Welcome and Introduction to Amy's Letter

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's August 31, 2023, and today we have back on Mormon Stories, Amy Lloyd. Hey, Amy.

Amy Lloyd [00:00:11] Hello. Good morning.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] Just to give you a little background, Amy, we just did a couple episodes with Amy. She is a formerly Mormon mom who lives in the south. And she basically, long story short, had a Mormon marriage, had a couple kids, and then ended up in divorcing from her first husband. And he remained faithful. And she no longer believed in the church after, right before and then after the divorce. And we did a couple episodes just talking about beautiful episodes, talking about how she didn't have all the information growing up about the church that maybe would have been helpful to her and how maybe that led to her silencing her own voice and maybe making decisions throughout her life that she would have made very differently if she had had all the information.

John Dehlin [00:01:13] And that led her to want to. And knowing that her children were still going to be associated with the Mormon Church on some level because their dad, you know, remained and remains a believer, she wanted to figure out a way to make sure that they could have the informed consent that she didn't, so that they could not, not with the intent of making decisions for them, because that defeats the whole purpose of learning to listen to your inner voice. But she did want to do what she could to make sure that her kids, and specifically her son had the informed consent that he needed, you know, in his teen years to help him decide with all the information whether he wanted to serve a mission, a Mormon mission, whether he wanted to go to byu, get married in the temple and all that.

John Dehlin [00:02:08] And so she wrote this lovely condensed version of, of the CES letter. And now let me just explain that for those of you who don't know. Years and years ago, a dear friend of mine, Jeremy Runels, had a Mormon faith crisis and he wrote a letter to a CES director who is a church educator within the Mormon Church, where he asked a bunch of questions and expressed a bunch of concerns about various Mormon truth claims, Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, polygamy, et cetera. And that document, the CES letter has, has impacted hundreds of thousands of lives, I would say, providing informed consent to a lot of Mormons and non Mormons who were not given informed consent in their Mormon experience.

John Dehlin [00:02:55] Well, you know, it's, let's just say it's an 80 page document and, you know, people are able to read it sometimes in one sitting. However, it probably was not written specifically for teenagers. And so what, what Amy, you can find that a cbsletter.org but, but what Amy wanted to do was to write a condensed version of the CES letter for her teen so that he could have the informed consent. And so she wrote a beautiful introductory letter to her son explaining why she wanted him to learn the things she felt like he wanted to learn, she wanted him to learn. And then she wrote these small, little condensed summaries of the CES letter along along with some other issues that she added for that purpose with the intent of having, what was it, 16 little small discussions with your son.

Amy Lloyd [00:03:53] Yes. So we ended up having just weekly 30 minute discussions where we just went section by section and talked about it in, you know, a non overwhelming way. So I took each section of the CES letter, just did a little summary, and that's kind of where we started with our discussions. Yeah, we just did one topic at a time because we had kind of tried just having global discussions and it just kind of spiderwebs out like one issue leads to another, leads to another, leads to another. And it's very easy to go off the rails. So this is a way to kind of keep it on track.

Framing the Letter for a Young Audience

John Dehlin [00:04:24] And I just want to address something very serious and that's that when we're dealing with children, when we're dealing with kids who are under 18, I don't know, someone who's left Mormonism who feels like it's their job to violate a child's parental, you know, responsibilities and duties and, you know, to, to try and get someone else's child to believe differently or leave the church. So I just want to be very clear. The purpose of today's episode is not to try and persuade other people's teenage children who are Mormon to learn anything specifically or leave the church. This, this project is called Letter to My Child.

John Dehlin [00:05:11] And basically it was a letter from Amy to her son that I realized is probably going to be, you know, people are going to request this. They're going to say, john, how do I get a copy of the letter that Amy wrote to her son? Because it's going to be useful in conversations I want to have with my own children. Because whether people are staying, parents are staying in the church, or, you know, falling into mixed faith marriages or transitioning into mixed faith marriages, or the couple couples are leaving altogether, there is going to be for a long, long time the need for parents to have thoughtful, informed discussions about Mormonism with their children.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] So this is, this episode is not about Mormon stories trying to lead other People's teenagers out of the church. This is a one model for how Amy Lloyd talked to her child about Mormon issues that allowed that child to have informed consent. And we are going to just go through the entire letter. It's probably going to take an hour, and maybe we'll have some brief discussions in each chapter. But we're going to provide this for you so that either you can get ideas for how you might want to talk to your own children about Mormonism and its truth claims and informed consent. And if you want to, you are welcome on a road trip or whatever, you're welcome to play this episode with your child if you like it and if you feel like it's appropriate.

John Dehlin [00:06:48] And so that's the spirit with which we're doing this. Please do not misinterpret our intentions. So, Amy, I just gave that long preamble. What would you like to add?

Amy Lloyd [00:07:00] The only thing I would add to that is, you know, you already mentioned that this is not intended to lead anybody else's child out of the church. And I just want to add this was not intended to lead my own child. Child out of the church. I was very, very clear with him as I was having these discussions with him. I made sure to tell him there are valid reasons to want to stay in the church. There are valid reasons to want to leave the church. I want you to understand why I made the choices that I made.

Amy Lloyd [00:07:30] And I want you to have the information so that you can make your own informed choice. Having said that, I am perfectly happy if you decide that the church is for you, you want to stay, whether you have literal belief or not. There are people who know this information and still maintain belief. There are people who know this information and are not able to maintain literal belief, but they still love the community of the church. They still love what the church teaches today. They still feel that that pull of wanting to stay for a myriad of reasons. And people are sitting in the pews on Sunday with a wide range of belief and faith, and it's completely up to him and up to every person to make that decision for themselves.

Amy Lloyd [00:08:13] And I absolutely support whatever decision he makes. I just think it's appropriate for people to know what the issues are and to not have things hidden from them. So I want to be clear, like, I was not even trying to take my own child out of the church. So that was never the intent. The intent was always just informed consent and the knowledge that everybody has the right to make whatever choices they want with regard to their faith and with regard to their belief, and they can participate in whatever level they want.

John Dehlin [00:08:43] Beautiful. Beautiful. And I will say at the beginning and end that we put up a website, a shell of a website. For now, it's lettertomychild.net and you will be able to not only find this video, but also the PDF that Amy wrote for her son there for your own use. And maybe we'll get an email address together. Maybe it'll be letter to my child or something like thatmail.com or maybe LDS letter to my child if the other one's taken. Yeah, but we'll maybe provide an email where you. If you have feedback for Amy or questions or whatever. Yes, or. Or maybe they can just use your. Your email if you want.

Amy Lloyd [00:09:28] That works too. I guess the one last thing I will add too, is that, you know, I was not originally intending for this to have such a large audience, so it may not be as polished. It's not a professional letter summary. It is a letter from a mom and a summary from a mom to her kids. So.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] And to me, that's kind of the appeal a little bit. Yeah. But also, just in the amount of time that I've known you, I find you to be thoughtful, a real follower of these issues. So you're not a lightweight in terms of having spent a lot of time learning and reflecting on these issues. So this comes highly recommended by me. Really quickly, what are the sections that we're gonna cover today?

Amy Lloyd [00:10:10] Okay, so the sections are. Well, the first is the letter, as you mentioned. And then I have just kind of a one and a half page on investigating the church and its truth claims. Just basically teeing up why he should not feel guilty for wanting to. For looking into this stuff.

Amy Lloyd [00:10:26] Then the summary letter itself has. The sections are Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon, Translation First Vision, Book of Abraham, Polygamy and Polyandry, Prophets, Kinderhook plates and Translator claims, testimony and spiritual Witnesses, Priesthood restoration Witnesses, Temples and Freemasonry, science and other concerns.

Amy Lloyd [00:10:56] And those are just the headings, the chapter headings of the CES letter. So I have summaries for each of those, and then I have just kind of a one page listing of kind of other issues that I have that are more such as LGBTQ issues, racism, patriarchy and sexism. The idea of anybody being able to speak for God. The idea of anybody being able to deem another person worthy, excommunication of people for speaking out, the need for ordinances, families being together only if they are all Mormon and tithe payers, exclusivity church finances, manipulative policies. And by that I mean giving temple recommends only if you, you know, pay tithing. Basic character and goodness of early prophets, problematic Book of Mormon stories, and church deception and truthfulness.

John Dehlin [00:11:49] And this seems like, you know, just when you hear all that big list, it seems like a lot, but for me, part of the genius of this is it's really condensed.

Amy Lloyd [00:11:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:58] So we're not talking about pages per topic.

Amy Lloyd [00:12:00] Right. And the list that I just read at the end, that I rattled off, that is literally just a list. So if we're going to be doing this website, I. I may start writing short blurbs on each of those. As of right now, that is literally just a list.

John Dehlin [00:12:11] Okay.

Amy Lloyd [00:12:12] So the other topics that I read that are the Cesar headings, those are the ones that I have a short summary for.

John Dehlin [00:12:19] Got it.

Amy Lloyd [00:12:20] So those are the ones that we'll be reading.

John Dehlin [00:12:21] Okay. And so we'll make sure and put up jump points on YouTube so that you can jump to the section that you want. If you want to review only specific sections. And we, you know, obviously you have the option of listening to all this in one, in uninterrupted, you know, hour or so if. If anything on Mormon stories has ever been done in an hour. But we also recommend pausing, you know, if you're listening to this with your child or with your loved one or whoever. And this isn't just for children. Right. Young, young adults can also find value

Amy Lloyd [00:12:58] in this, and adults who really don't want to. I think you said the CES letter was 80 pages. I think it's double that. I think it's like. And so I found it to be a fascinating read, but maybe you wanted. Maybe you want to know kind of what. What the basic issues are that the historical truth claims that people have issues with. But you don't necessarily need to see all the maps and need to have all of the, you know, you don't need to have all of the detail. You just want to know what the issues are. And then if you're interested, you can look into it further. But yeah, it's just kind of a good introduction, I think, without. It's eight page versus eight pages versus 150.

John Dehlin [00:13:31] Yeah. Yeah. So maybe you want to just watch or listen to it all the way through, but you can also feel free to pause at. At each point and discuss it with whoever you want to discuss this with. And of course, we're providing the jump links on YouTube so you can jump back and forth. All right. All right. So so let's begin. Amy, what's the first section you want to read?

Reading the Letter Aloud to Her Son

Amy Lloyd [00:13:52] Um, well, so if we're just going beginning to end the first section, I'll just go chronologically with how I wrote it.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] So let's go ahead and just. Let's go back up to the top.

Amy Lloyd [00:14:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] And from. Kind of like just from the place of heart. And warning those of you who watched the episode with Amy. She reads this letter to her son previously, but I think it's important to include it at the start as kind of from a heartfelt place, her explaining her intent and communicating her values to her son. So let's start with your letter to Noah.

Amy Lloyd [00:14:32] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:14:33] And put in your own name if you're listening. In the place of Noah.

Amy Lloyd [00:14:37] Yeah. Dear Blank doesn't sound as. Yeah, so I'll just say Noah. Dear Noah, first and most importantly, please know how much I love you. I cannot emphasize that enough. I have loved you since the very moment I knew of your existence, and I have loved you every single second since. You and your brothers are the best things that have happened or will ever happen to me. And nothing is more important to me than the three of you and your happiness.

Amy Lloyd [00:15:01] I want you to have a wonderful, full, authentic life, full of happiness and love and inner peace. I also want you to know that I understand the difficult position you are in. I know that it is really difficult to feel like you are stuck in the middle between two different belief systems. That's hard. Here's the thing, though. Even within the same belief system, people have a wide range of personal beliefs and applications of those beliefs. So no matter what you choose, it will still come down to what resonates with you personally. And no one can decide any of that except for you. And that could also change over time as you go throughout your life.

Amy Lloyd [00:15:37] It did for me, and it does for many people. The point is that you have the right to believe whatever you want to believe, regardless of who else in your life believes it. You could even choose something completely different from anyone else.

Amy Lloyd [00:15:49] The reason I feel it is so important to talk to you about these things is that you are coming to an age where you have some big life decisions to make. I don't say that to put any kind of pressure on you, but it's just the reality of the situation.

Amy Lloyd [00:16:01] And even though very few decisions in this life are permanent and you have the right to change your mind about things later on, it is always best to make decisions with as much information as possible, particularly decisions that will affect your life in such Profound ways.

Amy Lloyd [00:16:14] Finally, I want you to know that I support your right to make whatever decision is right for you. This doesn't necessarily mean I will always agree with your decisions. Hopefully I will. But my love for you can never be affected by what decisions you make for your own life.

Amy Lloyd [00:16:28] And I want for us to always be close regardless. However, it is not okay for you to make important decisions based on partial information. It's important to keep an open mind, be willing to listen and learn from all sides and then make informed choices. And always listen to yourself and trust yourself. Your own inner voice can help guide you in living your own best life. While feelings are not a good way to determine external truths, more on that later. Your own feelings are a great way to determine internal truth. What is important to you, what resonates with you, how you feel about things, what you want for your life.

Amy Lloyd [00:17:03] Listen to yourself and trust your own inner voice. And be brave in following your own inner voice. As we go through our discussions each week, please know that I have your best interest in mind. It is my job as your mom to teach you and guide you. I would never want to withhold information from you that may affect how you feel or what choices you make. Although some of these conversations might be hard for you, please know that it doesn't mean they aren't right or important to have. The last thing I would want is for you to find out about things later in your life and then know that I knew and didn't tell you about them.

Amy Lloyd [00:17:36] That wouldn't be fair at all. I will try my very best to make our discussions informative, but not overwhelming. But there is a lot of stuff to cover and I do feel very passionately about all of this, so be patient with me too, honey. I am doing my best and I love you so much. Love, Mom.

John Dehlin [00:17:52] Such a beautiful letter. And I. I know people are going to resonate with that and it just rings so true. People deserve even. Especially children.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:03] Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:04] Deserve to know.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:05] Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:07] And the only other thing I'll add is that it's very consistent with Mormon teachings.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:12] The Mormon Church taught the truth is important above all else.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:16] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:18:16] And the Mormon Church sort of the core teaching of the Mormon plan of salvation is what. What was the word heaven fought over?

Amy Lloyd [00:18:25] Coming down to learn. Coming down to learn.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] And free agency.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:29] And free agency.

John Dehlin [00:18:30] Can you have free agency without all the information?

Amy Lloyd [00:18:32] Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] If. If information is being withheld from you, you're not a free agent.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:37] So there's no free agency without informed consent.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:18:40] And so it's Actually very gospel consistent.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:42] I think so.

John Dehlin [00:18:43] Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [00:18:44] And it's also. This is. It is my job as his mom. And that's the thing. Like, he. He asked me, you know, if other people that have. I have. I told. Have I had these discussions with other people. And I said no, because it's not my place to do that. But I'm your mom, and it is my place to do that with you because you're my child and it's my job to teach you.

John Dehlin [00:19:01] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that leads right into these wonderful quotes you have.

Truth-Seeking, Informed Consent, and Anti-Mormon Framing

Amy Lloyd [00:19:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:19:07] On investigating the church and its truth claims. So these are three quotes from one Mormon prophet and two Mormon apostles.

Amy Lloyd [00:19:17] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:19:17] On the importance of investigating truth.

Amy Lloyd [00:19:19] Yes. So the first is a quote by George A. Smith, who is the eighth president of the church. And this is from the Journal of Discourses, Volume 14. If a faith will not bear to be investigated, if its preachers and professors are afraid to have it examined, their foundation must be very weak.

John Dehlin [00:19:38] Okay. Boom. That's a mic drop.

Amy Lloyd [00:19:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:40] Like any strong organization of God can bear to have its truth and its evidence.

Amy Lloyd [00:19:47] And if you're so sure that you have the truth, it shouldn't matter what anybody investigates.

John Dehlin [00:19:52] Yeah, yeah, that's solid.

Amy Lloyd [00:19:55] The next one is by J. Reuben Clark, who is actually a distant cousin of mine.

John Dehlin [00:19:59] And this is also how Jeremy Runnels CES letter starts with this quote.

Amy Lloyd [00:20:03] Yeah, I think that at least a couple of the quotes are from. Are from that. And I think this third one is one that I found elsewhere. But. So this one is J. Reuben Clark, who was a member of the first presidency for 28 years. And he says if we have not. If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.

John Dehlin [00:20:23] And that's pretty bold. It's pretty bold to be harmed.

Amy Lloyd [00:20:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:20:26] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [00:20:26] Yes, it's pretty. That's pretty bold.

John Dehlin [00:20:28] Yeah. Yep. That's a great. That's a great quote.

Amy Lloyd [00:20:30] And the third one is a quote by Hugh B. Brown, who was a member of the First Presidency. And this is from his General Conference talk in October of 1962. And he says, the honest investigator must be prepared to follow wherever the source of truth may lead. Truth is often found in the most unexpected places. He must, with fearless and open mind, insist that facts are far more important than any cherished, mistaken beliefs, no matter how unpleasant the facts or how delightful the beliefs.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] I mean, that's. Can you imagine a modern apostle saying that in the Mormon Church? It's hard, right? But, Hugh B. Brown was a special apostle. And by the way, I don't know if you know this, he was demoted from the first presidency after David O. McKay died because he was excessively advocating for, for black people, Black Mormons, to receive the priesthood.

Amy Lloyd [00:21:22] Oh, wow.

John Dehlin [00:21:23] And so Joseph Fielding Smith didn't like that. So when Joseph Fielding Smith took over From David O. McKay, he kicked Hugh B. Brown out of the first presidency.

Amy Lloyd [00:21:33] I did not know that. That makes me like Hubie Brown more.

John Dehlin [00:21:36] Oh, he was, he was amazing. He was advocating for black Mormons to receive the priesthood and temple blessings in the early 60s, a full 16 years before they ever got the priesthood. Wow. Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [00:21:47] That's awesome.

John Dehlin [00:21:47] Can you imagine having apostles like that these days?

Amy Lloyd [00:21:49] It would be awesome. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:52] Okay, the next section you have is on informed consent.

Amy Lloyd [00:21:54] Yes. You have the right to know sufficient information, positive and negative, prior to making important decisions. Limiting information or only presenting the good and omitting problematic information is not ethical or honest. You should never be made to feel guilty or wrong simply for researching or seeking information. You also have the right to get information from any source. You can discern for yourself whether that source is valid. This can be done by corroboration with various sources, cross checking to source documents, etc. One website that I found to be very helpful is mormonthink.com it is a non biased collection of various issues and it presents both sides of each issue and includes direct links to sources such as the Church's website.

John Dehlin [00:22:38] And I'm so glad you mentioned Mormon Think because before the CES letter, Mormont was a huge force and he, and I know the, the guy who wrote it. He and I collaborated a lot in those early years and he really worked hard to kind of steel man. There's this idea of Steel Manning where you don't represent the worst elements of the argument of your quote opponent. You do your best to represent the best arguments of your opponent. And that's kind of what he tried to do. He said, here's the evidence, here's, here's what we're taught, which is insufficient. Here's the truth, here's what apologists say, you know, to explain it.

Amy Lloyd [00:23:22] And then you conclude what you think. Out of all of that, that's what I appreciated so much from it. And I actually had already been out of the church for many years before the CES letter was written. I remember reading it and being so impressed that it was such a great collaboration of all of the things that I had spent, you know, so long researching. But Mormon Think was one of the biggest things for me as far as the truth claims of the church were concerned when I was learning about all of those, and that, that is what I loved about it was that I felt like it was very much, look, here's one side of this issue.

Amy Lloyd [00:23:56] Here's, here's the kind of complaint or the concern. Here's the church response. Here's what the church says about it, and it didn't conclude it for you. It left that open to whatever you thought, knowing both sides. And I really appreciated that about it.

John Dehlin [00:24:09] Yeah. There are other sources. There's letter to my wife or letter from my wife. I always forget which one it is, which is amazing. Of course, there's a yes. Letter. There's LDS discussions, which we do a whole series on Mormon stories with LDS discussions. So there are lots of these types of resources. But Mormon Think is a. Is a really good book.

Amy Lloyd [00:24:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:30] All right, the next section is a word on anti Quote. Anti Mormon. Close quote. Sources.

Amy Lloyd [00:24:36] Yes. Often the term anti Mormon is thrown around to discourage people from reading or listening to anything that is not positive about the church. This is simply not appropriate. Just because someone or something points out a negative aspect about the church, that does not make them anti Mormon. And it does not automatically discount what they have to say. Even if someone is angry about something, that does not automatically disqualify them from being listened to. Maybe they have a valid reason for feeling angry. Also, disagreeing with the church does not make one anti Mormon any more than disagreeing with any other faith makes one anti. For example, you would never call someone an anti Semite just because they don't agree with the Jewish faith. And calling someone that just for disagreeing with their theology would be extremely offensive and inappropriate.

John Dehlin [00:25:25] Yeah. And you know, that's unfortunately high demand. Religions and sometimes cults, that's what they do is they want to limit information, they want to shut things down, and they need to stigmatize and make people who leave their organization seem unsafe.

Amy Lloyd [00:25:44] Right.

John Dehlin [00:25:44] So anti Mormon is just the classic pejorative that is used to discredit.

Amy Lloyd [00:25:51] Right.

John Dehlin [00:25:52] Someone who's left the church. But sometimes someone who's left a church is the most credible source because A, they've been harmed by it, B, they've studied it more than anyone, sometimes than anyone who's in it.

Amy Lloyd [00:26:03] Right.

John Dehlin [00:26:03] And they. And they deserve to be listened to.

Amy Lloyd [00:26:06] Right.

John Dehlin [00:26:07] Yeah. So let's, let's try and avoid using anti Mormon ever. It's a slur. Yeah. Okay. And then the next section is feeling negative feelings when researching this goes to the Holy Ghost and the Spirit and the Spirit of contention and the adversary.

Amy Lloyd [00:26:26] Right. A lot of this information will be new to you and it may be contrary to things you have learned in church. This will naturally make you feel uncomfortable or negative feelings. This is completely normal. It can be hard to have our beliefs challenged. We are sometimes taught that negative feelings are warnings from the spirit or. Or that they come from the adversary. Please understand that this is not true. Any information that challenges our worldview is going to make us feel this way. It's completely normal. For example, when you were a kid and you asked me directly to tell you the truth about Santa, you were sad.

Amy Lloyd [00:27:01] Learning the truth made you feel badly, but that didn't make it not true. And even though it was hard at the time, it was better to know the truth once you were ready to hear it. Also, we will often learn of awful things that happened in history. It naturally makes us feel negative emotions when we learn about atrocities. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen.

John Dehlin [00:27:21] So important.

Amy Lloyd [00:27:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:27:22] We're inoculated to think that any negative

Amy Lloyd [00:27:25] feeling is the Everest and should stop you in your tracks from going down that road. From continuing to research. So these last few sections, starting with the quotes and then ending where I just did, was the kind of addendum to my letter to Noah before we get into the actual CES summary. Because it was meant to kind of take that guilt away from him of listening to things that were maybe different than how they'd be been presented at church. Because I remember those feelings myself before I finally allowed myself to start researching. I remembered stopping myself from it because I felt guilty. I felt like I shouldn't look at anything other than church sources because that's what I'd been taught. So this is me trying to take away any kind of feelings of guilt and making him know it's actually okay to look into things and to research.

John Dehlin [00:28:16] Yeah. Again, talking about techniques of high demand religions or cults. There's this idea of thought stopping technique.

Amy Lloyd [00:28:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:28:23] And teaching someone that a bad feeling means stop, get out, it's bad.

Amy Lloyd [00:28:27] Right.

John Dehlin [00:28:28] Is a way to get them to not learn, to not investigate. And you know, that's just. We've evolved to have a full range of human emotions because they're healthy.

Amy Lloyd [00:28:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:28:42] Fear or anger or sadness or feeling disturbed, that can be our bodies communicating very important things to us.

Amy Lloyd [00:28:50] Right.

John Dehlin [00:28:51] And as Mormons, I think there's really bad side effects from learning to shut out, turn away really critical, important emotions.

Amy Lloyd [00:28:59] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:29:00] Did you know anger and fear and sadness. Those. Those communicate and do important things for us.

Amy Lloyd [00:29:05] Right? Yep.

John Dehlin [00:29:07] I love it that you're educating about emotions. That's so, so important. All right, let's go ahead and read what the CES letter is.

CES Letter Summary: Book of Mormon and Translation

Amy Lloyd [00:29:16] Okay. So I read this section kind of prior. Do you want me to just go ahead and read it again? Okay. So, Mom. Summary and thoughts on the CES letter bisection. The CES letter was written by a man named Jeremy Reynolds. At the time, he was an active member of the church, a returned missionary, and had questions about some things he had learned that didn't make sense to him. He wrote a letter to a CES director. CES is the church education system, hoping to be able to get answers to these issues so that he could continue more comfortably in the church. He never received an answer to any of these questions.

Amy Lloyd [00:29:50] This summary is just that, a summary of each section of the CES letter. The actual CES letter goes into more detail, includes many examples and quotes from church leaders, citations and references to historical documents, etc. This stuff is not made up. Feel free to do your own research to corroborate anything you read here that may interest you further. And, of course, you can always ask me more about any of these issues or anything else you may want to discuss.

Amy Lloyd [00:30:16] The CES letter focuses on issues related to church truth claims that are not supported by historical evidence. While I share all of the concerns presented in the CES letter, there are also other reasons I have chosen not to continue my activity in the Mormon Church. I will write about those additional reasons another time.

John Dehlin [00:30:35] Yeah. And I love that you encouraged them to do their own research.

Amy Lloyd [00:30:39] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] Because that. That's the sign of a safe person or a safe organization.

Amy Lloyd [00:30:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:44] Say, don't trust me.

Amy Lloyd [00:30:46] Yes. Do your own. And if you come to me with something that is. That answers some of this stuff, great. I want to hear it. I'm not. I don't. I don't have skin in the game as far as. If this. If this gets disproved somehow. I want to hear that. I would be happy to change my mind about it if I have reason to change my mind about it.

John Dehlin [00:31:05] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [00:31:06] So there is no if. If what you truly are after is just the truth, there's no need to fear researching things.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] Yeah. Yep. Okay. So the first substantive section is the Book of Mormon.

Amy Lloyd [00:31:21] Yes. And I will just give a small caveat that this is the longest of the summary sections, because it's kind of. It's kind of a big one. This summary is a page and a half it's the longest one that there is, so some of this too is written in bullet form, so I'll try to read it as such. But if it sounds disjointed, that's why Book of Mormon we are taught in the Church that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion and that the truthfulness of the religion depends on it and on whether it is true or not. However, there are many issues with the Book of Mormon that call into question its truthfulness issues such 1 known translation errors from the King James version of the Bible appearing in the Book of Mormon, which is supposed to be an ancient text that long predates the King James Time Period 2.

Amy Lloyd [00:32:08] Biblical passages in the Book of Mormon that match passages in the King James Bible, even though those same passages are corrected in the Joseph Smith translation of the King James Bible. Shouldn't the Book of Mormon contain Joseph Smith's correctly translated Bible passages and not the ones he later saw fit to correct?

Amy Lloyd [00:32:25] Number three the Book of Mormon claims that the Lamanites came from Jerusalem and until 2006 the church taught that they were the principal ancestors of the Native Americans. My own Book of Mormon has this wording on its introduction page. However, it has been proven with DNA that Native Americans originated from Asia and came to the Americas via the Bering Strait connecting Russia to Alaska and not via sailing from Jerusalem as the Book of Mormon claims. DNA studies completely debunk the idea that Native Americans originated from Israel. Since this DNA evidence was discovered, the Church now says that the Lamanites are among the ancestors of the Native Americans.

Amy Lloyd [00:33:06] This is a huge shift in the Church's claims and past teachings on the origins of the Native Americans. Number four There are many items mentioned throughout the Book of Mormon that did not exist in the area or time period that the Book of Mormon supposedly took place. For example, horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, goats, elephants, wheels, chariots, wheat, silk, steel and iron. These are called anachronisms. It would be like reading a book that supposedly took place in the 1800s, but the characters were all using cell phones and watching TV.

Amy Lloyd [00:33:40] 5. There is absolutely no archaeological evidence for any of the people, places or events in the Book of Mormon. 0 these are major civilizations of millions of people, huge battles with massive casualties, 230,000 deaths in the last battle alone, and yet not one shred of evidence has ever been discovered to support any of it. This just does not make sense from a scientific, historical or archaeological perspective.

Amy Lloyd [00:34:07] Six Geographical names and places in the Book of Mormon are strikingly similar to names and places of the area where Joseph Smith lived. This seems oddly coincidental. 7 several texts that were prevalent in Joseph Smith's day include similar and even identical themes, stories and names of people and places to themes, stories and names found in the Book of Mormon. For example, Captain Kidd stories which include Moroni and Cumorah, like the Hill Cumorah View of the Hebrews, a book published in 1823, seven years before the Book of Mormon, in the county next to Joseph Smith's county. It was written by a pastor named Ethan Smith who led a church attended by Oliver Cowdery, who later helped Joseph Smith translate and then publish the Book of Mormon.

Amy Lloyd [00:34:53] View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon both contain dozens of strikingly similar themes, events, items and people. The Late War between the United States and Great Britain, which is an 1819 textbook written for New York State school children like Joseph Smith, also contains many similar themes and storylines to ones found in the Book of Mormon, even exact phrases and wording.

Amy Lloyd [00:35:17] The first book of Napoleon, a book published in 1809, is another one that contains many of the same or similar themes, stories and wording as the Book of Mormon. Although not mentioned by the CES letter, another text that predates the Book of Mormon and has striking similarities to it is the Pilgrim's Progress from 1678 and other pamphlets written by John Bunyan, who was a well known author in the late 17th century. For example, Bunyan's story about a character named Faithful is basically the same story as that of Abinadi in the Book of Mormon and even uses several of the same exact phrases.

Amy Lloyd [00:35:51] The Book of Mormon has had over 100,000 changes made to it since its original 1830 edition. These are not just minor or insignificant changes either, but changes that affect actual doctrine and theology. This is curious given that the Book of Mormon is taught in church to be a direct translation from God and the most correct book on earth.

Amy Lloyd [00:36:10] Given all of this, it seems clear to me that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient historical record translated by Joseph Smith from ancient gold plates, but rather a fictional book written by Joseph Smith and probably others such as Sidney Rigdon and Oliver Cowdery, with the help of several books he had access to and ideas that were commonly discussed at the time.

John Dehlin [00:36:30] Yeah, so that's a real condensed version. Each one of those paragraphs could be a book or more.

Amy Lloyd [00:36:37] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:36:40] but yeah, it's laying down the Bible problem, the anachronisms problem, the DNA problem, you know, all the various sources, right? Yeah, that's a thick but really succinct summary.

Amy Lloyd [00:36:57] This one was the hardest one for me to summarize because there is just so much there. And the actual CES letter does such a good job of taking each of these and actually showing on the left and on the right, like the phrases from this book versus the phrases in the Book of Mormon. It actually shows all of those similarities here. I'm just stating that they exist and if you're interested, please go look into it and see for yourself that they exist. It has maps in the CES letter. So I took all of that out and really tried to just say what the issue is and then you can go and look into it.

John Dehlin [00:37:31] But if nothing else, it's valuable for people to have these high level issues in their mind at least. So then when they're hearing lessons or then when they're studying the Scriptures, they'll at least have the scaffolding to then start inquiring in more detail because they don't even know what questions to ask. And this helps them know what questions to start with.

Amy Lloyd [00:37:58] Right. And it also doesn't mean that you can't find value in the Book of Mormon. There are still beautiful passages in the Book of Mormon and I think that there are still really great insights in the Book of Mormon and kind of wherever it came from, I think that you can find. Find value in it. But for me, and I feel this way about the Bible as well, for me it's, it's not, it's pretty clear to me now that it's not necessarily a historical book. And so if you want to find value in it, it's, you know, do it through the parallel, the par. Parables and the lessons and allegory of it and.

John Dehlin [00:38:29] Yeah, more. There's more value.

Amy Lloyd [00:38:32] Absolutely. I think that there's value to it.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] Yeah. Okay, one more section on the Book of Mormon. This one is Book of Mormon translation.

Amy Lloyd [00:38:41] Yes. The Book of Mormon was apparently translated by Joseph Smith using a seer stone. He would place the stone in a hat, put his face in the hat, and then words would appear on the stone and he would read it to his scribe, usually Oliver Cowdery, who would write it down. This is the same stone he used back in his treasure hunting days when he would claim to be able to find treasure for people using the stone. Side note, Joseph Smith was actually convicted of fraud in a court of law for doing this and defrauding people out of money.

Amy Lloyd [00:39:10] Despite this being the method of translation, the Church more often teaches that he translated the Book of Mormon from the gold plates. In fact, I did not learn about this head in a hat thing until I was 28 years old and I read it in the comments section of a news article. I assumed it was an anti Mormon lie because it sounded so silly and ridiculous. All of the pictures you see at church about this are of Joseph Smith with the gold plates on the table. The. The church knowingly shows pictures of the translation process that are not accurate. This is misleading and deceptive. On a less scholarly note, putting your head in a hat is just weird and a strange way of translating a supposedly sacred and ancient record.

Amy Lloyd [00:39:49] It doesn't seem like a legit method that God would use. In addition, why are the gold plates even necessary if he didn't even need them or use them to translate the Book of Mormon? According to the Book of Mormon, a lot of care and trouble went into not only writing the gold plates, but preserving them as well. Why all the trouble if they weren't needed or used?

John Dehlin [00:40:07] Anyway, super important points.

Amy Lloyd [00:40:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:11] Really valid. Yeah. And I share those experiences never being taught the things you mentioned.

Amy Lloyd [00:40:16] Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:17] Yeah. The Church has tried to toy over the past few years with, you know, artistic depictions of the Stone of the hat, but. But that's only because we, a bunch of us on the Internet, because this got discovered has. Has made such an issue of it.

Amy Lloyd [00:40:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:37] But they still have not incorporated those sorts of image. They still haven't removed the problematic misleading images from a lot of their content and their websites.

Amy Lloyd [00:40:47] Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:48] So they're still not really fixing this problem.

Amy Lloyd [00:40:50] Yeah. Well, and this is something I touched on a little bit in my interview yesterday when, you know, my son said that his Sunday school teacher, this is when he was much younger, that his Sunday school teacher, you know, told the class that her sister had left the church cause she didn't like the pictures they showed in primary. And I immediately thought of this and I don't know. Cause I don't know her sister, so I don't know what the reasons were. But I immediately thought, I wonder if it's this that she doesn't like, that they show pictures in primary that are knowingly not the case. And it really goes more to deception and honesty than actual picture shown, picture shown. So.

First Vision, Book of Abraham, and Polygamy

John Dehlin [00:41:25] All right, the next section. In one paragraph you do the first vision. Yes, in one paragraph.

Amy Lloyd [00:41:30] It is super short.

John Dehlin [00:41:31] All right.

Amy Lloyd [00:41:31] Okay. There are multiple accounts, at least four of the first vision. The accounts contradict each other and many important details are different depending on which account you read. The only version that Joseph Smith himself wrote down was not written down until 1830. Two, when he was 27 years old. In this version, he said he was 15. So that would be 12 years after the vision supposedly happened. There is no account of him having written or even told anyone of this vision, which is strange, given how important it is. The differences in the various accounts of the first vision are significant. His age, the date it occurred, his reason for seeking divine inspiration, who and how many beings appeared to him, what they said to him, et cetera.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] Yeah. Boom. Stories changing over time.

Amy Lloyd [00:42:18] Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:19] Major details changing and sometimes becoming more fantastical over time.

Amy Lloyd [00:42:26] Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:26] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [00:42:27] Which, you know, you can give a wide breadth for stuff like that. Except that this is very foundational to the church. It's very foundational. So, yeah, it's kind of a problem. There are so many different.

John Dehlin [00:42:40] Yeah. And, yeah, we're not taught that. So. All right, the next one is the Book of Abraham. We did it on Mormon stories. In 13 hours, you're doing Book of Abraham in a paragraph. That's correct.

Amy Lloyd [00:42:51] That's right. I loved every one of those 13 hours, by the way. Book of Abraham. This one was a real biggie for me. The Book of Abraham is a book of scripture that is part of the Pearl of Great Price. It is official canonized LDS scripture. It came to be when Joseph Smith purchased four mummies and some Egyptian scrolls and papyri from a traveling salesman. Joseph Smith said that these were writings from Abraham written by his own hand, and he translated them word for word into what is now the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. He also provided explanations for the pictures on the papyri.

Amy Lloyd [00:43:25] However, every single scholar and historian and Egyptologist that has seen these have unanimously agreed that they have nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham or anything else in Joseph Smith's translation. They were simply common to funeral documents. They also date back to an era that is long after when Abraham would have lived. Joseph Smith got every single thing about them completely wrong. This is an example where we have an actual document that Joseph Smith, quote, translated, which has been proven to be false. He very clearly made it up, which calls into question everything else that he supposedly translated, as well as his basic trustworthiness.

John Dehlin [00:44:02] Yeah, all true. And I'll add that that the Mormon Church recently, in its Gospel Topics essay on the Book of Abraham, has acknowledged that the word Abraham doesn't even appear anywhere in the papyrus that we still have available to us, not even the word Abraham, let alone any of the substance of the Scriptures. So the Church agrees with what you just wrote?

Amy Lloyd [00:44:24] Basically, yeah. I would say, as far as the truth Claims this was. I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. This was when I was like, all right, what are we doing here?

John Dehlin [00:44:35] Yeah, it's the smoking gun for a lot of people. For me, it was my hardcore faith crisis. Book of Abraham started mine too, also, because I was never taught this.

Amy Lloyd [00:44:44] Oh, I wasn't either.

John Dehlin [00:44:45] And the church knew this. Starting in, like, 1912, the New York Times did a front page article on the Book of Abraham being a false translation. But then the Tanners made it super clear in the 1960s. So by the 1980s or 90s, when I'm growing up, I should have been told this. This. Yeah, yeah. But the church withheld.

Amy Lloyd [00:45:02] It's very problematic for me.

John Dehlin [00:45:03] Yeah. Church withheld it from all of us.

Amy Lloyd [00:45:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:06] All right. The next section is your personal favorite.

Amy Lloyd [00:45:10] Yep. I might sound a bit. A bit sassy on this section. I'm going to be a bit spicy on this section just to be just warning everybody.

John Dehlin [00:45:17] So it's polygamy and polyandry.

Amy Lloyd [00:45:19] Yep. Polygamy has been an issue for me ever since I can remember. It simply doesn't feel right, nor is it justifiable, particularly given the way it was practiced. It included coercion, manipulation, threats, underage girls, secrecy, dishonesty, etc. None of that is okay. And none of that is justifiable in any way. It was simply wrong. Joseph Smith had at least 34 wives, of which seven were teenagers and one was only 14 years old. He was 37 at the time. This is appalling. Now, as well as back then, several of his wives, quote, wives, were his own foster daughters. Eleven of them were already married to other living men.

Amy Lloyd [00:45:58] He used threats and manipulation to get them to marry him, I. E. He told and he told them. An angel with a sword threatened to cut his head off if he didn't. If they didn't marry him. Told them that they and their families would be exalted in heaven if they married him. Sent one man away on a mission and then secretly married his pregnant wife. He kept it secret from his first wife, Emma, and then when she found out, he had a, quote, revelation that told her she would be destroyed if he didn't. If she didn't go along with it. This is still in the Scriptures in DNC Section 132.

Amy Lloyd [00:46:29] He lied in public denying that he was practicing polygamy. He ordered the destruction of a printing press, which is a federal crime, so that the newspaper wouldn't expose his polygamy. This crime is the reason he was arrested and sent to Carthage jail, where he ended up being killed. There are so many just disgusting and appalling details about polygamy in the church. But suffice it to say, it was horrific and sexist and abusive. This is sexual predator behavior. And the prophets and the church leaders who did it after Joseph were also awful and predatory. It was terrible at the time, too. This was not something that was normal or acceptable at the time.

Amy Lloyd [00:47:03] It's a main reason why people were so opposed to the Mormons back then. In fact, the United States was not going to give Utah statehood until they stopped practicing it. Hence the convenient revelation that finally stopped the practice. The church does not practice it now in this life. However, it is still a doctrine, still in the scriptures, and is still considered a practice that will be done in the afterlife according to church doctrine. And the church has been very deceptive about it. Polygamy is simply a deal breaker. Brigham Young's polygamy was even worse than Joseph Smith's. I can't consider anyone a prophet who did what these men did. There is no way it came from a loving God, powerful.

John Dehlin [00:47:40] And I'll just add that actually there is a angle where the Mormon Church is still practicing polygamy to this day. The top two leaders of the Mormon Church, Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks, have married second wives in the temple with the full knowledge that they will have multiple wives in heaven. So in that sense, top Mormon church leaders are still practicing celestial polygamy right now in 2023.

Amy Lloyd [00:48:08] Right. And that one's a little bit trickier. Right. Because if you're married to some of. It's. If your wife dies and then you're. And like, what do you do? Like if that one is a little bit trickier. And so I can see why people don't like when that kind of example gets brought up, because it's. It is different than this one. But yeah. To say that we don't practice it at all with no kind of explanation.

John Dehlin [00:48:27] I mean, remarriage is fine.

Amy Lloyd [00:48:28] Right.

John Dehlin [00:48:29] But they're believing that they will have multiple wives in heaven.

Amy Lloyd [00:48:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:33] Which I think puts the women at a fraction of the value of the man.

Amy Lloyd [00:48:38] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:48:39] In that type of relationship.

Amy Lloyd [00:48:40] Yeah. I actually had an experience when I was in my early 20s doing proxy sealings at the temple, and we did several. And then I kind of realized that I was hearing the same man's name, and I stopped and I asked the sealer, the patron, is this the same person that we're doing or is This a different guy with the same name. And he said, oh, no, this is the same man. And we were sealing and I actually asked him to stop. I said, I'm not. I'm not comfortable being part of that.

John Dehlin [00:49:11] So you were part of the ceiling of one man to multiple women in the afterlife in. In a Mormon temple?

Amy Lloyd [00:49:18] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:49:18] Yeah. Good for you.

Amy Lloyd [00:49:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:20] Yeah. Okay. Well, this leads to a really central topic within Mormonism, which is prophets and the role of prophets.

Prophets, Priesthood, and Witnesses

Amy Lloyd [00:49:29] Yep. This section discusses the doctrines and policies taught and revealed by past prophets which were taught to be false by later prophets. Doctrines such as the Adam God theory, blood atonement, polygamy, and the priesthood and temple ban on black members. These were all taught as having come from God. And we are taught that the prophet will never lead us astray. So then why were these all later disavowed? Why were members who disagreed with these things at the time considered to be in the wrong? Why are people criticized now when they disagree with the prophet, when we all know that sometimes they get stuff wrong?

Amy Lloyd [00:50:04] What is the point of having a prophet if you can never actually tell when he is speaking as a man and when he is speaking for God? This section also discusses the lack of spiritual discernment exhibited by the prophets and apostles in the 1980s when a con man and murderer duped them into buying from him a faked historical church document that he created.

John Dehlin [00:50:22] Mark Hoffman.

Amy Lloyd [00:50:23] Yeah, if prophets are speaking for God and God does not change, then why have there been so many changes and reversals in church doctrine and policies? Why was the church so far behind in civil rights? They didn't remove the priesthood ban on blacks until 1978. Shouldn't God have given them a clue a little sooner? Wouldn't God have not been racist in the first place?

Amy Lloyd [00:50:43] And then here's a mom note. People often say that we shouldn't expect prophets to be perfect. When asked about awful things past prophets have said or done, I want to be clear that I absolutely do not expect perfection from anyone, including prophets. I understand that people are mixed bags. Everyone makes mistakes, and all people have moments where they don't behave their best. We can be generous and forgiving with one another, but I do think it's reasonable to expect that the one man on earth that God himself chooses to speak for him and lead his one true church be at least as good as I would be.

Amy Lloyd [00:51:16] And I would never say or do some of the atrocious and harmful things that past prophets have said and done. They set that high standard of claiming to be the Lord's mouthpiece and representation. And I think it's reasonable to expect them to meet that standard.

John Dehlin [00:51:31] Fair. They should at least be as good or better than your average mom. Although you're not an average mom.

Amy Lloyd [00:51:38] Exactly, though. Like, I. And I. I hate that. That it gets reduced to that zone. I had this discussion with a bishop of mine, and he said I was talking specifically about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and the things that I was learning that they had done. And, you know, of course, mostly surrounding polygamy, but other things, too, that I just didn't agree with, and quotes that I read that were so awful, and, you know, Brigham Young's racism and all of that stuff, and that's what he boiled down to. Well, you can't expect perfection. Like, I think it's a far cry from expecting perfection to expect someone not to be abusive.

Amy Lloyd [00:52:07] That's. I think it's reasonable to expect the prophets to all be very, very good men. And I'm not sure that all of them were especially looking at the early leaders of the church, so. Yeah. And then another one that you hear a lot that kind of rubs me the wrong way is when you say, well, a lot of them were men of their times, too. Like, okay, so look at Brigham Young, and a lot of times his racism gets excused by that. Well, there were a ton of people at the time who were fighting against this stuff, who were abolitionists, who were fighting against slavery, who were standing up for that.

Amy Lloyd [00:52:43] Look, in the 60s, you look at a lot of racist things that Kimball or Benson said. There were so many people in the 60s who were fighting for civil rights and who were fighting against racism. So if you're the supposedly, like, kind of the most spiritual one on earth, like, God's gonna choose you, why shouldn't you be ahead of your times?

John Dehlin [00:53:02] Don't forget, you know, when the era, The Equal Rights Amendment was going on, and they were trying to just. Just pass a statement to say women were equal to men, that was pretty much all the ERA was about. The Mormon Church led the nation in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment.

Amy Lloyd [00:53:18] Yep. Yep. That was a huge deal for me, too, when I learned about all of that.

John Dehlin [00:53:22] And then, of course, LGBTQ rights. Now the church is not just leading the way with LGBT rights and fighting lgbtq. LGBTQ suicide. They're fighting it. Fighting LGBTQ rights.

Amy Lloyd [00:53:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:36] So.

Amy Lloyd [00:53:36] So this. They were just men of their time. Like, I just don't buy it. There were a lot of people who. Who were fighting against it, and they should be. These should be the Leaders of the time on those important issues.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] You'd think so. Yeah, if God cared about human rights, right? Yeah. All right, the next one is the Kinderhook plates and translator claims.

Amy Lloyd [00:53:54] In the 19th century, a farmer in Kinderhook, Illinois, manufactured some brass plates with engravings on them and told Joseph Smith that he found them in the ground near his house. Joseph Smith deemed them to be ancient records and proceeded to translate them. These were ultimately proven not to be ancient plates, but a 19th century creation. Just as with the Book of Abraham, Joseph was proven wrong. His track record is not great. He claimed to have translated three ancient records. One, the Book of Abraham, proven false. See the section on this above. Two, the Kinderhook plates, which were proven to be a hoax. And three, the gold plates supposedly taken back up to heaven. So it is not possible to prove or disprove their existence or directly compare them to the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:54:39] Yep. And you could even add the Book of Moses in there and the Joseph Smith translation of the Holy Bible.

Amy Lloyd [00:54:45] Yep, that's true too.

John Dehlin [00:54:46] Like, it's almost like 5 out of 5 proven to be false translations, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention, every single scripture that Joseph Smith produced includes the curse of Cain, which is the teaching that black people in the world are black because Cain killed Abel and so God put a curse of dark skin on black people. That's in every single scripture that Joseph Smith produced.

Amy Lloyd [00:55:15] Yeah, that's not great.

John Dehlin [00:55:16] Yeah, that's not great. Okay, the next section. I love this section is testimony and spiritual witnesses. So this is the three and the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Is that one.

Amy Lloyd [00:55:29] I know.

John Dehlin [00:55:29] That one's actually epistemology.

Amy Lloyd [00:55:31] Yeah. That one comes later.

John Dehlin [00:55:34] How do we discern truth? Our feelings. Reliable ways to discern truth. All right, let's do it.

Amy Lloyd [00:55:41] We are taught in the LDS Church that we can receive confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, of the Gospel, that the church is true, etc. By praying and asking for a confirmation through the Holy Ghost. But feelings and emotions are not a reliable way for discerning truth, particularly when it doesn't line up with facts. We can feel strong emotions about lots of things. I have had what I consider to be spiritual experiences myself in and out of the church. I don't discount those, and I don't discount experiences that others have with things that resonate with them, make them feel good, etc. The danger is when you use feelings as a substitute for evidence and as a way of determining or proving actual external truth.

Amy Lloyd [00:56:24] I have read and seen videos of people expressing how they know their church is true via the Spirit. They are all adamant that their church and or leader is true and they all feel the Spirit so strongly. The problem is that these people are all in different churches. They can't all be part of the one true church. Using feelings and emotions in this way is simply not appropriate because feelings and emotions can be manipulated. They are based on our individual experiences and beliefs, and any number of factors go into them.

Amy Lloyd [00:56:53] Another troubling aspect in this section are quotes from church leaders advising church members to bear their testimony even if they don't believe yet, because their testimony will get stronger the more they say it. This strikes me as dishonest and manipulative. I think it's important to be in tune with our own feelings and emotions and the voice that is within all of us. We can absolutely call that the Spirit. We can listen to our inner voice through prayer or meditation.

Amy Lloyd [00:57:20] It is appropriate to use that method for determining things that resonate with us, determining how we personally feel about something, helping us know what is right for our own lives. But it is not appropriate to use it as a determining factor for whether something is factually true. That is what critical thinking and actual evidence is for.

John Dehlin [00:57:39] Yeah, and I'm thinking of the video that's out there where they show people of all different faiths bearing their testimonies.

Amy Lloyd [00:57:46] Yeah, that's actually the one that I was referencing in here. That's exactly the one that I was thinking of when I wrote this.

John Dehlin [00:57:51] I almost think as we. As we developed this website, maybe we have some links built into this PDF where people can click on the link and read more about.

Amy Lloyd [00:58:02] I think that's a great idea.

John Dehlin [00:58:03] Specific assertions. It wouldn't be super hard to add that, but that's a great resource. We'll try and provide a link to that.

Amy Lloyd [00:58:10] And it is hard because I think that it's a real sticking point for people who do have genuine spiritual experiences in the church. It's really hard to explain those away. And I want to just kind of say, I don't think you have to explain it away. I still hold on to the. The spiritual experiences that I had. I just recognize now that I don't think that that was evidence that the. That the church is historically accurate or that these things were these historical truth claims that we have evidence against. I don't think that means you can discount the evidence. I think that, you know, people have experiences based on what's resonating with them, based on the people around them. And I don't think it means that you have to discount any of those. I don't discount my own. I just don't think it's a good method for determining external truth.

John Dehlin [00:58:56] Yeah, absolutely. Especially when within a high demand religion, there's so much social pressure to believe. You're not given an environment where you can really feel safe and free to arrive at your own conclusions because there's so much pressure to believe, to go on a mission, to get married in the temple.

Amy Lloyd [00:59:16] Well. And it kind of leads into too, like, answers to prayer and inspiration that people feel from others around them. Them and stuff that can be a sticking point for not wanting to let that go. I will say that I had a really powerful experience when I was in the church of a Stake President who, without knowing any information or having any clue that something was really going on wrong in my marriage, actually came to me and told me without me having said anything to him, without him having heard anything, he asked me, is, is everything okay there? Because he just had a feeling that something was off.

Amy Lloyd [00:59:51] And I started bawling because it felt like an answer to prayer for me. I was hoping that somebody would notice something. And I really feel like that man was very in tune and he was an empath. And I happen to know, I happen to be good friends with two of his daughters. And he is an incredible man. And I don't discount things like that.

Amy Lloyd [01:00:13] I don't mean to say that people can't be inspired on behalf of other people. People can't be in tune with other people. I just don't think it happens exclusively in the church. I also don't mean that if the church isn't true, that means it doesn't happen at church. Of course it still can.

John Dehlin [01:00:27] Yeah, yeah. There's billions of people having spiritual experiences around the world.

Amy Lloyd [01:00:32] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:00:33] And a spiritual or emotional experience doesn't prove anything or disprove anything necessarily, at

Amy Lloyd [01:00:39] least as far as external truth is concerned. Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:42] Okay. Probably the most sacred thing to the Mormon Church is authority, and specifically priesthood authority. And there's some real problems with that. So the next section is priesthood restoration.

Amy Lloyd [01:00:55] The Church teaches that the priesthood was restored in 1829, but no claims of it can be found until at least 1832. The accounts of how it came about seem to have been retrofitted and backdated later on. Joseph Smith said he was ordained by Peter, James and John in 1829, but then gets ordained to it in June of 1831 by Lyman White. Why was he ordained if he had already been ordained.

Amy Lloyd [01:01:18] Now, here are my additional thoughts on the priesthood. Why is it only for men? Only men can act for God. That is sexist. Why is the priesthood required for holding most church leadership positions? This automatically disqualifies women. Again, very sexist. Women are severely underrepresented in the church leadership as a result and always ultimately answer to a man, while men rarely, if ever answer to a woman. Only 8% of the speakers at General Conference are women. The Church tries to justify this in all kinds of ways, but at the end of the day, it's simply not okay. Patriarchy in general is not okay. Simply being told that women are valued equally in the Church does not make it so. Actions speak much louder than words.

John Dehlin [01:02:00] Yeah. Boom. Major problems with the Melchizedek priesthood specifically. We talk about this in LDS discussions, but David Whitmer, the Church wants us to believe in the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. But David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, said that wrote after he left the church, that whole Melchizedek priesthood thing, Joseph never taught that in the first several years. He made that up later and then changed the DNC later to retrofit the Melchizedek priesthood back into it. It's one of the most alarming aspects of, of early Mormon history that we're not taught right.

Amy Lloyd [01:02:39] And this summary of it is admittedly pretty light just because for me it's, you know, the things I care more about are the things that I'm going to talk more about. And not that I don't care about that, but I just, I'm much more personally affected by the fact that women are completely excluded from this. And all of the justifications given for that just really don't hold water for me. They don't. And I don't like that because at the end of the day, and people will say, well, I don't want to be bishop any. Well, neither do I. But that doesn't mean that I think it's okay to exclude all women on the basis of being a woman.

Amy Lloyd [01:03:16] That still is not okay. And you know, people will say, well, you can't have unrighteous dominion like that's never okay either. Righteous dominion is not okay. Like any dominion over your wife or over. Or men over females just because of that is not okay, no matter how kind it is. And I feel like a system like patriarchy that is set up to only not be harmful overtly to women, if the men choose to use it appropriately or choose to be benevolent with it, is not A good system.

John Dehlin [01:03:47] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [01:03:48] So, you know, benevolent patriarchy is still patriarchy, and I'm still not on board.

John Dehlin [01:03:52] Yeah. And it's so mind boggling to me that we can sit here and say, slavery's wrong, racism's wrong, fight for LGBTQ rights, talk about informed consent, and yet in 2023, we're all just somehow okay. That in the Mormon Church or in the Catholic Church, women are excluded.

Amy Lloyd [01:04:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] Discriminated against for leadership and for positions of power and influence purely based on their gender. How is it in the world that that's not completely unacceptable to everyone?

Amy Lloyd [01:04:29] Right.

John Dehlin [01:04:30] And yet somehow women are such an afterthought in this society that we're just asleep at the wheel and okay with the discrimination and exclusion of women, which is. There's way more women than LGBTQ people. There's way more women than black people.

Amy Lloyd [01:04:45] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:46] You know, I don't.

Amy Lloyd [01:04:47] I don't understand it either. And then a lot of times, too, people will say, and I've heard said about me, oh, well, she left the church. She just doesn't like patriarchy. As though that's not a big deal. I'm like, yes, I don't like patriarchy. And why do you like patriarchy? It's a big deal. It is a big deal. And I know. I don't know why so many people discount it. And even religious women will say things like, smash the patriarchy where society's concerned. They don't like seeing patriarchy in society, but yet they still tolerate it in their own religion. And I don't understand it.

John Dehlin [01:05:22] Yeah. No, it doesn't make sense.

Amy Lloyd [01:05:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:25] Okay, now we're getting to another of my many favorite topics.

Amy Lloyd [01:05:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:29] Which is the three and the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

Amy Lloyd [01:05:31] Yes. There are 11 people who claim to have been witnesses to the golden plates. Many Mormons find it compelling that 11 people said they saw the plates and feel that gives evidence of their existence. However, when you look a little more closely, the evidence becomes a bit thin.

Amy Lloyd [01:05:47] All 11 people were close friends and relatives of Joseph Smith, except Martin Harris, which is discussed below. All were part of just two families, the Smiths and the Whitmers. Also, none of them actually signed anything. The only document with their names attached to it is a document pre written by Joseph Smith and signed only by Oliver Cowdery, who wrote the other 10 names on the bottom. As additional witnesses.

Amy Lloyd [01:06:11] Some of them count as their witness that they saw the plates underneath a cloth. So they didn't see the plates themselves, just an unknown item underneath a cloth. Others said that they saw the plates with their, quote, spiritual eyes, unquote, not with their physical eyes. Martin Harris, one of the witnesses, had a huge financial incentive in the Book of Mormon since he mortgaged his farm to get it published. He would have wanted people to believe the plates were real so they would buy the book. Many of the witnesses were, were also super, very superstitious, said lots of weird stuff, had a lot of various visions, and joined several churches both before and after Mormonism.

Amy Lloyd [01:06:47] They were not very credible people. Now mom's additional thought. If 11 witnesses are compelling enough to believe that something is true, then one would also have to believe in the Mormon offshoot sect of James Strang. He took over his own sect after Joseph Smith died. Also claimed to have found in translated plates and had 11 witnesses to these plates that never recanted. Yet I don't know of any mainstream Mormons who believe that the straying plates were real. This is just one example of things that people bear testimony of that aren't real. It happens all the time in and out of religion.

John Dehlin [01:07:21] And there are people today, Mormon offshoots claiming to have found and created new scripture. It happens all the time, Right? Yeah. And these witnesses just simply when you read about their lives, they were incredible. Not Martin Harris. No, not, not the Whitmers.

Amy Lloyd [01:07:37] No. Yeah, they weren't. And they all had an incentive for people to believe in the Book of Mormon. They, they all had skin in the game.

John Dehlin [01:07:44] So even Martin Harris, when he, when, when his supposed, you know, three witness vision was supposed to happen, he couldn't see.

Amy Lloyd [01:07:55] Right.

John Dehlin [01:07:56] What Joseph Smith wanted him to. And Joseph Smith had to take him out a second time.

Amy Lloyd [01:07:59] Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:00] And kind of talk him into.

Amy Lloyd [01:08:01] Right. Power of suggestion.

John Dehlin [01:08:03] And again, it was only through his spiritual eyes.

Amy Lloyd [01:08:05] Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:07] By later accounts. So yeah, the witnesses are not credible at all. All right. The next section is temples and Freemasonry.

Temples, Science, and Additional Church Concerns

Amy Lloyd [01:08:19] Yep. The temple ceremony and the symbols, signs and handshakes used in it have striking similarities to those found in the Freemasons, which is a fraternal organization that Joseph Smith was a part of. It's curious that so many similarities exist considering the temple ceremony was supposedly revealed to Joseph Smith by God.

Amy Lloyd [01:08:39] When I was starting to research all this stuff, I saw a documentary on the Freemasons and I was shocked by how many similarities there were between the Masons and the Mormon temple ceremony. The temple ceremony has changed throughout the years. It has even undergone changes since I last attended. When these changes are placed, while these changes are positive, in my opinion, for example, removing creepy Blood oath penalties. And making it a little less sexist. It does call into question the claim that the ceremony was revealed by God. Why didn't God get it right when he originally revealed it? Especially since the Church teaches that it's necessary for salvation.

Amy Lloyd [01:09:13] Why is the temple ceremony necessary for salvation in the first place? Will God really keep people out of heaven and away from their families after they die if they don't participate in the temple ordinances or. Or get married in the temple? That doesn't seem right to me. It's also a big bummer for anyone who lived on the earth before Mormonism came around in the 1800s. There's just no way that doing temple work for the dead now can possibly make up for all the billions of people who have lived on the earth prior to the temple ceremony's existence. Not to mention all the currently living people, more than 99.8% of whom are not Mormon.

Amy Lloyd [01:09:45] That seems like a very inefficient system if God is really going to require it for exaltation and for being together with your families in heaven.

John Dehlin [01:09:54] Yeah, and there's the problem that the temple used to have. Women covenant with their husbands, but the husbands covenanted with God.

Amy Lloyd [01:10:01] Right. That was in place when I went.

John Dehlin [01:10:03] Yeah. Women had to veil their face. And just this idea that unless you learn the right handshakes and unless you remember the right name and the woman can tell her secret name to her husband, but the husband doesn't tell the wife his secret name and that the husband calls the woman into the celestial kingdom, just like that's a. And you have to say all these weird words in the exact right way. Is that really what God's going to require when you die and go to heaven?

Amy Lloyd [01:10:32] I mean, it doesn't seem consistent with the way that I view God at all. And I'm not saying you can't go and find value in it and find peace and have spiritual experiences there and use it as symbolism and all of that is fine. But it's. But it doesn't stop there. It's actually taught that it's necessary for salvation. And that's why we're spending so much time and energy and volunteer hours doing this work for the dead when it's really just going to make a dent in the amount of people there are anyway. So are those people just out of luck or is God going to somehow make it okay? Which I think is what most people would probably say. In which case, well, then why are we doing it anyways if God's just going to be able to make it. Okay, why don't we spend those volunteer hours somewhere else?

John Dehlin [01:11:15] And I was taught that the millennium, a thousand years is going to be us doing temple work for a thousand years. I just can't imagine a huger waste of time than all of God's children on the earth for a thousand years doing these dead ordinances for people who have already died. You'd think God, who's super powerful, could just snap his fingers and say, all right, it's good, everybody wants the ordinance, you now have it.

Amy Lloyd [01:11:38] Or it's not required in the first place. I mean, does God not know our hearts like he? You know, it just, to me, it just doesn't. It just doesn't make sense. It just doesn't.

John Dehlin [01:11:46] And if it were just created by Joseph Smith's imagination, that's one thing. But if it's stolen directly from the Mason Temple ceremony, which we know he was a part of, and then it was changed numerous times, just none of that makes sense. Yeah, Huge shelf breaker for a lot of people.

Amy Lloyd [01:12:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:02] All right, the next one is a great one, very, very important one. The Mormon Church's view on science.

Amy Lloyd [01:12:10] Lots of stuff in the scriptures and things that prophets have said in talks, which I was taught in the church to consider as scripture, are not supported by science. This is not a Mormon specific problem, but it's still definitely a problem in the LDS Church. For instance, Noah's flood in the Bible just does not make sense as a literal event. Also, the DNC states that the fall of Adam occurred 7,000 years ago and that there was no death prior to that event. That also makes no sense scientifically, quote, to cling to faith in these areas where the overwhelming evidence is against it is willful ignorance, not spiritual dedication. Close quote.

John Dehlin [01:12:45] Yeah. And whether it's the age of the Earth, the global Flood, organic evolution, the Tower of Babel, and the entire Book of Mormon narrative, the migration, the DNA, the anachronisms, the Mormon Church or the Book of Abraham translation, like science, disproves core Mormon theology and doctrine. And so the Mormon Church has diminished and devalued science for well over a hundred years.

Amy Lloyd [01:13:17] Right.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] And in this time, in 2023, more than ever, we need to respect evidence, we need to respect science. We need to look at science as an important way to evaluate truth. And any organization that devalues and demeans science and promotes anti science mentalities is not doing our society a favor.

Amy Lloyd [01:13:40] Right, I agree. And especially when I feel like a really easy kind of solution to all of that is just to recognize that the scriptures are allegory and metaphorical, and you can take great lessons from them. You know, take Noah's flood, for instance. You can take the lesson that the earth was wicked and it needed to be cleansed, and so, you know, God cleansed it, but it doesn't need to be an actual cause. Then that becomes problematic too. So we're to believe that God murdered all of these innocent babies. Like surely the babies on earth at the time were not wicked. So we're to say that that's okay.

Amy Lloyd [01:14:11] Like, that doesn't square with my view of a very loving God. So it's calls into question all of that when you could just view it as allegory and kind of all the other. All the other problems go away, but that a lot of people are not willing to do that.

John Dehlin [01:14:26] Yeah. All right, let's jump to some other concerns. And these aren't paragraphs, but they're sentences. And we can speak briefly about each one. So let's do the. And I may pause you here and there. So go ahead.

Amy Lloyd [01:14:40] Sure. This section touches on a myriad of other of additional issues with the Mormon Church. Issues such as one, dishonesty of the church leaders with regard to whitewashing and hiding its problematic history.

John Dehlin [01:14:51] Okay. And that's just a fact that for well over 100 years, the Mormon Church has intentionally taught incomplete or incorrect history to the world and to its members so that people wouldn't hear the weird stuff like problems with the Book of Mormon, problems of the Book of Abraham, problems with the priesthood restoration translation process. This entire list that you just read. The Mormon Church has intentionally misled the world and its members and its investigators for well over 100 years and gone

Amy Lloyd [01:15:23] to great lengths to discredit people who find. Who discover this stuff anyways and speak out about it.

John Dehlin [01:15:28] That's part two. Read Second bullet.

Amy Lloyd [01:15:30] Oh, yeah, there we go. Number two. Censorship and excommunication of people who speak out about problems in the church.

John Dehlin [01:15:36] Yeah. So Jeremy Runnels himself was threatened with excommunication and he resigned during his excommunication trial. He actually videoed that. And we can provide a link to that, to his actual excommunication trial. I was excommunicated. You know, so many. You know, Michael Quinn, the September Six. So many people have been excommunicated simply for telling the truth.

Amy Lloyd [01:16:04] Right.

John Dehlin [01:16:04] Or threatened or coerced or silenced or

Amy Lloyd [01:16:07] maligned in some way. I think about, you know, one of the books that I eventually read that I had been scared to read. For so long was no Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody. And, you know, she was horribly maligned in the church, personally attacked, and that was not okay. And she's a legit historical author. Like, she. Didn't she win an award for her book on Thomas Jefferson? Like.

John Dehlin [01:16:29] Oh, yeah, she was.

Amy Lloyd [01:16:29] Yeah. Like, she's. She wasn't just some lady who, like, wrote an expose on Joseph Smith. Like, she's very talented.

John Dehlin [01:16:36] She's a UCLA professor. Yeah. University of Chicago trained historian.

Amy Lloyd [01:16:40] Right. And they now don't even discount. They don't even disagree now with the content. But because they couldn't attack her based on content, they attacked her personally. And that's not Christlike. That's not okay.

John Dehlin [01:16:50] Yeah. And she was the prophet David O. McKay's niece. So the fact that he was willing to excommunicate her for writing probably the best biography ever written on Joseph Smith, it's a problem, but it's just one of tens of thousands of people the churches intimidated or punished for speaking the truth.

Amy Lloyd [01:17:08] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:17:09] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [01:17:11] All right, next bullet is church finances. For example, the church built a $1.5 billion shopping mall. Rather than giving that money to charity, not being open with how it spends its tithing, insisting on tithing from even the very poor when they are clearly extremely wealthy, etc.

John Dehlin [01:17:27] Yeah. The Mormon Church.

Amy Lloyd [01:17:28] And this was written before Ensign Peak, by the way. Before everyone knew about Ensign Peak, which they know now. So add that to the list.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] Yeah. So the Mormon Church is currently worth something like $250 billion. It will be a trillion dollar church within the next 30 or 40 years. Just the way that compound interest works on 7% annual returns. And the Mormon Church has intentionally hid its wealth from its members and filed fraudulent tax returns to fool the world. And that's a major red flag.

Amy Lloyd [01:18:01] It's a major red flag.

John Dehlin [01:18:02] You should know as an accountant.

Amy Lloyd [01:18:04] Yeah. And just in general, like, one of my. You know, I kind of spoke in my last episode about how my. It was the great shelf break of 2008 for me. So that was kind of the year that everything kind of came crashing down for me. And part of that was the purchase of the City Creek Mall. I was not okay with that. Why are we spending money buying a mall? And then what was even more concerning to me was their insistence that tithing money was not used, which even at the time sounded suspicious to me, because what money do you have then that's not coming from tithing or fast offerings?

Amy Lloyd [01:18:36] You're a church. All of your money is coming from Donations, supposedly. Right. And so then when you kind of get down to it, you find out, well, it was the interest earned on tithing. Well, but how do you get the money that makes that interest? It still comes down to tithing. So the dishonesty around it was a real problem for me too.

Amy Lloyd [01:18:58] And I feel so frustrated with the church sometimes because sometimes I feel like if you are just honest and open, people would actually be okay with it. I actually don't think I would have as big of a problem with them building a mall even, because I can, if they were to have presented it like, look, it's right next to Temple Square. Salt Lake City is known to be kind of the headquarters for Mormonism. We want it to be really nice down here, to be a beacon to the world for people to have a great experience when they visit here, and that will help bring the gospel to people.

Amy Lloyd [01:19:28] I actually can get on board with that. That actually doesn't sound unreasonable to me. But to do it and then be dishonest about where the money for it came, I can't be on board with that. And then, of course, it's just with the expose in the Wall Street Journal and the knowledge of Enzyme Peak, now, it's just a zillion times worse than it was even when I wrote this.

John Dehlin [01:19:48] Yeah. All right. The next bullet. It's short and deserves books and books and books. What's the next one?

Race, Finances, LGBTQ Issues, and Coercion

Amy Lloyd [01:19:55] Racism.

John Dehlin [01:19:56] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [01:19:56] I. E. The priesthood and temple ban.

John Dehlin [01:19:59] Yeah. And honestly, that and so much more. The Book of Mormon teaches that Native Americans were cursed with dark skin, not only because of the wickedness of their forefathers, but it also teaches that God turned their skin dark to make them loathsome or disgusting to the white Nephites. And that's just not great on so many levels.

Amy Lloyd [01:20:22] Yes, on every level.

John Dehlin [01:20:24] And then, as I mentioned before, the curse of Cain, which is Cain was given black skin as a curse, and his descendants is in every single scripture that Joseph Smith ever produced. That's a problem.

Amy Lloyd [01:20:37] Y.

John Dehlin [01:20:37] And then. Then there's the fact that black Mormons were. The. The priesthood and temple blessings were withheld from them for well over 150 years.

Amy Lloyd [01:20:48] Right. And one kind of common thing that I'll hear to kind of explain that away and is, well, but maybe the world just wasn't ready yet. And so this was a way to not make, you know, to not make people turn away from the church. And it was kind of an unfortunate.

Amy Lloyd [01:21:06] An unfortunate thing that God had to do in order to keep people in the church because they were racist at the time and not ready to accept that. And what I say to that is this. I do not believe that a loving God would withhold essential exaltation blessings from any member, any person, based on how somebody else would not be willing to accept it.

Amy Lloyd [01:21:31] I also completely disagree with the fact that people would have accepted it because the ban was in place long after people were picketing and protesting about this like the world had already gotten there way before the church did. And thirdly, I believe in do what is right, let the consequence follow. And so none of that to me holds any water or holds any weight. And I just, I don't like when people try to justify things away. And one kind of key thing that I said to my kids when I was talking to them about this was, look, you can absolutely believe what you want to, but do, but do not justify unjustifiable things. Don't, don't go down that road.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] Yeah, yeah, okay. Only a couple more. Go ahead and read the next bullet.

Amy Lloyd [01:22:17] The next bullet is anti intellectualism and criticizing people for wanting to learn about issues, telling people they can only look at church approved sources, et cetera.

John Dehlin [01:22:26] Yeah. And if you study the behavior of cults and high demand religions, there's this idea of the BITE model that high demand religions or cults control behavior excessively. But more importantly, they control the information that people receive so that they can keep them from having thoughts that might lead them out of the organization. That's the I and the T of the BITE model. And then they manipulate with emotion either unreasonable promises or striking fear in the hearts of people. So the Mormon Church makes its members afraid to learn this information because they don't want them to have the thoughts that the church might not be what it claims.

John Dehlin [01:23:12] And that strikes at the heart of the informed consent discussion. A healthy, honest church would say learn all the information. We trust you to have the free agency to have the thoughts that you want to have. And we're not going to use emotion to coerce and manipulate you and to strike fear into your hearts by excommunicating or demeaning anyone who leaves the church or has questions about it.

Amy Lloyd [01:23:37] Right? Absolutely. So I've never liked that. And I don't think I've ever heard a talk given about why people leave the church that I have been okay with. Every single one in. You know, they are varying degrees of offensive, but every single one of them is they really just make people who leave out to be nitpicky or lazy learners. I've heard. Or they make their. Their reasons out to be silly.

Amy Lloyd [01:24:08] And, you know, there's just never. It's never, well, this didn't work for them. And, you know, we can appreciate differences and, you know, there's many roads to get to the top of the mountain, and what works for one person isn't gonna resonate with another. And we do have some messy history. And there's no just ownership of that and acknowledging of that. It always has to be there's something wrong with. Of the person who leaves and. Or like the Brad Wilcox talk recently where he says, you know, they lose everything if. If you. If you leave. And the first thing I thought when

John Dehlin [01:24:37] I heard, or where will you go?

Amy Lloyd [01:24:39] Or where will you go?

John Dehlin [01:24:40] That sounds like what an abusive partner says.

Amy Lloyd [01:24:42] Yes, it sure does. And the first thing I thought when I heard that is, if that's true and you lose everything and you don't have true joy anymore when you leave the church, why does nobody come back? And I'm not saying nobody does. I'm sure that there are people who do, but not very many.

John Dehlin [01:24:57] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [01:24:57] Percentage wise, I think most people who leave the church end up staying out of the church.

John Dehlin [01:25:01] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [01:25:02] And it's not like they don't know that they'll be. That they would be welcomed back with open arms if they wanted to come back. So there's got to be a reason for that.

John Dehlin [01:25:08] And it's not that they don't care about happiness and joy exactly.

Amy Lloyd [01:25:10] They clearly have it outside the church. And it doesn't mean that it's not difficult to go through it and that, you know, everyone's going to have unhappy times in or out of the church. Right. It doesn't mean that you're never going to be unhappy. But at least just speaking for myself and the people I know personally who have left, there's so much joy and peace on the outside, too.

John Dehlin [01:25:29] Let's do at least one more, and that's the LGBTQ issues under additional issues. Do you wanna read that?

Amy Lloyd [01:25:36] Yeah. And then we can end with the conclusion paragraph. Yeah. So this part now we're getting outside of the CES letter. This was. It didn't really address it at. At the time because he was focused more on the historical truth claims.

Amy Lloyd [01:25:51] But I wanted to add just some issues on LGBTQ issues because that was also a big. A big thing for me at the time. You know, 2008 was when Prop 8 was going on, and that was a really big issue for me. So here's some. A listing of some LGBTQ issues.

Amy Lloyd [01:26:09] There's Offensive language used to describe homosexuals, which is getting better, but we still have a long way to go. The church's involvement in Prop 8 in California. Past conversion therapy at BYU, including electroshock therapy. Including electroshock therapy. Past direction to marry a person of the opposite sex regardless of your homosexuality. And the current direction to remain unmarried and celibate if you're gay.

Amy Lloyd [01:26:35] Extremely high rates of LGBTQ suicides throughout the years, including today. The November 2015 church policy announcing that members in a same sex marriage are considered apostates and their children would have to denounce their marriage if they want to be baptized.

Amy Lloyd [01:26:50] The reversal of that awful 2015 policy just over three years later, in April of 2019. The reversal is great, but why did it occur in the first place? Do we not have profits for this kind of thing? Also, the reversal still was not accompanied by an apology or an admission that it was wrong, even though so many people were harmed by it.

Amy Lloyd [01:27:08] And then I just have a couple of references that I listed. One is lattergay stories.org and specifically on that website, you can download a document called on the Record, which is a chronology of LGBTQ messaging in the church.

Amy Lloyd [01:27:23] Another one is Imagine Dragons. Amazing documentary called Believer, which my husband and I watched that just with tears streaming down our faces. It was so good. And another one that made me cry was David Archuleta's heartbreaking instagram video from January 15th of what year was that? I think maybe last year. Was it this year or last year? 22 or 23?

John Dehlin [01:27:44] Maybe last year.

Amy Lloyd [01:27:45] Was it last year?

John Dehlin [01:27:45] Maybe.

Amy Lloyd [01:27:46] I think maybe last year. So, I mean, those are just a couple of kind of references for them to kind of look at for those issues.

John Dehlin [01:27:56] Super important issue.

Amy Lloyd [01:27:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:59] You've already read some of the other bullets down below. I'm just going to highlight a couple. A lot of these we've already addressed, but the idea of worthiness, the idea that we're not all inherently worthy, but that we have to go to a bishop and confess our sins to a bishop. And a bishop, a male in a room alone with a 12 or 13 year old gets to decide if we're worthy or not. Or even a grown adult has to go through a bishop to determine worthiness. That's a real problem. You know, exclusive exclusivity. The fact that there's just one. You just referenced this. The idea that there's just one true church and we happen to have it and everybody else, their ordinances don't count. Well, not only that, spiritual experiences are invalid.

Amy Lloyd [01:28:47] Right. And not only that, but exclusivity in terms of, you know, one thing that I really worried about was, and, you know, it's still not completely gone, is this fear that I may not see my own kids get married. Like, that's not okay. There's exclusivity even, you know, even in the church from that perspective. Yeah. And then, of course, the lgbtq, like, they're. There's. They don't have the same level of inclusion as far as exaltation and things that other members have. So, yeah, exclusivity on lots of different levels.

John Dehlin [01:29:21] And then there's just non believers or non members being kept out of their own children's weddings. People being forced to pay tithing to be able to attend their own children's weddings. That's coercive. And just the basic using of emotional manipulation and fear and guilt and control to coerce people's decisions while not giving them all the information. That is just a classic book, a template for lack of informed consent and coercion.

Amy Lloyd [01:29:51] Right.

John Dehlin [01:29:52] You shouldn't need to withhold information from people or manipulate them to stay in your organization.

Amy Lloyd [01:29:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:29:58] Yeah.

Amy Lloyd [01:29:58] Yeah.

Conclusion and Closing Reflections

John Dehlin [01:29:59] All right, so let's go ahead and go to the conclusion of your wonderful letter.

Amy Lloyd [01:30:03] The CES letter concludes by discussing how he just can no longer believe that Mormonism is the one true church after learning about so many foundation issues. It simply does not add up. And there is overwhelming evidence against so many of its truth claims. The author states, quote, I'm sorry, but faith is believing and hoping when there is little evidence for or against something. Delusion is believing when there is an abundance of evidence against something. Close quote. I agree with the author. There are just way too many problems.

John Dehlin [01:30:34] And you, did you end up having some of these discussions with your son? We talked about this yesterday.

Amy Lloyd [01:30:39] Yes, I did end up having most of these discussions. I read the letter. I read to him, you know, that investigating truth claims and definite defining informed consent. We talked about all of that. And then we had these 30 minute discussions each week. I would set a timer so that I would not be tempted to go off and off.

Amy Lloyd [01:31:03] So, yeah, we just went section by section and talked about it as much as we could in that 30 minutes. And then we stopped because it is overwhelming. It is a lot to learn. And that's partly why it's so frustrating that this stuff is just withheld from you or presented inaccurately, purposefully inaccurately. Because then when you do learn about it, it does. It feels like this just mountain collapsing on you. And, you know, it was really hard because I really toyed with when is the best time to talk about all of this stuff. Like a few things, you know, you can kind of address as they're growing up and things as it comes up.

Amy Lloyd [01:31:38] But a lot of this stuff, they're not gonna ever. It's not gonna come up naturally. And so you are kind of put in this position where you have to find the right time to talk about this stuff. And it probably would have been older than 17, 18 if I had had, you know, my choice in the matter. But unfortunately that's when you have to do it in order for them to have the information before they make big life decisions in the church. So I also just kind of want to end by saying I understand that this is all just.

Amy Lloyd [01:32:10] I don't want this to come across like we're bashing the church at all. I know that there are also wonderful things about the church. There are absolutely valid reasons to, despite all of this stuff, want to continue being in the church. It's not the choice that I made. I decided for me, I, I could not in good conscience continue.

Amy Lloyd [01:32:29] But I recognize that people are different. People have different motivations. People are, some people, personality wise, are able to just kind of let stuff go and not worry about it. You know, there's. People are all of all different stripes and that's fine. And I made this very clear with my kids too. There are valid reasons to want to stay. And I get that. And if that's, and if that's you, if you still want to stay, I support you. But it is important that you know this stuff because it's not fair to stay in something that you, where you don't know all of the information. And so that's what the whole point of this was.

John Dehlin [01:33:04] Beautiful. Well, Amy Lloyd, thank you so much for your willingness to write all this up and to share it with, with my audience in such a thoughtful and elegant and poised way.

Amy Lloyd [01:33:18] Thank you. I really hope that people can find it helpful.

John Dehlin [01:33:22] The website is lettertomychild.net we'll do our best to put this video and the PDF up there and maybe we'll get your feedback and enhance the PDF with links and with some additional information over time. Not that you need another job.

Amy Lloyd [01:33:39] That's okay. This stuff is, it's fascinating to me. So I'm happy to spend time on it.

John Dehlin [01:33:43] And if people want to reach out to you through email, is there a way you want to post it?

Amy Lloyd [01:33:48] You can email me just on my personal email, which is Amy Lloyd, 123. That's a m y l l o y d123 mail and maybe we'll come

John Dehlin [01:33:58] up with an additional email address. Yeah, check out lettertomychild.net for more information.

Amy Lloyd [01:34:05] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:34:06] All right. Thanks, Amy. Thank you so much.

Amy Lloyd [01:34:08] Thank you so much.

John Dehlin [01:34:08] Good luck. Hope to see you back. Come back on Mormon Stories sometime.

Amy Lloyd [01:34:11] I would love it anytime.

John Dehlin [01:34:12] All right. Thanks everyone for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you hear the story spirit with which this is presented. It's not in the spirit of taking young people out of the church. It's just in the spirit of allowing parents and loved ones to provide informed consent to their own children.

Amy Lloyd [01:34:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:34:30] So we hope it's been useful. We love your feedback. Thanks for your support. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

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.