Introduction and Shannon's Early Life

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:00:00] One. Come, come you saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy when you're away.

John Dehlin [00:00:34] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is July 2, 2020, and we are so very excited to have with us today Shannon Caldwell Montez. Hey, Shannon, how's it going?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:00:53] Good. Doing well.

John Dehlin [00:00:57] So excited to have you with us today. For those of you who have been tuned in live, we just did several hours with Shannon. Let me just sort of introduce Shannon from a high level. So Shannon is the sister of a dear friend of mine, Steve Caldwell, Mindy Caldwell. They're dear friends of me and Margi. I learned about Shannon through Steve and Mindy. And today's episode is going to be, on the one hand, just sort of a more a normal, kind of everyday, average Mormons kind of journey as a Mormon. So Shannon grew up in the Kaysville area in Utah, ended up going to the U of U. She and Steve both are huge ute fans. I don't know if that runs in the family, but Shannon, Shannon just lived the Mormon dream, went to the U of U, studied history, got her bachelor's degree, got married in the temple and, you know, had four kids and kind of was living, I don't want to say the Mormon dream, but was, you know, definitely doing the Mormon housewife, the Mormon mother sort of thing as an orthodox believing Mormon, but always kind of maybe internally struggling where things get really super interesting, maybe for me or for you is that, you know, after years of some cracks about four years ago, Shannon really started to get into studying Mormon history and examining the Mormon Church's truth claims, its history. We just did several hours with Shannon because she ended up enrolling in a master's program at the University of Nevada at Reno, and for her master's thesis wrote this thesis called the Secret Mormon meetings of 1922, about B.H. roberts and sort of a Mormon general authority and church historian that ended up questioning his faith, losing his faith in the historicity of the Book of Mormon and informing all of the church leadership about it. We just did several hours about B.H. roberts. If you haven't checked that out, check it out. It's fascinating and super important. We're going to be coming back with Shannon a few days from now to dive in deep about the secret Mormon meetings of 1922. This is a fascinating thesis. It's a fascinating set of stories. You're going to love it. But what we wanted to do while we had Shannon in studio is have her just Tell her Mormon story. And so that's why we're here, and that's what we're going to do. And Shannon, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:03:34] Thanks. Happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:03:37] So you've listened to some Mormon stories. You know how this goes.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:03:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] So let's dive in. Tell us. Tell us your Mormon origins and your Mormon story, kind of starting from the beginning.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:03:49] All right. Born and raised in the Covenant, you know, had pioneer ancestors and, you know, people immigrating from the. From Europe in order to join Zion. And, you know, I just have the Mormon story on both sides. As far back as there are Mormons, I'd say I was born in Ogden, Utah, and moved to Kaysville when I was 7. I'm the third of six kids and got two older brothers and a sister just younger than me and two younger brothers.

John Dehlin [00:04:28] Where's Steve in the birth order?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:04:30] Steve's just above me, so he's less than two years older than me.

John Dehlin [00:04:33] And then you have a brother that's like mayor.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:04:36] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] And where is he in the birth order?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:04:38] He's the oldest.

John Dehlin [00:04:39] Okay.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:04:40] Okay. And then, yeah, my sister, who's 20 months younger than me, we were one grade apart in school. Great friends growing up. Had a lovely childhood together. And then two younger brothers who are also just like. I have the most amazing siblings. They're every one of them, just the best people.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] So close family.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:05:00] Close family, yep.

John Dehlin [00:05:02] And so to what extent was your kind of Mormon upbringing very traditional? Talk about the way Mormonism was manifest in your family's lives in your early childhood and maybe early adolescent years?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:05:15] Yeah, I would say. I would say the church was the center of our lives. We were good Mormons. I wouldn't say we were like. We did all the things. We went to church every week. You know, we sometimes didn't do family home evening, but. And my mom feels terrible about that. But they did everything they could. They were the best parents, and they loved us. And we could tell. Like, my parents did an excellent job of loving us and raising us the best way they knew how.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] And,

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:05:50] yeah, they. They're great parents. And we, you know, we all got along, I'd say, pretty well. We had. One of my earliest memories is actually being about. I would say I was probably three or four, and my sister say I was four. She had just turned three because for, like, a few months she was one year younger than me, and I didn't really understand birthdays. And I thought she was going to get older than me at some point. And I remember my mom saying, this was just my fear. And one time my sister and I were in a fight, and I remember my mom saying, well, the older one needs to be the peacemaker. For some reason in my mind, I thought if I wasn't the peacemaker, she would get older than me. So I just had this huge desire to be the peacemaker. So I would say, in my family, I was always trying to be a peacemaker and trying to, you know, just go. Just make things easy for everyone.

John Dehlin [00:06:56] Did you do, you know, did your family try and do the scripture study and the family prayer?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:07:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:01] Attend church every week?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:07:03] We tried. We weren't always successful at, you know, scripture study and prayer, but, you know, I knew my parents loved the gospel, and we definitely went to church every week and went to all of our activities and did seminary and, you know, all the things they were all expected of us and we all. Well, my oldest brother, he left the. He was like, you know, as a teenager, he had some struggles and anger and, you know, he just. The program wasn't quite as easy for him to follow. And I would say the same for Steve as well. To some extent, they weren't, you know, as straight down the middle of the Mormon path for some of their teen years.

John Dehlin [00:07:54] So Steve was a little bit of a troublemaker, huh?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:07:56] He was. I think he was a little better at hiding it than Mike was. So Mike took more of the heat than Steve did. But, yeah, they both. They kind of were my example of why we should follow the rules. I would say, like, I definitely. The Lehman and Lemuel story, I was the Nephi. I could see that they were causing themselves and my parents a lot of unhappiness. And so I was like, well, the rules are the rules for a reason. And I learned that happiness comes from following the rules. There's just no reason not to do the right thing. So I was very focused. If I'd heard something said over the pulpit that was a rule and I was going to follow it. So I was definitely very dedicated to having the best life possible. And I was told that the way to have the best life possible is to follow as many rules as you can.

John Dehlin [00:08:56] So what did your teenage years look like as a Mormon?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:08:59] As a Mormon, I was just really good. You know, I. I had good friends. Dating was actually really, really scary for me. I feel like I had had some scare tactics that worked really well on someone like me who's dying.

John Dehlin [00:09:18] So what were you afraid of?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:09:20] I somehow. So, you know, all of these talks about morality. I remember seeing that rafting video where people are falling out of the raft and they're like, this is like, morality. And if you go into the rapids, you can. Bad things can happen, and you got to keep yourself safe and, you know, just hold to the rod. And I somehow, I guess the lack of sex education and the lack of. And the abundance of telling people, you have to be very careful. On some level, I think I believed all boys were rapists because at some point you lose. They especially would lose control and not be able to help it, help themselves. You know, you can't get them too turned on, because at some point they're gonna. You know, it's. They're not gonna be able to control themselves. So dress nice so they can control themselves. And don't. Don't flirt too much so that they can control themselves. It was a lot about helping the boys control themselves. And so on some level, I believed that boys were pretty dangerous and that you shouldn't get them riled up because they couldn't control themselves. So, like, I realize that now. I just. I remember anytime a guy liked me, I would. As soon as I felt like they might make a move, we were done. I stopped talking to them. I would, like, run the other way. And actually, even with Dave, who I ended up marrying, we were friends for months, and finally he kind of just called my bluff and asked me to marry him before he'd even kissed me. And I knew I couldn't say no if he was a viable option. So, yeah, so I said yes. And then we kissed. And then, you know, we had a normal relationship after that. But I was just so afraid because I feel like the scare tactics had completely worked on me and my anxiety level. So it was. It was interesting. Like, I loved the gospel. I loved my friends. I loved efy. I went to every possible efy. I went to byu, Rick's. I did an outdoor efy. I wanted to be an EFY counselor, but they didn't hire me. But, like, I loved efy. I loved girls camp. It just. It was everything. Everything to me.

Growing Up Mormon: Testimony and Seminary

John Dehlin [00:11:50] How was your testimony? Did you. Did you try and get a testimony? Did you go to seminary? Did you think about the truthfulness of the church? Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon? Did you do Moroni's promise? What about your testimony?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:12:02] Yeah, I. So I remember being in high school and being like, I better do that whole Moroni's promise thing. I better, like, pray about this. I remember actually being a little bit scared to pray about it, because if I got a real good testimony, I wouldn't be able to deny it and I'd really have to step up my game. So I kind of was doing it by default for a long time. And then eventually I just. There were times that I was like, I don't know, it sounds a little, why can't we see those gold plates? Like, why, why isn't there a museum that has the gold plates? I'd really like to see them. So, you know, there was parts of me that was like, that sounds a little far fetched, but the other parts of me were like, well, there's just, you know, this is what we do, this is what we believe. And by the time I really gave any voice to my doubts or to where it started feeling like, what if this isn't true? I was married and had little kids and thought, you know, my husband would leave me. And so there was just no room to really question it. I was so young when I got married that I hadn't even become an adult yet, really.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] Right. So regarding your. Your thoughts about women and the role of women in society, your own personal goals and dreams, kind of feminist themes, your potential, what your purpose is in life. Do you remember having thoughts and dreams as a teenage girl about, you know, maybe separate from what the church programmed you, Maybe you didn't have these thoughts, like where you felt pulled or where you felt interested versus kind of the path the church wanted you to be on, or any observations about equality, men versus women, Any sort of feminist themes you want to share?

Noticing Gender Differences in the Church

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:13:57] Okay, so I, you know, I have four brothers and one sister. And so I did grow up noticing the differences between the boys and the girls. And, you know, I remember my brothers getting these rafting trips and like these really fun adventures and we couldn't leave our stake boundaries. And, you know, they'd be like, well, these are scout activities and that's why they get better activities. So, I mean, I remember being a little bit bummed by that, but I always kind of felt like I was fairly equal, you know, that girls could be as smart as boys and that girls were as important as boys. Just personally, I felt that. I felt like the church maybe didn't necessarily help me feel that. I knew that my job was going to be to stay at home and have kids and be a mom. So I remember not wanting to take child development classes because I was like, I'm going to do that anyway. But it was important to me to get a degree. I hoped maybe to be a teacher or a writer, but by the time I finished college, I already Had a baby, and that wasn't gonna work to get a career. I wasn't gonna put her in daycare, because that was wrong, in my opinion. So for me, actually, I felt like I was somewhat. Felt okay about being a girl until I went to the temple. And the temple cemented in my mind that I was less than my husband. You know, and what I remember feeling a little bit like, oh, that was, like, the big truth that I took out when I went out of the temple was that I need to support him. Like, that's what I vowed to do. And so I did my best to do that.

John Dehlin [00:15:53] Did that feel right to you at the time? Was it uncomfortable?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:15:56] You know, I've had women who say they went through the temple and they heard that and they rejected it, and they were just like, ugh. And I wish I had done that. That would have helped me so much. But in my experience, I was like, this is the highest truth there is. Like, I'm at the. I go to the temple, I'm learning the most important things that God has to share with me. And I'm doing this, like, it's so sacred, we can't even talk about it outside the temple. And so I went and, yeah, I didn't reject it. I thought, well, this is what God wants me to do. This is the most important thing, is that, you know, I obey my husband and I follow the. You know, all the things. But the two. I would say my two biggest takeaways from my experience in the temple was that I. I'm second to my husband. I need to support him. I need to hearken unto him. I need to do everything to make his life better. And number two, I need to give everything the church asks, including my life if need be. So those were my two takeaways, and I tried to implement those into my life with extreme dedication, because those were the highest, most important truths that we could learn.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] So you bought in.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:17:16] I completely drank that poison without even poison.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:17:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] That's a foreshadowing of what's to come.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:17:25] Well, I do feel like it poisoned me. Yeah. Because. And I just continued. I believed that and took it in and lived it as truth.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] And when you say the teaching that. And you ended up feeling was poison that you bought into, what was the teaching again? That now you're saying later you feel poisonous?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:17:47] I mean, it took a feminist awakening to start to make me feel like I could even be equal, you know, that my opinions were anywhere in the realm of as important as my husband's.

John Dehlin [00:18:00] So the Poison was that women are lesser than. Than men.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:18:03] Right. And that his life. That his. That he mattered more, period. He was my God, you know, when it comes down to it, he was my head and my. The person I follow, the person I'm dedicated to, the person whose life I support, and it doesn't really go the other way.

John Dehlin [00:18:26] Basically, you exist to support your husband. Right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:18:28] I'm his help me help meet. He's not my help meet. I'm his help meet. So I was helping him meet all his obligations. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:18:37] And just because I ask men about this all the time, and I want to be fair. You talked about conceptualizing. You talked about the teachings that you needed to be modest so you wouldn't give your husband or your potential husband or other Mormon boys any bad thoughts. And then you talked about, you know, you policing their morality so that there's no. They don't become immoral. Did you have any thoughts of yourself as a sexual being? What types of messages did you internalize? Did you have any awakenings that way? Conflicts?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:19:10] Shame?

John Dehlin [00:19:11] Was sexuality or even secret, overt sexuality anyway, part of your teenage years or young adulthood in any way that's worth mentioning?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:19:20] I was extremely uncomfortable with being a sexual being at all. I tried not to even have crushes, you know, Like, I was. I mean, I would. I had crushes, but I was. I tried so hard to be pure and, like, good. And I was so afraid of dating, as I said. Like, it just. It seems so fraught that for me, it seemed easiest to just avoid the whole thing. You know, I hardly even would talk to boys because it just. I was afraid it would lead somewhere, you know? And also I was afraid of getting married young, so I didn't want. I knew that it was righteous to get married and not put off education and stuff, so I kind of didn't want to lead someone toward that. So I was just very. You know, until Dave came along. Nobody could break that wall of, like, just distance. I just kept distance.

John Dehlin [00:20:19] You kind of shut down.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:20:20] Yeah, I. I shut down as much as I possibly could.

Meeting Dave and Getting Married in the Temple

John Dehlin [00:20:24] Okay. Okay. So, you know, you talked to us about meeting Dave and going to the temple.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:20:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:33] What. What was kind of your agreement or understanding? Either explicit or just understood in terms of what role belief in the church would play in your marriage and in your life. Does that make sense?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:20:46] Yeah. So we met at Ricks College.

John Dehlin [00:20:49] That says something.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:20:50] Yeah. We were in the same ward, and it was. Yeah, it was understood that this was the center of our lives. He'd just gotten back from a Mission to Brazil, where he'd been very successful as a missionary and had lots of converts and lots of success. And, you know, he was still on fire. And. And this is something that I've realized recently is the ways that our beliefs undermined even our ability to love each other, because, well, I feel like he was less hung up on actual adherence to rules. He adhered to the rules, but he didn't think that the rules on their own necessarily were as important as just the spirit of the law. Right. So I've realized, you know, since things have changed, but that our beliefs undermined our marriage. And the fact that I believed that he was supposed to get married within a year of coming back from his mission, and he was coming up on a year. I kind of believed that he liked me because I was so pure. Like, I was a good, pure, virtuous woman who, you know, completely saved myself for the right person and who had received these commandments in, like, all my religion classes and whatever, that the most important thing to do is get married and have children, and if you put off family and marriage for education, that that's selfish. And so I feel like I went into the marriage more out of obligation. You know, I would have loved to wait a few months. There was part of me that was terrified to get married at that point, and that if I had had the choice, I would have waited. But I also knew that you don't play with fire. You know, boys can't control themselves. You have to coddle these guys and not make it too hard for them. And so, you know, you don't get engaged and stay engaged for very long. So six weeks after my first kiss, we were married.

John Dehlin [00:23:04] What?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:23:05] Yeah, it was six weeks. Crazy. Yeah. So that seems a little weird and unhealthy, but, you know, I was, like, keeping everything at bay for so long. It wasn't Dave's fault. Dave was not approved like I was. You know, he'd had girlfriends, he'd had experiences. So this wasn't him. This was me saying, you know, if you want to hang out, we can hang out, but not if you're going to try to make moves on me. You know, we're just friends. We're just friends. We're just friends. And we were, like, best friends. And finally he's like, I think we should get married. And I was like, oh, like, terrified. But I knew that the commandment was that I needed to just do this. And I liked him. I enjoyed hanging out with him. And I figured if I'm going to get Married. He's a great person to get married to, so let's do this. But I didn't feel like I, like, doubted the fact that he loved me for me. I thought he loved me for my virtue. And that comes into play later when I'm like, if I'm not a Mormon, he's probably not going to want me.

John Dehlin [00:24:11] Yeah. So how. So you guys get married. You're 19, he's 21.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:24:17] 22.

John Dehlin [00:24:18] 22. And I'm guessing you guys start having babies really quick.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:24:23] Yeah. So we'd like. Before we got married, we read all the literature on, like, should we use birth control or not? And we decided that we should just stay close to the Spirit and have as many kids as God tells us to, but that we didn't necessarily need to avoid all birth control. But about nine months into the marriage, I was, you know, I didn't want to stay on the pill. I was like, let's try something else. And he was like, you know, maybe it's time to start thinking about kids. And I was like, I don't know.

Guest 2 [00:24:55] I'm not.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:24:55] Like, I don't feel ready. But then he prayed and felt confirmation that it was time to have kids. And, you know, I remember being like, I'm not sure about this, but, you know, what? If the Spirit's going to talk to someone, it's going to be him, because, you know, he's the head. He's the priesthood head. So I was like, okay. And then within a month, we were pregnant. So we had a baby a year and a half into our marriage. I mean, I love my kids. They're amazing people, and I love it. But again, like, with my marriage, I felt like if I'd had to do it on my own timeline, it wouldn't have been as quick as it had been. I just didn't feel like the choices were mine to make.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] Yeah, it's that issue of consent that we talked about in our interview. We just did well.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:25:51] And I just never felt empowered like I was to defer to the men in my life, the priesthood people. So if I'm getting a talk from a seminary or, you know, from over the pulpit, I mean, there were talks that I can point out at this time that we're talking about marriage and how you don't put it off and education, you know, these were fresh on my mind. And the proclamation had just come out. You know, it was like, get married and have kids. This is the most important thing you can do in your life. No failure, success can compensate. You know whatever that quote is. And any two people can get married as long as they're righteous. So all these things kind of pushed me into saying, well, this is the right thing to do. I have to do it now.

John Dehlin [00:26:34] So, I mean, so far, this sounds like the Mormon dream. Like you're. You're staying chaste. Forgive me for using these words, but you're staying chaste, you're staying moral, you're getting married in the temple, you're marrying your returned missionary, and you're having kids. What's not the love?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:26:50] I am the church's success story. I am exactly what they wanted.

John Dehlin [00:26:54] So what's wrong? What's going wrong here? I don't see the problem.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:26:58] I am being a perfect servant of the Church, but I am not being a perfect servant of Shannon. Right. My. What I want doesn't matter, but what the church does, what the Church wants does.

John Dehlin [00:27:16] So how does that. Give us some examples or talk us through how that.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:27:20] Well, you know, I just was. I was playing my role, you know, and I've been told that this is the best way to happiness you. You know, the gospel provides happiness, and following the rules provides happiness. And I wanted a happy life. So, you know, the more rules I could follow, the happier I'd be. And therefore, if I put off marriage, probably, you know, I can't ask him to wait for me. So I would probably end up being punished by having to wait till I'm really old to get married. This was my reasoning. Or if I put off having kids, I would probably get really crappy kids. God would send the worst ones to me because I'm not righteous enough to welcome the good ones or something like that. So I just had all these, like, little fears and deals that, you know, if I did this, then God would reward me for following the rules. But, yeah, I would say it looked like an absolute success story. The church, the program worked on me. I avoided all the pitfalls of sex and dating. I ended up with a good return missionary and a beautiful bunch of kids. But what was wrong?

John Dehlin [00:28:37] And when did it start?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:28:39] Well, again, I was drinking poison this whole time. I was. I was.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] So far it doesn't sound poisonous. So explain to us.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:28:47] I was killing my own spirit.

Guest 2 [00:28:54] I. Sorry. I was. In order to make myself fit these roles, I was cutting off every piece of me that. That had any resistance. You know, I would shut her up. I would shut her down, tell myself I didn't matter. Like, what I wanted didn't matter. Yeah, I forced myself to be this character that wasn't that didn't have hopes and dreams, and that didn't have desires outside her family or have her own ambition. You know, my ambition was to be his.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:29:48] You know, his ambition was my ambition.

Guest 2 [00:29:51] I had to scrub myself of myself

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:29:55] in order to

Guest 2 [00:29:58] fit this role. And so I feel like it does some real damage to the women who follow the program. They lose themselves in order to be a good Mormon in so many ways.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] So you got lost. You lost yourself.

Guest 2 [00:30:18] Yeah, I tried not to be a person.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:30:21] Like, I mean, I. I had a personality, and I wanted to, you know, I tried to just be as much of myself within this box as I could be, but to never look outside

Guest 2 [00:30:33] this box, to never hope outside this

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:30:35] box, to never, you know, acknowledge there was anything outside that box of perfect wife and mother, because there's no happiness outside of this box. So this. Me filling this box as much as I could would make me the happiest person I could be. And that's all I should or could hope for. And it all was kind of contingent on my being good and my being righteous and my following the plan.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] Do you. Are there points where you remember thinking, I should be happy, but I'm not? Do you remember points where you had those types of thoughts?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:31:20] Yeah, well, so some things that I remember.

Guest 2 [00:31:30] So

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:31:33] Dave and I, you know, start out fine. Everything's great. We're enjoying married life. And then I found out that he's, you know, he repented of things in the past. I mean, nothing major, like, really, but he was like, oh, I didn't feel like I needed to tell you these things because they'd been made clean and washed away and, you know, and I felt weird about that. But rather than being bothered that he hadn't fully disclosed everything, I felt guilty for not being forgiving enough, for not, you know, for having any problems with anything at all. And I feel like that was one way that beliefs that, you know, repentance makes everything disappear did some harm to me because I felt like he didn't feel like he had to fully disclose everything to me. And I didn't feel like I could ask because he'd been forgiven. And then I felt guilty for not being righteous enough to act like nothing had happened. Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:42] So let me try and tease that out just a tiny bit. So what I'm hearing, number one, is you saved yourself for him. And to a certain level, I mean,

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:32:51] to the point where I had, like, not even kissed anyone.

John Dehlin [00:32:54] Right. Yeah. So. Oh, okay. So he was the first person kissed.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:32:58] Yeah. And then six weeks later, we're married. Like, I am that pure.

John Dehlin [00:33:02] So one is you sort of. You sort of kept your game at this level, and then you're finding out that he had only kept the game to this level. So that's. There's the disparity, and then there's the fact that he hid it from you.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:33:16] And he didn't feel like he'd hidden

John Dehlin [00:33:18] it because he felt like he was forgiven.

Guest 2 [00:33:20] Right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:33:20] And the church had told him that he'd been forgiven, and his mission president told him that he'd been forgiven. This doesn't exist.

John Dehlin [00:33:26] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:33:27] And so when I found out that something had existed, I felt a little like, betrayed in some way, and then I felt guilty for feeling bad about it.

John Dehlin [00:33:37] Was it because you wished there was a part of you deep down that wished you had had a chance to experiment more or that you weren't marrying the level of righteousness, that you weren't the level of righteousness that you thought you were getting?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:33:50] It wasn't that I felt like he needed to be the level of righteousness. I was. I knew I was a little bit over fearful. Like, even at the time, I'm like, I don't know why I'm so terrified, but now I can be like, well, because they were all rapists. Like, in some level of my brain, I thought it was. I actually remember coming back from my honeymoon and being like, wait a minute. We never lost consciousness.

Guest 2 [00:34:14] Like, we. We could have stopped at any point.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:34:16] There was always a point where I could have said, I don't want to do this, and we could have stopped. There was no point that just like animal instincts took over. I had, before I got married, thought that at some point you lose control. So I remember being surprised that we hadn't lost control. It's just like, there's so much talk about how you have to keep it under control that I thought you could lose control and that at some point you just weren't in charge of yourself. And then I, you know, that was a little surprise to be like, wa. And we were in control that whole time, actually. People can say no and people can stop. This isn't like some runaway train that you can't. So, yeah, I didn't need to be as afraid of it as I had, but I didn't know that. I stayed so far away from it that I couldn't even imagine the reality of it.

John Dehlin [00:35:05] And at that point, as a new Mormon bride, would you have had the thought? Because a lot of men that I talk to and some women who leave the church in their 30s or 40s or 50s are like, oh, I could have had other sexual experiences. I could have experimented, I could have tried different things or gotten to know myself better, had more sex positivity. I'm wondering, I'm guessing that you wouldn't have had that thought as a 19 or 20 year old Mormon bride.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:35:32] But yeah, it wasn't so much that I lost out on stuff. I felt like even just with Dave, it would have been nice to have been less nervous, done a little more, you know, just making out or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:35:45] Why was I so afraid?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:35:46] Yeah, why did I have to be so scared of everything? This isn't a big deal. So being a little surprised at how overblown the whole morality issue had been and how deeply I had taken that in and been like, this is really dangerous. They're talking about it all the time. This is a big issue. I need to be really, really careful. And so I was. And then realizing I didn't need to be as careful. So I would say it wasn't so much that I guess one thing I realized later. So every time I would think about him having a past that I hadn't been aware of and wondering would I have made the same choices if I had known? Full disclosure. And it was the fact that maybe he'd kept it from me, hope, afraid that I would make a different choice. And therefore I was kind of forced into the choice that he wanted rather than the choice that I wanted. And we, you know, we've discussed that and we've gone over that and he's, he's amazing and he's like, leaving the church has been the most amazing thing for our marriage.

John Dehlin [00:36:50] We'll get there.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:36:51] I just wanted to make this clear that a lot of these things were because of the dynamic we were set up with rather than the types of people we actually were.

John Dehlin [00:37:01] Okay, so let's, let's keep digging. So in addition to you realizing that that sex was different than you had been taught, what are other dynamics or feelings that started to creep up in you as you were married and started having kids where you weren't feeling great or happy?

Postpartum Depression and the Weight of Motherhood

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:37:22] I think motherhood was just overwhelming. So. So, like, I love my kids. I started out, I had a very deep depression with my first one, like clinical depression. And I didn't realize when I was going through it that it was depression. I just thought, well, my life has changed and I'm not getting sleep and it's just really hard to be a mom and it's really hard to enjoy this And I really didn't understand that I could have gotten help until she was, you know, close to a year. And I remember being like, whoa, I feel so much better. What happened? That was really dark. Like, that was really kind of scary. And, you know, I kind of came out of it, came out of the fog and realized that that had been really terrible. But, you know, I went into motherhood expecting this will make me so happy, and it didn't. In fact, it was the hardest time in my entire life, those first few months. And I felt so inadequate and so, like, this perfect, beautiful child deserved something better. And I was too young to do this. I was unprepared to do this. But I remember holding my daughter and being like, I'm the wrong person for this. I can't do this. And I have to do it for 18 years.

Guest 2 [00:38:48] Like, there's.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:38:49] I've made this choice that I can't undo because. And she deserves better. But I. You know, I. What do you do? I have to do this for 18 years. There's no quitting. Luckily, you know, I got over it, had four more kids, loved being a mother. But, you know, it was really rough

John Dehlin [00:39:06] at first, and I can. I'm. I'm imagining, too types of listeners right now. 1. A group of listeners, maybe a lot of women that are just like, I totally am right there with you, Shannon. I felt the same way. And then I can think of others that are just like, yeah, that's what it's like to be a mother. Like, okay, it was hard. You were depressed mother. It's hard. No, you know, welcome to the world, and you're glad you're a mom and you love your kids. So how was that a bad thing or hurtful thing? You just had a hard time as a mom, like every other mom, right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:39:38] Yeah. I remember the dissonance of being like, this should make me happy. And I would talk to other moms and be like, oh, man, isn't this rough? And they'd be like, I just love

Guest 2 [00:39:47] my baby so much.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:39:48] And I would be like, I'm the only one. I. I am just not good enough. You know, I'm a terrible person because this just doesn't come naturally to me, and this is really hard. And I'm not good at this. And I. Homemaking is the struggle. I just felt like it was me. And I remember after that, you know, after I realized it, I would always try to talk to new moms and be like, it's really hard. And like, are you okay? Because there were moms that it is easy for them and that having a baby is just the most beautiful, wonderful thing. And I experienced that with the others. But my initiation into motherhood was dark and scary and hard. So I would say there was, you know, some kind of disillusionment. Just like, I am 21 years old. What have I done to my life? And I should be. I remember actually having. I remember changing my third child's diaper and being like, I was supposed to be in Europe, like, I should be backpacking right now. Instead, I'm changing my third baby's diaper. What am I doing? You know, so it was really just I had plans to finish college and travel and do all these things, but, you know, you don't question God's timing. And it came faster than I wanted. But, you know, accept it as it is and yeah, it's my job to just make it work.

Gender Roles and Strain Within the Marriage

John Dehlin [00:41:19] Okay, what about the marriage itself? What about your relationship with your husband? You know, he presides. You know, you nurture the children. He's kind of the head and you're the heart.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:41:35] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:35] And you know, he's busy earning a living and serving in callings and you're taking care of the home and the kids. How did that bode for your relationship?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:41:45] So I feel like Dave and I fit really neatly into gender roles naturally. He's a natural leader and he's a, like, hard worker and he's career driven. And so he fits that gender role really well. I fit the stay at home like the take a back seat defer to him naturally as well too. It's funny because my parents have the opposite. My mom is a lot more driven and my dad's a lot more like me. Just kind of like go with the flow. So in their situation, it kind of equalizes. Like, my mom's pushing my dad forward and my dad's kind of pushing my mom forward. So it turns into some kind of equality because she's just more naturally the leader in their relationship. In my relationship, I would say that gender role expectations pushed us even farther into these gender roles where I am the nurturer and he's the provider. And so as far as parenting, I did all the parenting and he did all of. I mean, and also we were young. He was finishing college and trying to work and support the family. He didn't have a lot of time left or energy and I would feel bad for him. So I would get up, do all the night feedings and changings, and on the weekend I would try to tell myself well, he works all week, and you might be able to take a nap, so you don't deserve to sleep in. And he does. And so, you know, I was doing everything I could to make his life easier without really looking to get any help from me. In fact, there's one story he's going to hate that I'm telling this, but it illustrates kind of the rigidity of our gender roles that we are both believing. It's not just that he took my power. I also gave him my power. It wasn't just him presiding and dominating. It was me submitting and. And pushing it towards him as well. So he had more responsibility than he wanted in some ways, too. But this story is that I'm in the depths of postpartum depression, and he comes home from work and I've had this baby, and she's like, it's just fussy or something, and I've just had it. And I'm like, I need. Please take the baby. I can't do this right now. And he's like, you need to deal with your frustration. You need to learn how to, you know, mother, basically, I'm not going to take the baby. You need to learn to deal with this. And at that point, I, like, wanted to kill him and the baby and leave. You know, I was just like, what do I do? But so, yeah, he would. He tended to believe that those roles weren't for him. You know, he didn't need to do as much housework. If he did, he deserved praise and gratitude, but it wasn't really expected, and I didn't really expect it, to be honest. So, again, it's not just him taking this role and forcing me to be this subservient wife. I was also trying to be a good subservient wife just because these are the roles that we are trying to fulfill. So, yeah, I was doing the parenting and he was doing the providing, and we tried not to really get in each other's ways. But providing, like presiding, it doesn't really mean getting in and getting dirty and helping out. It means offering criticism and direction. And that's what it felt like a lot of times in our strict gender roles was that it was his job to find ways that I could do better and my job to do those things better.

The Beginnings of a Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [00:45:34] So was there, as this continued over time? So how many years. How many years was it between your marriage and the beginnings of your faith crisis? I guess four years ago. How many years?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:45:49] I would say our marriage took a big turn. I kind of feel like we have two marriages. You know how Estelle Perel is. Like, people have three marriages in life. And I would say our first marriage was 15 years, and our second marriage has been the last 10. So even before I left the church, we had a giant shift in our marriage where I had started to find my voice, and that kind of is where it led me out. But I would say 15 years of trying so hard to fulfill these gender roles and to do these highest, you know, Mormonism's highest calling, which is to be a helpmate to my husband and for him to preside. 15 years of really struggling to. To just be the best Mormons that we possibly could.

John Dehlin [00:46:38] And for many of the men out there, you know, we talk about, like, LGBT people and they become suicidal, or we talk about people of color and how they're viewed as, like, you know, cursed because of their skin color. I want to. And you've already started communicating it very well, but I just want to really drive it home. I can see some men out there going, okay, you married kind of early. You didn't get to pursue a career, your dreams. But, you know, we're here to have kids, and you had kids. And, yeah, there's specialization where he's, you know, he's working outside the home, and you're staying home, but that's good for the kids. Yeah, it's hard as a mom, but it's, you know, it's hard as a dad, and it's. Being a parent is hard. And, yeah, like, okay, yeah, there were some hard things about it. But look, you're married, you've got kids. You know, everybody's getting an education and thriving. Like, what's the problem? Why is that a problem?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:47:45] I've explained it to Dave. Like, this Dave, you know, he's got his education in accounting, and I was like, so when you grow up, you could be anything you want and a dad. For me, you know, it was like, what if everyone has to be an accountant? Boys are good at numbers, and so all boys have to be accountants. It doesn't matter whether or not you like it or even if you're good at numbers. You have to be an accountant, because that's just your job, and that's the only job that's available to you. Like, you know, that kind of turned on a light bulb for him because he was like, oh, yeah, I had all the options I wanted. I could be whatever fit me the most, but I only had the one option. And I feel like if you have a choice, that's a different story. You know, I've talked to a lot of women who gave up their career and had babies and, you know, they just seemed more content with the whole thing.

John Dehlin [00:48:40] They chose it.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:48:40] They chose it. And even like friends who'd only been say, I have a couple friends that were a teacher for three or four years before they had their kids, even though they hadn't taught in 10 or 15 years, they're still saying, oh yeah, I teach high school, or I taught high school, I'm a teacher. They had this other aspect of their identity and they knew they had put that part down for a little while, but that they would probably pick it up again someday and that they were more than a wife and mother, that they were this person on their own. And I felt like I was not allowed in my own. I mean, I know I chose these things, but those were. Because that's the choice that to make a different choice was a bad option.

John Dehlin [00:49:24] It wasn't really a choice.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:49:25] Choices were the good option, right?

John Dehlin [00:49:27] Growing up Mormon in Utah, there's not

Guest 2 [00:49:29] a lot of choice.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:49:30] It wasn't the right choice. And you can only make the right choice. So, yeah, I felt like if I

John Dehlin [00:49:36] had, it's like, choose a or a.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:49:38] Either one, right or choose a or go to hell. Okay, I'll choose a. So like, I feel like even just having felt like I had chosen to do this would have made a huge difference. And actually my sister is a perfect illustration of the difference because she, you know, we were raised in the same house. She didn't go to a church school and she didn't go to. She, she still followed the program. She's still to this day a very wonderful, amazing Mormon who's living the gospel in the most healthy way, I believe possible. For a Mormon to do so, I think it can be done well. And I think she is someone who is doing it well. She is someone who felt she had choices. She got married young, but partly because she was like so excited to go travel the world with her husband. So they got married, took a three month honeymoon to Vietnam, came back, you know, she worked for seven years before they had kids. She, you know, she made all these choices and when she stayed home, that was again her choice. And she had kids on her timing and she had her career and she did all these things. I remember being like eight months pregnant with my third child and she's on this bike ride from Canada to Mexico on a tandem bike with her husband and they're passing through California, where I live, and I'm like super pregnant. With my third child. And I'm looking at them and I'm

Guest 2 [00:51:11] like, I'm not jealous.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:51:14] I am not jealous. I'm doing the right thing. I am the righteous person here. I'm like, I am not jealous. My life is so much more fulfilling than hers because she's not doing the right thing. How could she possibly be happy doing these things? Because she's putting off children. And you can't be happy if you put off children. But she sure did look happy. It was really hard to not think that she. That her life, you know, she was still going to have children and do the things that I was doing, but she was going to have all those other experiences as well. So, you know, it probably drove it home even harder to have my closest sibling living the life that I kind of had imagined, but had not done because I was following the program so closely. And she, she's like, I remember just recently we had a conversation. I was like, I was just, you know, I was told that if I put off family, I would be selfish. And she's like, I guess I just didn't mind being seen as selfish. And I was like, that had not occurred to me that that was an option to let people look down on me and think I was selfish. Like she, you know, she had just been more resistant and she hadn't gone to institute and heard all these talks. I think there was something about Ricks college that kind of radicalized me, I would say, in the way that this was the only way it kind of drove me to get married young and like, take all this really seriously in a way that she hadn't. She also was someone who though, you know, had not dated a lot. So like, we were pretty similar to that point in our lives. And then I went deep into the church program and she stayed on the edge of it and kept her maintained her individuality. And it just made a huge difference. It still does to this day. She's more likely to be able to just do adventures and all sorts of things.

Marriage Reaching a Breaking Point

John Dehlin [00:53:15] And so as you think about maybe let's just say those last five years and when things really reached a breaking point, how did this affect you over time? How did this affect you over time in terms of like, wearing you down, taking you to a really low point? Talk about, talk about sort of how this wore on you over time to. To the point where you reached your breaking point. Do you remember kind of descending to a low point and then hitting. Hitting rock bottom? And I mean, in terms of your depression or your self worth or your lack of contentment. What did that look like?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:53:59] Well, I. I started at a really low point with, you know, postpartum depression. So, you know, it's kind of like I had this really rough transition into, like, marriage. I felt like we were. The first year and a half of our marriage. We were fairly equal. We were both working, making about the same amount of money, trying to go to school. But having the baby changed everything as far as putting me into a strict gender role. And I, you know, had this nightmare of a first year as far as just feeling worthless and unprepared for this life ahead of me. Then things got better. But I always. I always just struggled with routine. You know, getting my scriptures read every day was a struggle. And praying regularly was a struggle. Not because I didn't believe in it, but just because I just resist. I resist all kinds of routine. I can't get a job chart to do more than two days. You know, we've just struggled. And I learned one of my kids, when they were in school, they got diagnosed with ADD because the teacher was like, you know, I can never tell if he's really listening. And he's just, you know, sometimes he is, sometimes he isn't. And I've talked to his teacher last year, and I realized, oh, wait, this isn't normal to be so, like, scatterbrained. I just thought that was just a family trait and maybe something can be done. And, you know, finding out that he had add, realizing I had addicted, and that, oh, maybe I can take medication. And suddenly, finally, I'll be able to get my visiting teaching done, get my scriptures read. I'll be able to finally check off all the things on this list, and then I'll have it together, and then I'll be happy. Because the problem is that I'm just not good enough. Like, all of this time, I would be happy if I could just follow the program, but I'm too lazy. I'm too distracted. I can't get all the things done. And that's. I struggle because I'm not getting the things done. I know the way to happiness. I just can't make it happen. And so the whole time, it was just me not really measuring up. So then I get on medication, and I'm still scatterbrained, and I'm still, you know, it improved. And I realize I'm just the way I am. I can't change my brain. I just. There's no, you know, God made me this way. And it was. This was like, right after Prop 8 and I lived in California during Prop 8 and realizing that I had sat here and judged people for not being able to change their brains. And here I am with this brain that can't be changed and how at least my brain is acceptable. You know, people will accept that I have this issue and luckily I'm an artist, I'm creative. And people will just be like, well, that's how she is. But nobody's giving that kind of latitude to the gay people that we were just campaigning against and realizing that sometimes you can't just willpower and become something that you're not. And it was kind of a breakdown, but also a breakthrough, I would say, because I realized that I just am who I am. And I had this moment, you know, I'd been so low, like, I can't do the program. I'm unhappy because I'm just not enough. And kind of had this moment of I would say grace where I felt like I actually kind of got in touch with God, who was like, you were made this way and you're different for a reason and you're like this. Also, we got a dog about this time and we were looking at different breeds and they'd say, oh, this one has a lot of energy and needs to run a lot. This one sleeps 23 hours a day. And it's not like this dog is better than this dog. You know, the sleep, I'm like, I'm a sleepy dog. It's fine. Genetically, it doesn't matter how much I hate myself. I'm not going to turn into the energetic list oriented person. I have my own strengths. I have my own abilities that someone on that side doesn't have because I'm just bred like a lazy dog. But I'm loyal and I'm fun and I'm, you know, I have my own strengths. We're not judging dogs for their energy level, but we do that with humans. And so it kind of just was like, I can't change this. And learning to have to accept that kind of changed something for me and made me realize that all of these checklists were hurting me and they were making me feel like a failure so much of the time. And so I kind of had this breakthrough where I was like, you know what? There's two commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. And I'll just focus on that. And I will, I will do that. And so I felt really good for a little while.

John Dehlin [00:59:06] So that awakening was around what year?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:59:10] Probably 2009.

John Dehlin [00:59:11] Okay. A year after.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:59:14] Actually, it was probably let's see. We moved in 2013. It was probably 2011.

John Dehlin [00:59:21] Okay. It's about nine years ago.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:59:23] Yeah. At that point.

Guest 2 [00:59:25] So. Right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [00:59:26] Actually, right before this breakthrough, you know, like, all of this kind of happened. I had, you know, I'd felt for years just like, not enough and exhausted by all the checklists and just not enough ever. But at this time, I also was working as a photographer. I started my own business. I'm trying to raise four kids and run this business. And, you know, Dave couldn't help because his job is to do his job, not my job. So I had to fit anything I could do without his help. So, yeah, it was just exhausting. And I got to a point.

Guest 2 [01:00:08] Right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:00:09] I guess I kind of skipped that. Just got to a point where I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. You know, I was like, I can't do this photography business. I can't. It's either or I can't do this business and have the kids and do my visiting, teaching and do my calling. Like, I couldn't do it. So I was like, something's got to go. And I was. I started seeing a therapist and I got on the medication, and that's kind of where this breakthrough happened. So that. That was one. That. That was one breakthrough. Like, I'm okay. I can't change myself. I'm going to have to just accept myself. So that was a beautiful thing to just learn to accept myself. The other one, I would say the other breakthrough was, was that when I was in therapy, you know, after feeling like, you know, either I've got to leave my family and just run away, or I've got to. Sorry. My husband was about to get a job, and then it fell through. I thought, if we could just leave California. We were living in the Bay Area in this small house. I was like, I could just start over and everything would be okay. And then he ended up getting another job in the Bay Area. And I was like, oh, I'm not going to be able to run away from this. I'm not going to be able to just start over. I'm going to have to actually make it through this and fix whatever is bringing me down. And so that's when I was like, I have to go to therapy because I can't continue either. I'm going to leave, divorce the family. You know, I just. It was too much weight. I couldn't do all the things. And I felt tired of being depressed and overwhelmed and sad. And that's. Yeah, that's when I Went to therapy. That's when I got on medication. That's when things started to change.

John Dehlin [01:02:06] 2012. What?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:02:07] Yeah, 2011, I'd say, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] And I guess as I'm trying to think about how I would answer this question to build understanding and empathy, like, if the church is true, then, yeah, we sacrifice everything, right? But then also, if the church truly makes you happy and it's true, well, then, yeah, nothing matters because you do it because it's true, but also because it's going to make you happy, right? And then if you're sacrificing things or you're not living a certain path that you might be able to live, well, that's fine, because you're following God's law and you're going to be happy.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:02:47] And any sacrifice is worth it, right? It'll make you happier.

John Dehlin [01:02:50] But what happens. And I've known mothers like this, where they. They make all these decisions. They don't pursue the education they want. They don't pursue the career that they may want. They don't have the fun that they may want. They don't necessarily marry the person that they might really connect with. Well, then they start having the kids early, and then they get super depressed and unhappy and. And so they're not happy, they're depressed, they're feeling awful all the time, and they've got all these kids they're responsible for. And then like, oh, what if you find out it's not true?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:03:26] Right? And you love these kids. You're not going to, like, you're too deep at that point. And I remember having, probably about the same time as I was like, I'm changing the diaper of my third kid and I should be backpacking in Europe right now. I remember feeling like, I just don't think. I'm not spiritual. I'm not sure the church is true. But then being like, I can't do this by myself. I can't let him know that, like, that I'm doubting at all, because if he leaves me and we'll get to that way worse. So I never actually even went down that path. I remember having a flicker of like, what if this isn't true?

John Dehlin [01:04:07] Right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:04:08] But it's like, I can't go back. Nope, nope. I can't even go there.

John Dehlin [01:04:12] And the best way, I'm thinking, to communicate the injustice, as if it needs to be justified or communicated. You know, if you were to, like, go to McDonald's and be given a burger or chicken nuggets and you find out that it's not really cow. Right. It's like horse meat. Or the chicken nuggets aren't really chicken. You know, there's some sort of synthetic chemical blend like that's just one meal. Right. And you're, you're outraged or you go to buy, let's take something a little bit more severe. You go to buy a car and you think you're buying this car that's, you know, well taken care of, well maintained. You look at the title, there's no crashes. The mileage is so and so. Then you come to find out later, oh wait, they changed the mileage and it has been wrecked and they scrubbed the title. And the car is a lemon. Right. Okay, well that's a 10 or $20,000 investment. Okay? Now it's not just a cheeseburger or some nuggets. This is like a major investment. And you were betrayed.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:05:13] I mean, you're all whole freaking life.

John Dehlin [01:05:15] Yeah, that's where I'm going. So, I mean, so when, when it's just like chicken nuggets or a burger or a car, you have the right to sue. You have the right to be outraged. It's, it's. But what if it's your life? What if it's your education? What if it's your career? What if it's who you marry, when you marry, how you marry, how much fun you didn't or did have, how many kids you did or didn't have when you had them? What if it's 30 years of your life that you followed a path under a certain set of expectations with a certain set of promises, with the understanding that it would make you happy and then it doesn't. It's not consent. It's a non consensual arrangement where you were misled and you made certain. The most valuable decisions you could ever make are how to spend your time and your money and your resources and your identity. There's nothing else that matters really. And so you're taking the most valuable things you have, which is your time, your money, your identity and your life.

Guest 2 [01:06:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:22] And you're giving it to a cause with the expectation that you'll get, number one, that it's true and number two, that it'll make you happy and it doesn't. Like what, what, what else?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:06:33] There were certain things that made me happy.

John Dehlin [01:06:35] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:06:35] Friends, community. But again, the church doesn't own that. No, they take credit for it. But yeah, it was. I had put everything into this equation and said if you, if A, then B equals C. And I, yeah, I had Done it because it was true. It's not my, you know, if God's demanding, that's. Because that's how God is. Period. If it's true, you make any sacrifice that you have to. Because it's true. You don't get to argue that. Yeah, you know better than God. You don't get to argue how God should be. So if it's true, it's worth any sacrifice you follow, no matter what. Period.

John Dehlin [01:07:21] Yeah. And so you have this beautiful awakening where you're like, I'm just gonna accept myself. I'm a dog. I mean, it's an awful. You're like, oh, I'm happy with that analogy.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:07:31] Hating myself for being a hound dog won't turn me into a Chihuahua. That just bounces all the time, right?

John Dehlin [01:07:38] Yeah, but I mean, you're thinking to yourself, the analogy helps. But anyway, you come to this moment of self acceptance of therapy, but none of that's on plan because according to the church, the plan isn't go to a therapist and then just accept your flaws.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:07:56] Right.

John Dehlin [01:07:56] The church's plan is read your scriptures, pray, serve, serve, serve, lose yourself, keep being uber faithful, be on that hamster wheel of worthiness, and you'll find happiness. So you kind of, when you go to a therapist, when you accept your imperfections and that you're a dog, you're actually off plan at that point.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:08:16] Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:16] Does that make sense?

Guest 2 [01:08:17] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:08:17] But that's because I couldn't do the plan as. And in that way, being unable to had turned into a gift. It had been a curse for so long. And my friends that are better at getting things done and have more of the checklist accomplished, they're still there because they feel like they're just on the verge of getting there. I wasn't even close. I was trying so hard and just being such a failure all the time that after 15 years I just had nothing left to give and I was depleted to my bones.

John Dehlin [01:09:00] And honestly, you're kind of a best case scenario because the dark side of this is with a little bit of a different personality or set of experiences. There are women that get depressed, there are women that become suicidal, there are women who leave their husbands, some have affairs, some just leave, some self destruct. And I have family members close to me where the woman just checked out and just left, left the husband with kids and had a few years of spiraling. And you know, like, it's great that you found a way to make it work because when it doesn't work, it can unravel catastrophically and it's not just you. It's not just the woman that gets hurt, which is enough. It's the spouse and the children and lots of other people.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:09:52] Well, and those are the expected outcomes when you're in the church, it's like if you let go, that's what's going to happen. And it does happen occasionally. And that's why that illustration is powerful and works, because you do see people whose everything falls apart. And that. That happens to some people. And so, yeah, for me, luckily, it didn't. And we had enough behind. You know, as much as I've made Dave sound like a villain here, he's not. We actually had. He's hilarious, and we have so much fun together. It's just that these gender roles were killing us and killing our relationship. And so luckily, we still had enough there that, you know, even behind all my resentment, I still liked him as a person. I just hated that he didn't help, and I hated that, you know, it was all on me. I remember sitting in a pew at church and the kids were making noise, and he looked at me and told them. Told me to tell them to be quiet. And I was like, you're right here. But that's how deep our gender roles had gone. And he was, you know, he was looking ahead to being. He was a good Mormon man, doing the program as expected as well. He was living up to his expectations, which were really onerous as well. He'd spend seven hours a week on Sunday at church. He'd go to work for a full day. You know, he'd have one day off on Saturday, and then he'd be at church all day as well. So, you know, his life wasn't all that fun either. But, yeah, in a way, being unable to do the program well enough ended up being a gift for me that broke me down so hard that I had no choice but to find another way.

Therapy, Medication, and Finding Self-Acceptance

John Dehlin [01:11:43] So we're at 2011, 2012, where you've seen a therapist, you're on depression meds, and you just accept yourself as a hound dog Mormon woman. Take us from that to the point where you start questioning your faith.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:11:57] Okay? So I remember as I'm starting to get better one day, I'm talking to my therapist, and I was like, there's this thing I want to do with my business. And, you know, but I can't because Dave won't let me. And she's like, well, what if you did it anyway? And I was like, well, he'd be upset. And she's like, what would that look like? Well, he'd sulk and he'd just be annoyed. She's like, why? Why can't he be upset? That's a normal thing. Like, are you serious? He, like, never gets upset. Like, you don't let him be upset. And I remember just that, that question blowing my mind, like, why can't he be upset? Why do I feel like it's my job to keep him happy all the time, that he can't ever be disappointed in any of my choices or that I. I can never assert myself in any situation? What is that? And I started realizing, oh, that's because this is the programming I've been taught that I need to watch out for, making sure that the boys don't think certain things. And I'm supposed to be a helpmate. So I started becoming more and more sensitive to these messages that would make me feel small that I was using to make myself small. So once I'd had this moment of grace where I'm like, look, you're just gonna have to be who you are, because that's all you can be. I started noticing all the ways that women were told to be small. Small, but also big. Like, you're not supposed to have wants and desires, but you're supposed to do all you can to make everyone else's, like, work really hard and have the best house and the most beautiful family and, you know, do all these things. Work really hard, but also be humble and don't have ambition. So it's like, put on the gas and the brake at the same time in the right way. So I just started being like, why? Yeah, why can't. Why am I the only one that gets to feel bad feelings? And it was a real interesting adjustment in our marriage when, you know, I would say something and he would use the old tactics that would work, try to guilt trip me or tell me that he didn't like that. And I would just say, well, I guess you're just going to have to be disappointed. And suddenly he's like, wait, what? And he would have to sit with his disappointment and be like, oh, it's fine. She can do her thing, you know? And so I started finding a voice which meant that he had to listen more, which at first was kind of a shock to him because here I had been this compliant, quiet, just beating myself up the whole time in order to make myself fit. And suddenly I'm like, no, excuse me, no. And he was like, wait, what? And the more I was, like, honest and allowing him to be More upset the more he considered what I would want. And it actually made our marriage so much better because he suddenly started seeing me as more of a full person. We were still in this paradigm, but something had switched to where I was like, no. Being a woman, you know, I can't help myself. I am who I am, and God made me this way. And God loves everyone, and therefore we're all fine, including those gay people that we were just persecuting. That had felt really wrong and really weird. I had actually even gone out. They told me that I needed to do a route and go door to door and start talking to people. And the whole thing felt so weird. I did go out one day and try to canvass for Prop 8, and I just, you know, again, was beating myself down to say, you have to. You have to obey before you get the confirmation that it's right. Right. You have to do the thing, and then your testimony will grow. So I did the thing, voted the way they told me to.

John Dehlin [01:16:00] You were living where during prep eight?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:16:02] San Jose.

John Dehlin [01:16:03] Okay. California.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:16:04] California. So I was someone that voted the way that they had told me to, and I didn't feel good about it later. And I felt really bad about that for a long time and thought, you know, and then when I get diagnosed with ADD a couple years later, I'm like, they can't help it. Their brain is built the way it is, just like mine is built the way it is. Luckily, nobody's persecuting me for my brain, but, you know, some things you just can't fix. Some things you just can't willpower your way through. So I started to really understand that God made us how we are, and it's not, you know, we are fine the way we are. But I became more and more aware of the messages that told us we weren't fine and realizing, oh, that's the poison. Oh, that's the thing that I've been using. And so watching. And as time went on watching more and more people swallowing, this became more and more difficult. So after we moved to Reno in 2013, I would say things started to accelerate as far as me noticing how many messages. And this is about the time Kate Kelly starts making some noise. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, women should be given voices. Like, in my life, getting a voice has been so much better for us. Women do have ideas. Women are important. I started to find my value as a woman.

Moving Toward a More Equal Marriage

John Dehlin [01:17:32] And how did it really quick, how did it improve your marriage, for your marriage to become more equal? I mean, it may Be obvious. Like, I'm guessing you were happier.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:17:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:45] How was it better for the marriage?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:17:47] Well, he also felt happier just because I was more alive and I was more of a partner and less of a. First of all, less of a sad sack, just overwhelmed. And you were less depressed, you were tired all the time.

John Dehlin [01:18:00] You were less depressed and sad.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:18:02] And so I became more of a person that he'd want to be around just because I was suddenly like, I'm not going to beat myself up about visiting, teaching anymore. I just. It's not serving me. You know, I can love my neighbor as much as I can, and I'll love them as well as I can, but I can't do the checklist. Forget the checklist. And when I threw away the checklist, there was less of a burden on me. And so in that way, I feel like I became more pleasant. But in another way, it was just. He was. He had to step up, and he felt more involved and more connected when he had to do more. Like, he didn't just get to keep all of his views outside on work, he sometimes had to look at home. And it kind of helped him be more of a presence in our lives as well. And that made him happy, because family life is great, especially when you actually love each other and when you're not frustrated and fighting all the time. So in that way, that began to really, just even before issues of church stuff came up, I would say I had this feminist awakening in about 2011, just kind of. That I do have worth. And then that built over time to where? In 2013, when we moved to Reno, I started to really become, like, say, I think I might be a feminist. That word was so bad. But I started to become. To identify that, no women, we are really undercutting women, and we need to, like, you know, I was still in the program, but saying we need. We need to push up women a little better.

John Dehlin [01:19:40] So, husbands, if you support a more equal marriage, your wife will be happier, so she won't be as depressed, and you'll be around someone who isn't as grouchy and depressed and who's happier, has more energy. You will become a more involved part of the family, probably closer to the kids. That's all good. What about your relationship with him, your intimacy together? And Mormons think when you say intimacy, you mean sex. But I'm just talking about intimacy, your connection, connectedness as a couple. Did that improve?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:20:16] It did improve, but I would say to a point, because we still had, you know, these certain things that we couldn't talk about. I couldn't really criticize the feminist. You know, the ways that the church didn't serve women and the ways it made them smaller. So I would say it was a 50% improvement in the relationship. In the relationship. Just, you know, accepting myself as I was and finding this, like, throwing away the checklist and being like, well, I guess I'm hound dog, right? I'm not a Chihuahua. So I guess I just am who I am, and I'm just gonna have to accept that. So I would say. And, you know, realizing that he could be upset, those couple things improved it. I would say about 50%.

John Dehlin [01:21:03] Okay.

Guest 2 [01:21:04] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:21:04] There's still a ways to go.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:21:05] Yeah. Just because, again, he's still presiding and I'm still pushing him to reside. I'm still trying to be in second place, but maybe just, like, right behind him instead of, like, sitting in the backseat while he drives.

John Dehlin [01:21:22] Okay.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:21:22] I was maybe in the passenger seat a little more and offering direction now and then. So it was an improvement. But we still had a ways to go to leave the church in order to really feel true equality.

Ordain Women, Kate Kelly, and Church Discipline

John Dehlin [01:21:35] So Kate Kelly. See, Kate Kelly and I, you know, that kind of happens in 2014. The ordained one, Kate Kelly's excommunicated in 2014. I don't even know if you'd heard of me yet, but Kate Kelly's excommunicated 2014. I'm excommunicated 2015. How did your journey proceed? Did you start getting into Mormon history stuff?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:21:58] So I would say my real journey started with feminism. You know what I'm saying? Just starting to feel like, you know what? I am a person. Why did I feel like I wasn't a person? And then starting to. And I felt like a person as a kid and then realizing, wait a minute, it was the temple, you know, starting to realize that some of this programming had really done this damage to me. I was aware of. I remember it kind of feels like right after we moved to Reno, I just. I remember hearing some podcast about middle way Mormonism, and I was like, yes, that's what I want. I want to be a middle way Mormon, you know, and have nuance and all of these things. I felt really empowered for a little while and thought, I can do this, and, you know, it's going to be the most beautiful, wonderful type of Mormonism. But, yeah, Kate Kelly's excommunication kind of put a big damper on feeling like there was room for women to make

John Dehlin [01:23:06] improvements for feminists in the church.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:23:08] Right. Yeah, it was Just like, oh, maybe our voices aren't important. And maybe, yeah, I mean, the temple, that's an issue, because we do. These are our vows. And so then I started having a problem with the temple, realizing how. How deeply that had affected the way I saw myself and the way that it made gender dynamics on steroids in our marriage. You know, it just completely put this in these inflexible roles where I felt small and he felt big, and what I wanted didn't matter as much as what he wanted. And, yeah, so I realized the temple had a big part of that. And then I started learning the history of the temple and realized. Actually, I remember early, right after we moved to Reno, Dave and I had had this conversation, and he mentioned polygamy or something and said, yeah, well, I mean, who knows? Maybe it'll be in heaven. And now that I had gone to therapy and had started to be able to identify my feelings, I felt this, like, inner rage. And. And in the past, I would be like, stop it. You know, stop thinking about. I would, like, somehow put it off. But for me, that moment, I sat with it. I'm like, why does him having polygamy in heaven make me feel rage? And I realized, in heaven, we're not partners anymore. Like, here we're partners. And he's like, yeah, in heaven, we'll still be partners, but I guess maybe there'll be more people there. And suddenly I was like, no. Well, I'm on the sidelines in this. In Mormon heaven, where if there's polygamy, I'm suddenly on the sidelines, and you're in the center. And I know you've always been in the center, but suddenly that's just not heaven to me. Like, even if I. The thought of sharing him was one thing, but the thought of being demoted was what really bothered me from partner to. I don't even know what you are. And I was trying to explain it. I'm like, right now we're 50. 50. Then I become, like, 10%, and you become 90%. You're like this wheel, and I'm just one of the spokes, and you're the center. And I suddenly become even less in this equation. And this heaven, it doesn't seem that great to me. So, yeah, polygamy started to really bother me in a way that I had just kind of pushed it away before because I was like, when. It just is a way that proves that women are only a fraction of the value of men. And so that. Yeah, that started to bother me.

John Dehlin [01:25:58] So a lot of a lot of orthodox Mormon women just say, oh, polygamy is something we did a long time ago. We don't do it anymore. They don't even like. To them, polygamy is not a reality. Why, by this point, are you somehow thinking that polygamy might still be in effect when an orthodox Mormon is just going to say, oh, we stopped that 100 years ago?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:26:19] Well, for a couple reasons. Any woman that I talked to about polygamy, as in believing Mormon, we all felt weird about it. Nobody was comfortable with the idea. And I would tell myself, well, that's because it's not okay. But, you know, if it was not against the law, I'd probably be okay with it. And on some level, it freaked me out, realizing that the way I had pushed myself to get married, had polygamy been a real thing, I probably would have pushed myself into being polygamous. Like, I just. The way I had forced myself into the program, I would have done the same thing had that been real. So it kind of freaked me out. But it is part of Mormon theology still. It's in heaven. I wasn't saying, if it comes back, I'll be uncomfortable with it. It's there in the future. It's still there. He was still saying, well, okay, I wouldn't do that. But it's still part of the theology.

John Dehlin [01:27:08] It's in D and C132.

Guest 2 [01:27:09] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:27:10] And it's never been disavowed.

John Dehlin [01:27:11] It's doctrine.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:27:12] It's still in the temple. Our prophet has, you know, polygamy already in heaven. He believes he's sealed to two women.

John Dehlin [01:27:20] So both Dallin H. Oaks and Russell M. Nelson are sealed to multiple women in heaven. And that's their Mormon. There are Mormon prophets today. So Mormons still believe in polygamy. Mormon women, I have news for you. You are in a polygamist religion and you will likely be sharing your husband with other women. Go read the DNC132. Look at the marriage of your prophet and the second in charge. We're a polygamous church still. We are.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:27:49] It's not in the past, it's in the future. It's in the past as well. And in the future, it's just not current. And women are like, oh, I'm so glad it's not current, but it is this ghost, you know, in the future, it doesn't hang over your head. It's not been disavowed. They're not saying it's not going to be in heaven. Nobody's saying that. No, it's still there and everyone's a little freaked out by it.

John Dehlin [01:28:11] Yeah. And please. This is a plug for Carolyn Pearson's book, the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. It's an amazing book. It's still affecting women and men today in Mormonism. Check out that book. Check out my podcast. It's worth checking out. So how did things continue? So the temple domino falls, you know, the polygamy domino falls.

Discovering Difficult Mormon History

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:28:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:33] What are the domino falls falls?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:28:34] So I actually remember one of the last times I went to the temple. So my grandma, she actually did my initiatory for me, you know, which was really uncomfortable, by the way, being under a sheet, having been. Never been naked anywhere, you know, and here's my grandma touching my body, which was better than it was my grandma in some ways. But the whole thing was just really freaky. But my grandma had made me this beautiful apron, and I was so proud every time I went to the temple. It was hand stitched and embroidered, all the leaves, you know, the green, and it was just so beautiful. And I remember being at the temple, having learned the history of the temple, realizing that women were pretty much allowed to be part of the temple ceremony in order to get Emma to acquiesce to polygamy. You know, he's like, well, you've got to be the elect lady. And in order to be the elect lady who passes around these signs and tokens, you have to accept polygamy. And so she did for a little while so that she could get her endowments, basically. And realizing that that had been a tool to make polygamy more palatable to women, it grossed me out. But so I remember one of the last.

John Dehlin [01:29:57] Where can someone read about that?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:29:59] Someone doesn't know that there's a. I remember there's. Somebody wrote an article, I think it's on feminist Mormon housewives about Mormon priestess. And it kind of goes over the. Oh, but the history. So the endowment, you can see that the polygamy in the. In the Mormon priestess article, she kind of shows that, you know, basically your husband. What I was saying that I.

John Dehlin [01:30:25] That I had about Joseph using the endowment to manipulate Emma or allowing Emma to be a part of it as a way to manipulate her.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:30:33] I just wonder where that is. I believe that's in Mormon Enigma.

John Dehlin [01:30:35] Okay. Mormon enigma.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:30:36] Yeah, I think that's in there. And I think you can find it in your polygamy for sure. And Lindsay Hansen Parks podcast. Amazing. Definitely go listen to that. But yeah, realizing that women were manipulated by the temple in order to accept polygamy and in order to justify polygamy and then to be in the temple and to be second to my husband. And this is the highest truth I can have. And, you know, it was. It became really difficult. I remember sitting in the temple with my beautiful apron from my grandma, who loved the church more than anything, and saying, you know, thinking to my grandma, if I'm wrong, please let me know. Like, I'm in the temple, you're on the other side. I'm playing with my damnation here. Show up, please, and let me know. I have this talisman, you know, that she had made. And I thought, if there's a time that anyone can come to the temple and reveal themselves to me, grandma would do it right now. And she didn't. You know, so it's just like, she's not there, she's not the temple, she's not here in the temple. Trying to get to me on the other side, like I've been taught like I'd hoped, you know, so that was just another chink in the armor where I was just like this. Yeah, the temple is disgusting. It's a tool of control to keep me paying tithing, to keep me following the word of wisdom. Because if I don't do this, you know, I risk losing my family. The temple, it became very clear to me that it was a tool of control. And, yeah, that was one of the big things to go.

John Dehlin [01:32:26] Yeah, totally. Okay, so the temple falls, polygamy falls, patriarchy starts falling. What's next?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:32:36] I think the last. Well, I guess the history, you know, finding the true history.

John Dehlin [01:32:44] How did you start getting into that?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:32:45] So for me, the history, I could have accepted the history if the current church hadn't been problematic. So I would say, you know, the gay thing, the feminist thing. I read the blacks in the priesthood essay and being like, oh, my gosh, they were teaching this as doctrine, and now they're saying it's not. That one was really the race in the priesthood. The race in the priesthood, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:10] Gospel topics essay.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:33:11] Exactly. That was really eye opening for them. You know, they were teaching it as doctrine, like deep doctrine. They're saying, this is doctrine and we can't change it because, you know, truth is truth, God is God. You don't get to advise God. And then several years later to turn that around and say, oh, no, no,

John Dehlin [01:33:33] no opinions of men.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:33:35] They were just opinions. So that was really upsetting. But, yeah, I felt like I could have. The history could have been what it is, and I would have been fine with It. But also the current church was problematic as well, and it had done real damage to me personally. And as I sat in wards, I would hear women being damaged every week because, you know, certain people can say, well, I reject that. That's. You know, I don't believe that, but I. And that's fine for them. And that's a healthy way to be able to approach the church. But I wasn't doing that. And I knew there were other women there drinking those without reservation. They weren't saying, should I drink this or not? Is this good for me or not? They were saying, well, you said I should drink it, so I will. The most healthy women are the ones that can say, well, that one doesn't apply to me. But I never did that. I never said, that doesn't apply to me. I said, did the prophet say it? Yes. Well, then it applies to me. And so, yeah, I also had a friend at the time who lived in San Jose, and I remember we were in Relief Society, and somebody said something about gays, and we both stiffened up, and then we both looked at each other like, I just saw you flinch. And so, you know, we started talking about some things, and she was actually much farther along, like, intellectually than I had been. So she kind of. We both. We would go for. On walks for hours, shout out, anna, you're the best. We would just go for walks for hours and, you know, kind of discuss feminism and polygamy and, you know, really deep dive into all this stuff. So it was so nice to have someone to do this with, to help. To help hold my hand as I went through this. I mean, it's really painful to deconstruct your life. As much as it's freeing, it's also devastating. So, you know, it was really nice to have that, but it was also really hard to do. And I lost a lot of friends who were really uncomfortable with, you know, me even having problems. For me to even say, hey, did you know this about the history? And I was trying really hard not to say stuff that would challenge people's testimony, because I could see very quickly that that didn't work. But the more I sat in meetings, the more feminist I became, the more I saw the church fighting against feminists and LGBT people who could not change their brains, the more I was just like, this hurts people, not just me. It hurts the gay people. It hurts the people of color who've been taught that they're somehow also less than. It hurts women. It hurts. It actually hurts men as well. It hurt Dave who was doing the program as well as he could. He was overwhelmed. He had a wife who resented him half the time because he was doing his part. So, like, it doesn't serve anybody. So then the last thing for me to follow was community. I remember sitting in Relief Society and being like, well, I'm here for the community. It's good. Either it's true, you'll stay because it's true, or you'll stay because it's good, or both. But if it's neither, there's nothing left. And I got to the point where I was like, it's not true. It's not even good. And I can't make a difference in this community because I'm sitting here in Relief Society among all these women and who I love. But if I spoke up right now and said the things I know, they would not want me here. And it also kills me to sit here and not. And hear these poisons and not protect them. So, like, part of me needs to stand up. I would tell people that I was a dragon. Like, I was. You know, I had this fire, and if I breathe it on them, they're going to get burned. If I swallow it, I'm going to get burned. It just became like, every week I'd go to church, and then I'd stew and be angry for the whole week. And then Sunday would come around, and I'd try it again and have to spend the whole week recovering because it was just so hard to see the damage that was being done every week to certain people. Everyone on some level, except maybe the very top leaders.

John Dehlin [01:38:28] And so as you're really kind of. As you're really going down the rabbit hole, are you able to talk to your husband about this? Is he going with you? Is he remaining a believer? Are you going through this alone? Do you have other people to talk to? I know that Steve, my friend, your brother, was. You know, he and Mindy were going through some stuff, too. Did you have family members you could go through this with?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:38:51] No. So, like, turns out Steve and I. Steve and Mindy and I were doing this all at the same time. We didn't know because no one feels

John Dehlin [01:39:00] comfortable telling anything, Right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:39:02] And once you out yourself, you're sidelined. You're not going to get a good calling. You're going to be stuck on the sidelines forever as soon as somebody knows that you've spoken up about something. So it becomes this kind of deep, dark secret for a while. Dave was not on board at first. I mean, he was on board with me becoming more myself. And he. He was on board with becoming more equal, but he was not on board with bringing down the church, losing my testimony. You know, he was trying to help me out. And actually my son, who was. He was a senior, like, at the end of this junior, his junior senior year, I remember him being like, mom, let's read scriptures together. And I was like, okay, so. Because I wanted to, like, support him trying to help me, even though I knew it wasn't going to happen. And I wasn't trying to bring the kids out either, because I was respecting Dave's wishes to stay Mormon. But he tries to do this scripture study, and we get to this verse in the Book of Mormon about brown skin being a curse. And he's like, so, you know, what did you think about that chapter? And I'm like, what do you think about cursing people with skin color? And he's like, are you saying the Book of Mormon is racist? And I was like, I didn't say that, but it sure looks like it. And that was the last time he read scriptures with me. But Dave, you know, I was saying the church expands men. It makes them into gods. Like, it just. Without the church, you're just a regular dude. Like, that's kind of sad to give up being a God and just become a mortal. And so I think for him, it was harder to give up this extra source of validation at the church, whereas I wasn't getting any validation. I was only feeling crappy. So you were trading up.

John Dehlin [01:41:00] He'd be trading down.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:41:01] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:41:01] It seemed that way.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:41:02] I was being released and he was being demoted also.

John Dehlin [01:41:05] You're gaining power and he would be losing power.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:41:07] Exactly right. Yeah. And he was willing to give me some, but I wasn't going to take his godhood away. And actually, at some point there, I remember being. I had a conversation with him where I was like, dave, I know we had this agreement where we're going to do Mormonism and we're going to the temple and we're going to be sealed for eternity. And I know you still believe that you ceilings are for eternity. And I release you if you need to get a wife that can be your eternal companion and who will also believe that this is a thing. I release you. Like, this was our agreement. You were going to do this with me, and I was the good girl, and I haven't lived up to this, the agreement we made, because I'm not a good girl anymore. I was not a bad girl, but I was not believing, and I didn't Like, I could not wear the garment, knowing the history of it. I couldn't abide that. And so how did it feel to

Questioning Garments and Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [01:42:14] take off your garments and to wear just regular relieving? Why?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:42:18] I felt like it was like one of those dog collars, you know, it made me. It reduced what I could wear. It made me feel ugly and unless unbeautiful, like wearing regular underwear and being able to wear whatever clothes fit the weather. I just felt so much more beautiful, more in touch with my body, more like myself, you know? I was wearing the same underwear as my grandma when I was 21. I remember I took care of my grandma the last couple years of her life. And I was like, we are wearing the same underwear. It's so gross. And I was wearing that underwear before I ever got married, before I was ever a sexual being. You know, I was always fully clothed because that underwear. You are fully clothed in that underwear. I was never sexy, ever.

John Dehlin [01:43:11] Are you saying garments impede healthy sexuality?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:43:15] I feel like we had a healthy sex life, but I didn't feel sexy. You know what I mean? I didn't feel like as a woman, and unless I was having sex, I didn't feel sexy. I didn't feel beautiful. I felt basically, yeah, embarrassed. You're always pulling things to hide your garments. If you bend over and your garments are showing, you're always tucking and pulling and hiding these garments. And suddenly I just felt so much freer to just not have this embarrassing thing. It's embarrassing to have these weird underwear. If somebody sees them at the gym, I'd be more embarrassed to be seen in my gar garments than I would be to be naked. It was embarrassing. So it felt really freeing to stop wearing the garments. And, yeah, so with Dave, when I was like, you're free. And he's like, well, whoa. You know, he's like, I want you. And he was like, even at this time, as a believer, he's like, well, if she's going to hell, I'm going with her. He just. He chose me. And that, like, kind of.

Guest 2 [01:44:37] Healed this doubt that I had had, that he liked me as a person rather than me as a good. So, yeah, he was like, well, I

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:44:51] guess I'll go to hell with you.

Guest 2 [01:44:54] And

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:44:56] there was this. So that was about six months. That was the summer I took off the garments during the summer.

John Dehlin [01:45:03] What year?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:45:05] 2015.

John Dehlin [01:45:09] So five years ago.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:45:10] Yeah, because our 20th anniversary was that December. And, you know, so six months after I'd taken off garments, he was still believing. We went to Cancun on our 20th anniversary trip. And I was like, dave, I'm gonna order alcohol. It's free here. I'm gonna get alcohol. And because I had lost all belief, I'm like, the word of wisdom. I'd done the history. I had to deconstruct it. It had been so deep into me that I had to do all the history research to be like, well, the word of wisdom came from this. And, you know, just all of the things I can deconstructed.

John Dehlin [01:45:50] Or was it books? Was it podcasts? What were your main sources of deconstructing things?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:45:55] Yeah, lots of podcasts. Books.

John Dehlin [01:45:57] Which podcasts? Which books?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:46:00] Okay. Mormon Stories. I loved John Larsen eventually, once I got over.

John Dehlin [01:46:05] So Mormon Expressions.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:46:06] Yeah,

John Dehlin [01:46:09] What? Mormon Stories episodes were really important for you, just so listeners can maybe go check out a few that were really meaningful to you.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:46:16] I remember one of the first ones I listened to is Benji Schwimmer, and he was just so genuine. And the part where basically the spirit tells him to leave, it was just so touching. And just, like, how much struggle. I mean, I felt like I had struggled as well, feeling less than, but he had struggled, you know, also being not enough. And so my struggle was different, but similar. And so that one really touched me. Like, Jeremy Reynolds, I think that one came out as I was not believing. I don't remember what year that was, but I don't think that was a huge surprise to me. I was reading Mormon Enigma. I listened to your polygamy podcast, which we already mentioned. Lindsay Hansen park, you're the best. Just that one helped me, first of all, relate to the women in Mormon history who are so often erased. And then also to understand this horrible dynamic, about that same time, I actually went to the Beehive House, and on a visit with my mom and my sister, and they had talked about Brigham Young as if he was monogamous. Like, here's his wife's room, and here's his room, and here's their family. And I almost went off on these little missionaries from some other country and was like, are you kidding me? But, yeah, I just was like, they whitewash everything. Everything that I thought it was is not. I. Gosh, I can't even. It's been a while, and my memory is bad, first of all, but I feel like I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Anything I could. Yeah, okay, sorry.

John Dehlin [01:48:14] That's good. So you go down the rabbit hole. Your husband says, I love you anyway.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:48:19] Yeah, we go to Cancun. I order alcohol. He takes a Sip.

John Dehlin [01:48:24] Wait, are you an alcoholic now?

Guest 2 [01:48:26] No.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:48:26] What?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:48:27] In fact, most days, most weeks, I don't even drink. Like, yeah, I thought it was gonna be. That's another thing, like sex that I thought would be so powerful and was just like, okay, it was nice. It was not so powerful. It was just nice. But he. Yeah, so I ordered this alcohol and he ordered a drink too. And that was the most romantic thing he'd ever done in his life because I was like, now he's really going to hell in his belief. Like, I can't believe he's actually following me on this path. Like, he actually does love me as a person, not me as a help meet. Me as a good girl, me as the person he's dating almost a year after his mission, who would make a decent wife. You know, it just. It switched something really beautiful to be like, okay, actually, he loves me. It just made me feel so much more secure in our marriage knowing that he was there for me, not for my role.

John Dehlin [01:49:33] So was it a more romantic getaway?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:49:36] Yes, it was amazing. And it's one of the happiest memories of my life. Just those days of really. It felt like a rebirth, you know, like he.

Guest 2 [01:49:49] He loved me and like, in a way that I did not know. So it was. It healed a lot of the. The resentment that had built up for so many years, feeling like I didn't matter to him and that it. It turns out it wasn't that I didn't matter, it was just that these things were getting in the way and that he truly did love me and was willing to go wherever and that our family was going to be fine and that it just kind of took out this barrier that had been there for 20 years. Suddenly I was like, okay, he actually loves me. And so that kind of started.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:50:38] But him, you know, once he's drank, he was like, well, I guess I'm on this path now. And he started to become more willing to listen to more of the details about, you know, the problems I was giving him. I was feeding him little things. It's not like I did not done all my research and then threw it at him. All of a sudden, I was pretty honest, like, ugh, this is a problem. This is a problem. And he would still just kind of be like, well, I think we can. And, you know, I think there's answers. But yeah, once he started, you know, the more comfortable he could see that I wasn't going to lose control and, you know, become an alcoholic and cheat on him. Cheating? Yeah. Like, I'd Taken off the garments, and I hadn't cheated. I started drinking and I hadn't become an alcoholic. Like, I was still the person he knew me to be and that I was stable. In fact, I was enhanced. I was better, I was happier, healthier. And so I think he was able to see this actually might be a good thing. And so then he was more willing to start actually looking at the details. So I think it helped. I've said this so many times, but I think it helped that I was the one leaving first. Because had the roles been reversed, first of all, I had enough resentment that I would have been like, well, forget you. And second of all, he's just more of like, gung ho person, and he would have probably run out of the church and I would have been too afraid to follow. So I really feel blessed that, you know, I don't usually say blessed, but I feel really lucky that it was me that led the charge because he could follow. And I'm not sure the way things had worked in our marriage that I would have followed him.

John Dehlin [01:52:32] It's a tad bit ironic because we're taught that the Mormon plan of salvation is the great plan of happiness, and we're taught that wickedness never was happiness. And I don't think there's anything more wicked in Mormonism than to apostatize or to take your spouse out of the church. And so you're. You're basically doing all the wrong things. You're doing all the right things and you're depressed and miserable. You start doing all the wrong things and you start getting super happy and your marriage improves.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:53:05] Right. As soon as I start.

John Dehlin [01:53:07] Math doesn't work.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:53:07] As soon as I start doing the wrong things, I start feeling better. And the wrong things being, like, loving my neighbor rather than reading my scriptures.

Guest 2 [01:53:17] Right.

John Dehlin [01:53:18] Loving yourself instead of.

Guest 2 [01:53:20] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:53:20] Suppressing yourself instead of beating myself up all the time.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:53:24] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:53:24] Like, that somehow you can't love yourself while you're beating yourself up. Like, accepting myself was just huge as far as taking the weight off of

John Dehlin [01:53:34] everything or going a therapist instead of reading your scriptures.

Guest 2 [01:53:37] Right.

John Dehlin [01:53:37] And.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:53:38] Well. And I remember Dave being like, well, are you reading your scriptures every day? Do you really think you should start seeing a therapist until you've done all the things? I was like, dave, I can't read my scriptures because I'm too depressed. Like, I don't. I can't even focus on that. I need. Like, this is beyond reading and praying harder. And like, actually, my first therapy appointment, they did some kind of evaluation and they're like, oh, we usually medicate at this number. And you're way beyond that. And for some reason, I think for his accountant brain, I came home and I'm like, they said they medicated this, And I'm like, double that. He was kind of like, oh. And he stopped, like, resisting therapy. It was like, oh, I see. This is really concerning. And I think actually that kind of opened him up to realizing that I was in trouble and he might lose me because of the depression and that he'd rather take me broken than take, you know, lose me. And so that kind of opened him up in a way that he hadn't been to accepting these changes that I was about to go through. So that helped as well.

Family Tensions Over Leaving the Faith

John Dehlin [01:54:45] And I can imagine maybe his parents, I don't know his parents, but, like, his family members watching this and saying, whoa, Shannon, you freaking took our son out of the church. If somebody were to say, how dare you take our son out of the church and cause him to lose his faith, what would your answer be?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:55:04] So, I never would have done that if there had been any possibility that it was true. So, yeah, I wouldn't send him to damnation as well. But, yeah, I'm sorry, but not sorry. Like, we are so much better now, and I would love to invite them to come along and to be as, like, happy and as relieved and as, you know, improved at communication and like, in every aspect, our life has improved from where we were. And so, yeah, he, you know, he actually did make choices on his own to do what he wanted to do, which was the same thing that I wanted to do, luckily. But, yeah, I definitely did start. He would have probably continued to follow the program because it wasn't as hard for him, and he was fine with it, and he would have continued to do it had I not gotten to the point where it was killing me and that he had to choose me or the church, and he chose me. But, you know, it's funny, another analogy that I thought about often when realizing how much the church had changed my relationship with God. I remember realizing that it was like if God was a fire. I was trying to feel the warmth of the fire, but there was someone between me and the fire. There was always a priesthood leader or my husband or someone that had to grant me access to the fire. And suddenly, once I, you know, was able to kind of think for myself, and I was suddenly able to plug into that fire on my own, and I didn't need anyone between me and God, and I. I could access my own worth and my own power. And I didn't need anyone else to tell me how worthy I was or not worthy. I didn't need a middleman. And again, that last time I went to the temple, I remember being like. So I used to come here and think I was like, God and the church were the same. And now I'm here and I only fill the church. Like, I could see that this was the church, this wasn't God. God's so much bigger than the church and God can't be containerized into the form of a man. And God, you know, God's so much bigger than the church gives him credit for. So for me it was like, I don't know if there's a God or not, but I know the Mormon God is not it.

John Dehlin [01:58:03] Sure.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:58:04] Like I, you know, and I'd done enough of the history to see that this wasn't, this was created, not revealed. That all these things you could trace to where they came from. You can trace the Book of Mormon to inspirational stories, you know, to like other books and other beliefs about Native Americans that found their way into the Book of Mormon. You can find polygamy, you can find the temple. Like nothing is original in the church. And so I realized this is just completely man made. And I had no worries after that point. You know, everyone, as they leave, they're like, well, what if it's true? And if there was any doubt, I had to completely undo all of that and be like, there's no God worth worshiping that would force children into marriage. They would force any woman into a marriage that would, you know, say that take even, you know, the polygamy essay that Nauvoo Polygamy Gospel topics essay. When that came out, I remember, you know, being really, I was hoping I'd heard it was going to come out and I was hoping that they, because I was still attending, thinking that maybe things could change. I was hoping that they would say, you know, we disavow this or something. But they placed all the blame on God and said God commanded Joseph to do it. Joseph was just doing what he was told. And it really bothered me that they would make God into basically a rapist. You know, coercing Joseph and these girls to do this thing they didn't want

John Dehlin [01:59:47] with the angel and the flaming sword.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [01:59:49] Yeah. So God's going to be.

John Dehlin [01:59:50] Of all the things, I always say this, of all the things God could send an angel with the flaming sword down to enforce it's not the enslavement of people of color.

Guest 2 [02:00:00] Right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:00:00] Which is happening at this time. Yeah, he had the choice of polygamy or slavery. And he goes to talk about polygamy, talk about Hitler.

John Dehlin [02:00:11] It's not world wars, it's not famine, it's not genocide. You know, it's not like keeping the vote from women. There are all these things God could have intervened on. And it's forcing Joseph to have sex with 14 year olds. That's what God sends an angel with a flaming sword down to enforce. Something wrong with that.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:00:33] Right. And even Joseph's, you know, according to that essay, even Joseph's agency was not being respected, you know, because they're like, oh, he was reluctant, but he just had to.

John Dehlin [02:00:46] Poor guy.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:00:47] I know.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:00:47] And I'm like, any God that's gonna force young girls to marry an older man who they do not want to be. I feel like some of them did. I feel like Eliza R. Snow was totally down.

John Dehlin [02:00:57] She did too.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:00:58] And I have no problem if they actually wanted this. But some of, especially the younger girls did not want to be in these marriages. And a God that would do that is not worth worshiping. Ultimately, a cruel God is not worth worshiping. They can be respected and feared, but not worshiped and loved. And so that Mormon God did not deserve my love or my devotion. So that kind of made it easy. Like I can worship some other God or some other power or some other force, or even just worship love one another. I think that's a really positive thing. But I don't need to worship a God that forces women into polygamy, that tells women they're second place, that tells gay people that there's something wrong with them and they don't deserve love, that tells people of color that they're cursed, that they've done something bad in their pre existence, like that God who has hierarchies and values temples over the elimination of poverty, that God is just not worth worshiping. Even if he was real, which he's not, because I can show you how it was all created. If you look at the history, there's just nothing redeeming about that belief for me.

John Dehlin [02:02:16] So I'll just ask you some of the historical points. So the first vision, Joseph says he saw God and Jesus. What do you think about that?

Examining Book of Mormon Historical Claims

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:02:25] He can say whatever he wants. But other. First of all, he didn't mention it for 12 years to anybody. And he wasn't even the first person to say, oh, I saw God. This was like a very common occurrence in Protestant New England. Lots of people were having theophanies where they're saying, oh, God came to me in a vision. And his first account, it was a vision and it wasn't a visitation.

John Dehlin [02:02:50] You know, it evolved, it grew.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:02:52] The story grew, it grew. And it was like, oh, God assured me that I was fine. And then suddenly, you know, this power overcomes. But even the one where some power overcomes me and I saw two beings. Someone was saying that in 1815, I believe. So he didn't even create that story. And had he created it even, like, even if it had happened, which I don't believe it did, 12 years later is the first time he mentions it. And he doesn't say it's God and Jesus, he says it's the Lord, you know.

John Dehlin [02:03:24] So back when you believed God and Jesus were one?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:03:27] Yeah, it just didn't add up. There were too many holes in his story for me to believe that this is an actual memory he had. It sounded like a story that evolved and then.

John Dehlin [02:03:36] Yeah. And the Book of Mormon reflects a trinitarian view of God, which was how he told the story in 1832. But then once his views on there being God and Jesus being separate, then all of a sudden, he both changes the story by 1838, and he changes the Book of Mormon. He retrofits the Book of Mormon or he fixes the Book of Mormon to reflect his own evolving view of deity. You think you'd get all that right

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:04:00] the first time if God had said, this is my church and this is how it's supposed to be? You get it right because God's whispering it to you. God didn't make a mistake. So if God's whispering or, you know, if God had gone through all these miracles to make this happen, it would have come out right.

John Dehlin [02:04:17] What about the Book of Mormon? How in the world could a book so beautiful, so perfect, the most perfect book ever, how could that have come to be if Joseph wasn't a prophet?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:04:27] I have to say, it's not that beautiful or perfect. It was always. As someone who loves to read, it was always very difficult for me to read. I love to read. It was always a struggle to force myself to read this book. I don't think it's that brilliant. I remember reading, listening to Stephen King talk about how when he writes a book, he writes it in a season, like three months. And his books are masterpieces, and those are like the Green Mile. It's a huge book and it's brilliant. And he wrote it in a short time. So to say that what Joseph Smith did was miraculous is not miraculous. It's like eight pages a day. It's like normal writing. He wasn't even writing. He was just telling a story and someone was writing it down. So, no, I don't think it's miraculous, and I don't think it. It can be inspiring. But you can even point to sermons that were being given in the area at the time. Like, King Benjamin has this really great sermon, probably best part of the Book of Mormon. You can. There's. There's preachers preaching that in the area at the time. He's not even creating. He's not creating anything. He's synthesizing.

John Dehlin [02:05:44] Plus, he's he's literally. Literally, you know, what's the word from the Bible? You know, he's just copying the Bible over, Right. So much of his huge chunk of Isaiah, he's literally plagiarizing. There's his own stories in there, his own personal narratives, and then a bunch of the New Testament, you know, Jesus stuff and the Sermon on the Mount.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:06:06] He's literally just like, wars and trying to make it sound all biblical and creating money and, you know. Well, and honestly being like, okay, so. And I remember saying this to my son who was trying to keep me in the church. I was like, okay, so there was no. Let's just take the story of ammonia. There's no sheep in the Americas at this time.

John Dehlin [02:06:30] There's no sheep. We talk about horses.

Guest 2 [02:06:33] There's no sheep.

John Dehlin [02:06:33] There's no sheep.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:06:34] So he's not watching a flock. And so my son's like, well, maybe he was watching llamas. I'm like, okay, fine. There's no sheep. There's no swords that could chop someone's arm off. There's no metal that could do that, kind of. There's no weapons like that. First of all, I don't even think a sword.

John Dehlin [02:06:53] There's no swords.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:06:54] Swords can't even really chop an arm off. Not like that. I don't think one guy. Yeah, you need to sharpen it between each one, I'm sure.

Guest 2 [02:07:04] But.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:07:04] So there's no swords, there's no sheep. And then, you know, he chops off all these arms and then goes. And he's.

John Dehlin [02:07:11] There's also no white people, by the way.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:07:13] Right, right. We're not even going to get into that part. But then he's, like, readying the king's horses and chariot, and they're like, oh, where's Ammon? Where'd he go? Oh, he's getting the horses in the chariot ready.

John Dehlin [02:07:26] There's no horses.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:07:26] There's no horses.

John Dehlin [02:07:29] The only wheels I just finished gunshirts was steel. The only wheels they had in Mesoamerica were little toy wheels. Yeah, but they'd never. They'd never like, drawn that. You know why? Because there were no animals to pull carts.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:07:41] Right.

John Dehlin [02:07:41] If they had had horses and oxen, no draft animals in Native America, then they probably would have developed wheels.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:07:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:48] But llamas and whatever, turkeys and. And dogs and whatever animals they had.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:07:54] And no hardened steel in order to make wagons, in order to hold together for these animals to pull. Like, they didn't have draft animals and they didn't have metal. And so it's just like, just this one story alone is impossible.

John Dehlin [02:08:12] Plus, can one man. I mean, I think about, like, Batman, like, that's fiction. To have like Iron man or spider man fighting 20 people or Bruce Lee. Right. No one dude can beat up 20 dudes with weapons. Like, it's never gonna happen.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:08:29] Right, Right. Just the whole thing is impossible to happen. Pre Columbian times, let alone even if we had all the technology. I would love. I mean, I would not love to see someone do that. It's impossible. So, you know, even if you had a chainsaw, you'd have a hard time chopping all these guys. Arms off. So I just remember, like, you know, telling this to my son at some point, and he was like, huh? He had no answer. You know, it's like, it's a cool story, but it can't be.

John Dehlin [02:09:07] It's not a cool story.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:09:08] It can't be history.

John Dehlin [02:09:10] How is it a cool story that some man of Christ. By the way, why are people worshiping Christ in America hundreds of years before he was even born yet, and they know his name. Like, even the Jews, even the Jews that are like the ancestors of Jesus didn't know Jesus name and they weren't worshiping him and ordaining and baptizing and confirming in his name. So even that's ridiculous. But then, you know, why is a man of Christ as a solution to a problem? Why is he chopping off a bunch of people's arms? Like that's gonna last the rest of their lives. Why didn't he just use his power to cause a deep sleep to come upon them and they pass out, or he just disappears or he uses his spirit to, like, rebuke them? Why is he freaking maiming them for life? And somehow that's a good story.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:10:02] Right again. What kind of God are we worshiping that. This is cool. Like, this is, you know, chop off this guy's head. I know he's no threat to you. He's already passed out. He could just take his clothes and do the whole thing without chopping off his head. But nope, chop off his head. This God is cruel and weird and, like, I don't need to worship that.

John Dehlin [02:10:27] Okay, so no. No Book of Mormon, no first vision. What about the priesthood restoration? Like, a lot of. That's where a lot of, like, neo apologists retreat to. Well, we need. There needs to be authority and the ordinances. That's Mormonism's contribution to the world. Yeah. All the churches are equal. We're a big symphony. And every church plays its role. But we have the authority. We have the keys, we have the priesthood.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:10:53] You know, it's funny, I was still in church attending, trying to believe, and somebody asked me to give a little. They were doing their Relief Society lesson, and they were like, can you talk about the three witnesses real quick for something? And I was like, okay, I don't know much about them. So I looked into it and I saw, I think it's David Whitmer's address to something. And he was like, the priesthood did not exist. Joseph made this up and all of a sudden said that Peter, James and John. I can't even remember what he says in this document. But I was like, wait a minute. I thought all the witnesses stayed faithful. And here he is with this paper saying Joseph Smith did not. The priesthood was not restored. These hierarchies that he's talking about, this is a new thing. Joseph's a fallen prophet. And even though I believe in the Book of Mormon, I do not believe in Joseph is basically what this witness was saying that I believed had stayed faithful except for, you know, for some reason had fallen away, but still believed also.

John Dehlin [02:11:54] He was like, what's up with this Melchizedek priesthood stuff? There was no Melchizedek priesthood. This is new founding of the church. Like, where did that come from?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:12:01] They're inventing stuff. And so to have.

John Dehlin [02:12:03] He did.

Guest 2 [02:12:04] He did.

John Dehlin [02:12:04] He invented the Melchizedek priesthood years after he said it was given to him. He wrote that back in years later.

Guest 2 [02:12:12] Right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:12:13] And here's one of the witnesses saying that. And I'm finding this out as I'm preparing a lesson. Like, wait, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So all of that. And, you know, my feminist self being like, you know, I believe there are power and connection between people. I just don't believe the church has any different thing than anyone else. And finding out that women had given blessings and had done healings in the past, and that it had been taken away from women, from LDS women. Like, that was another thing that was like this priesthood thing.

John Dehlin [02:12:50] And also, why would God choose this power, this privilege that only men can do right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:12:57] And will they keep men on top?

John Dehlin [02:12:59] Yeah. Why would God do that?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:13:00] Yeah. Not if God loves everyone. But the Mormon. God doesn't love everyone. That's clear. But, you know, I remember when my son got the priesthood at 12. I remember him coming home and I honestly remember him looking down on me after that, being like, I have more power than you. And I was kind of like, I am still your mother. And I'm still like, no, just kind of being a little surprised that, oh, my gosh, here he is, like, thinking he's better than me because he's got the priesthood. And I was telling you earlier, but for our marriage, once he stopped believing in the priesthood, that's when I felt like we actually got true equality. Because as he believed that he had something special that I couldn't have, there was still this kind of like, even if he's like, I'm only barely above you, like, he still felt he was above me, he had more access to God than I did. And then once he knew the history about that and kind of saw how unequal that was and stopped believing all of the things, then we could truly, truly be equal. Like, the. The priesthood is set up. I mean, the Mormon church is made for men, White cis het men. Like, you know, you get to be a God, you get to have all the women, you're gonna have all the riches after you die. It is the, like, dream of a poor, like, urban, uneducated man to become the top of everything. And that's what this whole theology is, is for a man to become, to get all his dreams, all the riches, all the power, all the women. That's what it ends up being for men. And the women are just tools in his tool chest.

John Dehlin [02:14:47] So what about the temple? What about the endowments, you know, baptisms for the dead? And what about eternal marriage and eternal families? What about all that?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:14:57] So, okay, I was a photographer for a lot of years, and I did a lot of weddings, and I never did a Mormon wedding because I was too expensive for the Mormons. But, well, and also for a Mormon wedding, it's basically just a photo shoot. It's like a little portrait session. You're not capturing the most important part of the ceremony. So I can see why Mormons aren't going to spend thousands of dollars on a wedding photographer because you're not even capturing the wedding. So I never did a Mormon wedding as a photographer, but I went to a lot of non Mormon weddings, and they were incredible. Everyone got to go. They were the most beautiful thing. Everyone that loved this couple was gathered together to support this couple and to just, like, shower them with love and affection. And it just felt so beautiful. And then you'd have a celebration after. And they were just the happiest, most joyous events. I went to dozens of them, and they were all more special than my wedding that had been in the temple that, you know, none of my siblings had been able to. Well, Steve was able to go because he'd come back from his mission. Yeah, he'd gone on a mission. Steve pulled it all together, became a very good AP missionary. Like, top of the line. But, like, I had totally lost my train of thought.

John Dehlin [02:16:25] Temples, temple marriage, proxy work for the dead, eternal families.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:16:30] Right. So I still don't know where I was going.

John Dehlin [02:16:35] So when you photograph these weddings, they were.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:16:40] They were amazing, and they were incredible.

John Dehlin [02:16:42] The non Mormon ones.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:16:43] Yeah. And they were everything that my wedding was not on my wedding day, where I was. You know, I had one sibling at the temple and my parents and, you know, a bunch of people from the ward, whoever. Whoever had a temple recommend, some aunts and uncles. But it wasn't like a celebration like these weddings that I had shot. And I just was like, wow, these are so much more alive and so much more celebratory and so much more special than this one, where some guy I don't know is saying some words I don't really connect with, you know, like, everything about the Mormon Temple ceremony was so sanitized, and you had to whisper and you couldn't. You couldn't celebrate. Whereas, you know, all of these weddings I was shooting, they were amazing and beautiful and outside, and everyone was there. There was no. Nobody left out. And this all comes back when my daughter gets married later. Okay, but what about.

John Dehlin [02:17:51] What about the eternal family? So, like, in eternal marriage. So forget about the actual.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:17:56] All of these people's love was just as valid as mine. And if there's anything that binds you together, it's love. It's not priesthood. And, like, I was realizing that they all believed they were gonna be together when they died. Like, they're like, well, if we're all in heaven, I'll hang out with you. You know, there was no, like, well, you might not make it.

John Dehlin [02:18:17] Or you're the lower part.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:18:18] Yeah, some of us will be there, and some of us won't. It's like we'll all be in heaven together.

John Dehlin [02:18:22] We'll come visit you, we'll come down to your kingdom.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:18:27] If we do it right, then maybe we'll be together. There was, you know, I was so. This is what I was telling Dave when I was like, you know, if you need somebody to be sealed with, that's fine. But I believe that our love is what seals us. I don't believe some priesthood, some guy saying some words is what seals us. It's our love, it's our devotion. And I believe every marriage that I shot as a photographer was just as valid as ours. And their love was just as strong as ours. And ours wasn't anymore special than theirs. If there's a heaven and there's a God, it's the love that binds you together. It's not the priesthood.

John Dehlin [02:19:00] What about ordinances needing the right authority? So baptism, temple, marriage, you need like God's stamp of franchise approval, corporate signature, like the keys.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:19:13] So yeah, it just doesn't make sense that in a world with so many billion people that God would give all of the keys and all of the authority to this tiny church in Utah. And not only does he give it all to this tiny church in Utah, in order to enact this, you're going to have to go spend three hours in the temple for each person that's ever lived. How is this efficient? What kind of God is this that can't do his own work on the other side to say, you know what, I got you. Why do people on earth, why can't God do his own work? First of all? Second of all, it's so efficient. Why can't we just say, I mean, baptisms for the dead, that's pretty efficient. You can get a lot done in a little bit amount of time. But the endowment session, if we're gonna have to do a two hour ceremony for every person that ever lived, can't God come up with a better system? So it just became so like, especially,

John Dehlin [02:20:10] I mean, for me, especially when there's so much poverty, so much racism, so much, you know, abuse and illiteracy, starvation, natural disasters, war. And what we're focusing on is like, oh, I've got an extra five hours a week. I'm not gonna go teach some kid to read or go sanitize some water.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:20:32] I'm gonna go watch a movie in this really nice building. And I'm such a good person because I watched a movie in this really

John Dehlin [02:20:40] nice comfortable building dressed up in water.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:20:43] Yeah, it's the easiest kind of Service that's possible. And it doesn't get your hands dirty. It doesn't make you uncomfortable.

John Dehlin [02:20:49] It doesn't actually help anyone.

Guest 2 [02:20:51] Right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:20:51] Our friend. My friend and I went to help in this, like, temporary shelter for the homeless in Reno, and it was so uncomfortable. I'm like, I mean, this is the kind of work Jesus was doing with the lepers and, you know, the poor people and the prostitutes and or whatever. Like, Jesus was out getting his hands dirty. Mormons are not getting their hands dirty. It's really uncomfortable. And, you know, we can paper over that by saying, well, the slum is inside them and all we have to do is teach them to be like us and then they will be fine.

John Dehlin [02:21:24] They'll lift themselves out of the slum, right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:21:27] And so all we have to do is talk. We don't have to do anything else. We can send our sons out, pray.

John Dehlin [02:21:33] Don't forget pray.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:21:33] Yeah, you can pray, but, you know, you're going to send your sons out to redeem everyone, and you're not going to have, you know, you're not gonna have to get your hands dirty. All you do have to do is serve your own people where it's comfortable and it's nice and you like each other and it's just so easy.

John Dehlin [02:21:50] And you're all middle class, you're all educated, right.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:21:53] I remember my friend pointing out, like, yeah, why the effects of poverty are what causes so much of the crime and the, you know, realizing that

John Dehlin [02:22:09] it's

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:22:09] not knowing the gospel that makes people have problems. It's actually poverty that makes people have problems. It's having food insecurity and housing insecurity and like, all of these things make your life so stressful that you're going to escape in any way you can, you're going to try to get ahead in any way you can. It's the poverty that's the problem. It's not the lack of the gospel. The gospel is not giving anybody money. I mean, you believe it because this prosperity gospels come up where it's like, well, if you pay your tithing, you'll get enough money. But that's just not true. It's not helping relieve poverty by paying tithing, Right? Poverty is not being relieved by giving tithing to the church, especially if, you know, they're just hoarding it in some account. $100 billion hidden away for a rainy day. Today's not a rainy day. I don't know what is, but apparently it's not rainy enough yet.

John Dehlin [02:23:07] So what about the argument that a lot of apologists neo apologists are making now. Okay, Book of Mormon may not be a translation. We might be one of many true churches. Every church is good. We all have something to offer. But this is just a great way to. It keeps your marriage strong and it's a great way to raise kids. It's a great way to strengthen your family. It's a great way of life. It's my tribe. It's. It's not about it being true. It's about it being just good. And a good lifestyle, a healthy, clean lifestyle.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:23:41] I know it undermined my marriage, it undermined my parenting, it undermined my self worth. There's. It is not. I mean, for some people who are loosely attached, I think it can be fine. I'm not going to say that in every case it's bad because I know that that is not true. It's not bad for everyone. But I would say for at least half of the people, there's this fear, you know, they'll lose their family if they don't live up to these things. I mean, Satan's threatening you in the temple. If you don't walk up to all of these people things, you're gonna be in my power. Like, that's the one thing they're speaking directly to you is when Satan is threatening you. So this is the highest truth as a Mormon. And Satan's threatening you that you're gonna lose everything.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:24:39] Right?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:24:40] So. Oh, okay, I better like walk up to all these things. No, I think it can provide service and it can provide community, but everything that's unique about the church isn't good. And everything that's good about the church isn't unique, you can find those things elsewhere. And if it's coming at the cost of making your marriage weaker, making your. It makes every relationship weaker. I can't. We can only have surface level conversations with our parents. We can only have surface level conversations. We can't show up fully in our lives when we have to believe a certain way and we're afraid that we may not be measuring up. Everyone puts on a mask, you know, every relationship is so surface level. And it's sad. Like, I put so much time into this church. As soon as I. As soon as I walk away, every friend I had forgets me, you know, like, and it's not. I mean, I know I took myself

Guest 2 [02:25:49] out,

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:25:52] but I thought we were friends, you know, I mean, I do have a couple of friends still, but that vast majority, the vast majority, these friendships were so shallow that they couldn't even Take a difference of opinion and, you know, they'll take all the service that I can provide. They will give nothing back. They won't even say thanks for your 40 years that you've been here. In fact, not only not thank you, screw you if you want to see your daughter get married because you walked away last year.

John Dehlin [02:26:22] So what happened with that? Is there anything you want to talk about between losing your faith and your daughter's wedding?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:26:28] No, I think that's pretty much in line. You know, I guess six months after Cancun, my husband or somewhere a few months after that.

John Dehlin [02:26:39] Let me just summarize that. So staying because it's just a good club, a good social club and a good way to raise your kids and a good. Just not taking it all seriously. Just staying for the social benefits, staying for the spiritual benefits. Not because it's true. No.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:26:57] Right. Well, for a while I tried that. I was like, well, if it's not true, it can still be good. And the closer I looked, the more I was like, it's not even good.

John Dehlin [02:27:06] Well, come on, you're seeing hymns.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:27:07] It's poisoning women, youth programs. It's poisoning gay children. It's poisoning men as they look at women, you know, they're not valuing their wives appropriately. The women aren't valuing.

John Dehlin [02:27:19] I'm playing devil's advocate, but the church is getting better. They fixed the temple ceremony. They fixed some of those bad temple ceremonies.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:27:26] They're not fixing.

John Dehlin [02:27:27] They write the. They write the essays like they wrote the gospel topics essays. They're being more transparent about their history. They made the temple ceremony less sexist. You don't hearken. The women don't hearken under the husbands anymore. They're publishing Rough Stone Rolling and sharing it with the world. Women are now having leadership positions in the mission. You know, they've given priesthood to the blacks. They're now, you know, every other film shot of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is the three. One of the three black singers of the choir. So, like, they're. They're working hard to be more gender representative. Like, what's not the love? It's just. It's a good. It's a good way to raise a family, to live a happy, healthy life, be a part of the club.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:28:08] I think it can for people who haven't been traumatized by it. You know, I have a friend who didn't. And I'd say, like, again, like my sister who didn't get traumatized by it, who managed somehow to maintain their sense of self and who've been just connected enough to get the benefits, but not so connected that they get the drawbacks. I am so happy for them. It can be okay. But the cost to all the other people and the way that I think in some ways it also makes them worse because they lose sympathy for other people. You know, you look at poor people and say, well, if you just had the gospel or fewer, more righteous, like it makes them worse people. For the most part, it hides these systems of oppression. It makes them unwitting actors in a system of oppression. So even though, you know, when people are like, well, the gospel is perfect and the people aren't, I'm like, it's the opposite. The people are good and they're trying their best, but this system is making them worse.

John Dehlin [02:29:21] What about modern day prophets?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:29:24] If they could prophesy, that would be cool, but you know, they're like behind on everything and they're getting things wrong. Like, how could you, how could you have this inspired policy about the gay people and then three years later say, just kidding, we're actually inspired to do it away with it, aren't we? So cool. Like, it's. The church has not led in anything

John Dehlin [02:29:50] Civil rights movement, era, lgbt.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:29:54] It's not that they were uniquely racist slavery. It's that they weren't uniquely not racist. They weren't leading out in any way except I guess if you're a man and you want to be a God, they're leading out in that.

John Dehlin [02:30:09] But they're not fighting slavery before its time. They're not supporting the civil rights movement. They're not supporting women's suffrage. You know, they're not supporting the era. They're not ahead on the LGBT stuff.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:30:21] They got it wrong about blacks in the priesthood.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:30:24] They.

John Dehlin [02:30:25] No, they fought the civil rights movement and the era.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:30:27] Right, like, right.

John Dehlin [02:30:29] I mean, the church is led. It's racist, sexist, homophobic, anti science, anti intellectual.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:30:36] Again, like, it's not on accident. The church has some of its biggest growth between the civil rights movement and finally giving blacks the priesthood. I think it attracted white supremacists to the ranks by being. By taking this racist stand and saying, well, I'm sorry, just white people are better. Sorry. They were more valiant in the pre existence. That's such a gross doctrine.

Shannon's Daughter's Temple Wedding and Being Excluded

John Dehlin [02:31:08] Okay, so do you want to talk to us about what happened with your daughter's wedding?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:31:13] Yeah, well, let's go back to just one more thing for the wedding. Is Dave leaving? Okay, so, you know, he did. I offered him the fruit of knowledge and alcohol and he accepted. And we were both like, well, I guess now we be kicked out because we've taken this knowledge and this alcohol. And a few months after that, I was like, dave, if you. If you. If there was proof that the church wasn't true, would you want to know? Like, would you want to know if the church wasn't true? And he was like, yeah, but there's just no proof. Nobody can prove that it's not true. And I was like, well, have. There's this document called the CES letter. Maybe take a look at that. And, you know, it has some really interesting questions. And so, yeah, he. He looked at the CES letter and was like, oh, yeah, that's.

Guest 2 [02:32:08] Yep.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:32:09] Garbage. And he started listening to the year of polygamy just to kind of, like, fact check what I was listening to. And he was like, oh, this is problematic. You know, so after that, he. You know, he was like, okay, all right, we're done. And he actually also tried to stay as a cultural Mormon for a little while, but again, it's not good enough to stay because it's really just. It's not doing good for anyone but themselves. It's not serving the community in little bits, but in appearance. So, okay, so Dave and I are done. You know, we stopped paying tithing. We stopped wearing our garments. We stop attending. And, yeah, about a year later, my daughter's engaged, and she's been at byu.

Guest 2 [02:33:02] She.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:33:04] She left for byu, Idaho, right about the time that I stopped wearing garments.

John Dehlin [02:33:08] She went to Ricks, too.

Guest 2 [02:33:10] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:33:10] And it was actually mother like daughter. It was really traumatic in a way, to drop her off, having lost my faith and being like, there are temples, Pictures of the temple in every room, and feeling that the temple is a tool of control. By that point, I was like, this is gross. Like, they're just trying. You know, if they can get people to the temple, they get them to pay tithing, they get them to do all the things, you know. So if you hold the temple over their heads, they have to go through these hoops that benefit the church in order to make it to the temple and to be okay with their family. So anyway, she's at byu, Idaho. I remember telling her before she left, I'm like, shelby, just don't let it get inside you. I think it can be good. Just hold hands with it. Don't hug it. Like the church. Just don't let it be too much. But she went, and they just do their job there. You know, there's so much peer pressure, and. And I could tell she Got deeper into the church there than she had been the last few years, because we'd been pretty like, I don't know, I'd been in several years of decline and feeling like the church was good. So she was already kind of like, oh, I remember saying, you should just hold hands with it. And she was like, I'm holding pinkies with it. So I was like, okay, she'll be fine. And she was a bit of a feminist, so I was like, she's not. She'll be okay. But, you know, it got to her. She met a wonderful guy, and he was a returned missionary. He'd been friends with one of her friends, like one of. In his mission. Her best friend was in his mission. And so she kind of like, introduced them in a way, and she just fell in love with this fun, wonderful guy. And, you know, he's a Mormon, and he's getting married, and they're getting married. And by then she's more fault. She's into it more. And, you know, she's like, well, we're getting married. And I was like, well, I assume it's going to be in the temple. And she's like, yeah. And I was like, okay. And it was. I can't. I can't even tell you how hard it was to, first of all, knowing that weddings could be so beautiful. You know, I've been to so many beautiful weddings, and to be like, you're gonna go do this wedding where I can't be there, where your dad can't be there, where none of your siblings can be there. And I know this is kind of the price of admission for getting this guy. So it wasn't that I felt like she was rejecting us. It just felt so sad that she was basically in the only church that was going to do this to us. Like any other church, you could pretty much go to a wedding. So I felt really unfortunate that we're in the worst church for being apostates when your kids are getting married. But on top of that, so I. You know, it just felt so sad to be like, I've been here every day of my daughter's life, and why did they have this policy that if she could just even do a civil ceremony and I could watch that, I don't need to be there during the ceiling, but I want to watch my daughter get married. And it just ate me up that in Europe or everywhere else in the world, you could have a civil ceremony and then go get sealed. And at that point, it was still the rule that if you Had a civil ceremony. You had to wait a year before you could get sealed. And it just made me so upset. That was only an issue here and it had to be a tool of control. And so I was thinking one day I was like, I'm going to write a letter to the First Presidency and let them know how cruel this is. To keep a mother away from her daughter on her wedding day, to make her choose between her church and her love and her parents and her family. And as I thought about what I would write, I realized they've been doing this for 50 years. My grandma did not get to watch my mom get married because my grandma wasn't endowed. So her only daughter, she missed her only daughter's wedding 50 years ago. And I'm going to miss my oldest daughter's wedding 50 years later. And we are. This has been happening every day for decades and it's provided so much devastation. And there's no way the First Presidency isn't aware of whatever I was going to write in this letter. They're choosing to do this. It just seemed so horribly cruel to, to make people qualify to be their own to their own child's wedding. So I wrote a letter to the bishop and the stake president and I said, look, I feel, you know, I know the temple recommend questions, you know, I don't make any money at this point. So I could say I'm a full tithe payer. Sure, I haven't been attending church, but you guys haven't asked me why not. And I feel like, you know, I have a belief in divinity and that God's good with me. You know, I follow, basically, I follow all the rules. I'm not asking to go to her endowment. I'm asking to attend her ceremony like everyone else who's wearing just street clothes. You're not participating in the ceremony, you're just witnessing it. I was like, I am this mother, this child's mother. I grew her in my body. You know, the final question in the temple recommend interview is, do you feel worthy? And I say, I feel worthy. I've been there for this child in every way, every day of her life. I am the most worthy person in the world to be there.

Guest 2 [02:39:30] And so I sent this letter and

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:39:33] I was afraid to send it because I knew that if they said no, I would be. That would kind of be it for me. Like, I would be so sad. And so I would start to feel angry at members of my ward. And for me, leaving wasn't about my ward. My ward was beautiful, wonderful people it was the doctrines and the hierarchy that was my problem. And the whitewashing and the, you know, the people themselves are innocent. It's the system that's the problem. And the people at the top of the system who could change it and don't. So I was afraid of sending that because I didn't want to feel resentment toward actual people. But I did because I was like, I have to try to be there at my daughter's wedding. And there was the option of possibly sneaking in, borrowing a recommend from someone. But at the same time, I was like, I want to respect my daughter's beliefs. I want to get in legitimately or not at all, because this is her beliefs, this is her husband's beliefs. I don't want to disrespect this holy ceremony for them. So if I can get in on my own accord, I'll do whatever I can. But I also have to be honest. I'm not going to get in and lie. So I was like, look, I think for these reasons, I'm worthy. I sent the letter. And he called me a few days later and said, I. I don't feel comfortable giving you a recommend. So, you know, the day of her wedding comes. Well, the day before, you know, I've been doing all this research and studying in my program and learning about systems of oppression. And I'd learned about all these, like, prison guards in Nazi Germany who weren't bad people. They were just doing what they were told. And I was like, they. That is exactly what's happening here. He's doing what he's told, and he's feeling. He's taking comfort in the fact that he's just following orders so that he doesn't have to feel responsible for cutting me out of my daughter's wedding. But he is part of the problem now. He has cut me out of my daughter's wedding. He hasn't pushed back on the system at all. He's an agent of this system. And I was just like, he needs to know how uncomfortable this is. I'm not going to just let him sit and be comfortable that he's made the right choice here. He made the wrong choice. And so I sent a letter of resignation the day my daughter got married to the bishop. And I mean, I can read that if you want. I mean, I've kind of told you what it was just like, if you don't like. And I said, at some point, if you don't know the whole story, if you're only looking at one part of the story, you know, back to the analogy. Hitler was a really great leader in so many ways. To the right people, he was, you know, making the trains run on time. He was good for the economy. He did all these wonderful things for the economy. But if you ignore the other things he did, you're ignoring a major problem. And I'm telling you, you're doing harm right now to me because you're only looking at the good side of the church. That was basically.

John Dehlin [02:42:50] That's how you read it. It's not too long. Do you want me to pull. Do you want me to show it to you?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:42:53] Here, I think I've got it.

John Dehlin [02:42:54] So this is the letter you wrote to your bishop and stake President, basically expressing your frustration that they wouldn't let you witness or attend the temple marriage of your daughter.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:43:11] Okay. Yes. And let's be honest, this was the day my daughter was getting married and I was torn up and I needed some kind of outlet. I don't regret sending this at all, but. And I actually wanted them to feel my anger, so. And that's why I didn't want to do Quit Mormon. I wanted them to know exactly what was happening. So I said, dear Bishop, I'm not going to say their names, but. But dear Bishop, Stake President and every single person on the leadership chain up to and including President Russell M. Nelson, I want you to feel more than the melancholy satisfaction of doing the right thing, which I assume you felt when you denied me permission to sit in the room while my daughter gets married. I'm sure you feel better when you tell yourself that I was ultimately at fault, that I could have avoided this whole thing by playing the game, staying active in church, paying my tithing, etc. But until you know the reasons I couldn't do that, you can't know the full story. Knowing only your side of the story and following the rules makes you more comfortable. But being comfortable is a terrible goal. It borders on evil because other people pay to accommodate for that comfort, whether it's with racism, sexism, classism, or in this case, religion. Comfort is the ultimate privilege. And you know you're privileged when you're entitled to comfort. Stay ignorant. You stay ignorant on the issues because you're comfortable in a system that benefits you. You owe the world discomfort and you are cowards doing harm if you refuse to sit in discomfort. I want you to know that I will be uncomfortable knowing someone else is helping my daughter get dressed and watching,

Guest 2 [02:44:53] watching her get married while I sit outside. She is lucky to have support, but I'm Left in the cold, literally.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:45:06] She got married in November.

Guest 2 [02:45:08] I have memories of her life that she doesn't. It is my job to remember and support her. And missing the opportunity to do that on her wedding day is killing me. There is no reason it has to be this way. I don't believe a loving God would do this. You need to be aware of my discomfort. This, as well as other things in the church, harms me deeply, and I hope you will challenge your comfort. This system is rotten in many ways, and for you to sit in the privileged position and judge me for whatever it is you feel I've done wrong while ignoring your part is horrific. Shame on you. I will deal with my own shame, but you need to be aware of yours, too. Shame on you for upholding a system that helps so few less than.01 of the population and does harm to so many who don't fit their extremely specific mold. Shame on you for ignoring the rotten

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:46:28] parts because you can identify and appreciate

Guest 2 [02:46:30] the good parts, which of course exist. Shame on you for not ultimately knowing the full, unbiased history of the organization you serve and vilifying those who do their due diligence and not making space for unbelief. Please understand, I don't think you are actually bad people. I think you are intellectually lazy and overly comfortable, which is irresponsible, which isn't

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:46:56] the same as bad.

Guest 2 [02:46:57] These are sins of omission rather than sins of commission. But like most sins, it is fixable. Please pass my letter up the chain and please remove my name from the membership record. Words.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:47:08] I'm done.

Guest 2 [02:47:09] Sincerely, Shannon Montez.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:47:13] And I also said, you know, like, Hitler was a good president. Like, there's an asterisk. Like, if you're only seeing one side of the story, it's a real problem.

John Dehlin [02:47:24] I mean, that's. Everyone is writing how much they love that letter. They're so glad you read it. It's so heartfelt.

Guest 2 [02:47:30] It did feel good to say, I want you to hurt a little bit

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:47:36] because I'm hurting a lot.

John Dehlin [02:47:40] Did they. Did they respond? And if so, what was their response?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:47:44] Yeah, his response was about the Stake President. Never. He never responded at all.

John Dehlin [02:47:53] No response. Never to a heartfelt email.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:47:56] Never said a word. The bishop responded with, sister Montez, I was deeply saddened by your email and the hurt and pain you feel. I was requested.

John Dehlin [02:48:09] I'm sorry you got hurt.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:48:10] I'm sorry you feel bad. I requested that your name be removed from the records of the church. Please know that doing so cancels the effects of your baptism and confirmation, as well as temple blessings. If this is still your desire, please let me know, and I will begin the process. Respectfully, Bishop, you know, and I was like, what good are the blessings of the temple to me now? Like, why are you saying that I'm gonna lose this? I already did. I lost the big thing right Already.

Guest 2 [02:48:42] So,

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:48:45] you know, like, so I sent that. It felt a little. You know, it just. It felt good to feel anger instead of sadness, which obviously I still feel sadness about. But the day of her wedding was one of the most difficult days of

Guest 2 [02:49:03] my life because, like, as a good parent, you have to be happy.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:49:11] You know, it's not about me.

Guest 2 [02:49:13] It's not my day. It's her day. And this is what she chose. And I want to support her in every way. And if she wants to get married in the temple, I want that for her.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:49:25] It's not her fault.

Guest 2 [02:49:28] So I had to smile while my heart was breaking. And, you know, it was so hard to pretend, like, this was such a happy day, and I was trying to find all the good, happy things. But honestly, one of the worst parts was the lack of acknowledgement. This was hard for me. So many friends and family members walked. Like, her flowers weren't done on time, so I had to take them into

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:50:00] the temple after she was already in there.

Guest 2 [02:50:04] And I went to the front desk,

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:50:06] and I'm like, my daughter needs her flowers. And they're like, who is she?

Guest 2 [02:50:09] And we can't.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:50:10] You know, it was just kind of chaotic.

Guest 2 [02:50:13] And several friends and family members walked right past me and could see that I was dressed and trying not to be upset, and they just walked past, you know, like, there was no. Like, Steve and Mindy. I remember Mindy feeling. I could tell she was kind of pissed that whole day, and I was glad. Part of me was just, like, glad that she could see how unfair this was and how hard it was to celebrate.

John Dehlin [02:50:49] Did Steve and Mindy attend?

Guest 2 [02:50:51] Well, they sat outside with us. Okay with you, but, yeah, I actually got as many people as I could to sit outside the temple with us so that I could feel like we were still celebrating. But the lack of sympathy, just knowing, you know, knowing that everyone's there, like, well, well, she knew you could have done it. That lack of sympathy is so cruel. And that's why I'm saying it takes good people and makes them bad or do bad things. Yeah, yeah, they're not bad people, but

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:51:26] it justifies bad behavior.

Guest 2 [02:51:29] Like, what I needed were hugs and support, and they were supporting Shelby but nobody was supporting me in my.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:51:39] Like, the good Mormons felt justice that

Guest 2 [02:51:43] I was deserving of this when I had been a good mom. Nothing I could have done would mean that I deserved to miss that. Like, there's nothing that I could have done. She loved me, and I loved her, and I deserved. I created this person. I shepherded her every day of her life. There's nothing I could have done that would justify this. It's absolutely cruel and unusual punishment for something as small as losing belief.

John Dehlin [02:52:25] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:52:26] And, yeah, three months later, they changed this policy so she could have had a civil ceremony.

Guest 2 [02:52:32] And that it just almost made it worse. No acknowledgement that 50 years. Like, my mother couldn't see my pain because she knew that her mother felt my pain. And it was so hard for my mom to see me suffer that she avoided me the whole weekend. I stayed at her house to actually start my thesis. I started the research that. That weekend because it was, like, around Thanksgiving, and my mom avoided me. And I. You know, I had to ask my dad, like, where's Mom? Why is she avoiding me? And he's like, oh, she's not feeling well. But. And then she didn't. But I could just see that it was too painful for her, and we couldn't have this discussion. And I needed my mom, and her mom needed. Like, she didn't get to see her get married. It's just to think that this devastation has happened for generations. I mean, in my own family. My grandma felt terrible. My mom. Her wedding's not her favorite memory because there was hardly anyone at her wedding. There was me getting traumatized by missing my daughter's wedding, and my daughter getting traumatized by missing her mother on her most important day. I didn't get to help her put her dress on or, you know, like, my sister was there, and that was nice, but I'm her mother. In one family, that's a lot of pain. That was completely avoidable. And they were completely aware that this causes pain, and they didn't care. And the people walking past me didn't care. And so that's what I'm saying. It does bad things with good people. It undermines their ability to be empathetic because they're so concerned about being right. And it does some real harm to a lot of people when being right is more important than being loving.

John Dehlin [02:54:44] Yeah. I'm so sorry.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:54:47] It's still kind of fresh, although it's been, like, a year and a half.

Guest 2 [02:54:52] It's just.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:54:54] It was so hard.

John Dehlin [02:54:56] Yeah. Well, we've got About. We've got just a few minutes left and you have to go to Bear Lake and I have to catch an appointment. But for those of you who missed it this morning, you know, we did several hours on this amazing master's thesis, the Secret Mormon meetings of 1922. We're going to be covering this master's thesis. It's all about B.H. roberts, his discovery. A Mormon general authority and church historian discovering that the Book of Mormon is not historical. In the 1910s and early 1920s, his alerting the general authorities, the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, sitting them all down in a two day, three day meeting and telling them there are significant problems with the Book of Mormon. We already covered that earlier today. And later we're going to talk about, you know, after the Brethren ignored BH Roberts and blew off his concerns and tried to ship, you know, tried to ship him away, you know, right before he left, BH Roberts picks a bunch of Mormon intellectuals and starts having these meetings to try and work with unofficial Mormon intellectuals to try and, and find a way to make the gospel work and to make the Mormonism still work. With the Book of Mormon being so problematic. I can't wait to get to that. But I want to end. I kind of named this podcast for Mormon housewife and mother to historian. Let's just spend the last couple minutes talking about this amazing four year journey of you deciding as a mom to pursue your master's in history, how you decided to study Mormon history, why you did it, and what it all meant. And we've literally only got like 10 minutes, so we'll have to do it all.

Returning to School and Becoming a Mormon Historian

Shannon Caldwell Montez [02:56:47] Yeah, well, I lost my network. I needed something new, and I'd always imagined going back to school because first of all, I couldn't do anything with a history degree. I'd at least need to get my teaching certification. So I'd always known I would go back to. But a master's degree just sounded so interesting. And, you know, my husband had a job as a CFO of a company, and so my income wasn't needed. And I just was like, this would be really good for me to focus my energy and time on something. And so I decided to go get this master's degree and just learn more about American history, which I was really amazed at how much I had missed as far as history goes. In the first degree in high school, you know, this, this degree was focused more on race, ethnicity, gender, and religion. And it was, it was amazing and it was wonderful and such a good experience when it came time to choose a thesis. I mean, at first I was like, I don't really want to do a Mormon topic. I just, you know, I'm not feeling healthy in this regard. But as it, you know, as it got closer, I was feeling just more curious about Mormon history. And I just. It's been so much more interesting now that I don't have to protect a testimony to be able to look at the full, like, nuanced history, all of the good and the bad. And, you know, it's just a fascinating American movement, whether or not I believe it's just such cool history. And so I kind of thought, you know, you kind of should work with what you know. And so I. Yeah, I kind of was like, here I am after a faith crisis. I wonder how I'd, you know, I'd read. I'd seen these BH Roberts documents and the studies. You know, I'd heard that B.H. roberts, this was. Did he or didn't he lose his testimony? I'd heard that debate. And I thought, how did all the other people feel about this information? And so that's what I originally had set out to do, is see if I could find information whether or not the apostles, you know, if I could see a change in their. In their beliefs. Turns out again, that that was such a naive thing, thinking the church was just going to be like, yeah, here. Look at all these journals. But, you know, in my first foray, right after my daughter's wedding, as I mentioned, to actually do the research is when I came upon Richard Lyman's journal that had this list, and I was like, this is interesting. I wonder who all these people are. And then I found more names to add to this list. And as I discussed this with my professor afterwards, she was like, I think you're really onto something. And it's really fascinating that there were women there and, you know, that they're discussing this outside of church circles. She's like, I really think you should explore this. And, you know, at first I was like, I don't know. How can I make a whole thesis out of a list of a few names? But the more I looked into each person that was in attendance, the more they just. Just each filled in this beautiful picture of what Mormonism looked like in the 1920s, in this little. This little window of, like, liberal, where they were choosing whether or not to become more liberal or more conservative, whether to accept or reject science, whether to remake themselves after polygamy was over into more mainstream Christianity, or to try to become more Distinct people, like they had been, like they were in this crossroads. And I've just found that this little window of time just made, just illuminated so much about Mormonism and the choices that have been made since and during that time and really illustrates almost for me, an alternative view of what could have been. You know, when we see these people in high callings saying things that were just so interesting and like, what we would say now is more liberal and saying, you know, having more room for God and having more room for goodness and not having it be so much about rules and having it be more about goodness. So I just found that each person I researched added a little more clarity to this moment of time. And in Mormon history, it was just such a beautiful time that it was such a pleasure to write and to learn about all these people and to get to know this little window of choice.

John Dehlin [03:01:46] And this will be sort of a kind of a spoiler or a sneak preview of the hours that you. That we did before or the stuff that we'll do after. But what were two or three big conclusions or highlights or aha. Moments from your study?

Research Discoveries and Life After Mormonism

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:02:08] Well, one of them was how one thing that I found was so fascinating was how Gordon B. Hinckley wrote a biography of James Moyle, who was the person who hosted these meetings, and seeing clear whitewashing happening by Gordon Hinckley, who was like my favorite prophet. He seemed to be like, so good. So Moyle gives a talk shortly before he dies, talking about how he had met, I think it's David Whitmer, and asked him about his experience and realized the man was talking about a visionary experience. And he's saying, I was disappointed he didn't talk about them being in physical, seeing them physically in like. He's like. He says, I was disappointed that it wasn't as material as I had thought. And, you know, this was like in his early age. And he kind of, it seems kind of forgets this or suppresses this information in his own memory and later, remember, comes back to it, looks at his journal, is like, oh, yeah, he didn't say he saw it in person. And he gives this talk and it's printed in the juvenile instructor or something like, you know, some magazine, church magazine before correlation. And he's like, here's why I think the prophet still prophet, even if the Book of Mormon wasn't physical, which is such a crazy thing to have been printed in a church magazine. And I think it must have caused an uproar because when Gazada's all erased in his biography and it's hard to find Moyle. Moyle that Hinckley wrote. And this whole. Moyle is one of my favorite characters or people. He's a real person, not a character, but one of my favorite people in this because he shows the struggles of getting an education from leaving the state and how he, you know, practicing law, the politics that was going on up at the higher levels, and the whitewashing that he, like his biographer, was being pressured to say things in a certain way, even though Moyle's not even an apostle or church person at all, besides a believer. So he was an interesting person. And I think it's because he had this piece of information from a witness who's saying, well, I mean, I saw

John Dehlin [03:04:43] them with my spiritual eyes.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:04:45] With my spiritual eyes. And he was like, wait, what?

John Dehlin [03:04:48] Not your real eyes?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:04:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:04:50] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:04:50] So that information got suppressed.

John Dehlin [03:04:52] Yeah.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:04:53] That's just one instance.

John Dehlin [03:04:55] Yeah. I love the part about BH Roberts. Again, we've already talked about this, but just you pretty much demonstrate that by the end, BH Roberts did not believe the Book of Mormon was historical. He still believed the church. Church was good, that the gospel would be good for people.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:05:09] Yeah, Christianity is great, but we have

John Dehlin [03:05:12] BH Roberts basically on one hand saying, if this isn't what we thought, it's a fraud. But then once he realizes that it wasn't historical, that Joseph didn't use the Urim and Thummim, that there weren't plates, and that it's not a real history, then he's like, well, you know, there's still goodness here.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:05:28] Yeah, well, maybe we can still salvage it. But.

John Dehlin [03:05:32] Yeah, and then just the, you know, we talked about this in the previous set of interviews, but just the systemic corruption, the whitewashing, the hiding of evidence, keeping it from the members, punishing people who tried to talk about it. It's really. It's really.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:05:48] And if you're going to put everything, your own life, if need be, on the line for this church, shouldn't you be given the whole story

John Dehlin [03:05:59] really quickly for women out there, or anyone but women specifically, who. You know, they're. Let's just say they've gotten married and they've had a bunch of kids, but now they're realizing that the church wasn't what they thought, and they're saying, wow, my life wasn't. I could have had choices, but now I've got all these kids and they're thinking about, like, well, I want to do something cool, but how do I do it? I'm married, I have kids. I'm middle aged, I'm in my 40s or 30s or 50s. You did it, you said, hey, I'm a wife, I'm a mother. You know, the church isn't working out for me, but I'm going to spend several years, get a master's degree and write a really cool thesis that I think is a major contribution to Mormon history. I think this is. To me, this is as important as Greg Prince's David O. McKay book or Leonard Arrington book in terms of the puzzle pieces it puts into the puzzle. This is a crucial puzzle piece that you have put in place for me. That for me is almost the institutional corruption is almost a smoking gun in and of itself. And this really comes out in this thesis. So what encouraging words would you say to a middle aged Mormon mom and wife who's thinking, do I go back to school? Do I do something else? Do I start a job? What can you say to them to give them encouragement?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:07:23] I don't know if I'm in a position to do that because I'm still figuring it out myself. I loved going back to school. It was so fun to do something for myself and to, you know, use my brain and like, be respected for the things that I was thinking. And that was amazing. I'm not sure where I'm going next. This is new, you know, I just finished the thesis in December and just, you know, Covid hit, so nothing's happening right now. And I don't know, I don't know that I have advice. I still feel a little upset or even encouragement.

John Dehlin [03:07:59] Even encouragement.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:08:01] Yeah, do it. Just.

John Dehlin [03:08:04] How did you do it when you had lots of kids?

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:08:07] Well, okay. My daughter had already left for college. My kids were like, the youngest was in middle school. So I was just. There are seasons of life and if I had tried this earlier, it would have been much harder. But you know, with three kids at home and they were all at school all day, it was mostly something to just. It was exciting and fun to do, but. And it was more flexible than a job and I just, it was such a joy to do this. So, yeah, definitely do something for yourself. I'm not sure where this will lead, but I hope to do more of this kind of work. Researching was so I felt like a detective. It was so much fun to just be like, oh my gosh, nobody's talked about this before. This is so exciting that I just found something that nobody knew and I can tell somebody something that new information that kind of paints the picture in a little more detail. So that was really exciting. I loved being in the archives. I loved reading the old letters. It just felt like such an adventure. So if you like history, do that. But not everyone does. So what worked for me may not work for others.

John Dehlin [03:09:27] Well, Shannon, you are inspiring. You're super thoughtful and lovely and articulate. So many people are saying this is their favorite Mormon Stories episode ever. That's, you know, there's 1350, so that's a big deal, even if one person feels that way. But I just have to tell you all, this thesis is a delightful read. It's a compelling read, it's well written, it's super thoughtful, and it gets right to the meat from page one, and it's meaty all the way to the final page. There was not a page. If you look at my marked up version of this thesis, every single page has markings. Some pages, the whole freaking page is marked up with stars and underlines and smiley faces and frowny faces, which is how I mark up books. So it's amazing. Read it, get it, buy it. Check out my previous episode with Shannon on the BH Roberts story. It's a crucial story to understanding modern Mormon intellectual history and, frankly, church corruption.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:10:35] And that's, you know, that's the dissertation. That's a lot more information than this provides. But what I provide in this thesis is kind of a delightful little collection of stories.

John Dehlin [03:10:49] Super important. Someone's asking if your husband resigned to. Jeff. Jeff. Hey, Jeff. I'm just. I'm also friends with Jeff and Lindsay, and Jeff says your husband did resign.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:11:02] He resigned, actually, before I did.

John Dehlin [03:11:04] Okay.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:11:05] I had planned to stay in the church. Like, it's just my heritage. I love being a Mormon. I don't love a lot about it, but I love the history and I love the people. And I still feel like they're mine. And I can push them to be better as well as anyone else. And that's, you know, I love the people. I would love to help them feel more free in their religion or out.

John Dehlin [03:11:28] Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for your gift of your history to us. Thanks for the gift of your story. Your courage, your poise, your thoughtfulness. You're awesome, man. The Caldwell family, they're the best. Jeff. Steve, you like? What a family.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:11:46] He's amazing. He's not here this week with me,

John Dehlin [03:11:49] but kudos to Dave for choosing.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:11:51] I just need to make it clear. He's a wonderful person. And the church kind of gave us some bad things to work with.

John Dehlin [03:11:58] System's not people. But I'm glad you Guys worked through it. Glad you're happy.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:12:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:12:02] And thank you so much for listening. Thanks to everyone who tuned in. Please share this with everyone. Tell everyone, please support Mormon stories with COVID 19. Donations are way down. It's got me worrying about what I'll be doing in the next year or two. Starting to think about other jobs. I don't want to stop doing Mormon stories. I'm okay now. But we need donations and support. So if you value this work, if you want to see it continue, please go to MormonStories.org and become a monthly donor. It'll mean the world to generations to come. If you can leave us positive reviews on YouTube, on iTunes, on Facebook, share it with everyone, Email me with questions or support. Check out our website. And just thanks for all the support. It means the world. And for those of you who are donors, those of you who do support us, thank you so much. You make all the difference. And thanks to Mindy and Steve for turning me on to Shannon and love to the Caldwell family. And, you know, we'll be bringing Shannon back again to talk about her thesis more in depth. But you guys take care for now. And again, Shannon, thank you so much for coming on. Warm stories.

Guest 2 [03:13:12] Thanks.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:13:13] It's awesome.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [03:13:14] All right. All right, everyone. You guys take care. Thanks so much for joining us.

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:13:40] Come, come, ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy when you're though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive do this peace and joy your hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our lot is hard Tis not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight? Gird up your lo fresh courage take Our God will never us for sake soon we'll have. Oh, all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well that. Sam. And should we die before our journey's through Happy day All is well we that are free from toil and sorrow with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the saints the rest obtain I will make this corridor Is well oh, all is well all is well all

John Dehlin [03:17:29] is well all is well

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:17:36] all is well oh, all is well

Shannon Caldwell Montez [03:17:46] Way.

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