Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. It is May 11, 2023 Balenciaga, and we are here today to talk about how the Mormon Church handles doubts. This is a part of our ongoing series that we have named LDS discussions. If you go to ldsdiscussions.com there's an amazing series of essays that have been written by our dear friend Mike about Mormon Church truth claims, trying to be as evidence based and as objective as possible to help people who are trying to understand and learn the truth about the Mormon Church to do so in evidence based, fact based, as neutral as possible manner. We are now 44 episodes into this series. It does build upon itself. So what we recommend is that if you have not watched the other 43 episodes or listened to them, that you pause that you go back and start from the beginning because you'll get a lot more out of today's episode if you listen to the previous 43. You can listen to or view these episodes in series either on Spotify under the LDS discussions brand or on Apple Podcasts under the LDS discussions brand or on the Mormon Stories podcast YouTube channel. We have a playlist for all the LDS discussions episodes, so that's how we recommend consuming them. This has been a very, very popular series and we're really honored to have Mike with us. So Mike, welcome. Welcome back to your series. How's it going?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:01:34] Good. How are you all doing?

John Dehlin [00:01:35] Good. And Nemo, Nemo the Mormon from the NoMo the Mormon YouTube channel is joining us from the UK.

Nemo [00:01:42] Hey, folks, how's it going?

John Dehlin [00:01:44] It's good to have you, Nemo.

Nemo [00:01:46] Great to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:47] Yeah. And two of us have been Balenciaga, but one of us has not. And I'm just going to leave it up to the audience to try and figure out what we're talking about.

Nemo [00:01:57] Yeah, yeah, indeed.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:01:58] We'll just leave it there.

Nemo [00:02:00] I think we should.

Guest 2 [00:02:01] All right.

John Dehlin [00:02:01] So Mike, anything you want to say before we jump in?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:02:04] No, I mean, I think this episode will. Will piggyback well off our last episode, which was on Spiritual Witnesses and kind of. It's a good continuation because today we're going to look at how the church frames doubts and how they kind of present the idea of doubts to members. In this episode is going to be almost entirely. It is entirely basically on current modern church. We're not going to look at how Joseph Smith talked about doubts. We're not going to look at how Brigham Young did it, because I think this is something we're all going to face. And if you're watching these episodes, you likely have faced doubts, whether or not you're still a believer or not. And I think it's important to look at how the church frames it so that we can better kind of, like we talk about spiritual witnesses, just better understand what. What they're saying and how we can kind of utilize that when we're trying to figure all this out for ourselves.

John Dehlin [00:02:51] Yeah, that's great. And this is a really important episode because, honestly, growing up in the church, I think it's fair to say I was taught doubt, not the doubting is bad. And I think one of the things I've learned over time is that there's an argument to be made for doubt being a very healthy thing. And I hope we are able to get to that at some point. But I think let's begin with slide one, which is a look at how the Mormon Church handles doubt.

How the Church Has Always Handled Doubt

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:03:24] Yeah, and this is just the obvious. Right. Doubts in the Mormon Church are nothing new. We have stories of members leaving the church since the beginning when they realize that the truth claims don't add up, whether it's the Book of Mormon or the actions of Joseph Smith that eventually shook their belief. We have examples of Joseph Smith losing members over the Kirtland Safety Society bank, where he lost everybody's life savings in a bank that he had prophesied would be the biggest bank. Obviously, we have the stories about polygamy. We have all these other stories. And the biggest difference, really, is that in recent years, the Mormon Church really has no control over the information we have access to. And so you have the different outlets, you have the ces, you have Mormon stories, you have all of these social media outlets, whether it's TikTok or Facebook or Instagram, that are bringing information to members in very easy to consume formats. And I think that's a really big difference between now and when you look at, say, the church in Nauvoo and Kirtland, they didn't have the ability to hop on Google. They didn't have the ability to hop on and look at some of these documents that Joseph Smith had that he was claiming or that he was changing, such as Revelations. And so ever since, especially since the Internet has made access to this information so readily available, the church has been faced with increasing doubts among members. And the past church historian Marlon Jensen declared, maybe since Kirtland, we've never had a period of, I'll call it apostasy like we have, like we're having now. The Internet's made it easy to find this information and it's now easy to find it with clear sourcing. You can no longer say that, you know, Joseph Smith changing the first vision is an anti Mormon lie because we could show where all of these documents are coming from. Same with the priesthood restoration, all of these things. And when you have the actual evidence, and a lot of it coming from the Church's own records, you then are going to have more and more members with doubts.

John Dehlin [00:05:14] Yeah, and if it's okay, I'll just give a little bit of history here because I've, I've been in the Church the longest. I'm 53 years old. I was, you know, I did my seminary years in the 80s, in the mid-80s. And if I could just give a little bit of perspective going back that far, you know, I think, I think that there in the, let's just say in the early 20th century, if you go back to the Shannon Caldwell Montez episodes, there were some, there were some, you know, events like with BH Roberts, with the New York Times publishing some articles about the Book of Abraham in the 19 teens, let's say, and with some science stuff coming out around evolution and the age of the earth and dinosaurs, the early to mid 20th century, there were lots of opportunities to doubt. But things really, really heated up when Fawn McKay Brody, around the mid-1940s, who was the niece of David O. McKay, published a biography about Joseph Smith called no Man Knows My History. That I think that is the first time the Mormon Church was confronted with its first wave of serious doubt. And of course Father McKay Brody, who is again David O. McKay's niece, was, was, was excommunicated within a very short amount of time. And while that book was published nationally by a reputable publisher because she was demonized and excommunicated because Hugh Nibley wrote a response to, to her book called no Ma', Am that's Not History. And what you saw, oh, Nemo's gonna, Nemo's showing both the book no Man Knows My History and the response, no ma', Am, that's not History. Because they were able to demonize Fawn Brody and excommunicate her. That book became an unspeakable. It became something that you just weren't allowed to read. And so for at least a few decades after that, you didn't see big up surges in doubt within Mormonism. And you, but you also saw the beginning of, of real, what I call classic Mormon apologetics, starting with Hugh Nibley. And then what you have Is you have Sandra and Gerald Tanner in the early 60s, you know, coming up with Utah Lighthouse Ministries. And of course, we've had Sandra Tanner on Mormon stories now multiple times. But Sandra and Gerald are legends because they worked for half a century doing really good scholarship and research on Mormon Church truth claims and publishing a gazillion books and pamphlets. But again, they were kind of corralled by the Mormon Church successfully into this anti Mormon sort of cage where you just knew to stay away from the Tanners because the Tanners were evil. And so again, the Tanners were. You know, knowledge about the Tanners was successfully constricted and confined. Plus you had to go to Utah. There wasn't the Internet at the time, so you'd have to go to UTLM to buy their pamphlets or buy their books. The church controlled the bookstores. And so it was really hard to get a hold of their information. So that was kind of a second wave that the church kind of was successful at putting down. The. The third wave was sort of the emergence of Dialogue magazine and then Sunstone magazine and then the Sunstone symposiums. And again, that wave really rose in the 80s and early 90s, and the church got really concerned about that because it started to really get critical mass. I think at its height, Sunstone magazine would have like 10,000 people attending. There's some annual symposium, 10,000 subscribers to the magazine. I'm making those numbers up, not making them up, but I mean, that's what my memory is about, where those numbers reached. But the church then came out with a policy denouncing, you know, symposia attendance. And they excommunicated, ultimately, several participants from Dialogue and Sunstone in the infamous September 6th excommunication bloodbath of September 1993. And there were several other excommunications before and after that, including Margaret Toscano and Brett Metcalf and David Wright, in addition to the September 6th. So again, another resurgence of doubt emerged that the Church was able to beat down. And so the church did a really. And then the church sort of invested in farms, which was anti. Which was a Mormon apologetic group to beat down doubts that was sponsored by byu. And then eventually FARMS turned into the Maxwell Institute, which still exists to this day, which more or less. It really isn't really doing much apologetics these days. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that's a bit of a brief history of Mormon doubt and end of the Church's being successful at beating down doubt. Where things changed was in 2004, 2005, when the Internet, the Mormon Internet, really came online. First in 2004 with Mormon Blogs like By Common Consent, Times and Seasons, Feminist Mormon Housewives. And then in 2005, Mormon podcasting really emerged, which started. There were some other podcasts before Mormon Stories, but I think it's safe to say Mormon Stories was the first really big and popular Mormon themed podcast. And then, of course, several good podcasts and YouTube channels have emerged and TikTok channels have emerged since then. But since 2005, the church has not been able to put the Doubt Genie back in the bottle. And we saw this massive emergence of information, which, which started out with Mormon Stories and MormonThink, which was an early website that predated the CES letter, but Mormon Think was a really important website, and it still is. Then we saw other podcasts like Mormon Expression, Feminist Mormon Housewives, year of polygamy, etc. And by 2013, 2014, the church was being handed its lunch. And in terms of truth and massive defection, not just because of the truthful history and truthful science that was being shared and the social justice issues that were being addressed, but also people just feeling betrayed, like the Church had lied to them and betrayed them. And that's what led to the Gospel Topics essays to Marlon Jensen and the things that you mentioned, Mike. And so the Gospel Topics essays come out in 2014 as a way to respond to the Internet handing the church its lunch, so to speak. And so that's, you know, ever since then. And unfortunately for the church, I don't think the Gospel Topics essays really helped. I think the Gospel Topics essays, along with Richard Bushman's book Rough Stone Rolling, only caused more and more church members to doubt and to question. And so that's left the Church reeling in terms of how to handle doubt, because classic apologetics just failed to work once the Internet really came online. And we've seen the decline of the Maxwell Institute, the erasure of farms, and the irrelevance of people like Dan Daniel Peterson and Lou Midgley and others. And. And now we're left with sort of what we call neo apologetics, which is like Terrell Givens and, and Fiona Givens and Richard Bushman and Patrick Mason and people like that. So I know Mike and Nemo, you guys weren't expecting me to do that intro. But, but most of the people enjoying LDS discussions are really, really relatively new to all of this. They've just been tuning in in the past year or two. And so I think that history might be useful to People, Mike, please. I hope. Nemo. Did you want to jump in, Nemo?

Nemo [00:13:37] I was just agreeing with you. But to say 2005, you said that was a significant date. Right. That's when things really started to ramp up, would you say? Yeah, it's interesting because in 2005 I was baptized.

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

Nemo [00:13:49] At the age of eight. So you could say that these things may be perhaps correlated.

John Dehlin [00:13:55] Yeah, yeah. You're like, it's like. Is that like. I don't want to call you the Antichrist, but like, are you prophesying your birth and your baptism as like a sign of the times for the end of the modern Mormon Church? Is that what you're saying?

Nemo [00:14:10] Some have said.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] So you're okay being referred to as the modern anti Mormon Antichrist?

Nemo [00:14:17] Again, it has been said amongst the peoples. Nothing I've not been called before.

John Dehlin [00:14:23] All right, that's good to know. Mike, anything you want to add to that? I hope you're okay with that introduction.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:14:28] No, I mean, it's good because I think like when I was doing the website and I was doing the overview project and I got to thinking about doing a section on doubts, my focus was on the modern day stuff. Just because it really does impact every member today.

Guest 2 [00:14:43] And.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:14:43] And as we're going to see, more importantly, the thing that really kind of gets under my skin a bit is how these messages are mostly are more regularly directed at the youth. And I think that is where you could kind of see how there's some manipulation with the way that doubts are handled. But on the same token, it's good to have that background because, yeah, doubts are nothing new to the church. Like I said at the beginning, a lot of people left the church over polygamy. A lot of people left the church over Joseph Smith's Kirtland Safety Society bank failure. A lot of people left the church after Joseph Smith prophesied that they would retake Missouri. And then that failed. I mean, you always have had doubts. Joseph Smith was always under questions of authority. And that's as we talked about in our earlier episodes. That's why Joseph Smith was constantly revising revelations to bolster himself. Whether it was the priesthood, restoration, utilizing the first vision, all of these miracle stories to really set himself apart. As I am the guy, I am him. All you guys got back off. And so, John, your background is good because it does kind of let people know that this is nothing new. It's just, I think, more elevated now because of the fact that it's a lot easier to access the information, whereas Even I'll give you a real quick story. When I went through the temple the first time, I was sat down by my in laws and they said, when you get to the temple there are going to be people with pamphlets and they're going to have all sorts of accusations against the church and Joseph Smith. Do not take the pamphlets. All of these things have been discussed, all of these things have been answered. They're all lies. And I believed it because I believed in the church. And I'm not saying every one of the accusations on that pamphlet would have been true. There are, you will see an anti Mormon material stuff that really is not true, or at least I don't believe is remotely solid enough to take credibly. But I guarantee if I had had one of those pamphlets from back then, I read it now, I'd like. Yep, that's true. Yeah, that happened. Yeah, that happened. And the difference is that 20 years ago that information wasn't really easy to find in a way that you could say, oh yeah, not only did it happen, but we have real sources today. You could go online and I'm not even just saying LDS discussions, you know, my website, but Mormonthink or you know, CS letter, letter from my wife. And you can look at the sources, they're all there. And most of them are coming through the Church's own record. So it's important to have that background so that as we talk about it now, people don't think that this is somehow something new.

John Dehlin [00:17:01] Yeah, yeah. And I think if I want to also summarize what I was trying to say is the way that the Mormon Church used to handle doubt is to basically excommunicate anyone who expresses public doubt and then to warn everybody to stay away from any information that wasn't approved by the church. And the way that the, the way that the Internet changed that was number one, Excommunications stops, you know, ceased to be an effective tool to silence people because it didn't silence Jeremy Reynolds, it didn't silence Kate Kelly, it didn't silence me, it didn't silence a lot Sam Young. It didn't silence Bill Real. In fact, it probably emboldened many of us who felt unfairly treated and who felt like we were fighting for worthy causes. It actually made us more emboldened. And I think it honestly grew our following. And when the church was able to excommunicate people in decades past, it kind of silenced them and what they were standing for, for, for, you know, for the rest of their lives, if not for many Decades. But then the other thing is the church warning people to stay away from anti Mormon literature. Of course, they still do that now, but it became less effective because if people have their cell phones, if people have their mobile phones, if people can secretly listen to a podcast or get on their phones, they can still consume material secretly, and they don't have to go to a library to check it out or like be reading a book that somebody can ask, what book are you reading? The Internet makes it much more easily, much more easy to access and to access information, to become aware of information than. Than it was ever possible to do before. So, yeah, so it's easier to. To learn about information, to access information, and to hide your consum of that information. And I think all of that's really important in terms of understanding how the game has changed. Okay, anything else you want to say before we jump to the next slide?

The Streisand Effect and Church Transparency

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:19:09] I'll just point out that what you just said is the illustration of. I don't know if this counts as a fallacy, but the Streisand effect is that whole idea that, yeah, if you try to. If you try to quiet someone, it actually ends up giving them more exposure. And so I think you saw that with. I wasn't really into the deep dive when you got excommunicated, but when Bill Real did, when Sam Young did, the media coverage, the extra exposure among people in the church who heard about it, it only creates a problem to the church. And I guarantee, if I had been doing this series with you five years ago, the church probably would have come to me and tried to discipline me, but no one's come to me. I'm still a member of record. So I guarantee that a big part of that reason is the church learned very hard. The Streisand effect is not an effective way. It's not an effective way to silence people anymore. Because the people who are talking about this, members of the church a lot of times don't know about it, and they go, why are they excommunicating this guy for doing a blog just covering church history? And all of a sudden you're like, oh, that's why. So, yeah, I think their approach now is to try to make people afraid of looking at it, because that's really all you could do. Because once they see it, it's likely going to lead the person to either have a more nuanced belief or to leave altogether.

John Dehlin [00:20:21] And that was actually something we did by design. You know, and this is probably getting off topic, but when I had my exchanges with my stake president. When Kate Kelly was being called in in 2014 for her work with ordained women, we took it to the New York Times and we staged sort of vigils and protests where we were going to turn these excommunications against the church because I was still active in the church. Church, my kids were active in the church. We were trying to help improve the church from within. So we felt like it was unjust for the church to, to be silencing us and excommunicating us. So what we did is we made it as unhealthy as possible for the church to excommunicate in silence its critics or its truth tellers. And so we started holding vigils for people like Sam Young, for Bill Real, for Jeremy Runnels, and always getting the media involved. And like you said, with the Streisand effect, we made it very, very. And Sam Young, we made it very, very painful for the church to excommunicate us. But more importantly, we turned the excommunication, the disciplinary councils into a PR nightmare for the church that was so effective that the church changed the name of disciplinary councils to something like membership reviews. And you know, they even changed the name excommunication to something like withdrawal of membership.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:21:55] Yeah, that's what it is.

John Dehlin [00:21:56] Just doing whatever they could to soften our ability to punish them for acting unjustly. Because who's gonna argue that Sam Young was wrong trying to keep bishops from doing one on one interviews with 12 year olds or asking them sexually explicit questions? Who's going to argue that the CES letter or Bill Real or Mormon stories, you know, wasn't sharing a more accurate view of Mormon history than the Church had been for two centuries? Who's going to argue that women don't deserve a better status in the Church? Who's going to argue that LGBT people don't deserve basic human rights, including the right to marry? Very few people now, but, but look at all the people that were excommunicated for fighting for those things. Anyway, we weren't planning on all that. Nemo, did you want to add anything? Because you're, you're doing a little bit of, of activism these days as well.

Nemo [00:22:52] Yeah, just thank you to you guys, because I've not been excommunicated because I think they've realized it's not fruitful. So I can continue to push and push and push and push and do what I need to do to try and make the Church a healthier organization. Thanks in part to people that have been Excommunicated and made a big deal out of it. So, yeah, I think the church is looking at yours and bills and, and looking at me and going, we don't want a repeat of that. So hopefully just won't.

John Dehlin [00:23:18] I know there was an excommunication just a few weeks ago of that guy who wrote that musical about the church and its finances. Do you guys know about that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:23:26] I heard he was excommunicated, but that was it.

John Dehlin [00:23:28] Yeah. So it's. I don't think we're totally out of the excommunication woods yet. I know the church is excommunicated. Communicating people on the far right for, for, for like Denver Snuffer, like things still. But anyway, now that we've, now that we've discussed that, I think that I'm glad we talked about it, even though it wasn't planned. But let's go ahead and go to the next slide. How the Reynolds described having doubts about the church.

Church Leaders Describe Member Doubts

Nemo [00:23:52] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:23:53] So this, we're going to do a number of slides here. And this is a talk that was given in January of 2019. And this is a youth face to face. So this.

John Dehlin [00:24:00] Do you want to talk about who the Renlunds are? Just because ex Mormons or never morm have no idea.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:24:06] Okay, so, so this is Dale Renlund and he is an apostle of the Mormon Church. He is ordained a prophet, seer and revelator. And when they do these new devotionals, they always have the husband speak along with the wife. The wife obviously has no power or say or authority in the church, but they do this because it presents a more, you know, it, it looks equal when they're both talking, even though they're not at all equal, as we've talked about. And so basically this is someone who is a high leader in the Mormon Church giving a devotional, worldwide youth devotional to kids. And so this was, I believe, on a Sunday night, I think, and all the kids are taken to their local ward and they can watch it, or I'm sure you can watch it like on BYUTV maybe or something like that. And I just, I want to emphasize the fact that this talk is being given to kids. And these are kids who are very impressionable, they're very young, and they're looking at Dale Renlund as a prophet, seer and revelator of God.

John Dehlin [00:25:06] Okay, so anything else you want to say before we launch it?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:25:10] Just to say this whole talk is about doubt and it's called Navigating Doubts and Faith. And as you'll see throughout these Little clips we're going to play. They have very childlike illustrations they make that. They really try to emphasize to these kids that if you decide to have doubts or leave the church, you are this kid who is going, as you'll see as a spoiled little brat the moment he starts to notice anything wrong. And so the message, of course, is to stay in the boat. But as you'll see in these clips, the kids decide to have doubts. And you're going to see how the church kind of animates that, that the expressions for the kid that decides to have some doubts.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] All right, let's play it. Let's roll the clip.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:25:48] As you begin to revive and start feeling better, you begin to pay attention to some things you hadn't really noticed before. The water from the canteen is a bit stale and not what you would have preferred, like Evian or Perrier. The crackers tasted good, but what you really wanted was some delicatessen meat followed by a chocolate croissant. You also noticed that the fisherman wears worn boots and blue jeans. The sweatband on his hat is stained, and he seems to be hard of hearing.

Video Clip 1 [00:26:25] You note that the boat is well used and that there are dents in the right side of the bow. Some of the paint is chipped and peeling. You see that when the fisherman relaxes his grip on the rudder, the boat pulls to the right. You begin to worry that this boat and this captain cannot provide you the rescue do you need? You ask the fisherman about the dents and the rudder. He says he hasn't worried about those things because he steered the boat to and from the fishing grounds over the same route day in and day out for decades. The boat has always gotten him safely and reliably where he wanted to go. You're stunned. How could he not worry about the dents in the steering? And why could the nourishment not have been more to your liking? The more you focus on the boat and the fisherman, the more concerned you become. You question your decision to get on board in the first place. Your anxiety begins to grow. Finally, you demand that the fishermen stop the boat and let you back in the water. Even though you're still more than 20 kilometers or 12 miles away from shore, you can't stand the idea of being in the boat. With sadness, the fisherman stops the boat and helps you back in the ocean. You're on your own again.

Video Clip 1 [00:27:48] Well, consider this story as a parable in which the boat represents the church and the fisherman represents those who serve in the church.

John Dehlin [00:27:57] Okay, well, what in the heck is. What in the heck is wrong with that? Mike, unmute yourself, if you don't mind.

Nemo [00:28:04] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:28:05] It's just so manipulative. You're telling these kids who are watching around the world that if you decide to look at the doubts about the church or you come across something with church history that's just a little scrape and paint. It's just a little nick on the side. And it really puts the blame on you because there's, like, you're the problem for not seeing all the greatness within the church. And this is a very well used tactic. And then they show the kid he looks like a total spoiled brat, like, stomping his feet. And then, you know, they put him back out in the water. And of course, the shark swimming around is the world.

John Dehlin [00:28:37] The world.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:28:38] Right. Or Satan and the worldly stuff. And, you know, the fisherman looks all sad when he lets him go back out there. It's just. It's so manipulative because you're telling kids right at the start of this talk. This is you if you decide to have any questions about the church.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] Nemo, you were. You were cringing and shaking your head.

Nemo [00:28:55] Well, I have. I have three points to make. First, lack of access to Evian water is not my problem because I have it right here. Second, what, an irresponsible fisherman to just throw a child back in the ocean? What's that about? And then third, okay, he says, well, he's got to and from the fishing ground in his boat this whole time, and it's been fine. So he's never worried about those things. What they're trying to do is minimize the concerns of the boy by saying they're cosmetic, they don't really matter. And what they're then implying is that the concerns that people have about leaders of the church are similar, that they're just cosmetic matter, that the leaders of the church ultimately achieve their aim. What is the aim of the leaders of the church? To bring souls into Christ. Except the concerns that people have about the leaders of the church do undermine that aim because they alienate the LGBTQ community. They alienate those that come from incomplete families or they have done in the past. They alienate women. They alienate so many groups of people that actually, the concerns that the boy was pointing out are not cosmetic. It's a false. It's a false parable. It's a false analogy. Because the fisherman was able to achieve his goal, but the church is actively being stopped from achieving its stated goal by the concerns that people are raising about the Church.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] Thanks Nemo. I also, I also want to add something sort of an analysis of the church's strategic efforts here. They're kind of their strategy. When Marlon Jensen was shopping around, you know, one of the most, you know, I referred earlier to the BH Roberts stuff. I wanna tell everybody to please check out the Shannon Caldwell Montez episodes about the secret Mormon meetings of 1922 with B.H. roberts. Because that's a really crucial example of how the church handled doubts in 1920s when the church was put on notice that things like the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon were not historical. And when, when a, a strategic general authority appears to have lost his faith in the Book of Mormon. That's a really important episode. What I also want to talk about is another really important Mormon Stories series of episodes were about the Swedish rescue because in the mid to late 2000s to the early 2000s, there broke out a movement of apostasy in Sweden with an area authority named Hans Matzson who was an area authority for the church who lost his faith and was willing to talk publicly about it, came to the New York Times and then eventually came on Mormon Stories podcast. That was a really watershed moment for the church. And at that point this is pre Gospel topics essays. Marlon Jensen and the church historian, the assistant church historian Richard Turley, started going on tours trying to use factual history to resolve the doubts of questioning Mormon adults. And I have it directly from Marlon Jensen that he found that the efforts to talk to adults about problems with the Mormon Church, doubts with the Mormon Church, problems with the Mormon Church's truth claims, that he had virtually no success once someone had, once an adult had lost their faith and felt deceived and disillusioned by the church. Marlon Jensen himself admitted that there was pretty much no value in trying to bring a Mormon adult back who had lost their faith. And so what the church decided by the mid 2010s was to completely focus their efforts on the youth. And so what you'll see is emerging by 2015 and later these secret stake firesides where only youth were allowed to attend. And literally the parents of youth, Mormon youth were asked not to attend and were excluded from these fire sites. And then apostles would come to stakes or to multi stakes and try to indoctrinate the youth. And, and, and that's this, this clip that you just showed with the Renlunds. It's no accident that it was addressed to the youth. It's in a youth devotional because it's it the, the Mormon Church has realized it has lost its ability to persuade adults to come back once they've started doubting. So instead they're trying to inoculate the youth by seeding youth curriculum, ces, Church Education System curriculum, with apologetic, you know, inoculating narratives about doubts and church history and truth claims. And this is all part of that effort. Now, Mike and Nemo, I don't know if you guys want to add anything to that, but I think, I think that's a really important thing to mention is just the church's focus on the youth because it knows it's lost. The adults who start doubting, it's like

The Swedish Rescue and Damage Control Strategy

Nemo [00:34:24] they realize they can't. There's a bird, the dam has burst and they can't push the water back in. They've actually just got to try and stop coming out. You know, they've just got to stop the youth leaving because they can't push people back in.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:34:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, you know, the one thing, the only thing I'll add to that is just when they released the first Saints book, which I believe was 2018 was the first Saints volume, and they did a lot of interviews with church owned media and all that. And I think it was the church historian, but it might have been one of the leaders of the church. But they said that the Saints book is meant to be inoculation. That was the word they used because they want if, if you read it as a 12 year old and all of a sudden you're 17 and you hear about the book of Abraham being wrong, you're like, oh, I've heard of the book Abraham issues. Saints doesn't give you those details, but they give you enough knowledge about the info so that you could say, oh, I've heard of that and walk away. I mean, I've had so many people over the years, they'll go, I'll say, do you know about the issues with the book Abraham? Oh yeah, I've read it all. And I'm like, well, what do you have to say about Facsimile three? Oh yeah, I know that that's fine. He didn't actually translate that. I'm like, what about the Egyptian characters that are on the top where it says these characters say oh yeah, yeah. And then they, then they go away. They don't want to deal with it because you have this limited knowledge. And so the church, I think is trying to, as you said, seed this very limited knowledge within them, to inoculate them. And then you just hope that when they come across more deep Info, they say, I know about that and walk away. And that's really what this is.

John Dehlin [00:35:49] Yeah. All right, well, so, yeah, that stay in the boat analogy is really interesting. It's kind of juvenile. It's kind of insulting. And yet that's, you know, that's what the church is doing. And, you know, I guess we could. It's up for debate as to whether or not they're going to be successful with it. Right. But should we go to the next slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:36:10] Yeah. And on the next one, we could just. Let's play the clip first, then we can talk about it after.

John Dehlin [00:36:14] Okay. So is this just a continuation of.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:36:17] This is another clip from the same talk? Yeah, we have a few from this talk, just because it's. It's a pretty rough talk.

John Dehlin [00:36:22] All right, let's keep it going.

Speaker E [00:36:23] Path. What do the boat and the fisherman teach us about the church? Do dents and peeling paint on the church change its ability to provide the authorized saving and exalting ordinances to help us become like our Heavenly Father? If the fisherman must hold onto the rudder with both hands to keep the boat on course, does that negate his and the boat's ability to get us safely and reliably where we want to go? You do not have to be an ordained seer like my. My husband to know that slipping back into the water instead of staying in the boat is risky.

Planting Fear and Uncertainty Around Doubt

John Dehlin [00:37:00] Okay, so they're basically saying it's risky. We. We talked about this in our episode that we recorded yesterday. Right. Kind of planting fear, uncertainty, and doubt and kind of teaching learned helplessness, which is basically to say, be very, very scared if you, if you leave the boat. If you leave the Mormon Church, likely bad things will happen to you. Right. Is that the point you wanted to make there, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:37:24] Well, there's also a direct appeal to authority because you're saying you don't need to be an ordained prophet, seer, and revelator like my husband to know that getting on the boat is going to get you eaten alive by the sharks. Right. And so she's making very clear that you listen to my husband. And we kind of touched on this on the last slide, but they're making this point of like, and this is a quote, do dense and peeling paint on the church change its ability to provide the authorized saving and exalting ordinances to help us become like our Heavenly Father. And the problem is, as we've touched on, these are not cosmetic issues, and they know that. You know, we've talked about how Joseph Smith used the exact same Methods for treasure digging, to claim both to get the gold plates and to translate the Book of Mormon. We've done episodes showing how scholars can date the Book of Mormon, why biblical scholarship tells us the story cannot possibly have happened in any historical way. And that's before we even get into the DNA studies. And so the problem for the church is not dense and peeling paint. That's this whole idea of trying to minimize what Joseph Smith did is little mistakes, you know, and it really reminds me of. I think we talked about this in an early episode, if you've ever seen the movie Office Space. The whole idea in Office Space is that they're trying to have this little scheme to take just a tiny bit of money off every transaction so that eventually it builds into a big amount that they can basically steal from the company and no one would ever notice, but they have a little error in the calculation. And so all of a sudden, after like a day or two, it's already like 200 grand or whatever. It's a lot of money. And they're in the car, they're panicking, and the guy's like, why do I always do this? Why do I screw up? Some mundane detail. And I think it's Michael. Michael Bolton yells. This is not some mundane. No, actually it's. It's. He's yelling at Michael Bolton. Michael Bolton in the movie. He says, this is not some mundane detail. They're trying to tell these kids that everything you hear about the church is just some small, tiny thing in a reality. It's not dense and peeling pain. It's the foundation of the boat that is completely not what it claims to be. And so they're trying to minimize this to keep you afraid of it when they won't actually tell you what people are actually talking about.

John Dehlin [00:39:23] Nemo, what would you add?

Nemo [00:39:26] I think it just goes to the point that I was making earlier that they're trying to minimize the faults and call it fault finding. When in reality, if these things are undermining the stated aim, purpose and truthfulness of the organization, then they are significant. And so they need investigating. You shouldn't just ignore them.

John Dehlin [00:39:44] Yeah. This whole idea of changing the narrative from, you know, Joseph Smith restored the truth and translated the Book of Mormon and got priesthood authority and set up God's one true church on the earth and had the witnesses and revealed scripture like that was the Mormonism, that 200 years of converts and. Or people born into the church. That was the narrative that was sold to us. That's what fueled the church for so many years. And to see the church pivot, to forget all that history stuff. History isn't what your testimony should be based on. You just need to focus on the present and the saving ordinances feels like a bait and switch. And I think that's why the church has felt like it's lost adults, because so many of us who were indoctrinated into caring about Joseph Smith and the witnesses and the veracity of the church's scriptures and the historicity of the church's scriptures, it's not flying. To say, these are not the droids you're looking for. Move along. This is not what's important anymore. And instead to try and shift and just say you need the ordinances, that's just. That's just not going to fly. The only other thing I'll just say is it was weird for me, given what. What we've covered in previous LDS discussions, episodes about what it actually meant to be a seer. The. The peep stones and the hat and. And scrying and Joseph Smith looking into a seer stone and Oliver Cowdery using a water diviner or looking into a seer stone to know what is really what Joseph Smith really meant by seer. And then to have Sister Renlund refer to her husband as a modern seer. Did that strike either of you as kind of weird or not?

Nemo [00:41:47] Well, yeah, it's the evolution of that term over time in the church. But it was also just massive sycophony, wasn't it, that she was just kissing up to her husband. It's the same as when Wendy Nelson will say, you know, my husband is. He's a man unleashed. He's this. He's. That put an exclamation mark after everything my husband says and a question mark after everything anyone else says. It's uncomfortable. But yes, John, to your point, it is. It is very weird that those words are still used, those titles are still used, but the function of the people is not the same.

John Dehlin [00:42:21] Yeah. Anything else, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:42:24] No, I mean, just when you call someone a prophets here in Revelator, the first thing I always want to say is, what have you prophesied? What have you seen? What have you revealed? And the answer is nothing, nothing and nothing. So, I mean, it's just an empty title at this point.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] Yeah. Yeah. All right. Should we go to the next slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:42:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:41] All right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:42:42] And so this is more of this talk from the Renlands, and it's just another clip that I think is important because it's going to tie into our last Episode about setting the equation. And if you set the conclusion, then you have to change the variables to fit your predetermined conclusion that the church must be true.

John Dehlin [00:42:59] All right, let's roll the clip.

Speaker E [00:43:03] When you start with the question, could these things not be true? It leads to a beginning of faith that if nurtured grows. Could these things not be true? Is a question that presumes that it's true. For instance, if I say, aren't we going to drive from Honolulu to the North Shore? It presumes we're going to drive. The question urged by Moroni that we ask concerning the Book of Mormon is one motivated by faith and therefore leads to more faith. If we instead start with the question, couldn't these things not be false? It leads to doubt, and doubt never leads to faith.

John Dehlin [00:43:43] All right, Nemo, what's your. Nemo's cringing. What do you want to say about that? Nemo, unmute yourself.

Nemo [00:43:49] Maybe I don't. I feel like I've lost the ability to form cogent sentences now after listening to that. That was, that was wild.

John Dehlin [00:43:58] Why?

Nemo [00:44:00] Because, because the way, the way she phrased that. Could these things not be false? It's, it's already a strange wording to say, are these things not true? Because it depends on where you put the emphasis in a sentence, as a written sentence. That question could just as easily be the inverse of what she's implying. It's just like, well, it's possible they're not true. It's just a simple interrogative. She's doing this weird semantic emphasis where she then implies that it involves an implication that these things are true. And the burden of proof is on the person to prove that they're not. But in reality, the actual question just is simply, well, are they true or are they not? And you just got to work it out. Yeah, it was weird.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:44:45] It's very strange.

John Dehlin [00:44:46] Mike, Mike, what do you want to add?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:44:48] Just, I mean, imagine going up to an 8 or 9 or 10 year old kid and being like, hey, I'm Jim Jones, I run the people's temple and I want you to join me. And if you have any doubts, just ask. Could this Jim Jones guy be true? Don't you dare ask, could this Jim Jones guy be false? If you did that, the parents, those 8 to 10 year old kids would be like, get away from me, you sick. Whatever. And instead we're watching this talk and I guarantee there's parents sitting back, they're going, yeah. And it's like, this is horrible. This is so Manipulative. And as Nemo said, this is not. This is not about faith at this point. This is about setting the equation. So you cannot get to any conclusion except this church is true. And that is just a really bad thing to teach kids who are super impressionable trying to figure things out. And you're feeding this garbage into them because, you know, it's more effective if they hear it now than, as you said, if they hear it in their 20s when they're already going, yeah, this doesn't make sense. And so it's just, to me, it's really manipulative. And as Nemo said, it's really clunky and cringy in the way she frames it.

John Dehlin [00:45:47] And I'll just add, there's a really good book that we'll put in the show notes called A the Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation, from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. It's a really important book because it just shows how important doubt is. And I would even argue with their basic thesis that doubt always leads to bad things and that doubt can't lead to faith. It's the church's own argument that Joseph Smith's doubts led to his faith and belief in the Restoration. Jesus doubted the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and that led to a renovation of Judaism into Christianity. And of course, science begins with doubt, not with doubt that just wants to destroy and dismember doubt that wants to lead to greater truths and further light in knowledge. So I would argue that doubt is not only essential to human development, but doubt is an essential ingredient to more enlightened faith. And I think that people like Terrell Givens and Richard Bushman, et cetera, and Patrick Mason would actually agree with me. Nemo.

Nemo [00:47:08] But that's where the church plays a semantic game, because they say Joseph Smith didn't have doubts. He had questions. And questions are fine, because what they do is they try to frame doubt in a negative light. To say that to doubt is to think negatively of something, whereas in reality, to doubt is simply to have reason to think something may not be true. And so to be skeptical, to have doubts is to be in a state of skepticism, which isn't always negative, and it's very often healthy, as you've pointed out. But that's where the church will take that Joseph Smith argument away from you and go, no, no, no. Joseph Smith didn't doubt. Don't you dare doubt. Joseph Smith had questions. And questions are fine.

John Dehlin [00:47:46] Yeah. All right, Mike, should we go to the Next slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:47:49] Yeah, let's go to the next one.

John Dehlin [00:47:52] Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:47:53] This one, I think, is actually worse than the last one, so that'll be fun.

Punishment and Dissent Within the Church

John Dehlin [00:47:56] Okay. All right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:47:58] Once you set it up, this is basically what they're trying to do now is to put the blame on this kid in this. This parable for having doubts. And they're really, in my. In my opinion, going to twist the knife on anyone who wants to follow this kid's example, to study church history, to basically poison the well for the youth and inoculate them, as we've said, against outside material. And this really. This section is designed to let these very impressionable young members of the church know that people with doubts are not only ungrateful, unruly children, but that these kinds of doubts are simply unacceptable in the church. And so they're really going to mock those who go down the rabbit hole of church history and start discovering how many problems there are, because it's really effective to keep people in the church if you basically can make those with doubts seem toxic. And so, as we're going to find out, they're really leveraging and kind of weaponizing a child's desire to appease and make their parents happy by basically telling them, this is how you're going to make your parents happy. So don't you dare do this other stuff. And I guarantee you, with my kid right now, he's at that age where he would not want to do anything that would make me unhappy. And I guarantee a talk like this would be very effective on him. And so I really particularly hate this clip, especially in the context that it's being given to kids.

John Dehlin [00:49:13] All right, let's roll the clip.

Guest 2 [00:49:15] On one occasion, while attending a stake conference, a stake president asked me to visit with a man whom I'll call Stephen. Stephen had been a faithful member of the church. He'd served a mission and had married in the temple. He had served faithfully for many years, but began to have doubts about the church. As I visited with Stephen, he said that he had concerns about the fact that Joseph Smith related four versions of the first vision. He thought this might mean that Joseph Smith made up his experience. I put Stephen in contact with a man who had researched these four versions decades earlier. Steven visited with the researchers. The next time I spoke with Stephen, I said, so how do you feel about the first vision? He said, well, I feel okay about that because my questions have been answered. That no longer bothers me, and I'm just.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] I'm going to pause it and let our listeners who aren't viewing know that a cartoon of a, like, a gopher popping out of a hole with a mallet that had, like, a picture of Joseph Smith, and the, like, a drawing of Joseph Smith in the first vision appears on the mallet. So this feels like a whack a mole kind of setup, because there's, like, seven holes in a field. A gopher pops up with a mallet, and the mallet has the first vision on it. And I just wanted to make sure our listeners who aren't viewing know kind of the infantile animation that's being displayed. As this talk is going. Now I'll just continue the. The talk as the gopher popped back down in his hole after, I guess the. I don't know, after the first vision issues were. Were resolved. We'll continue.

Guest 2 [00:51:04] Now I'm really concerned about the polygamy that was practiced in Nauvoo and after the manifesto in 1890. That's really troubling me.

John Dehlin [00:51:13] And now the gophers popped up in another hole with a little animation of. Of a man and two women. So it's kind of giving this idea of. Of gophers popping up out of multiple holes with multiple issues, all with them with a sign in their hand. Okay, we'll keep it.

Nemo [00:51:29] Hey, John.

John Dehlin [00:51:29] Yeah?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:30] John, the video is not on the screen right now. Sorry. I just want to let you know.

John Dehlin [00:51:34] Okay, okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:35] All right, we'll pop it back.

John Dehlin [00:51:37] Was it before?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:39] It was until that last little clip with the polygamy thing. Okay, fine.

John Dehlin [00:51:43] Now we'll pop it back. Okay.

Guest 2 [00:51:44] I asked Stephen to visit with someone who had researched these topics and reliable primary sources. After that discussion, I contacted Stephen and asked how he was doing. He said, well, that doesn't bother me anymore. I understand what happened, and my concerns have been resolved. But now I'm really concerned that the priesthood was withheld for a time from those of African descent.

Speaker E [00:52:10] Sadly, Stephen had chosen to be a perpetual dad doubter. For him, doubting pleased him more than knowing, and he was digging up in doubt what he had planted in faith. As time went on, as one concern was resolved, another one was found. No matter how much anyone tried to respond and answer these questions, he found another topic on which he was anxious. He focused on the dents in the boat instead of on the capability of the boat to lead him to the blessings of the atonement of Jesus Christ. What Stephen was doing is a form of church history. Whack a mole. You know, the children's game where a mole pops up from a board and as soon as you hit it, another mole pops up in its place.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] Yeah. Oh, so much to say. All right, Mike, do you want to tell us why you don't like that? And then Nemo, and then I'll share.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:53:12] First of all, I'm going to tell you how scripted these stupid talks are. She pauses for laughter there at the end. She's waiting for that laugh line from the crowd. Because, of course, it's hilarious that somebody could be concerned with all of these different problems with church history. That annoys me so much when you see these kind of scripted talks where they pause for laughter, especially at the expense of people who are trying to figure these things out. And it just really shows that in the Mormon Church, they don't want to give you the info. They don't want you to look for the info. And then when you do and you start realizing these problems just keep going and going, they put the blame on you because they're saying it's your fault for looking. These are not dents on the boat. Polygamy is not a dent on the boat. The Book of Abraham is not a scrape in the paint. The DNA problem with the Book of Mormon, the anachronisms, the King James language, which could not possibly be in the Book of Mormon, all these things are not dense. These are the foundations of the church. And so this is trying to minimize and really, you know, make it seem like it's a childish thing to have these doubts and to give this talk to kids to make them laugh at people that have this kind of a problem. It's just. It's just so, like, again, if you saw this from another religion, you'd be like, this is a horrible place, because you should not be teaching kids to be afraid of researching the very church that they're expected to dedicate their life to. And yet here we're doing it, and the crowd's laughing at it.

John Dehlin [00:54:31] All right, Nemo.

Nemo [00:54:34] Well, where to begin? They. The line about him being a perpetual doubter who took joy in these things is ascribing motive. And it's actually far more likely that he was troubled by these things. And it wasn't particularly joyous for him to have to deal with all these questions when they kept saying, now I have a problem with polygamy, but now I have a problem with the peaceful ban. They're insinuating that he's in this continuing state. State of looking for excuses. And it's that phrasing that implies a timeline. But now I found this. But now I found that in reality Stephen may have had all these questions and concerns all balled up in a list ready to ask, but he only gets a chance to ask about one of them at a time with an apostle. So it's not that he's. Oh, now I found another one. Now I found another one. They're all there. All these problems exist. It's not Stephen's fault that there are so many different, different problems that exist in relation to the Church. He's not just looking for them. You know, that's. That's where what I'd say about that really is, is that they've implied this timeline of okay, well now I'll look for something else problematic when in reality he may well have had all these problems in the first place and they've just come back and asked him if everything's okay.

John Dehlin [00:55:46] Yeah, yeah, pro. I love all that Mike and Nemo. And I'll just add a few things to use. To use the metaphor of Whack a mole is problematic because when someone plays Whack a Mole, it's a game that game makers designed. And then you play Whack a Mole as a participant in a game. But to, to put the doubter in the position of a Whack a Mole game implies that, number one, it's a game and number two, that somehow it's been designed with intent. And I can speak, you know, there probably aren't many people in the world not to boast. There probably aren't many people in the world who have spoken to as many doubter Mormon doubters as me just cause I've been doing this for 20 years, almost full time, and nobody engages in their faith deconstruction by design. These people served missions. These people gave their lives to the Church. These people were elders, quorum presidents and bishops and stake presidents and area authorities and Relief society presidents and young women's presidents. They were victims, not designers. It was the Church that designed a structure where information, factual history about the information has been withheld from the membership. If ever there were a game designer, the game designer was the Church to intentionally withhold information from the membership. And if you don't believe me, just look up the story of B.H. roberts and the secret Mormon meetings of 1922. Look up the story of the excommunication of Fawn McKay Brody. Look up the story of how the Tanners were treated and how apologists were lifted up in the 60s, 70s and 80s to disingenuously beat back the legitimate critiques of the Tanners. Look at the September 6th excommunications. Look at all the ways the Mormon Church has and the Leonard Arrington administration of the 1970s and 80s. You know, read about Leonard Arrington and the way that the church history department was disassembled between 1972 and 1982 and you'll realize that the designer is the church, the victim is the person who's trying to play whack a mole. But in reality it's not a game. It's the farthest thing possible from a game. From the standpoint of the well intentioned member that reaches adulthood having served a mission, paid their tithing, made lifelong, in many cases death oaths of commitment to the church through the Mormon Temple ceremony, giving their everything to the church, only then to find out they had been systemically misled. So using the whack a molecule metaphor is just so fraught and problematic because in reality the, the best metaphor to use is somebody who spent their life savings on an automobile and they needed the automobile for transportation, not just to get to work, but to, but to transport their family, whom they loved, you know, throughout day to day. Then to find out that not only was the, was the transmission breaking down but, but, but cylinders were destroyed in the automobile and the tires were flat and you know, the windshield wipers didn't work and the airbags were faulty. Would anybody, you know, if, if somebody had purchased a lemon, it's a term in the United States. If anybody had purchased a truly defective automobile, would anybody fault them for bringing to notice of the seller that there were multiple legitimate problems with the automobile, the tires, the transmission, the engine, the radiator, the cooling system, you know, the safety system, the airbags, nobody would fault a consumer for raising legitimate issues with a legitimately defective automobile. And yet when it comes to several legitimate issues, like is anybody going to say that Joseph Smith's polygamy and polyandry is not a legitimate issue? After watching the LDS discussions, issue of the priesthood restoration, is anybody going to say that those aren't legitimate issues? And talk about, you know, the problems with the Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon historicity, Book of Abraham, historicity, all of the problems that a modern Mormon doubter is going to bring up with the Church? Nobody's going to say those aren't legitimate issues. If they look at the issues and yet they're demeaning legitimate doubters who have multiple concerns. They're just sort of reducing them to childish people that are just playing a game, that want to find problems with the Church and that are having Fun. And even finding joy in raising these legitimate problems and referring to them as dents in the bow versus, like. A more apt naval metaphor would be the Titanic, where people are discovering that there are fractures in the structure of the ship because the ship has hit an iceberg, the ship is about to sink, and everybody on board is about to die. In a sense, that would be a more apt naval metaphor to use than just to say it's just some chipped paint and some dents in. In the bow and. And a sailor or a. A captain who didn't shave. You know what I'm saying? Nemo and Mike, anything you guys want to add? I'm being a little bit. I'm being a little bit strong here because I feel so strongly about these issues.

Nemo [01:02:01] Well, the. The way you add to that metaphor is to say that while that's all going on, rather than doing anything to resolve the problems with the vessel, the leaders to the LDS Church are simply rearranging the deck chairs.

John Dehlin [01:02:13] Yeah, no, that's. That's very, very apt.

Apostolic Teachings That Doubt Is Evil

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:02:16] Nemo, I got a couple points I want to drop.

Guest 2 [01:02:18] Please.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:02:18] I'm sorry. One, I think the Whack a mole apology is actually a lot better for apologetics, and we've talked about this in all these episodes, because the tactic of apologetics would be to say the reason that the Book of Mormon and acronyms are okay is because Joseph Smith used a loose translation. And then that immediately drops down back into the ground. Because then when you say, well, okay, if it's a loose translation, why do we have all these things that need a tight translation? Then another thing pops up that says, well, it's a tight translation because of this drops back down to the ground. And so apologetics is all about you not being able to connect because they're trying to jump from issue to issue. We've talked about this throughout the series, and I really feel like that is so much more of an appropriate comparison there than it is to doubts about church history. Because what we're trying to do in this series particularly, is to take them all at once. I want all of those boards up at once so you can look at them all together. I don't want what the church wants you to do, which is to take it one issue at a time. That's point one. Point two is this idea that someone with doubts, it pleases them more. To doubt than to know is just the most absurdly abusive and manipulative comment. And a good way to do it be is say you're in a marriage let's just say your name is Joseph and your wife is Emma. And Emma starts to realize that Joseph has been gone a lot, and he's being seen around town with a lot of girls, and he's got people that are lying on his behalf. And Emma starts saying, joseph, I thought I saw you with Lucy the other day with the door closed. What was that all about? He's like, emma, dear. My beloved Emma, no big deal. And you're like, okay, yeah, I guess maybe it's not a big deal. And all of a sudden, like, a week later, Emma's like, joseph, I saw you walking with one Partridge sister in the afternoon, but then another Partridge sister at night. And at both times, your clothes seemed a little bit off. It looked a little suspicious. He's like, emma, why does it please you more to doubt our marriage than to know that our marriage is completely faithful? It's like. Like I feel. I know people are gonna say I'm being facetious. I am. But when you start telling people when they see real legitimate problems with actual evidence that it pleases them to find this stuff, they are full of crap. It did not please me one bit to find out. I remember the exact moment that I had the courage. I finally gave my. Myself permission to go onto Google and start looking up some of the problems I kind of knew about. It pissed me off. It made me mad. It made me so angry, because all of these things I was told are not true. At no point did I go, yes, I am. I'm so happy that this isn't true. It's a way to tell the youth that people who leave are these happy people to tear this down. And that is the opposite of what it is. And it's so manipulative, and it's abusive to tell kids you should not have doubts and that you should not ever question these things because you would never apply that to anyone else. And I don't mean to rant. I'm just saying this is being given to little kids. And to frame it this way is so disingenuous.

John Dehlin [01:05:14] Yeah. Yeah, it's a problem. Okay. Should we go to the next slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:20] Yeah, it might as well.

John Dehlin [01:05:21] Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:22] This is more from the same talk. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:24] So the next. The next slide is framing. Is that right? Framing doubt that leads you away from the church's evil? Or is that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:31] Do we just cover that?

John Dehlin [01:05:32] Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:32] No, no, this is it.

John Dehlin [01:05:33] All right. Go for it, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:35] Yeah. This is from the same talk. And this really calls back to some of the stuff we talked about in our last episode about always saying that you have to stick with trustworthy sources. You can't go to people with doubts. You can't go to people that don't have doubts but aren't part of the church. And it's ridiculous. And it really is, as they say, painting. Those who research the church is blind, like the mole that will turn into a lazy scholar. And keep that phrase in mind for later in this episode. Which leads to doubts are evil. The Redlands know full well what they're doing here, and the intent is to keep the youth that they are talking to afraid to look at any sources that are not deemed trustworthy. As they explicitly say, reliable, trustworthy sources. And they're also trying to get people to be afraid of those who come to them with problems with the Church.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] All right, let's. Let's roll the clip.

Guest 2 [01:06:23] Doubt, unless changed into inquiry from reliable, trustworthy sources, has no value or worth. A stagnant doubter, one content with himself unwilling to make the appropriate effort to pay the price of divine discovery, inevitably reaches unbelief and darkness. His doubts grow like poisonous mushrooms in the dim shadow shadows of his mental and spiritual chambers. At last blind, like the mole in his burrow, he usually substitutes ridicule for reason, indolence for labor, and becomes a lazy scholar. Doubt is not wrong unless it becomes an end in and of itself. That doubt, which feeds and grows upon itself and breeds more doubt, is evil. Elder Widtsoe's words are still true. Stagnant doubt does not lead to knowing the reality of the Savior Jesus Christ and his atonement. It doesn't lead to knowing that we have a kind, loving Heavenly Father who instituted the great plan of salvation. We can come to know the truthfulness of this latter day work work. But it requires that we choose faith, not doubt, and that we go to reliable, trustworthy sources for our answers.

John Dehlin [01:07:56] Okay, Mike, what do you want to say about that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:08:00] It's just awful to call doubts evil. Doubts are a good thing if you can doubt something and do the research and you come out the other side and you know that your beliefs or the thing you want to do, it doesn't even have to be about your core beliefs. But maybe you doubt taking a job and then you research. You're like, this is a really good company. Or you doubt, as you mentioned earlier, you doubt buying a car and you read reviews from other customers who have taken it for a test drive and who have owned it for a few months, and you come out feeling more confident about your decision, more happy about Your decision to call them evil unless it leads you back to the church is manipulative garbage. And they would never again would never ever apply this to anyone else but themselves. And they know it. And I just, I think this is the problem with, you know, like a high demand fundamentalist religion, which is to try to control the information that you have access to by saying only trustworthy sources that we deem trustworthy, not that you deem trustworthy. And then to call it evil when you have questions that don't lead you back to the church is just, it's a horrible thing. And I don't know what else more to say about that.

John Dehlin [01:09:02] Nemo.

Nemo [01:09:04] I find it really interesting the way that they kind of are making doubt and doubters synonymous. Like they're almost saying that people are their doubts. That kind of seems to be how they're sort of treating people.

Speaker E [01:09:13] It.

Nemo [01:09:14] So what that makes then when he said that doubt, unless turned into inquiry by trustworthy sources, has no value, becomes particularly insidious because it could also, it could almost be seen to imply that if you are a doubter, you are worthless. You have no value. That state of being has no value. It has no worth. So change it. And youth and young people already have enough trouble feeling worthless and, and having those struggling with those sorts of self image feelings, particularly if any of those youth have questions, say, because they don't fit into the traditional sexual orientation that the church prescribes, for example. So then telling them that that state of being in doubt or in turmoil about the church could essentially make them worthless. I don't think is helping anyone.

John Dehlin [01:10:05] Yeah, yeah, I'll just add that, number one, it's crucial to understand what we've often referred to on Mormon Stories podcast as the BITE Model. It was developed by Stephen Hasson, who we've had on Mormon Stories, so I'll refer you to those episodes. But Stephen Hasson has studied how cults operate and he's reduced it to an acronym called the BITE Model, where unhealthy organizations or cults try and control your behavior. But most importantly, they control information so they can control your thoughts and they use emotional manipulation to do that. This slide, I think, is a perfect illustration of how unhealthy organizations do that, because what they do is they try and instill fear and they try and use insulting language. If you look at the words that they use, I just wrote down a few of the words. Darkness, poison, blind, ridicule, indolence, lazy, evil. Those are all charged emotional words to make you feel either scared or afraid or insulted or to demonize and insult people who doubt. So that's emotional manipulation, and that's the E in the bite model. And the motivation is to make you, the youth in the, in this case, the youth of the Mormon Church, make them afraid to learn. So that controls the information such that the youth won't have thoughts which, which in this specific case are thoughts or doubts that the church might not be true. So that's what's going on here. It's classic unhealthy organization slash cult manipulation to keep people from thinking and learning. And the only other thing I'll do is I'll say I agree that doubt for the sake of doubt is not healthy or constructive. But then my answer to that is, who does that? Like the tens of thousands of questioning and doubting Mormons that I've interacted with over the years, they're not just doubting for doubt's sake, they're doubting to discover the truth. Because once they can discover the truth about the Mormon Church, then they can make, they can go on to make healthy decisions, like if they're gay, well, should I stop doing conversion therapy or living a life of celibacy or living a life that makes me want to die out of depression and maybe I'll go on to find true love and then get married and have a healthy, happy life. Or the church isn't working for them, they're depressed, they're unhealthy, and then once they learn the truth from their doubts, they can go on to make healthy decisions about what career, what education they want to pursue, what life they want to live, who they want to marry, how many kids they want to have, what life they want to pursue, you know, as a follow on. So this characterization of doubting Mormons as just doubting for the sake of doubt, but instead as what I've experienced, which are tens of thousands of Mormons that question so that they can figure out what to do with the rest of their lives and to become, to lose their depression, to lose their anxiety, to marry who they want to marry, to live a full, happy, meaningful life. That's the motivation for the people that I'm in touch with. Not just blind, dark, poisonous, lazy doubt for the sake of doubt in and of itself. Do you guys, do you guys, you know, have any reaction to, to that? Nemo?

Nemo [01:14:00] Yeah, I mean, that would be a pretty difficult sort of lifestyle and position to maintain because we kind of thrive on certainty in many ways in our lives. So people don't want to be in that that life of turmoil. If you doubted everything all the time, if you were to hyper skeptical all the time, it'd be a pretty frustrating and difficult position to be in. So I just don't think that's a realistic image to paint.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] I mean, Nemo, can I just ask you directly, are you.

Nemo [01:14:24] Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [01:14:24] Are you just doubting for the sake of doubting?

Nemo [01:14:27] No.

John Dehlin [01:14:28] So why are you doubting if it's not just for the sake of wallowing in poisonous, dark, evil doubt?

Nemo [01:14:34] Well, it's because the truth of things matters. And to get to the bottom of the truth of things that don't seem to be what you were told they were, you're going to have to doubt the things that you were told initially. In the light of the new evidence. It's all it comes down to.

John Dehlin [01:14:49] Yeah. Yeah. So for you, you're doubting with what intent?

The Purpose and Legitimacy of Honest Doubt

Nemo [01:14:54] To get to the bottom of it. To find out what the truth is, to find out what's actually going on

John Dehlin [01:14:59] so that then you can do what.

Nemo [01:15:02] Whatever. Whatever that outcome would, you know, necessitate. So you get to the bottom and you find out it's all untrue, so you act on that accordingly. You know, I don't necessarily want to say. Say what that should be because that would be different for everyone, but.

John Dehlin [01:15:16] But would you say it's to live a. A more informed, happier, healthier life in the end?

Nemo [01:15:21] Well, certainly you'll be more informed and, and you will be happy and healthier because that will be your goal for making the action based on the new information you find. So, because we all want ourselves to be happy and healthy, I. I would hope that's. That's what I would hope.

John Dehlin [01:15:35] Is that your goal, Nemo?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:15:36] Are you.

John Dehlin [01:15:37] Are you ultimately wanting a happy, healthy life? Life?

Nemo [01:15:40] Yeah. I don't want to be miserable. I'm already British. Like that already makes that difficult. So I'm doing my best to be happy.

John Dehlin [01:15:47] Yeah, yeah, that's your end, but your end. Desire is. Is a happy, healthy life, not doubt for the sake of doubt. Is that right?

Nemo [01:15:54] No, no, because like I said, doubt for the sake of doubt would be very uncomfortable.

John Dehlin [01:15:57] Right. Okay. Mike, how about you? Are you doubting for the sake of doubt?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:16:01] No. I mean, like I said, it was. It really was. You get to a point where you just need to know. And for me, it was. I had that moment just snapped where it's like, go look. You need to look. And yeah, it wasn't doubting for the sake of never was doubting for the sake of doubt. I mean, when you join a church, if you really were doubting that much, you wouldn't join. And I realize some people are born into it. Maybe there are people that are constantly doubting because they just can't quite grasp it. But even then, it's not doubting for the sake of doubt. It's doubting because it doesn't add up. And so I just, like I said, I don't know what more to say about this because it does feel like, like, you know, it's trying to short circuit your critical thinking. And I, you would never, like if you went to a Toyota dealership and you test drove. And like, I just, you know what, this got some bad reviews. And then the salesperson said, you know, doubt that doesn't turn into a sale of a Toyota car is evil. And you just be like, what, dude? You're out of your mind. You know, but here, like I said, we're all kind of nodding along going, yeah, that's good stuff. And it's just, it's not. And I don't know what else to say.

John Dehlin [01:17:01] That's a great example if you're trying to find the best car for you and your family. To say doubt that doesn't lead to a specific end is evil. Who is Renlund or anyone to say what that specific end should be? It should be what's best for the individual having what we call on Mormon stories, informed consent. Because it may be that for some reason the healthiest, happiest outcome is staying in the Mormon Church. And to be honest, I'll just say full disclosure for me, if somebody with all the information concludes that the Mormon Church is the best choice for them for their optimal health and happiness, guess what? I, John Dehlin, am supportive of that decision. Mike, do you agree, do you agree with that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:17:49] To a point. I think that's one of those things where it's like, there's implications that go beyond that. So, for example, this is given to youth, right? And so if you are a parent watching this talk and you know all of the true history, let's just say you know it all and you're hiding that from your kids or you're, you're

John Dehlin [01:18:06] calling, but I gave the stipulation of informed consent. When they have all the information, if somebody has all the information and they're not making a decision under duress, if they conclude then of their own free will and choice with all the information, if they then conclude that the Mormon Church is the best thing for them, do you have a problem with that, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:18:28] Again, this is where I'm trying, I guess, make the differentiation to that answer. No, but those people are still going to basically continue the church's narrative, which they know is not true, if they really do know it all. And so what I'm saying is, if you know it all and you want to stay in the church. Yes, but then if you teach on Sunday school or you give a talk and you say, you talk about the priesthood restoration being done as a church, that when they, when you know it wasn't, then no, I don't think that's right. And I think that's why I hate that this talk is being given to kids because I have a family member who fully believes that people who are handicapped are less valiant than pre existence. They've said it, they've said it in recent years. I think that's horrific. And they're gonna, you know, but, but the problem is like, do you, do you teach your kids that? Do you teach the other people in Sunday school that? And so I guess to answer your question, there's nothing if you truly believe and you know all of this stuff and you're like, I know it all, I've read all of it. I really do. Like, I actually do know it. I'm not just saying it and you want to stay, more power to you. But then if you raise your kids under the church's narrative or you teach it in Sunday school, I feel like that is a problematic thing that can be kind of like a branch off of this decision. And so there's more to it, I guess, in my answer than just to say yes or no. Because it's like, well then are you going to continue the untrue narrative the church teaches or are you going to be honest with future generations? Because I think it actually be a great thing if you stayed in the church and you were honest with future generations, both in your own family and in your ward, about the true history so that they can make better decisions. But if you continue to kind of protect the church by giving their narrative, then no, I don't think that's a good thing. So I'm not sure.

John Dehlin [01:19:59] Well, that's why I stipulated with everyone has full information, no duress and informed consent.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:06] Yeah, if the church let me go into a, a fireside and give a two hour talk about all this stuff and, and a lot of people are like, I'm still staying in, I still feel great, like more power to. You could do it what you want.

Nemo [01:20:16] You could not do it in under two hours, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:18] No, we can't do a single episode under two hours.

John Dehlin [01:20:21] Nemo, what's your answer to the. To my question about being okay with people staying in the church if they have all the information?

Nemo [01:20:29] I mean, I'm apathetic to whatever people do with this information. They can. They can do with it what they like as long as they have it. That's the most important thing to me, is as long as they know, as long as they're informed. I'm not going to start weighing in on people's personal decisions because there's just so many factors that are involved in the decision to leave or stay in the church that I wouldn't ever want to. To speak to it too broadly.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:51] Yeah, I think that's a good way.

Nemo [01:20:52] The informed consent is the important part. And as long as they have that, it's fair game, whatever they choose to do.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's right. Like, you know, the one thing I'll add again is like, I don't. I don't know how to phrase this, but if someone comes to me and people have as you sure they have to you too, John and Nemo, and they'll say, I know what Joseph Smith did with polygamy, and I actually believe more because of it, I don't respect that as an opinion. Now, you could do that. If that's what you want to do, Fine. That's your life. But I'm not going to respect it because I think, as we talked about, Joseph Smith used tactics that are textbook grooming. So I don't respect it. But you could do with it. I don't. And so I guess I feel like with this conversation, I'm not quite sure how to answer it, because I feel like, as Nemo said, there's so many aspects to it, both as to why you stay or why you go. And then from my perspective of why I may or may not have problems, you know, depending on how they're, you know, furthering the stuff that we talked about. So it's such a tricky thing, and that's why, for me, it's like you throw it all out there and people are going to do it to what they want.

John Dehlin [01:21:48] Yeah. All right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next slide, which I think is a really important extension of this conversation. The more, you know, Renlund basically teaching that the Mormon Church is the only source for authority on truth.

Nemo [01:22:03] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:22:03] And this is a video clip. And if you ever saw this talk when it happened, or any podcast about this was kind of a Popular one because it's just. It's a very crappily skipped, scripted, kind of like we mentioned earlier, with like punch lines. And so the Renluns are going to kind of use mockery with the youth that they're talking to in order to make sure they know the only arbiters of truth in anything is coming from the church. And so the Mormon Church. The Mormon Church, yeah, of course. And the Brighamite branch of the Mormon Church to really make it specific. And this is just an incredibly dangerous thing. And we've seen this with other religious movements where it can lead to bad life decisions, it can lead to just really bad choices. But ultimately the goal is to keep members from seeking answers from outside the church. And this is just an awkward delivery to accomplish it. So if you've never seen this, this is quite a. Quite a comedy act we've got going here.

John Dehlin [01:22:50] All right, let's roll the tape.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:22:54] So would you seek financial advice from someone who is broke and in debt?

Video Clip 2 [01:23:00] Would you ask for medical advice from a charlatan snake oil salesman?

Video Clip 2 [01:23:06] Who would you take some advice from on your. On how to improve your forehand in tennis, a weekend hack, per Roger Federer?

Guest 2 [01:23:15] So why would you entrust your eternal welfare to those who are spiritually bankrupt because they have ripped up in doubt what they once planted in faith? Or who, as Jeremiah said, have forsaken Christ, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. These individuals have walked away from that fountain of living waters and want you to trust in something.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:23:47] That's okay, John. I think we've got enough.

Speaker E [01:23:49] All right, sisters, you can know.

John Dehlin [01:23:52] All right. That's called poisoning the well. We didn't. Yeah, we didn't talk about logical fallacy. That logical fallacy specifically, but go ahead, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:24:00] Yeah, so I'm going to reframe their questions back at them. And so I would say so would you seek advice on giving 10% of your income from a church that hoards over $130 billion in an investment fund while not donating a single dollar of that investment fund to help those in need? Would you ask for marital advice from a church that championed polygamy until the government forced them to stop? Who would you take advice on from where dark skin comes from, a church that wrote the Book of Mormon, which completely gets wrong? Why people have dark skinned? Or scientists who actually study why that happens? And if you needed an Egyptian script translated, would you go to Egyptologists who have spent their entire life studying the Language, or a man who called himself a prophet that continually got translations wrong. It's just, you know, I. Yeah, that

Nemo [01:24:48] sounds like the words of someone that's spiritually bankrupt there, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:24:51] Yeah, I mean, that's the problem. I mean, I lost. Yeah, I've been spiritually bankrupt for a long time. But, yeah, it's just what's.

Who Should Members Trust for Truth

Nemo [01:24:55] Yeah, speaking of bankruptcy, I found it really interesting that, like, sure, they were saying who to take advice from, Some hack or Roger Federer, fine. When it comes to tennis or a charlatan or an actual medical doctor, fine, again, whatever. But would you take financial advice from someone who's broke, bankrupt, in debt? Yes, I'd ask them, how did you end up there? And how can I avoid it? Because this is what the church fails to realize is you can learn from mistakes. You can learn from when people get things wrong. You don't just have to ignore mistakes, you just have to ignore when leaders get things wrong. You can learn from them, you can grow from them. So, yes, actually, I would take financial advice from someone who's broke and in debt by asking them what they got wrong. So I can avoid it.

John Dehlin [01:25:39] And I'll just. And I'll just add, you know, number one, I think it's bold that he even uses the word charlatan. Because if somebody knows the true history of Joseph Smith, even someone like Patrick Mason, you know, one of the church's foremost scholars and faithful scholars at that, you know, when asked about polygamy, he wouldn't use the term charlatan because it's too polarizing. But even Patrick Mason has been on record publicly as saying that to him, Joseph Smith's polygamy looks a lot like sin. And if you realize that polygamy has been enshrined in the Doctrine and Covenants, and this is why the Mormon discussion series, the LDS discussion series, it builds on itself. Unless you've listened to the. The Happiness letter episode on LDS discussions, unless you've listened to the DNC132 episode and you know that Joseph Smith lied about polygamy, that he married 14 year olds, that he married other men's wives, that he sent someone on a mission so that he could proposition, you know, his. His wife, which is the Nancy, the Mirinda. Help me out. Help me out, Mike. What was the episode that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:26:52] So the Happiness Letter he sends Orson Hyde, and then while Orson Hyde is gone, he basically gives a revelation to Nancy Mirinda Hyde to say, you must basically obey all that my servant Joseph has commanded. Then Joseph Smith, a little bit later, Comes back and says, oh, by the way, God wants you to marry me. So, yeah, they get married while Orson is away.

John Dehlin [01:27:09] And unless you watch the Book of Abraham episodes either on LDS discussions or with, with scholar Robert Rittner, unless you understand the problems of the Book of Mormon translation, you know, you're not going to understand that Joseph Smith meets full criteria. If there were ever a historical figure that meets full criteria for the word charlatan. Once you understand Mormon Church history, Joseph Smith becomes the poster child of what it means to be a charlatan just factually. Just, just face value, factually. So for the Renlunds to even dare use the word charlatan, knowing that Joseph Smith is in the room is deeply problematic. But that whole litany of sort of criticisms that they levy about, you know, why would you entrust your spiritual welfare to someone who is spiritually bankrupt and that, you know, ripped up what was planted in faith and blah, blah, blah. A better metaphor would be who would you, who would you trust, you know, for advice on buying a car? The corporation that built the shoddy car, the salesman that stands to profit from you buying a shoddy car. Would you trust the salesman or the corporation? Or would you trust someone who actually bought the car and watched it erupt in flames as one of their children died, you know, in the car? You know, who would you trust? The salesman in the corporation or the person that bought the car and saw it descend into disarray and disaster? You would trust the consumer that had a bad experience that was willing to talk publicly about their bad experience. It's the whole foundation of Amazon and the kind of the Web 2.0 economy with reviews. When you're buying a commercial product on Amazon, are you going to trust a product that's been rated with a 4.5 to 5 star average review with tens of thousands of people reviewing it? Or are you going to trust the product that's been given horrible reviews? You know, and so I just think it's, it's a really bad metaphor here.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:29:32] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just it, it's, it's a rough one.

Nemo [01:29:36] It is.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:29:36] And it's just, it's one of those things where you go to Nemo's point, they do say a weekend hacker, Roger Federer. So it's not like they're saying that you can't trust someone else on tennis, but when it comes to, you know, with the doctor, you know, a charlatan or a doctor, well, it's like, would you trust someone who made revelations that failed or you know, someone else. And I just, that's where I'm just like, all roads have to lead to the church. And they're making this example to basically tell these, these kids, you can't trust anyone else but the church because everyone else is a charlatan, Everyone else is out to get you. And I just feel like it's, it sticks with people, you know, it really does have an impact. And I think that's what makes it so, to me, just so unethical and just wrong. But, you know, at least we're done with that talk for now.

John Dehlin [01:30:18] All right. Yeah. So that's a pretty heinous talk. It's pretty harmful. And I think hopefully the church, someday we'll get rid of it. And I think we probably need to cover it more because it's just so bad.

Guest 2 [01:30:31] Yeah.

Elder Corbridge on Primary and Secondary Questions

John Dehlin [01:30:32] All right, well, I guess we're going to go on to a new talk with Elder Corbridge. Is that right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:30:38] Yeah. And this is basically a month, I think, a month apart. And this one is, you know, the last one was given to the youth. So for younger kids, this is actually be giving to college students. And so Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge is going to give a devotional. He gave a devotional to BYU students in the exact same month. And it was covered by the Church News, so we don't have the clips from it, but the title of the Church News article was what to do with your questions. According to general to one general authority, who's an expert on anti church materials. And you know, this was written after Nelson's name change because they didn't put anti Mormon. This talk was basically the same thing, but for a slightly older audience. It was focused on keeping members from looking into the truth claims. But Corbridge is going to use, as we talked about in our last episode, appeals to authority as a way to redirect those questions. And so, so he is going to make this claim where he says there may not be anything out there of that nature, meaning anti Mormon, that I haven't read. And he says that as a way to assure them that there's nothing to fear because he's read it and he's come through it, so why can't you? And so then he talks about how reading all of this anti church material always left him with a sense of gloom. And it's, again, it's a signal being sent to members that when you read material about the church that talks about not being true, it's going to make you feel crappy inside, which is actually True, you do, you don't feel good about it.

Nemo [01:31:55] It.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:31:55] And it's a way to tell them, hey, if you, you don't want to read this stuff, it's going to make you feel really down because Satan's going to get a hold of you. And it's another way to try to control what you're, what you're accessing. And he's doing it in a way by saying, I've already looked at it, I've come out the other side. You don't need to bother with it.

Nemo [01:32:10] And that plays into the Mormon idea of decision making by feelings. That is, if it's going to make you feel bad, it therefore can't be true because we're taught to discern truth by how it makes us feel. So I read it, it made me feel bad, therefore it can't be true.

Speaker E [01:32:23] Yep.

Nemo [01:32:23] And I also want to say that it's very easy to be an expert on something which you define, I. E. He defines what is anti church material and what isn't. So of course he can say he's read all of it because he gets to define what it is. So it's hardly a bold claim to say that he's an expert on something, that he gets to decide what is and isn't.

John Dehlin [01:32:44] Yeah, yeah. And I would just add, you know, let's, let's switch the metaphor now to like tobacco executives. Who are you gonna trust about tobacco being cancerous? Are you gonna trust the tobacco executives that stand to profit from people buying tobacco that are gonna all testify in front of a Senate judiciary hearing that in their views tobacco doesn't cause cancer? Are you gonna trust them? Are they the experts on whether tobacco causes cancer or is it gonna be medical scientists who are external gatherers of data? And in that sense a general authority, a Mormon general authority is not just not the best expert on whether, you know, the Mormon Church or the Church's history bears scrutiny. It would be objective historians who weren't employees of the church who would probably be the best experts or the best authorities on whether the Mormon Church was credible, on whether Joseph Smith was a charlatan or not. It's going to be external historians that are the best authority, not the Church's top leadership. Because the Church's top leadership or even the Church's paid historians have a conflict of interest and thus cannot be fully trusted. Just like scientists bought off by the tobacco companies or tobacco companies, salespeople or executives are not going to be credible authorities about the health of tobacco.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:34:16] Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [01:34:17] And you want to say that, you know, that wouldn't happen. They wouldn't let that bias creep in. Look at the last episode we did look at Kerry Moulstein saying that he takes everything and puts into the paradigm of the Church. Is true.

Speaker E [01:34:29] Yeah.

Nemo [01:34:30] That's his first and foremost priority. He's an academic. And yet he'll make that statement boldly and publicly. So it absolutely. This bias absolutely does affect the trustworthiness of these men and their interpretation of the. That fact. Facts.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:34:41] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:34:42] All right. Okay. Well, let's go on to the next slide about this talk.

Nemo [01:34:47] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:34:47] And this is where I think this really gets kind of troubling. And so this is basically kind of an excerpt from the Church News article. And I don't know if Nemo, if you would like to read it, just, it kind of goes over how Corbidge is going to frame this talk.

Nemo [01:34:59] Okay. From the Church News. Now is a day where deception is everywhere. And the spectrum of deception is broad. It ranges from attacks on the Restoration, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to those who claim to believe in the Restoration but are disillusioned with doctrine that conflicts with shifting attitudes of the day. Elder Corbridge explained there are primary and secondary questions when it comes to the church. The primary questions must be answered first, as they are most important. They include, is there a God who is our Father? Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour of the world? Was Joseph Smith a prophet? Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the Kingdom of God on earth? In contrast, the secondary questions are unending. They include questions about church history, polygamy, blacks in the priesthood, women in the priesthood, how the Book of Mormon was translated, DNA in the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, different accounts of the first vision, and so on. If you answer the primary question, the secondary questions get answered too, or they pale into insignificance. And you can deal with things you understand and things you don't understand, things you agree with and things you don't agree with. Without jumping ship altogether, Elder Corbridge said,

John Dehlin [01:36:19] so what's wrong, Nemo?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:36:20] What do you.

John Dehlin [01:36:21] What are you. What are you grimacing about?

Nemo [01:36:23] He gets to decide what the most important questions are. Those questions may not be the most important to the people that he's talking to. He then puts all the other questions that people have into a secondary camp that he says aren't as important. But actually, those other questions that he puts into that secondary camp very well may undermine the answer that he wishes people to have to the primary questions. That is Is there a loving father? Well, I look at the priesthood ban and then may question how loving he is, for example. So these questions can't just be put off in some secondary box because they absolutely affect what he deems to be the primary questions. And just to reiterate, he doesn't really get to decide what the primary questions are because to everyone, there are things that are more or less important about the church. There are things that we talk about, what our testimony is built on in the LDS Church. I like to think of the whole shelf analogy. It seems to be that everyone's shelf is made of their most important thing. And it's only when that they discover the truth of that, then everything else goes because all the other stuff wasn't as important to them as that one thing, whatever that may be.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:37:29] Yeah, Mike, just, you know, to point out in the way this talk is developed is really kind of clever from a perspective of someone that's trying to force Mormonism to be true. But when you ask in your first two questions, if there, if God, you know, if God is real and if Jesus Christ is the son of God, you're then saying, well, if you believe 1 and 2, then naturally you got to believe 3 and 4, which is about the Mormon Church. It's like, no, you know, that's the thing I've been saying a lot. The Mormon Church latches itself onto God. There's no mention of the Mormon Church in the Bible. There's no mention of the separate civilization in the Bible or anything like that, because it's a 19th century work of scripture. And so they're trying to tie the two together, which also makes it tougher to leave, because that's the whole thing. If you leave, you're going to leave God, which is, again, not true. And as Nemo said, what you're trying to do here is to get people to say, well, yeah, yeah, God's real. Yeah, yeah, Jesus lived well. That means Joseph was a prophet. That means the Book of Mormon is true, which means everything else falls apart. And, you know, to kind of go back. I think we may have touched on this earlier, but it's like saying you go to a realtor and you have a home inspection and the home inspection tells you the wiring is faulty and the house could go up in flames at any point. The foundation has a lot of hidden cracks that were not disclosed to you, but the previous owner actually knew about. And you go to the realtor and you're like, I don't want to buy this house. There are this thing is not what it was going to be. And they said, walk with me. You walk with them. You look at the house like, is there a house in front of you? And you're like, yeah. Is there a door to go inside? Mm. Can you, can you go inside and be protected from, from the weather? Yeah, I guess so. Well, therefore the house is good to move into it. It's like, no, there's all these problems underneath. And those problems underneath are what make up the house. And so what they're trying to do here is to tell you not to worry about all the foundation of the church because, you know, the church is there. And I just feel like this is a very well crafted argument to try to tie things that billions of people believe into to the, you know, 15, 16 million members of the church believe in order to try to circumvent all of those problems. And it just, it's really dishonest and it really is a disingenuous argument from Corbridge because he's trying to tie together things that really don't naturally go together.

John Dehlin [01:39:41] Yeah. Yep. And I'll just say in some ways it's a bait and switch to go, you know, the, the whole point, you know, if you go back to the 1830s, it's just all about how the church is restored. The church was in apostasy. Now this is the one true church. We have the authority. We have modern scripture, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, their translations. What the church wants to do is say, let's de. Emphasize all that. And it's do you believe in God, do you believe in Jesus? Which are not distinctive LDS church beliefs. You can be just a generic non denominational Christian and believe in God and Jesus, but they want to de. Emphasize that and they want to emphasize the ordinances, authority, modern day leadership, but they want to deemphasize now Joseph Smith and the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. But then again, if he, if he wants to say, was Joseph Smith a prophet a legitimate question? He's saying that is a legitimate question. Well, that's what the LDS discussion series and that's what Mormon Stories podcast and the CES letter and Nemo, the Mormon, you know, YouTube channel. That's what we're trying to explore. And so again, he's almost talking out of both sides of his mouth. Because if you want to decide if Joseph Smith was a prophet or not, how do you figure that out? You'll learn the factual history about them, which the Mormon Church is certainly not going to teach you. So you go to a source like Mormon stories or like Rough Stone Rolling or like no Man Knows My History or Nemo The Mormon or CES letter or MormonThink or Letter for My Wife or Mormonism Live with Radio Free Mormon, you get a more objective recounting of Joseph Smith and its history and only his history and only that. Then can you decide whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet or not? So the, you know, is LDS discussions explore in Mormon stories and Nebo the Mormon. Are we exploring secondary questions? When we dig deeper into the question of was Joseph Smith the prophet? I'd say no. I'd say we are the core bridge.

Nemo [01:41:47] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:41:47] What?

Nemo [01:41:48] According to our core bridge.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:41:49] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:41:49] Yeah. But I don't think, I don't think that's right. I don't think that's true. True.

Nemo [01:41:53] I agree.

John Dehlin [01:41:53] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:41:54] I agree. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:55] All right.

Nemo [01:41:56] So you made the point I was going to make, John, like the point I made before, really strongly. You know, again, these are his primary questions. What's Joseph Smith a prophet? Well, several of the questions he lists as secondary would help you determine that. Yes or no. You need to look at the multiple accounts of the first vision and decide whether those undermined his claim to be a prophet. You need to look at the way the Book of Mormon was translated and decide whether that undermines his claim. Claim DNA in the Book of Mormon, does that undermine his claim? Polygamy, does that undermine his claim? All of them, they have the potential to undermine the answer to the question, was Joseph Smith a prophet?

John Dehlin [01:42:30] Yeah.

Nemo [01:42:31] So they need to be addressed.

John Dehlin [01:42:32] Yeah, absolutely.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:42:34] And, and I will say, oh, sorry, let me. The other thing that's kind of funny about it is that within the Mormon Church, they want you to decide on those primary questions before you even know what the secondary questions are. And that's another problem with this talk, which is, is when you're, you're trying to get someone to join the church, say me as a, as a convert, they don't go into any of the secondary questions. So they get you to lock into the, the, the primary questions before you even know what the other ones are. And I think that is intentional, but I think that's also why they really don't want members going there. And so, you know, that's just a short way of saying they know what they're doing when they, when they, when they, as Nemo said, when they make the rules of the game, they know. They know exactly what they want the outcome to be.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] Yeah. All right, let's Go to the next slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:43:13] And this is just, you know, when you really take what he's trying to do here and kind of apply it. If I show you a car and I ask you to buy it, the first thing you're going to do is you're going to look under the hood, take it for a test drive. You're going to have it inspected by an independent mechanic who is not connected to that dealership to verify it holds up to the claims that I'm making to you as the dealership and as the salesperson. If I then tell you it looks great from the exterior and you should not need to worry about anything that actually makes the car run, you would tell me I'm hiding something and you would never buy that car. You'd walk away. And the same is true here. The church is telling you through these devotionals, in this case, college students who are supposed to be thinking critically that not only should you not look under the hood, but that doing so is a character flaw on your part. And to me, what greater admission can you get from the Mormon Church that they know their truth claims do not hold up than having multiple leaders telling the youth of this church that they should not be researching it? They know full well they do not have answers to these issues that can withstand any scrutiny. So they want to make sure that you don't open the hood and take a look. Look inside in the first place. And as Nemo said, and as you said, John, the secondary questions are what give you the primary answers. If the secondary questions tell you that the church's truth claims are not true, you cannot possibly believe the primary questions that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is an ancient and authentic record.

John Dehlin [01:44:30] Yep, Nemo.

Nemo [01:44:32] Yeah, I'd say move straight to the next slide. I think we've covered that.

John Dehlin [01:44:35] All right, let's do it. Elder Corbridge blames those who leave for focusing on the secondary problems.

Nemo [01:44:42] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:44:43] And so just before we head off of this talk, I want to highlight one more part of the devotional. And he says there are some members of the church who don't know the answers to the primary questions. And they spend their time and attention slogging through the secondary questions. They mistakenly try to learn the truth by process of elimination, by attempting to eliminate every doubt. Elder Corbidge said one cannot prove the church is true by disproving every claim made against it. Ultimately, there must be affirmative proof with the things of God. The affirmative proof comes by revelation through the spirit of the Holy Ghost and this is such a bad straw man argument that the Church uses constantly to try to shut down conversation. We do not need to eliminate every doubt. But when the evidence is telling us that the Church's truth claims are demonstrably false, we can safely know that the primary questions cannot be true as well. And so they're trying to tell you that you're so focused on proving something true that you can't possibly kind of take a step back and know the Church is true. But, you know, it's a really easy example. Joseph Smith declared that the Lamanites are the ancestors of the Native Americans. DNA tells us that Native Americans came from Asia and not from Jerusalem. If that's the case, the Book of Mormon is not what Joseph Smith claimed it to be. That means the primary question of is Joseph Smith a prophet? Cannot be. Yes, because he's getting failed revelations, failed claims. And so they know this, but they're trying to make a Strauman argument to say that people don't want to answer the primary questions until they have every single thing sorted out in the secondary. But the reality is that it's because people are finding out that the secondary questions are false that they're having a hard time saying yes to the primary. They know this, but they're trying to spin it again so that these college students who are supposed to be getting all this information don't actually want to look.

John Dehlin [01:46:20] Absolutely Nemo.

Nemo [01:46:23] It's a brilliant, constructed strawman argument because they make this implication. Sorry, I'm just going to look at the slide again. They make this implication that you're going to have to deal with everything and that's overwhelming. So just focus on the core issues. But actually the core issues can be resolved quite simply because like Mike said, it's very simple that, that, well, if there are things, if there's disconfirming evidence, then that is enough to disprove something. That is enough to, to put something in a position of not being true. And that's much different to trying to play that whack a mole and, and vanquish every single doubt. Because there's always going to be doubt. And that's where they'll often then push apologist things will push into. Well, scientists don't know everything either. Science is just theories. They're just theory. And yeah, genuine human inquiry into the truth doesn't require that we know everything, but it requires that we pay attention to the evidence that presents itself to us and make conclusions based on that evidence as we have it. And so ignoring evidence that Disconfirms the church's truth claims isn't a positive and it can't be equivocated with a lack of understanding in scientific fields.

John Dehlin [01:47:36] Absolutely.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:47:37] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:47:38] All right, well, we're good. This is clearly going to be a two part episode, but there's a few more slides I think we should show before we end this part one and then allow people to digest what we've talked about today and then come back for the part two. Because there's so much here, I think we should go to the next slide, which is kind of unbelievable. It's a talk given by Mormon First Presidency member Dallin H. Oaks where he basically makes the crazy assertion that research is not the answer to this problem.

Dallin Oaks Discourages Independent Research

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:48:11] Yeah. And what's even crazier to me is this is a month after the two devotionals we've covered so far. So this is all in the exact same time window. And Dallin H. Oaks is speaking in Chicago and he's asked about a mixed faith couple and how the believing member should address their now non believing spouse. And this is from the Church News and I'm kind of shocked they actually wanted to publish this, but it said says I suggest that research is not the answer. Oak said, but the best answer to any question that threatens faith is to work to increase faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Conversion to the Lord precedes conversion to the church and conversion to the Lord comes through prayer and study and service, furthered by loving patience on the part of the spouse and other concerned family members. And so Oaks is explicitly telling a member whose spouse has lost belief in the church due to researching the truth claims that research is not the answer. But what is the answer is to not look at the ovens and instead turn back to the church that the spouse is doubting and to not think critically about the issue. And this is just one of the most damning quotes and I've heard a lot of apologetics to it. But what they're saying right here is if your spouse, the person you love, the person you married, finds out information about the church, you should not engage with them and do the research with them. You should only go back to whatever the church gives you. And what a horrible statement.

John Dehlin [01:49:27] Not a fan. How about you, Nemo? Are you a fan?

Nemo [01:49:30] Not a fan because he's in, in one fell swoop demonizing the spouse by saying they've done something wrong they shouldn't have been researching and then cutting off the necessary and important communication between a husband and wife as it would be within the LDS church that is necessary for their relationship to flourish. When one of them has questions, they need to be able to communicate. They need to be able to talk to one another. And what he's creating is a situation whereby one spirit spouse becomes isolated because the other one has been told not to deal with it, not to address it, and that what they did was wrong. They shouldn't have been researching. They. The, the spouse themselves that is dealing with this then shouldn't research themselves either. So they're in a position of, of siloing their spouse. And it's just, it's horrific. It's going to create all sorts of problems within marriages.

John Dehlin [01:50:18] Yeah, absolutely. And, and again, I'm just going to refer back to Stephen Hasson's bite model. Cults try and keep you from learning information that's the eye and the bite model. So that you won't have thoughts like maybe this church isn't true or is harmful to me and there can't be. I cannot imagine a bigger red flag than the number two person in the entire church telling its members that research is not the answer. And by the way, this feels like an anti Mormon quote to me because my favorite hymn growing up in the church was the hymn O say what is truth? You know, O say what is truth? Tis the fairest gem that the rich as a world can produce, and priceless the value of truth will be when the proud monarch's costliest diadem is counted but draws and refused. The whole point of that hymn is that truth is the most important thing. That's the Mormonism that I grew up with. I grew up with the Mormonism that said, do what is right, let the consequence follow. Right. And so to have a Mormon apostle saying that research is not the answer, the truth is not the answer, that actually feels anti Mormon to me. Am I? Nemo is someone who was also raised in the church. Do you agree?

Nemo [01:51:42] I agree. The church was the whole idea that we have the truth, we have the fullness of the restored gospel. And so, yeah, the idea that again, it comes back to Joseph Smith was a boy looking for the truth, and we're just not allowed to emulate his example. We're not allowed to emulate the example of the man that we're taught to revere for being brave enough to ask the question. It's bizarre and it's antithetical to everything I was taught to value. I was taught to value the truth above all else. I really like the second do what is right, let the consequence follow. I firmly believe in that and we see time and time again from our leaders that that rule doesn't necessarily apply to them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:52:19] Yeah, and I'll just throw out there real quick. I mentioned earlier, this shows that the church knows that their truth claims do not hold up to scrutiny. I mean, this is Dallin Oaks, the guy who's going to be the next prophet, assuming he outlives Russell Nelson, telling members not to research the claims that you're supposed to dedicate your life to. So is it anti Mormon? I mean, kind of. I mean, I know they used to say, if we have the truth, it cannot be harmed. If we have not the truth, it ought be harmed. But at the same time, to me, Dallin Oaks is a lawyer. He knows exactly what he's doing. And this is a leader who has a very good grasp of the fact that researching truth claims of the Mormon Church is going to lead people out. And Dallin Oaks is a coward. He's a coward to tell members not to research what he's selling them. And I know that might come off as very antagonistic towards the church, but he, Dallin Oaks would never go, even with some idiot like me into a public conversation because this quote tells you right away he knows full well that on the merits, by the evidence, this church isn't true and it will never, ever live up to the truth claims through the evidence. So he's telling you not to look.

Nemo [01:53:26] You say that, but he engaged with this idiot and meaning Nemo.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:53:31] You mean Nemo myself.

Nemo [01:53:34] For the, for the, for the people listening. He engaged with me over questions of what is true and what is not true. And his answer was appalling. But it's just. People watch that episode.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:53:44] But I'm saying he would never. He would never talk with you in a public forum where other people could see it because he knows he'd be destroyed by the evidence. And that's what I always say. Like, people always go, oh, debate me. And I'm like, I will talk to any person who has the authority to speak for the church in any public forum, anytime, anywhere. Because I have no doubt that if we were to have an actual. Not a debate, but just a conversation, that they would never be able to live up to it because they know. I mean, this tells you the church knows their truth claims to hold up. Let's put it. Let's just back up a second. And I'm in a church that I believe. I believe the truth claims of the Mormon Church. And someone comes up to me and they said, hey, my husband is telling me that this church isn't true. I'd be like, send him my way. We're going to talk to him. Because I got the answers. And instead they're like, yeah, just, just leave them, leave them. Triage. You know, it's just, it's ridiculous. They act like someone with doubts is someone that's got some contagious disease. And the reality, it's because he knows they don't have answers. And this guy is an ordained prophet, seer and revelator. And instead of telling people, well, just send him my way, I can give him the resources he needs. He's saying, no, no, no, don't, don't even engage with him. It's, it's the biggest admission you'll ever get. They don't trust their own claims.

John Dehlin [01:55:00] Yeah. And so let's go to that next slide maybe to just kind of summarize.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:55:04] Yeah, yeah. This will put a good fine point on it. Yeah. This is terrible advice. It's designed to stop the doubts of the non believing spouse and from spreading in the family because they're treating it like an illness. But this is again, what you'd expect from an organization that is looking out for its own interest before yours. If you told a friend, and I've done this, so I know that this is how it ended for me anyways, if you told a friend that you have doubts about the church and you devoted your whole life to it and one of the leaders of your church told you that, I suggest that research is not the answer. That friend would start to think you were either in a very unhealthy church or even a cult. The apologetic spin is that Oaks is trying to find a healthier way for this mixed faith couple. But the reality is that he's privileging the church over their marriage. And as Nemo mentioned earlier, he's making it a lot harder for that mixed faith couple to communicate because now he's putting that bigger wedge in them. Not only do they have problems with the claims of the church, but he's basically putting a brick wall in between them by telling the believing spouse not to even listen. This is not about strengthening their marriage. It is about keeping the believing spouse from being exposed to the information that the spouse who left encountered. Because Dallin Oaks knows full well that research will ultimately lead many members out of the church. So if you ever have somebody in any area of your life, not just religion, that tells you research is not the answer to claims that you have to devote a lot of time, money, or to anything else to you turn, you run and you never look back.

John Dehlin [01:56:24] Yeah. Again, just to put a fine point on it, imagine a corporation that's selling a car and they say, don't research whether the car is good. Or a pharmaceutical company that says, take our drugs, buy our drugs, use our drugs, but don't investigate whether or not the drugs are healthy for you. You would know for sure that that company was a fraud. Or if the government said, hey, we're deciding to go to war with this country. They've done some really horrible things, so we're gonna attack them. But do not research whether or not our claims are true about our reasons for war. That would be an immediate non starter. And here we are having, having the number two person in the whole entire Mormon church literally telling people not to investigate it and you should run. All right, so let's do one last video before we go ahead and end today's episode. Do you want to set this up, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:57:28] Yeah. And first I'm going to just piggyback off your last comment. Just again, picture you going to a car dealership. I'm just going to throw out Honda this time because I think I used a different brand last time. Time you go up to the car salesperson and they're like, this is the greatest car. It's going to be perfect for your family. Super safe, all this stuff. And you pull out your phone, you're like, I've actually been looking at some of the different car sites. They're saying that there's some safety issues. They're saying there's a lot of recall problems, reliability issues. If that salesperson says, I would put the phone away, I suggest researching this is not going to give you the answer you're looking for. You are walking out of that dealership every single time. And that is perfectly applicable to what Dallin Oaks did here. And the fact that we have members of the church applauding that and not walking away, honestly blows my mind. With that said, we can go to the last slide. I'm sorry, I just wanted to get that out.

John Dehlin [01:58:16] No problem. All right, let's do this last slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:58:19] So this is another youth face to face. This one is now from September 2019. So we're still in the same year. And this is done by Elder Christensen, Elder Suarez, and they're answering pre selected questions from the youth because again, as we've talked about about these are. They make them sound like they're getting questions on the fly, but they're always ready. They know exactly what's coming. And in one Exchange. Elder Christensen is going to say that doubts are dangerous, which, again, I think is a horrible thing to say to the youth, because as we talked about, doubts can be a great thing to really get you to the answers you need. And I just want to note that the theme in these talks continues to imply, or in this case, outright declare that doubts are dangerous to members. And the only entity that doubts are dangerous to is the one that is holding those doubts over your head and benefiting from your loyalty, which is the church. And so, as you watch this clip, just think about who this question really benefits. Does it benefit the kids who are answering it or who are hearing it? Or does it benefit the church that's giving it?

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [01:59:13] Yeah. All right, let's roll. Roll the clip. Doubts about things we already know are very dangerous. Therefore, whenever I am giving advice to a friend who has questions and doubts, I try to take him back to the foundation of his own testimony. If he were a returned missionary, I'm going to go back to the mission and ask him about his teachings to other people and how he felt about reading the Book of Mormon and us of God. And I will try to rekindle in him the true feelings of the Spirit. Therefore, doubts are dangerous.

Video Clip 3 [02:00:00] The question is how we receive revelation. The same for all of us.

Video Clip 3 [02:00:06] We are always in the process of learning. And as I read the scriptures, I have many questions, but I have no doubts because I know know the things that I already know. And I'm trying to expand my testimony, deepen my feelings, and listen to the Spirit. I heard some audible gasps. Do you want to go first, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:00:33] Yeah. It's just, you know, it's one of those things that. We've talked about this in our last episode on Witnesses. This is, you know, your spouse finds out that you're cheating on them, and instead of saying, I did that and it was a mistake, you say, listen, baby, I still love you. I need you to think about the way you felt when we were getting married. That's what you need to focus on. You don't need to focus on what you've learned since. You need to focus on those feelings you used to have before you knew all the information about our marriage. And it's the same thing with the car example. You know, you could say, if you go to the dealership after you buy a car and you find out they lied to you, and the car is like, remember that new car smell? Remember how awesome that was? I need you to focus on that right now and not focus about the fact that I lied to you about the history of the car. And to call doubts dangerous after he's saying that what he does to people that have doubts is to try to take them back. It's almost like when your computer has a bad virus or you install a program that screws everything up. And on Windows anyways, I don't know about Macs, they call restore points. And so what you do is you basically push your computer back to the previous restore point because that's back before everything got screwed up. And the church is trying to do that. They're saying, okay, we're just going to erase all of the things you learn and just try to bring you back before you learn them to get those feelings. It's just such a manipulative practice because it's not even answering the problems we're encountering. Whether, you know, as we said, all these different problems, polygamy, book, Abraham, first vision, whatever. They're just basically saying, just think of how you used to feel and the doubts will go away. And if they don't, that's dangerous to you. And again, as I said, the doubts are only dangerous to the people that are holding something over you. You know, to. To go back to our earlier episodes. As I've said, treasure digging in Mormonism go hand in hand because the church is constantly telling you to dig by paying tithing, by volunteering to clean the church, by volunteering to go to the temple and all these things. And they promise you these eternal rewards they never have to give you. So you walking away is going to take something away from them. It's not going to take anything away from you. And so the, these, these talks of saying doubts are dangerous really benefit the person that's holding those eternal promises over your head. And you could see that by the way they choose these words and the way they choose to do this to audiences that are comprised of young kids and college students who are supposed to be encouraged to think critically and to really figure out what is true and what is not true.

John Dehlin [02:02:53] Nemo.

Nemo [02:02:58] Just looking for the lyrics to the hymn if youf Can Hide to Kolob, because I believe the lyric is the. To that LDS hymn, Improvement and Progression, a one eternal round. Is that the lyric? Either way, there is an idea within the LDS Church that improvement and progression are eternal. They are good, they are valuable. And how on earth are people meant to improve and progress if they're not allowed to move? Move forward by addressing doubts, but instead must just continue to look backwards to the point at which the doubt didn't exist. It's just antithetical to the entire Mormon ideal that we will continue to improve and progress in the eternities and grow in knowledge, in intellect, in spiritual maturity and all these things. They can't happen if you're constantly being told to look backwards to an earlier point because of some inconvenient traffic. Truths that have now come to light.

John Dehlin [02:03:49] Yeah, I would say it's. Again, I'll just end, as I've said multiple times, this teaching of avoiding doubts, of avoiding questions, of avoiding research, it's not just a sure sign of a cult, like the definition of a cult, of cult behavior. It's also, at its core, anti Mormon and totally against everything that I was raised to believe that Mormonism stood for. All right, so this is just part one of a two part episode on how the Mormon Church handles doubts. Mike, do you want to give us a preview of what the next part two is going to be about?

Russell Nelson on Doubt and Final Reflections

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:04:31] Yeah, actually, I think the next part is actually better than this part in the sense of we get to hear from Russell Nelson. He gave a talk on doubts in 2021 that I know a lot of you will be familiar with, that we're going to talk about some of the ways he frames doubts and what you should do with doubts and how to avoid people with doubts. And then we're going to have a very, very recent talk from the current church historian on doubts, which has at least two. There's more, but there's two quotes within his talk that are, to me, just mind blowing. That in 2023, the church historian is going to say two different things that I think are just absolutely crazy. So I think it's gonna be a good talk, but it's gonna be a lot more of looking at how the church frames doubts and how they speak to members about those doubts. And obviously, if you're watching this and you're getting through these, it's up to you to do with it what you want. I personally, as we've said, feel like this is not the hallmark of a organization that's healthy and honest. But, you know, we're just. Like I said, we're here to put it out there and people are gonna do with it what they want, but I think the next one's gonna be a good one.

Speaker E [02:05:37] One.

John Dehlin [02:05:37] All right, Nemo, any final thoughts? Anything you want to share?

Nemo [02:05:45] Sorry, my unmute button is getting a bit sticky. It doesn't seem to want to work.

John Dehlin [02:05:48] Okay.

Nemo [02:05:50] So, yeah, I. I think that, to be honest, Mike summed that up really nicely in that These, these are not the hallmarks of a healthy, honest community. And I want to echo what John said, that this is not the church I was brought up in. These are not the values and ideals I was brought up with. This is not what I understood it was to be a Mormon was to bury your head in the sand and not come to terms with things and to not confront things. The whole appeal, the whole USP of Mormonism is that we have answers to the difficult questions. We have answers to the problems that other churches don't seem to have answers to. But now it seems that that intellectual curiosity is being stifled in the youth and instead they're just too bury their heads in the sand and go back to remembering Primary songs.

John Dehlin [02:06:34] And you know what? I believe it or not, this is going to sound bold, but I think even Joseph Smith himself would violently reject this idea that you shouldn't research and you shouldn't investigate and you shouldn't doubt. Don't you think?

Nemo [02:06:47] Joseph Smith himself, out of the best books, I believe, is Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith was always an advocate for. I believe he said something like, take all the wisdom and learning from everywhere and bring it all in. It was essentially his motto.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:07:02] Yes, but I would argue that Joseph Smith would only say that when he has control of the information. Because let's just say, for example, the Nauvoo Expositor were to come out and speak bad of him. Joseph Smith was not a fan of people reading that. So I think this is the same thing you see with church. Joseph Smith, I think, would give these big flowery sermons about, yeah, seek ye the best knowledge out of book books. You know, let's listen to the, you know, to the, the knowledge of the world. But at the same time, he's going to do the same thing we're doing today, which is anytime someone says that knowledge, those best books you're talking about are telling us what you're giving us is not true, he would then call you a heretic and run you out of town. So I do think that Joseph Smith was a much better charismatic leader as far as giving these kinds of directions, or at least these feelings that maybe information was more welcome. But as we know, every time someone spoke out against Joseph Smith, they were destroyed publicly. I mean, the happiness letter episode you referenced earlier, when Nancy Rigdon came out and leaked the letter that Joseph did, the church newspapers were writing articles about her being a whore. So I just feel like, yeah, Joseph Smith probably would have had more of a spirit of openness, but only until, let's just say Google came out and made it easy to figure out what he's doing. So I. I feel like we might be giving Joseph too much credit because he clearly was not open to information that that went against him.

Nemo [02:08:22] All right, I want to take Joseph Smith at face value. I'll take Justice Smith at face value.

John Dehlin [02:08:26] Yeah, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:08:27] You know what, Nemo? I think it's a good time to break because you and I are about to have a throwdown.

John Dehlin [02:08:33] All right, well, Nemo, please. Everybody, please check out Nemo the Mormon, his YouTube channel. Subscribe to it. Also, please, while you're here, if you're on YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel here. Also, please subscribe on Facebook. We love your super chat donations. If you're joining us on a live stream, we also really appreciate your donations to Mormon Stories and the OBA Stories Foundation. You can go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button, become a monthly subscriber. You can also subscribe to Nemo's channel by going to donorbox.org what? Nemo the Mormon, Is that right?

Guest 2 [02:09:08] Right.

Nemo [02:09:08] Yep, that's the one.

John Dehlin [02:09:09] You can donate and support Nemo's work there as well. But then the best thing you can do is also just share these episodes, share these podcast links or this playlist link with everyone who you think wants to learn about the truth about the Mormon Church so that they can make informed decisions. Mike, thanks so much for all you do. We'll see you back next time.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:09:31] Yeah, see you guys soon.

John Dehlin [02:09:32] Thanks again, Nemo.

Nemo [02:09:34] All the best.

John Dehlin [02:09:34] And thanks, everyone, for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again very soon. Take care, everybody.

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.