Introduction and Welcome

Douglas Stilgoe [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:11] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, a special international edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's September 15, 2020 and today we are super excited to interview Douglas Stilgoe. I want to apologize that I haven't been as prolific recently with Mormon Stories podcast episodes. I promise you I've been super busy. I've been launching a new YouTube channel called Understanding Mormonism with Dr. John Dehlin. You can go to YouTube right now. There's three videos up. I have to say they've been well received. But we're doing that so that all the amazing Mormon history, all the amazing discussions about Mormon truth claims can get on YouTube. We dominate the podcast world as progressive and post Mormons. But YouTube is a major way people are communicating in the world these days. Reaching youth, reaching young adults. And we've got nothing there progressive and post Mormons other than some amazing channels like Brother Jake, thoughts on things and stuff, Zelf on the shelf. But what we don't have are just short little 10 minute videos that can be shared easily that discuss all the major topics. So huge love to thoughts and things and stuff self on the shelf Brother Jake. But check out Understanding Mormonism. Email us, send us your support, subscribe on YouTube. And that's all about that. So today I am so excited for today's interview. We are interviewing a young bloke from the uk. Is that a word that is still used, Douglas?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:01:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:51] Douglas still go is a 23 year old third generation Mormon raised in Warwickshire. Did I say that right?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:01:59] Yep, got that one.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] Spawn Warwickshire, England in the Coventry England stake. Now is that a prominent stake in the uk?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:02:06] I mean there's like not that many of them. So they're all, I suppose, fairly noteworthy.

John Dehlin [00:02:12] Is the temple. Is the London Temple in that stake?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:02:14] No, no, London Temple is a couple of stakes away, but we're in that catchment area for the temple.

John Dehlin [00:02:18] Okay, well, Douglas's story is really important for so many reasons. He discusses life as a Mormon in the UK in the 2000s. He was raised in the same general area as Tom Phillips. So when you know, many of you will know. One of the top five Mormon stories episodes of all time is with Tom Phillips, who's a stake president twice, who knew Jeffrey R. Holland. When Jeffrey R. Holland was in Europe, he received his second anointing at the hands of a Mormon apostle, he and his wife. And then after being a stake president twice a bishop. And after getting a second anointing, he lost his faith and left the church. Well, Douglas grew up in that area, so he grew up hearing legends and warnings about Tom Phillips. So that's interesting. But even more important to me is his heartfelt story about one of Douglas's parents lost their faith. What that did to the family, how that fractured the family, how that caused stress between the parents and between the parents and the children and affected those relationships. That's an important theme that we're going to be discussing today. We're going to be talking about his own loss of faith as a young adult after serving a really unique mission and after being a very devout Mormon youth in the uk. And so it's going to be a great interview. It's going to be a classic, an instant classic. And without any further ado, Douglas Stilgall, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:03:54] Thank you. Thank you for having me.

John Dehlin [00:03:56] And I should tell everyone that we are streaming. We are streaming live on both YouTube and Facebook. So if anybody wants to make comments or questions, we'll be able to see your comments or questions and answer them as it makes sense in the interview. Please feel free to share this interview now if you want to let other people know that we've started, especially if you're in Europe, in the uk. Let's get, get, let's get lots of UK Western Europe participation or even international participation in this episode. All right, Douglas, well, let's begin. Tell us, where does your Mormon story begin?

Born into the Covenant: Douglas's Mormon Origins

Douglas Stilgoe [00:04:37] My Mormon story starts, I suppose, the moment I was born. I was born into the covenant. I was born the youngest of six children, which gets you a lot of attention in the UK because, you know, it's not like Utah where everyone's 1 of 6 or 1 of 12. And yeah, I was born 1997. At that point, Coventry Stake had just been formed. So we'll get to that later. And yeah, so I started off kind of, I was born in the covenant, grew up in the church, going to church attending. That's where it all began, I think.

John Dehlin [00:05:15] So your earliest memories of Mormonism in the UK as a kid? You know, my memories are like primary and primary songs and attending ward functions, participating in the US And Boy Scouts. What are the fond memories? If you had fond memories, let's just say fond or not so fond. What are your main or like family evening and Scripture study with the family. What are your early childhood memories of being a Mormon in the uk?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:05:42] They are. I mean, they're quite varied. So on the one hand, there's book and Mormon stories, there's primary presentations, there's all that Sort of stuff. I had some really good friends growing up in the church in the uk because the church forms one part of your social circle, it doesn't form the whole of it. So you will end up with, you've got friends from school, you've also got friends from church, you've got friends from anything else you do. So some of my friends growing up were members of the church. Um, singing in primary is a really kind of fun memory. But then without skipping ahead too far into my parents, you know, my. I was 6 when my parents got divorced and I'm sure we'll get onto that topic. But it means that really, I don't ever remember my dad being at church. I remember loading up into. My mum drove a minibus. She drove like a smaller version of kind of like a school bus to fit all us kids in. And yeah, she should drive that to church. Quite exciting.

John Dehlin [00:06:51] Yeah, that's totally fun. Fun memories for sure. Okay, so. So you were pretty young when your parents got divorced. It's hard to kind of separate that from your Mormon experience.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:07:02] Yeah, yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [00:07:03] Well, let's just talk about that. How much do you know about. Was it your dad losing his faith and give us background on that.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:07:10] Yeah, so I spoke to both my parents prior to doing this to kind of get an idea of, you know, whether I got the right end of the stick. Because obviously when you go through these experiences as a six year old, you view the world through a six year old's eyes and it can be quite important to go back later in life and work out what was going on. Because, you know, I was born five years after my next sibling, so. So all my siblings were born like two years apart and then I was born quite a bit after. So there was an idea in my mind that because they had a slightly different childhood and then I'd arrived, then, oh no, my parents getting divorced and it's my fault, which is not the case, so they tell me. Because I've since spoken to my dad and my mum about it and it was, I guess it's fair to say that my dad lost his belief in the church. You know, he. The reason he regularly gives is that, you know, he couldn't believe that we get bodies again. He couldn't believe that resurrection was possible. And I, you know, spoken to him about the way people tried to explain it to him and I remember spending a lot of time trying to convince my dad that it was possible, obviously, because I wanted it to be.

John Dehlin [00:08:25] So.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:08:25] Yeah, that, that I think was the, the tension point between my parents and ultimately my dad stopped going to church for a long time. And then eventually it kind of reached a breaking point where my mum felt like that was a deal breaker, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:08:41] Real quick, talk quickly about your, your dad's parents or your mom's parents.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:08:47] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:47] You guys were multi generational and what, what, you know, to what extent they were raised, devout or not.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:08:53] Okay. So of my four grandparents, one is still left alive. So my dad's parents, to her death. My dad's mother was a member of the church and lived in Canada. She was a convert. And his dad, I can't be quite sure whether he ever was a convert to the church. I'm not sure. But my dad was raised going to church. Um, but there was some, you know, some breakups in, in that generation of my dad's parents, separations of parents and things like that. My mum's parents were converts when my mum was eight years old, I believe. So then my mum was baptized subsequently and my grandmother. Yeah, cool.

What Drew British Converts to the Church

John Dehlin [00:09:43] Is there a sense for what brother brought your grandparents generation into the church in the uk? Like what? Is there a sense for what was appealing about this US Church that made so many in your grandparents generation convert?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:10:00] Yeah, I'm not sure because it was my. For my mom's parents, Stephanie, it was 1968. I think partly because they had, even before they joined the church, they had very traditional, conservative sort of values which align with the church. And I think maybe at that time, I mean, I wasn't alive, but I believe at that time things were starting to shift culturally. Things were starting to get a bit more liberal. People were starting to get a little bit more open to things. And so a church comes across saying, no, no, we are very dogmatic about what's right and wrong. We are very like, this is the way things are. Men do this job, women do this job. I think it must have appealed to their worldview, I think.

John Dehlin [00:10:40] Is there a sense that the. So I imagine at some point the Church of England was the dominant church in the uk. Is there a sense historically, and you may not know this, is there a sense historically that the Church of England got too liberal or too out of touch or too corrupt? What do you have a sense for what caused the Church of England to kind of lose its grip on the citizenry there?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:11:07] I'm not sure whether it's just.

John Dehlin [00:11:08] That's probably a big question.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:11:09] I'm not sure whether it just came with a broader kind of general tent towards scientific thinking and atheism. In the UK. I think the UK now officially is, it is over 50% atheist or non believing, non religious. So it's been trending that way for a while. And I think, I mean the Church of England is an interesting one anyway because it came about because essentially a king wanted a divorce and the Catholic Church wouldn't let him. So he decided he was going to start his own church that would allow it. So it's got its roots very obviously in men and their creation. But British people are church going people, at least they were. Sunday church, Christmas church, it's a very traditional thing and British people like tradition. So if the state says something is, is the way we do things now, then back then that would have been fine and those traditions then would have built. But I think it's just a general tend towards atheism that has kind of caused the Church of England to die down a bit.

John Dehlin [00:12:06] I'm just speculating here, but I have to think that a major world war on your territory, where bombs are being dropped mercilessly for so many years, has to do something to the faith of a nation.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:12:23] Yeah, interesting, because in, I mean in Coventry, near where I'm from, where the stake center is, there's two cathedrals in that city because Coventry was heavily bombed. It was a center of manufacture. Heavily bombed. And what remains of the old cathedral is kind of gutted, it's got no roof, there's a tower that's been reconstructed, etc. But right next to it is a brand new cathedral. So I'm not too sure how much effect the war had on people's religiosity. I'd have to look into it more interesting. Definitely.

John Dehlin [00:12:55] Okay, so your grandparents were converts, kind of on both sides. Your parents then must have been raised as, as believing Mormons. And you're in. So you're saying your dad sort of started questioning resurrection?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:13:10] Yeah, so I mean he went on a mission and everything, but he started

John Dehlin [00:13:14] to question, do you know where he served? Was it in the uk?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:13:16] Yeah, England, London South Mission.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:13:19] Yeah. And my, they were engaged. My parents were engaged while my dad was on his mission and then came back, they got married. My dad rode a motorbike. So he was cool. He was like, yeah, really kind of rock and roll kind of guy. But he was also an artist. He draws. My dad draws a lot and paints and things. So, you know, he's very interesting chap. And so yeah, they, they got married and you know, they, they started to settle down in that sort of area of the country. He's from up north originally. He's from Liverpool.

John Dehlin [00:13:54] It's Beetle country.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:13:56] Pardon?

John Dehlin [00:13:56] That's Beetle country.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:13:57] It is Beetle country. Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] So your dad speaks with a little Pudlian accent.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:14:04] Not anymore. He, he puts it on when he goes back to see his brothers because they still live up that way. But it's quite toned down when he is down here.

John Dehlin [00:14:13] Got it. So I, I, Interestingly, in my middle school years, my parents were divorced as devout Mormons in Houston. So I know a bit about what divorce can be like, at least stateside within Mormonism. So. And you were only six. So what can you tell us about what it's like to be a Mormon in the UK and to be even a child and have your parents divorced and how the ward and the stake and, you know, how, how all that was and your beliefs as a family.

Growing Up Mormon in the UK: Family Dynamics

Douglas Stilgoe [00:14:45] Okay, that's a can of worms. Right? I think one of the things that first came to mind is, is that at school a lot of kids had their parents still together. Yeah, there were some kids who had single parents and that was fairly normal in the uk. It's, it's not unheard of. But at the same time there were some kids there whose parents were still together. And I thought, well, hang on, they're not Mormons. Because, you know, there's this pervasive idea in Mormonism that being a Mormon means you are better, you are, you know, living a better standard of life, etc. So the idea that my parents are divorced and other people's aren't creates this idea of kind of a failure that, you know, I almost projected onto my parents this idea that. Well, hang on, that didn't go right. It's not the way that's meant to work, you know, and then kind of, I think the big thing was this idea then that my dad wasn't good enough because he wasn't a member of the church. And so, you know, all of a sudden these big celebrated church things like being baptized. My dad didn't baptize me, getting the priesthood, my dad didn't give me the priesthood. I think he blessed me as a child. I'm not, I'm not 100% sure on that one. But the idea that, you know, he, that other people now have to step in and take my dad's place was quite a pervasive idea and to be honest, quite a, quite a horrible idea. To think back on this idea that, you know, my dad can do certain things and that was his fault and, you know, the blame was on him.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] Yeah. I'm just relating to you because, like, my dad couldn't take. Didn't take me to the Fathers and Sons outing, so, like, my. My home teacher took me to the Fathers and Sons outing, and that was kind of beautiful and touching and kind of like pathetic and emasculating at the same time.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:16:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] And, yeah, my dad didn't ordain me a deacon. Someone else had ordained me, and so my line of authority was confused, you know, because he later ordained me to another calling, and it was just. Yeah, it's. It's really emasculating for a man. Probably some sort of equivalent for a woman, too, to. To sort of almost be erased, but to have your status so demoted that. And it's such a public shaming.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:17:19] Yeah. Because, I mean, my dad, fair play to him. He would come to these things. He would come to my baptism, he would come to my ordination, and he'd sit there to support me because he's always supported me, and that's a good man. I can't stress enough during this podcast is how my dad is and how probably unfairly I've thought towards him and treated him at times. You know, there's. There's nothing more I need to get out there than that. That he is very supportive of me still. And we'll get to some of that later. But the idea that he would come and sit there, that's just made me think. I can't imagine how he must have felt actually, to be sat there and to see me looking at him like, why aren't you doing this? Because I didn't understand. I was eight. Why is my. It was my sister's fiance at the time, now husband baptized me. That's the level of age difference. My sister was getting married around that time. My older sister, she's 12 years older than me. And yeah, the idea that he did that, and he's a really nice guy, but my dad came and was there for me, which I can't imagine what that must have been like.

John Dehlin [00:18:29] Such an inspiring story. Yeah. Shout out to your dad and mom. We're all. We're all doing our best.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:18:35] How wonderful my mom is, too. Like, we'll get to that.

John Dehlin [00:18:39] So I, you know, as. As you're getting these messages at church that it's like, this is the one true church and you got to be faithful. And people who leave are dangerous and people who don't believe are dangerous, and. And the worst people of all are the ones who had their beliefs and then left. Like in Mormonism, theologically, The absolute worst thing in the world, worse than murder is apostasy or, like, sons of perdition. People who had. People who had the light or had the witness and then left, like, they're literally in a worse state than a murder in some sense. And so it must have been. You're. You're being pulled between, like, hey, my dad's a good guy and I'm a son, and I love my parents. And like, whoa, my dad's fallen. And that must have been a real difficult pressure to navigate as you're going through childhood and adolescence.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:19:33] Definitely. It's. You know, there was evenings where, because my dad would come and, you know, as part of the whole custody thing, he'd, you know, he'd come and spend an evening a week with me, or, like, he'd see me on Saturdays, things like that. And, I mean, that was made slightly more difficult for me because my next oldest brother, who was the other one that would see my dad with me, wasn't believing at the time. And so there's me thinking, right, I gotta save both of them. But sometimes, you know, evenings later on when I was kind of 16, 17, I'd be sat in the car with my dad for hours just trying to convince him of the truthfulness of the church. I mean, I've wasted a lot of his time, but the idea that, you know, I was gonna be the one to bring my dad back because he's a really good guy and there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to come back to church. And, you know, he remarried as well. And, I mean, poor woman that, you know, breaks up that idea of an eternal family when I'm so hell bent on trying to bring my dad back, you know, so again, I wasn't very kind to her, you know, through my. Through my righteous desire to drag my dad kicking a stream into the celestial kingdom whether he wanted to be there or not.

John Dehlin [00:20:46] And the. And the Nephi narrative where. And we get this from Joseph Smith, like, Joseph Smith Sr. And I'm studying, you know, Joseph Smith history right now for this other YouTube channel. But. But Joseph Smith Sr. Was kind of a loser. Like, he couldn't make ends meet. He kind of, you know, you know, drank and never really joined any church. And so, like, that narrative of, like, the righteous younger child and the fallen parent starts with Joseph Smith, and then it immediately gets absorbed into the Book of Mormon. So Lehi is kind of a prophet, but. But he's not the star, right?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:21:29] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:21:30] Not the oldest sibling, but a younger sibling. Nephi is the star. And I'm not trying to project on you, I think I'm. I think I am projecting onto you. But, but it's so easy for that younger child with a parent that isn't as faithful to slot themselves into that Nephi role.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:21:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:48] Where they're trying to be the, the noble and righteous one, even for the parent. And that's a lot of pressure. Oh yeah, Young kid, right?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:21:56] Yeah. Well, I mean, I was getting that narrative from church anyway. I was getting that thrown at me, this idea, because my two next oldest brothers went inactive during their teens because my mum had a rule, she said, when you're 16, I'm not making you go to church anymore, you can choose. So here I am kind of strutting along, I've hit 16, I'm still going, but my brothers have jacked it off and they've gone now I'm not having any of that. You know, they've made their own informed choices. And yeah, there's this idea that, well, it's. I'm, I'm the good one, I'm the one that still stayed. That's kind of that message is being thrown at me and you know, well, things like well done on you for not ending up like your brothers, like those words were said to me multiple times, which is completely unfair on my brothers because they're both good people. It's unfair on me because it's makes me view my siblings differently. My relationship with my oldest brother is better now than I think it's ever been since I went through my faith crisis because I can now relate to him not from a church versus non church perspective, but from a brother to brother perspective. And that always got in the way. It was always in the way that, well, you're doing the right thing and he's not. Whether consciously or not, it's there and, and it niggles.

John Dehlin [00:23:18] Totally. Yeah. So it affects sibling relationships, not just parent child relationships.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:23:25] Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [00:23:28] So you did it sounds like you slotted into the Nephi role as you were becoming a. In your adolescence, is that right?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:23:36] Yeah. And you know, it probably drove everyone else around me insane, but particularly because slightly later in my teenage years, it was just me and my mum at home for a while because my brother got married and the other one moved out. So it was just me and mum. And so my mum, bless her, all she ever wanted was to be a mother. And so she didn't really have any qualifications past kind of high school sort of level education, the equivalent in the uk, so. And she to her credit, has taken herself to university since and she's now got a degree. So you know, she's, she's made an effort and she's done really, really well. But there was this idea that, right, well it's my job now to provide. And then when you get to priesthood as well, it's like, right, finally Mum's got a priesthood holder in the home. You know, aren't I amazing because I can do this for my mother now and all that sort of thing.

John Dehlin [00:24:33] You know, I, I'm thinking about my own mother as well and I asked listeners to forgive me connecting with you on this, but this is personal for me too. Like Mormonism does not prepare the wives for the eventuality of, of divorce and Mormons do not have a lower divorce rate than the rest of the world. So I'm thinking about my own mother. You know, I'm an, I'm, you know, I'm in middle school and she's been a mother for 25 years and that's all she's known. She didn't graduate from college and all of a sudden she's having to get secretarial jobs.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:25:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:25:08] Because my dad's, you know, left and money's tight and she's got kids in the home still, but she's having to find some job or start a new career totally unprepared for life. And it's not like it's, you know, 80 or 90% of Mormons that families that stay together, it's 50% of Mormon families who get divorced. And so women can be real casualties of, of the church's sort of patriarchy and reticence to empower women to get educations and careers.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:25:44] Yeah, I mean like for my mum it was this idea of, you know, I had to support my mum because I'm male. I have to support my mother because I'm a priesthood holder. I have to uphold my mother. It can make difficult those parent child boundaries that ought to exist. It can make difficult that idea that my mother's meant to look after me, but after a certain point because the church failed her in preparing her for life. It is my responsibility. And as a 16 year old you think, well, what am I meant to do? You know, and I did go out and get a job and paid my mum rent and this sort of thing, you know, as time went on. But you know, you just think to yourself as a teenager, just because I'm male and a priesthood holder, they shouldn't be putting that kind of pressure on me. I don't think.

John Dehlin [00:26:39] And yet it can have, I don't know if it's positive. Positive is the right word, but it can have a motivating influence on some kids. Some kids can buckle under that pressure. Other kids can become hyper achievers because they're like, it gives them a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning and a sense of responsibility. How was it, how was it for you to have that much responsibility?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:27:06] I'm not sure. I'm a high achiever. I don't think I'd ever call myself one of those. But it did force me to work hard. I mean, yeah, I, I, I was always told as a kid how smart I was, which is not a good thing to tell a child. I've since learned, and I think people are only just realizing that. But basically I had the idea a lot of the time then if I came up against a challenge that was too difficult, it's because it was not doable. Not that I needed to work harder because I'm smart. So if I'm really smart and this thing is difficult, then that's the fault of the thing I'm trying to do. It's not my fault I'm really smart. I've had to unlearn that since, and particularly in the course of my degree, I had to really unlearn that. And now I've just got to apply myself more. But it did have that motivating factor, being the priesthood holder in the home. And it gave me that sense of responsibility. Right. I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I can't just swim along. I can't just float on the current, as it were. I gotta, you know, buckle up and follow these examples of men that aren't my father, because he's not the example to following, to follow the examples of my bishops that I grew up with and such.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] So tell us about what comes next in your story that you think is important to Cash here.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:28:29] So, I mean, there's the role of the bishops growing up. I mean, they fulfill that kind of father figure. They are, they're men that I'm meant to try and be like. And I spent a lot of time as a youth counseling with some bishops, and some bishops did some really good things for me, took me out doing things. And I don't think they were trying to replace my dad. They weren't doing that on purpose at all. Like, that wasn't what they were trying to do. They weren't trying to step on anyone's toes or anything like that, but they were there trying to support this young man that they thought, well, if we can keep him in the church, that's what is the right thing. Because from obviously from a believing perspective, that's of course what you want to do. You want to keep someone in the church as faithfully and strongly as possible. And they always give me responsibilities, like I was a teacher's quorum president, something like that, which is, I mean, if you're the only teacher, then here in UK that can often be the case. My ward was fairly sizable growing up, about 150 strong, at least two or three on mentor quorum, which here is like doing well. We don't go into multiple quorums here in the uk, I don't think. Hardly, hardly ever, to be honest. But yeah, I grew up through the youth program. I went on your men's camps. I went back as a YSA leader to some camps which was really, really good and had some really supportive young men's leaders. The people in the church in the UK are brilliant, I think, partly because they have other facets to their life other than the church. I think that's a super big part of it, that people here have other things to do. They have other hobbies, other things, other parts of their life.

John Dehlin [00:30:18] What are you saying about us, Douglas?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:30:20] Well, in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:30:21] What are you saying about us in Utah?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:30:23] All consuming, right? It can, it's your neighbors, it's your neighborhood barbecues. It's. It's like all this stuff is all church centric, right. As far as I understand it, that's.

John Dehlin [00:30:33] We're not as cool as you guys. Is that what you're saying, Douglas?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:30:37] Well, I'm not saying that, John,

John Dehlin [00:30:41] but

Douglas Stilgoe [00:30:41] you know that there is that idea. And we, I mean when you read in the Friend about like this person from the Provo 82nd Ward, you're like, there's 82 wards in like one area. Like Coventry, England. State covers multiple counties. It covers three. Well, not, not the entirety of. But its borders expand across three counties. The uk, the West Midlands, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. It covers three towns, Hinckley, Nuneaton and Bedworth. Nuneaton is a town of 80,000 people and that combined with two other towns has a ward of 150 people in it. So there's a lot of non Mormons around. Like you're often the only person. Yeah, you're often the only person at work who's a member of the church, which gives you great missionary opportunities, let me tell you. But yeah, it's very small. The Church. So, I mean, in school, there was one other kid in my school that was a member of the church. It changes the way you view yourself. And sometimes I think not for the better because, like in Utah, for example, I can imagine that you could almost feel like, oh, I'm just one. I'm just another Mormon, right? I'm just another member of the church. Whereas you can feel really, really special about yourself when you're a Mormon and no one else is because, like, you've won the lottery. You have been born conveniently into the correct religion. Out of all these people, you're the one that got the truth. And so, I mean, I got kicked out of religious education studies at school. I wasn't allowed to take the final exam because I was so militant about some of the things they taught about Christianity that didn't align with Mormon teachings. And Mormons are Christians. So therefore, like, I've got to correct you, I've got to put you right. You don't understand us. All that sort of thing was going on. And yeah, it's different. Whereas, like, imagine being in your religious education class in Utah, right? I don't know what that was like, but they know Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:32:41] No, I grew up in Texas where there were a few Mormons in my. I'm kidding you about Utah Mormons. There's good and bad everywhere. I'm sure we both agree, but I grew up in Texas, so there were only a few Mormons in my high school. And yeah, you feel very special. You feel, if you really get into it, you feel like you're Saturday's warrior. You're like the chosen generation saved for the last days to usher in the millennium. And you are one of the chosen youth and you get your patriarchal blessing and it tells you you're going to get resurrected with Jesus and the morning of the first resurrection, and you just feel like you're one of the coolest people on the planet. Really?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:33:21] Yeah, absolutely. You feel. You feel, like, totally special. And when it's amazing, because when people say, I don't know what Mormon is, you know, well, let me tell you, because that's your. That's your inn. Brilliant. I get to tell them all about this special religion that I so happen to grow up in. And yeah, you get pretty good at missionary work pretty quick. This every member of missionary becomes very, very strong drive when you're a member of the church in the uk because there's people to tell. There's people to, you know, to really kind of. Yeah, there's people there's the field is ready to harvest because there's hardly any other Mormons in the field.

John Dehlin [00:34:03] There's totally true. So one of our, one of our viewers just typed in peculiar people. That's. Yeah, that's a good saying, you know. So one of the things I want you to describe for us, we've covered this a bit in past episodes. There's this really interesting thing that I've noticed. It's probably all over the world, but it's really pronounced for me in Western Europe where there are these like multi generational Mormon families that are almost like stakes, like temple, like, you know, stakes on a tent. Like every ward or state kind of has these one or a few multi generational families that like really pin down the church, will become the backbone of the church there. And then a lot of the leadership comes from those really royal families, so to speak. And then also like how close knit the. The members of the church can be all across the country in terms of like, because it's really important to have your kids marry the best Mormon kids that they can. But it's a limited selection. And so unless they're going off to byu, you've got to maintain relationships not just across wards, but across stakes and across the entire country so that your kids can marry in the church. And I think in your notes you talk about these stake dances and.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:35:34] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:34] Or you travel. Will you talk about the royal family and then just about the culture of how small and tight knit.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:35:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:44] Church can be in such a large country.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:35:47] I mean, I think it's all summed up really in the question that people ask me about, about my wife. So I'll, you know, say my wife's name and they'll, they'll say to me, they'll say, oh, so what's her, what's her maiden name? As if they're fishing. They're like, oh, I'll know her family. And then it turns out my wife, you know, isn't from a big church family at all. And so they're like, oh. And there's almost that like visible disappointment that she's not from one of these big families. So.

John Dehlin [00:36:12] But you, you, you a little bit are right slightly.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:36:15] Yeah. So my, my family, thanks to my uncle mainly, is fairly well known up in another country and also thanks to my sister, so some Ysa and youth will travel maybe half an hour to an hour for a dance, right. To kind of within the stake or the next stakeover. My sister picked up some miles up and down the country all the way up into the north, all the way down to the south, into Wales, like into another country to go to dances. She was very social. So I moved on to the YSA scene and my older sister's legacy kind of followed. So my surname meant. All right. Yeah. You're her brother. That and one of my cousins who's a similar age to me. You know, he's at dances. So. Okay, yeah, I know him and still goes. An unusual name. So, I mean, people remember it. It's not like I'm one of the Smiths, but there are, there are definitely some families kind of from my, my area that are. So, I mean, our old stake president, his parents were in our ward as well, so he was from our ward, his parents were in our ward. His wife, her family is possibly like early apostles, kind of early apostles coming to Britain. They're that sort of age of convert. I mean, the church has been going a long time. It came to the UK in 1837, I think. And, you know, the longest continuously operating unit at the church is here, it's up in Preston. You know, that unit has been going since 1837, continuously as a unit of the church. You know, when I was doing my degree in Manchester particularly, you meet some of these people whose families have been like absolutely bedrock of Manchester stake for such a long time that you, you just. You dare not. We're getting some names. What are some of the prominent names?

John Dehlin [00:38:17] You know, are those, are. Are there even ones that are kind of so well known they're. We can even mention them? Not, not that we're trying to embarrass her. It's not negative. It's just like, who.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:38:27] Yeah, so our state president was, was, was President Penfold at the time and his wife was a Mace. And the Mace family are quite big in the Birmingham area. Like pretty big. The other names, I don't know, because the thing is, I didn't really pay attention to this. I didn't get sucked into the. The idea of this kind of Mormon royalty idea because, I don't know, I was trying to be Christlike and be no respecter of persons. It just, it kind of.

John Dehlin [00:38:56] I love it. That's good.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:38:58] It's interesting.

John Dehlin [00:38:59] We talked before that. It's. It's British to be understated about such things. Right. Like I asked you, where's your. Where's your Captain Jack? Where's your. Is that what it's called? What's New Jack? Union Jack? Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking Billy Joel. Where's the Union Jack? And then you say it's not very British to show your flag, which is very different than America where so many Americans like proudly fly their flag. I think you were saying that it's very British to be understated. So I wonder if it's almost sort of a kind of like an American thing to have these. I guess you guys have royalty, so I mean. Yeah, I guess the Brits do know what it's like to have royal names. Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:39:38] Then we're all, we're all second to that royalty. So we're just like nothing. We're just get on.

John Dehlin [00:39:44] Got it.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:39:45] I mean we'll wave the flag when a big event comes on like a royal wedding. We'll have street parties, you know, the VE Day celebrations, fiction Europe Day. We had socially distanced street parties and things like that. We'll. We'll get out and turn up when we need to. But day to day, I mean. Yeah. The amount of flags flying is not very many. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:04] Is it. Is this an okay time to talk about Tom Phillips and what his name meant when you were growing up before and after and then what types of rumblings.

Tom Phillips and Early Doubts

Douglas Stilgoe [00:40:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:15] You would have heard as a believer. And then we can come back to whenever you saw Tom Lens. Tom Phillips, maybe through a different lens.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:40:23] Yeah, yeah, sure. So we'll come back through the different lens a bit later on in the. Towards the kind of faith crisis end of things. But growing up. So he was stake president of Coventry Stake. So when it was formed, he was the stake president of it. And him and his family only moved out of the area when the stake boundaries changed because effectively Birmingham Stake was struggling for priesthood holders. So they needed to absorb a ward and the geographically closest ward was the ward that he is from. Just being careful not to mention stuff that he may not want me to mention. But I, you know, I remember in fact his daughter is someone I've spent a bit of time with doing some church musical productions and things like that. And her children are people I know from obviously youth dances growing up in the same. So we have like kind of multi stake dances which consist of, you know, Coventry Stake and the two stakes next to Birmingham and Litchfield. So I mean. Well, there we are. Someone's just mentioned in the comments actually. Douglas, are you related to President still go. Yes, that's my uncle. So there we go. Anyway, so yeah, he. I remember particularly the rumblings came out when he tried to take the church to court. When that became a thing, the legal proceedings got involved. All of a sudden there was all these whispers and Rumblings about, oh, you know, he's just disgruntled, he's just angry. But also this idea that.

John Dehlin [00:41:48] Would he have been known as a faithful member to you or others before? Before all those rumblings?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:41:54] Yes. Yeah. So how would he have been perceived

John Dehlin [00:41:57] before, or if you even know, as

Douglas Stilgoe [00:42:01] a quite strong man. I mean, I'm not quite sure how long he was state president for, and I don't remember whether it was him or a different state president, but I remember or who it was. I just remember I was told as a kid that I was rude to some church leader. Don't know who it was. It was either a state president or it might have been a visiting general authority, but I was made to call them up at lunch. They were having lunch at someone's house and apologize over the phone. I don't remember what happened, but I feel like it might have been him. He was, from my recollection as a person, even when he wasn't state president later on, he was. Yeah, he was a person of strong kind of spiritual status. And the thing in the uk, those people tend to stand out because of how small the church is. If you have been a stake president at some point, you stand out because, you know, like, you're talking about the pool being small. It is the case that people stand out here more. Yeah. They tend to be a bigger deal.

John Dehlin [00:43:07] So do you remember what. What age you would have started hearing rumblings about Tom Phillips?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:43:13] So that was. When did he take the church to court? Do you remember the date he. That all said.

John Dehlin [00:43:19] I would have. I would have shared his podcast around 2014.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:43:25] Mm.

John Dehlin [00:43:26] Because that was after I knew the church was going to be excommunicating me. His story might have shown up on the Internet a year or two before that.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:43:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:37] You know, it would have started 14 and then it would have gotten heavy. Maybe 15 or 16.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:43:42] I'm guessing March 2014. Someone said, thank you. So I was. I was 17 at the time, so I was. Yeah, I was very aware. Yeah. I wasn't sure where in my teenage years it was, but I was. I was very aware that this. This person had fallen from grace, this idea that someone. And because the church is kind of small, my mum. My mum grew up in Leicester, where there's these two or three big families and everyone's related to them. That's one of those kind of places. But my mum was very social in the kind of general area, so she knew of Tom Phillips and so she had fond memories of him as a leader, more so than I did because of the time he was a leader. But she remembers him a lot as a state president. And so I remember her reaction of kind of sadness. The idea that someone like that could ever dream of trying to correct the church or put them right, you know, could have a dream of having a complaint against the church because he's now disaffected, which I think we all. If you're an active believer member of the church, that tends to be your, your view, your view of people that challenge the church after leaving, is that, you know, or how sad it is. And if, you know, if only they wouldn't.

John Dehlin [00:45:08] And it's so brilliant that Joseph baked that scenario into the Book of Mormon where you've got knee or you've got Korhor, you've got. He bakes into the Book of Mormon apostates, basically.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:45:18] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:19] So that then they can immediately, you know, then they can immediately be dismissed as fallen. Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:45:24] Yeah, exactly. He gives you, he gives you names and tactics. So he's like, if they're acting like this person, this is what you do. I mean, I'm glad no one's poisoned me yet. But, you know, that's sort of present. He says it's like Apostate for Dummies is some of those chapters. It's just like someone's not saying what they ought to be saying. Here's how to get rid of them. You know, if it's an intellectual argument, here's what you do. If they're just leading people away with carnal desires, here's what you do. Um, he's like, he bakes in rebuttals for, for apostates. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] So I have to ask just one quick question about. So, so when, you know, when I'm, when I'm learning about Tom Phillips and the second anointing, and then I think, whoa, should I interview him or not? Should I blaspheme, you know, against the church and share this most holy, sacred, top secret ceremony? And I'm trying to decide, and I'm still in the church at this point, you know, will more harm or good be done? One of the things that I envision is, oh my gosh, if, if we release a story about an almost general authority former stake president who just, whoa, New Holland. And had a second anointing, it's going to send these massive ripples through the church, but certainly through the uk right about. Whoa, what's the second anointing? Elder Holland's involved. And one of the really profound things that I've realized is just how impenetrable the bubble is in terms of like what information actually makes it down to the members. And so in this example, what I would have imagined would happen kind of with my preference Stephen Hassan, pre understanding kind of cult and Colts mentality, I would think that everyone in the uk, and especially in the stakes where people knew Tom Phillips, they would learn about Tom Phillips's doubts, they would learn about his exchanges with Elder Holland, they would learn about the second anointing and that it would cause this significant apostasy. But now I'm wondering if you even heard about the second anointing when all this has happened.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:47:39] Nope. So the first time I heard about. First time I heard about second anointing was my mission at the temple. And that was chatting to some. One of these guys like his. His dad used to be the groundkeeper of London Temple. He knew some stories, that sort of guy. And he was telling me about having your calling and election made sure. And all this. I think it was hush tones kind of on one of the upper balconies. We were chatting about it. But anyway, yeah, all we knew, and I'm pretty sure the narrative was controlled in such a way that all we really knew about Tom Phillips was that he was making litigious claim against the church. He was. He was trying to get his money back. Effectively, that's how it was framed. Tom Phillips is trying to get his money back because he's upset, because he's left the church. At no point were his doubts ever discussed, at least as far as I'm aware. Like other people may have known, but just purely from my point of view and I, you know, read into it as much as I could. Yeah, none of that detail came through. It was purely. Well, he's annoyed because of this. They made it all about the money because if you can make it worldly and not make it spiritual, then you can cast him off as well. He's fallen to the things of the world. He's just interested in money. He's just interested in this and that. If you bring his spiritual doubts into it, then all of a sudden you've got a harder time fighting it, I suppose. So if they can keep the narrative about the money, it's. It's better because, you know, well, only worldly people care about money. You shouldn't. It shouldn't matter to you. It shouldn't matter to him that he gave his money to the church because that's not spiritual, that's earthly, you know,

John Dehlin [00:49:14] and that, you know, and that's a natural thing that humans do. They excommunicate or kill apostates, basically, or infidels. But it is a deep, a deeply sad and disturbing and unsettling reality for people who leave the church because the narrative that gets spun about them is. So instead of it being about credible issues and sincere concerns, it's about they got offended, or they wanted money, or they wanted to drink beer, or they looked at porn. And the narrative that gets wrapped around and shared with all the people that you loved and served for however many decades are the worst possible, either reductions or contrivances.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:50:05] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:06] Of what really was going on. And I'm sad that happened with Tom Phillips.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:50:11] Absolutely. And, you know, having since listened to his kind of his Mormon stories interview, I first read some of the transcript and I listened to it, I get a much broader picture and much more sympathy for him than I was ever kind of willing to give him as an active member, you know, because what you don't hear is obviously, as he spoke about, you know, the difficulties it gave him with his family, I now know what that feels like to some extent, which we'll. We'll get onto later. But this, you know, it's not meant to be about that. If you can dehumanize a person by making it all about money or all about actions that they wanted to take, that the church wasn't letting them, so they rebelled. You know, you don't make it about their feelings. You don't make it about who they are as a person. You know, we have this tendency to dehumanize people because it allows us to kind of treat them worse. You know, I mean, I was a slight tangent, but I was reading about the, you know, the prison camps in Japan during the Second World War. And the idea was that the reason they were able to do such horrendous things to people is because they didn't view them as human like they viewed them as animals. So you can beat an animal. You shouldn't beat a person. You know, and I think we do that mentally to people that leave the church. Sometimes we treat them as not people anymore. They're apostates. You give them a different label. You don't talk about how they feel. You just talk about what they've done wrong. And you can judge them and talk about them behind their back all you want, because they're not really a person anymore. That's just the way I see it.

John Dehlin [00:51:40] And ironically, that wasn't just Tom Phillips. That was your dad.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:51:44] Absolutely. Yeah. That also happened to My dad and I heard the things that people said about him and my brothers, you know, and yeah, I've heard those things said about members of my own family. So, you know, but I didn't, I didn't pick up on them at the time.

John Dehlin [00:51:59] Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:52:00] It's only now thinking back, did your

John Dehlin [00:52:02] mom remarry during your adolescent teenage years?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:52:06] No.

John Dehlin [00:52:06] Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:52:07] No. No, just my dad.

John Dehlin [00:52:09] And so once you start, once your, your dad has left, your siblings have left, Tom Phillips leaves, and you start to get into your teenage years, sometimes that can pull you in two directions. It can either like, oh my gosh, these are signs of the times. Even the very elect are being deceived. I'm gonna have to double down and be extra super righteous. Or it can start sowing the seeds of doubt. Or it can be both, where you compartmentalize. Tell us how your faith journey and your Mormon experience in the UK receded from 14 years on.

Teenage Faith and Unanswered Questions

Douglas Stilgoe [00:52:45] Okay, right, we'll take the age 14. It works. So.

John Dehlin [00:52:49] Or anything before that, you think, yeah, okay. Is really important for the story. Let's not skip anything.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:52:54] Okay, yeah, let's, let's not. Because I, I will have a tendency to skip and jump around. So I apologize. Feel free to, to reel me back in because we want to cover this properly. So, yeah, there's the, there's the idea that I have to double down because there's that dependency, there's that Nephi thing we're talking about. But there is also those seeds of doubt. I mean, the earliest item I would say I put on my shelf, which I'm sure listeners are familiar with the idea of a shelf by now. But the place I stored things away in my mind, I wasn't comfortable with. The first one was the idea of where do we go after we die. And I remember because my mum, I mean my mum was an early morning seminary teacher, so I thought my mum had all the answers. Even now, if I have questions about the church, I'll ask my mum because she knows a lot. Well, I mean, she knows a lot of what the church lets you know. But anyway, so I spoke to her about that and eventually missionaries came around to try and explain it. I remember sitting in front of two, they would have been like 19, 20 year old lads. As a six, seven year old, like pre baptism, I remember sitting in our front room and just saying to them, but what if we don't go anywhere after we die? What if I'm scared of that? And I've always been scared, I'm still scared of that. Now, this idea that there will just be nothingness, and I'm hoping one day I can come to peace with that. But when the church teaches you, that's one thing I suppose I never really fully bought into. And I mean, to set the scene of that living room, the house I grew up in is about 12ft wide and then it goes back. So it's a. It's a little terraced house. So in Britain you have lots of houses really close together. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Two stories, 12 foot wide, the next one, 12 foot, next one, next one. They're all joined together. And there was eight of us in that house at one point. But that tiny little front room, about 12 foot by 12 foot little room with couches squeezed in, we were sat right close. I could tell how uncomfortable these missionaries were. I could tell that they didn't really have an answer other than faith. And even for me at that sort of age, I kind of wasn't buying into the. Well, I suppose you got to have faith and hope. Because I was like, well, it's too late once I'm dead. Like that is too late by that point, I think.

John Dehlin [00:55:12] Yeah, totally, yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:55:15] So, I mean, that's. That's early memories and then kind of working into my teenage years, my brothers have got a bit of a reputation for themselves as pranksters. There was a week, famously, when everyone turned up to church and the pews were all facing the wrong way because they had taken. Yeah, they'd taken my mum's chapel.

John Dehlin [00:55:36] Weasley brothers in Harry Potter.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:55:37] Yeah, I was. I was. Yeah, but I was Ron. Right. And who wants to be Ron?

John Dehlin [00:55:41] You were Ron. Yeah, brothers were who? The brothers in the Weasley.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:55:46] Rob and George. Yeah, so, yeah, my brothers were that. I mean, the oldest one more. So, you know, they were changing all the door handles round, putting it. Yeah, all sorts of pranks, all sorts of things. But they've got a bit of a reputation for themselves as a bit rambunctious. And so because I'm not naturally like that anyway, people found it quite easy to differentiate me from my brothers and say, well, you're not like them. Well, why is that a bad thing? They're just guys. And, yeah, a lot of it kind of focused around this idea that because my sisters had all left and gone off to university, my two brothers were in the area, still had some friends in church but weren't active, that it all kind of fell on me. It's like. And as well, when it comes to lines of authority and things like that my uncle ordained me. And so the idea of this Still Go line of authority had to continue. I mean, we're big into our family history, so the Still Go name was quite like an important thing to us. And so the idea that my children will be the only Still Go children left in the church and all that sort of stuff, it's just, it all heaps on to that pressure to remain faithful and to remain within the church.

John Dehlin [00:57:09] Yeah, that makes sense. So would you characterize those mid teen years as extra devout or as questioning and shaky?

Douglas Stilgoe [00:57:21] Extra devout, I would say. I mean, I had that one question that sat in the back of my mind, but I was taught things like by my bishop at the time, he taught me things like he taught me principles of filling your shelf. So if you don't understand something yet, that's fine, you can just put it to one side and build up your base knowledge first and then come back to it and you'll understand it better. And you know, I used, because I used to ask difficult questions, but in my head it wasn't coming from a point of trying to prove the church wrong. It wasn't trying to, you know, disprove the Church. It wasn't trying to put Joseph Smith down. I was asking the difficult questions, particularly in seminary and places like that, because I thought I need to arm myself, I need to be really, really switched on because I've seen members of my family leave. I see my dad leave. I have been told repeatedly not to let what happened to my dad happen to me. Which even the wording of that negates the idea that it was ever my dad's choice to leave. It was like, well, that happened to him. He was deceived. It's not that he chose. So I'd had all that narrative pushed onto me. And so in seminary I was ultra like, I had 100% attendance at seminary. I used to get up every morning, cycle to the chapel and sit in that room and ask tough questions. I remember debating with someone whether the Book of Mormon took place in Panama or whether it took place up near the hill, Cumorah. We were asking all sorts of dodgy, dodgy questions. We had a teacher that was very like, oh well, you can only go to lds.org for your info. And we're like, yeah, of course, of course, but I'm sure we'll find it somewhere. And yeah, we used to have some real, real debates. One of my, I mean my best friend at the time, he was also very into his scriptures. So we would, you Know, debate, things about the scriptures. We were really not afraid because there was pride, which is ironic, but there was a pride in, you know, oh, well, we won't get deceived. If we can work all this stuff out, then we'll, we will have cracked it and we'll be impenetrable. You know, the armor of God for us was asking the tough questions of people.

John Dehlin [00:59:32] So you don't, you don't call it high school. Right. You call it secondary, or what do you call. Yeah, secondary.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:59:37] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] Okay, so tell me the years of your secondary education.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:59:42] Okay, so we start the window. So we start secondary education at the age of 11 or.

John Dehlin [00:59:48] No, no, I mean for the years.

Douglas Stilgoe [00:59:51] The years for me, okay, 2008, I started secondary school. That was the same year my nephew was born. My first nephew. So I became an uncle at the age of 11. And then it goes through to. It was 2013, I left. So it's five years of secondary school and then you do a further two years of post secondary education. So until you're 18. So that's sixth form here or a college of some kind.

John Dehlin [01:00:18] So your. Those last two years would have been

Douglas Stilgoe [01:00:20] what years they, they will have been. Well, actually ended up doing three, which is my fault. So his last three years were 2013-14, 14 to 15, and 15 to 16.

John Dehlin [01:00:32] Okay. So those. So obviously I, I have to ask this. So the Mormon Internet, you know, really takes off in 2004. Then my 2005 Mormon story starts. And then, you know, you, you see Mormon think emerge, and then, you know, other podcasts, like Mormon expressions come out, and then Infants on Thrones comes out by 2012. And then, and then what you see, you see the CES letter come out. Let's just say 2013, 2014, along with the gospel topics essays. And then you've got, you know, Kelly's excommunication 2014, and then mine in 15. What I'm curious about is, you know, you're a youth, you probably have a smartphone at what year? By what year?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:01:18] Oh, where did I get my first smartphone? Probably like the end of school, the beginning of, of college. So like 2013, 14.

John Dehlin [01:01:27] Okay. Around the time that the Internet, the Mormon Internet's like, really blowing up. By the time Tom Phillips is literally, his podcast is being shared on Mormon stories. By the time that CES letters starting to go, you know, viral, you're getting a phone and you're of this up and coming young Internet savvy generation. Yeah. So I'm wondering to what extent any of that made its way to your consciousness or your peers, either as a dangerous threat or as. Or as something interesting or tempting or. Or just. You never heard about any of that.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:02:04] Yeah, so they, they got me good, right. They got me good for Internet filters and not looking for anti church material.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] Well, who's putting filters on? What do you mean?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:02:15] Like anti porn filters? You know, like you're a young teenage lad, you can use a laptop, but only if Internet access is restricted, that sort of thing. Right. So that, that exists. So I'm already like, aware that the Internet's this really place to be wary of. So I'm not searching the Internet. Kate Kelly did. Did enter my consciousness through my sister, because my sister, one of my sisters, is, I would say, quite a feminist, quite a strong kind of female character. She, you know, is kind of that way inclined. So she was bringing up questions, things like, well, why shouldn't women have the priesthood? Or something like asking questions about it. I was there, proud as anything, giving her answers. But that's the only one that really kind of made its way to me because I'd been taught the Internet was such a thing not to explore, you know, for context. I had a Facebook account. I didn't have Twitter. I didn't have any of the other kind of major social media platforms. I only discovered Reddit's existence at university. So that's 2017 onwards. I sheltered is the word, I think, to be honest, from the kind of the storms of the Internet. I wasn't aware of, I'm ashamed to say, of Mormon stories until earlier this year, nor Tom Phillips podcast, nor the CES letter. So those things completely sailed me by. Because they, you know, they managed to convince me that the Internet's full of mean, scary people.

John Dehlin [01:03:52] And we never want to call the Mormon Church a cult, but we do, we do try to understand unhealthy organizations through the bite model, which Stephen Hasen taught us, which is behavior information. You know, what cults do is they control your behavior, they control the information you receive, so they can control your thoughts and then they manipulate you through emotion. So what this shows is how heavy the Mormon Church limits culturally the information. Even though you've got access to the Internet, you've got a phone, in theory, you could learn stuff.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:04:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:29] And the truth is, Fawn Brody from Fonz Brody's book has been out since 1945. One of our listeners just mentioned Roughstone Rolling comes out in 2005. Like, it's not like there aren't books or ways you can learn stuff you're saying that you didn't stumble on a lot of this stuff until a year ago, which would have been 2019.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:04:50] Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, my.

John Dehlin [01:04:53] So powerful, right?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:04:54] My. Yeah, my dad, to his credit, and I've spoken to him about this since, he said he never sought to lead any of us out. He never wanted to give us any information. He said if we asked him questions, he would answer it. But, you know, he wasn't gonna, you know, throw stuff at us. And so because I was and I was, I was hyper kind of into this idea of being righteous, following the party line, doing the right thing. And the right thing is to only go to church materials. My seminary teacher like drilled that into us. LDS.org or church magazines are where information about church comes from. Why would you go anywhere else? I mean I, at college even, I did a course on critical thinking. So we, we did, we took critical thinking education. So we were given pieces of writing. We were told to look for biases. We were told to look for this and that. And that didn't mesh with my views of the church. I was like, yeah, but the church is different because the church got God involved. Therefore we've got ultimate answers. So we don't need to look at biases. It's bizarre thinking back on it, but that's the way things were.

John Dehlin [01:06:09] And let me just ask you. There's a lot of people I interact with who are either in a mixed faith home where they're the non believing parent paired with a believing parent and then they've got kids that they're trying to decide do I tell my kids about the problems with the church or not? Because they want to do the most productive and healthy thing for the kid, but also for the relationship and also what's going to be most effective versus creating the backfire effect where the kid doubled down or there are divorced parents with kids and there's a believing parent and non believing parent and the non believing parents often come to me and ask do I need to sit my kids down and tell them the church isn't true or not? As a kid of a believing and a non believing parent who went through that, are you a super grateful that your dad didn't tell you any of that stuff because you wouldn't have liked it or it would have hurt your relationship or it would have made you double down? Or are you super bummed that you didn't find out earlier so that you could have maybe made different decisions or something in between? What? What from your perspective, what, what Advice would you give to a non believing parent through the lens of your experience with your parent?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:07:24] Okay. I mean, so. So from my point of view, particularly with my anxiety, you know, being open, honest here, I struggled to go to school. I ended up with separation anxiety after my parents divorced. I couldn't leave my mum because I was convinced in my mind that if I came home from school, she would not be there, she would just be gone. I was convinced of that as a fact for a long time. And I had help. And this is where I said the church did good things for me. The church sent me to a non LDS therapist to help me with my anxiety and it worked.

John Dehlin [01:08:01] So.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:08:01] So I mean it didn't get rid of all of it, but it certainly helped me be able to go to school. So credit to the bishop involved who did that, Bishop Jones. He was a very compassionate, very kind man who saw a way he could help and did. But I think then through my lens, the fact that I was living with my mum, not my dad, and my mum was so devout and I was so attached to my mom, moment of time. I mean, not that I'm not now, like I love my mum, but you know, at the time I was had that particular need, I couldn't go away for sleepovers still to other people's houses. Like I was struggling with that. And so if my dad had then thrown us around to the works and given me information that I couldn't ignore, that said, right, yeah, the church isn't true. I would make things really difficult because I wasn't in an emotional place to go live with my dad. So I couldn't get out of an environment where the church was the predominant school of thought. But at the same time I was then, do you know what I mean? I'm in an environment where I'm not learning the truth. And it's not my mum is purposefully deceiving me at all because my mum's just teaching me what she believes. It's not her fault that she hasn't been told the truth by church leadership and by the church materials. You know, see the peep stone in the hatlights, the perfect example. So if my dad had given me this information, I think it would have kind of nuked a lot of things in my life. It would have made things unstable. Now some kids are more emotionally stable than that, so they possibly could deal with it. I think it depends on the child rather than the parents involved. I think to be honest, it really depends on the child and what the child's situation is as to whether you can tell them in good conscience the information you've discovered upon leaving the church.

John Dehlin [01:09:52] So for you, you feel like it was the most effective thing for your dad to just let you live your life and figure things out for yourself. It didn't estrange your relationship with him. It probably didn't hurt your mental health. It didn't drive a wedge between him and your mom or you and your mom. And it allowed you to have your own journey.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:10:12] Yeah, but, I mean, my relationship. My dad was strained by this, but for different reasons. And I think he was smart enough, I think, to let it happen and to just keep being a good person towards me, keep being loving towards me, keep helping me, because I think he knew, and he says he knew, but, you know, hindsight is 20 20. He says he knew that I would work it out eventually. Not that he would ever force me to, but that I was a curious enough individual, that curiosity would eventually get the better of me, and I would find these things and. And I would certainly. He certainly always knew I would come to a point where I'd be asking questions. I mean, when I eventually called him, I was like, dad, I'm really struggling with church. He was like, yeah, I thought we'd have this conversation at some point, so. And again, even then, he didn't try and convince me in church was untrue. He just listened. So, you know, I think he did the right thing, even though it put a strain on our relationship in different ways. You know, like I said, my. My. I had to attend my dad's wedding to a woman who he wouldn't be eternally sealed to, in my view at the time, who was effectively destroying the idea that our family would ever be together forever again. Because in the afterlife. Because God will all sort it out in the afterlife. Right? Well, if my dad really wants to be with this new woman that he's married to, then that means that our little family isn't gonna be together forever, you know? And I've since learned that the doctrine is, well, my mum will get assigned to another man. And, you know how comfortable she is with that. I don't know. But, yeah, that was Joseph Fielding Smith, I'm pretty sure. So, yeah, my. My dad did, I think, the right thing. He allowed the relationship to take the strain. I feel bad for him because he was caught in a rock and a hard place. He was caught between his new wife and his zealous son who was, like, really lashing out against it, being like, no, this isn't Right. You know, you're meant to be with my mum because God said so.

Blended Family, Stepmom, and Eternal Family Tensions

John Dehlin [01:12:04] Was it hard to not resent your stepmom for, for like, as a kid, it probably had nothing to do with it, but like breaking up your eternal family or stepping in, you know, I don't know how to describe it on your end.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:12:18] Step parents are always difficult. Right. Step parents are not an easy thing, regardless. So when you've got mixed faith, because she's not a believer, obviously when you've got mixed faith in the, in the way this idea that she is effectively, yeah, like I said, blocking an eternal family, that. That creates resentment, that creates unfair. From my end behavior towards her, which, you know, I apologize for. I can publicly apologize for now. You know, I'm really sorry that I acted that way. Yeah, I've apologized to her privately. But it doesn't hurt to say it again because the church creates a place where you're really intolerant of other people. You're really intolerant of people who don't fit into your worldview. And she didn't. And so I let that intolerance out on her. Unfairly.

John Dehlin [01:13:11] One of our listeners writes. Red writes, brave young man for coming on and sharing his story. I agree. This is really, really courageous of you to share such vulnerable personal things in such a thoughtful way, in a compassionate way, because silence is the killer. Silence is what keeps the bubble from popping. Silence is what keeps people in prisons, prisons of their own mental making. And speaking up is the way that awareness, it's the, it's pretty much the only way awareness gets built.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:13:52] Yeah. If some, if some young person listens to this and thinks, I've been treating my step parent like that, maybe this is why, then that will be the first step to them, hopefully repairing that relationship. Because I, my, My stepmother adores my father. She is besotted with him. That is a wonderful thing to see. And I can appreciate that now. I can appreciate just how much she appreciates him. And because I love my dad, why wouldn't I want someone else to love him? But, but you're blinded by that intolerance that I was talking about. And, you know, this was just the case for me. It might not be the case for everyone else. Other people may be able to have a different view of it, but it's certainly how I felt. And I'm sure I'm not the only person that's done that to someone.

John Dehlin [01:14:41] A couple of my favorite humans have commented, so I'm going to share.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:14:45] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:14:45] Martine writes some of Us parents of adult children are the unbelievers, the ones who taught our children those things. And our kids mid-40s don't understand how someone as strong as we were can leave and deny what we taught them. That's another really valuable perspective. Thanks Martine. We love you Also. My dear friend Kristen writes, as a child growing up in a mixed faith home, my non believing parent tried to share his concerns and was open about his feelings. He always was supportive of my journey, BYU mission and temple marriage. Our relationship was a bit disconnected because I always viewed him as not experiencing a fullness of joy caught up in pride. I'm glad he was authentic. So she's saying she's glad he was authentic. It modeled for me to live my truth, even if it isn't popular or acceptable. I regret my attitude against my dad's disbelief so much. Thank you Kristen. We love you.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:15:44] My dad was never inauthentic. You know, if I asked him he'd tell me. But I was taught not to ask. You don't ask a non believer what they think of the church. And you know, he said to me, since you know, if you'd ever asked me. And I did. Sometimes I think when I was a mid teenager I said right, I want to know. Because like I said at the beginning, as a six year old you don't necessarily understand what's happened when two adults have divorced. So I sat down and chatted to both my parents and was like, right, what happened dad? Why did you stop believing in the church? Tell me what it is. I felt strong enough that I could hear it at that point. And so he told me his reasons. I obviously didn't think they were good enough reasons and so I tried to convince him otherwise but he was open and honest. But he waited for me to ask him why. If that clears that up a bit.

John Dehlin [01:16:39] Yeah, that's great. One more comment on our YouTube stream Person of Interest writes. I salute you Douglas. As a well meaning stepmother myself, I was rejected by my LDS husband's children. It caused so much pain.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:16:56] Yeah, it's really sad and I regret it. I don't regret many things about my upbringing in the church because it did do some good things for me but. But that time lost where I could have been having a good relationship with my dad and his wife. One of the things I do, I do wish I could get back.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] It's so ironic because the church just pounds into our heads that it's so family oriented. It's so families, families are the most important thing and yet There are these instances where the church just completely eviscerates families.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:17:27] Yeah. I mean, we'll get into some more of that later.

John Dehlin [01:17:29] Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:17:31] So.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] So I just have a couple cool questions. Let's continue on your journey and maybe you're going to get to this. So if you're going to get to it, you can just say, we'll get to that. But I want to know whether you. You. So when I was. When my mom married her third husband and got sealed to him and she had to file for a cancellation of sealing, that was a real moment of cognitive dissonance for me because my. My eternal family kind of was getting erased. And even before then, just as a kid, you're singing in primary, families can be together forever and yours is broken up. Yeah. Was that. Was the theological implication of your family not being eternal, but then hearing that all the time at church, was that a source of cognitive dissonance for you?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:18:26] Yeah, it was. I mean, that's good that we haven't skipped past my teenage years yet and my primary years. In fact, we can go back to those because, yeah, standing on the stand and saying, daddy, I love you. It's not like I didn't love my dad, but everyone else's dad was there to watch them. You know, I think I was one of maybe one or two youth in my ward that didn't have a dad. Young men, wise. So as common as it kind of can be in the uk, it wasn't very common in my ward, the dissonance. I mean, I saw how much it upset my mum, obviously, because my mum absolutely loves us children. You know, she. She adores us and. And I love her for it. And she. Throughout the lockdown, she's been the one pushing for. Let's do this games night. Let's do that games night. She really wants us all to be together. And so I could see that it upset my mum as well. The idea that, you know, my. That her ideal, the ideal that she was sold as a young woman hasn't come to pass. And I can't really speak for her, but I could definitely see that she wasn't happy with that. And, you know, the. The idea that families can be together forever is really. Is really pervasive. Like you said, we sing songs about it as primary children and my family wasn't. And, yeah, I don't think you can ever state the disconnect that that would cause, because you're taught one thing and you see another in front of you and you have to kind of Reconcile that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:12] I'm also curious. And again, if you're going to talk about this later, feel free to delay it, but. And I don't want to. You know, I mentioned this in almost every interview only because it's such a common and life altering theme in the lives of so many Mormon adolescents. Is there anything you have to share or want to share about the church's teachings around law of chastity and masturbation and pornography that's important or relevant to your story? No pressure. This, you know, if there's anything you want to share or to share at all.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:20:49] Okay. So, um, I will. I mean, for brevity and also, I suppose, for keeping it clean. I'm a. I was a teenage boy. And so you discover the way your body works. I mean, any teenage boy that tries to tell you they haven't is lying to you or like something's missing. So, you know, that is kind of a natural thing. And I can see that now. But at the time, you know, there's a lot of shame around it, I was sent to 12 step programs to kind of go through all that. And I really bought into those 12 step programs. Like, I ended up being a meeting facilitator at one point because I was like, yeah, I'm doing so well, I can help others. You know, I. Everything that I did around the church, if I like bought into it, I threw myself at it. And I was like, I'm going to be good at this. I'm going to be righteous. I'm going to be an example to other people. So, yeah, I was, I was taught some quite unhealthy things as well, but I don't think I should probably go into that. But yeah, certain things that I was taught about kind of pornography and masturbation probably weren't the healthiest for my sexual development. But that can happen, obviously to most men in the church.

John Dehlin [01:22:09] Yeah, just it's, it's interesting to know if that's just a us thing or if that's.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:22:14] Oh, no, it's definitely over here. Definitely over here. Okay.

Youth, Dating, and LDS Social Life in the UK

John Dehlin [01:22:17] And would you say you were you. So you did say you were harmed by, by that?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:22:21] Oh, yeah. So, I mean, how do you put it? I was, I was given as a. As a gift, pre marriage. Is it Laura Brotherson's book? And they were not ashamed. Is that the one?

John Dehlin [01:22:35] Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:22:36] Yeah. And to be fair to her, like, I guess she's coming from a church perspective, but it's a useful book, you know, because as she puts it. People being told to go from thou shalt not to thou shalt and enjoy it is a difficult thing for anyone. And, you know, having that sort of resource credit to her is something that I think more Mormons need because it does help put things in a slightly healthier way than we're taught mainstream at church. I think that's a, that's a good book as far as it's helped me. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:10] Thanks for, thanks for sharing. All right, where does your story pick up? Let's keep going.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:23:15] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:16] So thank you, Douglas.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:23:18] I suppose we're around kind of YSA late youth sort of time. Yeah, I suppose. I think we've done most of that. So for the American audience, I went in YSA particularly. We used to go to dances all over the country. So I was based in the Midlands, so the middle of country, so I was able to go to. I mean, you can look at this on a map if you want, but I went from Coventry to York, then Coventry, down to Reading. Sometimes I went from Coventry to Cardiff to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. So it's a different country. So we had to cross a border. You know, I used to get in a car at six o' clock in the afternoon with friends. We would drive to a chapel somewhere where there would be a couple of hundred ysa, not that many, if that. Sometimes the YSA isn't massive. And you would go and you would dance and you would try and meet someone and then you would go to McDonald's. Early in the morning, everyone would pile to the nearest McDonald's because the dances had to be over by 11 for noise curfews and things like that. Mormon buildings, obviously, in residential areas a lot of the time. And then we would all kind of hang out and then you'd get back at 2, 3 in the morning back to your part of the country where you, where you, where you live.

John Dehlin [01:24:40] Do you have super fond memories of those? And why say dances?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:24:46] Yeah, mainly because I have no inhibitions when it comes to dancing. I don't think I'm a person that would need alcohol to have a good time, to be honest. I, I had a great time dancing. I, I didn't take the whole dating thing super seriously because, you know, it was pre mission, all this sort of stuff. And if I hadn't met my wife when I did, then, you know, it's only because she kind of like bowled me over that I was like, okay, right, I'm gonna pay attention to her. She's cool. Other than that, I was just there to have a dance and enjoy time with my friends, because, you know, drinking is evil. So you've got to have a good time with people that share that value, you know, according to the way I grew up. So.

John Dehlin [01:25:22] Really?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:25:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:24] Okay. That's. That's fun. You had those memories. Because I did too. And that's. For me, one of the best parts of Mormonism was just dances and fun with youth, you know?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:25:33] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:25:35] It's a huge asset for the church. That's still just to say, post Mormonism or secular society hasn't figured out how to do.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:25:44] And then. But I think that links in and we'll just. We'll just touch on kind of my married life briefly. But that links in to the idea that then the church abandons newlyweds. Like, outside of the US There is no young marriage wards. There is no. Like, all of a sudden we find ourselves in this void. You had all this social stuff as a YSA because they were so focused on getting you to find a partner. So you were like, I remember when I was living in Manchester, I helped organize Manchester Convention. I threw myself into it. I taught lessons there. I went to other conventions. I helped with those. Coventry Convention. We were trying to get a name for it. These kind of overnight conventions. They were a real big part of my social life. And then you get married and all of a sudden that's it, just. You're dropped. The church social structure just drops you. At least here in the uk, that was definitely my experience, which is crazy. And the church needs to work on that, I think. Because I think, honestly, that's one of the things that probably led me to starting to explore whether the church was there for me. Because I thought, well, hang on, they provided all these things for me growing up. But then all of a sudden, once I'm an adult, I'm just expected to kind of like, I don't know, get on with it. It's hard to explain, really.

John Dehlin [01:27:01] I guess. I guess it's. I wonder if it's just that the church is kind of thinking, if we can just get them on missions and then get him married immediately, they'll be so busy with their jobs and kids and church service that we don't need to provide them with social interactions once. Once they've served their mission and gotten married, perhaps.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:27:22] And maybe the idea that you have kids as quick as possible, which we didn't do. So we've been married two years, we don't have children, which, you know, it's unheard of in some places. So we were missing that as a couple who were like, where is, where are our people now? Because you know, our friends that did get married then got pregnant and we're like, right, where are our people? Where are our people to hang out with? It's just an interesting aside.

John Dehlin [01:27:51] Yeah. But your mission was a pretty formative part of your Mormon experience, is that right?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:27:57] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:59] That doesn't mean we need to skip to your mission.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:28:00] Yeah, yeah, it absolutely was. And. And again, the kindness shown to me in organizing a mission in such a way that I could serve kind of if I was, if I was, and I don't know if I was, but if I was starting to slip out, threw me right back in. So I think.

John Dehlin [01:28:16] So take it, take us back to what led up to the mission and okay, yeah, let's not skip your story.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:28:20] I just do that.

John Dehlin [01:28:22] Yeah, you got to marriage and I didn't want to skip your mission. So.

Meeting His Wife at the Bristol Convention

Douglas Stilgoe [01:28:25] Yeah, no, so I mean, I should talk really about how I met my wife briefly. There's a national convention in the UK, Bristol Convention, which has the grand number of about 500 attendants, which is mind blowing here. And I met my wife there 2016. And yeah, I kind of, I asked her out on a date. We went on dates and we dated a long time in Mormon terms.

John Dehlin [01:28:55] So this is like a. More. This is like a Mormon big event, like an area youth kind of event.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:29:02] So. So do you have conventions in, in Utah, Like YSA conventions? Are there a thing or.

John Dehlin [01:29:07] I, I've never heard of them.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:29:09] Oh, okay, right. I can, I can run through what those are then.

John Dehlin [01:29:11] Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:29:12] So YSA convention, a lot of stakes will put them on out of their own budget. But Bristol is the only one that gets like national level funding sort of thing. It's the only one that's officially a national convention. The others are all kind of like small ones. So Coventry convention was just getting started when I entered ysa. So that was my home stakes convention. They're doing it at a stake level and what happens is they usually run from a Friday through to a Sunday afternoon. So Friday night dance and then members very graciously give up their homes for YSA to sleep in and put out mattresses and pillows and all this sort of stuff. And then the members will, the YSA will go to those members homes on a curfew because, you know, not to be rude, then they'll come back Saturday and Saturday will be activities. So the commentary convention I was involved with, we did, we had a fairy tale theme. So I remember getting some Office chairs, some wooden shields, and some baguettes. And we did baguette jousting where we kind of, like, shoved each other down this. This part of the cultural hall, and we're like, jousting with baguettes. We did, like, line dancing. We did all sorts of kind of. We basically took youth and extended it through to YSA in, I guess, in some ways. Then there would be, like, a devotional. There would be lessons. And then on the Sunday, we'd rent out a school or use the stake center, depending where you were. And we would have church for ysa and, you know, you would have Sunday school lessons that people kind of going around, robbing around. Then there would always be a testimony meeting where people would cry and, you know, say how much they love the weekend. And I don't say that with derision, really, because, you know, people do get emotional about these things, and that is fine. But it is just kind of a bit of a trope that people tend to get a bit teary at the end of these. But people have a great weekend. People have a great weekend in company of friends. They're, you know, catered for. Yeah, it's great. It's really good.

John Dehlin [01:31:11] So. So what that's reminding me of in the United States is either youth conferences. So at a stake level and sometimes more, we. We would rent out a university dorm during the summer. All the youth would travel there and have lessons and activities. And then. And then a testimony at the end where everybody cries and you feel the spirit, which is really emotions, but you're told it's the spirit. And then I think EFY is also an analog a bit in the States, where all these youth go to a campus at, you know, UNC Universe of North Carolina or BYU or wherever, and they have these big youth events for a weekend sort of thing.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:31:58] Yeah. So it is very similar, but we do also have EFY here. So. Okay, one. But it's like. So it's done in missions. So the Birmingham Mission, which was the mission I was in, extended out into Wales. The mission areas here are quite big. And everyone from within that mission would go to Nottingham Trent University. We'd stay in the campus there and go. And again, like. So my first fy, I was really struggling with being away from home and that sort of stuff. And the compassion and love I was shown was amazing by. I was given an individual counselor who, like, was there to kind of support me if I was feeling upset, if I was missing home, that sort of thing. It was. It was really, really. I Was well looked after. And again, I want to make it clear I can't really fault a lot of the people I've met in the church. I can't fault them. I'm not here to fault them because as individuals they showed me levels of kindness and compassion that are, you know, really wonderful to receive. So, yeah, we did have EFY and actually at my second one, because they run every two years here. At my second one, I was in the same company as my wife, so the same grouping, but didn't realize that's a fun, fun fact.

John Dehlin [01:33:05] Oh, so you guys, you guys made that connection later.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:33:10] Yes. Yeah. And then we looked back and thought, hang on, I have met you before.

John Dehlin [01:33:15] Yeah,

Douglas Stilgoe [01:33:17] it was quite funny. And they had talent shows there and all this. So stuff.

John Dehlin [01:33:21] Oh, fun. Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:33:22] So, yeah, so YSA kind of was an extension of that. We were trying to almost keep that spirit alive of going away. And the people from all over the country would come, they would descend on a stake and I mean, whales do a very interesting one called Teardraig, which is like, it's like a festival, effectively. Like they get a stage up in a field. There's a campsite owned by members and they get a stage up in a field and play music from it. And people are throwing powder, paint everywhere, and then they all go down to the beach for testimony meeting. And it's like making the best out of, you know, being in a culture where you can't drink. They're having a wonderfully good time, all things considered. You know, everyone else looks at us like we're crazy because we're having a great time and everyone's sober.

John Dehlin [01:34:11] Yeah. That's fun. Good clean, Mormon fun. Right?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:34:13] Yeah, well, I mean, there's a big drinking culture in the uk, to be fair and all that. Yeah. But even beyond that, unfortunately, we're known a bit for binge drinking British, you know, 18, 19, 20 year olds stumbling out of nightclubs, having over drank massively. It's a, it's an uncommon, it's. It's not uncommon scene, unfortunately.

John Dehlin [01:34:35] Sure, yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:34:36] So they look at us like we're weird and we've got a third head or something. Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:34:41] So you meet your, you meet your future wife.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:34:45] Yeah, so I. It was, yeah, it was, it was a really fun convention and they had a talent show on the Monday because this one ran extra long because it was always done on the bank holiday weekend. So in Britain you have bank holidays, there's about seven of them a year, which is a Monday where the banks are closed. And people are off work. So the Bristol one was always done on that bank holiday of the April to May bank holiday. So went there. And on the Monday, I was a talent show. So I got up there, played a song on my guitar, sang a little bit. And apparently, according to my wife, that's when she was like, ah, okay, this guy's cool song.

John Dehlin [01:35:23] What song was it?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:35:24] Oh, I. I played a song by a. By a small British artist called Ben Howard, who's a little singer songwriter from Devon Way. So. And he plays the guitar lying across his lap and kind of taps it and stuff. So I learned to do that because I thought it'd be more interesting than just strumming. So, yeah, I did that.

John Dehlin [01:35:46] Fun. Super fun.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:35:47] And so then we went on a date, and we went on several dates throughout the summer. And then that kind of September, October of 2016 was when I then really kind of took taking going on mission seriously. So we can jump in on that if you like.

John Dehlin [01:36:05] Yeah. So are you, and I don't mean to read into this more than you're basically saying, but are you kind of saying that, you know, meeting a righteous young girl, Mormon girl, maybe, provides a little bit of an extra motivation to be faithful and serve a mission and that sort of thing?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:36:23] I mean, so I'd always wanted to serve a mission and I was. I was kind of negligent of meeting a girl, if that makes sense. I was, I was not really interested in, to, in. In dating particularly. I dated a few girls, but not seriously. But then, you know, I attributed my success with the 12 steps program to now being in a really good place and blah, blah, blah. So I could then, you know, oh, this person's been put in front of me, so maybe they're a person worth paying attention to, yada, yada, yada. And we got on like a house on fire. And we still do. But I don't think she was a driving force towards my mission particularly. I think I was always gonna try and go down that route.

John Dehlin [01:37:09] Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:37:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:11] Okay. You started thinking about a mission.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:37:13] Mm. And so I don't know if they do mini missions in the States, but like here, they would send prospective missionaries off with a couple of missionaries for a weekend to kind of get that idea of the missionary life. I tried to do two of those. Both times cried and refused to leave the house because the anxiety was too much. So the idea of living under missionary rules away from my family like that, Even as a 18 year old, I was 19 at that point. Even as a 19 year old that was just a bit too much. My anxiety generally was okay, but that was. Yeah, it was a bit too much for me. So my stake president, who is. He's still my state president now, he is a wonderful man. He is a doctor by training, so he's a medical doctor. And he recognized the way in which anxiety would affect me and where it was stemming from. And I had long conversations with him. He got in touch with the area presidency and basically said, we need an opportunity for this young man to serve in a capacity where he can still speak with his family if he needs to. He's still got his support network around him, which is very different to this idea that, you know, in a traditional mission, you're almost cut off from your support network. The church becomes your support network. You almost become dependent on them. That was taken away from me and I think to my benefit ultimately, because I wasn't in that bubble where I had only the church. I could pick up the phone and call my mum, I could pick up the phone and call Alex, my then girlfriend. I could talk to people if I needed to. And I think that was a real blessing for me personally. So he got a sign off from the area presidency. And at the time, the London Temple was. Was really struggling for workers. The London Temple is a big temple. It's built in the 50s, so it's one of the first kind of few temples. It's like number 11 or 12 or something like that. It's quite early on. And it's got kind of clothing rental, it's got a distribution center, it's got accommodation, it's got 32 acres of grounds set in the wonderful English countryside. It is a beautiful place and, you know, it takes a lot of people to run and it's quite reliant on American missionaries coming over. And so they'd sent out a plea to people to say, you know, can you come down and be temple workers, like for the weekend, retired people, can you come do this? I know people in my home ward, for example, that spend a couple of weeks at temple, then come home for a couple of weeks, and that's their assignment. So they said, right, well, here's a spiritually mature young man who can cope with the temple and what it teaches us. So let's send him down there and let's send him to live with his uncle at first, so he has some support. Because my uncle, the one that everyone seems to know, was on the state presidency at the time, living within the stake that the temple is in. So within the Crawley Stake. And so I lived with him. And the funny thing about that was that he lived about half an hour drive from the temple. I couldn't drive, so I went and did my mandatory road training for a moped. And I was a missionary riding a moped. Yeah, that happened. That's how different my mission was. I tell people that, and it blows their mind. Like, you were allowed to ride a motorcycle. Yeah, that's what I did.

John Dehlin [01:40:51] You know, I just. I just have to say, and. And on Mormon stories, I always want to try and be as compassionate and as fair as I can. Like, two things that are just so really stick out for me about what you just described was, number one, how much. And I've never. I don't think I've ever heard of this, how much your leadership, your stake leadership, was intent on accommodating you and providing you with the best experience they could through flexibility. And then just like the goodness of these everyday Mormons or sometimes. And sometimes, often Mormon leaders that are just people who live to do good and to do kindness and to make the world a better place and to improve lives. Like, I don't ever want that to leave. This podcast is just how fundamentally good you could say the Mormon people are or can be, or you could just say humans can be.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:41:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:57] But those are just two things that really stick out about your experience that are kind of really inspiring.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:42:02] I'm convinced that my state president, were he a. You know, were he a minister at Church of England or a Baptist church, he would be the same person. I don't think it's being a Mormon that's made him like this. I. I think he's just a really kind, caring person. You know, you don't go into the medical profession unless you care about people, really, you know. Yeah. I can't fault some of the leaders I had growing up. I really can't. I can't fault them for the sincerity of their love towards the people under their stewardship. You know, young men's camps, my state, your men's leader, what a wonderful guy he is, and he was at the time. I had a broken leg on one young men's camp, and he still told me I need to come along. I slept in a hut rather than a tent so that I could keep my leg elevated, and young men were assigned to push me around in my wheelchair and stuff like this. I was included at every step of my journey in the church and reached out to. With love from people. And so, yeah, big shout out to President Maxwell, my state president. Who was at the time. I think he deserves to be named because I. I can't say a bad word about him. So.

John Dehlin [01:43:07] So beautiful. So inspiring. Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:43:10] So, yeah, I. I accepted the call to go to the temple. My dad, this is where he kind of steps up again. And he's always been a motorbike rider, so he rode with me from my home in the Midlands down to the London Temple, which is south of London. So we rode through the center of London on motorbikes together. We. Yeah, we did that journey. It took a long time. We didn't get there till late in the evening. It was. Yeah, that's. It's a good two and a half hour car journey. So it took us four or five hours because of how slow my kind of moped was. So he did that for me and then he took me to my first day at the temple. He. We rode into the temple grounds together and I walked up the steps and he kind of waved goodbye to me, knowing that I would be settling in at my uncle's house and I'd be with family and I'd be looked after. So.

John Dehlin [01:44:04] Okay. And that is super inspiring that your dad, instead of like, oh, my son's being ruined and, oh, I hate the church and it's wrecked our lives and I'm not going to support you. He's just basically saying, I love my son. What my son wants to do.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:44:20] Him and my mom.

John Dehlin [01:44:21] I'm gonna support my son.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:44:24] Yeah. Him and my mother equally active in or equally as supportive in my church activity. You know, you would expect one parent to support it more than the other? No, my dad. And the more we talk about it, the more I realize just how difficult that might have been for him at times, you know, but he did it anyway because that's in his mind. And, you know, I think it's the right thing. That's what a father does. So, yeah, he got stuck in.

John Dehlin [01:44:49] I wanna. I wanna meet your stake president. I wanna meet your dad and your mom someday.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:44:53] Yeah, one day when all this is over.

John Dehlin [01:44:56] When all this is over.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:44:57] Yeah. Yeah. So I. I guess I can't be. Yeah, I can't be fussy about. People would say, oh, do you regret being born into the church? No, because I think that's secondary to the parents I was born to. And I think I couldn't have been born to better parents, so I can't be fussy. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:16] That's great. That's. That's inspiring.

Preparing for and Serving a Temple Mission

Douglas Stilgoe [01:45:19] So temple mission, I mean, that caused a bit of grief because some People thought, well, it's not a real mission. You're not really doing a proper mission. You know, not like I did. But I mean, as we've seen recently, the rules change so much that, particularly now around communication with families. If the state of communication with families had been what it is now, when I was going to go on a mission, I might have been out to do a two year proselyte admission because it's so different. I was applying to go on a mission where you got to email home once a week and then call home twice a year. Those were the rules when I was considering it. Not. Oh, and I got told I only had to go for three months. That's the other thing they said you can go for three months and then you can choose to extend it longer if you're happy and comfortable. But all we expect to do is three months service. So that was the, that was the, the thing I had to meet, the challenge I had to meet. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:14] And if you can, and if you can only do three months, you, that's an honorable mission. And if you can do more than three months, then that's cake. Like for so long it was so binary. You either served the full two years and were honorable or something short of that or you couldn't go or something short of that, you're a failure. So that's, that does represent how the church has actually gotten better over time. You were allowed that.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:46:41] Yeah. But then I think, you know, it's, it's props to the area president and the state president for giving it the go ahead, you know, and they kind of were piloting me in it. They were looking at it for other people at the time. They were like, well, we'll just, we'll see how this gets on. So yeah, I was set apart as a temple ordinance worker and so I spent shift in the London temple. And that's where really I started to doubt the church for the first time, to be honest.

John Dehlin [01:47:06] Oh no, wait a minute, wait. After all this amazing, inspiring efforts from your bishop and stake president, your dad, and you're serving that faithful mission. That's not. And you get accommodated and you're serving in the Lord's holy house.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:47:22] How ungrateful am I?

John Dehlin [01:47:24] That's not how this story is supposed to go.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:47:26] No, totally not. But I. So a couple of things happened on my mission. So I was. They have, and just for people that aren't kind of aware of how the temple runs, they have coordinators for different areas. So they have name issue coordinator for the person that gives out the new names or oversees the giving out of the new names for that day. They have a. They will have baptism coordinator that's usually a man and his wife. They will have, you know, the people that run the sessions. A man and his wife or a man and a woman. So they have different area coordinators and they have what they call an officiator for the ceremony. They wanted to train me as an officiator, and then they realized I couldn't because of physical limitations I had with my shoulder. So I was born with ERBS palsy. So I was damaged when I was born in the left shoulder. So I can't lift it above my head, which for those familiar with the Mormon Temple ceremony means I can't show people how to do some of the ceremony. So I felt like a right failure for that because I thought, oh, well, no, I can't. I can't pull my weight. I can't help people. Why would God send me here to do something I clearly can't do? That was quite a frustrating moment. One that really stuck out to me.

John Dehlin [01:48:44] That'd be hard.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:48:46] And then. But then I was made a name issue coordinator that piled some weight onto my shelf because to realize that every person is getting the same new name that day I was.

John Dehlin [01:49:00] Why was that hard?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:49:02] Because I then all of a sudden realized, well, hang on. All the other men that were there when I took out my own endowment, I'm here thinking, I've got this super special new name. And then all the men sat behind me. Even the person that's taking me through the temple, they all know what my name is. Every other man in that room knows it.

John Dehlin [01:49:20] We have some listeners who have never been Mormon, so just. Or who haven't been through the temple. So just when you go through the Mormon Temple ceremony, it's called the endowment, there's a washings and anointings part where you're kind of washed clean spiritually. It's like a. Like a baptism adult maybe. And then you go through what's called an endowment where you make certain covenants and you're taught certain, we'll call them signs and tokens that supposedly are. Are supposed to allow you to, when you get to heaven, pass through the gates into heaven. And it's all based on the Masonic ceremony. But part of that is you're given literally a new name. And it's this top secret, super special, super sacred new name. It could be Adam, it could be Isaiah, it could be, you know, Joseph, it could be Emma, you know, whatever the new name is. And it's sort of like this spiritual. It can be like this spiritual rebirth as an adult. And just like a patriarchal blessing where a stake patriarch in your teenage years will give you a blessing and tell you very personal things. You're going to serve a mission. You're going to get married in the temple. You're going to have lots of kids. Almost like a fortune teller. This new name that you get in the temple is just this super sacred, like, oh, my gosh, this is so personal. This is the name Heavenly Father is giving me. Like, it. And so now, now tell us why that was hard for you.

Temple Rituals and Masonic Connections

Douglas Stilgoe [01:50:51] Well, because all of a sudden, everyone's got the same name. Like, you're there thinking, right, this can be my special eternal name. And someone else might have it because there's only a finite number of names, but especially because mine's quite an obscure name. It wasn't like Adam or Noah. Like, it's quite an obscure scriptural name. I mean, I told my wife it the other day because I thought, this isn't fair. Because I realized that every other man in the room when I got endowed knows my new name. I know my wife's new name, but she doesn't know mine. Other men are allowed to know the name I go by eternally, but my wife isn't. There's something wrong about that. So I was like, you know what? I'm putting this on a level playing field here. And I just told him my name.

John Dehlin [01:51:28] Yeah, because listeners won't know that because the way it works, the husband. When a couple gets married, the husband brings the wife through the veil. The husband gets to know the wife's name, but the wife isn't supposed to know the husband's name. And that's kind of like the rules, which is one of those kind of sexist, patriarchal things that modern Mormon feminists get mad about.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:51:50] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So. So when I was the coordinator for those, all of a sudden, I would get given the new name for the day on a card, like a laminated piece of card, and keep it, like, probably safeguard it. And then, you know, I would take the people, go through the temple with their little slips, and I would, you know, help take those to the recording office. There's a recording office and temple where all this data gets put onto it onto a big database for church officers to know how the temple's running and how many things have been done this week and figures and what they're like and all that sort of stuff. So I got really involved in the admin of the temple. I've really got to see how it ran. And, you know, I got to see how prayer roll works. So, like, you know, when. When you put someone's name on the prayer roll in the temple, you write the name on a little slip of paper and you pop it in the little box. What happens is that gets emptied into what is effectively a pencil case, and then that gets put on the altar at the appropriate time. It's. It's like seeing how your McDonald's is made. All of a sudden, it loses some of that luster. You're like, ah, okay, this is how my food's made. That's the only way I can think to describe it.

John Dehlin [01:53:01] Yeah, no, in the States, there's. That. There's sort of the analogy of seeing how the sausage gets made, right?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:53:06] Yeah, yeah, perfect.

John Dehlin [01:53:07] Yeah, It's. It's sacred until you, like, look behind the scenes. It's kind of like. One example I can think of is, like, when. When you actually make it into the bishopric in a Mormon ward and you see how callings are made, you think you're. You're raised as a Mormon to think that every calling is sacred and that it's Heavenly Father through the bishop telling you what your next assignment's supposed to be. Then you get into the bishopric, and it's like three dudes sitting around going, well, we need a Sunday school teacher. Sister Jones is available. Let's stick her in. And all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute. This isn't like I thought, right?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:53:45] Yeah. Oh, well, speaking of Sunday School, actually, that's something I'm remiss to mention. I was given callings in the church from quite an early age. So I was put onto the Sunday school presidency at the age of 414 as the secretary. Yeah. Over the next couple of years, I then worked my way up through the ranks, as it were, until I was eventually the Sunday School president. Before I left on my mission, so I would teach Sunday school to adults. So that's the kind of depth to which I was taking the church seriously. I was like, man, I'm gonna teach Sunday school. And really kind of worked hard on that, and that will kind of come into play a bit later. But I thought I ought to mention that I was heavily involved in kind of Sunday school and teaching. And my dad is a teacher by trade, so, yeah, he teaches art at school, so I think that's where that comes from.

John Dehlin [01:54:33] And really quick, what was it about the way the names. So for Those who don't know. In Mormonism, one of the things you can do, if somebody's having a hard time, someone in your life, someone you care about, you write their name down on a little slip. It gets put in this little box. And then at the end of an endowment ceremony, a bunch of Mormons dressed in temple clothes get in a circle around this altar, and the box of names that people have submitted get put on the altar, and everybody prays for the people whose names are written on the pieces of paper in the box. And so, and I'm only doing this because we have a lot of listeners who are in lds. Okay, yeah, sorry, religions, et cetera. And it's supposed to be like this super special turbocharged prayers that are going to really, you know, if you're a parent and your kids on drugs or your kids may not go on a mission, or, you know, your kids reading, listening to Mormon stories or reading CES letter, and you really are worried about them, then you'll put your kid's name on the temple rolls, you'll put this slip of paper in the box, they'll get prayed, and hopefully Heavenly Father will sprinkle a super special prayer dust over your child and have them stop listening to Mormon stories or reading CES letter, and then they'll go on their mission or get married in the temple or not, you know, not leave the church. So what was it about seeing how those names were processed that felt like you were watching the sausage get made a little bit? Or is it even something you can describe?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:56:11] It's. It's. It's the. It's almost the clinical nature of the way things are done in the temple. Sometimes, you know, they're all done with hushed whispers and soft tones, whatever, but at the end of the day, it is just dumping bits of paper into an envelope. And once you realize that's what it is, and then that's the envelope that goes up and gets prayed over, you're like, well, hang on.

John Dehlin [01:56:26] If.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:56:27] If God. Like, surely just submitting these names is enough. Like, why does that have to be a mechanical process whereby they're transferred into a. What looks like a pencil case and is then taken up. It was just. Yeah, just the idea that surely once names just get submitted, I get they. In order for people to want to physically submit them, they write them, but at the same time, you can just call up the temple and have someone put it on there for you. So the idea that this paper was just into a box and then. All right, into an envelope, it's just. Yeah, there's something not quite right about it in my mind. But that was second to the new name giving, which, you know, they sit you down. You have. You have a meeting at the beginning of your shift. So whether it's the morning or afternoon shift at London Temple, you alternate weeks, but at the beginning of the shift, you all get together and you sing one of so many approved hymns a cappella, which can be interesting. And then you usually have a video. So they will bring down a video on the same. Because you're in an endowment room in a temple where they don't have a dedicated instruction room. So they'll bring down the screen and they'll play you a video on how certain ordinances are meant to be performed and how to officiate ordinances and how to do this sort of stuff. So how to observe ceilings, how to invite families into ceilings, how to, you know, what to do if someone's missing a hand and they want to receive the tokens. Did you ever know that was a circumstance. I do now. And they got an amputee dressed up in temple garb in this video, and they showed you what you do with the left hand. Yeah. So, you know, there's that training element. And then they will get that laminated piece of paper, and they will say in front of the Brethren and sisters, the new name for the sisters is. And then they would say, like, Eve or whatever, and they'd show this piece of paper so everyone gets it. Then the sisters would leave the room. Oh, no, I did not know this. Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:29] The sisters had to leave the room so that the men could hear the men's name.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:58:34] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:58:35] Oh, that's funny and awful if you

Douglas Stilgoe [01:58:39] forgot the name as a. As a brother. So I got told off once because I have quite a loud voice, quite a resonant voice. So I got told off for once because someone asked me, as the name issue coordinator, what the new name was because they'd forgotten it. And I thought I whispered it to them. He was like, not so loud. The sisters might hear. So the idea that there's this secret little piece of information just working its way around the temple that the sisters are permanently excluded from just doesn't quite feel right.

John Dehlin [01:59:07] Yeah, feminists are loving that one.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:59:10] Yeah, I can see my sister's face and she finds out. So. But, yeah, the new name, that was a big one. And then the masonry in the temple was another one that kind of hit me hard. And how do you find out about that?

John Dehlin [01:59:23] If you hadn't read CES letter. If you hadn't listened to Mormon stories, if you hadn't found Mormon think, how would you have ever heard about the fact that Joseph Smith basically copied and pasted the Masonic Temple Lodge ceremony, changed the names, changed the covenants, kept the signs, the tokens, the handshakes and the penalties in a lot of the verbiage? How did you even hear about that? Especially as a missionary?

Douglas Stilgoe [01:59:47] So I heard about it before I went on my mission. So my, my wife's dad was a Freemason.

John Dehlin [01:59:55] Oh. So I was a Mormon animormon.

Douglas Stilgoe [01:59:58] Yeah. So he wasn't a member and her mum was. So, you know, he was Church of England and her mum was a, was an active member. So my wife grew up in a mixed faith household, which is, you know, really interesting to talk to her about. But yeah, I was like, well, I need to know what a Freemason is. I'm looking this up. So. Because I'm a curious guy and it's nothing to do with the Church, so I can look up what I want. If it's not to do with the Church. I can, you know, I can use Google to my heart's content. So I googled Freemasonry and not knowing

John Dehlin [02:00:29] that there was a Mormon connection.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:00:31] Not knowing there was a Mormon connection.

John Dehlin [02:00:32] That's so funny.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:00:34] And then, and then I'm like, hang on, I've seen these symbols before.

John Dehlin [02:00:40] Really?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:00:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:00:41] So you, you were just, you were just learning about Masonry, completely unrelated to Mormonism.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:00:48] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:00:48] And stumbled onto, you made the own connections. You're like, as you're studying Masonry, you're seeing the parallels.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:00:56] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:00:57] Oh my gosh.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:00:59] Onto it. And you know, I was like, well, I've seen a square and a compass somewhere else, so. And then it got me thinking, well, yeah, I've driven past Masonic lodges and Alex go, yeah, that's a Masonic lodge. I've seen that before too. So. Because they have the square and the compass outside as their little emblem. So I was then looking into it and I was like, well, okay, there's aprons involved. And so I was like, I was stumped. This was my first major, kind of like, hang on, what's going on here? And I thought, well, I need to work out, there's gotta be a connection. So I gave myself permission to use Wikipedia in the church context and looked up Joseph Smith's connection to Freemasonry. And sure enough, it mentioned that, you know, Joseph Smith was, you know, a Freemason. He received his induction into the Masons. Was it seven Weeks or seven days or something like that, before he then instituted the endowment.

John Dehlin [02:01:57] Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:01:58] And my Mormon brain, my apologetic Mormon brain is spinning, going, right, okay, well, there's got to be a reason. And the reason I came up with was the oft toted reason that, you know, Masons were safeguarding the rituals of Solomon's temple. And so therefore they may have been keeping the endowment alive and not knowing what it was. And I walked into the temple president's office and said, president, I had some concerns about Freemasonry, but here's my conclusions. I wanted to tell me what you think. And he sat the other side of the desk and he just said, yeah, seems like a reasonable enough thought. Didn't really give any much more to it than that. And my temple president actually was. Was a guy called Mike Otterson, who at one point.

John Dehlin [02:02:41] Yeah, we know who that is.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:02:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:43] He was the head of church PR for a long time during the really intense years.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:02:48] So I got to ask him some questions about 60 Minutes, which was because he remembers setting that up. And I was like, what was that? Like, you know, all that sort of thing. So. So we chatted a bit about that. He didn't give anything away, obviously, but he talked about what it was like to kind of make that happen. But yeah, so he was kind of like, yeah, well, he was probably thinking, well, whatever keeps this kid thinking that the church is true. Like, I don't need to. If he's got a reason and it works, then fine. And again, he was absolutely lovely. He allowed me later in my mission to come and live on the temple grounds, which wasn't a popular decision, but it actually was really good for me, personally, because it allowed me to move out of my uncle's house and start to get some more of my own space, which was really nice. So, again, wonderful guy. Really, really wonderful guy in terms of his relationship to me. But, you know. Yeah, that's who he was.

John Dehlin [02:03:39] Yeah, he's. He. Yeah, we won't go into that, but that's cool. You get to meet Michael Utterson.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:03:43] Yeah. So, yeah. And just. I didn't realize at first who he was. And then I found out where he'd come from. The mission president before that was an emeritus 70. So he had one of those temple recommends where it just gets sent to him, doesn't need signing, which is quite 50 if you're 70. Your temple recommend, the way I was told that your temple recommend just kind of arrives when it's in need of renewal, with a need of renewal, doesn't get signed off by a state president or a bishop. It's kind of like a second anointing for temple recommends, as it were.

John Dehlin [02:04:13] That's kind of cool.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:04:14] Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:04:16] Wait, did you say Utterson was the temple president?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:04:18] He was, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:19] Okay. So that's kind of. I just have to note one thing, and that's that I don't. We've never really discussed this on Mormon stories, but temple presidencies are interesting strategic assignments in Mormonism because it's often when somebody is reached a really high level of status in the church, but they're sort of. There's not a future for them. They've kind of reached a ceiling of some sort, or sometimes it's even when they've made a mistake, but they're at such a high level that they need to have some source of income or they need to be given a position of status on their way out of prominence. Oftentimes temple presidencies are a way that the church handles or manages these types of people. And so I don't know what happens with someone like Michael Otterson, but I'm imagining that at some point it's perceived that it's time for the church to go a different direction with pr. Or he's sick of it. He's burned out of it. But the church doesn't want another Hans Mattsson. And I forgot to ask you about Hans Mattsson. Church doesn't want other Hans Matson. Church doesn't want another, you know, Tom Phillips. And so it's a way to sort of handle them, give them more prominence, give them a pension. That while they're sort of on the decline in terms of their power and status now, is any of that. Are you. Was any of that or something you're aware of or does it play in any of this? Or are you hearing this for the

Douglas Stilgoe [02:05:55] first time or hearing that for the first time? Definitely. I mean, Hans Matson, again, I've listened to his Mormon Stories episode, but prior to that heard nothing. It didn't penetrate my. My consciousness at all.

John Dehlin [02:06:08] So when. When the. When the Hans Matson stuff happened. We're going back a little bit. When the Hans Mattson stuff happened in 2013, 2014, you didn't hear about any of that?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:06:17] Completely unaware. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:19] And that's like an area authority in Europe.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:06:22] It was over my area.

John Dehlin [02:06:24] Over your area. Apologizing. What's that?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:06:26] I'm pretty sure it was because I'm Europe north, so I think that's where he was. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:31] And he's publicly apostatizing in the New York Times global news. And again, no one in, no one in Europe even knows.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:06:38] No, no one knows. It's more news in the States than it is here, which is bizarre.

John Dehlin [02:06:43] And maybe a couple people in Sweden. And that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so you met Otterson. You're starting to have questions about the Masonic lodge. And so you asked Otterson about the parallels.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:06:56] Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was him that I went, but I effectively, it might have been him or one of the temple presidents. I think it was him though. But I basically just presented to him my reasoning why this is not a problem. I was like, well, clearly this could have been the case. And I said, you know, do you think that sounds about right? He was like, yeah, sure. I did also go and ask him about my parents situation because I hadn't let that go. So I went and asked him about, you know, my parents divorce and, you know, what will happen to my mum. And his answer was very kind of standard, well, it will be sorted out in the next life sort of thing. Because I thought, well, here's a man who's been at the top. I was aware by that point that he's rubbed shoulders with apostles. Like he's, you know, he's a man from the top. So if anyone's going to know, it's probably him.

John Dehlin [02:07:44] It's always, it's always a little bit dangerous to talk to the man behind the curtain. For me, it was with Elder Holland and you just realize they don't know anything. They have no good answers. Like zero good answers.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:07:56] Yeah, that's the worrying thing is when, when, like you said, when the wizard gets uncovered, when the wizard of Oz, you just realize, oh, right, okay. It's not what I thought it was. Yeah, yeah. And, and like the temple president that was there for a month before I, before President Austin started was Kenneth Johnson. So he was an emeritus, 70. So, you know, again, you would expect him to have sort of answers about things. But I didn't think to ask him at the time. I was too busy learning the ropes. Um, but I was, I was very well looked after by a lot of Utah grandparents who were missing their grandchildren. I was well fed. I think I was probably the best fed missionary in the entire mission.

John Dehlin [02:08:37] So there are a lot of us kind of elderly service missionaries serving in your temple district.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:08:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:45] And they fed you as a missionary?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:08:47] Oh, yeah. They, yeah, they'd give me, oh, hello. Someone I know has just popped up on the thing. So yeah, I Was very well looked after, very well fed.

Life During the Temple Mission

John Dehlin [02:09:01] You've probably already said this, so forgive me if I ask, did you have a companion that was always with you? No. Okay. You're alone.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:09:08] Weird thing. I was alone.

John Dehlin [02:09:09] That's super weird.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:09:11] Which again, allowed me, I think, to maintain some of my. My personal identity, not to get pulled in. I spent time in the visitor center because London Temple's got a visitor center and I love chatting to people. So I spent time there when I wasn't on shift doing missionary work. So garden tours were a big thing. We'd have random parties from roundabouts, come and look at the grounds, because the London Temple grounds huge. So that would be a way of explaining to people about the temple and what goes on. Because what's interesting to notice in that area of England, East Grinstead, where it is in kind of Sussex, Surrey area, is also the UK headquarters of Scientology. So there's two major new age religions in one area. And so the locals are a bit skeptical about the church and about the Scientologists. So it was almost like a PR effort with the visitor center to always be trying to put the church's image forward in the best possible light, because there was no escape, the fact that these people lived around to what a lot of people call cults, effectively the headquarters of both.

John Dehlin [02:10:15] Interesting. Okay, so you. So your questions start festering. Is that fair to say?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:10:22] Yeah. Yeah. So I thought I'd. I thought I'd got rid of it. I thought I'd made a good enough excuse, and for a while I kind of left it. But, you know, and I kind of got into the vibe of being a missionary. I got to spend time with the younger missionaries as well when I wasn't on. I got to serve with the office elders a bit, go out, proselyte a little bit, do a little bit of the normal missionary stuff as well, attach myself to missionary companionships, you know, so that was really good. And so I kind of just threw myself into that. And for the rest of my mission, wasn't really much. I remained curious, asked questions about things, why things were certain ways, you know. Yeah, things like, I mean, I got to practice my language skills, so I really wanted to learn a language on my mission. I grew up kind of teaching myself a bit German. I wanted to go to a German speaking mission, but obviously because of my circumstances, I couldn't. And then I realized that before Paris Temple opened, the French saints would come to London. They would do a temple week or two weeks where the saints from Lille in northern France would come over en masse and effectively take over London temple. So then all of a sudden everything was being done in French. So I had to learn the signs and tokens for behind the veil in French as well as English. So that was, I mean, again. So I felt like I was getting something out of it, I think is what I'm trying to say. I felt like apart from that kind of those doubts, I felt like I was getting stuff out of my mission. So therefore I couldn't complain even if the church was maybe slightly dodgy about this freemasonry thing.

John Dehlin [02:11:58] Right? Yeah. Okay. How many months did you end up serving your mission?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:12:03] I ended up serving October through to February. So four months. Ish.

John Dehlin [02:12:11] Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:12:12] Yeah. So I stayed an extra month and then I thought it's time to go home. And that coincided with my girlfriend Alex, who is still my. Now my wife, but she's my girlfriend. Time she went to Australia for six months. So we did the whole long distance thing for six months.

John Dehlin [02:12:30] So is there anything else about your mission that you want to make sure and share?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:12:33] Yeah, out there.

John Dehlin [02:12:35] What's that?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:12:37] Just saying. Yeah, make sure we get it. Yeah, all covered. I mean, I started to again realize the kind of mechanical nature and the. The phrase busy doing nothing started to come to mind a little bit. I got the nickname John the Baptist from some of the proselytes missionaries because I would go down to the baptismal font quite a lot to do baptism. So there was a family that came from Dubai where they didn't have a temple. So they came and the kids had brought stacks of names and I did like 70 names for each kid just back to back. So like 140 names just rolled through it. They were there like every day for a week, just. That was their temple week as a family. But it struck me just how kind of rote and. Yeah, how rote and tedious temple work is. I'm like, sure, there's got to be a more efficient way of doing it. You know, we can't be getting everyone.

John Dehlin [02:13:39] That was. That was a question I had really early on was like, wow, Heavenly Father's like all powerful, all knowing. He can create worlds and life and miracles and he can't figure out a way for his billions of children to return to live with him. Other than having less than 1/2 of 1% of the world's population spend all their free time doing these rote or empty ordinances over and over and over again, the majority of which would never be accepted because narrow is the gate and few there be that find it. But. But still, everyone's got to have the opportunity. And so instead of feeding the hungry, providing water to the, you know, people who don't have clean water, instead of educating the illiterate instead, you know, instead of, like, yeah, you know, all the things we could do to make this world a better place, our old people and. And people like you and others are spending all their free time getting baptized in the name of Jose, baptized in the name of Jose Smith, baptized in the name of Juan, you know. You know, Chinese name. Like, people don't even have last names. And it's just.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:14:53] So what's that born about this time, you know?

John Dehlin [02:14:58] Right. Born around 1832. Like, and it just feels. It can feel so rote and empty, but also just so meaningless and like, really, Heavenly Father, this is how you want us to spend a huge portion of our time, money, our spare time doing this?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:15:16] When I could be out there helping people?

John Dehlin [02:15:18] Yeah. People with real problems today.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:15:23] And by the church, I'm the one that's got a body. Right. I'm the one that can make a difference here and now. Let those that are in the spirit world deal with those that are in the spirit world. Why do I need to, by proxy, be baptized with my physical body when I could be using my physical body to help those others with physical bodies now that are suffering and in need of help? Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:41] So are these thoughts occurring to you as a temple worker?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:15:45] On a low sort of level, but at the same time, you just kind of go on with it, you know, it's the house of the Lord. Everyone wanders around you in such hushed and reverent tones. Everyone is in the same color clothing. It's. If you've ever felt like you've been in a cult, that's the moment, I think, when you're a temple worker, when you're wandering around the temple. But I felt special and important because I was the youngest person there by about 30 years, apart from one other girl who was on the opposite shift. To me, I was so much younger than everyone else that I felt like I could do things they couldn't. I had the stamina to do things they couldn't. I was the one that was asked to run up and down the stairs or, sorry, move reverently up and down the stairs. And I was the one that was asked to take messages, do this, do that, stay a bit later. Because I was young, so I felt important and necessary. So it doesn't matter how tedious the job. If you feel important about doing it, you're going to do it?

John Dehlin [02:16:40] Yeah. And I, and I asked my father in law once and he's just like, he's, he's a psychiatrist and he's like, hey, it gives old people something to do. Like if old people don't have something to do, they get sad and depressed and lonely and, and this gives them something to wake up for and, and it, you know, it's, it's a place of meditation for people. So I mean I'm not saying there aren't positive things with temple work, but yeah, to some it can occur to be very rote and meaningless and anyway.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:17:11] Well, I met a couple that were on their seventh mission, their seventh senior couple mission like and that wasn't uncommon. It just seems like to be a retirement plan for some people from kind of Idaho and Utah seems to be there.

John Dehlin [02:17:22] Yeah. And it's a way to see the world, you know, and travel and see the world. But also like I've talked to, you know, Mormon, you know, young people here, maybe this is selfish, but they're just like I wish grandma and grandpa were around to see their kids, their grandkids grow up. I wish sometimes we need help and I guess it's a grandparents right, to just go do what they want. It's not like it has to be that a grandparents life is to serve their kids and grandkids. But I, I will say that I've met many, many, many, many people that regret that, that their grandparents were taken away or chose to leave some of the most important formative moments of their kids and their grandkids lives.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:18:01] And I saw it, I saw you know, senior missionaries on their iPads communicating with their family and stuff like this. And I thought you're such wonderful people and you're being so kind to me. You should be with your family, go back to America and spend time with your grandkids. You're not gonna get this time back.

John Dehlin [02:18:16] Yeah, exactly.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:18:19] But that's hindsight, isn't it? I suppose so, yeah. I think my mission, I think that's, that's about it for my mission. It was weird and different and there were people around me, people who I would have expected to support me, who were quite derisive about it, who were, who looked down on it. It wasn't a proper mission. I was getting out easy. I was, you know, not serving the way I should have served. And this is like family members who have said these things. So I, it was, it was, it was different and unique and because it's different, you know, Mormons are very used to things being a set way. And so even with all the church approval it had, in some people's eyes, it wasn't a real mission and I'd skipped out, so. But I got to say, I returned with honor. So that was all that mattered to me at the time.

John Dehlin [02:19:00] Sure. Yeah. Well, it sounds like overall, you left feeling like it was a really good experience.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:19:07] Yeah, I mean, I still remember. I mean, I'm not sure this is useful information, but I still remember a lot of the endowment in my head because I sat through so many of them. And, you know, I've been the voice of God to someone, you know, who can say that I've stood the other side of the veil, asked what is wanted, and, you know, people have shared in sacred spiritual experiences with me. And I have been that person for someone. And so whether I believe that anymore or not, it was quite nice to be able to be that for someone, to be that person that brought someone through to the celestial room for what to them was a wonderful experience, you know, just because my feelings have changed, theirs probably haven't. And so I was still part of what was a very important experience for them. So that was nice.

John Dehlin [02:19:52] And so you. And you can check the box that you filled. An honorable mission. And you could feel just good about the fact that you serve the Lord.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:20:01] Yeah, I'm marriage material now. I've gotten done.

John Dehlin [02:20:05] And there's a coming of age, sort of like almost military service thing in Mormonism, where it's just like, I'm a man now. I'm a woman because I served a faithful mission.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:20:13] You know, I got the badge, you know, that's the mayor badge, the Ego Scout, you know, my missionary badge, you get to put it on your scriptures, which subtly signals to all the other wire say, hey, you know what I mean?

John Dehlin [02:20:25] Virtue signaling.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:20:26] Virtue signaling to all the other. Why I say worthiness signaling. Exactly. I got. I got to be part of that, which is, you know, it's not a healthy culture, but at the time, it's what you want, isn't it? So, yeah. Yeah. So I came back off my mission and went to work for a bit. I decided what I wanted to do for a degree and that my degree was eventually in prosthetics and orthotics. So that's what I do now. I fit prosthetic and orthotic. Well, I don't fit prosthetic limbs at the moment, but I'm qualified to. And I fit orthotic braces to people, so spinal braces and Knee braces and that's awesome. So that's what I do now. But I made that kind of decision that that's what I wanted to do at university quite late. So the application year in Britain runs. You make your applications around November sort of time. So I'd already made my applications to other universities for different courses. Can't remember what they were now. Then it runs through to your results and as your results, you will get accepted and then it goes through to results day and on results day, then your place will get confirmed. Mine was pre confirmed because I'd already got my results. But effectively what I ended up doing was end up canceling my accepted place at the university in Coventry because of my mission, I thought I can go a bit further from home, I can deal with going up to Manchester because I've lived away from home now I've done that. So that was another important thing, my mission fulfilled. For me, it. It knocked in the head the last vestiges of that kind of separation anxiety I was getting it. It was that coming of age in terms of I can live on my own, I can fend for myself, I don't need to be worried, that's a big deal, right? Yeah. So for me, as a life thing, that's huge, you know, so I. And also it's huge to drop a university place when you've been accepted. So I settled down to work thinking, well, I'll apply next year and then. So I'll have about a year and a half to work. So from February through to the September of the year after, I will work and then I will go to university in Manchester. And then. So during the next six months, me and Alex dated long distance from Australia. You know, she was in Australia, I was here. And then I got a call saying on results day someone hadn't got the results they needed. So university called me up and said, we've got a place for you this year. It's in two weeks time. Do you want to come to university? Pre mission me would have said, no way, I'm not dealing with that kind of time pressure. But post mission me was like, yeah, sure, this is the Lord blessing me. I've got into university a year early. So I, yeah, I got myself stuck into university and moved there in September 2017.

John Dehlin [02:23:09] That's only three years ago.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:23:10] Yeah, it was only three years ago. So I've just qualified. Okay. This is my graduate job I'm in at the moment.

John Dehlin [02:23:16] Okay.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:23:17] And university forms a big part in my shelf breaking. So this is the juicy Stuff for those that are still with us, should we start? Yeah, let's go for it.

University Life and Exposure to New Ideas

John Dehlin [02:23:24] All right.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:23:26] So I went to university in Salford, in Manchester, so it's technically another city, but it's on the outskirts of Manchester, which is one of the big cities in northern England. Very industrial city, very working class kind of background and people. And the church, as I mentioned earlier, is very old there, up in that north western part of England. That's where the missionaries first landed, slightly north of there in Preston, Lancashire and all that stuff. They came through Liverpool and Southport and all those docks. So I went to university. And because I was so late going to university, I didn't get a choice of who I lived with and I didn't know anyone going there anyway. So I got thrown into what they call university halls. So university halls is. I don't know, it's the same in the States, but you've got a flat with a shared kitchen and then there's like five or some rooms at 10.

John Dehlin [02:24:14] We call them dorms.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:24:15] Dorms? Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I went to dorms. I didn't have like a bunk sort of dorm like you see in the sitcoms. It wasn't like that. I had my own room, but we all shared a kitchen. And I ended up in the perfect flat for me, as at that time in my life. And I'm very lucky that I end up with people I end up with. So what's important is the backgrounds of all those that I was sharing a flat with. So there was a devout Muslim in the flat. He would later go on to become head of the Islamic Society at the university. So the society that all the Islamic students go to for events and fundraising and stuff, he would be head of that the next year. But at that time he was still quite an active voice in the Islamic society. There was. That was Zayden, there was Michael, who his philosophical sort of school of thought was determinism. So he didn't believe in free will. He believed that everything has a set course and what we perceive as free will actually isn't. So that was a discussion and a half to have. There was Connor, who was just quite atheist, and then there was Gareth, who was kind of into his conspiracy theories and had quite an alternative worldview as well. So it was a very mixed bag of people. And then me, a devout Mormon, dropped into that group. You know, I was finding my feet in the world anyway, living away from home for only the second time and I'm having to meet new people and for the first time they're not members of the church that I'm around that much, you know.

John Dehlin [02:25:41] Did you even consider byu?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:25:43] No, it's not. It, well, not for me. Be far too expensive rather than here where I could take out a loan and such.

John Dehlin [02:25:55] It makes you wonder if the church, to what extent the church has ever considered building by use in Europe or in Latin America or the Philippines, wherever there's Asia, wherever there's a critical mass enough of members. Because they probably lose a lot of people to universities, I'm guessing. I don't know. You tell me. Go to byu, I should say.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:26:17] Okay, I see what you mean. Yeah. I'm not sure how well a BYU would go down in Britain, to be honest. A religious university. I mean where I live in Oxford currently the university's all got chapels because it's one of the oldest universities going and it's, you know, it was founded during a religious time. But nowadays, I mean, BYU would have to contend with the modern sort of polytechnic universities in the uk, which are all secular. So the idea of a religious university I think would be quite difficult here. And even if it did kind of pass muster and make itself, I think, because I think you need to get one or two things either because Brits long for that being surrounded by other members of the church. They would go to it because they're like, yeah, everyone's gonna be following the same standards, etc. Or you would get those that actually value. Because some Brits do as members of the church, they value the individuality that not growing up in a place like Utah or Idaho gives us the, the more rounded worldview some people perceive as, as having, from, you know, knowing. Because I, I've met missionaries where they said, oh yeah, I think there was a non member kid in my school class once, you know.

John Dehlin [02:27:25] Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:27:25] That's an alien concept to me and to a lot and to every British Mormon, really. So that wouldn't really. I don't think it would work personally.

John Dehlin [02:27:35] Yeah, I, I think the university tradition just the just, I mean, I just think about, you know, we're quite proud of, you know, Oxford and I mean we're, we're, we're quite proud of like Harvard and Yale and Stanford, but like, but like Cambridge and Oxford, that's, that's real university tradition. Right. Like, I can see why. What's that?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:27:59] Thousands of years almost.

John Dehlin [02:28:00] I can see why the UK would hold university education extra sacred potentially.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:28:06] Yeah. And it is, you know, UK academia is. least it has been and in some of the more traditional unis is Very free from external influence. Like it's very pure academia. You know, you have to leave your biases at the door. And you know, having listened to the state of some of the people that are in professorship at byu, that wouldn't go down here at all. Some of the, the fact that there's an outside influence that means that someone's an apologist to the church and a professor, they've got to leave that bias behind if they're going to teach something like Egyptology, for example.

John Dehlin [02:28:41] Are you referring to a recent Mormon stories?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:28:43] I absolutely wouldn't dare of it.

John Dehlin [02:28:46] He's talking about Robert Rittner and the wonderful 12 Hour Mormon stories interview with Robert Rittner, Egyptologist about the Book of Abraham, which I highly recommend to everyone.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:28:57] Go watch that. I sat through it and it's worth it.

John Dehlin [02:29:01] I'm glad you enjoyed it. Okay, so you're. Yeah. I think Mark Twain once wrote that something like travel is fatal to prejudice. In other words, if you grow up in a bubble where you think your color of people or your religion or your clique or your tribe is elite and exclusively good or true, you travel around and meet other people of other tribes, so to speak, and that's fatal to the prejudice. Is that fair to say?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:29:30] Yeah. And Ricky Gervais, the comedian, the well known atheist comedian, he said something like, it's funny how everyone's born into the correct religion and you can see it, you know, everyone is conveniently born into the correct religion.

John Dehlin [02:29:45] Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:29:46] That's, that's incredible if that's really the case. But yeah, I think, I think to have a Muslim flatmate particularly was very eye opening. See someone who is as devoutly religious as I am about a different religion, to see that like he would pray five times a day, he'd be doing, he's. He'd be fasting at times of the year. And I went to mosque with him because I thought, right, well I want to see this. So I went and prayed in mosque with my flatmate later in the year once we got to know each other better and I felt the spirit and that was a eye opener as well. The idea that all of a sudden, because I had, I'd had someone on my mission tell me that when they go to cathedrals, they're dead. There's no spirit, there's nothing there, you know, because they're all just vain works of man and all this other stuff, you know, he was very anti other religions. But then for me to actually go to another religious place and feel the spirit and I've since been to cathedrals and wonderful places. You want good cathedrals? Come to Britain. We've got some beautiful buildings that have been built by people who want to worship God. And it comes across in the architecture, it comes across in the motifs and everything in there. They're wonderful. And as someone that's into music, the acoustics are wonderful as well. I love singing in old churches and whatnot, but the idea that I felt the spirit in and not even like another Christian church, which is what you would find excusable. Oh, well, they've got some of the truth. Islam's alien to Mormonism. We like to try and make ourselves out to be like Islam, like Judaism, but we're not. We're just not like them.

John Dehlin [02:31:22] We.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:31:22] We try and make out that we are because we have the prescribed rules around who we marry, about what we. We say, oh, that's like kosher. That's like word of wisdom is like kosher and like halal and. But it's not.

John Dehlin [02:31:31] We're.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:31:32] We're from the 1820s. We don't have the rich tradition that those two cultures of people have.

John Dehlin [02:31:39] Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, once you start feeling the spirit in other traditions or once you start meeting people who, who frame their testimonies as feelings based just like you did, that's super dangerous.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:31:58] Yeah, yeah. And it was very dangerous for me. And we would stay up late at night, all of us. We still get together on conference calling and have debates regularly about things. We'll just postulate something and we'll debate it. We used to stay up till three in the morning where other students would be out drinking. We would be set up debating philosophy and they would be challenging me. They'd be saying, but why do you believe this? I said, well, because why, why does that. If God is like this, which you've said he is, then why would he act like that? And all this. And my, My mental gymnastics were 10 out of 10 for a long time when I was there. I would have got perfect scores as a mental gymnast. But eventually they wore me down, I suppose. And not in a mean way, not in a way that was. That was challenging to my beliefs. They just. I think what's unique about what they did is they challenged my intellect. They didn't challenge my feelings, because if they challenged my feelings, the war would have gone up, the backfire effect would have happened. But they challenged my thought processes, and those are mine. The way I defend the church is mine. The truth of the church isn't. As a Mormon, that is a universally recognized fact. That is something that is outside of me, and it can be true no matter what I say. But my ability to defend it versus that is on me. And if I'm coming up short time and time and time again with an inability to defend certain views of the Church, then I start to ask questions about whether it's me or whether my intellect's completely flawed or whether it's the church. And those are dangerous questions. Like we've been saying, that's the danger zone when you start to say, well, hang on, I can't keep piling all this upon me because I'm able to make rational decisions about other things, but I don't seem to be able to think rationally about the church. So which is it?

John Dehlin [02:34:01] That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:34:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:05] And so was that an exciting time or a terrifying time? Was it a traumatic time or an enlightening time?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:34:12] It was. It was a mixture of all those things, if I'm completely honest. I remember one time I was sat talking to Michael just in the university hall. So I would sit in the hall, he was talking in his room. He was like, you know, when in the Bible it says the moon is a source of light. So what do you mean? He's like, well, it says in the Bible that he puts the sun in the sky to light the day and the moon to light the night. He said, but the moon is purely reflective. I said, well, yes, it is reflective, but surely because it's reflecting light, it's a source of light. It's like, no, no, the sun is the source. How can this be wrong? And I just said, you know what? I can't have this conversation right now. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, don't get upset. I was like, I'm not upset. I just. I can't answer this one. And there's been too many of these. I can't answer. I need to go away and do some thinking. Because they'd ask me questions about the church's attitude towards gays, because having a devout Muslim means I'm not the worst person towards gays in the room anymore. So all of a sudden, rather than me feeling like I'm attacked, I'm in a discussion around the treatment of homosexuals, feeling like the more temperate one, but then realizing that's still not acceptable. Whereas if I felt like I was just attacked again, it wouldn't come across, you know, And Zayd was a more temperate Muslim in terms of he didn't believe that gay people should be killed. So he was, you know, quite a Westernized Muslim in that respect. You know, he grew up here in the uk. But the idea that then someone doesn't have to believe everything that their religion says literally is also dangerous because I'm like, well, hang on, he can be a devout Muslim. I'm going to places where he's feeling the spirit and I'm feeling the spirit. And he's not really living his religion to the letter because otherwise he would, like, he knows some gay people, he's friends with gay people, so he'd have to condemn them and shun them or whatever. So that then makes me realize, hang on, I can be a bit of Jack Mormon. I can, I can start to live the gospel of lucky dip. I can take the good bits and leave the bad. And I think that's, that's where you start to really struggle when you allow yourself to have, have bits of both.

John Dehlin [02:36:21] Yeah, the, the kind of totalitarian, orthodox, literalistic west worldview starts to fray.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:36:31] My orthodoxy got smashed up at university, definitely.

John Dehlin [02:36:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:36:35] Which I think was very useful because, I mean, I can't recount all the things we spoke about, but I remember particularly I was asked to give a lesson about Noah and the flood, and I couldn't bring myself to make the statement that the flood is, is a literal thing that happened. We'd had discussions about it the night before, and I'd looked into some of the scientific research that discredits the idea that was ever a global flood, and then just did some of the numbers about the amount of animals you'd have to fit on an ark, the millions of species that exist and all these things. And so I couldn't do it. For the first time, I couldn't say, I know this is true, about something in the church that really hurt because I felt bad about it. I felt like I'd got something wrong. I'd allowed myself to be drawn in to some anti Mormon science that meant that I was wrong to not be able to say the flood really literally happened. Yeah, that was difficult. That was, that was, it was difficult, but it was, it was a standout moment. And then, you know, the things they taught me about debate about ad hominem, I didn't know what ad hominem was. And then I realized I'd been doing it for a long time. I'd just been attacking people because it's easier. And I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. And things like straw man arguments, they would teach me about those. So I got like debating 101, because they were in the university debating society, some of these guys. So I got debating 101. I learned there and then at university how to have a discussion about difficult topics which we're not taught as Mormons, we're taught, not taught how to have these difficult discussions because they're seen as dangerous, so you shouldn't engage with them. I was taught how to have them and I think that's really, really helpful.

John Dehlin [02:38:27] It's wonderful. And dangerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So your, your orthodoxy is smashed in your university and you've got to a girl back, back home or whatever that you're supposed to marry.

Engagement, Marriage, and Progressive Questions

Douglas Stilgoe [02:38:45] Oh, yeah. So at this point, October of that year, I proposed to Alex. We got engaged. It was a, it was here in Oxford actually. We were at something called the Oxford Ball, which happens when everyone started to go back to university. We got in a van, drove from Manchester to Oxford. So about two and a half, three hours, something like that. Everyone was dolled up for this ball, you know, tuxes and dresses and whatnot. And I proposed to her that night. So that set in motion an 11 month engagement, which, you know, dangerous territory letting your engagement run longer than a month or two. She had a degree to finish. She was at university at the time as well. She was at university in Bath, so that is a city in the south of England, near Bristol. And I was in Manchester, so I was taking a three and a half hour train journey to see her on weekends and vice versa. So we were commuting to spend some time with each other. So that was all going on. And I shared my doubts with Alex once about something, I can't remember what it was. And her reaction was, wait, are you having doubts? It was this, it was this snap reaction of, hang on, we're getting married. Are you not going to be the good Mormon person I think I'm going to be marrying?

John Dehlin [02:40:03] Oh.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:40:04] Oh yeah. I was like, no, no, no, no. I'm just starting to question things more because that's what I honestly felt. My shelf wasn't breaking at that point. It was loading up big time. But I was quite happy in my non literal view of some things now. I was quite happy. I discovered the works of Jordan Peterson at the time and his biblical lectures. So he was able to put a lot of psychology onto the Old Testament. Lot of this is what the flood or this is what Genesis teaches us without it having to literally be true. I was lapping that up like, yeah, this works, this works. You know, the idea that Abraham has to take Responsibility before God will bless him with a son. You know, he had to leave his home first. Yeah, brilliant. Right on. I don't care if he actually lived to be hundreds of years old. That's not the important bit. The lesson is the important bit. So I was starting to take that less literal view, but I still felt like it could be a member of the church. And, you know, I just avoided saying I know so much because I'd been humbled into realizing there were things I didn't know.

John Dehlin [02:41:00] Were there any. Did you have any Mormon peers that were able to discuss or connect with you or model a progressive, non literal, unorthodox Mormonism, or was this just you developing this in a vacuum?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:41:16] I was developing this in a vacuum for the most part. There's no one around me that I could return to. I had one friend in the YSA ward, so Manchester was unique in that it had. It has the only YSA ward in Britain for students. And like any good YSA building, it's got lots of corridors, tiny cultural hall because that's where we all spend our time. And it's a kind of four or five story building in the center of the city, right in the student hub. I had one friend there who had a slightly less literal view of the church and we talked a lot, but his views were still different to mine. He would, he was less orthodox, but still pretty orthodox, you know.

John Dehlin [02:42:06] Yeah. So the church. I don't know at some point if the church is going to model explicitly a, a different way of being Mormon. They're trying to do that with Patrick Mason and, and some of the, you know, Adam Miller. I don't know if these names mean anything to you, but, but you know, the, the, the church. Thomas McConkey.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:42:30] Okay, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:42:31] Terrell and Fiona Givens, you know, a bit. The church is starting to try and carve out an unorthodox route, a light, I would say it's lightly unorthodox, but it, you know, at some point it might be useful for the church to be able to have role models so that a university student like you could just go, oh, this is a way of being Mormon instead of feeling like you're the only one.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:42:56] Right, yeah. So I was having to develop and I was having to kind of justify to myself, am I still a Mormon? Am I still. Oh, yeah. Well, I still believe in Christ and, you know, keeping things Christ focused. I think it's the first time in my religious upbringing I genuinely had a Christ focused faith because the rest of the time is all Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon, I was like, actually, other people believe in Christ, so I can take shelter there. Knowing that, like, no one's proved the Catholic Church wrong, I thought, you know, the Catholic Church never got anything wrong. So therefore, like, there's loads of other Christians. So I can take shelter in that Christian umbrella. I can pull away from Mormonism a bit and I can take shelter in the Christian umbrella or while still being a Mormon, because, you know, that's my tribe. Those are my people.

John Dehlin [02:43:39] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how does it continue? Oh, so your fiance is starting to get nervous, right?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:43:46] A little bit. But at the same time, I think because she grew up. I think because she grew up with the example of her dad being a good person and not a member of the church, she knew that it, you know, doesn't make you a bad person to not believe every single thing the church has to say. You know, it's one of the beauties of growing up in Britain is, again, the exposure. I knew people again. My flatmates were all wonderful people to me and we're still good friends now. We met up yesterday. They're all really good people and they aren't in the church. So it continues on that summer. Go back. I come back from university, get called as a Sunday school teacher and start teaching Sunday school. And so I'm living with my mum, etc. Just doing a little bit of Sunday school cover over the summer. And then I get married 1st of September, 2018, and we move back up to Manchester and we move into a small ward which starts to struggle. So I get called onto the elders quorum presidency. It's what you call a newlywed, nearly dead ward. So everyone there is either one of those two things. So I got called onto an Earl's Corn presidency and I saw a different side of the church up there. Again, great love from the bishop there. Very welcomed into the ward. But the people were different. They weren't as affluent as the people I'd grown up with, if that makes sense. So all of a sudden I was seeing kind of poorer people in the church, giving everything to the church. I didn't see many people struggle in my home ward to live the gospel, if that makes sense, to pay their tithing and all that sort of stuff. But I was seeing people here now who are, like, struggling, especially newlywed couples who are trying to find their feet, just like me and my wife. They're trying to find their feet and everything. But we went and we thought, oh, that Nephi part of me came up and was like, right, I can go in, I can help the ward out. You know, I called up the bishop before I arrived and said, right, here's what I've done in the church previously. Here's where we're going to be living. You know, use me as you will. Getting married was a kind of almost a renewal of my faith. I'd had that summer off from university and I was kind of able to. I'd almost forgotten some of the stuff that I'd worried about. I was still slightly. I was less orthodox, but it wasn't troubling me anymore, you know. And then I read Noah Yuval Harari's book Sapiens, which you.

John Dehlin [02:46:26] Which is on your shelf behind you.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:46:28] Oh, yes it is. Yes, it is. And that was the first time I had a shelf breaking type experience was,

John Dehlin [02:46:38] why would that, why would that hurt your testimony?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:46:41] So having someone lay out so simply how evolution works and how old humankind is and all this stuff is fine. There is a chapter in there that discusses how religion may have developed amongst people. I actually prefer Jonathan Haidt's view on religiosity. Better. Which book? Righteous Mind.

John Dehlin [02:47:04] Yeah, it's a great book.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:47:06] Really good book. I read that post. Shelf break. Oh, no, just before my shelf break. Sorry. Anyway, so Sapiens. But there's a part in Sapiens, and I cannot find it where he basically says the argument that homosexuality is unnatural falls when you realize that because human beings are part of nature, everything they do is natural. And that hit me. I thought, well, hang on. Yeah, that makes sense. And, and that floored me because I thought all of a sudden my, my bigotry has no basis. My looking down on people for same sex attraction all of a sudden has had the carpet pulled out from under it because I can't call it unnatural.

John Dehlin [02:47:53] Well, no basis other than a prophet of God.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:47:56] Well, we'll get to him. Yeah, absolutely. Other than. Other than. Yeah, a prophet of God who's telling me that that's wrong. So then I'm like, well, okay, there's this book and then there's my church and I'm caught in a rock and a hard place and I don't know what to do. So I called my dad. I thought, my dad will understand.

John Dehlin [02:48:15] Oops.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:48:16] Well, no, because I felt safe enough calling him.

John Dehlin [02:48:20] No, Beautiful. It's beautiful. And it's, it might not be the best thing for your testimony.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:48:25] Well, you know what? It was great because he said to me, he said, you work this out and either your, your testimony will be strengthened or you Will feel like you are on the right path and that may lead away from the church.

John Dehlin [02:48:39] Nice.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:48:40] He said, don't be afraid to come to peace with it one way or another, because the worst thing you can do is let it eat away at you. Which very wise words.

John Dehlin [02:48:48] That's great words.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:48:50] And the reason I called him was like, you know, as is as apparent by now, that he's very supportive and he took the time and I called him and I sent him a message. I just said, dad, I'm. I'm struggling with the church. I need some help. That is the first of two of those that I will send to him. The. When my shelf broke, I sent another message, which we'll get to. So we talked through that, and then that combined with Jordan Peterson. My. My personal kind of ideology, my personal belief system was starting to change. It was starting to become far less literal. The more kind of books I read, I got into a real reading sort of phase of my life. I was really enjoying reading. So I was picking up. I was picking up Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, which puts out some Christian ethics in a way that is less literal and more about how you can be good towards people. I was like, that's fine, brilliant. I was reading Sapiens. I was reading. I read the Righteous Mind later. But reading these sorts of scientific books helped me see that my love of science was coming back. I was doing university classes on the anatomy of the human body and all these sorts of things. So I was becoming more scientifically minded, I think you could say.

John Dehlin [02:50:10] Yeah, that's also problematic.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:50:12] It is. And more critical in my thinking because all of a sudden I was. I was doing university work where I was having to judge the biases of papers. You know, this person says, these insoles work well. Okay, what's their bias? And so the idea of bias is starting to be on my radar. Okay, why are people saying what they're saying? I'd done a course on critical thinking, like I said in college, but that flown over my head. I failed it because I just wasn't able to critically think. I. I just. I wasn't able to be critical. And now I was. And so I think from that point onwards, it was only a matter of time. And so then. So when is.

John Dehlin [02:50:52] I just have to say that is such. The importance of that is. Can't be understated. And you talked about literally failing.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:51:00] Right.

John Dehlin [02:51:00] A critical thinking course.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:51:02] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:51:03] Like Mormons. Go ahead.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:51:05] Unmarkable was the grade I got a U for. Unmarkable.

John Dehlin [02:51:08] Yeah. So, like Mormons are not only not taught, you know, basic logic and critical thinking skills, they're taught to avoid it and that it's dangerous and evil.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:51:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:23] And so we are, we are literally as a people underdeveloped in the area of critical thinking and logic and, and analysis and it hurts us, definitely.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:51:37] And yeah, I ended up on the critical thinking course because I wanted to take something else wasn't available, so they gave me a filler subject. If I hadn't been given that filler subject, I wouldn't have thought to take critical thinking. Not at all. I even. I studied politics as well at college, like post secondary education before university. And again, that was really rough because anytime any politician made a statement, I just went with it because I just believe what I'm told. Like a politician says my party's right, because this was like, that man's got a point. And then the opposition party said, well, actually this or that man's got a point as well. I didn't know how to comprehend opposing points of view with equally valid justifications. I didn't know how I couldn't do it. And I had to learn that at university. That was one of the things I learned from my flatmates.

John Dehlin [02:52:26] Fascinating. Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:52:29] So I read Sapiens and had that kind of crisis, like November, December 2018 and carried on getting stuck into my uni work. Uni work got very difficult and then I had to go on a placement so I had to move. So I moved, me and my wife moved in with my mum, so it was the three of us and we moved into the house with her. She very kindly let us have the spare bedroom and we lived there while I did a couple of kind of hospital placements. So I had to go to hospitals to get experience as part of my degree. So that ran from April 2019 through to December 2019. And during that time of being back, I was called onto the Sunday school presidency with a brain. Brand new person who moved into the ward and when they moved in, they came in from abroad and they moved in and he was called a Sunday school president. And I'd kind of befriended him anyway because we naturally got on and we started to become good friends with this couple in the ward and we worked together on Sunday school. And I taught a lot of Sunday school, but I taught a lot of difficult things and non literal things. So I refuse to have lessons where people just stood up and said, they know this is true, they know that is true. I wouldn't allow it. It wasn't, it wasn't allowed in my classroom, it was, you know, I was saying, right, what does this scripture say? How do we apply it? How do we become better people through it? That was always the question, how do we become better people through this? How does knowing this make us better? Because that's, that's what I had to do to get through the cognitive distance of being less, literally believing. I couldn't stand there and say, in the spring of 1820, da, da, da, da. I couldn't do that anymore. That was gone. It was a case of, right, Joseph Smith said this happened. What was God trying to teach Joseph Smith? What could we learn from that? For example, Joseph Smith went to jail. Why did he go to jail? Is it really, is it really just because people didn't like Mormons? I said, do you really, do we really think that's a reason why someone would get put in jail? I was like, actually it's because there were charges against him. Now, whether you believe those charges were legitimate or not, that's up to you and your own research, but there were charges against him and that's why he ended up in jail. So what would Joseph Smith learn from being in jail? Possibly under false charges, possibly under real ones? How would that strengthen his faith? Etc? Right? So I was, I was brushing against these topics that have broken many people's shelves. But because I was only brushing against them and I was approaching them with a, well, what can I learn from them? Rather than focusing on what they say about the church, I was getting through it.

John Dehlin [02:55:20] And honestly, the church need to have some, the church needs to have some sort of, like, if they don't already, some sort of, some sort of flagging system. Because this is every, every Mormon who's ever left the church's story to some level, maybe sometimes a little bit more men than women. But apostasy starts with, with progressive elders quorum or Sunday school teachers. You know what I mean? I'm sure I. And Bill Real, and I'm sure you know, rfm and you know, pick your, pick your Mormon apostate. At some point they had become progressive Mormons and they had started trying to bring a liberal approach to Mormonism into the Sunday school or elders quorum lessons. And that's the sure sign of the end also.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:56:06] Yeah, that's exactly what I did. I mean, I remember starting a lesson with putting different phonemes to different units of sound on the board that come from parts of the world where English voices can't speak them. So like gargling things in your throat from Dutch and stuff like that. And I was like, why am I starting Sunday school lesson like this? And the lesson I taught was. Was kind of around, you know, how people grow up with different experiences. And it's about. It's. It's about understanding that you can't always do something someone else can do. And we have to. We have to work together and build each other up. And that's what the gospel of Christ is about. It's about taking all our unique attributes and putting them together. That's. That was a lesson for me because that's what I felt comfortable teaching, because I was at that progressive point where I couldn't go back. I couldn't go back to the whole, well, you know, if people say this, then they're wrong and damnation awaits. I was like, well, you know, people are different, and people come from different places. And so, you know, we can't proclaim damnation on someone just because they don't think the same as us. And that. I mean, that got me in some trouble. But just members. Members weren't happy sometimes with my lessons. They thought I was too lenient. I was. I was. I wasn't being. I wasn't being firm enough about gospel principles and such.

John Dehlin [02:57:21] And part of the cliche is that this is what I always said when I taught Elders Quorum while I was. While I was doing Mormon stories. It's like a third loved it and would come up and tell you how much they loved the lesson. A third were asleep and a third were deeply. And a third were deeply disturbed and secretly telling the bishop that they need to release you. And, yeah, it's hard because you're getting positive messages. The people who are uncomfortable are kind of stabbing you behind the back. And what you realize is kind of like it's not sustainable because you're spoiling the church experience for a third of the members who aren't there to get progressive ideologies, they're there to get their narrative reinforced because they have a really hard life or they don't want to have cognitive dissonance, so they just want to go there and feel good, happy things. You're actually making them feel uncomfortable. And the writing's on the wall that at some point turns out for you either because you get uncomfortable or because your bishop or ward members make you feel uncomfortable.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:58:23] Absolutely. Yeah. And they're, you know, they're not. They're not happy with the idea that in their safe space, I mean, let's not get into that culture. But in that safe space, they. Someone who is meant to be trusted is, you know, ruining it, is defiling it. It's. I may as well. I may as well have walked into the temple and burnt garments. As far as some people were concerned, I was. I was doing something wrong, but I carried on because I felt like I was teaching people how to be Christlike. And that was my job. That's the job I gave myself because that's all I felt like I could do. I thought, well, if I could teach people how to be good, then I've got something from it. And I can leave my own personal issues with the gospel at the door. I can leave my own issues because the church's doctrinal teaching about how we treat gay members and whatever. I was like, well, I'm not going to bring it up. I'm just going to teach people to love everyone and then hopefully they'll apply that. Because I can't get into the fact that the church actually teaches them low key not to. Between the lines. They are second class between the lines. It's. It's no different. The wording's changed, but they're still treated badly.

John Dehlin [02:59:35] Yeah. Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:59:36] And I couldn't be part of that. I just couldn't promote that anymore. My conscience wouldn't let me.

John Dehlin [02:59:41] So what happened?

Douglas Stilgoe [02:59:43] So it carried on for a while through into February of this year.

John Dehlin [02:59:50] Yeah. So we're talking. We're talking about just seven months ago.

Douglas Stilgoe [02:59:53] Mm. So February this year. And we're starting to hit lockdown here in the UK now, coming up into March. So February through to March. We have made great friends with this couple in the ward. We, you know, we went abroad with them and we went to Paris with them for New Year's. I celebrated my birthday or this. We getting to know this couple. We thought, great. We found some friends and then lockdown happened. So socializing was. Was difficult and all this other stuff. And then I remember one night I was just. I was thinking about. Because I was. I was expected to start teaching lockdown lessons at some point in Sunday school via Zoom and all that sort of thing. But at that. I don't remember what got me thinking about it, but the Age of the Earth came to mind. And I was thinking about it. I was thinking about it. I don't know whether I was just ruminating on some of the stuff I'd spoke to about with my dad, but it came up. I'll tell you how it came up. It came up through the Righteous Mind. I was reading the Righteous Mind and then read a bit of Sapiens again and the age of the Earth came up. I thought, okay, what does the Church actually teach about the age of the Earth? Right? Because I know the general young earth thing, blah, blah. But I'd never really looked into what the Church actually teaches because in school I tried to say that the earth was only 7,000 years old and some kid proper shot me down. I was like, I was in year 10 physics lesson and so 10th grade physics or something like. He was like, no, the Earth is billions of years old. I was like, what? I was taken aback, but I'd forgotten about that.

John Dehlin [03:01:35] That is so awesome. Some British high school kids saying, you got it wrong, buddy.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:01:42] I was like, no, no. I'm pretty sure the Bible says. He's like, no, okay, fine, I just brushed it off as you do at the time. But it come up again in February and so I googled LDS view, age of the Earth, because I was more comfortable Googling stuff now. And then Mormon stories popped up and the trans. Well, so the transcript of the interview with Tom Phillips appeared as part of the search result.

John Dehlin [03:02:11] Because that was one of the issues Tom Phillips had.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:02:13] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:02:14] Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:02:15] So, yeah, it came up and I was like, oh, okay. So I'll. So I read through some of the transcript of that and I read through him talking about it and him, you know, he contacted all these museums and said, is this possible? Is that possible? Sort of stuff. And I thought to myself, okay, well, I firmly am now in the scientific camp that the Earth is certainly older than 7,000 years. But just because Tom Phillips is saying that the Church says that, doesn't mean they do. Right? He may just be a disgruntled apostate who's trying to lead me astray. So I went to my scriptures and I went to the Bible dictionary and under the entry of the chronology it says fall of Adam, 4000 BC. And at that point, at that point, people next door could have heard my shelf crack, it was gone. Because I thought, well, those are two things that do not add up. The Church says this, that 4000 BC was the fall of Adam. And at that point there was no death before then. And I know for a fact that Homo sapiens human beings lived before then. I know they were making wine before then. I know they were cultivating rice in the Yangtze Valley in China before then. I know these things have been going on and I'd always put them to one side. You know, we had a talk once at university from a geneticist from Italy. It's a well known geneticist, I think, in fact, his Paper is used for the gospel topics on DNA. He came over from Rome. He's the CES coordinator there. He came over to Manchester Institute and he gave us a PowerPoint presentation on genetics or whatever. And I swallowed all that hook, line and synchro. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. He is saying humankind is older than that long. He's saying the Garden of Eden isn't in Jackson County, Missouri. He's saying that the land bridge method of migration to North America is legit. He's looking at mitochondrial stuff like the age of humankind through mitochondrial reproduction and all these sorts of things. He's going in depth and he's managing to give apologetic arguments. Like somewhere in the book of Abraham it says people rose about the waters. So he's talking about primordial soup that we rose from all this stuff. He's giving all this stuff and I'm just going with it. He is a doctor of genetics and if he can work it out, I can. And it fitted in with my whole, you know, non literal view. And some kid put his hand up and was like, but isn't the Garden of Eden in Missouri? He's like, nope, humans started in Africa. That's what I'm telling you. So he owned that. But yeah, so I'd already accepted all these things as scientific facts when the church has started to say, no, it's 4000 BC. That's the date when they dared to put a date on it. That's when they in my mind, signed their kind of death sentence. That's when they took a step too far in trying to make a statement of fact because it's just demonstrably false.

John Dehlin [03:05:09] What some modern apologists are trying to do is just to say, hey, the people that were on, you know, the Scripture committee is just a committee of humans. And that was some bureaucratic decision made at church headquarters. And by the way, general authorities and even prophets can be misled. I mean, clearly Joseph Smith didn't know who the Lamanites really were because most of those people were descendants of Asia anyway. So, you know, there is that really, really broad minded, progressive Mormon view that even prophets screw up all the time. And it's, everyone's super flawed and Moses killed someone and Noah got drunk and Peter denied Christ and yeah, yeah, your expectations are too high for prophets and for church leaders and even for the scriptures.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:05:57] Yeah, I've had that thrown at me. My response is that they need to stop acting like they're infallible. Then they need to stop saying that we shouldn't criticize them. They need to stop saying that. They always teach the truth. They need to stop saying these things and they need to start owning. They need to stop letting the apologists do the arguing for them and make these statements themselves. Because while they can hide behind apologists, they will. But I'm sure we'll get into that later. But yeah, that's just a brief kind of retort to that is that, you know, if it is a committee of men and they've made a mistake, I'm absolutely fine with that. But they need to recognize their mistake and rectify it needs to come out of scripture.

John Dehlin [03:06:35] Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:06:35] It's to be removed like the penis from the min thing, you know, just get taken out because yeah, like from the book of Abraham where there's the phallus on the God that they got rid of and then re entered. You know, this is not new that they've taken things in and out of scripture I guess is my point. Yeah, it's wrong. They should need to get rid of it and start saying, well we don't know how old the earth is and it doesn't really matter and that's fine. But they've made a claim and they've staked a claim and it goes against the science. So yeah, I've got to follow the science.

John Dehlin [03:07:10] Listener S. Vance on our YouTube stream says 4000 BC in the scripture committee. That was Bruce Armaconki. Sure. He was a prophet. I'll say seer and revelator. At some point they will need to update the scriptures. Thanks for that, Vance.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:07:23] Yeah, McConkey is a double edged sword, isn't he? Because when it suits the church they'll take what he says as scripture, but they'll just point to Mormon doctrine, go, oh well he got some stuff wrong in his own opinion. And then they can just write him off whenever it's inconvenient. So if he got something wrong, he got it wrong. If he got something right, the church was right. And I think honestly with McConkey to me, and I don't, I might be wrong about this but McConkie seems to be the starting point of that two facedness that you can get from prophets, the man and the prophet. You know, it seems like he's where that started because he says, oh no,

John Dehlin [03:07:55] that starts with Joseph Smith. He, you know, he made so many prophecies that didn't come true and he made so many mistakes that he would say, yeah, I did say that. But when I said that I was speaking as a man not as a prophet. It was either Joseph or Brigham Young. But that, that started really early.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:08:12] Definitely did. In fairness. Now you bring that up.

John Dehlin [03:08:14] Yeah, but, but Bruce R. McConkey perfected it.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:08:18] Yeah, he, he's, he's the. The modern day Brigham, which is not a title I'd want. So. Yeah, so my shelf broke and I called my dad and said, dad, I'm done. I'm done with the church. I can't. And then the CES letter arrived and I'm sure people can go watch Jeremy Reynolds interview. It is amazing. You did a great job, you know, going through that with him. I won't take too much time to go into what the CES letter is, other than it is a collection of questions that the church cannot answer and does not dean appropriate to answer, despite them leading people out of the church in droves. I think that's a fair sum of the CS letter. Yeah, yeah.

Encountering the CES Letter and Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [03:09:05] And, and so by this time are you like binge, binge watching or binge listening to Mormon stories and, and that sort of thing or not.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:09:13] So I'm gonna slow myself down a bit because otherwise I feel like I could rush through this and this. Yeah, yeah, that might be quite important. So I didn't at the time start straight diving into Mormon stories. Eventually I would come to kind of read a lot. Initially my reaction was kind of confusion and I thought, I've got to talk to my wife about this. I have now put myself in a position where I'm married to someone who's still an active belief member. And I'm not going to. From the example of my dad. I'm not going to force my beliefs on her. And I also go back to 6 year old me who sees that when two people don't agree religiously, their marriage cannot work. That's the example I'm coming from. That's the way I am viewing these things, you know, which is quite a terrifying prospect as a newlywed. We've been married a year and a half and a year and a half or so, and I'm at this point where it's like, well, I don't believe what I. I don't believe in ceilings anymore. I don't believe in this church anymore. This church holds no more authority than any other church because they have made claims through the authority that they claim to hold, which are false. And that. That's not right. That's not an appropriate use of that ability. If you speak to God, you should say the right things and if you get it wrong, you should apologize. And they do neither of those. So I was. I was at a point where I was like, well, I'm out, but I've got to talk to my wife. And to say that was difficult is an understatement. We are still together, and. But without talking too much for Alex, because I'm aware she's not here. All I'll say is that she took it hard. It was difficult for her. It was very upsetting for her. And all I did was ask her to read what I'd read, and she could come to her own conclusion. But I wanted to be understood. I wanted her to understand. And most importantly, I think at the time, I wanted to be proven wrong. Deep down, I think I still clung on to the church. I still wanted to be proven wrong. You know, I wanted her to read the CES letter and come back to me and go, well, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. You know, he's making an assumption here. He's working off false pretenses here. He's being deceptive here. You know, Jeremy Reynolds doesn't. Always talking about. I was. I was hoping for that at first, but I gave her time to read it, and she read it, and she came back to me and said, I see what. I see where you're coming from. I'm done.

John Dehlin [03:11:54] Wow. Yeah. How long did that. How long did that take her?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:11:59] About a week or two.

John Dehlin [03:12:00] Oh, my goodness. That's super fast. And you were kind of super lucky.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:12:05] Very lucky. And, I mean, I'm lucky in so many ways. For the first time, I chose to marry. It's. It's. Yeah, it's incredible because you get married so quick. I mean, we. We waited. You know, we. We knew each other for about three years before we actually got married, from 2016 to 2018. So two and a bit years, something like that. We, you know, decided that that's what we wanted to do was wait. So we knew we were pretty compatible as people, so we hadn't rushed into our marriage. But there's always the thing of, you know, when you get married young, that people change. And one of the things I remember saying to her, and I don't remember where I read this, but it was a bit of a lifesaver for my marriage. So thank you to whoever wrote it, was that you. You married me, and it would be unfair of you to marry me, expecting me never to change. And I get this is a big change, but it is still my right as a person to grow and become different. And I don't expect that of you, and you shouldn't expect that of me. And that was being able to have that conversation about those expectations of each other was crucial, in my view. So whoever. Wherever I read that, wherever on the subreddit it was, or on comments on one of these videos or wherever it was, that thank you to that person that put that idea out there because I took it and ran with it.

John Dehlin [03:13:27] Love it.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:13:30] So, yeah, now I want.

John Dehlin [03:13:31] Now I want to meet Alex.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:13:33] Well, maybe. Maybe you can speak to both of us about this in more detail at some point. But, yeah, suffice to say, that's kind of how we ended up. And then comes navigating the future relationship with family and with the church. I think that's the difficult thing, you know.

John Dehlin [03:13:53] Yeah.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:13:54] Because you grow up in this tribe. My, you know, my siblings at this point are now split fairly evenly. So my three sisters are active. My two brothers aren't. My brother went. One of my brothers went through a slight spate of reactivity and then kind of went again for his own reasons. I won't go too much into that. But at that point, the brothers, the boys were out and the girls were in. So we had. I had to navigate that with my siblings. We've always been a close family, and I had to navigate those conversations. And so at that point, I turned to the Wayne sermon, Mormon stories. I listened to that because someone had recommended it to me as the. Here's what you should do as a young couple. Follow these two. These two are a good example.

John Dehlin [03:14:51] That's so funny because it was so recent.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:14:55] Yeah, I'm lucky that you've done it. I'm lucky that that one had come out. He spoke about, you know, not putting anything in writing. And I'm pretty sure that was your advice to him, was to not put anything in writing. So I didn't. So I called my siblings up and the reactions were mixed, to say the least. And there were some bad reactions. There were some good reactions. There was. Yeah, that's what I'll say. There was some bad reactions and some good ones. And there are some siblings and in laws that don't want to talk to me about this and avoid where I am because they feel like I bring some sort of negative energy or I don't know what. I can't understand, but there are people in my family that reacted negatively, and now it has caused difficulties. Yeah, that's hard. Which is such a shame because,

John Dehlin [03:15:54] you

Douglas Stilgoe [03:15:55] know, I came at that particular conversation saying, look, I'm done with the church. Me And Alex have decided with. Done with the church. And their initial reaction was, okay, right, so what do you know that I don't? I thought, see, now he's forcing my hand in a confrontational way to talk about facts. And I don't really want to bring up facts. I would rather have, you know, said that, you know, this just. It is. It's not clicking with me, it's not working for me and get into that later. But. But fresh out, fresh after shelf break. And maybe I timed it wrong. Maybe I should have spoken better, maybe I should have spoken later. I should have let myself settle more. But I just felt this need to tell them what was going on in my life, particularly because of lockdown, because lockdown had happened at this point. So I felt very, very isolated because obviously we're all stuck in our houses. Lockdown here in the UK was quite severe. You're only allowed out once a day for exercise, that sort of thing, or to go for essential shopping. So I felt this need to reach out to my siblings around me and kind of share this that I was going through. And some conversation went really well. I had one sibling say to me, oh, well, you can tell me why my faith is strong. I said, well, hang on. My faith was strong and this has taken me out. And they were like, okay, maybe I don't want to hear the reasons. So then we didn't go into the reasons, we just kind of spoke about it. But, I mean, another big reason, actually thinking about it at the time was the church hiding their fund. The amount of money they had, I think that was a big one for me. I thought the amount of good we could have done in this world instead of spending time in the temple. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I had all those conversations. The most difficult one was with my mum. My mum, the saint, that she has agreed to read the CES letter because she wanted to know what had happened, because I was always her devout son, I was always her son that was doing well and such. So she tried to read it and she understood some of the points, but she wasn't quite ready to contend with it. And she was also in the final part of her university degree. I was in the final part of my university degree. So we were both very busy, a lot of kind of intellectual load. But I was ravenous for this information. I couldn't leave it alone because I'd gone down the rabbit hole, as a lot of people describe it. I'd gone down that. That point of no return where I had to. I had to come to. To terms with it, I had to understand everything that was going on. I now had to know exactly how the church had done this to me. How had I ended up in a religion other than being born into it, but how would I stayed in it, how they kept me in when there's this wealth of knowledge that I just didn't know about. And I mean, talking to you about this is. Has revealed a lot of those things. The control of information, you know, the. The way that I was taught not to. Not to look for things. So it was only after, only after being in university that I was. I was able to look at these things and be in a position where I could logically assess them and determine that these two things don't add up. And because they don't add up, I'm going to go with the one that science is backing.

John Dehlin [03:19:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was hard with your family, and it's a long deconstruction process.

Leaving the Church and Family Relationships

Douglas Stilgoe [03:19:31] Yeah. My relationship with my dad got better. Definitely bonus, which I didn't realize it wasn't great, but there was an invisible barrier that had been taken away. It's the only way I can think to describe it. And he may feel different and I can only speak kind of for how I feel, but there was an invisible barrier taken away. I was able to be more open with my dad, and I feel like he was made to me, may maybe able to be a bit more open with me because he felt like he could just speak his mind. And I'll never forget his reaction when I told him about. About the Kinderhook plates and about the unique errors that feature in the Book of Mormon from the 17. Whatever edition of the Bible he was. I didn't know those things so well. Now you do. He's like, well, that's. That sells it. If I wasn't going back before, I'm definitely not now. So, you know, and then he was kind of shocked by the amount of information I then unearthed through the CES letter that was damning to the Church. He's like, I left just because I couldn't believe it. You've got proof.

John Dehlin [03:20:37] So.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:20:37] Well, yeah, I guess. And, you know, my relationship with my oldest brother is better, I think, because again, there's not that invisible barrier of he's bad and I'm good. It's just that we're siblings now, you know.

John Dehlin [03:20:49] Yeah. You don't have to be Nephi anymore.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:20:52] And he's not exactly, you know, he's not Layman. I'm not Nephi. So I can just be myself. And I remember sending him a message and he just said, no need to explain, the church isn't for everyone. So you do you. In his typical kind of understated way. The most interesting sibling to talk to was my second older sister who is married to a non member. So that's always been a part of their life. And she's, she's the one that's quite feminist. So she's always had a very liberal view on the church. So it was, she was the one I called first because she was the one I felt like I would get the kindest, the most understanding sort of response out of, out of my still active siblings. You know, I spoke to her and she was very loving and very supportive and she was the one that forced me to talk to the two very devout ones because she's like, no, you need to do it. It's like you just, you need to, you need to get over with, you need to speak to them. So I did. And yeah, so that's kind of where we are with my family, I suppose. And because of lockdown, we haven't had a chance to meet in person yet. So I don't know exactly what impact it's going to have on inter family relationships. I still love them all. You know, I, as much as I dislike the behavior of some, I understand where it comes from because that would have been me. I get that. That would have been me. So I can't judge them for the behaviors that we're all taught to exhibit. I can't, I can't judge them for, you know, being uncomfortable talking about things that aren't toeing the line doctrine wise, because that's what I would have done. And it's only because of my unique set of experiences that I've been able to kind of open up my brain to more possibilities, to open up my mind. And it's not the only true way of doing things. And I've just tried to show them that I'm happy still. But that is slightly undermined by my Facebook posts, which we can get on to at some point.

John Dehlin [03:22:55] Yeah, no, let's talk, let's go there.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:22:57] Let's go there. Okay. Yeah, so I was, that was my relationship with my family and I, then I started to work out what my relationship to the church would be because membership in the church, particularly because it is termed as membership and, and whatnot, you have to kind of discern what your relationship is going to end up like, because it was one way and now you're not doing it the way they want to. You've got to work it out. And for some people, that's leaving the church behind. For some that's just going, right, I'm leaving it all behind. And at first that was my kind of knee jerk reaction. I sent a message to my bishop saying, you know, I want to be released from my calling in Sunday school. I'm not comfortable teaching Sunday school. I'm moving out of the ward soon anyway. But I can't do this anymore. My reasons are my own and I'll kind of. I'll get to them when I'm ready to kind of put them out there. Then surprisingly, a member of my state presidency called me who I hadn't told, but who has always been very kind to me. He was my bishop at one point and he just caught up and we spoke for a little while and then he set up a meeting with my state president, the same state president that sent me on this mission. The doctor spent an hour and a half on the phone with him talking through all this and him saying, you know, you're welcome in our stake, you're welcome. And I said to him, I said, I have one problem. I don't feel like I can stay quiet about this. I don't feel like I can't. I don't feel like I can be in a position where I don't share this information with people because people are giving their lives to an organization about which they're not 100% informed. That's not my opinion, that's fact. Because they're just facts available, certifiable facts that membership don't know about. That's just the way it is. And I know that sounds blunt, but that's my view on it, is that there are people that just don't know things about the church that they ought to know. And until they do, they cannot be informed in their membership of the church. They cannot be part of a church that demands so much of them without knowing these things. It's not an equal or fair arrangement for anyone. And there are people I love still in the church. So I was talking to him about this and he said, well, no, as long as you're not spreading anti Mormon literature, you're fine. Problem is some of the church's own literature is fairly anti Mormon. I mean, that's been said by many people. So I thought, you know what I said I was going to take a step back from the church, but I can't. So this weekly series of posts kind of came as an idea. It started. I decided I was gonna, you know, I was gonna put it out there. One question at a time. Show the contradiction is use only church sources. Because that way I couldn't be accused of anything, any wrongdoing. I'm only sharing the truth. They've given me that. My state president's given me the go ahead to do that, so I shall do it. I was told by some members of my family that I didn't have a right to talk about church anymore because I was critical of it or I wasn't attending anymore. But I feel like I'm still a member of the church. My name is still on their records. And so orthodox believing or not, this is my tribe. These are my people. And so I have a voice, and I'm going to use it. And it started with blacks in the priesthood. And that was 14 weeks ago now. That's months ago. And it just started very simply. It started very simply by pointing out that the church has said these things, these teachings that we're disavowing. They're in the Book of Mormon. They are scripture. They've been said by prophets. We hold prophets to this standard, and now they're being thrown under the bus. They're being disavowed. So what do we do about that? And then I shared a second post that shows the 1949 kind of statement, first presidency statement, which the biggest rebuttal I got was a member of the state presidency who criticized my use of thematics because I'd put it out there comparatively as a proclamation. He said, that is disingenuous to imply that it is a proclamation. It is a statement, and they are very different things. So I calmly asked him what the difference between a proclamation and a statement was, and he hasn't got that. So that's what he tells me. I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:27:35] That's like, what's the difference between the spirit and emotion? You know, there are just certain questions where there's no answer, you know?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:27:42] Yeah. I said, ultimately, it is the words of prophets. It doesn't matter how it's packaged up. The words are true and correct. So they said this about black people. Now they say this. Which one is it? Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:27:58] Okay. So now you're starting to be vocal on Facebook, which is very dangerous. And you're starting to have jousts with orthodox members and even with Mormon leadership.

Speaking Out on Social Media and Community Reactions

Douglas Stilgoe [03:28:10] Yes. Yeah. And I don't know how much of them you've seen, but, you know, I've had people from my home ward. I had one person Send me a message that just said, not happy. I thought to myself, what do I say to that? So I just replied. I said, I'm sorry, is there any way I can cheer you up? I didn't know how else to. To really kind of reply. And they said, well, I'm really disappointed in your posts, etc. Etc. And I thought, well, that's fine, but it's not my responsibility. It's not my responsibility what other people say because their criticism was the anti Mormons are out and they're making the church look bad because some people that aren't pro church had come onto these posts.

John Dehlin [03:28:56] So.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:28:56] Well, that's not my. It's not under my control. You know, um, and people, a lot of people saying Facebook isn't the place for this. Well, particularly in lockdown, it's the only place for this. The Internet. Mormons have this idea, and RFM has touched on this recently. Mormons have this idea that certain methods of transmission for information are better than others, but what actually matters is the information that's being transmitted. They don't get that. They don't get that. It doesn't matter whether it's a podcast, a Facebook post, a blog, interview, whatever, a book. It doesn't matter what form it takes, as long as the information is correct. We get so hung up on how something happened that we aren't bothered by what happened. You know, oh, this is written in scripture. Okay, but what is actually written? Oh, a prophet said this. Okay, brilliant. But what did the prophet actually say? Because just because it was said by a prophet, the church has proven that means it could be disavowed in future. So you might want to pay attention to what they're actually saying rather than just the way they're saying it. People say, oh, if it wasn't said at conference, then therefore it's not the word of God. That metric doesn't work. It doesn't work because if they're a prophet, they just need to watch what they say more. They need to watch what they write in their journals. They need to watch what they say in private things because they are going to be held to that standard. Any chance we get to listen to their words, we will. It's what we're taught to do. Follow the prophet, listen to his voice. It's all drummed into us. So any chance we get, we're going to listen to them. So they need to stop saying stuff that's wrong. Doesn't matter whether it's from the pulpit or not. I get to critique It. If a prophet said it is my view

John Dehlin [03:30:46] totally. Oh, that makes total sense.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:30:48] Yeah. And so it's been. It's been difficult in that. In that sense, because people say, oh, where are you getting this from? I made it pretty clear early on that I wouldn't engage with apologetics because that's just someone's opinion. It's not relevant. I don't care if it's on an apologetics website. That's the medium. The substance is a man's opinion and we're dealing with the word of God here. So a man's opinion is less relevant than what the word of God supposedly says. I've had people tell me that their faith is strengthened by what I've done and the posts I'm making. People have messaged me privately and said, you know, I'm really grateful because you've caused me to reflect on what it is I believe. And my kind of response, that is good for you. If knowing this stuff makes you more firmly believing, good for you. If it doesn't, also good for you because at least you're informed. Because if you're not informed, you're just sailing along ignorantly when you could be somewhere else or you could be doing something that you'd rather be doing. I don't know, you could be something different, but because someone's not giving you all the facts, you're stuck in a place.

John Dehlin [03:32:08] Yeah. No, it's. It again, your critical thinking skills coming out. Right. It's. Yeah. And that doesn't work on social media in 2020. Well, as the. As Samuel Pinson and the Pinson family showed earlier this year.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:32:24] Yeah. And I don't know whether I'll get

John Dehlin [03:32:26] taken out is to. To even just publish church statements that are uncomfortable on social media. You can get taken out pretty quickly.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:32:37] Yeah. And I don't know whether in the background that will happen to me. Coming back to the couple we befriended, they're now out of the church because one evening I spoke to them about my concerns and they said to me, they said, well, we probably always would have ended up this way, but you forced us to address things that we've always questioned. And so now we're out. So that's the other side of what I've done, is that I'm an apostate by church standards because I have taken other people, I've led other people astray, I've taken them out the church that's happened. And I don't celebrate that in any sort of victory. Like, yeah, I got them. I'm sad for them because I know what I went through, but at the same time, I'm so happy for them because I know what life can be like when you're allowed to think. Because I wasn't allowed to think before this.

John Dehlin [03:33:28] Yeah, that's beautiful. Well, what, what are the main. This has been. So I'm inspired by how thoughtful, kind of like respectful, but thoughtful. And in some ways, the, the way you can respect any organization or teaching, the way you can show respect for it the most, is to apply critical thinking to it. So I'm defining your, your approach as even respectful to Mormonism in the highest sense, which is it. It's kind of like that statement, if, if, if the church, you know, is everything it claims to be, it can't be harmed, and if the church isn't everything it claims to be, it should be hard. Yeah. So, I mean, I, I think you're showing a lot of respect for Mormonism even though some people think you're tearing it down. But, but we've got about 15 minutes left. So what, what are the, what are the critical parts of your story that you want to make sure we cover in the remaining time?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:34:32] I mean, that almost brings us up to the present day, in fairness.

John Dehlin [03:34:36] So has your, has your wife, as Alex basically said, stop, stop posting on social media. You're making people uncomfortable. You're, you're spreading negativity. I, you know, in my, in my own life and in many others, there's a spousal dynamic of like one person that's like, hey, cut that out. You're making the mother in law sad. Or you're spreading negativity. Can we just move on? How has that been for Alex, that you've been vocal?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:35:02] So she supports me, which is nice. She's uncomfortable being vocal herself. So a lot of people say, well, is he just leading you astray? You know, there are people on her side, the family, that think I've led her down a dark path and not giving her the respect she deserves, that she is her own person. And, you know, I wouldn't want to contend with Alex. I. Yeah, you think, you think I can keep a conversation? Alex would tear me down. But she's, you know, she's fearsome when she wants to, when she wants to hold her ground. So I wouldn't, I want to put that out there publicly. I've not led my wife astray. It's not possible. She, if she wanted to stay, she would have stayed. So there's, there's that she's not comfortable going out there publicly, but she's happy that I'm doing it. She understands why I'm doing it, which is a really nice place to be.

John Dehlin [03:35:57] That's great. So she has. You have her support.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:36:00] Mm.

John Dehlin [03:36:01] Have you been threatened yet by leaders like, be quiet or else. Or stop any of that stuff?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:36:08] No, not. Not yet. I don't know whether they're just hoping I'll go away or what, but I think. I don't know. I think once they realize that, like, people have left the church of what I've said, I think that's gonna be. I don't know what will happen, but that might be when they start saying, right, we need to ask you to stop, because, you know, people. People are leaving. But, yeah, no, they. Apart from that one outburst on an original on one of the first posts from a member of the state presidency, he hasn't responded since. He still hasn't got back to me to answer my questions. He's clearly wanting just to ignore it or, you know, I want to think the best of him because, you know, I always. When I'm debating with someone, I always try and think the best of them. I was. Think. I always try to think that they are wanting to. To be as honest as possible. So it's possibly just something he's not comfortable engaging with, but he is also a CES coordinator and a very. So he should be able to deal with them, those sorts of questions.

John Dehlin [03:37:14] You've written your own letter to a CES director?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:37:17] Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Because this. Yeah. This guy taught me at institute. We. And he's not been afraid. You know, we had an institute lesson on the failure of Zion bank, so he's not afraid to deal with this stuff. So I don't know quite why he's not engaging with it, but there we are. That's his choices.

John Dehlin [03:37:33] Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, coming on Mormon stories isn't always your best move if you want to remain a member. If.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:37:41] What.

John Dehlin [03:37:42] What. What do you think you'll do if the church threatens you with excommunication?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:37:46] They can. They can threaten all they want. The days of them being out of control, what I can and can't say are over. So, you know, if they don't want me part of their club anymore, that's fine. If there's not place in the Mormon Church for someone like me, that is sad, but that is their decision.

John Dehlin [03:38:04] So do you want to keep attending?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:38:06] So I. It's difficult with COVID at the moment because initially I was like, no, never going to Church again, I don't. I have no desire to. To remain temple worthy, if that makes sense. Those sorts of arbitrary sets of rules, you know, I don't want.

John Dehlin [03:38:24] You just want to sin. That's what that is.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:38:25] Absolutely. You know, because I don't believe my garments have any significance anymore. I don't believe in the truthfulness of that ceremony, therefore, why would I live up to it? Those sorts of things. But if I was in my home ward, I might still go because I have friends there and there's people I know there and, you know, if my wife was still going, I'd definitely go. But I probably won't attend again just because I am aware that there isn't really a place for people like me. That was part of my shelf breaking, was realizing that and seeing through Mormon stories that there isn't a place. People like Sam Pinson get kicked out. People like Jeremy Reynolds get kicked out. Like you get kicked out. Cade Kelly gets kicked out. Like people all the time are just getting removed. September 6th, gone. Sam Young gone anytime soon. Someone doesn't tow the line. The church will get rid of them if their voice becomes loud enough. And so I've been aware that they may get rid of me, but that's their choice because I didn't choose to be part of that club. I didn't choose it. I kept going, but I didn't choose it. I was born into it. So if they want to get rid of me, they can, as sad as that would be, I suppose.

John Dehlin [03:39:37] Yeah, yeah. How have you. How have you settled in terms of. You've already addressed these, but because it's. I want to kind of coalesce around this towards the end. God, Jesus, Heaven, Resurrection, Bible, you know, that Book of Mormon, all those sorts of things.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:40:03] Okay, just real quick, someone's putting the comments. They don't want to get rid of me. I'm too low key and unimportant. I hope it remains that way and they just won't bother me. That's fine too. There we are. Which is. Which is fine. I wouldn't ever try and put myself on the same level as Jeremy Runnels or you, John. You've done way more than I have. So, you know, we all do our part. We all do our part. And I. It's just, my Facebook is just for those that are around me, you know, those that I know because they're the people I. Not that I don't care about other people, but those are the people that I want to know these things. And people have Unfriended me because they clearly don't want to know those things. And that's fine.

John Dehlin [03:40:36] Sure.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:40:36] So as to your question, where I am around kind of God and religion and theism stuff and the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon for me is too demonstrably false to be a book of scripture. The Bible is old enough for me to see the purpose it serves in the teachings. And you know, having this in some Jordan Peterson stuff about, you know, the beauty of the Bible and the lessons we can learn about our own psychology from it. I think it's got value there. The Book of Mormon's got some good bits in it, but I can't call it scripture. And it's that old adage, isn't it? What's good in Mormonism isn't unique and what's unique isn't good. I mean, the good stuff in the Book of Mormon isn't unique. We've all had charity sermons all over the shop.

Why the Book of Mormon Fails as Scripture

John Dehlin [03:41:24] Really quick, what are the top five things that disqualify the Book of Mormon as scripture for you?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:41:31] The trustworthiness of the man that claimed to bring it forth.

John Dehlin [03:41:34] Because all I have is, so what are the top five things that disqualify Joseph as a trustworthy human to you

Douglas Stilgoe [03:41:40] marrying a 14 year old girl? Number one on the list, treasure. Being a treasure digger. Being a man with a mystical worldview. Okay. That sets him up as someone that, you know, would make this sort of thing up. The fact that he's got. The fact that there's books around him that he could rent it from. The fact that he went back and corrected things in the New Testament that also appeared word for word in the Book of Mormon. That's odd. And then I mean, just the fact that he lied about so many things that why would I trust someone that is willing to lie to cover themselves about the truthfulness of anything? That's what disqualifies him. So he's number one, I guess, for why the Book of Mormon is not true. And then just the lack of evidence, the lack of DNA evidence, lack of archaeological evidence. I've become more evidence driven as time's gone on. And there's. The more I look for it, the less and less there is. Yeah, it's like some sort of weird inverse thing. Like the more you look, the less there is to find. Yeah, it's bizarre. And then, you know, and then knowing the church knew about this for ages. I mean, we don't need to talk about that again. But they've known about it since 1920s. So I, they just need to stop lying to people about the Book of

John Dehlin [03:43:00] Abraham since at least 1912. Right.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:43:02] Yeah, they just, I, I'm. They need to stop lying to people about things. We've said it before, I'll say it again. Things need to be honest. I would expect honesty and transparency of any organization I affiliated myself to. And then you find that it's your religion. Yeah, that disqualifies. And then that disqualifies my trust in God. That's what then takes away my kind of trust in God and Christ is that the Mormon Church made such solid claims about being true and they're all false. And I'm not going to open myself up again, open myself up again to those sorts of claims. I'm not going to next week go and become a J Dub, you know, become a Jehovah's Witness, because, ah, these people sound better it. I can't do that to myself again. If there is a God, he'll understand. If there's a God, he will understand what I've been through, the way I chose to use my intellect and the decisions I came to. And he'll understand it wasn't a slight against him, it was me just trying to do my best. I think that's, that's my view. If God is there, then he doesn't care. He doesn't care which sect. As long as I'm not hurting other people and as long as I'm trying to do the right thing and I may get it wrong, that doesn't mean I have to always be doing the right thing, but at least I'm trying and he'll know that.

John Dehlin [03:44:23] What about, you know, there are a lot of people that say, well, dang, if I didn't have Mormonism, I wouldn't have a reason to live. I'd be depressed, I wouldn't even want to get out of bed. And, and I'd want to cheat on my wife and be immoral and become a drug addict. Because, like, why not, you know, what about like your happiness, your health? Why, why are you not cheating on your wife? Assuming you're not. And why are you even just a basically moral, healthy person? Why do you even get out of bed? Why bother?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:44:58] I mean, I get out of bed to pee mostly. I mean, like, you hit with that urge, you got to get out. Generally though, if the church is what's stopping you from doing those things, then you need to, one, reconsider the amount of control it has over you and two, reconsider who you are. As a person, if it is the church that is getting in the way of you acting like that, you need to consider what your desires are, because, and I don't know who said this, who said it, but someone said the people that can tell the good and bad bits from the Bible aren't the people we need to be worried about because they have a moral compass. So you take the Bible away, they'll still be moral. It's the people that can't that we need to worry about. It's the people that literally rely on the Bible for their morals and have no sense of it was wrong to murder before someone said it a few thousand years ago. People that don't get that, they're the people that we need to help and support because they aren't getting it. But the people, you know, most people have that innate sense of morals anyway, and that's a whole nother discussion about where that comes from. But if Mormonism is the only thing stopping you going out and doing things, then you need to have a look at yourself, I think.

Finding Meaning and Purpose After Mormonism

John Dehlin [03:46:08] So what gives your life meaning and purpose if it's not trying to gain a position in the afterlife or save mankind or prepare the world for Jesus's return? What gives your life purpose and meaning now?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:46:21] My job, helping people. I'm really fortunate to have a job where I help people and every day people come in in pain, they leave, usually with less pain. So it's quite a simple metric, but for me, that makes me. Makes me happy that people leave my presence slightly better for it. You know, my dad was the one that taught me that if someone's car's broken down, you help them push it out the road. My mum taught me that you be kind to people regardless of what going on. You show kindness first and then maybe reevaluate a bit later. But, you know, that idea that you show kindness to someone and that's kind of your first instinct, that's really good. So, yeah, that's what gives my life meaning. And being married and becoming someone new and, you know, enjoying things, enjoying the vast kind of. The vast amount of things I wasn't allowed to appreciate before because they didn't fit into my worldview.

John Dehlin [03:47:31] Wait, don't. Don't tell me you're talking about beer. Are you talking about beer?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:47:34] I'm not even talking about the sins. I'm just talking about legitimizing someone else's life experience and genuinely sitting down and understanding how someone differs to you. That's one of the things I absolutely loved from University was that we were so diverse and that I was able to, for the first time in my life, sit and actually appreciate someone else and their lived experience, not just try and fit it into mine, not just try and make them like me. I could experience Zayd's position as a Muslim and appreciate the beauty that brings to his life. You know, the ritual and those sorts of things. The comfort that Mike possibly takes in realizing that to him, everything is just going to happen and there's no control over it. He may take comfort in that and understanding that the level of understanding of others has been quite beautiful. And that wasn't allowed before because if you really understand someone else, then you might possibly agree with them and heaven forbid.

John Dehlin [03:48:31] Right. Beautiful. Well, before I wrap up, Douglas, is there any final. Any final things you want to. I think we can keep going. I have an appointment, otherwise I'd keep going. Any final things you want to make sure and get in before we wrap up?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:48:50] Just a request to be kind to people. People may view what I'm doing on Facebook and my attitude towards church is unkind, but I feel like in the long run, I'm doing people a kindness to bring these things forward from the church's own mouth to highlight things that people may not have known before so they can make their own decisions. But be kind to people. When family members say to you, I don't believe the church is true anymore, that's not your fault or problem. That's just how they feel. That's who they are. As far as I'm concerned. It's not their responsibility to fix you either. We need to let go of that. We need to let people be. Because even as a member, I had plenty of things going on in my life that I need to sort out. So I'd rather people get on with focusing on those and, you know, kind of sorting themselves out before and before they start, like, critiquing others and particularly in families, families are where you should be able to be yourself. And so if you can't be yourself amongst your family, that's really unfair to people. So bring the love in. Keep being kind to one another. Actually value families the way the church teaches us to. That would be my thought. And if you're the child of divorced parents, it's not your fault. And they should both still love you, and that's all that should really matter. Doesn't matter which one of them believes and which one doesn't. So long as they both still love you, then they're both still your parents. And you Have a good relationship with them. Don't waste time.

John Dehlin [03:50:35] Brilliant. Well, Douglas, still go. It's such a thrill. I've heard a million of these stories. This is literally like 1500 hours. And you kept me captivated and the level of wisdom and insight that you show for any age, but it's kind of astounding at the age of 23. It's really inspiring and it's really fun and I'm really impressed and I, I hope we can bring you back on more stories at some point.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:51:05] Yeah, sure. Yeah, that'd be good.

John Dehlin [03:51:07] It'd also be fun to meet Alex because if she's. If she's as sharp or sharper than you, then that's quite a power couple.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:51:14] Scares me.

John Dehlin [03:51:17] And she's got. My dear friend Kristen writes. Thank you for sharing, Douglas. I have a lot of respect for you and your journey. Kindness rules the day. My other dear friend, Martine, she writes, Great journey. Best wishes, Douglas and Alex.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:51:32] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:51:33] Lots of listeners have been tuning in this whole time we've had, we've sustained over 300 listeners throughout this whole four hour, you know, almost four hour interview. So I want to thank everyone for listening.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:51:46] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:51:47] Thank everyone for joining us live. Please share this interview everywhere. Please donate to Mormon stories@mormonstories.org become a monthly donor. That's how we keep this going. Please check out my new YouTube channel, Understanding Mormonism. Subscribe to it. Please spread the word, give us feedback, email us at Mormon Stories and just keep being great and living great lives and. And once again, Douglas, you're awesome and I'm so glad we had you on.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:52:16] Thank you very much, Sean. Thanks. Thanks for your time.

John Dehlin [03:52:18] All right, you take care. And please stay in touch. All right?

Douglas Stilgoe [03:52:21] Will do.

John Dehlin [03:52:22] All right. We'll see you guys. We'll see you. We'll see you soon, Doug, Douglas, and everyone else. We'll see you guys again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Everyone take.

Douglas Stilgoe [03:52:52] Come, come, ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy your way Though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive our useless care from us to drive to the San Jo your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our lot is hard

John Dehlin [03:53:56] Tis

Douglas Stilgoe [03:53:56] not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight? Gird up your loans Fresh courage take our God will ever us for sake soon we'll have tale to tell oh, all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well as well, Sam. And should we die before our journey's through Happy day All is well

John Dehlin [03:56:00] we

Douglas Stilgoe [03:56:00] that are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the saints the rest obtain I will make this glory swear oh, all is well all is well

John Dehlin [03:56:41] all

Douglas Stilgoe [03:56:41] is well all is well all is

John Dehlin [03:56:48] well

Douglas Stilgoe [03:56:52] oh, All in the way all in the way.

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