Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 1398

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is February 17, 2021, and I am super excited today to have in Mormon Stories podcast studios, Jana Spangler. Hey, Jana.

Jana Spangler [00:00:18] Hi, John.

John Dehlin [00:00:19] Welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Jana Spangler [00:00:21] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:00:22] So I've had Jana on Mormon Stories a few times, often in panels to talk about topics du jour. But what we've never done is just have Janet in to kind of tell her story. And if I had to kind of describe why I was interested in Jana, it's not just that she's almost a neighbor. She is a lovely human. And one of the traditions of Mormon Stories podcast over the years is to interview people who know all the problems with the church, who care about women and women's issues and minorities, racial issues, LGBTQ issues, all the issues that kind of vex or plague modern Mormonism, intellectual issues, et cetera, and who find a way or who choose for whatever reason, to stay engaged with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as participatory, active or semi active members. For those who have been listening to Mormon Stories for quite some time, you'll remember my interviews with Dan Witherspoon and others. And that is the angle from which I wanted to interview Jana, because she is in a semi mixed faith marriage, I would say she is active in her holiday Utah stake, whatever that means. So that's kind of part of it is going to be her faith journey. Part of it is going to be how and where she's ended up with relation to the Church. Part of it's going to be how she makes that work. And some of that is going to have to do with the author and scholar Richard Rohr, who we're going to be talking about. I became familiar with Richard Rohr, who is a sort of a Catholic wisdom guy who has written several books, including a book called Falling Upward, which is kind of not just for Catholics, but it's for religious people of all types to help them kind of think about becoming wiser and potentially using their religious tradition, whatever it is, to help begin, let's just say a second half of life and of wisdom, sometimes even within a religious framework. And then finally, Jana is a life coach. She works with Symmetry Solutions with Natasha Alfred Parker. And she is someone who I refer others to for faith crisis stuff, for mixed faith marriages and the like. And so any wisdom that we can get from Jana along the way about not only how she navigates things, but also how she coaches others to navigate both faith crises engagement with the church or disengagement and or mixed faith marriages or just marriages after a faith crisis. Those are all the types of things that we're in store for today. So without any further ado, Jenna Spangler, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Jana Spangler [00:03:06] Thank you so much, John. I'm so happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] Was it a long commute?

Jana Spangler [00:03:10] It was not a long commute.

John Dehlin [00:03:11] So it's a snowy day.

Jana Spangler [00:03:13] Yes.

Jana's Early Life and Mormon Upbringing

John Dehlin [00:03:14] All right, well, where should we begin, Jana? Because we've had you on several times, but we've never had you tell your

Jana Spangler [00:03:20] story that is true.

John Dehlin [00:03:22] How does your Mormon story begin?

Jana Spangler [00:03:24] So my Mormon story, I guess, starts with my family of origin. I was born and raised in the church. I come from many lines of pioneers, all the way back to friends of Joseph Smith. I come down through Joseph Knight Sr. And Cornelius Peter Lott and some other interesting people around Joseph Smith. I found out, listening to Year of Polygamy, actually, that my great, great grandfather's half sister was married to Joseph Smith. So didn't know that until I heard that podcast and learned a little bit about my family history. So the church has been really super important to just the formation of who I am and my family. So I was the youngest of four children. There was a big gap between me and my next sister. I was the youngest, so three children and then eight and a half years. And then I showed up and, you know, I had an interesting flavor of Mormonism growing up in my home. Like, I always knew that it was absolutely the truth, the best way to live, the way to be happy, no question about that in my home growing up. And my parents weren't terribly strict about doing all the things. I think by the time I came along, they were, you know, they were busy with three older children and didn't feel like doing all the stuff with just me. So I remember growing up feeling like we weren't quite Mormon enough. I. I felt like we didn't read our scriptures at home as much as we should, and we didn't have family home evening. And we weren't doing as many things as some of my friends did. We played with playing cards. That was a big thing back in my.

John Dehlin [00:05:25] That's naughty.

Jana Spangler [00:05:26] It was. We were super naughty.

John Dehlin [00:05:27] Sharma Konki would not approve.

Jana Spangler [00:05:30] Absolutely. But we had, you know, Mormon doctrine firmly on the bookshelf. And so it was.

John Dehlin [00:05:37] What town was this?

Jana Spangler [00:05:38] This was here, just down the road from here. Holiday, Utah. Okay. Yeah. Grew up here, close to. Closer. Over to Cottonwood High School. So, yeah. So I, I grew up, did seminary Did. Did all the things. My family definitely had a kind of a perfectionist, a perfectionist streak in it. My mother, very much so. And I think that carried down to the way that I held a lot of things. Um, I for sure have a giant perfectionist streak that I've been trying to overcome for a while now. But that was laid down very early, and it affected the way that I did things with the church. I never really felt like I was doing it quite well enough.

John Dehlin [00:06:25] Like, as a teenager.

Jana Spangler [00:06:27] Yeah, definitely as a teenager. You know, my first real boyfriend was from a family that was a really, really strong family. And, you know, I grew up with a lot of. Between this perfectionism and family dynamics, I grew up with a lot of social issues. I grew up with a lot of, you know, growing up in elementary school and high school, I was always felt like I was always hustling for other people's approval, but I don't know that I got great social skills growing. I didn't have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. I didn't have. And I don't think a lot of really good social skills were modeled or taught in my home either. So I struggled a bit. So when I. By the time I had my first boyfriend, before I started, you know, I was just kind of craving more structure than I actually had, and I was craving approval from other people. So I have this first boyfriend who's from this really, really religious family that I looked up to. I thought they were everything, and they were a family that did all the things and they did them well, and I just craved that. And it's interesting how that implanted in me in a really, I think, formative time of my life, of how I wanted to be in the church when I grew up, when I had my. A family of my own and really wanted to be one of those Mormons that did everything right and had all the spiritual experiences. I was always just really inquisitive. Wanted to. Wanted to learn all the things, but did seminary, graduated from seminary, and then what years? So let's see. I graduated from high school in 1990 and went to Cottonwood High School right here. And then right after high school, went to the University of Utah to get an accounting degree and really quick backing

John Dehlin [00:08:29] up just a tiny bit. So what was your spiritual life like in. In high school? Was it doctrinal? Was it. How was prayer with Heavenly Father? How was seminary? Were you into the church spiritually and. Or doctrinally? Or was it more of a cultural thing or some combination?

Jana Spangler [00:08:47] So I think for me, it was quite doctrinal. I had a family who liked to have deeper discussions about things and really like to understand things. You know, I, I did a lot of self study in the scriptures and things like that. But I love to have, I loved to have gospel discussions with people. The spiritual end of it. I always felt like something was maybe missing for me, but I thought it was all me. I definitely took it all on myself. You know, I, I craved having some sort of a Moroni 104 experience. I craved.

John Dehlin [00:09:26] You wanted that.

Jana Spangler [00:09:27] I wanted it so badly because you

John Dehlin [00:09:30] didn't necessarily know the church was true, but you wanted.

Jana Spangler [00:09:33] It's like I knew. I never questioned it, I never questioned it, but I never had that kind of a spiritual experience. I think the spiritual experiences or whatever I was imagining a spiritual experience was never happened for me. But I was very, very, very convicted. And part of that was I think, who I surrounded myself with. And I had several friends who were not necessarily lds. And that actually is something that my family never had any qualms about or there were no litmus tests for friendship with my family, with any of my siblings or my parents. It was never this big worry for me that you need to make sure that you have the right kind of friends or anything. I didn't have that, but I, I definitely gravitated in who I really, really admired were the very strong orthodox Mormons and always kind of wanted that. And so, yeah, never really had that, that big spiritual experience. I had my patriarchal blessing very young and it was long and detailed and had some crazy things in it that made like talking about my husband being like having huge callings in the church. And you know, reading it's interesting. You know, I've been through. Spoiler alert. I've been through a faith transition and reading it prior to that faith transition and reading it after, I'm blown away at how heavily patriarchal my patriarchal blessing is. I'm like this, none of this is about me. It's all about what I'm going to do to support my husband. It's pretty intense.

John Dehlin [00:11:19] Was it exciting at the time though?

Jana Spangler [00:11:21] Oh yeah. I mean it has references to building the temple in the center place of Zion in connection with the great convocations prior to the coming of the Lord kind of stuff. Administrations of the millennial kingdom under the direction of the Savior. Who's this guy? I mean, right? I had quite the patriarch, but as a 13 year old when I'm getting that patriarchal blessing and my family's reading it and they're like, holy cow, you're going to mar a general authority, and you're going to be like, no pressure. Well, yeah. And so I always had that in the back of my mind, though. I think I can't underestimate the effect that that had on me of saying that this is my potential. Like, my potential is that I'm going to be in the administrations of the millennial kingdom. Like, it is a lot of pressure

John Dehlin [00:12:14] as a help meet or.

Jana Spangler [00:12:16] Oh, that word's in there. That word. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:19] Oh, it is kidding.

Jana Spangler [00:12:20] It's absolutely in there. Craps. A help meet. I don't know what this is. I learned early what a help meet was. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:29] So supporting an awesome husband, supporting this amazing person. Your mission in life was to support an amazing husband.

Jana Spangler [00:12:36] Absolutely. And a lot of it was in there. And it was a lot of pressure of, like, now you've got to be super faithful to make this happen.

John Dehlin [00:12:42] Okay.

Jana Spangler [00:12:43] Right.

John Dehlin [00:12:44] So as a teen in high school, were you straight A's? Were you goofing off? Were you breaking the rules? Were you Molly Mormon?

Jana Spangler [00:12:53] So in high school, I was not breaking a whole lot of rules. You know, I think I tried alcohol one time as a sophomore.

John Dehlin [00:13:02] You're not supposed to do that.

Jana Spangler [00:13:04] I really wasn't supposed to do that. And I'm telling you, the guilt was thick. The guilt was really, really thick. But for the most part, I was a really good kid, a really good student. I. It's interesting. It kind of speaks to some of the perfectionism that was alive and well for me because, you know, I was taking a heavy load, lots of AP classes my junior year. I was in the school play. I was working, had a job. I've had a job ever since I was 14 years old. I've worked.

John Dehlin [00:13:39] What types of jobs?

Jana Spangler [00:13:41] Started out just working at a pool. I grew up in a condominium complex, and so I was hired by the condominium complex to take care of the pool. I wasn't really a lifeguard, but I got to just hang out there all summer and read books. It was pretty cool. And then I had jobs in, like, working at the mall, at a clothing store. I actually lied to get my first job. I was supposed to be 16. I was only 15. I skipped kindergarten, so I was ahead of the. The curb. I was. I was a year younger than all of my friends, and I really wanted a job. I really wanted to make money. And I totally lied about my age and said I was 16 and just hadn't had my license yet. But you should totally hire Me.

John Dehlin [00:14:21] Okay, so now you're. You try beer and you're lying.

Jana Spangler [00:14:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:24] I'm not impressed.

Jana Spangler [00:14:25] I know. You shouldn't be. You shouldn't be.

John Dehlin [00:14:28] No, in all seriousness, I. I was totally joking.

Jana Spangler [00:14:30] I know.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] In all seriousness. So was your family kind of middle class? Was it lower middle class? What, what did your parents do for work?

Jana Spangler [00:14:38] So, yeah, so my mom was a stay at home mom right up until I was kind of in elementary school and she had a part time job working at JCPenney in the payroll department. My father was an educator, so he had started out as a teacher. By the time I came along, he had moved on to be a principal. He'd gotten his doctorate in education. And so he was. Dr. Johnson, where was he teaching? So he, he taught initially. He taught at Skyline and, and I don't know, I can't think of other, other schools, but schools around this area where he taught. And then he, he became a principal when he, he got his degree. So he was the principal of Holiday Elementary. He was a principal of. Fortuna elementary is no longer there. Evergreen Junior High, a lot of Meadow Moore Elementary, a lot of these schools just right in this area. And then he was promoted into the Granite School district office and was in administration there. It's kind of an assistant superintendent.

Religious Atmosphere at Home and in Teen Years

John Dehlin [00:15:40] So religiously, was there a lot of religious pressure in your home and in your teen years? It sounds like there wasn't.

Jana Spangler [00:15:47] So there was and there wasn't. It was a really strange, like I felt a lot of it. I felt a lot of it. We were really expected to go to church and to do the things. Probably for context, it would be helpful to know my oldest brother had stopped going to church when he was 13, 14 years old, and he's about 13 years older than I am. So I've never known my brother as being part of the faith. And he and my parents had a really problematic relationship. And he really was a naughty teenager, you know, by Mormon standards. By Mormon standards was very, very naughty. And my mother really could not handle it. It was really, really difficult. She was not made to have a child like this. They were oil and water. And. And so I saw that my brother had. Was kind of a Vol. Had a volatile temper. And. And to me, I grew up with this idea that that's what happened to you if you didn't do the church thing. Like you became a huge problem. You would be on drugs, you would be doing all these horrible things. Your life would be ruined. And you know, in my family, I will just say I feel like the pressure to go to college and get a degree and the pressure to be wise with your money and not go into debt was almost. I thought it was part of the articles of faith. I think growing up, because that was such a. Such a. A strong message in my family that this is what you do and there is something really wrong with you if you don't choose these things. So it was all. It was all wrapped up in my mind that people who did the right things and, and studied and went to college and did. And went to church, it was all wrapped up in the same thing. Those were good people and those other people were problematic.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] So how's your brother doing now? Are you able to say yes?

Jana Spangler [00:17:51] No. My brother is amazing. He is. I love my brother. Absolutely. I grew up being kind of intimidated by him a little bit, maybe a little scared of him. And there was just a huge rift with my family. He in no way could find acceptance in my family. And when we get to my college years, I had a little taste of that myself. And so I think some empathy grew in me for what my brother must have experienced his whole life. And that actually helped me forge a relationship with him that I really cherish. And he really. I look back at the way I saw him growing up and I have a lot of sadness and regrets.

John Dehlin [00:18:40] He was the, the layman or the Lemuel.

Jana Spangler [00:18:42] He totally was a layman. And Lemuel and. And don't think I didn't think about it as I was reading the book Mormon as you wanted as a young person. Of course. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:18:54] How so? When you tried to get your. That Moroni 10:4 experience in high school, how'd that go?

Jana Spangler [00:19:01] It. It didn't happen.

John Dehlin [00:19:02] Did you literally read the Book of Mormon cover to cover?

Jana Spangler [00:19:04] Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. At least once. I was always constantly feeling like I should be, but was always feeling like I was failing because I've never been a very, like, disciplined soul. So daily practice of anything has always been elusive for me. So I really felt all this pressure, like, if I'm really going to be good, I need to be reading my scriptures every day. I need to be praying morning and night. And I was. I wasn't good at that. I'd go on streaks and then. And I'd feel good about myself for a few minutes and then it. I wouldn't feel so good about it when I would slack off. And so I always felt like, well, the, the whole reason I'm not really having that 10 Moroni 104 experience and really getting that, that really big spiritual confirmation, it just. I'm not good enough yet. I'm not doing it well enough yet. So maybe someday. Maybe someday I'll get there.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] Did you read it cover to cover?

Jana Spangler [00:20:07] Yeah. At least once. Maybe more. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:10] And you. And you knelt down to pray and the answer?

Jana Spangler [00:20:13] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:14] And.

Jana Spangler [00:20:14] Oh, yeah. Nothing.

John Dehlin [00:20:16] Nothing. Did you try a couple times?

Jana Spangler [00:20:17] Oh, yeah. All the time. All the time.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] You kept trying?

Jana Spangler [00:20:21] I kept trying. I was absolutely a dedicated soul. I really wanted it.

John Dehlin [00:20:28] Bummer.

Jana Spangler [00:20:29] Yeah. And I'd hear everyone else's miraculous stories and I just. I just wanted something. I wanted something to happen to me. I wanted some sort of spiritual something.

John Dehlin [00:20:38] How are you going to find that general authority husband if you can't even get a firm testimony of the Book of Mormon?

Jana Spangler [00:20:43] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] It must have been stressful.

Jana Spangler [00:20:45] It was, it was. I never quite felt like I was measuring up. And part of that I thought it was my family's fault. They're just not strict enough and, you know, faithful enough. They're not faithful enough. But it's. Yeah, that's the thing. They were uber faithful. They just weren't very strict about a lot of things. And they were very laissez faire with me. I mean, when I was going out in high school and I mean, they, they really didn't ask me much about my life. They. They weren't really very involved in any way. I remember asking my parents once and in high school, like, you know, my friends, like come home from a date and their parents will actually ask them, how was the date? You know, And I think it made my mom really sad. She just felt like I was telling her she was a terrible mother and my dad was just, I'm not here to be your friend. Looking back, it was actually a pretty lonely existence. My siblings had all moved away and were married and. And I was kind of doing it on my own. I don't know.

Choosing the University of Utah Over BYU

John Dehlin [00:21:52] So, okay, so you go to Satan's Den, which is the University of Utah.

Jana Spangler [00:21:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:59] You don't go to byu, which is just a red flag for me. Well, literally, can I, can I literally,

Jana Spangler [00:22:05] can I make it worse? I had a full ride scholarship to BYU that I passed up.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] What? In what? Academics.

Jana Spangler [00:22:10] Academics, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] And you turned down the Lord's University?

Jana Spangler [00:22:13] I turned down the Lord's university.

John Dehlin [00:22:15] Culture or what? Or is it the red hair?

Jana Spangler [00:22:19] You know, for me, I think I had. I was intrigued about byu, just getting away from home, but I don't know, there was something, I think intuitively, intuitively in me that knew that the culture of BYU was not a fit for me. And so I decided to go to the University of Utah, which I also had a scholarship, too. I didn't. Yeah, I was choosing between.

John Dehlin [00:22:44] Did you move off to. Did you stay home or.

Jana Spangler [00:22:47] I started out, but I lasted about a month into it.

John Dehlin [00:22:50] In the dorms?

Jana Spangler [00:22:51] No, I lasted about a month at home until I met some friends in a singles ward and immediately moved out. And that was a really, really good decision for me. I thrived being more independent. I thrived in some ways, I think, as far as my. My Mormonism, it maybe wasn't the best thing for me for all of those goals and lofty goals I had for myself.

John Dehlin [00:23:14] But so do you. Those early years at the. You weren't putting you on that spiritual track.

Jana Spangler [00:23:21] So I was trying. I took institute. I really loved some of my institute teachers and loved the institute up there, got involved in the LDS sororities that were going at the time, and met some good people in that first year. But early on, probably, I think the winter of that first year, I ended up meeting a guy that I dated for several years, and he. I was really, really, really into this guy. I just fell head over heels for him. And he did.

John Dehlin [00:23:53] He didn't meet your patriarchal blessing criteria?

Jana Spangler [00:23:54] He did not. He did not. He did not. He was a Mormon. And so, you know, part of me is just like, well, he's a Mormon. We can do this and, you know, it'll be okay. But it was not his interest to be that kind of a Mormon that I wanted, you know, and meanwhile, I was actually writing a missionary at the time, but I just. I just. I fell for this guy. And over the next several years, over my college experience, I was basically in a personal hell because I believed so much in the church. I still had all of those feelings of what I wanted to be. I still had all of those messages for my patriarchal blessing. I knew who I was supposed to be dating, who I was supposed to be marrying, but I was so emotionally attached to this guy, my college boyfriend.

John Dehlin [00:24:51] Were you sinning? Is that what you're saying?

Jana Spangler [00:24:54] I was sinning? Yes.

John Dehlin [00:24:56] So you felt guilty about that?

Jana Spangler [00:24:57] Felt super guilty. Super guilty.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] But you liked him a lot.

Jana Spangler [00:25:02] I liked him a lot, yeah. Although, you know, we fought like cats and dogs, so it wasn't like it was a terribly healthy relationship. I did not learn, like, as I said, I didn't learn very good relationship skills, social skills. That was not the forte of my family. My family is a lot of really really good things. My parents were really good people. And that was not the best. I didn't have the best modeling of any of that. So it was turbulent. It was really, really turbulent. So.

John Dehlin [00:25:36] So when people. And thanks for being vulnerable. I don't mean to make light of that. And I'm not. I don't really believe it's sinning. And I, I'm. I'm. I'm kind of asking these questions from a Mormon framework, but.

Jana Spangler [00:25:45] Well, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] But we don't. We usually interview people who go to byu, and we haven't interviewed a lot of youths. And something that's very different about the U of U. For those who aren't Mormon or who don't know about the U of you, you don't have the honor code you're supposed to be living under. It's. It's a state school. And so if you are sinning, and by sinning, we mean, you know, let's just say law of chastity stuff. Normal, normative, healthy, sexual stuff. For example, at byu, you've either got to hide it or lie or you get in trouble and you get kicked out. And that's just. But at the U, you don't. You don't have that. But you're still trying to go to church. So what's that like, navigating. Let's just say a less than obedient or from a Mormon standpoint. Standpoint, Moral perspective. As a college student at the U.

Jana Spangler [00:26:41] Yeah, it was awful for me.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] Why? Why is it so awful?

Jana Spangler [00:26:45] Because I had such high expectations for myself. And when I would read that patriarchal blessing, I would just know that I was failing. I was failing. You know, I was not living up to what I should. Why would I ever have a spiritual experience being who I am? And so I would stop going to church for a while and for a period of time, and then I would.

John Dehlin [00:27:12] Because the guilt.

Jana Spangler [00:27:13] It was just the guilt. It was just the guilt that would keep me away. And then I, you know, I was

John Dehlin [00:27:19] so I. I've asked this question before. Forgive me, because I know it's not that simple, but, like, if you believe. And this is, this is how. I don't want to sound douchey, but that's probably a bad word. I don't want to sound bad, but like, for me, it was like, no, you believe, so you act how you believe.

Jana Spangler [00:27:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:34] That's not how everyone is. And I'm not saying I was better because I. I had my comeuppance later. How do you believe but not act according to your beliefs. Yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:27:45] That's why it was so hard. That's why I was in such turmoil. I was in such inner turmoil. I had this relationship I was so into, but it wasn't healthy. It wasn't a healthy relationship. And where I really would have gone for solace is the church, But I felt guilty, so I would. I moved.

John Dehlin [00:28:08] Your parents weren't people you could really go to?

Jana Spangler [00:28:10] Oh, no.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] So you're kind of alone?

Jana Spangler [00:28:12] Oh, yeah. I was very, very much alone. It was a hard time. It really was. You know, and I. I. At one point, I remember telling one of my sisters that I hadn't been going to church. And that got back to my mother. And my mom was never. She's never been direct. She just gets very passive aggressive. Right. And so I could just feel a coldness from her that I know she. She loved me, but it was hard to feel her love during that time. And she would just make comments to me, like, you're probably in. Where. Where are your. Where are your membership records? Do you even know? Like, they're probably. You're probably in some lost box of the church office building. Pretend I'd heard of a lost box. I'm like, maybe I am. I don't know. But it was. It. I was. I was very rebellious in my attitude toward it because it was. I couldn't handle how cold it was. It was really, really painful. Like, I really look back at those years, and they were super, super painful.

John Dehlin [00:29:19] And it's kind of like all the support systems you should be able to draw from your parents, your faith you're kind of cut off from. That's hard.

Jana Spangler [00:29:31] Yeah, I was. So I would move to a different apartment. You know, like, I had lots of different friends that I lived with, roommates all through college. I'd never lived on campus. We just lived in apartments around Salt Lake City. And I would move to a new one, and I would. This would be my new start. And I'm gonna go to the new singles ward, and I'm gonna turn over a new leaf. And it would last about a month, and then I was just back to where. And I would. The first thing I would do is make the appointment with the bishop so I could go absolve.

John Dehlin [00:29:59] So you would do the confessions?

Jana Spangler [00:30:00] Oh, yeah. I don't know how many confessionals I've been to in my life.

John Dehlin [00:30:04] For those who don't know, or just so that we have a sense, what was that? Like, the repeated confessions with the bishop.

Jana Spangler [00:30:10] So one of the interesting parts is That I got a wide sampling of what bishops were like. I noticed that not all bishops handled these things the same way. Right. So some would be like, oh, wow, well, thanks for telling me, and you know, maybe skip the sacrament and, you know, slap on the wrist and whatever. And it was interesting because, I mean, for me it felt like that wasn't enough. There was not enough penance and it just wouldn't stick. And so I'd just go back to my same old life and stop going to church again. And this went on, on and off for probably three years or so. And during that time, some of my friends were going on missions. And I remember thinking for half a second like, I always kind of thought I'd go on a mission, but by the time I got there, I'm like, well, I'm so far away from a mission, you know, that there's no way this is going to happen for me.

John Dehlin [00:31:10] And we've talked about this. You know, there are these metaphors you're taught about the law of chastity, like chewed gum or, oh, yeah, you know, a licked cupcake. Oh, yeah, did those. Is that how you felt?

Jana Spangler [00:31:25] You know, it's definitely how I felt. I don't remember having those specific. I was spared those specific lessons. I do remember one, however, one lesson stuck with me in Young Women's of how to stay chaste while being chaste. I think about that one a lot. I thought it was very clever, very clever, very clever, and so many messed up messages in that one sentence. But I, I definitely felt that way about myself. And again, back to the, the patriarchal blessing reference. I mean, it told me to guard my virtue as my very life. So everything about what I was doing, I just felt like a failure. Add on top of this, like, it didn't take a lot for me to feel like a failure. And I think I should say this. I remember at one point in high school, I, I remember talking to my mom just before I got married and telling her, like, I felt like such a failure in high school. But when I look back, what did I do? Like, I, I drank alcohol once. I, I didn't keep my room clean. I dropped from a 4.0 to a 3.7. And it, so it wasn't enough to get the highest scholarship. I just got tuition. I didn't get paid on top of it. And I felt like a failure. I felt like an absolute failure. And at the time when I'm telling my mom this, she said, well, I felt like a total disappointment. She said, well, you kind of were. That's the perfectionism that I was, that's the pressure I was under. So in college, what also went along with this is I'm not staying on top of all my schoolwork. Now when I pay attention to school, I can give a 4.0. I do well in school. My skill set is well suited for the education system we go through. So I know I can do well in school. And I didn't. And I lost my scholarship. It was a four year scholarship, but I had to maintain a specific gpa. I held onto it by the skin of my teeth for the first three years, but lost it for that fourth year and again just felt like a complete failure.

College Years, Marriage, and Patriarchal Blessing

John Dehlin [00:33:46] What were you studying?

Jana Spangler [00:33:47] I was studying accounting, which is another kind of a sore spot for me now. My first love was science. My first love was like I was really interested in medical school. I chose accounting because that's something that I saw some of my cousins and people I knew doing from home. And so my degree was always my backup plan. Right. It was not something that I was ever going to do because I am supposed to be a mother, a wife and a mother. Which is interesting because I don't think that was necessarily a really strong message in my home other than my mom did that. Example, Just example. But my older sister has always planned on having a career. She went into metallurgical engineering and was planning on law school and always had a big career her whole life and it never bothered her. And again, I look back and I cringe at my old self. But I was very judgmental of her choices of having a career because I think I was in so much pain over my own. What I was giving up, what I knew I was giving up so that I could be a mom. So accounting was not my first love by any stretch of the imagination. But I knew it was practical and I knew there was a lot of flexibility. There's a lot of ways to do accounting if I ever needed to really quickly.

John Dehlin [00:35:18] You mentioned different types of bishops. You mentioned the lenient ones.

Jana Spangler [00:35:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:21] Were there some super strict ones?

Jana Spangler [00:35:22] There were some super strict ones. So there was one that I connected to. I'm trying to think it was in my early 20s. I think I'd finally broken from my. My college boyfriend for good. We kept breaking up and getting back together for years, but I think I'd moved past that and like I was bound and determined to make this one stick. And I'm getting back into activity in the church and I remember going to a therapist for the first time Back then, and that was one of the first things she said to me and helped me really understand was that what I was doing in my life was so completely different from my values, so completely different from my beliefs, that of course I'm miserable, right? So there was no way for me to give up the beliefs at the time. So I am like, I've got it. I've got to white knuckle this and I've got to straighten up and fly, right? And then life will be good and I'll meet my Prince Charming, right? My. My budding Mormon apostle.

John Dehlin [00:36:39] So people have you.

Jana Spangler [00:36:42] And that was always the question, like, have I blown it? That was the big question on my heart. Have I blown it?

John Dehlin [00:36:50] So I'm pausing just to think about this dual utility that religion often has, because on the one hand, it gives you standards, it gives you something to live for, it gives you something to strive for.

Jana Spangler [00:37:04] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] Meaning, purpose, identity, rules to keep you out of trouble. And that, that can work for a time. It also has its dark side. Yeah, kind of, you know, whether it's pride or, you know, whatever. But then there's a dark side to that because if you're not living up to it, all you, you can feel crappy. And the thing that's supposed to be helpful and useful and strengthening to you makes you miserable, makes you feel awful. And it's, it's weird when it can have that dark side.

Jana Spangler [00:37:34] And that was definitely my experience with it. You know, I think again, because of my upbringing, because of my personality, I took it in a really, really dark way. It was really hard. I mean, it was, it was good. It was good to keep me, like, having that kind of a North Star on the horizon that I was moving toward. But during those years, it was more of a weapon to beat myself up with. And until I met this, this amazing bishop in this, the singles word that I finally, this, this started to take. Right. I was really dedicated to coming back to the church. And, you know, it didn't, it didn't go swimmingly. I was still kind of in and out of things. But after I'd worked with this bishop for a while, with him seeing me make my resolutions and then slip and make resolutions and slip, I, he, he finally pulled me into his office one day and he said, look, you need to know that you have paid enough for what you have done that you can live up to what is in your patriarchal blessing. He had actually, you know, this is a guy who really cared a lot. He was very strict, but he cared a lot. And I had gone in to confess one more slip up with the guy I was dating. And he said, you need. This guy was not a member of the church. He said, you need to break up with him. You need to break up with him tonight and I'm going to wait for you. And he sent me out to break up with this guy and then was waiting for me till like 11 o' clock at night, pacing the halls of the church, waiting for me.

John Dehlin [00:39:33] That's intense.

Jana Spangler [00:39:34] Yeah. And at the time, it felt like someone actually cared because that's what I had always been looking for, was to someone to make me be good enough. Right. So he actually offered that to me at a time when I really needed it. So I get back, he's pacing, he's waiting for me. He asked me to bring my patriarchal blessing with me. He read it, that intense patriarchal blessing, and I remember him reading it out loud to me. And then he just looked up at me and he said, does that just sound like a bunch of words? And I said, yeah, it kind of does at this point. And he just looked me straight in the eye and he said, then what is the atonement for? And he offered me a view of the atonement that I'd never really grasped before. And in that place where I was, where I was so distraught, it. It was the one thing that brought me hope that maybe I could be okay, that maybe I haven't given up everything that I thought I had because I hadn't been faithful enough. And he actually convened a disordering council for me, which, for someone who was not endowed and for the level of things that I'd done, it's extraordinary. I don't think most bishops would have done that, but he did. He brought me in, went through. It was just, you know, on the ward level, and it was excruciating. One of my. One of my accounting professors was in the bishopric and sat there and listened to my whole story. It was humiliating. It was sickening. But I didn't mind it at the time because this was penance. I needed the penance. I needed to feel badly about enough. Badly enough about myself. I needed to. I. I deserved this. I deserved to be humiliated. And I just remember them shutting the door on me and, and waiting for an hour and a half while they deliberated. And when I came back in, they said, you were within a hair's breadth of being disfellowshipped, but we're just, we're gonna put you on probation. So I feel like I Crawled back to the church on in sackcloth and ashes, feeling like I am the worst. And they handed me a copy of Miracle Forgiveness and said, read this. And that also kind of killed my soul a little bit reading that. I remember the phrase that stuck out to me was that sexual sin seems to be forgivable. It never gives you the. The feeling that maybe it really is what it seems to be. Forgivable seems to be. So it was. It. It left a lot of questions on my mind, you know, even though this bishop, I think, who really was a really astounding person, was really trying to. To give me what I needed. And actually at the time, it is what I needed because anyone who was too leaning on me, it wasn't enough. I needed someone to be really mean to me. And he. He wasn't mean. I don't want to come across. He wasn't. He was very, very, very loving, but very strict and very, like, took it very, very seriously. So.

John Dehlin [00:43:18] So I am super. I'm touched. You're getting emotional. I'm touched by it.

Jana Spangler [00:43:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:24] And I'm conflicted. And I just want to explore this with you a tiny bit. Okay.

Jana Spangler [00:43:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:28] So on the one hand, I see you as feeling kind of aimless, like life isn't going great, don't have the parental support. You're kind of just not feeling great about yourself and not going in a great direction. And here, this committed, loving man that's probably got all sorts of other commitments or things he commute. He takes an interest in Jana.

Jana Spangler [00:43:51] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:43:52] And he said, I'm gonna, like, not just be one another bishop. I'm gonna, like, show up for you and challenge you and really try and reach you. And I'm gonna, like, wait until you go break up with this guy and come back, and then I'm gonna hold a disciplinary council. Not to punish you, not to hurt you, but because I know you feel like, you know, you need this kind of, like, process to repent.

Jana Spangler [00:44:17] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:44:18] So on the one hand, that just feels amazing.

Jana Spangler [00:44:21] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:44:21] Okay, so you're feeling things. What are you feel?

Jana Spangler [00:44:23] Yeah, no, I'm feeling.

John Dehlin [00:44:24] Come to the second part.

Jana Spangler [00:44:25] But I'm feeling that, like, his intuition in knowing that that is what I needed was astounding. Like, he. I remember reading, you know, because he. He read all about the budding Mormon apostle that I was. Was waiting for me. Right. He said, when you get married in the temple and you're kneeling across the altar from this guy, you need to know that you've paid enough that you deserve to be There and he knew that. And it, his words rang true to me. That was exactly what I needed to get to that point.

John Dehlin [00:45:02] And it really does sound like he helped. This is a pivotal moment in your life.

Jana Spangler [00:45:06] Huge.

John Dehlin [00:45:06] Kind of turned your life around huge.

Jana Spangler [00:45:08] And it was the basis of my testimony. So I never had the Mormon, the Moroni 10:4 experience. Never did, never did. Didn't ever stop trying to have it, never got it. But that was the basis of my testimony was, well, look at that. I went in feeling like a piece of poop. And I came out of that feeling like someone cared about me, someone saw me, someone I looked up to who was super righteous, saw something in me and cared enough to do that maybe I'm going to be okay and look at what the atonement can do. Even though that Miracle of Forgiveness book was horrific, I'm really trying to feel like the atonement is real enough that I can still have everything that I dreamed of for myself.

John Dehlin [00:45:59] Yeah, it's, it's in on one hand, beautiful and inspirational.

Jana Spangler [00:46:04] Yeah. Yep. It carried me for a lot of years. Yeah, a lot of years.

John Dehlin [00:46:10] So this may not be the time to talk about it, but I'm also going to give you my negative reaction. Right?

Jana Spangler [00:46:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:14] Because I'm like, you're a grown ass woman. You're doing normative things. Health, sexual, you know, whatever normative stuff. By any other standard, you feel awful in part because the church has made you feel awful. And that's why you're on this treadmill of unworthiness, because the church has made you feel awful. And then like just the boundaries of like what 30, 40, 50 year old man has the right to be Talking to some 20something young girl about her sexual behaviors, telling her she's like telling her what is right and wrong and then even like telling her if she's okay or not. Like I'm thinking, wow, the real healthy path might have been for you to get comfortable with your sexuality, learn that you're okay, not have to like feel like this bishop and Jesus and the atonement in the church all rescued you when you really weren't lost, you were lost in life, but you weren't necessarily lost in sin. You were just kind of doing normal stuff. So there is this trope that kind of ex Mormons sometimes lay at the church, that the church creates the illness and then presents itself as a cure. Like that. Your story has a bit of echoes of that for me, but it's not my job to interpret your story. And I know you just Got through crying because this meant so much to you. So, I mean, I don't know. It's not my place to even offer an interpretation, but those are some secondary thoughts that come through my mind as I say those things. Does any of that resonate with you?

Jana Spangler [00:47:52] For sure. I mean, I. I can read this story as I look back on it in so many different ways. On the one hand, yeah, I mean, it. The church did set this up for me, and so did my family and my personality and all of my experiences, like, you know, talking to my. One of my sisters. She did not take in the church this way, in all of these horrific ways that it needed to present itself as secure. She was a very different person. And for her, it's just been this really, really lovely place for her her entire life. Right. So I don't know that I can just say that the church sets this up for everybody, but it definitely can. It definitely can. You know, I mean, I'm the first person. My personality is one where I just look for. I see problems because I'm a perfectionist. This is what happens when you're a perfectionist. You lay any system out for me, and I will beeline in on what is wrong with it. And I'm the first to do that. And I can do that with the church all day long. We would be here for three days if you wanted me to tell you what I thought was wrong with the church, because I can see it very, very clearly, but I couldn't at the time. So putting it in the context of the time, I took it all on myself. Right. I took it all on myself. So, yes, I think what you're saying is right. I look back on that disciplinary action, and I see both in it. I see my salvation. I see exactly what I needed at the time. I see a loving kindness that presented itself in a love that I could accept because of my upbringing. And I see all of the things you said, too.

John Dehlin [00:49:57] Because. Because maybe a more succinct way to describe it is there was nothing wrong with you. You weren't broken. You weren't doing great. Yeah, but you felt you were made to feel like there was something wrong with you.

Jana Spangler [00:50:08] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:50:08] And that you needed a savior.

Jana Spangler [00:50:10] 100%.

John Dehlin [00:50:11] But.

Jana Spangler [00:50:12] 100%.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] But the reality is it helped turn you around and put you on a direction that you felt happy to go on. And who am I to say that was good or bad? Right.

Jana Spangler [00:50:22] Right.

John Dehlin [00:50:23] And for you, it was experienced as.

Jana Spangler [00:50:27] It was pivotal. It was beautiful. I mean, I asked that man to be there When I did get married, I wanted him there because that was such an image and a hope that he'd put in my mind that I had paid for it and I deserved it, and I wanted him there to see it. And I was totally composed on the day of my wedding until I walked into the ceiling room and saw him there. And I lost it because I knew he'd gotten me there. That's, I, I, that's how I felt at the time, that he was pivotal in getting me there. So, so yeah, so about, about, about a year after that, I remember thinking to myself, I was just not prone to be the best kind of Mormon, even though I wanted it so badly in my heart. I was just never disciplined enough. And I just wanted people to like me just enough. And I, I just was always making choices that betrayed myself. So at one point I just thought, well, this is, I remember a sister of mine saying, well, maybe you should just go through the temple. Maybe you should just go take out your endowments. And I laughed. I'm like, oh, that's the last thing I should be doing. Because then when I screw up, I'll be really screwed. It's the way I thought about it. I'm like, I'm not gonna bring that condemnation on myself because I know myself. But it started working on me. And within about a month I thought, you know what? This is actually, maybe that's my problem. My problem is I give myself too many outs. So if I go to the temple, maybe that will finally fix me because then I'll be scared enough that I won't screw up again. So I started making plans. And a year later, I went through the temple and didn't. Not connected to mission, not connected to marriage. I just went on my own. And that became a really important spiritual practice for me. I would go to the temple once a week on my way to work and became quite the little temple goer.

John Dehlin [00:52:28] And for those who weren't raised lds, you know, that's when you get your garments, that's where you make these extra special covenants. To obey the law of chastity to the law of consecration, obedience to give everything to the church. And big promises, promises to become a God or a goddess someday, but big punishment, big threats by Lucifer if you turn away. So it kind of, it's a bit of a risk, like you said, but it can really boost you into hyper righteousness.

Jana Spangler [00:52:58] Absolutely no one likes Satan looking me in the eyes, telling me that I can't go astray to sleep. Scare me into, into the straight and narrow.

Temple Experience and Early Married Life

John Dehlin [00:53:07] So were you even aware of kind of the. The stuff that feminists have complained about over the years, the whole hearkening into the Lord and the veiling of the face and all the things that. So feminism, basically? No patriarchy. No. It was just righteousness and goodness.

Jana Spangler [00:53:22] It was righteousness and goodness. I was completely oblivious to all of that. And I think maybe part of it was, you know, even just making promises through the husband. Like, I didn't have anyone there. I was making promises through. I don't know. It did not seem. It didn't even faze me. I was like the goldfish in the water that doesn't know what water is. Right. It just was. This is what it is. Of course it is. Now I'm just going to really figure out why I was always, like, delving in. I want to understand all the covenants I made. I want to understand everything about. There's some deep mystery here that I'm going to figure out. And I'm going to spend an hour in the celestial room and I'm just going to soak it in and I'm going to get all these spiritual experiences that will just help it all make sense to me. That was. That was my goal.

John Dehlin [00:54:05] What about the really gnarly Masonic penalties? Had they been removed?

Jana Spangler [00:54:11] They had. It was 93, I believe. 94.

John Dehlin [00:54:15] It was 90 when those went away.

Jana Spangler [00:54:16] Yeah, it was 90 when those went away. So I was. I was unaware. Although my. My aunt at one point was like, oh, you missed this phrase and told me some phrase that was in the temple before. And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. I'm like, what's that?

John Dehlin [00:54:32] But. But also just, you know, the gnarly stuff. I won't get it.

Jana Spangler [00:54:35] The gnarly stuff. I missed the gnarly stuff. So it was just all like a mystery. And I will say I had a great stake president that for those who are prepping anyone to go to the temple, this is the advice I would give. This guy was great. He's like, we are way too weird and secretive about the temple. Like, he sat me down and said, look, you need to know what's gonna happen here. My guess is he'd had women and men going through, just freaking out. Like, what was that? You know, he sat me down and said, they're really just signs and tokens. Those are the things that are sacred and secret. The rest we can talk about. So this is what's gonna Happen. And he took me through the whole thing, told me what was gonna happen before I got there. Told me to go home, buy the clothes, look at him, know what everything is like. He kind of took the mystery out of it for me. I'm really grateful because I don't know if it would have been, like, completely freaky to me if he hadn't done that.

John Dehlin [00:55:28] Nice.

Jana Spangler [00:55:29] Yeah. So I was well prepped.

John Dehlin [00:55:30] Okay.

Jana Spangler [00:55:31] It was good. It was a good experience. The temple was a great place for me. So. Graduated from college, actually. Got through by the skin of my teeth. Yeah. Had a bachelor's in accounting. I considered a master's in accounting, considered an mba. Started both of those programs, decided they weren't for me. I was kind of still kind of listless a little bit. Started working and then just kind of got a wild hair and said, I just want to move out of state. I had a friend that was living in San Diego at the time. I went to visit her. The company I was working for had an office in Long beach. And I. So I went and talked to them while I was down there, and they offered me a job, and I just said, peace out. I'm out of here. I'm 24. I'm not married. In Utah, I felt like an old maid because, you know, 24 is just so old and not married.

John Dehlin [00:56:24] Okay, wait. I'm thinking back to my interview with Heather Gay, and she talked about the Long beach ward. There's. There's kind of.

Jana Spangler [00:56:30] That's the Huntington beach ward.

John Dehlin [00:56:31] Oh, so it's not Long Beach.

Jana Spangler [00:56:32] So I worked in Long beach, but I was part of the Huntington. I lived in Huntington beach, and I was the Huntington beach ward.

John Dehlin [00:56:38] Okay, you did the plan.

Jana Spangler [00:56:39] I did the Huntington beach ward. And it's the same ward that I met my husband in that Heather met Billy in.

John Dehlin [00:56:46] So I guess. I guess if you're single from Utah and you want to do things right, and you're not married, by the time you get out of college, you either go to DC and go to the single awards in DC or you go Colonial Award.

Jana Spangler [00:57:00] Right?

John Dehlin [00:57:00] Yeah. Or you go to Hunting.

Jana Spangler [00:57:01] Heard all of that.

John Dehlin [00:57:02] So you did it?

Jana Spangler [00:57:03] I did. I did the Huntington Beach. I didn't know anything about the Huntington beach word. I actually had my eyes on Newport. I was like, newport? But I called them. They had a calling for a housing coordinator, and I talked to the housing coordinator, trying to find a roommate, and they said, you know, this word's great, but you really want to go to Huntington. So I did. I found a Roommate in Huntington beach and moved down there.

John Dehlin [00:57:27] So it's kind of a. I don't want to say meat market. Can you say meat market?

Jana Spangler [00:57:30] It totally is. And. And it, like, doubled in size over the summer because all the BYU kids would come home for the summer. And so it was a gigantic ward. Huge, huge impact. It's since been split from what I understand, into two.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] Fun was awesome.

Jana Spangler [00:57:48] It was fun. It was just fun to. You know, I think I. I've always kind of romanticized these new starts, you know, that was another new start. Like, I can go to a new place and no one knows me, and I can start over because I still had all of this lingering, like, really not feeling good about myself, still wondering if I was good enough from my childhood that I could never quite shake. But it was really fun. And I actually really wanted to just kind of date around when I got there. But of course, I met my husband Rob down there about a month in to after I moved into the ward, and he was the Elders Quorum president. John. It was like I could see the writing on the wall that here was my Mormon apostle.

John Dehlin [00:58:33] So you got to date the Elders Quorum president.

Jana Spangler [00:58:35] I dated the Elders Quorum president. Right.

John Dehlin [00:58:41] So your dreams come and start to come true.

Jana Spangler [00:58:43] It was all coming together.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] Younger repents.

Jana Spangler [00:58:47] It was all coming together. Elmo the Younger was always my favorite story for obvious reasons. Yes. So, yeah. So met my husband.

John Dehlin [00:59:00] It's a bit of a sad thing that we had to mention Nephi. And I was younger for a woman. Like.

Jana Spangler [00:59:05] Right.

John Dehlin [00:59:05] Book of Mormon. Can you give us some female. Please, can you give us some female characters that are. That our young women can look up to a bunch of men?

Jana Spangler [00:59:13] Seriously. What's funny is I never even noticed that. I'm like, I can be Nephi. What do you mean? That's fine. I don't know. I definitely had. That's one thing I can say about my parents. They were very egalitarian. If anything, my mom kind of wore the pants. Like, my dad was very kind. There was a lot of really benevolent patriarchy around me that I just didn't notice. I didn't notice any of the problems with it at all. I just felt like. And I. I've always had. I've always been outspoken. I've always had kind of a strong personality. And so, I don't know, I just felt like everyone listened to me. Anyway, I can be Nephi. What are you talking about?

John Dehlin [00:59:50] Yeah, yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:59:51] This isn't a problem. So, anyway, okay.

John Dehlin [00:59:55] So you start dating.

Jana Spangler [00:59:56] Rob started dating Rob. And we dated for, I think, about nine months before we got engaged and then got married. Came up to Salt Lake City, got married in the Salt Lake Temple.

John Dehlin [01:00:09] What year was that?

Jana Spangler [01:00:10] That was in 1998, on Friday the 13th of November. Super fun. And then we lived in. Oh, my gosh. What's the name of. Oh, Lake Forest. Lake Forest, California. Down by Mission Viejo and Irvine, kind of Orange County.

John Dehlin [01:00:33] So did. Did you. You can share this if you want. I'm just curious. Did you, like, have to have that moment where you sit Rob down and say, I haven't been the person that you probably wanted me to be? Do you still love me?

Jana Spangler [01:00:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:00:47] Oh. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:48] Was that before or after the.

Jana Spangler [01:00:50] It was, I think after we were engaged, but before we got married. I want to say. I think it was before. After we got engaged.

John Dehlin [01:01:00] But is there anything you want to share from your perspective about that?

Jana Spangler [01:01:03] Yeah, I mean, I. I think. Think. I think it was hard. Like, he had always followed the rules. Like, he. He. I don't want to necessarily totally tell his story, but I will say he grew up out of. He grew up in Maryland with not as many Mormons. Right. And he. His family was. His parents were converts, and, you know, he was definitely the most dedicated person in his family to the church. You know, it was. It all was coming from him. But he didn't feel a ton of pressure growing up, and he went to BYU not knowing. Not really intending to serve a mission, but decided in his first year to do that. And. And he's. He's. He's a. Just a really good dutiful guy. Right. That's just his personality. And so, of course, that was, like, a huge draw for me. That's what I. I want that. I want that dutiful guy. Right? So, yeah, he. He had made sure to, you know, keep himself within certain bounds. So that was a hard conversation for sure, to let him know that that hasn't been my. My story. I think he did struggle with it a little bit, and I. I kind of. I. I was kind of proud of myself. I kind of got on my high horse for a minute, going, well, you don't get the atonement if you don't, you know, if you don't accept me. So you better get yourself right, you know? So we had a little bit of that moment. He came around. He's like, yeah, you're right. Okay. It's good, you know, But I think it was hard. I think this is hard for people growing up in Mormonism. This Is really, really hard if you've been the one to keep yourself pure and someone else hasn't. Right. It's, it's, it's hard.

John Dehlin [01:02:42] I remember Natasha Helfer talking about that and how it played into her relationship with, with Andy, her husband. Yeah, it can bring this weird power dynamic to a relationship or guilt and superiority, or it can just kind of level out into, you know, not a big deal, but can be pretty intense. Yeah, yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:03:06] No, I think it has, it turned out okay and I think it does leave it, leave its mark. I'm, I don't want to minimize it. Like, I think it, it was really hard. It was a hard moment for both of us. So, so, yeah, so we get married after about eight months. We moved back up to Salt Lake so that we could buy a home with one salary so that I could be the good stay at home mom that we both really wanted me to be. Right. And so we moved to Utah, moved to Sugar House, got our first cute little house in Sugar House. It was nice.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] What was the home and Sugar House worth back then?

Jana Spangler [01:03:45] I think we paid about 180 for it.

John Dehlin [01:03:47] Wow. What would it be now?

Jana Spangler [01:03:49] I've heard some in those that like, are going for half a million. I don't know. I mean, I don't know for sure. Teeny, teeny, teeny, like 900 square feet on each floor, you know, but it was such a cute little neighborhood. Made a lot of good friends in that ward. And I struggled even a little bit then, kind of a little bit with activity. I, I had this little period of time there where I started to scare my husband. I think I scared him a little bit because I, I would just be like, yeah, I'm just not feeling well today. I'm just not going to go. And I'd have little periods of time when it would be like that. I remember getting into it with the Relief Society president in that ward a little bit because she, I was the Relief Society chorister. She took this very, very seriously. I did not. I thought, you can ask anyone to stand up and flap their arms for two seconds, you are fine. But she, she was, I think I went to her once to, you know, make some, you know, kind of comment. I would always try to find someone ahead of time to, to fill in for me or I would have rob, you know, scramble for someone during sacrament meeting or whatever. But it stressed her out to not have me be the one there every time. And I think she threw some number at me. You've only been here X out of. And, you know, it was not good. I remember thinking, why would I want to continue to go to church when this is the kind of environment I'm in? I don't like this.

Navigating Faith as a Stay-at-Home Mother

John Dehlin [01:05:22] Okay, so there's this term called the backslider. I'm thinking about this novel by Levi Peterson, an early Mormon Stories interviewee, where, you know, you feel the guilt and then you repent and then you feel supercharged and then you start backsliding. Are you backsliding?

Jana Spangler [01:05:37] I. A little bit. I think a little bit, but not in big ways. So I wasn't feeling really too bad about it. But I do remember. I do remember being at work and it was, you know, I'd worked late and I remember getting on the Internet and I remember. I don't even know how I found it, but I came across some ex Mormon website around what year? Oh, gosh, that would have been, you know, 2000, something like that. And I remember just being super intrigued and I remember reading things and I just remember having all my judgment of these people are so angry and they're just so. And. And I love to argue. It's like, that was definitely something that I learned in my family growing up. My dad loves to debate things, and so I had that in me. So I would get on some of these little chat rooms and discuss with people and try to tell them how wrong they were. And it didn't last very long. And I remember not telling Rob about it for a while, and then I finally did, and I'm like, so I've been reading this stuff and it's kind of interesting. And he was just like, what are you reading? What are you doing? And I remember him getting really, like, upset with me. And I don't like it when people are upset with me. I get defiant. I just get defiant. So I remember little moments of that.

John Dehlin [01:06:56] But do you remember what the types of issues would have been you were learning about? Because this would have been AOL chat kind of stuff.

Jana Spangler [01:07:02] Yeah, yeah. It was a long, long time ago. Yeah. Early days of the Internet. I don't remember specifically. I don't. I just remember hearing about, like, no ma' am knows my history. And I remembering, you know, knowing that Fawn Brody was, you know, an antichrist. And, you know, this is all anti Mormon stuff and feeling totally guilty and doing it when, you know, no one's. No one's watching kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] And really, around the time I lost my faith. Okay, 2000. 2001.

Jana Spangler [01:07:34] Okay, okay. So, you know, maybe I was seeing. Seeing you in there somewhere, John, reading your. Your stuff? But,

John Dehlin [01:07:43] yeah, I wasn't public yet. I wasn't.

Jana Spangler [01:07:45] It really didn't. It really didn't, like, affect my faith in any way. I was super intrigued. I've always been super intrigued with people and just how people do things and what's going on with that. This is. This is kind of forbidden. I'm kind of interested in this. Right. But it didn't really do anything. If anything, I just. It just kind of fortified me. And then not long after that, I would say so. Went through a period of infertility. That was kind of the next thing.

John Dehlin [01:08:16] Was it hard?

Jana Spangler [01:08:17] It was hard. It was hard. And, you know, all those doubts coming up of, am I not good enough to get the blessings? Is it. You know, is this me still always kind of at the back of my mind?

John Dehlin [01:08:32] Did you have in your mind that maybe your unfaithfulness, quote, unfaithfulness would have left you? I mean, I'm not trying to project that, no.

Jana Spangler [01:08:40] Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think I had those kind of. I don't think they were pervasive, but I think they were in the back of my mind, for sure. So I remember bearing my testimony once in church during that time, and. And, oh, and this was another kind of a thing. So I grew up, you know, playing the piano and being very musical, and those were all the callings that I always had from the time I was, you know, coming back to church and getting more. More active again. It had always been music callings. Always, always, always the first thing that I would be swept into. And I remember feeling like Rob was always having, like, he was elders quorum president down there. We move up to Utah and they make an elders quorum president up there. And he's always having these leadership callings, and I'm always feeling like, well, Rob's the spiritual one. I'm not really very spiritual. You know, I'm still not quite good enough. Maybe if I get a good enough calling, then I'm always looking for other things to affirm my worth. Right. I was always looking for other people callings, something to affirm who I was. So I just remember bearing my testimony once, and then the bishop called us in and was like. And said, I. It would have been a state calling. So I don't know how this. But I remember the bishop telling us it was you bearing your testimony that made me want to make Rob the elders quorum president. That was just because I was just so faithful. Right. And I think I was just kind of Grappling with the infertility and making sense of it and why it was meant to be and, you know, all of the narratives that at the time felt very faith promoting for me. And I ended up having to go through in vitro twice. My first two kids are in vitro babies. And then we had a third miracle baby. But during that time, I'd had my first child, she was about a year old. We moved to the neighborhood where I live now. Not the exact house I'm in, but in that neighborhood on holiday. And I remember just saying to the bishop when I moved in, you know, I've only ever had music callings. I would really love to serve somewhere else if you have enough people, you know, but if, of course, if you need a music person, of course I'll do that. Do whatever you want. Right. But I would really, really like to explore. And so for that first time in that word I did, I was able to serve in different places in the church and start to feel a little more confident in what I had to offer back to the church. So I served in young women's for four years, discovered that I love teaching. I would have never known that I love teaching if I hadn't had that experience. Ended up holding callings like gospel doctrine teacher in that ward. I feel like I grew a lot spiritually in the time that I was in that ward as far as just gaining confidence in who I was. And Rob continued to serve in elders quorum presidencies because that's what he does.

John Dehlin [01:12:06] He's on the track.

Jana Spangler [01:12:07] He was on the track. He was. Well, he probably is.

John Dehlin [01:12:11] I'm on the edge of my seat.

Jana Spangler [01:12:13] Well, he may still be. I don't think so though, because I'm the lead weight in his shoes.

John Dehlin [01:12:18] Don't give the story away. Don't give the story away.

Jana Spangler [01:12:22] Anyway, so in particular. So everything's going along. I have three kids and I'm in

John Dehlin [01:12:28] the Mormon dream and holiday now.

Jana Spangler [01:12:29] Yeah. And I'm so busy with the kids that I'm not even able to see straight. I had my. From the oldest to the youngest. My. My oldest was not quite four when the youngest was born, so I just had three. Boom, boom, boom. And this is just when I knew I am. I was not well suited to be a stay at home mom. This was. This was not something that I. It was something I really, really, really struggled with. Just my temperament and it was not well suited for what I was doing.

John Dehlin [01:13:07] That's not the Mormon way.

Jana Spangler [01:13:08] I know it was really bad.

John Dehlin [01:13:12] You and I would have Grown up in the time where a woman's place was in the home.

Jana Spangler [01:13:15] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:13:15] Women shouldn't work outside the home. That is your whole purpose. That is your whole calling.

Jana Spangler [01:13:19] 100%.

John Dehlin [01:13:20] There's no more noble calling than to be a mom. So you would have had these voices of Ezra Taf Benson of doubt and shame. Yeah. Why aren't. Why aren't I loving this? Why is it not enough for me? Why do I want to do something else? What's wrong with me? Again, more self doubt.

Jana Spangler [01:13:36] All self doubt. It always comes back to self doubt. No, always comes back to self doubt. Yeah. So I am just feeling like why I lived. I lived for the kids nap time and when they went to bed at night and I would stay up late just to have some time for me and then I would be just cranky in the morning, not getting enough sleep. And then marriage just got hard. Marriage got hard. Rob and I both, you know, came from homes that were not great examples of emotional maturity. And we still.

John Dehlin [01:14:17] Marriage always gets hard, by the way.

Jana Spangler [01:14:19] It gets really hard.

John Dehlin [01:14:20] Always does.

Jana Spangler [01:14:20] Always. And we did have our special challenges. It was really, really, really difficult. And I didn't notice it at the time, but looking back, I definitely was sliding into depression. Periods of mild depression. You know, the happiest day of my life was the day all my kids got into school and I'd have some time to myself. Always felt super selfish for having that feeling. Loved my kids, loved it, but it was not. It was not an easy time for me in my life. And so as soon as I had a little space and the kids were in school, now I have time to work on the next problem. Always I'm the problem, but my next problem is I got to fix myself in my marriage. I've got to figure out what's going on between me and Rob and we've got to fix this. I'm going to fix it. I'm the fixer.

John Dehlin [01:15:14] Around. What year is this?

Jana Spangler [01:15:16] So I'm going to say 2010ish.

John Dehlin [01:15:19] Okay, now we're up to 2010.

Jana Spangler [01:15:21] Yeah. I don't know. That whole time it's such a blur, John.

John Dehlin [01:15:24] It is a blur.

Jana Spangler [01:15:25] Like when you have little kids and I'm just serving in the church and doing and I mean just serving and calling after calling. And I, I loved working with the young women. There was so much I loved about that time and loved that ward. Socially, it was hard for me. Socially, it's always been hard for me. It's been hard for me to be a Mormon socially. A lot of, like, wanting to keep up with the Joneses, kind of feel within myself, even the friends that I had, I never could really feel like they were really my friends a lot on me. I just never felt like I meshed the things that people wanted to talk about were not the things I was interested in talking about. I've always kind of wanted to have the deeper conversations. So, I don't know. Things were just still kind of a mismatch in my life. Right.

John Dehlin [01:16:19] And you're gonna fix your marriage.

Jana Spangler [01:16:20] I'm gonna fix my marriage. I'm gonna figure it out. So I started finding retreats, and I started finding books. And, you know, I found Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, which I just started listening to all the people on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. And I just remember I actually found some really good groups. I found, like, support groups. I found support groups for marriage, and I found some that were actually not put on or sponsored by our faith. They were sponsored by evangelicals and other things. And I remember meeting these other women, and I remember seeing how they would call on their faith. I remember seeing how they pray. I remember seeing how they'd invite everyone to pray with them. And I remember feeling like, these guys have so much more of the spirit than I do. What is going on?

John Dehlin [01:17:18] Oh, yeah. That could be dangerous to a faith.

Jana Spangler [01:17:20] Oh, yeah. This was kind of like the start of this. I started saying, what is going on? And then I'd have these other Mormon women who were being told by things, by their bishops on how to fix their marriages that were horrific that I just felt like were terrible. And I remember just slowly, slowly, slowly, over that period of time from, like, 2010 to 2013, I just remember more and more creeping into my consciousness of, okay, when I listened to Eckhart Tolle and Brene Brown and this is where I found Richard Rohr was on Super Soul Sunday. I remember thinking, these people have something really healing and really applicable to my life. And, like, I actually have skills that I can use in my marriage and with myself. And slowly, I'm listening to General Conference, and it's sounding like it's not holding that same kind of feeling for me. And at times when they would talk about marriage or talk about other things, I was starting to think, this is really not good advice. What is wrong with us? Like, we're really good at. I started framing it in my mind, like, we're so good at Third World problems and helping with people, and we see suck at First World, like, interrelational Problems. This is what started cropping up for me as I started educating myself more

John Dehlin [01:18:48] on sounds like first half of life and second half of life.

Jana Spangler [01:18:51] Little bit.

John Dehlin [01:18:53] That's a Richard Rohr preview.

Jana Spangler [01:18:56] Yeah. Yeah. It just started being like things just started to feel off for me, but it was really subtle. I never really let myself cognitively go there. And, oh, I do want to mention one thing. I missed a really big part of this. This story, which is that probably back in 2004, ish. My nephew left the church. My nephew I was very, very close to because my sister, who's nine years older than me, you know, had him at 21 or something. And so I was. So he was only 12 years younger. He's 12 years younger than I am. And he. He was my little buddy. I babysat him all, you know, when he was a baby, spent lots of time with him. It's very, very close to this particular nephew. And he's. He was always a super straight arrow and was doing all the things and just started having huge questions when he hit BYU and wasn't sure he was going to go on a mission, decided to go on a mission and then ran into an. An investigator who handed him a bunch of information and. And it blew his mind. And while he was on his mission, his mission president actually gave him permission to have conversations with me. I would have conversations on the phone with him because I'm trying to keep him in the faith. So during that time, I learned all the stuff, all the things. It's interesting because I think just growing up, my mom must have read things along the way and known things. Like, I knew about Joseph's polygamy. I knew about seer stones. I knew about things already growing up. But whatever I didn't know, I found out during that time.

John Dehlin [01:20:43] Wow.

Jana Spangler [01:20:43] And I took a hardcore. I went straight to Fairmormon and I took a hardcore apologist stance. So I had all the answers for my nephew. And I was just astounded when none of that works and he came home from his mission and went and lived his life. But anyway, I think that's important. I think it's important to my story because I knew all the things. I knew all the historical problems, and I had a pat answer for all of it. I remember a conversation with my nephew that I look back and I'm like, I must have frustrated you so much talking about the Book of Abraham. I remember him saying, like, all this evidence, this mountain of evidence on the Book of Abraham. And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, I was never one to deny evidence, but I was like, well, if you take a Venn diagram of, like, all of that and, like, maybe the way that the church can, like, explain it, even if there's like a 1% chance that the church's explanation is right, I'm going with that because look at my life. It works for me. This is what I believe. I'm not going to throw it away because a preponderance of the evidence tells me I should throw it away. So this is just where my mind was. So anyway, I'm just living proof that telling people all the things when they're not ready to go there works does not work at all.

Discovering Contemplative Spirituality

John Dehlin [01:22:09] It does work temporarily.

Jana Spangler [01:22:11] Well, I mean, telling me all those things didn't shake my faith is what was my point.

John Dehlin [01:22:16] Okay, sorry, I misheard you.

Jana Spangler [01:22:18] Yeah, it did not shake my faith at all. If you're not ready to hear it and go there, it is not going to necessarily shake your faith to hear everything about the Book of Abraham.

John Dehlin [01:22:26] What I thought you were saying is when an apologetic group provides random answers.

Jana Spangler [01:22:32] Oh, it totally works.

John Dehlin [01:22:33] Yeah. It's not the substance of the answers.

Jana Spangler [01:22:36] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:22:38] That there's something seemingly smart people that seem to have answers.

Jana Spangler [01:22:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:22:41] And that works.

Jana Spangler [01:22:42] And if there's an option at all, however infinitesimal, then you go with that. Right.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] That's what fair Mormon is.

Jana Spangler [01:22:50] It is. And I was so grateful for them at the time. Like, oh, they've heard of that. They know what blood atonement is. Let's chat about that.

John Dehlin [01:22:57] You know, so fair gave you all the answers.

Jana Spangler [01:23:00] Fear gave me all the answers. I had all the answers, and I'm good. And I just know so much. I was this faithful girl bringing up the hat and the stone, like, way back when. And people were like, what? I'm like, no, really. Apparently there was a hat and a stone, you know, but totally no problem. No problem at all. So go back to that time when I'm. I'm. I'm starting to notice things, and I'm noticing the evangelicals, and they are so much more full of the spirit than I am. And. And it really did start to eat at me. Like, what? It's the gift of the Holy Ghost. I don't even understand this. What does this even mean? Because these people seem to have a lot more of a gift than I do. Because I still. I still have not gotten these spiritual experiences. I really have not had them. I mean, I prayed about who to marry. I prayed about moving to California. I prayed about which school to go to Utah or byu. I never got answers. Never, Never. But that made sense to me because I was never good enough for the

John Dehlin [01:24:09] answer to Mary Rob. Did you pray to Mary Rob?

Jana Spangler [01:24:11] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:11] And nothing.

Jana Spangler [01:24:13] Nothing. So I just thought, well, God must just trust me. And I've just got to trust him that if I'm heading into fire that he'll knock me out of the way. Like I didn't have any other way to frame it because it just didn't happen.

John Dehlin [01:24:29] But so once you see all these spiritual non Mormons. Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:24:33] I'm like, what is happening here? These, these people are like, they got it going on. This is amazing.

John Dehlin [01:24:39] And I just have to say, Margi and I had lost our faith by this point, but we were very much in the sort of. Eckhart Tolle, A new Earth.

Jana Spangler [01:24:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:48] Renee Brown, Super Soul Sunday. We were, we were faithful. We were no longer believers in Mormonism.

Jana Spangler [01:24:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:55] Or in an orthodox way.

Jana Spangler [01:24:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:56] But we were very active in Mormonism.

Jana Spangler [01:24:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:59] And we were not getting spiritually fed by Mormonism, but we would watch Super Soul Sunday with our kids as our family home evening. And that was our source of spirituality. So I'm tracking. Margi and I are tracking along with you.

Jana Spangler [01:25:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:12] We just happen to be kind of non literal believers doing the progressive, you know.

Jana Spangler [01:25:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:18] While you're still.

Jana Spangler [01:25:19] And I'm still full. Full literal believer.

John Dehlin [01:25:22] 100 tracking parallel where Margi and I are as this has happened to you, just so I can make sense.

Jana Spangler [01:25:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:27] And 2010 to 2013.

Jana Spangler [01:25:29] 2010 to 2013. I'm just, I'm leaning into this, all of this new stuff and my mind is being blown and I'm, I'm loving all of it. And I'm. And I'm getting more and more angry with some of the things that, that are happening in the church. And I remember mentioning it in one of my support groups and this evangelical woman gave me this book, told me to read this book called the Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning. And that book was paradigm shifting for me.

John Dehlin [01:25:59] How so

Jana Spangler [01:26:02] this God in this book loves you so, so, so much. It's called the Furious Longing of God. Like, what would it do for your life if you understood how deeply God, you and this guy had been a pastor and he'd also been like homeless and breaking every commandment and talking about how God was with him even when he was living under a viaduct, when he was doing horrible things and when he was also a pastor.

John Dehlin [01:26:34] Given your story, you're going to resonate with that.

Jana Spangler [01:26:36] I was like, you can have God with you, like, when you're not perfect. What is happening? I don't understand this, you know, and I. But I just remember thinking there was such a hope, there was such a flood of, like, this makes sense to me that this is. That I've been mistaken this whole time. And what if this is who God is? It opened up something for me.

John Dehlin [01:27:03] Are you getting emotional? Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:27:05] Because who. What. What could. What could that have done for my life? Knowing that God loved me for my whole life?

John Dehlin [01:27:14] You didn't ever. You never somehow felt that?

Jana Spangler [01:27:16] No, I was never worthy of it.

John Dehlin [01:27:18] Okay, I don't want to disrupt your feelings, but like, I'm a child of God. He has sent me here, has given me parents kind of dear. He loves me. Like, the whole Mormon primary experience is wrapped around God loving us, and we're children of God, and God's a loving heavenly father. How did that not seep through?

Jana Spangler [01:27:34] That's a very good question. I would focus on. This is what I do. I scan the thing and I focus on the one line. Before it grows too late. It's a great song, but it's before it grows too late. Right. Like, there's always the message of if. If you're this, then if, then conditional, conditional, all conditional. And it's the kind of love that I felt growing up in my home. I don't. Looking back, I don't believe my parents love was conditional, but I felt that because of my mom's perfectionism. So it made sense to me that that's what love was. Love was conditional. And this was the first time I'd ever let it into my heart that maybe it wasn't. Maybe there was some sort of source of unconditional love. And maybe, just maybe, I was okay. And.

John Dehlin [01:28:36] And that's gotta be paradigm shifting, learning that outside your faith. Because you're like, wait a minute, why, Number one, why am I not learning this in my faith?

Jana Spangler [01:28:45] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:28:45] And number two, why is my one true faith not teaching this stuff?

Jana Spangler [01:28:49] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:28:49] Right. Those are two separate things. It's like.

Jana Spangler [01:28:52] And then I start having conversations with my sister where I'm like, this book. Like, God's love is unconditional. And she's going, well, yeah. I'm like, no, we teach a conditionally loving God. That's the God I know. And she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. God's love is completely unconditional. Like, we. We grew up in the same home.

John Dehlin [01:29:10] Yeah. Different people.

Jana Spangler [01:29:12] Different people.

John Dehlin [01:29:12] Like, different messages.

Jana Spangler [01:29:13] She got she got that message loud and clear. I did not.

John Dehlin [01:29:16] Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Same church, same home. Yeah. Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:29:20] And so I. So then I hit a summer. This is probably, I think the first time I let myself say out loud, something's wrong here was right at the beginning of 2014. And I remember telling one of my really close friends, like, I don't know what's happening here, but I'm really feeling like the leaders of our church are missing something because I'm finding some of these things, other places that are resonating with me more. And I don't understand this. And she was great. She was really affirming. And it's like, yeah, that can be really hard. And I don't think they all have it all figured out and, you know, whatever, but still, you know, super believing.

John Dehlin [01:30:09] Is Rob getting nervous at this point yet?

Jana Spangler [01:30:12] Not yet even? No, no, not really.

John Dehlin [01:30:15] You're going in your own. I'm kind of doing my own spiritual journey. And you're not necessarily really bringing him along with you?

Jana Spangler [01:30:20] No, I'm not really telling anybody. And then things kind of came to a head that summer, the summer of 2014. I had fallen into kind of one of my really, I would say, depressive states, where it's summer so I don't have to get the kids to school. It's all I can do to just even want to get up and feed them and take care of them. I'm just not happy as a stay at home mom. I've got a lot of guilt. I've got a lot of stuff going on and Guilt. Yeah. Just always still. Yeah, the mom guilt. And I'm not reading my scriptures enough. I'm not praying enough. I've still never gotten that Moroni 10:4 experience. I must not be good enough. I'm probably not doing a very good job of my callings. Nothing's ever quite up to snuff. My kids aren't the perfect little Mormon kids sitting in the pews. Like, my kids are hard and it's a reflection of me and, you know, just everything is hard. And so I just remember being really, really sad. And I just remember pleading to God to just let me know that he's there, just let me know that this is real. And I remember having a conversation with one of my sisters who honestly is just one of those people that God talks to 24 7. She's just like, she's got him on the red line to God and she's taught. I mean, she's just so faithful and has Always had such a deep connection to God. And I'm like, I don't get it. I don't. I don't have that. I don't have that. And I just remember having this conversation that I. It kind of broke me. So. My sister is a very loving person, and she wanted to help me. And for me, all I took in was, there's no good answer for this. God wouldn't do this to me, so it must be me. And it was. It. The message came to me so loudly that, this must be me. And I remember hanging up the phone and just. I lost it. I just lost it. I. And I literally. I. I just saw my entire shelf crash before my eyes.

John Dehlin [01:32:43] How so?

Jana Spangler [01:32:44] I just hit this point cognitively. I said to myself, that was the first time I'd ever let it sink in. What if none of this is true? Like, none of it with the church?

John Dehlin [01:33:01] Why'd you ask that?

Jana Spangler [01:33:04] I think because I started to question if God was even real. Like, I've been. I. I hit this point where I felt like my sister is so spiritual and kind and smart, and I'm. I'm going to her with all of these questions. And none of the answers to me in that moment felt satisfying. And I thought. I remember thinking to myself, if this is the. We've got, maybe we don't have it. Maybe we don't have it. Because if my sister can't find an answer for me in this, I don't know if anyone can. So maybe it's all crap. How do I know it's not crap? I remember just having that distinct feeling of myself, how do I personally know this is not crap? I've never had anything to tell me. I've always just gone on, do it enough and it'll happen. And it's never happened for me. So how do I personally know? I know nothing. I don't even know if God's there. I don't know if this is just a story that everybody's been telling me my entire life. And it's like it did not occur to me until that moment. And it came to me in a moment, and I was shattered. I don't know if I've ever cried so hard. It just. I lost it. And I literally, at that moment, I remember thinking, I'm going back to square one. I literally believe nothing until I truly, in my heart, believe it. I took everything in my truth basket and tossed it out in a moment.

John Dehlin [01:34:56] That's intense.

Jana Spangler [01:34:56] It was intense. It was super intense. I feel like I must have I have no recollection. I may not have. I don't know. I was. Honestly, it was so emotionally, like, taxing during that time. I don't have a clear memory of what happened. I remember I must have mentioned it to Rob. Like, I'm really struggling with this. And I just remember him kind of like, okay, he was. He was. He was really quiet about it, didn't tell me how he felt about it much. He didn't get angry or threatening with it or anything. He just kind of took it in and was like, okay, this is happening. Okay, I don't know what this is. And I remember at some point in the next following months, my. My temple recommend was coming due, and I didn't know what to do. And I went in and talked to the bishop, and I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm having this experience. I don't know what I believe anymore, and I don't know what to do about that, but I still want to go to the temple. And I just remember. I remember telling him a few things that had been hard for me. I remember giving him examples like, you know, I was primary pianist at the time, and I remember the chorister had been teaching one particular song to the kids, and she was trying to get the meaning through to them, not just teach them the words, but she was like, now say if and then with all of these sentences. And one of them was, if you keep his commandments, then his love will abound with her putting the if then in there. And I lost it. And I'm like, I. I want out of my calling. I. I can't just sit there and listen to this stuff in primary. This is too much for me. And I don't know what to do with my temple recommend. And I just remember him saying, well, you know, I don't really get upset by these things because, you know, people have their own ways of doing things, and I don't let it offend me. And I just remember saying to him, you know what I feel like? I don't feel like it's wrong for me to feel offended by a message of God's conditional love. I don't feel like that's bad for me to feel offended by that. I think the spirit was offended and I was offended because it's not true, and it's a damaging message that's been damaging to me. So. I know, and I think he was a really nice guy, but I don't think he had any clue what to do with me. And he was just like, well, I'm going to be released in, like, six months, so kind of let me know what you decide. And it was kind of left with that. And so I instead decided to go to his counselor to get a recommend. I just kind of went to the other guy when he was signing him, and I just, I told him the same thing. I'm like, I don't know what to believe. He's like, well, do you believe there's a God? Do you believe he loves you? I said, well, I want to. If there's a God, I do believe he loves me. He's like, okay, well, then just, you know, say yes to everything. And God knows what you mean. I'm like, awesome. That's great. And then I go to the guy in the Stake Presidency and I told him the same thing. I don't know what to believe, but I kind of, I want to stay going to the temple. I want to figure this out. And he's like, okay, do you feel worthy to go? I'm like, yeah. He's like, all right. And he signed it. He didn't even ask me any of the questions. It was fantastic. But those were the only people that I even mentioned it to. I didn't mention it to family other than, you know, what I'd already talked to my sister about. I kind of stopped talking to people about it. That was really painful for me to not be able to have anyone really have answers for me or, you know, be able to talk to me about it. So I just kind of kept up to myself and went to church and felt like I was the only person having these questions sitting in the pew.

Temple Recommend and Growing Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [01:38:57] Yeah, I'm kind of, I don't want to make too big a deal of this, but, like, I, I, I have to say I'm struck by the fact that you're having this for you. Earth shattering loss of faith, crisis of faith, and you're not really talking to Rob about it. And, you know, that's fine. I mean, I, But I just, that's the thing. Like, what is it about marriage or Mormonism or just life outside of, you know, where you're married, but you're kind of just living parallel lives sometimes, or not really. Always sharing emotional intimacy. And I'm not saying your marriage, I'm saying every marriage, all our marriages.

Jana Spangler [01:39:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:41] Happen that this is your supposed soulmate. This is the most important person supposedly in your life.

Jana Spangler [01:39:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:47] And you're going through the hardest thing.

Jana Spangler [01:39:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:51] You know, in my case, it was very different. I went To Margi worried. But then she met me there, and we were able to go through this together. Yeah, it's would be. I imagine for me, it would have been a very lonely, hard thing to not be able to kind of talk to my spouse about it and get them on the same page and then go through this together so that you're always kind of in sync.

Jana Spangler [01:40:17] Yeah, But.

John Dehlin [01:40:18] But I imagine there's. I mean, for many, there's fear. Will they leave me? Will they still love me? Will it be disruptive? Will I hurt? Their faith was. Or. Or there's just. You're not necessarily connected in that way, or that's not how your relationship is. How was it for you?

Jana Spangler [01:40:33] For us, we were not terribly connected spiritually. You know, we. We didn't do a lot of the stuff. I always struggled. I always struggled in my marriage from the start. I always struggled to, like, pray with other people or to, like. We did that for a while when we were first married. I always felt like I should be doing that.

John Dehlin [01:40:54] Companionship.

Jana Spangler [01:40:55] Yeah. But I was always really uncomfortable with it. I was super uncomfortable with it. And I thought something was wrong with me there too. It's always what's wrong with me. But I would shrug it off, and I would, like, find I would never be the one to say, hey, let's do this. You know? And I think he got kind of sick of being the one saying, should we do this? And he can kind of tell I don't want to do it, and I don't want to be the one. The voice very often. And again, this is feeding this thing of, I'm not spiritual. I'm not spiritual. There's something wrong with me. Right. So it was always hard for me. I wanted to do scripture study with my kids, but last thing I wanted to do was lasso those three kids with such high energy, and no one's listening and no one cares. And, you know, I'm just noticing how much, like, trying to get the family together for family prayer is just making everybody miserable. And I just. I just remember taking a step back and going, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? This is before my shelf crash. Like, why are we doing this? I don't even understand why we're doing this. What is this doing? Like, I'd be all on board if it meant something, but I feel like this doesn't even mean anything, what we're doing. So we were always kind of disconnected in that. And I think both of us have this really sense of duty, so we never Felt great about that. Rob was always more of a willing soul, but he didn't want to feel like he was forcing me. And I had kind of a rebellious attitude about it. Kind of like, I just don't like this. I don't like this. So. So it wasn't like this big shift of what was going on in our family when I'm having this and I'm going to church and I'm doing the things and I'm still getting my temple recommend and I'm. I'm willing to do all the stuff, so.

John Dehlin [01:42:35] But the other thing I was going to say is that I don't know if you felt lonely. I'm just trying to imagine, like, you're in the middle of Holiday, Utah. Hyper Mormons everywhere.

Jana Spangler [01:42:45] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:42:45] Thomas S. Monson's old house is right down the street.

Jana Spangler [01:42:48] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:42:49] This is actually one of the wealthiest few stakes in the church. Holiday, Utah. And. And I don't. I just can imagine it, what it might be like for you to have no one to talk to, including Rob.

Jana Spangler [01:43:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:05] And then to be experiencing this in Holiday.

Jana Spangler [01:43:07] Absolutely. And, yeah. Feeling like such a fish out of water.

John Dehlin [01:43:11] You're just quiet at church.

Jana Spangler [01:43:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:13] What do you say at church?

Jana Spangler [01:43:14] What do you say at church?

John Dehlin [01:43:15] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:43:15] Like. Yeah, I just was kind of going through the motions for that whole year. It lasted a whole year where I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything about it. And then one day on Facebook, I come across an article. It was actually written by Thomas Montgomery, and it.

John Dehlin [01:43:35] Montgomery?

Jana Spangler [01:43:36] Yeah, Wendy Montgomery. And.

John Dehlin [01:43:37] Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

Jana Spangler [01:43:39] And he referenced a podcast. It was Bill Real's podcast. And I clicked on it. It was. Because it referenced losing trust in the church. And so I listened to that, and I remember sitting in a parking lot listening to Bill Real, and I just start crying because there's someone else in the church who's still at church and asking questions and having these conversations. And I like. I'm like, you're kidding me. I'm not alone. You're kidding me. There are other people like this. You've got to be kidding me.

John Dehlin [01:44:14] And this is during his faithful phase.

Jana Spangler [01:44:16] Right.

John Dehlin [01:44:16] Where he was. Still had lost his faith, but he was trying to make it work, Right?

Jana Spangler [01:44:19] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:44:20] And you're getting emotional.

Jana Spangler [01:44:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:21] Why are you getting emotional?

Jana Spangler [01:44:22] Because I wasn't alone. Because it was so lonely for that year. It was. Was so confusing. It was so like, what. What is wrong with me? Still? What is wrong with me? And just feeling like, well, I've got to just keep doing this. I've got to just keep the train going because I don't know what's happening, so I've just got to do this. But feeling really disconnected from my own spirituality, from my own life. So, yeah, hearing. Hearing Bill was like this breath of fresh air. And then I just was off into the Mormon podcast rabbit hole. Found Mormon stories and found. Found Mormon matters and a thoughtful faith and. And all of them just going from thing to thing to thing to thing, and hearing all of the historical stuff all over again. That was not new, but I was seeing it from a completely different corner of the room. So all the fear Mormon stuff is still in my mind, but I'm going, okay, wait a minute. These answers are not as satisfying as I once felt they were. We are not. And I think the thing that was the most disturbing for me was just the unwillingness to just see it, to see a problem for what it was and deal with it. Like, I. I just started having a real aversion to any kind of an argument that said, well, we don't. It's not really what you think it is. You know, when you talk about the Book of Abraham, that's like, I'm going to have my alternative facts over here, and those are the ones I'm going to believe in. That did not work for me anymore. Where it worked very well for me before it made room for it. Now I was looking at it saying, now you've got to admit this is a problem. Like, can we just start from there? Can we start from there? That this is not what we thought it was. And so that was like, it. It kind of brought a new kind of energy to me in some ways. But during that same summer, it was probably a month after I found these podcasts, we. My daughter experienced an injury at our house. My kids wasn't even sure how. They got a hold of some bungee cords and they were fighting over a bungee cord, and my son let go of one end, and it re. Rebounded into my daughter's eye. And super, super scary moment for a mom. You know, there was a possibility of her losing her eye, permanent vision damage, which she does have some permanent vision damage, but it was just really disturbing, really hard. Home teachers come over, you know, at midnight when we get home from the hospital to give her a blessing. And I just remember thinking at the time, I have absolutely no idea if these blessings work, but I'm super grateful that they're here in case they do. And, you know, maybe my ward and their faith can do something for her because I don't think I, I obviously can't do anything for her in this moment. I'm useless to my daughter in helping her heal from this if she's going to heal. And I remember going to the next day they had a word fast for her. And I just remember how much love and outpouring I got from my word. That had not always been the norm for me that I had felt. And I remember being overwhelmed by the goodness and the well wishes of the people around us and the people who were reaching out and doing things for us. And with like zero forethought, none. I got up in that testimony meeting and I got up behind the pulpit and I said, I'm so grateful to everybody. This has been a really hard thing that our family's facing with this injury. And I'm just noticing how good we are at rallying around people when we have an outward injury, when there's a death in the family, when there's some sort of acceptable thing that or tragic thing that has befallen you. And I'm also noticing that there are these deeper things that no one is talking about. Kind of like having problems with your faith. I've been experiencing that for a whole year all by myself. And I've never told anybody here because we don't talk about these things. And what I'm noticing right now is that I needed this kind of support all year long and it was never available to me. This right now, what you've done for my family is what I've needed. And I just want to just say it out loud that there are people having marital problems, there are people having mental health problems, there are people having depression, there are people that are really struggling in so many ways and we are not telling each other. And so I've been sitting here alone in the pews for a year and I just want anyone else here to know. If you think you're the only one out there, I want you to know you are not alone. And I haven't gotten up to bear my testimony in a very long time because I don't have one. But I'll tell you what I do believe. I believe in goodness. I believe that love can heal. I believe in service can lift us up. And I believe that the teachings of Jesus Christ are really good. And that's what I know. And I walked off. And while it felt good to say and I like, felt like I like unburdened my truth and I, I was super naive thinking like, wow, you know, people are People might really like that, that I got kind of vulnerable there, and I was completely unprepared for the cold shoulder that everyone.

Serving in Relief Society While Doubting

John Dehlin [01:50:50] What? No.

Jana Spangler [01:50:52] With a few exceptions. And I was also unprepared for the people that came out of the woodwork that were like, yeah, me too. Yeah, I'm in that same place. I'm in that same place. People I would have never dreamed were struggling with their testimonies reached out to me.

John Dehlin [01:51:10] Okay, around. What year, month was this? Do you remember?

Jana Spangler [01:51:12] Summer of 2014.

John Dehlin [01:51:14] Okay. Okay.

Jana Spangler [01:51:16] No, 2015. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:51:19] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:51:19] Because I'd. Yeah. Shelf crashed. 14, 2050. Summer of 2015 is when that hit me. So. So then I was out. I was out. I remember having a discussion. We had a new bishop at that point. I remember talking to him. I remember telling him that my biggest fear is that I was going to be marginalized, that I was never going to be given a calling again, that I'd said this to everybody. Now no one's going to want me to be part of anything. And he promptly called me as a Relief Society teacher, and basically he said, we're having a new shift in Relief Society presidency, but I've got something for you. I'll let you know. And that's what it turned out to be. So it wasn't something that was chosen by the Relief Society president. I was foisted on the Relief Society president by my bishop. And I say foisted because I don't think it was a terribly comfortable match for the two of us.

John Dehlin [01:52:16] Really quickly, as I'm thinking about this, like, whenever you're hiding and alone and suffering in silence, and you. You pack it down and you peck it down, and you. You try and just journey on and white knuckle it. It always comes out. It's always going to. It's going to come out as an explosion at some point.

Jana Spangler [01:52:35] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:52:36] The way humans work.

Jana Spangler [01:52:37] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:52:38] So it happened for you. Like, the ward is rallied around your family, your daughter's injured. This is your moment to just thank the ward and go back into your Mormon bubble. But because the pressure has been building up so high, you use this moment where the wards really finally showed up, for you to dump all this on them.

Jana Spangler [01:52:57] Yes, but.

John Dehlin [01:52:58] But that's what happens when you hold things in.

Jana Spangler [01:52:59] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:53:00] So.

Jana Spangler [01:53:00] And I don't recommend it. Just let it be clear. I do not recommend that you do this to anyone out there. Be much more mindful about that than I was. I was very foolhardy.

John Dehlin [01:53:11] But it sounds like your bishop didn't, like, make you feel Awful or try and punish you or make you a project. He gave you a calling.

Jana Spangler [01:53:20] He gave me a calling.

John Dehlin [01:53:21] And then I'm just repeating, but you kind of lost some thin relationships, but maybe started making some associations that maybe turned out to be a little bit deeper than what the, the normal relationship might have been.

Jana Spangler [01:53:37] 100. Okay, 100. I was kind of stunned by that. Like, people I had never really been friends with in the word I. I was able to go deep with some of these people and to recognize that for some of them, they've been. They've been feeling like this for a very long time. I remember just being shocked. Like, all these people have been there and I had no idea, and no idea. And everyone's so hush hush. And everyone's in a. In a Sunday school class or Relief Society. No one's saying anything. No one's, you know, so I've always been probably less worried than I should be about, like, rocking other people or whatever. So I, I did it all wrong from there on, like, for a while in church, and I for sure made a bunch of people super uncomfortable.

John Dehlin [01:54:31] What were you doing?

Jana Spangler [01:54:32] I was teaching Relief Society, and I was mentioning that I'm struggling. I was actually letting people know I was being vulnerable. I was being vulnerable, and I was teaching lessons in a way that, you know, I mean, honestly, every time I taught a lesson, it was a struggle. It was a struggle to teach because I am not someone that can just teach something I don't believe in. I can't do it. So I remember getting lessons and going, there's absolutely no way I can teach this. But then I'd sit on it, and I'd sit on it, and I'd sit on it, and I'd always find an angle. I'd always find a way to broaden the conversation. But I know that that made a lot of people uncomfortable. I remember having a conversation with the Relief Study Presidency, and I'm like, if I'm ever pushing it too far, will you let me know? And all of them, like, did not skip a beat and said, oh, you're making people uncomfortable. And they weren't coming to me and say it. It's this passive aggressive, like, kind of tone. Because we're so nice as Mormons, they don't want to rock the boat with me, but they're sitting there, like, sweating bullets when I'm teaching. And at the same time, you know, because they were saying, oh, yeah, we've had people come to us, like, complaining about some of the way I'm teaching And what I'm doing. And at the same time, I'm getting texts from people going, thank you. Thank you for saying it. This is the best. I love it when you teach. Like, I just. I would have a litany of those. But what the relief study president is getting is all of the. She's making us uncomfortable. I remember after one particular lesson, this cute little old lady of my ward comes up to me and pats me on my hand. And as she's on her way out, she's like, you're always making us think. You know. Because I was definitely teaching in non traditional kind of ways.

John Dehlin [01:56:13] So were you, like, sharing the controversial history? None of that.

Jana Spangler [01:56:17] None of that.

John Dehlin [01:56:17] Okay.

Jana Spangler [01:56:18] But what I was doing was, in a missionary lesson, I would talk about maybe our neighbors don't like us because we think we're better than them. And so maybe we ought to just talk about the elephant in the room and say, maybe we need to get off our high horse and see what we can learn from them. And maybe they would actually feel the gospel more from us if we were interested in them in that way. Because I actually got a neighbor who's not part of our faith, and I went on a walk with her and I said, what bugs you about us? And then I gave a lesson based on that or when it was about self reliance. I'm like, well, look at the ways that self reliance can make us super selfish. Like, what about King Benjamin? What about these messages of don't judge people? Like, we gotta be careful with our ideas of self reliance. You know, stuff like that. I was just rocking the boat, so.

Feeling Hidden and Alone in a Mormon Community

John Dehlin [01:57:14] Have you seen the movie Pleasantville?

Jana Spangler [01:57:16] I haven't, but I know the gist.

John Dehlin [01:57:18] Okay. Yeah. This is what it's reminding me of. So in the movie Pleasantville, it starts out, it's all black and white. It's like a 50s kind of vibe. And everybody's kind of living this beaver cleaver, you know, Father Knows best kind of 50s suburban life.

Jana Spangler [01:57:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:38] And then all of a sudden, one of the characters has this shattering experience and turns color.

Jana Spangler [01:57:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:46] And nobody, like, can name it. It's just like that person's different all of a sudden. And so this person's operating in a multicolored. With a multicolored perspective in the midst of all these other people that are still operating in a black and white perspective. And everybody's uncomfortable, but no one quite knows why. But this person is, like, seeing new colors, new dimensions, trying to get other people to see and get excited, while everybody else is, like, uncomfortable and it's reminding me you're having kind of this Pleasantville awakening, kind of this Richard Rohr second half of life experience. I would even say kind of a Christian rebirth. You've been born again. And you're trying to. Trying to. I don't know if you're trying to wake up everyone around you, but you're. You're definitely trying to discuss the types of issues that you think kind of are about next level gospel living.

Jana Spangler [01:58:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:43] And there's some people that are like, going, well, this is cool and interesting. And then there's a bunch of other people that are just like, who is this woman and why is she making us feel uncomfortable? Because the. Because for so many people, it's like, all is well on Zion. The gospel just, like, fit in your role and everything's great and just teach the lesson. And it's more of a ritual than it is a school, Sunday school, or church. And your job is just fit in the role and make everyone feel comfortable and not to rock the boat. And you're kind of being Jenna Spangler, rocking the boat a little bit.

Jana Spangler [01:59:16] Yeah. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:59:17] Making people uncomfortable, Challenging them.

Jana Spangler [01:59:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:20] Questioning things.

Jana Spangler [01:59:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:22] I just have to say that's a very different thing than kind of the normal, like, have a faith crisis because you learned about Peepstones and then you want to talk about historical problems and everyone's uncomfortable, and so you leave. This is a very different journey than kind of the average journey on Mormon stories.

Jana Spangler [01:59:40] Yeah. And I was kind of doing that stuff just under the radar. Like, I'd be sitting next to Rob. Cause I'm doing all the historical studies now, and I am having all the problems with it. But I've got Rob sitting next me in Sunday school. And at one point he said, sitting next to you in these classes is kind of like, I'm back on my mission in Japan and I've got an investigator there. And you're just praying that no one says anything weird. Like, that is how I feel. Like he just doesn't want anyone to say anything controversial because he doesn't know what it'll do to me. So it was the kind of thing where someone would say something and I'd just lean over to him and kind of whisper and go, yeah, that didn't happen. Just so you know. Or that's way more complicated than you think. So Rob was getting an earful, and I'm sure the poor guy that he would know when things got really bad for me. Like, if I was really super triggered, I would just sit There. And he could tell it's bad because she's gone silent. And he would always kind of raise his hand and say something kind of diplomatic that would acknowledge. He's really actually very good at this. Just kind of acknowledge what I'm feeling, but in still a very acceptable way that's acceptable to the room. So he's always been kind of good with that. He's been very respectful through all of this, with everything I was going through.

John Dehlin [02:01:03] He's kind of a go with the flow, duty kind of guy. I get the sense. Loyal.

Jana Spangler [02:01:07] He is absolutely 100% low key. Yep. For sure.

John Dehlin [02:01:12] Supportive.

Jana Spangler [02:01:13] He is.

John Dehlin [02:01:15] No, you could have worse.

Jana Spangler [02:01:16] Way worse. For sure. And you know, and all of the other stuff in our marriage, like, like, honestly, I. Our me differentiating my faith has been one of our lesser issues, you know, compared to just other things we've dealt with. And so I don't know, he's been great. The biggest gift that Rob has given me through all of this is that even when he doesn't agree with me, and that's a lot, he has given me the dignity of just saying, I can see that this is a sincere journey for you, and I can understand why that would be problematic for you. And even just that, just letting me talk and just saying, like, yeah, that sounds super hard. That makes sense why that would be a problem. But for him, it just still comes back to. But no, this is. This is. I believe this. This is like my spiritual home. And I have had spiritual experiences. And sure, he's got a lot more nuance in him now because of me, but. But, you know, he's. We've been able to manage some of those. Not that it has. Hasn't had its problems, but anyway. But yeah, so kind of fun during this time period, I found. So I. After about nine months of this, I started feeling like, okay, I can. I have people that I can listen to on the Internet, but I need people I can talk to. I need people to process this whole experience with. And I got to figure out where to find the people. But the, like, people who totally left the church, those angry post Mormons were super, like, scary to me. That's not a vibe I want. Holding all kinds of judgment. I've always held all kinds of judgment for people not doing it my way. Right. I was holding all kinds of judgment for the Ordain Women movement. And still, even though I'm having all of these feelings, I'm still having. Holding my judgments. But I. I turned to a neighbor who I knew was Just a super open minded person. And I had heard that her ward had done a fifth Sunday on Doubt. So I called her and said, who, who in your ward? Like, who put that on? Who was talking about it? Who, who do I talk to? And in that conversation she, she did connect me with some great people in my stake. And she also said, well, do you want to meet Maxine Hanks? And, and I, I, I said, who's that? Never heard the name. Of course I'd heard of the September six. But anyway, she was friends with her and she's like, yeah, do you want it? Do you want to meet her? She's, she was, she's part of September 6th and she's been rebaptized in 2012. And I'm like, yes, that's who I want to talk to. I want to talk to this person, please. Thank you. And had this super. Just so fortunate to sit down and meet with Maxine. And we were like fast friends having these deep conversations from the minute we met.

John Dehlin [02:04:26] She in her stick.

Jana Spangler [02:04:28] No, she's not. She just knew my neighbor through interfaith councils and, and some things that they were both involved in. And within the same month I had, you know, Thomas McConkey had come out with his Navigating Mormon Faith Crisis. And I had read that and it had really resonated for me. And one of my other neighbors that I played tennis with said, oh, you mentioned that book to me. His mom's in our book club and we're going to be reading it and he's going to come and talk to us. And I invited myself to their book club and said, can I come? Can I be there? And so had the fortune to meet Thomas McConkey as well and just really started forging conversation with them, both of them. And I remember asking Thomas like, where are the people? Where's the group of people? And he said, well, we should create something. You want to create something through, through that he, he, he started holding some meetings, some monthly meetings in his relative's house. And, and I was kind of helping support that through the summer, kind of monthly. And then through that I met like Jay Griffith who runs the Faith Again group and started kind of connecting with that group. And I remember the first Faith Again meeting I went to, they had Richard Bushman, that was the one that was recorded where Richard Bushman said his famous, you know, famous in these circles phrase of when he said that the dominant narrative wasn't true. So if you watch that video, I'm in that video. Off to the Side and I ask the question, like, how do I go about being a Relief Society teacher and teach authentically without scaring everybody in the room? Because I'm cognizant. I'm conscious of the fact that that's not why people are coming to church, is to be freaked out by me, right? And he. I remember he gave one of the most brilliant answers ever. He said, it's like teaching your kids about sex. If you're nervous, they're nervous. And I remember that. That was a huge lesson for me, actually, it's become a life lesson for me. But it was a huge lesson for me in how I engage at church because I noticed how much nervous energy I was holding through the way I was teaching. I think I became a better teacher after that because there's. I. There's just so much self doubt going through you when you are differentiated from the group that you're with. Like, I could. I was not comfortable in my skin. I was trying so hard. I wanted everyone to just accept me and understand me. And it's a really hard truth to start to get used to that People, a certain segment are never going to understand you. And that's okay. But that was really super helpful advice. Really super helpful advice to me. But meeting the. Meeting up with some of these people and meeting some of these groups and understanding how they were doing things was so, so helpful that. That summer 2016 was the first time I attended Sunstone. I felt kind of naughty walking in the doors. I felt like I was doing something wrong. These were those, like, intellectuals that got themselves in trouble. And like, that's the idea I had of Sunstone growing up. You know, they were kind of suspect. But I just remember that first Sunstone. Like I was there from sun up to sundown every single day, taking in every single class, you know, and just. It honestly awakened something in me to say there are spaces where we can be honest. There are spaces where we can just let it all out. I can actually voice what is actually going on with me. And people are not going to shut me down. They are actually going to want to have a conversation about that. Met two amazing women there in one of the classes and who remain friends of mine to this day. The second day, one of them brought me Falling Upward by Richard Rohrer. And I remember when she handed me this book, she's like, you need this book. And I remember thinking to myself, this is that guy I saw in Oprah last year. And I remember watching that first interview with Richard Rohr where I thought, oh, this guy's nice. He's great, whatever. And then the last 10 minutes of this interview he did with her, I was like, jaw on the floor. Because he was speaking so directly to my experience. And the thing. So the thing I loved about him, one of the things he said, I remember him saying, is, religion is the best thing in the world, and religion is the worst thing in the world. And I remember Oprah had a reaction to that. Like, you're out of the cloth. You're not supposed to be saying this. And he's like, well, it's true. You know, there's a lot that's wrong with it. And it. There was just something so refreshing to me about hearing someone say that who was part of religion and hearing him say, look, our egos get involved in religion, our egos get involved. One of the things I remember him saying is our egos want us to be separate and superior. This is part of its function. What a perfect place to have that thrive is in religion. It gives you the perfect opportunity to feel separate and superior. Imagine why that resonated with me, with Mormonism. I'm like, oh, my gosh. You tell people that this is the truth. You have it, of course. That is an ego. Like, that's good for our egos. That feels really, really good, right? And then he. He. I remember him saying this phrase, who knew? Religion is the perfect place to hide from God. Like, what is that? To do that from our egos? It is the perfect place to hide from God. And I just remember, like, I kept that. That interview on my DVR for a year. I'd go back and just listen to that.

Richard Rohr and Contemplative Practices

John Dehlin [02:10:49] That.

Jana Spangler [02:10:50] And take that in. And the other thing he said, that really, really resonated. He said, if you start to notice the problems and the evils in religion and you fight against it too directly and too hard for too long, you become the mirror image of what you hate. And I had started to see some of that in myself, of the judgment that I was holding against those judgy people. I mean, the irony, right? I started to notice how I was holding. Now I was feeling separate and superior from those Mormons who aren't getting it the way I'm getting it. I started to notice those things in myself. And then the last thing he said is, if you want to get through this, your best bet is to see everything through a lens of love. So from that time forward, when I had things happen, like, I. I did go to my Relief Society president at one point and asked for new visiting teachers because I had, they had just moved me away from someone that I felt could actually listen to me. So I said, can you actually put that back? Can you undo that? Because I'm having these questions. Well, immediately one of her counselors brings me a Book of Mormon and puts it in my mailbox with these quotes from Spencer Kimball about when my faith is low, I need to read the Book of Mormon, you know, all of these things. And I remember at the time, my initial reaction being, I feel so misunderstood. They think that that's what I need is to read the Book of Mormon. They don't understand that every time I open the Book of Mormon it throws me further into my faith crisis. They don't understand this being like really snippy about it in my heart. And then I stopped and thought, lens of love, lens of love, lens of love. Like, this is a woman who cares deeply about me. She took the time to handwrite this huge thing for me and bring me this, like, what an act of service from that woman. And all I can think about is how she doesn't get me. That that's really self serving. So it helped me turn around things like that in my mind to see it differently. So I remember I was, I still wanted to connect to people. I still wanted to be instructive. So even with her, I went up to her and said, you know, I so appreciate what you did and bring me that Book of Mormon. And that's a hard message for me. I took some things from that that weren't easy and you could tell she wasn't ready for the conversation. So I shut it down really quick and just said, you know what, I appreciate it, thank you, and walked away. So I still wanted those learning opportunities. I wanted to be understood. But I started getting to know when people were not ready to have that conversation with me. It wasn't going to go anywhere. So, so, so after Sunstone, I, I started looking more into Richard Rohr. I got this book, I started reading the book and I looked up his website and I saw this program that he has and being me, I never saw a retreat or, you know, a workshop or an experience or something that I didn't, didn't want to try to sign up for. Here's this two year living school program. Had no idea what it was, but I knew that Richard Rohrer's message really resonated with me. So I'm like, I want to go, I need to go learn from this guy. I need to figure out what this is. And so I applied and put in My application that summer for the Living School. And it's a deal where you. They take interviews or they take all of their applications once a year, and then you find out six months later whether you were accepted into the program and it starts a year later. And during that time, I, I went to my first Mormon Matters retreat with Natasha and Dan Buterspoon. And what was that about? What was that?

John Dehlin [02:14:46] Tell our listeners what those, what Those

Jana Spangler [02:14:48] are such a great thing. So it was, I think it was the very first Mormon Matters retreat they had done. And I know it's patterned off after the ones that you and Natasha had been doing. That. It's, it's basically a retreat for people who are questioning and they're wonderful. They. It was, it was, it was a life changing weekend for me. Just very cathartic. So we learn, learn a lot about what conversion is, what deconversion is, what vulnerability is, what learn about relationships, learn about why this is hard to move through this. And it's with a small group of like 20 people, it's enough to, like, it was enough to bond us together, hear each other's stories, recognize we're not the only ones going through this, and then learning different things about framing faith differently. And Marty Erickson was part of that retreat as well. Just really. And, you know, these are three amazing people. And I just, it was so healing to be able to find all of these spaces all at once where I could be myself. I could be myself, I could be understood. I could actually say what was on my heart. And I no longer felt like I was alone. I never felt like. No longer felt like I was alone. I was crazy. And I started forging friendships that had a depth that matched, I think, what my soul had always wanted but never knew how to get to with anybody else before that, you know, in my relationships in the church and with other things.

John Dehlin [02:16:31] So you're kind of making me think about this time because this was. This would have been after my excommunication, but, like, I knew I was going to get excommunicated at some point, but I had asked Dan Witherspoon to start or take over Mormon Matters podcast because he was down on his luck. I knew he was brilliant and gifted.

Jana Spangler [02:16:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:51] And I knew I didn't want him to go, like, sweep floors at a bookstore. I wanted his talents to be utilized. So I asked him to take over Mormon Matters podcast. He turned it into the podcast for being a faithful Mormon. And he did that for many years under the Open Stories foundation umbrella. We always had a Good working relationship. Then when Natasha and I started these faith crisis retreats, there was always people that wouldn't come because I'd been excommunicated. And, you know, Dan was looking for a way to kind of hone his craft and be more of a sport to people. And so Natasha would. Would do retreats with me for traditional faith crisis stuff, but then she'd partner with Dan and do these additional retreats for people that really wanted to stay in.

Jana Spangler [02:17:39] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:17:40] And I. You know, it's been a couple years, but Dan and I used to work really closely together, and. And there was always, like, Mormon stories or Mormon matters and thoughtful faith and. Which one are you? And it was. It's. It's a time that's kind of gone, but at the time, it was an important thing.

Jana Spangler [02:17:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:56] And. But anyway, it was really cool to see Dan and Natasha be able to make those happen, and it was fun to get to know you as soon as you kind of. And you started participating in those. At one point.

Jana Spangler [02:18:10] I did, but.

John Dehlin [02:18:11] But all I was going to say is that this is an interesting time where the Open Stories foundation was just really trying to support wherever you were in the spectrum.

Jana Spangler [02:18:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:19] We wanted to support you. And I still have that overall mission with the Mormon Stories podcast, which is why I'm interviewing you. But. But at some point, it just became too hard, and Dan wanted to go do his own thing, and that's fine. But I guess the reason why I'm going into this monologue is just because, like, that was an era where for many, many years, we were trying to really explicitly support people in any path.

Jana Spangler [02:18:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:47] And it's weird that in my world, that that kind of had to kind of go away. Yeah. I'm sad. But now it's. It's. It's less complex, which I like. It's more simplified. And I think there's other people stepping in to try and fill that. That role. And I think Dan's still doing his thing. But I think what I'm really trying to say is, is for me, what's interesting is if you talk to Bushman or. Or others, they'll say, when someone loses their faith, we've pretty much lost them. Like, they don't have a high level of confidence that they can keep people in the church. So what's interesting about your story is you somehow the formula was right where you were able to stay. And I'm just. It's fun and interesting to think that. That Dan and Natasha and I, a little bit. We're all Kind of part of that, because I think if the church could bottle helping people stay, I think they would want to bottle that.

Jana Spangler [02:19:45] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:19:45] And it sounds like you had some bishops that were decent, you had the right kind of formula, you had the right husband, and you found, you know, Thomas McConkey and Mormon matters and Natasha and Dan.

Jana Spangler [02:20:01] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:20:02] I guess I just. I guess I'm. This is a really long way of saying there were a lot of resources that came together that made you feel like you could stay when there's a lot of other people that end up

Jana Spangler [02:20:13] leaving a hundred percent.

John Dehlin [02:20:14] How do you make sense of that?

Jana Spangler [02:20:16] You know, this is something that I've been thinking about myself for so long, which, you know, I. I want to say up front, I do not believe it, that my path is for everybody. I do not believe that you can set up a system in the church that is going to retain everybody. I don't think it's everybody's spiritual path. And I've gotten to a place as judgy as I was at one point about how everyone is doing this. I have come to a place where I honor the necessity of each person taking their path, and I recognize my own privilege in being able to do what I did. I was at a point in my life where I wasn't having to make decisions about baptizing my kids or not. I was not in a place where I'm a man and I have to decide if I'm ordaining my child or not. I was not in a place where my kids were getting married in the temple and I had to make decisions about that. I did have bishops that made this okay for me to continue to participate. I have a temperament that allows me to be able to walk through this. I think honestly, having a hard childhood and not being very understood, it felt okay to me. You know, I think if you grew up in a more loving household, maybe it wouldn't work for you to walk through this fire, because it's not fun. It's not fun to go to church and feel completely misunderstood. It. It can be soul crushing. There have been so many times when I'd come home from church and just cry. And Rob would see that, and that's why he could connect to the sincerity of my journey. I didn't make it all about, you know, we've got to figure out this is true or if this is not true. For me, for whatever reason, that has always kind of been a secondary thing. Like when I tossed out my truth cart, I tossed out knowing that the church was true. And now I'm just kind of like, I don't even know that I care. That's not my battle. So there are a lot of things, and there were a lot of these groups of people that could rally around me. I did forge really good friendships where I felt like I had places to be understood. And I found the living school that helped me have a bird's eye view of all of this, to understand how deeply this is a human issue we are experiencing in a. In a Mormon flavor. So, anyway, I just always like to say that because there's so much pressure. There's so much pressure in families, there's so much pressure in marriages to make the faith crisis person, the person who is experiencing this, do it a certain way. Right? It's like the pressure that a bunch of LGBT people felt when Tom Kristofferson's book came out. That a book that is. Was, I think, with. Had every intent of, like, let's open up understanding and love for our. For our LGBT brothers and sisters and children and gain acceptance for them, but can be weaponized by parents who are like, look, he did this and so can you. Right? I'm so sensitive to people like me, our stories being used as a weapon against people going through faith crisis who it is not in their best interest to stay connected to the church. So I just really want to say that. That, yeah, special. Special circumstances have made that be okay for me for now. And that's about all I can say about that, because all I can speak to in this story is my personal story. So when I work with clients, I come in with zero idea of what they should be doing, because the truth is, they know it. The map is written in their own souls. And I just see my job as helping people find out what that is for them. But it's taking me a long time to get there, you know, and this might be a good place to just talk, to touch on what opened up for me during this time period of. Of this kind of soul searching and getting connected with some of these people. It is the time when I started to. To open my mind to some of the social issues and things like that that I had been completely oblivious to before this, like, the. The patriarchy thing. I. I remember listening to a podcast with some of the board members of Ordained Women, and it was. It's kind of. At that time, I'd kind of had a shelf crash, but I still felt naughty for listening to it. I've always felt naughty doing all these things, going to Sunstone Listening to these podcasts, it was like kind of hush hush. I didn't want anyone to see me doing it. But I remember listening to these women and I remember similar time. I listened to Kate Kelly's Mormon story, and I just remember thinking, man, I had none of these experiences growing up. I had none of these run ins with patriarchy in the way that they did that to them was jarring and painful enough to wake them up to the fact that this is not okay. And I just remember being really, really humbled by that. And it seemed similar to me to the issue of, I grew up in this church feeling like, feeling like God's love is conditional. Someone else, my sister is sitting next to me, not hearing any of those messages that I'm hearing, right? It was kind of the same thing with women's issues and patriarchy. Like before that everything that was said, every, every problematic thing went right by me. It was not sticking to my consciousness. I did not even see it. As soon as that paradigm got blown open. Now I'm sitting in the pews and I'm hearing all of it, and it's bugging me just as much, right? So it's just crazy how these paradigms can shift and can shift so rapidly. It kind of gives you whiplash. And the LGBT issue was similar for me. I just, I, I was one back. I just, honestly, I hang my head. Like, I, I was fine with Prop 8 when Prop 8 happened. I saw no problem with that. If I'd lived in California, I probably would have been helping out, right? At the same time, I was a very open person. I thought in my mind, like I had a problem. I thought it was sinful, I thought it was wrong. But I loved the people in my life who were lgbt. I fought, I fought my parents to, to make sure that my, my gay cousin was able to bring his partner to my wedding. Like, I, I, I fought for that because I knew that was not right to exclude him, but I would certainly not be voting for his right to marry right at the time. So that's where I kind of was growing up and where I was just a few years before. But I remember feeling being really in the depths of feeling very alone and marginalized in my own faith community and in my ward, and having been someone who'd been a gospel doctrine teacher, being very good at it, I was, I felt really respected at a certain point. Once I kind of got my feet under me with some of those callings, I really loved it and felt like I was respected. And then to have that taken away from me. I just remember sitting, and it just hit me one day, like, this kind of weight that I feel around people of not being okay, of being sinful in some way, of being a problem. This is how these people feel 24, 7 and. And 5,000 times more like. And. And it just opened up these. These doors of empathy for me that I'd never even considered what it would be like to be them before in my life. And it blew it open. So by the time the November 2015 policy came around, it devastated me. Just absolutely devastated me. So, anyway, that's kind of how I came to those things.

The November 2015 Policy and Its Impact

John Dehlin [02:28:57] So we're November 2015 now. One thing that's remarkable is that, you know, you haven't bailed from the church, that you're trying to stay in it. And I get that.

Jana Spangler [02:29:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:29:13] Because I argue and I stayed in long after we lost faith, but it was really hard. A lot of cognitive dissonance, a lot of discomfort.

Jana Spangler [02:29:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:29:22] And that's fine. Anyone can do that for a month or six months or a year, but try and do that for multiple years, it really starts to wear on you, for sure. And you start to feel like, man, is this really worth it? Is the distress really worth it? And so then the social issues start piling on, and you start becoming more socially conscious.

Jana Spangler [02:29:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:29:42] That can really take its toll.

Jana Spangler [02:29:44] It did. All of that started taking its toll. And to your question, I kind of got off on a tangent there, but to your question of what could the church do, what did the church. What did my particular circumstances do? Right. That helped me continue to stay in at that time, I would say that the church itself, there were a few good people along the way that really helped. But actually, more than anything, it hurt more than helped me during that time, to be honest, it was. I just want to give credit where credit is due. It was Mormon stories. It was Dan Weatherspoon, Mormon Matters. It was Natasha. It was talking to a Maxine Hanks. It was taking in a lot of the stuff that Thomas McConkey does through lower Lights. It was all of that that gave me a place to feel like I was okay. It helped me build confidence in my own spiritual journey and helped me be able to emotionally differentiate myself from the church. And that sounds really crazy, because the thing that we want to do in the church when someone has a faith crisis is pull them further in, make them more mainstream, tell them to read their scriptures more, tell them to pray more. And from my experience, anyone who tried to do that, to me, it was soul killing. And if that is all I had had, I would not have lasted. I am fairly certain I would not have been able to take it and I would have just walked away. I had to have some people who were making space for me to be able to find my own path.

John Dehlin [02:31:35] Interesting.

Jana Spangler [02:31:36] Yeah. I had to have someone say there are problems with the book of Abraham and let's actually talk about that. I had to have that. If I hadn't had that, I. I just. The cognitive dissonance is too much when you start to see it yourself. You have to have people who are willing to talk about the issues. For me, the way was through not to avoid. And don't talk about those things and let's just focus on your testimony. And it just. It would. It would not fly for me. So it's one of the things that I've been advocating for to no avail in my local congregation, in my local board and my. In my stake is I think it is so important to give people a place to grow spiritually within our umbrella. You've got to be willing to have a class a fireside, a place within the church where you can actually have these discussions and let it get uncomfortable. And I. I think we need to protect the people for whom that is not their path. That is not. They want to just go to go to church and do the ritual and feel good about it and feel, you know, build their testimony that way. We need to have a place for that too. We don't all have to do it the same way. But you are going to lose more and more and more and more people. I can't tell you how many people I have met who have left the church who have said if I had had something like that, I wouldn't have left. Like we're a Sunday school class where I could actually talk about this stuff. If I knew that it was okay for me to ask the question. If I knew that I could release valve.

John Dehlin [02:33:18] It is like lets the pressure off.

Jana Spangler [02:33:20] Yes. You cannot continue to make people feel like heretics and think that they are going to want to stay with you.

John Dehlin [02:33:28] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [02:33:29] You can't do that to people. You've got to have a place for them to have their genuine experience. But it's super threatening. Culturally. We don't know how to do this. We don't have a framework for it. That is not the way we talk about things.

John Dehlin [02:33:40] Faith. So. So we're going to jump out of story just for a second because I. So we're going to have a conversation right now. And then we'll get back to the story. But forgive me, sometimes listeners are like, stop interrupting the story. But sometimes I just want to have a conversation. So we're going to have a quick conversation. So there's a guy on the Internet just the past couple days who's like, oh, somebody. You know, I wrote a letter to Russell M. Nelson because I have a trans kid and, and no one in my ward or stake is treating my trans kid, right? My transgender kid. And I wrote the prophet. And how do I get this letter to the Prophet? Because if I could just write the prophet, you know, he'll understand and he'll do something about it, right? And I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about. My response to him was like, like, how long? Like, how long are you still faithful? Like, and you're kind of shaking your head and touching your heart. Why? I just want to make sure.

Jana Spangler [02:34:39] I just feel for that man. Like, okay, the journey just does this to people, right? Like something cracks your heart open to some person who is hurting some person who is not doing it the way that we're supposed to be doing it. You know, you have a kid who comes out as trans or gay or whatever, someone, you know, you, you have a crisis of faith. You have, you know, you're a single woman who's never been married. Whatever it is, the person that's. That just feels like they're on the outs, right? And we are just such well meaning people. We are such well meaning people. And we just think if we can just let people know we're going to embrace these people. We're gonna, we're gonna find a way to embrace these people who are down, who need our love. We profess that we love LGBT people. Like, we've gotta, there's gotta be a way if we can just let them know, if we can just let the leader know, if we can just give them the vision, right? That that's what we need to do, all will be well. And I just clutch my heart because I know the crushing blow that is coming in the disappointment of how little we can actually do to try to change these things from the top down. It's soul crushing.

John Dehlin [02:36:15] Yeah. And I, you know, and I'm not, you know, so, like, I was trying to be delicate because I believe it or not, I'm not out to like, crush anyone's faith. I'm not even get people to leave the church. I'm literally not. My people don't believe me. I'm literally.

Jana Spangler [02:36:27] I believe you.

John Dehlin [02:36:28] So you thank you.

Jana Spangler [02:36:29] I do. I believe you.

John Dehlin [02:36:30] So. So I'm trying to, like, feel out where they are, because he's like, if I could just get this letter to the Prophet, he'll make it all right. And I'm like, oh, so. So I'm kind of feeling out where he is. And. And. And he. I'm like, well, do you still believe? And he's like, ah, not really. But I. You know, this is a passionate issue, and I'm just trying to make it different. And he's like, what do you think? You know, do you think if I get the letter to the Prophet, it'll make a difference? Or, you know, and I'm just like, it's not that they don't care. I think Russell Nelson cares about everybody. I think he loves everybody.

Jana Spangler [02:37:05] Agreed.

John Dehlin [02:37:06] And it's not that the general authorities don't care. Boyd K. Packer, he's passed away. But, like, Pick Holland or Bednar, they care. They care about LGBT people? They do. They care.

Jana Spangler [02:37:16] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:37:18] So it's not that. But. But if I. If I'm, like, answering honestly, it's like, if I'm them, my number one concern is protecting the. The church. And when I say the church, I mean its name, the assets, legal liability. Just. Just. Because if the church isn't strong, everything else falls apart. So you have to protect the church. I'm like, that's. Their first gig is protecting the church, and then their second gig. And I'm getting. I have the voice in my head of Jesus as I'm saying this. Their second gig is protecting the 99. They got to protect the 99. Because if you go after. And Jesus is laughing at me as I'm saying this, if you go after the 1, you lose the 99, and you don't want to lose the 99. So. So the 1 is expendable because you got to protect the assets, the name of the church, legal stuff, the. The finances, or you've got no church, and then you got to protect the bulk of the membership because that's your main steward. The one. The One is, like, way down the list. And so it's not that they don't care. They do. It's not that they're bad people. They're not. But. But they can't worry that you're not. This is. Gays. Feminist intellectuals are just not the priority. They just can't be and they never will be. And as soon as the church starts changing the rules for trans kids and changing the rules for gay and lesbian kids and changing the church for intellectuals and creating a Sunday school that's alternative and, and talking openly about the essays and the problems and saying, have your gay word, you know, have you. Have your gay and lesbian and transgender law of chastity. You know, it all falls apart. So ironically, historically, in the past 10, 15, 20 years, it's been left to Sunstone and Mormon stories and a thoughtful faith, the Mormon matters, and all these uncorrelated, unofficial. Thomas McConkey. Did I already say that? Like, it's, it's, it's. We have been kind of like. It's like the church has been paying us, but we've been cleaning up the church's messes. Not be, you know, again, not because they don't care, just because, you know, we feel called to it or we find a way to scratch out a living or whatever. But, like, that's what we've been doing. We've been cleaning up those. Natasha and dad Witherspoon and you now. And because the church can't do it. So there's this whole, like, little alternative community of people trying to write books, trying to hold these little schleppy workshops and retreats, doing Sunstone, scratching out a podcast, just seeing if we can make a difference. Because there's all this collateral damage.

Jana Spangler [02:40:18] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:40:19] And the church can't. The church just can't.

Jana Spangler [02:40:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:40:23] And. And, and then there was this time, starting in November 2015, my Kate's community. Excommunication. My excommunication. Jeremy Runnels. Excommunication. All the excommunications. And then the November policy. And then the reversal of the policy.

Jana Spangler [02:40:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:40:42] And then all of a sudden, it's just. It was like there was some like, like this superhero like, like snap from, like, the Avengers movie with Thanos, where it was just like. And like, it was just like. It was like a nuclear bomb exploded. And it was just like all of a sudden, like so much of that just like, disappeared. Or Dane women's kind of disappeared. Dan Witherspoon's kind of gone off the map. Gina's still there with a thoughtful faith, but, but, like, you know, I had to regroup and just so many progressive and post Mormons were just like, like, we're out of here. We're done. Like this middle ground. Like, we can't sustain it anymore. And I'm not saying that it's all dead because there's always a spring after the winter and Dan's still there, not even saying Dan's gone. But something happened by the November 2000 by the. By 2015. But then the policy reversal, where things just shifted. And I don't even know quite how to describe it. All I can say is a lot of us were carrying a lot of water, cleaning up a lot of collateral damage for a lot of time, and then all of a sudden, something nuclear happened. And now we're in this period. Well, Covid, you know what I mean? And now we're in this period of like, where. Where are things? Like, my head is spinning.

Jana Spangler [02:42:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:42:15] You know, what are your reflections as you hear me kind of talk about all that? Because that's not really a question. It's more of a conversation.

Jana Spangler [02:42:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:42:23] So I'm just expressing what I just, you know.

Jana Spangler [02:42:26] Yeah. So this is what I would say is, yes, the people on the fringes, all the people you've mentioned, have the freedom to do things in a way that the church probably doesn't have. You know, to. To really go after the one in different ways and from a different paradigm. The way I see the leadership of the church, I agree with you. I think they care. They care deeply. And I think they are looking for at the world through a paradigm that I no longer share completely, but I can have empathy for. So I think to them, the way that you care for LGBT people is to keep them faithful. That is their paradigm. The way that we care for people is to bring them into doing things the right way. And we know the right way. And let us help you get to that right way, because this is what brings happiness. And from their life experience, from their spiritual intuition, from their life, from everything that has happened to them, they. How would they know any different that that is the way to happiness for them? That is it. That is the way you obey, you do the things, and that brings happiness. So I kind of look at them and say, I don't even know. I don't know. I don't know them. I don't profess to know them. But I think even more than we've got to protect the assets of the church, I think they really think this is the way you minister. I think they really think this is the way you minister. I think more on the ground, I've seen that, like, oh, we can't. We've got to protect the 99. I've felt that a lot. I've had that conversation with my church leaders. I. I've told them, I feel like you're more concerned about the 99 than the 1 just throwing that out there. Like, I would really like to find new ways because I'M there on the margins having the conversations that they're not having with you. And so at some point, you've got to start listening to people on the margins. And I think there's a big disconnect with that because. And I would imagine if someone had given me callings early on in my life that gave me more and more and more leadership and more and more and more responsibility, and at some point, my spiritual intuitions, everyone around me and myself am like, this is what God wants for all people. That's really hard. That's a really hard place to get into the brain of a marginalized person when that is your experience. And I think it is just a truth of human nature that when you are in the core of any group and you're in the core because that group, what their norms work for you, you are, you are. You have a deficit in really understanding the problems in the system. Because any problem that comes to your attention, it's easy to brush away and say, well, you just need to be more. I mean, look at me. It works. I did it. Look at all these people who are doing it. It's not the system. The system is great. The system is ordained from God. This is the system. So it's. It's hard. I think it is an uphill climb for people in leadership to really get their brains around what ministering looks like for these people. I think it's really, really hard. I don't know what the solution is for that, but I feel like we would be much, much better people. Any institution is going to be better the more you have a feedback loop from the marginalized, because that's where the wisdom comes of what needs to happen. But we don't give enough. We don't give enough weight to those people. Those people are threatening to the system. Those people are threatening to the way we do things. And it's a really big move for someone to believe that and do something about it and say we need to do things differently. And I'm saying how we should do it. Like I'm. I can honor that they, the leadership of the church. This is their, their role, their job to make the rules. This is. That's what they've been ordained to do. And it's problematic.

Contemplative Mormonism as a Middle Path

John Dehlin [02:46:55] Yeah. I think what I was. I think if I had to summarize what I'm trying to express is there were many of us that were fighting really hard to kind of create, to carve out and to nurture a middle way.

Jana Spangler [02:47:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:47:09] And that was genuinely my intention from the very beginning. From 2005. Yeah, from the beginning of Mormon stories. And it felt like the Church's response to that is, we are going to pulverize this effort.

Jana Spangler [02:47:24] Agreed.

John Dehlin [02:47:25] And. And so it now. So it was there for you. It was there for tens of thousands of people, but at some point it got pulverized. I even hung on for a couple years after my excommunication, but at some point it kind of got pulverized and it became. It's got. It seems like it's kind of gotten to the point where now those support systems aren't in place. You know, at least the ones that were there have been kind of pulverized. I know there are new ones emerging. We'll talk about that. But now it just seems like people are in the church until they start having a crisis of faith and then they just leave. It seems like more of that is going on right now than maybe was going on five or eight years ago, because I think the church found that to be really problematic. On the one hand, they didn't have any solutions, but on the other hand, they were uncomfortable with our solutions. And so instead they just kind of decided to kind of pulverize it all. And now we're left in this space where the middle way, where it's not clear where to go or who to go to to try and carve out a middle way. And I guess the exception to that is Patrick Mason's got his book and that's just coming out now. Restoration, I think it's called. Terrell and Fiona have just come out with their new book that we reviewed. The Turnbulls are doing some stuff with Faith Matters. Faith Matters, absolutely. And I guess it was right for them for that to kind of be wrestled away from me. I'm an apostate. I got excommunicated. Open Stories foundation kind of isn't really the place for that to be happening anyway, maybe some would say. And so. And then the Maxwell Institute is now trying to start. Start exploring these types of new ways. So in some sense, it feels like there's this new renaissance of Middle Way Mormonism that's actually starting to emerge a lot closer into the center of the Church. The essays have come out now. They're trying to incorporate the problematic history into the CES and the curriculum. So in some sense, it's kind of like the Church said, no, we're going to destroy what you're trying to do, but we're going to try and rebuild it from within or from closer within. And so I don't mean to make it sound so stark.

Jana Spangler [02:50:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:50:12] There is this new spring of progressive Mormonism happening, and I kind of want to explore that with you in the next segment. But like to close this segment as we kind of. What I want to do is I want to shift away from kind of your journey to kind of what you've learned from Richard Rohr and what you called it, contemplative Mormonism. I want to get into in kind of the next, next segment, what that means to you because I think it's interesting and worth exploring.

Jana Spangler [02:50:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:50:52] How do you want to end kind of this segment as we kind of reflect on what we've all been through.

Jana Spangler [02:50:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:50:59] And your journey, because this is kind of the close out to your journey.

Jana Spangler [02:51:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:04] In terms of just a chronological story before we dive into some content. What do you want to end with this segment on in terms of reflections or close out your story?

Jana Spangler [02:51:14] Yeah. So I'll say this and then I'll close out my story. But I think just reflecting on what you're saying, I think that this is, this is a period of growing pains. And I think the church has always been in growing pains. The church has always moved. It's going to. People develop, institutions develop. The restoration is ongoing. We're always going to be in some sort of a mess. My guess is anytime you lived in Mormonism, it's going to feel like somewhat of a mess.

John Dehlin [02:51:51] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [02:51:52] It's part of what I love about it. Right. When has it not been a mess? We've just had different messes at different times.

John Dehlin [02:51:58] Life too. Right.

Jana Spangler [02:51:58] Right. So. But what I would say is it is difficult for any person or institution when someone pops up. No matter how true, no matter how, how good the merits, it is hard for all of us when the thing that we are identified with and the thing that we believe is, like, true. And the thing when someone pops up and says something, wait a minute, something's not working here. It is hard for any of us to do that kind of shadow work that we need to do to allow in that, whoa, this might be true. There might be a problem we need to look at. That's hard. It's hard to be a human. It's more part of second life, half of life, spirituality, truly to start excavating our shadows and what we can be doing better than it is first half of life, just do the right things. I don't know that our institution is at a point where it can handle that. So when you pop up, when Kate Kelly pops up, when Sam Young pops up. When people pop up that are, that are showing and saying, yeah, Bill, real. When people are showing up and saying there's a problem here, it seems like there is an evolution of people just really wanting. Like, if I could just talk to the prophet, I know that he's loving, we'll just fix this thing, right? And then when there are, there are walls to that and there are problems with that, it turns to, no, you don't understand. This really needs to change. And I just want to honor the pain that people like you that now I'm aware of that. So many people in this space, the pain that we see that people are willing to share with us, that they are not willing to share with the leadership of the church informs us in different ways we're having a different experience than they're having. And so I just, I have to leave room for anyone in their own lives and in their own callings and in their own roles. The dignity of life has brought them to where they are. And I believe that most of us are loving people, trying to do it the very best way we can, but it's, it's threatening. It's threatening when someone shows us our shadow. And so we're going to obliterate it, at least from us. Now you go do what you want to do on your own, right? I mean, no one has come through and told you not to do. I mean, they've tried to tell you not to do Mormon stories, but once you're not part of them, they don't have that power, right? So people on the margins are still doing their thing. They're still gonna do their thing. They're still gonna bring awareness, I hope, to these things because it's an important voice, it's an important thing for us to raise the flag of saying something is not right here. All is not well in Zion. We need to, we need to actually include this. We will be better Christlike people if we do. We will become more of the body of Christ if we do. And we're not there, we're not there to be able to take that in yet Institutionally, we don't have what it takes. So loving, loving people doing things the best they know how to do and doing things right, it is hurting people unintentionally. And seemingly a lot of people are just unaware of the carnage. Completely unaware. I know I was 100% unaware.

John Dehlin [02:55:35] So let me, let me maybe close by asking you this two part question. Yeah, well, you, you mentioned Bill Real being kind of that, that voice in the darkness. That made you feel like you weren't alone.

Jana Spangler [02:55:49] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:55:50] You've mentioned ordained women and you becoming aware of patriarchy and feminism. You mentioned LGBT issues, and you mentioned the November policy and the reversal. You mentioned Sam Young. You mentioned me. What was it like to see all of that get just rejected and to see all those people get excommunicated by the church when those people were such a critical part of helping you, when you needed help and of even keeping you in the church?

Jana Spangler [02:56:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:56:24] So that's part one of the question.

Jana Spangler [02:56:25] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:56:27] And then part two of the question is, what made you decide to get in the ring?

Jana Spangler [02:56:32] Yeah. Okay. So question one. It's an emotional roller coaster. I hate it. I hate it when I see us cutting people off. I hate it when the things that we see as a threat doesn't have to be a threat. I understand it. I see it. I get where people are coming from. I can see why. I mean, I thought it was threatening at one point. I can't not look at that and say, but I. But I don't know. I see it as a tragedy unfolding in front of me. Is the best way I can explain

John Dehlin [02:57:16] it because Natasha's being harassed right now.

Jana Spangler [02:57:19] Yeah. I mean, people. I love people. I know the goodness of who they are. I've had the opportunity to get to know you, John. I've had the opportunity to get to know Natasha. I've had the opportunity to get to know Bill Real a little bit. I've had an opportunity to get to know some of these people. And I know the goodness of all of your hearts. I see it. I feel it. I know the sincerity. And it's going to bring me to tears. Like, I knew Sam Young before he started his whole thing. I know the goodness of all of these people. And it breaks my heart that we cannot find a way to include everybody, because there are important things that are being brought up that we would be better if we paid attention to, but we don't know how to handle it. And I. And it makes me really, really sad. Really sad. It's a missed opportunity, and it's. And it's just not right. And the pain that's in.

John Dehlin [02:58:22] I just have to say it's more than just. And just take me out of it.

Jana Spangler [02:58:25] It.

John Dehlin [02:58:25] It's more than just we don't have room for these people. It's like these people are actually helping the church improve and get better 100%. And we're going to punish them for that. That's the weird thing. 100%, because is it safer for children to be interviewed now? Yes. Thank you. Sam Yad. Is the church better with women now? Yes. Thank you. Kate Kelly, Is the church more honest in its history? Yes. Thank you, Bill Real. Thank you, rfm. Thank you. John De Lynn.

Jana Spangler [02:58:52] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:58:53] You know. Yeah, it's on stone, Right, Agreed. Like, all the positive is. Is the church better with LGBTQ people? Okay. Yes. You know, thank you. All the people that contributed to that. Somewhat better. I don't know. A little bit better. It's definitely a little bit better.

Jana Spangler [02:59:07] A little bit better, for sure.

John Dehlin [02:59:08] And. And it's like, you know, it's like for all the people that have helped make the church start to see its weaknesses and do better.

Jana Spangler [02:59:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:20] The church's response is, okay, yeah, we'll make some positive changes and we'll destroy everyone who was a part of telling us that we needed to change and do better.

Jana Spangler [02:59:29] It's an absolute catch 22. Because I doubt that any of them want to actually give you credit for any of those things.

John Dehlin [02:59:37] I'm not even credit.

Jana Spangler [02:59:38] No, I know, but. Or give anyone credit for any of those things. Right. I don't know that. I don't know. It would be an interesting conversation to see if the leadership of the church actually feels like you guys were instrumental in bringing any of those things about.

John Dehlin [02:59:50] Maybe we weren't.

Jana Spangler [02:59:51] I mean, it kind of seems like you were, but I don't know if they consciously would see that. What I think that they see is this is a person who is threatening to something that we hold sacred. This is threatening to people's faith, the way that they're seeing the world. Letting you speak is taking people away from the church. They don't understand the people like me that it's keeping in the church. That does not even compute to them. I really honestly don't think they even understand how that could be a thing. I remember having a conversation in. In one of our award councils, and they were talking about, if you're having a faith crisis, don't Google. Don't go to Google. And I raised my hand and I said, I would not be sitting here if I didn't Google. I would not be still in the building if I didn't. I would be nowhere near here. We people need to be able to follow their curiosities and understand and questions. You need to be able to do that. But we don't have a framework that understands that piece of a faith journey. They don't understand that that looks as, like a problem to be fixed and to bring you back Something broken. Yes. They don't understand that as a developmental step into a deeper kind of a faith. They see that as a falling off into the abyss. Where, you know, the last time in someone's development, they saw people making choices against the church. People were making really bad decisions for their life and making life really, really, really hard for themselves through sin. Right. If you let go of the iron rod, the narrative is that's where. That's right where you're gonna end up if you do that. Right. So they're trying to keep people from doing that. So someone who is saying, we're doing this all wrong. I honestly don't think we have the framework to understand how that can help the system. We only see how that can hurt the system. It feels threatening. It feels threatening to our identities. It feels threatening to the way we're doing things. It feels threatening to the system, to the plan of salvation, to the place we're supposed to go, to our obedience. And we don't know how to hold it. And so we've got to cut it off before it becomes a problem. So it is. It's bringing awareness. You guys are all bringing awareness, and you're too threatening to include in the process. But I don't feel like most of you start out that way either. Like, someone says, hey, hey, there's a problem when no one listens, you've got to start making some noise. You know, I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:02:22] Joke is as Bill Real is John de Lynn once was, and as John Dylan is Bill really. Maybe. And it's not about me or Bill.

Jana Spangler [03:02:30] No, I totally remember that.

John Dehlin [03:02:32] How many times does somebody stand up and go Back to the September 6th, go back to Lowell Bennion, go back to Leonard, go back to Eugene, England, like, and women, too, right? Juanita Brooks or, you know, whoever. Maxine Hanks. You know, you. You start out seeing a problem, loving the church, wanting to help it totally. And then you try and help, and then you.

Jana Spangler [03:02:54] There's an evolution to it.

John Dehlin [03:02:55] Sacrificed.

Jana Spangler [03:02:56] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [03:02:57] And then hopefully the church will change. And it's just the way it works. So, okay, so given all that, why in the world would you want to jump into the fray and try and put yourself on those train tracks?

Jana Spangler [03:03:18] Right? Such a good question.

John Dehlin [03:03:20] Where are you?

Jana Spangler [03:03:21] I mean, I think I kind of am. You know, I kind of had a confluence that came together there. When I actually was accepted to the Living School, which I found out was not an easy thing. I don't know how I slipped through it has a very low acceptance rate. But at the same time, I started getting more involved in Lower Lights. I had the Living School on the horizon, was accepted to that. And at the same time. That was exactly the same time four years ago when Natasha started Symmetry Solutions and invited me to be a coach for Symmetry and work in this area. And I had always, at the back of my mind, I'd actually talked to some graduate programs about going back and becoming a therapist. I think I have some natural abilities toward that. And so I remember talking to Natasha saying, I'm kind of thinking about being a therapist. I have also heard there's this thing about coaching. I don't know much about it. Do you have any thoughts on that be necessary for doing this kind of work? And she gave me this opportunity to just try it out with coaching. And so I jumped on and I got my schooling with coaching and started working with her. It's almost not been this big conscious decision. It's almost just been following the opportunities that have come my way and following my heart of what feels right, taking the opportunities that. That feel like this is what I need to be doing and having this huge break open in my heart toward the marginalized and to being able to see so many of the things that I feel like we have opportunities to do better. That has made me want to help in any possible way that I can. Because when I see what worked for has been working for me, I want to offer that to other people. You know, I don't want people who would be well served staying with a church congregation not even know that there is a possible way to do it and just leave because they don't know the possibilities. I am great with people that. That is not their path. I am great with that. And I. But I hate seeing it happen when people don't know that there might have been a way to do it. I just want people to know their options. So I've had this big desire to help people at least understand what I know, to see if it's a fit for them, you know, if their heart is telling them they. They have. There's some part of them that doesn't want to let it go.

John Dehlin [03:06:15] And so if you had to state kind of your goal or your mission in this regard, it would be to what?

Jana Spangler [03:06:22] So my. My deepest, biggest wish is to allow people to have their own genuine journey through this life in their relationship with faith, and not be hamstrung by the narrow definitions that they've been grown, that they have grown up with. I'm reading probably the best book on Faith crisis I've ever read right now called Faith after doubt by Brian McLaren. There was a. I'm just a few chapters in, but there was a quote that he quoted some philosopher and it said, I feel like I'm paraphrasing. My goal in life is to bring faith to the faithless and doubt to the faithful. And when I read that, I really resonated with it because there's, that's kind of a little bit where I am because I see this possibility of a deeper way to do it for those who want it. And I don't think we've made room for that. And I want to do all I can to allow people that space to find that because I, I'm really sad when someone leaves the church only because there was no room for them to continue down a spiritual path. I, I'm a big believer in that. Spirituality in and of itself is a really important thing to all of our, our, the quality of our lives, inc. Up to and including atheists. I think atheists can have very rich spiritual lives, but we've conflated it so completely with belief and religiosity and everything that we don't let it flourish. We don't let religiosity be what it needs to be, which is the support to that real, living, human inner journey that we're all here to have.

John Dehlin [03:08:19] So, so for me, that's kind of the preview because now what we're going to do is we're going to end this segment because it's kind of Janice's story that's kind of led her to this work that she wants to do. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I loved it. For me, it was super heartfelt and fascinating and inspiring. So thank you for sharing that and for giving us that part of your story.

Jana Spangler [03:08:46] Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:08:48] And don't go away. What we'll do is we'll end this episode and then we'll take a bathroom break and then we'll come right back and we're going to have a discussion where I basically ask you a lot of questions around why would people even want to bother? Why is the church Worthy? The LDS Church Worthy is a place to pursue spirituality. Given its problematic history and its problematic behavior and all the problems with it, why is it even worthy? And if somebody even wants to entertain this possibility, what might be some ways to start thinking about it? And of course, that's a, that's a multi year, multi decade conversation, but we'll start that conversation just to give people a sense for the beginnings of the path.

Jana Spangler [03:09:41] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:09:41] How does that sound?

Jana Spangler [03:09:42] Sounds great.

Transition to Part Two of the Interview

John Dehlin [03:09:43] All right.

Jana Spangler [03:09:43] All right.

John Dehlin [03:09:44] All right, Jenna. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us for this part of my interview with Janice Bengler. Janet, it's been great to have you. And we'll see in just a few minutes for my next part with Jana, which is I'm going to call it Contemplative Mormonism Exploring the path of Contemplative Mormonism with Janice Bengler. So stay tuned. Thanks, Jana.

Jana Spangler [03:10:06] Thanks.

John Dehlin [03:10:06] Thanks, everybody. See you soon.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 1399

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to part two of my interview with Janice Bengler. I'm John Dehlin. This is Mormon Stories podcast. We are here for part two of my interview with Jana. We just spent three hours talking about her story, talking about her never feeling good enough in the Mormon Church, plagued by perfectionism, then her massive faith crisis. How oddly progressive, marginal, alternative, unapproved Mormon podcasts and Sunstone and workshops and retreats actually helped her stay in the church, along with a supportive husband and a decently supportive warden stake. And it was a great story, really inspiring. And we ended with this discussion about how hard it can be to work on the margins within a religion like Mormonism. And with Jana basically saying she wants to and has been working to be a part of the solution on the margins. And so what we're going to do now is spend a couple hours talking about why someone might want to do this and how someone might approach what we're calling contemplative Mormonism. We're going to try out the branding of a new term. We're not going to call it progressive Mormonism. We're not going to call it liberal Mormonism. We're, we're going to call today contemplative Mormonism. But we're basically just going to pick Jana's brain and see if there's anyone out there who's wanting to stay in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They've had a faith crisis or they're in a faith crisis, or they're long past a faith crisis. Maybe they've even left. And we're going to explore why someone might want to find a way to re engage the LDS Church in 2021 as, let's just say an unorthodox or a non literal or maybe even a progressive or whatever. Mormon, a different type of Mormon, unorthodox. So let me begin by kind of setting the stage. Thanks for being willing to do this, Jenna. This is going to sound pretty intense. I thought about this when I was in the restroom. Let's just say that a lot of the people that are listening now are in the following place. Okay.

Jana Spangler [00:02:12] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:02:12] They're either mad at God or they don't even believe God might even be there. Or if there is a God, it's energy, but, you know, unsure about God, if God's even there, unsure about Jesus, if Jesus was even real. Jesus may have existed, but Jesus at best was kind of this wise dude who said some smart things. Who knows if there's a resurrection? Who knows if there's an afterlife. So God and Jesus are question marks at best. Or maybe they're like, I still believe in God or I still believe in Jesus. And for everyone it's like, okay, Joseph Smith did a lot of bad things. Book of Mormon probably wasn't a historical document. Maybe Joseph Smith fooled a lot of people. Certainly his polygamy and all that stuff was deeply problematic. Brigham Young was a racist. A lot of the Mormon scripture isn't what it claims to be. And then fast forward a couple hundred years. The church has this long history of being racist and sexist and homophobic and abusive and anti intellectual. And in some sense it's potentially bankrupt. From a truth claims perspective. Some would say it's morally bankrupt, some would say it's bankrupt from a social justice standpoint. Some would say it's just harmful. And so like, they would just say, I can't believe any of that anymore. I can't believe pretty much any of the orthodox tenets or pillars of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Certainly don't believe it's God's one true church. So why in the world would I even want to give it a chance? Why would I even want to contemplate rebuilding a spiritual life within it? Too fraught, too problematic. Not true. So let's, I don't mean to like front load it in that such a heavy way, but honestly, there's a lot of people who get there, who got there.

Jana Spangler [00:04:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:07] And so it's, it's worth asking, like, why should someone even start to consider that path? And I know you're not, you're going to say it's not a path for everyone. It is a path, let's just say.

Jana Spangler [00:04:21] Yeah, but, but why would they even think about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I would say that should not be their first question. It shouldn't be the question they're asking. I would, I would say there's a different question that we should be ask, which is, first of all, I would say wherever you are on that spectrum of belief in God. No belief in God, you know, Jesus in, out, wherever you are with truth claims, wherever you are, you are exactly where you need to be. You're exactly where your life has brought you. And I don't think that we help people by going in with an agenda of changing them. What I do think we do to help people is to help them imagine the possibilities. And then when they've had a chance to gain their own confidence, their own compass, their own sense of reality of how to Even know what we know, then start to explore what inspires you. That may or may not lead you back to the church, but it will lead you somewhere good. So I never come from a place of, hey, you know, you've had this experience with the church. I think what we really need to do is get you back into the church. Or I really need you to start opening your mind to coming back to the church. I think that that is a corollary that will come if that is the right decision for you. It's not like they don't know the church is there. It's not like they don't know the goodness. Sometimes it's really hard to acknowledge the goodness. I've been there. There's a lot about the church that's still good that I still have a hard time saying is good. There's a lot of emotion that goes along with a faith transition. And it makes it very hard for us to see what is good in the church for a very long time. I think that's appropriate also. So I don't know. I would not say that that is. I would ever say this is why you need to give the church a second shot. I would say this is why you need to give spirituality a second shot. And let's see where that takes you.

Openness to Spirituality After a Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [00:06:32] Okay, so the first thing I hear you saying is be open to spirituality. Now even that, even that concept is triggering for a lot of people.

Jana Spangler [00:06:40] Hugely.

John Dehlin [00:06:40] Yeah, they're like spirit. Wait, that means there's some metaphysical realm. That means there's what, spirits in our body. That takes me to the pre existence and Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother and like they just go spiritual. No, I don't. That's triggering. That's too triggering.

Jana Spangler [00:06:55] 100%. Because Western Christianity has hijacked spirituality into religiosity. We have conflated those two terms to. I mean, I ask this so often when clients come to see me. So what is your view of a spiritual person? Like when you were orthodox in the church and you said that person in my word is super spiritual, what would you say? And every one of them involves some sort of acknowledgment of obedience, doing the things really well, doing the callings. It has a lot of doing in it and there's not a lot of being in it. And I think what we have done is we have set up this religious structure and we can't see the forest for the trees sometimes. So we imagine that God is what we were taught in whatever religion we came up in. This is who God is once My heart is telling me that's not right. Very often we don't know that there's any other choice, but there's not a God. I can't believe in that God. So there's no God. Right? For me, spirituality does not mean. Does not connote any of those things. This is why I say that there's like, there's a great book out there called the Spiritual Atheist. Because to me, spirituality is just where our internal lives connect with existence. So to me, spirituality is just what inspires me, what makes me want to be a better person, what makes me want to connect with the world and with something that's beyond myself. That seems to be really highly correlated with wellness and fulfillment in life in studies that I've read. So I think that's a good thing. It's a good thing to pay attention to our inner lives. It's a good thing to pay attention to the ways that we interact with the world and what am I bringing to the world and what unconscious things are going on inside of me that is making me bring something to the world that, you know, is good or is bad or whatever and is always a mix of both. Right? So to me, spirituality is much more of an interpersonal journey of how we make meaning of our lives and how we find our place in this world. And everyone's got that. I don't care where you are in the spectrum of belief. We have hijacked faith to mean belief, and we do it so well in the church.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] What's the faith and belief.

Jana Spangler [00:09:36] So I think faith can encompass belief, but I don't think it is everything. Being raised in the church, we talk about testimony and we talk about the things we know. I mean, that's the phrase we hear more than any other. And in any given testimony meeting is, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, Right. We have this idea that there's one way to do a faith journey, and that is to become more and more and more convinced. This is why doubt is looked at as anathema to faith. We can't quite conceive of how doubt can actually enliven faith because we think of it as belief. Belief. It's really hard to hold belief in doubt. That is hard to do. But faith is much more of a relationship word. The word pistis, and I'm butchering that. I'm sure I don't speak Greek, but the Greek word pistis p I s t I s was translated into the New Testament as faith most often. And that word in The Greek means a whole lot more than belief. It encompasses belief, but it's also a relationship. It's a trust, it's a hope, it's being trustworthy. You know, So I see faith as the ability to move forward when I have absolutely no clue what is going on in the universe. Like, I, I have faith in a benevolent universe. I have faith that if I continue to do good things and those things that I have put back in my truth basket, which I will tell you is not a lot of things, but I have there, love is there, service is there. I'm getting outside myself while also caring for myself. Those, those things are in my truth basket. And I have faith that if I do those things, that I will be able to build a meaningful life that I will want to show up for. That's the difference between belief and faith. And it's not contingent on what I believe now. The things I believe can, can aid that, can give structure to that, can give. Give some meaning to that. But, but that's not what faith is. That's not what spirituality is to me anymore.

John Dehlin [00:12:00] Okay, so you're blowing my Mormon mind. I've got my Mormon hat on for a second. You know, I'm putting back on my orthodox Mormon.

Jana Spangler [00:12:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Okay. Okay. So in terms of belief.

Jana Spangler [00:12:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:12] Did I hear you say your beliefs have gotten smaller and smaller and fewer and fewer over time?

Jana Spangler [00:12:16] They're far less rigid. Far less rigid over time. And it's not the focus of my faith.

John Dehlin [00:12:23] Beliefs are less important.

Jana Spangler [00:12:25] Less important for sure.

Jana's Core Beliefs and View of Joseph Smith

John Dehlin [00:12:27] So do you, if you were to list five of your most important beliefs, what are they?

Jana Spangler [00:12:31] I mean, honestly, it's kind of what I just said, so.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] I didn't hear God. I didn't hear Jesus. I didn't hear Atonement. I didn't hear Joseph Smith. Yeah, I didn't hear Book of Mormon.

Jana Spangler [00:12:41] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:12:42] Why?

Jana Spangler [00:12:43] Because I still don't know what to think about all those things. I, when I look at the Book of Mormon, I, you know, I, I, it's not that I'm ignoring the truth claims or because I think those are super important. I still listen to lots of Mormon stories, podcasts that are. I listen to the Robert Rittner thing. I listen to things I care about, the scholarship, I'm fascinated by it. I think it's really, really interesting, but it is not a decision factor in what I do with my connection to the church. So when I look at the Book of Mormon, I think there is a lot of scholarship that has come out that is indicating that this is a 19th century document. Faithful historians are saying this these days. This is not just me going out in a weird place for this. Right, Right. I'm fine with people. People are going to make sense of it the way that they make sense of it. So I'm fine with people believing what they believe about it. For me, I think, yeah, there's a lot there that indicates to me it's a 19th century document. But what's important to me is what's in it, what's in the pages. What do I feel when I read it? Is there God's inspiration in that book? Sure. There are also problems. I mean, there are problems in there that prior to my faith crisis, I would not have. I would have been defending. I would have been defending the racism. I would have tried to make. Minimize it or make it not be a thing. I don't do that anymore. There's racism in there. It's clear. But I have different frames for looking at that, of why that would be. I'm more and more and more comfortable with the imperfection that is life. And I don't need the church to be perfect. I don't need the Book of Mormon to be perfect. I don't need prophets to be perfect. I don't need myself to be perfect. This is kind of a mantra that kind of guides me. Right. And it's helping me in all kinds of areas of my life to be looking at it that way.

John Dehlin [00:14:57] So.

Jana Spangler [00:14:59] But I say these things, and I don't want to skip over the fact that I was super bugged by these things along the way.

John Dehlin [00:15:08] Yeah. And I don't want to spend too much time here because I've done that with a thousand other people, Literally. But just to kind of really put a fine point on it, my guess is if I were to say to you, what about the afterlife? You would probably say, what?

Jana Spangler [00:15:28] I have hopes for it. I have hopes for it. I don't particularly resonate with the Mormon story of it, especially women's roles in it. I don't like the idea of emulating Heavenly Mother, the way that she's been placed in the church. I don't even know how I feel about an anthropomorphic God at times. That has been super helpful for me and continues to be super helpful for me to think of God as anthropomorphized and as both male and female and anything in between. And I. I don't need it to be that. So I'm. I'm super open to whatever life brings me through. All of the ways that we discern new ideas in life. I'm super open to science, I'm super open to psychology. I'm super open to new studies. I'm really open to spiritual inspiration from wherever that comes. Recognizing that we all have our biases, we all have our cultural whatever, and we are all looking through glass darkly. And I don't think that changes when you take. Take on the role of a prophet.

John Dehlin [00:16:48] There's this term anti Mormon that, you know, a lot of us take umbrage with. We hate that term because it feels like a slur or, you know, something to denigrate a pejorative or whatever. But in some sense, the, the frame you've already laid out feels very anti Mormon to me. And let me tell you what I mean by that. Yeah, it's meaning not Mormon. Yeah, right. Meaning the opposite of what I associate with Mormonism, because the Mormonism, and I'm sure I was set up for this, the Mormonism I was raised in, it's like the apostasy happened and Jesus lived, but then the church fell in apostasy. And then Joseph was called and he saw God. And this he was called the one true Church. And the golden plates and angels and, and Lamanites and priesthood and patriarchal blessing and temple marriage and heaven and the three degrees and Jesus and the resurrection and the judgment and temples and ordinances and just prophets, everything. That's Mormonism.

Jana Spangler [00:17:54] And that is certainly how we have held it in the late 20th century and early 21st century. 100%.

John Dehlin [00:18:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, if I'm just getting to the point of it, all of what we said so far, you're basically saying, yeah, like, like that's, that's where we've been. That's a way to be Mormon.

Jana Spangler [00:18:17] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:18:18] And I, what I'm hearing is like, none of that stuff that I mentioned is like central to. None of that stuff is like, central to what you're talking about. You're almost playing a totally different game. There's a football field and we know what the goal posts are, we know what the markers are, and we know. But it's like you're playing a totally different game in the field that we have associated with all those other things that I just mentioned, but all those other things aren't really central to your game.

Jana Spangler [00:18:54] So I would say that is true and not true at the same time. So it's really hard to talk about this. I mean, I was just noticing John, when you bring up God, for instance, was watching I was, I was binge watching some cosmos over the Christmas break and I remember, you know, love me some Neil DeGrasse Tyson, he's great. And I, and I'm watching this thinking, yeah, there are really good explanations for pretty much everything scientifically. Right. Like this makes a lot of sense, it's miraculous, it's amazing. I'm just dumbfounded at all of creation. And then at the very end of it, I'm also thinking, but why is there something rather than nothing? I still come back to that. Like, why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything exist? So I find myself at times being more and more convinced that there's no God and that there is totally a God in the same moment, in the same day. It depends on the day and how I'm feeling about that thing at the time. Like I think about two years ago, my son had a life threatening illness and had a couple of dicey moments up at the hospital. One in particular where the respiratory team and the resuscitation team and the PICU team were all huddling around my son as they're dashing us off to a CAT scan. And in that moment I reverted right back to Mormon heavenly mother and Father. I was right there with it and I was praying directly to that. And it was so useful for me in that moment. That was everything. And then a few days later, my feeling changes. So this is why I say, like all of my doubts and all of my not knowing are such a catalyst to help me deepen into the wonder of what all of this is. And in all of that, I have felt more spirituality, more closeness to God, more resonance with the teachings of Jesus, more resonance with parts of the Book of Mormon, more resonance with, um, things that some of the prophets and apostles have said, more resonance than I ever have before. So it is both very important and not at all important to me, if that makes sense, which it probably doesn't.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] But no. No. As I think about the three hours we just spent with you.

Jana Spangler [00:21:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:42] It's just like four decades of, of feeling unworthy and inadequate and you're not getting the answers and you're feeling like you're in the desert and you're thirsting and you're never finding the answer.

Jana Spangler [00:21:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:56] And the, the church is. Mormonism is fundamentally just not giving you sustenance.

Jana Spangler [00:22:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:04] Then you have this massive faith crisis.

Jana Spangler [00:22:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:06] It all falls apart.

Jana Spangler [00:22:07] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:08] You get exposed to all these dangerous people and you had to lose your faith to then have the. It's not like you had to have Your heart cracked open to then have the capacity to draw spiritual sustenance from within a Mormon framework. And that's so. That's so ironic.

Jana Spangler [00:22:28] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:29] And it's in such a non Mormon way.

Jana Spangler [00:22:32] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:34] Like, it's a real paradox.

Jana Spangler [00:22:36] It is.

John Dehlin [00:22:36] But you found it. See, that's the thing. I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, Jennifer, four decades, you're, like, struggling, struggling. And now I see power and I see light.

Jana Spangler [00:22:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:48] And I'm like, as I'm just thinking about your story, I'm thinking, I'm so happy Jana has finally found, like, confidence and light and comfort and strength and confidence. That's so good. I'm so happy.

Jana Spangler [00:23:04] And honestly, John, thank you for saying that. And it feels that way to me. Like, I had a narrative of myself that I was not spiritual, that I was not a spiritual person. You did a Mormon story years ago with Danny and Mira Kofed. And I resonated with her so much when I listened to that, because one piece of her story just really stood out to me when she had a similar experience of feeling like she was not spiritual and she was, you know, as she was going through faith transition, she came in contact with someone, and I don't remember who it was some sort of a healer who saw the spirituality that was deep inside her. And I remember that gave me the strength to say, I wonder if I've just been defining this wrong my whole life, that because I was just a piano person and my husband had all the leadership callings, maybe that doesn't define me as far as my spirituality. Maybe I've just been using the wrong measuring stick. And honestly, since I've given myself that permission, I feel like my spiritual life has just blown up on me. And I feel closer to whatever God might be. And I choose to say, that's God. I choose to name that. Whatever it is I'm experiencing God, I feel closer to that and more loved and more confident and more able to help other people, more able to see other people than ever before. Even my husband, who definitely sees church in a very different way, he has to admit he has. He's said it to me more than once that you're a better person now than he used to be. So how can I. How can I argue with that? Right? Like, it can feel threatening. He has those like, what about our eternal marriage? What about all of this? What does this mean for us? That you're not affirming everything exactly the way you did? But he's like, you're a better person. I don't I? I have to, I have to admit it.

John Dehlin [00:25:21] Yeah. So one of the common criticisms, and I'm going to just tell my ex Mormon post Mormon friends, don't be mean, don't be rude to Jana. I love Jana and she's awesome. One of the comments they'll make is, well, this isn't Mormonism for sure. What you're talking about is not Mormonism. None of it's Mormonism. Yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:25:40] So I would say again, it's not the Mormonism of the late 20th century and the early 21st century. I do think there are roots there in some of this. We've left the most fun stuff out of correlation. I'll just say that like we were spoon fed specific quotes, specific things that went on in the early church. And I don't pretend to be any kind of expert or historian, but I do take it in. I take it in and it sticks with me. It's my interest, it's what I love. But what, what resonates for me now are it's, it's a different kind of a Joseph Smith that I'm seeing. Way more problematic than I ever thought before. Right. That also there's this piece of him where I, I see things he's written about not wanting Mormonism to be about creeds, not wanting it to be about wanting to be able to think for himself, not wanting to be trammeled. Like this is in the history of the church. If you go read it, you know,

John Dehlin [00:26:48] there's also a very, there's. Joseph Smith had this very like, wherever truth is, we're going to bring it. It's Mormon. It is, it's truth. It's Mormon.

Jana Spangler [00:26:56] I never heard him say, all truth will come through me because I am the prophet of the restoration. And so you need to be fearful of all of that. And even Brigham Young in all of his problems said, wherever it is, if the heathen has the truth, we bring it in. That's what Mormonism is. We're just going to collect the truth wherever it is. They never imagined that they were delivering some neat little package. You know, the Joseph Smith that I have learned not in correlation, the one I've learned about was one that was continually seeking who he thought God was when he was, you know, at the time, as a teenager, having whatever the first vision was, right. Was very different than the God that he was talking about before he died. Later in his life. It was unfolding to him. He was changing his mind all the time. It was not a monolith. We, we have Taken some of this and in my view, we've cemented things that were never meant to be cemented. I think Joseph was on a. A path of discovery, and I don't think that discovery was done when he died. And I think a lot of the people who came after him did not recognize that that's what this is, is a discovery process and that maybe we don't have it all figured out. Joseph to me, seemed like he was always willing to take in a new thing. So in some ways I feel like I'm super Mormon. I'm really Mormon. I mean, the paradox. One of my favorite Joseph Smith quotes is by proving opposites is truth made manifest. You know, he. There's a quote, the thy mind, O man quote, and I can't quote it perfectly, but he talks about if you're going to bring a man to salvation, he has to contemplate the highest high and the darkest abyss. Like you. You've got to take it all in. You cannot be afraid of reality because reality is wonderful and terrible and awful. So, yeah. Am I a Bruce har McConkie Mormon? No, I am not. But I think there are pieces of the restoration from early on that really resonate with me, that I think I'm actually quite Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:29:16] Well, since you brought up Joseph Smith just really quickly.

Jana Spangler [00:29:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:20] Since. Since a modern understanding of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, is that they likely aren't what we were told they were.

Jana Spangler [00:29:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:28] Some, some people who go through this end up saying, well, then it must have been a fraud. It must have been Joseph fooling people and deceiving people.

Jana Spangler [00:29:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] Therefore, like I have to reject them as scripture because they're totally. They're at best not what they, what they claim to be, but at worst, like overt fraud. So how do you, as a first question, what do you do with that question?

Jana Spangler [00:29:54] Yeah, so I can totally understand it. I mean, here's the deal. There's plenty that we know about Joseph Smith that believers can go, this is who he is and he's a prophet. There's plenty for non believers to look at and say he was a total fraud. There's evidence of this. There's plenty of evidence on both sides for both of those. You can be a very smart, intelligent person and you can see it that way. From where I stand, I think that both of those views of Joseph Smith are far more certain than I am willing to say. I don't know. I don't know who Joseph Smith was. I know I've been fed a story about him. And I know that I've been told lots of things on both sides of this about him. And I believe a lot of both of them. So I think that life is so much more complicated than we like to think. We've been told such a simple story about Joseph Smith, even the first vision. Like, you know, one of the things I did at the Living School with Richard Rohrer, they talk a lot about the mystics. They talk a lot about people. And a mystic. I heard a great short definition the other day. A mystic is someone who doesn't just want to talk about God. A mystic is someone who wants to experience God. And there were a lot of these in the early Catholic Church. A lot of mystics that have some really beautiful writings about their experience with God. Right. As I'm learning about that, I'm thinking Joseph was a mystic. And in none of these experiences, like, you read the Cloud of Unknowing, you read some Teresa babble, you read some of these people, and you're like, I don't think in the history of God, showing if God exists, God's presence to humanity, has it been so simple as, you know, I. An experience that I can go out, have. Have this amazing experience and then go tell you as if it's a story and have you actually understand what it is I just experienced. I just don't even think that's possible. I think that mystical experience and true connection with something bigger than us is messy. It's messy and possibly borders on psychotic. I don't know. I'm open to all kinds of explanations for this. I really am, but I don't know. I kind of like the idea that Joseph had an experience with the divine, that something opened up for him, that something happened to the kid that made him think in ways that were kind of different for the culture of his time. He wasn't kind of. He just wasn't jiving with the Protestant religions that were. That were presented to him. And I think it's for a lot of the reasons that some of the church doesn't resonate with me. Sometimes I think it's the same kind of thing I've often said. I think of Joseph Smith. Showed up today, showed up in a. In his local ward, joined a ward, started going. First of all, no one would want to, like, give him callings of any kind of, like, anything that mattered, any leadership callings. I think he'd get pretty annoyed pretty quickly, and he'd go and start his own church. That's just my view of who Joseph

John Dehlin [00:33:28] Is in our church today. Yeah, especially in our church.

Jana Spangler [00:33:30] Yeah. Because I think we've codified things that he was trying to say. This is what's wrong with Protestantism. We don't want to do this. This is not what we want to do. So I see him just being kind of. Kind of nutty kind of genius and kind of, you know, going through his life getting his ego a little too involved, probably having some personality disorders, like doing some really crazy crap with. With the polygamy and all that kind of stuff. I, you know, but I can hold that, that. That something divine can come through that, because I think something divine can come through every single person on this planet.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] So what's a framing for you of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham?

Jana Spangler [00:34:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:18] If there maybe weren't gold plates and if there really wasn't even maybe a moroni, and we know the Book of Abraham is not a translation. So what's the framing for you of what. What happened? What they are.

Jana Spangler [00:34:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:29] And what they mean to you?

Jana Spangler [00:34:31] I mean, I'm open to a lot of things here. I'm open to him having found something that he thought was gold plates or, you know, found some, not even really ancient artifact or found something. I'm open to him they're not having been plates. I don't know. I'm open to a lot of explanations of what that is. But I think something flowed through him. It obviously wasn't terribly important because the plates weren't always in the room when he was doing his thing. Right. So he's got his head in it and he's got a seer stone, and he's. He's been raised in this folk magic kind of place where all of this kind of makes sense to the people going on around him. I think he kind of really thought he could find some treasure. I think he really kind of thought he could do this stuff. I think he studied with people about seer stones and the women in his life, and his mother had visions and his grandmother had visions, and I think this was all just part of the soup. And I think he was picking up on the mound builder stuff, and I think he was in contact with the Hebrews, and I think it was in contact with all of this stuff. And he just like synthesized all of this story and all of this thing and. And gave us this Book of Mormon. I mean. And personally, I'm still super confused. I haven't done enough research to say what actually happened there. How important was. I've heard differing things. How important Was the Book of Mormon in early conversion of people and joining the church. How important was any of that? How important was the first vision? How much was it talked about? I don't even know. Like we've been told the story that it was. So, like this is what happened and that's how we know. As I dig more into and hear more of the experts and hear more of the stories it was. I just think it was far messier and far more fun actually than what we try to make it.

John Dehlin [00:36:31] So.

Jana Spangler [00:36:31] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:36:32] So, so if there, if there weren't plates or if there weren't a Moroni.

Jana Spangler [00:36:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:36] You're saying he. I mean, there's one scenario, I guess, I think I've even heard Maxine say this, where even if he made fake plates.

Jana Spangler [00:36:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:48] That he believed he was channeling real stories of, of an ancient inhabitants of America. And if he had to create plates so that people would believe, or if he thought he was reproducing plates that had a, a parallel existence in some other universe, whatever it was.

Jana Spangler [00:37:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:09] That there's some sincerity there that he really did think the scripture he was producing was genuine and authentic scripture, possibly some in some way.

Jana Spangler [00:37:21] I'm not convinced that he even thought that Nephi existed. He might have. I don't know that he even really thought that. I mean, you know, the, the, the tree of life, the iron rod, you know, the Lehi's vision that we know that his father had that, that dream. Right. I mean, I'm fine with him pulling from those things to make a metaphor. I mean, that's a beautiful metaphor for life. I'm fine with him putting that in as scripture and then putting himself in as Nephi. Curious what that means and that this is representative of something and not even a real, a real story of real historical people. I'm okay with him thinking he was doing that. I'm okay with him not thinking he was doing that. I think there are a lot of

John Dehlin [00:38:10] possibilities, but there's a, there's a, There's a lot of people that are just like, wait, wait, it either happened or it didn't as. It either happened as he said or it didn't. And if it didn't happen as he said, then it's fraud and deception.

Jana Spangler [00:38:21] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:38:22] What allows you to not get snagged on that?

Jana Spangler [00:38:25] Probably just not enough research. Because I'm genuinely confused about what story he presented at any given time of his life. I don't know because I know what I've been taught. I don't Think that's what happened? I don't know what happened. I haven't done enough study to say, you know, if he was out saying this is exactly what happened, and I don't know, then I would have to say I'd probably lean more toward maybe he was trying to pull one over on people or I don't know, because the evidence doesn't fully line up there. But I haven't done enough research. So in my little mind of how I view Joseph. Right. I kind of give him the benefit of the doubt to say I'm not sure we know what he thought he was doing. I don't know. I don't know what he thought he was doing.

John Dehlin [00:39:24] But if I dig a tiny bit deeper, what I kind of hear you saying is you kind of don't. It's not important to you, and that's how you started. In other words, if I'm going to restate what I think I hear you saying is whatever happened, happened.

Jana Spangler [00:39:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:39:40] We're left with where we are now.

Jana Spangler [00:39:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:39:42] And what you're much more interested in, over what really did happen and was it true or not, and was it historical or authentic?

Jana Spangler [00:39:51] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:39:51] It's more like some text got produced. It's led to this movement of people and to this whole cultural religious movement. Yep. I'm in it now, and I'm. I'm not interested in that as much as I am in where am I now? And where can this take me?

Jana Spangler [00:40:10] Yeah, so it's. I'm interested in it. I'm super interested in it. Like, obviously the guy really did. I think he did think he was doing something. I mean, he's trying to translate Kinderhook plates and. And Abraham, the Book of Abraham, stuff that's coming from papyri that doesn't have. I'm fairly convinced, doesn't have anything to do with Abraham. But. But something is being channeled through him. Something really kind of cool at times is being channeled through him. So whether he believed that or not or he was pulling, I don't know. What we have is extraordinary, and it's the basis for something. It's the basis for some sort of connection to God.

John Dehlin [00:40:52] So you see Mormon scripture as extraordinary?

Jana Spangler [00:40:55] Yes and no. I see all scripture as extraordinary. I mean, I see it. I see. I'm very fascinated with people explaining to me their connection with the divine. I am really excited about that. So I think this is authentic, like American scripture, as much as any scripture is authentic. I think all scripture is a person's connection and experience. With the divine. And then they wrote it down. And then some people came along and said, that's really important and that's really meaningful. And somewhere along the way, even things that people at one point didn't necessarily hold as literal, other people have held as literal. And even at that literal level, they've found good in it.

John Dehlin [00:41:52] So for you, scripture is what

Jana Spangler [00:41:56] Man's connection to the divine, man's experience with the divine.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] I would even say, not to answer for you, but man's attempt to articulate their experience with the divine.

Jana Spangler [00:42:09] I like that even better.

John Dehlin [00:42:10] I don't mean to correct you.

Jana Spangler [00:42:11] No.

John Dehlin [00:42:11] I'm just.

Jana Spangler [00:42:12] No, it's adding to it and I love it as I don't always have the words for this stuff. It's very fuzzy. Right. So yeah, I appreciate that, that articulation and that resonates. It is, it's people trying to articulate what it is. And, and experience with the divine, to me is really hard to articulate. It's really hard to articulate. I can't explain to you. There are certain things in life that I can't fully explain to you and have you understand, you know, I can't have my deepest suffering or my, my most amazing spiritual experiences or an experience of what it's like to hold my newborn child and watch a sleeping child. I can't, I can't fully explain to you what that experience is. It's kind of out of the realm of words. And I think we've really tried to codify things that, and take them, make them very material and very concrete that I don't think were ever meant to be.

John Dehlin [00:43:18] I love it. Okay. And then the second part of that with Joseph Smith is some would say, now wait a minute, he's propositioning 14 year olds, propositioning other men's wives. He's sending a man on a mission and then propositioning the guy's wife while he's on the mission. Like marrying sister pairs, mother, daughter pairs, lying to Emma about it. Like there's all of this sort of like, not just, oh, he was a bit of a rascal.

Jana Spangler [00:43:44] Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:44] You know, some, some are like, you know, and this are, you know, heavy words, but like sexual predator type behavior. The type of stuff where if I did it, I would either be killed or put in jail. He was doing all that really serious stuff with kids as young as 14. So like disqualifies himself on a moral basis. How have you worked through that?

Jana Spangler [00:44:08] Well, if you need your profits to be moral, then yeah, I don't necessarily Think that our worst elements define us in this life. No matter who we are, we have a tendency to do that as a society, to make our worst moments or our best moments define us. We like to put people in buckets. Right? I think what Joseph Smith did was horrible. I cringe every time I look at all of those early church presidents and the ages of the women that they were marrying. It's a problem. I think that section 132 says everything we kind of need to know. Here's Joseph Smith going, hey, like, Abraham did it. Is this a thing? I'm restoring all this stuff. Like, how about me? You know, I mean, some of that. I want some of that. I mean, that's kind of how I read the first part of the section 132.

John Dehlin [00:45:09] You know, better get in line and

Jana Spangler [00:45:11] then let me see how I can coerce my wife into getting on board. I mean, that's kind of sums up section 132 for me. Right. Like, I think that he. Not everything obviously was channeled from what I. Any God I would believe in. It was not all channeled by him. Like, he was. He was off. He was off in a lot of ways. Really, really off. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:38] And.

Jana Spangler [00:45:40] And I think people can have inspiration that are really, really off. We have to have other ways of discerning what is good and what is true, other than I'm labeling this person as a prophet. Ergo, everything he did was good. I just don't think that's. I just don't think that's the way it works anymore. I grew up thinking that was the way it works. I no longer think that's the way it works. I just see no evidence of that. I think that everyone in my life that I come across has good and bad in them, including myself. We all do. We all do. Some. It's extreme. Some people have a real gift for a connection with God. Some people don't. I mean, for the first four decades of my life, I sure didn't have that talent. So I don't know. I kind of take people how they come. And I think it's problematic that we're not willing to look at Joseph Smith for all of who he is on both sides, in or out, I. I kind of think that we are too certain about who that man was, to be honest, on either side.

John Dehlin [00:46:57] So what. So the. The framing, the. Another part of the framing that we've. All we're trying to recover from is this. This is the one true church. And our prophet talks to God directly. And this is the path. And yes, you know, will allow for some goodness in other religious traditions, but we're the right one. They're the frauds or they're the false ones or the, you know, you know, the inferior ones. And our prophet now literally talks to God in an exclusive way that no other religious leader does. And by the way, our ordinances count.

Jana Spangler [00:47:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:35] Our baptisms count, our marriages count, and everyone else's baptisms and marriages aren't legitimate and don't count. What do you. What do you do with all that?

Jana Spangler [00:47:46] Yeah. So I think that that is a very human thing to have something that resonates deeply with us and to make it exclusive. I hear those words of Richard Rohr in my ear that our egos want to be separate and superior. I hear that and I go back to where Joseph Smith is. Like, we just want to be the repository of all truth. Wherever it comes from, this is what we want. So we're going to take it in from everywhere. How does that jive with, like, we're the one true? Well, he was trying to make it maybe the one true, where it's the one that's not going to reject all of the stuff if it comes from somewhere else. And maybe that message just got morphed over time into something that. Where people were like, oh, we got it and you guys don't. I mean, there's so much in that. In the early years of the church, you know, we. We were not. We were problematic to our neighbors in many of the places we were in. Right. People are tribal people. If you are not paying attention to what our egos are doing. We do tend toward some really problematic things. And we got, early on in our history, got into some us versus them, thinking that was appropriate for the development of where we were at the time. But it has really informed, I think, the way that we take in the gospel today. So I don't know if we had Joseph Smith here, we could ask him, what does it mean to you to be the one true church? We may get a very different answer than if we have President Nelson next to us saying, what is the one true church? I see ordinances in a very different way than I used to. I find them to be very meaningful in a way that I find human ritual to be very, very meaningful. I do have trouble these days seeing them as magical, but I do see them as. As touching on the divine. This was one of the things that broke my shelf early on. One of that nagging thing, along with the what does the Holy Ghost mean? What does that mean? That I have the gift of the Holy Ghost and someone else doesn't. I also just could not get my brain around why a Mormon priesthood holder laying his hands on someone would be any more effective than a Catholic mother praying over her child in the middle of the night. I can't square that. The only thing that makes sense to me is that if there is a God, that power is. Is given to everybody. And as people, sometimes to make it material, to make it real, we put ritual around it and we decide who can have it and who can't and who can. This is your job. This is your role. This is whatever. We put that around it. And then again, over generations, we take it way too seriously. It's the only sense I can make of it. Because I truly believe that there is healing power from human to human everywhere. That is. I wouldn't. I wouldn't put it in the miraculous bucket, but there's something that happens between people that's healing.

John Dehlin [00:51:23] If ordinances don't have to be literally performed with kind of LDS Church authority, that means tens of thousands of mostly senior LDS Church members and a ton of members are doing all these ordinances in the temple thinking that it means one thing. We're getting people's baptisms so they can go to heaven. We're getting people sealed so that their marriages can last in heaven.

Jana Spangler [00:51:51] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:51:52] All that money, all that time, all that effort is being spent.

Jana Spangler [00:51:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:57] That may not actually be, in reality, doing the thing that people think is being done.

Jana Spangler [00:52:04] Possibly. Yeah. Possibly.

John Dehlin [00:52:11] And what does that do for you? What does that make you feel or think?

Jana Spangler [00:52:14] Well, on some days, it makes me kind of sad. Like, you know, it on one level, it feels like maybe a misplaced effort, that there's so many good things we could be doing in the world for the people that are here today. On another level, I think it's really beautiful that we connect to ancestors. This is something very human. And we're not the only people to have it be very important to have this lineage and connection to our ancestors. Ancestors. Right. I mean, there's a reason that Ancestry.com is a gigantic company outside of the realm of the church. Right. There's a lot of Eastern religions that are based on ancestors that are very fundamental. So in that respect, I feel like there's something really beautiful that's also happening there. There's something really beautiful about the idea of. Of sealing people together that makes this world not just an individual salvation project. That's just all about me, that it's connected in relationship to other people. And so I actually find temple work to be very important in that it again brings an idea that's beautiful into the material body where we can actually go and do something in a ritualistic way that honors that, that is beautiful. To me, it's both wrapped up

John Dehlin [00:53:47] regarding kind of modern day prophets. Once you kind of lose your faith, it's a very common perspective to say these are just a bunch of super old dudes, really patriarchal, 40s, World War II mindset, racist, sexist, homophobic. And not only are they not prophetic, not only are they not ahead of the times, they're always reliably 30 years behind the times on any pick, any major issue, Women, era, civil rights, lgbt. Always behind the times. So like, so how do you, how do you stay in a church where prophets are kind of worshiped and honored as being this one thing, whereas they may not even be worth honoring at that level, but instead may be super disappointments on some level?

Jana Spangler [00:54:41] Yeah, well, I find it really problematic. I find it problematic for us and I find it problematic for them that we have this imagination, that this hero worship. I think there's something very human and also something super American about hero worship. I don't know, I was kind of struck. I just saw a couple weeks ago. I don't know if you've seen this. It's a video of Stephen Colbert when he goes to visit Jacinda Ardern. Have you seen this video? Look it up. It's super fun. She picks him up at the airport in a Hyundai. You know, they're just driving through New Zealand. But it just. You would never see the head of state in America doing something like that. Right. Like there's something very American about the way we put people on a pedestal. I don't, I don't think it's good for anybody, frankly. I don't think that's the way Jesus sees people. Like, if we're getting down to like what really the gospel is about, I don't think the hero worship helps anybody. I think we have been told a narrative of what the prophet is that I don't think is super helpful. And we expect too much of our prophets. We expect them to be outside of place and time and to just have this pure mind meld with the divine, you know, that somehow they should know. I mean, what in our, in the Bible, in any kind of scripture gives anyone that kind of an idea that that's what a prophet is capable of, of seeing something bigger and better? The only people who could see beyond came from the margins. And guess what? In the Old Testament, that's where the prophets came from. They were the ones that could see what was going on and spoke truth to power. That's who Jesus was. Jesus was not the head of the church in his time. He. He was a Jew who was saying, hey, God, guys, there's something wrong here. And he was speaking from the margins. So I think to expect the people in the core that are leading our church to be the prophetic voice is not realistic. Now we can sustain them as being the people who have their roles and their calls to lead the church and make all the decisions that they make and run the ship like great. Do I wish that there was a little diversity at the top? Yes, I do. Would we be a better church if there was? I think so. If we had more women's voices, if we had more diverse voices with race and all the different ways that we can have diversity, I think we would be benefited with that because we do. We have a collection of mostly Utah Mormon men who are. Grew up at a certain time. And I don't think that gives us the full diversity because I don't think God just pours it onto us. Obviously God does not do that. So, yeah, that if that's what you have, you're going to be 30 years behind the times and you're always going to be playing catch up. I don't expect that from the people who lead my church.

John Dehlin [00:58:06] So what, what is their value to you?

Jana Spangler [00:58:10] So I think that their value is that they, I think are sincere people, people who've obviously could be going off and enjoying their retirement in completely different ways and are running themselves to the bone. Right to, to try to fulfill their duty to what they believe this church needs. I think that they try to stay as open and close to the inspiration of God as they possibly know how to do. And I think they're best given their frame of mind. Their utility is that they've been doing this a long time and there's a trustworthiness to that. And it is up to us, each one of us, to have the discernment to understand. Just like with Joseph Smith, like with anybody in this world, it is up to us to have the discernment of when they're speaking in resonance with, with God and when they're not. I, I just don't think they always do. And I think they would say that you ha. You, you can't look at the, you cannot be honest with the history of this church and not see that people Prophets were speaking out of resonance with what we would imagine God is and that we are constantly moving in a way of restoration. We, we've actually, I think, shackled ourselves by thinking it's all going to come through these men. We need to go back to what Joseph was saying and start looking outside the church and collecting in more truth, because I think we've hamstrung ourselves in thinking it's all going to come through this way. So there's value. There's value in having wonderful people, good hearted people, trying to hold your organization together and do their best to move things forward in a good direction. That's the value.

John Dehlin [01:00:03] So we kind of started this thread with me saying, this isn't Mormonism.

Jana Spangler [01:00:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:08] And what I mean is it's not the Mormonism that I was raised for sure. And then you kind of embraced that and said, yeah, it is sort of. There's roots of all the stuff and you can find it. But it's also, you are doing, you are doing Mormonism differently than we were all trained to.

Jana Spangler [01:00:23] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:00:24] So now let me come back to that question again. When people say you've made up your own church, this is the church of Jetta Spangler, like they always do that. Whoever it is that I interview, who's got a non unorthodox way.

Jana Spangler [01:00:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:38] It's always the church of Janice Begler, you know, or Jim Bennett. Jim Bennett's got his own church, the Church of Jim Bennett. Right. So not, not to say that, like, what are you doing then? So you're, you're in this church, you see it in all the ways, all the good and bad. It's lots of ands.

Jana Spangler [01:00:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:56] Lots of good, lots of bad, lots of problems, lots of beauty.

Jana Spangler [01:01:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:01] I see that being an important part of what you're doing.

Jana Spangler [01:01:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:06] Mormonism and everything else.

Jana Spangler [01:01:08] Yeah.

Richard Rohr's First and Second Half of Life

John Dehlin [01:01:09] So describe now what it is you're doing in Mormonism. Like what? And I think this is probably the time to introduce Richard Rohr's first and second half of life. Let's just, let's start there. So talk to us about, you know, Falling Upward or whichever book is your favorite or the training you've received. Talk just really quickly about who Richard Rohr is.

Jana Spangler [01:01:33] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:01:34] What he means to both Catholics and religious people and secular people everywhere. Introduce the idea of first and second half of life and then explain how, how Mormonism has become the context for which you're kind of on your spiritual journey.

Jana Spangler [01:01:54] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:55] So

Jana Spangler [01:01:58] Falling Upward is a great place for people if they're curious about Richard Rohrer It's a great place for them to start. It really resonates, I think, with Mormons and partially because, you know, when I met Richard Rohr in one of the retreats that we did for the program, I brought up some questions. One of the things that resonates a lot in progressive Mormon circles is a concept he came up with about living on the edge of insight. And it's kind of a framework for how organizations work. And David Brooks wrote a really great article summarizing this and used it kind of in a political. You can look at it in political groups, you can look at it in institutions of all kinds. But kind of talking about this idea that I've alluded to, where there's a core for whom it works, people on the edges are the ones who have a clearer view of what's going wrong. And there are people who, when it does go wrong, leave. And they're on the outside. And now we've got kind of the inside. And then there's the outsiders, and they're kind of lobbing bombs at each other. But it's the people on the edge of inside who really can see both and love both, who might possibly have a way to actually move the institution forward. So this is kind of his idea. If you have two or three people in any given congregation of a Christian church in America, you can start to make a difference. So this resonates with a lot of progressive Mormons. They're like, oh, we're kind of noticing some of the problems. We want to be part of the solution, right? So I asked him this. I'm a woman, I'm in a hierarchical patriarchal group. What prayer do I have in living on the edge of inside and having any kind of influence? Right. When he found out I was a Mormon, the first thing he said was, oh, you Mormons, you do first half of life better than anyone, bar none.

John Dehlin [01:04:00] What does he mean by first half of life?

Jana Spangler [01:04:01] So first half of life is, and he describes this in the book, first half of life is a phase of life we all need to go through. It's the phase of life where we're growing up, we're learning who we are, we're building our identities, we're learning our values, we're figuring out where we fit in society. We're figuring out what we want to study, what we want, who we want to marry, what we want our life to look like. We're typically on a career building path where we're thinking about achievement and doing things in the right way. And being a good citizen and, and people who do first half of half of life. Well, it's a beautiful thing. Like, they, they're really efficient, they're really helpful. They, you know, you, there's a, it's the easiest way to grow up is how he, he phrases that it's the easiest way to grow up. And he, he says, you know, he grew up in, in Kansas and you know, that time of America, that mirrors a lot of, I think, what Mormons are still trying to do in, in the way that we bring people up. Right. Societally. So it's, it's very structured, it's very good. And he, and he, he, he said, you guys really do. He goes, I really mean it, bar none. You guys are the best at first half of life. And.

John Dehlin [01:05:25] Okay, wait. And so just to restate, just because I, this is, you know, this is really important and I've tried to talk a lot about this in my retreats and workshops too, because I'm inspired by it.

Jana Spangler [01:05:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:38] If I'm hearing you right.

Jana Spangler [01:05:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:40] What, what your basic. What I hear you saying and what I think Richard Rohr is saying is that there's this thing that transcends any particular religious tradition, certainly Mormonism. Certainly even Christianity.

Jana Spangler [01:05:52] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:53] It's the fact that we're born and we have to make it to adulthood with identity, morality, community, you know, spirituality, a sense of self.

Jana Spangler [01:06:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:04] We have to stay alive, we have to become independent, we have to become financially self sufficient, start a family. And we've all got to do that.

Jana Spangler [01:06:16] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:17] You know, that's, that's sort of like meeting a lot of. If you've got Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you got to check a lot of those boxes. Food, shelter.

Jana Spangler [01:06:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:26] Health. Check, check, check, check, check. Marriage, kids, you know, check. To check. To check. And, and it's helpful to have a structure.

Jana Spangler [01:06:35] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:36] To, to kind of check all those boxes.

Jana Spangler [01:06:38] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:06:39] If you're just going to like, if you're just plopped in a house on your own, go figure that out. It's going to be super hard. Even if you have parents, but they're busy. So if you've got youth leaders, if you've got primary, if you've got songs, if you've got temple work and you. And callings and BYU or University of Utah and all these leaders looking out for you, kind of the whole it takes a village thing.

Jana Spangler [01:07:03] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:07:04] You're gonna, you're gonna reach age 25 with a lower chance of STIs, a lower chance of unwanted pregnancies a lower chance of death by accident, a lower chance of drug and alcohol addiction, a higher chance of a better education, a higher chance of health and well being. That's kind of the idea.

Jana Spangler [01:07:23] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:07:24] And it's. And what you're saying Richard Rohr says, who's kind of a world renowned expert on faith crises, you're saying that he says to you, yeah, Mormonisms do that first half of life almost better than anyone else he knows. Did I get that right?

Jana Spangler [01:07:41] You got that right.

John Dehlin [01:07:42] Okay.

Jana Spangler [01:07:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:07:43] So that's first half of life.

Jana Spangler [01:07:45] That's first half of life, but that's

John Dehlin [01:07:46] just half of life.

Jana Spangler [01:07:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:48] And it may not be when you're 50, it may not be when you're 40.

Jana Spangler [01:07:51] It's not chronological. And some people stay in first half of life their whole lives. And it works well. It works well for you. There's no reason to leave first half of life unless it stops working for you.

John Dehlin [01:08:04] You know, and what this reminds me of is how I started Mormon stories with discussions of James Fowler stages of faith.

Jana Spangler [01:08:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:08:11] I kind of think of first half of life as Fowler stage three.

Jana Spangler [01:08:14] It gets you to stage three? Really?

John Dehlin [01:08:16] Well, yeah, stage three. But it's, but it's, it's orthodox, it's literal, it's black and white. It's. It's like Pleasantville, it's like the Truman Show. You don't really. You're in it and it feels great.

Jana Spangler [01:08:30] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:08:30] But you probably don't see life very realistically. You probably aren't sensitive to a lot of things you should be sensitive about. It's a big function of privilege. And if I'm going to get a little bit risky here, maybe it's naive, maybe it's insensitive to a lot of realities in the world and maybe it's immature. What else, what else is wrong with first half of life? You can say nobody has to leave it. But built into this whole discussion of Fowler stage three versus Fowler stage five, or first half of life versus second half of life, is that in some sense there's something higher or better or more advanced in the second half.

Jana Spangler [01:09:14] So this is a very Mormon and very American way of thinking. I just want to acknowledge that we. And every time, I love Fowler stages of faith. I'm a big proponent. I talk about it all the time. And it's problematic. And the reason it's problematic is we think in these ways, like somehow stage four is better than three, five is better than four. And I don't see human development as that. I see, I see Value in every stage of growth. And everywhere someone is. It's really more about the perspective that we are taking than it is about us being able to be a good person to do well to, you know. So I would say that the people in stage one, I mean in first half of life, sorry, first half of life, I don't know that they're doing anything terribly wrong. I mean, I know a lot of people who I would suspect have a center of gravity in three who are out doing far more good in the world than I am, you know, full stop. Full stop. And they have different skills and they have different drawbacks. And just because we are complicating our faith and moving into a 4 or a 5, it, it does bring some benefits to it and it brings some awarenesses of the marginalized. It brings other things in a way that, you know, I don't even know that that is, that that's totally fair. But it can, it can bring a bigger view of the world and it brings all, all sorts of other problems. You know, there are people who may be at a stage five kind of a faith, but their, their lives are super hard and super problematic where someone at stage three is still is having a much more fulfilling experience and maybe doing more good in the world. So that's hard for us to hold because all of us want to look at Fowler stages of faith as a ladder to the social kingdom or to, you know, being all that.

John Dehlin [01:11:30] Or first half is.

Jana Spangler [01:11:31] Or first half and second half and

John Dehlin [01:11:33] second half is nature.

Jana Spangler [01:11:34] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:11:35] Describe what, what is the thing between first and second half of life that happens? Yeah. What is it?

Jana Spangler [01:11:41] Well, this is where the, the title of the book comes in. Falling Upward. Something has to go wrong. Something has to happen in your life that invites you into a deeper complexity. Something has to shatter the illusion that the first half of life is all there is. So, you know, in Mormonism, it can be a faith crisis. It can be, you know, having a child come out as lgbt. It's something that makes you think about things differently and gives you that cognitive

John Dehlin [01:12:21] dissonance about buckling under perfectionism. Absolutely unfulfilled spirit for decades.

Jana Spangler [01:12:28] Yes. It can be that something has to make the way that you're doing it not work anymore. And there are 10 million ways to experience that in life. And it can feel so earth shattering. It feels like a death. We do not, I mean, we have books for how to more and lots of kinds of tragedies in life. And we're just now starting to have some that recognize this kind Of a shift in our perspective, in our identities, in the way that we're doing things, and the way we see the world as being as life shattering as it is, because it is. And so what Richard Rohrer is trying to do with this is to show that there is something else on the other side of that. That there is the second half of life that looks very different than the first half of life. The things that are important to us in the second half of life are not the things that are important to us in the first half of life. One of the downfalls of staying in first half of life, one of the things he says in the book, is he uses the analogy of climbing the ladder. You know, your whole life climbing the ladder, doing all this work to climb the ladder, only to realize it's leaning against the wrong wall. And it can just feel so disorienting.

John Dehlin [01:13:48] So

Jana Spangler [01:13:50] if we let it, if we're able to move through this, what second half of life brings is this deeper connection to our inner world, our deeper connection to self. Religion in second half of life is more focused on transformation rather than transaction. He talks about first half of life being more transactional and second half of life being more transformational. It's. We don't need the spotlight quite as much in the second half of life. We're just kind of happy to be part of the dance. We start to recognize that maybe we were worshiping a prophet instead of God. Maybe we recognize that the things we felt were really super important are not as important as just the sanctity of humanity and being good to each other and to creation and to the earth and to one another. Our priorities completely shift. And, you know, I think, frankly, the deeper parts of the gospel, I think of what Jesus Christ was trying to bring to the world point more to second half of life than first half of life.

John Dehlin [01:15:15] Give some examples.

Jana Spangler [01:15:21] I think that Jesus was trying to help the religious people of his day see that it wasn't all about the rules. It's kind of astounding when I. When I learned about some of this from a different viewpoint. I learned a different kind of Jesus there. But I think it's the kind of Jesus that resonates more with how I read the New Testament. It's kind of astounding how we have made it so that Jesus cares so much about the rules, that God cares so much about how we do things in the obedience to the rules, when that was not who Jesus was. If anything, Jesus was breaking the rules.

John Dehlin [01:16:02] Chill out on the rules.

Jana Spangler [01:16:04] He was, but he Wasn't throwing them out. And this is the thing that's extraordinary about Jesus is he wasn't just saying religion is not important. He was saying, it's really important, but you need to hold it in the right context. You can't let the rules overtake the heart. You can't let the way that we're moving through life and trying to order it overtake the deeper meaning of the spirit, of, of loving one another, of. Of caring for one another, of noticing who is hurt and who is on the margins. I mean, he was an example of doing things that, that made the religious people of his day super uncomfortable, that that was what his mission was. And I think that he was also trying to invite us into the realities of life. I think so many of us use religion to kind of. They call it spiritual bypassing. Like, we just want religion to make us feel good. We just want to. We want to have a way to deal with the hard things in life, deal with the prospect of death, and we just want to feel good. Like, don't bring me problems in a Sunday school lesson because we just want to feel good. We want to be inspired. That's it. I think Jesus was saying, look, the way of salvation, the way to get through this life, is the path of descent. He went to the bottom of everything. He wasn't trying to make it fancy. He wasn't trying to, to climb the ladder of anything. He was trying to go to the depths of despair, the depths of where people were hurting. And he didn't just say, I'm going to take that for you. That's the Christian message of Western Christianity today is, I'm going to take that for you so you don't have to suffer. What I hear Jesus say is, come, follow me. I am the way. If you want to go there, you go there with me. Disciples, you come to Gethsemane with me. You don't just stay out there. And I'm just, I got this. You come with me.

John Dehlin [01:18:18] What does that mean, to come with Jesus?

Jana Spangler [01:18:20] That means.

John Dehlin [01:18:20] What does it mean that Jesus is the way? It means that feels exclusive. That feels like, yeah, Muslims aren't welcome, Buddhists aren't welcome because Jesus is the way.

Jana Spangler [01:18:29] I can. I can hear how that, that sounds that way. Not at all what I mean, I think it's, it's the, it's a wisdom. He was an example of the wisdom pattern of growth for mankind. So what that is, is we have to actually pay attention to the suffering. We actually have to pay attention to what is Hard in life. We actually have to recognize that this life can just wreck you. And we have to be willing to have that process transform us. We have to let that process inform us on how we need to allow things to die that we have held onto as so dear. We have to let go of it. Because if we keep holding on in our brains to what we think is the way, we're never going to find it. We've got to let go of it and just let ourselves be vulnerable. We've got to let our pain inform us. Then we. And. And we're not going to like it. This is the, the pattern of Jesus saying, take the cup from us. Take the cup away. I don't want to deal with this. Please remove it. But then he sticks with it. He allows himself to willingly die. He doesn't. We don't know what's going on for three days. He wasn't immediately resurrected. Right? We're in this liminal space of I don't know where I am. This is frightening. This is scary. And then eventually, some three days later, we can have a resurrection to something. I think it's the story of all of us. This is not just the story of our salvation at the end of the life. I think this is the story of humanity and the way that we move through our individual growth. And I think he was showing us this example of this, and yet all of his, the people who have followed Jesus ever since have been trying to climb back up the staircase he came down to show us how to be human, to show us how to do this and to show us that we are also divine. We are. We can. We are part of this. We are part of what he was trying to show us. So I, I think that the way that we've held Christianity has made us hate our humanity in and. And shun our humanity and feel bad about our humanity. And you can, you can hear a lot of my own upbringing in this. Like, this is why this stands out to me, right? I've hated my humanity most of my life. And now when I look at the Jesus story, I go, wow, you know what? And Joseph Smith, by the way, brought this, this idea to the Protestant world. He was in the Protestant world at the time, thought human humanity was debased and humanity was awful. Human humanity is a piece of crap. But Jesus can save me. Jesus is all divine. I'm worth nothing. And Jesus, I need to just give it over to Jesus and Jesus can save me. Joseph Smith said, no, the nature of Jesus is that he's all human and all divine. And guess what? So are you. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for us, all kinds of possibilities. It's a wisdom pattern. So when I say Jesus is the way I think, I am saying I don't think that any particular person has to affirm Jesus's story, to have that be the way of life and meaning and whatever you want to call salvation. That same pattern happens for Buddhists. That same pattern happens for Hindus. That same pattern happens for everyone in the world. It's just that Jesus was a super impactful view of what that is. Beautiful symbol. So I don't know. Richard Rohr is very. He says, I'm orthodox. He gets accused of not being orthodox all the time because he speaks in these ways. But he says, you know, hey, he's like, I'm orthodox. I totally believe in a bodily resurrection. Like, he really does believe that Christ is that he does make room for this to be the whole human story. But I don't know. I, I, I'm, I'm still working through all of that. But what I do know is I am really, really, really inspired by Jesus. I'm inspired by the way he has invited us to think in different ways. You know, the parable of the, the laborers in the vineyard, we hate that. That, that, that parable just, like, strikes it at the heart of all things. First half of. Think about things. The person who shows up at the vineyard at the beginning of the day should. The person who shows up one hour, you know, just for the last hour should not be paid the same. We don't like this. I think Jesus was trying to invite us into a different way of thinking. That that is you. You got to stop thinking about that from your ego. There is a deeper sense of something here that you guys are missing that you need to enter into the stream of life. And you do it from the heart. You don't act your way there.

Atonement, Community, and Staying in Mormonism

John Dehlin [01:24:00] So I am loving this. I'm loving this. Like, I'm inspired. I'm, like, taking all these notes, and I realize now we're coming back to the second half of what I interrupted you. We went on this huge segue because you were saying Mormons do first half

Jana Spangler [01:24:20] of life really well.

John Dehlin [01:24:22] Because, because, like, as you're telling me all this stuff that I'm, like, inspired by and writing down, of course, in my mind, my orthodox Mormon mind. Yeah, it's going back to the conversation we had about the Givens, Terrell and Fiona Givens new book. Because I'm like, no, wait a minute. No, Jesus, we commit all these sins, and they add up mathematically. And so someone's got to suffer. And so the atonement was Jesus getting punished. Y amount, which is all my sins, plus all the other people's sins, which is XYZ pdq, because there's got to be an infant. You know, that's the atonement. It's this mathematical. So it's a totally different view of Jesus. And by the way, it was the Mormon Church that taught me all that. So if I'm going to kind of abstract it a bit.

Jana Spangler [01:25:10] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:25:10] Basically, this. This really small, unhelpful, almost harmful way of. I really want to say perverting or bastardizing the teachings of Jesus was taught to you, taught to me by the Mormon Church, and continues to be kind of the mainstream orthodox teachings around Mormonism. So then I ask, like, if Mormonism was the poison to the second half of life, how do you discover, how do you practice second half of life Christianity in a church that seems to be allergic to it?

Jana Spangler [01:25:57] Yeah. It's not easy. I want to say one thing. Yeah. So here's the thing. I want to say one thing because you're saying, you know, this. This atonement way that we've seen it is really, really harmful. I mean, if you think back to my story and what I told you about how the atonement was so important to me, the foundation of my testimony at that point in my life, the way that I was holding atonement was actually not harmful. That was a huge step forward for me. I think that sometimes we get to

John Dehlin [01:26:38] a place where you even mean the disciplinary council, you even do the Court of love where you were threatened with church discipline, even the church offering itself up as the cure to the sickness, you're saying all that, somehow you look back and you're not angry at the church for doing that to you. And you were crying with gratitude and.

Jana Spangler [01:26:59] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:27:00] Even though you now see it was maybe even messed up in lots of ways.

Jana Spangler [01:27:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:05] Fill in the 100%. How was it good for you? Because so many ex Mormons are like, oh, the church hurt me in these. All these ways. And I'm angry at all the church.

Jana Spangler [01:27:14] And they should be. I just want to validate that they should be. And they were hurt. Hands down. If you're feeling the hurt, guess what? You were hurt. You were hurt. And by the way, anger. And our level of anger, I think, is oftentimes in proportion to the hurt that we're feeling. And actually, John, I have to give you a shout out for this because I learned this partially. You facilitated me learning a lot of this lesson because I don't know if you remember, when you moved to holiday and I found out how close the neighbors we are, I reached out to you and asked if we could get together. We went to breakfast and I asked you, can I be part of one of your retreats? Can I come help out in some way? And it was purposeful because I knew at that point in my faith journey that I was still feeling threatened and judgy of people who were super angry. And I knew that if I was going to be helpful and if I was going to do this work, I needed to face that, I needed to understand that. And I knew that a lot of your followers, I knew the people that would be coming to your retreats that are not the people who are coming to Dan's retreats, who I do those with Dan and Natasha. Now, when it's not Covid, there's a different element and I needed to face that. And honestly, that retreat that I did with you was life changing for me. In for my. Again, another breaking open of my heart in compassion because I was confronted with people who were rubbing me the wrong way because they were angry, right? And they weren't making space for other people to be okay in the church. But I had the experience over those two days to work with people in a close enough way to be able to witness their hearts. And that truth came through to me that some of the people, the people who are coming across as the most angry, the ones that people in the church are looking at going, but they're just so angry, it's. It's justifying that they made the wrong decision to leave the church because they're just so angry, they're awful. You know, if. If this were a good decision for their life, they'd be happy and be chasing butterflies, right? And it turned that completely on its head for me. And I recognized almost, it almost made me more mad at the church that some people who have held this thing so tightly in such black and white literal ways in the way that they were taught and they were held on a pedestal for it and they were given leadership callings for it and they were told that they were amazing and faithful and wonderful. And the minute that that crumbles for them and they find out things about the history that they were never taught, it is violence to them. For us to then turn our back on them and say, you can't be angry about this and we're going to take you, from putting you on a pedestal to making completely exiling you and seeing you as a threat to all things good. It's immoral what we do to people in that way. And I learned that lesson, actually, from just diving in. A life lesson I will take from that is that if something is threatening to you, lean in. Because an enemy is a person whose story you don't know. Something that is, is. Is not resonating with you, and that is challenging you lean in and know more about it. Because, I don't know, humanity is beautiful. To me, that cracked. That cracked something open for me that made me say, you know what? We need to allow everyone to have their journey. And if you are angry and hurt, it's for a good reason. And we need to listen to that. And if we would be willing. If as members of the church, if we would be willing to listen to that, we would be so much better. We would be more Christlike. We would be doing the mission of the church so much better. We are missing this opportunity by just writing people off. And it's largely because we are uncomfortable. We're uncomfortable with discomfort. We are uncomfortable with what is hard. We just want our religion to make us feel good. That's first half of life.

John Dehlin [01:32:11] So I love this. So then, you know another trope, the ex Mormon trope for believers who stay in the church, you know, in an unorthodox way.

Jana Spangler [01:32:22] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:32:23] Is, well, well, go be a Unitarian. Yeah, go, go Community of Christ. Go there. There's a thousand different churches you can go to that are more, that are. They aren't homophobic, they aren't as patriarchal, they aren't as sexist, they aren't as racist, and they're not as bad in the second half of life. In fact, you could argue there are certain congregations here in Utah, again, Community of Christ or the Unitarian Universalists, where they're, like, optimized for helping you in second half of life. It's like, let's do soup kitchens. Let's do advanced sex education. Let's, let's. Let's do Buddhism and meditation and mindfulness, and let's study Eckhart Tolle as part of the curriculum. So like, or. Or don't do any religion at all. Just like, watch good TED Talks, listen to, you know, Glennon Doyle and Eckhart Tolle and make. Make a good little pot of friends and read good books and have tea and coffee and just enjoy the rest of your life. So this is a really long way of setting up the question of why, what Are the benefits of doing this within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in 2021? Why bother? Yeah, just go live a great, happy life.

Jana Spangler [01:33:40] It's a really good question because, you know, I think that there are a lot of people doing all those things that you just said and that is the right place for them. And I think that second half of life does not have to look religious. And it can look religious. It just depends on what calls to you. It depends on what needs that you're having. What kind of a connection to spirituality you want to have and where do you want to have it. There are a lot of factors for me. I have a believing husband. I have kids who are being raised in the church. I have, you know, it is my home, even as hurtful and drives me crazy sometimes, you know, to go to certain meetings. And it is certainly not for me today. The whole of my spiritual connection. I would say that I supplement a lot. I think that even if you stick with literal belief in the church, you get to a certain point and you've got to supplement a lot of people or you're just going to get bored.

John Dehlin [01:34:50] You know, it's oftentimes all milk and never meet.

Jana Spangler [01:34:53] I mean, we're going over the same things every four years. But that also is situational. There are some words that like, they're really going there and they're doing some really cool things and they are having deeper discussions that some people may want to have. So it's pockety too.

John Dehlin [01:35:08] Like there's also, we have to admit there are people benefiting from the repetition and the simplicity.

Jana Spangler [01:35:13] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:35:14] Like, that's.

Jana Spangler [01:35:15] There are people who love that.

John Dehlin [01:35:16] You can never create any experience that's going to be great for everyone experiencing. Absolutely, literally can't.

Jana Spangler [01:35:23] You literally can't. You literally can't. I don't know, I may be more open in another city to be going and church hopping. I do church hop. I mean, I think I ran into you at an OASIS meeting once. Like, I take all of it in and I do. I've got a couple of favorites that I like to go visit and listen to what their particular preachers have to say. And I, I get things out of all of it. And at the end of the day, I love having my neighbors in my little area that it's kind of an easy, ready made way for us to kind of be with each other. I don't know. I had, I had a moment in, in a Relief Society lesson. It was a couple years ago where I was sitting at the Very back. And I'm admitting a lot about my own judgmentalism. I have a lot of it in me. I sat there at the back, and it was a particular teacher that I'm like, I don't want to sit through this lesson with this teacher. This teacher has nothing for me. And at one point, she just asked a simple question. She said, what has it done for your life to be in connection with other women of faith? And it stopped me in my tracks. And I remember looking around the room, and I was looking. It was the very back, so I could see everybody, but it was, you know, the back of their head for a lot of them. But it was a ward I'd been in for a long, long time. And I looked around, and I just paused with every single woman in that room. And I remember just really good things that have happened with each of those women. And I thought about all of the qualities that they had that I admired. And I. And I just got so overwhelmed with. And I was just teary just thinking of how much goodness was in the room and how lucky I was and to be able to be in a place where I was. They were a deeper part of my life. It wasn't just people that I saw on Sunday. I was. I was deeply in these women's lives, many of them. And. And I. I just thought this whole room. One of the things that I think most people in this room have in common is that they're here because they just want to be better, whatever that is for them. And that was inspiring to me. In that moment, I was just kind of overwhelmed with, like, not everybody has that. Not everybody has the opportunity to just be in a place where people just want to be better. And whatever their faults, they want to love. They. They hold those things dear. We're super messy with it. When all the belief stuff gets, like, thrown in there, it starts to draw lines and everything. But at its heart, this is the church. It's the people. And so people can look at me, and people do. And it's usually the orthodox Mormon and the orthodox post Mormon who look at me and say, you're not Mormon. You're not Mormon. But I just look at them and say, who gets to define that? I get to define that this is where I want to come and worship, and this is where I want to be with other people, and I want to serve with these people, and I want to make things better where I can, and I want to make myself better. And I have to admit, as much as I hate it, there are things that I still have to learn from them. There are still things I have to learn from them. My journey is not done there. It may be someday. I'm totally open to who knows where this is going to be. I mean, you know, every time, every year of my faith journey, I've kind of looked out and go, I've got this new way of looking things. I've arrived, you know, and after you do that seven times, you start going, I have no idea. If we had done this interview a year ago, it would have been a different interview. If we do an interview like this in a year, it's going to be different. And I know this about myself. But for today, this is what is making sense for me. And for right now, I don't feel like I've been called out of Mormonism yet. That's just not been my call. This is where I need to be. And in my comment about Salt Lake, there are a lot of really wonderful congregations here. And there are certain pockets that tend to draw people who are seeking for Mormonism because they have a lot of those second half of life things that are really beautiful. And I noticed that the LDS Church casts a long shadow in these places. And what I mean by that is a lot of them are spending time trying to show how not us they are to a point that I don't know who they are. So the congregations I tend to be drawn to are ones who are kind of just know who they are and they're willing to play in the field with Mormonism, but it's not so large in their consciousness.

John Dehlin [01:40:51] Two, two of the hardest questions that I ask people and that are sometimes viewed as the most offensive, offensive are number one, isn't it, you know, isn't it just a sign of privilege that you can do this? In other words, you're not queer as far as we know. You're not trans as far as we know. You're, you're, you know, white. You're not a person of color.

Jana Spangler [01:41:24] You're,

John Dehlin [01:41:27] you know, you're, you're privileged. You're, you know, educated, upper middle class, socioeconomically. Like, of course you can have the privilege of being able to stay in the church and enjoy it, but that's privilege. And there are all sorts of these marginalized, marginalized people that Jesus would have. The poor, you know, queer people, people of color, the marginalized people that aren't Christian, whatever, that don't have the luxury because the church is inhospitable to them or not comfortable for them or the church makes them their enemy indirectly or indirectly. So how nice it is for you that you have the privilege of being able to enjoy the country club of Mormonism while you know that it's excluding and hurting all sorts of other people.

Jana Spangler [01:42:24] I would say you're right. You're right. It's all those things. I. I have privilege, and it's why I can do it. And I don't think everyone should.

John Dehlin [01:42:38] And there's somebody says, and I think, live with yourself. Knowing. Knowing that. How can you live with yourself and be a part of it?

Jana Spangler [01:42:43] Yeah. So it's complicated. It is. And there are days when I ask myself the same question. How can I live with this? Because I do see the damage done. What I would say is my greatest hope is that we could make the church a place that deserves those people, because right now, they don't deserve the LGBT people. They don't deserve the people that they are seeing as threatening. And I want the church to be a place that deserves them. It's really hard. It's hard for me. The only thing I can say is I hope to be a presence of someone who is willing to stand up for what is right when it comes to the inclusion and love of these people, to encouraging people to take in the reality of their lives and their stories. And I hope that I can be the presence of someone who can be a safe harbor for a younger person or someone who is coming up in this and doesn't have the choice. But maybe, maybe if I can be someone who can make space for them where maybe some other people can't. And. And truly, I'm finding more and more people are willing to make space for people like that on the ground. Regardless of what Dallin Oaks is saying in. In conference, I see really good people who are just saying, you know what? I. That doesn't quite feel right to me. And I don't know. I don't know how to figure it all out. And I'm going to love the LGBT people in my life because ultimately, that's who the church is. The church isn't owned by any one particular apostle or president of the church. The church is all of us. And so that kind of goes back to people tell me I'm not really Mormon. I. I just reject that. I'm Mormon and I'm part of the church, and there are growing numbers of people like me, and that's what Mormonism is. Mormonism is the people. Mormonism is the church. But I. I wrestle with it. I'm not going to give a Pat, answer. I don't think that I'm. I'm better for staying. I don't think that I'm. I don't. I. I don't want to absolve myself of the complicity of being part of a church that is not good to everybody.

John Dehlin [01:45:47] What do you mean, complicity?

Jana Spangler [01:45:48] I don't know. I mean, sometimes I feel that. I've heard that. I've heard that term come from a lot of people out of the church. I've heard you say that before, that we're complicit. We're of kind complicit in the harm

John Dehlin [01:45:58] if you pay tithing or give your reputation or time.

Jana Spangler [01:46:01] Yep. And I. I think about those things very deeply. I take them seriously. And in my personal life, I try to minimize that complicity in every way I possibly can.

John Dehlin [01:46:18] What do you mean?

Jana Spangler [01:46:23] So I direct my tithing dollars elsewhere.

John Dehlin [01:46:32] So in your mind, you're paying tithing, but you're doing it to causes?

Jana Spangler [01:46:36] Yep, I pay my tithing to places that I think are helping those kinds of causes.

John Dehlin [01:46:44] Where the church might be doing some harm.

Jana Spangler [01:46:47] Yes, that's one way I do it. The other way I do it is just speaking up for people where I can if something harmful.

John Dehlin [01:46:57] Don't you do fireside sometimes?

Jana Spangler [01:46:58] I do. I have. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:00] Talk about that.

Jana Spangler [01:47:01] Yeah. So I've done a couple of firesides. I've also been a guest lecturer at BYU in a class. In those settings. I'm just really trying to open the hearts of people to what the realities of faith crisis are, to help people understand that people are not deceived, people are not evil. People have not just given into the influence of Satan or been led astray by anti Mormon literature or wanting to sin or all of the tropes that we tell about people. I want to open people's minds to the complexity of what people are going through, that this is normal, this is developmental, and we need to make room for them and we need to be better to each other as we go through this, because relationships are really important to me. I work with a lot of relationships, a lot of families, a lot of mixed faith marriages, because this is the last thing that should cause rifts between people. And it's one of the biggest things that does in our culture. And so a big part of what I'm talking about is just ways to walk through it, to minister to one another. And I'm not just saying the people in the church to minister to the people who are in faith crisis. We're leaving. Like I want those people to minister to their families as well. We all have that responsibility to one another, to be good to one another. And I want to help people learn how to do that. So that's a lot of the. What I do. And then I also kind of offer little nuggets that I think can help us open up to the second half of life that actually is there in Mormonism. Because that was the second half of what Richard Rohr said. Right. You have almost no second half of life. I think if you're an outsider just looking at correlated Mormonism, he's right. I do think there's second half of life that exists there. And I just want to kind of encourage that. I want to encourage a deeper faith. I want people to not be afraid of doubt. That's kind of why I said that in our first segment of. I feel like my. My goal is to bring faith to the faithless and doubt to the. To the faithful. I. I find that it's a deeper, richer experience. And so that's kind of what those. Those firesides are about when I do those.

John Dehlin [01:49:16] That reminds me of Dan. That seems to be Dan's. Dan Witherspoon's mantra is deeper, richer. Big. Big Mormonism. Big Mormonism, yeah. Not small Mormonism.

Jana Spangler [01:49:26] Yeah. Dan and I have a lot of. A lot in common in the way that we view some of those things. We have a lot of overlap.

John Dehlin [01:49:34] So listeners will bear with me. We're going to kind of wrap up, but I'm going to. In my mind, as you were talking about privilege, I came up with this metaphor that was. Mormonism's a country club. And there are, let's just say, servants that are mowing the lawn and cooking the food and. And they're not allowed. And people that are excluded from being members. And then it's the. It's the people in the church that are like the members of the country club that are enjoying the nice meals and enjoying the benefits of the club and golfing, while there are others who are either suffering or fully excluded. So that was the. That was the frame that I had in my mind as a metaphor to then set you up and say, well, how can you just enjoy the benefits of the country club at the expense of all the people that are either harmed or excluded? And then in my mind. And I'm doing this as I'm listening to you, and then in my mind, I'm thinking, no, no, no. That. That metaphor breaks down.

Jana Spangler [01:50:35] Yeah, it does.

John Dehlin [01:50:36] There's a couple reasons why. Go ahead. I want to Hear you fill it in. I can fill it in.

Jana Spangler [01:50:42] Yeah. I see it break down. I mean, I feel like while there's truth to the privilege thing. Right. There's truth to that.

John Dehlin [01:50:52] It breaks down.

Jana Spangler [01:50:52] But it breaks down. It breaks down because I don't think those are the ideals of the church. I. I don't. I think that the people in the church are. Are not wanting to try to set themselves up in that kind of a place. I think.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] No, that's true. But. But can I just say.

Jana Spangler [01:51:10] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:51:10] It breaks down. Let me tell you why I think it breaks down. And I know this is your interview. Interview. But I like to participate in these conversations, too, a little bit. It breaks down because, number one, if we really want to go with that metaphor.

Jana Spangler [01:51:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:22] There are members of the country club that are dying or that are sick. Right?

Jana Spangler [01:51:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:29] That's one.

Jana Spangler [01:51:30] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:32] And so by you staying in number one, it's not. You probably wouldn't say you're one of the healthy ones. You're probably sick, too.

Jana Spangler [01:51:42] I'm more on the margins, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:51:45] And you're saying you're staying in to help those who are sick or dying, who are in the country club sick or dying, as well as those who are. You know, it's just all of it. It's all the messiness in it.

Jana Spangler [01:51:55] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:51:56] And you want to be a part. You're. You're willing to be a part of that messiness, not just to get dry benefit, but also to provide help, but also to learn. And also just because that's where you are. But then outside of the country club, there aren't just servants and people that are excluded. There's all these people living these wonderful lives.

Jana Spangler [01:52:17] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:52:18] And you're choosing not to go necessarily be a part of that, but to stay in it. And so it's messy and beautiful outside. And it's messy and beautiful inside. And you just. For now.

Jana Spangler [01:52:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:34] Are deciding to stay with the messiness inside.

Jana Spangler [01:52:36] Absolutely. It is. It's a mess out there. It's a. It's. It's a mess everywhere. Like, humanity is just freaking messy, you know? And I. And I hear this from people who've been out of the church for a long time, too. I'll always ask, what do you miss the most? You know, do you feel something missing? And, you know, and this is not to take anything away. Like, they're very happy and fulfilled. I do not think you need the church to have that. And a lot of them are just like, I do. I kind of miss that community. I miss. There are elements of what we're all trying to do there that are hard to replace. They're hard to replace. We do things really, really well in so many ways. And community.

John Dehlin [01:53:25] Yeah, it may be an imperfect community.

Jana Spangler [01:53:27] Yeah, for sure is.

John Dehlin [01:53:29] But it is a community.

Jana Spangler [01:53:30] It is a community.

John Dehlin [01:53:31] It's a long standing. It's a long standing community that clearly means a lot to a lot of people, as fraught as it is.

Jana Spangler [01:53:39] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:53:40] And it's hard to create long standing, effective community outside of Mormonism once you leave it. I can. I can testify that it's hard.

Jana Spangler [01:53:51] It's hard. And as fraught as it is and as backward as it can seems and as harmful as it can be, I've noted that it continues to go very painfully slowly in the right direction. Very painfully slowly. And this is also something in life. Right. Like our society is doing this. We're going very painfully and slowly in the right direction. And it's hard. It's hard when you have the heart of an activist. It's hard when you have the heart to want to include everybody, when you want to have equal opportunity for everybody in this country, when you want to move toward a place where there's more opportunity for everybody. And it's really hard to be able to stand the idea that we're not getting there fast enough. And we want to vilify the people who are standing in the way of that. Right. And at some point, we have to learn to sit in the tragic gap of where we are versus the ideal of where we want things to be. That's part of being human too, is being able to stand that and do what we can to nudge it up. But we're not going to get there. Martin Luther King didn't get us there. Right. Amazing. People don't get us there. Whatever efforts we have, it's not going to get us there. I'm not going to see the church get to where I want it to be in my lifetime. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. This country is not going to be where I want it to be in my lifetime. So it's part of being human. We just got to, you know, and that's the discernment I think each person has to go through. Do I bloom where I'm planted? Do I go out to other pastures and see what else is there? Because I guarantee there is work in the vineyard. Everywhere you go, whether it's in the church or outside of the church, there are ample opportunities to do good things and to move the work forward. And the more we can Sink into the discomfort of it, all the more able we will be to create the body of Christ and Zion. That's one thing I love about Joseph Smith. I love his vision of Zion and I love that idea of having every person bring exactly who they are and have that be okay. To me, that Zion, that is the body of Christ, that's what I want to be part of. I'm never going to get there in this church, but I can do my part for now and I can go hang out with my friends in other places and I can enjoy being with them in those places as well and build Zion wherever I am.

John Dehlin [01:56:51] I mean, you can move in that direction. You may not ever get there, but you can kind of move in that direction.

Jana Spangler [01:56:58] Yeah, I can do what I. What I want. So that's the thing. Like, I think that is the discernment of each human being. At what point is this where I stay and do this, or at what point do I do. I head out to other pastors and see what else is out there? And I think people really need to listen deeply to themselves and figure out what is right for them.

John Dehlin [01:57:25] So. So I know that you're. I'm an end on this because we both have to go and then we'll hopefully have you back many times. So granted that you're not proselytizing this view or holding it up as the true way or as a great way or anything, you're just saying, no, this is where you are. Yes, granted that.

Jana Spangler [01:57:46] Yep.

Making the Case for Contemplative Mormonism

John Dehlin [01:57:48] That, you know, I do want you to make a case, and this is the case I want you to make, which is I want you to explain what or how, what, what you've, what you've received from staying in and how it's aided you in, in healing and growth. How it's been positive for you, as in talk as long as you want about this. How has it been beneficial or positive for you to decide to do, for now, second half of life here within the LDS Church?

Jana Spangler [01:58:25] So this is a little complicated for me. And again, it depends on the day. Again, I'm a personality that tends to see all the problems. Like, if someone just. It would be easier for me, John, to sit here and tell you all the problems with it than it would be for me to sit and tell you all the good things I've gotten from it, even though I know they're there, that's still where I am in my journey. And that's kind of my personality anyway, because I am the person. If you've got something broken Bring me in because I will tell you exactly why it's wrong and how you should fix it. It's. That's my skill. I'm a fixer. This is what I would say is kind of backing up to a 10,000 foot view of what religion is, of what the story of humanity is, of what beautiful truths and good things have come through every society, that's every ever kind ever populated the planet, and many of them independently of one another. Taking that view and getting that outside view of the church was 100% necessary for me to be able to do any of this. If I had never had a faith crash, if I had never stepped outside to learn anything else, I do not think I would be in a good place. I think that I would be really still beating myself up whether I was active in church or not. I think that people need to be able to take that journey outside. It's taken me a long time to kind of look back and see the gifts that Mormonism has given me. I think that it in many ways brought me the profession that I'm doing now, obviously, but also my ability without having the opportunity to be a teacher, to give talks, to get up in front of people, to be able to present my ideas. I don't know if I would be able to present at workshops and do firesides and present places and articulate my thoughts. Like, it's brought me a lot of good things that way. It's brought me a lot of good, real, literal or metaphorical, take your pick. Stories and scriptures and ideas and things to hold on to to help me learn what is good and what is not good in this life. One of the things I so often tell my clients I love working with, the clients I work with, I love it. And one of the reasons I love it is that regardless of where they are in belief, wherever they are, in and out of the church, wherever they are, the majority of them have been heavily influenced by Mormonism in some way and they are really good people. I just think the vast majority, maybe all of the clients I have worked with are amazingly good people. I think that's a testament to our first half of life and how well we've done it. So there's something there, there's something inspirational, there's something magical, there's something. Whether eternal progression is an actuality or not, I love the idea that's inspirational to me. I love the idea of constantly trying to get better. I love all of the basic teachings. And I get really, really, really cringy when we do Our orthodox Utah Mormon thing. I cringe a lot at church. I cringe a lot. And there are just times when I'm like, just really super inspired by the goodness that's coming through from people. So I don't know. I don't know. It's home. It's home to me. And depending on the day, I mean, I had a whole week in. It's probably every other month I have a week where I'm like, I'm done. I'm out. This is it. This is it. This is not for me. I can't do this. There are too many problems. You know, my work is crap. Everything I'm doing, all of my efforts, it's all crap. I'm just like going to sell it all and move to the south of France. I don't know. But I don't know. There's something that just keeps. Keeps calling me back here for now. I don't know what else to say. Talk to me next year. I may be in a different place. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:03:41] I normally don't do this, but I'm going to answer my own question at the end of your episode, which is super rude, but you can fast forward as in addition to the beautiful things you said, you know, I. I try and teach a little Richard Rohr in the retreats. I do. And, you know, it doesn't matter what tradition you're raised in, even if you're raised atheist or agnostic, you still have a faith crisis against whatever you were raised with. It literally doesn't matter. 100 and so this. This thing that we think is the Mormon journey of, of believing orthodox and losing your faith and then being disillusioned and then trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life. It's the universal experience. It's Pleasantville. It's the Truman Show. It's the Village. It's the invention of lying. It's Tangled, it's Wicked. It's like every movie and every Broadway musical ever created since the dawn of time. It's the Mormon Temple ceremony. It's Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden of Eden trying to build a life in the loner jury world. It's every one of those things. It's so universal and so a church, whatever gets you to second half of life. You kind of. There's an argument to be said. You gotta be grateful for what got you there. And Mormonism got us where we are. And now as I loop it back to you, I think about that. Jana, that's insecure that Jana that's giving her life to somebody else or that Jana that feels inadequate all the time or on that treadmill. If you had been raised Catholic or Presbyterian or Lutheran or Muslim, or it wouldn't have mattered. You would have been that Jana on that wheel, most likely 100%. And what is. I'm like, celebrating your story. I'm like, look at Jana now. She's more comfortable in her own skin. She's more confident. She feels better about the life she's living. She's able to now pay it forward and try and help save marriages or help other people through the journey. She's speaking with wisdom and power and integrity and grace and goodness. And guess what? It was Mormonism that got her there.

Jana Spangler [02:06:00] It was 100%.

John Dehlin [02:06:01] And so that's the answer is what you have to. You will never get well in second half of life if you don't make peace and even have gratitude for the good parts of the first half of life that got you there.

Jana Spangler [02:06:16] Absolutely. And you have to be ready to do, do that. Give your right, give yourself confused or trauma.

John Dehlin [02:06:23] It's going to be harder.

Jana Spangler [02:06:24] Give yourself grace to mourn that first half of life and all the crap it did to you too. Right. It's the wisdom pattern that, that, that Richard Rohr teaches is order, disorder, reorder. Right. And you have to go through the disorder and you can't wish yourself out of it. A lot of us want to. We want to go straight from order to reorder and skip all of that disorder. It's a necessary part of the journey. It's a really painful part of the journey that the only way you get to reorder is by doing disorder really, really well. So it's one of those things. You've got to let yourself feel the anger. You've got to let yourself be really mad at all the harm. You have to let yourself do all of that. Because what is at the core of that is something really wise inside of you that knows you deserve better. I knew my soul knew I deserved better than the conditional God of my imagination. It knew I have to let go of that. I'm still on the journey of rebuilding what that is. But I had to let go of that. I had to deconstruct it. I have to say that is not okay. It's not okay for my soul. So that's painful. It's awful. A lot of people wish I could just figure it out, know where I'm at, and I'll get. I don't know that I'll ever get there. Get there, get there. But I'm on the journey, and I'm going to continue on my path.

John Dehlin [02:07:56] Yeah. And, and as much as people wouldn't expect me or others like me to say this, like, I'm grateful for the church and its role in my life. And I, I, I don't want to be rude, but I really am happy with myself now. I learned from Carolyn Pearson, of all people, to be confident that it's okay to say, I'm all right, I'm good, I do good things. And I now am happy with who I am. I'm happy in my marriage. I'm doing my best as a, as a dad, doing my best as a spouse. I'm helping the world. And guess what? Mormonism helped make me. It wasn't the only thing, but it helped. And so I'm grateful for that. And I'm appreciative, and I even like it and respect it, and I see good in it. And that's. It was that first half of life that now lets me be in the second half of life that I'm really happy with. Second half of life. And, and I, and I see that in you.

Jana Spangler [02:08:53] Yeah, I'm getting there. I'm getting there. I'm far more appreciative of the church than I used to be. Right. I'm getting there. And the more I stick around in it, the more I see that is good. But it takes working through that hurt. It takes giving room for it. And then when you're ready, it'll start to come online. And that's what reorder feels like. I still feel like I've got a foot in disorder and I've got a foot in reorder, and I'm kind of teetering, and it just depends on the day. Right. But, but it's important. I think it is important to make peace at some point with that, when you're able, when you're ready, when you've done the hard work, because you don't want to stay in the rut of hating it forever. That's not good. That's not good for the soul or to move on. So I always tell people, while you're doing the disorder, while it's really ugly, also make sure that you're paying attention to what inspires you. Make sure you're paying attention to the things that enlarge you. Like, this is, this is why Richard Rohr was so helpful to me and the other teachers there. The other teachers are amazing. It's why I continue to listen to the Eckhart Tolles and the Thich Nhat Hanh's and the, you know, everybody that I, I go where I'm inspired because that's an important part of putting your trust back in yourself, your trust back in goodness, and knowing where you need to go next. So if you do both of those things and pay attention to both of those things, you're going to go right. You're going to be right where you need to be and you're going to go right where you need to go.

John Dehlin [02:10:36] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [02:10:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:37] And some people may have other paths. I don't think we're holding this up as the path for everyone.

Jana Spangler [02:10:42] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:10:42] The only other thing I'll say is I lost my faith in 2001, so I've had 20. Literally now it's like my 20th anniversary of losing my faith. Yeah. For those of you who are just can't even see the possibility of making peace with the church or even saying a good thing about it, go through your journey. You may not end up where I am. I'm not saying I'm better, but know that I've had a 20 year head start for over many of you or 18 or 15 years, but I do. I look at the church with love and gratitude and frustration and I love where I am now. And I sometimes miss the church and I sometimes miss the community and I sometimes wish I could go back. And I'm not ashamed to say that. And I'm really glad that I'm where I am and who knows where I'll be tomorrow. And that's the last thing I was just going to say is the ultimately, the real answer is we're where we are. We're just where we are. We went through that and now we're here and then we're going somewhere. And that sounds so dumb and kind of reductive and even simplistic and even worthless, but that is the reality. It is like we've been through what we've been through. We're where we are now and we're going to figure out where we're going. And that's the truth.

Jana Spangler [02:11:49] It is. And you can't outrun yourself. Like, wherever you go, there you are. Right. So. So whether I'm doing this inside Mormonism, whether I'm doing this outside of Mormonism, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, Covid has been amazing in that one little way. Right. It's been horrific in so many other ways, but it's been amazing in my ability to Decompress from the constant, you know, church thing that my. That's been good for my soul. It's been good for the soul of a lot of my clients. It's been a good thing, bro. Religiously, yes. It's been beautiful. I get to do my own church. I mean, the funny thing is, like, I'm the least Mormon person in my household. Well, maybe not. I'm one of the least Mormon people in my household and I'm doing the most church out of any of them on any given Sunday. It's just not all Mormon. But, no, you can't outrun yourself. So you can do this journey wherever and there are going to be good and bad things about wherever you pick to do it. So pick your poison. Pick the good and bad that you want to deal with at any given time and just, you know, hold the people that are close to you and love on everyone around you. That's my life advice.

Jana's Coaching Work and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [02:13:07] I love it. Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you. Jana. Really quickly, if somebody wants to take advantage of your expertise, your services, briefly explain what it is you do and how people can access your services.

Jana Spangler [02:13:21] Yeah, sure. So I am a life coach. I specialize in all of these areas of faith journey, of relationship problems that crop up due to faith journey, mixed faith marriages, all of that. That's kind of my wheelhouse. Although I do have clients that come to me just needing like regular relationship. They've left the church, they're done, and they just need relationship or career advice. I do that kind of coaching as well. My coaching training is broad, but this is just, you know, this is my niche for sure and my expertise. So I work through Symmetry solutions. You can find@us symmetrysols.com and there's a number there that you can call. It'll go to our admin and you can ask to see me or one of our other wonderful. We have a group of great therapists and coaches who are all Mormon competent and also, you know, just really open to people's journeys and just invested in helping people through this messiness because it is so messy, so hurtful.

John Dehlin [02:14:30] So

Jana Spangler [02:14:33] it's exhausting to think. I mean, sometimes some days it takes me down like there's so much pain. But I am so happy to be doing what I'm doing. I'm passionate about it. And if anyone wants me to come speak to a group or whatever, I love that kind of stuff too. I'm. I love to. I've spoken to Relief Society groups and, you know, whoever is interested. I'm always willing to talk about Faith Journey, about how that applies. And I do. I do. Firesides. I also spoke at Thrive. Right. So I love just talking to people from the Mormon experience about whatever will help them. I don't care where you are. I gladly and happily work with John Dehlin. And I gladly and happily work with the BYU professor. Right. So I just love to do all the things.

John Dehlin [02:15:31] Well, thank you. I'm. I'm inspired and edified by being able to sit down with you, so I'm sure many of my listeners will be. So on behalf of myself and my listeners, thank you, Janice Bangler, for coming on Mormon Stories and for inspiring us and for all your growth and your work and your willingness to share it with us. Thank you.

Jana Spangler [02:15:55] Thank you for having me. You've inspired me over the years, so that's. I just appreciate everything you've done as well.

John Dehlin [02:16:05] All right. All right, everyone. Stay tuned for new episodes of Mormon Stories Podcast. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com with feedback. If you don't support us, please consider becoming a monthly donor@mormonstories.org just whatever you can afford a month just really helps out. If you already support us, thank you. You can also give us a positive review wherever you can give us a review. Share the word. We'll keep doing this type of content as long as people are willing to support it. And if you have ideas of other types of programs or interviewees, just please send your feedback to me. If you know someone that would be a great interview or a great topic, I want to hear it because we want to give you the content that you need. Soon we'll be starting up workshops and retreats again. I'm sure Dan and Natasha and Jana will as well. This is the first time I've said that in over a year, but I'm looking forward to that. So stay tuned for events in the future, but be good to each other, be kind, love each other, stay tuned and we'll see you guys all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody. Thanks again, Jenna.

Jana Spangler [02:17:15] Thank you.

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