Introduction and Recap of Fowler's Stages

John Larsen [00:00:00] This is the Mormon Expression podcast. Find us on the web@mormonexpression.com.

John Dehlin [00:00:15] Is there a better way to get this point across?

Brian Johnston [00:00:20] Is there another frame to count it

John Dehlin [00:00:22] out and cut the losses off? Eyes are must know.

John Larsen [00:00:30] All right, welcome back to another episode of Mormon Expression. I'm your host, John Larsen, and tonight we're doing a follow up on a podcast we had a few weeks ago, episode number 25, where we talked about the Fowler stages of faith. We brought back some of the illustrious panelists from that discussion and added one more. First of all, we have Brian.

Brian Johnston [00:00:54] Yeah, hi, this is Brian. I participated in that previous panel. I thought it was a really good discussion and kind of looked forward to digging into some additional information a little deeper into this stage five concept as it regards to faith. Just to reintroduce myself, I'm an active member of the church, go to church every week, did the whole Mormon experience, mission, married in the temple, all that stuff. Have gone through various periods of inactivity and periods of doubt, but pretty happy and content at this point in my life.

John Larsen [00:01:29] Great. Also returning, we have Logan.

Logan Beaux [00:01:33] Hi, this is Logan, back from the last episode, Ready to rock again. I guess I'll introduce myself again for other people.

Brian Johnston [00:01:42] I grew up in church.

Logan Beaux [00:01:43] A few years ago, I stopped attending church regularly. Became disillusioned or disaffected. At the same time, I've got mixed feelings about the church, some fondness, some things that keep me away still. And I'm really happy to be in a conversation like this.

John Larsen [00:02:00] Great. And also joining us for the conversation tonight is the one and only John Dehlin.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] Hey, I'm John Dehlin. I'm a psychology PhD student at Utah State University. I used to run a blog and a podcast a while back. And I'm active in the church, but probably quite unorthodox in my beliefs, but pretty orthodox in my adherence to sort of the rules and commandments of the church.

John Larsen [00:02:32] Great. Thanks again for y' all coming on. When we did the conversation last time, we sort of did an academic coverage of all the position, all the Fowler stages of faith from zero to six. I think six is the top. And I think we kind of agreed in that discussion and some discussions we've had since that 5 is sort of the most interesting for the Mormon world and for us in particular. So I think for this conversation, we want to come back and refocus in on 5 and what it means for Mormonism in particular. Now, Brian, maybe you can get us started by resetting the game here and telling us Again, what Fowler Stage 5 is all about.

Defining Stage Five Within Mormonism

Brian Johnston [00:03:15] Yeah, sure. I guess just to touch real briefly on a couple other stages that we experience a lot in Mormonism. Stage three is the stage where you're building a story of stories. And a lot of people associate it with traditional members. They believe that we're in the one true church and we've got it right and everybody else is deceived by Satan. That's kind of the story of how all these other people might think differently.

Brian Johnston [00:03:43] You have a strong association with your groups, having authority in the group outside of you, where you kind of depend a lot on the people around you to know what is right, possibly also leaders in the church. Then there's another next stage, a stage four, where a lot of times we think of, in Fowler terms, people break away.

Brian Johnston [00:04:08] A big change is that shifting of authority from outside of you internally, where you start to question a lot of things. It's also a demythologizing stage where you start to see that symbols and, you know, the things that we do in church are just ceremony, ritual, things like that.

Brian Johnston [00:04:32] A lot of people just tend to distance themselves sometimes while going through the stage. And then, like you said, we were kind of wanted to explore stage five, which Fowler called a conjunctive stage of faith, where we start bringing this all back together, kind of feeling satiated with having sorted out that that center of authority that, you know, the person now makes decisions and the content or the structure of their faith is based largely on what they have come to become comfortable with. It's not so dependent on what everyone else believes so much.

Brian Johnston [00:05:11] Also, he describes it as having a certain level of self certainty, not being threatened by other symbols. If you come in contact with somebody else who believes really differently, it just doesn't bother you that much that other people might think differently.

Brian Johnston [00:05:28] Also kind of a real hunger. What tends to drive people into the stage is a hunger or an escape from this, what he described as a flatness or kind of a lack of flavor that people start to feel after they've torn the whole machine apart. And now they see, well, gosh, I've got this big broken machine now and what do I do?

Brian Johnston [00:05:49] So kind of call it. He also calls it a second naivete where you sort of dive back into participation, sort of with eyes wide open, knowing that, you know, these things that you're doing are symbolic, they may or may not be true. And all this stuff relates not to necessarily the specifics of what you believe, whether you believe, whether you're a Christian, a Mormon, all that stuff, it's more how you approach it, what you believe, and that's kind of just, you know, a real rapid fire summary of kind of all that stuff.

John Larsen [00:06:26] Excellent. I think that was a good summary. And I think maybe to kind of set the question as I'm thinking about, you know, from a lot of the people who listen to this podcast, we have a lot of the nom, sort of New Order Mormons and a lot of the ex Mormons. So in a simplistic terms, a lot of people enter that Stage four and question their faith and start having crises of faith and have to kind of reanalyze their belief and what they think is true and all that sort of stuff. And then we have kind of a fork in the road. We have some people who go and say, reject, I don't know, the literalism of Mormonism and reject the authority structure and leave the church in one form or the other.

John Larsen [00:07:05] Then we have others who pass through that and enter into this Stage five where they come back into the church and. And I'm not ready to say whether one of them is in stage five and one of them is not, but maybe for some thoughts on this, kind of the king of the leaving the church and coming back in would be. Would be John. John, what are your thoughts on the Stage five?

John Dehlin [00:07:35] I. I've been trying to crystallize some of my thoughts because I've stumbled around quite a bit over the past few years trying to figure out what, what I think Stage five looks like. And I think it's important obviously to start with this huge disclaimer that Stage 5 is never something you arrive at. It doesn't even really exist. It's something that could easily, you know, lead into feelings of elitism or judgment or. And all that stuff doesn't have anything to do with why I like to think about Stage five for me.

John Dehlin [00:08:15] And I always somehow end up stepping on toes and offending people, usually getting some type of email or post from somebody saying that I've hurt them and I want to try and avoid that, but I don't know how to do it. But I thought that the best way to start would be to start by saying what I don't think stage five is. And for me, and I'd be interested in Brian and everyone else's thoughts on this, for me, being a Stage five Mormon has nothing to do with whether or not you actually become active in the church again. I think you can be a Stage 5 Mormon and leave the church completely.

John Dehlin [00:08:54] And I think you can be a Stage 5 Mormon and become fully active or semi active. So I don't think it has anything to do with your level of activity. I don't think it even has anything to do with whether or not you're religious. I think an atheist can absolutely be a Stage five Mormon. And I'll explain more what I mean by that in a second. But I don't think it has to have anything to do with being religious.

John Dehlin [00:09:18] I don't even think it has anything to do with whether or not you view the church as good or bad, as if anything is really binary. I don't think it has anything to do with that. I think you can be a Stage 5 Mormon and feel like the LDS Church is a net negative influence on society.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] And finally, I don't even think it has anything to do with whether or not you think the church as it exists should die. I think you can feel like the church is a net negative influence on the world and you could even have the preference that it no longer existed as it is and still be a Stage five Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:09:57] I'm just exploring these thoughts, but that's what I've been thinking lately. I'm obviously trying to make this term as inclusive as possible. So what does it mean? Well, here are a couple things that I think about. You know, I think anger is unavoidable. I've been really quick to denounce anger and to sort of dismiss people in the past who. Who are too angry. And I fully acknowledge that the anger of Stage four is probably not only unavoidable, but is probably healthy.

John Dehlin [00:10:30] But I would say that it's something that eventually you need to process and move past. And I think that you do have to process and move past dwelling in a place of anger to sort of start being on the road to Stage five.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] That doesn't mean you won't occasionally get angry about certain things, but I think that you can't have anger be the primary base from which you operate and react. So that's the first thing. Second thing is I think of Stage five within an LDS context as being from an empathetic place. There's this James Taylor song called, you know, Her Town or His Town or Used to be. You know, I don't know what the name of the song is, but there's this line in the song that says it's about a divorce between a man and a girl, and it's talking about a man and a woman, and it's talking about the friends of the couple.

John Dehlin [00:11:24] And the line is, some of Them, his friends, some of them, her friends, some of them understand as if it's this third category of people that realize that it's not about taking sides anymore. It's about stepping back and realizing that things are complex, things are messy. Usually it takes two to tango, and there's good and bad and sort of blame and credit to be shared. And so I look at someone who's stage five as somebody who can step back, realize that the church has a ton of virtues and it also has a ton of problems, and that there are good people in the church and bad people in the church and good effects and bad effects, and somebody who's willing to step back and have empathy for all sides.

John Dehlin [00:12:12] You can have empathy for the general authorities, and you can be frustrated with them. You can have empathy for the true believer, and you can be frustrated with them at times. But it's just. This is why I love Kind Potok.

John Dehlin [00:12:24] Just as easily, you can look at disaffected people and you can say, I get where they're coming from. I understand why they're frustrated. But at the same time, I think that they carry it too far and. And get out of hand here and there. So that's the next thing.

John Dehlin [00:12:39] I think it has a lot to do with realizing that you can't escape metaphor and you can't escape myth. You're going to get it in politics, you're going to get it in history, you're going to get it in religion. And so instead of trying to fight it, learning to appreciate and value metaphor, and then, you know, two final things I'll say is I think it has something to do with acknowledging that the church is a reality. It's not going away. If the Catholic Church can survive priest pedophilia and, you know, all the egregious things of the Catholic Church, and it can survive. Mormonism can survive in spite of its, you know, history and its troubles and its cultural things or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:13:21] So I think being stage five recognizes the church probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And instead of being like a dog barking at the train, getting run over, you sort of operate with the church in a strategic manner. And I think John Hamer is someone who does this very well. Instead of, like, trying to attack the church or take it down, you think strategically about how can I engage with the church in a way that benefits me? I mean, John Hamer is on the church's payroll as a consultant to help them in the Joseph Papers project. As I understand it, he.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] He's respected at the Academic conferences and at the religious conferences. He's a perma blogger on the By Common Consent blog, which is considered to be conservative by many people. But at the same time, he's an apostate, he's gay, and he's got his own views on what the church is about. And I think that's a pretty enlightened, strategic way to interact with the church instead of like a yipping dog. And then the final thing I'll say is most of us are not going to escape Mormonism as a culture or as a heritage anytime soon. You know, it's true we can leave the church, but we're not going to leave it alone because it's who we are.

John Dehlin [00:14:37] And so instead of, like, trying to deny that or be ashamed, it's like saying, hey, I may not be a member of the church, or I may be a member of the church, but no matter what, I'm Mormon and we're all Mormons. And that's what I love about Richard Bushman.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] He can embrace Dan Vogel and Todd Compton and Fawn Brody, and he would fight to the death to have them included in the umbrella of Mormonism. But he's also a patriarch and, you know, has access to the general authorities of the church. So he embraces Mormonism as a culture and even has a sense of pride in that. So those are some things that I'll just throw out as some of my latest thinking on what it means to strive for stage five, acknowledging that it's not a destination, but a journey towards more enlightened approach to engaging as a Mormon. I think I put you guys to sleep.

John Larsen [00:15:32] You left us all speechless.

Brian Johnston [00:15:33] I'll take a stab.

Logan Beaux [00:15:34] John, I really like everything you said. In fact, I was sitting here, pen in hand, taking notes, ready to. Ready to know, dig a pit for my neighbor, so to speak. But I'm really glad about the way you framed it. Some of the specific things I wanted

Brian Johnston [00:15:48] to

Logan Beaux [00:15:50] repeat are that stage five has nothing to do with a specific behavior you take or a position you take on any sort of issue that you can become stage five. And it doesn't mean you're going to go back to the church, or it might mean you're going to come back to the church. And just to extend that a little bit further, I think that you could become disaffected from the church and. And come back to the church at stage four or perhaps stage three or stage five. I really liked that you separated stage five from specific behaviors or positions.

Brian Johnston [00:16:25] Yeah, this is Brian. I wanted to throw in also, I wish there was some other way except calling them numeric stages. It's just that that's so simple to do. I wish you could call them like Apple Stage and Orange Stage because it makes it sound like one is better or more advanced or.

Brian Johnston [00:16:41] Well, no, they are different. But I just wanted to throw that out there that like, a higher number isn't a better number. It's just a different way of viewing things. And when I was listening to John, I was also making a few notes and I was thinking to myself, I didn't hear him say anything about what is true and what is false. Like, he didn't say the church is true or the church is false.

Brian Johnston [00:17:05] He's talked about goodness value. I think those are more kind of stage five types of terms. Instead of trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong and who's done what and all that stuff. And also wanted to also reiterate that same point, that it doesn't mean that you return whether you become active in the church or somewhere in between.

Brian Johnston [00:17:30] It doesn't mean you're ever. You are never going back to where you. You used to be at some point earlier in your life once you start developing along these paths.

Tension Between Stage Five and Church Orthodoxy

John Larsen [00:17:40] So here's my biggest thought or objection at this point. Doesn't the church fundamentally reject this sort of construction of the church? I mean, the church itself sets itself up very black and white. And this is from the top down. If you want to get in the temple, you want to get the. The blessings in your life, you want all the privileges and powers of the church, you have to sort of assume a very black and white construction. So is there something about the church that makes it reject this and that? The people who are trying to do so out in the Damu are really kind of on their own.

John Dehlin [00:18:20] Who do you want to answer?

John Larsen [00:18:22] Whoever's got a good answer.

Brian Johnston [00:18:25] Well, I'll throw this out. I think we discussed this in the last podcast. But it's just a fact that most people in the world, and certainly most people in the church, are more using a stage three kind of structure, where it is the most important thing is being right or wrong and doing the right thing. And so. Yeah, I know. I mean, I'm in church every week and I hear all that stuff. You got to do this, this and that to get into heaven or celestial kingdom or what. You know, you got to do all this stuff to get your temple recommend.

Brian Johnston [00:18:58] That used to bother me because I felt attached to what those people were thinking. But at this point, I sit there and I hear them and I say, well, that's really interesting what they're saying, but I don't feel that attachment anymore that I need to necessarily agree with that.

Brian Johnston [00:19:17] I see them looking at this symbol and dealing with it, but they don't understand that they're dealing with a symbol. They think literally, like, if you don't get into that temple and learn these signs and tokens, you're not going to get past those guardian angels. And I'm in the same room hearing the same thing and thinking, that's really a beautiful metaphor for enlightenment. Or this is something I could find that's useful where I'm not sitting there saying, well, that's true or false, if that makes any sense.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] Oh, go ahead, Logan.

Logan Beaux [00:19:51] Oh, I was just going to say that I think you brought up a really good point, John Larsen, that if you are going to come back to the church at something like stage five, there is going to be a conceptual tension there. You're not going to be able to fit into the church as the church wants you to fit in, or as it claims you have to fit in. So it's going to be different. Now, I guess the point ideally is that once you get to stage five, you don't feel that conceptual tension is something that causes you a personal feeling of discomfort and you can live with that. But you're right, the church sees you differently than you see yourself if you're going to participate.

John Dehlin [00:20:33] Well, I'm torn your question a bit, John, and here's why. On the one hand, there are a lot, I would say that there's a vocal minority in the church. Well, I'd say the way that the top leadership speaks and the way that the mid and lower level leadership speaks and likely believes, and then let's say a 10% minority of the vocal general membership in any ward, I think is exactly as you described stage three, true believing, literalistic, somewhat rigid and inflexible. And again, I'll say the way the general authorities speak, the way the mid level to low level leadership both believe and speak, and then 10% of the membership, the way they believe and speak.

John Dehlin [00:21:23] But I've been trying, I've been sort of polling members now for quite some time in my ward and in other wards, and I'm very confident if you pull aside 60% of the active membership and you say, is Mormonism really the one and only true church, even though, you know we're less than one half of 1% of the world's population, I think that most of those people, well over 30 to 40% of the active members of the church are going to say, I don't know, but it's a good way to live. And if I say, do you think that we're really going to spend the millennium getting baptized for the billions and billions of people who've died, do you really think that baptism, like, is that essential?

John Dehlin [00:22:11] I think you're going to get a good percentage. You're going to be like, I don't know. And if you say, okay, let's read The Doctrine and Covenants 132, is this really what you believe? I think 80% of the active membership are going to be like, I don't know. I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:22:27] And I think that you would get a very large percentage who are not certain, certain about the one true church idea, who are not overly tied to literalistic interpretations, to exclusive priesthood authority, and who are very Unitarian Universalistic in how they feel and think inside. Now, they're not vocal. They don't stand up and ever say this, but I think too often we judge the general membership by that vocal 10%. The member of the Stake High Council who's in our Sunday school class, plus the former bishop or former, you know, member of the Stake High Councilship, plus the couple blowhard gospel doctrine Bruce Armaconki types that are in every church.

John Dehlin [00:23:13] We judge the general membership by those people. The second thing I'll add is I've had enough interaction with sort of higher level leaders in the church that I really do believe that as you guys stated in your previous podcast, that they are way more flexible and metaphorical and non literal and more pragmatic than the typical blowhard TBM doctrinaire.

John Dehlin [00:23:44] And I have some personal experience to back that up, but that's kind of how I feel that at the top levels of the church you get a lot of pragmatic metaphorical flexibility.

John Larsen [00:23:57] You know, I think that's probably true. I agree with you. I have the same view. What is it about that 10% that has taken control of the church? I mean, they have the church in their full grips and you look at this last conference, there was some pretty hardcore rhetoric coming out of the brethren. Why is it that if what you're saying is true and what I believe, that most members have much more nuanced views, much more liberal takes on the doctrine. Why is it that we allow the control of the church and the rhetoric from primary on up to be controlled by this vocal minority?

Logan Beaux [00:24:35] Yeah, why? John, I want to hear this.

John Dehlin [00:24:38] Okay, I'll tell you why. This again, I learned from Kaim Potok's book the Chosen, the Promise, and my name is Asher Lev and David is Harp. Those are four books by an author named Kaim Potok. P O T O K. And he writes about Judaism as it became modernized post World War II. So all these Jews get slaughtered in the Holocaust, all these Jews move to New York and try and decide what Judaism means. A bunch of Jews want to assimilate into American culture so that they can progress and not be discriminated against and become financially successful. So you have a bunch of Jews selling out their literalistic beliefs or taking off, you know, cutting off their locks and taking off their yamalka, whatever it's called, and sort of mainstreaming into traditional American life.

John Dehlin [00:25:32] And then you got the Orthodox, the Hasidics who remain and who become sort of this minority within Judaism. I mean, even today, Reformed Judaism, which doesn't believe in a literal Bible, doesn't believe that necessarily that Moses ever really existed, doesn't necessarily keep kosher, doesn't necessarily follow the Sabbath. Reformed Judaism is the predominant branch of Judaism in the United States.

John Dehlin [00:26:03] Yet we still measure and define Judaism by the ultra Orthodox who wear the word, wear the clothes, and who do the hair and the beard and who are literalistic and observant. And one of the things I learned from Kaim Potok is that it's the Orthodox that keep the church alive.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] They're the ones who preserve the identity, they preserve the doctrine, they preserve the uniqueness. And frankly, they're the ones who take the hardest callings and who do the work to keep the church alive. If you turned the church over to a bunch of liberal, loosey, goosey, nomish type people, you're going to have a church that's likely going to disintegrate with, you know, decisions by consensus. And yeah, I'll pay tithing when it's convenient. And yeah, I'll go help set up the chairs when I'm not, you know, blogging on the Internet. And it's not, oh, I'll pay what I interpret to be 10%, which is really 2% of a very liberal interpretation of what my gross income or my net income really is.

John Dehlin [00:27:13] You can't maintain a church with that population. These people are like cats. You can't herd cats or little chickens in a barnyard. It takes the hardcore literalistic believers to fill the seats, to take the crappy callings, to subsidize the church financially and to maintain the unique beliefs and Doctrine and identity that allow a distinct unique culture to survive and thrive in the masses of American culture. And so we need them. We loosey goosey liberals need the orthodox for the church to survive because we benefit from the existence of the Church, but the church would die if it was turned over to us.

John Dehlin [00:28:00] And they need us. Because if they don't listen to the way the winds are changing, if they don't adapt to the needs, to the modernity, to the modernizing forces that are being applied to the church, if the church doesn't learn to adapt and become flexible, then it breaks under its own rigidity. That's my quick answer or belated, long lengthy answer. What do you think, Logan?

Logan Beaux [00:28:24] That's actually a great answer, a great insight. I do have a few things that I'd like you to respond to though. Okay, so we've got the orthodox minority that runs things and they're the ones that we can trust to actually keep things going instead of being too wishy washy. Okay, I actually buy that. But the problem is the more liberal, I guess we're going to even call them a majority at this point. Perhaps you can't fully participate if you admit not being part of that minority, right? So you go in for your temple recommend interview or if you're going to be called in to be the elders quorum president or the bishop or the stake president or something, you have to do this dance, the song and dance routine of going through the motions even though it's not something that you might believe or there are certain behaviors that are required of you. I don't know. Do you agree with that disconnect? And what do you think about it?

Brian Johnston [00:29:24] Let me throw this in. Isn't that actually a good method of gatekeeping? Like I personally at this point in my life would make a lousy in the church because I don't actually do a lot of the things that I'm supposed to. So should I really be in like in a leadership high profile position? I don't know. I mean maybe that is a good method of gatekeeping.

John Dehlin [00:29:49] What do you say, Logan? That it's unfair?

Logan Beaux [00:29:54] Yeah. Well, because some people might want to go to the temple if they don't believe everything or keep the word of wisdom, for example, or have a more involved calling. Some people can be liberal and still make decisive decisions and do their home teaching on time, right?

John Dehlin [00:30:12] Yeah. Well, it's interesting because first of all we'll all acknowledge that like 60% of the church at a minimum is completely inactive. Then if you take the 30 to 40% that are active. I would say only 30% of those are tithing paying, fully active temple recommend holding holders. Is that your guys sort of experience as well?

Logan Beaux [00:30:37] Close enough, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:38] So let's say at the most 40%. So you've got this 50 to 60% of active members who either don't hold a temple recommend or don't go to the temple and who seem to be happy enough with what they're getting from the church even though they're not fully enfranchised.

John Dehlin [00:31:00] Now I would love it for more people to be able to go to the temple and frankly for the temple to be sort of morphed in a way to where more people would actually want to go. So I would love to see that. But yeah, there are some, you know, I'll go back to what John was asking originally and that's that what's it like to be a conscious third weigher or NAM or aspiring stage five metaphorical Mormon in a church where what's said across the pulpit and in Sunday school is the true believing, hard line, dogmatic sort of thing. And it is, it can be a constant challenge and it can, I would say that the church experience is not conducive to that type of person.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] I think it's a rare person who buys the stage five Fowler pitch. It's a rare person who becomes NAM and stays active in the church. I've been making this appeal to over a thousand people now directly and very few people have been able to not only do it but do it in a way where they're happy and joyful. So I would say that John and Logan, the church is absolutely inhospitable to someone who's not really confident or resolved or enlightened in the way that they engage church. And it would be awesome if we could find ways for the church to become more accommodating to a third way approach while simultaneously not weakening the fibers of the strength of the church.

John Larsen [00:32:46] So John, you're talking about the sort of gatekeeping and that, that the more hard line, more literal individuals running the church are kind of the spine holding the whole thing together. But my concern is, you mentioned this, the bleed rate for the church is dismal. If you look at all the people that the missionaries are contacting who don't make it past the second discussion and then the number they baptize who are never seen from again and then the number of children of active parents who fall away, the number of ex Mormons, the number and then the huge number of Inactives who are just kind of.

Church Retention and Institutional Growth

John Larsen [00:33:21] They must have been the fence sitters in the pre existence, whatever those guys are. I mean, the church is not doing well keeping a lot of people in and I have to question if their methodology is working. You know, you're suggesting that possibly this is the, you know, sort of the best of all, you know, the best of all possible worlds. But you know, there's a lot of churches that are thriving today. They're maybe not be doing as well financially as the church, but they're doing okay without imposing, you know, hard line rules on, on, you know, sexual activity for marriage and giving a ceremony in the church or making you pay exactly a 10% and going to sort of a, you know, a tithing check at the end of the year. You know, so are those things really necessary?

Brian Johnston [00:34:08] I don't think it would be beneficial like if I could wave a magic wand and make everybody in the church stage five Mormon. I'm not sure that that would really be functional. So I guess what I would say is, you know, I don't know if it's a goal to everybody at that point. I think some people are just wired to have to go that direction.

Brian Johnston [00:34:29] But yeah, I wish there was a. This troubles me all the time. I wish there was a way to be more, to get that base of people the core, to have more compassion and be more inclusive because I think that's, they're gonna have to deal with it because like you pointed out, there's such a bad retention rate at this point. Maybe it was easier when everybody was all coalesced in one little area in the mountains. But you know, if, if the Mormon church wants to expand and become a worldwide church, they're gonna have to bend and flex. And hopefully that's where I guess it's my hope by staying is that I could be a part of that seed of, on some level to influence that in some way. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:35:16] Here's my answer to your question, John. First of all, I was in a little Sunstone presentation with Susan Score, who's a female apostle for the community of Christ or the RLDS church. And she asked the group what, what percentage of a healthy church leaves that church every year?

John Dehlin [00:35:39] And we were like, I don't know. And she's like 10% or something, 10 or 12%. And then she said, what percentage of membership leaves an unhealthy church on an annual basis? And we're all like, I don't know. And she's like 10 to 12%. And and the point she was making was all churches lose 10 to 12% of its members every year. And I would add that it's because the disaffected Mormon underground and the Internet makes it easy for us to find a concentrated number of disaffected people. I think it's easy to overstate the attrition of church is experiencing. You know, Grant Palmer threw out the number of like 100,000 a year, and a lot of people have sort of jumped onto that.

John Dehlin [00:36:31] I think it's easy to overstate the church's, you know, loss, disaffection rate. As I understand it, the church worldwide is still growing, and even in the United States, it's still growing just at a very low percentage number, like let's say 1 or 2%. And I know that that has a lot to do with babies being born, but it also has to do with the fact that we still have a big missionary force baptizing a lot of people, and we have a lot of people being baptized overseas.

John Dehlin [00:37:00] But let's just say that we are losing some people. I also think that if you try and think about what the solution is, you can look around and see what churches are being successful today. Well, certain branches of Islam are being successful. But. But I would say that the branches of Islam that are being successful are probably not the types of. Are probably not going in the direction that we would want to go in terms of ordinance and doctrine. Would you guys agree with that? Okay.

Brian Johnston [00:37:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:29] Okay. And you could probably say the same thing about Jehovah's Witness or other global or international churches that are growing. Who are the growing Christian churches that are doing really well? It's not Christian Scientists. Right. Who is it?

Logan Beaux [00:37:46] Assemblies of God.

John Dehlin [00:37:47] Yeah. Again, not this liberal, loosey goosey, Episcopalian or Unitarian like thing. It's a core set of strict beliefs with a pretty coarse set of doctrine of theology. Is that true or not true with Jehovah's Witness and Assembly of God?

John Larsen [00:38:03] That's what I understand to be true. Also, you know, the Pentecostals and those guys are growing, but there's an underlying assumption that you're operating on here that I want to call you out on.

John Dehlin [00:38:12] Okay.

John Larsen [00:38:12] There's a lot of people moving, say, to agnosticism or other sort of alternative spiritualities. And I don't know that that's necessarily a problem. You know, it's almost an implication that the churches are shrinking, but that doesn't mean spiritually the population is less good off.

John Dehlin [00:38:30] That's right. And you could tell by my Original comments that I would take. No issue with that.

John Larsen [00:38:36] Okay, go on.

John Dehlin [00:38:39] The only other type of church that I can see really growing is like the Joel Osteen type church. It's these mega churches with 30,000 members based on the cult of personality of one leader. And I can assure you that when Joel Osteen dies, his church is going to probably face a hard time filling up that church that it's got in Houston. It may not, but I think it likely will. And our church can't operate on the cult of personality because when another Paul Dunn happens, you know, that could take the whole church down. And so I think it's really complex to figure out how to make our church successfully grow.

John Dehlin [00:39:16] And it's easy to say that our church will be more successful by becoming more like the Unitarian Church. But I think if you look at the numbers of like the Lutherans and Presbyterians and Methodists and Episcopalians who've all tried to become more progressive, less strict, less focused on doctrine and theology, it seems like they're worse off because of it. But I could be wrong. That's just my impression.

Logan Beaux [00:39:40] One thing I noticed is that you seem to be equating success with growing. Right. You might very well be right that these churches who are growing are the ones that are pretty hard line rule bound and that if we were to change, we would stop growing. But I, I just want to raise the question that that might not mean the church would be less successful. In some ways it might be doing more good in the world if it didn't have its obsession with growing and instead focused on improving society or improving lives of its members in various ways.

John Dehlin [00:40:14] Yeah, I mean, that's a good point, especially if you look at it from a purely moral, idealistic perspective. But from a practical perspective, you need I look at the correct measure of vitality in the church. Butts and seats that are willing to contribute time and effort and energy. So butts and seats that are willing to put forth effort to make the church run, who are paying tithing, that's for me, the measure of success. Because you can't serve the world and make it a better place if you can't pay for the buildings to house the people. And if you can't get the people enough people to put forth the effort to go stand in the soup kitchen lines.

John Dehlin [00:41:02] You know, it doesn't matter whether you have that as your goal or not, if you can't actually move people to do it. So I think the proper measure for an institution, for a corporation like the church is butts and seats who are willing to put forth effort and amount of tithing that they're willing to collectively pay. And then you just hope that the church steers those resources in a constructive direction that also edifies the church. And I think this move to incorporate service to your fellow man as the fourth mission of the church could be a step in the right direction if they manage that correctly. Don't you guys think that's a positive step?

John Larsen [00:41:43] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Brian Johnston [00:41:44] Yeah, sure.

John Larsen [00:41:46] But, you know, the church is. They're just adding one more thing on without taking anything off. I mean, sometimes you wonder if they're just trying to push the members as far as they possibly can before they break.

John Dehlin [00:41:57] You know, let me turn a question back on. Back on Logan and John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:42:04] Okay, Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:06] Like what, what if I were to stand up or what? You know, what if you guys are someone who had all the credibility in the world with disaffected or ex or post or whatever, New Order Mormons, and they were to say, come on, guys, too many stuck in stage four. Too many of us are stuck in bitterness. Too many of us are not being constructive in how they've dealt with their transition.

John Dehlin [00:42:34] And they were to sort of stick a flag in the ground and say, we're going to call all of you ex, post disaffected Mormons to strive for a higher level of interaction, lose the bitterness, strive for more constructive interactions, have more tolerance. I get a sense that you can't do that without getting your head bitten off. And I want to know if, can you do that? Who's doing that? If you can't do it, why can't you do it? And if you can do it, you know, you know, why don't, why don't you guys or others do it? Or maybe you are. And tell me about that, because I like that idea of people constructively putting their shoulder to the wheel towards a positive end. But I found that it's very hard to make that case. You just get eaten alive when you make that case.

John Larsen [00:43:31] Well, I think.

John Dehlin [00:43:32] Why is that?

John Larsen [00:43:33] I think there actually are those sort of people for sure.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] I agree. I agree, but I agree. Go ahead.

John Larsen [00:43:39] Well, if you look at like the, you know, for instance, the, the boards that are frequented by people leaving the church, like post Mormon or Flack, I exclude RFM for. We can come back to that in a second. But what you have the most posters, there are people who are just fresh out of the church. I mean, they're really in that stage four. And actually a lot of them are in the church. They're using a pseudonym. They're still going to church every Sunday and they come and unload every Sunday afternoon. If you follow those boards for a while, there are those of us, I try to do it, some who try to help where they can, but they tend not to post as often.

John Larsen [00:44:17] They tend to be like guys guides. And I can think of some really great ones. A great example is a poster by the name of Peter Mary on the post Mormon board. Comes in all the time with, well, reason and tries to be helpful. But people in that stage, that, that anger stage, that thrashing, don't take too kindly to direction one way or the other, be it about anything. So you just kind of have to. I think, I think, John, what you're saying, there are people who are actually doing that. They're just hard to see through the, through the gunk. And I think there's people doing it on the other side too.

John Larsen [00:44:49] You know, I think that, you know, there's people who leave the church and they, you know, they get disowned by their families and their home teachers stop visiting. But at the same time, there's people who are willing to help, willing to soothe. But oftentimes I think there's a, There's a point on this path that you have to walk alone. There's no one who can help you resolve some of that stuff, and you just got to work through it yourself.

John Dehlin [00:45:13] No, I agree. And I agree that anger has to be there. And I totally acknowledge, I even think of you guys are Mormon expressions as being leaders in this regard. Maybe Niall, but I love Niall anyway. And definitely I think Jeff Ricks tries to do this. I think that there's a ton of people on post Mormon and New Order Mormon and flack who do this. But, but what I'm saying is like, do you see a day where there can be an ethic where there's even a critical mass of people who are proactively trying to move the culture of disaffection in that direction, where it's no longer a couple people isolated, but like a consensus of an ethic that tries to even make this the predominant culture or ethic within that group?

Brian Johnston [00:46:11] You know, I'm saying, yeah, I think it would be wonderful if, I mean, if there was some kind of organized. I'm just gonna throw this term out there, but you know, like a mentoring organization where people that have gotten to the other, you know, in some organized fashion. I guess that's what's happening on the Internet. I mean, it's sort of a grassroots thing that just is springing up with different boards that help people along.

Brian Johnston [00:46:36] But yeah, I mean it's just, it's so, it's such a painful place to be. But people have to go through that, I think really separate themselves from that stage three, external authority and you know, to really find themselves. And it's just a process that people have to go through. But yeah, there's, there's wonderful people out there. You know, as soon as I said, yeah, somebody should organize it, I thought immediately, well, who? You know. But I think it is happening on a grassroots level and it's happening on the Internet because that's, you know, there may only be two or three people like this in every word. But the Internet, you know, you add up all those thousands of words and certain. You've got thousands of people.

Reconciliation and the Future of the Church

John Larsen [00:47:18] You know, John, I've been thinking about this this last week for various reasons. I've been thinking about sort of reconciliation. I can't even figure out what it looks like, you know, who comes to the table, who are the, you know, you take the ex Mormon world. If you look at the Mormon, Mormonism is sort of a bubble in the universe. Well, people go out in every direction. So even though apologists sometimes pretend they're spokesman for the ex Mormon world, there really isn't.

John Larsen [00:47:45] And you never know what direction people are going to go in. So I don't even know where to, you know, I'm more of a secularist, I'm agnostic and I'm very rational in terms of my belief. And some people gravitate to that. Some people are repulsed by it. So I don't know that I can speak for most of the people who are going in every direction. And that's just one example. So it's a very difficult thing to do. And then if I want to sort of reconcile with the church side, I mean, who do I meet with? Do I meet with apologists? Do I meet with general authorities?

John Larsen [00:48:16] Do I meet with. I mean it's almost like the two sides only exist in theory, but once you try to put them concrete, the boundaries break down really quick.

Logan Beaux [00:48:28] Well, I have a little bit to say. John Dehlin, you're asking if there can be a movement of constructive, non literal believing, post angry Mormons. Was that kind of it?

John Dehlin [00:48:40] Sure, sure.

Logan Beaux [00:48:43] Okay. Well, I think that it's almost a situation of as things we've talked about so far, wanting to have your cake and eat it too. I mean, if the church were to go sort of in the direction of the Unitarian Book Club, I mean, the Unitarian Church.

Logan Beaux [00:49:01] Then all of a sudden, it would be friendly for people like this. You could have your crazy old guy in the corner who on occasion raises his hand and says something impish in Gospel doctrine. And then you'd, you know, once you're starting on this path of not believing how you did in primary, he's the guy you go talk to, and he can be there.

Logan Beaux [00:49:23] He's going to the table. He's got. So I'm calling and he's the one to help guide you. But by choosing, as we talked about before, by choosing the stricter path that sort of eliminates that is my reaction to that question.

Logan Beaux [00:49:41] I'd like there to be a way to merge those in the future. And. And I want to think that with enough creativity, with enough great leadership, there could be a way. But that's the tension that I see as it exists now.

John Dehlin [00:49:58] Yeah, I can see that. I just want to add that I think that we have this. I think I look at, for me, personally, I'll never forget when I asked James Carville what he thought of, of Karl Rove. And James Carville said, within the Beltway, we look at people in two ways. The people who are rainmakers and the people who are being rained upon. And so he was basically expressing respect and appreciation for Karl Rove, even though he was diametrically opposed from Karl Rove in terms of politics and ideology.

John Dehlin [00:50:37] And I personally look at Mormon expression, John Larsen, the panelists on Mormon expression, Dave Westwood, I think that's his name, who runs New Order Mormon. I look at Jeff Ricks on Post Mormon and probably a lot of the ex Mormon panelists as being a part of what's going to lead to a constructive sort of movement. So I asked that question with a lot of disclaimers because I do think that we're moving in that direction. But I think the key is, and I'll also add the Stale DS moderators, you know, Brian and Angela, you know, Hot Girl and Orson and Ray and all those people and people, you know, the perma bloggers on the major, you know, blogger not go blogs.

John Dehlin [00:51:27] I think the extent to which people stand up and initiate creative works, podcasts, blogs, content, DVDs, things that are assets that live a lot longer than just a reply to a forum post or a blog post, people who are creating assets that move the conversation forward, that get the dialogue going. For me, those are the heroes. And I can't say how much I respect all those people that I mentioned and all the Others that I forgot because. Because I think that's part of the key. And I do think it's already happening. Even though I posed the question as a bit of an instigator to maybe try and get more of it, you

John Larsen [00:52:06] know, I absolutely agree with that. I think. I think you're right on that. There's a lot of. And even in the last 10 years, you've seen a lot of maturity in the content, you know, where rfm, well, it is what it is, but there's a lot more choices now that aren't so angry. And it serves its purpose of helping people deal with that immediate shock and awe of that comes when you leave the church. But, you know, I think the next big step has to be the churches. And I'll use an example. I'm a graduate of byu. There are a lot of other people, much more talented than I, who are nationally known, who are graduates of byu.

John Larsen [00:52:40] I realized when I was going through a crisis that no matter what I did, no matter what achievement or success in life I had, I would never be invited to speak at my alma material. Right. We have people like Aaron Eckhart, you know, who've gone on to amazing success in their careers. He will never be invited back to BYU film school. You know, and until we can, until the church can overcome that sort of prejudice it has against us who are its children. Because I still see myself as a Mormon, as part of the Mormon culture. I still see the apologist and the brethren and all those people as part of my family.

John Larsen [00:53:15] Now, a lot of. I don't think a lot of ex Mormons have necessarily transcended to that point yet, but there are plenty of us who have. And so, you know, I'm reaching the hand out to the church now. It's time for the church to reach its hand out and say, we realize there are people who might reject our literalist thing or our business dealings in Salt Lake City, but you're still part of our family. And I think that's the next big step.

Brian Johnston [00:53:37] Part of the point this podcast was supposed to, you know, is about Stage five Mormonism. Is this conversation kind of that we're having, give a flavor and feel of what it's like to be that kind of have that kind of structure and still approach Mormonism. I mean, like John pointed out, doesn't mean that you're active or inactive or whatever stage in between. But, you know, we've. We just had a really great conversation about all this stuff in the church and not really talked about the Normal things that you would hear in a Sunday school class.

John Dehlin [00:54:06] Yeah, you know, I'll, I'll actually disagree with you slightly, John, but I think you'll like my disagreement. I. I think what we need to do is wrestle the ownership of the word Mormon completely away from the LDS Church. John Hamer as an apostate, is as Mormon as anyone is ever going to be. And so is Jan Shipps, who's a non member Mormon historian.

John Dehlin [00:54:32] So are the members of the restoration branches, and so are all the ex and post Mormons and even Ed Decker. And I think that if we were to create podcasts, radio shows, magazines that stood up to define Mormonism broadly and that were inclusive, which is exactly what you're doing on this podcast, we become the arbiters of what's Mormon, and we become the arbiters of what is allowed to be discussed and who is inclusive. And the extent to which we defer to BYU or the LDS Church to be able to decide who's included, we lose. But the extent to which ex Mormons and post Mormons embrace the title Mormon but then unify across the ideological spectrum to have a broader conversation is the extent to which I think we achieve your objectives. What do you think about that?

Logan Beaux [00:55:35] Well, the wishy washy liberal in me likes it, which just obviously goes to show that I'm not supposed to be leading the church, but let's do it, man.

John Larsen [00:55:45] No, I like it. I like everything you said, John. I think we are making progress. There's still a lot of progress being made down on the street level with a lot of thing that a lot of ex Mormons deal with are family relationships. And unfortunately there's still divorces over this stuff stuff. And we have to make strides there. But I think the framework's being set. I think the future looks brighter.

John Dehlin [00:56:12] It totally does. I'll just add that I want to throw out a challenge to the audience, to people who are listening. The most powerful thing that I've seen to change lives is some type of creative work or asset that will, that will exist and perpetuate far beyond your efforts. So I created Mormon stories. There's like 200 hours of interviews out there. I don't have to lift a finger. I can pay $100 a year, keep that podcast up online. And I've got 200 people a month subscribing to that and learning all those issues and sending me emails and thanking me for that.

John Dehlin [00:56:55] It's impacting people's lives and it will for generations, without me ever lifting another finger. The Sunstone archive that's out there of all those awesome articles written by Toscano and all the different authors in Sunstone, you can now go up to Sunstone and search those articles. And that asset is going to live forever. This podcast is going to continue living that how to stay in the church after you're disaffected essay that I wrote. People read it all the time that why people leave the church screencast that I created. People are still referring that to all their disaffected brothers and sisters and parents and church leaders long, you know, after I created it, which was in 2005, the books that people are writing, like Lyndon Lamborn's book and other people's books, those things are going to continue persisting.

John Dehlin [00:57:51] And instead of so much activity, responding on forums and responding on blog posts and all that stuff goes into the archives, I would love to challenge people to do creative works projects that persist across generations. I think those are the things that are going to really move the needle.

John Dehlin [00:58:14] And I think that's a key to helping resolve the. This equation. And I just can't say how much I respect you, John Larsen, and your panel for picking up that gauntlet, because you guys absolutely picked up that gauntlet and ran with it.

John Larsen [00:58:29] Well, I appreciate it and I agree with everything you're saying, and I think that's true. That's what's going to move it. And hopefully I speak for you also when I say that there's a lot of room for a lot more voices out there, and I'm happy to help and assist in whatever way I can to get more voices on and more and, you know, more stuff out there. So if people have a story inside them, then let's get it out there.

John Dehlin [00:58:52] Absolutely.

John Larsen [00:58:53] Well, brethren, it's been another great discussion and I think the sentiment is exactly right that, you know, if you want to know what Stage five is like, hopefully this is it. You know, that we can sit and talk about these things and look for a better way without, with that acknowledging that the church is in a lot of ways, full of crap. But there's a lot of. There's a lot of great things out there about it, and there's a lot of great things about the culture, and we can put some of that stuff aside and hopefully, you know, focus on the good and move forward.

Brian Johnston [00:59:28] And there really isn't one single right, correct way to express that. That's gone with stage five. And that's the beautiful thing, is this diversity can flower and it's just great to be a part of that.

John Larsen [00:59:40] All right, thanks again as always. The discussion continues@mormonexpression.com you can head to the blog there and post your response. And you can send us a mail@mailmanexpression.com.

Brian Johnston [01:00:03] Sa.

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