1767: Mormon Sexual Shame and Abuse – Jared and Ashley Jones Pt 1
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-host: Margi Dehlin · Guests: Ashley Jones, Jared Jones
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction and Guests' Intentions
Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 1767
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. Today we are going to be dealing with a very important and sensitive topic. We're going to be dealing with multi generational child abuse within a Mormon context.
John Dehlin [00:00:20] So what it's like to experience child abuse in this case from a man's point of view, from a boy's point of view, what it's like to experience child abuse in a Mormon context along with, we'll say harmful sexual messages around shame and, and worth and that sort of thing, how that plays into an adolescence in a, in an adulthood. That's all going to be kind of part one of today's episode. And then part two is going to be what happens when you survive Mormonism, live the Mormon dream, get married in the temple, and then as a abuse survivor yourself, one of your children experiences abuse within the Mormon context.
John Dehlin [00:01:01] So that's the multi generational abuse part. I'm hitting that hard from the start so that everybody knows to practice self care so that everyone knows we're going to be talking about very sensitive issues. And it's timely because in the past five to 10 years, instances of Mormon child abuse and cover ups of Mormon child abuse are rampant. Just yesterday there was a ruling out of California where the Mormon Church was implicated in a two billion dollar child abuse verdict. And there's, I, I have a lot more to learn about that subject but it's a very timely topic, It's a sensitive topic. And here as my co pilot for today's episode is my dear partner, Margi. Hey Margi.
Margi Dehlin [00:01:44] Hi there.
John Dehlin [00:01:45] It's good to have you.
Margi Dehlin [00:01:47] Grateful to be here.
John Dehlin [00:01:48] Yeah. And the people that we're interviewing today are from Southern California. They are Jared and Ashley Jones. Hey guys.
Ashley Jones [00:01:58] Hi.
Jared Jones [00:01:58] Hi.
John Dehlin [00:01:59] Thanks for coming all the way here to do a Mormon Stories interview.
Jared Jones [00:02:03] We're happy to be here.
John Dehlin [00:02:04] Yeah. And thanks for being willing to talk about something so sensitive and so, so important.
Jared Jones [00:02:12] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:02:15] Before we actually launch into your story, do either of you want to set an intention, in other words, talk about why, why you're here? A lot of times people make false assumptions about why someone would come on a podcast like this and talk openly. So it's a way to say this is not why we're here and this is why we're here. Does that. And if you, if you'd rather just tell your story, that's fine too.
Jared Jones [00:02:42] Well, I mean, from my perspective,
Margi Dehlin [00:02:46] I
Jared Jones [00:02:47] guess I'd start out by saying like my major reason for wanting to come on and talk and share my story is if I could go back and. Sorry, I'm going to be emotional throughout this. If I could go back and talk to younger Jared, I would have so much love and empathy.
Jared Jones [00:03:10] And there really is so much that has gone on throughout my life that now I can look back and I can say, hey, man, you were a good guy. You were trying hard. You know, you love people, you love God, and you're worthy. You're a good person. Like, and so that being able to communicate with other people that maybe have similar experiences to me and being able to help them from a perspective of saying, gosh, I'm a good person, I am worthy, that is the major thing that I want to communicate. Because as I've gone throughout my life in the church, that hasn't always been the case. I haven't always felt that way. That's really, for me, a major theme that I'd love to express and communicate.
Ashley Jones [00:04:12] Yeah. I mean, for me, like, coming on. I know when this first happened with our daughter being abused and dealing with all the church leaders, I heard a lot of, like, that that wouldn't really happen. That's not what goes on in the church. Like, that's not how they deal with it. Like, you must be misunderstanding. And it was helpful to hear other people who experienced the same thing to be like, no, like, we're not crazy. Like, this is not just because you're making a big deal out of something and. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:04:39] So to let people know this is real and this happens and that they're not alone or crazy if they've experienced it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I often say silence is the enabler and silence is the killer. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also very taboo within a Mormon context to talk openly about problems. They. I remember general conference talk once about dirty laundry, and you don't air dirty laundry publicly. So it's a very courageous act. It may sound simple, but I think Margi and I know that what you're doing is very courageous.
Margi Dehlin [00:05:16] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:05:17] Thank you.
John Dehlin [00:05:18] Yeah. Okay. Well, I think. So we're going to do this in two parts. Part one is going to be. We're going to be focusing on Jared's story mostly, but. But we'll incorporate Ashley's story. As much as Ashley wants to share, that's not us showing a preference. It's more just how the interview has been envisioned by. By Jared and Ashley. So we'll be talking about your Mormon upbringings, the abuse, the sexual shame, adolescence and adulthood in your. In your Marriage up until the point where your own child experienced abuse. That will be part one. And how. How these themes played out throughout that entire time period. Then we'll stop and then we'll come back for a part two where we talk about your child's abuse, how it was dealt with in your warden stake, and then how that led to your own faith journeys. Does that sound right?
Ashley Jones [00:06:21] Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:06:23] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [00:06:24] Okay.
Jared's Mormon Upbringing and Family Life
John Dehlin [00:06:25] All right. Well, so, Jared, where does your. How. What would you like to share about your Mormon upbringing?
Jared Jones [00:06:33] So, you know, I. I look back at my life for the highs and lows, and I mean, truly from a perspective of privilege, from a perspective of, like, you know, where I come from, like, I won the lottery. Like, I grew up in sunny Southern California with a big family. You know, I grew up in Riverside, and I grew up in the idyllic stake.
Margi Dehlin [00:07:15] We.
Jared Jones [00:07:16] Our area was always well populated. It was kind of like a mecca for families to move from Orange county because they couldn't quite afford there. And so, so many of our friends and family members grew up in like that five or six person or five or six child family. So we just had lots of friends to play with.
Jared Jones [00:07:37] Grew up in orange groves and ran around and threw oranges at each other and at cars and all the fun things. You know, my parents were very involved and loving and, you know, I have lots of positive childhood memories.
Jared Jones [00:08:00] My dad was somehow always involved in leadership in the church, and so, you know, he was always well respected. He was. My dad's kind of a polarizing guy, I guess you could say. A lot of people really love him, and there's quite a few people that don't as well.
Jared Jones [00:08:23] And. But, you know, from a perspective, the church, like, he was always all in, and so was my mom. And so they just. They did a great job and as best as they could in every scenario that they could, they always had love, you know, for the kids. And so I have four brothers and one sister, my sister being the youngest. And, you know, it was.
Jared Jones [00:08:59] It was awesome growing up with a big family. I always enjoyed that. That was always something that I kind of wanted for myself. And that's definitely manifested in our lives. And so, like, the stake that I grew up in was called the Riverside West Stake. And like I said, it was booming. We had amazing youth programs and youth conferences. And so, you know, growing up in that area was great. We always had friends, we always had activities.
Jared Jones [00:09:36] You know, my parents were involved from a perspective of like, we would have activities at our house. Like, we would. Church activities, church activities. Yep. They built a big pool and so you could have all the youth over at the same time. And we, you know, big water slide and, you know, things like that. And so anyways, just. It was fun.
Jared Jones [00:10:03] One thing that was modeled for me as a child is that, like, if the church needs anything, like, you give. Like, my dad was an entrepreneur, very successful at what he did. He's in private investigation in the legal service business.
Jared Jones [00:10:25] And, you know, from probably the time that I was, I don't know, like eight or nine, something like that, money was not like, an issue. And my dad always connected with the church from a perspective of, like, hey, if. Yeah, like, if the leaders ask you give, you give until it hurts. Like, whatever that is, like, you just. You do. It's. You know, he definitely believed in consecration. And so that didn't just manifest when the bishop would ask for a handout, like, when it was time to do a high adventure or something like that and there wasn't something fun to do, he would go buy sea doos and take them to the river.
Jared Jones [00:11:06] And then, you know, he'd have them for a year and a half and realize that we didn't actually really use them. And so then he'd sell them. But, like, that kind of a thing was always a theme growing up is like, he was always generous to fault. And so that meant that there were a lot of activities that took place at our house. That meant that there were a lot of activities that he sponsored.
Jared Jones [00:11:34] And so as I was a child, I remember a lot of people would say wonderful things about my dad and also some hateful things from that perspective of like, oh, yeah, your dad thinks he's cool, so he's, you know, he's doing this to show off or whatever, and when truly, like, 100% out of the goodness of his heart. But at the same time, I saw that and I idolized it, right? And I'm like, man, my dad is the guy. Like, he is the guy that lives what he believes. He's willing to give everything all the time.
Jared Jones [00:12:15] And so that as I was, like, formulating what I wanted out of life for myself, for my family, for my children, like, that was the dream. Like, so I. I loved it. Like, he was always super giving, you know, and so from my perspective as a child growing up in the church, like, with dad as a bishop and the high council, as a young men's leader, like, all the different things that he did, like, that was what was modeled and that's what I wanted to be.
John Dehlin [00:12:54] Was it a. Was Was your mom a traditional Mormon stay at home mom or.
Jared Jones [00:12:59] Yes, okay. Yes.
Ashley Jones [00:13:01] Okay.
Jared Jones [00:13:01] Very, very traditional in that respect. Like, and for sure, like the way that I grew up thinking, like, that's a huge badge of honor. Right? Like, not. And you know, I remember my dad tells a story a lot about how when they were on their way to the temple to get married in la, now. They were the only active members at the time that they got married in the LA temple, and basically they.
John Dehlin [00:13:38] Active members of their immediate families.
Jared Jones [00:13:40] Their immediate family.
Ashley Jones [00:13:40] So they went by themselves to the temple.
John Dehlin [00:13:42] Oh, wow.
Jared Jones [00:13:43] Right.
John Dehlin [00:13:43] Were they, they weren't converts though.
Jared Jones [00:13:45] No, my grandma on my dad's side was. She was converted as a child and had like a pioneer ancestry.
John Dehlin [00:14:00] On your dad's side?
Jared Jones [00:14:00] Not on. Not on my dad's side. And then on my mom's side there was pioneer ancestry. And so I think I'm sixth generation and so. But at the time, my mom's mom and her stepdad. Yeah, stepdad, were not active in the church. And so anyways, they go to the temple by themselves on the way to the temple, you know, they had decided that she would work until they had kids. Well, she's like, well, I've decided that I'm going to become a homemaker now. And so I gave notice the other day and I've quit my job. And so my dad's like, well, what option did I have?
Jared Jones [00:14:46] You know, he's like, I was ready to get married. And so he, you know, he's like, so when I got back from our honeymoon, I went and got another job. Like, so he talks about how he had three jobs. And so like I said, like, that badge of honor, like, he, he knew his part, he played it well and he's a hard worker and always has been. And so for me, you know, like, that was definitely modeled and, and yes, that, that's. My mom did that and she had, God bless her, she had five boys the majority of the time that I was growing up. My little sister came a little bit later. She's 10 years younger than me.
John Dehlin [00:15:33] Caboose.
Jared Jones [00:15:35] Yeah. Yep. And so like a blessing, like to my family, like, that was definitely what they, they had talked about is they've been trying for a girl. And you know, there's the story of how our family, like, we fasted and prayed that we would have, you know, this little sister, this daughter in the family. And so, yeah, that, that was the case and.
Jared Jones [00:16:08] But yeah, I mean, my mom had. We were hellions. I mean, like the, my dad talked about like when he went to school as a teenager, how he would get in fights all the time. Like, that was kind of like. And you know, so for us in our family, like, being physical was okay. Like it was okay to hit people. It was okay to, you know, I mean, right. Like justifiably so. Like that's what the narrative was. Like that definitely not the narrative in my wife's family, but like, you do not touch other people. You don't hit people. Like, you know, but if you're defending yourself, if you're defending your principles or whatever, fighting is totally cool.
Jared Jones [00:16:57] Like it's totally fine. And so that was, that was the kind of situation that my mom was managing with all of her five boys. We would get in fights all the time and we get at fights at school and those kind of things. And you know, so that was, that was what my mom had to deal with. My.
John Dehlin [00:17:15] Do you remember the Kenny. Do you remember the Kenny Rogers song, Coward of the County? Sometimes you gotta fight when you're a man.
Jared Jones [00:17:21] Yeah. Yes.
Ashley Jones [00:17:22] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [00:17:23] Oh, dear.
Ashley Jones [00:17:24] And you guys are all like a year apart, basically. 18 months apart. All five, right.
Jared Jones [00:17:28] Oh, there was lots of physical altercations within our house, but outside of our house, like as well, you know. And so it just. That was it. Like we did. We had so much fun growing up in the orange groves and having fun with. Mostly there were a lot of LDS families that lived right around us. And so up and down our street we had all the people that we could ever want to hang out with and have fun with. And so we really got that situation where we lived outdoors and you come home when like the street lights come on kind of a thought. And so that was, that was idyllic. Like. And.
John Dehlin [00:18:14] And then real quick, Martha, Marguerite has a question.
Margi Dehlin [00:18:18] Oh, I was going to just ask because I'm kind of hearing you talk about your dad and as this gregarious. He feels kind of like a larger than life figure in many ways. And then also you're talking a little bit with your parents. Very role identified. I'm kind of hearing, you know, that as well. And conflict style a little bit between siblings, I'm assuming, maybe not parents. I don't know how that works with the physical thing, but like this kind of sibling conflict style, which I could see working for some personalities maybe better suited to.
Margi Dehlin [00:19:00] Like, I'm curious how what you would talk about with. What was your experience of your mom as a boy, your experience of her and what was your experience with the fighting, the physical nature? Was that something you felt a lot of love for each other. And so within the fighting, it didn't feel particularly threatening. Was it hard? Was it something that you feared in your house, seeing fighting? I'm just curious about experientially, your experience with your mom and your experience now with this kind of way that conflict was dealt with in your family culture.
Jared Jones [00:19:38] That's. That's really good question. Yeah. So, I mean, my mom was definitely, like, passive and. But like, I think that her style was kind of. She was okay with us working it out physically with each other. Like, she didn't. I mean, I don't know, like, if we got in fights and stuff, like, she wasn't like, that wasn't like really a big deal.
Jared Jones [00:20:10] I can't remember any punishment around that particularly. And I think a lot of times it was worked out and not brought to mom. Right. So if my brother beat me up or if I beat up one of my little brothers, she never heard about it. Yeah, I mean, I don't think so. I don't really think that never really escalated.
Jared Jones [00:20:36] I think that my dad definitely got the fallout when it would happen, like at church or at school or whatever. I think there was definitely like that, hey, Scott, this is because of you kind of thing, but I don't think that that was that big a deal, honestly. I think for my mom, dealing with so many young boys, she was just trying to survive. She was just trying to make sure that our worlds continued to function and. And that she was able to take care of herself as much as possible emotionally. Like, I don't recall much around that as far as expectation or punishment. I will say though, that I was the third of.
Jared Jones [00:21:32] I was the third of our six children. And so now, like, stepping back and looking at my role in the family, like, I definitely feel like I fit that middle child personality really well, like the connector and the one that wants everybody to be happy, making sure that I'm not like, offending people and like carrying their emotions, like when they're upset at me or whatever, or I don't want them to be upset at each other, that kind of thing. And. And like, ultimately I feel like that served me well in many ways throughout the rest of my life, but I can definitely see, see my role in that.
John Dehlin [00:22:19] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:22:19] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:22:22] Prayer and scripture study and church attendance and like, word of wisdom and law of chastity. Were those all Sabbath observance? Were those all really important parts of your Mormon upbringing?
Jared Jones [00:22:33] Yeah, for sure.
John Dehlin [00:22:34] I guess this is a Mormon orthodoxy test.
Jared Jones [00:22:38] Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, Look, I say, I think just like probably most Mormon families at the time that were active, like a family home evening was like hammered down, right? Like, but I would say like we were like a 3/4 of the time family when it came to that. Family was the focus. No question. I remember like my parents temple attendance was pretty high. Word of wisdom, absolutely. I remember it was controversial when my dad would have a caffeine free diet Pepsi in the house. Right. Like, was that like evil or was it, you know, I mean, because you're still kind of like supporting the brand that, you know, that has the caffeine in it, you know? I don't know. I mean, honestly, like the, even the caffeine issue, like I don't, I don't even think that I ever saw my dad drink a caffeinated drink until probably 10 years into after my mission.
John Dehlin [00:23:45] We're talking Diet Coke or.
Jared Jones [00:23:47] Yeah, like now it's fine, whatever. Like it's pretty widely accepted, but it was a big deal at the time. And you know, law of chastity, like, I mean that's definitely like going to be something that we talk about. But like in the 90s especially, I mean I believe that this was like the whole church and from a perspective of like what we heard at general conference and whatnot, I would definitely say that it was. But like the talk around pornography was ever present, like I. All the state conferences and so with five boys, like, are you kidding me? Like that we had that conversation. There was so much fear around it.
John Dehlin [00:24:41] Like what was the message convey? What the messages were you were receiving?
Jared Jones [00:24:46] Yeah, I mean like I've heard something throughout my whole life and I didn't. I really kind of almost. I've heard it a lot in the last couple years where people are starting to talk about this. But you know, sexual sin is, it's the second most serious thing that you can do behind murder, right? And so like it's like adultery or other kinds of fornication. And then like right under that, like just one smidge under is the thoughts that you think and the, the material that you consume, right?
John Dehlin [00:25:29] It was like murder, adultery. And then like right under those two horrendous things is like having bad thoughts and. Or porn. Porn or masturbation.
Jared Jones [00:25:39] Yeah, or like, you know, like. And okay, this is like way too much information. But that's fine, I'm here, whatever. But like JCPenney's catalog, right? Like if there's underwear models in there, like, wow. Like, yeah. And so like it was, it was a point if like, that kind of stuff were around, like, to throw it away, to hide it. Like Victoria's Secret catalog ever came in the mail. Like, like, yeah, you got to get that. That's like Satan's like playground right there, you know? And so like that, that was definitely the messaging and modesty from, like the perspective of, you know, I, this is such a weird thing to say.
Jared Jones [00:26:37] And, and I'm. I don't know where it comes from, but like, you know, I was 10 when we had my, my parents had my youngest sister and like, we couldn't change her diaper. Right? Like, that's weird. Right? And so now I'm not saying that. That's, I'm not pointing anything at my parents and saying, hey, they're weird. No, like they, I'm sure somebody said something. They got messaging somehow. Like, whatever. They're, they're good people trying to do their thing. But now that I look about, look at it, I'm like, yeah, it's, it's fine. Like you, you can help change. Kids, babies, diapers, they're just babies. Boy babies, girl babies, they're babies.
Jared Jones [00:27:21] It's fine. You know, and so, but like that, the messaging around, like that kind of stuff. And like, we, you'd have these like joint, what do you call it, like firesides or whatever, and they talk about modesty or like the third hour where they would be combined and the messaging around, like, yeah, if these girls are wearing things that like, are too low cut or too high cut or whatever, like, that's temptation for you. And like, yeah, so that messaging was like, oh, you guys are like these sexual beings that aren't going to be able to control your thoughts. So we have to control everything for you.
Jared Jones [00:28:05] Right? Like, it's very important that you don't have. You can't be left to your carnal desires. Right? And so, you know, that, that was definitely the messaging that I received.
Ashley Jones [00:28:21] You almost didn't go on a second date with me because you thought I was wearing a tank top.
Jared Jones [00:28:26] Maybe that's why I did go on a second date with you. But I mean, I definitely remember noticing on our first date, it wasn't actually a tank top, it was cap sleeve something. I don't know. But yeah, so, but at the end of the day, like you getting the
John Dehlin [00:28:45] point, you get in the picture.
Jared Jones [00:28:46] Oh my goodness. But truly, like, that was the messaging. And so around that, yeah, there was a lot. So much like all the time, every large meeting that we had and then so many messages on that in priesthood and in you know, other, you know, kind of bishop youth discussion or firesides at that time. Right, like firesides and. Yeah, and so that was. That's what it was around that.
Margi Dehlin [00:29:26] Yeah. I'm curious, do you. When you're talking about this, do you remember kind of the age that all that pornography or this danger, this intensity around conversations with regard to your thoughts and, you know, modesty and all those things? Do you remember how old you were about when it kind of entered your consciousness? And do you remember, was it the church that initially brought it to you?
Early Exposure to Pornography and Church Teachings
Jared Jones [00:29:58] Yeah, I would say that. I mean, the first time that I recall coming into contact with pornography at all was I was probably 10 years old. I was nine when we moved to the area where we were, like, right next to the orange groves and some dude at some point had stashed, like, a porn stash out in the orange groves, you know, and so that's where I came in contact with that. And I remember, like, being.
John Dehlin [00:30:35] Did you have an orange grove as part of your property or did you.
Jared Jones [00:30:38] So we probably had like 30 orange trees or something like that, but we
Ashley Jones [00:30:43] live in an orange grove now, actually. Wow.
Jared Jones [00:30:45] But down the street directly next door to us, like, we had a fence that led into probably 40 acres of orange grove. Wow. And so we. We ran around that a lot. And so anyways, like, we. We had a lot of fun and time there. And there was a little creek that ran next to our house, and we would, like, we. We had this tire swing that we would swing over the creek. And I don't know, it was fun.
Margi Dehlin [00:31:11] That is idyllic part. Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:31:13] But about 20 yards from that tire swing is where this guy would hide his porn.
John Dehlin [00:31:20] And so like a Playboy or.
Jared Jones [00:31:22] Yeah, I mean, probably a little bit more aggressive than Playboy.
John Dehlin [00:31:26] Okay.
Jared Jones [00:31:27] But I mean, still, like, that was intriguing to me. I was like, oh, this is interesting stuff, like. And so, I mean.
John Dehlin [00:31:37] And you said you're 10 at this point.
Jared Jones [00:31:39] Yeah, like 10 somewhere in that.
John Dehlin [00:31:41] So probably if it's like a. Yeah,
Jared Jones [00:31:43] yeah, something like that.
John Dehlin [00:31:44] So it's more graphic magazine porn, basically.
Jared Jones [00:31:47] Yeah. Huh.
Margi Dehlin [00:31:49] And you have an experience, it sounds like, where you're curious.
Jared Jones [00:31:53] Yeah, for sure. Curious.
John Dehlin [00:31:55] And 10's kind of young to hit a Penthouse magazine.
Jared Jones [00:31:59] Yeah, I'd think so.
Ashley Jones [00:32:00] For me.
Margi Dehlin [00:32:00] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:32:01] Yeah. This is all pre Internet, so.
Jared Jones [00:32:04] Yeah, I mean, this was like 90, 91, 92. Like that. That age kind of range. And so, I mean, I'm sure that the Internet was there, but it's like, you know, like, more effort. Yeah, it's like something's loading, you know, like it's slowly loading on the page. Yeah, no, but. And we didn't, at that time we didn't have Internet in the house even if it was available.
Jared Jones [00:32:35] But yeah, so there was that. So I remember that. And then I was very interested in girls. Like at that time I was. And so there was like lots of just, I think the messaging when it became super prevalent for me besides in my own home of like, you know, not. We don't watch this on TV because this is inappropriate and like that kind of stuff really. It's when I became 12, right. Like once I hit priesthood that like I, I knew that porn was like a no, no taboo kind of thing. And I would say like seeing that magazine and probably definitely there were times over the next few years that I stumbled across that, but that was basically my like only access to it.
Jared Jones [00:33:35] And that was infrequent at best. You know, probably when this guy's wife caught him or something like that or whatnot and he had to stash in the orange groves, you know, I mean, I don't know who does that? That's, you know, so anyways.
Jared Jones [00:33:49] But yeah, once I turned 12, like that's when the flame turned up, the heat was on. And so that would have been like 94, like right in that range is when. Yeah, I mean I just started hearing about it all the time. And so I knew that I had already seen porn. And so like that wasn't good, right? Like, that was really bad and so like tainted.
John Dehlin [00:34:23] You're already tainted. From a Mormon Christian.
Jared Jones [00:34:26] Yeah, I mean, point of view. I think so. And so that was, that was also, that was also a time at around 11, I started gaining weight as well. And so like I, at that time I would say that that's really kind of like when my major shame and guilt started and like self deprecation and whatnot. Like that kind of a thought process really, that's really when it majorly started for me is I, I'm, I'm gaining weight. I'm a little bit of a chubby kid now.
Jared Jones [00:35:08] And also I'm feeling bad about myself because I couldn't have believed more in the church, right like that it was my life. Like it was, you know, we'd wake up at that time, we'd wake up at like 7am or something like every morning, 6:30 or something and study the scriptures as a family before my brothers would leave to school who were in high school or whatever. Like it was, it was super early, like, but the focus was strong on all of that and so it was the most important thing. And so then you tell me like, hey, this is such a big sin and this is such a big problem.
Jared Jones [00:35:52] And you know, like, and I've had some experience with that. And so, and at that time like, like you said, there wasn't Internet so it wasn't like super frequent. But I felt bad, you know, like I felt like I'm not hitting that mark. Like I am not what I should be.
Jared Jones [00:36:13] And yeah, you know, and I wanted to be, I wanted to be who God wanted me to be. Like that was so, so important to me and I felt that so deeply and you know. Yeah. Like, so that, that kind of time I've been coming aware that hey, like, like I'm a chubby kid now, I, I hadn't been to that point in my life and like I had that kind of weird thought process. So on the exterior I'm not like what I want to be or what other people want me to be. And then also on the inside, like I know that I'm not what I'm supposed to be.
Jared Jones [00:36:58] And so then like as I keep hearing this messaging like all the time around that, like that, that was really impactful for me and I definitely informed my teenage years in the way that I dealt with. I feel like I dealt with some scrupulosity to do with that, like hyper focus on that kind of thing. Like if I ever had like an experience or a bad thought, like I felt like I needed to unburden myself to God, to my bishop, you know, whoever my priesthood leader does. And you know, my dad was pretty fastidious. Like, I mean he, he held PPIs right. Like the personal priesthood interviews we had
Personal Priesthood Interviews and Sexual Shame
John Dehlin [00:37:50] him tell, tell a never mor what a PPI is and what it, what it would be like.
Jared Jones [00:37:56] Yeah, so a personal priesthood interview with my dad was like, hey, you know, it is his obligation as the priesthood holder, the patriarch of the home to make sure that his kids are headed on the straight and narrow. Right. Like that we are doing the right things, that we're getting the right messaging and that we're going to ultimately progress in the church and towards God. And so his role in that was having these monthly check ins with us and asking us about how our scripture study was going, asking us about our prayers, asking us if we had any questions, asking us if we were having any struggles.
Jared Jones [00:38:46] So those, that personal priesthood interview really was focusing on my worthiness, like on my relationship with God, on how it is that I could better that how it is that I could live up to what those expectations were.
Jared Jones [00:39:04] And like, I. I so wanted to be like, everything that the church wanted me to be. Like, that's what I wanted. Because I felt like by being that, that I was manifesting to God that I loved God, that I was a good person.
Jared Jones [00:39:27] And truly, like, the messaging was that if you check these boxes, if you do these things, then you will be happy. And so often I wasn't, like, I wasn't hitting the mark, like, on my physicality. I wasn't hitting the mark on my morality. I wasn't, you know, hitting the mark in the places that I wanted to be. And so, like, that was important to me. And so that's what I wanted. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to find that happiness within the structure that had been given to me. And so I would participate in these PPIs. And one thing that I think most people that surround me even today would say is, like, I'm an open book.
Jared Jones [00:40:20] So if you're my priesthood leader and you're asking me a question, lots of people have great boundaries. I'm not one of those people. And I'm definitely doing better on that today than I have earlier in my life. But I felt like honesty meant kind of like what I feel like the narrative of the church was, is like, hiding anything. Like, telling partial truths is a lie. Right? And so, like, you know, I wanted to make sure that I was being as transparent as possible so, like, God could work through me as I, as I performed. And like, I did the things that I was supposed to, no matter how shameful that was.
Jared Jones [00:41:07] Like, I accepted that shame was a part of my existence. Like, you show up and you take the shame, you take the pain, because ultimately, like, that was going to be the thing that could help you to progress, right? Because that's how, like, we weren't going to attain perfection in this life, but we could come pretty close to it if, like, we went through and we were completely vulnerable and completely accepting of our, our faults and our weaknesses. And by, by not lying at all and being completely transparent, like, and so
John Dehlin [00:41:48] almost like purification or sanctification through shame,
Jared Jones [00:41:54] for sure, like, 100% for me, like, that's what it was. And honestly, looking back at it, I feel like the narrative was that the more shame that you were willing to endure, the better of a person that you could become. And, or you were right. And so I could not be perfect. Like, I couldn't meet the marks, but I could be perfect and be willing to throw Myself under the bus.
Jared Jones [00:42:27] Like, I could be perfect. And in being vulnerable, in being transparent. And so, like, now looking at that, I'm like, whoa, that's a big problem. Like, lots of issues surrounding that in relation to the way that I related with people and the relation that I. Way that I related to my priesthood leaders, to my parents, to all of those things. Like. But boundaries did not exist when it came to that stuff. Like my, my dad, my mom, not, not so much my mom, but my dad, if he asked me anything, my bishop, he asked me anything. Like, you tell it all of it.
John Dehlin [00:43:11] And can I ask about that? So you've talked about pornography, but what. What's kind of a twin topic of discussion with. In the Mormon experience, especially adolescent Mormon experiences? Masturbation.
Jared Jones [00:43:26] Right.
John Dehlin [00:43:26] I don't bring that up to be graphic or to be nosy, but because they're kind of interwoven. It's not just, oh, you looked at some images, it's what you do after or while you're looking at the images that then becomes a real problem. And that really, in Mormonism, contributes to the shame cycle, which then contributes to the need for a savior and for an atonement and the need to confess.
Jared Jones [00:43:51] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:43:52] To bishop or dad, or sometimes your bishop is your dad. But that's the only way you get cured or healed is through the atonement of Jesus and through confession. And that's repentance.
Margi Dehlin [00:44:05] Right.
John Dehlin [00:44:05] So do you, do you want to talk about whether that was a masturbation, was a component of your shame cycles?
Jared Jones [00:44:12] Yeah, for sure. I mean, to me, like, those things went together like that. I mean, I don't, I don't know if that's everybody's experience. I assume that it is, but definitely it was. I had some interesting messaging around that, especially my later teenage years.
Jared Jones [00:44:39] And you know where I had, like, I had a bishop, like, tell me. He's like, well, like, part of the problem here is, like, biologically, like, you don't know how many kids you're going to be able to have. It's like. And if you do too much of that, like, you may not be able to have as many kids as you want to have or as the Lord expects you to have. Like, if you continue to spill your seed, like, I mean, it's such a. Now I look at that, I'm like, But I.
Jared Jones [00:45:16] So that was a weird one. Now, looking back at it at the time, I was like, oh, yeah, for sure. I don't want to prohibit myself from being able to have the kids that God wants me to have.
John Dehlin [00:45:27] It's like you've got 12.
Margi Dehlin [00:45:29] So scarcity. It's like scarcity mindset for your swimmers.
John Dehlin [00:45:33] Was the little factory talk a thing when you were growing up before you're in trouble?
Jared Jones [00:45:38] I didn't hear about the little factory. I'm sure that that bishop had heard about the little factory. Right. But
John Dehlin [00:45:48] we'll put in the show notes Boyd K. Packer's little factory talk just because it's worth looking into.
Jared Jones [00:45:54] I didn't hear about that talk until my mission. That was the first time that I heard about that. But yeah, so, yes, those things went hand in hand. And then I would also say, like, you know, at that time I had, through my youth, I can't remember how many bishops I had, but quite a few. But I mean, there would be bishops that would ask like details, like what kind of stuff that you look at. Like, and like descriptive stuff, now that I look at it, you know, and especially looking at like, you know, Sam Young and like his mission, you know, I look at so much of that stuff and I'm like, gosh dang it. Like, that is. That's problematic.
John Dehlin [00:46:48] Like for our viewers and listeners who are newer and don't know about Sam Young. You're talking about the issue of Mormon bishops sitting alone with a 12 or 13 year old girl or boy in a room, asking them intimate questions about their sexuality in a way that maybe in any other context would be viewed as predatory. Is that what you mean?
Jared Jones [00:47:11] 100%. Okay. Like, like you, I mean, I was taught that you tell everything to your bishop. Like you leave no stone unturned. Like, you let them know what's going on in your head, every innermost thought and feeling. And so if you ask me what kind of pornography I like to look at, I would tell you.
John Dehlin [00:47:34] So you're having this conversation with your bishop behind closed doors, 12 or 13 year old.
Jared Jones [00:47:40] Yeah. Multiple times. Yeah, Multiple bishops.
John Dehlin [00:47:43] He's like, what type of porn are you into?
Jared Jones [00:47:45] Yeah, I mean, I don't remember the specifics. I remember sharing specifics. Like, I don't remember their questions. I remember what I shared and so down to like in my older years, like websites and things like that, you know, like, and so it's frigging weird. Like, that's. Anyways I could, I would never, I would never think to like ask that to some kid. Like, that's, that's so odd.
John Dehlin [00:48:17] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:48:18] And, and very inappropriate. But now I look at that as a grown man and I'm like, you know, there's a lot of perversion that I think surrounds that stuff too. And I, I'm not saying that any of the bishops specifically were like using that inappropriately. They may have been told the questions they had to ask. I'm gonna assume everybody's a good guy, like slash just doing what they're told to do, doing what they're told to do. But at the same time, like it, it was highly inappropriate and weird and abusive and really took a lot of boundaries away from, helped me understand that there weren't boundaries.
Jared Jones [00:49:04] And like, anyways, it was, it's just kind of a weird experience. And so around, around that, like, I would definitely say that those things went hand in hand and that that was asked about, but the, the focus definitely was more around pornography, the masturbation. Like at least in, in that time, you know, of my life.
John Dehlin [00:49:32] Okay.
Jared Jones [00:49:33] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:49:34] I'm curious. How did all of this frame your sense of your sexual self during that time?
Jared Jones [00:49:45] I mean, I, I truly thought I was a deviant. Like, I truly thought that, like I, there was something wrong with me that I was so attracted to, you know, porn or masturbation or whatever. Like I, I thought that that was like a really, you know, and they talk about the carnal man and stuff like that. And I would hear like at school,
John Dehlin [00:50:18] like scripture says a, the natural man is an enemy to God, right? Yes, the enemy. Like that's some pretty severe language for sure.
Jared Jones [00:50:25] And that's what I was definitely like, enemy to God.
John Dehlin [00:50:29] So you're like a 14, 15, 16 year old kid feeling like God's enemy?
Jared Jones [00:50:34] Yeah, I mean I did. And I, so I would hear things at school, like the percentage of people that look at pornography and stuff and that it's all fine because from that perspective I was like, oh yeah, well, normal guys do that. But I wasn't normal, right? Like I was a priesthood holder. Like I was where much, where much
John Dehlin [00:50:59] is given, much is required for sure.
Jared Jones [00:51:01] And like I knew all the things, the special things that nobody else knew. I was a part of this like, special group and God's expectation from me was like super high. And I just, for some reason I couldn't meet it. Like, I didn't know why I was so broken. Like why I couldn't just not be interested in that stuff. I couldn't consider that sexuality was like a normal thing. Like, I couldn't, because that wasn't, like, it was not messaged to me that that was a normal human function.
Margi Dehlin [00:51:39] Like that, that and so developmentally very appropriate what you're experiencing as opposed to.
Jared Jones [00:51:46] Right. And I could hear it out in the world as much as possible. And it didn't matter because I couldn't download that. Right?
Margi Dehlin [00:51:51] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:51:52] Like, that file wasn't accepted, that format. Just. That's not how it worked. And so it's like, oh, yeah, for them, for, like all the heathens, right? Like, that's okay. Like, because they don't know better, right. Like, they don't know what God expects from them. And honestly, I. I would say at that time in my life specifically, like, there was some sort of jealousy surrounding that. That my friends weren't burdened with all the knowledge, the special knowledge that I had. Like, and, like, they can just live their normal lives and they can go out and have fun. Right. And they can go out and not. Not have to carry the shame and guilt that I did because they didn't know as much.
Jared Jones [00:52:35] And so while it was. It was, you know, like, sad for them, right, that they didn't have that. Because there were so many blessings that come from the church. Like, if you would have asked me what the blessings were, I could have named them off. I couldn't tell you how I felt in my life. I could just tell you that they were good. Right. And so they didn't have those things, and so they didn't have that accountability. And I was like, man, it would be kind of cool not to have that accountability, but I do. And so I'm stuck with it. And this is my burden. And God is disappointed in me because he's given me all this stuff. And so, like, that's where I was.
Jared Discloses Childhood Sexual Abuse
John Dehlin [00:53:14] I'm guessing there's a mountain of listeners, men and women and everyone else who are relating to what you're saying right now. So I'm curious if this is the right time or not to introduce the abuse that you experienced.
Jared Jones [00:53:31] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:53:31] Timeline wise.
Jared Jones [00:53:33] Yeah. So.
John Dehlin [00:53:34] Or if there's other things you wanted to talk about.
Jared Jones [00:53:36] No, I mean, I think it ties into this pretty well.
John Dehlin [00:53:40] Okay.
Jared Jones [00:53:40] Because When I was 7, we had a babysitter who was in the ward, a priest at that time that abused myself and one of my siblings. And, you know, I still. I still vividly remember something that happened when I was seven years old, which there's not many memories that I carry with me from being 7 year old, but I remember what the couch looked like. I remember where it was located. I remember, you know, what room I was in. I remember where I was sitting. I remember where he was sitting. I remember where my sibling was sitting. Like, when this was going On.
John Dehlin [00:54:39] And do you want to share whether this was a member of the church?
Jared Jones [00:54:43] Yeah, he was a priest in the church, so he was, like, 16, 17, something like that at that time. I don't. I don't know. Like, I know his name. I know. Like, I know that kind of stuff, but I don't. I don't know exactly how many years older he's like. So these are approximations, but I know that I lived in my previous house, like, before we had moved over to the orange grove property. And so, yeah, I mean, I remember that. And then that was basically it. Like, I remember that experience. And then as I'm in my teenage years and I'm struggling
John Dehlin [00:55:32] really quick. Did you report it? Did you tell your parents? Did you think to tell your siblings? You know, you're only seven, so.
Margi Dehlin [00:55:42] And did you share it with a sibling? It sounds like a sibling was there as well.
Jared Jones [00:55:46] Yes, there was a sibling, one of my older siblings that was also a victim of this. And I've talked to him in the last couple years about it after this stuff has gone on with our family, with our child being an abuse victim. And so as we're kind of talking through it and how it all played out, he has a little bit more memory than. Than I do as to how the aftermath played out. And his recollection surrounding that was that he did tell my parents right away, and that they're like, no, that couldn't have happened. You must have misunderstood, or whatever. And so that was. That's what he remembers from the situation. And then what my first recollection of, like, dealing with the issue was as a teenager, and I'm going through all this shame and guilt, and I'm looking for reasons, right? Like, why am I broken?
John Dehlin [00:57:07] Hmm.
Jared Jones [00:57:10] And I remember talking to my dad. I was probably 15 years old at the time, and I brought up this. This abuser, and I asked him, like, I said, do you remember that? And he's like, yeah, I do. He's like. And I thought at that time that it would be helpful to me. Like, I felt like maybe this was the reason that I was broken. And I remember thinking, like, hey, if I could talk to this guy. And he knew, like, how much this had hurt me and, like, the implications that it had on my life, that that would be, like, cathartic to me. And so my dad did agree, like, and we got his number, and I called and talked to him.
John Dehlin [00:58:03] He would have been an adult by then.
Jared Jones [00:58:04] Oh, he was.
Ashley Jones [00:58:05] Well, didn't he tell your dad about it? Right. Before his mission?
Jared Jones [00:58:07] Well, and so. Yeah, so I. Yeah, he did. And so my dad did tell me that prior to me calling and talking to him. And so.
John Dehlin [00:58:17] So I. I'm sorry, just. If you're able to share.
Jared Jones [00:58:20] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:58:20] Would he have experienced any consequences or punishment in the ward as a result of the. It being known that he had done that to you and your brother?
Jared Jones [00:58:31] Yeah, I mean, consequences.
Ashley Jones [00:58:35] In theory, I guess.
Jared Jones [00:58:37] Yeah, in theory. Right. Like, did he.
John Dehlin [00:58:39] Was he reported the police?
Jared Jones [00:58:41] No, no, no, no, no.
Ashley Jones [00:58:42] He went on a mission.
Jared Jones [00:58:43] Right.
John Dehlin [00:58:44] And was he. Yeah. Was he excommunicated?
Jared Jones [00:58:47] No. So what? I don't know.
John Dehlin [00:58:50] Were members of the ward even warned that he was out there?
Jared Jones [00:58:54] No, absolutely not.
John Dehlin [00:58:56] And had abused two children?
Jared Jones [00:58:57] No. Like, what happened from my dad's, you know, story to me on that was that a week or so before this kid left on a mission, he approached my dad in the hall at church and told him what had happened as a part of his, like, last penance or whatnot, like, to confessional, you know, to be able to go on this mission. And so, like, his bishop told him that he needed to go tell my dad, so he did. And then my dad. You know, the complicated thing that I have found with sexual abuse is like, in confessional or whatever, like the way that that story gets related to the victim or the victim's parents or whatever.
Margi Dehlin [00:59:52] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:59:53] Directly informs what kind of response that they're going to get. And like, they can diminish the abuse as much as they want. Like, so who knows what he told my dad.
Ashley Jones [01:00:04] Well, and also, if your dad did anything and this kid didn't go on a mission, it would have been because of you guys, and that would have been a big thing.
Jared Jones [01:00:13] Well, and. And at the time, like, I mean, I. If you don't have any experience with this thing, I mean, I know my dad had been a bishop at that point. Or maybe. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, he had been a bishop at that point. And like, you know, the bishop receives revelation for the ward and like, that's direct from the Lord for these people. So, like, if the Lord was okay with this kid going on a mission, steal whatever abuse was done to me, obviously wasn't, like, it wasn't that important. Like, it wasn't that. That big a deal.
John Dehlin [01:00:50] Wasn't that bad.
Jared Jones [01:00:51] It wasn't that bad. Like, and so, like, that is. That's the story. And my. That he. I feel like he would have been receiving. And I am not speaking to, like, I. I don't know. I can't pretend to know My dad's life experience, what was going on in his head, what was going on in his heart? Like, I don't know those things, but I do know that, at least from what he expressed to me at that point, as I'm 14 or 15 years old, talking to him about why I'm broken and, you know, and he's recalling to me what happened. Like, he's like, you know, he was about to leave on a mission.
Jared Jones [01:01:34] Like, what was I gonna do? Like, what was there for me to do? Like, that was his response to me as a 15 year old. And more recently, over the last couple years, as we've talked about it, I think that, you know, I think that he would have done things differently, given the experience that he's had now in life and his experience now in the church.
Jared Jones [01:02:00] He would have demanded different things. He would have pushed for, you know, for other stuff and disclosure and all these things. But at the time, I don't think that. I don't think that calling the police was even like, Wasn't even a thought. Yeah, I don't think that was a thought. And definitely surrounding the church, it was not a thought. Like, I mean, even, even still, the church today, that's not what you do you call a helpline. That's, that's a whole different thing. But at the time, all that had happened was that he went and told his bishop. His bishop's like, okay, probably, I don't know what happened, but probably stop taking the sacrament for a few weeks or a couple months or something like that.
Jared Jones [01:02:45] And then you just keep working hard to get on your mission. Right. And now I look at that as an adult. I'm like, oh my gosh, you're going to send a guy out on a mission that definitely has, like, people have
Ashley Jones [01:02:58] missionaries in their house with their kids and stuff.
Jared Jones [01:03:00] Yeah. That can play with them, sit on their laps, like, whatever.
John Dehlin [01:03:03] Yeah. I want to ask a bunch of questions, what Margi wants to ask.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:06] Yeah, I have two questions around that. The first question is, so did your dad ever ask you about what happened? So he got the version from. Right. The young man before he's trying to get out on a mission. Did you get asked? No.
Jared Jones [01:03:30] No, I didn't.
John Dehlin [01:03:33] Do you. Are you comfortable sharing what's coming up for you right now? And Margi.
Jared Jones [01:03:36] Yeah. Anything that you. Anything you want to ask. I'm good.
John Dehlin [01:03:40] What's coming up for you right now?
Jared Jones [01:03:42] No, I mean, yeah, I mean, I didn't. I. Until you asked me that, I hadn't even thought about it that way like, but yeah, I mean, no, I wasn't asked, I wasn't asked like what happened? What do you remember now? I will say like this was impactful to me and I remember the incident.
Jared Jones [01:04:09] I do believe that if it was made a big deal that I would remember. It is possible that I don't remember and he did ask me, but I don't remember that. And I feel like that would have been a part of this story for me that I would remember. And so 40 year old Jared remembering 7 year old Jared's thoughts is maybe, you know, hard, but I do not remember being asked. And my brother who is 18 months older than me, all he remembers is the denial around the fact that like that that would have been the case. Right, like, and so no, like it wasn't, it wasn't asked to me that I, I can recall like what happened? What do you remember? Like, and I think obviously that that is a very important question to have asked.
Margi Dehlin [01:05:06] Yeah. And then I was just going to ask you, do you remember how you felt when you were talking with your dad about the young man approaching him in the hall and sharing what happened and how your dad explained. I think you said something to the effect of like well what was I supposed to say? Or do you remember how it felt for you to hear about the young man trying to go on a mission? And this second sort of touch point around what happened to you. Do you remember how you felt when you were hearing your dad talk about it?
The Church's Response to the Abuse
Jared Jones [01:05:45] I mean at that time I'm positive that I would have been like, well you know, God forgave him, so like, obviously he needs to go on a mission. What, what I mean I really kind of at that time would have given every latitude, you know, to the church, to my dad, like, because it wasn't. And to be honest, like one of the reasons that this was shameful to me is because at the time also the messaging around homosexuality, well, I mean still today in the church is so, so bad. And so I, this happened with a man, like, so where did that put me? Like, so there was so much confusion and angst about even bringing that up because like I, so I don't know how else to explain that, but
Margi Dehlin [01:07:02] over
Jared Jones [01:07:02] the last couple years is I've revisited this. Like it has brought me pain. The way that this was not handled, you know, like the way that there was not punishment, there was not accountability. And I'm not saying that from that bishop's perspective that there wasn't or from the church's perspective Like, I think that's literally how they dealt with it. Like, that's. It's like, oh, yeah, you don't do that. Boys will be boys, but don't do that anymore. You know, be good. And so I think that time especially was severely diminished. And I think in our experience, that's still very often the case. And so I wouldn't say that I necessarily felt betrayed at the time. I definitely felt betrayed over the last few years, as I've revisited this and seen it.
John Dehlin [01:08:00] In your own family, with your own kid, maybe, if I can. I'm just trying to make sense of this. Do you mind if I just try and process this a tiny bit? First of all, thank you for sharing something so vulnerable. I just want to stop and take note that this is very.
Margi Dehlin [01:08:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:08:16] Very powerful and important that you're willing to talk about this. And thank you. So there's three perspectives that I'm. That are coming to my mind, and I'm going to end with. With the victims, because I think they're. It's pretty clear that within Mormonism, their perspective is considered last.
John Dehlin [01:08:34] From the church's perspective, that. That's the first perspective. It seems like we'll say in your case, the church wants. The church has all the power. First of all, the church is the broker and the arbiter of everything, including whether or not the police is contacted, you know, whether or not there's discipline for the. The young kid, you know, whether or not they inform the ward and warn members to protect other potential, you know, victims and all that. And it seems like from the church's perspective, they have an interest, you know, and they don't want lawsuits. Right? They don't want to be sued. They don't want accountability.
John Dehlin [01:09:11] They don't want their reputation being damaged, either in the ward or the stake or, heaven forbid, in the media or in the bigger community. So it seems like the church with all the power has all the incentive to make this be quiet, to make this go away, to not really let it get out, to keep it under wraps. And that means punishing the boy as little as possible, because if the boy doesn't go on a mission, everybody knows. And that's. That's how the cat gets out of the bag. So the church downplays it with you, downplays it with your dad, wants to sweep it under the rug, gives minimal punishment to the boy, to the.
John Dehlin [01:09:52] To the. To the perpetrator, to the abuser, and tries to act like the atonement is going to make all this right. And, and conveniently that also protects the church. So that's how I'm, that's how I'm processing the church's point of view on this. Margi, you're nodding. So the next. And of course it's sad that we're going to your point of view last, but again, that's how the church.
Ashley Jones [01:10:17] Well, it's not just boys, I guess, right? I mean.
John Dehlin [01:10:21] Yeah, right, right. Okay. So then going to the, the church's the perspective around the abuser. I imagine that the church is trying to be compassionate and saying, look, we sin, this kid sinned, but we don't want to ruin his life.
John Dehlin [01:10:40] You know, kids, like you said, boys will be boys, girls will be girls. Kids make mistakes. If he's, if it's publicly known that he's a pedophile. Right. He's going to be ruined. If we go to the police, this kid's going to be ruined. He'll have a record. He'll never be able to get a job. He'll be shamed. It'll destroy this abuser's life.
John Dehlin [01:11:03] So for the benefit of the abuser, we're going to keep it internally, we're going to keep it quiet. We're going to not let members of the ward or staker, let alone the police or the community know. And, and he'll repent. Jesus in the atonement are all powerful. And so we'll get him on the repentance process. He'll be extra motivated to be a good boy because he knows we've got this on him and we'll get him on a mission, we'll get him repented and he'll be cleaned and purified by the blood of Christ and he'll go on to lead to be a great priesthood holder, maybe even be a bishop someday, but certainly serve a mission, get married in the temple and be on plan.
John Dehlin [01:11:45] And that's certainly best, the best way to handle it for the abuser from the churches and from the gospel's perspective, that's how I'm guessing the church sees it. Does that sound right?
Jared Jones [01:12:00] Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's, and I, you know, I've done some research over the last year and a bit on this abuser. And I mean, that's the way it's played out for him.
Ashley Jones [01:12:16] Like he works with children now.
Jared Jones [01:12:19] Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:12:20] He was in his professional book career.
Jared Jones [01:12:23] I mean, he, he's a psychologist. I believe he works, he works for the government in some way shape or form out in D.C. and, but I mean, I know that he's got multiple children, he's active, and like, at least that part of it from an outward perspective has played out well for him. I don't know. You know, like, I look at that and like, I don't know what happened on his mission. I don't know what other experiences he's had since then. And maybe this was the only experience that he ever had in his life in general. I think that that's probably very rarely the case.
John Dehlin [01:13:07] Right.
Jared Jones [01:13:08] But the, the things that I know about sexual abusers today tell me that that's, that's not usually the case. I, I don't, you know, I don't need to dive into that necessarily with this guy more. But I, I, at the same time, like from the church's perspective, what they wanted to accomplish, it worked.
John Dehlin [01:13:32] Yeah. Yeah. Because pedophiles or child abusers often repeat and it's tough to kind of cure that. So maybe the odds are that he would have gone on to repeat, offend. But it's also possible it was a one off and just a, just a weird curiosity or mistake that he made. And we don't know. But the church certainly came down on the side of protecting the abuser.
Jared Jones [01:13:58] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:13:59] In full, in full force, 100%, which then I'm going to talk about two more dimensions now. One is the victim. Because what I'm hearing from you is you're wallowing in this deep shame for very normal adolescent thoughts and feelings and behaviors around sexual thoughts and masturbation. So you're tormenting yourself about how awful of person you are, questioning your own worthiness while someone who's behaving in actually horrific ways is, is experiencing extreme leniency and kind of gets off scot free. I can't imagine what that's like for a victim.
Jared Jones [01:14:44] Yeah, it's, it's not good.
John Dehlin [01:14:46] There's no justice, there's no, nothing's done to protect you.
Jared Jones [01:14:51] And you know, ultimately like what it, what, what I've learned over a while now is that it confuses reality. Yeah, right. Like when we make these things out to be such a big deal, like the, the pornography is just, it's about the worst thing that you can do. And like, you know, if you're an adult and you view it like you've cheated on your wife, like it's that big a deal, like that's the thought around it. And then like, oh, well, yeah, if you, if you touch people unconsensually, like if you do that kind of stuff, like that's that's more normal. Like, that's kind of like, yeah, it's bad, you shouldn't do that, but it's okay. Like you can get through it pretty quickly. The punishment, like, I received punishments for similar things or like I received harsher punishments for pornography than what I believe this guy received for actual molestation.
John Dehlin [01:16:01] So the church is going to punish a kid for sexual thoughts, for healthy, normal, normative sexual thoughts and masturbation? The Mormon Church is going to publish a kid more. Sorry. The Mormon Church is going to punish a kid for normal and healthy sexual thoughts and behaviors. They're going to punish that Mormon kid more than an actual child abuser and pedophile.
Jared Jones [01:16:27] Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what, that's the messaging that I was receiving. I didn't like understand all of that until much later. But yes, like, that was what was playing out for me as a teenager in my life.
Jared Jones [01:16:43] And so, like, I feel like now I look back and I'm like, I can now absolutely see, like, how I took all of this stuff so seriously, like, besides the fact that I'm seeing it at conference all the time and all of that stuff. But like, I knew, I knew that this guy had done that. And so when I go and talk to my dad as a teenager and say, hey, I think it's going to be helpful to me to talk to him on the phone and like, just tell him how this has been a hard thing and I've struggled with this and my dad agrees and I get on the phone with him, you know, like, he didn't deny anything.
Jared Jones [01:17:29] Like, he was like, yeah, I did do that. And I, and I'm so sorry it's caused you pain. And so he did validate it's reality to me. And I didn't necessarily know what I thought I would get out of that, but I know what I did get out of it. And that was just, it was just knowing that I wasn't crazy, that this wasn't made up and that it was a real thing.
Jared Jones [01:18:03] What I didn't get out of it was any sort of catharsis. Like, I didn't, it was not a healing thing for me. Like, I didn't feel any less screwed up. Like, I still felt like a piece of trash. Like, and you know, I have learned over time that, you know, everybody doesn't deal with things in the same way. Like, I can tell you that, hey, if you do this, you're a piece of crap.
Jared Jones [01:18:36] And like, you can say, like, oh no, like you can say that, but that's not true. I'm not really. I'm not a piece of crap. And then you tell other people that, and they're like, oh, you were right. Like, I must be a horrible person. Like, I must be.
Jared Jones [01:18:52] And that's how it manifested to me. Like, when the church told me how serious and how bad this thing was, like, I fully accepted that. I fully accepted that if you have these thoughts and these feelings and you do these things, that you are what they are saying you are. And so for me, like, that's the way that I received. And I think that a lot of my friends had similar experiences, but at the same time, others didn't. And so, like, as I'm going through this process and, like, figuring out, like, yeah, what kind of punishment he received, but what kind of punishments that I've been given.
Jared Jones [01:19:32] And so then, too, like, how serious it is based off of the fact that Bishop, the guy that's talking to God, for me, in. In my understanding of the context of what his role was, like, yeah, you are. You're. You're broken. You need to be fixed. And there's something, like, majorly wrong with you because you keep coming back to this, right? Like, you. You keep having these normal. Now I look at it, these normal functions of sexual expression. Like. But at the time, it's like your carnal man just keeps kicking in, and you just can't get over it. Like, why? What's wrong? Like, why are you broken?
Margi Dehlin [01:20:14] And so, yeah, I just wanted to. I'm observing in myself a loss here around, you know, you were talking, John, about kind of the church system, right? And how the church system showed up and really failed in a big way in this situation. And I was thinking, you know, oftentimes what we'll have is the family system, right? Then. Then it can default and you'll have, you know, parents start advocating, right? Parents will step in and there's a loss here and emerging that happens in family systems to the church, where the family system actually is merged with the church system. And so a child doesn't have that either. And that's a true loss here. It's like multiple system failures when it comes to advocating for victims. And also I was going to say, you know, so there's that.
How Church Systems Failed the Victim
John Dehlin [01:21:17] Because you're saying a normal family that wants to protect their kids would just be outraged that their kid got abused, and they would go to the police and they would report it, and the perpetrator would go to juvie or whatever, and the community would know and the kid would feel protected and the kid would feel like mostly that their parents have their back and that their parents don't accept stuff like this. And maybe the kid would get therapy and the kid would get support and be able to work through all this sexual dysfunction. Like that's how a family might normally behave. But because the family looks to the church first as the way to handle all this, then the family's will just gets subjugated to the church's interests, which is largely. Largely guided by Curt McConkie, a law firm that's just trying to protect the church's money and its power and its reputation.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:12] Yeah. And it reminds me of kind of earlier when you were talking about your dad, that this idea of consecration, you give all and then some. Right. You're going to give everything. And I mean, this is really a sad way to, like, bring that. But it was true, wasn't it? And that's a loss. That is a loss for an abuse victim, a child, that. That they lose the family, too, because the family is merged now here with the church's will and with the church's mission. And they're thinking about all the commitments they've made and all of those things. And it's just. It is a deep, deep loss. And then I was thinking, as you.
John Dehlin [01:22:54] Consecration has a whole new meaning.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:55] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:22:56] At that point, kind of what.
Jared Jones [01:22:58] You're right.
John Dehlin [01:22:59] A darker meaning. Do you want to do. Let's pause and. Margi, forget where you were going. Do you want to react to that?
Jared Jones [01:23:06] Yeah, I mean, I know that my parents showed up the way that they could, But I do 100% believe that in this circumstance that. Yeah. That the church crippled them. That it took. I think that if this happened by a football coach or a baseball coach or something like that, that they would have shown up completely differently. My dad is a physical guy. He would have shown up in a completely different way. And like, I think that, like, if it were a baseball coach, he'd be in the hospital. Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:23:59] He probably would overact in a good way, maybe.
John Dehlin [01:24:01] But if the perpetrator were a baseball
Ashley Jones [01:24:03] player, not someone from the church community,
John Dehlin [01:24:05] then your dad would have been angry and.
Jared Jones [01:24:08] And he would have gone. You know, my dad could have gone to jail, too. But they, you know, at least both
Ashley Jones [01:24:13] of them, he would have stood up
John Dehlin [01:24:14] for his family because it wasn't a baseball coach. It was someone in the church, in the church family, so to speak.
Jared Jones [01:24:20] And. And then had already been dealt with by a priesthood leader.
Ashley Jones [01:24:25] So he felt that. That everything was Done.
Jared Jones [01:24:27] And so it was finished. You know, and I'm not. Look, I'm not saying that my dad is not a guy that would push back against the church. He. He would. He'd push back in the system, but. In the system. Right. Like. And so once you meet enough resistance and your priesthood leader has spoken, it's done. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:48] Obedience. Right.
John Dehlin [01:24:49] Yeah. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:51] My second thought was just as you were talking about the shame you carried the beliefs about yourself, it just reminded me of another loss that came from the family system merging with the church system. Because I think what happens when children have experiences that they don't understand, like there's no way at seven you're trying to figure this out and make sense of what happened to you is that a child just does the best they can and they form beliefs like you hear in divorce. Oftentimes with children, maybe a child will blame themselves. They'll think they caused the. And what happens is if a child isn't actually talked to, communicated with, you lose the ability to kind of intervene in what beliefs get formed in those moments.
Margi Dehlin [01:25:49] And they live on and on and on. There's sometimes what I understand the stage stickiest narratives, the stickiest beliefs to kind of confront. And so that's the other loss here is just when a family is so. Or parents are so merged with the church mission that they become the church functionally in the family, is that that child is left alone, completely alone with the experience. And their brain is going and they don't know what to make of it. So. So inevitably oftentimes they make it about them. Right. Which is what we see. And that.
John Dehlin [01:26:28] What do you mean? They make it about them, about their.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:31] Like, about the victim. The victim is making narratives like, there must be something wrong with me. I must have wanted it. Well, that felt good. So that must mean that I'm kind of depraved or I'm. Whatever the narrative is, I'm just saying.
John Dehlin [01:26:46] Or I'm not worthy of, or I'm not worthy.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:48] Yeah. Or something's wrong with me. Or, you know, whatever the narrative is, it's usually really harming the victim more and stays with the victim. And that's the other loss is just for a child. We need adults that talk to children in these circumstances to be able to say, hey, hey, here's what this was about, and this wasn't about you. And tell me what is going on in your mind and let me hear it. And let me kind of also correct what your child brain is now telling you about this situation. Because oftentimes it's clearly just not true. And that is a total loss that I'm hearing you speak to as you're talking. And I just wanted to highlight it because I think it's really important.
Jared Jones [01:27:40] Thank you.
Margi Dehlin [01:27:44] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:27:44] Does that resonate?
Jared Jones [01:27:45] Yeah, for sure. I mean, with our own children being able to have some of those conversations and you know, when they're going through different struggles and helping them to like put things into context and, and frame them is. It's a valuable part of parenting. And so, yeah, I mean, I feel like in that scenario my parents belief like definitely was crippling for that, for that thing. And I like one thing that I really want to drive home here and I think that back to my conversation or like comment about if it were a baseball coach, like my parents, they love me. Yeah, they're good parents. Like they tried their best and like Ashley has this fear and just. It's really more of an acknowledgement that, you know, our kids are gonna be. Have so much blame for us and you know, whatnot.
Ashley Jones [01:28:58] No matter what you do, your kids are gonna hate you for something when you feel they get older for everything
Jared Jones [01:29:02] that you screwed up. But, but truly I don't have hate or blame at all for my parents. Like, they do the best they can with the information they have at the time. But I do look at this and look at how that manifested in my life. And it wasn't good for me. It wasn't the messaging that I needed to receive. And I do believe that at least on the shame and guilt aspect, that this could have been a big changer for me, you know, in my life to have had that conversation and to understand like, this is what that was and this isn't you. This isn't. There is no depravity on your part of this at all. Like, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:29:55] Versus like maybe I caused it. Maybe something about me.
Jared Jones [01:29:58] Right.
John Dehlin [01:29:59] Made the, made the abuser want to come after me. I mean, that's. Can that be a thought that arises in a victim?
Jared Jones [01:30:07] Absolutely.
John Dehlin [01:30:08] That somehow it's the victim's fault.
Jared Jones [01:30:09] Right?
John Dehlin [01:30:10] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:30:11] And can cause like, I think different behavior patterns. Right. Or like, oh, like, you know, for, for somebody that was wearing a bathing suit, if something like that happened, like, oh, I, I was showing too much skin or like whatever it was that was attracting that abuser that could modify their willingness to go out in a bathing suit for the rest of their life or whatever. I mean, there are these consequences that come about based off of the belief systems that we form, which are based directly off of the information that we have and who talks to us and who lets us know what's normal and not. And so much of our parenting experience is about framing that for our children.
John Dehlin [01:31:00] The final thing. So we talk. I tried to process the church's unfortunate point of view, the abuser or the perpetrator's point of view. We talked about your point of view. The final point of view that I think bears mentioning here is the community. Because, you know, what was the, what was the big problem? You know, One movie I recommend for sure, one of my top 10, 5 to 10 most important movies of all time is a movie called Spotlight, and it's about the Catholic priest pedophilia epidemic that's plagued Catholicism probably for millennia, but certainly for the past 150 to 100 years, where something like 6 or 7% of priests were sexually abusing children across the entire world of Catholicism.
John Dehlin [01:31:47] And whenever a priest was found guilty of molestation or of abuse of kids, the priest was simply transferred to another parish and then repeated the abuses from parish to parish to parish with no accountability. The community, the Catholic Church's decision to cover these things up left the community super vulnerable. And that's, that's the fourth consideration that I think is really crucial here. And we've already touched on it. But when the church just relies, quote, on the atonement to heal and to deal with both your pain as a victim and with the sins, quote, of the perpetrator, then they're just leaving.
John Dehlin [01:32:33] You know, they're not bringing in the law enforcement services to kind of investigate and to process these things in a way that could protect the community. They're not informing the community, both immediate community of your ward and stake, so that parents can protect their children, knowing that this person is potentially a pedophile or a predator.
John Dehlin [01:33:01] This kid is then left to go and serve a mission and to go on and maybe become a seminary teacher or even a bishop. And we've seen bishops who are pedophiles, we've seen missionaries who are predators, we've seen stake presidents and seminary teachers who are predators.
John Dehlin [01:33:21] And if you don't flag these potential predators early, it leaves the community vulnerable and it allows future victims to experience abuse. And that is the systemic abuse that the AP is trying to talk about, that Michael Resendez is trying to talk about as an AP reporter and that we're seeing a level. And it's, and it's what the Boy Scouts of America has been infected by Mormon, by Mormon systemic cover up of abuse. It infected the Boy Scouts of America, not that they probably didn't, Would have had their own problems as well. But it's led to these systems of abuse that are far more severe than just the carnage that it wreaks in the lives of the victims.
John Dehlin [01:34:09] It creates a systemic problem that leads to massive repetition of abuse. And that's, you know, that's also a very significant and serious problem that we need to call out. Right, yeah, yeah. It's why the church would pay hundreds of millions, if not billions of penalties because we're talking about tens if not hundreds of thousands of child and teenage victims within Mormonism.
Jared Jones [01:34:40] Right, right. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, I even look at that to the question of if the bishop had at that time, and look, I think laws in California at that time actually did prevent the bishop, which they no longer do, from coming out and speaking out about that.
Jared Jones [01:35:06] But what they did not prevent is once he confessed to my dad, they didn't prevent that going to the police. Right. Like once, like, the bishop may not be able to say anything, but if he confessed to my dad, now my dad can go to the police. Right? Like now my dad can do something. But then the other thing to do with that is like, how does that play out in the ward?
Jared Jones [01:35:32] Like, I know how it plays out in the war. We've lived it and. But this family, lovely family, Like, I really, you know, a lot of love for his parents and whatnot, but I mean, they were well respected. Like, it would not have been, it would not have been popular, it would not have been well received. To what, to him calling the police? Yeah, to call the police. Like, why would you persecute this kid? Like, why would you ruin the rest of his life for one little mistake? Like that kind of thing? Like that is what would happen. And you know, my parents, like, were not like super well established at that point in the area and his family was.
Jared Jones [01:36:23] And so that would have played out poorly for the family as well. And I'm not, I'm definitely not saying that my parents didn't do anything out of self preservation. That's not what I'm saying. But I am saying that I also know how, how that would have played out in the community of the church at that time. It would not have played out well.
John Dehlin [01:36:42] Yeah, the, the family of the abuser, their reputation gets tainted. The ward. Ward the bishop and the ward gets tainted. The state gets tainted, the church gets tainted. The church is vulnerable to lawsuits. All the power congregates around protecting pretty much everyone but the victim.
Jared Jones [01:37:02] Well, in the. But what also happens like very quickly in that system is that actually the abuser becomes the victim.
Ashley Jones [01:37:11] They really rally around the abuser and
Jared Jones [01:37:13] his victim or his family and the ward, like the bishop, like all of them now become the victim if somebody speaks out. Right. Like one of the things that was talked about in that article yesterday was that there were people that showed up at court to support the abuser. They showed up at the court to support the abuser. And so that is a consistent narrative.
Ashley Jones [01:37:44] It's happened many times we've seen in articles Christians and Yeah, yeah. Not just church shows up to the courthouse to support this abuser that they all think is amazing and well and.
Jared Jones [01:37:54] Or like he. He doesn't need to get railroad needs support. We need to support them. And so anyways, like, that's another.
John Dehlin [01:38:01] This idea of the abuser becoming the victim. I've never had it distilled for me quite. But that's another level of perdition.
Ashley Jones [01:38:11] It happened in Arcade. We'll talk more about that later.
Jared Jones [01:38:13] But yeah, yeah, I mean, but that is a consistent theme, like almost all of the time.
John Dehlin [01:38:20] Oh my gosh.
Jared Jones [01:38:21] And so that. How the community responds around that, that is how they respond. And I've learned a lot about this over the last couple years. And there's reasons for it psychologically that I. I believe. But I do believe that that's how that shows up. And so I. Yeah, I mean, it's a systemic problem, you know, is perpetuated by that. It's perpetuated by like the way that the system is intended to be operated.
Ashley Jones [01:38:54] Mainly religious.
Jared Jones [01:38:56] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:38:56] I mean, there's the forgiveness around it.
Jared Jones [01:38:59] Yeah, I mean, I think so, like, and so anyways, like that. So that is a theme for me. And as I'm going throughout my teenage years, this thing, you know, comes to my parent and I'm trying to figure my stuff out. And so then I go through that. I keep moving on with life and still struggling from time to time with. With that same issue. Like, and, you know, I'm at this point, like wanting to get to a spot where I'm going to start to prepare for a mission because, you know, that's what. That's what good boys do. Like, you want to go on a mission.
Jared Jones [01:39:41] I heard lots of stories from my dad about his mission. He served in Portugal and he loved it. And there was a lot of struggles, but really the struggles that he talks about, really, in my mind, like they're the hero's journey. Right. Like, they are. Like, that's. That's how you become a hero, right? Like that. And you know, you, you go through these painful things. You go through the hard stuff. And I, my dad absolutely 100% in my life was my hero, like, and so that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a hero too.
Teenage Years, Mission Preparation, and Consequences
Jared Jones [01:40:25] And so I'm following that path. And like, I needed to figure out how to get there. And so, you know, my deviancy was an issue for that. And so like, I consistently would revisit that and figure out how it was that I, that I could move past it.
John Dehlin [01:40:45] And
Jared Jones [01:40:48] so, as you know, I continue going throughout my teenage years. I'm consistently involved, like in, you know, my leadership and my quorums and fully participatory in those things. I became an Eagle Scout. All my sibling, my male siblings were Eagle Scouts. That was very important in our household because that's what you do. Like, we're all in, we show up, you know, we do the things that we're supposed to do.
Jared Jones [01:41:24] And so, you know, as we're, as we're going throughout this process. For myself, like, I start dating girls a lot. Like that's very important to me in my teenage years. And I feel like my self esteem tied into that pretty well. Like, yes, I was attracted to girls, yes I was interested in those kind of relationships. But honestly, I think a lot of it was from a validation standpoint. Like, I really wanted girls to tell me that I was okay and that I was attractive and that I was worthy of love. Like, and so I had a job throughout most of high school, like from my sophomore to senior year.
Jared Jones [01:42:20] And my major focus of my job was making enough money so that I could go out on dates whenever I wanted to. Like I could, you know, like that. That was always very important to me. And so as I'm going throughout my dating life, there's like a lot of girls that.
Jared Jones [01:42:43] I would say that most of the girls that were like attracted to me, like, that showed a lot of interest in me were actually not members of the church. And so like I had a couple like instances, slash on again, off again instances with girls that were not members of the church, but that wasn't like any sort of acceptable long term relationship. Like I could, I could kiss them once or twice or something like that and that would be fine, but it wasn't like I knew it couldn't go anywhere. And so the girls that I was super attracted to were the ones that resembled like the cap sleeve, you know, like super modest seminary class president kind of situation.
Jared Jones [01:43:35] Like and there were. We had such a big group of youth at the time. Like, there were a lot of girls, you know, that I had different little crushes on and whatnot. But for the most part, like, that wasn't well, reciprocated within my seminary class or whatnot.
Jared Jones [01:44:00] And so anyways, like. But those were the girls that I was ultimately super attracted to. And definitely the girls I would take out on lots of dates, right? Like, we'd go out on a couple dates, but it never materialized or whatever. So I wasn't necessarily, like, getting that reciprocal affection from the people that I was supposed to be. And so I worked at a wonderful institution known as Pretzel Maker in our mall.
Jared Jones [01:44:33] So Pretzel Maker, it was really the. The place that dreams were made. You know, like, we had a lot of fun there. I worked with a lot of my friends as a teenager, I think from the time I was like, 15 to 19, like, right before I left my mission.
John Dehlin [01:44:51] It's like, in a mall.
Jared Jones [01:44:53] Yeah, in a mall. Like, right. We weren't in the food court. We were adjacent to the food court. And so, you know, we, first of all, like, it's a whole bunch of teenagers. That's how the model works, right? Like, you're not hiring $25 an hour pretzel employees. That's. That's not what's going on. And so, yeah, you know, I had a lot of friends I was able to.
Jared Jones [01:45:22] To bring on board somehow, like, at the beginning, I wasn't, you know, obviously like, a manager and like that, but you stay at a Pretzel Maker long enough, you rise up through the ranks pretty quickly. And so I did, and I was able to help hire a lot of my friends, and we had a blast there.
Jared Jones [01:45:42] But while I was doing that, you know, I. Met this girl who was like, I think at this time, I was. I was probably 17. I may have been 16, but 16 or 17, I was in my senior year of high school.
Jared Jones [01:46:06] And she was 24, I believe, maybe. Maybe 23 something. 23 or 24. But either way, she now. Now I kind of more recognize it for what it was. But, you know, we talked a lot. You know, you're working for four or five hours, and sometimes there's lulls and whatnot, so you get to know people.
Jared Jones [01:46:33] And she. It became apparent after a little while that she was interested in me. And, you know, I'm definitely attention seeking, and I'm not like, you know, she was. She was interested, and I was interested in somebody being interested in me.
Jared Jones [01:46:54] And so anyways, things kind of progressed and she was grooming me, and so she did. And she, you know, I mean, obviously, if you're working at pretzel maker at 24, like, I mean, I don't know, Like, I shouldn't say that. That's not nice. Like, I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but bottom line is, like, she didn't have a car. Like, it wasn't like, she wasn't like, set in life yet or anything. And so she lived like 15 minutes away. And she usually needed a mom or somebody to bring her to work. So she asked me one day if I would pick her up for work because, you know, I had a car.
Jared Jones [01:47:49] And so I did. I drove out and picked her up. And then, you know, she told me to pick her up early. So we did. And we decided like, on the way at this point, I hadn't, like, we hadn't been physically affectionate with each other or anything, but that was like, obviously the plan for me to pick her up early and we were going to go make out.
Jared Jones [01:48:13] And so, you know, once again, at 16, 17 years old, like, you're not looking at. Or I wasn't looking at this from a perspective of like, hey, she's an adult. Like, this is a problem. I was thinking like, oh, this is cool. This girl wants to make out with me, you know. Awesome.
John Dehlin [01:48:32] Tell us both your ages again one more time.
Jared Jones [01:48:34] So I. I was a senior in high school, so I don't know, 17.
John Dehlin [01:48:37] Ish.
Jared Jones [01:48:38] Yeah, I, I was, I was probably 17, 16 or 17 somewhere in that range. I was 16 and 17 in my senior year. And so anyways, she was, she was 23 or 24. Wow.
John Dehlin [01:48:53] Okay.
Jared Jones [01:48:54] So she was, she was quite a bit older than me.
John Dehlin [01:48:56] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:48:56] But like, she had been adulting for a while. Like, it wasn't like she just turned 19 or something like that. Like, she was much older than I was. And so.
John Dehlin [01:49:08] And you feel like she was grooming you?
Jared Jones [01:49:10] Well, she was. Like, the conversations that we had leading up to this were very sexualized. Like, and so she knew that I. I didn't have any sexual experience at all. Like, and she kind of thought that that was like, cute or funny or whatever. I mean, I don't, you know, it was something in that vein. And so anyways, we stop, we go park, and it.
Jared Jones [01:49:40] The making out escalates and like, to the point where I'm not. I'm no longer comfortable with what's going on, like, because I'm starting to feel a lot of shame. And so there was a point in the conversation or in. In that situation where I told her sop. Like, I told her that. Like, I said, hey, no, I. I. Like, I don't want to do this. Like, I was.
Jared Jones [01:50:14] But at that point, like, anyways, I don't know how graphic you want me to be, but had escalated into, like, you know, kind of starting sexual stuff as opposed to, like, just making out. And so, like, once it progressed to that was like, no, like, I can't. And she.
Jared Jones [01:50:42] She didn't stop. Like, she kept going. And I. I felt, like, really horrible about that. And I was just talking to one of my buddies that I worked with the other day who was with me that night, like, after that shift, and I had taken him home. And I remember telling him about that.
Jared Jones [01:51:08] And at that point, like, I was. I was crying. Like, I felt bad about what had happened. And I wasn't feeling bad because I was registering at that time that I had told her to stop and that she didn't stop. Like, and in that, especially at that time, like, I'm bigger than she was. Like, you know, I mean, I probably outweigh her by £50, or something. Like. And so in my mind, like, you know, you tell somebody to stop, like, you're. You're a grown person. Like, maybe not mentally, but physically. Like, I could have made her stop.
Jared Jones [01:51:46] Like, that's where my mind was. And so I was telling him. And I'm super devastated about the fact that I had just, like, sinned, like, very seriously. Like, so much so that I. At that point, I didn't know if, like, that would prevent me from going on a mission. Like, what exactly the implication would be. But I knew right away that I had to unburden myself. Like, I needed. Like, it was an incessant need to go confess. Like, that's the first thing that popped into my mind. And I was on.
Jared Jones [01:52:27] I know what time this happened, like, roughly, because I. I was on the Youth Conference committee, which, in our stake, like, that was kind of a big deal because, like, we had a ton of youth in our stake.
Jared Jones [01:52:43] And so, like, if you were on the Youth Conference Committee, like, from a perspective of, like, how good you were, like, in my mind. Right. At least, like, you were a really good kid, like, if you were on the Youth Conference Committee, you know.
Jared Jones [01:53:00] And so that was an important thing to me. Well, I go in and I talk to my bishop about it, and I tell him. And I did tell him, like, what had happened. And I did tell him, like, yeah, I felt Bad about it. But, like, I told her to stop and she didn't stop.
Jared Jones [01:53:17] And he knew her age too. Like, I did, because, like, afterwards I did kind of think about that a little bit more. It's like, hey, you know, it's probably not good, right, that she was a lot older than me and, you know, she. She was in an active sexual relationship. Like, I knew that at the time with.
Jared Jones [01:53:43] With a boyfriend. Like, and so, like, that was part of the TMI that she can I. Or like, the information that she had shared with me, like, in. In her grooming. But, you know, so I tell him that. And his first reaction, you know, was not to talk to him about, like, anything about her fault, like, or what she had done or like, hey, if you tell somebody to stop, that they need to stop. Like, it wasn't. There was no conversation around, this is statutory rape. This is actual rape. Like, nothing like that.
Jared Jones [01:54:26] It was. The conversation was fully directed at me at, like. And that. That's how I showed up. Like, I was showing up to unburden myself, because that's the way that I thought. But ultimately, like, if. If I were to be in that situation today as that adult, that this had been confessed to cops, you know, like, right away, like, I mean, and that kid that was 16 or 17 years old would have a conversation with me, like, saying, hey, that was not appropriate. Like, it doesn't matter who it is,
John Dehlin [01:55:05] what it is, or illegal.
Jared Jones [01:55:07] Yeah, it was not only inappropriate, but, yeah, it was a crime. It was illegal. And, you know, so. But the focus was on me and, like, what I could do to repent. And I remember, like, feeling like, the possibility of me going on a mission, like, could have been destroyed by that and like, that feeling of fear and loss, but also that it didn't matter what my consequence was, that it had to be taken care of because that was my only way to progress towards God. Like, and it was my only way to feel better about myself. And so, you know, that's. That's kind of how it went.
Jared Jones [01:55:55] And so then directly from that, my bishop calls the stake president, which now, in my understanding of how that's supposed to work when you're dealing with a youth, that is not the way that it's supposed to go down.
Jared Jones [01:56:11] You know, if it was an elders or like, somebody that was an elder, older, then that's. Anyways, I don't. But that was not what he was supposed to do. And so. But either way, I got released from my calling as, you know, a youth conference committee member, you Know, and it's visible. Like, I had been to meetings, like, as, you know, as part of this. And so.
Jared Jones [01:56:40] And one of the odd things, too, for me at that time where I saw this or had this kind of dissonance is I knew that there were a couple guys on the Youth Conference Committee that actually, like, unashamedly had, like, sexual relationships with girls. And. But they just didn't tell their bishop about it, like. And so there was a little bit of that dissonance there for me at that time, but I was like, you know what? This isn't about them. This is about me. Right?
John Dehlin [01:57:15] It's a situation in Mormonism and probably other traditions where the dishonest people get ahead and the honest ones are kind of punished for being honest.
Jared Jones [01:57:26] Yeah, for sure. And so. So I go, I'm going through this repentance process, and probably about four or six weeks into it, my dad approaches me and he's like, hey, man, you know? I know. So I confessed to my dad after I confessed to the bishop, and as I talked to him about that, then he comes back to me later and he's like, hey, just so you know, like, the way that this hand was handled was inappropriate. What a bishop and stake president did in this scenario were wrong. And he's like, so if you would like to, you know, still be on the Youth Conference Committee or whatever, like, I can make that happen.
John Dehlin [01:58:20] And
Jared Jones [01:58:22] I. I told him no. And I said, you know, If this. If this is what the Lord wants from me, like, if this punishment is, like, what I'm supposed to do, then that's what I want to do. I just want to be right.
Jared Jones [01:58:42] Like, I just want to be right with God. And so for me, like, if I were to, you know, use my. My dad's ability to make things happen the way that they were supposed to happen from a context of, you know, knowing how the politics of the church are supposed to work and whatnot, and forcing my priesthood leader to.
Jared Jones [01:59:09] To make things happen the way that they should have, then I would have not been listening to what God obviously wanted from me. Like, the bishop already spoke like this. The punishment had come down like that. That's just God's voice, you know, like, in my mind. And so I wanted. Like, I wanted to go through the whole repentance process the way that it was given to me, because that was the way that I could. Could heal. Like, that's the way that I would be okay with God.
Jared Jones [01:59:40] And so anyways, that's what happened. No reports to the police, no Nothing to do with like what maybe should. Well, what should have happened. And I honestly, until last year, when I was sitting down and talking through kind of some of the things that had gone on in our family's life, it was at that point that I actually realized, like, in actual out, in actuality, I was raped. Like, I couldn't even say that to myself that I was a sexual abuse victim. In that instance. I knew that I was like, it was statutory rape. Like, I knew that. Like, I understood what that meant. But I also, at 17 or 16, you know, you feel like you're like kind of like a grown person at that time.
Jared Jones [02:00:36] You're like you. At least I did until I'm older and I'm looking at my own 16 year old. I'm like, no, that is not a grown person. Like, you feel bigger than you are. Or at least I did. And so from a maturity standpoint, now I look at that, I'm like no 16 year old. I mean, honestly, I don't think 18 is like, I know legally it's an adult, but I know I don't really think that way anymore. And so, but now as I also, this was something I was so ashamed of. And I, I'm 90% sure that I didn't say anything about that to Ashley before we were married because of the shame that I carried with that.
Jared Jones [02:01:22] Because I felt like, I mean, I didn't have sex with this lady. So technically, you know, but I was concerned as how that would be received. Like, if, if I was like, if I had had any sexual experience at all.
Jared Jones [02:01:42] Like, I didn't want that to like, disqualify me for her approval, you know, and because that wasn't who I was. Like, in my mind, like, I'm like, I know I'm. That was like, you know, I've moved on from that. I've served my mission. Like, you know what? Not. And so anyways, but that was, that was an experience that just last year I was finally able to step back and be like, wait, no, that actual actually is rape. Because I did say no and it did continue. And no matter, like, that's it. That, that was the end of the story from that perspective.
John Dehlin [02:02:23] And I think in Mormon culture and probably in broader US culture or just human culture, I think there's a double standard. Well, first of all, there's just not a good awareness around consent and rape just generally. But I, I, so I don't know to what extent women victims fare any better than men, so to speak, because there's A huge problem with this. And I'm sure there's a lot of women who are really relating to you right now as having experienced the same thing as women or as young women. But I also think on top of that, there's a double standard where it's like, well, a guy can't be raped.
John Dehlin [02:03:10] Like, no. I mean, you're a guy, and she's shorter and smaller than you, and you probably wanted it, you know, and. And. And you could have stopped it, and she couldn't have physically overpowered you. So that, you know, number one, that's not rape. And number two, no sympathy. You're a guy. I. I imagine there's a double. And I know those words sound really offensive, but I'm trying to echo my sensibilities for culture these days. Does. Does that sound right? I mean, accurate?
Jared Jones [02:03:45] Yeah, I mean, that's the way that I thought. Like, I couldn't even. I couldn't download it that way until, like, last year.
John Dehlin [02:03:52] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:03:53] That was the first time that I was really able to say, wouldn't it wait.
Margi Dehlin [02:03:56] No.
John Dehlin [02:03:56] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:03:57] Like, because my understanding around that has changed so significantly from a cognition standpoint, from physicality standpoint. Like, you know, there. I. I really enjoyed the episode that you guys did a little while ago with. With John. Oh, shoot.
Ashley Jones [02:04:20] Larsen.
Jared Jones [02:04:21] Larsen. About how people react in traumatic situations. You know, there's fight, flight, or freeze. And, like, I typically end up on the fight side of that, like, as, like, my. The way that I react. But definitely in that scenario, it was freeze. Like, I froze. Like, that was it. I. Like, I.
Jared Jones [02:04:44] And so, yes, your body continues to function. Yeah. But that does not. That's not consent. That's not what it is. And, you know, whether, you know, my intent in parking the car with this lady, like, that has nothing to do with whether or not she had the right to do what she did. And so, yeah, so that. I mean, that was an experience preparatory to my mission, but definitely one where I decided, like, and I knew that I needed to take whatever pain it was that was going to allow me to continue to move forward towards a mission. Like, because that was the hero's journey.
Jared Jones [02:05:38] Like, that's what you do. You go through the pain, you get through it, and then you can move on and, like, and do the things that you're supposed to do.
John Dehlin [02:05:51] And marking out, reflecting during quick break that we had about how during this episode, specifically, we've done some process processing about the system that in some ways kind of has paused your personal story at times to reflect on maybe where the system failed you and where it continues to fail others. And I, you know, we always try and say systems, not people here on Mormon Stories. And so I want to just take a second to do that again. Like if we want to think about how the Mormon Church and other institutions could do better.
John Dehlin [02:06:25] Like, it wasn't until I don't know me like 10 years ago, as I'm doing Mormon stories, interviews around rape and consent, as I'm getting my PhD in psychology in my 40s by that point, and as family members close to me experience assault or rape, that I even start thinking about what rape is and what consent is and what sexual health is. And it was then that I just first realized, wow, when did I ever have a lesson on consent in the Mormon church ever? In 45 years, when did I ever learn about the word consent? When did I ever hear, did I ever hear the word consent ever in a Mormon context, ever?
John Dehlin [02:07:10] And the answer is no right now. There are other religious institutions like the Unitarian Universalists who have a whole, there's a sexual curriculum called OWL or Our Whole Lives and they, they lay it all out there. Contraception, consent, everything. You know, sexual health, pleasure, STIs, they cover it all. And you know, we didn't learn that until we were forced to kind of explore other religious traditions that, that can be a thing that a religion is, can actually teach about sexual health, STIs, contraception, consent, all of that, that, that's possible. But we're now in 2023 and I guarantee you the church has not incorporated into its young men's and young women's program the Mormon Church, I should say any sex education because it's sort of like they're at sex education. The Mormon Churches version of sex education is don't do it. Right?
Ashley Jones [02:08:16] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:08:17] And if you do it, you're in trouble and you're bad, but don't do it. But if you do do it or if, if you rape or assault someone, we're going to sweep it under the rug and try and pretend like it didn't happen. And that's the. And don't do it and don't think about it and don't even masturbate. That's kind of more matured sexual health in 2023. So all I'm trying to say is the system failed you because your leaders mishandled that it was another example of rape and, or sexual assault. And it was mishandled and swept under the rug by your Mormon Church leaders.
John Dehlin [02:08:56] And the church as a Now we know, $250 billion organization, they can afford to develop a sexual health curriculum and to train their leaders about what rape is and isn't, what consent is and isn't, what assault is and isn't, and how to handle that with local law officials and not to beat up on whoever your bishop was.
John Dehlin [02:09:17] Now, that's not the point. Systems, not people. But I just want to take the time to say that was mishandled. You were not done a service by your. By your church and by your leaders. And that's more insult on top of injury from all the other things you experienced in your adolescence.
Margi Dehlin [02:09:37] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:09:38] I mean, it's funny, too, on that. Like, the messaging that I received there, you know, was like. Was the. Yeah, this was you. This is your fault. And, like, in this scenario, like, this person wasn't even a member of the church. Like, it would have just been super simple to report.
Ashley Jones [02:10:03] Yeah. There's no one they needed to protect.
Jared Jones [02:10:06] Right.
Margi Dehlin [02:10:07] Interesting.
Jared Jones [02:10:08] And so there was. There was no one to protect from that perspective. But it was still, like, for my future as well. Like, looking at, like, what my level of guilt should be, like, what I was taught there is. My level of guilt was completely proportionate to the thing that I did. Right. Like, this was my fault, and I should feel super horrible about it. And then I got punished accordingly, you know?
John Dehlin [02:10:37] And so you were punished, in essence, for being raped.
Jared Jones [02:10:41] Right.
John Dehlin [02:10:42] Which I think women experience a lot more than men. Or at least we're aware of it occurring more against young women and adult women than men.
Jared Jones [02:10:50] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:10:51] But it still happens to men.
Jared Jones [02:10:52] Yeah. And so, I mean, from a perspective of how serious this thing is, The part that was serious was my part. Right. And so since I'm the willing punching bag in the situation, I'm the one that gets that. There was no question. Okay, well, could you give me her name? There was no question about any of that. What can we do from an accountability perspective for her? And so, once again, like, the victim was actually the person that was wrong. Like, the victim was the one that had something to be sorry for.
Jared Jones [02:11:33] And that was very, very well manifested by the consequence. And because besides not being able to go on a mission, like removing me from the Youth Conference Committee would be, like, the worst thing that you could do to me in the church. Because at that time, like I said, I probably had. There were probably 300 youth that were my age at that time. So being one of the five or eight, however many people that were on the Youth Conference Committee, it's a bigger deal.
John Dehlin [02:12:15] It's Shaming, right?
Jared Jones [02:12:16] Yeah. And so being removed from it. Yeah, absolutely. Huge.
Margi Dehlin [02:12:19] And there's some visibility to it.
Jared Jones [02:12:21] Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't think they told anybody what happened at all, but I was. You're just gone, and they know that you're not on it anymore. And so that. What? Because I decided not to re. Enter the youth conference committee because, like, I just didn't go for two months and now my dad or whatever would be able to get me back on the committee, so I'd just be popping back up even if I did go back. But I wasn't, you know, I didn't feel like that was the right thing. I needed to take my punishment. But instead, when. When I told him that, like, what he decided is during that spring break, which is when our youth conference was held, that our family would go to Nauvoo instead.
Jared Jones [02:13:05] And so we did. We went to Nauvoo and we did a lot of church history stuff out there. And, you know, and. And that was my dad's way of. Of, you know, saving me embarrassment because as, you know, in like, my dad was loving me the best way that he could, and he was showing me support the best way that he could. And that's. So that's what we did. So we went to Nauvoo for spring break. And then, like, then it's just a family conflict. Right. Like, and so the. My other siblings that were. Well, I only had one at a time that were age appropriate for youth conference, they went to Nauvoo too.
Jared Jones [02:13:56] And at that time, our youth conference was like a big deal. It was a lot of, like, for us, it was a lot of fun. It was like a four or five day event. Like, we would stay over at different people's houses and, you know, they had like the big brother, big sister kind of set up so you'd be over like 10 other kids or 15 other kids that were in your. Your family. And so anyways, it was. It was a big deal in our stake. And so that was my. My last youth conference after, you know, you know, you have. I think. I don't know, you have four.
Jared Jones [02:14:29] Yeah. Like all of your high school years. And so. And I didn't attend my last youth conference. And yeah. So anyways, that's kind of. That's how that went down. And that was definitely the messaging that I received after that, that situation.
John Dehlin [02:14:48] I'm so sorry.
Margi Dehlin [02:14:49] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:14:50] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:14:51] That's not a fun way to end your kind of teen, young adult, you know, years in as a Mormon, right?
Jared Jones [02:15:00] Yeah, no, I mean it was. And I, I would say in general from like perspective of like enjoying my church years as a teenager. Like I did like socially, like I was, I was very interested and or plugged in with seminary with, you know, just my mutual, like the friend groups. Like I really enjoyed the people that I went to church with and overall, like I always really looked forward to youth conference. I really look forward to high adventure. So yeah, like that was, it was kind of a bummer. Like that was, it was not a cool way to end that, you know.
Margi Dehlin [02:15:55] Yeah, it sounds, that was a punishment for sure.
Jared Jones [02:15:59] Yeah, yeah. But I did go to after that, like I started attending pre missionary, you know and I had like a lot to like kind of get over like at least from my perspective like on a worthiness path to be ready to serve a mission.
Jared Jones [02:16:22] And so I'm, I'm going like after that happened I, the stake president was in my ward and so they made him my home teaching companion. And so I started getting to hang out with the stake president a lot of like now I look back and I'm like, okay. Anyways, it was weird but so I got to hang out with him and he was like, he was an institute teacher. Like he was very, very into the church and like you couldn't get more churchy than he was, which is whatever. I mean but at the end of the day, like I did that, I did, I'd go to institute like after I graduated high school and I'd go to pre missionary every week.
Jared Jones [02:17:16] And so I was intentionally preparing to serve a mission. Like that was, that was very important to me. And so that's kind of youth wise. Like that's what happened after that. And then I got a mission call and gotta head on out.
John Dehlin [02:17:39] Where'd you end up serving?
Jared Jones [02:17:41] Adelaide, Australia. And so we actually, we have a daughter named Adelaide now because you know, that's what the missionaries did that served there.
Ashley Jones [02:17:52] Yeah, they all do. They all have Adelaides.
Jared Jones [02:17:54] It is a beautiful name. But yeah, so that's where I served for two years. And I like fun fact on my way up to the MTC. My MTC start date was September 12th of 2001.
Ashley Jones [02:18:17] And so, so he got to fly up the Salt Lake and his mom and them had to drive because airports were closed the next day.
Jared Jones [02:18:25] Yeah, so it was, yeah, that was a, that was a weird timing. That was a weird time to be leaving the United States.
Margi Dehlin [02:18:34] I can imagine.
Jared Jones [02:18:36] And my res. Like the people in Australia, obviously they are allies to the United States. But I will say for the first three or four months, especially over in Australia, I would not say that we were super well received. Like, the, the narrative for the most part over there, especially among the non conservative people, was like, yeah, you guys are freaking bullies. That's why this happens.
John Dehlin [02:19:13] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:19:14] And like, I'm not saying that there was no empathy. There was. But one thing that I loved about Australia is that those people, you knock on their door and they speak their mind, they're not going to give you platitudes, they're not going to beat around the bush. They're just going to say, yeah, you're a wanker, man. Like, you guys, why are you showing up on my door? Like, here's what I really think. And, you know, they had all sorts of nice things to say about Joe Smith. And you know, honestly, at that time, for the first four to six months, like, lots of negative things about George Bush. Like, people really hated the United States over there at the time because they're thinking, like, why are we getting dragged into this crap?
John Dehlin [02:20:02] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:20:02] You know, like, why do we want to be involved in this at all? You guys are the arrogant jerks. And so that was kind of like, my family was very Republican growing up, and that was an earth shaker for me from a political standpoint. Like, that's when nuance finally started to creep in for me and be like, hey, actually, maybe there are other perspectives besides the ones that I received. I mean, my dad growing up,
Ashley Jones [02:20:40] you
Jared Jones [02:20:40] know, I mean, he has since like, modified his political thought process, but at the time he would always call them Democrats, you know, that's. That's what he would say. And so, like, I still, like, that still sticks in my head. And so that was a messaging that I had received. Like, liberal is bad, conservative is good.
John Dehlin [02:21:01] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:21:02] Like, and so when I go over to this place where I think everybody loves the United States, like, everybody's gonna be big fans of these Americans coming over and chatting with them, you know. Yeah. Not so much. Like, I guess the rest of the world doesn't really think that we're super awesome all the time.
John Dehlin [02:21:21] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:21:22] And so that was. It was good for me, though, because I started learning that there are more views than just the, you know, conservative, white, hetero, Mormon perspective.
John Dehlin [02:21:36] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:21:37] And so nuance started to creep in because that was the beauty of serving a mission is I got to start to see people, like, for who they were and for all their goodness. Because liberals were bad. Right. Like, and. But they weren't. Like, that's what I started to find out, like, as I started to talk to these people and have meaningful discussions with people about how and why they thought the way that they did and what they believed, I started to see that just because you didn't believe the same that I did didn't mean that you were bad, didn't mean that you weren't righteous or whatever. And so anyway, so that, that was a really good thing for me. And so mission wise, like, I had a good time, I enjoyed my mission. I gotta do some fun things on my mission that not a lot of people get to.
John Dehlin [02:22:42] Yeah. Okay, so let's do this. This has been fascinating so far. I appreciate all the vulnerability and it's been so powerful. But it's also a relatively novel thing on Mormon stories to hear some of these stories we've heard before, but from a male perspective. So this has been great. Let's do a pause in your story for a second. Yeah, Ashley's been super patient. And Ashley, we always try, we really want to emphasize, you know, gender equality and we believe in making sure that women have voices here on Mormon stories. And I'll just say for this particular episode as you both conceived it, there was going to be a preconceived emphasis more on Jared's story than on Ashley's. And Ashley, you weren't wanting to go in maybe to as much depth on your story, at least in the earlier years.
Ashley's Mormon Upbringing and Background
Ashley Jones [02:23:41] Right.
John Dehlin [02:23:42] And so that's, I just want people to know this isn't, it's not your fault. We're not just collecting Ashley, but kind of by design and by her own desire. But having said that, I do want to pause and give you a chance to just tell us anything you do want to share kind of about your, your Mormon upbringing, adolescence, just so that we can check in with you and hear about that before we come back and talk briefly about your marriage before we end part one and then go to part two.
Ashley Jones [02:24:11] Yeah. So, yeah, So I grew up. Yeah, I grew up about 20 minutes away from Jared.
John Dehlin [02:24:15] Okay.
Ashley Jones [02:24:18] And slightly different church situation. I mean, I was the oldest of four kids. The church was not. We did not have big youth groups. I was usually the only one my age. More of a low income city, I guess. And so I feel like there wasn't as much church pressure because everyone was just happy that anyone was there. I guess in a weird way, like, so, I mean, I was always on each committee because I was the only one that was my age. So, yeah, I grew up.
Ashley Jones [02:24:57] My dad was an engineer, my mom was a Stay at home, Mom. My siblings are more spread out. I feel like it wasn't quite as hectic as what I hear from my husband's family growing up. We're not fighters at all.
Ashley Jones [02:25:15] Yeah, let's see. I used to compete in gymnastics, and then I started coaching my senior year of high school. I mean, my dad was bishop when I was younger. My mom, they always had a couple callings because that was just necessity where we lived.
Ashley Jones [02:25:34] Pretty, like average family home evening, you know, you had a really good run for a couple weeks and then slack off, but, you know, it was fine. And then I stayed at home my first couple years of college.
John Dehlin [02:25:47] Would you. Would you say overall, your, like, early morning seminary? I did, yep. Would your. Would you say your testimony was pretty strong by, you know, know, graduating high school? Yeah.
Ashley Jones [02:25:57] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:25:58] You're pretty committed?
Ashley Jones [02:25:59] Pretty committed, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:26:00] Pretty committed to the church?
Ashley Jones [02:26:01] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:26:01] Would you say you had overall kind of an idyllic Mormon experience or.
Ashley Jones [02:26:06] I would. I would say so.
John Dehlin [02:26:07] Okay. Yeah. So by the time you graduate from high school, you're.
Ashley Jones [02:26:11] My siblings might say something else. They're quite a bit younger than me, so I don't want to speak for our whole family, but I would say yes for me. Yes. Okay.
John Dehlin [02:26:19] Okay. And then when you graduated, not the BYU route?
Ashley Jones [02:26:24] No. I. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I stayed at home and drove to just this school that was like 20 minutes away and did that in the morning and coached gymnastics in the afternoon for about two, two and a half years. Did you compete in high school? Not for high school, but I did compete for a club.
John Dehlin [02:26:41] Yeah, like statewide kind of thing.
Ashley Jones [02:26:44] I. I started competing a little later than usual. Cause I didn't really start till later. So when you're the older one, they have, like, age groups. And so I always did really well because there's only like five girls over 14 doing like, this certain level, you know.
John Dehlin [02:27:02] What were your favorite events?
Ashley Jones [02:27:04] Vault.
John Dehlin [02:27:04] Vault.
Ashley Jones [02:27:05] Yeah. I don't really have the cardio for anything else.
John Dehlin [02:27:08] Wait, that's where you run up and jump off a thing and do a bunch of flips, right?
Ashley Jones [02:27:11] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:27:12] That's fun and probably hard.
Ashley Jones [02:27:14] Yeah. So. But I had stress fractures when I was about going to senior of high school, and I wasn't gonna compete in college, so I started coaching and I coached for up until my first daughter was born.
John Dehlin [02:27:27] Wow. So that became a kind of a career for you?
Ashley Jones [02:27:30] Yeah. So I coached for about two and a half years during college or high school and college. Oh, it takes three and a half Years. And then I met Jared about when I was like 20.
John Dehlin [02:27:43] And then did you guys meet?
Jared Jones [02:27:47] You can take it.
Ashley Jones [02:27:50] So in my family I never went to a singles ward because there wasn't one super close. So I was in the primary presidency and Jared's brother and sister in law were in our my family ward and we did not know each other, but she called me up one day and said that her brother in law just got back from his mission and would we want to go on a double date with him. And so it was a blind date. It turns out later though that she just didn't like the girl that Jared was going to go try to date after his mission because she grew up with them.
Margi Dehlin [02:28:25] It was an intervention,
Jared Jones [02:28:28] something to that effect.
Margi Dehlin [02:28:31] I see, yes.
John Dehlin [02:28:33] Had you dated much like in high
Ashley Jones [02:28:35] school and not really that I was, I was pretty busy. There wasn't a lot of guys.
John Dehlin [02:28:40] You were what?
Ashley Jones [02:28:40] I was just really busy with gymnastics and there just wasn't a lot of guys.
John Dehlin [02:28:44] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [02:28:45] She had a full life.
Ashley Jones [02:28:46] I was. Yeah, yeah. We had your usual prom dates and stuff, but nothing. Didn't date anybody. Seriously? Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:28:53] Yeah. All right.
John Dehlin [02:28:54] So you meet a local Mormon boy.
Ashley Jones [02:28:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:28:57] And how'd that, how'd that go? Was that after Jared, after you'd returned?
Ashley Jones [02:29:02] He had been back for one week.
John Dehlin [02:29:04] Okay. Okay. Any Jared. So we paused. Is there anything else worth mentioning about your mission?
Jared Jones [02:29:13] I mean, I think just a little bit like I. On my mission, like there were a few instances throughout my mission where I had to go confess to my mission president because like, you know.
John Dehlin [02:29:34] Masturbation.
Jared Jones [02:29:35] Yeah, masturbation. Like there I didn't have pornography, but the Woolworths catalog would come in the mail and every once in a while, you know, like. And so, but towards the end of my mission, I had a new mission president.
Jared Jones [02:29:51] And so like I remember six weeks before I was supposed to go home, I called him up to unburden myself one time, you know, and so I think this is the first time that I ever talked to him about that issue. And I probably talked to my other mission president a few times throughout my mission, you know, a few slip ups or whatever. And you know, he told me he's like Elder Jones. Like, I would hate to have to send you home, you know, in the next six weeks, like for this issue.
Jared Jones [02:30:32] Like, this is a serious thing and you need to get it under control and if you have any other issues, I'm gonna have to send you home.
John Dehlin [02:30:41] Whoa.
Margi Dehlin [02:30:42] Wow.
John Dehlin [02:30:42] And for a non Mormon, they might have no idea what it's like, to be sent home early from a Mormon mission back to your ward, where everyone's going to know that you were sent home early, and they're going to be wondering what for.
Jared Jones [02:30:54] Right, right, right.
John Dehlin [02:30:56] So that would strike the fear of Heavenly Father into you.
Jared Jones [02:30:59] It did. It did. And I didn't have another issue. I was just fine. I mean, that was an extreme amount of fear. And my first mission president was not that way. He viewed it like, do your best. Yeah, it's just like, you know, you can call in or, like, it transfers. You can talk to me if there's a problem or whatever. So, yeah, a couple. Few times, like, we talked, but it wasn't, like, a major thing for him. He was. He was kind of a crass guy. He was from Australia. And so every once in a while, he'd call me a winker, you know, like, as.
John Dehlin [02:31:46] Which. Which in Australia means what?
Jared Jones [02:31:49] Yeah, a masturbator.
John Dehlin [02:31:52] So your Mr. President called you a masturbator as a joke, because that's a word they say in Australia.
Jared Jones [02:31:57] Yeah. And, like, he was pretty irreverent guy, relatively speaking. But in general, though, like, I do remember the first time that I had an issue on my mission with that. Like, I just thought that you go out and you focus on God and you pray multiple times a day and you read your scriptures every day, and, like, that God just, you know, takes this desire away from you. I guess. I don't. I don't exactly know, but that's how I expected it to manifest in my life. Right. Like, you show up, you do your mission. Like, you knock on doors, you get all your contacts, like, God's gonna bless you to.
Jared Jones [02:32:40] To figure that out. Like, you know, and that was not the case for me. And so I was super devastated the first time that that was an issue for me. And the amount of guilt that I walked around with over that was, like, it was crushing. Like, it was a big deal.
Jared Jones [02:33:00] And so. And then to have that mission president deal with it that way, like, was. It was kind of nice because I didn't feel as much pressure. Even though, like, I was really good at beating myself up. I definitely didn't need a priesthood leader to do it for me, because no matter how soft or hard, like, they would go on me, like, at the end of the day, like, I was beating myself up. And so then to have that second mission president come in, and he was my mission president for, I think, four and a half months. And so, you know, we have one conversation over this, and it is super serious, and he's willing to send me home.
Jared Jones [02:33:45] And so it just reconfirmed to me how bad I felt about myself because it like, oh, yes, your other mission president probably just wasn't quite as righteous as this guy. And so he knows how big a deal this is. Like, he knows that this is a major, major issue that can keep you out of heaven. That's kind of why I have to experience the punishments that I do so that I can go to the celestial kingdom. Right.
Jared Jones [02:34:14] That's the purpose. And so anyways, so that's. That's kind of how it wound up for me. It was good mission. I had the ability to be a part of a group of missionaries that we sang a cappella around the mission. So we got to fly around the mission and do some of that fun stuff because it was like the center third of Australia.
Jared Jones [02:34:38] And so there was a lot of distances that we got to travel to do shows for different zones and stuff. Stuff. But so that was good. But that was basically it. That was kind of like the. The capstone on my mission. It's like, okay, fear of God is put into you. You go home, you get married, you have kids, and life will be good.
John Dehlin [02:34:59] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:34:59] You know.
John Dehlin [02:35:00] Right.
Jared Jones [02:35:01] And definitely one of the things that I will say, like, as I'm doing, like, my exit interview, and he's talking to me about getting married, he did reference, like, my struggle that I called him about, but he told me something that I had already believed, I guess, but that was that, like, once you get married, this won't be a struggle for you. Like, that that's not going to be an issue for you anymore because you're going to be married. Right. Like, and you can, you know, he didn't say this, but in my mind, it's like, yeah, well, then you just have sex on demand, right? Like, you tell your wife, like, hey, you know, that's not how it works.
Margi Dehlin [02:35:47] It's time. You just tell your wife it's time.
Jared Jones [02:35:50] Yeah, but that. But in my mind, like, as he's telling me, it's no longer going to be an issue. He has no frigging clue. Like, he has no idea about how my sexuality works, like, what my. Any of that is. But in his mind, that's how it worked. So he was more than happy to tell me that. And so that's like, how I left my mission. And so I leave my mission, I come home, and a week Later, I meet Ms. Ashley.
John Dehlin [02:36:19] Yeah. Okay. Well, normally we might take time to develop your. Your marriage and. And your Mormon Journey, because we're kind of trying to stay themed, focused for this time. I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of, for the rest of this part one, kind of concentrate your story and ask you to just focus on one theme through the chronology kind of up until a few years ago, which is this history of yours of sexual shame, of spiritual abuse, as I think I heard you call it in the, in our previous discussions and in the outline and of your history of, of, of rape or assault or abuse.
Sexual Shame and Its Impact on Their Marriage
John Dehlin [02:37:05] Let's just talk about how that if in any way entered into and or played out in your marriage, and that can include your, your courtship, but all the way through till a few years ago when, when you found out about one of your kids experiencing abuse. So let's, let's talk about that. But let's talk about that. Let's have that be the focus for the rest of this part one, however that shows up in the timeline. Does that make sense?
Margi Dehlin [02:37:35] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:37:36] So we go on the spine date. It goes pretty well in my estimation. And you can tell a little more about that or I can, I'll do
Ashley Jones [02:37:48] it because I'm, I'm all condensed the better.
John Dehlin [02:37:50] Okay.
Ashley Jones [02:37:54] Yeah. So we got engaged like two days later.
John Dehlin [02:37:58] Two days after your first date?
Ashley Jones [02:37:59] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [02:38:00] Okay, so I guess it did go very well in your estimation. Yes.
Ashley Jones [02:38:04] And so we got married three months later.
John Dehlin [02:38:08] So you were. Did I just hear you say you were married three months after your first date?
Ashley Jones [02:38:14] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:38:14] Okay.
Ashley Jones [02:38:16] Three months from the day you go home from a mission.
Jared Jones [02:38:17] Right. So it's like two months, three weeks.
Margi Dehlin [02:38:21] Ah.
John Dehlin [02:38:22] And then is there, is there any, anything worth talking about in terms of, like, the standards and chastity stuff prior to marriage or was that not an issue?
Margi Dehlin [02:38:33] Did any of this play out or even how you.
John Dehlin [02:38:35] That you want to share how.
Margi Dehlin [02:38:36] And if you talked about this part of yourself in those times or did it take long?
Ashley Jones [02:38:41] He did tell me about his babysitter when we were engaged.
John Dehlin [02:38:46] He told you that he had been abused?
Ashley Jones [02:38:48] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:38:49] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [02:38:50] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:38:52] I did not talk to her about pornography. I didn't because I believed what my mission president told me. Like, I just thought, like, okay, this is a non issue. Like, or it's going to be a non issue because, like, you know, I'm gonna get married and that's it's all fixed, everything's good. And so I didn't think that that was an actual issue. And like, from an actual pornography standpoint, like, I hadn't seen pornography truly in years, you know, like, at that point.
Jared Jones [02:39:35] And so anyways, like, and I didn't, at that point I didn't feel like I had any addiction or anything like that. That wasn't, at least in my life, that wasn't a part of the narrative yet from a church perspective, like, I think that started entering in a little bit later into my, you know, early adulthood is when that started being circulated around the church. But yeah, I mean, so it was pretty whirlwind engagement.
Ashley Jones [02:40:08] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:40:09] Did you want to talk about anything during our engagement?
Ashley Jones [02:40:14] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:40:14] And so, but I mean, we got married in the Redlands Temple.
Ashley Jones [02:40:21] Yeah, it just opened.
Jared Jones [02:40:22] Yeah. So the day after I got home off my mission, they dedicated it and so we were one of the first couples to go through that. And that's very close to our home. And that was a special experience. I know that for my dad that was a fun thing too. I know that in the local area, I hadn't realized this, but all these local small temples, at least in the United States.
Jared Jones [02:40:55] Yeah, there's temple funds, whatever, but they raised the money locally. Like, they're like, oh, hey, all you members, you have the opportunity to give. And especially like, I know my dad got a special call, you know, because he had some affluence, you know. And so they approach you and they're like, hey, dig deep. You know, like God wants this temple to be in your area and, and it's going to bless people's lives, you know. And so they did, they asked him to dig deep and he cut a big check and for my dad and you know, I think for a lot of the affluent members at that time, like, what a privilege to be able to be in a spot where God had given you enough money so that you could bless God and take care of his temple and his people.
Jared Jones [02:41:49] And so that was, I think that was exciting for our local area. The Inland Empire is kind of like the proverbial red headed stepchild of the Southern California area. And so getting a temple in the Inland Empire was like, that was a big deal. It was really cool. Like, we're not la, we're not San Diego, we're not Orange county, but we got a temple. So that was pretty. And we got one before Orange county did. Right. Like only LA had a temple before Laguna Beach. Yeah. So they have one.
Ashley Jones [02:42:27] They got around the same time, I think.
Jared Jones [02:42:29] Yeah. Newport came like two years after ours.
John Dehlin [02:42:32] Okay.
Jared Jones [02:42:33] And so there was one in San Diego and one in la.
John Dehlin [02:42:36] Nice.
Jared Jones [02:42:37] And so they were the cool kids. We were not. And now we had a temple and so we got married there and that was. Yeah, that was exciting.
John Dehlin [02:42:46] So. So in Inland Empire represent. So, yeah. So let's talk about how shame and abuse played out in your marriage or if it. If that was even a factor or. Or was it.
Jared Jones [02:43:00] Yeah, well, I mean, do you want to talk about that or.
Ashley Jones [02:43:04] You can start and we'll see.
Margi Dehlin [02:43:05] Okay.
Jared Jones [02:43:06] Well, so, you know, I'm. We get married, we move up to suu, Cedar City, and we pretty quickly, Ashley gets pregnant with our oldest. And so, you know, at that time, at least, the narrative that I received from the church was that there was no real good reason to put off having children. And I wanted children and Ashley did, too. And so, like, it was kind of like putting off children for money, for education, for anything, really wasn't. There wasn't really a good reason to do it. At least that's how I interpreted what was being said to me. I know other people at my. In my time that did not get that same messaging, but that's what I received.
Jared Jones [02:44:02] And so we wanted to be happy. We wanted God to bless our lives and to bless our family, and that was the goal. Ultimately. We wanted to have a lot of kids, and so we made that decision based off of what was supposed to be. And we have zero regrets on our. On our beautiful children. Like, but it was. It was fast, you know, like, so we. We did that and probably about six months or nine months into our marriage. I don't. I don't know how long it was, but, like, was my first instance of, like, looking at pornography after marriage.
Ashley Jones [02:44:56] And it was when Jordan was on the nicu.
Jared Jones [02:44:59] Okay.
Ashley Jones [02:45:00] So. Yes.
Jared Jones [02:45:00] So a year. Yeah. So you're living up in Provo, and I'm down.
Ashley Jones [02:45:07] Our daughter was born very early, so I was living up in Provo because she was in that hospital and we lived in Cedar City.
Jared Jones [02:45:14] Yeah. And so I. I'm commuting back and forth from Cedar City.
Ashley Jones [02:45:21] She was there a couple months.
Jared Jones [02:45:23] Yeah. And so, yeah, I have. I guess, you know, I have the first instance at that time of looking at pornography since I'm married.
John Dehlin [02:45:32] Can I just connect with you on one thing? And this is. Some people are going to say this is tmi. Again, I believe silence is the enabler and the killer. And we should talk about stuff. So I. And I've talked about this before. I was this weird Mormon boy that actually never masturbated once before I ever got married. I don't know how that happened. It just did. But the first time, I. I'm. I'm. I'm connecting with you. Because the first time I did ever masturbate was when our first kid was born. Because, like, we had a healthy sex life, and there was. And in my mind, it wouldn't have ever occurred to me, but then once, Margi was recovering from our first child's birth.
Margi Dehlin [02:46:17] Because it's oftentimes six weeks, right? What, like six or eight weeks.
John Dehlin [02:46:23] Yeah. So there's recovery, and then all of a sudden, you know, of course, it's the woman's job to meet the man's needs. In Mormonism and elsewhere, there's only one source. So, like, you know, you go a week, and then, you know, you're used to kind of weekly or whatever. Whatever the frequency is. You're used to a certain frequency, and then you have that kid, and then all of a sudden, the. The wife needs a break, right? Needs to heal. And then all of a sudden, boom. That's what happened to me. It's just like, whoa. And I. I just remember enormous shame and guilt about that. What just happened. That. That's, you know, in the showers, like, what just happened. And for me. So when you say it was. Is when the child was born, I'm like, I think I. I think I kind of understand what may happened. May have happened.
Jared Jones [02:47:11] You know, the funny thing is, I. I didn't even connect that until Ashley just said it. Like, I didn't realize that that's what had happened. I mean.
John Dehlin [02:47:22] Well, I'm not trying to project onto you.
Jared Jones [02:47:24] No, no, no. But sincerely, like, I didn't even think. Oh, yeah, like, that's when it was when Jordan was in the hospital and Ashley is away from me, and. And I didn't put those two things together.
Ashley Jones [02:47:38] Sorry to her if she's watching this.
Jared Jones [02:47:40] Oh, sorry. Well.
John Dehlin [02:47:41] Cause like, when Ashley's like. Well, she was in the nicu, my Mormon shame is like, man, what? A little.
Ashley Jones [02:47:47] Because he was telling me that he was in the. Talking to the bishop, and I was like, why are you talking?
John Dehlin [02:47:52] You're, like, looking at porn. Like, there's the Mormon shame that comes in that judges that. So my brain is like, wait a minute. There's probably a reason. Reason. So I'm connecting the dots for you,
Jared Jones [02:48:02] you know, I mean. I mean, that's. But I didn't even realize that, like, that's when it was. I mean, I knew that it was. You know, we knew.
Margi Dehlin [02:48:12] I.
Jared Jones [02:48:12] All I remember is that I was living in Cedar City, and I thought, once you get married, this problem goes away. Right? Like.
Margi Dehlin [02:48:22] Right.
John Dehlin [02:48:22] That's what your mission president told you.
Jared Jones [02:48:24] Well, I mean, and I believed him, like, and so, but now, like looking back, even empathetic on 21 year old Jared, like, yeah, like you're, you're a little factory, you know, like, whatever. I mean, so I just, that that's an interesting thing. But I remember being so devastated, like, because I thought, I thought that this was over. Like, I thought that that was never going to be a problem like ever again in my life. And so that's the point where now this shame and guilt cycle entered our marriage, at least from a perspective of communicating that with Ashley and in talking to a bishop, as in a married and you know, person. And so. Yeah,
John Dehlin [02:49:28] okay. Yeah. And so the guilt and shame just starts right back up again. But again, there's the idea of Mormonism where much is given, much is required. You're a Melchizedek priesthood holder, you're returned missionary, you've, you've been endowed, now you're married, now you're a father. And you're like, that's gotta feel even worse than if you're a teen. Right? The guilt, the shame.
Jared Jones [02:49:51] Oh, 100.
John Dehlin [02:49:52] Yeah. And now you're, you're like doing it to your wife. You're in.
Ashley Jones [02:49:55] I will say that is. The guilt was not from me though.
John Dehlin [02:49:58] No, but, but he would be feeling.
Ashley Jones [02:50:01] Right.
John Dehlin [02:50:01] Yeah, right.
Ashley Jones [02:50:02] I was like, why would you go tell the bishop? Oh, wait, I was so mad.
John Dehlin [02:50:05] Did he tell you? Yes, well, talk about that.
Ashley Jones [02:50:08] Well, he told me he talked to the bishop.
John Dehlin [02:50:09] Wait, how did you know that he had looked at.
Ashley Jones [02:50:11] No, he didn't tell me that. He just told me he was talking to the bishop about that.
John Dehlin [02:50:15] So you went, okay, so you decided to convince. You're a grown. I'll swear you're a grown ass man.
Jared Jones [02:50:21] Right.
John Dehlin [02:50:22] Your wife just had a baby, you happen to masturbate and you decide that you need to. What?
Jared Jones [02:50:30] No, you have to go talk to your bishop. Like, that's.
Ashley Jones [02:50:33] And I was pretty mad because I just had a baby and we're back and forth from Cedar City and he wanted me to come meet with the bishop too, with him. And I was like, no, I'm not going to do that.
John Dehlin [02:50:44] Why was that your. Why? First of all, why was your reaction? You're a horrible human. Because many Mormon women are raised men and women are raised to think that if you do that, you're a horrible person, an unworthy priesthood holder. And then why weren't you like, of course you need to go talk to the bishop and repent.
Ashley Jones [02:51:01] Well, I think he'd already talked to the bishop before he told me, okay,
John Dehlin [02:51:04] it was too late.
Ashley Jones [02:51:04] I wasn't even with him. But.
John Dehlin [02:51:06] But why weren't you, Like, I'm glad you talked to the bishop. You know, that's where you belong. Were you just raised differently?
Jared Jones [02:51:11] I guess.
John Dehlin [02:51:12] Did you absorb different messages, maybe?
Ashley Jones [02:51:14] I think the girls get different messages.
John Dehlin [02:51:16] Okay, so what. What message?
Ashley Jones [02:51:19] I don't know. I just.
Jared Jones [02:51:22] I mean, the conversations that we've had since multiple times is like, hey, like, what does that have to do with me? Like, you're. You're your own person. Like, if you. If you look at pornography or anything like that, that has nothing to do with me. Like, I mean, that's. That's her messaging to me, at least on that thing. And so. And it's funny because I couldn't accept that. Like, that's not what I have been taught my whole life. Like, that's not. Like, it wasn't a personal issue. It was an issue with me and God and my bishop, you know, like, that's how it had to be taken care of. And so it wasn't just so simple to say, like, yeah, I mean, that's a personal thing. Like, that has nothing to do with anybody because that's how. That's what she told me from the beginning. And it took me about 18 years to accept that.
Ashley Jones [02:52:28] Well, he would go to those. Those meetings. I don't know what they call them,
John Dehlin [02:52:31] but talk about that. So what, did your bishop give you an assignment?
Bishop's Involvement and Pornography Struggles
Jared Jones [02:52:37] So I had. Yeah, so I had a. A horrible experience about six years into our marriage. I was. I think I was the mission leader or the ward clerk or something like that at the time. Time. But either way, I confessed, Bishop. When I had another. It could have been coinciding with another child. We had a lot of kids. You know, how many kids total? Well, we have six.
Ashley Jones [02:53:04] The last two are adopted, though.
John Dehlin [02:53:05] Okay, so.
Jared Jones [02:53:06] Okay, so the pause, you know. You know, but it would have been. There would have been four pauses in our relationship. But I. And it's funny, I never even tied those things together. But so I go in and I talk to a bishop about this, and he tells me that. He's like, well, you know, I think you probably have an addiction. And that was right after the church had come out with, like, this addiction recovery. I mean, I don't know if it's right after, but it was pretty soon after the church came out with their addiction recovery for pornography.
John Dehlin [02:53:47] Now, I just want to pause here and be really clear. Your bishop diagnoses you with an addiction and by the way, there's no such thing really in the mental health profession as a masturbation addiction. Unless you're literally like injuring yourself or doing it in public. Like that's not a thing. But your bishop diagnoses you potentially as having an addiction. Can you tell us like the frequency just so that we would understand.
Jared Jones [02:54:15] I mean it was like it most like there were times that maybe multiple times a week, it's sometimes it would be multiple times a year, like so.
John Dehlin [02:54:32] But another way to say that is you would go months without masturbating.
Jared Jones [02:54:35] Yeah, sometimes multiple months.
John Dehlin [02:54:37] And yet your bishop is diagnosing you as an addict, using the word addict and recommending you to go to an addiction and recovery program.
Jared Jones [02:54:46] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:54:46] That's modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a 12 step, the Mormon version of a 12 step program.
Jared Jones [02:54:54] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:54:54] Because you're masturbating once every couple months, basically.
Jared Jones [02:54:58] Yeah. In like, in some, like when I would like if I would go and confess, like it was probably more than that.
Ashley Jones [02:55:05] Right.
Jared Jones [02:55:05] It was probably like it been a couple, few times in a month period or whatever. It was like once a week. Right, right, whatever. But it was, it was, it was, you know, so it would have been weighing on me and when something weighs on me, I don't hang around. Like I go and try to figure out what that problem is. So if there was some week and it's like, okay, it's happened twice now, like I gotta go see the bishop, you know, like then and at that time, anytime that I did it, I would go see the bishop. So the frequency, and at least in my mind seem like a lot because every time you work yourself up to go and talk to the bishop, it's such a shameful thing.
Jared Jones [02:55:46] Like it's a major, like it's a major thing. And so anyways, he tells me about addiction, support, recovery. So I decide, okay, yeah, I'm going to go to that because going to fix this problem. Well, outside of that, he also gives me some punishment. And he's like, all right, well you know, I'm going to put you on informal discipline.
Jared Jones [02:56:11] And he's like, so you can't say prayers in church and you can't take the sacrament for the next, however long, four weeks, six weeks, whatever it was. But I mean it was relatively decent amount of time. Well, sometime in that time and I
John Dehlin [02:56:29] just want to say, which means that when everyone's quiet, the sacraments being passed, deacons, little 12, 13 year old boys are walking around passing in these little silver trays, the Bread and the water to the entire congregation. The tray is passed down the pew, the bread comes, your kids are there, your wife's there, people are behind you and in front of you. What do you have to do as a result of this punishment? You skip, which means you take the tray and what?
Jared Jones [02:57:00] And you pass it to somebody else because you can't take it.
John Dehlin [02:57:02] So you don't what?
Jared Jones [02:57:04] You don't take the sacrament, you don't take the bread, you don't take the water.
John Dehlin [02:57:07] You don't take the water.
Jared Jones [02:57:08] The things that people can see that you're not doing it is public shaming. Yeah, 100%. That that was. This story is mind boggling to me now.
John Dehlin [02:57:21] And you're an adult with two children at the right.
Jared Jones [02:57:24] So that happened to me a few times throughout our marriage where I had to stop taking the sacrament. But this specific ward in this situation was horrendous because there was one day that I went to church and I was asked to pray three times in three different meetings. Oh, and I had to say no to prayer three times in one day.
John Dehlin [02:57:53] So, like, hey, so like, someone's getting up to Sunday school. Hey, hey. Brother Jones, would you offer the opening prayer? And then in front of an entire classroom of adults, you have to say what?
Jared Jones [02:58:04] No, I have to say, sorry, I can't.
John Dehlin [02:58:08] Leaving them to think, what?
Jared Jones [02:58:09] Oh, I mean, something. I did something real bad, Right. Whatever it was, I did something real bad. And then like a week later, my little brother had moved into the ward and he was getting ordained to something. And so we're in the small little room with 20 guys and their wives like, that were getting set apart or whatever. Like he was getting set apart. And so, and so they asked me, come on.
John Dehlin [02:58:41] Traditionally it'd be, come on up in the circle.
Jared Jones [02:58:42] Yeah, come on up in the circle.
John Dehlin [02:58:43] Be a part of ordaining your brother to his new calling.
Jared Jones [02:58:47] And so I had to say, I'm sorry, I can't.
John Dehlin [02:58:49] In front of 20 couples.
Jared Jones [02:58:51] Yeah,
John Dehlin [02:58:54] it's like a shame parade, basically.
Jared Jones [02:58:55] I mean, so over a few weeks, like, yeah, it was, it was horrible. And so, But I knew, I knew that I was, I was the problem. Like, it was my fault. I was paying the penance that I should be paying. Like I deserved it.
Jared Jones [02:59:16] Like, in my mind, that's how it worked. Like, that's how God works. Like, that was, that's how I received that. God wanted me to feel this pain so that I wouldn't do it again. Right? Like, that's how, how you know, where you Stand. And, like, when you feel bad about this and you feel that shame, then you know. You know that it's you and that you need to correct your behavior. And then once you correct it, like, that shame is going to go away. And you can have. I heard this phrase a lot. But you can have confidence before God, right? And so I couldn't have confidence before God when I was in this situation because I had violated his trust.
Jared Jones [02:59:57] And so that's how I was showing up in my, like, what was going on for me in my church career. So then he tells me to go to this addiction support group. So I do. And I go every week, on and off for, like, 10 years through this program.
John Dehlin [03:00:17] So 10 years in an addiction and recovery program for the reasons we've already specified.
Jared Jones [03:00:24] I did. And so it gets better.
John Dehlin [03:00:27] Worse or better?
Jared Jones [03:00:28] Well, yeah, worse. So, I mean, I kind of figure out a flow on that and how to kind of control my addiction, you know, and conform to. And so I do. And after having success at that for a while, I get called in the bishopric.
Ashley Jones [03:00:58] Well, we'll say during that time, too, they have, like, women's or, like, wives groups. And he really was trying to convince me to go to this wife's group. And I was like, what? I'm gonna go sit and complain about my husband for, like, two hours? And everyone. You know. And so I never.
Jared Jones [03:01:17] Well, and she told me specifically, after I asked her a few times, she's like, look, I do not want to go to that because I think it will make me like you less. Like, that's what she said. And she's like, I'm fine with you. I'm happy with you right now. You don't need to have me come to this for my help. And what I was thinking is, like, maybe somehow if she comes, this will help me more, you know, like, to be more righteous and to be a better priesthood holder. And maybe she'll pick up some things that, like, if I'm ever going to struggle, I don't know.
Jared Jones [03:01:55] I don't know what I thought. I just. The other wives were there, and, you know, I thought that for some reason, it was good because the church had this program for the wives to come. And so not realizing that, really that program is for wives that are struggling with how to stay with their husbands because they're cheating on them with porn. Like, and so that's to help them stay together and convince them that it's okay. You don't need to fire your husband, you know, like. And she didn't have that problem. She wasn't ready to fire me. Like, she wasn't ready, so.
Ashley Jones [03:02:31] And I never went.
John Dehlin [03:02:32] And. And then. And we have to call this out that y' all are kind of in the 95th percentile positively in this regard, because I've just heard countless stories of. It's. It's not always the husband, but in my experience, it's predominantly the husband that in Mormonism that has found himself in this position where the wife catches him licking a porn or catches him masturbating or finds out that he's doing it and then thinks he's evil and dirty and terrible, and then he's in the marital dog. He's not a righteous priesthood holder, and he's in the marital doghouse for years, if not decades. And it can wreak destruction on people's mental health, their depression, their anxiety, their marital relationship, the family dynamics, and even can end the marriage.
John Dehlin [03:03:21] And, Ashley, I just have to ask you, is it just your personality? Is there something about your upbringing? What kept you from reacting like many Mormon wives do, which is to think Jared was a horrible person. And for him to. For you to seize that power dynamic and for him to be perpetually in the doghouse and you wielding, you know, either wielding that over him in terms of power or shaming him to death because you feel so terrified and disappointed in his horrific, unrighteous behavior. How do you explain it?
Ashley Jones [03:03:55] What do you think?
John Dehlin [03:03:55] No, I want to hear.
Ashley Jones [03:03:56] I don't know. I don't know.
John Dehlin [03:03:58] You don't know?
Ashley Jones [03:03:59] Maybe I'm just more laid back. That's it, I guess. I don't know.
John Dehlin [03:04:03] Just a personality trait.
Ashley Jones [03:04:04] And I'm not a guilty person myself, so I don't understand why.
John Dehlin [03:04:07] What do you mean?
Ashley Jones [03:04:08] Like, I don't. Like, like, I would never go to the bishop for anything. Not that I did anything, like, terrible. Just, like. Just the baffles my mind that you would go like, even like, I would never. Doesn't make sense to me.
John Dehlin [03:04:24] Are you saying you don't have the heightened sense of, like, guilt and shame?
Ashley Jones [03:04:27] Maybe? Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:04:29] It's not that you don't have a conscience, but it's just, you're just like, you don't beat yourself up. Like, maybe a highly scrupulous person would. You're like, yeah, I'll try and do better instead of like, I'm the worst person ever.
Ashley Jones [03:04:40] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:04:40] Or like, hey, try and do to him. You're like, hey, Jerry, try and do better versus you're the worst person ever.
Ashley Jones [03:04:47] Yeah, I would say that. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [03:04:48] I mean, one thing I did notice about what you were saying earlier a little bit is, is I think one way this dynamic plays out oftentimes in Mormonism. And a reason why is if you actually absorb the conditioning of like owning your partner's sexuality, like, that belongs to me. So because. And I'm. I'm kind of your only resource. And so I kind of have ownership. And I believe earlier you were saying, I kind of know it's his like. Or maybe he was saying that that kind of. Which is differentiation around needs and some of those things. And I wonder if that also plays into it.
Margi Dehlin [03:05:28] See, because it's like individuation. There's not a buy in for where I find where that ownership conditioning has taken place. That's when the power thing can come. Come in and we can talk about sort of just the psychology around what happens when you fixate on something and whether it works like whatever that is, whether that's, you know, masturbation or it's I want to exercise or what happens when we oftentimes the kickback that happens when we fixate. Right. And then also I've. I've talked to some women that went through that, the program with their husbands and be becoming gatekeepers. Then what happens is they become the gatekeepers.
Ashley Jones [03:06:10] You're like the babysitter.
Margi Dehlin [03:06:11] Yes, everything. And that to me would feel very unappealing with the way you're describing your relationship and what. And your personality and the way you kind of. Right. Because gatekeeping is very much around keeping tabs on and kind of controlling and getting involved in punishing and some of that stuff. I feel like. So those are some things that I can see just in what you've described as to why maybe it didn't sink in that conditioning part that then kicks into this reactionary place. Right.
John Dehlin [03:06:46] Yeah. Just to summarize, like, we talk a lot about LGBT stuff on Mormon stories. We talk a lot about faith. This epidemic of sexual shame wreaks havocs on lives and marriages within Mormonism. And I don't think we talk enough about it.
Jared Jones [03:07:06] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:07:07] Because the fact that you guys are still here together, to me is kind of remarkable given the Mormon context. But anyway, I don't want to derail the conversation.
Jared Jones [03:07:17] Yeah, I mean, I mean, you should speak to the gatekeeping aspect of that.
Ashley Jones [03:07:25] I don't know what you mean.
Jared Jones [03:07:26] Well, I can. Okay.
Ashley Jones [03:07:27] I don't know what you're talking about.
Jared Jones [03:07:29] No, I mean, I. For a lot of years I had Ashley, like have a password on my phone. Like, I would either install, like a net nanny kind of thing on my phone.
Ashley Jones [03:07:49] He did that for me to do.
Jared Jones [03:07:52] Right. Or I would do the same thing, like screen time, passcode kind of thing. And she would be in charge of my passcodes and I would be like, hey, could you turn this on and could you turn it off? Because I need to go on this site or whatever. And it was a chore for her
Ashley Jones [03:08:11] and I don't need another kid.
Jared Jones [03:08:13] Like, no. And. But it was. That was damaging to our relationship. It was unappealing. Like, I mean, that. That's not cool. Like, she. She didn't care. Like, I'm putting this on her. Like, and she would tell me that frequently. Like, when it came to that kind of stuff, she's like, we'd be at work.
Ashley Jones [03:08:34] He's like, hey, can you turn off something, App, whatever, the Internet or something?
Jared Jones [03:08:40] Yeah. And it was annoying. It was annoying to me.
Ashley Jones [03:08:43] It was annoying.
Margi Dehlin [03:08:44] Yes.
Jared Jones [03:08:44] Yeah. It was not, you know, but like, in our conversations, even too, like, because when I would tell a bishop that my wife didn't really care because they'd be like, oh, well, how does your wife feel? And it's like, she doesn't hear. They're like, what? Like, that's, that's weird. They're like, whoa, whoa, you really hit the lottery there. You're like, you have a good wife. You know?
Ashley Jones [03:09:08] That's true.
Margi Dehlin [03:09:09] Yes.
Jared Jones [03:09:09] I mean, I do think that I hit the lottery.
Margi Dehlin [03:09:11] Like, not for the reasons.
Jared Jones [03:09:13] Not for the reasons that they think I did.
John Dehlin [03:09:16] But I mean, what they were saying is how probably miserable they're marriages might be.
Jared Jones [03:09:20] Yeah, I mean, I. I don't. You know, I do know that I did have some bishops that would say weird things to me around that. Like, I had a bishop, when I talked to him about this, he's like, well, like, what kind of sex positions do you do? You know? And I. Yes. And then he's like. And then he was specific. He's like, well, I find.
John Dehlin [03:09:48] How in the world is that relevant to a conversation with bishop?
Jared Jones [03:09:53] Well, then he said. Then he's like, well, actually, like, I found that it's really helpful to us by trying different sex positions. And then he asked me, have you ever tried doggy style? Like, that's what he said. And he's like, that is one of my favorites. Like, so he was giving me tips and tricks on how to. I mean, and so it was.
John Dehlin [03:10:25] Was he basically saying, if you have better sex, you'll look in less?
Jared Jones [03:10:29] Yeah, I guess that is exactly what he was saying. And he did talk about. He used his wife's name, name. And he's like, you know, I find when I'm nicer to my wife that she's more willing to have sex with me or what. Like, just. And so it was super inappropriate. It was super inappropriate. But he did ask me specifically what sex positions we did, you know, and so, like, it was just.
Jared Jones [03:11:04] I did. As I was talking, like, once I decided I had a bishop, like, I said, that told me that I. That I had an addiction or that he thought I probably had an addiction. And as I went in, like, I remember I was in my mid-20s, you know, five years, six years, seven years in our marriage, something like that, when this kind of, like, came to head for me, and I was feeling like, okay, this guy's right. Like, I do I have an addiction.
Jared Jones [03:11:37] Like, because, you know, anyways, either way, I wake up in the middle of the night, like, probably 4:00am, 5:00am something like, you know, very early. And I remember texting my dad, and I text him and asked if he was up and that I needed to talk to him.
Jared Jones [03:12:04] And so it was early, he was up, and it was like, yeah, maybe 5:00am, maybe even earlier. And he just happened to be up already, and he's like, come on over. And so, you know, I drive from my house four or five miles away, and I just unburdened myself to him and told him, like, here's what's been going on. My bishop says he thinks I have an addiction.
Jared Jones [03:12:28] My dad happened to be friends with this bishop that had given me the oddball questioning and advice, and he was super mad about that advice. Like, he was super mad about the questioning and about the advice, but he did say, I'm happy to go to this addiction support group with you.
Jared Jones [03:12:52] And so he did. He attended with me, like, as a support, like, person for multiple months. And, you know, like, he definitely, at that point, like, in support of me, showed up. He didn't show me. He didn't give me shame at that point. Like, you know, and I. And I'm not saying my dad brought me all my shame before that. I'm saying at that point, like, I. I was very appreciative of the way that he showed up for me. But at the same time, like, there was no, like, psychological evaluation. There wasn't like, hey, is this really an addiction? Or is this just, like, something that your bishop says?
Jared Jones [03:13:37] My dad was in the Stake Presidency at the time, and so he's like, yeah, actually, I've just been put over this this group. So it's good for me to, to go be there and you know, see what's going on. And so anyways, we did that.
John Dehlin [03:13:53] Part of what's weird about that whole deal, Bishops and stake presidents, is I've interviewed many former bishops and former stake presidents and former stake presidency members here on Mormon Stories now and they all masturbated, pretty much all of them. So it's this weird one up power dynamic where you're thinking, oh, thank you bishop for helping me or thank you stake presidency member or dad. You, you clearly don't have this problem. But I do. When in reality they do. They're just hiding it or figuring out how to deal with it with their leader. But once they're bishop, it's not like the state president's going to release him for masturbating. So they're, they're going to be hiding it from their stake president or in secret treatment, but still trying to help you. What a weird cluster F. You know, like what an awful system.
Margi Dehlin [03:14:44] And can we just point out this is all existing, like years and years and years of this patterned behavior. It's created, it's like a created problem. It's not even a real problem. And you're working through this cycle is like second nature to you. It's like how exhausting, how exhausting that you're, you know, you have, I'm sure you, your brain can take you through. But like you, you, you know, you have the incident, then you have the shame and the self aggression and the, and it builds and builds and then you have to make the appointment and then you have to go in and then you have to.
Jared Jones [03:15:25] Right.
Margi Dehlin [03:15:25] And then you get punished and you have the, and it just around a. A created problem.
John Dehlin [03:15:33] Yeah, a manufactured problem.
Jared Jones [03:15:36] Well, and then, you know, like an additional part of that too in this shame and guilt cycle is you lose the spirit. Like that's what I thought was happening to me. Like, oh, now I can't feel the spirit. And then it was tricky because what I identified as the spirit at the time, like sometimes I would feel the spirit like right after, like within an hour or something like that. Well, like, whoa, wait, this is. How does that work? And so anyways, it was a whole weird thing.
John Dehlin [03:16:05] You wouldn't feel much different. You were told you would lose the Holy Ghost.
Jared Jones [03:16:09] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:16:09] But then you kept feeling like you always felt.
Jared Jones [03:16:12] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:16:12] That must have been confusing.
Jared Jones [03:16:14] It was very confusing.
John Dehlin [03:16:15] Yeah.
Jared Jones [03:16:15] And so I finally like get good enough at suppressing these sexual feelings and you know, they asked me to Become a facilitator in the program. And so I do, I become a facilitator and then I get called in the bishopric after being facilitator for a little period of time.
John Dehlin [03:16:37] Which shows that they didn't care that much.
Ashley Jones [03:16:39] I guess they didn't care that much.
John Dehlin [03:16:41] Well, it shows it was probably everyone, it was probably almost everyone in the. If they wouldn't allow someone to be in the bishopric who masturbated, they probably wouldn't have many people in the bishopric.
Jared Jones [03:16:52] Well, in my mind I was looking at it from a different perspective and
John Dehlin [03:16:59] I'm like, you're the person to help others.
Jared Jones [03:17:02] No. Well, yes, that was good too. I did think that. But also when I got called in the bishopric, I'm like, how amazing is the atonement of Jesus Christ? Like that even I a lowly as you piece of crap. Like the probably almost about the worst thing that you could ever do in life. Like, and that's the thing that I'm overcoming and God still loves me so much that he's gonna allow my priesthood leader to have this revelation. Now, I couldn't acknowledge that I was a relatively well spoken, like up and coming white guy, like, you know, that was willing to serve. Right. Like, so you start looking at you
Ashley Jones [03:17:46] actually we had a pretty small ward
Jared Jones [03:17:50] in a small ward. Like, you start looking at all of those factors, like, I own my own company. I was financially capable, like as willing to serve. I was, you know, like all of
John Dehlin [03:18:02] those things, leadership skills, don't forget that.
Jared Jones [03:18:04] And it's like, oh yeah, actually that probably would be a fine fit for that. No, it was God gave revelation to my stake president that it was okay that I served in the bishopric. And so like that was amazing to me. Like I, I, I was so humbled by that. And so, you know, and then as I'm serving as a facilitator, Ashley's parents get called to be the missionaries over the program.
Jared Jones [03:18:37] So I'm a facilitator. Right. Like, I'm not the lowest level person, but I now got to have a very uncomfortable conversation with your in laws. With my in laws? Yeah, because they're going to be showing up as missionaries for this program.
Jared Jones [03:18:57] So I needed to go and tell my, I mean I didn't want them to just show up, so I needed to go and tell my in laws. And by the way, my stake president at that time was socially aware enough to say, hey, we're going to be calling your in laws to this program.
Jared Jones [03:19:18] Like, is that something that you're okay with. And my first thought was, well, if God called them to do this, like, he obviously wants me to go through this, like, it's okay with God. Like, then I just need to go through the pain.
Jared Jones [03:19:37] And so I was willing to eat crap so that God could accomplish his purposes. And so I talked to my in laws and I said, hey, you know, dressed them by their names and said, hey, guys, you know, this is an awkward conversation, but I need to have it with you.
Jared Jones [03:19:59] I am a part of the addiction support recovery group for pornography. And I know you guys are about to get called, you know, to be in that position. And when you show up, you're gonna see me there because I attend that I have an addiction to pornography. And I actually, at that time, I would refer to myself, I would say, like, I'm an addict.
Jared Jones [03:20:29] Like, now causes me so much anger to say that because there are actually people out there that are addicts, right. Like, that are white knuckling it through the day to survive their addiction, you know, and, you know, there's. Anyways.
Jared Jones [03:20:48] And while that wasn't my circumstance, that's still how I had identified myself. And I needed to make sure before they showed up that they knew.
John Dehlin [03:21:00] Yeah.
Jared Jones [03:21:01] And so they, like. I mean, I have no clue what was said behind closed doors, but they were, like, kind to me about that. And, you know, and I found a lot of the leaders at that program were like, were very empathetic. And you may totally be right like that. It's probably because they had all struggled with that at some point at their life, at least in their minds, you
John Dehlin [03:21:30] know, the numbers are above 90%.
Ashley Jones [03:21:32] Right.
Jared Jones [03:21:34] I mean, that's what I read, like statistics that I see on it. And so. But yeah. So anyways, that. That being said, like, they were kind to me.
John Dehlin [03:21:45] Yeah.
Jared Jones [03:21:46] And. But it was still an awkward thing where once again, I got to eat crap in front of people that were important to me. And it did matter, but I just, I had to do it. And so that was kind of like my. My last experience, you know, with like, maybe the more public shame surrounding the, you know, that.
Ashley Jones [03:22:14] Well, we did when we adopted, went through the foster care system.
Jared Jones [03:22:18] Yeah, you tell that story.
Ashley Jones [03:22:19] Well, we had a big gap. We couldn't have any more kids, and we were basically done. But then we decided that start fostering and maybe adopt. And through that process, you have to fill out like, gazillions of questionnaires. And one of them was like, have you ever seen, like, a therapist, like, at all? And then if you had and what was the question exactly?
Jared Jones [03:22:41] The question I think was, do you have a problem with pornography?
Ashley Jones [03:22:47] And so Jared, of course, being very honest, checked, yes. And so once you do that, it leads to a whole bunch of other. The long delaying processes. And he had to go get a letter from a counselor.
John Dehlin [03:22:58] Was this LDS family. It was okay.
Ashley Jones [03:23:00] And he wrote this letter which sounded terrible. I'm like, this does not help at all. We cannot take this in.
Jared Jones [03:23:09] And so it delayed our adoption probably
Ashley Jones [03:23:12] by about our licensing. Birth.
Jared Jones [03:23:14] Our licensing. Yeah, by about a year.
Ashley Jones [03:23:16] Yeah.
Jared Jones [03:23:17] And so he wrote this horrible letter that made it seem like, you know, I had some crazy issues, which. And then I took it the stake president at that time, who was a business associate slash friend at that time, and he, he reached out to the counselor and was like, hey, like we need you to, to modify this. Like, this is not.
Ashley Jones [03:23:49] If we would have gone to a regular counselor, they would have been like, this is so dumb.
Jared Jones [03:23:53] Like, like, wait, are you the serious. The question, have you ever seen pornography? There's a question is like, is it a 17 time a day occurrence? Like, like you got a problem if it's, you know, once a month pornography Looking is not, is not considered a problem by anybody. Right.
Ashley Jones [03:24:15] Except for LDS Family Services counselor.
John Dehlin [03:24:17] And probably evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews and you know, like there are other places in the world with fundamentalist religions, but in the secular or even the progressive kind of Christian world, this is a non issue or science. Right?
Jared Jones [03:24:36] I mean, science, science, I mean, who needs that stuff? But I mean, so when, when the person that's doing our home study, like the social worker finally comes out and you know, we've gotten this letter or whatever and you know, she's talking to us and she's like, yeah, this is
Ashley Jones [03:24:56] not what we meant.
Jared Jones [03:24:57] This is not what we mean. She's like, what we mean when we ask is like, basically they're looking if somebody has an issue with like child porn or something like that. Like, she's like, we're not talking about have you ever seen porn? Or do you ever look at it at all? Like, that's not what this question is meant for. And so anyways, she was kind of
Ashley Jones [03:25:19] like, she kind of was like laughing
Jared Jones [03:25:20] at us, like a little bit at me and laughing at me, which is fair. Like now from my current context, I'm like, yeah, that was. But I was, I was scrupulous, Jared. Right? Like I was, I was just doing what I felt like I had to do. Like I had to be completely transparent. I share all my truth you know, and so that's what we did. And so that was, that was kind of like the last. That was the last thing that really became like kind of an issue for us surrounding that. And, you know, it was an annoyance for both of us.
John Dehlin [03:25:59] Yeah. Okay, so as we kind of think about wrapping up this part one of the episode, you, you are by the, you know, next, next episode is going to be about where the sexual shame and, and, and abuse and all that rears its head as you now, as it becomes multi generational as faithful, attending, devoted, committed members. You have to. After all this decades of shame and dysfunction, you experience a kid starting to enter the same cycle that you entered. Is there anything else you want to share to close out part one? How many total years were you married before you found out about your kid being abused?
Jared Jones [03:26:53] 18. 17.
John Dehlin [03:26:55] Okay, so you guys did this thing for about 18 years. Is there anything else you want to say about how the sexual shame and abuse affected your. Your marriage before we kind of wrap up this part one, or do we pretty much cover it?
Jared Jones [03:27:10] No, I mean, I, I really think that that's coming into that. Yeah, I think that's basically it.
Ashley Jones [03:27:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:27:17] Let me, Let me ask one thing. And Ashley, I know you're, you know, I get the sense you're a little more private than, than Jared.
Ashley Jones [03:27:27] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:27:29] There is this idea that we referred to that it's the woman's job to satisfy the husband, which of course is problematic for at least two reasons. One is that shouldn't be your job. And then two, it ignores the fact that you might also have needs and desires and be a sexual being as well. I mean, of course, Mormonism just tends to ignore that period. Do you want to say anything about what, what? And then adding to that, this idea of policing your husband's sexuality and being the cop and how all of that probably makes whatever problem the church wants to get rid of makes it all worse. But is there anything you want to say about how all of this affected you in.
Ashley Jones [03:28:14] I mean, it definitely affected, like, our sex life. I mean, there's so much pressure. I mean, that's, that's really all. I guess I would say, yeah.
John Dehlin [03:28:25] That all of this stuff just made. Made it hard to have a healthy sex life.
Ashley Jones [03:28:30] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:28:31] Okay. Okay. And then what about just affecting your marital dynamics?
Ashley Jones [03:28:41] Yeah, I mean, I just. I didn't feel like I needed to be in charge of his life. Like, like he's a big boy. Like, I shouldn't have to, like, type in a password every time he needs to use Internet. Like, that's a hassle. Like,
Jared Jones [03:29:02] yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ashley Jones [03:29:04] I don't know what to say.
John Dehlin [03:29:06] So was it sad for you? Was it hard for you? Was it emotional?
Ashley Jones [03:29:10] I mean, like, the actual, like, pornography and stuff? That wasn't the problem. The problem was that he would bring all of this in. And, yeah, it was stressful.
John Dehlin [03:29:23] Was there points where you're just like, well, this got to stop. Like, bishop, cut it out, or stop going to these ARP programs, Or, like,
Ashley Jones [03:29:31] I mean, I told him many times, like, why would you talk to the bishop?
John Dehlin [03:29:35] Really?
Ashley Jones [03:29:35] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:29:36] So you just wished he would just stop going to the bishop, Stop this ARP stuff.
Ashley Jones [03:29:40] Yeah, stop this whole cycle of up
John Dehlin [03:29:42] and down, and you were the only sane one in the building. Maybe, but I would have ignored you.
Jared Jones [03:29:48] Honestly, I came to realization last year about this and lots of frustration around it because, you know, I. As I start having a faith transition, I'm analyzing what's gone on, and I'm like, this is crap. And I was telling her. I was like, nobody, like, around me said, like, hey, do you think you really have an addiction based off of, you know, like, at least that's the way that I felt. Like, I didn't have people standing up around me and saying, hey, buddy, this is be. And honestly, like, as I did tell a decent amount of people that were close to me about this, and as I'm telling this to Ashley, I'm like, nobody stood up around me and said, like, hey, I don't think you have an addiction.
Jared Jones [03:30:42] Like, I think this is crap. And she's like, I did. Like, I was the one. And she was right. Like, she had. She had told me throughout our entire marriage, and I didn't listen once. Like, because it couldn't be. Like, the messaging came directly from the brethren. Like, this was the most important thing since I was, like, 12 years old. Like, I heard it at all the conferences, all the state conferences, lots of. Lots of other messaging and meeting. And so I. I couldn't even accept that that was the case. And so that was an epiphany for me. And I was like, this is so wild that I've been undergoing this.
Jared Jones [03:31:28] And that's why I say spiritual abuse, right? Because, like, I kept being victimized over and over, at least now in my current frame of reference by the system. And I have the closest person to me that I share every thing in my life with that was telling me, like, this is crazy. Like, why do you keep doing this to yourself? And I couldn't even hear it.
Ashley Jones [03:32:05] Same A woman is that way.
Jared Jones [03:32:09] Say it again.
Ashley Jones [03:32:10] I was just joking because I'm a woman.
John Dehlin [03:32:12] Well, I mean, I half joking. I've had to learn this with Margi in my own marriage. I'm going to say it as a Mormon man. The last person whose opinions matter is a woman. Yeah, absolutely last.
Jared Jones [03:32:32] I actually, I don't disagree that that was the way that I was.
Ashley Jones [03:32:37] Well, you hold more importance to them to like your bishop or somebody.
John Dehlin [03:32:40] Yeah, it'd be your president, it'd be the general, it'd be the Jesus God. Let me tell you, all the people that would be more important than a woman. Right. God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, the prophet, past, present, future, the quorum of the 15, all the general authorities, your bishop, all the Stake high counselors, your, you know. Did I say stake president, all the
Jared Jones [03:33:03] stake high councils, the deacons, corn president.
John Dehlin [03:33:05] Yeah. Your dad, you know, your, your bishop, the bishop, Rick, Elders, quorum president, yourself, all of them are in line before your wife in importance.
Jared Jones [03:33:18] So it's so effed up. Like that's. Yeah, but that is, there's no question, like I absolutely, I couldn't hear it. And so that, that was, that was something that changed. That's what changed for me when I started going through a faith transition. That is what changed.
Transition to Part Two and Their Children's Story
John Dehlin [03:33:55] That's a good cliffhanger for part two.
Ashley Jones [03:33:58] Yep.
John Dehlin [03:33:59] And it's very vulnerable and important that you both are willing to tell the story. So thank you.
Jared Jones [03:34:06] Yeah, thank you.
John Dehlin [03:34:09] Marty, any final thoughts?
Margi Dehlin [03:34:12] I think I'm ready for part two.
John Dehlin [03:34:15] You ready? All right. All right, well, thanks everyone for joining us for part one. And yeah, we're going to be talking, we're going to be coming right back to talk about the multi generational aspects of this as they're living their Mormon life. And then all of a sudden they start seeing the pattern repeat with one of their own children. And we'll just talk about what happens when you find out your child, Mormon child, has experienced abuse within a Mormon context. How does your leadership handle it? And when you have your own history of experiencing abuse, how triggering that is to see those patterns repeat multi generationally.
John Dehlin [03:34:56] Multi generationally with your own children. So that's what we're going to be talking about, part two. So thanks again, Jared and Ashley Jones, for being a part of Mormon Stories, for being so vulnerable, for sharing your story and we're excited to have you back for the conclusion of your story. Thanks so much.
Jared Jones [03:35:15] Thank you.
John Dehlin [03:35:16] And thanks everyone for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you support this type of programming, we need your support so please go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor and we'll keep providing this type of content to you. If you value it, Please subscribe on YouTube. We need your subscriptions there. Like our stuff. You can give us super chat donations to YouTube if you want. You can also follow us on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and we just appreciate your support. And mostly just if you think. If you know anyone who could benefit from from this amazing story, please share it because that's the most powerful way you can help others. And of course, email us at mormonstories at gmail com if you have any feedback. Thanks everybody. You guys take care and we'll see you for part two on the flip side. Bye everybody.
Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 1768
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Today we are interviewing Jared and Ashley Jones. It is April 28, 2023, and we're in part two of a two part interview. Part two is going to be talking about what happens when you're a Mormon parent and you discover that multigenerational abuse has occurred within your family in the sense that you grew up experiencing abuse within a Mormon context, and then you discover, unfortunately, that one of your children has been abused also in a Mormon context. So thank you for joining us. I'm here with my brilliant partner, Margi. Hey, Margi.
Margi Dehlin [00:00:42] Hey.
John Dehlin [00:00:43] And if you missed part one, please go ahead and just pause this episode. Jump back to the previous episode. We interview Jared and Ashley and mostly the episode was dedicated to Jared's upbringing in the church. Growing up in the Inland Empire and experiencing a lot of sexual shame and guilt within a Mormon context and also experiencing sexual abuse as a young Mormon boy of 7 years old and experiencing statutory rape as a 16, 17 year old Mormon boy. And instead of being supported and protected by the church, almost being blamed or marginalized or ignored within a Mormon context for both of those instances of abuse in ways that weighed heavily on Jared and ended up impacting his marriage to Ashley in many ways.
John Dehlin [00:01:39] So that's kind of what part one is about. It's an important interview, I believe. So please go back and watch it. Ashley was kind enough to agree to come on, but she, you know, she said that she kind of wants her profile to be a little bit lower in these episodes. So we're not intentionally neglecting your story, Ashley. This is how you want it, right?
Ashley Jones [00:02:02] Yes. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:02:04] So that's what part one was about. Now part two, we're going to kind of jump to what, 16, 17 years into your Mormon marriage after you've had six kids, two adopted, four biological kids, living the Mormon dream, successful business and living in the Inland Empire, kind of killing it from a Mormon perspective.
John Dehlin [00:02:27] And then kind of something really sad happens. So I'll give kind of a bit of a content warning. We are going to be talking about sexual abuse within a Mormon context. So please take care for yourself, practice self care and be aware of whoever might be listening to this with you. That that's going to be the subject that we discussed today. So we're going to be talking about how they dealt with discovering abuse within their ward or within their family and how it was dealt with or misdealt with with the Warden Stake where they live and then how that impacted their faith journey. So that's kind of what today's going to be about. Any corrections you want to make for that introduction? Okay. Any. Anything you want to say before we just dive in?
Jared Jones [00:03:17] No, I think that that was a good synopsis.
Discovering Abuse Within Their Ward Community
John Dehlin [00:03:21] Okay, so how many years into your marriage should we jump to in terms of, like, where the sadder part of the story begins? With your. With your children?
Ashley Jones [00:03:32] So my guess, in November 2020, we adopted our youngest.
John Dehlin [00:03:38] Okay, I got her. Okay, then. And that's three years ago.
Ashley Jones [00:03:43] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:03:44] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:03:44] Yep.
John Dehlin [00:03:45] Okay.
Ashley Jones [00:03:45] She just moved in with us during COVID
Jared Jones [00:03:49] so in January.
John Dehlin [00:03:51] How old was she?
Ashley Jones [00:03:52] She was three.
Jared Jones [00:03:55] So our two youngest, we did foster to adopt. And so we had fostered her, and she'd been living us with us since, like, the beginning.
Ashley Jones [00:04:05] Beginning of COVID Yeah. That week she moved in.
Jared Jones [00:04:09] And so with the Foster to Adopt program, like, you're taking in kids that have previous lived experience and typically traumatic. And so one of the things that really resonated with us when we decided that adoption was the right choice for our family was to go to the foster system instead of going to, you know, some other methods. And part of that was because we wanted to acknowledge that if. If there's help that's needed for these kids, that we were going to be able to show up for them. And so that was. But we could bring them into a safe spot. And we were not the only people that could do that.
Jared Jones [00:05:06] There's lots of people in the foster care system that can do that and show up, but that's part of the journey that we wanted to take as a family. And so that's a major reason that we wanted to foster adopt instead of going another way.
Jared Jones [00:05:20] And so from that perspective, though, we bring in our daughter, who's our second foster adopt, who, you know, came from a traumatic background and with that intent, like, giving her stability and giving her, you know, love and care and.
Jared Jones [00:05:43] And watching that have benefit and effect on our lives. And, you know, like, I think lots of times in the foster system, people are like, oh, they're, you know, that kid's so lucky to come in your family. Okay, Yeah. I mean, are. But we're also like, it's the. It's quid pro quo.
Ashley Jones [00:06:04] Right.
Jared Jones [00:06:04] Like, we're so blessed to get the opportunity to bring this child into our house. This is our choice. Right. Like, it's not like we're doing some great act of charity with this child. Like, we had the intention. We wanted a child, and we were blessed to be able to have her. But as a part of that we also acknowledge that a major goal for us in going through that system is taking that kid out of a situation that is dangerous or traumatic or whatnot, and providing that stability. And so.
Ashley Jones [00:06:41] So, yeah, so we'll start. So January 2021, somebody in our ward, we were having church at our house at that time in our backyard during
Jared Jones [00:06:51] COVID Yeah, for probably. Probably six to nine months. I don't know. It was a little while that we had. Because we have a big backyard, and
Ashley Jones [00:06:58] in California, church could not be the church building or inside, had to be outside.
Jared Jones [00:07:03] And I was the elders quorum president at the time. And so as we're talking about that during ward council, like, where could we hold?
Ashley Jones [00:07:11] Some wards are doing it outside the church building. And so as we were setting up one morning for the chairs outside, another member in our ward came up and told me, hey, I've heard that there is some sort of sexual abuse allegations or something going on between this boy in our ward who was like 12, 13 at the time, and a young girl who used to be in our ward.
Ashley Jones [00:07:39] Her brother was friends with this kid. He said, just, I just know that your daughter likes to go up to people and stuff and just be careful. Like, he's going to be here. I don't know what's going on exactly, but just because he's close to us, he knows our daughter.
Ashley Jones [00:07:56] Just, you know, just watch out. And so the very next day, one of our kids has a friend over, and this kid comes with him, which is odd because he's not friends with our kids. He has came along with somebody else.
Ashley Jones [00:08:15] And I was kind of worried and. But not enough that I knew anything concrete. So I just made sure they all kind of stayed outside. And I kept it on little kids until.
Jared Jones [00:08:28] Well, yeah, and what you did is you called me.
Ashley Jones [00:08:31] Yeah, I called you. And I was like, hey, this kid is at our house that I just heard about yesterday.
Jared Jones [00:08:35] Right.
Ashley Jones [00:08:36] What should I do?
Jared Jones [00:08:37] Like, and so, like, I just said, okay, well, like, you just tell the older kids to stay outside. And you know that his parents need to come and get him, like, because he was not invited to our house, not by us. And anyway, so, um, basically, once. Once that happens, like, I tell her to, she calls or something. I don't know. Either way, his parents are going to come pick him up. And there's three other kids that he's kind of palling around with that came over at the same time to our house. And so I directly knew one of the other, you know, the parents that had, like, in were with this kid when he came over. And so directly I had not said anything to anybody after hearing.
Ashley Jones [00:09:42] Well, because we didn't really know you. Here's one little thing. You don't want to like spread a whole bunch of rumors. I've not, you know, you don't know what's going on.
Jared Jones [00:09:49] Yeah, we didn't, we didn't know what the allegation was. We just knew that there was something to do with sexual abuse.
Ashley Jones [00:09:54] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:09:55] With this kid. And so that's all we heard. And just to keep our kid away. And so once I saw though that that that was the case, that he was coming over, that these other kids, I went directly over to their parents
Ashley Jones [00:10:11] house because they have little, they have little kids there too.
Jared Jones [00:10:14] Yeah, they've got plenty of little people. And so we went and I talked to him and said, hey guys, I don't know exactly what's going on, but I do know that there's some allegation against this kid and I feel like you guys should know because your kids are hanging around with him and you have toddlers in your own house. And so like I'm not, not trying to spread gossip because I don't know what the context is for this, but I do know that there's something there so you should be aware. And so that's where I left it.
Ashley Jones [00:10:53] Well then the very next day I got a call from this lady who used to be on our ward for her kids. Her kids were friends with this boy. And she said, hey, I heard that so. And so was at your house yesterday. Like is that true? And we're like, yes. And they're like, well, let me tell you. So her daughter had confessed, which he had confessed to molesting her. And that was she. They used to be in our ward, so this is real. And they told me that they'll be keeping him home and we would keep this quiet like they wouldn't put him in anyone's any harm's way. And. But now that I know that he's at your house like that, they're letting him go wherever they feel like I need to start calling people. So she started calling around to people in our ward.
Jared Jones [00:11:39] Yeah. And so from that like there we did get some feedback.
Ashley Jones [00:11:45] Well, I will say I wasn't that concerned because he'd only been to our house like one other time and that was in December. That was the first time he'd ever really been to her house. Not church wide. So I was thinking, I'll watch out for this. But Like, I wasn't really concerned because he wasn't ever hanging around our house.
Jared Jones [00:12:01] Right. So there was one other instance that he had been to our house. And so, you know, like, our kids weren't close to him now, besides the fact that he was attending house or church at our house.
Ashley Jones [00:12:14] And so he's just a friend of a friend. He's younger than our.
Jared Jones [00:12:17] Than our other son is by a year. And so a couple years. So we weren't like, we weren't thinking of it in the context of, hey, do we have any victims? We were just thinking like, hey, we're going to protect. But even still, we didn't know, once again, at that point what the context was of the, the abuse that had gone on. We just knew that there was something there. So over the next few days, we, we did hear feedback from a few different parents and like, the narrative starts coming back.
Ashley Jones [00:12:51] It's like, oh, that mom is just kind of crazy and don't believe her. She's over exaggerating. She's mad at the mother. Mom, you know, just.
Jared Jones [00:12:59] I mean, she's just being hysterical or. Yeah, like all the words that you can use to describe somebody, to describe them.
Ashley Jones [00:13:06] Her daughter was like seven at the time that this came out. And he had apparently confessed. He thought he was in trouble for something else. And then when they confronted, he said, I. I did. I've been molesting your daughter, basically. That, that.
Jared Jones [00:13:20] Well, no, yeah, it was to his parents.
Ashley Jones [00:13:22] His. To his parents. Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:13:23] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:13:23] And so they had called and yeah, they said they would keep him at home. They didn't know exactly the extent, but that we'll keep him home and make sure nothing's gonna happen. Don't call and, you know, don't call the police. Don't talk to anybody. Just until we, you know, figure this out.
Margi Dehlin [00:13:37] Do you feel comfortable sharing the age of the boy?
Ashley Jones [00:13:41] He is. He was like 13 at the time.
Margi Dehlin [00:13:43] 13.
Jared Jones [00:13:44] Okay, so he's 15 now. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:13:47] And was it a Mormon family?
Ashley Jones [00:13:48] Yes, he was in. His dad was in the bishopric. His mom was young woman's president.
John Dehlin [00:13:52] Oh, my goodness. So it's a semi prominent family.
Ashley Jones [00:13:55] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:13:55] For the ward.
Jared Jones [00:13:56] Right.
Ashley Jones [00:13:57] Well, he had served with the stake president and the bishopric Right. Before that.
Margi Dehlin [00:14:01] So.
Ashley Jones [00:14:01] Yes, yes, it was.
Jared Jones [00:14:02] So he was in his second bishop brick in a row and for a total of like nine or 10 years in a row. I mean, it was, it was a long time.
Ashley Jones [00:14:10] And she'd been young woman's president for a long time too.
Jared Jones [00:14:12] Right. And so, so, you know, we'll In a little bit, we'll talk about how
Ashley Jones [00:14:18] that power imbalance is not good.
Jared Jones [00:14:21] That was problematic as well. But so we start hearing this feedback and without. Without any further context, because we're not trying to dig in and be like,
Ashley Jones [00:14:33] oh, yeah, we would just. We'd hear things, but we didn't dig into it because it's not. We don't. We don't really hang out with that family, really, either one of those families.
Jared Jones [00:14:40] Right.
Ashley Jones [00:14:41] But then the first week. So the first week of March or the last week of February, we actually took our daughter to be sealed the temple. And we got a lot of. We're trying to get our recommend interviews because we had to do it for the whole family to be there.
Ashley Jones [00:14:57] And the bishopric and the bishop and Sikh president kind of kept pushing it off, like they were supposed to come to our house to do it, and then they just didn't show up or they'd be like, oh, I'm busy, I can't come. And so finally, the day of, I think the Sikh president finally called us and was just like, hey, I'm just going to sign these and email to you. Like, he didn't want to talk to us, which wasn't that weird. He's a, you know, the busy guy, whatever. Like, and then it turns out the next week we got a call from the abuser's parents, right.
Jared Jones [00:15:26] And so we've We've got a. An event going on, like, at our house. And like, 30 minutes or whatever from the time that I'm talking to this to the dad of the abuser, and he calls me up and he's like, hey, I've got some hard information to tell you. And it's like, okay, you know, now, to be fair, I'm the elder scorm president and he's the first counselor the bishopric. And so I don't have really any context, like, for what it would be. And so he's like, I just wanted to call and tell you that I. That my son has confessed to inappropriately touching your daughter over her clothes, on her vagina. Like that specifically.
Ashley Jones [00:16:23] And he said in the. In our theater room.
Jared Jones [00:16:25] In your theater room. And so.
Ashley Jones [00:16:28] And it would have been that one time that he was there, that. The first time he was ever at house, like, December.
Jared Jones [00:16:34] Yeah, I mean, the first time that he was at our house to hang out.
John Dehlin [00:16:38] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:16:38] Before we even knew anything.
Jared Jones [00:16:40] Right. And so that being said, like, I.
Ashley Jones [00:16:45] Yeah, well, he was very insistent that we hurry up and get this over with because he needed to repent. And get back to taking the sacrament.
Jared Jones [00:16:53] Yeah. So, I mean, the.
Ashley Jones [00:16:54] That's the first. The first conversation we have with his dad.
Jared Jones [00:16:57] So the context of that conversation was like, look, here's what my son did is like. And this has been so difficult. Like, I'm sure that you've heard about this, but, you know, there. There's another family that is spreading misinformation and lies about what has happened to their child. And we're just trying to do whatever we can to help our son move past this and so that he can go through the repentance process and, like, you know, move on with life or something like that to the. You know, and so if we were
Ashley Jones [00:17:39] first just like, kind of frozen for like a day, probably like a whole day.
Jared Jones [00:17:44] Well, part of the thing, though, that he said to me in that conversation, because this was just on the phone with me, and I'm downloading it to Ashley, really, the next day. We chatted about it for a minute afterwards. But, like, he's like, you know, these people are supposed to be our friends, like, and they're considering suing us. And, like, this is really difficult on my wife and I, and it's been so hard. And we're just trying to do the right thing. Like, kind of this whole narrative, like,
Ashley Jones [00:18:19] really setting us up to just be
John Dehlin [00:18:21] like, okay, so they're acknowledging that there are other victims.
Ashley Jones [00:18:25] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:18:26] Beside you. But when disclosing the abuse of your own child, they're already trying to kind of position themselves as victims.
Margi Dehlin [00:18:35] That's right, yes.
John Dehlin [00:18:36] Is that right?
Jared Jones [00:18:37] Oh, yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:18:37] I mean, not right from the beginning
Jared Jones [00:18:39] and not even a little bit. Like, you know, he. He's just so concerned about making sure that. And that, first of all, that we know that they're concerned about repentance. Right. Like, why. Why the hell are you talking to me about repentance at all in this first conversation? Like, this is insanity.
Margi Dehlin [00:19:02] Right, Right.
Jared Jones [00:19:02] And so.
John Dehlin [00:19:03] But wait, you believe in repentance? You, at this point, you believe in the atonement?
Margi Dehlin [00:19:07] Sure.
John Dehlin [00:19:07] You believe in repentance. So for those who have no idea the context or can't understand, why is that annoying to you at the time?
Ashley Jones [00:19:15] Well, we just hold us that your kid, like.
John Dehlin [00:19:18] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:19:18] Abused our kid. That's like the last thing that we were even. Like, we don't care about your kid.
Jared Jones [00:19:22] Like, yeah, the focus is not your kid. The focus is the fact that you just told me that my child was molested.
John Dehlin [00:19:29] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:19:30] Like.
John Dehlin [00:19:30] Right.
Jared Jones [00:19:30] And by your kid who did it. That confess, like, he was a lot older.
Ashley Jones [00:19:35] Than our kid. Our kid was three.
Jared Jones [00:19:36] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:19:37] So 10 years. 10.
Jared Jones [00:19:38] 10 years older.
John Dehlin [00:19:39] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:19:39] Right. Like, this isn't like.
Ashley Jones [00:19:40] And he confessed to this and that's. I mean, it wasn't like we caught anybody or we're accusing anybody. Like this was. And they give us probably the very least information they could have given us.
Jared Jones [00:19:50] Oh, for sure. I mean, they're trying to paint it in as positive a context as I can. And so the other thing that he says is he's like, you know, he, he's really sorry about it. And you know, we've talked to a counselor and they've said that this is, this is off. This often happens during puberty. Like, like he's painting this picture for me.
Ashley Jones [00:20:16] Like he's just a kid who just. Oh, going through puberty and just gonna, you know, totally normal.
Jared Jones [00:20:21] Just some curious kid who's exploring sexuality kind of thought process. And it's like. So at that point, my first response, like my guilt, shame ridden response is like, oh my gosh. Yeah, that's so hard. Like, that's how I showed up in that conversation. I'm like, oh, yeah, man, this must be hard for you. Like, I'm, I literally said to him, I'm not kidding you. I said to him, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Like, I was sorry to hear that. His. Yes, I was sorry to hear that. Right. But for, you know, it was so. My, my mentality around that at that point was it was screwed up. Right. Like, my first thought is to have empathy for the concerns and things that he's expressing about how hard this is on him and his family without taking really any time to be like, hey, buddy, we got a problem here.
Ashley Jones [00:21:27] He also was like, I just want us to be good friends. Like, I know, we're such good friends. We're not friends.
Margi Dehlin [00:21:37] And the other thing is, you know, we were talking about how you respond, how people respond to traumatic situations. And it's fight, flight, freeze, fawn. And fawn is like what you're describing. It's not something we choose. It's not like a conscious choice how you show up in situations that are really shocking. And I can only imagine for you personally too, what was going on for you hearing that. And so that is what fun looks like. And it's, it is valid. It is a valid traumatic response based on survival and staying kind of safe. You also kind of saw things. It feels like modeled that way too. So anyway, but continue on. Yes.
Jared Jones [00:22:22] On the behalf.
John Dehlin [00:22:23] Kind of trying to butter you up, manipulate, work you.
Margi Dehlin [00:22:25] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:22:26] As he's disclosing to you that your childhood.
Ashley Jones [00:22:28] For sure.
John Dehlin [00:22:29] By his son.
Jared Jones [00:22:30] Yeah, for sure. Talking to me about how hard this was for them.
Margi Dehlin [00:22:33] Yeah, right.
Jared Jones [00:22:33] Like, and this must be triggering for
John Dehlin [00:22:36] you, given your story of abuse. This has all the same ingredients of the abuse that you described earlier.
Jared Jones [00:22:44] Well, you know, it's. It's funny because initially, like, my first response was, wasn't that. You know, like, I wasn't necessarily thinking in that vein. I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, I'm sure this is hard. Like, this is not an enviable position that this family is in. And so.
Ashley Jones [00:23:05] And that's true, for sure. That shouldn't be the main focus.
Margi Dehlin [00:23:08] But.
Jared Jones [00:23:09] But the point, like, as he's calling to tell me about the misinformation that's
Ashley Jones [00:23:14] out there, trying to really slander the first victims, for sure.
Jared Jones [00:23:19] No, they absolutely were. Absolutely were slandering and diminishing, you know, the abuse. And so. So they. It's that. And then it's like, hey, you know, we want to remain friends. Like, you know, we love you and your family so much. And I'm gonna be frank. Like, I like a lot of people. These were not on the list of people that I actually liked.
Ashley Jones [00:23:43] Yeah, I mean, they're not worried. They're casual acquaintances at church. But we didn't. They were not friends with them.
Jared Jones [00:23:49] Well, not only were we not friends with them, but, like, in a word, ward council context. Like, if you were to ask the other people that were in ward council, like, I'm a guy that's willing to speak up and say the thing that's not, like, popular. And so we would go through ward council, and oftentimes, you know, him and his wife would. She would bring up an issue that's, like, really weird and inappropriate or odd, like, very boundaryless kind of stuff. And I'd be like, no, that doesn't make sense. Why would we do that? You know? And so we were often opponents on opposite sides.
Ashley Jones [00:24:29] My husband's in the bishopric, so he just backs her up, and then no one wants to say anything for sure.
Jared Jones [00:24:33] And so. But I. I was always willing to kind of, like, have it out. And probably more so than probably most people in the room preferred and whatever. Like, that's the point of org. Council, in my perspective is like, we have to hear different sides of the issues to make good decisions. But there were multiple safety concerns, like, to do with activities they would want to hold. Like, they specifically would be pressuring to
Ashley Jones [00:25:04] people to do unsafe, like, youth activities
Jared Jones [00:25:09] or to violate Church policies not have
Ashley Jones [00:25:11] more than, you know, having youth drive with leaders by themselves.
Margi Dehlin [00:25:15] So she was like, kind of boundary.
John Dehlin [00:25:17] She would.
Ashley Jones [00:25:18] Yeah, she would pressure her young woman's counselors to like, drive girls alone when they would be like, no, I'm not. We're not allowed to do that. She would crush them and be like, what would Jesus do? Like, he would want everyone to come to the activity, blah, blah, blah.
Margi Dehlin [00:25:31] Right.
Ashley Jones [00:25:32] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:25:33] And so, you know, she would. She would text the girls individually and lots of things like that that were. There were boundary issues with. And so we never got along, like, and I'm not gonna say like, we hated them, but we just. We weren't buddies, like. And so when he said that to me, I recognized that as a manipulation tactic right away. I knew what he was doing. I knew that he was being insincere when he talked about how much they loved us and like, that they wanted to remain friends. I'm like, I go out to dinner with my friends like every week. Right. How many times have we gone out to dinner? None times. That's how many. And so.
John Dehlin [00:26:15] And not your favorite family in the world.
Jared Jones [00:26:18] And so buttering us up and pretending like, yeah, like this was something that they're trying to preserve our relationship. I knew that was BS, like, from the outset. And so I did talk to Ashley about it right before we had our.
Ashley Jones [00:26:32] We had like 12 people coming over for some fun.
Jared Jones [00:26:35] Yeah. It was for our beach house thing. Anyways, fun times.
Ashley Jones [00:26:41] So probably for the. The whole next day, like, we were still kind of.
Jared Jones [00:26:45] I. I do want to address the. The beach house meeting that we had that night because the. Our stake president, we do mutually own the property with him at the time.
Ashley Jones [00:26:56] The stake president at the time.
Jared Jones [00:26:57] Yeah, well, very much thing. We still own the property with him, but he was at this meeting that we were having at our house to go over how we were handling this beach house had bought together. And so he hung out with us that night, the whole night. And sat in the spa with us after, like, everybody left for like, I don't know, a couple hours or something like that. And so we hung out and talked.
John Dehlin [00:27:26] And for. For the Never Mormons, a stake president. Imagine priests or pastors that lead a congregation. And then imagine like 8 to 10 congregations. A stake president would be the Catholic equivalent to like the leader of a diocese. It would be the leader of 10 congregations. So a very senior high ranking, influential and important spiritual leader in the community. He lived down a lot of power.
Ashley Jones [00:27:59] He lived down the street from her house. Jared Did a lot of business with him. So he was closeish. Yeah, with us.
Jared Jones [00:28:05] And so he's sitting in our spa hanging out with us the night that we found out, that we found out about this. And. But he was there at our house till like 11:30 or something. It was late. So then when he left, we just went to sleep. But at the time we were sitting in the spa with him, he knew about all of this and had known about it for a while. So he knew about our daughter. He knew about multiple other victims, you know, and we're just.
Church Leaders' Knowledge and Initial Response
Ashley Jones [00:28:34] Yeah, they knew. They knew about it when we were getting our temple recommend interviews the week before, and they didn't say anything.
Jared Jones [00:28:40] It was weird to look back after
John Dehlin [00:28:42] your kid had been abused.
Jared Jones [00:28:43] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:28:44] Before you did.
Ashley Jones [00:28:45] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:28:45] But didn't tell you immediately.
Ashley Jones [00:28:48] This kid sat in front of us at sacrament meeting after the bishop knew and we did not know. Like, he was sitting right in front of our daughter for a week or two. And they had known about it and they had never told us. We found out about that later after the police talked to us when we found out. More of a timeline when they were notified.
Jared Jones [00:29:07] And so.
Ashley Jones [00:29:07] So yeah, the next day was Saturday. And that night I feel like we were really kind of like starting to, like, let it sink in. And I was thinking if there was already like these two victims, like, there's probably more in our ward. And so my first thought was one of my friends who lived down the street from them, and I messaged her on Facebook and I was like, hey, have you heard about this thing with this kid? And she was like, yes, like, dot dod. And I was like, we just got a call about our daughter. And she's like, okay, let's. It was like midnight. She's like, can I call you? And they had gotten the same call about their 3 year old from the parents.
John Dehlin [00:29:44] And so wait, so what's the family count now of families?
Ashley Jones [00:29:48] That's three kids. Three families of our.
John Dehlin [00:29:51] So right in this part of the story, there's three families now that have kids that are victims. Okay.
Ashley Jones [00:29:55] And then the next day was Sunday, and I was. I was at that point starting to get kind of mad. And I was like, we. This kid can't be at church with all these kids. That he's. At least our kid. And their other. The second three year old, like, he shouldn't be at church where everyone can see him. Like, that's not fair. And so Jared had called the bishop, I think, and said, hey, like, expressing that concern, like, if we know he has victims right now. Can you have him stay home? And we were still only half in person, sacrament meeting, half zoom. So it wouldn't have been a big deal to have him not come to church. Like, wouldn't it have been like, oh, that family's not here. That's super weird. Like, it wouldn't have been weird. We're just barely. Like, we had just come back to church, like, in person.
Jared Jones [00:30:43] Yeah. So that conversation happened at 8am like, with the bishop. With the bishop.
John Dehlin [00:30:49] Let's back up. So the. Did the stake president express condolences?
Margi Dehlin [00:30:54] Well, he didn't.
Ashley Jones [00:30:55] We didn't. Hadn't talked to him yet.
John Dehlin [00:30:56] Okay. Jacuzzi with him. But you didn't bring it up to him. And he didn't bring it up to him.
Ashley Jones [00:31:01] Yeah, because we didn't really think about that.
Margi Dehlin [00:31:03] I feel like you were just saying kind of in retrospect, what you learned was he knew that you're Jacuzzing with
John Dehlin [00:31:10] him while he knows your child had been abused, and he doesn't bring it up even while you're Jacuzziing with him.
Jared Jones [00:31:15] Right.
John Dehlin [00:31:16] And that's the same day you learned about it.
Ashley Jones [00:31:18] So Sunday morning, Right. Jared had called a bishop to say, hey, like, we found this out. They called us. Like, do you know about this? He obviously he did know.
Jared Jones [00:31:28] Well, the way that he handled that conversation, though, is he's like, well, I can't tell you. What is it that you.
Ashley Jones [00:31:40] What are you talking about?
Jared Jones [00:31:41] What are you talking about? And then I said. And then I told him specifics because
Ashley Jones [00:31:46] he didn't want to be the one to tell us. Like, we didn't know all the information.
John Dehlin [00:31:49] He's trying to. He's trying to obey the church's clergy privilege. Right?
Jared Jones [00:31:55] Yeah, Penitent privilege.
John Dehlin [00:31:56] Penitent privilege. He's basically saying, if something's been confessed to me in a church or religious context, I have to keep it confidential.
Ashley Jones [00:32:05] But if we say it just then he can not just confirm it.
John Dehlin [00:32:08] Parents of victims, but from the police. I can't disclose to anybody.
Jared Jones [00:32:12] Right, right.
Ashley Jones [00:32:13] That's what he was thinking. Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:32:14] So that's. That's what he said to me. And I said.
Ashley Jones [00:32:17] He said, yeah, I can't.
Jared Jones [00:32:18] Then I told him what I knew and about.
Ashley Jones [00:32:21] We knew about the other victim and
Jared Jones [00:32:22] knew about the other victims. And, like, he's like. He's like, well, yes. And I was like, well, you need to keep this kid home from church.
Ashley Jones [00:32:34] Like, and church was starting in like, an hour.
John Dehlin [00:32:36] Was there a. Why didn't you tell Me moment.
Jared Jones [00:32:39] I don't remember.
John Dehlin [00:32:41] We're not trained to be confrontational with authority.
Jared Jones [00:32:45] Yeah. I mean, I. There was like, the next day, a
Ashley Jones [00:32:51] couple days later, we did get. We did get into that.
Margi Dehlin [00:32:53] So it sounds like right now you're just trying to create a safe situation for.
Jared Jones [00:32:58] Yes. And so that.
Ashley Jones [00:32:59] Because we know.
Jared Jones [00:33:00] That's my point.
Ashley Jones [00:33:01] Three victims so far, two that still attend that war that they.
Jared Jones [00:33:04] And I said, now that we know that there are multiple victims, this cannot happen. Like, he cannot attend church in our ward.
Ashley Jones [00:33:11] And they were like, nope, we can't do that.
Jared Jones [00:33:14] Yeah, well, so what he said, he's like, well, I cannot prohibit anyone from coming to church.
Ashley Jones [00:33:19] Which is not true.
Jared Jones [00:33:20] And so I said, bishop, you know that that is not true. And he said, well, what do you mean? It's like, well, you know what a Persona non grata is? And the way that I know that you know that is because one was served like a couple years ago or 18 months ago or whatever for somebody that had threatened his safety that told him they were going to beat him up.
Ashley Jones [00:33:44] The bishop's safety.
Jared Jones [00:33:45] Right. And so, like, in my mind, I'm looking at this guy, I'm like, okay, right. So you're gonna do Persona non grata for some guy that you're afraid of physically.
Ashley Jones [00:33:54] Yeah. A homeless guy or something.
Jared Jones [00:33:57] Yeah. Anyways, it's just a weird situation, but bottom line is like, he. He had that. And then I was the elders corn president, and so he had us post people to stand watch on both sets of doors.
Ashley Jones [00:34:15] Like a.
Jared Jones [00:34:16] You could enter in. Like, he had elders corn run security ever since that happened for like the last two years. And I was in charge of making sure that we had security there in case this guy were to come in the building or any other threat. Like, it just knows how to protect
John Dehlin [00:34:32] the members when he wants to.
Jared Jones [00:34:34] To protect a number. Right. Like, to protect him freaking self right now. Look, I mean, you know, there was other. There were other stuff, like, other things being used to sell that as well. Like there's shootings and other things like that that have happened. I'm like, dude, honestly, like, you know that this is the case. You know that you can tell anybody that you want not to come. It's like, but I don't freaking care. Like, if you are not going to keep him home, then I am going to call every family that I am aware of that has children.
Ashley Jones [00:35:08] Well, you escalate to the president first. And he also said the same thing. But they're not going to do. We're not going to do anything.
John Dehlin [00:35:14] And I just have to say this reminds me of some other interviews we've done on Mormon Stories podcast. But, but if we're thinking about the power dynamics here, the bishop, you know, this is the bishop's counselor. So the bishop chooses two counselors to be his right hand men, so to speak, to help him run the ward. Usually he's going to pick the people he likes the most. He would have handpicked the father in this family to be one of his two consiglieres, so to speak. So he's going to. There's a conflict of interest.
Jared Jones [00:35:47] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [00:35:47] Because.
Ashley Jones [00:35:47] And that's his neighbor as well. It's his neighbor as well.
John Dehlin [00:35:50] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:35:50] Down the street. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:35:51] And it also reflects on his. Within Mormonism, we have this perception of a spirit of discernment that God blesses our leaders with the wisdom of God to make choices like who gets what calling or position within the church. So it not only condemns his friend who he's going to try and protect, it implicates him as having made a bad choice by choosing a counselor whose son is going to run around and abuse kids. So in all these different ways, your bishop had a conflict of interest to not look after the best interests of you or other vulnerable people in the ward, but instead to protect his counselor himself and kind of like to minimize disruption in the congregation or the ward that he was in charge of. Plus whatever pressures the stake president and Curtin McConkey, the church's law firm.
Jared Jones [00:36:48] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:36:48] Are going to end up applying to him, which I want to hear about now.
Margi Dehlin [00:36:52] And can we just say this is so familiar to part one.
Jared Jones [00:36:56] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [00:36:57] Like how. So this happened directly, this situation in part one, all these things were showing up, you know, when you were in those situations.
Jared Jones [00:37:08] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:37:08] Okay.
Ashley Jones [00:37:09] And it's interesting. If they would have just kept him home right away, the church would have had a lot less visibility in this. They could have kept this a lot quieter. And then it ended up having to be blown up.
Margi Dehlin [00:37:17] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:37:18] Well, in.
Ashley Jones [00:37:19] Well, so Jared did call all the parents in the ward before church, and there was enough pressure that they did not end up bringing their son that day.
Jared Jones [00:37:27] But the, the other interesting part of this, and this is important to understand, is that the person that I escalated to was the stake president, who also said a similar thing. But the stake president prior to being the stake president was our bishop or the bishop of this ward. And his counselor was that kid's dad. Was that kid's dad and had been his counselor for his whole tenure. As a bishopric.
Ashley Jones [00:37:54] So there's a lot of conflicts.
John Dehlin [00:37:55] So it's kind of a good old boy, good old boys club where the men are going to protect each other and those friendships and relationships.
Jared Jones [00:38:03] Yeah. And, you know, another piece to that, which there's more to go back to on this, but for the last, like 12 or 13 years, they had been having monthly Sunday dinners where the bishop and state president and this family were in attendance.
Ashley Jones [00:38:20] So they hung out with these few families and some other families. They had dinner clubs with all their families and for years.
Margi Dehlin [00:38:26] So they're all very socially connected.
Jared Jones [00:38:29] Yeah, for like 11 or 13 years or something like that, but a long time that they're very intimately.
Ashley Jones [00:38:37] So you ruin. You throw someone under the bus. It's. They don't want to make their friends mad and cause disruption.
Jared Jones [00:38:45] And the, you know, I think for the family of the abuser that one of the worst. Worst things that I'm sure that they thought of right away was that our family specifically was one of the. Was one of the families of the victim. Because
John Dehlin [00:39:11] we're.
Jared Jones [00:39:12] We're not kind of.
Ashley Jones [00:39:13] I think they knew we would. I think we were probably the ones they were most scared to tell because they knew we wouldn't be quiet.
Jared Jones [00:39:18] Yeah, I feel like they figured we wouldn't shut up. And they were right. We. We weren't going to shut up. And so. So, you know, we're told that he. They can't tell us that he can't attend. Like, and then finally they come back to or talk to us after church, and they're like, well, based off of the fact that you guys were so concerned, then, like, the family decided that he wouldn't come. You know, I told them that it would probably be best if he didn't attend. And so I was like, well, that's fine. Like, but this is not out of their grace. Like, this will be mandated. Like, I'm not. It's not going to be their decision as to whether or not he comes back to church. That's not their privilege, you know. And so I, you know, that. That is a debate now from that time forward for about four or five
Ashley Jones [00:40:16] months, if he's gonna be allowed to come back or not. We had to keep, you know, they kept kind of trying to negotiate with us on certain things. And I was like, no, this is not right.
Jared Jones [00:40:25] There is no scenario that my kid is going to show up every week
Ashley Jones [00:40:28] and face his abuser whether or not she realizes that.
Jared Jones [00:40:31] Right. That was the other thing that he did say to me in the first conversation, which was an important thing that he repeated and she repeated multiple times
Ashley Jones [00:40:44] over and over and in emails and stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Jared Jones [00:40:47] And that is that your. Fortunately, your daughter is so young, she's probably never going to remember any of this.
Ashley Jones [00:40:55] And they, they told the other victim's family too, that if your 3 year old hasn't shown any, like, symptoms of being abused by now, then they're, they're fine.
John Dehlin [00:41:05] So they're basically for their own self interest and biases, trying to minimize whatever impact there may or may not have been to your daughter.
Ashley Jones [00:41:13] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:41:13] And I was going to say in all these early deliberations, first of all, they didn't tell you. You had to, you had to kind of find out and then confront them. They're immediately not wanting to give consequences to the, to the abuser and they're not wanting to protect the rest of the ward. How much did they go? How do we help your daughter? How do we provide support to your daughter? How do we make sure is she okay?
Ashley Jones [00:41:41] No one asked, no one asked about her at all?
John Dehlin [00:41:43] What?
Ashley Jones [00:41:43] No one asked anything about her?
John Dehlin [00:41:45] No.
Ashley Jones [00:41:46] No one cared. Honestly, no one cared. They only cared about him.
Jared Jones [00:41:49] Yeah, they're. They're actually everybody. That, that's. Honestly I.
Ashley Jones [00:41:55] Even from people that we told about in the ward, like, it was all about, oh, what, we don't want to smear his bat, his name. Like, even though when Jared called and talked to lots of those families, they all were immediately kind of concerned because he plays hide and seek and wrestling at church with all the kids in the ward up to that point. So they all were slightly concerned, like at the very beginning. Like, oh, wait a minute, like, like that is concerning.
Jared Jones [00:42:23] Yeah, I mean, and one of the things, a phrase that they used multiple times is like, why do we have to drag his name through the mud? Like, they, they said that. And so that was, that was a strong narrative from the beginning. But I didn't even, I honestly until right now, I didn't think that nobody, like none of them said, hey, how is she doing? How is your daughter? Like, I mean, like, that just was not ever a concern. Like, for them, you know, it was
Ashley Jones [00:42:59] all about getting him help.
Jared Jones [00:43:01] It was.
Ashley Jones [00:43:02] And, and to make sure everyone was quiet.
Jared Jones [00:43:04] So, yeah.
Ashley Jones [00:43:06] So Monday, the day after that day, we had. I was very, I was probably the loudest one. We got on a zoom meeting with all of the victims, parents sick, President Bishop, and I think your dad was on there to kind of help. He knows, he knows everybody just to. He was very concerned I mean, this is his grandchild, but he's still, you know, he's still trying to do the churchy way to get things done. And, like, I probably yell.
John Dehlin [00:43:33] He'd been in the stake presidency.
Ashley Jones [00:43:35] Yeah. He knew all these people, and he
John Dehlin [00:43:36] had been a bishop.
Ashley Jones [00:43:37] Yeah. Of that word, I guess. And it was, you know, questions, like, they really wouldn't tell us anything. They wanted to have this, like, informational meeting for us. But we'd ask them questions. They're like, oh, I can't really answer that. I can't tell you. When I found out. I can't tell you what they told me. And I was so mad. I was probably yelling more than say, but. And I was like, you guys knew about this. Like, we sat behind this kid. You could have. You had all of us in view of your stand, like, what are you guys going to do about this? And my big thing was I really wanted them to call the police, make a report.
Ashley Jones [00:44:15] It had been reported by the victim's family, eventually the first victim. And we. I mean, we had called just to make report, even though they knew about it. And I really wanted them. I wanted them to make a point, to call and make a report, even if it wasn't necessary. Like, at this point, like, Barry knew about it, I'm like, just make a call for me. Like, make me feel good.
Jared Jones [00:44:41] So what they told us on that zoom. And then multiple times afterwards, I texted
Ashley Jones [00:44:46] for a couple weeks afterwards, I'm like, you guys want to do it, do it. Just. Just prove to me that you'll do something. Right?
Jared Jones [00:44:53] And so what they told us is that they had been instructed by the Church helpline. Nobody wants to say church legal, but that's like, let's be very clear that the church helpline is Kieran McConkey. That is church legal. You are calling the church's attorneys as a bishop to say, hey, what should we do here? You're not saying, what should we do to help the victim? You're not saying, what should we do to help the victim's families? Like, how do we help people emotionally process this? Like, you're saying, what is it that we need to disclose?
Ashley Jones [00:45:29] So then after a. I mean, nothing really happened at that meeting, really. I mean, they just blew us off.
Jared Jones [00:45:34] But so what they told us, though, in that meeting is that they had been instructed that they did not need to report like, that they were not required to do that. And so to the police, Right, Correct.
John Dehlin [00:45:48] And so Kurt McConkey, the church's law firm, told the stake president and bishop to tell the family and probably all the parents of all the victims, you don't have to report this. And probably that translates to please don't report this.
Ashley Jones [00:46:02] Right, I'm sure.
Jared Jones [00:46:03] No, I mean, what both the stake president and bishop did say multiple times is they're like, you guys can and should do whatever you feel is right. So they did say that. Yeah, but we cannot, like, we can't do anything. Like, we are not allowed to do that. And so.
Ashley Jones [00:46:22] And then your dad called Kurt McConkey and they basically said, well, he can't tell you what we told them in this particular case. Well, I'll tell you what we tell all the bishops and that's that they should report. It's mandated by law.
Jared Jones [00:46:36] That's what Kieran McConkey told my dad. That's what they told me. And.
Ashley Jones [00:46:42] But who knows who's more likely to tell the truth, I guess.
Jared Jones [00:46:44] Right? Because I'm not afraid to call and talk to an attorney's office. Like, that's fine. So like I just call Kieran McConkey and hear it directly from them. And. And I talked to, I don't know what his first name is, but I talked to a McConkey. So he's some sort of, I'm assuming a partner of the law firm because McConkey is on the building. So. But when I talk to him, he's like, no, that is absolutely not true. We do not tell people not to report. We tell them to obey all the laws.
Ashley Jones [00:47:20] And California is a state where you are supposed to. They're mandated reporters. Clergy are. Right.
Jared Jones [00:47:26] And so.
John Dehlin [00:47:27] Including Mormon lds.
Jared Jones [00:47:29] Yeah, correct. And so that when we had multiple conversations over a decent period of time, you know, like, I don't know, six, eight weeks, whatever, with the bishop and stake president where they kept saying, no, that's not what they are telling us.
Ashley Jones [00:47:48] Like it was probably like a month, like a month after that I was getting. We found out that there was another victim, a sibling of one of the other victims that he confessed to to the police.
Jared Jones [00:47:59] Yep.
Ashley Jones [00:48:00] And so I had. It was just really frustrating because I kept trying to like have him come back to church and all this stuff. And so I had posted on Facebook, like, you know, there's a little synopsis of what had happened and we'd found out and that like the local law enforcement were super, like so helpful. Like they came up right away, they took our report. Like they did what they could and they're, you know, what you can for a three year old victim. But like our Local church leaders aren't doing anything they won't report.
John Dehlin [00:48:32] So I'm confused. So if California is a mandatory reporting state, why didn't your stake president and bishop report?
Jared Jones [00:48:42] Well, so their reasoning was that it had already been reported.
Ashley Jones [00:48:48] So the first victim had gone to LDS Family Services for some counseling and she reported it. That's what they're, that's what they're considering, the church reporting it.
John Dehlin [00:48:59] They reported to the therapist.
Margi Dehlin [00:49:00] No.
Ashley Jones [00:49:00] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:49:02] So the therapist who then reported to the child.
Ashley Jones [00:49:05] The police, Their cps, probably.
John Dehlin [00:49:07] Cps, not the police.
Ashley Jones [00:49:08] Yeah, that's. Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay, so the church leaders are counting that.
Church Abuse Reporting Policies and Failures
John Dehlin [00:49:13] So the church leaders, the Mormon church leaders in California are counting a report to Child and Protective Services from a therapist as sufficient such that they wouldn't need to report to the police.
Ashley Jones [00:49:28] Yes.
Jared Jones [00:49:29] And so it's like 70 some odd days that they didn't report.
Ashley Jones [00:49:32] And I had posted that on social media and got a lot of, a lot of good. I mean people were like, what? Like, how is this possible? And like, and then we had gone out of town the next week and when we had gotten off our airplane, I get, I see this email, this mass email that goes to everybody in our ward, like, you know, like 500 people, everybody that's on the ward list that hasn't even been to church in years, everybody talking about how there was, there's something going on, there's lies going on on social media. It's like in response to what I had posted. And so instead of, you know, a
John Dehlin [00:50:05] few people knowing, wait, so what did you post?
Ashley Jones [00:50:08] Just about how they hadn't reported and
Jared Jones [00:50:11] just how we had better treatment from the government.
Ashley Jones [00:50:15] Like, and so this email was in a direct response to what I'd posted.
John Dehlin [00:50:19] Okay.
Ashley Jones [00:50:19] And about how there's lies going around social media.
Jared Jones [00:50:22] But it was from the area authority.
Ashley Jones [00:50:24] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [00:50:25] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:50:26] So you post on social media that the church isn't handling this abuse. Right, right. And an area authority emails everybody in
Ashley Jones [00:50:34] the ward who some people had never been to church and hadn't been to church in years. So now instead of a few people knowing, everybody in the ward now knows
Margi Dehlin [00:50:41] about this in the context of lies.
Ashley Jones [00:50:45] Yes.
Jared Jones [00:50:46] Right.
Ashley Jones [00:50:46] I mean it was very twisted trying to have tell the truth. And so we were so mad and we were on vacation, but we were going to figure this out. And Jared calls the guy up and is like, you need to retract this, like you're making like my wife sound like. And all the victims, families, like that they're lying. But you guys are, are Lying here. Like, yeah. And so we went back and forth and.
John Dehlin [00:51:10] And like, so a Mormon area authority basically calls you a liar.
Ashley Jones [00:51:15] An email to everybody in the ward.
John Dehlin [00:51:17] In an email to everyone in the ward?
Ashley Jones [00:51:18] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:51:19] What was that like?
Ashley Jones [00:51:21] It was unbelievable. Like, I don't.
John Dehlin [00:51:24] I mean, this is a church you believe in, right?
Ashley Jones [00:51:25] Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm like, jared, we have to fix this. Like, this is. So Jared does all that dirty work. So he called them up.
Jared Jones [00:51:34] Yeah. I mean, so I mean, I call up the area president and I have a pretty frank conversation. I'm like, look, you have two options here. One, we are going to reply all to this.
Ashley Jones [00:51:46] They did it. Where you can reply all to everybody. Instead of a C. What do you call that?
Jared Jones [00:51:50] Bcc.
Ashley Jones [00:51:51] So there he doesn't know how to use his email, which is kind of funny in this context because you were
John Dehlin [00:51:55] able to reply all.
Ashley Jones [00:51:56] And we said we would give you 24 hours to send out a new one.
Jared Jones [00:52:00] The clock is ticking.
John Dehlin [00:52:01] In an email.
Jared Jones [00:52:03] No. And so I just. I got on the phone.
Ashley Jones [00:52:05] Yeah. It turns out, though, the other victim's family, the other dad, he was not so nice. And he emailed everybody back and said, this was not true. Your leaders are lying to you. So this all goes. The reply all goes back to all the ward members.
John Dehlin [00:52:21] So there's this massive ward shape.
Ashley Jones [00:52:22] And then the stake president replies like, oh, I'm so sorry you feel that, you know, back to everybody. And it was like, wow, they finally did send out.
John Dehlin [00:52:31] Sorry you feel that way.
Margi Dehlin [00:52:33] Yes.
Ashley Jones [00:52:34] Oh, go ahead.
Jared Jones [00:52:34] No, I mean, look, the. The whole narrative around. Around the responses that come back from the stake president and the bishop is always not to say that they were wrong or that what you were saying is true.
Ashley Jones [00:52:53] I'm sorry that this is how you are interpreting this, or I'm sorry you feel like that.
Jared Jones [00:52:58] Right. Not, I'm sorry this happened. Not I'm sorry we made this mistake, but I'm sorry that you feel like this was a mistake.
Ashley Jones [00:53:06] But eventually they did send out an email that was close enough.
Jared Jones [00:53:11] It was a week retract.
Ashley Jones [00:53:12] We were on vacation and we were like, that's. That's good enough for now, I guess. Right?
Jared Jones [00:53:17] Like, but basically what the email had said is that, you know, Ashley's post, they didn't use Ashley's name, but that Ashley's post was incorrect. They had reported properly and that they were doing everything that they could to protect the families and that kind of thing. And so the reality is they had not reported. So the point was, like, they reported not at all themselves. Like the bishop, the stake president did not report. So that's important to note because they did eventually.
Ashley Jones [00:53:55] Because I mean.
Jared Jones [00:53:56] But not at this point.
Ashley Jones [00:53:57] Not by that point.
Jared Jones [00:53:58] Yeah, so, but the point to that report, one of the things that is important in reporting is being able to report from your perspective and what was told to you. Because different things are going to be
Ashley Jones [00:54:10] told because the parents are going to report different things than what the bishop who heard the confession is going to report.
Jared Jones [00:54:15] Yes. Like, and the dad was a mandated reporter from his setting as a school principal. And so he goes in to report and then they tell him at the school or at the, at cps, like, hey, since this is your child, you don't have to report it. And he's like, well, you know, I feel like I should now in my perspective, like I didn't start out this way, but now in my perspective I believe that if your report is the softest report that you can give, you lead the narrative. You lead the narrative. And so I absolutely believe that that was the intent there. And maybe it was all pure intent.
Jared Jones [00:54:55] Doesn't really matter to me because at the end of the day, bishop and stake president have an obligation to report. Neither of them had. They just are telling us that Kieran McConkey are saying, no, you do not report, you cannot report. It's already been reported. Well, the problem with that is what actually we ended up finding out over time is that the report that they're referencing is this therapist, which does not
Ashley Jones [00:55:21] count as a church leader.
Jared Jones [00:55:23] Any therapist has neither here nor there. Because the point to that is this therapist had talked to the first victim only.
Ashley Jones [00:55:33] So they never reported for the rest or the other ones.
Margi Dehlin [00:55:37] Pattern.
Ashley Jones [00:55:37] But. So a few weeks later though, our then nine year old daughter, she came to me and she said hey. Because we had asked her because she's the next oldest who maybe could have been around him at this time.
Ashley Jones [00:55:50] She says, hey, you know that, that kid, you know, whatever was going on. She's like, at the ward, we had a ward Christmas party outside side the church building and she's like, he was trying to come up and like touch me and my friend, but we scared him off. And it was like super weird. And I was like, what? Like, and so right away and I, I texted the state president and bishop on my, my one text thread just to give them like, because their whole point is that none of this abuse happened to church. Like they were really trying to hammer that down. We're not really responsible.
Ashley Jones [00:56:23] Nothing happened at church and I'm like, this was at a church event at a church building. There were lots of other kids there. And my daughter's telling me this. And so right away they're kind of scared. So they call CPS the next day to report that. What I told them because they got a little nervous.
Jared Jones [00:56:41] But is.
John Dehlin [00:56:41] Well, part of the questionnaire is, did the abuse happen at church? The church becomes more liable at that point.
Jared Jones [00:56:48] So we keep going through being sued,
John Dehlin [00:56:50] which has nothing to do with the welfare of the victims or the safety of the members. It's covering the church's tail legally.
Jared Jones [00:57:00] Yeah. So I want to be very clear on this. The church's policies are set up for one purpose only, and that is to protect the church. Like, what we found out is we started going through this process and hearing other people's stories, because when they heard our story, people started lots of messages
Ashley Jones [00:57:21] and calls like, hey, like, this happened to me when I was younger and no one did anything about it. Like, it was.
Jared Jones [00:57:26] I mean. And so is. As we start going down the rabbit hole on how the church deals with this, we find out that this is how they always deal with it. Like, this is not an anomaly. This is the program. This is the system. And so from that perspective, like, as we go back and forth with the church leaders, I've talked to Kieran McConkey a couple times.
Ashley Jones [00:57:53] Well, then there ends up being another victim of us, a sibling. Another sibling of one of the victims.
John Dehlin [00:57:58] Six. I mean, the body counts like six.
Jared Jones [00:58:00] So there's six something at that time point.
Ashley Jones [00:58:02] Yeah.
Jared Jones [00:58:03] And in the meantime, like, we. We figure out that the case is that this counselor was supposed to have been the one that reported. And then we hammer home the point even harder. Like, hey, still no one has reported for our daughter, at least our daughter
Ashley Jones [00:58:21] and the other three year old.
Jared Jones [00:58:22] So the last conversation that the bishop has with me on that, he calls and talks to Kieran McConkey again in the. This was the sick and twisted reality, is the last conversation that he has with them. He's like, look, they are giving us a lot of pressure. And we.
Ashley Jones [00:58:45] Like, we are giving them pressure. He's calling and complaining about us. Like, we're getting a lot of pressure. What can we do to, like, stop?
Jared Jones [00:58:50] And he's like, can. How can we report? And he's like, well, you can report. You just don't have to report. You're not required to.
Ashley Jones [00:59:00] So they could have just done it all along. They just weren't telling them, but he had to.
Jared Jones [00:59:04] And so when I talked to the bishop about this after he called and reported, he's like, the, the messaging that he received was when he called. No, when he called in, they used a simple phrase and they said, you cannot report. And so the way that he took that was you are not allowed to report. When they said you cannot report, what they actually were saying is you can not report. Like, it's your option to not report. And so. But I feel like, like after talking to him that I feel like he was manipulated by the church legal. Like, I feel like he. I do.
Ashley Jones [00:59:52] I'm the stake president.
Jared Jones [00:59:54] Yes, I do believe that the state president did not want him to report, but I do think that in general, like, he wanted to do right by what he's supposed to do. And I. And so I do think that he wanted to report because he was getting pressure from us, but he felt like he couldn't. And once he asked the question kind of in the right way, that's when he got the answers that he needed. And then he reported because it wasn't. There was no sweat for him to report. Like at that point. Right.
Ashley Jones [01:00:31] Everything had been reported a million times. It's just him doing the bare minimum at this point, I guess, to make us feel good.
John Dehlin [01:00:37] So how much time between the bishop's knowledge of the first abuse in him actually reporting?
Jared Jones [01:00:45] Was it 73 or 79 days?
Ashley Jones [01:00:46] It was a lot. It was a lot.
Jared Jones [01:00:47] 70 some odd days.
John Dehlin [01:00:48] So three months. Almost three months.
Ashley Jones [01:00:50] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:00:50] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:00:50] And only after a courageous. A lot of family or several families pressured continually for two to three months.
Ashley Jones [01:01:00] I will say after that email went out, we were still on vacation. They held. What are we, like a forum or a.
Jared Jones [01:01:07] A meeting?
Ashley Jones [01:01:08] Like a second hour meeting or. No, I guess it was like after church. So if you wanted to stay for it, you could. And we, we were not there. We were out of town. I was like, should we get back for that? Like, I want to make sure we're not getting railroaded in this meeting.
Ashley Jones [01:01:21] But my parents were there and his parents were there and our siblings and they were doing like a kind of like a rundown because that email went out and they had so many calls, like, what's going on? Like, people who had no idea.
Ashley Jones [01:01:33] And so they did, like, kind of a quick, like, synopsis and, you know, apology. And the bishop did even apologize to the congregation. Like, I'm so sorry that we had activities at the Jones house and I didn't tell them. And so it actually caused a lot more problems in the ward because now everybody knows that the Leadership did the wrong thing with.
Ashley Jones [01:01:54] And like, you know, our parents and siblings got up and asked like really pointed questions. And we appreciate all of that, but it was just. It's really odd. Really odd.
Jared Jones [01:02:05] One thing that I'll also rewind to is in the second week after this had gone down, we weren't getting responses that we wanted from our bishop or stake president. And so we wanted to escalate that. And so the area authority came and met with us.
Ashley Jones [01:02:20] Oh, yes. And the other victim. One of the other victims.
John Dehlin [01:02:24] Same dude who wrote the email.
Jared Jones [01:02:25] Yes, yes. A couple weeks later.
Ashley Jones [01:02:27] Yeah. Because he wanted to come meet with us. And.
Jared Jones [01:02:30] And so as he meets with us, he goes through the process of telling us that he understands and telling us that his own daughter had been sexually abused.
Ashley Jones [01:02:40] But they never told her. She found out, like when she was on her mission or right before her mission. So he's. And like the, the guy who abused her was like in their ward the whole time after that still. And so she had to see him and he had to see. See him. But he forgave and it took him
Jared Jones [01:02:58] a while to forgive, but he was
Ashley Jones [01:02:59] so mad not see this guy walking around church so sympathetic. But still the story is like, that's a terrible story.
Jared Jones [01:03:04] Like, yeah, so the, the story actually was like, this happened to my family and we smashed it down and pretended like it didn't happen.
Ashley Jones [01:03:11] And then she found out later, but
Jared Jones [01:03:13] she found out later and we were able to tell her sorry.
Ashley Jones [01:03:20] She was trying to like, be sympathetic towards us. Trying to like endear himself towards us. I mean, it's. It felt fell short. But he's like, I'm gonna try to make things better. I'm gonna. He did ask at that time, like, the church will pay for counseling for your kids if you guys want. And you know, he. It was. It was a very sincere, seeming, like, meeting. But still that story was unsettling. But, you know, we appreciated it at the time for somebody at least pretending to empathize with us.
Jared Jones [01:03:47] Well, that for that day, right.
Ashley Jones [01:03:49] We're like, oh, maybe it's gonna be okay.
Jared Jones [01:03:51] Yeah. At that moment, it pacified us somewhat. But then afterwards, processing it, we're like, no, he actually did the exact horrible, crappy thing that he shouldn't have done, which is not tell his daughter about what had gone on. He really did nothing to this person. They didn't go to jail, like nothing happened to them. And. But he's showing he's virtue, signaling to
Ashley Jones [01:04:18] us that he did this.
Jared Jones [01:04:19] He forgave that he was and it was about the forgiveness of the perpetrator.
Ashley Jones [01:04:24] It wasn't about his daughter at all.
Jared Jones [01:04:27] And so, like, the other family that was there with us going through this meeting, like, they. They downloaded this differently and they were pissed.
Ashley Jones [01:04:37] Right. And the next week was ward conference, where you have to, like, raise your hand and like, sustain. You know, they go through the bishop, all the auxiliary leaders. And I. I purposefully looked at the stake president. I didn't raise my hand for either one, but they were totally watching me because he came to talk to me afterwards. This other victim's parents, they raised their hand in opposition and they got a lot of crap from the ward.
Jared Jones [01:05:02] Well, in the state, president's wife was in the front.
Ashley Jones [01:05:07] She was crying. Everyone feel so bad for her that her husband's being treated like this. Right.
Jared Jones [01:05:13] When she saw, like she saw that and started bawling that somebody was objecting to her husband, you know, as the stake president. And so, like, that was.
Ashley Jones [01:05:26] Which is interesting because her kids still hung out with this kid, and her husband never told her about this kid. So her kids have been playing, having dinner groups with this kid. And he never told his wife. I found. She told me that later. He never told her. Right.
John Dehlin [01:05:44] This is why the church keeps this all quiet, because they don't want members losing faith in the leadership and certainly not in. In the church itself. So that's one of the reasons they keep it quiet.
Ashley Jones [01:05:54] Right?
Jared Jones [01:05:55] Yeah, for sure.
John Dehlin [01:05:56] Because everything can unravel pretty quickly.
Jared Jones [01:05:58] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:05:59] I mean, and it was a very tense ward for. I mean, even still, I feel like there's still a lot of tension there.
Jared Jones [01:06:05] Part of the pressure, though, that came upon us is as we're attending church, like, so his family stops coming without him, the perpetrator. And so perpetrators family.
Ashley Jones [01:06:22] Both. Both of the parents were released from
John Dehlin [01:06:24] their callings, but only after.
Ashley Jones [01:06:27] I think there was just a lot of. There was a lot of pressure from.
Jared Jones [01:06:30] Right, yeah. Well, and part of. So he had an M.O. how he would molest kids. He would either wrestle with them or he would play hide and seek and corner the younger kids.
Ashley Jones [01:06:45] Usually he'd be with. Playing with the older kids, but he would end up with the younger kids like he finds siblings.
John Dehlin [01:06:50] I almost want to issue a trigger warning here because these are like tactics or techniques.
Jared Jones [01:06:56] And so that's how he found his victims. Well, part of the problem was mom and dad are both in high demand callings, and they're both at mutual.
Ashley Jones [01:07:08] He's unattended every twice a week for an hour or so, running around with kids playing hide and seek in the church building, turning on enough lights like,
Jared Jones [01:07:17] and wrestling with kids, which gives him more access.
John Dehlin [01:07:19] The fact that his parents are in high levels of leadership gives him greater access to church members, to vulnerable kids.
Jared Jones [01:07:27] Well, and not only that, but like they're having meetings after church or they're, you know, he's getting out of activity days when he was a little bit
Ashley Jones [01:07:37] younger, and they're still in their callings. Another half hour hour.
Jared Jones [01:07:42] Yeah, they're dealing with other callings.
Ashley Jones [01:07:43] You know, people are, kids are running around the church buildings during mutual times,
Jared Jones [01:07:47] unfortunately, because that's the safe place that, I mean, that's the way that it's felt. Right. And so as that's the case, he wrestles and plays hide and seek with kids, like all the kids, lots of kids in the ward. And so right now we know how he, he does stuff. And then we also know that with those kids, you know, this was his M.O. and then with the rest of the kids in the ward that he's been doing this. Right. And so like, that becomes a pretty immediate red flag for lots of families. They know that their kids have wrestled with them. They know that their kids have played hide and seek with them.
Jared Jones [01:08:30] And so at one of these special dinners that they have on a monthly basis after it was known that this perpetrator had molested multiple kids, he's. He's there at that dinner with and playing with all the kids in that group. All the kids in that group still.
Ashley Jones [01:08:55] Even though his parents know the bishop,
Jared Jones [01:08:56] even though the bishop and stake president are at that, they don't say anything
Ashley Jones [01:09:00] because they don't feel like they can tell their wives either. And their kids are running around, they
Jared Jones [01:09:04] can't break penitent privilege. But you know what you can do
Ashley Jones [01:09:07] and say, hey, keep your son at home.
Jared Jones [01:09:09] You can do that or you can
Ashley Jones [01:09:11] cancel or he needs to sit in the corner the whole time. Like, I don't know what.
Jared Jones [01:09:13] No, I mean, what's even easier is it's like, hey, you know, we're just not going to have that dinner anymore. Like, we don't have to have the awkward situation. Like, you can protect people by not having your stupid dinner. Don't just, right.
Ashley Jones [01:09:27] Ignore everything.
Jared Jones [01:09:28] And I mean, it's not that big a deal. And so like when I look at that and you know, Ashley, on one of his, the stake president's apology tours where he's coming to our house and by the way, not apologizing, trying to convince us that it's okay, like Trying to convince.
Ashley Jones [01:09:48] He brought his wife over when Jared was gone to try to like, talk some sense into me, I guess. So just me and him and his wife and we, we know them like to hear feelings. They bring their kids over to play and ride bikes around our house sometimes. And, you know, it's not like super weird. They want to bring me cookies, you know, trying to be like, oh, you know, and, you know, and I point blank, I'm talking to her and I'm like, do you know all the things that have happened?
Ashley Jones [01:10:15] And like, do you know what your husband did? Like, I was very clear. And she's like, no, I didn't know that. Like, she didn't know she didn't know about him already knowing, like at that dinner group, like, she literally told me, like, I didn't know that, he didn't tell me that. And like, do you know all the things this kid has confessed to? And she literally didn't know all that stuff. So he was probably sad that he brought her over.
Jared Jones [01:10:36] You know, a couple weeks after this went down, we're having. There's a dance that's being held at our beach house because they weren't holding dances yet. So like during the pandemic, we did
Ashley Jones [01:10:51] like a youth dance.
Jared Jones [01:10:52] Youth dances at our house, when at this time there was one down at our beach house. And so we're down there with two of our mutual friends. Like, mutual.
Ashley Jones [01:11:04] They have kids that are at the dance. So we're all just hanging out. Went to dinner while the kids were
Jared Jones [01:11:08] at the dance, and as we're sitting down talking to them, like one of, one of the ladies that we're talking to, you know, who argue or like, who admittedly is between a rock and a hard spot. Like, she, she's friends with us, she's friends with them. Definitely, probably closer to them. But one of her children definitely had wrestled lots of times with this kid.
Ashley Jones [01:11:37] Her daughter was the one with our nine year old at the time, that Christmas party.
Jared Jones [01:11:42] And so one of the things that she asked though is she's like, yeah, it's so. This is so tough though, like, for this kid, like, what if he decides because of all of this pressure, you know, the, the perpetrator to take his life.
Jared Jones [01:12:01] And I was like, well, I'm going to be honest with you. Like, that's much less of my concern than what if your daughter finds out that she's a victim or one of the other victims in dealing with this, takes their own life. He made choices they didn't like. And so I'm not saying that I'm unsympathetic to the plight that has been caused by his action, but it's been caused by his action.
Jared Jones [01:12:29] And so I can't worry about him. I. I'm not going to protect him and throw the victims under the bus. So I, you know, I mean, how tragic would it be if that were your child? Like, where would you land at that point?
Jared Jones [01:12:46] And like, at the end of the day, like, all they can do is acknowledge that and be like, yeah, you know, that would be tough. What we've found through this process is that when people can relate it to their own situation, like, they will say to us, like, oh, you know, yeah, I know this is hard, whatever, but you can see this side and how it's hard for the family. But then if you say, what if it was your child? It's like a switch flips and they're like, oh, well, if it was my child.
Ashley Jones [01:13:19] Everyone's like, oh, you guys are so much nice than I would be able to go kill the guy. It's like, no, it's like you were
Jared Jones [01:13:24] just shaming us here a second ago for, you know, why we need to be softer. And now when it has to do with your kid, you want to kill the kid. Like, how does that work? And so, like, as we're going through this process, that's kind of what we're figuring out the. The way that it plays out for people mentally.
Ashley Jones [01:13:43] So that summer, they finally did move that family's records permanently to another ward in the stake.
Jared Jones [01:13:51] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:13:52] And they.
Jared Jones [01:13:53] After lots of angsty conversations and like, negotiations.
Ashley Jones [01:13:57] Yeah. Kind of negotiate. Like, negotiate with us. What if we do this? Can he. Can that family still come to church and like all like, I'm not trying
John Dehlin [01:14:06] to do the right thing. I'm trying to placate you guys.
Ashley Jones [01:14:08] I'm like, this is not. That's not negotiations. Do what. What you're supposed to do.
Margi Dehlin [01:14:11] And you have a sense after, you know, they're being moved. So. And they kind of further proximity sneaking. But isn't part of it containment also? Like, he's still like, actively in places where he can do harm. So isn't it part of, like, nice that my child has some space and also do we have some indication that, you know, he's. He can't do it to other Catholic
John Dehlin [01:14:38] priests were just reassigned.
Margi Dehlin [01:14:40] That's right. Like, that can inoculate a hole and then let them start.
Ashley Jones [01:14:44] We ended up moving them to is a war that had the most kids of any ward anywhere. Around us. So did you get an indication at all about that part of it? That they told us that they were
Margi Dehlin [01:14:55] taking measures to actually have it so that he wouldn't be around children.
Jared Jones [01:15:00] Well, not that he wouldn't be around children, but he would be supervised, like
Ashley Jones [01:15:04] someone assigned to him by his parents.
Jared Jones [01:15:07] That was the supervision. Now, to be fair, his parents had also said that he would not be out of their sight when they dropped him off at our house. Like, so we've only found that stuff out later. But they had. They were more concerned about his sociality than they were about putting any other victim in harm's way.
Ashley Jones [01:15:30] They really wanted him to have a
Jared Jones [01:15:32] normal life that was very important to them.
Ashley Jones [01:15:34] So they finally. They kept kind of trying to sneak their way back into the ward, I guess, and they. They kind of did things behind her back. Like, they had, like, a scout trip where they said, like this, no one in the family would be in, and they just didn't tell us about it. And they excluded our son's group so that we wouldn't know there's a camping trip. And we heard it from somebody else that he was on.
John Dehlin [01:15:53] Like, so you're being punished for trying to get the church to do the right thing when it was your kid that was abused. Now you're being marginalized and cut out of. And your kids are being marginalized and cut out of activities as a punishment.
Jared Jones [01:16:08] Right.
Ashley Jones [01:16:09] And so they just didn't want us to know about the activity.
Jared Jones [01:16:11] Right. And so what they had already told us prior to this, like, probably a month before, two months, that. That none of their family would be attending any of the activities because what was going on at seminary for our kids and a testimony meeting. Testimony meeting. All sorts of things. Like, there were things being said like, oh, it's so hard. What's going on for my family.
Ashley Jones [01:16:36] Yeah, the older daughter who's home from college, we got up there and it was like, really?
Jared Jones [01:16:41] And people in the hall, like, we would hear all the time, like, oh, we're so sorry for what's going on for your family.
Ashley Jones [01:16:47] People would get up in testimony meeting and, like, defend them or like, oh, my. My kid was molested. And I totally, like, forgave them. So all of you guys out there, this happened to, like, you know, make sure that you, like, you'll get your peace if you just forgive. Like, it was very pointed.
Jared Jones [01:17:05] Right. And so even when that happened, like that testimony specifically, and they were not supposed.
Ashley Jones [01:17:11] He was. We had seminary graduation or whatever that one night, one Sunday night, and we had told him, hey, that was the same night, the same day that his family gotten up in testimony meeting. It said some kind of dumb stuff. And we're like, there's seminary graduation tonight. You need to make sure that your son is not there. Right. And he wasn't even in seminary yet, so there's no reason for him to be there besides support his siblings who. One sibling that was there wasn't even graduating. And then Jared Jordan, my. Yeah. Showed up. She texted me. Jared took them. And she's like, guess who's here?
Jared Jones [01:17:47] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:17:47] And he was.
Jared Jones [01:17:48] Well. And I. I did tell them, though, that if they're. If they brought their. The son, the perpetrator, that I would make a scene. I said, I will lose my crap, and I'm not going to apologize for it. Like, and so they did not. They showed up and they brought their son that was older. And so, you know, we left it. Like, we. Even though it's not fun for our kids to see him there and them there, like, whatever. But they specifically did not bring their perpetrator, a son to that. Because, like, I was just signaling. I was saying, like, hey, here's my boundary, and if you. If you cross it, I will make the scene. Like, I don't. I don't love confrontation, but I'm okay with it. Like, I'm willing to do it.
Ashley Jones [01:18:41] And it was getting so ridiculous by this point.
Jared Jones [01:18:43] Yeah. And so anyways, we find out that they had created this activity that would exclude our son's group specifically so that their. Their other son, not the perpetrator, but their other son that was not supposed to be attending church with our family, you know, could go. And so then I call up the stake president. I'm like, hey, what the hell? Like, what's the deal?
Ashley Jones [01:19:10] They're supposed to move them to a new one.
Jared Jones [01:19:12] He's like, oh, no. Like, that activity was planned way before, and it was never meant for all of the boys.
Ashley Jones [01:19:19] Well, we find out from another mom whose husband was in war or the meetings to plan this. They had planned this event, a special event, just so this kid could come and have an activity.
Jared Jones [01:19:32] Yeah. Because he was bummed. And I'm gonna acknowledge that this is a hard thing for this siblings.
Ashley Jones [01:19:38] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:19:39] Like, I get it. It was hard for us too. Like, we didn't like it. Nobody was enjoying what was going on. But my kids didn't need to be put in a situation every time that they saw this kid's brother like that. Oh, like, we missed you. It's so hard, you know, like, people
Ashley Jones [01:19:57] were fawning all over their family all the time.
Jared Jones [01:20:00] It was, it was a lot. And so we just said, this is inappropriate and it needs to stop. And so there was a lot of pressure on us to, okay, will you allow this one thing, like so much
Ashley Jones [01:20:11] trying to negotiate with us. And so we're done with this.
Jared Jones [01:20:14] Like, so anyways, that, that's kind of how that played out. So.
Ashley Jones [01:20:17] But that summer they did eventually they were trying to find a ward to put them in and we didn't want to see him at any stake activities. And stake changes were probably coming up. And so they put them. How do you put, like the state president told Jared, like, we're going to put them in a ward that right now technically is still in our stake, but probably pretty soon won't be. So it won't be a problem. Right.
Jared Jones [01:20:45] I can't tell you anything because, you know, they're super secretive about when stake changes are going to happen and whatnot. And so he couldn't tell me that they were going to be in another state.
Ashley Jones [01:20:58] We would be fine with it in a few months, basically. Ish.
Jared Jones [01:21:03] So they put him in this ward. The wards doesn't like it. And so what they do to placate,
Ashley Jones [01:21:11] because lots of people in that ward, I mean, wood gets around. Like, why is this kid, who they know is molesting kids? Why are they moving them to our ward? Like, we. He doesn't live in our boundaries.
Jared Jones [01:21:22] How do we get the honor?
Ashley Jones [01:21:24] Yeah, like, and so they, you know, the bishop and the state president, I'm sure higher up, they got a lot of crap. And they're like, why, why should we have to worry about this kid in our ward?
Jared Jones [01:21:35] So they hold a special second hour meeting or the last part of what's like Sunday school. Sunday school or whatever with all the adults where they give dad a forum to talk about what had gone on.
Ashley Jones [01:21:53] So the whole state presidency is there. The whole bishopric is there. The area authority is there. Comes. I mean, have you ever heard of an area authority coming to a second hour Sunday school meeting? Like, and so they let.
John Dehlin [01:22:05] Wait to let the dad of the perpetrator talk. Like emotionally process with the war.
Ashley Jones [01:22:12] Like, give them like, comfort that it's, it's fine that he's here.
John Dehlin [01:22:15] Is he wealthy? Is he connected to a general authority? Like, no. How's his family got so much power?
Jared Jones [01:22:22] I mean, I. Look, I, I don't actually think it's about the family. Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:22:26] It's just about the church not wanting to be wrong. And so they're just gonna back this the whole time. They can't back off it. They can't be wrong at this point, so they can't allow anything right to happen.
John Dehlin [01:22:36] This sounds ridiculous.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:37] It does.
Jared Jones [01:22:38] It was pretty wild. And so I heard this from somebody that was in the ward. Like they texted me, People tell us,
Ashley Jones [01:22:45] I mean, word gets around.
Stake President's Conduct and Attempts at Concealment
Jared Jones [01:22:46] Like they texted me directly after it happened. And so instead of just like I've learned at this point through this process to not just trust whatever gets said
Ashley Jones [01:22:58] because, you know, people misunder interpreted things or they want to kind of be gossipy. And you hear and they're like, sometimes it's half true.
Jared Jones [01:23:05] And so I called the stake president and say, okay, here's, here's what I was just told. I want you to verify this with me. Because this doesn't sound right. I said I was told that the area authority was there, the full stake presidency was there and the bishopric was there in this meeting. And that you guys let the father of the perpetrator stand up and essentially diminish the abuse.
Ashley Jones [01:23:28] He said that my daughter or my son, only thing he got like convicted for was touching a girl on her boobs and her butt, her chest and her bottom. Yeah, but even still, like, why would you allow someone to even say that in a, in a Sunday school meeting? Like that's not appropriate anyways, which is. It's a lie. That's all you know, like it doesn't.
Jared Jones [01:23:50] So it's partially true. Like that that was what he got
Ashley Jones [01:23:53] convicted for because they didn't press charges for any of the toddlers. But they'll allow him to say that to a whole ward.
Jared Jones [01:24:01] But that was not the. So the, the weird hard thing with the way that this kind of stuff works is like, first of all, you get a plead out, right? Like that you get to make deals with the da like that's how this goes. Then the second part of that is when like there's only so much that they're going to throw at you and so much that they're going to corroborate. And so at the end of the day, we are not able to see
Ashley Jones [01:24:33] the police report because he was only 13 and in California you can kill somebody and if you're under 15, you get six months probation. So that's all that this kid got. If it was another state, he would be.
Jared Jones [01:24:46] And he'd be in Juvia. Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:24:48] And so they only, they didn't. Yeah, they didn't prosecute for any of the three year olds because they couldn't cooperate. HISTORIA so there.
Jared Jones [01:24:54] And there's a lot more. There's a lot more that happened to the victims than that. But the point is, what. What they're trying to do in this meeting is basically say, like, hey, everybody is overreacting.
Ashley Jones [01:25:08] Your kids are totally safe. He's being watched.
Jared Jones [01:25:12] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:25:12] And the fake president did not deny any of this. He's like, yeah, that's exactly what happened.
Jared Jones [01:25:16] So, yeah, when I talked to him, he's like, well, that. That is what happened.
Ashley Jones [01:25:20] That's what we let. That's what he said. Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:25:22] And it's like, well, you know that he confessed X, Y, and Z. And you know that victim A has shared.
Ashley Jones [01:25:33] She's. She's old enough to talk all these
Jared Jones [01:25:35] other items that happened, like, which are substantially more egregious than, you know, what you're trying to diminish it to. And so I was like, you know, these things. He's like, well, he's like, have you seen the police report? And it's like, no. Like, you know, we can't.
Ashley Jones [01:25:57] They won't give us.
Jared Jones [01:25:58] Well, I haven't either, so how am I supposed to refute anything that he says? It's like, oh, that's an interesting statement there, buddy.
Ashley Jones [01:26:06] Like, or you cannot give him a forum to talk. Like, it's not that hard.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:09] Like, just.
Jared Jones [01:26:10] It's like, you know, that he has confessed more to you.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:13] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:26:14] And so it's like trying to use this narrative that you. Since you don't have any proof in writing, that there's more done or said, and that all you're trying to do is lull these people in the sense of carnal security. Right. Like, I had to spin a little gospel phrase for him, but, I mean, like, all you're trying to do is pacify these people.
Ashley Jones [01:26:37] And there. There are real concerns here.
Jared Jones [01:26:40] Right. And so I was like, molestation can take place in seconds. Like, the definition of molestation is any unwanted act that gives gratification to the perpetrator. So it can be touching somebody's toe, if that's doing something for the perpetrator. Like, it was not invited, it was not wanted, it was not consensual. And so.
John Dehlin [01:27:08] And by the way, children can't give consent.
Ashley Jones [01:27:09] Right.
John Dehlin [01:27:10] Even if they're like, I want you to do it, they're not able to give consent. So it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Ashley Jones [01:27:17] And by his own admission, he did do all these things. Like.
Jared Jones [01:27:21] Right. And so, like, as I'm going through this, it's like, even to the perspective of, like, if he's wrestling with these other kids, like, whether he confesses to it or not, he's told us that there's gratification for him in wrestling with kids. Like, that's how he does his thing. So in my mind, like, you know that there's actually 20 more victims. Right. You guys may not be willing to say or admit that you want to say that nothing happened at church, but he wrestles at church, he plays hide and seek at church. Like, we know these things. But instead of. And he was very clear also when he got up to say that nothing had happened at church like the father
Ashley Jones [01:28:02] did, Everyone was very. Always wanted to throw that phrase out all the time. Just so you guys know, nothing. Nothing happened to church.
Jared Jones [01:28:09] Like, very important. So I wonder how that happened.
Ashley Jones [01:28:13] Ended up calling the area authority that was there.
Jared Jones [01:28:18] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:28:18] And because we didn't realize until a little bit later that there was an area authority at that meeting.
Jared Jones [01:28:24] So I do call the new area authority. So that was at that meeting, but he was not the area authority that had sent us that email. They just. It was a new one they had just gotten.
Ashley Jones [01:28:35] And it wasn't him that was there. It was like a counselor or something.
Jared Jones [01:28:38] No, it was him.
Ashley Jones [01:28:39] Was it?
Jared Jones [01:28:40] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:28:40] It's almost like he was called to go clean up the message.
Ashley Jones [01:28:43] Maybe that's possible.
Jared Jones [01:28:45] But as soon as I talk to him, he's like, okay, well, I didn't know any of that. Yeah, that seems very inappropriate. So sorry.
Ashley Jones [01:28:52] Getting their information from the state president. So they don't. They haven't actually really investigated this. They're just doing whatever the state president is telling them that they should do. So that's information they have. So of course they're going to do the same thing. I mean, they don't have any. They're not actually looking into this.
Jared Jones [01:29:08] Right.
Ashley Jones [01:29:09] So they had. They had a few families, at least, from that new ward, who either left entirely or moved the record somewhere else because they didn't want their kids around him.
Jared Jones [01:29:18] Right. And so. And in that process, there were. There were some anonymous letters that went out, and there were emails and things like. Or not emails, but there I. There were some things that went out, got mailed, certain people. Um, and I think there were, you know, basically just members who didn't want
Ashley Jones [01:29:44] to speak out loud, but knew something was wrong and wanted to alert people of lies.
Jared Jones [01:29:49] And so we got contacted multiple times over, multiple things, saying that we're doing all these things, taking these secret, hidden actions, which is frustrating at the same Time I'm like, okay, kind of glad
Ashley Jones [01:30:02] someone's people are doing stuff.
Jared Jones [01:30:04] We were glad that that was happening. At the same time, we were getting
Ashley Jones [01:30:06] blamed for all of it.
Jared Jones [01:30:07] We're like, hey, at what point have we not been willing to stand up and be public and be public? Like, so you think we're the only
Ashley Jones [01:30:15] ones mad about this?
Jared Jones [01:30:16] Yeah. So please, please stop calling us with every accusation, because, like, we have no problem stepping up and saying names.
Ashley Jones [01:30:24] We don't need to be a secret.
John Dehlin [01:30:25] Just to be clear. So ward members or stake members or leaders are gossiping about you guys?
Margi Dehlin [01:30:31] No.
Ashley Jones [01:30:31] Like, they had sent letters, like, entire wards saying that stuff they told you in your meeting, that was a lie.
John Dehlin [01:30:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
Ashley Jones [01:30:40] So undermining you happened a couple.
Jared Jones [01:30:42] No, no. Undermining the stake.
Margi Dehlin [01:30:44] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:30:45] Like saying, like, whistleblowers, kind of like, they're like, oh, the stuff that, like. Like to this ward, like, these stake leaders or whatever came to your ward, they lied to you.
John Dehlin [01:30:53] Oh, so other people who are kind of on your side.
Jared Jones [01:30:55] Yeah, yeah. And so then. But every time something like that happens,
Ashley Jones [01:30:59] a few little things happen like that that we'd hear about later, and we're super grateful.
Jared Jones [01:31:03] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:31:04] But we did get blamed for all of it.
Jared Jones [01:31:06] Well, and then. So, like, it's just like, okay, we are at this point being, like, the most vocal out of. Well, I mean, yeah, basically out of the people. And it's just like, hey, we don't have a problem standing up and saying what we need to say, so let's just stop pointing fingers. Like, let's just acknowledge what the stake and the ward needs to own, and let's just move on.
Ashley Jones [01:31:30] Well, and then we had gone. Anonymous. Anonymous letter.
Jared Jones [01:31:33] Yeah. Yeah. And so we got an anonymous letter telling us that while church was being held at our house, that two,
Ashley Jones [01:31:45] like, their kid witnessed, witness that perpetrator putting their hands down these little boys pants.
Jared Jones [01:31:54] Two of them.
Ashley Jones [01:31:55] Two of them.
Jared Jones [01:31:56] And then one of those boys, one of the other potential victims, their family received a letter because they told us about it. Right. Seeing that this person that witnessed it was also another victim of this perpetrator. So now we know about nine.
Ashley Jones [01:32:18] So they named the two kids. We have the names of the two kids, but we don't know who sent it or whose kid.
Jared Jones [01:32:26] And so at this point, like, we received the awareness around these letters, and we receive awareness around the other family's
Ashley Jones [01:32:37] letter first because they got it in the mail first. And they called us and they knew, like, hey, we got this about this kid. And apparently, someone saw him doing something to our son in your backyard.
Jared Jones [01:32:47] And so as I find out about that, I'm like, I'm on the phone with my buddy who is telling me about this, and I'm literally going down to my mailbox, which our driveway is like 1900ft long. So I've got a. It's a hike to get down there. So I'm going down to check out and see if we have a letter in the mailbox, too, because I figure, like, it's a possibility. We don't know because we have another
Ashley Jones [01:33:15] child who is a year older than her.
Jared Jones [01:33:17] We know that there's another victim. At this point, we don't know who it is, so we don't know if it's another one of our kids. And so I'm going down.
Ashley Jones [01:33:24] Very possible because he was playing with both kids, apparently at the same time. We don't know exactly what happened.
Jared Jones [01:33:29] So I'm going down to check this out. It's not there. And so, you know, my buddy who. Who's telling me about this knows, like, I'm really trying to figure this out. And then the next day, we get a letter. Well, we get this letter, and I talk to the stake president.
Ashley Jones [01:33:47] Well, it didn't. It didn't say to our kid. It said that that happened at our house, and that's why they were telling us.
Jared Jones [01:33:52] Right.
Ashley Jones [01:33:53] And it gave a couple of names.
Jared Jones [01:33:55] The letter that went to the other family only named their kid and said that there was an additional victim. And so that's why I was going down the driveway to see if that additional victim was our child.
Ashley Jones [01:34:06] Right. So the next day we got a letter in the mail just saying that there were victims.
Jared Jones [01:34:10] And it named the two victims.
Ashley Jones [01:34:12] Yeah, well, not our kids, but two other people in the ward.
Jared Jones [01:34:16] The letter is addressed to us, and it's saying, hey, there were these two victims. We felt like you should know because it happened on your property after. After church. And so anyways, I. I call and talk to the stake president at this
Ashley Jones [01:34:29] point, and there's only so many families that came to church during COVID at our backyard. So there's not that many people to
Jared Jones [01:34:37] choose from that could have written the letter.
Ashley Jones [01:34:39] And. Yeah, who had little. And then even who had little kids there. There wasn't that many.
Jared Jones [01:34:43] So, you know, we do know that it's one of 10 families like that had kids that would have been there. And so I want to find out who it is, because I'm not. I don't want to out anybody. Like, if they want to remain anonymous. That's fine with me.
Ashley Jones [01:34:57] But the more. The more victims that are actually confirmed, the more maybe we'll go against this kid, like, the more legal action or.
Jared Jones [01:35:05] Right. So I want to corroborate. And so I'm trying to figure out who it was. And as I'm talking to stake president, well, the first thing that he says is like, well, I'm more concerned. He says, like, I understand where you're trying to find, you know, who. Who did this. And he's like, but I'm more concerned about the. Whoever sent out. There was a letter that went out a couple weeks before that said something negative about him to the other ward, the stake president to the other ward saying that he had lied. And so.
Ashley Jones [01:35:44] So he was more concerned about finding out who wrote the letter, calling him a liar to that ward than who is right where their victims are.
Jared Jones [01:35:51] And, yeah, he's like, I would prefer that you help me figure out who's doing that over who wrote this anonymous letter. It's like, what? Like, why would you say that? Why would you care more about that than about whose victims like, and it's like, in the letter that went out was actually true. He's like, well, no, it's not. I didn't lie. And I was like, you absolutely did not tell the truth in this thing, you know? And he's like, well, that's not the way I say. And I'm like, dude, whatever. I said, I'm just trying to figure out, like, who it is that was assaulted, that witnessed somebody being assaulted on my property while you guys were holding church at my house.
Jared Jones [01:36:35] And he's like, oh, okay. Well, you know, and kind of I said, look, I'll call you back after I've talked these additional families. And I went around and I knocked on people's doors and I talked to them face to face, and whoever it was did not feel like coming forward and didn't want to talk about it. And that's. It's totally their right. But at least I was going to reach out and say, hey, in anonymity, you're still welcome to share this with
Ashley Jones [01:37:03] me or go to the police yourself and no one has to know. Yeah, but also, our friend who got a letter saying that his son was a victim had talked to the state president about it. And the state president told him, like, you don't need to worry about it, and this is probably fake.
Jared Jones [01:37:18] And so when I talked to the state president after the fact and told him, like, hey, I've talked To all of these families, here's what. What they've said. So, you know, I don't know that we're going to be able to figure this out. And I was like, but I think it's important.
Jared Jones [01:37:35] And he's like, you know, Jared, how do I know that you're not the one that wrote the letter yourself? And I was like, if that is what you think of me and you don't know me at all, it's like, how do you not understand the amount of pain that has been caused to my family over my children or over my child being abused? And over this whole situation, like, to think that I would, like, do that kind of thing to implicate the Church is insanity. And this is a person that I've done a very significant amount of business with, that we have had a very close financial relationship, one where, anyways, there was a very good relationship of trust, at least on that respect.
Jared Jones [01:38:37] And so I'm like, I. What you're saying to me makes no sense at all. Like, why would you say that? And he's like, well, you know, I'm not saying you did it. I'm just. And I'm like, dude, we're good, we're done. And so I have to say that
John Dehlin [01:38:54] I've often, I've tried to kind of understand what the Church's values are, what they care about most. And I have concluded that based on their actions of the past 30 to 50 years, what's most sacred to the Church is their authority. That their authority is respected and believed in and obeyed. That's the most sacred treasure of Mormon Church leadership. And so that's why what this really came down to is who's criticizing the Church and its leaders?
Jared Jones [01:39:32] Yeah, right. Right, for sure.
Ashley Jones [01:39:35] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:39:36] I also see sometimes in this dynamic that you're having with people, you know, the person's kind of putting it on you, like, maybe you wrote the letter and like, at face value, it looks like trust, but it. It feels like what they're really doing,
Ashley Jones [01:39:51] and like, I'm thinking of your ward
Margi Dehlin [01:39:53] members, too, is just protecting their own sense of safety in their world. So it's like, instead of actually holding that, the reality is that people are being harmed, like, actively in my environment in a way that's really terrifying. I'm going to put it on you and say, wait, are you making it up? Because. Or everything's okay, everything's okay, We've got it contained, things are fine. And those people that, like, really jumped to that, it's. It's this Effort to kind of say, see, I am safe. No, I'm safe, though. And they'd rather have the lie of that or believe a lie than a reality that's actually much more complicated and more like, threatening and sad and truly, like, sad to hold. And the ch. The children are the cost to that. Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:40:45] Yeah. And around that time, I think, is when we had a lot of chatter around our ward, I guess. So we. The perpetrator's father was the principal at the high school that our older kids went to and that most of the ward members went to. And so throughout this time.
John Dehlin [01:41:10] That's a lot of influence.
Ashley Jones [01:41:11] Yeah, yeah. He had. Had. Was kind of not harassing our kids at school, but would kind of make like
Jared Jones [01:41:22] he would. Yeah, he'd be like.
Ashley Jones [01:41:24] Like, you know, like, we had already talked to the district just because we wanted them to be aware of what's going on. And he had been instructed not to talk to our kids at all. And our kids are good kids. They don't. They don't go to the principal's office, so there's no reason for him to ever see our kids. But, like, I would see when I dropped off at school, like, they'd walk in and he'd, like, dramatically, like. Like, not like, just super weird. And eventually they were kind of causing us enough problems that. And they had. The victim's parents had been writing letters, like, emails to us and one of the other victims just, like, trying to, like, get us to forgive.
Ashley Jones [01:42:01] And like, your toddlers are so young, they won't remember anyways, like, in writing from both of them. And, like, conferences. We just. We just heard general conference, like, we heard this talk about forgiveness. I hoped that in watching this, they were watching, too, and they would feel it in their hearts to forgive us. And so eventually this just got to be a lot with people talking in our ward and just a lot. So Jared had taken. We printed out all these emails because his name is on them and he's in charge of kids at school. Like, he's a principal.
Jared Jones [01:42:35] So lots of diminish. Diminishment of abuse.
Ashley Jones [01:42:38] But they had this all in writing.
Jared Jones [01:42:39] Right.
Ashley Jones [01:42:40] Which was not.
Jared Jones [01:42:41] And pressure for us to back off. To back off and to let their kid live his life and to not drag his name through the mud and all this different stuff. And multiple times in the letters like, that your daughter is not going to remember, you know, and so.
Ashley Jones [01:42:59] And so the. The mother is a teacher as well. They both work with children, I guess as a side. She was a charter school teacher. And was going to kids houses to homeschool them. And she would bring this child with him to play with the younger kids while she was teaching the older kids. The school did not care about that. So, you know.
Jared Jones [01:43:21] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:43:21] I mean, they just said she wasn't. You know, we don't know what was going on.
Jared Jones [01:43:26] Right. I mean, everybody.
Ashley Jones [01:43:28] Everyone wants to push off.
Jared Jones [01:43:29] Everyone wants the cya. Right. Like, that's so.
Ashley Jones [01:43:33] So Jared had taken these letters in text. So they attacked us. So we're super inappropriate for like a person in charge of kids to be writing, like, specifically our kids. Yeah. And so he went down to like HR at the district and said, hey, this is what's going on like this.
Jared Jones [01:43:51] And we need something to happen. We. We need you to propose a solution to us that our kids never have to see. Our kids don't have to see him at school. Like, there needs to be some way we can figure this out with you guys.
Ashley Jones [01:44:03] I mean, the stuff in the emails, like, if they had gone out, like, really public would make a principal district look not good. Not good.
Jared Jones [01:44:13] Yep. And so the bottom line is we get an email, like, like a mass
Ashley Jones [01:44:19] high school email saying that he had been promoted to a district job and they were having an interim principal start the square off.
John Dehlin [01:44:26] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:44:27] And so this was like a few days before the school year started.
Ashley Jones [01:44:29] Right before. And the people at our ward were pretty mad about it at us.
Jared Jones [01:44:35] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [01:44:35] They love having, you know, they're in at the school and then they would like, passive aggressively tell our, like our high school kids, like, oh, it was so nice to know the principal. And you guys, like, now I don't even know the principal at school. And like, just dumb. Like, what does this have to do with.
Jared Jones [01:44:53] Plenty of shame for us.
John Dehlin [01:44:54] So we ended up retaliation.
Margi Dehlin [01:44:57] So.
Jared Jones [01:44:58] So that. That had happened. That was negative. And then right after that is when this letter thing happens.
Ashley Jones [01:45:03] Oh, yes.
Jared Jones [01:45:04] And so I'm talking.
Ashley Jones [01:45:06] I think in between that, we ended up moving our records to.
Margi Dehlin [01:45:08] To a new ward.
Jared Jones [01:45:09] We did not.
Ashley Jones [01:45:09] That was right before the letter. No. Okay.
Jared Jones [01:45:11] That we started attending the other ward, but it was on a temporary basis. Like, we're like, you know what, we're going to take a few weeks away.
Ashley Jones [01:45:19] Because at that time, like, not going to church wasn't really an option.
Jared Jones [01:45:23] Like, no.
Ashley Jones [01:45:24] So we're like, we need to go somewhere. And then it turns out they're happy to let us go somewhere else to get us out of their hair.
Jared Jones [01:45:30] So we start attending another ward. But we haven't moved our records and
Ashley Jones [01:45:33] we had it was going to be like a three or six month break or less. Yeah, we didn't. Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:45:39] So then this thing goes on with the letter coming to our house, and I'm talking to the stick president. He's like, how do I know you didn't write it? And then I was like, you know, you know, shot back. And at the end of that conversation, he's like, however, there is something that you can help me with, though. He's like, you know, if you could talk to Ashley because she's out messaging people online in their new ward, you know, saying negative things about them.
Ashley Jones [01:46:07] Which is funny because I literally didn't know anybody in that other ward. Like, I was like, I was like racking my brain, like, if I ever message anybody in that ward. And like, I was looking and I was like, I. I just don't. I don't know what he's talking about. And so even if I did, I can message anybody I want. But.
Jared Jones [01:46:23] Well, so my point to that was I was like, well, that's interesting because typically Ashley would tell me if she was going to do something like that. But I was like, you could be right. Like, I could not know. But I. I don't think that you're right. It's like. But I will check. I'll talk to Ashley and I'll ask her now. At that point, like, Jared of today would be like, okay, great hope. Hopefully she did. Like, hopefully she did message people, like, pound sand, move on. Like, but that's not where I was like, faithful believing Jared was like, hey, man, you gotta. You got to make sure that at least if we are doing something that's adverse to the church, like, it was intentional.
Jared Jones [01:47:02] And like, I wanted at least make sure we're on the same page as to what's going on. So I verify with Ashley and I tell her. I'm like, hey, if you message somebody, no sweat. Like, absolutely, we should do whatever we feel.
Jared Jones [01:47:16] But she's like, no, I didn't. And so I messaged him back. I'm like, hey, buddy. Ashley just told me that that's not the case. She's not private messaging people in the ward. She said, like, she doesn't even know anybody over there. Like, she's not.
Ashley Jones [01:47:30] Like, I wasn't Facebook friends or anything with anybody in that ward.
Jared Jones [01:47:33] So I replied that back to him. And pretty quickly he comes back and he's like, no, I saw the messages
Ashley Jones [01:47:40] Bishop showed me or something.
Jared Jones [01:47:42] No, no, that's not what he said. And I. It's important to, To Clarify that, because what he originally started with is that she was messaging a few people in the ward. That's. He used that word carefully. Few, Right. And so that means multiple. And that's. It's an important part of this story. And so then he comes back and he's like, no, I have seen the messages myself. I was like, okay, so I'm Go back to Ashley. I'm like, hey, this is what he said.
Ashley Jones [01:48:12] Like, I'm like, here, go through my phone, like, just to.
Jared Jones [01:48:14] Like, I said, I want to make sure, like, because he's very confident. And so then I message him back after she re. Verifies with me. Like. Like, I'm feeling like I'm crazy here a little bit. And, like, I absolutely think that's part of the intent of what's going on here.
Jared Jones [01:48:36] But I re. Verify. And I'm like, look, buddy, this would be the second time or maybe this time, but, no, this would be the third time. It's like, you better get your ducks in a row. You better shoot me over the screenshots if you're going to be accusing Ashley of lying. Because actually, at this point, he had already accused her in writing of lying before, twice.
Jared Jones [01:49:01] And so I said, so you need to send me the screenshot. And he's like, well, I have to get permission from the person or the. From the people is what he said. Let me get back to you. And so the next morning. This is Saturday, I think. Yeah. Next morning I messaged him.
Ashley Jones [01:49:18] It was like, Sunday morning, I think.
Jared Jones [01:49:19] Yeah. And I'm like, hey, what the hell? Like, where are these messages? Like, either it did happen or it didn't. You can black out people's name. I don't care. Show me what she did. And then he gets back to me when we're walking into church, and his message was like. It appears as if the messages have been deleted.
Ashley Jones [01:49:44] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:49:45] And I was like, okay. So my little brother, I call him up because I'm pissed off. He's a private investigator.
Ashley Jones [01:49:53] He's on the High Council.
Jared Jones [01:49:54] He's on the High Council with this guy. And I'm like, dude, you need to just tell him to stop contacting me.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:00] Because he kept.
Ashley Jones [01:50:01] He kept trying to contact Jared to get him to, like, talk sense. Talk sense to his wife, basically.
Jared Jones [01:50:07] And so, like, at this point, I realized that he had lied to me. Like. And so then my brother talks to him on. On the phone, and he's like, okay, well, actually, what really happened is that there's some member of the ward that approached the bishop and showed this bishop a screenshot or something in her Instagram from Ashley, and it said her name on it. And when she went back to look at it, the account was deleted. So, yeah, important note to make. It was one person. The stake president hadn't seen it, and it was the bishop that had seen it, I guess.
John Dehlin [01:50:54] And so this is something way too familiar.
Jared Jones [01:50:57] Right. And so then what ends up happening, though, is they're like. But when she went back to look at her message, the account was deleted.
Ashley Jones [01:51:05] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:51:05] I'm like, okay, so this makes a lot of sense. Ashley created a second account with her own name on it on Instagram, which she already has an Instagram account with her name on it. Like, why would she do that?
Ashley Jones [01:51:16] Well, I mean, I.
Jared Jones [01:51:17] And then deleted.
Ashley Jones [01:51:18] I can message whoever I want about this, too. Like, you're.
Margi Dehlin [01:51:22] You have a very upfront style.
John Dehlin [01:51:24] Right.
Margi Dehlin [01:51:25] Like, you would try.
Ashley Jones [01:51:26] Even if you're accusing me of this, like, who cares? What does it say? Present are you going to do to me? Like.
Jared Jones [01:51:31] But yeah, so it goes from. He's. He's had multiple people say that they've been messaged. Now it's one person, and he's seen the messages. Then. Now it's one person and he hasn't seen it, but the bishop saw it,
Ashley Jones [01:51:47] and then the account's gone, and then
Jared Jones [01:51:48] the account was deleted.
Ashley Jones [01:51:49] I think that day is the day that we officially.
Jared Jones [01:51:51] So that day was the day that we're like, okay, move our records. Like, we're done. We're not. We're not playing with you guys anymore. Like, this is over. But it was probably about two months before that, though, maybe three months, where there was a message that got forwarded to Ashley.
Ashley Jones [01:52:11] Oh, no, this was during state conference that spring.
Jared Jones [01:52:15] Okay. So a few months before.
Ashley Jones [01:52:17] Yes. So I've been a couple months, probably, I don't know, after, like, the initial stuff. And at our ward conference. So this is earlier that year, we're kind of bouncing around.
Jared Jones [01:52:28] That's fine.
Ashley Jones [01:52:30] The. The two counselors of the Sikh presidency were there, and so that was the first time they were hearing about any of this. The two counselors in the stake presidency and my parents and his parents both kind of like, approached them in the halls. It's like, hey, can you guys, like, help us out with this? Like, do you guys understand what's going on? Like, my parents, my mom was like, crying to him, like, hey. Like, this is so unfair. Like, they had no idea about anything. And so they had kind of approached her and me for a second. Like, hey, like, can you guys. Can you like, give me a rundown of what's going on?
Ashley Jones [01:53:02] Because we're not. We're not really hearing anything. And so I had emailed both counselors who were both, I mean, friends. Ish. Like, they're not close, but I mean, we know them. And I had sent them both an email together, just a really quick synopsis of everything that had gone on, what the church had done, all this stuff. And they both had emailing back, like, oh, we're so sorry. Like, if there's anything, I'm due. Like. And then later that day, I see an email from the stake president to these two counselors, an email that was accidentally forwarded to me by somebody. Accidentally. I don't know if it was on purpose or not or what.
Jared Jones [01:53:40] Well, you can't accidentally forward something to somebody that wasn't.
Ashley Jones [01:53:43] They had obviously forward this email and their responses to the stake president who was purposely not on the email. And he had emailed them back saying that Ashley is lying about these things and what else? I don't even.
Jared Jones [01:53:57] Well, I mean, basically he's like, but we need to be empathetic. And so he said, she's not. What he said is, she's not telling the truth, but we need to be empathetic, you know, to their situation. And so that was it.
John Dehlin [01:54:12] But then.
Ashley Jones [01:54:12] But then I got that email, the
Jared Jones [01:54:14] counselor and the stake presidency forwarded that to us. And so that was the point where I was the elders quorum president and I deal directly as the elders Quorum president with my bishop and with the stake president, like, and so for me, like, I was still full believing at this point. And like, I wanted to do whatever I could to stop interacting with these guys. And so I sent an email back, like, hey, guys, all of them probably should, like, not joking at all here. You guys probably should figure out how to work your emails so that this doesn't happen again, but you guys need to leave us alone on this.
Jared Jones [01:54:58] And I said, but also, I want you to consider this my resignation as the elders Quorum president. I'm like, I'm not going to continue to deal with you guys. And so that was it. That's what I. What I emailed over. And that was a huge deal for me. Like, you do not quit your calling. Like, but I also acknowledge for my own mental sanity that I was not going to continue to show up and talk about the problems of other families and figure out how we can help everybody else while my family is being railroaded, while my Family is being mistreated. And so, like, I just, I couldn't continue to do it and, you know, continue to have respect for these people when I knew what their.
Jared Jones [01:55:51] What their actions were in the way that they were dealing and treating us. And so as that was the case, you know, I told them that I resigned. And. And then after that. So the first time that he called my wife a liar is in this email, really, that comes from the area authority. Right. So that's in writing, saying that she wasn't telling the truth. And then the state president really defends the narrative on that in his response to the other father. The second time now was this email. And then the third time is this text thing where he's saying that my wife is being dishonest with me, you know, and.
Jared Jones [01:56:35] And he did tell me that. He said, I don't know why she's not telling you the truth, but, like, this is what happened. I have seen it with my own eyes. So. And then, you know, obviously he was lying about that. And so at that point, we're like, okay, yeah, we're done with this stake.
Ashley Jones [01:56:52] Like, so technically, the ward we moved into isn't. Was in a totally different stake. And then that was like, almost November when they're about to have state conference. And we. We knew that they were going to change the state boundaries because of what they told us about where they're. What ward they're putting them in. And I was still getting like, a lot of people who had messaged me and be like, hey, like, is this stuff true? Like, I hear this or does, you know, the bishop? Do I say that? And so finally, like, the weekend of state conference, I decided to just put it into all. Lots of speculation. And I started making posts of texts and emails from bishops, stake presidents, area authorities, the parents to us, making different. Just different posts about different things that happened. Just making it very clear and very public. And.
Jared Jones [01:57:53] And that was all. It's all on Facebook. I mean, she made those posts public. So people.
Ashley Jones [01:57:58] Yeah, and I know, I've heard, like my siblings and other people have heard from people that are even on the High Council who are like, this is not what we were told. Like, this was not the narrative the stake president told us in our meetings. The stake had been dissolved that weekend. So that's why I did it then. Just because I knew that.
Jared Jones [01:58:15] What?
John Dehlin [01:58:16] Yeah, the stake.
Ashley Jones [01:58:18] Yeah, so we knew that was kind of going to happen because of where they put him in the.
John Dehlin [01:58:21] They dissolved the state. Yeah, that's what they do. That they'll dissolve an entire stake as a way to.
Ashley Jones [01:58:28] And they say it wasn't because of this, but. But I'm. I think it probably was expedited.
John Dehlin [01:58:33] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:58:33] Yeah. I mean, but we don't. There have been talks about changing boundaries and dissolving the state for like seven years. And then, you know, we look, we have a lot of friends and family that are in the state connected. And so we got stuff. We knew exactly what the boundaries were going to be. We like, we knew all the stuff beforehand.
Ashley Jones [01:58:57] So I decided that would be a good time to do it.
Jared Jones [01:59:00] Yeah. And so. But they. We believe that the stake disbandment was expedited based off of this situation because it was getting.
Ashley Jones [01:59:09] It was getting pretty bad.
Jared Jones [01:59:11] Some publicity.
Ashley Jones [01:59:12] Yeah.
Jared Jones [01:59:12] And so anyways, like.
Ashley Jones [01:59:14] And also in writing these posts I got lots of people had kind of responded. Like some like a previous. A lady from Our Word who never wasn't even active. She had gotten a call from somebody saying that they had asked her to come, like testify in like a church thing and say how that this kid was like a good kid, like, like she was a scout leader like a long time ago. It was just super weird. So people, they're, they're, they're trying to get people witnesses to do something.
Jared Jones [01:59:48] Yeah. I mean, basically just to say that he's a good kid.
Ashley Jones [01:59:53] I don't know what they're playing.
Jared Jones [01:59:53] She's like, no, absolutely, I will not do that because that is not the case.
Ashley Jones [01:59:57] Ye.
Jared Jones [01:59:58] Like, like that wasn't my experience.
Ashley Jones [01:59:59] But we've heard from a couple people that have been like, yeah, some random anonymous person called me that said they're from the church. That's all they said. And they asked if I would like be like a character witness. Those kids.
Jared Jones [02:00:12] And so, I mean, just super weird
Ashley Jones [02:00:14] things we heard after posting stuff like
Jared Jones [02:00:15] there's lots and lots of stuff that goes on. Like there's honestly, like there's 20 more incidents like that. We won't belabor the point on. But at the end of the day, like, we moved wards like, and the stake was disbanded. And so we ended up being in the same stake as the previous ward
Ashley Jones [02:00:39] as supposed to be in.
Jared Jones [02:00:40] Right. As the war that we were in. But the ward that they had moved to was in the neighboring. Was in the neighboring state.
Ashley Jones [02:00:46] So it did work out how they had, you know.
Margi Dehlin [02:00:48] Right.
John Dehlin [02:00:49] They were in a different state.
Ashley Jones [02:00:50] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:00:50] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:00:51] What it really amounts to for me is that your child was abused and the church did everything they could to hide it. The Mormon Church did everything they Could. To hide it, to cover it up. Yes. To protect the church and to protect the perpetrators and their families. And what you got in return was massive social punishment.
Jared Jones [02:01:12] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:01:12] And isolation. And you got your name smeared and dragged through the mud.
Jared Jones [02:01:16] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:01:17] As a result of your child being abused.
Ashley Jones [02:01:19] Yep.
Jared Jones [02:01:20] For sure. And so at about the point that we're moving wards, like, this was the point that I started doing soul searching. You know, this is probably October of 2021. And what I started figuring out, because a lot of people would send us messages about other stories that they saw that were similar or whatnot. And so I. Over a period of time, I watched a few Mormon Stories episodes.
Ashley Jones [02:01:55] Once you start, like, googling stuff and looking up stuff, you get the algorithm, the rhythms of, like, the right. You know, the abuse stories.
John Dehlin [02:02:02] And I'm wondering, did you guys ever hear about the Colby and Cam Reddish Mormon Stories episode?
Jared Jones [02:02:07] I didn't even watch that until, like, three months ago. So I did watch.
Ashley Jones [02:02:11] The first time I saw Mormon Stories was a clip that one of the other victims families sent me, and it was someone talking about the same thing. And I was like, jared, look, this is exactly what happened. And this is, like, super early on.
John Dehlin [02:02:22] You don't know. We did an episode about this a year or two ago with Colby and Cam Reddish where they just found out about abuse that was going on in their ward. And stake. Not. I'm. Colby's tuned in right now, and he's texting me a little bit. He's saying they didn't get it quite as bad as you guys, but it's a horrible story and basically the same thing. But this is in Idaho, right?
Jared Jones [02:02:46] Right.
John Dehlin [02:02:46] In, like, a suburb of. I think it's a suburb of Boise. Yeah, I forget. But, yeah, like, this is a systemic problem that is not just happening in two wards.
Ashley Jones [02:02:55] Yeah, I feel like we got a little more because we really pushed back a lot of levels at different times. So we, you know, probably not everyone would do that. And I kind of hate, like, to say this, but we, you know, we have a decent amount of privilege in the situation. And, like, lots of times when abuse happens, people don't have that. They don't have the social backing, I guess, or family or, like. I don't know how to say it. Like. Like, I feel so bad because, like, they would never know how to even push back.
Jared Jones [02:03:26] Well, and. And then also throughout this process, what we found is, is we had a lot. A lot of friends who came and shared their personal experience with us about their own abuse and how it was covered up. And I'm not saying like two or three people. I'm saying like 15, 20 people that we knew firsthand in our area. Even, like, yeah, I mean, it was a lot. And so we start figuring out, like, the narrative that the church has around this, how they deal with it, that this is not one off. We're. We're originally thinking, like, hey, this is just being mishandled.
Ashley Jones [02:04:06] We're like, if we do enough, like, we're gonna fix our situation, it could change.
Jared Jones [02:04:11] And I remember at beginning thinking, gosh, I know that the church cares about money now. At that time, I didn't know how much money they had or whatever. Like, um, but I was. And if I could, like, call up Salt Lake and say, hey, I'm going to give you a hundred thousand dollar donation, but I want an hour with the prophet. I just want to chat with him, you know, about what's going on. Maybe I could download to him what's going on and he could see the problem and we could fix this. You know, like, that's where my head was at. And I mean, because really, like, the prophet could not be a part of this problem.
Faith Crisis and Leaving the Church
Jared Jones [02:04:47] That wasn't. That was not an option to me. He couldn't know that these things were going on, be okay with it. Like, so obviously this was a local thing that was broken. And then over a period of months, I start to figure out that, no, this is the system that's set up, and the prophet is aware of this system, and he is the head of the system.
Ashley Jones [02:05:10] I was kind of, like, lots of times I was kind of sad about this because I'm like, we would do anything. Even if it's looking at, like, our local, like, leaders, like, we would do anything. We would donate money for anything they needed, offer anything they needed. Like, we'd show up, we would do everything. And it's like, really? Like, you're. This is what we get. Like, even just our local leaders, like, totally, Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:05:33] I mean, so our local leaders used us as a resource all the time for things, not. Not just financially, but to provide our house, to provide callings.
Ashley Jones [02:05:42] We. We did every. Anything.
Jared Jones [02:05:44] Like, yeah, any. Anything that we could consecra. And so the first item for me in a faith crisis surrounding this kind of where it started is I was like, okay, I know that this is now the policy. I understand that.
Jared Jones [02:06:02] And I understand that that thing does not come from God. God's not in charge of that. Like, God does not protect an institution over children. It's not an option. Like, even, you know, Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes is going through all of these things. Love thy neighbor, like, you know, turn the other cheek, all that kind of stuff. But even in that process, he talks about it would be better that a millstone be hung around their neck than to offend his little children. And so, like, in the most gracious, loving sermon that he gives, he still says, but don't f. With the little kids. Like, don't do that. That's the one thing that we stay away from. Right. So from that perspective, by the way,
John Dehlin [02:06:52] Jesus never said anything about LGBT individuals at all. Not a. Not a single thing.
Ashley Jones [02:06:58] Right.
John Dehlin [02:06:58] But what he did say is, don't mess with the children.
Jared Jones [02:07:01] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:07:01] And yet the church spends a gazillion dollars.
Jared Jones [02:07:05] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:07:06] And time, you know, fighting LGBTQ people.
Jared Jones [02:07:09] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:07:09] And yet they just inexplicably spend a ton of money in power protecting abusers.
Jared Jones [02:07:17] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:07:18] And dismissing and trying to silence and victims.
Jared Jones [02:07:23] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:07:24] It's inexplicable.
Jared Jones [02:07:25] It is. And so I'm starting to figure this out. Right. And so I'm starting to understand how the church deals on this thing and the narrative that surrounds that. And so over the next period, I've decided that, like, look, this is so painful to me and my family. I need to make sure, like, where I stand on this.
Ashley Jones [02:07:46] Should we talk about our new word only?
John Dehlin [02:07:50] Maybe it's just a high level.
Jared Jones [02:07:51] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [02:07:52] I mean, so I. We do have one more.
Jared Jones [02:07:56] Yeah. Guess you should share.
Ashley Jones [02:07:58] So we went to a new ward. We went there because our friends were there, and we just. We needed a place to go. And not. I don't remember how long it was after that. Somebody tipped off one of our kids, and they told us that there was somebody in the ward that was an abuser of kids. He'd never been prosecuted, but he had been released from a high calling. And so just, you know, just be aware of your kids.
John Dehlin [02:08:27] Oh, my gosh.
Ashley Jones [02:08:28] And this is in the new. We just come from a ward where we just, you know, had all this happen. And we get to a new ward and we hear this, and, you know, this guy had. He talks to all the kids in the ward. Like, he would sit in front of us and, like, turn around and talk to my little girl and be like, oh, what are you coloring? Like, all this stuff, you know? And so Jared calls a couple people just to kind of see, you know, this is a kid that told our kids, you know, we don't know what's going on, and we don't want to make Problems already. We just moved into this award. And so Jared calls a couple.
John Dehlin [02:09:00] You don't want this to all happen again. Yeah, right.
Ashley Jones [02:09:02] So Jared calls a couple of the buddies on the war that he knew from before, and they confirmed it. And, like, you know, it's somebody who.
Jared Jones [02:09:13] He had been subbing, like, he. As a music person in primary, he was not supposed to be around.
John Dehlin [02:09:20] He.
Ashley Jones [02:09:20] His. His records are annotated, apparently, but he's never been convicted, but he's not supposed to have callings with kids.
Jared Jones [02:09:27] And so we were.
Ashley Jones [02:09:28] We were mad. Jared called up the bishop and he. The bishop actually did come to our house because he was.
Jared Jones [02:09:33] And he apologized.
Ashley Jones [02:09:34] I should have told you guys. I know your circumstances coming in here. Like, I should have.
Jared Jones [02:09:38] And so, like. And since then, he was sincere.
Ashley Jones [02:09:43] I know no one wants to be in that position.
Jared Jones [02:09:45] I mean, I get it for sure.
Ashley Jones [02:09:46] I mean, so no hard feelings were, like, towards him. It's just a situation that is.
Jared Jones [02:09:50] But since then, you know, there. There had been a change in that. That man has not. We haven't seen him.
Ashley Jones [02:09:58] The sick president, because I had emailed state president as well, and he already
Jared Jones [02:10:02] knew a new state president, like, different state president situation.
Ashley Jones [02:10:05] And I was like, really, like. And he. And I said, he's also in a presidency in the ward, not over kids. But I was like, you know, there was an elder president, you know, like, in what, Michigan or something, that was the oldest current president and ended up, you know, in a car with a teenager and molested him. And he wasn't over kids, you know, like. And so I told him, like, I. I emailed him the story, and I was like, this guy shouldn't be in a presidency either. Like, people respect that. They think it's fine for him to go to people's houses. And he emailed me back and was like, I will talk to him and I will make sure that he knows he's not supposed to be around kids. And like, you know, like, those people listen to that. But.
Jared Jones [02:10:50] Well, I mean, so, you know, there's that.
John Dehlin [02:10:53] I just have to say that. That the. The Mormon Church is a harbor for abusers.
Jared Jones [02:11:02] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:11:03] Just like the Boy Scouts of America.
Ashley Jones [02:11:05] And we even. We even mentioned this guy to help people in the ward, and they're like, oh, no. Like, that was just rumors. Like, I'm sure that person was just
Jared Jones [02:11:13] being like, yeah, yeah, I mean, it was.
John Dehlin [02:11:16] And I also have to say that I, you know, I live along the Wasatch front, which is, you know, Salt Lake City and all throughout Utah, pretty Much every week there's a news article about a bishop or seminary teacher or an elders quorum president or a home teacher or a visiting teacher or trusted ward member who. Who is incarcerated or convicted of abusing a kid. And those are just the ones that get caught. And we hear about that's not the ones who get caught, but then it's silenced. Let the lo. Let alone the ones who never get caught. So it is an epic. The Mormon Church is an epidemic, has an epidemic, is a safe harbor for abusers, period, Full stop, for sure.
Jared Jones [02:12:02] And there is one more thing that happened, like, right as we entered this other ward that I found out within a week or two of moving to the new ward. That kind of contributed to my understanding of how everything goes down with the church. And that is that during the pandemic, the stake president of the new stake that we just entered was mysteriously, quickly released and. And moved and moved and so didn't think anything of it. We go to the new ward and one of the people in the new ward says something to me like, oh, yeah, like president, so. And so, you know, he got caught with a pro. I was like, what do you mean? And they're like, yeah, he. He got caught with a prostitute. It's like, what?
Ashley Jones [02:12:51] So we confirmed the story with the news. Wait, the stake president, the previous president before the guy. So the new state we're in. Yeah, the state president before the guy
Jared Jones [02:13:01] that's in the prostitute got arrested.
Ashley Jones [02:13:03] A sex worker, I guess, while he was in the.
Jared Jones [02:13:06] Well, he was president.
Ashley Jones [02:13:08] He got arrested for and didn't tell anybody. So he'd been sick president for many years and no one knew.
Jared Jones [02:13:14] So for four years after getting caught with the prostitute. And by the way, his attorney was a member of the stake. Right. So interesting. We get attorney client privilege, whatever. But you still can call Salt Lake, you can still say or tell them
Ashley Jones [02:13:31] that, hey, like, you're president, you should probably let somebody know that you got arrested.
Jared Jones [02:13:34] Like, but either way, he. What ends up happening is he's going to get his records expunged after having been a good boy for four years or whatever as a sitting stake president. And somebody walks into the court that day and sees his name on the docket and they're like, hey, that's a pretty specific name. And they pop their head in and they figure out like, oh, it's a state president, it's a fake president. And then it was public record, but just nobody had really found out about
Ashley Jones [02:14:09] it because no one. Why would you look that up?
Jared Jones [02:14:11] Like, right Yeah, I mean, so anyways, look, do I care that he was with a pro? From a moral perspective, that's his deal. Like, whatever.
Ashley Jones [02:14:21] But from a call from God, giving people temple recommend interviews, like all that stuff, it's.
Jared Jones [02:14:27] It's skeezy.
Margi Dehlin [02:14:27] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:14:28] But what's even more skeezy is the fact that he just gets released. Nobody says anything. Like, you know, no one knows. No, no one knows. And so then we find out about this. I text my brother, who is somewhat friendly with him, and he didn't know anything about it, but he's a private investigator. So he pulls up the court records real quick, shoots it over to me, and, you know, the narrative after I found out about it was like, oh, he was going to get a massage on his ankle because he had rolled it or something like that. And, you know, and it's like, no, actually, it was at 7am on a Thursday morning at the Air Suite, which is a, you know, hotel down the street or whatever.
Jared Jones [02:15:11] It's like, first of all, I don't think people get caught their first time with a pro either way. Neither here nor there. But the. The more important thing is this was intentional. This was 7am at a hotel. Like, this isn't like some ankle massage gone wrong, right? Like, you don't meet at a hotel for an ankle massage. Like, that's how it goes. And once again, like, tragedy for the family, like, all of that. But honestly, like, the church should stand up and be like, hey, you know what, guys? This is what happened. This is why he's being released.
Jared Jones [02:15:46] We're going to move on. But it is so important to them to protect the authority and to protect the narrative. And so that happened. Then we see this thing with the. With the guy in our new ward. And so it really causes me to start looking at how the church deals when something goes wrong. Do they stand up? Do they confess and forsake? That's what I was looking for. Are they confessing and forsaking, telling me to do it?
Ashley Jones [02:16:16] Right.
Jared Jones [02:16:16] It's super important that I do it no matter what my sin is. And so these super serious sins are being swept under the rug. Not that big a deal. You know, there's no public excommunication for the Stake President. Right. What happened? Or didn't you know? I was publicly shamed multiple times. Right.
John Dehlin [02:16:41] For doing healthy normative, for doing small
Jared Jones [02:16:44] things relative to the things that are coming up here. Right. I mean, at least even in context of what they believe. And so I'm looking at this. I'm like, this doesn't add up. And so if the church. Then I start to figure out, like, okay, I want to know for sure that the church is true. Because now I'm starting to go through a lot of pain. And so I'm no longer feeling the same things that I felt before, you know, around spirituality, around, like, I hear a talk that used to maybe make me, like, feel the spirit. Like, a good example of this is, like, President Holland or Elder Holland.
Jared Jones [02:17:27] Like, I always used to get super emotional when I would hear him speak. And then I'm starting to listen to the things that he's saying now, and I'm like, that sounds a lot like the narrative around this thing. And like, that. So I start looking at these things more skeptically and looking at them from a lens of, like, is that actually protecting a narrative? Or is it actually protect? Or is it, like, actually revelation? Is it actually, like, loving doctrine?
Jared Jones [02:17:59] And I start seeing patterns. And one of the things that really upset me was there was a special California broadcast by the prophet and his wife. And they were talking President Nelson and President Nelson and Wendy. And she starts talking about this experience that I had heard a few times.
Jared Jones [02:18:24] And when I hear this, like, I'm in active mode of trying to preserve my testimony and, like, seeking to find those things. Like, I'm watching lots of talks. I'm, like, reading scriptures. I'm trying to hold on to what I can, and I'm looking for spiritual experiences. So I'm watching this, and she talks about this experience, which I'm sure you've. You've probably heard where middle of the night, she feels prompted to get up and get out of the bed because, like, there's this amazing spiritual experience that her husband's about to have, and he has some experience, but it was too sacred for her to be in the room.
Jared Jones [02:19:08] And I'm like, man, like, if it's so sacred, like, why can't they share it with us? Or if it's so sacred, then they don't need to share it with us at all. Like, if it's too sacred to tell us what it is, like, this looks like gaslighting to me. This looks like giving me partial information so that I give something important that is probably nothing burger, you know, like, and you're building something up to be so special and spiritual. And by the way, at that time, I also could acknowledge, like, Joseph Smith was willing to come out with and say fantastical things at the drop of a hat, right?
Jared Jones [02:19:52] Like, he was definitely willing to say, like, all these manifestations and receive revelations whenever it was pertinent. Yet we can't talk about some spiritual experience where Jesus appears or somebody appears to the current sitting prophet. Like, he definitely has that line of authority where that's what's supposed to be going on. Right? Like, so they should be able to tell us about this. So I noticed that. And then I start looking at other things that I've had problems with in the past through church resource. Like, so I'm starting to read some of the gospel topics essays in dealing with oxen, the priesthood, in dealing with polyandry, in dealing with so many other issues.
Jared Jones [02:20:47] But I'm going to the faith informed narrative. And what I start realizing is that the explanations that are being given to me sound a lot like the lies that are being told to me in the other areas of my life. That I know that the church is lying and that I know that the church is just protecting themselves. And so I go through this process over the next six months until like April conference last year, not this year, but.
Jared Jones [02:21:21] And I know that the church, you know, one of the things like that kind of lands for me at the very end is the church has this narrative around being generous, like that they do and give so much. And I'm not a mathematician, but I understand stuff pretty well when it comes to financial matters. And I know that if you're giving on average $200 million in a year and you're a $250 billion organization, that's not 1%, that's not even a hundredth of a percent. So we've got a problem here. That's not generosity. And so why they're hoarding funds, why they're amassing wealth, I don't know.
Jared Jones [02:22:02] But one of the things that was said in that conference was being reposted later on that day that Elder Oak said about the church's generosity. And so I get on because I'm mad when they're talking about the church's generosity, because I know that that's not true. Like, from any numerical standpoint, like they're not generous. Now, the church's members are generous, absolutely, lots of giving members of the church. But the church as an institution is not generous by anybody's definition. Now, they made, you know, anyways, financially they are not. So I get on and I, I make a comment on that on the church's page or on their Instagram or Facebook or whatever it was, and a couple hours later it was deleted.
Jared Jones [02:23:01] And, you know, I, I mean, all I said is like, you know, Definitionally, like, you guys are not being generous. You guys asked for 10 from the members, but you're not even giving 10% of what you're given to the poor. You're not doing that to do good. And you have so much.
Jared Jones [02:23:19] And so anyways, it gets deleted. And like, for me, it was just, it was that point that I realized that it wasn't true. Like, that the fact that they had to tell lies around everything to prop up some narrative, it just couldn't be God's church.
Jared Jones [02:23:44] And that was devastating to me. That was so hard. And I had been, like, I had been preparing for a while mentally, like, what if this isn't true? And that was kind of like that breaking point for me where I was like, okay, no, this doesn't come from God. I don't know what it is. I don't know if Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet. I don't know if Brigham Young or somebody else took a right turn or a left turn when they were supposed to go the other way. But I know that this, this system doesn't come from God and it's not being run by God.
Jared Jones [02:24:20] So that's what I knew at that time. And so at that point, like, I was emotionally out, and so I was fearful at that time. I did not know how Ashley was going to receive that. I hoped and I, and you know, we had kind of talked about it in uncertain terms and whatnot, but it was like there was risk.
Jared Jones [02:24:52] But I told her that night, like, I am done. Like, I don't believe this anymore. I, I, this can't be coming from God. And I was super passionate about it. And I mean, I'm, I'm a pretty passionate guy, but it was very frustrated and I had felt very betrayed. And so anyways, that's, that's kind of, that was the moment for me where I decided that this isn't God's church. It, you know, it may have just as much truth or what, you know, I didn't need to figure all that out. But at that point, I would have considered myself a pimo. Like, I was still going to attend church, which stands for physically and mentally out.
Jared Jones [02:25:36] And so, so we kind of kept doing that thing. And then probably a month and a half, two months later, I hadn't still consumed, like, any real, like, not faithfully informed, content. Like, I was, I was very careful. I was trying to keep my faith.
Jared Jones [02:26:03] And at that point, I also was like, I, whether I believe it or not, it doesn't really matter. I don't. My My thought process is I don't want to piss myself off so that I don't want to attend church because I think it's good to go to church with my family. So that's where I was at. And then I started watching a TV show called Something. No More Mormon. No More Mormon. No More.
John Dehlin [02:26:33] So next week, we're going to be releasing an interview with. With the parents, with. With basically Rod and Nan.
Jared Jones [02:26:42] Okay.
John Dehlin [02:26:43] The parents of Sal.
Jared Jones [02:26:46] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:26:47] Which is one in the couple. Sal and Lena from Mormon.
Margi Dehlin [02:26:50] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:26:51] Well, I watched the whole thing in one night, like, it was. It's pretty long, you know, and this
John Dehlin [02:26:56] is a Hulu documentary about two married Mormon women who end up falling in love, leaving their respective husbands, and getting married.
Jared Jones [02:27:05] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:27:05] And, I mean, it's a beautiful documentary.
Jared Jones [02:27:07] It is. It was a beautiful story. And also understanding at that point, like, I'd also felt betrayed because so many of my beliefs surrounding sexuality and surrounding the LGBTQ community were directly informed by what I was given by the church. And so a lot of my feelings over the last five years had kind of turned on that, and they were in dissonance with the church's stance.
Jared Jones [02:27:36] But at that point, I'm watching this. Lots of empathy, but. And, like, really feeling, you know, lots of, I don't know, shared narrative from a lot of things that they felt and heard and went through. And so anyways, as. As I'm watching this, they reference the fact that the CES letter was something that.
Jared Jones [02:28:06] That was a shelf breaker for one of them. And I was like, what is that? And so I Google it, and lo and behold, a lot of the. The questions that I had about the church, where I had only read the church's narratives, were in this letter, the CES letter. And so I also stayed up. I basically stayed up all night that night, and I read the whole CES letter, and that's, you know, basically this document that talks about a lot of the issues that the church has to apologize for or has apologies on. And so I go through that process, and by the time that I read that letter, now I'm mad.
Jared Jones [02:28:56] I hadn't believed that a lot of these things that the church had done were necessarily super nefarious. I just thought, like, okay, maybe these guys just believe it, but they, you know. And so then over the next few months, like, I start consuming, you know, content on Mormon stories. I start listening to other podcasts and really starting to do research. And from that time, I've put hundreds and hundreds of hours into deconstruction, like, I'm figuring out why I believed, what I believed, how it was created, and why it was created. And so that process led me to a point over the last.
Jared Jones [02:29:50] Probably over the next six months, where I decided that I could no longer be affiliated with or attend the church. And so that. That's kind of the process that I went through. And lots of frustration, lots of anger, and, you know, lots of angsty conversations between Ashley and I over the issues surrounding the church and how we would deal with that. And, you know, but ultimately, that's. That's kind of the thing that helped me to start deconstructing what had happened throughout my life in the church and how I felt about those things. And this ultimately left me into a position where I'm no longer a member of the church.
Jared Jones [02:30:43] Like, I no longer have my name on the records. I have zero affiliation with the church out of truly a matter of principle. Like, I can't be involved with the church anymore and believe what I believe about who they are and what they represent.
Jared Jones [02:31:03] And so. And I acknowledge that it's not that easy for every person. Like, not everybody comes to the same conclusions that I do after looking at the information that I do. There's lots of nuance and. But I had spent a lifetime in dissonance, like, in trying to figure out why certain things would be the way that they were.
Jared Jones [02:31:29] Putting things on my shelf, making excuses for leaders, having to make excuses to be able to maintain my faith. And so I got to the point where I was like, I have been. I have spent a lifetime trying to make apologies for this institution, and I need to be in a spot where I am only true to one thing and that. That is what I believe, and that is the information that I can take in. Just because there is a church leader that I know and I'm affiliated with and think is a smart guy, just because he can read one thing and believe the way that he does does not mean that my opinion on that thing is any less valid.
Jared Jones [02:32:18] And I don't care if he has degree. I don't care what his education level is. Because what I did start to learn and understand is that when you have to be faith informed in order to make a decision as to what you believe, like, logic goes out the door.
Jared Jones [02:32:38] Like, and when you're telling me that I have to see something through spiritual eyes for me to be able to know the truth of that thing, that's where I have to say, wait, that's a red flag. And then when I realize that in order for Me to keep my testimony together that I have to do that on almost everything or frankly on all of the issues that I actually have with the church in the order for me to come to the most reasonable conclusion that I have to ignore my, my logic and I have to, you know, know that, oh, we'll figure this out after this life, that's the only way that I can keep my faith together.
Jared Jones [02:33:24] That's the point where I have to say, okay, this is wrong. This is fraud. You know, and so that's kind of, that's where I landed. And so that caused some complications in the family and trying to figure out how we deal with our kids and you know, who attends when and what and. But that, let's leave that part up. But yeah.
John Dehlin [02:33:50] Do you. Super powerful. And it sounds like the past couple years have been extremely difficult and enlightening for you, Jared, and probably for both of you, Jared and Ashley. Ashley, do you want to share anything at all about that part of your journey or is that.
Ashley Jones [02:34:09] No, I'll let that be Jared's story right now.
John Dehlin [02:34:12] Okay. Okay.
Jared Jones [02:34:13] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:34:14] Okay. And anything you want to add?
Ashley Jones [02:34:16] No.
John Dehlin [02:34:17] Okay. Okay. Okay. So. And I'll just add, if it's okay, I'll just add that. And it gives me no pleasure to say this, but I've been studying this stuff now for 20 to 30 years, depending on how you count it. And there's some things that are factual that you just. No, no one who's honest can really refute. I'll start with Russell M. Nelson. His own daughter and son in law have been accused of sexually abusive children. Now, I don't know if those are accurate accusations, but the fact that almost no one knows about it and the fact that means nothing, right? The fact that they weren't convicted means nothing. There's. There's at least some chance that they're guilty.
Jared Jones [02:35:12] Right.
John Dehlin [02:35:12] And if folks don't believe me, you can just Google this. And there have been lawsuits and there have been newspaper articles, but I also know that the church can use its influence to silence news stories. And I, I know that firsthand. So there's that we interviewed Christine Burton, who it was a niece of, of Gordon B. Hinckley and her dad was, you know, Thomas S. Monson's mentor when she went to report her sexual abuse and physical abuse by the hands of her own mom and parents, you know, to both Russell. To both Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson. Separately, their responses were, hey, yeah, this happens.
John Dehlin [02:35:59] And you know, you need to forgive and move on. Yeah, so we know that that's Russell Nelson, Thomas S. Monson, Gordon B. Hinckley. That's how they seem to feel about abuse. And then you go all the way back to Joseph Smith and you look at his, there's no other way to say it. Sexual predation. He was a sexual predator. He went after other men's wives, he went after sister pairs, mother, daughter pairs, 14 year olds, lots of teenagers sexually using his power and influence. And he, he even went as far as to shame and demean and malign the women who declined his advances, including Nancy Rigdon, Sidney Rigdon's own daughter and several others.
John Dehlin [02:36:54] So this is like the worst thing to say, but if we're just being honest, you can say, what do you expect from a church founded by a sexual predator? That the church is going to protect victims? No, they're going to protect the perpetrators because the fish rots from the head.
Jared Jones [02:37:18] Yeah, I don't think I've ever been
John Dehlin [02:37:20] that forceful before, but how can. It feels like a reasonable conclusion here.
Jared Jones [02:37:26] Yeah, I mean that, you know, the, even still today the narrative around Joseph smith with a 14 year old is like, well, we don't know that he slept with her. It's like, well, we do know what the revelation on polygamy said, what its purpose was, and we don't do know that the prophets after him who had similar age wives slept with those wives because they had kids with them. So since there's this, this weird fascination that we have with making sure that he's portrayed in a certain way really second to Jesus Christ. Right? Like we got to make sure that his image is protected.
Jared Jones [02:38:08] And so that once again, like, as I, as I went through that process, I found for myself that you should not have to have a nuanced opinion of every single controversial issue with the church. Like that can't be God's design.
Jared Jones [02:38:30] Because if it is, then God screwed this up, right? Like he's messed up. Like he, he didn't know how to create his own church in an appropriate way where like you don't have to create all these obstacles so that people can have faith. That's not the way that it works.
Jared Jones [02:38:48] Right. Like, would we, would you do that to your kid? That doesn't make any sense. So you know, so that's, that's where I've landed on this. And honestly, there's such a narrative in the church that if you leave the church that your world is going to crumble. You're not going to have happiness. Like you're the prosperity Doctrine, like, your finances are going to fall apart, like, all sorts of weird stuff. You know, I'm. I'm in business and I do business with a lot of LDS people. And so, like, there was some fear around that, but ultimately, like, I had to make the decision for myself that I am going to live the rest of my life being true to what I believe and being true to who I am, and that is going to
Margi Dehlin [02:39:37] be
Jared Jones [02:39:40] what it is. And if that means I lose business, if that means I lose friends, like, and at the cost of my long held faith and my security around knowing what's going to happen to me after this life, like, then that's going to be what it cost.
Jared Jones [02:39:58] And I don't want that. I don't want that pain. I don't want to go through those things. But I also know for my own psychological welfare, like, I need to be true to who I am and to myself. And I can't continue to gaslight myself and say, oh, no, but maybe it's this or maybe it's that I'm not going to do it.
Jared Jones [02:40:19] And so that's. That's where I landed. And while it has been traumatic, like, it feels like a ton of bricks has been taken off my shoulders, like, I am happier today on a daily basis than I was ever living in the church. So the narrative that life is going to be worse and that you're not going to feel the spirit as much and all that, it's not true. Or at least I haven't found it to be for me. And so I can't say what everybody else's experience is, but I can say that I'm a happier person, I'm a better dad. I'm more present for my kids.
Jared Jones [02:40:58] I don't have some narrative that they have to live within in order to be accepted by me or loved by me. They don't have to meet some specific expectation for me to judge that they're doing the right thing or that they're gonna be happy.
Jared Jones [02:41:15] Like, that's. That's not what it is for me. So I can have a deeper, more holistic relationship with my children based off of who they are and for me having that space for them to express themselves as well as having space for myself and not feeling like everything that I do is wrong and that I need to repent. Like, one of the realizations that I had is sometimes I would be praying in the morning and repenting of things that I didn't know what I was repenting for. I was just like, hey, Please forgive me for my unclean thoughts yesterday. Please forgive me for, you know, anything that I did, you know, that was wrong.
Jared Jones [02:42:01] And like I'm showing up every morning for myself and to God, like, being like, hey, I know I screwed up. I'm not quite sure exactly how I screwed up, but I am a screw up. Right. And so thank you so much for being there for me as a screw up all the time.
Jared Jones [02:42:19] And I don't do that anymore. That's not the way that I show up for myself. And I feel better, like I'm happier because of that. So that's, that's my story.
John Dehlin [02:42:35] Yeah. And I, I feel, I'm now feeling regret for the harsh words I spoke. But then I think about the fact that the church was willing to pay 750 million for the Boy Scouts abuse lawsuit. That a 1 or 2 billion case was just announced yesterday and that the, just the instances of, of sexual abuse that's been covered up in the church. All these episodes we did with Tim Kosnoff about his defense of, of abuse victims and just the, the hundreds of accounts that we have of Kurt McConkie silencing victims and telling church leaders to not report abuse to police authorities.
John Dehlin [02:43:25] I think harsh words are warranted and we all want the church to do. We all have, we, I think we all three have love for this church and gratitude for this church. And it's so confusing to have an organization we all love and that we have all benefited from so significantly to find out that it's has such an abusive past and present and yet that's where we are. And so all we can do is those of us who are in a position of courage and, or privilege to speak up and to speak out and to try and help inform people so that they don't put themselves or their loved ones in harm's way and then put, you know, help encourage or influence the church to fix this because they've got $250 billion of, of amassed wealth. They can fix this.
Jared Jones [02:44:23] Yeah, they could.
John Dehlin [02:44:24] They can fix these problems. They can make it so. The next family that speaks up, the, the Colby and Cam Reddishes, the, the, the Jared and Ashley Joneses, the next families that speak up about abuse that's happening in their own family or in their ward or stake that, that gets a very different outcome happens than the one that happened with, with the Joneses and the Reddishes and I'm sure with thousands of other families across the world. Right. I'm sure it's not just two. Right.
Jared Jones [02:44:57] Often the question that gets asked of me is like, okay, you've got a lot of criticism for the church, like, but, you know, what can they do better? What is it that they could actually change? And so I can tell you there's a lot of things, like, first of all, our bishop and stake president in this situation, I have a lot of feelings on this, but ultimately they should have been conflicted out.
Ashley Jones [02:45:25] Yeah. They should not have been put in that position to have to make that judgment call.
Jared Jones [02:45:29] They should not have been in that position. So there can be a specialist who's an ecclesiastical specialist, not an attorney that deals with these things. Right.
Ashley Jones [02:45:39] So the decisions are off their plates.
John Dehlin [02:45:41] Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:45:42] And then there also can be the decision to just report every state. You still can report. They just don't require you to report. Right, right. You're not mandated to report, apparently in Arizona, like, according to the judgment that just came out on that or the decision on that. But I mean, you can have that as a policy. You can tell everybody, hey, if you're going to confess a crime to me, I am going to report it.
Ashley Jones [02:46:07] And we've heard it said, like, if we do that, then people won't confess to us. And to that I say, then who cares? Then who cares if they don't report, if nothing's going to be done anyways?
Jared Jones [02:46:18] Right.
Ashley Jones [02:46:19] Then the bishop's just going to know stuff's going on in the ward and can't do anything about it.
Jared Jones [02:46:23] And so, like, those are some pretty simple changes that can be made. Like, there's multiple other changes, like interviews with kids. Like, that's a really simple one. There's. There's no reason that they need to talk to teenagers about their sexual thoughts. And if they want to do that, there. There can be some sort of other scenario where they honestly, truly, I think that they shouldn't do it at all. I don't think that there's any sense in it. Kids going through their own puberty and going through. Even if they have consensual sex, like, this has nothing to do with anybody. If they want to come and talk to somebody about it, like, then they can go see a counselor. You can refer people to counselors. Like, that's a real thing. You know, there are people that understand these things and get paid to do them.
Ashley Jones [02:47:17] The bishop just isn't qualified.
Jared Jones [02:47:19] Right. I used to wear it as a badge of honor that the church didn't have a paid clergy. Now I look at that, I'm like, that's insanity. That's not a badge of honor. That's a badge of stupidity. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, there are people that are trained to handle these things. They should not be taking confessional. They don't have the spirit of discernment. Like, to be able to tell you, like, okay, this is how you fix your problem. Like, that's not how it works.
Reflections on Accountability and Closing Thoughts
John Dehlin [02:47:46] It's especially insane when we know that the church is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars. They can afford better training for their clergy. Yeah, right.
Jared Jones [02:47:59] Oh, absolutely. Like they can mandate across the church that people are scanned live. Scanned.
Ashley Jones [02:48:08] Like California just did this last year.
Jared Jones [02:48:12] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [02:48:12] So everyone who had callings with kids or any leadership calling had to go do.
Jared Jones [02:48:16] California mandated it. That's California. That's not this church. Like, the church could easily do that. They can buy their own machines. It's a super cheap process. Like, if they want to do that. But why do you think they don't want to ferret that out? Like, they get up in conference and say that they want to protect the children. Do you like. And you also cannot have, like, if you do find out about abuse, you can not have them call the attorney first. Like, that establishes attorney client privilege. Right. So, like, how does that work? That's, that's not about the kids.
John Dehlin [02:48:55] Have them call the police first and, you know, licensed secular mental health professional.
Margi Dehlin [02:49:00] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:49:01] To support the kids.
Ashley Jones [02:49:02] The background check won't catch everybody, but it'll catch a lot.
Jared Jones [02:49:05] But it's something. But the, the police will help.
John Dehlin [02:49:08] There'll be accountability, right?
Jared Jones [02:49:10] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:49:10] Towards the perpetrators.
Jared Jones [02:49:12] The church does say that they do care, but none of their actions show that. Not one, there is not one action that the church has taken over the last years that I can find that has shown that they actually care. Put your money where your mouth is. Do something.
Ashley Jones [02:49:33] And so at least don't push back. Use your money to push back against laws that are protecting.
Jared Jones [02:49:40] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [02:49:40] Clergy.
Jared Jones [02:49:41] Well, and you know, that's. There's a Utah law that just got shot down to make clergy mandated reporters. Like, why is the church lobbying so hard for that? Like, why do you have to keep your skeletons in the closet? Once again, like, they're told that they don't have to report. They're not told that they can't report. And so why would we not encourage reporting? That doesn't make any sense.
Ashley Jones [02:50:09] It takes the liability off the church. Yeah.
Jared Jones [02:50:12] So those are the things that we see that can be changed. And there's, there's a laundry list of others, but those are the major ones the church can make Positive change. I do believe that this verdict that came out yesterday in Lake Elsinore, which is right around the corner from our house, where they were awarded $2.28 billion.
Jared Jones [02:50:36] I think that it was a message to the church. The church had already settled out for a million dollars prior to this judgment, so that was the extent of their liability. But I believe that the jury was saying to the church, the only institution that had money really to give in this, like, hey, this was a big deal and you guys were at fault here and you have a lot of money. This is a big judgment. We realized that this dad or stepdad that was the perpetrator is never going to be able to pay the two point, you know, some odd billion dollars that he would be liable for.
Jared Jones [02:51:15] But if you guys were still in this suit because you hadn't settled out, it would have been a big one. It would have been a big one. And so the church will learn when the finances get hit. Because one thing that we can say for sure is that they do care about their money, why they protect their money.
Jared Jones [02:51:36] We can say it's because it's the Lord's. We can say whatever it is, maybe it's they need to build New Jerusalem. I don't know. But what I do know is that they care about it. And so at the point that they get hit with more than a billion dollars on a single case and they start to feel that that is a real possibility to happen over and over again, you better bet that things will change.
Jared Jones [02:51:58] They will. So the pressure needs to continue. So if you're an active, believing member, like, you can push on the church to do the right things in your local area, but the people that are going to make the change are the stories of the people that leave, the stories of the people that are willing to sue, the stories of the people that speak out. That is what will change the church. We see that over and over again. That's how the policies change.
John Dehlin [02:52:33] Beautiful. Well, what a super powerful six hours we've spent with you guys. We, we go into depth here on warmer stories, but that part of that is, number one, to validate other people's experiences. I know Colby Reddish has been watching along and he's just feeling so validated. But I know there's going to be thousands and tens of thousands of not only whistleblowers, but victims who are going to say, me too, me too, me too. Just from this episode, not to mention Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists and Catholics and evangelical Christians, because this problem is much bigger than just the Mormon Church or even organized religion, as we know from the Boy Scouts.
Jared Jones [02:53:17] Right.
John Dehlin [02:53:18] So the only way things get better, like you said, is when there's. When there's settlements, when there's fees, you know, when there's charges and when there's whistleblowers and when there's people who speak out and tell their story. So on behalf of the people who I love, the Mormon people and a church that I have a complex relationship with, and just on behalf of humanity, Margi and I just want to thank you both for coming all this way from. From Riverside, right?
Jared Jones [02:53:58] Yep.
John Dehlin [02:53:58] Which is the Inland Empire, I'm learning. Thanks for coming all this way to help your fellow humans and to help protect future victims and whistleblowers from bad guys.
Jared Jones [02:54:14] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:54:15] Thank you.
Jared Jones [02:54:16] Yeah.
Ashley Jones [02:54:16] Thanks for having us.
Jared Jones [02:54:17] We appreciate it.
John Dehlin [02:54:18] Yeah. And thanks to all of you who've joined us today and thanks to everyone who helped make. Who helped make this episode possible. There's lots you can do. Please speak out. Please tell your stories. Please be whistleblowers. Please hold your church leaders accountable. Don't back down. Speak out.
John Dehlin [02:54:42] And you can also try to be influential with local laws to make your local states, you know, put pressure on their legislatures to make clergy mandated reporters and to make your, whatever influence you have within the church, whether it's on bishops or stake presidents or even area or general authorities, to try and pressure them to make changes that will improve things. But thanks for supporting us on Mormon Stories today.
John Dehlin [02:55:11] Check out the show notes for lots of cool references if you care about this topic. And we really appreciate those who donate to Mormon Stories in the Open Stories foundation to make all this possible. We couldn't do it without your support. And most importantly, find. Follow the truth, find the healing, and be good to each other and be kind to each other. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Source Podcast. Take care, everybody.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
Discover the heart-wrenching story of Jared and Ashley Jones as they bravely shed light on the sensitive issue of child abuse within the Mormon community. In this eye-opening interview, they delve into Jared’s Mormon upbringing and the damaging effects of constant messages about pornography and sexual sin. Uncover the cycle of shame and guilt that Jared experienced, including the inappropriate questioning by Bishops and the downplaying of their own childhood sexual abuse. Gain insight into the failures of the church and family system in addressing and protecting victims. Explore the profound impact of Mormon sexual shame on their marriage and the punitive measures they faced when seeking help. Don’t miss this powerful discussion on the far-reaching consequences of spiritual abuse within Mormonism.
1768: When the Mormon Church Protects Your Child’s Abuser: Jared and Ashley Jones Pt. 2
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In Part 2 of this eye-opening interview, Jared and Ashley Jones courageously share their experiences with child abuse within the Mormon community and the disturbing lengths to which leaders will go to protect abusers, even at the expense of victims. They recount the heart-wrenching journey that ensued after discovering sexual abuse allegations involving the teen son of a Bishopric member. Despite their efforts to seek justice and protect others, they faced resistance from church leaders who prioritized the reputation of the church and the experiences of the abuser’s family over the safety and well-being of the families of his many victims time and time again. As Jared and Ashley shed light on the systemic failures and manipulations they encountered to silence and discredit them, they offer insights into the urgent need for change within the Mormon church. Don’t miss this thought-provoking conversation that delves into the complexities of abuse, power dynamics, and the call for accountability.
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One Response
Have you heard about Geoff Steurer and his business LifeStar? My husband saw his a few times before his Mormon wife kicked him out of the house with no explanation and then later accused him of SA of his daughter. Jodi Hildebrandt was a director at LifeStar at one point. I think my husband and his children might be an earl victim of the false allegations of SA.