Introducing Ryan Nielsen and Recent News

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am John Dehlin, your host. It is March 7, 2024, and we kind of have some recent news that we are honored and humbled but excited to share. Today we're going to be talking about BYU Idaho disinviting trumpet player and professor Ryan Nielsen, professor from a jazz festival that is coming up. And we're gonna be giving you kind of the full story. But just the quick story is Ryan Nielsen and his amazing partner Holly came on Mormon Stories right at the beginning of the pandemic and talked about kind of spiritual abuse and even suicidality as Ryan was a professor at BYU Idaho and how he kind of lost his faith and transferred to Utah Valley University. And he's a jazz player, a trumpet player, a jazz musician, and he's a professor of jazz. And we're going to be talking about that more. But recently he was invited to continue both playing at, but also speaking or presenting.

Ryan Nielsen [00:01:15] Yeah, I was invited to perform at the jazz festival and also to just teach basically high school students basic jazz improvisation.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] Yeah. And originally he was invited. It's something that he's done how many years?

Ryan Nielsen [00:01:29] Several times since the interview, actually. So this was really an unusual experience.

John Dehlin [00:01:34] And then just out of the blue, he was disinvited. And long story short, he found out. I think you have been given the impression, I don't want to reveal any potential sources, if there are sources. But you, you have been led to believe that you were disinvited literally because you spoke publicly about your experience at BYU Idaho and your faith transition and maybe just for coming on Mormon stories.

Ryan Nielsen [00:01:59] So I think that's accurate.

John Dehlin [00:02:02] Yeah. So we're going to be just kind of telling that whole story, both for those interested, but also for the public record that you know that this happened. So that's kind of what today's going to be about. We've got some visuals, but. But. Ryan Nielsen, welcome back to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Ryan Nielsen [00:02:22] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:02:23] And I'm sorry we have to be here.

Ryan Nielsen [00:02:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] Under these circumstances.

Ryan Nielsen [00:02:26] I know it would be more fun under other circumstances, but here we are.

John Dehlin [00:02:32] Okay. And we are live streaming today, so I'm going to do my best to follow. Looks like Maven's in the chats. We're going to welcome your questions and comments to the extent that Maven's able to star them and flag them. I will do my best to incorporate some of your questions or comments. Comments. We hope we welcome BYU Idaho students, BYU Idaho faculty administration, and just BYU students worldwide. And also just Members of the church and never Mormons. Everyone, we welcome you all here because we think this story has important implications for education within a Mormon context, for freedom of speech, for just empathy and compassion and respect for different points of view. There's probably a lot of values that we could highlight, for sure. Did I miss any big ones or

Ryan Nielsen [00:03:26] did I don't think so? No.

John Dehlin [00:03:30] I guess at byu, the questions around academic freedom are never going to go away.

Ryan Nielsen [00:03:35] Probably not.

John Dehlin [00:03:35] They were certainly there when I was there. But if you have questions or comments, please do feel free to share them and we'll do our best to get them in anyway. All right. So Ryan, I think you wanted to begin with intentions, is that right?

Ryan's Background and Jazz Career

Ryan Nielsen [00:03:51] I do. This is very similar to how I started the interview last time. But one of the reasons I really wanted to come on is to sort of complexify where I'm coming from. And I just want to say out loud that at the core of who I'm, who I am, is a profound trust for the interior lives of all of the people who I love. And so if someone feels called to be in the LDS Church, I believe them 100%. If somebody is in that middle ground of wrestling to find their place there, even though literalism has fallen away, I believe them 100%. And if someone like me feels like they had to leave the faith of their upbringing in order to care for their own well being, I also believe them. So one of the things, one of the reasons I wanted to come on is because I've had some pretty interesting labels kind of tossed my way suggesting that I might be somehow anti Mormon or even Antichrist. And that just simply is not an accurate representation of where I'm coming from. So I hope that I can humanize everyone involved and talking about this. And hopefully there are no caricatures of anyone. Hopefully nobody comes out appearing to be the fall guy or the bad guy. And hopefully we can all just kind of share in the paradox of this situation. Because my experience of it is that the, the things that really did hurt for me in being disinvited by people who I know and love, it was their sense of their faith that led them to, to ban me from campus as a speaker or performer. But at the same time, like the massive support that I received from so many people also came from their sense of their faith as practicing members of the LDS Church. And both of those things are true side by side. So it feels really important to me to just hold a space for those opposites to live next to each other. The Other reason I really want to come on, as far as intentions go, is I've spent the last few years studying quite a bit about the nature of trauma just for my own growth. And one of the concepts that I've kind of fallen in love with is this idea of telomeres. Now, I'm not a doctor, so I might get some of this wrong, but in reading Gabor Mate's writings, he talks about telomeres, which are basically this. This thing that exists in our DNA that more or less predicts how long we'll live. I'm sure that's an oversimplification, but anyways. And that one of the things that grows telomeres is people standing up for themselves. And when I realized that I was afraid of speaking on Mormon stories again, that is also when I realized that I needed to so that I wasn't living in a way that was giving into those fears. And so I do feel kind of afraid to be here today, honestly. But I'm also very grateful to be here. And then the last thing I want to do is just sort of put to bed. I've had several people point out the fact that byu, Idaho is a private institution and that they have every right to disinvite or ban people from campus. And I totally agree with that statement. So I'm not here to argue with that. At the same time, I am here to suggest that it. Or just to share the fact that it really hurt when they did that. And I think it was meant to in some ways, and in other ways, I think it was just a tragic misunderstanding. So those are my intentions from the outset.

John Dehlin [00:08:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I. I appreciate that. And I don't think when you came on Mormon stories the first time, your intent was to lead people out of the church or to erode faith. It was just to tell your story.

Ryan Nielsen [00:08:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:13] And I do this. Is it telomeres? Is that the word?

Ryan Nielsen [00:08:16] Telomeres? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:17] Yeah. I want to learn more about that, but I just want to say that, like, I have just anecdotally seen not just oppression, but also anger and suicidality associated with keeping things hidden, keeping anger and frustration bottled up, and presenting to the world a state of reality that is inauthentic. I think authenticity is essential to our mental health. And so my anecdotal experience observing people's mental health jives with what you just shared about the importance of speaking up versus the potential deleterious effects and or lethality of. Of just quietly shrinking and allowing a person to either just be kept silent or to be abused without speaking up.

Ryan Nielsen [00:09:22] That's one of the things that I love about Gabor Matei and the way he talks about trauma is that he says there are two basic human needs. One is attachment and the other is authenticity. And that many of us gave up our relationship to our authenticity in order to maintain attachment relationships. And so anytime that we give up that authenticity, we kind of experience a retraumatization of original wounds. So that resonates with me so much.

John Dehlin [00:09:52] Yeah, well. And I do want to refer people to that original episode. I'm going to talk about that in just a second. But you and your wife Holly are just amazing humans and I was touched and moved by you. Then maybe we'll re. Maybe, you know, some of these episodes we cut up into one hour chunks. And so they're like four or five hours. Four or five episodes. We need to just kind of munge those together and reshare them. But we're on this kick of like, where are they now? Kind of thing. We just interviewed. Re. Interviewed David Bacavoy on Mormon Stories and he kind of gave an update. So you'll be the kind of. The second. Maybe we'll have you. Well, you're kind of the first aired, but second recorded kind of. Where are they now? Mormon Stories episodes. So that's kind of fun.

Ryan Nielsen [00:10:39] Yeah, absolutely. Happy to talk about that.

John Dehlin [00:10:42] Okay, so really quickly, let's see. I want to make sure. Okay. Before we jump into the reception of the Mormon Stories interview, I just want to show a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Ryan Nielsen [00:10:56] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:10:56] Is that okay?

Ryan Nielsen [00:10:57] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] Okay. So I'm going to. I'm going to show a visual or two. The first one I'm going to show is just your YouTube channel. It's called Ryan's Trumpet. It's on YouTube. Why don't you just talk to us about that first? You're just your status as a performer.

Ryan Nielsen [00:11:14] Yeah, sure. So I. The.

John Dehlin [00:11:17] The.

Ryan Nielsen [00:11:17] As a performer, I. I perform a lot of classical and jazz music and I play trumpet in the Kobe Watkins Group Tet. And I've had the opportunity to record with just some really exciting artists who inspire me. And yeah, I go to universities and teach about jazz. Cause I love it. And teach about trumpet because I love it. And my YouTube channel was basically what I wanted to do with that was just create a community of people and create content to support kids who just don't have the. The means to get private instruction on an instrument. It's just too expensive for a lot of kids. So I thought, I'm going to start creating these videos to help primarily young trumpeters get information that's really helpful. And it has far surpassed my expectations. I thought, wow, wouldn't it be cool if a few hundred people watched this? And just Yesterday got my 5000th subscriber to the channel and have had over 200,000 views, which I'm just really excited about. And I've had the opportunity to meet trumpeters literally from all over the world, from LA to London to Turkey to South America. Like, it just, it's been amazing. So the reception of that has been really exciting. So as a performer and as a teacher, that's kind of a nice place to see what I do. And for anyone interested in.

John Dehlin [00:12:43] Yeah, yeah. And it's great. I, I, it's always fun for me because you perform in a little. Is it a trio or a quartet? And you're, you're often playing at the Caputos in downtown Holiday.

Ryan Nielsen [00:12:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:56] It's always fun to see y' all teared up.

Ryan Nielsen [00:12:58] Yeah, man. It's a good time.

John Dehlin [00:13:00] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [00:13:00] Love the music.

John Dehlin [00:13:01] Yeah. Okay, so you're kind of a trumpet musician first. A jazz trumpet.

Ryan Nielsen [00:13:06] Jazz musician first as a. Yeah, yep. Professionally? Yep, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:13:11] And then I just thought I'd play a little bit of your, your jazz. Is that okay?

Ryan Nielsen [00:13:15] Yeah, please.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] You have to put your earphones on to hear it. But here's just a little sense of the jazz and the trumpet jazz that Ryan. Ryan does. Let's roll the. Sam. Beautiful. Yeah, that's, that's beautiful stuff. Like, that's. How does it feel to be a jazz trumpet performer?

Ryan Nielsen [00:14:25] It. Well, with, with that group of musicians that was from a session earlier this year, it's kind of a dream come true for me. Those are musicians who are I've admired for decades. And it's just the thing I love about jazz is the way that it values authenticity, but requires you to create space for other people to have their authenticity as well. There's. You can't perform jazz well from a place of dogma. It's all about empathy, but also, like the unrestrained, completely confident statement of where you are in that moment and collaborating with other musicians that way, with that spontaneity and creativity. It's improvised music. We're literally making it up as we play. And I love it. I just love, I love it so much. So that's beautiful. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:27] Okay. So in addition to being a performer, you also are a professor. You have a Ph.D. among other things. Talk about your academic credentials and then what what types of classes you teach.

Ryan Nielsen [00:15:42] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Especially, you know, in the context of this jazz fest. And then let's also talk about the book that's about to come out.

Ryan Nielsen [00:15:49] Okay. Yeah. So I have a Master's of music in classical trumpet performance, which I got from Arizona State University. Go Sun Devils. And I have a doctoral degree in jazz performance from the New England Conservatory of Music. And that's where I studied with John McNeil, who is the co author with me on this book that's being published by Oxford University Press.

John Dehlin [00:16:13] Let me just go ahead and show it. It's called the Classroom Guide to Jazz Improvisation. And that's you. That's John McNeil and you.

Ryan Nielsen [00:16:23] Exactly. So John McNeil is a mentor of mine who is a kind of a legend, not only as a player, but also as a teacher. Like, I would say a conservative estimate of like gigging musicians in New York who have studied with John is probably 30 to 40% of them worked with him at some point. He's just hugely influential. And he's a groundbreaking pedagogue, in my opinion. And so this book, I'm so excited and grateful to have been able to do it with him because it's bringing to the foreground ways he's been thinking about teaching for a long time, coupled with my experience teaching. He's been teaching at New England Conservatory, or had for nearly 40 years. So really students with a lot of experience who are coming to him. And then my teaching has been really largely with students with a lot of remedial needs and which sort of. It was a great team for putting together this book on how to help kids get excited about and feel capable improvising. So just out of the blue, I cold contacted the senior editor of Oxford a few years ago and told them about the project. And they were immediately interested. And I'm thrilled that it has ended up where it is. And that gets published in April, so can be delivered by May 7th from Amazon.

John Dehlin [00:17:47] So I love it. Okay, so everyone. I'm sure everyone's gonna wanna run on by that.

Ryan Nielsen [00:17:51] So everyone gonna rent anybody who wants to learn how to improvise. That's the book I always wished I'd had. It is a step by step, nuts and bolts. Let's get rid of the mystique around this and have fun doing it.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] Okay. And so when you normally go to the BYU Idaho Jazz Festival, what are the types of things you do or talk about?

Work with Students at the BYU-Idaho Jazz Festival

Ryan Nielsen [00:18:16] I've done sessions where I talk to. It's all with high school students. Right. So I'm basically there to help affirm a positive relationship between high schools and BYU Idaho and myself. And so I'm there to get kids excited about playing jazz and trumpet. So I'll talk about basics of trumpet technique or basics of improvisation. This year I was supposed to go up and just host jam sessions with the, with the high school students. It's an amazingly well run festival and it's really student first. It's really beautiful that way. And so they make sure that there are rooms where there are actual jam sessions happening that are hosted by professionals every year. And the students get to go in and just play together, which is how we really learn the music. So that's all that I was supposed to do that and then perform a couple of times that night on them. There are three nights of the jazz festival. I was supposed to perform on all three of them.

John Dehlin [00:19:15] And be super honest. How often do you needle the BYU Idaho students about their faith?

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:23] Never.

John Dehlin [00:19:24] How often do you bring up like polyandry or peep stones or.

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:28] Literally never.

John Dehlin [00:19:29] Masonry and the temple ceremony?

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:31] Yeah, that's not a thing. I mean, just there to teach jazz. It's like, that's all it is.

John Dehlin [00:19:36] How would you bear your ex Mormon testimony to the BYU students?

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:42] Literally nothing.

John Dehlin [00:19:42] Okay. Snide comments about Mormon church leadership. How often?

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:46] Never.

John Dehlin [00:19:47] I may be honest.

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:49] I'm being totally honest.

John Dehlin [00:19:50] This is the Internet, you know. This is the Internet.

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:51] That's right. We can't have. No, yeah, no, I just, I don't that for one.

John Dehlin [00:19:56] I'm being sarcastic for one thing.

Ryan Nielsen [00:19:57] That's like boring to me, you know, like, let's like. No thanks. But the other thing is bigger than that. Yeah, life's bigger than that. And then the other thing is that like I just, I really trust those students. Like if their inner lives are calling them to that place, then that's where I will support them being.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:20:21] That's it.

John Dehlin [00:20:22] Okay. And. And so thanks for being a good sport about those questions. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk quickly just about your Mormon stories interview. I'll just show a screenshot. It's like a seven parter. That's a photo of you with. With Holly, your amazing, artistic, brilliant wife.

Reception of the Previous Mormon Stories Interview

Ryan Nielsen [00:20:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] And it's called Spiritual Abuse and Suicidality at BYU Idaho. Ryan and Holly Nielsen. I really, really strongly recommend that people go back and watch it again. We may do a remix up of it where we put it all into one episode and release it because it's that good. But can you just spend a minute or two and give a recap of why you did that. Mormon stories again. What was the basic story in, like, one to two minutes of that Mormon story?

Ryan Nielsen [00:21:16] The basic story was one of me really, really trying to find a way to stay in Mormonism after Holly left. And it was also a story of Holly and Mai's mutual support for each other in our personal paths. One of the most poignant moments of the interview when I listened back to it, was when Holly. I had never. She had never told me this, but she was. While she was totally supportive of me trying to find a way to stay, she was also worried that I might fall into rigid, more patriarchal approaches to the faith.

John Dehlin [00:22:10] And she lost her faith over what she lost. Just summary.

Ryan Nielsen [00:22:14] I mean, it's so hard, right?

John Dehlin [00:22:16] Patriarchy stuff, right?

Ryan Nielsen [00:22:17] Yeah. She came into the world sensing a need for more equity and inclusion in the world. So. So for her, that was kind of her breaking point, which sort of happened in Boston while we were living there for school. I was going through my own journey with mental illness. And the crux of my journey in terms of. Was really one of being brought to a crisis point with depression and suicidality, where I realized that part of the system that was contributing to that was my relationship to the church. And then over many years, coming to accept that I actually needed to step away from it in order to stay. Well, so. And is that.

John Dehlin [00:23:02] And how did this come to a head at BYU Idaho, specifically, while you were working there?

Ryan Nielsen [00:23:07] What was really hard about that situation is that since Holly. Holly actually resigned from the church in 2011, right after we returned from Boston to BYU Idaho. And. And that is when I became sort of suspect in the eyes of my ecclesiastical leaders, my local clergy, who started to see me as suspicious, to say the least. And I started getting hauled in for annual endorsement interviews in air quotes, because those don't actually exist. I was the only faculty member at BYU Idaho that I knew who was having that happen on a regular basis. And I experienced that as being incredibly stressful and abusive. And it just kept happening over and over again, even when we would change wards. And eventually it was simply not worth it to me. And I talked with the vice president at the time, who I said, I just need to know that if a bishop decides to go rogue and come after me, that BYU Idaho will have my back. And he said that they could not do that. And so then I started applying to leave and came down to uvu. So years of incredibly stressful ecclesiastical abuse that I was told to my face by those leaders had to do with the fact that I had chosen to stay with Holly and that I did not force my children to come to church with me. So.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] Yeah. And so your intent when you did that episode, just to summarize that.

Ryan Nielsen [00:24:51] My intent with that episode, really, it

John Dehlin [00:24:53] wasn't to throw the church or even BYU Idaho administration under the bus or even to bash BYU Idaho.

Ryan Nielsen [00:25:01] No, definitely not. It was part. Part of the intention was just the reality of how alone I felt while I was trying to figure things out and how these Mormon stories, interviews were literal lifesavers for me. So thank you. And the other part of it was that what shocked me as I was, was we were getting ready to move. More and more of my female colleagues at BYU Idaho sort of, like, came to me and started telling me about their concerns around sexual harassment as it related to their experience with ecclesiastical endorsements. And so the. So one of the episodes on there is me doing my best. They had asked me to speak about it because they feel like they can't. And that sort of startled me and was a part of the intention for that episode. For those. For the first interview.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] Yeah. And I just, knowing you and Holly, like this idea that y' all are sort of, like, trying to take anyone down or even really trash anyone or besmirch the good name of the church or byu. That's just not who y' all are, in my opinion.

Ryan Nielsen [00:26:15] It's not. You are right. That's not who we are.

John Dehlin [00:26:19] Yeah. You just kind of. You felt like hearing other people's stories helped you through really hard times.

Ryan Nielsen [00:26:27] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:26:28] And you maybe. We're hopeful, like many, that sharing your story might be helpful to a few people out there.

Ryan Nielsen [00:26:34] Definitely. That was a huge part of it, and the reception of it bared that out.

John Dehlin [00:26:39] So. Yeah. So now let's go to that part.

Ryan Nielsen [00:26:41] Yeah. A lot of people reached out to us, people like leaders in the church who reached out to me, like stake presidents and bishops who said thank you because they felt like it helped them better meet the needs of their. Of their congregations. And then people who were really struggling with mental illness who felt a real resonance with what we shared, people who had left the church, who felt supported by what we shared. So what was fascinating to me about the reception is it was both sides of the aisle, people from all walks that felt like it was really helpful. And that was. We were so grateful for that. That so overwhelmingly positive feedback. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:29] Yeah. And it's definitely was one of my favorite experiences of just experiencing a couple guests. I. I grew to love y' all kind of immediately. It Was fun for me to visit Holly's master's art project thesis at the U of U. A couple years ago.

Ryan Nielsen [00:27:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:48] And just to kind of keep the friendship going.

Ryan Nielsen [00:27:51] Yeah, that was very cool. Yeah. And that's. And if anyone's interested in seeing that, it's still online at I Will not vanish dot com.

John Dehlin [00:27:59] Yeah. So we'll make sure Julia includes that in the show notes. I will Not Vanish dot com.

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:04] Not that I'm biased, but I'm so moved by Holly's art.

John Dehlin [00:28:07] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:07] She's just.

John Dehlin [00:28:08] Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:10] She's kind of a badass.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] We'll have Julia maybe post that in the show notes, and maybe even right now I'll try and post it. Okay, so here's a Screenshot of the BYU Idaho Jazz Festival front page, and it's, you know, February 20th. It says February 24th. So it's already happened.

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:31] It already happened.

John Dehlin [00:28:32] Okay. And some famous guest jazz artist was there. Do you want to say who that is?

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:39] Yeah. Melissa Aldana, who is one of my favorite living musicians. She's authenticity embodied in sound. So I was so excited to get to collaborate with her.

John Dehlin [00:28:51] You were going to play with her?

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:52] I was supposed to. Supposed to play with her.

John Dehlin [00:28:54] Okay. Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:55] Her music is so beautiful. And then I didn't get to.

John Dehlin [00:28:59] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:28:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:00] Okay. So that kind of takes us up to kind of. Then maybe we should start by, you know, you getting invited.

How Ryan Was Disinvited from BYU-Idaho

Ryan Nielsen [00:29:09] Great. Yeah. So early in the fall, my friend up at BYU Idaho reached out to me to ask me if I'd be interested in coming. And I was very interested, in part because this festival was supposed to also have an alumni band to honor one of my mentors and colleagues from BYU Idaho who just handed over the jazz area a year or two ago to another colleague of mine. And so I was really excited to reconnect with everybody and honor him. And so I did not hesitate to accept the invitation. And so then in November, they said,

John Dehlin [00:29:47] and sorry, you've already made this point, but I just want to remake it. Since your Mormon Stories interview right before COVID or right at the beginning of COVID you have performed or attended and performed at this conference, not only this

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:02] festival, but also other times at BYU Idaho.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] So for years, you've been attending this festival and performing at BYU Idaho since your Mormon Stories interview.

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:13] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:30:14] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:14] Yeah. Because, I mean, we have really. I just. I love my.

John Dehlin [00:30:19] And why wouldn't you?

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:20] Why wouldn't I.

John Dehlin [00:30:21] You have colleagues there. You're respected in your field.

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:24] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:25] You know how to play, you know how to teach. And why wouldn't academia be able to transcend faith politics, basically?

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:34] That's a great question.

John Dehlin [00:30:36] Yeah. Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:37] Kind of a heartbreaking one.

John Dehlin [00:30:38] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:40] But the. Yeah. So in November, they have to send up the name of every guest artist up the chain to get approved to come to campus. That's always how it's been. Or at least for a long time, it's been that way. And so. So in November, they sent my name up and it got signed off at every level.

John Dehlin [00:30:58] Oh, wow.

Ryan Nielsen [00:30:59] And so, like, all the past years. Like, all the past years. And then I. And then. And they absolutely knew about the Mormon stories interview. Anyways, so come to the day before I'm supposed to head up to the festival.

John Dehlin [00:31:17] What?

Ryan Nielsen [00:31:17] Yeah. The day before I'm supposed to head up, I get a phone call from my dear, dear friend. And the second he says, hey, I can hear something's wrong. And he was absolutely devastated and brokenhearted. But he'd been called into a meeting with the dean and the chair, and the dean informed him that I was being disinvited and in fact, would not be welcome to come back as a performer or a teacher in any capacity on campus again. So he was devastated. He felt sick that he had that. First off, it's kind of messed up that the dean had him call me, because it was. Someone else should have called me, but my buddy did, and he was incredibly gracious, and we were both really sad about it. But it hit me so hard, I was startled by the intense physicality of my response to it. I was able to notice in the moment that my body was absolutely shaking and that my jaw was trembling. I couldn't stop it. Like, science. Physical signs of shock. Right? Like.

John Dehlin [00:32:28] And that might sound dramatic to some people. Some people might go, oh, it's. Come on, it's just a conference. It's just a festival.

Ryan Nielsen [00:32:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] Talk about why it was so emotionally impactful. And some would say, oh, come on, you don't believe the church is true anymore. And. And, like, you know, like, why would this. You know, you should expect it almost. Right. And I don't mean to be disrespectful.

Ryan Nielsen [00:32:49] No, not at all.

John Dehlin [00:32:50] I want to get to the emotion of what you're feeling.

Ryan Nielsen [00:32:53] So. You're good at asking those questions. John, for me, it was not easy for me to leave. It wasn't even what part of me wanted. It was more like, I either do this or die.

John Dehlin [00:33:15] And you're saying the church, not the

Ryan Nielsen [00:33:17] way you want to die. Leaving the church and even leaving byu, Idaho, I Mean, the most I've cried in the last many years was grief about leaving byu, Idaho, leaving my colleagues who I love, leaving my students who I loved. It was really, really, really hard. And I was always profoundly grateful that my friends and colleagues up there continued to affirm our relationship by inviting me to these kinds of things. It felt so generous and compassionate and just to say again, it is a natural outgrowth of their approach to their faith for them to treat me that way. And it felt just so important to me to have this last tie to them. And then it was gone. It was like, that's over. That can't happen anymore. And so it was just devastating. It was just like. Because I love those people so much. And. Yeah, I mean, I don't. That's what comes up for me right now. I love those people, and now I don't get to go up and connect with them as musicians, as people. Those friends of mine and I share. Share a faith in our shared humanity. It is deeper than faith politics. It is deeper than surface level ideas. It's an experienced connection that we have, and to have then somebody out of fear stop that from happening. It just is really painful still and so disappointing. So I was really. It really hit me.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [00:35:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:26] Okay. So keep going through your story. I just wanted to make sure we pulled that out. So you got the call. Devastated.

Ryan Nielsen [00:35:33] Felt those things. And then. And then I'm sitting down. I didn't know what to do. Holly's been recovering from a pretty major surgery, and I was like, I can't go dump this on her right now. She had just had surgery. And I was like, okay. So I started to just write it out on Facebook a little bit, and then I had this really interesting experience where I don't know how to talk about this, actually, but it was a very intuitive feeling of having, like. It was almost like I saw air quotes, saw, like there was this strand or a sinew that stretched from the bottom of my ankle all the way to Rexburg, and it snapped. It was like all of a sudden, I was completely released from, I guess I'll say, any sense of giving up authenticity to maintain an attachment with byu, Idaho. And I kind of dropped into a place of feeling centered and strong and this unusual sense of freedom. So both of those things simultaneously. Grief and shock and hurt, and then also a strange centering strength that felt new and very quiet. They both happened. And. Yeah, so that's basically how it went down the day of. And the other thing that made this really hard, it's Actually been kind of a hard year for me in terms of my relationship with the institutional church, which again, I love my friends who are LDs and I love them and support them, period, in the end. And this year I got this note out of nowhere from my, my ex mission president, Carlos Godoy, who's now a very high ranking general authority in the church. He just sent me a note on Facebook that said, hey, the talk I'm giving in conference is inspired by thinking about your family, so I hope you'll tune in. And I was like, oh, no, I don't. Anyways, I did not tune in initially, but later I was hosting a conversation on Facebook, like sort of a supportive conversation to my friends who also felt like they needed to leave the church and just saying, you guys inspire me, your courage. And he actually hopped on and posted his talk in the comments there, which felt really unusual. But the talk was basically, don't, don't be a weak link, right by leaving the church. And that was so out of the blue. Like, my heart's like pounding in my chest right now. It was so. It just showed me how far away from empathy and understanding we are. Like, if you go into a room full of wounded people and start to call them weak, like, what is that? Like, it feels like we're so far from each other. And it was so antithetical to my experience because I have had to find a strength that I didn't even know. I had to walk away from the faith of my upbringing. I've had to develop a resilience that I would never have had the opportunity to even know existed inside me. And so I was struck by. There's kind of an irony there between, you know, someone in his position with all of that entails coming to someone who's like, disenfranchised, excluded, like somebody who's on the margins, to say the least of this particular community and being told that they're weak, it was just so strange. So it took, it was really hard for me to process that, to figure out how to gently push back, back on that in a way that still humanizes Carlos, but that also stands up for this part of me that's like, please leave me alone. You know, there's this. They always, I, you know, I always heard people say, you know, people can leave the church, but they can't leave it alone. And it was like, well, I just would like for them to leave me alone.

John Dehlin [00:39:54] Like, well, that's so public, right?

Ryan Nielsen [00:39:56] It's like it was very public.

John Dehlin [00:39:58] That's to the End worldwide church membership.

Ryan Nielsen [00:40:01] And he didn't tell the whole worldwide church membership that it was for my family. He kept that part of it private.

John Dehlin [00:40:07] But. Yeah, but. But if he. He could have just not told you.

Ryan Nielsen [00:40:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:12] So that. Then you didn't have to like, know.

Ryan Nielsen [00:40:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:14] That he was talking about you and your family to the entire world membership.

Ryan Nielsen [00:40:18] Yeah. Right, Totally. So there was just this thing that was not easy for me. I'm sort of a porous individual. I. I'm still learning how to not take on what people send my way. And that was really hard. And something about this felt. And from my emotional experience, it was connected to that experience with Carlos combined with then getting banned. It was just. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:48] And people, you know, 60% of our YouTube audience has never been Mormons. They just won't understand sort of like the power and the influence a mission president can have over a Mormon returned missionary. They're kind of like not just their parent during those two years. In some sense, they're almost like their prophet or even their God for two years because they have so much power and influence. Right.

Ryan Nielsen [00:41:15] Yeah. I genuinely believed that obeying him meant obeying God. So you're absolutely right. I hadn't even thought about that. But that was a huge part of why that was so charged for me emotionally. It's. It's a very uncomfortable experience to step into your own with somebody who held so much power in the past.

John Dehlin [00:41:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like speaking about re. Injuring. Re wounding him. Reaching out to you and making your story anonymously public to the world.

Ryan Nielsen [00:41:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:51] That's retraumatizing, I think, and using the

Ryan Nielsen [00:41:53] word weak like it's like, really? I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:41:57] Yeah. Because it's not an act of weakness to leave a high demand religion. It's an act of courage and strength and resilience.

Ryan Nielsen [00:42:05] It certainly has been for me.

John Dehlin [00:42:07] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [00:42:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:08] Okay. Okay. So where do you want to go next? So not the easiest year anyway.

The Story Goes Public in the Salt Lake Tribune

Ryan Nielsen [00:42:14] Not the easiest year anyways. And then, I mean, I'll just map out this is the best sense I can make of what happened before the call came. And this is from many, many sources. So I already mentioned that in November was when they sent my name up the day before. Then I got the call. Turns out that there was a single complaint that had been sent to someone that said that was concerned when they saw that I was coming because they knew I had done the Mormon stories interview four years before. And nobody knows who that complaint came from.

John Dehlin [00:42:50] Okay, so it starts with a complaint,

Ryan Nielsen [00:42:52] started with A complaint, apparently. And then. And I think that that went to. Anyways, I want to be really careful. That went to the dean and the vice president eventually. And the vice president then made a call, made the call to disinvite me. And some of the things that was really hard about that is the dean that sent it up to the vice president, he was my former bishop, and he was the first bishop who started those endorsement interviews. If anyone watched our first interview, he was the one that said, okay, Ryan, we need to see where you really are. Like, he started to just kind of. So I had a very uncomfortable experience with him as a bishop. And then at the end, when we moved out of his ward, he was also the one that said, I think we understand each other now. Which, at some point, I'm startled at my own willingness to believe people, I guess. But I was really sad to find out that he sent it up anyways. And the vice president who made the decision, or at least says that he made the decision, he has claimed kind of total ownership of it. And I later had like a. Initially, I felt really sad about that because we were colleagues, actually. He used to teach in the music department, and. I was really sad, and I felt angry about it. And then later on, jumping ahead, I had this kind of amazing experience where I woke up one morning and the anger had simply dissolved. And I actually sent him a note just of just an olive branch, just saying how much I loved him and that he must be hurting a lot. Because in my life, the only times I've hurt someone, intentionally or not, have been when I've been hurting so much that it spilled out. And if someone. And for him to do that to me means that he must be hurting a lot. So I kind of sent him a note along those lines. Anyway. So then the dean tells my colleague and friend. My friend calls me. Word spreads through the department, and then the department. Really. Amazingly, my friends in the Department of Music were all. They all disagreed unanimously with the decision to disinvite me.

John Dehlin [00:45:20] Good for them.

Ryan Nielsen [00:45:21] So, yeah, I feel so grateful for them.

John Dehlin [00:45:25] I mean, at a. We've talked about this. We talked about this with David Bacavoi yesterday. The interview hasn't aired yet, but when you're employed by the church and you've given your career basically to the church, and it's not like byu, Idaho is the most reputable of universities to spring from to try and get other jobs, any even appearance of support for a cause or an idea that the administration doesn't support puts you at risk. So the fact that. I mean, I'm even a little bit worried for your colleagues that you're talking about their support for you, honestly. But I know that you're a thoughtful dude, so, you know, you. I know you would have thought that through, but I'm just trying to represent how terrifying it would be to be at a BYU school as a professor and to in any way show support for something that the authorities have condemned.

Ryan Nielsen [00:46:26] Yeah, well, one of the reasons I feel comfortable talking about it is because it's already been made public. The other reason, I feel. I think that there's other ways to see that. I think the fact that they came together unanimously, one, they wanted to affirm, again, this sense of shared humanity that we all have, and they also wanted to. They also showed a great trust in the new president there. They felt like they could ask him. So what they did is they asked for a meeting with him to discuss it, which is, yes, amazing. But these people are totally devoted to the church, to byu, Idaho, to their students. Like, there's nothing in their concern was a matter of challenging any doctrine or anything. It was simply. They just felt they needed to do that. And so they met with the president, and he decided to uphold the vice president's decision. And to my understanding, that was in that meeting that the president specifically stated that it was because of the Mormon Stories interview. So people asked him, apparently. I mean, this is from multiple sources, so I'm doing my best to reconstruct what happened, but apparently they asked him if he had any concerns about the content of my interview, and he said no, it was just the concern over the association with Mormon Stories. So that is kind of how it went down.

John Dehlin [00:48:00] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:48:02] Yeah, to my knowledge. And that's just me trying to piece together what went down from what lots of people told me. So.

John Dehlin [00:48:11] But really it's the complaint, you know, I mean, I don't know, like, if you've spoken there many times since, and surely people knew. What I'm thinking is an important factor in this decision would be that somebody complained, which would then make me wonder who complained and what power, influence they have.

Ryan Nielsen [00:48:36] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:48:37] To. To change something that's not. To. To try and fix something that hasn't been broken and that's been working for several years. Right? Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [00:48:47] Yeah, it's. Yeah, that seems plausible to me. It's. You know, we're. For me, I'm leaving. Yeah. What I know there.

John Dehlin [00:48:56] But yeah, okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:48:58] I think so.

John Dehlin [00:49:00] Yeah. Okay. So I guess we go to, like, what's been the response to the band

Ryan Nielsen [00:49:07] I was super, like, absolutely startled that the Salt Lake Tribune wanted to run a story on it. And I met with Peggy Fletcher Stack and just really enjoyed meeting with her. And we, you know, we both really resonated with each other in the sense that we're really supportive of the people in our lives wherever they are. And I didn't know this. She's totally practicing lds, and we both kind of feel like maybe it's tough to find places of belonging on either side. And so it was nice to meet with her, and I was grateful for them being willing to publish it. I learned really quickly not to read the social media comments on the Tribune pages because, man, it was such a whiplash experience for me because I literally went from that morning having a student come in and let me know that they'd gotten their mission call for the LDS church, and we absolutely celebrated together. It was like, hey, man, congratulations. I'm so excited for you. You're going to have so many beautiful adventures. And then went to the social media comments and saw people saying that. That I would literally using the term Antichrist to describe me. It was like, what? So I thought maybe we could get the Onion to have a headline that says, you know, jazz professor fulfills Apocalyptic prophecy. But anyways, there were several responses on my Facebook feed that I thought, wait,

John Dehlin [00:50:40] the comments that you didn't like on the Sully Tribune?

Ryan Nielsen [00:50:43] They were like on their Facebook page where they're like, here's this article. What do you think? And then it was like, there were some that actually scared me. I mean, I was like, this is

John Dehlin [00:50:52] like, does that kind of stuff?

Ryan Nielsen [00:50:53] Like, maybe Because, I mean, consistent with that.

John Dehlin [00:50:57] Like, can you describe them a little bit?

Ryan Nielsen [00:50:59] Well, just that they would say, you know, this. This person bashing the church. And it's like, whoa. I have never, literally never done that. And then. But literally saying. Literally calling. I'm trying. I can't remember. I just remember that they used the term Antichrist to describe me. And people were jumping on, like, yeah, like, it was just a little scary to me because I've never been. I've never received comments like that. I've been very fortunate to be able to speak with people in a way that holds space for whoever I'm with. And so that was a new experience for me, to have people just making stuff up out of. They clearly hadn't read the article. They clearly hadn't. And they were just going after it. So that was a new experience for me. Never been trolled like that before. I guess so.

John Dehlin [00:51:52] Yeah. Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:51:53] All right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Yeah, I'm sorry.

Ryan Nielsen [00:51:55] So that's when I sent you, and I was like, man, I don't know how you do this. Anyways, so. Yeah, it might be. I did bring a few comments from my Facebook feed to sort of show some responses that felt meaningful to me after people learned about me being banned.

John Dehlin [00:52:14] Yeah. So should we. Should we show those?

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:17] Yeah, let's jump to those.

John Dehlin [00:52:18] Maybe read through them.

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:19] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:20] Maybe.

John Dehlin [00:52:21] Maybe I'll. Should I read them and then you respond to them or how do you

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:24] want to do that? Yeah, that's great.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] Or do you want to read them?

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:25] You read them. And the first one is like. Starts with. I find this incredibly frustrating.

Community Responses and Listener Comments

John Dehlin [00:52:31] Okay, so let me. Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:37] And this is from somebody who is a very devoted, practicing LDS music educator in the state of Utah and an alumnus of BYU Idaho.

John Dehlin [00:52:48] Okay, so I'll read the first one.

Ryan Nielsen [00:52:49] Yeah. Start with as an alumni.

John Dehlin [00:52:51] As an alumni and one who is still fully in the church. Oh, wait a minute. Sorry. Let me make sure I get. Okay, let me. I'm navigating the screen. Okay, it's good. As an alumni and one who is still fully in the church, I find this incredibly frustrating. It can be really hard to have a discussion about the professional merits of my alma mater with other professional musicians and music educators when they exclude highly knowledgeable and talented professionals and experts such as yourself because of a difference in beliefs. What do you want to say about that?

Ryan Nielsen [00:53:31] Just that I think that. That, I mean, I think it accurately paints the picture that there's a challenge that people are experiencing now who have gone to BYU Idaho, and in terms of being seen as a respected place to have studied, that was interesting to me. And he's not the only person who's mentioned that to me. And, you know, which is interesting to me because, again, I'll just make sure I affirm, like, if my colleagues in the music department at BYU Idaho are incredible musicians and teachers, and they. So if you're thinking about sending your children there, they will be well taken care of in that department in every aspect.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] So this doesn't even make you want to say, don't. Don't attend BYU Idaho as a musician.

Ryan Nielsen [00:54:23] I think it just points to a reality that people are feeling this acutely in professional circles. And that's pretty interesting to me.

John Dehlin [00:54:33] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [00:54:33] So.

John Dehlin [00:54:34] And. And I. I don't know that I want to call this being a devil's advocate, but I do like to practice empathy. And so I'll just respond with what I think is going to be. Would be the main response the church or administrators would give in response to this first comment. Just to give you a chance to address it. Hit it head on. What if they would say this actually doesn't reflect what happened. You are not being disinvited because of a difference in beliefs that whatever that jazz musician is that headlined we don't know her beliefs. We don't care. That's. That's misrepresenting what happened. You're being disinvited because it we, you know, we became aware of the fact that you did an interview on a podcast that we consider to be the the biggest, most successful, most popular anti Mormon. I'll use their words, I don't believe that's what Mormon stories is. But they would say you chose to appear on the world's biggest, most successful anti Mormon YouTube channel website and you chose to openly not have beliefs that were different from the church, but openly express both your disbelief in the church but also make public criticisms of BYU Idaho or at least air dirty laundry. And so we don't care about the beliefs of our participants. But if they go on anti Mormon web podcasts and I'm using their words, not mine, if you go on anti Mormon websites or podcasts and criticize the church and BYU Idaho, that's what this is about, what would your response be to that?

Ryan Nielsen [00:56:23] First to say again, they have every right to do that. They have every right to frame it that way. Again, I'm not trying to argue against their right to choose this. I would also that term disbelief. I was going to talk about this later, but let's go into that now. It was one of the things that I was, I was a little disappointed in the headline of the Tribune article, which was not created by the author of the article, but because, and I tried to talk about this four years ago, I guess I would say

John Dehlin [00:56:58] I

Ryan Nielsen [00:56:58] actually did not speak about my disbelief. I spoke about my direct experience with something inside me pointing me to things I had to do to stay well. And I don't. And to me, the question of belief or disbelief, that either or just doesn't even almost capture the complexity of my experience. But they have every right to frame it that way. Like I don't. That's so I wouldn't even push back on that. What's compelling about this is sure, maybe the issue isn't a difference of beliefs like you were saying, but what's interesting about this comment to me is that it means that people in professional circles are feeling a crunch right now in terms of being seen in the ways they'd like to be seen among their peers. And I think that's significant. Yeah, that's all.

John Dehlin [00:57:59] Really quickly, I want to address kind of a comment or I don't know if it's criticism. JC Writes, why does John try to be such an apologist for the church? He channels the church he wishes for, not the one that is. Yeah. And J.C. that. That's your question. I. I'll just respond directly and say what I want to try and do in a world of polarization, in a world of strawman arguments, in a world of bad faith interpretations and unhealthy discourse, when I try and represent the church's point of view, partly it's because they won't ever come on the podcast or send anyone to the podcast to represent themselves, because that's what I would always rather do, and I'd rather do is have the administrator who made this decision come on the podcast and represent himself. But the church stopped allowing its people or wanting its people to work with me since they excommunicated me. So that makes it so. The church can rarely, if ever, be represented here. But I think it's irresponsible to at least not make a basic attempt at representing the church's point of view when I can. Not only so that we don't misinform or miseducate our 60 plus percent, never Mormon audience, but also just to model and practice healthy discourse and dialogue. So, anyway, I hope other viewers and listeners aren't annoyed that I responded to that. I feel a little defensive about the assumptions of that comment. And Ryan, I don't know, I hope I didn't offend you by representing a possibility of the church's.

Ryan Nielsen [00:59:52] Oh, no, not at all. It's interesting because a few people have made those comments in my, you know, on my feeds and my circuit, and it's like, I'm not arguing against that. The only thing I'm trying to say is this hurt a lot for me. I'm really sad about it. And. And it's just much more complex than it has been painted to be. Like, I just, like on. In every. With every single person's experience, it's just more complex than moralistic black and white thinking could make it. So.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:00:31] That's all.

John Dehlin [01:00:32] Okay. And I mean no disrespect. I just.

Ryan Nielsen [01:00:34] I didn't know. I didn't feel that.

John Dehlin [01:00:36] Okay. All right.

Ryan Nielsen [01:00:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:38] Okay. So that's. That's the first comment.

Ryan Nielsen [01:00:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:45] And. Yeah, so we go to the second.

Ryan Nielsen [01:00:47] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:00:48] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [01:00:49] Start with, I'm sorry this is happening.

John Dehlin [01:00:51] Okay, Ryan, I'm sorry this is happening. Let me go ahead and show the visual. The one thing I feel that is most disappointing is you only share your experiences and how you're healing from your experiences. In all your posts, I've never heard a single negative thing towards another human. Human you love so deeply. And this saddens me. I support you, Ryan.

Ryan Nielsen [01:01:14] I thought that was beautiful because this is somebody. Again. Absolutely. Devout practicing member of the church.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] Oh, wow.

Ryan Nielsen [01:01:20] Who said that? And someone who I admire a lot. And so it felt important to me, I think in the wake of what the Tribune felt they could represent versus what they didn't have space for, to just that. To, I guess to show that people, my friends and former students who are practicing lds, feel the genuineness of my support for them. Anyways.

John Dehlin [01:01:51] Absolutely.

Ryan Nielsen [01:01:52] It felt like an important piece of the story that hasn't been talked about, so.

John Dehlin [01:01:55] Absolutely. Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [01:01:58] And this next one was from a mental health professional and it felt really meaningful to me. So.

John Dehlin [01:02:05] All right, I'll read. It says, ryan, I see you and I know your goodness and the delicate path you walk between honoring your journey and being respectful of others on theirs. I'm sending love to the hurting places today. It is hurtful. It's meant to be hurtful. And it's not. Okay. Thank you for belonging to you. Even when that means others don't know how to partner with you. It's a lonely path to honor one's own dignity and the dignity of others. When that level of integrity is considered a threat. You are not alone.

Ryan Nielsen [01:02:44] I just feel like they put their finger on exactly how I was feeling with such beautiful words. But that idea of learning how to belong to oneself, self, even when that means that others don't know how to partner with you, that just resonates with me so much. And the loneliness of this path of trying to figure out how. How to leave the faith of your upbringing, how to. How to step into your own authenticity and how to support others doing the same thing even. And especially when that means they take paths that caused you harm. I deeply want to be able to hold a space for all of those experiences in my own heart.

John Dehlin [01:03:30] So I'll just add, you know, I've been thinking a lot about since that Jubilee debate that we had with the four ex Mormons and the four Mormons. I don't know if you saw that.

Ryan Nielsen [01:03:40] I didn't see that.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] Yeah. These Mormon YouTubers like Cardan, Ellis and Kwaku and others. I try to make the point just to them, even personally, that when Mormons who really like to defend the idea that they're Christian, when Christians act unchristlike, it's the worst possible look and the most counterproductive thing they could do. If I'm putting on my best faith interpretation of what Jesus Christ modeled, you know, why did he associate with sex workers? Why did he associate with social outcasts? He did that clearly in the Bible. New Testament makes it clear. He did that to make a point that we treat people, we go the extra mile when they punch us, we turn the other cheek, right? Like we love our enemies. That's. Wasn't that what Jesus taught? And so like, if you're going to bear the church's name, sorry, if the church is going to bear Jesus Christ's name and if they're going to fight to be called Christians, it seems like the most powerful and self benefiting thing they could do is model Jesus's actual teachings. And if I'm just like reading the New Testament and then thinking about how to apply it to this situation, I don't mean to swear, but how badass would it be for the church to say, oh yeah, Ryan criticized us, he did a Mormon Stories episode and we're going to model Christian behavior and invite him anyway because that's the Christian thing to do versus this, which is it makes them look small, it makes them look petty, it makes them look, it's not good for the educational look, the academic freedom aspect. And it just makes them look medieval. I think. Now that's my little ramble. That's my little rant. Do you have a, do you have a reaction to that?

Speaking About the Church vs. Criticizing It

Ryan Nielsen [01:05:47] I mean, I would just, it's, it's interesting because I personally don't perceive what I've been doing as criticizing the institution of the church. I've been speaking openly about experiences that I had with individuals and pointing to the fact that for some people, their relationship with the church in these moments has led them to deeper compassion and empathy. And for other people, their relationship to the church and their faith has led them to fear. And so to me, I'm not, I guess that word kind of grabs me because I really am not. Again, I'm just not interested in that, I guess. So it just doesn't feel consistent with where I'm coming from. And then the other thing that I mean for me, and maybe that's a good segue to this last little quote here, which is from a current bishop, but. I just think it's that we all have These, this is how I see any institution and person. Inside of all of us are the seeds of power and fear and hierarchy and control. And inside of all of us are seeds of empathy and compassion and understanding. And those are side by side in all of us. And, and so to me, the reason that I cannot in good conscience bring myself to wholesale condemn or dismiss an institution of religion is that the seeds for its own healing are also there. And those show up in this story too. And I don't know. So to me, regardless of how it perceived, when they choose this, there were people of faith who also showed up for me in ways that were incredibly courageous and loving. And that to me is what I just want to say is both right and the reason that that matters to me comes down to like, a lot of people would come on and say things to me like, well, you know, people, sometimes people just are people. And that's a kind of an age old view that is often offered in the wake of harmful actions within the church. But the reason that's tragic to me is that that means on some level those people who are saying, well, people will be people. It means they believe that about themselves. They believe that they are the problem. And my experience is that those people are what's beautiful about any organization. Any organization. It's the people that make it beautiful and meaningful. It's not the. Yeah, so it's been really so to me, my response to that idea of whether they're perceived as being medieval, as you said, is that it means that the people who are living from that view are trying to fragment themselves. They're trying to cut off the parts of themselves that they can't find a way to relate to. And that's a painful way to live because that's really that desire, that belief that if there's something bad, anything bad, then it's all bad. I talked about that in the first interview too. But that really hurt me. That's what drove my mental illness and coming to a place where I could instead compassionately relate to more of myself. And as I'm continuing to learn more about what's actually alive inside me and relating to that, I move towards wholeness and I move towards healing and I move away from caricaturing myself or others.

John Dehlin [01:10:06] Beautiful. See, that's, that's why, I mean, that's why I'm so outraged, is you just hear how thoughtful and loving Ryan is. Like, how in the world can they do that to someone like this? That's how I feel.

Ryan Nielsen [01:10:19] Thanks, man.

John Dehlin [01:10:19] Yeah. Okay, let's Go to the next one. We just got, you know, a little bit more.

Ryan Nielsen [01:10:25] Just one more.

John Dehlin [01:10:26] Yeah, so I'll read it. Have they listened? Do you want to say who this is? Or like, describe this?

Ryan Nielsen [01:10:32] This is a current bishop. Like this person that wrote this is currently a bishop.

John Dehlin [01:10:36] A Mormon bishop.

Ryan Nielsen [01:10:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:10:38] And we've had. At least we've had several current and former Mormon bishops on Mormon stories. Lots of Mormon bishops are listening to Mormon stories these days, so whatever that's worth. Church. Okay, let's go ahead and read it. Have they listened to your Mormon Stories podcast? Because I found it very genuine and fair to the church. Despite it being a story that resulted in leaving the faith. You shared your and Holly's story, meaning you, Ryan. It was not a protest. It was not trying to start a mutiny. It was not a lambasting of the church, nor would I consider anything that you've posted such. It was simply your experience. A very tragic one that I believe everyone should hear is the bishop saying that. Because as I said to you after I listened to it, we in the church, particularly church leaders, need to do better. Putting rules and policies ahead of love for individuals is not what Jesus did or taught. They've shot themselves in the foot here. Just look at the number of responses from this LDS members and disaffected members alike, all reading and mourning with you for a poor decision they've made. I imagine had they let you come, you would have been posting about the amazing experience. It was how grateful you were for their graciousness and reminiscing about the positive things that you experienced during your time there. I've seen posts like that from you in the past. I've never, nor do I believe any other members of the church have ever felt you are at opposition to them. And in fact, all have felt supported by you, as you stated. Thank you, Ryan, for once again sharing your story as a faithful member of the church. I stand with you. I mourn with you. I comfort you as you stand in need of comfort, wishing you well as you try to grapple with this and move forward. Man, I want this guy. I want this guy as my bishop.

Ryan Nielsen [01:12:33] I know.

John Dehlin [01:12:34] Can I have this guy as a bishop?

Ryan Nielsen [01:12:35] For reals? It's like that's it right there. That is pastoral care. That's someone saying, I love you. I have a place for you. I will mourn with you. I believe you. Let me put my arms around you and say, you're still my brother and it meant the world to me that he wrote this.

John Dehlin [01:12:54] Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:12:56] And it does put in stark contrast, the center he's coming from versus the decision.

John Dehlin [01:13:03] So. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So has there been a pretty overall heavy response? High volume response?

Ryan Nielsen [01:13:11] Really? Yeah, unusually so. This seemed to touch base with something pretty strong in a lot of people. So. Yeah, and we can. Let's skip that next one. I think we can hop over that next quote there and we'll skip it.

John Dehlin [01:13:26] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [01:13:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:26] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [01:13:27] And maybe talk about the T shirt and.

Listener Messages and a Jazz Festival Fundraiser Idea

John Dehlin [01:13:29] All right, so here's a fun. Here's a fun little photo for those who are just listening only. I'll just describe it. It's a photo of Ryan in a T shirt that says, ryan just wanted to talk about jazz. And it shows a trumpet. And that's. And. And Ryan, you're wearing. You're wearing that shirt right now to the audience.

Ryan Nielsen [01:13:52] Yep. So there it is.

John Dehlin [01:13:54] Ryan just wanted to talk about. And play the trumpet. Yes.

Ryan Nielsen [01:14:00] And what was funny about is this was just two friends of mine because this alumni band, there were people who sent notes to me to see if I was going to be there. People flew in from all around the country for this thing. Like it was. We were so excited to see each other. And when these. Several of my friends who were coming up for that band heard about this, they just started thinking of making a T shirt in a cute and totally harmless quote, unquote protest where that was all. It was like 14 people wearing t shirts that said, Ryan just wanted to talk about jazz. My friends Sean and Nathaniel, who collaborated on that, and thanks to them for showing up like that.

John Dehlin [01:14:47] And is there a place to buy. Julie's asking, is there a place to buy that T shirt if people want to.

Ryan Nielsen [01:14:52] I don't know if there is. I can try. I mean, so many people have asked. I need to. I need to reach out to. To those guys and be like, hey, you, we got to get this up. So I thought maybe be cool to use it to maybe create a scholarship fund for a student or something. But yeah, the. So I just. I just thought it was kind of hilarious and quirky, and it also meant so much to me. My. So I. When I actually did end up, me and my brother and one of my friends, we actually. I was not going to go to the festival at all, but we jumped in a car and drove up for the last night of the festival.

John Dehlin [01:15:27] You went anyway.

Ryan Nielsen [01:15:28] How come. Not to. I wasn't trying to make waves, but these people who made these T shirts and sending me so much support, and I just want to go see these people who I love so we went up together, and, man, it was. On one side, it was so amazing to feel their love and support, and the other side was. It was so sad to be saying goodbye to those halls for the last time because my dad taught there. I grew up in that building. That concert hall is like a sacred space to me. I've had so many experiences there, so many mentors, so many ghosts wandering those halls for me, and. And to be in that. In the concert hall there and take a picture with all these people wearing this hilarious shirt, it meant a lot to me. It was also really tender. We went to the show that night to try and hear, and I just. I couldn't stay. It just hurt too much. So, yeah, I texted my bro and my. And my friend and said, let's leave after the next song. I can't stay here. So it was just a really. It was. What an experience. It was all this love and support and. And also just all this hurt because it's. It's really. I was startled by how hard it was to say goodbye to that place, so. But now I've kind of said goodbye to everything. You know, it's like, it's time to move on.

John Dehlin [01:17:02] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:17:02] Like, all the way, so.

John Dehlin [01:17:07] Well, I'm so sorry. And I. It really does feel abusive to me, this type of behavior. I mean, as someone who's been excommunicated by the church, literally, for, like, speaking up for LGBT people. Giving a TED Talk in support of LGBT Mormons.

Ryan Nielsen [01:17:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:23] Honestly, giving a TED Talk for a position that now the church kind of embraces. But then back then, they didn't. But then also, because I wouldn't take the podcast down, like, it just feels wrong. It feels violent. And violent may feel like a very strong word. But after Margi and I experienced my excommunication, spiritual and psychological violence was the only term that really captured it for us.

Ryan Nielsen [01:17:48] And I would never. I don't. I mean, I don't. Yeah. Yes. I just. That resonates with me completely. It is such a strange, discombobulating experience to be, you know, banned from that. So it does feel like it was intended to hurt and to isolate. And we didn't read that fifth quote. But one of the interesting things, if anyone's interested, is that by Common Cons had a post about this where they tie. They basically, they're talking about strategies that have been showing up in CES over the last couple years, and they kind of include in the list, like, you know, you want to keep faculty from expressing support for LGBTQ Individuals form a secret ecclesiastical clearance office using unnamed criteria to fire respected adjuncts. Which happened. Right. And they just. They kind of make a list of things, and then they end by saying, you know, are you desperate to ensure that no disaffected former faculty tells their story of ecclesiastical abuse, then invite them to perform in clinic at a jazz festival where, quote, ryan just wanted to talk about jazz, and then retract the invitation one day before the festival begins and ban him from performing his trumpet on the campus where he received his degree and taught for over a decade. And I thought that was fascinating to see them put that in a string of behaviors that they perceive as being calculated and intentional to keep people feeling wary about speaking and supporting vulnerable populations. And anyway, so that was interesting to me. I had not thought of it that way at all. And then the last thing I'll say about the support that was amazing is that a dear friend of mine, also a former bishop, currently practicing lds, he used to teach trumpet at BYU Provo. Now he teaches at Indiana University, which, depending on who you talk with at any given year, is either the number one or number two music program in the. The country. And he's also a former president of the International Trumpet Guild. So he has. He's very highly visible in the trumpet community, and he just really stepped up in support of me. He sent a letter to the BYU administration telling them why he felt this was really a damaging decision to make. And he's just been so vocal about that, and so to have that support. And he also said in the letter that. That he's going to make sure that he does what he can to amplify my influence, because he trusts me as a teacher and an artist. So I'm looking forward to having a chance to go collaborate with him at Indiana on some master classes. But the bottom line is having that support from that level of the international trumpet community also felt so important because

John Dehlin [01:20:58] you're kind of a big deal. So you were president.

Ryan Nielsen [01:21:04] I was really bad at handling flattery. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:21:06] You were president of, like, the Global association of Trumpet Jazz People or whatever?

Ryan Nielsen [01:21:12] No, not me. Him. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:14] But you had some position.

Ryan Nielsen [01:21:16] Well, I put. I mean, I publish. I do interviews for the International Trumpet Guild Journal, and I have. And I'm very excited about the things that have unfolded in my career, and. But it just meant the world to me to have Jason show up for me like that. So.

John Dehlin [01:21:33] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:21:33] Thanks, man.

John Dehlin [01:21:34] Yeah. Well, here's the. Here's the photo again. Ryan just wanted to talk about jazz.

Ryan Nielsen [01:21:41] That's such a Funny shirt.

John Dehlin [01:21:43] Well, I'm so sorry this happened, Ryan, and I'm.

Ryan Nielsen [01:21:46] Thanks, man.

John Dehlin [01:21:47] Let me just share. So many cool comments have come in. I'll put you on the screen and then share the comments and you can say whatever you want. Martha writes, big hugs. JC writes, the claim that the church, Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not shun people is proven false here. Let's see. Stuart writes, I don't think this is surprising to anyone who understands the LDS Church and the oaths members take to secrecy. I am positive those. And also I'll add to not criticizing the church's leaders. I am positive those who ultimately made the decision do not personally know Ryan and probably haven't watched the podcast. Do you have a response to that?

Ryan Nielsen [01:22:39] The people who are claiming responsibility for the decision do know me and well. And that was part of why it hurt. Why it hurt.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:22:50] Yeah. But the. What was the other part of that? Oh. But confident. They have not watched the podcast.

John Dehlin [01:22:56] Yeah. So Latter Day Digest writes, silence is violence. David writes, what a horror story. I am a retired professor. Ryan's treatment is a disastrous. Is disastrous for education and for humanity. I mean, that's a strong statement, but that's how they feel. Martha writes, my psychologist says that rejection from our tribe registers on the brain in exactly the same way as physical violence.

Ryan Nielsen [01:23:28] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:23:29] Did you know that?

Ryan Nielsen [01:23:30] I did not know that, but that makes sense out of my body's response to getting the news.

John Dehlin [01:23:36] Yeah. Yeah. I think we fear death when the tribe rejects us.

Ryan Nielsen [01:23:41] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:23:42] Juanita, Joe Sherman. What's that?

Ryan Nielsen [01:23:44] I'm gonna have to sit with that for a while. That's heavy.

John Dehlin [01:23:47] Yeah. I think evolutionarily, when you go against the tribe, they take care of you totally in a not so good way. So, I mean, that's probably why we've evolved to feel like going against the tribe or being rejected by the tribe is death, because just a few hundred years ago, it was death.

Ryan Nielsen [01:24:04] Right.

John Dehlin [01:24:04] Yeah. Jonita writes, this is just one of the reasons I don't join the Mormon Church. There are so many pros, but the cons definitely outnumber and ruin what Heavenly Father wants for us. And that's the point I was trying to make, is like, how is this a good look? Like, even if we're just not saying what's moral, what's intelligent. Right. How's this a good look? Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:24:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:36] Lady Dane Winters writes, I want that shirt.

Ryan Nielsen [01:24:41] I'm gonna reach out to Sean and Nathaniel, see what they can do. So.

John Dehlin [01:24:44] So come back into the description later or check out Ryan's Facebook page. Maybe he'll make that possible. Sandy writes, jazz is so uplifting, energetic, and happy. Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I think they're saying, not so much. I actually love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Ryan Nielsen [01:25:03] Me too.

John Dehlin [01:25:03] You do too.

Ryan Nielsen [01:25:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:04] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:25:06] It'd be okay if they now. I won't say anything. I love the. I love the Tab Cats, as they're now called.

John Dehlin [01:25:12] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:25:13] Which is a very jazz sounding name.

John Dehlin [01:25:15] Yeah. Max writes, dear byu, Idaho, Banning, such a good young man as he has just denied. Sorry. Banning, such a good young man as he is, just denied your students the opportunity of learning from a talented person. And also just tarnished the church and the university response to that.

Ryan Nielsen [01:25:40] No, I don't know. I. I appreciate all of these expressions of support. You really do feel so vulnerable. Like, I have. This is a level of vulnerability I've never felt before.

John Dehlin [01:25:52] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:25:52] And so these reassurances are deeply meaningful. So thank you.

John Dehlin [01:25:58] Let's read it. Let's read a few more. JC writes, yes, let's do a fundraiser for kids in music.

Ryan Nielsen [01:26:04] So cool.

John Dehlin [01:26:05] The Mormon atheist writes, rfm should host a jazz festival. I like that idea. Or Mormon stories. JC Writes, where do I get that shirt? Lots of people want that shirt. Carrie writes, music is so primal and transcends all religiosity. I think religions co opt music or incorporate music much to their benefit. By the way, Kerry goes on to write, I feel like this is why it's elicited such visceral responses from people.

Ryan Nielsen [01:26:37] That.

John Dehlin [01:26:38] And Ryan is an absolute sweetheart.

Ryan Nielsen [01:26:40] Oh, that's super sweet.

John Dehlin [01:26:42] That's a nice comment.

Ryan Nielsen [01:26:43] That's so nice.

John Dehlin [01:26:46] Karen writes, would Jesus do this? Isn't that the standard? So just an idea that shouldn't we be doing what Jesus would do as a Christian church? Latter Day Digest says, let's do a jazz fest at Sunstone. And I'll say it. Thrive. Maybe we should have you perform at an upcoming Thrive.

Ryan Nielsen [01:27:04] Let's do it.

John Dehlin [01:27:05] Yeah, we talked about that in the past. I don't know why that hasn't happened. Has that happened? You haven't performed yet. We got to do that. We got to make that happen. The Mormon Inquisition. I think that might catch on. Mark your calendars. Oh, now they're talking about a Mormon Inquisition. I don't think there's ever not been an inquisition in my experience. Not to be cynical, but when I think jazz, I think Rexburg, Idaho. That's the comment from Domino. Domino Crazy. Now, wait a minute.

Ryan Nielsen [01:27:34] Truth is, there's some bad mofos up there. That's like people who really play up there. So. Which is kind of amazing. So. But yes.

John Dehlin [01:27:44] All right, I'll just read a couple more because you said it makes you feel good. Caitlin writes. First time watching a live stream here. Love the content happening here. I've learned so much as a never religious individual. Fascinating at heartbreaking stuff. Keep up the positive, healthy work. Isn't that cool that. That we're able to reach never Mormons? Like hundreds of thousands of subscribers who have never been Mormon.

Ryan Nielsen [01:28:09] That's really cool.

John Dehlin [01:28:10] Super cool.

Ryan Nielsen [01:28:11] Yep. It's almost like we're all human, you know?

John Dehlin [01:28:14] Yeah. Janice writes, I think John asks measured questions in order to get the most out of whoever he's interviewing. Yeah. Thank you, Janice, for that interpretation. I also just want to have the fullest conversation. And again, I like this idea of a steel man where you're responding to the best arguments of your opponent, not straw man, where you're setting up fake, artificial arguments that your opponent's not even making. I just think that leads to better understanding. I think we need more empathy, less polarization. But thanks for. For understanding. All right. I think, I think that's. That's all I'll read for now.

Ryan Nielsen [01:28:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:54] What I'll just say in close, Ryan, is thank you, you to you and Holly. Thanks to you both for your courage in telling your story. I'm sure it's helped many, many people and I'm sure it's going to help more. So in one sense, this Barbra Streisand effect, I think the church is actually just going to promote you and Holly and your story more as a result of this, which is positive in my view. I'm really sorry it came at the sacrifice of your relationship with BYU Idaho faculty and students or staff, or at least your ability to interact with them in a professional way. But I'm also deeply grateful for your vulnerability and your willingness to tell your story. Because just the Solly Tribune article caused you a lot of stress, right?

Ryan Nielsen [01:29:45] Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I had to completely unplug from the response. I sent Peggy a note and said, what do you do with these kinds of comments? And she just said, stay as far away as possible. You know, it's like, yeah, that's. There's no way to get in and yeah. Invite people into experiencing your humanity when it starts from that place.

John Dehlin [01:30:04] So, yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:30:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:06] But what's weird is we've grown so much since you interviewed. This episode will get more views than all your episodes in the past combined.

Ryan Nielsen [01:30:14] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:30:14] And then when we Add sort of like the rebroadcast of your and Holly's episode. It's going to get a ton of views, and so I'm excited about that.

Ryan Nielsen [01:30:23] Cool.

John Dehlin [01:30:23] But thanks for your vulnerability, because when you get that much exposure, it does come at a toll, even if it's just cognitive or emotional or psychological load.

Ryan Nielsen [01:30:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:33] That's significant. So thank you for that.

Ryan Nielsen [01:30:34] I feel that.

John Dehlin [01:30:36] But I'm going to end as you begun. What's that fancy word you used at the very beginning?

Ryan Nielsen [01:30:39] Oh, with the telomeres.

John Dehlin [01:30:41] Yeah. Like, yeah. I do firmly believe that you. The highest probability is you're going to be healthier, psychologically healthier and happier for telling the story, for standing in your truth. And that's just my experience. And so I'm grateful you're helping others, but I'm also grateful that you're giving yourself the best shot at being as healthy as possible by standing up and speaking your truth. So I'm glad for you that you did this.

Ryan Nielsen [01:31:12] Yeah. No, I am glad, too. I just feel like you mentioned that things are so polarized now. I think that maybe sometimes I wonder if what feels scary about me is that I simply will not villainize people wherever they are. And the narrative is that that's what I should be doing. Right. That since I left the church, I should be painting some sort of oversimplified, reductive caricature of people and institutions. And I just. I know that what I'm yearning for is to find connection with people that can see and honor the wholeness of who I am. And I really, really hope to continue to learn how to practice offering that to other people. And I know that there are a lot of my friends on both sides of the question of inside or outside of the LDS Church who also hold those values very dear. And so I appreciate the opportunity to come in and try and create a space that isn't either or, but that just is a yes. And because that's, I think, more important than ever. And that's why I love music.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:32:32] Music is one of the last spaces left where we can sit down with people who view the world very differently than we do and experience directly our shared humanity. And that's like. It's never felt more important to me than it does now.

John Dehlin [01:32:46] Amen. Okay, I'm going to just share a couple more because there's some really good ones. So Sherry writes, this is one of the most beautiful stories I've listened to, to my deepest compassion to this man and his family. So thank you, Cherry. Or Sherry for that. JC writes, silence is them winning. I love that when people, you know, silence is the enabler, silence is the killer. Whistleblowers and people who speak up are the ones that make a difference. So I'm super grateful for that. Martha T. Writes, you are such an amazing person. That is so beautiful. So more compliments. Maven writes something interesting. She writes, I spoke with someone recently who has insider knowledge that every guest on Mormon Stories podcast has a file in the church's Strengthening the Church Membership Committee. So it's like a. It's like a kgb, CIA kind of file system kept on church members that actually.

BYU-Idaho's Response and Looking Ahead

Ryan Nielsen [01:33:47] So speaking of files, BYU Idaho did still pay me. So let me just put that out there.

John Dehlin [01:33:53] That's good.

Ryan Nielsen [01:33:53] Yeah. So, you know, musicians everywhere just get the gig and then speak out and then you get free money. No, I'm kidding. Don't do that. But they did still pay me, which I really appreciate. And they asked me for an invoice and because I was feeling somewhat immature, I guess, salty. I put at the top of my invoice Ryan Nielsen, darling child of BYU Idaho, because something just tickles me to death to think that they have to keep that on file for three years for auditing purposes. So I know that's kind of stupid,

John Dehlin [01:34:28] but I love it. Amanda writes, it takes such tremendous strength to walk away from the church when it's all you've ever known. I hold space for you and your family, and I'm incredibly inspired by your strength. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you, Amanda, for sharing that. Four more, I promise. Jana writes, I worked with Ryan's mom. Lovely woman. Just so proud of you, Ryan. So that's nice. And then doctor Without Dogma says, ran into these sentiments during my professional training. It exists. Actions like this by BYU Idaho just feed into this. It is not a badge of honor, but a curse to have attended an LDS school. And that's strong. I attended byu. I don't know that I feel that way, but I totally validate people who do because there's a lot of good that happens at these BYU schools. Last two. Angela Von Fell writes, mormon Church's response is totally in line with Hollitt's musket speech. So basically this is just touching on the idea that the church is terrified. They're losing members and, and they're having all these, let's just say, more politically conservative members, preppers, et cetera, who are angry that the church is getting too liberal. And so I think. And there's just this mass wave of disaffection that the church doesn't want to admit is happening. And I think the church is terrified that they're losing people.

Ryan Nielsen [01:35:57] I think I see this literally as a trauma response. Like, the way I was treated is a. Is simply a level of hurt that has not healed that is still being placed on other people.

John Dehlin [01:36:10] Yeah. Yeah. Unhealed trauma.

Ryan Nielsen [01:36:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:13] Hurt people. Hurt people. Last one from a BYU Idaho alum. As a former BYU Idaho grad, I can see them making this decision. So worried about image and petty with their rules. Yeah. So, anyway. All right, well, Ryan Nielsen, what's next for you? Let's end on a positive note, other than people buying this T shirt once you tell them how. What's in the future.

Ryan Nielsen [01:36:40] So in the future, like, personally, just as a very quick update, I'm. Like I said, I've been really drawn to understanding the nature of trauma. And I just started actually doing some training with a modality called Body Dreaming by a brilliant Irish therapist by the name of Marian Dunle. I think anybody who has experienced religious abuse or trauma may find something meaningful in her work. So I'll just put that out there. Relationally. Holly and I are. I just feel super lucky to be married to Holly. She's. We just keep waking up every morning and choosing each other, and that's just a beautiful thing and letting each other change and. And standing by each other while we do. So she couldn't come today, but, yeah, feel so grateful and lucky to be with her. In terms of parenting, we've been through so much over the last few years post pandemic, and we're very much on an adventure of learning how to deeply trust our own children's interior lives and support them in that, rather than trying to control outcomes. And then professionally have an album coming out this year. I've already started putting some of the videos on my YouTube channel. Total dream project for me. Two recording sessions. One Chicago, one in North Carolina with musicians like Bobby Broom and Kobe Watkins and Christian Dillingham, Ryan Hansler, Will Ledbetter, unbelievable jazz musicians. So to be in a space swinging with those guys is just so delightfully fun for me. And. Yeah. And then the book coming out. So lots going on, lots of beautiful things. So many beautiful things have been unfolding over the last four years. And if you're someone who can sense deeply that you need to move beyond the tradition of your upbringing, I just want to say out loud that healing is out there, or it's rather in you, and you can access it and keep developing and Unfolding into beautiful, beautiful, beautiful things. I just want to affirm that.

John Dehlin [01:38:51] Love it. J.C. wants to know what's the name of your jazz group and how can people hire you?

Ryan Nielsen [01:39:00] You can go to ryanstrumpet.com to find me and the jazz group I play with. I'm the trumpeter in the Kobe Watkins group Tet. That's an amazing group of individual musicians. And. And then my own group is just the Ryan Nielsen Quartet. So. So, yeah, beautiful look for the album Triple B Blues. It's coming. It's gonna. Gonna be released soon.

John Dehlin [01:39:24] So is there an email?

Ryan Nielsen [01:39:27] I'll have to get. I'll have to get one to you.

John Dehlin [01:39:28] Okay.

Ryan Nielsen [01:39:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:29] Okay. All right, so. So I'll just show really quickly. Again, the YouTube channel is Ryan's trumpet spelled exactly as it sounds. And then as well, check that out. And the book is the Classroom Guide to Jazz Improvisation, coming out soon by Oxford University Press, which is not, you know, not insignificant publisher. Yeah, right.

Ryan Nielsen [01:39:58] Yeah, I'm thrilled about that.

John Dehlin [01:39:59] Yeah.

Ryan Nielsen [01:40:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:00] And then. And then finally, the episode, the Mormon Stories episode that we're going to figure out how to rebroadcast probably is spiritual abuse and suicidality at byu, Idaho, Ryan and Holly Nielsen. And again, a shout out to Holly. She's amazing, and we love her.

Ryan Nielsen [01:40:16] Amazing.

John Dehlin [01:40:17] Yeah. All right, Ryan, you take care. Keep doing good things.

Ryan Nielsen [01:40:20] You too, man.

John Dehlin [01:40:21] And come back. Come back whenever you want, okay? All right. And by Idaho, there's a. You know, Jesus and the Mormon Church have given us the formula for repentance. All you gotta do is apologize to Ryan for disinviting him and make amends and then invite him next time. And you have the formula. You taught us, Mormon Church. You taught us the formula for repentance. Follow that path. Apologize to Ryan, make it right. Give him some restitution, throw him a couple bones, give him a couple gigs, and then invite him back and you can make this right. Right, Ryan?

Ryan Nielsen [01:41:01] Hey, I would be grateful to sit down with any of my colleagues there anytime, even the ones who made this decision, and give them a hug.

John Dehlin [01:41:11] All right. All right. Thanks again, Ryan. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again really soon. Show them that T shirt one last time. Ryan just wanted to play jazz. All right, See everyone?

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.