Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 472

Guest [00:00:01] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy. Wend your way

John Dehlin [00:00:16] to check out the video version of this episode. Go to YouTube.com mormonstories to keep these podcasts alive. Please consider a financial contribution today as MormonStories.org and thanks for listening. Hello, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. We're here live at a very special location. We're here at Utah Lighthouse Ministries in downtown Salt Lake City with Sandra Tanner. For those of you who don't know, Sandra and her beloved husband Gerald are kind of famous throughout Mormonism and some would say infamous for the ministries which they created many, many years ago. They started struggling with their faith in the church, let's just say in the 50s, and started their ministries in the 60s. And they've been sort of labeled as the anti Mormon, sort of the 20th and 21st centuries within the church for many, many decades. Many believing Mormons who were raised in the church were taught to view them as scary and as sinister and as evil people. And that's one perspective. But many of the people that I've spoken with have interacted with the Tanner over the years and have found them to be delightful and honest and caring people. And so the purpose of this interview today is to. To ask some questions to Sandra, to learn about her life, about Gerald's life, to learn more about their motivations for why they started utlm, and to learn about all the many ways in which they were sort of in the middle of almost every significant, let's just say, controversy or historical event in the church for the past four or five decades. So I'm really excited to be here. This is an interview I've wanted to do for a long time. And Sandra Tanner, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:20] Oh, good.

John Dehlin [00:02:22] It's good to have you.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:23] I hope it's good to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] We're here in your famous offices. You've had this building for how long?

Sandra Tanner [00:02:33] About 20 years. Before that, we were in our home, in our front room.

John Dehlin [00:02:38] Where was that?

Sandra Tanner [00:02:39] Next door.

John Dehlin [00:02:40] Next door?

Sandra Tanner [00:02:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] So you still live next door? So you live next door? You bought the house next door?

Sandra Tanner [00:02:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:45] It's now your office. Many, many important people have traversed this door and these passageways over the past several decades. And we'll be talking all about that. But as we do in Mormon Stories, let's go ahead and start by going way back and let's talk about a little bit about your ancestry and about your early years in the church before you started having questions.

Sandra's Heritage as Brigham Young's Descendant

Sandra Tanner [00:03:10] Okay. Well, I'm a great Great granddaughter of Brigham Young. And my mother's maiden name was Young. It's a direct line down from Brigham Young through his son, Brigham Young Jr. And then he had a son, Walter, and then my mother and then me. And my father's family converted in about 1912 or something like that, to Mormonism. My father's family were extremely devout Mormons. My grandpa, I would say, was like Joseph Fielding Smith. That's my dad's side. On my mom's side, her father had died, and my grandma was a widow and always wore her garments but drank coffee in the mornings. And it was sort of like a, I don't know, trade off. If I wear my garments, I can have coffee. I don't know just how she viewed that, but. So my folks were married in the Salt Lake Temple, and I was born here in Salt Lake around what year? I was born in 41.

John Dehlin [00:04:18] 41. The year we got into World War I.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:20] World War II.

John Dehlin [00:04:21] Sorry.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:21] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:23] All right.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:23] So my folks at that point were pretty much into the church, but then they moved to California for my father to be in defense work, and that opened the whole new world of beaches and other competing things to Sunday school.

John Dehlin [00:04:44] Sin.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:45] Sin. And so. But my father always believed Mormonism, even though he wasn't real active. My mother, I don't know when her doubts first started. I know when I was in grammar school that the garments ended up being in the drawer all the time. My folks quit wearing their garments. And somewhere along the line, and I'm not sure, just when my mother read Fawn Brody's book no Man Knows My

John Dehlin [00:05:21] History, which would have come out in the late 40s, right?

Sandra Tanner [00:05:23] Yeah, but I don't think she read it that soon. I think we're talking in the early 50s.

John Dehlin [00:05:28] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:29] Probably she read it. Her older sister read it. My grandma Young read it. And I didn't know any of this, so they start having questions. Before I knew anything about that, there were questions.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] Were they, like, really dedicated to honesty or integrity or truth? Yeah, curiosity.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:54] No, it was a truth quest. They wanted to know how things really happened. I'm not sure what first started my mom down that road. She'd been troubled by the temple ceremony, which would have been in the 30s. She was troubled by the garments. Hated them. Of course, in the 30s, they were less than attractive, which is hard to imagine. Hard to imagine. Baggy, one piece, Very awkward things. Anyways, I'm not sure what all made her start questioning Mormonism, but I know my grandma said that one day they got up and Relief Society and told all the women, don't read Von Brody's book, Oops. And so I don't know if that made them aware of it or if they'd already bought it. But so. So anyways, I'm going to seminary. So you attended church as a young person? It was hit and miss. My folks like to go to the beach on Sunday. So I was the one that put the guilt trip on the family that it's Sunday, we should go to church. Where do we get this kid? You know? And I don't know why it was so much more important to me, but it was more important to me than the rest of the family.

Growing Up in the Mormon Church

John Dehlin [00:07:21] So was there a time where you started going every week?

Sandra Tanner [00:07:27] When we got to be teenagers, when my sister turned a teen, then we started going regularly, and they wanted her involved in Mormon activities, youth activities. She had kind of got hanging around some kids that weren't as desirable. And I think that spurred my dad on that we better make this more regular so that they develop friends in the Mormon community. So trying to get my thoughts straight here. So, anyways, I'm going to seminary. And what city are you in? This is down in the San Fernando Valley. And so when I was a kid, we were going to the Reseda Ward, which is the south end of the valley. And then we moved up to the north end of the valley. And that's when we really. My sister and I started really getting active, more so than my folks were. So my mom starts this quest to figure out how the story really happened. And the more she looks into Mormon history, the more involved she gets in the study. So she and my aunt started combing the bookstores for used books on Mormonism to collect. And we're talking early Mormon books. They wanted to find what early sources they could to see what things read originally. And I'm sure Brody's book kind of gave them a list of stuff that they were looking for. So when I'm going to seminary, my mom's got all this stuff spread over the front room floor, studying the critical problems in Mormonism. And so she starts baiting me with questions to ask in seminary. And I didn't even know what I was asking, you know, I mean, I have a question. So I just found that I would just be put off or told, well, when you go through the temple, you'll understand. When you get older, you'll understand. And always just some sort of, or it's one of the mysteries kind of thing. Well, that was okay. In high school, I bought That I thought, okay, that's the way it works. You'll find out later. Then I got into Institute of Religion where down in the San Fernando Valley. It was down in Van Nuys. They had a college down there. And it was just the start of the Institute program was really just getting underway at that time they had started up the Institute in the San Fernando Valley. I'm not sure how long they'd had it going, probably longer at UCLA and usc, but it was fairly new in the Valley and we used to get together with the other schools for dances and activities and stuff. So anyways, the teacher would just bring things, different things up in the lesson that would trigger something my mom had said. And so I started asking questions at Institute. Now I was thinking a little more about, and I couldn't even tell you now all the things that came up. But I would just. They went in context with the lesson and I would ask a question. So finally one day he asked me to stay after class that one of the girls in the class was thinking of joining the Mormon Church and I was disturbing her with my questions. Well, I didn't even know any really good questions back then, but that wouldn't have taken me out of the church. But it troubled me that I had waded through high school because in seminary you just had sort of volunteer people doing this. When you get to Institute. This is a guy trained at BYU to teach institute. So if you don't ask there, where are you going to ask? So anyways, I was told I couldn't ask any meaningful question. It was at that point that my grandma from Salt Lake had been down visiting for the winter and. And this is spring. She asked me to come home with her on the bus to Salt Lake to accompany her back. So I said, okay, well, I had a boyfriend at BYU that I wanted to check on. So I was afraid he was looking at the girls and it turned out he was. So I came back on the bus with her and we get home and to her house and she had a house up on the avenues and she gone through her mail and here was a little card announcing a meeting. And it was that Sunday evening and she asked me if I would take her to this meeting. And I said, well, I didn't want to at first. I said, well, what kind of meeting is it? And she says, well, it's sort of like a Mormon fireside. So I asked grandma, so what kind of meeting is it? And she says, well, it's sort of like Mormon fireside. My grandma was always very Cagey. And if she didn't give you a straight answer, you knew there was a reason. She's hiding something and I couldn't figure it out. So I finally figured, okay, it's a bunch of old people and she doesn't want to tell me it's going to be all old people because I won't want to go. So I said, okay, I'll take you to your meeting. So we drive across town and I walk up to this house, knock on the door. This nice looking young man answers the door and his name's Gerald Tanner. And that's how I met my husband.

John Dehlin [00:13:13] Okay, really quick. Did you feel at the time like you had a testimony?

Sandra Tanner [00:13:19] Well, that's a curious feeling.

John Dehlin [00:13:20] In high school, did you feel like Holy Ghost. Did you feel. Did you ever bear your testimony?

Sandra Tanner [00:13:26] Yes, I had done all of that. However, in my last year of high school, I would have struggled with that. Up till senior year, I was all with the program, but by then my mother had said enough things to me that, you know, I just. No big questions, but I just wasn't sure. So I.

John Dehlin [00:13:52] Would you say with the program?

Sandra Tanner [00:13:54] I was fully invested in Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:13:56] Did you had good experiences?

Sandra Tanner [00:13:57] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] Like what? Talk about good experiences.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:00] I left mutual. I loved Mormon fireside. I loved seminary. I loved all my friends. I had a great ward, nice bishop. I mean, I don't have any bad.

John Dehlin [00:14:10] Had you read the Book of Mormon?

Sandra Tanner [00:14:12] No, I had read parts of it. I hadn't read it all through.

John Dehlin [00:14:15] And had you prayed to know if the church was true?

Sandra Tanner [00:14:18] Not in that sense. I guess because my mom was asking questions. I never got that kind of pressure to do that. I think my dad just sort of backed off with my mom because he didn't want to get involved with the discussion of the church. He was happy it was true. And if you got to go on your own quest, that's your problem, you know. And so it was just sort of like he compartmentalized. She's on some crazy quest and he's just ignoring it.

John Dehlin [00:14:55] But you would have enjoyed your church experiences and you were glad you remember.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:00] Yep. Not looking for any way out and

John Dehlin [00:15:02] you would have borne your testimony. I know this church is true now

Sandra Tanner [00:15:05] that just before I met Gerald at one of our firesides, I remember this was just about a month before I met Gerald. I remember bearing testimony at this fireside saying, I finally feel like I have a testimony. I've struggled this last year not knowing whether I could really say it's true. But I now feel convicted. I know it's the only true church. Well, I had arguments with my mother before senior year about polygamy. And I'm defending the whole thing to my mother. And of course I'm like 16, right? Okay, mom, if the church said today to go to Mexico and lift polygamy, I would do it. And my mom's looking at me like, sandra, you have no clue what life's about. You don't even know what you're saying. And I had no appreciation at the time for that. But so, I mean, I was defending Mormonism to my mom. I went through several years there of

John Dehlin [00:16:14] being an apologist, basically.

Sandra Tanner [00:16:16] Yes. Of trying to. I didn't know anything. All I could say is, I know it's true, Mom. You know, what did I know? You know? So I finally get to where I think I have this testimony and I meet Gerald and.

Jerald Tanner's Background and Faith Journey

John Dehlin [00:16:30] Okay, so let's go back now, talk a little bit about Gerald's background.

Sandra Tanner [00:16:34] Okay. Gerald's from a fifth generation Mormon family, the same as me. The Tanner are long time supporters, the whole thing. John Tanner and Kirtland saved the church financially or helped with some of the finances. But when you get up to Gerald's parents, his father went to BYU and then went to mit, became a meteorologist, worked his whole life to retirement out at the weather bureau.

John Dehlin [00:17:02] Whoa, mit, That's a big deal.

Sandra Tanner [00:17:04] Yeah, he also became an atheist.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] Oh, that's even a bigger deal.

Sandra Tanner [00:17:09] So Gerald was raised in a home where his sweet mother tried to raise him as a Christian and she had not lds. Yes, of course. They were both fifth generation. Whatever, fourth generation Mormon families. Yeah. Okay, but she just had a high school. Well, no, she didn't even finish high school. I don't think she was in a plane wreck, if you can believe in a stunt plane accident in Eureka on the 24th of July one year. And the plane crash killed the pilot and her boyfriend and put her in bed for a year. So she didn't finish high school. So here she marries this very educated guy and she's at the disadvantage with his atheism and her Mormonism. She doesn't know how to defend her faith.

John Dehlin [00:17:58] Do we know why he became an atheist? This is Gerald's father.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:00] Science. Evolution Science. Yeah, he just walked away from everything.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] Age of the earth and flood and all that stuff.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:08] Well, yeah, the whole. And so his mother tried to raise him as a good little Mormon boy.

John Dehlin [00:18:17] In what city?

Sandra Tanner [00:18:19] Well, Provo and Salt Lake. Gerald's family had a big fruit farm in Provo and so the. And lived Here in Salt Lake. So they commuted all the time to take care of the farm. Gerald's older sister was devout Mormon. Gerald, as a teenager, I mean, as a young person, he had thought the church was absolutely true. As a teenager, he found out that not all the boys went to priesthood meeting. And in fact, somebody knew how to sneak liquor out of somebody's house. And so they thought that was a lot more fun to drink beer behind the wardhouse or something. So Gerald was a rebellious teenager,

Guest [00:19:06] not

Sandra Tanner [00:19:06] because he had a problem with Mormonism, but just because he was a rebellious teen. And so when he got to be 18 one day at church, the bishop's making little hints to Gerald. It's about time for that mission and what are we doing to get ready? And back in the 50s, the church sent people on missions to reform them. Now, like when you had those talks a few years ago, we want quality missions. You know, raise the bar. You raise the bar. Okay, well, there is a reason they wanted to raise the bar because in the 50s, kids got sent on missions to reform them. Okay, and oh, you got a problem with your boy smoking? No problem, we'll send him on a mission. You know, it was just the way things worked and you didn't refuse those things. I mean, so it just was part of the culture. You sold your wild oats and then you went on a mission. So Gerald was drinking and I think he smoked some. I didn't know him at this time. So anyways, he decides, wow, mission, how seriously do I believe this whole thing? I have to really do some repentance if I'm going to go on a mission. So he decides he's going to read the Book of Mormon. So he reads that. Oh, okay, yeah, I can believe the Book of Mormon. I'm cool with that. And then he was working some little part time job somewhere. He was going to the U, I think at the time, and somebody challenged him on what he believed. Do you really believe all of this? And so he starts trying to think through his faith. So, so he reads the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Mormonism and it mentioned there were different kind of Mormons. Well, he didn't know there were any other kind of Mormons. So he went and asked his mom, mom, what's this about the reorganized church? Oh, Gerald, we don't talk about those things. Those are all bad guys. We don't talk about splinter groups. And so now he's cured. Of course, he's a rebellious teen. Right? Okay. So he says, well, I wonder what those guys are About. So he looks up in the phone book, and. And here's a Reorganized church in Salt Lake. And he thought, I wonder what those guys do over there. How does it be different than Utah guys? So he goes over visits. Well, the pastor is so excited to have a Mormon kid come in his door. And he starts playing Gerald with everything that's wrong with Brigham Young. Let me tell you about blood atonement and Adam, God and polygamy for exaltation. So he's telling Gerald about all this kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:21:48] And this would have been 57, 58.

Sandra Tanner [00:21:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:52] And was Gerald your age? About.

Sandra Tanner [00:21:54] No, he's three years older than me.

John Dehlin [00:21:55] Three years older. So he would have been born in 38. So if he's 18, that's 56. Ish. 57. Okay. All right.

Encounters with Splinter Groups and Early Doubts

Sandra Tanner [00:22:04] And so that starts him on that. Well, then he goes to church at the Reorganized Church. And there's this man there named James Wardle that had a barber shop downtown. And James had one of the largest collections, private collections of books, original books on Mormonism in the state. He had different editions of the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine of Covenants, the Times and Seasons, you know, messenger and advocate. I mean, he just had. At the back of his barbershop, he had all these books.

John Dehlin [00:22:34] Was he active lds?

Sandra Tanner [00:22:35] No, he's reorganized.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] Oh, reorganized too.

Sandra Tanner [00:22:38] Gerald meets him at the Reorganized Church.

John Dehlin [00:22:39] Okay, okay. James Wortle, Reorganized Church barber.

Sandra Tanner [00:22:42] Okay. Yeah. And so James tells him he needs to come to his bookstore, to his barbershop. So Gerald goes down there, and James gives him a copy of David Whitmer's pamphlet, an Address to All Believers in Christ, where Whitmer, witness to the Book of Mormon, argues that the Book of Mormon's true, but Joseph's a fallen prophet. He changed the Doctrine and Covenants. All this stuff's wrong. Throw it all out. Just go back to the Bible and Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:23:09] And didn't he say this whole Melchizedek priesthood thing.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:11] Yeah, no, Melchizedek.

John Dehlin [00:23:12] We knew nothing about that.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:13] Yeah, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:23:15] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:16] And so Gerald was incensed. He was sure David Whitmer was just lying through his teeth. And then he got thinking of. And at first, he just throws the pamphlet down. And then he got thinking, well, if Whitmer's right, I ought to know that if he's wrong, someone ought to expose him. So he goes back and studies the pamphlet some more, and he decides to take a trip to Missouri, to Independence.

John Dehlin [00:23:40] Okay. Did he ever serve a mission?

Sandra Tanner [00:23:42] No.

John Dehlin [00:23:42] Okay. But this is all in preparation for a Mission. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:48] He's trying to figure out if it's true.

John Dehlin [00:23:50] Okay. I guess that's an important thing to do before you go on.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:52] Miss. Before you go on a mission, you

John Dehlin [00:23:53] want to make sure, some would say.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:55] So he gets in his jalopy, and of course, this is before AAA or anything like that, and drives back to Missouri. Had all kind of wild things happen, but he finally makes it back there. A car breakdown, everything. And he visits the different churches. He met Peter Whitmer's granddaughter, I guess it was, was still alive. And she could remember David Whitmer writing the pamphlet when she was a young girl in the home. So she had to be a little kid. And now really ancient. Wow.

John Dehlin [00:24:34] Really?

Guest [00:24:35] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:35] And so Gerald was interested in trying to find a Whitmer church, you know, and she says, oh, no, that's all long gone. Nothing like that's going on. So. But Gerald visits the different splinter groups. He went to the temple lot Church of Christ group. And he wanted to know about Whitmer's claim that the Book of Commandments reads differently than the Doctrine and Covenants. So they get him out of Book of Commandments.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] Now, this would have been 1835, the original doctrine.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:04] 33. 33 is the book of commandments. 35 is the doctrine and covenants.

John Dehlin [00:25:09] So 33 printed in Kirtland, right? Probably.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:14] Probably. Okay, 33. I can't remember. Okay. So anyways, he verifies that Whitmer's right, the revelations have been reworded. And this is very disillusioning to him.

John Dehlin [00:25:25] Significant rewordings, like the change, the meaning. Is it like Book of Mormon where they, like, capitalize letters?

Sandra Tanner [00:25:30] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:25:31] Add articles.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:34] Whitmer talks about that these changes were important to him, that originally the Revelation said the only gift and calling he had was to bring out the Book of Mormon. Joseph, that Joseph only had that one calling, and then in 35, he rewrites it to say, that's just your first calling.

John Dehlin [00:25:51] Oh.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:52] So that was very disturbing to him. Did he have just one calling, or was it just the start of his calling? So that was a big, important change to him. And of course, you got the whole priesthood argument and all these things that Whitmer had in his pamphlet that Joseph was adding these things later. Well, you look at the 33 book of commandments, there's no priesthood in there.

John Dehlin [00:26:11] Yeah. And we still don't have a date for the Melchizedek priesthood.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:13] Right.

John Dehlin [00:26:14] But if Wimmer didn't know about it, if it wasn't in the Book of Commandments, then there's no date. That's like, when did the Melchizedek priesthood really happen?

Sandra Tanner [00:26:25] Right? And so visiting around the splinter groups, he visited a little Church of Christ, Book of Mormon group group. And these were people that mainly had come out of the Reorganized Church and the temple lot Church of Christ group. And they believed just the Bible and Book of Mormon. Very humble, sweet Christian people, really loved the Lord, but they rejected everything in Mormonism but the Bible and Book of Mormon. And so Gerald stayed with them for weeks. In fact, he stayed with them twice before I met him, where he stayed for weeks with them through this all. He decided he could believe like the Book of Mormon, which would sound very much like believing like a Protestant that salvation was by grace and that you didn't need temple work and priesthood and all these things. Just go back. I mean, the Book of Mormon is fairly Protestant, which I find so funny. Mormons are always saying to me, Mrs. Tanner, have you ever read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it? I said, yeah, I read it, prayed about it, and I left the church and believed the Book of Mormon for a couple more years. So Gerald came home with this conviction that following Christ was different than following Mormonism. There would be no mission, there would be no temple marriage, there would be none of those things. He was just going to go with the Bible and Book of Mormon and follow Christ the best he could figure out how to do. And so he's having this little meeting at his house, playing some lessons and teachings and stuff from this little group in Missouri. What do you mean?

John Dehlin [00:28:07] On a recorder?

Sandra Tanner [00:28:08] Yeah, a little tape reel to reel.

John Dehlin [00:28:10] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:11] Yeah. Way before cassettes.

John Dehlin [00:28:13] Do you still have those? Do you still have those reel to reels?

Sandra Tanner [00:28:17] No, I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:28:18] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:20] So after. And things that were brought up in the meeting were things my mother had said to me at different times. So it wasn't like a big shock. I had heard a lot of these same kind of problem areas in Mormonism before, But the operative word here is Gerald was really cute. And so what can I say? So after the meeting, I went up to him and I said, well, that's really interesting, Gerald. Why don't you come over to my grandma's house and tell me some more. And he was so excited that someone had finally listened to him. Oh dear. And so anyways, he goes over to my grandma's and starts telling me about Whitmer and all this stuff. Leaves me all kind of stuff to read.

John Dehlin [00:29:06] Why does he care so much like, why didn't he just go, oh my gosh, this isn't true, I'm done with this. Why do you think at this point he's like, driving out to Missouri and staying there for weeks and coming back and holding cottage meetings and playing recordings? Why is he doing all this to Gerald?

Sandra Tanner [00:29:27] Because once he was challenged on the mission, he was on a truth quest. Okay, I want to find out what the truth is about God. The truth about the church. Is this the church God called me to serve in. And so, yeah, he had been an inactive, rebellious kid, but at that point, he took life seriously and decided truth was important and he had to get to the bottom of it.

John Dehlin [00:29:58] Well, I would say there isn't a listener out there or a viewer that wouldn't agree that truth is important. But like traveling in the late 50s to a foreign state, staying with people, again, cottage meetings, all this study, this is like an extra level of caring.

Sandra Tanner [00:30:19] Right. And I think that was born from staying with the people. Well, even before he stayed with the people in Missouri, there was just that deep drive in him to know what God really wanted from him.

John Dehlin [00:30:35] So was there something special? About what? About Ensign?

Sandra Tanner [00:30:40] He was a very conscientious person. When we first started dating, one night we were driving back from his mother's to my grandma's, and it was just sheeting and rain and some people had broke down to the side of the road and he stopped the car and went out to help these people with. I don't know if they needed pushed off the road or whatever it was, but I mean, it was pouring rain and he stopped and went out and helped them with whatever they needed. It really impressed me that, that he had that kind of ethics or concern to do that. But you would not have been impressed that he was necessarily a real spiritual person. It's hard to say what drove him. I don't know, other than there just was this deep seated need to know what was true.

John Dehlin [00:31:39] Was he a negative person

Sandra Tanner [00:31:43] in some

John Dehlin [00:31:44] ways, like overall negative personality, critical personality, or.

Sandra Tanner [00:31:50] No, he was somewhat negative on society. The world was full of sin, you know, so. But now Gerald had a sense of humor and was someone that you would have enjoyed being around. Gerald was very shy, though, and that's why most people never met him, because he was an introvert. I don't know how much that played into the whole story of his life. As a high schooler, he was involved in magic and developed a magic show. I mean, he spent hundreds of dollars on magic systems. This was a big thing for him in high school, he did shows at the. What do you call them? Whatever kind of things they do at school, you know, programs and things. And that maybe in some sense was part of the drive, because he saw in magic the sleight of hand and how easy it was to deceive people. And I think he felt when he got into looking into Mormonism, that he'd been sold a magic trick and someone was doing sleight of hand and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. So probably his involvement in magic made him somewhat of a skeptic. That drive to know, am I just watching a trick here? Is this really something that's happening?

John Dehlin [00:33:26] But you still think he was seeking truth, not trying to tear things down?

Sandra Tanner [00:33:30] No, no, no. Because he goes into this group in Missouri because he's looking for God and he knew he was a messed up teen. And he comes to this little group and they're talking about, there's forgiveness in Christ. You can come to him and you don't have to do temple ritual. You don't have to do all this stuff. And none of them smoke or drank. And it wasn't like, oh, well, now I can feel free to do that, because this little group was very straight arrow. But there wasn't the legalism and the law of Mormonism in it. And he just felt. He felt that God took those things away from him. The smoking and the drinking. I mean, he just quit.

John Dehlin [00:34:20] So in preparing for his mission, he investigates Mormonism, finds Jesus and leaves the church.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:28] Yeah, well, he had four months left, but he quit going.

John Dehlin [00:34:31] Yeah, okay, okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:33] So then when I meet him, here's this cute guy, and so I invite him to my grandma's, and he starts telling me all this crazy stuff about Brigham Young. Well, I told him I was a descendant of Brigham Young, and it's like the spider to the fly. Oh, have you read any of Brigham Young's sermons? No. And he says, well, can I bring you over some? Well, yeah, I guess so. So he brings me over these different journal discourses. So here's a sermon on the only men that become gods are the ones who practice polygamy. The Civil War will never free the slave. Adam's our Father and our God and the only God we have to do with. But then the real hard one was when he showed me Brigham Young's blood atonement doctrine, that there are certain sins that you could commit that the blood of Christ wouldn't cover and only your own shedding of your own blood would cover that sin. And I can tell you exactly the sermon it was that just really kind of was the last straw for Mormonism. And that was the one where he says, let me suppose a case. Suppose I found my brother in bed with my wife and I put a javelin through them both. This would be a righteous act. It would save their souls. I'd go to the celestial kingdom and I'd be justified for this. I mean, most Mormons are not as focused on Brigham Young as I was, because that's where I descended from. So I heard great stories about how God saves polygamists when they are faithful to the cause. So here's a man that's been summers coming to Salt Lake City, was going to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneer Building. It was going to Temple Square, it was going through the Brigham Young home. This was a man I'd always idolized. And here, Gerald showing me this blood atonement sermon that just absolutely horrified me. And I put that down and I says, okay, I'm ready to look at whatever you want to show me. Obviously, the problems are bigger than I realized.

John Dehlin [00:36:45] These were all in the Journal of Discourses.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:47] Yeah, yeah, we're not talking about any anti Mormon books here. Mormon stuff.

John Dehlin [00:36:52] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:53] And then Gerald tells me, well, you realize, of course, that the Doctrine and Covenants doesn't read like the first edition. I said, oh, really? No, I didn't know that. And I. I went down to Sam Weller's bookstore. Grandpapa, the guy that runs it now, I went down to Weller's Bookstore and I bought a reprint of the Book of Commandments. Not a photo, they didn't have that yet, but a typeset of the Book of Commandments. And I bought a current Doctrine of Covenants, and I came home to my grand. I was staying at my grandma's, and I came back to my grandma's house and I asked her if she would read the one with me against the other. Now, I didn't realize and appreciate at the time how unusual it would be for a grandma who's wearing her temple garments faithfully that she would not have a problem doing this, you know? Oh, sure, that sounds like a great project. So we sat there for a couple days reading the Book of Commandments against the Doctrine and Covenants. She read the Book of Commandments to me. I had a D and C, and I'm writing in the margins. Now, wait a minute, slow down, Grandma. I got to get this written in here. And then it would get too big and the paragraph would be taken out or put in. I said, Wait a minute. I'll just have to make a note. See the Book of Commandments here. Okay. Gerald had already ruined Utah Mormonism for me, but now I'm looking at Joseph Smith. I'm looking at the Revelations, and I'm thinking, the Creator of the universe could have said it right the first time. Why would he have to go back later and tell. Why would he tell Joseph Smith in the first place, he only has one gift, and then two years later, shift it to, oh, no, that's just your first gift? And that was one of Whitmer's concerns. And the changes on priesthood, what you would know today as. What is it? Sections 27 and 27, I think, are priesthood sections. They weren't in the early first edition. Well, one of them was in a shorter form, but all these things grew in later editions.

John Dehlin [00:39:02] Wasn't there a section, was it 101, that denounced polygamy?

Sandra Tanner [00:39:05] That's in the 1835 DNC. And that was another thing that came up, talking with Gerald about polygamy. I said, well, what about all this polygamy stuff? And he says, well, the church originally didn't have any truck with that stuff. So he gets out and shows me the 1835 that says, inasmuch as we've been accused of fornication and polygamy, we believe that one man should have one wife, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again. Okay? So we have in the Doctrine and Covenants a section saying we don't believe or practice polygamy. 1835. So how come they live in polygamy if they got this section in the DNC, and that was in the DNC up until 1876, through the whole polygamy period, they have this. So Gerald's telling me all these kinds of things that are just pulling the rug out from underneath me. On Mormonism, I had been a happy Mormon. I was not looking for an out. This was.

John Dehlin [00:40:15] But your mom had planted the out.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:17] Yes, my mom had. Well, I found out later that my grandma had raised her kids. Never get up in testimony meeting and say, you know, the church is true. You get up and you say you believe it's true. You aren't old enough to say, you know.

John Dehlin [00:40:35] Now, is this the descendant of Brigham

Sandra Tanner [00:40:36] Young, the one that married into the Young family?

John Dehlin [00:40:39] Okay, okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:40] And so grandma obviously had doubts much earlier than Fawn Brodie, because her kids were raised with this, which I would say is a different take than what most of the Mormons would have been raised on. So I lost my thought. Where were we at?

John Dehlin [00:41:04] So you studied the D and C Book of Commandments side by side?

Sandra Tanner [00:41:08] Yeah. And so then I had. Oh, Gerald and I would talk and talk and talk about what does this all mean? Where do we go from here? Well, what am I to believe? Why would I still believe the Book of Mormon? Then why not just leave it all? What's all of this about? And he said, well, the whole point is God called Joseph Smith to bring out the Book of Mormon. All the rest is false. Throw that away. Just go back, believe Jesus and just follow the Bible and Book of Mormon. And then he takes me through the Book of Mormon. See, the Book of Mormon says there's only one God. Like the Bible, it says there's only heaven and hell. Like the Bible, it doesn't have any work for the dead. It doesn't have any pre existence, it doesn't have any temple marriage. The Book of Mormon says if you die without accepting Christ, you're eternally sealed to the devil. And then you got in the back part of the Book of Mormon where it talks about baptism of infants. Most Mormons don't read the part that says if you never hear the gospel, you don't need baptism unto such baptism availeth nothing according to the Book of Mormon. Well then who are we doing temple work for? Nobody needs it. Either you already lost the game or you don't need it. You're going to make it anyways. So Gerald and I had a whirlwind romance. I knew Gerald for two and a half months when we got married.

Guest [00:42:34] Whoa.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:36] Yes. That's what my family said, by the way. Family? I'm dropping out of Mormonism. I'm marrying an apostate and we aren't getting married in the temple and we're going to have a Protestant minister marry us. Other than that, do you have a problem with this?

John Dehlin [00:42:53] Okay, real quick. So many people who struggle with the church today stick with it for longer than their initial doubts and they either succumb to social pressure or they say, well, the church is good even if it's got problems. Or they say, well, the church is flawed, but the church is perfect, but the members aren't. Or of course leaders make mistakes and they have all these ways of sort of thinking through things that sort of lead to them sticking around. Or they remember their positive, even spiritual experiences and they say, I can't deny that. Well, what kept you guys from sticking around for several years? Why was it, I mean, in the 50s, the pressures must have been intense even Exponentially more intense than now.

Sandra and Jerald Meet, Engage, and Question Together

Sandra Tanner [00:43:42] Well, I have to tell you, when Gerald and I got engaged and we had a month to prepare for the wedding, I mean, I'd been up in Salt Lake. I dropped out of school, stayed here. I go back for a month before we get married. I went back to church. So when I got back to California, in a sense, I guess you'd say I fell back into my normal life, but I didn't fit anymore. I now knew that there were problems. And I talked to my different friends about it. I talked to a couple of my friends fathers about it, and they all, well, you just haven't prayed enough. You didn't read enough. You're too young, you don't know what you're talking about. Well, if you'd have gone through the temple, this would all have made sense. And there were all these kind of ways to try to move me along and get me back in the track. And I said, well, yeah, but what do you say about the changes in the revelations? Well, they'd never heard of that. They just know it's true. Well, what about Brigham Young's sermons? Oh, well, that's old stuff. We don't worry about that anymore. Well, gee, what he's talking about slitting people's throat to get them atoned for their sins. That seems kind of serious, you know, and, oh, well, you can't believe all the stuff you read and you don't know whether that was recorded. Right. And you know, they just have all these kinds of things. Well, once Gerald and I got married, we lived in California the first year of our life, of our marriage. But Gerald was not going to go to the church. I mean, I guess I would have been probably. I probably would have gone through that longer route. I know I would have eventually left, but I probably would have been gradually pushed out because I had read too much at that point to have stayed. My mom had read too much to let me stay. I mean, there was too much around me of critical thinking and research on Mormonism to think that I could have walked away from knowing what I knew.

John Dehlin [00:45:39] But sounds like your mom's doubt and Jared's father's atheism maybe were two important things that let you guys leave when others not have been able to, right?

Sandra Tanner [00:45:51] Yes. Had my mother been a strong believing Mormon, that would have been very hard to have stood up to her. I didn't even really understand how strong my dad's testimony was until a little ways into that first year of marriage till finally he started saying things to me. About, you know, well, Gerald doesn't have the priesthood kind of stuff. And so then he started to getting more vocal. I guess it was one thing to watch my mother have questions, another thing to see your daughter, who was the most active in the family, walk away from it. So then he starts trying to engage me on those things. But he hadn't studied anything like my mother had, so he had no real defense other than, well, we have the priesthood. We all know that, you know, well, Dad, I don't know that anymore. So the first year of our marriage, the ward teachers would come around because we're still on the rolls. And we went through several sets because we would ask them about these things. Oh, great. Come in. Yeah. Can you explain to us why the Doctrine and Covenants has been changed? Well, so then next, were you seeking

John Dehlin [00:47:11] answers or were you just trying to mess with people at this point?

Sandra Tanner [00:47:14] Well, we wanted. Okay, well, I'm open. You got an answer?

John Dehlin [00:47:17] Yeah, sure.

Sandra Tanner [00:47:18] You know, I don't think you do, but you know, hey, if you got one, sure, I'll listen. And so we get a new set of teachers next week, next month. Well, anyways, we kept trying to tell everyone about David Whitmer's pamphlet, and they didn't know quite what to do with David Whitmer because they all wanted to go with his testimony the Book of Mormon is true, but they don't want to know the rest of what he said. And I said, well, that's not all he said, you know. So anyways, Gerald was more and more convinced that there's no going back. The whole thing's dead in the water now. What I didn't know was that Gerald had started to have questions about the Book of Mormon, and he did not talk to me about those. We used the Book of Mormon every night for devotionals.

John Dehlin [00:48:12] Really?

Sandra Tanner [00:48:13] Along with the Book of Mormon Bible? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:16] So a religious couple.

Sandra Tanner [00:48:18] Yes. Oh, religious, yeah. We were so religious it scared my whole family. They thought we were gone nuts. Fully committed Christians Daily Bible, Book of Mormon studies, prayer time. So, yeah, we studied Mormonism, but there was that spiritual aspect of using the Book of Mormon daily as devotionals. And Gerald, of course, we'll read the Bible. Book of Mormon. Okay. So Gerald starts more and more to be troubled by the quotes from the King James Bible in the Book of Mormon, and these start troubling him. How could this be a translation and come over from these whole different language? By now the Nephites have changed at all, so no one can read it. So you have this whole different language. And we're going to translate it into English and it's going to read just like the King James Bible. And so he's really struggling with some of these different areas. And he had written to Pauline Hancock back at the Little Church of Christ in Missouri, asking her about, how do you reconcile this? How do you still believe the Book of Mormon when you can see so much of the Bibles in the Book of Mormon? So the rationale was God can give the same words to different people. Good old Book of Mormon phrases. So he could give the same words to the Nephites as he gave to them in the New Testament. Well, yeah, but this is BC and we're getting Paul's phrases.

John Dehlin [00:50:07] How is Paul showing up?

Sandra Tanner [00:50:08] How do you work this out hundreds

John Dehlin [00:50:10] of years before Christ in America?

Sandra Tanner [00:50:13] Right. So anyway, Gerald's struggling with these kinds of areas and I didn't know yet that these were problems. And we were reading all kind of Christian literature. We started visiting around Christian churches and we didn't fit. We didn't fit because we still believed the Book of Mormon. And in Southern California, I was just out, just scandalized. We went to this Protestant church. It was probably a good church, but I was too judgmental. So I go in. Oh, my word. There's a woman sitting in front of me in a sundress. How could God be here? How could anyone be so shameless as to come into the house of God wearing a sundress? You know? Well, it gets worse. They served coffee in the lobby.

John Dehlin [00:50:59] I mean, Jesus ain't having none of

Sandra Tanner [00:51:02] that, you know, just. But so we didn't fit. And we wanted to be involved with other Christians, but I didn't know their language, I didn't know their method of service. Everything was a strange world. And it's every memory, every good memory I had related to Mormonism. And I'm in this sea of Protestants that I don't understand and I don't fit with them because the pastor would come visit. Oh, that's so great. You came out of Mormonism. Wonderful. And then he get talking. You still believe the Book of Mormon? Yeah. Why? Well, because I prayed and I know it's true, you know, but the problem was. So this is, you know, 60. 61. Well, yeah, 60. We moved back to Salt Lake, but even Salt Lake, we had the same problem to a degree. Pastors could talk to you about general outline of Mormon doctrinal differences with standard Christianity. One God, many gods, that kind of stuff. But none of them knew the Book of Mormon well enough to Tell us why we shouldn't believe that anymore. And so they'd go on about, oh, well, you know, Joseph Smith taught plural gods. Yeah, I don't believe that because the Book of Mormon says one God, see? And they wouldn't know what to do with that. So they didn't know how to help me because I'd never dealt with anyone that just believed the Book of Mormon and didn't believe the rest of the package. So we moved back to Salt Lake mainly for research. We wanted to be able to go to the University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:52:47] Why keep researching?

Sandra Tanner [00:52:48] You knew it wasn't true because all our families were Mormon.

Guest [00:52:54] So.

Sandra Tanner [00:52:55] Because they bug you and they all want to set you straight. They all want to help you over your difficult path, period. No, look, okay, it isn't just one sermon on blood atonement. Let me get you a list. And so we made up a list of stuff, and we put on one little sheet, paper, flag.

John Dehlin [00:53:15] So you try to justify your decisions?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:18] Not justify. We're trying to convince them that Mormonism's a lie.

John Dehlin [00:53:23] Why?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:23] Well, because we believe Christianity. We thought if Jesus is real and the Bible's real. And of course, at that point, the Book of Mormon and it all talks about Jesus. You guys are going down the wrong way.

John Dehlin [00:53:34] How did you get a testimony of Jesus?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:38] Well, reading the Bible in the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:53:41] Reading the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon. That's Graham Palmer's argument. It brings you to Christ whether or not it's true. Looks like that's true.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:49] It was. We backed out of Mormonism in that sense, threw the Book of Mormon out.

Finding Faith in Jesus Outside Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:53:55] So tell me about your testimony of Jesus. Did it happen all at once or.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:59] No. The more I read the Bible in the Book of Mormon, the more I was grounded in this other belief that there's only one God and it's all through grace, not temple work, not priesthood and everything.

John Dehlin [00:54:10] But then, did you receive a spiritual witness?

Sandra Tanner [00:54:13] Yeah, I was listening. One Saturday, I was home alone. I was listening to a Christian radio program.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] Here in Salt Lake?

Sandra Tanner [00:54:19] No, that's in California.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:54:21] And this minister came on, and he was preaching from First John, chapter four. Herein is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as propitiation for our sins. And as he discussed that chapter, if you look at it, the first part talks about false prophets. And he wasn't dealing with that. He was dealing with second half of the chapter on God sent Christ to pay for our sin. And as he went through this, and it just Hit me. We love God because He first loved us. And that's in that first John 4 chapter. And that was such a revelation to me because I had always assumed, well, of course God loves me. I'm his child, you know. And so here's this minister explaining, no, you were in sin, hopeless, without the atonement of Christ. Christ loved you so much that he first initiated the step to make you reconciled to God. So we love him because he first loved us. And this was just such, you know, wow. So it was just such an amazing thought to me that I failed God every day, and yet he loved me and made the move to me to bring me to reconciliation. And that it didn't have anything to do with going to church or paying tithing or any of those things. It was a matter of coming to God and accepting his forgiveness and accepting what he had done for me. And so listening to that radio program, that's when I had my conversion experience of accepting Christ as my Savior.

John Dehlin [00:56:04] And do you imagine that that's very similar to the experience that a Mormon claims to have about Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon? Same feelings, emotions, joy, peace, comfort, tingly feelings, hair standing up on your arm, goosebumps, all that stuff.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:20] Well, it's not the way I heard my friends talk about knowing it was true. It was more a matter. Now, maybe somebody does. But the ones I talked to, my friends, those around me, it seemed much more of a. A less profound experience of just. I prayed. Now I have a conviction that it's true.

John Dehlin [00:56:44] For you. It was what?

Sandra Tanner [00:56:45] For me, it was a shattering experience. I sat on the couch and cried for an hour because of sensing this lack in me being able to be right with God. No matter what I did, I wasn't going to be the one that made the connection to God. It was a God made the connection to me. And to see that Grace explained was something I'd never seen in Mormonism. Now, at sacrament meeting, we'd sing what's the sacrament songs they sing. But there were a couple of different sacrament songs that touched me about the atonement as a Mormon. But everything's muddled in with the rest of Mormonism. It's like there's, you know, four steps to the gospel and there's the atonement, and then there's baptism, priesthood and temple marriage, and you work on all this stuff. And so it was all part of the package. And so this made Christ important in a way that I never heard in Mormonism, in a personal way that I had never seen. Anyone around me. Now, the people at my ward were very nice, lovely people. I have nothing to criticize them on in that regard, but I was experiencing God in a way that I had never heard anyone explain to me in Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:58:19] So it was a logic, chain of understanding plus a deep emotional spiritual experience. And it had a lot to do with you feeling the love of God and a forgiveness of sins.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:32] A forgiveness of sins.

John Dehlin [00:58:34] You know what, that sounds a lot like Joseph's experience.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:38] Well, yeah, except God and Jesus didn't show up.

John Dehlin [00:58:41] It sounds a lot like his original.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:43] Yeah, the 22 account of his experience. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] Have you thought about that?

Sandra Tanner [00:58:49] Well, okay. If anything happened to him in the grove of that nature, I would feel he walked away from it by what he did later.

John Dehlin [00:59:00] Okay. But maybe that's how it started for him, too.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:03] Could have been.

John Dehlin [00:59:04] Because what you're telling me sounds a lot like what he experienced.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:06] Well, it's the typical revival scenario. I mean, you read the Methodist revival meetings at the time, and ever since, that's the way revival meetings were. That's the way people go through.

John Dehlin [00:59:18] But it happened to you.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:19] Yes. Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:59:21] So you believe in that?

Sandra Tanner [00:59:22] Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:59:23] Okay. And it changed your life.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:25] Absolutely. Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [00:59:29] So how do you become. How do you start creating this? How do you go from Christians to this?

Sandra Tanner [00:59:37] Because all our family are saying we're nuts, and you can't prove any of that. That's not what the books say. I never heard that. If that were true, I would have heard it in church. I've gone to church my whole life and I never heard these things you're talking about. Okay, I'm going to get you 10 references on blood atonement. So I put up a sheet on that. You never heard of Adam God? I'm going to get you a whole page full of references on Adam God. And so it's a defensive measure in a sense, that all our friends and families are coming at it. I mean, we're just two young kids. We didn't know anything, you know, but they're all coming. And they treated us like we didn't know anything too, you know, you dumb kids. What makes you think you know anything? Look at the educated men at the head of the church, and they don't have trouble with this, so.

Motivations for Researching and Publishing

John Dehlin [01:00:26] And it sounds like, you know, there's this typical saying that's kind of offensive. They can leave the church, but they can't leave it alone. It sounds like they wouldn't let you leave it alone.

Sandra Tanner [01:00:38] Is that correct? Is that kind of true? Right. And I think that's true for a lot of people.

John Dehlin [01:00:43] You feel like you have to defend

Sandra Tanner [01:00:44] yourself because your family pounds on you all the time.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] You feel judged, you feel insulted, and so you want to defend yourself.

Sandra Tanner [01:00:50] Right? Right.

John Dehlin [01:00:51] Explain it.

Sandra Tanner [01:00:52] Yeah. My grandpa on my dad's side, that was the fanatic Mormon. He said to me one day, sandra, the problem with you is we can never have a good discussion. You turn everything into an argument. And I went home and I tried to think that through, trying to figure out, what is he talking about? And it dawned on me if I would let him pontificate for a half hour and say nothing. We had a good discussion. But at the end of the half hour, I said, but, Grandpa, see, you turn everything into an argument.

John Dehlin [01:01:25] I've had that experience with some people, too. Okay. For my entire life. The gold standard prototype for anti Mormons has been the Tanner. Were there anything comparable in the early 60s?

Sandra Tanner [01:01:44] No. There was some. The little pamphlets. There was one minister who had done a book called God's Sex and Mormonism or something like that, but it was written for Christians and it was fairly surface, you know, doctrinal stuff. And so for the Christian, they could say, okay, I don't want to be a Mormon. But for the Mormon, it didn't tell the Mormon why they'd want to be a Christian or why they wouldn't want to be Mormon. There was some little track societies that put out some tracks on Mormonism, but there was. I mean, other than Brody, there was very little.

John Dehlin [01:02:23] Nothing well known, Nothing prominent. No, but there was Fon Brody.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:29] So was she an inspiration?

Sandra Tanner [01:02:30] A little bit, yeah. She got. She gave us the.

John Dehlin [01:02:34] Did you meet her?

Sandra Tanner [01:02:36] I did. Later.

John Dehlin [01:02:36] Okay. Okay. But not.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:38] Not at that time. She gave us the outline of what the early books were, that if you're going to study Mormon history, these are the sources you're going to want to be looking at in her footnotes. So we started going to all those kind of sources. And that's why we wanted to be at the. Here in Utah, where you go to the University of Utah, so we could see all these original books. And then we realized that as we did more and more study, that we should make these pamphlets bigger. More people were interested in what we were doing, and we were just giving these all away. And it was getting more and more of a financial burden on us to just give. We bought a mimeograph machine. We're just doing these little copies.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] One of those purple things that you hand crank.

Sandra Tanner [01:03:30] Yeah. So we're putting out all these little papers just giving away free to anybody that wanted. But then a fellow that had a little bookstore here in town said if you put a little price on those, I could get them in the bookstore and you'd get a wider audience. Okay, so we put a quarter on these little pamphlets and like five pages, 10 pages long, just little pamphlet things, you know, on blood atonement, polygamy, Adam, God, Changes in the Doctrine and Covenants, contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, all that kind of stuff. And we started picking up and finding out, geez, there's some people that really will read that stuff. You know, everyone doesn't want to argue with us. There's some people that are actually interested. So then we started finding other people that were studying Mormon history. And Gerald was a machinist. He did that for the first five years of our marriage. And then finally he said to me, we got to make a decision what we're going to. If we're going to keep doing this research and printing it, then we've got to decide to do it full time. I can't keep doing my job and come home and do all of this too. Of course, by that time we had started a family, had a couple of kids, and so finally in 64, we decided we would go full time, trying to support ourselves on the sale of the books and at first the what books? That's what I was going to get to. Oh, how do you build a life on this? So our first endeavor was to do a photo reprint of the Times and Seasons, the Evening Morning Star, the Messenger and Advocate, the Elders Journal, early Mormon publications that either side will want to study. And Mormon scholars have to go to the university to read this stuff. What if you live in Louisiana, how would you research Mormonism? Okay, we'll do reprints of all these early books so that a researcher, no matter where they're coming from, could just get cheap copies and sit in their own front room and do their research. Hey, there's a plan. So that's what we did. That's how we started out. And we financed our research for our Shadow Reality from selling reprints of early Mormon books. And then we started selling reprints of early anti Mormon books and started building up a whole line of these reprints. And we first started a business called Modern Microfilm Company to microfilm the books and then make photocopies of them, print them. And so it wasn't until 83 that we decided to close down the business, which never made money and Start the nonprofit organization 83.

John Dehlin [01:06:26] Okay. We just missed the late 60s. All through the 70s.

Sandra Tanner [01:06:28] Well, yeah, but that's the way the bookstore went.

John Dehlin [01:06:30] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [01:06:31] All kind of other stories. But the bookstore evolved from that mimeograph machine that we got in California.

Building the Bookstore and Early Publications

John Dehlin [01:06:39] So the first bookstore was what year?

Sandra Tanner [01:06:42] Well, the first bookstore. 62.

John Dehlin [01:06:48] You guys were selling your pamphlets through those other bookstores?

Sandra Tanner [01:06:51] Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:53] And the reprints?

Sandra Tanner [01:06:56] We hadn't done the reprints yet. That's when we're doing our own little pamphlets. 62. We started putting low prices on, put them in the bookstore.

John Dehlin [01:07:04] So when Gerald decides to do this full time, around 65, 64.

Sandra Tanner [01:07:10] 65, 64.

John Dehlin [01:07:11] Then what do you do? How do you make an income? How do you feed those little kids?

Sandra Tanner [01:07:17] By selling all these reprints of the early Mormon newspapers and all.

John Dehlin [01:07:22] And you did that for how many years while you're writing? Was Mormonism Shadow and reality your first?

Sandra Tanner [01:07:27] We were doing that, same time, writing it. Well, we'd already done an edition before at 64, a mimeograph one that just said Mormonism on it. And in 64, that was a monumental year. Our third child was born. Gerald quit his job. We bought the house next door, moved in and went full time. We typed round the clock to get the 64 edition of Shadow out because we knew we could pick up sales from that. And we also were doing the reprint of the Times and Seasons at that time, I think. So that's how we launched our little bookstore in our front room.

John Dehlin [01:08:11] Selling your own book along with these reprints, Right? Okay.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:17] And was that scary? What was that like to just have your husband quit his job?

Sandra Tanner [01:08:23] Well, yeah, the walk of faith. Well, the scarier part was before that, in about 63, when Gerald decides he's going to print the temple ceremony. That gave me a little pause. I said, gerald, you don't know how people respond to that. You know, that might get people a little mad. And once we lived through that, I

John Dehlin [01:08:48] figured, what was the response to that?

Sandra Tanner [01:08:51] Well, people come call me on the phone, tell me off, but they didn't come and bomb my house. You know, at that time, we lived up on the avenues in a little wood frame house. And I thought, oh, my goodness, they're going to burn us alive in this house.

John Dehlin [01:09:06] You did live in fear?

Sandra Tanner [01:09:07] Yes, at that point, Because I didn't know. I didn't know where the line was. You know, how much opposition can this community take before they would retaliate some way?

John Dehlin [01:09:19] Because we do have a bit of a history of it.

Sandra Tanner [01:09:21] Yeah, you know, so destroying printing presses and all, you know, so we did have some problems, like when we'd take stuff to be photocopied before we got our own photocopy machine. I took some of our old newsletters in to have photocopied. And in one of them was the issue where we announced we were going to do the temple ritual. And we had a couple of photos of a guy in temple clothing. And the guy got halfway through the photo job, hit the newsletter with the guy in the temple clothes, called me on the phone. He says, you're going to have to come pick up your work. I won't finish it. I won't do this. So then we learned that we got to make sure we're just dealing with either national companies or send the work out of state because the local people, we never know what their real attitude is going to be. And we were afraid they'd destroy our work or something. So we had to do our own printing. We had to learn. We bought our printing press. We didn't know anything about it. It came with an instruction manual, you know, so fools rush in, but.

John Dehlin [01:10:31] So when you start this, did you call it a company? When. When Gerald goes full time. Okay, yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:10:39] Modern microfilm company.

John Dehlin [01:10:41] What's your justification? What's your motivation? Like you're talking to each other. Okay, Gerald, it's time to quit. We're going to do this full time. Why? Why are we going to do this? I know I've asked you this before, but by 64, 65, why are you doing it?

Sandra Tanner [01:10:55] Because we felt that the Mormon people were being lied to and we felt Mormonism was deceiving them on the means of salvation. And that to keep telling people to go to the temple was an affront to God. So it was driven by setting the record straight, by wanting the truth of Mormon history to be told, but also from a spiritual direction without the Mormon people were being given a false hope

John Dehlin [01:11:24] through Mormonism, led away from Christ, basically.

Sandra Tanner [01:11:27] Right.

John Dehlin [01:11:27] So for you, did it feel like a spiritual.

Sandra Tanner [01:11:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:30] Did you feel moved to do this, like, led by the Holy Spirit?

Sandra Tanner [01:11:34] Well, yeah. It just seemed like some things just fell on our lap and have all through the years different documents finding different things that just seemed like. Well, like when we got our press, Gerald says to me one day, if our tax return comes tomorrow, can I use the down. The refund for down payment on a printing press? Well, I'm doing a quick calculation of the odds. I said, okay, well, it came. I mean, wouldn't you know what Were the odds. So Gerald felt that was a sign that we were to get a press and to go forward with all of this.

John Dehlin [01:12:15] So you felt led by God?

Sandra Tanner [01:12:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:17] Okay,

Sandra Tanner [01:12:20] so. But not in the sense of like Joseph Smith having a revelation, but in a sense of an inner conviction that we owed it to those around us to share with them what we'd found out.

John Dehlin [01:12:37] So was it an act of love?

Sandra Tanner [01:12:39] Well, I felt it was. They didn't see it that way, but yeah. So to me, it's like if you see your loved ones inside a burning building, they may not know the building's on fire. And you go in and try to shout at them and warn them, come out, the building's burning. And they're sitting there saying, well, there's nothing wrong in this room. Well, yeah, but the back half's in flames. And so that's the way we viewed it. We're trying to get the people out of the burning building and they feel secure because they can't see the fire.

John Dehlin [01:13:10] So help them see it.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:14] All right, so how did it grow?

Sandra Tanner [01:13:17] How did it grow?

John Dehlin [01:13:18] Like, did you make good money from

Sandra Tanner [01:13:19] the very first year we went broke? No. We learned how to rotate the bills so that you could stay one jump ahead of the next guy rotating the bills. No, we were always going broke. You look at our earliest newsletters and we're always having sales because. Or asking someone to loan us money. We needed a thousand dollars to pay our paper bill. Will someone loan it to us? We'll pay interest and sign a note and everything. No, it was very hard times. Don't go into this if you want to make money. This is not the place to be. That's what I find so funny. Mormons will come. Oh, I bet you just did it for the money. I think, my goodness. I worked at. If I worked at McDonald's, I could have made more money. No, it never was profitable. And that's why we went non profit was because different ones that were giving funds to help us. Like Wes Walters that wrote the Inventing Mormonism with Mike Marquardt. Wes was a Presbyterian minister in Illinois. He wasn't on a big salary either, but he was giving us monthly donations to keep us afloat. And he said if you guys would get nonprofit, more Christians would support your work. If they could get a tax write off on it, you really need to go non profit. So we did. And it did help. We did get more support that way. And I make this fantastic income now. And you're joking. Yes, I'm joking. I will switch with any general authority that wants to switch his modest living allowance. And I think I'm going to get a big raise.

John Dehlin [01:15:00] So how did the business strategy grow? So you go from pamphlets and this early book and reprints of early church publications, like, let's just go into the late 60s, 70s. Are you growing a business model? Is it like, let's do retail?

Sandra Tanner [01:15:18] No, we just have some little racks in our front room in our Victorian house. It has a parlor in a front room and it has sliding doors. And so we slid the doors to block off our front room from the parlor and used the parlor for the bookstore. And so I just had these little racks with our different publications on there, just our different reprints and things. And the Institute was buying reprints from us.

John Dehlin [01:15:46] What? Yeah, the LDS Institute. Leonard Arrington and T. Edgar Lyon.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:52] I'm sorry, before Arrington's time.

John Dehlin [01:15:54] Lowell Bennion and T. Edgar Lyon, not.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:56] Well, Tiago Lyon did. I knew him. And Reed Durham was president, head of the Institute after. At the University of Utah, after Lil Binyan. Yeah. And talked to Reed many times. And I knew many of the Institute teachers at that time.

John Dehlin [01:16:13] Why were they buying your stuff?

Sandra Tanner [01:16:14] Because they wanted to be able to read those reprints in their front room and not have to sit at the university to read them. And so.

Guest [01:16:25] But

Sandra Tanner [01:16:27] I guess you'd say I built the bookstore model. I wanted to bring in more than just our publications. I said, gerald, we need a broader selling base than just our books. And so one by one, I started bringing in other titles, like Fawn Brody's was an early one. Different ones like that that I started bringing into the store, into our little front room.

John Dehlin [01:16:55] Probably wasn't easy to buy that in the 60s here in Salt Lake City.

Sandra Tanner [01:16:58] Well, no, we had to order it from Knopf. And that was a problem for us. We're just a little mom and pop thing to get recognized as a retailer, to get wholesale prices. But we finally got that going and started getting different books brought in. And gradually the bookstore just kept getting bigger and bigger. And then 20 years ago when we moved in here, then we were able to expand the bookstore even bigger and bring in more titles. But we are limited how far we can go here because of the size of the room, unless we dedicated some

John Dehlin [01:17:32] other rooms to it or go on the Internet.

Sandra Tanner [01:17:36] We are selling some of our books. We're doing PDFs and selling some of our things now on the Internet, which I hope in time will develop a bigger audience. But the thing that's really hurting us and all bookstores is Amazon and the Internet. They can buy books in bulk. They undercut all the bookstores. Everybody's hurt by that. Anyone with Storefront is hurt by Amazon and companies like that.

John Dehlin [01:18:04] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. To check out the video version of this episode, go to YouTube.com mormonstories to continue the conversation or to keep these podcasts alive through a financial contribution, please check us out@mormonstories.org and thanks for listening.

Guest [01:18:26] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy when you're way Though hard to you this journey may appear. Grace shall be as your day. Tis better far for us to strive Our useless can from us to dry to the San Jo your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well.

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 473

Guest [00:00:01] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] To check out the video version of this episode, go to YouTube.com mormonstories to keep these podcasts alive. Please consider a financial contribution today as@mormonstories.org and thanks for listening. So what were the big breaks? Were there any big events that sort of propelled the Tanner into the spotlight? Because at some point you had to go from sort of mom and pop, you know, front of your house, salon, people just coming by to grab a pamphlet here or there. You went from that to a household name at some point. And what, were there some events along the way that really sort of. That launched you into the spotlight?

Sandra Tanner [00:01:02] Well, that would be hard to say. I guess when we did our first Mormonism shadow reality in 64, that really the church was aware of us before that the Grand Richards had kind of threatened to sue us, sent us an intimidating letter. Lamar Peters, I mean, Markey Peterson. Markey Peterson, that threatened us because.

John Dehlin [00:01:28] Threatened you how?

Sandra Tanner [00:01:30] With legal action because of what we were publishing, which they have no case. But they just trying to. You have to understand the mindset of the 50s and early 60s. No one asked questions. This was like. Like being, like being a traitor to your country. No one asked questions. And so we're just these two young upstarts that didn't know the rules. And we're like, why can't I ask? Well, it's not respectful. And so. And the church in those days controlled people, the community, by the fear of excommunication. And so they were used to bullying people when you got asking too many questions. You said a letter to the editor. You did something too overt then, brother. You're risking your membership. Well, that scare people to death. I'm going to lose my job, you know, I won't have any life in the community if I lose my membership. So they controlled people by threatening lawsuits or excommunication to shut everyone down. Well, we were. What would you call. I don't remember the right word for it, but we didn't have to worry about a lawsuit. We had no assets. So what are you going to take my old jalopy? Okay, so that was the thing the church was not used to as someone not being afraid to stand up and challenge them on issues, always before they can intimidate you to make you back down.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] Tell your story about writing Joseph Fielding

Sandra Tanner [00:03:14] Smith when we were still in California. And that was right after we got married. Early on, my mom and my aunt had got looking into some stuff on first vision problems. And Gerald and me and them had all talked about first vision problems. And my bishop, who's a real nice guy, he was trying to save the day and trying to pull me back into the church. And he said, sandra, if you'll just write up your questions or get one question, I'll send it to Joseph Fielding Smith for you. Well, I have to back up. No. Okay, I got the story. That's a long time ago. So he said, if you get one question, I'll send it to Joseph Fieldy Smith, who was an apostle and church historian. So we get in a big huddle. Okay, what do we. What's the one big question?

John Dehlin [00:04:17] What's the one question? I've been there before.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:20] So we're trying to think about and. But we'd all been thinking and studying.

John Dehlin [00:04:24] It's hard to come up with the one question. Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:26] Well, and ours probably wasn't the most profound, but it was one that we were intrigued by, and that was the whole question of when did the first vision become important and when did they switch? Because we found that early on they seemed to be talking about the first vision in terms of an angel, and when did they switch it to Christ? So my mom and my aunt had both bought a copy of the historical record by Andrew Jensen, and he was church historian in the 1887 time period. In the historical record, he had printed in one issue the Joseph Smith first vision story. And when he tells it, this is about 1880.

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 474

Sandra Tanner [00:00:01] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy. Wend your way

John Dehlin [00:00:16] to check out the video version of this episode. Go to YouTube.com mormonstories to keep these podcasts alive. Please consider a financial contribution today as MormonStories.org and thanks for listening. I've got a big laundry list of issues.

Key Historical Problems Discovered in Mormonism

Sandra Tanner [00:00:33] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:00:34] Any other really big things like the Hoffman thing, like the Book of Abraham thing that you guys have been right in the middle of? I could just. I'll let the tape roll before, you know, I want you to prioritize and then I'll do the ones that are maybe smaller as follow ups. What are the most for you? What are the most damning aspects of Mormonism? Or another way to say that is for the issues that take people out of the church. What are the top issues? Let's just talk briefly about each other.

Sandra Tanner [00:01:03] Okay. The most popular, popular, if that's the right word, the most often mentioned to me would be the Book of Abraham issue. And I think that was shown in your survey that you did. The Book of Abraham is a major issue to people. And beyond that, it's.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] I'll just note that Dan Witherspoon did an interview recently on Mormon Matters podcast. He has three church employees, one ces, two BYU staff, all four agreeing that the Book of Abraham has nothing to do with the papyri. And I'm thinking, wow, 2014, we've come a long way.

Sandra Tanner [00:01:47] Yeah. But then what did the facsimiles have to do with the Book of Abraham?

John Dehlin [00:01:51] No, they're just like somehow Joseph channeled spirituality. You know, it's scripture, but it's not in any way historical.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:00] Well, that's one of my main problems. And I would say one of the problems with the people leaving that I talk to is that nothing's historical, that it all seems to just go down the drain. Everything comes back to, well, just pray about it and if you feel good, it's true. Well, that's the same thing I get from the polygamists that come in here. I get it from atheists that have it. They feel good about where they've gone to and that proves it. The Muslim, the Jehovah's Witness.

John Dehlin [00:02:30] It's probably the same thing you and Gerald say about Christianity.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:34] Well, I think that the argument for Christianity is different than the argument for Mormonism. To me, it's a different category. It's like comparing apples and oranges with Mormonism. You have everything invented by one guy covering centuries and just one guy. We have nothing to back up Anything he says other than his credibility. He makes up this whole Book of Abraham stuff. Scriptures. He's making up scriptures right and left. Here we have this whole civilization in the Book of Mormon that evidently has no historical base at all. The Mormons can't come up with anything. I mean, Nahum in Yemen is hardly sufficient to prove the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:03:19] Hey, the apologists really like that. Well, why doesn't that convince you?

Sandra Tanner [00:03:25] Because it's just a tribal name. It has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. They're just grasping at straws. So it doesn't support anything.

John Dehlin [00:03:37] You're saying it's a coincidence.

Sandra Tanner [00:03:39] Yeah. So I see one man inventing this whole religion, all these scriptures. I see someone that I would consider a con man inventing a religion. When you look at Joseph Smith's involvement in magic and money digging and the stone in the hat, which I think is clearly a deception, and I think Dan Vogel argues this in his book on Joseph Smith, that there's deliberateness in the deception of the money digging with the stone and the hat, that they never find a treasure. What anyone talks about finding are minor little lost objects. But that's the come on. To get you to believe him for the bigger thing. So he's at your house, he palms a pocket watch or something off your dresser and, oh, goes through the neighborhood, so. And so lost his watch or whatever. And. And Joseph comes to you and says, you know, I can find that watch. And, you know, so I think he was always telling stories on when he had been able to plant something somewhere for him to find. Because the testimonies of finding things are household items are minor things. Like Stowell that testifies in his behalf at the 1826 trial, Stowell says, joseph told us if we dug down, we'd find a feather.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:05] And.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:05] And then we went down further and we'd find the treasure. And of course, when we found the feather, but when we got down the treasure, we hit that hard place, and then we couldn't. The enchantment was too strong. We couldn't get it. It slipped away. We couldn't get the treasure. That, to me, is a con man. Joseph has set up a scenario, told them they're going to find a feather and they're going to get this hard place, and they won't be able to get the treasure. So he's building in a reason why it's going to fail because he's got. You broke the enchantment. So you go out in midnight, draw a magic circle, get some Poor farmer to give you his black sheep, slit its throat and walk it around the circle and do all this magic hocus pocus. And then somebody sneezes or whatever happens, someone supposedly does something that breaks the spell. And then Joseph sought the hook. Well, that's why it slipped away.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] And there are records justifying to these things.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:58] There's people that were involved in all that to tell the stories. Now, the Mormons want to discount that. Oh, well, these are all people that turned on Joseph or made up stories about him, the neighbors that didn't like him or whatever. It's clear everyone. Joseph admits he was involved in money digging with Stowell. He just wants to make it that he was the one pushing the shovel. And yet Martin Harris himself says the reason of Stoll and Lucy Smith, they both say the reason Stoll hired Joseph was because of his gift of looking at the stone to discern where the treasure was. Now, I'm sure he pushed a shovel as well, but he came up across the state of New York to hire Joseph because he heard he had this gift. And how does he know he has this gift? Oh, well, when he got up to Stoell's brother's place, Joseph described his outhouse. And then he knew that there's no way Joseph would have ever seen his outhouse. So how could he have described it? And I'm thinking because your brother probably told some stupid story about the outhouse to everybody. Maybe his kid fell in or whatever, you know? And I mean, what a silly thing to describe somebody's outhouse, you know? So it sounds to me like the brother that lived by the Smiths told some story about his brother's outhouse. And so when Stoll comes Joe's, oh, yes, I can see your outhouse now, you know, and. And so Stowell believes him. So I see a deliberate con. Now, he may have sued this conscience by making a religious aspect as well. And it's not like there aren't plenty of religious frauds out there that can invent stories and claim God's working with them. I mean, you got Jim Baker, for instance, the years back, but televangelist that was living a double life and having call girls the hour before he went on his TV marathons and everything. So someone can speak religiously and still be lying and doing a double life. Everyone wants to say, but the Book of Mormon has all the spirituality, and his letters have the spirituality. So did Jim Baker's, and the guy went to prison. So, Joseph, I see us making it

John Dehlin [00:08:17] all up okay, so we have problems with the first vision, Joseph Smith's folk magic, treasure digging, con kind of stuff. We have Book of Mormon problems, Book of Abraham problems,

Sandra Tanner [00:08:33] changing the commandments between, changing the revelations. Yes, well, to me were a major problem. And then next I would say polygamy. Well, more defined than that, polyandry, which I think is kind of curious that people find polyandry more offensive than marrying 14 year old girls. But I think people intuitively know that there's something wrong with the idea of going to a guy that has a wife and essentially pulling rank on him, that he should give his wife to Joseph Smith and this will guarantee his eternal life or whatever, or telling the woman this will guarantee her exaltation. I don't think all the husbands knew about it, but some did and obviously some agreed to the whole situation. And I find that this, when people find out about this, there's no way to reconcile it with section 132 because it doesn't allow for married women. It says if a man have 10 virgins, not if he has 10 married women. So the polyandry out of the whole polygamy issue seems to be the biggest sticking point to people. They can't reconcile that. I personally think the teenage girls are more outlandish because the adult woman had the ability to make a choice, even although I think she was religiously coerced. But a teenage girl who's in a Mormon home where she's been trained to revere this guy as God's spokesman and he comes and tells her that God has told him to do this. And then when you add the element where he says an angel appeared with a drawn sword and said he would kill me if I don't go into polygamy. And to put that kind of a guilt trip on a 14 year old girl or a 16 year old, that you're going to be responsible for the prophet's death if you don't concede to this or tell them this will secure your parents eternal life. Are you going to deny your parents eternal life? So I find the teenage girls extremely troubling that a religious leader would use his position of authority to coerce these girls to submit to this. And I do believe they were sexual unions

John Dehlin [00:11:06] in spite of, in spite of Brian.

Sandra Tanner [00:11:10] Well, I think I heard him say on one interview that something to the effect that, well, we can only show that nine marriages were consummated. And I'm saying, well, how many do you need? If he consummated nine of them, why should I think he did not 40 of them. You know, it's. Anyways,

Polygamy, Mountain Meadows, and Temple Controversies

John Dehlin [00:11:33] all right, other big issues.

Sandra Tanner [00:11:38] Mount Meadow Massacre would be another big one.

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Why isn't that just people scared and make a mistake on a local level?

Sandra Tanner [00:11:48] Well, why would these Mormons feel that it would be the right thing to do? These are the religious leaders. This is the stake president, this is the bishops, this is the High Council all meeting together to decide to go out and kill all these people. What kind of a system would make you think that that would be okay with God? That you're going to go kill 120 men, women and children?

John Dehlin [00:12:20] What's the answer?

Sandra Tanner [00:12:22] That they were in a cult? I think Brigham intended the massacre to happen. I don't think he intended it to happen the way it happened. I don't think he intended there to be two attacks. I think he thought that they could get the Indians to help and they could go in quick, in, out, and they could blame it on the Indians. And it didn't work out that way. And they ended up with this mess. And so I think that's when you get this writer coming up to Salt Lake. They botched the job. They didn't get it done right. And now they're stuck with this problem. The first go around, we didn't get it done. So now what do we do? I think Brigham set up a scenario that he knew the massacre would happen, and I think he thought it would be done quickly and easily and not left the mess it did. So the second attack in that sense, I think, was their solution of how to resolve the whole thing. But then Brigham becomes complicit in the whole thing because he covers it up. For years they have to have two trials on John D. Lee because the word's gone out on the first one. Nobody tell anything. And suddenly everyone gets a memory when the government says, no, someone's hanging for this. Oh, yeah, I remember. It was all John D. Lee's idea. Now, obviously John didn't get invited to the meeting, but at some meeting somebody was discussing. Somebody's going down for this. So here's the list. Who do we think is the best candidate? Okay, well, John went out with the flag of truce out to the group and he was kind of involved in the whole thing. So we could just put it all to him. Oh, that's a good plan. So that's what they did. They turned on it. And John D. Lee says he was the scapegoat and no more guilty than any of the other men that were there. Now, I don't know if that's true. I don't know whether to believe him when he says he didn't kill anyone. I find that a little hard to believe. He says his gun jammed or something.

John Dehlin [00:14:25] That's like. I didn't inhale.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:27] Yeah, right. There's just some things you think, well,

John Dehlin [00:14:29] really, how does it feel to know that the Brigham Young's blood runs through your veins? I mean, this is your great great grandpa. Is that true?

Sandra Tanner [00:14:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yes. All my uncles look just like him. I think it's a good man gone amok. He started out as a good Methodist and got caught up in a cult and it brought out all the worst of him. He became a dictator, a false prophet, a philanderer. I don't think my great, great grandma was happy with polygamy. They come out here to Utah. She doesn't live at the Beehive house. She's not up there with all those women. She's got her own house down the street. And I'm sure it broke her heart when all that. She's. If you see pictures of Marianne angel, she's a round faced, simple looking woman that by all accounts was a very loving mother. Took in Brigham's two orphaned or motherless kids, raised them, and then had her own bunch of kids by him. And for all accounts, she was evidently a good mother. But she was no competition to Brigham, being able to go and woo beautiful young women. You look at Ann Eliza Webb that ended up divorcing him. She was a beautiful woman. So Marianne angel had no candle to hold to Brigham's ability to get younger, attractive women. Anyways, I think it's very sad that a very good second marriage for him, because his first wife had died, was evidently a woman that was very faithful and a good mother and that he ruined her life by getting her all. Well, she was already involved in Mormonism, but taking her deeper into it and making her submit to polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:16:33] Are you ashamed or embarrassed to be a descendant?

Sandra Tanner [00:16:36] No, it's too far gone. It's too far past.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] Temple ceremony.

Sandra Tanner [00:16:47] It used to be before they changed it in 90. It was a real problem to people. I used to talk to people a lot that would come in, you know, what is this slit in the throats? You know, what have I got myself into? And you read stories of people that had gone through the ceremony, even if they don't come out until after 1990, they very often say that when they first went through the temple ritual, it was very disturbing for them. In fact, if you Listen to the Hans Mattson stuff and you get who is it? Jensen.

John Dehlin [00:17:21] Marlon Jensen.

Sandra Tanner [00:17:23] Jensen. I think that tells about his daughter having such a problem with the temple ritual because she went before 90 and her crying in the celestial room and asking her dad, what is this? What have I gone through? People that went through before 90 were deeply disturbed about this. Now they make the change in 90. And so we move up till today. And most people don't know what ever happened or it was ever there and probably say I was a liar for bringing it up. But people that went through the transition are troubled by the fact there was a transition. They didn't like the earlier ceremony. But how are you going to keep saying it's from God if you guys get to rewrite it to appeal to modern sensibilities? If it was important to have it in there in the first place. For instance, the embrace on the five points of fellowship, which were directly taken from Masonry, that was in the ceremony until 1990, if that was important and it used to be the highlight of the ceremony, you came to the veil, embraced God on the five points of fellowship and then drawn through to go to the celestial kingdom. They take that out. What is that saying that? I mean, they're so fanatic about how you're going to do the baptism. You got to hold their hands just a certain way and you got to say exactly the right formula to baptize them.

John Dehlin [00:18:44] Or if you miss a word on

Sandra Tanner [00:18:45] the sacrament, oh my word. I have sat in sacrament meetings where some poor 16 year old kid has had to say that five times and by then we're all just sweating with the kid, please say it right, you

John Dehlin [00:18:59] know, yeah, with the temple ceremony.

Sandra Tanner [00:19:01] And yet with the temple ceremony, major elements that they can remove. So how is that from God? And so that disturbs people.

John Dehlin [00:19:11] Were you one of the first to make the connections to the Masons or were those connections made way before you?

Sandra Tanner [00:19:19] Well, before us you had the Masons. What was his name? Goodman or Goodwin? Masonic guy that did a thing on Mormons and the Masons. And then was it Ivins or somebody that wrote a rebuttal back and trying to smooth it all out, The Masonic. And Brody mentions the Masonic connection. So there were others that had talked about it before us. The temple ceremony had printed before us, but it had been some years. It was 1931 when a guy minister named Padden, I think it was, did a printing of the Temple rit but no one had done it for a long time since. So we were a little concerned when we did it? But. But it's a major. Yes, that is a major issue to people and people that have been talking to Christians, the Christians are talking to them all the time about the temple was done away with Christ. That was the end of that. There's no Melchizedek priesthood that Mormons are bringing Old Testament into the New Testament. That shouldn't be there. We don't need any of these things. The temple veil was rent in half, and that was the end of the priesthood. The end of sacrifices, Book of Hebrews goes through all of that. And so people that are exposed to many Christian friends that talk, challenge them. They're often challenged on the unbiblical nature of the temple ritual, the priesthood concept in those areas.

John Dehlin [00:20:48] A lot of people like to give Dialogue sort of credit for the 1973 article Talking About Elijah Abel and how Joseph Smith gave blacks the priesthood before Brigham Young took it away. Yeah, it sounds like you were talking about that a little bit before Dialogue.

Sandra Tanner [00:21:04] We were doing that in the 60s. I had gone up. Well, a friend of ours had done research on the Abel family. We knew about Elijah Abel, but we didn't know what happened to him, whether he got to Utah and what happened to his family afterwards. A friend of ours went up and was checking. I don't know what all he was using to check, but tried to run down his family and see what was going on there. And he came back and told us that it looked like Elijah Abel's son and grandson up in Ogden had been ordained to the priesthood. And then somehow we found the obituary for either the son or the grandson that talked about him being an elder or something. So anyways, I went up to the genealogical library to look, see if I could find the ordination records for the grandson or the son, which was. It would have been the son, Enoch, I think his name was. And I was able to get the role for the ward or whatever. And there was his photo of his certificate to the priesthood. But I knew I couldn't take it up to their desk to ask for a photocopy because they would have to make it special. And I was afraid someone would make the connection. Why do you want this? And so I was afraid to talk to anyone about how to get that photo of that document. Well, our microfilm process we were using for a printing press at the time we had. The masters for the printing press were paper masters as opposed to metal ones. We had this paper master material that Gerald got thinking about. He says, I bet if we laid that on the screen of the Microfilm reader for a certain number of minutes. We could burn a master of that direct from their microfilm onto there. Well, how long do you think that would take? Well, so I don't know what all calculations Gerald did to try to figure out how long that would take. So we cut me several pieces of photographic material to fit. You know, when you look at a microfilm reader, you know, they come down and they have this base of, I don't know what are they, 18 inch square or something. And so they. He had kept me microfilm this master material to the size I needed. And I had several of them and I rolled them up and had them in my purse. And so I went into the library, got the film, turned to the, found the thing I needed. So I would just out of my purse, I would take one of these and lay it up there. And they had kind of a manila kind of a color to them anyway, so you wouldn't notice them laying there. And so I just lay there and read for.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:47] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:48] And roll it back up and put another one in. Okay. Read for a while, you know, and went through several of these and went home. And we were able to develop a photo of that certificate. But we were pressing them on all this stuff before the dialogue stuff was going on. Now they did more research than us. They carried it further. But. But we were right at the beginning all that.

John Dehlin [00:24:13] And basically this is showing that black people are receiving. Select black people are receiving the priesthood, I think up through 1890. Living black people with the priesthood.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:24] There's living people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] So Elijah Abel's son and grandson.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:30] Right. And what had happened on them is as the years went by, the family started putting around that they were mixed, Mexican, Spanish, and that accounted for the darkness in them. And so they passed into being white in Ogden. And so when this fellow, this friend of ours was doing all this research, he went and talked to one of the descendants, which scared her to death. She said, please don't go public with this. Don't take it any further than the son and grandson, because you get below that, you're going to run into people that don't know they have black blood and it's going to ruin their lives. They're going to use lose a priesthood. They're going to be zip in the Mormon community and you know, there's going to be a horrible effect. So we never took it past those two for that reason. We didn't want to cause living people grief, which it would have done. I mean, back then it would just been Horrible for someone to find out they were mixed black.

William Clayton's Journals and Joseph Smith's Marriages

John Dehlin [00:25:38] Recently I learned about William Clayton's journals. What's so disturbing? I've heard some people say that those are kind of disturbing. What's so disturbing about Clayton's journals?

Sandra Tanner [00:25:48] Yes, Some of it's polygamy, and some of it has to do with council of 50 and some political things that way that were going on in Nauvoo. But our interest was in the polygamy references. And so, yeah, that was another thing that got us in trouble. Different privileged scholars and BYU people had access to Clayton's diary, but not their rank and file. And word got around that some.

John Dehlin [00:26:23] And William Clayton was Joseph's scribe for.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:25] Yeah, his secretary for years. Faithful, trusted guy, wrote everything down. And so this researcher, ehat was a student at BYU and he had access to the diaries, and he had made some typed extracts and made a compilation of extracts from the diary that had some of this polygamy stuff. He had it in his file cabinet in his office at byu. And the office was also shared by a bishop's group or something. And so there was dual access to the room. Anyway, somebody that had access to the room, knew about the Clayton material, felt it was unjust that they couldn't see the diary or why should ehat have access to something I can't. I'm a good member and I can't see it. Why does he get to see it? So this guy goes in and takes his notes and photocopies them, and then they get spread all over byu and eventually a copy came to us. Well, we. His notes had his comments in between the extracts. So we blanked out all of his comments, just photographed the pages showing the extracts. And were they disturbing? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:44] Like what kind of stuff?

Sandra Tanner [00:27:48] That Joseph gets Clayton to go into polygamy. Clayton's wife's mother and sister are living with them. And so Clayton feels like, you know, God's told him, Joseph's told him he's got to live polygamy. So he goes to Joseph, okay, he wants to marry his wife's sister. I think her name's Margaret. And Joseph says, okay, yeah, you can marry her in polygamy. And then Joseph, then he comes back to Joseph in euphemistic ways. He says that, you know, Margaret's pregnant. And so what's going to happen when people figure this out? And what if charges are brought against me for getting her pregnant? And it hasn't said this clearly, but that's what's going on. And Joseph says, oh, don't worry, about it, I'll have to put you out of the church for a while, but later on I'll bring you right back in and set you right back up again.

John Dehlin [00:28:46] Does he do it?

Sandra Tanner [00:28:48] Evidently.

John Dehlin [00:28:49] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:49] And. Well, so that worked out. So then. Well, actually, there's a big story behind that. Margaret was in love with a guy that was on his mission. And he comes back and he's devastated because they have to tell him. She tells him, well, she probably was showing in her pregnancy by then anyways. He becomes aware that she's pregnant with Joseph's child or Clayton's child, and everybody's unhappy. And so Clayton, and this is parts in his diary, he goes to Joseph and nobody's happy. Can I release Margaret to go marry so and so. And Joseph tells him, no, once you're sealed by the priesthood. And that's it. There's no divorce in this. Of course, later, everyone's going to get divorces. But this point, no, you're stuck. You got, you know, that's it. Just tell her she got to buckle down because you can't get a divorce. And everyone's unhappy. And so poor Clayton, he's just lamenting that Margaret can't love him like she loves this other guy. And he feels bad about this because the other guy would take her, even being pregnant.

John Dehlin [00:29:59] Kind of like Joseph did with Mary.

Sandra Tanner [00:30:01] Yeah. So. So that's in there. Then you have the story of Joseph and Emma go to visit one of the families in Nauvoon. I don't remember the name of the family now, but when Joseph drops Emma off and he's going to the temple to check on things, and she's sitting there talking with the family, this young girl, teenager in the family sitting across from her. And the young girl has a gold pocket watch. Well, evidently Joseph must have given one to Eliza R. Snow. Emma sees that and immediately knows that he must have married this girl. So she's in a real snit about this. Joseph comes back to pick her up and she's mad. And so Clayton tells how. Because Joseph must have told him this whole story when he got home. He tells how all the way home, the two of them argued and fought over this polygamy deal. And then he says when they got home, this arguing now, they wouldn't have had too long a journey. I mean, it's just Nauvoo. I mean, it's not like it's the other side, you know, the world. But they argued all the way home. And when they get home, Clayton says Joseph used I Think the word is severe. No, harsh. He used harsh measures to put an end to the argument. They already argued all the way home. So what were the harsh measures? I think he hit her. I think Emma could have been an abused wife. I don't know that, but that implies to me that he hit her to stop the argument.

John Dehlin [00:31:49] Use force in some way.

Sandra Tanner [00:31:51] Use some kind of force to stop the argument. Very unhappy home life. The church always paints him and Emma as this beautiful couple. And yet you get reading the problems of how Emma's confronting him on polygamy. That's why it's so disturbing to people once they read the women's stories. It's one thing to see names on a sheet of paper when you see these as real people and the turmoil this put Emma through of having. She's trying to help these young women in Nauvoo have a place to live. She's trying to be a mother to all these people, and then feels betrayed. Joseph's in the. Behind the closet door putting the moose on him. You take the two sisters, he marries secretly, and then that doesn't work out. And finally they have a big standoff in the front room where the two girls are brought in, and Joseph's there with Emma. He's sheepishly hanging his head and says, sorry, girls, I guess you're going to have to move out. What? Two young girls have married him because he's a prophet of God, and God said the angel is going to kill him if they don't live. Polygamy. And they submit to all this, and now Emma's throwing a snit. So, sorry, you'll have to move out. So they move down the street and we don't, you know, how did they feel about that? I don't know, but it looks like I'd have been pretty ticked. Now, they evidently stayed with the church, but polygamy has really become a major issue of late, more than it was in the past, because we know more about it, because the women are real. And when you read real stories of these women and what they all went through, then you realize that it was a horrible thing and it was agonizing for these women. It changed their lives. They submitted to Joseph, and it cost them dearly. Their reputations, their position. I mean, these young girls, they suddenly realized, I can't go out and date. I can't be part of the party scene anymore in Nauvoo. Just what a devastating thing for them.

John Dehlin [00:33:59] I'll refer our listeners to Lindsay Hanson Park's feminist Mormon housewives podcast or they're doing A Year of Polygamy where they're going over an episode for each of Joseph's wives. I hear it's a great episode. Also, Signature Books has recently, I think, in the past year or two, released the William Clayton Diaries.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:19] Yeah. And it would have these extracts I'm talking about.

John Dehlin [00:34:22] And I hear it's really harrowing stuff.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:24] Yeah. Also, the Todd Compton's book on the In Sacred Loneliness. So the stories of the different women, they were married to, Joseph Smith. Todd writes it as a faithful Mormon in honoring these women for the sacrifice they made. But when you read the sacrifice they made, it doesn't make you feel warm fuzzies toward Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:34:47] But in all fairness, there are some wives that say it was wonderful and they loved it, Right?

Sandra Tanner [00:34:52] Well, yeah, some women stay with husbands that beat him. I don't know that that's a selling point.

John Dehlin [00:35:02] All right, Thomas Stewart Ferguson, tell us that story.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:09] Okay. Most people never heard of him back when we were. Well, back in the late 50s. If you were trying to defend the Book of Mormon and your Protestant friend had told you, there's nothing to prove the book Mormon. It's all nonsense. And you go to the Deseret Bookstore, what can I buy to help bolster my faith? You would have seen a book by Milton R. Hunter and Thomas W. Ferguson writing to prove the Book of Mormon. And this would have all these wonderful stories of artifacts in the Mayan culture that would prove the Book of Mormon back in the 50s.

John Dehlin [00:35:49] Baptismal fonts and Tenochtitlan and.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:53] Yeah, these big.

John Dehlin [00:35:54] The white God that came down.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:56] These big cement wheels, Wheels, Circles that were supposed to prove they had cherries. I don't know what. I think they would have pulled them, because you get four of those wheels and you aren't going anywhere with 20 mammoths anyways. But this was the book you would have gone to to found arguments that, yes, there is something in the Mayans to tie to. Okay, so then.

John Dehlin [00:36:25] So Ferguson was an archaeologist.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:27] No, he was a lawyer. He started what was it called? New World Archaeological Society.

John Dehlin [00:36:33] I'll refer listeners to the Michael Koh podcast where we talk a little bit more about this. It's good stuff.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:39] Yeah. And so Ferguson was so enamored of the Book of Mormon, so sure they'd find the proof if they just kept digging. In Mesoamerica, he had got the church to kick in.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:53] I don't know.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:53] I don't remember now what it was. You know, thousands and thousands of dollars into the kitty to support his Investigation of trying to find support for the Book of Mormon, which shows that the

John Dehlin [00:37:07] brother must, must have believed at that

Sandra Tanner [00:37:10] time they thought there was something to find, or at least some of them did. Whoever hold the purse strings thought there was and was helping to fund his studies. And so one day I go to answer the door at the bookstore and this man introduced himself as Tom Ferguson. Well, it didn't register who this was because we had just been dealing with a woman in Las Vegas who had the last name of Ferguson. And I assumed this was one of her children coming to talk with me. Oh yeah, come on in, sit down. And we started talking and then he starts talking about his visit with Apostle Brown.

John Dehlin [00:37:55] QB Brown.

Sandra Tanner [00:37:56] QB Brown. And he starts talking about problems with the Book of Mormon and all that. And it dawns on me, oh my word, this is Thomas Ferguson. Hold that thought, I gotta go find Gerald. Just a minute. He'll never believe me if I don't get him in to hear this. So Gerald comes in and Ferguson's telling us about how he's decided there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:38:25] Around what year is this? Like 60s, early 70s, late 70s, early,

Sandra Tanner [00:38:30] early to be early 70s.

John Dehlin [00:38:33] Okay, so it's next door in the

Sandra Tanner [00:38:36] house, in our house next door. And he's telling us all this story of his talk with Brown and, and that he didn't believe the Book of Mormon anymore. And so we made the appeal to him that you owe it to the public to say something. If you can't come out and directly say the Book of Mormon is not true, there's no evidence for it. You at least ought to say something about some of the things you said in your book, that these no longer look to be viable options or something. You need to make something to kind of pull back from all these claims you made in your book. So we're trying to pitch that to him and he finally says, well, I have a son that is in his teens and he's too fragile in his mental health. I'm afraid if I were to go public on this, that he would have mental breakdown. He said, my son's too important to me for me to go public with all of this. I just can't do it. And that's the way it played out. So then later we found out about this paper he had written. The BYU guys, Sorenson, I don't remember who all was in the names at that time. Jakeman, I'm not sure. But anyway, several of the guys at BYU that were writing on archaeology stuff were doing Some sort of sharing of papers on Book of Mormon issues. And somehow this had involved Tom Ferguson as well. So Tom submitted his paper, only his was different to the rest of all the other guys. And his paper he went through and showed all the problems with they got the wrong metallurgy, they got the wrong animals, they got the wrong plants. And he would list them out. Here's all the references on metallurgy in the Book of Mormon, where it would demand a very advanced metallurgy. Here's the plants they have. They got wheat and all this stuff that they couldn't have had here. They got horses, they got chariots, all the different kind of animals the Book of Mormon mentions that couldn't be here. And he goes through all these things and says, none of the. It's all out of place. None of this could have been here. Everything we know about the Mayans, none of this could have existed. And so he had this paper. Well, we printed it up. And that got all kind of stuff brewing on Bruja on Book of Mormon issues. Then a lot of people didn't want to believe us that Ferguson had really said that. Ferguson, however, had privately written to several different people telling them that he didn't believe the Book of Mormon, Mormons questioning Mormons that had written him for help. And he would write and tell them, oh, just stay part of the club. Yeah, it's not true, but, you know, I still sing in the choir. It's like, you know, fraternity or something. You know, you're part of the group and just go along with the flow. But he didn't believe it. And one of the letters, he talks about the problems with the Book of Abraham. I think that was the real final blow for him. When the Book of Abraham issue came out, he had taken the pictures of the facsimiles to linguists at Berkeley, I believe, because that's where he lived, up in that area of California. And he took these to these professors who didn't know anything about Mormonism that he knew of and just showed them these facsimiles. Now, what are these about? Oh, well, yeah, this Osiris, this is isis, this Anubis, you know, and they're giving the Egyptian rundown on the whole thing. And he realized the critics are right. The Book of Abraham has no foundation. None of this stuff matches what Joseph Smith said it meant. So that was his final blow on Mormonism. So we got involved in a bunch of that stuff. Ferguson died, and his son then collaborated with a guy at BYU to write a book that was Supposed to save Ferguson's reputation and was supposed to be developed from the notes that Ferguson left behind to try to say that Ferguson still believed things. But I think it was Stan Larsen, who used to be a church translator, got fired for writing stuff about Book of Mormon stuff, and he ended up at the University of Utah for years as the archivist there for manuscripts. But I think it was him that went to BYU and checked out the manuscripts of whatever the kid had used for writing the book. And he said, no, Ferguson didn't leave anything detailed enough that you could have built this book from it. The notes in the margins would say need to revise or need to revisit or something. Well, that doesn't tell you what way he was going to revise it or revisit it. So, anyways, once the issue came up whether or not this was really true about Ferguson, we started collecting up different letters that showed that was the case. And then finally, Stan Larsen took on the project, gathered up all the Ferguson stuff, all the letters he could, and then he came out with his book. Was it Quest for the Book of Mormon, where he tells the Ferguson story and how he came to disbelieve it, the letters that he wrote to people, how he dealt with it, how he advised just going with the flow, staying with it, and don't upset your family, but none of it's true.

Significant Documents and the Ferguson Story

John Dehlin [00:44:37] And didn't the Ferguson family of disavow kind of deny that he lost his faith?

Sandra Tanner [00:44:43] Yes, that's why the son was trying to do that book.

John Dehlin [00:44:47] So kind of a sensitive issue. You probably read a little bit about this on the Mormon Stories blog or maybe on Facebook. There was a disagreement between Eugene England and Bruce R. McConkie. Yeah, talk about that and then we'll talk about the letters.

Sandra Tanner [00:45:10] Okay. One day I'll have to tell you first, we have stuff that just happens. I mean, people give us documents, photos or whatever because they can't do anything with them because of their position, and they want someone to do something with it. So someone gave us a copy of the McConkie letter to Eugene England where he admits that Brigham Young did teach Adam God, but England shouldn't be talking to anyone about this and really castigates England that the brethren get to set doctrine, not the BYU guys, and got after him on several things. But to us, one of the important things in the letter was the verifying that Brigham did teach Adam God.

John Dehlin [00:46:02] Wasn't that in journal discourses?

Sandra Tanner [00:46:04] Well, who reads them? Well, they were published, yes, but the church had denied it for Years that the church had. Well, like when I first asked questions back in talking to my bishop in 59 and 60, that Joseph Fielding Smith's answer that it was just one sermon in the one volume in the Journal of Discourses and maybe it was written down wrong or it's a misunderstanding or whatever. They'd always tried to smooth that all over. And so here is McConkie. I mean, yeah, an apostle admitting, yeah, he did teach Brigham Young. He was wrong. Sometimes he said it right, sometimes he said it wrong. In this case he's wrong. So it was kind of a big deal.

John Dehlin [00:46:48] And maybe he wasn't too kind to Eugene England in the letter.

Sandra Tanner [00:46:52] Oh no, he was very castigating to him. We set doctrine, not you. So he really was calling him on the carpet on stuff. Anyways, a copy of the letter came to us and we felt this was an important document in here's an apostle admitting Adam God doctrine. He's admitting how they deal with sensitive areas, problems they don't agree with. They just hide it. You don't talk about it, you just talk about the good stuff. Brigham said, you don't talk about all this other stuff. See. So we thought this was an important letter to make public and so we printed it up. Now my understanding on this is that when, when McConkie sent the letter to England, that McConkie made copies of it that were sent to several associates, Eugene England. Now I don't know who the associates were, but evidently several other people got copies of that letter. England was out of the country at the time, so he didn't get the letter whenever.

John Dehlin [00:48:07] Apparently you got it before England did.

Sandra Tanner [00:48:10] Yeah, but that's because one of his buddies spread it around BYU back in those days they used to, people used to joke about the Mormon underground. There really was like in the Mark Hoffman days, that's what he counted on. Giving advertisement to his business was through the Mormon underground put out, oh, did you know Mark's got a new document? And then he spread the word around and it wasn't organized. It was just a bunch of people of like minded people trying to put all the pieces together in Mormon history. And not necessarily all agreeing with each other's position but wanting to get all the documents they could. And so there was a trading going on. I have two Joseph Smith's letters. What do you have? You know, well, I got a Brigham Young letter. Okay, I'll swap you for that. You know, I mean there was this trading going on in the Mormon underground for documents because the church was setting on Everything. So maybe you get in the church historian's office and you get a photocopy of some rare thing that nobody else has seen. And so then you go to so and so who? He's got some other rare document he got to see. Trade your mind for yours. Well, mine's worth more than yours, so you got to give me two things, you know? So anyway, she had all this kind of stuff going on. So, I mean, that's how a copy of England's Eugene England's letter came to us. It was irrelevant to us who the letter was to. I mean, it was important that it went to a BYU professor, but that was not our focus. The focus was, this is an apostle making statements on doctrinal issues that should be known to everybody. Why is one person privy to this information and not everybody? Why can't the rest of us know that he concedes Brigham Young taught Adam Codd? So, anyways, we printed the letter, and it caused a big broujah and got the England family all mad. And I guess it caused them some embarrassment that we printed it. But we. That was a byproduct of it, you know, I had no intention of embarrassing anybody or causing them problems. I felt they're both public figures. This is, like, news, you know. So anyways, we printed it, and, you

John Dehlin [00:50:27] know, a member of the family reached out to me and just said that from their perspective, the letter was obtained illegally. You had no right to share it. You didn't have permission to share it. And it caused brother England a significant amount of pain and suffering. Eventually, he, I guess, is forced out of BYU or made to be so uncomfortable that he leaves.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:52] But that's shooting the messenger. The problem is the church, not me. The church set up that scenario. They were the ones hiding history, telling England he can't be honest with people. We're in charge. You can only tell them what we tell you to tell them. So why aren't they mad at the church as far as the distribution of the letter? Then go get mad at the guy that first made the copy, that spread it around. And maybe more than one did. I don't know how many of the guys made copies, but people all over BYU had copies before I did.

John Dehlin [00:51:29] But isn't it a different thing to actually put it in print and publish it and sell it?

Sandra Tanner [00:51:33] Yes, but if you're a whistleblower on the tobacco company, what are your concerns? If you get a letter where the tobacco chief admits it causes cancer, but it went to somebody that will be embarrassed by the revelation I mean, we felt this was a very important part of the whole story of Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:51:55] And if you had to say something to the England family now about the hurt they feel it caused, what would you say?

Sandra Tanner [00:52:00] I'm real sorry that it did. We had no intention of hurting the family. I didn't really consider that it would have caused him that. I really didn't think that one through. I guess I didn't think about it being that big of a thing for him because I thought the bigger embarrassment would be McConkie, that his letter was given out. In a sense, McConkie took it out of the private domain when he sent copies to other people.

John Dehlin [00:52:34] That's fair.

Sandra Tanner [00:52:36] So it wasn't just privilege between two people. McConkie gave copies to others. Once you do that, you have lost control of a document. Then anyone could have shared it.

John Dehlin [00:52:45] And yeah, I guess if it hadn't been you, it could have been shared in some other way.

Sandra Tanner [00:52:50] It would eventually been somebody else, but it would have come out eventually when you have copies. I mean, I think most of the historians that we would both know that were around in that day probably got copies of it.

John Dehlin [00:53:03] But you regret that it's caused pain?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:05] Yes, I'm very sorry that it caused the England family heartache on that. But they're shooting the messenger. They're not turning their anger to the right place.

Leonard Arrington, Church Archives, and the Handbook Case

John Dehlin [00:53:16] Okay, Arrington papers. Yeah, talk about that for a bit. Leonard Arrington, who was he?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:26] He was church historian and he got done a dirty deal by the church. He wanted to do, what was it, this 26 volume of church history that was going to be what they should have done years before and which evidently they're trying to do now. And England was just a. Not England. Arrington was just ahead of his time. And so the church had got all these different scholars under contract for their volumes that they were going to do on church history, covering the whole spectrum from the beginning up to the time of the contracts. And so then somebody realized this was going to be more truth telling than they felt comfortable with. Somebody must have a knee jerk reaction to this and decided they got to pull the plug on it. And so then you've got people with manuscripts that are half written or already signed on with the church or whatever. And you have all these people caught in the double bind of what do I do now? I've got all this time and money invested in this research. Do I sign off and give it to them even though they say they're going to deep six the book? I'll get Paid but that'll be the end of my research or do I pay back the advance royalty they gave me or whatever and publish it myself or seek another publisher. Some of them did go out and seek other publishers and some of them did finally come out in books. Others of them had to give up their manuscripts. I don't know how they feel about it now but it was a big mess. And Arrington got promoted to the BYU from the church historian's office which was really a demotion but they had to put it more to make it look like he was getting something better. But he really wasn't. He was taken out of historians office and my understanding that for a long time anyways they didn't even have his picture up. When they showed the wall that had all the historians, his picture wasn't up there. I don't know if they changed that now but for years it wasn't. You wouldn't even know anything happened. So then he has all this research and papers that end up going to Utah State. And then the church must have realized that that would have a lot of stuff in it they wouldn't want necessarily public. So then they put the kibosh on that and told the university they're coming up and picking up some of the stuff. Well I probably wanted it all but they were able to come up and get several boxes. I was aware of the situation at the time. When did that happen? Do you remember the year of that?

John Dehlin [00:56:26] No.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:29] Might have been when Gerald had Alzheimer's. I just. There was no way I could get a way to go up because someone had called and told me if you come up today you can come up and you can see his papers before the church comes up and gets them. And I just couldn't get away so missed out on that. But evidently they took back stuff that would have related to the Mountain Meadow massacre research that they weren't ready for that to go public in the raw form at least whatever his notes were. A lot of that came out later. But at the time the church was trying very hard to hold back on certain things and we know that was at least one of the items that was what the church took back. Arrington to me is a very sad case of someone who was trying to do the right thing too early and the church wasn't ready for someone to tell the whole story.

John Dehlin [00:57:23] Did you ever meet him?

Sandra Tanner [00:57:26] I think I met him at some history things or something but I didn't know him.

John Dehlin [00:57:34] The church has sued you guys, right?

Sandra Tanner [00:57:36] The Mormon Church sued us in 1999, 2000 time frame. We had so many people coming to us asking how they get their name off the rolls. People would tell their bishop, I want to leave the church. And the bishop would essentially say, well, you didn't do it right. And they'd say, well, how do I do it right? Well, you know, you got to write a letter. And la, la, la. And the people get frustrated because they always keep getting this thing of we'll let you know, or we're going to do it. But they wouldn't. Or they wouldn't tell them just how to do it. If you send in a form letter, they wouldn't accept it. That send it back. It's got to be your personal letter. And people say, how do. How are we supposed to know what the rules are? We want our name off. They keep getting more teachers out the fast offering people, people contacting their kids, all kind of stuff still going on. I want to separate myself from the church. How do I do this? And I got so tired of telling people about the church handbook, what it says. People want to know, well, if I get a divorce, what will this mean for my temple sealing? If I leave the church, how will that affect all of that? What if my husband then wants to marry some other woman, have the kids sealed to her? Is my ceiling still intact? And so I'm telling people all the time, well, this is what the church handbook says. This is what it says. And, you know, so I finally thought, well, the easiest thing would be to just print those pages of the church handbook which members didn't have access to. Now people will say to me, oh, well, they have access. It's in the bishop's office. And I said, yeah, how many members know it's there and how many would be given access to it? People didn't know to ask. That's why they come to me. They didn't know there was anything like a handbook. They gave instructions. So we put up parts of the church handbook pages that told about how to take your name off, who you contact, all that kind of stuff and ramifications on ceilings and stuff that way. And so one day I'm here in the bookstore and two guys come in, and they were in this, I don't know, look like a Lincoln Continental or something. Real spiffy black car. And they come in, they're obviously lawyers. They got that black suit and that long coat, you know, I mean, there's just a lawyer look about this. These two guys come in, and I said, hi. And they said something about, do you know why we're here. And I said no, and said, well, we're here to serve papers on you. And the guy gets out of inside of his coat and hands me this thing that says if we don't have those pages off our web page by 1 o' clock, and this is like 11 o' clock that they come in, if you don't have those off of the webpage by one o', clock, we're going to sue you for copyright infringement for putting up those pages on the website. I think they were counting on us not having somebody on site to handle our webpage, but we did. I went in the other room and said, mark, we got to take that down. Church is threatening to sue us. So he had it down, probably had it down by 12. Didn't matter. At 5 o' clock they, they filed or whatever. Just before 5, they filed on the lawsuit immediately. I mean, there was no niceness about this at all. They weren't giving us any chance. Although they came in and said, you know, in this, that if we have it down by one, that if we don't have it down by one, they'll sue us. They intended to sue us no matter what because we had it down and they still went ahead with it. So the copyright thing got to be a real hairy deal. One of the problems was the judge we had did not understand Internet. And then that time there was very little Internet law. And so a lot of things weren't understood of what can you do on the Internet that you couldn't do other places or property rights and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of confusion on Internet law. Our argument was going to be that the Church handbook has a history of 100 years. Publication of various editions that gradually grew more and more complicated through the years. So what part of that are we going to say was covered by copyright? Because there was parts of it done before copyright, then they added to it, and each time they'd add to it, they do another copyright. Okay, so the whole question would be, does your current copyright only copy protect you on a certain percent of this text and would the rest be in public domain because it was done too early? So anyways, we felt that we could argue that they didn't have grounds for a copyright suit on it and that it was fair use. And we were showing it, we weren't making money on it, we weren't selling it. It was just on our webpage to give information to help people take their name off the roll and boy, they were out for blood. I think they really thought they had a chance to bankrupt us. So we hadn't really got very far into depositions or anything yet, but we took that right down and we put up a thing on the website about how we were being sued and stuff and people sent us letters. So this one guy sends a letter that he says, well, this is ridiculous since there's another site out there that has the whole church handbook on it and they aren't suing them. Okay, so we put this guy's letter up in our newsletter or just directly on the site where he says that it's in this other website. It wasn't a hot link. You would have had to copy and paste the web address to have gone to it. Well, when we put that letter in these guys, the Mormon lawyers hauled us back into court that we were defying the judge's order, doing end run around, that we couldn't publish the document anymore until this was resolved. Well, we weren't distributing it anymore. We had this letter that had mentioned this isn't fair because this other side has the whole thing. And so the judge put this ruling out that we were in contempt of court for putting up this website. Well, the Salt Lake Tribune and the New York Times had both reported on the case. I mean, we were big news in Internet law, not just Mormon Internet law, because there were so few cases on Internet stuff. Well, when the Salt Lake Tribune and the New York Times ran their articles and they mentioned this other site, theirs was a hot link. If you went to their paper and read it online, it was a hot link. You just pressed on that and you could go to this guy's site that had the whole handbook. And so it was really kind of crazy. So what's the point of coming after me for just typing the address that's not a hot link? Well, the judge can't understand the fine point of this because she doesn't understand Internet and hot links and not links and cut and paste and all that kind of stuff. And so she rules against us that we were contributing to copyright violation by putting up the address to the website. What this would have done if they'd have gone forward the trial, what this would have done was ruined the Internet because it would have meant you could not refer anyone to any website for fear that if it had copyright infringement, you could be held just as equally responsible for copyright infringement. You see how this would cripple things. We appealed it to the 10th Circuit Court in Denver, that this is crazy. You can't have a law that says you can't put up a link in case it has that. You're going to make me responsible for copyright material on someone else's side. So we get it over. The Denver Appeal Court and the course of courts are all backed up, 10th Circuit's way backed up. So they want to try to work through everything they can without going to actual before the judges. So court arbitrator or whatever comes to talk and talk to our lawyer about, is there some way we can reach an agreement between the parties on this so it doesn't have to go before the judges? So my lawyer calls me and says, well, so what do you think? Would you be willing to negotiate? And in 2000, this is when Gerald was starting in more noticeably into his Alzheimer's. I knew that a lawsuit like this would take at least five to seven years to go through the courts. I knew those were the years, the only good years I would have left with Gerald. And I thought, I can't do that to Gerald. And I said, well, yeah, if there's some way to negotiate. I said, but there's certain conditions. I will not admit to wrongdoing, and I won't pay them any money. Now, if you can negotiate something outside of that, then let's talk. So the church came back and said through their lawyer, as of whatever day we settle this, I have to destroy all copies of the handbook that I have in my possession. Well, I had additions going way back, the different ones. And I talked to my lawyer about this, and he says, you just give away those copies. You keep one copy. The day you sign it, you destroy that copy and you cleared that. He says, there's nothing in it that says you can't own a copy tomorrow.

John Dehlin [01:08:04] That's kind of sneaky.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:06] Yeah, go get them all tomorrow. But today, you're gonna have to destroy them. Whatever ones you got at that time, wherever, in your building, on your computer. Everything has to be deleted today. Do whatever you want tomorrow. Oh, okay. I can live with that. And then it's stipulated. We could not quote more than 50 words out of the handbook in any one article. Well, I thought, that's stupid. I could print the whole thing 50 words at a time as a running thing in different articles. Okay, so I'm trying to think through, what are the chances I'd need 50 words out of handbook again? And I thought, well, in light of a lawsuit, probably pretty small. I can work around that. So I thought, okay, I'll give them the 50 words. And there were, you know, little stupid things like this in the Stipulation, but. So I signed off of it. The law. Oh, the one thing we negotiated, besides not guilty, not paying him money. The third one was that the judge would vacate her order on the linkage ruling that she made. And so she vacated her ruling, although lawyers still use it in arguments. And the whole thing went away. Then it all just resolved. But I think the church thought they had a chance to once and for all get rid of the Tanner. They didn't count on the problem of the Internet.

John Dehlin [01:09:33] Yeah. In more ways than one.

Sandra Tanner [01:09:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:37] Were you guys involved in the God Makers?

Sandra Tanner [01:09:39] I was interviewed for the God Makers. I had nothing to do with the production or the outline, the story, how it was done. I had no editing voice. I was just interviewed for it. I didn't know ahead of time what the storyline was going to be. I didn't know more than anybody else that got interviewed in it.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] Did you like it once you saw it?

Sandra Tanner [01:10:02] No. Gerald and I were both upset with the tone and we felt that there were some exaggerations in it that we felt were just. Well, they exaggerated some people's credentials and this has been brought out before. Like one minister. They speak of him as being an archaeologist, expert on Mayan stuff or whatever. No, he's a minister. He's read up on that stuff. So have I. But I would hardly consider myself an expert on Mayan just because I've read a number of books on it. So it was overstating people's credentials. But then one of the things that bothered me was, and it's a very touching story, they interview this father of a son that commits suicide and they lay it all to the church's lap that the son committed suicide. Well, in some ways it was, but it was a situation that could have played out in any church. Evidently, the son had, as I understand it, it wasn't explained in the film, but my understanding is the son had a very severe problem with masturbation and the church had him feeling so guilty and so defeated, something he couldn't control and he didn't know what to do. And he was always sinning and just going deeper and deeper in a hole that that's why he finally committed suicide. Well, so the father's putting it to the church. Their pressure on perfectionism is what led the kid to suicide. Well, yes, that's true, but it's also, unfortunately, something that could have happened in many other settings. So I was a little troubled by that, that. It just. It seemed to single out them as the guilty of something that could just as easily happen in their next door neighbor's house. So I in a film that was to show you what's wrong with Mormonism. It was the way it was handled.

John Dehlin [01:12:13] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories Podcast. To check out the video version of this episode, go to YouTube.com mormonstories to continue the conversation or to keep these podcasts alive through a financial contribution, please check us out@mormonstories.org and thanks for listening.

Sandra Tanner [01:12:35] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way, though hard to you this journey may appear gracious shall be as your day. Tis better far

Sandra Tanner [01:13:06] for us to strive

Sandra Tanner [01:13:10] Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well.

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 475

Guest [00:00:01] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy when you're away.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] To check out the video version of this episode, go to YouTube.com mormonstories to keep these podcasts alive, please consider a financial contribution today@mormonstories.org and thanks for listening. So let's move to kind of personal questions that people have asked about you guys, your history, your intentions. What are some of the biggest misperceptions? Do you ever feel misjudged?

Sandra Tanner [00:00:43] Yes. There have been stories that we've stolen things out of the church archives, which we never have. Like I told you, on that microfilm, I just made a copy from their reader. There was nothing illegal in that. So there's been some misunderstanding on some things that way where we've been accused of stealing stuff that we never did. I know some other people who got things through conniving ways, but we never told anyone to or endorsed anyone. I know one fellow at BYU was taking microfilms out of the BYU library and substituting another roll of film in it and then sending the microfilm out to have it copied and then go back and switch it back. And so some things that came out came through that kind of a process, but we had nothing to do with that. We may have benefited by it. We may have used some of the photographs later, but it wasn't something that was our method. It wasn't our way of approaching things. We had people come to us and say, hey, I can go through the temple. I got a temple recommend. I can go through and get the latest ritual. And we always told people, no, we'd rather not. We know enough about the temple. We don't need someone to go through and get a new copy of it for our means. We had enough research on it to show our problems with it. We tried to discourage that sort of thing. Now I know New Name Noah has filmed the whole thing and has it all up on the Internet. And it's certainly fascinating to watch. But again, it was not anything I would have encouraged or told someone to do. I'm troubled by that approach. But we've been. Anything that happens that way, we get accused of the being behind it all, that we have done some way, something dishonest that way.

John Dehlin [00:02:47] But sometimes you'll print things that were obtained inappropriately.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:51] Well, like the Eugene England letter. Yeah, if you want to say that was inappropriately. Yeah. So one thing that's got some people upset was the. When we printed Mike Quinn's paper on being a Mormon historian, we felt that was in the Public domain. He gave a public talk. He distributed copies of the talk. A friend of ours wrote to him. I don't remember if she paid money, but she wrote for a copy of the talk that he sent to her and then we ended up printing it. We felt that that was in the public domain at that point. So I mean, yeah, made Quinn mad. And in hindsight maybe would have been better not to have done that. But we didn't feel at the time that we were doing anything illegal. One could argue it wasn't morally right, but I don't think you can argue it was illegal.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] What do you think about it being immoral?

Sandra Tanner [00:03:49] That gets back to the whole thing. On the whistleblower. In any kind of corrupt organization, do you believe anyone ever has a right to be a whistleblower? And I'm for whistleblowers. So I would defend the moral value of the greater good. For instance, on, like on the tobacco industry.

Criticisms of the Tanner' Approach and Tone

John Dehlin [00:04:14] Yeah, sure.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:15] I think there are times, well, in any industry you always have the corporate headquarters hiding stuff from the lower guys. When anything went amok, you got to hide it and then you have a whistleblower that brings it out. We viewed our situation with the Mormon Church in that kind of a relationship that the corporation had been dishonest and the stockholders had a right to know what really was going on.

John Dehlin [00:04:39] Do you embrace the term anti Mormon?

Sandra Tanner [00:04:41] No, I think it's. I think it's a very. It's like saying nigger. It's a way to demean someone, to ridicule them, to make them nothing, to have no account so that it implies. It sounds like I'm opposed to all the people I'm not opposed to. I'm not anti Mormon. I'm anti Mormonism. I don't believe in the Mormon Church. I don't think it's a value significant enough to keep it going just because some families enjoy it and they like reading the Book of Mormon. I think there are bigger issues here than just whether someone enjoys it. So yes, I'm fighting against the church institution, but it's because I value the members right to freedom of information. They have a right to know and make their own decisions. The members aren't making decision informed decisions. People being converted in are not given a fair shot at making an informed decision on what they're joining. They're given a candy coated, very simplistic presentation. They don't know what they're really in. I talk to the people after they join that call me up and say I didn't know they believed in plural gods. I didn't know. I didn't understand this whole polygamy thing. I didn't understand that men could still get sealed to more women. What is this? So I deal with the aftermath of the people that find it out after they've joined. After they spent five years, I had one couple call me up specifically on the polygamy issue, and they were out in Ohio area or something. When they joined the church, they had specifically grilled the missionaries on polygamy. It's a debt issue. It never happens. That was just for when there was more women than men in Utah. Once they took care of that imbalance, it was dropped and it's all dead. It's all gone. Okay. Five years later, they're sitting in some gospel doctrine class and something comes up about section 132 and polygamy. And then someone asks a question about, oh, yeah, well, that reminds me. I was doing genealogy for my dad and we were trying to figure out who to seal the kids to and who to seal the witch women and all this stuff. And it all comes out that, oh, well, yeah, you can have another wife sealed to you. Yeah, your dad that was married to your mom and she died and he marries this other lady and he sealed to her in the temple. Yeah, he can have both women. There's no worry about who the kids are sealed to because it's just going to be one big family. And they're like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought you guys told me there wasn't any polygamy. This sounds like you're talking polygamy in heaven. So next thing I know, I get a call from this distraught couple. What have we got ourselves into? The missionaries swart them down. There was no polygamy. We would not have joined if we had known that they still had polygamy on the books, that they still believed a man could be married to more than one woman, that they would live it in heaven. And they were out. They wanted to sue the church. They called me because they want to know the name of a lawyer. They wanted to sue the church for misrepresentation.

John Dehlin [00:07:52] All right, so whistleblowing.

Sandra Tanner [00:07:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:55] And not an anti Mormon.

Sandra Tanner [00:07:57] No. Critic of Mormonism. I would own up to being a critic of Mormonism, but I don't think that anti Mormon serves any purpose.

John Dehlin [00:08:06] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:08:06] It's a pejorative term.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] Okay. Some people have criticized your tone or your approach. Someone sent me some criticisms that I believe Leonard Arrington is quoted to have made that sometimes you guys have Taken quotes out of context sometimes, Gerald, or you would write in caps or underline that some people view as kind of unprofessional or unscholarly and said, these people aren't highly educated, so it's just not a really credible scholarly enterprise. What would you say to those types of criticisms?

Sandra Tanner [00:08:46] Okay, in the 1960s, we're typing on a typewriter, doing a mimeograph. We didn't own the Deseret News. So, yes, it was unprofessional and

Guest [00:09:06] yes,

Sandra Tanner [00:09:06] and Gerald had really got sold on capitalizing on underlining. And I will concede that, yeah, it has an unprofessional look to it. I'll confess that we don't have a good education, but we're dealing with a bigger issue than that. And as far as taking the quotes out of context, we give more context than anybody who quotes bigger chunks of text than we do. So, I mean, what, I got to put the whole book in there. What does it take to be in context? You read any scholar that you want to pull off the shelf, he'll give you half a sentence quote that he's put in with his synopsis of what that paragraph was about. They don't give you. Very rarely will they give you a block of text from something they're quoting from. Okay, When I read through the different scholars books I've read the books they're quoting from, I don't need the whole chunk of text because they say that phrase, I know what they're talking about. But Joe Blow down the street doesn't. How is he going to evaluate that summary of the guy's paragraph with one sentence out of it? We had so many people in the 60s that saying, you guys are just lying. You're taking out of context. You don't know what you're talking about. You didn't prove your point. You only had one quote on that. Fine. Okay, we're going to beat you at that game. We're going to give you so many quotes, you can't deny it. And we're going to give you so much of the quote that you can't deny it. So, yeah, it's unprofessional. We weren't trying to write history. We're trying to write a polemic of why not to believe Mormonism and go back to Christianity.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] All right. I also read that Leonard Arrington accused you guys of making the church scared so that they limited access to the archives. And that in a way, you caused a chill over Mormon history.

Sandra Tanner [00:11:02] But you're shooting the messenger again, who's the real problem here? And the church at the time would say, oh, if we let everyone into the church archives, they could make up just all kind of stories. No, the way you stop all kind of stories is make the archives open to everybody. Because then you would know if I was taking it out of context. The way to secure your history is everyone access and they know if you're telling the truth. So I think they're marking up the wrong tree. Arrington couldn't say anything to say my church is the problem, so let's shoot the messenger.

John Dehlin [00:11:40] Right. The number one question we received about you is around your maintenance of beliefs in Christianity. And basically the argument is you're willing to criticize everything up until the New Testament, but you're not willing to apply the same scrutiny to the New and the Old Testament. So there's.

Sandra Tanner [00:12:04] They don't know that. They don't know what I've read or what I've studied or what we've gone through. And Gerald did a whole book on the evolution of theory of man and all because of his father. Now, I mean there's only a few copies out there, but he read everything he could get hold of on all those different topics. I've read extensively on New Testament manuscripts and historical items on the Bible. Yeah, okay, so are we going to say that the only people that get to write religious history are unbelievers? Because are we going to say anyone that still believes could not have read the documents? Because I come out with a different answer, it makes me not have looked at them. So I think it's unfair. I don't think we're on the same. We are not on the same kind of investigation. It's not an equal playing field to compare the Book of Mormon to the Bible.

John Dehlin [00:13:05] And we talked about that. So let me just go through a bunch of issues. So Adam and eve, you know, 6,000 years ago, literal Adam and Eve, I

Sandra Tanner [00:13:13] do not feel constrained to have to be confined by 6,000 year Earth. I can accept an old Earth. I would be in the category of intelligent design.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] Okay, what about Noah and the ark and global flood?

Sandra Tanner [00:13:29] I would be more likely to think in terms of a local flood. Well, I mean a big flood. But when you say the whole world, I don't know, that reached Peru and all the animals for the area. I don't know, what about all the

John Dehlin [00:13:46] genocide in the Old Testament and all

Sandra Tanner [00:13:47] that awful stuff you're dealing with political situations where you have nations. Well, this nation's following this God, this nation's following that God. I mean, that's just the way warfare worked in those days.

John Dehlin [00:14:02] So that's people, not God. The genocide?

Sandra Tanner [00:14:06] No, I would say it was God included. I think God had his hand protecting Israel.

John Dehlin [00:14:11] Okay, but can you see how.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:16] I don't think you can move back to Old Testament times and judge it by our day.

John Dehlin [00:14:23] Right. But if you can say there's still value in the story of Adam and Eve, there's still value in the story

Sandra Tanner [00:14:28] there could have been an Adam and Eve. I'm not saying there wasn't, but I'm not saying there weren't people before them.

John Dehlin [00:14:33] I guess some people would say there's a leniency or an openness to. There's a flexibility that you're showing to the Old and New Testament that you won't necessarily apply to more.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:44] Because we're dealing with history of real people. There really are Israelites and there really is a Jerusalem.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] Well, some say there's no proof.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:51] There's nothing for the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:14:53] No. But some say there's really no proof that Moses existed, that Abraham probably.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:57] You're dealing with ancient texts, you're dealing with history. That we don't have the access to the history of the Old Testament like we do for the New.

John Dehlin [00:15:07] But does that make it less credible or more.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:11] Which? The Old Testament?

John Dehlin [00:15:13] No, that we have less documentation even for the Old Testament than the Book of Mormon.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:16] I'm saying it's hard to resolve the

John Dehlin [00:15:18] issues, which means you're more inclined or less inclined to believe.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:22] I'm saying that there are unresolved questions that I don't think we can answer with the limited amount of information we have.

John Dehlin [00:15:32] But shouldn't that incline you towards disbelief since there's not enough information?

Sandra Tanner [00:15:36] Not because when you get closer into historical time frame, then we have stuff we can check out. And it does lead to belief.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] For you.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:45] For me.

John Dehlin [00:15:45] Okay. And same with the New Testament. There are scholars that say that I think Ryan Roos wrote that like Second Peter was a forgery. That there are all sorts of problems with the historicity, the different accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the fact that they were handed down multiple generations orally before they were.

Sandra Tanner [00:16:04] But they weren't. Well, they weren't. You have a fragment of the Book of John in the 30s. 130. Fragment of John 17, I think it is. To have a fragment of John in 130 shows that it was an established text because it doesn't show up at Jerusalem. It's down the Mediterranean. So it shows it's a circulated text already. We aren't talking about this long history. You have John 1:1 in 1:70 or 80 A.D. which, by the way, refutes the inspired revision. Because in the beginning was the words exactly the same? Of course it's Greek, but I mean, it's the same text. So that I see the history of the New Testament as sufficient for me to believe it's true. What scholars accept of Paul's writing places you. And they do accept half of Paul's writing that places you back into the 40s and 50s. The Gospels are written after Paul. They're written in the 60s, 70s, and I know some scholars want to make it much later in that. But I think there are arguments for why it all has to be written before the destruction of Jerusalem. I don't have a problem accepting the historicity of the New Testament.

John Dehlin [00:17:41] What about the sexual deviants in the Old Testament? Why not give Joseph a break if you're going to give Abraham and Isaac and Jacob breaks, or David or Solomon, why is it bad if Joseph does it, but if Solomon and David and Abraham do it, it's okay?

Sandra Tanner [00:17:57] Well, I didn't say it was okay. Well, a lot of stuff's in the Bible. Slavery is in the Bible. That's what the south used to use as a justification for it. I don't see it that way.

John Dehlin [00:18:09] You're not an inerrancy type of person.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:12] It depends on. That's a big topic. And it's very nuanced how you define that word.

John Dehlin [00:18:17] Okay, but for you, a prophet, you're not necessarily saying everything a prophet does in the Old Testament is okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:24] The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible doesn't paint a glowing picture of David taking Bathsheba. We read about it. We know about his adultery. It isn't whitewashed. It's right there. When Noah gets drunk, it's right there. So. And when Abraham lies about Sarah, you're told about it and it doesn't say God told him. That's Joseph Smith's idea in the Book of Abraham to say that God told him to lie. Bible doesn't say that, just Abraham covering himself, that he tells her, oh, just tell him you're my sister. So I don't see them like with David, for him to have Uriah killed and to take Bathsheba was truly wrong, but he repents of that. I can deal with repentance. Joseph didn't repent. He didn't sin and then repent. He went to these women and said, God Told him do this repeatedly. So it's a whole different avenue than when I see men doing well. And besides that, polygamy in the Old Testament was never a religious rite. It was a cultural thing. A king came into office, he got the harem before him. I mean, this was all just the way society ran. But there's nothing in there to say God told anyone to do it.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] So you're saying once you're kind of lying that God said to do it. That's an extra level of evil for you?

Sandra Tanner [00:19:52] Well, yeah. Well, I think it's evil for I think David was totally wrong to have Uriah killed to take Bathsheba and he sinned.

John Dehlin [00:20:03] What about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's polygamy?

Sandra Tanner [00:20:08] They were going along with the cultural norm of the day. I'm not saying they were evil for their taking plural wives. It was the cultural situation of the day that God didn't tell them to do. It was just the way the culture went.

John Dehlin [00:20:23] Okay, but do you feel like you give the Bible more of a pass than you do Joseph Smith and Mormonism? I think I'm willing to give it more leeway.

Sandra Tanner [00:20:36] I think it deserves more leeway.

John Dehlin [00:20:38] So it's a double standard that you. That you feel good about?

Sandra Tanner [00:20:41] I don't think it's a double standard.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] But you said it deserves more leeway.

Sandra Tanner [00:20:48] You're dealing with historical items too far removed to know enough to make judgments on some things. I don't think that's the same as with Joseph Smith when you got all the documentation on exactly what he did and what happened.

John Dehlin [00:21:02] Right. Okay. Where do you go to church?

Sandra Tanner [00:21:07] Discovery Christian community.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] Where's that?

Sandra Tanner [00:21:10] Ninth east at 60th South.

John Dehlin [00:21:13] You like it?

Sandra Tanner [00:21:14] Yeah. Good pastor, good singing.

Christian Beliefs, Doubt, and Certainty

John Dehlin [00:21:16] All right, what about some of Christian doctrines? Do you believe that everyone who doesn't accept Jesus is going to hell?

Sandra Tanner [00:21:25] If God wants to let everybody in, that's okay with me. But his word says that few there be that enter in. So if I'm going to name the name of Christian, if I'm going to say I follow Christ, Christ seems to have left me with that position.

John Dehlin [00:21:41] Doesn't that disturb you, though?

Sandra Tanner [00:21:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:21:44] I don't think Joseph's ways better where everybody gets in.

Sandra Tanner [00:21:46] Do we just go by what's better? If we're going to go by what's better, then we should go new age, throw all religion out and just go pet cats.

John Dehlin [00:21:58] But that's what a lot of people do. Like, over half of ex Mormons become agnostic and atheists.

Sandra Tanner [00:22:04] Your Mormons become Atheists. There's a whole bunch of Mormons out there that are becoming Christians. You just don't run into them.

John Dehlin [00:22:10] Oh, me?

Sandra Tanner [00:22:12] Well, yeah, your podcast, your surveys, and that you are in contact with that segment more than you're, as far as I know, in contact with those that leave and become Christian.

John Dehlin [00:22:26] Well, there's certainly some, and even in my survey there's some. But in our studies, it's at least half that leave God and Jesus Christ.

Sandra Tanner [00:22:36] I'd probably grant you half.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] Yeah, that's all our study showed. But you've stuck around. How do you explain that? What kept those dominoes falling for you? That do you think that for others they've fallen? God and Jesus? Well, what do you base your beliefs on now?

Sandra Tanner [00:22:59] On the New Testament. I can accept it as a historical record of real events and that there really was a Jesus. Historians concede there was really a Jesus. The question is, did he raise from the dead? And I accept that the New Testament is sufficient, witnessed that something happened that significant that gave rise to the movement. I don't know how to explain the rise of Christianity outside of everyone at least firmly believing it happened. Whether you want to say that it didn't happen or not. I think the first go around of Christians had to believe the resurrection had happened or it had never got off the ground.

John Dehlin [00:23:46] So, you know, I guess it sounds like you're kind of basing that on the spiritual experiences you had that you mentioned in the late 50s, kind of the same type of burning in the

Sandra Tanner [00:24:05] bosom, but only because there was historical evidence to go with it. It wasn't isolated on just feeling. I did go. And now, granted, when I first came to Christ, I had not read critically on the Bible. I have since then, I have gone through periods when I wondered if there's a God. I think anyone that gets to be 73 has seen enough bad things in life to think, oh my God, where is he? You know that this happened. So I view my faith as a much more grounded faith than that day in my front room when I prayed the sinner's prayer. I don't think it's any different. It's more informed. So I'm committed to the Christian message. I believe it's viable. I think historically it's viable. I can't prove Jesus rose from the dead. You can't prove there's not a God. I mean, there's just certain things that just don't fall into that kind of an equation.

John Dehlin [00:25:08] Do you characterize your beliefs as knowledge or just hope or faith well, faith, knowledge. Do you feel like you have certainty? I feel like you have certainty.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:15] I feel like I have certainty, but I don't know. I'd say knowledge. That's getting back to my grandma saying believe, not know. I'm troubled by people that know everything.

John Dehlin [00:25:28] But what about all the Muslims and all the Buddhists and all the other religious traditions that feel the same way about their faith that you do about yours? How do you reconcile to me?

Sandra Tanner [00:25:38] The Muslims are just like the Mormons. They got a one guy prophet that invented their scripture that an angel supposedly brought to him. And I don't see it any more credible than the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:25:49] But Christianity has some guy raising from the dead. Like, what's credible about that? Well, and healing blind people and lame.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:57] And you know, I've seen healings and I believe that there is a power there that does heal. Doesn't happen all the time. Mormons say they believe in healings. It doesn't happen all the time for them either. But I believe that I have seen enough of God's working that for me. I can believe there is a higher power, there is a God that answers prayer. Now I'm going to cry. Taking care of Gerald for eight years. There are a lot of problems with that that I can't go into. But it was a hard time. But I feel God was there. Gerald and I grew closer than we ever had. We leaned on God more than we ever had. I felt God met us in that, in ways that we hadn't experienced before. So, yeah, I'm convinced that there's an afterlife and I'm going to see Gerald again. And I can't prove it to anyone. I had an experience. This sounds like Mormonism. I don't believe in people coming back from the dead, but Gerald came back to the dead, to me. And I even went and talked to my pastor about it because it doesn't fit my theology. But shortly after he died, I mean, a couple days later, he came to me in my bedroom and he stood before me and I went to him and I put my hand on the side of his face and it was warm. And I put my hand on his arm and it was solid. And I said, gerald, I know you're dead, but it's so good to see you. And he just smiled at me and then he was gone. And I talked to my pastor about that. I said, don't fit my theology because I don't believe in that. But it happened. And he says, well, why do you think it happened? What did you Take from it. And I said, I feel that God let me have that experience to know that he was at peace and that everything was okay. I could go forward in life knowing that he was okay. So, I mean, I don't. I was already Christian. I'm not basing my Christianity on this, but it's just one of the experience that says to me, I know there's a God. I know there's an afterlife. I know Gerald somewhere, I don't know where. And that I'll see him again.

John Dehlin [00:28:59] And that Christ made it possible.

Sandra Tanner [00:29:01] And. Yes, and Christ made it possible through the atonement and resurrection. And that sounds so much like a Mormon saying. Yes. But my grandma came to me in the temple and asked me to do her temple marriage. So I don't use it as a proof. I don't go public with that story now I have with you. But that's part of the spiritual reality for me. But it isn't the reason I became a Christian. It isn't. It's only as part of my Christianity.

John Dehlin [00:29:36] That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Do people come to you for advice?

Advising Those Leaving Mormonism

Sandra Tanner [00:29:45] Oh, yes, every week. Every week. I spend hours every week counseling people.

John Dehlin [00:29:50] And what do you tell them?

Sandra Tanner [00:29:52] It depends on what their struggle is.

John Dehlin [00:29:54] Do you ever tell them to stay in the church?

Sandra Tanner [00:29:58] I have told people not to take their name off of the rolls yet if it's a mate that fears the mate will divorce them, I tell them, then you maybe need to go slower. You're pressing too hard. You want to keep the marriage intact. You want to keep your kids in a family with both parents, and you've got to work at a slower pace. Because sometimes. And I know that when I first came out of Mormonism, I wanted to pin everyone to the wall. Made a lot of enemies. I says, you have to be more subtle. And so, yeah, I've talked to people that way about, and some of my Christian friends would say, you know, you got to leave. You got to do it right immediately. Take your stand immediately. Yeah, we took our stand, but Gerald and I did it together. I don't think I could have done it alone if my husband had not been on the same page. I don't know that as a brand new married person, I would have had the strength to have done that. I couldn't have stood against the pressure from family and neighbors and other Mormons that was put on me. I mean, at 18 and 19, I wasn't strong enough, but together we could do that. So, yeah, I try. I. I tell them, try to Keep the marriage. Not to play games. You shouldn't lie or misrepresent. But if it means backing off, if it means going to church every other week or, you know, negotiate some sort of lesser activity to keep the relationship because your kids need you in that home,

John Dehlin [00:31:46] so keep the family together.

Sandra Tanner [00:31:47] Yeah, but I don't advocate doing it on a false pretense.

John Dehlin [00:31:51] So be honest. Yeah, that's what you tell people. Do you ever have people kind of in. Have you ever had people in leadership positions or people of influence kind of reach out to you privately?

Sandra Tanner [00:32:03] I did years ago. And I can't go into the details, but it was someone from a foreign country that the church had paid for their education and they had risen up in the ranks of the church. And by the time they got higher up, they realized it wasn't true, but they felt they couldn't leave. And I thought, how sad that they're going to spend out their life in something they know isn't true. I couldn't have done that. And I've talked to bishops that don't believe. I've talked to stake presidents that don't believe. You know, elders quorum presidents that don't believe it. And they're playing along because of their wife and kids or their job, their inheritance. I know people that left and got disinherited. I know people that left and their kids won't let them see their grandkids for fear that they'll spread apostasy germs. So I talked to all these different people. And it's very sad. So much of it, our problems the church puts on them. I mean, I hold them responsible for a lot of the breakups in the marriages. They're now talking more about being nicer to each other. But in the past, the church has counseled mates. I've lost count of the number of people that have told me that. When I left the church, they told my wife or my husband to divorce me, to get someone to go through the temple so that have an eternal sealing. And I think that's heartbreaking. How could any church tell you that it would be better off for the family to divorce? I don't think any kids are better off with it.

John Dehlin [00:33:46] You know where they get that from? Jesus said, I'm here to separate mother from son.

Sandra Tanner [00:33:52] Well, to take a stand for Christ, but that's not saying divorce him. I think you can take a stand for Christ and not divorce. I think you can be a loving Christian, mate, but you can see how

John Dehlin [00:34:04] someone could interpret Christ's words. To say he's come to separate.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:07] Oh, sure. And the atheists make all those kind of arguments. I don't think they're valid arguments against Christianity because that's not the tone of Christians.

John Dehlin [00:34:15] They're misinterpretations.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:16] Right.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] Christ about love, you're saying.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:19] Yeah, well, he's all for the union of the husband and wife, not to dissolving it.

John Dehlin [00:34:26] What do you think about those who stay in as semi believers or non believers, but they just, they feel like they want to make a difference from within. They feel like there's good there, it's culturally good. You know, people's lives are blessed and so they're going to just be a part of it, even as non believers.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:45] It depends on if you believe there's any real truth out there. If we're just going to go agnostic and say, well, it doesn't matter what I believe, this is a good place as any to land. It does. Good.

John Dehlin [00:34:57] Yeah. What do you think about that?

Sandra Tanner [00:34:59] Well, then you can believe anything you want. And then I get. If you really believe that, then yeah, that makes sense to stay and you pet cats. And to pet cats, you know, be nice to the dog. But if there, if we are going to claim any part of Christianity, I think it draws a stand. If we're going to embrace Christianity, it's disrespecting the founders of Christianity to take the easy road. These are people that died for their faith. It was that important to them to stand up and be counted. So I think there's a point as Christians, we have to walk away when we see it isn't true or at least drop activity. When I say walk away, I don't want people walking away from marriages, but to disengage, to stay with the basis that it tells other people it's okay. I'm not troubled by my religion being started by an adulterer and a liar and a magician, that none of those things matter. Then what are we saying to our families about ethics or truth or the value of anything when nothing's worth standing up for, Nothing's worth dying for? The early Christians thought it was worth dying for. But I also understand it's a hard thing. I mean, when people come and talk to me about this, I don't berate the struggle it is for them or the problem. I mean, it truly is a problem. I recognize that. But there comes a point when one has to take that stand. May not be the day you first figure it out, but I think there's a point at which God calls you out that you cannot be a part of it anymore.

John Dehlin [00:36:59] Some say the church is making positive changes. What do you think?

Sandra Tanner [00:37:05] Well, to me it's like there's two groups leading the church. You got the Vidnar true believers over here.

John Dehlin [00:37:15] Bednar.

Sandra Tanner [00:37:16] Bednar, okay. Who I assume is a true believer. And what's the other guy's name? Tad Callister. One of the 70s or something. Anyways, I think there's the true believer camp and then there are the fellows that know there's real problems and it's better than anything out there, so we're okay to keep it going. But they don't believe it in the same way. And I don't know who's going to win because I think you see different strains of that in different things. So you get Uchtdorf talking about we need to be more conciliatory and yeah, we've done some bad things and all that kind of stuff. And then you get bidder up there. It's all true, you know, so it's like there's two different camps. So does Packer take the lead of the true believers or is it going to go down to somebody that's of a more liberal accepting bent? I don't know. But I don't see, for instance, how Mormonism could move into the mainstream as long as it maintains its books of scripture. By embracing the Doctrine and Covenants especially, and the pearly great price. It locks you into a doctrinal system that will separate you from Christianity. The Book of Mormon doctrinally may not separate you as much, but the very fact of claiming scripture will. The idea that to me, one of the most blasphemous things you could do would be to invent scripture. If there's really a God for you to invent a scripture, how blasphemous would that be? So to expect Christians to embrace a church that they see being founded by a guy that invents scripture, how can we respect that? The Mormons are trying to back away from plural gods, but they don't do it. Honestly. They don't come out and say, Joseph was wrong. We need to scrap that idea. They kind of finesse it all. That's not really what he meant. We don't understand. Well, we all understood until a few years ago. I understood it.

John Dehlin [00:39:53] What about the church reaching out to evangelicals? That should make you happy. A week at BYU doesn't go by when some evangelical minister doesn't give some keynote address at BYU now, and I'm troubled by that.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:07] Because I think the Christians mean well on their side, but I don't think they see how they're being used by the Mormons to gain credibility. I don't see the Mormons truly moving to Christianity the way the evangelicals would hope. As long as Mormonism maintains the temple ritual is essential. You cannot move into mainstream Christianity because you're saying there's something more to the gospel, there's more. Christ didn't do enough on the cross, that there's another element that you have to have to be right with God

John Dehlin [00:40:46] that's really non biblical.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:47] That's non biblical. So I know that oh, who's Millet and different ones down at byu, Robinson and that have written on things to try to make Mormonism sound more Christian. But if they're on staff at byu, they're believing Mormons or at least they have to pretend to be believing Mormons. And I assume they're all wearing their garments which tells me that they're trusting in that temple ritual to do something more for them than Christ could do. And that's where I draw the line. I said you can't be truly trusting in the grace of Christ if you're an attack on temple ritual.

John Dehlin [00:41:32] When you think about Joseph Smith papers, Project Rough Stone Rolling, which the church sold, the Mountain Hills Massacre book, you know, all these essays the church is coming out with now, you could say the church has really become, you know, coming clean.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:49] They're admitting a lot more and it's yet to be seen what that does. I mean I think the church works under or some of the church guys involved in the history stuff. I think they are working under a false assumption that if we just take away the shock value, people won't be disturbed by the information. I would contend, yeah, you've eliminated one element of the problem by taking away the shock value. But the information shocking. You're still stuck with Joseph marrying married women and taking 14 year old girls. You're still stuck with the church leaders lying about all their past. Joseph Smith lied on the stand, what was it a week or two before he died about polygamy. So that I see a history of lying in the church that. So how much does it help to tell everyone? Yeah, we lied, we cheated. Yeah, we killed a few people we shouldn't have. Sorry doesn't make the people in Arkansas feel a lot better.

John Dehlin [00:42:52] But do you feel like they're doing the right thing? Like do you? Oh yes.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:54] I think that it's way late. There should have never been a need for Gerald and Sandra Tanner, the church should have always been open and honest, but there never would have been a Mormonism if they had.

John Dehlin [00:43:09] Do you feel vindicated?

Sandra Tanner [00:43:11] Yeah. Stuff we were saying in the 60s, I can get you out mimeograph stuff we put out in the 60s that's now being admitted to on the church website that when we put it out, we were the worst liars in history and we got all kind of nasty letters for putting it out, you liars. That's not true. And now you can read it on gospel topics.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] So how does that make you feel?

Sandra Tanner [00:43:38] Well, yeah, I feel vindicated.

John Dehlin [00:43:40] Does it make you feel like yours and Gerald's life was worth it?

Sandra Tanner [00:43:45] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that we pushed the church into honesty. They are. They. Well, us and the Internet, but. And we didn't do it alone. I mean, there's all kind of historians in between. And I recognize they all did a lot of great things, but I don't think the church history would tell me they would have arrived at that point without the prodding. It's just like the tobacco. And do you think the tobacco industry would ever admitted that their cigarettes give you cancer?

John Dehlin [00:44:20] No.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:21] Without the opposition,

John Dehlin [00:44:25] a lot of people want to know whether you see the amount of disaffection increasing, the rate of disaffection increasing.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:31] Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:44:32] You've been doing this a long time.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:35] What's your evidence?

Sandra Tanner [00:44:39] Probably half the churches of any stripe in Utah are full of ex Mormons. That wasn't the true when we left. Well, there weren't as many churches for one thing. So we have seen a real change in the demographics in that regard. I'm in contact with more people leaving than before. I have. I mean, it's all anecdotally. I haven't done a survey or anything, but yeah, I would say there's much more movement. Before it was more centralized, like Utah, California. Now it's all over the world of people leaving.

John Dehlin [00:45:27] So do you see the church hanging on? Do you see it having some huge schism or crash? What do you see as the future of the church?

Sandra Tanner [00:45:35] Okay, let's look at two churches that have gone this road. One is the Herbert Armstrong Church.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] Is that the Worldwide Church of God?

Sandra Tanner [00:45:45] Worldwide Church of God. They had a huge university in Pasadena. When their leadership finally said, sorry, guys, Armstrong was wrong, we've been misinterpreting the Bible all along. Let's go back to just a normal interpretation of the Bible and scrap all this stuff. There went the university, there went the money. Billion schisms. I'm exaggerating but all kinds of splinter groups came from that. It decimated the church and the finances. And we have a guy that comes to our church sometimes that went through all that that came out of the worldwide church. God. And I mean, he talks in tears about the struggle that was to go through that transition. It was a very hard thing, but it cost the organization dearly. Okay, you have that example of what happens when you come clean. Then you take the reorganized LDS church. Of course, they never took Joseph Smith to the same height of veneration as the Utah church. So it wasn't quite as hard a thing. But it still was very alienating to many reorganized families when the leadership started to back away from the absolute claims of Joseph Smith. So then they start all kind of schisms. So at this point, you go to Independence, Missouri and you stand on the street corner and here's the Mormon Church with their visitor center, here's the RLDS temple, here's the Church of Christ Temple lot group. And then on the next block and is the big restoration church of the splinter group off the Reorganized Church. But that's just one example. There's all kind of splinter groups all over Independence. There's all kind of splinter groups here in Utah. So the Reorganized Church, if the Mormon Church were watching the Reorganized Church, what do we see happens when you back away from the Book of Mormon's historicity? You see breakoff groups, you see the demise of your tithing. It all starts to melt away. So if the church keeps going on this effort to put everything out there, at some point you're going to see some charismatic Mormon guy come up that he's the one mighty and strong come to put the church in order. We've had it in the polygamists for years. You know, every 10 years you had another one of the one mighty and strong. They were going to set the church in order and start another polygamist group. Well, we'll see that in the Utah Church there will be that kind of thing that will happen. Because if the Uchtdorf crowd continues on this move away from the centrality of Joseph Smith, what does that do for all the true believers? I mean, I think of my grandpa who was fanatic Mormon. He would have been horrified to see today.

John Dehlin [00:48:57] But you know what? I see a lot of Mormons who are perfectly happy to say, yeah, some mistakes were made, and yeah, we don't understand everything about the Book of Abraham, but Joseph Smith is still a prophet, Book of Mormon is still the word of God, and we're Going strong. And I don't need to know the details. No, there's plenty of Mormons out there that are like, yeah, I know Joseph's got problems. He's still a prophet. I know there's questions about historicity. The book is true, and this works for me. I wonder if the Catholic Church can survive pedophilia scandals, if our church is going to stay strong for the foreseeable future.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:38] The Book of Mormon is becoming increasingly totally indefensible. So I think that, yes, Mormons can ignore the problems, but the critical mass is growing of the evidence that says Joseph's scriptures are his invention. And I think you're right. The Mormon Church will keep going. I don't see the demise of Mormonism, but I think that there are significant numbers of Mormons that will drop away because you can't stop people analyzing. And there will always be those that will try to add up the equation and see the numbers don't come out right.

John Dehlin [00:50:33] So we lose a couple percentage points a year in the US but we gain that in spades in Africa and Philippines and Latin America.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:42] You're going to end up with a Europe, a Latin American, African church, and less and less of the Americans in it. It's going to totally change the dynamics of the church.

John Dehlin [00:50:54] In how many years?

Sandra Tanner [00:50:59] I don't know. 50 years.

John Dehlin [00:51:01] 50 years. Okay. Any future areas of research that you think are still ripe for young historians out there that you would point people towards?

Future Research, Regrets, Legacy, and Farewell

Sandra Tanner [00:51:13] Well, I think the whole Utah period is just opening up. If the Church ever opened all the diaries up there, I think that there would be all kind of research on how polygamy really worked, how it was lived, how the government really worked, what did the Church really do in squelching dissent in different towns or whatever. I'm sure there's just all kind of studies, the pioneer period up till now that has been guarded, that will become more and more areas of study. I think we're getting pretty well down on the Joseph Smith aspect there, although there are still new things coming up. And you hear rumors of different people working on different areas of research. But I think there's. The church has got a lot of headaches in front of them as far as, I think historians getting into the Utah material. They've been able to keep the lid on so many important diaries up till now that if they start opening those more and more, there'll be all kind of stuff to study. The churches involvement with the railroad, with the post office, who knows, with government, with business, finances. Yeah. And that's going to be a growing concern as more and more people are made aware and think about why isn't there financial disclosure? I find that very troubling. I wouldn't want to go to a church that had billions of dollars and no accountability. No one told you anything they get up. Their financial statement is, we spent it all like we planned. I don't call that a financial statement.

John Dehlin [00:53:18] Right. Everyone wants to know what you think about gay marriage. Same sex marriage. I don't know why.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:27] I don't. I don't like the idea of it being labeled marriage. If they want to have civil unions, you know, that would be a different thing. But I don't like the idea of defining marriage that way.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] So you're traditional that way?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] Is that based on your interpretation of the Bible?

Sandra Tanner [00:53:47] Yeah, and it's my interpretation of life. I think the yes, but mainly from a Christian perspective that marriage was intended for a man and a woman to produce children. I'm not saying gay parents can't raise good kids. I just feel that nature tells us the design. The preferred route is for a husband and wife to raise children. I think that's the ideal for a good, solid upbringing.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] And, you know, the idea of separate but equal isn't good. That, you know, we can't have separate water fountains for blacks and whites, separate ceremonies for different classes. You know, in the United States that. That's kind of un American.

Sandra Tanner [00:54:35] Well, I don't think it's fair to make a comparison with race because I think that's such a different. I think it's. I think it's diminishing the whole problem of race by saying that gay lesbian issues are equal. I think that's diminishing the horror and what went on with our segregation in the United States. So I see them as different. It's oranges and apples.

John Dehlin [00:55:02] So you're maybe less comfortable with same sex sexuality? I guess.

Sandra Tanner [00:55:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:55:06] You're not comfortable with that?

Sandra Tanner [00:55:08] No. I mean, as I say, some of my best friends are gay. You know, I don't profess to understand it. I don't think it's the norm or the intended role that God has for humanity.

John Dehlin [00:55:28] Do you think people choose it?

Sandra Tanner [00:55:34] I think some may. I think there is some sort of a biological factor to some of it. And I haven't studied and I don't profess any expertise in the field. Mostly it's religious beliefs, but mine is based on religion.

John Dehlin [00:55:54] Okay. What do you think about ordained, the ordain women movement in Mormonism?

Sandra Tanner [00:56:01] I think it's of non Interest to me because I don't believe that. I don't believe the men have the priesthood, so why would I want it? You know, there's no validity in my mind of Melchizedek Aaronic priesthood. It's just totally non biblical. So I don't see. I never was involved in that because I rejected the priesthood idea in the first place. And if I was a Mormon woman, I wouldn't want to be in the priesthood. I got enough jobs already, so. And I think that's why some women don't get involved in Mormonism because they got enough to do already. But I don't think that it's anything. I don't think Mormon priesthood is something I think anyone should aspire to.

John Dehlin [00:56:50] Right. So it's invalid.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:53] So why, why even argue the point?

John Dehlin [00:56:57] What about female? You know the Bible, New Testament says women should stay quiet in the church. Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:57:02] But that was in relation to shouting out in the meeting, asking their husband questions. I don't see that as saying women couldn't be in ministry. When you read about Priscilla, Priscilla is named before her husband. She obviously was a prominent leader in the early Christian church. So I don't see those statements of Paul as relating to a woman preaching in church.

John Dehlin [00:57:35] What happens to this place when you're gone?

Sandra Tanner [00:57:39] I don't know. I'm waiting for the revelation.

John Dehlin [00:57:43] You don't have plans?

Sandra Tanner [00:57:45] No. I don't know. What?

John Dehlin [00:57:47] No. Will? Leaving it to somebody?

Sandra Tanner [00:57:49] No. Well, this is. It wouldn't be a matter of a will, it would be a matter of a board decision because I don't own this. This is all nonprofit.

John Dehlin [00:57:59] So it's all owned now. Fully owned.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:03] We are a non profit organization. We have a board that would have to make the decision. If I drop dead tomorrow, the board would have to decide what they're going to do with all the assets. They would not go to my family. It was totally separate from my estate and I don't know what this is going to end up being. At times I've looked for someone to work with me. I haven't found the right person. So.

John Dehlin [00:58:31] So who are you looking for? We got to start some succession planning here. You're looking for a Christian?

Sandra Tanner [00:58:37] Well, the ideal list would be former Mormon Christian with some theological and counseling training.

John Dehlin [00:58:46] All right, so I guess looking back, would you do anything differently now? Any regrets?

Sandra Tanner [00:58:59] Well, yeah, to make Gerald use less capitals. But by the way, we don't do that anymore. We've redone a lot of our books to put them into a more normal format so that was a thing of technology of the day as much as anything. Well, regrets in the sense that when I first started out, I was too much like a bull in a china cabinet. I didn't have enough empathy. And that partly was because of age, that it was easier as two young people leaving the church together and not appreciating how hard it would be for someone in midlife to do the same thing. So I think in that sense, I'm more empathetic to the Mormon struggle. I think the fact that we struggled with the Book of Mormon for two years helped us in being more empathetic to people with the struggle as opposed to some of the Christian ministries that were out at the same time that we understood. I mean, I still got Mormon family today that were on speaking terms and all that, but we don't talk religion. So there would be some areas in that way. I don't know what else I would regret.

John Dehlin [01:00:43] Do you guys publish your finances every year?

Sandra Tanner [01:00:47] We don't necessarily publish them, but they're on. Was that guide star? I think it is. That puts up the 990 forms and our 990 forms on there every year.

John Dehlin [01:01:00] What. What do you think your average annual revenue has been just in the past 10 or 20 years? 100 grand? 500 grand? 50 grand?

Sandra Tanner [01:01:12] We just did it. And I can't even remember there is.

John Dehlin [01:01:18] What's the highest. Do you think it's ever been?

Sandra Tanner [01:01:20] I don't know. I mean, those numbers are. I don't operate on the. I'm very impractical. I don't operate on the basis of number. So, I mean, it's between 1 and 200,000 a year. But I couldn't tell you the breakdown on that.

John Dehlin [01:01:48] 200,000?

Sandra Tanner [01:01:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:49] A year on books and stuff?

Sandra Tanner [01:01:54] No, half of it comes in donations. More than half maybe now, are donations.

John Dehlin [01:02:00] Just people supporting the efforts.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:03] People that have already left. They've read all they want to know. They know what they want to know about Mormonism, that they want to keep up us in business, make sure we can help other people. So they moved on from Mormonism, but they want to support our work so we can keep doing it. So we have through the years picked up more and more people that have outgrown the need for more books but still want to support the work.

John Dehlin [01:02:30] That's pretty good. A couple hundred thousand a year?

Sandra Tanner [01:02:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:33] And you just get a subset of that as your salary?

Sandra Tanner [01:02:35] Yeah, yeah, I think I make the whopping. I got a raise this year and so it's probably going to be around 44,000 this year. First raise I've taken in 10 years,

John Dehlin [01:02:56] so never more than 50 grand a year.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:58] I've never been more than 44.

John Dehlin [01:03:00] Yeah. Okay.

Sandra Tanner [01:03:02] So last year, I think I took a bunch of time off last year. So I think I was 37,000 for the year and probably for several years during Gerald's illness. A lot of years I didn't make the full salary because of time. I mean, I deducted my time off for times when I had to stay home with Gerald. So I didn't. So through those years, I spent. I don't know how many years I actually drew a full salary.

John Dehlin [01:03:30] You don't have a retirement, right? No retirement, no Social Security, and what you get?

Sandra Tanner [01:03:35] I have Social Security and my salary here, which is fine. It's plenty for me to live on.

John Dehlin [01:03:41] Because you own your house.

Sandra Tanner [01:03:42] Yeah. Everything's paid for, so I'm cool on all that. But there is no retirement program.

John Dehlin [01:03:49] Just keep working. That probably keeps you young, right?

Sandra Tanner [01:03:52] Well, yeah, it gives me something to do. Excuse me. Out of trouble. I'm not down at the mall every day.

John Dehlin [01:03:59] So some would say to you, you spent your life tearing down an institution that means the world to people and leading people away from joy and happiness into misery and sin. How would you make your case otherwise?

Sandra Tanner [01:04:19] Joseph Smith set up a false religion that led them into something that when it was exposed to be false, led them into heartache and problems. I'm not the problem. The Mormon Church is the problem. By them setting up a scenario that to me is falsehood. And so I don't view it as wasting my life. It's like saying to the whistleblower on the tobacco industry, do you feel bad your whole life's been spent on a negative pursuit to get that tobacco company? And to me, I say no. I think it was worth the fight. And I didn't lead everybody into this hopeless despair. The church made that. So they ended up with that hopeless despair. I'm there trying to tell them they need to go on and find faith in God and Christ. There's a beautiful life out there. The grace of Christ is such a freeing thing from the guilt and restrictions of Mormonism to just find grace in Christ. What a beautiful, wonderful thing. You don't have to be on this treadmill to perfection forever. I talked to so many people that are worn out, that come into me crying, I can't do it anymore. And I said, great, praise God. Get off the treadmill. You don't have to. It's all over. It's already been taken care of. So I see it as releasing a lot of people from lives of struggle and guilt and a sense of failure because they didn't live up to all the standards of the Mormon Church. They couldn't have six kids, not work, stay home, make bread, canned fruit, all that kind of stuff. You know, there's just, I think the Mormon women, well, the men too, but the Mormon women, in the past, maybe not so much today, I'm in touch with their culture, but in the past, they've put them on this terrible perfectionist model of what a good Mormon wife would look like. And it's exhausting. You don't have to do all that. God's not asking that of you.

John Dehlin [01:06:36] Have you seen people leave Mormonism and find joy?

Sandra Tanner [01:06:39] Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:41] Is it rare?

Sandra Tanner [01:06:42] No. Where's the Wilder thing? Lynn and Mike Wilder, the BYU professor that left and became a Christian. Lynn and her sons, our whole family came out and they're beautiful Christians. And they have this video unveiling Grace, and it's a very beautiful, inspiring video of this family story. She had to walk away from the byu. She was a tenured professor. She now teaches down in Florida. But, yeah, great Joy.

John Dehlin [01:07:13] That's just one family.

Sandra Tanner [01:07:15] It's an example of many families that are repeated time after time.

John Dehlin [01:07:19] That's what you've seen?

Sandra Tanner [01:07:20] Yes. Carl Wimmer, that was the politician. He's now down in Gunnison area and a beautiful, happy Christian, giving up all this political stuff. He's just a policeman, I think, down in the area, happy as lark, just following Christ.

John Dehlin [01:07:43] So I guess some people would say you spent your life fighting against something. I think you'd probably, from what I've learned, you'd probably say you were definitely more, from your perspective, fighting for something.

Sandra Tanner [01:07:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:07:57] But we have a tradition of Mormon stories of ending by having people bear their testimony. So it's now that time. If you had to look the camera in the eye and bear your testimony to our listeners. And it can be not only about Christianity, but just about what you've learned in life, what you value, the truths that are most important to you, Anything about Gerald, you want to say, now's your moment.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:26] I believe truth matters. I believe God matters. I believe Christianity is true. I believe in the grace of Christ, that everything that needed done was taken care of in Christ. I can't add to that. And the Mormons will say, what about good works? I believe my life shows a life of good works. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I do have coffee, but I do those kinds of things. I go to church, I have devotions. But that's just a part of being a Christian. Christianity is saying I'm a sinner, I can't make it on my own. I'm sure glad someone else took care of this because I'm a mess up. And I come to the foot of the cross, I give it all to Christ, take my life and make what you want out of it. Because I don't have zip idea where I'm going with all this. And I believe that God guides my life. I believe he answers my prayers, that he is touching my life. I believe he brings me joy every day. The whole experience with Gerald was a time of seeing God's grace and all that, not of saying why me or being angry about it. And I don't have the answers to why everybody has illnesses or why certain kids suffer and other people don't. You know, I don't know. But I know that in the midst of whatever we've gone through, and there have been other situations in my life too that were very trying, but I believe the grace of God was there to take me through. I don't claim to have all the answers. I'm not the smartest person in the world and there's plenty of places you can poke holes in me, but it's not about me, it's about Christ. And if you go back and you read the New Testament, I think you see a beautiful offer of God's grace that says you're always going to be short, you're always going to be in the deficit column. That's why I had to do it all for you. And I accept that atonement. So that that brings me into a relationship with Christ that calls me into a life of holiness, that calls me into a life that wants to please God. It's just like in a marriage. You serve your wife, you do those things that make her happy because you love her, not because of a list of rules. At least it shouldn't be. But it's through that love response. And so I respond to God's forgiveness by showing my love in an act of a life of service and trying to live a holy, godly life. I think everyone would be benefited by that, even outside of eternal life. I think that when you find grace in Christ, it takes away so much of the anxiety of the performance of life. I trust the Bible. I believe in the New Testament. I believe that there really was a Jesus, there really were apostles, and they really walked Jerusalem. And so that's my testimony. I believe there is a God. I believe he answers prayer. I believe he's answered my prayers. I believe I've had healings and it's too late in this program to even touch on that. But, I mean, I believe I've seen God touch my life at times when I can look at that and say, yes, that was the hand of God. Final thoughts on Gerald Gerald was a recluse. He was not socially adept, stickler for honesty, Very strong moral tone, almost sometimes to the point of exasperation. He would not jaywalk in front of this building. He would have to go to the corner. He wouldn't let me put Jesus stickers on the back of my car because I didn't always keep the speed limit. He says, until you promise me you're going to keep every rule on the road, I don't want to see a sticker on that car. So we don't have stickers.

John Dehlin [01:13:05] And if you could see him now, what would you say to him?

Sandra Tanner [01:13:07] I'd say, I love you and I miss him. When someone dies, when a mate dies, you can stay busy during the day, but when it catches up to you is when you go to bed at night and there's no one next to you to hug, and that's when it's really lonely. So I miss him.

John Dehlin [01:13:31] But you're gonna see him again.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:32] I'm gonna see him.

John Dehlin [01:13:36] Well, Sandra Tanner, thank you so much for joining us on Mormon Stories.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:40] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:13:41] It's been a pleasure.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:42] It's been an evening.

John Dehlin [01:13:44] Find that successor.

Guest [01:13:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:47] All right.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:48] Yeah. Well, God will show up with the right guys here someday.

John Dehlin [01:13:51] Maybe. We have to end. I'll just turn around to the camera. We have to end by me. We have to end by me trying to lift the golden plates. So then we've got a copy of them here. These are the golden plates that I guess it's a model of the golden plates that Joseph Smith would have carried for many miles in Moroni, too. And all I can say is it's extremely heavy.

Sandra Tanner [01:14:23] Yeah. 118 pounds.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] 118 pounds.

Sandra Tanner [01:14:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:27] So if you ever come to Utah Lighthouse Ministry, pick up these things, it'll make you think something about the golden place. What that is, that's up to you. Anyway, thank you for joining us on Mormon Stories. Take care. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories podcast. To check out the video version of this episode, go to YouTube.com mormonstories to continue the conversation or to keep these podcasts alive through a financial contribution, please check us out@mormonstories.org and thanks for listening.

Guest [01:15:09] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day. Tis better far for us to strive Our useless care from us to drive to the San Jo, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well.

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.