Join us as we revisit this epic interview with John Dehlin and Carah Burrell, which originally aired on Carah’s channel in 2023.
Eve, a good friend of Carah Burrell’s, was an active and faithful member of the LDS Church at the time of this interview. She had begun to question aspects of the Church—particularly polygamy—and agreed to sit down with Carah and John for a truly unique conversation. In this interview, they simply presented her with factual information about LDS history and captured her real-time reactions.
This one-of-a-kind interview is now being shared on Mormon Stories Podcast for the very first time. Be sure to join us later this week as Eve returns to the podcast—this time with both of her parents, who have experienced their own faith journeys since Eve’s original interview two years ago.
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Guest: Carah Burrell
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction and Episode Backstory
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to one of the most important episodes ever released on Mormon Stories Podcast. Here's the backstory. In October of 2022, Carah Burrell came into the Mormon Stories studios and brought her friend Eve, who was just recently beginning to learn problems with Mormon church history and specifically with Joseph Smith and with his polygamy. And so Carah and I basically spent an hour and a half sharing with Eve some of the basics that, that we have learned about Joseph Smith, about Mormon polygamy, about Oliver Cowdery, about the happiness letter. And it's, it's, it's a unique contribution to Mormon Stories podcast because it's basically a lifelong Mormon who's just learning about the problems with Mormon church history for the very first time. Carah released this episode or this interview on her own YouTube channel and it's received almost 700,000 views, which makes it one of the most viewed interviews ever conducted in the Mormon Stories podcast studio. Well, up until now, it's never been released on Mormon Stories podcast. So part one of this series is going to be my interview with Eve with Carah as co host. That's going to be part one of the series. Part two of the series has been recorded recently. It's basically Eve's parents, Neil and Christa, who were total full believers when this episode with Eve was released. It turns out that Neil and Krista have had their own Mormon journey since Karen I released this interview with Eve. And so in part two of this series, we're bringing Neil and Krista along with Eve back on Mormon Stories podcast to tell their story of their journey with Eve since Eve released that original interview. So it's a two part episode. You're gonna love it. Enjoy part one with me, Karen, Eve, right now. And then make sure and come back for part two with Eve's parents and Eve. And finally please like and subscribe to the Mormon Stories podcast channel to this episode. And if you're not a donor to Mormon Stories podcast, we would love your donations. Just go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button, become a monthly donor, because we couldn't do this without your donations. Anyway, without any further ado, enjoy part one of our interview with Eve and Carah Burrell.
Carah Burrell [00:02:34] John, I love this idea. I don't know if I've ever done this before. Have you never done this before? Because it's either like an apologist or it's somebody who already knows the information. But I think like, I just see so much of myself, Eve, of when I was first trying to discover things like the Things you're asking Eve are the exact same questions I had. Whereas, like, okay, well, where do I read this? How do I know that it's legit?
Eve [00:02:52] How do I know it wasn't? Well, because in the church they tell you, you know, like, people who are going to tell you stuff that go, that are trying to get you to not believe in the church are people who are like making things up. So like, and I know like part of that is still in my brain. Nuance.
John Dehlin [00:03:15] Ho.
Carah Burrell [00:03:16] Hey everybody. Welcome to my YouTube channel. You'll notice that I am not in my home studio. I am but a dog returning to its vomit. And I am here with the high quality audio and video equipment here at Mormon Stories Studio because John de Lynn is still such a good friend of mine that he wanted to do the series with me about top 15 things that Mormon missionaries will not tell you about the Mormon founder and prophet Joseph Smith. So we did a really popular Tick Tock series on the Mormon Stories Tick Tock channel back in the day and a lot of people wanted more sources. And so we've made two videos already. You can check out on my YouTube channel. The link will be in the description of parts 1 through 5 and then 6 through 10. And today we're going to get into 11 through 15 of other things that missionaries will not tell you, things that are more systematic, systemically withheld and purposely constructed to not be told to people who are converting to the church. So we want to make sure that you have as much informed consent about the Mormon Church as possible when you are going to be paying maybe 10% of your income for the rest of your life, devoting your life to something, having as much information about the founder of the religion, I think is super important for people to move forward with. So, John, thanks for letting me use your equipment. Thanks for doing this with me.
John Dehlin [00:04:36] Oh my gosh, it's so fun to have you back in studio, Carah. Come anytime.
Carah Burrell [00:04:40] Ah, thank you so much. I miss the lights, the sounds, the smells. I'm so grateful to be back.
John Dehlin [00:04:45] Wait, the smells? What are you talking about? The smells.
Carah Burrell [00:04:47] The smells of a basement. The smells of water.
John Dehlin [00:04:54] Take a shower? Is that what you're saying? What are you saying? I need to take a shower?
Carah Burrell [00:04:58] No.
John Dehlin [00:04:58] Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:04:59] You're like 19 yards from me. We want to use as many sources as possible that are church sanctioned sources. Sources. So we're pulling from gospel topic essays and from things like rough stone rolling and as many sources as we possibly can that give people their ability to go to find these links. And go do their investigation for themselves. So anything else you want to add to that introduction?
John Dehlin [00:05:22] I'm just excited to be here and to close out this three part series. The first two, I think were received really well. So people. People still like us collaborating, Carah? Yeah, that's just a reality we have to face.
Carah Burrell [00:05:32] Reunited.
John Dehlin [00:05:34] It feels so good. Most people like. What is that song? I have no idea what song you're singing.
Carah Burrell [00:05:40] It's the song I sing every time I walk in the store. So since this video is entitled, you know, top 15 things that Mormon Missionaries will not Tell you, we thought in the second part that it would be good to have a convert in. So we had Sam Shelley, who is a convert to the Mormon Church back in England and asking her a lot of the things, like, would you have appreciated to know these different aspects? What were you made aware of and what were you not? And so for this third and final installment, I want to welcome a really special friend of mine who, when I was living in la, she was one of the missionaries that was assigned to my homeward in Santa Monica for nine months. And we became super tight besties. So this is my friend Eve. She's visiting in town from Austin right now and I asked her if she.
Carah's Background and Reasons for Questioning
John Dehlin [00:06:23] Fellow Texan.
Eve [00:06:24] Yeah, yeah. Yep. Hey, y'.
John Dehlin [00:06:25] All.
Carah Burrell [00:06:27] So, Eve, welcome to Nuanceo's YouTube channel slash MormonStories.
Eve [00:06:32] Thank you.
Carah Burrell [00:06:32] It's a pleasure. Are you excited to be here?
Eve [00:06:35] I am.
Carah Burrell [00:06:36] Are you excited to talk about Joseph Smith?
Eve [00:06:39] Sure.
Carah Burrell [00:06:39] Are you excited to realize that what you were talking about on your mission that we bonded over for so many months was a lot of constructed lies?
John Dehlin [00:06:50] Oh, my goodness, that's so harsh, Carah.
Eve [00:06:52] I am.
John Dehlin [00:06:53] Go soft. Go like, reconsider maybe some of the thoughts you had about Joseph Smith.
Carah Burrell [00:06:59] Are you excited to reconsider some of the thoughts.
Eve [00:07:02] You know, I came into your home and preached for nine months every week. So here we are. You can preach to me.
Carah Burrell [00:07:10] Oh, she's so humble.
John Dehlin [00:07:12] Carah turns the tables on Eve. We're taught one narrative as, as either investigators or orthodox members about Joseph Smith. Maybe a simplified, some would say whitewashed version of his history. And a lot of really important facts about his character, about his history, about his behavior is intentionally withheld from us, from investigators and from missionaries. Yeah, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Eve [00:07:38] I know. I don't even know what I don't know, but I have a feeling I don't know a lot.
Carah Burrell [00:07:44] Exactly. And so a lot of the people who, you know, either watch Mormon stories or the Nuance Ho YouTube channel. They're about at the same number. I don't want to get into the math of it. It's just the audiences are both humongous at this point, super close. And people who are interested in deconstructing Mormonism and understanding a lot of the things that were whitewashed and maybe how they were bamboozled or kind of just deconstructing the different layers of lies and fraud that the church has purposely withheld from people is a big undertaking. And a lot of people don't have time or haven't had the interest in
Eve [00:08:16] taking that or the emotional energy.
Carah Burrell [00:08:19] Precisely. So pull your emotional energy up by its bootstraps and buckle in. We're going to get into some more of those things. And also, I just wanted to have somebody who doesn't know a lot of these things in real time, who served a mission for the church, react to what she thinks of them.
Eve [00:08:39] I will be reacting. It will all be sincere.
Carah Burrell [00:08:44] And may I just say, from a sincere place, Eve, I just know that you were such a devoted missionary, and so you have different people in your life and thoughts of, you know, when I was leaving the church and different people, there were just beautiful pillars of my testimony, people in my life that just believed the church so much and put their heart, my mind and soul into it. And for me, you were one of those people for how much you cared, how much you cared about the investigators and.
Eve [00:09:08] Yeah, and I'd like to say you, too, as well, were just like a huge, like, pillar of my faith and testimony just because of. I just. Well, I still think you are one of the most amazing people I know. Just so everyone knows, Carah is. I love her. And I don't know, you get to this point, Gosh, what the heck? It's so hard to even consider if things might. Might not be true, because all of a sudden, you know, your whole concept and framework of, like, eternity and everything that you thought you knew, you question it and you think, well, you know, what. What is my family going to think? Is my family going to stay with me? Am I more important to my family than the churches? And there was a point where, I mean, Carah started doing her TikTok. And it was while I was going through some really, really bad, like, postpartum anxiety and depression. And I remember I just came across her account. Obviously, they show you people that, you know, and she had like 50,000 subscribers and she was doing anti Mormon TikTok. And I.
Carah Burrell [00:10:39] And at that point, that's how you found out.
Eve [00:10:40] Yeah, I wasn't Like, I wasn't going to church a lot. It was Covid. And at first I was just like, what. What the hell? Like, if anyone was not gonna leave the church, it was gonna be Carah. And. And that's how I felt because of just, like, the relationship that we had. And so I just got to this point, like, you gave me the courage to say no. Like, if I can question these things and I can watch Mormon stories, I can allow myself to hear these things that people have been telling me for years. Like, just do not listen, and it'll be okay if it's all wrong. Like, even if it's all wrong, it's. You can accept that. So. Sorry. I feel like I just.
Carah Burrell [00:11:34] Yeah, thanks for saying that.
Eve [00:11:35] Emotional.
John Dehlin [00:11:36] And anyway, we don't apologize for vulnerability and authenticity here. And I just want to say, you know, we're kind of. Karen, I get jokey in the intro. We're not. We're not excited or eager to see people have their lives turned upside down. This is really tender. You know, we try and be funny because otherwise you cry or angry.
Eve [00:11:58] Exactly.
John Dehlin [00:11:59] But we're not. We're not here to sort of, like, revel in someone's world being turned upside down. This is tender stuff. But we also try.
Carah Burrell [00:12:08] And for our own sanity.
John Dehlin [00:12:11] Yeah. Try and laugh sometimes, too. But we'll. We'll try and thread that needle of not. Not being disrespectful to your experience, but also trying to have a little bit of fun.
Eve [00:12:21] Oh, you can be as funny as you want. I appreciate the humor, so.
John Dehlin [00:12:26] Well, Carah can't.
Carah Burrell [00:12:26] I'm a mixed bag of both.
Eve [00:12:28] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:12:28] Carah can't not be funny. Is that right, Carah?
Carah Burrell [00:12:31] Well, ask some of the people in my life. Maybe like, my family, I don't know. On a bad day.
Eve [00:12:39] No.
Carah Burrell [00:12:40] But I appreciate you saying that, Eve, because that is why I care about this space so much, is because I didn't have the emotional fortitude to be able to question a lot of things that I wish I would have questioned sooner. I wish I would have started deconstructing sooner. I wouldn't have taught my kids. But there's an emotional upheaval that does happen when you take these things really seriously and say, what if all of these things about Joseph Smith and his character that really. That really dismantles his credibility that I had my testimony based on. What am I going to. What am I going to teach my kids? How am I going to live my life? What about eternity? What about all this devotion that I already gave? But it's for people in this ex Mormon space that are just like, effort. Like, whatever's true is. That's just the thing that I want to follow. Like, let the chips fall where they may. So anybody who's brave enough to, you know, start dissonance, this is anyone who's brave enough to start distancing themselves from just untrue things, things that are not serving anymore. Artie, you know, is awesome and is a hero, but I'm really grateful that you came on this video. Put your face on a video, and talking about a any kind of faith crisis and these really sensitive things publicly is a huge accomplishment. So I'm just grateful that you came and came out to do this with me.
Eve [00:13:52] Thanks.
Carah Burrell [00:13:53] Yeah. But you're also getting a break from your two year old right now, which
Eve [00:13:57] Aaron is watching, thinking about him right now, and how he's probably crying as well.
Carah Burrell [00:14:03] So do you want to check on him?
Eve [00:14:04] No, it's okay. Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:14:06] My first Mormon Stories episode, I cried the whole entire time because I was missing my kids. So it happens.
Eve [00:14:12] All right.
Carah Burrell [00:14:12] Anything else we want to say?
John Dehlin [00:14:13] No, let's dig in.
Joseph Smith's Secret Plural Marriages
Carah Burrell [00:14:15] Okay. So like I said, we're going to read kind of what we mentioned in the TikTok briefly and then get into the sources and add more context to them.
John Dehlin [00:14:24] When you were raised in the church and when you were in the mtc, and you did what, three weeks in the mtc?
Eve [00:14:31] Yep. English. English speaker.
John Dehlin [00:14:33] So in all the religious education you received in the church up through now, which is how many years I am.
Eve [00:14:41] 33.
John Dehlin [00:14:42] So in the. In your 33 years in the church, how. What has the church taught you about how many wives Joseph Smith married while he was alive? We're not talking about people sealed to him after he died. What is the church taught you and what did it teach you before you became a missionary or while you were becoming a missionary? In terms of how many wives Joseph Smith had?
Eve [00:15:09] Nothing. I mean, I knew. I know he had multiple wives. I knew polygamy was a thing, but I didn't know anything about any of the people's wives or how many are.
John Dehlin [00:15:24] So like, let's just say you're imagining Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. He's mayor of Nauvoo. He's prophet for the church. He's head of the Nauvoo Legion. How many wives are you imagining him having in Nauvoo? What's your guess?
Eve [00:15:37] I would guess like four or five.
John Dehlin [00:15:38] Four or five. Four or five.
Eve [00:15:40] Yep. Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:15:40] All right.
John Dehlin [00:15:41] And four or five wives, maybe when
Carah Burrell [00:15:44] you were on your mission, did.
Eve [00:15:46] I just didn't like to think about it. Honestly, polygamy was always something that I tried not to think about because it. Thinking about it just made me sad.
John Dehlin [00:15:58] So, like, when you're teaching your investigators about Joseph Smith and the first vision and receiving the Aaronic and the Melchizedek priesthood, how many wives did you tell your investigators that Joseph Smith had?
Eve [00:16:09] We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about polygamy. I mean, if they brought it up, it was like, yeah, polygamy was practiced in the church and it's something that we no longer practice anymore. And I feel like.
John Dehlin [00:16:23] But you wouldn't have brought it up, right?
Eve [00:16:25] No, they.
John Dehlin [00:16:26] So nowhere in your six discussions. Six discussions?
Eve [00:16:30] I don't remember. It's been 10 years.
John Dehlin [00:16:32] Okay, let's just say there were six.
Eve [00:16:34] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:16:35] Did the Church ever have you proactively teach polygamy the investigators about the Church's practice of polygamy?
Eve [00:16:42] No.
John Dehlin [00:16:42] Okay. Okay. So she said four or five. Carah, do you want to do the reveal?
Carah Burrell [00:16:48] Yeah. So not only did Joseph Smith secretly marry between 30 and 40 women, but he also lied to his own church, many of his top leaders, to the general public, and to his own wife Emma about his secret polygamy. In fact, even though Joseph's polygamy revelation stipulates that the first wife must approve all subsequent wives, aka Law of Sarah, Emma was sealed to Joseph after 20 plus other women were already sealed to him, all without her knowledge. Given Emma's angry reaction while discovering Joseph's affair with 16 year old live in servant in the barn, it's understandable why Joseph would keep his first 20 plus marriages from his wife.
John Dehlin [00:17:28] Okay, so there's a lot there. So, Eve, let's just start. 30 to 40 living women in Nauvoo married to Joseph Smith. What? Did you know that?
Eve [00:17:40] Well, no, I mean, I knew. I had an idea the number was higher, but that's insane.
John Dehlin [00:17:47] 30 to 40.
Eve [00:17:49] That's crazy. Yeah. What? I. I mean, I have, I can ask questions. Like, I have questions. Were they already married? Was he having sex with all these women? Like where? And he was doing this secretly? Like, how do we know if he was doing it secretly? Is it like from his journals or their journals or. Yeah, I. I mean, obviously all. I don't know where this information even comes from.
John Dehlin [00:18:20] Yeah, where does this information come from, Carah?
Carah Burrell [00:18:23] LDS Church history. History of the Church, Volume 6, Chapter 9. Uh, we have Joseph Smith denying it in some ways. Where? This is what we mean by Secretly and, and lying to the public. He'll say things like what it is, what a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery and having seven wives when I can only find one. Things like that where he was publicly denouncing it, but privately marrying these women in secret ceremonies. And a lot of the other top leaders of the church also them being able to marry other women, other women, and then the scariest ones come to have to do with underage, underage girls, especially ones that were living in his home, being his, his live in servant. And just all of the implications with different power structures being the prophet really always made me uncomfortable, and rightly so. It's hard to investigate these things because it's hard to know the answers of, well, was he sleeping with them? Were they just sealed? But we have a lot of sources that tell us that he was having sex with many of them and that was an intention from the beginning of it. That abortion was an available practice in Nauvoo, surprisingly. And that he also was sending men from the church on missions to go teach in foreign countries. And then while they were gone, committing a thing called polyandry, which is now marrying that man's wife and sealing her to himself without them knowing, without their knowledge.
Eve [00:19:58] Okay, so you said in the book, he said he only had one wife. So where do you get all the information about all the other people?
John Dehlin [00:20:07] What was weird was the Doctrine and Covenants at the time, the 1835 doctrine and covenants, actually in I believe it's section 101, it prohibited polygamy. So basically said the church's stance, this has been removed from the current Doctrine and Covenants. But the Doctrine and Covenants at the time said the church, you know, believes that one man should have one wife and that's it. So, so number one, the scriptures along with the Book of Mormon prohibited polygamy. Joseph was secretly practicing it. He was having sex with those wives because later the reorganized Church was denying that Joseph ever practiced polygamy. And, and so the, the Utah, Salt Lake City Mormon Church had Joseph's former wives called in to provide sworn affidavits. And Joseph's former wives signed sworn affidavits that they, that they were married to Joseph. In very deed, you probably know what that, what that means. And so, so he definitely, he definitely had sex with many, if not most, if not all of these plural wives. The church now acknowledges in the, in the Gospel Topics essay, they give this number between 30 and 40. That's, that's the church's number. Now, as far as Emma not knowing about it, the. It's widely acknowledged by, by believing Mormon scholars that the Emma was about the 22nd wife sealed to Joseph.
Eve [00:21:37] So if my husband does that to me,
John Dehlin [00:21:42] if he secretly, if he secretly marries, I'm gone.
Eve [00:21:45] Okay, Casey.
John Dehlin [00:21:47] If he secretly marries 22 women before. Also he married these 22 women before Emma, before he received DNC 132. So eventually he receives DNC 132, which is the polygamy revelation. He doesn't receive that until after Emma freaks out, is super mad about the 22 wives. And then he goes to Hiram and says, man, Emma's really mad. We got to get a revelation. So then he goes to God and dictates DNC132 to Hiram after or whoever, after he's already married 22 other women. So you'd think the revelation would become. Would come before the 22 marriages, not after.
Eve [00:22:28] Yeah. So the information about all the other women you're saying is coming from the sworn affidavits, like the testimonies of the
John Dehlin [00:22:40] women and their journals. There's a really good book called In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton where he gives the history of every 80s chapters is one of Joseph's 30 whatever wives.
Eve [00:22:51] So and it's like from public records,
John Dehlin [00:22:57] it's so the personal journals of the wives of Joseph sm, along with church documents and these sworn affidavits that the church wanted made public because. Because there was a succession crisis when Joseph died. Brigham Young said that he was in charge, but Joseph Smith's son and Emma said that Joseph Smith III was in charge. And so Brigham was claiming to be in charge, but also Emma and Joseph Smith, third in the reorganized church, were claiming to be in charge. So the reorganized church said all that polygamy stuff, that was Brigham Young. Joseph Smith never practiced it. So ironically, the Utah Brigham Young based Mormon Church rounded up the living wives of Joseph Smith and had them swear in sworn testimony that they were Joseph Smith's wives in very deed.
Eve [00:23:48] So that information, like where is. Is it publicly available?
John Dehlin [00:23:52] You can read. You could read Rough Stone Rolling, which is a biography sold by Deseret Book by the church's leading Joseph Smith historian, Richard Bushman. In that book, Richard Bushman will acknowledge the numbers between 30 and 40.
Eve [00:24:07] Okay, and how like is there a way that I could read the journals of the women?
John Dehlin [00:24:13] Yeah, yeah, you just get the book in Sacred Loneliness.
Eve [00:24:15] Okay. And that, who was that written by?
John Dehlin [00:24:17] Todd Compton. And there's a Mormon Stories Episode 1 of My Very First Mormon Stories episodes was with Todd Compton, the author of In Sacred Loneliness.
Carah Burrell [00:24:25] So far, John, I love this idea. I don't know if I've ever done this before. Have you ever done. Because it's either like an apologist or it's somebody who already knows the information. But I think, like, I just see so much of myself in Eve, of when I was first trying to discover things. Like, the things you're asking Eve were the exact same questions I had. Whereas, like, okay, well, where do I read this? How do I know that it's legit?
Eve [00:24:43] How do I know it wasn't? Well, because in the church, they tell you. You know, like, people who are going to tell you stuff that go. That are trying to get you to not believe in the church are people who are, like, making things up. So, like. And I know, like, part of that is still in my brain, like, when he's telling me, like, it's written. This book in Sacred Loneliness is written by this person and you've done an interview with them. But part of my brain is going, like, well, who is this person? Do they just hate the church? Like, Right. And I know that doesn't really make sense, like, logically. And I want to follow, like, my whole goal through all of this. It's like, what Carah was saying. Like, I just want to know, like, what is real. And so, yeah, like, having those sources, I want to be able to.
Carah Burrell [00:25:36] Yeah.
Eve [00:25:36] Like, get your hands on it yourself, you know?
Carah Burrell [00:25:38] Yeah.
Eve [00:25:38] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:25:39] Well, the best source is probably the essay Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo. It's one of the gospel topics essays, and it will. It will give you the number of wives, the range there. Joseph Smith had so many wives, we don't know exactly how many, somewhere between 30 and 40. But the. The Gospel topics essay will. Will. Will give you that range. And I'm.
Eve [00:26:04] And I want to, like. Like, I want to hear the stories of the women, because I want to know, like, did they want this? Was it something that they were pressured into? Like, I mean, I recently watched the
Carah Burrell [00:26:16] Netflix Buckle Up, Girlfriend.
Eve [00:26:18] I recently watched the Netflix thing with what's his name?
Carah Burrell [00:26:21] Warren Jeffs.
Eve [00:26:22] Warren Jeffs. That is so creepy and so scary. And you think, like, everyone's like, oh, well, the church was so persecuted. It was. They were so persecuted for practicing polygamy. But then I look at the case with Warren Jeffs, and I'm like, would you be against people going in and trying to break that up? Because that was terrible. And if that's what the church was doing. Why are you saying the church was persecuted if they were trying to save women and children? So, like, that's how my mind's going right now. And I'm like, I want to. I just, like, I want to know their stories. I want to know.
Carah Burrell [00:27:02] Yeah. And I think the reason why we wanted to put this one about polygamy in our top 15 things that are hidden is because the general public can look out into the world and they can see obvious cult leaders like Warren Jeffs and just a lot of other cult leaders that you could rattle off the top of your head that when they get it, they accumulate enough power. What are the things that they start doing? And one of the telltale signs is, you know, the top cult leaders, whether it's Warren Jeffs or. Or Joseph Smith, that they start getting underage brides for themselves. And I think it's a general, just American who is literate and watches things. You're going to notice these similar patterns. And if you wouldn't be comfortable with it and Warren Jeff's. Why are you comfortable with it? And just so Smith and so a lot of Mormons have that reckoning that they have to come to terms with that. If they were. If they were flds, would they see everything that the FBI is doing as just persecution? Probably not. You'd probably realize that this is just trying to do the. Trying to give women and children the best chance at life that they can outside of the control of authoritarian religious leader that controls every aspect of your life down to what you wear, your sexuality and, and, and being sealed forever. So a lot of the same through. Through lines that exist in Warren Jeffs and other famous cult leaders exist in it with Joseph Smith. And that's why it's important to put this in there, because when people. Missionaries are obviously going to. To leave that part out because it's a triggering point for a lot of people who are familiar with polygamy in just the mainstream.
Eve [00:28:33] Well, and I think they're gonna leave it out because they weren't taught it. Like, it's not them. Like, I don't think missionaries are. Yeah, we'll just be going. Yeah, we'll get to that at the end anyway.
John Dehlin [00:28:45] But let me just. Let me go ahead and read. So I'm, I'm reading this. Got plural marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo. So this is on lds.org and it says evidence indicates that Joseph Smith participated in both types of ceilings. And these are in. These are live in person ones and celestial ones. The Exact number of women to whom he was sealed in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary. And then if you click on the footnote, footnote 24, they bury this in the footnote. It says, careful estimates. Put the number between 30 and 40. So this is on lds.org wow. Just so you.
Eve [00:29:22] But in the footnote, it's.
John Dehlin [00:29:23] They put the number in the footnote.
Eve [00:29:25] I guess you call them apologists. Do they give reasons like, oh, well, they wanted to grow the church, or these people need to be sealed to a righteous man or, like, give reasons for why?
Carah Burrell [00:29:38] Yeah, they definitely left to. I think we have an instinct where we know, like, that feels wrong that you are a prophet and you're just kind of collecting wives. And there's quotes from Joseph Smith where he's like, you know what. What seems wrong by the rest of the world, actually, God, he doesn't view it as wrong. And you know what? God actually talks to me about what's right and wrong. And what's right is you really hot young girl is coming and marrying me. So things that we just instinctually know are like, that feels really wrong and immoral and unethical for our prophet to be doing. And there are apologists who try to smooth that over by saying, like, well, we don't know if they ever had sex. We don't have a video camera. Who are you to say what he did and just kind of ignore all the evidence that John mentioned earlier? And they try to smooth it over by saying, yes, that the church needed to expand. And a lot of people who are especially just trying to make themselves reckon with the information will. Will say that, well, you know, having polygamy means that there's actually more kids. You know, have you heard that? That.
Eve [00:30:33] Oh, yeah. Like, the church needed to grow and so. Well, and I mean, people had handmaids in the Bible, right, To have more children.
Carah Burrell [00:30:42] So what's interesting is, statistically speaking, they. They realized through records that Utah polygamy actually produced more. Utah polygamy produced less children per woman than monogamous relationships did because of the ways that the men were traveling around and the resources that the women had and the ways that the women were also, like, very neglected. And you can't have as many kids when you have just one man's resources and things. So the numbers just don't add up. And the actual beginning reasons of starting polygamy we mentioned in the top was called law of Sarah. John, do you want to describe the law of Sarah really quick? Because I think that's relevant.
John Dehlin [00:31:18] So in DNC132, it basically says that. So first of all, Joseph Smith, it's clear that he was reading the Old Testament and reading about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Solomon and David, and they, many of them had plural wives or concubines. And so that, that, you know, Joseph thought he was, you know, engaging in the restoration of all things.
Eve [00:31:40] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:31:42] He's like, well, I gotta bring it back. You know, Dang. If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did it, I better do it too. What's important to notice is, is that in the Bible, there's like, if one, none only than maybe one instance where God actually commanded polygamy. It was just a cultural practice at the time. So there's no, there's no suggestion in the Old Testament that God had temple plural marriage as part of his religious ritual. That's something that's important to understand.
Eve [00:32:11] Okay, so it's not like something that needs to be, to be fulfilled for the restoration.
John Dehlin [00:32:15] I think a lot of Christians would say that it's not.
Eve [00:32:17] I've always, like, hoped and prayed that it's not. But.
John Dehlin [00:32:21] Well, you should read DNC132 and it'll. It'll disappoint you. But, but, but, but the point is, the law of Sarah is the idea that God told Joseph in DNC132 that the first wife would have the ability to approve or disapprove, disapprove subsequent wives. That's the law of Sarah. So you're the first wife. And then if, if you're Joe, if you're Emma, Joseph Smith says, hey, Emma, I want to bring on Carah. Is that okay? You, Emma, could say yes or no to Carah being wife number two. Now, the problem is Joseph had already married himself to 22 women before he received this revelation that included the law of Sarah.
Eve [00:33:06] How does he have time to do this? I don't know. That's crazy.
Carah Burrell [00:33:11] Sorry. That's a good question.
Polyandry and Marriage to Already-Wed Women
John Dehlin [00:33:14] Well, anyway, the other thing that you should know is, is that another. This is the next paragraph in plural marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo. So this is the LDS Church talking. Following his marriage to Louisa Beeman and before he married other single women, Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married. And then you go to the footnote, and it's going to say, estimates of the number of these ceilings range from 12 to 14.
Eve [00:33:43] Why do they give any?
John Dehlin [00:33:45] Yeah, why? And most of these men who are already married to the polyandrous wives that Joseph Smith Married.
Eve [00:33:52] Were.
John Dehlin [00:33:52] Were faithful members of the church. So if it were about offspring, why would Joseph be marrying the wives of women already married to men?
Eve [00:34:02] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:34:02] And that's called polyandry, which is different than polygamy or polygony.
Eve [00:34:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:34:08] And were those men, like, still good, faithful members in the church? They must have been if they were serving missions.
John Dehlin [00:34:13] Yeah.
Eve [00:34:14] And did they know?
John Dehlin [00:34:15] Some of them didn't know. Joseph would.
Carah Burrell [00:34:18] So how.
Eve [00:34:19] I mean, I guess maybe we don't know this, but, like, how would he approach them?
John Dehlin [00:34:24] That's its own episode.
Carah Burrell [00:34:26] It's really interesting. We can go into that in the car.
Eve [00:34:29] How do you know that?
John Dehlin [00:34:30] What you want to Google is something called the happiness letter, which gives you.
Carah Burrell [00:34:33] Have you ever heard of conference talks? Especially where they'll say, happiness is the object and crap. I say the word.
John Dehlin [00:34:41] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:34:42] Is the. What's the word?
John Dehlin [00:34:43] Purpose of our existence.
Carah Burrell [00:34:44] Happiness is the object and purpose of our design. Have you ever heard that conference talk? A lot of people use that line.
Eve [00:34:50] I don't know, maybe. I mean, it sounds just like.
Carah Burrell [00:34:55] So just imagine. People would just imagine a really happy, smiley conference talk from, like, Elena Stalton going, happiness is the object and purpose of our design. You know, the Lord had us so that we can have joy. But that line is a famous line from a thing called the Happiness Letter, which is a letter that Joseph Smith wrote to Nancy Rigdon.
John Dehlin [00:35:16] Yeah. Yep.
Eve [00:35:17] Yes.
Carah Burrell [00:35:20] I know one thing. Happiness letter that he wrote to a young girl named Nancy Rigman. And basically the point of the letter is saying, like, you know, the world might have some other things that they might say about polygamy, but God just. He made us so we could be happy. You know, it'd make me really happy right now, toots. And it's a really. It's a really sleazy letter.
John Dehlin [00:35:45] It says, what's wrong in one instance may be right in another. And it. Basically, what he would do is he would sometimes get these young girls into a room alone, and he would tell them, you've got 24 hours. Your. Your family salvation is on the line. You can either accept to marry me and your family all gets in and. And get, you know, get to be exalted with you as you are married to me, and if you. If you reject my proposal, then you and your family don't get to be sealed to me. It was very coercive and high pressured when I interviewed Patrick Mason, who is the church's top faithful historian, slash Mormon scholar, just recently sitting in that chair. His what? I asked him about Joseph Smith's polygamy. What he said was that Joseph Smith's polygamy looked a lot like sin. That's what the church's.
Eve [00:36:38] When. Where. Like, where is all this information? I just am, like, it's in the Gospel topics essay of him approaching women like that.
John Dehlin [00:36:47] Like, you can read that in Rust Unrolling, but a better book to read is. Is no Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody.
Eve [00:36:53] Is that a church member or.
John Dehlin [00:36:55] She was David O. McKay's niece. So she was the prophet's niece who wrote A True Truthful. Probably the best biography about Joseph Smith that's ever been written. She published it in 1945. And guess what happened to her? I'll give you one guess.
Eve [00:37:09] She was killed.
John Dehlin [00:37:09] She was excommunicated.
Carah Burrell [00:37:10] Oh, spiritually killed.
Eve [00:37:11] Oh, my gosh.
John Dehlin [00:37:12] She goes straight to killed.
Eve [00:37:14] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:37:15] She was excommunicated for telling the truth about Joseph Smith.
Carah Burrell [00:37:18] So things that she was excommunicated for are now because of how she wasn't
Eve [00:37:22] old enough to know Joseph Smith?
John Dehlin [00:37:25] No, no. She went into the archives and studied the church history and found all the documents, the journals, the. All the affidavits, and she assembled it all together.
Eve [00:37:36] Whoa. Okay, so. And you keep mentioning Rust Unrolling. I feel like this was a book that people were reading while I was growing up. Like.
John Dehlin [00:37:47] Yeah, it was released in, like, 2004. 2005.
Eve [00:37:50] Okay. And. But that's a very much accepted church.
John Dehlin [00:37:55] Desert Book sold Mountains. Mountains of Rust and Rolling.
Eve [00:37:58] And there's all this information in there that's, like, most of it sketch. Yeah, but people were just like, whoa, this is amazing.
John Dehlin [00:38:05] No, no. Roughstone. Roughstone rulings caused a lot of people to leave the church.
Eve [00:38:10] Oh, really?
Carah Burrell [00:38:10] Okay.
Eve [00:38:12] Stone rolling. Because they're saying, like, he's rough around the edges.
John Dehlin [00:38:15] Yeah, yeah, He. He said that about himself.
Eve [00:38:18] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:38:18] He said, I'm a rough stone rolling. But the point is the church, the Internet. This is what happened prior to 2004. 2005, if anyone would talk openly about this stuff, the church would just excommunicate him.
Eve [00:38:30] Am I gonna get X?
John Dehlin [00:38:33] No. I mean, no, no, I don't think so. Because you're just learning, right?
Eve [00:38:39] Yeah, I'm just asking questions. You're allowed to ask questions.
John Dehlin [00:38:44] Well, before 2004, the church would excommunicate people who talked about this stuff openly. After the Internet really came on the scene with Google, with blogs, with podcasts, with the CES letter, the church realized that it couldn't keep a lid on the information anymore. And that's what forced the church to come out with these essays. But before 2014, the church hid this information and punished anyone who talked openly about it.
Eve [00:39:15] That's sad.
John Dehlin [00:39:16] But Restone rolling was, was the church's first attempt at trying to address these
Eve [00:39:21] issues, be more transparent.
John Dehlin [00:39:23] But they didn't do it themselves. They had Richard Bushman publish it. But it was in 2014 that the church published the essays, which was actually published by the church instead of just.
Eve [00:39:32] And it's in the gospel library, right?
John Dehlin [00:39:34] Yeah, that's right.
Eve [00:39:35] Yeah. I have people that are always like, go read the essays.
Carah Burrell [00:39:39] They do kind of make it try hard to find. And like you're mentioning earlier, there's this little bit of a haze around anything that seems like it's not faith promoting. If you have a little bit of a sinking feeling, okay, well that must not be fully true or that's from somebody trying to tear down the church. So it is kind of a complicated game that people have to play when they're trying to discover what's true by just sorting out their own feelings and their own, you know. You've heard of like cognitive dissonance, right?
Eve [00:40:02] Where I have lots of that.
Carah Burrell [00:40:04] Yeah. Where you know, you know something is true, but your emotions and things are, are going to cloud it and not be able to give you the get. Get to the actual root and the truth of what's going on there. So the church has trying to be more transparent because of the push of the Internet, because of the people like John de Lynn doing this work and making this information more readily available. But if they could, they probably would never ever want to come forward and actually give the authentic truth to a
John Dehlin [00:40:29] lot of these things because the church has known about this stuff for 100 years or more. It's powerful. Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:40:39] Because I almost forget like I'm. My brain used to ask the same questions that Eve was asking.
Eve [00:40:43] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:40:43] How do I know that? Like where was her? You know, you have to have someone
Eve [00:40:46] though that's willing to actually question because. Yeah, that's one thing I've found that's been really hard for me is like the only people I feel like I don't feel walls go up when I try and ask questions are people who've left the church. Even people that I know who are like very open minded or would say they are. I mean, and I do believe they are open minded people and open to a lot more nuance than many church members. It's like there is a point where it's like this wall goes up and I. I think it's to protect ourselves. You know, our brain is like, it. The church is like. It's like cutting off a limb or something or. And your mind doesn't want to go there, but you have to, like, have someone who is willing to go there.
John Dehlin [00:41:42] Yeah. Like, I would never just try and lure some random believer off the street in the Mormon story studios and start asking them these types of questions that would probably be experienced, unethical, or abusive. But this is your dear friend.
Eve [00:41:57] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:41:58] And you guys have a relationship and you're just willing. And so this is a rare.
Carah Burrell [00:42:02] This is cool.
John Dehlin [00:42:03] I don't know. Yeah. I don't know that I would ever have a chance to do something like this. 30 to 40 wives. 12 of them were married to other men. Some are as young as 14. Sister pairs, mother, daughter pairs. Emma didn't know until, like, she was wife. She was like the 22nd wife to be sealed to Joseph.
Eve [00:42:22] And they don't give reasons for why Joseph was marrying women who were 14 or who already had, like. Who are already sealed to active members. There's no say.
Carah Burrell [00:42:34] A lot of the reasons is like, this is for their salvation.
John Dehlin [00:42:38] It's the mysteries of God at work.
Eve [00:42:39] Okay. Yeah. I mean, without, obviously, without me going and actually reading this stuff, taking.
John Dehlin [00:42:47] Yeah. Don't take our word for it.
Eve [00:42:48] I'm very trusting of Carah, but obviously. Yes. I'm asking you, like, where are these things coming from? Because I would want to read them.
John Dehlin [00:42:54] Yeah, we would read that.
Carah Burrell [00:42:55] I expect my senses say I go
Eve [00:42:57] and I read all this and I'm like, you know what? They're totally right. It sounds really creepy. Like, it sounds like Warren Jeffs. That's what it sounds like to me.
Carah Burrell [00:43:06] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:43:08] Yeah. Once we talked about this with Samantha. Last. Last. In part two of the series, you line up all the things Warren Jeffs did. You line up all the things Joseph Smith did. There are some differences. Like, I don't think Joseph Smith raped girls in the temple.
Eve [00:43:24] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:43:25] I forgot about, like, shy of that. It's. It's hard. It's hard to make a meaningful distinction. This one's hard to ask.
Carah Burrell [00:43:32] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:43:33] Because it's kind of weird. This is a. This is one of the weirdest ones.
Carah Burrell [00:43:36] Yeah. So have you ever heard anything.
Joseph Smith's Marriages to Teenage Girls
John Dehlin [00:43:39] Have you ever heard of Leonardo DiCaprio?
Carah Burrell [00:43:41] I'll go with that.
Eve [00:43:42] He would only date women. 24.
John Dehlin [00:43:47] That's a good one.
Carah Burrell [00:43:49] DiCaprio and him dating younger women. But have you also heard of Leonardo DiCaprio saying, I'm the king of the World. Woohoo. If you're familiar with that, you should also see Titanic.
Eve [00:43:58] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:43:59] Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:43:59] She's a 33 year old white woman,
John Dehlin [00:44:00] of course, who also, of course she's
Carah Burrell [00:44:03] seen Titanic more than once, I hope. Hopefully you had a poster in your room growing up like I did.
Eve [00:44:08] I didn't.
Carah Burrell [00:44:09] Okay. Anyway, so have you ever heard that Joseph Smith, towards the end of his life he was running, he ran out. Have you heard that he ran for President of the United States?
Eve [00:44:21] Yes, I have heard that.
Carah Burrell [00:44:23] And then he also convened a council of 50 where his father followers elected him king.
Eve [00:44:33] The. I've heard that in passing. Just because like I saw something you said one time, but besides something. Yeah. No, no.
Carah Burrell [00:44:41] All of the curriculum in the church, they never told you that Joseph Smith was not just a prophet, but he thought of himself as a king.
John Dehlin [00:44:47] He was basically anointed king of the world.
Eve [00:44:51] 50 of his followers was this. Just like the apostles, they were called
John Dehlin [00:44:55] the council of 50. It was a secret little group of his closest male advisors and they, they anointed him prophet, priest and king. And it was, it was in the context of a theocracy, basically.
Eve [00:45:10] Okay, because I was going to say, how's that different than being the prophet? Because if you think about it like the way we see a prophet, I mean obviously they're not a king, but. And in the Book of Mormon sometimes they were prophet and king. Right. Or like, I mean, are they trying to use that interchangeably kind of. Or is it as like how is it distinct from his.
John Dehlin [00:45:35] My understanding it was that Joseph had them believe that like Jesus was going to come again and that Joseph was going to rise up as king of
Eve [00:45:44] the world and Jesus would be Jesus.
John Dehlin [00:45:47] Yeah. Somehow the Joseph was going to be the king that would usher in the coming of Jesus. But he was not just king of the church.
Eve [00:45:55] Why couldn't he just call himself prophet?
John Dehlin [00:45:57] I know, yeah, it's weird. And it's weird if you actually, this is a hard one to ask, but if you actually read the accounts of the Council of 50, it gives you the impression that Joseph just kind of lost his marbles. He was being chased by the law. He was, he was running out of time, he was bankrupt, he had all these wives, Emma was mad at him. And you know how like, with like, did you ever see David Koresh and like Waco, this prophet, where the FBI is all circling in and they're surrounding the house and kind of this bunker mentality emerges where it's like the world against us and we've got to fight back. It was. It's sort of. And you got to read no Man Knows My History to really understand. But it's in that context that he's like. You almost get the sense that he loses it, but every time he's challenged, he ups the game. And so he's like, I'm not just a prophet, I'm king, and I'm king of the world. You know, it's almost like Scarface, Al Pacino. That'd be a good YouTube reference for you to clip in.
Eve [00:46:59] Here is no Man Knows My History a book about. Is it an autobiography of Joseph Smith?
John Dehlin [00:47:05] It's not an autobiography. It's the best biography ever written about
Eve [00:47:08] Joseph Smith by the woman who was
John Dehlin [00:47:10] excommunicated by David O. McKay's niece. So David O. McKay was prophetic. His niece wrote this biography, and it's the best. Richard Bushman of Rough Stone Rolling quotes this book more than any other book he quotes.
Eve [00:47:25] So she got excommunicated when she wrote this book. Did the church come out and say she actually didn't have access to all that.
John Dehlin [00:47:34] It's all lies. She's an evil apostate.
Eve [00:47:37] And she even get access to. Saw the Church history.
John Dehlin [00:47:40] She was David O. McKay's niece.
Eve [00:47:41] So she was flipping through the files.
John Dehlin [00:47:43] L. There's an episode of Mormon Stories where we interview Neil Bringhurst about Von Brody's life, but they didn't know what type of book she was going to release. And so she kind of like, surprised them with the truth.
Eve [00:47:57] Maybe she was reading things and she was like, I can't not tell the truth.
John Dehlin [00:48:01] Exactly.
Eve [00:48:02] Maybe she was deconstructing while she found all the.
John Dehlin [00:48:05] Huh. For sure she was. And to let you know how credible she was, she ended up as a professor at ucla and she went on to write authoritative biographies on Thomas Jefferson and on Richard Nixon. And she was super widely regarded as a. As a. As a really. As a real high quality doc, you know, biographer.
Carah Burrell [00:48:27] So.
Eve [00:48:27] Well, part of my mission was on UCLA campus.
John Dehlin [00:48:30] Yeah. Yeah. Well, she was faculty at ucla. Juan Brody.
Eve [00:48:35] The circle continues.
Carah Burrell [00:48:38] Yeah. Is that all we want to say for that one?
John Dehlin [00:48:40] Yeah, it's. I mean, it's the. It's probably the hardest one to really explain. You kind of have to read the history. But yeah, once you read it, you'll be like king of the world. Cue Leo DiCaprio. Titanic iceberg. It's weird. It's weird. And most people, most faithful scholars who really study Joseph's navu time period, kind of think he lost his mind by the end. He just lost it because so much, so many wives, bankruptcy, all the state going, federal officials going after him.
Eve [00:49:12] He's in jail a long time, destroying
John Dehlin [00:49:15] the printing press, which we're going to talk about a second. Just everything was collapsing in and he kind of lost his marbles. And that's best illustrated by him declaring himself king of the world. What do you think, Carah?
Carah Burrell [00:49:27] Yeah. Well said.
John Dehlin [00:49:28] Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:49:29] Q. Clip from Hook. I lost my marbles.
John Dehlin [00:49:33] Yeah. That's number two. That's 12. Number two for today.
The Nauvoo Expositor and Joseph Smith's Death
Carah Burrell [00:49:38] Okay, moving on.
John Dehlin [00:49:40] When why was Joseph. What were you taught growing up in the MTC about why Joseph Smith was, you know, went to Carthage Jail and ultimately died? All the people that like, put him in jail and ended up killing him, what was their reason for putting him in jail and killing him? What were you taught? What did you teach others about the fact that he was put in jail and ultimately killed?
Eve [00:50:09] I mean, that wasn't part of the curriculum before someone got baptized. Oh, at least I don't think we.
John Dehlin [00:50:17] It was for Jesus, right? I mean, we all know why Jesus was killed, right?
Carah Burrell [00:50:20] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:50:20] Why not Joseph?
Eve [00:50:23] I mean, I. Every movie I watched, everything I can recall just painted those people who were coming after him as just people who were persecuting the church and didn't like Mormons. And it's like, we're gonna get really.
John Dehlin [00:50:39] We're gonna get Brother Joe, right?
Eve [00:50:41] Yeah. Really scary. And some people just liked persecuting other religions. Like, I think that's what was in my mind, the extermination order. Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:50:54] I always grew up with that same. Like a kind of a persecution complex that people are just out to get us because we're part of the true church. And they killed Joseph because he was preaching God's true word. And of course that's going to be hated by sinful mankind.
Eve [00:51:08] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [00:51:08] Well.
Eve [00:51:08] And I think that whole story starts when they tell you about Joseph when he was young and he would go and tell people that he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and that people would just think he was crazy. And that's kind of where that persecution started and it just.
Carah Burrell [00:51:31] Right on. Yeah.
Eve [00:51:32] Anyway, I don't know.
Carah Burrell [00:51:33] Yeah. So the true story behind basically what happened is between the number 13 and then that we're on right now and number 14 that we're going to get into, they're both kind of connected. Is just the idea that Joseph had amassed just so much financial troubles with and polygamy and he was marrying so many underage women and participating in so many illegal practices that His. The first presidency member, William Law was his name.
John Dehlin [00:52:02] So imagine like Henry Eyring or. Or d. H Oaks, like in the first presidency. Right. William Law was in the first presidency. Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:52:12] Yeah. Publicly disclosed that Joseph Smith's secret polygamy was being practiced all across Nauvoo. And he got together with some people and printed a newspaper called the Navajo Expositor and just basically outed Joseph Smith's polygamy and just said a lot of true things that the public and the Mormons and the converts needed to know.
Eve [00:52:33] And was he, like, kind of jumping ship then? It sounds like he was like, I can't. Yeah, go ahead with all this and I need to tell people.
Carah Burrell [00:52:42] Exactly. So then he used the ability to print it in a newspaper and distribute that. And before he was really able to get that ball rolling, Joseph abused his political power and had the Navajo Expositor printing press destroyed and burnt up, which obviously violates the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution.
John Dehlin [00:53:02] Yeah. So you know, in the constitution, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of press. Like William Law, first presidency, Joseph's denying polygamy for all those years, like we told you, practicing it, but denying it. William Law finds out, first presidency member says you're lying and this is not of God. Purchases a printing press, publishes one edition of the navu Expositor. Joseph is mayor, has his henchmen destroy the printing press and all the copies of the Nauvoo Expositor violating the U. S. Constitution. And the Nauvoo charters own adoption of the u. S. Constitution, violating the freedom of press. That's why he was put in prison.
Eve [00:53:47] Is this in. Well, information from Mike. I don't know, court hearings that put him in prison.
John Dehlin [00:53:56] Oh, yeah, there's like, no, this. This goes to the top of Illinois. So governor Thomas Ford of Illinois is like writing Joseph Smith while. Should I read that in prison? Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Carah Burrell [00:54:06] Okay, so imagine Joseph Smith and all of the Mormons in Illinois are all, you know, he's violating the constitution. And so the governor at the time, Thomas Ford, in these letters back and forth, the governor says to Joseph Smith, now I express to you my opinion that your conduct in the destruction of the press was a very gross outrage upon the laws and liberties of the people. It may have been full of libels, which it wasn't, but this did not authorize you to destroy it. There are many newspapers in the state which have been wrongfully abusing me for more than a year. And yet, such as my regard for the liberty of the press and the rights of a free people in a Republican government that I would shed the last drop of my blood to protect these presses from any illegal violence.
John Dehlin [00:54:56] So, like, no one disputes, including Donnie Jokes himself wrote a book about it. No one in the church disputes that Joseph had the Nauvoo printing press destroyed and that that's why he was put in prison. Now, they might say he had the right to destroy it as the mayor, but the governor of the state and everyone around him disagreed. Right, but. Yeah, but no one in the. No credible. His faithful historian in the church would challenge what we're telling you. It's absolutely 100 factual. You were just ever told it.
Eve [00:55:28] Is it in the gospel topic essays? Is that one of those things?
John Dehlin [00:55:32] There's an. We're grabbing this. There's. There's a. There's definitely an essay on the church website about the novel Expositor and the printing press.
Eve [00:55:40] And they spin it as this was
John Dehlin [00:55:44] a bad decision, that the printing press was a public nuisance and for public safety, Joseph had to have it destroyed to maintain order in the city.
Carah Burrell [00:55:55] Yeah, let me read Joseph's argument back to when he was writing back to the governor. He said, could we suffer a set of worthless vagabonds to come into our city? Joseph replied hotly and right under our own eyes and protection, vilify and calumate not only ourselves, but the character of our wives and daughters, as was in. I don't know that word.
John Dehlin [00:56:18] Impudently.
Carah Burrell [00:56:19] As was impudently and unblushingly done in that infamous and filthy sheet. And so he's basically saying, like, not only did I have the right to do it, but also they were printing lies anyway, so of course I'm going to do that. And then the governor comes back and he's like, people are going to print a lot of stuff, buddy. It's called being American. Buck up.
John Dehlin [00:56:40] But the problem is everything that was printed in the Nauvoo Expositor has been shown by history to be true. So they weren't printing lies. Joseph wanted to spin it as printing lies. But history is born out that everything William Law printed, including trafficking. So one of the most disturbing things.
Eve [00:56:58] Sex trafficking.
John Dehlin [00:56:59] Yeah, yeah. If you read the novel Expositor, what they would do is they would send missionaries to Europe and they would look for the super poor young teenage women and they would say, hey, there's a prophet back in the United States. He's a prophet of God. He's got a new book. And these young women would show up in Nauvoo not even able to Speak English. And literally, like Joseph Smith and other apostles and general authorities would kind of like, go, I think she's hot. I think she's hot. I want her. I want her. And these women were literally by missionaries trafficked from Europe to Nauvoo to be taken as plural wives of the general authorities.
Eve [00:57:38] Okay, I have two questions.
John Dehlin [00:57:39] And that's in the Navu Expositor. And that. And that is actually true.
Eve [00:57:44] I have two questions. I know you were just reading from, obviously, this back and forth between the governor and Joseph Smith, but where are you reading that from?
Carah Burrell [00:57:59] Good question. So no man Knows my history. Page 389.
Eve [00:58:03] Okay. And this is the book by David O. McKay's niece, who was excommunicated. And she got all this stuff from the church history and from, like, going
John Dehlin [00:58:12] to the state of Illinois and looking up the records of Thomas Ford.
Eve [00:58:17] And the stuff you're talking about with sex trafficking was from the Nauvoo Expositor.
John Dehlin [00:58:21] We have. We have the actual text of the one edition of the Nauvoo Expositor. You can. You can just type Navo Expositor and read everything that was printed on it.
Eve [00:58:30] But if what Joseph is saying is true, that it's just all lies, but you're saying history has played out that it's not lies. William Law, where the truth, where's the his? Where's the source of the history that it. That is corroborating the Nava Expositor?
John Dehlin [00:58:49] Eve's smart, man. She's like an attorney.
Eve [00:58:51] My dad is a lawyer.
John Dehlin [00:58:53] That's great. That's awesome.
Eve [00:58:54] So, yeah, no, no, I'm just trying.
John Dehlin [00:58:56] You have to read In Sacred Loneliness. You'd have to read the Journal Discourses. You'd have to read the history of the Church, statements made by the Brethren. You could read. You could read the sources that no man knows my history would draw from. So that's the thing you can read. No man knows my history. And there's a gazillion footnotes.
Eve [00:59:12] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:59:13] And you could go and it'll tell you what the sources are for all her assertions. Same with Rough Stone Rolling. Rough Stone Rolling will also tell the story of the Nauvoo Expositor. And it will have footnotes where you can go and read the original sources. So we're not asking you to believe us.
Eve [00:59:27] No, I know you are.
John Dehlin [00:59:28] Just go read Rough Stone Rolling.
Eve [00:59:30] And I'm just trying to explain, like, where my mind is at right now. I'm like, okay.
John Dehlin [00:59:35] And I'm just telling you I've been doing this like 30 years.
Eve [00:59:37] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:59:38] There's no credible, faithful Mormon historian that would question pretty much anything I just told you.
Eve [00:59:44] Okay.
Carah Burrell [00:59:44] Yeah. One. One spin.
John Dehlin [00:59:46] They wouldn't call it. They wouldn't call it trafficking.
Eve [00:59:48] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:59:48] They would call it missionary work.
Eve [00:59:50] Well, because I was gonna say, like, when I was in Los Angeles, the only people that would listen to what we. Not the only people, but a majority of the people who would listen to our message were people who were poor. So while you're calling it sex trafficking, I could also.
John Dehlin [01:00:08] Yeah.
Eve [01:00:08] Wonder, like. Well, maybe these are the people who are receptive to their message of the gospel.
John Dehlin [01:00:14] Sure. Like, all I'm saying is a lot of those young women ended up on the other side of the earth as plural wives to general authorities.
Eve [01:00:23] Yeah. And I can see without their parents connecting all those dots, but, like, in my mind right now, I'm like, okay, well, I've had this experience and I don't know.
John Dehlin [01:00:32] Yeah. I'm just saying. William Law was in the first presidency. That's what he testified to.
Eve [01:00:38] Okay. Yeah. I forgot that he was.
John Dehlin [01:00:41] So it'd be like Galina jokes, saying, I was hanging out with Russell M. Nelson.
Eve [01:00:45] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:00:45] And I saw him steal a bunch of money and I was there. And now I'm telling you all, it's. It's. William Law was in the first presidency.
Eve [01:00:53] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:00:53] We know Joseph was lying about the polygamy.
Eve [01:00:55] I forgot he was the source of the.
John Dehlin [01:00:58] He's the source of the Naboo Expositor.
Eve [01:00:59] Okay, so it's a pretty compelling source.
Carah Burrell [01:01:02] Yeah. Yeah. And if you're asking about how, like, how people do smooth this over, the thing that apologists like to play sometimes is just look at, like, small, minute details, but misunderstand, like, the overarching, unethical, immoral problems. And so when me and John made that TikTok video, there's a man who works for the church, whose name is Dan, and he. He wanted to really harp on John. Do you remember? He really wanted to harp on the idea that it wasn't actually illegal for him to burn down the printing press because of the ways that it was. The laws were set up at that time. But we know that it actually was completely illegal. And regardless of what, like, small detail, somebody wants to say, I think everyone knows deep down that that's.
Eve [01:01:50] How could he say it wasn't illegal if the governor was straight up.
John Dehlin [01:01:54] Exactly.
Carah Burrell [01:01:55] Yeah. Because Joseph Smith was mayor and he got. He got. He gets to decide what's legal in his town anyway. Anyway. Basically.
John Dehlin [01:02:00] Yeah. Generally, the state trumps the City. Right. In terms of what's.
Eve [01:02:04] Is Dan a lawyer?
John Dehlin [01:02:05] No, he's a. He's like a linguist or an ancient scripture kind of guy.
Eve [01:02:09] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:02:09] And we respect Dan McClellan. He's. He's brilliant. He knows more than me. But in this case, I think Governor Trump. Governor Ford. Sorry, start over. In this case, I think Governor Ford trumps Joseph Smith as mayor in terms of knowing. Or Dan McClellan, frankly, in terms of knowing what's legal and what's illegal in Illinois in 1844.
Carah Burrell [01:02:31] Yeah. So there's the Navu charter.
Eve [01:02:33] Makes sense.
John Dehlin [01:02:34] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:02:34] The NAVU charter expressly incorporated the U.S. and Illinois State constitutions with their respective protections of the freedom of spree speech, press and assembly, etc. But I think Dan's argument to us was that it didn't. That the NAVU charter was allowed to make their own rules on that, and Joseph Smith was allowed to do that without it being illegal. But he was wrong. And we have sources. That's all I'll say about that. Anything.
Eve [01:02:59] Are the sources going to be in the. What's it called, the details, the comments?
Carah Burrell [01:03:05] I have a lot to collect, but, yes, I have. We have them on a document, but we'll try to collect as many sources.
Eve [01:03:11] The description.
Carah Burrell [01:03:12] Description.
Eve [01:03:13] Yeah, it's called the description.
Carah Burrell [01:03:16] All right, moving on, John.
John Dehlin [01:03:18] Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, were you ever taught that about the Navu Expositor and why Joseph Smith went to prison?
Eve [01:03:24] No.
John Dehlin [01:03:25] Or jail? Yeah, I just.
Eve [01:03:27] When they thought it was men who were angry and persecuting the church mostly because they were practicing polygamy. And the other thing I was gonna say is, like, the one argument I could see people spinning about why he would get rid of the press. And I think people could spin this in their mind as, like, justifying that as, okay, I'm not saying that's what I'm doing. But the logic goes like this. It may not be logic, actually. If Joseph Smith is practicing polygamy and doing these things that are against the law, but he's doing it because God is telling him to do it. And then his first counselor goes and spills the beans when God is telling him, you need to keep these things secret because this is what I want you to do, even though it's against the law, then you could see where someone would rationalize, like, well, Joseph Smith was answering to God rather than the laws of the land already, so that would be his reason to protect what God was telling him to do that was above the law. Which I'm not saying that's like, good I'm just saying I could see, like, that's how I would have rationalized it before.
John Dehlin [01:04:51] Sure, yeah. If God's in charge, he can have you cut off Laban's head. Like God trumps. All right.
Carah Burrell [01:04:58] Yeah, yeah, that's exactly how I would have rationalized it too. Like, the laws of the land don't matter. If this is ordained of God and Joseph Smith is his prophet, he's gonna let him do whatever he wants to do because that's. That's what's supreme, is getting the polygamy practiced. Joseph definitely needed to marry that many wives. That was 100 ordained by God, not one too many. Did he take. You know.
Eve [01:05:22] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:05:23] Yeah. All right, well, that's.
Carah Burrell [01:05:26] So number.
John Dehlin [01:05:27] Is that number three?
Carah Burrell [01:05:28] Yeah, that was. That was on the 13th of the list.
John Dehlin [01:05:34] Why? What were you taught about Joseph's culpability around his death? Were you taught that he did any. This is kind of a sister question
Eve [01:05:45] to the previous one. No, I was talking.
John Dehlin [01:05:47] What were you taught about his state of purity at the point time of his death?
Eve [01:05:53] That he was the prophet and he was pure like that. He wasn't doing anything wrong.
John Dehlin [01:06:01] He died like a. What? Do you know the term?
Eve [01:06:03] Yeah, lamb to the slaughter.
John Dehlin [01:06:04] Like a lamb isn't even a sheep. Right. It's like a little baby.
Eve [01:06:07] Baby.
John Dehlin [01:06:07] Yeah, little baby white lamb pures the driven snow.
Eve [01:06:11] Yeah. Well, and it. I think it kind of also symbolizes Christ. Like. Yeah, he's the lamb. Joseph is the lamb. So comparing the two, why don't you
John Dehlin [01:06:21] read us some George Albert Smith, Carah?
Carah Burrell [01:06:23] So George Albert Smith, the eighth president of the church, declared Joseph Smith performed his mission. And when the time came that he was to face. Was face to face with death, he said, I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer morning. I have a conscience void of offense towards God and towards all men. If they take my life, I shall die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for vengeance, and it shall yet be said of me, he was murdered in cold blood. DNC 135. 4.
John Dehlin [01:06:59] So
Eve [01:07:02] why did the people. Did the people who killed him rushed the jail and he was jumping out the window and they shot him. Were these people just so angry that he. For what he was doing with polygamy?
John Dehlin [01:07:16] So it was a lot of things, and this is one of the great things about Fon Brody's book, because Joseph, like the Mormons, wherever they went, they would start. They would grow and grow and grow and kind of start to take over the city or the county that they moved to, they did it in Missouri. And it made Governor Boggs and the Missourians so upset, frankly, because they appeared like a cult. Right. I mean, if you think about. If you ever saw Wild Wild country, which is a docu documentary on Netflix about the Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, this is this Indian guru that moves to, like, Northern Oregon and starts building this hippie commune where everybody's having free love and sex, and he ends up having, like, 100 Rolls Royces. And it gets to the point where they're, like, poisoning the water supply of neighboring towns. Like, if you get these. This. This religious cult basically moving in and growing and kind of taking over the politics of the local town, especially in the 19th century, you're going to start to, like, feel nervous and feel upset. But Joseph made it worse. If you get to his time in Nauvoo, he's mayor, he's prophet, he's head of the Nauvoo Legion. He would literally march this legion, which was, like, one of the largest freestanding military units outside of, like, Washington, D.C. in the entire United States. He would march this legion through neighboring towns just as a show of force for how big his military was. He would make alliances with both political parties where he would say, hey, in this coming election, you know, wigs, I'll vote for you. Oh, and Democrat Republicans, in this upcoming election, I'll vote for you. And he would split the vote and try and win political favor, promising his people to both sides. And so, in so many ways, it was not just the polygamy, which was illegal, and he was lying about it. He owed people a bunch of money. There were rumors that he had had Governor Boggs in Missouri assassinated. So Governor Boggs was the governor of Missouri.
Eve [01:09:19] That was the extermination order, Governor.
John Dehlin [01:09:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So, you know, there's. There's reasonable evidence that he had this guy named Porter Rockwell go to Missouri and try to assassinate the governor of Missouri. So Missouri was, you know, law.
Missouri, Violence, and Early Church History
Eve [01:09:36] And before the extermination order, or after.
John Dehlin [01:09:40] It was after.
Eve [01:09:41] I mean, I could see people being like, well, if they're gonna kill all of us, we should kill them first.
John Dehlin [01:09:46] I mean, that's scary. But, I mean, I. Unless you follow Jesus and Jesus says, love your enemies and forgive those who persecute you.
Eve [01:09:54] Good point.
John Dehlin [01:09:56] So, I mean, Missouri's going after Joseph. He flees to another state. He's breaking the law, practicing polygamy. He's marching this legion throughout all the neighboring counties. He's Destroying the printing press. And he's making all sorts of political enemies. Plus he's taken the Masonic Lodge's most sacred ceremony, which is the Masonic Temple Lodge ceremony, the signs and the tokens, and he's incorporated them into the temple ceremony in Illinois, which is the temple ceremony that you would have experienced when you went to the temple. And the Masons don't like their super secret temple ceremony being bastardized and incorporated into another weird cultish religious temple ceremony. So for all those reasons, everybody hated Joseph Smith. Plus all the people he had, you know, betrayed and. And excommunicated for telling the truth. Like Oliver Cowdery. Oliver Cowdery was in the first presidency with Joseph. Oliver caught him in an affair back in the mid-1830s.
Eve [01:10:56] So. With someone who wasn't his wife?
John Dehlin [01:10:59] Yeah. Fanny Alger.
Eve [01:11:00] How many women?
John Dehlin [01:11:01] Yeah. So Fanny Alger was allegedly Joseph's first plural wife, and she was a domestic helper. Between 1833 and 1835, Emma apparently caught Joseph in the barn having sex with Fanny Alger. Oliver Cowdery found out about it, called Joseph Smith an adulterer. Said he was part of a dirty, filthy, nasty affair. Guess what Joseph did when Oliver rightly accused him of adultery? Guess what Joseph meant that not killed him.
Eve [01:11:32] Excommunicated him.
John Dehlin [01:11:33] Exactly. He excommunicated Oliver Cowdery. Who was who? What did Oliver Cowdery do that was
Eve [01:11:38] really important to write the Book of Mormon?
John Dehlin [01:11:40] He was described in the Book of Mormon. Did you know, were you ever told that the scribe to the Book of Mormon was excommunicated for rightly accusing Joseph Smith of adultery?
Eve [01:11:49] No. Oh, not until right now.
John Dehlin [01:11:51] Oh, interesting.
Eve [01:11:52] So is this all again from that book by David O. McKay's niece?
John Dehlin [01:11:57] It's going to be in rough zone rolling too.
Eve [01:12:00] Oh, yeah, this is in rough zone rolling. People have been reading this book, being like, that's okay. Well, you said it caused a lot of people to leave.
John Dehlin [01:12:10] A lot of people. Most people don't get through the book.
Eve [01:12:12] Why did the church allow rough stuff? Do they still sell it?
John Dehlin [01:12:18] They have to because so many people were leaving the church feeling betrayed and lied to. This is part of a study we did in the mid-2010s we Mormon stories with with Hans Matzon, Travis Stratford, Greg Prince, and with the help of Marlon Jensen, church historian, we surveyed 3,000 ex Mormons about why they lost their faith. The number one reason is they said they felt lied to and betrayed once they learned the real history. So the church realized in the 19, in the 2010s that if it didn't start telling the truth, it was going to lose more and more members for feeling lied to and betrayed.
Eve [01:12:55] And who was this person who wrote Rough Stone Rolling?
John Dehlin [01:12:58] Richard Bushman was a patriarch, a stake president, and is a Harvard trained historian who is a professor at Columbia College.
Eve [01:13:05] And he's still a member.
John Dehlin [01:13:07] He is still a faithful member.
Eve [01:13:09] But he wrote all that.
John Dehlin [01:13:10] But he wrote Rough Stone Rolling which was really warmed over. No man Knows my history. You read both those books, there's almost nothing interesting that Richard Bushman included in Rough Stone Rolling that Von Brody didn't write in no man knows.
Eve [01:13:24] Maybe he just wrote it a little kinder.
John Dehlin [01:13:26] He wrote it super faithfully to try and write it in a way to where people would sort of. It's sort of like the. These are not the droids you're looking for.
Eve [01:13:33] So what was his purpose in writing this book if he was a faithful?
John Dehlin [01:13:38] The brethren came to him and said, write a biography of Joseph Smith that tells the truth, but does it in a way that makes people not lose their faith. That was the purpose of the book.
Eve [01:13:48] And he's quoted saying that.
John Dehlin [01:13:50] I mean, that's backstory.
Eve [01:13:52] Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:13:52] Okay, these are good questions.
John Dehlin [01:13:55] Yeah, you're good.
Carah Burrell [01:13:56] It's like this.
Eve [01:13:56] Sorry.
Carah Burrell [01:13:57] These are so good.
John Dehlin [01:14:00] I can tell you you have an attorney training.
Eve [01:14:03] My. My father did encourage me to follow his footsteps. I did not receive a law degree.
John Dehlin [01:14:11] Oh, well, you're giving me the third degree. I love it.
Carah Burrell [01:14:15] Yeah, it's times like this where I'm like, I'll never be able to talk about Mormonism as good as John de Lynn. Even if I did have, you know, 30 years of talking about it.
John Dehlin [01:14:22] Oh, you. In 30 years, you'll be way better than me, Carah.
Carah Burrell [01:14:25] I'll just be like doing tick tock dances. All my brain will be gone in
Eve [01:14:29] 30 as a 60 year old.
John Dehlin [01:14:31] Yeah, you. You run. You run circles around three years into this. John de Lynn, I can guarantee you that.
Carah Reflects on Her Faith Journey
Carah Burrell [01:14:37] No, but I do think that it is adorable how far I've come in three years.
Eve [01:14:42] No, One of the reasons I like gravitated towards Carah so much, other than she was like my source of food on the mission, she did make me dinner, like all the time.
John Dehlin [01:14:55] Carah makes dinner.
Eve [01:14:57] Aaron made dinner. You did make really, really good tomato soup. I know. You were the one who made that one.
Carah Burrell [01:15:04] I pinned things on Pinterest and told my home, house, wife, husband to go make them.
Eve [01:15:09] But she was always so knowledgeable about Jesus. Like I would say that before she was a Mormon, she was Christian. And that was like so refreshing to me because again, it's the going towards whatever is truth, not just whatever you're told. But you were doing it in that light and you, you're just so knowledgeable. You knew so much. You like, I was in the middle
Carah Burrell [01:15:38] of my Jesus freak phase. I was reading Timothy Keller. I was reading like Christian apologetics before I even read Mormon apologetics.
Eve [01:15:46] You were listening to Christian rap.
Carah Burrell [01:15:48] I was listening to Christian rap.
John Dehlin [01:15:49] Le.
Carah Burrell [01:15:51] I was just ready for the missionaries to knock on my door the second that they knocked on my door. And I was like, new missionaries in our area. Great, because I'm an absolute Jesus freak. I will feed you, I will love you. I'll help you, you know, teach things. I'll make you blankets.
Eve [01:16:03] I've always been so like amazed by the knowledge, the capacity for knowledge and facts that your brain can retain and spit out whenever you need them. So I, there's a legend.
Carah Burrell [01:16:18] I, I try. I get really, I get really tired and then I babble and then I get hit.
John Dehlin [01:16:27] You're a brilliant and a legend. Just stop.
Eve [01:16:29] Also, you can edit out the Babylon.
John Dehlin [01:16:32] You've almost got 10,000 YouTube followers now.
Eve [01:16:34] You almost a hundred thousand Tick Tock subscribers. Whenever people ask me, who are you going to go visit today, Eve? I say my friend Carah, who has a hundred thousand subscribers.
John Dehlin [01:16:44] You're famous. You're Tick Tock famous. Carah.
Carah Burrell [01:16:47] I'm not John Delan.
John Dehlin [01:16:48] Stop cutting yourself down.
Eve [01:16:50] You can sell your Tik Tok. I hear people do that.
Carah Burrell [01:16:52] My retirement plan. In case you want to know, there's a YouTuber that goes by shoe on head and on her patreon she has a fifty thousand dollar tier and she. It's called pay me to shut up. If anyone buys this, I'll go away forever. That's my retirement.
John Dehlin [01:17:07] The did. So any of this stuff, this is just kind of summarizing. Do you, do you believe us that the church has known what we've just told you for 100 plus years? Do you? If, if, if Von Brody knew it, if Richard Bushman knew it, has the Church known it? Church leaders, church historians?
Eve [01:17:35] It appears that way. Like, I mean, yeah, I, it's just so difficult because obviously a lot of people I know. Surprise. Don't know. I have all these questions and two, I obviously want to read sources. I'm that type of person. I do trust you. I did just meet you. I trust you a lot, like with my life. And you both are very logical humans. And that's part of what like broke down My wall to be able to question was knowing Carah was in this spot because I'm like, she's the most logical human. Well, one of the most logical humans I know. And. Yeah, so, I mean, it appears to be that way and it makes me really sad.
John Dehlin [01:18:22] Yeah, yeah. And the reason why I bring, you know, they, if you remember Richard Nixon and Watergate, they always say it wasn't the break in that, that led to Richard Nixon's downfall, it was the COVID up. Yeah, the COVID up is always worse than the actual crime. And in this case, we, this is, we, we shared four with you, but 14 total in this three part series of things that Mormon children, Mormon missionaries, Mormon investigators are never told. You got four of the 14. But the 15th point is, is that the church has known this for over 100 years and it's intentionally withheld this information from its children, from its adults, from its seminary and institute students, from its BYU education students, from its missionaries, its salesforce, basically, and from the investigators that joined the church. Shouldn't someone know why Joseph Smith was killed? Should before they joined the church? Shouldn't they know how many wives he had? Shouldn't they know if he was lying? Shouldn't they know if there are significant problems with the translations of the Book of Mormon or the book of Abraham or the book of Moses or the Joseph Smith translation? If there are major problems with the church's truth claims, isn't it a matter of informed consent, a matter of integrity, that if the church knows all this, that they tell people just like if I was going to buy you a car that had four pistons out of six that were totally cracked and I knew it, wouldn't it be unethical for me to sell you a car with a broken engine, withholding that information from
Eve [01:20:02] you, you, that would be unethical. And I think one of the things that is the hardest to hear and consider is not only, well, obviously you're saying like covering things up and hiding things, but doing things like destroying print press, what is it called? Print press, printing press, printing press, or excommunicating someone who found truth they decided to share. Because the whole thing about church is to go and find your own answers and obviously pray. But I mean, if you're finding truth, truth is what I don't know. And like if the church is true, like everyone talks about it, should stand up to criticism. If there are things that happened and prophets are men, like obviously we know they are and they can make mistakes, then what is wrong with people knowing the truth and making the decision for themselves if knowing that truth, they still want to participate in the church. Right. Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:21:34] With all of that being said and just this large kind of brief overview of Joseph Smith as a prophet. If you remember back to, like, when you were a missionary in LA and to the people that you converted, what do you wish that the church would have told you that you could have then passed on to your investigators for them to make a better decision on whether or not to get baptized? And what do you think about the. The quick pressuring to get baptized that. That the missionaries were instructed to do without? You know, basically just glossing over anything about the character of Joseph Smith?
Eve [01:22:18] I. I don't like it. I. I mean, I don't like the quick pressuring being 10 years removed from my mission.
Carah Burrell [01:22:26] How did you feel about it when you were on your mission?
Eve [01:22:29] You know, I thought it was a way to help people feel the spirit and like, to present that question and also to establish what our expectations were with them from the get go. So it wasn't like this all, like, we would be like that to put that in their minds. It wasn't always to get them to make that date. It was to let them know that was our goal.
Carah Burrell [01:22:57] I remember sitting down with you with investigators and being like, so, you know, the first time that you met somebody, I remember you telling us that, like, your mission president would say, set a date for a few weeks out and say, all right, March 14th, we want to invite you to be baptized. And then they would just right there on the spot say, like, yes, no, or maybe.
Eve [01:23:19] Yeah. And I think part of that was, at least the way I've been taught is when, you know, when I'm praying about something or when I'm trying to make a decision not having a firm, like, when I have a decision is when I will get the answer, if that is right or not. And so that was part of, like, creating a firm decision and opportunity. Like, is this. This is serious. Do you want to do this? And I mean, obviously I don't agree with it now, but yeah, that's how I thought of it then. And I mean, I could see how people would say that if.
John Dehlin [01:24:02] Is this information. Is this the type of information. Not only would investigators. Is this the type of information investigators should be told along with the good stuff about Joseph Smith so that they can make an informed decision. And would you have liked to have known this information before you made maybe the life choices that you. You've made?
Eve [01:24:26] Yes. I'm trying to think of a better answer, but yes. Like.
John Dehlin [01:24:32] Like, would you have liked to know this before you served a mission? Because the mission force is the church's sales force. So it would be kind of like the church had a crack. A car, a bunch of cars all with cracked engines. And they hire you or. No, they don't hire you. You pay as a volunteer.
Eve [01:24:48] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:24:48] To go sell for the church defective cars using your name and reputation, time and money. You're selling defective cars to unsuspecting victims without the church telling you that the cars are defective. That's kind of what they did to you.
Eve [01:25:05] Yeah. I think it's not really fair to put you out there in those situations too, because people were kind of mean in la. English speaking people could be really mean and psychologically damaging. You don't know those things and you don't have a way to respond. That's not fair. I remember a very specific experience when I was serving in a YSA ward and there was a less active member who told us he had questions and we're like, sure, let's talk about it. And he told us about Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon with a rock and a hat. And I had never heard that in my life. And my companion and I just were like, left that experience. And we were just crying. And we were luckily right near the mission president's home. And so we just called the mission president and we're like, president, like, we need to talk to you about this. This is weird. And we went and talked to him and he's like, I mean, does it really matter how it was translated if that's how God chose to show him those words? But it's like, why weren't we taught that? We were taught about the Urim and Thummim. And it was. I. Yeah, so it's just one of those things where. Yeah, you. It's kind of not fair to send missionaries out when they don't have all that information. And it's not fair to let people join a church when they don't even have access to know that information. Not only are. It's like, it's not a lesson, but it's like you can't find that truth. And the people who tried to share that truth were kicked out. I. Yeah.
Carah Burrell [01:26:55] Or it's just taken a long, a long many years of the church members leaving. And like John was saying, people needing to have some type of source to go understand these things better from a hopefully faithful perspective to be kind of inoculated to know about the rock in the hat before you Know, like an anti Mormon come and comes and tells you that people can get as many understandings of what the religion is that they're participating in. And it's taken a long time for the church to be able to be even minorly transparent because they still have apologists that work for the church that still, that still spin arguments and smooth things over.
John Dehlin [01:27:34] And, and honestly, this isn't like an academic thing that happened to Von Brody. The church excommunicated me seven years ago simply for. Well, I was advocating for same sex marriage. They didn't like that. And I had a podcast where we would talk about these issues openly and they didn't like it. So it's not just Von Brody, it's me, it's Jeremy Reynolds, it's Bill real, it's the September 6th, it's Grant Palmer. Like, there's like this line of bodies, of spiritual bodies that the church has excommunicated simply for telling the truth. And I'm one of them.
Eve [01:28:09] I'm really sorry.
John Dehlin [01:28:10] I. I don't. I mean, I'm good, but I just. It's harmful. The church has, has deceived people and they've harmed people by withholding this information. That's all. That's a bummer. Is that a bummer? We just made it heavy.
Carah Burrell [01:28:26] Ah, it's always heavy.
John Dehlin [01:28:28] Lighten it up, Carah. Lighten it up.
Carah Burrell [01:28:30] Oh, lighten it up. We don't need to, because the light in Eve's eyes, she still is partially in the church, so she still has the light of Christ. All right, well, let's go to a bar and get to some sinning. What do you think there, Eve? Buy you a drink?
John Dehlin [01:28:48] Corrupt Eve?
Eve [01:28:49] I need to get to my 2 year old.
Carah Burrell [01:28:51] I'm just kidding.
Eve [01:28:51] I know.
Carah Burrell [01:28:53] We'll buy him a drink too.
John Dehlin [01:28:54] Let her go, Carah. Free Eve.
Carah Burrell [01:28:59] Yeah, I'm trying to think of an Adam and Eve joke, but I'm too tired.
Eve [01:29:03] There has been so much conflict with my name throughout my life and as you could imagine, now it is even more conflicting. So.
Closing Thoughts and How to Show Support
Carah Burrell [01:29:10] All right, Eve, thanks for sitting and buckling in there with us through this highly up and down emotional process of learning some information. How do you feel overall? Feel heavy. Are we gonna be able to still be friends?
Eve [01:29:24] Obviously? Friends? I. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I have a lot of reading to do.
Carah Burrell [01:29:30] You have a lot of homework when you come see me. I guess, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:29:33] I also am impressed with how smart you are. I love it that you're saying, well, I'm not sitting and believe you and care I respect you guys, but, yeah, do your reading. I think you'll find that most of what we say is. Is pretty accurate here, but find out for yourself. We don't want anyone to believe us based on our authority or our reputation. Or in Carah's case, her incredible charm and charisma. I'll leave it there. There might be other reasons why you would want to listen to Carah, but I'm just gonna stop. With charm and charisma and intelligence.
Carah Burrell [01:30:07] I could have been beguiled by the snake by now. You never know.
Eve [01:30:10] That's me, not you.
Carah Burrell [01:30:11] Yeah, that's how similar we are.
John Dehlin [01:30:14] But. But I like that you're basically saying, let me find this out for myself. And we're not here to take faith away, believers it or not. We're just here to let people know the truth, and then they can make informed decisions. So even though I'm sad that we dumped all this on you, I guess we believe that people. Well, number one, you're an adult and you agree to come here. But number two, we believe that people should base their lives on truth. And guess where I learned that?
Eve [01:30:40] At church. That's what I was going to say. Every. Every single thing you're saying right now is exactly what the church says. And I think that's what leads people like me and Carah. Obviously, you are further down. You're further from the rod leading to the tree. But the church teaches us to find truth and not take truth just given and handed to us, but to find that truth out for ourselves. So totally.
Carah Burrell [01:31:20] That's where I learned it. To be, like, honest.
Eve [01:31:22] We're literally doing right now what they've asked us.
Carah Burrell [01:31:27] Yeah, so. And the truth shall set you free. All right, well, we gotta get heading out.
John Dehlin [01:31:35] Wait. The truth. The truth shall set you free. But first it shall wreck your marriage. No, no, no, no. The true shall set you free. But first it'll piss you off.
Carah Burrell [01:31:42] Now the truth shall set you free, but not till it's finished with you. That's literally, like, the truest thing about life, isn't it?
John Dehlin [01:31:50] Support Carah's Patreon. Go to Patreon. Find nuance. Ho. Donate to Carah. Send her money. Click on her donor box button. Do you have a donor box button? How do they find it?
Carah Burrell [01:32:03] It's in my description.
Eve [01:32:04] Isn't it? Like, buy me a coffee, not tacos.
John Dehlin [01:32:08] We're not talking.
Eve [01:32:09] No, I'm saying you should donate more money than that. But I think. Doesn't the link say that?
Carah Burrell [01:32:13] No, it's just a downer box.
John Dehlin [01:32:14] Oh, yeah, but send her 10 bucks a month. I think Margi and I send you 25 bucks a month.
Carah Burrell [01:32:19] Yeah, like, bless your hearts.
John Dehlin [01:32:21] Support nuance. So support content creators. Support Carah. Now become a monthly donor.
Carah Burrell [01:32:28] Thanks. I'm still trying to roll out more longer format things like this that have good information in them that are topics that I feel like are relevant and should be covered that maybe other people in this space haven't covered yet. So if you like what I'm up to, please support me financially. That helps out a lot. Make sure to leave a comment and subscribe and hit the notification bell. All the things that are helpful for the algorithm to make sure this video gets out to more people. Obviously, liking and sharing goes a long way too. Supporting me on Patreon is a huge lift of my spirits whenever that happens. And obviously don't forget to support Mormon stories in any way that you can. They still create fabulous work. And John and I, people are always like, how's John? And me? And John will always be good pals and good buddies. I just don't work at this desk anymore. I just show up here out of my own free will and choice, as did Eve in this chair. So thank you, Eve, so much for joining me on this episode.
John Dehlin [01:33:22] Thanks, Carah, for letting me be part of your three part series. What an honor.
Carah Burrell [01:33:25] Thank you for explaining. Explaining things a million times better than I ever could. Hopefully I'll be up to that standard one day.
John Dehlin [01:33:31] No, you. You rock, Carah. Yeah, well, you're a legend already.
Eve [01:33:35] You're a rough stone rolling.
Carah Burrell [01:33:37] I'm a rough stone rolling.
Eve [01:33:40] All right.
John Dehlin [01:33:41] Rough stone hoeing.
Carah Burrell [01:33:44] Keep my personal life out of this.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
Thumbnail credits: Main image privoded by Eve Rackleff; Main image of Joseph Smith by Unknown painter, from Community of Christ Archives (public domain); Background image by HistoryofMormonism.com
One Response
Well, Mormon Stories now features pro-Trump advertisements during the commercial breaks. Maybe it’s random and can’t be controlled. Still, disappointing. And to anyone who listens to Mormon Stories and IS a Trump supporter: go back to church! They’re far saner than the MAGA crowd.