when you interviewed, I mean, was that, you know, kirk, we want you to come teacher, but we don't want you, you know, we don't want you talking about history. We want you bearing your testimony. I mean, was that ever. I mean, a point of instruction for you going into it,

Kirk Caudle [00:27:30] the bearing, testimony part, but nothing else. In fact, doing supplemental things like doing things like I did, recording kind of podcast lectures for people listen to or doing live lectures and interacting with students. That stuff we were encouraged to do and we were supposed to be doing. I just think mine weren't exactly the kind that they like.

James Patterson [00:27:58] So. So you're. This happens kind of in the. In the middle of the semester, is that right?

Kirk Caudle [00:28:05] Yeah. So the lecture happens almost right at the beginning. It's like second or third week. Then I'm kind of talked to like right about in the middle of it. So it's 15 weeks. So I'm, you know, thinking off the top of my head here. I'm probably talked to in about like week seven or something. Seven or eight. And so, so at that point I kind of just kind of shut down. I only tell a few friends about even what's going on because

Kirk Caudle [00:28:35] I didn't

Kirk Caudle [00:28:35] want to get fired in like the middle of the semester and I didn't want to do a big thing. But as the semester went on, I really just got the feeling that they weren't going to, they weren't going to renew my contract. Because when you're an adjunct, you're, you're basically there forever. I mean, you basically just always have your job, especially in the religion department because there's always a need. But you're offered, depending on the number of classes you're going to teach and everything, you're offered contracts semester by semester. And so basically they just weren't going to renew my contract, I think

Resigning from the Church and Reasons Why

Kirk Caudle [00:29:13] either

Kirk Caudle [00:29:14] that or they're going to fire me. So I'm not really sure what was going to happen. But I do know that two days after I resigned my membership, the head of the online learning department emailed me and he said, I need to talk to you. No, he called me on the phone, actually left me a voicemail. He said, we need to talk to you asap. And it was strange because they'd never called me. All the correspondence has always been via email and the phone conversations have always been after that. And then I just sent him an email saying, look, I've resigned from the church, sorry that it ended like this. And then he just kind of sent me this email back of two lines saying, okay, basically didn't really say anything. But I don't, I don't know what that was about, but it was really urgent. But once I said that I resigned, like the whole thing just dropped. So it makes me think it wasn't anything like to work related or something. So, so, so I really get the sense that it was, it was

Kirk Caudle [00:30:21] either

Kirk Caudle [00:30:22] I did what I was going to do or they were going to get the ball rolling on something.

James Patterson [00:30:25] Right. I mean, it's almost like you acted instead of being acted upon. Almost. Right, so kind of walk us back a little bit because I really want to connect these two dots of the experience that you have with the leaders at byu, Idaho and what happened with the lecture and then your decision to, to leave the church. Because I think, I think a lot of people in just kind of this, this rush to judgment kind of way are gonna. Are gonna see that and they're naturally gonna say, and you've talked about this before, that, you know, Kirk was offended and so he just decided to, to leave the church. And, you know, and, you know, he's stomping his feet on the way out the door. But kind of connect those, those dots for our listeners and, and kind of, why not? Not only connecting the dots, but why that was such a. Such a, you know, a decision that you actually made. It wasn't just a snap decision for you.

Kirk Caudle [00:31:24] Well, I don't want to. First off, I don't want to put down anybody's reasons for staying in a religion or leaving a religion or anything like that. But with that said, I have to agree with the church. They say, don't leave the church because you're offended. People are people. All of these kind of arguments. I agree with that 100%. So I will say that I didn't leave because I was offended or because I was hurt. Have these things happened? Oh, yeah, for sure. But that doesn't make the church true or not true because people offend you or you're hurt. My issue is with some of the things that we've talked about is

Kirk Caudle [00:32:13] I

Kirk Caudle [00:32:13] just didn't really have. And, you know, and when I say this, there's going to be a lot of people who listen that are like, okay, good. Well, you just out of yourself, good written. We don't need you anyway. We're glad you don't teach at the church school. But I didn't really have a testimony of the institution as it stands today. I do have a testimony. I always admit that I have a testimony of Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon a lot, because the experiences and stuff we talked about in person in part one of this interview. I have some personal relationships with these kind of things, but I was never converted to the church per se. I've always been converted to what I see as the gospel, and I've always had issues with the church. And so my connection to the church itself has always been with teaching because I felt like even if I didn't always believe everything that was in the curriculum, there's enough stuff there that I believed was good, that I always felt like I was helping people. And again, I'm not saying this to sound prideful or I'm building myself up or something, but I've had a lot of people who have just through the years said, you know, you're my favorite teacher and you've helped my. Helped me in my marriage with this or with my testimony, or I've gone to the temple after this or all of these things. And I've always held that that's my calling, is to be able to teach and people find the path that's good for them, even if I don't necessarily agree with the path they're on. Sometimes people come to conclusions that I totally disagree with that are just like. I mean, I don't really have much of a politically conservative bone in my body, but a lot of people will make these kind of really conservative actions, and they'll credit me for them. And I don't really agree with them, but I'm happy that I was able to help them find the path that made them happy. And I felt that's the way I was at BYU and in my wards and these things of. People have always known I've had issues with this, that, and the other thing. But at the end of the day, teaching has always kept me in the church. You know, a lot of times when you'll be in a church meeting, they'll say, how do we keep the inactive guy active? And they'll say, how about we have an elders corn barbecue, and we invite him to the barbecue. And this guy always shows up when there's food kind of things, right? I'm kind of the guy that says, like, how do we keep Kirk active? They're like, well, if we keep letting him, like, associate with people, he'll keep coming, you know, like, as long as he's teaching and. Or at least I have some kind of calling where I feel like I can impact somebody's life for the better, then I'm there. Because I really think the gospel is about service more than anything. And so I've said a million times, if you don't want to have a calling or you don't want to, like, serve, I don't really know what you do in Mormonism, because I think Mormonism is all about service. So even if I don't agree with everything, I really think there's something about the service element. And I just think that's the teaching is the way I feel I can serve people. And so through the years, my local leaders, I'd always had teaching callings, but in the past few years, I was just not being utilized. Even though I'm at church every week and everything, I just didn't have any callings. And then I. And then when BYUI came and says, like, basically, we're getting rid of you, you know, once you get rid of. Once you're gone from One church school, you're kind of gone from them all. So I'm never going to be able to teach at any kind of church institution or institute or anything again. Like, I kind of feel like I really lost my way without a testimony of the institution and being there to just kind of help people with where they are on their own faith journeys. I just felt like I didn't have anywhere else to go. And so I didn't really have that anchor of, I know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I didn't have that. All I had left was I know the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet.

James Patterson [00:36:30] Yeah. And I think that's so interesting because as we, you know, we talk about people who aren't necessarily able to reconcile everything 100% about the church and its history and, you know, modern revelation and all these things. One of the things that helps, helps is this, this notion of kind of like, you know, this, this notion of. Or feeling safe in the church or feeling like you have a place and, and for different people that means different things. I, I really like what you said about how teaching was really that, that thing for you and, and when that, I mean, that kind of got plucked away from you at church no longer, I mean, would you say church no longer felt like a safe, you know, quote unquote, safe place for you?

Kirk Caudle [00:37:14] Yeah, somewhat. Yeah, I think, I think you can say that. I mean, it's. And the reason I think that, that it felt safe is going back to the thing of people liked my. People like my teaching. Of course, probably not everybody, there's probably some people that don't like it, but, but it is kind of like what tied me to the community. And once you kind of take that away, you don't really have much left because I kind of have this personal spirituality again with like Jesus Christ and God and the Book of Mormon and these kind of things. But as far as Mormonism as an institution in this building you go to on Sunday and these kind of things, I wasn't as tied to that. And so, and so, yeah, my, my teaching and at the institutes and BYU and everything is the thing that really, like, is the thing that's really always kept me there. And so people, that's why people would say, well, if you don't really believe in all of this stuff, why would you want to teach in teach anyway? And, you know, that's like, the answer I give is because I feel that it helps people move on their own journey. And that really makes me happy Even if I disagree with people, it makes me happy to see that they're finding the a.m. it makes me happy to see them finding answers that they seek or grow in their own spirituality, regardless of if I agree with them. And there is never a time that in any of my teaching career that I'd just tell my students, like, look, I just don't believe in any of this or something.

James Patterson [00:39:02] Right? And I didn't want to, I didn't, I really didn't want to gloss over this, this point because I think you've done some really awesome work and there have been some just. I love the work you're doing with Mormon Book Review podcast because you're kind of doing all of this kind of at the same, at the same time. And so you kind of have this, and you've talked about this before. You kind of had this. You do kind of have this high profile. You're kind of a high profile figure. And so you resigned, you stopped teaching at byu Idaho and you resigned from the church. Maybe talk about some of the reaction you felt now that you're a little bit separated from that now. Talk about the reaction that you got. Maybe if there was negative and positive and kind of how you process that all.

Kirk Caudle [00:39:53] First off, I didn't know it would be such a big deal. I thought there would definitely be people who would care, but I thought those would probably be close family, maybe some friends or whatnot, and everybody else would be going, oh, that's strange. But so I first announced it on a Facebook post. And the reason that I announced it, well, first off, before I announce it publicly, I kind of told some close friends, some family, but the reason I kind of announced it there was because, yeah, a lot of people do know who I am. And so I don't want like a six months, a year down the road, people are asking me things. I'm like, oh, by the way, I resigned for the church a long time ago, or people hearing it from friends of a friend. So it's just a lot easier to just tell thousands of people at once and rip the band aid off rather than having to tell the story over and over. Because I have gotten some flack about putting on Facebook. There's quite a few people that were saying, look, you're just trying to get attention from doing this and you know, this should be a private matter between you and your family and these kind of things. And I understand that argument on one one side, but I just didn't want to have to keep going over the conversation individually with Everybody. Yeah.

James Patterson [00:41:05] Or happy over and over, or having people wonder. I mean.

Kirk Caudle [00:41:08] Yeah. How people wonder.

James Patterson [00:41:10] Yeah.

Kirk Caudle [00:41:10] Because, you know, if my wife shows up to church or, you know, I show up to church and somebody's like, oh, I heard you're not a member. Your husband's not a member. And she's just like, well, we don't talk about it, or it's none of your business, or it's a private affair. Well, that. I just don't want people just speculating. And then there's another thing where a lot of members, you know, say this stuff like it's a private thing or, you know, these kind of things. But what they're really saying, that there's something you should be ashamed about. Like, you shouldn't want everybody to know this. It shouldn't be public. But I'm not ashamed of it. I mean, I'm doing what I feel is right in my heart, so I'm not embarrassed of my decision. So I don't. On a whole other level, I don't feel like there's anything that. That even should be, like, hidden from people. And I feel like a lot of Mormons think that this is something that really shouldn't be publicized because it kind of makes everybody look bad or something. And, you know, I've heard a lot of, well, you. You're losing your eternal salvation, and, you know, what you're doing to your family, and you're gonna lose them forever. I've heard some of this that's mostly been from relatives for the most part. My family's been really great and supportive. I have some relatives who have kind of said more of things along those lines. But the vast majority of people that I've heard from and support have been overwhelmingly positive. I've had a lot of outreach from the community of Christ folks, so I want to give a shout out and thanks to so many of them that have said nice words, too.

James Patterson [00:42:45] Awesome. That's awesome. And maybe touch on that just a little bit more. But in terms of the, you know, how do you view. I mean, do you view it just kind of as, you know, you took an eraser and just erased out your membership number? I mean, is that kind of how is that kind of how you view the situation? That. I don't. I don't want to. Maybe I don't want to trivialize at all, you know, what. What you've gone through, but, I mean, clearly you don't feel like it's affected your salvation, which a lot of church members would think. How do you View your standing, you know, with God.

Kirk Caudle [00:43:22] I think it was Michael, Mike Quinn who said, and interestingly, I've seen a few comparisons to me, to Mike Quinn, and I've actually never met Mike personally. He's one of the few people I've never met who I'd like to have a conversation with. So, Mike, I'd still like to talk to you sometime. We've talked via email and ran across each other's paths in person, but never sat down and talked with him. But anyway, he said something in an interview that I heard once that I really, really liked, and it really resonated. And this isn't an exact quote, but I think this is probably just the idea of it, but it was something to the effect of excommunication can't destroy one's relationship with God any more than baptism can create it. And I really like that because I feel it's the same way with my resignation from the church of people.

Kirk Caudle [00:44:24] My.

Kirk Caudle [00:44:25] My name being on a piece of paper can't give me a relationship with God and save me any more than somebody erasing my name from that paper can. And I really believe that, you know, that's what I look at, these church disciplinary councils. If somebody really has a relationship with Jesus Christ and they really feel in their heart they're doing what's right, I don't believe that a group of men in a room can take away their holy family, their whole family, for eternity, just because they erase somebody's name from a paper. I just. I just don't believe it.

James Patterson [00:45:07] Right. So that, I mean, that's. That really speaks to kind of this. This pull that there seems to be between the, you know, a literal view of the church and its ordinances and a membership and the institution and more of this symbolic view of those same kind of things. So you. I mean, you definitely lean toward the more symbolic side of those things.

Kirk Caudle [00:45:29] Yeah, I definitely kind of go more towards the symbolic side also. I mean, I'm a universalist also. So I think at the end, we all kind of end up in the same place with a loving God, for lack of a better term. I guess I. I guess I'd consider myself, if I had to put a label on it, I'd say I'm kind of like an agnostic, kind of Nauvoo Mormon.

James Patterson [00:45:59] That's a. I think that's a great, great way to describe it. So I want to go back a little bit to this. This concept of. And this is where we're kind of gonna kind of transition into this, this Q and A that kind of covers everything that we've, we've talked about. We'll try to take some of our listeners questions, but you, you talked a little bit about this notion of, you know, everything that is true is not useful sense that that kind of permeates throughout the church and that you kind of got a real taste of at BYU Idaho. Do you, I mean, do you think that's just a certain wing of the church? I mean, certainly a powerful wing of the church, or do you think it represents really the, I mean, the fundamental nature of what Mormonism really is today? What's your, what's your view on that

Kirk Caudle [00:46:45] of what it is today? Right, yeah, I think that, I think that that definitely represents what it is today as an institution. Yeah, especially I think when it comes to things like, let's just take an issue popular in Mormonism right now, something like, let's take gay marriage or gay adoption, for example. Right. We're. The church can make an argument that there should always just be one man and one woman in a legal marriage union. And that's kind of it. Kids should only be with a mother and a father, maybe a single mother, maybe a single father, but nobody of the same sex. And somebody might bring up, well, yeah, but what about like scientific, some scientific study that might say kids that grow up in a gay household would be just as successful or just as happy as, like, somebody else. Right. I feel like any kind of study like that is just kind of thrown out as not useful. In fact, we shouldn't even be asking the question. I feel like even questions like being brought up like that aren't useful. So I think more than theology at the current time, I think that the church is kind of unconcerned with what people are asking theology wise. In fact, I don't even know that many of your everyday members of the church are that concerned with theology. I don't think they're concerned with doctrine per se. I think they're more concerned with politics and church history. And so I think when it comes to politics and church history, I think that's when the church is much more likely to say, just because something's true doesn't necessarily mean it's useful, because I think they throw away scientific facts all of the time and you really have nothing to do with those things.

Podcasting, the Mormon Book Review, and the Maxwell Institute

James Patterson [00:49:02] All right, Kirk, well, why don't we talk a little bit about. I mean, obviously you've been really involved in podcasting and done some really great contributions to the world of podcasting and Mormonism So why don't you talk about kind of the impetus for the Mormon Book Review? How did that get started? And take us through a little bit of that.

Kirk Caudle [00:49:25] The Mormon Book Review. First off, it's easy enough to find if I can plug my own site, www.themormonbookreview.com, so that's easy enough to just click onto. I started it a few years back. What was it now that I think off the top of my head, the end of 2012. And of course, there's quite a few podcasts online and I'm a podcast listener. I've listened to Mormon stories quite a few times and there's a few other Mormon themed podcasts that I like and quite a few non Mormon themed podcasts that I like. And I really enjoy talking and talking to people that are smarter than myself, which is an incredibly hard to do. And so I was thinking to myself, there was a niche out there in the Mormon studies world that nobody's really doing with podcasting. And one thing I came up with was something that focused entirely on books and the authors of books, but not just talking to the authors about their lives, but actually interacting with the books themselves. And so this was kind of the genesis of the Mormon Book review idea and being already involved in the Mormon studies world as I am, and was. It was easy enough for me to start the podcast because the first few interviews that I did were associates or friends or acquaintances of mine because I had already known quite a few people in the Mormon studies world who have, who had published books. So I just contacted them, I said, I'm starting this podcast. Would you like to come on? And everybody said, sure. And so right off, I think the show kind of gained credibility because I had some good people on and I think we had some great conversations. And from there I was able to branch out and get some people that I didn't know personally. And we kind of went from there. And at first I was doing, I was doing shows pretty often, a couple, two, three a month. And we just. I just kind of went from there. And I'm surprised that how quickly it caught on because I know a lot of podcasts kind of don't catch on too quickly, but much to my surprise and enjoyment also, I mean, I was very pleased to see that people really liked it.

Kirk Caudle [00:51:44] People liked the More in Book Review

Kirk Caudle [00:51:45] because I think one reason that, well, there's two reasons people told me that they tell me that they like the

Kirk Caudle [00:51:53] More in Book Review.

Kirk Caudle [00:51:55] One is people like that they're short, they're only about 30 minutes. And so you can basically get in your car, drive to work, and it's

Kirk Caudle [00:52:03] all over and done by the time you get there.

Kirk Caudle [00:52:06] It's not like how a podcast like this, you're kind of listening to me talk for hours, but it's very short, succinct, and we kind of just get right to the heart of the matter on the Mormon Book Review. And number two, the thing that people like is that it's very kind of non controversial. It's very academic in tone. And so it's really. We really do have a niche audience. The Mormon Book Review isn't for everybody. It's for people who I'd say are a little more academically minded rather than activist minded or just it's not faith promoting at all. It won't damage anybody's testimony though, I don't think. And we have a surprising number of non Mormon listeners. I've had quite a few non Mormon authors that have been on the show, and people really seem to like it all the way around. The show is not meant to convince you of anything that Mormonism is true or not true or any of these kind of things. It's simply there to educate you on a certain issue that an author has chosen to write about.

James Patterson [00:53:15] Do you have a favorite episode that just kind of sticks out in your mind?

Kirk Caudle [00:53:19] Yeah, there's a couple of my favorite episodes. It's a question I'm actually asked quite often, actually, what are my favorite episodes? So a couple of my favorite episodes I will throw out is number one, somebody who's really influenced my thinking a lot is Adam Miller, who I believe has been a guest on Mormon stories before. Also, he is actually the only person to appear on the Moran Book Review twice. He was my guest right at the. Right at the beginning. He was one of the first guests. And I want to say he's on episode. I want to say it's episode three. And that's when we talk about his book, Rube Goldberg Machines. And he's also in episode 39. That's when we talk to Letters of Letters to a Young Mormon, which by the way, if I can throw in a little plug for him, I think is one of the greatest books ever written. It's kind of like the Mormon version of Mere Christianity for me, which Mere Christianity is one of my favorite books, is something I go back to time and time again. And so I would say those two are among my favorites. And then I can't remember the episode number off the top of my head, but it's an interview with. I do with Richard Bushman, and I actually did that at his home in Provo. So that was really cool. I've only done a couple of interviews, not over Skype, but actually on location, and that was one of them. So that was really cool because I was at the Maxwell Institute summer seminar with Terrell Gibbons in the summer of 2013, so last summer, and Richard was around there on and off, and I visited with him other times, but he allowed me to actually come to his house to record the interview. So that was really cool.

James Patterson [00:55:20] Yeah.

Kirk Caudle [00:55:21] And of course, you can never go wrong when you talk with Richard Bushman. He makes the interview easy.

James Patterson [00:55:27] And so you kind of did get noticed by the Maxwell Institute, and you kind of start a relationship with them. I believe it was the spring of 2013. Is that right?

Kirk Caudle [00:55:41] Yeah, it was right around there. I was actually approached by the Maxwell Institute. I was just doing the podcast by myself, just totally independent. And like I said, I started to gain a following. Quite a few people had listened, and I think the show was different. And I was approached by the Maxwell Institute. I was going down

Kirk Caudle [00:56:04] to.

Kirk Caudle [00:56:05] I was going down to Provo for a conference that I was going to be presenting at, and they said, hey, while you're here, why don't we talk? Why don't you talk with us? We're interested in possibly bringing you on to the Maxwell Institute and doing the

Kirk Caudle [00:56:20] Mormon Book Review with us. And I was like, fantastic. And so I went down there with a couple of the guys from there, Carl Griffin and Blair Hodges, at the time. We went out to dinner and we kind of ironed things out. And really what we came up with was a year contract, and they would pay me to do X amount of shows. I was doing about two a month, and we would just kind of see how it went for a year. And it really, to be honest, it was. It was a bit of a. Was a bit of a surreal moment for me because when I first got into the Mormon studies world years and years back, I looked at then FARMS as just like the pinnacle of everything, you know, like all of these people I'd read from and. And to even be connected with the Maxwell Institute on any level was just, like, extremely, extremely cool for me. And so I was really excited. So one of the reasons that they brought me on was one because of the kind of more academically focused podcasts that I did. And they were actually rolling out a lot of different stuff at the Maxwell Institute at that time, as far as multimedia goes. So they were starting a new blog, which I think is still kind of doing well. And on that blog, they wanted a podcast. So they wanted to do the Maxwell Institute podcast, which my good friend Blair Hodges actually hosts right now. So they were gonna have Blair do one episode a month of just the Maxwell Institute podcast. And the Mormon Book Review was kind of under the umbrella of the Greater Maxwell Institute Podcast. So my shows were being hosted on their site. And so kind of the thought was, since they were opening up this website, a good way to kind of get advertisement for the Maxwell Institute podcast and bring traffic to the new website would be the bring Mormon Book Review on. And that way it would kind of be beneficial for us both. It would bring me basically all of the people that follow the Maxwell Institute, would bring them to the Mormon Book Review, and then all the people that listened to the Mormon Book Review would bring them over to the Maxwell Institute. And so it was pretty much a win win for both of us. There wasn't much risk on either of our sides. And so that's kind of how I became involved with them.

James Patterson [00:58:50] So you touched on this a bit. But I mean, what's it like for you, especially with your background? I mean, you're rubbing shoulders with some of the church's most high profile apologists. What's. I mean, you must have been kind of geeking out.

Kirk Caudle [00:59:06] Yeah, yeah, I was. It's a little different for me since I actually live in Portland, Oregon, so I wasn't actually on site except for I was working with them actually when I was in the summer seminar that I was talking about. So that was pretty cool because I got to go meet everybody in person and have lunches and everything like that. But I was actually named. So I was actually a contract employee. And so a contract would be. A contract employee was. Would be something like somebody who is. Is paid for piecework, basically, or you get. You get. So I got paid for every show that I did. So to be an employee like that would be like, you know, somebody that does book covers or printing or something. So. But what I thought would be cool would be to be academically connected with the Maxwell Institute, not just to be, you know, employed by them. That's one thing, right? To just be employed, but it's another thing to have an academic position. So I brought this up and they actually named me at the same time. So I wasn't just a contract employer as a podcaster, but I was also named as a visiting research fellow, which gave me an academic position at the institute, which would allow me to do various other work with them academically, which I thought was just awesome. And I was told. So I think this is true because this is what people have told me. But there's not a ton of people on that list on the visiting research fellow list. Visiting, of course, means that you're not actually on campus, means you live somewhere else. But as far as I'm told, I'm the only person in Maxwell Institute history ever to have an academic position and a regular kind of contract position at the same time. Usually people are one or the other.

James Patterson [01:01:18] Wow.

Kirk Caudle [01:01:18] So.

Kirk Caudle [01:01:20] And so. And so that's kind of good for maybe a Mormon Jeopardy Question or something someday.

James Patterson [01:01:27] Maxwell Institute for 400.

Kirk Caudle [01:01:29] Yes. And so, yeah, that was really cool.

Kirk Caudle [01:01:34] And

Kirk Caudle [01:01:36] you know, to use your term. Yeah, you know, I was kind of. I was kind of geeking out a little at a lot of the things I. You know, the more I've kind of got into the Mormon studies world, the more everything just kind of seems normal because I know a lot of people personally, but still, it is a bit surreal when I really just kind of look back on it and look at where I am and the people that I know. I feel so fortunate and blessed to just have so many great associations with so many awesome people.

James Patterson [01:02:06] So can you talk about some of the academic projects you were. You were involved with on that side

Kirk Caudle [01:02:12] with the Maxwell Institute? Yeah, I actually never was, to be honest with you, so. So they named me to that position, but I actually was never utilized to be honest in anything on. In that regard. I just did podcasting.

Kirk Caudle [01:02:31] Okay.

James Patterson [01:02:32] And so that. That relationship kind of abruptly ended at the. And end of 2013. Is that right?

Kirk Caudle [01:02:40] Yeah. And so like I said, we signed this year contract, and the Maxwell Institute again was going through some changes here. So they had the new blog and they have this new website, and they'd also taken over a small book press called the Salt Press. And these were with guys like Adam Miller, Joe Spencer, Robert Couch, Jenny Webb, all friends of mine, and great people doing great work. And so the Maxwell Institute was kind of going through a lot of changes and kind of taking over different things at this time. The Mormon Book Review, like I said, was one of those things. So we had a year contract, and at a certain point, things kind of things and things kind of slowed down in communication between myself and the Maxwell Institute for like a month or so. The website wasn't really running much, and I wasn't really sure. I wasn't kind of in the loop of all of this kind of with the higher UPS of exactly what was going on. But to make a long story short, they ended up contacting me. And after a meeting that was had. I don't know who was in the meeting. I don't have a lot of information on this, but I was told they needed to break ties with me. But I was also promised that it had nothing to do with me personally. It wasn't that I said something I shouldn't have said or anything like that, but that there was reasons that they couldn't get into, that I just needed to. That I just need to be let go. That they basically didn't want any more people kind of talking for the Institute that weren't kind of full time employees. They didn't want people doing contract work like I was anymore. So I have no idea who made that decision or what. But I have nothing negative to say about the Maxwell Institute. So let me go on record as saying that for anyone who's listening, I have nothing negative to say about them. In fact, even though I had a contract that only went through about six months, they. They paid me out for the contract of. Even for episodes I didn't do. So for the entire six months of episodes that I should have done, we broke the contract and they. And they paid me for those, even though I never actually got to do it with them. And so I feel the Maxwell Institute was more than fair with me. I don't know what happened, but I've never really dug too far for answers. And I know at least the people that were over me were dealing fairly with me. And so that's kind of what I can say about that is we had a contract. It went about halfway through. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to continue with them. And they paid me out the rest of my contract. And I own the rights to all my shows. So any shows that I did while with them, I still let them broadcast that on. On their itunes and keep those ones on their website, but they also allow me to keep them on my website and do with them as I please.

James Patterson [01:05:46] Also interesting. That's a little bit of inside baseball there. But. But you got the indistinct impression that it was. It was just maybe some internal things going on there and certainly nothing to do with you or the kind of content that you're putting out.

Kirk Caudle [01:06:01] Yeah, and that. That's what I was told. And I have no reason to believe that it was anything other than that it seems to be totally internal because as I said, I am. I am pretty good friends with some of the People down at the Maxwell Institute and those that I talked to assured me that was the case. It didn't have anything to do with me personally or the content of the Mormon Book Review. And so I have no reason to believe it was anything other than internal and it was somebody above those people's heads making the choice. Yeah.

James Patterson [01:06:35] And obviously you have a. You, I mean, do you have a good relationship existing to this day with Blair Hodges?

Kirk Caudle [01:06:40] Oh, yeah, I'd say. And if Blair happens to listen to something. But I guess he could refute this if he wants. But I consider Blair a great friend. Yeah, I love Blair. We get along great and we have, more than anything, we have a great time talking about basketball. We're both big NBA fans. I'm a die hard Blazer fan, so I say the only thing I love more than God is the Portland Trail Blazers.

James Patterson [01:07:05] Rip City.

Kirk Caudle [01:07:06] And he and Rip City. I've been a Blazer fan my entire life and it's great to see them doing well again finally. And Blair is a big jazz fan. We had a lot of good battles in the 1990s there. And so, yeah, Blair and I kind of go back and forth more about basketball more than anything theological nowadays. But we had a great working relationship and a great personal relationship too, I think. So I have no reason to believe Blair or anybody else would tell me something that was untrue.

The State and Future of Mormon Apologetics

James Patterson [01:07:41] What's your take on maybe start off with where apologetics is now and where you kind of see it going in the future from your perspective?

Kirk Caudle [01:07:50] I think Mormon apologetics for the most part is. Is in a pretty good place. Of course, you know, people are gonna debate what's apologetics and what's not. But, But I think it, I, I think it's in a good place. If I go back to the Maxwell Institute for a second, I think, I think they're doing great work. I think kind of their publishing is a bit slow at the moment and. But I think they have some great people working on some great projects over there. I think the acquisition of the Salt Press books are really good. I think that the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, I think Joe Spencer's over that now. I'm not for sure, but I, at least I think he might be Brian Hagland over there. You know, they're just doing really good stuff, I think, with those journals and. And then what is it? I can't remember what the used to be called the Farms Review. But anyway, they have the new journal that reviews books and on the editorial boards of these, they actually have non Mormon scholars, which I think is really cool. And I think it's going to bring some legitimacy to some of the work they're doing. Also I think work that's been done by of course, Richard Bushman, Grant Hardy, with his book on the Book of Mormon and other works in this vein I think are doing a lot of positive things for Mormon apologetics. Terrell Givens, I'd also throw in there people that because people are starting now to get published in non Mormon venues, things like Oxford Press and University of Illinois Press and these other places. And I think as this happens, it brings legitimacy to the field of Mormon studies and the questions of how, you know, are there, you know, are there other horses in the Book of Mormon or, you know, DNA evidence and you know, these kind of apologetics, kind of the old farm style I feel is really fading into the background. I think there's kind of a niche audience, kind of an older audience who's into that thing. But I really feel honestly like the vast majority of people now are less concerned with those questions, especially in academia. So one thing, I don't know if we've met, I don't know if this was mentioned in my bio at the beginning, but even if so, people out there probably forgot about that by this point of the interview. But I'm the, I'm the co chair for the Mormon Studies section at the American Academy of Religion, the Pacific Northwest region. So that takes in Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, some of Idaho, Washington, Oregon.

Kirk Caudle [01:10:41] And

Kirk Caudle [01:10:43] I co chair that with a friend of mine, Susanna Morel, who is non LDS historian and she's over here in Portland also at Lewis and Clark University. She's an associate professor. And one thing that I found being involved with that is that there's so many people interested in the field of Mormon studies. This is our third year that we have a Mormon Studies section in the region. The first year we did it, the people in the region were kind of unsure how well a Mormon studies thing is going to do. But as far as paper submissions, we were second, second only to New Testament, which a lot of people do. Right. But we had the second most submissions and about 50% of those came from non Mormons. And we it just kind of goes to show that there's a lot of people interested in kind of this emerging field. And people all of the time ask me when I'm at these other universities, why isn't there more being written on Mormonism? Why isn't Mormon, Why aren't more courses being taught in the colleges on these kind of things. And so I think Mormon apologetics is really kind of turning to that side of things. I think Mormon apologetics is starting to talk less to the insiders and talk more to the outsiders or at least more to the quote, unquote. I don't really even like this phrase, but kind of quote unquote, fringe Mormon population, feminists, the intellectuals, you know, if we want to use these labels, the homosexuals, all the, the more liberal minded people. There seems to be less and less apologetic work, at least done on scripture and whatnot that's aimed directly to your everyday, average believing Mormon sitting in a pew. I could be wrong on that, but that's my perception of things being involved in the community.

Joseph Smith, Polygamy, and Polyandry

James Patterson [01:12:54] Let's segue into your, you know, your formative studies, especially for your masters. You're studying a lot about Joseph Smith. You know, the kind of religious milieu that he's swimming in as he kind of forms the doctrines of the church or, or restores them from whatever perspective you want to come. But talk about, maybe just give our listeners an idea of kind of your, as it were, your testimony of Joseph Smith and your thoughts on him in his history and his becoming prophet. How do you view Joseph Smith?

Kirk Caudle [01:13:34] Yeah, that's a good question and it's one that I'm always thinking about myself. How do I view Joseph Smith? Because. Well, first off, I'll tell you how I don't view Joseph Smith. So just to make this clear, I don't think Joseph Smith's a fraud. I don't think Joseph Smith is making the whole story of Mormonism up. I don't think Joseph Smith is just money, money diggering, treasure seeker who started a religion with fake gold plates just to make money. I don't think any of that stuff. What I do think, I do think that Joseph was a boy who went into a grove of trees to pray and God appeared to him. Whether there was one or two personages. I'm not for sure what he saw. I'm not for sure because of all of the different accounts. But I think whatever he saw, however he saw God in whatever form he saw him, I think definitely moved him to do something that he was supposed to do to make the world a better place. And I think that everything Joseph did in his life, he did with an eye single to the glory of the Lord. Everything right, he did. I don't think so. Sometimes do. I think that, sometimes do I think that he made mistakes and did things because he was greedy or he was lustful or is power hungry? Yeah, I think so. I definitely think so. But. But I think when it came to his writings and to a lot of what he did generally, he did it because he genuinely felt like God was moving him to do so. I don't think he's a con artist.

James Patterson [01:15:37] And what about some. I mean, I feel like there's these levels when it comes to Joseph Smith. I mean, you have the first vision kind of level, and then it gets even more complicated when you get to the Book of Mormon. So kind of take us through. I mean, what's your understanding or your feeling in terms of the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Are there things that you point to that help you view the Book of Mormon as historic or not or kind of take us through that as far

Kirk Caudle [01:16:07] as historicity of the Book of Mormon is concerned? It's a question I get quite often, and I personally believe that the Book of Mormon is historical, at least in some fashion. I believe Nephi is a real person, Moroni is a real person. There was Nephites and Lamanites, city called Zarahemla, the whole nine yards. So, depending on your perception is I'm either very gullible or just entirely faithful.

James Patterson [01:16:42] So.

Kirk Caudle [01:16:44] But why I believe those things has nothing to do with geography of the Book of Mormon or anything, or DNA evidence or any of these kind of things. I readily conceive that there's no evidence for any of these things. The only reason I tend to think it's historical is entirely because what I believe to be the Holy Spirit has told me that it is. But that's really no evidence at all for anybody. So I'll readily concede that I could be wrong. But at the same time, I'm not really concerned with. I'm not really concerned with such questions, because whether the Book of Mormon is true in the. In the history sense or not to me has no bearing on it being Scripture for me, much in the same way as whether or not the Book of Job is true or Job is just a allegory for Israel doesn't change the way that. Doesn't change that it's Scripture. For me, whether the Garden of Eden story is literal or entirely symbolic or maybe not true at all, like, it doesn't change the way that the text moves in my life. And so I kind of, I think, said something kind of similar to this in part one. But for me, scripture, scriptures are not the ends to finding truth, but they're a starting point to receiving revelation. And that's what the Book of Mormon Is to me, the Book of Mormon isn't just this kind of true in the historical sense of the word book that just teaches me truth. The Book of Mormon for me is a starting point for revelation, or in other words, tells me stories and puts life in a context that I can start thinking about it and that I can start coming to answers for myself about things in life and things of eternity and nature of God and whatnot. So at the end of the day, I'm very unconcerned with geography or DNA evidence or any of these things. It's neither here nor there for me. They could prove tomorrow that the Book of Mormon, that Joseph did use something to write it, or that Lamanites never existed or something, and the book would still move me in my life.

James Patterson [01:19:21] So a smoking gun wouldn't. It wouldn't have that much impact on the power of the Book of Mormon in your life?

Kirk Caudle [01:19:27] No, because it already has power in my life now. I mean, that's like. I mean, if the only reason that I'm getting something out of the Book of Job is because I think Job is a real guy, well, then hopefully he's gonna be a real guy. Because if historical evidence ever says he's not, then my entire testimony would just. The thing would have to fall down. And so regardless, and I tell people, you know, I actually, in my institute class when I was over at Portland State, we would get. We get actually quite a few non members that would come to institute because if you came to institute and you had 80% attendance, you could park at the institute building for free. To park on campus, because it's in downtown Portland, is something like $250 per term or something. So we just have people like my class was once a week. So basically you just have to come 8 out of 10 times and you save $250 and you can park there not just on institute days, but on just any day. So. So a lot of times they would send the non members to my class and we would do mostly New Testament. I would teach, but I would even tell them about Book of Mormon if we pull that out. And I had one particular student who was a philosophy major and he was an undergrad and we would study the words of Paul and he didn't believe the Bible. One thing I would tell him and that I always tell people about the Book of Mormon too. It doesn't matter if you think the Book of Mormon is true. Just because a book isn't true or just because God didn't write a book doesn't mean the book's not useful for your life. The Book of Mormon has much to tell us about human nature and the way we should act. I think the war chapters especially are one of the most underutilized. The war chapters in Amalakiah and Moroni. And these kind of things are just so rich with meaning for our lives, of teaching us things about envy and rage and jealousy and these kind of things. I think you can just have very rich conversations. Whether Joseph wrote the book, whether it's inspired by God, whatever, whether you're Mormon or not Mormon, you can have just great conversations about, like, these topics that are in the book. And so just, just saying, oh, God, didn't write the book and then just leaving at that, I think think is to do yourself an entire disservice.

James Patterson [01:22:15] Yeah. And so that view that you take of Joseph Smith, which I think really resonates with me, that's something that I've kind of been exploring in my faith journey lately and of the Book of Mormon. How do you. How are you able to. Knowing the. I mean, the. Just the messiness that is polygamy and polyandry. How are, how are you. Are you able to kind of reconcile that at all?

Kirk Caudle [01:22:47] Reconcile the polygamy issue?

James Patterson [01:22:49] Yeah, I mean, your view of Joseph Smith and his calling as a prophet and how messy. You know, you describe yourself kind of as a kind of a Nauvoo type Mormon, and that's really when, you know, the messiness of polygamy started to really reach its heyday. How do you kind of, how do you view polygamy and polyandry and how it all fits together?

Kirk Caudle [01:23:12] My short answer is, I don't know. My. My more full answer would be something like, if you accept Joseph Smith as a prophet. Now that's a big if, but let's say people do. I think it's too simple to say polygamy was just a mistake. Polygamy was just for a couple of people. Polygamy was something God did then, but, like, he doesn't do anymore or figures out when we die. I think those are too simple for Joseph Smith because Joseph starts this polygamy business, like all the way back in 1831. So basically from the very beginning, he's at least thinking about it. And if it's a mistake, then it's a mistake that, like, is essential to his theology and runs all the way through his death. So I'm not really sure what to think about it, but I think there's something beautiful about polygamy and I think polygamy for Joseph is expressively tied to the other things I think are essential. It's explicitly tied to temple and explicitly this idea of an eternal family. I'm much more of a law of adoption person. So do I think Joseph did everything in polygamy? Right. No, I think there was probably a lot he did wrong with it. In fact, I'm not even sure Joseph knew what he was doing with polygamy, to be totally frank. But I think he was onto something about being able to love multiple people in a community. Because there's multiple times that Joseph wanted to share the news with polygamy with other people, but then just kind of never does for fear of persecution or these other kind of things.

James Patterson [01:25:17] Yeah. So, I mean, it's kind of this just big enigma that Joseph never quite could get his arms fully wrapped around, which. Which seemed to cause all sorts of problems, not just for him, but for the church and the culture of the church.

Kirk Caudle [01:25:33] Yeah.

Kirk Caudle [01:25:34] And then when Brigham takes it, Brigham seems to be doing something entirely different with polygamy and that I don't. I'm not really sure about Brigham's form of polygamy, but Joseph seems to be doing something much more theological with it than just kind of like household polygamy, having children, and all of these kind of things.

James Patterson [01:25:54] I mean, it's really what your thesis is about is the eternal nature of what Joseph Smith to do.

Kirk Caudle [01:26:01] I think there's this web of ceiling of connecting everybody into this eternal family. And I think the law of adoption is kind of all tied up in this thing too, of that we've all got to be connected into kind of a web and not just kind of in a straight up and down kind of branch. Right. And I think polygamy does that. I think it puts us into a web. So think of it like this is a lot of times we. We talk about, you know, being in a ward family, and you have people in testimony meeting. When they move, they'll stand up and cry and say, this is the best ward I've been in. I love you all. You're like family. La da da da da. Right. And then I was thinking, you don't really love me. You're just gonna, like, leave. And, you know, if you won't never. Like, now you have Facebook and stuff, and maybe we'll be Facebook friends. But you don't really love me. You never get me birthday presents or anything. Like, we don't really love each other. We just kind of like each other, and we're in wards and these kind of things. Right, But. But what if. But what if, like, the bishop was actually, like, sealed to you, or you were, like, sealed as the son of the bishop's son or something, and you went to his house for dinner and you actually knew, even if you live with him, but you were sealed to him, and then the bishop moved or you moved, you would always keep in contact with that person. Just being Mormon, when we're sealed to somebody, it takes on, like, something new. Like when somebody adopts a child, they always want to be sealed to that child. Then when they're sealed to that child, it's kind of like they're with me forever, even if they die. Right. And I think Joseph's onto something in the Zionistic community, as if we're all sealed to somebody. And I think this is another reason why it was so big, other than that he's just a prophet, that when Joseph dies, a lot of people are sealed to him or connected with him in these ways that they feel, like, eternally, like they're still, like, with him. And so I think there's something beautiful about this idea about everybody kind of being sealed to one another in these things. And so literally, you would be kind of a ward family in, like, a real sense of the word, not just people moving in and out of boundaries. But if you're sealed to people, like, even if you leave, the church as a whole would be connected by this. And the other thing is that monogamy, I think, is. And again, I know there's a lot of people who are listening that this guy is probably off his rocker, but. But. But there's something about monogamy that I think is a little inherently selfish of that. We want what's ours. I want just my wife or I want just my husband. And, you know, when I die, I'm not sharing anybody with anybody or anything. Right. We want what we have. We don't want to share our kids or our wife or husband. We don't want to share with anybody. And I think Zion's the exact opposite of consecration, is sharing everything, including relationships. Because I think relationships don't have to be replaced, but they can be built upon. You have multiple relationships with multiple people because you love people, and there's ceilings and there's these connections and all of these other kinds of things.

James Patterson [01:29:13] Right. And at the same time, I'm sure you would acknowledge that there were certainly some huge cultural and even, I mean, negative implications to polygamy. I mean, to you, is that a just a part of the Struggle to. For the. For maybe Joseph himself or the church to kind of get their arms wrapped around this concept of polygamy. I don't want to. I don't want to really brush that off because it's a real concern for a lot of people, and a lot of people really struggle with. And the concept of polygamy causes a lot of pain. But how do you. I mean, how do you kind of reconcile that pain?

Kirk Caudle [01:29:51] Yeah, I think there's two things. Well, I think the first thing is there's a lot of cultural things. Second thing is that I don't know that Joseph himself knew what he was doing all of the time. And then let me add a third one. The third one is actually, I think what a lot of people are going to say is that polygamy is like the subject makes women into subjects and, you know, is very easy to abuse and these sorts of things. Right. But I think the reason that men could take multiple wives and be sealed to them, even today in Mormonism, I hold this, even today in Mormonism, the reason women can't be sealed to more than one husband, but husbands can be sealed to Mormon entirely wrapped up in priesthood. It's entirely patriarchal because everybody sealed through the man. But if women were to have priesthood, then I see nothing in Mormon theology, nothing in Mormon scripture that wouldn't say, because this is one of the arguments women make is, well, why couldn't I have more than one husband when I die? I argue that if women had priesthood, then I would see nothing in Mormon theology that would ban women from having more than one husband. The only thing that might would be some sort of cultural barrier. But. But if women had priesthood, then children could easily be sealed through priesthood lines.

James Patterson [01:31:20] But again, we're not talking necessarily in the, in the, you know, going back to what you're talking about in regards to how Joseph Smith viewed this whole concept, we're not necessarily talking just in the temporal form of being married, because, I mean, to a lot of people that, you know, that of course, immediately takes you to the era of sexual relations and how messy and problematic that gets. But what I hear you saying, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, is if women were allowed to hold the priesthood, it really almost would open it up to almost the possibility that Joseph really was envisioning of this. Like, you talk about this web that intertwines us all together, and it has less to do with really the temporal function of marriage. And, you know, does that make. Does that kind of resonate with you?

Kirk Caudle [01:32:14] Yeah, Well, I think, you know, we really like this. We really like this idea in the church now. And politically we say one man, one woman. Right. But I think even the more liberal Mormons take the one man, one woman even into eternity. Whereas in early Mormonism, I don't think there's this sense that when you die, there's one man, one woman. I think there's this sense of that you're sealed, but I'm not really sure what you're sealed to, but you're kind of like sealed into, like, a community more than, like, to a person per se, because you're sealed to multiple people. And now I think we just have this sense of, like, this kind of one man, one woman thing, of you go to the temple and you're kind of sealed to this one person, and then that's just kind of it. Like you live happily ever after with this person and you're kind of disconnected from any kind of community in the afterlife.

James Patterson [01:33:17] Wow. It was kind of stumbled onto something that's very fascinating. That's an angle I've never really thought of, and it's really well informed, I think, by what I've read of your thesis and kind of that sense of the eternal nature of not just ourselves, but as Joseph was seeing, the eternal nature of relationships, which I think is really important. And I think that opens up some interesting possibilities to the concept of polygamy that you've touched on.

Kirk Caudle [01:33:49] Yeah. And I think that's what Joseph would say, like, one of the reasons we're here, and I think for sure why Christ would say why we're here, is to learn to love one another, is to learn to build relationships, is to build these relationships and these types of love that transcend time and that just kind of move on forever. And it seems. It seems that in really, at least Joseph's theology, and I think biblical theology, too, with the patriarchs and whatnot, of that those relationships aren't bound by, like, cultural norms of monogamy or whatever else we might think of, but, like, those relationships know no bounds, right?

James Patterson [01:34:41] Absolutely.

Kirk Caudle [01:34:43] I mean, in fact, we have this, like, strange thing. You know, I don't know what I think about this, but let me just throw in, you know, historically, even though a lot of, like, church leaders have even rejected the Immaculate conception theory, you know, like mcconi and others are saying, you know, we don't really know what happened, but, you know, Mary is not magically pregnant. And then you have these weird conceptions of, like, what, so God's having sex with his daughter Right. We have these kind of things. But. But sex and Mormonism is just very, like, strange to think about because it's just kind of all over the place with. The only way we know how to think of sex is in our earthly term. Our earthly terms. I mean, we can't even. We can't even say the word penis or vagina in a sacrament meeting without everybody flipping out, much less even have a conversation about eternal polygamy or something. I mean, we can't even think of, like, we can't even think of sex in any other way other than it's just mine and it's dirty otherwise or something. So I think that's one of the reasons we never have these kind of conversations, because when you talk about polygamy, you can't not talk about sex. And Mormons won't talk about sex, therefore we won't talk about polygamy. And therefore we just say it's better something we did and it was probably a mistake. And. Yeah, you can't even get into a theology of it.

James Patterson [01:36:11] Yeah, well, that's right. It's a really, It's a. It's a really interesting kind of, kind of detour that we took there that was really fascinating to me. So we've kind of covered, you know, what I would. What I'd call maybe the one half of your traditional Mormon testimony, which would be, you know, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, kind of. So I feel like, from what I understand from you, there's kind of this wide chasm between that half of your testimony and kind of the other half of the traditional Mormon testimony, which is modern revelation and modern prophets. And that's kind of where I wanted to kind of sew everything up is how you kind of view that, because it's, It's. It's very much different from kind of your views on the other half of your testimony.

Reflections on Testimony, Faith, and Moving Forward

Kirk Caudle [01:37:03] Yeah. So I. I'd say that I have a testimony that I think the church is good. Do I think the church is true? I can't say that I think the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. The problem is we don't really know what the gospel is. And what I mean by that is I think the gospel is unknowable, literally. So we'll say something like the atonement of Jesus Christ, so I can say I believe in it, but at the same time, we'll say it's unknowable. We don't know what Christ went through or any of this stuff. So it's like I'm having a testimony of something that I admit I have no idea what it is. And then the church itself is trying to figure out what that atonement is so the church becomes estranged, like middleman. And I have a testimony that the church is trying to figure out what the atonement of Jesus Christ is. I have a testimony that the church is a good place. I have a testimony that the church does much good for people and changes people's lives for the better. I've seen it a million times. I can't deny that. But I also don't think that the church is for everybody. I think the church can be extremely discriminatory, can be extremely hurtful to many people. And. And I wish it was. I wish it was more inclusive. I. I want to believe in prophets. I want to believe that President Monson and President Hinckley and Kimball and all the rest of them have talked to God and are leading the church. But I can honestly say that I have no testimony of that. I've never had any kind of spiritual revelation of such things, and I've never really seen anything to lead me to believe. So. So for me, a lot really gets lost between Joseph and Brigham. I'm not convinced that the keys to the kingdom are transferred over to Brigham Young. And so I think what we're left with in the church is a lot of good people doing the best they can with what they've got. I don't believe that the brethren are malicious or lying or any of these other things when they're leading the church. I don't think they're trying to steal our money. I think they're all genuinely very loving and compassionate people. And so that's kind of my testimony and thoughts on the institution as it stands today.

James Patterson [01:39:52] All right, great. This has just been, I think, a really great couple of hours. Not just talking about. I mean, I don't. I wanted to steer away from just kind of, you know, pigging you into the whole of what happened over this summer and kind of really help our listeners get to know, you know, you and your story, which I think that this is. We've been able to kind of draw a really rich picture of who Kirk Cottle is and kind of how he views Mormonism. So as you take us out, I guess, is there anything else you've really done a great job of kind of sharing your really rich, complex testimony with us. Is there anything else that you'd kind of want to leave our audience with in terms of you or your beliefs or how you View anything.

Kirk Caudle [01:40:43] One thing I'd like to perhaps tell people is. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. I know Mormon Stories has kind of a collection of different people who listen. It's a big hodgepodge of things. But just because. Just because Joseph Smith isn't a prophet or the Book of Mormon is not true, or the Church isn't true, or any of these things doesn't necessarily mean everything the Church teaches is bad or that you have to have to actually fight against the Church. This is my opinion because I've gotten a lot of questions of saying, well, now that you've resigned your membership, now we can go out and drink at bars together, or we can now do whatever. And I don't think that the reason I live by certain moral codes and dietary restrictions and these things doesn't have anything to do with the Church. I think some things that the Church teaches are just good. I like my kids still going to church. In fact, I still go to my ward. And people are still nice to me and people are good to me just like they always were my friend. I haven't been disowned by anybody or anything like that. It just seems more honest to just kind of be myself. And people are kind of fine with that. And I try to be. And I try to be patient with. I try to be patient with leaders. I'm probably not always the best at it, but I realize that most of these men who are called don't have any special talents. I don't feel like they're particularly inspired by God. But I do believe that the vast majority of their hearts are in the right place and they're trying to make the world a better place. And so these are. I mean, I'm talking to myself as much as anybody out there, listening. But the things I try to remember is there is a lot of good in the church. Not Hindu, and I'm not Muslim. But as somebody who studies religion in general, I try to pick out truth and goodness where I can find it. And just because you used to be Mormon, you're not Mormon anymore. Don't lose all your Mormon ness, because there's a lot of good. There's a lot of good in there. Just kind of pick out the bad. And a lot of the people in the church may seem like you may kind of hate some of them, but, you know, if you're really honest with yourself, a lot of them are good people. So let's kind of all just kind of be nice to each other on both ends of the spectrum. And if you're one of the believing people, try to be nice to the people that just have a hard time.

James Patterson [01:43:29] Thanks for joining us today on a thoughtful faith podcast. To discuss this episode with others, please check us out@athoughtfulfaith.org to keep the podcast alive or to join the community of support, please consider a tax deductible donation by visiting athoughtfulfaith.org Music for today's episode was generously provided by Chellen Hunt and the Lower Lights. Thanks for listening.

Kirk Caudle [01:43:53] Still all my song shall be near Nearer, my God, to thee Nearer, my God, to thee near to thee. Though like the wonder the sun gone down Darkness be over me My rest a stone yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to thee Nearer, my God, to Thee More never to leave. Never let the way appear Stems unto heaven all as thou sendest me in mercy Give angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee Nearer, my God, to thee Nearer to Thee Nearer, my God, to thee Nearer to Thee Sam.

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