Welcome and Guest Introductions

Allan [00:00:01] Hello and welcome to another episode of Marriage on a Tightrope. I'm Allan.

Kattie [00:00:04] I'm Kattie.

Allan [00:00:05] And we're still married. We are hanging out with a wonderful couple. You may have looked at the title of this episode and thought, what in the he c k are the Delins doing on marriage and a tightrope? You also might assume falsely. I will just jump out and say that, Allan, because of my connection with John.

Kattie [00:00:27] What is your connection with John?

Allan [00:00:28] We're both 6 foot 5 and everyone over 6 foot 5 knows each other. We have a slack channel. We play basketball together. Everyone over 6 foot 5 in the valley plays sports together now.

Kattie [00:00:43] We do some type of sport with John.

Allan [00:00:45] We do attempt to lift weights. Some weights are lifted. Most everyone in the gym is lifting more than we are.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] Mostly our jaws get more of a workout than our biceps.

Allan [00:00:56] That is. That is true. That is very true. Now, if you assumed that it's because of this bromance that Allan and John have formed over the last couple of years that the Dylan's are sitting with us today, you would not only be wrong, but you would be really wrong. That wasn't much of an escalation of the term wrong, but that's okay because Kattie, you are actually the one that. That set this up, that wanted to get the Delins on marriage and a tightrope. And I'll be honest, I'm as confused as everyone listening. So could you walk me through what are we doing? We're also not on our.

Kattie [00:01:27] That makes us sound like such shallow friends.

Allan [00:01:30] We are also not on our home turf. If you noticed a dramatic improvement of quality of audio or the existence of video, you may recognize we are not recording from our basement. We are in the. For tonight, we'll call them the Marriage and a Tightrope Studios.

John Dehlin [00:01:45] Yeah, that works for me. Martin, does that work for you?

Kattie [00:01:48] The delin den.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:49] The delin den.

Allan [00:01:50] So Kattie, why don't you talk to us a little bit about why you wanted the lens on. Then we'll actually like recognize that they exist and they can talk more.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] We control the camera so we can do whatever we want with the camera.

Kattie [00:02:02] It'll be fun. They can do it. Okay, so it actually wasn't my suggestion and this is probably going to be shocking to both of you, but I went to a Faith Matters restore conference and there were probably 45 or 50 other women slash people who are in our marriage on a tightrope group. And that went as well. And after the first day, we went back to a house and we were Talking. And someone said to me, have you ever thought about having John and Margi on your podcast? And this was all the believing wives. And I just smiled, I didn't say anything.

Kattie [00:02:44] And I said, well, tell me about that. And she said, well, I saw the interview that they both did with Patrick Mason, and man, that Margi, she's just incredible. And she was so well spoken and just very kind and loving, and I was super impressed with her. And I think it would be super interesting to have John and Margi on the podcast. And I said, yeah, I totally agree with you. And then someone else said, and it was really nice to see John here at the RESTORE conference because you came, you actually sat two rows ahead of

Allan [00:03:23] us, and so you couldn't see the stage.

Kattie [00:03:27] And no, he was to the side. It was fine. It was fine. But what the feedback I received was that they were impressed that you were there, supporting, and someone that they had such fixed ideas about changed when they saw you there. And I thought that that was really lovely. And so I said, you know, this is interesting because I have always wanted to have John and Margi on. I think it would be a fantastic interview. But there is a polarization when it comes to Mormon stories and especially both of you. And so I said, you know, we've always sort of just stayed in the safe zone, inviting people on just to tell their stories.

Kattie [00:04:13] And I was really surprised when it was the believing wives who kind of said, no, I think it would be great to have them on. So you have the believing wives of our podcast to thank for the nudge. I thought it was really beautiful that that was the suggestion.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:30] Absolutely. That trust is a beautiful thing, you

Kattie [00:04:35] know, so, yeah, thank you for saying yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:39] Our pleasure. Yeah, we love you guys. So we love marriage on a tightrope. So we're so thrilled to. We're honored to be on your show.

Kattie [00:04:49] Well, John and Margi are friends of ours outside of this. So anyway, it's just fun to get together, whether it be the interview or games or whatever, but I think we're gonna just go ahead and dive in. Some of our audience may feel reluctant to this interview, and I think it's important for everyone to understand that everyone has a story, everyone has wisdom and knowledge to share. And even if you are no longer in a mixed faith marriage, I think that there is always, at some point, some time in your marriage where you are not always on the same page. And. And I think that

Kattie [00:05:31] anyone in or out of the church, any other religion, has good things to offer and really Beautiful things that they've learned and so that's kind of moving forward. What I hope you hear on the podcast is just letting John and Margi tell their story and share their hearts with us.

Allan [00:05:52] We're going to do this the same way we do all of our couple's interviews and start at the beginning, the very best place to start and talk a little bit about both of Yalls upbringing. Would love to start with you, Margi. And just again, we don't do the 12 hour interviews here on marriage and et cetera. We do about 90 minutes, so we'll just take a few minutes. Tell us about growing up. Where did you grow up?

Margi and John's Backgrounds and Upbringings

Margi Dehlin [00:06:18] First of all, I grew up in Maryland and Ohio and high school was Florida.

Allan [00:06:25] All right, all right. So would love to hear about your upbringing, particularly kind of what within the church. If you grew up in the church. We'd love to hear about that. I don't know much about your upbringing either, so tell us a little bit about your upbringing, your family and all of that stuff.

Margi Dehlin [00:06:40] Okay. Well, so my beginnings were in Potomac, Maryland. I think what's a little bit different about my story is that my parents converted when I was 8 and so I do have a memory, you know, going to church and I have a memory of sort of the discussions and how our life kind of changed after that. So the Washington Temple was kind of going up when we lived in Maryland and they did this invite and my grandmother got an invitation to this open house. My parents ended up going, watched a little movie there, dropped their names in and lo and behold the missionaries kind of came.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:22] But yeah, it was a really special kind of environment there in Potomac Ward. They, my parents took the discussions for just months and months and months and the ward members all got involved. It was kind of the ward where the Marriotts were part of that ward and it was just a real, what would I say, like a very involved kind of ward. So yeah, my dad was a psychiatrist, my mom was a nurse at that time. I had an older brother. So we had two kids and then my parents joined the church kind of 19 oh, 77ish. And then they had four other children. So there's this real, in a way, you know, the family as I know it, you know, was really because of the church.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:13] We had two children and then kind of a six year gap and then four of my siblings were born two years apart kind of after that. I have a memory of our sealing in the Washington D.C. temple and yeah, just a lot of beautiful memories kind of growing up. I Remember just a lot of, like, family dinners and, you know, my dad playing the piano at night and swimming in our pool. And it. What I remember is just a lot of rituals, like grounding rituals around kind of holidays. And I just remember, like, a really. I mean, overall, just a comforting kind of environment.

Kattie [00:09:00] What. What type of grounding rituals were developed from the church?

Margi Dehlin [00:09:07] Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, it was a big change for us to kind of go to church. I remember pretty early on we started. My dad was. He played the piano really well, so we performed in church pretty early for, like, in. For Christmas and some other things. But going to church on Sunday was a big thing for. I have memories of baptisms in our backyard pool, actually. And I'll have to, like. But that's, like, my memory as a. As a child. And just I remember a real.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:40] Because the ward was so involved with the discussions with my parents, both of them had discussions, I think, longer than a year. It's like they really got to know us. And so it was a way. It felt personal that. That ward and who we met. And even at John and my wedding, it was back in D.C. which was important to my parents, and many of those people were there at our wedding.

John Dehlin [00:10:10] From the original.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:11] From the original ward. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:12] Yeah.

Kattie [00:10:13] That's really beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] Margi's mom still hangs out with the couples that brought them into the church 40 years later.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] So. Yeah.

Allan [00:10:26] Is your mom still involved with the church?

Margi Dehlin [00:10:27] My mom is still involved, yeah. With the church.

Kattie [00:10:32] And your dad has passed, is that right?

Margi Dehlin [00:10:34] That's right, yeah.

Kattie [00:10:37] And, John, what about you? Why don't you talk to us a little bit about your upbringing in the church?

John Dehlin [00:10:44] Yeah. So I'm different than Margi. My mom's ancestry goes back to the founding of the church. I'm cousins with Desert Tap Benson, who was one of the prophets of the church, and I'm cousins with Samuel Rose Parkinson, who I think was an apostle early on. Pioneer ancestry. My grandmother was the daughter of a third wife of a polygamous household in Franklin, Idaho, which is right next to Preston, which is where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed. But my mom.

John Dehlin [00:11:19] What's that? Lucky. Exactly. Yeah. And that's just something I. I mean, I knew my grandmother was the daughter of a polygamous family, and I knew my grandmother. So that's kind of interesting for me that I was able to talk to my grandmother about living in a polygamous household, but she was super positive about it and very cheery and happy about it.

John Dehlin [00:11:45] Her name was Karma Benson Parkinson, and. But yeah, Pioneer ancestry, all the way back. I was born in my. My dad's from Salt Lake. He's like a third or fourth generation Mormon as well. So my. My parents got sealed. I'm the youngest of four. They were married in the Salt Lake. Sorry. They were married in the St. George Temple. And even though I was born in Boise, I was raised mostly in Texas.

John Dehlin [00:12:12] Six years in Dallas and like 12 years in Houston or Katy, which is a suburb. And all I can say is I lived in this amazing Mormon bubble, even though it was in Houston, where it started out as this branch called Kattie Branch. And we met in a house across the railroad tracks from Katy High School.

John Dehlin [00:12:34] And, you know, I remember, like, them mimeographing the program, Sunday programs, which was like this purple, weird paper ink thing where you'd have to hand crank the programs to. To copy them. There weren't even photocopiers. That's how. But just like, to watch us go from like that house across that we rented across from the high school to building our own chapel and then splitting Kattie, you know, going from a branch to ward, then splitting Kattie ward in the. Kattie Ward and Nottingham Ward, and then eventually having it split again to Bear Creek Ward, and then finally, you know, Katy becomes its own stake. Like, that's.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] It was just this boom of Mormon awesomeness in Oil Town. And I had incredible stake leaders growing up, incredible youth programs. I went to every war dance that I could, every steak dance, every regional dance. I was scripture chase champion for the. For the area. So multi stakes. I was the scripture chase champion my freshman year of high school. So.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:45] Can you feel the zeal?

Kattie [00:13:46] Oh, I can. I mean, you are still so proud of that victory.

John Dehlin [00:13:51] Yeah, yeah. And I. It's weird. On the one hand, my parents got divorced when I was in middle school. That was embarrassing and confusing because it, you know, you're. You'll sing. The families can be together forever in primary, but then you're looking in, your mom's crying down in the pew, and you're wondering, like, how does this apply to my family? But that didn't. That wasn't a crack in my testimony at the time. It actually, because my family was split and there's a lot of chaos in my home. I kind of think of the church as. As raising me. So I was super devout and I, you know, to this day, I'm 53.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] I've never tried alcohol, never tried, you know, tobacco or marijuana. Like, you know, I took the law of chastity extremely seriously and did seminary and all the Stuff and. And the church, you know, I ended up having, you know, doing well academically and athletically and getting a scholarship to byu and, you know, my family was a mess. And so I really do, in my mind credit the church with really helping me do well in all the aspects of my life.

John Dehlin [00:15:12] So I have pretty much no negative things to say about my Mormon upbringing and just a ton of gratitude. No trauma, like, just awesomeness. And by the way, the church was different. I'm old. I'm 53. But like, back in the 80s, we had, like, Father Sons outings. We had dance festivals, road shows.

John Dehlin [00:15:36] You know, we did it. We did a steak production of Saturday's Warrior and I played Ernie, and it was like a Houston wide event and, you know, youth conferences at various local universities and colleges. And I just loved every bit of that whole thing, scouting, you know, so just. I can't say enough good about my Mormon upbringing.

Kattie [00:15:58] Yeah, yeah. Ended to win it. I had the same experience. So I really. That resonates with me. And let's see, Margi's in Florida and John's in Texas. And where does the story collide? Margi, how do you and John meet each other?

How Margi and John Met and Got Married

Allan [00:16:16] Gotta be at some, like, Republican convention, if those were the states you were living in.

Kattie [00:16:20] That's right.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:20] Right.

Allan [00:16:22] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:23] Well, I went to byu. I ran on their cross country and track teams. And amidst my time there, I made a friend that was a mutual friend that knew John. So I was studying philosophy. His friend Russ, I was. Made family home. Evening, Mom. And so anyway, we combined groups and John came with his friend Russ, and we were playing a little game that night called Funny Bones. Was that the name of it? Which is like, Twister maybe, with cards, where you're trying to hold up cards to different body parts.

John Dehlin [00:17:03] It's like, hold up a card with your elbows. Yeah, I'm doing this with Margi. Or hold up a card with your hip, but then hold up another. And so you're basically. It's just an excuse to touch each other. Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:15] So we were paired together, and I thought it was really, really cute. Like, I did have a little zing there. And then after the game.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] A little zing. What?

Margi Dehlin [00:17:23] A little zing.

Allan [00:17:24] The zing.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:25] Just like friendly little. Just a friendly. A friendly little zing. And then we ended up kind of going back a bunch of people into my bedroom, and John joined people in there and started asking all sorts of questions. I was an English major, philosophy minor. And he was noticing my books and he was asking all sorts of, like, Questions where I'm like, who is this dude? Like, he was asking me, like, are these books for show? Or, like, do you read them? Do you actually read them? And I was like, who are you?

Kattie [00:18:00] He's already honing in on those skills. That's right. Interviewing people.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:05] It's like a mixture of, like, offended, but also like, this dude, like, he is a straight shooter. We have to give him that. But anyway, he. He kind of caught my attention and it went from there. Yeah. How would you describe.

John Dehlin [00:18:21] Yeah, no, that's all accurate. Yeah, I was a senior and I. Yeah. And Margi was just for me, a really big catch because I, you know, I. I dated a lot of different types of women at byu, but Margi came across as someone who was really thoughtful and gorgeous and deliberate and very, very disciplined and hardworking. Had great character and integrity, but mostly cute. Super cute. So, yeah, I. I pretty much got rid of all my other girlfriends at that point and went with Margi.

Allan [00:19:04] Every single one.

Kattie [00:19:06] There.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:07] The. The entourage of. It was just like. It took weeks to call them all and to let. Then you had to, like, just kind of let them down gently.

John Dehlin [00:19:16] But I. Yeah, there was this weird thing where it was my last year, last semester at byu and I. So I was trying to figure out. Because I was going to go to law school at University of Texas. I was trying to, like, narrow it. I was just trying to date lots of people and then pick one to marry because this is going to be like, my last chance to, like, marry someone while I was at byu and I didn't want to go to law school single. So I. I was. I was kind of, like, keeping lots of options open and then trying to, like, find that perfect person. And I found her. You did it.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:46] You did it together. Yeah, I remember the real, I feel like, connection happened on our first date. It was kind of like. Do you agree? I remember, I think we rented Wall street and went to a restaurant and we, like, talked and just talked and talked. And it was that connection that for me, it was really rare to. He was just like no one else. He was a great singer. He loved the Beatles. I did really, really deep, interesting and engaging. And I really loved something. It felt very gamey for me at byu, which was something that I just. It always bothered me. And there was just nothing gamey about him. He was just very, very. That straight shooter thing was true. And I found it. His earnestness, his honesty, I just found it really endearing.

John Dehlin [00:20:45] I can feel the love can you

Allan [00:20:47] feel the love tonight?

Kattie [00:20:51] And. Okay, so are we talking, like, it was a quick. If you're a straight shooter, you're like, all right, wham, bam, let's get married.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] We were slow.

Kattie [00:21:00] Did it take.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] We were 10 months from meeting to wedding?

Kattie [00:21:04] Well, I mean, yeah, I guess in

Allan [00:21:05] Mormon, that is slow for most listeners of this podcast, yes.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] That's like three times the average. Right?

Allan [00:21:12] Right.

Kattie [00:21:13] That's right. And so you get married and then just those first, like, how. Where. Where do you go? Do you go to law school? Do you tell us that?

John Dehlin [00:21:26] So we started out, we got married in D.C. my first real job was at Bain Company, which was Mitt Romney's consulting firm kind of thing. We lived in Dallas for that. And then. Then the Internet emerged while I was working for Bain, and I felt like the Internet was going to be big. This is in 1994.

John Dehlin [00:21:49] So we moved to Chicago to get into tech, and we lived in Chicago for a few years. Our first child was born in Chicago. I worked for Arthur Andersen, which was the biggest accounting firm at the time, and then just became a programmer. Then we moved to Salt Lake City for a year to work for the church. I was a software programmer for the church for a year, and then Microsoft hired me away. So that's when we moved to.

John Dehlin [00:22:16] We had. We had our second child in Salt Lake, and then we moved to Seattle to work for Microsoft. That's where we had our two final children. And we lived there for seven years until we moved to Cache Valley to start Mormon stories.

Early Marriage and Orthodox Church Life

Allan [00:22:31] Now, before we go beyond the timeline there, one question we always love to ask is, oftentimes you get married and. And you think, oh, we both came from the same religious upbringing. We are on the same page on everything. But we learned in our marriage very quickly that there are little nuances with how people were raised, especially with. With a convert family. Did you know, was there any. Any dynamics like that of our. The classic example we give is, is we realized within one of the first few Sundays we were married, I turned on the Lakers to watch basketball, and she was like, what are you doing? We don't watch sports on Sunday.

Kattie [00:23:06] We watch sports on Sunday.

Allan [00:23:07] So she turns on a movie and I'm like, what are you doing? We don't watch movies on Sunday. If it's not sports, we can't do it. So we noticed very quickly that we were already, I don't know, we would say mixed faith, but there were differences in how we practice. Did you notice the same thing?

Kattie [00:23:21] And what were some of those differences?

Margi Dehlin [00:23:22] Okay, yeah, there are a couple Things that come to mind right now. For me, the first thing is kind of going back to our story just because it illustrates something that comes up when John and I met. It's kind of interesting because we met at a pivotal moment where John had come back from his mission. And his mission had been kind of hard for him in some respects. And he was writing a letter to Dallin Oaks and I was running for byu. I was kind of in my last year and had noticed some things going on with regard to our coach and the team that were troubling to me.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:02] And I was writing a letter to the athletic director, the women's athletic director, to kind of bring to light some of these things that I thought were troubling. So we met in a place, I think, of where we were in our own ways having experiences with systems where we were troubled and we were self advocating and in particular, me meeting John at that moment, I felt like, you know, I was aware that there was some grief and some reckoning going on with regard to what happened to him on his mission. And I think that was something that I really felt for and, and kind of bonded us together.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:51] And in a way it comes back in our, in our marriage kind of later. So that's, that's one thing I would also say, like my experience was East Coast Mormonism. So I think a lot of space. Most of my friends weren't Mormon, my family wasn't Mormon and we didn't treat like we loved our. Like I have really great relationships with my extended family and particularly at that time, they weren't treated differently. They drank, my grandparents had alcohol when they came to visit us. It was not a big deal. And so you had this real normal blend of. And so it wasn't like.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:31] I guess what I would just say is the church wasn't central in my experience of love and family because of that. And so that was something that was different. And the last thing that I think was just I was really introverted growing up and I loved the structure of the church. But like John was saying he was, the church was just. It became kind of a family structure to him in many ways. And for me, church was like a little bit more of check off the boxes. It provided stability and structure, but I didn't love it. And I didn't look to, to it for my social structure or to meet my needs.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:15] I was getting my needs met kind of in my family system and within my friends and really involved in kind of just running and not. My identity wasn't really tied to church involvement in particular, and even I would say, to church belief. Our family was much more for me, grounded in psychology.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:38] I mean, a lot with my dad, we would go to the hospitals and spend holidays with his patients. And so anyway, those are some things that stand out.

Allan [00:26:49] John, before we ask if there's other things I'd love to ask. Was there ever any sort of dynamic of. No, Margi, it is about the beliefs. And like in this household, we believe this way. Or, or why doesn't this mean more to you? Was there any adjustment to that? Or am I creating something that didn't exist?

John Dehlin [00:27:10] Well, Margi alludes to the fact that my mission was kind of presented some of the first cracks in my orthodox faith because I had what I think any objective person would, would characterize as a corrupt kind of mission president. Mission it was, it was one of those. In the 80s, it was common for some of these mission presidents to really just kind of lose control and go baptism crazy. And our mission had like 750 baptisms a month. Some companionships had over 40 baptisms a month. And they weren't legitimate baptisms. It was a lot of, you know, seven and eight, nine year olds without their parents and a lot of really fraudulent kind of baptismal activity.

John Dehlin [00:27:55] And. But the mission president seemed to encourage and promote that type of activity. So when I came back from my mission, I was deeply troubled that a mission and the most sacred ordinance you could think of, which is baptism, could be kind of what I felt like was perverted. So I was still very much super orthodox and gung ho, but it was like, it blew my mind that a mission and a mission president could be corrupt. So that's why I wrote Elder Oaks and when I tried to, you know, try to understand what was going on and saw that the problem was more widespread than just my mission, it made me first sort of ask the question, wow, is it possible that something's not all right in Zion, that there might be some problems?

John Dehlin [00:28:42] And it never, at that point, it didn't like, really caused me to actually ask the question, what is it possible the church isn't true? Like, I wouldn't allow my mind to go there, but it definitely left me with unresolved concerns that I knew were going to make it. So my, my experience in Mormonism was probably not going to be the Super Peter priesthood Orthodox. I still was obeying all the rules, but I, BYU liberalized me as a progressive Mormon. I had, I was.

Kattie [00:29:16] In what ways?

John Dehlin [00:29:17] What's that?

Kattie [00:29:18] In what ways?

John Dehlin [00:29:18] So I, I, when I Went to Ted Lyon, who was a faculty member there, to tell him about my mission. He's like, hey, come to these honors colloquium classes. We'll teach you about, you know, ways you can be an intellectual and a Mormon. So at, at byu, I learned about Eugene England. I learned about Richard Bushman before he had ever written Rough Stone Rolling. I learned about Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Phil Barlo and all these Super Harvard educated, PhD level, faithful, intellectual Mormons. There's a, there's a book, an amazing book called the Thoughtful Faith. I've got it over there on the shelf and it's essays of like PhD level, Harvard level, faithful Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:29:59] And so I had professors teach about evolution and it's like, hey, you can believe in the church and believe in evolution. You can believe that the global flood never happened and still be a believing Mormon. You don't have to believe that Adam and Eve ever existed. You can still be a Mormon. You can be pro choice and, and still be a believing Mormon. So like, in all these ways, BYU sort of gave me permission to be a progressive Mormon decades before those two words were ever really put together.

John Dehlin [00:30:31] And so, you know, by the time I find Margi, one of the reasons I, I picked, I, I, well, one of the reasons I loved Margi and we, we picked each other. But I, I thought it would be a really good fit to answer your question, Allan, is that I knew that Margi was committed to the church and had morality and integrity, but she wasn't overly identified, she wasn't super churchy, she wasn't super orthodox. I remember when we were dating, we were dating once and we were in her, we were in an apartment, we're in a room and I probably shouldn't have even been alone in a room. But you know, we were relatively well behaved, I'd say. But like, I remember one time saying, hey, we should. What's that?

Kattie [00:31:17] I like how you put that. You'd say that you were relatively rounded,

Allan [00:31:19] rounded up, no follow up questions. Proceed.

John Dehlin [00:31:24] But I remember like saying, hey Margi, let's kneel down and pray about this. And she's like, I don't want to do this, that. And it wasn't like she didn't believe in prayer or God. It was just like, that feels weird. So it was kind of like she wasn't uptight. She was faithful, but not uptight. And I don't know if that answers. That was probably a really long way of answering your question.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:43] But, but we had that a little bit with the temple too. In the beginning, like, I do remember you trying to have us go to the temple and kind of start some of those traditions when we were. Were married. And I was just like, I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:32:00] No, Mar didn't love the temple, and she wasn't afraid to say, I'm not really into the temple, but she served in her callings and, you know, so she wasn't like, she wasn't disobedient, but she just wasn't excessive. Sometimes you. Sometimes it's good to think about religion as like the salt on the meal. It's not the meal. It's kind of like the salt that makes the meal good. And that's how Margi was a Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:32:26] Mormonism was the salt on the meal. It wasn't the meal. And I, I knew that I kind of needed that because if I, if I, I thought if I have a faith crisis at some point, and I did anticipate subconsciously in 1993, the possibility of a faith crisis at some point, I wanted a wife that could stretch with me and not break. If at some point I came to her and said, I, I'm struggling. And that. That ended up happening about 10 years later.

Kattie [00:32:54] Well, okay. I'm just really struck by the level of emotional. Well, like emotional intimacy you have and thought process you have in picking a partner. Because I'm going to be honest, Allan and I, it was like, we get along. There's chemistry, smile. There was a lot less thinking involved.

Allan [00:33:16] I think behind closed doors, maybe we weren't quite as withholding as the Delins were before marriage.

Kattie [00:33:24] I don't know about that.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:26] I don't know that we would say withholding for us either.

Kattie [00:33:31] Well, I just think, though, that really says a lot about both of you and your character, because it's really hard for me to imagine looking into a partner that deeply and seeing the. Those types of qualities at, you know, at that stage. I can see it now, you know.

John Dehlin [00:33:51] Right.

Kattie [00:33:52] Being married to my person for, I don't know, 18 years or something. And there has been an evolution in the relationship, just like I'm sure there has been in yours. But it's really refreshing to hear that it was. That thought process was there while you were making the decisions of do we want to be together? And, and this is what I see in this person. So it's really nice to hear that.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:17] Thank you for that.

Kattie [00:34:18] Yeah. Okay, so where does the. I don't know, rubber meets the road? I don't know if that's the right.

John's Faith Crisis Begins

Allan [00:34:26] The faith crisis.

Kattie [00:34:27] I mean, yeah. Because you're on this sort of trajectory and how, like take us through that a little bit.

Allan [00:34:36] And I don't want to assume that you, John, had a crisis of faith before Margi did.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:42] Right.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] But I did okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:44] Okay.

Allan [00:34:45] And I will assume that.

John Dehlin [00:34:47] So I had never really studied church history. The only books I knew about that even talked about church history, they had like History of the Church, Volumes 1 through 6 by B H Roberts. I'm probably making that up. Or maybe Joseph Fielding Smith had like a one or two volume version of church history. And I remember somehow I got a hold of those on my mission and tried to read them and I just, I couldn't get into it. It just seemed, I don't know, I just couldn't get into it.

John Dehlin [00:35:17] So fast forward 10 years or whatever. It's around 2000, 2001, I'm knee deep in my career at Microsoft. And I guess, I guess the bishop asked me to teach Sunday school and his daughter was, you know, in the class, 16, 17 year olds.

John Dehlin [00:35:37] And I guess I, I did a good job teaching because the daughter of the bishop told the bishop that I should be their seminary teacher. So the bishop called me to be the full time seminary teacher. And the first year was Book of Mormon that I taught full time seminary. And this is where you have to wake up at 5:30 to show up at 6 to teach the kids from

Kattie [00:35:59] 6 to 7 and then go do your day job.

John Dehlin [00:36:01] And then go do your day job. Yeah, they go to, and they go to high school. Yeah. So I, I started. So the first year was Book of Mormon and that was, that was fine. But the second year was Doctrine and Covenants and I just thought, huh, you know, I always wanted to really dig into church history, but I wasn't ever sure how. And now I feel like I'm ready. And so I just said I'm gonna start digging into church history.

John Dehlin [00:36:28] And I started just getting the, the institute manual, Church history in the fullness of times. It's this dark green, big, thick manual about church history. And I started reading it and most of the stuff I knew, but you know, you come on like Hans Mill. And then you'd be like, okay, wait, there's a Hans Mill massacre. But wasn't there a Mountain Meadows Massacre? But, but it doesn't mention Mountain Meadows Massacre. Huh, that's interesting. Like Kirtland Bank. And then you read about Kirtland bank and like the bank going bad and like, huh, I guess I knew about that, maybe I didn't, you know, and, and like I like, I know there's polygamy, but, oh, it doesn't seem to be mentioning a lot about polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:37:07] And so I loved reading that institute manual, but I wanted more. So I. I went and I started finding faithful history books. And this is where I would have. I would have read probably Richard Bushman's book Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Early Mormonism, which was a predecessor to Roughstone Rolling.

John Dehlin [00:37:29] And that made me more interested. And then I learned about Leonard Arrington, and I learned about Lowell Bennion and Eugene England. And eventually I found Michael Quinn and started reading Michael Quinn. And, you know, before you knew it, I was like, whoa. Learning all this stuff at age 30, 31. That in all my years in the church, I'd never been taught. And this was pretty Internet, really. Pre podcast, pre CES letter, pre anything. Pre Google. This is pre Google. Like, maybe Google existed, but it wasn't my default browser. That's how long ago this was.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:06] Right?

Allan [00:38:08] Chrome didn't exist.

John Dehlin [00:38:09] Yeah, no, it didn't for sure. Yeah. So, yeah, by the time I end up with, like, Fon Brody's no Man Knows My History, that was the first time I was willing to just really ask myself, is it possible that the church isn't what I thought it was? And it took me, you know, three decades to even be willing to ask myself that question. So that's when our mixed faith marriage emerged.

Allan [00:38:37] How. How did that converse? Was there a conversation? Many conversations, I assume, of like you telling her, this is where I'm at. This is how I'm feeling.

Kattie [00:38:45] Margi, do you remember the first time John came and talked to you about all this?

John Dehlin [00:38:50] Can I ask her a question to predate? Do you remember the months and months and months or even years I was studying this stuff and what you were, what your impressions were, the deeper and deeper I was getting into it?

Margi Dehlin [00:39:04] Yeah, I do. I do, because it was kind of like. It was like a cloud. And you. It was kind of like he kind of got farther and farther away, and it was really painful. I knew something was up and. But it was like he was kind of unreachable in a way. But I do remember finally, and I remember you intimating sometimes in really vague ways. But then when I would try to kind of follow up, like, you would kind of block it off or change the subject. But eventually, yeah, he. I do remember the conversation. It was in our Seattle house. We had three kids in that mothering role and really going hard at it, and we had put the kids to bed and he brought me into our bedroom and sat down and he was.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:01] It still makes me super emotional because I. It's. It was such a rare thing to see him kind of shaky. His. His voice really shaky, just visibly, visibly moved, scared. And I just remember him kind of saying, on a basic level, I don't know if you remember in more detail, but, you know, the church is not what it seems to be. I've learned some things, and I don't believe the church is true anymore.

Allan [00:40:35] That matter of factly.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] Yeah, I mean, I think I might have said the church may not be what we thought it was or something. Trying to really finesse it as softly as I could. And I remember, maybe I'm making this up, but I remember a tear immediately coming down her face.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:52] Oh, I just cried. It wasn't one tear. I just absolutely started to cry. For sure.

John Dehlin [00:40:58] Yeah.

Allan [00:40:59] What were all those thoughts so driving some of that emotion? Was it, Everything's going to change. Is it. What do I do with this? Is it all the above? What. What was going through your mind?

Margi Dehlin [00:41:10] Yeah, I think there was just so much fear of what it. What it could mean, you know, to us, to our family. Yeah, it was literally just. It was from every direction, fear and overwhelm and just this feeling of the unknown, you know, moving in and just filling the room and just having a sense of groundlessness, you know.

Kattie [00:41:42] And I mean, that feeling can stay for a long time sometimes. Sometimes. You know, the couples that are listening right now, some have been through it and they've, you know, figured out a way to make it. Make it work, and they're five or six years in and others are brand new to this. And it. Especially when it feels like it's never going to end, like those, those deep, dark feelings. How did you proceed with the information moving forward?

Margi Encounters the Faith Crisis Materials

Margi Dehlin [00:42:13] So, for me personally, I asked John if there was something, a book I should read, and he recommended no Man Knows My History. And I ended up reading that within a week. But. And that changed a lot of things for me. I feel like it kind of moved from.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:38] You know, my testimony was really unique around kind of belief and some of those things. I think I had a. I always kind of talked about my testimony as like a lived testimony as opposed to, like being overly preoccupied with belief or doctrine or.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:55] And that's just. I think it makes sense with the context of. Of my upbringing, but it may not make a lot of sense for people like in Utah or, um, other places. And I. I totally understand that, but I think what that did was it Kind of separated me even more from this belief side. And then I kind of said, well, we'll go with what's good. We'll just go with. And I was all about stabilize the boat. Like, I was like, now the boat is like completely rocking. And I was like, whatever, let's just stabilize this boat any way that I can. And so the interesting thing for us is we were mixed faith for a good long time, weren't we, John?

John Dehlin [00:43:39] How so?

Margi Dehlin [00:43:40] Meaning that in our family, as our family grew up, we remained like, we went to church for a decade or

John Dehlin [00:43:51] more after basically 13 years this time we lost our faith. We stayed faithful.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:57] And one of my biggest concerns at that time was like this idea of what about our kids? And as our kids grew up, you know, moving toward what's good. Okay. And then we used kind of family discussions to kind of talk through lessons if we wanted to differentiate from messages that we felt like and really having them connect with their own experience. And we did that for a long time. It was, we found such.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:24] There was a lot of beauty in those years that I still remember because it changed how we connected as a family. It changed how we talked about things. We differentiated at any given time. As our kids became teens, we had teens that were going to church and we would go with them, and then we had teens that weren't and we wouldn't. And it was really this place of honoring where people were and allowing love to be non negotiable around belief. It's just, you know, and, and that was really special.

Kattie [00:45:00] Okay, so you mentioned stabilizing the boat. So what you just described to me sounds like that those are the things you could do to stabilize the boat over these years that you went to church with non belief. But you're going for that long. And I know that people are asking themselves why, why would you stay for that long with non belief?

John Dehlin [00:45:25] So I don't know if you know, when I, when I gave Margi, no man knows my history. She's a super fast reader. So she. I'm sure it took her a week or two to read it and she was done. When she finished reading it, she said, all right, I get it. What do we. What do you want to do? That's what I remember is she. She basically said, wow, okay, I see what you're telling me.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] What do you want to do? So she kind of put it back in my lap. And for me, leaving the church was never an option. Ever. Never. Not even in 2014. Leaving the church wasn't an option. So so yeah, leaving the church never, literally never crossed my mind. It was. But we had those role models of Phil Barlow and Richard Bushman and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and others, Lowell Bennion and Eugene England, where it's just like, oh, well, you don't have to be a literal believer. You can be a metaphorical believer. The scriptures can be fable and myth and metaphor and good moral values. And, and I was definitely bought into the idea that you can't raise healthy, moral children outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because, hey, it produced me and it produced Margi. Like, you can't get any better than that.

Kattie [00:46:40] I'm kind of joking us, projecting our children to our children. We're really good at that. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:46] Yeah. So literally I thought, there's no way I'm going to be able to find a better way to raise my kids. Plus, I, I always loved the church. So it wasn't like I'd been abused in the church or try. I had a hard mission, but other than that, I thought the church was amazing. So believe it or not, leaving the church was never an option. So yeah, we stayed faithful for the better part of 13 years.

John Dehlin [00:47:07] And it wasn't, it wasn't just like, oh, let's treat it like a country club. We didn't ever try coffee. We didn't ever try alcohol. We, you know, we still did family evening. We up, up until the very end, we would watch 8 hours, 10 hours of general conference. Every single general conference. And that's as liberal progressive Mormons, we, we would, every morning we would pray together and sing our favorite primary songs and we raised our, we had family meeting every week after we had lost our orthodox faith. And that was for almost all that time. And our kids have all those memories still.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:45] I, I do think a key part to understand is we, we did move from Seattle to Logan, Utah. And I do think that I wonder if our journey might have been different if we had stayed in Seattle, but definitely moving to the neighborhood we were in and to Logan, which is quite insular and you know, with our neighborhood, it was important for our kids. And at that point I did not feel comfortable having my journey overwrite my own kids journeys. I wanted them to be able to still have a sense of their own journeys. And so what I would say is if you looked into, peeked into what I was reading, how often, like how many of the hours on Sunday I went, how I taught young women's and what my lessons focused on and what they didn't, you would see a lot of change within those.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:46] And I, I really showed up with integrity. Like I did not teach things I did not. And I was very honest with. If I was working with the young women's president, I would tell her I'm not going to be able. Here's what I can offer, here's what I can't. And I always was able to teach in young women's and have callings and really didn't have a disruption that way. But I didn't always go three hours. That was something that kind of changed. And things definitely began to kind of sift through a little bit more as our kids entered high school, got a little bit older and John started Mormon stories.

Kattie [00:49:24] Oh, go ahead. Do you have.

Allan [00:49:26] I think we're about to ask the same thing. I like, you usually say things better.

Kattie [00:49:30] Why don't you go, oh, no, I was going to say Margi, it's interesting that you say that because so many of, I would say women who are in men as well, who are trying to make their faith work as well as recognize that there's, you know, some things happening that maybe we don't agree with. It's a very difficult spot to be in when you are trying to frame your lesson to fit what feels authentic to yourself as well as present what you're being asked to teach. And that's a really tricky spot to be in. And I would say that there are a lot of very nuanced people in this group that are walking that their own tightrope with that. How, I mean, do you have any thoughts or advice for women or men who are in that same spot trying to navigate how to make both work?

Margi Dehlin [00:50:37] I think it can be so, so tough. And I do think there is some roulette here on the leaders we work with and wards that we serve in. And so I just want to acknowledge that kind of from the beginning. Oh, it's just so tricky.

John Dehlin [00:50:58] I can offer one thing from you about my understanding of your experience.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:02] Okay, sure.

John Dehlin [00:51:03] Like, Margi never, like, she never cared about the history, church history. Like she read. She read. Nobody knows my history. But as soon as, like it was like, oh yeah, I'm not a big Joseph Smith fan anymore. She's never, probably never read any Mormon history ever again or even thought about it. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but for her that part was passed. So she was never tempted like I was or other people might be to like, want to bring up the truthful history or the, or the more edgy kind of doctrines in a church setting.

John Dehlin [00:51:41] So she could just focus on love. And she'd bring in, like, some of her favorite songs from her more secular artists, but they were always about love and friendship and kindness and family. So there was nothing that was. Ever felt edgy or risky about Margi other than that she would quote Maya Angelou more often than a general authority, or play Natalie Merchant, you know, or Sarah McLaughlin as a song instead of, like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But she pretty much raised no red flags ever. And if there was a lesson she just couldn't teach, either she would ask someone else to teach it, or she would just teach whatever she wanted.

John Dehlin [00:52:25] But she's just so kind and lovely and diplomatic that nobody ever. Everyone was just glad to have her around. And she was really close friends with her counselors in whatever young women's group she was leading, because she was always in young women's. And they just loved her. They just loved having her.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:41] I do think they're. That's lovely of you to say first off, but I also think I was lucky. I do think sometimes you end up with people who, for whatever reason or the structure changed. Like, I remember when I was in young women's, they changed the structure where you didn't teach every week you split with another person. So then oftentimes I could look through the manual and say, hey, I can teach this and this. Would you mind teaching these other two? There's a lot of strategizing. There were years and years I'd never went to second hour. It was just too triggering for me. So I could sit out and look at the lesson I was going to teach or pull out my resources or read Eckhart Tolle honestly in the lobby or like, I really did oftentimes strategize.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:32] And it looked very different kind of through the years. There was a definite evolution to the end, where in the end it was literally, I will go to sacrament meeting with John and I would alternate who wants to go and you have a parent to go with you.

John Dehlin [00:53:47] Or we worked in the nursery together. That was something we did towards the end.

Kattie [00:53:53] I want to get to the kids because I think that that's what you're alluding to, right? One parent with the kids, whoever would like to go to church that week. And. Well, I think we. We want to get to that because that does the. I would say the number one thing that couples come to us and talk to us about is how do I raise my children? And I really love what Margi, you said. Allowing space for differentiation, them to have their own experience Letting the kids have their own experience for what. For what it was. But I do want to get to the point that you. 2014 comes and maybe like, briefly we can talk about sort of what. The happenings around that.

Mormon Stories and Advocacy Work

John Dehlin [00:54:39] Okay. So. So because the church taught me to value truth so heavily and to value the alleviation of suffering of others. The early on in my Mormon stories, well, prior to Mormon stories, I became an LGBT ally. So, like, pre 2004, I was already an LGBT ally. And so, you know, as soon as I start Mormon stories, I start covering the LGBT stuff immediately.

John Dehlin [00:55:17] And. And so I started mormon stories in 2005. And by. By 2010, as I'm choosing my dissertation topic, Prop 8, it happened. So Prop 8 happens the year I'm applying to my PhD program in psychology and the aftermath 2009, 2010, and there was still a lot of conversation about conversion therapy and mixed orientation marriages and celibacy with Mormon, gay and lesbian and transgender individuals. And, you know, the church was still supporting conversion therapy actively, you know, So I chose for my dissertation topic to study the LGBTQ Mormon experience, which I began in 2010, 2011, and by 2013, I had published my.

John Dehlin [00:56:08] The early findings of my research, and Utah State University asked me to give a TED Talk. So what happened was ordained women starts really heating up in 2013 with your fellow mission compadre, Lonian missionary.

Allan [00:56:24] Yes, Kate Kelly.

John Dehlin [00:56:26] So, Kate, so ordained women's ramping up in 2012, 2013. I give my TED talk in 2013. I support ordained women publicly in 2013. And the reason why I felt it was important to go public was because, number one, I, as a mental health professional, I became aware of the suicide epidemic that was just spiking within Utah. And even, even Desert News would cover that at the time about, wow, it's weird, all these youth suicides. We're not sure where they're coming from, you know, And I would read the obituaries.

John Dehlin [00:57:01] Johnny was a loved theater, and he. Now he's with his heavenly father. And I'd read these obituaries over and over and over again, and I'm like, there's something that's not right. Plus, I would just meet these LGBT students at the Utah State University Counseling center, and they would come out to me. You know, it's like, oh, I'm. I'm. Well, John, I'm gay, but I'm married to a woman and we just had a baby, and I don't know what to do. You know what I mean? And I just realized, like, there is no way. My conception of Jesus, the Savior, goodness, even what Mormonism taught me, there's no way that we just can all stay silent as like entire generations die, you know, or like feel pushed out of the church and cut off from their families and, or forced to live lives that are totally unhealthy for them to live.

John Dehlin [00:57:58] So, so I, but I love the church. See, that's, that was always the rub. I loved elders quorum, I loved sacrament meeting, I love testimony meeting. I loved serving. So, but then I realized I learned enough about privilege to realize that like, well, part of the reason I love Mormonism so much is because it was made by and for people like me. Straight white males, cisgender, you know, middle class. And so I just, I, I decided, well, how can I stay and enjoy this when I know that there are so many people suffering?

John Dehlin [00:58:36] And what I decided was being a public voice was the tax I had to pay to morally justify staying and enjoying the fruits of the church. Because prior to 2013, if you listen to Mormon stories from like 2005 to 2013, I never criticized the church leaders.

John Dehlin [00:58:57] I, I never like, I would express doubts or talk about difficult historical stuff. But generally speaking, let's say before 2011, I'm going to change that. Before 2011 I was relatively like, like Bill Real was before he, you know, lost his faith. Probably like Patrick Mason is now.

John Dehlin [00:59:22] I was, you know, prior to 2011, really. I, I created a website called Stale DS.com that's still up today. And I published a manual, like an 80 page manual on how to stay in the church after a crisis of faith. That's how committed of a progressive Mormon I was. I asked Dan Witherspoon to start Mormon Matters and Gina Colvin to start a thoughtful faith. I was like, I was completely promoting, I started the, the Mormon Matters Facebook group that has turned into Waters of Mormon. I started that until they kicked me out.

John Dehlin [00:59:56] So like I was totally committed to progressive Mormonism. Sorry if this is taking too long. So, but, but by 2012, 13, I'm like, I gotta speak up. And I should add that in 2012, I, I, I baptized my son Winston and I baptized him as a non believer. And that was a really big deal for us because when he was 8, I went to the stake president and said, I want to baptize Winston. And my state president was like, no, like, you're not Mormon enough. You don't believe enough and your podcast is causing too many waves. So I spent a year in dialogue with my stake president to get to the point where he felt comfortable with me baptizing Winston.

John Dehlin [01:00:40] So Winston waited till he was 9, until I baptized him. But that's how, you know, that's when I baptized him. And. But yeah, by 2013, I gave my TED Talk. My TED Talk was about the LGBTQ Mormon experience. And basically what I said was, you don't have to choose between your LGBT brothers and sisters and children and the church. You can be an ally of LGBT people and you could be a faithful Mormon. You can be both. That was the main point of my TED Talk. And it was also saying, same sex marriage is healthy for gay people. We should be supporting healthy options for LGBT people instead of fighting it.

John Dehlin [01:01:22] And it wasn't a few months later that my bishop called me and said he was starting an investigation on me. And then a few months after that, Kate Kelly and I received our letters to our disciplinary councils within a week apart. And that the fact. It was. It was probably a big deal that each of us received those letters.

John Dehlin [01:01:44] Both of them would have been newsworthy, but I think the fact that we received them a week apart from each other made people like the New York Times feel like that was a very newsworthy story. So we did go to the New York Times and let them know, and that's when everything blew up.

Allan [01:01:59] I remember we were living in Taylorsville when all of this went down. I mean, this was four years before my crisis of faith. I had never listened. I didn't even know Mormon stories existed. And I remember it being on Fox News, the local Fox News here. And I. I can still picture you walking out of the chapel with Margi, you two together and the flashbulbs, everything. And you stand there and I'm just like, what is this? What is going on? And I knew what was happening with Kate, and we had served our missions with Kate. I remember sending her a message again four years before my crisis of faith and saying, katie and I are. Know that this must be so difficult. Just know that we love you. It wasn't like telling her, we support your cause or we don't support your cause. It was just like, we're so sorry this is happening.

Kattie [01:02:49] We had just run into her. Allen's dad had been in a car accident and he was paralyzed, and we are going to the hospital to see him. And we ran into her and her husband at the. At the time. At the airport.

Allan [01:03:04] Yes. On the way to see my dad for the last time. We ran into her.

Kattie [01:03:07] It was during that year. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, I also have very vivid memories Of I think it was our bishop who found out that we had served with Kate Kelly. And he straight up asked me, do you support her and do you want the priesthood? And it was such an odd question.

Allan [01:03:28] Did I know this happened?

Kattie [01:03:29] Oh, yeah, he asked me in. Yeah, he asked me. And I was so surprised at the question because I actually didn't really know a lot. I only knew what was in the papers. And I think I blurted out, oh, I don't. I don't think so. But yeah, it's. It's so interesting how just that one little experience and now we're here, how many years later.

Allan [01:03:54] Yeah.

Kattie [01:03:55] And we're intersecting again in such different circumstances.

Allan [01:03:59] And now we'd love to welcome on the surprise guest. Kate Kelly is. Oh, no, she's not here.

Kattie [01:04:03] She's not.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:05] Well.

Excommunication and Its Aftermath

Kattie [01:04:06] Okay. So, Marky, once it gets to this point and they do the excommunication, how are you feeling and what do you decide to do yourself with your membership?

Margi Dehlin [01:04:21] Okay. Well, what I will say that I think is important to recognize is that the stake president, there's a changing of guard. So the stake president that John had worked with for that year, I'm not sure if we can go back to that roulette. I'm not sure that he would have excommunicated John. But a new person was placed in who's very decided, told us the first time that we met with him, I'm going to be the one to excommunicate. Your day is. You're like, your day is over. And I think it was just such a game changer for me personally. I. I didn't I go to all the meetings or did I go to some.

John Dehlin [01:05:04] What was weird is we. So we feel very confident that our former stake president was released because he wouldn't excommunicate me. And they put in a stake president that, you know, Ballard and Clay, Whitney Clayton put in a stake president that they, you know, chose for the very purpose of excommunicating me. So what was weird was the very. But we didn't know him at the time because, you know, because we hadn't met him.

John Dehlin [01:05:34] So the very first any communication we ever got from the stake president, Brian King was a letter telling us, summoning us to a disciplinary council. So he had never even come to our house or asked to get to know us or anything. So imagine how it would be for Margi to have our very first ever meeting with this new stake president being all right, you're about to be excommunicated, you know, and he was. He's a. He's an orthopedic surgeon. And again, we're systems, not people, so we're talking about him, but not in a way where we're, like, angry at him or trying to make him look like a bad guy.

John Dehlin [01:06:15] He's literally just probably doing what he was asked to do. But imagine, just from the very start, a very defensive, very accusatory man who's like, why? Tell me why I shouldn't excommunicate you. Imagine how that would be for Margi.

Kattie [01:06:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:30] Yeah.

Kattie [01:06:31] How was it, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [01:06:32] Well, it was kind of surreal. It was like living. Having one experience or having a fairly, I would say, consistent experience of the church. I kind of liken it to, like, a rock that you, like, lift up and then underneath, you see all this. That's what it was like for me because I kind of sat session after session, and he. He would not acknowledge me. He never asked me a question directly until, like, I think the last. It was like the last 10 minutes of the last session where I think I talk about our kids, or I think I, at one point made an appeal for you when.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:15] Where he had a picture of the Savior carrying the lamb back. And I was like, I look at John like that. Like, I don't understand what's going on. But other than that, like, he didn't look at me directly. He didn't. It was like this invisibility, which was so.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:34] I had such complicated feelings about it. And then to go through the actual excommunication process and how the. I. I think once you kind of see that other side of a system and to see these faces of people. We taught their kids, we brought treats, we played games with them. Like, we were in that ward how many years, 12 years of serving young women's, like, just a variety. And it was like, when someone is, like, doing something like that that has this eternal consequence, and it's how they treat you when they're doing this thing. It was so.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:19] It's just so hard to describe, but by the time it was done, I felt like I am. I believe the same things he does. I could have. His voice was my voice in there. And honestly, if you don't want him, you really don't want me. And so he was. We got the letter of excommunication, and I. I feel like I resigned the

John Dehlin [01:08:44] next morning, which surprised me, because I didn't expect her to resign, and I didn't necessarily want her to resign, and I wasn't, like wanting my kids out of there. I was just like, this sucks. It's happening to me. I. I can kind of get it because I watched the September 6th get excommunicated. I kind of knew at some point it would happen. But that doesn't mean I wanted my family to be out of the church because I still again, love the church that we're in Utah and the kids are like. At the time I was excommunicated, our second child was Laurel president. Well, our first child was wanting to go to byu. Our second child was Laurel president, and our third child was Beehive president. Like we were in it. So even after this communication, I was expecting Margi and the kids to be maybe stay.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:29] Well, that had been our plan. So our plan, just to be clear, was that if this ever happened, that we would keep it private, that. That our kids could keep going, that we would have it happen and then we would kind of move on. It was all kind of about. But with that letter, we got a

John Dehlin [01:09:47] letter where they said, if we excommunicate, you will be telling everyone in the stake.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:52] And if you don't, if you.

Kattie [01:09:53] If the fake president would.

John Dehlin [01:09:55] Yeah, it's like that everyone in the warden stake would be notified.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:59] So they. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:00] So we knew. We knew that keeping it secret wasn't an option.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:04] So we were in this position now and it was just. It was so. But yeah, so it kind of forced our hand in a way that I wasn't anticipating. And we had to make a change of game plan again. A game plan. And. And then that's. And. And that's where the real. I feel like the real rub was, is I'll just never forget that evening to the very end was like the kids kind of had a sense of what was going on, you know, particularly our older two. And we're like getting them food and having them have a special. And we're like, just stay here whatever you do.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:40] Because our church was like right across the street. It's a. It's this spectacle. We had no idea at that time, but we were like, just stay here. Older ones take care of the younger ones and just. And we will be back in no time. And we were literally like. It's this like. So like, not a big deal. We'll just be back, right? And thinking we're going to just pick up and you guys can just carry on with your lives and no harm to you. And I just remember that I got there and I walked around the building and we stood there for a minute as we were looking out, you know, at the People. And I saw a child of mine with a camera, and she had run

Kattie [01:11:21] across

Margi Dehlin [01:11:24] the field, which is so like, this child, to kind of. It was like her kind of saying, if it's happening to you, I'm here. I am not staying in the house. I'm not. And she took pictures of it and kind of kind of documented it and later wrote an essay. And that's the thing that I think is. So that kind of changed during the process was our children, who were always kind of our concern, and this has clearly played out since then, but wrote an essay about John and I. John made his choices. We went through this process. We made our decisions, but our kids felt like there was no point. Like their lives, their. Their church path was over.

Kattie [01:12:18] Their.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:18] Their hopes for a forever family. They were like, I don't know if I'll see my parents. You know, our kids were still, like, quite young and quite innocent and held still. And I think there was a death for them of like, wait, like, we're not. We didn't do it. Like, we. We want to be with our parents and we want to. And so it was this really psychologically challenging, much more than I think than we ever anticipated, to kind of go through that methodical, dehumanizing process and to kind of see it play out, trying to protect our kids and to realize there was just. There was nothing we could do. It hit them. Force.

Allan [01:13:08] Kattie. I was able to hold back the tears. I don't think.

Kattie [01:13:11] I know. I'm like, wiping tears away as I'm listening to that.

Allan [01:13:17] This. This may cut me off if you have something else, but this may be a, either a soft segue or may feel more abrupt. But no, John, your decision to A, start a podcast, B, years into that podcast, be a little bit more public about some of the things that you didn't like about the church.

Life as Public Figures and Content Creators

Allan [01:13:46] This is something that we have talked a lot about where we've been public figures together. Public figures, I say, but content creators on this podcast together for almost five years ourselves now. And then about a year and a half ago, I start making some TikToks, and that's. We've literally gone to therapy over our tick. My TikToks and what you just walked through. And this is where it ties into the. What you just said, because I don't want to just ignore it, how. How much you just shared with us.

Allan [01:14:23] But, like, all of this was in. In many ways and a consequence of the decision to be public and to talk about this. And in many ways, you were Just pulled along for the ride and that can be very, very difficult.

Allan [01:14:40] So going from one difficult topic to another, we'd love to talk about because to a lesser extent. Sorry, we'd love to talk about and hear from you, Margi, in that whole, what 18 year span that Mormon stories has been going, how has that impacted you, your marriage, anything that you would like to share about the difficulties of being in a space like this?

Allan [01:15:05] Because now getting back to what I started to say to a lesser extent, even in mixed faith couples where nobody is is creating podcasts or YouTube videos or TikToks or anything, a lot of times there is one, one partner who is very much like, let's, this is between us. And the other is blasting Facebook and calling family and like the world is crumbling and I got to talk to someone and everyone has to hear my. What I think about it. And the other partners, like, even, even in a situation where we are talking about it publicly, there, there can still be that dynamic. So hopefully that was coherent enough to be able to respond to.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:45] Okay, so to be clear, like, the question is about how Mormon stories has kind of evolved over time with regard.

Kattie [01:15:53] I think that we know how it's evolved. I want to know, I mean, at least I would like to hear from you specifically about your experience with Mormon stories being the spouse of John De Lin. And I wish you had a title, right, like in the church, you know, you wish that it was like, oh, president so and so and his wife. I kind of feel like it's in this situation, like I want to give Margi a title because in a lot of ways you, you, you're. You're the partner. You're. You're the one that's supporting them. You're the one that they come home and they tell this stuff to you and you are like doing your best where, you know, I'm not inclined to be in front of cameras.

Kattie [01:16:36] I'm not inclined to speak out in that very public way. And I think you and I, the. One of the things I connect with you on is that we're a little bit similar in that. So how do you, how has this changed you and your children? Having John being involved with Mormon stories for the last 18 years, that's a long time.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:59] Oh, that's such a big one.

Kattie [01:17:01] I know it is a big one.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:02] Such a large question because I think it's been so, so many things, you know, it's such a complicated thing. I mean, it's. On one level, Mormon stories started out as, wasn't it A thesis project for instruction, your instructional technology masters. It became this thing that on many levels, I think, gave John a sense of purpose, a sense of a reason to live, a joy connecting to people.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:36] And so you see that in the person that you love. And particularly watching him through other jobs and to see where that was missing. It was no small thing. I wanted that for him. And so there was that aspect.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:53] It started in our basement. It was literally next to a child's bedroom. A child went to sleep each night listening to John at night, because oftentimes he was in the middle of a master's program, a PhD program. He worked for MIT during this time. So a lot of the podcasts happened on weekends or evenings, and our kids, like one child would fall asleep, like, listening to him interview. So you have this really integrated, no video, just voice, which was different. That was different because we still, for a time, had privacy. It was a voice no one really knew. It was small.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:32] And so during those years, it was like the birth of something creative. It was exciting. I felt on a level, I remember feeling like values based in alignment. I think what was tricky was you never know when you create something where it's gonna go or how it's gonna evolve. And as it started kind of getting bigger and bigger and John wanted to do more and more things, it slowly. It was still integrated into our world. We hadn't separated. He was still working out of our house. People would think about all the interview people coming to our house, like, being in our rooms, our kids are growing up or.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:16] And there became a tension, a fr. He would be away more. He became more. I think as it. As he felt more alive. There was a bit of a wedge in a distance that developed over time that we had.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:35] It came to a head amidst the excommunication. What came to a head was my private self all of a sudden thrust into this very, very public arena and on some level, a life I didn't really ever want. And so we've had to, a couple of times, have to really come together. I've had to have a reckoning with myself and go back and really think, you know, a couple how many years ago now, you know, even in our time in Salt Lake, where I've had to look at our life and recognize who John is and his love for this thing that is now outside our house, but does include video, which is less private, so people recognize you and, you know, and so we have this public self versus private self balance.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:30] And me really getting to a place where I had to choose do I want this life, you know, with my makeup, with my personality and if I do, how do I navigate it so that I still keep the pieces I want to keep private and my private life feeling safe and you know, like my own. Like it doesn't get to take everything.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:01] And so, and that's been a work in progress learning what do we want to give and what do we want to make public and what times and what places we actually move into a private life. And to be clear, with our kids, it's all, it's. It's largely private. We don't really talk much anymore about what we do or Mormon stories. If our kids ask, we'll answer. But it plays a. It is not in our family gatherings overall. It is not in our family sphere or you know, in our times with our children. It is, it is something that now we keep boundaried and kind of separate. So that's a little bit of the. I hope that helps.

Kattie [01:21:45] But that, I mean, that does help. And I think that it's also like, I mean, being public and private. I also feel like there are so many couples out there who are listening, whose spouse may be very public about their, their faith transition. And it's so hard for the, for the other spouse to feel like, why are you sharing all of these things about our private life with people you don't know? And so this is extremely applicable to so many different people.

Allan [01:22:14] You get on Marco Polo one more time.

Kattie [01:22:16] Yeah, we hear that. But I, I can't help but think or sense that there must be some loneliness because as much as you have so many people watching or feeling like they know who you are, there. There has to be some type of loneliness where you have to be careful about who you let in and who friends are versus are they friends with me because they just want to talk about Mormon stories or are they friends with me because they want to get to know who the person I am and am I willing to let that person in? Have either of you felt that? John, I'll start with you.

John Dehlin [01:22:57] Yeah. For a long, long time we lived in Logan and really didn't have friends. I was so busy with school and home life and kids. I had full time job and getting a PhD and running Mormon stories. It's just crazy. And we would. There weren't a lot of. I mean there, there was. We ended up making some great friends after the excommunication, but before that we really didn't have. We had some ward friends, but they weren't really friends.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:23] We had some Therapist friends there.

Allan [01:23:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:26] But I would say those relationships blossomed after the excommunication too, for the most part. But, but it, but generally speaking, it's. It was very lonely. And one of the benefits of moving to Salt Lake City in 2017 was there, there were more people we could become friends with. And yeah, what we did is we ended up going to enough events locally where we could kind of handpick a certain group of friends. And fortunately, they were wanting to be our friends. So we created a book club of five couples.

John Dehlin [01:24:02] You know, working out with Allan and Nick. Homer has been, you know, getting to know both of you, and Chelsea, Nick and others. We've been able to, of course, meeting the Martins, Clinton, Jenny, Martin starting thrive together, and Natasha eventually moving here. Like it. So that's been nice. But.

John Dehlin [01:24:24] Yeah. There's a weird thing about so many people knowing you and feeling like they really know you, because some of our listeners have listened over a thousand hours of me talking.

Allan [01:24:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:38] Or me and Margi.

Allan [01:24:39] I probably haven't listened to a thousand hours of Kattie talking.

John Dehlin [01:24:44] I've not.

Allan [01:24:44] Probably not.

Kattie [01:24:46] I mean, when I'm mad, it's probably more.

Allan [01:24:50] That's more of a light, A light way of saying like, yeah, you have a lot of content. And some people have listened to all of it. So they really do feel like they know you.

John Dehlin [01:24:58] Yeah. So there is this weird imbalance of them coming to you, wanting to be your best friend and wanting to tell you everything at, you know, Macy's or at Home Depot.

Kattie [01:25:08] Okay.

Allan [01:25:09] Or a coffee shop last Sunday.

Kattie [01:25:11] Okay. So wait, I do want to say this because it's not uncommon for people just to come straight up to you.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] Yeah.

Kattie [01:25:17] And I, I have to say, like, I kind of get annoyed when people come straight up to Allan and will just address him and not even recognize that I'm standing there. And I've seen John, I've seen you. You're pretty good about introducing whoever's around you. You're good about that. But Markie, have you felt that? Do people just completely ignore you and go straight to John? And it's, it's actually fascinating and, and interesting to me that people feel like they have the right to just come up and say, I have a problem with something you said and you're at dinner with friends. Like, that's bizarre to me.

Kattie [01:25:54] If you are listening, do not do that to John and Margaret. Do not go up to him and just jump in without even acknowledging anyone else at the table. I'm just going to put that in for you. Because that has got to be so annoying. And I know it is. Margi, does that happen? Does that annoy you? I feel like you are on a higher level than me, so maybe it doesn't.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:14] No, it's something that we are always kind of talking about, and there are times when there's space to. Usually with our kids. It's just. I feel strongly about, like, this is a moment you're with a child, so we keep it short.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:30] But it can be challenging sometimes walking, you know, walking that line of, you know, you're out in public, but you may be also wanting a private moment. And so, yeah, I think it's just. And you really understand where people are coming from and how deep this hits.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:57] And there's that part, too. And so I don't think we've ever turned anyone away or ever, because I think there is that seeing, like, we've been there, we see, we know what it feels like. But we may be a little bit more boundaried sometimes if we're with a child at an event and trying to protect space versus if he and I are out just kind of together and in a low. Kind of a low vibe and moment.

Allan [01:27:27] I think both of us can vouch for how gracious you both are when this does happen. Yes, this. John and I were just laughing about what Kattie said because we were at breakfast with a friend a week and a half ago or so, and this lady just walks up and literally sits down at the booth next to us and says, you said something a few years ago that has been bothering me, and I promised myself if I ever saw you, I would bring it up. And what. What was John's original initial reaction? Oh, no, what did I do? It was like, so gracious. Oh, shoot, let's.

Allan [01:28:02] Let's solve this, really. And then within 30 seconds, what has John done? He says, oh, you know, he's got a podcast, too. And he's looking at me and pointing at me and, oh, you should talk to this guy, too. He's got a cool story and there's a lot of deflection going on and, like, shining the light on other people and does not go unnoticed. I think everyone needs to hear that.

Kattie [01:28:21] Right? And it's such a tricky balance, and you both do it so well. And like you said, like, it's when you see someone that's in pain or hurting and they feel like they know you, of course you want to have that connection with them because it means so much to them, but it. It does take an emotional toll on the Relationship on the family. And I mean, just to know, do your children get the same sort of treatment? I mean, like, do they ask, like, do people know, oh, your dad's John de Lynn.

John Dehlin [01:29:02] I would say, generally speaking, our kids don't like being associated with my podcast. Generally speaking, I believe our kids just want to be kids and want to be their own humans, known for their own personalities and their own accomplishments.

John Dehlin [01:29:19] So even if they, Even if they go for a job interview and the person's like, oh, you're John Deliz daughter, they don't. I. I would guess they don't like that. Even if it's like, oh, I'll hire you to be my photographer because I love your dad.

John Dehlin [01:29:35] Then the whole photography, they want to talk about Mormon stories. Like, our kids just want to be kids. And I think universally they get annoyed when anyone stops us because if we're at a jazz game or the movie theater or getting ice cream, they just want to be with their dad. Mom. Yeah. So it's.

John Dehlin [01:29:54] And worse is that there's so much baggage that comes with me. Like, they, they don't like the fact that they've lost friendships because I'm their dad, but they also don't like it when people come up to them and say, you're the luckiest person ever to have John and Margi as your parents. Because we're, you know, we've made a gazillion mistakes and we've got a ton of weaknesses, and our kids are like, you don't know what it's like to have them as my parents. Exactly.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:25] Yeah. Yeah. Or like, this hasn't been a treat. This whole journey has not been. Yeah. A skip in the park.

Kattie [01:30:34] I have to say, I have a hard time. And we've talked about Allan and his TikTok channel and. Anyway, but our teenage boys, their friends come to our house and they'll just straight up say, hey, you're tick tock famous. Or, I love your tick tocks. They're hilarious. And I get so. I just get so, like, tensed up and, and, you know, some of it is. Okay, are these, like, super LDS kids watching? You know, like, I very, I feel very protective of the space where my children are in and especially, like, I would never want their friends, you know, to, I don't know, to have some.

Kattie [01:31:22] Some, you know, weird thoughts about our family. I wouldn't want their parents to, you know, not let their children see, like, come to our home and be with our kids because of it. It's just like, I feel like with Children. It's such another layer of difficulty that for me, I'm. I'm just always wanting to make sure that everything is okay and everyone feels okay about things. I mean, that's. That's me. But I don't know. Allan's done a pretty good job of talking to them about being public.

Allan [01:32:02] Yeah. I mean, it's. It's a little different for the one making the content versus the one. Because I want all the same things that Kattie just outlined. I don't want the kids to lose friendships over, you know, all of a sudden, some kids not showing up to her house anymore. Why is that? Is there. Is it because of me? And not that I think that I hold that amount of power in their lives or anything, but I would hate for that to happen.

Allan [01:32:27] That doesn't stop me from continuing to do what I want to do on that in that respect. So. One thing that, of course, it's. I mean, if their parents are watching this, I guess we could say we never talk about this stuff with our kids, with their friends, in our home or out of the home, for that matter. Even when they bring it up directly to us. It's. We're not going to get into those conversations with a bunch of teenagers.

Kattie [01:32:54] Yeah. Because they're underage. And I just. I feel like I wouldn't. If they went to someone else's home. And I felt like something.

Allan [01:33:01] We wouldn't want our kids to be preached to.

Kattie [01:33:02] Right, Right. Like, I would want. I would hope that there was some. Some respectful conversations. And so we tried to just kind of steer clear of that. And that's. I don't know if those are the types of conversations you've had with your children.

Allan [01:33:16] Look at the four of us. D and E list celebrities just talking about the woes of fame.

Kattie [01:33:22] We're further down on the list. But it.

Allan [01:33:25] I said D and E list.

Kattie [01:33:26] But listen, this is a unique opportunity because honestly, there are. There are. There aren't a lot of people that can understand sort of the more public side of it that it. And also, like, anyway, how. How the family dynamic. There's not a lot of people that understand that. Yeah. So I appreciate you letting us talk to you about it.

John Dehlin [01:33:47] No, yeah, of course. What I wish, like, I, you know, I know enough about Allan to where I know that if. If Allan could wave a magic wand and no one who would ever be harmed by his video would see it, he would wave that magic wand. In other words, primarily for Allan. I think it's just he needs a way to express Himself. He's got a creative outlet. He's got intellectual. You know, he's got things going on in his brain. He likes to be humorous, but he also likes to create. And so I think, first and foremost, at least in my view, for Allen, there's a creative expression element.

John Dehlin [01:34:27] And then I think he would say I would. He would want his content to be available for those who wanted it or needed it, but that if there would be anybody whose life would be harmed in any way by coming upon it, I would guess Allan would say he would. You'd prefer the algorithm not to serve it up. Right.

Allan [01:34:44] This feels like a mini TikTok therapy session. And. Yes. No, absolutely. And we've. We've had that conversation.

Kattie [01:34:51] Yeah, you're totally right. Like, I think that that's what. Like, where we've landed now. Right. It's taken a while for us to get there. Thank you. Therapy. But. And it was actually. I went to the Art of Desire with Jennifer Finlayson Fife, and it was actually there that I really. My. I had a huge mind shift and really changed the way I looked at it and approached it. And it's been okay ever since. Right.

Allan [01:35:19] She appeared in a Tik Tok, my channel yesterday.

John Dehlin [01:35:23] I see that it is a new dis. Epic.

Kattie [01:35:25] It's a Halloween one.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:29] Don't take. Don't take the.

Kattie [01:35:30] Yes, that's right. Okay. So. So, man, we've gotten through a lot, and I would love to know. Just. I mean, there's a couple more things we wanted to ask. You both seem to be well adjusted. You seem to be thriving in your relationship and really, really at peace. And I think that that can be enviable for some of the couples in our group. So where have you found, for both of you, joy or peace on where you now are in your journey and your evolution of your marriage?

Navigating a Mixed-Faith Marriage Together

Margi Dehlin [01:36:14] Wow. You know, I think. I think for me, it has been really important in certain moments, in certain times to be able to acknowledge when, let's just say the conditioning of our relationship has caught up with us and is no longer serving us, and we just need to scrap it. It's like we're in an old version of who we are, of how we communicate, of how this thing is going. And so those updates that we've been able to make along the way have been really, really crucial. And, you know, I can talk about it, you know, visually, this kind of burning down a marriage and kind of beginning again, and I really find meaning in it because I don't think it's unlike Other things, you know, like, I do think we're always in this process of dissolution, like things dissolving and then reemerging.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:20] And I think that's just part of being alive. We see it in nature. We see it in living things kind of all around us. And so I think it makes sense that it happens at times when you're with someone for a significant amount of time. And we're changing. We both are. We're growing and changing. And so I think what has brought me joy is this version, and I stand by all the other versions, and I look at them like kind of past selves or past that I have such love for. And I can really kind of see and hold who they were. But what I love about our relationship kind of right now is just how truly surprising it is.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:05] How surprising is it that I am, like, co hosting on Mormon stories on video? That is very surprising to me right now. Right. Especially given everything I've shared. So that turns out is, you know, and our friendship, this idea of how partnered we are and this idea of how we choose each other in moments, in every day we are. It's no longer like this. We've just moved into an honoring space. And I just really enjoy, John. I really do. Overall, and differentiation is all the hallelujahs for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:44] And allowing ourselves to have different worlds, different spaces, different preferences, and me nourishing my world, John having his own world to nourish, and then really coming together intentionally and creating a world together that reflects us. And, yeah, that now includes just this beautiful sense of companionship that wasn't always super easy to feel at other stages. And so, you know, I think just the growth and change and witnessing and coming together and starting over and allowing ourselves to sort of heal and begin again and kind of reprogram honestly based on what we want to feel in relationship to each other. You know, that's what I would say.

Kattie [01:39:43] John, you want to add it? I mean, I don't know how you can add to that, but I'll try.

John Dehlin [01:39:47] Yeah, I'll try my best. I'll say. I have one small thing to say. I. At some point, so before marriage on tightrope, I looked at mixed faith marriages. Is like, one of the main things I cared about. One of the main things I. It was most heartbreaking to me. In addition to lgbt, you know, depression and anxiety and suicide and just the individual stress and anxiety and depression associating with the faith crisis, I was heartbroken at any divorce that happened. You know, my parents were divorced. I saw so many divorces come about as a result of mixed faith marriages that for the 18 years I've been doing this, saving marriages has been front and center to what I care about and specifically in the mixed faith marriage scenario.

John Dehlin [01:40:33] And one of the quotes or the ideas that I developed along the way, counseling makes faith couples, was that a faith crisis doesn't necessarily ruin a marriage as much as it does reveal a marriage. In other words, if you were besties separate from your Mormonism when you got married and someone has a faith crisis, it's. It's a relative, it's usually a relatively. A non event, the faith crisis. I mean, it can be hard, but it's like, oh, we're besties. Like, mission is, you know, business as usual. Let's keep having a great marriage and we'll figure out the church thing. But for so many people, they didn't necessarily marry their best, their best friend, they married the church and their mutual agreement to follow the church.

John Dehlin [01:41:19] And so in many, in many ways, and you get so busy as soon as you join the church or get married in the church and start having kids in your career that you're really, you can go 10, 20 years and really not know each other very well.

John Dehlin [01:41:31] So a faith crisis, what it can do is just reveal the marriage. And what it revealed to me, I had to face, you know, let's just say around 2010, 2011, when even 2012, when, like, I was really down to, like, the foundation. Like, do I believe in God?

John Dehlin [01:41:49] Do I believe in an afterlife, this morality? Do I even believe in the morality that I've been living? If there's no angel up in heaven taking notes, can I do whatever I want? Is it even bad to do things I was taught is bad? If there's no heaven and afterlife and no angels and no judgment and. And of course, it's so common to look at your spouse and say, what? I've married you.

John Dehlin [01:42:17] And what you realize is you really don't know how much you love someone until there's nothing pushing you to choose them other than just your choice. And the gift of a faith crisis is I got to look at Margi. I mean, it was scary, probably for both of us, but we got to look at each other and say, do we really choose each other? Because if there's any time to bail on the relationship, now's the time. And that was 10 years ago. You know, 10 or 10 or 11 years ago, we reached a moment in our marriage where we were both like, I don't know, I Want to be married to you.

John Dehlin [01:42:53] And I think we both had our moments feeling that way. And we don't believe necessarily that staying together is always the right answer for everybody. So we're not judgy at all about people who just decide they're both going to be healthier and happier if they. If they part. Yep, we're affirming to that. And for us, what I realized most was that Margi and I brought a lot of unhealed trauma into our marriage. And we went a lot of years having, you know, watching a lot of TV together, exercising a lot together, raising great kids together, exercising a lot together, having a lot of conversations, but we didn't know the first thing, really, about emotional intimacy.

John Dehlin [01:43:37] So for us, the huge breakthrough that happened in 2012, when we had no other reason to stay together aside from the kids, but even then, by then, we realized if we don't really want to be together, it's probably not good for the kids for us to stay together. So we really had no reason to stay together other than just choosing each other. And it was then that we just made the shift towards vulnerability, where we started telling each other things we were afraid to tell each other, opening up about things we were afraid to open up about, and getting to know each other on an emotional level deeper than we ever had before, because there was.

John Dehlin [01:44:16] The church wasn't there to keep us together, and all these beliefs and doctrines and dogma was no longer there. We weren't even sure there was going to be an afterlife. And so all we had was kind of the moments together and our raw selves looking at each other, saying, do we choose each other? And what we decided was that we absolutely loved each other and that we wanted to be together, but that we wanted to be together by our own free will and choice, with no other extrinsic power operating upon us. And believe it or not, that made my commitment to Margi stronger, knowing that it was purely intrinsic and there was nothing about God or the afterlife or angels or judgment.

John Dehlin [01:45:04] It was just like, is this how I want to live my life? And once I said yes, I was more committed, more honest, more moral, more ethical than I had ever been as a devout Mormon. And I was pretty, you know, with the lapse or two. Like, I was a super devout husband and committed husband.

John Dehlin [01:45:25] So I've never been happier in my relationship with Margi the past 10 years. I've never felt more committed. I've never felt more honest. I've never felt more devoted and more happy. And every aspect of our life has improved. We're emotionally healthier, we're physically healthier, we're better parents. And I wouldn't say that's leaving the church. I think you can have this awakening in the church as much as you can have it without. It's about learning the fundamentals of emotional intimacy, becoming raw and vulnerable with each other and choosing each other and choosing every day. There was a point where I was terrified that Margi was going to leave me.

Commitment, Healing, and Relationship Growth

John Dehlin [01:46:03] And I kept saying, are you going to leave me? Are you going to leave me? And she just said to me, look, the best I'm going to promise you is today. And let's both live like today. We have that commitment. And if every day we're showing up giving our best selves, we're probably going to want to be together. But if we're just like we made that commitment five or ten or a hundred years ago, and so we're just sticking with it because we made that promise, maybe we're going to get less devoted, maybe we're going to get a little less. A little more flabby, a little less conscious in our relationship.

John Dehlin [01:46:38] So instead of making a lifetime commitment, let's make the commitment for today and then every next day be our best selves and bring our best selves to the marriage. And oddly, I feel more committed and secure in the marriage without an eternal commitment, but instead with a commitment to living our best marriage in the present moment. I know that sounds total. Like Buddhist Eckhart Tolle pop. Pop psychology stuff, but it's an energy that's been very meaningful for. For me.

Kattie [01:47:12] I. Yeah. And I think that. That it really does ring true to a lot of people because a lot of couples we know, even in our situation, who develop that emotional intimacy, who develop those types of communication, they do go out and do some sort of vow renewal, just as the offering of this is what I'm choosing. I'm choosing every day to live with you. And things are gonna change, but I choose you. And I love the idea of doing it, coming into it daily because it changes the whole framework, the whole idea of the marriage and what. What partnership is about.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:56] That's right.

Kattie [01:47:57] What were you gonna say?

Margi Dehlin [01:47:58] I was just gonna say, I think there's something about it where you feel like different parts of you are accessed or when you're living that way. I'm going to choose you today. What do you need today? What would make you feel like, you know, it just brings. It calls things, I think, forth. And I was just going to Mention for us, because we brought up trauma that we brought. I think another key component was separate. I know for me, separate therapy. It's this idea of, you know, you can't kind of expect to build healthy relationship with two or one unhealthy people. Like, we kind of have to do our own work.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:40] Right. Or what happens is inadvertently we bring sort of our wounds. And I think we all kind of do this even, you know, in our healing kind of. It's not about perfection and being healed before, but on some level, our awareness. Right. What we learn in therapy, what we learn that. That we kind of have a good grasp and we have kind of a sense of healthy coping so that we don't sort of lean in and create a relationship that sort of reveals trauma. The trauma that we actually. And so I do think that that was very key for us too, is just sort of this individuation and doing the work separately so that oftentimes when we could come back together intentionally, we weren't just recreating trauma of the past or from our childhoods or just triggering upon triggering upon triggering. Right. Where we can't even get to each other because all we've got are the triggers. Does that make sense?

Kattie [01:49:38] Yes.

Allan [01:49:39] Yeah.

Kattie [01:49:40] And it's. Yeah, it's. You've created it together.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:43] If I could just add one quick word of encouragement to your audience, please. There will be members of your audience who. Their marriages don't make it again. No shame to that. So the. What I'm about to say, I think it's a win. Win ultimately. But what I started realizing when I would do these faith crisis retreats with Natasha, many of your audience members will have been in some of these amazing mixed faith marriage workshops or retreats that you've done with Natasha. Natasha and I did those for years. And what I realized is a mixed faith marriage is a phenomenal opportunity. And it doesn't feel like it at the time.

John Dehlin [01:50:24] It feels. It can feel like a disaster. It can feel like a train wreck. It can feel like, you know, just your life has ended or chaos or just terminal. It can feel terminal. But what I realized is there is no more perfect laboratory for developing the emotional intimacy of which we just spoke. Because all of a sudden, the contract's null and void. It really is the. The reason you got married. The contract that you both signed to be mutually committed to the church, it's gone. Because at least one of you, if not both of you, no longer are up for the same terms or conditions of the relationship.

John Dehlin [01:51:03] So at that point, you're left with vulnerability. You're left with rawness. You're left with talking about your pain and. And learning to improve your style of communication, doing values inventories to figure out what your values really are individually and then collectively and deciding, do I. Do we have enough values in common to build a life on if the church isn't the full structure? And what. What realize is. What realized we realized is, is it was a religion that was really the. The field or. Or the football.

John Dehlin [01:51:40] It was just. Yeah, religion was kind of just the. The field that you were playing the game on. But the game really wasn't about faith or no faith in or out of the church. The game was, can we develop emotional intimacy and really see the other person and really care about them and get to know them for who they are and then really build a marriage that we both mutually want. And I, I've. I realized that. That this whole church war that happens between couples, you got to drop that rope. It's not about whether someone's in or out. Like whether the kids go to church or not.

John Dehlin [01:52:17] None of that really matters. What really matters is, is that the couple develops emotional intimacy and learns to get along and to enjoy each other and put each other first. And then at that point, whether the kids go or don't. Most. Most of that's out of both of your control. Like, atheists can want their kids to leave the church, and the kids can. Can convert because they fall in love with some girl or don't like the home that they're living in, and then all of a sudden they want to be Mormon. Or the believing person can have the kids going to church, but they're so strict and, and controlling. They push the kids out like anything can happen, even if both are on the best behavior.

Allan [01:52:56] How did you just explain our marriage?

Margi Dehlin [01:52:59] I don't.

Kattie [01:53:00] Wait, are you saying I'm the strict one that makes the kids go to church?

Allan [01:53:03] I'm the atheist? That and their son falling in love with the girl.

Kattie [01:53:07] Don't go to church. I allow space. Allan's getting in trouble here.

Allan [01:53:12] No, I gotta. If I don't throw in one joke per 30 minutes, I feel like I'm not doing my job.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:16] That's right. Keep it. That's good. With the delins. The delins, kind of. But I really do love that, John. Cause I do think there are just feelings.

John Dehlin [01:53:24] Few.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:25] There are these moments in family life, and I do think, you know, developing kind of this mixed faith culture within a family where it starts with the couple and Children are watching and what they're witnessing is what happens. What happens on some level when someone shows up and they're not the same.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:49] Like mommy and daddy aren't the same. I'm not the same. Maybe your child knows then I'm not the same. I'm not who mommy and daddy think I am. Or by watching you treat each other with love, the child learns I will like love is not off the table. We can show up in differences and I know I can be safe and I have a place of belonging. And it starts with that couple. And they're just like. There are moments within family life that that happens, but it's, it's so clear within the mixed faith paradigm that it feels almost like tangible in a special way, you know? Yeah.

Reflections on the Mixed-Faith Community

Kattie [01:54:26] Yeah. And I will tell you that there have been so many moments in the past couple years that Allan and I have said to each other, what if we weren't in the space that we're in now? What would we have said to our children? What would we have said to our friends or neighbors or our, our nephew who came out as gay? What would we say to them? And it's, it's shocking to see the progression, the self development that happens within the marriage, but as well as, as within yourself. And I think that that's where, as you said, John, the magic happens is when you can come to that level of emotional intimacy. You are much more giving and freely giving of it to others. And that just blesses everyone around you. So I really appreciate those words.

John Dehlin [01:55:20] Yeah. Never let beliefs or non beliefs tear your family apart.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:25] It's not worth it.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:25] Love is large.

Kattie [01:55:27] Yeah. Okay, John, you're at the top of your game. You just, you guys both, both of you interviewed Patrick Mason.

John Dehlin [01:55:36] Yeah.

Kattie [01:55:36] Where do you go from here?

John Dehlin [01:55:37] We're done. We're handing over the reins.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:40] We retire.

John Dehlin [01:55:41] The mounts are taking over. We're passing the baton to you and you will become the new leaders of this movement.

Allan [01:55:51] My boss is watching. This is my two week notice.

Kattie [01:55:54] No, really, what, where do you see yourselves in the next couple years? I feel like Mormon stories has been a big. I mean it's, it's been the face of the Dylan family, really, John, and now Margi too. How do you move forward and do you ever get tired of it? Can I ask that?

John Dehlin [01:56:17] Yeah, yeah, I, I do get tired of it a lot. And it's super excruciating to do this job in so many ways that I wouldn't have time to get into. I will say this, that something special happened when Patrick came on Mormon Stories for me, I had felt, you know, I had had Terrell and Fiona Givens on, I had had Richard and Claudia Bushman on, I'd had Patrick Mason on. And for a long, long time I was championing progressive Mormonism. And then because of the excommunication and maybe some other reasons, I don't know, a lot of those people just wouldn't come on anymore. And it becomes its own self fulfilling prophecy.

John Dehlin [01:57:03] You know, there's, there's going to be listeners and viewers that are like, well mama stories got too critical or got too negative or got too anti. But when none of the faithful people will come on and then when you start feeling like a pariah where everybody doesn't consider you safe or worthy or someone that they want to be around, it can make you just feel rejected and outcast and, and in some sense it can make you angry and you know, and you lose. They, you know, people like that lose influence with people like me because they won't engage in dialogue. So I felt like it was a moment of grace when Patrick reached out and he says he was divinely inspired, reached out and said, hey, I'll, I want to come on Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [01:57:48] And you know, I've been, I, I, I was kind of really into politics as much as I was in a religion in my early years of marriage. And I've been really bummed at how polarized society has gotten politically.

John Dehlin [01:58:03] And I've never been comfortable with how polarized Mormon and ex Mormon discourse has become. And even though I've, many would say I've been a part of that. So what I want, what I'm most interested in going forward is bridge building. I want to find a way to heal and to build bridges and take away wedges and help people unify. And that's hard because I still think the truth claims matter. I still think it's important to talk about the truth claims. I still think that there are people being harmed in the church, but I also think there's people being harmed out of the church in an ex Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:58:48] So it, that doesn't mean that I don't want to talk about hard things anymore or that I still don't have frustrations. But I am very interested in healing conversations. So I don't know exactly what that's going to look like. And I don't know if people like Patrick or others are going to be willing to continue engaging, but if they are, I am. And that's why I loved going to the Restore conference. That's why I love those people at Faith Matters. They're my people. Like I, I was standing up applauding at moments during that conference. These are people that are pro lgbt. They're, they're affirming that they're willing to talk about the hard stuff, therefore, healthy communication and kindness and love and service.

John Dehlin [01:59:36] These are my people. So I felt as at home. I felt more at home. I felt more at home at the RESTORE conference than I have sometimes at THRIVE events. That's how beautiful I think those people are and how fractured the ex Mormon community and unhealthy the ex Mormon community can be at times.

John Dehlin [01:59:55] So I, I hope there's more bridge building and more light and less heat going forward. And I may mess up, I may fall down, but if there are people willing to join us, I'm willing to commit Mormon stories to, to heavily invest in bridge building. That's. That's what I want to say.

Kattie [02:00:16] I think that that goes back right to the beginning where I said that it was the believing wives who saw you in the audience that felt that they had misjudged you or mischaracterized you and were surprised to see you at the RESTORE conference. And I, and I really think that that was a bridge building moment, which is the whole reason why we're having this, you know, sit down interview and the podcast. And I really do feel that that is so genuine from you. And I agree with you. I, I told Allan after the RESTORE conference, I really took a hard look at myself and I thought, like, where do we want our podcast to go?

Kattie [02:00:58] Where do we want Mayor John and Tyrope? I feel like we've said everything I've. So we've had lots of therapists on, but, you know, how do we want to proceed? This is the first step. You know, we have Tim and Aubrey Chavez that are going to, that are coming on the podcast as well.

John Dehlin [02:01:12] They're so great.

Kattie [02:01:13] They are great. And I, and I feel like, I, I feel like if we're doing. We're doing it in our own homes, we're doing it in our marriages, we're doing it with our kids.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:21] Yeah.

Kattie [02:01:21] Why can't we do it in this community?

John Dehlin [02:01:23] Yeah.

Kattie [02:01:23] And I really applaud your effort into wanting to move in that direction. Margi, did you want to add anything to that?

Margi Dehlin [02:01:33] You know, I always, my take is always a little bit different. I would just probably say intentional space for work, but also adding in plenty of space for life and joy. I think, I think a remnant for us of Past conditioning from a lot of different places has just been that on some level service costs you. It's okay if it hurts you, it's okay if it kind of takes from you. And I think we've reached a place recently where we've kind of hit up against that, where it's kind of like let's offer, let's highlight this beauty of people in people's stories of resilience and that dissolution and re. Emergence and tenacity and courage and you know, all the differences that make us kind of human. Yeah, let's highlight that and then let's heal and grow and enjoy our lives. Like enjoy our lives and, and that's kind of my, my direction, you know.

John Dehlin [02:02:52] Basically she's saying I work too much and we need to have more fun and work less.

Allan [02:02:55] More board games.

John Dehlin [02:02:56] More board games, more karaoke, less Mormon stories. True.

Kattie [02:03:03] I mean, or whatever Margi's idea of enjoyment might. Might look like.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:11] I just, I just have noticed just, you know, that it is enjoying life. Enjoying life is part of my reason for living.

Allan [02:03:23] Now that shows. Can I pay you a compliment? That shows so clearly in every interaction I've ever had with. Ever had with you. I remember the last time I came over to your house. I think it was just like I left sunglasses or something and I came to pick him up and you asked me one question. Do you remember what it was? You asked me, alan, what is something that brings you joy today? And I went, marky. And my answer was yogurt and granola.

John Dehlin [02:03:51] That's legit.

Allan [02:03:52] I love that I'm have that right

Margi Dehlin [02:03:53] when I get home.

Allan [02:03:53] I've been thinking about it for the past 45 minutes.

Kattie [02:03:55] I didn't go to Costco.

Allan [02:03:57] Nevermind. Now we're in a fight.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:59] No game changer.

Allan [02:04:03] No, it very much is something that is contagious. So thank you for throwing that out there every time we talk because I feel it and it. And it radiates from you and then naturally radiates from me, hopefully. Thank you for that, Margi and John, this has been an awesome sit down.

Closing Thoughts and Farewell

Allan [02:04:26] I feel like this was more just a bunch of people sitting around with wires hanging around and cameras pointing out their face. And it was so fun to hear, to hear so much of your story. Some of it familiar, some of it not familiar. I'm sure for many of our listeners and some viewers that a lot of this was not familiar. And hopefully we learned, we learned quite a bit.

Allan [02:04:47] I would be remiss if we didn't both say thank you for Your friendship, especially in the last year and a half or so that we've really started to spend a little bit more time together. I choose Kattie every day. I choose John. Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 6:30 to 7:45.

John Dehlin [02:05:02] And Nick, Homer, when he, when he comes.

Allan [02:05:05] When he. Come on, Nick.

Kattie [02:05:07] Wow. You call him out.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:09] I was going to say, wow.

John Dehlin [02:05:10] I have kids. My kids can't be up till 4.

Allan [02:05:17] So. Thank you for, for your friendship. Thank you for your examples in this space. It's, I think it's really cool to have. I look at John as a friend, but also you're my oldest brother's age, and so, like, I get to have sort of like an extra 11, 12 years of wisdom around me a few times a week. And that's. I learn a lot from it.

John Dehlin [02:05:37] You get to have a short brother.

Allan [02:05:39] You are my short brother. My real life brother's six ten. John's only six. Five shrimp. That's right. Kattie, you want to, you want to bring us home with.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:49] No, I just.

Allan [02:05:49] You said you had this really impactful statement you wanted to make. Go ahead, go ahead.

Kattie [02:05:54] No pressure whatsoever. I feel like I have talked about most of the, I've asked most of the questions, so I'm so sorry.

John Dehlin [02:06:01] Before you end, though, before you end, can I say one thing?

Margi Dehlin [02:06:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:06:04] I don't see. I can't think of a more sacred work than helping heal families and helping keep families that should be together together. And so, you know, I, I've reached many, many times this point where it's like, we can't do it all. We can't help everybody that needs help. Like, too many starfish on the beach, you know, like, can't throw them all back in.

John Dehlin [02:06:30] And it was so, you know, it was so amazing when you guys entered this field because it was like, whoa. Like, this whole area that was like one of like five areas that I knew was critical. A couple steps in and starts a Facebook group and a podcast and, and retreats and workshops and content.

John Dehlin [02:06:54] I'm like, oh, man, they've got. Kitty and Allan have got this. I can, I can, like, turn to other things and just the, the, the, the ways that you've saved marriages and saved lives has been super inspiring to me and so crucial to our community and to so many marriages and families.

John Dehlin [02:07:18] So for someone who cares about Mormons of all types, believers, non believers, TBMs, exmos. I love you guys and I am so grateful for what you've done the past five years.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:32] Yes, I echo that. We, we honor you. We honor the work that you do. And also just saying, you know, the more people we have emerge in these spaces as sort of lighthouses, shining support and shining sort of. I don't know. This is where we are, and this is what we offer. The more variety we have, the more paths we offer, the more support and choices for people. In my view, the healthier the community, you know, and you guys are a part of that, a really, really important part of that, and it inspires us, you know.

Allan [02:08:14] Thank you. I think. I think what we'll do is Kattie will leave the church, and I will go back to church so we can keep this thing rolling for another few years.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:26] That was. That was the takeaway.

Allan [02:08:28] That's what I. Is that you said. That's what I just heard.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] Milk it. Because you got this.

Kattie [02:08:33] Oh, gosh.

Allan [02:08:34] Yeah, that's right.

Kattie [02:08:35] Shouldn't quit our day jobs.

John Dehlin [02:08:37] I saw what car you drive, Allan.

Allan [02:08:40] I do have a day job.

Kattie [02:08:40] That's because of his day job.

John Dehlin [02:08:41] I do have a day job.

Allan [02:08:43] I sell crap.

Kattie [02:08:45] Well, thank you so much, and thank you both for letting us do this with you in your home turf.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:52] Absolutely.

Kattie [02:08:53] So nice.

Allan [02:08:54] We would invite everybody to listen to Mormon Stories if you would like to follow everything that they do. Margi does tell us a little bit about the series you do that you're passionate about.

Kattie [02:09:06] Yes.

Allan [02:09:06] On Mormon Stories. Off Mormon Stories.

Kattie [02:09:08] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:09] Well, okay, for a minute, I offered a series called Thrive Stories on Mormon Stories. I think now I've kind of merged with Weekly Interviews, kind of trying to integrate the thrive story element into interviews that John does. So that's kind of where I am. I have a website, if you're interested, called Beauty in the Now. And, yeah, that's kind of me.

John Dehlin [02:09:36] And I would say donate to Marriage on a Tightrope, give these guys, go up to their website, click the donate button, become monthly donors. Like, we lose our. I was just gonna say. And I'm sorry to take a minute more. How many podcasters or YouTubers have been around for five years or more?

Allan [02:09:58] Right in this. In this space. Right?

Margi Dehlin [02:09:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:59] Like me. Tough Bill. Real Lindsay Hansen Park.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:05] How about our.

John Dehlin [02:10:06] I don't even think RFM's been doing it five years. Has he.

Allan [02:10:08] He started, like, a year before we did.

John Dehlin [02:10:10] Okay, so rfm. Yeah, like, six, seven people. Like, this space is hard. It's. It's almost impossible to start and to make it five years. Nobody understands how hard it is. And the only way to keep these people around is to support them financially, because even though they'll never do it for the money because the money's not worth it. You know, trust us. The money's not worth it. But the money ends up making it possible to not want to quit. So if you can become a monthly donor to marriage on the tightrope and support these people financially because they deserve your support. So donate to marriage on a tightrope. Gosh darn it.

Kattie [02:10:53] Well, thank you. I don't even think we need, like, a. I'm not gonna.

Allan [02:10:58] The funds will get to us. Awesome.

Kattie [02:11:03] Thanks, everybody, for being here.

Allan [02:11:05] Thank you for watching, for. For listening, and don't mind us as we stop recording and give each other a big hug. Thanks, everyone.

John Dehlin [02:11:15] Bye.

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